Find Mass boring?

"You don't get anything out of the Mass because you don’t bring anything to it.

  If you want to enhance the fruitfulness of your participation in Mass, just bring a generous sacrifice."
Archbishop Fulton Sheen

 

How to stay positive and keep the Faith

Look, life as we know it could end tomorrow if North Korea kicks off or Iran, Israel, Russia, India, Pakistan and so on.

Our Catholic life is also uncertain;the new Holy Father is in the process of taking over the reins and, judging from yesterday's Mass at St Paul's Without the Walls in Rome, things are a bit muddled at present.

Note the mix up over reception of Holy Communion.

Some priests indicated only by mouth while others happily placed the Host in the hand. There can only be one right way so let's have some clarity please HF. Let's have leadership as well as humility, please.

As always, I turn to Archbishop Fulton Sheen at times of trial and tribulation.

He has an excellent series on world crisis, and personal suffering; physical and mental.

We can look forward to our tears being wiped from our eyes....nothing can harm us.....God is our Father.

SPAKTF!

The joy of suffering

Yet another case is going forward for judgement on one man's right to commission his own death. The person in question is 58 years old and suffering from "locked in syndrome" following a severe stroke.

When such tragic cases hit the headlines it seems to me that the benefits of suffering are never raised, never recognised even.

Can there be benefits attached to an existence that forces you to be reliant on other people for every personal need?

"The vertical bar pointing to the heavens is God's will. The horizontal bar contradicting it is our will. When our will is in conflict with God's will we have a cross. A cross in the mind is fear, anxiety, unhappiness. A cross in the body is pain" (Archbishop Fulton Sheen)

As Catholics we know that there are indeed profound benefits to be gained if we can approach suffering in the right way.
 I am reminded me of a talk given by Archbishop Sheen on the subject of suffering. He met with a woman who was in what we used to call an 'iron lung' - she had been subject to this treatment for some years and was due to spend the rest of her life inanimate in all but speech.

The Archbishop asked her if she knew what suffering was and she replied "No".
He then wrote to her daily over a long period of time and I have no doubt that his letters would have been a lifeline for her.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen had a great insight into suffering and, in later life, he actually experienced it himself following complicated heart surgery.

But, more than that, he wrote about it and it is a constant thread running through most of his books and talks.

Here is what he has to say on the issue of what he calls "wasted pain" -

"One of the greatest tragedies in the world is wasted pain. Pain without relation to the Cross is like an unsigned cheque - without value.
But once we have countersigned with the signature of the Saviour on the Cross, it takes on an infinite value.

A feverish brow that never throbs in unison with a Head crowned with thorns, or an aching hand never borne in patience with a hand on the Cross, is sheer waste.
The world is worse for that pain when it might have been much better.

All the sickbeds of the world therefore, are either on the right side of the Cross or on the left; they ask to be taken down, or like the thief on the right, they ask to be taken up.

It is not so much what people suffer that makes the world mysterious: it is rather how much they miss when they suffer.
They seem to forget that even as children they made obstacles in their games in order to have something to overcome. Why then, when they grow into man's estate, should there not be prizes won by effort and struggle?

Cannot the spirit of man rise with adversity as the bird rises against the resistance of the wind? Do not the game fish swim upstream? Must not the alabaster box be broken to fill the house with ointment?.......................Why then cannot pain be made redemption? Why under the alchemy of Divine Love cannot crosses be turned into crucifixes?........."

Those words say it all really. The negative processes of suffering can be re-directed to positives.

How?

By offering pain and humiliation to the Holy Trinity

By allowing your own suffering to be a platform for others to show their love and care and charity

By resigning oneself to God's will and offering up the pain for the release of the Holy Souls

By bearing the pain and indignity in reparation for blasphemies against the Holy Name and Our Lady

Blessed Miguel Pro wrote a most moving prayer on suffering; it is not an easy prayer to say. It is even harder to abide by the sentiments in the prayer:-

Does our life become from day to day more painful, more oppressive, more replete with afflictions? Blessed be he a thousand times who desires it so.

 If life be harder, love makes it also stronger and, only this love, grounded on suffering, can carry the cross of my Lord  Jesus Christ.

