Was there a good point made in the sermon you heard as you fulfilled your Gaudete Sunday Mass obligation?
Let us know.
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From today’s live video stream
This greeted me in my email today.
I pray that you are well. I am a permanent Deacon. I began my homily today … making mention that today we celebrate Gaudete Sunday, or “Rejoice Sunday.” After Mass my pastor approached me and said the homily was fine, but, I had to make a change. I have to say that today is FORMERLY “Gaudete Sunday. He said, in his words, that, Gaudete Sunday, is no more. Now, all the research I do says that this is isn’t so. I will also mention that our Advent vestments are blue. Nothing much I can do about it.
That is true. As pastor, Fr. Grinch has the right to be as ignorant and as obtuse as he wishes.
It is NOT true that “Gaudete Sunday ‘is no more'”.
First, the very first word of the Mass, the first word of the antiphon that the Church assigns for today’s Mass, is “Gaudete“. It may be that the pastor is ignorant of this fact because, at that parish on Sundays, hymns or ditties are used instead of the Church’s true prayers. The 3rd Sunday of Advent is still called Gaudete Sunday.
Some of our days have nicknames, that are not in the Missal. I wonder. Does the pastor also have it in for “Good Friday” and “Easter Sunday”? How about “Christmas”? Does he insist on calling it “Nativity of Our Lord”?
Next, Francis, not exactly a liturgical conservative, thinks that Gaudete Sunday is okay. Last year he referred to it during his Sunday Angelus address. HERE Then again, even that term “Angelus”, being Latin, might not be known to the pastor. Let’s just say that each Sunday Francis shows up at a high window over St. Peter Square, and he talks for a few minutes before saying prayers that people used to say all the time.
Also, our liturgical Ordo (ooops, another Latin word) says that during Advent we are not to have flowers on our altars or to use instrumental music except on this 3rd Sunday. Why? Because it is it is “Rejoice” Sunday, and, in parallel with the still existing Laetare Sunday in Lent, that’s what we Catholics do.
In addition, our Ordo also indicates that rose vestments can be used on this Sunday, as well as Laetare. I wonder why. By the way, Francis thinks Laetare still exists too. HERE
As far as blue vestments are concerned, there is a possibility of using this color in some places for Marian feasts, but there is no possibility – at all – period – during Advent.
Anyway, I have commented at length about blue vestments during Advent in the past. We even have a tune about it. Perhaps the pastor could ask the choir to sing this next week.
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It has been great, though slow going in NYC. Time to head home.
I had access to the lounge this time in a new way. I am seriously irritated that Delta club membership will no longer be acknowledged by partner airlines. Therefore I didn’t re-up. Instead I’ll use my AmEx card for access to the club in these USA and also have access to several networks of private clubs at foreign airports I tend to access.
Anyway, in the lounge I had “breakfast”, technically accurate since it broke my fast. I’m not sure what this is, but I have an image of Charlton Heston shouting something….
It was in the place where one might have expected bacon. After a nibble, an essay, a foray, I demurred.
This is, happily, a non-stop trip … which I guess they all are, come to think of it. I don’t have to change planes. Hence I hope I won’t have to post many updates.
UPDATE
I spoke too soon.
My neighbor is, I suspect, rather high strung.
In July I wrote about a group in Ferrara (HERE) which, having great success, is being treated rather curiously by the local bishop. The Priestly Brotherhood of the Family of Christ (FSFC) seems to be doing great things.
I read at Fr. Hunwicke’s place that the Holy See has imposed yet another commissar on the FSFC. That doesn’t bode well.
Fr. H has some sharp comments. Including…
Readers will remember the regulations according to which diocesan bishops were peremptorily deprived of the right to set up religious communities of diocesan right within their jurisdictions without interference from the Congregation for Religious. I imagine that wise bishops will refrain from canonically erecting any new and orthodox groups, but will instead protect and foster them in an informal uncanonical state until the days of joy and freedom return. Is it a sign of health in an ecclesial body that pastoral and prudent hierarchs will feel the necessity to operate beneath the canonical radar?
