Tomorrow, Friday 28 Feb 2020, early our time in Jerusalem (evening on Thursday 27 Feb in the USA), we will rise and go to the beginning of the Via Dolorosa, the “Way of the Cross”. We are planning to begin at 0430 AM Jerusalem time. [2130 EST 2030 CST etc.]
I invite you to pause and join with us on the Way of the Cross as we pray it in Jerusalem.
We will wind up at the Holy Sepulcher where I will be able to celebrate Mass right at the Tomb of the Lord, in its little chapel. That will be at 0530 Jerusalem time [2230 EST 2130 CST etc.] Our pilgrims will be able to come in in pairs for a couple minutes at a time.
I will offer the Mass for all my benefactors, you good people who have been so kind as to donate and send things. I am very grateful for all of you.
Please set your clocks and join yourselves and your intentions to my celebration at the Holy Sepulcher where Christ rose from the dead.
I regret that, when we upgraded the blog, I lost the ability to post multiple audio files on the same post. However, here is the version of the Way of the Cross by St. Alphonsus Liguori which we will use tomorrow. I recorded it in 2009 and it has been downloaded many thousands of times.
Did you all see the Ash Wednesday Message from Pres. Trump?
Office of the Press Secretary
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 26, 2020
Presidential Message on Ash Wednesday, 2020
Melania and I wish everyone observing Ash Wednesday a peaceful and prayerful day.
For Catholics and many other Christians, Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Lenten season that concludes with the joyful celebration of Easter Sunday. Today, millions of Christians will be marked on their foreheads with the sign of the cross. The imposition of ashes is an invitation to spend time during Lent fasting, praying, and engaging in acts of charity. This powerful and sacred tradition reminds us of our shared mortality, Christ’s saving love, and the need to repent and accept the Gospel more fully.
We join in prayer with everyone observing this holy day and wish you a prayerful Lenten journey. May you grow closer to God in your faith during this blessed season.
A reader sent me a link to the site of the SSPX in Italy. They have a statement in reaction to the government shut down of Masses till 1 March. As you know, there has been an outbreak in Italy.
In conseguenza di tale decisione anche la celebrazione pubblica delle Sante Messe è stata di fatto proibita, mentre mercati, centri commerciali e centri sportivi restano aperti.
La Fraternità San Pio X si vede purtroppo obbligata a sospendere tutte le celebrazioni con partecipazione di fedeli nelle regioni coinvolte, non senza stigmatizzare la condotta della Pubblica Autorità che impedisce al popolo cristiano di alzare pubblicamente, in tali circostanze, la propria preghiera verso il suo Creatore.
A tal proposito non possiamo non dirci stupiti dalla mancanza di adeguata reazione da parte dell’episcopato che alza la voce contro la deforestazione dell’Amazzonia, ma accetta, con pronta disponibilità, l’interdizione del pubblico culto da rendersi a Dio.
[…]
As a result of such a decision, also the celebration of public Masses has, in fact, been prohibited, while markets, commercial centers, and sports venues remain open.
The Fraternity of St. Pius X sees itself as obliged, unfortunately, to suspend all celebrations with the participation of the faithful in the affected regions, but but not without severely disapproving of the conduct of the Pubblica Autorità that impedes the Christian people from raising up, in such circumstances, their prayer toward the Creator.
In this light, we cannot but say we are stunned by the lack of an appropriate reaction on the part of the body of bishops, who raise their voice against deforestation of the Amazon, but accept, with prompt willingness, the interdict against the public worship to be given to God.
Today took us to several significant sites in the life of Our Lord and His chief Apostle and His Blessed Mother.
We started Mass at the church built near the spot where the Lord came ’round the bend and saw Jerusalem laid out before Him. He wept over the city, because He knew what was going to happen to it when the Romans came. It is hard to imagine the carnage. If I am not mistaken, by the time the Romans were done, some million people were dead, and even lying unburied about the city.
We used the Mass formulary for Ash Wednesday rather than the Mass propers for the Church “Dominus Flevit”, but I did double up the orations. I was torn about which to use, but Ash Wednesday…. pretty forceful. I thought the Post Communion of the other, however, was striking.
