I have decided not to be worked up about the Obama regime downgrading relations with the Holy See by closing the embassy building.
After all, Pope Francis is downgrading his own relations with the Holy See, by planning to devolve responsibilities to the regional bishops conferences.
From a readerette:
When my husband asked me what I would like for Christmas this year, I said, “I would like for our family to attend a Latin Mass.” (I think that will be my response when he asks what I want for my birthday next year.) [Good thinking. Ladies, I’ll bet birthdays and anniversaries would work too.] So we’re going to ___. Their website provides guidelines on how to properly conduct ourselves during mass, but I need further guidance.
We have an eight-month old who might get fussy during mass. If this happens, what should we do?
Should we soothe him in our seats? Should we take him to the vestibule? What about during communion? Can we take him to the communion rail with us (we won’t be able to fold our hands in prayer).
“Fold hands in prayer”… I like that. I sometimes wonder if people aren’t thinking, “OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD AM I DOING THIS RIGHT?!?” or “Can’t he go FASTER?” or even “How does he say that long Latin thing so….. [whoops! (tongue out)]…. fast?”
So, you have asked me not only to step on the third rail, but “moon walk” on it.
Fussy babies during Mass.
Okayyyy.
We all love babies, don’t we? I want to be on record that I love babies.
And many of you will with great fervor chime in to say, “Babies don’t bother me at Mass! I am always really happy to hear babies singing during Mass!”, with perhaps with the suggestion that anyone who doesn’t want to hear your little stupor mundi shatter the windows is a baby-hating … I dunno… liberal, or something.
Indeed, some people really don’t hear the snuffly bundles of joy when they mewl. Mirabile (non) auditu! How they do that, I don’t know. I have no reference point.
A priest stopped at my quarters the other day. I moved to turn of the TV.
He quipped, “I grew up with 7 brothers and sisters. Noise doesn’t bother me.”
“I didn’t”, quoth I.
Noise bothers me. No. Really. It does. (Except when I have the news on and I am also playing through recorded talk radio programs at 2x speed; I can do that… but I digress).
In church? That’s a different matter. NOISE doesn’t belong in church. Remember Screwtape on silence and noise?
Do baby yowlings constitute “noise”? I’ll let you decide. I refuse to take a position or responsibility for any assumption you make about my position! (There. I’m teflon!)
That said, I was amused on Sunday when a wriggling cutie pie somewhere in church decided to respond to the ringing of the bells rung at the consecration: “EyYeyaaahOYYAbibÁyou!”, or something along those lines… right on cue.
Since I have zero experience in calming the infant, except in those occasions in which they become suddenly big-eye fascinated by my low resonant voice, I will turn this over to the general public.
In the meantime, I suggest that you not choose to sit in the very front row or even in the middle of rows. Perhaps a place near the back or near a convenient door is a good idea.
As for coming to Communion with folded hands, don’t worry about that. Babe in arms? Kneel (if practical). Lock down junior’s little searchy grabby arm if necessary. Tilt head back slightly. Open jaw. Extend tongue about an inch. Wait. No “Amen” needed. Father does the rest.
Bottom line: Common sense, respect for others, and let us all be human, whatever age we are.
I am grateful for all of you who frequent this blog.
Tomorrow, US Thanksgiving Day, I will say Mass for the intention of my benefactors (donors, wishlist senders, etc), for whom I am doubly grateful.
Just wanted you to know. May God bless you all with many graces and all you need for your vocations and your salvation.
I ask a prayer.
From Astronomy Pic of the Day, which I check every day. Click for a visit.
Will Comet ISON survive tomorrow’s close encounter with the Sun? Approaching to within a solar diameter of the Sun’s surface, the fate of one of the most unusual comets of modern times will finally be determined. The comet could shed a great amount of ice and dust into a developing tail — or break apart completely. Unfortunately, the closer Comet ISON gets to the Sun, the harder it has been for conventional telescopes to see the brightening comet in the glare of the morning Sun. Pictured in the above short time lapse video,Comet ISON was captured rising over the Canary Islands just above the morning Sun a few days ago. If the comet’s nucleus survives, the coma and the tails it sheds might well be visible rising ahead of the Sun in the next few days or weeks. Alternatively, satellites watching the Sun might document one of the larger comet disintegrations yet recorded. Stay tuned!
More at SpaceWeather!
UPDATE:
From Spaceweather:
COMET ISON, R.I.P.: Evidence is mounting that comet ISON did not survive its brush with the sun earlier today. At 01:45 EST on Nov. 28th, Thanksgiving Day in the USA, the comet was supposed to pass a little more than a million miles above the surface of the sun. As a new movie from SOHO shows, the comet had already disintegrated. Click to set the scene in motion, and pay careful attention to the head of the comet:
UPDATE:
Again from Spaceweather:
CANCEL THE EULOGY: Comet ISON flew through the sun’s atmosphere on Nov. 28th and the encounter did not go well for the icy comet. Just before perihelion (closest approach to the sun) the comet rapidly faded and appeared to disintegrate. This prompted reports of ISON’s demise. However, a fraction of the comet has survived. Click on the image below to see what emerged from Comet ISON’s brush with solar fire:
In the movie, Comet ISON seems to be falling apart as it approaches the sun. Indeed, researchers working with NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory said they saw nothing along the track that ISON was expected to follow through the sun’s atmosphere. Nevertheless, something has emerged. Whether this is a small scorched fragment of Comet ISON’s nucleus or perhaps a “headless comet”–a stream of debris marking the remains of the comet’s disintegrated core–remains to be seen.
[…]
There is more over there.
As a commentator posted in the com box…
ISON is truly
“The Little Comet That Could”!
Read reactions and analysis of Evangelii gaudium and you will quickly see that the catholic Left’s take on the Apostolic Exhortation inexorably veers into “Isn’t it great that the Pope hates traditionalists? He’s one of us!”
Heh heh. Not so much.
The catholic Left has nearly completely accepted that their flagship issue has been torpedoed.
When you read liberal and squishy-to-left Catholic blogs and news sites you will see that they shuffle the women’s ordination thing in Evangelii gaudium either into some few asides or down to the bottom of their lists.
Go ahead! Go out and see what they are doing.
What appears at the top of their lists, however, are quotes from the Apostolic Exhortation that seem to cut down conservatives.
What’s this all about? What’s going on under the surface?
Liberals are so happy that the Pope seems to be bashing conservatives, that they are ready and willing to accept that women will never ever be ordained.
The “Joy of their Gospel” is to see conservatives get whacked. They are so overjoyed, as a matter of that, that they are willing to sacrifice their flagship.
Yes, you will find a few waayyyy out on the even leftier fringe of their fleet – you know, the Gray Panthers – for whom Francis denial of women’s ordination this is still a problem. But, for the most part, Francis hit their liberal sweet spot so perfectly that they are taking the bitter hit amidships.
“Trads to the WALL!” To them, it’s worth it.
Make no mistake. The Big Issue for liberals is women’s ordination. Francis, the fluffiest and most wonderfullest Pope since Peter has now taken the issue away from them.
This Franciscan slight of hand has put liberals into a serious dilemma, almost like to that of Buridan’s Ass. This time, however, the catholic Ass chose.
The Pope has won liberal support for his decision not to reopen the question of women’s ordination. He won them over by ostensibly sacrificing those who desire traditional expressions of liturgy, etc., at least in his rhetorical flourishes. They took the bait.
catholic liberals have been co-opted not only into accepting that women will never be ordained, they are, in their acquiescence, now supporting it.
The Pope wins. The Church’s doctrine wins. The Catholic faithful win.
Will Francis manage to drive a wedge between extreme feminists and other liberals? When he does, he will have succeeded in doing what no Pope has ever done, or ever tried to do: create divisions in the catholic Left.
I am making up my mind about doing the brief daily podcasts for Advent this year.
If so, …
My mind is flat today, but I don’t think that this would be a good starting point.
Are we now too impatient to receive even good preaching? Should we, therefore, dumb preaching down?
Those who are familiar with the Fathers of the Church know all too well that their sermons were often pretty long, well over an hour. Think of St. John Chrysostom! He wasn’t the man with the “golden mouth” for nothing. What about St. Ambrose whose preaching (not brief) helped Augustine in his conversion? Augustine himself could preach for 2.5 to 3 hours at a shot. We are the richer for it.
Of course, people in those days were far more aural and oral. They were used to listening and talking. Many of the listeners were illiterate or barely literate, but they could follow well the skilled orator. They did not have screens and soundbites and tweets. Oratory was their delight. They could reel off stories, songs, poems, for hours. They did not have moving images with rapid, mesmerizing, flash-like edits. They did not have nano-span attention problems.
In the new Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium the Pope says that sermons/homilies should be brief:
138. The homily cannot be a form of entertainment like those presented by the media, yet it does need to give life and meaning to the celebration. It is a distinctive genre, since it is preaching which is situated within the framework of a liturgical celebration; hence it should be brief and avoid taking on the semblance of a speech or a lecture. [Si la homilía se prolongara demasiado, afectaría dos características de la celebración litúrgica: la armonía entre sus partes y el ritmo.] A preacher may be able to hold the attention of his listeners for a whole hour, [like many of the greatest, influential preachers in history] but in this case his words become more important than the celebration of faith. If the homily goes on too long, it will affect two characteristic elements of the liturgical celebration: its balance and its rhythm. When preaching takes place within the context of the liturgy, it is part of the offering made to the Father and a mediation of the grace which Christ pours out during the celebration. This context demands that preaching should guide the assembly, and the preacher, to a life-changing communion with Christ in the Eucharist. This means that the words of the preacher must be measured, so that the Lord, more than his minister, will be the centre of attention.
Look. It is obvious that a sermon that is too long is not good. Why? Because – try to follow – it is too long. That is to say, it is long to the point where it is too long, it is excessively long, unduly long, inordinately long, overly long. Who will disagree that that is not good?
So, how long is too long? You will respond that “It depends on the circumstances.” Yes, it depends on the day, current events, the feast observed, the nature of the congregation, the skills of the preacher. As I mentioned above, Christians of yore could follow the long sermons of skilled orators. Skilled.
Lots of factors, no?
If nothing else, Francis’ exhortation (that’s what the genre of the document is) should prompt clerics to prepare more diligently and to hone their skills. Any and every preacher can improve through elbow grease and grace.
Francis also says that sermons should not be like “lectures”. I assume that that doesn’t mean that they should be like classroom presentations. Fine. What should they be like? Should they be like the pious fervorini of Italian preaching of the 19th century, all tears and eye-rolling, pulpit-slamming and gestures? Francis himself seems to adhere to a kind of non-Marxist “liberation” theology that is rooted in popular piety. So, should his little sermonettes each day be the model? Should his prepared pieces for greater feasts? Sermons/homilies must also instruct the faithful. They need to aim at deepening not only our fides qua creditur, the Faith by which we believe, but also the fides quae creditur, the Faith in which we believe.
While we must insist that not every sermon can say everything about some point of the Faith, deepening the Faith requires a little time and patience.
So, how long is too long? Who knows?
Again, I am faced with a paragraph that leads me to say: “What is Francis talking about?”
In any event, given your circumstances (see above), how long is too long? Turning the sock inside out, how long is “just right”?
I am detecting rumblings that the English translation of the Pope’s new (first) Apostolic Exhortation is not so hot and that it may be, in some key places misleading.
There are always going to be differences in opinion about how to render texts. Also, though we are not sure about this, the original was probably Spanish. (Yet, another reason for me to get to work.)
Since yesterday, two new languages have been added to the Holy See’s website: Polish and Portuguese.
NB: No Latin.
It could be good to identify some key paragraphs here so that we can take a collective look at them in, perhaps, separate posts.
The moderation queue is on and I may be a little picky.
As you have probably heard, The First Gay President, who also brought you the “AFFORDABLE” Care Act’s HHS mandate, is going to close the embassy of these USA to the Holy See.
I didn’t really care much about this story at first, but I thought about it a little more. And I read this which presents an interesting juxtaposition HERE:
The same week that Obama gives the imprimatur of legitimacy to the Islamic rogue regime of Iran and sanctions their nuclear weapons program, he closes the American embassy to the Vatican.
Moreover, many of the former ambassadors, including James Nicholson and Mary Ann Glendon, think that this is a bad move.
Nicholson said:
“It’s another manifestation of the antipathy of this administration both to Catholics and to the Vatican – and to Christians in the Middle East.”
Some say that this move is a “slap in the face”.
So… what do you think?
Choose your best response. The combox is open to registered users.
I was sent a video by a reader of some loony wymny in Argentina burning Pope Francis in effigy. I don’t know what this group is about, but I can guess. It probably defies the Church’s teaching on contraception or on abortion (feminist sacraments, both). Francis is clearly upholding the Church’s teaching. They hate him. They do what liberals always do: they channel their inner Lord of the Flies, blow the conch, and go savage.
Liberals in Argentina have known him longer than the rest of the world. As I have been saying, liberals (in the anglophone world) will eventually turn on him.
Make some popcorn and enjoy! This is eventually what the Fishwrappers will want to do.
NB: Don’t watch this if you have delicate sensibilities. Some of these dopes lose their clothing.
Description with the YouTube video: “Quema de la Imagen del Papa Francisco I por grupo de manifestantes mujeres frente a la Catedral de la Ciudad de San Juan, Argentina.” I don’t know when this happened, but it was posted on Monday, 25 November. One can assume that it took place on Sunday night. Why would they delay in posting it?
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
shiny on YOUR URGENT PRAYER REQUESTS: “Thank you to all those who have prayed for my intentions in the past! This might be a small thing,…”
on WDTPRS – 9 November: Feast of the Dedication of St. John Lateran, Rome’s Cathedral: “Fr Z — this is an excellent piece. Great teaching. Thanks for this.”
on “Sometimes the scalpel is the honey.” Wherein Fr. Z rants about “the parable of the wheat and tares”.: “Another thought: sometimes the only one who can successfully use the scalpel on us is ourself. Because ultimately, it is…” on “Sometimes the scalpel is the honey.” Wherein Fr. Z rants about “the parable of the wheat and tares”.: “Fr. Z, I appreciate the honesty about yourself. It is a good prayer. May God reward you!”
on ROME 26/10-11 – Day 37: For awhile…: “Safe travels, Happy Thanksgiving. Now that you are back in the USA, maybe we can get more updates from the…”
on “Sometimes the scalpel is the honey.” Wherein Fr. Z rants about “the parable of the wheat and tares”.: “I’m finally reading the Divine Comedy. I’m through the Inferno and halfway in the Purgatorio. I often wonder if someone…”
on YOUR URGENT PRAYER REQUESTS: “The complete prayer. I apologize it was missing a few lines. Thank you. PRAYER FOR HELP WITH PREGNANCY through the…”
A Daily Prayer for Priests
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