Hello and Goodbye

On Saturday, 29 August, the people of Saint Mary of the Assumption said goodbye to one priest and continued their warm and generous welcome of this contributor to the blogosphere.

God's blessing sends you forth, Father White. Thanks for helping to build this community up in His love.

With thanks also to Elizabeth White who created this "E-poster".

Bishop Martino of Scranton resigns: "Insomnia and fatigue"

"For some time now there has not been a clear consensus among the clergy and people of the diocese of Scranton regarding my pastoral initiatives or my way of governance. This development has caused me great sorrow, resulting in bouts of insomnia and, at times, a crippling physical fatigue."

-- the Most Rev. Joseph F. Martino,

D.D. Hist. E.D., Bishop of Scranton, a champion for the sanctity of every human life, in season and out of season, who has resigned today for reasons of health. Pray for him and the unborn for whom he was willing to stand up and to suffer great scorn and vilification.

Read less-than-sympathetic coverage about Bishop Martino's resignation here.

More balanced coverage of this story provided by Lifesite News. Find it here.

"Poured out

... like a libation" at Sunday Mass and filled up with His joy!

Thank you, St. Mary of the Assumption family of faith.

Gee, Father

Do you think there might be another reason not to see this movie besides the slow plot?

Hint:

Inglourious Basterds Movie Reviews, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes

Aug 21, 2009 ... Rated: R [See Full Rating] for strong graphic violence, language and brief sexuality. Runtime: 2 hrs 33 mins. Genre: Action/Adventure ...

Hmm...

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of cinema in 1995, the Vatican compiled a list of "great films". To see the list, click here.

Just asking

"From the ambo only the readings, the responsorial Psalm, and the Easter Proclamation (Exsultet) are to be proclaimed; it may be used also for giving the homily and for announcing the intentions of the Prayer of the Faithful. The dignity of the ambo requires that only a minister of the word should go up to it."

-- General Instruction of the Roman Missal, (USCCB Committee on the Liturgy)

And was it necessary that the eulogies by prominent, national, public advocates for abortion and infanticide be delivered at the ambo from which the Scriptures are proclaimed during the Kennedy funeral Mass televised today from OLPH Basilica in Boston?

More liturgical sloppiness resulting in a mess for the rest of us to clean up...

Nota bene: This post has nothing whatsoever to do with the duty of the Church to commend Edward Kennedy, and all who have died, to the mercy of God. May they rest in peace.

"The ultimate exploitation of women": will you weep?

Prayer in the nightmare of the Cult of Death: "Like a dream one wakes from, O Lord, when you wake you dismiss them as phantoms."

¹Surely God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.

² But as for me, my feet had almost slipped;
I had nearly lost my foothold.

³ For I envied the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

⁴ They have no struggles;
their bodies are healthy and strong.

⁵ They are free from the burdens common to man;
they are not plagued by human ills.

⁶ Therefore pride is their necklace;
they clothe themselves with violence.

⁷ From their callous hearts comes iniquity
the evil conceits of their minds know no limits.

⁸ They scoff, and speak with malice;
in their arrogance they threaten oppression.

⁹ Their mouths lay claim to heaven,
and their tongues take possession of the earth.

¹⁰ Therefore their people turn to them
and drink up waters in abundance.

¹¹ They say, "How can God know?
Does the Most High have knowledge?"

¹² This is what the wicked are like—
always carefree, they increase in wealth.

¹³ Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure;
in vain have I washed my hands in innocence.

¹⁴ All day long I have been plagued;
I have been punished every morning.

¹⁵ If I had said, "I will speak thus,"
I would have betrayed your children.

¹⁶ When I tried to understand all this,
it was oppressive to me

¹⁷ till I entered the sanctuary of God;
then I understood their final destiny.

¹⁸ Surely you place them on slippery ground;
you cast them down to ruin.

¹⁹ How suddenly are they destroyed,
completely swept away by terrors!

²⁰ As a dream when one awakes,
so when you arise, O Lord,
you will despise them as fantasies.

²¹ When my heart was grieved
and my spirit embittered,

²² I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you.

²³ Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.

²⁴ You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.

²⁵ Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.

²⁷ Those who are far from you will perish;
you destroy all who are unfaithful to you.

