Sunday Mass

 

You pull up to Mission #2, not far at all from Belle Starr's onetime ranch/hideout, and what do you see? Nothing fancy, just a couple of lines of pick ups, a horse trailer and a lowish church built in the 1980s in an act of faith on the part of people who retired from the Metrosprawl to live by the lake. They're mostly gone now, bless 'em. But what do you find inside?

The few readers of this unassuming mind-blog would be shocked. No guitar playing nuns, no wymxn priestesses, no rainbow flags, no felt applique banners, not even any liturgical dance. What you do get is an oriented sung Mass, Rite I (think Ordinariate style, all you RC trads), with traditional hymns. And here's the thing, the singing was led by a couple of ex-Baptist women.

I tell you, it was good, and I don't say that lightly. Imagine, if you can, Amazing Grace at the Offertory on a Loretta Lynn tip. Here's Miss Lynn:

High on a mountain top? You bet. In related news, I called our Senior Warden after Mass, "Hey, J, I haven't ridden for four years and feel it's time to get back on. Can you recommend someone to give me remedial lessons? You know, leads, asking for gaits the right way and all of that." She thought about it for a second or two, "Sure! Come out this week and ride with us, we'll find you a horse."

Now, pundits, mark me well. This is equivalent to, say, a pub guitarist calling up Jimmy Page and saying, "Hey man, is it OK if I jam with you and Eric Clapton?" You know, to get better on the guitar, and he replies, "You bet, swing by the studio sometime this week, Roy Harper's gonna be there too. He needs help."

J in the Zone and then some

Wow, what good people we have in this little country church, where the Word of God is preached and taught and the Sacraments confected. There's hope and no inconsiderable uplift in that and I feel privileged to serve here. Stay tuned for equestrian adventure.

Your Old Pal,

LSP

Sunday Homily

 

"Faith without works is dead," says St. James the Apostle, much to the annoyance of Luther who felt the letter an "Epistle of straw." Of course it was, to a former Augustinian friar who held that good works were "like fleas on the skin of a dead dog." Tell us what you really think, Martin.

Still, and Luther aside, we instinctively get what James is telling us. If you believe in something and that belief isn't enacted then it's not worth much, it ain't right. Worse, it starts to take on the sulpherous, pharisaical odor of hypocrisy. And our instinct's not wrong, faith which isn't animated, which doesn't move is dead, immobile. It doesn't "profit."

James drives it home:

What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food. And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.

 

What doth it profit to be full of belief, such as to move mountains, but be devoid of faith's animating principle, which is love, the Holy Spirit. Benedict XVI puts it well:

Being “just” simply means being with Christ and in Christ. And this suffices. Further observances are no longer necessary. For this reason Luther’s phrase: “faith alone” is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love. Faith is looking at Christ, entrusting oneself to Christ, being united to Christ, conformed to Christ, to his life. And the form, the life of Christ, is love; hence to believe is to conform to Christ and to enter into his love.

 

Right on, let's act accordingly, and be sure that the raging, nihilist hatred of Devil and his anti-kingdom, to say nothing of the gates of Hell, shall not prevail.

Keep the Faith,

LSP

Sunday Rambling

 

In some dioceses the bishop's visitation is a terrible thing, a nightmare. There you are when some unspeakable old heretic tips up with a view to destroying everything you believe in. Thank God it's not that way in the Diocese of Fort Worth. Our bishops stand firm for the Faith, they're successors of the Apostles as opposed to wicked mountebanks in the pay of Rainbow Baphomet.

So today was good, our bishop came, sung the Mass and preached, what a blessing. The Specialist even came down from Fort Hood to swing some incense, well done. Curiously, everyone in the sanctuary party was either former or active duty or involved in pro rodeo. Clearly a moral, if you care to draw it.

Then we fell back to the church hall for a delicious lunch, the mission eats well, and a good time was had by all. What a lot of fun, and I tell you, it's a real blessing to be in this diocese. 

Is it perfect? No. Should we be part of the wider Catholic Church, East and West? Yes. But so too should Rome and Constantinople be as one and, of course, the broken shards of the catholic mirror are one, essentially, in terms of faith, to say nothing of deeper sacramental union. 

Ut unum sint, may they all be one, prayed Christ. Do you think the Father somehow chose to ignore His Son's prayer? Hardly. The Mystici Corporis, the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, is one by nature or essence. The unity is there; that we've wrecked it, in worldly terms, with competing jurisdictions and associated wickedness is, frankly, the Devil's work. 

My take, for what little it's worth, is that it'll take real persecution to bring about the outward and visible unity which strengthens the inward and spiritual. After all, it's in the Good Book, "Except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved."

Apocalypse aside, what a great day.

Keep the Faith, you heathen,

LSP

Feast of Ss. Peter & Paul

 

It's the Feast of Ss. Peter and Paul today, which is a very great thing. Several verses from the Decora Lux, based on Boethius' wife's 5th century poem, are sung today if you have a Schola, I don't, annoyingly. English translation by Dom Gueranger, OSB:

Aurea luce et decore roseo,
Lux lucis, omne perfudisti sæculum:
decorans cælos inclito martyrio.
Hac sacra die, quæ dat reis veniam.

O Light of light (Jesus), thou hast inundated every age  with a golden light and with a ruddy beauty, adorning the heavens with a glorious martyrdom, on this sacred day, which gives pardon to the guilty.

Janitor cæli, doctor orbis pariter,
Judices sæcli, vera mundi lumina:
Per crucem alter, alter ense triumphans,
Vitæ senatum laureati possident.

The door-keeper of heaven, as also the teacher of the universe, the judges of the world, the true lights of the earth, the one conquering by the cross, the other by the sword, crowned with laurel, both take their seats in the senate of life.

Peter and Paul, pray for us,

LSP

Powerful Prayers From Moscow

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow has approved the following prayers for inclusion in the Litany of Fervent Supplication. Via Anglican Ink:

Again we pray unto Thee, O Lord our God, for the mercy and salvation from the disastrous epidemic coming onto us, for the deliverance of Thy faithful people from spiritual and bodily death, for the healing and health of the diseased and for Thy divine protection and help, we pray unto Thee, O merciful Lord, hearken soon and have mercy.

Again we pray for the pacification of confusion and every fear among people, for the protection of Thy faithful by firm faith, for filling our hearts with peace and quietness, we pray unto Thee, O Lord, hearken and have mercy.

O Lord our God, enter not into judgment with Thy servants and save us from the disastrous epidemic coming onto us. Have mercy on us, Thy lowly and unworthy servants who in repentance, with fervent faith and broken heart, prostrate ourselves before Thee, O God, merciful and ordaining every good change, and trust in Thy mercy.

For Thy property it is to show mercy and to save us, O our God, and unto Thee do we send up glory, to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Thank you, Patriarch, for these powerful supplications.

God bless,

LSP