I warmly ask the readership to pray for Fr. John Hunwicke of the superb blog Fr Hunwicke’s Mutual Enrichment. I’ve been told that he is ailing and it might not be trivial.
Fr Hunwicke’s Mutual Enrichment is an obligatory daily stop for me. Rarely does one find the right combination of erudition and wit sharpened by the whetstone of time and experience.
Share the good stuff.
It’s the 17th Sunday after Pentecost in the Vetus Ordo and the 25th Sunday of the Novus Ordo.
Elsewhere I guess its the 4th Sunday in the Season of Creation. HERE Did you get any of that in your parish today?
More importantly, was there a GOOD point made in the sermon you heard at your Sunday Mass of obligation?
Tell about attendance especially for the Traditional Latin Mass. I hear that it is growing. Of COURSE.
Any local changes or (hopefully good) news?
I have some thoughts about the Sunday Epistle reading posted at One Peter Five.
A taste:
Of our Sunday Lesson Bl. Ildefonso Schuster remarks:
The passage from the Epistle to the Ephesians (iv, 1-6) vigorously impresses upon us the idea of the unity of the Christian family, a unity founded on the identity of the Spirit which inspires all the members of the mystical body of Jesus Christ. God is one, the faith is one ; there is one baptism and one bishop. With these words in olden days the Romans, making a tumult in the Circus, answered the heretical Emperor Constantius, when he proposed to allow the Antipope Felix II, whom he himself had appointed, to reside in peace beside Liberius, the staunch defender of the Nicene faith.
What is Schuster talking about. Tumult? Antipope? Two Popes?
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Welcome back!
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Meanwhile, white to move. Mate in two.
NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
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My Roman Sojourn is coming up, so I am very busy taking care of many things. One thing I am reviewing is my comms. I have had an Italian mobile number since the day that the Italian Bishops Conference said that priests should not have cellphones. I laughed and got one that very day. At first it was Omnitel, which was absorbed by Vodafone.
In any event, in those days when it was difficult to use your mobile for the internet, I got a mobile “hot spot” through Keepgo, which is still listed as one of the best services of its type. I have a data plan on my Italian phone.
Also, with ATT (gotta review that) you can use your phone as if you were in these USA for $10/day. But I am not interested in a $400 phone bill, as you can imagine. I tend not to turn on cellular on my US phone when in Rome, maybe once a week. Also, my US phone is still locked into ATT. My older Italian phone is unlocked. It doesn’t have the best camera however. Which means carrying more gadgets – two phones – than I would like when I hit the streets for those daily Rome pics. I feel like a drug dealer. I’m going to update my Keepgo as a backup for internet right now. Also I may get an ESIM for my US phone. I’ve never used an ESIM. I’ll dedicate one of my reader donations today to find out! So…
Thank you DD. You are one of the famous “200!” who has been so kind and faithful all this time. You “200!”s were a life boat in a storm. My gratitude to all the “200!”s who are left, and “100!”s, too. All you regular donors have my daily prayers.
The other option is buy an unlocked phone with a better camera for my Italian number. Unlocked phones can be spendy.
If you want to try Keepgo, a mobile hotspot, for travel, here is my referral code. Eac
h time someone gets some data through Keepgo, I get some data too: 3GB. That helps.
Some years ago, I posted a hilarious audio recording of Archbp. André-Joseph Léonard of Mechelen-Brussels and Primate of Belgium, sadly replaced by mere shadows. In this recording, which had to have been with French speaking priests and seminarians, Léonard gave a short after dinner talk about the different ways in which his profs back in the day spoke Latin in their courses at the Gregorian University, French, German, Italian, American, with funny anecdotes.
That speech was on YouTube and then it disappeared.
I thought of it today because I heard the first part of a podcast by Anne Barhardt in which she and her interlocutor chat about understanding Latin during Mass. Their idea being that you don’t have to grasp Latin so well that you can speak it. You get to know the texts of the Mass, over time, so well that you simply know what they say without having to translate them any more. Perfect fluidity isn’t necessary for priests, either.