Love without egotism, without relying on self but enkindling in the depth of the heart an ardent thirst to love and suffer for all those around us: a thirst that neither misfortune nor contempt can extinguish…..I believe, O Lord; but strengthen my faith….Heart of Jesus, I trust in Thee; but give greater vigour to my confidence.

Heart of Jesus, I give my heart to Thee; but, so enclose it in Thee that it may never be separated from Thee.

Heart of Jesus, I am all Thine; but take care of my promise so that I may be able to put it in practice even unto the complete sacrifice of my life.

In case you didn't realise it....I'm paradoxically intent!

After many years in the traditional pew I no longer experience angst or even anger when I come under attack, although, I admit to being a bit ratty when I receive silly invective in the comments box at times.

Perhaps peace of mind is an age thing but, I also find that by attempting to laugh at myself and  at the inanity of both the world and the Catholic Church authorities in England and  Wales, life becomes worth living.

My blogging is a release of the pent up frustrations 23 years of fighting Bishops, teachers, nuns, priests and laity who have all done their damnedest to baulk the attempts of my wife and myself to bring our children up within the teachings of Holy Mother Church.

So it is good to be able to laugh a great deal of the time or, as Archbishop Sheen described it: "Be paradoxically intentioned"

How to treat a chalice that has been an issue of sacrilege.

There is only one way to treat a sacred vessel (I am thinking ahead here of the final stages of what is becoming the Ramsgate Benedictine Scandal) where it  has been subject to sacriligious use.

Archbishop Sheen gave the example of a chalice that had been sold and subsequently used as a cocktail 'glass' or beer cup in a night club.

According to the great man one must take the cup and return it to the furnace, melting it down so that the sin of its desecration would be cleansed by fire, just as you might, in a case of emergency, apply a red hot iron to an infected wound.

Then and only then, it can be recast and shaped and annealed so that it returns with its old substance but cleansed and in a new form.

And, then, of course, it must be consecrated anew by a Bishop.

Picture: Fr Z

Would someone please tell the Benedictines of Chilworth that please?

There's a frog in my bucket!

La grenouille est morte!

The late Archbishop Fulton Sheen used to tell this tale and, whilst it is very well known in the world of Catholic bloggers, I felt it was worth a re-run.

The Archbishop used this little  parable to illustrate, very graphically, how those in the modern Church have drifted off into oblivion, forgetting the vital facts about the Church's teachings on faith and morals because they have absorbed the deadly warmth of a secular, material society.

It is a simple story and, from memory, I will relate it as the great man once did:

"...you take a frog from its wild environment and you place it in a bucket of water where it swims around happily.


Then you slowly, very gradually, begin to heat the water.


Not by much, a degree or half a degree a day until quite some time later the day comes when you look in the bucket and the frog is dead.


It was not aware of any increase in temperature, so gradual was the increase.
And then, it died!"

So it is with our Faith. If we remove ourselves, for whatever reason, from the mainstream of the Church, and become distracted by earthly things, we don't notice the increase in temperature that occurs until, one day, it is too late for us and we are dead!"

This is the case with so many Catholics inasmuch that they attend Mass on a Sunday but totally disregard most teachings of the Church and all guidance of the Holy Father.

The temperature has risen and, to all intents and purposes, they are spiritually dead.

This might be a good starting point for the Bishops when they come to put into place Pope Benedict's call for an evangelisation programme in October this year.

Re-evangelisation should be Phase One!

It did not happen with Mohammed, or with Buddha or with any other religious leader.....

...only the coming of Christ was foretold.

Today is the anniversary of the death of that great Priest, Archbishop Fulton Sheen who, one day will be canonised.

This clip features his voice as he talks about the one (the only one) whose coming was prophesied....Christ the Saviour of the world!

If you want a Christmas present with a difference, buy a CD set of the Archbishop's retreats and sermons - they are just so very good.

They are available from St Anthony Communications http://www.saintant.com/



       Prayer for the Canonization of Archbishop Fulton Sheen

Heavenly Father, source of all holiness, You raise up within the Church in every age men and women who serve with heroic love and dedication.
You have blessed Your Church through the life and ministry of Your faithful servant, Archbishop Fulton J Sheen.

