Comment spam is on the rise. The problem is that I get an email notification of comments, but they don't tell me which post it is attached to, so I can't easily find and delete. I really hate the comment spam solutions-I have had trouble with them on other blogs, but I may have to go that route. (Although to be perfectly honest, I don't have that many commenters anyway-so it shouldn't be such an inconvenience.)
Mr. Riddle reminds us here (as we should have been reminded at Mass on Sunday) that Lent is halfway through. How are you doing? I got an email the other day from a friend and he wrote, "I hope you are enjoying Lent in preparation...." I had never thought Lent was something to be enjoyed. Truly the enjoyment would be of a different sort than that of the Christmas season-but yes we should enjoy Lent: if it is bringing us closer to our Lord.
The Man in the Black Hat has a lengthy post (here) on the recent decision in the Arlington diocese to allow girls to serve on the altar. Here is a selection-illustrating a point I have been known to argue:
"It seems the old professor in the rectory was replaced by a younger, more 'dynamic' pastor, who eventually came under pressure to use girls as altar servers. The discipline of the time forbade this. So he announced in the bulletin that the role of "altar server" would be eliminated, to be replaced by a position known as "altar attendant," which would include both boys and girls. ... But as transparent and as juvenile as all this sounds -- and I have the bulletin announcement on file, so I can prove it -- everybody at the time bought it. Hook, line, and sinker! Everyone, that is, except for my old man, who actually called him up on the phone and gave him a good going-over. Compare this to hundreds of otherwise perfectly intelligent and mature adults, many of whom I have known since childhood, who hold real jobs and pay mortgages just like real grownups."
My question: Where were all the properly catechized, devout, and well-informed Catholics (we hear tell about from the pre-Vatican II church) who would oppose or at least question this innovation of the 'dynamic' pastor? By the way, same thing happened in my parish growing up. Like the Black-Hatted Man, my Dad was the only parishioner to vocally oppose this innovation and disobedience.
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Long overdue: I have finally re-added www.newadvent.org (The 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia) to my links list.
Fulton Sheen's book The 7 Last Words (not on my sidebar) is a Lenten classic. It was written in 1933. If you read it at least once, you will read it again sometime. Questioning its availability the other day, I saw an ad for a similar book yesterday. I have never read it before, but I have confirmed it is not the same book. It is called Calvary and the Mass by Fulton Sheen written in 1936. It relates Christs words on the cross to the Mass. It is available from Coalition Ecclesia Dei.
More to come.... From Bethany, the small holding in Bethune...Oremus pro invicem!
2 comments:
JC:
Thank you for the link to my piece. I apologize for its length, but it promises to be very informative for those concerned with the innovation, especially those connected with the Arlington Diocese.
The story which you excerpt, however outlandish, is completely true.
DLA
Don't apologize for the length-it was interesting reading.
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