Your news and your notes

Please share some good news with the readership.  And if there was some good point from the Sunday sermon you heard, let us know!

For my part, I have two points.

First, I received some nice – early but nice – greetings for my upcoming birthday.

Second, I wrapped my my 11 years long weekly column for The Wanderer, a column entitled What Does The Prayer Really Say? I sent my last column in last Thursday.  What a weird feeling.  After a break I might take up another.  In the meantime, I will continue with The Catholic Herald in the UK.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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44 Comments

  1. scarda says:

    My dog got TWO snake bites in one week (one a rattlesnake!) protecting us, and yet he survived. Great vet, great Creator and Guardian of Doggies.

  2. andreat says:

    We will be adopting our second child in a couple more weeks. Please pray it all goes smoothly.

  3. asperges says:

    19th after Pentecost. Dominican rite. Gospel of the King’s feast: it’s parallels with the course of salvation. The original guests made excuses and would not come, so the invitation went out to “both bad and good.” Holy Mother Church gives us the means of accepting the invitation through the right course of life in the Church and the sacrament of Confession. When questioned, the man who had no wedding garment was silent when questioned about it: judgement is not given without first being given the opportunity to repent. There are those who will not take the means of repentance even when offered. They remain “bound hands and feet” by their own obstinacy and are caste out. Thoughts on the absurdity of sin when seen against the reward of Salvation and what the phrase ‘many are called but few are chosen’ might mean.

  4. Ygnacia says:

    I was the fortunate recipient of an excellent homily today, partly regarding the subject of certain comments made recently about the Jewish people. Here is part of what I heard, that the burden of
    the Jews is also that of the whole human race. But to go from there to condemn Jews today, in general, of deicide, is wrong. Humanity is guilty of deicide. And humanity is redeemed by the One who was killed–including the Jews. They are redeemed although like all of us, they have to claim that redemption as theirs.

  5. Supertradmum says:

    The priest at the Cathedral of St. John’s in Malta spoke against abortion and homosexual civil unions, among other concerns. He was speaking on the fact that it was Mission Sunday here and we need to be missionaries in a world hostile our beliefs. He pointed out that through-out the entire world, there is a growing lack of morality and Christian sentiment. Here, in Malta, that is evident as well.

  6. Phillip says:

    I linked a verrrrry lapsed Catholic friend of mine to the old podcast of Fr. Z chanting the Exsultet, and he loved it. He’s now going through a Gregorian chant phase. And he’s considering going back to confession for the first time since his first communion (he’s 20 now). [Then my work here is done!] Reminds me a bit of how I found the Church. My attraction to the beauty and solemnity of the Roman Rite was there before I even started to ask myself, “Is any of this actually true?” Anyway, please pray for my friend.

    Assuming nothing crazy happens at MEPS, my best friend starts basic training with the Navy on Tuesday.

    I’ve been working out and have started a diet. I’ve lost three and a half pounds in the last ten days or so. I feel shallow even for posting that.

    And I passed my test for my driving licence (on the first ever Feast of Bl. Pope John Paul II – coincidence? I think not!). Fourth time’s the charm, as they say. I am now a licensed driver.

  7. JonPatrick says:

    Yesterday after Mass we had a nice birthday party for our priest, where I got to talk to some people from our old Latin Mass community that I had not seen in a while.

    Today my mother moves from the rehabilitation center where she has been for the last month or so to an assisted living facility. Please pray for her as she makes this transition.

  8. Benedict says:

    -The Eastern Province Dominicans have begun training in the Dominican Rite at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington DC.
    -The Annual All Saints Vigil at the Dominican House of Studies will be on October 31, 2011; join the Dominican Friars again as they honor the Saints with Readings, Night Prayer, Reliquary Procession, & the Litany of the Saints.
    -The friars have 3 more vocation weekends scheduled this academic year.
    -Please pray for their current novices

  9. kab63 says:

    Today is my second son’s 18th birthday. I now have 2 adult children who are astonishing people.

  10. Jeremiah says:

    Celebrated my wife’s birthday this week, getting to have couple time while her Parents watched our little one.

    Received two offers for jobs upon graduation, and accepted one which keeps us fairly close to family (a minor miracle in my field/region).

