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    The Third Sunday in Lent

    My Old Farmer’s Almanac tells me that today marks the beginning of the hummingbirds’ migration north. The little wonders will arrive here and we will have their feeders ready for them, and our hearts will be glad to see them, and we will enjoy their company morning and evening as they swoop past and talk to us with their whirrs and squeaks. Speaking of birds, I have neglected to mention that we have a lovely little screech owl living in our barn. She was perched on the limb of the maple out back the other night when I was outside with Jinx, and she flew closer to the house and…

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  • Reflections

    Coveting What I Do Not Have

    Latin liturgy,Gregorian chant and Renaissance polyphony,meat-less Fridays,fasting before Mass,the Rosary,the Baltimore Catechism,retreats,the novena (in 1938, seventy thousand people attended thirty-eight novena services at Our Lady of Sorrows in Chicago every week), kneelers, large families dressed in their “Sunday best,”mantillas and chapel caps,religious in habits,statues,large Gothic or baroque churches with dark,quiet places and side altars, elaborate priestly vestments,the smell of incense,the sound of bells at the Consecration,the feeling of awe at the miracle of Transubstantiation—these were all common features of the American Catholic world in the time of the Church’s fastest growth and greatest self-confidence. from America’s Bishop: The Life and Times of Fulton J. Sheen, by Thomas C. Reeves (2002, Encounter Books, p. 172) ~ S.K. Orr

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