Checking Up On The Traddy

My tracking software informed me that at 5:32pm this evening someone from the US House of Representatives visited my blog. Just a few hours earlier I had posted about Kanjorski's plans to hold a "Telephone Town Hall Meeting" in lieu of meeting his constituents face to face during this health insurance debacle.

I feel all cool now that the opposition is checking me out...

The Merging of Parishes - Not Rosy

From a reader:

I am a member of a parish merging with a more trad parish in the Cleveland diocese. The trads both kneel at the altar and have a line for those receiving standing, and receiving on the tongue seems to be the norm for their communicants.

Our parish church will be where the newly-merged parish will worship, and our priest is vehemently opposed to kneeling for Communion (please note this opposition is not coming from our parishioners - I think most of us love and respect the people from the trad parish.) As members of merger committees, we contacted the Diocese for some kind of guidance (which served to anger our priest, unfortunately), and we were given documentation from the USCCB stating that the norm in the US is to receive standing, but that anyone who kneels cannot be denied, and of course, receiving on the tongue is perfectly correct.

Our priest appears to think he will be named the new pastor, and we are hoping the parishioners from the other parish will not be discouraged, because I think we will be a strong parish - we need each other, and each parish has fine attributes and good, decent parishioners. Please pray for us.

I believe this is a scenario we will see played over and over throughout the country. Be sure to remember this parish in particular and all parishes going through these transitions in your prayers.

Kanjorski has "Telephone Town Hall Meeting" planned

It seems that Paul Kanjorski is afraid of having a real town hall meeting with his constituents.

They are planning a "telephone town hall meeting" tomorrow evening at 7pm. You have to call his office to get on the list and they will call you prior to the meeting. You will then be connected in a conference call with him. Call his office and and plan to holler at Kanjorski with the Traddy!



(202) 225-6511
(570) 825-2200
(570) 496-1011
(570) 895-4176

What a wuss.

Tell your Senator Oppose Sotomayor!

This was forwarded to me today, it is already a few days old, so we must act right away.

Earlier today, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to send the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to be the next Justice on the US Supreme Court to the full Senate for a vote. That vote is expected to happen in the next few days.

During the hearings on her nomination, I hoped that she would repudiate the radical views of the pro-abortion legal advocacy group on whose board she sat for 12 years - the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF). During that time, the PRLDEF filed six amicus briefs before the Court arguing that any limitation on abortion should be struck down.

Unfortunately, Judge Sotomayor did not offer any reassurance that she will be anything other than a strong promoter of abortion if confirmed to the Supreme Court.

So, I provided testimony before the Committee and explained why it was necessary for us to oppose her confirmation to the Court.

Now, I need you to join your voice with mine.

Will you contact your Senators and ask them to vote against the confirmation of Judge Sotomayor to be the next Justice on the US Supreme Court?

We've set up a page on the AUL Action web site that makes it easy to do. And then, please ask your friends and family to do the same.

This is a crucial time. Thank you for helping.

For life,

Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D.
President & CEO
AUL Action

Can you?

As my regular reader has learned, two of my biggest pet peeves are communion in the hand and laymen distributing communion.

Oh, and altar girls. But that would make it my biggest three pet peeves.

For some time now His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI has required that communicants receiving from him do so only on the tongue, kneeling. As we see in this picture here.

Pope Benedict is not one to coerce, he teaches. This is exactly what he has been doing his entire Pontificate. And now he continues to teach us the proper way to receive our Lord.

So it would seem now that the Pope would like us to begin on our own, without an edict from him, receiving in the tongue, kneeling. Can you do this? In your Novus Ordo good time parish? Can you obey your Holy Father?

I can.

Leave me a comment if you can too.

From Newsblaze

"Whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the Body and of the Blood of the Lord... For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the Body of the Lord" - 1 Corinthians 11:27,28

Pope Benedict to Catholics:
Kneel and Receive on the Tongue Only

Pope Benedict XVI does not want the faithful receiving Communion in their hand nor does he want them standing to receive Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. According to Vatican liturgist, Monsignor Guido Marini, the pope is trying to set the stage for the whole church as to the proper norm for receiving Communion for which reason communicants at his papal Masses are now asked to kneel and receive on the tongue.

The Holy Father's reasoning is simple: "We Christians kneel before the Blessed Sacrament because, therein, we know and believe to be the presence of the One True God." (May 22, 2008)

According to the pope the entire Church should kneel in adoration before God in the Eucharist. "Kneeling in adoration before the Eucharist is the most valid and radical remedy against the idolatries of yesterday and today" (May 22, 2008)

The pope's action is in accord with the Church's 2000 year tradition and is being done in order to foster a renewed love and respect for the Eucharist which presently is being mocked and treated with contempt. The various trends and innovations of our time (guitar liturgy, altar girls, lay ministers, Communion in the hand) have worked together to destroy our regard for the Eucharist, thus advancing the spiritual death of the church. After all, the Eucharist is the very life and heartbeat of the Mystical Body around which the entire Church must revolve.

Kneeling also coincides with the Church's centuries old ordinance that only the consecrated hands of a priest touch the Body of Christ in Holy Communion. "To priests alone has been given power to consecrate and administer to the faithful, the Holy Eucharist." (Council of Trent) This teaching is beautifully expressed by St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica: "Because out of reverence towards this sacrament, nothing touches it, but what is consecrated; hence the corporal and the chalice are consecrated, and likewise the priest's hands, for touching this sacrament."

It is for reason that Pope Paul VI in his May 1969 pastoral letter to the world's bishops reaffirmed the Church's teaching on the reception of Communion, stating that: "This method on the tongue must be retained." (Memoriale Domini) This came in response to the bishops of Holland who started Communion in the hand in defiance of the centuries old decree from the Council of Rouen (650 A.D.) where this practice was condemned as sacrilegious. "Do not put the Eucharist in the hands of any layperson, but only in their mouths." To date this prohibition has never been overturned legally.

Today Communion in the hand is carried on illegally and has become a major tool of the enemy to destory the Faith throughout the world. For this practice serves no other purpose than to warp our conception of Jesus Christ and nourish a contempt for the sacred mysteries. It's no wonder St. Basil referred to Communion in the hand as "a grave fault."

That is to say, Communion in the hand is not tied with Catholic tradition. This practice was first introduced to the Church by the heretical Arians of the 4th century as a means of expressing their belief that Christ was not divine. Unfortunately, it has served to express the same in our time and has been at the very heart of the present heresy and desecration that is rampant throughout the universal Church. If we have 'abuse' problems today it is because we're abusing the Sacrament - it's backfiring on us!

Thanks to Communion in the hand, members of satanic cults are now given easy access to come into the Church and take the Host so that they bring it back to their covens where it is abused and brutalized in the ritualistic Black Mass to Satan. They crush the Host under their shoes as a mockery to the living God, and we assist it with our casual practice? Amongst themselves the satanists declare that Communion in the hand is the greatest thing that ever happened to them, and we do nothing to stop it?

Hence, the Holy Father is doing his part to try to purge the Church of abuse and we as members of Christ are called upon to assist him. For your encouragement we include the following quotation from Cardinal Llovera, the new prefect for the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments speaking to Life Site News on July 22, 2009: "It is the mission of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Sacraments to work to promote Pope Benedict's emphasis on the traditional practices of liturgy, such as reception of Communion on the tongue while kneeling."

Also worth considering is the recent decree from Cardinal Caffarra, the Archbishop of Bologna Italy, forbidding the practice of Communion in the hand: "Many cases of profanation of the Eucharist have occurred, profiting by the possibility to receive the consecrated Bread on one’s palm of the hand... Considering the frequency in which cases of irreverent behavior in the act of receiving the Eucharist have been reported, we dispose that starting from today in the Metropolitan Church of St. Peter, in the Basilica of St. Petronius and in the Shrine of the Holy Virgin of St. Luke in Bologna the faithful are to receive the consecrated Bread only from the hands of the Minister directly on the tongue." (from his decree on the reception of the Eucharist, issued April 27, 2009)

Technically all bishops and clergy are bound to follow the Holy Father's directive on this issue, but in the meantime the faithful are not obliged to wait for the approval of their bishop in order to kneel for God. The directives of the Holy Father are not subject to the veto or scrutiny of the bishops and therefore all pastors and laity have a right and duty to put these directives into practice for the edification of their communities.

Pornapalooza!

Does anyone recall a few years back when "Gentleman's Club 10" opened in Wilkes-Barre township?

Does anyone remember the outrage?

"How dare they open a strip club right on the main drag, so close to the arena and area shopping centers?"

Why has that furor died down?

How come no one asked why the "Adult" Playtime Boutique which shows pornographic movies in little booths where men go to engage in impure activities remains open? And right there across from Denny's, too.

And don't get me started that Cinema 309 is located right next to Kmart. Men regularly post ads on Craigslist to met up there for sex.

No outrage there?

I think it's time we take back our towns from these purveyors of porn.

Anyone agree?

Are you in a different Church?

Ponder the writing of Saint Thomas Aquinas:

"'One faith,' St. Paul writes (Eph. 4:5). Hold most firmly that our faith is identical with that of the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church ... We must hold this for certain, namely: that the faith of the people at the present day is one with the faith of the people in past centuries. Were this not true, then we would be in a different church than they were in and, literally, the Church would not be One." – St. Thomas Aquinas

The Pains of Hell - Part Deux

Here is the promised sequel to yesterdays Pains of Hell by Saint Anthony Mary Claret.

A Hundred Kingdoms

"Ah!" you would say, "If you offered me a hundred kingdoms I would never be so foolish as to accept your brutal terms, regardless of how grand your offer might be, even if I were sure that God would preserve my life during those moments of suffering."

Second, I ask you: If you already had possession of a great kingdom and were swimming in a sea of wealth so that nothing was wanting to you, and then you were attacked by an enemy, were imprisoned and put in chains and obliged to either renounce your kingdom or else spend a half-hour in a hot furnace, what would you choose? "Ah!" you would say, "I would prefer to spend my whole life in extreme poverty and submit to any other hardship and misfortune, than suffer such a great torment!"

A Prison of Eternal Fire

Now turn your thoughts from the temporal to the eternal. To avoid the torment of a hot furnace, which would last but a half-hour, you would forgo all your property, even things you are most fond of; you would suffer any other temporal loss, however burdensome. Then why do you not think the same way when you are dealing of eternal torments? God threatens you not just with a half-hour in a furnace, but with a prison of eternal fire. To escape it, should you not forgo whatever He has forbidden, no matter how pleasant it can be for you, and gladly embrace whatever He commands, even if it be extremely unpleasant?

A most terrible thing about Hell is its duration. The condemned person loses God and loses Him for all eternity. Now, what is eternity? O my soul, up to now there has not been any angel who has been able to comprehend what eternity is. So how can you comprehend it? Yet, to form some idea of it, consider the following truths:

Eternity never ends. This is the truth that has made even the great saints tremble. The final judgment will come, the world will be destroyed, the earth will swallow up those who are damned, and they will be cast into Hell. Then, with His almighty hand, God will shut them up in that most unhappy prison.

From then on, as many years will pass as there are leaves on the trees and plants on all the earth, as many thousands of years as there are drops of water in all seas and rivers, as many thousands of years as there are atoms in the air, as there are grains of sand on all the shores of all seas. Then, after the passage of this countless number of years, what will eternity be? Up to then there will not even have been a hundredth part of it, nor a thousandth – nothing. It then begins again and will last as long again, even after this has been repeated a thousand times, and a thousand million times again. And then, after so long a period, not even a half will have passed, not even a hundredth part nor a thousandth, not even any part of eternity. For all this time there is no interruption in the burnings of those who are damned, and it begins all over again.

Oh, a deep mystery indeed! A terror above all terrors! O eternity! Who can comprehend thee?

The Tears of Cain

Suppose that, in the case of unhappy Cain, weeping in Hell, he shed in every thousand years just one tear. Now, O my soul, recollect your thoughts and suppose this case: For six thousand years at least Cain has been in Hell and shed only six tears, which God miraculously preserves. How many years would pass for his tears to fill all the valleys of the earth and flood all the cities and towns and villages and cover all the mountains so as to flood the whole earth? We understand the distance from the earth to the sun is thirty-four million leagues. How many years would be necessary for Cain's tears to fill that immense space? From the earth to the firmament is, let us suppose, a distance of a hundred and sixty million leagues.

O God! What number of years might one imagine to be sufficient to fill with these tears this immense space? And yet – O truth so incomprehensible – be sure of it, as that God cannot lie – a time will arrive in which these tears of Cain would be sufficient to flood the world, to reach even the sun, to touch the firmament, and fill all the space between earth and the highest heaven. But that is not all.

If God dried up all these tears to the last drop and Cain began again to weep, he would again fill the same entire space with them and fill it a thousands times and a million times in succession, and after all those countless years, not even half of eternity would have passed, not even a fraction. After all that time burning in Hell, Cain's sufferings will be just beginning.

This eternity is also without relief. It would indeed be a small consolation and of little benefit for the condemned persons to be able to receive a brief respite once every thousand years.

Hey!

Someone from New Zealand is checking out the Traddy's blog. Howdy!

I just think that's pretty nifty...

The Pains of Hell

St. Anthony Mary Claret preached an estimated 25,000 sermons, wrote 144 books, founded 3 religious orders, and as a Bishop confirmed over 300,000 souls.

He also wrote the following about Hell.

Yes, there is a Hell.

Despite what you may have learned in CCD or in your feel good RCIA class there is a Hell and you may go there. Here is what one of the Saints of the Church had to say about his visions of Hell.

I will present this in a few parts, as it a bit too long to make one big post. Part two will appear tomorrow.

The sensation of pain in Hell is essentially very dreadful. Picture yourself, my soul, on a dark night on the summit of a high mountain. Beneath you is a deep valley, and the earth opens so that with your gaze you can see Hell in the cavity of it. Picture it as a prison situated in the center of the earth, many leagues down, all full of fire, hemmed in so impenetrably that for all eternity not even the smoke can escape. In this prison the damned are packed so tightly one on the other like bricks in a kiln... Consider the quality of the fire in which they burn.

First, the fire is all-extensive and tortures the whole body and the whole soul. A damned person lies in Hell forever in the same spot, which he was assigned by divine justice, without being able to move, as a prisoner in stocks.

The fire, in which he is totally enveloped, as a fish in water, burns around him, on his left, his right, above and below. His head, his breast, his shoulders, his arms, his hands, and his feet are all penetrated with fire, so that he completely resembles a glowing hot piece of iron, which has just been withdrawn from an oven. The roof beneath which the damned person dwells is fire; the food he takes is fire; the drink he tastes is fire; the air he breathes is fire; whatever he sees and touches is all fire....

But this fire is not merely outside him; it also passes within the condemned person. It penetrates his brain, his teeth, his tongue, his throat, his liver, his lungs, his bowels, his belly, his heart, his veins, his nerves, his bones, even to the marrow, and even his blood.

"In Hell," according to St. Gregory the Great, "there will be a fire that cannot be put out, a worm which cannot die, a stench one cannot bear, a darkness one can feel, a scourging by savage hands, with those present despairing of anything good."

A most dreadful fact is that by the divine power this fire goes so far as to work on the very faculties of the soul, burning them and tormenting them. Suppose I were to find myself placed at the oven of a smith so that my whole body was in the open air but for one arm placed in the fire, and that God were to preserve my life for a thousand years in this position. Would this not be an unbearable torture? What, then, would it be like to be completely penetrated and surrounded by fire, which would affect not just an arm, but even all the faculties of the soul?

More Dreadful than Man Can Imagine

Secondly, this fire is far more dreadful than man can imagine. The natural fire that we see during this life has great power to burn and torment. Yet this is not even a shadow of the fire of Hell. There are two reasons why the fire of Hell is more dreadful beyond all comparison than the fire of this life.

The first reason is the justice of God, which the fire serves as an instrument in order to punish the infinite wrong done to his supreme majesty, which has been despised by a creature. Therefore, justice supplies this element with a burning power, which almost reaches the infinite....

The second reason is the malice of sin. As God knows that the fire of this world is not enough to punish sin, as it deserves, He has given the fire of Hell a power so strong that it can never be comprehended by any human mind. Now, how powerfully does this fire burn?

It burns so powerfully, O my soul, that, according to the ascetical masters, if a mere spark of it fell on a millstone; it would reduce it in a moment to powder. If it fell on a ball of bronze, it would melt it in an instant as if it were wax. If it landed on a frozen lake, it would make it boil in an instant.

Pause here briefly, my soul, and answer a few questions I will put. First, I ask you: If a special furnace were fired up as was customarily done to torment the holy martyrs, and then men placed before you all kinds of good things that the human heart might want, and added the offer of a prosperous kingdom – if all this were promised you on condition that for just a half-hour you enclose yourself within the furnace, what would you choose?

Great Choices

From Fox News we see this ridiculous story. Maybe the Episcopalians will support abortion next, if they don't already. Pray that the people belonging to this pretend church will come to their senses and come home to Holy Mother Church before it is too late.

LOS ANGELES — An openly gay priest and an openly lesbian priest are among six nominees for assistant bishop positions in the Episcopal Church's Diocese of Los Angeles.

The church announced Sunday that Rev. John L. Kirkley of San Francisco and Rev. Canon Mary Douglas Glasspool of Maryland, along with four others, will be up for election in December by lay members and clergy.

The vote will be a test of new church legislation passed at July's general convention in Anaheim that repeals a de facto ban on consecrating openly gay bishops.

In 2003, the election of openly gay bishop Rev. V. Gene Robinson prompted four dioceses and numerous parishes to leave the denomination, which claims 2.1 million members in the U.S.

Divine Office

Does anyone pray the Liturgy of the Hours? If not, you should.

If the 4 volume LOH scares you, that's ok. There are a few online ways to pray the Office.

I have used Universalis in the past, but was informed that they do not use the approved English translation.

I have come to settle on divineoffice.org which offers a podcast of the daily prayers and also tells you which volumes and on what pages the prayers appear in the 4 volume LOH. Very nice.

If you visit my pal CUAGUY, he has some nice posts on the office. Just scroll down abit. Very informative.

Diocesan Priests!

Listen up fellows!

The USCCB has a new website to help teach you and your parishioners all about the changes coming in the third edition of the Roman Missal.

Go here to check it out!

SSPX - Rome Talks To Begin!

Finally we have some word on the long-awaited talks between Rome and the SSPX. In an interview with Italian News Agency APCom, Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the SSPX mentions autumn 2009 as the proposed time of the talks.

Pray these talks go well. We need the infusion of tradition the SSPX would bring into the Church.

Go here to read the full translated story from Rorate Caeli.