Two new priests for Southwark

Congratulations to Frs Behruz Rafat and Sean O'Connor who were ordained to the sacred priesthood yesterday at St George's Cathedral in Southwark.

Ad multos annos, plurimosque annos vivant!

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How to make an act of perfect contrition

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How can you go from imperfect to perfect contrition? Gabriella D from Australia asked me this on Twitter today and I want to give an answer because I think that many people misunderstand what we mean when we talk about “perfect contrition.” Perfect contrition is sorrow and detestation of sin arising out of the love of God. One way of exciting this contrition in our hearts is by considering the passion of Jesus Christ and making acts of love for Him. We can also think of the infinite love which God has for us, and express sorrow in our heart in the presence of this great love which we have offended. Imperfect contrition is sorrow and detestation for sin arising from a consideration of the ugliness of sin or out of the fear of hell. Disgust at the ugliness of sin is more common today than fear of hell. That is because we do not preach enough, or with sufficient conviction about the four last things. If a person commits an act of impurity, for example, perhaps by deliberately ...
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For about two-thirds of my life, ever since the introduction of the old ICEL translation, I have argued and written that we should have an accurate translation of the Missal for Mass in English. This morning for the first time, I was able to celebrate Mass in English at which we used a decent translation of the Gloria , the Creed, and the Domine non sum dignus . Although I have joined others in looking forward to this development and defending it, nevertheless, I was rather moved to be able to use it fully for the first time. All my priestly life, I have had to celebrate English Mass with a dumbed-down, lame duck translation. Of course, many people have been sanctified by their participation in the Mass using this translation but if you have even a rudimentary knowledge of Latin, it is frustrating to know that the people are being denied the richness of the Church's sacred texts. For most ordinary people not involved in ecclesiastical politics, there will be no problems. In a...
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