Blogposts

Pius Parsch once cogently argued that the Liturgical Year - the Church's Year of Grace - doesn't begin with Advent Sunday, but with Septuagesima Sunday! For at Septuagesima, the Matins Lesson begin "In the beginning...", with Genesis chapter one, verse one. The sober liturgy proceeds through the account of Man's Creation and Fall, and then through the Patriarchs and God's continual call of them back from doom to salvation - at Sexagesima, Noë and the Flood; at Quinquagesima, the call of Abraham.

There is and has been a continuing crisis in the Church of long duration. Bishop Fulton Sheen predicted years ago a future destructive anti-church or counter church. More on that in a future essay. The crisis involves those, who no longer believe the doctrinal and moral teachings of the Catholic Church, while claiming to be Catholic; and the effort within the Church to conform her morality and teaching to the world’s agendas especially in the area of marriage and sexuality. The crisis involves the metastasis of a false teaching called modernism condemned by St. Pius X in the early part of last century.

The Gospel reveals this to us: ….Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. John. 3:19-20 Unbelief is sinful because the world is able to believe: the Light has come into the world and has shone in the darkness, to people is given the possibility of exiting the darkness and come into the light. But only he who freely desires it arrives at the light and people often prefer darkness to the light. What is the reason for this mistaken choice?

The god Ever Before Our Eyes (edited) …(E)verything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses Juvenal Satire 10 (Quote added)

... One recent campaign asked riders on New York City subway trains, “When you count the loves of your life, is sports first or second?” Another, seen at city bus stops, queried, “Without sports, who would we follow?” And, “Without sports, would anyone believe in miracles?” The terrorists who murdered Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games were crazed. But when they called sports “the religion of the Western world” and the Olympics its “most sacred ceremony,” they might have been onto something.