The Illusion of the Higher Education

Overheard at work:

"I have a master's degree in engineering from Purdue, I make less than the average salary for someone with a bachelors in the humanities, and the only thing I really enjoy doing is welding, and I think the average welder makes more than me."

Athanasius Contra Mundum to close shop

It is with no little sadness that I found out today that "Athanasius" has decided to shut down his blog, Athanasius Contra Mundum.

I have immensely enjoyed this blog over the years, as have many of the visitors to this blog. His has been a sound voice of reason in the traditional Catholic world, and this voice will be missed. Athanasius is off to pursue noble and necessary tasks that, I'm certain, will equally benefit traditional Catholicism.

I would also like to express my gratitude for all his hard work over the years, and I certainly hope that the volumes posted there will remain available on the internet in some fashion.

God bless!

Easter Vigil: the Transalpine Redemptorists

Photos from the Easter Vigil Mass at Papa Stronsay can be viewed here.

Good Friday in South Bend, IN

Photos from the Good Friday Mass of the Presanctified at St. Patrick Catholic Church in South Bend, Indiana, can be viewed here.

Traditionalists Attacked... Again: new article in The Remnant

Please click over to the Remnant to read my latest contribution: Traditionalists Attacked... Again: A Response to Francesco Arzillo's Essay On Continuity.

Here's a small sample:

So, in other words, to arrive at the proper interpretation of the modern Magisterium’s contrarieties, one must employ a rigorous methodological comparison between classic dogmatic assertions and the admittedly unclear “pastoral” conciliar doctrines. Once the faithful do this in harmony with the principles of non-contradiction and non-irrationality, then all is well!

Is Arzillo really suggesting that in order for the faithful to understand the teachings of the modern Magisterium the faithful must jump through all these intellectual hoops? No, it may not be a “positivistic imposition”, but it is an imposition of the highest magnitude, nonetheless. It should not be the place of the Magisterium to place this imposition on the faithful. The Magisterium of the Church ought to teach clearly and precisely the truths of the faith, not make the faithful puzzle through esoteric pronouncements that require such a laborious interpretive process.

Bishop Fellay calls for new Rosary Crusade

From Bishop Fellay's recent letter to Friends and Benefactors:

Therefore it seems to us urgent and more than opportune, given the redoubled intensity of the evils that are swamping the Holy Church, to launch once more a Rosary Crusade, a campaign of prayer and penance. Starting on Easter of this year until Pentecost of 2012, we invite you to join all your efforts, all your strength, so as to make a new spiritual bouquet, a new garland of these roses that are so pleasing to Our Lady, to beg her to intercede on behalf of her children with her divine Son and the Almighty Father...

We are counting on your generosity to collect once more a bouquet of at least twelve million rosaries for the intention that the Church may be delivered from the evils that oppress her or threaten her in the near future, that Russia may be consecrated and that the Triumph of the Immaculata may come soon.

Bishop Fellay on Assisi III and the Beatification of JPII

The newest letter to Friends and Benefactors of the SSPX can be read here.

On Assisi III:

If the organizers remain silent about such essential truths, they are deceiving the participants! If they hide from them the one thing necessary, unum necessarium, by causing them to believe that all is well this way, because the Holy Ghost makes use of other religions too as means of salvation—even if they are talking about extraordinary means, according to the new magisterium of the Second Vatican Council—then they are leading them into error by depriving them of the means with which to be saved.

Concerning the beatification of Pope John Paul II:

As for the beatification of John Paul II, its immediate effect will be to consecrate his pontificate as a whole, all his undertakings, even the most scandalous, the ones described above and others, like kissing the Koran and the repeated ceremonies of repentance that make people think that the Church is responsible for the schisms that have caused countless Christian souls to be lost through separation from our Holy Mother the Church, and through adherence to error and heresy. Practically speaking, all this leads to indifferentism in everyday life, and the few efforts that Rome makes to correct somewhat a course that is so harmful to the Church produce only meager results: the Church herself is anemic.

The Beatification of Pope John Paul II in Perspective

The Remnant has written a very good article outlining the editorial staff's reservations concerning the upcoming beatification of Pope John Paul II. Please read it here. They have also written an urgent letter to Angelo Cardinal Amato, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, that can be read here.

