Just a few random remarks.
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Last Sunday was Good Shepherd Sunday in the Extraordinary Form, although it is Good Shepherd Sunday this Sunday in the Ordinary Form - Novus Ordo to some. That is fine, but it's kind of confusing sometimes - it seems to me the liturgical calender should be the same for both forms. I know - it's a petit point.
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Sometimes I wonder with all the texting and blogging and emailing people do - without worrying about spelling* and often abbreviating words - if language is beginning to suffer?
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Errors Catholics have about Catholicism - another Henry Karlson post I like - it's sort of his little syllabus I suppose. A top ten list of things some Catholics don't know how to explain and so they say things like:
We all make mistakes.1) We don’t worship Mary
... - We do - it's called hyperdulia.
2) We don’t pray to Mary
... - We do.
3) We don’t worship the saints
... - We do, it's called dulia.
4) We don’t pray to the saints
... - We do..
5) The “Latin Mass” was the original form of the Mass
... - Nope.
6) We have to believe everything taught by the Pope
... - Not really.
7) There can be, and are, no married priests
... - Yes, yes, and yes there are Fr. Dwight. Link to Vox Nova
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From time to time I notice errors in the manner I express something too - I'm always afraid to mislead anyone on my blog so I try to be as vigilant as possible and check and re-check facts. I welcome corrections and happily remove posts if they are at all misleading or inaccurate. Even if a professor of theology were to tell me something I had doubts about I would go to the source and check the facts, and research the matter using other reliable references, academic and theological as well as spiritual. As St. Paul warns, "even if an angel of light were to appear..." (Hence, it goes without saying I also dismiss Internet mystics.)
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However, there are little errors bloggers sometimes make as well - usually they are oversights. Once I came across a post on gossip and the author said that gossip was a mortal sin. That is not always true of course. Another blogger, in trying to make a point about I forgot what, stated that the Passion of Christ isn't important, it is the Resurrection that is (important). Unfortunately that statement misses.
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These are petit points, but they stick in a reader's mind, especially if one happens to be new to the faith or rather impressionable. It doesn't mean one is looking for errors, sometimes they just jump out at you. Once I was looking for a quote by a saint and by chance came across a post about his writings that wasn't quite accurate. All of us must keep in mind the Catholic blogosphere is not the Magisterium. Even priests don't always know what they are talking about when it comes to saints and devotions and the like. (Don't get me started on nuns.)
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I'll never forget this one priest in Chicago at some Catholic church hosting a visit of a weeping statue of the Mystical Rose. I stopped there with a friend as we returned from seeing JPII in Michigan. My friend asked the priest to bless his scapular - something you don't have to do by the way if you have already been enrolled in the Confraternity and are replacing a worn out scapular. Anyway - the priest refused explaining it couldn't be a scapular of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel because it didn't have any pictures on it. He still refused to bless it after we explained it was made by Carmelite nuns and images are not required on a scapular - just the medal - making it clear that it is the woolen aspect of the cloth scapular which comprises the habit. No can do. Interestingly enough, the Felician nun that was with him told us Cardinal Bernardin was evil and part of the Jewish Masonic Bankers conspiracy to establish the New World Order - Novus Ordo seclorum in Latin.
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Get my point?
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Art: The Blind Beggar - Jules Bastien Lepage (The dog looks like a sheep.)
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*LOL - I first published this without using spell check. Does this mean I'm bad?
