Too Horrible to Conceive

Dear readers, many times when a natural disaster occurs, the media blows it vastly out of proportion. I wish I could say this was one of those times. The recent earthquake in Haiti is more horrible and more dolorous than any of my words could convey. Please, I implore you, read the article below in its entirety. These people need our prayers - let us not disappoint them.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Haitians piled bodies along the devastated streets of their capital Wednesday after a powerful earthquake flattened the president's palace, the cathedral, hospitals, schools, the main prison and whole neighborhoods. Officials feared thousands — perhaps more than 100,000 — may have perished but there was no firm count.
Death was everywhere in Port-au-Prince. Bodies of tiny children were piled next to schools. Corpses of women lay on the street with stunned expressions frozen on their faces as flies began to gather. Bodies of men were covered with plastic tarps or cotton sheets.
President Rene Preval said he believes thousands were killed in Tuesday afternoon's magnitude-7.0 quake, and the scope of the destruction prompted other officials to give even higher estimates. Leading Sen. Youri Latortue told The Associated Press that 500,000 could be dead, although he acknowledged that nobody really knows.
"Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed," Preval told the Miami Herald. "There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them."
Even the main prison in the capital fell down, "and there are reports of escaped inmates," U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said in Geneva.
The head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission was missing and the Roman Catholic archbishop of Port-au-Prince was dead.

"The cathedral, the archbishop's office, all the big churches, the seminaries have been reduced to rubble," Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the apostolic envoy to Haiti, told the Vatican news agency FIDES.

The parking lot of the Hotel Villa Creole was a triage center. People sat with injuries and growing infections by the side of rubble-strewn roads, hoping that doctors and aid would come.
The international Red Cross said a third of Haiti's 9 million people may need emergency aid and that it would take a day or two for a clear picture of the damage to emerge.
At first light Wednesday, a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter evacuated four critically injured U.S. Embassy staff to the hospital on the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the military has been detaining suspected terrorists.
President Barack Obama promised an all-out rescue and humanitarian effort, adding that the U.S. commitment to its hemispheric neighbor will be unwavering.
"We have to be there for them in their hour of need," Obama said.
A small contingent of U.S. ground troops could be on their way soon, although it was unclear whether they would be used for security operations or humanitarian efforts. Gen. Douglas Fraser, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, said roughly 2,000 Marines as part of an expeditionary unit might be deployed aboard a large-deck amphibious ship. Fraser said the ship could provide medical help.
Other nations — from Iceland to Venezuela — said they would start sending in aid workers and rescue teams. Cuba said its existing field hospitals in Haiti had already treated hundreds of victims. The United Nations said Port-au-Prince's main airport was "fully operational" and open to relief flights.
The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, USS Carl Vinson, is under way and expected to arrive off the coast of Haiti Thursday. Additional U.S. Navy ships are under way to Haiti, a statement from the Southern Command said.
Aftershocks continued to rattle the capital of 2 million people as women covered in dust clawed out of debris, wailing. Stunned people wandered the streets holding hands. Thousands gathered in public squares to sing hymns.
U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said it was possible that the death toll "will be in the thousands."
"Initial reports suggest a high number of casualties and, of course, widespread damage but I don't have any figure that I can give you with any reliability of what the number of casualties will be," Holmes said.
People pulled bodies from collapsed homes, covering them with sheets by the side of the road. Passers-by lifted the sheets to see if loved ones were underneath. Outside a crumbled building, the bodies of five children and three adults lay in a pile.
The prominent died along with the poor: the body of Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot, 63, was found in the ruins of his office, said the Rev. Pierre Le Beller of the Saint Jacques Missionary Center in Landivisiau, France. He told The Associated Press by telephone that fellow missionaries in Haiti had told him they found Miot's body.
Preval told the Herald that Haiti's Senate president was among those trapped alive inside the Parliament building. Much of the National Palace pancaked on itself.
The international Red Cross and other aid groups announced plans for major relief operations in the Western Hemisphere's poorest country.
Many will have to help their own staff as well as stricken Haitians. Taiwan said its embassy was destroyed and the ambassador hospitalized. Spain said its embassy was badly damaged and France said its embassy also suffered damage.
Tens of thousands of people lost their homes as buildings that were flimsy and dangerous even under normal conditions collapsed. Nobody offered an estimate of the dead, but the numbers were clearly enormous.
"The hospitals cannot handle all these victims," said Dr. Louis-Gerard Gilles.
Medical experts say disasters such as an earthquake generally do not lead to new outbreaks of infectious diseases, but they do tend to worsen existing health problems.
Haiti's quake refugees likely will face an increased risk of dengue fever, malaria and measles — problems that plagued the impoverished country before, said Kimberley Shoaf, associate director of the UCLA Center for Public Health and Disasters.
Some of the biggest immediate health threats include respiratory disease from inhaling dust from collapsed buildings and diarrhea from drinking contaminated water.
With hospitals and clinics severely damaged, Haiti will also face risks of secondary infections. People seeking medical attention for broken bones and other injuries may not be able to get the help they need and may develop complications.
Dead bodies piled on the streets typically don't pose a public health risk. But for a country wracked by violence, seeing the dead will exact a psychological toll.
An American aid worker was trapped for about 10 hours under the rubble of her mission house before she was rescued by her husband, who told CBS' "Early Show" that he drove 100 miles (160 kilometers) to Port-au-Prince to find her. Frank Thorp said he dug for more than an hour to free his wife, Jillian, and a co-worker, from under about a foot of concrete.
An estimated 40,000-45,000 Americans live in Haiti, and the U.S. Embassy had no confirmed reports of deaths among its citizens. All but one American employed by the embassy have been accounted for, State Department officials said.
Even relatively wealthy neighborhoods were devastated.
An AP videographer saw a wrecked hospital where people screamed for help in Petionville, a hillside district that is home to many diplomats and wealthy Haitians as well as the poor.
At a destroyed four-story apartment building, a girl of about 16 stood atop a car, trying to see inside while several men pulled at a foot sticking from rubble. She said her family was inside.
"A school near here collapsed totally," Petionville resident Ken Michel said after surveying the damage. "We don't know if there were any children inside." He said many seemingly sturdy homes nearby were split apart.
The U.N.'s 9,000 peacekeepers in Haiti, many of whom are from Brazil, were distracted from aid efforts by their own tragedy: Many spent the night hunting for survivors in the ruins of their headquarters.
"It would appear that everyone who was in the building, including my friend Hedi Annabi, the United Nations' secretary-general's special envoy, and everyone with him and around him, are dead," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on RTL radio.
But U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy would not confirm that Annabi was dead, saying he was among more than 100 people missing in its wrecked headquarters. He said only about 10 people had been pulled out, many of them badly injured. Fewer than five bodies had been removed, he said.
U.N. peacekeeping forces in Port-au-Prince are securing the airport, the port, main buildings and patrolling the streets, Le Roy said.
Brazil's army said at least 11 of its peacekeepers were killed, while Jordan's official news agency said three of its peacekeepers were killed. A state newspaper in China said eight Chinese peacekeepers were known dead and 10 were missing — though officials later said the information was not confirmed.
The quake struck at 4:53 p.m., and was centered 10 miles (15 kilometers) west of Port-au-Prince at a depth of only 5 miles (8 kilometers), the U.S. Geological Survey said. USGS geophysicist Kristin Marano called it the strongest earthquake since 1770 in what is now Haiti.
Video obtained by the AP showed a huge dust cloud rising over Port-au-Prince shortly after the quake as buildings collapsed.
Most Haitians are desperately poor, and after years of political instability the country has no real construction standards. In November 2008, following the collapse of a school in Petionville, the mayor of Port-au-Prince estimated about 60 percent of buildings were shoddily built and unsafe normally.
The quake was felt in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, and in eastern Cuba, but no major damage was reported in either place.
With electricity out in many places and phone service erratic, it was nearly impossible for Haitian or foreign officials to get full details of the devastation.
"Everybody is just totally, totally freaked out and shaken," said Henry Bahn, a U.S. Department of Agriculture official in Port-au-Prince. "The sky is just gray with dust."
Edwidge Danticat, an award-winning Haitian-American author was unable to contact relatives in Haiti. She sat with family and friends at her home in Miami, looking for news on the Internet and watching TV news reports.
"You want to go there, but you just have to wait," she said. "Life is already so fragile in Haiti, and to have this on such a massive scale, it's unimaginable how the country will be able to recover from this."

