Interesting article by Christopher Dawson
at Catholic Educator's Resource Center.

The Patriarchal Family in History

Furthering the cause of blog visibility...

(The following text is not mine, except for my URL.)
There are by some estimates more than 3 million weblogs. But most of them get no visibility in search engines. Only a few "A-List" blogs get into the top search engine results for a given topic, while the majority of blogs just don't get noticed. But this posting could solve that. Let's help the smaller blogs get more visibility!

This posting is GoMeme 4.0. So far we have tried 3 earlier variations. Our first test, GoMeme 1.0, spread to nearly 740 blogs in 2.5 days. This new version 4.0 is shorter, simpler, and fits more easily into your blog.

Why are we doing this? We want to help thousands of blogs get more visibility. How does it work? Just follow the instructions below to re-post this meme in your blog and add your URL to the end of the Path List below. As the meme spreads onwards from your blog, so will your URL. Your blog will be part of the path for everyone downstream from you. That way they can see where they got this message from. Everyone in the Path List below benefits in a similar way as this meme spreads. Try it!

Instructions: Just copy this entire post and paste it into your blog. Then add your URL to the end of the path list below, and pass it on! (Make sure you add your URLs as live links or HTML code to the Path List below.)

Path List
1. Minding the Planet
2. Ales Rarus
3. Quenta Nârwenion
4. (your URL goes here! But first, please copy this line and move it down to the next line for the next person).

Ok....
The posting seems to be back to normal now....

Zadok
has a post which comments on University Church, Dublin, which was built under the direction of the Venerable. (The building was designed by John Hungerford Pollen. His son, Anthony Pollen, became a Father of the Birmingham Oratory.)

Please pray...
for the protection of innocent life !

The Feast of St. Vincent Strambi, C.P., Bishop
is today. There is information on him here. To any Passionists out there, blessed feast day!
It is also the feast of St. Albert of Jerusalem, O. Carm., Founder, Patriarch and Martyr, St. Cadoc of Llancarvan, Abbot and Martyr, whom I think should be the patron of devout children with less-than-devout parents, and Blessed Herman Contractus, O.S.B.. Here is a verse the Blessed wrote which you may recognize....

Alma Redemptoris Mater, quae pervia caeli
Porta manes, et stella maris, succurre cadenti,
Surgere qui curat, populo: tu quae genuisti,
Natura mirante, tuum sanctum Genitorem
Virgo prius ac posterius, Gabrielis ab ore
Sumens illud Ave, peccatorum miserere.

It translates...

Mother of Christ, hear thou thy people's cry
Star of the deep and Portal of the sky!
Mother of Him who thee made from nothing made.
Sinking we strive and call to thee for aid:
Oh, by what joy which Gabriel brought to thee,
Thou Virgin first and last, let us thy mercy see.

He also wrote....

Salve, Regina, mater misericordiae, vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.
Ad te clamamus exsules filii Hevae.
Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes in hac lacrimarum valle.
Eia, ergo, advocata nostra, illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte.
Et Iesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui, nobis post hoc exsilium ostende.
O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria. Amen.

V. Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genetrix.
R. Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi.
Oremus
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui gloriosae Virginis Matris Mariae corpus et animam, ut dignum Filii tui habitaculum effici mereretur, Spiritu Sancto cooperante, praeparasti: da, ut cuius commemoratione laetamur; eius pia intercessione, ab instantibus malis, et a morte perpetua liberemur. Per eundem Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

which translates....

Hail holy Queen, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then, most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us. And after this our exile show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary. Amen.
V. Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God.
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Let us pray
Almighty, everlasting God, who by the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, didst prepare the body and soul of the glorious Virgin-Mother Mary to become a worthy dwelling for Thy Son; grant that we who rejoice in her commemoration may, by her loving intercession, be delivered from present evils and from the everlasting death. Amen.

Not bad for someone whose parents would now be pressured to kill him in the womb....

Blogging weirdness....
The posts are going in in inverse order ! I posted on the saints first, yet it is still coming up at the top ! Any ideas ?

As I blogged last year...
September 25, 1843 was the day when Venerable John Henry Newman preached his last sermon as an Anglican clergyman. The sermon can be found here. The last paragraph is especially lovely and heartbreaking.

