NOVENA for the Immaculate Conception (8 Dec): Day 3

Posted on 1 December 2022 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Today is the 3rd Day for a Novena before the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

Will you participate?  Even if you are late to starting, that’s okay!  Start anyway.  And remember that there is no one way to observe this Novena.  But here’s one way.

GIVE SOME THOUGHT TO AN INTENTION.

Suggestions for intentions:

  • the overturning of Traditionis custodes.
  • an increase of vocations to the priesthood.
  • the miraculous healing of a sick loved one.
  • conquering a principal fault.
  • the return of a fallen away Catholic through practice by confession and Communion.
  • that your bishop will be manifestly courageous and faithful.

Day 3:

O God, who by the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary,  did prepare a worthy dwelling place for Your Son,  we beseech You that, as by the foreseen death of this, Your Son, You did preserve Her from all stain,  so too You would permit us, purified through Her intercession, to come unto You.  Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit,  God, world without end.  Amen.

O Blessed Virgin Mary, glory of the Christian people, joy of the universal Church and Mother of Our Lord, speak for us to the Heart of Jesus, who is your Son and our brother. O Mary, who by your holy Immaculate Conception did enter the world free from stain, in your mercy obtain for us from Jesus the special favor which we now so earnestly seek…

 (State your intention here… )

O Mary of the Immaculate Conception, Mother of Christ, you had influence with your Divine Son while upon this earth; you have the same influence now in heaven. Pray for us and obtain for us from him the granting of my petition if it be the Divine Will.  Amen.

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CRISIS: A Unified Theory of “Backwardism” – Go read it NOW.

Posted on 30 November 2022 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Unless you are praying the Novena before the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, stop right now and go to Crisis and read:

A Unified Theory of “Backwardism”

What was so awful about the pre-Vatican II Church that its memory needs to be obliterated and those who hold to doctrines that are ancient in provenance must be labeled as “rigid” and psychologically damaged?

By Darrick Taylor.

Pope Francis has presented many of his key initiatives as pope as efforts to “move the Church forward,” as the saying goes. As you probably also know by now, he is vehemently opposed to anything that takes the Church “backward.”

In recent months, he started using an Italian neologism—“indietrismo” or “backwardism”—to describe those Catholics who are opposed to progress in the Church. Francis’ torrent of abuse and invective has been quite consistent, and it matches up increasingly with his actions, especially since the crackdown on the Latin Mass began in 2021.

This verbal onslaught is aimed at those who “reject Vatican II,” though he never fully clarifies who is rejecting what precisely. There are certainly those around Francis who view the existence of the old liturgy as a symbol of the pre-Vatican II Church, which the postconciliar Church has left behind. Given his choice of appointments to the Pontifical Academy for Life, this likely includes those who do not want the Church’s doctrine on contraception to “develop.” Apparently, he sees things the same way, or at least wants to signal that he does.

But the question remains: Why? What was so awful about the pre-Vatican II Church that its memory needs to be obliterated and those who hold to doctrines that are ancient in provenance must be labeled as “rigid” and psychologically damaged? I should be clear, I don’t think there are any good reasons for this, and some of this must be attributed to ill feeling on his part. Francis clearly sees people who are somehow “backward” as opponents, and he clearly wishes they would go away.

However naive it may be, I am not willing to leave it at that. It may be that there is no rationality at all in this attack on the Catholic past, but somehow I doubt it. In part, it is because this attack is selective. Only parts of the past come in for this sort of treatment and not others. Because there are so many different parts of Catholic teaching and tradition that “progressive” Catholics call into question, it is difficult to pin down one set of motives; but I think the motivation is political, in the broadest sense of that term.

[…]

HERE

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Daily Rome Shot 594, etc.

Posted on 30 November 2022 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Getting your Christmas shopping done early allows you later to focus more attention on the mysteries we celebrate in this Advent/Christmas season.  Please remember me when shopping online. Thanks in advance.  To get started, click a link and Amazon will credit me with a small percentage of what you spend during that session.

US HERE – UK HERE

Meanwhile, …

Black to move.  It’s a race!

