Confusion and the fallout in the wake of the Extraordinary and Ordinary Synods on the family and the publication of Amoris Laetitia are clearly prevalent.

However, Catholics who wish to remain true to the Church’s unchangeable teachings on morals and on the Sacraments of Marriage, Reconciliation and the Eucharist, and to Her timeless and enduring discipline regarding those sacraments can add their names to a new petition which is now available to sign.

This petition would appear to have been instigated by the good souls who started the Filial Appeal to His Holiness Pope Francis on the Future of the Family last year. Sadly, the 879,451 signatories to this earlier petition (including many learned prelates and lay), crying out for 'no change to that which cannot be changed' were by and large ignored.

Keep praying, many reparations are required without doubt - and sign!www.filialappeal.org/

I get enquiries every now and again about places such as Llay, Holywell and Buckley  and occasionally about locations a little further away but this one is a record breaker ......

To the chap who left a message on an earlier blog about the availability of the Extraordinary Form in Miami, I reply as follows ......

High Mass at 9 a.m. every Sunday
at the Mission of Saints Francis and Clare
402 Northeast 29th Street
Miami, Florida
 
Low Mass at 8.30 a.m. every Saturday
at the South Miami Hospital Chapel
6200 Southwest 73rd Street
Miami, Florida
 
As I am quite some distance from you, I do not know what the accuracy is of the above and how far they would be from where you reside.

Under the symbol of a wedding feast, the Mass in all its parts declares that all men, Jews and Gentiles, are called to share in the peace of God here, and in the fullness of God hereafter. First of all comes the truth that God alone "is the salvation of the people" from their self-begotten misery.

For Catholics who follow traditional practices, Ember Wednesday, Friday and Saturday are days of fasting and abstinence, partially on Wednesday and Saturday and fully on Friday.

• Wednesday, Friday and Saturday it is 2 small meals and 1 regular.
  
• Wednesday and Saturday, only meat at the regular meal.
  
• Friday no meat at all like all Fridays.

This would apply to those following the practice aged between 21 to 59. The sick and those in labour intensive jobs were always are exempted from the obligation.

As always, such fasting and abstinence has a greater purpose. As the Catholic Encyclopedia notes, through these activities, and through prayer, we use the Ember Days to "thank God for the gifts of nature, . . . teach men to make use of them in moderation, and . . . assist the needy."

Ember Days mark the beginning of Autumn and a small sacrifice by the prayers of the faithful is made for benefit of priests being ordained on the Ember Saturday - as it was on the Ember Saturdays of the year that priestly ordinations often took place.

Unless one does a small amount of penance, Ember Days are meaningless! Our Lord wants us to follow His example as he fasted in the Desert before beginning his public life of 3 years. Christ said that fasting was required to expel some demons. In our own time to combat evil, always inspired by the devil, prayer and fasting seems like a good strategy!

“... that you lack no grace, while awaiting the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I Cor. 1: 7

Dom Prosper Gueranger in his book on the liturgy, The Liturgical Life Vol. XI, tells us that today’s readings contain a most important truth of the Second Coming of Christ. This truth filled the early Church with both hopeful joy and fearful anxiety: “The last coming of the Son of Man is no longer far off! The approach of that final event, which is to put the Church in full possession of her divine Spouse, redoubles her hopes; but the last judgment, which is also to pronounce the eternal perdition of so great a number of her children, mingles fear with her desire; and these two sentiments of hers will henceforth be continually brought forward in the holy liturgy. It is evident that expectation has been, so to say, an essential characteristic of her existence... This explains how it is that the apostles, the interpreters of the Church’s aspirations, are continually recurring to the subject of the near approach of our Lord’s coming.

St. Paul has just been telling us, and that twice over in the same breath, that the Christian is who waiteth for the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, and for the day of His coming... ‘The Lord delayeth not His promise, as some imagine; but dealeth patiently, for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance. But the day of the Lord shall come as a thief, in which the heavens shall pass away with great violence; and the elements shall be melted with heat; and the earth, and the works which are in it, shall be burnt up...’” Gueranger, p. 396-8 This is why St. Paul in today’s Epistle (I Cor. 1:4-7) wants us always to be ready: “... that you lack no grace, while awaiting the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ.” I Cor. 1: 7 This is also why the Church includes in today’s Gospel (Mt. 9:1-8) Jesus’ miraculous cure of the paralytic whose bodily paralysis reveals the more important sickness of his soul: “Take courage, son, thy sins are forgiven thee.” Mt. 9:2 Only with the forgiveness of sins could the members of the early Church ever hope for eternal salvation at the Second Coming of Jesus.

“...he made an evening sacrifice to the Lord.”

