On Hearing Mass During Lent by Dom Gueranger

 

Random thoughts on the first Friday of Lent

•  The higher the monkey climbs, the more he exposes himself. A young woman named Sara Stock worked for Elijah Shaeffer, and allegedly had an affair with him right up until she  married a very unfortunate man in January. Shaeffer has a lot of enemies  and his alleged affair with Stock  became public as part of an attack on him. She had also had a lot of ill-wishers who seeing her exposed, exulted in her disgrace and the ruin of her life. In addition to working for Shaeffer, Stock was a Catholic influencer.  Was she ever sincere? God only knows for sure. One thing is clear though.  The whole Catholic e-girl industry is a dangerous thing. All the gullible people, (probably mostly young women), who followed her have got to be pretty disappointed. Hopefully, none of these people hung their faith on her example. 
  
  
  
  

• For the last two or three years Cardinals and now the pope are praising Ramadan.  I shouldn't be surprised but it's so disgusting.

• Never, ever, ever take a job with your diocese.  Joe Enders was a business manager for a parish in Michigan. Now he has no job and no severance. He has a family and a baby due in May. 
  
  
  
  
  
• Rocky and I are really enjoying the Great Fast videos from the Norbertines at St. Michael's Abbey.

Litany of Reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Litany of Reparation to the Sacred Heart

of Jesus

O Sacred Heart, hear us.

Sacred Heart, graciously hear us.

For the forgetfulness and ingratitude of men,

We will console Thee, O Lord. *

For the way Thou art deserted in Thy Tabernacle, *

For the crimes of sinners, *

For the blasphemies uttered against Thee, *

For the sacrileges which profane Thy Sacrament of Love, *

For the coldness of the greater part of Thy children, *

For the abuse of Thy grace, *

For our own unfaithfulness, *

For the incomprehensible hardness of our hearts, *

For our long delay in loving Thee, *

For Thy bitter sadness at the loss of souls, *

For Thy long waiting at the door of our hearts, *

For Thy loving sighs, *

For Thy loving tears, *

For Thy loving imprisonment, *

For Thy loving death. *

Learn of Me:

Because I am meek and humble of heart.

O Heart of Jesus, by Thy sorrow for those who know Thee not,

Have mercy on me as Thou seest best. **

O Heart of Jesus, by Thy sorrow for those who do not believe in Thee, **

O Heart of Jesus, by Thy sorrow for those who are inconstant and ungrateful, **

O Heart of Jesus, by Thy sorrow during the whole course of Thy mortal life, **

O Heart of Jesus, by Thy sorrow in Thy agony and in Thy death, **

O Heart of Jesus, by Thy sorrow for those who neglect their eternal salvation, **

O Heart of Jesus, by Thy sorrow for those who offer the most Holy Sacrifice unworthily, **

Heart of Jesus, by Thy sorrow for the scarcity of those who love Thee fervently, **

Sweet Heart of Jesus:

Be not my Judge but my Saviour.

O Jesus, loveliest of all beauty, wash me more and more from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin, that, purified by Thee, I may approach to Thee, the pure One, and may be worthy to dwell in "Thy Heart all the days of my life, that I may both see and do Thy will. For this cause was Thy side pierced, that an entrance might be opened for us. Who is there who would not love this wounded Heart? Who would not return love for love to Him that hath loved so well? Amen.

O adorable Heart of Jesus, if men did but know Thee: How they would love Thee!

Random thoughts on an icy afternoon

•  When I was a kid I picked up a book called Nurse and after looking at the blurbs and a few pages I put it right back on the bookstore's shelf. It was feminist and dreary and nothing for a 10 or 11 year old to be reading. The main thing I took from it was that nurses hate doctors and patients. That was in 1979, and I never really thought about that book again until Covid and whenever I read particularly vicious things from nurses on social media. At some point, while the eyes of the great were elsewhere, the nursing and teaching job outlook changed and we got some really scary people in charge of the kids and the sick.  The elders in my family from my early childhood to my college years were always afraid to go to the hospital because they were convinced that  they'd be neglected or given a little push towards the morgue.  I thought that was silly but knew enough to keep my mouth shut. Turns out, Great Auntie may have been on to something.  My apologies...

