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Showing posts from October, 2021

Wokeness Has No Jokeness

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A more direct title might be 'wokeness excludes a sense of humour'. Because exponents of wokeness have no sense of humour, and clearly lack an appreciation of clever (not vulgar) humour, that will be the undoing of woke culture. Of course, the reign of terror enacted against the rest of us won't be over anytime soon. A lot of damage is being done, and before the serpent of wokeness fully consumes itself and dies a death that cannot come soon enough, it has more than a few endangered species yet to devour. The first to be condemned, silenced, imprisoned, tortured and disappeared in any revolution are those who represent a threat to the powermongers. Most often those who first pay the price are clergy, musicians, poets, and now it seems comedians who dare to speak truth to power. Can anyone blame comedians for refusing to perform on university and college campuses rife with the demon of political correctness and its savage offspring wokeness, institutions of "higher lear

Ordination of Michael Nazir-Ali to the Sacred Order of Presbyters: transcribed remarks

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Post-Ordination Remarks 1:58:00 Video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPGbk2lNMFk Ordination of Michael Nazir-Ali  to the Sacred Order of Presbyters Post-Ordination Remarks The Rev. Fr. Michael Nazir-Ali Thank you Fr. Keith for this opportunity, and first of all, of course, I would like to express my gratitude to His Eminence Vincent Cardinal Nichols for coming and for spending so much time. Actually, more time than he had allocated, because he arrived an hour earlier than he had intended. I’m sure that’s in God’s providence. And, of course, to Monsignor Keith and to Gill for their gracious hospitality. For Archbishop Bernard, for journeying with me and actually even turning up at the railway station to show me the way – so, that’s really quite literally showing me the way - thank you very much indeed. To so many of the clergy in the Ordinariate whom I have known previously for many years, and it is very good to see so many here today. You will have seen various interviews and pieces

Words of... .

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If you don't behave as you believe, you will end by believing as you behave. - The Venerable Fulton J. Sheen Language: Your words matter  - from an article at  Catholic East Texas According to St. Thomas Aquinas, language is an external tool meant to communicate truth, and as such it is governed by modesty. Our language is governed by modesty because it is “the virtue that moderates all the internal and external movements and appearance of a person according to his or her endowments, possessions, and station in life.”  Language is a beautiful and noble tool. Just like any tool, it can be misused and even abused. Language is not about manifesting our each and every emotion through self-consumed diatribes, expletives, complaints, and so forth, as society might have us believe. Rather, language is meant to communicate. If we are deliberate in our speech, we can find immense healing interiorly because words matter. Words have so much power, and the words we use greatly shape our lives.

Online Book: The Oxford Handbook of The Oxford Movement

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Read it online at: https://books.google.ca/books?id=Xe9IDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA81&lpg=PA81&dq=Oriel+Fathers+on+Liturgy&source=bl&ots=snyYgP3HBp&sig=ACfU3U2Zusw-7axXoy9N5O1k1UQguB8D1A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiJ7e6xyenzAhUrCTQIHe0zDlkQ6AF6BAgCEAM#v=onepage&q&f=false

The Taymouth Hours, Use of Sarum

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Virgin Mary and the devil from BL YT 13, f. 155v Bas-de-page scene of the Virgin Mary pulling on the horns of a vanquished devil, while on the left, an angel holds a rescued soul, with a caption reading, ‘Cy n[ost]re dame tout le deable un alme.’ Image taken from f. 155v of Book of Hours, Use of Sarum ('The Taymouth Hours'). Written in Latin and French. A 14th-century Book of Hours http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=yates_thompson_ms_13_fs001r Description from The Taymouth Hours | British Library Books of Hours were popular books of devotion during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Luxurious copies with rich decorations were highly appreciated by royal and aristocratic patrons. Four apparent owner portraits of a crowned woman indicate that this Book of Hours was most likely made for a royal woman (ff. 7r, 18r, 139r, 188v; digitised images 1, 2, 12, 28). Suggestions for her identity have included: Isabella of France (1295–1358), wife of Edward II; one of Isabella

My grace is sufficient for you.

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Photo by Enrique Vidal Flores Do not turn your suffering into wrath, for madness shall surely follow, a madness that consumes not only you but those around you as well. Such a madness consumes reason and sympathy, and boils away humanity until, in isolation, a continuous lament becomes the dirge of a soul possessed of the need to destroy others, even making one become the thing hated. The saints know that our wounds leave a place for God to enter in and transform and purify us of useless attachments, relieving us of false loves. No one should pretend that the crucifying process of suffering is without pain. With the grace of God, we are able to enter into the wounds of Jesus, which are a place for us to enter in, in His time and in His way, to be transformed more and more in likeness to God. Our capacity to bear trials and to rely on God for His peace is increased the more we trust God and accept His grace to live for, by and with Him, for the salvation of souls. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.

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The Holy Gospel according to St. John 12:32 (A)nd I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself. Former Baptist Pastor (John Thompson) Explains His Conversion to Catholicism https://www.ncregister.com/blog/john-thompson-former-baptist-pastor-becomes-catholic I went back and looked at worship in the early Church. I expected to find the Baptist Church with preaching and worship that reflected Baptist beliefs. Yet I found that the earliest post-Scriptural documents that we have speak of liturgy from the very beginning. You don’t find the free worship of the Baptist or the Evangelical tradition. You find the liturgy, forms of worship and set prayers from very early in the Church. And, most importantly, you find not just the Liturgy of the Word, the proclaimed or preached Word of God, but you have the Liturgy of the Eucharist. You discover the two-fold action of hearing the Word of God and responding by offering up the Sacrifice through which you receive the Body, Blood

Love

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True love never dies; it transforms and is transformed. True love transforms into freedom and thrills for the other's good. Cheap love, a lesser love, has us cling to fantasy - greed, lust, envy, jealousy, addiction - and rots into misery. True love never dies. God's grace keeps true love alive; God's grace keeps love true.

Sloth

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Sloth a translation of the Latin term acedia (Middle English, acciditties ) and means "without care". Anglican bishops are returning to the fold. It has been reported by reliable Catholic media, often quoting the testimony of lay and clergy converts, that Catholic prelates are discouraging such conversions. Given the witness of people who have experienced directly the acedia of one prelate or another, one could be forgiven for praying that the Lord may spare His people from leaders who routinely fail to welcome those following the call to communion with Christ's Church. This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity. ( Lumen Gentium , 8) Th

You may have heard... .

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... that Anglican Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali has done swum the Tiber. https://europeanconservative.com/articles/essay/coming-into-port-the-conversion-of-michael-nazir-ali/?fbclid=IwAR2MFTz5cQ9yFRYifv9MH-hnMMOyGEuSgByIrbXs_noFBaodeL5U0FxQy3o https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/ex-c-of-e-bishop-michael-nazir-ali-converts-to-catholicism The Spectator Michael Nazir-Ali I believe that the Anglican desire to adhere to apostolic, patristic and conciliar teaching can now best be maintained in the Ordinariate. Provisions there to safeguard legitimate Anglican patrimony are very encouraging and, I believe, that such patrimony in its Liturgy, approaches to Biblical study, pastoral commitment to the community, methods of moral theology and much else besides has a great deal to offer the wider church. Ministry in the Church of Pakistan, in the Middle East generally, in the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion remains precious to me and I see this as a further step in the ministry of o

Divine Worship In The Middle

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Novus Ordo Missae | Divine Worship | 1962 Missal (TLM) Mass of Pope Saint Paul VI/Novus Ordo Missae: English, occasional Latin and Greek (Lamb of God) Divine Worship/Traditional English Mass/Anglican Use: traditional English, Latin and Greek (Lamb of God; Trisagion) Traditional Latin Mass (TLM)/Mass of Pope Saint John XXIII/Usus Antiquior: Latin, Greek (Lamb of God; Trisagion), English homily Helpful Links https://lms.org.uk/missals https://saintgregoryordinariate.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/DivineWorshipPewMissalWEB.pdf + + + THREE FORMS OF THE MASS* In Summary TYPICAL SUNDAY MASS | SOLEMN SUNG MASS | MISSA CANTATA INTRODUCTORY RITES NOM Processional Hymn Greeting Penitential Rite Gloria Collect DW Prayers of Preparation (said in the sacristy) Procession: traditional English hymn Asperges/Sprinkling/English plainchant Introit Collect for Purity Summary of the Law Kyrie/Lord Have Mercy Gloria Collect TLM Hymn Asperges Prayers at the Foot Introit Kyrie Gloria Collect LITURGY OF THE C

Justice Not Justice

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Sonia Sotomayor - raised Catholic, self-lowered liberal religionist I am a very spiritual person [though] maybe not traditionally religious in terms of Sunday Mass every week, that sort of thing. The trappings are not important to me, but, yes, I do believe in God. And, yes, I do believe in the commandments. - Liptak, Adam (January 13, 2013). "Washington Is Home (for Now at Least), but Sotomayor Stays True to New York" . The New York Times. Activist Not Justice If a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States walks like a duck and acts like a duck, she's probably an activist duck. 'There is going to be a lot of disappointment in the law, a huge amount'   Earlier this month, (Justice) Sotomayor penned a scathing opinion when the court's majority allowed the Texas law to go into effect, calling the action "stunning." "You know, I can't change Texas' law," Sotomayor said Wednesday, "but you can and everyone else who may or m

Perspectives and Predictions

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On The Laity Who will the bishops command if not the faithful? The faithless? The pretenders? When all is said and done, and cafeteria (c)atholics have left for religious social clubs that offer cheap grace, who will listen? The faithful will listen, and they will not tolerate heresy nor lacklustre witness to the Gospel. Who are the faithful? Those Catholics who are mindful of Tradition, those who take seriously the Faith and who abide by the soul-saving teaching of Holy Mother Church. To whom will the faithful look for guidance? Likeminded shepherds who offer the true, the good and the beautiful. Father Celebrity and Bishop Narcissist will preach to empty parishes. Traditional Catholics will find the FSSP and ICKSP, the Ordinariate, and the Eastern Churches in communion with Rome. Beauty seeks beauty. An honest soul seeks beautiful liturgy; true teaching; a good life conformed to the will of God, modelled on Christ and the saints, and shaped daily by the Holy Ghost encountered in day

Catholic Ordinariates of the Anglican Patrimony to the Rescue?

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If ever there was a more unsettling moment exposing the divide between Catholics of one liturgical preference versus another, its impact would have to be measured against the fallout created by the motu proprio Traditionis Custodes that has seen many people - left and right - pointing dirty fingers in the direction of their enemies, their fellow Catholics. What can we in the Personal Ordinariates established by the Apostolic Constitution provide to shape discussions to preserve charity and unity in the truth? It seems to this blogger that our very identity can offer something of a healing balm to be applied to the wounds opened or reopened in the wake of the release of the Holy Father's document. To those who claim to be "traditionalists" who are cautioning that a restriction upon the Ordinariate is just as likely as what is happening to the 1962 Missal communities, one might respond that ours is a liturgical, spiritual and cultural heritage that transcends the polemics
The opinions expressed herein are largely those of the blog author. Every effort is made to conform to Church teaching. Comments are welcome.