A hope filled note from an old friend.

From an old friend, a hopeful note.

Also, he shows that Catholics can have a sense of humor.

Dear Fr. Z,

Everyone I spoke with after Mass today feels as I and many of your blogreaders do — we are all redoubling our efforts at holiness, including increased fasting, spiritual reading and prayer.  Every one I spoke with today. Nobody is disheartened.

Fasting is also good for the body, especially as we age, I hear.  I buy frozen Ezekiel bread at the commissary nearby, and the Ezekiel recipe contains all the amino acids necessary for humans. It’s a little cardboard-ish, but tolerable with a little butter or peanut butter.

NAME

(I hope the following isn’t too flippant for serious times, but it’s rather clever, I thought — was sent to me earlier today.)

Today’s “Entrance Hymn”:

 

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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

  1. Cradle Catholic says:

    A comment on 1P5 that I think is very good, so posting it here…as there is something more the laity can do in addition to prayer and fasting.
    Here’s the comment:
    IMPORTANT: please read the following link where Father Carlos Martin writes about his conversation with a friend in the Vatican. +Vigano’s credentials are impeccable. Read how impeccable they are in the link below where Vox has posted what Fr. Martin has written on his Facebook page.

    http://voxcantor.blogspot.com/2018/08/bergoglio-responds-to-vigano-sort-of.html

    Fr. Martin finishes by saying:

    “Friends, my advice to you is to write your bishop and demand that he request a COMPLETE AND FULL INVESTIGATION into the allegations brought forward by Archbishop Viganò. We are at a watershed moment in the life of the Church. If we don’t protect her from the wolves that have crawled into her and dwell inside her, we then have only ourselves to blame when more sheep are eaten alive, and the Church loses even more credibility in the eyes of the world.

    Archbishop Viganò’s report is a call to all the sons and daughters of the Church to personally intervene for her own health and safety.

    Cardinal Raymond Burke and Bishop Joseph Strickland (Bishop of Tyler, Texas) have already issued statements today calling for the same. Add your authority to theirs. Write your bishop today.”

  2. originalsolitude says:

    As we react these days to Archbishop Vigano’s statement and related matters, we need to be careful, for our own sakes, that we do not cross the line into sin. We need to care for our souls. Also, we go to priests and bishops to confess our sins expecting forgiveness; we now have a a chance for us to return the favour and extend forgiveness to them when they sin. I remember once hearing a priest say: “If we can excuse, we must excuse; if we cannot excuse, we must forgive.”

  3. Rachel says:

    I Googled “Vom Papstaustreiben” and I’m guessing it’s a Deformation-Era song against the papacy, but I can’t read the German…

    I’m glad to hear that others are motivated to get holy too. It reminds me of what Pope Benedict wrote decades ago as part of his famous prediction: “The future of the Church, once again as always, will be reshaped by saints, by men, that is, whose minds probe deeper than the slogans of the day, who see more than others see, because their lives embrace a wider reality. Unselfishness, which makes men free, is attained only through the patience of small daily acts of self-denial. By this daily passion, which alone reveals to a man in how many ways he is enslaved by his own ego, by this daily passion and by it alone, a man’s eyes are slowly opened….”

  4. Imrahil says:

    The German reads – for convenience to those unacquainted to Fraktur – as

    Vom Papstaustreiben

    Nun treiben wir den Papst heraus
    aus Christi Kirch und Gotteshaus,
    darin er mördlich hat regiert,
    unzählig viele Seel[e]n verführt.

    which translates to English as:

    On the Expelling of the Pope.

    No let us expel the Pope
    out of Christ’s Church and Temple
    wherein he has ruled murderously
    and seduced innumerously many souls.

    two notes: “expel”: austreiben; if related to the Devil the translation is “exorcize”, but it is also used for heathen practices concerning “expelling winter” in early spring and so forth.

    “seduce”: the intended meaning is not sexual, but intellectual/faith-wise.

  5. Alice says:

    As the organist for a Lutheran congregation, I know way more about Reformation hymnody than a nice Catholic girl should. May I suggest the following for the closing hymn? ;)

    “Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort,
    Und steur’ des Papsts und Türken Mord,
    Die Jesum Christum, deinen Sohn,
    Stürzen wollen von seinem Thron.”

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