Recta Ratio

DEDICATION OF A FAMILY TO MARY

Most Blessed Virgin Mary, Immaculate Queen and Mother, the refuge and consolation of all troubled souls! I kneel here before thee with my family and choose thee for my Lady, Mother, and Advocate with God.

I dedicate myself and all who belong to me to thy service forever. I beg thee, O Mother of God, to receive us into the company of thy servants. Take us under thy protection. Help us in life and at the hour of our death.

Mother of Mercy, I name thee Lady and Queen of my family and relatives, my interests and all my undertakings. Take charge of them; dispose of everything as it pleases thee.

Bless me and all my family. Never let any of us offend thy Son. In every temptation defend us; protect us in every danger; provide for us in the necessities of life; counsel us in doubt; comfort us in every sorrow, in every sickness, and especially in the final sorrow of death.

Never let the powers of Hell boast that they have enslaved any of those who here consecrate themselves to thee. Grant that we may all enter into Heaven to thank thee and, in thy company, to praise and love Jesus our Redeemer for all eternity.
Amen. Thus, may it be.

They each need to be dope-slapped, many times, until they come to their senses.

With photos, from LivingMiracles.net.

Adoring the Risen Lord Jesus Christ In the Most Blessed Sacrament, by Monsignor Charles Mangan.

Found via Amy Welborn.

And strongly recommended:

A Key To the Doctrine of the Eucharist, by Abbot Vonier, available from Ignatius.

This morning, it has not rained, sprinkled, or misted on us. The temperature does not require one to bundle up with 5 layers of clothing. The wind has been calm or light, and, most surprisingly, there have been reported sightings of a color called "blue" amidst the universal grey of the sky, though the credibility of these reports is in doubt.

There are some who try to make us believe that this has been the month of May. But wiser heads know that this has actually been a very cleverly concealed Second March.

From Catholic Church Conservation. Eight terrific photos from Brussels.

May 26th is the traditional date for Corpus Christi, but for us here in the US, even at our Indult Mass, Corpus Christi is Sunday.

DEDICATION OF ONE'S SELF TO MARY

Most Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of God, I am not worthy to be thy servant. But moved by thy marvelous compassion and my own desire to serve thee, here and now, in the presence of my guardian angel and the whole court of Heaven, I choose thee as my Lady, Advocate, and Mother. I firmly purpose to love and serve thee always, and to do all I can to inspire others to love and serve thee.

O Mother of God and my own most compassionate Mother, I beseech thee, by the Blood which thy Son shed for me, to receive me into the number of thy servants as thy child and servant forever. Assist me in all my thoughts, words, and actions in every moment of my life, so that every step I take, every breath I draw, may be directed to the greater glory of my God.

Through your powerful intercession, may I never again offend my beloved Jesus. Help me to love and glorify Him in this life. Help me to love thee also, dear and beloved Mother, and to go on loving thee forever in the happiness of Heaven.

My Mother Mary, I commend my soul to thee now, and especially at the moment of death.
Amen.

Father Bryce Sibley, of Saintly Salmagundi, is hanging his keyboard up to pursue other projects. His blog will be missed.

And I always liked that "Mary, Exterminatrix of Heresies, Ora Pro Nobis" with the image of Our lady with a club (to crush the head of the Serpent, of course).

By Thomas Woods.

His new book looks interesting, too.

And I think it would be a good thing.

The proposed constitution's refusal to even acknowledge Europe's Christian roots is enough to damn it beyond repair in my opinion.

And frankly, I think the whole idea of a united Europe needs to be re-examined. The US has sponsored the idea of a "United States of Europe" for quite a while, I think mistakenly. That united Europe can only be a Franco-German-dominated alliance aimed at minimizing US influence in Europe and around the world. And that is not a good thing.

Far better that the European nations remain friendly and peaceful among themselves, but separate, completely sovereign democratic but Christian nations who trade with each other and the US, and its other allies, quite a bit.

More like a temperate European winter. Button up that overcoat.

The average May day in Boston is between 60 and 80 degrees, fair, with clear, crisp air. This May has been averaging around 50 degress for a high.

The last week it seems it has rained every day. We have had 6 consecutive weekends with rain. Walking through Copley Square yesterday morning, I saw enough "dead" umbrellas to resemble the inside of the Jedi Temple after Darth Vader got through with it. Walking down Milk Street yesterday, I felt as if I was walking into the teeth of a hurricane.

April and May have been excessively gloomy, raw, cold, windy, and just plain unpleasant.

I think I heard that this has been the 3rd coldest recorded May, but I don't remember a colder one.

And you know that the "remedy" won't be the six weeks of 60s and 70s that we have missed, but a June, July, and August with oppressive heat and humidity.

I think this is the first Saint's day that I've noted in a while. Lent. Passiontide. Easter. Terri Schiavo. Pope John Paul the Great's death. The election of Pope Benedict. May devotions to the Blessed Mother. And there have not been any "big" saints' days in a while. Now that May is drawing to a close, time to begin noting the feasts of saints again.

May 26th is the feast of Saint Phillip Neri, founder of the Oratorians.

The image was painted by Tiepolo, who also executed the Madonna of the Goldfinch from Monday's prayer from The Glories of Mary.

Interesting. Health? Maybe.

Me? I think the Holy Father has some plans for the US episcopal ranks, and is clearing the decks to put some of his own people in place.

Surprisingly Paul VI, though the quiz lacked any sort of philosophical or theological or idealogical base.

You are Pope Paul VI. You don't get no respect.


Which Twentieth Century Pope Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Happy Blog Birthday!

The Blog From the Core is three years old.

Recta Ratio turns three next week, June 4th to be precise.

For one thing, they have 3 blogging Catholic bishops.

Number of US Catholic bishops with blogs that I know of = 0.

Got that one from Michael Dubruiel.

Openly homosexual Unitarian named dean of "Catholic" college in Vermont.

You can solve this problem without getting to the homosexuality issue. Only Catholics should be running Catholic colleges. End of discussion.

Found this tidbit of lunacy via Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam.

PRAYER OF CONFIDENCE IN MARY

Most Holy, Immaculate Virgin and my Mother Mary! To thee who art the Mother of my Lord, the Queen of the world, the Advocate, the Hope, and the Refuge of sinners, I have recourse today, I who am the most miserable of all.

I render thee my most humble homage, O great Queen, and I thank thee for all the graces thou hast conferred on me until now, especially for having delivered me from Hell, which I have so often deserved.

I love thee, O most amiable Lady; and for the love which I bear thee, I promise to serve thee always and to do all in my power to make others love thee also. I place in thee all my hopes; I confide my salvation to thy care.

Accept me for thy servant and receive me under thy mantle, O Mother of Mercy. And since thou art so powerful with God, deliver me from all temptations; or rather, obtain for me the strength to triumph over them until death. Of thee I ask a perfect love for Jesus Christ.

Through thee I hope to die a good death. O my Mother, by the love which thou bearest to God, I beseech thee to help me at all times, but especially at the last moment of my life. Leave me not, I beseech thee, until thou seest me safe in Heaven, blessing thee and singing thy mercies for all eternity.
Amen. Thus, I hope. Thus, may it be.

O immaculate and holy Virgin! O creature the most humble and the most exalted before God! Thou wast so lowly in thine own eyes, but so great in the eyes of thy Lord, that he exalted thee to such a degree as to choose thee for his Mother, and then made thee Queen of heaven and earth. I therefore thank God who so greatly has exalted thee, and rejoice in seeing thee so closely united with him, that more cannot be granted to a pure creature.

Before thee, who art so humble, though endowed with so precious igfts, I am ashamed to appear, I who am so proud in the midst of so many sins. But miserable as I am, I will also salute thee, Hail, Mary, full of grace. Thou art already full of grace; impart a portion of it to me.

Our Lord is with thee. That Lord who was always with thee from the first moment of thy creation, has now united himself more closely to thee by becoming thy Son.

Blessed art thou amongst women. O Lady, blessed amongst all women, obtain the divine blessing for us also.

And blessed is the fruit of thy womb. O blessed plant which hath given to the world so noble and holy a fruit!

"Holy Mary, Mother of God!" O Mary, I acknowledge that thou art the true Mother of God, and in defence of this truth I am ready to give my life a thousand times. Pray for us sinners. But if thou art the Mother of God, thou art also the Mother of our salvation, and of us poor sinners; since God became man to save sinners, and made thee his Mother, that thy prayers might have power to save any sinner.

