OLDIE PODCAzT 56: Octaves – Fr. Z rants & Augustine on Pentecost

Posted on 9 June 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

ORIGINAL NOTES:

Today is Monday in the Octave of Pentecost, or at least it ought to be in in the Novus Ordo as it is in the older, Traditional Roman Calendar.

I dig in to what a liturgical Octave, is adding my own comments.

The we hear from the great St. Augustine (+430) on the feast of Pentecost, preaching on 12 June 412. He has interesting wine imagery and talks about what it means to be a living member of the Body of Christ.

Posted in Linking Back, PODCAzT | Tagged ,
Comments Off on OLDIE PODCAzT 56: Octaves – Fr. Z rants & Augustine on Pentecost

News of the Church 14 – 8 June 2025

Posted on 8 June 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

It’s 8 June 2025 and it is Pentecost Sunday, that beautiful feast traditionally decorated with liturgical treasures surpassing all others. Some time ago, I saw a movie called News of the World in which years after the Civil War a former confederate officer scratches out a living as a gazetteer. He travels from town to and town and reads aloud stories from different newspapers. People pay a dime .10c a head to listen, which is about $2.50 today. HERE The idea caught my imagination and here I am, a gazetteer.

An audio “gazette” of Catholic things.

00:14 – Init
01:08 – Pope Leo XIV’s Pectoral Cross
07:00 – Pope Leo XIV’s June Intention
11:57 – The true “Holy Grail”?
15:19 – Letter of the District Superior of the SSPX
24:30 – Boris Spassky retrospect
30:10 – Concealed Carry: Sacrilege?
34:00 – On he Descent the Holy Spirit by Fulton Sheen
36:45 – Exit

Posted in News of the Church, PODCAzT | Tagged , ,
1 Comment

Daily Rome Shot 1372 – Happy Pentecost!

Posted on 8 June 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Getting ready for confirmations at The Parish™.  Photos from The World’s Best Sacristan™.

Please remember me when shopping online and use my affiliate links.  US HERE – WHY?  This helps to pay for health insurance, utilities, groceries, etc..  At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.

Welcome Registrants

drcantor
YCSarris

Proper concelebration on the Chartres Pilgrimage

White to move and mate in 7!  There are two techniques in here you should be able to name.  Also, note what a deadly combo a queen and a knight can be.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
4 Comments

Your Sunday Sermon Notes: Pentecost Sunday 2025

Posted on 8 June 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Too many people today are without good, strong preaching, to the detriment of all. Share the good stuff.

Was there a GOOD point made in the sermon you heard at your Mass of obligation for the Pentecost Sunday?

Tell about attendance especially for the Traditional Latin Mass.

Any local changes or (hopefully good) news?  I know there is a lot of BAD news.  How about some good news?

A taste of my thoughts from the other place: HERE

[…]

The Greek says in Acts 2:2 that the mighty rush filled the “house” (Greek oikos), which on the surface suggests the “upper room” where they had been for Passover.  However, in Acts 7:47 we read about how Solomon built a “house” (oikos) for God, which means the Temple.  In Greek, the usual world for “temple” is hierón or naós for inner sanctuary.  As for the time of day, it was the “third hour” or 9 AM (Acts 2:15), the time of the first of two daily tamid sacrifices of a spotless lamb in the Temple.  However, in Acts 3:1 we find Peter and John “going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour”, which was 3 PM.  This is the hour of the second of the tamid took place.  It seems that Peter and John were observing the hours of the tamid sacrifices and they were in the Temple, but not just them.  Acts 2:1 says they were “all together in one place”.  Furthermore, at the sound of the rushing of the Spirit, “the multitude came together”, which is when people from across the ancient world heard their own tongues being spoken, and “about three thousand souls” were baptized (Acts 2:41).  It would be hard to have a multitude come together and to baptize 3000 people in the upper room of the Passover.  In fact, they were probably in the Temple at the hour of the morning tamid when the Holy Spirit came, which would be the clear fulfillment of the return of God’s presence and the resolution of what was foreshadowed when God descended in fire on Mount Sinai to write the Decalogue of the Old Law on tablets of stone.  This time, the New Law was written by tongues of fire on hearts.  The 3000 souls added were indeed “first fruits” of the Spirit’s harvest festival following up the Risen Christ’s own first fruit wave bikkurim offering from the Resurrection to the Ascension.

