St. John Paul II on Communion for the Divorced and Remarried

“For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself.”(1 Corinthians 11:29)

In Familiaris Consortio ( no. 84) Pope John Paul II wrote that divorced and civilly remarried Catholics could not receive Holy Communion, for two very profound reasons:

“However, the church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon sacred scripture, of not admitting to eucharistic communion divorced persons who have remarried. They are unable to be admitted thereto from the fact that their state and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and the church which is signified and effected by the eucharist. Besides this there is another special pastoral reason: If these people were admitted to the eucharist the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the church’s teaching about the indissolubility of marriage.”

Priests and Seminarians have snowball fights at the Vatican

WHY I'M BECOMING CATHOLIC (From a Young Ex-Protestant)

                                                                           

From the Catholic Herald:-


"YouTube star Lizzie Estella Reezay has announced she is converting to Catholicism.


In a video posted to her LizziesAnswers account, she explains: “Iwant everyone to know that I hated that this was happening. I fought sohard to get out of this intellectually. I did not want to be Catholic.
Not only did I think Catholicism was wrong, I just didn’t like the vibeof Catholicism. I wanted to be anything but Catholic.”




However, she said she had no choice but to convert when she realised Catholicism was true."

Cardinal Sarah: Advocates Communion Kneeling and on the Tongue and Speaks of ‘diabolical attack’ on Eucharist

From the Catholic Herald:-

"The widespread practice of Catholics receiving communion in the hand while standing up is part of Satan’s attack on the Church, the head of the Vatican department dealing with liturgy has said.

In the preface to a book on the subject, Cardinal Robert Sarah lamented the lack of reverence for the Blessed Sacrament, saying this leads to belief in “errors” on the matter.

“The most insidious diabolical attack consists in trying to extinguish faith in the Eucharist, sowing errors and favouring an unsuitable manner of receiving it,” the cardinal wrote.

“Truly the war between Michael and his Angels on one side, and Lucifer on the other, continues in the heart of the faithful: Satan’s target is the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Real Presence of Jesus in the consecrated host.

“Why do we insist on communicating standing in the hand? Why this attitude of lack of submission to the signs of God?

“[Receiving kneeling and on the tongue] is much more suited to the sacrament itself. I hope there can be a rediscovery and promotion of the beauty and pastoral value of this manner. In my opinion and judgment, this is an important question on which the church today must reflect. This is a further act of adoration and love that each of us can offer to Jesus Christ.”

The cardinal’s preface appears in the new book ‘The distribution of Communion on the hand: a historical, juridical and pastoral survey’ by Don Federico Bortoli. It was reproduced on the Italian website La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana.

Communion in the hand, he points out, “involves a great dispersion of fragments” of the Host, which, although small, are still the body of the Lord. Failure to respect this can cause people to lose their belief in the Real Presence, leading Catholics to think: “If even the parish priest does not pay attention to the fragments, if he administers the Communion so that the fragments can be dispersed, then it means that Jesus is not in them, or only ‘up to a certain point'”.

Spain: young people dancing a jota in reparation for blasphemy against the Blessed Virgin

From Fr Z:-

"I saw something at hated Facebook posted by Regina Magazine.

It seems that a Galician writer and dramatist Carlos Santiago made in public some blasphemous comments about the Blessed Virgin Mary. They were so bad that some people (alas, not all) got up and left the event. Our Lady asks us to make reparation for offenses against her. Hence, young people in Zaragoza, Spain danced a jota (the “national dance”, as it were) in front of the Cathedral and Our Lady of the Pillar, in reparation for the blasphemy.

I’m not sure if this video will work. Try refreshing if it doesn’t at first. I got it to work.

If memory serves, the Spanish and Catalans would dance the jota after Sunday Mass in the square before their churches. There is a scene in that mighty font, the great Aubrey/Maturin series. Stephen speaks of it in The Commodore. I think he also does it in another book."

Please share!

What is Lent?

New film about Sts Paul and Luke

This film comes out in the US in March - not sure when it will reach the UK!

