An Important Note on Fasting: Lent is Almost Here

Posted on February 17, 2023 | Leave a comment

The never-shy Ann Barnhardt recently posted a piece of reader mail on the question of fasting. I am linking to that post here and I encourage all to check it out if they have not already seen it. She lays it out there in pretty clear terms. Fasting is necessary and fasting should be strict. This is in stark contrast to the V2 Novie crowd who want us all “fat and happy”. Think about it. Our Lord explicitly instructed His followers to fast telling them that some demons can only be driven out by this practice. He set the example by fasting in the desert for 40 days. Catholics fasted for almost two millennia until we were inexplicably told that what constituted fasting was now three meals a day, two days a year, if you’re between 18 and 59, and if your poor wittle body can handle the wigor.

Look, obviously there are people who are going to have go about fasting slightly differently than everyone else. In a similar manner, though, there are always people who will be excused from the Sunday obligation if there is an outbreak of flu and their immune systems are compromised. But the Church never cancelled the Sunday obligation and locked all the churches because of them. Oh wait…

The point is, as I mentioned recently borrowing from a sermon I heard, we are under assault from many sides right now. We need to be the soldiers of Christ we were confirmed to be, pick up our armor and every weapon at our disposal (including and especially fasting), and fight to defend His bride, the Church.s

My we all have a fruitful (and difficult) Lent.

God bless us and the Virgin protect us!

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Another Night with Rita

Posted on February 16, 2023 | Leave a comment

In the novena prayers we read:

“St. Rita, persevering in prayer, pray for us!”

Sometimes it seems like Our Lord is asking us to keep praying, to keep pestering as it were. I think of the parable of the woman who’s case was decided favorably because she wouldn’t leave the judge alone. (Lk. 18: 1-8)

Whatever your prayers – be they for something in your marriage, for your children, or for the particular grace of always being within walking distance of a Latin Mass, persevere. Be persistent.

The novena to St. Rita continues.

Happily taking intentions. Just email me.

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The Disciplines of Lent

Posted on February 15, 2023 | Leave a comment

My son absconded with my laptop tonight to write a book analysis of Steven Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage. I tried to make it easy for him. “Civil War. Coward. Runs from battle. Man vs. self.” That’s all I had for him except that the author was from my hometown of Newark, NJ and everyone there knew of him. Just like we all knew about Seth Boyden – the inventor of patent leather, celluloid film, and malleable iron. But you knew that, right? Sidenote: bit Crane and Boyden (along with Christopher Columbus and Archbishop Thomas Walsh) had housing projects named after them)

Anyway, where was I? Yes, disciplines. Our priests have been preaching extensively for the past few weeks about the need to go beyond our normal penances this Lent. As one priest said, “We are literally under attack from about twelve different fronts. Giving up candies isn’t going to cut it this time.”

If you read yesterday’s post you know about the Prince Albert. I went the whole day today without a cigarette. I only hit the pipe about a dozen times but believe it or not, that’s still much less than I would have smoked otherwise. Keep me in your prayers that this goes well. I’m asking my guardian angel to help make this easier. Otherwise the really big disciplines pertaining to food and drink aren’t going to be so easy.

Mary Help of Christians, pray for us!

*Correction: After writing and publishing this, I have been informed that I inadvertently combined Seth Boyden and yet another famous Newarker, Hannibal Goodwin. It is he (Goodwin) and not Boyden who invented celluloid film.

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Just Arrived in Time for Lent

Posted on February 14, 2023 | Leave a comment

Guess I better let him out…

I’m chuckling to myself. My father smoked a pipe packed with Prince Albert from his late teens until he died at age 80. He even resembled Prince Albert. But I digress. Dad was an actuary and insisted based upon fed gov studies from the late 1960’s that pipe smokers had a higher life expectancy than non-smokers. For the record, the same studies he cited put cigar smokers at even odds and cigarette smokers came in lower. This was all in the aggregate and the differences in life expectancy were all within a few years of each other. But the numbers don’t lie, he’d say. I am not encouraging anyone to take up smoking, so were clear; but I do enjoy sucking smoky goodness into my lungs and breathing it out.

I remember buying a pipe when I was 18. I guess a predilection for tobacco runs in the genes. I proudly showed my dad who proudly took the pipe out of my hand and removed the filter.

“Now you can smoke like a man,” he said.

I just never got the hang of it, though, and I reverted to Marlboros. Here we are 27 years later and I still think I’ll give it another go – despite the fact that stuff is harder to come by than honest journalism in Ferndale. As a kid I could go into the pharmacy and it was right behind the counter. Now you’d think it was fentanyl.

And in case you’re wondering why I mentioned Lent? It’s because I’m also using it to step down off of tobacco for Lent. I’m trying, folks. This time, though, I may leave the filter in.

St. Valentine, pray for us!

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Teaching the Faith

Posted on February 13, 2023 | Leave a comment

Many of you know by now that I spent a good part of my adult life teaching the Catholic faith. I did so primarily to high school students but also taught a few elementary grades here and there as needed. When I was a vice principal at a large Catholic grammar school we had an outbreak of the flu. The principal insisted we keep the school open so we wouldn’t “lose the days” despite 60% of the faculty being out sick. As I have a pretty strong immune system and I was the guy responsible for placing subs, I eventually had to place myself into a second grade classroom. More than half the students were home sick. Nonetheless, it was fun working with that group. My point in all this is that I had a career in teaching. I love teaching, especially teaching the Catholic faith. I homeschool my kids full time now because I can humbly say that no one is going to do a better job at this than me and because this is the single most important thing I can do for my kids in these insane days. It’s a sacrifice for sure. We’ll talk about that in another post. But I do it because of love on many fronts.

Tonight, the son of a friend of mine called and asked if I could help him with a theology paper. He come to the house with his laptop and notes. The topic was the Eucharist. A ten page paper is due this week. For me, it was like I never left the classroom. Only this time, I was in my kitchen. I even made an order of one of my favorite Jersey side dishes – disco fries – for the lad and I to munch on while blockquoting selections from Justin Martyr and Adrian Fortescue. Side note: disco fries can be ordered in any Jersey diner. They consist of steak fries covered in mozzarella and gravy. It’s kind of a poor man’s poutine. Needless to say, I think this young man is going to do very well.

I tell this story because I am thankful for the opportunity to be able to pass on what I have received. I don’t always see that where my own kids are concerned because of the familiarity aspect. And trust me, I’m not going back to a classroom anytime soon. For so many reasons, I don’t see it happening. Come to think of it, the second the bosses heard my thoughts on the antipapacy, they’d surely axe me.

So between this blog and the random child of a friend who needs help with a paper I will content myself.

And I will be grateful.

St. Clement of Rome, pray for us!

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Latin Mass for the Win!

Posted on February 12, 2023 | Leave a comment

As my dear mother-in-law said tonight:

“See? Worship God right and you win the Super Bowl!”

God Bless and hats off to Harrison Butker and especially Grant Aasen, his friend, for being such a good witness to the faith!

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Lead Me?

Posted on February 11, 2023 | Leave a comment

This thought has been on my mind most of the week.

I’m trying to figure out the best way to ask my pastor how he intends to lead me “back into the Novus Ordo” when I don’t want to go. More to the point, I’m wondering how he intends to answer that question about me and my fellow parishioners when the bishop is forced to ask him.

Pray for your priests. Pray especially for trad priests. Satan will use their desire to be virtuous – particularly in the practice of obedience – as a cudgel with which to bludgeon them. I think of the vestments in the ancient Mass – how the priest crosses his stole in front and tucks it under his cincture. That same pastor I mentioned above once told me about the symbolism. “The priest,” he said, “is bound to the Mass.” Pray Our Lord, Who was bound and led to His cross, strengthen them.

“…Thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and lead thee whither thou wouldst not.”

Jn. 21:18
From the St. Joseph Edition, Baltimore Catechism. I include the picture because of the inset picture of Our Lord offering His Sacrifice through the person of His priest. The text is, bizarrely, from one of the interim missals used sometime between 1965-1970.

Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us!

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