• As I've said before, a lot of the Catholic e-girls need to get off social media. They're just making young Catholic women look silly, terminally immature and self absorbed. This young lady apparently suffers from anxiety so the backlash to her musings can't be good for her. 

 

• I just learned that a member of a Catholic discussion forum that I used to read has died. She was a devout woman but also, due to the scandals in the Church,  one of the unhappiest and untrusting people I've ever come across. May she rest in peace.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• My sweet darling, mother will be 84 tomorrow and next week I will be 59. I am so blessed. 

Something to think about

 My diocese had its annual MLK Mass. Every year I am disturbed by it. MLK was not Catholic, so he can't be a saint.  A Mass in his honor doesn't make sense. His best friend, Ralph Abernathy and one of his lovers were both pretty frank about his unchaste private life in their memoirs. According to the FBI, He also  witnessed a rape and mocked the victim's suffering.   Dr. King should have defended that woman and the FBI agents who recorded the whole thing should have burst through the door to come to the rescue. Not one man who saw or heard walked away with clean hands.

This happened in January, 1964, in the  Willard Hotel. The Baltimore preacher who was identified as the rapist died in 1991. What happened to that young woman? Was she told to shut up for the sake of the cause? Is she still alive?  May God have mercy on her. 

Wedding notes

 I watched a live streamed wedding Mass a few hours ago. It wasn't bad and the homily was actually good but  I noticed a few things that struck me as lacking.

Ladies, don't wear strapless gowns.  You're not going to a NYC Fashion week; you're going to the house of God for a sacrament. On a practical level strapless gowns show too much when you bow or genuflect or lean forward to adjust your gown.  Show some respect to the priest and don't make him have to put up with an eyeful of heaving bosom or be photographed with an embarrassingly dressed bride.   

Be kind to your bridesmaids.  Pick a gown that doesn't make any of them look like five pounds of meat in a two pound bag or the chorus line at the Moulin Rouge.  Ease up on the makeup too. I'm not saying go barefaced by any means but resembling the Joker isn't a good look...truly.

If you're going to have family or friends do the readings make sure they can actually speak  using a microphone instead of muttering, giggling or whispering. They don't need to act out the reading either.  When you kiss your groom, please  don't grope each other, or attempt a search mission for his tonsils. Nobody needs to see that in general and certainly not in church.  

Merry Christmas

For while all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her course,  Thy almighty word leapt down from heaven from thy royal throne, as a fierce conqueror into the midst of the land of destruction.

Random thoughts on a lazy afternoon

 

• The rug cleaner is here and I am so happy. He's moved all my living and dinning area furniture and dirt that laughed at my Little Green Bissel machine is being removed. I'll  have brand new looking rugs for Christmas!
  
  
  
• People get really snobby about this little missal but this is the first one I ever saw and owned, and it's the missal that many people use every Sunday.  It's cheap, fits in a purse and is easy to use. 

• If you want to go further and buy a sturdy daily or Sunday only missal the Latin Mass Helper store is a great resource. 
  
  
  
  
  
• Years ago I realized two things. I needed to veil when appearing before the Blessed Sacrament and I was never going to receive Communion from a Eucharistic minister ever again. I am a very shy person and both decisions scared me because I knew I was going to get blow back. I did in the form of dirty looks but Rocky discouraged people from saying anything to me and I kept going. Today I'm not the only woman who wears a veil in church. Nobody scowls or rolls their eyes. People are used to it.  I'm not the only person who silently, politely avoids the EM line either. If your afraid of what people will say if you veil this little book offers encouragement. 
  
  
  
  
  
• One thing I've learned in my life is that when multiple men look at a priest and either clench their jaws and grunt and refuse to have anything to do with him and parish activities other than Mass or they flat out say that Fr. Skippy is too womanish for them, the best thing to do is to not argue. Wait long enough and observe you'll find yourself going, "Oh, Dad/Uncle/Son/Husband was right."

