This is a question which comes up each year. It came up again today. Must we do penance on Friday within the Octave of Christmas? The short answer is YES, this year, yes. According to Canon Law, Catholics are bound … Read More →
From a reader… QUAERITUR: As you know we are required to do penance on Fridays of the year unless a Solemnity take precedence. On Fridays during Lent we are required to abstain from meat, however on other Fridays of the … Read More →
This is a question which comes up each year. I’ve had three notes in email today. Must we do penance tomorrow, Friday within the Octave of Christmas? The short answer is YES, this year, yes. According to Canon Law, Catholics … Read More →
I had a note from a reader about the need to do penance on this coming Friday, which is the Octave of Christmas. The short answer is NO. Why? Because according to Canon Law, Catholics are bound to do penance … Read More →
From a reader… QUAERITUR: I have the privilege of traveling to Western Australia for work in a few weeks and during my trip I will skip Friday. I leave the US on a flight on Thursday and after an almost … Read More →
From a reader… QUAERITUR: I have a question and I think you are the perfect ossified manualist to give me the answers I need. I am a vegetarian. When it comes to Friday Penance, am I covered because I am … Read More →
I’ve been texting with a Famous Catholic Author™ about today, a Friday in the Christmas Octave, and the obligation to do penance. I’ve received email about it, too. The Octave of Christmas does not have the “weight” of the Octave … Read More →
From a reader… QUAERITUR: I am responsible for a brunch which is served after the Saint Patrick’s Day Mass at the Cathedral in my Archdiocese. This year, Saint Patrick falls on a Friday of Lent. I believe this means I … Read More →
From a reader… QUAERITUR: Hi Father Z, I’m confused about this Friday and the obligation to do penance this Friday. Our Bishops’ Conference (Canada) transferred the Feast of Epiphany to the Sunday, but we who follow the 1962 Calendar observe it on the … Read More →
From a reader… QUAERITUR: I’ll be deployed overseas this Thanksgiving Friday. I belong to a personal parish (FSSP) in a regular geographic diocese back home, but deployed I fall under the Archdiocese of Military ervices. Does the Pope Pius XII … Read More →
POLL BELOW! This is a repost of a by now classic here from a few years ago. It is still useful (and fun). From a reader: I was watching TV last night & on the program they were talking about … Read More →
We are in the Octave of Christmas, that stoppage of liturgical time when we can rest in place and contemplate the mystery of the Incarnation from various angles. During the Octave of Easter, we are not obliged to do penance … Read More →
Grilled cheese sandwich by grilled cheese sandwich. Cheddar on rye, tomato basil soup. Behold the New Evangelization… that and the TLM everywhere. UPDATE: More Romano
From WND: An announcement by a television station in the United Kingdom that it will broadcast the Muslim call to prayer daily during the month-long religious observation called Ramadan has sparked concerns by those who point out that the nation’s … Read More →
From a reader: Would enduring a headache or migraine constitute a proper substitute for a Friday penance? I’ve seen in others how intense the suffering is. Enduring any illness can be penitential. Suffering can be offered up for the good of one’s soul … Read More →
From a reader: I advised a friend that Catholics are either to abstain from meat on Fridays or to substitute another form of prayer, good work, or abstinence; and that she should confess if she failed to do this. In … Read More →
As the U.S. bishops prepare to meet in their autumn assembly, I represent this poll (originally HERE): The bishops of England and Wales did this. You can vote even if you are not registered here. Please give your reasons in … Read More →
POLL BELOW! From a reader: I was watching TV last night & on the program they were talking about fish & chips fried in rendered beef fat at a restaurant. Fish & Chips is one of my favorite Friday dishes … Read More →
From The Catholic Spirit, the newspaper and site of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, comes this. With my emphases and comments: To assist statewide efforts to defend and define marriage in the Minnesota Constitution, Archbishop John Nienstedt has … Read More →
The Bishops have decided to re-establish the practice that this penance should be fulfilled simply by abstaining from meat and by uniting this to prayer On 16 September in England and Wales, Catholics are asked by the Catholic bishops to … 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
grateful on 1st Passion Sunday – some notes: “After mass, a friend was saying they didn’t like the statues being covered. I sent this to her. Also thank…”
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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Books which you must have.
This REALLY helps! And it’s great coffee (and tea)
I use this when I travel both in these USA and abroad. Very useful. Fast enough for Zoom. I connect my DMR (ham radio) through it. If you use my link, they give me more data. A GREAT back up.
“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.
This is really useful when travelling… and also when you aren’t and you need backup internet NOW! I use this for my DMR “Zednet” hotspot when I’m mobile. It’s a ham radio thing.
If you travel internationally, this is a super useful gizmo for your mobile internet data. I use one. If you get one through my link, I get data rewards.
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