https://remnant-tv.com/video/mass-deception-vatican-push-to-cancel-latin-mass-based-on-fake-news
ut ad Sancta sanctorum puris mereamur mentibus
homilies, talks, book reviews and musings...
Thursday, July 3, 2025
Sunday, February 16, 2025
The Little Church
Looking back, I do not think that my family was as happy as God wanted it to be, because the spiritual side of our existence was sidelined and ignored. I do not blame Ma and Pa for this, because they trusted the teachers and clergy of the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, they were badly let down, and the result is that a whole generation of unbelievers has now been spawned by my brothers and sisters. It is still a mystery to me how my parents were so blind to the unfolding crisis and often uncritically supportive of some of its worst results. [Bevan, Joseph. Two Families: A Memoir of English Life During and After the Council (p. 23). Os Justi Press. Kindle Edition.]
You can debate all you want about Bevan's analysis of the crisis in the Church and even remain pensive about whether passing on the faith to your children is reducible to Mom and Dad witnessing to their children their own love of the Lord, but Joseph convinces me even further that the faith will not be passed on if not within the family.
Bevan's "memoir" contrasting his parents' family and that of him and his wife Claire couldn't be more respectful, offering judgments which do not lack in the slightest the love and respect in which he holds his big, talented and broken family.
What's my challenge? To move beyond denial to embrace the present brokenness of the Catholic Church. I will leave it at that and see whether I can find the words and the heart to compose a more detailed and pointed analysis of the situation.
Pray for me as I do for you!
PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI
Happy Septuagesima Sunday!
Saturday, December 28, 2024
In my Father's House
THE HOLY FAMILY
OF JESUS, MARY AND JOSEPH
December 29, 2024 – Dell Rapids
Sir 3:2-6, 12-14
Col 3:12-21
Lk 2:41-52
Praised be
Jesus Christ!
Today, on this
year’s Holy Family Sunday, we have a lot to think about and to pray over, because
even here in God’s country our world is not exactly in order when it comes to
family life. The ideal of the family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph seems
unattainable as a model for our families. That must not be so. I would insist
that Holy Family Sunday is a time to pray for Catholic families and for the grace
of the Lord’s aid in favor of our little church, the normal family, the
building block basic to the greater unity which is the Church for the sake of
the life of the world.
Sadly however, these days Jesus, Mary
and Joseph at Nazareth, who should be our hope and inspiration, indeed do seem
out of reach as a model. In our world, the classic mom, dad, and children
family of my childhood has become somewhat of the exception to the rule. Sadly,
we know much more today about the struggles of single parent homes. Divorce has
become way too common, but even before we get to that point, young people seem hesitant
to marry. People will tell you that the reason young people are not marrying in
the Church these days and are not founding families is because everything has
become so expensive. They say that buying a home since COVID is out of the
question for most young folks; renting has become the norm. As odd as it seems,
the couple’s second salary hardly seems to cover the cost of childcare. You’ll
hear people say that they need two sources of income just to get by, and that they
can’t afford children because a big van or SUV is too expensive and with all
those car seats it is just too much to deal with. Lots of years ago I can remember
Mom saying that no couple can raise more than 4 children (I am the oldest of
8), after the fourth she said wisely and proudly that the older children need
to help out with the younger children. Granted, seat belts are important, and
car seats make sense, but we used to travel all together in the family car with
a younger child on each older child’s lap, so we had a double row in the back
seat of a regular 4 door sedan, and that being not a new car but a very used vehicle.
Even so I had the impression that we wanted for nothing and were very happy.
Grandma would come
and visit for about two weeks at some point each winter and she spent a goodly
part of her stay patching jeans, sewing on buttons, darning socks, maybe
putting a new zipper on some of the things which had piled up in the mending
basket since her last visit. I felt loved and cared for and had no
understanding of what it meant to go hungry, even though soft drinks and snacks
were a rare occurrence, maybe for a little family New Years party. My point
would be that family could not and still should not be factored around
something like buying power for luxury items. Think about it!
Today is Holy
Family Sunday! What is it all about? No doubt many people would just assume that
this would be the day to talk about behavior issues. They might even quote
today’s passage from Luke Chapter 2 and say: see, that’s the way you should
behave, obedient to your Mary and Joseph like Jesus was at 12 years of age. The
boy Savior speaks up: “Why were you looking for me? Did
you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not
understand what he said to them. He went down with them
and came to Nazareth and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all
these things in her heart. And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor before
God and man.
