16 April 2014

Easter Mass. . .

Father Michael gave me a choice of Masses to celebrate on Easter Sunday. . .

I chose the 8.00am Mass. 

I'm up early, so why not?

The live-stream link is working now, so come on over and watch me sweat and gimp through Easter Sunday Mass!

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Coffee Cup Browsing

Gym in D.C. = Church in the South. I knew it! I just knew it!

Having Zilch-Zero-Nada to acclaim, B.O. campaigns on racial and sexual resentment

Fundamentalist anti-theist leads honest atheists back to the Church. Good job, Dick! Keep spewing your harebrained nonsense.

The U.N. is getting nuttier and nuttier. Someone please give these people a real job. . .like cleaning up public parks, or a Burger King cashier.

Slipping down the secular slope: a time-line of social de-evolution.

The Dems learned this tactic from the UK Labour Party: more immigrants, more votes for them at election time.  

Warning against Maria Divine Mercy. We do not need visionaries to be good Catholics. We have Scripture, the Sacraments, and the Magisterium. Nothing more is needed.
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15 April 2014

Thanks and Easter Mass

A few kind and generous souls have been peeking at the Wish List and sending books my way. . .

Always appreciated!

I will be celebrating one of the Easter Masses at St Dominic's this weekend, so my intention will be for my Book Benefactors. . .may God bless them abundantly!

Once Fr. Michael assigns a Mass to me, I'll post the time. All of St Dominic's Masses are lived-streamed now. Check it out.*

* We had a power outage in NOLA early this morning, so the server isn't working properly just yet.  It will be ready by the weekend.
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Knee Doc Report

Just got back from the Knee Doc.

Verdict: moderate arthritis in my right knee, mild in my left.

Doc shows me the x-rays, "Father, you can see here and here that there's not much cushion btw the bones. . ."

Me, "Great. Only place on my body w/o enough cushioning."

Sooooo. . .who knows anything about Methylsulfonylmethane (MSM), Glucosamine, and chondroitin sulfate?
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14 April 2014

Pastoral Responses to the New Atheism



Dr John Cavadini, McGrath-Cavadini Director, Institute for Church Life, presented at the Symposium: Pastoral Issues in Science and Human Dignity, University of Notre Dame, February 12-14, 2014
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No conflict btw Faith and Science

A longish video on the false conflict between faith and science.





Fr Robert Spitzer, S J, Magis Center of Reason and Faith, presented at the Symposium: Pastoral Issues in Science and Human Dignity, University of Notre Dame, February 12-14, 2014

Fr. Spitzer is also the author of New Proofs for the Existence of God. I've read it. It's tough going if you don't have a background in physics. 

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13 April 2014

Can we survive our fools?

A great quote from Cicero:

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.

Change "nation" and "city" to "Church" and it still make perfect sense. 

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Coffee Cup Browsing

Younger priests prefer older Mass. . .well, if NDS is any indication, they prefer a reverent Mass w/o the clerical-egocentric goofiness of the 80's. 

Another instance of the Pope being All Catholic and Stuff. This time he's on the Devil! 

Crdl. Dolan learns the value of a politician's word. Zero. Nada. Nil. Zilch.

10 essays about death. . .

Noah takes a dive; God is Not Dead takes wing. . .

Surviving the Coming Zombie Apocalypse. . .Five Best/Worst States. Thankfully, I'm an honorary citizen of the Republic of Texas.

Here's what the push for same-sex "marriage" is really about: the destruction of the family and the growth of gov't power.  Totalitarianism must always destroy the faith and the family. No competition allowed.

Why is B.O.'s press secretary's home decorated with Soviet propaganda?  Yeah, I know. . .rhetorical question.

Americans, look to Sweden for our future. . .we're on Supreme Court ruling away from it happening here.

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"Hosanna" then "Crucify"

My traditional Palm Sunday homily. . .a tradition since 2007!
 

Palm Sunday 2014
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Lay Carmelites/Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA
 

Paul says that Jesus, emptying himself, took on the form of a slave and became one of us to die as one of us for all of us. We can cheer all we want. Wave palms all we want. No one here will ask Jesus to let his cup pass. No one here will volunteer to hang on that cross and let Jesus go free. Are we cowards? No. We know that Jesus must die so that we might live. The certainty of his death is the only possibility of our eternal life. Only he is Son of God, Son of Man; fully human, fully divine. His death pulls us down into the grave and his rising again draws us up with him. Everything that needs to be healed will be healed. All repairs will be made. Nothing will be left broken or hurt. 

But today, just today, knowing what we know about his journey from here to the tomb, even still we must cheer and whistle. And wave palms. And shout “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” And we want so much to grab the tail end of his departing scene and pull it back, just yank it back to the garden or the roaring sea or the mountaintop or the desert or to any of the dozens of places where we sat with him to listen to God’s wisdom, to see the radiant glory of his love for us. 

We want him anywhere but here in Jerusalem. He rides to the cross, ya know? And we must cheer. We must cheer because later we will shout, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” What did we forget between our cheering him into the city and our heckling him to the cross, between our exuberant welcome and our jeering blood lust? To be Christ we must follow Christ. Who wants to follow Christ to the cross? Who wants their flesh torn and bleeding? Who wants the thorns of a mocking crown piercing their scalp? I deny him. I do not know him. No, I’m not his disciple. Never heard of him, never met him. Who? Who? No, sorry, doesn’t ring a bell. 

We’ve come too far for that now, brothers and sisters! That desert was forty days long. Along the way we dropped coffee and tea, booze and cigarettes, TV and shopping, email and chocolate. We dropped gossiping, nagging, sex, meat, cussing. We picked up extra hours of prayer, daily Mass, weekly confession, spiritual reading, volunteer hours, being nice to little brother and sister, obeying mom and dad, obeying husband or wife, extra money in the plate on Sunday. The devil bought out his best temptations to show us our weaknesses and sometimes he won and sometimes we won. But he knows and you need to know if you don’t already: God wins all the time, every time, for all time! And He has given us Easter to prove it. But now…if you will be Christ you must follow Christ. Walk right behind him. Feel the stones. Wipe the spit. Hear the curses and jeers. Taste the salty iron of blood. See the cross on his shoulder. And know that he carries for you the only means of your salvation. The sacrificial victim carries his own altar to the church of the skulls. 

How far will you follow?
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12 April 2014

An atheist and I go toe to toe. . .

Here's the link to the vid of my discussion with the prez of the New Orleans Secular Humanist Society.  

I watched it, and I can say that I was MUCH too polite and accommodating.  

The best part of the discussion happened after the taping ended.  Too bad.

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Coffee Cup Browsing

More proof that "hate speech laws" are really just anti-Christian laws enforced by the Left against the Church.

Speaking of "hate speech," here's some from a certified genocidal eco-fascist: "I’d like nothing better than if thousands of middle-class white people died in an extreme weather event—preferably one with global warming’s fingerprints on it."

(Love this line: "Joe Q. Flyover doesn’t understand science. He wants evidence." So, according to this genocidal eco-fascist, science is something other than evidence.)

Another Catholic high school is terrorized by the truth of the faith. Note the effective use of the Heckler's Veto in controlling the narrative.  

Fr. Robert Barron on the breakdown of the moral argument in the same-sex "marriage" debate

Here's the Pope being all Catholic and stuff.  Remember when we had to remind folks every other day that the Pope was still Catholic? Good times. 
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11 April 2014

Coffee Cup Browsing

Best definition of "climate change" ever? Oh yes! ". . .a cocktail of ideas which includes anti-industrial nature worship, post-colonial guilt, a post-Enlightenment belief in scientists as a new priesthood of the truth, a hatred of population growth, a revulsion against the widespread increase in wealth and a belief in world government." 

There is a certain liberation in losing these political battles

Yeah, the bishop's statement could've been a lot stronger and much clearer

Strange Notions: great site for Atheist/Catholic discussion. Most Internet Atheists reject the existence of a god Catholics themselves do not believe in.

20 Arguments for God's existence. . .generally, I don't think arguments for God's existence are good evangelizing tools for the vast majority of folks. Reason will defend the faith, but it is rarely useful in bringing people to the faith.

Right on cue! MSM dredges up "evidence" against Church tradition just in time for Easter. They have Must Find Something Scandalous to Report written on their calendars the week before Palm Sunday.  
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08 April 2014

Knee Doc Fail

I missed my knee doc appointment this morning.

Made three mistakes:

1). Made the appt for 8.00am at a clinic near a university.

2). The university is in the trendy part of town.

3). The town is New Orleans. 

