Nov 16 2008
Like the title says — no podcast this week. Been busy, been tired, and ended up wasting time with trivialities. In stead of rushing to finish one, I decided just to put it off until next Sunday. Look on the bright side: Now you’re free to listen to something else.
Nov 15 2008
Here are some of the posts of various Catholic bloggers from this past week that I found interesting:
Nov 14 2008
If you want to study the Eucharist, I can direct you to no better list of sources than the one Cardinal Arinze provides at the beginning of his book, Celebrating the Holy Eucharist:
It’s amazing what you can find on the Internet, isn’t it? And I have to say, if anyone were to read allof these docments, he or she would have a deep understanding of the Eucharist.
Nov 14 2008
Heather over at “The Practicing Catholic” offer two simple solutions:
Good stuff. Go read it.
Nov 13 2008
The three monotheistic religions of the world all profess there is only one God. But of these three, the Christian profession of God is fundamentally distinct.
Islam professes that the one divine nature subsists fully in one divine person — called Allah.
Judaism professes that the one divine nature subsists fully in one divine person — Yahweh.
Christianity, however, professes that the one divine person subsists fully in three distinct persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Now this teaching isn’t just some addendum to the Church’s teaching on God. Rather, the mystery of the Trinity stands at the heart of Catholic teaching. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says in paragraph 234:
The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the hierarchy of the truths of faith. The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin.
I could spend a long time talking about this passage. In fact, when I wrote a book on the Trinity (the first draft of which is sitting in my drawer) I spent the first chapter explaining this paragraph.
But all I want to say here is this: The Church doesn’t just teach that “the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life,” she practices it as well.
Consider: Only one prayer during Mass addresses God in the singular — the Confiteor: “I confess to almighty God . . . .” This is logical, of course, because when we sin we don’t just offend one of the Divine Persons, but, rather, all of the Divine Persons. So it is right, when we confess our sins, to address God in the singular.
But every other prayer at Mass addresses the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. When we sing the Gloria, we first praise the Father, then the Son, and then the Holy Spirit. When we pray the Creed, we first profess our faith in the Father, then in the Son, and then in the Holy Spirit. And all of the Eucharistic Prayers are addressed to the Father, reminding the Father of what his Son, Jesus Christ, for the sake of our salvation.
So never think that the Trinity isn’t an essential part of our faith. Rather, it is the most important part of our faith. So in your spiritual life, you should try to make the Trinity part of your prayer. Speak to the Father, speak to the Son, and speak to the Holy Spirit. It might seem odd at first, but soon you’ll develop a distinct relationship with each of them.
And if you find this post intriguing, I encourage you to hop on over to the “Jesus and the Catholic Church Podcast” and listen to the episode on the Trinity.
Nov 12 2008
If you read my small blog, you probably read Thomas Peters’ big blog, American Papist, and are well aware that he’s trying to win free money — a $10,000 scholarship, to be precise.
To help Thomas Peters get this money, all you have to do is go here and vote for him. That’s it.
So take ten seconds and do this. Then, when you’re finished voting for Thomas Peters, go to his blog and start reading it.
Nov 12 2008
I hope to get around to writing a post or two today, but just in case that doesn’t happen, I thought I’d share with you my all-time favorite chant.
Why is this my favorite chant? you ask. Not only is it one of the most beautiful hymns to our Eucharistic Lord, it was also written by St. Thomas Aquinas.
Nov 11 2008
Over the past few days, I’ve written a number of posts on the Divine Office, which is also called the Liturgy of the Hours. In writing these posts, my goal was simple: To provide enough information so that someone would be able to pick up a copy of Shorter Christian Prayer and begin praying along with the Church.
For your convenience, here’s an annotated list of these posts. If you’re looking for some guidance, these should be read more-or-less in order.
Nov 11 2008
Let’s say you have Shorter Christian Prayer and want to start praying the hours. How exactly should you go about it?
Before you can begin praying the Divine Office, you need to know which Week of the Psalter you should be praying. The Office cycles through four weeks of prayers. To determine which week you should be praying, you have to know which liturgical week the Church is in. In other words, you can’t just start on Week 1. Remember, the Divine Office is not a private prayer. Even if you say it by yourself, you are still praying along with the Church. And since the Church follows a liturgical calendar, your praying of the Office must also follow that calendar.
If We’re In Ordinary Time
1. To determine which liturgical week the Church is in, go to the daily Mass Readings provided by the USCCB and click on the current date.
2. Under the calendar date itself, it will tell you the Church’s date. This will be either the name of a feast (Memorial of Saint Martin of Tours, bishop) or the numerical liturgical week of the Church (Friday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time).
3. If you see the numerical liturgical week of the Church, you’re set. If you see the name of a feast day, you’ll have keep clicking on the different days of the week until you get the numerical liturgical week.
4. Open your copy of Shorter Christian Prayer to page 503, the beginning of Ordinary Time, and find the corresponding Sunday of that liturgical week. For example, if it’s the 15th week of Ordinary Time, you’ll find the 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time on page 518.
5. Underneath the bold heading, in red letters, it will tell you which week from the psalter to read. For example, if it’s the 15th Week of Ordinary time, you will pray Week 3.
6. Turn to the corresponding week in the psalter, and then find the current day of the week (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, etc.).
7. Begin praying!
If We’re Outside of Ordinary Time
1. To determine which liturgical week the Church is in, go to the daily Mass Readings provided by the USCCB and click on the current date.
2. Under the calendar date itself, it will tell you the Church’s date. This will be either the name of a feast (Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary) or the numerical liturgical week of the Church (Tuesday of the Second Week of Advent).
3. If you see the numerical liturgical week of the Church, you’re set. If you see the name of a feast day, you’ll have keep clicking on the different days of the week until you get the numerical liturgical week.
4. Open to Sunday of Week One of the psalter, on page 37. In the middle of the page, in red print it will read:
Advent:
Lent, 1st Sunday:
Lent, 5th Sunday:
Easter, 5th Sunday:
(Note: the four weeks of the psalter correspond to the four week of Advent)
If you see the numerical liturgical week listed there, you’re set. If you don’t see the numerical liturgical week listed here, turn to Sunday of Week Two of the psalter, on page. 111. If you don’t see numerical liturgical week listed on page 111, then turn to Sunday of Week Three, and, if necessary, Sunday of Week Four.
5. Now find the current day of the week (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, etc.).
6. Begin praying!
I’m Ready to Begin Praying, Anything Else?
I have one final recommendation: Pray through the four-week psalter one time before trying to incorporate the feast days of the Church into your prayer. In other words, during your first month of praying the Office, you should have two goals: first, to get comfortable with praying the Office, and second, to get in the habit of praying Morning and Evening Prayers at a more-or-less fixed time. Once you have this down, then you can begin to worry about modifying the Office to fit the different feast days.
The Divine Office is a complicated prayer, and the last thing you want to do is to set it aside because you’ve become too frustrated. Once you master the basic structure of Morning and Evening Prayers as well as get in the habit of praying at fixed times, the initial shock of the the Office evaporates. You’ll then feel more confident to bring the Church’s feast days into your reading of the Office.
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Nov 11 2008
I just noticed that my link to Fr. Hardon’s article, “The Divine Office as a Form of Sacrifice,” isn’t working. When I went to fix it, I couldn’t pull up the article. As I looked around the Fr. John Hardon Archives, it seems that only a few of Fr. Hardon’s articles can be accessed. I emailed them, so hopefully it will be fixed soon. The article I link to about the Divine Office is worth reading.
UPDATE:
I just received the following email from The Real Presence — the website that hosts the Fr. John Hardon Archives:
Our Web Server Provider is experiencing problems — they are working on it — said it can take up to 24 hours to fix. It is goofy — you can get at some of the items on the website and not others. Sorry. Thanks for letting us know. God Bless!
Let’s hope it will be up soon.
Nov 10 2008
In this episode of the Jesus and the Catholic Church Podcast, we use Luke 1.35 as our springboard for discussing the doctrine of the Trinity. We see what the Trinity is the most important truth of Christianity. We discuss the academic, yet necessary, distinction between the “immanent Trinity” and the “economic Trinity.” We see that we know that God is a trinity of persons through the revelation of Jesus Christ. We seek to understand the notions of “nature” and “person” in order to understand the doctrine itself. And finally, we discuss how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, though always acting in unity, have distinct roles in the acts of creation, redemption, and sanctification.
