Fr. Z's Blog

I have often asserted in these pages that St. Joseph is a powerful intercessor.  I have received amazing interventions by this great saint, who is the earthly father of the Son of God.  I recently committed my material cares to him in this time of need.  Since then I have experienced his intercession as at no other time in my life.  He has interceded in ways that are so obvious – it is so clear that it is he doing things – that it’s funny.

Pray to St. Joseph, especially in your needs concerning your work and your vocation.  St. Joseph is a powerful intercessor.  He comes through for you especially when you are specific about what you need and when you need it.

I recommend St. Joseph especially for fathers in families.  Fathers, GO TO CONFESSION!  I think that would please Joseph.

May I suggest that you pray, often, the Litaniae Sancti Ioseph?

And remember the mighty Bux Protocol™.  This is more needed today than ever before.  Joseph is the Patron of the Church, after all.

Today’s feast of St. Joseph, the Worker, is modern.  It was given to the Church by Ven. Pope Pius XII in 1955.

We celebrate Joseph today especially as a patron of workers.  No doubt the thought behind the feast was, among other motives, to offset the incorrect atheistic, materialist view of work and workers presented by Socialism and Communism.

May Day had been a civic feast in many places since ancient times and festivals were held.

COLLECT 1962MR:

Rerum conditor Deus, qui legem laboris humano generi statuisti: concede propitius; ut, sancti Ioseph exemplo et patricinio, opera perficiamus quae praecipis, et praemia consequamur quae promittis.

Do not to confuse the verbs condo, condere and condio, condire, both of which give is “conditor“… one being cónditor and the other condítor.

SLAVISHLY LITERAL VERSION:

O God, creator of things, who established the law of labor for human kind: grant, propitiously; that, by the example and patronage of Saint Joseph, we may bring to completion the works which you command, and we may attain the rewards which you promise.

At the heart of our vocation as images of God we all have work to do.  God, our Creator, “worked” and then rested and saw that His work was good.  This is also our paradigm as His images.

When our First Parents revolted against God’s command, the entire human race fell.  The human race consisted of only two people, but it was the whole of the human race.  In their fall, we fell.

As a consequence of the Fall, man is now out of sync with God, himself, others and nature.  We do not live in the harmony that would make the tasks of stewardship of the gift of life and the honor of being at the pinnacle of material creation without sorrow, toil and pain.

And yet even before the Fall man had been given labor by God the Father.  Man had duties in the Garden.  It was our Fall that transformed that labor into toil.

God knew every one of us from before the Creation of the universe.  He calls us into existence at the exact point and place in His plan He foresaw in His providence.  We have a role to play in God’s plan.  We have work to do.

When we dedicate ourselves to fulfilling our part in God’s plan according to our vocations, whatever they may be in our own circumstances, God will give us every actual grace we need to do His will and come to our perpetual reward in heaven.

He gives us the work, the grace and the glory.  The harder the times and work, the greater the honor and glory.

With our wounded nature, our disordered passions and appetites, it is hard to understand that the work we do in life is a manifestation of both present grace and anticipated glory.

As an early American preacher once said,

“grace is but glory begun, and glory is but grace perfected”.

Put another way, God gives us the work and then He makes our hands strong enough for the task.  The achievement is therefore both His and truly ours.

As St. Augustine says, God crowns His own merits in us.

Two last things.

Try to wrap your head around the paradox in the vocation of St. Joseph.  Firstly, he was a relatively poor craftsman, a tekton, which in Greek is “builder” and certainly includes “carpenter”. However, when you consider the implications of the genealogy at the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew, Joseph was also the true heir to the Davidic throne!  And we don’t have in Scripture a single word spoken by him.  Hidden vocation and hidden thought.  The fine scripture scholar Brandt Pitre has a recording of talks he did on St. Joseph which I highly recommend: HERE.

Also, you will love Fr. Calloway’s book on Joseph.

We being the month dedicated to the Mother of God by venerating St. Joseph, under the title of Worker.

If not for the clouds, today we would have seen the sunrise at 06:05.  It will probably still be cloudy at 20:11 when the sun is to set.

The Ave Maria doesn’t depend on clouds and it should ring at 20:15.

Please consider saying the Rosary daily during May if you don’t already.

The last couple of days have been rainy.  Rome is a rather awful place when it rains.  The cobbles, “san pietrini”, can be slippery.  Cars passing splash you.  Etc.

Rome at its most treacherous, when it starts to rain after a long dry period, before rain can wash the dust, and the grease and oil of vehicles away.

Sun one way and clouds in the other.

Just a great view.

You can see in this typical Roman fountain, “nasone”, the little hole on the top of the curved spout.  By blocking the spout, water squirts up and you can drink from the stream. It is very good water.

Mary, help us all.  Help me with my petitions.  Intercede for my benefactors.

There are different ways to lay out vestments for the priest.  Here is one way (mine).

Here is another way (the sacristan’s).

Here’s a puzzle.

White to move.  You are down a piece but that enemy king is exposed to attack.

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

I’m now a chess.com affiliate, which uses House of Staunton, which is super-reliable.

Get some training from Igor.  Try THIS.

And get some great beer from the traditional Benedictines of Norcia! Invite friends over for a Rosary and to play chess over the board while enjoying a brew with savory sausage and cheeses.

Rome enjoyed a new sunrise at 06:07 and looks forward to another beautiful building hue changing sunset this evening at 20:08. Seven minutes later the Ave Maria is supposed to ring… but won’t… mostly.

In the Novus calendar it is the Feast of St. Catherine of Siena, Patroness of Italy. In the Vetus calendar, she is celebrated tomorrow bumping the Sunday of Eastertide. Today, however, is the Feast of St Peter Martyr, who was killed, if memory serves, with a sword to the head by a Cathar assassin.  Those Cathars!  He is said to have, in life, conversed with Sts. Catherine of Alexandria, Agnes and Cecilia.

Welcome new registrant:

RikiPotsticker

There is a new Chinese potsticker place (and other dim sum) nearby at P.za Farnese.

I’m writing this part in the morning.  Today I have to finish a weekly piece for One Peter Five and get into Game 14 between Nepo and Ding.  This is it.  The last classical game for all the marbles.   A draw will result in a tie-break.  This has been a really exciting match.  In a way, I’m sort of glad that what’s his face isn’t in it.

Morning Mass brought me to look longer at a painting by the altar I used that I thought was St. Rita of Cascia.  It is really St. Giacinta (Hyacintha) Marescotti (+1640), a Franciscan.

Here are two photos of the painting, one with my older, Italian iPhone XR and one with my little Canon SX720 which you might remember that I (thanks to readers) repaired. HERE

What do you think?  Which is better?  Same position, same light, default settings. No touch ups.

And this…. 5.67MB

And this 1.91MB.  A quarter of the size of the first.  There has to be more data in the first, right?  However, it gets the colors right.

Here is a touch up of the first, using Adobe Photoshop Elements 10.

What say you?

More about her.  She was a bad nun.

Her given name would have pleased Dr. Lector, Clarice.  She was a frivolous thing even after a life-threatening event.  She had her heart set on a young Marquis who dumped her for her younger sister, so, to whitewash her shame she went into the convent.  She kept stashes of good stuff for herself, had only the highest quality of habits and received lots of visitors.  One day when she was ill a priest brought her Communion, saw her stuff, and read her the riot act.   Total conversion resulted.   She got rid of the stash and finery and during plague served the poor and sick in fasting and great mortifications.  When she died she had a terrific “fama sanctitatis”.  She is one of the patronesses of the Archconfraternity of the Pilgrims and Convalescents which is now revived at the parish.  Surely this is because of her work with the poor and ill.

After Mass I went, as one does, to my fishmonger.  Tonight, I told myself, its spaghetti with clams, vongole veraci, “da Zeta” and not in a restaurant where they charge criminally high prices for things you ought to be able to make yourself.   But, alas, most people roaming about for restaurants are tourists or short-stay folks, constrained to eat out.

This is one of the reasons I am so grateful for your donations so I have have a longer term place with a kitchen: I save huge money by cooking for myself.  Not only save, I enjoy it from the planning to the shopping to the prep to the execution and to the consumption.  Dishes, not so much.  I have, however, learned how to say “I am washing the dishes” in Hungarian: mosogatok (accent on the first syllable).

This morning, therefore, off to the fishmonger where I was greeted by the usual chorus, with a hearty, “What’up?”

Bye to the fish guy:

Hello to the veg stands.  A couple of shots.

Look at these baby artichokes.  Do you imagine them to be good?  Gotta get me some.

Hi to the flower guy, Pippo… and (I think) Milagra.

As usually happens, I catch myself smiling as a progress through the streets which sight, a grinning priest in a cassock carrying the groceries around elicits a great many “Buon giorno, padre!”s, also from the Carabinieri and soldiers on security around the area.

Purging the clams even more.  They say that they are purged.  Uh huh.  Trust, but verify.  You have to be careful with shell fish.

Speaking of, I was invited to a genuinely good restaurant recently and I had a bit of a fit.  Normally when something isn’t quite on par you can shrug and go “meh!” and move on.  However, this was with mussels, cozze.  They sent out some pasta with cozze and about a quarter of them didn’t open.   made serious and pointed comments to the waiter when he asked how it was.

Mussels are not mysterious.  You heat them.  They open.  If they don’t open, do NOT pry them open and – quod Deus avertat! – eat them.

From my point of view, having worked as a cook for years before seminary, it was not the fact that I got fewer mussels in my serving than I should have (that too, of course) but mainly that a cook would send out a dish with something so obvious that could make an unsavvy customer seriously ill.

If you have ever gotten sick from bad seafood, mussels, oysters, clams and the like, you know what I am talking about.  You feel like death might just be an attractive option.

