Penance for Lent

This is Lent. This is part of my penance, and it should be part of yours too, for I have to share the wealth! (he evilly laughs and grins)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9jag8KF-2s

Death

Death is not a bad thing it all. Death is a wonderful thing. The Lord takes us from our worldly misery, and after Purgatory, if we have not died in mortal sin, we shall have eternal joy in Heaven with the Lord and Saviour, and our holy Blessed Mother, the Saints and angels. When a close member of the family has died, sometimes, the son, daughter or close member to the person who has died feels grief, and often anger at God most high. Feeling anger at God for someone's death is just plain wrong, and not right at all. When someone dies young, it means that God loves them SO SO much that he wants them to be happy forever in the Kingdom of Heaven, as long as they die without mortal sin. Especially the courageous Saints and Martyrs who died young, with a love of God and his Church, and his Blessed Mother. For example, St Dominic Savio; the young apostle of St John Bosco. He suffered and sacrificed his food and daily bread so that his friends at the home could have plenty. His selflessness and love for others, his love for them even more than he loved himself. God granted him the truly wonderful and exclusive privilege of and early death, and a short length of suffering. When someone dies, always pray for their soul. Have Masses said for them, pray the Rosary, and adore Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Help release them from Purgatory, and hopefully they are there! Remember, also, that there IS a Hell. A hell, the place that those poor soul who have died in their sin go, for eternity in suffering. The LORD is good and just, and he shall reward the good and punish the bad. The sinner may say he doesn't believe in Hell, but he shall certainly go there if he dies in mortal sin, St Anthony Mary Claret once said. People often throw out the window their belief in Hell, for the simple fact that they want to pursue their own will, instead of God's. They don't want to feel guilty for the wrong they've done, though, that's what the Sacrament of Confession is for, to firstly have your sins forgiven by God most High, and to remove the guilt, knowing that God's grace has been restored to your soul. Know, that God sees your every thought, movement and action. He hears every word and sound you murmur. We go to confession because we feel horrible about offending God most High, who has given us everything. We want him to forgive us our trespasses, which is what he does do through the Priest, who acts in persona Christi. No "reconciliation service", no "group confession", no "general absolution" can do this. Only the sacrament of Confession can.

God Bless.

Theatrical Performances.

Before I start, could I say, I owe about 70% of my traffic to the wonderful, exception, holy, orthodox people over at Cleansing Fire. Could we please a a round of applause for the good people? God Bless em!

In the US of A, the new translation of the Mass is going to be implemented next Advent, hurray for them! You hear clapping and singing in applaud for the implementation, amongst the actually-orthodox Catholics like us (shout out to you, Gen). But in Canada......the bishops haven't even bothered to tell us that it was in the making., for lack of better words. I have email Father William Burke, director of the Liturgy office, so I am expecting a response.

The other day, I attended the Mass in the vernacular, which I do, time to time. I went to a parish in an outport just next to mine. The Priest, who I know, is usually very orthodox and he "says the black, does the red". While I loved how Father was praying the mass reverently, which I scarcely see in the NO around here, the choir was horrible. Not in their singing, that was fine. The organ player was doing fantastic, and the piano player....well, whenever the organ would start playing....shortly after, like 5 seconds, you'd hear that nasty little contraption chime in with it's twists and twirls and accents which it put on the hymns. I love pianos, and piano music. I play the piano myself! But I DON'T want to hear it in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass! The organ was doing magnificent, so why, Madam Choir Director, did you through in that nasty little racket? At this Mass, there was a children's liturgy, where the Priest calls all the children up in front of the congregation, and and Ms Lad-di-daa takes them into a little room to make felt banners and stuff like that, which we all hate. They are then let out just before communion. Well, when Ms Lad-di-daa led them back to the little room they have, the choir started to sing a most wretched song, something like "Go in peace" or something like you'd hear from Cary Landry, or Marty Haugen, One of those feel-good hymns with a sentimental tune, which we all detest. I don't see what good it is to take our children from the Mass to go have play time with Ms Lad-dii-daa. Anyways, the settings of the Gloria, Sanctus, etc...were of the same nature: a sentimental tune with inclusive gender-neutral language. Though, as an upside, they sang the Kyrie Eleison in Latin! (Well, Greek, if you want to be specific). I could see that Father wasn't too enthusiastic about the choir either.

Anyways, that's another reason I have a preference of the TLM! Though, scatter time when I do go to the NO, it is simply beautiful. Especially when the Priest I talked about above says it, he is a simply holy man!

It was my Grandmother who said to me last week "When I go to Mass, I don't want to feel like I'm at a theatrical performance or having to do penance. When I go to Mass, I want beauty and the Lord!"

God Bless you!

Pray for the Pope!

I Bind Unto Myself Today

HAPPY ST. PATRICK's DAY TO YE ALL! May you have a blessed and wonderful day, and don't get too drunk :) God Bless you!

