Category Archives: 3-Interior life

The Godless Confusion and the God of Justice — sermon material here

I’d take a sermon like this any day. Has punch, gets to the heart of a major, burning issue: how react to a society that rarely hears such talk. Society? How about parish mass-attenders?

First few ‘graphs:

According to atheist Richard Dawkins in his best-selling book The God Delusion, the God of the Old Testament is “arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

That remark indicates far more familiarity with the dictionary than with the Bible. I wonder, how much fiction has Dawkins read? More seriously, how carefully has he actually read the Bible?

Sadly, Dawkins merely appeals to the tired notion that the “God of the Old Testament” is a cruel tyrant with little love for His creation. I suspect that even many Christians have the vague sense that such is the case. And today’s reading from the Old Testament is the sort of passage that can, rather easily, be misinterpreted to provide evidence for that view.

Etc.

Like this, I say. Would need editing, sprucing up for average Sunday attendance, explaining this and that, cutting a bit, etc. Priest would have to get it in the first place, of course.

via Catholic World Report

Inside baseball: Pope St. Paul VI’s cathedral in his home town has no altar!

Something there is that makes a fellow love it.

The newer of the two [Brescia] Cathedrals intrigues. Within it, a ‘shrine’ to S Paul VI ‘Brixiensis’ [the Brescia native]. It contains, apparently, neither relics of the Saint nor an altar.

Speculation arose in our group [of insiders, attending a convention] about whether this latter fact was a piece of subtle symbolism indicating his desire to abolish the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. [Paul had approved the new, post-Vatican 2 mass, which traditionalists abhor.]

I [Fr. Hunwicke, as insider] strongly disagreed, arguing that his condemnation of ‘Transignification‘ [denial of the orthodox-traditional transubstantiation] showed that at least his heart, or part of it, was in the right place.

And the evidence ([Louis] Bouyer [who had told his friend Paul VI of Annibal Bugnini’s duplicity] inter alios [among others]) indicates that the the worst excesses of ‘his’ [Paul’s] rite can be blamed on Hannibal’s deceptions.

I like it for various reasons. One is how it contains so much in so few references — if you know what he’s talking about. And if you didn’t before I explained it, now you do. Maybe.

How Fr. Weinandy decided to write his letter of complaint to Pope Francis

Prayer matters . . .

Blithe Spirit

In Rome in late May of 2017, arriving early for a meeting of Vatican theologians, Fr. Thomas Weinandy took himself to prayer “about the . . . state of the Church and the anxieties [he] had about the present Pontificate.”

He spent most of an afternoon in St. Peter’s,

beseeching Jesus and Mary, St. Peter and all of the saintly popes who are buried there to do something to rectify the confusion and turmoil within the Church today, a chaos and an uncertainty that I felt Pope Francis had himself caused . . . and pondering whether [to] write and publish something expressing my concerns and anxiety.

A few days later, the meeting completed, he “went again to St. Peter’s and prayed in the same manner.”

That night, he couldn’t sleep. Unable to get Francis off his mind, at 1:15 he left his room and went outside “for a short…

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Bishop Paprocki bars pro-abortion Illinois lawmakers from Holy Communion — names Durbin and Madigan, who are forbidden from receiving Communion until they repent

In for a dime, in for a dollar. What’s a church good for, anyhow? Or a bishop. What’s he supposed to do, wink?

The Bishop of Springfield, Illinois, has decreed that state legislative leaders may not be admitted to Holy Communion within his diocese, because of their work to pass the state Reproductive Health Act.

[He] also directed that Catholic legislators who have voted for legislation promoting abortion should not present themselves to receive Holy Communion until they have first gone to confession.

In detail:

“In accord with canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law…Illinois Senate President John Cullerton and Speaker of the House Michael J. Madigan, who facilitated the passage of the Act Concerning Abortion of 2017 (House Bill 40) as well as the Reproductive Health Act of 2019 (Senate Bill 25), are not to be admitted to Holy Communion in the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois because they have obstinately persisted in promoting the abominable crime and very grave sin of abortion as evidenced by the influence they exerted in their leadership roles and their repeated votes and obdurate public support for abortion rights over an extended period of time,” Bishop Thomas Paprocki wrote in a June 2 decree.

