Another really bad idea: Communion Pills

Posted on 12 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Even though there is no danger of true true sacrilege (these Protestants have no valid Eucharist or anything like), there is danger of idolatry… and of being kinda dumb.

Perhaps it’s a matter of lack of oxygen at higher altitudes?

I bring this grizzly thing up because the woman tries to drag Catholics into her charade.

Colorado Woman Sells Communion In Pill Form

DENVER (CBS4)– One Colorado businesswoman is taking a symbol of her faith to those on the go.

Theresa Lay came up with God’s Pill after going through a personal tragedy.

“I had gone through loss in my life and I was taking daily communion. [I wonder what Protestant groups do that.] And I thought about a portable way, a quick and easy way to do it,” she told CBS4’s Dominic Garcia.  [Without all that inconvenient business of going to church, etc.  Maybe she should team up with those Pez dispenser people?]

One pill is made of matzo bread powder, the other red wine extract. She says it could be used by the military or people who are traveling. One person who reviewed the product said it has allowed them to worship in the jungles of Gambia.  [Worship….what, exactly?]

“Large groups or just people on the go who want to worship and give thanks to God. That’s pretty much how I invented the communion pill.”

Theresa says the pill isn’t associated with any denomination, it doesn’t matter if you’re Protestant or Catholic. [“It doesn’t matter” (so long as you buy!] She says 2,000 years ago communion was with fresh bread and wine. These days it’s wine or juice and processed wafers. The next step can now be prayer in pill form. [In PILL form!   I can see The Tablet getting on board with this.  This is right at the level of their faith/worship experience.]

“I believe communion brings hope and healing to the world. It’s been 2,000 years since the last supper and it’s new every time someone celebrates”.  [It’s new every time!]

Which will it be, Neo?

Okay… I might have to admit that this is no more sophisticated in its concept than the knowledge and faith in the Eucharist of many, if not most communicants these days.

Posted in Pò sì jiù, You must be joking! |
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Another group of women destroyed by the Vatican Congregation for Religious

Posted on 11 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Once upon a time we took care of our own and didn’t rely on the nanny state to do everything. Catholics of every level of economic potential and walk of life were concerned with works of mercy, even in organized confraternities and religious orders.

Another group of women engaged in works of mercy has been destroyed by the Congregation for Religious.

Some time back we learned that a group of contemplative women called the Little Sisters of Mary, the Mother of the Redemer, in Saint-Aignan-sur-Roe, France, were being attacked by the local bishop Thierry Scherrer of Laval.

The sisters run four old-peoples homes. They have the Novus Ordo in Latin and in 2012 adopted traditional habits. The bishop thought they were too traditional.

Apparently now so does the Congregation for Religious under Braz Card de Aviz, who destroyed the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate.

Visitation in 2016 and 2018 were imposed on the sisters by ultra-liberals (one of the visitors Sister Geneviève Médeviellem, who teaches at the Catholic Institute in Paris, claims that fornication can be justified).

Result:

The mother superior and the novice mistress where exiled to distant monasteries and replaced with three modernist commissioners. All the canonical appeals and pleas for mercy were ignored.

On September 17, Cardinal Braz de Aviz, head of the Congregation for Religious, ordered the sisters to accept the commissioner “without reserve” lest they would be dismissed.

34 of 37 sisters announced on November 7 that they had decided in conscience to ask their vows to be dissolved.

They were founded in 1949, and ran four nursing homes in the dioceses of Laval and Toulouse.

Life as a religious in the time of Francis and Braz de Aviz.

Maybe if they had more crystals and mantras, more macrame and Georgia O’Keefe on their walls?

Posted in Women Religious | Tagged
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100th Armistice Day, Veterans Day, Remembrance Day ACTION ITEM!

Posted on 11 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Today is Armistice Day 2018, which makes it the 100th anniversary of cessation of fire on the Western Front, effectively leading to the formal end of the hideous WWI.

11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, St. Martin’s Day, Martin Mass, which for centuries can be considered the beginning of winter because of our customs and patters of harvest and so forth.

In Paris, leaders of countries involved in WWI have gathered for special ceremonies.

There are some good videos of the Remembrance Day ceremony in London. Here is one of them. I am sure you can find others.

YouTube thumbnailYouTube icon

Today is, in these USA, Veteran’s Day, which honors those who served and are serving in the military.

Today would be a good day to make a donation to the Archdiocese of Military Services.

