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Showing posts with the label penance

Prayer and Fasting to combat CSF Bill

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The Good Counsel Network writes: Please Pray and Fast for the defeat of the Children, Schools and Families Bill The Good Counsel Network is urgently asking you to pray and fast on Monday 15th March for the defeat of the Children, Schools and Families Bill which is continuing it’s passage through Parliament. If it becomes law, the Bill will means that children of Primary School Age will be taught explicit and immoral sex education by teachers who may be utterly at variance from the parents in their moral views. Unfortunately, the much publicised amendment to the Bill will not protect children in faith schools from the many dangers of this bill. For more info tel: 020 7723 1740
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Prayer and fasting for life

Each month, the Good Counsel Network invites people to a National Day of Prayer & Fasting for Life. This month, the day is Tuesday 23rd June, Vigil of the Birth of St John the Baptist. The intention is simple: to pray and fast for the end of abortion and euthanasia.
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Doing something positive for Lent

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Gotcha! You all thought I was going to say earnestly that Lent is not about giving things up but about doing something positive. I'm glad to say that this mantra is now becoming part of the recognisably tired corpus of the "reform that has to be reformed." Every year on Ash Wednesday I try to work the point in somewhere that nothing stops us from doing both . Celebrating Septuagesimatide gives a neat opportunity to preach for three weeks on prayer, fasting, and alsmgiving - these topics can also be related easily enough to the scriptures read in the usus recentior and provide a good lead-in to Lent. Today, I had three Masses. 10am is our normal time for weekday Mass and there was a good attendance. We also have a 4.15pm Mass on Holydays (although there are none to be celebrated in the week this year according to the "ordinary" calendar) and I do the same on Ash Wednesday; it is a convenient time for parents and children to attend after school. In the evening, w...
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A new book for priests on Confession

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Fr Michael Woodgate, who teaches at St John's Seminary, Wonersh, has written a good book called "A Priest's Guide to Hearing Confessions". it is intended as a modern equivalent of the classic manuals for confessors and it succeeds in offering a doctrinally sound and practically helpful guide. It will be especially helpful for the newly ordained priest but as with all such books, it is important for those of us ordained some time to remind ourselves of the basics and to listen to what other wise priests have to say. As well as dealing with basic such as the matter for confession and the qualities required in the minister, the seal, and approaches to different types of penitent, Father gives a useful summary concerning censures and penalties and their absolution. A most useful book for any priest. A Priest's Guide to Hearing Confessions can be ordered from the CTS , price £9.95 (140 pages, hardback.)
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Pro-Life Fast

The Good Counsel Network's Sackcloth and Ashes initiative has proposed the 4th National Day of Prayer and Fasting for Life for Tuesday 28th October, the Feast of St Jude. The intention is to pray and fast for the defeat of all attempts in parliament to liberalise the abortion laws. Here is the poster which can be printed off for Church and other notice boards: Sackcloth and Ashes October 2008 - Upload a Document to Scribd
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Bernini's elephant Inscription

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Here's the elephant. (That's the Pantheon in the background.) And here is the inscription: It reads: SAPIENTIS AEGYPTI INSCULPTAS OBELISCO FIGURAS AB ELEPHANTO BELLUARUM FORTISSIMA GESTARI QUISQUIS HIC VIDES DOCUMENTUM INTELLIGE ROBUSTAE MENTIS ESSE SOLIDAM SAPIENTIAM SUSTINERE Which is to say "Whoever sees here that the symbols of the Egyptian sage, inscribed on the obelisk, are carried by the elephant, the strongest of the beasts: understand that it is a proof of a robust mind to sustain solid wisdom." I first read this inscription on a tour of the twelve obelisks of Rome, led by the incomparable Fr Reginald ("Reggie") Foster. He was the best teacher of anything that I ever knew and I always try to call in at the beginning of his class. 25 years on, he teaches at the same time, in the same room, with the same dry sense of humour and the same passionate love of Latin. The obelisk is outside the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva where St Catherine of Sien...
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Hippolytus and Eucharistic Prayer II

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When I was a student in Rome, I remember going with a priest for Mass in one of the ancient Churches. The priest said that he was going to use Eucharistic Prayer II because it was the most ancient of all the prayers and was specifically Roman, composed by Hippolytus. This was the standard view at that time (early 1980s) but has since been called into question. A number of people have recently mentioned the matter to me and so here are a few notes for you. In the 19th century, a number of ancient texts were discovered that were similar to the "Apostolic Constitutions", (of which the first modern edition was published in 1563). Among these texts was a document which came to be referred to as the “Egyptian Church Order”. In addition, the Canons of Hippolytus and the Testamentum Domini were discovered. The scholarly consensus in the early 20th century on the dependence of these documents was that the “Egyptian Church Order” was in fact the "Apostolic Tradition" of Hipp...
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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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CD 275: Paying cash for work done

A handyman who does work for me prefers for me to pay him in cash. Am I committing a sin if I agree to do so? It is fascinating to see how virtually the whole country has become engaged in the intricacies of moral debate on this issue, including the complex question of material or formal co-operation in evil. The broad consensus is correct according to Catholic moral teaching: there is absolutely nothing wrong in itself with paying somebody using cash, which is, after all, legal tender. However if we pay cash because of an explicit offer to reduce the cost of the work, and because this reduction is due to the evasion of income tax or VAT, then we are formally co-operating in evil, and committing a sin (probably a venial sin given the amount of tax normally involved.) If we simply have a suspicion that cash is requested in order to avoid tax, then we ought (within reason) to ask whether this is the case or not. The costs that small businesses incur with bank charges, credit card me...
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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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