when holy water isn't?

Fr Z has an interesting and disturbing post about the blessing of holy water (outside of mass) which is found in the book of blessings. Is it really blessed, if there is no explicit blessing? perhaps taking the holy water out of the stoops in Lent wasn't so bad after all, being more honest because what was there, probably wasn't?

Read the item here

Silent Night

Soon we'll be singing that old favorite "Silent Night", a hymn to remind us of that anticipation of awaiting our Savior's humble entrance into our world. Yet, we come to church and await Him in a manner bereft of silence.

We so need to recover what is meant by "active participation" (actuosa participatio). What is it? It didn't spring immaculate and virginally from Vatican II, but already had a long history in the liturgical renewal.

"In order that the faithful may more actively participate in the sacred liturgy, let them be once again made to sing Gregorian Chant as a congregation." Pius X, motu proprio Tra Le Solicitudini

How did Vatican II expect "active participation" to be brought about? "Therefore, pastors of souls must zealously strive to achieve it by means of the necessary instruction in all their pastoral work." Vatican Council II, Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 14

Surprise, surprise! The Fathers of Vatican II told the pastors that they should teach us Gregorian Chant so we could sing the mass as a congregation. I'm still waiting...


The quotes are from a wonderful article: The Mass of Vatican II | Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J.

Humble service anyone?

It is easier to demonstrate for the rights and freedom of one’s own group than to practice in everyday life the discipline of freedom and the patience of love for those who suffer, or to bind oneself for all of life to such service with the sacrifice of the greater part of one’s individual freedoms. It is astonishing that the desire to serve has been visibly and decisively weakened in the Church too: religious communities, dedicated to the care of the sick and elderly, attract hardly any new vocations. The preference is to engage in more ambitious "pastoral" ministries. But what is really more "pastoral" than an unpretentious life lived in service to those who are suffering?

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, 1988, Cambridge

The above quote is from a 1988 address of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger at Cambridge, England, as reported by Robert Moynihan in The Moynihan Report which I recommend reading. Unfortunately, Robert's web site is currently undergoing revision, so email me if you'd like a copy and I'll forward it to you.

'nuff said

"The common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights--for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture--is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination." Pope John Paul II

Barking moonbat alert!

Fr. Philip Neri Powell O.P., in his post "Rebels Without a Clue," has some insight into an unfolding rant and reaction to a Vatican visitation to religious sisters:

Here's my deadly serious challenge to Sr. Sandra and her ilk: Leave. Simply, leave. Go to another ecclesial communion that will celebrate your wingnut religiosity. If the Roman Catholic Church is so horribly oppressive, so unjustly bigoted, so irrecoverably patriarchal, and these features cause you so much distress and anguish, then leave! But see, you won't leave. Why? Because you have an ODD relationship with Church authority. If you join the Episcopalians, a group that will embrace you and all your moon-batness, if you join the Episco-pagans, you become the establishment. You become the norm, the regular. . .and since you are constitutionally incapable of forming a positive identity, you will cling for dear life to your oppositional-defiant identity in the RCC. You need the Pope. You need the hierarchy. You need the haunting spectre of an Evil Vatican Visitation. You need the orthodox sisters of the CMSWR. You need bloggers like me writing posts like this. . .ah well.

More at First Things

Remodel underway

One of the older neighborhood parishes has been under expansion/reconstruction for several months. Although daily mass is being said in the new sanctuary, I've not been inside yet, the time is not condusive to my schedule, even though I drive by every day. I had thought a round aperature on the east end of the reconstructed building would be for stained glass, but...



apparently not.



I will admit, I am mystified by this. Apparently it is made of plastic; which guarantees a short life, and probable replacement.

Cdl Stafford on Humanae Vitae dissent - from the trenches

This article by Cardinal Francis Stafford is a bright glimpse into the dark night of Aug 5, 1968...

Humanae Vitae - The Year of the Peirasmòs - 1968
by Cardinal J. Francis Stafford, D.D.

No dialogue was possible in 1968; it remained impossible in 1978. There was no common ground. Both of us were looking into an abyss - from opposite sides. Anguish and disquiet overwhelmed the distant hope of reconciliation and friendship. We never returned to the subject again. [...]

Diocesan presbyterates have not recovered from the July/August nights in 1968. Many in consecrated life also failed the evangelical test. Since January 2002, the abyss has opened up elsewhere. The whole people of God, including children and adolescents, now must look into the abyss and see what dread beasts are at its bottom. Each of us shudders before the wrath of God, each weeps in sorrow for our sins and each begs for the Father’s merciful remembrance of Christ’s obedience.

© Copyright 2008 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

hat tip to the wonderful Catholicculture.org

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Note: I have four days left to complete my move-out. Thanks be to God for providing the solution to my home-ownership problem; and then get back to writing!

Paul VI, the Smoke of Satan in the Church

Exclusive: the revelation of Card. Noè:" When Paul VI denounced the smoke of Satan in the Church, he was referring to liturgical abuses following Vatican II."

read Fr. Z's translation and comments here

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from Holy Rosary parish, in Portland:

"On Corpus Christi, Sunday, May 25, Mass will begin at 10:30 AM. Fr. Anthony will celebrate the Dominican Rite Missa Cantata, followed by a solemn procession with the Holy Eucharist. Cantores in Ecclesia will sing the polyphonic Proper from William Byrd's Gradualia of 1605.

from this vale of tears: sigh...

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Dominicans on the cutting edge!

So nice to receive a notice about renewal somewhere in the world; in this case, New Zealand. for comparison, here's something old, then something new.








Now, for the cutting edge:





click any of the last three images for the video broadcast. thanks, Doc!

This comparison is an example of what John has emphasised; that becoming "contemporary" (con-temporary = with-temporary) is to become hopelessly mired in a moment of the ephemeral past, for it is to try and make what is "temporary" permanent. That is why so much of the "renewal" in the so-called "spirit of Vatican II" is so hideously ugly now; it reflects the taste of it's period, not beauty everlasting, ever true.

I am not unaware that there are those who would argue that the age-topheavy congregations, some already dissapeared, others in danger of disappearing, is what Vatican II called for (in spite of the actual documents of Vatican II and instruction from the Church to the contrary); and I have certainly read many a self-congratulatory justification of such destruction. For those who have invested as much as 40 years in institutionalizing dissent and disobedience, it is understandable that renouncing it would be rather a difficult exercise in humility.

WHO'S YA DADDY???

From the website of a local parish:

"Liturgical Dance is never a performance."

Here we see the Doublethink of "1984" at work; Since when does saying what is not true, make it to be true? Thus, direct disobedience is justified in the mind of the one who chaffs under the gentle yoke of obedience.

If you do not believe you must obey higher authority, then why, pray tell, do you expect anyone to obey you? And if one of your dancers decides to do something completely different than what you have practiced and planned, will you not be upset and either call them to obedience, or remove them?