First, let us know if you had the observance of Corpus Christi on this Sunday.
Too many people today are without good, strong preaching, to the detriment of all. Share the good stuff.
Was there a GOOD point made in the sermon you heard at your Mass of obligation for this Sunday?
We can have an exception to just good stuff this week.
Tell about attendance especially for the Traditional Latin Mass. I hear that it is growing. Of COURSE. The church was jammed in Rome. As “diverse” a crowd as you will see anywhere other than a major international airport.
Any local changes or (hopefully good) news?
Here’s a poll. Anyone can vote, but you have to register and be approved to make a comment. I hope you will! Tell us what you had.
Loading ...I made some comments based on the 1st Reading for Mass in the Traditional Roman Rite: HERE
A sample:
There’s something wrong when Catholics don’t take Christ into the streets, as well as beloved relics and statues of Our Lady and the Saints. That “something wrong” can come from outside the Church, from persecution. It can also come from within the Church, for example when our leaders, once shepherds, get their priorities scrambled, and begin giving logical priority to things like “process” and “dialogue” and even works of mercy, as good and as important as those things can be. They have their place. But, for them to be fruitful and Catholic in the deeper sense, they must have their origin in and direction back to the fons et culmen, the source and summit, which is the Eucharist, itself in the sacramental species as well as in its celebration which is Holy Mass. We are our rites. Therefore, we have to have our priorities straight, logically, even though their ends may chronologically overlay each other. Identity checks are in order.
At our Novus Ordo early Mass today (Sunday), our Priest talked about how important it was to follow the rules governing saying Mass, and how he had seen many abuses at Masses over the years. Then, he used Eucharistic Prayer II (the Dewfall Mass) for our Sunday Mass and at the Orate Fratres he said, “Pray sisters and brothers” as he always has.
I grew up in the South. IIRC, the Catholic churches in my old diocese never did processions in the streets, even before Vatican II. They kept processions limited to the church grounds. Street processions would likely have been very poorly attended, and perhaps even dangerous with the large number of Fundamentalist Protestants who hated Catholics.
“Hard Catholic Identity” meant different things in different parts of the country. This is still true to a large extent. Here in the South it mostly means going to Mass every Sunday and mostly keeping one’s head low the rest of the time.
Circumstances forced me to go to the 8:30 Mass instead of the 7:00 one I usually attend. A whole different crowd. Lots of young families with lots of babies, some of whom were quite vocal, parental efforts notwithstanding.
In his sermon, Father essentially read the riot act about people getting on the cases of parents with babies and young children.
What is it with some people? From my observations the behavior of young children at Mass is exemplary. As for babies, they can’t help themselves and I’m sure their parents don’t want them crying either.
Personally, it makes my heart soar when “the (other) choir” gives voice during Mass: “DadDadDad” and other less comprehensible murmurings. We have one priest whose response to this during the homily is just the sweetest smile and the slightest hint of a chuckle.
“Out of the mouth of infants and of sucklings thou hast perfected praise” Ps. 8:3
I went Thursday to TLM for Corpus Christi as the bulletin listed Sunday as the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost. But we had the Corpus Christi Mass again today.
Father talked about how we need confession, Adoration and of course the Eucharist — in spite of what some say today in the church.
Beautiful High Mass TLM at noon in N. Virginia. Great preaching. So sacred, you can taste it. :)
Mass of Corpus Christi.
In my homily, I chose to imitate a technique of Pope Francis’ — that is, taking three words from the readings. Those words were “remember,” “participation” and “true.” I explained the concept of anamnesis, in which our “remembering” in the liturgy actually brings us to the saving events. I explained that “participation” isn’t primarily about things we do but uniting ourselves to Christ’s action in the sacrifice of the Mass. And I emphasized the Real Presence, something I encouraged folks to explain to those who aren’t Catholic.
No procession; I am completing my first year caring for three new parishes, and I haven’t been able to delve into everything I might. God willing, we can do some things next year.
We had a visiting priest delivery the Homily today. We had our Eucharistic Procession on Corpus Christi Thursday – FSSP Parish. It was packed. Today the Mass was the External Solemnity of Corpus Christi. Father spoke of the extraordinary time between the feast of Corpus Christi and the Sacred Heart.
Sermon was on the Sacred Heart and the virtue of humility. The most important virtue is Charity, but without the foundation of humility, one cannot have charity. We must pray for humiliations and learn to love them. We must thank Our Lord for sending them to us. “Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: And you shall find rest to your souls.” Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val y Zuluetawrote the beautiful Litany of Humility and would pray it after every Mass he offered. The saints all come from many different backgrounds, but the one virtue they all had in common was Humility. June is the month devoted to the Sacred Heart. June is the Month of Humility.
I went to a Franciscan church for the TLM, and the celebrant went all out during his homily–mortal sin, Satan, impurity, homosexuality, contraception, abortion…he said the only way to counter this darkening of the land by Satan’s minions is to carry Christ in us and to be Christ for those lost souls around us.
Our priest talked about worthy reception of the Eucharist and the importance of preparing oneself beforehand; that one good reception is better than 10,000 mediocre receptions.
