Fr. Z's Blog

I was recently in Kansas City, MO.

Denizens of Kansas City and travelers alike take a great risk when moving about in that city.

They may fall into…

No, I am not talking about the guy with the videos.

I mean …

Some of you may not realize that Kansas City is the location of divergent ecclesial vectors of force.  When considered in isolation, they are remarkable but not necessarily of great concern.

But when considered in relation to each other…

In Kansas City – all within a few blocks of each other – you will find:

• The Chancery of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph
• The HQ of the National Catholic Fishwrap… errr… Reporter
• The chapel of the SSPX, St. Vincent’s

You know about the Bermuda Triangle, right?

Stuff went in and never came out again!

My friends and I are convinced that were to to find the exact epicenter of the ecclesial forces at work between these three coordinates, you would encounter…

Go to the exact center and you never come out.

If Preserved Killick were in a Superman movie instead of an 18th British ship of the line, not at all unlikely given this subject matter, he would surely say, “Which the Phantom Zone ain’t in it!”

As a public service, and for your safety, we sacrificed ourselves and went on a hunt for…

Having made a good confession, and a map from Google, we set out cheered by a hot mug of Mystic Monk Coffee to find the three-fold force vectors.

We sought first the SSPX chapel, St. Vincent’s and determined that that force was probably located at the position of the altar in the church.  It stands to reason, no?

Note the papal flag and the sinister “Reserved” sign.  Portentous.  But of what, we didn’t know at the time.

And we still don’t know!  We thought it may have something to do with excommunications, or maybe… parking.

The church is nice, though it is a fixer-upper.  Tidy and orderly it needs work.

Here is the altar.

The baldichin is surely portentous.  It signifies faith in the Presence of God in the Eucharist and reverence.   Think about that… situated at the end of an ecclesial force vector reaching not so very far to the HQ of the NCR!

In the narthex, we found some helpful tools for our quest, including some literature, which would serve an important purpose later.

We figured we would not need any emergency chapel veils.

Then it was off to plot the next coordinate.  To the chancery!

Behold the administrative center of the diocese, where we figured the source of the ecclesial force vector would be, of course, Bp. Finn’s office.  We pinpointed it, and moved on.

BTW… on the outer wall of the chancery there was set in shining bronze the coat of arms of the diocese.  It reminded me of things like jurisdiction.  Portentous to be sure.

We didn’t have to go far, but this was one of the most dangerous of the steps…. around the block to the offices of the National Catholic Reporter.

Yes, this is nearly within a stone’s throw of the bishop’s office.

Imagine the riptides of ecclesial force vectors that must eddy around this area… pulled north and west by the SSPX altar!

Here I am again, putting on a brave front.

Remember: I am a professional.

Do not attempt this without a priest!

I don’t know what the flowering bush portended.  It was as if … I don’t know.  It was so different from the last time I trod upon … that ground.

Even now I can feel the coldness that started to rise upward from the ground.  I shiver.

At the side entrance, you could see traces of some work going on.  There were, for example, some cleaning cloths, a squirt-bottle and what appeared to be … a box.

Any two of those things by themselves… well you get the idea.  But the box had a portentous aspect to it that even now, gives me chills.

Because we had been crisscrossing these forces, we decided to go home and fortify ourselves with some Mystic Monk Coffee and do the calculations.  At the crossing of these vectors, we were about to find at long last…

We marked the coordinates of our three ecclesial force vectors on our precision map and then used a pamphlet from the SSPX narthex to draw the first line, from the chancery to the exact location of the altar of the chapel.

Then, for the longer line we used a sturdier newsletter also from the chapel, to draw the line between the SSPX and the NCR.

We were going to use a copy of the NCR itself for this, but found to our horror that we could not draw a straight line with it!

It was a simpler matter to draw the line between the NCR and chancery, which was mercifully short.

Then it was time to draw the intersecting lines from each angle to the midpoints of the force vectors to get a high-precision exact pin-pointed location.  We had to measure to find the exact mid-points.

One line was drawn with the Mystic Monk Coffee product list.

To draw the intersecting line of the offices of the NCR and the midpoint between the SSPX and the chancery, well… as you can see, we had to switch to a sturdier high-precision measuring device.

It took both of us to hold it down at this stage!

Having plotted all the coordinates and traced the lines with precision exactitude, we studied the map with excitement but trepidation.  Mostly trepidation.  Maybe about 70% trepidation, and 20% excitement with curiosity thrown in.  But then trepidation is a sort of excitement, no?  How to measure?

Back to the map.  We studied our findings.

This is part of the studying process.

I have added some red lines to help you see what we found…. that is, the location of…

But… as I am sure you are also asking…. “But Father! But Father!”, you are surely asking.  “What is this I see?!?  What is that triangle to the west of … that thing you are talking about?”

Yes, friends.  We noticed it and placed some subtle indicators lest we lose track of it while we investigated further.

On the surface of the data, you would think that we found the very place.  But, it was simply too much of a coincidence that there should be nearby a TRIANGULAR street lay out, I repeat TRIANGULAR street layout intersection thingy so close to our precision calculated epicenter.

Coincidence?  I think not.

Perhaps synchronicity, since this is dealing with the vicissitudes of time and space impinging on the matter of the cosmos?

But why, we asked ourselves, would there be this offset?  Making a mistake about the location and then going there could have drastic consequences!

It was necessary to return to the map to search for clues.

Finally, after more Mystic Monk Coffee, we figured it out.

Look at this map detail.

I placed a thin red circle about.. yes… a Scottish Rite MASONIC TEMPLE just slightly to the SW of the SSPX Chapel!

See?  See?!?

The anti-ecclesial force vectors emanating from the Masonic lodge so close to the SSPX chapel are just strong enough to weaken its influence!  Therefore the anti-pull and retrograde-polarity exerted by the NCR – yes, the NCR and not the SSPX – was able to dislocate the epicenter of the forces slightly in its favor, thus shifting the location of…

I had to leave Kansas City at this point, and put some distance between myself and these powers.

But I can now report that we have a photo of what we believe is the actual location of…

What is this we see?

You have seen them ten thousand times if you have seen them once.

But was there ever one more portentous?

“DO NOT ENTER”, says the sign.

Theologically we know that signs point to invisible realities.

An apophatic approach to these theological physics suggests that the power of the signs is actually in the space between the signs, what is not there!

Get it?!?

This, folks, must be it.  The center of …

On my next trip to Kansas City, encouraged by Mystic Monk Coffee, we will mount an expedition to the very place to see what happens when we enter.