Ubi Petrus

Everyone knows the Palm Sunday liturgies can be taxing on everyone. As the entrance to Holy Week they get attention and attendance that I’d venture to guess outstrip any of the mid-week liturgies until the Easter Vigil. Now I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen any priest decide to use the short form of the Palm Sunday readings and for that I am quite glad.

My son, apparently, had some sort of disagreement with that however. While I was in our RCIA session my wife and kids were at the Church for Mass; near to the end of the Gospel he, as my wife retells, turned his head up to the sky, his eyes rolled back and he collapsed. Needless to say that was not an event that went unnoticed. He had been sick earlier this week but everything at least seemed normal for the past couple of days. This, however, has us all a little on edge. He’ll be going in to see the doctor tomorrow; it was the doctor’s suggestion that since he was asymptomatic after the initial event we needn’t take him to the emergency room right away. We’re told that after some amount of bloodwork and whatever other tests they may decide to run we’re likely to find nothing and that it was an isolated incident. Some fat lot of consolation that is when you look in the eyes of your young child and can see a twinge of fear peaking back out at you. Ahh, sleep likely won’t be plentiful tonight.

Please, if you could, keep him in your prayers. And while you’re at it, throw a couple of prayers heavenward for his soon-to-be sleep-deprived parents. My kid instruction book didn’t come with pages for dealing with this. St. Luke, ora pro nobis!

I wanted to make sure I posted this just on the off chance someone who is affected might come across this and not otherwise be aware – the next Extraordinary Form Mass at St. Patrick’s Parish in Nashua will not be on Easter but rather the next Sunday, March 30th at 2:00 PM. Father Kelly writes:

Because requests for an afternoon celebration on Easter Sunday were not numerous there will be none that day. The celebration scheduled for Sunday, March 30, is n exception to the normal schedule both in regard to week and time. The normal schedule will resume in April.

I wanted to put up that clarification so no one got any misunderstandings about whether Father Kelly was willing to have an extra Mass during the Triduum. All of us in this Diocese are in his debt.

Now this is a movement just about everyone should be able to get behind:

The Worldwide Hour of Eucharistic Adoration will take place at 7:00 p.m. local time on April 2nd, 2008, the Third Anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s death.

By hosting this hour in time zones throughout the world, this will result in a full calendar day of Eucharistic Adoration in remembrance of Pope John Paul II.

This endeavor will work towards the promotion and education of Eucharistic Adoration worldwide.

Adoration ends with Benediction at 5:00 PM at my parish, but there are three other Perpetual Adoration chapels around that I know of. It’d certainly be nice, though, if any parish that has the capacity for Adoration (i.e. a Monstrance, a valid minister to expose and repose the Blessed Sacrament, and the commitment of at least one person for the hour) were to schedule something for that one hour. Just the thought must send shockwaves through the depths of Hell.

H/T to Mark Shea.

Kevin at biblicalia announced a new mailing list a while ago:

The moderators would like to announce the release of their new biblical studies email list, The Biblicalist

The Biblicalist is a biblical studies list of academic emphasis open to all who wish to approach the Bible in its wider context, past and present. All viewpoints and perspectives which draw on the work of scholars in
biblical studies and cognate disciplines are welcome.

Topics of discussion include the interpretation of particular texts of the Bible and related literature, the background of ancient Near Eastern and Classical cultures, theological and philosophical reflections on
relevant issues, and the Bible in art and literature, including the reception of the Bible from ancient times to the present. Other topics in a similar vein are not only welcome, but encouraged.

Yeah, it was quite a while ago, but I’m still digging out from under my piles of accumulated “I need to get to that”. I probably will be for a while too.

So I’ll use those of others:

The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church. — Tertullian

The body of Chaldean Archbishop Rahho has been found in a shallow grave.

In paradisum deducant te Angeli: in tuo adventu suscipiant te Martyres, et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Jerusalem. Chorus Angelorum te suscipiat, et cum Lazaro quondam paupere aeternam habeas requiem.

May the Angels lead thee into paradise: may the Martyrs receive thee at thy coming, and lead thee into the holy city of Jerusalem. May the choir of Angels receive thee, and mayest thou have eternal rest with Lazarus, who once was poor.

I’ve been ruminating lately on this whole debacle with NY Governor Spitzer and his rather pricey dalliances with the “escort service” (aka prostitution ring). There is, I will admit, a certain part of me that wants to join in the schadenfreude of some who have been willing to find joy in finally seeing his hypocrisy bite him. But no, I just can’t find it in myself to catch much joy in this.

Yes, a great enemy of the pro-life movement has been knocked out of the public ring. Yes, this serves as a good reminder that “sin makes you stupid” and a reflection of the reality that public sin is often a image of private sin. It can certainly be argued that Spitzer’s outspoken public support of unlimited abortion rights has had an effect on other aspects of his life, including his predilection for other sins in the same general (in this case, sexual) area. All of these are important points.

For me though, at the end of the day, it’s still a story about a soul who has tragically lost his way and taken others down with him, and for that I cannot be happy. No, when I see Gov. Spitzer now I grieve for his wife and children who have to suffer this public humiliation. Even more, I grieve for him and the utter danger in which he has placed his immortal soul. When I look at him, all I can do is pray to God that he be able to open his heart to the One who is Truth, repent of his ways and reconciled both to Him and His creation. Will it happen? I don’t know, but I have no choice but to hope.

While I’m here, I also have to admit a profound sadness for the young lady, Ashley Dupre, with whom he committed such terrible acts. Not only did she help an untold number of others do serious damage to their souls but she did the same, if not worse, damage to herself. In the temporal order now that her bikini-clad picture has been splattered all over the front-page news right above her name she may never be able, or at least feel as though she will never be able, to move beyond this terrible error in her life. Even if she does find some peace and/or success in her life there will always be a lingering doubt as to whether she earned it on her own or really just got by because of this whole episode. Lingering doubts are the devil’s play area. I hope and pray that she will allow herself to look beyond this period in her life and see the God who loves her enough to will her very existence, and that society will somehow allow her to walk the path that takes her to Him who made her.

No, I find no joy in this, no day of rejoicing. What I do find, however, is the ever-present cause for hope in the knowledge that God himself saw this coming even as He hung on the cross and did not forgo His part. That chance for reconciliation is always there for all of us, great sinners and great saints alike. Maybe, then, there is a small joy in this for the Heavens will rejoice greatly if out of this tragedy souls find their way to God.

Ignorant Redneck asks for our prayers for his daughter:

My youngest daughter was in an auto accident yesterday at about 2:30 PM. She sustained broken bones in her face, facial lacerations, and some brain injury. We have made the first 24 hour hurdle–no significant swellin of the brain, and a stable intercranial pressure. (She has a shunt and some monitoring equipment implanted in her head.) The facial fractures are considered minor–everything is in place and the fractures are clean.

Her updated status:

Meg is still listed in serious condition, but she is showing some signs of improvement. She opened her eyes a bit today. The nurse saw it ans asked her to do it again and she did. she also wiggled her fingers on request, and her toes. The wrong toes, but she did hear and understand, and wiggle them.

My sister was in a car accident as a teenager (she’ll admit, it was her fault) so I have a small idea of what IR is going through. St. Luke, pray for the doctors in whose hands she has been placed!

I was going to blog on the brain-dead article in the Times regarding the Church’s recent statements on bioethics and the environment. But then I saw that Mark Shea beat me to it:

To begin with is the whole “rules based” approach of the author, which is fundamentally tone deaf to the fact that the faith is about relationship, not breaking rules. Off on that wrong footing, the author then makes it sound like the Vatican has added new “mortal sins” to some traditional list in order to keep up with Euro-trendiness. As is often the case, Dante somehow becomes an extension of the Magisterium (and the author even concludes with a list of official looking hellish punishments for the traditional seven deadlies, all derived from the Inferno).

Since he said pretty much everything I was going to, I’ll just leave you to read his post rather than repeating it here.

I recently finished Mike Aquilina’s book, The Mass of the Early Christians. I’ve been sufficiently busy that I haven’t had a chance to write even this short review until now, much to my chagrin. Suffice it to say, Mike has done it again – the book is fantastic.

If you’re looking for an exhaustive source review of every single patristic source, this slim volume won’t give you what you want. If, however, you want a good, solid overview of the writings of many of the Church Fathers on the Mass – and even some heretical and pagan writings – this is the book for you. Unlike some of Mike’s other books he doesn’t just let the Fathers do the talking in this tome, he also takes up the opportunity to do some instruction of his own. I simply can’t say how necessary that is if in no other area than that surrounding the Discipline of the Secret whereby the early Fathers would be (at best) elliptical in their remarks on what happened during the Mass. Without Mike’s most helpful commentary the reader would feel lost reading the early writers’ statements and could easily conclude that they really didn’t see the Mass in the same fashion we do today, and a horrible mistake that would be.

One other tribute to this book is Mike’s foresight to include not just the Church Fathers but also heretics and pagans. We so often know, or at least have an inkling, what the Church has believed and said, but yet we rarely it seems look to see what others said about the Church. That insularity was hardly a mark of the early Church, even during the persecutions. Since this dialog necessarily had two sides it is critical to know what the “other” side had to say in order to understand the Fathers’ responses. It would be, in a way, like trying to explain the transition from the Apostles’ Creed to the Nicene Creed without mentioning Arianism – possible, but so desperately much more shallow.

I can virtually guarantee I didn’t get the full depths of what I read in this book the first time. That first time, however, will not be the last. If you like patristics or liturgy or history or just the Church herself buy the book. If you don’t like patristics when you start the book, you’re likely to by the time you’re done.

It’s a “thing” for me to always assume I’m missing something when I see someone do something I believe to be wrong. That habit really grew in me when I was still in my conversion process and I was reading Pope John Paul II’s Evangelium vitae – his arguments were so contrary to what I’d thought and yet so well thought out I realized I just might not know everything there was to know on a given subject.

So, with that said, I’m assuming that I’m missing something here. Have I missed somewhere that gives permission to proclaim the Gospel at Mass using an alternation of priest, lay reader and song? It went something like this: Father reads a portion of the Gospel, then the cantor pops in for a refrain, then a lay leader reads some, back to the cantor, to the other reader, then the cantor, back to Father and around again. Now I know on Palm (Passion) Sunday it is allowed that the Passion be read in parts, but I have never seen that allowance made for any other day of the year. Did I miss something? I’ve checked the GIRM, Redemptionis sacramentum and all sorts of sites that Google popped up, but I’ve not found a single source that suggests this is allowed. Someone tell me I’ve missed something and that I did not witness the abuse of invention that I think I did. Put another way, there are times when I hate being right, and this would be one of them.