Category: Blithe Spirit
The good and the bad, emphasis on Trib and Sun-Times
At Mass, a 2nd-rate experience is imposed by Novus Ordo? Aka new mass, standard offering in RC churches worldwide.
Dominus Vobiscum: Notes from a massgoer's underground
Moments of silence rare or absent, depending on priest’s preferences, which can vary day to day.
Head trip for all: instruct, instruct, instruct. Less experience than lesson.
All to meet “pastoral” needs, which can also vary day to day.
Closes off possibilities of interior life, mimicking the world as it is.
Who needs it?
Plus distractions.
Reader lady, who reciting the closing line says alarmingly, repeatedly, “Let us pray TO the Lord,” as if to fend off the heresy that says we can pray only about the Lord, because He can’t or won’t listen to us and/or we dare not make bold to do so.
Part of the great preposition war raging in today’s church.
Not just prepositions. Priest intones “ALL the saints,” lest we be choosy in the matter. And not just on All Saints Day.
Can (maybe) solve this problem with meditation on and prayers to the saint(s)…
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Pro-gay James Martin SJ to the fore in U.S. synodality lineup. Francis picked him. He’s F’s fair-h aired boy, all in for DISCERNMENT, a wonderful vehicle and a demanding one . . .,. . . with long Jesuit history and nothing to pull out of a hat, ignoring its demands and history.
What Pope Benedict said about clapping at mass, it’s not an option if you know what’s going on. It’s not a party or even entirely a commemoration or a rejoicing in one another’s presence . . .,. . . or entirely a holy meal celebrating sisterhood and brotherhood per membership in the Mystical Body . . .
Regrets
Dominus Vobiscum: Notes from a massgoer's underground
Regrets are a pain in the behind. And lots of other places. They can consume you if you don’t watch out.
Solution lies somewhere between accepting God and accepting God very much.
Don’t worry about overdoing it. That won’t happen. In a million years it won’t, which is short for never.
Why he used a manual typewriter,The late Kevin McGowin, 1970-2005
SAINTS JOHN AND PAUL (362 A.D.) Martyrs and what they can tell us about going along to get along . . .,They lost their heads over Jesus. In their own back yard.
Biden and his lifelong borrower friends, stuck with outstanding loan debt which they entered freely, lured to good things by when you get down to it, the gummint and his agencies. Pied Piper.
Six-pack Joe to the barricades:
“I’m not going to stop fighting to deliver borrowers what they need,” the president said at the White House on Friday hours after the Supreme Court overturned his plan to forgive up to $20,000 in student loan debt for Americans making under $125,000 a year.
He’s a man, who’s a man? Our pal Joe.
Affirmative Action’s Demise and Higher Education,Fruits of a credibility collapse. Diversity is compelling interest? Really? Who says? Deans with spleen?
SAINTS JOHN AND PAUL (362 A.D.) Martyrs and what they can tell us about going along to getting along and what happens when you don’t
They lost their heads over their faith. In their own back yard.
[They] were brothers and officers of the Roman army in the days of Constantine the Great, and life was good. But their preferments and rewards for loyal service were about to go away.
New man in charge, Julian the Apostate raised a Christian, had returned to the cult of idols and was attempting to re-establish it in the empire. dropped all that and embraced paganism and would restore it to its former ascendancy. The brothers resigned their position in the palace, seeing many who went along with this and prospered.
Not for us, they said. The emperor tried to win them back. Gave them ten days to think it over. They spent the time giving everything they had to poor people. The emperor sent the imperial officer Terentianus, who brought “a little idol of Jupiter for their adoration.” He found them in prayer. They said no and in the middle of that night were decapitated in their own garden, secretly because the emperor feared their execution might cause a sedition.
He instigated a rumor that they had been exiled but demons used people to broadcast their martyrdom, including the officer’s son, and it was only after the father prayed at the martyrs’ tomb that the child was liberated. This so impressed him that he became a Christian, with all his family, and wrote the history we have reported.
The brothers? By their renouncement of favors and their heroic resistance, they purchased never-fading glory, more than the emperor could provide in a million years, figuratively speaking.
Their basilica
. . . sits atop one of the seven hills of ancient Rome and since the fifth century, their names have been included in the Roman Canon of the Mass. Their feast day is celebrated on June 26, the date of their martyrdom.
Such a little thing the officer asked, just worship this little idol and we’re outa here. Nothing would have happened here. Was that too much for the emperor to require? Turns out it was, and we 21st-century worshipers can pray these days,
O Almighty God, let our joy be doubled on this feast of the victory of blessed John and Paul, for they were made true brothers by sharing the same faith and the same martyrdom. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with God the Father almighty and the Holy Spirit, world without end.
Amen.
Blithe Spirit 