exclamation

Important notice: To continue serving our valued readers during the postal disruption, complete unrestricted access to the digital edition is available at no extra cost. This will ensure uninterrupted digital access to your copies. Click here to view the digital edition, or learn more.

As lovely as snow can be, it is not always a blessed thing.
As lovely as snow can be, it is not always a blessed thing. Photo by Mickey Conlon

Snow as sin: more toil than play

By 
  • February 12, 2015

“Benedicite glacies et nives Domino; laudate et superexaltate eum in saecula!”

During the ice storm of 1998, a friend of my uncle took a photograph of an outdoor crucifix in Montreal, thinly covered in ice and surrounded by trees encased as if in shimmering glass.

It is hauntingly beautiful and I had it framed for my office, where it now hangs. I put the above inscription under it — “Bless the Lord, frosts and snows; sing praise to Him and highly exalt Him forever!” — taken from the song of the three young men from the Book of Daniel. Their hymn, in which all of creation, including the ice and snow, praise God, appears in the breviary and, according to a venerable tradition, constituted part of the priest’s thanksgiving after offering the Holy Mass.

I pray the canticle and savour its poetic cadences. I firmly believe that all created things give glory to their creator, albeit imperfectly. As for the snow though, my heart is not in it. I don’t like the snow. It doesn’t generate piety within me; quite the opposite.

Digital Columnists

The article you have requested is only available to subscribers of the Catholic Register.

There are two ways to read this article.

1. Subscribe to our digital edition and read the complete newspaper, plus additional features, on your PC, laptop or tablet.  Subscription rates start at just $3.99.

2. Subscribe to our weekly newspaper and have the print edition delivered right to you door each week.

More in this category: « Oscar Romero, a martyr’s life that is worth rejoicing Benedict Daswa African martyr »

Please support The Catholic Register

Unlike many media companies, The Catholic Register has never charged readers for access to the news and information on our website. We want to keep our award-winning journalism as widely available as possible. But we need your help.

For more than 125 years, The Register has been a trusted source of faith-based journalism. By making even a small donation you help ensure our future as an important voice in the Catholic Church. If you support the mission of Catholic journalism, please donate today. Thank you.

DONATE