I did so today, in memory of a priest, Army Chaplain, who was gravely injured in Iraq and who died of those wounds in 2009.   He was, as a seminarian, one year behind me at the St. Paul Seminary and, ordained in 1992, was a priest of St. Paul and Minneapolis.  Maj. Henry Timothy “Tim” Vakoc.  May he rest in peace.

DONATE to the Archdiocese for Military Services!

 

CLICK TO DONATE

Posted in ACTION ITEM! | Tagged , ,
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@JamesMartinSJ shovels scandalous rubbish to justify sin

Posted on 10 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

UPDATE:

I wonder if this changes the issue somewhat.  HERE  Bolger apparently wrote to someone about his regrets.     Private letter, not a public statement.

No… it doesn’t change much.

Originally Published on: Nov 10, 2018
_____

Here is yet another example of scandalous Jesuit homosexualist activist James Martin, LGBTSJ committing scandal and undermining the morals of Catholics.

Whitey Bugler, mobster and murderer, died and, for some inexcusable reason the Archdiocese of Boston permitted a funeral Mass for him, though that is explicitly contrary to Canon Law.

What Boston did caused scandal. That is, their action brought on other sin, especially in the case of homosexualist Martin’s arguement below. This is how scandal works: one person sins and another uses that sin to justify his own sin.

Look at that #sodojesuital argument.   If Bulger gets a funeral, and he was a sinner, then all sinners get funerals.  And since all of us are sinners, we all should get funerals, including homosexual couples.

Not so fast.   The Church’s law, can. 1184 § 1 n. 1, says “manifest sinners who cannot be granted ecclesiastical funerals without scandal”. If the sin is manifest (as it surely was in the case of Whitey Bulger), then funerals must be denied lest scandal result. There was, apparently, no sign of repentance on Bulger’s part that was made public. Hence, he was and remained a manifest public sinner.

Homosexuals who civilly marry are manifest public sinners. Unless they give public signs of repentance they remain manifest public sinners and they must be denied ecclesiastical funerals lest scandal result.

Prof. Peters has a great piece about this whole pile of rubbish and Martin’s shoveling of it. HERE

Peters says that the fact that the Archd. of Boston violated the law that doesn’t mean that everyone else can (that’s the point about “scandal”). Martin the Jesuit, who knows better – he’s not stupid, even though his intellect and will seem to be darkened with the fascination of sodomy in its various forms – comes right out and says, “if mobsters, then homosexuals”. Never mind that the law was violated in the first instance and in the second instance. Who cares?

See how devious Martin’s message is?

The Archdiocese violated the law.  Martin sees that violation and then tells you to violate the law.

The serpent deceived Eve.  Eve offered the apple to Adam.

“Did the Church’ssssss law really sssssay that you can’t do that?  Really?  Never mind the law.  Go ahead.  Do as you pleassssssssse.”

Peters makes the point that so long is the law, then the law must be obeyed.  If the Legislator wants to change the law, the Legislator is free to do so.  However, until then, we must follow it, particularly in important points such as these.

UPDATE:

BTW… perhaps Martin didn’t notice that he drew a straight line between a mobster murderer and homosexuals.  Perhaps he had in mind the Latin word ferox or perhaps even  the fact that the infamous Stonewall Inn was run by the mafia precisely for that sort of sinner.

Posted in Canon Law, Sin That Cries To Heaven | Tagged , ,
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GERMANY: Catastrophic! USA next? @USCCB bishops meeting and YOU. ACTION ITEM!

Posted on 10 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

An image to consider.

Two rays extending from the same point get farther and father apart the longer they extend.   If the one ray is the trajectory of Christ’s true Church, then the other ray, that departs from it, get’s farther and father away with every moment of its “progress”.

This comes from Focus.de:

According to a media report, the Evangelical and Catholic Church in Germany will be missing around 14,000 pastors by 2030.
The Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) expects that by then about 7,000 of the current 13,500 clerical posts can no longer be filled, writes the “Focus”. This development is “catastrophic,” said ZDK President Thomas Sternberg the news magazine. “We will not be able to keep the usual structures. Lay people have to be able to take on much more tasks in the future. ”

The Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) have similar problems, writes the “Focus” on. The pastor’s association assumes that the number of currently about 21,000 pastors will reduce by about one third. According to this, around 7,000 jobs could not be filled by 2030. “This leads each pastor to its limit – and beyond,” said the chairman of the pastor’s association, Andreas Kahnt.

Catastrophe.  Catastrophic.  That’s the situation in Germany.

To paraphrase Card. “Accompany” Kasper to the world about African bishops, I don’t think Germans should be telling us what to do.  Everything they do is wrong, it seems.  German bishops and theologians seem to be the caput malorum omnium.