Advent

 

The news is going to get weirder the closer we get to Christmas. Hollywood will release a blasphemous movie, or some professor will say something ridiculously  foul, or a crime will happen and someone will try to blame it on a supposed Christian... don't get fooled. Keep your eyes on Jesus.

Random thoughts on a frosty Saturday afternoon

• The whole maelstrom around Erika Kirk is astonishing.  The woman has been accused of things so wild I won't repeat them. I don't have an informed opinion on any of that, but if I was advising the Widow Kirk I would tell her to make like Jackie Kennedy and say nothing in public for the next six months or more. She may be trying to keep her husband's dream alive but from a public relations stand point, she's failing. Work behind the scenes to publish a book, or create a foundation but the whole speaking gig needs to stop.  
  
  
  
  
•  I saw that 600, 000 illegals have been deported so far and I'm seeing a difference in my area. There is a gas station about two miles from my home that had a huge group of Hispanic men hanging around every day. They drank heavily, fought, regularly stabbed each other, and harassed women who went to the market next door or were at the gas station. Week after week, the police reports listed arrests for assault and battery. I noticed back in the Summer that there were less men hanging out. Now, when we drive by I see either a handful of men or nobody.  For the first time in my memory there are no large groups of men in the Home Depot or U-Haul parking lots.  I am amazed.  
  
  
  
  
  
• Mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception was disappointing this year. Young Father says the Novus Ordo Mass as best as it can be done but the homily wasn't great. It's not his fault. The pastor likes "fun", jokey homilies and perhaps between him and some of the more vocal parishioners, I think, young Fr. has been "encouraged" to make his homilies less like adult theology  and more like a pep talk for elementary aged school children.  Attendance was not great either. Perhaps people took off work and went to one of the day Masses instead of the 6PM, that Rocky and I went to. 
  
  
  
  
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• I was doing my Saturday cleaning while listening to You Tube and really enjoyed Stephen Kokx's interview with  Frank Walker. Later I listened to bits of Kennedy Hall's video on Nick Fuentes and his most recent one  which is meant to be an encouragement and warning to Gen Z men.  I did not enjoy the Hall experience and I don't see either  Hall video going over well with the target audience. Kennedy has a tendency to come off as somewhat  pompous and I think that the Z generation is even less tolerant of what they consider to be "Boomer slop condescension," than even my folks, Gen X are. Kennedy is either a Millennial in the older age range or a younger  Generation X so he really should know that. 

Hey US Bishops, Could You Spare a Thought for the US?

 The United States Conference of Catholic Bishop's had their  Baltimore meeting and among other things, they  voted 216–5 to condemn our country for deporting illegal aliens.   As soon as I read about it, I remembered two stories from the past. 

The first was from  a young priest who lived in one of the worst parts of Mexico. He  wrote about  four young thugs who ran afoul of their gang for beating and robbing a man who was already paying the gang protection money. They acted without permission and presumably took profits for themselves. The punishment was supposed to be execution, but due to the priest's pleading it was reduced to exile. They were told to get out of Mexico and crossed the Rio Grande that night. It's a dramatic story and the priest's sympathy was for the young men, but I have wondered what happened next. Did those violent men throw themselves at the foot of the Holy Cross and go straight, or are they now victimizing Americans?  

Here's another story for the bishops. One weekend afternoon,  a former co-worker of mine went jogging in a park that was close to her neighborhood.  At some point she realized that she was being closely followed by two men in a truck. She ran faster and they picked up speed. Finally, she came to  a side trail that had two steel bollards that may have saved her life. The driver couldn't follow her without damaging his vehicle and both men, who appeared to be from some country in Latin America, were either two lazy to pursue her  or simply realized that this  American woman was not going to be an easy victim,  chose to let her go.  She ran for her life on that trail until she made it to the parking lot. From there she ran home. If my old co-worker hadn't been fast, what would have happened to her? 

The USCCB  wrote about a "climate of fear", but ignore the fear American women and girls have had to live under for too long. We've gotten to the point where going for a walk or going to the gas station could lead to rape and murder and our bishops just blow off as if we are nothing. 