NB: I may hold comments with puzzle solutions a little longer than others so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

I dropped in on my OTB club yesterday for about the final 45 minutes of their meeting and got into one game.  We fought to a really tough draw.

Interested in learning?  Try THIS.

I see that a couple of you have availed yourselves of courses through Remote Chess Academy. I think you will like the clear instruction. In some courses and videos I find either too much detail too quickly, or the instructor’s struggle with English is distracting… and I am super sympathetic and speak several languages myself, so my ear is well-tuned. This young fellow has an engaging way and he presents the concepts well. That said, the course that you will really benefit from is the one you really work on. You can get out of them what you put into them.

Yesterday evening, as my daily chores were completed and supper was brought to and end I settled in for a couple of games against the ChessUp AI with mixed results. I suspect that when you set the ELO, it plays above that level.

Right now Chess House has the ChessUp board on sale for $349 (instead of $399) with free shipping.  HERE

Click!

This would be a great Christmas present for a family. Consider that children learn well and quickly. With something like chess, it is best to start really young.  I did, and went far, fast in tournaments, etc.  Then I stopped playing for a looooong time.  Getting back in is a challenge.

Shop Chess House Holiday Chess Gifts Free Shipping over $75 to U.S. 48 states.  I’ve bought things from Chess House.  They were prompt.

Meanwhile, the nice folks at TAN Books sent me a copy of a new offering

The Life of Saint Joseph as Seen by the Mystics by Paul Thigpen

US HERE – UK HERE

We don’t know a great deal about St. Joseph’s life from Scripture.  However, some mystical writers have in their visions and so forth offered some ideas that could be helpful for one’s devotional life.  The compiler, Paul Thigpen, is crystal clear in presenting these insights from mystical writers – such as St. Bridget or Mary of Jesus of Ágreda or Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich – always careful to differentiate between divine, public revelation (which is closed) and private revelations.  There is no confusion.  It is well balanced.

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NOVENA for the Immaculate Conception (8 Dec): Day 2

Posted on 30 November 2022 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Today is the 2nd Day for a Novena before the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

Will you participate?  Even if you are late to starting, that’s okay!  Start anyway.  And remember that there is no one way to observe this Novena.  But here’s one way.

GIVE SOME THOUGHT TO AN INTENTION.

Suggestions for intentions:

  • the overturning of Traditionis custodes.
  • an increase of vocations to the priesthood.
  • the miraculous healing of a sick loved one.
  • conquering a principal fault.
  • the return of a fallen away Catholic through practice by confession and Communion.
  • that your bishop will be manifestly courageous and faithful.

Day 2:

O God, who by the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary,  did prepare a worthy dwelling place for Your Son,  we beseech You that, as by the foreseen death of this, Your Son, You did preserve Her from all stain,  so too You would permit us, purified through Her intercession, to come unto You.  Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit,  God, world without end.  Amen.

O Mary, ever blessed Virgin, Mother of God, Queen of angels and of saints, we salute you with the most profound veneration and filial devotion as we contemplate your holy Immaculate Conception, We thank you for your maternal protection and for the many blessings that we have received through your wondrous mercy and most powerful intercession. In all our necessities we have recourse to you with unbounded confidence. O Mother of Mercy, we beseech you now to hear our prayer and to obtain for us of your Divine Son the favor that we so earnestly request in this novena…

(State your intention here… )

O Mary of the Immaculate Conception, Mother of Christ, you had influence with your Divine Son while upon this earth; you have the same influence now in heaven. Pray for us and obtain for us from him the granting of my petition if it be the Divine Will.  Amen.

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Swiss Bishop abolishes office of diocesan exorcist. What could go wrong?

Posted on 30 November 2022 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

And to think that I have a priest friend in the Diocese of Chur.  To think that Archbp. Wolfgang Haas was once Bishop of Chur.

The Diocese of Chur includes Zürich. Three famous Benedictine abbeys are in the diocese Einsiedeln, Engelberg, and Disentis as is the shrine of St Nicholas of Flüe.

From LifeSite.

Swiss bishop Joseph Maria Bonnemain of the Diocese of Chur has abolished the office of exorcist in his diocese.

Bonnemain said in an interview with SRF that there would be “normal solutions” for most problems that people have and that he has “never been confronted with a person” that needed a major exorcism.

“For many questions, we do not need to look for extraordinary causes, rather we are all human beings who have strengths and weaknesses in ourselves, who are confronted with difficult family, social, and professional situations,” Bonnemain told SRF. “And there are normal solutions for this, i.e. medical, psychological, psychotherapeutic, and one does not need to want to find secret causes.”

The essence of Modernism is the reduction of the supernatural to the natural.

Bishop Bonnemain is well-known for his heterodox positions.?The Swiss Opus Dei bishop expressed support for same-sex unions and knowingly gave Holy Communion to non-Catholics during his ordination ceremony.

Furthermore, the Swiss prelate has been accused by priests in his diocese of implementing “LGBT ideology” in the Church “under the guise of preventing sexual assault.”?Bonnemain has also been accused by two groups of lay Catholics of knowingly tolerating liturgical?abuse in the form of women “concelebrating” at Catholic Masses in his diocese.

In October of this year, Bonnemain failed to correct one of his employees who endorsed the use of pornography.

Bonnemain was appointed by Pope Francis as Bishop of Chur in February 2021.

Does this say something about the direction Opus Dei has gone?

Apart from that, I have a sneaking suspicion that most bishops don’t know what exorcism is, or what the differences are between minor exorcisms, the exorcisms in the traditional baptismal rites, the exorcisms used in some blessings and, especially, the differences between chapters 2 and 3 of the older Rituale Romanum and what is in the different Appendices of the post-Conciliar book.

That said, the chief exorcist of every diocese is the diocesan bishop.   So…

Glückwunsch, Eure Exzellenz!

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NOVENA for the Immaculate Conception (8 Dec): Day 1

Posted on 29 November 2022 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Today is the 1st Day for a Novena before the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

Will you participate?  Even if you are late to starting, that’s okay!  Start anyway.  And remember that there is no one way to observe this Novena.  But here’s one way.

GIVE SOME THOUGHT TO AN INTENTION.

Suggestions for an intentions:

  • the overturning of Traditionis custodes.
  • an increase of vocations to the priesthood.
  • the miraculous healing of a sick loved one.
  • conquering a principal fault.
  • the return of a fallen away Catholic through practice by confession and Communion.
  • that your bishop will be manifestly courageous and faithful.

Day 1:

O God, who by the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary,  did prepare a worthy dwelling place for Your Son,  we beseech You that, as by the foreseen death of this, Your Son, You did preserve Her from all stain,  so too You would permit us, purified through Her intercession, to come unto You.

Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit,  God, world without end.  Amen.

O most Holy Virgin, who was pleasing to the Lord and became His mother, immaculate in body and spirit, in faith and in love, look kindly on me as I implore your powerful intercession. O most Holy Mother, who by your blessed Immaculate Conception, from the first moment of your conception did crush the head of the enemy, receive our prayers as we implore you to present at the throne of God the favor we now request…

(State your intention here… )

O Mary of the Immaculate Conception, Mother of Christ, you had influence with your Divine Son while upon this earth; you have the same influence now in heaven. Pray for us and obtain for us from him the granting of my petition if it be the Divine Will.  Amen.

 

 

 

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Daily Rome Shot 594, etc.

Posted on 29 November 2022 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Meanwhile…

Black to move and escape death.  This is messy and there are different options.

NB: I may hold comments with puzzle solutions a little longer than others so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

Priestly chess players, drop me a line. HERE

The annual Tata Steel India Rapid and Blitz Chess Tournament is on. For the first time there is a parallel women’s tourney. Participants include Humpy Koneru and the Muzychuk Sisters… which summons the image of a Bollywood close harmony singing group.

Please remember me when shopping online. Thanks in advance.  US HERE – UK HERE

The FSSP Seminarians made a Christmas music album.  Could be a nice gift!

By FSSP seminarians

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The Federalist’s reaction to the “Hell’s Bible” hit piece against TLM-going Catholics

Posted on 28 November 2022 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

A couple weeks back Hell’s Bible (aka NYT) published an airy yet vicious attack piece about Catholics who attended the Traditional Latin Mass.  Apparently, if you go to the Vetus Ordo, you might be a white right-wing extremist of some kind, never mind your melanin ratio or eye-shape.

The Federalist reacted to the NYT piece.  It brought something up that I think is at the core of the fear and hatred of the TLM, or rather, the people who want it.  They fear and hate the people.

Graham [the NYT writer] mischievously claims that it’s a “brand of new hard-right rhetoric … in some Catholic communities online” that’s drawing many Catholics to the Latin Mass. She even drops some names, including popular Catholic podcaster, author, and theologian Taylor Marshall as well as Church Militant, which Graham breezily brushes off as a “hard-right multimedia site that rails against [a] homosexuality, [b] pandemic restrictions and [irrelevant] Pope Francis.”

Most of those who are actively trying to crush out the Vetus Ordo, or rather the people who want it, trot out their theological Gnosticism about how antithetical it is to the “spirit” of the Council, which isn’t precisely spelled out from the texts of the Council but rather from the Council documents tone.

That’s B as in B, S as in S, of course.  But I suspect that 99% of the hostiles are really a) psychosexually confused and are acting on that confusion and/or b) hold a utopian globalist, one world agenda that involves climate change and population control, which is why they were and probably still are tyrannical about the “jab” and masks.

Hence, all the cant about the “spirit” of the Council aside, the TLM, and people who want it, triggers them into spittle-flecked nutties.

It seems to me that Traditionis custodes could have been more about those issues than – really – about the new Pentecost springtime which will burst upon us when at long last the Council is realized.  Unless, of course, the springtime is really about population control for the sake of saving the Earth from human parasites and reducing every sexual act to something sterile and, ultimately, hostile.

 

Posted in Creation and Environment Stuff, Hard-Identity Catholicism, Liberals, Pò sì jiù, Sin That Cries To Heaven, The Coming Storm, The Drill, The future and our choices, Traditionis custodes | Tagged
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Daily Rome Shot 593, etc. video and a BOOK suggestion

Posted on 28 November 2022 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Lit for a wedding.  Common in Rome. Hardly anyone goes to Mass, but they all want fancy wedding photos.

And… the fussing wedding guy was in the way for a bit.

Black to move and mate in 6.

NB: I may hold comments with puzzle solutions a little longer than others so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

Interested in learning?  Try THIS.  60% off today!

And this is now available.  I am just getting into it.

Does Traditionis Custodes Pass the Juridical Rationality Test?

by Fr. Réginald-Marie Rivoire FSVF and Fr. William Barker FSSP

US HERE – UK HERE

This looks at Francis’ bitterly cruel, anti-personal document from the point of view of juridical rationality, an essential characteristic of a legal norm.  If a norm is irrational norm, it does not bind.

Copies should be obtained and given to priests, especially those who lean toward traditional, and to bishops perhaps along with a spiritual bouquet.

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Daily Rome Shot 592, etc. with a recommendation or two

Posted on 27 November 2022 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Click for a larger image.

Meanwhile, white can mate in 6.

NB: I may hold comments with puzzle solutions a little longer than others so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

In times of fasting, monks used to drink beer. Really.

Recommendation:

Some time ago I received a note from a good fellow, Dr. Ed Mazza, who offers online courses. The content:

I am offering a course for the four Sundays of Advent on the Third Secret of Fatima. I wonder if this is something you would be comfortable recommending on your blog?

HERE

Since being banished from Woke Academia back in 2019, this is how I make a livelihood for myself and my wife.

I very well understand and I am happy to lend a hand. And my experience is that he is engaging, well informed, and witty.

Please remember me when shopping online. Thanks in advance. US HERE – UK HERE

I received a book from the wonderful people at TAN by Mary Nicholas and Paul Kengor:

The Devil and Bella Dodd One Woman’s Struggle Against Communism and Her Redemption  (UK –HERE)

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