Your Sunday Sermon notes – Trinity Sunday 2020

Posted on 7 June 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Was there a good point made in the sermon you heard at the Mass for your Sunday, either live or on the internet?

Let us know what it was.

For my part…

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Reminder for posting comments

Posted on 6 June 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Dear readers, I don’t have help to run this blog, so I have to adopt strong measures. Comboxes can spin out of control rapidly.

Lately, I find growing issue in the comments and in the comments in the moderation queue.

THE RULES™ FOR THIS BLOG

[…]

2) Several things you might do will cause me to delete your comments or perhaps ban you from posting. Here are a few:

[…]

d) creating overly lengthy comments or pasting excerpts that are too long;

[…]

f) posting bare links to something without an explanation or description, or posting overly long links;

[…]

As one of my old profs said, “Mentio non fit expositio!”   Be brief but explain yourself.

Sorry, but, again, I am alone in moderating this sometimes untidy place. As the years pass, I have less energy and time.

 

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6 June – HOLY MASS (TLM) Saturday of Pentecost Octave – LIVE VIDEO: 1200h CDT (GMT/UTC -5)

Posted on 6 June 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Click To Contribute

I will LIVE stream a Traditional Latin Mass at NOON Central Daylight Time (= GMT/UTC -5 and ROME 1900h).

Today, 6 June 2020: Ember Saturday in the Octave of Pentecost.  (Short Form) Follow HERE – Prayers added: Pro defensione Ecclesiae… For defense of the Church”.

Will you please tell others about this Mass?  Will you please subscribe to my channel? HERE

  • NB: You can find an English translation of the Mass formulary HERE.  Scroll down. Use the 1960 setting.
  • We can say the Regina Caeli together, since the Angelus bells are usually ringing when the live stream starts.
  • I will say a Spiritual Communion prayer at the very beginning for those of you who cannot make a Eucharistic Communion. 
  • I will also recite in Latin the traditional  “Statement of Intention” (…a hint to priests).
  • After Mass and the Leonine Prayers, I will recite a prayer in Latin “In time of pandemic” followed by a blessing with a fragment of the Cross
    For texts of Prayers before Mass for each day of the week, in versions for laypeople and for priests: HERE

THANK YOU to my flower donors!

Posted in LIVE STREAMING | Tagged ,
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The longer we follow a false course, the farther we get from our goal, the harder it is to correct the error.

Posted on 6 June 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Today’s China is still reeling from the damage done during the Cultural Revolution.   Generations were pitted against generations.  Heritage, patrimony, identity were nearly irrevocably destroyed.

The late and lamented Carlo Card. Caffarra (one of the Five Dubia Cardinals) had received a note from Sr. Lucia saying:

“A time will come when the decisive battle between the kingdom of Christ and Satan will be over marriage and the family.”

From that introduction, please pay attention to this.

YouTube thumbnailYouTube icon

In secular society we are at a crossroad.  In the Church we are at a crossroad.

Is it a surprise that segments of society would explode into rage and violence, when for decades big-business abortion has set up in their communities precisely with the intent of killing them by killing their babies?   Demons attach through the commission of certain sins.  What sorts of demons do you imagine attach through abortion on an industrial scale?

Is it a surprise that the Church has so many problems of leadership and identity when, not only our sacred liturgical worship has been violently interfered with, but so many of our pastors stand mute before the Catholic politicians who support the human abattoirs?

What can we expect for the Church down the road when the Catholics of a whole nation are callously, silently, at the summit of ministry, sacrificed in a kowtow to the world’s most extensive atheistic regime?

Just as in larger society we see a virtually cult-like movement germinating, with some of the features of the Cultural Revolution, we also see in the Church the rise of something like a New catholic Red Guards.

We are at a crossroad.  We have choices to make.

Friends, if when you set out on a trip from Chicago to, say, Minneapolis and you find yourself after some hours of driving in, say, St. Louis, but you really have to go to Minneapolis, do you say, “Oh well, if I drive around long enough, I’ll get to Minneapolis”, and continue on your errant and inefficient path? Or, do you stop the car, check the map, turn around and drive back the other way?… the way toward Minneapolis and not away from it?

Friends, if when you get dressed in the morning, you discover that you have buttoned your shirt incorrectly, off by one, do you shrug and just go forward into your day, with your shirt askew? You could. After all the shirt is buttoned, right? What difference does a button or two make, when the shirt stays closed in front. Orrrrrrr, like normal – sane – people do you say, “Hmmm, that won’t do!”, and then undo the error by unbuttoning your mis-buttoned garment, and then button it back up the way that works the best?

