Pages

Saturday, January 08, 2011

Controversial Commercial: Feed the Flock

An entry in a Super Bowl Doritos ad contest is causing a stir.  Is this any more offensive than the regular liturgical abuses one receives on a week to week basis?


I mean, this is just a silly ad.  What is happening in the real-life parishes?  Why aren't people complaining about pulling those "ads." 




Funny how when the media need to portray religion ... its never Minister Bob and his Protestant flock.  Roman Catholics are not even the majority in this country yet we get maximum play from Hollywood/Madison ave.


Sunday, January 02, 2011

What is Up with That Part II: Slap Chop

In the second dreary installment of a series we take a simplistic view of the Mass readings in the USA in the Ordinary Rite of the Mass (Novus Ordo Missae).

Tha first installment of the series was posted a year ago and it left me thoroughly disheartened.  If I had had the time I was going to create compendium of the diabolical edits to the Scriptures performed by the USCCB and then do an analysis of any commonalities to draw a fair-minded conclusion.  To be frank, I did it one week, already saw the pattern and gave up on it.  I didn't even feel like blogging anymore so I spent the rest of the year playing dopey Novus Ordo lay person (something I'm good at.)

The final stake in the heart of that plan (to play dopey Novus Ordo possum) was when my parish switched out the music of the Mass my family liked to go to ... such that normally staid, reserved organ music was displaced by head-bopping guitarists and their hip swinging female groupies.  I was trapped.  And so, back to the salt mines of blogging while I drag my spiritually battered body into the local Tridentine Mass these days as a sort of spiritual anti-venom from the Modernist neurotoxins which have passed into my eyes and ears.

Like last time,

Something that has troubled me about the New Mass, and I don't know if this goes on in other countries .. well right there .. the idea that there are different readings in different countries breaking the whole concept of "Catholic" but there is something weird going on with the readings. If you look at the readings selected on any given Sunday, the passages chosen are always broken up, missing sentences, somewhat nonsensical.
This time ... it is the Responsorial Psalm.  I suppose I should be grateful because the parish I was visiting actually used the prescribed Responsial Psalm prescribed by the Bishops and did not alter it due to a preference a differnt tune that the folk/pep band had been jamming on that week. 

Slap Chop pitch man

According to the USCCB the Responsorial Psalm for this Epiphany Sunday was Psalm 72: 1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13.  Now out of defence to our dear Bishops who have threatened prosecution of copyright infringement violations against blogs for using their New American Bible, I'll stick with Douay Rheims to do the analysis.  This passage is Psalm 71 in the D-R but the verse numbers match up.
 
Oh, what evil did the holy slap-chop Scriptures editors in D.C. shield the tender ears of the innocent laity from?  The permitted Psalm verses are in black and the excised are in red.
1 A psalm on Solomon. 2 GIVE to the king thy judgment, O God: and to the king's son thy justice: To judge thy people with justice, and thy poor with judgment. 3 Let the mountains receive peace for the people: and the hills justice. 4 He shall judge the poor of the people, and he shall save the children of the poor: and he shall humble the oppressor. 5 And he shall continue with the sun, and before the moon, throughout all generations. 6 He shall come down like rain upon the fleece; and as showers falling gently upon the earth. 7 In his days shall justice spring up, and abundance of peace, till the moon be taken away. 8 And he shall rule from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. 9 Before him the Ethiopians shall fall down: and his enemies shall lick the ground. 10 The kings of Tharsis and the islands shall offer presents: the kings of the Arabians and of Saba shall bring gifts: 11 And all kings of the earth shall adore him: all nations shall serve him. 12 For he shall deliver the poor from the mighty: and the needy that had no helper. 13 He shall spare the poor and needy: and he shall save the souls of the poor. 

Ah, HA!  The excised verses show the Psalmist painting an even-handed nature to God whose judgement will be universal, the poor will be delivered but they will be judged, too.  And even God's enemies will fall down and lick the ground that God Himself created. 

Without the excised verses one gets a twisted, uneven picture, only seeing vindication for the poor.

Conclusion:

1. The USCCB supplied readings are mangled, manipulated and exhibit the worst mistake that all protestants make .... taking snippets from the Bible to misconstrue points

2. There's a theme and reason for the omissions. Theme: [The Bishops] are false witnesses to God, their viewpoint smacks of dialectical materialism. ( I will keep coming back to the main theme of what is chopped so in the end of this little weekly excercise we can see what's in the Bible that the Bishops hate.) Theme: The Bishops want to inject a quasi-Marxist framework (more on this in the next post.)  The reject the even-handedness of the lord, so much so that they cannot stand a verse which mentiones the judgement rendered on the poor.

3. There's a theme and reason for the omissions. Verse 9 challenges the moderist tenet of universal salvation (to include obstinate heretics.)  That verse was obviously too much for the USCCB and they are seeking to deceive the laity. 

Saint Jerome, ora pro nobis.

De-mystifying the Faith with an Anti-Antiphon

Having coursed through endless tracts analyzing the Ordinary Rite of the Church (Novus Ordo Missae) which seek to contend that the Mass is a false one, something occurred to me.  The Novus Ordo Missae, itself, does not claim any efficacy of its consecration of the bread in the Body of the Lord.

There's no need to troll through didactic texts and interpretations and talk of Councils and what was meant.  The Rite itself does the job. How?

Reading the Eucharistic Prayer II of the Mass from the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops provides the objective evidence.

It reads: 102.

In the formulas that follow, the words of the Lord should be pronounced clearly and distinctly, as the nature of these words requires.

At the time he was betrayed
and entered willingly into his Passion,
He takes the bread
and, holding it slightly raised above the altar, continues:
he took bread and, giving thanks, broke it,
and gave it to his disciples, saying:
He bows slightly.


TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND EAT OF IT,
FOR THIS IS MY BODY,
WHICH WILL BE GIVEN UP FOR YOU.


He shows the consecrated host to the people, places it again on the paten, and genuflects in adoration.

103. After this, he continues:
In a similar way, when supper was ended,
He takes the chalice
and, holding it slightly raised above the altar, continues:
he took the chalice
and, once more giving thanks,
he gave it to his disciples, saying:


He bows slightly.


TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND DRINK FROM IT,
FOR THIS IS THE CHALICE OF MY BLOOD,
THE BLOOD OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL COVENANT,
WHICH WILL BE POURED OUT FOR YOU AND FOR MANY
FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS.
DO THIS IN MEMORY OF ME.


He shows the chalice to the people, places it on the corporal, and genuflects in adoration.
No problem so far (they even corrected that persistent error in the consecration of the chalice so that it poured out for the MANY.)
 
But what happens next during the Mass?  
             104. Then he says:
The mystery of faith.


And the people continue, acclaiming:


We proclaim your Death, O Lord,
and profess your Resurrection
until you come again.
Or:
When we eat this Bread and drink this Cup,
we proclaim your Death, O Lord,
until you come again.
Or:
Save us, Savior of the world,
for by your Cross and Resurrection
you have set us free.
Now if the priest had just consecrated the host .... why would the laity be singing "when we eat this bread" ?   Who is eating bread?  Where is this bread? There's not supposed to be any more bread.  Why would the laity be forced to sing about bread?  Presuming that the priest believes that the host has been consecrated into the Body of Our Lord ... why would the laity be forced into this heretical antiphon?

On a side note, who is drinking the cup?  We're supposed to be drinking His Blood.  I suppose one could "drink of the cup." But no, this says drinking the cup, as if the cup were a liquid itself. And since we don't drink the cup (that's impossible) and we don't eat bread at Mass (it was confected perfectly) .... is it true that "We proclaim Your Death."

Seems like, in this Mass which was to guarantee active participation of the laity, they're cut out of all the action.

In conclusion, this antiphon condemns the Mass to error or condemns the laity to error.


Another interesting side note: The online Cambridge Dictionary did not even carry the word ANTIPHON.