Holy Routine

Sacrosanctum concilium declared that the liturgy should be “freed from unnecessary repetition.” But the Roman Missal's many repetitions are intentional—and express eternity. Continue Reading »

Briefly Noted

On the Road to Vatican II: German Catholic Enlightenment and Reform of the Churchby ulrich l. lehnerfortress, 414 pages, $49 On the Road to Vatican II focuses on German and ­Austrian theological debates in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as examples of the Catholic Enlightenment. Historians . . . . Continue Reading »

Singing Aquinas in L.A.

When I was a child in parochial school, we began each morning with ­daily Mass. My mother worked nights, and no one in my family was an early riser. I inevitably arrived late to church. The nuns stared disapprovingly as I slipped in among my more punctual classmates in our assigned pews. This . . . . Continue Reading »

Zurück zur Form

( English Version | German Version )Die Zeiten, in denen eine neue Form geboren wird, sind äußerst rar in der Menschheitsgeschichte. Es muß viel zusammenkommen, damit so etwas gelingen kann. Große Form zeichnet sich dadurch aus, daß sie imstande ist, die Epoche, der sie entstammt, zu überleben . . . . Continue Reading »

Return to Form

The times in which a new form is born are extremely rare in the history of mankind. Great forms are characterized by their ability to outlive the age in which they emerge and to pursue their path through all history’s hiatuses and upheavals. The Greek column with its Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian . . . . Continue Reading »