Daily Rome Shot 1209 – powerful

Posted on 31 December 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Welcome registrants:

Ave-Maria
The Alderman

Here is a fascinating piece from the past provide by CERC. HERE This is from Fr. Rutler at the time of the death of SCOTUS Justice William Brennan and his scandalous funeral. It is an amazing read, both for Fr. Rutler’s style as well as what it says about us today, many years later. The first paragraph… it should hook you.

Richard Cardinal Cushing was relatively constrained back then, because liturgical depredations had not yet switched into high gear. It was not thus when President Clinton, who vetoed the ban on partial-birth abortions, was permitted to announce to all corners of the cathedral for consumption in all corners of the world: “Brennan’s America is America at its best.” That is, internecine America is at its best with 39 million fewer children than would have been born were it not for Brennan’s eisegesis of the Constitution. Attorney General Janet Reno later said in a speech to the American Bar Association that the honors paid to Brennan in St. Matthew’s Cathedral inspired her to go on.

[…]

It is an amazing read.

Here is something related to what Rutler wrote (which you should read first so that you know what I mean).

And then there’s this.

 

This interesting video came up in my feed when I was reviewing recaps of games from the FIDE Blitz Open in NYC.

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Please remember me when shopping online and use my affiliate links.  US HERE – UK HERE  WHY?  This helps to pay for health insurance (massively hiked for this new year of surprises), utilities, groceries, etc..  At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.

In chessy news…  HERE

For your puzzle, white can mate in 2.  Easy, right?  BUT… name the pattern!

This is a heartbreaker, for sure. In NYC during the big Blitz open, Ukrainian veteran Vasyl Ivanchuck, affectionately known as Chucky, who in his day was a true beast, suffered a loss to a young and popular chess content creator Danial Naroditsky whose empathy at the board is manifest.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
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Daily Rome Shot 1208 – Black Moon

Posted on 30 December 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

HEY! au****.w****@erickson.com My thank you note to you was kicked back as undeliverable. New email?

Please remember me when shopping online and use my affiliate links.  US HERE – UK HERE  WHY?  This helps to pay for health insurance (massively hiked for this new year of surprises), utilities, groceries, etc..  At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.

HEY! au****.w****@erickson.com My thank you note to you was kicked back as undeliverable. New email?

In chessy news… HERE

White to move and mate in 2.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
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Your Sunday Sermon Notes – Sunday in the Octave of Christmas (N.O. Holy Family) 2023

Posted on 29 December 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

It’s the Sunday in the Octave of Christmas and, in the Novus Ordo, Feast of the Holy Family.

Was there a GOOD point made in the sermon you heard at your Sunday Mass of obligation?

Share the good stuff.  Quite a few people are forced to sit through really bad preaching.  Even though you can usually find – if you are willing to try – at least one good point in a really bad sermon, that can be a trial.  So… SHARE THE GOOD STUFF which you were fortunate enough to receive!

Tell about attendance especially for the Traditional Latin Mass. I hear that it is growing. Of COURSE.

Any local changes or (hopefully good) news?  We really need good news.

I have some thoughts posted at One Peter Five.

[…]

We don’t know why exactly we are called into this point in time and place, but we know that God must have a plan for us.  If we can accept our state and live it well, and accept the mysterious burdens and challenges that come with living, we are confident that we shall look the Messiah in the face, our selves new born into the happiness of heaven, where there is no weeping or weakness or sorrow and all our great questions will be resolved in the midst of our loved ones and the holy saints and myriad hosts of angels before God’s throne.

[…]

 

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St. David: Musical Poet King, Prophet, Progenitor of Christ

Posted on 29 December 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Holy Church considers many Old Testament figures to be saints.

Today when you open your trusty copy of the 2005 Martyrologium Romanum you will find, just below the St. Thomas Becket, this interesting entry:

2. Commemoratio sancti David, regis et prophetae, qui, filius Iesse Bethlehemitae, gratiam invenit ante Deum et oleo sancto a Samuele propheta unctus est, ut populum Israel regeret; in civitatem Ierusalem Arcam foederis Domini transtulit ac Dominus ipse mox ei iuravit semen eius in aeternum mansurum esse, eo quod ex ipso Iesus Christus secundum carnem nasciturus esset.

