NEW STUFF! Glorious altar cards! 2015 ORDOs! Spanish/Latin Missalettes!

Posted on 9 October 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I have been wanting to post about a few useful items.  Let’s start with what I received today.

I have written in the past about the spiffy TLM travel altar cards from SPORCH.  SPORCH is the Society for the Preservation of Roman Catholic Heritage.  Click HERE

Today I received a new set that are, quite simply, glorious (that’s a pun for those of you who know Italian). Sorry about the rather banal soda can.  I use it to give you a bit of scale.

A closer look at the Epistle side card.

The center section of the central card.  Notice the old typeface.  I think that a priest who is very new to Latin might want to study the cards well in order to get used to the different presentation.  I, for one, thrive on it and even created some of my own cards with all the ligatures, etc.  But I digress.

These have now replaced my old cards on my own altar, though I may breakdown and take them to the parish… maybe.

The nice lady who runs SPORCH, whom I met during my recent trip to Louisville, KY, has quite a few different styles, for just about any altar style or size.  She sent three sheets with some images.  Here’s one:

SPORCH cards would be great gifts to a parish and the travel cards a good gift to a priest or transitional deacon.

Next on the list of things to promote we have two Spanish/Latin missalettes for the TLM.  One is for the regular TLM and the other for Nuptial Mass in the Extraordinary Form.

They come from the Coalition in Support of Ecclesia Dei, which has done such great work over the decades through the dedication of Mary Kraychy and others.  I just saw Mary Kraychy last weekend in Chicago, where I gave some talks and said a few Solemn Masses.

This is timely!

I have been writing about the importance of including Spanish speakers at TLMs in these USA.  Get hopping, friends!  I especially commend Fr. Parkerson in the Diocese of Raleigh, who recently started a TLM with Spanish sermon.  Well done.

Next, it is that time of year again.  Advent is just around the corner.  That means that we have to get our new ORDO for 2015.  Every Latin Church sacristy should have an Ordo for both the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form.

I have received two different editions, so far.

First, the Fraternity of St. Peter sent me one copy of their 2015 Ordo.

It isn’t substantially different in content from those of previous years.  It is useful.  There are helpful documents in the back.

Here is a page, so you can see how it is laid out.

I also received a 2015 Ordo from the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius in Chicago.

This is a little zippier than the FSSP Ordo, but they are both spiral bound.

Here is a page that explains use of the 2nd Confiteor.  You decide.

Helpful directions about abstinence and fast.

The calendar layout.

In my effort to be helpful, I hope you will visit the respective sites and find some great items to help you in your full, conscious and actual participation in Holy Mass in the Extraordinary Form!

Tell them Fr. Z sent you!

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Fr. Murray answers Card. Kasper, et alii: “Why is the Church not as merciful as God?”

Posted on 9 October 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Over at The Catholic Thing Fr. Gerald E. Murray has a good essay about denial of Holy Communion: it isn’t “punishment”.  With a few edits…

Denial of Communion Awakens Conscience

By Fr. Gerald E. Murray

Cardinal Walter Kasper published another article in the run-up to the Extraordinary Synod on the Family advancing his proposal that the discipline of the Church forbidding the admittance of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to the reception of Holy Communion needs to be cast aside.

The theme he develops is God’s mercy. He states: “Many ask: If God is always merciful, why is the Church not the same? Or, why does the Church not seem to be as merciful as God?” [We must deny that premise.] And he continues: “The worst reproach that can be leveled against the Church – which in fact, often applies to it – is that it does not practice what it proclaims to others. Indeed, many people experience the Church as rigid and lacking in mercy.”

[..]

But Christian mercy does not consist in validating someone’s complaint of victimhood because the Church, in her discipline, is calling that person to repentance and fidelity to his word, given solemnly before God when he exchanged his marriage vows. [“But Father!  But Father!  Are you saying that people are responsible for the really big choices they make?  You must hate Vatican II!] The prohibition of the reception of Holy Communion by someone living with a person to whom he is not validly married is in fact a charitable act that upholds the Church’s doctrine concerning the reverence we owe to Christ present in the Holy Eucharist, and thus prevents the sacrilegious reception of Holy Communion and the attendant scandal that would commonly be given by such an act. [Get that?  1) It’s charity, not punishment. 2) It prevents sacrilege. 3) It prevents scandal.]

