Members of OSP know well about long renovation projects. According to the Associated Press, this beautiful photograph, is a view of the Sistine Hall, part of the Vatican Apostolic Library, Vatican City, Monday, Sept. 13, 2010. The Vatican's Apostolic Library is reopening to scholars following a three-year renovation to improve its cataloging and security measures.The library, which houses one of the world's best collections of illuminated manuscripts, opens its doors Sept. 20. Details will be announced Monday at a press conference. The library was started by Pope Nicholas V in the 1450s with an initial 350 Latin manuscripts. By the time Nicholas died in 1455, the collection had swelled to about 1,500 codices and was the largest in Europe.
Parishioner Jack Potts and Anne Marie Sauder of Ponce, Puerto Rico were joined in Holy Matrimony July 24th in Ventura, California. Jack is the son of John and Jennifer Potts of Kansas City. The bride is the daughter of Carl and Kathy Sauder of Puerto Rico. Anne Marie's parents were both graduates of Thomas Aquinas College as are the newly-weds. The couple plans to return to Kansas City to form their new home as Jack will continue his education by studying for a nursing degree. Our very best wishes to Jack and Anne Marie!!!
In Colorado, just an hour and eight minutes by air...there are naturally astonishing vistas that native Americans thought were the work of many deities. But of course, we know differently. This view was taken in the 1,500+ acre Garden of the Gods park looking toward Pike's Peak in the center shrouded that morning with low clouds. This park is a "don't miss" attraction if you're in the Colorado Springs area.
Yesterday morning when we left to return to Kansas City after a week in the mountains it was 59 degrees. Quite a difference in temperature when we stepped off the plane. The thermostat in our car at KCI airport parking lot read 112 degrees.
Follow this link for a spectacular view of the Sistine Chapel. Just move your mouse over the image when the picture fully loads. It allows you to move around, up and down and also allows you to enlarge or reduce any segment of the video. The only thing better would be to actually visit the chapel in person. A reader sent this link for our enjoyment.
The sisters are moving ahead with the initial building on their property near St. Joseph, MO. For more pictures, click here. To help the sisters financially, click here.
The photo is for real. The logo of the local heros is just part of the blogger's fanciful imagination.
We hate to admit to this ignorance, but we'd never heard of this pious practice before Canon Avis announced it in Sunday's bulletin. In doing a little further research we discovered Father Mark Daniel Kirby's blog with a wealth of information about its history and symbolism. Father Kirby is the Prior of the Diocesan Benedictine Monastery of Our Lady of the Cenacle in Tulsa, Oklahoma."Christians of both East and West have, from very early times, blessed herbs and fruit on the Feast of the Assumption. Thus blessed, these creatures become sacramentals of the Church and portents of divine protection from dangers to soul and body. In some places the herbs were placed on the altar, and even beneath the altar linens, so that from this proximity to the Most Holy Eucharist they might receive a special hallowing, beyond that conferred by the blessing prayers of the Church."We are looking forward to experiencing this blessing prior to the Masses at Old St. Patrick Oratory on August 15th.
The previously announced development in the East Village area adjoining Old St. Patrick has been pretty dormant over the last couple of years other than the construction of the J.E. Dunn headquarters. About all that has happened is some demolition of deteriorated structures.
Should you visit St. Louis for the Vatican Splendors exhibit (see the previous post below), DO NOT miss attending Mass at the Cathedral Basilica just down the street from the Missouri History Museum. This photo of the nave of the basilica was taken last fall at the conclusion of the investiture of new knights and ladies into the Order of Knights of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem. This is stunning architecture!
"Vatican Splendors: A Journey through Faith and Art: will be showing at the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park - St. Louis, Missouri through Sept. 12.
If you can read French you will appreciate a little better what is going on in the photographs on the Institute's international website.
In a wonderful stop-motion photo of the beginning of the bi-diocesan Corpus Christi procession on June 6th, the photographer, Elaina Cochran shooting for The Leaven newspaper caught the lead children leaving the doors of Old St. Patrick Oratory by beginning to spread flower petals over the path of the Holy Eucharist to follow.
