DeJak
The Desire of the Everlasting Hills
For these thousands of years that ancient country had stood along its sea, between the waters and the great desert, peopled we know not how and sprung from we know not what origins; its separated small fertile bays, its lesser plains, its hill cities and ports had grown. The plough of Egypt had come in and…
The Fourth Sunday of Advent
It is our pleasure to provide our readers prayers for the Fourth Sunday of Advent. Not only are these prayers appropriate for the lighting of the final candle of the Advent Wreath, they are appropriate as part of the mealtime or evening prayers throughout this week until Christmas. We hope these are providing some spiritual sustenance for…
Third Sunday of Advent: Gaudete Sunday
It is our pleasure to provide our readers prayers for Gaudete Sunday. Not only are these prayers appropriate for the lighting of the rose candle, they are appropriate as part of the mealtime or evening prayers throughout this week. We hope these are providing some spiritual sustenance for your Advent.–The Board of Directors Prayers for Gaudete Sunday…
The Second Sunday of Advent
It is our pleasure to provide our readers prayers for the Second Sunday in Advent. Not only are these and all the prayers for the Sundays in Advent appropriate for the lighting of the candles on the particular Sunday, they are appropriate as part of the mealtime or evening prayers throughout each of the weeks in…
Defensor Civitatis
I am going to be polemical. You are forewarned. There is a fundamental aspect of the debate over so-called same-sex marriage that needs to be understood: most people in the cities and towns of Minnesota and across the United States are not eager nor clamoring for the legal recognition of two homosexuals to form a…
The First and Enduring Sin
This past Saturday–September 29, 2012–in Minneapolis, Minnesota was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the temperature was a warm 80 degrees, and the fall colors of the changing leaves were done as by a master painter. A perfect day for my 7-year-old daughter to play in the front yard. Indeed she was. Into this…
Happy Feast Day!
Collect from Today’s Mass: O God, who adorned the Bishop Saint Robert Bellarmine with wonderful learning and virtue to vindicate the faith of your Church, grant, through his intercession, that in the integrity of that same faith your people may always find joy. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with…
Creating a Civics Course
This year I have the pleasure and honor of teaching a Civics course to a group of high school seniors at Saint Agnes School in St. Paul, MN. I suspect that most Civics courses around the country are taught in a way that overemphasizes modern political attitudes and delivers very little about what it means to…
We Have No King But Caesar
“Fundamental rights” seems to be a preoccupation with Americans and, increasingly, people all over the world. Sometimes the adjective “fundamental” is not appended to the term “rights,” but there is a preoccupation all the same. When asked to define in general what a “right” is, I’m not sure that those who wish to secure such for themselves…
Reasons to Pay Attention to Solzhenitsyn, Mindszenty, and Ciszek
The excellent Catholic blog Rorate Caeli has a piece on the 4th anniversary of the death of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. The author of the piece takes the opportunity to praise Solzhenitsyn and others within the Soviet Union for their heroism in standing up to the godless Communist regime. Similarly, he takes to task the Fathers of the Second…
