For this Year of Faith, Pope Benedict has encouraged you to study and reflect on the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Well, here’s an easy way to do it. Simply enter your email address and – starting October 11, 2012 – you’ll start getting a little bit of the Catechism emailed to you every morning. Read that little bit every day and you’ll read the whole catechism in a year. Cool, right?
Jimmy Akin has an update regarding the uses of modified Agnus Dei in the liturgy. He now has the bulletin from the USCCB himself and he posted (bolding is his):
This alteration is effective immediately, and affects all existing and future musical settings of the Lamb of God.
The relevant paragraph [of the bishops’ document Sing to the Lord: Music in Divine Worship] now reads (new text in underline):
188. The supplicatory chant Agnus Dei accompanies the Fraction Rite. It is, “asa rule, sung by the choir or cantor with the congregation responding; or it is, at least, recited aloud. This invocation accompanies the fraction and, for this reason, may be repeated as many times as necessary until the rite has reached its conclusion, the last time ending woth the word dona nobis pacem (grant us peace)” (GIRM, no. 83). The Agnus Dei should not be prolonged unnecessarily (see GIRM, no. 83) nor may other texts be added to this chant.
In other liturgical news Rorate Caeli has a letter from the CDW in response to a question from the Philippines.
“The liturgical law of the Roman Rite does not foresee the use of dance or drama within the Sacred Liturgy, unless particular legislation has been enacted by the Bishops’ Conference and confirmed by the Holy See. Any other practice is to be considered an abuse.”
Hey another step to reducing the leotardation of the liturgy.
On the humorous side “Eye of the Tiber” strikes gold again with SSPX Acolyte Stumbles During Offertory; Mass Deemed Invalid.
Brandon Vogt provides the info on a new book where the proceeds all go to charity.
When T.J. Burdick launched his blog back in 2010, one question puzzled him: how do you become an effective Catholic blogger?
Two years and many blog posts later, T.J. had few answers so he began searching for help. He emailed a number of blogging friends and asked, “in your opinion, what are the ‘ten commandments’ that Christian bloggers should keep in mind?”
Ten Catholic bloggers responded with a diversity of answers. Some were deep, some pithy; some were practical, some spiritual. But together they provided T.J. a solid foundation for Catholic blogging.
Wanting to help others, T.J. decided to package all of this wisdom into a short, $1.99 eBook titled One Body, Many Blogs: A Guide for Christian Bloggers (eBook, 52 pages).
The eBook includes contributions from:
- Brandon Vogt (BrandonVogt.com)
- Deacon Greg Kandra (The Deacon’s Bench)
- Devin Rose (St. Joseph’s Vanguard)
- Frank Weathers (Why I Am Catholic)
- Jeff Miller (The Curt Jester)
- Katrina R. Fernandez (The Crescat)
- Kevin Knight (New Advent)
- Lisa Hendey (CatholicMom.com)
- Marc Barnes (BadCatholic and 1flesh.org)
- Susan Windley-Daoust (Ironic Catholic)
- T.J. Burdick (TJBurdick.com)
Brandon also provides more information and quotes from the book.
JERUSALEM 20 B.C. — Today a breakaway group ordained a member of the Tribe of Benjamin at the 1st Community Temple. The Non-Aaronite Ordination Conference NAOC has lately been raising awareness concerning the disparity in the treatment of the twelve tribes of Israel. The newly ordained priest wore the traditional vestments consisting of a breastplate, ephod, robe, tunic, cap, sash and in a odd break from tradition a purple stole. NAOC President Samuel bar Jonah told us “Restricting the priesthood to the Tribe of Levi is totally unfair to the other eleven tribes. Are the men of the tribe of Levi better than men of the tribe of Benjamin, Dan, Issachar, or any of the other fine tribes? How can we share equally in the Temple worship if we are also not allowed to offer sacrifices to the Lord? Besides I think there was a bit of nepotism involved in Moses appointing his brother Arron and establishing the Aaronic priesthood. The official church does not seem to recognize that all tribes are equal in dignity and justice demands equal treatment!”
Small groups of protests involving various tribes have broken out across the city demanding justice.
Protesters are upset about the injustice and tribal discrimination. One man who spoke anonymously for fear of Temple reprisals and being excluded from Temple sacrifice told us “The temple also uses an all-Levi priesthood as the norm when it proclaims that other tribes do not image the Aaronic priesthood and therefore only ordained men from the Tribe of Levi can adequately represent the sacrificial nature of the priesthood . This is simply false considering that even before Aaron scripture recognized other priests like Melchizedek who was good enough for Abraham and should be good enough for us.”
One Temple priest how agreed to talk with us said “Being a priest isn’t all it is cracked up to be. For one you don’t own your own property and are totally dependent on the tithe of others. Plus all the work in quality control makes it rather difficult. I can tell you stories of animals that were brought to me supposedly ‘devoid of defect” and actually having a defect or two. Plus grain sacrifices can get pretty old pretty fast.”
I was thinking about this aspect today, but Michael Flynn puts it perfect.
1. What does the Catholic Church call a medieval womanwho was a herbalist and wrote books about it?
TOF mentions this because of the persistent delusion that herb women were persecuted for some reason or other in the Middle Ages. She was not only into medicine, but also music. And could write in admonition to a king.
Though I am sure those who look for a cloud in every silver lining will gripe that there are more declared male Doctors of the Church. Considering St. Catherine, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. Hildegard the Catholic Church only elevate tame women as Doctors of the Church – oh wait.
Today St. John of Avila was also made a Doctor of the Church. I previously made an ebook of some of his writings.
| Letters of Blessed John of Avila Source | ePub, Kindle |
This is the 33rd volume of The Weekly Benedict ebook which is a compilation of the Holy Father’s writings, speeches, etc which I pull from Jimmy Akin’s The Weekly Benedict. This volume covers material released during the last week for 20 September, 2012 – 7 October 2012.
The ebook contains a table of contents and the material is arranged in sections such as Angelus, Speeches, etc in date order. The full index is listed on Jimmy’s site.
The Weekly Benedict – Volume 33 – ePub (supports most readers)
The Weekly Benedict – Volume 33 – Kindle
There is an archive for all of The Weekly Benedict eBook volumes. This page is available via the header of this blog or from here.
SF Signal asks several SF authors for recommended stories for English Lit class. John C. Wright starts to answer by by saying:
The question is frankly a very difficult one. Let us analyze it.
The purpose of education is to teach the youth the basics of reading, writing, arithmetic, and, as they grow, to teach either a trade or to train them in the liberal arts (Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, Astronomy). Additionally, education must instruct the youth in the Christian faith and classical virtues (fortitude, temperance, justice, prudence), as well as teaching enough Civics and history to allow them to be productive and honest citizens of this Republic, able to serve as jurors, voters, or soldiers, wisely and bravely, as the need demands.
Unfortunately, the Progressives of over a century ago usurped the educational industry, and created an establishment similar to the Established Church of England, in that the schools became the primary conduit not of education, but of indoctrination in progressive dogmas, and, later, various lunatic dogmas of the Politically Correct, communism, feminism, sexual liberation, environmentalism, and most of all the doctrine that all philosophy is meaningless and all ethics relative, and human life not sacred.
Given this, when I am asked what science fiction and fantasy I would recommend to educate and instruct the youth, I take the question as being akin to asking what superhero comic books or fairy princess Disney cartoons I would recommend to educate and instruct the youth. But the purpose of science fiction and fantasy is to entertain, not to instruct. When art becomes didactic and pedagogical, it often loses its savor
He then goes with several lists of recommended reading:
“Eye of the Tiber” is a fairly new Catholic humor blog and this is going in my RSS feed immediately. Very funny and today’s post is classic.
San Fransisco, CA––The new Archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, said Thursday after his installation, that he was overjoyed to see that the city had such a devotion to God’s covenant with Noah. “Who knew there could be so many rainbows in one place?” he said, happily, to reporters that had gathered after Mass. The 56 year old Archbishop who was recently appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to replace George Niederauer, hopes to work with San Franciscans and all those devoted to the Old Testament pre-deluge patriarch in the ceasing California’s gay marriage initiative.
Hat tip to Fr. Erik Richtsteig via Facebook
Saw this headline today:
Vatican confirms talks with traditionalists dead
Being that this is October with Halloween upcoming my first odd thought was that the Vatican had confirmed talks with rad trad zombies or some other dead (undead) traditionalists. Makes me though ponder on the concept of rad trad zombies walking around crying “Latin” instead of “Brains”. Hey I could join in with them on that.
Though the progressive zombie is what is apt to give me nightmares as evidenced from one of my previous posts.
But Zombies already walk and talk among us. There are plenty of dissident Catholics and dissident religious orders that are nothing but Zombie Catholics. The Zombie religious orders have no postulants and an aging community. These orders are truly dead since they don’t grow and are full of providing dead theology and the corpse of aging heresies. Yet at the same time appear to be living animated things fooling some into believing that there words have life. The truth will set you free which is why Zombie Catholics will concentrate on one truth while ignoring others leaving them trapped in the world of the undead.
Outside of religious communities there are also plenty of Zombie professors in Catholic institutions. Now it would be nice if these Zombies would physically rot so that you could see the source of the corruption they teach. Unfortunately these undead often look just like everybody else. Though Zombie priests and religious sometimes can be identified because they will wear anything but a Roman collar or a habit. They can often be identified because they teach from the “Culture of the Undead.” Zombie Catholics might seem quite comical, but don’t ever forget that they are quite dangerous to those they convince. They teach of death in two ways – physical and spiritual . You can hear them promoting abortion or relativizing it. Creating reasons for why it alright to withdraw medical treatment from someone who is not dying. Justifying sacrificing embryos on the altar of science. When it comes to spiritual death the Zombie Catholics proclaim how a sin is not a sin and in fact something to be actively accepted. Whether it is the advocacy of homosexual acts, contraception, or any other normalization of sin; it is all a part of the Culture of the Undead.
From the latest USCCB Committee for Divine Worship (BCDW) Newsletter as per Jerry Galipeau.
USCCB Administrative Committee Approves Change to Sing to the Lord: Music in Divine Worship
In response to a request from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, the USCCB Administrative Committee adopted a change on September 12, 2012 to the U.S. Bishops’ 2007 guidelines on liturgical music, Sing to the Lord: Music in Divine Worship. Number 188 of the document has been altered to remove any further permission for the use of Christological tropes or other adaptations to the text of the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God).
No doubt progressives will come out with a “Support our Tropes” bumper stickers.
I remember when Jimmy Akin had requested information on whether the USCCB had granted such permissions for one of the more common changes and had received a negative reply on that. He queried the publishing company that had published this version of the Agnus Dei and never received a reply back.
I’ve heard several variations of the Agnus Dei, but the most common was using other verses that substituted “Lamb of God” with “Bread of Life,” “Prince of Peace,” “Son of God,” “King of Kings.”, etc. You never quite new when the last verse was coming up. Some versions I have heard even excluded “take away the sins of the world.” The ideas behind such changes for universal prayers has always been problematic. That you can’t even go from one parish to another and learning another form of “common” liturgical texts is just plain silly. Destroying the threefold Trinitarian theme with the added phrases goes beyond just silly.
Though things are getting better since it is a while since I have heard the extended Agnus Dei with Tropes. One parish though has added a phrase to each line.
Now I will rant a bit about the USCCB Committee for Divine Worship (BCDW) Newsletter. The Newsletter requires a $15.00 a year subscription even for the electronic version. They are published on their site 3 months after subscribers get them. The USCCB is infected by the publishing world model all over the place which mainly just restricts access to documents. Remember when the USCCB stopped a podcast from doing daily readings using the NAB? Spread the Gospel for a moderate license fee.
Photo credit: Lawrence OP via photopin cc