Monthly Archives: June 2024

God is far too good to me.

But before I tell you about the Mother and the Son, let me tell you about:

The Father and the Daughter

Let me take you through the past 36 hours. Friday afternoon, I took my daughter to an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. I like to joke with my girl that she is in a competition with her old man where broken bones are concerned. She’s 14. We share a birthday to the exact minute and a good chunk of my DNA. Why shouldn’t she have fractured all the same bones as me? And no, mine were not from anything glamorous like a rugby injury or an extreme croquet tournament. I was tossed from a burning building as a child. But until now she has avoided having major surgery to correct any of these genetic and sometimes clumsy defects. Me? I’ve had my spine fused twice. Well, about three years ago she landed hard on her left foot while dancing and since then has suffered bouts of acute pain. Dads out there know that there is nothing worse than seeing your baby girl in pain. And until now no doctor has been able to identify, let alone begin to heal, whatever has been going on.

That is until yesterday. A friend recommended an ortho guy to us. He was thorough and had excellent bedside manner he did something none of the others had done. He took an x-ray of both feet together and weight bearing. Bingo! He found the problem. It’s an avulsion fracture from her stint in dance. The solution is to make a small incision and remove the excess bone growth that grew when the body “healed itself”. We prayed walking into the appointment. “St. Rita, please help us with an answer!” She came through.

And there’s also:

The Two Brothers

But owing to that appointment I missed the noon Mass at the parish. Don’t you know it turns out there was a sung Mass at night for the Sacred Heart. Blessed Mother always takes care of me. This was a stirring experience for me as I watched two priests who are literal brothers serve as deacon and subdeacon for the Mass. Either their parents did a better job raising them than I’m doing with my kids or there’s something in the water. Either way, it was beautiful to see them exchange the peace with each other. Talk about brotherly love (in a solemn sort of way).

And then there was this morning… I woke up too late for the early Mass and then had to visit the dentist to have a crown put on. It’s been a while since I’ve had this kind of thing done so imagine my surprise when I walked out ten minutes after arriving. No novacaine, no nothing. Popped the temporary crown off and cemented the permanent crown in place and sent me on my merry way. This meant I got to go to…

A Solemn Mass of a newly ordained priest!

Where I will now proceed to mention:

The New Priest

Friends, if you have never been blessed to be at such a Mass, ask God to make this possible for you. I have written before my observations of the “sanctuary life” as I call it. Sometimes Our Lord just gives me tiny glimpses of what that life must really be like. Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t trade my family for anything and I try my best to make what we have been given available to our priests. Who doesn’t like a good home cooked meal instead of rectory food now and again? Who wouldn’t want to escape a dinnertime conversation about the parish in favor of the relaxation and joy of a beautiful, if not nutty, Christian home life once in a while? But when I get to see with my own eyes tender moments, deep and moving moments of profound beauty on the other side of the rail? Well… I treasure these for the hidden gems they are.

I have written about the altar boys in my parish and how one can see their transformation into manhood when they put on the cassock. I have written about a private Mass I happened to be in the church for and the boyish giddiness of the young priest as he set out the sacred vessels. He didn’t know I was there. He simply went about his work with palpable exuberance, excited to be able to command bread and wine to become the Body and Blood of His Lord.

So finally I will tell you about:

The Mother and the Son

This morning? Oh this morning was incredible. I did something I try to avoid doing. I looked up and opened my eyes from the pew during Communion. I don’t like to let anything distract me. It’s taken practice but I think I’m getting the hang of it. And what did I see? I saw a woman parishioner kneel reverently at the altar rail, her white hair perfectly coiffed under a simple lace veil, hands folded neatly under the altar rail cloth. And immediately I saw the priest – her son – approach her as he does for everyone else, gently grasp the Host from his ciborium, look intently into the eyes of his mom, and place the Sacred Species on her tongue.

“Corpus Domini Nostri Jesus Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam aeternam. Amen.”

