Again, the American Cancer Society is funding Planned Parenthood. Read about this news on LifeNews. Contact information to write to the American Cancer Society is available via that link.
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Saturday, March 17, 2007
Friday, March 16, 2007
I had to post this beautiful image from a Tridentine Christmas Mass that I found on an online message board.Note: The place is so beautifully lit not by electricity but by nearly 1,000 lit candles. This is an image from St. Vicent de Paul Church, Kansas City, MO (SSPX)
I recently found this video on Roman Miscellany showing many of the struggles in Pope Paul VI's final years as Pontiff. I found the video fascinating since I have never seen many videos of Pope Paul VI.
Isaiah 53:11b-12
"Through his suffering, my servant shall justify many, and their guilt he shall bear. Therefore I will give him his portion among the great, and he shall divide the spoils with the mighty, Because he surrendered himself to death and was counted among the wicked; And he shall take away the sins of many, and win pardon for their offenses."
For the second time this week, the chaste Deacon Lawrence is our processional leader to the Savior of the world. Last Sunday, we knelt at his tomb and heard his encouraging words: "walk as children of the light …"
Today, we are making our pilgrimage to the church containing a large portion of the gridiron on which this holy Deacon made his last and most perfect oblation to God.
It was during the forty years passed in the desert that Moses and Aaron asked God to bring from the rock - a figure of Christ - "a spring of living water," so that all the people could quench their thirst. During these forty days of Lent, the Church asks Christ to give us the living water about which he spoke to the woman of Samaria near Jacob's well-the water, which quenches our thirst forever. This water is our faith in Jesus. It is grace. It is the blood, which flows from the wounds of the Savior, and which through baptism, penance and the other sacraments, purifies our souls, and gushes forth into eternal life, of which it assures us a share.
Let us pray: Show me, O Lord, a toke for good; that they, who hate me may see and be confounded because Thou, O Lord, hast helped me and hast comforted me. Through Christ, Our Lord. Amen.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
This is very disheartening news.
O Lord, misere nobis!
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O Lord, misere nobis!
Half of the people of the Czech Republic do not believe in God, according to a new survey.
The poll by the STEM research organization found that 50% of the country’s people reject belief in God, while 26% believe and the remaining 24% profess uncertainty.
Source: Catholic World News
This church, made from two pagan temples, holds the bodies of the holy martyrs, Cosmas and Damian, who were put to death during the Diocletian persecution. The sick came in crowds to visit the tomb of these two brothers, doctors by profession, imploring them to restore their health.What is fascinating is that the Collect Prayer or today's Lenten feria Mass mentions the station of Ss. Cosmas and Damian. There is only one other occasion, Sexagesima Sunday at St Paul Outside-the-Walls, on which the Collect mentions the Saint at whose church the station is held, even though it is not the feast of that Saint.
The "unsalaried" physicians, Cosmas and Damian, devoted time and talents to the service of the poor and the sick, so that, by curing the infirmities of the body without renumeration, they might more easily win immortal souls for Christ.
Today, the Divine Physician will again come and refresh you. He carries with him the divine antidote, the Eucharistic medicine for the healing of our infirmities.
Let us pray: May the blessed solemnity of Thy saints, Cosmas and Damian, magnify Thee, O Lord, by which Thou hast both granted eternal glory to them and assistance to us by Thy ineffable providence. Through Christ, Our Lord. Amen.
Dom Gueranger, in his "Liturgical Year," also insightfully notes the connection of today's station with Lenten fasting and abstinence:
At Rome, the Station is at the church of Saints Cosmas and Damian, in the forum. The Christians of the middle ages (as we learn from Durandus, in his Rational of the Divine Offices) were under the impression that this Station was chosen because these two saints were, by profession, physicians. The Church, according to this explanation, would not only offer up her prayers of this day for the souls, but also for the bodies of her children: she would draw down upon them—fatigued as she knew they must be by their observance of abstinence and fasting—the protection of these holy martyrs, who, whilst on earth, devoted their medical skill to relieving the corporal ailments of their brethren. The remarks made by the learned liturgiologist Gavantus, in reference to this interpretation, lead us to conclude that, although it may possibly not give us the real motive of the Church’s selecting this Station, yet it is not to be rejected. It will, at least, suggest to the faithful to recommend themselves to these saints, and to ask of God, through their intercession, that they may have the necessary courage and strength for persevering to the end of the holy season in what they have, so far, faithfully observed.
Today also marks the midpoint of Lent. See: Mid-Lent Thursday Exhortation from the Mozarabic Rite
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
I have just updated my page entitled What's wrong with Martin Luther? by adding a link to a papal document concerning his heretical errors. I strongly suggest all Catholics read Exsurge Domine by Pope Leo X, which was issued on June 15, 1520.
I just read about a Catholic parish in Norwalk that is returning to boys-only altar serving while creating a Handmaids of the Altar program for the girls. I think this is a fabulous idea. I have been hoping that more boys would actually serve at the altar wearing cassocks and surplices because altar serving is meant to help boys discern a priestly vocation.
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Today's Stational Church is the Church of St. Sixtus II. Information is from the Canon Regulars of St. John Cantius:
The St. Sixtus Stational Church is located on the Appian Way and is a parish church dating to the fifth century. It was in this church that the catechumens were presented to the Church by their sponsors. Their names were written on tablets of ivory covered in leather, which were read at the Commemoration of the Living. After the Collect of the Mass, the catechumens received the initial parts of the Baptismal ceremony, viz. the rites of exsufflation, of the sign of the cross, of the imposition of hands and that of the salt.
In an age, which makes light of God's commandments, it is of special importance that the faithful be uncompromising in the observance of the "ways of life." Let us be "the salt of the earth and the light of the world," as our holy leader Sixtus was in the third century. We invite this holy pontiff to precede us to the altar and to ask for us "that we, who seek the grace of God's protection, may serve Him with a quiet mind.
Let us pray: Grant us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, that disciplined by wholesome fasting, and abstaining from all vices, we may more easily gain forgiveness. Through Christ, Our Lord. Amen.
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