A ghostly tale for Halloween

 Years ago when I was still in high school I read a collection of ghost stories called "Haunted Heartland." Most of them weren't a bit scary and were presented in  the dry  businesslike fashion of a folklorist who is merely collecting materials for a dissertation, but one tale stuck with me. It was the story of Fr. Louis Lesches, a priest assigned to St. Mary's College in Minnesota, who tried to kill his superior, Bishop Patrick Hefron. The bishop was saying Mass in the seminary chapel one morning when he turned around and saw Fr. Lesches standing behind him. To the bishop's surprise, the priest was wearing a Prince Albert suit instead of his cassock. To add to this surprise ,the bishop quickly realized that  the priest was packing heat. Fr. Lesches fired a gun three times, hitting the bishop twice.

At that time Fr. Lesches was already the number one problem child of the diocese. Although he was said to be brilliant and had done well in the academic part of his seminary studies, he was judged to be overly emotional, and  insubordinate. He'd failed at all of his parish assignments and now the concerned and probably a bit exasperated bishop had recalled him to St. Mary's to keep a close eye on him.  Fr. Lesches became convinced that the bishop was persecuting him. 

 Bishop Heffron's  great physical and mental toughness probably saved his life.  Instead of dropping dead, hiding in the pews, or swooning, he yelled at his now panicked attacker and chased him out of the chapel. Fr. Lesches was later captured by the police and spent the rest of his life in a mental hospital.

 Students have been claiming to see the ghost of Fr. Lesches on campus for decades. It's a spooky tale but I hope everyone who hears or reads it will stop and say a prayer for this poor, strange, unstable man who never should've been ordained but is a priest forever and one who probably really needs our help now. 

Random thoughts on a Friday morning

•  I think somebody told poor Cardinal Burke that there were videos purporting to be of him denouncing Pope Leo and he panicked.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• I think Will Knowland has missed something in his analysis.   If a man is hooked on, oh say, anime porn or any of the more unspeakable forms of visual carnality, no living woman can compete with that. His wife may be dutiful, but she does not have four foot long blue hair that levitates, a bosom that defies gravity and the limits of  human bone and musculature  or a 15 inch waist. 
  
  I know a woman who has 8 children. She's divorced. To put it delicately, she and her husband were clearly doing what it takes to beget and bear issue within their  marriage but it wasn't enough to keep the marriage in tact.
  
   Is a wife to blame for a pornography addiction that began when her husband was a boy? Is she any more responsible for his sin than the woman who found herself married to a man who chose her in hopes that she would magically change him?  Mr. Knowland, may not recall this part of the Bible, but when Adam tried to weasel out of trouble by going, "God, it was that Woman, You sent me that made me sin," Our Father had none of it. Eve was justly punished for her own sin but Adam had to face up to his as well.
  
  
  
  
  
•  Henry VIII left the Church in order to marry his mistress. 500 years later Charles III comes to the Vatican with his concubine to pray with the pope. History with all its tragedy and farce is amazing.
  
   St. Margaret Clitheroe pray for us.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• If you're Gen X, pat yourself on the back. You survived the Satanic Panic, the Backmasking on records obsession , the D&D suspicions, the Everybody is Going to Get AIDS hysteria, the Swine Flu and Legionnaire's scare, Acid Rain, Killer Bees, the Computers Are Going to Destroy US,  and the Nuclear Power Is Gonna Kill Us All fears. 
  Brothers and Sisters, if you've ever had to talk a member of the elder or younger generations down because they're freaked out over something they saw on CNN, I salute you. 

You need to read this

•  Chris Jackson is on fire.  I've been enjoying his crisp, unflinching writing  and I have learned much from reading his Substack.  To my knowlege, he is the only one who really dug into the unpleasant details behind one the most recent papal blunders.   On October 11, Pope Leo gave a public address lavishly praising the late Fr. Lorenzo Milani.  He was following in the footsteps of his predecessor. Back in June, 2017, Pope Francis visited Fr. Milani's grave and called him a role model for priests. Who was Fr. Milani? Chris Jackson answers that question and it's really bad. 
  
  If you read up on Fr. Milani, I suggest that you have an Alka Seltzer packet near by and remove any children who might be reading over your shoulder from the room.  I don't think I can be shocked by anything Vatican related anymore but I certainly can be disgusted and I definitely was when I read the quotes from Fr. Milani's own writings.
  
