Non Tasarmi, Fratello!

“Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine, There’s always laughter and good red wine. At least I’ve always found it so. Benedicamus Domino!” Hillaire Belloc

Friday, November 22, 2013

Magnavox Feast of St. Cecilia, November 22

The Patron Saint of Musicians!


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Amparo in Sitio!

The Archbishop Alberto Suárez Inda of Morelia, Mexico borrowed the "Boston Strong" strategy of "Sheltering in place"!



From Catholic World News:


As citizen vigilantes in Morelia take up arms to defend themselves against drug cartels, the archbishop urged the people of the central Mexican city of 730,000 to “to take shelter and be careful about the situation of insecurity that prevails in urban areas,” the Fides news agency reported.
“I believe that little by little the authorities will truly seek a solution,” said Archbishop Alberto Suárez Inda. “If we are able to build trust in families, we can, therefore, reverse this movement of violence that is sadly present in almost all the cities of Michoacán.” 

At least they have a really cool cathedral - The Cathedral of the Divine Savior of Morelia (dedicated to the Transfiguration).







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And Now, A Gentle Reminder From Bishop Paprocki...

....to purported "Catholics" in the State of Illinois Legislature and elsewhere:









"Politicians responsible for enacting civil same-sex marriage legislation are morally complicit as co-operators in facilitating this grave sin."

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Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Islamic Outreach, XXVIII

From an earlier post on this blog:

Pope Francis spoke to the diplomatic corps and amongst other things, said, "Hence it is important to intensify dialogue among the various religions, and I am thinking particularly of dialogue with Islam.
Meanwhile...





From Catholic World News:
 


The Nigerian Islamist terrorist organization Boko Haram is kidnapping Christian women, enslaving them as “brides,” and forcing them to convert to Islam, the Reuters news agency reported.
“The Islamists have changed tack in the face of Nigerian military pressure,” Reuters reported. “Islamists have pulled back after army assaults since May on their bases on the semi-desert plain and are now sheltering in the Mandara mountains, along the Cameroon border around the city of Gwoza. From the hills they have been launching increasingly deadly attacks.”
“If I cried, they beat me,” recounted one woman who escaped. “If I spoke, they beat me. They told me I must become a Muslim but I refused again and again.”
“They were about to slaughter me and one of them begged me not to resist and just before I had my throat slit I relented,” she added. “They put a veil on me and made me read from the Koran.”

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Monday, November 18, 2013

The Orans Position

You know what I'm talking about...it's the position some take during the Our Father during Mass. It looks like the statue in "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil".





So why do they do it? And should they? 

The answers are: I don't know and no.


Canon law expert Dr. Edward Peters writes: “While the orans position as such has a rich tradition in Jewish and even ancient Christian prayer life, there’s no precedent for Catholic laity assuming the orans position in Western liturgy for at least a millennium and a half; that point alone cautions against its introduction without careful thought.
“Moreover – and notwithstanding the fact that few liturgical gestures are univocal (meaning unambiguous) per se – lay use of the orans gesture in Mass today, besides injecting general disunity in liturgy, could further blur the differences between lay liturgical roles and those of priests at just a time when distinctions between the baptismal priesthood and the ordained priesthood are struggling for healthy articulation.”


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Catholic Prayers Drive Away a Tornado!


Thursday, November 14, 2013

Norbetine Canonesses



There is still time to order your wreath hand-made by the Norbertine Canonesses of the Bethlehem Priory of St. Joseph! Click on the link on the left (under the HAWKERS heading). The wreathes are beautiful and what an EXCELLENT cause!


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Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Shut Up, I Explained




I came across this fantastic article and have really taken it to heart. It's called "The Devil's War on Silence in Mass" by Dan Burke. I am as guilty as the next guy, but what struck me was this part:

" First, the devil wants to make you mad, irritated or frustrated at those who don’t understand or share your convictions about these realities. This alone will suffice to get your mind off of the Lord during Mass and to begin to see people (bishops, priests, and the laity), rather than the devil, as the problem. Second, he wants you to be a ranting, snarky, self-centered passive aggressive coward in how you respond. He wants create a division between you and “them” so that you are focused on them instead of correctly identifying the work of the enemy and then properly enaging the battle there. Third, he wants your anger to lead you to the delusion that this is all the result of the Second Vatican Council and use you to obstruct the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church through the distortion of the proper place and exercise of magisterial authority (thus you become a high Church prostestant). Fourth, he wants you to become angry enough to shift your worship from God to tradition such that it is all you are concerned with. And fifth, he wants you to join groups that spend all their time complaining about these things so that he can take you all on the same fiery journey to the place where all unrepentant idolaters end up.

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Handicapping the Race

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is meeting today and tomorrow, when they will elect a new ...wait a second. They finished voting already???

From the USCCB website:
 
BALTIMORE—Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky, was elected president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) during the bishops' annual fall General Assembly, November 12, in Baltimore. Archbishop Kurtz has served as vice president of USCCB since 2010. Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston was elected USCCB vice president.
Archbishop Kurtz and Cardinal DiNardo are elected to three-year terms and succeed Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York and Archbishop Kurtz, respectively. The new president and vice president's terms begin at the conclusion of the General Assembly, November 14.

Archbishop Kurtz




You can read his blog HERE!






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Friday, November 08, 2013

Islamic Outreach XXVII

From an earlier post on this blog:

Pope Francis spoke to the diplomatic corps and amongst other things, said, "Hence it is important to intensify dialogue among the various religions, and I am thinking particularly of dialogue with Islam.
Meanwhile...

Archbishop Mario Zenari



"A mortar round hit the Vatican embassy in Damascus, Syria, this morning causing limited damage to the building.
No casualties were reported, but Archbishop Mario Zenari, the Vatican nuncio, told Vatican Radio that if the rocket had been launched half an hour later, he would have been saying morning prayers on the terrace near where the mortar struck. “You can imagine what I would have encountered,” he said."

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Bayer Asperin Feast of St. Castorius, November 8

St. Castorius is the patron saint of stonemasons and sculptors and is one of the "Four Crowned Martyrs" who were put in lead-lined coffins and tossed in the sea by orders of the evil Emperor Diocletian around 287 A.D.

What set Diocletian off? well, Castorius refused to carve a statue in honor of Aesculapius.or Asclepius. Old Aesculapius was a twofer - he was both the a Greek AND the Roman god of medicine. 


 According to the Greeks,he was the son of Apollo and Coronis.He is the Greco-Roman god of medicine. Zeus was afraid he would make men immortal so whacked him with a thunderbolt, sorta like Saul. 

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