O God, who takest no delight in our destruction, grant the hardness of our hearts to be softened by these Holy Mysteries, that we may wash away the stains of our past sins with tears of repentance, and strive to redeem lost time with holy charity that burns ever more fervently.
In the Church at the Garden of Gethsemene. Designed by the same architect who built the Church of the Transfiguration.
And back at the same church from across the valley.
We went to the Western Wall.
The Church of the Dormition. Mary, in one way of telling the story, returned here with John and then did not make the trip all the way back to Asia Minor. In any event the tradition behind her dying on the Holy Mountain of Zion is strong.
He is of the mind that the resistance to the obvious machinations of the Germans, and the obvious machinations of the Germans, has shocked Francis into backing off on what was probably his own liberalizing agenda. Francis tried to rein in the Germans, to no avail. He is now, perhaps, a little spooked.
[I]n fact shortly afterward the post-synodal exhortation “Querida Amazonia” fell like a sudden chill, with the total silence of Francis on the subject. To keep a feeble little light aflame, the innovators can only cling to the few introductory lines in which the pope invites “to read in full” the final document of the synod as well, from which “may God grant that the entire Church be enriched and challenged,” and recommends that “the pastors” of the Amazon “strive to apply it.”
But apart from this last crumbly foothold left by Francis at the disposal of the innovators, what has driven the pope to repeatedly apply the brakes in matters on which he had previously shown himself willing to innovate?
The answer is to be found in Germany.
[…]
Magister provides in his piece a kind of status quaestionis, involving a timeline of various stages in the attempts to subvert the Church’s teachings and practices, which Francis seemed keen to embrace… for a while. Maybe still? Hard to say.
For my part, I think we haven’t seen the end of the dangerous mammon-driven Unsinn from the Germans even with tentative approval from on high.
This isn’t over.
The lines seem to have been established along with trenches and more noxious gasses are sure to roll over the disputed fields.
It is Quinquagesima Sunday, but because we were at the place where the Lord appeared to the Apostles after the Resurrection, and Christ interrogated Peter about his love, we used a Votive Mass of the place. Here are three of the originally 12 heart-shaped stones at the beach.
This is where the Lord undid Peter’s betrayal by his three-fold interrogation.
John 21: [15] When therefore they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter: Simon son of John, lovest thou [ἀγαπᾷς] me more than these? He saith to him: Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee [φιλῶ]. He saith to him: Feed my lambs. [16] He saith to him again: Simon, son of John, lovest thou [ἀγαπᾷς] me? He saith to him: Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love [φιλῶ] thee. He saith to him: Feed my lambs. [17] He said to him the third time: Simon, son of John, lovest thou [φιλεῖς] me? Peter was grieved, because he had said to him the third time: Lovest thou [φιλεῖς]me? And he said to him: Lord, thou knowest all things: thou knowest that I love thee [φιλῶ]. He said to him: Feed my sheep. [18] Amen, amen I say to thee, when thou wast younger, thou didst gird thyself, and didst walk where thou wouldst. But when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and lead thee whither thou wouldst not. [19] And this he said, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had said this, he saith to him: Follow me. [20] Peter turning about, saw that disciple whom Jesus loved following, who also leaned on his breast at supper, and said: Lord, who is he that shall betray thee?
In the church, in the clutches of Franciscans, is the “Mensa Christi”, a stone which was, so it is said, “Christ’s table” where he gave the Apostles something to eat on the short of the Sea of Galilee after another miraculous catch.
We then journeyed to this mysterious and tremendous place, formerly a shrine of Pan, Caesarea Philippi. Here, at the mouth of a cave, once the very outlet of a source of the all important and symbolic Jordan River, Christ asked, “Who do men say that I am”? Peter made the right response. May Peter, still with us, truly make the same response always.
A reconstruction of the area, near the border of Lebanon. The area is surrounded with fenced off areas with “land mine” signs.
Up on the Golan Heights we stopped for lunch in a Druze village.
On our way back to Tiberias, we stopped at an overlook into Syria, where there are the remains of a once Christian village destroyed by so-called “freedom fighters”. Let us not forget the Christians in Syria.
Today we went up to the mount where the Lord delivered the greatest sermon ever to be given and recounted, the Sermon on the Mount.
On the way, we went by the opening of the valley that leads up to where Cana is.
