Charles Wood speaking for the Friends of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham

On the Future of Christianity in Britain

+Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for us.

Servant of God Sr. Consolata Betrone

"Jesus and Mary, I love you. save souls"

Servant of God Sr. Consolata Betrone, pray for us.

One may read about Servant of God Sr. Consolata Betrone at the Monastero Sacro Cuore website: click here.

Fr Lorenzo Sales IMC

There are two books that are recommended. The first is Jesus Appeals to the World by Sister's spiritual director, Father Lorenzo Sales, IMC. It is available here.

Another book that is about her in part is Words of Love by Father Bartholomew Gottemoller, OSCO. He also writes about Sr. Josefa Menendez and Sr. Mary of the Trinity. It is available from TAN Books at this link.

+Jesus-Maria!

Big Fan of Pope Francis

J+M+J

IC XC NIKA

Yes, I am a big fan of Pope Francis.  I think he is hitting all the right notes and saying the important things that need to be heard in a simple and straightforward way that echoes clearly the personalism of our beloved and sainted Pope John Paul II.  He is also validating his predecessor's work and positions on things that are most important.  We should never lose sight of the fact that even if we have our preferred form of the Mass with chant and polyphony, bells and incense, that if the centre of the Vatican is a putrid train wreck of scandals then we have NO gospel to preach to the world.  All of the Truth with a capital "T" that the Church has in Jesus Christ becomes eclipsed by the Evil done by those called to evangelise and serve the world.

I am praying fervently that the Pope will simply close the Vatican Bank.  A more corrupt and wicked institution it would be hard to find.  I am also praying for a hurricane of change to blow through the Curia.  Without it the Church's mission in the world... and especially to the West is significantly damaged if not snuffed out.

The truth is that in the West there are still many men in the episcopate who need to go.  Seeing the Archbishop in Iowa resign is a model that should happen in repeated dioceses in North America.  If it doesn't happen then the Superforce of the Shining Darkness wins a battle they must lose.

Recently, an article appeared on the Radio Vaticana website ("A Worldly Church Cannot Transmit the Gospel") that I think all of us should read: the link is here.  In part the Holy Father said,

"Entrust the Church to the Lord is a prayer that makes the Church grow. It is also an act of faith. We can do nothing, we are poor servants - all of us - of the Church: it is He who keeps her going and holds her and makes her grow , makes her holy, defends and protects her from the prince of this world and what he wants the Church to become, in short more and more worldly. This is the greatest danger! When the Church becomes worldly, when she has the spirit of the world within herself, when that peace which is not that of the Lord - that peace when Jesus says, 'I leave you peace, my peace I give you', not as the world gives it - when she has that worldly peace, the Church is a weak Church, a defeated Church, unable to transmit the Gospel, the message of the Cross, the scandal of the Cross ... She cannot transmit this if she is worldly”.

Some former Anglicans in the Catholic Church have been unduly upset by Cardinal Bergoglio's remarks to Archbishop Venables of the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone. If I had been a Cardinal in Argentina, I would also have looked askance at the new Ordinariates and would have doubted how useful or helpful for the mission of the Church they would be.  The perspective of a Cardinal like him is 'national', but the perspective of a Pope is very different.  As Pope we will see him make use of the Ordinariates in positive ways we have not imagined.  I expect him to gather into the Church all those who have no place in liberal Protestantism, and I pray for him to succeed in gathering the Lord's sheep into one fold in the one Church. 

In the Argentine context the Anglicans there are as conservative and sound as you will find anywhere in the Anglican Canterbury Communion. They are far more conservative and solid than the vast majority of Roman Catholics in the USA.  Those Anglicans had partnered with Cardinal Bergoglio time and again against the excesses of the liberal drift of the Kirchner governments. In fact, Cardinal Bergoglio enjoyed more support and common cause with the Anglican archbishops in Argentina than many of his own Catholic bishops. It is easy to see how he would have seen the loss of the Anglican witness as not helpful in the fight against the agnostic liberal secularism in Argentina. In any event, that is how I see it. 
+
This is Great Week for my Eastern Orthodox family and friends. I pray for all of them (and for those Latin Catholics in the Holy Land and Middle East who will be observing Holy Week and Easter this week and weekend) that all share the great blessings of our Crucified and Risen Lord in a most special way. A Blessed Pascha to one and all! 

 +Ave Jesu Christe!

