Glorious St. Joseph.

Hope of the sick,

Patron of the dying,

Terror of demons,

Protector of Holy Church, 

Back in 2009 I made a PODCAzT - ELEVEN YEARS AGO?!? - about the hymn sung in the Liturgy of Hours in honor of St. Joseph.

That post eventually was augmented with photos sent by The Great Roman™ of a terrific procession in honor of St. Joseph in the streets of Rome.  HERE  Happier times.

And last year from the Great Roman... I don't think he will easily get them this year.

Bigne di San Giuseppe

Check it out! 

I drilled into a beautiful Gregorian chant hymn to St. Joseph in the Liturgia Horarum, the Liturgy of the Hours.

The hymn is Te, Ioseph celebrent and it is in the Liber Hymnarius for 1st and 2nd Vespers for the Feast of St. Joseph.

Also of note, Fr. Hunwicke has comments about his hymn at his fine blog, HERE.

Also we listened to an indulgenced prayer written by Pope Leo XIII, Ad Te Ioseph.

Finally, we hear St. Bernardine of Siena (+1444) preach on our Patron of the Universal Church who is Patron of the dying.

Buy a Liber Hymnarius!  US HERE UK HERE

In this PODCAzT I read for you the Latin version of the extract from the traditional Rituale Romanum of A Prayer In Times of Epidemics (RR Tit. IX. Ch. X).

It really should be done in Latin.

These devotions and the use of Latin slipped away.  I can’t help but think that this was systematically and purposely stripped out of the church’s life to weaken our Catholic identity and to make us more susceptible to the winds of the world with its shifting fads and mores.   It won’t be easy to recover ourselves and our sense of ourselves.  That’s why I try to help by reading the Latin of some of these rites, such as traditional baptism or exorcism and blessings of holy water and the like.  If you need help with something, Fathers, let me know.

Meanwhile, let’s beat this damned virus down into the dust with self-discipline and mighty prayers.

We hear some music by Giovanni Gabrieli, Music For San Rocco.  San Rocco is a great patron of the sick and an intercessor in time of plague.   And, for music, there's a surprise at the end.

US HERE - UK HERE

As a favor to a friend, I'll repost this old podcast.  It is the Eve of the Feast of St. Agnes, which of course reminds us of the famous poem by Keats.

I, fan of poetry that I am, read out Keat's poem, 42 Spencerian stanzas.  It is torrid and lush, with marvelous moments and imagery, imbued with the revival of romantic, courtly love which was coming back into vogue in the early 19th century.

The poem takes inspiration from a superstition, which I explain in an introduction.

The Eve of St Agnes would inspire the Pre-Raphaelites, as a matter of fact.

Speaking of Pre-Raphaelites, one of their circle, was Christina Rossetti, a poet in her own right.

Christina Rossetti wrote a poem which later was made into a Christmas carol: In the Bleak Midwinter.  We are still within the Christmas cycle until Candlemas.

At Epiphany we Latins have - traditionally - chanted a solemn proclamation of the key liturgical dates or movable feasts for the new year of salvation, just begun.

This underscores how these dates and seasons are all interconnected.

The liturgical year is a reflection of and on the mystery of our salvation.  And, never forget, the mysteries shape us. We are our rites.

Some liturgical dates are movable. For example Septuagesima, in 2019, fell on 17 February. This beginning of Pre-Lent doesn’t fall on the same date every year because the date of Easter changes each year.  In 2020 it will fall on 9 February.

“But Father! But Father!”, you libtards are surely sputtering.  “What does this chant sound like? Do it in English like the spirit of Vatican II wanted!   But you won’t because YOU HATE VATICAN II!”

We will use Latin on Epiphany, of course.

Here is what it sounds like, in case some deacon or priest out there, less familiar with chant, wants to give it a shot.  It sounds rather like the Exultet, sung at the Easter Vigil.  The Noveritis is a little awkward in parts.