And, O my brethren, O kind and affectionate hearts, O loving friends, should you know any one whose lot it has been, by writing or by word of mouth, in some degree to help you thus to act; if he has ever told you what you knew about yourselves, or what you did not know; has read to you your wants or feelings, and comforted you by the very reading; has made you feel that there was a higher life than this daily one, and a brighter world than that you see; or encouraged you, or sobered you, or opened a way to the inquiring, or soothed the perplexed; if what he has said or done has ever made you take interest in him, and feel well inclined towards him; remember such a one in time to come, though you hear him not, and pray for him, that in all things he may know God's will, and at all times he may be ready to fulfil it.

Ratties to the rescue !
Rescue rats will sniff out buried victims.

Thank to my friend at Ales Rarus for sending the link !

On September 24, 1871
Venerable John Henry Newman, C.O., preached a sermon, of which the following notes survive:

The Old and New Testaments

1. INTROD.—On the gospel.

2. 'The Lord said to my Lord.'

3. Great truths put obscurely in the law. Both as regards prophecy and religion and morals.

4. The law of Moses and the Old Testament like a bud, and the new law the open flower, e.g.—

5. The first commandment.

6. The thoughts of the heart—'with all thy heart,' Matt. v.; 'If thy eye is single.'

7. Impurity, Matt. v.—divorce and polygamy.

8. The second great commandment—parable of the good Samaritan.

9. But something the same—faith, the Church, the order of ministers, and rites.

10. But all these might be dead without love of God, etc.

11. Let us beware lest we are outside Christians.

Please pray...
for these victims of horrific brutality .
If anything gives the lie to the 'all religions are the same underneath' claptrap, this is it. True, in past ages Christian soldiers often violated captured women, but in doing so they were acting against the teachings of their faith and the example of its Founder. These barbarians are acting in accord with the example of their faith's founder.

Link courtesy of Michelle Malkin.

Fr. Johansen
has the latest on the fight to keep
a murderous husband at bay.

The Feast of Our Lady of Walsingham
is today. There is information on it here, and a link to the Shrine webite here.
Last year, I posted a verse lamenting the destruction of the Shrine of Walsingham, by an anonymous Elizabethan-era poet, rumored to be St. Philip Howard.. I also posted a verse from the Venerable about the return of veneration of Our Lady to Our Lady's Dowry.
It is also the feast of Our Lady of Mercy. To any Mercedarians out there, blessed feast day!

On September 23, 1855
Venerable John Henry Newman, C.O., preached a sermon, of which the following notes survive:

Love of God

1. INTROD.—The gospel is the second which we have lately had on the precept of the love of God.

2. Nature tells us we should love God. Nay, a natural inclination and leaning to the love of God.

3. Still, it never will lead us to love. It fails for want of strength, and the feeling comes to nothing and dwindles, as a tree of the south planted in the north. Grace essential.

4. On pure love of God—illustrate—single, real, for Himself, e.g. we are to love men propter Deum, thus not propter [seipsos], etc., which is Nature. If, then, we love God by association [sic], or merely for His benefits, etc., it is not enough.

Love delights in the name of God, likes to hear of Him, likes to think of Him, likes to act for Him, [is] zealous for His honour and a champion for His cause.

5. But this is not all. It is not merely looking at what does not notice us, as the Pantheists say. It is a friendship. Three things are necessary for friendship: (1) mutual love; (2) mutual consciousness and sympathy; (3) mutual intimacy—intercourse. Companions, walking with God, Luke xxiv ? Apply to confidence in God's loving us.

6. But this is not all—dilectio: choice. And no common choice, but above all things.

7. Thus it is pure, amicable, mutual and sovereign.

8. Now to see what it is, we may see what it is not; and parallel it to worldly principles. Take the course of men.

9. (1) They begin with self-indulgence and self-gratification. Here is something which is not love, yet acts as love does.

10. (2) Perhaps ambition, martial spirit. This possesses them—this not love.

11. (3) Love of home: [a man is] a good father, a good son, [devotes himself to such duty with] concentration of mind —this not love.

12. (4) He gets wealthy, and is tempted to make wealth his enough—this not love.