You readers can come up with your renderings of the Latin original, either in a smoother version or perhaps in a slavishly literal way.

Changing tracks slightly, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art there  is a series of paintings of Old Testament figures, including King David.  These are elements from an altar piece by Florentine painter Lorenzo Monaco (known also as Piero di Giovanni +1422).

Moses is at the top left.  Next to him is Abraham.  Below him on the bottom right is Noah with his ark.

By thy way, since I took that photo, the paintings have been rearranged… in case you go looking.

Here is David, holding a psaltery.  Greek psallo means “to pluck”.   While there are also bowed psaltery, this one is plucked by the fingers rather than bowed or struck with a pick or plectrum.

When you get the audio guide at the Met and listen to experts talk about the works, sometimes you get a sample of period music.  In this case, you get to hear some music played on a psaltery.

You can hear, below, a sample of bowed psaltery together with a small harp, also appropriate to David, as well as plucked psaltery in two versions of a Medieval Lament for Tristan, which would have been in vogue at the time the painter was working on the altar piece.

Listen as you do your translation!

Also, here again is Tristan’s Lament on a psaltery.

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And, just for fun… here is another image of a psaltery bunny from a late 13th c. French manuscript. He even had the audience moved to sorrow.

 

Posted in Classic Posts, Saints: Stories & Symbols, SESSIUNCULA |
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Daily Rome Shot 1208 – Succisa virescit

Posted on 29 December 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Octave of Christmas, let’s look back to the 1st Mass of Christmas! Right click for larger.

And then there’s this jackass.

One notes with interest that what he attacks is traditional rather than post-Conciliar.   I wonder if he was perhaps a dicasterial consultant for the penning of Taurina cacata.

Happier… succisa virescit!

Unhappier… and not churchy

Please remember me when shopping online and use my affiliate links.  US HERE – UK HERE  WHY?  This helps to pay for health insurance (massively hiked for this new year of surprises), utilities, groceries, etc..  At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.

If you haven’t seen this yet from Gavin Ashendon…

In chessy news… HERE

White to move and mate in 2. How long did it take?

UPDATE:

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
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27 Dec – St. John Evangelist and St. Fabiola and Card. Wiseman about the Bible

Posted on 27 December 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Today, being the Feast of the Evangelist John, we have a special blessing for wine and other libations.  I wrote about that HERE.  We have this blessing because of an assassination attempt.    There was an attempt on the life of St. John the Evangelist by poisoning.  He blessed the cup and the poison crawled out in the form of a serpent.  You often see St. John depicted this way in art.

St Jerome Joos van CleeveSt. Jerome says this about the Evangelist.  Priests read this in the Breviarium Romanum during Matins.

V. Grant, Lord, a blessing.
Benediction. May the Spirit’s fire Divine in our hearts enkindled shine. Amen.

Reading 6
From the Commentary upon the Epistle to the Galatians, by the same author [St. Jerome]
iii. 6.

The Blessed Evangelist John lived at Ephesus down to an extreme old age, and, at length, when he was with difficulty carried to the Church, and was not able to exhort the congregation at length, he was used simply to say at each meeting, My little children, love one another. At last the disciples and brethren were weary with hearing these words continually, and asked him, Master, wherefore ever sayest thou this only? Whereto he replied to them, worthy of John, It is the commandment of the Lord, and if this only be done, it is enough.
V. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us.
R. Thanks be to God.

R. In the midst of the congregation did the Lord open his mouth.
* And filled him with the spirit of wisdom and understanding.
V. He made him rich with joy and gladness.
R. And filled him with the spirit of wisdom and understanding.
V. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, * and to the Holy Ghost.
R. And filled him with the spirit of wisdom and understanding.

