ROME 23/10 – Day 26: Walking in deepest darkest Trastevere

Posted on 26 October 2023 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The sun rose at 07:33 and will set, hopefully on a lovely Roman October day, at 18:15.   The Ave Maria Bell is in the 18:30 cycle.  

The “Ave Maria” indicates the change of the religious day from day to night.

The Ave Maria is rung “half an hour” after sunset. If the Ave Maria is rung at 1830, as it is from 22 Oct-4 Nov, then 1730 is 23rd hour of the day and 1930 is the 1st hour of the next day.

When there were large religious communities in Roman churches and chapters of canons, Vespers would be sung an hour before the Ave Maria Bell. Today, for example, they would be sung at 1730.  However, in the Roman Curia, Cardinals and other officials would still receive people in audience for the hour after the Ave Maria Bell rang. An hour after the Ave Maria, a single bell would toll, thus ending all business for the day, since it was the first hour of night.

Thus, the Roman Ave Maria Bell.

It is the Feast of Pope St. Evaristus.   I said a Votive Mass of the Holy Spirit today.   It was a real pleasure to see all the sides altars in church filled with red vestments.  Red which you made happen.

Today in my prayers after Mass this one struck me with force:

Da nobis, quaesumus, Dómine, vitiórum nostrórum flammas exstínguere: qui beáto Lauréntio tribuísti tormentórum suórum incéndia superáre. Per Christum Dóminum nostrum. R. Amen.

With this morning, I finished my ad hoc Mass intentions.  However, I do recall in my visits to churches, especially where there are the bodies of saints, what you donor have asked me to raise up in prayers.  I would ask you, also, for something: the miraculous healing of a friend, Giancarlo, suffering from a dreadful malady.  Pray for sudden, complete and lasting healing through the intercession of Bl. Luigi Maria Monti.  Invoke him explicitly and often.

Yesterday afternoon I had a walk into deepest darkest Trastevere to see the streets where a couple of possible apartments are.  I don’t really want to be on that side of the river, but it a great place shows up… hey.

Into San Crisogono.

Lovely cosmateque work.

Bl. Anna Maria Tiagi is here.

This church is under the Trinitarians.  They were the originators of the Gesù Nazareno devotion I showed you from the other day.

From Ss. Trinità the other day.

I found here, to my astonishment, a copy of Murillo’s Earthly and Heavenly Trinities.

Some of you long-time readers know that I have a high def reproduction, beautifully framed (thank you) in my chapel above the altar.

The bells of S.  Crisogono as I walk out.

A street of one possible apartment.

I would like to have gotten a photo of all the altars busy with red bedecked priests.

Here’s a bit of an eccentricity.  Unless I am mistaken, and this is the biretta of some institute or other, it is an academic biretta, not for liturgical use.

 

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Francis: NO WOMEN DEACONS

Posted on 25 October 2023 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I suppose this throws a spanner into the spanners (like theology, history, common sense…) already in the gears.

From CNA:

Pope Francis on women deacons: ‘Holy orders is reserved for men’

Pope Francis reaffirmed the impossibility of women becoming priests, or even modern Church deacons, in an interview for a book released Tuesday in Italy.

The question of whether some women in the early Church were “deaconesses” or another kind of collaborator with the bishops is “not irrelevant, because holy orders is reserved for men,” the pope said. [As anyone who is familiar with Vatican II’s Lumen gentium can affirm.]

The pope’s answers to questions about women’s roles in the Church were included in a book published in June in Spanish as “El Pastor: Desafíos, razones y reflexiones sobre su pontificado.” [WHOA… wait a just a cotton pickin’ minute.  Last JUNE?!?  And yet the “Walking Together” was discussing this?  What else did they waste their time on.  No… please don’t answer.  It’s rhetorical.]

The book, whose title means in English “The Shepherd: Struggles, Reasons, and Thoughts on His Papacy,” was released in Italian on Oct. 24. The Italian edition is titled “Non Sei Solo: Sfide, Risposte, Speranze,” or “You Are Not Alone: Challenges, Answers, Hopes.”

About the possibility of women deacons, Francis pointed out that the diaconate “is the first degree of holy orders in the Catholic Church, followed by the priesthood and finally the episcopate.”

