From Season to Season

Rejoice for all the saints today; Who ran by faith the narrow way: The great and low together stand With glory crowned at God’s right hand.   How blest are those who wrought the peace; As heirs they share the Victor’s feast; And prophets by injustice slain Have claimed the Kingdom’s righteous reign. Come, ye martyrs red and virgins white, With teachers wise and students bright, All wives and husbands, monks and nuns, With bishops, priests, and deacons, come. Come, holy men and women all; With heart and voice sing praise and call To Christ who rose triumphantly That we may join your company. —Harry Hagan, O.S.B., Rejoice for All the Saints   At my grandparents’ house, many years ago, I discovered a book that changed my life: a  St. Joseph’s Daily Missal . That prayer book, which had belonged to my grandmother or perhaps my aunt or uncle was from the 1950s and was the resource for lay Catholics wishing to take part in the pre-Vatican II liturgy. ...

The Second Letter to the Thessalonians, which is among the source texts used for the Readings of the Thirty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (Cycle C) is something of a problematic biblical text. Although it has traditionally been attributed to Saint Paul, writing with Saint Barnabas and Saint Silvanus/Silas (cf. 2 Thess 1:1 ), most modern scholars believe that this text (among others) was written several years after Paul’s martyrdom. Whether this letter was written by Paul or by those who had been formed by the Apostle is, however, in many ways irrelevant to the meaning of the text for the Church today. The text itself, which was certainly known to Marcion and Saint Polycarp (in the mid-second century), describes a local community that was experiencing persecution or dangers from heretical (i.e. gnostic) movements and which was at danger of losing its focus on the Faith that Paul and his collaborators had handed over to the community by their preaching and witness (cf. Raymond Brown,...