²⁸ But as for me, it is good to be near God.

I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge;
I will tell of all your deeds.--

-- Psalm 73

Jesus Christ is the best medicine:

Heaven is the only side effect!

Is this a nightmare?

You tell me: The pro-abortion/infanticide juggernaut in person delivering the eulogy at a Catholic funeral in a Catholic church.

What am I talking about? Read about it here.

American Papist has commentary on instructions regarding funerals, eulogies and such things as regulated by the General Instruction of the Roman Missal. You can find it here.

Quote of the Day

I'd say the Holy Father's and Ronald's observation extends to any Christian in dealing with the people in their lives. Seeing the God-given beauty in others, and treating them with reverence and honor, even when they annoy the living spit out of us--that's a daily challenge any believer could address for a whole lifetime.

-- Todd on The New Liturgical Movement, in reference to the following statement by Pope Benedict: "A theologian who does not love art, poetry, music and nature can be dangerous. Blindness and deafness toward the beautiful are not incidental; they necessarily are reflected in his theology." (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, The Ratzinger Report, p. 130)

September 12: "The Power of Beauty in the Sacred Arts"

"The Power of Beauty in the Sacred Arts" Dr. Peter Kreeft Saturday, September 12th at 7pm Dr. Peter Kreeft, acclaimed philosopher, prolific writer, and popular speaker, will deliver a lecture entitled "The Power of Beauty in the Sacred Arts." Opening Reception at 7pm. Talk at 7:30pm. Seating is Limited to 125 people. Holy Family Auditorium The Lyceum at St. Mary's Catholic Church 313 Duke Street, Alexandria, VA Peter Kreeft, Ph.D., is a professor of philosophy at Boston College and at the King's College (Empire State Building), in New York City. He is a regular contributor to several Christian publications, is in wide demand as a speaker at conferences, and is the author of over 45 books. www.peterkreeft.com Hosted by St. Mary's Catholic Church and The Mary Martha Guild.

info@thesacredarts.org

Contact Us!
The Foundation for Sacred Arts

1413 K Street NW Suite 1000

Washington, DC 20005

202-898-1288

No "looking for exhibits" on Saturdays here

In this year for priests, please pray that priests who do not have pastoral work will be invited to share more in the joys of laboring in the vineyard of the Lord. It seems that for some the highlight of a recent Saturday was "looking for exhibits". Art is awesome, but the greatest of all arts is the cure of souls, as St. John Vianney knew so well.

On Saturdays, why not try confessions, Mass and dinner with parishioners, Father. It's A Priest Life!

Thank you for visiting,

((((..))))

The closest thing to purgatory?

The Md MVA waiting room!

Please pray for Charis

Friends Sandy and Josh sent this note:

Hello, dear family and friends!

Please pray for Charis, our 9 year old. She has an extra bone in her foot (an accessory navicular), which causes her pain almost daily, and will have surgery to remove it this Thursday, August 27th. She's actually been in so much pain that she's pretty excited about the surgery. She will be under general anesthesia for the procedure, but it's still outpatient, so we'll be back home that afternoon. We appreciate your prayers!

love to you all,

sandra for all of us

Celebrating a priest: Fr. Timothy Vakoc, RIP

"The safest place for me to be is in the center of God's will, and if that is in the line of fire, that's where I'll be."

- Fr. Timothy Vakoc, U.S. Army Chaplain,
who died as the result of wounds received while in action in Iraq.

Sounding the death knell: another ecclesial group departs from "The Way"

Another ecclesial body moves further away from possible reunion with the universal Church.

In mourning as one reads the news.

Meanwhile, a tornado ripped through Minneapolis, interrupting the meeting discussing these non-biblical innovations and destroying the steeple of the Central Lutheran Church located across the street.

Sources: American Papist and Orate Fratres.

The reform of the Reform: A "return to the sense of the sacred and to adoration"

Many of you have lived for years in liturgical "boiling water" and have unwittingly become used to the rising heat, as the increasing "busy-ness" of liturgical action and unwarranted innovations in the liturgy have multiplied exponentially nearly everywhere.

