I wasn't feeling too well but got up to Church today in the snow for about an hour and a half for Confession and the Eucharist which was such a huge blessing. It is the most wonderful old architectural heap, which until recently was Presbyterian until declining numbers forced them to shut and offer it to the Traditional Catholic Society of Christ the King. It's so ironic that what was once a Protestant and Low Protestant Church should look more Catholic than most Modern Catholic Churches do.
One wonderful thing about this place is that the priest and seminarian are always there, in the Church. \The Parish Priest in my own Parish has been there for at least six years and I have never really spoken to him once. In order to see him I would have had to make an appointment or called directly to the Presbytery and I have never had occasion to do so. But here in this Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary both Seminarian are always in the Church , mostly doing Adoration and so I get to talk to them all the time, which is wonderful. Today for instance the Father invited me to a private Mass on Monday morning ( public masses being illegal with the shut down) and heard my confession. I also joked with the young Scottish seminarian about my tow dogs being Modernist Heretics and that I was thinking of shooting them. Which made him laugh. You don't get this constant friendly contact in Novus Ordo Parishes which tend to be run by committees.
I try to get to Confession once a week. This might seem excessive but Love the Sacrament so much. It is such a joy. It is not simply a matter of getting absolution , it is the great graces given in starting all over again. The fresh start, the cleansing. It's like a new morning or new day. I have found the much more strict Traditional approach both a challenge and a joy. I have to work at it, so to speak. It is a challenge and a work. But you know the more you put in the more you get out. I have always had a deep love for this Sacrament but it has deepened over the last year.
Then upwards and onwards to the Shrine of St Joseph for half and hour. Kissed St Joseph hand , touched the baby Jesus's feet, lit a candle and sat down looking at the red glow of the flickering flames and just felt joyful, forgiven and at home. Such a Catholic thing to do lighting a candle in front of a Statue. Just sitting quietly praying. Only a very few there in the snow.
I have been in my present Parish for nearly sixty years now. We have three priests, all of them I believe very Holy and Dedicated men of God and at least one of them very learned indeed. But although I am a daily mass goer and try to get to confession every week I admit I don't know any of their names and have never really met or talked to any of them. Well in the first place because they are so busy. They have two or three secretaries, a sexton , more committees than the United Notions, Social Action, Liturgy, financial, the list goes on and on. They have many, many Eucharistic Ministers, Ministers of the Words, flowers arrangers, cleaners and who knows what else. Many organisations to help with , St Vincent De Paul, the Legion of Mary, the Pioneers, the Apostolic Works... As well as that specific works, the schools, the Old Peoples homes, the Youth Centre, the Housing Association..and on and on and on.. I when I go to Church go simply to pray and so am not in any loop where I might meet them. When I do see them there is a crowd around them like bees to honey. So our paths do not Cross. How could it? There are, as there as always been two Churches living side by side in fruitful dynamic. The Physical Organisational Church , which is ever busy, like a humming bee Hive. This is the bones , muscle and sinews of the Church. Then there is the Mystical Hidden Church, the Church at prayer. The Spiritual, the Church on its knees so to speak. This is the living Heart and the Breath of the Spirit, or lungs of the Church...and it is to this I am drawn, rather than the bee hive. I will give you an example of this type and that was Mr's Cassidy, a mother, grandmother and great grandmother who died a few years back. Mrs Cassidy said the rosary in the Church at five pm every evening for sixty years until she died. Sometimes there were a lot of people joined her in the past. But mostly in the last years of her life it was on her own. That did not matter to that venerable old lady , lone or in a crowd she still made it. Different people at different times gave her lifts in their cars. But looking back on it Mr's Cassidy and the other Mr's Cassidy's of the parish were the Heart of it all. Mr's Cassidy so much reminded me of St Catherine Laboure
Whenever I get up to Belfast I go there. My brother lives a little away so it's quite handy. Canon Heppelle is great and always makes himself available. I also love the fact that you dont feel like you are in a hospital. No masks or covid crazy lunatics casting suspicious eyes on those with no nappies on their faces.
