I saw this in this week's bulletin of the parish where I teach:
A church-goer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. "I've gone for 30 years now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them. So, I think I'm wasting my time and the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all." This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote the clincher: "I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked 32,000 meals. But for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this. They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!" When you are down to nothing... God is up to something! Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible, and receives the impossible! Thank God for his physical and spiritual nourishment!
Hugo Rahner had an audience with the Pope. After a great deal of discussion, the Pope asked Hugo Rahner his opinion of the world’s greatest theologian.
Rahner squirmed a little bit, breaking eye contact with the Pope while he sought the proper and most humble way to answer the question. Finally, he looked up, shrugged, and said, “I suppose, Your Grace, I would have to say the world’s greatest theologian is my brother, Karl.”
The Pope’s eyes widened. He sat straight up in his chair in astonishment and exclaimed: “Your brother is KARL BARTH?!”
Yesterday Cardinal Renato Martino's Pontifical Council for Migrants issued a “Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road,” aka The Ten Commandments of Driving. Today the newly created Pontifical Council for Transportation jointly with Car-itas has issued a new document Driving the Gospels.
I'll give you one sample to entice you to go over there are read the rest:
And Jesus said unto them, "And whom do you say that I am?"
They replied,
"You are the totaliter aliter, the vestigious trinitatum who speaks to us in the modality of Christo-monism.”
"You are he who heals our ambiguities and overcomes the split of angst and existential estrangement; you are he who speaks of the theonomous viewpoint of the analogia entis, the analogy of our being and the ground of all possibilities.”
"You are the impossible possibility who brings to us, your children of light and children of darkness, the overwhelming roughness’ in the midst of our fraught condition of estrangement and brokenness in the contiguity and existential anxieties of our ontological relationships.”
“You are my Oppressed One, my soul's shalom, the One who was, who is, and who shall be, who has never left us alone in the struggle, the event of liberation in the lives of the oppressed struggling for freedom, and whose blackness is both literal and symbolic.”
Via Mike Aquilina... a Patristic melody (to the tune of “Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious”):
Superchristological and Homoousiosis Even though the sound of them is something quite atrocious You can always count on them to anathemize your Gnosis Superchristological and Homoousiosis
Um diddle diddle um diddle ay Um diddle diddle um diddle ay
Now Origen and Arius were quite a clever pair. Immutable divinity make Logos out of air. But then one day Saint Nicholas gave Arius a slap– and told them if they can’t recant, they ought to shut their trap!
A priest friend sent me this. It's stinkin' hilarious. Watch it right now. Especially if you've ever been to a LifeTeen Mass or any other "dynamic" youth Mass.
I can't think of a better way to enjoy the weekend, than to hurl a jab at ICEL. The March issue of First Things was just posted and Fr. Neuhaus writes the following in the Public Square (available only to subscribers):
There is a new plaque in Rome with this inscription:
SEMPER MEMORIA SERVETUR FAUSTI DIEI XII ANTE KAL NOVEMBRIS MMVI QUO BENEDICTUS XVI PONTIFEX MAXIMUS DECESSORUM SUORUM VESTIGIA SECUTUS ACADEMICA COMMUNITATE SUMMA LAETITIA RECEPTUS PONTIFICIAM UNIVERSITATEM LATERANENSEM INVISIT NOVAM BIBLIOTHECAM UTI STUDIORUM ET INVESTIGATIONIS SEDEM AD SACRAM TRADITIONEM ALENDAM BENEDIXIT AULAM MAGNAM SIBI DICATAM INAUGURAVIT COMITANTIBUS CAMILLO S.R.E. CARDINALE RUINI MAGNO CANCELLARIO ET RINO FISICHELLA EPISCOPO TIT VICOHABENTINO MAGNIFICO RECTORE QUI OPUS SUSCIPIENDUM AC PERFICIENDUM CURAVIT
That translates as: “May the memory always be preserved of the auspicious day of 21 October 2006 on which Benedict XVI, Pontifex Maximus, following the footsteps of his predecessors, and having been received with greatest joy by the academic community, visited the Pontifical Lateran University, blessed the new library as a seat of studies and research to foster sacred tradition, and inaugurated the Great Hall dedicated to himself. Accompanying him were Camillo Ruini, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, the Grand Chancellor, and Rino Fisichella, titular bishop of Voghenza, the Magnificent Rector, who saw to it that the work was begun and completed.” But Fr. George Rutler sends along this translation, from Fr. Tim Finigan’s blog, as it might have been rendered by the old unreformed ICEL: “One day last year, the Pope came to our school. He made us all very happy when he said a prayer for the new bookcases and a big room with his name on it. Cardinal Ruini (who is very important) was there and so was Bishop Rino who got it all done.”
"Sister, how serious is it to miss Mass on Sunday?"
"Did you go to Saturday Mass?"
"No, Sister."
"Were you in ICU, hooked up to monitors?"
"No, Sister."
"Were you struck on the head and had amnesia?"
"No, Sister."
"Then unless you make it to confession before you fall down the basement stairs or your grandmother hits the gas instead of the brake while you're standing behind the car getting the groceries out of the trunk, you can expect to go straight to Hell."
Sorry.
Another gem:
"We were so busy, and everyone was tired, and we looked at the clock and missed the last Mass. We didn't miss Mass on purpose."
Too bad. You'll pay really close attention to the clock in Hell, hoping it will be over soon, but it never will be.
The Food and Drug Administration has rejected the Nutrition Facts label submitted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in order to comply with FDA regulations, a USCCB spokeswoman said today. The action was likely to exacerbate the dispute between the Church and the agency following the agency's ruling last month that the Eucharist, in both species, falls under FDA oversight.
"We submitted what we believe to be a factually accurate label," said USCCB spokeswoman Sr. Mary Jane Waltz. "Ontologically speaking, it reflects the reality of what the faithful are consuming when they receive the Eucharist."
But FDA regulators were "not amused" by the label, which listed as ingredients the "Body and Blood, soul and divinity" of Jesus Christ. The label also included a detailed list of the graces received with reception of the Eucharist.
