Ethnic traditions
A Gift to Our Readers: Easter Strudel
We here at the Bellarmine Forum have often spoken of the revered traditional customs, especially those that take place at Easter and Christmas. Pope Benedict XVI has spoken eloquently of these and we have endeavored over the years to celebrate and bring to a wider audience these traditions. We have probably been disproportionate in our celebration of…
Sausages, Fireplaces, and The Mystery of Christmas Traditions
Well, I am within the 12 Days of Christmas, so I don’t consider this article late (by the way, don’t forget the Epiphany House Blessing!). My bride and I both spring from good ethnic stock–she, a Chicago Polack; I, a Cleveland Slovenian. But through the strange twists and turns of Providence (and decisions that I can only…
What Our Grandparents Have Always Done
I’ve been following opera and Italian food expert Fred Plotkin for a number of years now. Politically, philosophically (in large measure) and theologically, we would likely find ourselves opponents. He is a self-described “pleasure activist and egalitarian,” whereas I assent to an orthodox understanding of a divinely ordered hierarchy in the universe and recognize–in a phrase that may…
Suffering the Ignorant Orthopraxis of Our Day
One of the things I really like about how God ordered this world is precisely how unassuming some of the greatest things He has worked really are to the passer by. If you didn’t look, you wouldn’t notice. It’s so easy to take them for granted until you look with the eyes of faith that can see…
A Book That Tells the Tales of Immigrants, Traditions, and the Help of the Blessed Mother
Using antique statues of the Blessed Mother as windows into the eras of their creation, Nancy Murray has written a compelling history of the beautiful, historic city of St Augustine. The delicate, classically crafted Nuestra Señora de La Leche y Buen Parto (Our Lady of the Milk and Happy Delivery) midwifed the city’s founding under…
Go to Joseph!
By Guest Author, Terri Aluise “Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine, There’s always laughter and good red wine, At least I have always found it so. Benedicamus Domino!” One of the best ways to honor St. Joseph, the patron of the family and protector of the universal church, is to hold a St. Joseph’s Day…