We need to bring back not only frequent crossings and bowings, which are traditional part-and-parcel of Eastern and Western liturgy, but breast-beating especially. I do some of all three, thus marking me off as a weirdo, of which I am proud. Ritual breast-beating, at the penitential rite but also at any of the frequent points during Mass when our sinfulness is mentioned, expresses the sense of sin in such a way as to help open us to the hope and glow of mercy. Come to think of it, perhaps that's why it has all but disappeared in the Novus Ordo. The sense of sin has become badly attenuated, so that people don't want to make a big deal out of sin at Mass any more than by going to confession. All the more reason to bring it back, and all the more explanation why it probably won't be brought back in the foreseeable future.
From fetal pain to the impermissibility of abortion
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At some point in pregnancy it is widely acknowledged that fetuses start to
feel pain. Estimates of this point vary from around seven to thirty weeks
of g...
2 hours ago