WELL, I DID MY GOOD DEED FOR THE SEASON OF LENT!

 

I found this lost soul on the side of the road, as I departed Holy Family Church after the 8 AM Mass this Tuesday morning. No one else in sight. No shoes, just socks. So I did my due diligence, called 911 and two of our finest Beaufort County Deputies came to my rescue and this 5 year old. He knew his first name, not his last. He did not know his address, but it was nearby, he did not know his phone number. At the age of four, my father ingrained in me my full name, my full address and my phone number, just in case something like this happened. This was a first for me today. God bless this little kid! And God bless me for my good deed for the day!

CREEPING INFALLIBILITY AND OTHER SUCH NONSENSE…

 

Every time I hear a Vatican syndolist speak, I cringe. It’s all horizontal 1970’s “I’m okay, you’re okay” as well as a creeping infallibility to shore up their flawed ideology about the Church and evangelization.

It shows how desperate they really are and not only that, how shallow. It also shows how gnostic they are. 

I’ve just read a couple of commentaries that those who are pushing back on supporting the nonsense coming out of Rome in terms of the liturgy, synodality and the incoherence of the Vatican. These sycophants of this incoherence,  tell the rest of us that we are not following the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Yes, these people, to include cardinals, are master manipulators who can rival Alex Murdaugh in manipulating people to believe in his lies. 

They and exclusively they, determine what is of the Holy Spirit and what isn’t; who is and who isn’t. 

The good Sister Shallow of the Seven Horizontals says that the Youth Synod defined synodality and certainly this definition is infallible because it was of the Holy Spirit. She spoke that, not from the Petrine chair, but her podium on a platform.

This is incredulous. Where is God in this presentation? Where is Jesus Christ, crucified and risen? Where is sin? Where is mercy? Where is salvation? And yes, tell me how many Catholic are going to be on fire for synodality that ecclesializes!!!!!! You can’t make this crap up!  Tell me how many times you read about soteriology  in her infallible decree, Holy Spirit on fire decree:

Sr Nathalie Becquart: ‘Synodality – 

the process that ecclesializes'

WOW! ALL I HAVE TO SAY IS WOW! MAY GOD BLESS HIM AND HIS FAMILY!

 The call to holiness given to the Laity by Vatican II has taken root in this young man who loves and prefers the TLM way of Catholicism. But he models the post-Vatican II call to holiness and the new evangelization. 

A must see interview, to say the least. His self-discipline and personal piety put me to shame!

I CELEBRATED THE WORST AND MOST DESPICABLE ASPECT OF THE CHURCH SUNDAY AFTERNOON—THE TRADITIONAL LATIN MASS WITH BISHOP STEPHEN PARKES PRESENT IN “CHOIR”…

 I think I will get more photos soon, but here are three. I still can’t believe that I am forced to celebrate this abysmal form of the Mass, that Catholics actually thought for centuries upon centuries, was sacred. Thank God, we enlightened post Vatican II Catholics, for the past 50 years or so, know that what was once sacred no longer is. Plop, Plop, fizz, fizz, O what a relief that is!

I love the enlightenment!

WOW AND WHO KNEW POPE FRANCIS HAD ISSUED SO MANY “ANATHEMAS”?

THE RADICALLY INCOHERENT AND WILDLY PROGRESSIVE PAPACY OF POPE FRANCIS HAS BROUGHT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH TO HIGH COMEDY, SHE IS NOW QUITE THE LAUGHING STOCK! I’M LAUGHING SO MUCH, I AM CRYING!

This is a great article and a must read with a bit of irony and comic genius! Press the title for the article. I have a couple of money bytes below the title:

Saturday, February 25, 2023 THE NEW LITURGICAL MOVEMENT BLOG:

New Liturgical Anathemas for the Post-Conciliar Rite

GREGORY DIPIPPO

…Wonder no longer. With a decree issued on Tuesday, the Sacred Congregation for Rites has finally closed this gap, promulgating a set of liturgical anathemas that admirably reflect the most exciting new developments in ecclesiology and liturgical theology. NLM is very honored to be the medium by which the Sacred Congregation has chosen to divulge these, while we wait for the official Latin text of the decree, which will be titled Ludens feci, to be officially published in the Acta Sanctae Sedis.