Below is a video of the destroyed cathedral.

Before the Blade, a Joke

The following is from a very well-written article by Fr. Paul Scalia, called "The Church Militant, or the Church Belligerent."

St. Philip Neri provides another example. He had a great devotion to no less a firebrand than Savonarola. Yet as much as he shared that reformer’s zeal, he adopted much different—and ultimately much more effective—means. (So, let's get this straight - you can want reform, genuine reform, of the liturgy, but you don't need to go schismatic. You don't need to go schismatic to either end of the spectrum - Spiritus Christi or SSPX.) Songs, jokes, picnics, even pranks were his weapons (Sort of like the occaisional JibJab video or witty retort). Today we know St. Philip as the Apostle of Rome and the Apostle of joy. St. Thomas More, who opposed Henry VIII’s usurpation of Church authority so staunchly, displayed a similar joy (note, his brother martyr St. John Fisher is our patron). Indeed, he was known for his sense of humor right to the end, joking with his executioner at the scaffold. We find no bitterness or rancor in these warriors. Now even if we cannot imitate their humor, we ought at least to strive for their joy. (What greater joy is there than seeing a cut-out head of Bishop Clark doing liturgical dance to Halle, Halle, Halle?)

The only reason I bring this up is because some people, a couple priests, and some friends have suggested that we're too "bitter," "wounded," "stale," "angry," "vindictive," etc . . . ad infinitem. I think all we're doing is finding an outlet in rhetoric and humor rather than seething hatred and penetrating insensitivity.

I know this was random, but you can just file this under the heading, "For Future Reference" or "It Needed to Be Said."

The Beauty of Proper Liturgy

I think that sometimes we get mired down in the "nitty-gritty" of the liturgy, be it NO or TLM. In reality, it's one of the most simple things in all of Creation.

We can only experience God in the flesh, literally, through His Blessed Sacrament. There is no other way. Why not show an ounce of respect? Why not bow in deference to the wonder? How can one, with clear conscience and mind, stand and put on a spectacular which removes the majesty of the Creator and gives it most unjustly to the Created?

We are unworthy creatures, each and every one of us. There are no exceptions. Priests, nuns, deacons, bishops, lay women, lay men. We are all unworthy in the eyes of Our Lord. Is it not wise, then, to acknowledge our inferiority and render due reverence to the Blessed Sacrament? If we don't, we compound our sinfulness exponentially. Come to God as you are, and do so without reservation or air of self-importance. The Mass is not about us. It is not about the priest. It is about God.

Let's return to that realization, shall we?

While We're In the Mood

So long as we're already in the presidential mood, I thought I should post this little gen of conservative creativity. Nod of the miter, again, to Sr. Emily.

A teacher asked her 6th grade class how many of them were Obama fans.
Not really knowing what an Obama fan is, but wanting to be liked by the teacher, all the kids raised their hands except for Little Johnny.
The teacher asked Little Johnny why he has decided to be different... again.

Little Johnny said, "Because I'm not an Obama fan."

The teacher asked, "Why aren't you a fan of Obama?" Johnny said, "Because I'm a Republican."

The teacher asked him why he's a Republican. Little Johnny answered, "Well, my Mom's a Republican and my Dad's a Republican, so I'm a Republican."

Annoyed by this answer, the teacher asked, "If your mom were a moron and your dad were an idiot, what would that make you?"

With a big smile, Little Johnny replied, "That would make me an Obama fan."

Photo Caption Contest

What sayest thou?

"On Eagle's Wings" - Not a Responsorial Psalm

Perhaps I have missed that section in the Bible which includes trite folk songs as the Word of God. After all, Vice President Biden, a noble and obedient son of the Church, had this piece performed as the Responsorial Psalm at his mother's funeral.

I will try to be more observant in the future.

Also, I was surprised to have missed that addition to the rubrics which permits the priest to preface the Gospel with his own words. It is the word of God - I thought no further explanation was necessary? Especially when this Mass, a Mass of Resurrection, was celebrated in the presence of Speaker Pelosi and Vice President Biden. Then again, I must lay my humble understanding of Church matters and Latin Rite Liturgy at their feet, in deference to their great honors and reputations as defenders of the faith.

It was particularly noble that the concelebrant at the celebration omitted the name of the Pope during the Eucharistic Prayer, and that the phrase "look not on our sins, but on the faith of Your Church" was changed to "look not on your sins, but on the faith of Your people." We must remember to be inclusive, mustn't we?


 Also, I was pleased beyond measure to see Vice President receive Communion - it's not right to cut someone off from the sacrament due to the exercise of God-given free will. I certainly hope all the other so-called "lapsed Catholics" received Communion, too, because that way we can all celebrate together as one community of friends and one big, happy, Christian family!

Yeah. Right.

Vice President Biden: "Thank God for the seal of the confessional - you guys (the priests) know too much about us (the politicians at the funeral)."    




(Photo from the funeral of Sen. Ted Kennedy)

Interdict Notice - Fantasy-Induced Depression

I was browsing the headlines on CNN this morning, and was struck with the absolute lunacy in the video below. Basically, there is an emerging phenomenon of "Avatar blues," with people who watch James Cameron's "Avatar" becoming clinically depressed and suicidal. The whole thing is just so sad, and so pathetic. I am not saying people who are depressed are pathetic - no. I am saying that people who get depressed because they're not living in a fantasy fairy land need to wake up and "get real." I mean, really? You're depressed because you're not an alien? We'll pray for you, oh poor, pitiable child of God.

(Please note, "fantasy fairy land" does not mean San Francisco during Gay Pride Week.)

Former Rochester priest dies

Father Enrique Rueda was an incardinated priest in the Rochester diocese. He was an extremely holy and devout priest. He would not compromise the teachings of the Church. After reading through the article,you all can pretty much figure how the DoR handled Father Rueda. I"m not privy to each and every happening, but I have the general overall picture. It wasn't good. Please pray for the repose of his soul and pray even harder for our diocese and those who administer it.

http://remnantnewspaper.com/Archives/2010-ryan-rueda-rip.htm

Well, At Least There Was No Rainbow Thong

Sometimes I wonder why priests, who hitherto have been solid and liturgically noble, stray into the grey waters of progressive "community worship." Now, like always, I should like to point out that we are not "attacking the character of a priest." No, that would be sinful. What we are doing is exposing liturgical improprieties that make one doubt the efficacy of contemporary worship.

While perusing the photo galleries of various parishes who are known bastions of heterodoxy, I decided that I should seek out a parish which has always been sitting on the side lines, quietly refraining from "picking a side." I have visited this parish from time to time, and find it quite charming. Which parish is this?