Thanks for your experiences in your longtime parish. I too love the sacrament of Confession. This was not always so until I figured out the power it has! I just used to think it was like a punishment that had to be gone through to mend the relationship with God, like as a kid and my parents forcing me to admit my crimes and waiting for my punishment LOL. But the merciful Lord let me go through some storms that were so terrifying that I would have hidden in that confessional forever and taken any other punishment than the demon I was allowed to see. Demons HATE confession! They will do anything to keep us from going. When we break down in humiliation and in obedience and confess our sins to God's representatives in the Church, begging God for mercy and the grace to do better, and to love Him better, how frustrating it must be for the demons who think they have already snatched our soul to hell.
In the USA we now have a different priest assigned every 5 years or so. Our last priest at my parish is from India. I was a little bummed at first because sometimes they don't speak english very well, and so is hard to understand their sermons, but this one is so wonderful that I don't mind. He is always smiling! He too is always in the church praying it seems, and so I have been able to get to know him as I go to adoration every day if I can make it.
My brother brought his wife (who happens to be Protestant) to mass in the Church and she was amazed, 'Does no one wear a mask!', she said. I love this. Now and again we get people wearing masks but after a while they tend to loose them. This is because they are no longer in fear culture. There is nothing for me so off putting as an altar that looks like a table in an Operating Theatre with everyone masked. Imagine if the Last Supper had been conducted like this. How awful. Makes my heart sink. Fear, fear, fear, fear, fear.
When someone like Ralph Martin talks I listen and listen very hard. He is very,very charitable, very learned, very Holy and Prudent. When a guy like this sounds alarm bells we are stuck in a really, really bad hole. The same with, say, someone like Scott Hahn.
Yes it is pure lunacy as far as I am concerned. I have yet to wear a mask. I have been hassled a few times in shops etc but am well able to brush it off generally just saying I cant wear them and walking away. Going to Church has been very very strange. Yellow vested stewards, hand sanitizer, and everyone masked. I would love to go in a full hazmat suit I really would. My family were literally the only ones in the congregation when the churches were open not wearing a mask. I've been asked "do you have a mask"? No. "Will you wear one if I get you one"? No. People left absolutely dumbfounded. Masks disgust me. They are filthy disease ridden rags pulled in and put of dirty pockets, left in cars etc etc. And these things are meant to protect health. It is a joke. I simply cannot believe how compliant and easily manipulated people have been. Insanity.
Hillare Belloc once wrote, 'Either we have God or we have Chaos'. I did doorman during the week to a private mass behind locked doors. I was in the basement behind locked doors letting people come by invitation only, in case of police informers. I ask you. Bizarre. Catholics not trusting their fellow Catholics in case they report them to the police. It reminded me of the Penal Centuries in Ireland when the Mass was outlawed. Wait..yes,, the mass is outlawed today. What we are doing is in fact illegal. Who cares?. I wonder why they choose me as doorman, do I look vicious??
I wouldnt wear a mask at all if i werent concerned about busybodies reporting me to CPS or something (I have small children). I did walk around the store last week without a mask because my baby kept pulling it off my face, and I got multiple death glares, mostly from elderly women. We didn't wear masks back in the spring, when it wasn't state-mandated yet, and I'd say it was about a third of us mask-free, with the rest masked. But that was at the height of the first wave, when we still didn't know just how afraid we should be. Now I bet there are many more like us, just wearing the mask to obey and avoid fines/reporting. I'd risk the fines, but I won't risk reporting with small children involved.
And that's another aspect of masking that many aren't talking about: children. At the beginning of the mandate, my 7-year-old son was wearing a mask, until I realized that the mandate only applied to age 10 and up. So I told my son he'd no longer be wearing a mask. He is a very sensitive boy, and even though we have not been afraid in our house, he CRIED when I told him he wouldn't wear a mask any longer, begging me to let him wear it. He was under the impression that he would get sick or get headaches if he wasn't protected by a mask, and exclaimed, "But we've always worn masks!" I was absolutely heartbroken. The presence of all masked people led my anxiety-prone child to be terrified of unmasking, and to even forget there was a time before Covid. It made me so angry at what society is doing to our children right now. How many kids can't even remember a time when the public wasn't masked? I insisted that my son not mask, and it took about a month of him thinking he had a headache after every trip out in public for him to finally realize he was safe with fresh air. Thanks be to God, he is no longer afraid.
Were you ever asked to keep the Italians out until the end of the English Mass in Medjugorje? I was. Those Nonnas are formidable. I kept them out, but I made some powerful enemies
