Photo from The World’s Best Sacristan™
Soon, with your help, I’ll be there.
One of you donors to my October Roman Sojourn fund drive CM via Venmo, I don’t have an email for you.
In churchy news…. the Diocese of Buffalo is planning to close nearly 80 churches. HERE
Dontchya wonder if, maybe, they might think outside the box and try something that’s been tried before and worked? Whatever it is they are doing is working. WHY IS THIS HARD? In fact, it isn’t hard at all. That means that there are reasons.
Meanwhile… there’s a lot going on in this image … gotta love that Spanish biretta…
“Those who conceal a mortal sin in confession commit a most grievous sin by telling a lie to the Holy Ghost, and, instead of obtaining pardon, they incur much more the wrath of God” (Short Catechism). Take courage, the moment of “embarrassment” passes quickly; hell never does. pic.twitter.com/Ax0fjSv02N
— P. D’Angona, Sacerdos Romano-Catholicus (@RomanoSace57080) September 13, 2024
So true. Embarrassment in the confession. It passes instantly. What replaces it is massive relief.
I’ll remind you of a few my 20 Tips For Making A Good Confession, especially:
11) …never be afraid to say something “embarrassing”… just say it;
12) …never worry that the priest thinks we are jerks…. he is usually impressed by our courage;
13) …never fear that the priest will not keep our confession secret… he is bound by the Seal;
20) …remember that priests must go to confession too … they know what we are going through.
GO TO CONFESSION!
On September 13th, 1917, the Blessed Virgin Mary told the three Shepherd Children of Fatima to “Continue to pray the Rosary to obtain the end of the war. In October, Our Lord will also come, as well as Saint Joseph with the Child Jesus, to bless the world.” pic.twitter.com/2KBljhBQfv
— Catholic Sat (@CatholicSat) September 13, 2024
Please support the wonderful traditional Benedictines of Le Barroux.
In chessy news… HERE
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In chessy news… in Budapest the Chess Olympiad continues.
It is more interesting than I thought it would be. There is the dynamic of team results, not just individual results. That makes a difference for a player who has to decide to play for a win or a draw. The four players of each team keep an eye on what is going on on the other boards. I don’t think that they can interact with the team’s (non-playing) captain.
Yesterday, Magnus still sat our for Norway, but Fabi played for these USA while Wesley sat out. Fabi is now back in the 2800s with his defeat of a Singaporean GM. Ding played for China (draw) as did Gukesh for India. Only 3 teams are flawless after 2: India, Slovenia and Georgia. Today USA v Bulgaria, Hungary v India, Slovenia v China, Uzbekistan v. Croatia. There are some 190 teams in the Open section. One game I tuned into was between 55 year old (gotta root for him!) Ukrainian Vasyl Ivanchuck (“Chucky”) HERE Look at about move 23 and 24. Black (Ivanchuk’s) 24 is SICK. Talk about brilliant calulation. No wonder he is sometimes called the strongest player never to be champ.
Today I have OTB. Our club was contacted by a gentleman now in the area who has been a tournament organizer for FIDE for many years. It is a chance to formalize our efforts and get some rated play going internally. We shall see.
White to move and win… the line is long but pretty much forced.
NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
Firstly, I love Confession. We were taught in our youth to name the Comandment and how many times. The how many times was the hard part. If you fumbled, you were told to go out and think about it and return, We called it the walk of shame. We laugh about it now.
As a Contractor, it really bothers me to see Churches being sold. Catholics built those churches with money they gave. One person who purchased a Church, contacted familes who were listed on the stain glass windows an offered the windows to them at no charge. He packed them up and delivered them. Great thoughtful guy.
The will to disbelieve. All evidence is before them, obstinately choose otherwise.
Recently there was a Mass at the local cemetery where I live. It was put on by the local parish. Maybe 60 people showed up. Mostly seniors, half of the crowd, with about 20 children, came from the Latin Mass parish. It’s not in anyway thinking highly of ourselves, but it’s peculiar that the youth who showed up weren’t even from the local parish. Many of these parishes clearly have no future.
Black’s King is stalemated, so White has to allow the King a square to which he can move. The only way to do that is to sacrifice his pawn on f7 by playing Bh7, which leads to the loss of the pawn on f6 as well. But then White can use his Bishop, and eventually his King, to protect the pawn on h6 and enable it to become a Queen.
Thus, after 1. Bh7, Kxf7, 2. Be4, Kxf6, 3, Kd4, Black’s goose is cooked. He has to try to stay close to the pawn until he cannot any more, whereupon he is forced to resign. A typical line might go 3. . . . Kf7, 4. Bh7, Kf6, 5. Ke4, Kf7, 6. Kf5, Kf8, 7. Kf6, forcing Ke8. White now plays 8. Kg7, and Black cannot now stop White’s advance of his pawn after he moves his Bishop.
Dear A. S. Haley,
but how? I cannot see how the white king can come to h8 and g8 if the black king doesn’t let him. And the white king needs to go there because the bishop can’t defend h8. And we cannot play h7 until the black king is behind the pawn or else the white king on g7, g8 or h8, because otherwise he’ll just go to g7 and then alternate between g7 and h8. And he cannot do that as the same time defend the pawn on h6 (the bishop can only do so on h7). I don’t see it.
We were taught in our youth to name the Comandment and how many times. The how many times was the hard part. If you fumbled, you were told to go out and think about it and return, We called it the walk of shame. We laugh about it now.
You do. Others may have left to practice of going to Confession, or tried very hard to justify sins as venial-only and then leave them out, or worse, consciously invented a number or withheld the sin.
Also, given that this makes public the fact that the penitent has a sin grave enough that the confessor does this, it actually does not square with the Seal. (Whether it also breaks it in technical legal terms I do not know.)
Also, sometimes people really don’t remember so precisely (think about the pitiable sort of men to whom blasphemies, actual ones and not only those mistakenly so-called in English, are part of everyday speech). It is quite acceptable to say “a great lot of times”, “about two thirds whenever the occasion arose”, and the like, provided the penitent doesn’t know better. Granted: then only.
Fathers, don’t do this.
(Also: I am rather certain that while “confess in kind and number” is what we have to do, not saying the number does not invalidate the Confession. The confessor must then ask; then, of course, he needs to be answered truthfully.)