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About this blog…
“This blog is like a fusion of the Baroque ‘salon’ with its well-tuned harpsichord around which polite society gathered for entertainment and edification and, on the other hand, a Wild West “saloon” with its out-of-tune piano and swinging doors, where everyone has a gun and something to say. Nevertheless, we try to point our discussions back to what it is to be Catholic in this increasingly difficult age, to love God, and how to get to heaven.” – Fr. Z
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- The most evident mark of God’s anger and the most terrible castigation He can inflict upon the world are manifested when He permits His people to fall into the hands of clerics who are priests more in name than in deed, priests who practice the cruelty of ravening wolves rather than the charity and affection of devoted shepherds.
St. John Eudes
Recent Comments
- BeatifyStickler on ROME 26/3– Day 18: Flowers!: “The only appropriate names for those two dogs is Ketchup and Mustard.”
- BeatifyStickler on Nuns of Gower Abbey have a NEW music disc/download!: “We just downloaded onto our Spotify playlist. Will loop through the night! One of our fellow parishioners has a sister…”
- revueltos67 on ROME 26/3– Day 17: Itadakimasu: “White to move and mate in 4 1) Qf5+ g6 (or Kh6) 2) Qf7+ Kh6 (forced) 3) Rh8+ Kg5 (forced)…”
- revueltos67 on ROME 26/3– Day 18: Flowers!: “Black to move and mate in 4 1) … Qxf2+ 2) Rxf2 (or Kh1) Rd1+ 3) Qe1 (or Rf1) Rxe1+…”
- grateful on ROME 26/3– Day 18: Flowers!: “I knew it, I knew it. As soon as I saw the flowers, I knew there would have to be…”
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“Until the Lord be pleased to settle, through the instrumentality of the princes of the Church and the lawful ministers of His justice, the trouble aroused by the pride of a few and the ignorance of some others, let us with the help of God endeavor with calm and humble patience to render love for hatred, to avoid disputes with the silly, to keep to the truth and not fight with the weapons of falsehood, and to beg of God at all times that in all our thoughts and desires, in all our words and actions, He may hold the first place who calls Himself the origin of all things.”
- Prosper of Aquitaine (+c.455), De gratia Dei et libero arbitrio contra Collatorem 22.61
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“He [Satan] will set up a counter-Church which will be the ape of the Church because, he the devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the anti-Christ that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ. In desperate need for God, whom he nevertheless refuses to adore, modern man in his loneliness and frustration will hunger more and more for membership in a community that will give him enlargement of purpose, but at the cost of losing himself in some vague collectivity.”
“Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, and the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops act like bishops.”- Fulton Sheen
Therefore, ACTIVATE YOUR CONFIRMATION and get to work!
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Fr John Zuhlsdorf
Tridentine Mass Society of Madison
733 Struck St.
PO BOX 44603
Madison, WI 53744-4603
For email HERE
- “The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender's inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for every one else the proper pleasure of ritual.”
- C.S. Lewis
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frz AT wdtprs DOT comAs for Latin…
"But if, in any layman who is indeed imbued with literature, ignorance of the Latin language, which we can truly call the 'catholic' language, indicates a certain sluggishness in his love toward the Church, how much more fitting it is that each and every cleric should be adequately practiced and skilled in that language!" - Pius XI
"Let us realize that this remark of Cicero (Brutus 37, 140) can be in a certain way referred to [young lay people]: 'It is not so much a matter of distinction to know Latin as it is disgraceful not to know it.'" - St. John Paul II
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Recent Posts
- ASK FATHER: We can eat meat on Easter Friday, but do we have to do some other penance?
- ROME 26/3– Day 19: Claming up
- Nuns of Gower Abbey have a NEW music disc/download!
- St. Augustine on military service and prayer in time of war
- ROME 26/3– Day 18: Flowers!
- ASK FATHER: Can we eat meat on Friday in the Octave of Easter? (Hint: YES!)
- ROME 26/3– Day 17: Itadakimasu
- ROME 26/3– Day 16: chores
- From “The Private Diary of Bishop F. Atticus McButterpants” – 26-04-03 – Aftermath of foot washing
- ROME 26/3– Day 15: foods and views and shoes
- ASK FATHER: Can the “Dies Irae” be used in the Novus Ordo Requiem Mass? Wherein Fr. Z rants.