[…]

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
5 Comments

WDTPRS – Pentecost Sunday: Holy Church’s fabric, the warp and the weft

Posted on 8 June 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The Fiftieth Day Feast, Hebrew Shavuot or Greek Pentekosté, for the Jews commemorated the descent of God’s Law to Moses on Mount Sinai, wreathed in fire, fifty days after the Exodus.  But Jewish feasts also looked forward even as they looked back to an historic event.  At Shavuot they looked forward to the return of the fiery glory cloud of God’s presence in the Temple.

Fifty days after Our Lord’s Resurrection, the tenth (the number of perfection) from His Ascension, the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles and first disciples to breathe grace-filled life into Christ’s Body, the Church.

The Spirit descended as “tongues of fire”, on the very day they memorialized the descent of God like fire on Mount Sinai.

The Jews at that time would also have thought of the vision of the temple in the Book of Enoch, made of tongues of fire.

Hence, this Pentecost event would have really got the the attention of the multitudes, perhaps a million people, thronging Jerusalem for the feast.  Jewish Pentecost, Shevuot, was one of the three great pilgrimage festivals when men were obliged to go up the Jerusalem to offer their sacrifices.

This magnificent Sunday in the Roman Rite’s Vetus Ordo retains its Octave along with the special Communicantes and Hanc igitur.

In the Ordinary Form a lot was chopped out.  However, the Collect is rooted in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary.

Deus, qui sacramento festivitatis hodiernae universam Ecclesiam tuam in omni gente et natione sanctificas, in totam mundi latitudinem Spiritus Sancti dona defunde, et, quod inter ipsa evangelicae praedicationis exordia operata est divina dignatio, nunc quoque per credentium corda perfunde.

I like that defunde and perfunde.  Spiffy.

Cor is “heart” and corda “hearts”.  Sacramentum translates Greek mysterion.  Sacramentum and Latin mysterium are often interchangeable in liturgical texts.  Defundo means “to pour down, pour out”. Perfundo, is “to pour over, moisten, bedew”, and “to imbue, inspire” as well as “to dye”.

Exordium means “the beginning, the warp of a web”. Exordium invokes cloth weaving and selvage, the cloth’s edge, tightly woven so that the web will not fray, fall apart.

Exordium, also a technical term in ancient rhetoric, is the beginning of a prepared speech whereby the orator lays out what he is going to do and induces the listeners to attend.

From Pentecost onward Christ the Incarnate Word, although remote by His Ascension, is the present and perfect Orator delivering His saving message to the world through Holy Church. “He that heareth you, heareth me”, Christ told His Apostles with the Seventy (Luke 10:16).

Much hangs on exordia.

LITERAL VERSION:

O God, who by the sacramental mystery of today’s feast do sanctify Your universal Church in every people and nation, pour down upon the whole breadth of the earth the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and make that which divine favor wrought amidst the very beginnings of the preaching of the Good News to flow now also through believers’ hearts.

OBSOLETE ICEL (1973):

God our Father, let the Spirit you sent on your Church to begin the teaching of the gospel continue to work in the world through the hearts of all who believe.

Really?   REALLY?  Year in and year out the perpetrators and defenders of this dreck made the English-speaking Church stupider and weaker.

Moving on…

CURRENT ICEL (2011):

O God, who by the mystery of today’s great feast sanctify your whole Church in every people and nation, pour out, we pray, the gifts of the Holy Spirit across the face of the earth and, with the divine grace that was at work when the Gospel was first proclaimed, fill now once more the hearts of believers.

Unity and continuity are keys to this Collect.

The Holy Spirit pours spiritual life into the Body of Christ.

The Holy Spirit wove the early Church together through the preaching of the Apostles and their successors and, in the Church today, extends their preaching to our own time.

The Holy Spirit guarantees our unity and continuity across every border and century.

The Holy Spirit imbues and infuses, tints and dyes the fabric of the Church as He flows through it.

When the Holy Spirit’ fire poured over the Apostles, they poured out preaching in public speeches to people from every nation.  I think they were not in the “upper room” but in the Temple, as the Law required Jewish men.  In Greek, oikos can mean “temple” or “house of God”, not just “house”.  More on that in my piece at 1 Peter 5.  HERE

That makes greater sense of the immediate reaction they received.

The Holy Spirit, in the preaching of the Apostles, began on Pentecost’s exordium to weave together the Church’s selvage, that strong stable edge of the fabric, through the centuries and down to our own day.