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Nov 10 2008
Here is an excellent article by the late Fr. John Hardon on the discipline it takes to pray the Divine Office (the Liturgy of the Hours). Not everything he says can be applied to the individual recitation of the Office. However, much of it is applicable.
The two kinds of sacrifice that I find most challenging are the sacrifice of time . . .
This kind of sacrifice again differs immensely with different people, and for some no doubt it hardly seems to be a sacrifice at all. It all depends on what a person is doing, or could be doing, or would be doing at the precise time when the call is given for the recitation of the Divine Office.
Time, it has been said, is our most precious commodity after the grace of God. Wise men are miserly of this time, and saints have been careful not to waste any time, seeing how little we have of this priceless possession, and how quickly it runs out or better, how quickly time is running headlong into eternity.
In order to make the sacrifice of time, spent as we say on the Divine Office, we must be sure that no time could be better expended. We must, if necessary, steel ourselves to the conviction that after the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice, the time surrendered to the Divine Office is most acceptable to God.
. . . and the sacrifice of sentiments . . .
Closely associated with the foregoing is the sacrifice of sentiments when we pray the Liturgy of the Hours.
What would normally be on my mind or in my heart might be far removed (even as prayer) from what, e.g., the Psalm that I am singing bids me to think and, as it were, tells me to desire.
Yet, out of love for God and in deference to His Church I subordinate my personal sentiments to those which the Church wants me to have. I submit my mind to the Church’s mind in praying what, for the present, she wants me to ask of God, and not what I might prefer if I had my choice in the matter.
I may be feeling sad, and the prayers of the Office tell me to be glad. I may be feeling glad, and the prayers of the Office tell me to mourn for the sins of the world. I may have a strong attraction for the Savior in His heavenly glory, and the Office may require that I sacrifice these sentiments to turn instead to the Savior’s bloody Passion.
So it goes, and so it is. But that is precisely what the recitation of the Office requires of the Church’s faithful who have learned to give up even their deepest interior feelings in conformity with the Church’s directives seeing that these directives come through the Church from Christ Himself.
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Nov 10 2008
Here’s a little cheat sheet to help you say Morning and Evening Prayers.
Opening for Morning Prayer: the Invitatory for Morning Prayer: “Lord, open my lips. And my mouth shall proclaim your praise.” Recite the antiphon. Then recite either psalm 95, 100, 67, and 24. If said privately, you do not have to repeat the antiphon between the stanzas. Close with the Glory Be, and then repeat the antiphon.
Opening for Evening Prayer: the standard opening for evening prayer is: “God, come to my assistance. Lord, make haste to help me.” Then the Glory Be. Close with “Amen. Alleluia.”
Hymn: recite, sing, or chant; remember liturgical seasons.
The Three Psalms: open each with the antiphon, recite the psalm, recite the Glory Be, say the psalm-prayer (if there is one), close by repeating the antiphon.
Reading
Reponsory: If praying the hours by yourself, you don’t have to “respond” if the response is a repetition. Here’s an example. Recite everything except that which is crossed out.
My God stands by me, all my trust is in him.
– My God stands by me, all my trust is in him.
I find my refuge in him, and I am truly free;
– all my trust in is him.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit
– My God stands by me, all my trust is in him.
Gospel Canticle: Canticle of Zachariah during Morning Prayer, Canticle of Mary during Evening Prayer. Say antiphon, recite canticle, recite Glory Be, repeat antiphon.
Intercessions. Read as written. I sometimes add my own intercessions after reading the formal ones.
Our Father
Concluding Prayer
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Nov 09 2008
Nov 09 2008
Due to a mismanagement of time, Jesus and the Catholic Church Podcast: Episode 6: The Trinity, will not be available until late tonight (Sunday, 11/9) — at the earliest. I need to finish writing the episode; I need to edit the script; I need to record it; I need to edit the recording; then I need to prepare the post itself. Come to think of it, hoping I can get it up today is probably a fool’s hope. We’ll just have to wait and see.
