I want to share with you some really nice feedback. It is nice to get some… especially after these last few days. Whew!
This is from a reader/listener!
Last week, while returning from pipe organ lessons at W.S.U (Go Cougs!), my 14-year old daughter and I listened to your re-post of your St John the Baptist talk/podcast from last year. She kept having me stop your talk to ask questions about things you were talking about. [Maybe the best compliment I have had in a long time.] She loved St. Augustine’s sermon that you read. Our parish pastor gives a wonderful homily, but occasionally we go to a parish in the next town over when we want to go to Mass on Saturday eve. That pastor has a terrible habit of having to tell a joke every 5 minutes. My daughter was "impressed" that St. Augustine didn’t tell even one joke during his sermon. (My confirmation name saint is Augustine, because of the wonderful priest (Augustine Hartman, O.P., who was at our parish while I was in 6th grade and on.)
Anyway, I am, dare I say it, digressing, so thank you again. We all keep you in our prayers.
There are a lot of times when I consider hanging up my spurs.
Then I get a note like this.
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Dear Father Zuhlsdorf,
Please don’t consider hanging up your spurs.
I have one query that I thought you might be willing to answer. They are not really of vast importance, I know, but I should be interested in your comments.
I have often noticed that “progressive” Catholics like to say “eucharist” rather than “Mass”, probably because it sounds more ecumenical (Heythrop College has a “College Eucharist”). Yet in Milan and Florence cathedrals, which I would have thought were hardly hotbeds of progressivism, the Mass timetables are headed “Celebrazioni Eucharistiche”. Would you or any of your correspondents know why this should be so?
FrZ,
If I could only view one blog and no others, it’d be this one. You’re fair to both Trads and Conservatives, and that’s hard to do. Not many have the patience, understanding, education, or the broad view of things to get to the heart of issues like you do. Many of us see things from our limited view and tend to absolutize our own perspectives (at least, I know I do). I can always count on getting a faithful response here that respects both Tradition and the current leadership.
This is a critical time in the Church where people need to have an information source they can trust. I come here. Thank you for giving us peace of mind in a time of apparent chaos.
Don’t hang up your spurs, Father… just close the comment box! Ha ha! ;-)
RichR: If I could only view one blog and no others, it’d be this one.
I’d like to echo this :)
These little reminders are from God telling you that the great effort you put forth on our behalf is meaningful and important. Every note you get like this one simply represent hundreds of others who really appreciate what you do – which includes yours truly. :-)
Instaurare omnia in Christo.
Ex anima.
(Posting under a pseudonym due to personal nature of post. I know your dislike for them Fr., but I think the content justifies the anonymity)
Fr. Z,
If you ever consider hanging up the spurs, please at least let us know in advance so we can disuade you with gifts and bribes :)
In all seriousness though– some of us live in, frankly, very rough dioceses. You’ve heard the horror stories 1000 times before (and shared some fun ones from your travels and trials). There is no need to recount the abuses and sacrileges… from the last week alone.
Needless to say, your blog is more than a hobby for some of us. It’s a ministry, and a lifeline that strengthens our faith when the persecution gets bad. You may not have a parish (or so it seems from your blog), but you are indeed a pastor and shepherd of a flock. You know what transpires in some places, and it isn’t just a persecution complex some of us develop. Especially for those of us who work in the Church, and the persecution can mean a loss of our jobs and our livelihoods. Charitably correcting Sister (who gives the homily instead of Father), “Actually, I think Jesus really did raise from the dead, and the Eucharist is more than a symbol” can get someone fired.
We try and do the Lord’s work, and yet we keep hearing pro-abortion homilies, attending invalid masses, observing sickening sacrileges. Hearing about a Gregorian Mass here, some chant there, or sound teaching being introduced by bishops really helps when things get terrible. They may be little things, but the Little Flower teaches us just how powerful those little things are. This isn’t help that makes us “feel warm and fuzzy.” It provides sincere spiritual hope that’s often lacking in the trenches. Hope that things are improving, at least elsewhere, and it’s worth not giving up the fight for the souls around us. And it gives goals: maybe, with some luck and some blessings, this diocese can grace Fr. Z’s blog for finally making the right changes.
