What are the “O Antiphons” of Vespers?
The “O Antiphons” refer to the seven antiphons that are recited (or chanted) preceding...
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Category: Calendar & Seasons
Crossing the Threshold of Holy Week
“The First Eucharist” by Juan de Juanes It caught me by surprise that the Carmelite...
Read MoreForty Ideas for Your Lent
Lent is supposed to be a season of a successful journey through the desert of penance to a new land and a new, deeper, intimacy with God. But often, we find ourselves going back to the same old Lenten pathways of past years and...
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Eliminating Obstacles Between Christ and Us in 2021
As I considered what to write for this post in the first week of 2021, I reflected on years of...
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Keeping the Memory of Christmas and Resisting the Siren Call of Our Culture
Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King! Merry Christmas! It is a...
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Learning from the Shepherds at Midnight Mass
“Adoration of the Shepherds” (detail) by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo [Public domain],...
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Watching and Waiting During Advent in Carmel
Advent in Carmel To experience Advent in Carmel is to enter into a rarified atmosphere that is...
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A Practical Plan for Advent 2020
If we lose our focus on the Lord, neither his coming in past history, nor his coming at the end of...
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All Souls Day and Prayers for the Dead
I’ll never forget that bleak January day when my father died. It was very hard to believe in the...
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How to Respond When You Meet Suffering
In 2005 while undergoing chemotherapy, I was sitting in an uncomfortable recliner on the sixth...
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Christ in the Desert
“Crossing of the Red Sea” (detail) by Hans III Jordaens / Public domain “…if...
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Watching and Waiting — Advent in Carmel
Advent in Carmel To experience Advent in Carmel is to enter into a rarified atmosphere that is...
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