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Coat of Arms by D Burkart
St. John Eudes
- Prosper of Aquitaine (+c.455), De gratia Dei et libero arbitrio contra Collatorem 22.61
Nota bene: I do not answer these numbers or this Skype address. You won't get me "live". I check for messages regularly.
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“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.”
- Fulton Sheen
Therefore, ACTIVATE YOUR CONFIRMATION and get to work!
- C.S. Lewis
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"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.
Visits tracked by Statcounter since Sat., 25 Nov. 2006:
My oncologist declared me cancer-free. Deo gratias!
There is hope for the future. In Gothenburg, Sweden, at Christ the King Parish, we celebrated All Souls as a Missa Cantata in usus antiquor with the choir singing Tomás Luis de Victorias Officium Defunctorum, a five year old boy, turned to his father, asking: Heaven cannot be this beautiful, can it?
And the truth is of course, that the Mass is only the most beautiful thing, this side of heaven.
Ex ore infantium!
Two of my boys served at a Sung Requiem Mass yesterday.
It’s going to be -22 tomorrow, and it is snowing beautifully today. I am getting ready for Advent and Christmas!
Oh and Fr. Z? You know how protestants are always calling God “Fr. God”? Well the parish next door has a priest who’s name is Fr. Dieu. :) I think it is very proper for him to have become a priest.
I’m going to be on Jeopardy! (After 10-1/2 years of trying and four auditions!) Please pray for me Father (and I am NOT flying Delta!)
A relative, long uninterested in the Catholic Church, has taken a serious interest.
Here’s your good news for the weekend:
Last month I went to a Catholic funeral mass for a woman who had been away from the church for 40 years. She was in hospice and had left family and hospice instructions that she didn’t want any priest or minister to bother her and she didn’t want a funeral mass.
An Irish priest (God bless this faithful man) who happens to spend his vacation every year in this hospice (in the U.S.) happened to be visiting someone else at hospice. As he left he stopped at her bed and said: “I know I’m not supposed to talk with you but your last name is the name of the town I come from in Ireland. Have you ever been there?”
With this entre’ she began to speak with him and eventually got around to saying she’d been away from the church for 40 years because she was angry at a priest’s action/words 40 years ago and hadn’t been back since (despite many invitations to do so). He asked her what it would take to get her back to church and she said, offhandedly, something like “a pastrami and pepper sandwich on a hard roll”.
He came in the next day with the sandwich, said “I’ve done my part now you do yours!”; and they began to talk more. Soon she received the sacraments and went to daily mass for the last several weeks of her life and had a Catholic funeral.
This all happened because of that blessed Irish priest who spends his vacations at a hospice here in the U.S. He saved a soul for Our Lord. Praise be to God for that priest, you Fr. Z and for all priests and the sacrifices they make. Thank you for your vocation and guidance in this blog.
Vivat Cor Jesu!
I got to two weekday Masses this week.
In August around Assumption/Dormition I was healed of a longtime health issue and have been going strong towards greater health ever since. I credit the ministers of Holy Mother Church and the prayers of many in Her communion for this gift of grace.
I have an article in the Madison Catholic Herald this week. I was confused when a friend told me she liked my article in the Herald because to the best of my knowledgeI hadn’t submitted one. I flipped through the paper and it turned out to be one I wrote in April of 2016 about a young man whom I interviewed about his pathway to entering the Dominicans. They’d edited the article for conciseness and updated it with the current status of this Dominican whose name now is Brother Jordan. So the other good news is that he’s persevered so far in his vocation, though this was not a big surprise.
Bishop Morlino has a very good article in the same Herald responding in a positive and evangelical way to the “gay scandal funeral refusal” situation. Yes good job Your Excellency! Monsignor Bartylla has a q&a. His quote source for what Pope Francis thinks about homosexual relationships is Amoris Laetitia for instance, and “This document is dedicated to the extraordinary men and women of the Catholic apostolate COURAGE” the members of which he describes as “truly ‘saints in the making’ deserving of admiration.” Good job Monsignor Bartylla.
A childhood friend got married about 10 years ago. His wife has been attending the Catholic church, neither comes from a Catholic background. He finally let up his opposition to her receiving baptism.
I euhm, also got a particular *knot* in my life untied! More to come later. I’d like to thank Fr. Z and a bunch of people who have been praying for me for a long time. :) Thank you. It’s been a long wait for me.
I was a bit grumpy when I started to read this post but then I read these comments about a little boy who said the glorious mass was like heaven, a priest “just happened” save a soul in a hospice “on vacation,” somebody gets to go on Jeopardy, a good bishop is defended, articles were written, people are coming to the Faith, a knot is untied, somebody is cancer free, another is happy it’s cold (??) :) and altar boys are serving and now I cannot help but smile. Thanks Fr. Z and everyone!
I’m with the sisters of Bethlehem Livingston manor ny serving as their chaplain & assure all that the prayers of the sisters continue for the church & the world…. Good News!
Check their community out on google…….. Sisters of Bethlehem. A wonderful and growing carthusian related community!
My last remaining uncle died 5 days ago, I had asked you all to pray for his family, who are not Catholic (although my uncle is).
He was able to go back home 3 days before he passed away, surrounded by his family, and had a funeral Mass yesterday. He received a sudden revelation of sorts before he died, that God was in control of his life, not him. Miraculous in this case. Thank you for your prayers.
Also, I had asked for prayers back in August for a courageous woman with metastatic breast cancer visiting her children out of state. She is still miraculously alive, now in hospice and staying with her children, at peace. Again, thank you for your prayers, Fr Z readers.
Thank you God, who is all good, and deserving of ALL our love. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.