Fr. Z's Blog | Catholic commentary by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Your Sunday Sermon Notes

Posted on 18 September 2016 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I can picture it now. It’s time for the homily at Sunday Mass. You resolve to pay close attention and remember details because you know that Fr. Z will ask…

Was there a good point or two made during the sermon at the Holy Mass which you heard to fulfill your Sunday obligation?

Let us know.

For my part, on this 18th Sunday after Pentecost (Extraordinary Form, of course), I picked up on the Lord’s harrowing line: Why do you harbor evil thoughts in your hearts?

I stressed that we can commit mortal sins by thinking and that all thoughts will be revealed at the General Judgment.

One of the ways that we can sin is through impure thoughts. Sometimes impure thoughts are mortal sin (when we give consent of will to them once they pop up and if we take pleasure in them). However, if we fight them off the sin might be venial or not sinful at all. St Francis de Sales pointed out that we can suffer temptations for the entire course of a lifetime, but if we don’t consent, we don’t commit a mortal sin.

We are surrounded more and more by immodesty and impurity, and so we have to condition ourselves against temptations and impure thoughts. Custody of the eyes is important, because we tend to desire what we fix our gaze on. Prayer to our Guardian Angels and to the Blessed Virgin is important when fighting temptations. We should also change our patterns, change activities and get busy with something else.

If we have temptations or if we have vicious habits, we will have to suffer to get rid of them. We mustn’t come down off the Cross when we begin to suffer.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA | Tagged immodesty, impure thoughts, temptations
26 Comments

¡Viva Cristo Rey! Mexican bishop persecuted by homosexualists

Posted on 17 September 2016 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

It’s coming.

It it time to take “¡Hagan lío!” to another step.

From LifeSite:

Mexican bishop says he’ll evangelize in prison if he’s locked up for ‘homophobia’

September 16, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – The Catholic bishop of Cuernavaca, Mexico, is being investigated in response to his opposition to the gay agenda, according to national and local media sources, but he says if he goes to prison he’ll take advantage of the opportunity to bring the Gospel of Christ to the inmates there.

Bishop Ramón Castro has been informed that he’s being investigated in response to a complaint by the socialist governor of the state of Morelos, Graco Ramírez, for speaking out against the creation of homosexual “marriage,” which was recently passed by the state legislature and signed into law by Ramírez. He is accused of “homophobia,” according to Mexican news outlets.

The bishop is reportedly accused of “meddling in politics” for denouncing the gay agenda on numerous occasions, as well as for organizing a meeting at the Cathedral of Cuernavaca for the purpose of hearing the complaints of various civil organizations about the crisis of violence and criminality affecting the state. His accusers reportedly claim that he used the meeting to organize opposition to homosexual “marriage.” [These homosexualists are evil.]

“If I go to prison, no problem, I’ll do the work of evangelization there,” the bishop told his flock during a sermon at the cathedral in mid-August, and added that he wished to “thank the Bar Association of Cuernavaca, which has shown solidarity by coming to my defense.”

The bishop told worshippers that the kingdom of God is not established without opposition because it denounces injustice, corruption, and poverty, according to the local Sol de Cuaulta newspaper.

“Jesus said, ‘I have come to bring fire and divisions,’ referring to the consequences of living a firm and real commitment to the Gospel,” the newspaper quoted Castro as saying. “The presence of Jesus in our lives isn’t a matter of indifference to us, nor to those who surround us. If it were, we would have to doubt that it was anything but a superficial veneer.”

The Mexican constitution prohibits religious ministers from “entering in associations for political purposes,” supporting or opposing candidates for public office, or opposing government institutions or laws. The provisions are the remnants of the strongly anti-clerical provisions of Mexico’s 1917 constitution, which helped to incite civil war in the country in the 1920s and 30s.

Castro denies that he violated the law and says he merely agreed to hear the complaints of various civil organizations over problems suffered in the state, particularly problems related to violence and corruption, and that the meeting was not called to address the issue of homosexual “marriage.”

“The Church has a mission to carry out. I in no way have meddled in politics. I only received people in the cathedral to listen to them. I didn’t convoke anyone,” Castro said in a television interview. [It’s coming.]

Castro also had a complaint lodged against him by the homosexual Movement for Equality in Mexico (MOViiMX) to the National Council for the Prevention of Discrimination (CONAPRED) about HIS participation in a recent “March for Peace” in Morelos. The group quoted him as saying that state representatives “sold their consciences” in approving the state’s homosexual “marriage” constitutional amendment.

[NB] The accusations have not discouraged Bishop Castro from expressing his opposition to the gay agenda, however. He was notably present at the recent March for the Family in Cuernavaca organized to protest against a national homosexual “marriage” constitutional amendment proposed by the nation’s president.

It’s coming.

Posted in ¡Hagan lío!, Si vis pacem para bellum!, Sin That Cries To Heaven, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices, The Last Acceptable Prejudice | Tagged ¡Viva Cristo Rey!, Cristeros, homosexualist agenda, Mexico
16 Comments

WDTPRS – 18th Sunday after Pentecost: Who says mercy has to be gentle? Wherein Fr. Z rants.

Posted on 17 September 2016 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Traversi_Operation_anagoria 1753 sm The Collect for Sunday Mass this week in the Extraordinary Form wound up in the Ordinary Form Missale Romanum as the Collect for Saturday in the 4th Week of Lent. Go figure. It had an ancient source in the Gelasian Sacramentary. For a change, the redactors of Fr. Bugnini’s and Card. Lercaro’s Consilium, with their scissors and glue pots, didn’t mess around with this prayer.

Dirigat corda nostra, quaesumus, Domine, tuae miserationis operatio, quia tibi sine te placere non possumus.

LITERAL WDTPRS TRANSLATION:

O Lord, we beg You, may the working of Your mercy direct our hearts, for without You we cannot please You.

Fairly stark. I have mentioned with some frequency St. Augustine of Hippo’s insight that God crowns His own merits in us. Surely that is what is at work in today’s prayer.

AN OLD HANDMISSAL VERSION:

Grant, we beseech thee, O Lord, that the operation of thy mercy may direct our hearts, forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee.

This is what you would have heard… or rathyr, hearde of yore in the 1559 BCP1549 Book of Common Prayer

O GOD, for asmuche as without thee, we are not able to please thee; Graunte that the workyng of thy mercie maye in all thynges directe and rule our heartes; Through Jesus Christ our Lorde.

I rathyr lyke the way they turned downe syde up the ourdre of thynges.

CURRENT ICEL (from Saturday 4th Week of Lent):

May the working of your mercy, O Lord, we pray, direct our hearts aright, for without your grace we cannot find favor in your sight.

OBSOLETE ICEL (1973 – Saturday 4th Week of Lent):

Lord, guide us in your gentle mercy, for left to ourselves we cannot do your will.

A MOCKING OBSOLETE ICEL VERSION:

God,
you are nice.
Be nice and help us love.

This gets to the essence of what the old ICEL “translators” gleaned from the Latin originals, don’t you think? After all, it expresses our need for the sacrament of niceness, which is the heart and soul of the old ICEL versions and the destitute theology behind them.

Seriously, the Latin original says nothing about God’s mercy being “gentle” when directing our hearts, our inmost thoughts and aspirations.

If we invoke His mercy, then surely we admit that we aren’t always so “nice” after all. Right? We don’t ask for mercy unless we haven’t been “weighed and found lacking”.

Augustine, taking his cue from from the medical practices of the day, said that the doctor doesn’t stop cutting just because the patient screams for him to stop. Think of all the writhing, pleading, people holding the poor patient down. No anesthesia then, right? But in our modern times, with all the distractions, the numbing of screens, noise, the pace, many of us are becoming tender little snowflakes, much like some young people we now censoriously mock for their delicacy in the face of challenges to contemporary conventions and political correctness. As a Church we have some serious toughening to do. Hard correction, training and nourishment is required. We have to stop all the excuses and pandering, the incessant reduction of expectations with the inexorable drift into the Charybdis of mediocrity, the tepidity which Christ will spew out.

It sometimes hurts to be corrected!

God knows what we need better than we can ever ponder to ask for.

Moreover, God’s correction, as harsh as it can seem at times, is certain gentle compared to the torments of everlasting Hell.

We must steel ourselves, and not come down off the Crosses we are offered every time it starts to hurt.

And so, even as I now remind you to examine your consciences and “GO TO CONFESSION!”, I also must put to you hard questions (especially to you priests out there).

Is the liturgical worship, especially Holy Mass, where you regularly go, helping you to prepare for death? Does it help you to conversion and correction and self-recognition? If not, maybe some changes have to be made.

Fathers, is the way you say Mass (including the music choices, etc.) helping your people towards recognition of sinful behavior, towards desire to change, and towards a good death? Is it helping them to get ready to die? If not, I suggest that you are in serious trouble.

I am not saying that everyone has to be on the rack all the time. Hardly. However, if we are in a constant state of distraction from reality (yes, we are going to die and be judged and God cannot be deceived), if we are always being wrapped in soothing, lulling, enervating false affirmation of our nice wonderfulness… we are in serious trouble.

The moderation queue is ON.

Posted in Hard-Identity Catholicism, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, WDTPRS, Wherein Fr. Z Rants | Tagged correction, mercy
7 Comments

CQ CQ CQ – #HamRadio Saturday – Misc

Posted on 17 September 2016 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

It has been a few weeks since I’ve posted under this rubric.

One of you readers sent me a laser measuring device, which should be helpful. Thanks! Also, I got some Anderson Powerpole stuff. Thanks!

I have some serious to do lists over the next couple days, but hopefully I’ll be able to get out this week with the new rig.

Also, you may recall that me older Kenwood had an brush with Zuhlsdorf’s Law. One of the parishioners is an electrician and he has done stuff with radios. He was kind enough to have a look. When he got back to me, he said that he had good news and bad news. The good news is that there is nothing wrong with it. The bad news is that there is nothing wrong with it. Thus, we are not sure what happened. That said, I hope never to recreate the problem.

Meanwhile, I have now a transceiver that I could take southward to my maternal parent’s house. Alas, having just visited there, I noticed that there are powerlines running in two directions through her back yard. I also noticed while driving around in the area that there were antennas everywhere! I suspect that quite a few people who retired there from the north – or perhaps their heirs – may be ready to shed some equipment. Just a thought for later.

I received links to some amazing videos of a Contest Station here in WI, near Eau Claire. Pretty amazing. Interesting music choices, too!

Meanwhile, I struggle to figure out how to string something minimal up.

I’m in limbo.

Posted in Ham Radio | Tagged CQ, Ham radio, Zuhlsdorf's Law
6 Comments

“No one may share in the Eucharist except those who believe in the truth of our teachings…”

Posted on 17 September 2016 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

A reading from the first apology of Justin Martyr in defense of the Christians, c. 100-165

No one may share in the Eucharist except those who believe in the truth of our teachings and have been washed in the bath which confers forgiveness of sins and rebirth, and who live according to Christ’s commands.

For we do not receive this food as ordinary bread and as ordinary drink; but just as Jesus Christ our Savior became flesh through the word of God, and assumed flesh and blood for our salvation, so too we are taught that the food over which the prayer of thanksgiving, the word received from Christ, has been said, the food which nourishes our flesh and blood by assimilation, is the flesh and blood of this Jesus who became flesh.

The apostles in their memoirs, which are called gospels, recorded that Jesus left them these instructions: he took bread, pronounced the prayer of thanksgiving, and said: “Do this in memorial of me. This is my body”.

In the same way he took the cup, pronounced the prayer of thanksgiving, and said; “This is my blood”, and shared it among them and no one else.

From that time on we have always continued to remind one another of this.

From Pope St. John Paul II’s Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Familaris consortio 5 cited in Remaining in the Truth of Christ (aka The Five Cardinals Book™):

Because it is the task of the apostolic ministry to ensure that the Church remains in the truth of Christ and to lead her ever more deeply into that truth, pastors must promote the sense of faith in all the faithful, examine and authoritatively judge the genuineness of its expressions and educate the faithful in an ever more mature evangelical discernment.

From Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum caritatis, in the section on “The Eucharist and the indissolubility of marriage” (29 ff.) cited in Remaining in the Truth of Christ (aka The Five Cardinals Book™):

[O]ne should begin by assuming that the fundamental point of encounter between the law and pastoral care is love for the truth: truth is never something purely abstract, but a real
part of the human and Christian journey of every member of the faithful. Finally, where the nullity of the marriage bond is not declared and objective circumstances make it impossible to cease cohabitation, the Church encourages these members of the faithful to commit themselves to living their relationship in fidelity to the demands of God’s law, as friends, as brother and sister; in this way they will be able to return to the table of the Eucharist, taking care to observe the Church’s established and approved practice in this regard. This path, if it is to be possible and fruitful, must be supported by pastors and by adequate ecclesial initiatives, nor can it ever involve the blessing of these relations, lest confusion arise among the faithful concerning the value of marriage.

Now in TEN languages!
US HERE – UK HERE ITALYHERE

Posted in Benedict XVI, One Man & One Woman, Our Catholic Identity, Patristiblogging | Tagged Benedict XVI, Communion, divorced and remarried, Familiaris consortio, Five Cardinals Book, John Paul II, marriage, matrimony, Remaining In The Truth of Christ, Sacramentum caritatis, St. Justin Martyr
5 Comments

My View For Awhile: escape from humidity edition

Posted on 16 September 2016 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Off I go again.

We are in the wretched boarding phase, during which everyone in an aisle seat is reduced to a meat turnstile by those who have no sense either of their depth and girth as augmented by packs and purses, or of the presence of other human beings around them.

No I did not buy this at the Strand, though it would have been great to be able to do so.

I spoke by phone with the author recently. He’s a great fellow. I look forward to meeting him in person before too long.

UPDATE:

It’s nice to be able to check luggage status using the app.

Yes. So far so good.

UPDATE:

Waiting. Leaning.

It occurred to me that my last flight had the same number of people board as the flight in the movie Sully which I saw the other day. Real suspense, even though you know the outcome, which is hard to pull off. It was a bit creepy, since I’ve flown into LGA quite a few times.

I wonder: A good candidate for an inflight movie?

In any event, it seems that Tom Hanks would be dangerous to travel with. There was Sully, and the one where he crashed in the ocean and was stranded on an island. And the terrific Apollo 13. Hanks and flying… not so much.

So waiting …

Posted in On the road, SESSIUNCULA, What Fr. Z is up to |
18 Comments

Bishops of Alberta stand up! No Communion for ‘remarried’ without continence

Posted on 16 September 2016 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

One good thing resulting from the confusion surrounding both the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris laetitia and the recent Argentinian Letter, is that the Church’s teachings on important moral issues, and about disposition to receive Communion, are being reviewed and clarified (and, yes, the usual suspects are also lying about them).

Here is some good news From LifeSite:

Alberta bishops: No Communion for ‘remarried’ Catholics unless they practice continence

EDMONTON, Alberta, September 15, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — The Catholic Church has not changed her practice towards divorced and civilly remarried Catholics — despite what the faithful may have been led to believe through the media or other sources, the Alberta and Northwest Territory bishops stated in pastoral guidelines released Wednesday.

It is “erroneous” to conclude that divorced and civilly remarried Catholics can receive Holy Communion “if they simply have a conversation with a priest,” stated the guidelines, signed by the six bishops responsible for over 1,000,000 Catholics in five dioceses.

The 10-page document is intended to “answer the call of Pope Francis in his Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, particularly to assist priests in their duty to accompany those Catholics who are divorced and remarried without having received a decree of nullity,” noted a statement from Edmonton’s Archbishop Richard Smith, president of the Alberta-NWT bishops.

In Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia, the Holy Father makes it clear that the Church’s pastors are to accompany divorced and remarried with a “discernment filled with merciful love, which is ever ready to understand, forgive, accompany, hope, and above all integrate.”

The Alberta bishops letter is highly significant, however, because it does not mention the infamous footnote 351 to paragraph 305 in AL in which the pope states that “in certain cases,” this integration of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics “can include the help of the sacraments.”

The Alberta bishops’ letter also stands in stark contrast to the directive from the bishops of the pastoral region of Buenos Aires in Argentina called “Basic Criteria for the Application of Chapter Eight of Amoris Laetitia.”

[…]

Read the rest there.

Also, since the Alberta bishops have been at it…

Alberta bishops: Priests may need to deny sacraments to Catholics who seek euthanasia

EDMONTON, Alberta, September 16, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — While the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia in Canada does not alter the truth that these acts are “gravely immoral,” it is “foreseeable” that priests will receive requests for the sacraments from Catholics contemplating these actions, the Alberta and NWT bishops stated in a document released Wednesday.

As well as requests for confession and anointing of the sick from Catholics who might have arranged for or are considering assisted suicide or euthanasia, or from their families, priests can also expect requests for Catholic funerals “for persons who have been killed by these practices,” noted the 34-page “Vademecum for Priests and Parishes.”

“How are we to respond with a pastoral care that at once expresses the Church’s deep concern for the salvation of souls and safeguards the dignity of the sacraments and the nature of her funeral rites?” wrote the six bishops, who are responsible for more than one million Catholics in five dioceses.

The document outlines the obligations of a priest when asked to confer the sacrament of penance or anointing of the sick in various scenarios, such as hearing the confession of a Catholic who has already requested assisted suicide or euthanasia, or is contemplating it — including the priest’s duty to uphold the inviolability of the seal of confession, and under what circumstance he must defer or deny absolution.

The latter would be called for if a penitent has “officially requested physician assisted suicide or euthanasia” and therefore is in an “objective state of sin,” having “incited and socially arranged for someone to kill them.”

[…]

Read the rest there.

UPDATE:

From a reader:

As I’m sure you know, we are facing persecution on many sides, especially from the Minister of Education in trying to impose gender ideology on our Catholic schools and an incompetent, corrupt, lay-dominated Catholic school board who seem to think that Christianity is simply ‘secularism with a smile.’ We need prayers that the bishops and priests remain steadfast and that the Catholic faithful be clear on the truth of the human person and the meaning of sexuality.

A local ideologue in Edmonton, essentially, is working to impose the LGBTQ agenda on our Catholic schools, conveniently forgetting why a separate school district was established in the first place, and the machine of the NDP is finding this an easy backdoor to try to mute the Church’s teachings on matters pertaining to the family and sexuality.

Hostem repellas longius!

Posted in ¡Hagan lío!, 1983 CIC can. 915, One Man & One Woman, Our Catholic Identity | Tagged Alberta, Amoris Laetitia, Argentina, continence, euthanasia
6 Comments

Memories of Vatican II’s halcyon days. Who could have predicted that things would fall apart?

Posted on 16 September 2016 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Over at Crisis there is a great piece recounting memories of Vatican II times… those spirit-filled, halcyon days!

I particularly enjoyed this paragraph about the writer’s days in a Catholic girls school:

We attended Mass in Latin, sang hymns in Latin and studied Latin. Our quietly spoken, yet determined teacher Mother Conleth, managed to convey to us that conjugating verbs in Latin and translation, was essential to any kind of semi-decent life on earth. She would begin each class with Salve puellae (“Hello girls”) and then get down to business. Not to do one’s Latin homework was simply human perfidy and would produce abject horror on her face. I am amazed my school retained large Latin classes despite the anti-Latin forces beyond but Mother Conleth, of blessed memory, was a supernatural tour de force.

And there is this cringeworthy description of the shift from decent music to schlock.

This was the era of confident banners at feast day marches, the Children of Mary and their Aspirants, Sodalities and St Vincent de Paul. We sang the school song to St Brigid, Far away enthroned in glory, sweetest saint of Erin’s Isle and of course to St Patrick. We sang Soul of My Savior, Hail Queen of Heaven, the Pange Lingua and that triumphalist Catholic hymn which would make feminists blanche—Faith of Our Fathers Living Still with its words: “Our fathers chained in prisons dark, Were still in heart and conscience free, How Sweet would be their children’s fate, if they like them could die for Thee.”

[…]

It was only in my senior year that a general sense of something strange, new, even “revolutionary” began wafting through the corridors. We sang Spirit of God in the Clear Running Water in the local church as this is “what the Bishops want now.” Mother Conleth, however, loathed such changes and showed it in her “non verbals.”

She also makes serious points in her piece, as if that weren’t serious enough.

I imagine that many of you readers had similar experiences of those “halcyon days”.

As you contemplate them, many of you younger readers here haven’t had the joys of Joy Is Like The Rain, or the ditty the writer mentioned above. Here it is:

BTW… the writer asks some questions at the end, such as, “Who could’ve predicted what happened?”

Well… how about the people engineered it?

Posted in Our Catholic Identity | Tagged Latin, Spirit of Vatican II, Vatican II
27 Comments

US admits Muslim Syrian refugees but bars Christians?

Posted on 16 September 2016 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From Spero News:

The U.S. bars Christian, not Muslim, refugees from Syria

The title of this blog post–The United States Bars Christian, Not Muslim, Refugees From Syria–will strike many readers as ridiculous.

But the numbers tell a different story:

The United States has accepted 10,801 Syrian refugees, of whom 56 are Christian. Not 56 percent; 56 total, out of 10,801.

That is to say, one-half of one percent. The BBC says that ten percent of all Syrians are Christian, which would mean 2.2 million Christians. It is quite obvious, and President Obama and Secretary Kerry have acknowledged it, that Middle Eastern Christians are an especially persecuted group.

So how is it that one-half of one percent of the Syrian refugees we’ve admitted are Christian, or 56, instead of about 1,000 out of 10,801–or far more, given that they certainly meet the legal definition? The definition: someone who “is located outside of the United States; Is of special humanitarian concern to the United States; Demonstrates that they were persecuted or fear persecution due to race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.” Somewhere between a half million and a million Syrian Christians have fled Syria, and the United States has accepted 56. Why?

[…]

Why?

Pres. Obama.

And this is what is in store, on steroids, depending on the outcome of the election in November.

Posted in The Coming Storm, The future and our choices, The Religion of Peace | Tagged Islam, refugees, Syria
11 Comments

ASK FATHER: Year of Mercy indulgence when no chance of confession

Posted on 16 September 2016 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader…

I’m a shut-in in a rural area. EMs bring me Communion on Fridays. Confess once a year (prev. yrs ago @ 2 wks). Really no way to confess @ 3 wks for Plenary Indulgences (Priest has 3 parishes). Any exceptions to that rule? Thanks

Okay…. I think I understood that. Dear readers… there is no reason to write to me in Code. Even as I get older, I still have the time and energy to read sentences, etc.

Now… to work.

First, you should send a note back to the priest through the agency of the Extraordinary Minister of Communion, asking him to come to hear your confession, especially because the Year of Mercy is soon coming to a close.

If that doesn’t bear immediate fruit, there is another option.

The parameters for obtaining an indulgence are set by the Supreme Legislator (aka the Pope, for those of you in Columbia Heights). Indulgences are the purview of the Apostolic Penitentiary (that’s a person, not a big prison for apostles). The Apostolic Penitentiary is the highest tribunal in the Church that deals with matters of the internal forum (e.g., confession) and indulgences. Any dispensation or derogation of the norms attendant to indulgences would come from the Apostolic Penitentiary. You could write to the Major Penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary and ask for a dispensation.

His Eminence
Mauro Card. Piacenza
Major Penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary
Palazzo della Cancelleria
00120 VATICAN CITY

You might then send a copy of your letter to your parish priest, just so that he knows of your earnest desire.

And your desire to obtain an indulgence is both understandable and praiseworthy. But keep this also in mind. While indulgences are useful aids, and we should all strive to gain them whenever possible, they are – fortunately – not necessary for salvation.

The fact that you are (at the moment – we hope the parish priest will work with you) unable to meet the conditions required for the grant of an indulgence does not in any way mean that your prayers are inefficacious, or that your desire to obtain an indulgence will not be rewarded by Our Lord with a merciful shower of grace.

Continue in your diligent prayer, especially for more vocations to the priesthood so that others won’t need to face the deprivation you currently deal with.

Offer up your inability to earn a plenary indulgence in the ordinary way. That in itself will surely be a sacrifice pleasing to Our Lord. His graciousness is unbounded.