- ASK FATHER: Grounding for the “harrowing of Hell”
- From “The Private Diary of Bishop F. Atticus McButterpants” – 26-03-28 – A bold statement for foot washing
- ROME 26/3– Day 12-13-14: whew (lots of photos)
- Your Sunday Sermon Notes – Easter Sunday
- PASCHALCAzT 2026 – 47: Easter Sunday – Joy
- “He descended into Hell” – Notes on “The Harrowing of Hell”
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 46: Holy Saturday – The last indignity – UPDATED
- ROME 26/3– Day 11: Good Friday
- From “The Private Diary of Bishop F. Atticus McButterpants” – 26-04-01 – A scare
- 3 April: Feast of St. Richard of Chichester. A comment about science.
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 45: Good Friday – Christ and our moral suffering
- ROME 26/3– Day 10: Thursday in Holy Week
- ASK FATHER: 9 1st Fridays but how do Good Friday (April 3) and St. Joseph (May 1) impact that?
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 44: Holy Thursday – Why we eat the victim
- ROME 26/3– Day 09: Wednesday in Holy Week
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 43: Spy Wednesday of Holy Week
- Following years of abuse Knights of Malta to formally split with the Holy See
- ROME 26/3– Day 08: Tuesday in Holy Week
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 42: Tuesday of Holy Week – Peter’s Passion
Let us pray…
Grant unto thy Church, we beseech Thee, O merciful God, that She, being gathered together by the Holy Ghost, may be in no wise troubled by attack from her foes. O God, who by sin art offended and by penance pacified, mercifully regard the prayers of Thy people making supplication unto Thee,and turn away the scourges of Thine anger which we deserve for our sins. Almighty and Everlasting God, in whose Hand are the power and the government of every realm: look down upon and help the Christian people that the heathen nations who trust in the fierceness of their own might may be crushed by the power of thine Arm. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. R. Amen.
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Tag Archives: ad orientem
Re-orienting a church
For your Brick By Brick file from the Mercury News, with my emphases and comments. Developer renovates Pittsburg [California] Catholic church By Rick Radin PITTSBURG — A 41-year-old Catholic church that was showing its age has a new look thanks … Read More →
32 Comments
New, Corrected Translation won’t be enough
Over at Vultus Christi Fr. Mark Kirby, OSB, is, with my editing, emphases (mostly) and comments… Pondering […] Mass Facing the People: The Single Greatest Obstacle to the Reform [That is what the great liturgist Klaus Gamber thought. Turning altars … Read More →
An eastward facing observation
Yesterday the Holy Father celebrated Holy Mass for the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord in the Sistine Chapel. Not a peep from the usual corners about ad orientem worship. It’s a given. Therefore,…. it is time for the … Read More →
A priest speaks about celebrating Mass “ad orientem” for 5 years
This is from Vultus Christi, the blog of Fr. Mark Daniel Kirby is Prior of the Diocesan Benedictine Monastery of Our Lady of the Cenacle in Tulsa, Oklahoma established by H.E. Most Rev. Edward Slattery. Fr. Kirby speaks about his … Read More →
Thoughts about the “Benedictine arrangement”
At NLM there are photos of a “Benedictine arrangement” of an altar in Bogota. The “Benedictine arrangement” is, of course, the placement of the Crucifix with candles at a versus populum Mass such that the Crucifix becomes the common focus, … Read More →
31 Comments
A priest’s thoughts about celebrating “ad orientem” for the first time
Do you remember the Monty Python sketch about the funniest joke in the word? It was so funny that it would kill you. Even just seeing a couple words of the joke on paper would put you in the hospital. … Read More →
45 Comments
Fr. Longenecker on ad orientem worship
Fr. Dwight Longenecker posted an entry about celebrating Holy Mass ad orientem. It is longish, so you can read the whole thing there. Here is some of it with my emphases and comments: Friday, October 29, 2010 Turning to the … Read More →
WDTPRS POLL: What direction do you prefer for the altar?
We have had a few entries lately about the position of the altar. Let’s have a quick poll. Please pick the best answer and share your reasons in the combox, below. I believe non-registered reader may be able to vote.
QUAERITUR: Using the orginal “main” altar rather than the “table”
From a seminarian reader: My present church is thinking on having a EF Mass as well as a Versus Deus [Deum] OF Mass. The Original High Altar is still in place with the Tabernacle. There is however a smaller “fixed” … Read More →
QUAERITUR: Where did Mass “facing the people” come from?
We should network our brain power for this. Father’s tired. From a reader: I once wrote (by invitation) an article for a diocesan newspaper in which I mentioned, inter alia, that Vatican II never called for the priest to face … Read More →
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