The Narthex
Significance of Guardian Angels for Adults
God has given you a spiritual person to walk with you and point you where you need to go
By John M. Grondelski | October 3rd 2025 2:01 PMMany of this journal's readers likely grew up saying the poetic prayer, "Angel of God, my guardian dear." And not a few Catholic homes likely had some version of early 20th century German artist Fridolin Leiber's prints of Schutzengel -- the "guardian angel" -- usually supporting two children in some perilous…
READ FULL BLOG POSTWhy Do We Still Baptize Outside of Mass?
Are mere utilitarian considerations short-circuiting good theology?
By John M. Grondelski | September 30th 2025 11:44 AMSixty years have passed since Vatican II. Sixty-one years have passed since Lumen gentium, which reminded us that the Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life around which all the sacraments revolve (no. 11). Sixty-two years have passed since Sacrosanctum Concilium taught that "the liturgy is the…
READ FULL BLOG POSTOn Saving God’s People
'Always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that is within you' (1 Peter 3:15)
By James Hanink | September 23rd 2025 12:25 PM“Please, I don’t want to listen to any arguments.” Heard it before? I have. But maybe it’s high time to “listen up” and hear some arguments. Especially sound arguments, that is, the ones that are valid in form and have only true premises. After all, the glory of such arguments…
READ FULL BLOG POSTMetallic Sacrilege
Civic infrastructure and sacred symbols have become mere objects for plunder
By John M. Grondelski | September 18th 2025 11:12 AMA peculiar subset of modern moral corrosion is metal theft: the stealing of objects ranging from manhole covers to fire hydrants to be sold as scrap metal. Copper currently sells in the $4.60–$4.70 per pound range, making it a tempting target. What might look like petty crime is, in fact,…
READ FULL BLOG POSTThe Need to Stop Grasping
Christ shows man the path by not 'grasping' himself but taking the form of obedient servant
By John M. Grondelski | September 16th 2025 11:56 AMLast Sunday’s Second Reading -- for the Exaltation of the Cross, which preempted the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time -- was St. Paul’s great hymn of Jesus’ self-emptying, his kenosis (Phil 2:6-11). One of the key texts in that hymn is verse 6, where Jesus is presented as treating divinity…
READ FULL BLOG POSTReligion: A Matter of Faith or Feelings?
Insipid hymns reveal a trade-in of a Catholicism built on faith and reason for one of emotions
By John M. Grondelski | August 20th 2025 12:33 PMAnthony Esolen has spilled no small amount of ink challenging the doctrinal and other issues that plague contemporary Catholic hymnody. Demonstrating how today’s “Catholic” ditties upend the traditional liturgical principle lex orandi, lex credendi (how we pray expresses what we believe) has almost become a cottage industry online. Recently, Trent…
READ FULL BLOG POSTUnimaginable Things, Love of God, Restless Hearts
Man has a limitless desire for more, which should lead us to our Highest Good
By John M. Grondelski | August 19th 2025 11:08 AMO God, who have prepared for those who love you good things which no eye can see, fill our hearts, we pray, with the warmth of your love, so that, loving you in all things and above all things, we may attain your promises, which surpass every human desire. Through…
READ FULL BLOG POSTThe Significance of the Assumption
Mary shows the more noble status to which humanity has been elevated by Redemption in Christ
By John M. Grondelski | August 15th 2025 11:50 AMThe Solemnity of the Assumption is these days an underappreciated and undervalued holy day. Indeed, next year it won’t even be a feast of precept (a holy day of obligation) because of the American bishops’ “Saturday-or-Monday-get-out-of-Church-free-on-certain-holy-days” rule. The Assumption stands in a straight line from Easter to the Ascension (another…
READ FULL BLOG POSTFatherhood, Adoption, & Inheritance
Scripture invokes images and experiences increasingly rare and marginalized in our culture
By John M. Grondelski | August 11th 2025 12:27 PM"Almighty ever-living God, whom, taught by the Holy Spirit, we dare to call our Father, bring, we pray, to perfection in our hearts the spirit of adoption as your sons and daughters, that we may merit to enter into the inheritance which you have promised." The Collect for the 19th…
READ FULL BLOG POSTThe Pilgrimages Have Begun
Faithful from all corners of Poland will converge on Czestochowa, Mary's national shrine, on Aug. 15
By John M. Grondelski | August 8th 2025 11:39 AMThe pilgrimages across Poland have begun. Every year in early August, from every corner of Poland, people set out on walking pilgrimages across the country to converge on Czestochowa, Mary's national shrine, on August 15. It's a multi-generational tradition. Parishes and local communities assemble and walk, usually 12-15 miles per…
READ FULL BLOG POSTA Catholic Wedding Is for More than the Couple
The Nuptial Blessing & the older 'Exhortation Before Marriage' describe the Church's vision
By James Thunder | August 7th 2025 7:17 PMWhen we celebrate a Catholic wedding, we do so for more than the couple marrying. We do so for all those present. The same is true for baptism, First Communion, Confirmation, and Holy Orders. How many of the people present to witness a Catholic marriage are not Christian, are Christian…
READ FULL BLOG POSTIntellectual Engagement
There must be a place where we can talk seriously about the most serious of things
By James Hanink | July 29th 2025 12:04 PM“Everyone has their own religion.” So said my mother, a thoroughly Irish Catholic. What was I to make of it? (My father, whose piety was more wintry, kept his own counsel.) Looking back, I suspect what my mother had in mind was that different people have different spiritualities. Nonetheless, given…
READ FULL BLOG POSTLiturgics & Vesting Prayers
Post-1969 there are no 'revised' vesting prayers. Indeed, there are no prayers at all
By John M. Grondelski | July 28th 2025 11:41 AMThe July-August NOR features my article "Two Immediate Threats to Contemporary Liturgics." In it, my thesis is that three disciplines employed in the methodology of modern liturgical studies are not in proper relationship: there is a limited perspective on history, an overwrought but selective focus on canon law, and too…
READ FULL BLOG POSTThe Scopes Trial as an Anthropological Question
Both parties in the famed 1925 trial were using the case to push flawed concepts of man
By John M. Grondelski | July 23rd 2025 11:31 AMThe trial of John Scopes, the Tennessee teacher who taught evolution despite a state law banning it, ended in his conviction a century ago this week. Many who comment on the case cast it as a conflict between “science” and “religion.” Those elements were present. I prefer, however, to cast…
READ FULL BLOG POSTThe Church's Lack of Closure
Shall we amend Scripture to: "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and... we’ll get back to you"?
By John M. Grondelski | July 15th 2025 11:37 AMTwo weeks ago I wrote in this space about an unknown British politician claiming his 15 minutes of undeserved fame. Chris Coughlan decided to publicize his offense to the world because his priest publicized at his small parish that Coughlan should not receive Communion. Coughlan was among the small wedge…
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