Hasten, then, O Mary, and pray for us, now, and at the hour of our death. Pray always: pray now, that we live in the midst of so many temptations and dangers of losing God; but still more, pray for us at the hour of our death, when we are on the point of leaving this world, and being presented before God's tribunal; that, being saved by the erits of Jesus Christ and by thy intercession, we may come one day, without further danger of being lost; to salute thee and praise thee with thy Son in heaven for all eternity.
Amen.

O beloved Mother of God, most amiable child Mary, O that, as thou didst present thyself in the temple, and with promptitude and without reserve, didst consecrate thyself to the glory and love of God, I could offer thee, this day, the first eyars of my life, to devote myself without reserve to thy service, my holy and most sweet Lady!

But it is now too late to do this; for, unfortunate creature that I am, I have lost so many years in the service of the world and my own caprices, and have lived in almost entire forgetfulness of thee and of God: Woe to that time in which I did not love thee! ("Vae tempori illi, in quo non amavi te!") But it is better to begin late than not at all.


Behold, O Mary, I this day present myself to thee, and I offer myself without reserve to thy service for the long or short time that I still have to live in this world; and in union with thee I renounce all creatures, and devote myself entirely to the love of my Creator. I consecrate my mind to thee, O Queen, that it may always think of the love that thou deservest, my tongue to praise thee, my heart to love thee. Do thou accept, O most holy Virgin, the offering which this miserable sinner now makes thee; accept it, I beseech thee, by the consolation that thy heart experienced when thou gavest thyself to God in the temple.

But since I enter thy service late, it is reasonable that I should redouble my acts of homage and love, thereby to compensate for lost time. Do thou help my weakness with thy powerful intercession, O Mother of Mercy, by obtaining me perseverance from thy Jesus, and strength to be always faithful to thee until death; that thus always serving thee in life, I may praise thee in Paradise for all eternity.
Amen.

It started raining as I left the theater.

It is supposed to rain on and off all day today, tomorrow, and Wednesday. It may clear on Thursday.

And temperatures are still mired in the 50s, when they should have been in the 60s and 70s these last three weeks.

A seed planted in one of the reviews I had read stayed with me in the movie. Stupidity is the cause of evil.

I had a lot of trouble with the motivation of the Anakin Skywalker character. It did not seem realistic. It did not appear as if he put any thought into his embrace of the Dark Side of the Force. It was all hormones. For someone who is supposed to be such a geat Jedi, he is quite an unthinking lout.

Maybe part of the problem was Hayden Christensen's acting. But most of it was the screenwriters' fault.

Once you got past the total lack of ratiocination that went into the process of transforming Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader, it was a geat movie.

Tremendous special effects.

Good acting by Ian McDiarmid as Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious/The Emperor.

Very fast-paced action that scarcely let up through the movie.

OK plot.

Lots of light saber battles.

No noticeable introduction of contemporary politics. If the US is supposed to be the Galactic Empire, and President Bush Chancellor Palpatine, Lucas needs to stop smoking whatever he is smoking.

Natalie Portman looked better in this one than in the previous movies.

Some holes in the plots of the previous movies filled.

Christopher Lee didn't have much of a role in this one.

And Ewan McGregor does a fine job playing a younger Alec Guiness almost plausibly.

Oh yeah, and not one tiny annoying hint of Jar Jar Binks.

Worth the price of a matinee, on the whole.

Watching it this afternoon.

I've seen some pretty good reviews.

But the proof is in the watching.

A rather lukewarm new head of the dicastery does not mean that the Holy Office is about to become a bastion of, "I'm OK, You're OK" Catholicism.

Father Burke may end up being Archbishop Levada's filter, his go-to guy, the one who gets things done. And, on the whole, he sounds rather better suited for the job than his boss.

An indifferently conservative Supreme Court justice can be great, if he has a brilliant, sterling clerk. I think the same might apply here.

Thanks to John at The Inn At the End of the World for cheering us up a bit.

O holy and heavenly Infant, Thou who art the destined Mother of my Redeemer and the great mediatress of miserable sinners, pity me. Behold at thy feet another ungrateful sinner who has recourse to thee and asks thy compassion.

