Matthew Hazell on the Fishwrap’s defense of the Parisian Blasphemy

Posted on 11 August 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Matthew references the piece at the Fishwrap.  It is deeply crass.  Here’s a quote:

Da Vinci’s painting is not a religious object anyway, and is part of the cultural public domain.

The dopey writer cites other examples of appropriated of Christian symbols, some disgusting.  I, also, thought of moments in TV or movies when there was a clear visual reference to da Vinci’s Last Supper, such as a scene near the end of the movie Larry Crowne.  However, they were sugar and spice compared the dreck and bile of the Olympics.

BTW… “da Vinci” isn’t Renaissance Banksy.  He painted his Last Supper in the refectory in a religious convent (for readers of the Fishwrap, that’s a place where people like nuns and friars live… remember them? You might have heard of Friar Tuck, right?  And Tuck is not short for Tucker, which in Australia can mean “food”.  Your version might be older women with short hair who belong to the LCWR).  Moreover, it was painted in the convent’s refectory, where the professed religious took their meals, one of the vital areas of the convent, where it was important… now pay attention, Fishwrappers… important to relate even the taking of food to the salvific work of Christ and not focus on mere bodily satisfaction.  Foreign notions, I know, but bear with me a moment.  The Last Supper is not merely “part of the cultural domain”.  It is also a profoundly religious object, both by intention and by historical-cultural significance.

 

Posted in Sin That Cries To Heaven, What are they REALLY saying?, You must be joking! | Tagged
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SAVE THE LITURGY – SAVE THE WORLD … GOAL: 1700 more priests who can celebrate Mass the Roman Rite, Usus Antiquior

Posted on 11 August 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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Posted in ACTION ITEM!, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Save The Liturgy - Save The World |
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11 August: Feast of St. Philomena

Posted on 11 August 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

My good friend Fr. Finigan – His Hermeneuticalness – posted about St. Philomena some time ago, which he links here.

Posted in Saints: Stories & Symbols |
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Daily Rome Shot 1095 – 50 years ago

Posted on 11 August 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Please remember me when shopping online and use my affiliate links.  US HERE – UK HERE  WHY?  This helps to pay for health insurance (massively hiked for this new year of surprises), utilities, groceries, etc..  At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.

In chessy news… well… not so much chess, but, yes, chess….

Some of you readers will remember like yesterday the events that culminated in the resignation of Pres. Nixon, 50 years ago on 8 August.  You probably remember the speech the night before and the famous walk to the helicopter.

A friend clued me in on a riveting interview done by Tucker Carlson with Geoff Shepherd, who was a staffer in the Nixon administration. Shepherd produced three books about the deep state coup that brought Nixon to resign 50 years ago this week, one “concentrating on the Kennedy people and how they orchestrated this, one is concentrating on the Leon Jaworski’s internal files that describe all these secret meetings, and one centers on the road map and the fact that the Congress was lied to.” The interview is two hours and it is utterly fascinating. Set aside what you thought you new about Watergate.

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Shepherd lays out the story of the dem machine coup that brought down Nixon, but along the way he also makes an analogy:

Let me let me read you the definition of Greek tragedy Poetics Aristotle’s book. He defines the ideal tragic hero as a man who’s highly renowned and prosperous but not one who is preeminently virtuous and just whose misfortune is brought upon him not by vice or depravity but by some error of judgment or frailty … and that’s Nixon. And then there’s the interpretation of Shakespearean tragedy which envisions a setting in which a moral order reacts violently and convulsively against certain infractions from this reaction comes the calamity which befalls the hero, frequently way out of proportion to the infraction itself. And within this calamity there is a dominating impression of waste. Now you could say that that’s Watergate too.

White to move and mate in 5.

And… on the importance of keeping your data private and secure…

If you have a business or site using “Software as a Service”, and you don’t at least look into what Federated offers… well… good luck.  I aim this especially at Church institutions even to the level of DIOCESES.  Really.

 

Posted in SESSIUNCULA | Tagged
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A new/old book about Martin Luther

Posted on 11 August 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Having started out Lutheran-ish, the figure of Martin Luther has been of occasional interest for me.  I recall rather hagiographical descriptions from my youth which were subsequently corrected sharply by other, more objective (and some not so objective) accounts.