He moved on. I welled up. Here I was looking at this woman who had carried him in her body and on her hip. This hulking man who is now 6 feet tall and could easily be a linebacker for an NFL team, who eclipses his mother in size by a magnitude of at least two – this man who was nourished by this woman was now nourishing her with the Bread of Eternal Life!

She looked so pious, so accepting, so matter-of-fact as all mothers do. “Of course my son can make God. And what does your son do? Work for the Parks Department?”

But I caught that exact moment when he stared into her eyes, when she looked up at him. Something really touched me. This was a Mass on Saturday for the Blessed Mother. The Epistle gave us such beautiful words.

“Blessed is the womb that bore You and the paps that gave You suck!” cried a woman in the crowd. And Our Lord, not showing the least disrespect to His Mother replied, “Nay, blessed is he who hears the Word of God and keeps it,” because of course that also refers to His Blessed Mother.

And here this woman’s little boy – I’m sure she cheered him on at Little League and cleaned up his scraped knees, stayed up with him when he was sick and prayed for him every day – this woman received the Living God from her little boy.

And it was all so simple and so matter-of-fact. Because she’s a mom. And she gets it.

Friends, last summer I had the great privilege of being given a tour of the Immaculata in Kansas. On my way out, I picked up a holy card with a “Mother’s Prayer for Priests” printed on it. Mothers (and fathers), how many of us pray for this? How many of us who head up households take the time to ask Our Lord and Our Lady to take our sons and make them priests? We won’t get them any other way. And what unfathomable bliss will we know when the day comes where we can kneel before our sons and be nourished with the pledge of our very redemption?

Take the time now to do these things. Ask her to guide them and protect them. That young man you’ve already given to the Church who struggled with his Latin – “repulisti” is a tongue-twister you know – who sassed you under his breath when you told him to finish his Seton English paper, but who adores you because you gave him life and love may just one day give you Life and Love.

Mary, Mother of Priests, pray for us!

A few days ago – four to be exact – a man known to all in the trad world by a few different aliases sent me a picture and suggested I might like the product contained therein.

I am already a huge fan of the company Tradflags.com so I couldn’t resist. I clicked the link and found myself pulling out the old debit card.

Here we are four days later and I proudly present to you all…

The TEXAS SACRED HEART flag! Talk about rapid delivery!

The astute observer will note that I have replaced my previous Sacred Heart flag with this Lone Star variant. He will also note the fraying edges of the Immaculate Heart flag that hangs just below. That fraying is entirely my fault. I did not heed the warning of the Tradflags folks a year ago and so I did not properly Scotchgard the flag. Texas, as you may have heard, gets pretty durn hot during the summer months and pretty durn tornadic the rest of the year. Perhaps one of my loving sisters can fix this problem for me or perhaps I’ll just have to buy more flags.

With that in mind, before raising this standard I did a couple of things that I highly recommend.

First, go to their website and buy a flag or two. You will not regret it!

Second, Scotchgard that flag. See above about regrets and the lack thereof.

Finally, this…

I busted out the Epiphany water at this step. Sprinkle the flag, the pole, and the ground with the Epiphany water. Say a prayer. I simply asked Our Lord to bless the flag, the home and land, and this great state of Texas and to keep us always mindful of His infinite love for us. I asked Him to protect us from storms and to bless all who lovingly look upon these flags. Finally, I asked Him to accept my devotion to His Sacred Heart and to the Immaculate Heart of His Mother and to bless me and my family.

Then I sat down on my porch with my gin and tonic to admire this work of art. It is still Texas after all and it’s already 100° in early June.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!

Perhaps maybe possibly one tiny thing they didn’t bungle horrendously when they randomly chopped up the ancient calendar was this one little detail which the Novus Ordo church does today. In the current Roman calendar this is the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. In the Traditional calendar that feast is sometime in August. However, I do not mind at all celebrating a sort of “twinning” of the two hearts that are so united in love as to almost be one. And the August feast could still stand. That is the beauty of the old calendar. There is no restriction on celebrating multiple times throughout the year (and the a votive Mass) or on doubling up feasts on the same day.