St. Margaret Mary in Irondequoit.

I decided to examine the photos from their folder entitled: "Special Visitor at 9:30am Mass." I thought to myself, "Oh, maybe the bishop came to say Mass, or maybe some retired priest of note visited." Well, the fellow who visited was most certainly not a priest. He was, however, a bishop of great renown- St. Nicholas aka "Santa Claus." The following photos are from the SMM website:

When I saw these, I tried to defend the pastor of this parish, Fr. Timothy Horan. Scenarios I concocted included: maybe it was after the final blessing, and he asked everyone to sit down, maybe this man was an uninvited guest, maybe I'm just delusional, and this didn't really happen.

I tend to doubt very much these notions. I would like to mention, though, that (sans the Santa suit) this would be an ideal (?) dialogue homily. Let's not get into the debate about its validity or place in the Mass. (I think we all feel the same way.) There are many children present, the priest is visibly in charge, and there is no doubt that the lay homilist (dressed-up priest?) is eminently qualified to talk to the people and ring the sleigh bells he is holding in his hand.

So, still shaking from this unwelcome discovery, I decided to click on their Midnight Mass photo gallery. "How can you mess up a Midnight Mass?"

By having a woman in a red, satin-esque robe prancing up the aisle leading the procession:

Let's have a chat about liturgical dancers, shall we?

From Cardinal Arinze, via YouTube:

Satan's Day-Job

He works at Walgreens.

I was asked to order prints of some illuminated altar cards for a friend who wishes to start saying the Latin Mass. So I went to Walgreens' website, uploaded the three altar cards, and ordered one 8X10 print, the center card with the Gloria, the Creed, and prayers relating to the consecration, and two 5X7 prints with the Last Gospel ( . . . et verbum caro factum est) and the "Lavabo."

The total came to 6.66.

If anyone cares to see the altar cards, they can be found here.

New Pope Pius XII Prayer Card

Cleansing Fire has for sale a beautiful prayer card at zazzle.com. Please consider purchasing some, as the profits will benefit the cause of orthodoxy in the Diocese of Rochester.

Click here to view the new prayer card!

Don't Be Confused

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it."

So said Edward R. Murrow about the role and duty of the citizen. The same is absolutely true for us here. We have been accused of many things, you and I, among them "subversion," "cruelty," "lacking for charity," "unfair," "mean," "hateful," "vengeful," and some which I don't care to recall. Our defense of Truth and Tradition, and our utilization of humor and light-heartedness within it, is just that: defense. Remember, we are the party against whom many grievances have been declared. Many blame us for our stiffness, our unyielding attitudes regarding women priests, lay preaching, improvised prayers, blessings conferred by the laity. However, we are not unyielding through our will alone. No, we are steadfast in our beliefs because the Church was founded by God, given to wise men and women to care for, and has come to us, blemished at times, through the centuries.

Our dissent is not sedition. No, our dissent is akin to that of the persecuted English Catholics under the reign of the Protestant monarchs of the Tudor dynasty. We cling to our faith, our Catholic heritage, and in so doing, cling to the keys to heaven. For they were not given to anyone save St. Peter, and as is said, "ubi petrus, ibi ecclesia." "Where Peter, there the Church." We are compelled by a love of the sacred - not a love for the profane. We place our hope in God, not in man. We follow the pope, the bishop of bishops, the servant of servants, for he alone is the successor to St. Peter. If one denies what he says, and does so with purposeful and wrathful intent, he cuts onself of from the Blessed Sacrament and the Communion of Saints. For how can one acknowledge "One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church" when one denies the will of Her supreme head?

One cannot.

For this reason we follow the pope. Yes, we do answer to our bishop, but not when he enters into open schism (or private schism, for that matter) with Rome. The norms of this diocese do not, have not, and never will trump the norms from Rome. For though the Church is catholic, universal, it is also One and Apostolic. To err is to create a church separate from that of Our Lord. To defy the teachings of the Holy Mother Church, as promulgated by the Supreme Pontiff is to turn one's back on the Apostolic Tradition of Her existence.

All Tradition exists for a reason. It is not arbitrary, nor is it outdated. There are those who boldly declare, "the Church changes - it's part of reality." Yes, the Church does change. However, it does so only because of man's infidelity to Truth and to a love of the sacred. Anything tinged with man's involvement is tinged, inescapably, with man's imperfection. There is no escaping it. But as Catholics, as Christians, we profess that God is God. That is the end of the matter - He does not change. He is, and will be forever, world without end. God does not change, only the sinful nature of human kind does. Why do we continue to fight amongst each other regarding the liturgy, prayer, inclusivity, and the nature of the sacraments when we have the most absolute of answers? God does not change, and through a simple progression of logic, one can easily and confidently state that the substance, the "stuff" of the sacraments, does not change, for they are extensions of the Divine. The manifestations, the physical presentations of the sacraments may change, but must always change for the better.

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty." We are dissenting, yes, but just as the Catholics dissented when Martin Luther gave birth to his heretical sedition. Our dissent is conceived, not out of a carnal lust for self-promotion as is that of the liberals, but out of a love for Our Lord and His Church. We are loyal sons and daughters of God - remember that the next time you see a lay preacher spreading his or her deceitful venom of heterodoxy. Remember that the next time you encounter a woman or a married man masquerading as a valid and licit Catholic priest. We have a duty, as Catholics, as Christians, as believers in the One True God, to oppose infidelity to the Lord and to defend His honor as we would our own. For what honor have we when we forget to render honor to Him who is the source of all honor, of all glory, and of all majesty?

None.

"Beating the Dead Terrorist Horse"

The following comes from the National Review Online.

Beating the Dead Terrorist Horse
September 11 taught us many lessons. To our peril, we have forgotten them.

By Victor Davis Hanson

Most of the current acrimony over counterterrorism is stale. The debate is simply a rehash of issues that were discussed and, in fact, resolved early last decade.

Let us review them one more time.

MOST TERRORISTS ARE NOT POOR AND DOWNTRODDEN
September 11 taught us that a Mohammed Atta or a Khalid Sheikh Mohammed does not commit mass murder out of hunger, want, illiteracy, or Western oppression.

No doubt Middle Eastern poverty contributes to religious violence. But the poor in Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Yemen are no more impoverished than those in the slums of São Paulo, Mexico City, Ho Chi Minh City, or Johannesburg. And the latter, despite their frequent claims against the West, do not feel a need to murder in mass in the name of their particular religion.

A Major Nidal Hasan or an Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab wishes to kill Westerners not because he is poor or even on behalf of the poor, but rather out of a warped sense of pride, hurt, and anger.

Such passions derive from a radical religious creed that insists that comparative failure in the modern Middle East is not self-induced — much less a product of fundamentalism, anti-Enlightenment thinking, autocracy, gender apartheid, tribalism, corruption, and statism. Instead the fact that there is no longer an intercontinental caliphate of rich and powerful believers is due to some sort of contemporary Jewish or Western oppression.

The wealthier, better educated, and more Westernized the radical Muslim, often the greater the sense of shame, alienation, and anger that he and his religion are not shown proper deference. We knew all that in 2001, but have apparently forgotten it during eight years of relative calm.

Hasan hated American soldiers not because our system had discriminated against him, much less because of “secondary post-traumatic-stress syndrome,” or any of the other wacky excuses that followed his crime. Instead, in part he sensed that the American military had bent over backwards for him and accommodated his extremism — and was therefore, in his own distorted worldview, weak, decadent, and deserving of what he would dish out.