From our den window, we were entertained last night with a lovely fireworks celebration from what we believe was the Kansas City Country Club a mile or so west of us. Also, this photo shows a bright Venus clearly in the western sky.
Son of Ivan and Cecelia Csanaky, good friends of Old St. Patrick Oratory who have helped us on numerous occasions in the choir loft with their beautiful and professional singing talent. Born on June 16, 2010 weighing 9 lbs and 6.8 oz. He will be baptized as a parishioner of the St. Rose Philippine Duchesne Latin Mass Community this next Saturday at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Kansas City, KS. Oratorians extend their best wishes to the Csanaky family.
Don't get me wrong! We have absolutely no regrets about our move to the beautifully re-done Old St. Patrick. But, we ran across this special artfully composed photo of Our Lady of Sorrows and couldn't help be a little nostalgic about our former home for Latin Mass for about 15 years. Our Lady of Sorrows is a stunningly beautiful church home that was perfect for the celebration of the Mass of the Ages. We've certainly been very fortunate to have had two of the nicest church homes in the entire diocese. This photo was taken by Neal60 (sorry, we don't have the name of the photographer, but you can see more examples of his work by clicking here.)
Unfortunately, we forgot our camera this morning and don't have a new photo of the beautiful pair of angels guarding either side of the sanctuary that are now mounted on their new pedestals. This photo to the left was taken during the October, 2008 consecration ceremonies. The angels were donated by Bob and Alice Umphress and since the completion of the renovation have sat at the base of pillars. Now they have their long-planned places of honor on concrete pedestals also donated by the Umphresses and painted by Joe Farris.
Yesterday afternoon the Blue Army organization held its Rosary Rally at Old St. Patrick. This regular monthly devotion of saying of the full Rosary has been continuously held around the two dioceses for over a quarter century. The Blue Army, a public association of the faithful, was formed in the late 1940's and early 50s to spread the message of Fatima.
Last year when Canon Avis introduced the laudable practice of praying for good weather after Sunday Low Masses, we did a post on it here on the blog. Since we resumed occasional posting on this OSP community blog a month or so ago, we've received about 10 visits a week from people who are looking for a prayer to protect from bad weather and found our post on Google and other search engines. Looking out the window today into a steady downpour reminded us to be sure to pay particular and concentrated attention to tomorrow's prayer after 8:00 a.m. Mass.Here's a portion of the prayer that we do at Old St. Patrick Oratory. "We beseech Thee, O Almighty God, through the intercession of Holy Mary, the Mother of God, of the holy angels, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors, virgins, widows, and of all Thy saints that Thou show us Thy continuing protection, permit tranquil winds, and also pour out to us, Thy unworthy servant, Thy safety from heaven above against lightning strikes and violent storms, and that Thou remain always protective of the human race and crush down the aerial powers by the right hand of Thy power. Through the same Christ the Lord....".
"(The) three sources of immanentism as they influenced the Church during the waning of an intellectual phase of Modernism in the 1950s and early 1960s provided the foundation for a psychological break from tradition as a norm. As Peter Bernardi observes, Blondel (Maurice Blondel, a French philosopher) was “working at a time when the Church was just beginning to become conscious of a certain break in its tradition.” The work of Blondel and the influx of the other modern philosophical points of view, which were antithetical to the ecclesiastical tradition, had a drastic impact on Vatican II. By the time Vatican II arrived, the intellectual foundation was in place for a systematic rejection of all aspects of ecclesiastical tradition.
Blondel and others, under the influence of modern philosophy, thought that modern man could not be satisfied with past ways of thinking. They provided an intellectual foundation upon which the Church, with a Council as a catalyst, could “update” itself or undergo an “aggiornamento.” With the foundations for the extrinsic tradition having been supplanted, the extrinsic tradition was lost. In other words, since the view of man had changed and since the view of the Deposit of Faith was subjected to a modern analysis, the extrinsic tradition, which rested upon these two, collapsed. We are currently living with the full-blown effects of that collapse. Catholics today have become fixated on the here and now, and in consequence the Church’s traditions have come to be treated not only as irrelevant but also as something to be distrusted and even, at times, demonized.
This has had several effects. The first is that those things that pertain to the extrinsic tradition and do not touch upon the intrinsic tradition are ignored. This manifests itself in the fact that some ecclesial documents today do not have any connection to the positions held by the Magisterium prior to the Second Vatican Council. For example, in the document of Vatican II on ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio, there is not a single mention of the two previous documents that deal with the ecumenical movement and other religions: Leo XIII’s Satis Cognitum and Pius XI’s Mortalium Animos. The approach to ecumenism and other religions in these documents is fundamentally different from the approach of the Vatican II document or Ut Unum Sint by Pope John Paul II. While the current Magisterium can change a teaching that falls under non-infallible ordinary magisterial teaching, nevertheless, when the Magisterium makes a judgment in these cases, it has an obligation due to the requirements of the moral virtue of prudence to show how the previous teaching was wrong or is now to be understood differently by discussing the two different teachings. However, this is not what has happened. The Magisterium since Vatican II often ignores previous documents which may appear to be in opposition to the current teaching, leaving the faithful to figure out how the two are compatible, such as in the cases of Mortalium Animos and Ut Unum Sint. This leads to confusion and infighting within the Church as well as the appearance of contradicting previous Church teaching without explanation or reasoned justification."
This really is quite interesting....give it a try. It is an online test from the Pew Research Institute. There are no tricks here - just a simple test to see if you are current on your information. This is quite good and the results are shocking. Test your knowledge of current events and elementary knowledge with 12 questions, then be ready to shudder when you see how others did.
We were especially glad to see Msgr. Offutt at Old Saint Patrick for the Corpus Christi procession. Msgr. Offutt played an indispensable role in the development and direction of the renovation effort from 2005 through 2008. Although his contributions were varied and many, one of the most important was the research and obtaining, with great difficulty, the Oratory's beautiful main and side marble altars from a closed church in the Boston, MA diocese. Current parishioners and parishioners to come will have much to be grateful for his work and leadership during the initial years of the Oratory's transfer for the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass...now known as the Extraordinary Form...very EXTRAORDINARY indeed!
Bishop Finn and Archbishop Naumann enter the Oratory in procession with other priests, deacons, and seminarians.
Processing past the newly completed headquarters of the J. E. Dunn Construction Company, reminded us to renew our gratitude for the company's generous gift to the Oratory during its reconstruction.
Is this scene below a contradiction???!!!. We thought there was to be separation between Church and State. Briefly, anyway, they seemed very close.
Some of the 500 or so faithful in procession from parishes across both dioceses - Kansas and Missouri sides of the state line.
Archbishop Naumann recites prayers of the ceremony in the brief blessing given at the half-way point on the north end of the very attractive municipal Ilus Davis park.
After the blessing Bishop Finn continued the procession by assuming the carrying of the Blessed Sacrament.
Some of the faithful re-entering the Oratory for final Benediction.
It was a beautiful day and a holy and solemn continuation of a timeless Catholic show of adoration for the True Presence in the Holy Eucharist.
A year and a half ago, during the Consecration and re-Dedication of Old St. Patrick, Evan Harkins served on the altar as a seminarian. He is now a priest, being ordained on May 29th by our beloved Bishop, Robert Finn at the Cathedral. He shown above incensing the congregation during that ceremony.
In 2006, shortly after Bishop Finn announced the formation of the parish of Old Saint Patrick, we held our procession on a beautiful Sunday morning around the Our Lady of Sorrows church property. Our first rector, Father Denis Buchholz led the procession to a special altar erected in the back parking lot of the church.
We just started posting again to this blog a couple of days ago...and among our first visitors is some computer at the Holy See searching for an image of Monsignor Michael Schmitz the U.S. Provincial Superior of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest. We welcome whoever it was looking. We have posted several very nice photos of Monsignor over the last couple of years. We're pleased the Vatican came looking.
You won't believe this. 
