During the annual Vespers of Thanksgiving and singing of the Te Deum the Holy Father in Rome gave a wonderful reflection on time. I had the chance to read it ahead of time but couldn’t post until now. First, he … Read More →
What Does the Prayer Really Say? Holy Family – Sunday in the Octave of Christmas ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2004 A liturgical “octave” is an eight day period following and including the feast. In a way, the Church … Read More →
What Does the Prayer Really Say? Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph – Sunday in the Octave of Christmas ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2006 Today is simultaneously the Sunday in the Octave of Christmas, Holy Family, and, … Read More →
It is amazing to contemplate the contrast of the lying in state of the late President, the Honorable Gerald Ford with the demise of the late … Saddam Hussein.
There is a report on ANSA today that the internet petition AGAINST the derestriction of the "Tridentine" Mass has been a flop. UPDATE: The instigator of the petition against the old Mass is Fr. Paolo Farinella, a very visible and … Read More →
My special thanks are due to kind souls who fired off the last couple donations to keep the blog going. You have my gratitude and my biretta tip: o{]:¬)
Posted inSESSIUNCULA| Comments Off on Donation gratitude
The Frankfurter Allgemeine is having a poll for "person of the year". You can vote for Benedikt XVI, who is presently winning in the poll! Wer ist Ihr Mensch des Jahres? 18. Dezember 2006 Das zentrale Ereignis des Jahres … Read More →
Here at The Sabine Farm we are having a bit of snow. How is this for a contrast to my window back in Roma? The chapel last night, ready for the post supper visit to the Blessed Sacrament. We had … Read More →
Tonight I had two exquisite friends at the Sabine Farm. Tonight, my onomastico (I claim both John the Baptist and the Evangelist), I made supper from coniglio in umido, some superb mashed Yukon Gold potatoes with parmiggiano, mixed greens salad … Read More →
His Eminence Dario Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos read the text of the Holy Father’s Urbi et Orbi address aloud in Latin. One might think that the Dean of the College of Cardinals would have read the message, if the Pope himself … Read More →
Many years ago I had "hotwired" the phone of the office I working in in Rome so that I could dial out past the Vatican operator and get on Compuserve (Oh… how we thought that was cutting edge at the … Read More →
Sometimes you have to wonder how the translations of major texts are coordinated between the different offices that cover language groups. Here are the headers for the langauge texts of the Holy Father’s Christmas sermon. ITALIAN:"Salvator noster natus est in … Read More →
I want to make a brief visit back to 23 December for a moment and give you what I think is a fascinating entry in the Roman Martyrology for the day. I was pretty busy and didn’t get it posted. … Read More →
Here is an excerpt from the Holy Father’s message for the blessing Urbi et Orbi. He is speaking directly to us, I think. My emphasis: [D]oes a "Saviour" still have any value and meaning for the men and women of … Read More →
I have been back in my home town of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Christmas Eve has been busy. There were no confessions here last tonight, but last night there were hoards. This morning I drove over to a nearby parish … Read More →
EXCERPT:
The first prayer of the Mass set the stage for our active participation in Communion. Though expressed in exalted language, it conveyed an attitude of humility before the creation of man in God’s image, the Eternal Word’s self-emptying in the Incarnation, and the possibility of our transformation both in the Eucharist to be received in the course of the sacred mysteries this day and in the happiness of heaven to come. In the second prayer, before the Eucharistic Prayer and consecration, we recognized how we sinners have need to appease God and how the God made Man, Jesus Christ was the source both of reconciliation and also of the very Mass we are participating in, the perfect form of worship renewing our completed reconciliation. In this final prayer we put book ends around our grasp of today’s meaning. We were able to partake of Communion and actively participate in Mass first and foremost because of our divine regeneration in baptism, deepened in a good reception of the Blessed Sacrament in Mass. At the same time, we see how our rebirth in the life of the Trinity in baptism aims ultimately at eternal life and our ongoing transformation in heaven. The “just as… so too” structure of the prayer shows us how the “Savior of the world born today” is the fulcrum both of all the ages of the world, born as He was in the “fullness of time”, but also of our own lives as individuals. All of the prayers today are connected by the theme of the transformation of man’s human nature from his sinful state to a state of glory in the transforming assumption of our human nature by Second Person of the Trinity who, once born, is Jesus Christ – our brother in our humanity while remaining our God in His divinity. Read More →
Posted inSESSIUNCULA| Comments Off on Christmas Day
EXCERPT:
How often do we hear about something or learn a new thing and then rush to know more, to have personal experience, to see? This is a paradigm for our life of faith. There is an interlocking cycle of hearing a proclamation (such as the Gospel at Mass, a homily, or a teaching of the Church) or observing the living testimony of a holy person’s life, and by this experience coming to know and then love the content of that proclamation or living testimony. The content is the Man God Jesus Christ. By knowing Him we come all the better to love Him and in loving Him we desire better to know Him. An act of faith, acceptance of the authority of the content of what we receive, opens unto previously unknown territory, a vast depth otherwise closed to us. For the non-believer, on the other hand, a miracle is simply something inexplicable having nothing of the supernatural. For a non-believer being nice or hard working can never ascend to true virtue or holiness. For him, the content of the Faith itself (both Jesus as well as what we learn and assent to) appears to be pleasant or interesting, but in the end remains naïve or foolish. Read More →
Posted inSESSIUNCULA, WDTPRS| Comments Off on 4th Sunday of Advent: COLLECT (2)
EXCERPT:
Here is a thought for your participation at Mass. During most of the Mass you are called upon to participate actively by receptivity: you receive the Gospel rather than reading it aloud; you receive forgiveness for venial sins in the penitential rite; you receive (not take) Holy Communion. When today’s prayer “over the gifts” or Super oblata is spoken by the priest, you participate actively by giving, by uniting your own sacrifices to those of the priest at the altar who is alter Christus. The priest (Christ the Head) invites and you (Christ the Body) respond. Pour forth your sacrifices. Put them on the paten and into the chalice, so that you, like our model Mary, can be “refilled, made complete” by what they are transformed into, the Body and Blood of the living and true God, the Christ Child who is Coming. Read More →
Posted inSESSIUNCULA, WDTPRS| Comments Off on 4th Sunday of Advent: SUPER OBLATA (2)
Your use of my Amazon affiliate link is a major part of my income. It helps to pay for insurance, groceries, everything. Please remember me when shopping online. Thanks in advance.
“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
Fr. John Zuhlsdorf on Daily Rome Shot 1119: “In chessy news… in Budapest the Chess Olympiad continues. It is more interesting than I thought it would be. There…”
Everyone, work to get this into your parish bulletins and diocesan papers.
The most evident mark of God’s anger and the most terrible castigation He can inflict upon the world are manifested when He permits His people to fall into the hands of clerics who are priests more in name than in deed, priests who practice the cruelty of ravening wolves rather than the charity and affection of devoted shepherds.
St. John Eudes
Federated Computer… your safe and private alternative to big biz corporations that hate us while taking our money and mining our data. Have an online presence large or small? Catholic DIOCESE? Cottage industry? See what Federated has to offer. Save money and gain peace of mind.
“Until the Lord be pleased to settle, through the instrumentality of the princes of the Church and the lawful ministers of His justice, the trouble aroused by the pride of a few and the ignorance of some others, let us with the help of God endeavor with calm and humble patience to render love for hatred, to avoid disputes with the silly, to keep to the truth and not fight with the weapons of falsehood, and to beg of God at all times that in all our thoughts and desires, in all our words and actions, He may hold the first place who calls Himself the origin of all things.”
To donate monthly I prefer Zelle because it doesn't extract fees. Use
frz AT wdtprs DOT com
Daily Quiz
Use FATHERZ10 at checkout for 10% off
Donate using VENMO
GREAT BEER from Traditional Benedictine Monks in Italy
CLICK and say your daily offerings!
A Daily Prayer for Priests
NEW OPPORTUNITY – 10% off with code: FATHERZ10
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
651-447-6265
Books which you must have.
This REALLY helps! And it’s great coffee (and tea)
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.
“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.”
“Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, and the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops act like bishops.”
“The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender's inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for every one else the proper pleasure of ritual.”
- C.S. Lewis
This blog has to earn its keep!
PLEASE subscribe via PayPal if it is useful. Zelle and Wise are better, but PayPal is convenient.
A monthly subscription donation means I have steady income I can plan on. I put you my list of benefactors for whom I pray and for whom I often 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...
To donate monthly I prefer Zelle because it doesn't extract fees. Use
frz AT wdtprs DOT com
As for Latin…
"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.
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.
Please use my links when shopping! I depend on your help.