  In recent days I have  read people's defenses of Pope Leo saying that since Milani has been dead for 58 years, Leo didn't know about his private life and was praising his public ministry.   
  
  Phooey!
  
  When my bosses go out to make speeches they have me do research and send them a thorough background report on their  topic so they don't make fools of themselves. You can't tell me there was not even  ONE librarian in the entire Vatican who could have looked up Fr. Milani's putrid writings and sent a bunch of PDF attachments to Leo's assistant. Either the Vatican research staff is incompetent and failed to  let Leo XIV,  know that he'd be praising a vicious minded, nasty old communist who longed to prey on boys or that part of history was ignored by the very personage who gave the public address. The people who are still making excuses  will probably be the same ones making pitiful  excuses five years from now. 
 

Depo Provera- no birth, no control and apparently, cancer

I  read yesterday that over 1,000 women are suing Pfizer. Their complaint is that Depo Provera, which has been around since 1954, and was approved for use in the US in 1992, caused their brain cancers.  On Twitter the comments, particularly from young men, were not kind. It's true that dosing with chemicals to shut down your  reproductive system is dangerous. I'm sure that privately many of those women wish now that they had chosen either the baby who might be their comfort now or shown self control, but guys, Depo wasn't just marketed towards  feminist Western middle class married and single women. In 1967, it was tested on poor black women in the South. These women weren't able to give informed consent because  they weren't honestly told what the shot could do and since the company "lost" over 90% of the patient medical records we don't even know how many deaths and side effects there were. For all we know, a few of the women who are suing might be in their 80s  and from that original cohort of test subjects.  In the Third World it was tested on Kenyan, Thai and Mexican women. It's still pushed heavily to African women.

I remember hearing a friend tell me approvingly, that one of her friends, who worked in the foster care system,  planned to start her teen aged foster child on DP because the kid was flirtatious with grown men and pregnancy was inevitable unless something was done.  Was that really true or was it just what the foster mother was saying? I'll never know. I just hope that poor kid is okay today, wherever she is. 

Depo Provera has always reminded me of Norplant, which was first developed in 1966, by scientists working for an outfit called the Population Council. The name alone should cause raised eyebrows. Norplant was tested on Chilean women and pushed heavily towards poor black teenagers and women on welfare. In Baltimore, girls could get Norplant at school, and without parental consent. I can still recall my shock and suspicion when it was announced that Norplant would be offered to girls in one high school located in the poorest section of my home town of DC. Eventually 50,000 women sued and Norplant is no longer available in the United States. Wyeth, the manufacturer of Norplant never lost a single lawsuit but it sure paid out a lot of out of court settlements.

 In the case of DP, many foolish, selfish women took the shot and many young girls were pressured/encouraged into mortal sin by authority figures telling them DP was "for their own protection," and now apparently many are suffering. Perhaps we are witnessing the beginning of the end of DP being sold in America. We'll see how the class action suit goes. Lord, have mercy!

Cardinal Burke is not that guy....sorry

 Lately I have seen a number of posts and essays expressing disappointment in Cardinal Burke. He's a nice man but he's not coming to save traditional Catholics.  I'm not doubting his piety in any way, but he's timid. Maybe he always was. Maybe, the only reason he was able to get the nerve to put forth the Dubia was because the other cardinals were standing with him.  On top of that, his judgment isn't always the greatest. Remember all those rumors about him backing a nun who turned out to be a man?  When I first heard that story I thought it had to be a lie... and then it turned out to be true and incredibly embarrassing. 

When Pope Francis mocked him as he lay sick in the hospital and later threatened to throw him out of his retirement apartment in Rome, that seems to have terrified the poor man.  Although I was certain that American Catholics, if no-one else, would not have allowed him to be put out on the street and later heard Anne Barnhardt report that people immediately told the cardinal that his rent would be covered by them for the rest of his life, he reacted with even greater tremulousness than before.