He has written and spoken well of Your Divine Son, Jesus Christ, and was a true instrument of the Holy Spirit in touching the hearts of countless people.
If it be according to Your Will, for the honour and glory of the Most Holy Trinity and for the salvation of souls, we ask You to move the Church to proclaim him a saint.

We ask this prayer through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

The actress and the bishop!

Be honest, your thoughts raced down all sorts of corridors when you read that headline, and most of them were pretty murky - correct?

But it is an honest headline, so please let me explain (and many thanks to Liz for reminding me of this true story).

                                    The young Fulton Sheen - future saint!

It concerns the great priest, Bishop and, finally, Archbishop, Fulton Sheen - soon, Deo volente, to be canonised.

It was London in the late 1920s and Father Sheen, as he then was, had been seconded to teach at the seminary at St Edmond's Ware.
In addition to those duties he became an unofficial curate at St Patrick's Church, Soho Square.

 November in London in those days meant being immersed in a dense and foul fog (I don't remember that, by the way, but it was the same in the Fifties).

Fr Sheen went to open the church one foggy morning only to find a young woman of uncertain sobriety in the doorway.

To cut to the point, the good Father engaged her in conversation and made her a cup of strong coffee. It transpired that she was a Catholic and the star of a musical then on the London stage and that she was involved with three men and life had become unbearable for her.

Drink had become her refuge and her friend.

Fr Sheen then asked her to come back the following day when he would show her a painting by Rembrandt and talk with her further.

She agreed to return on one condition; that Father Sheen would not ask her to go to confession.

This he agreed to. but that was not enough. "Promise me that you will not ask me to go to confession" pleaded the actress.

"OK, I promise that I will not ask you to go to confession" said the priest.

That satisfied the woman and the next day, sure enough, she did return.

As they walked up the church towards the sanctuary they passed a confessional and without further ado, Father Sheen pushed her into it!

She made a full confession, the first for many years and, a short time later she entered the community of enclosed nuns at Tyburn and she was still there forty years later when the then Bishop Sheen related the story to his television audience.

As Archbishop Sheen said to his audience: "I didn't ask her to go to confession, I pushed her in"

Many years ago St Patrick's was my parish church and I have a great affection for it, most especially as it has been restored and renovated to a very high standard by the PP, Fr Sherbrooke.

.
The anniversary of his death is 9th November.

May God have mercy on his soul and may Archbishop Fulton Sheen come to the aid of the Catholic Church today.

ARCHBISHOP FULTON JOHN SHEEN RIP

 8 MAY 1895 - 9 NOVEMBER 1979

Sin - on four wheels!

A couple of Sundays ago I was reminded of the old saying when life deals you a bitter blow - "What has fairness got to do with it?"




The Road to Perdition


I was returning from a distant Mass and enjoying the spiritual afterglow as well as the beautiful North Pembrokeshire countryside and my mind, admittedly, was on a higher plane level. The roads were clear and free of traffic as only the  roads of Baptist country can be at 5 o'clock on a Sunday afternoon.

Suddenly, as I rounded a bend, there was a police speed trap. I did not falter one iota; I kept on at my steady pace, confident in the belief that I was a law abiding citizen; ahead of me stretched a half mile of visibly open road - dim problem as they say in those parts.

And then, ten days later I received a speeding summons. For driving at 35 miles per hour in a 30 mile limit area! Is there no justice, Lord?

The episode reminded me of how the great Archbishop Fulton Sheen used to address priests attending one of his retreats.

He would begin by saying:

"Who amongst you is with sin?"  There would be an uncomfortable silence and a 'no show' of hands.

"Alright" the Archbishop would say, "who amongst you broke the speed limit on the way here?" Red faces all  round.

It is a fact that we so often take everyday offences for granted and forget to tag them with the 'sin' label.

Breaking the reasonable law of the land is a sin; driving beyond the capacity of road conditions is a sin.
Not maintaining the service level of your car is a sin, maybe a small one of the venial variety but, if you injured someone in a car that you had deliberately or negligently not kept at the correct levels of safety, it would be a much more serious sin, possibly of the mortal variety.

Now comes the part that Protestant readers of this blog (if they exist, which I doubt) will throw their hands in the air and say: "I told you so".

Did I confess my 'transgression?' No. Why?

