About this blog…
“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
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
PLEASE donate using VENMO!
CLICK and say your daily offerings!
A Daily Prayer for Priests
Do you have a faithful Catholic website that needs competent and reliable tech support?
Fr. Z’s VOICEMAIL
Nota bene: I do not answer these numbers or this Skype address. You won't get me "live". I check for messages regularly.
WDTPRS
020 8133 4535
651-447-6265YOUR RECENT COMMENTS
maternalView on VIDEO PILGRIMAGE to the Holy Land: Day 6: “I’m enjoying these. As I said in another post somehow I missed these. But now I think it might have…”
on ASK FATHER: At Mass ‘ad orientem’ why doesn’t the priest turn around for the Preface dialogue?: “While we’re at it! When the priest says, “Dominus Vobiscum” etc. for a coming prayer, we usually stand EXCEPT at…”
on ASK FATHER: “If a priest blesses something without following the ritual, is it really blessed? (BAD NEWS!): “Even the Latin forms in the Weller volumes can be problematic. Pope Pius XII approved a revision of the Rituale…”
on ASK FATHER: At Mass ‘ad orientem’ why doesn’t the priest turn around for the Preface dialogue?: “Weirdly enough, in Mass offered ad orientem according to the Order of Divine Worship (Anglican Use), the priest does turn…”
on ASK FATHER: At Mass ‘ad orientem’ why doesn’t the priest turn around for the Preface dialogue?: “This is a great post.”
on Rome Shot 88: “Saint Joseph altar, Basilica of Saint Peter, the Vatican (typically used for Masses on weekdays).”
on ASK FATHER: At Mass ‘ad orientem’ why doesn’t the priest turn around for the Preface dialogue?: “The Preface is, after all, addressed to God….”
on Priest weeps at irreverence for Eucharist, tells people to receive on the tongue. Wherein Fr. Z rants.: “Years ago (mid 1980s) I was an EMHC at my Catholic college chapel. Within the past 15 years I have…”
on ASK FATHER: At Mass ‘ad orientem’ why doesn’t the priest turn around for the Preface dialogue?: “Father, you crack me up. That was the best summary of the Preface I have ever seen! Thank you for…”
on LENTCAzT 2021: 11 – Ember Saturday 1st Week of Lent: Why fast and abstain?: “Motecta Trium Vocum. US HERE”
on Priest weeps at irreverence for Eucharist, tells people to receive on the tongue. Wherein Fr. Z rants.: “For some reason this piece strikes me as one demanding to be printed, laminated and taped to the refrigerator door.…”
on LENTCAzT 2021: 11 – Ember Saturday 1st Week of Lent: Why fast and abstain?: “Thank you Father! Can you please give us the name of the artist and the CD that the closing music…”
on LENTCAzT 2021: 11 – Ember Saturday 1st Week of Lent: Why fast and abstain?: “This takes back inside St Peter’s Basilica to the chapel of Sts Simon and Jude whose images you can see…”
I use this when I travel both in these USA and abroad. Very useful. Fast enough for Zoom. I connect my DMR (ham radio) through it. If you use my link, they give me more data. A GREAT back up.
This blog has to earn its keep!
PLEASE subscribe via PayPal if it is useful.
That way I have steady income I can plan on, and you wind up regularly on my list of benefactors for whom I pray and for whom I periodically say Holy Mass.
In view of the rapidly changing challenges I now face, I would like to add more $10/month subscribers. Will you please help?
For a one time donation...
Yes, Fr. Z is taking ads…
Be a “Zed-Head”!
CHALLENGE COINS!
My "challenge coin" for my 25th anniversary of ordination in 2016.
Want one? I do exchanges with military and LEOs, etc.
PLEASE RESPOND. Pretty pleeeease?
Loading ...This is really useful when travelling… and also when you aren’t and you need backup internet NOW! I use this for my DMR “Zednet” hotspot when I’m mobile. It’s a ham radio thing.
If you travel internationally, this is a super useful gizmo for your mobile internet data. I use one. If you get one through my link, I get data rewards.
WDTPRS POLL
Loading ...Fr. Z’s stuff is everywhere
Help support Fr. Z’s Gospel of Life work at no cost to you. Do you need a Real Estate Agent? Calling these people is the FIRST thing you should do!
They find you a pro-life agent in your area who commits to giving a portion of the fee to a pro-life group!
GREAT causes to support
Help Monks in Wyoming (coffee – UPDATED LINK) and Norcia (beer) and the wonderful "Soap Sisters" of Summit, NJ!
Please follow me on Twitter!
Daily Archives: 26 January 2006
Fr. Z on Bill Bennett’s Morning in America
One of the things that keeps me a) in touch with the USA and b) sane is listening to streams of various radio and TV shows in my native land. One I particularly like is William Bennett’s Morning in America, … Read More
Bp. Sample of Marquette
His Excellency Most Rev. Alexander K Sample Bishop of Marquette Photo: Upper Penninsula Catholic In all the flurry of activity in the wake of the new encyclical of Pope Benedict, let us not forget to pray for the (now) youngest … Read More
A heart which sees
EXCERPT:
“The Christian’s programme —the programme of the Good Samaritan, the programme of Jesus—is “a heart which sees” Read More
A chip off the old block
EXCERPT:
Consider: we can study about God and our faith. But really the object of study is a living Person, not a set of abstractions. We need the sort of knowledge of God that draws us into Him. This is a “knowledge” which reaches into us, seizes us, pulls us into itself and transforms us. To experience God’s love is to have certain knowledge, more certain than any knowledge which can be arrived at by means of merely rational examination (but not in opposition to it). Read More
4th Sunday of Ordinary Time: Collect (2)
EXCERPT:
Knowledge and love are interconnected. The more you get to know a person, the more reason you have to love him (remember… love seeks the other person’s good in charity even if a person is unlikable). Reciprocally, the more you love someone or (in the generic sense of love) something, the more you want to know about him and spend time getting to know him. For example, Billy is fascinated by bugs. From this “love” for bugs Billy wants to know everything there is to know about them. He works hard to learn and thus launches a brilliant career in entomology. Given Our Creator’s priority in all things, how much more ought we seek to know and love God first and foremost of all and then, in proper order, know and love God’s images, our neighbors? He is far more important that the bugs He created. Even spouses must love God more than they love each other. Only then can they love each other properly according to God’s plan. Read More
4th Sunday of Ordinary Time: Post communion
EXCERPT:
By our baptism we are made capable of receiving the benefits of the “gift of our redemption”. By the spiritual (and physical) nourishment offered us in the Eucharist, we simultaneously progress toward our ultimate goal of heaven and we are strengthened for our work here. Chronologically heaven comes later. At the same time, if we desire to be spiritually healthy and later attain that heaven, we must adhere closely to the here and now. Nevertheless, our goal of heaven must always have a logical priority over what we are doing here. The “now” is important because the “later” is more important. We cannot let the present, or the world, blind us to the priority that lies in the future bliss of heaven and the spiritual realm. Our liturgy (music, art, vestments, architecture, gestures, etc.), being a foretaste of the heavenly banquet must give priority to the spiritual and not the worldly, while at the same time it embraces and transforms the world. The Eucharist is the food which changes us into what It is, rather than the other way around. Read More
4th Sunday of Ordinary Time: Super oblata (1)
EXCERPT:
Thus, for decades there has been nearly a maniacal effort to tear “extra” altars out of churches, even historic churches. When this was coupled with the goofy idea that the priest must face the people over a table-like altar, the result was that the main altars of churches, often placed in the back of the apse contiguous to the wall, were liturgically reformed with crowbars and jackhammers. At best they were turned into shelves for potted plants. Now, as it turns out, the whole cobbled-together historical foundation for mass facing the people has been debunked with real scholarship. Still, the damage has been done in countless older churches. Read More
4th Sunday of Ordinary Time: Collect (1)
EXCERPT:
Bob can “love” his Ferrari, Susie can “love” her kitty, and without doubt we all “love” baseball and spaghetti. We can talk about the different tenors of love, such as the love of benevolence, or of complacence, of enemies, concupiscence. But we are called to a special sort of love in this prayer… true charity: the infused virtue which makes it possible for us to love God for His own sake and love all those who are made in His image. This is more than benevolence or tolerance, more than appetitive desire. Love is not merely a response to some appetite, like seeing a beautiful member of the opposite sex, a well-turned double-play, or a plate of spaghetti all’amatriciana. It isn’t the sloppy gazing of passion drunk sweethearts or what we see on TV primetime. I call that luv. Real love is the adhesion of the will to an object which is grasped by the intellect to be good. Real love, the sort of love invoked in our prayer, is an act of will. This love delights in the other and is informed by a longing for the good of the other. It makes two resound with one spirit. Love, in the sense this prayer offers, is an act of will based on the work of a discerning intellect that is reshaped and informed by grace. This why we find in our prayer that phrase rationabilis affectus. Read More
