I went to a great Chinese restaurant recently and they gave me crabs!
Soft-shelled crabs, of course.
They were both crunchy and soft at the same time. Sometimes they are prepared with Five Spice. These were heavy on the garlic.
Yum.
There was also a nice platter of seafood stir-fried with asparagus.
Pea tips.
Platitude cookie alert!
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National catholic Fishwrap has now picked up on the ecclesial food fight going on in Platteville, WI (D. Madison – Bp. Morlino), about which I have posted before (HERE).
You will be shocked to learn that Fishwrap’s reportage – in a less than subtle way – stresses their Congregationalist party-line.
Here, however, is the money quote from the Fishwrap article:
Neither Morlino nor anyone from the diocese would respond to a request for an interview. A spokesman from the diocese wrote in an email, “We have no hope that assisting NCR with a story will result in a just reporting of the facts regarding the sad situation in Platteville.“
WDTPRS kudos to the spokesman.
UPDATE:
I just got a fundraising email from NCR (Fishwrap) using this story! They write:
This morning we posted a story about a Wisconsin bishop to deny the sacraments of Communion, confession and burial to Catholics who are speaking publicly against unwelcome changes in their parish.
[…]
Nowhere else can you get this kind of church coverage … [Thanks be to God!]
Here is a link so that you can send a donation to the Diocese of Madison. May I suggest that you all make a donation of, perhaps $1 to show a sign of support? $1? You can do more, of course. But if the bishop were to hear that a large number of folks from all over the place made a little donation, that would be a real shot in the arm.
And using this, you can send a donation to me!
There will be a spiffing Colloquium on Sacred Music in Salt Lake City. June 25-July 1, 2012
It will be held at the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Check out the website and look at the line of up speakers (no, I am not on it).
You will also find the schedule and registration information.
Pay attention in the video especially at about 14:15 in the video, and listen to the comments made by a gentleman being interviewed. He nails perfectly some themes that I have hammered at relentlessly on this blog, in my columns and in talks I give at conferences. First, note his comment about “active listening” and participation. Then note his comment about being his experience being “terrifying”. Then note “listening to the silence”. He gets the true sense of active participation as “active receptivity”, about liturgical worship that is both alluring and frightening, and about an encounter we must have with mystery in the spaces between the signs, the apophatic dimension of our liturgical worship.
Also, at 41:45 Dr. William Mahrt gets to another point I have pushed here about the “idiom” of music. Some types of music are not appropriate for liturgical worship because the idiom is wrong.
Recently there was held – and this is not a belated April Fool’s Day joke – a “Blessing of Purses”.
Needless to say, this is not in any of the official books of Holy Catholic Church.
I dunno…
I have any of you seen this before?
From CNA:
Argentinean ‘Miracle baby’ continues to improve
Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 1, 2012 / 04:02 pm (CNA).- Luz Milagros, the baby who was found alive after spending twelve hours in a morgue in Argentina, continues to improve and gain weight although she is still on a respirator.
According to an April 30 report by CNN, Luz now weighs two pounds and is no longer receiving inotropic drugs.
Although her condition is still serious, the progress she has made in recent days has given hope to her mother, Amalia Bouget, the rest of the family and the staff at Perrando Hospital in the province of Chaco.
According to the news agency, Luz’s three siblings are “anxiously awaiting” her at home to accompany her on the final stage of her recovery.
Amalia Bouget gave birth prematurely to Luz at 26 weeks of pregnancy. After being declared stillborn by doctors, the baby spent 12 hours in the freezing cold temperatures of the morgue with no food or clothing, before she was found alive.
Bouget later returned to the morgue to take a picture of her daughter, who doctors said had no vital signs when she was born.
“A woman came up to my husband who was waiting to go to the morgue to see her as well, and she told him, ‘She is crying.’ My husband thought she was talking about me, but it was my daughter who was crying,” Bouget said.
“I’m a believer. This was all a miracle of God,” she said.
Be sure to check out this post on Rorate. It seems that priests within the SSPX are doing some self-examinations.
From the May 2012 issue of Seignadou, the newsletter of the chaplaincy of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) for the schools of the Traditional Dominican Sisters of Fanjeaux (France):
Whatever the state of Rome may be, of all that still remains that is disturbing in Rome, plain common sense and honesty should lead us to consider the current situation with different eyes than those of 1988! Recalling the saying of one of our bishops, we cannot be “eighty-eighters”! We are neither in 1975 with Paul VI nor in 1988 with John Paul II, but in 2012 with Benedict XVI. [Do I hear an “Amen!”?] It can be said as much as one may wish to that the state of the Church is still of great concern, that our Pope has a theology that is at times strange, etc… we have said it enough, it seems to me; but let it not be said that the state of things is the same as in 1988, or worse. This is contrary to the reality and to the truth, and it cannot but be the effect of a more or less secret refusal of any reconciliation with Rome, perhaps of a lack of faith in the holiness of the Church, composed of poor sinners but always governed by her head, Jesus Christ, and sanctified by the Holy Ghost. The Society of Saint Pius X is not the Church, [Well put.] and it can only “respect its founder’s heritage” by preserving his spirit, [Which includes unity with Peter.] his love for the Church and his desire of serving her as a loving son, with faithfulness to her founding blessings.
Benedict XVI is the Pope of Christian Unity.
Back when, we knew that something was going on within the CDF for Anglicans who desired closer unity with Peter, but we didn’t know what. There was a sense that the Holy Father must really want something important to happen for them and the CDF was locked down as tight as a drum. And they moved with, for Rome, lightning speed to get the Ordinariate set up in England.
Benedict XVI, Pope of Christian Unity, really wanted it to happen.
