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.
Since the Tour de France is on….
Finally, some Days In Rome Oct ’24 donations have already come in via the wavy flag. I will shortly have a dedicated post on this. However, thanks…
VF, JL, MR, DVDH, DC, LG
Right up your alley… towards the Chiesa Nuova.
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 Bucharest the hostilities have resolved in playoffs between Pragg, Gukesh, Puer, and Fabi. It was a delight to watch Puer (Alireza) fumble and lose. In the end, Fabi won the whole thing with 3/3 in Rapid. I would like to have seen my guy Wesley So have a better tournament, but there’s next time!
Black to play and mate in 4.
NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
Since the Tour de France is on….
Finally, some Days In Rome Oct ’24 donations have already come in via the wavy flag. I will shortly have a dedicated post on this. However, thanks…
VF, JL, MR, DVDH, DC, LG
I’m heading to Pittsburgh today in anticipation of the conference on Monday.
The airport I’m using today has not had any sort of lounge for passengers. Until now. There is now something associated with Priority Pass and a cut rate Brit airline which – rather like a college cafeteria. I hope they get their act together.
Meanwhile…
UPDATE
YIKES! Only 39 minutes on the ground to change flights. How did I do that?!? I never do that anymore. And I see that the arrival and departure gates are at the end of their concourses.
UPDATE – Not great. We arrived late and they taxied us for 20 minutes. Already boarding had started by the time we reached the gate. Next gate on the other side of the airport of course.
I seriously doubt my bag is going to be on this flight.
UPDATE:
I used my phone to track my bag and – whaddya know – it seems to have made it in the nick of time.
I hate tight flights.
In the traditional Roman calendar this Sunday is the 7th Sunday after Pentecost.
Today’s Collect survived the cutting and pasting experts of the Consilium to live on as the Collect for the 9th Sunday of Ordinary Time.
COLLECT (1962MR):
Deus, cuius providentia in sui dispositione non fallitur te supplices exoramus, ut noxia cuncta submoveas, et omnia nobis profutura concedas.
Blaise/Chirat (a dictionary of Latin in French) indicates that dispositio is “disposition providentialle”. It has to do God’s plan for salvation. Fallo is an interesting word. It means basically, “to deceive, trick, dupe, cheat, disappoint” and it has as synonyms “decipio, impono, frustror, circumvenio, emungo, fraudo”. Fallo is used to indicate things like simply being mistaken or being deceived. It can apply to making a mistake because something eluded your notice or it was simply unknown. In our Latin conversation it is not uncommon to say nisi fallor, “unless I am mistaken…”. If you look for submoveo you may have to check under summoveo. Find profutura under prosum. Don’t confuse noxia with noxa.
SUPER LITERAL WDTPRS VERSION:
God, whose providence is not circumvented in its plan, humbly we implore You, that You clear away every fault and grant us all benefits.
There is no getting around or circumventing God’s plan.
Why, given who God is and who we are, would we want to try?
But we do, don’t we.
We have to make a choice about which way to go with noxia. Does it mean “harmful things” that are outside us or that are within us, that is, our own sins, our faults? Both?
OBSOLETE ICEL (1973 9th Sunday Ordinary Time):
Father, your love never fails. Hear our call. Keep us from danger and provide for all our needs.
ROFL! Quite simply dreadful. This may be one of the worst I have ever seen. But we NEVER have to HEAR IT AGAIN.
CURRENT ICEL (2011 9th Sunday Ordinary Time):
O God, whose providence never fails in its design, keep from us, we humbly beseech you, all that might harm us and grant all that works for our good.
We have to make a choice about which way to go with noxia. Does it mean “harmful things” that are outside us or that are within us, that is, our own sins, our faults? Both?
God knows who we are and what we need far better than we can ever know ourselves.
The Postcommunion oration of this Sunday’s Mass:
Tua nos, Domine, medicinalis operatio, et a nostris perversitatibus clementer expediat, et ad ea quae sunt recta perducat.
Super literally,
O Lord, may Your medicinal operation both mercifully deliver us from our perverse inclinations and guide us to those things which are right.
That Latin operatio has several layers in meaning. It is, of course, “a working, labor”, it is also in ancient religious contexts, “a religious performance, service”. Here, in this oration which is immediately after reception of Communion is concluded, we can find another way to phrase it, “healing Sacrament”. Also, perversitas is literally “turned away from”. Recta is from rego, “to keep straight, keep from going wrong”. Hence, we might take another crack at the translation:
O Lord, may your healing Sacrament mercifully extricate us from our perverse ways and lead us unto the straight paths.
BTW… given what’s going on these days, my choice of “perverse” and “straight” was not by accident.
Foreseeing all our sins and many faults, all that we say and do is embraced in His eternal plan.
He has disposed all things so as to make glorious things result from the evils for which we alone are responsible.
Sometimes, moreover, it is hard to understand that God actually cares are us. Given how immeasurably vast God is and how small we are, it is easy for some, mired in earthly distractions, to lapse into sort of deism and imagine a God who created everything and then, like a clock maker, just set the pendulum to swing and stepped away.
There is an old adage that, if you want to know if God is interested in you, just make a plan.
It is good for us each day never to forget to make an Act of Faith, which is a good Trinitarian prayer.
O my God, I firmly believe that Thou art one God in Three Divine Persons, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. I believe that Thy Divine Son became Man, and died for our sins, and that He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe these and all the truths which the Holy Catholic Church teaches, because Thou hast revealed them, Who canst neither deceive nor be deceived.
Reposing the chain that bound St. Paul.
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.
From Bucharest, I would like to have better news. Fabiano is still in the lead. My guy Wesley So had a good game again Nodirbek, but he wasn’t able to convert it. It ended in a draw. The tournament is winding down. Today Wesley faces MVL in Round 8.
Interim, motus ad lusorem cum militibus albis pertinent. Scaccus mattus, scilicet mors regis, tribus in motis veniat.
NB: Detineam explicationes in crastinum, ne vestrae interrumpantur commentationes.
Hey Fathers! How about a clerical Guayabera shirt for the hot summer days?
Our Price: $58.50 – Reg Price:$90.00
More images available.There are also two belt level front pockets on the shirt. Very handy.
With a woven fedora or panama, you’ll be in good shape for the heat.
Click for choicesOf course they also have regular Guayabera shirts for lay people in all sorts of colors.
Also, yesterday I took my car in to the dealership for its annual check up. While I was waiting I used my wonderful travel set to work on some zwischenzug puzzles.
White to move. Can you find the best plan? Hint: its a puzzle from a book of zwischenzug puzzles.
This is a great little set. Magnetic. Leather backed folding board. Wood pieces with extra queens. All goes into a small pouch. I wrote about it last year – HERE – when I went to the conference for priests held by the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. I am going again this year in a couple of days thanks to some readers here.
WH, LD, MM, BMR, JK, DC, AR, DM, JMcG, SEN, KM, MH, BF, GG, MF, RM, LP, MW, JL… I think I have you all.
I’ll be in Pittsburgh for a couple days before the conference begins visiting a priest friend.
The little chess set… take a look. It could be a great gift, also. HERE
Finally, a Days In Rome Oct ’24 donations came in already via the wavy flag. I will shortly have a dedicated post on this. However, thanks…
VF, JL, MR, DVDH, DC
There are developments.
The Times of London published a letter signed by “prominent figures” in the UK world of arts, business, politics and journalism urging that there be no new restrictions on the Vetus Ordo, the Traditional Latin Rite.
This is an echo of the letter to Paul VI, the famous “Agatha Christie” letter which gained for England the “indult” (which apparently was never needed) to continue to use the TLM.
The new letter has some 40 signers including quite a few names that even Americans might recognize.
There are conflicting rumors now about the text of the alleged document that would smash down mostly diocesan priests and the people they serve. The uber-liberal La Croix claims that there is no such document or intention. If they say there isn’t, there probably is one. One of my sources said that something will be issued on 16 July and that it will restrict also bishops from using the Pontificale. So much for bishops being bishops.
However, another strand of speculation in this which I have heard is also found at The Pillar. My emphases:
One Vatican official told The Pillar that some proponents of new measures to restrict celebration of the TLM were not aiming for complete and total suppression, which they termed “practically unworkable,” but rather a kind of “quarantine.”
“The thinking, and some will put it in these terms, is to ‘force them [traditionalist Catholics] onto reservations,’ with [NB] everything that goes with that kind of imagery.”
“Taking them out of diocesan life, driving them into little pockets around things like the ICKSP, the [Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter] and even the SSPX [which is in irregular communion with the Church] would take them out of local bishops’ hands,” the official said.
“For the ones pursuing ‘maximum TC’, it would be a welcome relief,” he said. “And for those bishops who have been pushing back [by seeking to make space for traditionally minded communities] it would take the whole issue out of their hands.”
Did you get that?
THAT’s the key phrase.
First, what goes with forcing people onto reservations? First, it signals oppression, dishonesty on the part of those doing the forcing, lack of justice, condescension and contempt.
Next, it means “sovereign nation”. Reservations run under the federal government, but they are in many respects autonomous. It is not for nothing that Native Americans, forced onto reservations, are called “nations”. These once oppressed peoples now have massive casinos, to which thousands of people drive or are bussed so that they can leave lots of money.
What this sounds like in ecclesiastical terms is “Ordinariate”.
I don’t know how viable that idea is in a time when Opus Dei got the stuffing kicked out of them, pastorally, and the Sovereign Order of Malta was mercifully taken over in a coup d’état, smallest nation against smallest. Does that seem like the pattern that would see the establishment of an Ordinariate?
It could, since it would accomplish a lot of anti-traditional agenda, give relief to bishops who really would rather not be involved (to their detriment as well as to their flocks – stick with the 99, right?). It would avoid being the ecclesiastical version of Baba Yaga.
As a matter of fact, it would make you look pretty good! You could be hero man instead of that guy.
Ordinariate? I’ve spoken with canonist friends about it. I’m all for it. It could be done.
MEANWHILE, as of 1 July, Feast of the Most Precious Blood, this is what I am doing.
At the offertory of Holy Mass, when I put the few drops of water into the chalice, I attach to those drops this intention:
For the preservation of the Vetus Ordo and the spiritual protection of the people who desire it.
I still pray a Memorare for the conversion of heart of those who have been attacking the Traditional Roman Rite.
There is cause for concern. There are signs of conflict. There are tough times ahead.
We have our spiritual and material resources.
I mentioned home chapels and posted a tweet with photos of what people had already created.
Today, someone sent a photo of his home chapel. I wish mine were as nice! Well done!
A nice touch is the staggered candles. We see in the Roman Missale for how to incense the altar…
Notice how they guide the eye to the LORD.
Hmmm… something’s not quite right here.
Hey! That’s doesn’t seem right either!
Rome and Romans have an odd rude elegance. It is an amazing fact that, back in the day, the people in the street and the Roman nobility spoke the same dialect. In the photos we have the weird (certainly thoughtless) juxtaposition of a place with an old sign about the sale of religious articles and a t-shirt with a vulgar idiom that means something like “I don’t give a ****!” and “Holy ‘cow’!” depending on the circumstances. In the second, we have a form of pasta which are literally called “priest stranglers”. I have been know to carry this to an extreme when making “Suppers for the Promotion of Clericalism” with my brother priests (not excluding a couple bishops) when I have made strozza preti alla putanesca.
Nice people! Great service!
Welcome registrants:
Castlebury
Freedom or War
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.
Meanwhile, in chessy news… in Bucharest, Fabiano Caruana is in the lead. Unfortunately, Alireza “Puer” Firouzja bested my guy Wesley So in the day’s only clear victory. The action continues today, even I as write they are at it. Today Fabi is up against Gukesh, who will challenge Ding Liren for the champ title in Singapore. Wesley faces dangerous Nodirbek.
On a personal note, yesterday at OTB I played very well, winning all my games. I took advantage of a few misplays and also had really good end games, which I seem to be good at. Now if I can only clean up my middle game.
I’m now an affiliate.
Meanwhile, white to move and mate in 4.
NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
Priestly chess players, drop me a line. HERE
Interested in learning? Try THIS.
