Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Captain of My Heart...
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He couldn't wait another day for
The captain of his heart...
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I'll be on retreat today - Adoration this afternoon. Praying for all of you and especially Tara, Vincenzo, Larry, Walter, Jeron, Cathy, Nan, Ray, Julie, Monica, Maria, John-Mary, Eric, Z, V, Patrick, Carlos, Gary, Mark and Thomas, Ray Wadas, all my priest friends I may have left out, Amy and Michael and the kids, Jamie and Wayne, Michael B and Michael R, Thom and my Franciscan brothers and sisters, Tom and his critter, Tom ocso, Tom and Pam, Terry, Virginia, Anne Marie, Brenden and Gilbert and the rest, Belinda and Paul, and Sara and all the people she has requested prayers for - esp. Gary and Lester, and Lou and Louise, Paul and Paul, Paul S, Dan, Jeff, Jeffrey, Andrew, Andrew and Alyssa, Cristina the Astonishing from Philipland, Lady Elena and her prince, Ty and Lana, Danielle, Keevin and Susie, Cathy, CathyW, Ann, Pete and Diane, John, Shane, Joe, Karen, Heather and her soldier, Petra, Kat and her kid, Melody, Paramedicgirl and her sister blogger, my carmelite sisters and brothers, Mary, Mary, Mary, Gj, William of the Orient, Jerry and Alphonsus, David, Dan, Greg, Greg S, Rick and David and Stephanie, and Aceman and partner, and Linda and Donna, and Darold, and Dorothy, Fran, Alice, Dymphna, Doreen, Fran, Angela, Betty, Angela-Linda and family - esp. Luke, Patrick and Patrick, Paula and Bruce, Ale and her family, Susan and her's - and Ben, Gina, Maria, DK, Paige, Janice, Mario and Bob and Roxanne, Jeane-Austringer and her husband, All artists, Robert, Adrienne and the guy she lives with, Clare and family, Cyril, Chris, JPS, Mary Kay and Lynn, Timmy and Beth, Judy and Gioa, Judith, Mitchel and Judith, all the people who are dead - but not to me, Lucy and Sherrie and Jackie and Karen and Sandra and all the bi-polars, Louise and Lou, John, Jim, John, John, John, John, Dawn, Angelo Mary, Ronnie, Andy and Mara, my neighbors, Joe and Mary, Shadowlands, Ray Blake, POTUS, Gette, Bob, Dan, Benedict and George, John Hemp, Owen, Marion and Fred, for those who asked for my prayers and for those I asked to pray for me - and those who have so much charity they pray for me without my asking, homosexuals everywhere, alcholics and drug addicts every where, all children - especially the most abused and exploited, all prisoners and slaves, all soldiers - especially ours, all priests - especially those most in need of mercy - Paul, everyone in my Followers box, all readers, all who link to me or I to them or who read me, my bishop friends, monk friends, nun friends, those closest to suicide, for the people affected by the Gulf oil spill for the wildlife and wetlands and ocean, for every creature who suffers and is in travail until the end, and most especially for those who hate me, dislike me, those I have hurt, offended, scandalized, and worst of all caused to sin... and everyone I forgot to list.
Above all I seek to make reparation for the grave sins I have committed against Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Please pray for me too. Thanks.
No one picked up on this...
Novena for Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.
The novena to the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mt. Carmel begins today, July 7. Our Lady's feast day is July 16. It is a toties quoties feast, in other words a plenary indulgence may be gained on that day by visiting a Carmelite chapel. Devotion to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel is ancient and very much connected to the Prophet Elijah. In later times, the Scapular of Mt. Carmel was given to St. Simon Stock. It is one of the most richly indulgenced sacramentals in the Church and is considered the sign of one's consecration to the Blessed Virgin. I will try to write more on these things as we approach Our Lady's day. In the meantime I will post a few links for those interested is consecrating themselves to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
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PETITION PRAYER TO OUR LADY OF MOUNT CARMEL (NEVER KNOWN TO FAIL)
Oh, most beautiful flower of Mt. Carmel, fruitful vine, splendor of Heaven. Blessed Mother of the Son of God, Immaculate Virgin, assist me in my necessity, Oh Star of the Sea, help me and show me here you are my Mother. Oh Holy Mary, Mother of God Queen of Heaven and Earth, I humbly beseech thee from the bottom of my heart to succor me in my necessity (make request). There are none that can withstand your power. Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee (say three times). Holy Mary, I place this prayer in your hands (say three times). Amen.
