Traditional Roman Catholic Thoughts

Traditional Roman Catholic Thoughts

Reintroducing Logic and Reason to the Age of Sentimentalism

Pope Francis Proves the Novus Ordo Doesn’t Care About Rules

Pope Francis has changed the rules and is now allowing women to have their feet washed during the Holy Thursday Mass. Granted Pope Francis has done this every single Holy Thursday since he’s been Pope; he has now codified it. If the Pope can make drastic changes to the Liturgy based on his personal preference and the Liturgy allows for it, then you know you do not have a God-given Mass, but a man-made Mass.

Careful Consideration

During the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI, we saw the renewal of the traditions that make the Catholic Mass Catholic. We saw the return of Ad Orientem, Latin, and of course, the Tridentine Mass. The faithful credited the Holy Spirit for this renewal of the Liturgical rubrics. Since March 13, 2013, we have seen many rubrics thrown to the wayside for novelties and the personal whims of the reigning Pontiff. And yet, the faithful credit the Holy Spirit for this breath of fresh air.

So the question must be asked; does the Holy Spirit have multiple personalities? The answer is no. The Holy Spirit, who IS GOD, can not contradict Himself, as God is unchanging throughout all time. He is the same yesterday as He is today as He will be tomorrow. To say that the changes made under both of these pontificates are what God wants would be incorrect; it must either be one or the other and since God is unchanging, it is safe to say that tradition will uphold over novelties.

But maybe we are looking at this from the wrong perspective. Maybe the Novus Ordo doesn’t have the clear rubrics as we once thought and proclaimed? For the longest time, faithful Catholics who desired a reverent Novus Ordo would cite the rubrics to demonstrate what should and shouldn’t be done at the Mass. But as mentioned above, if the Pope can change these rubrics at any given moment, why does it matter?

The thing is, Pope Francis has been abusing the Holy Thursday foot washing rite for a very long time. During his time as an archbishop and Cardinal, he would abuse the liturgical rubrics and allow women have their feet washed, despite clear wording in the laws of the rite that state otherwise. Now that he is the Pope, he has struck out the rule so that he will no longer be breaking said rule. It reminds me of

Cardinal Bergoglio Washes Womans Feet

And this is the funny thing about the creation of the Novus Ordo Mass. The entirety of the Mass, except several parts that have been lifted from the Tridentine Mass, were all abuses that had crept their way into the Mass in one way or the other. Reception of Communion in the hand, bringing up the gifts, versus populum, unworthy music, Mass in the vernacular, receiving the Precious Blood, holding hands during the Our Father, the Sign of Peace, altar girls, etc, were all abuses that have now been deemed “permissible” by the Church. If a Rite doesn’t care about rules and ends up throwing them away when it becomes inconvenient, then why have any rules in the first place? And if it doesn’t have any rules, can we trust that it is truly pleasing to God, the giver of Divine Law?

The fact is the Novus Ordo doesn’t care about the rubrics. If it did, it wouldn’t be subject to so many drastic changes from day to day. Much like a teenage girl who can’t figure out what she wants to wear on her first day of school, the Novus Ordo can’t figure out what rules she should keep or throw away.

Jeff January 25, 2016 3 Comments Permalink

Consecrate Yourself to Jesus Through Mary This Lent

I do not intend to be the bearer of bad news, but Lent is only four weeks away. With that said, have you begun considering what you can do for Lent this year? If not, might I offer a suggestion?

Easter is on March 27 this year. Just two days before that, March 25, we celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation, though I am unsure how that will work liturgically as Good Friday and the Easter Triduum supercedes all other feast days. However, I believe you can still celebrate the feast day though I am open to correction by someone who knows more than I.

sacred-heart-of-jesus-_amp_-immaculate-heart-of-mary_001

I would suggest, though, that this Lent you consecrate (or reconsecrate if you’ve done so already) yourself to Jesus through Mary. You would begin on February 22 (because 2016 is a Leap Year), so you would still spend the majority of Lent performing a spiritual work.

The best method for consecrating yourself to Jesus through Mary is St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary. I would highly suggest a copy of this book as it is what I have used and find it very helpful as all of the material you will need is in it. The book is available from Amazon here.

In consecrating yourself to Jesus through Mary, you will be giving all of the graces and works you earn to Our Mother. Because Mary’s will and the Father’s Will are in perfect harmony and being she is the Mediatrix of all Graces, you will be able to assist better the souls to which Our Lady determines are in need of those graces. If Mary is the mold, then we should allow ourselves to be placed in her, so that we can become little saints.