Reception of the Holy Eucharist is here wrongly conceived of as a necessary public sign of fully belonging to the Church, hence its denial is treated as akin to an act of exclusion of that person from the Church. [Good point!] But those in invalid marriages are still in the Church; their persistence in a state of sin, however, means that they are not qualified to receive the Bread of Life. [Get that?  I like the sober point about people thinking that Communion is “necessary”.  Frequent Communion didn’t come into vogue until the 20th c.  The Church’s law prescribes confession and Communion once a year.]

Their own public choice to enter into an adulterous union is the reason why they have excluded themselves from the sacrament of the Church’s unity, which they continue to wound in a serious way by their persistence in such a union. (It’s telling that in the early sessions of the synod, some are already calling for abandoning the term “adultery” as too harsh.) [HERE]The denial of Communion may awaken the conscience. The Gospel call to repent and be converted means ending adulterous behavior by separating, or where that’s not possible or very difficult, by living as brother and sister. In case of doubt about the validity of a Catholic marriage, an ecclesiastical tribunal must decide if a case can be made for nullity.

Cardinal Kasper goes on to restate his proposed solution: “If a person after divorce enters into a civil second marriage but then repents of his failure to fulfill what he promised before God, his partner and the Church in the first marriage, and carries out as well as possible his new duties and does what he can for the Christian education of his children and has a serious desire for the sacraments, which he needs for strength in his difficult situation, can we after a time of new orientation and stabilization deny absolution and forgiveness?”

Yes, not only can we deny absolution, we must deny absolution until that person ceases to live in an adulterous union. Absolution cannot be given to someone who will not make a firm purpose of amendment to desist from his sins. [NB] Cardinal Kasper here characterizes the civilly remarried person as someone whose repentance is limited to ending the first marriage. That is not the only thing he needs to repent of. In fact, if he were not at fault in the break-up of his marriage, he cannot repent of what he did not cause.

What must be repented of is ongoing adulterous behavior with a person to whom he not in fact married in the eyes of the Church. [Ehem… in the eyes of Christ.] His “serious desire for the sacraments, which he needs for strength in his difficult situation,” requires him to turn away from all serious sin and make a good confession. Absent the integral confession of his sins and a firm purpose of amendment, he should not be given absolution.

If he nevertheless approached the altar to receive the Holy Eucharist without having been absolved, that reception would provide no true “strength in a difficult situation” (apart, perhaps, from some chimerical psychological reassurance), [including how reception might allow me to feel self-validated, especially because I am aware of determining my own status without regard for 2000 years of Christian tradition and clear law and teaching] but would rather be an offense against the holiness of the Eucharist and a true scandal, leading others to doubt the teaching of the Church on the indissolubility of marriage and the necessary dispositions for worthily receiving Holy Communion. [The concept of scandal is fading, but it is still real.  If, for example, what some Catholics read in the “Synod of the Media” (esp. liberal outlets) leads them to go to Communion even though they should not, then scandal has been committed by those writers and outlets.]

Those who have made the fateful decision to enter into an invalid second marriage need our prayers, and our encouragement to reform their lives in accord with the demands Christ Himself has placed upon us. Cardinal Kasper’s proposal is a direct contradiction of the Church’s understanding of those demands.

As such, it is a true distraction from the discussion the Synod needs to have about how to help divorced and remarried Catholics to encounter Christ once again – and lovingly embrace the demands of His Gospel.

The Rev. Gerald E. Murray, J.C.D. is pastor of Holy Family Church, New York, NY, and a canon lawyer.

Be sure to check the original page and comments.

Fr. K kudos to Fr. Murray.

Posted in "But Father! But Father!", Fr. Z KUDOS, Hard-Identity Catholicism, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Mail from priests, One Man & One Woman, Our Catholic Identity, The Drill | Tagged , , ,
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Why can 5th graders figure out what many priests don’t?

Posted on 9 October 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader:

I am one of two Altar Boy Deans in charge of my parish’s 112 Altar boys.

