Over the weekend I was feeling poorly, really poorly Friday night and Saturday morning, and was facing a lot of work.
I’m much improved, thanks. However, I am not at 100% and I must travel today.
I’d appreciate some spiritual support from you kind readers.
Also, say a prayer for Card. George, whose cancer has returned, poor man.
Once again, someone wrote to ask me if it is okay to eat alligator on Friday during Lent.
Is this a put on? Is this a joke?
Of course it’s okay to eat alligator! And crocodile, if you have some.
A couple years ago I posted this crystal clear answer, which I thought would have resolved this question once and for all.
Cliff Notes Version: The answer is “yes”. You may eat alligator during Lent.
QUAERITUR: Abstinentia de carne lacertina aut crocodrillina
Ex lectoris e-pistulis extractum:
Reverendo patro Ioanni Zuhlsdorfo discipulus C. salutem et commemorationem in precibus suis. Gratias meas, sivis, ob opum tuam tibi agere volo. [Acceptae.] Mihi, catholico iuveni et discipulo in collegio liberalum artis et liberalum (aut impudicarum) mentum, scripturae tuae magnam auxilium fuerunt. Mox Ludovicianam meabo. Quaeritur: Sineturne corpus alligatoris feria VI in Quadregesima sine violando abstinentiam Quadragesimae edere?
My perfectly clear response follows:
Ossificatus manualista impoenitens respondeo de paginis Compendii Theologiae Moralis (Sabetti-Barrett) n. 331, :
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Nomine carnis veniunt omnia animalia in terra viventia ac respirantia, ut communiter admittunt theologi ex regula tradita a S. Thoma vel, ut S. Alphonsus innuit, n. 1011, animalia quae sanguinem habent calidum; vel illud quod consuetudo regionis ut carnem habet; vel, si nec consuetudo praesto sit, dubium solvi potest considerando mentem Ecclesiae in sanciendo delectu ciborum, ut comprimendae ac minuendae carnis concupiscentiae per salutarem abstinetiam consuleret; examinetur, an huiusmodi animal simile sit aut dissimile iis quorum esus interdictus est et an illius carnes humano corpori validius nutriendo et roborando idoneae dignoscantur; et si ita appareat, ista caro inter vetitas est ponenda. Benedict XIV., De syn. dioec., lib.11, c. 5, n. 12. Haec quatuor multum deservient omni dubitationi solvendae.
Crocodrilli et lacertae inter reptilia sunt et amphibia.
Edi ergo possunt feriis sextis et tempore Quadragesimae.
Omnibus tamen diebus ab eis edimur.
So, there you have it.
You can eat alligator and crocodile on Fridays of Lent.
UPDATE:
I sought and obtained more information about the claim made in the comments, below, about permission to eat muskrat in the Archdiocese of Detroit. Here is the edited version, from my Detroit source:
Ah yes, the famous muskrat indult. At the behest of ___, I actually did some digging, and could find no evidence that permission for muskrat had ever been given either by the bishop of Detroit, the Archbishop of Cincinnati (our former metropolitan) or Baltimore, or Quebec. I suggested that someone be sent over to pore through the files of Propaganda (and offered to do it myself, if the archdiocese would fund the trip). I did, however, find an article in the Michigan Catholic from the mid 1940’s, wherein a priest spoke of doing his own investigation back then. He also failed to find any indult, but noted that the meals had been served on Fridays in Lent as long as the oldest parishioners in those parishes could recall. I said to ____ in my memo that, if it was an immemorial custom in 1946, it was certainly immemorial now.
I’ve never tasted muskrat, but have been told that it has the taste of a dirty dishrag and the consistency of very old, thick asparagus.
So, there you have it, again.
Immemorial custom. Chow down.
Was there a good point offered during the sermon that you heard for your Sunday Mass? Let us know.
GOOD points. Thanks.
I saw an alarmingly amusing story at Charisma News:
Marriage Equality Takes Deadly Twist: Woman to Marry Deceased Fiancé
President François Hollande has allowed a French woman to marry her dead fiancé, under a little-known law dating back 55 years.
Pascale Liéard, 48, was given permission for a posthumous marriage to groom Michael, who died two years ago from a heart attack.
Liéard wrote to the president four times before he granted her wedding request. She plans to wear a white top and a black skirt for the occasion.
[…]
I am deeply concerned that this sort of thing will open the way to no-fault divorce of the dead.
Do the dead have rights to preserve their marriages or not?
It is “spring forward” time again.
You get to lose an hour of sleep tonight or risk missing Mass in the morning.
Reset your clocks tonight before going to bed. Most smart phones will do this automatically. I use mine as my alarm clock.
“When Summorum Pontificum came out, and the Holy Father said this is one of the forms of the Latin Rite, the Extraordinary Form, I said ‘I’m a bishop of the Church, I must know this rite!’ And I encourage my priests and my seminarians to learn and to know this rite. Even if you never have a chance to celebrate it, knowing it, experiencing it – I guarantee you – will affect the way you celebrate the Ordinary Form. It will do so.”
Archbishop Sample’s 1st Pontifical Mass at the Throne. There is a super high quality video of the Archbishop’s sermon. He talks about the importance of using the Extraordinary Form:
You can tell that they were in a small space, and had to adapt a little to fill the space properly.