We’ve been buttoning our shirts wrongly. It’s time to unbutton, double-check and start buttoning again.

Friends, if when you are constructing a skyscraper you see that the pilings are crooked and too shallow …

Friends, if while you build that sailboat, you see that you didn’t seal the hull….

Friends, if when you try parachuting for the first time and your instructor seems confused about how to pack a chute…

In the little diagram at the top of this post, you can see what happens when two rays extend from the same point.  The far you go along one ray, the farther you get from the other.  The line C-E is longer than B-D.

The longer we follow a false course, the farther we get from our goal, the harder it is to correct the error.

And some errors, like the one with the parachute, result in hard landings.

 

Posted in Our Catholic Identity, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices | Tagged , , ,
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The demographic sinkhole opening under the Church

Posted on 5 June 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I had an ongoing discussion with a friend who claimed that, one day, the Traditional Latin Mass would be the only Mass left in the Latin Church (sorry, Ambrosian Rite! We weren’t thinking of you, and I guess we were including Dominicans, etc.).   I demurred for a long time.

However, I have come to reassess my thoughts, especially in light of the huge hit the Church in these USA will take in the wake of COVID-1984.  I have long said that a demographic sinkhole was about to open up under the Church here.  The fact is that lots of “nones” will stop even pretending to embrace the family religion.  Also, the inexorable movement of time is applying the “biological solution” to us all.  We will lose a lot of seasoned Catholics and, with them, their financial support.  Their children are already going and gone.

Corona lockdown melodrama has accelerated the opening of the sinkhole.  I suspect that quite a few people who barely went to church will disappear pretty much for good.  I think that a stronger Church and stronger bishops would have made a little difference, however.

That said, I believe that a lot of traditional Masses kept going and traditional priests found creative ways to keep going.

I don’t have the entire survey.  I’d very much like to see it.

However, at the site Catholic Monitor, I saw this.  Some results from a survey about the Traditional Latin Mass conducted by Fr. Donald Kloster.

Take a look at these findings.

Take a look at this:

Fulfill Sunday obligation:
TLM: 99% vs. NOM: 22%

Approve of abortion:
TLM: 1% vs. NOM: 51%

Go to Confession at least once a year:
TLM: 98% vs. NOM: 25%

Approve of contraception:
TLM: 2% vs. NOM: 89%

Support same-sex marriage:
TLM: 2% vs. NOM: 67%

“TLM attendees donate 5 times more in the collection” according to Fr. Kloster.
(Catholic Herald, “Traditional Latin Mass attendees more devout and orthodox, study says,” February 27, 2019)

I still believe that as the sinkhole widens, two main groups will stay strong, those who want Tradition and also those who converts from an evangelical background and some charismatics with sound devotions.  These groups will find each other.  There will be some friction points along the way, but they will begin to integrate.   That’ll be something to see.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Hard-Identity Catholicism, Our Catholic Identity, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices | Tagged , ,
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Of a Latin poem and the curse of mice

Posted on 5 June 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

A friend recently guided me to a volume of a series which I haven’t looked at for many a year, Will Durant’s The Story of Civilization.   Perhaps the timing was providential, since we are seeing many of the foundations of civilization under attack by demonically goaded ideological fools, mostly ignorant of the past.

In Vol. 4: “The Age of Faith”, Durant has a section on the revival of Latin.  There is a poem in this section which is worthy of attention.

Hildebert of Lavardin (1055? – 1133) is probably not close to the top of your reading list these days.   I must say that Hildebert has got game.

Here is Durant.  We have just read a poem by Peter Damian.  Now…

To Peter Damian poetry was an incident; to Hildebert of Lavardin (1055?-1133), Archbishop of Tours, it was a passion that fought his faith for his soul. Probably from the Berenger of Tours who had studied under Fulbert at Chartres he imbibed a love for the Latin classics. After many tribulations he journeyed to Rome, not sure which he sought more – papal benediction or a sight of the scenes endeared to him by his reading. He was touched by the grandeur and decay of the old capital, and expressed his feelings in classic elegiac form:

Par tibi, Roma, nihil, cum sis prope tota ruina;
quam magni fueris integra fracta doces.
Longa tuos fastus aetas destruxit, et arces
Caesaris et superum templa palude iacent.
Ille labor, labor ille ruit quem dirus Araxes
et stantem tremuit et cecidisse dolet ….
Non tamen annorum series, non flamma, nec ensis
ad plenum potuit hoc abolere decus.*

