YOUR URGENT PRAYER REQUESTS

Posted on 31 July 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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In your charity would you please take a moment look at the requests and to pray for the people about whom you read?

Continued from THESE.

Let’s remember all who are ill, who will die soon, who have died recently, who have lost their jobs, who are afraid.

I get many requests by email asking for prayers. Some are heart-achingly grave and urgent.

As long as my blog reaches so many readers in so many places, let’s give each other a hand. We should support each other in works of mercy.

If you have prayer requests, post them below.

You have to be registered here and approved to be able to post.

I received this request:

Hello, Fr. Z-
I wrote to you in June, asking for prayers for my unborn baby. Since then, the baby has shown many signs of improvement. Now, I am asking for your prayers that the doctors will find some healthy lung tissue so that they can take steps to preserve his or her life after birth. We have been praying through the intercession of St. Jude, St. Pio, St. Bernardine of Siena, St. John Paul, and Our Lady Undoer of Knots. We would appreciate your prayers immensely. Thank you!

 

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Daily NOT-Rome Shot 1677

Posted on 9 August 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From The World’s Best Sacristan™.

Welcome Registrant:

Neto

White to move and mate in 4.

Some of the tune you are not likely to have heard…

Not my place in Rome, but it’s pretty close!

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Your Sunday Sermon Notes – 11th Sunday after Pentecost (N.O.: 19th Ordinary)

Posted on 9 August 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Too many people today are without good, strong preaching, to the detriment of all. Share the good stuff.

Was there a GOOD point made in the sermon you heard at your Mass of obligation for this 11th Sunday after Pentecost in the Vetus Ordo (19th Ordinary Sunday in the Novus Ordo)?

Tell us about attendance especially for the Traditional Latin Mass.

Any local changes or (hopefully good) news?

A taste of what I offered at 1 Peter 5 this week.  I wrote about the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost but related it to the great feasts nearby.

[…]

There is encouragement for the sinner who looks back on wasted years. Saul became Paul. The persecutor became an instrument by which Christ’s name reached the nations. “By the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Cor 15:10). While life remains, grace can open what has been closed and make former failures material for humility, vigilance, gratitude, and apostolic zeal. Paul remembers that he persecuted the Church. Memories can be purified.  Our memory can focus and drive labor. “Abundantius illis omnibus laboravi … I labored more abundantly than all of them.” Under grace, the past becomes fuel for fidelity rather than paralysis.

[…]

 

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A bishop starts a new TLM, another takes one well-settled one away

Posted on 8 August 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Leo signaled to the French bishops that he wants them to be good to people who desire the Traditional Latin Mass.

The Bishop of San Angelo, Texas, starts a new TLM “motivated by the salvation of souls”.

And now we read that the Bishop of Pittsburgh, motivated by who knows what, has cancelled a long-standing Mass.

Motivated by what? Watch for the buzz-word in the first sentence of his letter:

Throughout my ministry as your bishop, I have sought to encourage the unity of our local Church and to help all of us grow ever more deeply in our love for the Eucharist and the sacred liturgy.

Did you spot it?

It might be understandable were to imagine that he could be currying favor.

Could one not curry favor be doing what he asked the French bishops to do?

BTW… they have not done what Leo asked.

Remember: It’s not about the Rites, it’s about the people who want those Rites.  They don’t just dislike the Rites, which make them squeamish, they don’t like the people who want them.

The Bishop of Pitt didn’t ask for an extension.  He could have.  He didn’t.   He says  made this choice after “consultation with experts on the matter, and with much time spent in prayer and discernment”.  Much time in prayer?  Over this matter?    I wonder if this bishop has ever celebrated the older, traditional Mass.

 

Posted in The Drill, The future and our choices, The Last Acceptable Prejudice |
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The trip so far… Chicago… conference… etc.

Posted on 8 August 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

After the horrible beginning, here is an update on the trip so far. We’ve had a good conference. Now I am moving again. Meanwhile, back in Chicago before driving to La Crosse!

This wound up being sausage and peppers.  I learned that double sausage is a thing here.

The next day we had to go to SUPERDAWG!

In La Crosse, the night before the conference, I had a great supper with friends of many years.  It is such a pleasure to know people like these.

Up at Shrine, this is the progress of the building of the pilgrim’s residence.  Last year it was a big hole.

St. Gianna… Miguel… Therese.

Oh MY!!!!   Subsersive!

I have a reproduction of this in my residence to remind me of what we might face.

The conference was on the Seal of Confession.

Tour buses parked at the hotel seem to be… WHAT?

When I grew up these were all over the place.  What a memory.

Within are votive candles.  The great MSGR George Welzbacher referred to the internal candle situation as a “Zoroastrian Fire Tower”.

The kitchen at the Shrine is MASSIVELY IMPROVED!   I told the new cook chef and staff several times.   Sincerely.  Breakfast biscuits and three different gravies, two types of eggs.  Yesterday, French toast and blue berries.

Up in the conference space, these chocolate chip cookies were very similar to my mother’s, who made the best in the world.  These are …. right there… but just a little sweeter than mom’s.  They brought back memories.   Yup… the food at the Shrine is much better.

Dear Cardinal Burke made a video for us.  I am working on an old and weak laptop, so it will be posted when I can handle it.   He was in good spirits, but I sense his patience is running a little thin.  I’ve known the Cardinal since the late 80’s.

Card. Burke’s Mass at the Shrine.

The grounds are so beautiful.  All taken care of by volunteers.

Lungh at the end of the conference.  Bp. Paprocki joined us.

In Madison, I stopped at a super high quality bottle shop looking for Chartreuse because of dear friend likes it and I can’t get it where I live.  They had some yellow and green.  I was looking for green.

