Reclaiming Tradition book giveaway! and bits & pieces

July 04, 2020

I urge you to read Peter Kwasniewski’s new book, Reclaiming Our Roman Catholic Birthright: The Genius and Timelessness of the Traditional Latin Mass. (affiliate link)

And I’m giving a copy away!

I have all my readers in mind for this book, whether you are already a lover of Tradition, or go to the Novus Ordo Mass, or are Protestant, or are Jewish, or don’t quite believe in anything but just like coming here anyway because you appreciate the collective memory… this book is for you.

Certainly, for Catholics, many sensed a disturbance during the shutdown. It seems that many of our bishops and clergy have suddenly forgotten this Gospel: “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Mt 10:28)

I keep getting messages that I’ve compressed into one, so you can get the idea (and perhaps you have thought these thoughts too):

Our parish had been moving in the direction of Latin at our Novus Ordo Masses, and more sacred music, but during the shutdown this trend has stalled or even reversed. We’re now required to receive Holy Communion in the hand. We are concerned about our children. What are they learning? Why has the Traditional Latin Mass church in the next state been offering the Sacraments but our priests are nowhere to be found? Will my children grow up in the faith? Will they remain Catholic?

Prof. Kwasniewski’s book comes at the right time. There is no way he could have known that many would be asking questions about how we worship — about how we express eternal truths — even more intently than ever before due to the pressure brought on by Covid, yet the answers he has been giving for years, collected here and presented systematically, satisfy them all thoroughly and with great clarity (and charity).

Prof. Kwasniewski, a theologian and writer, covers many aspects of Tradition, from the virtues of the Traditional Latin Mass itself to questions about active participation and provocatively, “Good and Bad Liturgical Parenting.”

For me, it’s all compelling, but the sections that inspire the most, that have the most potential to awaken a desire and the will to recover our true heritage, are about the importance of offering something sublime, time-tested, and challenging on every level to our children — something they can’t outgrow or come to find silly when compared to beliefs the world has to offer.

These are themes I stress here all the time: seeking out what is noble and timeless for the future generations. Why would we then offer them something weak, watered down, and constantly changing when it comes to worship? Or, as we have found in these past months, something that its leaders shockingly find easily dispensable?

To encourage you to read the book and get a copy for a loved one, I am offering one here to one winner of the giveaway — just leave a comment to enter!

bits & pieces

A cornerstone of my philosophy of education (and life in general) is Order and Wonder. I was happy to read this piece on the subject of wonder without dogma (order in belief).

Twenty of the best backyard games. Recover normal childhood!

“Carnegie medal winner Geraldine McCaughrean has castigated the books industry for dumbing down language in children’s literature, warning that a new focus on ‘accessible’ prose for younger readers will lead to ‘an underclass of citizens with a small but functional vocabulary: easy to manipulate and lacking in the means to reason their way out of subjugation’.”