Fr. Z's Blog | Catholic commentary by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

October, The Rosary, St. Joseph and YOU – ACTION ITEM!

Posted on 30 September 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Tomorrow, 1 October, begins a month which traditionally calls for daily recitation of the Most Holy Rosary.

Dear readers… please consider, if you don’t already, daily recitation of the Rosary during October. How wonderful it would be if you took this up in your family homes, your little domestic churches. The home, as a church, should be filled with prayer.

Has there ever been a time when this mighty prayer of intercession and consolation was needed more?

In many places it is customary to recite the Litany of Loreto as a kind of conclusion to the Rosary.

Back in 1889 Pope Leo XIII asked that a prayer to St. Joseph be added after the Rosary during the month of October. He did this in his encyclical Quam pluries. Recitation of the prayer “Ad te, beate Ioseph” can now obtain, under the usual conditions, a partial indulgence.

LATIN	ENGLISH
Ad te beate Ioseph, in tribulatione nostra confugimus, atque, implorato Sponsae tuae sanctissimae auxilio, patrocinium quoque tuum fidenter exposcimus. Per eam, quaesumus quae te cum immaculata Virgine Dei Genetrice coniunxit, caritatem, perque paternum, quo Puerum Iesum amplexus es, amorem, supplices deprecamur, ut ad hereditatem, quam Iesus Christus acquisivit Sanguine suo, benignus respicias, ac necessitatibus nostris tua virtute et ope succurras.	To thee, O blessed Joseph, do we come in our tribulation, and having implored the help of thy most holy Spouse, we confidently invoke thy patronage also. Through that charity which bound thee to the immaculate Virgin Mother of God and through the paternal love with which thou embraced the Child Jesus, we humbly beg thee to graciously regard the inheritance which Jesus Christ has purchased by his Blood, and with thy power and strength to aid us in our necessities.
Tuere, o Custos providentissime divinae Familiae, Iesu Christi subolem electam; prohibe a nobis, amantissime Pater, omnem errorum ac corruptelarum luem; propitius nobis, sospitator noster fortissime, in hoc cum potestate tenebrarum certamine e caelo adesto; et sicut olim Puerum Iesum e summo eripuisti vitae discrimine, ita nunc Ecclesiam sanctam Dei ab hostilibus insidiis atque ab omni adversitate defende: nosque singulos perpetuo tege patrocinio, ut ad tui exemplar et ope tua suffulti, sancte vivere, pie emori, sempiternamque in caelis beatitudinem assequi possimus. Amen.	O most watchful Guardian of the Holy Family, defend the chosen children of Jesus Christ; O most loving father, ward off from us every contagion of error and corrupting influence; O our most mighty protector, be propitious to us and from heaven assist us in our struggle with the power of darkness; and, as once thou rescued the Child Jesus from deadly peril, so now protect God’s Holy Church from the snares of the enemy and from all adversity; shield, too, each one of us by thy constant protection, so that, supported by thy example and thy aid, we may be able to live piously, to die holy, and to obtain eternal happiness in heaven. Amen.

Need a beautiful rosary?

>>HERE<<

UPDATE 1 October:

Francis has asked people to pray the Rosary daily during October and also to pray the ancient Sub tuum praesidium and the Prayer to St Michael the Archangel. The press release is HERE.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, ACTION ITEM!, Our Solitary Boast, PRAYER REQUEST, Si vis pacem para bellum! | Tagged Holy Rosary, Leo XIII, October, St. Joseph
22 Comments

Your Sunday Sermon Notes

Posted on 30 September 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Was there a good point made in the sermon you heard during your Mass to fulfill your Sunday Obligation?

Let us know.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
15 Comments

WDTPRS – 26th Ordinary Sunday: “man cannot live without love”

Posted on 29 September 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Our Collect for the 26th Ordinary Sunday, slightly different from its ancestor in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary, is also in the 1962 Missale Romanum for the 10th Sunday after Pentecost.

Deus, qui omnipotentiam tuam parcendo maxime et miserando manifestas, gratiam tuam super nos indesinenter infunde, ut, ad tua promissa currentes, caelestium bonorum facias esse consortes.

A consors is someone with whom you share a common destiny (cum, “with” + sors “lot, fate, destiny”). Parco means, “to spare, have mercy, forbear to injure; forgive.” We see this verb often in our prayers. Think of the responses during the litanies: “Parce nobis, Domine… Spare us, O Lord!”

