Showing posts with label North Quabbin Catholic Community. Show all posts
Showing posts with label North Quabbin Catholic Community. Show all posts
Friday, August 01, 2014
North Quabbin Catholic Community and satanic pride...
In a post which may be found here, Gregory Dipippo notes how, "The fourth Sunday of Lent, John XXIII was once again among the crowd, at Ostia. (about 15 miles to the south-west of Rome.) Thousands of people were waiting for him along the street, in the piazza, in the church. They wanted to see him, to applaud him. They did not know that afterwards, he would rebuke them, in a good-natured way, in his simple , spontaneous, familiar way of speaking.
“I am very glad to have come here. But if I must express a wish, it is that in church you not shout out, that you not clap your hands, and that you not greet even the Pope, because ‘templum Dei, templum Dei.’ (‘The temple of God is the temple of God.’)
Now, if you are pleased to be in this beautiful church, you must know that the Pope is also pleased to see his children. But as soon as he sees his good children, he certainly does not clap his hands in their faces. And the one who stands before you is the Successor of St. Peter.”
Readers of this Blog know that when I advised the North Quabbin Catholic Community that applause during the Liturgy is not appropriate, I was banned from the Church's Facebook page and ostracized. See here. To this day, the North Quabbin Catholic Community cannot admit that applause doesn't belong in the temple of God and I remain banned for defending sound liturgical rubrics and authentic Catholic teaching.
Our Lady has spoken to Father Gobbi many times about the satanic pride which is crippling humanity and so dangerously threatmening it. On December 8, 1993, she told Father Gobbi, "Satan has deceived this entire poor humanity, bringing it so far away from God and building for it idols of his own perversion: money, pride, egoism, amusement and impurity. And so humanity is today greatly threatened by violence, hatred, rebellion and war. During these years, you will see the great chastisement, with which the justice of God will purify this world, which has become a thousand times worse than at the time of the flood and so very possessed by evil spirits.....Satan has also entered into the interior of the Church and has succeeded in darkening her splendor. With the darkness of sin, he has obscured the splendor of her holiness; with the wound of division, he has made an attack upon the strength of her unity; with the spread of errors, he has stricken her in her proclamation of the truth.."
On May 13, 1993, Our Lady told Father Gobbi, "The powers which are directing and arranging human events, according to their perverse plans, are the dark and diabolic powers of evil. They have succeeded in in bringing all humanity to live without God. They have spread everywhere the error of theoretical and practical atheism. They have built the new idols before which humanity is bowing down in adoration: pleasure, money, pride, impurity, mastery over others, and impiety. Thus, in these years of yours, violence is spreading more and more. Egoism has made the hearts of men hard and insensitive. Hatred has blazed up like a scorching fire. Wars have multiplied in every part of the world, and you are now living in the danger of a terrible world war which will bring destruction to peoples and nations, a war from which no one will emerge victorious. Satan has succeeded in entering into the Church, the new Israel of God. He has entered there with the smoke of error and sin, the loss of faith and apostasy, of compromise with the world and the search for pleasure. During these years, he has succeeded in leading astray bishops, priests, religious and faithful.."
Today we are living in the most decadent, violent and faithless period in the history of mankind. But many cannot see this because they have succumbed to satanic pride. Satan fell in love with his own beauty and wound up rebelling against God and leading other angels to do the same, drawing them to Hell. Today, bishops, priests, religious and laity, puffed up with satanic pride, have become enamored with themselves and their "intellectual prowess." And like their master, the father of all lies (John 8: 44), these too are now rebelling against God and His Holy Church. These sons of Hell spend much of their waking hours contradicting Sacred Scripture, denying dogma and popularizing immorality. These pseudo-intellectuals arrogantly divinize man's intellect while ridiculing the Word of God. Saint Paul spoke of these disciples of Lucifer in 2 Timothy 4: 1-4: "I charge you to preach the word, to stay with this task whether convenient or inconvenient - correcting, reproving, appealing - constantly teaching and never losing patience. For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but, following their own desires, will surround themselves with teachers who tickle their ears. They will stop listening to the truth and will wander off to fables."
In Romans 1, Saint Paul emphasizes the fact that there is a connection between a refusal to acknowledge and obey God and a subsequent degeneration of morality. And yet, with all the sex abuse scandals within the Church and all the sexual immorality and dissent, there has been very little discussion about this truth. False worship and pride in one's own intellect cause spiritual blindness and subject men to the destructive and degrading drives of fallen nature - most especially in the area of sex. Saint Paul tells us that people who fall into such spiritual blindness begin to encourage others to do so. And so infidelity spreads like a cancer.
If we are to remain steadfast in the faith, we must continue to rely only on the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of His Mother. As Father Lorenzo Scupoli reminds us, "Distrust of yourself is so necessary in the spiritual combat that, without it, you may be assured that you will neither gain the desired victory, nor be able to overcome even the weakest of your passions. You must be firmly convinced in your mind that this is the case, for, through our natural conception, we are too prone to make a false estimate of ourselves. Although we are absolutely nothing, we persuade ourselves that we are something and presume without the slightest foundation on our own strength." (Spiritual Combat, p. 11, Sophia Institute Press).
Jesus has said it: "Without Me, you can do nothing." Do we really believe this? Do we remind ourselves every day that without Him we can do nothing, that we are nothing? We are like a puff of smoke, a blade of grass - here today and gone tomorrow. Do we, insignificant creatures that we are, dare to question or challenge Almighty God? Do we dare to contradict the Son of Man and His Church? If so, then we are either unbelievers or demoniacs.
