Fr. Z's Blog | Formerly entitled: "What Does The Prayer Really Say?" – Clear, straight commentary on Catholic issues, liturgy and life by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf o{]:¬)

YET ANOTHER Commission on Deaconettes (YACOD)

Posted on 8 April 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

We read at Vatican News that YET ANOTHER Commission on Deaconettes or YACOD has been formed.

Consider: Francis observes “Spy” Wednesday, when we recall how 1/12 of the bishops/apostles sold the Lord for 30 pieces of silver, by instituting YACOD. Instead of a Blue Ribbon Committee, perhaps we might refer to YACOD as a Thirty Pieces of Silver Committee.

Interesting is the fact that two American members of the YACOD, are deacons, but they are listed only as “Prof.”, while the non-American priests have their titles.

One of my insiders remarked: “Looks tame.”

Their virtual meetings will be doubly virtual, in that there is virtually zero chance that anything different will come from this commission.

Posted in Deaconettes, Lighter fare | Tagged deaconettes
19 Comments

8 April – Holy Mass (TLM) Wednesday of Holy Week – LIVE VIDEO: 1200h CDT (GMT/UTC -5) – With homily

Posted on 8 April 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Will you please subscribe to my channel? HERE

I will LIVE stream a Traditional Latin Mass at NOON Central Daylight Time (= GMT/UTC -5 and ROME 1900h). The Mass formulary will be for Wednesday in Holy Week.

I know it is Low Mass, but I might sing the Passion of Luke anyway. What are they going to do? Sequester me in my residence?

NB: You can find an English translation of the Mass formulary HERE. Scroll down. Use the 1960 setting.
We can say the Angelus together, since the Angelus bells are 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).
At the end, after the Leonine Prayers, I’ll say a “Prayer against pandemic” from the Roman Ritual with blessing with a fragment of the True Cross.

I’ll add a “fervorino” (short sermon). Today, very short!

My Jesus, I believe that Thou art present in the Blessed Sacrament. I love Thee above all things and I desire Thee in my soul. Since I cannot now receive Thee sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. As though Thou wert already there, I embrace Thee and unite myself wholly to Thee; permit not that I should ever be separated from Thee. Amen.

Gesù mio, credo che voi state nel ss. Sacramento. V’amo sopra ogni cosa e vi desidero nell’anima mia. Giacchè ora non posso ricevervi sacramentalmente venite almeno spiritualamente nel mio cuore. Coma già venuto io v’abbraccio e tutto mi unisco a voi, non permettete ch’io m’abbia mai a separare da voi. Così sia.

Posted in Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, LIVE STREAMING, Save The Liturgy - Save The World | Tagged Catholic, coronavirus, Latin, LENT, liturgy, Mass, pandemic, prayer, Spirituality, Spy Wednesday, TLM, tradition
5 Comments

ASK FATHER: Cardinal says confession and absolution over the phone is okay

Posted on 7 April 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader…

QUAERITUR:

I was shocked, as I heard, that the local bishop allowed phone confession and absolution over phone because of COVID-19. A priest from my community says the Cardinal of says that he may use phone to absolve people. Father, so many people call him every day and think they are absolved from their sins! Is this sacrament simulation? I wrote two emails to the head of the religious community and I got a dumb answer, saying why it was OK for the Cardinal of Vienna to allow phone confessions and I should stop worrying. It’s just wrong! No dogmatic foundation. I am frustrated. I am praying. Do you know anyone on the Congregation in Rome? I mean, something should be done here. We’re living in chaotic times.

We have to make a distinction or two.

First, anyone can confess over the phone. That’s not a problem. However, sacramental absolution cannot be given VALIDLY by phone, unless the penitent also happens to be physically close by and the phone is just an amplifying device, like a hearing aid or a phone set up in a confessional or jail visiting room.

Absolution at a distance using the phone would be INVALID.

