What does @JamesMartinSJ say about the “gay” desecration of the Montréal church? – UPDATED

Posted on 3 August 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

UPDATE 3 August 2019:

Still nothing from James Martin on this.  We know he has seen it by now.

Is this important?

Someone sent me a link to an article at the detestable New Ways Ministry about the event. The creators of the event described what they were up t.  You need a strong stomach.

“Its a queer love story produced by Matthew Richardson–and the church leaders were happy to host it.”

“They welcomed me, my message, and our creation with open arms,” said Richardson,the show’s creator and a former Cirque Du Soleil performer. Hallelujah is one of five dances he will direct as part of his CircusQueer Project. The video is deeply intimate in a deeply Catholic setting. In a review by the San Diego Gay and Lesbian News (SDGLN), dancers Guillaume Paquin and Arthur Morel Van Hyfte are described as “only [the] heart” of the video, while, “the church [is] its body, taking on perhaps the most important role in the video: an example of inclusivity through servanthood.” The entire 5 minutes and 33 seconds performance can be seen at the end of this post.”

Yes.  This is important.  It truly was a desecration.

___ Originally published 2 August 2019

This is upsetting.  It is better that some of you do not click on the link.  No, really!  I won’t post images.

I want to know what Jesuit Fr. James Martin has to say about this.

The issue, reported with video at Gloria.TV.  (WARNING)

Homosexual Orgasm Celebrated in Montreal Church (Video)

Two homosexuals performed an erotic dance inside Saint Peter Apostle in Montreal on May 1, 2019, for a film shoot.

It used Jeff Buckley’s sexualized adaptation of the song Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen.

Buckley explained to the Dutch magazine OOR: “The hallelujah is not a homage to a worshipped person, idol or god, but the hallelujah of the orgasm.”

This took place in a church of the Archd. of Montréal, under the aegis of Archbp. Christian Lépine. It seems that this is the at least tacitly approved “gay” parish run by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (O.M.I.) HERE

Hence, it is exactly the sort of place that the Jesuit homosexualist Martin promotes.  Consider that he has publicly stated that “gays” (I hate that word) should freely kiss in churches.  This desecration in Montréal is on the logical trajectory of such statements.

Fr Martin should make a public statement about what happened in that church.

For my part, I consider it a desecration of that church and the celebration of something demonic. That church needs to be ritually purified.

Fr. Martin… what say you?

It may be that he already has said something about this.  Perhaps you readers know.  It that is the case, please let us know.

Comment moderation is ON.

UPDATE

As I read this disgusting account, my memory made a strong connection to a scene in the most recent book by Michael O’Brien: Voyage To Alpha Centuari.

US HERE – UK HERE

As I have written before, I suspect that O’Brien is a bit of a mystic.  His books have been useful to me in deciphering the signs of the times.

In the book, on the new planet they find a temple in which they find also documents about the satanic rites celebrated there.  Some of the travelers decide to reenact them.  O’Brien’s description is lurid.

Day 369: Green Day again. A year has passed since the previous exercise in elevating our cosmic sensitivities, or “interplanetary bio-consciousness” as it is called officially. There are few people onboard the Kosmos at present, so the green banners, scarves, and neckties were scarce here. Down on the planet, however, festivities were in full swing. On the panorama screen, I watched a few celebrations at various stations, dominated by an incompatible mixture of ecological cant and jargon and an any-excuse-for-a-party attitude, seasoned with mystical music. One particularly nauseating performance occurred in the temple itself. There, accompanied by the piped-in music of flutes and drums, a bevy of maidens danced around the black altar cube. They were dressed in diaphanous green gowns that left nothing to the imagination. Somewhat frenzied, nearly erotic, and definitely euphoric, the ten young women twirled and pranced and sang in praise of a cosmic “lord” who held fire in one hand and arrows in the other. Their choreography resembled a coil, winding and unwinding hypnotically as they chanted. At the head of the dance, leading it all, was the old Russian psychiatrist lady who had been so offended by me looking at her scar years ago. She was now without doubt far into her eighties, which was unfortunate, since her gown was the flimsiest of all, nearly transparent. With flailing arms, she repeatedly let fly full-throated cries rising from her arching abdomen, a crone-nymph on hallucinogens. As the event progressed, a soft, male voice-over informed the viewers of our need to reconnect to primitive “spirituality”, which entailed, apparently, a “rediscovery of the phallic” (thankfully not acted upon, at least not on screen, as far as I know, which isn’t saying much) and a “reintegration of light side and shadow side” for the sake of universal harmony. (Ay, caramba! I turned it off and went for a long walk.)

