Catholic history knows them as the iconoclasts–the image-breakers. And at various points of history they have reared up in riotous defiance of the Church and have smashed and broken their way through the sacred arts.

In 726 the Byzantine Emperor Leo the Isaurian published an edict declaring sacred images to be idols and ordered them destroyed, sending swarms of enforcing soldiers across the Empire and causing riots among the people. Orthodoxy was restored after a while, but again in 814 a new wave of iconoclasm broke out.

Then the mania died down again and there was relative peace, until a new bout of iconoclastic fury broke out after the Reformation in many parts of Europe. In the Beeldenstorm or “statue storm” that gripped the Low Countries in 1566, a merchant in Antwerp saw “all the churches, chapels and houses of religion utterly defaced, and no kind of thing left whole within them, but broken and utterly destroyed, being done after such order and by so few folks that it is to be marvelled at.” At Ypres witnesses testified that the iconoclasts were not single-minded religious fanatics but were largely drunken looters who were robbing and stealing from private homes as well.

Since then, it seems, this madness has not tended to fade away completely but has been recurring with some frequency through the centuries — in the French Revolution of 1789, in the rise of the American Know-Nothings in the 1850s, and again in the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.

While the earlier iconoclasts claimed some divine support for what they were doing — however misguided — the most modern iconoclasts, having expelled God from the picture entirely, had their contempt for the created order descend even further into an erasure of  history itself.

A Russian critic once observed that “Bolsheviks topple czar monuments, Stalin erases old Bolsheviks, Khrushchev tears down Stalin, Brezhnev tears down Khrushchev….No difference. This is classic old Moscow technique: either worship or destroy.”

And George Orwell observed in his 1984:

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

Much of the same ideological underpinnings are now at work in cities and suburban areas around the world — a sort of Bolshevik Beeldenstorm aimed not only against the icons of the Church but all of history itself.

This, we know, shall pass as every similar episode of madness eventually has–and orthodoxy will triumph again.

But not necessarily without pain, without lasting damage, and without a profound miscarriage of justice by elected officials. In the case of Ypres, the magistrates of the town who helplessly watched the madness unfold were later forced to defend their inaction before the Habsburg government. During the American Know-Nothing riots of the mid-1850s, Bishop Martin John Spalding of Louisville, KY wrote in a letter to Bishop Kenrick:

“We have just passed through a reign of terror surpassed only by the Philadelphia riots. Nearly one hundred poor Irish have been butchered or burned and some twenty houses have been consumed in the flames. The City authorities, all Knownothings, looked calmly on and they are now endeavouring to lay the blame on the Catholics.”

In some cases, when the authorities failed them Irish and other Catholics banded together together to defend churches against the Know-Nothings. When a fire was started in the church of St. Peter and Paul in Brooklyn, the building was only saved by the police and the local militia driving off the mob.

And lest we be too despondent about the horrors of the news, lest we see the devil have his due and we give up hope, it is worth recalling what Bishop John Lancaster Spalding of Peoria said about the Know-Nothing era some twenty years later:

“It was not the American people who were seeking to make war on the Church, but merely a party of religious fanatics and unprincipled demagogues who as little represented the American people as did the mobs whom they incited to bloodshed and incendiarism. Their whole conduct was un-American and opposed to all the principles and traditions of our free institutions”.

So closely do the events of these historic periods mesh with our own, so perfectly do today’s rioters play out this hackneyed role trod by so many violent mobs before them, that we would be forgiven for wondering if those behind today’s lawlessness are truly as “progressive” as they claim.

On June 1st, five men from Our Lady of Guadalupe seminary were ordained to the sacred priesthood.

The Missive caught up with one of the new ordinandi, Rev. Fr. David McWhirter, as he returned to northeastern Pennsylvania to spend time with his family, offer Solemn High Mass at St. Michael’s Church in Scranton, and give first blessings to the parishioners.

As part of our Ss. Peter and Paul Appeal on June 29th, we will be debuting an interview with Fr. McWhirter where he discusses his journey through the seminary to the sacred priesthood–and how your support helped make that happen.

