There is no Sacred Music in Hell

A consecrated lay brother once taught us that sacred music keeps the demons from bothering you.  They must fear the beauty and heavenly nature of it.  I bet the same can’t be said of Marty Haugen’s music . . .  Yuck!  Please read the article below by Catholic Blogger Philip Kosloski on the power of sacred music.

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http://www.philipkosloski.com/why-the-devil-hates-sacred-music/

Why the Devil Hates Sacred Music

I had never heard Palestrina’s music before, and I bought a record and put it on, and I almost had a mystical experience.  I said, this is the music of angels.  This doesn’t come from earth;  this comes from heaven.  This is a different kind of music, just as a cathedral is a different kind of church.  And I said, what horrible heresy called the Whore of Babylon possibly could produce music that heavenly?  It was a kind of argument that couldn’t be answered. (Dr. Peter Kreeft on his Conversion to the Catholic Faith, emphasis added)

After listening to Palestrina, Peter Kreeft realized the power of sacred music and it propelled him further into the arms of the Catholic Church. This little episode reveals to us that there is something about sacred music that speaks to the soul and stirs within us a deeper longing for Heaven. Sacred music is very powerful and speaks to anyone who has ears to hear.

Suffice to say, there is no sacred music in Hell.

Music has been a vital part of society for thousands of years. For example, “Plato based his whole ‘ideal’ society, in The Republic, on its educational system, and he based the whole educational system on music as its first step” (The Snakebite Letters, 61, emphasis added). Plato esteemed music so much that he said a society would erode “first through a decay in music” (Ibid.).

The reason why music is able influence society so much is on account of its ability to bypass reason. As humans, we “don’t think about it, [we] just feel it” (Ibid, 62). The most powerful music goes even further, through our feelings and into the “deep center of the soul.” (Ibid).

Many throughout the centuries have converted to Christianity through music; more specifically “sacred music,” the music of the Church. There is even a tradition that God created the world through music, which Tolkien eloquently portrayed in his fictional tale The Silmarillion. Similarly, music is thought to be the “language of Heaven” (Ibid).

This is why the devil hates sacred music so much. It reaches the depths of our soul and raises us up to the Heaven. It should be no surprise to us when a parish’s sacred music program is single-handedly dismantled. He will do all he can to prevent us from hearing the Divine Voice of God.

A Light in the Darkness

Not surprisingly, the past few years has seen an increased interest in sacred music. Our souls long for it and when our soul is not being fed, it will search for one of two places: the garbage heap or the heavenly banquet. Thankfully many in our Church as well as in society are searching for the Song of Songs at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.

One example of this is the religious community of nuns called the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles. For two consecutive years, they have been the number 1 bestselling Billboard Classical Traditional artist. Additionally, the beauty of their sacred music has attracted the talents of 11-time Grammy Award-winning producer Christopher Alder, who has assisted them in producing several albums.

Their music and community has been featured on NPR, USA Today, People Magazine and The Washington Times. This is fascinating as their music features “English and Latin pieces sung a cappella on the feasts of the holy Saints and angels” as well as during other liturgical seasons.

Based on the fads in music today, their music shouldn’t be popular. Yet, it is!

This community is about to release another album Easter at Ephesus, which I am sure will reach the top of every list out there.

Their music is continuing an ancient tradition of sacred music that we all long for and it raises our hearts to heavenly places. Their music is a light in the darkness and the success they are having gives us hope for society. If society crumbles first through music, then most assuredly it will rise from the ashes through music.

The Latin Mass is Timeless

We have linked to an article below written about how the Latin Mass is growing in New Jersey.  The article interviews various Catholics about their views on the Latin Mass.  Of course, several of them make the same tired old objections that they don’t want to “turn back” or that they feel like they are rejecting Vatican II by attending the Latin Mass.  Bollocks!

We have this to say to those that are reluctant to “turn back”:  You are “turning back” to the mass that produced most of the Church’s greatest saints and turning away from a mass that was protestanized.  So give up your pride (or laziness) and give the Latin Mass a chance.  You, your family, your parish, your community, and the world will be better off.  The Latin Mass is timeless.

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http://www.northjersey.com/news/as-latin-mass-gains-popularity-some-in-north-jersey-reluctant-to-turn-back-1.1298231

As Latin Mass gains popularity, some in North Jersey reluctant to ‘turn back’

March 28, 2015, 11:41 PM    Last updated: Sunday, March 29, 2015, 11:04 AM

By BILL ERVOLINO

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Michael Karas / Staff Photographer

A Latin Mass being celebrated at Our Lady of Fatima Chapel in Pequannock. The Catholic Church discontinued the Masses in 1965.

On Thursday, March 19, about 60 Catholics from North Jersey celebrated the Feast of St. Joseph with a high Mass at a church in Bergen County. The service began at 7:30 p.m. with a solemn procession, replete with flickering candles and incense, and ended 90 minutes later, with the priest shaking the hands of attendees — and requesting that neither his name nor the name of his church be revealed in this article.

Unlike today’s Palm Sunday services and the parish’s other regularly scheduled Masses, this Mass was not listed on the monthly calendar of the church’s website, and few parishioners, save those who heard about it by word of mouth or on social media, were even aware that it was taking place.

It was, as the service’s program indicated, a “Traditional Latin Mass.” And although most church officials refuse to describe renewed interest in this centuries-old ritual as problematic, there is no question that here in New Jersey — and around the world — a growing number of Catholics appear to be yearning for a service that their parishes discontinued in 1965.

Although church leaders are reluctant to describe this emerging movement as controversial, it is, to many, emblematic of the different papal styles of traditionalist Benedict XVI (now pope emeritus) who made the Latin Mass more accessible to parishes in 2007, and Benedict’s liberal-leaning successor Pope Francis, who considers the Mass to be regressive.

It has been 50 years since the Second Vatican Council (known as Vatican II) called upon churches to replace the Latin Mass with Masses done in the vernacular, or, as priests generally refer to it, the “novus ordo” or “new order.”

On March 7, 1965, Pope Paul VI celebrated Mass in Italian, rather than Latin, for the first time, in accordance with the Vatican II novus ordo guidelines. And this month, Pope Francis did likewise, commemorating the anniversary of that milestone. According to the Catholic News Service, Francis also told parishioners, “You cannot turn back. We have to always go forward, always forward and who goes back is making a mistake.”

Traditionalists who favor the Latin service, also known as the Tridentine Mass and “the extraordinary form,” were disappointed by the pope’s message, especially since Benedict XVI’s apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum, which reopened the door to the Tridentine Mass, said it should only be done “upon the request of the faithful.”

Something different

Here in North Jersey, the question of reintroducing Masses in Latin, even on a limited basis, appears to make some parishes uncomfortable.

The priest who celebrated the unadvertised St. Joseph’s Day Mass in Bergen County has held one Latin Mass per month for the last few months, with permission from the diocese. His request not to be identified, he said, was a matter of “protocol” within the parish, which has not decided if it wants to have regular services in Latin.

For many baby boomers and their parents, the Latin Mass conjures up images of women in black lace mantillas, priests who rarely faced their congregations, an altar devoid of girls or women and long stretches of silence broken, occasionally, by snoring or screaming toddlers.

But the service, particularly the High Mass, with a choir, is also recalled as majestic, contemplative and deeply moving. For a younger generation of Catholics, it also has the cachet of being, at least to them, something new.

Anthony Scillia, 32, of Saddle Brook attended his first Latin Mass last year at St. Anthony of Padua in Jersey City. “For me, it was a heightened experience,” Scillia said. “For that hour and 15 minutes it’s as if the veil is drawn back and you have a chance to see and really experience that bit of paradise on earth. Is it a holier experience? I don’t want to say that. Above all things, Mass is about worshiping Jesus Christ. I just feel that, for me, this Mass really elevates that experience.”

Patrick O’Boyle, 40, a lawyer from North Arlington, first became acquainted with the Mass in the early 1990s, when he attended a Latin service at Our Lady of Fatima in Pequannock.

“It was a wow experience for me,” O’Boyle said, “a beautiful celebration that more fully represents the sacrifice of Calvary. I love modern music and architecture. Art is always evolving because it has to. But this Mass is not about old or new. This Mass is timeless.”

Although there is, as yet, no hard data on how many Catholics feel this way, the Rev. Christopher M. Ciccarino, assistant dean and assistant professor of biblical studies at Seton Hall University, said, “I think there is a definite trend, although it’s early in the trend. And I say this because this rise in interest is not just from the old-timers. We see middle-age people, young families who are drawn to the sense of quiet and stillness at the low Mass or the beauty of the polyphony at a high Mass.

“I don’t see it becoming the norm in most parishes. And I suppose there will always be some resistance to it, especially among those who interpret this interest as a rejection of the Second Vatican Council. There is that feeling that we’ve ‘moved beyond’ it. For me, I’m happy with whatever brings people to the church and brings them closer to Jesus.”

At present, only a handful of parishes in North Jersey offer weekly Latin Masses, according to Jim Goodness, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark. They include Our Lady of Victories in Harrington Park and Holy Rosary and Our Lady of Mount Carmel, both in Newark.

Sacred Heart Church in Clifton, part of the Diocese of Paterson, offers one Latin Mass on Sundays at 7:45 a.m. And Our Lady of Fatima Chapel in Pequannock has offered a full schedule of Latin services since 1974.

Although Goodness was unable to comment on whether Catholics who embrace the Latin Mass were rejecting Vatican II, intrigued by something different or, perhaps, a little of both, he did say that the Archdiocese of Newark does not discourage Latin Mass.

“It’s a matter of the parish starting it and having a community that supports it,” Goodness noted. “Benedict, when he was pope, was clear about that. There should be a strong enough interest for the Mass to sustain itself.”

Goodness added that not all of Masses in the archdiocese are spoken in English or Latin. “We do Mass in 20 languages every week,” he said, “from American Sign Language to Italian, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Polish, Korean and Creole.”

Some youth appeal

The Rev. Matthew McNeely, who became administrator of Our Lady of Fatima Chapel in Pequannock last year, said that in his experience with other parishes, “It’s always a surprise to see how many young people there are who show up” for a Latin Mass, which he prefers to call “the extraordinary form of the Latin rite.”

McNeely, 37, added, “I believe the younger generation finds some­thing in it, just as I was drawn to it when I was younger, because it offers this bond with the past and the knowledge that so many saints had gone to this same liturgy.”

McNeeley said he does not feel the desire to celebrate a Latin Mass should be controversial. “I have lots of friends who are priests who say the Mass as most would say it, in the novus ordo,” he noted. “At the same time, I know plenty of people who wish we could all go back to 1945. But this isn’t about going back in time. This is a beautiful service, its beauty attracts people and there have always been different ways in which people express their belief in God, even in the Catholic Church.”

McNeely said that his chapel has about 100 celebrants at each of its Sunday Masses. At Our Lady of Victories in Harrington Park, the number is between 40 and 50 each Sunday, with larger groups on holidays, according to the Rev. Bryan Adamcik.

The 54-year-old Adamcik, who does not say the Masses himself, added that these attendees “come from all over. Englewood, Fort Lee, even New York City. Ours is the low Mass, although we originally had a high Mass when we started about seven years ago. And the Mass is about 40 minutes to an hour long.”

Adamcik barely remembers the Latin Masses prior to 1965. “I recall the Hail Marys at the end of the Mass, but I was very young. That’s all I remember.”

The Rev. David Pickens, 55, of St. Francis of Assisi Church in Haskell refers to renewed interest in the Latin Mass as “a kind of ‘Happy Days’ syndrome — a younger generation getting nostalgic for this. I do think it’s a beautiful liturgy, but the problem I have is that the priest faces the altar. There is a role for women in the modern Mass and in many ways, it’s just more flexible. I think a lot of people prefer that.

Pickens doubts he will ever celebrate a Latin Mass for at least one very good reason: “I was ordained in 2009,” he said, “and I don’t speak Latin.”

Life Must Be a Continual Sacrifice

St. John Capistrano – 29 March – The Soldier Saint

“The Lord who made the beginning, will take care of the finish” – St. John Capistrano

From Father Carota’s blog:

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http://www.traditionalcatholicpriest.com/2015/03/28/the-soldier-saint-st-john-capistran-march-29/

The Soldier Saint, St. John Capistrano March 29

March 28, 2015

St. John Capistrano was the Franciscan Friar who in 1455 preached the crusade that saved Catholic Europe from the muslims.  Pope Callixtus III begged St. John to organized this crusade against the muslims who were advancing toward Rome and Vienna under the direction of Mohammed II.

St. John had a vision that assured victory in the Name of Jesus and the cross.  Remember that the Roman Emperor Constantine also had the vision to conquer ‘IN HOC SIGNO VINCES’, in this sign (of the cross) you win.

At the age of 70, St. John enrolled 70,000 crusades, mostly peasants. When the crusade was actually in operation, St. John accompanied the famous Hunyady throughout the campaign.  After some days of battle, the peasant crusaders left the Belgrade bastion to fight hand to hand with the muslims.  St. John decided to lead them into battle carrying high the Crucifix.

He is famous for his saying; “The Lord who made the beginning, will take care of the finish”.  Chroniclers wrote that the muslims were “paralyzed by some inexplicable fear”   40,000 of the muslims perished that day in battle, while hardly any of the crusaders died.

On July 22, 1456, the muslims retreated and Belgrade and Europe were saved.  St. John Capistrano is also called “The Soldier Saint”.

To celebrate the victory at Belgrade, Pope Collixtus III asked for Catholic churches all over Europe to ring their bells at 12 noon.  To this very day, this custom is still practiced in many parts of the world.

Why I Converted to the Catholic Church – by Randal Schmidt

Please read one of the better articles we have found that explain, in simple terms, why an anti-authority and anti-Catholic protestant converted to the one true faith.  This one man’s conversion proves that Catholicism is a faith of logic and reason.

If you are thinking about converting, or are interested in the Catholic faith at all, please open your heart and mind and read this article.  The only thing you risk by not reading it is your eternal soul . . . No pressure right :)!

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http://www.catholic365.com/article/1105/the-reluctant-roman-or-why-i-converted-to-the-catholic-church-part-i-history-and-authority.html

The Reluctant Roman: or Why I Converted to the Catholic Church, Part I: History and Authority

By Randal Schmidt
3/24/2015 6:00:10 PM

Photo Credit: Flickr/Jonathan P

Let me make this clear up front:

I never wanted to be a Catholic.

To begin with, I did not even see that as a serious possibility at first. As a Protestant, during my college years I had become terribly dissatisfied with the various churches that I had attended. Many were too liberal, some were biblically unsound, some were too loud, too rowdy, too this, too that and so on. After my wife and I were married, we desperately wanted to be a part of a church community, but we never could find one that fit us just right.

Yet of all the Christian denominations and churches that we considered over the years, I would honestly have to say that Catholicism was one of the last on the list. When we were searching, the prevalent view in our American Christian society seemed to be:

“Choose any church you want… as long as it is not Catholic.”

This was never spoken, of course. In conversations with Protestant friends and family members, there was never any blatant bad-mouthing of Catholics, never any overt anti-Catholicism. There was never any spoken prohibition against joining the Catholic Church. But the prohibition was always there nonetheless, somewhere right below the surface, along with a thousand other prejudices against the Catholic Church, which I will touch on in future posts.

The point is, and it bears repeating, I never wanted to be a Catholic.

In fact, during the period in which I found myself moving steadily, inevitably, unavoidably toward the Roman Catholic Church, I resisted just as strongly as a child resists being dragged off to the dentist for a yearly checkup. I used every means at my disposal to put off my ultimate conversion; I reasoned, I argued, I flat out refused. And yet in the end, I converted.

Why?

Why would I, a rabidly individualistic American Protestant in the 21st Century, a young man who despises all forms of authority, who has from childhood despised authority, who has always insisted on independence, liberty and autonomy in all things, who has always insisted on doing his own thing when and how he wants it, a man who was once a fierce proponent of Sola Scriptura, why would I convert to Roman Catholicism?

For a complete answer to this question, I suppose I would need to write a rather lengthy book, and even then, I would certainly find at the end that I had left out much more than I had said.

So I will not attempt a complete answer. Rather I will point to three major reasons why I chose to join the Catholic Church and why, when all is said and done, I feel that I made the only decision that I could have made.

Before I get to the reasons, however, I must mention briefly that if not for my mother, I do not think that I would have converted to Catholicism. This does not at all mean that she forced me to or that I did it to please her in some way. In fact, if truth be told, I tried at first to prevent her from converting! Or at least, I attempted to seriously hinder, weaken and undermine her studies of the Faith. Yet in doing so, in challenging her own growing belief in the Catholic Church during long-drawn-out conversations over countless cups of coffee at the kitchen table, and sometimes in ridiculing and mocking certain doctrines, I found myself struck by the profound theological depth and soundness of the Catholic Church.

I had begun by playing Devil’s advocate to her, and ending by being drawn into the very Church I had been deriding.

Anyway, that point must be made before the other three, because without it, I never would have even seriously considered the rest.

I had originally intended to do all three of these reasons in one post, but I soon realized that it would be entirely too long. So I decided to split them into three parts.

Now for the first reason:

History and Authority

Who speaks for Christ on Earth?

This is a tough question, but it is one that must be central when deciding which Christian denomination to join.

According to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, “there were 217 denominations listed in the 2006 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches.” This does not include the “over 35,000 independent or nondenominational churches representing more than 12,200,000 adherents” in the United States [source].

Every one of these denominations claims the authority to speak for Jesus Christ. Of course, they may not claim it in those words, and they might even deny that statement if you put it to them like that. But in claiming the authority to interpret the Scriptures and in claiming the authority to define teachings, doctrines and matters of faith, these denominations are thereby assuming the authority to act and speak for Jesus in Earth.

Which of them is right?

Are any of them right?

And here we come back to the question again:

Who speaks for Christ on Earth?

Now I am not going to conduct a survey of all the major denominations in the United States and attempt to pick apart who is right and who is wrong, which are correct and which are wildly incorrect in their teachings. For starters, this would take a more skilled theologian than I could ever hope to be in a thousand years. And more than this, my goal is not to attack other denominations; my goal with this post is simply to shed some light on my own personal conversion. Why did I choose the Catholic Church above all the others?

In this case, my answer is quite simple:

The Roman Catholic Church has authority.

Of all the active churches in the United States today, the Catholic Church is the only one that can claim a legitimate authority to speak for Christ in our present world. Now some of you may be react to that statement with something like:

“ARE YOU SAYING THE POPE THINKS HE SPEAKS WITH THE VOICE OF CHRIST?! THE POPE THINKS HE IS JESUS?!”

And to this I have to say two things:

First of all, turn off your Caps Lock and stop screaming at me.

Secondly, I am not saying that at all. I am simply saying that as the Church vested with authority by Jesus Christ Himself, the Catholic Church is the only one on Earth today that can claim a logical and legitimate authority to interpret Scripture.

I will come back to this idea shortly.

Now, am I saying that all other churches have no authority? Not necessarily. You might make the argument for other churches, but as for my own personal belief, I cannot accept any authority as being as logical and as firm as that of the Catholic Church.

This is important to my conversion because as I mentioned already, I am a man who has never liked authority. Ever since I was a child, (and my parents can attest to this) I have never liked anyone telling me what to do. As I grew and matured as a Christian, however, I had to accept that the Lord desired men in authority over me, whether through secular government or through church leadership. Once I accepted this, I came to another realization.

If I am going to allow a church to have authority over me, it better be the right one!

In other words, I was not going to accept the teaching and, possibly, the reprimands of just any church. It had to be a church that had an unshakeable authority, a church that was so firm in its teachings and so theologically well-thought-out and so grounded in the Word of Christ that I would be comfortable submitting to it. After these realizations and after much prayerful searching and study, I came to the only logical conclusion for me:

It had to be the Roman Catholic Church.

There are many reasons why I believe the Roman Catholic Church is the only church with such authority, and I cannot go into every single one right now. Let me instead focus on two.

The first is this:

Jesus Himself established the Catholic Church.

Now again, I may have ruffled some feathers with that statement, but any reasonable Christian can at least accept that Jesus wanted one, unified church. He intended for His Church to be united. Every time that Jesus speaks of the Church in Scripture, and any time Paul or any of the other Biblical authors speaks of the Church, they always speak of it in the singular. Always.

Many Protestants will argue (and I know this, because I would have argued it at one time) that when the “Church” as such is spoken of, this refers to the mystical body of all believers wherever they are on Earth and in whatever denomination. And that is correct. The Church with a capital “C” is composed of all Christians everywhere.

But to take that idea and then to make the leap that Jesus actually wanted over 35,000 independent churches, each with their own leadership and teachings, and that He wanted His believers dispersed, spread out over so many different groups, to say that this is what He meant when He spoke of His Church, that is absurd.

No, when Christ spoke of His Church, I believe that He meant an actual, single church group. In that case, the Catholic Church is the only extant group that can lay claim to that designation.

How can they claim this?

The Roman Catholic Church is able to trace its authority back through history to the actual Apostles and thus, to Jesus Christ Himself. One of the passages in Scripture that is often used to demonstrate this is in Matthew 16.

In the Gospel, shortly after Peter confesses Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God,” Jesus blesses him and says in verse 18, “…Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

Catholics claim that Jesus is stating that He will build His Church upon Peter. Thus, Peter is the first Pope and thus, the authority of the Church flows from Christ to Peter and on through history to the leaders of the Catholic Church.

Protestants meanwhile point out that Jesus was only using a slight play on words related to the name Peter. Therefore in this interpretation, Jesus is saying that Peter (Petros) is correct in claiming Him as Christ and upon this rock (petra), the idea that Jesus is Christ, the church will be built.

This is the interpretation that I would have accepted up until a few months ago. There is a problem with it, however.

There is no play on words in what Jesus says.

There can be no play on words, because Jesus was speaking Aramaic, a language that had only one word for rock: kepha. Thus, what Jesus said was, “Thou art Kepha, and upon this Kepha I will build my church.”

Put this way, it becomes much more apparent that what Jesus was actually saying was that He would build His Church upon Peter, upon Kepha. This is even more obvious when you realize that Kepha (Cephas) was a nickname of this man, Simon, and it was a nickname that Jesus Himself had bestowed upon him. Jesus knew when giving Simon this nickname that He was later going to make him the bedrock of the Church. Jesus meant for Peter to lead the Church. This makes much more sense especially when seen in the context of the very next verse, Mt. 16:19:

“And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Jesus is giving Peter “the keys of the kingdom,” the very sign of authority.

Peter was to be the leader of the Church after Jesus was taken from this Earth.

And as we see from the various descriptions later in the Acts of the Apostles and elsewhere, this is exactly what happens. Peter becomes the leader of the Church. From Peter, the other leaders of the early Church take their authority, because Peter has the authority directly from Christ Himself.

It is in this way that the Catholic Church can claim authority; they can trace their leadership all the way back through the years to the early Church and to Peter, and thus to Christ.

This is called Apostolic Succession, and it is a matter of provable, historical fact.

No other church, and certainly no American Protestant church, many of which can only trace their history back a couple of decades or a couple of centuries at best, can reasonably make such a claim.

The Catholic Church, however, is deeply rooted in history. It is this history and Tradition, established over two thousand years and grounded in the actual words of Jesus Christ while on Earth, that give the Catholic Church an authority above and beyond any other denomination.

This mention of Tradition brings me to my last point in this section, and I will make this one quickly because I am already writing much more than I intended.

Throughout my entire life I have believed firmly in Sola Scriptura, the notion that the Bible Alone has authority. The teachings of man thus have no weight unless they line up with the teachings of the Lord in the Scriptures. In other words, if something cannot be proven from the Scriptures, it is probably a false teaching. It was this idea—born out of the Protestant Reformation—that I would have pointed to as a way of discounting Catholic authority and Tradition.

A problem appears, however, when we consider history once again. In order for the notion of Sola Scriptura to be true, we as Christians must have certainty beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Scripture we are using is accurate. Now by this I do not mean that we should avoid translations and all learn Hebrew and Greek. I simply mean that we must be sure that we are using actual Scripture that is inspired by the Holy Spirit. After all, no respectable proponent of Sola Scriptura would attempt to prove a biblical point by citing a verse from the Book of Mormon.

In simple terms, we must have an accepted Canon in order to use Scripture to define anything.

Now the question becomes then:

What Canon?

Or perhaps it is this: who decides which books go in and which books are left out?

And once again, the trail leads us back to the Catholic Church.

For it is the Catholic Church that established the Biblical Canon. This is another fact proven by history. No other church could have claimed the authority to add or to remove books from the Bible. No other Church could have created the Bible, guided by the Holy Spirit and through the leadership of the Church in Council, the way the Catholic Church did.

Thus, it becomes apparent that the fortress of Sola Scriptura, in which I had hidden for so long, crumbles under the weight of its own bricks. For it claims to ignore or reject Catholic Tradition in favor of individual interpretation, but then turns around and uses a book that was put together under the authority of that very same Tradition.

Once Sola Scriptura crumbled out from underneath me, and once I realized that I must allow authority over me, and once I realized that there was only one real authoritative church in existence in the world, the choice was obvious, however unattractive it seemed to me at the time:

I had to become Catholic.

(Part II will continue with a discussion of Worship, how Catholics get it right, and why this was a factor in my conversion).

Great Catholic Response to a Protestant – Boom!

We discovered the outstanding response to a “protester” attacking the Church in a comment section in regards to the following question:  “Was St. Joseph a Virgin or a widower with Children?”

http://catholicsay.com/was-st-joseph-a-virgin-or-a-widower-with-children/

Manny wrote:

“The Catholic Church was the one that compiled and canonized the 27 books of the New Testament at the Councils of Carthage, Rome and Hippo in the 4th and 5th centuries. At the time there were over 700 writings and over 50 gospels. Protestants didn’t come into the picture until 1,000 years later, yet they accept the same 27 books that the Catholic Church accepted as inspired by God but refuse to accept Holy Tradition along with those 27 books. How then are Protestants so sure that the Catholic Church was correct in accepting those books and not the other ones if the Catholic Church is a “cult” as they say? Besides, not everything is written in the Bible, St. John the Apostle says so in his Gospel Chapter 20:30 and 21:25. So much for the Protestant teaching of Sola Scriptura by Martin Luther.

From the earliest times, the Catholic Church has believed that Mary remained a virgin all through her life, even the Eastern Orthodox Church believes this. St. Joseph, being a just man knew that Mary was the spouse of the Holy Spirit and that her womb was consecrated for Jesus the Son of God alone. St. Joseph respected this and was her chaste spouse and the protector and provider of Jesus and Mary. They weren’t your average couple. Protestants have rejected Tradition and accept what they want to, there is no Magisterium. That’s why there are more than 30,000 different Protestant churches with conflicting beliefs since Martin Luther’s “reformation” in 1517 AD. Each Protestant church interprets scripture as it sees fit, so then, who is “lost?” certainly not the Catholic Church. If the Blessed Virgin Mary had other children there was no reason for Jesus to put her under the care of St. John the Apostle at Calvary. When Joseph and Mary were looking for the 12 year old Jesus and found him preaching at the temple there is no mention of any other brothers or sisters with them. The Bible never says that the “brothers” and “sisters” of Jesus were the children of Mary. Not one verse says the sons and daughters of Mary or Mary their mother. In the Aramaic language that Jesus spoke there was no word for cousin. Uncles, cousins and extended relatives were called brothers and sisters and it was common for them to live within the same area and travel together to the temple, etc.. St. Jerome, who was born in the 4th century was a scholar and was the first one to translate the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. He wrote that the brothers and sisters of Jesus were His cousins, the sons and daughters of the other Mary at Calvary, the wife of Cleophas, who tradition says was the brother of St. Joseph. Mary the wife of Cleophas is called the “sister” of Mary the Mother of Jesus in St. John’s Gospel but she was her sister in law. In Aramaic there was no word for sister in law either.

The Protestant reformers like Luther and Calvin believed in Mary’s perpetual virginity and that she was the Mother of God even after they broke with the Catholic Church. The founder of the Methodist Church, John Wesley also believed in Mary’s perpetual virginity. Fundamentalist anti Catholic Protestants need to go to the Catholic Answers website and look up these doctrinal issues and also get a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church instead of listening to the same old anti Catholic diatribe.”

Passion Week & Sorrows of Our Lady – Friday Mar 27th

Please click the link below for the three minute homily of Msgr. Andrew Wadsworth, Superior/Moderator of the Oratory in-Formation at Saint Thomas Apostle Church in Washington, DC on Friday –  Passion Week  & Sorrows of Our Lady – Mar 27^th.

https://archive.org/details/FridayPassionWeekSorrowsOfOurLadyMar27th

St. Philip Neri’s Maxim of the Day

“To be without pity for other men’s falls, is an evident sign that we shall fall ourselves shortly.”

A Saint for Traditional Catholics

It certainly is tough times for Catholics that love the tradition of the Church. We are often viewed as mean-spirited or backward looking or just plain nutso. No matter because we have Truth on our side! Please read the post below from Father Peter Carota from traditionalcatholicpriest.com about a saint we can model our life after: St. Athanasius.

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St. Athanasius, Saint For Us Traditional Catholics

March 24, 2015

St. Athanasius (297-373) is the saint for us traditional Catholics today.  The reason I say this, is that he was banned from his diocese by the Church and emperors for at least five times.  He was the Bishop of Alexandria in Egypt for 46 years, but he also spent seventeen of these years in exile for defending Catholic truth.  He was constantly persecuted at the hands of the emperors and Church’s hierarchy for just defending the Divinity of Jesus against the Arian heretics.  Under the pressure of these heretics, even Pope Liberius excommunicated him.

It all began when he assisted the Patriarch Alexander, at the famous Council of Nicaea (325).  The Roman Emperor, Constantine, had called this council to settle conflicts in the Roman Empire concerning conflicts over Catholic dogma.  Here, Arius’ heretical teaching, (that Jesus was not consubstantial or co-equal with the Father), was condemned.  The confession of faith that came out of this council is known as the Nicene Creed, (defined at the council of Nicaea).  And this is why the word ‘consubstantial’ was recently re-inserted into the Nicene creed that we recite at every Sunday Mass.

The Arian heresy ‘denies that the Son is of one essence, nature, or substance with God; He is not consubstantial with the Father, and therefore not like Him, or equal in dignity, or co-eternal, or within the real sphere of Deity.‘  1914 Catholic Encyclopedia

From this council on, Athanasius spent the rest of his life defending the divinity of Jesus and the Holy Trinity.  Because he (mostly alone) continuously stood up against the arianist who had infected almost all of the Catholic Church, the famous saying was penned; “Athanasius contra mundum“, that is, “Athanasius against the world“.  In the 400’s, Saint Jerome described this period as, “The whole world groaned and was amazed to find itself Arian“.

Today, we traditional Catholics, groan against the whole world and Church, because we find it almost filled with modernist and progressive heretics.

Let us not be discouraged.  Over and over again, God got St. Athanasius through his sufferings, false accusations and exiles.  It dearly cost St. Athanasius.  It will dearly cost us too.  But when all is said and done, it is in heaven where St. Athanasius is being rewarded by God forever.

We are so blessed to be traditional Catholics and to know and defend our Church’s dogma and history.  In the end, good always wins, even if it is not until heaven.

Further Evidence the Eucharist is the Real Presence of Jesus

America Needs Fatima sent out the story below from an article from Father Albert J. Byrne, titled “Nature’s Evidence of the Real Presence.”

Here is the story as it was printed:

On the evening of the last day of his October 1995 visit to the United States, Pope John Paul II was scheduled to greet the seminarians at Saint Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore. It had been a very full day that began with a Mass at Oriole Park in Camden Yards; a parade through downtown streets; a visit to the Basilica of the Assumption, the first cathedral in the country; lunch at a local soup kitchen run by Catholic Charities; a prayer service at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in North Baltimore; and finally a quick stop at Saint Mary’s Seminary.

The schedule was tight so the plan was simply to greet the seminarians while they stood outside on the steps. But the Pope made his way through their ranks and into the building. His plan was to first make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament. When his wishes were made known, security  flew into action. They swept the building, paying close attention to the chapel where the Pope would be praying. For this purpose, highly trained dogs were used to detect any person who might be present.

The dogs are trained to locate survivors in collapsed buildings after earthquakes and other disasters. These highly intelligent and eager dogs quickly went through the halls, offices and classrooms and were then sent to the chapel. They went up and down the aisles, past the pews and finally into the side chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved. Upon reaching the tabernacle, the dogs sniffed, whined, pointed, and refused to leave, their attention riveted on the tabernacle, until called by their handlers. They were convinced that they discovered someone there.

We Catholics know they were right—they found a real, living Person in the tabernacle!

Other Side of the Hearth – Poem by Mary Beth

by Mary Beth Zeleznik Artz

Wooden pieces of past beyond the hearth of a home, lying flat with the same chipped face.
Wind hisses lament, under sky’s dalliance dome, funneled through flue to relight embers haste.

Fire, sudden, as recall’s breath stirs every air, and assembles the olden town to come to call.
Face down your enemy, memory dares,
Open your eyes, but gone is the light in the hall.

Glowing red reminiscence at the foot of your bed, Were the flames and your burns only a dream?
Show your hands to your face! Reveal pyre’s treads, for things are precisely as they seem.

Watering can on the stone, half full and meant for flowers, Little Thing, stand up, make your way to that site.
Water’s choice, of where to set your bowers, in growth to the living, or in death to a fright.

Stumble through the charge, most known mode of travel, arms outstretched try to block the air.
Step on your own loose threads, gown begins to unravel, bareness, under smoldering remains’ glare.

Fall into the gathered water,
it spills around your feet,
Kick it into the flame of your foe.
Wind gone out of you by remembrance tarted treat, of barefoot splashing puddles from long ago.

Springs spring life, back into your limbs, standing silent in the pond of That old gold day.
Your natural world dampens on anything but whim, your head moves up out of its wilted way.

And though the heat and hue and hour you fought,
listen, for they whistle a song of childhood light.
On the other side of the hearth lies the fire of thought, as cinders like lightning bugs make their flight into the night.

Copyright 2015