Issue: July 2023
Letter from the District Superior
Fr. John Fullerton District Superior, USA Dear Reader, Those who love God love His reality. They seek Him through the things that He has created. This is particularly true of...
Allegory and Individuality: The Story of Catholic Art
By William Gonch, Ph. D. What makes art Catholic? It’s a question with many answers, and this issue’s contributors will explore it from numerous angles. But whenever Catholics...
The Cause of "Civilisation"
Works of art call for a response. They call for communion. A thoughtful person will understand that this means appreciation, evaluation, and discernment. This is a difficult business, as man is a complex creature. Except in the hands of a moral brute, a work of art communicates some truth seen by its creator. The creative man leaves behind this vision in his artifacts, whether in word or image. The living can participate in the original vision of the author and artist. Literature and song are internalized and made alive again in their silent recitation, but especially when spoken or sung.
Now I See: How Painting for the Immaculata Helped Me See Again
By Bridget Bryan What I love most about being an artist is how one is able to see from the surface down into the depths of reality. Let me take you on such a journey. In your mind’s...
Designing and Painting a Paschal Candle
By Fr. Ian Andrew Palko SSPX At St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, and in chapels throughout the world, Holy Saturday brings many joys, one of which is to see the Paschal Candle which will grace...
Durer’s Melencolia I
By Jane Spencer An Iconographical Analysis Albrecht Durer’s engraving portrays an artist with great potential, enriched and at the same time crippled by artistic moodiness. The focal...
St. Luke’s Guild: A Contemporary Beginning
That glorious, graceful love showed itself to many local artists of St. Marys, Kansas, who were given the opportunity to put their nature at the service of making artworks for their new Immaculata. Many people asked at the outset of the rebuilding—“We have so much talent in the parish of St. Marys: why can we not build and beautify our Church with the work of our own people, as in the days of the medieval guilds?”
Ora et Labora: At the Heart of the SMA Art Program
By Abigael Quain On Contemplation and Work at the Heart of the SMA Art Program Some acts are basically human: to work, to contemplate, and to make beautiful things are among them. By...
Imitation as Innovation?
By Jonathan Wanner Considering the recent incursion of AI art generators, we can now imagine a world in which parishes may not only purchase to-the-inch replicas of Michelangelo’s...
Grace Unfolding In the Soul of T.S. Eliot
By Dr. Matthew Childs We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. Through the...
What Do Catholics Believe About Icons?
By David Clayton In the course of writing and talking about icons I am often asked about the following: Is it true that an artist doesn’t paint icons, but rather that he...
City under Siege: Sonnets & Other Verse
Reviewed by Brendan D. King Annibale Bugnini...
My Path to Tradition
My first and last real sacramental exposure to the traditional Roman Catholic Church would be for me while I was an infant—at baptism. Of course, I remember nothing of the event. It is abhorrent to me, as I write this reflection, that my next appreciable exposure to the fullness of Roman Catholicism would come fifty-five years later! Talk about being late to the party. Luckily for me, God is good, and so there were glints throughout my life of something intriguing hiding beneath the surface of the New Mass that pointed to more profound realities.
Lexicon of the Crisis: “Redemption”
By Fr. Paul Robinson, SSPX Old Meaning New Meaning What is Redemption? What is Redemption? Redemption...
The Ceremony of Death
By Pauper Peregrinus What happened to the Blessed Virgin Mary at the end of her earthly life? The English poet Coventry Patmore (1823-1896), a convert to the Church, has a striking couplet...
Naturalism in the Renaissance and Protestantism
By Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre Excerpt from They Have Uncrowned Him , Angelus Press, 1988, pp. 4-7. The Renaissance and Naturalism Naturalism is found beforehand in...
Meditations on St. John’s Gospel—Chapter Twenty
By Pater Inutilis When it comes to Our Lord’s resurrection, different evangelists note different apparitions. Apart from those to the apostles, it is that to Mary Magdalen that...
The Last Word
Fr. David Sherry District Superior of Canada Dear Reader, The time has come for us to speak of Benny. Benny (or Benedict to give him his full title), is the priory parrot. Indeed, he...
Current Issue
