Remembering my Dear Mother

Those readers who have been following us for a long time know that, years ago, I made repeated posts asking for your prayers for a terrible, painful, and, as in the end it turned out to be, terminal illness suffered by my mother. I made reference to her death also in several posts, including I believe this first one several years ago:

I hear the familiar sound of a car rolling down the street, and I look out the window hoping that it will be her car, that she is coming by for a visit.

It is hard to believe this will never be the case again.

I miss you, Mother... 

I wish to thank all readers who have prayed for her soul throughout these many years, especially the Monks who with extreme kindness offered a series of Gregorian Masses on her behalf. Please, pray for her soul.

NC

Perjury: Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above

MORE: In good faith, Rich, I am sorrier for your perjury than my peril. 

NORFOLK: Do you deny this? 

MORE Yes! My lords, if I were a man who heeded not the taking of an oath, you know well I need not to be here. Now I will take an oath! If what Master Rich has said is true, then I pray I may never see God in the face! Which I would not say were it otherwise for anything on earth. 

CROMWELL: That is not evidence. 

MORE: Is it probable - is it probable - that after so long a silence on this, the very point so urgently sought of me, I should open my mind to such a man as that?

Robert Bolt

A Man for All Seasons

1960

You suggest: Rorate Mass Saturday, December 15, in Birmingham, Alabama

You suggest: Rorate Mass Saturday, December 15, in Philadelphia

Rorate cæli: The silence of Christ's coming

Rorate, cæli, desuper, et nubes pluant iustum: aperiatur terra, et germinet Salvatorem. (cf. also the fourth Lesson for Ember Saturday in Advent, Isaias xlv, 6-8: "I am the Lord, and there is none else: I form the light, and create darkness, I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord that do all these things. Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just: let the earth be opened, and bud forth a savior: and let justice spring up together: I the Lord have created him.")

Giovanni Battista Trotti, called Il Malosso
Virgin Mary Architect of the Universe (1603)

This Sunday (RORATE Sunday, the 4th Sunday in Advent, superseded this year by the Vigil of the Nativity) marks the 12th anniversary of this blog: thank you for your readership, and a very blessed Christmastide to you and yours!

___________________

I. Consider first, that this blessed earth here spoken of is, according to the strictest interpretation, no other than Our Lady, that inviolate Virgin and immaculate Earth, from which, without human agency, there sprang that Divine Bud, desired by Isaias so long before, when he exclaimed: "Let the earth be opened, and bud forth a Savior." This being so, it will at once strike thee as strange that this form of expression should be used. For, if the Earth here spoken of was so inviolate as to remain as much closed during as before childbirth, how can the Prophet pray that it might be opened? "Let the earth be opened."

Rorate Mass in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, December 16th, 2017

St. Stanislaus Catholic Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (524 W Historic Mitchell St, Milwaukee, WI 53204) will be celebrating its second annual Rorate Mass this year on December 16. See information in the flyer below. Please help spread the word if you are in this part of the USA.

Event: Rorate Mass in Kokomo, Indiana, Saturday, December 9

Aureas Manus, the Chant Group of Purdue University, and Una Voce Kokomo will be hosting a Rorate mass the morning of December 9th at St. Patrick's in Kokomo. Fr. Christopher Roberts will be the celebrant. Music will be provided by Aureas Manus and the choir of St. Patrick's. Candles and hymnals will be provided. Breakfast to follow. Those wishing to follow upcoming events of the Latin Mass Community in the Diocese of Lafayette-in-Indiana should email latinmasslafayette@gmail.com.

You suggest: Rorate Mass in Philadelphia

You suggest: Young adult traditional movement group and Rorate Mass in Nebraska

A note, below, from the founders of the group:

Rorate Cæli 10-year anniversary: your thoughts

Today marks the 10-year anniversary of Rorate Cæli, founded on Rorate Sunday, 2005. 

Thank you to all our readers for your loyalty and support. As mostly anonymous bloggers, we do this out of love of our Lord, His Church, and you -- not for fame, and certainly not for money, as we have never accepted a dime.

We promised no hoopla and no big splash today. When you think about the almost unfathomable notion that the Church is in worse shape today than it was 10 years ago when we started there's no real reason for us to celebrate. We have failed Christ and His Bride and have much work to do before we break out the champagne. God willing, we'll be alive to pop those corks.

What we did do in preparation for today was to ask you, our dear readers, to share your thoughts on what this blog means to you. We were overwhelmed with the response, both in volume, and in content. Lives changed, families saved and vocations berthed. 

We cannot post all the emails we received, but here is a sampling. Thanks to all of you who wrote in. Even if you don't see yours here, it warmed our hearts, and we appreciate it.

Rorate reader responses:

I would  like you to know that it was on your website back in 2012 that we discovered the FSSP Mission trips. Our daughter X went with the good FSSP priests in 2012 (Dominican Republic) and 2013 (Peru). 

The following year, she announced her desire to become a nun. After a spiritual retreat to aid discernment, she discovered the Dominican Sisters of Wanganui: http://www.dominicansisterswanganui.blogspot.com 

X is currently a postulant with the Dominicans at Rosary Convent in Australia and finishing up her teaching certificate. She will be entering as a novice this January.