Since then, the Anglican Ordinariate seems to be moving forward well, though I had heard that they were struggling with money. The sun also rises at dawn.
Now I read that Benedict XVI, Pope of Christian Unity who really wanted to welcome Anglicans into Communion with Rome, has done something that ought to send a signal to the bishops conferences both in England and Wales and in the United States, where there is also a new Ordinariate.
This is a press release from the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.
PERSONAL ORDINARIATE OF OUR LADY OF WALSINGHAM
1 MAY 2012FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
POPE DONATES $250,000 TO ORDINARIATE
Pope Benedict XVI has donated $250,000 to support the work of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. The gift will help establish the Ordinariate as a vibrant part of the Catholic Church in England and Wales.
The news from Rome came to Monsignor Keith Newton, the Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate, and read “The Holy Father has benevolently permitted a donation of $250,000”.
Responding to the gift, Mgr Newton said, “I am very grateful to the Holy Father for his generosity and support. This gift is a great help and encouragement as we continue to grow and develop our distinctive ecclesial life, whilst seeking to contribute to the wider work of evangelisation in England and Wales”.
The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham was established in January 2011 to enable Anglicans to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church whilst retaining essential elements of their heritage and tradition. It comprises around 1200 lay faithful and 60 clergy spread across the United Kingdom.
The Apostolic Nuncio, His Excellency Archbishop Antonio Mennini, was instrumental in securing the Holy Father’s assistance. On the announcement of the gift the Archbishop said, “The Holy Father’s gift of $250,000 is a clear sign of his personal commitment to the work of Christian Unity and the special place the Ordinariate holds in his heart. I pray for the continuing success and development of the Ordinariate”.
Speaking of the need for further fundraising the Nuncio said, “I urge all those who share our Holy Father’s vision to lend their spiritual and material support to the Ordinariate, especially in these early days”.
Mgr Newton, in response to the remarks of Archbishop Mennini said, “The support and encouragement given to us by the Apostolic Nuncio has been very significant. We were very pleased to welcome him as the Principal Celebrant of our Chrism Mass: a clear sign of our deep desire to remain closely united the Holy Father”.
The Ordinariate welcomed over 250 new members this Easter. Bishop Alan Hopes will ordain deacons for the Ordinariate in Westminster Cathedral on 26 May 2012 at 10.00 a.m., and two men in their twenties were ordained to the Sacred Priesthood in London earlier this month.
Benedict XVI gets to describe the parameters of Christian Unity.
From a reader:
Dear Father,
Thank you for your work and for maintaining your blog.
I am a catechist for 8th grade Confirmation Candidates at our NO parish. I would like to take them to a local TLM next fall/winter. I realize that I must prepare them and myself since it would be my first time. None of the students have ever attended a Mass in the extraordinary form. Some of them don’t go to Mass in any form on a regular basis. I plan to ask some regular EF Mass attendees for pointers, but I was wondering if there is a DVD or if there is a good
resource out there that your or your readers might know about that can help us. I’m also wondering if I should take them to a high or a low Mass and if I should try a feast day such as Christ the King.
Lots of questions.
Readers?
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My friend Fr. Ray Blake, reknowned p.p. of Brighton, has on his blog an interesting entry about “the Good Shepherd”. Be sure to visit his great blog.
I remember hearing about a school inspector telling a class of Yorkshire children the parable about the Good Shepherd, then asking them what their dad’s, most of whom were sheep farmers what there dads would do. One little girl said, “Sir, ‘e’ll shoot the b*gger, once one runs, he’ll teach the rest of ’em to run”.
Jewish shepherds would leave the flock, and go in search of the lost one, the reason why he would carry it on his shoulder is because he would break or dislocate its leg, which meant until it healed the shepherd needed to carry it around.
The important thing was that whilst it was getting better it was also learning to stay with he flock and while it was disabled it could not teach the rest of the flock to run and it itself learnt to listen to and follow the shepherd.
So what do we do with sheep who run off from the flock and teach others to do the same? In the past we might have called them heretics, now we call them dissidents, redolent of the political prisoners of the Soviet Gulags. The problem is that they remain to teach others to leap the fence, indeed, their role as “dissident” seems to give them importance in the secular world, and the “Liberal Catholic” establishment to comment on the Church and to condemn it.
The Church has moved on from Pope Zachary’s (741-52) Rite of Anathema and by doing so seems to have broken from Tradition and scripture 1 Timothy 1:20; 1 Corinthians 5:5.
“Wherefore in the name of God the All-powerful, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, of the Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and of all the saints, in virtue of the power which has been given us of binding and loosing in Heaven and on earth, we deprive N– himself and all his accomplices and all his abettors of the Communion of the Body and Blood of Our Lord, we separate him from the society of all Christians, we exclude him from the bosom of our Holy Mother the Church in Heaven and on earth, we declare him excommunicated and anathematized and we judge him condemned to eternal fire with Satan and his angels and all the reprobate, so long as he will not burst the fetters of the demon, do penance and satisfy the Church; we deliver him to Satan to mortify his body, that his soul may be saved on the day of judgement.”
The problem with dissidents, (can we still call them heretics?) touches the whole issue of religious liberty, do we tolerate heretics, is this the message of scripture?
Yes, Fr. Blake, we can still call them “heretics”, though they must be – in fact – actual heretics.
The word is often thrown around too easily in the interwebs by people who don’t know what heretic means, what the parameters of dissent or the obligations of religiosum obsequium are, or what the actual doctrines are they think a person is straying from. On the other hand, there is also a reluctance on the part of others to use the word when it ought to be used.
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
A Daily Prayer for Priests
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