And His Word is not in us.
Wednesday, July 09, 2014
More on the North Quabbin Catholic Community and its discrimination against Catholics faithful to the Magisterium
Well how disheartening, I just found this real ........ Anthony... Paul Melanson who has a blog and has nothing better to do than to slam Fr. Kris Korcz every chance he gets. The horrid , hateful things he said were disgusting. Well I stuck up for our Pastor and let this........ have it. I wonder why he thinks he is so perfect??? I want to go punch him, but I won't , I will try to be the better person. What is the matter with people???? Claiming to be so Christian and say horrible things about people. Praying for him to see the error of his ways. See More
Several years before his death, Pope John Paul II made a point out of reminding Catholics that there is room for constructive criticism in the Church. His words were lost on some however. Among those who reject this idea are those who seek to ingratiate themselves with their pastor. For such people, their pastor can do no wrong. Even if he's molesting innocent children or promoting dissent from Church teaching. In their zeal to defend and shield their pastor from any criticism (no matter how constructive or charitably put), these Catholics succumb to a prejudice which obscures objective judgment and which greatly reduces their intellectual horizon. To put it simply, such people become narrow-minded in an eminent sense.
Very often haughtiness is a factor in the rejection of constructive criticism. The haughty person (or the group which believes itself to be "above any criticism") will, in the words of Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand, "find it intolerable to feel dependent on other persons, to serve others, to subordinate himself to an alien will, and above all, to suffer ever so slight a humiliation. He is unable to admit before others of having been in the wrong, even if he knows it in his heart; much less could he prevail on himself to ask anybody's forgiveness. He is stricken with a crabbed anxiousness about preserving his dignity..."
In his Encyclical Letter Christifidelis laici, No. 37, Pope John Paul II wrote, "The dignity of the person constitutes the foundation of the equality of all people among themselves. As a result, all forms of discrimination are totally unacceptable."
Authentic Christian love (which is often very difficult to find in some parishes) rejects the discrimination which faith finds unacceptable. Vatican II teaches us that:
"The disposition of a human person toward God the Father and his or her disposition toward fellow human beings are so connected that Scripture says: 'Whoever does not love does not know God' (1 Jn 4:8). The foundation therefore is taken away from any theory or practice which leads to discrimination, between one person and another or between one nation and another, with respect to human dignity and the rights flowing from it" (Nostra Aetate, No. 5).
Therefore, as Gaudium et Spes of Vatican II says, love requires avoiding "every form - whether social or cultural - of discrimination with respect to the fundamental rights of persons, whether on the basis of sex, race, color, social condition, language, or religion" (No. 29). Of course, this is not an exhaustive list. There are many other factors which are often used to rationalize discrimination or injustices: such as nationality, wealth, health, physical or mental capacity, age, and even one's personal appearance.
The Church has a responsibility, a moral duty, to reach out to everyone. And any unjust discrimination must be avoided since such is incompatible with an authentic Catholic faith.
Many Catholics are treated with scorn at their parish - or simply ignored - because they accept, promote and defend the Church's Magisterial teaching. Often those at the parish level forget that loving everyone in Jesus with the same Christian love means acknowledging the same human dignity shared by all who are called to be God's children and avoiding all discrimination with respect to every basic human right.
This same love must extend to each individual person's entire being, including all his or her diverse gifts and particular potentialities. St. Paul addresses this point in 1 Corinthians 13. And, in Chapter 12, he explains how communion should exist in Jesus' one body, which is the Church, among members who possess diverse and complementary gifts which pertain to their personal vocations:
"Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good...
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body - Jews or Greeks, slaves or free - and we were all made to drink of one Spirit." (1 Cor. 12:4-7; 12-13).
This point has been lost on the North Quabbin Catholic Community. They have adopted an attitude which Jesus explicitly rejects in the Gospels:
"John said to him, "Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us." Jesus replied, "Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not against us is for us." (Mk. 9: 38-40).
Rather than viewing those of us who fully adhere to the Church's Magisterial teaching with respect and treating us with dignity, the North Quabbin Catholic Community has succumbed to a progressive "Catholicism" (which is counterfeit in nature) which is imbued with hatred and violence and which seeks to exclude rather than to unite.
Monday, July 07, 2014
The "pastoral" team at Our Lady Immaculate Parish in Athol: Promoting an atmosphere of hatred and violence
Last September, I noted how Deacon Scott Colley, the administrator (at least at the time if not still so) of the Facebook page for the North Quabbin Catholic Community, which includes several parishes in and around Athol, Massachusetts, banned me for taking issue with the applause which often breaks out during Holy Mass at Our Lady Immaculate Parish in Athol. See here. And back in 2011, I disagreed with Father Krzysztof Korcz when he blamed parents as being the sole cause of the lack of vocations and the exodus of young people from Catholic life. See here. Lastly, I noted how Father Krzysztof Korcz conducted a 'Cluster Survey" which included suggestions that the parish become "more tolerant" in its preaching (no need to mention any of that pesky Hell and sin business) and that it model itself after the Paulist Center - a bastion of radical homosexual agitprop which The Weekly Standard described (see here) as the place, "where people who hate the Church go to church." See here.