Finally, a Days In Rome Oct ’24 donations came in already. I will have a dedicated post on this. However, thanks…
VF, JL
UPDATE:
Hey! n******ville@fuse.net ! My thank you note 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.
Meanwhile, white to move and mate in 2.
NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
Chessy news… not much. Yesterday in Bucharest was a rest day. The FIDE World SENIOR Team Championships are starting,, over 50 and over 65, in Krakow, Poland. Speaking of “old” players, 54-year old legend Vishy Anand won the Leon Masters in Northern, Spain. The man is a force of nature. He said of 10 year old Faustino Oro (who broke the record obtaining the IM title).
“John Nunn always used to say that you have to beat the young before they get very strong. Instead I can say I’ve given him an autograph before he got very strong! Another achievement.”
Finally, I must post this.
Good morning, Catholic Twitter and Happy July!
Why do American churches not do it like the Sicilians? ?? pic.twitter.com/NCbivLQpjS
— Miss B Converted (@BreeSolstad) July 1, 2024
I saw this at Twitter/X. These home chapels are more Catholic than a lot of post-Conciliar churches.
I know a few Catholics, and I am hearing rumors of many more, who are building chapels in their homes, with altars, preparing for the Francis persecution of Traditional Catholics, which is supposed to begin sometime in July. They’re going back “underground.” pic.twitter.com/VSBCyH4Zk9
— Shane Schaetzel (@ShaneSchaetzel) June 30, 2024
Are you doing anything?
Today I received a note from a donor:
I just now received the first part of the home chapel: reversible green/white chasuble, stole, maniple, burse and veil. Towels and alb next, I think. The real challenge is going to be the relic.
In the traditional calendar, the Feast of the Visitation, 2 July, came at the end of the long-suppressed Octave of John the Baptist. In the Novus Ordo it now falls on 31 May, between the Annunciation and the Birth of John the Baptist.
Here is something that I wrote years ago for the Patristic Rosary Project.
___
We continue our Patristic Rosary Project today with:
2nd Joyful Mystery: The Visitation
Commenting on Luke 1:39-45, the when Mary journeys to visit her cousin Elizabeth, St. Augustine of Hippo (+430) speaks of the infant John, to be known as the Baptist, leaping in the womb at the sound of Mary’s voice:
We see instances of leaping not only in children but even in animals, although certainly not for any faith or religion of rational recognition of someone coming. But this case stands out as utterly uncommon and new, because it tool place in the womb, and at the coming of her who was to bring forth the Savior of mankind. Therefore this leaping, this greeting, so to speak, offered to the mother of the Lord is miraculous. It is to be reckoned among the great signs. It was not effected by human means by the infant, but by divine means in the infant, as miracles are usually wrought. [ep 187.23]
God wrought something in John at that moment. What happened? We can look to the Greek writer Origen (+ c.254) for his view:
Elizabeth, who was filled with the Holy Spirit at that moment, received the Spirit on account of her son. The mother did not inherit the Holy Spirit first. First John, still enclosed in her womb, received the Holy Spirit. Then she too, after her son was sanctified, was filled with the Holy Spirit. You will be able to believe this if you also learn something similar about the Savior. (In a certain number of manuscripts, we have discovered that blessed Mary is said to prophesy. We are not aware of the fact that, according to other copies of the Gospel, Elizabeth speaks these words of prophecy.) Mary also was filled with the Holy Spirit hen she began to carry the Savior in her womb. As soon as she received the Holy Spirit, who was the creator of the Lord’s Body, and the Son of God began to exist in her womb, she too was filled with the Holy Spirit. [Homilies on the Gospel of Luke 7.3]
The concept of being “filled with the Holy Spirit” is interesting. Perhaps some of you have heard of the glosses on this phrase which compare the Blessed Virgin, John the Baptist, and St. Stephen. All were said to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Mary was prevented from ever having any stain of original sin. John was said to have been forgiven the guilt of original sin before his birth, which is the moment he leapt in the womb at the coming of the Lord. Stephen, the Protodeacon, was also “filled with the Holy Spirit”, but after his birth. In any event, the always creative and interesting Origen speaks of John’s sanctification in the womb at the coming of Mary who was bearing the Son of God.