Consider embarking on this noble journey to not only help the souls in Purgatory as well as souls here on Earth but in becoming the Saint that God has called you to be. As St. Louis de Montfort says, “there is no surer or easier way than Mary in uniting all men to Christ.”

Jeff January 13, 2016 1 Comment Permalink

The Real Reason We Can’t Have the Latin Mass

We can’t have the Traditional Latin Mass because the vast majority of prelates at all levels within the Church hierarchy do not want the Traditional Latin Mass. Many of these men are indeed enemies of the Church and are only priests so that they can attempt to change the Church from within. Those brave men who do want to offer the Traditional Latin Mass are given pushback by their parishioners and their bishops.

The parishioners who actively resist the Traditional Latin Mass do so with such venom that it is hard to call them faithful Catholics. The Traditional Latin Mass has been around for the vast majority of the Church’s existence, the same Mass which has formed and sanctified the majority of those select few we can call Saints. It is obvious that they are either enemies of the Church or demonically possessed. I say this because if you mention the Traditional Latin Mass around them, they begin to squirm and become uneasy.

Meanwhile, the priests who want to celebrate this beautiful liturgy are faced with pushback from their bishops. These bishops, who have been entrusted with the care of souls, do more harm than good by denying his flock the graces found at this superior liturgy. Sometimes it is out of malice, and sometimes it is because the bishop is a deviant and doesn’t want the grace of God to be given to the souls entrusted to his care.

Many will argue that it’s about “the numbers.” Others will say there’s a lack of interest. But until the TLM is made available at every single parish, the Church will continue its downward spiral into chaos and anarchy.

The Novus Ordo is a different theology that embraces the people who are present at the Liturgy and places God as secondary. The Tridentine Mass is Catholic theology which embraces God and forces those present to recognize their sins and beg God for forgiveness.

Catholics today don’t want a Mass that will bring them closer to God to live a good and holy life. They want a Mass that will bring them into communion with their neighbor, complete with feel-good homilies from a pastor who tells them what they want to hear, how they are doing their best and God won’t judge them. This is why you can’t have the Traditional Latin Mass.

Jeff January 11, 2016 25 Comments Permalink

I Asked My Wife What Her Greatest Fear Was…

My wife and I will be participating in a “How Well Do You Know Your Spouse Game” at our parish this Friday, so we’ve been getting to know each other on a deeper level by asking each other commonly asked questions. So my wife asked me what my greatest fear was. To be both romantic and truthful, I responded, “losing you and the kids”. Here I thought I tallied up a point on the board. I followed up asking my wife what her biggest fear was.

Wedding Bands

“Judgement”.

As soon as she said it, I knew that my response, while noble it is, was the wrong answer.

We are on this planet for one purpose; to serve Jesus Christ. Nothing else matters. At the end of our lives, after we have passed from this Earth, Jesus Christ will judge us. All of our sins and merits will be laid before us. Jesus will lay down the verdict as to whether we have lived a holy life and are worthy to enter into Heaven, to spend some time in Purgatory, or if we have lived a wretched and unrepentant life and are cast into the fires of Hell.

We can not presume that because of our love of God that we are for certain going to make it to Heaven, or even Purgatory. Presumption of God’s mercy is a sin against the Holy Spirit. We can trust in His mercy, but we can not assume that He will give it to us.

For this reason, we should have a healthy fear of the Lord. Let us not confuse having fear with being afraid. Much like an employee has a healthy fear of his employer in that if the employee does not do his job he might get fired. Likewise, we should fear the Lord that if we sin, we might go to Hell.

It is crucial that we stay in a state of grace and go to confession as often as we need to. We do not know when God will remove us from this world and sentence us in the next. Go to confession, stay in a state of grace, pray the Rosary daily, and live a holy life.

Jeff January 6, 2016 1 Comment Permalink

We Gotta Reach People Where They’re At

Many of my critics insist on telling me that we need to “reach people where they’re at” when it comes to mainstream Catholic writers. “People are so ignorant of the faith that they can’t handle Aquinas, or Scholasticism, or Chesterton, or (insert your favorite Catholic theologian/saint/mystic/teaching authority).” Though, I agree that we do need to “reach people where they’re at,” I find the methods employed by the Church and most Catholic publishers and writers are incorrect in how they approach this issue.

