From a reader… QUAERITUR: A priest blessing young children at mass, is it something that they should do? Is there a reason they would skip over a child? We had a homily today about the importance of blessing children and … Read More →
From a reader… QUAERITUR: I am a laywoman recently hired by my archdiocese as a sacristan. In this role I am frequently pressed into service as an extraordinary minister. Last Sunday, as I distributed Communion, a young woman approached with … Read More →
From a reader… QUAERITUR: I’ve been a Catholic for 12 years. Ever since I was baptized, extra-ordinary ministers of communion (in addition to the priest or deacon) have given blessings to those who are not receiving the Body of Christ. The most common … Read More →
From a reader… QUAERITUR: I have been regularly attending the Traditional Latin Mass for the last two years and have been an altar boy at the TLM for the past year and a half. I have noticed that a fair … Read More →
From a reader… QUAERITUR: At Mass yesterday, I saw an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion dispensing “blessings” for those in line who have not yet received their First Communion or were choosing simply to come up for a blessing. As … Read More →
From a reader: I talked to our parish Director of Liturgy today about our 12 (!) Eucharistic Ministers who routinely bless children and adults. She informed me that this has been approved by our bishop, and then berated me for … Read More →
From a reader: We hope to bring 2 children (extended family) to Mass on Christmas Eve. They have not been baptized. QUAERITUR: Are unbaptized children allowed to go up to Communion with their arms crossed and receive a blessing? What … Read More →
I just hammered out my weekly column for the paper. Among other things I wrote about the issue of blessings during Mass at Communion time. I have written about this before (try HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and … Read More →
From a reader: I was hoping you might be able to shed some light on a question which has been bothering me since my reception into the Church a little while ago. Everytime I receive Commnunion from one of the … Read More →
Here is a liturgical question that wound up in the ASK FATHER Question Box, which I moderate. AFQB – The ASK FATHER Question Box: Liturgy, Music & The Seven Sacraments: Should they give blessings? By hermitmcdermit on Sunday, November 19, … 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
Everyone, work to get this into your parish bulletins and diocesan papers.
“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.”
Irish Timothy on 8 December: Happy Birthday BLOG!: “Congrats Fr. Z! Thank you for all you do with this blog time and time again. Praying that 2024 is…”
BeatifyStickler on 8 December: Happy Birthday BLOG!: “What a great day that was back in 2005. Thanks for starting the blog and persisting through all these years.…”
Gregg the Obscure on 7 December: Some cool things about St. Ambrose: “i can attest to how painful an improperly healed clavicular fracture is. reinjured mine two years ago and rare is…”
Dustin F, OCDS on Daily Rome Shot 875: “My personal favorite Magnus Carlsen moment – he was partying with friends, one of whom had blundered away a bullet…”
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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“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.
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