Each of us must prepare to bear Christ and be filled with the Holy Spirit. St. Ambrose, the bishop of Milan (+397) said:
You see that Mary did not doubt, but believed and therefore obtained the fruit of faith. “Blessed … are you who have believed.” But you also are blessed who have heard and believed. For a soul that has believed has both conceived and bears the Word of God and declares His works. Let the soul of Mary be in each of you, so that it magnifies the Lord. Let the spirit of Mary be in each of you, so that it rejoices in God. She is the one mother of Christ according to the flesh, yet Christ is the Fruit of all according to faith. Every soul receives the Word of God, provided that, undefiled and unstained by vices, it guards its purity with inviolate modesty. [Exposition of the Gospel of Luke 2.26]
Our baptism should remind us every day that we are deeply woven into the fabric of the Church, a Church which in many ways can said to stretch back into the depths of our great “Family History” as God’s People. In a comment on the Magnificat, which Mary pronounced during her mysterious Visitation, Venerable Bede (+735) says:
When blessed Mary was making mention of the memory of the fathers, she properly represented them by naming Abraham in particular. Although many of the fathers and holy ones mystically brought forward testimony of the Lord’s incarnation, it was to Abraham that the hidden mysteries of this same Lord’s incarnation and of our redemption were first clearly predicted. Also, to him it was specifically said, “And in you all the tribes of the earth witll be blessed.” (Gen 12:3) None of the faithful doubts that this pertains to the Lord and Savior, who in order to give us an everlasting blessing deigned to come to us from the stock of Abraham. However, “the seed of Abraham” does not refer only to those chosen ones who were brought forth physically from Abraham’s lineage, but also to us…. Having been gathered together to Christ from the nations, we are connected by the fellowship of faith to the fathers, from whom we are far separated by the origin of our fleshly bloodline. We too are the seed and children of Abraham since we are reborn by the sacraments of our Redeemer, who assumed his flesh from the race of Abraham. [Homilies on the Gospels 1.4]
Did you catch that great phrase? “Mary was making mention of the memory of the fathers…” Perhaps we can see how the Blessed Virgin is a good model for all patristicists and, of course, patristibloggers!
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
george on I have to post these. I know you can find them on your own. But I must post them.: “@hayden I have the feeling that you are fine demanding obedience when it’s to something you either prefer or don’t…”
on I have to post these. I know you can find them on your own. But I must post them.: “Really? That’s all you see? I have no particular brief for the SSPX, but I can not understand why so…”
on I have to post these. I know you can find them on your own. But I must post them.: “@haydn seeker Wow. Glad to know charity is no longer the highest of the virtues. Actually, it seems to no…”
on Daily Rome Shot 1649: updates: “Ad orientem eliminates many problems for the priest, especially the need to do performance art.”
on I have to post these. I know you can find them on your own. But I must post them.: “It’s beautiful, but without obedience it turns to ash in my mouth. All I see is ego, superbia and pride.…”
on Daily Rome Shot 1649: updates: “My “solution” overlooked White’s option to interpose its Knight or Bishop after 2. . .Q-d2+.”
on 23 June – Vigil of St. John – solstices and snails, bonfires and witch burnings: “It is delightful to see people who know the Guidonian Hand at work! Why am I so lazy about learning…”
on Daily Rome Shot 1648: contradictions: “About sacred spaces, our current bishop and our last bishop began having the ordination Masses (priests and deacons) at some…”
A Daily Prayer for Priests
They find you a pro-life agent in your area who commits to giving a portion of the fee to a pro-life group!
PLEASE subscribe via PayPal if it is useful. Zelle and Wise are better, but PayPal is convenient.
A monthly subscription donation means I have steady income I can plan on. I put you my list of benefactors for whom I pray and for whom I often say Holy Mass.
In view of the rapidly changing challenges I now face, I would like to add more $10/month subscribers. Will you please help?
For a one time donation...
Help Monks in Wyoming (coffee – UPDATED LINK) and Norcia (beer) and the wonderful "Soap Sisters" of Summit, NJ!
Please follow me on Twitter!
Visits tracked by Statcounter
since Sat., 25 Nov. 2006:
