Pray for priests, and pray for the celebrity priest in particular

I love and revere the holy priesthood. As part of my Lay Association of the Priesthood membership I have adopted one particular priest and will pray for him for the rest of my life.  As long as my parish priest acts like a priest ought to, I will obey him in all docility and will endeavor to assist him in any way possible to my state of life. I will treat him the same way that I would treat Fr. Solanus Casey or Fr. Baker of Our Lady of Victory. I hate criticizing priests  but bad priests should not be ignored. That's what got us the sodimitical  scandals (Some foolish people say we are "past that" but no, the damage done to individual souls and to the Church's reputation is so great that we will never be past that in our life times) as well all  the great heresies through out history.

Celebrity priests are in a very dangerous position. When they fail in decorum they are like the man who goes to a swimming pool and urinates in the water---in full view of everyone from the diving board. Like Thomas Merton, they are either too famous for their timid superiors to coral them or as in the case of the Jesuits they may have superiors who seem to really like it when they forget their dignity and appear to scorn the pious. These men break hearts, they cause people to lose the Faith and they severely damage themselves.


Fr. Solanus, pray for us.
St. Jean Vianney, pray for us.
St. Pio, pray for us.
Blessed Francis Seelos, pray for us.
St.Andre Bessette, pray for us. *Not a priest but a lay brother
St. John Neuman, pray for us.
Fr. Zenon Kavolyk, martyred by crucifixion in 1941, pray for us.

A Nun

Reparation Prayer

REPARATION PRAYER

Eternal Father, turn away Thy angry gaze from our guilty people whose face has become unsightly in Thine eyes. Look instead upon the Face of Thy Beloved Son, for this is the Face of Him in Whom Thou art well pleased. We now offer Thee this Holy Face, covered with shame and disfigured by bloody bruises in reparation for the crimes of our age in order to appease Thine anger, justly provoked against us. Because Thy Divine Son, our Redeemer, has taken upon His Head all the sins of His members, that they might be spared, we now beg of Thee, Eternal Father, to grant us mercy. AMEN.

(from the Holy Face Devotion prayers)

Man of Sorrows

When the quiet man stops being polite....watch out.

There is a scene in the 1957, movie Paths to Glory where Kirk Douglas goes off on his commanding officer. It's a wonder to behold. All the suppressed rage, horror, grief and shame over what his commanding officer really comes blasting out. Kirk's character, Colonel Dax could not stop the injustice that just took place but he will not be silent. When I watched Professor John Rao  on  Remnant TV  all I could think of was Paths of Glory. Had I been standing next to the professor I think I would have stepped back, sat down rather heavily  and just gaped. 

So, who won the synod?

Well, I'm tempted to say, nobody except maybe the devil because he's the prince of confusion. The pope seemed very unhappy  and if we can trust the English translation, even bitter on the last day of the synod but his man, Archbishop Cupich considers the whole thing to have been a triumph. A few conservative Catholic sites are saying, "See everything is okay," but they aren't very convincing.

The synod did accomplish one thing; it made the situation in the Church clear to anyone who is not willfully blind. Many of the men who are supposed to be serving the Suffering King  don't really believe in Him or His words. They seem to be feverishly working to make the Church into something an agnostic, if not an out right atheist  could be perfectly happy with. The autopsy on this thing will go on for months but no matter what comes of this synod, stay Catholic. Go to a decent Mass, say your rosary, make use of frequent Confession and pray for your priests because they are under tremendous pressure and each one is in tremendous danger. One day, they may be told to give Communion to unrepentant adulterers and to get up in the ambo and cheer sodomy or leave the priesthood. On that day they will need us to stand by them.

My favorite missals

Every time I go to the TLM I use the online Divinium Officium missal. It is simply the best option I've found so far. The creator was the late, Lazlo Kiss, a Hungarian engineer who moved to the United States and began working on the missal in his retirement.  I think he must have been a remarkable man. You can go to the site or use the app on your phone or tablet.

My second favorite missal that I used to use before I found the Divinium Officium site, is the dear old little red Eclesia Dei missal. This is the missal used at St. Rita's and most places that have the TLM and it's what Rocky uses if he's not using his meditation booklet. Thank you Mrs. Mary Kraychy, who worked so hard to publish it.

Random thoughts on a Friday afternoon

A few things I'm sick of:

• Cardinals Goffried Danneels, Donald Wuerl, Timothy Dolan, and Blase Cupich. In a healthier age in the Church they'd be a bishops with a two room mission in a charming spot like Death Valley or at a harmless desk job in the Vatican.

• Self appointed busy bodies who make their parish priest's life Hell. I'm seeing more and more of this, even among Traditional Catholics. I realize that a lot of people were nearly destroyed by the homosexual scandals but spying on your priest is not the answer. If he is behaving in a scandalous manner by all means speak up and contact the bishop or the police if it's a criminal matter but posting messages on various Catholic sites looking for dirt on your new priest before  he's even gotten through his first week at the parish is wrong. Even if there are no juicy bits of gossip for you to feast on,  you've created an ugly atmosphere of suspicion in anyone who reads your post.
  
  In addition to spying on the priest there are the people who try to boss the priest around. Look, I don't care if your family has been in that parish since 1657, or provided the money for the entire building,-- we are not Protestants. You do not own the parish and the priest is the possession of God, not you. Going berserk because he moved that ugly Jesus-and-the-children- playing-baseball painting you like, is wrong and frankly, it's likely that a whole lot of your fellow parishioners were thankful he did. Getting ugly because the priest who is allergic to flowers decided that he doesn't need a three foot wall of them  in front of the altar is wrong. Screaming at the priest because he did not like your pumpkin and wheat altar decorations is wrong and perhaps you should do something about raising your taste level. Throwing a hissy fit because the priest asked your daughter to refrain from wearing a strapless dress the next time she lectors is wrong and shows that you lack both sense and control of your household. Priests have hard enough, they need proprietary parishioners to make it worse.
  
• American Victimology. Everybody is a victim now whether they got sick or took offense at something they overheard in the lunch room. Celebrating self pity and neurosis can not be good for the country
  
• A close cousin of the victimology fad is the constant near worship of single mothers. First off, I want to point out that a single mother by choice is not the same as a widow. Secondly, I happen to be believe this choice is child abuse. I have two relatives who had multiple children out of wedlock. One had six boys. All of them are either dead or in prison except for the two that were adopted by a kind couple.  The other cousin had five children. Except for the oldest who was raised by her mother and and stepfather, all of the kids are ruined. Look at the prison population-- it's mostly sons of single mothers. Look at the millions of victims of violent crime. Their attackers were mostly son's of single mothers. Lionizing single mothers just ignores the social and personal disaster that has arisen with the nation wide acceptance of them. 

A couple of things I really like:

• Although, I DO NOT see Lord of the Rings as a Catholic allegory and I am not one of those tiresome people who seem to think you must read the entire Tolkien body of work every year or you are a bad Catholic and a dullard--- this post by Ann Barnhart left me very moved. If you are a serious Catholic and you know one plus one is two, fire is hot, water burns and that Our Lord hates sin and died a horrible death to save us from the consequences of sin and that He does not smile benignly when you commit sin, then yes, you will be mocked by the cool kids, by the folks at Patheos and Aletia and by people you care about but you carry on, even though it hurts.
  
• Silver Hill Treasures and four other veil makers are sponsoring an Advent Veiling event to encourage women who want to wear a scarf or mantilla but may be timid about it. This has NOTHING to do with the Latin Mass Society which  has had an annual wear your veil day for a few years now. I thought at one time that the young man who founded LMS meant well but was  trying too hard to make Catholicism hip. Now I don't. The "Crown Maiden" photos, which show models in suggestive poses while wearing mantillas are so problematic that they overwhelm the otherwise respectable and traditional material on the site. A priest who knew the founder of LMS has written a serious  warning about the founder. Just so there is no confusion, LMS has NOTHING to do with the Latin Mass Society in England that is run by Dr. Joseph Shaw.
  
  
•  This chicken and her veil made me smile. 
  

Reparation prayer

The Shroud of Turin shows that Our Lord's crown was more of a cap than a circlet.

REPARATION PRAYER

Eternal Father, turn away Thy angry gaze from our guilty people whose face has become unsightly in Thine eyes. Look instead upon the Face of Thy Beloved Son, for this is the Face of Him in Whom Thou art well pleased. We now offer Thee this Holy Face, covered with shame and disfigured by bloody bruises in reparation for the crimes of our age in order to appease Thine anger, justly provoked against us. Because Thy Divine Son, our Redeemer, has taken upon His Head all the sins of His members, that they might be spared, we now beg of Thee, Eternal Father, to grant us mercy. AMEN.

(from the Holy Face Devotion prayers)

to bury the dead

So what is the synod really about?

It seems like it's about 

This

and This

Neither which has diddly squat to do with Catholic family life. 

Thanks, Charles

A Jazz Anima Christie

Jazz pianist and music arranger, Mary Lou Williams became Catholic in 1958,  and in her absolute delight with finding the Faith she composed a swingy version of Anima Christie using the Cardinal Newman translation. It's not for Mass obviously, but I like it even though I've never cared for the Cardinal Newman version. I knew about Mary Lou as an artist but I never knew she was Catholic. Thank you  David L. Gray for posting about her on your Catholic Tube site. 

I'm sorry Kim Davis

It's a pity that Kim Davis is a Protestant but after the behavior of Catholic writers and even Vatican officials I don't see her converting. People- Catholics have mocked her looks, her sad past and have shied away from her like a kid in high school who joins in picking on someone only  because any amount of meanness to someone who has done you no harm is better than not being one of the cool kids. Kim Davis has a long way to go. Yes,her marital history is a problem and I would not have picked her to be the test case for defying the Supreme Court  but you know what? Not one Catholic Clerk of the Court in this whole big land, stood up or announced that they were resigning. This lady has guts. And like the heroine in the *Awakening Conscience painting she's had a glimpse of truth. God willing, she will continue on the right path.

*The painting is one of the Victorian problem picture genre. The heroine is not the man's wife but his mistress. He's given her every material comfort but suddenly to her own shock she realizes that this is not right. She bolts off his lap and we assume with goes on to a new chaste though not necessarily easy life.

hurt but not yet slain

I'm still feeling pretty bad  but it's like the poem, that goes " A little I'm hurt but not yet slain. I'll just lie down and bleed a while. And then I'll rise and fight again." My uncle's funeral is on October 17 and once that is done I think things will be better for me and my mother.  If you have Transamerica insurance or your insurance company has been bought by them all I can say... scream is "Dump them". I've never dealt with a slower and more unresponsive company in my life.  So, until I can will myself into being what my husband fondly calls his "vinegar Dym, Dym" I've been taking some comfort/distraction in Twitter and Hilary White's new blog,  What's Up With the Synod.

Thank you all

Thank-you and God bless everyone for your kindness, prayers and sympathy.

Sheepfolds

There is only one sheepfold and only one Shepard. The servants of the Shepard, even  His top servant, His vicar can fail us and break our hearts but don't leave the Shepard. 

Our Lady has warned us

“The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see Cardinals opposing Cardinals, Bishops against other Bishops. The priests who venerate Me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres (other priests). Churches and altars will be sacked. The Church will be full of those who accept compromises, and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord.

Our Lady of Akita