Thus, I shall carefully purge my evening’s vongole for a few hours more. I will be careful not to attempt any that don’t open well.

I still have a few things to gather for the vongole feast this evening: white wine, bread.  I have in the wings some itty-bitty strawberries, fragoline, which I plan to dress with a little sugar and perhaps white wine, as the Romans do, instead of lemon, which is never bad.

Meanwhile,  white to move.

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

GAME 14 TODAY!

I am now a chess.com affiliate which is handled by House of Staunton.

Sunrise 06:09
Sunset 20:07
Ave Maria 20:15

Welcome registrant:

Servatius

In the Novus calendar St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort is celebrated today. In the Vetus, we venerate St. Paul of the Cross, whose tomb is here in Rome at the Basilica of Sts. John and Paul…

After hanging out with the chess guys for a while at the P.za der Fico…

I visited S. Maria della Pace

There are interesting stories about the street leading to this church.  It seems that, back in the day, when the nobility would go from church to church on Sundays for the “sacred glimpse” (the elevation) there would be traffic jams as valets and retainers vied to get passage for their employers’ horse-drawn carriages.  They would not rarely get into massive fights over whose carriage carried the more important Personage.  Tempers could flare.  Swords could be drawn.  People could be stabbed.  Horses could panic.  Carriages could collide.  People could run about screaming.  The usual.  Eventually Pope Alexander VII, Chigi, knocked down some various parts of buildings to widen and straighten the street leading to S. Maria della Pace for the sake of a better view and better public order.

While I was in S.M. della Pace, I noticed that someone hasn’t gotten the memo.  The unfortunate presence of book on display with art by … *gag* … Rupnik.

The Crucifix, marvelous, is 14th c.  The side paintings are by Orazio Gentileschi, father of a favorite of mine – Artemesia.

I wonder about how well-known the Rupnik case is in Rome.

That aside… this is the inside of the ground floor of the place I was looking at on the V. dei Cappellari.

The apartment is a couple doors away where all the green is.

I petition again for the readership to ask St. Joseph and St. Philip to help with … whatever is to happen.  Also, Ven. Mary Ward lived in this neighborhood.  She would be good as ask as well.  There are not all that many places for rent or sale in this “rione”.  Many are in the clutches of Brits, too, it seems.

Anything else of interest today… hmmm… this is fun.

Please remember me when shopping online. Thanks in advance. US HERE – UK HERE  These links take you to a generic “catholic” search in Amazon, but, once in and browsing or searching, Amazon remembers that you used my link and I get the credit.

Meanwhile, it’s black’s move.

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

Tomorrow… Game 14!

Pasquino… in a rare moment… has nothing to say. And with that I, too, shall conclude.

Aut tace aut loquere meliora silentio.

Sunrise in Rome was 06:10 and sunset will be at 20:06.  Each day a little longer and they are, right now, beautiful days.

The Ave Maria should ring at 20:15.

It is the Feast of St. Peter Canisius, SJ, Doctor of the Church.

Last night a couple of retired Navy friends were/are in town.  Here’s one of them when he was at Annapolis.

GO NAVY – BEAT ARMY

We had cocktails at the Campo de’ Fiori – the cocktail culture is being revived in Rome as only the Italians can do followed by supper at a nearby favorite spot with Roman and Sicilian fare.  We started with moscardini and alici fritti with scratch made mayo.

A “bis” divided up… after a while the pasta gets a bit overwhelming.  Behold caccio e pepe and the other with asparagus and truffle.  Very good.

On the way home.

After Mass this morning I noticed something I’ve seen a thousand times.  This time it hit me.  Shell… pilgrims… Trinità dei Pellegrini … DUH!  [Insert forehead slap here.]

Yesterday I followed Game 12.   This is a 14 game match and the first to make it to 7.5 (.5 for a draw and 1.0 for a win) takes Magnus’ title.  As 12 started Ding Liren was down 5 to Nepo’s 6.  Effectively, Nepo would have had a nearly insurmountable lead of 2.o by winning Game 12.

What happened in Game 12 was astonishing.  Nepo with black got a serious positional advantage over Ding and was on the verge of squeezing him like a Boa Constrictor.  Also, knowing that Ding gets into time trouble, he started blitzing out moves.  Bad mistake.  With one misstep, one blunder, he was on the ropes and knew it.  In complete, manifest agony he played a couple more moves and resigned to Ding, who pulled off a stunning victory.  I have bookmarked the video below to just before Nepo’s f5 disaster move.  Watch for a while after as he practically writhes in frustration, talking to himself in sheer disbelief.

Nepo was thunderstruck almost immediately after his error.

That said, think about what goes through the mind of a damned soul in the first few minutes after arrival in Hell.

GO TO CONFESSION.

Here’s a puzzle.  White to move.

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

Oh… in Game 13 Ding with black was up but lost his edge and wound up with a draw.   Tomorrow is a rest day and the final classical Game 14 comes up on Saturday.  The Match is tied at 6.5.