Huge difference here in the mass of today and the one of fifty years previous to this lengthy and very helpful article in October of 2017. It’s the sort of thing that hits those in the face who heard mass before the Vatican 2 changes. It explains much of the irreverence that characterizes much of today’s worship.

. . . what we have seen in the past fifty years is precisely an inversion of these [once accepted priorities]), so that the Mass as social event is placed first; going up to receive Communion is placed second; the idea of adoration is a muted third; and the notion of the Mass as a propitiatory and impetratory (petitioning) sacrifice is so foreign as to be unintelligible.

The four priorities:

1. The Mass is first the offering, through the sacrifice of Christ, of the religious worship we owe the triune God, for His own sake, because He is worthy of it and we are damaging ourselves if we do not rightly order our minds and hearts to Him.[1] As St. Thomas says, God is offended by our sins not because they injure Him but because they injure the rational creature, whom He loves (that is, whose good He wills). This worship includes the acts associated with the offering of Mass, namely, adoration, contrition, supplication, thanksgiving, and praise, which have both internal and external aspects, as St. Thomas well develops in the Secunda Secundae of the Summa.

2. Second, because the Mass is the august sacrifice of Christ, we are brought into the very presence of the divine Redeemer, “the Lamb that was slain,” who is “worthy to receive power, and divinity, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and benediction” (Rev 5:12). This is why Augustine says that before receiving, we must adore: we would sin if we did not adore.[2]

3. Third, the Mass is the sacrificial banquet of the Lamb, in which we partake of His flesh and blood for our sanctification and salvation, provided we are not conscious of any unconfessed mortal sin, which includes living in a state of life that is not allowed by divine law.

4. As a distant fourth, one might then speak about the Mass as a social event in which the people of God are seen as a people, in which the unity of the Church is represented and accomplished, and in which certain of our needs as communal beings are met.

Something we can take seriously, that is, not a premium brand of community-building.

via New Liturgical Movement

There’s a lesson in this: Do not pet a shark.

via The Daily Caller

In a court of law, he could plead temporary insanity, having been caught in the Trump Syndrome epidemic.

ABC News’ Brian Ross — who was suspended last year as chief investigative correspondent for a faulty report on Michael Flynn — is leaving the network, Page Six has exclusively learned.

ABC suspended Ross last December for a month without pay for a botched report on ousted White House national security adviser Flynn that reported President Trump directed Flynn to make contact with Russian officials. The mistake even sent stocks tumbling, and ABC issued an apology saying: “We deeply regret and apologize for the serious error.”

He did what others do, but got caught/was too obvious about it. Like Ex-IL Governor Blagojevich.

via NY Post | Page Six

No.

The hardscrabble biography of Democrat Congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been called into question after the revelation that she grew up mostly in wealthy Westchester County.

Though Ocasio-Cortez, 28, was born in and currently lives in the Bronx, county land records show her late father Sergio Cortez-Roman bought a quaint three-bedroom in Yorktown Heights, New York in 1991, when she was about two.

It is an apparent contradiction with the candidate’s official biography, which states in part: ‘The state of Bronx public schools in the late 80s and early 90s sent her parents on a search for a solution.

She ended up attending public school 40 minutes north in Yorktown, and much of her life was defined by the 40 minute commute between school and her family in the Bronx.

‘Ocasio-Cortez also boasted on Stephen Colbert’s late-night show that President Donald Trump, born in Queens, wouldn’t know how to handle ‘a girl from the Bronx’ such as herself.

Ah, but what about one from Westchester County?

via ‘Girl from the Bronx’ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez grew up in Westchester County | Daily Mail Online

The reliably “liberal” (I have trouble using the word for illiberal people) E. J. Dionne Jr. has this figured out: The constitution is a right-wing document.

Our constitutional system of “checks and balances” only works if those in a position to operate the levers of checking and balancing do their job. It is clear that a Republican Congress and Republican appointees to the Supreme Court have no taste for such work. For the moment, President Trump is mostly unchecked and unbalanced.

Unless “constitutionalist” is a word he has trouble with.

via Commonweal Magazine

Who then?

There is a lot of blame to share. That includes President Bill Clinton and the alien parents themselves, as well as the courts and immigration policies foolishly created by the Obama administration.

The perverse incentives in those policies have endangered the lives and safety of children and helped fund the deadly Mexican drug cartels that run the trafficking networks on our southern border.

Read about it here.

Ready to rumble.

via StarTribune.com

This is awful, that he hears the man out, then publicly dismisses him as not to be taken seriously. What a guy.

And as for the criticisms of [papal policy by] Cardinal Joseph Giuseppe Zen Zekiun, bishop emeritus of Hong Kong, [Francis] downplayed them:

“I think he’s a little scared. Perhaps age might have some influence. He is a good man. He came to talk to me. I received him, but he’s a bit scared. Dialogue is a risk, but I prefer the risk to the sure defeat of not talking.”

Lately, however, the news from China has not been encouraging at all. In May, Settimo Cielo reported on an upswing of anti-Christian repression, and the flimsy justifications set forth by the supporters of an agreement at any cost were worthless.

He’s a well-meaning worry wart, says the world’s holiest father. Not good, your holiness.

via China. Cardinal Zen’s “Scare” Has Its Good Reasons – Settimo Cielo – Blog – L’Espresso

He aims to vacate the Cupich action.

If Your Eminence, as Ordinary of the Archdiocese of Chicago, prior to giving the March 12th decree had conducted a preliminary investigation, prompting the restrictions [namely] the canonical sanctions, imposed on Fr. Phillips, then it can only be valuated as superficial and incomplete. Hence, your decree is lacking factual foundation (Cfr. canons 48-51 CJC).

What is more, the verbiage of your decree and other public writings appear contradictory, and unfounded in canon law. Hence, this perceived lack of clarity and linearity – also in reference to the erroneous application of the dictates of the prescribed canon law process – gives way to, and even further provokes profound confusion amongst the faithful, causing unnecessary scandal and division.

I can hear the SOS flying across the seas to his padrone Francis: “Papa Francisco, I’m in trouble.”

via Mahound’s Paradise: EXCLUSIVE: Text of Fr. Phillips Canon Law Letter to Cupich

From the letter dated from Rome, 4/29/2018:

Primo ictu oculi [at first blink of an eye or at first blush], your decree, the singular administrative act dated March 12, 2018, is ipso jure null and void under canon law. Attentive study of the facts and related documents further confirms this conclusion. [Italics added]

The entire letter, introduced lucidly by the blogger, comes via Mahound’s Paradise: EXCLUSIVE

Fascinating. Whole thing puts the matter in a new, or confirmatory, light.