Taking Music Seriously — Inside and Outside of Church

Our Western art-music is the loftiest of God’s gifts to us in the natural order, the greatest artistic treasure the world has ever known, and, in its specifically liturgical manifestations, a vital, indispensable bearer of the theology, spirituality, meaning, and identity of the Catholic religion. We cannot live well without it; we will not pray well without it either.

Music is the language of the soul, its most intimate and exalted expression. Music goes deeply into the soul, into its passions and emotions; it affects us at the intersection of spirit and flesh, it gets “under the skin,” it goes into the very sense-appetites and shapes them by motion, by repetition. Just as habits of virtue or vice are formed in the sense-appetites by repeated action, so too are certain habits formed in the same appetites by repeated sensual stimulation. What we listen to does not remain “outside” of us but enters into us and changes our way of feeling, reacting, perceiving. We cannot help being affected morally by long-term exposure to any kind of music.

The sound that is language comes from our unique mode of being in this world—as being in the world, due to our physicality, but not of it, due to our being rational creatures made in the image of God. The sound that is music, for its part, is the finest flowering of language. No wonder it is the province of worship, loss and lamentation, exultation and joy! For it is a wonder past all other wonders that proceed from the heart of man. Christians, inasmuch as we are “priests, prophets, and kings” by our baptism into Christ the High Priest, Word of God, and King of Kings, deserve and require a diet of the most artistically beautiful, most emotionally satisfying, most intellectually stimulating, and most spiritually beneficial music. In short: we need, for our human and Christian perfection, music that is both good and great. Surrounding it, sustaining it, we need prayer-saturated silence.

Such is the fundamental thesis of my new book Good Music, Sacred Music, and Silence: Three Gifts of God for Liturgy and for Life, which has just been released by TAN Books of Gastonia, North Carolina. Born of decades of experience, study, and reflection as a singer, choir director, composer, and teacher, and seasoned by countless conversations with college students in particular, this work urges readers to take the art of music as seriously as it ought to be taken.
 

The first part, “Music Fit for Kings: The Role of Good Music in the Christian’s Life,” deals with the corrosive cultural and psychological effects of a lot of modern popular music, contrasted with the numerous benefits of a lifelong apprenticeship to the great music of the Western tradition (including the many excellent composers working today). Here, I draw upon thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Pieper, and Ratzinger, and offer concrete strategies for acquiring or deepening a love of beautiful music.

The second part, “Music Fit for the King of Kings: The Role of Sacred Music in the Church’s Life,” provides a thorough philosophical and theological account of what is right about Gregorian chant, polyphony, and pipe organ, and what is wrong with, say, folksy guitar-and-piano or peppy Praise & Worship genres at Mass. I do not hesitate to name names and to pursue my argument to the nitty-gritty level.

In the last and (appropriately) shortest part, I speak of the ways in which silence is both the origin and the fulfillment of music. The book ends with a thorough defense of the more-than-thousand-year-old custom of the silent Canon in the Mass, the fittingness of which Cardinal Ratzinger praised, more recently joined by Cardinal Sarah.

Here’s the Table of Contents:
 

Good Music, Sacred Music, and Silence was written for the benefit of pastors, seminarians, church musicians, homeschooling families, classical curriculum advocates, and everyone who is already in love with music or is seeking to develop a better knowledge of it. To musicians particularly, I would add: in my meandering journey from

• a childhood liberal parish and contemporary youth group (all the while listening to prog rock, heavy rock, rap, and other, dare I call them, genres), to
• a charismatic prayer group (when my listening incorporated some “Christian pop” artists), to
• a Latin Novus Ordo with a chant schola (by which time I had switched over entirely to “classical” music), to
• immersion in the Byzantine liturgy in Austria, to
• a mixed old-and-new-Mass chaplaincy in Wyoming, to
• life in parishes run by the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest and the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter,

it is highly likely that I have been, for some portion of my life, in a situation similar to that in which any Catholic musician, music director, or music lover may ever find himself; so I believe my book will carry the force of conviction born of experience, and will be able to say something relevant and beneficial to readers from a wide range of backgrounds.

Nowadays I am singing in a fine men’s schola every Sunday and most holy days, and look forward — if anything, ever more as time goes on — to the joy of singing these incomparably wonderful ancient plainchant melodies, so perfectly suited for the rites to which they give musical utterance and shape. Their beauty elevates my mind to God; their tranquility comforts my heart. This is a joy in the beautiful that we should eagerly share with everyone, until they too can know it and benefit from it.