I get that not everyone is at the same level of their faith. That isn’t the issue I have. The issue I have is this; Catholic speakers and their publishers keep pushing the same. exact. watered. down. Catholicism. every. single. year.

The Sermon on the Mount Carl Bloch, 1890

The concept of reaching people where they’re at should be understood in its proper context. As a convert, I had witnessed this concept first hand, and can attest to its effectiveness. Reaching people where they’re at, is a matter of not watering down any of the Truth, which has been passed on by Jesus Christ or His Holy Church, but taking the Truth and giving it to the individual, but explained at a level in which the person who is being evangelized can understand. It’s a matter of evaluating the knowledge the person has and teaching them what they do not understand so that they can come to know the Truth. You do not need to be dropping Aquinas in his complete intellectual greatness on someone who has never once heard of Christ, but, through the course of the conversation, you can use Aquinas’ concepts in a simplified form to better assist the person you are engaging.

Today, how we see the concept used is not in the form of helping people understand a complex understanding and explaining it at a level that they can grasp. Rather, what we see is them taking a teaching of Christ, watering it down, or even worse, wrapping it with either modernism or Protestantism, and presenting it as if this new teaching is just as good, if not better than the original teaching. Spoiler: it’s not. I will readily admit that I once subscribed to this erroneous belief.

If today’s Catholic books are supposed to instruct people in their faith at a lower level of understanding, then I’d expect to see some improvement over the course of five or ten years. From here, we should expect to see books and material come out that is deeper and more engaging on an intellectual level, yet, we see no improvement. Instead, every other year, someone has to write a book that waters down and dumbs down some great source of Catholic knowledge that didn’t need dumbing down.

We can see this if we look at the “game-changers” of the last five years or so. We had to Rediscover Catholicism, so that we could have our churches Rebuilt, to Form Intentional Disciples, so we could consecrate ourselves to Mary over the course of 33 Days to Morning Glory, all to make an Amazing Parish.

The very fact that we have so many of these programs coming out every other year and only last longer than a couple of years goes to show that these programs flat out don’t work. Instead of going for a different approach, they end up repackaging the same ideas and rebrand it to make it appear as if it’s a brand new program that will change and engage the Catholic world. We need to look to how the Catholic Church evangelized the world for the last 2,000 years, as opposed to the last 50. The Church evangelized through a reverent and solemn Liturgy that focused itself on Christ’s redeeming sacrifice on Calvary, through simple, deep, and profound catecheses, and worship that focused on God, instead of worship that focuses on people. It is a fact that the Catholic Church grew under these conditions, yet those who continue to push the materials mentioned above will argue to the contrary. Which is why these “new and improved” programs only last for a couple of years before they become obsolete.

Jesus didn’t water down His teachings to make you feel good about yourself. He challenged you and still challenges you til this very day. When one of His disciples didn’t understand a particular teaching, Jesus used parables to ensure His disciples understood what He was discussing. He was not watering down what He was teaching, but rather, explaining it at a more basic level to be understood.

With the constant remarketing and rebranding of the same programs year after year, it would seem that perhaps the issue is that mainstream Catholic writers and publishers today do not want modern day Catholics to grow in their faith. Why? Because they would have to stop writing books and would have to go back to publishing material that isn’t “fresh.” You can read Classic Catholic literature over and over again, always finding something new and exciting which you did not catch on your first, second, or subsequent read-throughs. Contemporary Catholic Literature, on the other hand, can be read once and discarded, ready to be recycled in next year’s next hot book.

At the end of the day, it would seem that money is the key player in it all. When publishers and authors give away copies of books for only $2, it allows them to, of course, sell more books. Selling this many books allows them the opportunity to say later that a particular book has sold “more than a million copies” giving the appearance that it is a “must-have” for any Catholic home, as well as the appearance that it is an excellent book.

I do want to clarify that not all Catholic publishers are like this. For example, books published by TAN and St. Benedict’s Press are, for the most part, much older books whose purpose is to allow the reader to dive deeper into the faith and learn more. These books can also be read over and over again, gaining more knowledge with each subsequent reading.

As we begin 2016, I encourage you all to read good Catholic books, books that have existed for decades, or even centuries. While there are indeed some newer books out that are worth your time, the majority of them aren’t, especially when they water down the classics. Stay in a state of grace, go to confession, pray the Rosary, and live a holy life.

Jeff January 4, 2016 1 Comment Permalink