O’Brien, Michael D.. Voyage to Alpha Centauri: A Novel (Kindle Locations 8050-8065). . Kindle Edition.

The downfall of Numenor also comes to mind.  I just reread The Silmarillion with its tale of how Sauron, disguised in fair form, falsely humbled himself and ingratiated himself in the counsels of the kings to the point that he instituted worship of Morgoth/Melkor involving human sacrifice of those who resisted.

The fruit of the Forbidden Tree, the Golden Calf, queer dances, earth worship.  It’s all the same.

Posted in Jesuits, Sin That Cries To Heaven, The Coming Storm | Tagged , , , ,
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Fishwrap’s latest spittle-flecked nutty about Card. Burke

Posted on 2 August 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The Biological Solution keeps rolling up stats and the Demographic Deluge soon to hit the Church will empty pews in the burbs.   What will be left?   Hard to say.  However, I think it will involve the steadily growing traditional communities, with their greater knowledge of and commitment to their Faith and their large, young families.

Meanwhile, at that perennial promoter of all things corrosive to the Faith, Fishwrap (aka National Sodomitic Reporter), there is an op-ed about something the aging hippies and their younger dupes truly fear:

Editorial: Cardinal Burke is a living symbol of a failed version of church

Pretty funny, really. If anyone embodies failure, it’s Fishwrap.

Fishwrap says with open anti-nomian, “non serviam” hubris, that this is in the print issue – still “fishwrap”! – with the title “Burke’s church is statute-bound, static .”

What set them off? Card. Burke participated in the annual Napa Institute confab, whom they have gnostically labelled “far right”.  Believe me.  Napa isn’t “far right”.  But when you are that far off the edge of the Left, everything looks right and far.

What are Burke’s faults?   He thinks that non-Christians should convert and accept Christ.  He thinks that the Church has a history of teaching about capital punishment that can’t be ignored.  He doesn’t think married men should be ordained.  Etc.

Let’s not waste more time on this.   We can sum up the analytical powers and insights of the Fishwrap by how they captioned the photo at the top of their green-inked whine.

Can you read the small type at the bottom? If not: “U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke waves to the congregation after celebrating Mass at Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Cork City, Ireland, July 7. (CNS/Cillian Kelly)”

Fishwrap‘s writers don’t recognize that the Cardinal is blessing not waving.

That is hardly a surprise.  This op-ed is the sort of dreck you produce when your whole vision is the reduction of the supernatural to the natural.

Posted in Green Inkers, Liberals | Tagged ,
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ASK FATHER: Repeat a wedding ceremony with a friend presiding?

Posted on 1 August 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader…

QUAERITUR:

Long time reader, first time questioner.
I have a friend that will soon be getting married. On Saturday he will have a traditional Catholic Church wedding. However, on Sunday he is having a reception in which a friend of his is “presiding” at a ceremony. It is my understanding that at the reception he and his wife will exchange consent a second time. I thought this was forbidden.

What is Church teaching on this subject? I can only find one thing in Canon Law that seems to suggest a person should only exchange consent once.

Thanks for any help you can offer. I love reading your blog!

GUEST PRIEST RESPONSE: Fr. T. Ferguson

The presumption of the Church (and of common sense) is that there is and should be one wedding, at which two parties, capable of doing so, exchange consent that perdures until the death of one of the spouses. To hold multiple “weddings” would undermine the unicity of the exchange of consent.

However, the Church recognizes that there are some civil jurisdictions which do not recognize the right of parties to marry except before a civil official, and so (in France and Mexico, for example) there is usually a civil ceremony before the ecclesiastical wedding. Canon law states, in canon 1127 § 3:

“It is forbidden to have, either before or after the canonical celebration … another religious celebration of the same marriage for the purpose of giving or renewing matrimonial consent. Likewise, there is not to be a religious celebration in which the Catholic assistant and a non-Catholic minister, each performing his own rite, ask for the consent of the parties.”

The situation presented does not appear to be an additional religious ceremony, so it would not fall under that prohibition of canon 1127, but at the same time, it would not seem to be fulfilling any sort of civil requirement.