These words of today’s Offertory Antiphon show how the preceding Epistle corresponds to the Gospel (Mt. 9:1-8). The Scribes and Pharisees have become evil in their role as the teachers of the Mosaic Law and have not taught the people truthfully. Quoting the Abbot Rupert, Dom Gueranger comments on their false teachings: “Let him not imitate those men, who unworthily sat on the chair of Moses; but let him follow the example of Moses himself, who in the Offertory and its verses, presents the heads of the Church with such a model of perfection. Pastors of souls ought, on no account to be ignorant of the reason why they are placed higher than other men: it is not so much that they may govern others, as that they may serve them.’” (Rupert, Div. Off., xii. 18) Although they were his successors, the Scribes and Pharisees lack the true spirit of Moses. This is why they reject Jesus and refuse to see how His miraculous cure of the paralytic is a sign that He is God and can forgive sins.

“Thy sins are forgiven thee...” Mt. 9: 2

The Church placed today’s Gospel on the forgiveness of sins in the Sunday following the Ember Days of September because this was the time for the ordination of priests who are the ministers of reconciliation. Only the hard-hearted Pharisees could find fault with Jesus in the tender account of this miracle in which He cures a paralytic: “And behold, they brought to him a paralytic lying on a pallet. And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, ‘Take courage, son; thy sins are forgiven thee.’ And behold, some of the Scribes said within themselves, ‘This man blasphemes.’ And Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, ‘Why do you harbour evil thoughts in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, ‘Thy sins are forgiven thee,’ or to say, ‘Arise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has the power on earth to forgive sins’ Mt. 9:2-3 (In St. Luke’s Gospel (cf. Lk.5:18-26), the paralytic is let down from the rooftop by his four friends.) In his commentary on this passage, Dom Gueranger says: “From the very beginning of Christianity, heretics had risen up denying that the Church had the power, which her divine Head gave her, of remitting sin. Such false teachings would irretrievably condemn to spiritual death an immense number of Christians, who, unhappily, had fallen after their Baptism, but who, according to Catholic dogma, might be restored to grace by the sacrament of Penance. With what energy, then would our mother Church defend the remedy which gives life to her children! She uttered her anathemas upon, and drove from her communion, those Pharisees of the new law, who, like their Jewish predecessors, refused to acknowledge the infinite mercy and universality of the great mystery of the Redemption....The outward cure of the paralytic was both the image and the proof of the cure of his soul, which previously had been in a state of moral paralysis; but he himself represented another sufferer, viz., the human race, which for ages had been victim to the palsy of sin. Our Lord had already left the earth, when the faith of the apostles achieved this, their first prodigy, of bringing to the Church the world grown old in its infirmity. Finding that the human race was docile to the teaching of the divine messengers, and was already an imitator of their faith, the Church spoke as a mother, and said: ‘Be of good heart, son! Thy sins are forgiven thee!’ At once, to the astonishment of the philosophers and sceptics, and to the confusion of hell, the world rose up from its long and deep humiliation; and, to prove how thoroughly his strength had been restored to him, he was seen carrying on his shoulders, by the labour of penance and the mastery over his passions, the bed of his old exhaustion and feebleness, on which pride, lust, and covetousness had so long held him. From that time forward, complying with the word of Jesus, which was also said to him by the Church, he has been going on towards his house, which is heaven, where eternal joy awaits him! And the angels, beholding such a spectacle of conversion and holiness (cf. Lk. 5:26), are in amazement, and sing glory to God, who gave such power to men.” Gueranger, pages 404-5 How grateful we should be to God for forgiving our sins!

A little plug for a long standing Mass 'over the border' in the Diocese of Shrewsbury.

Father Joe Carney has celebrated an Old Rite Mass at St Thomas Becket, Tarporely for many years. He says a Low Mass on the third Sunday of the month at 12.30pm.

The church is quite unique and having originally been a café in 1941 it was redeveloped in the early  1970's to what it is today. It is located at the other end of the town on the Nantwich Road (postal code CW6 9UN).

The next Extraordinary Form Mass will next Sunday at 1230pm

As Jesus during His earthly life never ceased to recommend fraternal charity and union, so the Church in the Sunday Masses continually preaches this virtue. She does it today by making use of a passage in St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians (4,1-3). "I, therefore ... beseech you, that you walk worthy of the vocation in which you are called, with all humility and mildness, with patience, supporting one another in charity, careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." The call which we have received is the vocation to Christianity, which is to say, the vocation to love. God, infinite Charity, adopts us as His children, that we may so emulate His charity that love becomes the bond which unites us all in one heart, as the Father and Son are united in one Godhead by the bond of the Holy Spirit. "As Thou, Father, in Me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in Us" (Jn 17,21), was the prayer of Jesus for us.