Attendance was good at our TLM (an FSSP parish). We had a procession that almost got rained out, but it abated in time and was actually very pleasant since it cooled things off a bit. We coordinated with the local authorities to block off one of the road lanes on the main thoroughfare in front of the church, and then processed through a neighborhood, stopping at a house about halfway through for a brief benediction. (It was a new experience for me kneeling on asphalt!) This year they had a wireless setup so that a couple people in the procession were carrying speakers so that the singing could be more coordinated than it usually is, which was a nice touch.
As an aside, the road the church is on is called Rainbow Blvd., so I thought it apropos in the sense of “taking back the month” that we had this procession partially on that road.
The weather wasn’t cooperative so it was a brief indoor procession coupled with exposition of the blessed sacrament. Father had a good sermon on the real presence.
For once I can comment in a positive way. Left home at 5 am—returned at 5 pm—driving over the Cascade mountains with 3 other women to Veneta to the SSPX. High Mass Church packed to the ceiling with kids, 10 altar boys, choir loft with 10 Sisters singing, 2 confessionals going full blast, 1 1/2 hour Mass followed by street procession. Girls carried baskets of flower petals so full that there were enough to make it from beginning to end. Homily was an intense one on how the host is the real heart of Christ with nothing watered down for the kids. Then a fund raising breakfast at 12 noon. This is the group of priests that fly monthly to Alaska plus man an outpost in Keno, Oregon and one in Washington. A glorious day and a blessed treat
We celebrated the External Solemnity at our TLM Parish in Pittsburgh. It was an extra special occasion. Our Parish is administered by Canons from The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest. The institute’s founder and Prior General, Monsignor Gilles Wach was there for his yearly visit to the states and lead a magnificent High Mass along with an outdoor procession and Benediction. We have an amazing choir and also had a small string section accompanying them. There was a beautiful rendition of Ave Verum Corpus. The church was packed and I’d guess there were 700-800 present. First time ever listening to a homily in French :-)
N.O. Mass, at which one of our permanent deacons (recently ordained) preached. He emphasized that the Eucharist is the Person of Jesus, not merely a symbol or a vague “presence” of the Lord, but really and truly Him. To underscore this point, he told the story of the fire at St. Philip Neri parish in the Bronx on 12 December 1914. You can read the story on Wikipedia, but the bottom line is that the two priests of the parish rushed into the burning building and headed straight for the Tabernacle to rescue the Sacred Species. As Deacon said, “You don’t rush into a burning building to save something. But you do rush into a burning building to save someone.” This clear witness to the faith of these priests that the Host is really and truly Jesus made present for us, Deacon continued, should continue to inspire and nourish our own faith.
After Mass, we held a Eucharistic Procession for the roughly 3 miles between the two parishes in our neighborhood. The weather was not fantastic and our band of pilgrims was a little smaller than it has been in previous years, but it was still a good turnout and all the more inspirational for the bad weather! Procession concluded with Benediction. All in all a wonderful way to celebrate this great feast of our Faith!
Sunday morning Low Mass, Mounttown SSPX chapel; it was the Mass for 2nd Sunday after Pentecost; but the sermon was very much related to the necessarily fussy and careful reverence a priest has to have for the Communion hosts being the body of Christ. Fr covered such basic matters for a priest like keeping the thumb and forefinger together after consecration. Fr also gave an example of where he had the opportunity to offer Mass in a diocesan church in France (unlike his usually Francophone Swiss colleagues he’s French), but found in the sacristry safe that about the ciborium were many loose particles. Now this was hardly as bad as in many places and Fr also noted the priest said the New Order Mass with notable reverence. I didn’t get the chance to attend the procession as that was after a later Mass, but a good many things were laid out in preparation (like a folded) canopy), even an altar to rere of chapel. Attendance was somewhat lower as patently a fair few were going to the later Mass with procession.
I don’t live in Cincinnati but St. Gertrude’s Catholic Church there did an outside procession around the neighborhood in the rain. Found that impressive – photos are on their Facebook page.
My parish had a procession after the 5 PM Sunday evening Mass (we are in the heat of North Texas). Our parish is located close to a busy corner and we have a large property so I am sure we are noticed. Our homily was given by a permanent deacon who was saying his last (he’s retiring). The deacon highlighted the Real Presence and walking our walk. That I found was appropriate for the Feast of Corpus Christi. During the procession I reminded myself why I am not Methodist or Episcopalian.
An addendum to my original post that I thought too important not to add: our Deacon homilist also drew the connection between the Eucharist and the priesthood, echoing the parallels between Holy Thursday and Corpus Christi Thursday Sunday…at any rate, it was an integral part of his homily in which he reminded us that without our priests, there is no Eucharist (and none of the other sacraments, of course), and that it is our families from which vocations to the priesthood must come. He told us in no uncertain terms that each of us needs to be praying for and supporting vocations to the priesthood from within our own families (Fr. Z, the prayer you shared from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is one of my go-to prayers for this!), and stop assuming that priests come from other people’s families! Two sons of our parish are currently in formation and we had one ordained to the priesthood last year. We’re also a popular assignment for the men in their last couple of years before ordination to the diaconate, so there are always plenty of seminarians around the parish for our boys to interact with. It’s a great opportunity for them to ‘normalize’ seminary life and show the boys of the parish that this is a way of life that is accessible and might be for them, should God will it!
[Thanks for the comment about that great prayer!]