    Rehearsals for “The Path of Virtue” – a musical based on the book of Tobit – are going well. That’s always a fun one to explain to my Protestant friends… “So have you ever heard of the Septuagint, or the council of Jamnia?” Well done, enjoyable music, with a good emotional balance throughout (not too serious all the time, not flippant).

    Great call to personal holiness from our associate pastor. Teaching us of the three states of Illumination, Purification, and Unification. I’ve only heard about those on retreat with the Community or St. John. Also, talked about developing the love relationship with Christ and used the example of how he spends hours in front of the tabernacle because he wishes to be with the one whom he loves. I’ve seen him there, two, maybe three or four hours even.

    God is good. Especially with the recent search for jobs for this coming May when I graduate (God willing and I don’t die), I have been able to see His hand in my life for the past 7 years specifically to put me in this position, to get this job that lets me support and raise a family close to both our parents.

    Feeling very blessed:)

  11. Gail F says:

    Excellent homily yesterday about the “preferential option for the poor” and how there are many types of poverty, not just monetary poverty. Our parish is doing a seven-week focus on Catholic Social Teaching, which I was very dubious about (the focus, not the teachings!) but the homilies have all been excellent, really talking about what the teachings mean vs. what the trendy interpretations of them are. The priest yesterday talked about people who are just as suffering and poor (inside and invisibly), and needing just as much love and compassion and help as people begging on the streets. Very powerful and inspiring.

  12. Jack Hughes says:

    Good Sermon from the Priest about Love

  13. introibo says:

    Attended a college open house in NYC and attended a late afternoon OF Mass at Our Savior Church, said by the wonderful Fr. Rutler. My daughter and I introduced ourselves afterwards and I told him that since my daughter might be attending Baruch College down the street, we were scouting out parishes she might attend when we were there. He then started quoting a phrase from the Old Testament in Hebrew! Kind of cute. Great preaching, by the way. Wish we had him in our parish at home.

  14. pinoytraddie says:

    The Homily was about Ingridients needed To Love God and Neighbor,He Made passing mention of The Parable of The Good Samaritan.

    To My Dismay,The Priest Skipped The Kyrie for The Gloria!

  15. benedetta says:

    We heard in our homily the concrete ways the Church encourages the faithful for expression of love of God and neighbor.

    My (upper elementary age) son took roughly a month at a casual pace to work through Prima Latina from Memoria Press. He has now jumped into the next with enthusiasm. I have enjoyed learning along with him.

  16. MarkJ says:

    We had a great homily yesterday on Purgatory and about how we should strive at all cost to avoid it and instead become Saints in this life who will go directly to Heaven when we die. Our priest related how many of the Saints who had been shown visions of Purgatory at first thought it was hell due to the intensity of the torments they saw there. He said he didn’t want to hear another person say “Father, I’ll be glad to just make it to Purgatory”, because it’s not a place you want to be. He reminded us of the necessity of praying for the Poor Souls in Purgatory, and of the availability of ingulgences for ourselves and for the Poor Souls. Yesterday after Mass I took out my Book of Indulgences and put it on the coffee table as a daily reminder and resource for me and my family.

  17. Joseph says:

    In an adjacent parish, who have protestant couches for pews, they were ordered to put in kneelers and to kneel for consecration mandated by the archbishop. Further with the first Sunday of Advent no more Holy Communion under both species. Perhaps we are turning the corner here too.

  18. Joanne says:

    My good news: I’m at work and was just able to receive the Eucharist from one of our faithful Eucharistic Ministers!

  19. Father’s homily was on the distinction between being ‘religious’ and being ‘holy’, and made an analogy with the old film ’The Karate Kid’ regarding spiritual discipline. While the being holy is usually praised in our culture, being religious is usually scorned. However, Father stated that you can’t become holy without being religious in the first place. The trend of calling oneself ‘spiritual but not religious’ is quite harmful.

  20. sophiamarie3 says:

    I attend the TLM and on Sunday our priest was beaming with pride as he shared some of the points stressed by our bishop at a diocesan priest retreat: priests must distribute communion, a crucifix (with a corpus) must be present in the sanctuary, the importance of silence in the church, priests must say the sacramentals as written and may not make up their own, priests must use discretion in giving communion – only those in the state of grace may receive, the importance of priests hearing confessions. May God bless our bishop and strengthen him against his enemies!

  21. alexandra88 says:

    All Blacks won the Rugby World Cup! Woo hoo!

  22. chonak says:

    Will there ever be a book based on the WDTPRS columns?