Yesterday I was assisting our Altar boy director in training new recruits to the program (5th graders). He had asked me to show them where we keep our Altar cross and where to put it on the free-standing Altar for the Priests who like to use it.

They asked why it was used and I told them so that the Priest could focus on Christ during Mass, especially the consecration, and not distractions in the congregation; I also told them this is why there is always a Crucifix on high Altars (we still have ours – Altar of Repose, except for the annual Dominican Rite Mass in the summer).

Then I was asked why the Priest faces the Altar away from the people at the Latin Mass and I explained that the Priest is leading us in the prayer that is the Mass, and we are all facing Christ in the tabernacle together.

One boy then asks, “Well, why doesn’t the Priest always face the Altar at Mass!?” I could only smile and agree with him that this should happen.

Ex ore infantium!

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Another donation suggestion post. Updates on past projects you helped with.

Posted on 9 October 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Sometimes people ask me about good causes to donate to.  They want to make sure that their hard earned money goes to something that will make a difference.

I want today to suggest three causes which are local to where I am, but which you can trust are solid.

First, I am a big fan of a small Catholic clinic here in Madison (aka “77 square miles surrounded by reality”): Our Lady of Hope Clinic.

I have written about Our Lady of Hope Clinic before.  This is one of the worthiest causes I have seen for a while and it could use your help, wherever you are. Read more HERE and HERE

This clinic could be a model for health care in a rapidly changing – disintegrating – time.  100% pro-life primary care to all patients; and free care for the uninsured.  The “Affordable” Care Act really isn’t.  It is going to be harder in the future for people to get health care, not easier.  And for those without much bucks? They have a DONATION page.  The last time I posted about Our Lady of Hope Clinic, they wrote to me saying:

Thank you so much for your plug of the Clinic in this morning’s blog. Last time you mentioned us, we had money come in from across the country.

Let’s do that again!

Next, I am leading a group that supports the Extraordinary Form here in the Diocese of Madison, the “Tridentine Mass Society of Madison“.  Bishop Morlino, the Extraordinary Ordinary, has been very supportive.  We are set up to help priests and parishes get going with the Extraordinary Form.  We are lumbering back into motion once again now that we have the 501(c)(3) status worked out.  Right now, since His Excellency the Bishop has been happy to celebrate Pontifical Masses, we have been trying to acquire proper vestments.  We just obtained a black pontifical set.  We need to raise some money for a white set, which will be used far more often.  Can you help us?  Our next big event will be at 7 pm on Monday 3 November, a Pontifical Requiem Mass at the Throne.  The music will be De Victoria’s Requiem for 4 voices.  We are also going to organize training for priests of the diocese in the Extraordinary Form.  It is time to press forward without any hesitation or discouragement.  And if you are around Madison, I generally have the 7:30 Mass at St. Mary’s where the great Fr. Heilman is pastor.

And next, a frequent commentatrix here, Elizabeth Durack sent me this:

A mother of 8 children (toddler to middle school) whom your blog readers helped out a lot by buying homeschooling books last year via an Amazon wishlist, needs to raise funds to fix her house before winter. There is a GoFundMe page for that: HERE

Her parish priest appealed to parishioners and raised the exact amount needed to fix the roof (which the crowdfunding page has not been updated to show). Some generous and talented Catholics have stepped forward to do this and some other labor (there were “bees” which were apparently yellowjackets or something in the roof and “hundreds” of them were coming in her bedroom, and a parishioner got rid of them!). But there are other critical repairs still to be made, that take money. I have been to her house and have seen for myself the serious problems with its condition–she does a good job cleaning but is not skilled at house repair. Her situation is complicated.  My friend is also actively seeking a part time job and got some training in a particular field, while also open to other kinds of work that might be available, but employment has not come through yet.

I remain grateful also that your blog readers also bought Bibles and drawstring backpacks for my catechism students of this year, we just had our first class and they are excited to receive them next week and I am going to have them pray for their benefactors!

When you readers get into motion, you do wonderful things.

For example, I can’t tell you how impressed I was with your reaction to the “Fox Sox” drive for the soldiers in Afghanistan.  A priest of Madison was deployed as chaplain there and we bought socks for the entire battalion.  I recently met Fr. Hesseling, the chaplain, who is now reassigned back in these USA as the head recruiter for the USArmy for East of the Mississippi.  You men thinking about Catholic military chaplain tracks should drop me a note and I can put you in touch.

