Orbis Catholicus Secundus: December 2013

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

For Private Tours of Rome and the Vatican

Contact...Kiron!

http://www.kiron.us/

Happy New Year: Favstvm Annvm MMXIV!

Vinum Pro S. Missa: Altar Wine

Vatican Floor

So much was done under the pontificate of Pius XI (administration of Card. Pacelli)...

Pro-Life Feast: Of the Holy Innocents

Satan demands child sacrifice. When we pray and fast we have power over evil.

Devotion to the Blessed Memory of Ven Pius XII

Monday, December 30, 2013

Teaching Roman Chant to Roman Catholics

Even few Latin rite priests know chant.

We need to begin to raise our kids teaching them how to sing, read notation, and play a musical instrument.

Nice to see this parish initiatives.

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Liberal Media Bias: Always on the Attack

Fontane delle Tartarughe: Rome's Turtle Fountain

Italian Manger Scene

When in Italy, be sure to purchase your own manger scene while in Naples. Bring cash. The Christmas market can be found on Via San Gregorio Armeno.

Flourishing Catholic Life in Hong Kong

Would be nice to see other parishes across the globe begin such initiatives.

Blessed Schuster in Milan always made sure the parishes were doing all they could to educate the clergy and faithful alike on all matters liturgical - liturgy was his method of teaching the Faith.

Friday, December 27, 2013

Catholic Culture: Wine Blessing on Feast of St. John

BLESSING OF WINE
on the Feast of St. John, Apostle and Evangelist (December 27)

At the end of the principal Mass on the feast of St. John, Apostle and Evangelist, after the last Gospel, the priest, retaining all vestments except the maniple, blesses wine brought by the people. This is done in memory and in honor of St. John, who drank without any ill effects the poisoned wine offered to him by his enemies.

Our help is in the name of the Lord.

All: Who made heaven and earth.

The Lord be with you.

All: And with your spirit.

Let us pray.

If it please you, Lord God, bless + and consecrate + this vessel of wine (or any other beverage) by the power of your right hand; and grant that, through the merits of St. John, apostle and evangelist, all your faithful who drink of it may find it a help and a protection. As the blessed John drank the poisoned potion without any ill effects, so may all who today drink the blessed wine in his honor be delivered from poisoning and similar harmful things. And as they offer themselves body and soul to you, may they obtain pardon of all their sins; through Christ our Lord.

All: Amen.

Lord, bless + this creature drink, so that it may be a health-giving medicine to all who use it; and grant by your grace that all who taste of it may enjoy bodily and spiritual health in calling on your holy name; through Christ our Lord.

All: Amen.

May the blessing of almighty God, Father, Son, + and Holy Spirit, come on this wine (or any other beverage) and remain always.

All: Amen.

It is sprinkled with holy water. If the blessing is given privately outside of Mass, the priest is vested in surplice and stole and performs the ceremony as given above.

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Happy Feast of St. Stephen

Midnight Mass with Pope Francis

Merry Christmas from Baby von Sonnen

Puer Natus Est Nobis

Christmas Explained by Bishop Sheen

"One night there went out over the stillness of the evening breeze, out over those white chalky hills of Bethlehem, a cry, a gentle cry, the cry of a new born babe. 'The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us.' Earth did not hear the cry, for they did not know that a Child could be greater than a man; the sea did not hear the cry, for the sea was filled with its own voice; kings did not hear the cry, for they did not know that a King could be born in a stable; empires did not hear the cry, for only the very simple and the very learned - never the man with one book - know that the heart of a God can cry out in the cry of a Child. And they came with gifts - and adored, and so great was the majesty seated on the brow of the Child which lay before them, so great was the dignity of the babe, so powerful was the light of those eyes that shone like celestial suns, that they could not help but cry out: 'Emmanuel: God is with us.' God revealed Himself to men again. This time He shone through the prism of the Incarnation and brought Divine life to human life. He who is born without a mother in Heaven is born without a father on earth. He who made His mother is born of His Mother. He who made all flesh is born of flesh. 'The bird that built the nest is hatched therein.' Maker of the sun, under the sun; Moulder of the earth, on the earth; Ineffably Wise, a little Infant. Filling the world, lying in a manger; ruling the stars, suckling a breast; the mirth of Heaven weeps; God becomes man; Creator a creature. Rich become poor; Divinity incarnate; Majesty subjugated; Liberty captive; Eternity time; Master a servant, Truth accused; Judge judged; Justice condemned; Lord scourged; Power bound with ropes; King crowned with thorns; Salvation wounded; Life, dead. 'The Eternal Word is dumb.' Marvel of marvels! Union of unions! Three mysterious unions in one: Divinity and humanity; Virginity and fecundity; Faith and the heart of man. And though we shall live on through eternity, eternity will not be long enough for the us to understand the mystery of that 'Child who was a father and of the mother who was a child.' For the first time in the history of the redeemed universe is the Divine Life hypostatically bound up with human nature. That very life of God that passes from Father to Son in the eternal generation of the Trinity, now passes into the world and assumes a human nature like our own, graces it with the plenitude of His Divinity, and gives us that message of hope: 'I am come that you may have life and that in abudndance' - not the physical life which dies, but the spiritual life which endureth unto life everlasting. Men now began to hear answers to those terrible questions which the Greeks had asked: If God is alone, how is He happy? If He is one, what does He think about? If He is alone, whom does He love? The answer was the Trinity, that inmost life of God, that fullness and fruitfulness of Knowledge and Life which is the sourced of the ineffable bliss of the society of the Three Persons in One God. And as He who brought the secret of the Trinity walked over the earth seeking for a place to lay His head, while the foxes had their holes and the birds their nests, the world began to understand how much God must love the world when He sent into it His only begotten Son. And when He told men the story of the prodigal son and taught them to pray thus: 'Our Fatter,' then they realized what a blessed privilege it was to be a brother of Jesus Christ, and a son of the Father. And finally when men heard a cry ringing out over the muffled sound of steel sinking through sinews and fibers of hands raised only to bless: 'Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,' whey began to understand the worth of a soul. It was as if the lesson were being driven in their souls like a spear into His heart: the lesson that certainly, in the words of St. Augustine, if a 'man is sufficient for a God, then God ought to be sufficient for man.'"

-Fulton J. Sheen (The Life of All Living, pp. 40-43).

2013 Spirit of Christmases Past, Present & Future Award: Virginia Patton...

A Conscious Effort: Keeping Christ and Mass in Christmas

Teaching Kids About Christmas

Yours truly grew up with this sixties book, The Little Drummer Boy.

It is still my favorite Christmas song.

When I glance through these pages, warm memories return, of mine own mother reading me these lines.

I learned. And the glow remains.

Jingle Bells in Latin!

Christus Natus Est

"Christmas is not an event within history, but is rather the invasion of time by eternity."

-Von Balthasar

A Merry Christmas!

These old typset by hand prints are the best. Reminds one of how nice the old typset by hand business cards are - still available in Rome. A Merry Christmas to one and all.

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

The Queen's Christmas Message Anno Domini 2013

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Christmas: The Coming to Know a Person

All knowledge is ordered to the knowledge of God.

Truth matters.

And as our Holy Father Francis reminds us, knowledge of the truth means, above all, to know a Person.

"Christian faith is faith in the incarnation of the Word and his bodily resurrection; it is faith in a God who is so colse to us that he entered our humnan history. Far from divorcing us from reality, our faith in the Son of God made man in Jesus of Nazareth enables us to grasp reality's deepest meaning and to see how much God loves this world and is constantly guiding it towards himself."

-Lumen Fidei

'Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht' * Vienna Boys Choir/Die Wiener Sängerknabe...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year in Latin

Thanks, Raph!

God bless everyone on this holy night!

Monday, December 23, 2013

Merry Christmas!

"Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, This bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad, The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is the time."

-Shakespeare (Hamlet, Act I, Scene I)

Sunday, December 22, 2013

O Rex Gentium: Happy "O" Antiphons!

An amazing story about Mother Teresa!

In Nativitate Domini 2013

Franciscvs.

Rome Christmas Tree

Tiber Island.

Catholic Culture: Simbang Gabi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simbang_Gabi

"A Hallelujah Christmas" by Cloverton (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

Best Catholic Book on Homosexuality

I have always said one of the most interesting subjects is the study of the homosexual condition.

As Western civilization continues to implode, we are going to be seeing a lot more of it.

Normality is a much neglected subject in modern psychology and psychiatry. So is conscience.

In 1997 this fine work was published. That same year I had the honor to meet the author, while at a conference in a suburb of Minneapolis.

The Battle for Normality by Dr. Gerard J.M. Van den Aardweg is a must for your home library and is published in San Francisco:

http://www.ignatius.com/Products/BNST-P/the-battle-for-normality.aspx.