He said he formed commissions in 2016 and 2020 to study the question further, after a study in the 1980s by the International Theological Commission established that the role of deaconesses in the early Church “was comparable to the benedictions of abbesses.”  [We have a modern word for what ancient deaconesses were: nun.]

In response to a question about why he is “against female priesthood,” Francis told Argentine journalist Sergio Rubin and Italian journalist Francesca Ambrogetti, the authors of the book, that it is “a theological problem.”

“I think we would undermine the essence of the Church if we considered only the priestly ministry, that is, the ministerial way,” he said, pointing out that women mirror Jesus’ bride the Church. [As does the human soul.]

“The fact that the woman does not access ministerial life is not a deprivation, because her place is much more important,” he said. “I think we err in our catechesis in explaining these things, and ultimately we fall back on an administrative criterion that does not work in the long run.”

“On the other hand, with respect to the charism of women, I want to say very clearly that from my personal experience, they have a great ecclesial intuition,” he said.

Asked about women’s ordination bringing “more people closer to the Church” and optional priestly celibacy helping with priest shortages, Pope Francis said he does not share these views.

“Lutherans ordain women, but still few people go to church,” he said. “Their priests can marry, but despite that they can’t grow the number of ministers. The problem is cultural. We should not be naive and think that programmatic changes will bring us the solution.”

“Mere ecclesiastical reforms do not serve to solve underlying issues. Rather, paradigmatic changes are what is needed,” he added, pointing to his 2019 letter to German Catholics for further considerations on the issue.

Hey!  How about freeing up the Traditional Latin Mass?  Look at the numbers!   Look at the growth, fidelity and joy!

Isn’t that what we want?

Posted in Deaconettes |
25 Comments

A video that gets to the HEART of things.

Posted on 25 October 2023 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I call your attention… no.  Wait.

To those who don’t like the Traditional Latin Mass… to those who don’t like me personally or what I write or defend… to those who don’t understand why there are Catholics who aren’t just “RAH RAH RAH!” about everything being done these days…

I call your attention to this video.   It is an excerpt from a longer interview between Matt Fradd and Brian Holdsworth.

It doesn’t touch on every possible point we might be concerned about today, but it gets to the heart of them.

YouTube thumbnailYouTube icon

At a certain point, all of this goes beyond arguments.

What people on the progressivist side of things have to realize is the hearts are being hurt, bruised, broken.

Is that really what you want?  Is that your goal?

Posted in Our Catholic Identity, Pò sì jiù, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices | Tagged ,
15 Comments

ROME 23/10 – Day 24: More rain

Posted on 25 October 2023 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Had it been clearer, we might have seen the sun rise at 07:32.  I hope to see it set at 18:16.  I do not hope to hear the Ave Maria chime at 18:30.

Welcome new registrants:

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Today is called the Feast of Crispin.

Last year I went to the church of San Lorenzo in Panisperna both to find the altar and tomb of Sts. Crispin and Crispinian and also the tomb and monument of the great Card. Sirleto.

Here is their altar and urn in the church.

I have a fun post from last year with many video versions of Shakespeare’s glorious speech from Henry V.  HERE It’s worth a visit.

Speaking of downpours, I was on my way to a book presentation last night and as I stepped out the door, the heavens did their best to prevent my arrival.  I went along as best I could from sheltered spot to spot, making progress only when the rain relented a bit.  At P.za Navona it really poured, in massive sheets, that started coming in horizontally.  That’s when I say, “Nope”, and went for some cover.

Some progress and another bad wave.

Chi è al coperto quando piove,
è ben matto se si move;
se si move e se si bagna,
è ben matto se si lagna.

Why was I out in this madness?

My good friend Fr Robert Sirico of Action Institute presented the Italian translation of his book

The Economics of the Parables

US HERE – UK HERE

This morning at church a nice young man from St. Louis served Mass for me.  A good way to start the day.  Followed by breakfast and a walk through the Campo to get flowers.

On my walk I was waved at by various shop keepers 6 times along with a strong dog tail wag and I was called only once a “priest piece of ****”.  Par for the course.

Back at the place, some of the droopy zinnias in a shallower vase with their unsupportive stems abbreviated.

I got a few more today.

Meanwhile, interested in learning or improving?  Try THIS.

Solve this puzzle.  Black to move.

NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

The Summit Dominicans will surely be making candles for Advent wreaths.  We are getting down to the last weeks of this liturgical year and Advent will soon be upon us.  Why not get your Advent candles from them?  You get nice candles, made by the sisters, and they get your support.    HERE   If you don’t see something adventy right away use their SEARCH box for Advent.

Your use of my Amazon affiliate link is a major part of my income. It helps to pay for insurance, groceries, everything. Please remember me when shopping online. Thanks in advance.  US HERE – UK HERE

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ASK FATHER: Bowing to the priest when he enters for Mass

Posted on 25 October 2023 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader…

QUAERITUR:

I saw a tweet or whatever it is that they are called now starting an argument about whether or not people in the pews should bow to the priest when he enters to say the Traditional Latin Mass.   Some say okay and others are really strong against it.  One compared it to the “orans position” problem in the Novus Ordo that lay people should not do. What say you, Father Z?

What say I.  Leben und leben laßen… live and let live.

The X/Twitter thing is HERE

There are no rubrics for this in the Roman Rite.  If people want to do it, fine.  If not, fine.

Is this like the “orans position problem in the Novus Ordo”?  Not really.  There are some people who adopt the position of arms raised with palms either slightly upward or opposed to each other in the manner of the priest when he prays the texts of Mass.   They should not do that.   While it is true that they are baptized, and therefore share in Christ’s priesthood, they are not ordained and they should not comport themselves as the ordained.

Bowing to the priest on the way in.

I can see how this might have developed in some places.  I’ve seen it myself many times on entering for Mass especially if coming down an aisle instead of directly out of a sacristy to an altar.

I take it as a sign of respect for the arrival of the one who alter Christus, the priest who is also the victim, about to celebrate for them the source and summit of their lives.   I’ve never thought for a moment that they were bowing to me, insofar as I am “Father Z”.  They were bowing to “The Priest”.

It could have developed by analogy to signs of reverence toward the processional cross that is often carried.   I recall that that was done at my home parish which had traditionally celebrated Novus Ordo Masses.

It could have developed by analogy to the honorific gestures which are in the Roman Rite for when the priest and sacred ministers enter the sanctuary.   The custom for clergy and others in the choir in the sanctuary is to bow slightly as a sign of greeting and respect for the celebrant as he enters, passes by, or exits.   It is rude to ignore such a person, who is acting at the moment in persona Christi capitis.  Hence, a head bow or other sign of reverence.

It could have developed by analogy from the gesture people customarily make when receiving a blessing, as from a bishop who blesses as he enters and exits.

It could be that some priest told them to do this in the past, and the practice stuck.

I don’t think people should be instructed to do this.  Perhaps, yes, in the case of when the thurifer comes to incense the congregation at the offertory time.  It is a kind of mutual greeting: the thurifer and people bow to each other.  It is like a sign of peace, only dignified.

These small signs of respect are not harmful.  They can be helpful in a time when decorum is at low ebb.  While we mustn’t exaggerate by piling them on, these gestures are helpful on the human level.

Posted in ACTION ITEM!, ASK FATHER Question Box, Decorum, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Our Catholic Identity, Save The Liturgy - Save The World | Tagged
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ROME 23/10 – Day 24: Ego enim sum Raphaël Angelus, unus ex septem, qui astámus ante Dóminum.

Posted on 24 October 2023 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

In the early morning the sun rose at 07:30 and it will set at 18:18.   The Ave Maria bell is in the 18:30 cycle.  In a few days, 29 October, the “legal hour” ends and we will set our clocks back an hour.  So, it will be much brighter in the early morning and get dark much earlier in the late afternoon.

Today is the Feast of St. Raphael the Archangel in the Vetus calendar.   It is unfortunate that the biblically named angels were put together on just on days in the Novus calendar.  We don’t, as a Church, pay enough attention these days to the Holy Angels.  We spend even less time considering the activities of the fallen angels.   This is ungrateful on the one hand and imprudent on the other.

Here is a lovely tondo at the parish that that was restored recently depicting the Archangel Raphael.

Raphael is the healing angel who acts in the Book of Tobit, one of the seven Archangels who stands before the Lord.

O Lord, thank you for this day.   I ask today the intercession of St Raphael to bring physical healing to my kind benefactors who are in need as well as spiritual healing to my malefactors.

In church today, all the side altars were being used, though you can’t at the moment I made this see every priest.   How I wish that the red vestments were being used!  That would be a sight.