As a matter of fact, you can also donate to the Archdiocese for Military Services and tell them Fr. Z sent you!

And don’t forget my donation button!  Father wants to go to the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy meeting in January.

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Texting

Posted on 9 October 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHixeIr_6BM&feature=player_embedded

Because I never want a report that one of my readers ended up splattered or having splattered some innocents.

 

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St. John Paul: “the Church does not agree to call good evil and evil good”

Posted on 9 October 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From St. John Paul’s 1984 Post-Synodal Exhortation Reconciliatio et paenitentia:

34. I consider it my duty to mention at this point, if very briefly, a pastoral case that the synod dealt with-insofar as it was able to do so-and which it also considered in one of the propositions. I am referring to certain situations, not infrequent today, affecting Christians who wish to continue their sacramental religious practice, but who are prevented from doing so by their personal condition, which is not in harmony with the commitments freely undertaken before God and the church. These are situations which seem particularly delicate and almost inextricable. [This certainly describes the civilly remarried.]

Numerous interventions during the synod, expressing the general thought of the fathers, emphasized the coexistence and mutual influence of two equally important principles in relation to these cases. The first principle is that of compassion and mercy, whereby the church, as the continuer in history of Christ’s presence and work, not wishing the death of the sinner but that the sinner should be converted and live, and careful not to break the bruised reed or to quench the dimly burning wick, ever seeks to offer, as far as possible, the path of return to God and of reconciliation with him. The other principle is that of truth and consistency, whereby the church does not agree to call good evil and evil good. Basing herself on these two complementary principles, [See that? The are “complementary” and not “conflicting”.] the church can only invite her children who find themselves in these painful situations to approach the divine mercy by other ways,not [NOT] however through the sacraments of penance and the eucharist until such time as they have attained the required dispositions.

On this matter, which also deeply torments our pastoral hearts, it seemed my precise duty to say clear words in the apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio, as regards the case of the divorced and remarried, and likewise the case of Christians living together in an irregular union.

[…]

For all those who are not at the present moment in the objective conditions required by the sacrament of penance, the church’s manifestations of maternal kindness, the support of acts of piety apart from sacramental ones, a sincere effort to maintain contact with the Lord, attendance at Mass [still obligatory] and the frequent repetition of acts of faith, hope, charity and sorrow made as perfectly as possible can prepare the way for full reconciliation at the hour that providence alone knows.

And thus both compassion and truth are held out as complementary by St. John Paul II.

Are we ready to set this aside as no longer applicable today?  No longer relevant?

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YOUR URGENT PRAYER REQUESTS

Posted on 8 October 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Please use the sharing buttons! Thanks!

Registered or not, will you in your charity please take a moment look at the requests and to pray for the people about whom you read?

Continued from THESE.

I get many requests by email asking for prayers. Many requests are heart-achingly grave and urgent.

Right now it seems … well, something is up, because I’m getting lots of requests for prayers.  More than usual.

As long as my blog reaches so many readers in so many places, let’s give each other a hand. We should support each other in works of mercy.

If you have some prayer requests, feel free to post them below. You have to be registered here to be able to post.

I still have a pressing personal petition.

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9 OCT – LONDON – MASS for Feast of Bl. John Henry Newman

Posted on 8 October 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

On Thursday, 9 October, a Solemn Mass in the Ordinariate use of the Roman Rite will be offered at the Ordinariate central church in London, Our Lady of the Assumption and St. Gregory (Warwick St.).

The Mass will be celebrated by Mgr Keith Newton and the guest preacher will be Fr Michael Lang, parish priest of the London Oratory.

My friend Fr. Lang is sure to give a fine sermon.  I’d like to be there to hear it.

I hope to get to London in January after the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy conference in Rome.  I wouldn’t weep to have a speaking gig of some kind while in London.

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Thoughts about the Synod and simplifying the “annulment” process

Posted on 8 October 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

At the National Schismatic Reporter (aka Fishwrap) Jesuit Thomas Reese is going out to the edge of the cliff:

Simplified annulment process coming from synod

This is part of the “lemmings to the cliff” dynamic being stirred by the Synod of the Media.