You can find a printable PDF of the Noveritis 2020 HERE.  NB: It has Ascension Thursday on the correct day!

Fathers.  Here is how to sing the Noveritis for 2020, on Epiphany.  I'll take it slowly so that you can get it into your ears.

Here is ADVENTCAzT 02, for Monday in the 1st Week of Advent.

Today Bp. Schneider talks about how Christ's friends make Him suffer, Fulton Sheen reflects on how God would work in us and the Lord describes something of the End Times.

These 5 minute offerings are a token of gratitude especially for my benefactors.  Thank you!  Chime in if you listened.

Have an idea for a reading in these podcasts?  HERE   Make some Mystic Monk Coffee and have a listen!

PS: These podcasts should also be available through my iTunes feed, though maybe not immediately. Let me know how you are listening.  Through the plugin on this post? Through iTunes? Downloading?   Did you enjoy what you heard?  DONATE

We welcome as our guest... Peter Kwasniewski and an article he recently posted at LifeSite about Communion in the hand.

Not long ago, surveys from the Pew Research center uncovered that a huge number of Catholics do not believe in the Church's teaching about transubstantiation. This is so even among regular church goers. It seems to me that this could only be so among regular church goers, slightly more likely to have had a little catechesis of value, that the have seen with they own eyes for decades the lack reverence shown by priests and congregants for the Eucharist. Rather, they have not see much reverence shown for the Eucharist from priests or coreligionists. Hence, because lex orandi lex credendi, because they way we pray has a reciprocal relation with what we believe, they just don't believe that under the appearance of bread and wine we have Christ whole and entire, Body Blood Soul and Divinity. They see hosts treated casually, handled by anyone and everyone, literally handled, and they conclude that the hosts must not be that important. They hear the suboptimal music, see the cheap vestments, watch the sloppy ministry at the altar, note the fact that everyone goes to communion without a single admonishment about confession, and they conclude that the Host isn't much after all. Very many people have come to see Communion as, "they put the white thing in our hand and then we sing a song". Communion is a sign of nonjudgmental affirmation a sign that you are in the club.

A major contributor to the diving numbers who believe the Church's teaching on the Eucharist has to be distribution of Communion in the hand. The conga line style, and the gimme gesture to sticking hands out, the fact that hordes of the non-ordained themselves troop up to tabernacles and altars and take sacred vessel all diminish what should be, contrarily, built up and augmented with all possible decorum and gravity. You can't blame people for not believing. They've not been handed down what to believe and how.

At LifeSite, there is a good piece by Peter Kwasnieski dated  26 November 2019: Debunking the myth that today’s Communion in the hand revives an ancient custom

That was one of the canards raised by the innovators, a false archeologizing legitimization of protestant style Communion. They said that in the ancient church that's how it was done, hence, we should do it too. That ignores entirely the fact that, over centuries, as our understanding of the Eucharist grew, so did our rites surrounding the Eucharist. As we learned more and appreciated more and more God's gift, we adjusted our practice. So, when we see a backsliding to Communion in the hand, we know that something is not right. Moreover, Communion in the hand was not, in the ancient, as advertised.

I am going to read this article by Kwasniewski. Some of you don't have a lot of time to read. Some of you have a hard time reading. But you can listen. This information deserves wider distribution. And you can always go to the site and print the piece and hand it out.

As you listen, tune your ear for .... I'll try to mark off the quotes so they are easier to identify.

You hear in this PODCAzT the wonderful Benedictine nuns of Gower Abbey.  US HERE - UK HERE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

(ROME) In a surprise move international recording star and global warming expert ZUHLIO has emerged from retirement at the request of a subgroup of the drafting committee of the initial third working group of the Synod ("walking together) of Bishops formed to Save Amazonian Pagan Statues (SAPS).

Zuhlio, feeling the pain of so many, consented to record a sure-fire hit to make some money, of course, but also in memory of callous boosting of several Pachamama statuettes and their insensitive tossing into the Tiber River.   It is Zuhlio's hope that all will be consoled by this song.