Also, for Shavuot, Pentecost, the Jews at harvest were commanded by God to leave the edges of the fields unharvested for the sake of the poor.

The bonds of man and God symbolically unraveled in the Tower of Babel event, when languages were divided (Gen 11:5-8).

Ever since the Pentecost exordium’s “reweaving”, though here and there and now and then there may be rips and tatters, Holy Church’s warp and weft hold true.

Let our hearts and prayers be raised for unity. Sursum corda!

In the Collect we pray that our corda may be imbued with the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Sacrum septenarium!

Let them be closely woven into, knit into Holy Church and even over-sewn with her patterns, not ours.

Let our hearts be bounded about by her saving selvage, dyed in the Spirit’s boundless love.

Let us also pray for the unwitting agents of the Enemy of the soul, hanging onto Holy Church’s edge but in such a way that they tear at and fray the Church’s fabric.

Pardon my homographs, but though they be on the fringe, they endanger necessary threads, precious souls of our brothers and sisters who through their work of unraveling can be lost in the fray.

When we mesh with the Holy Church and remain true in the Faith and charity, our holy selvage and our salvation will not be undone.

 

Posted in EASTER, SESSIUNCULA, WDTPRS |
1 Comment

OLDIE PODCAzT 87: Veni Sancte Spiritus – The Pentecost Sequence dissected

Posted on 7 June 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Hard to imagine… 16 years ago.

Originally posted 3 June 2009

I started this one thinking that I could make a fast audio project and then move on.  Ha!

In this PODCAzT I dissect the Pentecost Sequence, Veni Sancte Spiritus, also used during the Octave of Pentecost in the traditional Roman calendar.

I give you some background on what a sequence is, what an octave is and then we start drilling.

First we hear the Latin text and a good translation.   Then see start looking at the structure of the prayer.

That is when things get interesting.  I found a few things I had never noticed.

This is a profound glimpse at mystery, folks.

This is the Roman Rite at her finest.

Posted in Linking Back, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, PODCAzT, SESSIUNCULA | Tagged , , ,
Comments Off on OLDIE PODCAzT 87: Veni Sancte Spiritus – The Pentecost Sequence dissected

“Under the command of General Eisenhower…”

Posted on 6 June 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Posted in SESSIUNCULA | Tagged
4 Comments

Daily Rome Shot 1371

Posted on 6 June 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I think the “scam” post I made the other day is important.

Today I received TWO scam attempts by email, both using a fake “invoice” for something which I have in the past used, one in Italian (Vodafone) and one in English (Norton).

BE CAREFUL!  BE ALERT!  BE SUSPICIOUS!  BE PATIENT!  BE CALM!

Another Knights of Malta view.

Please remember me when shopping online and use my affiliate links.  US HERE – WHY?  This helps to pay for health insurance, utilities, groceries, etc..  At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.

There’s this…

And you thought they’ve couldn’t have hurt us more?

And…

And the ULTIMATE priest gift! I have one of these portable altars. It is amazing. Thanks to St. Joseph’s Apprentice!

In chessy news…

Magnus Carlsen, who had a couple of really bad losses along the way, won his seventh Norway Chess title.  In the final round after he had a lost position again Arjun Erigaisi, survived and almost won. With bare seconds to go, he took a draw.  Meanwhile, Fabiano Caruana was beating Gukesh. Caruana blundered in a drawing continuation but Gukesh blundered last and lost the chance for the title.

The one who blunders last is the one who loses.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
4 Comments

Daily Rome Shot 1370 – A plea from a traditional group

Posted on 5 June 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Let’s continue with a few more pics from the digs of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta on the Aventine Hill.

I received this from a reader who also requested a Mass intention for the same.  This seems a worthy cause:

Hi Fr Z,
Huge fan of your blog and work.
I’m an advisor with a faithful Catholic high school in Richmond, Va
that is struggling to stay open. We are desperately fundraising around
50k to keep our doors open and plan for the future.
We are all Latin Mass families seeking to provide a Catholic liberal
arts education and grow in the Richmond area.
We would be eternally indebted to you if you can pray and offer a Mass
for our cause and/or share this link with your readers:
https://www.cardinalnewmanacademy.org/donate

In the hands of Our Lady Help of Christians

Many hands make lighter work.  I understand that “Most of our families and teachers are Latin Mass devotees.”    Most, not all.  Which means that there is a broad spectrum here but solidly on the sane side.  AND… at their website (which I checked) I saw a photo of one of the board members playing chess.  It must be a good place!   They have 4 levels of Latin and an elective in Ancient Greek.