What has been lost in the process of the foisting of these distortions upon a largely unsuspecting faithful is very precious: the sense of the real presence of God through the Church's accustomed means of preserving the sacred in the celebration of holy Mass through silence, appropriate sacred music, the unhurried pace of worship and the central role of the priest and other ministers such as deacons and acolytes. If the sense of the presence of God is lost because the liturgy looks more and more like a worldly affair, then the faith of the people is diminished, much like the endangered life of the proverbial frog in water growing increasingly hotter and hotter over time. Many, both ordained and lay, have known for years that something was wrong but perhaps not "what" or "why".

The prefect of the Congregation for Sacred Worship in Rome, or "Culto Divino" in Italian, has forwarded a document passed by its members to the Holy Father for his approval which reinvigorates the mandates of the Second Vatican Council for the liturgy which were lost through the many unauthorized innovations and distortions of the liturgy so widespread and long-standing that many Catholics now mistakenly label them "traditional" and in error have come to believe that they were actually mandated by the Second Vatican Council.

One commentator calls this document, the result of a vote by the dicastery for sacred worship on 12 March and given to the Holy Father on 4 April, the "first concrete movement toward the 'reform of the reform' long hoped-for by Pope Benedict."

He goes on to say, "Almost unanimously the cardinals and bishops members of the Congregation have voted in favor of a greater sacrality of the rite, toward a recovery of the sense of Eucharistic adoration, and a recovery of the Latin language in the celebration and a remaking of part of the introductory rites of the mass to put a stop to abuses, wild experimentations and inopportune creativity. There are also passages favorable to reaffirming the usual mode of receiving communion according to the norms not on the hand but on the tongue. There is, it is true, an indult which permits, upon the request of the episcopates, to distribute the host also upon the palm of the hand, but this needs to remain an extraordinary fact. The 'minister of the liturgy' for Pope Benedict, Archbishop Cañizares, is also going to study the possibility of recuperating the orientation towards the East of the celebrant of Mass at a minimum at the moment of the Eucharistic consecration, as it happened to be practiced before the reform, when the faithful and the priest looked toward the Crucifix and the priest therefore had his back to the assembly." (Source: Il Giornale. Translation from Italian by blog author.)

Note bene: Keep in mind that most of the people, most of the time, have "their backs toward each other" at Mass. There has been simply a choice to focus on the priest, which is an error, and a resulting obsession about which way he is facing during the Mass. This has been a direct result of turning the altar "around", as it were, and requiring the priest and people to face each other during the majority of the celebration of Mass. This was never the universal practice of the Church, was not a mandate of Vatican II, and has had a deleterious effect upon the sense of the sacred and taken away from the centrality of the Lord Who is the real center of our lives and therefore also of our worship.

The essential nature of the liturgy as the movement of the Body of Christ on earth, of all the faithful, priest and people together, toward the Father in the Risen Lord, is the essential work of the Holy Spirit in the Church at prayer. This reality of the identity of the Church is very powerfully and beautifully expressed and manifested by the long-standing practice of the Church in the facing toward liturgical East by both priest and people at certain moments in the liturgy.

For more on the Holy Father's work to "reform the reform" and restore in the holy Mass what was envisioned by the Fathers at the Second Vatican Council, I recommend the more in-depth coverage at Rorate Caeli. Click here to find the story.