There are 351 views of the video as I post this. See if you can make this popular.
The Traditional Mass is not going away. It will not be stopped.
I can’t see what the fuss is all about.
Well, actually I do see what the fuss is all about.
From FNC:
New York pastor’s Sunday service assault rifle giveaway draws controversy
An upstate New York Baptist pastor has stirred controversy with his plan to raffle off a rifle during a Sunday service later this month, saying giving away the weapon is “the right thing to do.” [I like it.]
The Rev. John Koletas of the Grace Baptist Church in Troy said the service and gun raffle are aimed at “honoring hunters and gun owners who have been so viciously attacked by the antichristian socialist media and antichristian socialist politicians the last few years,” according to a letter on the church website, the Times Union of Albany reported. [I don’t think I would have made a grand statement like this about it. Just raffle it off. The gesture says plenty. If questioned: “Hey! It’s just a rifle.”]
Koletas said he is he’s showing support for Second Amendment rights by giving away the brand-new Smith & Wesson M&P semi-automatic rifle, a weapon similar to the Bushmaster rifle used to kill 20 children and six staff members at Newtown, Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012.
“I’m just trying to be a blessing and a help to the gun owners and the hunters and give away a free AR-15,” he told the Times Union of Albany. “It’s the right thing to do.”
A typical AR-15-type rifle is now illegal in New York. The $700 rifle being given away at the March 23 raffle has been modified — its pistol grip removed [Oooo the eeeeevil scary pistol grip….] — so that it complies with New York’s gun laws, according to Brian Olesen, a gun shop owner who’s donating the weapon.
The raffle winner must be at least 18, undergo an FBI background check and meet all state and federal laws, Olesen said. [So, what’s the problem?]
The rifle raffle has sparked outrage among some of the area’s other [narrower-minded] clergy members, including a pastor who has worked to get guns off the streets of nearby Albany.
“There’s no way we should be in a church saying we’re going to be giving away a weapon that could end up in the wrong hands,” Charlie Muller of the Victory Christian Church told WRGB-TV. [Instead they could be raffling off a car. Church do that all the time, right? I say: Get those dangerous cars off the street! People die in cars! People get hit by cars! On the STREET!]
Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin, an opponent of New York’s SAFE Act, [We should oppose not just because Andrew Cuomo is for it – which is enough – but because it is a BAD LAW.] told the Times Union he plans to speak at the March 23 service when the rifle will be raffled.
“It’s not like I’m going to the Hell’s Angels,” McLaughlin said. “I belong to a Catholic church and they raffle off thousands of dollars. This is a safe, legal firearm he’s raffling. I don’t see the controversy, and it doesn’t strike me as odd at all that they’d raffle a rifle at a church.” [Neither do I.]
Rev. Willie Bacote, pastor of Missing Link AME Zion Church in Troy, who has organized gun buy-back programs in the city, said he considers the raffle un-Christian. [Then Willie should go back to the drawing-board and rethink the issue.]
“The fact a church would offer some type of weapon to anyone strikes me as ludicrous and goes against everything the Bible teaches,” Bacote told the newspaper. “The only thing we’re supposed to arm citizens with is the word of God, not guns.” [It sounds like Willie thinks that the rifle is being raffled off in order to help the winner kill people. That’s just plain mean-spirited and un-Christian, to think that badly of people. Besides, Luke 22:36.]
I have no problem with the raffle. Some parishes raffle cars, which, in the wrong hands could kill a lot of people. What if the parish raffles off a set of golf clubs? Do you know what a golf club can do to a person’s body? What if the raffle offered a baseball bat, a set of frying pans, a deadly pen and pencil set for the love of God?!?!
I am tempted to send away for a raffle ticket, but I already have an AR-15. Now if it were an AR-10….
The other day a priest acquaintance sent me a note about the new Pastoral Letter from Bp. Loverde of the Diocese of Arlington concerning Pornography, “Bought With A Price: Every Man’s Duty to Protect Himself and
His Family from a Pornographic Culture”.
Pornography is not just increasing in our world, it is increasing in its volume, invasive character, and depravity. This is a huge spiritual problem that can destroy lives, not just of those who participate in it immediately, but in those who are near to the one’s being drawn into it. It is seriously addictive and destructive. Any confessor will confirm that sins concerning pornography are common now with a frightening prevalence.
I am glad that a bishop addressed this problem.
I am pretty sick at the moment, Friday night, high fever. I heard confessions for a while tonight that that almost did me in. I have to give two talks at a men’s retreat tomorrow morning, I have an early Mass on Sunday and a baptism, and I fly on Monday to do a parish retreat.
Please, I ask you to “storm heaven” a bit for my sake.
UPDATE:
I woke up this morning after a night that was only half, feeling slightly better. The fever is down.
I gave my two talks and was tired, but I didn’t feel hideous. Afterward, I hit the rack and slept for a while.
I now feel nearly human again.
Thanks for the prayers. I would only ask that you keep them up for a while. I don’t know what this was, but I sure don’t want it anymore.
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
A Daily Prayer for Priests
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