The very first encyclical letter of the current pontificate warned the Church against the temptation to self-referentiality, and as more recent events have shown us, the best possible way to combat this temptation is for the Church to spend four years talking to itself about itself. This will explain the fact that these anathemas are all, as it were, inward-looking, a part of the necessary process of self-reflection by which the Church will shake itself free of that temptation. In the finest tradition of the post-Conciliar liturgy, these anathemas may be adapted to local realities, but never, of course, to local ideas, and indeed, the careful reader will immediately note that it is only ideas that are anathematized, and not realities. Of course, we cannot but admit that we were very surprised to see where some of these ideas that are now being anathematized come from, but such is the way of the god of surprises…

SYNODALITY IN ACTION IN AUGUSTA, GEORGIA AS WELL AS ON POPE AVENUE ON HILTON HEAD: THE MOST INFLUENTIAL DISUNITED METHODIST CHURCH IN AUGUSTA, TRINITY ON THE HILL, NEXT DOOR TO SAINT MARY ON THE HILL CATHOLIC CHURCH, CHOOSES TO LEAVE THE UNITED OR DISUNITED METHODIST CHURCH!

Like St. Luke Church on Pope Avenue, next door to Holy Family Catholic Church on Pope Avenue on Hilton Head, Trinity on the Hill United Methodist Church in Augusta, Georgia, next door to St. Mary on the Hill Catholic Church, is disaffiliating with the Methodist Church.

Trinity on the Hill is perhaps the most influential Methodist Church in Augusta, home to many elected officials and politicians and just plain rich folks. So this is big news for a large southern Protestant Church!

The reason for their disaffiliating with the North Georgia United Methodist Conference, is because that Conference (think of diocese as Methodist Conferences are headed by a bishop) is joining the national United Methodist Church Conference by embracing LGBTQ+++ ideologies and thus distancing themselves from the Bible and Biblical sexual morality. The Augusta Church is concerned too about their Conference endorsing the ordination of active LGBTQ+++ (meaning sexually active, in or outside of marriage, no mater how marriage might be defined). In other words, Trinity on the Hill, through their synodal process, does’t want their bishop to assign any LGBTQ+++ ministers to their church and they don’t want the LGBTQ++++ ideologies thrust down their throats or their children throats. They want biblical morality. 

This is long, but shows you synodality in progress:

WHO WILL BE THE NEXT POPE? IN ETERNITY IT IS KNOWN BUT NOT HERE IN TIME…BUT IN TIME, IT WILL BE KNOWN…

 

When Pope Benedict died, there were a few commentaries that the end of an era of had occurred. But in fact, that is not true, because Pope Francis is only 9 years younger than Pope Benedict and very much a part of that same era in the Church. What has died of that era is a pope who was a progressive, who in 1968, saw the errors of progressivism as it regards the Second Vatican Council and converted to a more middle of the road tending right approach, than what Cardinal Ratzinger had been.

Pope Francis, although ordained later but entering the Jesuits in the late 1950’s for its long formation process ending with his ordination in 1969, in the midst of the most radical aspect of implementing the Council, which Pope Benedict as Ratzinger had repudiated but Pope Francis as Bergoglio did not, but embraced and embraced the South American version of it, and a radical form of it,  is still with us, banging that 1970’s drum, but not for very long I predict. 

But my point is that we are still in the Benedict era as it concerns the papacy, the era of trying to implement Vatican II according to two main ideologies at play in the late 1960’s and well into the 70’s. 

I can’t imagine we will get another Pope Benedict or Pope Francis as Pope Francis death will be the clear conclusion of the Benedict/Francis era with its schizophrenic approach to the Council.

