The video below shows Bishop Christory with the pilgrims on Monday.
Our Lady of the Clergy
By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
Our life of faith is a pilgrimage from Earth to Heaven. From the moment of our Baptism, with our first steps, we begin that most important journey of each human life. That we remember we have here no lasting city is urged upon us frequently by Our Lord, who taught that His Kingdom is “not of this world.” So, we must each, if we would have part with Him forever in His Kingdom, begin now to live with the daily practice of detachment.
In our Church, the place of faith, processions and pilgrimages of various kinds symbolize and help us to reflect on the cosmic nature of our destiny with God after death and final judgment. Whether within the church building or only a few steps beyond its walls through the streets of the local neighborhood, these annual liturgical movements by foot enable everyone to experience liturgically in a more intense way a great truth necessary for all of us who have entered upon the road of salvation.
The movement necessary to undertake a pilgrimage, whether by one’s own bodily locomotion or otherwise, speaks powerfully of leaving one place, no matter how comfortable, in the search for the promise of something infinitely better. No matter where we find ourselves in the course of this present life, whether rich or poor, powerful or marginalized, pilgrimage of any kind should serve to remind us of, and increase our hope for, that place which the Lord has prepared for each of us in His presence which no man can take away from us.
We are saved by grace through faith. Faith must find expression in our words and actions. Processions of various kinds, whether for rogation days which mark the seasons, or which cyclically celebrate our Lord or the saints, or which plead for safety in the face of plague or natural disaster, give us a concrete and practical reminder of, and spiritual exercise in preparation for, our final journey that commences when we close our eyes on this world for the last time in death.
The greatest detachment, completed only when this life ends is, as with all challenges, best met with practice. We prepare through the processions and pilgrimages, corporate and personal, that express our faith in action. We each struggle to overcome our faults, confess our sins and grow in holiness as a supernatural journey.
Our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament is Himself precisely our food for the great pilgrimage of life. Without His grace the distance would be too great for us.
Processions are prescribed liturgically at Corpus Christi, for example, when we bear our Eucharistic Lord with honor to the streets annually each June. The Feast of Corpus Christi proclaims and celebrates the Real Presence of Our Lord. Just as He walks with and in us by grace through this life, so we walk with Him and witness to our faith in the most wonderful mystery of God’s presence with us. The life of grace is most powerfully conferred by the Lord Himself, our spiritual food for the journey, which would truly be too long and difficult for us without divine assistance. The journey is undertaken by grace. The destination is in part already possessed by reception of Our Lord in Holy Communion. Thus, we also receive Him as the one Food necessary for the final journey as viaticum, “with us the way,” for the dying.
Children in Catholic schools and academics of English literature will be well aware of that monument of Middle English literature, The Canterbury Tales. Geoffrey Chaucer takes us along for the jaunt of 31 pilgrims of various professions and none who travel from the Tabard Inn of Southwark to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury cathedral. His humorous and affectionate depiction of the foibles and faults, as well as the nobility of the faithful thrown together in seeking a common spiritual destination enable us to see ourselves mirrored in them. We can both chuckle in pleasure at their accessible humanity and embrace more fully what is true about our own pilgrimage of faith from Earth to Heaven which we share in common with them and with the faithful of all time.
The Holy House of Loreto was among the most notable Italian pilgrimage destination of the Middle Ages. Galileo may be the most famous pilgrim among the very many who considered the privilege of such a grace the opportunity of a lifetime. Many will already be familiar with the most legendary and demanding pilgrimage of them all, the lengthy commitment of 30 days traveling “the Way,” the Camino of Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
Completing the arduous route of nearly 500 miles to reach the tomb of St. James sets those who complete the challenge apart from the rest. Others can follow a less ambitious path and seek out shrines of local saints within their diocese or region. Denizens of the mid-Atlantic will already be familiar with the places dedicated to the memory of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in New York and Maryland and the Jesuit martyrs of Auriesville.
And each May in many locations Our Lady is honored throughout the month by various means, processions among them. The ubiquitous May crowning plays a central role by which we recognize her as Queen Mother, Queen of Heaven, and of all the angels and saints.
Many of us retain cherished childhood memories of the May court comprising Catholic schoolgirls garbed in white and the honor bestowed on one of their number chosen to place the crown of flowers on Our Lady’s statue. In our parish on the first Sunday of May the girls are invited to come forward after Mass with flowers and present the crown which the priest places on Our Lady’s statue, positioned with honor in a central place on the high altar for the duration of the month.