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Links:
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A Brief Catechism on the Brown Scapular (Official)
Devotion to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel
Scapular Devotion
Carmelite Devotions
Brown Scapular: Sign of Consecration
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Comments Gagged!
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Comments are not publishing on Blogger!
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My Comment Notification isn't even functioning!
This was the day I was going to post my poll asking:
"What kind of shoes should one wear with a cappa magna when it is so hot in NYC?"
o Red Damask
o Red leatherette
o Strappy red sandals
Photo source
Byrd... Klansman to the end.
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Saying anything to get in office, and anything to stay in office. White Rabbit.
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H/T to Cathy Ward
The New Great Depression?
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Dow repeats Great Depression pattern.
St. Maria Goretti
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At the age of twelve, St. Maria was not simply a pious young girl, she was actually a very virtuous and mature - as in responsible - young woman. She helped her mother raise, nurture and educate her siblings while attending to simple household duties. Attach to these attributes a deep devotion to our Lord and the Blessed Virgin, and we come to understand the authenticity of her piety and heroic virtue, which was proved by her martyrdom. While it is true Maria Goretti resisted her attacker to preserve her own chastity, we also must understand that what is so remarkable about her resistance was her concern to prevent her attacker from committing mortal sin. Crazy as that sounds since Alessandro did in the end commit the mortal sin of murder, the Saint herself saw to his conversion after he had been convicted for his crime and was in prison serving his sentence.
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In this story of modern martyrdom I think it is important that we see how God in his grace and mercy draws good out of evil. When some of us ask ourselves why we are like we are, or why we were sexually abused and bad things happened to us, or why little innocents suffer, I'm convinced the example of martyrs such as Maria Goretti demonstrate to us that it is because God in his mercy may draw even greater good from such evils. We keep forgetting that this life is passing, a short stay in an often-times bad Hotel California on the road to eternal life. Hence we are astonished when God raises to glory young children, and through them extends his salvation to perverts and murderers. The holy purity and charity of slaughtered innocents can touch even the hardest hearts and move them to compunction and deeper conversion.
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For those of us who have not 'resisted sin to the point of shedding blood' remember that the Precious Blood of Jesus brings forth virgins... even after virginity is lost. I think the example and intercession of Maria Goretti is especially important for young men and women who have lost their virginity, especially victims of rape, as well as the offenders. Sometimes the example of the saints can be intimidating, and often times well intentioned religious people use the saints to castigate or shame the worldly - and yet it is just the opposite with God. He makes saints to attract us to virtue, to holiness, to Himself. The example of the saints should never be used to denigrate, intimidate, condemn or repel a soul attracted to virtue. St. Maria Goretti proves this through her apparition (intervention) to her murderer, convincing him of God's merciful love. I think it is through their example that many of the saints condemned a sinful world, yet charity remains the compelling force which moves them to heroic love for the sinner.
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Link:
Biography of St. Maria Goretti
"God anticipates us always..."
"God anticipates us always. Each individual life contains good and beautiful things that we can easily recognise as His Grace. ... If we learn to recognise God in His infinite goodness then we will be able to see, with wonder, the signs of God in our lives, just as the saints did". The signs of a God "Who is always close, Who is always good to us, Who says: 'Have faith in me'". - Pope Benedict XVI on the occasion of his visit to the tomb of St. Celestine
This reminds me of the Gospel of the Prodigal Son. The Father not only sees us coming to him in repentance as the father in the Gospel story spied his son returning to him, but the Father already sees us in the misery of our sin and anticipates us - anticipates and awaits our calling out to Him for mercy and forgiveness - for love! I think this is one meaning of the psalm, 'deep calls unto deep' - the depths of God's love calls unto the depths of human misery and sin. 'No pit is so deep that His love is not deeper still.' Hence no fall into sin, no relapse is too great for the Divine Mercy. God has anticipated our fall and offers the remedy. God is not ashamed to forgive our sins and restore His sons.
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Photo: Holy Father venerating the relics of St. Celestine V.
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Brief biography of Celestine V.
Monday, July 05, 2010
Martyrs for purity - redux.
Blessed are the pure of heart..
Tomorrow is the memorial of St. Maria Goretti, the young girl murdered for refusing the advances of a teenage man, Alessandro Serenelli, who lived and labored along side the Goretti family. Maria's story is quite well known.
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Since I'm sure everyone knows Maria, I would like to call your attention to another young woman, closer to our time, who happened to be at Maria's canonization, and who suffered a similar fate in 1957. Pierina Morosini. Pierina was 26 when she was murdered while returning home from her job in a factory. Her attacker attempted to seduce her, and as she refused his advances and tried to fight him off, he beat her to death with a large stone, crushing her face. Blessed Pierina is today venerated as the patron of rape victims, as well as a martyr for chastity.
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Born into a poor family of eight children in 1931 in the Diocese of Bergamo, Italy, Pierina at one time desired to enter religious life but remained a lay woman consecrated to God by a private vow of chastity. She remained with her family offering support to her mother, while teaching catechism in her parish. Trained as a seamstress, Pierina began to work in a factory at age 15. On October 4, 1987, John Paul II beatified Pierina along with another Italian martyr for purity, Antonia Mesina , the 16 year old Sardinian murdered by a teenage rapist in 1935.
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The dignity and the vocation of women - as well as those of men - find their eternal source in the heart of God. And in the temporal conditions of human existence, they are closely connected with the "unity of the two". Consequently each man must look within himself to see whether she who was entrusted to him as a sister in humanity, as a spouse, has not become in his heart an object of adultery; to see whether she who, in different ways, is the co-subject of his existence in the world, has not become for him an "object": an object of pleasure, of exploitation. - THE DIGNITY AND THE VOCATION OF WOMEN, John Paul II
Another holy martyr for purity is Bl. Albertina Berkenbrock.
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Sunday, July 04, 2010
Let your 'Yes' mean 'Yes,' and your 'No' mean 'No.' Anything more is from the evil one. - Mt 5:37
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Not to be swayed by emotions.
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I love the account of the Centurion who sent Jewish elders to ask Jesus to heal his servant, when the Lord decided to go to his home, the Centurion sent word protesting, explaining that Jesus' order would be enough - as a soldier he understood authority and obedience.
And Jesus went with them, but when he was only a short distance from the house, the centurion sent friends to tell him, "Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof. Therefore, I did not consider myself worthy to come to you; but say the word and let my servant be healed. For I too am a person subject to authority, with soldiers subject to me. And I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes; and to another, 'Come here,' and he comes; and to my slave, 'Do this,' and he does it." - Luke 7
In other words, emotion, feelings, did not dictate matters in this scenario. By way of another example, cold-hearted as it may sound, take for an example a combat soldier in Afghanistan. He sees a little kid running towards him in a combat zone and he may not have time to waste thinking, "Aw, what a cute little kid..." He may instead have to shoot the kid because the kid may be wired as a suicide bomber. As one veteran told me, "Next time it won't happen because the mothers will have warned their kids - 'don't go running towards soldiers'" Sounds hard hearted and cruel, huh? But it is reality. (Hope I got that right Sara.) Sometimes we simply have to man up about stuff.
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Reality bites.
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Last week I wrote a post or two concerning a local brouhaha over a gay magazine outing a Lutheran minister who participated in an anonymous Catholic support group for same-sex attracted men seeking to live chaste and celibate lives in accord with authentic Catholic teaching - I can never recall the name of the group, but the group is the same as the well-known Courage Apostolate - the local name had to be changed because Minneapolis is home to another organization bearing the same name.
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Homosexual attraction, SSA, gay, gay rights, LGBT issues carry a lot of baggage. It is a very emotional subject. Thus even Catholic Church officials are sometimes swayed by the emotional appeal of gay activists and claims of unjust discrimination against the gay community. In many cases, Church teaching is watered down to be less offensive to gay sensibilities. Sometimes the 'victims' protest too much however, and clergy cannot cave and say things like, "Well, it's okay then just as long as Bob and Bill are monogamous." You know what I'm saying.
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It's just emotion making me over.
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I've used that line from the BeeGee's before and I've said this stuff before, but sometimes my care not to offend is misinterpreted as approval of homosexual acts or SS mariage when it comes to active gay people. That may be my fault because I do get emotionally involved - I want friends of mine to be saved and not driven away from the Church by uncharitable name-calling, or personal invective. Nevertheless, the truth needs to be spoken in charity - and sometimes, as I always say, "the effeminate mistake the truth as cruelty." (From Cary Grant, "Women always interpret a man's honesty as cruelty." Or something like that - you know, "It's not the dress that makes you look fat...")
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People also hate it when I use the term effeminate - I mean it in the sense of the 'vice of effeminacy' and not in the sense of acting femme or butch - heterosexual men and women can and do share the vice as well. Saint Thomas includes effeminacy under the vices opposed to perseverance. It is from the Latin Mollities, which literally means “softness.” Mollities is the verb used in 1 Corinthians 6:9 which deals with the sexual sin of sodomy. It involves being inordinately passive or receptive.
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So where am I going with this?
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I read a comment on another blog discussing the Lutheran pastor and the journalist who outed him - John Townsend wrote a defense as to why and how he had to write what he did. One critic changed his mind on the whole matter and now says he understands and accepts the journalist's tactics and purpose. He goes on to say how he chooses to live celibate but sympathizes with the author's point of view - and he doesn't like Courage either. He identifies as a gay Catholic and is open to the possibility he may not always be celibate - he's just celibate for now. Reading his 'namby-pamby' approach to Catholic doctrine I realised this guy doesn't have a chance in hell of supporting Roman Catholic teaching on sexuality. He has changed his opinion on the issue with every new study, disclosure, experience, emotion he has experienced or read about. Evidently at one time he supported the straight and narrow route but now minces words about it.
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This demonstrates the huge temptation encountered by homosexual persons seeking to amend their lives: Because of the culture and one's own emotional baggage, many are tempted to waffle on homosexual issues. This temptation does not only afflict SSA men and women, but those most attached to them in some way - namely relatives, friends, and overly empathetic clergy.
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Delicacy...
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For me such instability is one huge reason why homosexual men should not be ordained. (I've gone back and forth on that issue, I know - thank God I have no authority in the Church to make such decisions.) I'm convinced that priests who identify as SSA - gay, do not really do their penitents any favors by doing so. Precisely because persons with homosexual tendencies struggling with chastity and emotional maturity need strong masculine men to guide them and model celibate behavior for them - since any gay man who wants to be Catholic is going to have to be chaste and celibate.
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And yes - homosexuality is a disorder, a vice - it is a perversion. (Just look up the meaning of perverse.) Tough to hear, but repentance and conversion is only authentic when sin is recognized as sin and one turns away from it. One cannot be expected to persevere if one is always changing one's mind about what the Church teaches and popular psychological studies on the nature of the sin one is expected to avoid. So, our 'yes' has to be 'yes' and our 'no' 'no' - anything more is from the evil one. In charity of course.
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By your perseverance you will save your souls. - Luke 21:19
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[...] Perseverance is when “a man does not forsake a good on account of long endurance or difficulties and toils.” An “effeminate man is one who withdraws from good on account of sorrows caused by lack of pleasures, yielding as it were to a weak motion.” St. Thomas states that this effeminacy is caused in two ways. First, by custom, where a man is accustomed to enjoy pleasures and it is, therefore, more difficult for him to endure the lack of them. Second, by natural disposition, less persevering through frailty of temperament, and this is where Thomas compares men with women and also mentions the homosexual act of sodomy and the receiver in this act as being effeminate or like a woman. The vice of delicacy for Thomas considers those who cannot endure toils or anything that diminishes pleasure, and thus delicacy is a kind of effeminacy.
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Thanks to Fr. Eric for the heads-up on the video. The best commercial of the year.
July 4 - Memorial of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati
A patron saint for young and old.
"Born to a rich and politically influential family; his mother was the painter Adelaide Ametis; his father was an agnostic, the founder and editor of the liberal newspaper La Stampa, and became the Italian ambassador to Germany. A pious youth, average student, outstanding athlete and mountain climber, he was extremely popular with his peers, known by the nickname "Terror" due to his practical jokes. He was tutored at home for years with his younger sister Luciana. He studied minerology in an engineering program after graduating high school. He worked often with Catholic groups like Apostleship of Prayer and the Company of the Most Blessed Sacrament that ministered to the poor and promoted Eucharistic adoration, Marian devotion, and personal chastity. He became involved in political groups like the Young Catholic Workers Congress, the Popular Party, the Catholic Student Federation, Catholic Action and Milites Mariae that supported the poor, opposed Fascism and worked for the Church's social teachings. Enrolled as a Dominican tertiary on 28 May 1922, taking the name Girolamo (Jerome). Especially devoted to the teachings of Saint Catherine of Siena and Saint Thomas Aquinas. He spent his fortune on the needy and visited the sick; during this ministry he contracted the disease that killed him." - Patron Saints Index
Photo: Altar donde resposa su cuerpo incorrupto en la catedral de TurÃn.
Saturday, July 03, 2010
Independence Day Weekend
Hey - Have A Good One! Enjoy your freedom while you still can.
Photo: Drew Barrymore as Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale, in Grey Gardens.
If you allow yourself to think about it.
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Elena Kagan seems to be a regular 'guy', don't you think. She'd be easy to work with, smart and fun at the same time - a dry sense of humor in a tense situation makes for pleasant working conditions - if you are on the same page with her, that is. Otherwise she can probably be like a bull-
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Anyway - I came across a fascinating article on the newest nominee for the supremes, appropriately titled, Is Elena Kagan Morally Blind? (That is putting it mildly.) Think about it:
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Elena Kagan has now admitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee that as a Clinton lawyer in 1997, she fraudulently revised an official medical opinion by the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
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The medical society was going to publicly reveal that "its panel of experts found no circumstances in which the (partial birth abortion) procedure was the only option for saving the life of the woman."
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In a secret internal memo, she wrote that "This, of course, would be a disaster[.]"
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Kagan therefore secretly revised the language so the final statement in 1997 claimed that the partial-birth abortion "may be the best and most appropriate procedure in particular circumstances to save the life or preserve the health of the woman."
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That was a pernicious lie. The medical panel originally said that was false. Kagan substituted her own judgment for a medical consensus.
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Partial birth abortion means killing a full-term fetus, a human being. That is murder by biological definition. The media try to throw dust in our eyes about that fact, but most Americans know. We might have mixed feelings about abortion in the first month of pregnancy, but a full-term baby is a human being, and whether it is killed ten minutes before or after delivery makes no difference. It's still the same baby. - Source
Nothing funny about that.
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Photo: Ms. Kagan on Christmas Day.
The Russian Spy Case...
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The press has pretty much quieted down about the arrest of the Russian spies who have been amongst us for years. The only story I could find on my regular news sites last night is about the identity crises their kids are facing. Weird story huh? They were here all along - acting and living just like normal people. Didn't you think the Cold War was over? I did too.
So what if Obama and Hilary and Ayres really are commies?
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What if communists really did infiltrate the seminaries way back when and some of these crazy bishops are commies too? What if Reds are embedded in our legislature, our colleges, Hollywood, libraries, even our chanceries?! What if some of them even wear traditional clerical garb and say the traditional Mass? What if some of them are in charge of Catholic institutions like Hospital Associations and stuff? (Ask yourself this; Who originated the pantsuit? Jiang Qing!)
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Sometimes I wonder if all the Muslim cab-drivers in this country are really terrorists waiting for the right moment?
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Friday, July 02, 2010
Look at what they did...
Cleveland Church closings.
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First they stripped the churches bare, and now they are closing them. Vatican II hardly closed before they removed every sign of devotion, every indication of Roman Catholicism - accomplishing in a relatively short time what took generations for the Protestant revolt to accomplish centuries ago. Catholics forget that some of the hatchet men involved in these closings were parish priests who helped implement key aspects of the iconoclasm which swept the Church after the Council. And some of these guys are now bishops. We are told Catholics left the Church in droves? But who, what drove them away?
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Churchspeak on church closings.
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The Bishop of Cleveland had these words of encouragement regarding the recent closure of the 50th church in Cleveland:
"The Church is about people and their faith, not about buildings, and we will always be here to serve the people,” said Bishop Lennon in a March 2009 statement announcing the closures. “The task for the Church is to be faithful to what God asks of us, which is to bring the message of Jesus Christ to all people, to reach out and serve the poor and marginalized among us, and to become holy and bring people closer to God.” - CNA
Sacrifice and hard work.
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The people who built these churches were mostly working class immigrants, sacrificing for the glory of God and the propagation of the faith. I was once part of the old St. Ambrose in St. Paul - not the old, old one that was sold to the 7-Up company, but the new one, built by Italians on the lower east side of St. Paul. Families donated the marble altars and communion rails - which were later ripped out to update a still new church which had been built in 1960. To add insult to injury - the church was later sold and the name transferred to a mega-church in the suburbs. The good priest never understood the parishioners sense of betrayal and anger over the easy squandering of funds their donations represented. Wreck-o-vators and iconoclasts were not always men in business suits - some wore cassocks and capes and beanies.
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Archdiocese of St. Paul/Minneapolis
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This fall we will be facing the results of a new strategic plan for our Archdiocese as well - probably not much different than Cleveland's. I think our Archbishop guided similar changes in Detroit - a thankless job I'm sure. There aren't as many beautiful churches here as there were in older cities such as Detroit and Cleveland, but there are still a few 'shells' left - although the glorious interiors have long been destroyed.
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Laity in this archdiocese have been asked repeatedly to keep the Big Picture in mind... using much of the same churchspeak echoing Bishop Lennon's appeal. Here are some classic quotes from our Archdiocesan plan:
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"Parish leaders are also asked to see “the bigger picture” — what’s good for the whole of the archdiocese, not just what’s good for their parish."
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“We can’t expect everybody to agree with everything or even to like everything, but what we want people to know is that we respected enough to ask them.”
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“We need to tell people that we expect the best of them, and we have to keep reminding people of that,”
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Changing parish configurations entails pain and loss, but Catholics need to have courage and offer self-sacrifice.
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“When you give up yourself to Christ . . . you’re going to be doing these big, big things. We may think, ‘We’re losing everything. We’re losing our little church.’ Wait a moment. If you’re in Christ, what makes you think there won’t be greater things to come?”
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Church structures are living, and therefore changing, he said. When parishes are asked to combine, members must keep this understanding at the forefront.
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“It means that something is alive, it’s dynamic, it’s growing, it’s going onward, it’s going upward."
Up yours.*
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Obviously it's a "they" and "we" thing.
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Photo credit: Closing Catholic Churches in Cleveland First they stripped the altars and the sanctuary and protestantized the church - and now the churches are sold off to the highest bidder.
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Link:
Strategic Planning articles on Stella Borealis
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*no disrespect intended.
Just a reminder...
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Not every baby-boomer is or was a flaming liberal. Not everyone over the age of 50 was always happy with the novelties developed as a result of Vatican II. (And I'm not just talking about the Wanderer and Remnant trads either.) Not every ageing-hippie Catholic protested Humanae Vitae and whole heartily endorsed the hetero/homo sexual revolution. Sure some of us may have committed grave sins and stuff - but like every Catholic penitent throughout the ages, some of us repented, did/do penance, and tried to live devoutly and faithfully - even while the progressive, often times heretical American Catholic Church derailed into banality.
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A lot of us suffered through the novelties and abuses, endured criticism for praying the rosary or the stations, or kneeling during the Eucharistic prayer in churches where they no longer displayed any sort of reverence at all. Some of us even had to convince priests in the confessional that we needed absolution because, "I don't know - call me crazy Father - but I have psychological issues and I need to feel forgiven - I feel guilt-ridden and awful, so will you please give me absolution?"
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I returned to the sacraments in 1972. At that time the only other young people - outside of a few seminarians - who were interested in Catholicism were charismatics, or totally immersed in social activism. Although I would participate occasionally in charismatic prayer meetings - I was attracted to quiet prayer, adoration and the rosary - and of course Mass. I spent a lot of my time alone at the Carmelite monastery in their extern chapel. I was alone.
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I returned to daily Mass at Assumption in downtown St. Paul - the old Monsignor who was pastor had not turned the altar around yet. I returned to the Mass I grew up with - I thought. But it was the Novus Ordo and in English, although it was offered in the traditional manner - reverently and devoutly - ad orientum. I fell in love with the Mass - I actually recognized Christ in the breaking of the bread. Later I had to endure many decadent novelties and liturgical abuses - but I understood that it was still the Holy Sacrifice. I along with older folks, and some my age endured all of that crap - usually silently - just grateful to be able to receive and adore the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ.
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Speaking for myself I am thrilled and grateful for Pope Benedict XVI liturgical restorations and reform of the clergy and the Church. I have waited a very long time for this. I am grateful for the young and the old who finally welcome authentic worship in spirit and truth.
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So watch your mouth when you start making fun of ageing Catholics and fling comments around the Internet about how anxious y'all are for the baby-boomer generation to die off.
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That's all.
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Photo: Bishops at Vatican II.
Thursday, July 01, 2010
For the forgiveness of sins.
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Christ's greatest work is our redemption, the forgiveness of sins - miracles of healing served to prove the greater miracle of the forgiveness of sins: "But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins..." Worrying about our healing of this or that ailment, looking for success or the means to earn a living, even seeking deliverance from some defect is a waste of time unless we repent and seek the forgiveness of our sins. The forgiveness of sins instills courage and makes all things possible - through the Precious Blood of Christ.
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"Jesus knew what they were thinking" - he knows our thoughts as well.
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How can we continually and repeatedly judge and condemn one another when we do not even know our own need for mercy and forgiveness?
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Art: Angels collect the Precious Blood of Christ for our Redemption - by Antonio M. Ruiz
The Most Precious Blood
“You know that you were redeemed from the vain manner of life handed down from your fathers, not with perishable things as silver or gold but with the Precious Blood of Christ as the Lamb without blemish and without spot.” - 1 Peter
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July 1 is the feast day of the most Precious Blood of Jesus, while the entire month of July is dedicated to the Precious Blood. I can tell you from experience that devotion to the Precious Blood is especially efficacious for obtaining the grace of contrition after falling into sin. Likewise it is a powerful remedy against sins of the flesh. I highly recommend recitation of the Litany of the Precious Blood, especially if you feel bound by a particular sin.
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From Fr. Hardon on devotion to the Most Precious Blood:
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There are certain words and phrases in the revealed statement that we have just read that we should begin to unravel in order to understand something of the depth of meaning behind those two simple words, Precious Blood. Peter begins by reminding the faithful to remember the hardest thing in this life for us is to remain mindful of the truths of faith. Because what we believe on God's revealed Word is twice removed from the common experience that we have in this world. What we believe is first of all not immediately perceptible to the senses. Moreover, what we believe is not even penetrable to the naked reason. The word, remember, is an imperative: keep in mind. Arouse your faith in what and how you were redeemed. And it is the how we were redeemed that is the foundation stone of the mystery of the Precious Blood. God took on a human nature so that in that human nature He could die. In order to die, the soul had to separate from the body. But for the Body to have the soul separate, the body itself had to be deprived of His Blood. Theologically speaking and physiologically speaking, the All-Holy Son of God who became Man to redeem us could only have died by being drained of His Blood. Christ, listen, could not have died of some disease. Christ could not have died because of some mortal illness. All illness, disease, the natural debilitating of the body is the result of sin. Let me emphasize this. All our illness, our disease, our sickness, our wasting away of our body for all of us this is our faith - is the result of our sinful nature. Not so with Christ. That draining of the human body of His Blood was the one way that Christ, Sinless Son of God and Son of Mary that He was, the one way that He could die.
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Why does Peter identify the Blood of the Lamb of God as “Precious?” Well, it is surely Precious because it is the Blood of no human being. It is the Blood of the living God who took on human nature, capable of shedding His Blood. Why was the Blood of Christ Precious? Because it is the Blood of God who took on human nature in order to be able to suffer and to bleed and, let us add, in order to bleed to death. Why Precious? Because it is the Blood of the living God.
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Devotion to the Precious Blood is not a spiritual option, it is a spiritual obligation, and that not only for priests, but for every follower of Christ. I really believe, and I hesitate even saying this, but I really believe that one of the symptoms of modern society (and I would even include, sadly, modern Catholic society) one of the symptoms of a growing, gnawing secularism is the lessening and the weakening of devotion to the Precious Blood. Devotion, as we know, is a composite of three elements: It is first- veneration, it is secondly- invocation, and it is thirdly- imitation. In other words, devotion to the Precious Blood of Christ, the Lamb of God who was slain, is first of all to be veneration on our part, which is a composite of knowledge, love and adoration. We are to study to come to a deeper understanding of what those two - I am afraid for many people - casual words, Precious Blood, really mean.
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To understand the meaning of the Precious Blood we must (otherwise the mystery will be lost on us), we must get some comprehension of the gravity of sin, of the awfulness of offending God, because it required the Blood of the Son of God to forgive that sin. We are living in an age in which to sin has become fashionable. But we believe that we are here for only a very short time. We further believe that Christ when He told us the way that leads to damnation is broad and many there are who walk that way, that the way that leads to eternal life is narrow and there are few who walk that way. I am watching every syllable I am saying. The Church has never pronounced infallibly on the number lost and the number saved, but she has canonized St. John of the Cross and made him a Doctor of the Church. Says John of the Cross: "I believe that the majority of the human race will be lost." - Devotion to the Precious Blood
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