CCWatershed: Modal Psalms

J+M+J

IC XC NIKA

Another excellent chant resource is coming from CCWatershed.

For more information and some music previews, click HERE.

Fr. Zed: 'Tensions'

J+M+J

IC XC NIKA

I enjoyed Fr. Z's post 'Tensions' as it speaks to the tensions that should be at work in the life of the Church and her attendant arts.  I encourage you to read it:
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2013/04/tensions/ 

The video (in French) to which Father refers one may view below:

+Gloria in excelsis Deo

Regarding "Of Bishops and Bombers"

J+M+J

IC XC NIKA

William Kilpatrick's article in Catholic World Report "Of Bishops and Bombers" to which I am linking is a well written article in the main.  While the many problems of the American Catholic hierarchy form an entirely different story, Kilpatrick touches on its innate apologetic defect as it is reflected in Cardinal O'Malley's carrying water for Islam.  But there is also a defect with the article in that it fails to recognise that the religion of the Saudi royal family -- Salafi Sunni Islam (a.k.a. Wahhabism)  --is the fertile ground out of which recent terrorists in the West have come.  As puritan zealots they want to eliminate all other brands of Islam (together with the ultimate elimination of Jews and Christians).  Shia Islam gave birth to the monster Hizbollah, but Salafi Islam is being exported all around the world by the money of the Saudis in a way that is unparalleled.

One may well ask, Have the Sufis produced a terrorist in our day who has attacked the USA?  Have the Ismaelis under the Aga Khan?  Have the Alevis, the Alawites, the Ibadi, etc.?  They all have bloody pasts, but it is Salafism/Wahabbism that is the greatest problem in the world because most terrorists have been radicalised by this version of Islam ... a version that is funded, backed, and bankrolled by the Saudi royal family and the wealth of Saudi Arabia.  This is a truth that no U.S. American politician is willing to admit or state.  To do so would beg the question, "Why does the USA kowtow to Saudi desires, wishes, and demands?"  No one wants to touch why the Bush Republicans and the Obama Democrats bow and scrape to the Saudi royal family.  Since 9/11 almost every new mosque in the USA has been built by the Saudis, and they are Salafist mosques and hotbeds of Wahhabist radicalism.  Why has the USA allowed this?  One wonders...

Another issue here is that for whatever reason Western Christians have few critical faculties with which to address, discuss, or criticise Islam.  They do not understand the sects and denominations within Islam nor do they understand the claims and counterclaims about its history.  My opinion is that it is very difficult to speak of Mohammed alone.  One must locate the tradition within which the story of Mohammed is being related.  The Caliph Uthman is, has, and continues to be the elephant in the middle of the room that is Islam ... a point that the West misses.  Much of what is claimed about Mohammed was revised or newly crafted via the censorious Caliph Uthman.

Uthman had the Quran reworked and rewritten, and he ordered all other versions burned including very different versions held by members of Mohammed's own family.  Finally, Uthman was assassinated, but the damage he had done to Islam as religion, ideology, and culture was already done.  And while Shia Muslims accept this intense criticism of Uthman, no Muslim is publicly willing to deal with the issue of the Quran and its rewriting by Uthman.  They prefer to think of it as "standardising the sacred text".

Now after that bit of excursion here is an excerpt from the article in CWR:

In his Sunday homily the week after the Boston Marathon bombing, Cardinal Sean O’Malley said that the action of the bombers was a “perversion of their religion.” We have grown accustomed to hearing such statements from prelates, as well as from presidents and prime ministers. Terrorist have “perverted” their religion or “distorted” it or “misinterpreted” it. But how accurate are such assessments? 

On one occasion, Muhammad ordered the beheading of more than 700 Jews who had surrendered to him. On another occasion, when a severed head was tossed at his feet by one of his men, he exclaimed that it was “more acceptable to me than the choicest camel in Arabia.” On still another occasion he exulted, “I have been made victorious through terror.” Indeed, the Qur’an is full of admonitions to terrorize. Was Muhammad perverting the religion he founded? Was he a “misunderstander” of Islam?

The article continues here. 

 +Domine, audi nos.

Caryll Houselander: Battering the bodies of innocence

J+M+J

IC XC NIKA

Do take the time to read this article by Dawn Eden regarding a prophetic passage in a novel by Caryll Houselander, the Catholic mystic whose writings have been an immeasurable blessing in my life.  Dawn Eden's insight here is a gift in raising up before us this profoundly important passage. (If you have not already done so, do read Dawn Eden's two books her most recent of which is a life-saving treasure for those traumatised and injured by sexual wounds.  And as I always do, I heartily recommend reading anything by Caryll Houselander.

Caryll Houselander, Catholic mystic, writer, artist, and evangelist

I am one of many who believe deeply that Caryll Houselander was a saint with a capital "S", and I pray that some day the Church will come to see the value in canonising those whose ongoing Evangelical gift in communication is as much a Miracle of God as any particular Miracle credited to one of the Lord's venerable and blessed sons and daughters.  Here is the link to Dawn Eden's article from December of last year:  Click here.

+Domine, audi nos.

Keep the priests out

J+M+J

IC XC NIKA

Please read this article if you have not:

At Boston's bombing scene:

Catholic priests need not apply

But it is a poignant irony that Martin Richard, the 8-year-old boy who died on Boylston Street, was a Catholic who had received his first Communion just last year. As Martin lay dying, priests were only yards away, beyond the police tape, unable to reach him to administer last rites…

MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN

(Daniel 5)

+Kyrie eleison imas.

Our Lady of Good Counsel

J+M+J

IC XC NIKA

Our Lady of Good Counsel, pray for us.

+Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen on Kermit Gosnell and Abortion

+

A large number of members of the U.S. House of Representative gave speeches regarding the Kermit Gosnell infanticide/murder trial in order to draw national attention to the trial that is being blacked out by mainstream news media in the USA (thereby revealing their pro-abortion bias).  The following one minute speech is given by Floridas' Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen:

+

"Why?" they will cry.

Kyrie eleison imas.

When the USA lies in ruins, and people cry out, 'Why did God let this happen to us?', I would remind them of this for starters ... the news that U.S. news corporations are not covering:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/04/10/philadelphia-abortion-clinic-horror-column/2072577/

+

Historic Image

J+M+J

IC XC NIKA

It is a gift that this image is not simply of two Popes standing together looking at the photographer but rather two pontiffs contemplating a window to Heaven, the ikon of the Madonna of Humility which had been given to Pope Francis by the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church through Metropolitan Hilarion, Foreign Minister of the Russian Church.

Pope Francis I with the Pontiff Emeritus Benedict

+

Habemus Papam

 J+M+J

IC XC NIKA

We pray for the new Pope, Jorge Cardinal Bergoglio, who has taken the name Francis for his Pontificate.  He was the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina.  Pope Francis I comes from the Jesuit Order and is noted for his distance from Liberation Theology.  He is also noted for his humility — choosing to live in a small apartment and take public transportation rather than live in the episcopal palace with its attendant honours.

Viva il Papa!

Devotions for the Conclave

J+M+J

IC XC NIKA

Please make formal plans for yourself to undertake special devotions like the traditional 15 mysteries of the Rosary during each day of the Conclave.

If the 15 traditional Mysteries are not a possibility, then consider the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Mother Mary.  Immaculée Ilibagiza has done enormous good spreading news of this devotion as Our Lady had asked at Kibeho in Rwanda for a revival and use of this Rosary that has been all but forgotten.  I have a Seven Sorrows Rosary from Rwanda together with Immaculée's beautiful booklet for praying it.  There are of course other sources on the internet. Perhaps someone reading this will hear the Blessed Mother calling them to pray her Seven Sorrows each day of this Conclave.

Another possibility is the Chaplet or Rosary of the Holy Wounds revealed by the Lord to Sr. Marie Marthe Chambon.  In my mind choosing the Vicar of Christ is well supported by daily devotion to His Holy Wounds.  

I also think of St. Rafqa of Lebanon to whom the Lord disclosed that his worst wound was unrecorded in Scripture.  It was the wound on His shoulder.  St. Rafka suffered unspeakable pain in her body but never complained.  She consecrated each pain to Jesus saying:  "In communion with Thy suffering, Jesus", "With the wound on Thy shoulder, Jesus," "With Thy crown of thorns, Jesus," "With the sufferings caused by the lance… by the thorns… by the nails of the Cross, my Lord Jesus."   