It was a variable day, starting in rain.
It is probable that, contrary to art both kitschy and good, the people were on the slopes above the Lord, who spoke upward. Think amphitheater.
We had Mass at the summit, at an outside altar overlooking the Sea of Galilee.
I did a couple more videos. I have no special plan for these. Just a thought.
We were at Tabgha, where it is thought that the Lord performed one of the two miracles of multiplication of loaves and fishes. The famous mosaic fragment of the basket and fish is here. German Benedictines built a magnificent church here, in the style of the basilica that was built here in 480, destroyed later by the Persians. This architecture really does it for me, more than others.
We had a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee and had them shut off the engine, for some silence and some Scripture, about the Lord calm the storm and walking on the water.
In the museum at the kibbutz there is preserved a 1st c. fishing boat. This is Migdal, or Magadala, where there was a large fishing concern. This place figures big in Josephus’ accounts of the area.
Lunch was at, I am told, one of the best places around for seafood. The meze or “appetizers” were fantastic.
Then off to Capernaum. There are some interesting archaeological digs here. It was a big town, as towns went, on the trade route. It is no wonder that the Lord based a lot of his activities in this area. Think about it. In the ancient world, news traveled about 5 miles an hour on average. On a trade route, there was more consistent transfer of news.
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“This blog is like a fusion of the Baroque ‘salon’ with its well-tuned harpsichord around which polite society gathered for entertainment and edification and, on the other hand, a Wild West “saloon” with its out-of-tune piano and swinging doors, where everyone has a gun and something to say. Nevertheless, we try to point our discussions back to what it is to be Catholic in this increasingly difficult age, to love God, and how to get to heaven.” – Fr. Z
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“Until the Lord be pleased to settle, through the instrumentality of the princes of the Church and the lawful ministers of His justice, the trouble aroused by the pride of a few and the ignorance of some others, let us with the help of God endeavor with calm and humble patience to render love for hatred, to avoid disputes with the silly, to keep to the truth and not fight with the weapons of falsehood, and to beg of God at all times that in all our thoughts and desires, in all our words and actions, He may hold the first place who calls Himself the origin of all things.”
Everyone, work to get this into your parish bulletins and diocesan papers.
The most evident mark of God’s anger and the most terrible castigation He can inflict upon the world are manifested when He permits His people to fall into the hands of clerics who are priests more in name than in deed, priests who practice the cruelty of ravening wolves rather than the charity and affection of devoted shepherds.
St. John Eudes
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“He [Satan] will set up a counter-Church which will be the ape of the Church because, he the devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the anti-Christ that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ. In desperate need for God, whom he nevertheless refuses to adore, modern man in his loneliness and frustration will hunger more and more for membership in a community that will give him enlargement of purpose, but at the cost of losing himself in some vague collectivity.”
“Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, and the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops act like bishops.”
“The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender's inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for every one else the proper pleasure of ritual.”
- C.S. Lewis
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As for Latin…
"But if, in any layman who is indeed imbued with literature, ignorance of the Latin language, which we can truly call the 'catholic' language, indicates a certain sluggishness in his love toward the Church, how much more fitting it is that each and every cleric should be adequately practiced and skilled in that language!" - Pius XI
"Let us realize that this remark of Cicero (Brutus 37, 140) can be in a certain way referred to [young lay people]: 'It is not so much a matter of distinction to know Latin as it is disgraceful not to know it.'" - St. John Paul II
Let us pray…
Grant unto thy Church, we beseech Thee, O merciful God, that She, being gathered together by the Holy Ghost, may be in no wise troubled by attack from her foes. O God, who by sin art offended and by penance pacified, mercifully regard the prayers of Thy people making supplication unto Thee,and turn away the scourges of Thine anger which we deserve for our sins. Almighty and Everlasting God, in whose Hand are the power and the government of every realm: look down upon and help the Christian people that the heathen nations who trust in the fierceness of their own might may be crushed by the power of thine Arm. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. R. Amen.
I wonder if Sandro Magistro is right? He doesn’t often put his foot wrong.
waalaw on ROME 26/10– Day 22: Colors and courses and Coco: “Thank you, pestolover. I made sure that my solution was correct before posting it; but, as is my fatal flaw,…”
