19th Sunday of the Year Reflection
What does it mean to have life until the age to come? All of us live as though we have more time; more time to do things; more time to be with loved ones...
Category: Liturgy
18th Sunday of the Year Reflection
In today’s gospel story, we are given a great example of such incomprehension. The crowds that have gathered around Jesus don’t understand and look for a sign such as their ancestors received. The...
17th Sunday of the Year Reflection
Fr John Allen Green OFM – I recently had lunch with someone I have known for almost five decades. He shuffled around the kitchen complaining of this and that, bemoaning how “things are not...
Ordinary Time is Anything But Ordinary
I have a difficulty regarding the naming of one part of the liturgical year which I would like to share with Southern Cross readers, to discover whether I am alone with this problem. That difficulty is the use of the word “ordinary” as in “Ordinary Time”.
How Music Can Call Back Ex-Catholics
Music in churches should be “beautiful and magnificent”, but also hospitable and accessible to everyone, according to an expert in liturgy.
Advent is Waiting for Christmas but includes lots of Feasts
During the four weeks of Advent, the worldwide Church is not idle – here are some of the feasts that are celebrated. It celebrates plenty of major feasts with lots of customs, traditions and even special foods during the month of December.
Why Our Statues Are Not Idols
We know that images and statues of Christ and the saints are nothing more than plaster, wood or paint. As such they have no magical powers.
Pope: Stop taking Smartphone Snapshots during Mass
The Mass is not a show, but a beautiful, transformative encounter with the true loving presence of Christ, Pope Francis said
Why Do We Burn Incense in Church?
Incense has been used in the Catholic liturgy for ages. But doesn’t its use come from pagan origins?
Mass Translations: Bishops Can Now Approve Them
A document released by Pope Francis that gives bishops’ conferences greater power in introducing liturgical texts will have no immediate impact on the current English missal but will facilitate the approval of translations into South Africa’s other languages, according to the bishop responsible for liturgy in Southern Africa.
Pope Highlights Bishops’ Role in Mass Translations
In changes to the Code of Canon Law regarding translations of the Mass and other liturgical texts, Pope Francis highlighted respect for the responsibility of national and regional bishops’ conferences.
A Liturgical Peace
Pope Francis set down a marker recently when he affirmed “with certainty and magisterial authority that the liturgical reform” which followed the Second Vatican Council “is irreversible”.
