A friend and long-time internet colleague – once a member of the staff of the ancient Catholic Forum on Compuserve! – sent the following from a blog called Harvey Millican 2.0: Musings of a Trad Dad: “These Our Men“. I … Read More →
From a reader… QUAERITUR: Can a deacon serve as acolyte in the Extraordinary Form Mass? Sure. If there are not enough servers for the sake of a Solemn Mass, and for some reason you have a plethora of deacons and … Read More →
From a reader… QUAERITUR: I grew up in the 1950’s. All the illustrated “Children’s Missals” had photos showing altar servers wearing red cassocks and white surplices. I never saw red cassocks in person, however. Now, they seem to be making … Read More →
I posted this last year, to the day. Any additional thoughts? ___ Originally Published on: May 3, 2016 ___ And yet, do other parishes and dioceses and religious groups change what they are doing? Not much. It is if they really … Read More →
I confess that I initially sent back a terse note to this one: “You are wrong.” Having Reconsidered, more can be said… From a reader… QUAERITUR: Today I was an Alter [sigh] Server at Mass and upon returning home … Read More →
I’m Fr. Z.. and I endorse this essay by Rachel Lu at Crisis! My emphases and comments: In 1994, the Congregation for Divine Worship issued a letter officially specifying that it is licit for females to serve the altar in … Read More →
From a reader… QUAERITUR: Our diocesan liturgical director is trying to prevent parishes from having altar servers wear cassocks and surplices, claiming they’re “clerical garb,” so lay people can’t wear them. Is his claim legitimate? Is there any official statement … Read More →
From a reader… Our parish priest does not care for girl servers but allows it. Today we went to daily Mass and a new girl was serving (which was arranged by one of the moms, I don’t believe Father knew about it), … Read More →
The often amusing Eye of the Tiber has this: The last male altar server in the United States has officially called it quits, the boy’s family is reporting this morning. The 3-year altar server veteran, who remained at his post as cross bearer despite pressure … Read More →
The USCCB released survey results of the 2014 class of ordinands (from Latin, ordinandi, or “men to be ordained”). HERE 82% were altar boys 73% attended adoration of the Blessed Sacrament regularly Suggestion to parish priests… heck… let’s include bishops, too: … Read More →
From a reader: Howdy from the heart of Texas Fr. Z! We decided to get our Altar Boy group together to play airsoft (military simulation that fires plastic pellets) at a local airsoft field. This is why we’re referred to … Read More →
Watch the libs have a spittle-flecked nutty about this one! I see that at the Cathedral of the Diocese of Trenton, where Bp. David O’Connell reigns, there is a group called the “Guardians of the Altar”. This, according to the … Read More →
Today is the 50th anniversary of Sacrosanctum Concilium. What great fruits the liturgical reforms have produced! Jammed churches, long confession lines, full schools, lots of weddings and baptisms, convents bursting, seminaries churning out priests as fast as they can be … Read More →
Remember the post about the number of altar boys increasing when there are no girls on the team? HERE A reader sent this: I’ve attached as proof a “sacristy selfie” the rascally rascals (including our #2 son) took yesterday ~ … Read More →
I have some homework for all you readers, below. But first, this introduction. A friend sent a link to On This Rock where there is a post about how the number of altar boys increases dramatically once all-male service at … Read More →
From a reader: I’ve been having a friendly disagreement with a priest that I know, and maybe you can give me an answer: at the end of Mass, the priest will say the word “Prosit,” and the servers respond “Pro … Read More →
From a reader: My 10-year-old son, who daily receives Holy Communion on his tongue while kneeling (and in fact has never received standing) just completed altar server instruction. He was told that when he serves, he must receive standing!!! (for … Read More →
I have posted this poll before, but in light of another post, I thought I would revisit the question. Please select a response and make comments on this subject in the combox, below. And, yes, I know that some churches … Read More →
From a reader: Is there any significance between altar boys who wear black cassocks as opposed to those who wear red ones in the TLM? No, there is no significance. This is a matter of aesthetics. Back in the … Read More →
My friend Fr. Stephen Reynolds in Sugar Land, Texas has been doing some great things. Here is the latest in some videos about worship and the life of the parish. [wp_youtube]EXIWMh7v3Kg[/wp_youtube] Fr. Z Kudos to Fr. Reynolds!
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“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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Everyone, work to get this into your parish bulletins and diocesan papers.
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
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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.”
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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.”
“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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As 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
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.