About that help I requested for Plano Community Home…. September 1, 2016
Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin.comments closed
A few weeks ago, I posted a request for help for people at the Plano Community Home to assist at Mass. Unfortunately, when dealing with several layers of people, and especially elderly people, messages can become confused. It seems I may have fallen victim to a group of elderly people in various stages of dementia, who forgot that there actually is already a Mass offered at PCH every Sunday. I did query if any of these folks would be interested in assisting at the TLM, but there was no interest.
Amazingly, these people did contact the diocese, and, I understand, a parish or two, looking for rides to Mass, even though they have one at their home. As I said, there may have been some memory issues or some other things at play. But there is no real need at this point. I apologize for the confusion and for getting people exercised over nothing. Others with a little better frame of mind clarified the situation for me and I don’ t think any assistance is called for at this time. Thank you very much to those who generously offered to help, however.
Your humble blogger begs your assistance.
Cardinal Burke Comes Out, Cryptically, for Trump? September 1, 2016
Posted by Tantumblogo in Abortion, Basics, catachesis, contraception, episcopate, General Catholic, Immigration, Society, true leadership, Virtue.comments closed
No, not at all by name, but he does seem to inveigh against -as a matter of prudence – voting for third parties or writing in a name on the ballot. His comments seem to endorse the position that one is obligated to vote for the best candidate that has a chance to win, not simply the best candidate. This is his prudential judgment, of course, meaning it is not something that binds on conscience, but it does seem to be the majority opinion among some of the better Catholic leaders – lay and clergy – today:
Cardinal Raymond Burke, one of the most outspoken defenders on Catholic teaching regarding life, marriage, sexuality, and the family, weighed in on the upcoming U.S. election, telling reporters that the faithful must vote for the candidate who will do the most to “advance” the protection of human life, defense of the family, respect for freedom, and care for the poor.
“I think that what we have to do in this time is to look at both candidates to see if one of them will not, at least in some way, advance the common good, both with respect to the good of human life, the good of the family, the freedom of conscience, the care of the poor, and to look at that very carefully,” the Cardinal told reporters during an international teleconference conducted by Carmel Communications and attended by LifeSiteNews………
……..“More than likely the judgment will be that neither candidates ideally answers these questions all in the way that we want. But given the nature of our government, can we in conscience support one of the candidates, at least, who, while maybe [he or she] doesn’t support everything that we believe and know is important, will at least support it to a certain extent with the hope that that candidate can be convinced to embrace evermore fully the common good,” he said.
Burke warned Catholics against not voting at all and against the practice of writing in the name of a preferred candidate on the ballot, saying it could inadvertently cause the election of a candidate who does not respect life, family, and freedom. [He seems to be drawing a distinction between the two major candidates throughout, giving something of an endorsement to one, and warning against the other, without mentioning names. I’m sure you can discern which is which]
“And I understand these sentiments very well. But one also has to be very prudent, and know that by not voting at all you are probably favoring one candidate or another,” he said, adding that even if Catholics wrote in the name of a favored candidate, it would be unlikely for such a person to become elected.
“The moral weight to voting is indeed very heavy. In other words, every vote counts,” he said.
Burke urged Catholics to study carefully the positions of both running candidates before voting.
“Those are difficult considerations, and I don’t say any of this in a kind of easy way. But I do think that Catholics especially need to be very cautious and not simply opting out, or good pro-life people and good pro-family people, simply just throwing up their hands. I would just urge them to study the position of both candidates, to the fullest possible degree, to see whether or not one of them will not advance, at least to some degree, restoration of the civilization of life and love in our country.”
I take this as a call to support Trump. Obviously, Hillary is a non-starter on a whole range of issues, the most horrifying of which is her unlimited support for abortion on demand at any stage of pregnancy and possibly with state funding.
I’m sure the Trump fans will be gratified by this. Since the Constitution Party failed to make the Texas ballot, I really have no choice at this point.