Here for a moment a medieval poet used the Latin language as nobly as Virgil himself. But once a Christian, always a Christian. Hildebert found more comfort in Jesus and Mary than in Jupiter and Minerva; and in a later poem he impeccably dismissed the ancient shrines:

Gratior haec iactura mihi successibus illis;
maior sum pauper divite, stante iacens.
Plus aquilis vexilla crucis, plus Caesare Petrus,
plus cinctis ducibus vulgus inerme dedit.
Stans domui terras, infernum diruta pulso;
corpora stans, animas fracta iacensque rego.
Tunc miserae plebi, modo principibus tenebrarum
impero; tunc urbes, nunc mea regna polus.†

Not since Fortunatus had any Latin penned such poetry.

Not bad, huh?   Perhaps some of you would like to take a crack at these.  I’ll put the translations by Durant below, but I change the type to white, so that you can work on the Latin on your own.  Don’t peek… unless you don’t know Latin.

Meanwhile, here in this 12th c. MSS of De ciuitate Dei, is an action shot of Hildebert.  The irritated scribe is about to throw something at a mouse or rat (or maybe a cat?) which is nibbling on his cheese. Notice that a bowl is in mid-air falling off the table.

In the manuscript Hildebert is writing we read:

Pessime mus, sepius me provocas ad iram; ut te deus perdat. … Most wicked mouse, you often provoke me to anger. May God destroy you!

* “Equal to you, O Rome! there is nothing, even when you are almost a ruin; how great you were when whole, broken you teach us. Long time has destroyed your pride, and the citadels of Caesar sink in the marshes with the temples of the gods. That work, that mighty work lies low which the dire barbarian trembled to see standing and mourns to see fallen …. But no lapse of years, no fire, no sword can all destroy this glory.”

† (Rome speaks:) “Sweeter to me this defeat than those victories; greater am I poor than when rich, greater prone than standing; more than the eagles has the standard of the cross given me, more Peter than Caesar, more a weaponless crowd than commanders girt with arms. Standing I mastered nations; ruined I strike the depths of the earth; standing I ruled bodies, broken and prostrate I rule souls. Then I commanded a miserable populace, now the princes of darkness; then cities were my realm, now the sky.”

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UPDATE: Becket Fund and law firms team up with @MadisonDiocese to OPEN UP CHURCHES

Posted on 5 June 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

UPDATE: 5 June 2020:

The County and City backed down.

Brief Statement from Bishop Donald Hying, regarding today’s decision by County officials:

“We are pleased that the County and the City have ended the unequal 50-person cap on religious gatherings. As bishop, it is my duty to ensure that Sunday Mass be available as widely as possible to the Catholic faithful, while following best practices when it comes to public health. Indeed, in a time of deep division, it is more important than ever for the Church to provide solace and comfort to all, in the great tradition of American religious freedom. We look forward to working together with the County and City to continue the reopening process in a safe, cooperative, and responsible manner.”

PLEASE RETWEET!

This is big. From the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty

For Immediate Release: June 3, 2020

My emphases…

WASHINGTON –Global law firms Sidley Austin and Troutman Sanders, along with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, sent a letter today to Dane County Executive Joe Parisi and Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway on behalf of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Madison explaining that the City and County’s May 22 public health order that capped in-person worship at just 50 people is discriminatory and targets the Catholic Church for selective enforcement. Under the order, shopping malls, bars, restaurants, spas, gyms, salons, museums, movie theaters, community centers, bowling alleys, skating rinks, trampoline parks and more are not subject to the 50-person cap. Madison’s mayor has also announced that public protests are not subject to government restrictions at all. Madison/Dane County threatened to send government officials to Catholic Masses to find out how many people are there and impose $1000 fines if too many people came to church. The letter explains that Madison/Dane County’s actions violate the First Amendment and the Wisconsin Constitution.

After Madison/Dane County officials released the “Forward Dane” executive order on May 18 which listed houses of worship as “essential services” thus allowing them to resume in-person services at 25 percent capacity, the Diocese of Madison quickly put together a plan for safely reopening with rigorous social distancing and hygiene protocols developed in accordance with CDC and WHO guidelines. But after the Diocese announced its careful plan, in an abrupt and inexplicable reversal, the City of Madison/Dane County added a brand-new restriction on houses of worship, limiting them to just 50 people at each religious service regardless of the size of the building. This means that some churches are held to while trampoline parks, movie theaters and virtually all other entities can operate to at least 25%.