Please accept my apology for a lack of posts the past couple of months. I keep saying "Oh, I'll try to post every day" but I obviously don't. It's just that a lot of things have been going on lately, please, PLEASE forgive me! Also, please say a prayer for me!

May the Lord Bless you and Keep you! Oh Immaculate Heart of Mary, my salvation, pray for me now at my hour of need. Pray for me and for all those who now suffer from persecution and sorrow. On this day of glorious St. Patrick, I ask the of my prayers.

Oh holy and glorious St. Patrick, patron of Ireland and all the Irish, pray for us as we celebrate this day of your life! Holy St. Patrick, thou hast caused the joys of thousands. Pray for us, most holy patron and Father of the Irish!

Remember, please, don't drink and drive. Whenever you do, you put the lives of hundreds of people at risk. Don't get too drunk, and GO TO MASS. God Bless! See you tomorrow!

Lent, and some corrections of Liturgical Abuse

Today is Pancake Day! Shrove Tuesday! or if you rather....Mardi Gras. I have finished eating my pancakes for today. Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, which is the first day of Lent. Now, to remind you, tomorrow is a day of fasting and abstinence. No meat, only one meal, if you're over the ages of 13 and under 62. The ages do vary from country to country. Tomorrow is a day of repentance, as is the whole season of Lent. So tomorrow, off to confession we go. The Church teaches that Lent is a period of fasting and penance, to prepare for the coming of Our Lord and Saviour....
"Remember, O Man, that thou art Dust, and unto Dust thou shalt return"

There are various liturgical abuses which occur during the Lenten season. Well, KEEP A WATCH OUT! Does your parish remove the Holy Water? Even worse, does it replace it with something like sand, sticks, or paper? Some parishes have "praise dances" in "celebration of the coming of Our brother Jesus!! Yay". Actually, nay. Sorry, not allowed. Makes the Mass illicit. Now, lately, sort of, certain Priests "liturgical committees" and scatter Priest (of which shall remain nameless) have banned receiveing Our Lord on the tongue, well.....this is for you...coming from Inaestimabile Donum......
With regard to the manner of going to Communion, the faithful can receive it either kneeling or standing, in accordance with the norms laid down by the episcopal conference: 'When the faithful communicate kneeling, no other sign of reverence towards the Blessed Sacrament is required, since kneeling is itself a sign of adoration. When they receive Communion standing, it is strongly recommended that, coming up in procession, they should make a sign of reverence before receiving the Sacrament.'
Put that in your pipe and smoke it, I say! Hurrah! Excuse my profanity. But that's it. See you tomorrow.
P.S. This Lent I am going to post every day that I can!

Sexagesima

With last Sunday being Sexagesima, it is now 9 days until the holy season of Lent. Lent is, obviously, a very special and holy time. It is a time to repent, and ask for forgiveness, for penance. To ask God for his mercy. To pray, and fast. Lent prepares us for the resurrection of Our Lord. This is the prayer that St Ambrose of Milan wrote for lent, and it's quite beautiful.
O Lord, who hast mercy upon all,
take away from me my sins,
and mercifully kindle in me
the fire of thy Holy Spirit.
Take away from me the heart of stone,
and give me a heart of flesh,
a heart to love and adore Thee,
a heart to delight in Thee,
to follow and enjoy Thee, for Christ's sake, Amen

Tudalen

Good Morning!
I have created a website counterpart to go along with the blog! Please take a look, as it is a work in process!
www.tudalen.co.cc .

Where did I come up with the name? Well, I couldn't think of one, so naturally I went to Google Translator and types "page" in and looked at it in various languages. I liked the way it sounded in Welsh, which is "tudalen". I will soon try to get it to a .ca, .co.uk, or .com address, but for now I will stay with the free .co.cc.

God Bless!

Installation of Bishops

Look at the installation of His Grace Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster! Such majesty and magnificence!

Hell, Sin, and how to get to Jesus!

Sin is everywhere, sin is dangerous. When we sin, we put our souls in danger. If we die in a state of sin, we will go to hell. If we die in a state of grace, but are not fully sinless, or repentant for our sins, we go to purgatory, a temporary state. Sin is much more evident than what it was, say, 70 years ago. With the advent of the internet, the television, iPods, etc... we are more prone to fall into sin with all the impure resources. Porn, so-called "dating websites", television shows which promote promiscuity, books with impure images. The list is endless. 70 years ago or so, there was to internet, iPods, cellphones, and barely anyone had a television. Though people did sin back then, just as bad as now, it didn't happen as much or often. Sinful material is available at the click of a mouse. But today, there is no sense of sin. The Church teaches, and always has taught, that Hell is real. Hell IS real. We enter into eternal damnation when we dies in a state of sin. We shall suffer for eternity with the Devil and his angels. The Church helps us get to heaven. If we follow the teachings of Holy Mother Church, obey and listen to the Pope, pray for His intentions. If we got to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass every Sunday, go to Confession, and receive Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, and pray the Holy Rosary of Our Blessed Mother, we can attain Eternal Salvation! That's the best thing about being Catholic! We belong to God's church! We are members of the mystical body of Christ!

This leads me to St. Louis de Montfort. To JESUS, through MARY. Here is a paragraph from his most famous work, True Devotion to Mary...which describes how to get to Jesus, to heaven, through Mary the best way that anyone can.

Jesus Christ our Savior, true God and true Man, ought to be the last end of all our other devotions, else they are false and delusive. Jesus Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, of all things, We labor not, as the Apostle says, except to render every man perfect in Jesus Christ; because it is in Him alone that the whole plenitude of the Divinity dwells together with all the other plenitudes of graces, virtures and perfections. It is in Him alone that we have been blessed with all spiritual benediction; and He is our only Master, who has to teach us; our only Lord on whom we ought to depend; our only Head to whom we must be united; our only Model to whom we should conform ourselves; our only Physcian who can heal us; our only Shepherd who can feed us; our only Way who can lead us; our only Truth whom we must believe; our only Life who can animate us; and our only All in all things who can satisfy us.

There has been no other name given under Heaven, except the name of Jesus, by who we can be saved. God has laid no other foundation of our salvation, our perfection or our glory, than Jesus Christ. Every building which is not built on that firm rock is founded upon the moving sand, and sooner or latter infallibly will fall. Every one of the faithful who is not united to Him, as a branch to the stock of the vine, shall fall, shall wither, and shall be fit only to be cast into the fire. Outside of Him there exists nothing but error, falsehood, iniquity, futiltiy, death and damnation. But if we are in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ is in us, we have no condemnation to fear. Neither the angels of Heaven not the men of earth nor the devils of Hell nor any other creature can injure us; because they cannot separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ. By Jesus Christ, in Jesus Christ, we can do all things; we can render all honor and glory to the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost; we can become perfect ourselves, and be to our neighbor a good odor of eternal life. (2Cor. 2:15-16)"

"If, then, we establish solid devotion to our Blessed Lady, it is only to establish more perfectly devotion to Jesus Christ, and to provide an easy and secure means for finding Jesus Christ. If devotion to Our Lady removed us from Jesus Christ, we should have to reject it as an illusion of the devil; but so far from this being the case, devotion to Our Lady is, on the contrary, necessary for us - as I have already shown, and will show still further hereafter - as a means of finding Jesus Christ perfectly, of loving Him tenderly, of serving Him faithfully. "

"I avow, with all the Church, that Mary, being a mere creature that has come from the hands of the Most High, is in comparison with His Infinite Majesty less than an atom; or rather, she is nothing at all, because only His is "HE who is" (Exod. 3:14); consequently that grand Lord, always independent and sufficient to Himself, never had, and has not now, any absolute need of the holy Virgin for the accomplishment of His will and for the manifestation of His glory. He has but to will in order to do everything. Nevertheless, I say that, things being as they are now - that is, God having willed to commence and to complete His greatest works by the most holy Virgin ever since He created her - we may well think He will not change His conduct in the eternal ages; for He is God, and He changes not, either in His sentiments or in His conduct."

"The Son of God became man for our salvation; but it was in Mary and by Mary. God the Holy Ghost formed Jesus Christ in Mary; but it was only after having asked her consent by one of the first ministers of His court. God the Father communicated to Mary His fruitfulness, inasmuch as a mere creature was capable of it, in order that He might give her the power to produce His Son and all the members of His Mystical Body. God the Holy Ghost, being barren in God - that is to say, not producing another Divine Person is become fruitful by Mary, whom He has espoused. It was with her, in her, and of her that He produced His Masterpiece, which is God made Man, and that He goes on producing daily, to the end of the world, the predestinate and the members of the body of that adorable Head.

This is the reason why He, the Holy Ghost, the more He finds Mary, His dear and inseparable spouse, in any soul, the more active and mighty He becomes in producing Jesus Christ in that soul, and that soul in Jesus Christ. It is not that we mean that our Blessed Lady gives the Holy Ghost His fruitfulness, as if He had it not Himself. For inasmuch as He is God, He has the same fruitfulness or capacity of producing as the Father and the Son; only He does not bring it into action, as He does not produce another Divine Person. But what we mean is that the Holy Ghost chose to make use of our Blessed Lady, though He had no absolute need of her, to bring His fruitfulness into action, by producing in her and by her Jesus Christ and His members - a mystery of grace unknown to even the wisest and most spiritual amoung Christians."

"God the Father made an assemblage of all the waters and He named it the sea (mare). He made an assemblage of all His graces and he called it Mary(Maria). This great God has a most rich treasury in which He has laid up all that He has of beauty and splendor, of rarity and preciousness, including even His own Son: and this immense treasury is none other than Mary, whom the saints have named the Treasure of the Lord, out of whose plenitude all men are made rich."