There's really nothing that I can add to those excellent treatments by way of reservations regarding the beatification of Pope John Paul II. I agree with everything that was so well stated at the Remnant. I've also discovered that these reservations are shared by many people on the internet, and are also shared by people outside of the Catholic Church. Some outside the Church have expressed surprise and dismay that a pope should be raised to the level official emulation who reigned during the priest-sex-abuse scandal and essentially ignored the gravity of the scandal for the majority of his pontificate, he even coddled one of the worse offenders (Marcial Maciel founder of the Legion of Christ and Regnum Christi). For these commentators looking from the outside in, the beatification of Pope John Paul II constitutes another example of the Catholic Church's leaders failing to fathom the gravity of the priest-child molestation scandal.

So serious have these questions become that concern for some has become indignation, shock and grief. However, I would like to put this into another, wider perspective.

Cardinal Amato went to great lengths to explain that the beatification is going forward due to the personal holiness of John Paul II, and not due to the successes or failures of his pontificate. This is has rightly been pointed out as a novelty in the cause of a pope. Never before has a pope's cause progressed without reference to his pontificate. Setting aside for the moment the appropriateness of this novelty, what could be the reason for new method in evaluating John Paul's cause? The simple answer is that Pope John Paul II's pontificate was a colossal failure, and not even his most adoring fans could argue otherwise. However, I don't think this is all there is to it.

I take as my cue Cardinal Amato's comment about public pressure: "the pressure of the public and of the media did not disturb the process, but helped it". Please note that Amato admitted there was public and media pressure to move John Paul II's cause forward, but what media and what public? We can't conclude that the secular media wanted to move the cause forward. The secular media had no horse in this race.

The media that Amato is referring to is the Catholic media, most notably the EWTN influenced Catholic media. I would include publications such as Inside the Vatican, and publishing houses such as Ignatius Press, and most internet Catholic websites and blogs. The public that Amato is referring to is the same public that is intellectually fed by this conservative leaning, mainstream, novus ordo, media, the same conservative leaning, mainstream Catholics who were chanting "santo subito" at John Paul's funeral. This EWTN-media and conservative,mainstream Catholic public make up a substantial proportion of the Church, not to mention the most vocal.

A large portion of this conservative leaning, mainstream Catholic public are also associated, by and large, with the Medjugorje phenomenon, and the Medjugorje phenomenon, I strongly suspect, has a lot more to do with the beatification of John Paul II than many might think. Medjugorje will quickly become a particularly troublesome and painful issue between a Vatican moving more toward authentic, traditional Catholicism, and the mainstream, novus ordo media and public.

The Vatican commission that is investigating Medjugorje will soon release its findings and recommendations, which will, no doubt, send the same mainstream, novus ordo Catholics into a tailspin. The Holy Father will be forced to walk a tightrope. He must present the truth that Medjugorje is a fraud, while at the same time trying to avoid a mass exodus from the Church of those millions of the Catholics who are equally attached to both Medjugorje and the person of Pope John Paul II. Thus the beatification of Pope John Paul II is, perhaps, an appeasement of the mainstream, novus ordo Catholics attached to Medjugorje.

Medjugorje makes up only one aspect of this appeasement policy directed toward the average EWTN Catholic. Another aspect is the upcoming clarification document regarding the implementation of the motu propio, Summorum Pontificum. No one seems to have commented on the coincidence that its publication has been moved back until after the beatification of John Paul II. I'm convinced that the contents of this implementation document will be radical enough to set mainstream, novus ordo Catholics on edge, such as a "call for seminarians to be trained not just in Latin, but in the older rite itself."

A Vatican establishment moving toward a more authentic and traditional Catholicism will cause mainstream Catholics to reassess their liturgical philosophies in juxtaposition. Most mainstream, conservative leaning Catholics remain recalcitrant in their opposition to the Traditional Latin Mass, but a contrary attitude from Rome regarding the Traditional Latin Mass will test their resolve to maintain a Catholic identity solely constituted by a sanctimonious and unquestioning obedience to the pope.