It is true, that for my ingratitude to God and to thee I deserve that God and thou should abandon me; but I have heard, and believe it to be so (knowing the greatness of thy mercy), that thou dost not refuse to help any one who recommends himself to thee with confidence.

O most exalted creature in the world! since this is the case, and since there is no one but God above thee, so that compared with thee the greatest saints of heaven are little; O saint of saints, O Mary! abyss of charity, and full of grace, succor a miserable creature who by his own fault has lost the divine favor.

I know that thou art so dear to God that he denies thee nothing. I know also that thy pleasure is to use thy greatness for the relief of miserable sinners. Then, show how great is the favor that thou enjoyest with God, by obtaining me a divine light and flame so powerful that I may be changed from a sinner into a saint; and detaching myself from every earthly affection, divine love may be enkindled in me. Do this, O Lady, for thou canst do it. Do it for the love of God, who has made thee so great, so powerful, and so compassionate. This is my hope.
Amen.

Which is why I decided upon the Coronation of Our Lady as Queen of Heaven by the Holy Trinity as the image for today's prayer from The Glories of Mary.

And if this Sunday is Trinity Sunday, that means next Sunday is Corpus Christi, which should be marked with greater grandeur than usual in this Year of the Eucharist.

And the Friday after Corpus Christi is the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The next day, Saturday (under the modern calendar, which in this case makes more sense than the traditional calendar), is the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

And the approach of these days, Corpus Christi, and the feasts of the Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart, is why I have stuck with the images at the top of the page since after Ascension Thursday.

I may make a change or two in 2 weeks, or I might not. I like the matched Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart images, and I like the idea of having them flanking a Eucharistic image (in this case a much-used version with angels adoring a Eucharistic host in a monstrance; an image also on the page with the prayers for Exposition and Benediction in my Missal).

O, my Immaculate Lady! I rejoice with thee on seeing thee enriched with so great purity. I thank, and, resolve always to thank, our common Creator for having preserved thee from every stain of sin; and I firmly believe this doctrine, and am prepared and swear even to lay down my life, should this be necessary, in defence of this thy so great and singular privilege of being conceived immaculate.

I would that the whole world knew thee and acknowledged thee as being that beautiful "Dawn" which was always illumined with divine light; as that chosen "Ark" of salvation, free from the common shipwreck of sin; that perfect and immaculate "Dove" which thy divine Spouse declared thee to be; that "enclosed Garden" which was the delight of God; that "sealed Founain" whose waters were never troubled by an enemy; and finally, as that "white Lily," which thou art, and who, though born in the midst of the thorns of the children of Adam, all of whom are conceived in sin, and the enemies of God, wast alone conceived pure and spotless, and in all things the beloved of thy Creator.

Permit me, then, to praise thee also as thy God himself has praised thee: Thou art all fair, and there is not a spot in thee ("Tota pulchra es, Amica mea, et macula non est in te"—Cant. iv. 7). O most pure Dove, all fair, all beautiful, always the friend of God. O how beautiful art thou, my beloved! How beautiful art thou! ("Quam pulchra es, amica mea, quam pulchra es!"—Ib. 1).

Most sweet, most amiable, immaculate Mary, thou who art so beautiful in the eyes of thy Lord, disdain not to cast thy compassionate eyes on the wounds of my soul, loathsome as they are. Behold me, pity me, heal me.

O beautiful loadstone of hearts, draw also my miserable heart to thyself.

O thou, who from the first moment of thy life didst appear pure and beautiful before God, pity me, who not only was born in sin, but have again since baptism stained my soul with crimes.

What grace will God ever refuse thee, who chose thee for his daughter, his Mother, and Spouse, and therefore preserved thee from every stain, and in his love preferred thee to all other creatures? I will say, in the words of St. Philip Neri, "Immaculate Virgin, thou hast to save me."

Grant that I may always remember thee; and thou, do thou never forget me. The happy day, when I shall go to behold thy beauty in Paradise, seems a thousand years off; so much do I long to praise and love thee more than I can now do, my Mother, my Queen, my beloved, most beautiful, most sweet, most pure, Immaculate Mary.
Amen.