2007 May archive at Cornell Society for a Good Time

Cor Iesu Sacratissimum,
miserere nobis

Polls

Why do you visit this blog?
- The posts
- The conversations in the comments boxes
- The ephemeris news links
- To troll the archives
- Um, I hit "I feel lucky" and google brought me here?
View Results
Loading ...

Polls Archive

Saintly Souls whom We Love

Pope Leo XIII

Pope Pius XI

John Henry Cardinal Newman

Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val

Archive for May, 2007

Please pray this novena with us, which starts today, May 31, and will go through Friday, June 8, for the President’s special intention. Please offer your prayers even if you have not joined us from the beginning!

Prayer to St. Joseph

Oh, St. Joseph, whose protection is so great, so strong, so prompt before the throne of God. I place in you all my interests and desires. O St. Joseph, do assist me by your powerful intercession, and obtain for me from your divine Son all spiritual blessings, through Jesus Christ our Lord, so that, having engaged here below your heavenly power, I may offer my thanksgiving and homage to the most loving of Fathers. O St. Joseph, I never weary of contemplating you, and Jesus asleep in your arms; I dare not approach while He reposes near your heart. Press Him in my name and kiss His fine head for me and ask Him to return the kiss when I draw my dying breath. St. Joseph, Patron of departing souls, pray for me.

Published by Ambrosius May 31st, 2007 0 Comments

Knox Lite

Ronald Knox as Apologist: Wit, Laughter and the Popish Creed by Fr. Milton Walsh, Ignatius Press, 2007. 248 pages.

My interest in the life and writing of Ronald Knox is owing to the story of his life which was written by his friend, Evelyn Waugh. Thus it was Waugh’s biography which, in a sense, encouraged me to read this book by Fr. Walsh, a priest in the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

The book has three parts, the first of which is a cursory summary of Knox’s life in light of his apologetical work. It is this first section which I found the most disappointing: there is almost nothing in it, I felt, which couldn’t be had in a better form from Waugh’s biography. In fact, if one hadn’t read Waugh’s biography of Knox prior to reading Fr. Walsh’s book, I’m inclined to think that a person would wonder why the interest in Knox in the first place; what was so special about him? Waugh convinces us that Knox was little less than a genius from this early youth, whereas Walsh seems to take this for granted and hopes that his reader does as well.

Published by Iosephus May 29th, 2007 26 Comments

Filled with a new Spirit — and new spirits

The title of this piece is a play on words, since the word “spirits” can also refer to alcoholic beverages. What does Pentecost have to do with alcohol? When the Apostles preached in Jerusalem to men of every tongue, some accused them of being drunk. “But others mocking said: These men are full of new wine” (Acts 2:13). They must have seemed quite “spirited” in their preaching, after all.

At this point, St. Peter delivered what may have been the first Papal sermon. He replied to the scoffers, “Ye men of Judea, and all you that dwell in Jerusalem, be this known to you, and with your ears receive my words. For these [men] are not drunk, as you suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day.” An Anglican friend of mine derives a great deal of pleasure from St. Peter’s argument here. He does not say, “We are sober men,” or, “We never touch the stuff,” but, “It’s only 9:00 A.M.!” What does this say about the Apostles’ normal drinking habits later in the day? No, I’m not saying they did get drunk, but all joking aside I think we can infer from this passage that they did drink . . . *after* noon. Our Lord’s wine-drinking was — unjustly, of course — held up against Him as an accusation (Matt. 11:16-9).

Published by Tobias Petrus May 28th, 2007 5 Comments

Happy Pentecost!

Happy Feast of Pentecost to all our readers! Pentecost is a favorite feast of mine, and particularly poignant to me since I entered the Church on its vigil in the year 2005. I am working on a post in honor of this great day, but you’re going to have to wait until my Thursday column to read it. However, I didn’t want to let the glorious day go entirely unnoticed on the blog, so I’m posting the words to the classic Pentecost hymn. (We sadly didn’t get to sing it today in Mass, though we did have a very nice Mass here in other respects.) Happy feast!
Continue reading

Published by Clara May 27th, 2007 6 Comments

Deacon Levine Will Not Be Ordained May 26

I received an email from Mr. Jeffrey Bond last night with the following details:

Dear Friends,

Thanks be to God, Deacon Joseph Levine will not be ordained this Saturday. In the event you did not receive the good news from the Diocese of Paterson, please see the memorandum below from Rev. Msgr. James Mahoney, Vicar General.

I cannot adequately express my gratitude to all of you who emailed and/or called the Diocese of Paterson to protest Levine’s ordination. Please now consider writing a follow-up note to Bishop Serratelli to thank him for his decision. While we have no way of knowing Bishop Serratelli’s reasons for not ordaining Levine this Saturday, we can nevertheless be grateful for the outcome.

Continue reading

Published by Iosephus May 25th, 2007 7 Comments

What to do about bad homilists?

This last Sunday, the Doctor and I were pleased to assist at Mass in Front Royal, Virginia, near Christendom College. (We would have checked in advance to see whether Raindear or any of her kin were in the area, but we did not make the decision to stop in Front Royal until late Saturday night.) We were impressed with the size of the congregation at the indult Mass, and with the large number of young children in attendance. We were a bit disappointed, however, to find that it was only a Low Mass (which seemed like a shame this early in the liturgical year; normally sung Masses continue at least until after Pentecost.) I had planned to receive Communion that day, which I had not been able to do in some weeks. Lacking transportation to any better parish, I had been forced to fill my Mass requirement for the previous few weeks at the thoroughly heretical local Novus parish, and I never receive the Blessed Sacrament there. But in the end I abstained from the Angelic Bread on this day also, because I was so overcome with exhaustion during the Mass that I found myself fighting hard just to stay awake. This is not usual for me, and I’m sure it was mostly the result of several days’ worth of packing and carrying and driving. But matters were not helped by the fact that the homily was one of the longest and dullest I’ve heard in quite some time.
Continue reading

Published by Clara May 25th, 2007 14 Comments

Tell that woman leading the Communion service…

Since it’s Thursday, and so in honor of the Blessed Sacrament, and because during my time of late at Anabel Taylor Hall, I’ve noticed how so-called “Communion Services”, always led by a woman, are wont to take the place of the daily Mass when both of the chaplains are otherwise engaged, I thought that I would repost some material which I stumbled across in the Summa back in Fall of 2005. Incidentally, why both Fr. Daniel McMullin and Fr. Robert Smith should both be unable to say the daily Mass, which would appear to be their only pressing duty each day, is beyond me.

Whether dispensing of the Blessed Sacrament belongs to a priest alone?

Objection 1. It seems that the dispensing of this sacrament does not belong to a priest alone. For Christ’s blood belongs to this sacrament no less than His body. But Christ’s blood is dispensed by deacons: hence the blessed Lawrence said to the blessed Sixtus: “Try whether you have chosen a fit minister, to whom you have entrusted the dispensing of the Lord’s blood.” Therefore, with equal reason the dispensing of Christ’s body does not belong to priests only.

Published by Iosephus May 24th, 2007 10 Comments

Good Timers at the University of Chicago?

When I read through the May issue of the Institute of Christ the King’s newsletter, I was very excited to see some evidence that the students at the University of Chicago realize just how blessed they are to be within a short distance of a parish and, indeed, of the North American headquarters of the Institute. Msgr. Michael Schmitz related in the newsletter that Fr. Andreas Hellman had given a talk to graduate students at the University of Chicago in connection with the film, The Passion of the Christ.

I haven’t yet been able to discover whether these students have any internet presence, what their numbers are, or whether they’re fully committed to having a good time (as we at Cornell understand that expression). I wasn’t surprised, though, to see that they are graduate students; notoroiously, I’m afraid, undergraduates are too busy studying and have more interest in cooperating with the local manifestation of liberal, heretical Catholicism in the chaplaincy than in “speaking truth to power” and trying to find something better. Yet it should be easier for the undergraduates at the University of Chicago: while we here at Cornell, for example, had to take those to whom we were introducing the old Mass two hours from Ithaca, they have the Institute a few blocks away.

Published by Iosephus May 23rd, 2007 0 Comments

Book Review: We Were One: Shoulder to Shoulder with the Marines Who Took Fallujah

Patrick O’Donnell relates that he had two main aims in writing this book: to give Americans back home a better feel for the heroism of our men who are fighting in Iraq and to do this by telling the story of the Marines in 1st Platoon of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, who suffered heavy causulties in the Battle of Fallujah. I picked up the book to learn more about what the fighting in Iraq has been like, specifically in this most intense of battles, the battle for Fallujah. While we can read about Iraq every day in the papers, newspaper reporting rarely gives one a sense either for the men who are fighting or for the specific tactics used and the dangers faced.

In regard to the reasons I had in reading the book, I was fairly satisfied by the close of it. There were, however, a few things by the book’s end which I didn’t quite understand or, perhaps better, couldn’t quite picture. But this probably wasn’t a failing of the author so much as a general difficulty of portraying some of the events recounted in print.

