Fr. Z's Blog | Formerly entitled: "What Does The Prayer Really Say?" – Clear, straight commentary on Catholic issues, liturgy and life by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf o{]:¬)

PODCAzT 98: A chat with Fr. Finigan; a special Epiphany blessing

Posted on 5 January 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Here is a quick PODCAzT which includes a conversation over skype with His Hermeneuticalness himself, Fr. Timothy Finigan, parish priest in Blackfen, Kent.

Then I go on with multiple digressions about a special blessings in the pre-Conciliar Rituale Romanum for the feast of Epiphany.

So, in this project we talk quite a bit about indulgences and sacramentals.
https://zuhlsdorf.computer/podcazt/10_01_04.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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The music at the beginning is from Respighi’s Roman Festivals.

A useful text:

BENEDICTIO AURI, THURIS ET MYRRHAE IN FESTO EPIPHANIAE

V. Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini.
R. Qui fecit caelum et terram.
V. Dominus vobiscum.
R. Et cum spiritu tuo.

Oremus.
Suscipe, sancte Pater, a me indigno famulo tuo haec munera, quae in honorem nominis tui sancti, et in titulum omnipotentiae tuae majestatis, humiliter tibi offero: sicut suscepisti sacrificium Abel justi, et sicut eadem munera a tribus Magis tibi quondam offerentibus suscepisti.

Exorcizo te, creatura auri, thuris et myrrhae, per Pa + trem omnipotentem, per Jesum + Christum Fiium ejus unigenitum, et per Spiritum + Sanctum Paraclitum: ut a te discedat omnis fraus, dolus, et nequitia diaboli, et sis remedium salutare humano generi contra insidias inimici: et quicumque divino freti auxílio te in suis loculis, domibus, aut circa se habuerint, per virtutem et merita Domini et Salvatonis nostri, ac intercessionem ejus sanctissimae Genitricis et Virginis Mariae, ac eorum, qui hodie similibus muneribus Christum Dominum venerati sunt, omniumque Sanctorum, ab omnibus periculis animae et corporis liberentur, et bonis omnibus perfrui mereantur. R. Amen.

Deus invisibilis et interminabilis, pietatem tu per sanctum et tremendum Fulii tui nomen, suppliciter deprecamur: ut in hanc creatuuram auri, thuris, myrrhae bene + dictionem ac operationem tuae virtutis infundas: ut, qui ea penes se habuerint, ab omni aegritudinis et laesi incursu tuti sint; et omnes morbos corporis animae effugiant, nullum dominetur eis periculum et laeti, ac incolumes tibi in Ecclesia tua deserviant: Qui in Trinitate perfecta vivis et regnas Deus per omnia saecu1a saeculorum. R. Amen.

Et benedictio Dei omnipotentis, Pa + tris, et Fi + lii, et Spiritus + Sancti, descendat super hanc creaturam auri, thuris et myrrhae, et maneat semper. R. Amen.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, PODCAzT | Tagged blessing, Epiphany, gold, incense, myrrh, podcast, PODCAzT
14 Comments

ASIANEWS: Underground Bishop of Xiwanzi dies, security tightened for funeral

Posted on 5 January 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Lest we get too involved with our oh-so-difficult problems in our parishes or dioceses….

From AsiaNews:

Underground Bishop of Xiwanzi dies, security tightened for funeral
by Zhen Yuan

Although the area is under heavy snow, thousands of faithful are expected for the funeral. The government bans display of Episcopal insignia, prohibits the publication of obituaries and allows only three priests to attend the ceremony. In 2009, 7 Chinese bishops died. In China only 94 pastors remain.

Beijing (AsiaNews) – Coadjutor Bishop Leo Yao Liang of Xiwanzi, Hebei province, died in hospital Dec. 30 at the age of 86, almost one year after his release from a 30-month detention. Authorities have tightened security ahead of his funeral.

Meanwhile the ordinary Bishop Hou Jinli 93, is quite ill, suffering from diabetes. Both prelates are not recognized by the government-sanctioned open Church in China.

The death of Bishop Yao has left 94 bishops alive in mainland China – 38 from the underground and 56 from the official Church, according to Anthony Lam, senior researcher of Holy Spirit Study Centre in the Hong Kong diocese. Speaking to AsiaNews, he adds that seven bishops in China – three from underground (including Yao) and four from the official Church – passed away, in 2009.

Despite heavy snow in northern China, thousands of local Catholics are expected to attend Bishop Yao’s funeral Mass at Xiwanzi town church, Chongli county, Hebei province, on Jan. 6. Local sources say public security has been tightened, preventing people from outside the county from attending the funeral.

Government officials only recognized Bishop Yao as a priest and as such will only permit the funeral for priest not for a bishop. Only three priests of the diocese are allowed to celebrate the funeral Mass, and local Catholics are not allowed to issue a Church obituary on the prelate.

Bishop Yao was brought away by police in July 2006 and was returned to the church on Jan. 25, 2009, the Chinese New Year Eve, after a 30-month detention (see. 03/08/2006 Hebei: bishop, priest and 90 unofficial Catholics arrested). Since then, the prelate had been under close surveillance. Bishop Hou in near by Zhangbei county is also closely monitored. Despite this Bishop Yao had started to build a church in Xiwanzi, and its foundation has just been laid.

Born in 1923, Yao was ordained a priest in 1948 and clandestinely ordained coadjutor bishop in 2002. His body will be buried in the clergy graveyard, about 10 minutes from the Xiwanzi church, in which the last Bishop Melchior Zhang Kexing of Xiwanzi who died in 1988, and other priests were buried.

Succeeding Bishop Zhang, Bishop Hou was clandestinely ordained a bishop in 1984. Hou was born in 1916 and ordained a priest in 1943.

Requiescat.

Posted in Our Catholic Identity | Tagged AsiaNews, Hebei, Yao Liang of Xiwanzi
11 Comments

QUAERITUR: reading Liturgy of Hours on iPhone during Adoration

Posted on 5 January 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader:

I purchased an iPhone this weekend, and have downloaded the ibreviary so far it works great. I was wondering if it would be appropriate to use my ibreviary during adoration. I typically will bring along one of the four volume set of my Liturgy of the Hours and my phone (I am scheduled for 3am and am alone the phone is for safety), but now it seems I could just bring my iPhone. It just feels a little uncouth to be reading from an iPhone during adoration as opposed to a book. So what do you think is it OK or uncivilized?

I am glad you are enjoying the use of the iPhone app iBreviary. You must be using some language other than Latin. Latin is never updated, though it is given as an option.

I don’t think the means by which you read your texts makes too much difference, so long as the instrument (whether book, or scroll, or screen, clay tablet, or phone, etc.) doesn’t become the true focus of your attention. I think some people turn their books into objects of veneration, nearly to the point of bibliomancy [or bibliolatry]. This is easier to fall into with the beautiful old editions of the Breviarium Romanum than it is with the generally poorly bound editions of the Liturgy of the Hours. But consider as well that something people today seem to have turned their smart phones into their oracles. [portatiliolatry?]

Furthermore, there is not only your own approach to the phone, but also how others might interpret what you are doing. I was recently wait for some folks at a church. I parked myself in a corner of a pew at at the back while they took care of business decorating the sanctuary. While waiting I read my office on my iPhone. As my party approached one made the observation that at least had the chance to read my e-mail. These phones are not associated with prayer, even in pious company. The first reaction that people have is that you are doing something quite removed from the sacred. If you will be alone in the chapel, that won’t be a problem, of course.

I have in the past joked that one day we would see Gospel processions with liturgical laptops equipped with covers of the liturgical color of the day. I have quipped that one day we might find monks praying in their dark chapels with their faces illuminated by their hand held devices.

We are no longer readers of wax tablets, or scrolls, or parchment, or vellum. Technology of the delivered word is changing. Young people seem to read screens of all kinds more willingly than books. Newspapers are dying and books sales are down. Kindle and other readers are on the rise.

But connotions change slowly. The content you read on a phone or reader may be the same as that which you find in a book, but holding the book and holding the gadget are perceived as different activities.

Posted in ASK FATHER Question Box |
28 Comments

A cautionary tale in France

Posted on 5 January 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Sometimes it seems that the trajectory of your life is to serve a a warning to otheres not to go down the same path you took.

His rebus dictis, there is a truly bizarre dust up in France in a town called Thiberville. The local bishop of the Diocese of Evreux removed from office the long-time and much beloved parish priest, who coincidently celebrated also the Extraordinary Form. He assigned another priest. This didn’t go down well.

The site Fratres has posted a couple Youtube videos together with something of the story. One of them shows an astonishingly scandalous scene which occurred when the bishop, who has a very liberal reputation apparently, came to the parish seemingly to install the new pastor. The bishop made a pretty bad choice to wear vestments with a rainbow. The congregation erupted in boos and some women actually faced him down and berated him.

In the video you can see the faces of the shocked children watching this ugly scene unfold.

UGLY.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes | Tagged Evreux, Thiberville
61 Comments

Positive news about the talks between the SSPX and Holy See

Posted on 5 January 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The always interesting Rorate as well as the experts of liturgical eye-candy NLM, not to mention the Italian site messainlatino.it all get my biretta tip for this. I share it here to make it known to a wider group of readers.

My emphases and comments:

Some News about the SSPX Discussions by Gregor Kollmorgen

Via the website Panorama Católico Internacional (found via messainlatino.it) come news about the doctrinal discussions between the Holy See and the SSPX.

The follwing is a synthesis of remarks made by Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta, head of the SSPX delegation for the discussions, on the occasion of recent ordinations of the SSPX at its Argentinian seminary of La Reja. [de Galarreta has in the past been one of the hard liners.]

1) The outcome of the first meeting has been good.

2) Primarily the agenda and the method of discussion were established.

3) The issues to be discussed are of a doctrinal nature to the express exclusion of any canonical question regarding the situation of the SSPX. [So, they are not discussing whether the 1988 excommunications were legitimate, they aren’t dealing with the fact that SSPX clerics are suspended or whether they validly absolve sins (under normal circumstances), etc.]

4) The common doctrinal reference point will be the Magisterium prior to the Council. [Before the Council the Church said X. Now the Church seems to be saying Y. Can these two positions be harmonized or not? Actually, that’s a very good project.]

5) The talks follow a rigorous method: an issue is raised, and the party raising it sends a paper substantiating its doubts. The Holy See responds in writing, after prior email exchanges among the technical advisers. At the meeting, the issue is discussed. [Good methodology.]

6) All meetings are taped by both parties and filmed.

7) The conclusions of each topic will be submitted to the Holy Father and the Superior General of the SSPX. [Not that there is any equivalence between them, of course.]

8) The timing of these meetings depends on whether the topic is new or is already being discussed. In the first case, it will be approximately every three months. In the second, every two. The next meeting is planned for mid January. [This is going to take a while… depending on the number of questions. I suspect they will limit themselves to key issues, such as the claim by the SSPX of an anthropocentric starting point in the Council’s documents, rather than a christocentric. They will surely discuss religious liberty and ecumenism, which are probably two sides of the same coin.]

10) The theological representatives of the Holy See "are people you can talk with", they speak "the same (theological) language as we". (meaning presumably they are Thomists). [Very good.]

11) Some of the topics mentioned by the bishop in his homily, not exhaustively, are:

a) The Magisterium of the Council and after the Council.

b) The conciliar liturgical reform. [I suspect that will be more easily dealt with.]

c) Ecumenism and interreligious dialogue.

e) Papal authority and collegiality. [Right.]

f) Freedom of conscience, religious freedom, secularism and the social reign of Jesus Christ.

g) Human rights and human dignity according to the Council’s teaching.

The Bishop repeated that the results of the first session are good, compared to the previous situation. The parties talked entirely freely and only about doctrinal issues in a Thomist theological framework.

No one can foresee what will happen in the future. One will move forward day by day, as prudence and evangelical spirit direct.

How many times did I write about the need for men of good will to sit down and start talking?

One of the real benefits of these meetings and discussions for the whole Church will be greater clarity about the continuity between the pre-Conciliar teaching and Conciliar together with post-Conciiar teachings on a range of important issues. I suspect that in some points the talks may reveal that there seems to be a discontinuity which requires greater explication. Certainly some ecclesiological questions need to be worked through. It is the constant claim by (usually) liberals that the Council changed the Church’s ecclesiology (theology of the nature of the Church). This new ecclesiology undergirds the post-Conciliar liturgical reform and the revision of Canon Law, as well as what is taught in seminaries, etc.

In other words: Cult, Code and Creed.

No one should fear these talks or their results. Everyone benefits from an honest and intelligent search for answers to the burning questions of our time.

Also, I urged you on many occasions for pray for the parties involved. Please keep them on your list.

Finally, I am pleasantly surprised by the positive tone of the remarks by SSPX Bishop de Galarreta.