So Fr. Z, please accept this deep and sincere “thank you.” This isn’t the standard “thanks for a great blog”, it’s much deeper. Thank you for being a lifeline for my faith, and the faith of others. Only on the final day, when all the consequences of all our actions are presented for all to see, will you know the immense good you have done with these pages. Only then will you know that you’ve helped prevent people from losing their faith during the hardest times, myself included. That’s the business of saving souls, and you’re doing the heavy lifting that hundreds of priests should be doing but aren’t.
May God bless you for all you’ve done. I want to give you the highest compliment that can be given to a man of the cloth: you, sir, are a good priest.
You are an inspiration to us who are trying to be Faithful Catholics
I thank you for your work and inspiring me to bring reform in small steps to places that need it. Ad Multos Annos
To Pseudo and the unnamed mother who emailed Fr Z : amen, amen and amen!
Praying for you Father, and for your ministry.
You are all too kind.
Thanks!
Father, surely you know that there are many Catholics out there who rely on your blog. Without your blog, I don’t know how I could continue to support the Latin Mass while remaining in obedience to the Pope and our bishop.
I also think that your blog helps the Church because it is read by powerful people.
I still feed the squirrels, though.
This is one of the three “must read” blogs for Catholics; the other two being New Liturgical Movement and Rorate Caeli.
But without a doubt, WDTPRS is the most important and I can only echo the heartfelt and beautiful words mentioned above, particularly from Pseudo–though things in Toronto have never been as bad as described there, we have had a few pockets of problems over the years and still do. Except for a few exceptions, most liturgy here is typically Canadian, polite, banal and non-offensive–but it is only non-offensive because the people are in a stupour (Canadian spelling, eh?) and they need to accidentally come across or be referred to WDTPRS to be re-educated and re-catechised.
A few weeks ago Father posted on the usual bad and distorted reporting in our Catholic Register. That pressure caused them to agree to a column by me rebutting the distortion of an article they had posted on liturgy. This is a very direct and personal reason why this blog and your work; no, your ministry, is so important.
He then went further helping “out” the missa cow-pie by a Jesuit Father in Guelph that was also featured in the Catholic Register. This is how change will come. Would Archbishop Niederauer have apologised for giving communion to the transvestite men dressed as nuns? The power of the blogs and this one in particular are arrows in the quiver of Pope Benedict…or “bricks” in his wheelbarrow.
God bless you Father Zuhsldorf!
I didn’t even know you wore spurs. Oh my, the Sabine Farm must be more remote than I realized!
Keep up the good work, Father. I know I speak for many when I say: WE APPRECIATE YOU!
On a separate note, today my anti-spam word is BROAD. Is this a message to any Feeneyites who might be reading? The anti-spam words are getting more and more cryptic. Please bring back the old ones!
In trying to follow where Pope Benedict is going I tripped across your blog (by way of Blackfen). A long time ago-perhaps 1988- when there were more people in the sanctuary than in the congregation- a friend invited me to St. John Cantius for TLM. It’s only 26 miles from here, but I have stayed well away since because it was very badly done, esp the chant. Reading your blog- especially- and others has persuaded me to give it another go, so in a few hours my wife and I will driving in for the High Mass at 12:30 to see what it’s all about.
Thanks for all you do- and it is considerable, obviously.
Fr Z (is that pronounced ‘zee’ or ‘zed’? I assume the former!) – everyone else has said far more eloquently than I could how valuable your ministry is, and it is a ministry.
– it alerts us to events in the church which we otherwise would be very unlikely to hear of
– it encourages us in the spiritual life and as Catholics
– it teaches sound doctrine
– it gives heart to people who feel isolated and marginalised for being orthodox
and on a lighter note it can by fun, heart-warming and a darn good read.
It’s impossible to understate the value of the internet to orthodox Catholics who are so counter-culture, even in their own parishes, it seems. I would not have known about the TLM at Westminster Cathedral without Damian Thompson’s blog. It was your call to arms (weapons: prayer) concerning the SSPX this week which made me realise what we are losing by disunity. Keep up the good work and sursum corda!!! (make that in the singular, my Latin’s not up to it). I have to attend a very ‘Folksy’ NO Mass today, and will offer up prayers for your intentions. God bless you!
Congratulations, Father. As a teacher, I know that moments like that give one a great boost, and they usually arrive a just the right time. Here, also, is a perfect example of what Bishop Trautman fails to realize. Things can be cone outside of Mass to make Mass more meaningful; it doesn’t have to be instant.
Fr Z, I have hung up my spurs Wayne is no more…But we can’t possibly have you hang up your spurs. The net will be empty if WDTPRS.COM is not there to keep us informed.
