Humor

Paul Nichols often makes me laugh, but this is classic!

Rich Leonardi has coined a great word "Orientemophobia." This word of course applies to how every article on the the extraordinary form of the Mass for the Latin rite must mention that the priest has his back to the people. He also provides a great example of Orientemophobia in the caption of a picture for a news story.

This reminded me of something else. Have you ever been in one of those common new church architecture styles where the Church is laid out like a fan auditorium style and the where the priest during the homily tries to make eye contact with everyone? I call this Ad Oscillating where the priest acts just likes one of those lawn sprinklers that slowly rotates around 180 degrees and then starts over again. There is this precise semi-shuffle as the priest slowly rotates on his axis so that he can make eye contact with all parts of the Church.

Have you been meaning to do something about your prayer life? You are kind of into God, yet you can never seem to slice out some time in your busy daily life for him. You know this isn’t right, but every devotional practice you look at seems to take too much time – time that you just don’t have. In this day and age with so many time-saving gadgets that have left you with no time you end up looking for a quick time saving prayer life that will ease your conscience.

The Church in her history has developed the Liturgy of the Hours which has nourished the life of the Church and countless saints. But when you see copies of the Liturgy of the Hours the words four volume set don’t exactly bring you confidence that you can eek out time necessary for this. That was until now with this revolutionary new system that will take your prayer life up a notch or at least a fraction of a notch.

Introducing The Liturgy of the Seconds! This one volume set is really easy to learn and to follow and you will get through Morning and Evening prayers in only a matter of seconds. We are called to fast and pray and now you can pray fast!

You might ask how is this possible? The Liturgy of the Hours uses a monthly cycle of hymns, Psalms, antiphons, and other readings – how can this be condensed?

The answer is simple we pick Psalms such as Ps. 117.

Praise the LORD, all nations!
Extol him, all peoples!
For great is his steadfast love toward us;
and the faithfulness of the LORD endures for ever.
Praise the LORD!

Ps. 131:

A Song of Ascents. Of David. O LORD, my heart is not lifted up,
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a child quieted at its mother’s breast;
like a child that is quieted is my soul. O Israel, hope in the LORD
from this time forth and for evermore.

And Ps. 134:

A Song of Ascents. Come, bless the LORD,
all you servants of the LORD,
who stand by night in the house of the LORD! Lift up your hands to the holy place,
and bless the LORD! May the LORD bless you from Zion,
he who made heaven and earth!

Now toss in a couple of really short antiphons and you will be mostly finished with Morning or Evening prayer in the Liturgy of the Seconds. For longer Psalms we break them up and only take a verse or two. Within a year you will almost read partially through the book of Psalms!

Now you say okay I now understand about how you can quickly go through the Psalm readings, but what about the Canticles normally prayed. Well instead of reciting the Canticle of Zechariah for Morning prayer and the Canticle of Mary for the Evening prayer, you just say the word Benedictus or Magnificat depending on the time of day. Now you might think this is really cheating and not pleasing to God in any way, yet we will show you the biblical warrant for this later in our discussion on the Rosary.

The Liturgy of the Seconds also includes Scriptural reading of course and as you might expect reading Titus fits in perfectly with the Liturgy of the Seconds. Instead of the Breviary you will have a very briefery.

You don’t have to feel guilty about the Liturgy of the Seconds, for one thing God really understands time expansion. To God a day is like a thousand years and so if the ratio holds up a second is like almost half of a day! So every second you spend in the Liturgy of the Hours is really racking up time. Besides God being outside of time isn’t really into time or for that matter in time.

Now once you have started the Liturgy of the Second and find that you actually have the very short time needed for it you might feel brave enough to add other devotions to your prayer life.

Holy Minute – On your way to the store or other place stop by a Catholic Church and spend a Holy Minute before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament of in adoration if the Parish has 24 hour Eucharistic adoration. The great thing about Holy Minutes is that your knees never get numb. Or if you don’t not have time for a whole minute, try the 40 Second Devotion.

Some people are attracted to the charisms of the various third orders such as the Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, etc. Yet many of these third orders require 30 minutes of contemplation/prayer each day. You can cut this time in half by singing during prayer/contemplation. St. Augustine is attributed as saying that when you sing you pray twice, so surely singing would cut 30 minutes down to 15 minutes!

The Rosary is a popular prayer, but it can take 15 to 20 minutes to pray just one of the mysteries if you use the standard form. Instead of reciting the full Our Fathers, Hail Mary’s and the other prayer you just say "Our Father" and "Hail Mary." You can imagine how much faster a Decade of the Rosary is when saying "Our Father, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary." Though we recommend you apply a thin layer of some oil to your Rosary first before speeding through the shortcut Rosary.

Again you might ask about these shortcut prayers and if they are really appropriate? These prayer shortcut are really prayer macros. Macros help you to do complicated tasks in just one easy step. Even Jesus used prayer macros! When Jesus from the cross said "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?", he was referencing Psalm 22 and by using one phrase he was referencing the whole of the Psalm and its Messianic overtones. So if Jesus can uses one phrase from a Psalm to reference the whole Psalm then certainly we can do the same.

It is also reported that the Francisco, Jacinta, and Lucia the children of Fatima just prior to seeing the first apparition of Our Lady were praying the shortcut Rosary. So obviously Mary was not perturbed by their use of the shortcut Rosary, though your mileage may vary.

So start with the Liturgy of the Seconds and other truncated devotions. After all God created us, loves us, and maintains us in existence; so the least we can do is spend some seconds with him.

The Liturgy of the Seconds is available from Second Hand Books.

Speaking of bad MSM coverage of the Motu Proprio.

According to published reports, the pope was, among other things, trying to bridge a divide with the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, even though that group has expressed concern about reversing the gains of Vatican II.

I think U.S. News & World Report must have got in touch with the little know Society of St. Pius X½ otherwise know as SSPX½.

With the upcoming release of the Motu Proprio liberalizing the Tridentine rite you can expect a surge of articles in the MSM getting things wrong. As a service to the MSM I will give them a Motu Proprio boilerplate that they can arrange as they want with just the right spin, or is that rite spin, so that it fits into their normal templates. This boilerplate has enough mistakes and biases it make it indistinguishable from any other MSM article that will be appearing in the coming days.

• Some people feel nostalgic for the Latin Mass.
• In the Latin Mass the priest faces away from the congregation and prays, sometimes in a whisper, in Latin, a language unfamiliar to most of the world’s one billion Roman Catholics. Unlike in the new Mass which is celebrated in the vernacular with the priests facing their congregations.
• Because two generations of American Catholics are accustomed to hearing the Mass celebrated in English, it’s unlikely most will want to switch to a liturgy that is longer, more formal and celebrated in a language they don’t understand.
• Pope Benedict is taking the church back to before Vatican II and removing the reforms of the Council. Liberal, reform-minded Catholics are concerned about these rollbacks to progress made.
• Some prayer for the Tridentine liturgy are offensive to Jews.
• The Rev. <Insert Jesuit of choice> said <insert attack on the Tridentine rite>.
• The groundbreaking Second Vatican Council opened the door to worship in the local vernacular.
• The Latin Mass involves a diminished role for women as altar servers and eliminates progress made in women’s equality since Vatican II.
• These changes will only aggravate declining Mass attendance by introducing a liturgy not relevant to the times.
• Insert comment by former America editor Thomas Reese now a fellow at Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. (Make sure you mention he was forced out of the editorship by Pope Benedict.) If you can’t get in touch with Thomas Reese for a direct quote just mention something about clash of cultures between conservative priests and liberal congregations.
• Pope Benedict has been receiving resistance from the Bishops in France, England, and Wales who worry about the change dividing the church.
• But liberals are deeply wary because a number of the rite’s adherents are associated with ultra conservative groups that oppose the radical reforms ushered in by the Council.
• The proponents of the old Latin mass are said to number no more than 2 percent of Catholics, and polls show that the majority of Catholics embrace the reforms of Vatican II. There seems to be no demand for it.
• Insert a comment from a proponent of the Tridentine Rite at the bottom of your piece.

Just mix and match and you will have a story ready to go to press in minutes. If you need some more fluff you can always mention once again how no one knows Latin anymore. You can always do a man in the street interview outside of a Catholic Church after Mass. Though contrary to what you might think don’t ask younger Catholics their opinion on this, look for someone with gray hair to get a good quote on why this change is bad.