  23. samgr says:

    From an Episcopalian Facebook friend in New York: “Another Sunday in the record book with another historical Mass. This one based on the 1789 Book of Common Prayer, with our founding rector’s Oxford Movement influence. Still a bit odd to be looking at the clergy’s backs. But, what good is a leader if he or she is looking back at the people being led, instead of ahead, toward the mutual goal. So having clergy facing liturgical east reminds us (and them, too) that they’re ‘leading the charge’ to God, and are not a higher power in themselves. I think it’s easy to lose sight of that at times.”

  24. Causus Omnium Danorum says:

    Our new arrival, daughter number four, was baptized and is now an official member of the family of believers!

  25. Glen M says:

    On Saturday morning I had the joyful experience of praying the Rosary with two of my God children (ages 8 & 5). I highly recommend it.

  26. capchoirgirl says:

    We had the Father Provincial for the Dominican Province of St. Joseph celebrate the noon Mass at our parish. His excellent homily was about the two greatest commandments mentioned in the Gospel. “Eternal life begins here and now when we love God with our whole heart, mind, and soul, and our neighbors as ourselves.”

  27. irishgirl says:

    Yesterday’s sermon at our TLM chapel had an interesting beginning.
    The priests who offer Mass here always start out their sermons with a story.
    On this Sunday, Father told a story about a lawyer who defended the 1920s gangster Al Capone. His nickname was ‘Easy Eddie’. Due to his connection with Capone, he became rather wealthy and had a nice house on a nice street in Chicago. He also had a young son, and he gave the boy everything he wanted and more for that period in history: money, cars, the best education.
    But then ‘Easy Eddie’ had a change of heart. He didn’t want his son to end up like him. He wanted his son to have a father who was a man of honesty and integrity.
    So he testified against Capone in court, and he paid for it with his life, getting himself shot up with bullets on a lonely street in Chicago.
    I was sitting right in front of the priest as he told this story, and I nearly raised my eyebrows in amazement as I listened. Then my expression became sad at the end when I heard that ‘Easy Eddie’ paid for his newly-discovered honesty with his life. But he did it for his son’s sake.
    Our priests find the most interesting stories to start out their sermons!

  28. worm says:

    Not sure it is good news, but it certainly something good I want to share. I found the following article at the NCR:

    http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/anita-caspary-dissenter-or-pioneer/

    I was taught by two of the loyal ones who did not follow the crowd but stuck to their vows and placed their trust in the Lord. They wore habits, they taught us Gregorian chant, and they planted the faith in us. They taught us the faith in class, but more importantly they taught us the faith with their lives. It is due to those two brave women that I am in the Church today.

  29. robtbrown says:

    First visit to Trader Joe’s. Bought 2 bottles of 3 buck (once 2 buck) Chuck and a canister of Pumpkin Spice coffee, which is delicious.

  30. Phil_NL says:

    Saying goodbye to your column must be weird indeed. Father, I hope you won’t have too much in the way of withdrawal symptoms!

    On the good news front: was away for the weekend, had to visit a Word and Communion service instead of Mass (no, that’s not good news), but heard the deacon ‘conducting’ that service would be ordained a priest next week. Now that’s a proper solution!

  31. MJ says:

    robtbrown – Trader Joe’s is awesome! Love that place. They have excellent meats & cheeses as well as snacks and chocolates, too. My brother is a huge fan of their salsas.

    Homily was about prayer and it’s importance in our daily lives.

    Good news: Thanksgiving plans underway!

  32. Margaret says:

    Exciting parenting milestone– doing the “cattle call” to round up the kiddos into the van to go to confession, I nearly had a heart attack when the two oldest children (17 & 16) informed me they had (independently of each other and of me) already gone to confession within the previous two weeks. I’ve been on them about this for a while, explaining that they’re growing up and need to start taking ownership and responsibility for their own Faith, but thanks be to God, it was lovely to see them actually listening for a change and putting it into practice.

  33. APX says:

    Good news? I feel like I’m on cloud 9 right now. I just had a young client in my office who was so remorseful about what she did that she had already gone to Confession. It’s so nice to get clients who are actually remorseful for what they do rather than just playing the system. It helps to remind me that I am actually in some way helping people to live better lives. I was also able to secularize a piece of Father’s advice from his sermon on Sunday in order to help her not do what she did again.