Dear Father Z, please stay the course and know how deeply we appreciate your untiring work. As a brother priest, I know the feeling, but I also know it is just a feeling, and even if feelings are everything to the Ophrah world of religion, we hold to something higher. We will try to support you better in your sacrifice. Benedicat te Deus, frater.
I read your blog every day and it gives me hope.
Please, please, please continue your online ministry. You have no idea how many of us live in ecclesiastical wastelands.
Father,
As a pastor of souls I often feel like doing a runner and joining an enclosed order. I am being serious. When I hear how things I have said during homilies or in private, have been misunderstood, deliberately misrepresented, twisted and distorted, I wonder why I bother. Likewise, some of my actions. God, however, has given me no vocation to the enclosed life.
Don’t hang up your spurs till you discern His will. I share your disgust at the lack of charity which is so much in the air, but let’s not have the devil gross us out of it. Your blog is one of the props keeping my ‘spurs’ on.
Fr. Z,
I echo the thoughts of the previous posters. As one of the more liberal daily readers of your blog, I enjoy your comments very much. They sometimes even draw me over to your way of thinking and believing. Your blog is a true apostolate. I enjoy your Latin renderings, your occasional irritability and your bird pictures. Please keep up the good work. Don’t even think of quitting.
Dan O.
For all those Catholics who are trapped in heterodox parishes, and presented with endless tepid homilies, and denied the true Catholic heritage…..please stay and be the glimmer of hope that not all the Catholic world is like their little corner of it. What you do matters Father.
God Bless you and Keep you always.
Father Z,
I didn’t know what the TLM was before I started reading your website. I’m serious. I was born a cradle Catholic in the early 80’s, attended 13 years of Catholic schools and never learned of the beautiful TLM.
Had I not been for you, I probably never would have learned of it, or had I did, would have believed all the lies and half-truths that I had heard, “outdated/boring/does not have full participation of the laity/done away with by Vat II/etc…
I believe I’m still Catholic and my wife converted to Catholicism partly due to you and your website.
Your work has done more than you know, just based in my situation, I’m sure there are others that can attest to similar stories.
Don’t hang up your spurs!
Wow! Thanks, Father. I never knew that my daughter and I would become so \”famous.\”
What a surprise to read this this afternoon.
by the way, the the unnamed mother who emailed Fr Z is actually a father. My wife and I work together and I am able to take Wednesdays off to ferry our daughter to her various weekly music lessons. I just got home after dropping her off for a week of Keyboard Camp, where she will take intensive lessons in piano, pipe organ and begin to play with the harpischord. What fun.
John
And again, THANK YOU FATHER Z!
This is one of the three “must read” blogs for Catholics; the other two being New Liturgical Movement and Rorate Caeli.
Agreed and it bears repeating.
Your reader wrote:
My confirmation name saint is Augustine, because of the wonderful priest Augustine Hartman, O.P., who was at our parish while I was in 6th grade and on.
Fr. Gus is now living in the priory at Blessed Sacrament Church in Seattle! (The greatest church in the whole world.) He is older and pretty much retired but he truly is awesome.
I knew that Father Hartman had moved back to Blessed Sacrament (he led the Rosary for my aunt who died this past January). He was assigned there shortly after he was ordained back in the mid-late 60’s — I finished 8th Grade at Blessed Sacrament in 1968, then went on to Saint Ed’s for four years — where we DID learn Latin, even in High School. Fr. Hartman (I know he goes by Fr. Gus now, but all the Dominicans went by Fr. Last_name back then, and he still responds to it) was M.C. (?) for a number of great, awesome High Masses for Midnight and 9:00 on Easter and Christmas. Whatever he was called he trained us altar boys to do everything perfectly and at the right time. The choir was usually from the nearby U.W. (boo Huskies, go Cougs!). I sure wish I could remember the names of the other boys who served with me or any who served at benediction on Saturday evenings with Fr. Fulton.
Well, enough of high-jacking this thread.
John
Father Z,
I am doubtless much less eloquent than many people here, but I feel I owe you a personal debt. I would never have made the effort to go to the TLM if it wasn’t for your blog, and even if someone took me, I probably would have been lost.
All the graces I have received through traditional holy mass and confession have a start in this blog.
I do worry sometimes whether you might be getting exhausted. Take a day off here and there, but don’t “hang up your spurs.”
Blessings,
Melody