Nothing could be better than the flourishing, everywhere, and to the fullest extent, of great secular music and of the finest sacred music in the liturgy. That is why I have written my latest book, and I hope you’ll check it out.

Good Music, Sacred Music, and Silence: Three Gifts of God for Liturgy and for Life (hardcover, 344 pp., $29.95, ISBN 978-1505122282) is available from the publisher, from Amazon, and from the author if you would like a signed copy.

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Mary Harrell of TAN Books conducted a 26-minute interview with me about the book, for those who might be interested:
 

Formal Vesture for Men and Women in a Parish Choir: A Solution

In honor of St. Cecilia

Guercino, St. Cecilia (looking somewhat as if she’s wearing an alb, cincture, and cope)

Those who have been involved in high-level parish music programs have often wondered how to solve a particular problem that arises when one tries to take seriously the truth that singers are making a formal, if not ministerial, contribution to the liturgy — in other words, that they occupy a special designated place in the unfolding of the action that deserves to be distinguished in a way that is not necessary or fitting for the laity in the pews. The problem is simply: How to clothe the musicians?

I see three main reasons for using a uniform choir garb:

(1) It recognizes, with appropriate symbolism, the choir’s liturgical role of furnishing sacred music and leading the congregation. This kind of symbolism is the reason we have all the vestments we have, such as the priest’s and the server’s. (In fact, there even exists a “Ritual for Choir Investiture” that could be utilized at the start of an academic year.) The Second Vatican Council seems to support this point when it says:

Servers, lectors commentators, and members of the choir also exercise a genuine liturgical function. They ought, therefore, to discharge their office with the sincere piety and decorum demanded by so exalted a ministry and rightly expected of them by God’s people. Consequently they must all be deeply imbued with the spirit of the liturgy, each in his own measure, and they must be trained to perform their functions in a correct and orderly manner.  (Sacrosanctum Concilium 29)

As one commentator notes:

The choir is a constituent member in the liturgical action, whether in stalls in a chancel, or a loft above the nave. Like the lay servers at the Altar, they are liturgical ministers, though not sacred ministers. Accordingly, they should be vested as lay liturgical servers.

(2) It gives the choir a greater external beauty of appearance, which is appropriate both for the choir’s procession at Communion time and for when the choir travels, if that is part of its program.

(3) It helps the choir members themselves be more focused and serious about their role in the liturgy, and thus gives them a more tangible sense of purpose and service. This is a widely known phenomenon that explains why choirs generally perform better when in uniform (something analogous can be seen in business, academic, and military settings as well).

Now, if one is talking about a men’s schola that can be situated in the choir area of the transept or near the sanctuary, the question is easy to answer: they should wear the classic cassock and surplice.

But if one is talking about a mixed choir of men and women (a practice I have defended elsewhere) located elsewhere in the church, usually in a choir loft, the solution is not so obvious. For if the men in the ensemble wear cassock and surplice, it looks odd for the women to wear diverse lay clothing; and if they all dress in black or some other agreed-upon color, there is still perhaps an aesthetic mismatch.

Various solutions have been proposed. One of them is to dress the entire ensemble in cassocks without surplices, usually red or blue:

 

Another and better solution, in my opinion, can be seen in the St. John the Baptist Schola Cantorum from Allentown, New Jersey, which I had the privilege of singing with last year. The photos have been shared with me by the estimable director Peter Carter. The current format is for boy and girl choristers to alternate every week in singing with the Schola Cantorum (mixed adult choir). Also, the women and girls’ vestments are still a work in progress, as there will be a matching veil for the women and girls. The robes for the men and women are technically cassocks, but Carter refers to them as “robes,” with the men wearing surplices and the women mantles. The “cassocks” are double-breasted and do not have the clerical collar which, with the color, differentiates them in style from the cassocks of the clergy and servers. 

First, the mixed ensemble:

The men and boys:

The women and girls:

 

The mantles were crafted by a seamstress at my parish from surplices and are modeled after the historic mantle of St. Clare of Assisi:

The cassocks and surplices were purchased at Watts and Co.