Well I thought about it long and hard and reasoned that my speeding was a result of human error and ignorance.
All had looked good on the road; I was in a 30 mile zone on the outward road from a small village and, within the next hundred yards it switched to being a 60 mph zone (I had thought all along that I was in a 60 mph zone).

I had not wilfully broken the law.

That has no currency in man's court, but, in God's, it does.

Of what use is an empty cross?

None, really. It is just a piece of wood, or two pieces of wood, it signifies a hollow, sanitised Protestant version of.......what?.......certainly not the sacrifice of the Son of God on Calvary...... no sign of the redemptive power of suffering and God's love for us in allowing His Son to be shamed, humiliated, beaten and executed as a common criminal.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen called it a symbol of totalitarian regimes, a cross without the saving Victim has no sacrificial element, it has no saving grace.

Bland, meaningless, insulting!

A number of comments have been made following my post regarding the ten things you would not find in a Catholic home; my tenth item was a wooden cross.

This may have been puzzling to some people so I set about finding Archbishop Sheen's famous talk on the value of the crucifix as opposed to the cross.

I recalled that I gave my CD set to my terminally ill sister in the hope that it would bring her some comfort in coping with her suffering. I do not know if it did. She died some six months later with no acknowledgement, not that I was looking for any.

My next step was to Google the matter and, much to my chagrin, I found that Mundabor had beaten me to it with a post in July. I cannot improve on that post. I wish I knew some Italian swear words.

So, straight from Mundabor's Blog comes part of ++ Sheen's sermon on the cross....

Re-browsing the exceedingly beautiful “Life of Christ” from the great Fulton Sheen (a book that, if you ask me, should be obligatory reading in every RCIA, or confirmation class) I stumbled upon this very beautiful concept which, once again, made on me a profound impression (emphases always mine).

“The modern world, which denies personal guilt and admits only social crimes, which has no place for personal repentance but only public reforms, has divorced Christ from His Cross; the Bridegroom and Bride have been pulled apart. What God hath joined together, men have torn asunder. As a result, to the left is the Cross; to the right is the Christ”. [...] Communism comes along and picks up the meaningless Cross; Western post-Christian civilization chooses the unscarred Christ.”

“Communism has chosen the Cross in the sense that it has brought back to an egotistic world a sense of discipline, self-abnegation, surrender, hard work, study, and dedication to supraindividual goals. But the Cross without Christ is sacrifice without love. Hence, Communism has produced a society that is authoritarian, cruel, oppressive of human freedom, filled with concentrantion camps, firing squads, and brain-washings”

“The Western post-Christian civilization has picked up the Christ without His Cross. But a Christ without a sacrifice that reconciles the world to God is a cheap, feminized, colorless, itinerant preacher who deserves to be popular for His great Sermon on the Mount, but also merits unpopularity for what He said about His Divinity on the one hand, and divorce, judgment, and hell on the other. This sentimental Christ is patched together with a thousand commonplaces. [...] Without His Cross, He becomes nothing more than a sultry precursor of democracy or a humanitarian who taught brotherhood without tears”.

Ben Trovato of Countercultural Father pointed out that Opus Dei members keep an 'empty' cross to remind them that they must be prepared to shoulder it throughout their lives, some religious orders also display a cross for the same purpose. All  that is good and fine.

 But, for those Catholics who put a cross rather than a crucifix on their wall they might like to consider the implications. Is it a denial of Christ? Is it just a euphemistic symbol? Is it a means to avoid meditating upon the shame and the agony associated with the crucifixion? ( Some Protestants believe that we Catholics enjoy keeping Christ permanently crucified without realising that the sacrifice on Calvary was not a one off and that the same sacrifice is made in an unbloody fashion at every Mass celebrated every day throughout the world).

Reflective, saving, poignant and fulfilling!

It is a scandal that, at one of the churches that I travel to for Sunday Mass, a large empty wooden cross hangs over the altar - the ultimate insult to one who made His sacrificial offering on our behalf.

WHY IS THE HUMAN RACE SO SCARED OF THE CROSS?

No cross no crown!

The cross is the prime symbol of all time and will remain so until the end of time but it seems to be an object of fear among the secular world.

The latest incident involves a group of atheists who are campaigning to have a cross that was erected on the site of the Twin Towers 9/11 atrocity, removed. The cross was constructed from two of the steel girders salvaged from the debris and found already fused into a cross formation.