Posted in Brick by Brick, Ecclesiae unitatem, Our Catholic Identity, The Drill | Tagged Alfonso de Galarreta, SSPX
32 Comments

A cautionary tale about why we must NEVER stop praying for priests

Posted on 4 January 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I read the news that former priest and liberal critic of the Catholic Church James Kavanaugh died at the age of 81. The story is on mlive.com.

One of my spies told me something that the obituary does not mention: Kavanaugh asked for and received the Apostolic Pardon just before he died.

Never stop praying for priests… priests who are faithful and those who are not, those who are capable and those who are less so, those whom you like, those you don’t.

The devil HATES priests with a malice that humans cannot fathom. With diabolical angelic abilities they do what they can to drag priests – upon whom so much rests – down and then farthest down of all.

Pray for priests.

I once had an experience that underscores this plea.

I used to commute by train into Rome from Velletri everyday at oh-dark-hundred … every…day.

One morning there was a commotion on the platform in one of the little stops on the way.

Someone had thrown himself in front of the train.

There were a couple other priests there, standing around with their hands in their pockets. Therefore, I – who always carry an oil stock – got down on the messy track and anointed the still slightly shuddering body and sent him heavenward with the Apostolic Pardon.

The next day my bishop called me in and asked for my version of what had happened. I told him.

He then told me that the man was an ex-priest, a Salesian.

Simply the luckiest desperate ex-priest ever, perhaps.

Who knows what prayers, what work of angels sent by others, saved that man that morning.

Never stop praying for priests, effective or hapless, faithful or not, near saints or obviously lacking.

Do not stop praying for priests.

Posted in Year of Priests | Tagged James Kavanaugh
50 Comments

Reminder: Blessing chalk, houses on Epiphany

Posted on 4 January 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Wednesday is 6 January and therefore Epiphany.

Don’t forget, Fathers, the wonderful tradition of blessing chalk and houses.

(In other words, get some chalk today, if you don’t already have some.)

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Christmas and Epiphany | Tagged blessing chalk, Epiphany
23 Comments

Lentil purée with croutons and escarole… sort of…

Posted on 4 January 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Some time ago a friend gave me a subscription to a great food magazine called La Cucina Italiana. If feasible I try to make at least a couple things from each issue. The last issue has a whole bunch of really good ideas. Last night I made a soup, listed as Lentichie in vellutata con crostini e scarola, or lentil purée with croutons and escarole.

Except… the store didn’t have any escarole. So I used a flashy on sale purple kale instead.

Lentils are a great winter dish. And super cheap.

I started with a cup, and rinsed them.

In a medium sized pan I softened up a half cup of finely chopped onion in olive oil.

Add your lentils and a couple cups of vegetable broth and a cup of water.

Cook for 40 minutes. Put it through a blender or food processor in small batches. You might keep some broth handy if it is too thick. Return it to the pan and adjust the flavor with salt and pepper if you need to. I don’t have a large food processor, so I used a blender.

In the meantime, in 350F oven make some croutons from good crusty bread. I got a small loaf of one of those warm-it-at-home breads with some garlic it. I cut some pieces and put them on a pizza stone.

In the meantime, I cut up the science fiction vegetable and put it into a frying pan with some olive oil, and wilted it down.

I really wanted the escarole, but… oh well. I think you could also do very well with baby bok choy.

Out come the croutons.

Put it together.

There were still some bubbles from the blending process, but it was still hot and I was hungry… so…

This made 4 servings.

A patient reheating before serving will get rid of the bubbles and escarole will make it look less Klingon.

Also, you could add more liquid for a thinner soup or leave it thick and use it almost like a sauce.

The texture was velvety. It was a very nice, almost-makes-itself cold weather meal.

I will probably also try the vellutata di cavolfiore next, which is garnished with leek and veal, and then the crema di fagioli e orzo. There is also an interesting one from carrot with little fish-meatballs. If I can get some mussels on sale I will for sure try the squash purée with mussles.

Posted in Fr. Z's Kitchen |
16 Comments

The Feeder Feed

Posted on 2 January 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

There are some really cold birds out there! This morning it was way below zero Fahrenheit and windy.

The birds are eating prodigiously, doing their puffball thing, sometimes sitting low on their feet to preserve warmth.

Cold Nuthatch.

An eating Goldfinch.

Mrs. Cardinal. Cold.

Hunkered down.

Against the wind.

Yesterday I spotted flying over the house here, an American Bald Eagle, but didn’t have my camera nearby. Also, I spotted a large hawk, but I am not sure which.

Posted in The Feeder Feed |
16 Comments