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Interview with +Fellay plus examination of conscience for priests June 7, 2012

Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, Dallas Diocese, episcopate, General Catholic, Interior Life, North Deanery, priests, Tradition, Virtue.
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There is a long interview with Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior of the Society of St. Pius X, at Rorate Caeli.  It’s long, so I’ll not quote it here, but I will quote something else from Rorate that Bishop Fellay mentions – a new examination of conscience for priests produced by the Vatican last year.  This examination was put together due to a recognition that, for the restoration of the Faith, very good, holy priests will be required.  But, this examination has many aspects that apply to all Catholics. It’s a glorious list:

1. “It is for their sakes that I sanctify myself, so that they, too, may be sanctified by the truth” (Jn 17:19). 
Do I really take holiness seriously in my priesthood? Am I convinced that the success of my priestly ministry comes from God and that, with the grace of the Holy Spirit, I have to identify myself with Christ and give my life for the salvation of the world? [give my life……….]
 
2. “This is my body” (Mt 26:26).
Is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass the centre of my spiritual life? [This is so key, and yet not only are there priests in this Diocese who do not offer Mass every day, they have gone so far as to deny their subordinates the right to offer private Masses on their days off and done all they can to obstruct such offerings] Do I prepare well to celebrate Mass? Do I devoutly celebrate the Mass? Do I make an act of thanksgiving after Mass? Is the Mass the centre of my day in giving thanks and praise to God for his blessings? Do I have recourse to his goodness? Do I make reparation for my sins and for those of all mankind?
 
3. “Zeal for your house consumes me” (Jn 2:17). 
Do I celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass according to the rites and rubrics established by the Church? Do I celebrate Holy Mass with a right intention and according to the approved liturgical books? Am I attentive to the sacred species conserved in the tabernacle and careful to renew it periodically? Do I pay due attention to the sacred vessels and ensure their conservation? Do I wear in a dignified fashion all of the sacred vestments prescribed by the Church? [This could be an inducement to replace many of the tired and…..less than sterling……..vestments that have hung around since the 70s and 80s] Am I conscious that I act in persona Christi Capitis ?
 
4. “Remain in my love” (Jn 15:9). 
Do I enjoy being in the presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, in meditation and in silent adoration? Am I faithful to the daily visit to the Blessed Sacrament? Is the tabernacle my true treasure? [Yes, I do!  Shame on me for not spending more time before the Tabernacle, consoling the Lord through my feeble, wormy efforts]
 
7. “Come and follow me” (Mt 19:21). 
Is the Lord Jesus Christ the true love of my life? Do I joyfully observe my commitment to love before God in celibate continence? Am I given to impure thoughts, desires or actions? Do I indulge in improper conversation? Have I allowed myself to be in the proximate occasion of sin against chastity? Do I observe custody of the eyes? Have I been prudent in my dealings with the various categories of persons? Does my life represent for the faithful a true witness to the fact that holy purity is possible, fruitful and joyful?
 
8. “ Who are you?” (Jn 1:20). 
In my daily life, am I weak, lazy or indolent? Do my conversations conform to a sense of the natural and supernatural that a priest should have? Am I careful to ensure that there are no elements of vanity or superficiality in my life? Are all my actions consistent with my priestly state?
 
9. “The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Mt. 8:20). 
Do I love Christian poverty? Does my heart belong to God? Am I spiritually detached from everything else? Am I prepared to make sacrifices to better serve God? Am I prepared to give up my comforts, personal plans, and legitimate contacts, for God? Do I possess superfluous things? Do I make unnecessary expenditure or am I taken over by consumerism? Do I use my free time so as to be close to God remembering that I am always a priest – even at these times of rest or vacation?
 
11. “And there flowed out blood and water” (Jn 19:34). 
Am I convinced that when I act “in the person of Christ” that I am directly involved with the same Body of Christ, the Church? Can I sincerely say that I love the Church? Can I sincerely say that I strive with joy for her growth? Am I concerned for her interests, those of all her members and for the whole human race?
 
12. “You are Peter” (Mt 16:18). 
Nihil sine Episcopo – nothing without the Bishop – was a saying of St Ignatius of Antioch. Are these words at the root of my ministry? Do I receive orders, counsels or correction from my Ordinary with docility? Do I pray often for the Holy Father? Am I in full communion with his teaching and intentions? [One huge problem unaddressed by this is, what to do when the local and the Holy Father are in conflict?  What if the local ordinary is, sadly, enamored of the spirit of rupture, even heresy?  Then what?]
 
14. “I am the way, the truth and the life” (Jn 14:6). 
Is my knowledge of the teaching of the Church as comprehensive as it should be? Do I assimilate and transmit her teachings? Am I conscious that to teach something contrary to the Magisterium, solemn or ordinary, is gravely abusive and causes damage to the faithful? [!!! No comment needed]
 
There is more at Rorate Caeli.  20 items in all.  Beautiful.  I will pray that every priest use this examination of conscience, or one even more thorough and traditional, daily.
 
And, yes, this blog is now the OFFICIAL Rorate Caeli mirror site!

Obamacare premium could give $1 billion to abortion industry June 7, 2012

Posted by Tantumblogo in Abortion, Basics, contraception, Dallas Diocese, disaster, General Catholic, horror, persecution, scandals, sickness, Society, unadulterated evil.
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Lovely:

 the pro-life Alliance Defense Fund legal group has a new video out explaining the premium and how it could funnel as much as $1 billion to the abortion industry.

“The Obama Administration’s radical healthcare mandate forces Americans to pay for health insurance coverage that funds the taking of innocent human life and other activities – even if doing so violates their sincerely held religious beliefs,” ADF explains. “Through ObamaCare, the government is attempting to coerce Americans to fund the abortion industry, and will financially punish American citizens who refuse to comply with its demands.”

“Did you know that ObamaCare includes plans that deduct an abortion premium directly from your paycheck to fund all types of elective abortions? And fines will be directly assessed when you file your tax returns if you refuse to comply with its mandates,” ADF continues. “The ObamaCare mandate is worse than you think. There’s a lot more they don’t want you to know.”

I don’t often pray for political things.  But I pray this guy, the most anti-Catholic pro-abort radical leftist ever elected, is defeated, and that his signature accomplishment – the proto-nationalization of the health care industry – is declared completely unconstitutional. From beginning to end.  All of it. 

What a disaster.

Corpus Christi today June 7, 2012

Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, Dallas Diocese, Eucharist, fun, General Catholic, Glory, Interior Life, Latin Mass, Tradition, Virtue.
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What a glorious Feast! And always meant for Thursday, the Thursday after Trinity Sunday!  Get thee to Mass!  I know I’m late with this, if a reminder is necessary for anyone.  Sorry!  Still, there may be some PM Masses around. 

I know of one.

 

I don’t know about you, but I have a positive hunger for the Blessed Sacrament!  Especially if I’ve been away from Mass for a few days, which is unusual, I miss it terribly.  I hunger for it.  I want Christ physically present within me, filling my soul with His Grace!  Yaahoody!  It’s wonderful!

And then the denoument – thank you Lord, for I am so unworthy. 

A beautiful pic shamelessly stolen from Rorate Caeli:

Every one should cry out with Saint Paul: “Dilexit me!” — “He has loved me,” me, me alone, and to prove His love for me, “He delivered Himself for me,” for me alone, to the death of the Cross! With how much stronger reason has He made all other things, visible and invisible, for me, for me alone! 
 
And all that love of God may be summed up, condensed, vouched for in the gift that God made me of His Son, that Jesus Christ made me of Himself in Holy Communion. I am His end. He finishes by uniting Himself to me! All, then, was for me, and for me alone! All since the beginning of the world, and before, has prepared that Gift of personal love He makes me of His Body, His Blood, His Soul, and His Divinity, of all that He is, all that He has, for all ends in me, in my heart, in my soul. 
 
Saint Peter Julian Eymard
Conferences in the Retreat to the Brothers of St. Vincent de Paul
May 1868
 
Much more from the great Eymard at Rorate Caeli.  Check it out.

The Roman Catechism on for whom we ought to pray June 7, 2012

Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, Dallas Diocese, Domestic Church, General Catholic, Interior Life, Tradition, Virtue.
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Prayer consists of three parts: the object of the prayer (the person or thing being prayed for), the need for the prayer, and the desired resolution.  The first part of prayer – the object – is addressed in the Roman Catechism, and I thought it interesting and potentially useful for readers.  Below are excerpts from the TAN version, pp. 525-527:

Prayers should be offered for all:  We are to pray for all mankind, without exception of enemies, nation, or religion; for every man, be he enemy, stranger, or infidel, is our neighbor, whom God commands us to love, and for whom, therefore, we should discharge a duty of love, which is prayer. To the discharge of this duty St. Paul writes: “I desire that prayer be made for all men (1 Tim 2:1).”

Pastors and all clergy:  Before all others the pastors of our souls have a right to our prayers, as we learn from teh example of the Apostle in his Epistle to the Colossians, in which he asks them to pray for him, “that God may open unto him a door of speech (Col 4:3), a request that he also makes to the Thessalonians (1 Thes 5:25).  St. Basil said “We must pray for those who are charged with preaching the word of truth.”

Rulers of our country: In the next place, as St. Paul teaches, we should pray for our rulers.  And, I might add, in this country at this time, for their radical conversion in almost everything they believe.

The Just: To offer up our prayers also for the good and pious is a practice taught by the example of holy men. Even the good and the pious need the prayers of others.  Providence has wisely ordained it so, in order that the just may not be inflated by pride.