13. (5) Love of consistency, character; self his centre—this not love.

14. (6) Ease and comfort in old age—this not love.

15. How are we to gain love? By reading of our Lord in the Gospels.

Happy Blogiversary
to the Summa Mamas !

God have mercy...
on those abetting a man's attempts to kill his wife by starvation.

Link courtesty of HMS Blog.

After reading the comments
on this post, the sentence that came into my head was "Will the last person to leave the Episcopal Church please turn out the lights?"

This is simply...
disgusting.

The Feast of St. Pio of Pietrelcina, O.F.M. Cap., Priest
is today. There is information on him here.
It is also the feast of Pope St. Linus, Martyr.

Catholic Educator's Resource Center...
has some good articles up....
First off, there's two on the problems with 'bioethics'. There is also one on the Dutch endorsement of mercy killing for tots.
Then there is an answer to a question on the latest dustup over invalid matter for the Eucharist, commentary on a recent Vatican document, and a look at the moral problems with certain 'fertility techniques', and an ethically sound alternative.

Finally, my personal favorite:
The Media and Church Teaching.

A quote:

The enlightened class obviously does not understand Catholic teachings about many things, nor does it wish to, and it gives itself license to trash those teachings. Ellen Goodman thinks the Vatican needs a hearing aid because the pope does not listen to her, not that she needs to listen. If consecrated virginity, or the required use of wheaten bread, were beliefs of a Native American tribe, the enlightened class would be very severe in cautioning us to respect precisely what we do not understand and to learn from it....

On September 21, 1849
Venerable John Henry Newman, C.O., wrote to his friend Henry Wilberforce, who was seriously considering entering the Catholic Church, but was still somewhat hesitant.

Carissime,—This may cross one of yours, but I can't help writing.

How can you delay? O my dearest H. W., may not this be a crisis in your eternal destiny?
Ever yours most affectionately,
JOHN H. NEWMAN.'

This was one in a series of letters that the Venerable had been writing to his friend since the previous year....

Christmas Day, 1848
I leave the above to show my good intentions. You are ever in my thoughts, and yours. This blessed day, my first Mass at twelve (midnight), I gave to the Pope—my second at half past two to our Congregation—my third at seven to all my friends and acquaintances, who still are Protestants. You, dearest Henry, were not forgotten, but I will not believe, you shall not make me, that you are for ever so to be classed, so to be remembered. The midnight mass was a high one—and I communicated 120 persons at it. We have had masses going on literally through the night, 36 in all—as if in emulation of the angels who sang through the night 1800 years ago "Glory to God, peace on earth." Some of us have not been to bed at all. Dear Father Ambrose especially, as Sacristan, has been hard worked. He got to bed between five and six, and we were amused to find on his door, "Please don't call me, and don't knock"—but he is up again now and has just left me in order to sing his third Mass, which is also High Mass—but we don't expect many people this morning. (P.S.—On the contrary, there is a very fairly full Church, and Benediction will be crowded.) The midnight Mass was not over till three. A large portion of the congregation live two miles away.

If this were in the centre of the town I declare I think it would convert a good half of it by its very look. We have had a number of most splendid functions—but we shall soon (many of us) leave it for Birmingham—for a gloomy gin distillery, of which we have taken a lease, fitting up a large room for a Chapel. When we shall get to London we don't know—prospered as we have been, still we want hands for such an undertaking. Lately several of our Fathers held a mission in this neighbourhood. They heard between 700 and 800 confessions and received 22 persons into the Church. Never surely were the words more strikingly exemplified, "The Harvest is great, the labourers are few," than in England. We could convert England, humanly speaking, at least the lower classes, had we priests enough.

With all best wishes of this happy season, my dear Henry,
Ever yours affectionately,
JOHN H. NEWMAN.

