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There really are two churches: one is the true Church, the other is an anti-Church that represents and does the spadework for the anti-Christ, the anti-Word. It is spiritually beneficial to consider a portrait of each.
It is often said that the earthly liturgy is a participation in the heavenly liturgy. Alas, in many cases this doesn’t fit in with our actual experiences, but there are exceptions. This past summer, heaven visited me in that way.
Modern people can tolerate almost anything except a person’s being, or becoming, a Catholic.
The controversy caused by my posts on rock music have prompted me to look back over the past four posts and try to see the thread that runs through all of them. It is the truth that Christians are called to pursue excellence in every way—that includes music.
After causing general apoplexy with last week’s post, I will endeavor today to add some nuances and respond to objections.
The fundamental problem with rock music can be summed up quite simply: its rhythm is unnatural and morally tainted, and its inventors wanted it that way. We would do well to stay far from it.
Since we must strive to flee even venial sins, it is always better to assume that today’s popular music, produced mostly by hedonists who are generally singing about sins, is a slippery slope leading to some kind of intellectual pollution and consent.
Is there an intrinsic or necessary connection between being a good artist and being a good man? As with most of the great questions, the answer is no—and yes.
In the mystery of the Incarnation, God takes delight in responding to man’s sensible, bodily nature, and the resulting need for tasting and touching our God.
We must do all that we can do for the Lord, since our greatest is the least that is worthy of him. And when we do all the “little things” with love, we give Him great glory.
Pope Francis, no less than Pope Benedict, has a way of formulating universal principles of thought and action that apply to any number of related topics, including the sacred liturgy.
The true youth revolution in the Church will come by way of the mysticism of chant and the power of polyphony, not by way of second-rate imitations of secular music. To pull it off, however, requires real musical knowledge, talent, and a commitment to education.
The fundamental precondition for active participation is interior silence. Praying in silence is a particularly noble form of human activity—more active than merely speaking or singing.
If the conditions for recollection are never present in our lives, if we do not fight to create and guard such conditions, we will lose our awareness of divine mystery, as refreshing as springtime rains, and wander in a desert of superficiality.
The New Evangelization is a bold project, but it will not succeed unless we can recover a strong sense of the sacred, which the gift of silence in church will help us achieve.
