Greetings Readers,
This week’s issue will be a short one, but there is much to discuss in the world of Catholic news. We are well into Lent now, our season of fasting, prayer, and penance in preparation for the Easter seasons. Many Catholics find even more cause to suffer with Our Lord this Lent as recent rules handed down in dioceses across the world place harsh restrictions on the Celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass.
And yet, while we live through this Lent, we also remember that we do so in faith and hope of the Easter to come.
Happy Reading!
No Room in the Inn For Traditional Catholics?
Because of recent guidelines handed down by the Dicastery for Divine Worship in Rome, bishops have moved to severely restrict the Traditional Latin Mass. Most harshly, the Dicastery has forbidden masses in the older rite to be said in Parish Churches, thereby exiling Catholics attached to the older right to gymnasiums, basements, and parish halls, or even shutting down mass in the older rite altogether. This is disheartening in wake of a synodal process that talks of welcome, listening, and inclusion even for various dissenting groups, but there is no welcome and no accompaniment for those attached to the older rite. They are exiled from parishes. And yet, St. Athanasius in the early Church found himself exiled from his Church, not once, but 5 different times. His words, encouraging faith and patience, still have much to offer us today. Read more here.
The Devil’s Bargain
After His baptism in the Jordan, Our Lord was led into the desert to be tempted by the devil. The devil tempted Him to avoid suffering, turn these stones into bread, to test God and win men by cheap thrills, throw yourself down, and to even to worship the devil in exchange for the world, all these will be yours if you fall down and worship me. Like Our Lord, we too are often tempted by the devil and the bargains he offers. We, unlike Christ, are tempted from within and without. In a host of ways, we risk giving in to the devil’s offer to help us avoid suffering, loss, unhappiness, if only we will serve him. And in serving him, lies only slavery and, in the end, only unhappiness. This is the bargain the devil offers. Read more here.