I am pleased to read that, today, His Excellency Most Reverend Donald Joseph Hying will be translated from Gary to Madison. His appointment was announced today.
This is good news and the answer to many prayers. I sense that the late, great Extraordinary Ordinary interceded.
Let there be sung Non Nobis and Te Deum.
UPDATE:
Do you have good news for the readership? I haven’t asked for some time. It is always pleasant to hear how grace is working in your lives.
I survived the Triduum. I’m making some important decisions for the TMSM. I made some progress with some remote Ham Radio issues last night, with help, though ZedNet has been too quiet. Also, the weather is soooo much better. Sunlight helps. I am making my way through books as if they were apples. I’ve put away the “Space Trilogy” in the last few days, which I haven’t read for some 40 years. [US HERE – UK HERE] I’m working on the Pillars of the Earth series now. [US HERE – UK HERE]
Here is some really good news. There will be a Pontifical Mass at the Faldstool in an American seminary. I spotted this at NLM.
This Saturday, April 27, His Excellency Glen Provost, bishop of Lake Charles, Louisiana, will celebrate a Pontifical Mass at the faldstool in the chapel of Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans, beginning at 8:30 am (CDT). The seminary is located at 2901 Carollton Avenue; the Mass is open to the public, and will also be livestreamed via the seminary’s Facebook page.
This story surprised me. It’s about a fellow, James Holzhauer, who has been winning a lot of money in a streak on “Jeopardy!”.
The Paul Batura’s Fox News story starts:
‘Jeopardy!’ star James Holzhauer’s secret to success is a blueprint for winning at life
The writer talks about how Holzhauer, a pro-gambler – hmmm – has made tactically aggressive moves on the show, with success. But then he throws a curve and brings in the rest of the show-winner’s life, how he and his wife have adopted children.
This is where the story takes a strong pro-life direction. The article concludes with a quote from C.S. Lewis.
Selective aggression.
Prudence is the virtue that governs the other cardinal virtues. Prudence is the habitual discernment of the best course of action, the true good, in a given situation and the proper means of achieving goals. Temperance concerns self-control. Justice involves giving others what is their due. Courage is the habit by which we face uncertain situations.
After a busy week, I am catching up on things.
There came to my attention a TV interview granted by His Eminence Joseph Card. Tobin, in the never-before-cardinalatial see of Newark, less than 17 miles and about a 45 minute drive from the digs of the Cardinal Archbishop of New York, across the river.
Card. Tobin did something remarkable in that TV interview.
When questioned by the woman from NBC’s Today Show, who implicitly attacked the Church’s teaching on homosexuality and manifestly got it wrong – she said the Church says that homosexuals are “intrinsically disordered”, which is not what the Church teaches – Card. Tobin did not correct her error. Card. Tobin did not defend what the Church actually teaches in a way that even someone from NBC can understand… with the help of repetitions and words of few syllables.
NB: The Church says that the inclination is intrinsically disordered.
Instead, Card. Tobin said – and I’m not making this up….
TOBIN: “The Church, I think, is having its own conversation about what our faith has us do and say with people in relationships that are same-sex. What should be without debate is that we are called to welcome them.”
NBC: “But how can you welcome people that you call ‘intrinsically disordered?’”
TOBIN: “Well I don’t call them ‘intrinsically disordered.’”
NBC: “But isn’t that the Catechism of the Catholic Church?”
TOBIN: “That is, it’s very unfortunate language. Let’s hope that eventually that language is a little less hurtful.”
“… a little less hurtful”.
So, Tobin did not correct her mischaracterization. He distanced himself from language used in the CCC, though she had gotten it wrong.
But what is the real problem with what he said? Follow the logic.
He suggests that, through some sort of “conversation”, whatever that is, the language used to describe who homosexuals are and what they do will be “a little less hurtful”.
Think about that.
Less hurtful is still hurtful.
How much “hurtful” is an acceptable level of pain? How much less hurtful is within acceptable parameters?
Once you accept the MSM and modernist and secularist and homosexualist and Jesuit position that the Church’s teaching (language = teaching) is “hurtful”, then you are on the ropes of logic. You have no where to go but to acquiesce to their desire to force the Church to deny her teaching and to jettison natural law and divine revelation as a foundation for morals.
You wind up like Peter, warming himself at the fire in the MSM’s courtyard while the Truth incarnate is on trial. When challenged about the Truth, he caved.
Charity is more important than being “less hurtful”. Charity involves the truth for the sake of the true good of others. That may require discomfort, even danger and self-sacrifice. It may involve not simply accepting the position of the MSM and the Jesuit homosexualists and the Fishwrap and others who hate the Faith. It may involve not being popular and safe and adored by the world.
I’ll turn on the moderation queue and try to keep the knucklehead stuff to a minimum.