This is the author of the Fourth Gospel, the visionary of Revelation, the discipline whom Jesus loved best, the one who, though he ran at first, was at the Cross, and to whom the dying Savior entrusted His Mother even as He told her that John was her son. This feast reminds us of the filial relationship priests should have with Mary, which she already has with us and would see deepened.

Fabiola_Jean_Jacques_HennerAnother connection through St. John’s Day and Jerome is that this is the feast of St. Fabiola, one of the ascetic gang of Roman matrons who were around Jerome while he was in the City and who busied themselves in works of mercy.

Fabiola eventually moved to St. Paula’s monastic house in Jerusalem to continue her work near Jerome. She was quite a wealthy widow and is a patroness of widows, divorced people, troubled marriages, victims of domestic abuse and those who suffer because of adultery.

Perhaps we can ask her today to intercede with God for enlightenment those who are confusing the People of God about the indissolubility of marriage and the sinfulness of infidelity.

There was a famous painting of Fabiola by the French painter Jean-Jacques Henner, which was copied many times before it was lost.  There are many copies.

There is a novel about Fabiola called, surprise, Fabiola by Nicholas Wiseman… Cardinal and the first Archbishop of Westminster after the restoration of the hierarchy in England in 1850.

US HERE – UK HERE

I like this quote from Card. Wiseman (not in Fabiola):

“The doctrine and practice of the Church must not be allowed to be impugned by those who have no claim at all to Scripture, and who can prove neither the canon, its inspiration, nor its primary doctrines, except through that very authority which they are questioning, and through treacherous inconsistency with the principles on which they are interrogating it. When many years ago this ground was boldly adopted, it was charged with being an attempt to throw Protestants into infidelity, and sap the foundations of the Bible. Years of experience, and observation not superficial, have only strengthened our conviction, that this course must be fearlessly pursued. We must deny to Protestantism any right to use the Bible, much more to interpret it. Cruel and unfeeling it may be pronounced by those who understand the strength of our position, and the cogency of the argument; but it is much more charitable than to leave them to the repeated sin of blaspheming God’s Spouse, and trying to undermine the faith of our poor Catholics.” [The Catholic doctrine on the use of the Bible, 1853]

I’m sure that the Evangelist, Jerome and Fabiola would have all been in agreement.

Lift a libation and invoke health today for your loved ones on this Feast of St. John.

Posted in Saints: Stories & Symbols |
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ASK FATHER: Must we do penance, abstain from meat, on Friday in the Octave of Christmas?

Posted on 27 December 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

This is a question which comes up each year. It came up again today.

Must we do penance on Friday within the Octave of Christmas?

The short answer is YES.  This year.

According to Canon Law, Catholics are bound to do penance on Fridays of the year except when the Friday is of the liturgical rank of a “Solemnity” (a new-fangled post-Conciliar rank).

In some years, the Friday will be 1 January.  That’s another matter, because 1 January is the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God in the new-fangled calendar, and the Solemnity removes the obligation.

This year, however, Friday is the third day after Christmas and the Feast of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist.

The Octave of Christmas does not have the same liturgical “weight” of the Octave of Easter.

Easter Friday (a Solemnity) outweighs the penance thing, but Christmas Friday does not.

Note can. 1251 in the 1983 Code.

Can. 1251 Abstinence from meat, or from some other food as determined by the Episcopal Conference, is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday. Abstinence and fasting are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

Remember, you can ask your parish priest to dispense you or commute acts of penance.

Can. 1245 Without prejudice to the right of diocesan bishops mentioned in can. 87, for a just cause and according to the prescripts of the diocesan bishop, a pastor [parish priest] can grant in individual cases a dispensation from the obligation of observing a feast day or a day of penance or can grant a commutation of the obligation into other pious works. A superior of a religious institute or society of apostolic life, if they are clerical and of pontifical right, can also do this in regard to his own subjects and others living in the house day and night.

Members of religious communities and third orders should consult their own regulations and review to whom they turn for dispensations.

It may be that some local places have exceptions in their calendars.   For example, if, this year, you are a parishioner of a parish named in honor of St. John Evangelist, or perhaps the Sts. Theophanes and Theodore, martyrs (Feast 27 Dec.), your patronal feast could be a reason not to be bound by Friday penance.