THERAPY IS NO ANSWER
Radical Islam’s anger is irrational. It is not predicated on the degree of outreach shown by the United States. A contrite and compliant Jimmy Carter, after all, prompted the creation of the slur “The Great Satan.” The year 2009 saw the greatest number of foiled terrorist plots against America since 9/11. Indeed, one-third of all such attempts in the last eight years happened last year — the time of the Obama Al Arabiya interview, the Cairo speech, the bowing to Saudi royals, the promises to close Guantanamo Bay, and the ritual trashing of the Bush anti-terrorism policies.

We need not be gratuitously rude. There surely is a role for sober diplomacy and soft speech. But the degree to which radical Islam will be aggressive toward the West hinges a lot on what it imagines will be our reaction — in terms both of military responses, and of the sense of confidence we project about our own civilization.

Islamists, after all, ignore past American help to, and support for, Islamic peoples in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Indonesia, Iraq, Kosovo, Kuwait, and Somalia — only to pay far more deference to the Chinese and Russians, who have systematically oppressed and often butchered fellow Muslims. Apparently, Dr. Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden would rather recommend reading by Noam Chomsky and Jimmy Carter than offend Vladimir Putin and earn another Grozny.

The rest of the article can be found here. It is definitely worth reading, as is almost everything from the National Review.

Christmas Children's Mass Update

You may recall that I reported on the less-than-sane Christmas Eve children's Mass. Click here if you don't.

Well, I was emailed some more information regarding the festivities.

So what's new, you ask? The pageant was not a production on the part of the children. The adults and the administration played the prominent roles. The female lay administraitor (not a typo) played the role of the Blessed Virgin, and dressed the part, too. The sacramental minister dressed up as St. Joseph. After the pageant, the administraitor gave the "homily," still vested in alb and Marian costume.

And in the words of this informant, "omg, like, the children's choir was pathetic. There were only, like, 6 kids, and they weren't even that good. It was all the choir director! I mean, really - that's pathetic."

Conservatives Play To Win

Nod of the miter to Sr. Emily for sharing this video.

The Abandoned Chapel in Mt. Hope Cemetery

I had heard people talk of the simple splendor and hidden majesty of "that old chapel in the cemetery." Well, when waiting for a train back to Albany, I decided to trek down to Mt. Hope Cemetery and explore the old chapel. I was exceedingly thrilled that the lock on the front door of the chapel was broken, so I was easily able to squeeze into the building. It was undeniably transcendent.

I have 90 more photos of the interior, so please don't hesitate to ask for them. Just email cleansingfire@live.com. Feel free to ask questions in the comment box. The background of the building is rooted in Rochester history. When the cemetery was growing, the city decided that a more permanent chapel should be erected, to replace the smaller one which had begun to show its age. This was in the later-half of the 1800's. The chapel was used to funerals and memorial services until the 70's, I am told, when it was just left to rot. However, the president's stimulus package sent a hefty sum of money to the City of Rochester to restore (not renovate, restore) the chapel to its former glory.

It's So Cold . . .

Oh, That's Right, Because Islam is the Religion of Peace

By SARAH El DEEB, Associated Press Writer Sarah El Deeb, Associated Press Writer – 31 mins ago

CAIRO – Three men in a car sprayed automatic gunfire into a crowd of churchgoers in southern Egyptian as they left a midnight Mass for Coptic Christmas, killing at least seven people in a drive-by shooting, the church bishop and security officials said.
Egypt's Interior Ministry said the attack Wednesday just before midnight was suspected as retaliation for the November rape of a Muslim girl by a Christian man in the same town. The statement said witnesses have identified the lead attacker.
The attack took place in the town of Nag Hamadi in Qena province, about 40 miles from the famous ancient ruins of Luxor. A local security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, confirmed that seven were dead and three seriously wounded.
Bishop Kirollos of the Nag Hamadi Diocese told The Associated Press six male churchgoers and one security guard were killed. He said he had left St. John's church just minutes before the attack.
"A driving car swerved near me, so I took the back door. By the time I shook hands with someone at the gate, I heard the mayhem, lots of machine gun shots," he said in a telephone interview. He said he saw five bodies lying on the ground when he first looked at the site of the shooting, about 600 yards where he was.
The bishop said he was concerned about violence on the eve of Coptic Christmas, which falls on Thursday, because of previous threats following the rape of the 12-year-old girl in November.
He got a message on his mobile phone saying: "It is your turn."
"I did nothing with it. My faithful were also receiving threats in the streets, some shouting at them: 'We will not let you have festivities,'" he said.
Because of the threats, he said he ended his Christmas Mass one hour early.
He said Muslim residents of Nag Hamadi and neighboring villages rioted for five days in November and torched and damaged Christian properties in the area after the rape.
"For days, I had expected something to happen on Christmas day," he said. The bishop said police have now asked him to stay at home for fear of further violence.
Qena is one of Egypt's poorest and most conservative areas.
Christians, mostly Coptic, account for about 10 percent of Egypt's predominantly Muslim population. As Islamic conservatism gains ground, Christians have increasingly complained about discrimination by the Muslim majority.
Clashes between Muslims and Christians are not uncommon in southern Egypt and in recent years have begun seeping into the capital. An Amnesty International report said sectarian attacks on the Coptic Christian community, comprising between 6 million and 8 million people in Egypt, increased in the year 2008. Sporadic clashes between Coptic Christians and Muslims left eight people dead.
Vendetta killing is also common among southern Egyptians, and is usually over land or family disputes.
The bishop said he had an idea of who the attackers were, calling them "Muslim radicals."
"It is all religious now. This is a religious war about how they can finish off the Christians in Egypt," he said.

Please note, this is all in reference to MILITANT ISLAM, not plain, everyday Islam.

It's Not That Difficult

The whole furor over the new translation of the Holy Mass is really without basis. The liberals are screaming that we're rushing into reform (God loves irony), but they don't even realize that "the most progressive among us is he who realizes we're on the wrong path, turns around, and goes back from whence he came." The new translation is simply addressing glaring errors in translation. That's it!

For example:

The original Latin from the Mass was (and is) "et cum spiritu tuo." That does not mean, "And also with you." The words, literally and without self-interpretation are "And" "With" "Spirit" "Your." This, obviously, turns to "And with your spirit."

Another example:

From the creed which is recited (chanted?) at Mass: "consubstantialem patri, per quem omnia facta sunt." Literally, it should be "consubstantial with the father, from whom all was made." Of course, "one in being with" carries the same meaning, but it's not the accurate translation. It's not what the prayer really says. Isn't it obvious that we should pray the prayers of the Church, and not some poor Latin scholar who decided we couldn't handle the real translation?

If you look at the French language Mass, it has retained much of the beauty and sophistication of Latin, even though it's in the vernacular. Indeed, instead of keeping "amen," the French say (and have said for centuries) "ainsi-soit-il." Literally, this means, "thus it is," or "thus let it be." This goes back, all the way to the original meaning of "amen."

Why is it that people oppose the new language of the Mass? Is it because it attempts to raise the liturgy from off the dung hill onto which so many leftists, communists, atheists, and nominal Catholics have cast it? Is it because we can't bear to translate "fratres," "brothers," as it ought to be? It doesn't mean, "brothers and sisters." It means "brethren," pure and simple.