I’ve challenged my parishioners to join me in a daily walking rosary to take our faith to the streets and beg for Our Lady’s intercession for ourselves and our world. Whether around the block, the parking lot at work or up and down the driveway at home, each of us can make the time to join our intentions to that of Our Lady through this simple form of pilgrimage so that we can join our intentions to her as we seek the triumph of Her Immaculate Heart.
Read the rest: https://thewandererpress.com/catholic/news/our-catholic-faith/pilgrimage-and-the-month-of-our-lady/
More pilgrims than ever will be participating in the traditional Chartres pilgrimage this year — so many that, despite Traditionis Custodes and Pope Francis’ restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass, for the first time the organizers had to close registrations ten days early.
Over 16,000 pilgrims will be walking the route from St Sulpice Church in Paris to Notre-Dame Cathedral in Chartres over the Pentecost weekend, May 27-29 — a distance of about 60 miles.
The traditional and deeply historic pilgrimage which dates back to the 12th century was reinvigorated in 1983 by the Notre-Dame de Chrétienté Association, and in recent years, with the exception of the time of Covid, has been continually growing in popularity.
“Having walked the Chartres Pilgrimage every year for 30 years, I can say that there never was an expectation that it would sell out, since the Chartres city center is so large,” said Michael J. Matt, editor of the Remnant Newspaper who leads the American chapter, or group of pilgrims. “The fact that the pilgrimage has reached maximum capacity this year, is nothing less than a stunning testimony to the popularity of the Latin Mass among young Catholics.”
Last year I was grateful for the opportunity to take part in the pilgrimage for the first time (a record crowd of 15,000 also attended that year) and found it to be an enormously uplifting celebration of the faith, a chance to meet a hugely diverse group of mostly young fellow Catholics (the average age is 20.5 years this year), and to walk through the streets of Paris and beautiful French countryside to the picturesque medieval city of Chartres.
As with all pilgrimages, the journey to Chartres is an apt metaphor for life: the weather is changeable with warm, late spring sunshine mixed with clouds and occasional downpours, while the terrain is at times flat and easy, then rocky and demanding. Last year, the heavens opened for the first full day of the pilgrimage, turning much of the route into a muddy swamp but it failed to dampen spirits.
All along the route, one is accompanied by a vibrant and lively spirit of fellowship, and the penitential aspect of the pilgrimage is ever present. Although not far for a pilgrimage, the pace is quick and the distance crammed into a relatively short time, making it at times quite a gruelling experience, at least for us older folk.
Pilgrims from 28 countries but mostly from France will pray along the way this year, reciting the Rosary and singing songs. Last year, behind our chapter, we had a particularly exuberant group from Saint-Tropez in France whose hearty singing could almost be heard in the French Riviera, while in front of us Portuguese pilgrims peacefully sauntered along the route as if enjoying a Sunday afternoon in the Algarve. Perhaps less well known is that not all the pilgrims are Catholics: a small number from other confessions or none at all take part.
Around 300 priests and religious will be walking the route this year and the priests will always be on hand to hear confessions. The Traditional Latin Mass is, of course, widely available. This year, on Pentecost Monday, the former apostolic nuncio to Ukraine and Switzerland, Archbishop Thomas Gullickson, will offer the solemn Pontifical Mass in Notre-Dame de Chartres in the presence of the Bishop of Chartres.
“It is our sincere hope,” Michael Matt said, “that the Vatican will see in this event a non-polemical and joyful expression of the youth, vitality, and unitive power of the Latin Mass.”
See Michael’s excellent recent documentary exploring the history, the present, and the future of the pilgrimage:
Read the rest: https://edwardpentin.co.uk/chartres-pilgrimage-record-is-a-stunning-testimony-to-tlms-popularity-among-young-catholics/
Bonjour from Paris.
We will celebrate Mass with our pilgrimage group of Americans tomorrow morning at Saint Roch church on the other side of the Seine.
Public Citizen News / September-October 2022
By David Rosen
This article appeared in the September/October 2022 edition of Public Citizen News. Download the full edition here.
Former President Donald Trump’s social media platform Truth Social engages in inexplicable censorship of both conservative and liberal viewpoints, according to a Public Citizen report released in August. Despite being marketed as an uncensored platform for free speech, the site is governed by heavy-handed terms of service that are more restrictive than any similar platform, the report found.