In short, it sounds like the couple will just be “play acting” their wedding after the fact, presumably for those who chose not to (or were unable to) attend the wedding the day before.

Odd, from a Catholic perspective, but probably not rising to the level of deserving some sort of censure.

I’d tell your friend that you’ll come to the wedding, and you’ll show up the next day at the reception after the play-acting is done, and no matter how many times the couple says “I do,” you’re only bringing one gift.

Fr. Z adds:

This play acting with a friend “presiding” is a bad idea.  It could appear to some that this is the real deal.  It would be even worse if the friend is some kind of mail-order minister.

There are blessings for marriages on certain anniversaries.  However, if there is some kind of “renewal” rite, it should be distinct from the actual wedding vows already exchanged.    The couple can renew their commitment to what they have already vowed to God and each other.   There are different rites for this in different countries, but they avoid simply repeating ceremony of matrimony.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, 1983 CIC can. 915, ASK FATHER Question Box, HONORED GUESTS, One Man & One Woman | Tagged , ,
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2 August until midnight: “Portiuncula” Plenary (or Partial) Indulgence

Posted on 1 August 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From midnight tonight to midnight tomorrow, 2 August, you can gain the “Portinuncula” Indulgence.

This indulgence seems to have been granted directly by Christ Himself in an appearance to St. Francis.  The Lord them told Francis to go to Pope Honorius III, who, as Vicar of Christ, who wielded the keys, would decree it.

Catholic Encyclopedia

St. Francis, as you know, repaired three chapels. The third was popularly called the Portiuncula or the Little Portion, dedicated to St. Mary of the Angels. It is now enclosed in a sanctuary at Assisi.

The friars came to live at the Little Portion in early 1211. It became the “motherhouse” of the Franciscans. This is where St. Clare came to the friars to make her vows during the night following Palm Sunday in 1212 and where Sister Death came to Francis on 3 October 1226.

Because of the favors from God obtained at the Portiuncula, St. Francis requested the Pope to grant remission of sins to all who came there. The privilege extends beyond the Portiuncula to others churches, especially held by Franciscans, throughout the world.

A plenary indulgence is a mighty tool for works of mercy and weapon in our ongoing spiritual warfare. A plenary indulgence is the remission, through the merits of Christ and the saints, through the Church, of all temporal punishment due to sin already forgiven.

To obtain the Portiuncula plenary indulgence, a person must visit the Chapel of Our Lady of the Angels at Assisi, or a Franciscan sanctuary, or one’s parish church, with the intention of honoring Our Lady of the Angels. Then perform the work of reciting the Creed and Our Father and pray for the Pope’s designated intentions.

You should be free, at least intentionally, of attachment to venial and mortal sin, and truly repentant. Make your sacramental confession 8 days before or after. Participate at assist at Mass and receive Holy Communion 8 days before or after.

BTW… the faithful can gain a plenary indulgence on a day of the year he designates (cf. Ench. Indul. 33 1.2.d). You might choose the anniversary of your baptism or of another sacrament or name day.

My friend the great Fr. Finigan, His Hermeueticalness, has some excellent points and suggestions in his post about the Porticuncula indulgence.  HERE

Also, HERE, Fr. Finigan wrote about the requirement that we not have any attachment to sin, even venial.  He offers quite a hopeful view of what sounds like a difficult prospect.  I warmly recommend it.

Regarding “the Pope’s intentions”, this means intentions designated by the Pope.  However, some people have wondered how strict this is, or what to do it the intention is… odd.   I wrote about this issue HERE.  Read that post.  However, here’s an excerpt:

Click

Because we are Unreconstructed Ossified Manualists, and we love our old dependable compendia of theology with its sober and thorough analyses, we can turn to the manual by Prümmer.

Prümmer says that the intentions of the Holy Father for which we are to pray have a tradition of five basic categories which were fixed:

1. Exaltatio S. Matris Ecclesiae (Triumph/elevation/stability/growth of Holy Mother Church)
2. Extirpatio haeresum (Extirpation/rooting out of heresies),
3. Propagatio fidei (Propagation/expansion/spreading of the Faith)
4. Conversio peccatorum (Conversion of sinners),
5. Pax inter principes christianos (Peace between christian rulers).

These five categories were also listed in the older, 1917 Code of Canon Law, which is now superseded by the 1983 Code.

However, they remain good intentions all.

 

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes | Tagged , ,
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Bishops and the Internet – positive developments

Posted on 1 August 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Recently, His Excellency Most Reverend Donald Hying, Bishop of Madison, has been issuing brief – a just a couple minutes at a time – video messages via YouTube.  He’ll tackle a topic in a single spot or in a short series.  Right now his videos are about “vocation”. His channel is HERE.

This use of social media is excellent.

I bring this up today because I just discovered that another bishop, of Gallup, is using podcasts.  H.E.M.R. James Wall has his podcast – or CrosierCast – to which you can subscribe on iTunes of Soundcloud.  HERE His latest is “Tolkien, Part 1: Free Will and Fate in Western Myth”. I will remind the readership that recently Bp. Wall began to celebrate ad orientem versus in his cathedral. HERE

Back in 2009 I wrote a piece for the UK’s Catholic Herald in which I dealt with the critical importance of online ministry.   I posted my op-ed HERE.   I just re-read it.  It is still timely even though it is now a decade old!  Sheesh.  Inter alia I opined that every diocese should have a “vicar for online ministry”.  I see that some bishops… younger bishops… are taking matters into their own hands.

Back then I wrote:

Catholics intuitively look for leadership from priests, to be sure, but in a special way from diocesan bishops.  I have met only a handful of bishops who actually grasp that there is an internet. Few take it seriously.  On the live internet stream of the November meeting of the USCCB a bishop observed that, while he appreciated reducing paper consumption by giving him a CD-ROM disk, he didn’t know how to use it.   I met a prelate in Rome, working in social communications, who didn’t know how to turn on his computer.  An American Cardinal quizzed me about my footprint in cyberspace and mused, “More people read you in a day than read me in a week in our newspaper.”  As a new generation of bishops emerges, episcopal savvy about modern tools of communication will improve.  Nevertheless, bishops can’t themselves be the point men for a diocese’s online ministry.

Oh, my prophetic soul.

Now, for you readers…

Do you know of other bishops who are offering something like this via social media? I mean something substantive, worth tuning in for.

 

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, The future and our choices | Tagged , , , , ,
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More on the systematic attack on John Paul II’s Magisterium. Wherein Fr. Z rants.

Posted on 1 August 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

A systematic attack is being waged on the teaching legacy of John Paul II.  Without fail, also look at THIS about the “purge” of the last remaining “Wojtylians”.

The latest front in the attack is the intentional demolition of the Institute for Marriage and Family that bears the sainted Pope’s name.  Faculty has been dismissed or sidelined or isolated such that they will have no influence or power.  The statutes have been changed.  People with 180° divergent views are now considered for faculty (e.g. Chiodi).

The students at the Institute aren’t taking it.  They issued an open letter.  HERE The third point they make is the salient point:

3. Why should one continue studying at the John Paul II Institute if it does not seem to propose anything new with respect to what can be found in the curricula of secular universities and what is oftentimes offered there in more attractive and efficient ways?

The powers that be aren’t being entirely forthright.  HERE  First, they denied the existence of the students’ letter.  Then they denied they received it prior to its publication.  So the students published everything, with the dates.

HERE I wrote about the method of “creeping incrementalism” employed in this systematic attack on the teachings of John Paul II and, in fact, the perennial teachings of the Church on morals.  In retrospect:

  • Kasper’s address
  • two rigged Family Synods
  • Amoris laetitia 
  • 5 dubia without answers
  • Chiodi’s talk at the Gregorian
  • changes at the Pontifical Academy for Life

What happens in Rome doesn’t stay in Rome.  This is coming your way, to a diocese near you.

 

At CNA read a piece in which the VP of the Institute says that, since Francis ordered the changes to the Institute, they’ve been trying to do so in continuity with the Institute’s identity.  But that isn’t what’s happening now.

The vice-president of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute in Rome said that changes to the school’s governing structure and academic program are a serious threat to its identity, and to the important pastoral ministry it supports.

“It seems to me that the identity of the Institute is seriously threatened, so it is necessary to present, with respect but clearly, the objective problems within the recent changes, and warn of the danger to the original mission of the Institute, which Pope Francis has clearly said he wants to preserve, not just as a piece of the past, but precisely because it is a source of renewal and a pathway for the Church’s accompaniment to families,” Fr. Jose Granados, DCJM, told CNA July 31.

This guy was a consultor to the CDF, btw, which is going to undergo its own calvary.

He particularly underscores the elimination of the teaching of MORAL THEOLOGY.

“Precisely at this point is also the importance of morality, which the Institute has cultivated from the light of love, as a way to fulfill our vocation to love, and as the ability to achieve a beautiful and full life. As in this way of love it is essential to recover the language of the body, John Paul II entrusted to the Institute his Catechesis about human love, where he outlined a theology of the body that has continued to develop in these years with great fruitfulness.”

In the “theology of the body,” Granados said, Pope St. John Paul II “calls us to truly reread the language of the body, a language inscribed in us by the Creator, and which is based on the sexual difference of man and woman open to life. From this anthropological unitary vision, a faculty has been cultivated and enriched, expanded across all continents in different sections, where the study of each discipline enriches the others, avoiding that fragmentation so typical of university work today. The sharp break we observe these days, blurring the memory of this living tradition, which is preserved especially in people, endangers this rich heritage,” the priest concluded.

What it looks like some people, who wield a lot of delegated power, are trying to do is precisely what we see in the secular sphere: detach sex from procreation.

Our Blessed Mother told the last Fatima seer Sr. Lucia (as communicated to the late dubia Cardinal Carlo Caffarra – founder of the JPII Institute) that the Devil’s last battlefront is the family. From the beginning the “father of lies” deceived people into thinking that God hasn’t told the truth and that we can be the arbiters of our own “right” and our own “wrong”. The lie of sex divorced from procreation is the goal.  That is the goal behind attacks on John Paul II’s magisterium.  What else could it be?

This is a signal development for the whole of the Church.

It truly is a signal from Rome to “sleeper cells”, those who have been keeping their heads low for the last couple decades.

Most of us can’t do anything about this.  But we can all do something about who we are, where we are.  We all have a sphere of life which we can influence.  How ought one react to the antics of the New catholic Red Guards across the pond?  Ongoing conversion. Intention Catholic living.  Acts of reparation for sins against the Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart of our Blessed Mother.

Imagine the grace tsunami that could be unleashed were every single person who reads this to, right away:

  • Right away say the Rosary in reparation for sins
  • Make an examination of conscience
  • GO TO CONFESSION ASAP
  • Take on a mortification of some kind for a time with purpose

Each of you are a spiritual force in this vale of tears, more or less activated and engaged.

Engage.

Posted in New catholic Red Guards, Pò sì jiù, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices, Wherein Fr. Z Rants | Tagged
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Your Good News

Posted on 31 July 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Do you have good news to share with the readers?  Let us know.

For my part, I admit to having been a little down lately.  Today, I had, in rapid succession, three great consolations.  My spirits are lifted.

And, for more earthly good news, tonight I found sole on sale at the store.  Sole Meuniere, with some fries and a little of my remaining Sauce moutarde a la Normande.  It was left from the Rôti de Porc I made on Sunday for me and my neighbor.

Frankly, I’ll pack up some of this, too, for my neighbor.

Moreover, I am listening to a good reading via Audible to The Silmarillion.  I haven’t been in it for a long time.  Amazing.  When I was a teen, I wrote to Tolkien with questions about this work, which had been mentioned but not published… and he wrote back.  Beautiful memories.  I am thinking of old friends and different days.

US HERE – UK HERE

Posted in Fr. Z's Kitchen |
22 Comments

PROPONITUR: Retired military chaplains – using the Vetus Ordo – form an Oratory.

Posted on 31 July 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I have a radical idea.  It keeps popping into my head.  I think that means that I’m being prompted from upstairs to post it.

PROPONITUR: Half a dozen retired military chaplains – who want to use the Vetus Ordo 95% of the time – form an Oratory.

There could be non-chaplain retired military as non-priest members.

The core community would have a foundation of means.  They would have skills for dealing with people.  They would have been reviewed along the way.  They have a couple common points for community.  They are sometimes strangers to where they came from but used to adapting to a new space.  They’d approach the parish or oratory entrusted to them with great organization skills.  They’d have good experience dealing with young people and will the injured/sick, etc.

Oratories are sprouting up all over.  I’m not saying that this would be exclusively for retired chaplains.  But they could be a core of the corps.  After all, if I am not mistaken, oratorians originally had to have their own means.  No?

Moderation queue is ON.

Posted in ¡Hagan lío!, Priests and Priesthood, The future and our choices | Tagged ,
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Wherein Fr. Z gives advice to new and to young priests

Posted on 31 July 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Congratulations, reverend and dear gentlemen and welcome to the priesthood.  We older guys are all for you, except when we are against you.  That’s going to happen, now and then.  If you are straight and you are faithful, some guys of a certain range of age will hate you.  That’s okay.

I’ve been pecking away at this for weeks, so don’t draw conclusions if we’ve recently met.  One of the reasons I post this today, is because of a piece at Crisis by a new priest who talks about the problems of seminary discernment, homosexual seminarians, possible deception of self and of others, etc.  At the end he uses a deft reference to, I believe, Tolkien.

In any event, as I said above, we older guys are all for you.  We want to support seminarians, as well.

On that note, here are a few pointers, in no particular order, but gathered over the decades from other priests and from experience.

Pointers.

  • Do NOT ramble in the confessional and don’t let penitents ramble either.  If they are rambling, intervene.  If you are rambling… well… don’t start.  Do NOT ramble.
  • On your way to the confessional, do NOT look around at people!  Do not look at them standing in line.  Do not greet them.   Keep your eyes down, on the floor in front of you.  Do NOT look at them.  People should be able to be anonymous.   (For lay people reading this: if you spot in a priest in the confessional line, for the love of God, don’t shout, “Hi Father!”)
  • If you don’t know Latin, learn Latin.  Yes, it’s going to require work.  Ordination doesn’t mean “Stop learning”.  Quite the opposite.  Now, more than ever!
  • Avoid “cute hair”.
  • Be careful whom you hire who might have access to your rectory.  If someone (usually a woman) is really eager to “lend a hand”, think not twice, not three times, but ten times before considering about that person seriously.  There are some people out there who are just dying to pry into Father’s life.  And they invariably gossip.
  • Don’t accept a parish, etc., until a thorough audit has been completed.
  • When you are saying Mass or fulfilling a liturgical role, stand up straight!   Don’t hunch over as if you are so moved that you can’t bear the burden of your own reality.   Stand up straight!
  • And on that point, when you are giving blessings, such as after ordination, stand up straight!   You don’t have to loom to make it meaningful.   Don’t hunch over people, and grab their heads as if you are about to extract their brain for an experiment.   Just gently place your hands on their heads and say the blessing.
  • And on that point, if you shouldn’t ramble in the confessional and in the pulpit, don’t ramble when giving blessings!   I think you guys are great and I am really happy for you, but – my my – some of you do go on and on and on: “Through the intercession of …. with the hope of…. because we are all made in God’s image…. because the weather is great and there is a strong chance of showers in the evening as a low pressure front moves in….”.   For pity’s sake, say this:   “Benedictio Dei omnipotentis, Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti, descendat super te (vos) et maneat semper. … May the blessing of Almighty God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, descend upon you and remain forever.  Amen.”  Be brief, be gone.
  • If you are going to use cuff-links, use good cuff-links.
  • Always carry a stole and O.I. and memorize the form.
  • Consider getting a portable altar from St. Joseph’s Apprentice.
  • Have a couple of “go bags”.  Have one for “priestcraft” which in the case of a disaster you can grab and go and get to work.  Have another one for getting out safely because of fire, storm, quake, attack, whatever.  And have one in your car, a “get home” bag.  If you know doctors (and you will) get some courses of anti-biotics and maybe a couple epipens for your kits.  A small caliber rifle could be useful.  Yes, get a CCW license.  And don’t get me started about training.  You do have time for this.
  • Memorize something everyday, even if is short.  Use index cards.  A good approach is to recite it 5 times, 5 times a day.  Or 7 if you need more!  Your memory is like a muscle and you can get good at memorization.  Once it is in your head, it’s yours.
  • Learn basic sewing and not so basic cooking.
  • Use the official translation of the form of absolution.  Change it, and I might just have to hunt you down.  Better yet, use Latin.
  • If you listen to podcasts, youtube interviews or audio books, use the 1.25x or 1.5x speed setting, especially if the material is of a more ephemeral nature. I use a combination of Total Recorder and an audio capturing/extracting program.  Free up your day.
  • Immediately after having a difficult or tense or important meeting or conversation touching on administration or complaints or whatever, write a memo to yourself and file it away.  Even if you have to use voice note apps on your phone, make a record and write it down later.  You might need it.  Scriptum manet.
  • In a group of priests who have been around awhile, listen a lot.  Now that I am getting on a bit, I am triply, quadrupley, quintupley, grateful for the times, years ago at the table in the rectory, with those much older priests when I could just soak it in through listening.   I received lore… “priestcraft” in a good sense of the word… a healthy clerical culture was being passed along and absorbed by osmosis.
  • Try to have a good, formal meal with priests, perhaps Saturday evenings: steak and cab works.  Vent, catch up and laugh.
  • While you are learning Latin, study for your amateur radio license.  We may need it soon.
  • On that point, and on the point of memorization, memorize a couple of Mass formularies.  We really should know the Ordinary by heart, right?  If you have a formulary memorized, you’ll be able to say Mass even in the gulag they are going to put us in.  Perhaps a Votive Mass of the Blessed Virgin and another?
  • Ask old priests for their stories about priests who were old when they were young.
  • If you haven’t already, start now: start learning the traditional Roman Rite.  Do yourselves a favor and super-charge yourself.  Nay, rather, complete yourself.  And see the point about Latin, above.  No, really.
  • My old pastor, Msgr. Schuler, used to say, partly sardonically but mostly seriously that we shouldn’t write our names in our breviaries.  Why?  Were we to lose one, someone could claim that it was found in a “house of assignation”.   Old terminology, but the message is clear.  You have a reputation.  It is precious.  It is also incredibly vulnerable and fragile these days, when a false accusation, even someone looking cross-eyed at you could harm your reputation once and for all.  Be careful.  Think about where you are going, what you are doing.  Keep a diary or make a digital or paper trail of your day to prove you have been someplace or haven’t been to another.  Sorry to have to offer this, but these are the times we are living in, and God chose us for this time, not some other time.
  • Never let anyone – like Susan From The Parish Council and her friends – bully you into thinking that liturgy, or keeping a tidy sacristy, or having fine vestments is somehow a lesser part of what priests ought do or is, somehow not Jesusy-enough.  Don’t let them accuse you of not being “pastoral” (95% of the time mispronounced) because you are careful about worship.  Don’t listen to Judas.  Do priest stuff and be interested in these things because they are for us and, therefore, through us for everyone.
  • On that note, the word is “PAStoral” with the accent on the first syllable.  It’s not “pasTOral”.  Even less is it “pasTOreeal”, in four syllables.  Moreover, it’s “ad orientem” not “-tum”.  See the point about Latin, above.
  • Also, and this is something that I heard at the St. Paul Center conference for priests, recently, and I am still sorting it out.  “Take care of the parish of your soul.”  Not that we have multiple personalities in there… or most of us don’t at least.  But, we have to take care of ourselves.  It’s a work of mercy because we are not easily renewable resources.  Physically, too.  And some of us have wide parish boundaries, as it were!

I may add to this list of unsolicited advice from time to time.

I’ll switch on the Moderation Queue.  Perhaps other priests have more to say.  If it’s good, I’ll post it!

UPDATE:

A priest wrote:

Thanks FatherZ on this blog post! I am a young priest myself and this blog post is really, really helpful. Well, my being ‘young’ sometimes put off some parishioners…One elderly even approached me and bluntly told me that I should expect from them any sign of reverence because I am much younger than them…well, this shall pass… [Always stand up straight.  Put your chin up.  Do not be intimidated.  Weave into your preaching the meaning of the chrism on your hands, the mark upon your soul and the office that comes with it.]

Maybe it will be also helpful if you can add up some advice regarding Confession, that we may avoid ‘ramblings’.  [Preach about the basics of confession.  Many lay people today have never been taught how to make a good confession!  Just as children need structure, so do penitents.  Teach them the structure of confession: sins in kind and number, act of contrition that includes attrition and contrition, a method – such as by the Decalogue.  You can insert this into your sermons and it’ll only take a couple minutes.  Do it again and again.]

God bless!

NB: Moderation queue… ON… and I am selective,  PRIESTS first.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Priests and Priesthood, Seminarians and Seminaries | Tagged ,
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31 July – St. Ignatius of Loyola! Please intercede for your spiritual sons.

Posted on 31 July 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

ignatius_loyola_relics

Today is the Feast of the founder of the Jesuits.

May I say from the onset that I have some spiffy Pope Clement XIV gear? HERE

Here is the Martyrologium Romanum entry for this great saint, Ignatius of Loyola. To the right is my first class relic.

Memoria sancti Ignatii de Loyola, presbyteri, qui, hispanus in Cantabria natus, in aula regia et militia vitam egit, donec, post grave vulnus acceptum ad Deum conversus, Lutetiae Parisiorum studia theologica complevit et primos socios sibi ascivit, quos postea in Societatem Iesu Romae constituit, ubi ipse fructuosum exercuit ministerium et in operis conscribendis et in discipulis instituendis, ad maiorem Dei gloriam.

This morning Holy Mass will be celebrated in the presence of a 1st class relic of the saint.

Here is the spiffy Collect from 1962 edition of the Missale Romanum:

Deus, qui ad maiorem tui nominis gloriam propagandam, novo per beatum Ignatium subsidio militantem Ecclesiam roborasti: concede; ut, eius auxilio et imitatione certantes in terris, coronari cum ipso mereamur in caelis.

LITERAL VERSION

O God, who strengthened the Church militant with a new reinforcement through blessed Ignatius, in order to spread widely the greater glory of Your Name, grant that we, who are contending on earth by his help and example, may deserve to be crowned with him in heaven.

The experts who cut and pasted together the Novus Ordo Collect for Ignatius weenied-down the content:

Deus, qui ad maiorem tui nominis gloriam propagandam
beatum Ignatium in Ecclesia tua suscitasti,
concede, ut, eius auxilio et imitatione certantes in terris,
coronari cum ipso meramur in caelis.

Notice anything important missing?

Let’s have your perfect renderings of the prayers.

Here is a shot of the altar and tomb of St. Ignatius in the Church called the Gesù in the heart of Rome.  It is a must stop if you ever visit Rome.

Now that’s an altar.

Church architecture reflects the Church’s understanding of her own identity.  

Each era has a different expression.  Compare and contrast to what is being built and used now.

The dopey Jesuits removed the Communion rail for this altar, thus turning decorative metalwork into inexplicable objects and destroying the integrity of the design.  To the right of the altar is a heroic marble group depicting of the Triumph of Truth over Heresy. Heresy, in this case, is manifest by the books of the error-filled works of Calvin and Luther.  The little angel is tearing up a bad book.   The ugly heretical bad guys shrink from the Cross and the light that Truth holds.

Under the lower heretic, there is a book with a visible spine that says MARTIN LUTHER. The dopey Jesuits, who now probably idolize Luther, hid it.  For shame.  You have to know they are there to make out the letters now.  Calvin and Zwingli are on the spines of the other books.

See? Nearly invisible now.

I found an older photo of the spine before it was wussified:

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Zwingli

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Calvin

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And then there’s this.  No, this is not a rendering of a Jesuit.

Were these statues to have experienced a true aggiornamento, they’d be tearing up a certain book by James Martin, though though there are many other candidates.  

Meanwhile, since our church architecture tells present and future generation about our Catholic identity at the time it was built, let’s have a few shots from inside the church.

The cupola:

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The Holy Name of Jesus (which in its iteration at Georgetown the Jesuits covered over when Obama spoke there):

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A glimpse of me, shooting the photo of the ceiling of the nave in a mirror angled just so for viewing ease.

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The altar with the arm of St. Francis Xavier

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03_05_14_Gesu_Francis_Xavier_relic

My favorite version of the Sacred Heart, which you can find repeated all over Rome, in a small chapel to the Epistle side of the sanctuary.

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There is an adage in Latin, corruptio optimi pessima.  The corruption of the best, is the worst kind of corruption.

Some might dispute the notion that the Jesuits were the best.  But there is no dispute that they have been among the best.

The Enemy works relentlessly to take us down.  Hence the Enemy will focus not only on the rank and file, but in a special way on leaders.

It is one thing to destroy or corrupt a small start up group of religious.  It is another entirely to twist the largest group of male religious, with universities and colleges.  It is one thing to lead some garden variety cleric into sins.  It is entirely another to subvert a Cardinal who is influential in conclaves and in the appointment of bishops.

Bring down a great group like the Jesuits?  What a coup for Hell.

I hope and prayer that great saints will rise within the Jesuits who will Make the Society Great Again.

Today, let us ask the intercession of St. Ignatius, and the other saintly founders of the Society, to intercede with their ultimate General, Christ Jesus, to guide and correct them or to bring them down until they can do no harm.   How I would dearly prefer the former to the later.  I’ll take either one.

 

Posted in Saints: Stories & Symbols | Tagged , ,
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