Since that is the case, attempting to absolve over the phone like that would be simulation of a sacrament, objectively a terrible sin. Can. 1379 threatens “a just penalty” for the simulation of a sacrament. However, it should first be determined whether or not the priest knew that what he was doing was wrong. That would mitigate incurring a penalty. It seems as if he is misinformed by a high authority, whom under normal circumstances he ought to be able to trust. These are not, of course, normal circumstances.

You should immediately write with your concern to the Congregation for Divine Worship. Send copies of your previous correspondence. NB: They have a fax machine.

A Sua Em.za Rev.ma il Cardinale Robert SARAH
Prefetto della Congregazione per il Culto Divino
e la Disciplina dei Sacramenti
Palazzo delle Congregazioni
00120 Città del Vaticano

Fax: (+39) 06.69.88.34.99

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

Chinese virus horror stories and Fr. Z gives advice to young people

Posted on 7 April 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I read at Radio Free Asia, a truly horrifying post.

While the ChiCom government claims victory over the CHINESE virus, other pesky pieces of evidence suggest a different situation.

It seems that so many people have to be cremated that the crematoria are breaking down. They are cremating more than one person, so that people are finding things in urns from bodies other than those of their loved ones.

And there’s this, though it wasn’t also independently verified:

[A source close to the funeral industry surnamed Ma] said reports have emerged of people restrained and forced into body bags when they were still moving.

“One old lady was saying that they put one guy into … a body bag when he wasn’t even dead yet, and took him off to the crematorium because there was no way of saving him,” he said.

“Some people are saying that … there are video clips of screams coming from funeral homes, from inside the furnaces … which tells us that some people were taken to the funeral homes while they were still alive.”

If there were ever a reason to get down on your knees and thank God for being born in these USA….

If there were ever a reason to get down on your knees and pray for our Chinese Catholic brethren….

If there were ever a reason to demand to know the content of the Vatican accord with China….

If there were ever a reason to take back control of our manufacturing and start thinking long term….

You young people out there, who might be wondering what you are going to do in life, here’s a piece of advice. Whatever other field of study you pursue or career path you chart, while you are in school, study Chinese. Learn the language. With that tool in your toolbox, you will probably have work in the future as our relationship with China, and their relationship with the world, changes dramatically in years to come. Whatever else you will be able to do, if you have a strong use of Chinese, you’ll have a real advantage.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Pò sì jiù, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices |
10 Comments

The grave blasphemy of Beans. Wherein Fr. Z rants and makes a constructive suggestion.

Posted on 7 April 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

At LifeSite I read some quite simply shocking, and yet not really that surprising, given the source.

After the bishops of the Italian region of Umbria urged priests to continue to say Mass privately during this COVID challenge, the liberal logorheaic bomb-thrower Massimo “Beans” Faggioli – publicly on Twitter – compared priests saying Mass privately to self-abuse.

He apparently deleted the tweet, but Joseph Shaw of the UK’s Latin Mass Society posted a screenshot.

In addition to this being insulting, cruel and in bad taste, it is blasphemous, all the more grave because it was deliberate, public and about the most holy things that we have from Christ Himself, Eucharist and priesthood.

It is incredible that someone claiming to be Catholic would ever post something like that. Beans seems not to have an unpublished thought. It remains hard to grasp, however, that such a thing would even enter into the mind of someone who is Catholic. There is no way that that comparison can share space in the mind with even a fundamental grasp of the effects of every Holy Mass, private or thronged with congregants.

Pray for this poor man. Perhaps this was just an instance of a clever guy being so enamored of his own wit that he momentarily lost his his wits and posted that monumentally blasphemous comment.

This display of animus will forever be hung around his neck.

Since this was a public comment, he needs publicly to apologize. Perhaps he has done so already, but I haven’t seen it.

Meanwhile, let’s bring a positive from this disgusting event.

I suggest to all the priests out there who read this, that they begin to say this “Statement of Intention” before every Mass, if they don’t already. It is also in breviaries and in the Missale Romanum, even the Novus Ordo edition, among the priest’s preparatory prayers before Mass.

Ego volo celebrare Missam, et conficere Corpus et Sanguinem Domini nostri Iesu Christi, iuxta ritum sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae, ad laudem omnipotentis Dei totiusque Curiae triumphantis, ad utilitatem meam totiusque Curiae militantis, pro omnibus, qui se commendaverunt orationibus meis in genere et in specie, et pro felici statu sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae.

My purpose is to celebrate Mass and to confect the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the rite of the holy Roman Church to the praise of almighty God and of all the Church Triumphant (in Heaven), for my good and for the good of all the Church Militant (on Earth), and for all who have commended themselves to my prayers in general and in particular, and for the favorable state of the holy Roman Church.

Gaudium cum pace, emendationem vitae, spatium verae paenitentiae, gratiam et consolationem Sancti Spiritus, perseverantiam in bonis operibus, tribuat nobis omnipotens et misericors Dominus. Amen

May the almighty and merciful Lord grant us joy with peace, amendment of life, time for true repentance, the grace and consolation of the Holy Spirit and perseverance in good works. Amen.

I’ll keep the moderation queue ON.

Posted in Blatteroons, Hard-Identity Catholicism, Liberals, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, New catholic Red Guards, Pò sì jiù, What are they REALLY saying?, You must be joking! | Tagged beans, Massimo Faggioli
24 Comments

7 April – Holy Mass (TLM) Tuesday of Holy Week – LIVE VIDEO: 1200h CDT (GMT/UTC -5) – With homily

Posted on 7 April 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Will you please subscribe to my channel? HERE

I will LIVE stream a Traditional Latin Mass at NOON Central Daylight Time (= GMT/UTC -5 and ROME 1900h). The Mass formulary will be for Tuesday in Holy Week.

Today’s intention: Miraculous end to the pandemic.

I know it is Low Mass, but I might sing the Passion of Mark anyway. What are they going to do? Sequester me in my residence?

NB: You can find an English translation of the Mass formulary HERE. Scroll down. Use the 1960 setting.
We can say the Angelus together, since the Angelus bells are 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).
At the end, after the Leonine Prayers, I’ll say a “Prayer against pandemic” from the Roman Ritual with blessing with a fragment of the True Cross.

I’ll add a “fervorino” (short sermon). Today, very short!

Posted in Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, LIVE STREAMING | Tagged Holy Week
3 Comments

TE DEUM! Card. Pell is a FREE MAN! Australia’s High Court unanimously OVERTURNED his conviction.

Posted on 6 April 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

UPDATE 7 April:

Barrister Neil Addison analyzes the Pell verdict at the Catholic Herald. HERE

And this video has a good summary of how absurd the charges against Pell were and how the entire establishment went for him with knives, to their lasting shame.

___ Originally Published on: Apr 6, 2020 at 21:19

#BREAKING High Court of #Australia (@HighCourtofAus) has ruled Cardinal George Pell’s Appeal is GRANTED, guilty verdict unanimously OVERTURNED.

CARDINAL PELL is A FREE MAN, to be released immediately.#CatholicTwitter #Pell pic.twitter.com/uLqwkkqigU

— Bree A Dail (@breeadail) April 7, 2020

NEXT: How does he regain his reputation?

Nevertheless, this is good news in the midst of hard times.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA | Tagged Card. Pell
27 Comments

A prayer for a miracle: the sudden, complete and lasting obliteration of COVID-19.

Posted on 6 April 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Almighty and eternal God, who shaped us from the mud of the earth and breathed into us beautiful life and eternal souls made to give You glory, look graciously now upon Your poor creatures who have fallen into sin. We now cry out for mercy, though we have deserved Your wrath and the rod of Your correction and trials. Be appeased. Lift from us this present affliction of disease and its fear as once You withdrew Your destroying Angel from scourging Jerusalem after smiting Israel with the sword of plague. Look kindly on us, kneeling as if upon the threshing floor. Look into our ashen and sackcloth laden hearts which we desire never again to be hardened against the promptings of Your Spirit, and forgive. Forgive the offences so many of Your ungrateful images have committed against the Hearts of our Lord and His Mother. Forgive the countless sacrilegious Communions of the last decades. Forgive Your priests and bishops who in great numbers have abandoned their proper place between Your people and Your altars. Some have committed unspeakable offences, not excluding even manifest idolatry. Forgive all of us every neglect and unworthy deed and thought as well as any lingering attachment to sins. Forgive all the sins that have cried to heaven. Forgive and then give us graces for our fuller sorrow out of love for You, more than our dread of punishment, and also for our firm purpose of amendment. Bold with confidence that the prayers of the converted sinner are precious to You, we now dare to ask You for a miracle. By Your might, annihilate the COVID-19 virus and all its mutations and variations. Restrain this disease, this consequence of sin, and make it to be harmless. We ask that You do this, almighty and merciful God, suddenly, completely, and in a lasting way so that the peoples of the whole world will recognize Your almighty hand and fall upon their faces in wonder, faith and gratitude. By this miracle, reveal Your love and kindness even though we do not merit the least of Your favors. Even while we submit ourselves to Your will, we ask this, Eternal Father, through Our Lord Jesus Christ Your Son, who died for us on Calvary and rose again in glorious impassibility. We ask this through the Holy Spirit the Consoler. We implore this through the intercession of Saint Raphael, Your healing Archangel, as well as through ____. In particular we, now humbled, entrust this audacious petition to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Health of the Sick. Let her intercede for us as the Queen of Heaven whom Your Son will not refuse. “Not to us, O Lord, not to us; but to Thy name give glory.” O God, loving and kind, we beg You to grant us this miracle. Amen.

___

For private recitation.

Posted in ¡Hagan lío!, "How To..." - Practical Notes, Be The Maquis, Cri de Coeur, Hard-Identity Catholicism, Pray For A Miracle, PRAYER REQUEST, Si vis pacem para bellum!, The Coming Storm, Turn Towards The Lord, Wherein Fr. Z Rants | Tagged coronavirus, miracle, pandemic
10 Comments

6 April – Holy Mass (TLM) Monday of Holy Week – LIVE VIDEO: 1200h CDT (GMT/UTC -5) – With homily

Posted on 6 April 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I will LIVE stream a Traditional Latin Mass at NOON Central Daylight Time (= GMT/UTC -5 and ROME 1900h). The Mass formulary will be for Monday in Holy Week.

You can find an English translation of the Mass formulary HERE. Scroll down use the 1960 setting.
I will say a prayer for a Spiritual Communion at the very beginning for those of you who cannot make a Eucharistic Communion.
I will also recite the traditional “Statement of Intention” (which every priest should recite before Mass).
At the end, I’ll say a “Prayer against disease” from the Roman Ritual followed by the blessing with a fragment of the Cross in the large reliquary.

I’ll add a “fervorino” (short sermon).

My YouTube Channel HERE

Posted in Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, LIVE STREAMING |
Comments Off

Your Sunday Sermon Notes – Palm Sunday 2020 (TLM)

Posted on 5 April 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Was there a good point made in the sermon you heard at the Mass that fulfilled your Sunday Obligation? WHOOPS! You probably are in a place where you don’t have an obligation, either because the bishop dispensed it or there are no Masses!

However, perhaps you saw a Mass with a sermon over the interwebs.

Was there a good point? There are a lot of people who don’t get many good points in the sermons they must endure.

For my part… to an empty church.

I give some practical tips about how to make the most of Holy Week without being able to go to church.

The whole Mass HERE. It was on a skeleton crew of really great servers and a couple guys in the choir loft, so we could have a Sung Mass. TLM. I forgot to do a couple of things, alas, but we managed to get the whole thing in in just under and hour and a half. I wanted to do pre-55, but our MC didn’t show.

In the afternoon, we sang Vespers. HERE

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO MY CHANNEL!

HERE