If you follow news about the Synod (“opinion” pieces), doesn’t it seem that many assume automatically that dumbing down the process for review of marriage cases simply has to be done or OMG!! the sky is going quite simply to fall?  We can’t be a Church of “mercy” unless we jettison all – or at least a lot – of this legalistic mumbojumbo and finally become the compassionate Church we have never ever been!

It’s a foregone conclusion.

Right?

If, however, the Synod of the Synod recommends a streamlined annulment process to the Pope, it remains to be seen what that would look like. How to do that without undermining also the Church’s teaching on marriage?

Paul VI, in his 1966 Apostolic Constitution on Fast and Abstinence Paenitemini didn’t fundamentally change the Church’s teaching on fasting, abstinence, doing penance, etc. He changed the laws concerning the practice of those things which the Church teaches we must do.

The result today is – and I don’t think I am exaggerating – that hardly any Catholics practice any meaningful fasting, abstinence, penance or mortifications of any kind.

Thus there has been lost to all of us, the Church as a whole, tremendous, incalculably valuable spiritual benefits.

Let’s now talk about changing juridical practice concerning marriage cases and declarations of nullity.

That won’t change what people believe?

When changes were made to Holy Mass in the 60’s (and with illicit experimentation and abuses far into the 70’s and 80’s) many people had the impression that, “If Mass can change, anything can change… including doctrine!”

Decades of bad translations and Communion in the hand, while standing… they haven’t affected people’s belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, have they?

All manner of expectations are being raised by the eager, oh so eager, Synod of the Media.

I’ve been quizzing canonists I trust for their opinions on what could be done that wouldn’t make the serious discernment process, aimed at arriving at truth and justice, into a something that unintentionally signals that the Church’s practice is a sham and that doctrine can change.  More on that another time.

Meanwhile, if American diocesan tribunals are a model that some (of the most eager for CHANGE) think should be followed (precisely because they were though to be annulment mills), then why did His Holiness not appoint a single American to the commission charged with overhauling the process?

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ASK FATHER: How to record SSPX sacraments in regular sacramental registers?

Posted on 8 October 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a priest…

QUAERITUR:

We have a woman who was baptized in an SSPX Parish [not a parish… just some sort of chapel]. She attends Mass there. She recognizes that the SSPX lacks the jurisdiction for a Catholic Marriage. [Exactly, they don’t act as a witness for the Church, which results in lack of proper form.] She has approached the local parish in the Diocese about getting married there.  [Good for her!]

Is she in need of making an act of faith prior to the marriage?

Where should such a marriage, that takes place in the diocesan parish, be recorded? It isn’t as if she is being received in to the Church.

The SSPX is not in formal schism.  Therefore, she would not need to make a Profession of Faith.  She is Catholic, albeit in an irregular situation.

I strongly urge this thoughtful lady to make a good confession to a priest with faculties, if she’s been going to confession to an SSPX priest over the years.  They don’t have faculties to receive sacramental confessions and therefore they do not absolve validly under normal circumstances (but they do in danger of death).

Record keeping.  That’s a puzzle.  Here’s a solution, the best I know so far.

SSPX chapels are located within the boundaries of a real parish associated with local diocese.  All the baptisms and 1st Communions and confirmations that take place irregularly within the boundaries of the diocesan parish are the “property”, so to speak, of the local diocesan parish.   Therefore, I suppose you would send a note to the parish whose boundaries include that SSPX chapel.  Include all the information you can gather.

Ideally, we could go to the SSPX chapel and take possession of their sacramental record books, because those valid Catholic sacraments took place, not in the SSPX chapel, but truly in the Latin Catholic parish.  So, when news came down of a marriage for someone who had been baptized at St. Athanasius the Long Suffering Chapel of District 529 of the SSPX a record would be written into the register at Our Lady Queen of Holy Popes Catholic Church recording as much information as could be gleaned.  Thereafter, all the people in question, receiving sacraments, should be told that all sacramental records should be asked for from OLQHP, and any future notations should be sent there.

I look forward to the day when these things are resolved.

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