"Don't be sad," a tearful Zuhlio told our correspondent, "Surely they've gone to a better place now.  After doing so much for so many, they can finally rest."

The official Parodohymnodist is the best!

And don't forget the hit from the last Synod ("walking together") on the Family.

UPDATE:

I figured I needed to do more, after I read that.  So, here is an old recording I made of a chaplet of the Most Holy Rosary using the Joyful Mysteries.   I didn't include the "Fatima Prayer" because there seem to be different versions in Latin (it wasn't not composed in Latin, of course).  I've heard some interesting Latin versions out there.  Hopefully, this will help.

 

Yesterday I posted a facetious story about Kukulkan coming to the Vatican... though t'aint that funny, given what we've seen lately.  That was from The Onion.

This morning I received a text... "Is this from The Onion?"

Nope... it's from CNA... no, I couldn't make this up.  Note the involvement of Jesuits:

Vatican promotes 'smart rosary,' selling for $109

Vatican City, Oct 15, 2019 / 09:44 am (CNA).- The Vatican promoted the launch of a ‘smart rosary’ bracelet Tuesday compatible with an iOS and Android app, which costs over $100.

“In a world of indifference and in the face of so many injustices, poverty, elementary rights denied, praying for peace in the world means reconciling ourselves in our daily relationships, with the poorest, with the stranger, with different cultures and spiritual and religious traditions, but also with our land, our forests, our rivers and oceans,” Fr. Frédéric Fornos, SJ said in a press release sent by the Holy See Press Office Oct. 14. [The Press Office, yet.  So someone is backing this.  Wonder why?]

“The rosary is a beautiful spiritual tradition for contemplating the Gospel with Mary, it is a simple and humble prayer,” he said.

The “eRosary” bracelet is activated by making the sign of the cross, and is synced to an app, “Click to Pray eRosary” that tracks the user’s progress and contains visual aids and audio reflections on the mysteries of the rosary. [And what might they include?  How do the want to form people's prayer of the Rosary?]

The bluetooth and water-resistant digital rosary is currently available for pre-order sale on Amazon.it for 99 euros, roughly $109. It is sold by “Click to Pray” -- an initiative of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network.  [Hmmm... who are they, I wonder.]

Taiwan-based tech company GadgTek Inc (GTI) developed the “smart rosary” for the initiative.

Pope Francis launched the “Click to Pray” smartphone app in an Angelus address in January 2019, encouraging young people to download the app to pray the “Rosary of Peace.”

Among the “exclusive images and personalized content about the praying of the Rosary” contained in the app is a “themed” rosary option. Themes will include Laudato Si, migrants and refugees, vocations, and young people. [Nothing about the Amazon?]

“Aimed at the peripheral frontiers of the digital world where the young people dwell, the Click To Pray eRosary serves as a technology-based pedagogy to teach the young how to pray the Rosary, how to pray it for peace, how to contemplate the Gospel,” the Click to Pray press release said.  [Why promote people teaching people to pray the Rosary when you can have a environment themed app do it?]

Our mission is the truth. Join us!

Truth, huh?  How about some Veritatis splendor?  Oh, right... that's not fashionable anymore.

Laudato si theme?  Migrants and refugees theme?

Periferal frontiers?

I'll tell you who the perifery is now.  Traditional Catholics who don't want trendy themes constantly shoved down their throats.

I'm surprised that the Jesuit homosexualist activist lobby wasn't able to insert a sodomy theme in there.

eRosary?

How about this?   How about a Rosary that already has themes... perhaps the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious mysteries?

I call it...

rEalRosary

 

And it's already water-resistant.  WARNING: It is not tears resistant.

You can get one of these.  They are tough and practical.

You can get one of these.  They are beautiful and bequeathable.

I don't remember the exact locus of the image, perhaps The Lord of the Rings.