Enemies and those outside the Church:  The Lord has also commanded us “to pray for those that persecute and calumniate us. (Matt 5:44).”  The practice of praying for those who are not within the palde of the Church, is, as we know on the authority of St. Augustine, of Apostolic origin.  We pray that the Faith may be made known to infidels; that idolaters may be rescued from the error of their impiety; that the Jews, emerging from the darkness with which aer encompassed, may arrive at the Light of Truth; that heretics, returning to soundness of mind, may be instructed in the Catholic Faith; and that schismatics may be united in the bond of true charity and may return to the Communion  of our Holy Mother the Church.

The dead: Prayers for the dead, that they may be liberated form the fire of Purgatory, are derived from Apostolic teaching and Scripture.

Sinners: Those who are said to sin unto death derive little advantage from prayers and supplications. [I have to wonder at this, I believe I was lost in sin unto death but prayers saved me, or, I pray that they will save me, or continue to do so] It is, however, the part of Christian charity to offer up our prayers and tears for them, in order to obtain their reconciliation with God.  With regard to the execrations uttered by holy men against the wicked, it is certain from the teaching of the Fathers, that they are either prophecies of the evils which befall sinners or denunciations of the crimes of which they are guilty, that the sinner may be saved, but sin destroyed.

Prayers of thanksgiving: In the second part of prayer we render most grateful thanks to God for the Divine and immortal blessings which He has bestowed on us, and continues to bestow.  We should thank also the Saints and Our Blessed Mother for their intercessions and all acts on our behalf and the behalf of all miserable sinners.

70 years ago today…….. June 7, 2012

Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, awesomeness, blogfoolery, Society.
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…….the Battle of Midway ended.  It was fought from June 4-7 1942.  In reality, the action on the 6th and 7th was mostly just mopping up, but Yamamoto did not make a final decision to abandon objective “AF” until the 7th.  It was the first turning point of the Pacific War, in which the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Combined Fleet (Nihon Kaigun) suffered their first serious reverse.  And a serious reverse it was – 4 of their prime, pre-war carriers sunk and a couple hundred of their best pilots killed.  Midway allowed the strategic initiative in the Pacific to pass from the IJN to the USN.  But the issue was contested for the rest of 1942 and well into 1943 in the horrible, grueling fighting in and around Guadalcanal, where the Japanese had local supremacy and the US was frequently outnumberd and outfought.  “Ironbottom Sound” they call the channel between Guadalcanal and Savo Island, because of the dozens of ships sunk there.   But, miraculously, almost as if by Providence, the Americans held on to Guadalcanal in spite of being badly outnumbered in theater and in spite of everything (still very, very considerable) the Japanese could throw at them, and caused severe losses to the Japanese in turn.  The attrition suffered in and around Guadalcanal was truly the end of Nihon Kaigun – the magnificent pre-war fleet constructed so carefully and painstakingly, with so much attention to detail (the Japanese way!), was smashed, broken, and had to be replaced.

What replaced it was weak and ineffectual, nowhere near as efficient as what the USN improvised on the fly in the WWII.  For, whereas the greatest American strength in the war was extemporaneous action, it was the IJN’s greatest weakness. 

McCluskey

I love the Battle of Midway, in a sense.  It was the first battle I really understood as a little kid.  I thought it heroic and wonderful, the Americans so vastly outnumbered outsmarting and outfighting the Japanese.  But so much depended on luck. In spite of being desperately low on fuel, if Wade McCluskey, a grizzled 40 y/0 veteran hadn’t kept following his 6th sense and found the Japanese fleet at the same time Max Leslie stumbled upon it, allowing the two squadrons of SBD-3 Dauntless divebombers to coordinate their attacks and swamp the Japanese defenses, the war could have dragged on for months more than it did. 

That’s right – a devastating defeat at Midway wouldn’t have spelt doom for the US in the Pacific as is often assumed, it would have only prolonged the war.  In reality, Midway

Max Leslie ditching at Yorktown fuel starvation

was a strategic blunder for the Japanese – 6ooo miles from Japan at the end of an extremely vulnerable supply chain, it would have been an albatross around the Japanese necks, not the spring board to the invasion of Oahu.  All the loss of the prewar carriers would have done was to delay the massive US counterattack  – once the two dozen plus Essex class carriers, hundreds of escort carriers, the tens of thousands of aircraft, the thousands of very well trained pilots were ready, it would have been lights out – as is occurred, regardless.

Still, one never knows.  The Japanese were masters at operating in the field with a tiny portion of the logistics US forces required, so maybe they could have pulled it off and genuinely kept Hawai’i under threat.   Maybe the US would have gotten discouraged and sued for peace, as the Japanese hoped.

I have another, older post on Midway here.