I do pray, though that the battle between continuity and discontinuity will lean toward Pope Benedict’s remarkable life as a priest, bishop, cardinal and pope. I pray his legacy will last.

Pope Francis has said something to the effect that the German synodal way is becoming a Protestant denomination. He said, loosely quoting, we have one good Protestant Church in Germany, we don’t need another. 

Under Francis, there is a Protestantizing of the Church, a balkanization of the Catholic Church,  congregationalization of the Church, begun as a result of the ambiguities of interpretation of ambiguous Vatican II documents, but now on steroids due to the synodal process wildly out of control.

I doubt very much, that most cardinals, even those appointed by Pope Francis,  want a continuation of the confusion, ambiguities and authoritarianism of Pope Francis’ imperial papacy. Time and eternity will tell. 

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THIS SITUATION ON POPE AVENUE?

 I pass by this church everyday. Its sign says that it is Saint Luke Church, with no denomination listed. It has been on Pope Avenue on Hilton Head Island even when I was a teenager here in the early 70’s, although then, its sign clearly proclaimed Saint Luke Episcopal Church.

I always wondered why the outdoor sign today does not indicate that it is Episcopal. I thought it was to confuse Catholics into thinking it is Catholic. But Holy Family Catholic Church on Pope Avenue is right next door. 

Then I was reading an obituary this morning in our local paper and it said that the person who died would have his funeral at Saint Luke Anglican Church. I don’t think, if I recall correctly, that the signage indicates it is now Anglican not Episcopal.

And, as it concerns the true Pope Avenue, the Roman Catholic Church and her current pope, Pope Francis, what he is promoting, although through double speak he insists it ain’t so, is a synodality that will fragment the Catholic Church into schismatic sects just as the synodality of the Anglican Communion has done so. 

So I looked at Saint Luke’s website and found this tidbit of juicy information which indeed, if Pope Francis allows  synodality in the Pope Avenue Catholic Church to progress, we will be seeing this and pretty soon I suspect:

A 21st Century Following Christ

The 21st century has brought conflicts between St. Luke’s belief in the authority of the Holy Bible and the statements and actions of The Episcopal Church which demonstrate their willingness to disregard scripture. In 2009 the Vestry of St. Luke’s confronted this conflict by voting to remove St. Luke’s from any authority or allegiance to The Episcopal Church. This action was ratified by a historic all members meeting on December 1, 2009. At that meeting a quorum of the members of St. Luke's voted by a  large majority with votes adding up to more than two thirds of the  active membership to:

A.        To change the name of the corporation from “Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hilton Head Island,” to “Saint Luke’s Church, Hilton Head Island.”

 B.       To amend and restate the Charter to remove any and all references to the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, the Diocese of South Carolina, and any Canons associated therewith, so that the Fourth Article of the Charter is deleted in its entirety and the following new Article Fourth is inserted in its stead:

"The purpose of the Corporation is to operate as a religious non-profit corporation (or church)."
Following that decision, St. Luke’s chose to continue in support of the Diocese of South Carolina but stipulated that no funds from St. Luke’s should be used in support of The Episcopal. Following actions by The Episcopal Church against the Bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina, the Vestry voted to join the churches of the Dioceses in requesting that the courts of South Carolina affirm the rights of the churches in South Carolina to the ownership of their property. This action was based on our understanding of South Carolina law and trial precedents. The case was ruled in favor of St. Luke’s and its fellow churches in 2016, but in a surprise reversal, the State Supreme Court made a very split decision against the churches. 

St. Luke’s continues to be a vibrant community of follower of Jesus. A total campus revitalization program was completed in 2017 and was celebrated with a beautiful dinner honoring Rev. Greg Kronz and his wife Meredith for their 25 years of service to St. Luke’s. This was celebrated in our new Fellowship Hall with 256 in attendance and included a video tribute from golf commentator Jim Nance.

St. Luke’s Preschool, St. Luke’s youth and the St. Luke’s congregation are now making wonderful use of the new facilities. The Neighborhood Outreach Connection has come to the Fellowship Hall for their weekly support of neighborhood youth. And St. Luke’s continues to be well known locally for its ministries outreach— helping start Habitat for Humanity in the Lowcountry, initiating and hosting Memory Matters for its first dozen years, and a home Alcoholics Anonymous among many outreach initiatives to old and young alike.

St. Luke’s has been blessed by its faithful following of Jesus and our trust in the authority of the Holy Bible.

Here’s their sermon for the First Sunday of Lent last year:

THE MUSIC DIRECTOR AT MY FORMER PARISH IN MACON LEADING THE WAY IN EUCHARISTIC REVIVAL…

 GETTING THE MODERN ROMAN MISSAL MUSIC IN GEAR!

Dr. Gregory Hamilton is the music director and organist at St. Joseph Church in Macon, Georgia where I was pastor for 12 years, from 2004-2016. He shares an anecdotal story about a priest who told him not to sing hymns or anthems at Communion time that point to Christ, adoration of Him and His sacrifice. Press the title for the full article. I have a couple of money bytes below the title:

Has this all been our fault?

Dr. Gregory Hamilton · February 25, 2023

HERE IS NO SECRET that there is a crisis of belief in the Church today. Many Catholics have a hazy idea of what a Catholic is required to believe, or even whether to hold such precise beliefs is at all important.

I think that many of us would consider that the doctrine of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist is of primary importance. However, a widely – publicized survey shows:

“…a new Pew Research Center survey finds that most self-described Catholics don’t believe this core teaching. (The Real Presence of Christ) In fact, nearly seven-in-ten Catholics (69%) say they personally believe that during Catholic Mass, the bread and wine used in Communion “are symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.” Just one-third of U.S. Catholics (31%) say they believe that “during Catholic Mass, the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus.”1

 And there is no secret of this crisis – I once had a priest in good standing berate me that as a music minister, I was planning too many hymns during Communion that dealt with the Real Presence, he instructed me to replace those with tunes speaking of the “Meal” and “Supper” aspect of Communion. If this is what an ordained priest believes concerning the Eucharist, is it any wonder that the people in the pews experience confusion and a crisis of faith regarding the Real Presence of the Sacrament of the Altar?

IN THE 1970'S, TO WHICH WE HAVE RETURNED, WE WERE TAUGHT THAT ONE DAY WE WOULD MAKE UP OUR OWN EUCHARISTIC PRAYERS AND SO IT IS IN THE SPIRIT OF THE 1970'S, TO WHICH WE HAVE RETURNED, THAT I OFFER THIS CONCOCTION

Divine Worship, the Missal, of the Ordinariate has only two Eucharistic Prayer, the Roman Canon and Prayer II, which this Missal calls "The Alternate Eucharistic Prayer". It is re-enchanted with a bit of sacred archaic English and traditional rubrics. 

But then, I saw somewhere that Eucharistic Prayer II was even further enchanted with elements from the Roman Canon, still shorter than the Roman Canon, but with elements from it and here it is for your praying pleasure and edification: 

After the Preface dialogue and Preface:

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts:

Heaven and earth are full of thy glory.

Hosanna in the highest. + Blessed is He who come in the Name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

The People kneel. The Priest, with hands extended says:

[Celebrant alone]

Therefore, Most Merciful Father, truly thou art Holy, O Lord, the fount of all holiness.

He joins his hands and, holding them extended over the offerings,

he says:

We pray you, O God, be pleased to make this offering wholly + blessed, to + consecrate and + approve it, making it reasonable and acceptable, by sending down your Holy Spirit upon them like the dew fall, so that it may become for us the + Body and + Blood of your most beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

He joins his hands and, making the sign of the cross over the bread

and the chalice, and in the formulas that follow, the words of the Lord should be pronounced clearly and distinctly, as the nature of the words requires, he says:

that they may become for us the Body + and + Blood of our Lord,

Jesus Christ.