In one of his last homilies, Archbishop Oscar Romero, the martyred Archbishop of San Salvador, said: "A preaching that does not point out sin is not the preaching of the gospel. A preaching that makes sinners feel good so that they become entrenched in their sinful state, betrays the gospel's call. A preaching that does not discomfit sinners but lulls them in their sin leaves Zebulun and Naphtali in the shadow of death. A preaching that awakens, a preaching that enlightens -- as when a light turned on awakens and of course annoys a sleeper -- that is the preaching of Christ, calling, "wake up! Be converted!" this is the church's authentic preaching. Naturally, such preaching must meet conflict, must spoil what is miscalled prestige, must disturb, must be persecuted. It cannot get along with the powers of darkness and sin."
We've had enough of a preaching which leaves Zebulun and Naphtali in the shadow of death. We've had enough of a Cotton-Candy Catholicism which offers Chicken-Soup Homilies and asinine theatrics rather than the solid meat of sound preaching and liturgical reverence. Sadly, so many of our priests haven't caught on to this. And so they continue to spoon-feed us the unsatisfying pablum.
The time for lying is over. I have been saying this for years. Back in 2009, Archbishop Charles Chaput noted that, "40 years of American Catholic complacency and poor formation are bearing exactly the fruit we should have expected...We can't talk about following St. Paul and converting our culture until we sober up and get honest about what we've allowed ourselves to become. We need to stop lying to each other..." (See here).
The lying must stop. For this to happen, we need priests and Bishops who fear God more than they do men. Cowards will not lead us out of the valley of death. Only shepherds who have the spiritual strength, the Cardinal Gift of Fortitude, to brave the risk of worldly criticism, will be able to lead the American Catholic Church out of the valley of the Culture of Death and back on the road to the Civilization of Love which Pope John Paul II spoke of so often.
Why have so many priests succumbed to fear? Why is it that their preaching no longer points out sin? Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange provides us with an answer:
"The reason for this is not difficult to find. A sermon is the result of the combined effort of all the priest's powers; it reveals his entire person; it is his struggle against the vices of the surrounding world." In other words, if the preaching is unsound, it is because the priest's spiritual life is unsound. Fr. Lagrange continues, "Everything in the priest cooperates in his preaching - study, reflection, his powers to compose and revise, the activity of his intellect, his imagination, his memory, his feelings, his voice. Therefore, when he preaches, the priest stands exposed for all to study; some will be attracted, others will not. Some will accept what he says, others will simply criticize. So if the priest approaches his task from the human angle, he will say to himself: 'I cannot afford to lose my reputation; people of weight in the parish who take offense easily must be spared their feelings and not provoked; I must proceed warily so as not to incur criticism.' In that way Christian eloquence is invaded by a profane eloquence in which the preacher looks after his own interests, not the glory of God or the saving of souls." (The Priest In Union With Christ, p. 156).
I've never been a fan of lying. And this because Our Lord tells us that the Devil is the Father of all lies (John 8:44), If it's lying you want, this Blog is not for you. Forty years of lying has wrought so much damage to the American Catholic Church. Archbishop Chaput is right, we are merely reaping the fruit of what we've planted. St. Paul tells us that, "...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.." (Galatians 5: 22). But what fruit have we witnessed in the American Catholic Church? The Church has been infected with dry-rot as so many Catholics have succumbed to the works of the flesh.
We need heroic shepherds. Men who, like Blessed Miguel Pro, S.J., are willing to give their very lives for the Catholic Church and her teaching.
Because I do not believe in lying; because I believe in standing up for the Church's Magisterial teaching at all cost (and I have paid dearly), I have been banned from the Facebook Page of the North Quabbin Catholic Community which is now engaging in libel against me while publishing posts which threaten violence against my person. And this from a community which regularly sings the song "All are welcome." Yes....as long as they dissent from Church teaching or are not "too faithful" to the Magisterium.
Now the North Quabbin "Catholic" Community has published an angry post written by Kathleen M. Progen [no doubt because Father Krzysztof Korcz has been removed from Our Lady Immaculate and replaced as pastor - after the Bishop received numerous complaints about him from disaffected parishioners] in which she slanders me by falsely asserting that I have said "hateful things" which were "disgusting" and then writes, "I want to go punch him....praying for him to see the error of his ways." And the North Quabbin Catholic Community responds: "I have blocked him from this page." To which Ms. Progen, a pillar of Catholic charity and welcoming herself, replies, "Thank you, whoever blocked him. I wonder if he will have the guts to answer my chastising note to him.."
One can almost hear Ms. Progen at Our Lady Immaculate loudly singing:
Let us build a house
where love can dwell
And all can safely live,
A place where
saints and children tell
How hearts learn to forgive.
Built of hopes and dreams and visions,
Rock of faith and vault of grace;
Here the love of Christ shall end divisions;
Let us build a house where prophets speak,
And words are strong and true,
Where all God's children dare to seek
To dream God's reign anew.
Here the cross shall stand as witness
And a symbol of God's grace;
Here as one we claim the faith of Jesus:
Let us build a house where love is found
In water, wine and wheat:
A banquet hall on holy ground,
Where peace and justice meet.
Here the love of God, through Jesus,
Is revealed in time and space;
As we share in Christ the feast that frees us:
All are welcome, all are welcome,
All are welcome in this place.