The latter offense, Reproductive Health Act, 2019, surely prompted the bishop of the capital city to make this public statement. It’s something that carves into legislative stone the fanaticism of the pro-aborts, declaring it to be a “fundamental right” and putting dragon’s teeth into a truly draconian law.

Among . . . provisions that the bill would remove are regulations for abortion clinics, required waiting periods to obtain an abortion, and a ban on partial-birth abortion. In addition, it would lift criminal penalties for performing abortions and would prevent any further state regulation of abortion.

The legislation would require all private health insurance plans to cover elective abortions, and eliminate reporting requirements as well as regulations requiring the investigation of maternal deaths due to abortion.

Open season on unborn, if not (because of the no-go-zone declared for investigation) the newly born who are not wanted.

Note: Durbin had already received notice from the bishop, in February, 2018, also with reference to Canon 915.

Patience in the Spiritual Life

Do you ever get frustrated at the slow pace of the spiritual life? We can sometimes say to God, “Lord, I wish I was holier… and do it right now!”

The first person we must have patience with is ourselves. We are all a work-in-progress. Consider which is better — a meal from a crock pot, or a meal from a microwave? Home-cooked or frozen TV dinner? We want things to be instantaneous, but there are no shortcuts to virtue or sainthood. God wants to make sure that what He builds in our life is going to be solid and firm — thus, He takes His time! Life is a marathon, not a sprint.

I like that. It goes with my program: Deliver the body (at mass etc.), go through the motions (which may be the best you can do.) Let the rest take its way with you — but not as passive, rather intently cooperative.

We must be patient with Him — and patient with ourselves. As St. Paul writes,

“I am sure that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion!”
— Phil 1:6

I like that too.

Advice to the priest in favor of mass-time reverence as opposed to helter-skelter celebration . . .

From the always helpful Fr. Hunwicke:

26 May 2019

How to move on within the Novus Ordo [post-Vatican 2
mass]

An admirable priest called Fr Harrison has recently asked orthodox Catholics [Romans wanting the best for themselves and the world] to revisit the Novus Ordo.

I offer some thoughts about what those who share Father’s instincts might do so as to go just a little way to meet Traddy [tradition-leaning] worshipers.

Some ‘stages’.

(1) Use only the First Eucharistic Prayer. Always. Even with the kiddies. Do this as your first matter of first principle. Even if you’re trinating [celebrating, saying mass three times in a day]. The provision of alternatives [take your pick of canons, central
part of the mass] was the main error of … NOT Vatican II, where no such move was even hinted at, but of the corrupt use of their influence by those who subsequently got their grubby hands on the levers of power. Without this gross mistake, other changes might, just possibly, have been just about tolerable. (After all, the Dominicans … and others … used a shorter Confiteor … had shorter and different Offertory prayers … ) [emphasis added]

Etc.

Such advice is inside baseball to the hoi polloi — pew-sitters, great unwashed, rabble — but money in the bank for celebrants looking to meet the pastoral needs of these poor little lambs and little black sheep who otherwise may lose their way and go astray, finding themselves, not doomed from here to eternity, but having a hard time getting there in one piece.

Those in the field hospital, we might say, to quote the more or less duly elected leader of their and the world’s church.

Forest Murmurs: So simple

Should have been posted first here . . .

Blithe Spirit

A picture, in this case a cartoon, being worth lots of words, let this simple message sink in if you will.

Ad+orientem.jpg

From an English pastor of a Novus Ordo parish. He tried to introduce the top one but had near-“riots” on his hand. Did so with school children, who did not complain. On to a new parish assignment, where he will be “treading carefully” in the matter.

Personally, I keep the head down. Even top-notch pastors look out at us worshipers. I think, here’s to you, everybody! Said genially. of course, but not always. I know I caught a bona fide glare from one fellow with whom I had tangled . . .

Later: Oh, I didn’t notice. He’s had a fervently appreciated EF (Latin) mass monthly, on a Sunday at 5 p.m. So he has found some market for it.

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