In the Name of God, War
Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, o ‘Lord, Lord… did we...
Author: V. J. Tarantino
David Danced and So Did We: A Tale of Joy and Praise
Note: Over the last few months, the founders of the Association of the Faithful Sacred Beauty, V.J. Tarantino (aka Val) and Paul Chu, have been contributing writing and editing (and sometimes even music) to WPI. This piece, which appeared on their Substack two weeks ago,...
A Meditation on Christ’s Agony, Part III
Already posted in this series: Part One; Part Two I am troubled now. John, mystic among Evangelists, treats of the Agony’s psychological inner content only as a pericope within the context of Palm Sunday and the entry in Jerusalem, Jesus...
A Meditation on Christ’s Agony, Part II
For Part I, link here. My soul is sorrowful, even to death. To attribute Christ’s desolation to anticipatory fear before his betrayal, condemnation and crucifixion is profoundly inadequate (although St. John of the Cross teaches that the more spiritual an...
A Meditation on Christ’s Agony, Part I
St. Alphonsus Liguori tells of this legend: “St. Thomas Aquinas was one day paying a visit to St. Bonaventure, and asked him from what book he had drawn all the beautiful lessons he had written. St. Bonaventure showed him the...
Fr. Ripperger’s Metaphysics: An Honest Assessment
Mike Lewis has been on a righteous crusade to expose the fundamental incompatibility of the activities of Fr. Chad Ripperger, “celebrity exorcist” (two words especially jarring when paired), with the beauty and dignity of Catholicism as religio vera – and...
Teach Me to be Gentle with All
I try to limit the amount of autobiographical material I post. For one thing, I have no way of keeping up with the universal and enduring truths which need to be explored. At any given time, there are anywhere from...
The Testament of Pope Francis
The preaching of St. Peter Julian Eymard on the Institution of the Eucharist has deeply left its mark on me. I have returned to one particular homily many, many times through the years, even copying it out in my own...
Arbiter of Morality: Caesar or God
These are delicate times, in the Church and in the world. Our blessed Lord has already told us how to understand the state vis á vis the Church: Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to...
JD Vance and Pope Francis on the Order of Love
It is hard to say which is more remarkable: Patristic/Scholastic theological concepts being invoked by the Vice President of the United States of America, or the Pope feeling the need to put out the fire. The ordo amoris… sure. Of course. There is an...
Sacramentality in light of Lauridsen’s O Magnum Mysterium, Part I
O great mystery, and wonderful sacrament, that animals should see the newborn Lord, lying in a manger. O blessed virgin, whose womb was worthy to bear the Lord Jesus Christ. Alleluia! This evening began our last thematic celebration of the...
The Waters of the Font
One of the things we do here at Sacred Beauty, our small Association of the Faithful, is the composing of liturgical music, drawn largely from sacred texts of the saints, fathers, and doctors of the Church, in the hopes of...
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