IN RECENT WEEKS came news of the approval of another miracle attributed to the intercession of Bl. John Henry Newman. This means that there is now a high probability he will soon be canonized. October seems the propitious time for all things Newman, and […]
Author: Hugh Somerville Knapman
Lenten Almsgiving: an Option
THE THREE ANCIENT mainstays of Lenten observance are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Needless to say there is a dizzying array of worthy objects of your almsgiving attention. Some are more obvious than others; some suffer for their lack of, for want of a better […]
A Diagnosis?
Sydney seems to have a hotter summer than I remember from my youth. There were hot days then of course, but it seems more unrelentingly hot now. Global warming? Or has absence disacclimatized me? This trip to Sydney was planned in haste, a result […]
A Word to an Anonymous Northerner
The last few months have been hectic, demanding, occasionally rewarding, often dispiriting but generally productive. At the end of August, (to twist the Preface of the Dead) my life was ended not changed when I was appointed bursar of the monastery. My day had […]
The Sorrowful Mother Today
As a sequel to the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross the Church keeps the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, whose heart was pierced by the nails that pierced Christ’s hands and feet, and the lance that pierced the Lord’s side. One […]
Death in question
The mild Sydney winter seems to help me get my rant on. Ranting via a tablet, however, leads to many a typo. Swings and roundabouts I guess… The last 24 hours we’ve been hearing about the change to the text to the Catechism of […]
Liturgy, Abuse and Humanae Vitae: Some Connections?
This year and next see some significant ecclesiastical half-centuries racked up. This year it is the encyclical Humanae Vitae‘s (HV) turn, and next year it is the turn of the Novus Ordo Missae (NOM)—the new Mass. There has been and will be much written […]
Collegiality, collusion, collectivity and clericalism
Back from the dead! It has been a busy time. I am about to fly to Australia (in a few hours actually) to sneak in some holiday before taking up a new role in the monastery, that of bursar. If the new job does […]
Brainstorming by Social Media
What do you call brainstorming by the means of the social media? Is there a name or do we have to make one up? Suggestions are welcome. Anyway, to the point, which is a rather uncomfortable piece of what you might think, not unreasonably, […]
More that was not lost
It’s been a busy day so just one piece today in the series on Douai Abbey’s Ward vestments. Today it is the cope. The cope was another significant piece of the set that was ready in 1896, though in that year the morse for […]
Not all was lost
In the 1890s our priory (Douai became an abbey only in 1900, along with the other ancient EBC houses) in Douai, Flanders, was blessed with a series of generous benefactions from Edmund Granville Ward (1853-1915), of the Isle of Wight, son of the Tractarian […]
A Triduum Post Not About the Triduum
These are the busiest few days of the Church’s year, liturgically at any rate. Yet it would be a dangerous sort of monastic life that did not often a sacristan and cantor time for reading and reflection, however brief. There will be many excellent […]
Benedictine Bling
For most Benedictines today is the greater of the two feast days of our founder, St Benedict. Today honours his passing to eternal life; 11 July commemorates the translation of his relics to Monte Cassino (or was it Fleury? Depends who you ask!). That […]
When yes means yes
It really has been a turbulent time for sexual politics this past six months. Weinstein is but the tip of the iceberg. We have the #MeToo movement, and a growing list of prominent people accused of various degrees of sexual misconduct, though it is […]