 I'm not being mean when I say that I don't think he's made of the same stuff as St. John Fisher or St. Athanasius. I'm not mad at him. He's old and some old men become fearful in their great age. I had a relative who in the last decade of his life became a hoarder and reclusive, only going out when he had to because he was unable to cope with age, sickness and a the loss of control over his family. It should also be remembered that many priests all over the world, much younger than Cardinal Burke admit that they feel as though they've endured PTSD under the reign of Francis. 

Sure, I'd like the cardinal to stand up and start preaching like a lion but he's not that guy. He's not coming to save  the Faith as practiced by traditional Catholics.  Burke will get a Mass at St. Peter's in October. It will be lovely. Trad Inc. will trot out that, "We're back," nonsense and Michael Matt, bless his heart will get all red in the face and sweaty while bellowing, "Unite the clans!". Soon afterwards Fr. Martin will either get another visit to the Vatican or there will be another  event for those who are living in sexual sin. 

Random thoughts on a rainy night

•  I'll say it again. Some man needs to talk to Timothy Gordon. He's not going to listen to any woman. What he's talking about never existed in the West.  Peasant women, whether they were working in the fields or as domestic servants were not hidden at home, never venturing into the village or stepping outside unless they were escorted by a husband or male relative. Gordon is talking like he wants us to live in Saudi Arabia. Good grief.
  
  
  
  
  
• To all the Catholic e-girl "influencers"...Could you stop with the "Mass fit" posts? I'm 58, and have been dressing myself for some considerable time and am unimpressed with your poor imitation of model poses. Even if you have a veil on your head nobody needs to see you doing the lip pout, hip thrust  and the cleavage boost lean. It looks silly, cheap and attention seeking and doesn't appear to have anything to do with worshiping God. You aren't helping anyone and you make young Catholic women seem vapid.
  
  
  
  
• Rocky and I went to Deep Creek, Maryland for the Labor Day weekend. It was beautiful. The mountain scenery was just stunning. We went to the only Catholic church in the area for Sunday Mass. Obviously, the parishioners are used to visitors and were very friendly. The homily and music was....well, straight out of 1973, but these people were so sincere and gentle, Rocky and I just had to shrug and pray. Would we go back? Absolutely. We intend to visit Deep Creek again  and since we won't miss Mass we'll be at St. Peters on the Lake. 
  
  
  
  
• Know this:  From kindergarten to college, your children are probably being taught by a person who is going to try to teach them values totally opposite to yours. 

Dreadful days

•  Yesterday was a dreadful day. I saw the photos of that poor, poor girl, Iryna Zarutska after she was attacked and  was sickened. My throat felt as if something snapped inside and crumbled to dust. I grew up in DC and I know public transportation can be dangerous. From my childhood I was trained to scan for possible threats and to get off the bus or train if I realize that a potential threat is too close to me. Seeing that tiny young woman with no chance at all be cut down reminded me of every wise thing my parents and neighbors ever told me about my personal safety.
  
   Some hours later I saw that Charlie Kirk was murdered. I was never a fan of his. I'm too old for his audience group but I knew who he was, and you don't have to be a fan to be disgusted at cold blooded murder. 
  
  We live in a country where crazy people and evil people are allowed to be on the streets and our elected officials just shrug when someone is slaughtered. We live in a country where a media personality  who wrote and talked for a living was killed for his point of view. If we've gotten to the point where we can't even express our political and/or cultural ideas without bloodshed then the next step is brutish violence on a grand scale.  God help us. 
  
  
  
  
  
• Today is 9/11. I remember waking up on September 12, and thinking that I'd had the most horrible dream and then the announcer on my favorite radio station spoke. He simply said that  the day before was not a nightmare, and then he played this:

Okay, so the benefit of the doubt stage is officially over....

 Pope Leo has been on St. Peter's throne for more than 100 days and nobody has been fired.  Instead we got this:

and then we got this:

Our Lady of LaSalette, pray for us.

St. Paul, pray for us.

St. Peter Damian, pray for us.

St. Charles Lwanga, pray for us.

Venerable Emil Kapaun, pray for us.

Fr. Vincent Capodanno, pray for us.

Thanks Frank

 Thank you, Frank Walker, a true Catholic gentleman.