Cardinal Cupich Must Be Out of Town

Chicago, Ill., Jan 29, 2018 / 11:59 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Occasionally, the liturgical calendar has a curious intersection with secular holidays.
This year, Ash Wednesday—which begins the penitential season of Lent with a day of fasting, abstinence, and prayer—falls on Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day celebrates a third-century Christian martyr, but it has also become a celebration of romantic love, replete with with chocolates, fancy prix fixe menus, roses, and an overload of candy hearts.
The Archdiocese of Chicago has clarified that Lent is more important than candy hearts, and suggested that Catholics pick some other day for paper hearts and Cupid’s arrows.
 statement released by the Archdiocese explained that Catholics will not be dispensed from the laws of fasting and abstinence on Ash Wednesday, and suggested that Catholics planning to celebrate Valentine’s Day could do so on Feb. 13th, which is also Mardi Gras.

“The obligation of fast and abstinence must naturally be the priority in the Catholic community,” said the statement.
“Valentine’s Day can appropriately be celebrated the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday which also happens to be Mardi Gras, a traditionally festive time before beginning our Lenten observance.”

MA! The Bishops Are Being Mean To Me!

Denver, Colo., Dec 1, 2017 / 05:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In a newsletter issued earlier this year, the U.S. Catholic bishops addressed questions regarding whether Sunday and Holy Day Mass obligations can be fulfilled with a “two-for-one” Mass attendance at Christmas this year.
In a “relatively rare” situation which last occurred in 2006, Christmas Day this year falls on a Monday.
Because Catholics are obliged to attend Mass for Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, some have asked whether a Sunday evening Mass on Christmas Eve would fulfill both the obligation for a Sunday Mass and the obligation for a Christmas Day Mass. T

The U.S. Bishop’s Committee on Divine Worship has said the faithful should attend two Masses to fulfill their Sunday and Christmas Mass obligations.
Since the mid-twentieth century, the Church has allowed for Catholics to attend vigil, or anticipated, Masses for Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation as “a convenience for many of the faithful.”

In the case of two consecutive days of obligation, as at Christmas this year, the “prevailing view of many canon lawyers is that each obligation must be fulfilled with a separate Mass,” the bishops said.
“Thus, when consecutive obligations occur on Saturday-Sunday or Sunday-Monday, the faithful must attend Mass twice to fulfill two separate obligations.” 

I thought this was resolved. I read it in eyeofthetiber.com:

 Washington, DC–A spokesman for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops announced today that beginning tomorrow on the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord, every holyday of obligation listed on the Liturgical Calender, including Sundays, would from here on be deferred to Easter. The announcement came as welcomed news to many Catholics who found the near-impossible obligations imposed on them by their bishops simply too difficult to fulfil. Spokesman for the USCCB Sister Maxine Howard told the press this morning that the removal of nearly every obligatory holyday was a long time coming. “This will most certainly come as a relief to many Catholics who were falling into sin because of unfeasible Church requirements.” One Catholic we spoke to outside the Church of St. Mark said that he agreed with the decision, and was relieved to know that he would no longer have to sacrifice any more of his time. “It’s not that I don’t like going to church…it’s just that I don’t like going to church days after I just went. And to think that from now on I’ll only be obliged to go once a year? It’s just too kind our bishops. They’re always looking out to make sure we don’t over-burden ourselves.”

Happy Halloween!

Don't forget that tomorrow is a HOLY DAY OF OBLIGATION! I hope to attend Mass tomorrow at All Souls Catholic Church. I learned two things about the Church today - they hold a 5:30PM Mass in their cemetery on All Souls Day (November 2) AND they have a 2PM Mass in Latin every Sunday - and  5PM on holy days!

I love the little kid on the right's tonsure. I'm guessing he is Thomas Aquinas.