January 1849
I have heard something about you which makes me sad—that you countenanced on November 1st the changes in Margaret Street which (if what I hear they are) I will not designate. What have you to do with Subdeacons and the like? I should have thought you far too sensible a fellow to go into such ways. While you stick to the old Church of England ways you are respectable—it is going by a sort of tradition—when you profess to return to lost Church of England ways, you are rational—but when you invent a new ceremonial, which never was, when you copy the Roman or other foreign rituals, you are neither respectable nor rational. It is sectarian. That is what I say of Pusey now—he does not affect to appeal to any authority but his own interpretation of the Fathers, and [to] the sanction of old Anglicans for this or that—but as a whole, he is not reviving anything that ever was anywhere for 1800 years. There is a tradition of High Church, and of Low Church—but none of what now is justly called Puseyism.
Thank you for dear Robert's letter. I am glad he speaks better of me than he did two years since—when he dissuaded a man from following me on the ground of his personal knowledge, that 20 years since I was on the verge of madness. This was a rhetorical argument—when he came to Oxford, rhetoric went to flight and the heart spoke. Ought not conscience to be the child of such a pair as heart and rhetoric.

Now you are saying, Carissime, "What's the matter with him? He is in a terribly bad humour, he does nothing but bite." I wish I could bite you with my madness, though I know you dread large dogs and little.

March, 1849
As to my Essay [on Development] you mistake in one minor matter,—it is not the argument from unity or Catholicity which immediately weighs with me, but from Apostolicity. In that book is asked why does its author join the Catholic Church? The answer is, because it is the Church of St. Athanasius and St. Ambrose. Vid. the passage about St. Athanasius and St. Ambrose coming from Treves to Oxford. And it is an argument natural to weigh with me who have so many years been engaged in the meditation of early Church History—and it is as natural that the difficulties I had felt, and the difficulties I there answer, should be difficulties of doctrine, since I have studied in Church History the history of doctrine more than anything else. You may recollect too that the one idea which for years was before me, was, "the Anglican Church corresponds to the Semi-arians, corresponds to the Monophysites"—It is contained in the letter I wrote to Robert in Autumn of 1841; it had been in my mind as early as summer 1839. I never shook it off—how could I? when to every reader of Church History it is so plain. Nothing is more day-clear than this, that unless there never was a Church and heretics round it, the Anglican Church is a loco, in the position of one of those early sects. This again I kept saying—I think I wrote to Keble, "I am far more certain that the Anglican Church is in loco haereseos, than that the Roman corruptions are not developments." No one can maintain the Anglican Church from history, (whatever they may try to do on the ground of doctrine)—and those who speak against my Essay as inconclusive, most of them, do not see its drift.

September 19, 1849

My dearest Henry,—I heard of you this morning here,—where I had just come for a day or two, having been overworked. I had gone to Bilston to attend the poor cholera patients, but found the scourge nearly over, and I was not wanted,—so I came here. Father Ambrose and Father Minister are there still. They say that two thirds of the population would become Catholics if they had priests to take care of them.

But now I write about you, Carissime—I have heard something about you this morning, which makes me say "Send for me, and I will come to you at once—by return of post." Do not let anything stand between conviction and its legitimate consequence. Carissime, you must die some day or other ...
Ever yours affectionately,
J. H. NEWMAN.

Even after the 21st, Wilberforce continued to hesitate, and Newman continued to write letters of encouragement- and warning lest he should make his step too late.

"There is no alternative between Catholicism and Infidelity to the clear thinker—flee Babylon while you can"....
"O, the joy it will be to me to see you and embrace you as the Patriarch turned himself with yearning heart to his lost son!"...

Henry Wilberforce and his wife were received into the Church in early 1850.

The Feast of St. Matthew, Apostle, Evangelist, and Martyr
is today. There is information on him here. A blessed feast day to all those who have him as a special patron, particularly the Oratory's organist/choir director !

It is also the feast of St. James Honoré Chastán and St. Francis Jaccard , Priests and Martyrs.

On September 20, 1846
Venerable John Henry Newman and his close friend Ambrose St. John were traveling to Rome to study for the priesthood. A Catholic newspaper in France, the Univers, published the following short report on a stop the two made in the town of Langres.

"The presence of the Rev. J. H. Newman in our city has excited no less interest than it did at Paris. His simplicity and modesty charmed every one who had the advantage of an admission to his presence. Our venerable Bishop received him with the affection and cordiality of a brother. The marks of sympathy of which this learned writer was the object have spoken to him of the happiness which Catholics experience in counting him among their brethren. What admirable men are these Oxford converts! GOD has not without purpose chosen instruments so fitted to accomplish His great designs. Mr. Newman and Mr. St. John go from Langres to Besançon. They will travel through Switzerland to Milan, where they remain till they have learnt Italian before proceeding to Rome."