This even as she engages in calumny while proclaiming her desire to commit violence against me. Father Peter Carota is right, progressive "Catholicism" is dying. It is no match for authentic love as found in traditional Catholicism.
http://lasalettejourney.blogspot.com/2014/04/father-peter-carota-traditional.html
If the North Quabbin Catholic Community is in crisis today, it is no mystery. Young people are not attracted by hatred and violence. It is Gospel values they thirst for. Thus far, the NQCC has offered not wheat but chaff. And young people sense this.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Deacon Scott Colley of Our Lady Immaculate Parish in Athol bans me for defending reverence in the liturgy
Albert Drexel, in Ein Neuer Prophet? (Stein am Rhein: Christiana, 1971) explains
that: "The modernism or neo-modernism within Christianity, and
especially within the Roman Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council, is
above all characterized by a turning away from the supernatural and an exclusive
predilection for this world, the Aggiornamento of Pope John XXIII
interpreted one-sidedly and hence misapplied. Teilhard's ideology was was a
definitive precondition for this. Inasmuch as he turned his back to the past,
fused God and the supernatural with the process of a universal evolutionism, and
proclaimed religion to be an active participation in a progressive development
ending in Point Omega, the basis was given for a humanist cult of the secular."
(p. 115).
In the New World Order, man will no longer believe in a God whom he cannot control. Man will worship himself and his new leader who will, like Hitler, be deified: the man spoken of by Saint Paul as the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition.
The new worship which is emerging is man-centered. And it is reflected in various liturgical actions such as banal pop-style music "concerts" and spontaneous applause over human achievement. Pope [Emeritus] Benedict XVI - while still Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger - wrote a book entitled "The Spirit of the Liturgy," in which he warned that, "Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment. Such attractiveness fades quickly - it cannot compete in the market of leisure pursuits, incorporating as it increasingly does various forms of religious titillation...Liturgy can only attract people when it looks, not at itself, but at God, when it allows him to enter and act. Then something truly unique happens, beyond competition, and people have a sense that more has taken place than a recreational activity." (The Spirit of the Liturgy, Ignatius Press, pp. 198-199).
Since Vatican II, we have entered the time of wretched idolatry prophesied by the Fathers of the Church - for they emphasized the corruption of the liturgy which would prevail just prior to Antichrist during the last days. The Holy Mass is valid in her essence. But years of reckless tinkering with sacred realities has produced a mediocrity-ridden liturgy, a shallow show which has distracted from the holy while driving the faithful out the doors or so weakening their faith that they find themselves paralyzed before the current zeitgeist. Emptied churches, convents and seminaries does not a reform make.
On many occasions during the liturgy at Our Lady Immaculate Parish in Athol, Massachusetts [Diocese of Worcester],the entire atmosphere has been more akin to a circus than a solemn liturgy. I am reminded of the words of the Psalmist:
"Why, God, have you cast us off forever? Why does your anger burn against the sheep of your pasture? Remember your people, whom you acquired of old, the tribe you redeemed as your own heritage, Mount Zion where you dwell. Direct your steps toward the utter destruction, everything the enemy laid waste in the sanctuary.Your foes roared triumphantly in the place of your assembly; they set up their own tokens of victory. They hacked away like a forester gathering boughs, swinging his ax in a thicket of trees. They smashed all its engraved work, struck it with ax and pick. They set your sanctuary on fire, profaned your name’s abode by razing it to the ground. They said in their hearts, “We will destroy them all! Burn all the assembly-places of God in the land!” Even so we have seen no signs for us, there is no prophet any more, no one among us who knows for how long. How long, O God, will the enemy jeer? Will the enemy revile your name forever? Why draw back your hand, why hold back your right hand within your bosom? Yet you, God, are my king from of old, winning victories throughout the earth. You stirred up the sea by your might; you smashed the heads of the dragons on the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan, gave him as food to the sharks.You opened up springs and torrents, brought dry land out of the primeval waters. Yours the day and yours the night too; you set the moon and sun in place. You fixed all the limits of the earth; summer and winter you made. Remember how the enemy has jeered, LORD, how a foolish people has reviled your name. Do not surrender to wild animals those who praise you; do not forget forever the life of your afflicted. Look to your covenant, for the recesses of the land are full of the haunts of violence. Let not the oppressed turn back in shame; may the poor and needy praise your name. Arise, God, defend your cause; remember the constant jeering of the fools. Do not forget the clamor of your foes, the unceasing uproar of your enemies." (Psalm 74)
After leaving the above quotation from then Cardinal Ratzinger's book The Spirit of the Liturgy at the Facebook page of the North Quabbin Catholic Community, Deacon Scott Colley, who manages the Facebook page, blocked me from participation. And this as he preaches on the importance of being a "welcoming parish." Welcoming apparently to anyone except those devout Catholics who hold onto tradition and a spirit of reverence in the liturgy.
This comes as no surprise. For not once have I witnessed a spirit of prayer in Deacon Colley. He usually arrives at the last moment before Mass and may be seen conversing with friends rather than preparing for Mass. Reverence is the basis of all true personality. Dr. Hildebrand explains: "The significance of reverence for the full personality can easily be grasped. The greatest natural endowment, the greatest latitude of talents and capacities can never lead to true personality if reverence is lacking. For the latter is the basis of the second essential component of personality, the perceiving of values, an organic contact with the world of values, and - most ultimate of all - the dying to oneself, the preparation of inner room for Christ. The man without reverence is necessarily flat and limited. This lack is an essential mark of stupidity. Even he whose mind is obdurate and helpless, but who possesses reverence, does not manifest that offensive, tactlessly persistent stupidity of which it is said that 'even the gods struggle against it in vain.'" (Liturgy and Personality, pp. 50-51).
Because lack of reverence may have two roots, Dr. Hildebrand notes that, "..there are two different types of men who lack reverence: the arrogant person and the senseless, blunt one. The root of the first is to be found in pride. The man who lacks reverence because of pride and arrogance approaches everything with conceit and presumption, imagines that he knows everything, that he sees through everything. He is interested in the world only insofar as it serves his self-glorification, insofar as it enhances his own importance...He thinks himself always greater than that which is not himself. The world holds no mystery for him. He treats everything tactlessly, with easy familiarity, and everything seems to him to be at his disposal. To his insolent, conceited gaze, to his despotic approach, the world is sealed, silent, stripped of all mystery, deprived of all depth, flat and limited to one dimension. He stands in desolate emptiness, blind to all the values and secrets of being, circling endlessly around himself...
There is however another form of irreverence, one which is born of concupiscence. The concupiscent man is interested in the world only as a means of procuring pleasure for himself. His is a dominating position in the face of being - not because he wills domination as such but because he wants to use being for his pleasure. He, too, circles around in the narrowness of his own self. He does not face the world with arrogance and conceit but with a blunt stupidity. Stubbornly imprisoned in his own self, he violates being, and seeing it only from the outside, he thus misses its true meaning. To this type of irreverent man the world also refuses to disclose its breadth, height, and depth, its richness of values and mysteries." (Liturgy and Personality, pp. 49-50).
Rather then engaging in knee-jerk hatred against my person for insisting upon reverence in the liturgy, perhaps Deacon Colley should examine his own attitude toward the Holy Mass and his motivations in banning me from participation in the life of the parish?
In the New World Order, man will no longer believe in a God whom he cannot control. Man will worship himself and his new leader who will, like Hitler, be deified: the man spoken of by Saint Paul as the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition.
The new worship which is emerging is man-centered. And it is reflected in various liturgical actions such as banal pop-style music "concerts" and spontaneous applause over human achievement. Pope [Emeritus] Benedict XVI - while still Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger - wrote a book entitled "The Spirit of the Liturgy," in which he warned that, "Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment. Such attractiveness fades quickly - it cannot compete in the market of leisure pursuits, incorporating as it increasingly does various forms of religious titillation...Liturgy can only attract people when it looks, not at itself, but at God, when it allows him to enter and act. Then something truly unique happens, beyond competition, and people have a sense that more has taken place than a recreational activity." (The Spirit of the Liturgy, Ignatius Press, pp. 198-199).
Since Vatican II, we have entered the time of wretched idolatry prophesied by the Fathers of the Church - for they emphasized the corruption of the liturgy which would prevail just prior to Antichrist during the last days. The Holy Mass is valid in her essence. But years of reckless tinkering with sacred realities has produced a mediocrity-ridden liturgy, a shallow show which has distracted from the holy while driving the faithful out the doors or so weakening their faith that they find themselves paralyzed before the current zeitgeist. Emptied churches, convents and seminaries does not a reform make.
On many occasions during the liturgy at Our Lady Immaculate Parish in Athol, Massachusetts [Diocese of Worcester],the entire atmosphere has been more akin to a circus than a solemn liturgy. I am reminded of the words of the Psalmist:
"Why, God, have you cast us off forever? Why does your anger burn against the sheep of your pasture? Remember your people, whom you acquired of old, the tribe you redeemed as your own heritage, Mount Zion where you dwell. Direct your steps toward the utter destruction, everything the enemy laid waste in the sanctuary.Your foes roared triumphantly in the place of your assembly; they set up their own tokens of victory. They hacked away like a forester gathering boughs, swinging his ax in a thicket of trees. They smashed all its engraved work, struck it with ax and pick. They set your sanctuary on fire, profaned your name’s abode by razing it to the ground. They said in their hearts, “We will destroy them all! Burn all the assembly-places of God in the land!” Even so we have seen no signs for us, there is no prophet any more, no one among us who knows for how long. How long, O God, will the enemy jeer? Will the enemy revile your name forever? Why draw back your hand, why hold back your right hand within your bosom? Yet you, God, are my king from of old, winning victories throughout the earth. You stirred up the sea by your might; you smashed the heads of the dragons on the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan, gave him as food to the sharks.You opened up springs and torrents, brought dry land out of the primeval waters. Yours the day and yours the night too; you set the moon and sun in place. You fixed all the limits of the earth; summer and winter you made. Remember how the enemy has jeered, LORD, how a foolish people has reviled your name. Do not surrender to wild animals those who praise you; do not forget forever the life of your afflicted. Look to your covenant, for the recesses of the land are full of the haunts of violence. Let not the oppressed turn back in shame; may the poor and needy praise your name. Arise, God, defend your cause; remember the constant jeering of the fools. Do not forget the clamor of your foes, the unceasing uproar of your enemies." (Psalm 74)
After leaving the above quotation from then Cardinal Ratzinger's book The Spirit of the Liturgy at the Facebook page of the North Quabbin Catholic Community, Deacon Scott Colley, who manages the Facebook page, blocked me from participation. And this as he preaches on the importance of being a "welcoming parish." Welcoming apparently to anyone except those devout Catholics who hold onto tradition and a spirit of reverence in the liturgy.