An new/old book about Luther was brought to my attention.   It was written by someone just a couple decades after Luther, hence firmly within living memory.  It was originally in French, vetted by the University of Paris, and then Latin.

The title (with apologies to a priest friend and piper) is perfect.

The Devil’s Bagpipe: The True Life of Martin Luther by James Lang (Author) and Fr. Robert Nixon (Translator)

US HERE – UK HERE

It is a short read, but packed, as is consistent with writers before the age of word processors.

 

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
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Your Sunday Sermon Notes – 12th Sunday after Pentecost (N.O.: 19th) 2024

Posted on 11 August 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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 12th Sunday after Pentecost, or the 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time?

Tell about attendance especially for the Traditional Latin Mass.

Any local changes or (hopefully good) news?

A couple thoughts about the sign of the cross: HERE  A taste…

[…]

To summarize, Christ, who when His public ministry began had been tempted by Satan (Luke 4:1-13, etc.), and who had just said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18), was goaded by a lawyer, whom Christ brought down to earth.

What can we take from this?

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
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VIDEO: Oxford Emeritus Professor of Mathematics John Lennox gave a public lecture about belief in God

Posted on 11 August 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Oxford Emeritus Professor of Mathematics John Lennox is a Christian apologist. He gave a talk about belief in God in a public lecture at Oxford Union.

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Posted in Just Too Cool | Tagged ,
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Daily Rome Shot 1094

Posted on 10 August 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Thank you, Lord, for this day.

Welcome Registrant:

BigMac715

White to move and mate in 3.

NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

Priestly chess players, drop me a line. HERE

Please remember me when shopping online and use my affiliate links.  US HERE – UK HERE  WHY?  This helps to pay for health insurance (massively hiked for this new year of surprises), utilities, groceries, etc..  At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.

A word of thanks to those of you who are now using Zelle for donations.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
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The Tears of St. Lawrence 2024, the Perseid meteors. Wherein Fr. Z rants.

Posted on 9 August 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Perseid meteors started in mid-July but they will peak on the mornings of August 11, 12 and 13.

Why Perseids? If you trace the meteors backwards, it looks like they are shooting out of the constellation Perseus.

Otherwise, we call them the Tears of St. Lawrence because the peak is always around the great saint’s feast day.

How is it that St. Lawrence figures so strongly in connection with this annual celestial fireworks show?

To grasp that, we have to remember how important St. Lawrence was for the Roman Church and therefore the mind’s of men throughout Christendom for centuries.

The influence of Rome is pervasive.  We cannot have a clue about who we are without having a knowledge of Rome.  Thus, the chao in society and the Church today.

There are many churches in Rome named for this great martyr. Traditionally, the Feast of St. Lawrence not only had its own Vigil (9 August, today as I write) it had a first Mass “de nocte… at night” and a station, and “Missa publica” in the day. The Missa Publica has a great collect, which priests who use the Vetus Ordo will recognize (I hope!) from the Gratiarum Actio Post Missam:

Da nobis, qu?sumus Dómine, vitiórum nostrórum flammas exstingúere; qui beato Lauréntio tribuísti tormentórum suórum incéndia superáre. Per Christum, Dóminum nostrum…

Grant us, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, to extinguish within us the flames of vice, even as Thou gavest blessed Lawrence grace to overcome his fiery torments.

“But Father! But Father!” detractors of Tradition are sniveling, “Why this sick tangent about irrelevant prayers when the planet’s climate is endangered by meteors which leave Gaia-suffocating gases in the air that Amazon jungle trees need to protect themselves from the predations of large corporations? You go on and on talking about outdated morals and sins, tricking us to read this by mentioning some kind of shower! To save the planet we have to get rid of that old stuff and the people who want it.  But because we feel the vibe and aren’t burdened by the past we’ll humor you and ask what you want us to ask, you Vatican II hater: Why is this moldy old prayer be in the gratif… grated … YOU HATE VATICAN II!”

At the Lateran we find the Sancta Sanctorum where the Holy Stairs. The true name in Italian is Chiesa di San Lorenzo in Palatio ad Sancta Sanctorum. It is the only remaining ancient oratory of the Lateran complex and it was dedicated to St Lawrence. Leo III deposited many sacred relics there. This is where Popes put off their sacred vestments after Mass and recited thanksgiving prayers. This is why the thanksgiving prayers in the Missale Romanum to be recited by priests after Mass include that collect in honor of St. Lawrence, the titular saint of that ancient pontifical chapel.

Fans of the Novus Ordo will perhaps be happy to know that this prayer, as well as the prayer to St. Joseph and the Transfige, the Canticle with its prayers, the Alia Oblatio and the prayer in honor of the day’s saint were all removed from the Gratiarum Actio prayers in the back of the Novus Ordo Missale Romanum, and of course, their removal was really for the good of the priests and to the lasting benefit of all the faithful. Right?

Thus, we come full circle to the Tears of St. Lawrence. How would this saint weep for us now were it not for the full joy of the Beatific Vision.

Posted in Look! Up in the sky!, SESSIUNCULA | Tagged
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9 August: Today to observe St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) or Vigil of St. Lawrence? A quandary with comments.

Posted on 9 August 2024 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Since I am “on the road” I do not have all the accoutrement one might desire for vesting according to the liturgical calendar.  Of course white can substitute other colors in a pinch.

Today in the Vetus Ordo being the Vigil of St. Lawrence, the liturgical color is purple, since vigils have a penitential undertone.  We fast before our feasts.   I don’t have purple vestments with me, but I have white and red.  Public thanks again to the readers who pitched in for my travel vestments.  Your names are on the pouches in which they are toted.

That said, there was legislation issued the Holy See, a document called Cum sanctissima, which allows us to celebrate feasts of saints put into the universal calendar after 1962.   For example, our 1962 Missals do not have Martin de Porres, Vincent Pallotti, Charles Lwanga, Peter Julian Eymard, John of Avila (Doctor), some English Martyrs like John Ogilvie, Elizabeth Ann Seton, John Neumann, Charbel Makhluf, how many canonized by JP2…? Josemaría Escrivá, Maximilian Kolbe, Mother Teresa, Padre Pio, John Henry Newman, Josephine Bakhita, Damien De Veuster, Mary MacKillop, John Paul II, Gianna Beretta Mola, Hildegard of Bingen, Kateri Tekakwitha, or, upcoming Pier Giorgio Frassati or Carlo Acutis. To name but a few. So long as some specified feasts of the Vetus Ordo calendar are not supplanted, post-Conciliar saints can be celebrated. The list of Vetus Ordo calendar saints or feasts which cannot be supplanted is HERE. For example, in August you cannot supplant these:

Augustus
02 S. Alfonsi Mariae de Ligorio Ep., Conf. et Eccl. Doct.
04 S. Dominici Conf.
05 In Dedicatione S. Mariae ad Nives
08 S. Ioannis Mariae Vianney Conf.
12 S. Clarae Virg.
20 S. Bernardi Abbatis et Eccl. Doct.
28 S. Augustini Ep., Conf. et Eccl. Doct.
29 In Decollatione S. Ioannis Bapt.

And that said, today in the Novus Ordo calendar is the Feast of St. Edith Stein (Teresa Benedicta of the Cross). She was canonized as a virgin martyr.

Since the Vigil of St. Lawrence is NOT one of those days which can’t be bumped, today using the Vetus Ordo, the Usus Antiquior, the Tridentine Rite, I can celebrate St. Edith Stein using the red vestment which I do have, instead of the Vigil. And while I could simply use the Common for a Virgin Martyr as is, I could use the Latin Collect from her proper:

Deus patrum nostrórum,
qui beátam Terésiam Benedíctam mártyrem
ad cognitiónem Fílii tui crucifíxi
eiúsque imitatiónem usque ad mortem perduxísti,
ipsa intercedénte, concéde,
ut omnes hómines Christum Salvatórem agnóscant
et per eum ad perpétuam tui visiónem advéniant.
Qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti, Deus,
per ómnia s?cula sæculórum.

Would someone like to give this a shot?

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000 |
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