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Showing posts from November, 2023

Intentionally Peculiar Moments In Religion?

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The Barque of Peter replaced by the Barge of Francis Oddities, odd deities and weird ditties shipped in to parishes to clutter the cloisters of the Church. Domini-canus Biretta (No animals were harmed in the production of this biretta.) A favourite of the Order of Preachers. Comes with a retractable leash and a stick. Tennis ball not included. Heresy's Child Fashions Episcop-alien No need to take on the TEC's issues, we've got enough of our own problems. The Miterang For the charismatic (i.e., beguiling) bishop who loves to make an impression on the congregation. Now he can toss his hat into the nave and, if the angle is right, can have it land on his head at that moment in the homily when he tries to hit up his flock for an extra $10 million in cash to make up for the shortfall created by abuse lawsuits, shallow teaching and banal liturgies favoured by aged hippies clinging to their demented dreams of an earthly utopia saturated with free cheap love, folk Masses, clown Mas

Creeds: A Meditation

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A reasonable person would be right to assert that, though God may be mentioned here and there in secular constitutions and charters, without lively Christian populations national charters alone are not capable of effecting the civilisation of societies. Constitutions require people of faith - Christian Faith - to realize the grand ideas rehearsed in documents heralding the supremacy of Almighty God. Secularists - among them social radicals and the indifferent - engage only to the degree that their own self interests are able to dominate. By contrast, people of conscience model charity and justice. Without a lived Christian Faith to sustain and vivify a country, the body politic withers. Australia An Act to constitute the Commonwealth of Australia WHEREAS the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God , have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown of the United Kingdom of

27 One-sided Parish Conversations Or Captions

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Mickey Sean Winters [ 3 minute read ] Hey Doris, how is it that you always manage to arrive at the beginning of the Gospel, crochet your way through the homily until the Lamb of God, and then vanish right after Communion? Is there some kind of dispensation I don't know about? Mickey, I guess you'll be adding one more item to your confession today, eh? That of cutting in line, aka elbowing one's way in, aka jumping the queue. Have you enrolled your daughter in catechism class? What is catechism?! That's a program to help you mentor your child in the Faith and provides support for your child to help educate her allegedly Catholic parents. Are you new here at Saint Gregory's? You're a regular? It's just that you seem so unfamiliar with the prayers and responses. Ohhh,... you were speaking in tongues. Maybe try sticking to the script. Little Mickey really seems to enjoy causing a commotion during the consecration. That must be frustrating for you and your husban

Momentum builds for Saint John Henry Newman to be named a Doctor of the Church

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Often called “the Father of Vatican II”, (Newman) is surely the counterpart in the post-conciliar Church of St Robert Bellarmine, the Doctor par excellence of the Tridentine Church. - Fr. Ian Ker Saint John Henry Newman, Doctor of the Church. Let it be so! November 15, 2023 by OSV News The U.S. bishops voted (240 'yes') almost unanimously (with two “no” votes) Nov. 15 to support of a request by the the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales that Pope Francis name St. John Henry Newman, the 19th-century British cardinal, a doctor of the church. Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas, chair of the doctrine committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, presented the question to the body of bishops. A majority of members present and voting was needed to pass the motion. Additional Reading https://atreasuretobeshared.blogspot.com/2020/08/saint-john-henry-newman-doctor-of-church.html https://atreasuretobeshared.blogspot.com/2019/02/fr-ian-ker-doctor-newman.

Rome Obsessed?

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[ 7 minute read ] Confusion is no longer a side-effect of proud men discarding the practical wisdom of the Doctors of the Church. Confusion among Catholics is all too frequently a mandated outcome, the result of a syncretistic methodology nearing the status of a dogma, which thereby permits evil to slip in unnoticed, the evil wanted by the misguided few who fear not the Lord Almighty but who fear the wrath of a lesser god who promises acceptance and fame, the opiates of the uncritical and morally bankrupt person. Should it come as a surprise, then, that arguments pushing for an ill-considered embrace of disordered inclinations are being promoted by those who are comfortable with their own disordered predilections and bolstered by their confederates whose understanding of Catholic teaching and the natural law is about as informed as that of a CNN churnalistic opinion piece? https://www.ncregister.com/cna/vatican-doctrine-office-transgender-identifying-people-can-be-baptized-witness-marr

Strickland Removed

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America Magazine Bishop Strickland relieved of pastoral governance of US diocese The Vatican has published the Pope’s decision concerning the pastoral governance of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, following an apostolic visitation conducted by two US bishops. Read and weep. https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2023-11/bishop-strickland-relieved-of-pastoral-care-of-us-diocese.html Excerpt from the Vatican News report: The Holy Father has removed Bishop Joseph E. Strickland from the pastoral governance of the diocese of Tyler, United States of America, and has appointed Bishop Joe Vásquez of Austin as apostolic administrator of the same diocese, rendering it sede vacante. The decision came after an apostolic visitation ordered by the Pope last June in the Diocese of Tyler, which was entrusted to two US bishops, Bishop Dennis Sullivan of Camden, and Bishop Emeritus Gerald Kicanas of Tucson. [...] “As a result of the Visitation,” the statement continues, “the recommendation was made to the

Reclaiming The Sanctuary

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There are new churches designed by tradition-minded architects that capture the true, the good and the beautiful.  Many Catholic churches of a contemporary design, however, lack a sense of the holy in their design. They hardly evoke the thought that Almighty God is worshipped therein, and that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Word of God, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, is Present - Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity - in the tabernacle. Which is to say, God is there! And! - God Present, might it be appropriate to acknowledge the sanctuary as the heart of the universe? The centre of time? The soul of eternity? The hope of Christians? Though there are many God inhabited sanctuaries, they are all one because God is One. God is not divided. The one Sacrifice of Calvary is manifest throughout time. The Mass unites the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection all-in-one. The Mass is not a repetition, but an entering into the Paschal Mystery. As eternal, the Mass requir

Liturgy & The Joy of Holy Communion

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Ordinariate Mass at the National Shrine in D.C. | 3 August 2023 NLM [ 2 minute read ] What greater joy hath we mortals than that of sitting at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ, rapt in His mercy and grateful for the eternal life He offers to those who keep His commandments of love? The Mass is truly the source and summit of the Christian life. Therein lies our origin and destination, our life, our sweetness and our hope... to borrow a line. We converse with the Lord, witness His Sacrifice, share in His life, sing with the angels, and revel with the saints. The Church teaches that the Mass is Jesus Present in four ways (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy #7): in the person of the priest, His icon, through whom Christ acts to receive our offerings of self to transform those gifts, symbolized by the bread and wine, and make Himself truly Present; through the word of God, Holy Scripture; in the congregation gathered in His Name, the body of Christ, the people of God; and most sublimely in

Do Tell: What James Martin And Other Gamblers Think

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Players around a poker table try their best to conceal their tells, those subtle ticks that reveal to others what kind of hand they possess. The astute person is able to figure out their opponents' tells while concealing his own. A tell in poker is a change in a player's behavior or demeanor that is claimed by some to give clues to that player's assessment of their hand. A player gains an advantage if they observe and understand the meaning of another player's tell, particularly if the tell is unconscious and reliable. - WP Life Around The Synod Card Tables For the record: this blogger does not hold that every Synod attendee marches to the beat of an ignominious drummer. Father James Martin showed his hand this past week when he expressed his disappointment that the alphabet soup he so wants the Church to adopt was not included in the published Synod documents. To have included the maimed rainbow acronym would have been to jam ideology into the vocabulary of the Church,
The opinions expressed herein are largely those of the blog author. Every effort is made to conform to Church teaching. Comments are welcome.