“In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and the racial injustice of the past week, our community is crying out for unity, for grace and for spiritual healing. We are ready and able to answer that call, but the 50-person cap has unjustly stifled our pastoral mission,” said Bishop Donald Hying, Roman Catholic Diocese of Madison. “Our Diocese has been, and remains, committed to promoting and protecting the health and safety of our fellow Madisonians, but the county and city have wrongly subordinated the spiritual needs of the community to the operations of non-essential businesses.”

Since May 22, the Madison/Dane County Health Department has multiple times called and visited Diocesan officials and parishes to inform them that surveillance teams would be sent to churches and fines of up to $1000 would be imposed for every instance in which more than 50 people were gathered for Mass.

“Madison and Dane County think mass protests, movies and malls are just fine, but churches have to be put under surveillance to make sure not too many people go,” said Eric Rassbach, vice president and senior counsel at Becket. “If it’s safe enough for thousands to shop together at malls, and to sit in a theatre for a two-hour film, it’s safe enough to spend 45 minutes safely socially distanced in worship. Madison and Dane County should end their unequal treatment of religious people.”

For more information or to arrange an interview with a Becket attorney, contact Ryan Colby at media@becketlaw.org or 202-349-7219. Interviews can be arranged in English, Chinese, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

Posted in ¡Hagan lío!, Fr. Z KUDOS, Semper Paratus, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices | Tagged , , , ,
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Fr. Z’s Kitchen: Wherein I received a message from on high about supper

Posted on 5 June 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I am taking this as a sign from God.

Today I receive in my email a photo from a priest who made cacio e pepe.

Nice.

A little while later I find another email from a very well-known Catholic writer with this!

Okay…. tonight….

CACIO E PEPE!

UPDATE

Time for supper.

Thanks to the kind person who sent the Crodino from my wishlist!

Sometimes, I give the peppercorns a little toast.

Into the small grinder.

Cook your pasta in less water if possible, so that it will have a higher starch content.

Start blending in the grated pecorino romano and ground pepper with a little bit, just a touch of the cooking water.  Repeat until you have your desired consistency

With lovely little flat parsley leaves from my pots of herbs out in the quad.

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Look! Up in the sky! ISS and Crew Dragon and mini rant.

Posted on 5 June 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From NASA’s Astronomy Pic of the Day, comes a time lapse, composite view of the International Space Station zooming along in tandem with Demo-S, Crew Dragon, over Manhattan’s skys.  This was taken at the reservoir in Central Park.

Very cool.

The nation might be spinning into the collective insanity of mindless virtue signaling and political correctness – and nothing good is going to come from this demonically fueled chaos – but we can still accomplish great things.

I really do mean demonic, too.  What should we expect when big-business abortion sets up shop in the poorest of neighborhoods to target children for death?  Millions of their children, gone.  What does that do to people over time?  Compound that with the oppression that comes from the Enemy of the soul, demonic oppression, which is admitted because certain kinds of sins are committed.

Hopefully, more people will become truly “woke” in the right sense.

It might be that neighborhoods will be burned or taken over by gangs because morons dismantle law enforcement or forbid them from doing their jobs before people wake up.

Let’s ask God to to spare us from the chastisement we deserve.

Posted in Just Too Cool, Look! Up in the sky! | Tagged , ,
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5 June – HOLY MASS (TLM) Friday of Pentecost Octave – LIVE VIDEO: 1200h CDT (GMT/UTC -5)

Posted on 5 June 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Today’s fervorino:

Click To Contribute

I will LIVE stream a Traditional Latin Mass at NOON Central Daylight Time (= GMT/UTC -5 and ROME 1900h).

Today, 5 June 2020: Ember Friday in the Octave of Pentecost.  Follow HERE Prayers added: Pro pace... for peace”.

Will you please tell others about this Mass?  Will you please subscribe to my channel? HERE

  • NB: You can find an English translation of the Mass formulary HERE.  Scroll down. Use the 1960 setting.
  • We can say the Regina Caeli together, since the Angelus bells are usually ringing when the live stream starts.
  • I will say a Spiritual Communion prayer at the very beginning for those of you who cannot make a Eucharistic Communion. 
  • I will also recite in Latin the traditional  “Statement of Intention” (…a hint to priests).
  • After Mass and the Leonine Prayers, I will recite a prayer in Latin “In time of pandemic” followed by a blessing with a fragment of the Cross
    For texts of Prayers before Mass for each day of the week, in versions for laypeople and for priests: HERE

THANK YOU to my flower donors!

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
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