LITERAL VERSION:

O God, who manifest Your omnipotence especially by sparing and by being merciful, pour Your grace upon us unceasingly, so that You may make us, rushing to the things You have promised, to be coheirs of heavenly benefits.

OBSOLETE ICEL (1973):

Father, you show your almighty power, in your mercy and forgiveness. Continue to fill us with your gifts of love. Help us to hurry toward the eternal life you promise and come to share in the joys of your kingdom.

CURRENT ICEL (2011):

O God, who manifest your almighty power above all by pardoning and showing mercy, bestow, we pray, your grace abundantly upon us and make those hastening to attain your promises heirs to the treasures of heaven.

We can slip into the trap of associating justice only with the exercise of power.

Today we affirm the other side of power’s coin: mercy.

Nevertheless, the affirmation of God’s mercy does not diminish God’s justice.

One of the ways God reveals Himself as “almighty” is by being forgiving and sparing.

God knows all things which ever were, are or will be, as well as how each human action impacts every other throughout history.

For God, balancing mercy and justice is no problem at all.

For us, however, this balancing act is exceedingly difficult. Our will and our limited intellect are wounded. We struggle with passions. It is hard to see what is good and right and true and then rein in our emotions. We oscillate between being just and then being merciful. Bringing the two streams of mercy and justice together in just the right way is a tremendous challenge. When we encounter a person who does this well, we are deeply impressed by him and hold him up as an example of wisdom because he seems to act more clearly as an image of God. His example moves us because we know that we too must conform to God’s image.

One way in which we act the most according to God’s image, behaving as Christ’s good consortes, is precisely when we act with compassion.

In biblical language, such as the Hebrew racham, compassion is often interchangeable with mercy. The Latin word compassio comes from Latin cum+patior, “to suffer/endure with” someone. We are moved when we witness suffering and attendant compassion because they reveal in a mysterious way who we are as human beings and how we ought to act.

In a famous passage from the Council’s Gaudium et spes, we are taught that Christ came into the world to reveal man more fully to himself (GS 22). Christ did this in His every word and deed during His earthly life. His supreme moment of revelation to us about who we are was His Passion and death on the Cross and subsequent rising from the tomb. When we imitate His Passion, in sacrificial love and in the genuine “with suffering” which is compassion, we act as we were made by God to act. In sincere and concrete acts of compassion we, in our own turn, reveal man more fully to himself! We in turn show God’s image to our neighbor. Only the stony, cold and dead are not to be moved by examples of genuine compassion rooted in the sacrificial love which is charity.

Pope John Paul II wrote in his first encyclical, Redemptor hominis 9, that “man cannot live without love”. By this he meant both the love we give and the love we receive.

Unmerited acts of charity, mercy, and compassion make visible to our neighbor the God after whose likeness we ourselves are fashioned.

In sincere and concrete acts of compassion, in our biblical “bowels of mercy” (Colossians 3:12), we in our turn reveal man more fully to himself.

Individuals can by their example effect great changes in a society.

If one person can do much, how much more could be done by armies of men and women thirsting for holiness and righteousness (i.e., a Church), striving to act in compassion, justice and mercy?

By His justice, God will give us what we deserve.

By His mercy, He will not give us certain elements of what we deserve.

By His pouring forth graces upon us, God gives us what we do not deserve.

God’s justice must be received with joyful trepidation, whether we want it or not.

God’s mercy we must beg for with humble confidence.

God’s grace, unmerited by us, we embrace with exultant gratitude.

Posted in Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, WDTPRS |
3 Comments

My View For Awhile: Humidity Edition – UPDATED

Posted on 29 September 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

UPDATE 29 Sept:

I billed this as the humidity edition and I wasn’t kidding. It has been hot and humid summer in Mad City, but “humid” is equivocal.

The sojourn in Florida was good, insofar as I had the chance to visit my mother for a few days. She’s doing quite well. It was, as I mentioned elsewhere, interesting to watch with her the Kavanaugh hearing the other day, given that she spent many years as a police detective investigating exactly the sort of thing that the woman alleged happened. I don’t think I mentioned what she thought about her testimony before the Senate’s Judiciary Committee, but… she didn’t buy it. She pointed out some real problems with her presentation, particularly in her demeanor, her claims that there were certain things she didn’t understand, etc. Afterwards, she was on the phone with her woman friend of many years who was also a career cop: she had the same sense. Both of them reacted the same way on similar points of her time before the committee. So, that was pretty interesting.

