Practicing this for our Midnight Mass

I volunteered to help out with the alto part. Now I'm regretting it.
Soprano parts are SO much easier!

ICEL translation to include chants in Latin and English

During the end of Pope John Paul's pontificate, my prayer group was blessed to have a writer for "The Wandererer" with extraordinary insight into the Church. He said, that if Pope Benedict were elected, he would be the pope of the liturgy as John Paul was the pope of the people. On 7/7/07 we saw the wonderful Motu Proprio freeing the Latin Mass from unnecessary restrictions, now we are about to see a new English translation of the Mass. 

 Catholic Culture says,

The new English translation of the Roman Missal-- hailed by Helen Hull Hitchcock of Adoremus as “accurate, reverent, and beautiful”-- will include texts and music for chants in English and Latin. 

 

Having instilled  a love for traditional hymns and chant, and Mass in the Extraordinary Form in my daughters, I haev been anxious to see the Mass restored to its ancient splendor in most parishes, so that others may realize just what they are witnessing when they attend Holy Mass. 

I am waiting in joyful hope!

Read the entire story at Catholic Culture.

Altar boys are a good idea

I moved from my home of 40 years to another state to be part of St Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Baltic, CT, a parish which respects Traditional Catholics.We have a beautiful church and traditional hymns. We have no Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist, thus our Communion Time at Mass offers plenty of time for prayer. Most of the congregation remains behind after Mass for a few moments of thanksgiving. We have Eucharistic Adoration and a thriving youth group which watches EWTN videos and films like "The 13th Day". Our CCD and Catholic school are taught by nuns in habit who use wonderful "Faith and Life" catechism books. Our pastor Fr Tito has amazing homilies, they are broadcast on AirMaria.com. We are so blessed to have a holy priest who knows how to run a parish well, and parishioners travel for miles to be part of this amazing parish.
So why is having only altar boys a good idea?
Altar boys are learning to be priests, like apprentices. If girls can't become priests, then why are they serving at the altar?  Does anyone complain that as young men they can't have children? It is a different role ordained by God when they were created. Women are honored by being able to bear children, men are honored by being able to be 'alter Christos' and offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Therefore, when boys are offered the opportunity to serve at the altar, without competition from girls, they usually respond with more enthusiasm. I observed it myself in my fifth grade students in the Catholic school. When it came their turn to serve, the boys proudly announced it to the class. One of them already says he has a vocation.
Read this testimony from a veteran altar boy, submitted to epriest  

"Altar serving at Holy Family allows boys to be more fully integrated into the Mass and gives them a chance to experience Christ's sacrifice up close. Holy Family provides an environment that makes them feel welcome and necessary and is an excellent experience". Carson Lind, 19 year old, 7 year veteran

The article goes on to report astounding results increasing Mass participation by young boys. Give them respect and a unique job to do, and they respond generously.
May more priests do the same, so that we have a vocations boom!

Comparison of New Missal and the one we use now

The new translation has more dignified language. I like it, but it will take me a long time to learn those new creeds and the Gloria.
Also I am confused:
I remember saying this when I was a First Holy Communicant in 1969. " Lord, I am not worthy



that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.

Can someone out there tell me, was there an English translation similar to this new version, in the 1970's which was replaced by the one in use now?

Also, the response "and with your spirit" resembles the Spanish "Y con tu espiritu". Is the English language Missal the only one undergoing a revision?
Read the information on the USCCB website.

Who needs fathers anyway?

One of the unintended consequences of the Pill and assistive reproductive technology is this:

We want sex without children (non-committed contraceptive sex)

and children without sex. (IVF, surrogate mothers)

Crazy, huh?

God has a divine plan for marriage which includes the joyful experience of married relations, and we throw it away, saying, "no, I don't think this gift of married love will work for me, but I'll keep the box and the wrapping paper, thanks. "

So fathers are consigned to the dustbin of history, their vital role in shaping souls for this world AND the next is diminished, disregarded and degraded.

I saw this full force last Sunday at Mass. I attend Mass in gorgeous old church, in a down-on-it's-luck town with a high population of single mothers. In the pew in front of me were a mother and her two single twenty something daughters and their three, cute as a button, but very hyperactive sons. Mass behind this crew was a three ring circus, and my heart was breaking to see those three adorable little boys acting up in a way that suggested that they were fatherless.

Some man needed to model proper behavior at Mass, and the mothers were obviously burned out by just getting them dressed and there. They had no more to give, and no fathers to tag team them and take over.