Unfortunately, the Univers was not to remain enthusiastic in supporting the Venerable, as it was the paper of an extreme, and from a current perspective somewhat loopy, Ultramontanism. ( It once published a reprint of a hymn from the Divine Office, with the word Pius substituted for Deus !)

The Feast of Sts. Andrew Kim Taegon, Paul Chong Hasang, and Companions, Martyrs
is today. There is information on them here. They are also mentioned on this blog based in Korea.
It is also the feast of Pope St. Agapitus I,and St.John Charles Cornay, Priest and Martyr.

Since the Mass I attended today...
was a Votive Mass of the Holy Spirit, here is an appropriate meditation:

1. My God, I adore Thee, as the Third Person of the Ever-Blessed Trinity, under the name and designation of Love. Thou art that Living Love, wherewith the Father and the Son love each other. And Thou art the Author of supernatural love in our hearts—"Fons vivus, ignis, charitas." As a fire Thou didst come down from heaven on the day of Pentecost; and as a fire Thou burnest away the dross of sin and vanity in the heart and dost light up the pure flame of devotion and affection. It is Thou who unitest heaven and earth by showing to us the glory and beauty of the Divine Nature, and making us love what is in Itself so winning and transporting. I adore Thee, O uncreate and everlasting Fire, by which our souls live, by which alone they are made fit for heaven.

2. My God, the Paraclete, I acknowledge Thee as the Giver of that great gift, by which alone we are saved, supernatural love. Man is by nature blind and hardhearted in all spiritual matters; how is he to reach heaven? It is by the flame of Thy grace, which consumes him in order to new-make him, and so to fit him to enjoy what without Thee he would have no taste for. It is Thou, O Almighty Paraclete, who hast been and art the strength, the vigour and endurance, of the martyr in the midst of his torments. Thou art the stay of the confessor in his long, tedious, and humiliating toils. Thou art the fire, by which the preacher wins souls, without thought of himself, in his missionary labours. By Thee we wake up from the death of sin, to exchange the idolatry of the creature for the pure love of the Creator. By Thee we make acts of faith, hope, charity, and contrition. By Thee we live in the atmosphere of earth, proof against its infection. By Thee we are able to consecrate ourselves to the sacred ministry, and fulfil our awful engagements to it. By the fire which Thou didst kindle within us, we pray, and meditate, and do penance. As well could our bodies live, if the sun were extinguished, as our souls, if Thou art away.

3. My most Holy Lord and Sanctifier, whatever there is of good in me is Thine. Without Thee, I should but get worse and worse as years went on, and should tend to be a devil. If I differ at all from the world, it is because Thou hast chosen me out of the world, and hast lit up the love of God in my heart. If I differ from Thy Saints, it is because I do not ask earnestly enough for Thy grace, and for enough of it, and because I do not diligently improve what Thou hast given me. Increase in me this grace of love, in spite of all my unworthiness. It is more precious than anything else in the world. I accept it in place of all the world can give me. O give it to me! It is my life.

Venerable John Henry Newman, C.O., Meditations and Devotions

Aliens in This World
has a fine post on a bit of stupidity going on across the Pond.

That distant rumbling you hear...
is the Venerable spinning in his grave .

Link courtesy of Jeff Miller.

The Pontificator
quotes the Professor again.

If it were not Sunday...
today would be the feast of St. Januarius, Bishop and Martyr. I noted a passage in the writings of the Venerable in which this Saint is mentioned last year.

It is also the feast of St. Emily de Rodat, Virgin and Foundress.

Music at the Noon Mass
Today's Mass was a special Votive Mass of the Holy Spirit for the Opening of the School Year. The main celebrant was the Most Reverend Donald Wuerl, Bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

Processional Hymn: "Come, Holy Ghost"
Offertory: "O God Beyond All Praising" - Gustav Holst (1874-1934)
Communion: "Ave Verum"- Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
Recessional Hymn: "Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise"