Catholic literary faire

Check it out here. It’s Ploughshares for Papists!

The importance of culture

Much of the reason behind this blog is to help remind fellow Catholics of the rich cultural heritage we have (often at the same time as I learn about it and gain more and more appreciation for it). But why is this cultural heritage important? What does culture have to do with faith?
Let’s consider Ireland [...]

Orthodox vestments

While I was having a bit of fun in my earlier post about Salzburg, and art being important in healing the great schism, I did hear this fascinating true quotation from priests at one Greek Orthodox Church. They were quite excited about Pope Benedict XVI in general, and they specifically commented that he “had been [...]

One shade the more, one ray the less

The goal of the poet is to find all the right words, and the right number of words to convey the message such that an addition or deletion of a single word lessens the entire work. I won’t speak for novelists, but I would imagine if you could ask James Joyce, he would feel the [...]

Mozart, again

Could great Catholic art be the bridge between occident and orient? Is Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and Russia a fan of Mozart? You be the judge…
We attribute a huge significance to the development of friendly relations with the Catholic diocese of Salzburg. This is not just because your city has cultural and historical importance,” [...]

Ars Papa

From the Pope’s remarks at the end of a concert celebrating the third anniversary of his pontificate. 
But authentic art, like prayer, does not alienate us from the reality of every day, but rather enables us to return to our routine in order to ‘irrigate’ it and make it sprout to bear fruits of goodness and [...]

Intro to the Introit

Some of you are undoubtedly already familiar with the Introit antiphon, but since we so rarely hear it in the Church in the US, I thought it deserved a post.
Almost every mass has a proper introit (meaning ‘entrance’) antiphon specified for it. Usually it ties into the readings for that mass, comes from the psalms, [...]

How to chant II

The reciting tone… In chant, particularly for psalms or any lengthy text set to chant (like scripture readings or prayers), you’ll encounter the reciting tone. It looks sort of like this: .
This indicates that several words are sung at this same pitch, until you reach the inflection point. The inflection point is usually identified by [...]

The influence of Catholics on literature

I just ran across this site through the magical meanderings of Google. I’m not sure what to think of the veracity of the statistics cited here, but it purports to keep statistics on religious demographics. Within the site I found this – check out how many Catholics are on the greatest novel list. 

How to chant

Are you Catholic? Do you know how to chant? What, they didn’t teach you in your local parish?
All Catholics should know how to chant – Vatican II says so! His Holiness Pope Paul VI (promulgator of the Ordinary Form) said so. Even the USCCB says so.
But where to start? The St. Cecilia Schola Cantorum web [...]

Hawthorne and the Pope

As pointed out by the commenter Dan over at Amy Welborn’s blog, the pope extensively paraphrased some imagery from Nathaniel Hawthorne, the American anti-transcendentalist writer (the imagery is well worth a read). Now Hawthorne is much better known for stories that are haunted with the past of American puritanism, and his novels and stories are [...]

Liturgy, Theatre, and the role of the director

I recently attended a performance of the Tragical History of Dr. Faustus, by Christopher Marlowe. Though Marlowe, unlike his contemporary, Will Shakespeare, has never been blessed with the accusation of being a recusant (unless of course you are one of the proponents of the theory that Marlowe was Shakespeare), Kit Marlowe’s ‘mighty line’ of blank [...]