“Truth Social is far from the haven of free speech that Trump promised, as even conservative viewpoints and links have been shadow-banned,” said Cheyenne Hunt-Majer, a lobbyist with Public Citizen and author of the report. “It’s not at all clear how Truth Social determines which content will be labled as sensitive, why some content is censored after it’s posted, and why other content seems to be preemptively blocked from appearing on the platform at all.”
Hunt-Majer set up an account on Truth Social and documented numerous instances of shadow-banned content firsthand. A shadow ban fully or partially blocks a user’s content without warning, notice, or recourse. Banned content included:
In some instances, posted content did not appear on the site for days or ever. And in one case, Hunt-Majer’s viral video highlighting the absurdity of Truth Social’s censorship appears to have triggered a change of heart among site moderators regarding the phrase “abortion is healthcare.”
The report found that Truth Social’s content moderation practices lack the transparency, consistency, or nuance typical of major social media platforms. Unlike Twitter, Truth Social bans all sexual content and explicit language. Its terms of service also allow moderators to ban anyone whose content is deemed “libelous, slanderous, or otherwise objectionable.”
Former President Trump was banned indefinitely from Twitter and Facebook after the platforms found that his posts incited violence on Jan. 6, 2021, in violation of their terms of service. In response, he launched his own platform, Truth Social, a year later.
Trump described the platform as a haven for free speech where content would be only sparsely moderated and not censored on the basis of political ideology. But the young platform was quickly marred by accusations of biased censorship and account suspensions.
While Truth Social promised minimal and transparent content moderation, early users reported experiencing bans after selecting usernames or authoring posts that made fun of or criticized the former president and his allies. Early versions of the platform’s terms of service even required users to agree not to “disparage, tarnish, or otherwise harm, in our opinion, us and/or the Site.”
While that provision has since been removed, users continue to report that they have experienced censorship and bans after talking about topics that are unflattering to the former president, including the Jan. 6 Committee hearings.
Truth Social’s seemingly frequent use of shadow banning leaves affected users with no recourse when a post that conforms with the terms of service is wrongfully blocked. But Hunt-Majer found a way to publicly shame Truth Social into a change of heart.
In June 2022, Truth Social users reported that any post containing the phrase “abortion is healthcare” would automatically be shadow banned from the platform. When Hunt-Majer attempted to post the phrase “abortion is healthcare,” she received the standard notification that her “truth had been posted,” which would normally signify that the post would be visible on her personal profile and on her feed. Instead, the post was nowhere to be found.
In response, Hunt-Majer made a video explaining that her so-called “truth” had seemingly disappeared into a black hole. The video went viral on Tik Tok, garnering more than 1.2 million views as of this writing. Five days later, Hunt-Majer’s post on “abortion is healthcare” suddenly appeared.
“Truth Social was marketed as an alternative platform for users seeking less content moderation, but the site’s terms of service are so broad and so ill-defined that it’s effectively more restrictive than Twitter, the site’s closest competitor,” said Hunt-Majer. “It’s not inherently problematic that Truth Social moderates posts, but the lack of transparency could lead users to believe that they are engaging in an open forum when, in reality, they’re in a curated echo chamber. Studies show that Americans generally want clear and transparent content moderation policies. Without that, user frustration with Truth Social is likely to continue growing.”
Please pray for me, many priests and over 15,000 faithful as we walk the pilgrimage for Pentecost from Paris to Chartres next Saturday through Monday.
I’m taking my daily walking Rosary to France—don’t forget yours here at home! And pray with me also for P.G., my benefactor.
In Jesu et Maria,
Homily by Pope St. Gregory the Great.
13th on the Gospels.
North Carolina just overrode the anti-life governor and approved a ban on abortion. God bless North Carolina.
The approval of the law, the funds of other citizens, the assistance of doctors: nothing is owed to anyone who wants to commit murder, to include a pregnant woman rejecting the humanity of the child in her womb by premeditating killing by means of abortion.
No assistance of any kind is ever owed under any circumstances to any person who is contemplating disobeying the 4th commandment.
“Thou shalt not kill.”
.
May 16th 2023, the 26th day of the Moon, was born into the better life:
At Prague, in Bohemia, [in the year 1390,] holy John of Nepomuc, Canon of the Metropolitical Cathedral Church in that city, who, when he had been vainly tried to make him violate the seal of sacramental confession, was cast into the river Moldau, and so earned the palm of martyrdom. We keep feast in his honour upon the 30th day of this present month of May.
- Roman Martyrology martyrology Randomized clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccines: Do adenovirus-vector vaccines have beneficial non-specific effects?
The SSPX just consecrated a very large church that garnered a lot of attention. Evidently they managed to get the pope’s attention as well. He asked “where” they get all their money. Shows what’s on his mind.
The recently consecrated and largest SSPX church in the world, the Immaculata in Saint Mary’s, Kansas.
It’s called the Faith. That’s where the money comes from, as Bishop Fellay rightly responded. That’s the job of the Church: the Faith and saving souls. We save souls by means of teaching the Faith, strengthening faith by means of the sacraments, reproving erring sinners as well.
That’s what the SSPX is doing: the Catholic Faith in a focused way to save souls without modernist distractions, accretions, substitutions and deceptions. And they are getting the very generous support they, and God, deserve.
So, I ask, why are Cardinal Burke and others who are responsible for knowing better, repeating the lie that SSPX is schismatic? Is it to dissuade needy souls and their dollars, who aren’t getting fed or saved in destroyed novus ordo parishes, from migrating to the nearest SSPX chapel, as many are already increasingly doing in the toxic new TC environment?
One wonders.
Even Pope Francis in Argentina was able to figure out the SSPX is Catholic and went on record saying so. The SSPX has faculties for confessions and weddings. Surely if the SSPX were truly schismatic the Church would yank the permission? But they haven’t. Surely the few orthodox bishops we have left can breathe a sigh of relief and gratefully agree with the pope at least on this one issue.
While attendance and dollars continue to nosedive in the Church, the few remaining generous traditional faithful are needed more and more. Guilting them into staying where the Faith is under attack is all the bishops have left.
“….he is the true and genuine Catholic who loves the truth of God, who loves the Church, who loves the Body of Christ, who esteems divine religion and the Catholic Faith above every thing, above the authority, above the regard, above the genius, above the eloquence, above the philosophy, of every man whatsoever; who set light by all of these, and continuing steadfast and established in the faith, resolves that he will believe that, and that only, which he is sure the Catholic Church has held universally and from ancient time; but that whatsoever new and unheard-of doctrine you shall find to have been furtively introduced by some one or another, besides that of all or contrary to that of all the saints, this, you will understand, does not pertain to religion, but is permitted as a trial, being instructed especially by the words of the blessed Apostle Paul, who writes thus in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, ‘There must needs be heresies, that they who are approved may be made manifest among you:’ as though he should say, This is the reason why the authors of Heresies are not forthwith rooted up by God, namely, that they who are approved may be made manifest; that is, that it may be apparent of each individual, how tenacious and faithful and steadfast he is in his love of the Catholic faith.”
- S. Vincent of Lérins, Commonitorium 20.48
Here’s why. Devastating.
My mother was a well trained nurse back when science was science, meaning it admitted its limits. And she taught us the scientific fact that whatever you put into your body has side effects.
A neighbor was at the doctor for a visit. He recommended she get the vaxx. You know: that one.
He described all the things that could possibly happen if she didn’t get vaxxed. Something he couldn’t possibly know. I suspect he didn’t describe the possible side effects of the vaccine. Just a hunch.
She gave in under the pressure and got the vaxx. Three days later at home she got confusion, dizziness and other symptoms. She ended up on the floor and had to be taken to the hospital.
What do you bet he’d say he knows for certain her symptoms can’t be from the jab? Something he couldn’t possibly know.
She’s trying to recover at home now but also has a case of sciatica making sleep difficult. Suffering.
If your doctor pretends to be omniscient get a new doctor. Getting COVID can cause side effects, even death tragically. As also can an experimental “vaccine” that might just possibly not really be a vaccine.
Please don’t get the vaxx.
“ … a priest cannot live his priesthood in a fulfilling way if he accepts a sword of Damocles hanging over his head all the time. Likewise, he cannot live serenely if he is constantly on the lookout for the slightest rumour. A priest should live united to his Mass, without having to wonder if he will still be allowed by his superiors to celebrate it tomorrow. He is supposed to be concerned with sharing, with other souls, the great treasure that he dispenses, without constantly living in fear of being deprived of it himself, or having to live with the hope of a miracle that will enable him to escape the precarious situation in which he finds himself. I sincerely do not think that Divine Providence wants this kind of situation.
“Moreover, unfortunately, the members of these institutes, like many other priests who wish to celebrate the Tridentine Rite, live in such fear that they condemn themselves to silence in the face of current events in the life of the Church. Alas, they know very well that the day they begin to express reservations about what is happening in the Church today, the very same day, the sword of Damocles could fall upon them – and Cardinal Roche is ready to remind them of this at any time! I say this in all charity: this situation provokes a permanent dichotomy between the liturgical sphere and the doctrinal sphere, which risks making these priests live in a permanent state of deception, paralysing them irremediably, when faced with the necessary public profession of their faith.”
