Visiting the Saints

Let us be like little children. According to Fr. Mark:

Go to the saints, certain of their interest in whatever interests you. You can count on their sympathy, on their readiness to listen, and on their help.

Sacred Signs

There is a cold, reasonable, and altogether too “grown-up” form of religion that fails to address the needs of the heart. Chilly and cerebral, it is foreign to the spirit of the Gospel because it is so far removed from things that children need and understand. In many places, the past forty years saw the imposition of a new iconoclasm, an elitist religion without warmth, a religion for the brain with precious little for the heart, a religion stripped of images and devoid of the sacred signs that penetrate deeply those places in the human person where mere discourse cannot go.

The Grace of Folklore

This is the religion of barren churches, white-washed and devoid of transcendence. This is the religion of those who sniff uncomfortably at what they dismiss as folklore, forgetting that folklore is, more often than not, the expression of an ancient wisdom, piety, and fear of the Lord. This is the sterile religion of those who, in the name of “discretion and good taste” displaced tabernacles, and removed crucifixes and images of the saints. You can find them now for sale on E-bay and in trendy antique shops.