Poverty is so dang expensive.
Category: Uncategorized
A plea to all fallen-away Catholics
To all fallen-away Catholics:
Please prayerfully consider returning to a firm practice of the faith. Maybe you’ve never really practiced it, or maybe you don’t truly know what it is. Well, it is your duty to learn it. And never in history has there been more knowledge resources available in an instant with zero effort. Go do the work.
People think this journey starts with a personal desire to “go and sin no more”; that you have to be ready to live like a saint before you take the first step in accepting Christ. That never happens. Rather, it starts like this: “There is this thing called Catholicism that my parents spent a lot of time teaching me. So I probably should do some research about it.” Or maybe you have joined some protestant community and you are starting to figure out they don’t have the truth over there. Whatever your situation, the journey starts with the search for Truth. That’s it. All you need is a serious desire to learn what is true.
You probably know most of the doctrines. Some you may disagree with. Others you agree with, but find hard to live your daily life in accord with them. If you are to have any hope of someday striving to live a holy life, it starts with understanding why the doctrines are what they are. The Church doesn’t just throw shit out there for the sake of being strict. Everything is tied together and it all makes sense but you have to do the research. Turn off Words With Friends for one hour and do some research.
Pick two pieces of doctrine you don’t agree with. Thoroughly research how the doctrine is grounded in Scripture and Tradition down through the ages. Formulate your counterargument. How’s that working out for you?
Once you start to discover the truth, it sets you free. If you allow it to. You see, upon learning the truth, you have two choices. Remember the Matrix? Remember the blue pill and the red pill? You either take the red pill and accept reality, or take the blue pill and prefer to live in fantasyland. Oh except in the movie of life, your choice determines where you spend eternity. Shit just got heavy.
However there is one major problem: The Church is really f****d up right now. Not as bad as it has been in a few other other centuries, but certainly this is one of the worst times in history. But how can this be, when She was founded by Christ and is guided by the Holy Spirit?
While Christ promised that the gates of hell would never prevail against His Church, he never promised the Church would not have bad leadership. Everything good in the Church, like purity of doctrine, comes from the Holy Spirit. Everything bad in the Church comes from human weakness, and we’ve had plenty of bad bishops and priests in the past 50 years. So much so that the majority of parishes in the United States no longer are truly Catholic, meaning they don’t really believe what the Church teaches. You must learn to distinguish the Church itself, which is indefectible, from it’s members, (clergy or laity) whom are frequently bastards.
For these reasons, choosing a solid parish is essential to learning and living the faith. In many diocese this is very difficult. To be assured of orthodoxy, look for parishes that offer the Extraordinary Form – the old Latin Mass. I highly recommend getting to know the Extraordinary Form, it is the Mass the Church used for 1500 years, until 1970. A big reason for the problems in the Church in the past 40 years is the decline of liturgy. it really does matter. It helps to have a beautiful Church as well.
The first few times you attend the Latin Mass, don’t even try to follow along in the book. Just sit back and watch it all. Then gradually start to learn it.
But FIRSTLY, GO TO CONFESSION. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been away or what you’ve done. The priest has heard it all before, trust me you have zero shock value.
You can’t receive the necessary graces to progress on this journey if you are in a state of mortal sin. You also must have a firm purpose of amendment. That means you can’t just confess and then go on committing your habitual sins. It doesn’t mean you’re never going to sin again; we all continue sinning but hopefully they become less serious sins. But it does mean having the desire to radically live your life in a manner that our broken culture thinks is crazy.
Don’t wait. Do the research. The joy and freedom you will experience has no earthly equal.
There is an epidemic of teacher sex abuse of minors…..
Isn’t it curious how the MSM never reports on this. Maybe because it is largely females abusing males as well as homosexuals of both sexes acting as the abusers. Some good commentary by veneremurcernui and links to another blog with the citations. What I don’t see mentioned in either place is where all this is headed: The agitprop will soon turn toward — wait for — TOLERANCE. Lowering of the age of consent, normalization of more and more radically perverse lifestyles, etc.
Toward a Holy Passiontide
Are you making an effort to live your life more in accordance with God’s plan for you? Don’t worry, there are still two weeks left. We call these last two weeks “Passiontide”. Try to make a firm purpose of amendment from all things sinful, especially mortal sins. Just try for the next two weeks.
In His passion and death, Christ took the punishment on himself of all the personal sins committed since the beginning of time and all future sins until the end of time. Yeah. Next time you are watching The Passion of The Christ (which you should absolutely do next week), think about that little factoid. What you are seeing throughout that movie is Christ literally suffering through the reparation due for every sin committed by every human in all time. This is how God chose to redeem sinful man. It is truly awesome and troubling at the same time.
Many of the worst sins are things which are accepted or even encouraged/celebrated by our pagan, borderline satanic, culture:
Pornography, or any activity that objectifies women. By the way, this category includes not only hardcore porn, but any images that we choose to look at for the purpose of sexual arousal. If you look at swimsuit models and you’re not shopping for a swimsuit, then you’re looking at porn. It may not rise to the level of mortal sin that regular porn certainly is, but it is looking at women with the wrong intention.
Masturbation.
Homosexual acts.
Abortion.
Blasphemy (taking the Lord’s name in vain).
Avarice (obsession with money or material goods).
Pride (“putting yourself first”; “learning to love yourself”, and similar such nonsense.
Now again, what do all of these grave sins have in common? Society/our culture/GenPop not only accepts all these things as “normal”, but in fact embraces and promotes them as GOOD. That’s how messed up our world is. Because men put their own will before God’s. In a future post, I will explain how this evil has existed even before man was created.
Becoming a disciple does not require you to believe you are capable of completely turning away from sin. In fact, no one is capable of that (except our Lord, who had two Natures, both human and divine, and Mary, who was created without the stain of Original Sin).
But discipleship does require that you desire to TRY. Nobody who takes the first step to walk with Christ knows how it is going to work. Pray for God’s grace to work toward His Divine Will in your soul. We can do NOTHING on our own merit; only through grace.
Examine your conscience.
Develop a contrite heart.
Make a firm purpose of amendment.
Go to Confession.
Go to Mass on Sundays.
Holy Passiontide to you all.
Blessing of a Church, St. Mary’s, Norwalk CT USA
Bridgeport, Connecticut USA, has a new bishop. Read about him here http://bridgeportdiocese.com/ourbishop.
I’ve just learned +Caggiano will be blessing the newly renovated St. Mary’s church, Norwalk, during the 9:30am Solemn High EF this Sunday 5 Jan 2014.
This should be an “extraordinary” scene. The EF at St. Mary’s is second to none, as are the priests in residence. The newly renovated church is magnificent http://www.stmarynorwalk.net/hstrybox.html.
If you are in Connecticut, or within several hundred miles of Norwalk, I urge, beg, implore you to attend this Mass. Even if you have never been to the Latin Mass (the “EF”), go to this Mass.
It will be heaven on earth.
A Time For Choosing (Again!)
Mundabor came down hard on the Bishop of Rome, as he prefers to be called, in the infancy of this Papacy. At first, he was quite alone in his harsh assessment. Nine months later, can there be any doubt about the vindication? When it comes to pass that The Advocate votes the sitting Roman Pontiff its Man of the Year, what else can be said.
Post one of what I hope will be many, Subjects herein are intended to include unadulterated Catholicism (aka the Splendor of Truth), fiscal conservatism, abortion, and guns. My greatest concern is that it will not contain much original thought, but I will do my best. I suspect that the majority of posts will be links to better blogs than this, perhaps with some commentary. In my dreams, the finished product will be a mix of Fr Z, mundabor, tantamergo, rorate, and Ann Barnhardt. Pray for me.