The Roman liturgy has now entered into the “green” time after Pentecost, and we along with it turn our focus to the flourishing and advancement of Holy Mother Church.

So join us on the patronal feast of the great Apostles Ss. Peter and Paul for a celebration of the continued growth of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter and the new priests who will be taking up their work at various apostolates across North America.

Tu es sacerdos in aeternum, secundum ordinem Melchisedech.

Around the year 1200, it pleased Our Lord to grant singular favors to a certain Belgian nun named Lutgardis.

She had already displayed various mystical gifts to her companions at the convent, and now she was also granted the ability to heal minor ailments by a mere touch. This wonderful news began to spread through the land, and before long people came from far and wide to be healed by Lutgardis.

But those looking for physical healing soon proved a spiritually distracting presence at the convent–not just for Lutgardis, but for all her fellow nuns as well.

As she was accustomed to be very frank in her prayers, perhaps rather shockingly so, she complained,  “Why did You go and give me such a grace, Lord? Now I hardly have any time to be alone with You! Take it away, please.” Then, with the kind of boldness that only the most intense lovers of God can seem to get away with, she asked for a new and better grace to replace it.

Our Lord asked her what she wanted in its stead.

As devout as she was, Lutgardis had not, it seems, been blessed with any facility for learning Latin. So although she had been praying the Divine Office with fervor, she was largely ignorant of what she was saying. So she asked the Lord for a fuller understanding of Latin.

Within a few days, she had it.

The psalms and antiphons of the Divine Office, the readings at Matins all suddenly came alive to her. With this new infused knowledge, she gained a deep understanding of these liturgical texts.

It was exactly what she asked for.

But not, it seems, what she really wanted. Because as amazing and ostensibly ordered toward increased piety as this second favor was, in the end it proved only an intellectual gift. Despite the increased understanding, Lutgardis found her devotion to God had not really increased, as she had hoped.

So after a short time, she asked the Lord to take His second mystical favor back. And again, He asked her what she wanted to replace it.

Wiser now from her first two experiences, this time she asked the Lord for something much simpler and more direct: His Heart. When He replied that He wanted her heart as well, her answer was as follows:

“Take it, dear Lord. But take it in such a way that the love of Your Heart may be so mingled and united with my own heart that I may possess my heart in Thee, and that it may always remain there secure in Your protection.”

Our Lord granted this bold request, and so St. Lutgardis of Aywières became one of the first saints on record to experience Mystical Union with the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She is regarded as one of the earliest progenitors of the devotion that would become widespread throughout the world four centuries later with St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.

Today, as we celebrate this feast, let us remember that it is not in amazing miracles or in intellectual understanding that our faith ultimately rests. We need not fret that we lack showy mystical gifts or profound liturgical or Scriptural insights. Although these can certainly bring us closer to our Blessed Savior, they can also be hindrances if we allow them to be. As gifts of God they are good in themselves, but they are not essential.

What is essential, as St. Lutgardis discovered, is to love–to mystically unite our own little hearts and wills to the burning furnace of Charity, the House of God, and the Gate of Heaven: the most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

On June 1st, the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter held priestly and diaconal ordinations in Lincoln, Nebraska, at the Cathedral of the Risen Christ.

The Celebrant was His Excellency Most Rev. Andrew Cozzens, auxiliary bishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota. Five men were ordained to the sacred priesthood: Reverends Daniel Alloy, Eric Krager, Joseph Loftus, David McWhirter, and Javier Ruiz Velasco Aguilar. Additionally, six men were ordained to the diaconate: Deacons John Audino, Joseph Dalimata, James Eichman, Nicholas Eichman, Joel Pinto Rodriguez, and Thu Truong. Although existing restrictions this year meant that only limited numbers were able to attend, the ceremony was streamed live to the entire world via LiveMass.net.

Special thanks to Charles Barbeau for providing the photographs.

When we began the Year of Our Lord 2020, few of us could have expected what was to come.