Solemnity of the Carbon Offset

VATICAN CITY, Dec. 4, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- On Dec. 8, a humanitarian coalition comprised of Paul G. Allen's Vulcan Inc., the Li Ka Shing Foundation and Okeanos, in partnership with The Oceanic Preservation Society and Obscura Digital, and under the auspices of the World Bank Group's Connect4Climate initiative, will present a gift of contemporary public art entitled "Fiat Lux: Illuminating our Common Home" to Pope Francis on the opening day of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy. At this unprecedented and historic event, beautiful images of our shared natural world will be projected onto the façade of St. Peter's Basilica in a contemporary work of public art that tells the visual story of the interdependency of humans and life on earth with the planet, in order to educate and inspire change around the climate crisis across generations, cultures, languages, religions and class.

From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
 
 Sacrilege: “The irreverent treatment of sacred things, persons or places, i.e., those dedicated by God or the Church to sacred purposes.  It is a sin against the virtue of religion, of its nature grave, but admitting smallness of matter. Sacrilege may be either personal, as when violence is done to a cleric or religious; local, as when certain crimes are committed or actions done in a church; real, as by the abuse of sacraments, the theft of sacred objects or their irreverent misuse and the sin of simony. These varieties of the sin differ specifically from one another.”

And to do it on THE SOLEMNITY OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION??? Was Mary born without a carbon footprint?

When an Obligation is Not Obligatory

Ascension Thursday has passed, and I went to Mass. Why? It's a Holy Day of Obligation, that's why. But wait, you say...didn't the diocese say it was OK to move the Solemnity of the Ascension to Sunday?

First, of all, the diocese can't move solemnities around. HOWEVER, in 1998 the United States Council of Catholic Bishops approved a proposal that would allow individual ecclesiastical provinces to transfer the feast day. They sent the request to  the Congregation for Divine Worship and Sacraments for final approval.

Our ecclesiastic province is Illinois - the dioceses of Belleville, Springfield, Peoria, Rockford,  Chicago, and Joliet. Where is Acension Thursday still Ascension Thursday? Boston, Hartford, New York, Newark, Philadelphia, and the state of Nebraska.

The thing is that it is not just the moving of the day, but the entire liturgy moves with it. So at St. Joseph's yesterday we did the liturgy for the Holy Day of Obligation - and will probably use the liturgy for the 7th Sunday of Easter on June 1st. If Father Uriel does use the 7th Sunday liturgy, does  that mean those who did not attend Mass on Thursday will not complete their obligation for the Solemnity of the Ascension?

Ember Alert! Ember Alert!

You may already get Ember Alerts on your Smart Phone, but in case you don't, tomorrow is an Ember Day. Catholic Online says:

Ember days (corruption from Lat. Quatuor Tempora , four times) are the days at the beginning of the seasons ordered by the Church as days of fast and abstinence. They were definitely arranged and prescribed for the entire Church by Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085) for the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after 13 December (S. Lucia), after Ash Wednesday, after Whitsunday, and after 14 September (Exaltation of the Cross). The purpose of their introduction, besides the general one intended by all prayers and fasting, was to thank God for the gifts of nature, to teach men to make use of them in moderation, and to assist the needy.

So I will thank God for these critters who have eaten up my parsley plant.

Ember Days

Did you fast yesterday in observation of Ember Days? No? I guess you heard that Pope Paul VI decreed (in Paenitemin) that fasting was no longer required. What are Ember days?

Ember days are 4 sets of 3 days (Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday) in one week that were set aside for fasting and prayer. Thee sets are spread out pretty much equidistantly through the year. Thusly:

1) between the 3rd and 4th Sundays of Advent
2) between the 1st and 2nd Sunday of Advent
3) between Pentacost and Trinity Sunday
4) the week that begins the Sunday after Holy Cross Day (September 14)

Pope Gelasius I made Ember weeks the time for ordinations. The term ember is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word ymbren, or circuit.

Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, December 8

The question was asked if the Holy Day of Obligation of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception is moved to Sunday this year. According to About.com "Because this feast honoring Mary, the Mother of God, celebrates one of the most important events in salvation history, it is never abrogated, even when it falls on a Saturday or a Monday."

Feast of the Immaculate Conception

A reminder to my students - Friday is a HOLY DAY OF OBLIGATION!

It's the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Learn about it here.