(St. Jerome - translator of the Bible from Greek, Hebrew into Latin)

Anyone who opposes the will of the English-speaking bishops regarding this translation is guilty of sedition against the Holy Catholic Church. It is the will of the bishops, plural, who almost unanimously passed this. For forty years, orthodox-minded Catholics have been subjugated by those who imposed political and gender-based agendas onto the Holy Mother Church. She has begun to shake these fetters of error off, and look at the filth that rains down with the shattered links of liberalism. Nothing but lies and a hatred of the Truth. The pope says "yes," - that's good enough for me.

"As for me and my house, we shall follow the Lord."

Fertilization and the Good Sister

Many people may remember the infamous quote from Rochester personality Sr. Joan Sobala SSJ, "Let them fertilize other parishes." Well, the fertilization gets more complete with each passing month. I was blessed to be in attendance at Our Lady of Victory for the Midnight Mass - the spectacle was grand. Standing room only, and of that not a whole lot was open. I would wager that the Little French Church was well over capacity that night. For the various Christmas Masses, I would humbly guess that there were approximately 800 people over the 24 hours of Christmas Masses. Even the Holy Day Mass on January 1 was packed, according to a most reliable source. Well, in this past week's bulletin, Our Lady of Victory disclosed the amount of its Christmas collection: over $14,000. I assumed, with soul brimming with Christian charity, that the "disgruntled parishes" would be about the same, what with the hordes of the faithful (who become faithful only at Christmas and Easter) bolstering the ranks of every parish in the nation. Oh, I was woefully wrong.

The statistics for the Christmas week for the Our Lady of Lourdes+St. Anne cluster are below. Note that Our Lady of Lourdes had a Christmas collection of about $10,000. Note also that this parish is in a much better area than Our Lady of Victory, whose downtown presence is located conveniently between a news store with more pornographic publications than newspapers, and a burned-out shell of Rochester's former Catholic glory, St. Joseph's. This doesn't include the occaisional vagrant, drug-addict, prostitute, or transsexual child of God. (I hope I'm not over-selling the parish.) Our Lady of Lourdes, in "old Brighton," is in a bubble of economic prosperity which, evidently, has been cleft in 'tween by the combating views of orthodoxy and heterodoxy.

Now for St. Anne - the attendance, though about 100 more than Our Lady of Lourdes, contibuted to a Christmas collection of only $7,330. That is half the amount of Our Lady of Victory, in terms of monetary sacrifice. If any of you remember the days of Fr. Lioi, you will recall that the collection at Christmas was vastly more than that pitiful amount.

Over the past two years, countless numbers of refugees from this cluster and others like it have ended up in the safe presence of Our Lady, made manifest in Our Lady of Victory-St. Joseph's, St. Stanislaus, St. Boniface, and even the monasteries of the Carmelites on Jefferson Road and the Trappists in Piffard. Truly, Our Lady smiles on those whom she has picked to be her own. There are those who assert, and perhaps correctly, that some these communities exist only because of bitterness, pain, anger, and resentment. "They aren't natural." Perhaps one should consider that there is no other recourse.

Let us recall the words of Shakespeare from the "Saint Crispen's Day soliloquoy," from his play Henry V:

From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here.

Acknowledge Your God, and Kneel Before Him

To kneel is to subject oneself to a higher power. For instance, one kneels when knighted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. Why, then, are people hesitant to kneel before Our God present in the Most Blessed Sacrament? Is there a sense of shame? "Why should I kneel in front of other people and in front of this piece of bread?"

To kneel is to pray. The simple posture states in such sublime majesty the mystery of Creation. We, the created, have the ability to kill God, the Ultimate Creator. How is this possible? Why is this possible? We who kneel before the Lord are separated only by time from those who knelt beside the cross to nail Our Lord's hands to the instrument of His death and our most unworthily received redemption.

To kneel is to admit powerlessness. We surrender ourselves to Him with our posture of undeniable humility and weakness. There is no guilt complex, no hang-up or psychological fetter. There is, however, faith. This faith is only made manifest through humility. How can one approach the Throne of the Lamb on equal terms with the Creator? Does a well-behaved child address his parents as "Bob" and "Meredith?" No, he or she does not. A child learns at the feet of his or her parents - not from a position of dominance, of power, or of authority of any kind. The child depends on the parent just as we depend on the saving grace of Jesus.

To kneel is to confess a belief in something more important than oneself. When we kneel we leave behind us our earthly baggage. At least, we should. That's what Confession is for, after all. There is no reason to focus on anything but Our Lord when we present ourselves to Him. He is all, and we are nothing save the manifestation of His will. He wills us to exist - not the other way around. We do not invent God to soothe our wounded identities. No, we discover God through adversity, and through this discovery pray more faithfully.

To kneel is to show honor to God and to His Most Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary. If we approach the altar with familiarity, with a sense of casualness, we drive another sword into the Immaculate Heart of Mary. She was wounded enough in her earthly life, seeing her Son beaten, crucified, speared. She need not see His ultimate gift of Himself, the Eucharist, go unappreciated.

To kneel is to embrace Tradition and loyalty. Without Tradition, we would be as so many "Bible-thumping" Christians who cling to the shallow notions of self-importance in the eyes of God. We matter to God, yes. But we are not nearly as important as we think ourselves to be. Can one honestly declare without hesitation that he is something special? Can one approach Divinity through one's earthly life? Yes, one may live a saintly life. But you can only do this through a complete renunciation of your own will and the will of those who may seek to hold you from your ultimate joy - the Blessed Sacrament. Love God. Love Him through His Word, His Church, and the Tradition which started with Jesus Christ Himself. Tradition is not without reason to purpose. It has evolved to its current state slowly, with tender respect and love, and without the politicization of every facet of faith itself.

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom His whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. - Ephesians 3:14-21

Catholic sheep in France exercise civil disobedience

The Bishop began his Mass, which was an improvised mess. Parents took away their children who were serving Mass and the local authorities got up and left the church. All that remained of the hundreds of persons was a small group of 21 and only 3 from the parish of Thiberville. The Bishop was confronted with the anger of the simple country people he despises. They don’t understand the Council – he said. The people suggested that His Lordship would do well to revise his catechism!

http://fratres.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/arm-and-arm-in-france-townsfolk-deny-enraged-bishop-of-evreux-access-to-church-sanctuary/
The people of the parish have found the "pearl of great price" ---- VOILA!

Interdict Notice: Montana

As reported on Zenit:
(Emphasis and comments solely mine.)

Montana Becomes 3rd US State to OK Euthanasia

HELENA, Montana, JAN. 1, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The Montana Supreme Court decided Thursday that there is nothing in state law preventing doctors from helping patients to kill themselves, making it the third U.S. state to approve euthanasia. (What authority does "state law" have when compared to Natural Law? What about common sense? Would a child concoct the idea, "hey, you're old. You don't need to breathe any more, right?")
Oregon and Washington also allow doctors to prescribe the necessary drugs to commit suicide.(But these same states hold that the actual suicide is a crime. Anyone else see the dearth of logic here?)
Opponents of the measure are already planning to bring the issue to legislature.
Two judges opposed the decision, contending that the court was reversing long-standing public policy. (At least there are two.)

Craft Time!

Many Christmas Masses worldwide have been dedicated to children, commonly the Mass on Christmas Eve around 5 PM or so. I don't have a problem with this, so long as the Mass is offered reverently, the children treated with respect, any pageant done with respect for the "reason for the season," and a general sense of "Gaudete!" or "rejoice!"

Well, at one local parish (three guesses which one) there wasn't so much a Mass for Children as a craft-faire in which the priest had a facilitating role. The following is as related to me by a co-worker:

The Mass has always been "Jesus-centered," but this year, it was definitely "kid-centered." For as long as I can remember, the kids got little ornaments, the priest spoke to them during the homily (note: this is what a "Dialogue Homily" should be), and the Mass went on as usual. This year, though. Wow - they really butchered the Mass. First off, the kids were treated like morons. Little ones don't like being treated in a condescending manner - they can tell when you're being fake. And when that happens at church, that puts them off from coming back as adults. The hymns were all really corny. I forget what hymns were actually used, but they made "Little Drummer Boy" seem like the most beautiful thing you've ever heard. Then, instead of the normal reading of the Christmas story and special homily by the priest, the kids were given two cut-out hearts and told "You can keep one as a special Christmas gift, but now, find someone in the church and give it to them. After all, it's Jesus' birthday, kids!" Well, with that there were kids running all around the church, through the aisles, onto the altar steps, etc." The priest didn't do anything "priestly." He just paraphrased the Gospel, walked around talking about liberal ---- and then handed it over to (insert name) to finish things off. The Mass itself seemed to be an after-thought. No respect was shown. Not from the kids, not from the parents, not from the nun(s) and not from the sacramental minister. Not one solitary shred of dignity or reverence. Not one.

I'm still waiting for my cut-out heart. I guess Fr. Antinarelli forgot to distribute them at the Mass at OLV?

Absolutely Austrian Month Begins Today

On this, the Feast of the Epiphany, it is only fitting that we begin a look at someone who laid countless gifts of beauty at the feet of Our Lord, present in the Most Blessed Sacrament: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. We begin with a majestic recording of his Coronation Mass, K. 317. This is the same setting of the Mass which was so masterfully orchestrated at Our Lady of Victory-St. Joseph's Parish this past Easter Vigil. It was glorious, and I was lucky to be in attendance.

This recording, though, is one which is very special. It was recorded in 1985 on the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, inside St. Peter's Basilica, at a real Mass, and with Pope John Paul II presiding. Enjoy.

New Banned Words

I have decided to add three new terms to our list of banned words to kick off the New Year. They are as follows:

21. Worship Community
22. Pastoral Planning Group
23. Oversight Committee
24.

If anyone has any words which they do not see in the list to the right (scroll down) please put a comment to this post. The three phrases I added were added because of what they imply, not what the words actually mean. For instance: "worship community" sounds innocuous enough. "We worship as a community," after all. However, this term has come to be associated with those who are afraid to say the word "parish." I don't know why. I guess "community" sounds more inclusive? Oh, we mustn't offend anyone!

Pastoral Planning Group is a phrase which has come to be loathed by many in the Diocese of Rochester. Whether it's the Irondequoit, Brighton, Monroe, or Whatever Pastoral Planning Committee, we associate these with forced closings, limitations on the role of pastor and priest, and blindness to reality.

"Oversight Committee" is a phrase which only a few of us have probably encountered. I will give you a scenario to better determine what this stands for: In the Our Lady of Lourdes + St. Anne Cluster, an oversight committee was established to help the two parishes grow together. It was formed with the following assumptions: Fr. O'Connor (Lourdes pastor) would retire, Fr.William Leone would be present to assist, as would Fr. Peter Abas and two visiting African priests. However, this committee's plans were "tweaked" by its members when Fr. O'Connor retired early, Fr. Leone was deployed overseas with the National Guard, and the African priests went elsewhere when there were whisperings of Sr. Joan's desires. So, instead of following a "contingency plan" where the two parishes would be led by a priest/administrator, the group invited Fr. Ed. Palumbos to come and take suggestions for who should be considered to take over the two parishes due to the immense confusion following all the changes. The following were told to Fr. Palumbos regarding "ideal strengths of a St. Anne/Our Lady of Lourdes administrator":

• a love of Tradition and sacred choral music
• good with the elderly
• someone not afraid to do what should be done, liturgically
• someone who "loves the Church and the pope"
• someone with a background in liturgy
• someone with an education in sacred choral music.

And we all know the rest of that story, don't we. So, in essence, "worship community" = liberal political correctness, "Pastoral Planning Group" = anything but "pastor-al," and "oversight committee" = duplicitous body which follows political agendas rather than Church documents.

If you are at a parish with any or all of these groups, you have a duty and a responsibility to find out what exactly is going on. What is your contingency plan? Are the wishes of the parishioners being communicated to the diocese when the diocese claims they are? Each of these groups is responsible for some share in the crimes committed against the laity and the ordained priesthood. No one is blameless in the eyes of God - and that includes us. We should do more to combat corruption and liberal political agendas at work within our Church.

(photo not from DoR)

Nod of the miter to Joan F. for sharing examples - your input is greatly appreciated.

Veni Creator Spiritus

Excellent tidings! My movie-making program is back in working order and I've finished a video for us all. After all the humor and light-heartedness of the holiday season, I decided to make a video more prayerful and solemn in tone. Enjoy.

Communion in the Hand - Part 2

Communion in the Hand - Part 1

I follow the YouTube channel of a young fellow who is 100% spot-on with his approach to Catholicism. He doesn't make things up, nor does he over-embelish the Truth. He presents it in a very entertaining, very blunt style.

He is presenting a very interesting series of two parts on receiving communion on the hand, as opposed to on the tongue. He says outright that "the Church does permit the faithful to receive communion in the hand," but he also points out the dangers that exist for those who prefer that method and are careless in the reception of the Blessed Sacrament.

A Happy New Year To You!

As the Christmas season comes to and end, and a new year presses tenuously against the outgoing one, it's only fittting that we cram one more entertainment video into our journey for 2009.

Good bye, Christmas 2009! Hello 2010! We wished you a Merry Christmas, and we wish you a Happy New Year!

"No Longer Wished to Say Mass"

The following is from a short biography of Antonio Vivaldi:

Though ordained a priest in 1703, according to his own account, within a year of being ordained Antonio Vivaldi no longer wished to celebrate mass because of physical complaints ("tightness of the chest") which pointed to angina pectoris, asthmatic bronchitis, or a nervous disorder. It is also possible that Vivaldi was simulating illness - there is a story that he sometimes left the altar in order to quickly jot down a musical idea in the sacristy.... In any event he had become a priest against his own will, perhaps because in his day training for the priesthood was often the only possible way for a poor family to obtain free schooling.

It seems that we now have the perfect way to get the lay people and nuns and the like out of the sanctuary when they're up there glorfying themselves, not God: asthmatic bronchitis.

Or perhaps we can just pray that all of the liturgical befuddlers become musical prodigies who prefer to worship the "god of music" rather than our Eucharistic King.

Iridescent Italian Month - Finale

Enjoy the following video from Italy's "red-headed priest," Antonio Vivaldi. This selection is from his beautiful setting of "Dixit Dominus" and features two sopranos and two cellos. No one writes like this anymore, and this is a true gem of what sacred music can be.

Why We Wear Red

Of all the feasts of the Church's martyrs, virgins, bishops, and priests, perhaps none is more poignant than that of the Holy Innocents. Often times, these thousands of children go unheeded by people who are still caught up in the rush of Christmas, the hustle of after-Christmas shopping, the celebration of the New Year, and similar things. However, we must pay our respects to the very first of God's Creation to fall victim to tyranny for the sake of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. While these blessed children may not have been conscious of their fate, they are wholly aware of their reward, for doubtless thousands of these kneel in the heavenly court rendering praise and thanksgiving to the God for whom they suffered the ultimate price.

