Meditating at Mass

Dominus Vobiscum: Notes from a massgoer's underground

PRAYER AND MEDITATION: I left home 8/8/1950 at 18 to study them full time. After two years of it (novitiate), I got my SJ degree, which I relinquished many years later. Even so, much of it has stuck. At Mass, for instance, I often enter the zone of prayer and meditation, which makes me a poor participant in liturgy. Doesn’t mean I think of nothing else (distractions, you know) or that I am superior to the fellow or gal next to me who belts out the songs and other responses. In fact, you could argue I’m not as good because I seem to reject the communal aspect that characterizes today’s liturgy.

So allow me to hang my head in shame at that, asking only for tolerance. Bear with me.

However, I ask . . .

Do we exceed the limits of liturgical propriety sometimes when, for instance, we extend the…

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The ‘War On Terror’ Comes Home

Ron Paul:

Last week’s massive social media purges – starting with President Trump’s permanent ban from Twitter and other outlets – was shocking and chilling, particularly to those of us who value free expression and the free exchange of ideas.

The justifications given for the silencing of wide swaths of public opinion made no sense and the process was anything but transparent.

Nowhere in President Trump’s two “offending” Tweets, for example, was a call for violence expressed explicitly or implicitly. It was a classic example of sentence first, verdict later.

Our oligarchs decided otherwise.

Many Americans viewed this assault on social media accounts as a liberal or Democrat attack on conservatives and Republicans, but they are missing the point.

The narrowing of allowable opinion in the virtual public square is no conspiracy against conservatives. As progressives like Glenn Greenwald have pointed out, this is a wider assault on any opinion that veers from the acceptable parameters of the mainstream elite, which is made up of both Democrats and Republicans.

In other words, oligarchs are out of bounds on this one . . .

Ron Paul Locked Out Of Public Facebook Page | The Daily Wire

He offended the oligarch.

Former Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas claimed he was suspended from managing his public Facebook page Monday.

“With no explanation other than ‘repeatedly going against our community standards,’ @Facebook has blocked me from managing my page. Never have we received notice of violating community standards in the past and nowhere is the offending post identified,” Paul tweeted.

“The only thing we posted to Facebook today was my weekly ‘Texas Straight Talk’ column, which I have published every week since 1976,” he added.

Daniel McAdams, an executive director for the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, told the the Washington Examiner that Paul “has been locked out of managing his Facebook Page for an unspecified ‘violation.’”

“They claim the lockout is temporary, but have provided no additional information as to the length of the suspension or any remedy,” McAdams explained.

Paul’s latest column, which was the last thing he had posted on his Facebook page, railed against Big Tech for censoring large portions of public opinion: . . .

Something ye shall not do . . .

Acid comments on a church redecorated . . .

Dominus Vobiscum: Notes from a massgoer's underground

CHURCH AS REDECORATED, January, 2002 . . . Astute, knowledgeable reader reports a church redone in “a rainbow of colors,” including purple and pink and “new shades of blue-greens . . . all radiating from a once dramatically stark huge crucifix above the sanctuary, which now looks like a Divine Mercy wannabe, clashing with modern stained glass windows already there in bold blue, green and yellow.

“The ‘liturgy committee’ . . . saw autumn approaching and brought out last year’s hangings on either side of the crucifix in vivid orange and yellow, with nosegays of artificial orange/yellow flowers. Streamers of artificial leaves cascade down the walls of the nave between stations of the cross.

“We have either become the Rainbow Coalition or been taken hostage by Puerto Ricans. Not to say that would be such a BAD thing, but if you are not color blind you wish you were.”

She…

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Byron York’s Daily Memo: For GOP, nine perilous days

Never did the lady from California look more childish.

“I don’t see any real support on our side for [proposed
impeachment],” one GOP lawmaker said, noting that Rep. Adam Kinzinger is so far the only House Republican to call for Trump to leave office immediately, and even Kinzinger said Sunday that impeachment is “probably not the smartest move right now.”

The lawmaker continued: “I think most people recognize [impeachment] is futile. The Senate doesn’t go into session until January 19th. It’s more Pelosi just one more time trying to poke everybody’s eye — another political stunt to tie Trump around our whole party one more time.”

(The number-three House Democrat, Rep. James Clyburn, said on Sunday that Pelosi might impeach Trump and then not send the articles to the Senate until after the new Biden administration passes its 100-day mark, creating an unprecedented but apparently constitutionally permissible situation in which the Senate would hold a trial for an ex-president.)

Good luck with that, Ms. P.

THE MASS TRANSMOGRIFIED: WHOSE SACRIFICE? WHOSE NAME?

Dominus Vobiscum: Notes from a massgoer's underground

The mass is reconstituted by free-lancing priest-celebrants.

For instance . . .

May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands
for the praise and glory of his name,
for our good
and the good of all his holy Church.

. . . is in some quarters changed to

May the Lord accept the sacrifice at our hands
for the praise and glory of God’s name . . .

. . . which never in my hearing has been explained to the congregation. It’s simply done, over and over until the people, or most of them, do it that way too. You can hear the cacophonous blurring in the recital.

The changes are easily explained. “Our hands” ignores the priest’s unique role as celebrant and “God’s name” avoids the masculine pronoun.

The first changes the meaning and is pernicious. The second flouts tradition as scandalous and offensive.

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