National Catholic Register, Mar 29, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).
If Cardinal Mario Grech held nearly any office other than the one he does, his recent comments in favor of the female diaconate and against the need for “uniformity of thought” in the universal Church might not be so significant.
After all, when prelates offer their theological opinions, it’s generally taken as just that — an individual Church leader’s theological opinion.
But Grech isn’t an ordinary prelate — he heads the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Synod. And just one week before his March 21 interview with an Italian-language Swiss publication, Pope Francis had tasked the Maltese cardinal with implementing 10 study groups to focus on themes raised at the 2023 Synod on Synodality assembly. Among them: the possibility of “women’s access to the diaconate” and “shared discernment of controversial doctrinal, pastoral, and ethical issues” in a way that pays “greater attention to the diversity of situations” in different parts of the world.
In other words, the cardinal’s comments can’t help but be read in the context of the study groups and how Grech might intend to lead them, contributing to an already sizable list of concerns about the approach.
In the interview, Grech said that a female diaconate (unspecified whether ordained or not) would not be a “revolution” but a “natural deepening of the Lord’s will.”
The Maltese cardinal also said that Church communion should take the form of a “unity of differences” rather than “uniformity of thought” and described his vision of the Church as a “rainbow,” with more flexibility in pastoral approaches and teaching in different places.
Grech’s apparent support for some form of female deacons is likely to reinforce suspicions that the study groups are being set up to achieve predetermined outcomes that the synod couldn’t deliver. And his views on Church unity, which seem rooted in a disputed understanding of Vatican II’s doctrine on the relation between particular Churches and the universal Church, and was emphasized at the 2023 synod assembly by the likes of the progressive German prelate Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck, will likely heighten concerns about the ecclesiological commitments animating the study groups and the selection of its members.
Credibility on the line
Grech’s comments are not the first time synodal leadership’s public freelancing has brought into question the project’s credibility. But they come at a particularly challenging time for the Synod on Synodality. Both the shift to study groups and also the Vatican’s recent promotion of nonliturgical same-sex blessings that “bypassed synodality” have raised questions about whether the final synod assembly, which will take place Oct. 2–27 in Rome, will have much significance at all.
Even before the Vatican official’s interview, one synod participant stressed that steps would need to be taken to ensure that the study groups are seen as a credible part of the synodal process.
“Much will depend on how transparent the findings of the groups are and how they will be seen to link into the first assembly and synthesis document,” the Australian philosopher Renee Köhler-Ryan, who was a vocal opponent of the push for attempted women’s ordination at the October 2023 assembly, told the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner.
In his interview, Grech described the decision to create study groups, which are expected to work through June 2025, as a “new thing” that emerged out of Pope Francis’ attentive “listening” to the October 2023 assembly.
Participants at that gathering did call for further study on relevant theological and canonical topics. But the plain reading of the synthesis document was that those study groups would be at the service of the synodal assembly, providing feedback at the October 2024 session that would be incorporated into the assembly’s deliberations and final recommendations to Pope Francis.
By giving the study groups a mandate that extends beyond the synod assembly itself — and by shifting a significant number of topics away from the purview of the upcoming October synodal gathering (which will focus more narrowly on “How to be a synodal Church on mission”) — the Vatican has arguably done the opposite: reduced the Synod on Synodality to an auxiliary of the study groups.
In other words, the potential for significant change has been shifted to the study groups and away from the synod — a somewhat shocking development considering that the synod has been billed by its organizers as the most important ecclesial event since the Second Vatican Council.
Other questions
The relation between the Synod on Synodality and the newly minted study groups isn’t the only question hanging over the new approach.
A crucial one is who will actually be in the groups. In addition to members of the relevant Vatican dicasteries, the guiding document calls for “experts from all continents” in order to ensure that the 10 groups proceed in an “authentically synodal manner,” but names have yet to be released.
The topic is a major concern, because the Synod on Synodality has arguably been animated by a bias toward the views and concerns of those from the secular West.
For instance, while the term “LGBTQ+” was rejected by the 2023 assembly and not included in its synthesis document, it had been repeatedly used in the preparatory documents produced by the Secretariat of the Synod. Relatedly, Pope Francis’ personal nominees for the Synod on Synodality were disproportionately European and North American, as were the selected theological experts.
Some study group members are already known, as the Vatican indicates the respective dicasteries (none of which are currently led by an African, a notable break from precedent) that will collaborate on a given theme.
For instance, Cardinal Victor Fernández, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and Pope Francis’ close confidant, is tapped to play a key role in the study groups dealing with the women diaconate question (Group 5) and reassessing the Church’s understanding of the human person, theology of salvation, and ethics (Group 9).
Additionally, Pope Francis recently named six new consultors to the Secretariat of the Synod, possibly in anticipation of the robust role that the office will play in the various synodal study groups. Father Ormond Rush, an Australian theologian who is a leading advocate of “inverting the pyramid” of the Church’s structure to place a controversial understanding of “sense of the faithful” in the determination of doctrine, was among those added.
The study groups’ mandate well beyond the end of the synod itself has raised eyebrows, but it isn’t the only question of timing being raised.
Some wonder if setting a deadline 14 months from now for the groups to deliver answers on such varied and complex questions is a constructive approach.
“It seems to me that doing a thorough job on the questions before June 2025 may be expecting too much,” Dominican Father Anthony Akinwale, the theological adviser of the Nigerian bishops’ delegation to the Synod on Synodality, told the Register.
Foundational issues
Some have argued that implementing the study groups has effectively lowered the temperature of the synod, giving no room either in the study groups nor at the October assembly for controversial topics like pastoral care for people who identify as LGBTQ+ or the attempted ordination of women to the priesthood.
But this isn’t the full story. While these items aren’t explicitly mentioned in themes being explored by the study groups, the new bodies will take up foundational considerations that could end up shaping the Church’s response to those more particular issues.
For instance, the study group on “shared discernment of controversial doctrinal, pastoral, and ethical issues” is being tasked to “reinterpret the traditional categories of anthropology, soteriology, and theological ethics with a view to better clarifying the relationship between charity and truth.” Two criteria for this reinterpretation are the ways in which pastoral care should allegedly shape doctrine, and “attentive listening to the voice of the local Churches” and the diversity of situations they face.
The theme is highly significant, and the group’s findings could impact the Church’s teaching and pastoral care related to everything from contraception to gender identity. This was anticipated by German Bishop Georg Bätzing, the head of the German bishops’ conference who said after the October 2023 assembly that the synthesis document’s call to revisit the Church’s anthropological formulations was a “huge step forward,” and presumably a vindication of the controversial Synodal Way.
Synod participants like Köhler-Ryan, however, stress that who is asked to participate in that study group will determine the direction it goes in.
“It will be very important that the group on human anthropology retains its prophetic vision, reading what it means to be human in the light of the new Adam and new Eve, Christ and Mary, rather than through prevalent secular ideologies,” she told the Register.
In addition to the 10 study groups, the Vatican’s March 14 announcement also called for the activation of a “permanent forum,” which would essentially promote “synodality” in all areas of the Church. Given the ambiguities still surrounding the term, and the fact that this permanent forum itself would have a role in defining it, its potential impact also deserves continued scrutiny.
Whatever the permanent forum and the study groups come up with, Akinwale emphasizes the need to clarify the content and purpose of the Church’s mission as presented in the Gospel. He shared that he’s been talking to a university student in Nigeria who doesn’t believe in the passion narrative but thinks “it’s a folk story.”
“Are we ready to preach a crucified Christ?” he said to the Register. “That question needs to be part of our synodal missionary equation.”
This article was first published in the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, and has been adapted for CNA.
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This entire Synodolatry enterprise is a sham and a lie. It’s theological kabuki theater.
The stacking of the deck in the naming of participants, the comments by Synadolotrous officials like Cardinal Grech and others that reveal the real agenda, the disregard for Christ and His people that pervades the new ‘Catholique’ church of Bergoglio and the Jesuiticals — these are proof enough of the falsity of the process for anyone to see.
And it is so sadly apropos that this story run on this of all days.
Will we never stop crucifying our poor Lord?
A rainbow Church provokes greater alarm than a female diaconate. The first unbearably perverse, a process already happening, the latter livable under certain conditions. Cardinal Grech now flies his true rainbow colors, the gay ensign. It doesn’t mean he’s gay, similar to Biden on abortion. It’s fine for everyone else but perhaps not if he were aborted.
The premise is we have to live with the Grechs and Bidens, nevertheless we need not agree with them. Further, we mustn’t agree with either of them according to our faith. And further than that, we’re obliged to repudiate their illogical errors, as if one may proclaim they’re disciples of Christ when they disavow Christ’s teaching. Christ is not a figurehead like they used to carve on the bows of wooden ships. Those were the days of wooden ships and men of iron. Now it’s the day of iron ships and gingerbread men.
Taken at face value Grech’s comments sound like secular moral relativism. However, the Cardinal as many of the same persuasion cloak their comments and intentions in just enough ambiguity and nonsensical language to be able to claim innocent and righteous intentions that they disingenuously and pridefully presume and present to be confluent with the Word of God, while denigrating over 2000 years of traditional Catholic orthodox discernment and morality as outmoded and obsolete. Wolf in sheets clothing perhaps? Be wary! Sounds like a recipe for a multitude of separate catholic denominations much like what happened to the protestants after the so called reformation. Unity, I think not. Division is more likely.
Dear MD. What is the meaning of your second sentence, if it is a sentence at all? Please diagram it for me.
What is this? CWR morphing into English Grammar 101?
Not getting the gist of a lengthy second sentence fragment suggests a comprehension problem—a reading comprehension problem.
Mr. Connor:
Perhaps you could present your thoughts instead?
Amen. 😄
I think that writing and thinking is a difficult multi-task. Done it myself on occasion. Solution is to rewrite separately, proof read, copy-paste.
We get the point – diagramable or not.
Let’s suppose these heretics are successful. And let’s be clear, that’s what Grech and the illegitimate cabal usurping Church authority are: heretics. What then? No Catholic can accept these proposed heresies in good conscience.
To reject is an easy part. Then what? For example, after ‘FS’ I published my paper about that. I publicly rejected it. I have no idea if our priests are prepared to do those blessings or not; ‘FS’ has never been mentioned by them. We do not have a bishop so I have no one to address for a clarification.
The issue I would like to discuss: supposedly a heresy is here, what are our actions? NB: the heresy will be very subtle.
One of the great intercessions at Good Friday liturgy is for ‘heretics and schismatics.’ I’d not previously decided or determined that the pope and his cohort were formal heretics or schismatics. HOWEVER, they certainly seem to be removing one by one the stumbling blocks in the way of their attaining and taking on that final destination-definition.
I’d not planned to pray for the pope and his cohort at this great intercession, but I was moved to include them there during that prayer. May they all return wholeheartedly to the Church and the God who loves them.
On target, as usual, meiron.
Anna, you write that the “heresy will be very subtle.” Whether Fiducia Supplicans fails in cleverness and actually is a heresy, or instead is a fallacy that then stumbles into explicit heresy, is subtle a point clarified by Cardinal Muller…
Responding to your/our desire for intelligent discussion: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2024/02/does-fiducia-supplicans-affirm-heresy
True.
About the limits to so-called “’unity of differences’ rather than ‘uniformity of thought,’” we have this from emeritus Pope Benedict XVI:
“In reality this process of dividing-up only reflects the divisions in man’s mind and in the world [Grech’s ‘situations’]; indeed, the process only serves to intensify them. But Jesus did not come to divide the world but to unite it (cf. Eph 2:11-22). It is the one who ‘gathers’ with Jesus, who works against the process of scattering, ruin and dismemberment, who finds the real Jesus (cf. Lk 11:23).” [And regarding Scriptural sources and their interpretation]: “…its explanatory power is also its ability to unify, to achieve a synthesis, which is the reverse of superficial harmonization” (Ratzinger, “Behold the Pierced One,” Ignatius, 1986, pp.44-45).
“Superficial harmonization!” Behold the centrifugal synodal “roundtables,” then the “experts” in front of the synods, and then the “study groups” in front of the experts!
The rule is, “when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”
But, maybe the incomparable Cardinal Grech didn’t get that memo.
Returning to the ten themes identified earlier for the (now preemptive?) study groups, here are some early questions posted on CWR by yours truly only two weeks ago:
1. About the East, how to avoid quarantining of the recently estranged Eastern Orthodox Church, like all of the Church in Africa, as just another culturally defective “special case;”
2. About the “cry of the poor” as not excluding those who are impoverished spiritually and culturally (as noted in the less exclusionary teaching of Centesimus Annus, n. 57);
3. In the digital environment, yes!, the preservation of analogue reality over a Nominalist digital cosmos, and even AI; and affirmation in season and out of season of the “transcendent dignity of [each] human person,” and of the “real” Vatican Council in its Documents over the “virtual” council as is still peddled by clones of Hans Kung;
4. A “missionary perspective” which, however, clearly does not marginalize (a new “periphery”!) the received and missionary Deposit of Faith, with digital sociology;
5. Attention to “ministerial forms” in a way that now does not mutilate the unity of sacramental ordination, as has been pioneered with redefined ministerial “blessings” (Fiducia Supplicans), and such that the diaconate is not similarly rendered as both a sacrament and not-a-sacrament, and as a stepping stone (“walking together”!) toward an Anglicanized female priestess-hoody;
6. About “ecclesial organizations,” wording that does not dilute the individual and personal accountability of each Successor of the Apostles, versus the leveling administrative convenience of conferences of bishops, even if synodally “continental”—a matter already settled and clarified scripturally and in Apostolos Suos (May 21, 1998);
7. On the selection, judicial role and meaning of ad limina visits for bishops, perhaps guidance on how better to transcend the progressive intrusion of the zeitgeist into the particular Churches—as less polyhedral than equally rooted in the incarnate Jesus Christ, “the same yesterday, today, and forever;”
8. On papal representatives in a missionary synodal perspective, surely a functional role, still, for the Dicastery on the Doctrine of the Faith—as the Magisterium now preserves both faith and explicitly (!) morals (the natural law about which the Church is neither the “author” nor the “arbiter,” Veritatis Splendor, n. 95).
9. Theological criteria (etc.) for first distinguishing what is only controverted (!) from what else might be actually controversial,” and certainly without schizophrenic separation of the pastoral from the doctrinal—as earlier Nestorianism, likewise, tried to split the unity of Jesus Christ in twain;
10.Handling of ecumenical journey and ecclesial practices which, nevertheless, does not in practice redefine the Eucharistic and Mystical Body of Christ, now as a contour-free, congregational mosaic—”walking together” out of step with the “hierarchical communion” of the perennial Church and the Second Vatican Council (Lumen Gentium); and where, in the forwardist future, wide-screen congregational “synods” [and now study groups!] might even pretend to replace (“backwardist”?) internally coherent ecumenical councils.
[Yea, verily, on these self-evident questions, instead of the Cornerstone, the “Keystone Kops”!
I have attended Passion Thursday and Friday and today I was planning to go to the Easter Vigil.
However, I am in a very unsuitable mood for that i.e. full of anger and despair. Yesterday the priest delivered the homily and he managed to say nothing about Christ’s Passion (pain, suffering – on Good Friday!) but instead was going on about “open your hearts to receive God’s unconditional love, “come as you are” etc. things which I call PF’s church’s stuff. In effect he created a gnostic Christ, pain-free, no problem, no conditions. I despise that cheap stuff, “cheep grace” is Bonhoeffer put it.
It is pointless to say anything to that priest because he strikes me as “an effective manager” – his words are incredibly smooth, he does not talk to but talk at a person, nods to everything but does what he wants.
So, Good Friday became my last drop. It was not the worst thing I have seen but somehow it has finished me. Such people (and those in the article) remove Christ from the churches. This is what they do! While Our Lord in the Holy Communion is there those people make it psychologically impossible to experience Him!
To me it is a very real problem. I now feel “I do not want to go to church”. It is the first time in my life in the Church (more than three decades).
You are not alone. I’ve felt that way for years.
But go anyway. Your job is to suffer with Christ. Your complaints may well be fully justified, but are you sure they’ll get you to heaven?
Not only I am not sure but I do not think the way you described. What you called “complaints” was a desperation of someone who reached the end of her personal strength re: the situation in the Church (and most likely was also tempted as well). Frankly, it was the first time in my life. I firmly believe that we should share such feelings and support each other. I got the support I needed from the participants here – although I read the comment after I went to the Vigil. I am grateful for the prayers.
I think the Church would be healthier if the believers freely shared such things – not the secondary things but theological i.e. about minimizing Jesus Christ in the Church, pushing Him from the center. It is impossible to cope with that on one’s own. We need to work out how to resist. If “they” now form the anti-church we must stay together to withstand that.
Anna:
I fully understand, and I agree with your characterization of that what is being orchestrated is abusive rape of the Church by these false shepherds and false priests.
May the Holy Spirit strengthen you and keep you at the cross, all the way through this agony, and show you a parish where you can worship Christ in spirit and in truth.
I believe you will never leave Christ, so I can only say and pray: seek and ye shall find, knock, and the door will be opened.
God be with you at this hour Anna.
Chris, in the Greek the “seek … knock” are gerunds – present participles.
“Keep on seeking … keep on knocking”
Related to another teaching of our Lord, about asking for an egg and being given a scorpion.
But you are not children, and those you ask [pray to] are not loving like the ones he spoke to.
Now what?
Doug:
If one might be praying to men, one might not be understanding what one is doing, would one?
But as to understanding, one might ask you what it is exactly that you seek, Doug? Can you say what you seek, or is that too much to ask?
Or must we content ourselves that you bother to condescend to us by way of your mysteries ?
Now I read it fully. As I said in my previous comment, today, on the Passion Saturday, I truly feel that the various “stuff” which those people were feeding the Church is coming out of my ears. There is no space left. That “stuff” has nothing to do with Christ so those people attempt to rape the Church with something totally contrary to Our Lord.
I used the word “rape” deliberately. I truly perceive their actions to be a spiritual abuse, of the Church of Christ and of me, personally. Being a lay person, I am not protected from the homilies which are contrary to our faith, which undermine Christ and even make out of Him someone Who is not He. I cannot interrupt a homily and shout at a priest “stop twisting Our Lord!” so I have to sit and swallow whatever they say, boiling inside. Interestingly, it is an exact vector of an abuse, when a victim is powerless and cannot say anything. How does one cope with an abuse she cannot escape? – Via going numb. And, since it is impossible to be selectively numb, a believer becomes numb to Christ present in the Gospels and the Holy Communion. This is my current dilemma in the Church, how to connect to Christ in an environment that is often hostile to Him.
As for “synodality”, our Easter bulletin announces a talk about it and I even thought about attending, just to know what to expect next. Alas, that talk is to happen in a “man only environment”. I could have said that I identify myself as a man)).
Anna, Christ is crucified. Go worship Him. He has silently descended. At the moment, we can only hear the noise of the world. Wake up! Run behind the Magdalene to look for Him. He has risen! No one can steal Him from us. Jesus Christ is Lord.
“All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one, you need not covet it) is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone.” Jane Austen, Persuasion
What a great great quote from Great Jane.
Amen
Dear Anna,
I am so sorry to hear that you’re feeling so alienated from our Lord and what He’s done for us.
I imagine that the ratfaced evil one is rejoicing this morning at its unexpected victory over one of its enemy’s staunchest and most beloved believers.
I will pray for you, dearest sister in Jesus.
If we focus on them, outside ourselves, we risk missing the Kingdom of God within us. God calls us to help Him carry the Cross of His Sacrifice for our sins. “Pray, brethren, that my sacrifice and YOURS may be acceptable to God the Father Almighty.”
Happy Easter! Stay Catholic.
Anna, what you’re suffering is experienced throughout most of the Church. As a priest I have a clear vision of what’s being denied the faithful. Laity have to suffer this form of crucifixion. If it were within my power I would rectify it. Know too that you go to Mass first and above all for the living Christ in the Holy Eucharist. It’s our love for him, for which he thirsts that ultimately matter. Pray for the many clergy who are securing their own doom as well as that of many laity.
It is very important for me to hear a priest saying this.
We had a good bishop for years, he was a true keeper of faith. Now, when he was promoted, things appear to go downhill. Worst of all, I have no recourse to the bishop now (I used to write to him when I saw really bad things (theology, liturgical abuse etc.)).
Two things came up for me as I read your posts. First, you are not alone. Though we individually seek a relationship with God, one of the purposes of the Church is that we unite with others in seeking and worshiping God, His Son, and the Holy Spirit. The second thing that came to me was John Paul II comforting words, “Be not afraid”. This is Christ’s church, and he remains its head. When we attempt to take upon us the Church’s problems, our shoulders are not nearly strong enough to carry them. However, that burden is not ours, but is the Lord’s to carry and he does. Our responsibility is to continue to pray, to forgive, to love, and to seek forgiveness.
We stood with the crowds and shouted for the release of Barabbas rather than Jesus the Christ. We must focus on our many failures, shortcomings, and sins. It is too much for us to look for the faults of others. Tomorrow, we celebrate the empty tomb, and we have much for which to rejoice.
As an aside, it would be appropriate to tell your priest how much you enjoy hearing about Jesus on Good Friday. Let our Master lead him to the cross.
I feel it is my duty to interfere when a priest twists Christ/puts a false teaching. It is my duty because I have the knowledge (theology) and I cannot be silent (Orthodox theology teaches that a laity must protect the Church teaching as well). If I am silent, I betray Christ and other parishioners who may not have the knowledge. And so I did it in the past on some occasions after a prayer, speaking privately but very straightforwardly.
The current situation is different. I once attempted to speak to the priest in question after he did something very serious, something that badly affected the meaning of Holy Communion. He is impenetrable and totally non-engaging; he continues doing what he is doing. So, it became clear to me that there is no point any more. And this is the most difficult thing for me, to be silent and witness all that.
“We must focus on our many failures, shortcomings, and sins. It is too much for us to look for the faults of others.”
100% agreed re: their personal faults. But it is different when a priest or laity starts teaching a fake. It is not about them; it is about what is coming out of their mouth and poisons the Body of Christ. I do not care if a priest is bad tempered or a drunkard (apart from a concern for his health) if he teaches the truth.
Anna,
You have my empathic sympathy. One year, literally I plugged my ears against hearing a priest’s atheistic homilies. Offering my roiling emotions up to the good Lord as atonement also helped me through.
Wishing you a blessed Easter.
Anna, Christ suffered, died and rose for you because of God’s perfect love. Anything said by a cleric contrariwise, ought to be dismissed. Never allow a cleric to interfere with your love of Christ and your worship of God.
Anna above – Some preaching is abysmal and off-putting (understatement). Fortunately, lousy preaching, while reflective of lousy thinking, is not the core of our liturgy.
I am lucky to be able to counteract a questionable Good Friday homily I just sat through with what I know will be a solid one on Easter Sunday at a different location.
Forgive me Lord for I have sinned. For I cannot resist the perception that His Holiness is clutching The Little Red Book in his right hand. Smiling as would a puppetmaster as his Cardinal Grech proclaims the dreaded Rainbow Church. A Church of embrace sans the exchange of promises.
Anna, what you’re suffering as you’re surely aware is this newly proclaimed Church of rainbow color. Suffering experienced throughout most of the Church. As a priest I have a clear vision of what’s being denied the faithful. Laity have to suffer this form of crucifixion. If it were within my power I would rectify it. Know too that you go to Mass first and above all for the living Christ in the Holy Eucharist. It’s our love for him, for which he thirsts that ultimately matters.
With his reference to the loaded “rainbow” Church, His Enemance has lost all remaining credibility. The fluid “non-uniformity of thought” is known as procedural positivism; in the Islamic world as consensus “abrogation;” and now in the ecclesial world as both—synodalized process theology.
Too bad that St. Paul admonishes us to think spiritually and become a new person! Too bad, this: “do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–His good, perfect and perfect will” (Romans 12:2). Mind? And, as for God’s will, too bad that in the Lord’s Prayer—given (!) to us by the incarnate Jesus Christ—we petition together: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” As it is in heaven?
But, now, we are tutored that the correct translation from Aramaic is “Thy will be harmonized and conformed (!) to a ‘diversity of situations’ and only similar (!) to what is in heaven.”
The mischief of an extra “i” (as in self-referential!) becoming “homoiousios” at Nicaea (“similar”); and now as in “decide” becoming “deicide” at Synod 2024? The pygmies are in charge…
Dear Anna, when I am dismayed by a priests words I simply turn to Our Lord present in the tabernacle and offer words of love to Him. I also ask Him to send out upon me, others present and especially the priest, the Holy Spirit. Then I let go and let God work. Diane
St. Margaret of Antioch is a patroness invoked against diabolical infestation. The Devil in the guise of a dragon came to seduce her when she had been jailed and she made the sign of the cross and banished him.
She is one of the 14 Holy Helpers and a guide, on the testimony of St. Joan of Arc, to St. Joan of Arc.
‘ Saint Marguerite and Olibrius, also known as Marguerite keeping the sheep Hours of Étienne Chevalier, illuminated by Jean Fouquet. Paris, Louvre Museum, Department of Miniatures and Illuminations, MI 1093. Photo RMN This episode from the life of Saint Marguerite is borrowed from the Golden Legend of Jacques de Voragine. Fouquet captured the moment when the prefect Olibrius, returning to his castle, detached himself from his suite to contemplate Marguerite, with whom he had suddenly fallen in love. Indifferent to the gaze that falls on her, the young shepherdess, standing near her companions, spins the distaff while tending her nurse’s animals in front of a peaceful countryside landscape, where the fields extend as far as the eye can see. ‘
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Legend#/media/File:Sainte_Marguerite_et_Olibrius.jpg
https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=199
Anna. I wonder how your priest would react if the next time you were at Mass, you took out a pair of headphones (not earbuds but the larger ones that cover your ears) and put them on. You could listen to some Gregorian chant while you pray or read the text of the Mass, go to Communion, etc. I guess I don’t know if that would negate your Sunday obligation if you confined it to the homily. Maybe someone who knows more could say.
After experiencing the hit-and-miss of the Novus Ordo for decades, we were blessed with the chance to attend a diocesan TLM with a competent priest, at least until it is shut down.
Dear Anna, I understand your disappointment and disgust with your mass experience. Assuming that you attend the Novus Ordo, may I suggest attending a traditional Latin Mass? If you do, leave your Novus Ordo experience in your car. Attend the Latin Mass and just experience and absorb it, and fall in love. You will be in my prayers.
One final comment to the group at large… I find the notes of support and understanding for Anna from the usual contributors to be nothing short of acts of love. My heart is comforted.
Thank you so much to everyone who responded and prayed! It was very important for me to hear that I am not alone in all that awfulness. I cannot thank you enough!
I went to the Easter Vigil. I had a clear experience which I want to share. The Easter vigil is my favorite service. I usually feel joy because of the resurrection of Our Lord. This time there was no joy at all and also an enormous crushing sadness. I could not really “hear” the words of the Scriptures (I think they read five of them). I mean I heard them, tried to read them but I could not connect as if my brain was muffled. Then suddenly all was lifted up when they read the following words of the prophet Ezekiel:
‘Son of man, the members of the House of Israel used to live in their own land, but they defiled it by their conduct and actions. I then discharged my fury at them because of the blood they shed in their land and the idols with which they defiled it. I scattered them among the nations and dispersed them in foreign countries. I sentenced them as their conduct and actions deserved. And now they have profaned my holy name among the nations where they have gone…”
That text sounded in my ears like it is happening now, that the Church profanes God’s name and defiles itself with the idols. After that I lost the ability to understand anything. I believe that is the message for the Church. It was like a bell ringing.
During the homily I witnessed the same priest doing IT again. What he did: he said that the women went to the Tomb to anoint the Body of Our Lord but it was not there. So, he said, they could not anoint Him, their plans were disrupted – and this is what we should learn, to let God alter our plans. It was totally mad. What are “the plans” of those women? They were desperate; when they heard the angel telling them “He is risen!” they were both afraid and rejoiced. Which plans? So, his discourse totally ignored women as persons. His message about “plans” does not work here because one cannot use something high and grand (Resurrection) as a tool to teach about something low and small in comparison (our plans). In effect, a priest reduced the Resurrection; he did not say anything about Our Lord. Not a word!
This is truly awful, brothers and sisters. It was that warped psychology, depersonalization (of women and Christ both) again (about which I wrote so much) that is capable of “to destroy” Christ in the minds of believers.
Anna, responding here only to the notion of disrupted “plans”….
Yes, contrary to the historical and alarming event of the Resurrection, we do notice how all of our self-sufficient plans, at least as far back as the so-called Enlightenment, have been one gnostic failure after another. Even in the post-Christian ivory towers of inevitable Progress, such merely academic and worldly optimism—not the same as “hope,” which is a theological virtue!—was undeniably sucked into the trenches of World War I. A house of cards…
The Secularist Project, or “plan,” in all of its sophisticated variations has been permanently disrupted—and refuses to be embalmed and buried. Even philosophically, Etienne Gilson reminds us that “metaphysics always buries its undertakers.”
And, yet, we members of the Eucharistic Church are called to engage the world, even and especially in these dark times. Good news for us—clarified as early as the 4th and 5th-century Donatist Controversy—that the Consecration is valid and effective regardless of the sometimes superficial cerebral or even moral stature of the ordained priest.
“the Church as a ‘rainbow,’ with more flexibility in pastoral approaches and teaching in different places”
Is there any wonder that the Church in Malta (and most of western Europe) is dying?
God, come to our assistance. Lord make HASTE to help us!