The Holy Father knows full well that the majority of mainstream Catholics, who like the way things are going, may have a knee jerk reaction to a condemnation of the Medjugorje phenomenon and a move to ensconce the Traditional Latin Mass in all seminaries, and as a consequence, in significantly more parishes. These things are bitter medicine for most mainstream, novus ordo Catholics. Vatican is treating these Catholics like children who have to be appeased, coddled, and given a spoonful of sugar with the medicine. I don't know if I agree with this approach, but it is apparent that the "pontiff of Christian unity", as Fr. Z calls him, fears more than anything a mass exodus from the Church of any Catholic demographic. He probably fears more than anything the exodus of this particular demographic that is so vocal in its support for this pontiff.

Secondly, a bit of reality: The Vatican Information Service went to extraordinary lengths to highlight the difference between a beatification and a canonization, explaining the liturgical limitations of celebrating the feast day of Blessed John Paul II. The reason for this is to de-emphasize the importance of the beatification, even to subtly hint at the improbability that the cause will move forward to canonization. Even the Catholic News Service picked up on the confusion in the minds of many devout but poorly catechized mainstream, novus ordo pew sitters regarding the differences between a beatification and a canonization.

I suspect that like the cause for Blessed John XXIII, John Paul II's cause will quietly slow to a halt in the absence of miracles and waning public enthusiasm that eventually comes with time. The beatification of John Paul II is a safe appeasement plan for the Vatican. Unlike the cause for Pope Paul VI, which hasn't seriously been broached in over ten years, John Paul II appeals to a wider and very vocal conservative leaning mainstream Catholic crowd, and if beatified solely based on personal holiness will affect greater religious zeal in this otherwise devout Catholic demographic. After all, Pope John Paul II for all his faults as a pontiff, was, indeed, a man of great personal holiness, as Cardinal Amato said.

Besides, the action figures are already on their the way to the stores!

I REALLY can't believe this! Incredible.

UPDATE: They allowed Kindred Spirit's comment to go through as well.

Somebody at the Vatican Information Service's blog must have lost it. One of my comments actually got through moderation!

Check it out here: http://visnews-en.blogspot.com/2011/04/memorial-of-blessed-john-paul-ii-22.html#comments

I have never seen any comments approved and published on the VIS infoblog. However, I do leave comments occasionally, much like the one above, because somebody there might just be reading them.

Maybe the guy moderating VIS today has some misgivings about the impending beatification as well. Hm.

Love for Truth

Happy he that loves the truth, though it condemns his evil passions, and troubles his conscience! Such an one proves that he reveres the wisdom of God; and if it do not altogether rule his conduct it does not abandon him. But happier far he that yields himself wholly to the truth, and, as a humble disciple, follows Jesus.

-Dom Prosper Guéranger, O.S.B.

The Truth exacts a payment.

There are many in our modern society who clamor for "truth", religious, scientific, philosophic, journalistic, but are not willing to pay the price for truth, and thus never achieve even a small glimmer of its radiance. Dom Guéranger reminds us today in his Liturgical Year, that Truth pierces the heart, reveals our passions and our troubled consciences. It reminds us of our failings, our evil propensities, the heat of concupiscence.

No matter how we have spent our Lent up to this moment, now that we have arrived at the eve of Passiontide, let us place ourselves in the gaze of that Truth, the gaze of Our Blessed Lord, Jesus Christ. Only in the blazing light that pierces the soul and cuts us to the quick of our human nature, can we leave the things of this world and approach the cool "fountains of water" where He gives us to drink.

Pope Benedict XVI is a big "let down"

Sandro Magister reports on how leading intellectual figures in traditional Catholicism perceive the Ratzinger papacy as being, essentially, a complete disappointment. These intellectuals include Professor Roberto de Mattei, Fr. Brunero Gherardini, and Enrico Maria Radaelli.

Magister writes:

The disappointment over the action of Benedict XVI stems – for Radaelli as for other traditionalists – not only from his having convened a new interreligious encounter in Assisi, or having initiated the "Courtyard of the gentiles": both initiatives seen as a source of confusion.

The biggest fault attributed to pope Ratzinger is that of having declined to teach with "the power of a scepter that governs." Instead of defining truths and condemning errors, "he has made himself dramatically open even to being criticized, not claiming any infallibility," as he himself wrote in the preface to his books about Jesus.

Even Benedict XVI would therefore have submitted to the capital error of Vatican Council II: the renunciation of dogmatic definitions, in exchange for a "pastoral," and therefore inevitably equivocal, language.