Even at age 12
the boy Jesus, the Lord Jesus, even though He knew better than Mary and Joseph just
Who He was and what He was about (“Why were you looking for me? Did you not
know that I must be in my Father’s house?”). Even so, He respected the
order of things. He respected family. He didn’t stay behind in Jerusalem at age
12 when Joseph and Mary came looking for Him. “He went down with them and came to Nazareth
and was obedient to them…”
Could Jesus not
have started His public ministry at age 12 instead of waiting until age 30? I
suppose so, even if it would have been a bit odd. Whatever the Lord Jesus would
have done, He would have done rightly, but we have been gifted with the message
and mystery of His humble but terribly normal life at Nazareth a pattern for
family life, for mutual respect among members of family and of course of
obedience.
Holy Family
Sunday should be that time, and rightly so in the midst of our celebration of
the birth of Christ, when we come to appreciate just what is true happiness. True
happiness in life has something to do with being grateful for things as they
are and treasuring each other at home.
On this Sunday,
pray for the happiness of your own family, pray for healing for broken families,
and pray that young people might not shy away from marriage and family, from
giving the gift of life and the only real happiness which matters.
Praised by Jesus Christ!
Sunday, December 1, 2024
The Lord comes on the Clouds of Heaven
FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT
1 December 2024, St. Mary, Dell
Rapids
Jer 33:14-16
1 Thes 3:12-4:2
Lk
21:25-28, 34-36
To you
I lift up my soul, O my God. That’s how we prayed in the Entrance
Antiphon for this First Sunday of Advent. Today with the beginning of a new
church year, we set our hearts anew upon the Lord. He is the one for Whom we
long. To you I lift up my soul, O my God.
Yes, Advent! It’s
a word we tie together with Christmas and the coming of our Lord and Savior
born in a stable at Bethlehem. In Advent we think of Christ’s coming back in
the time of the reign of the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus. He came as a tiny
baby and in abject poverty to save us from our sins.
Advent, however, as is evident from
our readings for Mass today, is more than just the annual remembrance of the
birth of the Savior. The season of Advent also helps us focus on the Last
Judgment Day, on preparing for the Risen and Glorious Lord Jesus Who will come
again at the end of time to establish justice once and for all, justice for
everyone whether we be still living at the time of His coming or long dead. The
Fathers of the Church also speak of Advent in terms of a third coming of Christ
here and now to dwell in our hearts by grace. Some of our most beloved old church
hymns are Advent hymns in which we pray for the Lord to come again. “Come
thou long expected Jesus, born to set Thy people free. From our fears and sins
release us, let us find our rest in Thee.”
The people of the
Old Testament obviously did not know the Messiah’s name. They had lived before
Christ and as God’s chosen people they hoped in His promise. We need but think
of the Prophet Jeremiah in our first reading: “The days are coming, says the
Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and Judah…
I will raise up for David a just shoot; he shall do what is right and just… Judah
shall be safe, and Jerusalem shall dwell secure… The Lord our justice.”
Longing for justice
upon the earth, for justice and security in our lives and in society generally seems
to be much more relevant these days. It is something we need even more urgently
that in the past, as things seem to be more messed up these days. I say that
fairly sure that it can’t be that in the past we contented ourselves with less than
now. Maybe we were less sophisticated or just plain naïve forty or more years
ago. For my part I can remember back as a young man reading stories about Communist
dictatorships and being very anxious for those unfortunate people living under those
regimes where average folks were basically defenseless, where the powerful and wicked
lorded it over ordinary people, where truth and justice, the rule of law really
did not have much meaning. We thought about those people as suffering from oppression,
as being denied their God-given human dignity by people whose atheism put a
small minority of oligarchs on top of the heap and generally stole purpose and
basic happiness from the rest of the world. Sad to say, but our country today seems
almost as bad as any cold war country behind the iron curtain. “Come thou long expected Jesus, born to set
Thy people free. From our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in
Thee.”
O, come Emanuel,
God with us! On our own without the Lord, we cannot get it handled. Advent is a
powerful, unequivocal statement about how things work in the world, about how
they can be better than now, about how things can truly be right and just.
In Advent then we have three reflections about
how the Lord comes to deliver His people. Once in history we acclaim and thank
the Lord for His faithfulness to His promise to Israel. A second time we beg
Him to come into our hearts and lives for the sake of our own salvation and for
the sake of the life of the world. And so binding our hearts and lives to Him
Who fills us with His grace and power, we stand tall and strong.
“For that day
will assault everyone who lives on the face of the earth. Be vigilant at all
times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are
imminent and to stand before the Son of Man.”
To you I lift up my soul, O my God.
PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI
Saturday, November 2, 2024
Not far from the Kingdom of God
THIRTY-FIRST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
November 3, 2024 – St. Mary in Dell
Rapids
Dt 6:2-6
Heb 7:23-28
Mk
12:28b-34
Praised be Jesus Christ!
I
think we could rightly spend time this Sunday answering the question of how we
should go about loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and our
neighbor as ourselves.
The two great
commandments of love of God and neighbor come up all through the Bible. In the
New Testament they complement what the people of the Old Testament understood by
their obligation to obey God’s commands. In the world today people often balk
at the idea that we show our love through obedience, but that failure or doubt is
a contemporary thing, unknown in times past. The children of Israel and the
Church across the centuries understood very clearly that obedience is the true
test for love, love of God and love of our parents.
Deuteronomy quotes Moses
as saying, “Fear the Lord, your God, and keep throughout
the days of your lives, all his statutes and commandments which I enjoin on
you, and thus have a long life.” It makes perfect sense that
that is how we show our love for God. St. Paul tells the Ephesians 6:1-3,
honoring our parents is the one of the commandments which carries with it a
promise or a reward. “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is
right. “Honor your father and mother”—this is the first commandment with a
promise: “so that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth.”
In
the New Testament we build on what was established in the law of Moses and reaffirm
that by saying that love of God is truly a matter of obeying His will. This is
the teaching of Christ transmitted to us by His Church. Jesus’ love of the
Father was expressed in His obedience to the Father’s will for the salvation of
the world. It required of Him the supreme sacrifice of His life by His great
suffering and death upon the Cross.
One of the greatest
lessons we learn in life is that love is not and cannot be just a matter of hugs
and kisses. In the course of growing up we learn that sweettalking to our
parents is no sure sign of our love for them. Knowing mom and dad’s will and promptly
obeying them is a much better, more honest, and really the only convincing sign
of our love for them, for our gratitude for all they have done for us.
“Fear
the Lord, your God, and keep throughout the days of your lives, all his
statutes and commandments which I enjoin on you, and thus have a long life.” This
passage from Deuteronomy not only states clearly what we owe to God for all He
has done for us. Certainly, first and foremost it is a declaration about who
God is for us and for the sake of the world.
Understanding
love of God as bound to obedience, we can understand Jesus’ reply to one of the
scribes in today’s Gospel. To answer the man, Jesus quoted the text of the two
greatest commandments, love of God and love of neighbor. The Lord said, “There
is no other commandment greater than these.” The man responded by showing
he understood Jesus’ teaching: “Well said, teacher. You are right in saying,
‘He is One and there is no other than he.’ And ‘to love him with all you heart,
with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor
as yourself’ is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Jesus congratulated
the scribe for his words and said, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
The
question then is, where am I, where are you, where are we in terms of the
kingdom of God? Not far from it? Far away? Close? Are we all in when it comes
to God’s kingdom or are we distant, kind of standoffish, rather noncommittal? Jesus
did not declare the scribe saved, but rather not far from being so. It is here
that we can understand the close bond between love and obedience. Besides outright
disobeying, some children lie to subtract themselves from the will of others.
By doing so they withdraw from the possibility of loving or being loved. It is
impossible to claim you love, if you lie or disobey.
I would just like you to think about that on your day of rest, the Lord’s Day. Our refusal to respond to those who are set over us or to whom at some point we have committed ourselves in life, especially those of our family circle, spouse, children, parents, is or must be seen as a failure to love. Don’t let this Sunday get away from you without examining just how far you are from the kingdom of God because you don’t really love as you ought.
PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI
Saturday, October 26, 2024
Us against the crowd, seeking deliverance from the Lord
THIRTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
October 26-27, 2024 – St. Nicholas,
Tea
Jer 31:7-9
Heb 5:1-6
Mk
10:46-52
Praised be Jesus Christ!
