Recta Ratio

It is from Traditio, so you might want to take some of it with a grain of salt. I was doing a hunt for images for the Yahoo Group, and came across it.

While I disagree fundementally with the premise that the Novus Ordo Mass itself is illegitimate, unhallowed, inappropriate, or a sacrilege, I do have to agree, looking through the list, that there have been a great number of bizarre, disrespectful, and downright dumb things done using the New Mass as their basis (and a great many seem to be imposed upon the Holy Father when he visits; it is as if the natives of whereever just can't wait to spring some vacuous insipidity on His Holiness when he gets to town).

This is sort of what Dale Price was saying a couple of weeks ago. To be intellectually honest, you do have to grant that the - traditionalists have a point about a great many things. They are good at pointing out faults.

But Republicans even let Democrats speak at theirs.

Not the milk-toast nancy boys many priests are by the time the seminary is through with them.

Founder of Opus Dei, which has more to say about his feast. There is also a prayer card for him.

Over at Irish Elk, of course.

Every once in a while, the Brit leftie performs a signal service to humanity.

With the central artery closed, the principal rail artery from the north, North Station, closed (just to make the convention site secure for a party that would be happy if they could wave white flags instead of red, white, and blue) even the trolley tour is thinking of taking the week off.

And people are being told not to carry bags or briefcases on the train or bus, or even on the streets.

Just to keep the party of national security surrender safe from the terrorists they deny are a serious enough threat to warrant destroying abroad rather than at home, the City of Boston will essentially be turned into a concentration camp for the month of July, with random police stops of anyone carrying a bag.

Plus the city is spending a ton of money turning itself into a Potemkin Village ("See all the newly paved streets, the trees and flowers planted a month ago, and the absence of that urban nuisance, the homeless? Isn't Boston such a woderful place?").

How soon before the cry, "Democrats, go home!" echoes through the streets of Democrat Boston?

Sometimes, you get what you deserve for voting in record numbers for Dukakis, Clinton, and Gore.

Tomorrow is St. John the Baptist's birth.

The only Catholic bishop in England to stay true to the Church under the threats of Henry VIII. He was martyred also.

His An Exposition of the Seven Penitential Psalms, whch were originally sermons preached to the court of Henry VIII's mother are available in an excellent translation to modern English at Ignatius Press.

I read these sermons last November and strongly recommend them.

"Had you but tasted one drop of the sweetness which inebriates the souls of those religious from their worship of this Sacrament, you would never have written as you have, nor have apostatized from the faith that you formerly professed."
St. John Fisher to a bishop who did apostasize.

Prayer written by St. Thomas More when a prisoner in the Tower of London in 1534 (slightly modernized and standardized by GTF):

Give me the good grace, Lord,
To set the world at nought.
To set my mind fast upon Thee
To not hang upon the blast of mens' mouths.

To be content to be solitary.
To not long for worldly company.
To be concerned with the world less and less.
To rid my mind of all the world's busy-ness.

To not long for any worldly things.
To deem unpleasant even hearing the fantasies of the world.
To be gladly thinking of God alone.
To call piteously for His help.
To lean upon God for comfort.
To labor busily to love Him.

To know my own vileness and wretchedness.
To make myself meek and humble under the mighty hand of God.
To bewail my past sins.
To suffer adversity patiently for the purging of them.
To bear gladly my Purgatory here.

To be joyful of tribulations.
To walk the narrow way that leadeth to life.
To bear the Cross with Christ.
To have the last things always in remembrance.
To have my ever-possible death always before my eyes.
To make death no stranger to me.
To foresee and consider the everlasting fire of Hell.
To pray for pardon before the Judge comes.

To have continually in mind the Passion that Christ suffered for me.
To give Him thanks continually for His benefits.
To redeem the lost time that I have wasted.
To abstain from vain discussion.
To eschew light and foolish mirth and merriment.
To cut off unnecessary recreations.

To set the loss of worldly substance, friends, liberties, and life, at nought,
If their loss means the gaining of Christ.

To think my worst enemies my best friends,
For the brothers of Joseph could never have done him so much good
With their love and favor as they did with their malice and hatred.

These attitudes are more to be desired by every man than all the
Treasure of all the princes and kings, Christian and heathen,
Were it all gathered and laid together upon one heap.
Amen.

Three Royal Navy patrol boats have been seized, apparently in international waters, by Iran. Are the Iranians volunteering to be NEXT?

Martyred in 1600 and his body dismemebered and scattered.

This is an interesting feast. This is not Lazarus who was raised from the dead, the brother of Martha and Mary, and great friend of the Lord, but the leperous beggar Lazarus in the parable of the rich man.

I've been reading a bit about this parable lately. It was frequently used in medieval Books of Hours to illustrate the Office of the Dead. In the "Hours of Henry VIII" (a lovely book that may or may not have ever belonged to Henry VIII) there is a very thought-provoking illustration of the parable, with the Feast of Dives painted in full color in the main section, and Dives in Hell in the lower margin in grisaille.

But one has to ask why this Lazarus, clearly a fictional creation for the purposes of the parable, perhaps ironically borrowing the name of the Lord's great friend, was ever canonized. Isn't that clear from the context? Am I missing something here?