    Also, I’ll admit that I thought the use of a paten during communion to “catch crumbs” was a little over-the-top and that the amount of crumbs from hosts was pretty minimal and really not that big of deal. On Sunday while I was kneeling at the communion rail and the server past by me with the paten, the sun was shining on it, and I was quite amazed with how many crumbs it contained, many of them being quite sizeable. Our priest uses pretty sturdy hosts too, so I’d hate to see what the more crumbly hosts leave behind.

    As for Father’s sermon, it was about how it’s not simply good enough to “be a good person” in order to get into Heaven. He alluded to sacrilegious communion reception, and gave a helpful piece of advice to help avoid sinning, which I’m able to secularize and use with my clients who are struggling with realizing that their actions have consequences.

  34. QMJ says:

    There were 16 teens at our Dead Theologians meeting last night, and not one of them was forced to go. Pretty good for a small country parish. We talked about St. Aloysius Gonzaga.

    As for the Sunday sermon… Fr. V spoke about the importance of fathers in the raising of their children and particularly in raising them in the faith. He gave some interesting statistics. Let’s see if I can remember them correctly. 56% of children who are raised in the faith by both a devout father and mother remain in the Church when they are adults. 23% of children who are raised in the faith when only the mother is devout remain in the Church. 40% of children who are raised in the faith when only the father is devout remain in the Church. Yeah, fathers make a huge difference.

  35. Denita says:

    At Mass, Father spoke of prayer and recommended St. Francis deSales book “Introduction to the Devout Life.” Which I already have, BTW. Also I hope to be moving in novenmber to a place which is in walking distance to the church where I go to Latin Mass.

  36. pm125 says:

    The sermon, based on Jesus’ Two Great Commandments, was a look at what love means in those ccommandments. Emotions and feelings, being of self vs. sympathy and compassion, being of action. He said sympathy is good to have for another but it is limited, but compassion is the actual place from which that love is given, shown, and active. (I wish I took notes of examples and the little attention getting funny thing at the start. Could never remember punch lines.) Like sending a sympathy card to a bereaved person vs. giving a meal, or a hand with things to be done type of activity. To ease burdens, or bring comfort.
    Good news = haven’t seen a mosquito for a couple of days now.

  37. Desert Catholic says:

    Bishop Olmsted presided at Mass yesterday at our church in Scottsdale. He gave a wonderful homily on God’s love and then blessed our beautiful new Parish Center after Mass. I serve as Music Director for our parish, and we crammed our choirs of roughly 30 adults, 35 children and a 10 piece-orchestra into our music area for some glorious music. We are truly blessed!

    Oh, and I think the high today here in Phoenix will finally be less than 90…more good news!

  38. Xmenno says:

    We had our first mass in the new parish “chapel” while our Cathedral is closed for a year for renovations. The homily by our Associate Pastor was so good that I did not miss the Cathedral’s beauty at all. We had stately hymns and choir anthems, and we are singing the new missal settings in a chant mode.

  39. Joanne says:

    “and a canister of Pumpkin Spice coffee, which is delicious.”

    Did you forget where you are? I think you meant to say you just received the several bags of Mystic Monk coffee you ordered and plan on buying many more in the near future… ; )

  40. James Joseph says:

    They are training Dominicans in the Dominican rite. Wow! ~Fancy-dance~

    I knew the Carthusians prayers would keep the Church in good-spirits.

    Lemme’ know if they are training Trappists in the Cistercian Rite. Would ya’?

  41. pm125 says:

    To amend 10/24 6:35 comment:
    Sympathy falls in with the emotions and feelings – compassion stands as the action of love.
    Remembered how Father explained it. Jesus asked: when he was hungry, did you feed him; when he was naked, did you clothe him; when he was in prison, did you visit? These conditions symbolically represent today’s conditions. Compassion for others.
    Opening was, in short, a 50th wedding anniversay celeb. where someone asked the wife if she ever thought of divorce – she answered no, only of murder a few times.

  42. Fr: WHAT? I just saw this. No more Wanderer column? The new translation is coming and now you are done?! I’m completely depressed now.

  43. Cathy_of_Alex: Yep. It was time.

    However…. I might have something else to fill that spot. I’m thinking about it.

  44. Fr: I’ve no doubt you will be successful at whatever you do. Thank you for that column. I learned much from it. I’ll pray for you.

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