On the 26th of December, the Church recognizes St. Stephen, a deacon of the early Church and the first martyr of it. He was stoned to death by the crowds for professing the divinity of Jesus Christ. In many paintings, one sees the transgressors, the begetters of murder, as pernicious Jews intent on wiping away perceived infidelity to the Word. However, in some renderings of this event, one sees St. Stephen, eyes turned unto Heaven, being stoned by the Jews who are led by a little child, whose rock is about to deliver St. Stephen into the Heavenly court. It is no coincidence that within thirty years, the children of Judea went from silent and pitiful martyrdom at the hands of Jewish authorities and Roman swords to being the zealous postulators of the same creed which had eradicated their own brothers.

"He has blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts." The later children of Judea were, in fact, blinded by the light of Christ. In their blindness, however, they did not reach out in humility as did St. Paul. No, on the contrary, the flailed their arms in fear and anger, and attempted to banish from existence the Word of God and His disciples. The children who suffered martyrdom for the sake of Our Lord were never blinded by greed, by hate, by political games and malicious social tactics designed to keep at arm's length those who truly needed the light, that in their blindness, they might turn towards the Lord.

Now this blindness is no physical, medical condition. It is a purposeful rejection of Truth as revealed by Jesus Christ and professed by His Church. The Holy Innocents never had a chance to reject the light. Instead, God in His most infinite mercy welcomed them without hesitation into the celestial court. Had these children lived, they may have, indeed, rejected Our Lord. This was not the case. Free will of many was taken away by the free will of King Herod, whose heart was blind with the same blindness which brought about the martydom of St. Stephen. The blood of these early martyrs, St. Stephen and the Holy Innocents, nourished the early Church and continues to nourish the modern Church - which is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, never changing from age to age. The outer trappings may change, yes, but never will the purpose of exposing to all the world the light, which blinding in itself, rescues us from the blindness of hate, of malice and greed, of perfidy, and of faithlessness in all its forms.

The two blindnesses of Christendom have been constant for two thousand years, for two millenia. Nothing has changed. There are apostates, and children of God follow them to their own spiritual demises. There are saints and blesseds, and children of God follow them to their own spiritual gratification. In our blindness, which we all have - there is no doubt - we have two options: we can attack the darkness, with the immature conception that we, in our weak and timid human state, can dispel the darkness, or we can abandon ourselves to Christ, who alone brings light into our lives and strength and grace into each and every day of our Earthly existence.

The Holy Innocents, those precious and blameless children who suffered the honor of being the first to die for Christ, were given the undeniable gift of finding Christ in the darkness of their world. Their blood, and the blood of all subsequent martyrs of the Catholic faith, has brought us to the point where we can discern darkness from darkness, where we can discern trust in God or a contempt of God. Satan is the "Prince of Darkness," for in darkness, we are thought to be alone, with no hope for rescue or redemption. However, God created all, and is present even in the emptiness of time. The power of Satan yields to the serenity of God, which can be grasped at all points and all places in Creation, even in the darkness of ignorance. Do not flee to evil when confronted with darkness. No, even then, in the blackness of the soul and the society, reach out your hands and pray, hope, trust in the Divine, that your outstretched hand, which God created, will be met with the hand of God Himself.

It is for this reason that we wear red. The Holy Innocents bled and died in the darkness of man's sinful nature. However, they were found in the darkness of human error, and borne aloft into heaven, to bask in the Heavenly light of Our Lord. The red which we see at Mass, the red which reminds us of their supreme sacrifice, is not there to match the poinsettias of Christmas, nor the bows of the Christmas wreathes. No. It is there to point at each of us and ask, "what will you do in the darkness of your life? Will you abandon God and make more martyrs, or will you empty yourself of human weakness and throw yourself in martyrdom at the feet of God?" We are all called to be martyrs in this day. We may suffer martyrdom in society, we may suffer a literal matryrdom for reaching out to those who must be helped, we may suffer martyrdom in every sanctuary of every church, and we may suffer martyrdom even in our own families. We wear red to commemorate the martyrdom, the real and bloody martyrdom, of those who love God above all else, and who reached out to Him in the darkness, finding His face, and basking in the light from whence all Creation comes.

The Episcopalian Temptress

As I type this, I am on the Amtrak train bound for home. However, I do not return home with a light or pure heart - I have committed adultery of the most heinous kind. Indeed, I have entered into a Protestant church, St. Thomas Episcopal, to be precise. All I can say is that the carnal infatuation I experienced with carved wood and stained glass windows could only be purged by calling to mind the glory days of Catholic architecture, which only ended in about 1940, in my most humble opinion.

If you don't mind us going X-rated for a little while, I should like very much to show you some of my 300+ photos of the two churches I visited in my Christmas sojourn, the glorious St. Patrick's Cathedral and the majestic St. Thomas Episcopal. Let's just say that while many men are captivated by Playboy, I find myself attracted to carved mahogany, rood screens, high altars, and huge brass doors. Sorry for my profanity.

Below are some of the photos I took while visiting St. Thomas Episcopal, which is right down the block from St. Patrick's Cathedral.

More Christmas Music - Tollite Hostias

This piece, by Camille Saint-Saens, is very often performed at Christmas concerts. Saint-Saens most famous work was "Carnival of the Animals." Camille was good friends with Franz Lizst, but couldn't stand the music of Claude Debussy or Richard Strauss. Go figure. Camille either like you and your music or couldn't stand you or your music.



The Latin words:

Tollite hostias,

et adorate Dominum

in atrio sancto eius.

Laetentur coeli,

et exultet terra

a facie Domini,

quoniam venit.

The English words:

Bring offerings,

and adore the Lord

in his holy place.

Rejoice, heaven,

and exult, all the earth,

before the Lord,

for he comes.

Tidings of Great Joy

I wish to thank all of you who make this blog what it is. You have my most sincere gratitude.

May you all have a wonderful Christmas, and may the week between this joyful day and New Year's be filled with relaxation.

On a personal note, I was blessed to be able to go to New York City this holiday season. In fact, I am leaving by train around 3:30, and I'll be getting into New York's Penn Station around 9:30 tonight. I will be sure to take many photos of St. Patrick's for you all!

Here's a piece of music from the Nativity film that came out recently. It's a beautiful setting of an ancient Christmas carol called "Corde Natus ex Parentis," or "Of the Father's Love Begotten."

Attack on the Pope

Below is a video of the Pope being attacked.

A very Merry and Blessed Christmas

Here is an absolutely top-notch version of the men and boys choir of Kings College singing "O Come All Ye Faithful". It is from the 1983 program under the direction of Stephen Cleobury. 1983 was the best year they have ever had for the Festival of Lessons and Carols. I know not every Catholic Church is capable of this quality and style of music, but couldn't we do more with choirs than we current are doing. Except for St. Anne's and the Latin Mass Choir, the music scene in this diocese is God-awful. I hope you have a very Blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year

"Area Clergy to Tell Flocks to Enjoy Christmas, Remember True Meaning"

My emphasis added, of course.
_________________________

Don't expect Christmas to be perfect this year, Nancy DeRycke says. (Christmas is perfect, for it brought the Saviour of the World, Redemptor Mundi, into our midst. Commercial woes do not detract from this reality.)

After all, the beginnings of the holiday were far from perfect.

"If we really look at the tradition of Christmas, what was happening in Bethlehem, Jesus was born in a manger," said DeRycke, lay minister of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Henrietta. (This was supposed to happen. It was God's will. Perhaps Nancy DeRycke knows something we and two thousand years of theologians don't know?)