The notion of "dialogue" as pointed by Romano Amerio is a novel notion that sprung from the Second Vatican Council, but a notion that had gained traction among the pre-Vatican II Modernists who rejected the Church as a source of truth, and instead posited the Catholic Church as just another ecclesial community, among many others, striving for a "Chardinian" evolution of ultimate truth, to which the Catholic Church has no exclusive right. This heretical theology was clothed in the "pastoral" before and during, not just after, the Second Vatican Council, and swallowed by a whole generation of church leaders, to which belongs men such as our current pope.

It is hard to take seriously Pope Benedict XVI's criticism of modern relativism, when he still clings to the language and practice of dialogue over and above his obligation to teach and govern the Church. He, himself, undermines the light of truth and condemns the world to relativism by not exercising the office of Holy Roman Pontiff.

When Joseph Ratzinger was elected pope, it was heralded far and wide that the cafeteria was closed. What we are finding is that the cafeteria is far from being closed. The only difference is that now, with Pope Benedict XVI, the traditionalists have been invited to the cafeteria. With chagrin, we have realized we aren't the guests of honor.

Several Excellent Methods of Hearing Mass: Three

Several Excellent Methods of Hearing Mass
By Lady Lucy Herbert

Another Manner of Hearing Mass,
By following our Divine Saviour in His Interior Sufferings.

Before the beginning of Mass compose yourself in the most respectful posture you can, kneeling with true humility. Then make an act of contrition for your sins, which have been the cause of the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ; for the greater purity of soul you bring, the more you will partake of the fruits of this Adorable Sacrifice.

Then offer it to God, to render Him due glory, to obtain pardon of your sins, victory over temptations, and the grace to fulfill the duties of your state and charge; and for peace, union, and a happy death, both for yourself, and every one of the family.

At the beginning of the Mass, represent to yourself Jesus Christ, in the person of the priest. He first mounts up to the altar and then descends; which steps may represent to you the way our Saviour went from the cenacle to the garden of Gethsemani. Then the priest, bowing his knee, must mind you of our Lord’s prostrating Himself before the Majesty of His eternal Father in that garden. Endeavour to enter into the those dispositions of humility and respect which abases Jesus in presence of the greatness of that Divine Essence before whom all created beings are as nothing.

Then, with great devotion and attention, call to mind all that passed in the garden of Gethsemani; at which all heaven seemed to tremble with a certain horror to behold God in Christ Jesus, under the figure of a criminal, loaded with the execrable sins of all mankind. He suffers there the greatest humiliation and confusion that can be imagined, annihilated before the infinite Majesty of His eternal Father, He makes Him an honourable amends, and produces an act of so great sorrow, that He merits absolution and pardon of all mankind.

He there appears a criminal (though spotless) and is treated with all rigour by the divine justice. As the victim for sin, He receives the sentence of death, which He accepts of to give us life, and restore to us what sin had taken from us, and He merits for us the grace to enter a commerce with His eternal Father.

The sight of what He was to undergo and suffer, cast Him into an agony which forced blood, as drops of sweat, to fall on the ground from all parts of His body, which, with all He was to suffer, He applied to each souls in particular.

All creatures, says St. Paul, rise up against Jesus, as sinners, to revenge the injury sin does to God. He is abandoned to the powers of darkness, and reduced to such an extremity, that He likens it to the pangs of death, saying, His soul is sorrowful even to death. Sin covers Him over with infamy; and in this hateful condition He appears to His own, and to His Father’s eyes, who draws due satisfaction from Him, and that even to the utmost rigour. The soul of Jesus not only suffers a mortal repugnance of the approach of sin, infinitely odious and detestable to Him, but also an extreme apprehension and terror, which sinners have of God’s wrath and fury; and this apprehension is as great as the fight He has is clear and penetrating.

In these reflections, or any other mystery of our Saviour’s Passion, you may bestow your thoughts till the Elevation.

At the Elevation.

Christ, being crucified, was raised on high; see and adore Him so in the hands of the priest. He is sacrificed for your sake on the altar as well as on Mount Calvary; He thinks of you, prays for you, and offers himself to the justice of the eternal Father, to appease His wrath against you. In a word, He is wholly taken up in your concerns, acting for you on the altar as on Mount Calvary. Which reflection ought to inflame you with His love, and give you a firm hope that He will be heard, and obtain whatever He asks for you. Unite your intention with those He has for your salvation, protesting that you will all He wills, and that you will stand to what He promises in your behalf.

From that time till the Agnus Dei, remain in the spirit of an united sacrifice with Jesus as much as possible, to make the sacrifice complete, according to His merciful designs: with silence and respect, annihilates; and, as it were, lost in Jesus, Who there offers Himself for you. In this manner did His blessed Mother assist at the bloody Sacrifice He offered on the Cross; her eyes and heart fixed on Him, by a simple regard, full of respect and love.

You may also entertain your thoughts with the words Christ spoke on the Cross; admiring in the first how easily He forgives His enemies; and consider yourself as one of them, heartily beg pardon, and confidently hope to obtain it.

Secondly, His liberality to the good thief; be you may experience the same a the hour of your death.

Thirdly, His tender love and concern for you expressed His recommending you to His blessed Mother, in the person of St. John, and speak what affection shall suggest.

At the Agnus Dei.

Consider how our Saviour’s love was strong as death; being dead, He is taken down from the Cross to be laid in the sepulcher. Here remember to prepare your heart that it may serve for a tomb to lay Him in, for which effect, dispose yourself for communion; and be sure to communicate spiritually, if you may not do it sacramentally. Desire it ardently, that Jesus may live in you and you in Him; for which end He instituted it and desires to be received; so that all your thoughts, words, and actions may be the effects of His Divine Spirit, and not of your own will. Make acts proper for communion, as humility, love, and contrition, beseeching Him to wash your soul from sin with His precious blood, and to come into your heart, and make of it a worthy habitation for Himself. And omit not to beg Him that, as He resuscitated His body and give it a new life, He would please, by His sacred presence, to do the same to your soul, giving it a new life, which may be visible by your happy change of inclinations and manners.

The Ends for which Holy Mass was instituted by Christ, and is offered by our Holy Mother the Church, may serve for entertainment during the same.

Our Lord’s Spirit was that of an entire sacrifice. There are four sorts of sacrifices.

The first of a holocaust, purely to adore, worship, and praise the sovereign greatness and goodness of God. The second of thanksgiving, for the continual graces and favours received. The third of impetration, to crave and obtain such graces and gifts as we stand in need of. The fourth of propitiation, for the forgiveness of sins.


Our Saviour instituted the Sacrifice of the Mass for these ends, that He might render to God an infinite honour proportionate to His greatness. Give Him thanks answerable to His benefits. Satisfy in all rigour of justice for all the sins of mankind, and obtain for us all we want and request.

Our dependence on God lasting every moment, we should every moment adore and glorify Him. He bestowing continually new benefits upon us, we should always and each moment offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to Him. Our wants being continual, each moment of our lives would also require an impetratory sacrifice. Our offences being every moment with an uncertainty, whether any past ones are remitted: each instant of our lives would also exact from us a propitiatory sacrifice.

Any one of these duties is impossible to us, and much more all of them. In this then consists the admirable blessing of Holy Mass; Christ our Lord fulfilling by it all our obligations to His eternal Father; and that in an infinitely perfect manner beyond all that the saints and angels could do, during a whole eternity.

Our Saviour then offering for us those four sacrifices in each Mass, it is our duty to offer them with Him, either all at once, or one at a time, as may best suit with our present disposition.

As to the first, which is a holocaust, or sacrifice of praise, wholly to adore and worship the greatness and goodness of God.

Sacrifices were established to honour God only, who being infinite in all kinds, contains in Himself all greatness, and all excellency, which to honour worthily, should be with the destruction and sacrifice of all that has a being; they ought to annihilate themselves before Him as nothing in His presence. But it not being convenient that mankind should be destroyed, and yet necessary that God should be honoured with the greatest honour possible, and that daily, Christ, as head and chief, performs this for us, annihilating and sacrificing Himself on our altars, and putting Himslef into our hands to offered in sacrifice to His eternal Father; that thereby we may render to Him all the honour we owe Him, and all He deserves, or can possibly exact.