This comes as no surprise. For not once have I witnessed a spirit of prayer in Deacon Colley. He usually arrives at the last moment before Mass and may be seen conversing with friends rather than preparing for Mass. Reverence is the basis of all true personality. Dr. Hildebrand explains: "The significance of reverence for the full personality can easily be grasped. The greatest natural endowment, the greatest latitude of talents and capacities can never lead to true personality if reverence is lacking. For the latter is the basis of the second essential component of personality, the perceiving of values, an organic contact with the world of values, and - most ultimate of all - the dying to oneself, the preparation of inner room for Christ. The man without reverence is necessarily flat and limited. This lack is an essential mark of stupidity. Even he whose mind is obdurate and helpless, but who possesses reverence, does not manifest that offensive, tactlessly persistent stupidity of which it is said that 'even the gods struggle against it in vain.'" (Liturgy and Personality, pp. 50-51).
Because lack of reverence may have two roots, Dr. Hildebrand notes that, "..there are two different types of men who lack reverence: the arrogant person and the senseless, blunt one. The root of the first is to be found in pride. The man who lacks reverence because of pride and arrogance approaches everything with conceit and presumption, imagines that he knows everything, that he sees through everything. He is interested in the world only insofar as it serves his self-glorification, insofar as it enhances his own importance...He thinks himself always greater than that which is not himself. The world holds no mystery for him. He treats everything tactlessly, with easy familiarity, and everything seems to him to be at his disposal. To his insolent, conceited gaze, to his despotic approach, the world is sealed, silent, stripped of all mystery, deprived of all depth, flat and limited to one dimension. He stands in desolate emptiness, blind to all the values and secrets of being, circling endlessly around himself...
There is however another form of irreverence, one which is born of concupiscence. The concupiscent man is interested in the world only as a means of procuring pleasure for himself. His is a dominating position in the face of being - not because he wills domination as such but because he wants to use being for his pleasure. He, too, circles around in the narrowness of his own self. He does not face the world with arrogance and conceit but with a blunt stupidity. Stubbornly imprisoned in his own self, he violates being, and seeing it only from the outside, he thus misses its true meaning. To this type of irreverent man the world also refuses to disclose its breadth, height, and depth, its richness of values and mysteries." (Liturgy and Personality, pp. 49-50).
Rather then engaging in knee-jerk hatred against my person for insisting upon reverence in the liturgy, perhaps Deacon Colley should examine his own attitude toward the Holy Mass and his motivations in banning me from participation in the life of the parish?
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Our Lady Immaculate Parish in Athol: Losing Their Religion?
As I said in a previous post, "While the Church respects freedom of conscience and shuns any form of coercion, our Holy Father reminds us that, "We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires. We, however, have a different goal: the Son of God, the true man. He is the measure of true humanism. An "adult" faith is not a faith that follows the trends of fashion and the latest novelty; a mature adult faith is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ. It is this friendship that opens us up to all that is good and gives us a criterion by which to distinguish the true from the false, and deceit from truth."
This dictatorship of relativism seeks to impose its immoral agenda on Christians in the name of "tolerance." But this "tolerance" is a sham. It is simply an attempt to make an idol out of a false conception of freedom. Again, our Holy Father explains that, "..what clearly stands behind the modern era's radical demand for freedom is the promise: You will be like God...The implicit goal of all modern freedom movements is, in the end, to be like a god, dependent on nothing and nobody, with one's own freedom not restricted by anyone else's...The primeval error of such a radically developed desire for freedom lies in the idea of a divinity that is conceived as being purely egotistical. The god thus conceived of is, not God, but an idol, indeed, the image of what the Christian tradition would call the devil, the anti-god, because therein lies the radical opposite of the true God: the true God is, of his own nature, being-for (Father), being-from (Son), and being-with (Holy Spirit). Yet man is in the image of God precisely because the being-for , from, and with constitute the basic anthropological shape. Whenever people try to free themselves from this, they are moving, not toward divinity, but toward dehumanizing, toward the destruction of being itself through the destruction of truth. The Jacobin variant of the idea of liberation...is a rebellion against being human in itself, rebellion against truth, and that is why it leads people - as Sartre percipiently observed - into a self-contradictory existence that we call hell. It has thus become fairly clear that freedom is linked to a yardstick, the yardstick of reality - to truth*. Freedom to destroy oneself or to destroy others is not freedom but a diabolical parody. The freedom of man is a shared freedom, freedom in a coexistence of other freedoms, which are mutually limiting and thus mutually supportive: freedom must be measured according to what I am, what we are - otherwise it abolishes itself."
This truth seems to have been forgotten by parishioners at Our Lady Immaculate Parish in Athol, Massachusetts. Among the responses to a "Cluster Survey" (Clint Eastwood's character in Heartbreak Ridge would have called it something else), are the following suggestions: The Church needs to address facts that this age group [20-40] is practicing birth control and divorce, More tolerance (especially in preaching) - this one is particularly disturbing since there are never homilies addressing the sinfulness of abortion, contraception, fornication, homosexuality etc, Teach less theology, Model after Paulist Center in Boston and be "more open and loving" as opposed to "old-time/rigid/closed-minded."
The parish bulletin insert which lists these responses goes on to say that volunteers are requested to evaluate and implement the suggestions.
One can just imagine how that's going to proceed.
Model the parish after the Paulist Center in Boston? Never mind that the Paulist Center is a hotbed of dissent from Church teaching and a center for homosexual agitprop. See here. More tolerance in preaching? Again, the priests at Our Lady Immaculate have not been preaching against sin as it is. But tolerance is for external conduct, it is not for the mind. The mind cannot tolerate error for an instant. Error and truth are not equally good. And Catholics are supposed to be on the side of truth.