Otherwise, there was a fair amount of coping with the heat and humidity, as was expected.

Now, back north, where the leaves are changing.

My View For Awhile: Humidity Edition - UPDATED

UPDATE

People are chatty today. Texts are pouring in. When I got onto the ground my phone spooned like a pinball machine. People even turned and looked.

Meanwhile:

Originally Published on: Sep 24, 2018

Leaving a place of high humidity (at least right now a oh dark hundred) for a place of even higher humidity.

I’ve been exchanging texts this morning with friends about the betrayal of our Chinese brethren.

And I forgot my Kindle! It will be well-charged when I get home. So I’ll be reading off a smaller than usual screen for a few.

UPDATE

I got a post written in the lounge. I still have an article to write for the paper.

When they say “comfort”, they are not using the word in the same sense that normal people understand by the word.

In self- defense I have my earbuds in and a tune near max.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
8 Comments

Europe’s Oldest Intact Book Was Found in a St. Cuthbert’s Coffin

Posted on 29 September 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Here is a super cool story from JSTOR (which I’m sure you all follow):

Why Europe’s Oldest Intact Book Was Found in a Saint’s Coffin
The St. Cuthbert Gospel is the earliest surviving intact European book. Some time around 698, it was slipped into the coffin of a saint.

Saint Cuthbert’s fame grew following his death in 687. The hermit monk’s body, so the story goes, was found to be incorrupt over a decade after his passing in Northumbria (today’s border between England and Scotland). The miracle led to a cult around his remains. Offerings were placed at his tomb. Some time around 698, a small red book was slipped into his coffin.

This manuscript — known as the St. Cuthbert Gospel, or Stonyhurst Gospel (for Stonyhurst College where it was once held) — is the earliest surviving intact European book. It was removed from Cuthbert’s coffin in 1104, during a transfer of the saint’s remains to a new shrine in Durham Cathedral. “In an eyewitness account of the events surrounding the ceremony of Translation, which took place on Monday, August 29, 1104, [an] anonymous writer describes an investigatory opening of the coffin on the night of Thursday, August 25,” writes historian Calvin B. Kendall in The Journal of English and Germanic Philology. “After examining Cuthbert’s body for evidence of incorruption, the monks reclothed it with costly garments and restored it to the coffin, and ‘As soon as the body of the blessed Father was shut up in the coffin, they covered the coffin itself with linen cloth of a coarse texture, dipped in wax.’”

The book, however, was kept as a separate relic. Today the 1,300-year-old manuscript retains its original pages and binding. It was acquired by the British Library in 2012, and will be on view in the London institution’s Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War, opening October 19th. [That settles it. I have to go to London. And there are two exhibits at the National Gallery that I want to see.]

“Its excellent state of preservation can be traced at the outset to the significance it held — a carefully prepared gospel text, which was transferred with the relics of St. Cuthbert to Durham in 1104,” writes scholar Robert D. Stevick in Artibus et Historiae. Because of this remarkable condition, it’s an important example of Insular art, which was created on the British Isles and Ireland between 600 and 900 CE. “There is interlace pattern in two panels on the front cover, step-pattern implying two crosses on the lower cover, a prominent double vine scroll at the center of the front cover—elements of this early art that have been well catalogued for their individual features as well as for their affinities to similar decorative elements in other artifacts,” notes Stevick.

Posted in Just Too Cool, Saints: Stories & Symbols | Tagged books, St. Cuthbert
10 Comments

Court case, Seal of Confession, and requiring priests to break the Seal

Posted on 28 September 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From Lexology:

A note about the Seal of Confession and requiring priests to break the Seal:

State Could Not Require Priest to Breach Confessional Without Satisfying RFRA

In Ronchi v. State, No. 5D18-194, 2018 WL 2988975 (Fla. 5th DCA June 15, 2018), the court of appeal held that a circuit court order granting a Catholic priest’s motion for protective order, in part, and denying the motion in part, after the priest was served with a witness subpoena requiring him to testify in a criminal case regarding certain communications that took place during confession contravened the Florida Religious Freedom Restoration Act (FRFRA). The trial court found that the communications between the priest and alleged victim of sexual abuse occurred within confession. It focused almost exclusively on the Florida Evidence Code in determining that the communications were privileged under section 90.505, the privilege could be asserted by both the priest and the victim, and the priest had partially waived the privilege during his conversation with the victim’s mother and her friend. As to whether the priest disclosed the abuse, the mother testified, “[N]ot directly, but it could be understood from the conversation.” The court of appeal ruled that FRFRA should control the case, rather than section 90.505, meaning that the state must establish that coercing the priest’s testimony furthers a compelling governmental interest and is the least restrictive means to further that interest. The court ruled that it is undisputed that the state has a compelling governmental interest in prosecuting sex offenses perpetrated against children, but disagreed that the state met the second test because: (1) the priest’s testimony would, at most, be corroborative evidence; (2) the case does not involve a child victim who, because of his or her age, might be unable to adequately testify about the alleged sexual abuse; and (3) the state could seek to have the alleged victim testify about her purported prior disclosure of sexual abuse to the priest. The court quashed the trial court order. Concurring, Judge Richard Orfinger argued that the trial court also misinterpreted section 90.505 because while the clergy can assert the privilege, only the penitent can waive it.

There are a few troubling elements in this, as well as positive. Positive: the privilege of the Seal is upheld.

However, the priest put himself and the Seal in danger by intimating to others what could have involved the content of a confession.

Also, even if a penitent says it’s okay to talk, you should keep your mouths shut.

Fathers… keep your mouths shut.

Keep your mouths shut.

Posted in GO TO CONFESSION, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Priests and Priesthood, The Coming Storm | Tagged Seal of confession
13 Comments

ASK FATHER: Sacraments and time travel

Posted on 28 September 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader…

QUAERITUR:

I remember your posts about Space travel and Catholicism, but I’ve been wondering: what about time travel and our obligations? Specifically, what if someone were to be transported to a time before Christ and outside of Judaic influence? If the time-traveller were a priest, would he be able to administer the sacraments and say Mass? Would he have an obligation to preach the risen Christ, or act more like a prophet?

Finally, something important to write about!

Sure the priest time traveller has received the indelible mark of priesthood. An ontological change has taken place. He is a priest forever. This forever suggests that, when he goes back in time, he is still just as much a priest of the new covenant as he was in his own time period.

Moreover, Christ the High Priest is the Alpha and Omega, He is eternal God. For Him, yesterday, today and tomorrow are hardly to be distinguished as a Divine Person. He was always High Priest and always will be. He is High Priest even in the time to which Father travelled.

Preaching: I think that Father should be careful while in the past, that he not initiate one of those pesky chronoconundra that we find so tedious to clean up. Sheesh! Can’t people be more careful when they are in the past?!? It’s just not fair to run about, la la la, creating temporal paradoxes.

And just who was Melchizedek anyway?

I’d better stop before I get worked up.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, ASK FATHER Question Box |
29 Comments

Watching the #KavanaughHearings

Posted on 28 September 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Yesterday I watched the Kavanaugh Senate hearing. There were some important moments, including the fact that Kavanaugh arrived wearing his game face and Sen. Graham gave the Dems a piece of his mind. Turning points, both.

Amusing moments: Sen. Whitehouse walking into the “year book” sawblade. Sen. Blumenthal, having fibbed about Vietnam, having the temerity to invoke (poorly): “Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus“. Sen. DiFi’s bluster at the end about who leaked Ford’s letter.

What was particularly interesting was watching the testimony of Prof. Ford, as well as Kavanaugh’s, in the company of someone who would by all accounts considered an expert on sexual assault and related crimes and how they are investigated.

I am visiting my mother in Florida. She was the 1st woman on the Minneapolis Police Department. For 12 years of her time on the job, as a detective, she investigated “sex crimes”, which included rape and all the other disgusting things that happen. She had some pointed insights during the proceedings, particularly about Prof. Ford’s time in the hearing and about how she was questioned.

In any event, a major step will be taken today. We are moving to toward the end of this painful process. I think Judge Kavanaugh will wind up as a SCOTUS Justice, but I will wait to believe it firmly when they have the group photo in the robes. Even then, I suspect some ideological hacks will try to have him impeached.

I am genuinely worried about the state of political and cultural division in this country right now. But, as Kavanaugh mentioned, we are reeping what has been sown over years and years.

