The Extraordinary Form - A Growing Tradition

Pope Benedict XVI in his Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, called for a wider application of the Mass of the 1962 Missal, commonly known as the Traditional Latin Mass or as the Extraordinary Form of the Mass.  This letter of His Holiness has resulted in the rapidly-growing North American Martyrs Parish in the Ballard area of Seattle. This parish has enjoyed the generous support of His Excellency Archbishop Sartain, and his predecessor Archbishop Brunett. The love for sacred worship in Extraordinary Form has also produced one of the best choirs in Seattle. A sample of their performance is shown below:

An announcement from His Excellency Archbishop Sartain has added a new dimension for the Traditional Latin Mass in the Puget Sound. St. Joseph Catholic Church in Tacoma was in danger of closing due to lack of a priest. The Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) with its abundance of priests provided Fr. Stinson, FSSP as the pastor for St. Joseph's. There is one slight wrinkle - the charism of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter is celebrate Mass exclusively in the Extraordinary Form.

St. Joseph Catholic Church, Tacoma, Washington

The practical implication of this is that at St. Joseph's only the Traditional Latin Mass will be offered, according to the practice laid down in the 1962 Missal. It also means that Holy Communion may only be received kneeling and on the tongue. It means they will need to haul out the old altar rail.

Recessional of Solemn High Mass

Another change will be male-only altar servers, who must learn the Latin responses. This shouldn't be a huge issue as North American Martyrs Parish has a super-abundance of altar servers, and some of them will be attending St. Joseph's as they live closer to that church.

Some of the current parishioners of St. Joseph's have indicated their intentions to go to another parish. A few members of North American Martyrs parish that plan to attend St. Joseph's have had some dialogue to try and persuade them to stay. Once they experience the Traditional Latin Mass a few times, they might like it.

The ability of the FSSP to provide a priest in support of this church is not surprising. The FSSP Seminary, Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary, is one of the fastest-growing Catholic Seminaries in the country. They commonly have a waiting list of applicants. The growing interest in the Latin Mass and the growing number of priests who provide it may bring the Traditional Latin Mass from a mere oddity to a commonly-provided Mass alongside the Ordinary Form of the Mass.

Seeking God's Mercy

This week I wanted to go to confession. It had been about 4 weeks, so I felt I was due. The problem was with my 50-hour work week, when can you find a confession time available? The priest I usually confess to was gone during the week (the Mass being replaced by a "Communion Service"). He is one of the few that hears confessions on week-day evenings.

The only other weekday alternative is to go to the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, but they're on the other side of the metro area, and it's a long slog through commuter traffic. They hear confessions several times on weekday evenings. Finally, I found a confession time on Saturday afternoon. I got there early enough, so the line wasn't too bad The schedule only allows an hour for confessions, and the woman behind me was very concerned that the priest would stop before she could make her confession. I prayed that she would make it in time.

I have often heard remarks that mostly it's just older people that go to Mass and confession regularly. I believe it. Most of the weekday Mass times and confession times are during the day when most people are working. With increasingly long hours for work and shorter lunchtimes/breaks, there is no time to slip out to Mass or confession.

At first I thought it was just a liberal West Coast thing, but I checked the Mass and confession times in other locations, including St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. It was the same: no weekday confessions in the evening and a some limited time on Saturday. About the only place that offered daily confessions was the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, but they ended at 6:00 pm (have you ever been in commuter traffic in the Washington DC Metro?). So what's the average working stiff to do?

Most parishes fly on the caveat that you can always schedule an appointment with the priest for confession. Going to confession is scary enough for most people that scheduling an appointment just to make their confession is a huge deterrent.

Another excuse I hear is that nobody comes to confession, so the valuable time of the priest is wasted just sitting in the confessional. This is an empty excuse:

1. Is a priest wasting time on one of the two main channels of mercy and grace that only a priest can provide? (the other being the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass). Even if only one lost soul wanders off the street in only one of ten times he sits in the confessional, is that time wasted? I wonder what Our Lord Jesus Christ would say is too much time wasted? For the answer refer to Luke 15:4-7.
2. If you don't have confession lines in your parish, when was the last time you heard about mortal sin from the pulpit? Or the grave consequences of mortal sin?

I remember hearing a homily from a very old Jesuit priest on the topic of people not going to confession during Lent. He said something I will never forget:

"When you have mortal sin in your soul, you are one heartbeat away from hell."

During Lent of 2013, Pope Francis urged priests to be generous in offering confession:

"Open the doors of the Church, and then the people will come in…if you keep the light on in the confessional and are available, then you will see what kind of line there is for confession."

In Lent of both 2014 and 2015, the Vatican called for a program of 24 Hours for the Lord, where churches would remain open for 24 hours of Eucharistic Adoration and confession. I couldn't find anywhere in the local area where this was done.

When Pope Francis publishes and Encyclical on the environment (Laudato Si), everyone is slobbering all over it. When the Synod on the Family is announced, everyone is booking their flights to see if they can give Holy Communion to divorced people. However, when the Holy Father asks priests to make confession more available... crickets chirping.

Politically Disenfranchised and Blowing Past the Mainstream News Media

A work colleague of mine observed that the job of the mainstream news channels was to read the internet to old people. The proliferation of internet news websites, video sharing servers (Youtube, Liveleak), social media and a vast array of blogs makes it no longer necessary to rely on the mainstream news channels, which are rapidly becoming irrelevant.

This trend was evident this weekend during the nationwide protests against Planned Parenthood. Although, the protests occurred at over half the Planned Parenthood locations in 320 cities in all 50 states, there was a virtual media blackout of the events. The news media leaders congratulated themselves for squashing these politically incorrect demonstrations. However to their great dismay, the outraged pro-abortion crowd discovered that the top trending hashtag this last weekend was #ProtestPP. All over the nation, these social media-savvy pro-lifers were tweeting, sharing, and instagramming themselves onto the front page, even if the front page ignored them.

In the vast majority of protest locations, the tone was positive, respectful, and thoughtful, and the social media communication was likewise. One tweet that went viral was an endearing photo of adopted children, whose birth mothers had chosen adoption over abortion. The positive message and the way it was stated brought the pro-life cause to the fore-front of the nation's attention.

My local Planned Parenthood protest in Belleview, WA.

His Holiness Pope Francis in his message for the 48th World Communications Day, "Communication at the Service of an Authentic Culture of Encounter" he observed the effectiveness of social media in reaching out to others;

In a world like this, media can help us to feel closer to one another, creating a sense of the unity of the human family which can in turn inspire solidarity and serious efforts to ensure a more dignified life for all.  Good communication helps us to grow closer, to know one another better, and ultimately, to grow in unity.  The walls which divide us can be broken down only if we are prepared to listen and learn from one another.

His Holiness has also stressed on other occasions that the social media is a very effective way of communicating to others our Catholic Faith and moral values. In light of last weekend's events, it turns out he was right.

Scientists - the Theologians are Waiting

I was quite intrigued by an article on Cosmology published by Aaron Robotham, PhD, entitled, "Don’t panic, but the universe is slowly dying" on the academic blog/e-zine The Conversation. He describes in layman's term's the early life of our universe, and how it will proceed to the time when no more stars form, and the whole thing cools down into its entropic death.

Note: All Bible references herein are from the Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible, but it is very similar to its contemporary, the King James Bible.

As I read through the most recent research on the development of our universe, the description sounded remarkably like the account of creation in the Book of Genesis in the Bible. If we remind ourselves that in Genesis, the Lord is revealing the creation event, involving the physics of sub-atomic structures and quantum physics in a way that nomadic herdsmen would understand it. He had to dumb things down a little bit. Also bear in mind that the term "day" could also simply mean "a time period."

Since the period of the "Enlightenment" secular society has placed science as the main source of truth, and has relegated religion to the superstitious enemy of science. The Catholic Church has always proposed that since all truth comes from God the Creator of the universe, there can be no disagreement between religious truth and scientific truth, since they both come from the same source. If there is an apparent disagreement, it is only due to a lack of knowledge of science or a lack of knowledge of religious truth. This was observed by the Astronomer Robert Jastrow in his book, God and the Astronomers:

For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.

So it is with this article by Dr. Robotham: As he deals with the deeper knowledge on the birth and death of the universe some specific parallels between the latest scientific discoveries and the Book of Genesis come to light.

A 2-D Projection of the Formation of the Universe

In the first few seconds of the life of the universe, it is so hot (billions of degrees) that is a highly energetic plasma of exotic particles that don't obey the laws of physics - they pop in and out of existence, they exceed the speed of light, and all kinds of crazy chaotic things.

And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep [plasma?] (Genesis 1:2a)

A few seconds later the exotic particles in plasma settled into a highly energetic electron fog of protons (hydrogen nuclei) and neutrons and some helium nuclei.

And the spirit of God moved over the waters [hydrogen-helium fog] (Genesis 1:2b)

 Then about 400,000 years later, all of a sudden, the internal energy of the particles decouples from them and light photons stream out across the universe.

And God said: Be light made. And light was made. (Genesis 1:3)

The energy released from the subatomic particles in the form of light was a key event to forming matter, Now the basic proton particles could hold onto electrons and start forming hydrogen atoms. The hydrogen atoms formed into hydrogen molecules (H₂), and began collapsing into proto-stars where the lighter elements like carbon and oxygen formed.

Since the universe was still expanding, the early universe was a pretty crowded place, You had loosely formed proto-stars, forming and exploding, creating a chain of explosions in the neighboring stars. Whole galaxies smashed together. All these explosions caused the formation of heavier elements like silicon, and metals like iron and nickel.

This great, cosmic fireworks show went of for about 3 billion years or so, and "mysterious dark energy" entered the universe. This dark energy in combination with the expanding universe stabilized the stars and galaxies into more ordered forms that could produce planets.

And God saw the light that it was good; and he divided the light from the darkness. And he called the light Day, and the darkness Night; and there was evening and morning one day. (Genesis 1:4-5).

I always wondered in the Bible why the Lord created night and day (darkness and light) on the first day before he created the sun and the moon on the fourth day. To me it seemed like He got it backwards, but I was not thinking on a cosmic scale. Our sun is a fairly young sun and just the right size to support our form of life. The first stars that were created then would be be dead now.

So it seems the farther we look out into the heavens, the more we can see God, or as the Psalmist says:

The heavens shew forth the glory of God, and the firmament declareth the work of his hands. (Psalms 19:2)

Look up and believe... the Theologians are waiting for you.

Winning Souls - the Key is Love and Joy

Ever since His Holiness Pope Francis published the encyclical Gaudium Evangelii (The Joy of the Gospel), the concept of evangelism has been rattling around in my head. I have a great zeal for evangelizing, but what can I do? I am an obscure person, a bit on the margins of society, never married, no family, and a few friends. How can I have any effect on the conversion of anyone?

I looked back on those times when I did have success in bringing people to the true and holy Catholic faith. Most of my success has been with lapsed/apostate Catholics or just plain old secularists/agnostics. I have been thinking about what worked. There was not anything specific that I could determine. Here are some common threads:

1. I saw each one as a soul that Jesus Christ loves. I tried to see them through the eyes of Jesus. I genuinely cared about each one of them (Luke 15:7). Some of these converts/reverts are still my very good friends.
2. I kept the lines of communications open. I always told the truth about the Faith as accurately as possible, but with charity (Ephesians 4:15). This meant that I studied the faith, the Bible, the Church documents, the Catechism.
3. I didn't badger them or argue with them. I just answered their questions as best I could. I tried to show the reasonableness of the Catholic Church.
4. I listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and let God use me as an instrument of communication. Often I have just blurted out something without thinking, and I wonder, where did that come from? It turns out to be exactly what a person needed to hear.
5. Above all, I try as much as possible to set a good example of a Catholic in my conduct and dealing with others.

So those are some of the things I have done to evangelize. They seem to work.You really don't have to persuade people much or hard-sell. The truth of the Catholic Faith is its own best advertisement.

I also like the Six Rules for Dealing with Non-Catholic Family and Friends developed by the former Baptist and Catholic Apologist Steve Ray. He has some great videos on evangelization. Check out his website Catholic-Convert.com.

Damnable Lies and Anti-Catholic Myths

Anti-Catholicism is the only acceptable form of bigotry left. Some Christians who oppose the Catholic Church are more anti-Catholic than they are Christian. I have been confronted over and over again by claims about the Catholic Church that are complete falsehoods. When I correct their claims by explaining what the Catholic Church really teaches, they completely ignore the explanation and move on to some other false accusation, finished by the usual "where does it say that in the Bible? The Progression goes something like this:

"You Catholics worship Mary." You respond that Catholics do not worship Mary as God, but rather honor her as the Mother of God. In fact, the Catholic Church forbids the worship of Mary or anyone other than God.

Rather than acknowledge the correction, they launch to the next accusation:

"There have been popes who did many sinful things, how can you say the pope is infallible?" You respond that infallibility doesn't mean the pope is sinless, it means that the pope will not teach errors in matters of Faith or Morals.

Again, rather than acknowledge the correction, they will launch into the next false accusation... and the next.. and the next... ad nauseum.

A lot of these false accusations are catalogued in a blog: Aggie Catholics - Top 10 Modern Anti-Catholic Myths

These anti-Catholics, ostensibly Christians, will then continue on to use the same false accusations on the next Catholic they encounter. Apparently is is acceptable for a Christian to bear false witness, if that "Christian" is making false accusations against the Catholic Church.

If they want to make an argument against what the Catholic Church believes and teaches, instead of anti-Catholic propaganda, they should use the Catechism on the Catholic Church. If they want to accuse the Catholic Church of anything, then use what they really teach, not anti-Catholic propaganda. Otherwise, they are no better than the Pharisees that falsely accused Jesus Christ.

My Day in the 40 Days for Life

I volunteered to stand in the prayer vigil for an hour in front of the local Planned Parent clinic in support of the 40 Days for Life Campaign. This campaign occurs during Lent every year, so I thought it was a good Lenten observation for me - especially since our parish priest really pushes us to support it. There was an hour today when they had nobody to stand and pray, so I volunteered.

I had only recently recovered from influenza pneumonia brought on during the H1N1 flu epidemic this year, but I felt strong enough now, and I thought I would be okay, if I bundled up and kept my head covered. This is the Seattle area, so of course it was rainy, so I brought a big blue and yellow umbrella to be sure to keep dry. I must have looked a sight in front of the abortion clinic - standing there all alone, my coat on and the hood up with my face barely showing, juggling a huge umbrella and a purse full of brochures.

I tried to catch them at the door to give them a brochure, but they were too quick. They would slip in the door before I could offer them a brochure. I guess I'm just getting to old to move quickly. I caught one young woman to offer her a brochure as nicely as I could. She refused it. You couldn't stay in front of the door, even on the public sidewalk, so I tucked the slightly rain-spattered brochure back in my purse, and went back to my place on the sidewalk. I began to think I really sucked at pro-lifing.

I tried to catch them as they were coming out of the clinic, in case they hadn't gotten an abortion yet, but I could tell it was too late. The way they looked when they came out was heart-breaking. They came out, eyes glued to the ground, unable to look at anyone. Did they think I would judge them? Why would I judge them? They are the victims, not the perpetrators.

 I decided if I was going to look a little ridiculous, I might as well beam out a friendly loving smile. In that way, maybe the love of God would shine through and they could see it. Then I noticed something interesting. The glass on the front of the clinic was that one-way mirror glass, so you couldn't see into the clinic, but I could vaguely see that I was right in front of the waiting area. However, anyone in the waiting area could clearly see me. I decided to stand in front of the glass and smile as warm and loving a smile as I could. And I prayed, mostly random things, as my heart prompts me. And I talked to God. Maybe the prayers are what makes the most difference anyway.