For Vivaldi's Gloria

Last night I had the supreme privilege and pleasure of hearing our eldest son play with his chamber music ensemble a concert of Bach and Vivaldi at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Trenton, New Jersey. (Here they are performing in Florence several years ago. )  What moved me the most was when the children performed Vivaldi's Gloria, accompanying  the Absalom Jones Inspirational Choir.

For All The Saints: St. Philip Neri

St. Philip Neri
painted by Fr. Kevin Kelly

-Feast of St. Philip Neri

Did you know the Church has a Patron Saint of Joy? He's St. Philip Neri. Today is his feast day.

Friends from our parish invited me to attend a Mass tonight at  7 o'clock to celebrate. We joined dozens of worshippers at the New Brunswick Oratory of St. Philip Neri, including five Oratorian priests, one Oratorian brother, and 14 secular Oratorians.

Beautiful and unexpected (and new!) to me was that the community tonight admitted six freshly minted Secular Oratorians. We Catholics are accustomed to praying for vocations; how stunning to see the those prayers come to fruition.

Because Christ Is Still Living Among Us

What follows is from Giovanni Papini's introduction to his Life of Christ. Published in 1921, you would think that these words were written just yesterday. John C.H. Wu tipped me off to this book and I found a used copy of it on Alibris.

It's 408 pages long and is filled with great passages. Written in his native Italian, it was translated in 1923 by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. Papini had been an ardent atheist, anarchist and was one of the literary giants of Italy. 

Because St. Francis of Assisi Spent Lent Like This Once

-Feast of St. Aengus 

A few days ago, I shared some stories on Christian saints who survived for long periods of time on the the Eucharist alone. Below is a similar story on how St. Francis of Assisi spent Lent one year, eating only a small portion of his provisions. 

This story comes to us from The Little Flowers of St. Francis. Who wrote these stories? Who compiled them? Are they literally true? I don't know the answers to any of those questions. But I do know this: there is great freedom in poverty, to be able to drop everything and become a hermit for 40 days.  And great blessings for the faithful penitent. 

Thanks to Father Antonio Vivaldi, "the Red Priest"

Feast of St. Cecilia, Patron Saint of Music 

Around this time of the year, my appreciation for classical music rises to the surface. I don't know if it is because of the change of seasons, or whether it is the "fall back" move on our clocks. Perhaps it's because the days are getting shorter and the nights longer now that "daylight savings time" is over.

I'm a simple man, and I would be quickly found a liar if I tried to buffalo you with the idea that I am a man who is a well-educated, and throughly cultured, connoisseur of classical music. No. I'm a poor hick who only knows what he likes. And I've always liked Vivaldi and his Four Seasons. I do know that his music came before Bach, Handel, and Beethoven, and that is about it.

But here is what prompted this post: yesterday morning, while preparing to head to Mass, I heard a snippet of a program on NPR where the announcer mentioned that Vivaldi had been "in the clergy."

For All the Saints: Clare of Assisi

When I was nineteen I stood before what seemed to be the incorrupt body of St. Clare in the crypt of the basilica in Assisi bearing her name. Her body was covered only with a thin gauzy veil, and it looked whole to me. Now, I gather, it is no longer deemed to be incorrupt. But the impression, and the inspiration, have not gone away.