Strengthened By The Bread Of Life, We Walk

“ Elijah went a day’s journey into the desert, un­til he came to a broom tree and sat beneath it. He prayed for death saying: ‘ This is enough, O Lord! Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers’.” We are but a day’s journey in the desert and we, like Elijah, often are tempted and give in to a wea­riness that is much like his, sitting down to die as he did under the broom tree. Jesus the Lord, present in the Eucharist and much more than a mere hearth cake and jug of water, calls out to us to get up and eat, so that we too may walk again. We are the peo­ple of life, and our journey of 40 days and 40 nights is our witness to the love and life of God in Christ. We are missionaries of Life sent for apos­tolate in the desert of today’s world. Many in the Church have become weary in the struggle for life and forget sometimes that the fight for every human life is, at the same time, a fight for our own lives. We are people of the Lord only as much as His heart becomes our heart, only as much as His love becomes in us incarnate once again in indiscriminate love for every human person from the moment of conception until natural death. Life is sacred in all its stages and conditions. The weariness of life is heard in the voice of the man or woman who says, “ How could I bring a child into a world like this?” How many times have we heard such murmuring in hostility toward new life? “ What if I bring my child into the world only to see Him rejected by His own people, spat upon, mocked, beaten, scourged, crowned with thorns, stripped of His garments and then crucified like a common criminal?” Mary could very well have re­sponded to Gabriel’s announcement of the Incar­nation in just this way. But, as our Lady knows, every child is a sign of God’s will that life should go on. The evil of the cult of death persists in the anti­life mentality that questions the right to life of ev­ery child and the duty of husband and wife to gen­erously accept the gift of “ children lovingly from God.” ( The Marriage Rite). This condition is per­vasive because it is often insidiously disguised as good. The cult of death thrives upon the widely held error that the evil in the world and the suffer­ing it brings make life itself intolerable. But life is created by God and therefore always good, no mat­ter how bruised by suffering or eclipsed by pain. Christ’s Passion and death have given salvific mean­ing and spiritual wealth to our suffering. Men and women who forget they are created by the loving God of eternal life lose sight of the eternal human vocation to holiness and happiness with God Him­self. In an environment that does not lovingly and generously accept every human life as sacred, the dis­ease and sickness of the cult of death thrive and grow. The Eucharist, the Body and Blood of our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, stands as the greatest sign of contradiction against the lies peddled today that spread the cult of death. The “ Bread of Life,” mul­tiplied abundantly on the altars of the world to feed all mankind, calls all men to recognize their own dignity. All are called to receive the flesh of Christ given for the life of the world and thus reach beyond this world with its broken promises, sins and suffering, to the eternal joy of the wedding banquet of the Lamb. “ Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you” ( John 6: 27). In intimate communion with our Lord present in the Eucharist we are inoculated against the peddlers of death with their abortion, abortifacient contraception, birth control, infanticide, unchaste sex education, and euthanasia, the arsenal of the cult of death which has declared outright war upon God and human life. The members of our society who tolerate the abomi­nation of anti-life policies and practices are in love with their own shadows in monstrous self-absorption and condemn themselves to eternal death. Christians are called to turn away from selfishness in order to focus upon the image of Christ in the Eucharist; to be led not into the temptation of false hopes and emp­ty promises, but to eternal life itself. We labor “ for the food which endures to eternal life” when we reverently and frequently receive the Bread of Life, and then go forth bravely and calmly into the world — with its murder- sprees, rampant infanticide, and glorification of perversion — con­fident that, as Christ promised, “ I have overcome the world.” And we overcome the world with Him, we share in His victory, as we adore and receive Him in the Eucharist with a clear conscience. We look forward to the life of Heaven to come in and through the Eucharist. By this divine gift we are in communion with the Paschal Lamb whom we receive and who continually unites us to Himself and the Father in Heaven. Children are brought into the world according to God’s plan and design in order to share the life of grace forever with Him in glory. This is true de­spite all the evils which may threaten our lives but which can never harm our souls. “ I am the living bread which came down from Heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:51). The gift of God’s Flesh and Blood is a living and divine sign that life should go on forever and ever. Begin eterni­ty today by kneeling in worship of our Incarnate God present in all the tabernacles of the world. (This column by Father Kevin M. Cusick was published in the 20 August, 2009, issue The Wanderer Catholic newspaper. On-line and print subscriptions are available by visiting the web site here.)

Be kind to your heart

... give His love.

-- ((((..))))

"Living the Eucharistic Mystery": Genuflection, deep bowing, kneeling, prostration, silence

More from Cardinal Arinze on inculturation and liturgical "updating"

"That in this sacrament are the true Body of Christ and his true Blood is something that cannot be apprehended by the senses," says St. Thomas, "but only by faith which relies on divine authority" (S. Th. III, 75, 1: cf. Paul VI: Mysterium)

"I devoutly adore you, O hidden God,

Truly hidden beneath these appearances.

My whole heart submits to you,

And in contemplating you,

It surrenders itself completely.

"Sight, touch, taste are all deceived

In their judgment of you,

But hearing suffices firmly to believe.

I believe all that the Son of God has spoken;

There is nothing truer than this word of truth."

(Adoro Te Devote)

"This faith demands the surrender of our will, the sacrifice needed in order to believe or not to trust in the senses. Freed from doubt and pride, we are made free for the light of faith. We are ready to adore. . . .

"Adoration manifests itself in such gestures in genuflection, deep bow, kneeling, prostration and silence in the presence of the Lord. Asian cultures have a deep sense of the sacred and transcendent. Reverence in Asia to civil authorities sometimes shows itself in clasped hands, kneeling, bows, prostration and walking away while facing a dignitary. It should not be too difficult to bring and elevate this cultural value to honour our Eucharistic Jesus. The fashion in some parts of the world of not installing kneelers in churches should not be copied by the Church in Asia . . . .

"The way in which Holy Communion is distributed should be clearly indicated and monitored and individual idiosyncracies should not be allowed. In the Latin Rite, only concelebrating priests take Holy Communion. Everyone else is given (communion), be the person cleric or lay. It is not right that the priest discard any of the vestments just because the climate is hot or humid. If necessary, the Bishop can arrange the use of lighter cloth. It is altogether unacceptable that the celebrant will opt for local dress in the place of universally approved Mass vestments or use baskets, or wine glasses to distribute the Holy Eucharist. This is inculturation wrongly understood . . . .

It is the tradition of the Church that during the Mass the readings are taken only from the Holy Scriptures. Not even the writings of the Saints or Founders of Religious Orders are admitted. It is clear that the books of other religions are excluded, no matter how inspiring a particular text may be. . . .

The major Church documents that give directives on how inculturation is to be made are Sacrosanctum Concilium, 37-40, the 1994 Instruction: Roman Liturgy and Inculturation, and Chapter IX of the General Instruction on the Roman Missal. If these directives are followed, the local Church will be spared questionable or downright mistaken innovations and idiosyncracies of some enthusiastic cleric whose fertile imagination invents something on Saturday night and whose uninformed zeal forces this innovation on the innocent congregation on Sunday morning. Dance in particular needs to be critically examined because most dances draw attention to the performers and offer enjoyment. People come to Mass, not for recreation but, to adore God, to praise and thank him, to ask pardon for their sins, and to request other spiritual and temporal needs. The monasteries may be of help in how graceful body movements can become prayer. . . .

The Colombo Liturgical Convention of September 2008 insists that local Ordinaries and National Conferences of Bishops should carefully ensure the proper observance of liturgical norms, and that Bishops are responsible for the liturgy celebrated in their dioceses, including those held in the house of religious men and women, ashrams and religious movements. (cf. Colombo Statement, 13)

-- from Francis Cardinal Arinze's homily at the Closing Solemn Mass of the Ninth FABC Plenary Assembly in Manila, the Philippines, on 16 Aug. 2009

Congratulations, LCDR Johnson!

Many best wishes for fair winds and following seas to my very good friend and brother priest the Reverend Charles Johnson, CHC, USN, upon his selection for promotion to the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

Somebody won't be calling this blog author "sir" anymore.

Maybe never did...

"You are my portion and my cup"

I am offering my hours of adoration before the Lord in exposition at
St Mary of the Assumption today for family, benefactors, friends and
all APL visitors.

Thank you,
FrC

Tempted to worry?

Time to pray!

Today at St. Mary of the Assumption: Give us this joy always

Wisdom Incarnate, set your Eucharistic table in our hearts.

Fill us with your Spirit that, singing and playing to You in psalms, hymns and inspired songs, we may give "thanks always and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father."

Amen.

Please pray for Bob Simms.

Exploring the new neighborhood

Cycled today.
Traveled north from Upper Marlboro on 301 to the industrial park and did the circuit at the Trade Zone Training Race Loop (1.40 mi.) and returned. For more on the route visit this link. Jim Wilson has posted some photos of the races regularly held at the zone.


Photos Copyright © jim Wilson

Mary's reward

...begins already today for us, and we share in her heavenly reign as Queen of heaven and earth, each time we generously love the Father in the worship of holy Mass.

-- ((((..))))

Allow nothing earthly to capture you

...and your heart and mind are freed for heaven.

-- ((((..))))

More from the garden

He makes grass grow for the cattle

and plants for man to cultivate—

bringing forth food from the earth

-- Psalm 104:14

(Photos by blog author using Nikon D40 and telescopic lense on manual focus.)

