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“This blog is like a fusion of the Baroque ‘salon’ with its well-tuned harpsichord around which polite society gathered for entertainment and edification and, on the other hand, a Wild West “saloon” with its out-of-tune piano and swinging doors, where everyone has a gun and something to say. Nevertheless, we try to point our discussions back to what it is to be Catholic in this increasingly difficult age, to love God, and how to get to heaven.” – Fr. Z
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- on ROME 24/4– Day 34 (-7): The burial place of… PLATO?!?: “The final resting place of Plato puts me in mind of a memorable excerpt I once read about Aristotle in…”
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- on So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!: “What happened to Voyager 2? And what sort of “science” data will Voyager 1 soon be able to resume transmitting?…”
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- on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: “The German grind continues. It is in their nature.”
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We had our “monthly” TLM this afternoon at 4:00pm. Twas a low Mass and very beautiful. Used a set of Roman vestments, violet, out of our collection. They are very old but very good shape. Our choir is rapidly getting ready for a Missa Cantata this spring. Our priest is a little worried about his first sung Mass. Says he’s practicing. Need to get them all together for a practice. Our white Roman vestments arrived! Got a complete color collection now and all useable. God is good.
Our pastor delivered an excellent homily about giving over to God like Mary did. Sometimes we have our whole day planned, and then it rains, and our priorities change. Instead of mowing the lawn or jogging, we’re cleaning toilets or reading a book. Mary’s plans changed, and she didn’t question why. She acquiesced. She didn’t know what the angel was talking about and when given an explanation she didn’t know how it was possible. But she simply responded, Be it done unto me. We are called to respond to God in the same way. We don’t need to comprehend the plan or how it’s going to unfold. We simply need to give over. God knows what needs to happen in our lives each day. If we give over, and let God set the priorities, then all will be well. We are always at the top of God’s priority list, and he knows what he needs to have happen in each moment of our day. We don’t, and we don’t need to. All we need is to trust and surrender like Mary.
I am from the Philippines and I Just purchased myself at my favorite Catholic Bookshop a New Daily Roman Missal! In fact I am it’s first buyer(the translation will take place next year)Thank God! and yes I had it Blessed, although I still have the old-proudly-soon-to-be-trashed copy.
During his sermon,the priest asked: “What is the most sung Christmas Carol in the world?” Answer: Gloria in Excelsis Deo(Mass). he then goes on to say that Every Decoration in the house should point to the star of Christmas:Jesus.
Excellent sermon on a theme of “do not be afraid” to echo the “fiat” of Our Lady. We should accept Jesus’ call to holiness in our lives fearlessly and with joy.
Great sermon about the responsibility of fathers to see that their children are raised in the Faith. Father cited statistics that if the father doesn’t attend church, even if the mother does attend and is even very devout, the odds are greater than 50% that the children wil not grow up to be regular church-goers.
Fiat voluntas tua, or thy will be done, if you prefer, Fiat is a whole lot more affirmative and profound and willed than just, true, but incomplete” Our Lady said Yes”.
Our oldest daughter received the Sacrament of Confirmation yesterday! Our Weihbischof gave an excellent homily that spoke to every person in attendance. The content of the Parish Confirmation preparation leaves much to be desired and much to be thrown out. Even so, I have a very good feeling about our 15yr old. She does love Holy Mother Church!
Good News: The Carol Service of the school where I used to be a governor. This is a proper carol service, with unchanging readings from scripture (beginning with the Fall and ending with John 1:1-18), a mixture of traditional carols sung by all and glorious Christmas music sung by the superb Schola, accompanied by an equally excellent Brass Consort. Special moment: the first reading, by the newly appointed Headmaster (who we had feared wouldn’t be appointed). Sublime moment: Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament (O Salutarius, Tantum Ergo, Divine Praises, Adoremus), reading by the School Chaplain of the Gospel of Christmas Day with Our Lord present, followed by Benediction. This, for me, is the start of Christmas.
