What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

A biretta tip o{]:¬) to Fr. Jim Tucker of Dappled Things who alerts us to a YouTube of the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen doing color commentary on the celebration of a Tridentine High Mass for Easter (Resurrexi) with Gregorian chant and choral/orchestral music. Check it out! I really like the irony of his statement during his description of the Vidi aquam about how the Church never drops its liturgical customs.

For some reason I couldn’t get the YouTube window to embed here, so I put it in a comment.

Today, on a boat in Pittsburgh, 12 women are pretending to get ordained. In their honor, a little riff on Gilligan’s Island has been written:

Come sit right back
and you’ll hear a tale,
a tale of some heretics
That started from a Pittsburgh port,
aboard a tiny ship.

The mate was a fan of labyrinths
The skipper was a nun
10 other women were on board
for sacramental fun.
(for sacramental fun)

The liturgy was getting rough,
The litany was long,
Invoking Lilith, Gaia too,
Seemed just a bit too wrong
(though not to Bishop Spong)

The ship set ground in a strange new world,
uncharted heresy
With lesbians And feminists
An acting deacon’s wife
Peace activists
And the rest
Here on Womanchurch Isle

So this is the tale of the priestesses
There here for a long, long time.
They’re sure to make a mess of things
And bitch and moan and whine.

No pope! No men! No canon law
Not a dime to Peter’s Pence!
Like Lollard, Hussites, Bogomils,
They’ve left out common sense.

So join us here each year my friend,
There’s sure to be more fun,
With a hearty shout, “non serviam!
My will, not Thine be done.”

FR. Z ADDS: I am not sure we will thank Tim for planting the Gilligan’s Island theme song in our heads, where it will no doubt stick for a while, but this was pretty good parody work, I’ll say.

Here is the Martyrologium Romanum entry for this great saint and founder of the Society of Jesus. (To the right is my photo of the statue of St. Ignatius atop the colonade of St. Peter’s Square in Rome).

Memoria sancti Ignatii de Loyola, presbyteri, qui, hispanus in Cantabria natus, in aula regia et militia vitam egit, donec, post grave vulnus acceptum ad Deum conversus, Lutetiae Parisiorum studia theologica complevit et primos socios sibi ascivit, quos postea in Societatem Iesu Romae constituit, ubi ipse fructuosum exercuit ministerium et in operis conscribendis et in discipulis instituendis, ad maiorem Dei gloriam.

This morning Holy Mass was celebrated at The Sabine Farm using the 1962 edition of the Missale Romanum and here is the spiffy:

COLLECT (1962MR)
Deus, qui ad maiorem tui nominis gloriam propagandam,
novo per beatum Ignatium subsidio militantem Ecclesiam roborasti:
concede; ut, eius auxilio et imitatione certantes in terris,
coronari cum ipso mereamur in caelis.

LITERAL VERSION
O God, who strengthened the Church militant with a new reinforcement through blessed Ignatius,
in order to spread widely the greater glory of Your Name,
grant that we, who are contending on earth by his help and example,
may deserve to be crowned with him in heaven.

The Novus Ordo Collect for Ignatius has been pretty much weenied down, I think:

COLLECT (2002MR)
Deus, qui ad maiorem tui nominis gloriam propagandam
beatum Ignatium in Ecclesia tua suscitasti,
concede, ut, eius auxilio et imitatione certantes in terris,
coronari cum ipso meramur in caelis.

Notice anything missing??

Here is a shot of the altar and tomb of the saint in the Church called the Gesù in the heart of Rome.

The other day I mentioned that at The Sabine Farm I had relics of Sts. Joachim and Anne.  I promised photos and here they are.

At the top is St. Joachim and in the center is St. Anne.  On the left is St. Nicholas (yes, Santa Claus), on the bottom is St. Blaise of throat-blessing fame, and at the right is St. Paul, the Blessed Apostle to the Gentiles.

I can here it now.  "But Father!  But Father!" you exclaim, stabbing your powered-sugar covered finger at the screen as you put down your piece of Turkish delight, "How can you be sure that these are real?  After all, St. Anne?  St. Joachim?  Why should we beleive that?"  Well… you’ve got me there.  All I can say is that if you have proof that they are not real, please send it and I will take it under advisement.

This is a really old reliquary.  I am guessing it dates to the early part of the 18th c.  It was common (and still is) to put more than one relic in a reliquary.  There is a waxen seal on the interior part of the back, but I haven’t explored it yet.  There are no documents, alas.