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I arose, and am still with thee, alleluia: thou hast laid thy hand upon me: thy knowledge is become wonderful, alleluia, alleluia. (Psalm 138:18)

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
My very dear sons,

In the beginning of the world, as we read in the book of Genesis, God’s first fiat, His first particular creation, was that of light: “And God said: ‘Let there be light (fiat lux).’ And light was made.” (Gensis 1:3) The sacred text goes on to state that “God saw the light that it was good,” or as the ancient Greek version would have it, that the light was beautiful, καλόν.

Surely, after the dreadful darkness of Good Friday, with its specter of Judas’ treason and the fearful shadows that came upon the natural world at the moment of […]

Before the festival day of the pasch, Jesus knowing that his hour was come, that he should pass out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them unto the end. (John 13:1)

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
My Very Dear Sons,

How do we grasp something of the mystery, seemingly impenetrable, of Maundy Thursday, of this night so unlike all others, when troubling things are coming to a head, to a climax that the Apostles and Disciples themselves do not fathom? There is light here, no doubt, for example in the institution of the Most Holy Eucharist–the reason why the liturgical vestments are white–and in the sublime words the Savior pronounces during His great Discourse of farewell in Saint John. There is spiritual brightness […]

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
My Very Dear Sons,

Today we celebrate the transitus of Our Blessed Father Saint Benedict, which is to say his passage from this earthly life to Heaven, his departure out of our mortal existence, in a word, his death. Although death is ever a sad event in a human life, the reminder of the sin of Adam and of its dark empire over the sons of Adam; nevertheless, in the case of the Saints, death appears more as a kind of triumph, something like what the ancients called the apotheosis, the culmination of a whole life. Such is eminently the case for the great Patriarch of the monks of the West we honor today.

Like Saint Francis, Saint Dominic and many other Saints, whose stories of the […]

And behold, the star which [the wise men] had seen in the East went before them, until it came and stood over where the child was. (Matt. 2:9)

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
My very Dear Sons,

As with the feast of Christmas, of which it is a continuation, the Epiphany presents to us a mystery of light. On the third day within the octave of the Epiphany, for example, we sing, “O Christ, Thou Light of light hast appeared, unto Whom the Magi offer gifts, Alleluia.” Great is the brightness that shines forth here amid the exterior darkness of the winter and the world. There is the light of the star that leads the Wise Men from the East; there is the light of Faith that begins to illuminate the world in […]

And suddenly with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God, and saying: Gloria in altissimis Deo, and on earth peace to men of good will.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
My very dear sons,

In accordance with the age-old liturgical tradition, we celebrate today three Masses: the Angels’ Mass at Midnight (now); the Shepherds’ Mass at dawn; and the King’s Mass in late morning. The first two of these masses emphasize the human nature of Christ, while the third takes us into the depths of the Lord’s divinity, into the abyss of His eternal generation from the Father. But these various aspects of the mystery of Christmas appear to us in perfect harmony. They point to the one Christ, the one Word-Made-Flesh. It is this fully Catholic, complete, idea of […]

Trahe nos, Virgo Immaculata; Draw us, O Virgin Immaculate; we will run after thee to the fragrance of thy ointments. (Fifth Antiphon; cf. Cant. 1:3)

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
My Very Dear Sons,

Beginning already in the earliest centuries of the Church, a debate arose as to the universal nature of original sin and its effects on the great friends of God such as Saint John the Baptist or Saint Joseph. Were they touched by this hereditary harm? Our Lord affirmed that “no one born of woman” was greater than Saint John (Mt. 11:11). Could he have been affected by the ugliness of original sin? But the question that caused the most discussion was relative to what part sin may have had in the body and soul of the Blessed Virgin Mary, […]