I looked over at my own daughter, who is no model of decorum herself, Christina can pose quite a challenge at Mass, however, with Daddy to cuddle her and hold her in his lap, she is MUCH easier to handle. I know, because I take her to Mass during the week, and spend much of it in the vestibule trying to keep her from climbing the stairs to the choir loft. Once she beat me up the stairs and disappeared into a tiny crevice behind the organ, giggling at my efforts to extricate her. I really appreciate it when Daddy is able to make it to Mass with us.

I wished those women in front of us could see them, cheek to cheek, in a Daddy's little girl hug. Why didn't they choose that for their own little boys? Maybe then they wouldn't have been swinging in the pews, wrestling, running down the aisle, punching, talking loudly, and generally irritating those trying to pray. How much more of a challenge will they be when they start school and learn bad habits from little boys whose mothers don't even bother to take them to Mass? I admire the efforts the single moms make, but the first and most important investment a woman can make in her children's future is to MARRY FIRST HAVE BABIES LATER!!!

Yet society, even Catholic society is starting to treat this ill advised life choice as normal.

Helen Alvare at the Culture of Life Foundation said,
"The recent news of the nearly 40% out of wedlock birth rate in the United States should pretty much rock our world as citizens and as Catholics. According to the Centers for Disease Control report, this means 1.7 million children were born to unmarried mothers in 2007, a figure 250% greater than the number reported in 1980. The implications for our society loom large. According to empirical data published over the last several decades in leading sociological journals, these children, on average, will suffer significant educational and emotional disadvantages compared to children reared by their married parents. They will be less able to shoulder the burdens that “next generations” traditionally assume for the benefit of their families, communities and their country. They are likely to repeat their parents’ behaviors. The boys are more likely to engage in criminal behavior and the girls to have nonmarital children."
Read the entire article here.

US Bishops reject Vatican changes in language of Mass

"Known as the "Proper of Seasons," the prayers are said on Sundays, Holy Days and during liturgical seasons such as Lent, and change from day to day.
Examples include the opening prayer, prayers said over the bread and wine, and prayer after Communion.The late Pope John Paul II ordered the new translations to increase fidelity to the original Latin. Some Vatican liturgists say the church moved too quickly -- and sloppily -- in translating the Mass into local languages after the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s."

I'm stunned, the American bishops just reject something from the Vatican?
OK, I admit I was being ironic there. . . it's not the first time this has happened or we wouldn't have needed Summorum Pontificum, which just passed it's first anniversary.
That day, I was picking up my girls from Morning Star Camp, and attended a beautiful Latin Mass under the pines. After Mass, Father told us "the Holy Father on this day is making this form of the Mass available to the entire church". See a slideshow of that wonderful camp here.
Isabella is anxiously awaiting her week at camp next month, in their own brand new facility in Washington, NH, called the Monfort Retreat Center. I am anxiously awaiting an invitation to this piece of heaven for a Mother's Retreat!

Read the entire story here.
HT Chicago Tribune

The Holy Father's speech at Yankee Stadium

Is available from the Vatican's website. I watched the Mass twice because the music was heavenly, such a contrast to the Mass at Nationals Stadium in DC! This is what Heaven must sound like, Beethoven, and Panis Anglecus, Gregorian Chant and Latin.
Kudos to the Archdiocese for an outstanding job organizing the music! Here's a list of the music performed from First Things.
Two of my blogger friends went, you can read one's impressions here and see another's wonderful photos here.

Bishop Murphy is coming to restore the Tabernacle to the center of our Church!

Great news for those who see something missing in this photo.

Remember last October when my friend Patrick at Creative Minority Report and I reported the joyous news that Bishop Murphy would be restoring Jesus in the Tabernacle back to the old altar (reredos) at the center of
St. John the Evangelist Church in Center Moriches NY?
It's happening on Sunday, April 13 at the 12 noon mass.
BE THERE!

Return of the Tabernacle update

A retired priest at St. John's informed me yesterday, that the Tabernacle must be bolted down in it's new location in the reredos, and that this, coupled with the complexities of Bishop Murphy's schedule is causing the delay in scheduling the Mass which will place Jesus back at the center of my parish church.
You are all invited to celebrate with us, whether in person, or in spirit. I will be covering it for the blog, naturally.
Meanwhile, I was at a 'Commitment Mass" last night for the new Confirmation Class. After the Mass, once again there was pandemonium in the sanctuary. No lessons learned here, despite our priest's best efforts. At an earlier Mass yesterday, a deacon discussed dress and behavior at Mass, and I had to stand on a long line to shake his hand afterward.
There is a long row to hoe teaching reverence in a culture which reveres nothing. They have their work cut out for them. Didn't Our Lady warn about this irreverance over 90 years agon in Fatima? Let's keep them in prayer.

The Beauty of the Mass

A transcendent reflection on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.