All this means that when I got somewhere near the clinic,* I encountered:

1). Tiny, 19th c. streets with cars parked on both sides of the street.

2). Half of those streets are one-way.

3). More than half have no signs indicating the name of the street. 

4). Two way streets randomly turn into one way streets.

5). When a street does have a name, that name will randomly change.

6). The sanitation dept picks up garbage on these tiny unnamed one-way streets during rush hour. 

7). New Orleans drivers love to block oncoming traffic in order to turn left across the blvd. median (i.e., "neutral ground"). 

8). Every student at this university MUST drive to class and find a parking space within 3ft. of the front door. 

Lesson learned:

NEVER make an appt in any part of town south of I-90.

* I never found the clinic. I never found the street that it's on. . .allegedly.
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07 April 2014

Am I committing adultery?

5th Week of Lent (M)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Notre Dame Seminary, NOLA


So, to continue these morning's lecture in homiletics. . .it's always good homiletical practice when preparing a homily to ask: why does this reading appear on this day in the lectionary cycle? It might be where it is just by accident, but that's no reason not to think about why it might be where it is. Why is the story of the woman caught in adultery assigned to Monday of the 5th Week of Lent Year A? Well, it's Lent, so we have an occasion to reflect on the nature of sin. Palm Sunday is coming up, and we are given a chance to ponder on the mercy Christ shows the woman, a function of his Lordship. Easter is just two weeks away, and we're given a chance to chew over whether or not we're exercising our own kingship in Christ by showing mercy to those who have sin against us. All good reasons. But focus for a moment on the sin involved in this story: adultery. Here it's obvious that we're talking about marital infidelity of a sexual nature. However, Scripture calls out another sort of adultery, one we usually name “idolatry,” that is, the infidelity we live when we worship smaller gods. This last week of Lent is a chance for each one of us to stare w/o blinking into our marital relationship with Christ and ask: am I committing adultery?

Skip over all the questions about who's the bride and who's the groom and focus on the fidelity required to live out a fruitful marital bond. If marriage is the sacramental sign of Christ's love for his bride, the Church, then we know that fidelity to Christ and his mission must come first. Whether we identify more closely with Christ the Bridegroom, or with the Church, his Bride, we are still bound by a love that radically alters every other relationship we might find ourselves in. What every faithful married couple knows is that being married is all about living the world of other-relationships in terms of the marriage bond. Husband or wife come first. Before friends, family, neighbors. Always first. To do anything less creeps toward adultery. Maybe not actual sexual infidelity, but something potentially worse: spiritual infidelity. Christ loves the Church, and the Church loves Christ. All other loves are ordered to this spiritual architecture. If another love intervenes, if another love takes precedence, then the sacramental witness of the marriage is threatened by idolatry, the love of smaller gods. The threat to the individual who is wedded to Christ is hardly less serious.

Spend this last week of Lent asking yourself: as I committing adultery? That is, am I loving something or someone before I love Christ? To put it another way: am I loving Christ in terms of another love, a smaller love? What might this look like? We have all the traditional suspects: pride, lust, wrath, envy, etc. We also our more modernist sins: racism, careerism, celebrity. And on top of these we have the postmodernist sins: techno-addiction, combox vigilantism, Facebook exhibitionism-voyeurism, and cyber-rumor mongering. We could throw in a couple of hundred more, but they all lead down the same dank and dreary path: spiritual adultery. If you find that you are indeed committing adultery, think back to the woman Jesus rescues from the righteous mob. There should be no one around to throw the first stone b/c not one of us is w/o sin. It should be just you and Christ in the sacrament and him saying to you, “Go and sin no more.” As many times as it takes to take hold, “Go and sin no more.” When our fidelity to him fails, his fidelity to us only strengthens. And he is strong enough to get us to Easter. Not just this coming Easter. But all the way to Easter on the last day.
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Coffee Cup Browsing

How the West lost God. Two words: artificial contraception. Destroy the family, destroy the faith. Lenin would be proud. 

Put an end to traffic/red light cameras! Yes, yes, and more yes. 

Fascism and the Liberal Gulag: a convocation of clowns, dangerous clowns.

Here's how you can respond to Mozilla's UnGood Thought thuggery.

Passive-aggressive bullying. . .a plague in the Church too. Best response to this kind of bullying: "I hear that you are offended, but have you been harmed?"
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