Also, you can substitute another form of penance for abstaining from meat.  Make it penitential, however.  Abstinence from meat has good reasoning behind it.  For some, however, there abstinence from other things can be of greater spiritual effect.

Posted in 1983 CIC can. 915, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Our Catholic Identity | Tagged , ,
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26 Dec: St. Stephen the Protomartyr, his Archconfraternity, and the Octave

Posted on 26 December 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

In addition to Boxing Day, and the day good King Wenceslaus went out, it is the feast of St Stephen. I hope all your snow is neat and crisp and even.

St. Stephen’s feast has been celebrated this day since the earliest centuries of the Church’s life.

We are also in the Octave of Christmas. Octaves are mysterious. For Holy Church time is suspended so that we can rest in the mystery of the feast.  In her wisdom, Holy Church “stops” her clock so that we contemplate the mystery of the feast from different angles, through different lenses.

St. Stephen reminds us of the consequences of discipleship.  

He is usually depicted surrounded by people who are beating him to death with rocks.

Today, agents serving the “mystical body of Satan” – witting and unwitting – use Fishwrap, Amerika, and Twitter/X  to do that.

As I said, there are consequences of discipleship.

Are you ready for consequence in the days remaining to you?   Consequences can be more or less dramatic.  I think we need to get our heads into mental places wherein we can imagine even dire consequences.

I also congratulate all the members of the Archconfraternity of St. Stephen!  This is a guild of altar boy that started in England.  The first chapter ever outside of England was at my home parish of St. Agnes, in St. Paul.  In the sacristy there was a letter from the Archbishop of Westminster approving the chapter and each year on this day the new boys were enrolled.

I am enrolled!  Just after I entered the Church.

May all liturgical service at the altar be reverent, competent and… male.

Posted in Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Saints: Stories & Symbols, Save The Liturgy - Save The World | Tagged
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25 Dec 2020: Fr. Reginald Foster, OCD – RIP

Posted on 25 December 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

In your goodness, please offer a prayer for the repose of the soul of Fr. Reginald Foster, OCD, who died on Christmas Day in 2020.

Foster was a Carmelite if Holy Hill, WI, Latinist for many Popes in Rome, and teacher/mentor for countless students.

As I wrote back in the day, I owe Reggie a terrific debt for the gift of his knowledge of the Latin language that he passed on and good years of friendship. He was a rara avis if ever there was one, simultaneously jovial and irascible. He was one of the smartest, keenest minds I’ve ever known.

He said a lot of things that shocked people and wasn’t in the least the picture of the cleric. I think that a lot of the time, he said things to shock because he was a little bored. He had 1000MHz more brain speed than any one in the room, and a virtually photographic memory. If he got on your case about something, holy angels help you. However, he was astonishingly kind. When I was studying with him in Rome during one of the really intense summer courses for advanced students I had a tumble and badly injured my ankle. Foster came to visit me every single day… bringing homework sheets – the legendary LUDI DOMESTICI.

Fr. Foster could veer from curmudgeon to Samaritan in an instant, and he could be both at the same time. Many were the times I spotted him in Rome sitting on a curb with a homeless guy or giving him his sandwich out of his briefcase. Affable and gruff. Chipper and brusque. And I found that, once you got past the first layer of the encounter and he relaxed a bit, the man truly was a priest down to his nails. He suffered at the hands of his order and ecclesiastics and he was not happy at all about certain clerical doings.

Foster was, of course, for years in Rome writing Latin for the Holy See and also teaching. Thousands of priests passed through his “experiences” and, today, when we read important documents of pontiffs past, we are often reading Reggie’s Latin.

In his last years he had physical ailments, which were not entirely not his fault.

I will pray for my old friend, whom I’d known since the early ’80s, and I commend him to Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

Posted in PRAYER REQUEST |
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“Et verbum caro factum est”

Posted on 25 December 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Posted in Just Too Cool |
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