Now that I have your attention, I would like to solicit some female readers… for advice.
For advice about a Ladies Altar Guild. Altar… Society?
I am sure that some of you have experience in establishing and participating in a parish guild which takes care of important aspects of the sanctuaries and sacristies care.
It seems to me that we need one here. We are getting ready for a servers guild. We need a complimentary guild for women.
Ladies?
UPDATE:
Folks… I really want comments in the comment box.
Many of you, very helpful, are writing to my email but without using the contact form. I miss many of those, I’m afraid.
If you want me to read something, use the contact form or the combox, below. Put
“Ladies Altar Society” in the subject line.
CONTACT FORM HERE
Thanks
A couple shots from the Easter Vigil with vestment sets that the TMSM had made during the last year. Please support the Tridentine Mass Society of the Diocese of Madison!
UPDATE:
More photos and also sights from Easter Sunday.
I always enjoy the updates from the Monks in Norcia, Italy. They’ve brought the beautiful Benedictine life back to the place of Benedict’s birth and they make great beer!
They sent out a newsletter with updates about their life. I could snip and cut and paste somethings, but you’ll do better to see for yourself. Take note especially of their photos of the Triduum! I also liked the photos of their new “protectors”, which have a lot of growing to do.
For the newsletter go HERE.
You can help yourselves and help the monks at the same time by “subscribing” to their beer!
There is a good piece at La Bussola Quotidiana (in Italian) about the Sacrament of Penance.
I’ll give you a sample, but I don’t have the energy to translate the whole thing.
Prelude: Apparently there was recently something called “Earth Day”. That’s the backdrop. Also, each year, the department of the Vatican that deals with the internal forum, confession, indulgences, lifting censures, etc., the Sacra Penitenzieria Apostolica, held its annual multi-day workshop for priests and ordinandi about confession. I attended that annual session several times during my time in Rome – because I could. Repetita iuvant.
La vera ecologia per preti? Stare di più in confessionale
True ecology for priests? Spend more time in the confessional
[…]
The only adequate remedy for evil for contemporary man is found in purification: this is the core of the address given by Card. Piacenza [the Major Penitentiary] who went after, then, the with diffuse temptation even among many modern theologians, that of “abolishing” sin. “Contemporary man… who has eliminated or at least archived the problem of God, no longer speaks of “sin”, but rather of “error”, fulfilling in this way a two-fold suicide mission’ on the one hand, in fact, he attributes only to himself responsibility for one’s own negative acts, excluding the existence of original sin and the consequence inclination toward evil, which we are all called to resist, but which we are called humbly to recognize; and on the other hand the presence of the help of God and of His grace, contemporary man self-condemns himself to a dramatic isolation in his own evil.”
For Piacenza, the desire to eliminate sin even from common language would be joined to the marginalization of God in society. He then warned against the coherence conceived as the sole criterion for judging human action instead of obedience to truth and good. The address of the Major Penitentiary then underscored the importance (much obscured today) of the sacrament of reconciliation and the duties to which priests are called: “Every single sacramental absolution constitutes the greatest contribution that one can give to human ecology, to the ecology of the soul and, through them, to the ecology of the world and of the universe,” the cardinal affirmed, concluding with a whipping/chastising call: “Do you
“Every single sacramental absolution constitutes the greatest contribution that can be made to human ecology, to the ecology of the soul and, through them, to the ecology of the world and the universe,” the cardinal said, concluding with a lashing call: “Do you really want to be modern priests and ecologists? Get into the confessional more often!”
[…]
All in all, the Sacrament of Penance is a mess.
That means that the Church is a mess.
If the Church is a mess, then the whole world is a mess.
The Sacrament of Penance is a liturgical action. Save the Liturgy = Save the World.
How to do this? Priests and bishops have a role.
First, from the pulpit preach about sin, guilt, penance, expiation, etc. You know, all those things that were systematically stripped out of the orations of the Novus Ordo. All those things that people haven’t heard the Church clearly pray about in sacred worship for decades.
We are our rites! Change the way people pray and you will, over time, change the way that they believe and how they live. There is a reciprocal relationship between our sacred liturgical worship and our belief. Eliminate language of sin, penance… even God… and the results will be what we see today. And society is getting better and better, right?
Who is to blame? Firstly, I would lay the blame on the unrealistic optimists at the time of the Council, but also on the modernists and true enemies of the Faith who infiltrated to the highest places. That has been ongoing. Thereafter, I lay the blame on the backs of bishops and priests who – even through they are liberals and modernists – really do know better. They ignore or even run down confession and those who want to make thorough, sincere confessions in the way that the Church requires by law: by number and kind of sins.
And then there are confession schedules in parishes.
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, for example a pastor who won’t allow a younger priest to get into the box.
