"The great Father Zed, Archiblogopoios"
-
Fr. John Hunwicke
"Some 2 bit novus ordo cleric"
- Anonymous
"Rev. John Zuhlsdorf, a traditionalist blogger who has never shied from picking fights with priests, bishops or cardinals when liturgical abuses are concerned."
- Kractivism
"Father John Zuhlsdorf is a crank"
"Father Zuhlsdorf drives me crazy"
"the hate-filled Father John Zuhlsford" [sic]
"Father John Zuhlsdorf, the right wing priest who has a penchant for referring to NCR as the 'fishwrap'"
"Zuhlsdorf is an eccentric with no real consequences" -
HERE
- Michael Sean Winters
"Fr Z is a true phenomenon of the information age: a power blogger and a priest."
- Anna Arco
“Given that Rorate Coeli and Shea are mad at Fr. Z, I think it proves Fr. Z knows what he is doing and he is right.”
- Comment
"Let me be clear. Fr. Z is a shock jock, mostly. His readership is vast and touchy. They like to be provoked and react with speed and fury."
- Sam Rocha
"Father Z’s Blog is a bright star on a cloudy night."
- Comment
"A cross between Kung Fu Panda and Wolverine."
- Anonymous
Fr. Z is officially a hybrid of Gandalf and Obi-Wan XD
- Comment
Rev. John Zuhlsdorf, a scrappy blogger popular with the Catholic right.
- America Magazine
RC integralist who prays like an evangelical fundamentalist.
-Austen Ivereigh on
Twitter
[T]he even more mainline Catholic Fr. Z. blog.
-
Deus Ex Machina
“For me the saddest thing about Father Z’s blog is how cruel it is.... It’s astonishing to me that a priest could traffic in such cruelty and hatred.”
- Jesuit homosexualist James Martin to BuzzFeed
"Fr. Z's is one of the more cheerful blogs out there and he is careful about keeping the crazies out of his commboxes"
- Paul in comment at
1 Peter 5
"I am a Roman Catholic, in no small part, because of your blog.
I am a TLM-going Catholic, in no small part, because of your blog.
And I am in a state of grace today, in no small part, because of your blog."
- Tom in
comment
"Thank you for the delightful and edifying omnibus that is your blog."-
Reader comment.
"Fr. Z disgraces his priesthood as a grifter, a liar, and a bully. -
- Mark Shea
No points from the sermon, but posting just to say, May every blessing of the Christmas season be yours, Father Z! And thank you and God bless you for all you do for us. And may your ministry continue to be fruitful. Love from, Marion Ancilla Mariae II.
I am sure that I’m going to mess this up just in the way I say it, but Father spoke about how the Eucharist was the continuation of the Incarnation–that God loves us SO MUCH, He became man to be with us, and before going to Heaven, He instituted the Eucharist, so He could STAY with us, body, blood, soul, and divinity. It was SUCH a good homily. Brought me to tears of gratitude many times. God is so good. Praise be to Him forever! Happy Christmas, everyone!!
In my homily, I worked over the idea of “home.” We feel a longing for home this time of year, yet in reality, all — not only some — of us are away from home. Our home was the Garden, but we left, and ever since, God has longed to bring us home. That is the whole story. It was always about the Incarnation, and the Cross, and Resurrection, and about going home to be united with God forever. Christmas isn’t about satisfying our longing, but rather, making us hunger and thirst for home all the more: being with Jesus.
I went to Midnight Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Albany, NY. Our Bishop stated in his homily that the same God who came as a baby comes to us truly in the Eucharist in that very Mass.
A fairly obvious, but good, point made at my Midnight mass from Father was connecting the Incarnation at Christmas with the Cross. The crib, he said, only makes sense when understood through the context of the cross. He spoke about St. Anslem’s book about why God became man, and that the ONLY reason God became man was to save us for our salvation. As we get caught up in the merriment of the Holidays, we should also remember this is a day of mourning for us to because we know that the Christ child born today will one day hang from a tree.
Thank you very much, Father Z, especially for your homily of Lux Fulgebit Mass.
Blessed Christmas Season to you and your blog-readers, and thank you for the beautiful AdventcaZts to help prepare us in prayer.
TLM. 3rd Mass: Puer natus est nobis. Father told us not to embarrassed about being a Catholic, a faith of great beauty and truth. He emphasized that it is reasonable, with the Incarnation of our Lord prophesied centuries before by Micah and Isaiah, so that when the Magi arrived from the East, enquiring about the location of the Messiah, it was well-known to the Jewish priests that he must be born in David’s city, of David’s line
(Given the reference to the Magi, I was slightly disappointed that we did not conclude the Mass with the Last Gospel of the Epiphany, as stipulated in my 1951 and 1957 Missals. But Father was following the 1962 rubrics scrupulously. I guess that is a good thing, although the omission of the Last Gospel smells like Annibale’s work to me.)
Happy Christmas to all!
I talked about the Eucharist hidden in the mystery of Christmas. Bethlehem “House of Bread,” Our Lord in the trough in the manger the Panis Angelicus, the origin of the word Christmas “Christ’s Mass” and tied it all together in how we give gifts in imitation of the Father giving us the greatest gift that He still gives us in every Mass. He is the greatest give given and the greatest gift we receive. All of our Catholic Churches are little Bethlehems. Not only is the Mass the Sacrifice of Christ made present, but through the Verbum Domini, it is a little Christmas that makes Christ present to feed us with His life, love and grace.
Merry Christmas!
I hope the points I made were good points. I was one of three people offering “lessons” in our Unitarian Universalist congregation’s service of readings, lessons and carols. I spoke about Ebenezer Scrooge (a Unitarian–or at least, Dickens was) and the importance of planning no one beyond redemption and expiation; how in a time of divided politics we ought to be careful to disagree without vilifying; how Scrooge was a 1%er who was nevertheless as good a friend and as good a boss and as good a man as the good old City ever knew. May the same be truly said of us.
The other two homilist spoke about the courage to create peace in families, and the courage to be hospitable to strangers; I was the final lesson-ist.
Let your heart be light. Thanks for the work of this blog.
[It is time to come back to the Church. Please come back. You are needed and you need what only she can give. And you know this.]
1. Go to Mass
2. Go to Confession
3. …. Catholics in the pews, if you’ve not been to confession recently do *not* come up to receive the Holy Eucharist
4. Go to Confession
5. The Devil is amongst us; this is proved by the lack of morality today where it is common for people to live together before getting married; when [he] was younger that was not the norm — sadly it has become the norm today.
6. Go to Confession.
7. Pray the rosary.
8. Go to Confession (honestly, Father mention Confession about 4~5 times.)
Today’s sermon contained the point that a child is given to us, and one of the things that means is that life is turned upside down as the baby’s needs and schedule take precedence over our own.
First, the church was beautiful. No surprise, it is known as the wedding church because so many want their wedding to be there
After the Gospel there was a skit about the Grinch, with one adult and children It would have been fine had it been at an Elementary School Christmas (er. . . Holiday) production. But wrong time, wrong place.
Father turned the old axiom of “it’s better to give than to receive” on its head: Christmas reminds us that sometimes, it is better to receive than to give, when we are receiving the Lord and the grace He alone can give. Some nice anti-Pelagian themes, as well as a highlighting of the need for repentance and Confession!
Traveling do not at our usual parish for a 4pm vigil Mass. Was well done with the priest and 2 deacons on beautiful vestments it looked like an NO equivalent of a solemn Mass.
The homily spoke about God’s love for us such that He became one of us. We are loved by him and we should look in the mirror and remind ourselves of that.
Having begun the ministerial fellowship process as a UU–and invested a lot of schooling, learning, reading. and money to get to that point–I’m unlikely as ever to return to Catholicism. It’s simply something I cannot intellectually, spiritually or morally assent to any longer, as the non-theist and religious humanist whom I’ve become. I have great respect for its history and traditions and occasionally also for its praxis. Your blog is helpful to me in understanding how and why the Church moved from where it was when I was younger. I’m not much for debating these days but still enjoy reading here. Thanks for the kind thoughts.
Our Pastor made two points. As a society we’re focused more on the preparations for the the feast: shopping, decorations, etc. we miss the meaning what it means to have God incarnate. To that point, we look at depictions of Jesus’ birth fairly sanitized. We should remember that Mary and Joseph were the lowest of an oppressed people. After their journey if you want to see what they might have looked like, go to our Texas/Mexico border. Very powerful!
[Eye roll.]
Went to the Novus Ordo Mass during the day. Gospel was therefore supposed to be from John Chapter 1. My mind was geared for that. Priest decided to do reading from the Mass at dawn. Totally flustered me. So, remembering the charity of Bob Cratchit towards Scrooge while Cratchit’s wife was going to speak ill of him (“Dear, it’s Christmas”), I’ll bite my tongue.
Please Priests! Assume there is at least one person in the congregation who knows what you should be saying or doing. Please say or do what you should for the sake of that one person.