There is an interesting video on YouTube about the pipe organ project going on at St. John Cantius in Chicago.
If you don’t know much about pipe organs, you could learn a few things from this 12 minute video.
Remember: the pipe organ is mentioned by the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council as the instrument which has pride of place for sacred music.
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"ALL"
Even a bait-less hook will sometimes snag a catch. The National Catholic Fishwrap has a somewhat interesting story about deaf communities getting ready to receive the new, corrected translation of the Missale Romanum.
Stop and think about it. If the text of Mass changes, they too will see changes when it is “signed”. Right?
You can read the article there, but here is an interesting bit from the end:
"MANY"
Like the spoken words at Mass, some of the changes for deaf Mass-goers will be subtle, others more profound. For example, in Eucharistic Prayer I, at the consecration of the wine, the words change from “the cup” to “this precious chalice.”
“Cup” is a relatively simple sign that could also mean glass or pint, but “chalice” has a more formal connotation to it, so one sign for “chalice” outlines the shape of a chalice.
Pictured are the changes, also in Eucharistic Prayer I, where the priest used to say Jesus’ blood “will be shed for you and for all.” The new translation says Jesus’ blood “will be shed for you and for many.”
From a reader:
Could you please say a prayer for me?
I have a really bad vice of procrastination [from the Latin cras, “tomorrow”] that has gotten me into a heap of trouble at school and even frequent confession hasn’t helped. I’m still under academic probation from last year’s effects of procrastination. I can’t afford to lose my internship and get kicked out of school in my graduation year.
I’ve got the elbow grease and a novena to St. Expeditus to get me through the lag work of paper writing, but sadly it’s at the sacrifice of Thursday and Friday night Mass, so I need all the extra help I can get.
A prayer for you? About procrastination?
Sure, I guess I’ll eventually get around to it. Maybe tomorrow?
Seriously, I always pray, right away, for people who ask for prayers.
Under another thread an idea for a WDTPRS was raised. Please choose your answer and give your reasons in the combox, below.
Because this can be a delicate topic, I ask that you DO NOT ENGAGE each other in the combox. Just state your own position without commenting on the comments of others in any way. Pretend the other comments do not exist.
And just because someone will fail to pay attention to this, I’ll repeat: Pretend the other comments do not exist.
From the Daily Telegraph:
Burglar overpowered by three Catholic priests
The burglar was no match for the three – all in their 60s – and led by a former rugby playing clergyman who launched a flying tackle to bring the intruder to the floor.
Two of the priests, Father Jimmy Shiel, 67, and Father Kieran Magovern, 66, had both undergone triple heart bypass operations in the past.
But along with Indian born Father Chacko Panathara, 61, they didn’t think twice about tackling the burglar who was in his 20s.
Not only that, but just hours later the three parish priests were going about their church duties with early morning mass, baptisms and meetings with parents of children preparing for their first communions.
“He was no match for the three of us,” said Father Magovern. He added “The chap was trying to break free and escape but with the three of us on top of him he was going no where”.
It was around 2am in the early hours of Sunday morning when the burglar climbed up a drain pipe to a first floor window at the presbytery in the grounds of St Mary’s Church in West Street, Dunstable, Beds.
He’d spotted a window open and after gaining access to St Mary’s Parish House began creeping along the upstairs corridor.
Father Magovern said “He entered Jimmy’s bedroom and Jimmy woke to see this guy in his room. The burglar ran and Jimmy jumped out of bed and ran after him. As he did he hammered on Father Panathara door.
“Jimmy has played a lot of rugby when he was younger and it was in the corridor that he floored him. It was a rugby tackle and the chap was taken to the floor.”
As the burglar struggled to break free Father Shiel got him in a vice like grip and held on as best he could to stop him escaping.
By now Father Panathara had arrived on the scene to help the other priest.
Seconds later Father Magovern joined in to prevent him making off.
[…]
Read the rest there.
He is lucky he didn’t break into my place. Very very lucky.
On the site of First Things there is a good article about SNAP (Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests) by Russell E. Saltzman, mission development pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, Gothenburg, Nebraska.
Saltzman writes with my emphases:
I no longer believe the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) is in any way primarily an advocacy organization for sexual abuse victims. Instead, I think it is more a noisy little group that hates the Roman Catholic Church and has discovered a way of making a living off the victimization others have suffered. My poor opinion of SNAP was formed some time ago, but the organization returned to my attention as I’ve followed the most recent scandal unfolding in the Kansas City–St. Joseph diocese.
As regular readers know, I am a Lutheran with no axe to grind against the Roman Catholic Church, not even on the subject of priestly sex abuse involving adolescent boys. We Lutherans have our own sex scandals though they rarely make the press because they usually involve a male pastor and a female parishioner. Ho-hum, some might say. Even the rare incidents involving young boys get passed over because headlines about Lutheran pastors aren’t nearly as invitingly lurid as “pedophile priests.”
[…]
SNAP has never to my knowledge examined scandals among mental health professionals. It never says anything of public school districts, where reports say children are at far greater risk of abuse. Nor has it said anything of volunteer youth organizations. The simple fact is SNAP targets Roman Catholics. If SNAP routinely seeks “donations” from settlements, well, Catholic pockets are easier to reach, for a lot of reasons starting with media bias.