Homily: The childlike understanding of his relationship with God that prompted David to want to build him a house explains God’s election of David as Head of Israel’s royal line, despite his many sins and transgressions. God rejects David’s offer, because God will not be contained in one place, but responds by promising David that his line will rule over Israel forever; this promise is fulfilled by the birth of the Son of God into David’s line. We know that God cannot be contained in one place, not least because we have the gift of Our Lord present in every church throughout the world, but we respond by taking it for granted. Do we observe silence in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament? Do we genuflect with due reverence when entering and leaving the church and when passing the Tabernacle? Do we receive Our Lord in Holy Communion with full consciousness of this great gift, or do we mechanically “take it”? The Mass setting was Missa Alma Redemptoris Mater by Victoria, and the Offertory motet was an Ave Maria especially composed for the occasion by our visiting organist. Moment of revelation: until yesterday, I had never realised that the prayer we say at the end of the Angelus is the Collect for the 4th Sunday of Advent (until yesterday, it was completely unrecognisable as such).
Our homily at the TLM we attended yesterday used the theme of the Rorate Coeli of the Introit. Father made an analogy between the dew dropping from heaven and the earth bringing forth a Savior, with God’s grace coming down on us from above to our soil. But is our soil ready to receive grace or is it hard and will the water run off to a lower more humble place? He gave several areas of our interior lives that we can prepare ourselves to receive the heavenly grace of Christ. These included capacity to learn, capacity for relationships (something I need to work on), communicating honestly, and several others. Definitely food for thought in preparing for Christmas.
Dominican EF rite: Sermon on the importance and binding nature of Conscience, inspired by the Epistle (1 Cor 4) and the necessity of following one’s conscience and how to go against it is sinful. Conscience is a gift given to all, believers and non-believers alike. Nevertheless one’s conscience must be informed. Confession brightens the light on conscience and a dull conscience will tolerate sin. Example of a Protestant who in conscience as a Protestant originally could not kneel to what she did not believe to be the Blessed Sacrament at a Catholic procession. She hid as the procession passed and said in her heart to God, “I cannot in conscience kneel: I will only kneel to you.” to which He replied, “But here I am.” She converted went on to found an order of nuns.
The theme was God chose us. Spoke at length of Him choosing Mary. Also said good works are the result of our allowing God’s grace work through us not by us independently.
Yesterday our Pastor gave his homily on the dignity of human life and how abortion is a sin aginst God’s commandment. It was ( I believe ) the first time in 13 years that I heard him mention this topic. Praise to You Lord Jesus Christ, King of endless glory.
pax et bonum
Our pastor’s homily was on a few of the doctrinal points that sets the Catholic church apart from the various denominations, which discussion eventually led to the topic of universal spiritual motherhood of Mary, and her Fiat.
I’m at that “dizzy” stage of pregnancy where one must spend much of Mass trying not to faint or fall over, so I’m sure it was more elaborate and interesting than what little I remember. :-)
Good news: A woman from my church for whom I have been praying announced that her cancer is in remission! Praise God! Great way to start the week.
Sermon: “Good is hard.” Not the most elegant sentence in the English language, but his point was this – anything good is hard work. A good job, a good marriage, a good friendship, whatever. Moses, the Prophets, John the Baptist, and Mary all knew that what God was asking of them was hard, but they did it anyway. They were able to perservere because of their faith. “Nothing is impossible with God.” It’s easy to forget that this isn’t just a line in the Bible about a virgin conceiving; it applies to our own “impossible” or difficult situations as well.
Our sermon was about the Archbishop who died three weeks ago, as the Mass was a Memorial for him. I found this really odd. Can a Memorial Requiem, even of a Bishop, top the Fourth Week of Advent? His funeral was earlier this month.
The only thought I took away was that John the Baptist decreased as Christ increased and we, of course, should do the same.
Heard a stunning sermon, during a jam packed mass at the Cathedral Parish of St. Patrick, Charlotte, NC. Father began the sermon speaking about discerning our vocations – using our Lady’s fiat as the greatest example for properly answering our vocations – on how to say an unconditional, all willing and free “yes” to what God wants us to do with our lives.
But.. but then he steered the sermon beautifully to show how our Lady’s fiat resulted in a “virginal supernatural conception” and contrasted that with the evil of “unchaste artificial contraception” (the opposite of our Lady’s “Virginal supernatural conception”) and spent the next 15 minutes not just saying “artificial contraception is a sin” but shredding it to pieces using theology and science.