The Health Care Act and incremental promotion of evil

J. of Wilmington, Del, wrote to say that she could not find mention of
the elderly or disabled in USCCB statements about the Health Care Act.
"The Post had an interesting op-ed about how the House bill would pay
doctors to give end of life counseling to seniors every 5 years:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/07/AR2009080703043.html
As a student of incrementalism, I can tell you that if this provision
survived to become law, the next step would be to make it mandatory.
Plus, the government would be providing the doctors with scripts. Care
to guess what the scripts might say?
Betsy McCaughey (former Lt Governor in NY, now heads an organization
to build awareness about hospital deaths due to infections) had an
interesting article on the risks of Obama care for the elderly in the
Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203517304574303903498159292.html
As a preview of things to come, she says that in Oregon, some cancer
patients are being denied care by the state, and are afforded the
benefit of physician-assisted suicide.
Scary stuff. This is why people are angry.
There will be countless opportunities via amendments to the law and
regulations to push the culture of death inch by inch. First it's end
of life counseling for seniors, then it will be mandatory prenatal
testing & then counseling for pregnant women carrying a disabled
child. Incrementalism is a powerful weapon in the culture of death -
it helps promote the banality of evil that Hannah Arendt wrote of."

Thank you, J.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver RIP

She blessed the world as a tireless affirmer of human life in all its
conditions. May she rest in the peace of Christ.

In the garden

How many are your works, O LORD!

In wisdom you made them all;

the earth is full of your creatures.

-- Psalm 104:24

(Photos by blog author using Nikon D40 and telescopic lense on manual focus.)

"Others went out on the sea in ships"

Ecliptic anchored in Sinclair Harbor

My father and four friends are currently cruising the north shore of Lake Superior. He emailed this photo with the log he is authoring to record their adventure on "Lake Gitchee Gumee". The crew set sail from Muskegon, Michigan, on Thursday, July 23^rd and will end their cruise around the middle of August. Highlights included attending Mass at the 300 year old Church of Saint Ann on Mackinac Island.

I send best wishes and prayers for fair winds and following seas to the vessel and crew.

Lord,

...let me be attentive to the presence of others around me today,

as in them it is You who calls, it is You who visits, it is You who questions, it is You asks me for help.

Amen.

Today at St Mary of the Assumption

Jesus, our Eucharist, gives us the grace to live the truth about love:
the sincere gift of self in a compassion which affirms the sacredness
of every human life no matter how filled with suffering.

40 days and 40 nights

"He got up, ate, and drank;
then strengthened by that food,
he walked"

Gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro!

Prayers, please

I will begin today to meet the people at my new assignment. What to pray for? That I can listen when that is what is needed, speak when it is necessary and in all things put the will of the Lord first for the good of His beloved people.

Church of Saint Mary of the Assumption in Upper Marlboro, Maryland
Founded 1824
For more information on the parish, visit the official website.

Thank you for your visit and the kindness of your prayers.

Lord,

... let my work be done today with love for you and transformed
thereby into a foretaste of the kingdom of heaven. Amen.

Is not prayer...

...often itself the answer to prayer?

Am now bringing the intentions of APL visitors before Our Lord present
in the Eucharist.

Thank you.

The HermCon defined Part II: No "room for every whim".

Here is the second part of the post from last Thursday on "The Hermeneutic of Continuuty Defined" and quotes our Holy Father Benedict in an address to bishops in 2005.

"On the one hand, there is an interpretation that I would call "a hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture"; it has frequently availed itself of the sympathies of the mass media, and also one trend of modern theology. On the other, there is the "hermeneutic of reform", of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church which the Lord has given to us. She is a subject which increases in time and develops, yet always remaining the same, the one subject of the journeying People of God.

"The hermeneutic of discontinuity risks ending in a split between the pre-conciliar Church and the post-conciliar Church. It asserts that the texts of the Council as such do not yet express the true spirit of the Council. It claims that they are the result of compromises in which, to reach unanimity, it was found necessary to keep and reconfirm many old things that are now pointless. However, the true spirit of the Council is not to be found in these compromises but instead in the impulses toward the new that are contained in the texts.