To "keep unity in the bond of peace" is easy and difficult at the same time. It is easy because when the heart is truly humble, meek, and patient, it bears everything with love, carefully trying to adapt itself to the feelings and desires of others, rather than asserting its own. It is difficult because, as long as we are here below, self-love, even when mortified, always tends to rise and assert its rights, thus creating continual occasions of clashes, the avoidance of which calls for much self-renunciation and much delicacy toward others. We should be persuaded that all that disturbs, weakens, or worse still, destroys fraternal union, does not please God; it does not please Him even if done under pretext of zeal. We should always prefer to renounce our own ideas--although they be good--rather than dispute with our neighbor, except when it is a question of fulfillment of duty or respect for the law of God. An act of humble renunciation for the sake of union and peace among our brethren gives much more glory to God than a glorious deed which might cause discord or disagreement.

Very often the cause of division among good people is excessive self-assertion: the desire to do things one's own way. Given our limitations, there can be nothing so absolute in our ideas that it cannot give way to the ideas of others. If our ideas are good, upright, and brilliant, those of others may be equally good, or even better. Therefore, it is much wiser, more humble and charitable to accept the views of others and to try to reconcile our views with theirs, rather than to reject them, lest we be obliged to give up our personal ways and views. This individualism is the enemy of union; it is a hindrance to good works as well as to spiritual progress.

In today's Epistle, St. Paul puts before us all the reasons why we should preserve union with our neighbor. Be "one body and one spirit; as you are called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all." If God has willed to save and sanctify us all in Christ, uniting us in Him in one body, giving us one same vocation, one faith, and one hope, and being Himself the Father of all, how shall we pretend to save and sanctify ourselves if we are not united with one another? If we do not wish to frustrate God's plan and endanger our salvation and sanctification, we should be ready to make any personal sacrifice whatsoever in order to maintain and strengthen union. Let us bear in mind that Jesus has asked for us not only union, but perfect union: "That they may be made perfect in one" (Jn 17,23).

Today's Gospel (Mt 22,34-46) also repeats that the commandment to love our neighbor is, together with the commandment to love God, the basis of "the whole law," that is, of all Christianity. Let us not turn a deaf ear to these repeated appeals for charity and union; the Church insists on these points because Jesus has insisted on them, and because charity is "the precept of the Lord; if this only is done, it is enough" (St. John the Evangelist).

From Divine Intimacy by Father Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen, O.C.D.

The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest have announced that Canon Cyprian Parant will join Canons Montjean and Tanner as a third Priest at Ss Peter & Paul and St Philomena, New Brighton. He will be on the Wirral during the week and in Copenhagen at weekends - what a contrast!

Thanks be to God for another welcome piece of news for Traditional Catholicism in the England (and I may be pushing it here....) and Wales

The full article can be seen at the Dome of Home website here.

It is my understanding that there will be ordinations in the Extraordinary Form in England next Summer.

Surely, this is the first time that the 1962 books will have been used for an ordination on these isles since the liturgical changes invoked by the Council and again since the Council, it will be the first time an English or Welsh Bishop has performed an ordination using those books.

Deo gratias!

Grant, O Lord, that my soul may be deeply rooted in charity and in humility.
 
The Epistle which we read in today’s Mass is one of the most beautiful passages in the letters of St. Paul. In it we find the famous counsel of the Apostle addressed to the Ephesians, which summarizes in three parts, the whole of the spiritual life.
 
“That the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ... would grant you... to be strengthened by His Spirit with might unto the inward man.” The inward man is the human spirit regenerated by grace; it is the spiritual man who has renounced all material things and the pleasures of the senses.
 
This man is in each one of us and should be strong in order to keep up the struggle against our lower nature, which will always be a part of us while we are on earth, and is always trying to drag us down.
 
The Apostle rightly asks this fortitude of the Holy Spirit, because the strength of our virtue is not sufficient unless it is supported by what the Holy Spirit infuses into us through His gifts.
 
That Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts. Christ with the Father and the Holy Spirit already dwells in the soul in the state of grace, but His presence can always become more profound. And the more profound His presence, the more deeply will the soul be penetrated with divine charity, until it becomes truly “rooted and founded” in love. If we wish to grow in love we should keep ourselves in contact with the fount of love, with God living in our soul.
 
“That you may be able to comprehend... the charity of Christ, which surpasseth all knowledge.” To comprehend the mystery of God’s love, insofar as it is possible to our limitations, is the summit of the spiritual life. Christianity is all love: we are Christians in the measure that we live in love, in the measure that we understand God’s love. Yet this mystery always leaves us a little incredulous, a little skeptical.
 
Oh! if we could see as the blessed do , that God is love and wishes nothing but love; that the way to go to Him is the way of love; that suffering, mortification and humility are only means to reach perfect love, and to correspond with the love of the God who is Charity! Then indeed we would be “filled unto all the fullness of God.”
 
St. Paul in the Epistle has exhorted us to be rooted in love, and in the Gospel, Jesus exhorts us to be rooted in love and in humility.
 
Despite the tacit disapproval of the Pharisees, caused by their narrowness of mind and heart, Jesus cured a man of dropsy on the Sabbath, thus teaching its again, the great importance of love of neighbour. In vain would we believe that we were rooted in the love of God if we failed in our love of neighbour. How could one think that an act of fraternal charity might be in opposition to the law for sanctifying the Sabbath? Such are the aberrations of one who pretends to love God while paying attention solely to his own interests, without any thought for the needs of others. This is not Christianity, but Pharisaism and the destruction of charity.
 
To be rooted in love, we must also be rooted in humility, for only he who is humble is capable of really loving God and His neighbour. The Gospel continues with a practical lesson in humility, condemning those who seek the first places. We should not think that this refers only to material places; it refers also to those places which our pride seeks to occupy in the esteem and regard of others. It is really humiliating to note how our self-love always tries to make us take a higher place than that which is due us, and this to our own confusion, for “he that exalteth himself shall be humbled.” “Let us always take the lowest place,” says St. Bernard, “there is no harm in humbling ourselves and believing that we are less than we really are. But there is exceeding harm and great evil in wishing to elevate ourselves, even if only a finger’s breadth, above what we are and in preferring ourselves to even one. There is no danger in stooping too much to pass through a low doorway, whereas there would be great danger in lifting our head even an inch above the lintel, as we would strike against it and injure our head; similarly, we should not be afraid that we shall humble ourselves too much, but should fear and abominate the slightest movement of presumption.” Let us, like the saints, ask God to send us a humiliation every time our pride tries to raise us above others; this will be the surest way to become rooted in humility. At the same time, we shall be rooted in charity and shall thus possess the two fundamental characteristics of a Christian soul.
 
From Divine Intimacy
Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen

The saintly Pope, whose efforts to bring the Great Powers to the negotiating table prior to the First World War, died when his efforts came to naught. War is a punishment for sin, Our Lady confirmed this when she told the children at Fatima in 1917 that many of the souls, killed in the war, and falling into hell, were plunged, into eternal flames, as punishment for sin. As we know, an even greater war followed the first in 1939 because of a lack of repentance and an increase in evil.

St. Pius X began the reform of the Roman Liturgy, that is the breviary and Missal, by simplifying the rubrics of both somewhat and by restoring the Sunday Masses and Masses of Lent.

One surprised writer of the time, declared that Sundays suddenly turned green, that is in colour, when the Sunday Masses were restored to positions of importance. Over the centuries feasts of the saints had come to supersede the Sunday Masses, and the theme of seasons became nebulous in that many feasts had little to do with the season. On weekdays feasts of lesser saints were said in place of the ancient Lenten Masses, and the season of Lent, with its mournful color, violet, had become confused.

St. Pius X is known as the Pope of the Eucharist in that he encouraged the daily reception of Holy Communion and lowered the age of First Communion to the age of reason, which was held to be about 7 years old, wherein the child was able to discern the difference between ordinary bread and Holy Communion.

It is sad to contemplate that the reforms begun by the saintly pope, which were continued by his successors and culminated in the simplified rubrics of the Mass and Breviary of 1960, have been largely put aside by certain clergy, and questionable practices in music and liturgy are prevalent. It is one thing to make God's Home as beautiful as possible and the liturgy as noble as humanly possible. It is quite another to go to extremes in theatricals and secular music. St. Pius X, whose motto was "To Restore All Things in Christ," should be a model for Catholics. He was canonised in 1954 by Pope Pius XII. A saintly Augustinian priest, present that day, said the crowds not only filled St. Peter's in Rome but thousands of persons were present in the square as well.

All things can be restored in the Church only through fasting, prayer and silence by both clergy and laymen - the Traditional Mass certainly brings about solemn silence in the prayers and actions of the liturgy that continues to give glory to God today as it has in centuries gone by.

Our Lord will in time restore the Church to health through prayer and sacrifice rendered by his people. He will not see the Church falter, He will cleanse and nurture His Immaculate Bride!

Perhaps we should ask (well, there is no perhaps about it really) the intercession of St. Pius X to shorten the time of the restoration.