Today I go back to 8 October 2019 and a piece by Fr. Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, Cap., at The Catholic Thing: Pope Francis and Schism.   This is important.

Last night I heard at the official presentation of the book length interview Christus Vincit by Bp. Athanasius Schneider a talk by Roberto de Mattei about the role of lay people in The Present Crisis.  These fit together hand in glove.

So, I will read for you Fr. Weinandy's piece and give a brief summary of de Mattei's main points.   I could bring in a lot more, but this is enough for now.

I am sure you are starting to see signs everywhere.

Today's Roman Sunrise 17:19, Sunset 18:33.  The Ave Maria is fixed these days at 18:45.

Yesterday was about as perfect a Sunday as one could desire.  Not only was John Henry Newman canonized, but the weather was magnificent, everything one wants from an October day in Rome.  Mass was said, prayers recited, lunch obtained, time shared with a friend, an evening stroll was had, really bad sketches were attempted.

The only fly in the ointment was a laundry glitch.   I have no idea how this happened.  An enemy, perhaps, hath done it.   I washed my white beneath cassock shirts together with an entirely incompatible black ink pen.   Think 101 Dalmatians.   So, the next day I am still into spot treating and more washings.   I have almost every damned spot out.   How that pen came to be in that washing machine I cannot fathom.

Some sights from the day.  The Great Roman™ leading the congregation in the Rosary and Litany.

This is what it sounds like in this Roman church.  Let's hear the 5th Glorious Mystery and the Litany of Loreto.  It is the custom in Italy to say the Marian Litany after the Rosary.   It was mostly men, and young men too, saying the Rosary.   None of this weak-ass mealy-mouthed, cringe-worthy "pious voice".   And note the pace of the Litany.

Let's go straight to lunch.   Here are some fettucine with guanciale, artichoke, pecorino and mint.  Wow.

Ricciola (a fish) in cartoccio.

With both of these we had a wine I'd never experienced.  A dry Moscato di Terracina.  The Roman perked up when he saw it on the list, so it was a must try.

And for dessert... no, really, it was on the dessert menu ... ajo e ojo!

Believe me, aglio olio e pepperoncino is not easy to make.   Usually something is out of balance.  Otherwise, you wind up with a lake of oil in the bowl, which is just plain sloppy cooking.   True ajo e ojo should have slightly creamy finish, which is tricky to attain, almost as if butter was involved... but it isn't.  It comes from handling the dry pasta properly and... a secret.

I asked the chef (an instructor for Gambero Rosso) what he did and he revealed his technique.

Moving on, I saw a couple churches which are usually closed.  The first opens one day a month.  It is a little church dedicated to St. Catherine of Alexandria on the Piazza di Santa Caterina della Rota, and is the seat of a confraternity of men who once carried the sedia gestatoria of the Popes, the Palafrenieri.

This was originally called Santa Maria in Catarina and variations of that last, perhaps riffing on the word for "chain" since there were prisons nearby and, connected, there was a hospital for those who were ransomed from Islamic slavery.   They would leave their chains as ex voto offerings. It's an old parish, dating back to Urban III in 1186.    The present structure is baroque.

Some of the confrat gear.

Next, on the way to Mass, the little church of the Confraternity of the Butchers was open at the Piazza della Quercia (Oak Tree - to the left).

It's a little jewel, well maintained.

The TMSM must get a real faldstool.

Beautiful reliquaries.

The standard the butchers would carry in procession.  This is a Roman word, Beccai, for Macellai.

These guys were quite prestigious back in the day.  There were various "universities", like guilds, which participated in the governance of the City.  They also developed confraternities, which still exist, though the old guilds are long done away with.   The Butchers were famed for their surrounding and defense of an important image of Mary which was carried in processions.  Such was their service that Sixtus V gave them the privilege of freeing a prisoner condemned to death once a year, on 15 August.  Among those freed was certified wild child artist Benvenuto Cellini.

Here is the stone.  You should be able to right-click it for a larger version.

Some relics.