Latin Mass in Economically Depressed Areas

[Rosebud77]

SO you specifically do not think that the priest is currently enjoying eternal bliss in heaven in the presence of God?

Corporeally I am not saying it is a great thing…like we should want killings daily or whatever.

But the level of fear held within many is a fear that is one representing a lack of trust and love in the Lord.

I hear far too many who are oh so fearful, both unto themselves (in a purely human logic way) and worst of all many who seem to lack any twinge of God.

With God there is no fear. I don’t mean no sense, no reactions. But not this over the top apocalyptic we can’t leave our homes, false, illogical, un-statistical fear that plagues a world of instant news.

Not the point I was making. I have no fear my friend but I do have wisdom. I can do nothing for others if I am dead Oh dear that was a trap I fell into! But in war and hard times we need to take care of others. No I would nto leave home if there were a plague out there. My work is to stay alive to be of help to others. Walking wilfully into known danger is not of God. Trust in God and trust in people are two very different things.

A young woman here was told it was safe to go to Turkey, just before the coup. She walked out of her hotel to see soldiers with guns running towards her and of course went back inside… Wisdom…

I rarely drive at holiday weekends and never at night; too many drunk drivers here. Wisdom…I trust God, but trusting the wilful actions of fellow man is a different matter.

 

[adamhovey1988]

Having spent much of my life in the ghetto, and when I started going to the Catholic church (but not where I came into the Church), I even walked to church in the ghetto. I would go for walks at night, in the ghetto. I’m still alive. Met some very nice people. Including a very nice homeless man. My former pastor (retired) went to the Holy Land before I cam into the Church, someone asked him “aren’t you afraid of bombs going off there”? Fr., made a point which I thought was brilliant “bombs can go off anywhere”.

 

[otjm]

A little over a week ago, I warned the posters in this thread of the coming attacks on our churches. I was ignored, and pretty much ridiculed. I was told that churches were safe from violence.

This morning, a priest in Normandy, France, was brutally murdered and parishioners taken hostage during Mass.

Call me a conspiracy theorist, paranoid, or what have you. This is coming to the West, folks, and it is already here. I’ve asked before what the Church plans to do about this issue.

According to ABC News reporters, Brian McBride, Emily Shapiro, and Morgan Winsor:

"…The attack began when two people armed with knives entered a church in the city of Rouen, about 80 miles outside Paris, during morning Mass and took hostage six people — a priest, nuns and parishioners…One nun escaped and alerted police, who tried to start negotiations, the Paris prosecutor said.

The priest, who was 86 years old, was killed from stabs to the neck and torso, the Paris prosecutor said.

An 86-year-old worshiper was also stabbed, the Paris prosecutor said. The worshiper’s condition was not immediately disclosed.

One of the attackers had three knives, a handgun and a fake, aluminum-wrapped suicide vest, the Paris prosecutor said. The other attacker had a backpack with a fake explosive.

When the attackers went outside, they were shouting “Allahu akhbar,” the Paris prosecutor said, at which point they were “neutralized.” Both attackers were killed outside the church, said a representative for the French interior minister…"

France has about 10% population of Muslims, and having been far more involved in colonial control of foreign countries than the US, has built up a far longer history of hatred. They also are far more secularized than the US.

There are also 17,300 +/- parishes in the US. If you are going to an EF Mass in the US, you likely have a far smaller attendance than most other parishes (with perhaps a few exceptions of the EF). Statistically, the likelihood of a jihadist attack on your parish are into the negative numbers.

I understand the fear; but fear needs to be rationally based; otherwise it is simply an out-of-control emotion. France has a far higher statistical chance of another church being singled out than the US; and your parish is o far down the line as to have no chance at all.

As to a druggy catching someone in a cross fire or holding someone up and shooting them, the chances are higher; hover, that is absolutely nothing new at all and has no relationship to France of jihadist.

 

[Kielbasi]

Having spent much of my life in the ghetto, and when I started going to the Catholic church (but not where I came into the Church), I even walked to church in the ghetto. I would go for walks at night, in the ghetto. I’m still alive. ".

There are a lot of churches in the ghetto, and they aren’t often the site of shootings on Sunday morning. Plenty of ghetto dwellers are devout church goers- most are protestants but they are in the pews when the church bells are ringing.

Many people commute from the suburbs to ghetto churches that are associated with their ethnic group or for other reasons. The OP shouldn’t be running into any problems in an American ghetto on Sunday morning.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

Not the point I was making. I have no fear my friend but I do have wisdom. I can do nothing for others if I am dead Oh dear that was a trap I fell into! But in war and hard times we need to take care of others. No I would nto leave home if there were a plague out there. My work is to stay alive to be of help to others. Walking wilfully into known danger is not of God. Trust in God and trust in people are two very different things.

