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Now, more than ever, Catholic physicians and nurses need the patronage of Sts. Cosmas and Damian. They’ve become an optional memorial in the current Roman Calendar, displaced from their traditional feast day on Sept. 27 because the Church decided that St. Vincent de Paul is more significant to Catholics of our times. But Sts. Cosmas and Damian are always mentioned in the First Eucharistic Prayer and, since the Roman Canon was the Eucharistic Prayer for centuries, the fact these two brothers are included every time it is prayed suggests we learn something about them. They were doctors. They were born in Arabia. They seemed to have practiced their medical profession somewhere on the southern coast of Turkey. They were said to have taken no fee for their services, earning them the name anargy...

(Redux) Earlier this week, Cardinal Dolan of New York published a column in which he reflected on the results of the listening sessions in the archdiocese related to liturgy. In particular, he wrote about the complaint that Masses are “too long:” Could they be on to something? A liturgical scholar observed to me recently, “The greatest advance of liturgical renewal after the council was the restoration of the prominence and solemnity of the Easter Vigil. But the greatest negative of these last decades has been that every Sunday Mass is now as long as Holy Saturday!” The dismal stories the people shared with me reached litany length. Now, they tell me, Mass starts with music rehearsal, then an obligatory “greeting” to those around you. By then, we’re five minutes past when Mass was supposed...

Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs said her husband Andrew asked her after Mass, “Did you see the guy with Jesus hair?” She did see him and had wanted to run after him, but she hesitated, and now she regrets it. He would have made a great model. It was one leap she didn’t take, but only one. Four years ago, she and her husband took a chance, and now she supports the family full-time with their home business, Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs Sacred Art. She mostly paints commissions and also teaches painting in person. As a working mother and breadwinner, she’s something of an oddity in her community. “In my parish, many of the mothers stay home full time, and the husband works. I try to explain to people we chose to have this small business of making sacred art because it allows us to live the liturgical year...

Finding Peace in the Storm By Dan Burke Sophia Institute Press, 2023 144 pages, $17.95 To order: SophiaInstitute.com Over the past few years, some Catholic publishers have reintroduced classic spiritual writings to a new generation. That is a tremendous gift. Today, when so many of us Catholics seem inordinately focused on temporal affairs like politics, there is a need to refocus on the Last Things — and this can be well accomplished through spiritual reading.  Dan Burke’s Finding Peace in the Storm is a welcome addition to this category. His book not only polishes an old gem by St. Alphonsus Liguori, born Sept. 27, 1696, titled Uniformity With God’s Will, but guides a modern audience along the way. To appreciate St. Alphonsus’ writing, it is helpful to understand his biography. ...

For medical providers, her imminent death seemed all but sealed — even in the eyes of Dr. C. Everett Koop, a surgeon involved in her care who would later become the U.S. Surgeon General under the Reagan administration. While Koop helped remove Calandra’s bladder to provide her comfort, he likewise advised her parents to make preparations for her funeral. However, that day did not come to pass — as told by Calandra herself when recounting the story to “EWTN News In Depth.” “[Koop] said, ‘You need … to come to terms with this now, you can’t hang on to this dying child,” Calandra recounted. “And my mother went home, and she didn’t accept it.” Calandra described how her mother, a devout Catholic, picked up a book someone had given to her about Padre Pio and heard an inner voice as she read the...

September boasts a good number of Marian feasts and memorials: Our Lady’s Nativity (Sept.8), the Holy Name of Mary (Sept.12), Our Lady of Sorrows (Sept.15), and Our Lady of La Salette (Sept.19). But have you heard of Our Lady of Ransom (changed to Our Lady of Mercy after Vatican II)? Not many Catholics in North America have, but in Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries, the feast is widely known, particularly in Barcelona as she is the city’s patroness. The feast of Our Lady of Ransom was officially added to the liturgical calendar in 1960 to be celebrated on Sept. 24. So what is the story behind this title of Our Lady? Saracens, or Moors, captured much of Spain in the 13th century. They forced Christians into slavery. In 1218, Our Lady appeared to three men at the same ti...