Friday, December 19, 2025

Keeping the Christmas Caroling: In Dulce Iubilo, the Wexford, and A Rose in Winter.

With the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God yesterday - or, in the usus antiquior, the Circumcision - the Octave of Christmas closes, but...

Musical Offering: Rossini’s La Gazza Ladra

In honour of the two newest saints in the Church panoply, here is the overture to Rossini's opera La Gazza Ladra - the Thieving...

The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains

(In light of Saint Isidore of Seville, patron of the internet, here is a re-post of a review from 2016, on Nicholas Carr's book,...

Sci Fi Movie Triplex: Interstellar, Oblivion and Edge of Tomorrow

My movie selection over the past few months has been in the science fiction genre, which is often heavy on the 'fiction', and light...

Venantius’ Vexilla Regis Prodeunt

Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus was a self-described wandering minstrel in Europe of the very early Middle Ages, or late Antiquity, or the inaptly-described 'Dark...

Two Complementary Requiems

On this All Souls' Day, here are two Requiems, which commemorate the dead with beauty and transcendence, and may accompany our prayers this day. The...

Trudeau’s MAiD Service: A Euthanasia Program for Canada

The development of the laws that legalized and continue to expand assisted suicide and euthanasia in Canada reflect the speed at which society increasingly...

A Review of Colin Ian Jeffery’s ‘Sorrows and Joys’

REVIEW:  Sorrows and Joys  --- Colin Ian Jeffery ISBN: 978197459830 Paperback  £5.14  Amazon  or any good bookshop Collection of 212 poems Colin Ian Jeffery is a leading Christian...

A Reflection on the Exorcist: Believer

The latest exorcist movie, Exorcist: The Believer (henceforward “The Believer”), hit theaters on Friday, October 6, 2023, close to the 50th anniversary of the...

A Vatican Spy: A Project of Hope and Love

A friend of mine, Anton Casta, is working on a biography on his own father whose name he shares. Anton Sr. lived a dramatic...