Other saints and seers like St. Bernard of Clairvaux have been told the same by Lord, but for some reason the Holy Wound  the Lord Jesus sustained on His shoulder by carrying the Cross remains unknown to almost every Catholic or other Christian that I know.  The following is one of the several prayers authorised for devotion to Our Lord's Holy Wound on His shoulder:

Prayer to the Shoulder Wound of Christ

Most loving Jesus, meek Lamb of God, I, a miserable sinner, salute and worship the most Sacred Wound of Thy Shoulder on which Thou didst bear Thy heavy Cross which so toreThy flesh and laid bareThy Bones as to inflict on Thee an anguish greater than any other wound of Thy Most Blessed Body.  I adore Thee, O Jesus most sorrowful; I praise and glorify Thee, and give The thanks for this most sacred and painful Wound, beseeching Thee by that exceeding pain, and by the crushing burden of Thy heavy Cross to be merciful to me, a sinner, to forgive me all my mortal and venial sins, and to lead me on towards Heaven along the Way of Thy Cross. Amen.

(Imprimatur: +Thomas D. Beven, Bishop of Springfield.)

Perhaps some special devotion to the Holy Wound of Our Lord's shoulder would be most appropriate for frequent recollection during each day of the Conclave as the Vicar of Christ will need the strength and graces that flow from this Holy Wound as the new Pontiff carries his own cross in leading Christ's poor Church.

+With the wound on Thy shoulder, Lord Jesus!

The Next Pontiff & Péter Cardinal Erdõ

J+M+J

IC XC NIKA

There are many who want a Pope from Africa or Latin America ... the same sorts of things that were said of Pres. Obama before he was elected President of the USA are being said about a Pope from such regions.  "We need a black Pope, " a woman fairly shouted at me at a local Catholic bookstore. (My reply was, "No, madam.  We need God's choice as Pope.")

Of course, as most do, I have my own prejudices in the matter: I have become convinced that the man the Church needs as Pope is Péter Cardinal Erdõ of Hungary.  I want a Pope who is a perfect blend of the best of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI and who has proven his ability to strengthen the Church and build strong relationships with the secular government of his nation. 

I want a Pontiff who understands how to deal with Communist nations ... because the next Pope must deal with the outrageous situation harming the Church in the People's Republic of China. However, my opinions and reasons do not matter in the least and should not be the focus of my prayer or conversation about the election of the next Pontiff.  

We need to pray for and speak about our need for God's choice alone.

There is no harm in bringing to other's attention a wonderful Prince of the Church.  But let's be sure to avoid the temptation 'to campaign' and think of the Papal election like a regional secular political election.  Let us find our solidarity in united prayer and fasting for the Blessed Trinity's choice for us.

+Domine, audi nos.

Carcinogens: birth control and abortion

+

Read this article for more:

Evidence Mounts Abortion Birth Control Cause Cancer 

+Christe eleison imas.

Fast and Pray

J+M+J

IC XC NIKA

Fast and pray that the Holy Ghost will overshadow the Cardinals in Conclave as well as override the wills and passions of men that the Will of God alone be done.

Fast and pray that Cardinals who should not be present at the Conclave will find that they cannot attend.  

Likewise, fast and pray that those Cardinals who should be there under the Will of God will find themselves unimpeded and aided by the Holy Angels at every turn.

Our Lady, Help of Christians, pray for us.

+Christe eleison imas.

The Triumph of the Church

J+M+J

XC IC NIKA

Sister Marie Marthe Chambon (+ 1907) taught us: 

"The triumph of the Church 

will be hastened 

by devotion to the Five Wounds 

and the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ."

It is suggested that the Chaplet (Rosary) of the Holy Wounds 
may be prayed during the Offertory of the Holy Mass.

Kyrie eleison imas.

Really Useful Website

J+M+J

IC XC NIKA

http://www.playingthechurchorgan.com 

If you are a pianist pressed into service on a church organ, this website is a godsend.  I think it would also be useful for someone with limited experience who is looking for repertoire.

Church organists may also wish to know of it because it could be a great way to train up a keyboardist to substitute at the organ should one need to be away.

http://www.playingthechurchorgan.com

+Ave Jesu Christe!

From Dorothy Day

Kyrie eleison imas.

The Bible isn’t meant to keep people apart; it isn’t meant to be a badge of honor. The worst sin is pride, and you can have a religious pride that is sinful. I didn’t see that for a long time—the way religion can be used to hurt people. I knew history—all the hate in the name of religion. But in everyday life, even before I became Catholic, I had assumed that people who took the time to read the Bible and pray were going to behave better toward other people, because they would be influenced by all the beauty in that book. But I was naive, maybe blind.

 Dorothy Day

+Miserere nobis, Domine