“But Vater! But Vater!”, some of you libs are hooting, “You don’t understand anything about what’s going on.  This is the time of change and innovation.  Surely it is clear even to someone as backward as you that you have to break eggs to make omelets.  So the Church in Germany is broken.  So the Churches in Europe are demographically diminishing.  It’s quality we want, not quantity!  We are living the dream of the new Vatican II springtime!  We are forward looking visionaries blue-skying and singing a new church into being!   But you…. YOUUUUU…. don’t get that because YOU HATE VATICAN II!”

What I get is this.

According to one smart German speaking, one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

It is at least stupid, if not insane.

We have serious choices to make.  How conscious I am of the poignancy of reading that piece and writing these words I am, since we are on the brink of another plenary meeting of the USCCB.   One meeting of bishops can’t solve The Present Crisis.  However, one meeting can suggest to us who watch from the outside just what our bishops are made of.

Will they stand upright and set their jaw and take their hands out of their pockets?  (Perhaps I should say “take their hands out of our pockets”?)

Or will they produce the same old same old.

On the other hand, perhaps the “same old same old”… the real “same old same old” is exactly what we need.  We need a recovery of Tradition in order to produce a revitalization of our Catholic identity.

Folks, before the bishops meet, may I make a couple suggestions about what YOU can do?

  1. Go to confession.
  2. Make a good Holy Communion and offer it to God with your petition that the Holy Spirit prompt the bishops to true pastoral care, the kind that shepherds summon when the wolves are circling.
  3. Pray to your Guardian Angel and the Guardian Angels of your own local bishop to protect him, during the meeting, from the influence of The Enemy, the attacks of the demonic through their attachments to the place they are in, the food they may eat, even the oppressors of their brother bishops if they are in that sorry state.
  4. Find out the times that the bishops are meeting next week and prayer a Rosary for them during that time or stop at church and pray before the Blessed Sacrament for them.
  5. Take on some penance, some mortification during their meeting and offer it that the Holy Spirit increase in them, through the sacrament of confirmation and through orders, their strengthened sense of vocation and of the Four Last Things.

Tolkien wrote about the eucatastrophe, the catastrophe that has to happen so that greater good can result.

Posted in "But Father! But Father!", "How To..." - Practical Notes, ACTION ITEM!, Si vis pacem para bellum!, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices | Tagged , ,
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To US Bishops before their @USCCB meeting: Do not be afraid!

Posted on 10 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

At First Things more good advice has been offered to their collective Excellencies before their upcoming plenary meeting, which begins next Monday.  Just the other day, another piece of advice was extended by a writer at The Catholic Thing.  HERE

However, at First Things, the director of the Augustine Institute, Jayd Henricks, has pointed words. He is also a former senior staffer at the USCCB, so he knows what he is talking about.

Let’s see a sample with my usual treatment:

[…]

There is, however, something wrong with how the body of bishops functions as an assembly and how bishops relate to and interact with one another. Far too often, fear appears to govern what is done or not done by you as a body. There is the fear of disunity, fear of conflict, fear of disrupting a superficial collegiality, and today, more than ever, fear of Rome. Though the pressure you face—each in your dioceses and together as an assembly—is intense, the bottom line is that it sometimes appears that many of you are governed by fear of each other and of the institutional order more than by the fear of God.

It has also been my observation that your work as an association of bishops leads many of you to value the appearance of unity over adherence to principle. This habit, in turn, leads to patterns of conflict avoidance. In some instances, this is the path of charity. Conflict and division are not good things. Far too often, however, I watched good men back away from conflict when what was needed was confrontation and forthright debate. This culture of fear enabled the likes of Theodore McCarrick to attain power and to scheme and maneuver at the highest ecclesial and political levels.

All serious observers of the Church see that the current ecclesiastical situation stands on the edge of a cliff. It seems to me that there are two dominant camps among the bishops in the United States, and perhaps worldwide. One regards the Church as a platform for political interests. My professional experience taught me that this group includes key authorities in Rome. The other regards the Church as a pastoral reality. This second group, while genuinely desiring to serve, is reluctant to address critical issues if doing so would entail conflict with Rome.

The curial advisors of the Holy Father have failed to understand the nature of the present crisis. They have chosen a path that only exacerbates it. [It could be that they do understand it and they chose that path with that understanding in mind.] They have failed to undertake a swift and full investigation of the McCarrick case. The Vatican’s failure to act is now aggravating the real harm done to the Church. In the end, however, the faithful in the United States will hold you—and not the curial officials—responsible for what does or does not happen in the wake of the most recent scandals.

I urge you to petition forcefully for an open investigation led by the laity. Do not allow a false notion of unity to prevail, a false unity in which your integrity as bishops is sacrificed to expediency.

[…]

There is quite a bit more, which you should read over there.

As far as that point about curial advisors is concerned, …

… I am more and more of the mind that, beyond the usual and always valid explanation of sheer incompetence, real malice has been revealed.

I say “malice” because those involved seem to hate what the Church has been and, by their directives and their urgings around Francis, they want to transform the Church into something it has never been and which Christ never intended.

You can get more of what I mean by going back to what I wrote in June 2017 about the vision of one of the key players in Francis’ dugout, the creeps-inducing and plagiarist Víctor Manuel Fernández.  Call to mind the “governing principles” – or Four Guiding Postulates – Fernández included as ghostwriter of Evangelii gaudium.   One of them concerns constant conflict of positions which will, over time, produce lasting change.

If you want to understand what Francis and Co. are doing, you have to review those things that I linked.

Posted in The Drill | Tagged
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ASK FATHER: Some say Advent is not a penitential season.

Posted on 9 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader…

QUAERITUR:

I’m reaching out because I’m doing a bunch of research on Advent. I have been reading a number of things on Advent and about living liturgically in general and I’m trying to get a few things straight that I’m not totally clear on (and youtube isn’t helping). Fr Mike says it’s not penitential: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA-gx-PWB0A

Another video that I found first said that based on the liturgy (but not canon law from 1983) it is penitential (vestments, church decorations, etc). Where does a new Catholic (with young children) start?

Yes, there is something to the issue that canon law does not prescribe additional penance for Advent.   However, liturgically Advent is clearly penitential.  “Fr Mike” is wrong.  He has points that are right, of course.  He’s not wrong in everything.  But, he’s wrong, I think, in saying that it is not penitential.

As far as what a new Catholic might do… I would definitely observe it as being penitential, if not to the extent that Lent might be.  “Fr Mike” did suggest not celebrating Christmas too soon.  He is right on that point, of course.  Let Advent be Advent.  Let Christmas be Christmas.   Let there be penance and then let there be celebration.

While there is an intimate connection between Cult (liturgy), Code (law) and Creed (doctrine), of all three we are our rites.   Our Catholic identity is most powerfully shaped by our rites.

Advent is a penitential season.  This is clear from the loss of the Gloria and the color of the vestments (violet).  Once upon a time we used black vestments for Advent and the season was longer.  This is partly why Advent dovetails so closely with the ending of the liturgical year.  The nature of our prayers and readings during Advent having to do with the Four Last Things.  Advent, in many ways, is more about the Second Coming of the Lord than the First Coming.  It’s about both, of course.   And let’s not forget that the Roman Rite has its traditional expression but also its… well, lightened and less complicated expression.  Moreover, according to rubrics, instrumental music is limited during Advent and there should be no flowers on the altar.  Just like Lent, a penitential season.

Yet, the tone of the shorter season of Advent is not like Lent.  I often describe Advent as a season of joyful penance, or penitential joy.  Lent is not against joy, by the way.   We don’t have to mope.

“Fr Mike” is also wrong about Advent not being about having a Merry Christmas.  Of course it’s also about having a Merry Christmas.  We Catholics fast before we feast.   In ancient Christian Rome, for example, people would cut back on their food on fast days (obviously), but they would also give the difference to the poor.  We traditionally deny ourselves things in a spirit of preparation and purification and, then in the right moment, we feast!   Even though Christmas is a comparative newcomer among the great feasts, we do what Catholics do.  First we fast and then we feast.  The lights are bright and the cheer cheerier because we have denied ourselves beforehand.

I will drop this now and let you readers chime in with your resources.

 

 

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, ASK FATHER Question Box, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000 |
20 Comments

FEEDBACK: “I went to confession for the first time in nine years tonight.”

Posted on 9 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I suspect that most of you readers know that I often shout at you: GO TO CONFESSION! I did so yesterday, several times. This morning I received this.

From a reader:

I wanted to thank you for always pushing confession. I went to confession for the first time in nine years tonight. It was my son’s first confession night, and I wanted to both set a good example for him and cleanse my soul. I used your steps for making a good confession, which really helped. Afterwards it was like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I do not plan on waiting nine years – or even nine months – before I return to confession.

My confessor tonight was patient and kind. He listened, gave me some brief but useful advice and encouragement, and then absolved me using the proper form. Nothing too lovey-dovey, nothing too harsh, nothing to hokey-pokey – just respectful and proper responses. The priest almost seemed to admire me for my strength for confessing my sins.

