Herald coverage of Pope's visit to France

The Catholic Herald has a portal for coverage of the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to France this weekend. The Editor, Luke Coppen has a very good background article. Cf. The Editor’s Notes "Behind Enemy Lines!.

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1962 Missal pdf online

The Church Music Association of America and Jeffrey Tucker of the New Liturgical Movement have made available the 1962 Missal online in pdf format (72Mb). The file is hosted at Musica Sacra , the website of the CMAA, thanks to a generous gift from Fr Robert Skeris While you are at it, take a look at the articles clarifying the rules for music at Low Mass and music at High Mass .
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The Transfiguration and Jewish feast days

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My post on " Interesting parallels in Jewish customs " seems to have been well received, so I thought it might be helpful to look at today's feast day in the light of two Jewish feasts. Many years ago, I was bowled over by Fr Jean Galot's observation concerning St Peter's profession of faith. He argued that if, as many scholars accepted, the transfiguration occurred during the feast of tabernacles, then the "after six days" of Matthew 17.1 would mean that the profession of faith of St Peter in Matthew 16.16 would have taken place on the Day of Atonement. This is highly significant because the Day of Atonement was the one day in the year on which the high priest solemnly pronounced the holy name YHWH in the holy of holies in the Temple. St Peter, by his confession of faith fulfils the work of the high priests, and Our Lord in His own person is the living presence the Most High. Then there is the feast of tabernacles itself. This feast lasted for a w...
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Request for Novena to Blessed Pius IX

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A priest friend of mine is ill in hospital. He has a special devotion to Blessed Pius IX. Could I ask you, of your charity, to say a Novena for his speedy recovery. Novena In Honour of Blessed Pius IX Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, hear our prayers and glorify your servant Pius IX, who consecrated the Universal Church to you. (Our Father...) O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you, hear our prayer and glorify your servant Pius IX who declared you Immaculate. (Hail Mary...) Saint Joseph, spouse of the most pure Virgin Mary, hear our prayer and glorify your servant Pius IX who declared you the Patron of the Universal Church. (Glory be...) Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Immaculate Mary, our Hope, and Saint Joseph hear our prayers and glorify your servant Pius IX , granting to us through his merits and intercessions the graces which we ardently desire: that the glory of God be revealed through Father's illness. (Our Father..., Hail Mary..., Glory be...
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Recommended Basic Spiritual Reading for Lent

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Someone asked if I would recommend some reading for Lent. Here goes! On such matters I generally try not to be original and instead to introduce good Catholics to classic spiritual works in case they have not come across them. If you have read all the below, you are probably in a good position to find other worthwhile reading yourself. But if these are books that you haven’t read, then any one of them would be a potential life changer. And if you have read them all, you will probably know that they are all worth reading again. Most of these books are readily available as books with paper and glue, books that go on your e-reader, web pages, and pdf versions. I don’t have so much experience of audio books but my guess would be that they are now all around in that format too. Over the past couple of years I have gravitated more and more to the Internet Archive  which I now use in lieu of a library, with the help of a Kindle Fire 10 which makes pdfs readable. And do not forget the e...
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When people walk away with Holy Communion

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It happens from time to time that someone will come up for Holy Communion which they receive into their hands, and then walk away with the sacred host. A priest friend asked me to write something about what we can do. Let’s think first of all of the actual situation and then about some possible preventative measures. In terms of canon law, the desecration of the sacred species is a crime, punishable by automatic excommunication. In most cases, the person does not know what they are doing or how wrong it is, so I’ll assume that is the case (rather than deliberate desecration, perhaps for satanic purposes or as an atheistic stunt.) But even if the person does not know the seriousness of what they are doing, it is still objectively a very grave matter. So we can’t just let it happen. A pastoral complication is that people don’t like to be “shown up” or embarrassed in front of the congregation so they can easily become annoyed or aggressive in their confusion. Therefore we need to ke...
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