Yesterday Cardinal Renato Martino’s Pontifical Council for Migrants issued a “Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road,” aka The Ten Commandments of Driving. Today the newly created Pontifical Council for Transportation jointly with Car-itas has issued a new document Driving the Gospels Home.

The following are some of the highlights of the new document.

• If you are carjacked one mile, go with him two.
• If yor are hit, turn the other signal.
• Do not let your air bag become puffed up like the Pharisees
• Let not the sun go down on you road rage
• Carry your cross daily, or at least have one hanging from your rear view mirror.
• When you enter a freeway that is backed up, go and move to the lowest place and not try to merge into the front. For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
• Do not talk about your Honda so that it can be said of you "That he did not say it of his own Accord."
• Hydroplaning is not the same thing as walking on water, avoid it.
• Before Jesus peformed the miracle at Cana, he appointed a designated driver.
• Do not say "Are we there yet", but rather "It is good to be here."

In other news Sammy Hagar has been excommunicated for not being able to drive 55.

We can look forward to new documents in the future from the Pontifical Council for Transportation. Another document called "Sacrificial suffering and airline food" is rumored to be in the works.

Update: Dawn Eden has some suggestions for the title of the document.

KaleJ at un-Muted Mumblings adds some of his own.

Carolina Cannonball at The Crescat also reacts to the driving ten commandments.

Obviously this priest who plowed into a restaurant didn’t get the new documents.

Plus I remembered my old post on Mary’s Fiat

Several readers sent me a link to the following story.

Shortly after noon on Fridays, the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding ties on a black headscarf, preparing to pray with her Muslim group on First Hill.

On Sunday mornings, Redding puts on the white collar of an Episcopal priest.

She does both, she says, because she’s Christian and Muslim.

Redding, who until recently was director of faith formation at St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral, has been a priest for more than 20 years. Now she’s ready to tell people that, for the last 15 months, she’s also been a Muslim — drawn to the faith after an introduction to Islamic prayers left her profoundly moved.

Her announcement has provoked surprise and bewilderment in many, raising an obvious question: How can someone be both a Christian and a Muslim?

Well instead at looking a how ridiculous this is, let us look at the positive side of a Christian Muslim.

• When you issue a fatwa on yourself it is hard for you to hide from yourself so you won’t have a Salman Rushdie problem.
• If your suicide belt goes off prematurely you at least killed one Christian.
• You can pretty much preach any thing you want and on a given point be pro one day and con the other.
• You can engage in interfaith dialogue when you are by yourself.
• You can send money to both Jay Sekulow and CAIR.
• Preach that you can eat pork and preach that you can’t.
• Preach hat God is both one God and a Trinity of three persons. and then that Allah is one God and only one person.
• Preach that Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected and then that “They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but they thought they did.”
• Preach that Jesus was the Son of God and that he wasn’t.
• Preach that Mohammed was a deluded man with a heretical mix of Christianity and that he was the last Prophet sent by God.
• Preach about the inspiration of the New Testament and that it is the word of God and that it isn’t and in fact the Qur’an is.
• Preach that the Holy Spirit is the "other helper" and the that Muhammad is.
• Cheer for both sides of the Crusades.
• Call yourself an infidel.
• You can be a dhimmi to yourself.
• Have really really mixed feelings about Israel.
• Dip your fingers in a Holy Water font to make the sign of the cross and then wash your feet and pray before Mecca.

The Pope winds up for a little too enthusiastic Confirmation slap.

I have not yet commented on the Giuliani-lightning strike incident during the Republican debates. While it is pretty funny it does seem to me to be more of a coincidence then a God incidence. Though I don’t have the inside track.

If lightning strikes and pro-abortion politicians was normal operating procedure for God’s providence it seems to me that we might have noticed this before now. For one most pro-abortion politicians would be sporting Don King hairstyles. We could power major grids by tapping the power from lightning strikes to the lightning rod above the U.S. Capital or DNC headquarters. Pro-abortion Republicans would be looking like scenes in Frankenstein when the monster is first animated. Washington D.C. would have the highest incidence of lightning strikes in the U.S. and inside of the Supreme Court would always smell like ozone and surely Justice Blackmun would have been sporting a Harry Potter-like lightning bolt on his head (though he obviously was a Death Eater). Plus wouldn’t the famous line used by pro-abortion politicians be "I am personally opposed, but ZAP!"