St.Joseph the Worker (FSSP), Tyler, Texas. Father often manages to shed a different light on things. His homily was based on the Gospel of the day, Luke 3: 1-6). Luke makes it a point to tell us of the politics and civil situation of the day under the Romans and the Judean High Priests. Father went on to say that God does things at particular times for particular reasons. John the Baptist, the “voice of one crying in the wilderness,” was able to be heard and to draw people to him, preparing them for the coming of Christ, because the times were peaceful. Our souls hear the voice of God more clearly in silence. If it were a time of warfare and chaos, the message of Christ as He began his ministry would not have been so easily heard and spread. The time was right for the redemption of mankind.
Good news: seeing your top entry, Father Z, about the approval of the miracles for two Blesseds of New York State, Mother Marianne Cope and Kateri Tekakwitha! Woo Hoo! Two more new Saints for America, and for New York State! (still doing a ‘happy dance’)
Also, yesterday the priest who is the ‘chant master’ of the traditional seminary which serves my TLM chapel heard our ‘tiny choir’ sing part of the ‘Mass of the Angels’ for a future High Mass. He also came upstairs to play some chords on the organ and show us how to make the chanting more ‘leggato’ (smoother). He’s got a nice singing voice as well.
Sunday sermon: the same priest gave a strong sermon about St. John the Baptist, using the texts from Isaiah which were in Gospel of St. Luke. I complimented him on the sermon before he left the choir loft, and I said to him, ‘You almost sounded like John the Baptist!’ He kind of smiled at that!
And as an added treat, the organist gave him an old Roman Graduale which someone gave her. Inside the fly leaf was the autographed signature of Pope St. Pius X, with his motto, ‘To Restore All Things In Christ’ written above his name, also in his own hand!
Good news: at the church where we normally go to Confession there were 40 people in line for Confession!!!! That was actually too many for us to be sure we’d get in before the time ended, so we went back to our parish and had Confession there instead.
Middling news: our pastor has been sick for a while and away from us, and while away he tendered his resignation to the Bishop, who has accepted his retirement. Please pray for our parish.
Went to a Eucharistic Miracles exhibit and Relics of the Saints exhibit this past week. Was very edifying and inspiring.
The sermon this week was about how we have become almost inoculated by the familiarity of what has been revealed to us regarding the Incarnation of Christ when we should be held in shock and awe at the reality of what God has done for us.
I attended a Low Mass said by a diocesan priest who learned it under his own initiative and was encouraged to do so by the Bishop. This is the first of a regularly scheduled monthly TLM. Father talked about mystery much as Fr. Z does in his homiily and happily observed that the TLM is the Mass of the Saints, from St. Gregory the Great to St. Pio. This event is an answer to many prayers and Rosaries and is definitely a brick by brick moment!
Well, our good news is that it’s a boy! We just had the first ultrasound, and the little mite growing in my wife is a son! Due date is May 15th, which is just after commencement, so we’ll so how my last dead/finals weeks go with a wife ~38 weeks pregnant… Here’s praying for understanding professors/teammates!
My good news is a minor detail: the bonsai we took home over the summer dropped most of its leaves. I was despairing but continued to water what was left and today I discovered tiny green leaves sprouting all over!
Solemn high Mass of Christmas next Sunday at Holy Ghost Church in Knoxville, with three young diocesan priests as celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon. Preceded by half-hour program of traditional Christmas music. Gregorian chant propers and sacred polyphony ordinary: Missa Octavi Toni (Orlando di Lasso).
Details: http://www.knoxlatinmass.net/newsletter.htm
benedetta: the bonsai.
What an ordeal. Penjing, a Fukien Tea, too, is struggling. While I was gone on a trip the person coming in did not water and then massively overwatered. Every single leaf dropped. There are tiny shoots here and there, but I am about to go away on another trip and am pretty sure it’ll be killed by the time I get back.
In the dark early hours of last Thursday morning, my daughter gave birth to her third child and third son.
All are well. Deo gratias!
Father pointed out that next Saturday and Sunday Masses are likely to be very crowded as there will be quite a few people who usually attend Mass only twice a year…he said that these people would likely be far less affected by what he preaches than by how WE act toward them. He reminded us to be patient in the parking lot, kind in the pews, and to reach out to anyone we don’t recognize. He also said that we should be his “eyes and ears” in protecting the Bl. Sacrament, and if someone who is in the back or one of the side areas for communion and doesn’t seem to know what he/she is doing with regard to proper reception – to help them out in charity.
Is it ok to share some more good news? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTSoD4BBCJc