Sadly, because of the long-term effects of dreadful declining quality and standards in education, the general public is more and more ignorant and distracted and incapable of grasping the basics of the issues today and the processes by which with work through them. Hence, I am not strongly optimistic that we can turn this boat around any time soon.

Posted in The Coming Storm, The Drill, The future and our choices | Tagged SCOTUS
43 Comments

ASK FATHER: Am I excommunicated for desecrating the Eucharist?

Posted on 27 September 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader…

QUAERITUR:

I have something in mind that has been troubling me. In my past, there has been an incidence where I dropped a host while receiving communion (I used to receive by hand, I no longer do), I may have dropped a crumb or crumbs (I went to a Jesuit college where they used a crumbly bread for the host. The incident was a long time ago and I don’t remember exactly what happened. I vaguely remember seeing the crumb, lowering my hand and then raising it back up once it dawned on me. I don’t remember if I got it or not.), and I vaguely remember once or twice accidentally letting a piece of “chewed” host come out of my mouth (I vaguely remember thinking I had something in my teeth and went to remove it. I don’t think I had malice in my heart to defame the Eucharist, but again, a long time ago and I don’t remember exactly). Did I incur latae sententiae? Help, I feel confused and concerned. I did talk to my priest (a good and holy priest) and he said that my circumstances seemed to not fit canon 1367 CIC. He said he would offer me absolution. Am I being paranoid or is there something I should worry about here.

First, be at ease. From what you described, you DID NOT incur a censure. In order to incur a censure you have to have committed a mortal sin and, from what it seems, you didn’t. I can’t see how you knowingly and willingly violated can. 1367 so as to incur a censure.

I think you might be able to find a little fault in, at the time, a bit of carelessness in consumption of the Host. Then again, we are human beings and a, say, cough can come suddenly, or a transient pain, etc. Things happen even when we are being really careful. But if they are unintentional you didn’t commit a sin and if you didn’t commit a sin, you didn’t incur an automatic censure.

Your story, however, is a great example of why we should, why we must …

eliminate Communion in the hand.
eliminate “substantial’ bread or hosts that are not well made.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, ASK FATHER Question Box, Canon Law, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000 | Tagged can. 1367
5 Comments

#ViganoTestimony – THE SEQUEL

Posted on 27 September 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

At LifeSite we see that Archbp. Viganò has released another statement.

ROME, September 27, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) — Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has today issued a new extraordinary testimony, responding to Pope Francis’ refusal to answer the charge that he knew of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s sexual abuse, yet made McCarrick “one of his principal agents in governing the Church.”

In the four-page document, the former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States also responds to the Pope’s recent homilies which seem to cast himself in the role of Christ and Viganò as the diabolical “Great Accuser.”

“Has Christ perhaps become invisible to his vicar? Perhaps is he being tempted to try to act as a substitute of our only Master and Lord?” Archbishop Viganò asks in the new statement, sent to LifeSiteNews today.

[…]

The PDF is HERE.

Here is a taste from Archbp. Viganò:

[…]

If [the Pope] had said: “Viganò lied,” he would have challenged my credibility while trying to affirm his own. In so doing he would have intensified the demand of the people of God and the world for the documentation needed to determine who has told the truth. Instead, he put in place a subtle slander against me — slander being an offense he has often compared to the gravity of murder. Indeed, he did it repeatedly, in the context of the [short daily St. Martha sermons during] celebration of the most Holy Sacrament, the Eucharist, where he runs no risk of being challenged by journalists. When he did speak to journalists, he asked them to exercise their professional maturity and draw their own conclusions. But how can journalists discover and know the truth if those directly involved with a matter refuse to answer any questions or to release any documents? The pope’s unwillingness to respond to my charges and his deafness to the appeals by the faithful for accountability are hardly consistent with his calls for transparency and bridge building.

Moreover, the pope’s cover-up of McCarrick was clearly not an isolated mistake. Many more instances have recently been documented in the press, showing that Pope Francis has defended homosexual clergy who committed serious sexual abuses against minors or adults. These include his role in the case of Fr. Julio Grassi in Buenos Aires, his reinstatement of Fr. Mauro Inzoli after Pope Benedict had removed him from ministry (until he went to prison, at which point Pope Francis laicized him), and his halting of the investigation of sex abuse allegations against Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor.

[…]

The plot very much thickens as the heat is applied.