A pandemic devastated Wuhan province in China, ravaged northern Italy, and finally arrived in North America. From that moment, the economy started to unravel–whole sectors of work shut down and millions were laid off. We saw shortages in our grocery stores, and long lines at food banks.  Then, just as the threat started subsiding, we had waves of protests, social unrest, and rioting in our cities.

Through all of this we instinctively turned to Almighty God for solace–though our churches, our islands of sanity in a world gone mad, were forced to close over our objections.

It’s obvious, now, what the world sees as essential….but what do we see as essential?

How much do we spend on luxuries and entertainment? Cable channels? Patreons? Even those of us who are careful about what we support…do we give to Catholic organizations and channels simply so our ears can be tickled with the latest church gossip? Are we actually helping to advance the kingdom of God? Are we training priests, saving souls, and building missions? Or are we just building up “Traditionalism, Inc.”?

In two weeks, the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter will be launching our Ss. Peter and Paul Appeal. This year has been a hard one for all of us. But our priests have emerged more determined than ever.

Our mission is simple. To train traditional priests and provide the traditional sacraments. We hear from people all the time that they need a Fraternity priest and the Latin Mass in their area. And we would love to meet that need. But it can’t happen without funding, hard work, and years of preparation.

Most everything is in ugly disarray now–but we know that in the Church’s timeless liturgy there is beauty and stability.

Christ was hidden from us for three long months. Are you ready to make up for lost time?

We believe the Latin Mass is essential. We believe the Latin Mass can heal the sickness in our souls, and mend the deep divisions in society. Do you?

Untold generations of Catholics are depending on what we do with the gifts God has given us today.

So please support the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter in honor of our great patron, and help our priests bring the saving light of Christ into the deepening darkness of this world.

May God richly bless you for your generosity.

In the Year of Our Lord 1838, Fathers François Blanchet and Modeste Demers traveled to Fort Vancouver at the behest of the bishop of Quebec. The mission entrusted to these two priests was simple on its face, but it was also impossibly vast in its scope. They were tasked to spread the message of the Gospel throughout the Pacific Northwest, in a region that stretched from California to Alaska.

The Fathers, clearly, would need help. They managed to get a few literate men to serve as catechists for the white settlers, but this approach would not serve so well with the native tribes of the area. Each tribe had its own language, and though some were closely related, others were so different from the rest that they would have to be learned from scratch. The Chinook Jargon, which served as a sort of general inter-tribal means of communication throughout the Northwest Coast, was only a simplified pidgin language useful primarily for trading scenarios, not for teaching theology.

But the missionaries began to observe how the interpreters they relied on very naturally used the native love for rhetoric and oratory to give “a new force and new weight” to Catholic doctrine—in languages that white men could only stammer in.

Blanchet and Demers thus determined that those best suited to catechize the Indians were Indians themselves. But how to transform a mere interpreter into a trained catechist, capable not only of understanding but also teaching the vagaries of doctrine?

The answer came from an old tradition ingrained in native Northwestern culture itself. Catholic teaching would be encoded the way Indians had from time immemorial recorded the history of their families and tribes: on a totem.

“In looking for a plan,” Blanchet writes, “[I] imagined that by representing on a square stick, the forty centuries before Christ by 40 marks; the 33 years of our Lord by 33 points, followed by a cross: and the 18 centuries and 39 years since by 18 marks and 39 points, would pretty well answer [my] purpose, in giving [me] a chance to show the beginning of the world, the creation, the fall of the angels, of Adam; the promise of a Savior, the time of His birth, and His death upon the cross, as well as the mission of the apostles.”

This miniature Catholic totem pole was called the “Sahale” stick, from the name for God in Chinook.

Abandoning theological abstraction for a straightforward historical narrative proved a masterful stroke of evangelization. Like a tribal or familial totem, the Sahale stick was a symbolic retelling of salvation history in visual terms the natives of the Northwest could readily understand.

All that remained was to put it to the test.