"These innovations alone were supposed to represent the true spirit of the Council, and starting from and in conformity with them, it would be possible to move ahead. Precisely because the texts would only imperfectly reflect the true spirit of the Council and its newness, it would be necessary to go courageously beyond the texts and make room for the newness in which the Council's deepest intention would be expressed, even if it were still vague. In a word: it would be necessary not to follow the texts of the Council but its spirit. In this way, obviously, a vast margin was left open for the question on how this spirit should subsequently be defined and room was consequently made for every whim.

"The nature of a Council as such is therefore basically misunderstood. In this way, it is considered as a sort of constituent that eliminates an old constitution and creates a new one. However, the Constituent Assembly needs a mandator and then confirmation by the mandator, in other words, the people the constitution must serve. The Fathers had no such mandate and no one had ever given them one; nor could anyone have given them one because the essential constitution of the Church comes from the Lord and was given to us so that we might attain eternal life and, starting from this perspective, be able to illuminate life in time and time itself.
Through the Sacrament they have received, Bishops are stewards of the Lord's gift. They are "stewards of the mysteries of God" (I Cor 4: 1); as such, they must be found to be "faithful" and "wise" (cf. Lk 12: 41-48). This requires them to administer the Lord's gift in the right way, so that it is not left concealed in some hiding place but bears fruit, and the Lord may end by saying to the administrator: "Since you were dependable in a small matter I will put you in charge of larger affairs" (cf. Mt 25: 14-30; Lk 19: 11-27).

"These Gospel parables express the dynamic of fidelity required in the Lord's service; and through them it becomes clear that, as in a Council, the dynamic and fidelity must converge.
The hermeneutic of discontinuity is countered by the hermeneutic of reform, as it was presented first by Pope John XXIII in his Speech inaugurating the Council on 11 October 1962 and later by Pope Paul VI in his Discourse for the Council's conclusion on 7 December 1965.

"Here I shall cite only John XXIII's well-known words, which unequivocally express this hermeneutic when he says that the Council wishes "to transmit the doctrine, pure and integral, without any attenuation or distortion". And he continues: "Our duty is not only to guard this precious treasure, as if we were concerned only with antiquity, but to dedicate ourselves with an earnest will and without fear to that work which our era demands of us...". It is necessary that "adherence to all the teaching of the Church in its entirety and preciseness..." be presented in "faithful and perfect conformity to the authentic doctrine, which, however, should be studied and expounded through the methods of research and through the literary forms of modern thought. The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another...", retaining the same meaning and message (The Documents of Vatican II, Walter M. Abbott, S.J., p. 715)."

With thanks to The Hermeneutic of Continuity.

Mother and child reunion

A most beautiful sight: Euna and Hannah Lee embracing at their reunion
this morning.

Gossip, backbiting, innuendo?

Who are you to say that this not your cross? Take it up! Follow Him!

And walk innocently before the world, with the radiance of His love upon your face.

In the lives of the saints...

...is found consolation for victims of detraction and calumny. Never
return injustice for injustice. "Pray for your persecutors."

Today at St Francis in Derwood, Md

Profession, presence and promise: The Eucharist as the key to living
the sacrament of marriage.

Thanks to Fr Beaubien and the parish family of faith at St Francis.
I hope to see you again soon!

Il compleanno di Paolo

Paolo's birthday


I had the privilege of baptizing Paolo and today his father and my friend, Andrea, in Verona, Italy, sent me a photo of Paolo celebrating his fourth birthday with friends. I share it with you.

Tanti auguri, Paolo!

Hope...

...comes from knowing that what is wrong can be fixed.

The HermCon in the CCC: "Remove from the liturgy...everything not in conformity with the truth of faith and authentic beauty"

The hermeneutic of continuity is found reflected in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. What is true and beautiful is to be promoted and what is not is to be removed.

"For this reason bishops, personally or through delegates, should see to the promotion of sacred art, old and new, in all its forms and, with the same religious care, remove from the liturgy and from places of worship everything which is not in conformity with the truth of faith and the authentic beauty of sacred art."

-- CCC 2503

Apathy and lethargy with regard to the reform of the liturgy is hereby excluded. An erroneous notion of "local custom" does not legitimize innovations or whimsical insertions which take advantage of the vagueness of liturgical instructions.