Suffer in Mass

Going to Mass and worshipping God is not intended to be easy.  We are to suffer with Him as His loving action is represented on Calvary. 


The traditional Latin Mass is so obviously focused on God, directed to the adoration of Him, that one who is mentally present to what is happening is ineluctably drawn into the sacred mysteries, even if only at the simplest and most fundamental level of acknowledging the reality of God and adoring our Blessed Lord in the most Holy Sacrament. I am afraid to say that it is not clear at all that most Catholics attending most vernacular OF liturgies are ever confronted unequivocally and irresistibly with the reality of God and the demand for adoration. Or, to put it differently, the old liturgy forms these attitudes in the soul, whereas the new liturgy presupposes them. If you don’t have the right understanding and frame of mind, the Novus Ordo will do very little to give it to you, whereas the EF is either going to give it to you or drive you away. When you attend the EF, you are either subtly attracted by something in it, or you are put off by the demands it makes. Either way, lukewarmness is not an option.


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Blessings

People want their things blessed, and they are looking for that sign of the cross, that holy water, those words somewhere in the rite that actually ask God to bless the thing. The old Roman Ritual does this, and does it well. It also has good prayers that go beyond the mere act of blessing and seek to put the object in God’s wider plan of sanctity for us.

In the old ritual, there is a remarkable prayer for a telegraph—yes, a telegraph. It quite elaborately laid out psalms and antiphons, but I will only present here the prayer of gratitude at the end, just before blessing it with Holy Water.

To my mind, it is also perfect as a prayer, expression of gratitude, and blessing when using a computer or for the extended “cloud” of our computers, otherwise known as the Internet. The prayer is both thrilling and fitting. It is a minor masterpiece if you ask me. Though written sometime prior to 1945, and likely after 1830, its basic structure fits well what we do now with the Internet. There is probably one word that needs changing, and perhaps you can help by suggesting another word.

But without further drumrolls, here is the prayer, first in its Latin original, and then translated by Rev. Phillip Weller:

Deus qui ámbulas super pennas ventórum, et facis mirabília solus: concéde, ut per vim huic metállo índitam fulmíneo ictu celérius huc abséntia, et hinc álio praeséntia transmíttis; ita nos invéntis novis edócti, tua grátia opitulánte, prómptius et facílius ad te veníre valeámus. Per Christum Dóminum nostrum. Amen.

O God, who walkest upon the wings of the wind, and thou alone workest wonders! By the power inherent in this metal, thou dost bring hither distant things quicker than lightning, and transferest present things to distant places. Therefore grant that, instructed by new inventions, we may merit, by thy bounteous grace, to come with greater certainty and facility to thee. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Sign of the Cross + and sprinkling with Holy Water.

Magnificent. It almost paints a picture in the mind as the words go forth. Yes, such beauty and a picture of the swiftness of information going hither and yon, like lightning, or as on the wings of the wind! And may indeed this wondrous tool serve to draw us closer to God and not be corrupted by sinful curiosity, hostility, defamation, profanation, or pornographic and prurient temptations.

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God Who Suffers With Us

Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines in early November 2013. It was one of the strongest typhoons (cyclones) ever recorded. Tacloban was one of the hardest hit areas. In this video, you hear from Br. James Romero Santos a first hand account of the devastating destruction caused by this storm. The trial this massive typhoon brought to the people of the Philippines is still being dealt with today. For those who lost loved ones, it is the God who suffers with them that brings hope for a better future.
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Coversion

The pope is shaking things up.  He is not attempting to change doctrine. On all the core Catholic teachings, he is a absolutely straight-down-the-line orthodox Catholic. But he is also an evangelizer and a missionary.


What's missing from the picture, he says, is the merciful face of Christ. The church that heals the wounds, that raises people up, that nurtures them, that forgives them. And so what he's trying to do is to say, "Actually, that's the face of the church that needs to be presented."


Now, this isn't a PR exercise. What he's actually saying is people need to experience that before they are ready to accept the rest of it.


So what is conversion? Conversion is when somebody first experiences the love and mercy and forgiveness of God, and then, having assimilated that, then, as it were, chooses the Christian life, chooses the moral life, and so on. But you can't go to the second without the first.


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Becomming Men

The reemergence of true masculinity is the salvation of society, just as Christ is the true male role model. 

If there is one effect of the Crisis in the Church that gets very little play, it is the utter

destruction of boys and young men.

The Church – in being a loving Mother to them – should want them to grow up and be

good MEN.

Instead – in the constant pandering to the culture of the sissified male – many leaders in

the Church have thrown this and the previous generation of Catholic males under the bus.

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