On the way home I stopped at little St. Bridget’s and prayed especially for a donor who has stayed with the Brigettine many times and who are very attached to the place.

The Blessed Sacrament was exposed.  I spent a little time here remembering my kind donors and their requested petitions.

Meanwhile, you are white and it is your move.

Can you find mate in 3?

NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

Your use of my Amazon affiliate link is a major part of my income. It helps to pay for insurance, groceries, everything. Please remember me when shopping online. Thanks in advance.  US HERE – UK HERE

I saw a note that Anthony Esolen’s new translation of Augustine’s Confessions is now available from TAN Books.   This is great.

US HERE – UK HERE

I got the note about availability yesterday.  If you get a “sold out” note, retry.

Meanwhile, more from Esolen.

No Apologies: Why Civilization Depends on the Strength of Men

US HERE – UK HERE

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
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ROME 23/10 – Day 23: Cheery and bright

Posted on 23 October 2023 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Sunrise: 07:29.  Sunset: 18:19.  Ave Maria:  18:30

It is the Feast of St. John Capistrano.  Also, in the “aliquibus” section there is a Mass today for the veneration of Christ called “Nazareno” which originated in Rome among the Trinitarians at San Crisogono and spread around the area.  The parish has an image which lead to the use of the Mass today.

Welcome registrant:

FatherCommentator

On the way to church.

The red vestments which you dear readers helped to procure.  Thank you.

My flowers were all played out and I wanted something cheery.

An afternoon stroll took me through Piazza Navona.

Some finocchiona for supper.

In the evening I watched a really interested documentary about four women chess players from Georgia

Meanwhile, white to move.  Can you mate in THREE?

NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

Your use of my Amazon affiliate link is a major part of my income. It helps to pay for insurance, groceries, everything. Please remember me when shopping online. Thanks in advance.  US HERE – UK HERE

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Synodality (“Walking Togetherity”) and “tesserae”

Posted on 23 October 2023 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Looking at the Synod (“Walking Together: “W-T”) from as far as I can manage while being in Rome and as close as I need to be because I simply have to, the image that comes to mind is tied sack full of cats and parrots: something’s going on in there, alright, and it doesn’t sound very good. The sounds and the movements on the surface of the bag suggest that there are disagreeing participants in there and not a lot of organization.

As I have been saying all along, whatever they might produce in some sort of written form – which I firmly believe was already determined before the cat and parrot bag was filled and sewn shut – will not be the true message. The true message is that synodality (“Walking Togetherity”) must be perpetuated.

This is the establishment of “permanent revolution”, perpetual discontinuity, ongoing reinterpretation.

Some time ago I became convinced that those who have their hands on the levers and wheels behind the curtain are aiming at systematic reinterpretation of every aspect of the Church through their understanding of what Vatican II was all about. These folks are of a mind that the black on white texts of the Council are secondary in importance to the real content of the Council “event”, the “spirit”, which only a limited number of people are  authorized to discern. The V2 Gnostics have it in mind that every aspect of the Church through history, all her institutions (except those they hold that give them power for change), doctrine, liturgy (which is doctrine), etc., must be reinterpreted in the light of their discernments about the “spirit of the Council”. This is what we are seeing today in the Synod (“walking together”).

That said, there seems to be one issue that has come to the fore and is being pushed hard into our faces: the homosexualist agenda.

There are lots of mosaics in Rome, some fairly recent, others quite ancient. Mosaics are made up of little tesserae, blocks of color which, by themselves, tell you nothing. Examine the mosaic at very close range and you simply see little stones. Put these random pieces into order and then step back and images are discerned.

You can perhaps fill in more examples, but consider:

  • Timothy Radcliffe, OP addresses the participants in significant measure.
  • James Martin, SJ was a special appointment.
  • An activist from St. Joan of Arc in Minneapolis was appointed (who sat with the above)
  • Francis met with an actress and social commentatrix famous for her multiple abortions and support of homosexuality
  • Francis met for almost an hour with New Ways Ministry

One more piece of the puzzle emerged today. Close confidant and highly visible Antonio Spadaro, SJ, is published today in the Italian, daily La Stampa, recounting his years and years of labor over the works of the Italian homoerotic writer Pier Vittorio Tondelli, who died of AIDS in 1991. Spadaro has long maintained a website dedicated to Tondelli under his own name: HERE.