Why Mercy and Joy Without Penance Lead to Spiritual Barrenness September 1, 2016
Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, catachesis, different religion, episcopate, error, General Catholic, history, Liturgical Year, sanctity, scandals, secularism, Society, Tradition, Virtue.comments closed
A little blurb from Dom Prosper Gueranger below, intended originally for Easter, but applicable, really, to the entirety of the year. To make that applicability more clear, I alter the text, changing references to Easter to a more generic Sunday, but the truth, the message, remains the same.
The key point is that an inordinate focus on Sunday joy and open-ended mercy, without a call to conversion and penance, does not lead to great spiritual fruit, but to spiritual emptiness. There can be little Easter joy without a Lenten “sadness,” meaning penance, and this is something fundamental to human nature:
“There are certain carnal minds, that seem unable to open their eyes to spiritual things, unless roused by some unusual excitement; and for this reason, the Church makes use of such means. Thus, the Lenten Fast, which we offer up to God as our yearly tithe, goes on till the most sacred night of Easter; then follow fifty days without so much as one single Fast. [Gueranger makes plain, that it was long the practice in the Church, up to at least the 13th or 14th century, that during the Easter season, there used to be NO fasting of any kind, not even Rogation or Ember Days. I am not certain about Friday abstinence, but from what he has said, that may not have been observed at that time, either, as it was seen as being contrary to that most festive of seasons. The Church, in her wisdom and for a number of good reasons, changed that practice over the last 700 or 800 years, to what we have today] Hence it happens, that while the body is being mortified, and is to continue to be so until Easter Night, that holy night is eagerly looked forward to even by the carnal-minded; they long for it to come; and meanwhile, they carefully count each of the forty days as a wearied traveler does the miles. Thus, the sacred Solemnity is sweet to all, and dear to all, and desired by all, as light is to them that walk in darkness as a fount of living water is to them that thirst, and as a “tent which the Lord hath pitched” for wearied wayfarers.
What a happy time was that, when, as St. Bernard expresses it, there was not one in the whole Christian army, that neglected his Sunday duty, and when all, both just and sinners, walked together in the path of the penitential observances! Alas, those days are gone, and Sunday has not the same effect on the people of our generation! The reason is that a love of ease and a false conscience lead so many Christians to treat the law of penance with as much indifference, as though there were no such law existing. Hence, Sunday comes upon them as a Feast – it may be a great Feast – but that is all; they experience little of that thrilling joy which fills the heart of the Church on this day, and which she evinces in everything she does……They have not observed the fast, or the abstinence…..even the mitigated form in which the Church now presents them to her children, in consideration of their weakness, is still too severe for them! They seek a total dispensation from this law of mortification, and without regret or remorse. [And they receive it, even to the point of now being encouraged by the highest authority to obviate the moral law, as being too hard, or “unmerciful!”] How can the Alleluia find a response in the soul, when penance has not done its work of purification; it has not spiritualized them; how then, could they follow their risen Jesus, whose life is henceforth more of Heaven than of earth?
———-End Quote———-
Hopefully the point is clear, typing it out, it didn’t seem to leap off the page quite as much as it did when I first read it. What is being said, is that the present emphasis of so many in the Church, and going back fifty years, is not working because it is contrary to human nature and contrary to God’s order of things. Penance before celebration. Conversion before salvation. Reversing them isn’t a shortcut up the long, narrow, rocky path of eternal life, it’s a diversion onto the wide highway of destruction.
My schedule on Gueranger is screwed up now, I’m almost done reading the entire series (well – almost = 6 months left on a 5 year project), so I’m just reading bits and pieces from each volume I hadn’t had time to get through before as I polish off the series. That’s why I’m reading Paschal Volume II during…….September.
Meh. You takes what you gets when you gets it for free.
I’m bailing early today for a long weekend, don’t know if I’ll have time for another post or not. If not, have a blessed weekend!
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