We had spring rolls with peanut sauce before, but this was supper at a TERRIFIC viet place on the West side of Madison.

Tomorrow, I meet with TMSM peeps in Madison.  I then drive to Milwaukee to stay with a priest friend.

 

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Daily Rome Shot 1676 – good news

Posted on 7 August 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

HELP! Please remember me when shopping online and use my affiliate links.  US HERE – WHY?  This helps to pay for health insurance, utilities, groceries, and now also my late mother’s place.  At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.  

Good news.

My home town. Unrecognizable.

White mates in 4

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REMINDER: “The Life of Little Saint Placid”

Posted on 5 August 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I have a precious little book, published in the 1950’s called The Life of Little Saint Placid, originally in French, by Mother Geneviève Gallois.

I had long hoped that it would be republished.  It was!  By  St. Augustine Academy Press, who also made the truly stunning book about Holy Mass in the traditional Roman Rite.  St A Press obtained permission to republish the lovely little book.

The back story.  A sister named Placida went to Mother Geneviève and asked her to draw her a picture.  Mother drew 104 and thus the book was born.

It is a work of deep spiritual value and nearly painful charm.

Mother Genevieve, who had come from an extremely anti-clerical background, was a talented painter.  She had bad health and a hard time when at 23 she entered the convent of the Les Bénédictines de la rue Monsieur (20 rue Monsieur in the 7e arrondissement).  She wound up being a novice for 22 year, in fact.

Here is the new printing, in paperback.

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Daily Rome Shot 1675

Posted on 5 August 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Welcome registrant:

Ranger

HELP! Please remember me when shopping online and use my affiliate links.  US HERE – WHY?  This helps to pay for health insurance, utilities, groceries, and now also my late mother’s place.  At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.  

White to move and mate in 4.

NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

It is fascinating to see and to hear Popes of yesteryear! And this touches on ham radio as well.

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5 August: Feast of Our Lady of the Snows – MARY! HELP US!

Posted on 5 August 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

In Rome on 5 August 358, there was a miraculous snow fall to indicate the location of the Basilica to be built in honor of the mother of God. On the anniversary, white rose petals fall from the ceiling of the Basilica during the Gloria.

On August 5 the traditional Roman calendar celebrates the Dedication of St. Mary of the Snows, In Dedicatione S. Mariae ad Nives, a feast in the 1962 Missale Romanum. Its title recalls the Roman tradition that, during the pontificate of Pope Liberius, a snowfall covered the Esquiline Hill in the heat of August, indicating the place where a church in honor of the Blessed Virgin was to be built. The basilica that now stands there, Santa Maria Maggiore, was rebuilt by Pope Sixtus III shortly after the Council of Ephesus proclaimed Mary Theotokos, Mother of God.  St. Mary Major is also called the “Liberian Basilica”.

The feast therefore is a nexus of Roman memory, Marian devotion, and the mystery of the Incarnation. The white snow is an image of Mary’s purity, while the basilica Sat. Mary Major itself stands as a monumental confession in stone and art to the world that the Child born of her is truly God made man. Dom Prosper Guéranger called the Basilica “the first place among our Lady’s churches in the city, and indeed in the world,” because of “the solemn and miraculous circumstances of its origin.”

Let us ask Our Mother, the Mother of the Church, to guide the Church through the Scylla and Charybdis in which we are presently caught.  In a moment of contradictions – such as a snowfall in Rome during August – she can lead us out of anything our pilots get us into.

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I’m sort of panicking: laptop issues – UPDATED

Posted on 5 August 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

UPDATE 5 Aug

Someone has lent me an old laptop that was doing nothing but imitating a paperweight. It is doing what I need. I’ll take it with me on the trip to the Shrine in La Crosse. Meanwhile, the repair shop guy back home has completed work on the desktop (cloned my C drive to a big SSD). It’s working well and I can remote to it. It is less urgent to have that now, but it is an option. Also, one of you kind readers sent a donation for future repair of my Lenovo – I’ve concluded that having the power button on the side is a design flaw no matter how good the box is otherwise. Another kind reader offered to get me into a Mac…. I had a Mac some years ago and… I went back to PC because of… reasons. Still, it is a tempting offer!

Originally published:  Aug 3, 2026

I’m sort of panicking.  I’m on the road for another 9 days and my laptop is overheating and shutting down if I open more than a single browser page, and it can’t be resource heavy.   I had a core “TJMax” of over 100C.  Not good.

I may need to get something along the way to carry me through to the other side.  I can’t work solely off my phone.  That was my main approach today and it just didn’t work.

Also, because my desktop is in the “spa” getting a large new c: drive, I can’t “remote in” and use it’s power to do things I need to do.   The guys in the shop said that when the cloning is done, they will get it on their internet for me, but that has not yet happened.

This on top of the way the trip began?  Really?  Moreover, the pain in my right foot flared up again.  It may be that someone is unhappy that I am going to Our Lady’s Shrine and the annual conference.

 

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Daily Rome Shot 1674

Posted on 4 August 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

WELCOME REGISTRANT:

miles3

Please remember me when shopping online and use my affiliate links.  US HERE – WHY?  This helps to pay for health insurance, utilities, groceries, etc..  At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.

This…

And this…

Mate in 4. Black to move.

NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

I am still struggling with my laptop over heating. I may have a temporary work around. I have the offer of an old laptop for a few days. That would give me a chance to remote to my desktop. Otherwise, I have to work from my phone, which is sooooo clunky. And I would have to be on the road!

In other news, I picked up my rental today and there was NOBODY waiting! It’s small things sometimes.

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