Look. This single item doesn’t mean much in itself. Neither does Francis meeting with New Ways or James Martin being anywhere at all. Put all the bits together and a picture emerges.

Someone perhaps can tell me how I am getting this wrong, and I will be grateful.

However, it seems to me that if other issues, such as married priests and women’s ordination, communion for the civilly remarried blah blah can be postponed to a future date when synodality (W-T) has been widely imposed, this issue, the homosexualist agenda, is decidedly not being held back. It is being firmly shoved in everyone’s face. By the highest authorities.

The Prefect of the Dicastery for Doctrine, Fernandez recently said that we shouldn’t use words like “sinner,” “sodomy,” “adultery,” “illegitimate”.

A German Bishop responded in a Synod (“w-t”) presser to a question about his own statements that even Apostolic Tradition is among the “traditionalisms” that have to go. He even clarified that that is what he meant in a follow up. I hate to break it to that bishop but he is supposedly a successor of the APOSTLES.  Will you kindly forego a salary, Your Excellency?

If there is no Apostolic Tradition… what is there?

All that remains is “walking togetherity”… to the edge of the modernist cliff.

The first command God gave to our First Parents is well-known: “be fruitful and multiply”. Homosexual behavior is exactly the undoing of that command. The Enemy knows where to strike. Make the human race so confused and arrogant that we don’t know who we are in God’s image, female or male, what the components we have are for, rearrange things by sheer brute force, manipulate the building blocks of life….  Sterility.

We see this in the larger world. We see something like it going on in the Church: confusion of roles, rearrangement by force, manipulating basic teachings.  Plummeting vocations.

UPDATE:

Robert Royal’s observations at The Catholic Thing today about “Walking Together about Walking Togetherity”.

Royal presents a good summary of the disruptive incoherence that is this Synod (“W-T”), mentioning several key speakers and statements and ancillary helps such as who is receiving papal audiences.

Posted in Sin That Cries To Heaven, Synod, The Coming Storm, The Drill, The future and our choices |
14 Comments

23 October – St. Boethius, philosopher: “A man content to go to heaven alone will never go to heaven.”

Posted on 23 October 2023 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

“A man content to go to heaven alone will never go to Heaven” – Boethius

What have you done, lately, to help someone get to Heaven?

Today is the feast of St. Severinus Boethius (+525), the author of the Consolation of Philosophy.  He was a pivotal figure at the cusp of late Antiquity and what are called the Middle Ages.

Boethius was a member of an ancient Roman family.  Among his accomplishments were translations and commentaries of Aristotle’s works on logic in Latin along with Euclid’s Elements.  He also wrote on arithmetic, geometry, music, and perhaps astronomy and he coined the term quadrivium (four-fold way), the basis of education for centuries, now revived in a way in homeschool circles (thank you, Dorothy Sayers!).

Boethius was an important figure in the court of Theodoric the Ostrogoth.  Theodoric would eventually come to believe that Boethius was conspiring against him and threw him in prison before executing him.  While he was in prison, he composed the astonishingly influential Consolation of Philosophy.

Here is his entry in the Martyrologium Romanum:

6*. Papiae in Liguria, commemoratio sancti Severini Boetii, martyris, qui, scientia ac scriptis praeclarus, in carcere detentus tractatum scripsit de consolatione philosophiae et Deo usque ad mortem a Theodorico rege inflictam cum integritate servivit.

Who wants to take a crack at the Latin?

Take note that the entry calls him “Saint” Boethius.  So does the official Vatican Curia’s calendar.  He is celebrated as a saint in Pavia.

You may be interested to know that Boethius’ tomb is in the crypt of the same church where St. Augustine’s remains are interred:  San Pietro in Ciel d’oro in Pavia, south of Milan.

Here is Lady Philosophy explaining God to Boethius in the guise of 15th c. France.

It’s too bad that hats are not more in style these days.

Posted in Saints: Stories & Symbols | Tagged
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German Bishop at Synod (“Walking Together”) says we must stop “clinging to habits and traditionalisms” including APOSTOLIC TRADITION

Posted on 22 October 2023 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I am forced to wonder if… forced to hope that… what a thing to think… that this bishop doesn’t know what Apostolic Tradition is.

What did I just write?!?

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
13 Comments