I’ll add a point on that. When Summorum came out and bishops sought to close it off by testing priests on their Latin, the late Card. Egan – NOT a friend of the Traditional Mass by any stretch of the imagination – clarified that for a priest to be ideoneus (suited) to celebrate the TLM he had to be able to pronounce the words properly. Compression was not required. In law, the minimum suffices because of the principle odiosa restringenda: the law must be interpreted strictly, not widely, so as to favor the people upon whom an obligation has been lain.
I digress.
I thought of Bp. Léonard’s Latin speech and sought it out. Sure enough, one of my own posts came up in which, unbeknownst to me, back in the day a reader had downloaded Léonard’s talk thinking that – because it was good – it would someday be squashed. Yup. He reposted it and I recorded the audio and… HERE IT IS.
I don’t know the year. However, Léonard was probably still Bishop in Namur. Also, he mentions some profs by name, only one of whom I met in life, Fr. Fuchs.
It helps to know French. And Latin, of course, since he speaks mostly in Latin. But you can tune your ear for the accents and get the gist.
BTW.. at the end, Léonard tells a variation of the old clerical sacramental moral theology problem of what a priest is to do if a mouse runs across the altar and carries off a consecrated Host. (My answer is, I think, better.) Also, what to do when distributing Communion if the Host is dropped a woman’s ample exposed cleavage. De defectibus deals with this. There was actually a funny video of this, HERE. PROOF: These things happen.
I digress.
Photo by The Great Roman™
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I can’t push Benedictine wine all the time. So, let’s break it up with Benedictine BEER. I can personally attest that it is really good, and I am not much of a beer drinker.
Your use of my Amazon affiliate link is a major part of my income. It helps to pay for insurance, groceries, everything. Please remember me when shopping online. Thanks in advance. US HERE – UK HERE
This isn’t all that hard, but it has a fun feature. BLACK to move and win.
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
Chess news… Magnus beat Hikaru 3.5-12.5 in the Final of the 2023 Chess.com Speed Chess Championship.
My chess news… I played like a moron today, losing three straight, each time with an avoidable blunder. In my defense there were a lot of distractions. Frustrating.
On another note, I am grateful to a reader who sent, some time ago, a set of tech tools. I fixed something today and thought of you.
Also, thanks to CG who sent TOMATOES and a few other things which helpful. You are very kind.
Meanwhile,….
Black to move (despite board orientation). White has made a bad move with h4. Punish it.
NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
Interested in learning? Try THIS.
I checked the “Earth Labora” page of the traditional Benedictine monks of Le Barroux, who are making good wines from the ancient vineyards left by the Avignon popes. They have 10 and 20 and 40 year PORTS. HERE I haven’t had any yet.
For 10% off at their store use the code FATHERZ10
They also have an assortment:
Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalis Wine Assortment
Of course it is mostly red. I’ve had all three of these wines. Very good. HERE
Featuring 10 bottles of Via Caritatis Lux Red wine, this wine assortment was created in honor of his eminence Cardinal Mueller’s recent visit to Washington, D.C. It also includes one bottle each of the Via Caritatis Lux White and Lux Rosé wines, as an additional gift.
Remember that Card. Müller has been pretty vocal lately with a) his concerns about the upcoming “walking together” (toward the cliff) and b) pressure on Bp. Strickland. A toast to Card. Müller!
I’ve been hearing more and more about ChatGPT, which is an online A.I. site. You can ask questions or even put it to tasks. About a year ago, one of you readers had ChatGPT write a poem about “walking together about walking together-ity” upcoming in October. Since I will be in Roma at that time, I hope the air quality isn’t reduced because of their gaseous emissions. I digress. That eerily accurate and pretty good A.I. generated poem is HERE: It ran…
Synod on Synodality: A Poem by ChatGPT
In chambers where agendas play,
A Synod’s dance begins its sway,
A masquerade of “dialogue” they say,
Yet veils are thin, truth’s price to pay.
Synod on synodality, a modern scene,
Where liberal dreams may intervene,
A clever ruse, a cunning scheme,
In name of progress, they convene.
With every vote and subtle nod,
A liberal agenda seeks to prod,
Traditional hearts, they aim to sway,
But through the haze, we see their play.
Oh, Synod’s charade, you’re quite the show,
A liberal fest, with pomp aglow,
They whisper change and “open minds,”
Yet core beliefs, they leave behind.
Synod on synodality, a circus grand,
Where principles shift like shifting sand,
Tradition’s voice they try to drown,
While “tolerance” is their new crown.
But we’re no fools, we see the game,
Behind the curtain, it’s all the same,
A liberal masquerade, oh what a sight,
Where truth and orthodoxy take their flight.
So Synod, dance with your intent,
Your liberal leanings, blatant and bent,
A spectacle of “dialogue” and “new,”
Yet through it all, tradition rings true.
At kath.net, the German site, there is a story that Card. Müller, former Prefect of the CDF and once Bishop of Regensburg, advises Bp. Strickland of Tyler NOT to resign.
Excerpt:
According to Catholic teaching, the Pope is by no means the Lord of the Church, but only as Christ’s representative for the universal Church, the first servant of his Lord, who had to say to Simon Peter, who had just been destined to become the rock of the Church: “Get behind me (Italian Indietro, the true indietrismo) [backwardism], because you have in mind not what God wants, but what people want” (Mt 16:23).
The Pope has no authority from Christ to bully and intimidate good bishops, modeled on Christ the Good Shepherd, who sanctify, teach and lead the flock of God in the name of Christ in accordance with the episcopal ideal of Vatican II, just because they are false friends denounce these good bishops to Francis as enemies of the Pope, while heretical and immoral bishops can do whatever they want or who harass the Church of Christ every day with some other stupidity.
Der Papst ist gemäß der katholischen Lehre keineswegs der Herr der Kirche, sondern nur als Stellvertreter Christi für die universale Kirche der erste Diener seines Herrn, der dem gerade zum Felsen der Kirche bestimmten Simon Petrus sagen musste: „Geh hinter mich (ital. Indietro, dem wahren Indietrismo), denn du hast nicht das im Sinn, was Gott will, sondern was die Menschen wollen.“ (Mt 16, 23).
Der Papst hat keine Vollmacht von Christus, gute Bischöfe nach dem Vorbild Christi, des guten Hirten, die im Einklang mit dem Bischofsideal des II. Vatikanums die Herde Gottes im Namen Christi heiligen, lehren und leiten, zu drangsalieren und einzuschüchtern, nur weil falsche Freunde diese guten Bischöfe bei Franziskus als Feinde des Papstes denunzieren, während häretische und unmoralische Bischöfe treiben können, was sie wollen, oder die jeden Tag die Kirche Christi mit einer andern Dummheit belästigen.
Der Papst ist gemäß der katholischen Lehre keineswegs der Herr der Kirche, sondern nur als Stellvertreter Christi für die universale Kirche der erste Diener seines Herrn, der dem gerade zum Felsen der Kirche bestimmten Simon Petrus sagen musste: „Geh hinter mich (ital. Indietro, dem wahren Indietrismo), denn du hast nicht das im Sinn, was Gott will, sondern was die Menschen wollen.“ (Mt 16, 23).
Der Papst hat keine Vollmacht von Christus, gute Bischöfe nach dem Vorbild Christi, des guten Hirten, die im Einklang mit dem Bischofsideal des II. Vatikanums die Herde Gottes im Namen Christi heiligen, lehren und leiten, zu drangsalieren und einzuschüchtern, nur weil falsche Freunde diese guten Bischöfe bei Franziskus als Feinde des Papstes denunzieren, während häretische und unmoralische Bischöfe treiben können, was sie wollen, oder die jeden Tag die Kirche Christi mit einer andern Dummheit belästigen.
Tomorrow is, of course, the birthday of both Bilbo and Frodo. Today, however, is the birthday of The Hobbit.
On 21 September 1937: J.R.R. #Tolkien‘s The Hobbit was published.
The book tells of a hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, and his journey with thirteen dwarves to recover their treasure from a dragon, Smaug. It’s sold over 100 million copies as one of the best-selling books of all time pic.twitter.com/NWlHdytg6y
— Tolkien Society (@TolkienSociety) September 21, 2023
I saw a video bit the other day in which we learned that there are hundreds of hours of scenes cut from the Jackson LotR. The mind reels.
More somewhat discouraging news at Variety. It includes this soul anihilating, weale-word studded paragraph:
“Following our recent acquisition of Middle-earth Enterprises, we’re thrilled to embark on this new collaborative journey with New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. Pictures, bringing the incomparable world of J.R.R. Tolkien back to the big screen in new and exciting ways,” said Lee Guinchard, CEO of Freemode. “We understand how cherished these works are and working together with our partners at New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. Pictures, we plan to honor the past, look to the future, and adhere to the strongest level of quality and production values.”
Kyrie eleison.
I am reminded of a recent smarmy email from Delta which described the revamping of the rewards program and access to lounges, etc. In effect, it will be super-hard, unless you are flying on the company dime, to advance in the program and use the clubs… BUT… it’s all “This is so wonderful! You’ll love it!”
As SkyMiles Membership continues to grow, we are committed to preserving the exclusivity and experience you anticipate and deserve. We have heard your feedback about the complexity of the SkyMiles Program and for the first time since 2015, we are making changes to simplify the way you qualify for Medallion Status while also rewarding you with more ways to earn Status.
[…]
We are dedicated to earning and maintaining your trust with every choice we make. We genuinely hope our commitment to a simplified program with more opportunities to earn Status will enhance your unique Member experience.
Insulting.
Dear readers, if you have not read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, please do. Then The Silmarillion awaits.
If possible… read the books before seeing the movies. For the love of all that is good true and beautiful.
UPDATE:
Perhaps Delta will adopt this plan in the spirit of “special reward fares for one way trips to Minas Tirith”.
Spirit Airlines Introduces New Bargain Flight Where They Just Launch You In A Medieval Catapult https://t.co/Ke6I3m208p pic.twitter.com/JMCf9bEMTe
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) September 21, 2023
Meanwhile, white to move.
NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
Your use of my Amazon affiliate link is a major part of my income. It helps to pay for insurance, groceries, everything. Please remember me when shopping online. Thanks in advance. US HERE – UK HERE
In chessy news, in Berlin, Wesley beat Nordirbek to emerge from the lower bracket to the final against Jan-Krzysztof Duda. Duda won, garnering €80K. This tournament was pretty kitchy in its coverage, but it was, I understand, broadcast live on TV in some places. I used YouTube to see it at a convenient time. Wesley So secured €20K for 2nd. The event shows that short-time format chess is on the rise. A sign of the time.
Tomorrow, 22 Sept – the Birthday of Bilbo and Frodo – Nakamura v. Carlsen in the Speedchess Championship.
And…
? An incredible performance by 9-year-old FM Faustino Oro (2325)!
The ?? Argentinian prodigy scored 6,5/9 in the ITT Copa Ciudad de Comodoro Rivadavia with a performance rating of 2452 and achieved his first IM norm. ?? El Mundo del Ajedrez pic.twitter.com/BFRQiY0t6O
— International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) September 18, 2023
With the arrival of mid-September, and the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (14 Sept) we come around again to our Ember Days. The September Ember Days this year are today, Wednesday 20 Sept, Friday 22 and Saturday 23.
More on Ember Days, HERE.
Observance of Ember Days is very ancient, going back in the Roman Church to at least Gelasius I (496) who speaks of four times a year. Leo the Great (+461) preached about three times. Pope Callixtus I (+222) laid down fasting laws. The Ember Days correspond, roughly, to changes of seasons.
Keep in mind that Ember Days were times of penance. Perhaps you could fast and abstain for some good intention on these days.
If memory serves, the newer Ordo – for the Novus Ordo – mentions something about the custom of Ember Days, but it does so in such a vague way that no one might be prompted to do anything with it.
I wonder: is there still a mention of Ember Days in the Ordo for the Ordinary Form? Perhaps some priests out there who have one could check.
Fun fact.
In the 16th c. Spanish and Portuguese missionaries settled in Nagasaki, Japan. From their interest in inculturation and out of sensitivity for the ways of the people, they tried to make meatless meals for Embertide, which is a fast time. They started deep-frying shrimp. The Japanese ran with and developed it to perfection. This is “tempura,” again from the Latin term for the Ember Days” Quatuor Tempora“.
I think I’ll get some tempura on Friday.
In the meantime, do you know the mnemonic for the times of year of the Ember Days?
The old rhyme is:
Dat crux Lucia cineres charismata dia
quod sit in angaria quarta sequens feria.
Or
Fasting days and Emberings be
Lent, Whitsun, Holyrood, and Lucie.
A short version: Lenty, Penty, Crucy, Lucy.
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