A Treasure To Be Shared

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski has a splendid article at the NLM website entitled  Living the Vita Liturgica: Conditions, Obstacles, Prospects. http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2018/04/living-vita-liturgica-conditions.html#.WtbY-iMrLpQ One paragraph among the many helpful sections stands out: Each of us is supposed to be leading a liturgical life, and we need to find or make the right conditions for doing so, and help others to do it. A first and irreplaceable step in awakening the souls of liturgical orphans to the grandeur of divine worship is simply to invite and encourage them to attend the traditional Latin Mass from time to time. There they will experience something strange and uncomfortable, something directed to a transcendent God and not bending over backwards to include and instruct them, something curiously unmodern and even indifferent to its surroundings, yet utterly in earnest. They might get a taste of what adoration, supplication, and repentance feel like. T...

Preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching. 2 Timothy 4:2 Catholics young and old deserve true teaching and true Liturgy, the school where we are formed for mission. Are the hierarchs listening to voices such as the one cited by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia? The good Archbishop, a clear voice of faith and reason who manages to navigate the waters made turbulent by less than credible witnesses to the Catholic Faith, has shared a letter from a man who articulates well the desire among young people for clarity. The question for the hierarchs of the Synod is: Are you listening? Will the Synod be a mirror of the facts, of the Spirit speaking through the courageous witness of faithful Catholics, or will the Synod be another muddled affair with a preordained outcome that merely coddles bad behaviour and gives tacit approval to a cafeteria catholicism that is the reason why ...

The Beauty of Truth & Justice Faithful Catholics have long lobbied the CCCB to address the highly problematic associations of the CCODP, Canada's Catholic development agency. Sadly, complaints previously fell on mostly deaf ears. All too frequently, the faithful have been met with hostility by members and staff of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. Perhaps now Canada's bishops and staff at the CCCB will take a cue from the Holy Father and apologize for their mistreatment of concerned Catholic citizens and for not taking more seriously the complaints against the CCODP. A brief history lesson on the CCODP's shameful activities can be found at the following link: https://www.lifesitenews.com/tags/tag/development+and+peace A particularly enlightening article can be found at the following link: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/lifesitenews-banned-from-public-sessions-of-canadian-bishops-meeting And, another useful article: https://...

Haven't we had enough of the 'new' iconoclasm? The short answer is: yes. Diagnosing the illness is the first step on the road to recovery. A diagnosis of obesity requires a new attitude toward food, a serious change of habit. To remain stuck in the bad habit of eating excessive amounts of junk food or massively overeating even healthy food is to consign oneself to the likely possibility of an untimely death, or protracted health problems that make getting out of bed as difficult as running up six flights of stairs. People have become indifferent to real beauty by having consumed for far too long a steady diet of trite "music", i.e., iconoclastic sound-craft or saccharine ditties, vapid architecture and cheap sermons that sound more like horoscope predictions from a trashy tabloid rag than authoritative exhortations to pursue the Way, the Truth and the Life. Banality, unwanted guest that it is, has barged its way into the Church and has invited legions of ...

Divine Worship — The Ordinariate Mass Announcing Liturgy Outside Liturgy: The Liturgical Theology of Fr. Alexander Schmemann by David Fagerberg http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2018/04/announcing-liturgy-outside-liturgy.html#.WscAMCMrLpQ Excerpt from the article by Dr. P. Kwasniewski. Fagerberg observes that “Liturgical reform should not, therefore, be self-serving; liturgical reform is a matter of empowering the Church’s leitourgia , which is the work of a few on behalf of the many.” He summarizes the conclusion his book in this way: “Let me conclude with a glance back over all three investigations: should liturgy matter, where is theology done, and does liturgy enter our life? In these three questions we were only following Schmemann’s own definition of the goal of liturgical theology, which is to overcome the fateful divorce between theology, liturgy, and piety. This breakup deprived liturgy of its proper understanding, theology of its living source, and piety...

The following excerpt is from the draft document of the Synod of Bishops XV Ordinary General Assembly, Young People, the Faith and Vocational Discernment , issued following the Pre-Synodal Meeting in Rome, 19-24 March 2018. http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2018/03/24/0220/00482.html The Arts and Beauty – Beauty is universally acknowledged and the Church has a history of engaging and evangelizing through the arts, such as music, visual art, architecture, design etc. Young people especially respond to and enjoy being creative and expressive. Apart from the obvious conclusion which reads more like a drive-by observation from the window of a car speeding through the neighbourhood of young people's lives, it is true that art has been, in earlier times more than now, an effective vehicle through which the Church has communicated her message of salvation in Jesus Christ. Of course, with so many people now illiterate, unable to appreciate t...

Door wide open! The tomb where Jesus' body once lay is empty! Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! On the occasion that many of us converts who have journeyed home to Rome, 'swam the Tiber', 'landed on the Rock', etc., celebrate with gratitude the sublime and wholly necessary gift of the Catholic Faith, please permit, at the risk of sounding triumphalist, an invitation to those not yet Catholic, or those lapsed, to come home! The stone was rolled away — death could not contain the Lord of life! Jesus, by His life, death and resurrection, has opened to us the door to eternal salvation. Only through Him can we find eternal life. To peer into the Empty Tomb is to peer into eternity, to peer into the Light of Christ. The Holy Shroud of Turin reminds us that a great light produced the image imprinted on the cloth, a light greater than any which man could ever produce. The Light has overcome the darkness of this world. Ordinariate Light T...