This was Christ’s first and principal design in instituting this adorable mystery, to render His eternal Father an infinite honour and homage, justly due to so excellent a Being; and knowing it impossible for men to pay God the hour He deserves, though all mankind together, with all creatures, should immolate themselves in sacrifice: since all men together are no more than an atom, in regard of the infinite greatness of God, He is pleased to do it, offering Himself continually in sacrifice to pay the homage we owe, and cannot satisfy without Him.

It is certain that the adorable Sacrifice of Mass renders an infinite glory to God, because the victim that is offered is of an infinite dignity, being God. It follows then, that though we should offer all the sacrifices that have ever been immolated to the Divine Majesty, from the creatures of the world, till Christ’s incarnation; we should not render Him so much glory as we do by assisting devoutly at Holy Mass, in which we offer to Almighty God His only Son by the hands of the priest.

Hence it follows, that God receives more glory and honour by one only Mass, than He receives in heaven from all the Saints and Angels, who continually praise Him, though the glory they render Him is greater than we can conceive; nevertheless it is finite, they being but pure creatures: but in the Mass it is a God that sacrifices and annihilates Himself, which renders the Almighty an infinite honour. And all that assist at it, and share in that Sacrifice, joining themselves to those adorations which Christ renders, and offering them up His eternal Father, thereby perform an action more glorious to God, and in some measure more profitable to themselves, than if they were in heaven singing His praises.

What comfort for a soul that truly desires to glorify God and to pay Him due honour? How careful should this make us to assist thereat? God, on His side, is so good as to join our interest so with His own, that we cannot promote His glory without advancing our own good: “Would you believe,” says St. Augustine, “that God, even in sacrifice He ordains for His glory, seems to consider His own advantage less than ours?”

In light of tomorrow's lesson...

Adoration of the modern golden calf in the novus ordo Catholic Church.

Brought to you by Cardinal Roger Mahony, 2007

Several Excellent Methods of Hearing Mass: Two

By Lady Lucy Herbert

A Method of Hearing Mass,
By considering it as Representation of our Saviour’s Passion

When the priest comes to the altar, represent to yourself how the Jews, after having taken out Saviour loaded him with chains, and dragged him to Jerusalem, and from tribunal to tribunal.


Reflect a little, that had not love first captivated His heart, His enemies could never have bound Him. Consider Him as a victim going to be sacrificed for your salvation. Compassionate Him the affronts He suffers, and follow him in spirit with a resolution never more to forsake him.

O Charity! how strong and powerful are your bonds, since they captivate a God! O may they bind me so fast to Him, that nothing may ever more separate me from Him.

From the Epistle to the Offertory.

Reflect on the many false accusations that the Jews brought against our Saviour. First, as to His doctrine; though he is the way and the truth, who neither can deceive nor be deceived. Then as to His works, though most holy, just, irreproachable.

Learn from the silence and meekness of Jesus, in this occasion, to suffer without murmuration or complaint, whatever injury, false accusation, censures, or malicious interpretations of your doings, or sayings, though innocent and well meant.

From the Offertory to the Elevation.

Consider Jesus offering Himself to His eternal Father, His body for stripes, His head for throns, and hands and feet for nails.

Return most humble thanks for the same, and for the blood He shed from all those parts; to make, thereof, not only a bath to wash away the stains of sin from your soul, but also a sovereign balm to fortify the strengthen you in your pains, labours, and temptations. Beg the grace to make use of it in all such occasions.

Offer the sacrifice of Mass for the same intention, for which Christ offered the bloody Sacrifice of Mount Calvary to His eternal Father, and for the intentions He now offers the unbloody one.

Fro the exaltation of our Holy Mother the Church; and for the sanctification and accomplishment of all God’s designs in His Elect.

To beg that union and peace may ever be in this family, and that each one of it may be so happy as to praise His mercies for a whole eternity.

And that He would please to grant our Bishop and Superiors, and all that have the charge of us, what is necessary for their own sanctification, and that of the persons committed to their care.

Besides these intentions, add one of the these following ones, according to the days of the week.

On Sundays, for the conversion of heretics and infidels throughout the whole world, especially in England.

On Mondays, for obdurate sinners.

On Tuesdays, for all that are in or near their agony.

On Wednesdays, for the conversion of England.

On Thursdays, for peace.

On Fridays, for all those that labour for the conversion of souls.

