I just got off the phone with an octogenarian parish priest.
My God!…what an inspiration.
Friends, pray for and encourage your priests.
I just got off the phone with an octogenarian parish priest.
My God!…what an inspiration.
Friends, pray for and encourage your priests.
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“He [Satan] will set up a counter-Church which will be the ape of the Church because, he the devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the anti-Christ that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ. In desperate need for God, whom he nevertheless refuses to adore, modern man in his loneliness and frustration will hunger more and more for membership in a community that will give him enlargement of purpose, but at the cost of losing himself in some vague collectivity.”
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"But if, in any layman who is indeed imbued with literature, ignorance of the Latin language, which we can truly call the 'catholic' language, indicates a certain sluggishness in his love toward the Church, how much more fitting it is that each and every cleric should be adequately practiced and skilled in that language!" - Pius XI
"Let us realize that this remark of Cicero (Brutus 37, 140) can be in a certain way referred to [young lay people]: 'It is not so much a matter of distinction to know Latin as it is disgraceful not to know it.'" - St. John Paul II
Grant unto thy Church, we beseech Thee, O merciful God, that She, being gathered together by the Holy Ghost, may be in no wise troubled by attack from her foes. O God, who by sin art offended and by penance pacified, mercifully regard the prayers of Thy people making supplication unto Thee,and turn away the scourges of Thine anger which we deserve for our sins. Almighty and Everlasting God, in whose Hand are the power and the government of every realm: look down upon and help the Christian people that the heathen nations who trust in the fierceness of their own might may be crushed by the power of thine Arm. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. R. Amen.
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We are blessed to have one in our city. He is an amazing man who remains very active despite his age. An inspiration indeed.
Had to look up that one…
Google Search for Octogenarian
I hope to die as such one day.
Yes, the diocesan priest back home who says the EF Mass is 85 or 86 I believe. Still does all the genuflections too!
Our PP has about three decades to go before he reaches octogenarian status. I think he was ordained less than 10 years ago. He has learned to celebrate the Mass in Latin for those of our parish community who wish to attend that Form. He has strengthened the Legion of Mary, of which he is the chaplain, so that the majority are now men. He only has male altar servers. etc… etc…
Our choir leads us in the Kyrie Eleison at Mass, as well as the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei and they are learning the Gloria in Latin which I expect them to have perfected by Easter. We also have many of the old theological hymns back.
I heard that before he came to be our parish priest, two previous parishes complained about him to the bishop because he does not permit some of the things perpetrated by Liturgy Committees in other parishes. The last time I spoke to our bishop, I thanked him for sending us this priest.
He is one of the few priests in recent decades that I have heard condemn not only abortion, but also contraception and fornication, from the pulpit – several times. He is straight-forward, down to earth and hard-hitting. Doesn’t have a politically correct bone in his body…and the kids love him!
Hi Father,
ours is a “twinned” parish, in a small town, where generally two older priests (both septuagenarians) normally alternate between the parishes. Every now and then another, third priest, in his mid-eighties, will say Mass. This particular priest was my family’s parish priest in the mid-seventies, still condemns sin, promotes Confession and Marian devotion, especially daily Rosaries. It’s always a joy to see that he is celebrating Mass, although his health is poor. I will add, without further comment, that he also quiet does not require assistance from Extraordinary Eucharistic ministers. I think in many ways, we’re blessed by all three, although the one I mention has been a personal inspiration.
We lost our beloved pastor earlier this year at the age of 78. He battled cancer for about 5 years, and fought slowing down every step of the way. He would still concelebrate Mass here and there after our new pastor arrived, even as he had to start using a walker to get up the aisle. It was clear he wanted to work all the way up to the end, just as two of our Jesuits back home worked well into their mid-nineties.
The fact that so many continue full-tilt up to the end is deeply inspiring. I got to thinking after another great homily from our younger priest this week that a “glass-half-full” attitude is worth remembering: the fact that we have so many good and faithful priests is proof that the Holy Spirit is alive and well and working in His Church.
When my daughter was at college in North Carolina, her confessor was the World’s Oldest Jesuit – must have been in his 90s at the time. Old-fashioned, straight-up Jesuit from the days when they were the shock troops of the Church. She really admired him – used to take him cookies and find him sitting in the rectory parlor, afghan on his knees, reading his breviary.
When I was attending the TLM in Richmond, VA we had a fine parish priest who earned his Eagle Scout Award in 1943, fought at Okinawa in ’45, and became a Benedictine priest after the war. He had an incredible influence on generations of Richmond Catholics, and up until this summer (when the parish was given to the FSSP) he heard confessions and said Mass daily. He is still quite active as Prior at the Benedictine Abbey in Richmond. What an inspiration.
It was so moving to see the continuity, even if there was a hiccup in between.
On the other hand……
Had a conversation with a retired priest, who spent the entire time bemoaning the new translation and a younger priest who “likes Latin!!!”
He still serves us, which is good.