I warmly recommend that you – especially clergy – read everything you can get your hands on by His Eminence Robert Card. Sarah.
I’m delighted to announce that Card. Sarah’s new book, Le Force du Silence, hitherto only in French, is now available to PRE-ORDER in ENGLISH. It will be released on 15 April (Holy Saturday). A great Eastertide reading gift to yourselves or friends.
The original French, if you prefer…
And if you haven’t read it yet…
The other day at Crux there was a piece by Fr. Paul Keller about a theoretical (Deo gratias) case study in which the writer – basing himself on the objectively unclear notions of Amoris laetitia Chapter 8 – figures out how to give Holy Communion to a woman living in a publicly known permanent state of adultery. The piece is characterized more by probably well-intentioned sentimentality than reason and knowledge of the Church’s law and perennial teaching.
Keller’s piece once again raised in my mind the question of why the Knights of Columbus are bank rolling Crux.
Enter Ed Peters at his splendid blog In The Light Of The Law. Peters pull Keller’s offering to pieces and exposes the errors.
Read the Crux piece first, keeping in mind that this is what we are going to hear a lot more of in the future. Then read Peters’ piece, keeping in mind that this is what we ought to be hearing a lot more of in the future.
Here is a key bit:
Amoris assumes, without ever quite stating it, that individual consciences (which, yes, can be very complex, and often deal with hard cases, and are never fully knowable to another, and might be only partly informed, and so on, and so on), are the final arbiter of whether a would-be communicant must be given the sacrament, as if only Canon 916 (which most people would recognize as being the canon that looks at conscience) were on the books, and by which canon one could, in some hypothetical case, see an objectively grave sinner approaching for holy Communion without that act itself being sinful, while Canon 915, meanwhile, which requires minsters to make a distribution decision in accord with objective criteria, simply does not exist.
The pervasive and steadfast refusal of nearly all “Amoris supporters” (I dislike the term but it saves time) to face squarely the ancient tradition behind and unambiguous rule of Canon 915 is what dooms virtually all defenses of Amoris so far to irrelevance at best and to pastoral and even doctrinal disasters at worst.
However, there is something buried in Peters’ presentation which all confessors (i.e., priests with the faculties to receive sacramental confessions) should understand.
One of the worst sins/crimes a priest can commit is that of solicitation in the context of confession of sins against the Sixth Commandment. Can. 1387. says: “A priest who in the act, on the occasion, or under the pretext of confession solicits a penitent to sin against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue is to be punished, according to the gravity of the delict, by suspension, prohibitions, and privations; in graver cases he is to be dismissed from the clerical state.” Pretty serious, right?
I strongly suspect that most confessors who read that canon, when they were taught about that canon way back when, assume that it means solicitation for themselves. However, the canon is not limited to themselves. It means solicitation – period. That means that if the confessor recommends, condones, approves, etc., sins by the penitent against the Sixth Commandment with anyone (including with the civil spouse with whom the penitent lives in adultery), then that confessor is guilty of the delict described in can. 1387!
Fathers, did you get that? More HERE.
This almost needs a caption call.
From The Onion:
Pope Francis Wearing Sweater Vestments He Got For Christmas
Moderation queue is ON, of course.
From a seminarian:
Thank you kindly for the biretta program you set up. Because of this program, another seminarian and I (both attending the same seminary) received our birettas. Please pass on my thanks to our beloved benefactors and our dear supplier.
I also ask for a prayer request. The reception of this biretta comes at a time in formation and life when I dearly needed a reminder that there are indeed good, decent people in the world who want and need seminarians and priests willing to be authentically Catholic. Living authentically Catholic is incredibly hard today. (It seems even harder in seminary.) I ask you, please pray for my brother seminarians and myself to persevere through the difficulties of formation directors and even our own personal stubbornness and to be open to the workings of God in our lives.
I see the work you do, and the work of many holy and faithful priests and I am inspired and filled with hope for what tomorrow holds. So, once again, thank you for your ministry. Thank you for your love of all things Catholic. Thank you also for the constant reminders to go to confession.
For you newcomers, what’s this all about?