Who, on the day before He suffered death, took bread into His holy and venerable hands, and lifting up His eyes to heave, to you, O God, His almighty Father, and giving thanks to you, He + blessed it, broke it, and gave it to His disciples saying: Take, all of you and eat of this:

He takes the bread and, holding it slightly raised above the altar,

Continues as He bows slightly.

FOR THIS IS MY BODY,

WHICH WILL BE GIVEN UP FOR YOU.

He genuflects, shows the consecrated Host to the People, places it

on the paten, and again genuflects in adoration. Then he continues:

Likewise, when He had eaten, taking also the blessed chalice into His holy and venerable hands, and again giving thanks to you, He + blessed it, and gave it to His disciples, saying: Take this, all of you, and drink of this:

He takes the chalice, and, raising it a little above the altar,

continues:

He bows slightly.

FOR THIS IS THE CHALICE OF MY BLOOD,

THE BLOOD OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL COVENANT, THE MYSTERY OF FAITH, WHICH WILL BE POURED OUT FOR YOU AND FOR MANY FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS.

As often as you shall do these things, you shall do them in memory of me.

He genuflects, shows the Chalice to the People, places it on the

corporal, and again genuflects in adoration.

Then, with hands extended, the Priest says:

[Celebrant with concelebrants]

Therefore, as we celebrate the memorial of his Death and

Resurrection, we offer thee, Lord, the + Bread of life and the + Chalice

of salvation, giving thanks that thou hast accounted us worthy to be

in thy presence and minister unto thee.

Bowing Humbly, we implore You, Almighty God, bid these offerings be carried by the hands of your holy angel to your altar on high, before your divine majesty, so that those of us who, by partaking in this sacrifice at this altar shall receive the sacred + Body and + Blood of Your Son, may be filled with every grace and  heavenly blessing standing upright and blessing himself by the Holy Spirit.

[Celebrant or one concelebrant]

Remember, Lord, thy Church, spread throughout the world, and

bring her to the fullness of charity, together with N. our Pope, N.,

our Bishop [or N., our Ordinary], and all the Clergy.

__________________

[In Masses for the Dead:

Remember thy servant N., whom thou hast called (today) from this

world to thyself. Grant that he (she) who was united with thy Son in

a death like his, may also be one with him in his Resurrection.]

_________________

[Celebrant or one concelebrant]

Remember also our brethren who have fallen asleep in the hope of

the resurrection and all who have died in thy mercy: welcome them

into the light of thy countenance. As he strikes his breast Have mercy on us all, we pray thee, that with the blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, with the

blessed Apostles, and all the Saints who have pleased thee

throughout the ages, we may merit to be co-heirs to eternal life,

and may laud and glorify thee

He joins his hands and continues:

through thy Son, Jesus Christ.

It is ever through Him that all good gifts, created by you, O Lord, are by You + sanctified, + endowed with life, + blessed and bestowed upon us.

Taking the Sacred Host, he makes the sign of the cross with the Host saying:

Through Him + with Him + and in Him + in unity with the Holy Spirit + all glory and honor is yours + Almighty Father, raising both the chalice and the Host forever and ever.

The People respond: Amen.

The People stand.

The Priest genuflects, rises, and continues with the Lord’s Prayer.

TRADITIONALISTS, GET YOUR BUTT IN GEAR AND GET WITH THE PROGRAM…

 Apart from the pluralism of the nasty way the Modern Roman Missal (MRM) is celebrated, being “like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get”, another dismal situation is the musical selections that are chosen for the MRM and the style and instrumentation of that music. 

A concerted effort must be recovered to bring about a new springtime for the Church as it regards sacred music and the rightful place of it in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

I am certainly speaking about chanting the propers, be it Latin or the vernacular and the criteria to judge what is suitable and good and holy in contemporary music concocted for Mass. What is wrong with some of this needs elucidation. 

So I am grateful for this workshop in North Dakota. Those dioceses with have liturgy offices, sadly mine has not had one since I was its director, I guess I solved all the post-Vatican II problems with the MRM when I left that position in the 90’s, but I digress, should promote good sacred music in the MRM with workshops galore like this one:

DO LIBERAL, OR MORE ACCURATELY, HETERODOX CATHOLICS WANT TO BECOME PRIESTS AND RELIGIOUS?

There is another survey, flawed or not, that suggests that younger priests today, and I consider young to be in your entire 40’s and maybe 50’s, are more orthodox than their heterodox laity. 

Is that fair to the laity, to call them all liberal/heterodox? Well, we know that many Catholics to include clergy, think that they have sources to support their heterodoxy, like sociology, Oprah Winfrey, Joy Bayhar, Whoopi Goldberg and the like. 

They believe, too, that simply believing something makes it true, whether or not Scripture, Tradition and the 2000 year Magisterium of the Church supports what they personally believe. 

They also believe that if they talk about it enough and convince more people to embrace their heterodoxy, simply having more people believe what is a lie will make it true.

But let’s get back to the survey. I suspect younger priests are more orthodox. Why would a heterodox/liberal want to go to the seminary, make a pledge of lifelong celibacy and give up so many heterodox freedoms? 

What heterodox dioceses and religious orders have an abundance of vocations????

And under Pope Francis, we have seen a decline in vocations even of the orthodox because of the confusion and anger he hs engendered in the orthodox Catholics of the world. But there is not an increase in young people who love liberal, heterodoxy.

Read the article: 

Catholic Priests Are Increasingly Conservative as Faithful Grow More Liberal

LET’S START PUTTING OUR MAIN FOCUS ON THE MASS THAT THE VAST MAJORITY OF YOUNG, OLD AND EVERYONE IN-BETWEEN ATTEND…

 At my former parish in Richmond Hill, the wise young pastor who replaced a crotchety old one this past July celebrates the daily Mass as orientem as I always did and now, unlike what I did, the principle Mass on Sunday (one of three on the weekend) is celebrated ad orientem. There is no TLM in this parish. This wise pastor is re-enchanting the Modern Mass in the vernacular:

ART IMITATING LIFE IN THE MODERN ROMAN MISSAL MASS…

 Too funny and yes as I began my homily, I thought about the hilarious cartoon artwork!

As I began my Ash Wednesday homily:

TURING AWAY FROM SIN AND TURNING TOWARD CHRIST—SO SAYS PROTESTANT COLLEGE KIDS—IS NEEDED NOW, MORE THAN EVER, IN OUR CULTURE

Fox and Friends is really reporting on and promoting the “revival” that Protestant college students are experiencing beginning at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky. 

Two young college students are witnessing to their evangelical faith on Fox and Friends and are very articulate in what they believe and what young people should be doing in terms of sharing Christ with others, being evangelizers. 

For them, Christ is the center, not Vatican II, not synodality, not the form of the liturgy. 

Prayer and action are the medicines to put Christ first and turn away from sin and other idolatries that put Christ second or third or last!

These Protestant college kids know that the Gospel, prayer and Christian action and morality is for everyone just as conversion and turning away from sin and toward Christ is for everyone—inclusivity in its best form!

The cardinals and bishops in charge of this disastrous synodal way could learn a lot from these Protestants kids. 

Does anyone know if there is a Catholic version of this Protestant phenomena?

I would say it is the TLM and its spirituality certainly is attracting the young and inspiring these young Catholics only to have Pope Francis and Cardinal Roche, in the most tone deaf way, cancel them!

And of course there is also perpetual adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament in so many churches today.

But how about in predominantly Catholic colleges, whether these are Catholic institutions or not?