Abbey-Roads2

St. Paul’s Outside The Walls.  First Vespers.

The New Liturgical Movement  has more photos.

Father Zuhlsdorf  has details on the Holy Year indulgence.

The readings from Mass.

The readings from today’s Mass seemed to me to be a news summary of the past weeks events and developments.  I realize this is a highly personal understanding however - in other words, it is just my take on today’s lectio.

Unity and peace.

The opening prayer for the feast of St. Irenaeus immediately impressed me as one reason why this day was chosen by the Holy Father as a deadline for the SSPX to agree to the conditions offered for reconciliation. 

“Father, you called St. Irenaeus to uphold your truth and bring peace to your Church.  By his prayers renew us in faith and love that we may always be intent on fostering unity and peace.”

Of course, we all know by now the great devotion to the early Fathers Pope Benedict XVI has, so it seems to me reasonable to assume this may be one reason why this day was chosen.  (Just thinking out loud here.)

Does God in His Providence ever chastise his people for their good?

I’m convinced that unconsciously, many American Catholics have been tainted by the “prosperity gospel” that has infected American Christianity since the days of Kathryn Kuhlman and Jim and Tammy Baker, fast forward to the mega churches of today.  (Don’t forget the gospel according to Oprah either, with her doctrine of the “law of attraction” - you always get what you want.)  I say this because the very idea of sacrifice, penance, suffering, or even chastisement seems to have vanished in “popular Catholicism”.  Yet the first reading from Lamentations does not speak about prosperity at all.

“The Lord has consumed without pity all the dwellings of Jacob; He has torn down in his anger the fortresses of daughter Judah; He has brought to the ground in dishonor her king and her princes.” - Lamentations 2:2

“Priest and prophet forage in a land they know not.” 

So why does God permit bad things to happen to good people?  If they were evil, or indulged in sinful ways, why didn’t He intervene to correct them?  Why would He permit misfortune and setbacks to punish them?  Of course, no one has to believe He cares either way.  But then again, today’s first reading suggests to me that sometimes Our Lord does indeed permit evil as a means of correction or at least “discipline” as St. Paul teaches.  Others might call it chastisement or punishment, as indicated by the prophet in Lamentations:

“Your prophets had for you false and specious visions; They did not  lay bare your guilt, to avert your fate; They beheld for you in vision false and misleading portents.” - Lamentations 2

As always - these things are for the proper authorities to interpret and analyze, are they not?  But as the famous philosopher Judy Tenuta always said, “It could happen!”

 “O God, search me and know me…”

.

. 

Editor’s note:  Going forward on this blog, I will try to insert light-hearted photos and smiley faces to appease those who may be offended by my posts; those who think I’m too serious and focused upon Church teaching, or think I take myself too seriously, or think I’m mean and hateful, or who think I think I am some type of Church authority, and whatever else that offends dissident souls.   Jesus was nice. ;) 

Common mystic prayer. 

From Fr, Longenecker: 

“Everything seemed suspended for a moment. Was it a moment or was it an eternity? The crucifix before seemed luminous. Then as I gazed at the bread and the chalice they seemed to be one with the crucifix and they all took on a different dimension. It was like they opened up. A window or a door opened onto light. This makes it sound like what I experienced was somehow ethereal or ’spiritual.’ It was the opposite. Everything was far more concrete, far more solid and shared in a greater dimensionality than I can express, and the words came into my mind, “This is Reality.”" - Source

Father’s experience reminds me of St. Teresa Benedicta’s (Edith Stein) reaction after reading the Life of St. Teresa of Avila; “This is truth!”