SHIA CONVERTS TO CATHOLICISM

 

hmmm, note WHITE WOLF

Yes, we live in an age of miracle and wonder, Shia LaBeouf has converted to traditional Roman Catholicism. No, this isn't from the Babylon Bee, the Onion or the autists at /pol, Shia's actually done it, he's embraced the Faith. Far out, it wasn't always this way:

Lampooned in the pages of this popular mind blog and relentlessly attacked by 4Chan basement dwellers, don't say Shadilay, for being a two-bit millionaire socialist fraud, Shia found his life spiraling out of control. So to save his plummeting career and possibly his life, the actor accepted a part as St. Padre Pio in an upcoming movie.

wow

Moved by the Spirit and his experience living with Capuchin friars, to say nothing of learning the Latin Mass, Shia converted. I know, you couldn't make it up if you tried, but such is grace, here's Fox, via the NYP:

“I know now that God was using my ego to draw me to Him. Drawing me away from worldly desires. It was all happening simultaneously. But there would have been no impetus for me to get in my car, drive up [to the monastery] if I didn’t think, ‘Oh, I’m gonna save my career.'” 

While researching and performing the role, however, LaBeouf said he felt “tricked” by God.

“And when I got here, a switch happened. It was like Three-Card Monte. It was like someone tricked me into it, it felt like,” the actor recounted. “Not in a bad way. In a way that I couldn’t see it. I was so close to it that I couldn’t see it. I see it differently now that time has passed.”

There is, says the Good Book, more joy in heaven over one sinner that repents than over ninety-nine self-righteous prig hypocrites that don't. And note this, all ye doomers, if it can happen to him there's hope for us all yet.

Well done, Shia, keep it up, love you brother.

Your Old Pal,

LSP

Epiphany

Listen up, heathen. Today's the great Feast of the Epiphany so here's a prayer.

O GOD, who by the leading of a star didst manifest thy 

only-begotten Son to the Gentiles; Mercifully grant that we, 

who know thee now by faith, may after this life have the 

fruition of thy glorious Godhead; through the same thy 

Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

And for all you trads out there who are shamelessly trying to unleash the power of the Western Rite, here it is in Latin:

DEUS, qui hodiérna die Unigénitum tuum géntibus stella duce revelásti: concéde propítius; ut, qui jam te ex fide cognóvimus, usque ad contemplándam spéciem tuæ celsitúdinis perducámur. Per eúndem Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum Fílium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti, Deus, per ómnia 

sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.

God bless,

LSP

Mass in Dallas

Unlike our adversary, the Devil, I'm taking a couple of Sundays off but that doesn't mean you don't go to Mass, far from it. So I roused the slumbering team, ironed a shirt and headed out to the local RC church in Dallas. Why there? Because it was around the corner and I wanted to check it out.

St. Cecilia's was set-up as a Swedish congregation back in the day and was an interesting church, with an attractively painted Sanctuary and Stations of the Cross. I know this because I went to Mass there years ago and was surprised at the European aspect of the place. Then it burned down and they built a new church, modern basilica style, sort of thing.

As it Was

It's an airy space, all tones of white with beige brick and an arresting brass tabernacle up against the east wall behind the small freestanding altar. But what was the Mass like? Just what you'd expect. A high-pitched woman cantorite banged away on an amplified piano and led the congregation in song. Not that anyone sang, because the setting was unsingable. You know the tune, you hear it burbling away in the background at retreat center bookshops.

Wrecking Crew

The liturgy was standard too. The Priest sat off to the side of the tabernacle in an outsize chair, or "throne," accompanied by an elderly Deacon and a youth in a cassock alb who held the Missal for the Celebrant. He moved to the altar at the Offertory and took it from there. All well and good and, like the music, exactly what you'd expect. Reverent enough, no clowns, no dancing, but not really liturgical either. Move from the Chair to the Altar, and there you have the stunning simplicity of liturgical reform. Well done, experts of the 1970s, for doing your part to destroy over a thousand years of worshiping tradition. 

A Catholic Mass

Still, I shouldn't complain, the Mass was said, the church was full, the people were faithful and the team left St. Cecilia's edified and uplifted by Word and Sacrament at this onetime outpost of Sweden in Dallas.

God bless,

LSP