Clamor for confession times! Don’t let dopey priests get away will saying that black is white or that 2+2=5 or confession is out of date or that serious sins aren’t serious! 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. Remember 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 a priest 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 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.
Mind you… there are some priests who are in assignments that don’t permit a lot of liturgical activity, time in the confessional. Surely they want those things, right? But they are doing their duty as best they can.
BTW… I think that, by making your good confession, you good lay people help priests.
You help them to be priests. Fabricando fabri fimus… we become carpenters by doing carpentry. Priests become priestly by doing priestly things.
Priests are ordained for offering sacrifice. They do this mainly through sacred liturgical worship in its proper forms. The main things they are for in the Church is celebration of the sacraments. Anyone can do other things, but only priests can do certain things. The main things that priests are really ordained to do are celebrate Mass and, in a routine way, hear confessions.
Priests who are not into all things liturgical, priests who are not into hearing confessions… what’s that all about? The sanctuary and confessional, not the rectory, are the proper places for the priest.
Until this problem of renewal of our sacred liturgical worship is undertaken, and with it, renewal of priestly identity we are… well… simply wasting time, effort, and money to the detriment of the flock.
Just a reminder to any hams out there who might be interested in ZedNet.
ZedNet is Brandmeister DMR worldwide talkgroup 31429
More HERE. But quickly…
Also, for you who are into this digital stuff, ZedNet still exists on the
Yaesu System Fusion (Wires-X) “room” 28598, which is cross-linked to
Brandmeister (BM) DMR worldwide talkgroup 31429. This gives
world-wide multi-mode access to a common ham radio network.
Any fellow hams who have access locally to a Yaesu System Fusion
repeater, a repeater on the Brandmeister network, or a multi-mode hotspot
registered with BM can get on and have a rag chew.
WB0YLE gave me a Bill of Materials. A list of what you need. HERE
What are we doing with this? Not much right now, but who knows. And it’s fun to make it work.
I created a page for the List of YOUR callsigns. HERE Chime in or drop me a note if your call doesn’t appear in the list.
73
From a reader…
QUAERITUR:
A 12 year old asks: Earth day is coming up and I have a question: Is being ecological a sin? She thinks is a sin because she thinks it is caring too much about the earth.
GUEST PRIEST RESPONSE: Fr. T. Ferguson
When I was in high school, I was part of a group that had the honor of going to a forensic tournament in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Seven of us, four boys and two girls travelled in a van down to Gatlinburg and stayed in a large motel with hundreds of other kids, mostly from the south. In the room two doors down from us there were kids from a public school in Kentucky. Their room became the “party room.” All in all, it was pretty tame – no drugs or alcohol, but lots of pop (soda, or coke depending on where you were from), pizza, chips, etc. Our rooms stayed pretty clean, because we spent our free time in the “party room.”
Where are you going with this? You ask.
I’m getting old. I’m now of an age where I almost HAVE to answer a question by telling a rambling story. Sit down, keep listening…
When we got ready to leave, our teacher and chaperone learned of the party room. She demanded that we go help clean it up. “But,” we protested, “It’s not our room, and besides, it’s a motel. It doesn’t belong to us, and they have people that will come in tomorrow and clean it.” That didn’t matter, and that didn’t convince her. We still have to go help pick up the empty pizza boxes, vacuum, get the trash in bags and get it somewhat orderly. It was the right thing to do.
This earth is not our home. We’re not meant to think of it in terms of permanence. In a way, it’s like a motel. We’re just passing through – our real home is elsewhere. That doesn’t mean that we should have no care or concern for this earth and the beautiful things God has given us here. It’s the right thing to do.
If our concern for the environment reaches the level that we places creation above the Creator, if our concern for the environment compromises our obligations to each other and to the demands of natural and divine law, it can be sinful.
If we start treating our transitory home like we’re meant to be here for all eternity, that can be sinful.
If we do our best to limit our impact on our environment, if we choose to be careful and eat food grown on local, family farms instead of large farming corporations, if we lubricate our guns with sustainable linseed oil, and drink our martinis out of glass rather than plastic stemware, that’s not sinful. That’s just being respectful.
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
Fr. Kelly on ROME 26/10 – Day 28: Natalis Dies: “Happy Birthday, Fr. Z”
on Rush: on …what’s going on now: “Ladies wanting to change settled doctrine regarding the priesthood. Pilgrimage organizers not communicating well with pilgrims regarding their permission to…”
on ROME 26/10– Day 27: Vigil: “I got the suspenders joke. I don’t get chess in the least little bit. Ever.”
on You knew this had to happen: “I see this playing out like girl altar boys, blessings for homosexuals, communion in the hand, etc. They won’t change…”
on You knew this had to happen: “I think the fable, “The Emperor’s New Clothes” by Hans Christian Andersen, applies here. Also, they are desperate so they…”
A Daily Prayer for Priests
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