There have been many incidents of nurses or others wearing  a cross worn on a chain or as a brooch in the workplace and even of a van driver who displayed a Palm cross in his vehicle. All of them were subject to dismissal type procedures.

There has been agitation in Italy and other mainland European countries, to have the crucifix removed from classrooms and public sector offices. What is eating at these people?

If the humanists or atheists wanted to put a logo on their advertising and poster hoardings I wouldn't bat an eyelid; if they wanted to erect 3 dimensional logos on their own land that would be fine provided that it complied with planning regulations.

So why does the material world throw a hissy fit when a cross is displayed?

Of course, we know that a cross without Christ is a contradiction anyway; you can't have the cross without the victim. You cannot have Easter Sunday without first having Good Friday. The bare unadorned cross is really a Protestant emblem but, sadly, there are quite a few Catholic churches who have also opted for the sanitised version - no saving victim.

Archbishop Sheen called the bare cross "effeminate" and so it is. Take away the Man and you are left with two cross sections of wood.

There is an old but good story of a woman who walked into a jewellers store and asked to be shown a chain with a cross on. "Certainly" Said the jeweller. "Would you like a plain one or one with the little man on?"

We have moved so far away from knowledge of the truth, in another twenty years most of the educated world will not even know who Jesus Christ is.

The world is drifting away from the reality of the crucified Christ and adopting a format that does not challenge or require thoughts of redemption, suffering and sacrifice.

That is what the American atheists are scared of......the reality of God's kingdom made apparent through the ordeal, humiliation and torture of His sacrificial Son. And that is why the world fears the cross. The world wants success, triumph, self promotion: it does not want to be reminded of the Good Friday element of redemptive pain, suffering and humiliation.

The New Translation is welcome but will it change things?

It might. It just might, especially where there is a celebrant who has the gravitas to say the Mass with reverence and invoke respect for the Body and Blood of Christ.

But, in the majority of cases we are still facing an intransigent laity who refuse to listen to the messages emanating from Rome; who are so bound up in their own secular pleasures of guitar music, happy clappy singing, hand holding and kiss of peace embracing that the sensitivities of language, reverence and content will pass them by.



Photo: Rorate Coeli
Sorry, but I have nothing in common with these people!

 They will be aided and abetted, of course, by Father Smirk and his wonderful way of starting the Mass by turning his back on the Almighty in order to grin inanely and say: "Good morning everybody."

That is why, regretfully, I shall not be beating a path to the Ordinary Form of Mass. I do believe that, over the past 50 years or so, some people (priests and laity) have lost sight of what the Mass is about. There is a belief that now the Mass is about "ME"........and what "I" can get out of it. A jolly good sing song. A bit of "look at me, I'm on the sanctuary" or, worse, "I'm a special minister" (Ministerium Extraordinarium more like). A feeling that the worship of God and the re-enactment of the sacrifice on Calvary have been overlooked in the rush to 'modernise' and tailor the liturgy to suit one's own ego.
The great Archbishop Sheen, when speaking of how young people described attending Mass as "not getting anything out of it" used to say to them: "But you're not bringing anything to the Mass!" And that is true today. Congregations have forgotten to 'bring' anything with them. They have forgotten that they are there to witness a sacrifice, not a celebratory meal; they have forgotten that the Mass should be a complete and unchanging means of bearing testimony to Christ and His teachings; an opportunity for us to have a more intimate dialogue with the Holy Trinity so that we may confide our fears and make our requests in more august surroundings than the living room or kitchen. And they have forgotten that they are there to worship, love and revere God, and you cannot do that effectively by singing "I wish I was a wiggly worm" or dancing around the sanctuary in flowing robes.

So it is not the New Translation that I have issue with. It is the fact that human pride will continue to reveal itself by those who refuse to kneel to receive the Body of Christ, those who distort the liturgy and those who chatter both before and after Mass. I have nothing in common with them; I am a Catholic!

Two poems, did one inspire the other?

Archbishop Fulton Sheen made the poem 'Lovely Lady dressed in blue'  popular and well loved at the height of his television fame in the 1950s.
It was written by an American, Mary Dixon Thayer, born in 1896.

Some may find it a shade over sentimental and some may find it uncannily similar to a poem written by Francis Thompson.

Here is the Mary Dixon Thayer poem, 'Lovely Lady dressed in blue'

Lovely Lady dressed in blue ----
Teach me how to pray!
God was just your little boy,
Tell me what to say!

Did you lift Him up, sometimes,
Gently on your knee?
Did you sing to Him the way
Mother does to me?

Did you hold His hand at night?
Did you ever try
Telling stories of the world?
O! And did He cry?

Do you really think He cares
If I tell Him things-
Little things that happen? And
Do the Angels' wings

Make a noise? And can He hear
Me if I speak low?
Does He understand me now?
Tell me ---- for you know?

Lovely Lady dressed in blue ----
Teach me how to pray!
God was just your little boy,
And you know the way.

And now for Little Jesus by Francis Thompson (1859-1907)

Little Jesus, was Thou shy
Once, and just so small as I?
And what did it feel like to be
Out of Heaven, and just like me?
Didst Thou sometimes think of there,
And ask where all the angels were?

I should think that I would cry
For my house all made of sky;
I would look about the air,
And wonder where my angels were;
And at waking twould distress me
Not an angel there to dress me!
Hadst Thou ever any toys,
Like us little girls and boys?
And didst Thou play in Heaven with all
The angels that were not too tall,
With stars for marbles? Did the things
Play Can you see me? through their wings?
And did Thy Mother let Thee spoil
Thy robes, with playing on our soil?
How nice to have them always new In Heaven, because twas quite clean blue!

Didst Thou kneel at night to pray,
And didst Thou join Thy hands, this way?
And did they tire sometimes, being young,
And make the prayer seem very long?
And dost Thou like it best, that we
Should join our hands to pray to Thee?
I used to think, before I knew,
The prayer not said unless we do.
And did Thy Mother at the night
Kiss Thee, and fold the clothes in right?
And didst Thou feel quite good in bed,
Kissed, and sweet, and Thy prayers said?

Thou canst not have forgotten all
That it feels like to be small:
And Thou knowst I cannot pray
To Thee in my fathers way
When Thou was so little, say,
Couldst Thou talk Thy Fathers way?
So, a little Child, come down
And hear a childs tongue like Thy own;
Take me by the hand and walk,
And listen to my baby-talk.
To Thy Father show my prayer
(He will look, Thou art so fair),
And say: O Father, I, Thy Son,
Bring the prayer of a little one.

And He will smile, that childrens tongue
Has not changed since Thou wast young!

THE BISHOPS....AGAIN!

Archbishop Fulton Sheen

I make no apologies for bringing up the subject of our Bishops yet again.
Ecumenical Diablog carries a post in which he, very charitably, calls for restraint in offering up criticism lest we fall into the trap of heresy.
I agree that Catholics should always be charitable in their grouses but it is quite legitimate to grouse if the cause exists. If a Bishop goes against the teachings of the Church or disobeys the Holy Father, we are obliged, according to St Paul, to admonish. I see very little that one could describe as being of good quality or excellence in the Bishops of England and Wales. We have the appalling Cardinal Vaughan hijacking by Westminster Diocese, the establishment of a secular school in direct competition with a Catholic school, actually being built in the grounds of the Catholic school in Middlesborough Diocese, Bishop Burns in Menevia kicking off about sexism because women are not allowed as altar servers in the EF, pretty grim performances for Education Sunday under the control of Bishop McMahon OP, Wrexham Diocese in meltdown and Liverpool Diocese more protestant than Dr Ian Paisley by all accounts.

Not exactly a picture of light and happiness is it?

And so Archbishop Fulton Sheen's words ring in my ears..........

"WHO IS GOING TO SAVE OUR CHURCH? NOT OUR BISHOPS, NOT OUR PRIESTS AND RELIGIOUS.

IT IS UP TO YOU, THE PEOPLE. YOU HAVE THE MINDS, THE EYES, THE EARS TO SAVE THE CHURCH.

YOUR MISSION IS TO SEE THAT YOUR PRIESTS ACT LIKE PRIESTS, YOUR BISHOPS LIKE BISHOPS AND YOUR RELIGIOUS LIKE RELIGIOUS!

BLOGGING SEEMS A GOOD PLACE TO BEGIN!