To your priest readers, I encourage them to please be like this confessor. Be strong, be respectful, and encourage those who confess. Say the Black, Do the Red. Nothing more, nothing less.

Thanks for all that you and all the good priests do. Many prayers!

If this blog ever served any purpose, THAT, dear friends, is it.

Posted in GO TO CONFESSION |
8 Comments

Blog milestone: 90 Million

Posted on 9 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

An alert reader sent a note saying that the “StatCounter” button on the sidebar shows that we reached another milestone.  This must have happened sometime during the night.

The blog is older than that and I don’t put huge stock in these stats, but this is not nothing.

Blogs are not pulling the traffic that they once did.  I think people are putting more of their time into less challenging fare, such as Twitter and, blech, Fakebook.  That said, there is still great potential in blogs.

I’ll keep going, if you keep reading. Even if we need Catholic Samizdat, this will keep going.

This is something that the Holy See’s prospective “General Directorate for the Protection of Papal Secrets in the Press” and it’s concomitant “Goskomizdat” should think about before attempting to shut down free thought and speech.

For 100 Million, I think I’ll have to have another challenge coin!

Posted in Just Too Cool |
8 Comments

ASK FATHER: If I am in the state of mortal sin, is there any point in praying?

Posted on 8 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader…

QUAERITUR:

Thank you for the good work you do through this blog. I check it once or twice daily, because I always look forward to your insightful and incisive commentary.

May I ask: If I am in a state of mortal sin and thus lacking charity, will my prayers avail of anything? In a word, and please pardon the bluntness, is there any point in praying while in a state if mortal sin?

Oh my, yes!  There is always a point in praying and your prayers are always attended by God who is mercy, love and patience.

Prayer for good things is never in vain.  Prayer that God’s will be done is never not effective.

When we commit a mortal sin, it is true that we kill the life of grace in the soul.  That’s why we call the sin “mortal”: it kills us spiritually, insofar as the indwelling of the Trinity is concerned.

However, mortal sin does not remove our baptismal, or confirmed or ordained or married character.  We still pray as baptized children of God and God listens.

In these cases, we open ourselves to the graces that God is constantly pinging us with.  Think of something like sonar… ping ping ping trying to get our attention to bring us back up out of the dark depths to which we dropped ourselves.  God offers us the sort of graces that help our a) self-understanding (“Rats, I really am a sinner who has deserved Hell and who has offended a loving God.”), and b) realization that there’s a way out (“I could go to confession.”) and c) the strengthening of resolve to get off our backsides and actually go to seek reconciliation (“Let’s DO this thing!”).

The Lord’s parable about the foolish young prodigal son of his father shows us these stages.  First, he realizes what a horrid state he is in.  Then, he remembers his father’s house.  Then, he resolves to go home and actually gets moving.  Meanwhile, the father isn’t just hanging around, he is watching for his son’s return and, before the foolish kid even gets to the house, the father goes to him.

God offers us what are called prevenient graces… graces that “go before” so that we can then accept the sanctifying grace that returns with confession and absolution.

There is no sin that is so great that we little mortals can commit that God won’t forgive provided we ask for forgiveness.

He wants to forgive.  He’s waiting to forgive.  He’s listening for our plea.

It is as if while with one hand he pours subtle graces into our minds, with the other hand cupped to His ear He listens for even the slightest reaction so that He can give us more.  Our conversions are truly our conversions, but they also come with God’s helping hands.  Think of a child who has offended.  Dad says, “What do you say?”  “Sorry!”

Pray especially when you are pretty sure that you are not in the state of grace.   Ask for all the graces you need to understand yourself better and then to be strong to get up and go to confession.

While there is breath and heartbeats in our bodies, God is showering us with graces, even those who have virtually hardened their hearts through neglect or conscious resistance that becomes habit.  He offers the graces even though we pridefully armor ourselves against them.

Everyone… if you have not been to confession for a while and you are pretty sure you are in the state of mortal sin – BECAUSE YOUR PROBABLY ARE! – take this post as a poor tool that God may be using to tweak you into action.

GO TO CONFESSION!

Has it been a long time since you said those words to the confessor?

“Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee…”.

Has it been a long time since you heard those words of the confessor?

“EGO TE ABSOLVO…. I absolve you…”.

GO TO CONFESSION!

Remember the freedom of the newly reconciled.  Think of the lightness of spirit and the relief and the knowledge that you can make good Communions again.

GO TO CONFESSION!

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, ASK FATHER Question Box, GO TO CONFESSION | Tagged ,
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