Blanchet had a Sahale stick carved for Tslalakum, a visiting chief of the Straits Salish. After a mere eight days of instruction Tsalakum had mastered the concepts engraved on it, and he brought it back to his native land. As word spread to other tribes, Blanchet made and gave away eight more at Nisqually in 1839.

Hand-carving the four-foot sticks, however, quickly proved too laborious for the burgeoning demand. So Blanchet and Demers switched to drawing the Sahale stick’s symbols on paper and calling these pictures “Catholic ladders.”

Then, almost a year after giving the first stick to Tslalakum, Blanchet was finally able to visit his tribal home on Whidbey Island, hoping to follow up on the chief’s visit with some basic catechesis.

Amazingly, he found a tribe already well familiar with the tenets of Christianity. Chief Tslalakum’s eight days of instruction had produced an entire tribe that not only knew the main points of the faith, but had also managed to learn some hymns as well. Tslalakum had given his first Sahale stick to another chief and made a copy for himself. And other chiefs like Witskalatche, Netlam and Sehalapan had similar resounding successes in lands where no priest had ever stepped foot.

The Sahale stick, by successfully “baptizing” an ancient native practice of the Northwest Coast, had proved both a wonderfully ingenious way to teach the faith to the Indians. And almost 200 years later, the tradition of making Sahale Sticks and Catholic Ladders still continues to this day, as part of cultural patrimony of Catholicism in the region.

Locked out of our churches for so many weeks this year, and being compelled to either offer prayers on our own, read our Missals, or follow along with televised Masses, we have all gained a new appreciation for bringing the liturgy into our homes.

The concept of the “domestic Church” has a very ancient pedigree. In his letter Of the Good of Widowhood, St. Augustine asked to be included in the prayers of the holy woman Juliana cum tota domestica vestra Ecclesia: “with all your household Church.” St. John Chrysostom called the home a micra ecclesia, a little church, and St. Clement of Alexandria called marriage a microbasileia, a little kingdom.

While naturally we can’t offer Mass or other rites as our priests and bishops do in sacred buildings, we are all still very much expected to unite ourselves with those rites in spirit, even to the extent of making our homes a spiritual and even physical extension of our parishes into the secular world.

Thus, many of us have already created a little prayer corner in our homes where we can say the Rosary, offer morning or night prayers, and light a candle once in a while.

And many households also, especially those with children, take great delight in characteristic seasonal devotions, such as constructing a Nativity scene, chalking the lintels at Epiphany, and setting up an Easter candle or garden.

Unfortunately, these seasonal devotions by their very nature tend to come and go, leaving large sections of the year with few obvious customs to replace them.

We are very soon to enter the long period of the Sundays after Pentecost—half a year of “ordinary” green Sundays. How can we keep ourselves and our children as engaged as we seem to be on the 1st Sunday of Advent?

Here is where a home altar can come in.

By maintaining a home altar not just as a static home for our rosaries and prayer books but as a closer mimic of its ecclesial namesake, the liturgical year can be a visible part of your home at all times.

There are many possible methods to do this, but here is one framework.

First, an altar cloth of the appropriate liturgical color can be used. A fabric store will be happy to cut bolts of inexpensive colored cloth to your specifications, and these can then be hemmed and decorated with embroidery or appliqué. (Or, if you are not so skilled in the domestic arts, a wide strip of white lace is an attractive complement.) The altar cloth is changed at the beginning of each new liturgical season and, if desired, at important feast days such as the Assumption.

Next, statues and icons of favorite family saints are placed atop the altar. Some may stay there year round—favorite images of Our Lord and Our Lady for example—but the others can be rotated in at the beginning of each month, depending on the sanctoral calendar. So on March 1st, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Gregory the Great, St. Patrick, St. Joseph, and the Annunciation appear on the altar, to be replaced on April 1st by St. George, St. Mark, St. Catherine of Siena, and St. Kateri (in Canada). And as each saint’s feast day arrives, the appropriate image can be moved to the center of the altar and a votive candle set before it.

Natural decorations such as flowers and greenery can be changed at the Ember Days or Quartertides. Advent is a wonderful time for evergreens and wreaths. At the Lenten Embertide, we content ourselves with dry sticks and thorns, then palms or pussy willows during Holy Week, until Easter morning when the altar joyously breaks forth in flowers. After the Ember Days of Pentecost, the flowers can be continued along with typical summertime greenery, until the Ember Days of September, when autumnal displays and harvest decorations close out the liturgical year.

Other pious practices, borrowed from our parishes, quickly suggest themselves. Some extra violet cloth will allow you to cover the sacred images at Passiontide. The home altar can be stripped on Maundy Thursday and, save for any Good Friday devotions, left bare until Easter. At All Saints’ Day, the altar can be filled to capacity with every icon and statue available. During All Souls’ Day, black cloth and family photos can remind us to pray for the Church Suffering.

Candles are an excellent addition when the children are old enough. If tapered ones are too expensive, tea lights can be used. Moreover, colored candles or votive holders can bring in secondary hues based on the season or feast. For example, a plain white altar cloth can be complemented with red and green candles for Christmas, gold or yellow for Easter, and blue for feasts of Our Lady.

Since it is a well-established liturgical principle that the Roman calendar changes according to local interest and patronage, consider how this idea can be applied to your own “little church.” Do you have special family patrons? Honor them in a special way with an octave—a week-long celebration on the family altar. Octaves used to be quite plentiful in the Roman Rite, and it is a very natural sentiment to want to extend major feasts for a week-long celebration. You can also specially celebrate family name days, baptismal and wedding anniversaries, and even those servants of God and Venerables whom you are devoted to but are not yet permitted to have a public cultus; and of course it is also a good thing to remember your loved ones on the days of their death.

Overall, maintaining a home altar provides us with a tangible and visible connection to our parishes, and it extends liturgical living well beyond the hour and a half on Sunday when we are present at Mass. We can even accompany our altar decorations with appropriate seasonal prayers—the Commemorations mentioned in our Monday article are very well suited for this purpose.

The home altar is a particularly powerful teaching tool for young children. They may not yet have the understanding or the attention span to pick up on subtle changes in recited prayers—but they are naturally fascinated by colors, images, flowers and lights and will participate with enthusiasm. (They can even be encouraged to keep “side altars” in their own rooms with colored cloths, toy saints, and their favorite medals and rosaries.)

As we finally start to emerge from our various states of lockdown, may it please God that we never have to endure such a long disruption of our parish liturgical life again.

But it was not time wasted if, having accepted the deprivation prayerfully and penitentially, we now appreciate the sacred liturgy much more keenly than we ever have before, and bring it to the very center of our homes and our hearts.

Blessed Be God, a prayer book which has been in print for almost a hundred years now, has enjoyed a renewed popularity of late thanks to its excellent collection of prayers and devotions.

One of the particularly wonderful things about this book is its copious use of liturgical commemorations. Commemorations are short little snapshots of a feast, traditionally used at Lauds and Vespers when that feast has been superseded by a higher-ranking one but is still nevertheless worthy of being remembered. They have three main parts: an Antiphon, a Verse and Response, and the Prayer or Collect.

Commemorations have been printed devotionally for quite some time, but few prayer books have done so as richly as this one. This one little volume can actually serve all by itself as a sort of “Little Office” for the laity that can be used throughout the year.

For Catholics, of course, the most important way to mark time is through the liturgical year. In the section “Devotions for the Holy Days and Special Feasts” (p. 196-252), Blessed Be God gives us commemorations for the Circumcision, the Epiphany, Candlemas, and St. Joseph; Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday; then ones for Paschaltide including Easter, the Rogation Days, the Ascension, and Pentecost; and finally Corpus Christi, Ss. Peter and Paul, the Assumption, Ember Days, All Saints, All Souls, Immaculate Conception, and Christmas. The following section, “Devotions for the Seasons of the Year” (p. 253-256), has additional commemorations for Advent, Christmastide, Septuagesima and Lent, Passiontide, and Eastertide.

But the book also diverges from the liturgical calendar proper and offers commemorations for each day of the week: Sunday (The Most Blessed Trinity), Monday (The Souls in Purgatory), Tuesday (The Holy Angels), Wednesday (St. Joseph), Thursday (The Most Blessed Sacrament), Friday (The Passion  of Christ), and Saturday (The Blessed Virgin).  Next the months are commemorated: the Holy Name in January, the Holy Family in February. St. Joseph in March, and so on.

Catholics may well know that May is dedicated to our Lady, that October is dedicated to the Rosary, and November is for the Holy Souls. We abstain from meat, of course, on Fridays. But what do we do on the other months and days? Are they not worthy of giving back to God as well?

And even the well-known “special” days and month just mentioned–do we really acknowledge and keep these devotionally? Or do we sometimes simply acknowledge the fact and move on, as if the knowledge alone was sufficient?

The great strength of Blessed Be God, with its numerous commemorations, is that it helps give structure to those popular devotions. Each feast, each season, each day of the week, and each month of the year has its own special prayer. These take less than a minute to say, and as such they are accessible even to the busiest working dad and homeschooling mom.

Praying the commemorations keeps us in the spirit of each liturgical feast and season, and since they come directly from the texts of Lauds and Vespers, by entering more deeply into them we can, in our own little way, participate in the public liturgy of Holy Mother Church.

A recent online survey of 1779 adults from 39 states found that the “Traditional Latin Mass is experiencing a high volume of participation and interest in the 18-39 demographic.”

Fr. Donald Kloster of the diocese of Bridgeport, CT, with the help of other contributors, conducted the survey between October 22, 2019 and March 1, 2020.

Fr. Kloster directed his study not at a general Catholic audience but at those within the age range who at least prefer the Latin Mass. And his findings are remarkable. The survey showed an astounding 98% weekly Mass attendance in the 18-39 age group . These adults would have been born roughly in the range of 1980-2001, and therefore largely represent the Millennial generation (1981-1996) and the earliest individuals in Gen Z (1996-2010).

How does that compare to statistics in the church at large? Research done by Gallup shows dramatic declines in church attendance since 1955 in all age categories: with the 21-29 age group consistently at the bottom, at 25% weekly Mass attendance. The Gallup data shows a steep drop from 73% attendance in 1955 to percentages in the mid-30s by 1975. This drop began with the members of the Silent generation (born 1928-1945) and the early Baby Boomer generation (1946-1955). After holding steady for a decade, it dropped to a low point with Generation X (1964-1979), where it has largely remained for the Millennials.

Although a large majority of the respondents said that their parents regularly attended Church, only 10% of those surveyed were raised in Traditional Latin Mass households, and only 16% reported that their parents had led them to the ancient liturgy.

The reasons that did lead them to Mass, ranked in descending order, are as follows:

35% Reverence
16% Parents
13% Friends
12% Curiosity
8% Solemnity
8% Other
5% Spouse
3% Music

Combining some of this data, we can see that personal preferences (reverence, curiosity, solemnity, and music) account for 58% of the total, while peer influences (friends, spouses) account for  18% of the total. Thus, to the tune of 76%, the impetus to attend the Latin Mass among 18- to 39-year-olds seems to be largely coming internally from within their own generation, rather than being inherited from previous generations.

One important factor in the study seems to be a strong religious family life: 65% of the respondents’ fathers regularly attended Church, 75% of their mothers regularly attended Church, and fully 84% were raised in a married (but not remarried) household. And note that these fathers and mothers are the Baby Boomers and Gen Xers whose generations saw the steep decline in Mass attendance mentioned earlier.

It seems that those Boomers and Xers in the parent generations who retained a solid family structure and regularly attended Mass—whether or not they themselves attended a Latin Mass—helped set the stage for the Millennials and early Gen Z to rediscover tradition through personal and peer channels. Of course we cannot discount intellectual influence from older traditionalists online or elsewhere, but the trope of “cultish” parental influence is not borne out at all in this data. Fr. Kloster’s study suggests that these generations have come to the Latin Mass largely on their own and for their own reasons.

Fully 80% of Fr. Kloster’s respondents had thought of a priestly or religious vocation. This finding will come as little surprise to those in Latin Mass communities that, while often small, tend to generate vocations well beyond the norm. Moreover, men comprised 57% of those responding to the survey, while only being 49% of the population. All of these numbers are highly relevant to the priest shortage, and suggest a clear way out of it.

And as far as the laity goes, if the trend of 98% Mass attendance continues to hold across the wider Catholic world, it hints not just at potential to reverse the decline in attendance since Vatican II but to go even further and surpass the 1955 numbers of 73%-77% attendance across all age groups.

Fr. Kloster shared his thoughts with the Missive about that possibility. He theorizes that, in a few key respects, the Latin Mass today is unlike the Latin Mass of the 1950s. Priests are now saying the Mass slower, and they are offering more high Masses and solemn Masses. That more reverential approach seems to be bearing fruit.

“We are doing what the Vatican Council was supposed to do,” he said. “We are fixing all the gaps that should have been fixed.”

Overall, the findings are very encouraging, and this study will be worth continuing to unpack in the coming months and years. Kudos to Fr. Kloster and his team for taking the time to put data and actual numbers behind the anecdotal evidence that has been bandied about for a while.

A previous version of this article gave an incorrect number for the study population. -ed.

The liturgical year is a story of many layers, and one of those layers is closely tied to the natural world.

So, for instance, on the Ember Days–and those of summer begin today, as a matter of fact–the Latin Church specially marks the four seasons. Our Christmas hymns are filled with the piercing cold of winter, Easter with the blossoming of Spring, the time after Pentecost with the green growth of summer, and the apocalyptic Last Sundays of the liturgical year with the Autumn harvest.

So closely tied, in fact, is our ecclesiastical calendar to the natural cycles of the European continent that we hardly give it much thought. And since many of our churches here on the other side of the Northern Hemisphere have a similar climate and natural fauna, we can fully appreciate the Roman liturgical calendar just as it evolved across the Atlantic.

But our particular cultural and geographical environment can also offer us a new take on the Latin calendar that would not have necessarily been apparent in Europe.

A classic example is seen in this month of June: the month of the Sacred Heart.

June also marks the appearance of that very familiar fruit: the strawberry, which originally was bred from two wild varieties of the New World.

The American Indians were familiar with the original woodland strawberry, Fragaria virginiana. But their name for it did not match up with our modern English name–which refers, some think, to the straw that was used to mulch the fruit in England, or to the way it was strewn on the ground.

Instead, the tribes of the Eastern Woodlands called attention to what its shape and vivid red color immediately suggested. The Lenape called it wtehim–literally, “heart berry”. The Iroquois celebrated its arrival in June with a great national festival of thanksgiving, as the first berry to appear and the fulfillment of the promise of the Creator. They gave it many names such as the “the Great Medicine”, and ascribed wonderful qualities to it.

Here the natural world prefigured the supernatural…and the ancient cultures found their fulfillment in Holy Mother Church.

The Catholic Iroquois near Montreal–said by the early missionaries to have surpassed even the French Canadians in piety–largely preserved their culture intact except for “only that which vice had spoiled” in the pagan towns. These traditional concepts would have filled their minds as they gathered to hear the Introit of Holy Mass Iesos Raweriasatokenti, literally “Jesus-his-sacred-heart” right around the time when they were celebrating the strawberry’s arrival as they had done from time immemorial.

And we, whose ancestors have may have come to this continent from Europe, Africa, or Asia, can still hear their echoes in our own humble little gardens. With them we join in celebrating this month, not only the beginning of summer marked by these Ember Days of Pentecost, and not only the first fruits which Almighty God has provided us for our sustenance, but also the higher reality that they and the liturgy point us toward: the burning furnace of charity in the Sacred Heart of Our Savior.