A young woman here was told it was safe to go to Turkey, just before the coup. She walked out of her hotel to see soldiers with guns running towards her and of course went back inside… Wisdom…

I rarely drive at holiday weekends and never at night; too many drunk drivers here. Wisdom…I trust God, but trusting the wilful actions of fellow man is a different matter.

Your first sentence I underlined makes no sense to me as a theologian. The dead in the beatific vision are assuredly active on behalf of others…which is corollary to the communio sanctorum.

As for the second sentence I underlined, do you realise, you have just placed a negative judgement on Saint Aloysius Gonzaga who died precisely because he was quite deliberately caring for victims of the plague that others were not caring for because of the danger? And Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati because he contracted polio while caring for contagion victims in the Turin of 1925 and in need of care? Those are but two out of countless examples from the lives of the saints. Indeed, the saints do willfully walk into known danger and it very much is of God.

Saint Isaac Jogues, who had been tortured and imprisoned by the First Nations Peoples of Canada, returned to North America after being provided with passage back to Europe by the Dutch. He came back to North America in order to take up again his missionary work in spite of clear and present danger as well as the personal sense that he would be martyred…as, indeed, he was.

 

[Rosebud77]

Your first sentence I underlined makes no sense to me as a theologian. The dead in the beatific vision are assuredly active on behalf of others…which is corollary to the communio sanctorum.

As for the second sentence I underlined, do you realise, you have just placed a negative judgement on Saint Aloysius Gonzaga who died precisely because he was quite deliberately caring for victims of the plague that others were not caring for because of the danger? And Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati because he contracted polio while caring for contagion victims in the Turin of 1925 and in need of care? Those are but two out of countless examples from the lives of the saints. Indeed, the saints do willfully walk into known danger and it very much is of God.

Saint Isaac Jogues, who had been tortured and imprisoned by the First Nations Peoples of Canada, returned to North America after being provided with passage back to Europe by the Dutch. He came back to North America in order to take up again his missionary work in spite of clear and present danger as well as the personal sense that he would be martyred…as, indeed, he was.

As I foretold!!! So sadly and uncharitably predictable…
and totally inappropriate and bordering on arrogant…

I am not a theologian. period. Not interested in past generations either. Clearly focussed on the here and now…and very practical. And eyes firmly on Jesus alone.

I am a very old and very sick lady who can do very little out there but can stay home and pray. And not be a burden to others… I spend in fact most of each day abed . Knitting for food for abandoned babies…

There are many many ways to give your life. You invalidate these. Shame on you young man!

There is a narro w borderline though between seeking martydom and being brave. Very narrow indeed…

In disaster and need each needs to see where they can give most; you seek to make the old and sick feel very mean and that is uncharitable in the extreme. You do not succeed with me… I feel very sorry for you actually…May the love of the Lord Jesus open and warm your heart. To His love…

 

[otjm]

As I foretold!!! So sadly and uncharitably predictable…
and totally inappropriate and bordering on arrogant…

I am not a theologian. period. Not interested in past generations either. Clearly focussed on the here and now…and very practical. And eyes firmly on Jesus alone.

I am a very old and very sick lady who can do very little out there but can stay home and pray. And not be a burden to others… I spend in fact most of each day abed . Knitting for food for abandoned babies…

There are many many ways to give your life. You invalidate these. Shame on you young man!

There is a narro w borderline though between seeking martydom and being brave. Very narrow indeed…

In disaster and need each needs to see where they can give most; you seek to make the old and sick feel very mean and that is uncharitable in the extreme. You do not succeed with me… I feel very sorry for you actually…May the love of the Lord Jesus open and warm your heart. To His love…

A) he is not young.

B) He is not arrogant; he responded to your post with clear and correct information which was just the opposite of your opinion. You were the one who suggested that going into harms way was “Walking wilfully into known danger is not of God.” You may not like that he pointed out the exact opposite by naming well-known saints, but you made the comment that it was “not of God”. He simply pointed out that these saints did exactly that; and you call it arrogance? It is called a fact, not an attitude.

C) he is a priest.

You are certainly welcome to post your opinions; and his comments had nothing to do with your age or any suggestion that you re not living out your life as a Catholic Christian in the best manner possible to you.

But arrogant? Nope. He is not.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

As I foretold!!! So sadly and uncharitably predictable…
and totally inappropriate and bordering on arrogant…

I am not a theologian. period. Not interested in past generations either. Clearly focussed on the here and now…and very practical. And eyes firmly on Jesus alone.

**I am a very old and very sick lady who can do very little out there but can stay home and pray. And not be a burden to others… I spend in fact most of each day abed . Knitting for food for abandoned babies…

There are many many ways to give your life. You invalidate these. Shame on you young man! **

There is a narrow borderline though between seeking martydom and being brave. Very narrow indeed…

In disaster and need each needs to see where they can give most; you seek to make the old and sick feel very mean and that is uncharitable in the extreme. You do not succeed with me… I feel very sorry for you actually…May the love of the Lord Jesus open and warm your heart. To His love…

Well, madame, I am an old and retired priest who is nearing the end of his earthly pilgrimage who visits this venue to answer a few questions each day, having contentedly left behind my theology lecture hall to the capable hands of the younger generation you seem to think me a part.