"There was no room for his head, no place," she said. "It wasn't perfect, but they found joy in that."

This year, despite the economy and other sorrows, DeRycke and other local ministers say there's still much to find joy in, including spending time with family and friends. (Well isn't that a profound realization.)

For their Christmas sermons, many ministers plan on telling their congregants to take heart this holiday season and remember the true meaning of Christmas.

"There's just so much negativity, and so much down and so much doom and gloom around," said Vince DiPaola, senior pastor of Lakeshore Community Church in Greece. "We forget that God designed Christmas to be a time of cheer." (Note how cheerful it was for the Holy Innocents.)

DiPaola, whose church has about 750 to 800 members, said he plans on telling his congregation today about accepting joy in their lives.

In years past, DiPaola also talked during Christmas about hope and about the scene where Jesus was born.

This year, Lakeshore is hosting a series called, "Cheer up, it's Christmas," which will include a message on Sunday about preparing for an unpredictable 2010.

"You can't choose your circumstances," DiPaola said, "but you can choose to be joyful no matter what. It comes from just your perspective. What are you going to focus on?" (This Protestant brother seems more profound in his theology and ministry than Mrs. DeRycke.)

Bill Hoffman, interim pastor of the Brighton Reformed Church, said many people were looking for a sign from God today amid all the problems in the world.

"They're looking for something," Hoffman said. "And I think the answer is: Even though I may be persecuted, or something is wrong, I can still trust in God and find that peace." (Amen.)

During his Christmas sermon this past weekend, Hoffman told parishioners that Jesus was a sign from God. (Sign, sir? Nay, He was God. Fully man, fully divine.)

"We want God to do something," Hoffman said, "and God sends" Jesus.

People should still look to God when they have troubles today, Hoffman added.

Brighton Reformed Church will have a service with carols and scripture readings this evening without a sermon.

For his Christmas sermon, Sammy King, pastor of the Trinity Missionary Baptist Church in Rochester, said he talked about loving, caring and sharing. King's sermon was this past Sunday; Trinity Missionary will not have a service on Christmas Day, he said.

"Blessings are to share," King said. "That is what we really have gotten away from. We have to care about our brothers and sisters."

To emphasize that point, Trinity Missionary gave away about 70 Christmas dinner baskets to neighbors on Tuesday night, King said.

"(God) put you in the community to be a light and an inspiration and a help to that community," he said. "When they reach out, we must reach back to them."

Christmas is one of the most important services for a church because it usually comes with increased attendance, DeRycke said. (No. Christmas is not important because of "increased attendance," madame. It is important because it set into action the promises of God for thousands of years to the Jewish people. He opened the gates of Heaven to all those who had died and who will die. He came to save all mankind, and this is why Christmas is important. No, Mrs. DeRycke, Christmas doesn't exist to celebrate demographics. It exists to remind us of the joy with which we should lead our lives, the zeal for the poor which we ought to lead, our love for Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament, and the enormous debt which we owe to our God and Saviour, who alone is the mighty one.)

"We have a lot of visitors and guests," she said. "Christmas kind of pulls at people's hearts and gets them looking for deeper meaning." (Does this mean she'll point them towards the nearest reverent Mass? I think not. She'll just feed them the same banal tripe they subsist on twice annually.)

Along with not trying to make Christmas perfect, DeRycke said she plans on telling congregants about taking time to celebrate the holiday, no matter what stress or bustle it might bring.

"Just enjoy Christmas."

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That was the most un-profound and bland description of Christmas I have ever heard from a Christian minister. I'm sorry, but it is.

By the way, the Democrat and Chronicle, which has this on its Christmas Eve front page, includes Nancy DeRycke with "area clergy," something which she is not. Even by Protestant standards. Also note, that at no point does it state the denomination of Nancy DeRycke and her parish. For the record, it is CINO.

Catholic In Name Only.

Chant in the Mall

What a perfect way to evangelize through Catholic Church music. Watch for the seminarians in cassocks and the priests in clerical garb. Who said teenagers are turned off to Gregorian Chant and Catholic Church music. Just watch and see how many younger kids there are.

http://www.memorylanevideo.com/gallery/schola.html

Late-Breaking News Concerning President Obama

Obama's Home Teleprompter Malfunctions During Family Dinner

An Italian Christmas

In keeping with our glorious theme of "Iridescent Italian Month," I thought it advantageous to post the following concerto by an Italian composer by the name of Arcangelo Corelli. He is rather obscure, especially when compared to other similar composers such as Vivaldi, but this Christmas Concerto shows this man's great zeal for harmony and his love for the sacred.

The Liberals Can't Count

And they're subsequently stuffing the ballot box. Then again, saying "ballot box" implies a democratic vote regrding the missal, not some mal-mannered hissy fit.

Overlooking the hundreds of anonymous names on the petition, doubtless some are repeat signers, there have been a few names which I have seen repeated times, one of them being:

James T Lynch

Lay Minister

Rochester

USA

I have counted his name at least twice, and I don't care to waste more of my time looking through the list trying to see where else dishonesty has reigned.

It really speaks volumes for the zeal and feigned integrity of this camp, that even people in so lofty an office as "Lay Minister" sign a petition multiple times, with no other purpose than to flaunt their political agendas. I would say that of the 6,500 signature at that site, about 10% are signing it out of a genuine concern. This is my estimation, talking with a couple of the anonymous posters whom I know and who told me with trembling hands what they had done. The rest sign it as if to say, "I'm in support of women's ordination! I'm in support of gay marriage! I'm in support of Barrack Obama's social justice programs! I'm in support of bisexual and homosexual people running the Church! Equality for all, equity for none!"

The counter petition, which is gaining rapidly, has built-in countermeasures to prevent such things as multiple signings with the same name or even the same IP address. It seems as if one party has scruples while the other has had them surgically removed.

Venerable Pope John Paul II

The Vatican has just announced that Pope John Paul II has been declared "venerable" due to his "heroic virtues." Pope Benedict, the same day, also signed the documents declaring Pope Pius XII "venerable."

The following is from CNN:

"The cause for sainthood for Pius XII was introduced a long time ago," Lombardi said. "Today's decree is not a historical judgment on Pius XII or on his papacy. It is a judgment that the church gives on Pius XII's personal sanctity, on his Christian life achievements. The congregation and the pope have no doubts that Pius XII led a Christian life in an extraordinary and heroic way."

I pray that within the next couple decades we will see these two great men canonized. They represent all that is good in the Church - Pope Pius XII stands for the glory of Tradition and Pope John Paul II stands for the glory of social justice and making the Catholic Church "relevant" to so many people.

Chant Mass at St. Stanislaus on Christmas Morning

The Tridentine Latin Mass will be celebrated on Christmas morning at 8 a.m. (not the usual 1:30 p.m.) at St. Stanislaus Church. The Mass will be celebrated by the Reverend Dennis Bonsignore.

Schola Roffensis will sing the Gregorian chant "Fons Bonitatis" Mass along with Gregorian propers.
Please come and give adoration to God amid the Christmas trees that decorate the total sanctuary.

Any questions, please leave them in the combox and I will answer them.

Crash Courses in Traditional Catholic Philosophy

http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2009/12/crash-courses-in-traditional-catholic.html

Is theological liberalism compatabile with Catholicism?

I'd be interested in your comments. Thank you.

Interdict Notice - New Zealand

How much disrespect can be shown at one time? The New Zealanders have the answer: please click here to see why.