On Saturdays, for our family, and for all its necessities spiritual and temporal, and to obtain a happy death for each them.

From the Elevation to the Division of the Host.

Consider Christ as the Sovereign High Priest, who on the Altar, as on the Cross, offers Himself in sacrifice to His Eternal Father, for to appease his just anger, and satisfy for our sins; blotting out the decree of our condemnation, and signing with His blood a new alliance between His Father and us.


Look on him in the hands of the Priest, as in the arms of the Cross. Your heart must be of stone if the spectacle does not penetrate it with tender sentiments of love and gratitude.

This sacrifice being the same, and of as great value and virtue now as when offered on Mount Calvary, your affections ought to be the same. With what respect, devotion, and confidence to obtain what you ask, ought you to assist thereat?

Approach the Cross of your Saviour with respect, and remember, that when he prays for His enemies and persecutors, it is for you He prays. Beg His pardon for all your offenses, and grace to amend.

Then offer Him to His Eternal Father, saying:

O my God! Father of my Lord Jesus Christ: I offer you the heart of your beloved Son as He offers it Himself: receive it for me with all its affections, and all the acts proceeding from it, for they are all mine, since it is for me that He sacrifices Himself. Receive them with all His merits, in satisfaction for all my sins, in thanksgiving for all your graces favours. Receives them that thereby you may grant me all necessary graces for my salvation and perfection; and especially the grace of a happy death. In short, receive the affections of that sacred heart, as so many acts of love, adoration, and praise from me: for it is only by means of your Son that we can worthily love, praise, and glorify you.

At the Division of the Host.

When the priest parts the Host, call to mind the cruel separation of our Saviour’s sacred soul from His body. Conceive, if possible the enormity of sin, which could no other ways be worthily repaired than the death of the God-Man.

Weep bitterly for those you have committed; and resolve rather to die than to deprive Christ of the fruit of His passion which He only suffered to exterminate sin.

At the Priest’s Communion.

Reflect how the soul of Jesus Christ, as soon as separated from His body, descended into Limbus to comfort with His presence the souls of the Faithful there detained; and by that Divine presence, of a hell He made it a heaven.

Beseech Him to do the same in your soul, by spiritual Communion, if you are not allowed to receive Him sacramentally: but dispose your self for it by an act of humility, and of contrition, and a great desire to receive Him, that you may be united to Him: for which effect say,

O my God: I do most ardently desire to receive you, and to have all the dispositions necessary for that effect; but I acknowledge myself a sinner, and therefore very unworthy of it. On this account, I dare not presume to receive you, who are my Lord and my God: but I offer you the devotion and charity, wherewith you were received by your most blessed Mother, and by all your Saints; and the faith and devotion with which all your servants in the state of grace throughout the whole world, do this day receive you.

You can, dear Lord, work in me, without my receiving you sacramentally all that you can operate with it; say then the word, and my soul shall be sanctified and saved. Make me a partaker of all the affections and devotions wherewith the just receive you today; and of all the effects which you by this Adorable Sacrament work in their souls; and of those effects for which you instituted and ordained this Holy Sacrament for the everlasting glory of the Divine Majesty.

Never fail to communicate spiritually at every Mass: for though it be not of so great value as Sacramental Communion, yet it is of great advantage if well performed, and the best preparation for Sacramental Communion.

After which imagine you have received Him, and entertain Him in your heart, as you would do if you had really received Him.

Then descend with Him in Spirit into Purgatory, and beseech Him to comfort and release those souls, by applying to them the merits of His life and death, and the fruits of Holy Mass.

New Blog Added to the Blogroll: Splendor: The Glory of Traditional Catholicism

Please check out the new blog by Mr. Carl Vanderwouden, Splendor: The Glory of Traditional Catholicism.

Carl has an eye for the grandeur of traditional Catholicism, and his pictures from Canada have been featured here at Ars Orandi. Carl constantly demonstrates that he lives in the presence of the Lord. He is one of the most positive people I've come across on the internet, and he has often inspired me to see the brighter sides and silver linings in these troubling times. I look forward to visiting his blog often.

Please keep him in your prayers.

April Fool's Day Zenit New Service article about JPII beatification

Don't believe it. It's an April Fool's Day fake. The beatification of JPII is going on full steam ahead.