But, madame, one does not need to be a theologian to know the Communion of Saints. After all, you profess your faith in it every time you say the Apostles’ Creed.

In turn, I am very sorry for you…to hear that you are not interested in past generations, as you are missing out on a great treasure of the Church and the tremendous gift of Almighty God…the saints and blessed who accompany us, who inspire us, who encourage us, who intercede for us, and whose writings continue to instruct us and, ultimately, “this great cloud of witnesses spurs us on to victory” – and thus I look forward to meeting them in the relative near term. I cannot imagine how incredibly impoverished my life and my priesthood would have been without “the generations gone before marked with the sign of faith.”

I sincerely hope and pray for you that you might find that Peace of Christ which, as the Apostle Saint Paul writes, surpasses all understanding – and which I don’t find much in evidence in your words of virulent attack.

Nevertheless, the gift of the priesthood, that I have all too unworthily borne over these decades, I gladly use to bless you from afar and in wherever it is Providence has placed you.

The old and sick are capable of making more of a contribution than the young and healthy…a lesson you should know as we all learned from Pope Saint John Paul II, whose final years were surely the most fruitful of all. Even as the cloistered contemplatives show us by their vocation that a retired life of prayer and penance can accomplish more than this world dreams of.

And I bid you adieu as I don’t interact on the forum with those who are so lacking in even the most basic of civility.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

A) he is not young.

B) He is not arrogant; he responded to your post with clear and correct information which was just the opposite of your opinion. You were the one who suggested that going into harms way was “Walking wilfully into known danger is not of God.” You may not like that he pointed out the exact opposite by naming well-known saints, but you made the comment that it was “not of God”. He simply pointed out that these saints did exactly that; and you call it arrogance? It is called a fact, not an attitude.

C) he is a priest.

You are certainly welcome to post your opinions; and his comments had nothing to do with your age or any suggestion that you re not living out your life as a Catholic Christian in the best manner possible to you.

But arrogant? Nope. He is not.

Thank you for your kind and supportive words. I gladly send a blessing to you.

In point of fact, regarding the communio sanctorum and the activity of those in the beatific vision, I have begun to ask the intercession of the Abbé Hamel. I am quite touched by the things I have read about him. I may not live to see him beatified but the cause seems worthy to propose…and I hope the archbishop will pursue the matter. I even find myself wondering if we might not have been together at some point as I have spent time over the years in the Archdiocese of Rouen but it was more with Religious. I shall have to seek out a photo from his younger years.

In any event…Again, my thanks for your words.

 

[StGerardMajella]

There are also 17,300 +/- parishes in the US. If you are going to an EF Mass in the US, you likely have a far smaller attendance than most other parishes (with perhaps a few exceptions of the EF). Statistically, the likelihood of a jihadist attack on your parish are into the negative numbers. I understand the fear; but fear needs to be rationally based; otherwise it is simply an out-of-control emotion.

I don’t consider it an irrational fear. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, a jihadist was recently caught planning a mass gun shooting of a local Protestant church that has a very large congregation, not far from where I attend Latin Mass.

Just this past month, we have seen the most awful outbreaks of violence: the beheading of a priest at a French church, random knife attacks on trains, stabbings of mentally disabled people in Japan, shootings in night clubs, the driving of a truck to murder women and even little children in France, even a sniper assassinating policemen in Dallas, etc.

Everything is upside down. We all better get back to following Jesus, and fast.

 

[ProVobis]

I am not a theologian. period. Not interested in past generations either. Clearly focussed on the here and now…and very practical. And eyes firmly on Jesus alone.

I am a very old and very sick lady who can do very little out there but can stay home and pray. And not be a burden to others… I spend in fact most of each day abed . Knitting for food for abandoned babies…

There are many many ways to give your life.

Thank you for your service. Indeed there are many ways to give one’s life.

 

[ProVobis]

I don’t consider it an irrational fear.

It isn’t but fear can be used in a good way too.

Consider some of the places in Chicago, for example, where the Latin Mass was set up to save parishes and improve the neighborhoods. St. John Cantius is now flourishing and its neighborhood is vibrant again. (And the Cardinal who made this happen was Bernadin, surprise?)

 

[Michael_Francis]

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h244/corona_stellarum/Smilies/nun_slapping_ruler_hg_clr-1.gif
Thread closed pending review by Moderator Thomas Casey.

 

[Thomas_Casey]

The thread remains closed.

Remember, when speaking to any poster, we do so with respect. We do not label people. That respect is expected even more so when speaking to clergy and religious. Respectful speech and proper address of clergy and religious have been a tradition in the Catholic Church for 2,000 years.

Those who have spoken differently are the exception, not the rule.