In our first
reading for this 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, the Prophet Jeremiah
announces to his people in exile in Babylon what their promised deliverance is
going to look like. In the name of the Lord, Jeremiah announces the return from
the north to Jerusalem of the remnant of God’s people.
“The Lord has
delivered his people, the remnant of Israel… with the blind and the lame in
their midst.” Jeremiah explains God’s reason for bringing them safely home in
the words: “For I am a father to Israel, Ephraim is my first-born.”
In today’s Gospel,
we see the prophecy of Jeremiah fulfilled with Jesus granting sight to the
blind man in answer to his plea. “Jesus, Son of
David, have pity on me!” As sons and daughters of our heavenly Father
we may ask about our possibilities. What is God’s will for us? Can we be as insistent,
as demanding with God in Jesus Christ, as was the blind man, Bartimaeus? Or
rather shouldn’t we just sort of cool it after the manner of the crowd which
tried to get the son of Timaeus to be silent? What is the sort of deliverance
that we can hope for from Christ in answer to our prayers? “Master, I want
to see.” Jesus told him, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.” Immediately
he received his sight and followed him on the way. Very simply, it is an
egregious mistake not to beg like the blind man. It is wrong to hold back and
not cry out for help like Bartimaeus.
Lots of
questions, but actually I am asking myself another question, just one. And
namely this: Why? What is this business of the crowd trying to tamp down the
desperate plea of the blind man? “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me!”
What’s the deal? Why are these people annoyed or embarrassed by the cries of
Bartimaeus? How do they understand the nature and mission of Christ? Isn’t
Jesus supposed to bring deliverance to us in our hour of need? Shouldn’t it be
understandable that this blind man cry out in this desperate situation of
blindness which has rendered him virtually helpless?
When you get to be
my age, you can spend more time maybe than you should talking about aches and
pains, about your failing eyesight and, even more commonly, about hearing loss,
which affects a lot of elderly people. I am sure that Bartimaeus’ blindness or
somebody else’s lameness was much worse than anything any of my contemporaries may
have suffered. But when you talk to couples especially, you hear about their
compassion for a spouse who has become hard of hearing and not only misses the
plot but is often emarginated from life to such an extent that they may appear to
be losing it even mentally, even though that is not the case. We don’t know if
Bartimaeus’ wife or some other relative might have been there in the crowd
hushing him down, but we can speculate about how the crowd’s lack of faith in
the person and power of Jesus Christ would keep them from hoping for and
pleading for deliverance from Christ the Redeemer, real
deliverance for this blind man.
Who is Jesus
Christ? October, Rosary month, is a time when we remember the early Church
councils which struggled with this question and answered it by professing Mary
the holy Mother of God and thereby professing Jesus, her Son, to be truly God
and truly Man. Part of Jeremiah’s prophetic message to Israel in the Babylonian
captivity was that God’s people should not give in to desperation, but accept
their punishment at the hands of God, remain faithful and live in hope of
deliverance and a return to their homeland.
On the Jericho
road there, the crowd was ostensibly following Jesus, but not really. By
shouting down Bartimaeus’ cries for deliverance they were denying Christ’s
power to save him and them. Jeremiah in his prophecy of deliverance for Israel showed
God saving his people despite themselves. Jesus restored sight to the son of
Timaeus despite the crowd who would hear none of it.
In the last
couple years we in the Church have been struggling with several things which
have undermined the faith of many of our Catholic people. Let me mention only
the complicity of the Church authorities in the COVID lockdown which further
and radically brought down Sunday Mass attendance. As far as is physically
possible we are obliged under pain of mortal sin to assist at Mass on all
Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation. There is no room for discretion here: if
we can, if we are able, then we must get to church. By so easily dispensing
from Sunday and closing churches, we scandalized people seriously. I still
occasionally run into people who have not gone back to Mass. The precepts of
the Church form a substantial part of the backbone of our faith. The great
efforts that were made to prepare and celebrate the national Eucharistic
Congress in Indianapolis some months back were wonderful indeed, but ultimately
secondary in importance to precept and obligation when it comes to fostering
people’s faith in the true presence of Jesus, the God man, in the Sacrament of
the Altar, the holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Just as back at
Jericho in the days of our Lord, there is a crowd out there which tends to
discourage. And so we cry all the louder just like Bartimaeus. “Jesus, Son
of David, have pity on me!” Deliverance is ours in the Blood of the Lamb.
PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI
Friday, October 18, 2024
At Christ's Right and at His Left
TWENTY-NINTH SUNDAY
IN ORDINARY TIME
October 19-20, 2024 - St. Lambert
Parish
Is 53:10-11
Heb 4:14-16
Mk
10:35-45
Praised be Jesus Christ!
“Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of
you.” The two brothers, as we
know from elsewhere in the Gospels, were pushed on by their mother to ask great
things of Jesus. You could say that the request of James and John seems
exaggerated, maybe even a bit naïve. Humanly speaking they are asking a lot of
the Son of God, not really comprehending either Jesus or His mission for the
salvation of the world. That is not to say that their request does not sound
familiar, that you and I, that we don’t know people who address prayers to God
which are similar. How often have I met people who are angry with God,
disappointed in the Lord because He does not seem to grant their wish. Maybe
even you in your prayers can identify with the words of James and John:
“Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” In our Gospel
today, Jesus responds to the two brothers and makes clear the consequences of
what they are asking of Him: “But it shall not be so among you. Rather,
whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be
first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be
served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
How many people
do you know who are mad at God because He remains silent and does not answer
their prayers, that is will not give them what they want?
While not
pronouncing an outright “no!” to their request, Jesus denies the brothers an
inside track which will lead them to a place of privilege, to fame and fortune
at His side. He not only calls them to a life of service for others but to share
in the sacrifice of His life, which will in turn lead to the ransom of many.
There is much we
could say about how Jesus saw Himself. At the very least, I guess you could say
that having heard the words of the Son of Man we have no excuse for pretending
that keeping company with Jesus should assure us smooth sailing on the seas of
life this side of heaven. Jesus promises us a share in His sufferings for the
sake of the life of the world, a share in His Cross; He did not preach a
prosperity Gospel. The Church confirms the message of Christ by quoting the
Prophet Isaiah in our first reading: “The Lord was pleased to crush him in
infirmity… through his suffering, my servant shall justify many, and their
guilt he shall bear.”
Jesus does not
lend a deaf ear to the brothers. He responds and thereby teaches them the
unreasonableness of what they ask of Him. “What do you wish me to do for you?” They
answered him, “Grant that in your glory we may sit one
at your right and the other at your left.” Jesus said to them, “You do not
know what you are asking.”
When we are young most of us
daydream about all sorts of things big and small, more or less ambitious, but
it is just that, daydreaming. Few of us face life and our mission in life with
the stark realism and courage of the North American Martyrs, that group of missionaries
whose sainthood we celebrate on October 19 in the church calendar for the
United States. In his diary, his spiritual journal, St. John de Brebeuf while back
in France recovering from all the hardships he had faced in the New World prayed
to be allowed to return to the north woods to continue the course at the hands
of the native Americans which he knew would lead him through more rejection, abuse,
brutal suffering and torture to death. He wanted to share in the sufferings of
Christ for the sake of the life of the world. “Grant that in your glory we
may sit one at your right and the other at your left.” James and John had
no idea what Jesus was all about.
“Because of
his affliction he shall see the light in fullness of days; through his
suffering, my servant shall justify many, and their guilt he shall bear.”
The other day I
read an interview of the Dutch primate, Cardinal Willem Jacobus Eijk, archbishop
of Utrecht in Holland. Holland for many of us is synonymous with everything
that has gone wrong with the Church over the last 60 years or so. It is a tale
of parish closures, of failing vocations, of people generally with no idea of what
it means to be Catholic. Among the points made by the Cardinal was to explain
how the Church in his country was starting to make a comeback from secularization
which had left it in ruins. Knowing Cardinal Eijk, as I do, and aware that
Holland once upon a time was probably in a better place than we have ever been
when it comes to being Catholic, I sort of find myself wondering when the other
shoe will drop for us as Catholics in America, yes, even here on the prairie.
By the grace of
God, the Apostles James and John learned what it meant to take their place at
Christ’s side. They witnessed to all Jesus had said and did by the wholehearted
gift of their lives, James as the first apostle to die a martyr’s death and John
as the last to pass from the scene after long year’s of teaching, correcting
and rebuking about the two great commandments of love of God and love of
neighbor.
My prayer is that
we would come to understand Christ’s glory, that we all might be lifted to a
place at Christ’s side in the world to come for having followed closely now on
the way to Calvary.
Praised be Jesus Christ!
PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI