Dr. K’s Weekly Roundup, February 14, 2026
Suspending Weekly Roundup
This Lent, I am entering into the desert (metaphorically speaking). I feel a strong need to fast from social media and abstain from controversy, in order to concentrate on prayer and reading. The knowledge that many others annually adopt the same practice encourages me in my resolve.
There is also a particular reason for scaling back public engagement: the need to concentrate on finishing my next book, a comprehensive defense of the traditional lectionary and a critique of its modern replacement. Dispersed attention is incompatible with the concentration required for such a task.
Thus, I will not be producing the Weekly Roundup. In its place, I am introducing a new feature, more meditative and, I hope, more refreshing: “A Poem, a Prayer, and a Passage.” Each Saturday, I will share a poem, a prayer, and a passage, thematically connected; and I will record voiceovers so that you can enjoy them read aloud, which is the best way to savor such texts. It will also be more personal inasmuch as these texts will often be of my own composition—a chance to share with you a different side of my work.
I will continue to mention new books released by Os Justi Press. We have some wonderful titles coming out soon, and those deserve to be known.
I will also continue to engage with readers at Pelican+Social. Remember, if you sign up at Pelican+ and register at Pelican+Social, you will be sent email notifications of my new articles and have the opportunity to comment on them. It’s a quieter and more positive environment—one well-suited to the observance of Lent. (I’m still getting the hang of our “sister site,” Pelican+Social, so if I don’t reply right away, don’t take it personally. Whenever I notice there’s a comment, I try to respond in kind.)
I wish you all a very blessed Lenten observance as we seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.
Relevant is William Bloomfield’s “A Beginner’s Guide to Mental Prayer”:
A few years ago, I read Dom Chautard’s The Soul of the Apostolate and became convinced of his thesis: the interior life must come first; our good works and apostolates will follow as the good fruit of a sound interior life. As I’ve tried to implement Chautard’s teaching in my own life, its truth has become more and more apparent. I’ve also come to see that his teaching is nothing less than the teaching of Christ in the Gospels (“Seek first the Kingdom of God”) and of St. Paul (“Pray without ceasing”).
Clothed with Beauty
For decades, the Catholic conversation on dress has decried the loss of modesty in today’s fashions. And there’s no doubt this is a huge problem. However, immodesty is just one symptom of the ravaging disease that has made our world a sartorial wasteland. This disease is a hatred of beauty and a glorification of ugliness. It comes in many subtle forms, but its rotten fruits are all around us. The ugliness of our clothing has a devastating effect on our souls. It is time for Catholics to demand something better.
In Clothed with Beauty: A Catholic Philosophy of Dress—the latest release from Os Justi Press—Anna Kalinowska draws on Church teachings, the Catholic philosophical tradition, and fundamental principles of art to diagnose insidious and far-reaching problems with today’s fashions. Written for anyone interested in cultivating beauty in everyday life, this book provides concrete artistic instruction along with answers to such perplexing questions as:
What exactly does it take for clothing to be beautiful?
Why are many of today’s modest options actually so unattractive?
Can clothing be both modest and beautiful?
Is the quest for beautiful clothing a kind of vanity or waste of time?
How do we begin a restoration of the art of dress?
In addition, Kalinowska assesses treatments of this topic by such authors as Przybyszewski, Goldstein, von Hildebrand, Noonan, Boudreau, Hammond, Caruso, Sokolowski, Fallon, et al. She shows why the more recent writing on women’s fashion tends to be very inadequate.
Every reader—young or old, man or woman—stands to gain from engaging with this wonderful, thought-provoking, and (I would say) life-changing work.
Liturgical Lessons
Canon, cont’d
Michael Foley on the “Per ipsum” of the Roman Canon.
Vancouver curiosities
At NLM, I share lots of pictures of the interesting things I saw when I visited Vancouver cathedral and its rectory.