Fr Davide Pagliarani
Superior General, SSPX
May 12 2023
An electrifying recent story on Gloria.tv galvanized me, seizing my attention: “Jesuit Smashes Idols In Africa”
“Fr Peter Ryan, SJ, visited his brother William, a Fidei Donum priest from Washington, in his mission parish in Togo, West Africa, he writes on CatholicWorldReport.com (18 April).
“During the visit, a delegation from a prominent family appeared who had decided to renounce their ancestral idol and asked Father William to destroy it.
“Several other neighbouring families joined them. The big day began with Mass, followed by a procession of hundreds from the church to the houses, where holy water and exorcising salt were used. Father Peter enthusiastically smashed the idols with a sledgehammer before burning their remains.
“The faithful sang "Yesu enye dzidula! (Jesus is the victor!). Finally, the main pagan shrine was demolished and a large cross was placed in the middle of the rubble.”
These faithful people responded to the Lord’s invitation to share in the freedom from sin and death He won for us through His death and Resurrection. And they responded with sincerity and simplicity. The smashing of the false idols which had enslaved them was the price of fully and consistently accepting and living out their new-found freedom in faith.
They could see with clarity what they needed to do. Their idols are of an obvious kind, naive and primitive, though evil all the same. Rejecting Christ, however, does not necessarily entail only a modern version of the golden calf.
“For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
he is to be feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the peoples are idols;
but the Lord made the heavens.” Psalm 96, 4-5
For the gods of the peoples are idols. Demons, that is.
Would that we had had such a Jesuit in Rome to smash the Pachamamas that were insinuated into Catholic churches and the Vatican itself during the Amazon Synod. Africans understand well that these are idols, too. Perhaps we needed some Africans in Rome to take care of the job. At any rate an Austrian flew in, as we all learned, and tossed them in the Tiber.
Can you imagine the scandal when these new believers, with their zeal and new innocence, see the pope with others in the Vatican gardens bowing down and kneeling in the presence of an image of South American pagan fertility goddess? This scandal yet awaits reparation in Rome itself, public and intentional.
In reading about idolatry “over there” one may easily get a false sense that such never happens here. We have our idols, too, all the more insidious for perhaps being less obvious.
Evil idols spawned by the ubiquity of the Internet, among other enablers, abound today. They endanger not only faith and salvation but also purity, marriages, children’s safety, and more.
Take the “demonic rectangle,” for instance. You go everywhere with your Internet and texting portal that you sometimes use for actually talking to people. For some, it is used with discipline and without disruption to relationships, work, and worship. Some use their phones for prayer.
For others, however, particularly those in the grip of porn addiction, the mere sight of the phone can trigger receptors in the brain that immediately seek more impure images to feed the longing. It’s a vicious cycle of filth, rinse, and repeat that leaves its victims drained, discouraged, and even turned off to the spiritual answer found only in sacramental Confession, penance, and reparation.
There are some who are so deeply in the grip of porn that they should completely dispense with the smart phone for six months or more before they should trust themselves to use it responsibly and with purity once again.
No husband, flawed as he is in his imperfect humanity, will long remain married to his “real” wife while he is feeding himself daily with images of “perfect” women, who for that reason may not even be real. A real woman, any woman, each with flaws, can never compete with the perfect virtual images served up by the Internet. The man’s brain chemistry and sexual receptors, however, don’t know this. They respond according to command as instinctual faculties will. Freedom requires the dominion of the intellect and will, cooperating with grace, to reject the occasion of sin, already so familiar from the cycle of fall, confession, and repentance.
It is not only men who fall victim to porn addiction. Women also get caught up in its web. The person, in faith and reason, must use the Internet with caution at all times, realizing that nothing they see is guaranteed to be real and anything they encounter there may serve as a temptation. Custody of the eyes and emotions must be used at all times.
Speaking of emotions — there is also the matter of emotional chastity, which is connected to chastity in general. The danger of emotional dependency must be considered when it comes to social apps.
How do you feel when you send out something, whether text, photo, or comments via social messaging app, without receiving a response in return? Do you experience negative emotions? And when that happens do you respond by sending yet more messages in hope of an eventual reaction?
Read the rest: https://thewandererpress.com/catholic/news/our-catholic-faith/smash-the-idols-in-your-life/