If Our Lady Immaculate Parish in Athol is losing the 20-40 age group (and it is), it's not because the Gospel has been preached there. It's because it hasn't been. Young people are naturally idealistic. They are hungry for truth - even, and especially, the hard truths. But Our Lady Immaculate Parish - as with many other parishes which have embraced a liberal "gospel" - has only offered spiritual pablum. The youth need wheat not chaff.
And the parish "leadership" has failed to produce.
Related reading here.
This dictatorship of relativism seeks to impose its immoral agenda on Christians in the name of "tolerance." But this "tolerance" is a sham. It is simply an attempt to make an idol out of a false conception of freedom. Again, our Holy Father explains that, "..what clearly stands behind the modern era's radical demand for freedom is the promise: You will be like God...The implicit goal of all modern freedom movements is, in the end, to be like a god, dependent on nothing and nobody, with one's own freedom not restricted by anyone else's...The primeval error of such a radically developed desire for freedom lies in the idea of a divinity that is conceived as being purely egotistical. The god thus conceived of is, not God, but an idol, indeed, the image of what the Christian tradition would call the devil, the anti-god, because therein lies the radical opposite of the true God: the true God is, of his own nature, being-for (Father), being-from (Son), and being-with (Holy Spirit). Yet man is in the image of God precisely because the being-for , from, and with constitute the basic anthropological shape. Whenever people try to free themselves from this, they are moving, not toward divinity, but toward dehumanizing, toward the destruction of being itself through the destruction of truth. The Jacobin variant of the idea of liberation...is a rebellion against being human in itself, rebellion against truth, and that is why it leads people - as Sartre percipiently observed - into a self-contradictory existence that we call hell. It has thus become fairly clear that freedom is linked to a yardstick, the yardstick of reality - to truth*. Freedom to destroy oneself or to destroy others is not freedom but a diabolical parody. The freedom of man is a shared freedom, freedom in a coexistence of other freedoms, which are mutually limiting and thus mutually supportive: freedom must be measured according to what I am, what we are - otherwise it abolishes itself."
This truth seems to have been forgotten by parishioners at Our Lady Immaculate Parish in Athol, Massachusetts. Among the responses to a "Cluster Survey" (Clint Eastwood's character in Heartbreak Ridge would have called it something else), are the following suggestions: The Church needs to address facts that this age group [20-40] is practicing birth control and divorce, More tolerance (especially in preaching) - this one is particularly disturbing since there are never homilies addressing the sinfulness of abortion, contraception, fornication, homosexuality etc, Teach less theology, Model after Paulist Center in Boston and be "more open and loving" as opposed to "old-time/rigid/closed-minded."
The parish bulletin insert which lists these responses goes on to say that volunteers are requested to evaluate and implement the suggestions.
One can just imagine how that's going to proceed.
Model the parish after the Paulist Center in Boston? Never mind that the Paulist Center is a hotbed of dissent from Church teaching and a center for homosexual agitprop. See here. More tolerance in preaching? Again, the priests at Our Lady Immaculate have not been preaching against sin as it is. But tolerance is for external conduct, it is not for the mind. The mind cannot tolerate error for an instant. Error and truth are not equally good. And Catholics are supposed to be on the side of truth.
If Our Lady Immaculate Parish in Athol is losing the 20-40 age group (and it is), it's not because the Gospel has been preached there. It's because it hasn't been. Young people are naturally idealistic. They are hungry for truth - even, and especially, the hard truths. But Our Lady Immaculate Parish - as with many other parishes which have embraced a liberal "gospel" - has only offered spiritual pablum. The youth need wheat not chaff.
And the parish "leadership" has failed to produce.
Related reading here.
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Rev. Krzysztof Korcz of Our Lady Immaculate Parish in Athol blames parents for the exodus from today's parishes
During a homily given at the 10 AM Mass at Our Lady Immaculate Parish in Athol, Massachusetts, Fr. Krzysztof Korcz noted how churches are emptying and closing everywhere and laid the blame almost entirely on parents for not imparting Gospel values to their children. But Our Lady has placed the responsibility elsewhere. In an interior locution to Fr. Stefano Gobbi of the Marian Movement of Priests, Our Lady said that, "The cause of such a vast diffusion of errors and of this great apostasy rests with unfaithful pastors. They remain silent when they should speak with courage to condemn error and to defend the truth. They do not intervene when they should be unmasking the rapacious wolves who, hidden beneath the clothing of lambs, have insinuated themselves into the flock of Christ. They are mute dogs who allow their flocks to be torn to pieces...."
To whom much has been given, much will be required (Luke 12:48). How quickly some priests forget this as they attempt to shift the blame for virtually everything that goes wrong in the Church to the laity, and especially parents. This is not, of course, to excuse those parents who have in fact neglected to pass along the faith to their children or who have been poor examples of what it means to be Christian. But we have had more than our share of priests who have failed miserably to sanctify others and to provide a model of holiness.