It is hardly surprising that, when an orthodox Shepherd dies or retires, there should be such anxieties about what might happen to his diocese. There must be quite a few seedy would-be misthotoi slouching impatiently behind Roman pillars puffing away at their fags while eagerly awaiting the rewards of sycophancy and networking.
And you should see what follows.
Hard times for traditional religious, my friends. All the want to be is Catholic, and, as their groups are being born, those who ought to parent them to maturity are strangling them in their cradles.
The TMSM’s Rose set
The 3rd Sunday of Advent is nicknamed “Gaudete … Rejoice!”, from the first word of the first chant, the Introit. Today we relax slightly our penitential focus during Advent.
Some say Advent is not a penitential time, even though it has always been considered such in centuries past. Many prayers in the Roman Rite during this preparatory season before the Nativity of our Lord are penitential. We fast before our feasts. It is therefore a perennial tradition to exclude flowers from the altar instrumental music during Advent. Our vestments are violet or purple, as in Lent, though some like to use a bluish rather than reddish purple to differentiate Advent as less somber, somewhat less focused on the penitential aspect.
In the first week of Advent we begged God for the grace of a proper approach and a strong will for our journey. In the second week, we asked God for help and protection in facing the obstacles we encounter in the world. Today we glimpse the joy that will soon be ours at Christmas. Liturgically this has been symbolized, though the use – just today – of the organ, flowers on the altar, and rose-colored (rosacea) vestments. Gaudete is the counterpart of “Laetare … Rejoice!” Sunday during Lent.
Our Collect, in the Ordinary Form, not in the pre-Conciliar Missale Romanum, is lifted in large part from the Rotulus of Ravenna, which has prayers as pristine as the 5th century (probably earlier).
Deus, qui conspicis populum tuum nativitatis dominicae festivitatem fideliter exspectare, praesta, quaesumus, ut valeamus ad tantae salutis gaudia pervenire, et ea votis sollemnibus alacri laetitia celebrare.
Sollemnis means, “yearly, annual”, taking on the connotation, “religious, festive, solemn”. The infinitives, expectare (“to look out for a thing, await, to hope for; to fear, dread”), pervenire (“to come to, arrive at; attain to any thing”), and celebrare (“to go to a place or person in great numbers or often, to frequent; to honor a person or thing”) give this oration a grand sound. They also sum up what we are doing all throughout Advent. Conspicio means, “to look at attentively, to get sight of”. The etymological dictionary of Latin by Ernout and Meillet says exspecto, is from ex– + *specio, spexi, spectum or ex– + spicio. Therefore, it is a kissing cousin of con-spicio. This is skilful word play. God “watches” over us and we “watch” for Him.
SUPER LITERAL VERSION:
O God, who attentively does watch Your people faithfully watch out for the feast of the Lord’s birth, grant, we entreat, that we may be able to attain to the joys of so great a salvation and to celebrate them in solemn annual rites with an eager jubilation.
OBSOLETE ICEL (1973):
Lord God, may we, your people, who look forward to the birthday of Christ experience the joy of salvation and celebrate that feast with love and thanksgiving.
CURRENT ICEL (2011):
O God, who see how your people faithfully await the feast of the Lord’s Nativity, enable us, we pray, to attain the joys of so great a salvation and to celebrate them always with solemn worship and glad rejoicing.
Let us give a strong and joyful “Amen” when we hear this Collect pronounced or sung in our churches.
In the Collects of the last two Sundays we have been “rushing” and doing good works, striving and being careful not to get tangled in worldly things. This Sunday we have an image of unrestrained joy, an almost childlike dash towards a long-desired thing. Our heavenly Father watches over us as we run down the path toward our Saviour even as we make sure our paths are straight.
Have earthly fathers not watched this scene on Christmas mornings? Do children go to their gifts by zigzags or by running out of the house and away from them? They always go straight at them. Parents watch over their little ones so that, in their intensity, they don’t hurt themselves.
Our heavenly Father leaves us free, but His protecting and guiding hand and eye is upon us. We should feel an eager joy for the Lord’s Coming under the gaze and guidance of our generous and loving God. He’s is our Father and He has a plan for us.
The Gospel for this year in the Ordinary Form has St. John the Baptist, prophet and priest and precursor, offering, first, moral guidance. Then he turns to an eschatological explanation of what the Lord will do in the end.
He has his winnowing fan and he will separate the wheat and the chaff. The wheat (people in God’s friendship) will be taken to the good place. The chaff (people not in God’s friendship) will be burned in “unquenchable fire”.
This is part of, as the last line of the Gospel pericope reminds us, “good news” which we hear on “Rejoice! Sunday”. There is some tension there. Perhaps we can resolve it be reconnecting the moral content of John’s preaching with his description of the end times.
Let’s connect the moral and the eschatological by another passage in Scripture, using Scripture to interpret Scripture.
Let’s turn to another passage about the end-time’s separating of the good from the bad, Matthew 25. This is the passage in which the King will, like a shepherd, separate the sheep and the goats. He will explain to the good/sheep/wheat that when they ministered to the least of his brethren, they ministered to Him. The bad/goats/chaff that when they did not minister to the brethren, they did not minister to Him. He tells to them to go into the fire prepared for the devil and his angels. There’s that fire again.
Christ came at Bethlehem. Christ is coming at our death or the end of the world. Christ is already here. We resolve some of the tension by taking seriously the moral content of Advent’s eschatological message.
At the same time we remember what John the Baptist said. We have to make the path straight for the Lord. He is coming. When he comes, he will come by the straightest path, straightening them Himself if we have not straightened them first. That straightening will not be so easy for us if we are twisty.
The eschatological/end times content of the message of Advent truly is “good news”.
God hasn’t left us in doubt about how to treat our neighbor. That’s is “good news”. That helps us to be more responsible about our souls and those of our neighbor.
God hasn’t left us in doubt that he will come as Judge. He has not left us in doubt that rewards come to His friends and “unquenchable fire” of separation comes to those who are not His friends. Dire sounding? No. If we are Christians that is “good news”. It prompts us to be responsible about our souls and leaves us comforted with the knowledge that we can in fact attain the Kingdom Christ helps us to by His grace.
We cannot save ourselves. We depend on grace. We even depend on God to help us help ourselves. But our salvation is worked out through grace and elbow-grease. We are responsible for our souls. We can choose to accept or to reject the Lord, in Himself and in our neighbor. We can refuse to straighten out.
Make straight the path … NOW.
If you have something to straighten out with yourself and your God, with yourself and your neighbor… straighten it out NOW.
The modern made up “wicca” and “witch” thing is a combination of laughably stupid hokum and spectacularly dangerous demonic infiltration. The Enemy is perfectly fine with being involved with “games” (e.g., ouji, cards, etc) and this risible wicca rubbish, so long as they get a connection, a chance to oppress or to possess.
I read at The Christian Post that…
Witches Outnumber Presbyterians in the US; Wicca, Paganism Growing ‘Astronomically’
The population of self-identified witches has risen dramatically in the United States in recent decades, as interest in astrology and witchcraft practices have become increasingly mainstreamed.
While data is sparse, Quartz noted, the practice of witchcraft has grown significantly in recent decades; those who identify as witches has risen concurrently with the rise of the “witch aesthetic.”
“While the U.S. government doesn’t regularly collect detailed religious data, because of concerns that it may violate the separation of church and state, several organizations have tried to fill the data gap,” Quartz reported.
“From 1990 to 2008, Trinity College in Connecticut ran three large, detailed religion surveys. Those have shown that Wicca grew tremendously over this period. From an estimated 8,000 Wiccans in 1990, they found there were about 340,000 practitioners in 2008. They also estimated there were around 340,000 Pagans in 2008.”
Pew Research Center studied the issue in 2014, discovering that 0.4 percent of Americans, approximately 1 to 1.5 million people, identify as Wicca or Pagan, meaning their communities continue to experience significant growth.
The rapid rise is not a surprise to some given philosophical and spiritual trends in culture.
“It makes sense that witchcraft and the occult would rise as society becomes increasingly postmodern. The rejection of Christianity has left a void that people, as inherently spiritual beings, will seek to fill,” said author Julie Roys, formerly of Moody Radio, in comments emailed to The Christian Post Tuesday.
“Plus, Wicca has effectively repackaged witchcraft for millennial consumption. No longer is witchcraft and paganism satanic and demonic,” [Oh yah?] she said, “it’s a ‘pre-Christian tradition’ that promotes ‘free thought’ and ‘understanding of earth and nature.'”
Yet such repackaging is deceptive, Roys added, “but one that a generation with little or no biblical understanding is prone to accept.”
[…]
Blame?
Bishops in general. Next, priests. They’re not doing, and have not been doing, their jobs.
How badly have they performed over the last decades?
Young people are turning to this wicca bull****, that’s how bad.
The practices of wicca, etc., are openings and invitations to demons. Demons are rigidly legalistic. If they take something as an invitation, they attach and claim a right to be in a place or oppressing a person. Their claims have to be broken. Use of sacraments and sacramentals help greatly in this. Priests are able to break these claims. In stubborn cases, priests can bring in the big armament as well.
This wicca garbage is a joke that is no joke.
As we come to the end of the year, many of you are considering your end of year charitable giving for tax deductions, etc. Hence, I will probably drone on about the TMSM.
However, I want to bring to your attention also the wonderful Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, who recently obtained the distinction of being elevated to an Abbey. Since they are near Gower, MO, it seems to me that it should be called Gower Abbey and the Abbess, the “Abbess of Gower”, which has a fine medieval ring.
Gower Abbey is trying to bring its fundraising to completion. You will recall that they had their new Abbey Church solemnly consecrated (it took 7 hours) and, the next day, the new Abbess of Gower was blessed by the late, great Bp. Morlino. There are videos of of the ceremonies.
Speaking of videos, the sisters sent out this video, which shows the late Bishop.
I believe that one of the nuns may actually have been flying to get those shots of the church from above. It happens, you know.
And, because of their work to pray for priests and bishops, they have a “priest tribute” project too. HERE
These nuns are terrific. They have so many vocations that they have to make daughter foundations.
And that’s the Abbess playing the trumpet.
There is a good piece at Crisis today about the Sacrament of Penance. It touches on many issues, including availability of confession times, some poorly formed confessors who don’t acknowledge certain sins as sins, and the lack of support some sound priests have for teaching the truth.
At the onset, the writer gets into the availability, or lack, of confession times. I was pleased that, when she used the site masstimes.org she found something good:
The situation regarding availability of scheduled confessions is, quite literally, all over the map. You can find plenty of confession times throughout the week in Madison, WI, the diocese of the late great Bishop Morlino. Further east in Saginaw, Michigan most churches only offer a half hour on Saturday. My childhood diocese of Springfield, Massachusetts remains a confession desert as does much of the once Catholic stronghold of New England.
Yet another indicator of why so many people are watching the appointment of Bp. Morlino’s successor.
All in all, the Sacrament of Penance is a mess, for reasons that I mentioned above. Some parishes offer a scant 15 minutes. Some confessors are off their rockers when it comes to the most basic tenets of moral theology. Some sound priests are constrained by their superiors.
Clamor for confession times! Don’t let dopey priests get away will saying that black is white or that 2+2=5! Thank the priest after receiving absolution! Show up when confessions are scheduled, not when they are about to end!
GO TO CONFESSION!
Fathers, bishops, if you are not hearing confessions because you don’t want to or because you think the practice is outdated or because you don’t believe in mortal sins… listen closely now…
… YOU ARE GOING TO GO TO HELL.
In the Novus Ordo Rite of Ordination of Priests, you priests made a solemn promise during the examination by the bishop of the ordinands. You promised
to celebrate faithfully and reverently the mysteries of Christ handed down by the Church, especially the sacrifice of the Eucharist and the sacrament of Reconciliation, for the glory of God and the sanctification of the Christian people.
Holy Church puts hearing confessions right up there with saying Mass.
Some might argue that, in the first version of the rite of ordination, revised after the Council under Paul VI, when it came to the examination neither Mass nor Penance were mentioned. How many of you readers know this I wonder. In face, that first version said: “Are you resolved to celebrate the mysteries of Christ faithfully and religiously as the Church has handed them down to us for the glory of God and the sanctification of Christ’s people?” The absences were in the Latin. This was considered a serious problem about the identity of the priest. Hence, in 1990 John Paul II approved a new Rite, which restored language about Mass and Penance. That’s the version in use now. I could go on about this at length, but suffice to say that…
THAT’S NO EXCUSE for priests not to hear confessions! And no priests can ever claim ignorance without culpability. If he doesn’t know what his duties are, then he is culpabably ignorant, just as much as a doctor is who doesn’t keep up with his professions developments.
What do you suppose will happen to a priest, a bishop, at his Judgement, if he has been lackadaisical or obstinately obtuse in teaching about the Sacrament of Penance and hearing confessions.
I think I know. I think you know. I think they know. But they get distracted by their own odd notions, their busy work, their convenience. That’s not going to help them at their Judgment.
BTW… I think that, by making your good confession, you help priests. You help them to be priests.
At LifeSite there is an engaging article/interview with an expert, Paul Badde, who has written about the image of the Holy Face kept at Manoppello, Italy. They touch on the role this image might have played in the thwarting of the infamous “Sankt Gallen” mafia that tried in vain to engineer the papal conclave of 2005.
Speaking of Sankt Gallen, you might check Taylor Marshall, who interviewed McCarrick’s victim. HERE
In the piece on the image at Manoppello, I found this is of special interest:
LifeSiteNews:What do you hope the fruit of the further knowledge among Catholics about this Holy Face would be?
Paul Badde: What do I hope the fruit would be? That we will be better prepared to see Him again. Here I have got to tell you a last little story. I’ve been befriended for many years until his death in 2002 with Zvi Kolitz, an old Lithuanian Jew from New York, who cherished very highly the wisdom of Rabbi Loew, who lived in Prague in the 16th century.
And he was fascinated that this famous Rabbi said, time and again, that the Messiah would finally appear in that hour of history when men would try to stretch their hands towards the biblical “tree of life.”
And today, I read in the news that in China, the first “designer babies” have been made. I wouldn’t say in that context, though, that the miraculous reappearance of the Holy Veil is part of the Second Coming of the Lord already.
In Manoppello, however, you can already look into his eyes, the eyes of the God of Jacob.
In finem citius… right?
LifeSite has a precis of Card. Müller’s interview with the German Catholic newspaper Die Tagespost. He talks about the state of the Church and of theology in that caput malorum, Germany.
Scathing.
Also, of great interest, were his comments on homosexuality:
For the U.S. audience, however, it might be especially of interest that Cardinal Müller, when once more discussing the matter of homosexuality, quotes the U.S. author Daniel Mattson. Mattson’s recent book is entitled Why I Don’t Want to Call Myself Gay, and the German cardinal quotes it when saying that “‘homosexuals’ as a third species, next to men and women, does not exist. I rely here on the book by [Daniel] Mattson” who, as someone affected by this problem, “is more trustworthy than all the prominent ideologues together.”
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