Back in 2013, with a remnant of a cold, I read T. S. Eliot’s Ash Wednesday. It’s interesting to go back to that post and see the comments. For example, Supertradmum is no longer with us. Say a prayer for the repose … Read More →
According to the 1983 Code of Canon Law for the Latin Church, Latin Church Catholics are bound to observe fasting and abstinence on Ash Wednesday. Here are some details. I am sure you know them already, but they are good … Read More →
Back in 2013, with a remnant of a cold, I read T. S. Eliot’s Ash Wednesday. It’s interesting to go back to that post and see the comments. For example, Supertradmum is no longer with us. Say a prayer for the repose … Read More →
This year we may have differing practices for the distribution of ashes today, Ash Wednesday. Let’s have a poll to find out what you readers experienced. Choose your best answer. Anyone can participate. To post a comment you have to … Read More →
According to the 1983 Code of Canon Law for the Latin Church, Latin Church Catholics are bound to observe fasting and abstinence on Ash Wednesday. Here are some details. I am sure you know them already, but they are good … Read More →
From a reader… QUAERITUR: Peace and good times, Father Z. [Right now, I’d settle for okay times.] May the blessing and distribution of ashes be done at home in this time of pandemic? Our Archdiocese (in the Philippines) and the … Read More →
From a reader… actually, more than one… QUAERITUR: Question on Ash Wednesday TLM ‘62 Missal; would the Priest be distributing ashes by sprinkling over head or would TLM be exempt and have ashes distributed as in previous years ( Communion … Read More →
According to the 1983 Code of Canon Law for the Latin Church, Latin Church Catholics are bound to observe fasting and abstinence on Ash Wednesday. Here are some details. I am sure you know them already, but they are good … Read More →
From a reader… QUAERITUR: I know this is a bit early for Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, but I am curious (and excited about Lent). There’s a trend of putting butter into one’s coffee. Basically it’s supposed to make you … Read More →
Each year that St. Patrick’s Day falls on a Friday, in Lent, we witness the lunacy of dispensations so that people don’t have to do their regular Friday, lenten penance. This year, the Feast of St. Valentine – transmogrified, commercialized … Read More →
From a priest comes a good #ashtag question… QUAERITUR: A couple priests have asked me today, and I have no good answer – when a priest is offering Mass on Ash Wednesday without another priest present, or a deacon, does … Read More →
Lent is an important season in the yearly cycle of a Catholic Christian’s life. The inclination toward a feeling of obligation is laudable. The desire to begin the spiritual war of Lent by marking it with ashes is good. Nevertheless, people … Read More →
If you went to church for Ash Wednesday – it is not a Holy Day of Obligation – and if there was a sermon, was there a good point made which you can share with the readership?
Was there a good point made in the sermon you heard at Holy Mass for Ash Wednesday? Ash Wednesday was not a Holy Day of Obligation, as all Sundays are. For my part, I spoke briefly about the need for … Read More →
This comes up each year in my ASK FATHER email, so I will repost an oldie. From a reader: I have a three year old girl. She loves the material aspects of Catholicism (holy cards, holy water, lighting candles, relics etc) … Read More →
Some people are under the impression that Ash Wednesday is a Holy Day of Obligation. It is not. Lent is an important season in the yearly cycle of a Catholic Christian’s life. The inclination toward a feeling of obligation is … Read More →
Ash Wednesday is not a Holy Day of Obligation, as every Sunday is. However, many people go to Mass for the beginning of Lent. Was there a good point in the sermon you heard for Ash Wednesday?
From a reader: Are children of any age able to receive ashes on Ash Wednesday or is First Communion/Confirmation required first? My son is almost 2. Yes, children of any age can receive ashes. That’s up to you parents and, … Read More →
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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
I'm finishing up a batch of Mass intentions right now. I'll have room in my register for more while I am in Rome. Also, I regularly say Mass for my regular benefactors and special Roman Sojourn Donors. HERE for the form I use.
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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
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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.