As always, here’s your monthly reminder for the First Friday devotion.

First Friday Devotion

With an additional video because this is the feast of the Sacred Heart in the month of the Sacred Heart and because First Friday’s are all about the Sacred Heart.

I read this earlier and agreed with it so much so that I wanted to make sure everyone gets to read it. Especially in this “election” season, I am reminded of all the times we were told “you have to vote for X because Y is far worse” or similar. Read a bit below and then click over for the rest.

“As my wife crystallized many years ago– in the Indian Summer of pre-scamdemic, post-Summorum Pontificum, conservative-N.O.-ers-and-Trads-living-together, let’s-vote-harder-for-freedom time, she had one, chief complaint:

“I’m tired of being lied to 100% of the time.”

I’m not saying that this was not true at an earlier time or that other persons came to that conclusion without her help. What I am saying is that her particular way of phrasing what many felt and now all non-Matirx people know for a fact struck me quite forcibly, and I have never forgotten it.”

https://stlouiscatholic.wordpress.com/2024/06/05/100-of-the-time/

Yesterday I wrote of my experience as a visitor at the TLM in the cathedral church in Raleigh, NC.

Happily, I received an email from one of the regulars at that Mass. As I told her in my reply, I am always tickled to hear that anyone reads my blog. I am happy to have been able to share what a wonderful experience it was visiting.

But there is one other thing that I shared with her that I would like to share with you now. So often those of us in TLM communities tend to hear from others who do not attend the ancient Mass that our parishes and communities are insular and closed off and somehow offputting to outsiders or those beginning to trad. I often times tend to dismiss this criticism as a red herring tossed out by those who do not understand the Latin Mass or those who hold it in contempt. And yet I still give the benefit of the doubt to a person who makes such a claim. Let’s face it, there would be valid reasons for parishioners in a Latin Mass community to be suspicious of “outsiders”. To be honest, those of us who attend the ancient rites have been labeled as everything from weirdos to rigid by everyone from immediate family members to prelates of the Church. And it isn’t as if federal agents haven’t admitted to openly trying to infiltrate our communities.

But if such a sentiment existed in the past, I have not seen it in many years. I certainly did not experience that when I tradded five years ago. And I absolutely did not experience that in Raleigh. The members of this particular community were edifying in their reverence and in their palpable desire to welcome new members to the “ beauty ever ancient, ever new.”

As I stated, in my last post, none of us desire the situation we find ourselves in. We long for a day when the venerable and august rites of the Catholic Church can be celebrated openly, everywhere, and by all priests. I personally, as one who travels frequently, long for a day when I can find the Latin Mass easily and everywhere.

So when I find a community such as that in Raleigh, I am most grateful to Almighty God and I thank the members of the TLM community in North Carolina for their dignified grace in welcoming me and my family.

Yesterday the family and I started making our way home from the Atlantic coast all the way back to Texas. We had a blessed time visiting with our friends – four families in all with a total of about 50 people. It’s our yearly tradition and we’ve even managed to get a priest in on the act with us – an enhancement that only brought us to a whole new level. To have a daily TLM before going out onto the beach each day is, well, there’s nothing quite like it.

On our drive, thanks to bishops who either fear the man the presume to be their boss or who genuinely despise their flocks (perhaps both but I’ll be kind and go with the former) we managed to find exactly one TLM for Sunday Mass. Keep in mind this diocese covers half of the state of North Carolina. One Mass for everyone. And it was held in the cathedral and it was a high Mass. The choir was magnificent. The acoustics are grand. The building itself isn’t bad for a new construction. So thank you, Bishop, for that. Truly. I am grateful. I know things aren’t what any of us would like right now but God provided for me as He does for the five hundred or so faithful of this particular TLM community. By the way, group, your priest is a rock star. Thank God for him.

So now we just drive another thirteen hundred miles or so and back to the safety of the parish.

Deo Gratias and thanks to all of you who kept us in your prayers. The more substantive daily posts will resume tomorrow.