Welcome Registrant:

Tx Trad

And there’s this… FINALLY…

Yup…

In chessy news…  Norway Chess is back on again today.

Meanwhile, there is a tough puzzle from chess.com.  I had to work on this one for a few minutes. 1. Qc8+ Bxc8 2. Nc7+ Kb8 3. Nc6+ Kb7 4. a6+ Kxc6 5. b5#

White to move.  Force mate!

NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
Interested in learning?  Try THIS.

Please remember me when shopping online and use my affiliate links.  US HERE – WHY?  This helps to pay for health insurance, utilities, groceries, etc..  At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
5 Comments

“a cringeworthy romp in the very worst that the 70’s and 80’s could offer”

Posted on 5 June 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

As the pogrom against those who desire the traditional sacred worship of the Roman Rite continues – to build great unity, of course! – I invite the readership to take in some of the liturgical wisdom of Fr. John Thomas Lane, S.S.S., who is the provincial superior of the Province of Saint Ann of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament (U.S.A.) and pastor of his home parish in Highland Heights, Ohio, St. Paschal Baylon (D. Cleveland). He previously served as director for the Office of Worship for the Diocese of Salt Lake City.

Fr. Lane has a piece  at Jesuit-run Amerika. HERE  It’s a cringeworthy romp in the very worst that the 70’s and 80’s could offer.

He even quotes Card. Mahony from 1997: “Gather Faithfully Together” which set off Mother Angelica (she won).

Given what he wrote, and given that he is pastor of a parish, I figured that he might be showcasing via videos what happens liturgically in the parish Masses.  They are every bit as painful as one might imagine.  Brace yourselves.  And remember that the TLM is restricted while this continues.  (The TLM is available to the faithful in the D. of Cleveland in more than one location.)

Beginning

Homily

Consecration

A friend of mine, once one of moderators of the legendary Catholic Online Forum of Compuserve (which ages us), wrote a good summary of Fr. Lane’s piece at Amerika.

Please excuse my tone if I rant a bit but I genuinely wondered if this article was satire. Sadly, it was not. Instead, it is a near-perfect example of the post-Vatican II liturgical project at its worst: horizontal, human-centered, emotionally therapeutic, and spiritually hollow. In other words, Protestant.

If there is to be a Eucharistic revival, it must begin not with more chalices, offertory processions, and bouncier songs, but with a recovery of the truth: that the Eucharist is Jesus Christ – Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. According to the 2019 Pew Research study, nearly 70% of self-identified Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence. That is the problem. That should be the primary focus of any eucharistic renewal.

The article suggests that Communion under both species is essential for a “fuller” experience. This idea directly contradicts Church teaching. The Council of Trent defined long ago that Christ is fully present under either species. This isn’t about “getting more of Jesus.” It’s about understanding that one drop of the Precious Blood or one crumb of the Sacred Host contains the fullness of God. To suggest otherwise is to reveal a lack of catechesis, not of authenticity.

And then there’s the music. We’re told to sing “easy” songs during Communion to encourage participation. But Holy Communion is not a group singalong. It is the most intimate moment on earth, where we are physically united to our Savior. Sacred silence or music that elevates the soul without requiring group participation is appropriate. Anyone who has experienced Holy Communion while listening to a choir sing William Byrd’s Ave Verum Corpus knows what I am talking about.

Worst of all is the suggestion that hosts from the tabernacle should not be used during Mass. This implies that yesterday’s consecration is somehow “less real.” The tabernacle does not contain leftovers. It houses the King of Kings. Drawing from it reverently, especially when needed, is not a sign of liturgical laziness. It’s a sign of belief. There is an undertone of symbolism like this in the entire article. Symbolism is more aligned with Protestant belief than Catholic.

If the goal is to revive the faith, then revive reverence. Preach truth. Teach the Real Presence. Mass is not about us, it’s about God. The focus is not on us, it is on Jesus Christ. Until we remember this, we’re not experiencing revival—we’re just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

 

Posted in Jesuits, Liberals, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Save The Liturgy - Save The World, SESSIUNCULA, You must be joking! | Tagged
14 Comments