While Carter likes the solution he came up with (and I agree that it is elegant and suitable for the purpose, without violating any liturgical conventions), it’s not terribly easy to replicate at the moment, because the robes and surplices from Watts and Co. are expensive, their fulfillment of orders is slow, and the surplices have to be reworked into mantles by a seamstress at St. John’s. Perhaps this post will inspire an American vestment maker to make a similar solution more easily available! 

(Here's the photo of when I visited the Schola. What a great group to sing with!)

Are Women Permitted to Sing the Propers of the Mass?

In the wider Catholic world, the question posed in the title is not even on the radar screen. If you can have altar girls and female lectors — indeed, apparently, acolytesses and lectresses, in a veritable salmagundi of sanctuary servants — then why not women singing music for the Mass? (Never mind the fact that the concept of “propers” has more or less disappeared outside the world of the usus antiquior.) However, traditionalists, myself included, reject both altar girls and female lectors, arguing that it is only appropriate for males to fill these roles, and, in general, that the patronizing and vocationally deviant clericalization of the laity should be avoided. It might therefore be thought that, as a matter of logical consistency, we ought to maintain that women should not form a chant schola to execute the propers of the Mass. Yet this conclusion does not follow.

While I am an adamant opponent of feminism, I am no less staunch an opponent of chauvinism wherever I see it — and I do see it reappearing in the traditional movement, along with other -isms (e.g., antisemitism, libertarianism, sedevacantism) that are incompatible with Catholic tradition. The revival of traditional liturgical practice has permitted the reappearance of some extreme points of view that deserve refutation. For example, not only have I heard traditionalists argue against women singing the propers; I’ve heard them argue that none of the laity whatsoever should sing any of the Mass Ordinary or responses. (On that last point, see here, here, and here.)

The point of departure for the question on women chanters is the rather blunt statement of Pope St. Pius X in his famous 1903 motu proprio Tra le Sollecitudini:

With the exception of the melodies proper to the celebrant at the altar and to the ministers, which must be always sung in Gregorian chant, and without accompaniment of the organ, all the rest of the liturgical chant belongs to the choir of levites, and, therefore, singers in the church, even when they are laymen, are really taking the place of the ecclesiastical choir…. On the same principle it follows that singers in church have a real liturgical office, and that therefore women, being incapable of exercising such office, cannot be admitted to form part of the choir. Whenever, then, it is desired to employ the acute voices of sopranos and contraltos, these parts must be taken by boys, according to the most ancient usage of the Church.

Stated thus, it sounds cut and dried. But is it self-evident that “all the rest of the liturgical chant” (would this include the Ordinary?) “belongs to the choir of levites” (whatever that means exactly)? It seems that Pius X has in view singers in the sanctuary or the “choir” area of a transept of a monastic-style church, where their placement and vesture suggest that they are performing a ministerial function. The operative conception here, it seems to me, is that of a cathedral, seminary, or boys’ school.

If singers are, in contrast, somewhere in the nave, whether on the floor or up in a loft, it is more difficult to see that they constitute a “choir of levites” with a “real liturgical office.” Just as laywomen were not forbidden to sing the Ordinary of the Mass (indeed Pius X and his successors encouraged this) even though the Ordinary is manifestly a liturgical text also said by ordained ministers, by the same logic women would be competent to sing the propers.

To make the situation clearer, Pius XII in his encyclical Musicae Sacrae of 1955 lifted the ban for lay women as long as they were not in the sanctuary (the internal quotations are from three earlier decisions of the Sacred Congregation of Rites):

Where it is impossible to have schools of singers [scholae cantorum] or where there are not enough choir boys, it is allowed that “a group of men and women or girls, located in a place outside the sanctuary set apart for the exclusive use of this group, can sing the liturgical texts at Solemn Mass, as long as the men are completely separated from the women and girls and everything unbecoming is avoided. The Ordinary is bound in conscience in this matter.”

Granted, Pacelli’s words are not exactly a resounding encouragement to have women, but it shows that there is no ban on women singing, as long as they are outside the sanctuary.

Let’s think this through, with attention to the symbolism of church architecture. The development of choir lofts, which can certainly be said to be the norm in most churches built in the century prior to Vatican II, perfectly accords with the role of the choir as a body that provides chant and polyphony for the liturgy, with mixed voices as needed or desired, and in a way that does not involve the singers in the ceremonies taking place below. This preserves the anonymity of the choir and bypasses the danger of distraction for the congregation, since the musicians do not so easily risk “putting on a show.” If the propers can be sung polyphonically with men and women, does that not establish that women may sing the propers by themselves?

Admittedly there is a longstanding tradition of having only men singing, inasmuch as the choir was seen as fulfilling a properly liturgical role. Yet just as it is possible for altar boys to substitute for acolytes, and even for any laity (such as girls in a girls’ school) to make the responses at Mass provided they are in the pews and not in the sanctuary, so too it is possible for non-vested laity to substitute for a properly liturgical choir. Put differently, lay people from outside the choir area can fulfill a liturgical function, but not in a properly liturgical manner, which would involve their being vested and being more closely associated with the ritual action in or near the sanctuary, as we see in solemn Vespers when the singers in cassock and surplice process into the sanctuary, genuflect, bow to each other, and split off to their seats on the sides for the chanting of the psalmody. (It also seems clear enough that whenever there is a schola of clergy or male religious singing the propers, as Pius X envisioned, women should not join them.)

We should also take into account the not inconsiderable witness of centuries of women religious singing the sacred liturgy, and doing so not because there are no men around to do it (although that will usually be true), but because it is proper to themselves: it is a requirement of their consecrated life, expected and indeed demanded of them by the Church. They do not “substitute” for anyone else but do it by a right proper to and inherent in them. Moreover, depending on the order or congregation, the nuns might perform this opus Dei in the choir area of a monastery church (still with a symbolic separation from the sanctuary), chanting all the parts of the Mass except those of the major ministers. It is true that this fact in and of itself does not establish an analogous right for unconsecrated lay women to do the same, but it does establish, once and for all, that women as such are not disqualified from singing the chants of the liturgy, provided that good order is maintained.

Once again we can see what a fine and helpful development the choir loft was, and why it should be present in every Catholic church. How many blessed hours of my life have been spent in choir lofts, leading or singing with scholas and choirs of men and women, in Santa Paula, California; in Washington, D.C., and Silver Spring, Maryland; in Gaming and Vienna, Austria; in Lander, Wyoming and in Lincoln, Nebraska!

We cannot leave history and prudence behind. There has been an evolution in the attitudes toward women in the Church, even while we still hold fast to the ancient truth, now contradicted by Pope Francis, that women should not be vested and serving in ministerial roles (cf. 1 Cor 14:34). One need look no further than the redoubtable Justine Ward to see that women were heavily involved in the resurgence of Gregorian chant in the twentieth century and taught people how to sing it, which means that they were in the lay schola.

It’s not clear to me what we could possibly gain by trying to prevent women from singing the propers, provided the singers are musically qualified (and the same holds, obviously, for men — no one’s sex makes him or her more adept for the art of singing). Unlike the minor orders of acolyte and lector, there has never been a minor order of cantor/singer. It is therefore impossible to classify women singers along with altar girls/acolytesses and female readers/lectresses as part of the same progressive “slippery slope” for the ordination of women as deacons or priests. Musicologists and musicians are free to argue about whether a higher-pitched or lower-pitched rendering of chant works better from the point of view of liturgical aesthetics, and sociologists or anthropologists of religion could argue about cultural expectations and associations, etc., but none of this pertains to the question at hand.

On a practical level, unless there is some extenuating circumstance like a CMAA Sacred Music Colloquium with its pedagogical aims, it would be strange to have a men’s schola and a women’s schola dividing up tasks at the same liturgy; this is best avoided. When only men or only women are singing the propers, the worshiper can more easily forget about it and pay attention to the chants, the texts, and the ceremonies. When the two scholas go back and forth, it draws attention to the octave difference between men and women — that is, it draws attention to the performers, which is not ideal. Similarly, chant sung by men and women simultaneously is sometimes an unavoidable necessity, but chant tends to sound best in a true unison, not in organum of parallel octaves. If a chapel or parish has two scholas, a men’s and a women’s, it would be better to have one or the other sing all the propers at Mass. This is what I did at Wyoming Catholic College. The men’s schola sang multiple times a week; at a certain point, a women’s schola was created to give the women a chance to immerse themselves more fully in the chant and to give the men a much-needed rest. Here, too, a certain complementarity developed that was beneficial for all.

Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s website, SoundCloud page, and YouTube channel.

The Ultimate Communion Antiphon Book for the Usus Antiquior

Most singers of chant will be familiar with the old workhorse Communio by Richard Rice (CMAA, 2008), my own copy of which is so well-thumbed and beaten up it’s a wonder it still holds together. Others may be familiar with the Solesmes publication Versus Psalmorum et Canticorum (repr. CMAA, 2008), which contains pointed psalm texts for the Introits and Communions of the entire liturgical year. Although I used both of these books for many years as a choir director, I have discovered a new volume that definitively surpasses them for Sundays and Holy Days.

In November of 2019, I visited Houston to give four lectures, and while there, I decided to “crash” the Schola practice on Sunday at the FSSP parish, Regina Caeli. The singers were gracious and let me join them for the High Mass. At one point, the director, Kyle Lartigue, handed me a book: Ad Communionem: Antiphons and Psalms (Justitias Books, 2016), which, I discovered, was Mr. Lartigue’s own production.

Unlike the other communion books available, which either lack the antiphons and full musical notation (Versus Psalmorum) or utilize the awkward and untraditional Nova Vulgata for the psalm texts, Ad Communionem includes the antiphons for all Sundays and first-class Holy Days, followed by the pertinent psalm from the preconciliar Vulgate, notated in square notes. (The old Vulgate verses are a breeze to sing for those who are familiar with the Missale Romanum and the Breviarium Romanum or the Breviarium Monasticum.) Ad Communionem also includes Psalm 33 and the Gloria Patri in all modes, and an appendix with the Adoro Te and Ubi Caritas. The antiphons are organized not alphabetically (as in Rice’s book, where one must rely on the index) but by Sunday and feastday in chronological order, which makes it much easier to use. While the Solesmes book is more comprehensive, it merely “points” the texts rather than musically notating them, and both the poor quality of the reproduction (many times removed from its original) and the typographical conventions contribute to confusion and stumbling performances.

It’s exactly what I’d want my own schola to have, and in fact when I returned from Houston I asked the pastor in my town if he would buy a bunch of copies for our choir loft. This book deserves to be standard issue for every TLM schola in the English-speaking world. (I should mention that the antiphons and verses are accompanied by an inline English translation from the Douay-Rheims, which closely matches the Latin sense.)
 

Having a Communion antiphon book with psalm verses (regardless of which of the above three options is used) allows the cantors and/or schola to sing however many verses may be needed to prolong or shorten the music for a particular occasion. Sometimes more than one priest is distributing communion and it goes quickly; at others times perhaps there is an overflow crowd and only one priest distributing, which can take quite some time. The chanting of psalm verses has many benefits: the texts are liturgically appropriate and the music is very much in the background, as it should be; the overall effect is calming and prayerful, but the recurrence of the antiphon adds a welcome contrast to the simplicity of the psalm tones, and impresses the repeated text and melody in the minds of all who listen to it. The format also allows for maximum flexibility in musical forces. One can arrange it this way: antiphon (sung by all); verse (begun by cantor and completed by schola); antiphon; etc. Or: antiphon (sung by all); odd verse (sung by cantor); even verse (sung by all); antiphon; etc. Or instead of cantor and tutti, the schola may be divided into two halves. The simple format allows for a ready use of isons and organum.

Now that the TLM is coming back all over the place, Ad Communionem: Antiphons and Psalms is, I would maintain, a required tool for everyone who sings the proper chants. It is one of two books I always carry with me to the choir loft (the other being my Liber Usualis). The book is available in paperback and hardcover. A large sample of the pages may be found here. An index may be found here.

Mr. Lartigue has also produced a number of other books: a newly-typeset Latin edition of the traditional Martyrologium Romanum (updated through 1961, with an appendix of saints canonized after that year); a two-volume edition of traditional Sunday Vespers; Holy Week chants and a complete Kyriale. All of these books are newly typeset and more affordable than their competitors.

Pay a visit to his website: https://justitiasbooks.com/.

Restoring Liturgical Tradition after the Pandemic

Even as Catholics continue to suffer from the difficult situation in which we find ourselves, with an absence of public liturgies and restricted sacramental access, the virtue of supernatural hope already prompts us to see many ways in which God may bring forth great good from this evil — or, to speak more truthfully, may be calling us to collaborate in bringing forth great good by a prudent response to circumstances. In particular, we can envision several ways in which the liturgical life of the Church could be improved by far-seeing pastors.

1. Increase frequency of private TLMs. With a large number of priests now consigned to the private celebration of Mass (which is legitimate and praiseworthy according to the mind of the Church), priests will be free to offer the traditional Latin Mass on a daily basis. For priests relatively new at it, this makes possible the perfecting of the celebration through frequent practice. For priests who have been wanting to learn it, now would be a God-sent opportunity to put in the time and practice necessary. For all priests, it could be viewed as an enforced “retreat” at which they can pray freely and fervently for the needs of the Church and the world.

2. Offer Masses ad orientem. Even priests who are not offering or not planning to offer Mass in its traditional form can begin to offer their Masses ad orientem, as is just and right. After several weeks (potentially) of saying Mass facing geographical or liturgical east, these priests will have a perfect excuse to say to their congregations: “In these weeks of the pandemic, when I have been praying Mass for you and your needs every day, I have grown accustomed to offering it facing east, in accord with the long tradition of the Church. I have discovered how much more prayerful it is, how it enables me to pray more fervently to God and for all the intentions for which the Mass is offered. As a result, I would like to keep doing this now that our public celebrations are permitted again.”

With the chaos of paperwork and re-planning that will be engulfing chanceries everywhere, and the sheer gratitude of the faithful who will have returned to church, there could never be a more opportune moment to introduce ad orientem. A simple explanation will put it in context, and Catholic life will go on — only better than it was before.

3. Enrich or tweak the parish Mass schedule. When the public Mass schedule is re-announced, priests will have an ideal opportunity to add to the parish schedule a TLM if it has not been present before, or shift around times to give the TLM a better time slot, or add more TLMs during the week or month. Again, this expansion of sacramental access will be appreciated on its own terms after a long period of instability and inaccessibility, and the Catholics who come back will be prepared for new terrain.

4. Abolish bad custom and abuse. Dubious liturgical customs and liturgical abuses, which have already de facto come to an end with the coronavirus shutdown, could be stopped indefinitely. This has been proposed by an anonymous priest who noted that, even after bishops had banned the sign of peace, holding hands during the Lord’s Prayer, and Communion from the chalice, the Mass still went on and people still attended. In other words, the faithful — or at least the most faithful of the faithful — are more interested in going to Mass than they are in shaking hands, holding hands, or receiving “the cup.” It is more important to go to Mass, period, than to “get” to be an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion. Now is a truly God-given moment to start afresh with better customs:

• discontinuation of the multiplication of chalices for distributing the Precious Blood (with all the problems this creates);
• discontinuation of the habitual use of extraordinary lay ministers, as per the constant instructions (hitherto always ignored) of the Holy See;
• discontinuation of the use of female altar servers in favor of well-trained male altar servers;
• discontinuation of the distracting and theological incoherent “sign (or kiss) of peace” as practiced in the Novus Ordo;
• encouragement of kneeling for Holy Communion — which could be encouraged still further by the installation of a communion rail during this down time;
• exclusion of the laity handling or washing the sacred vessels of the altar, whether during the liturgy or before or after it.

Together with “turning over a new leaf,” priests can preach about:

• the fullness of Christ’s presence under each species — thereby defending the traditional reception of the host alone;
• the essential difference between the ordained priesthood and the common priesthood of the faithful, and thus, why it is appropriate for only the clergy to distribute Communion;
• why Communion in the hand was a mistake (not, as some try to argue, the revival of ancient practice) that we have many reasons to regret, and why it is best to follow the tradition of the Church, reaffirmed by Paul VI, of receiving on the tongue while kneeling — a posture not only palpably reverent and hallowed by centuries of Catholic custom, but also more efficient and convenient for the minister who is distributing the hosts.

5. Rework the parish music program. Choirs will have been disbanded for weeks. It would therefore be an opportune moment for reassigning responsibilities. A newly-formed schola that sings Gregorian chant could be assigned to a Mass to provide truly sacred music. Another group might be allowed to remain disbanded because of “new pastoral exigencies and priorities.”

It may seem strange to be thinking ahead when we don’t even know what each new day will bring, but we must follow Our Lord’s advice to be “wise as serpents and simple as doves” (Mt 10:16) as we reconquer lost territory for the Kingdom of God. The Lord is gesturing at rich harvests to be reaped. Let us put our hands to the plough and not look back (cf. Lk 9:62).

All of us are being stretched by Divine Providence, so let’s take advantage of the newfound elasticity!

Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s website, SoundCloud page, and YouTube videos.