Young Catholic Adults in "Mass of Ages" Magazine

Taken from the Dome of Home blog:-

Mass of Ages is the quarterly magazine of the Latin Mass Society. It contains reports on our many activities across the country, national and international news of Traditional Catholic events, feature articles on different aspects of traditional Faith and culture, and opinions and views on developments in the Catholic Church.

The spring 2018 edition is now available. In this issue:

• Caroline Shaw reports on the ICKSP Pilgrimage to Fatima led by Cardinal Burke

• Paul Waddington visits St Thomas of Canterbury and English Martyrs, the 2nd ICKSP Church in Preston

• Canon Amaury Montjean ICKSP welcomes the Sisters to Preston

• Fr Christopher Basden remembers the late Fr Michael Clifton

• Canon Martin Edwards reports on a traditional pilgrimage to the Holy Land

• Alan Frost writes on the history of settings of the Stabat Mater

• Damian Barker reports on the Young Catholic Adults retreat at Douai Abbey

• The Catholic Medical Association’s Committee for the New Evangelization introduce their forthcoming Conference at Tyburn Convent.

Catholics plan Huge-Rosary Prayer Chain around the British Coastline

From the Catholic herald:-

The 'Rosary on the Coast' will mark 50 years since the Abortion Act came into effect

After similar events in Poland and Ireland, Catholics plan to pray the rosary around the coast on Great Britain in April this year.

The event, which is scheduled for Sunday, April 29, will mark 50 years since the Abortion Act coming into effect.

Organisers say the mass-rosary prayer will help combat the “present threats to faith, the dignity of the human person and to peace”, and encourage a “re-flourishing of our Faith”.

Fr Lucie-Smith: Praying the rosary is not ‘controversial’. It’s our best weapon against evil

They intend to launch a website with an interactive map of prayer locations on March 1, the feast of St David, patron of Wales. Then, on the feast of St Joseph on March 19, they will begin forty days of spiritual preparation under the protection of the saint, ending on April 27, the 50th anniversary of the Abortion Act coming into effect.

Bishop John Keenan of Paisley said he was “more than happy” to support the initiative. “Hopefully all these rosary sites will join up together and form a ring of grace around our coast for faith, life and peace.”

Pope Emeritus in Last Stages of Life

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Former pope Benedict said in a letter published in an Italian newspaper on Wednesday that he is in the last phase of life and on a "pilgrimage towards home".

Benedict, who in February 2013 became the first pope in six centuries to resign, wrote a letter to the Corriere della Sera newspaper thanking readers for their best wishes as he approaches the fifth anniversary of stepping down.

"I am moved that so many readers want to know how I spend my days in this, the last period of the life," he wrote.

"I can only say that with the slow withering of my physical forces, interiorly, I am on a pilgrimage towards home..."

Link:
Ex pope Benedict says he is in the last phase of his life

Cheltenham YCA Feb 2018 Events

Wednesday 7th Feb - Low Mass at 7pm St. Gregory's Church, Cheltenham (GL50 3PR) -  Rosary and Confessions before Mass. The Rosary and serving are organised by Cheltenham YCA.

Saturday 17th Feb - Devitions/Catechesis. Time TBC. Text 07908105787 for more details.

What is Sexagesima?

From the Catholic encyclopedia:-

Sexagesima, (sixtieth) is the eighth Sunday before Easter and the second before Lent. The Ordo Romanus, Alcuin, and others count the Sexagesima from this day to Wednesday after Easter. The name was already known to the Fourth Council of Orléansin 541. For the Greeks and Slavs it is Dominica Carnisprivii, because on it they began, at least to some extent, to abstain from meat. The Synaxarium calls it Dominica secundi et muneribus non corrupti adventus Domini. To the Latins it is also known as "Exsurge" from the beginning of the Introit. The statiowas at Saint Paul's outside the walls of Rome, and hence the oratio calls upon the doctor of the Gentiles. The Epistle is from Paul, 2 Corinthians 11and 12, describing his suffering and labours for the Church. The Gospel (Luke 8) relates the falling of the seed on good and on bad ground, while the Lessons of the first Nocturn continue the history of man'siniquity, and speak of Noah and of the Deluge. (See SEPTUAGESIMA.)

Sources

BUTLER. The Movable Feasts of the Catholic Chureh (New York, s. d.), tr. IV, ii.

Newman – Candlemas

Via:- Fr. John Zuhlsdorf:-

Blessed John Henry Newman’s 1849 poem “Candlemas”:

"THE Angel-lights of Christmas morn,
Which shot across the sky,
Away they pass at Candlemas,
They sparkle and they die.
Comfort of earth is brief at best,
Although it be divine;
Like funeral lights for Christmas gone,
Old Simeon’s tapers shine.
And then for eight long weeks and more,
We wait in twilight grey,
Till the high candle sheds a beam
On Holy Saturday.
We wait along the penance-tide
Of solemn fast and prayer;
While song is hush’d, and lights grow dim
In the sin-laden air. {280}
And while the sword in Mary’s soul
Is driven home, we hide
In our own hearts, and count the wounds
Of passion and of pride.
And still, though Candlemas be spent
And Alleluias o’er,
Mary is music in our need,
And Jesus light in store."

Sarum Rite Candlemas

From the Catholic encyclopedia:-

(More accurately SARUM USE)

"The manner of regulating the details of the Roman Liturgy that obtained in pre-Reformation times in the south of England and was thence propagated over the greater part of Scotland and of Ireland. Other, though not very dissimilar Uses, those of York, Lincoln, Bangor, and Hereford, prevailed in the north of England and in Wales. The Christian Anglo-Saxons knew no other Liturgy than that of the Mother Church of Rome. Their celebrated Synod of Clovesho (747) lays down: "That in one and the same manner we all celebrate the Sacred Festivals pertaining to Our Lord's coming in the Flesh; and so in everything, in the way we confer Baptism, in our celebration of Mass, and in our manner of singing. All has to be done according to the pattern which we have received in writing from the Roman Church" (Canon 13). — "That the Seven Canonical Hours be everywhere gone through with the fitting Psalmody and with the proper chant; and that no one presume to sing or to read aught save what custom admits, what comes down to us with the authority of Holy Scripture, and what the usage of the Roman Church allows to be sung or read" (Canon 15).

St. Osmund, a Norman nobleman, who came over to England with William the Conqueror, and was by him made Bishop of Sarum or Salisbury (1078), compiled the books corresponding to our Missal, Breviary, and Ritual, which revised and fixed the Anglo-Saxon readings of the Roman Rite. With these he appears very naturally to have incorporated certain liturgical traditions of his Norman fellow-countryman who, however, equally with the conquered English, ever sought to do all things in church exactly as was done in Rome. In appreciating the wide-spread Sarum Use, concerning which the extant literature is very copious, it is well to bear in mind that just as the Roman Rite itself has always been patient of laudable local customs, so, in medieval times the adopting of the Sarum Service Books did not necessarily mean the rejecting of existing ceremonial usages in favour of those in vogue at Salisbury, but only the fitting thereof into the framework outlined in the Sarum Missal, Breviary, and other liturgical manuals. Again, it must not be forgotten that the Sarum Use represents in the main the Roman Rite as carried out in the eleventh century, and that the reforms introduced by Gregory VII and his immediate successors which culminated in the thirteenth century Franciscan revision of the Breviary, only very slowly and very partially found their way into the service books of the Gallic and British Churches. Hence, the marked resemblance of the Sarum Use to those of the Dominicans, Calced Carmelites, and other medieval religious orders.

The following are the more noticeable variants of the Use of Sarum from the developed Roman Rite of our own times.

(1) At Mass, as in the Dominican Use, the Sarum priest began by saying a verse of the psalm "Confitemini," with a shortened Confiteor followed by the verse "Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini." Nevertheless, at Salisbury every celebrant was bound to have recited the whole psalm "Judica me Deus" in the sacristy before coming to the foot of the altar. The prayer "Aufer a nobis" was said, but not that which now follows it, in lieu of which the priest simply made the sign of the cross and proceeded to read the Officium, or as we call it, the Introit, repeating it not only after its Gloria Patri but also after the psalm-verse which precedes the latter. From the Kyrie to the Offertory the deviations from our actual usage are slight, though on festival days this section of the sacred rite was often enormously lengthened by varied and prolix sequences. Like the Dominican and other contemporaneous Uses, that of Sarum supposes the previous preparation of the chalice (put by the Sarum Missal between the Epistle and Gospel) and thereby materially abbreviates the Offertory ceremonial. According to an archaic usage, still familiar to ourselves from the Roman Good-Friday Rite, the prayer "In spiritu humilitatis" followed in place of preceding the washing of the priest's hands and the psalm "Lavabo" was omitted, so also to the "Orate Fratres" (at Sarum, "Orate Fratres et Sorores") no audible response was made. From the Preface onward through the Canon, the Sarum Mass was word for word and gesture by gesture that of our own Missals, except that a profound inclination of head and shoulders took the place of the modern genuflection and that during the first prayer after the Elevation the celebrant stood with arms stretched out in the form of a cross. As in France and generally in Northern and Western Europe the Benediction given at the breaking of the Sacred Host was not curtailed to the mere pronouncing of the words "Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum" but, more particularly when a bishop officiated, was very solemnly given with a formula varying according to the festival. The Agnus Dei in the Sarum Use was said as by the Dominicans after and not before the Commingling, but the prayers before the priest's Communion were other than those with which we are familiar. The kiss of peace was given as with us but there was no "Domine non sum dignus." The words pronounced by the celebrant at the moment of his own Communion are striking and seem peculiar to the Sarum Missal. They may therefore be fittingly quoted: "Hail for evermore, Thou most holy Flesh of Christ; sweet to me before and beyond all things beside. To me a sinner may the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ be the Way and the Life." The "Quod ore sumpsimus" and some other prayers accompanied the taking of the ablutions, and the Communion and Postcommunion followed as now. But no Blessing was given and the beginning of the Gospel of St. John was recited by the priest on his way from the sanctuary to the sacristy."

Candlemas Feb 2nd.

Accordng to the Catholic encyclopedia:-

"According to the Roman Missal the celebrant after Terce, in stole and cope of purple colour, standing at the epistle side of the altar, blesses the candles (which must be of beeswax). Having sung or recited the five orations prescribed, he sprinkles and incenses the candles. Then he distributes them to the clergy and laity, whilst the choir sings the canticle of Simeon, "Nunc dimittis". The antiphon "Lumen ad revelationem gentium et gloriam plebis tuæ Israel" is repeated after every verse, according to the medieval custom of singing the antiphons. During the procession which now follows, and at which all the partakers carry lighted candles in their hands, the choir sings the antiphon "Adorna thalamum tuum, Sion", composed by St. John of Damascus, one of the few pieces which, text and music, have been borrowed by the Roman Church from the Greeks. The other antiphons are of Roman origin. 

The solemn procession represents the entry of Christ, who is the Light of the World, into the Temple of Jerusalem. It forms an essential part of the liturgical services of the day, and must be held in every parochial church where the required ministers can be had. The procession is always kept on 2 February even when the office and Mass of the feast is transferred to 3 February. Before the reform of the Latin liturgy by St. Pius V (1568), in the churches north and west of the Alps this ceremony was more solemn. After the fifth oration a preface was sung. The "Adorna" was preceded by the antiphon "Ave Maria". While now the procession in held inside the church, during the Middle Ages the clergy left the church and visited the cemetery surrounding it. Upon the return of the procession a priest, carrying an image of the Holy Child, met it at the door and entered the church with the clergy, who sang the canticle of Zachary, "Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel". At the conclusion, entering the sanctuary, the choir sang the responsory, "Gaude Maria Virgo" or the prose, "Inviolata" or some other antiphon in honour of the Blessed Virgin."