From Serge Lancel’s Augustine, the best biography I know of the great Bishop of Hippo (p. 8 ff – emphases mine): Before devoting himself entirely to Mother Church, as he approached the age of forty, Augustine had had a concubine … Read More →
In the older, traditional Roman calendar today is the feast of the mother of St. Augustine, St. Monnica, widow. She died in Ostia (Rome’s port) in 387, when she and her family were heading back to North Africa after Augustine’s … Read More →
I was asked in email what I thought of the use of St. Augustine’s Letter 229 in the section on war in the new encyclical, risibly entitled in Italian Fratelli tutti. The encyclical says that wars are bad. I think we … Read More →
New word for the day: hexachord I think my production skills have improved a bit since then! OLDIE TEXT Originally: 24 June 2007 Our PODCAzT for this Solemnity of the Nativity of John the Baptist presents a selection from … Read More →
This week’s Collect is pretty much the same as one in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary and the prayer in the 1962 Missale Romanum used during the week after Trinity Sunday. Deus, in te sperantium fortitudo, invocantibus nostris adesto propitius, et, … Read More →
Yesterday there was a lovely reading in the Office of Matins in the Roman Breviary which I’m still struck by today. I was going to post it yesterday, but life happened and I got busy. V. Grant, Lord, a blessing. Benediction. … Read More →
I had an interesting email in my box today. What do you think? Hi Father, I’ve been reading through Ratzinger’s book “Behold the Pierced One“. [UK – HERE] In it, he addresses the issue of the prohibition of communion to the divorced … Read More →
The 4th Sunday’s Collect in the Novus Ordo is also the Post Communion for the Feast of the Annunciation (25 March) in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite (1962MR). The Annunciation was the moment of the Incarnation of our Lord. … Read More →
The 4th Sunday’s Collect is also the Post Communion for the Feast of the Annunciation (25 March) in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite (1962MR). The Annunciation was the moment of the Incarnation of our Lord. Therefore, on that feast … Read More →
St. Augustine was born and raised in the North African backwater of Thagaste, in what is today northern Algeria. He studied in Carthage. He worked and was baptized in Milan. He returned to Thagaste. How did he wind up in … Read More →
Yesterday, I posted about the bones of St. Monnica, the mother of St. Augustine of Hippo. Today we move to the mortal remains of her sainted son. Augustine died on 28 August 430. Sometime before the early 8th century, Augustine’s … Read More →
Some people quote the phrase “He who sings, prays twice!” and they (wrongly) attribute it to St. Augustine of Hippo. The phrase does not appear in anything we have of Augustine. Also, it would be better if you said “He … Read More →
At Pray The Mass Fr Evan Harkins has a reflection on altar rails. Per force, he digs into what a “sanctuary” is. Here is an excerpt with my emphases: […] Practically, the rail is a help to people, both physically and … Read More →
From Serge Lancel’s Augustine, the best biography I know of the great Bishop of Hippo (p. 8 ff – emphases mine): Before devoting himself entirely to Mother Church, as he approached the age of forty, Augustine had had a concubine … Read More →
Spend a moment in your midday with …. Psalm 3 The psalm of David when he fled from the face of his son Absalom. Why, O Lord, are they multiplied that afflict me? many are they who rise up against … Read More →
From a reader: Why do these liberals and people like in the LCWR stay in the Church? Wouldn’t it make sense for them to go to the Anglicans? They could be wymynpriests there and do all the crazy stuff they … Read More →
St. Augustine, in one of his tough sermons to his flock, spoke about the heavy responsibility of teaching a message that was hard for people to hear and accept. He invoked the stern warning in Ezekiel 3 about negligent pastors, … Read More →
Elsewhere I answered a question about the new, corrected ICEL version of the Confiteor. I said I would post something more about the Confiteor. Liberals will hate this new version, by the way. We have already seen that (here). Here … Read More →
From a reader, edited: I sometimes wonder about the part of the prayer of the priest at Mass which goes “Pray, Brethren, that our sacrifice will be acceptable to the Lord our God.” And to which the people respond (I … Read More →
Today in the older, venerable, traditional Roman calendar, is the feast of St. Monica, widow and mother of St. Augustine of Hippo. In the post-Conciliar calendar her feast was transferred to the end of August. Monnica, is a spelling that … 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
ex seaxe on Daily Rome Shot 1218 – I’m confused.: ““The objective of the formation of the candidate for the priesthood in the affective-sexual sphere is the ability to accept…”
Charivari Rob on YOUR URGENT PRAYER REQUESTS: “Asking prayers for friends with young child who has cancer. They have been pursuing prayer all the way along, along…”
EAW on Daily Rome Shot 1218 – I’m confused.: “That’s a kind of confusion I could live with. Getting a cone of pistacchio and stracciatella at a good Italian…”
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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.
Almighty and eternal God, who created us in Thine image and bade us to seek after all that is good, true and beautiful, especially in the divine person of Thine Only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, grant, we beseech Thee, that, through the intercession of Saint Isidore, Bishop and Doctor, during our journeys through the internet we will direct our hands and eyes only to that which is pleasing to Thee and treat with charity and patience all those souls whom we encounter. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.