Published by Iosephus May 22nd, 2007 8 Comments

Syrcause Indult will move to Sacred Heart Basilica

This Sunday was the first that Catharina Oxoniensis and I had been to the indult in Syracuse since the Sunday when we learned that St. Stephen of Hungary’s church would be closing in August. But we pick newsworthy Sundays on which to attend: this Sunday we learned - again, from Msgr. Gleba, who is also rector of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart - that the indult in Syracuse will continue, once St. Stephen’s has closed, at the Basilica. Confessions will be heard from 3:30PM and the Mass will be at 4PM beginning August 19.

A letter from Bishop Moynihan was also distributed, which letter the bishop had written in response a letter from the Holy Name Society of St. Stephen’s asking the bishop to revoke his decision to close St. Stephen’s. In this letter from Bishop Moynihan we read: “I regret that I did not state explicitly enough that the Latin Mass will continue to be celebrated at Sacred Heart Basilica; that was my clear intent.”

Published by Iosephus May 21st, 2007 0 Comments

Letter from Jeffrey Bond

I don’t feel like I ever fully grasped the story of the Society of St. John, what they were about in the first place and how they went wrong. Something like Bishop Burke in LaCrosse, Bishop Timlin gave a home to just about every traditionalist group, as it seems, that wanted in. Only in Timlin’s case, some of the initiatives he chose to shelter didn’t turn out well.

I figure that it’s worth passing this letter along, as we have something of a Scranton connection - and I’m sure it’s already appeared in other places.
Continue reading

Published by Iosephus May 21st, 2007 3 Comments

Women, but no children, in Paradise

Happy Feast of Ascension, everyone! I wanted to write something specially for this feast day, but I’m in the middle of moving so I’m in a frenzy of packing and cleaning and doing last-minute errands. Still, I wouldn’t want to disappoint my fans (I don’t doubt there are many of you out there, who sit at the computer all Thursday pressing “refresh” on your browsers as you wait for my weekly column to appear) so I put a few finishing touches on a little piece I was working on a few days ago.

This week, as I’m getting ready to move, I’ve been sorting through massive piles of old papers and magazines. Though tiring in some ways, it’s also a bit fun to take that stroll down memory lane, and in the stacks I found some packets of interesting tidbits that had been put together by Iosephus more than a year back, when we tried for a short time to run weekly “catechesis” classes. They were an informal affair. I think the main goal, originally, was to help initiate some of the worthy but less Traditional Catholics of our acquaintance into the riches of their Catholic heritage. When, in fact, the most regular attendees ended up being the contributors to this blog, we eventually let the sessions taper off. But they were good fun while they lasted, and Iosephus especially outdid himself with some nuggets of knowledge.
Continue reading

Published by Clara May 17th, 2007 29 Comments

Unity, Values and the Gift of Sexuality

It was a muddy, gray morning when the Doctor Asinorum and I returned to All Saints Catholic Church to complete our Pre-Cana workshop. Nearly nine hours of “instruction” lay ahead of us, so I was working hard to stay optimistic about the whole thing. As we were walking in, though, I remembered something Carol Hanson had told me the night before. Apparently the Pre-Cana team had encountered a first in preparing for our session: a lesbian couple had applied for admittance. This had sparked a rousing debate among the team, with several members contending that admitting the couple would be a good way to “reexamine certain issues” regarding the Church’s treatment of homosexuals. Very fortunately for us, the Deacon supervising the team had told them unequivocally that accepting homosexual couples into a Catholic Pre-Cana program would be out of the question, so the lesbians were turned away. We couldn’t possibly have sat at a roundtable in a Catholic church, talking to lesbians about their “marriage plans,” so we’re fervently grateful to Deacon George Kozak for keeping his team from such an appalling misstep. And on that happy thought, we plunged into the long day.
Continue reading

Published by Clara May 10th, 2007 10 Comments

Amabimus te, si manumiseris…

This should have gone up with my post yesterday, but Franciscus delayed in sending it to me, obviously wanting to heighten our readers’ suspense. The cake which graced our St. Pius V picnic:

Yet lest anyone be tempted to think that this was the only cake in the traditionalist world so lovingly consumed on the Feast of St. Pius V, there’s a far, far better one to be seen here!

Published by Iosephus May 8th, 2007 4 Comments

The Party for Pius

This past Saturday, May 5th, was, as you all know, the Feast of St. Pius V. On Friday afternoon, to while the hours away, I composed a few lines of verse in his honor:

Contra mores atque fidem insectator agentis
——-Perfidiosi tunc, protege nos hodie!
Tam cuius ex animo quam clara voce abolentur
——-Confractis hostis milia navigiis.

By which words I intend to convey the following sentiments: “O hounder of the perfidious one acting against faith and morals at that time, protect us today! At whose word/cry, as sincere as glorious, thousands of the enemy, their ships having been broken, are destroyed.” Rather light on content, I suppose, but until I’m being paid full-time to write Latin verses (I eagerly welcome any offers!), my output may remain slim.