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., whom many consider to have been one of the finest theologians of the 20th century, a Dominican who was a master of the spiritual life, explains in his book "The Priest In Union With Christ, that "St. Thomas writes: 'They who belong to the divine ministry assume a royal dignity and ought to be perfect in virtue' (cf. IV Sent., dist. 24, q. 2); this is also repeated in the Pontifical (Cf. Suppl. Summae Theol., q. 35, a. 1,2, de Ordine). And thus priestly Ordination is certainly superior to religious profession. This sacramental grace of Holy Orders is a modal reality added to habitual grace, which gives the priest a right to receive all the actual graces he needs for an increasingly holier celebration of the Mass. See the Imitation of Christ, Bk. iv, c. 5: 'Thou art made a priest and art consecrated to celebrate; see now that faithfully and devoutly, in due time, thou offer up the sacrifice to God, and that thou show thyself blameless. Thou hast not lightened thy burden, but art now bound by a stricter bond of discipline and obliged to greater perfection of sanctity. A priest ought to be adorned with all virtues and set the example to others of a good life.'...the priest's special obligation to tend to perfection is confirmed by his duties toward the Mystical Body of Christ. He is called upon to sanctify others by preaching the word and by spiritual direction both inside and outside the confessional." (The Priest In Union With Christ, pp. 54-55).
But many priests today are not preaching the word. They are not instructing the faithful. Many have abandoned prayer. And this has led to a satanic pride which resulted in priests abusing innocent and vulnerable children. We read in Galatians 5: 22-23 that: "..the fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity." But as Fr. Lagrange notes, "In contrast to the spirit of God, the spirit of the Devil at first lifts the soul to the heights of pride and then plunges it down into turmoil and despair, just as the Devil himself sinned through pride and is now condemned to an eternity of despair and hatred of God...humility is never encouraged by this spirit, for it gradually distorts the soul's vision to see itself greater than anyone else. Almost unconsciously it makes the prayer of the Pharisee its own: 'O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men...as also this publican" (Luke 18: 11). (The Priest In Union With Christ, pp. 238, 239).
It is this spirit of pride which has infected much of the clergy in our time. And it is pride which goes before a fall. Although the priesthood "has been instituted for the good of men and the communion of the Church" and "The Lord said clearly that concern for his flock was proof of love for him" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1551), so many of the clergy have not shown any concern for Christ's flock. They have not preached the hard truths which the People of God need to hear. One Worcester-area priest was actually encouraging some of his parishioners to remain in a sinful lifestyle (see here), another gave a homily, broadcast over Gardner, Massachusetts radio, denigrating Our Lady (see here).
The fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity." But corruption of dogma and the works of the flesh are the work of the evil spirit.
To whom much has been given, much will be required (Luke 12:48). How quickly some priests forget this as they attempt to shift the blame for virtually everything that goes wrong in the Church to the laity, and especially parents. This is not, of course, to excuse those parents who have in fact neglected to pass along the faith to their children or who have been poor examples of what it means to be Christian. But we have had more than our share of priests who have failed miserably to sanctify others and to provide a model of holiness.
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., whom many consider to have been one of the finest theologians of the 20th century, a Dominican who was a master of the spiritual life, explains in his book "The Priest In Union With Christ, that "St. Thomas writes: 'They who belong to the divine ministry assume a royal dignity and ought to be perfect in virtue' (cf. IV Sent., dist. 24, q. 2); this is also repeated in the Pontifical (Cf. Suppl. Summae Theol., q. 35, a. 1,2, de Ordine). And thus priestly Ordination is certainly superior to religious profession. This sacramental grace of Holy Orders is a modal reality added to habitual grace, which gives the priest a right to receive all the actual graces he needs for an increasingly holier celebration of the Mass. See the Imitation of Christ, Bk. iv, c. 5: 'Thou art made a priest and art consecrated to celebrate; see now that faithfully and devoutly, in due time, thou offer up the sacrifice to God, and that thou show thyself blameless. Thou hast not lightened thy burden, but art now bound by a stricter bond of discipline and obliged to greater perfection of sanctity. A priest ought to be adorned with all virtues and set the example to others of a good life.'...the priest's special obligation to tend to perfection is confirmed by his duties toward the Mystical Body of Christ. He is called upon to sanctify others by preaching the word and by spiritual direction both inside and outside the confessional." (The Priest In Union With Christ, pp. 54-55).
But many priests today are not preaching the word. They are not instructing the faithful. Many have abandoned prayer. And this has led to a satanic pride which resulted in priests abusing innocent and vulnerable children. We read in Galatians 5: 22-23 that: "..the fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity." But as Fr. Lagrange notes, "In contrast to the spirit of God, the spirit of the Devil at first lifts the soul to the heights of pride and then plunges it down into turmoil and despair, just as the Devil himself sinned through pride and is now condemned to an eternity of despair and hatred of God...humility is never encouraged by this spirit, for it gradually distorts the soul's vision to see itself greater than anyone else. Almost unconsciously it makes the prayer of the Pharisee its own: 'O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men...as also this publican" (Luke 18: 11). (The Priest In Union With Christ, pp. 238, 239).
It is this spirit of pride which has infected much of the clergy in our time. And it is pride which goes before a fall. Although the priesthood "has been instituted for the good of men and the communion of the Church" and "The Lord said clearly that concern for his flock was proof of love for him" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1551), so many of the clergy have not shown any concern for Christ's flock. They have not preached the hard truths which the People of God need to hear. One Worcester-area priest was actually encouraging some of his parishioners to remain in a sinful lifestyle (see here), another gave a homily, broadcast over Gardner, Massachusetts radio, denigrating Our Lady (see here).
The fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity." But corruption of dogma and the works of the flesh are the work of the evil spirit.
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