Whatever genuine aid SNAP may provide victims of priestly sex abuse is well matched by the harm SNAP does by mounting little less than an anti-Catholic smear campaign and wantonly portraying every priest as a sexual predator waiting to happen and every bishop an enabler.
[…]
There are resource links at the end of the article. Go there to find the links but here are the names:
Read the whole article over there. It is well worth it. Interesting things about SNAP’s finances, too.
From a reader:
Thank you for your reminders about confession. It’s appreciated.
My question is, what recourse does a layperson have for the forgivness of a mortal sin in the absence of sacramental confession?
Some of us live in very rural areas that don’t get the regualr
services of a priest, let alone a confessional. What is the best
cource of action when one finds himself in a state of moral sin
without a priest available?
God does not ask us to do what is impossible. If it is truly impossible for a person to confess to a priest confessor, he can make a sincere act of contrition.
However, if you are mobile, I would sometime soon make a little field trip to a place where you know ahead of time confessions will be heard. This would be worth your time and effort.
Another point, sometimes absolution is given by priests without have heard the confessions of the penitents in what is called “General Absolution”. This is not your situation, dear questioner, but I include it here anyway. It is important for people to know that “General Absolution” is to be given only in an emergency situation. Of course emergencies cannot be scheduled ahead of time, can they? But that is, in fact, what some priests do: they schedule “General Absolution” in their parishes year after year usually during Advent and Lent.
DO NOT GO TO THESE “GENERAL ABSOLUTION” SERVICES!
You cannot validly receive absolution without a confession of sins twice in a row unless you are in danger of death. When a person receives “general” absolution, without having confessed all mortals sins in kind and number because of an emergency (e.g., the airplane is going to crash, there was an earthquake and people are trapped in rubble, battle is about to begin, a missionary finds 5000 people waiting, paramedics and first responders are working on people, etc….), people must, as soon as possible afterward, make a regular, “auricular” confession of all sins. Again, you cannot validly receive absolution repeatedly without confession.
So, there are three forms for receiving the sacrament of penance.
1. Regular, inidividual, auricular confession.
2. Communal penance service with individual confession.
3. General absolution without confession in an emergency.
Don’t confuse “General Absolution” services with penance services which have a liturgical dimension followed by individual confessions.
From The Catholic League:
JEFFRESS SAYS SATAN RULES CATHOLICISM
Last Friday, Rev. Robert Jeffress, the Dallas pastor who introduced Gov. Rick Perry at the Values Voter Summit, spoke derisively about the Mormon faith of Mitt Romney, making the case that “Mormonism is a cult.” Two days later, he chided Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism as “false religions.”
Last year, Rev. Jeffress said the Roman Catholic Church was the outgrowth of a “corruption” called the “Babylonian mystery.” He continued, “Much of what you see in the Catholic Church today doesn’t come from God’s word. It comes from that cult-like pagan religion. Isn’t that the genius of Satan?”
Catholic League president Bill Donohue offered these remarks today:
Where did they find this guy? When theological differences are demonized by the faithful of any religion—never mind by a clergyman—it makes a mockery of their own religion. Rev. Jeffress is a poster boy for hatred, not Christianity.
Nice!
Here are links to three stories relevant to the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in England.
On Fr. Blake’s excellent blog we find that there will be a talk given my Msgr. Andrew Burnham, of the Ordinariate, a St. Magdelen parish in Brighton.
Damian Thompson asks a burning question many of us have been wondering about: Why doesn’t the Ordinariate have a church yet in London?
And on a slightly tangential vector, MSNBC has a story that a proposal has been made by Prime Minister David Cameron to overturn the English law discriminating against Catholics and marriage to royals.
We had supper tonight at the rectory Blackfen, the parish of His Hermeneuticalness. I cooked.
We ended up ridiculing the 80’s for a while, as priests will do from time to time.
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
emmatag1126 on Thoughts about the collision of the Holy See and the SSPX. Wherein Fr. Z rants.: “Also, the Declaration said that we can be saved only through the Roman Catholic Church, which unfortunately leaves out my…” on Thoughts about the collision of the Holy See and the SSPX. Wherein Fr. Z rants.: “I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your charity and well-worded wishes/prayers for hearts to change. Whenever I’m…”
on ROME 26/5– Day 52: lace imitates God’s beauty enlaced in flowers: “Fr. Z: It wasn’t until I started reading your writings a few years back that I realized how important vestments…” on ROME 26/5– Day 52: lace imitates God’s beauty enlaced in flowers: “Speaking of age, I think I am lucky not to be in my teens or even early twenties right now.…”
on ROME 26/5– Day 52: lace imitates God’s beauty enlaced in flowers: “The “seriously cool APP” Father Z is referring to is the Ava Maria Clock which if you have not downloaded…”
on ROME 26/5– Day 53: Persevere!: “Black to move and mate in 4 1) … Qd1+ 2) RxQd1 (or Kh2) RxRd1+ 3) Kh2 (forced) Be5+ 4)…”
on ROME 26/5– Day 52: lace imitates God’s beauty enlaced in flowers: “@Charivari Rob: How about calling it the Old Chestnut Award? It will probably only be slightly less feared than the…”
A Daily Prayer for Priests
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