UPDATE:
Newly appended to the end of Pentin’s article on Card. Müller…
Update 12 January 2016:
A spokesman for Cardinal Müller told the Register that he was “speaking out of his authority as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and was not advised by anyone to do so.” He also said that a “recent interview with Carlos Granados published in Spanish entitled “Informe sobre la esperanza” (Madrid 2016) is forthcoming in English and entitled “The Cardinal Müller Report” (Ignatius…2017). In this book the third chapter is entitled “What can we hope for from the family?” This will be an excellent point of reference regarding the Cardinal’s comments on the Sacrament of Marriage.”
—- Originally published 8 January —
In an interesting development, His Eminence Ludwig Card. Müller was interviewed on Italian TV. There is an account of the interview at La Stampa. He spoke about the issue of the Five Dubia respectfully submitted by the Four Cardinals.
Inter alia (my translation):
“Everyone, above all Cardinals, has the right to write a letter to the Pope. However, I am amazed that this became public, essentially constraining the Pope to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’. I don’t like this. Also, a possible fraternal correction of the Pope seems to me to be very remote, it’s not possible in this moment because it doesn’t concern a danger for the faith as St. Thomas said.”
“We are very distant from a correction and I say that is a loss to the Church to discuss these things publicly. ‘Amoris laetitia’ is very clear in its doctrine and we can interpret the whole teaching of Jesus on matrimony, the whole teaching of the Church in 2000 years of history.” He concluded, Pope Francis, “asks to discern the situation of these people who are living in unions that are not regular, that is, not in accord with the teaching of the Church on matrimony, and asks to help these persons to find a path for a new integration in the Church according to the conditions of the sacraments, of the Christian message on matrimony. But I don’t see any conflict (contrapposizione): on the one hand we have the clear teaching on matrimony, and on the other hand the obligation of the Church to concern itself with these people in difficulties.”
The video of the interview is HERE.
Was there a good point during the sermon you heard at your Mass of Sunday Obligation?
Let us know what it was. Many people out there don’t have an opportunity to hear sermons that are content rich (or even coherent).
For my part, I spoke about the reality of a larger sense of “family” in which we all share. In the older, traditional calendar today is the Feast of the Holy Family. Epiphany was on 6 January, of course. Be mindful of how we all can build each other up and help each other through how we live. Our good works and lives of virtue raise everyone up just as our sins and vices tear everyone down. Our acts of sacred worship ripple through the cosmos, visible and invisible. But our daily actions can be “consecrated” and made more than the mere mundane through our prayerful and dutiful offering of them to God. They too have their own knock on effect in the cosmos. We are not alone. We are interconnected.
Meanwhile, here is a shot from our own real Epiphany Mass:
From a reader…
QUAERITUR:
Would it be wrong to receive the Eucharist attending the Saturday Mass of Anticipation & Sunday Mass? [Both with the same Liturgy].
Since matters of reception of the Eucharist in Communion more than once in a short period keeps coming up, I discern that few priests are instructing their flocks about how to receive the Eucharist in Holy Communion. This shouldn’t surprise us, since I suspect that some priests out there wouldn’t be able to tell you if you asked them to their faces.
Let’s review. Repetita iuvat.
No, it is not wrong to receive on Saturday and again on Sunday, even if the Mass texts are the same. You are receiving Communion on different days, Saturday and Sunday. It makes no difference that the Mass formulary was the same.
That said… Catholics in the state of grace can receive twice in one day, on the same day.
The 1983 Code of Canon Law says:
Can. 917 – Qui sanctissimam Eucharistiam iam recepit, potest eam iterum eadem die suscipere solummodo intra eucharisticam celebrationem cui participat, salvo praescripto Can. 921, § 2.
…
Someone who has already received the Most Holy Eucharist can receive it again (iterum) on the same day only within the Eucharistic celebration [i.e. Mass, not a Communion service] in which the person participates, with due regard for the prescription of can. 921 § 2.
That iterum does not mean “again and again”, but merely “again, one more time”.
Can. 921 § 2 says that if a person is in danger of death, he may receive Communion even it is not in the context of Mass. That is Viaticum.
Also, that “Eucharistic celebration” in the canon does not mean just any service involving Communion. It means Mass. That was cleared up by the Holy See in an official response to a dubium, an officially proposed question.
So, say in the morning you attend a Novus Ordo Communion service wherein you receive Communion, or you went to a Mass in either Form. Later in the day you stumble into a church where Mass about to be celebrated and decided to stay for it. At that Mass you can receive Communion again (iterum). This would be even if you were, say, visiting a Maronite Catholic Church, or a Ukrainian Catholic Church and their Divine Liturgy was about to get under way.
However, if you were at Holy Mass in the morning and then stumbled into a Communion service at a priest-less parish in the afternoon, you could NOT receive again because a Communion Service isn’t Mass. If you were at Mass in the morning and then in the afternoon when you were visiting your auntie in the hospital when the chaplain came, you could not receive even if the priest invited you to do so (which in my opinion he should not). However, if you stayed for another Mass immediately following, you would be able to receive.
Canon 917 tries to walk the line between promoting frequent reception of the Eucharist and a superstitious or excessive frequency, which – I can assure you – some people fall into.
The key here is that the second time must be during a Mass, and you may not enter the Mass at some late point merely in order to receive.
Viaticum, which is Communion in the context of Last Rites for someone in danger of death, is a separate issue. Even if a person has received twice in a day, if the person is in danger of death, he can – of course – be given Viaticum.
Real Epiphany was on 6 January. In the traditional calendar, however, we are in the Season of Epiphany. Hence, I’ll go on talking about Epiphany for a while.
At one of the blogs I now eagerly follow, A Clerk of Oxford, I read a beautiful poem from the 14th century but in modern spelling. You can read more detail about the original over there.
Note well that this Christmas poem (still appropriate for Epiphany) is a dialogue of the Christ Child and Mary. Christ starts in the first stanza and Mary follows through.
[Infant Christ] Learn to love as I love thee.
In all my limbs thou mayest see
How sore they quake for cold;
For thee I suffer all this woe,
Love me, sweet, and no mo; [no other]
To thee me take and hold.[Mary] Jesu, sweet son dear,
In poor bed thou liest now here,
And that grieveth me sore.
For thy cradle is a bier,
Ox and ass are thy fere, [companions]
Weep may I therefore!Jesu, sweet, be not wroth;
I have neither scrap nor cloth
Thee in for to fold;
I have but a piece of a lappe, [the skirt of a garment]
Therefore lay thy feet to my pap
And keep thee from the cold.Cold thee taketh, I may well see;
For love of man it must be
For thee to suffer woe;
For better it is thou suffer this
Than man should lose heaven’s bliss.
Thou must ransom him thereto.Since it must be that thou be dead
To save man from the fiend,
Thy sweet will be done.
But let me not stay here too long:
After thy death me underfonge [receive]
To live for evermore. Amen.
How about that first line, Christ speaking to Mary and, in her, to us?
In the older, traditional calendar, and in the tradition of both East and West from the earliest days, Friday 6 January was Epiphany. However, we are now in the time after Epiphany.
I want to remind the readership of a cool DVD (sent to me last a couple years back by a reader) and website wherein a good argument is made about the Star of Bethlehem.
What was the Star of Bethlehem, anyway?
Surely it is a fact. It happened. But what happened?
This is the best explanation I have seen, and it is compelling. It is offered by a Christian lawyer who examined all the available evidence from Scripture and added to it historical information from other ancient sources. He also used spiffy software to recreate the motions of the planets during a period of time around Christ’s birth as viewed from the Holy Land. This is also, therefore, an argument about the date of Christ’s birth… with some help from God’s big celestial clock, this solar system and view of the greater created cosmos.
HINT: An ancient manuscript copying error made a huge difference!
His presentation is available online HERE. Check it out. It’s fascinating. I won’t spoil the fun of drilling into it.
HINT: It was not a comet.
It’s on YouTube:
Last night, 6 January, we celebrated real Epiphany with a Solemn Mass. At the beginning we blessed chalk as well as gold, frankincense and myrrh. I also sang the Noveritis.
Was there a good point made in the sermon you heard for real Epiphany? Let us know.
I spoke about following stars.
One of our readers here sent me a photo of real Epiphany from Cologne Cathedral, where the relics of the Three Kings are preserved.
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
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