Thank you for posting the FSSP mission trips on your site! As her mother, I can clearly see that Rorate was an instrument for God's calling. 

Please keep X in your prayers.

In Christ and His Blessed Mother

***

Rorate's Caeli's 10-year anniversary: Tell us your story

Reposting once more, with some of your responses being posted this upcoming Rorate Sunday:

On the fourth Sunday of Advent, this blog will celebrate its 10th anniversary since its beginning, by our prolific, gifted and pious founder, New Catholic. It has been an amazing 10 years with Rorate Caeli now the most-read international traditional Catholic blog in the world.

Before becoming a contributor -- one of the greatest blessings, and spiritual burdens, of my life -- I was once a reader and admirer. I would email, along with news tips, my appreciation to NC. 

Rorate spiritually woke me up, in a good way. It was slavishly traditional, yet never knee-jerk. It was well researched and thought through: the kind of blog that lifted the veil from your eyes but didn't cause you to go to an untenable extreme. 

It was, without any exaggeration, a great spiritual gift to me, dropped down from Heaven. 

Over the years many of you, whether laymen, priests, religious, bishops or even princes of the Church, have conveyed your appreciation to us. And we can say doubly back to you how much we not only appreciate, but need, your words of encouragement. 

We make no money for running this blog yet, at times, it's almost like having a second full-time job. And even though we try our best, the criticisms come from all angles, from all levels, like a constant barrage. At times, when we've been at our lowest, that one email coming in telling us how much we've meant to a reader is enough to pick us back up, dust us off and get us back to work doing our small part to bring about the restoration of the traditional Latin Mass and Faith. 

Your words of encouragement -- and the graces of God bestowed on us by Our Lady -- sustain us. 

This Rorate Sunday, we will not have any hoopla, no big splash. But we will commemorate the day. 

Please send us your brief thoughts on what Rorate Caeli has meant to you. This shouldn't be long and don't worry about getting it perfect. Just send us your thoughts and we will do our best to compile them all and publish them without names attached (unless you specifically ask us to). 

You may send your thoughts to athanasiuscatholic AT yahoo . com 

A very heartfelt thank you to all of our dear readers for 10 years of loyalty and encouragement. May God grant us all another 10 years to fight for tradition and work out our salvation.

Event: Rorate Masses Live Online during Advent

LiveMass is happy to share the Rorate Masses we will broadcast Live from the FSSP apostolates in Guadalajara, Mexico and Fribourg, Switzerland (in addition to our regular broadcasting schedule from all our apostolates, 7 days/week.):

The Bergoglio Pontificate: The Second Anniversary - NYT columnist: "Who Are Pope Francis's Critics?"

The New York Times, for better or for worse, is considered the newspaper of record in America.  Its editorials nearly always oppose the Catholic Church's teachings and its articles usually favor the Church only when a pope or another prominent Catholic breaks with tradition.  Every so often there is a rare exception.

The paper's lone conservative, full-time columnist, Ross Douthat, is a welcome exception to the op-ed page's stale predictability.  He has written pieces that have been controversial even in conservative Catholic circles and has observed trends such as, "France is also a country with a very strong traditionalist Catholic presence -- there might be as many French priests in various Latin Mass orders, separated and not, by 2040 as there are priests in the diocesan clergy and non-traditionalist orders -- which has its own interesting implications for the future of the much-reduced Catholic presence."

The newest post by Mr. Douthat takes a look at Pope Francis and his critics.  He divides them (us, actually) into three camps -- traditionalists; Catholic economic conservatives and libertarians; and doctrinal conservatives:

1. Traditionalists. These are Catholics defined by their preference/zeal for the Tridentine Rite Mass and their rejection of (or at least doubts about) various reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Some attend mainstream parishes that offer the mass in Latin, others are affiliated with orders specifically organized around the old rite, others are connected to parishes run by the (arguably; it’s a long argument) schismatic Society of Saint Pius X. There’s lots of variation within traditionalist ranks (my friend Michael Brendan Dougherty, ... is a “trad” of a different sort than, say, this fellow), but the important things to emphasize are first, that their numbers (in the American context and otherwise) are quite small; second, that their concerns are not usually the same as those of the typical John Paul II-admiring conservative Catholic (traditionalists were often not admirers of the Polish pope); and third, that their skepticism of Pope Francis was probably inevitable and pretty clearly mutual. 

For instance, [The New Republic magazine's Elizabeth] Bruenig notes that Rorate Caeli, a traditionalist site, greeted Jorge Bergoglio’s election by describing him as “a sworn enemy of the traditional Mass.” But what she doesn’t mention is that as Francis, he has often vindicated those fears: He has demoted the traditional mass’s most prominent champion within the Vatican, cracked down on a prominent traditionalist order, and frequently singled out traditionalist tendencies and practices for criticism in his remarks. Traditionalism has, it’s fair to say, a paranoid streak and then some, but even paranoids have enemies, and since the Tridentine mass was essentially suppressed in much of the church for a generation and more, Francis’s moves have not exactly been calculated to reassure Catholics of this persuasion about their place within the church.

Ninth Anniversary of Rorate Cæli

This blog was launched nine years ago today. We thank Almighty God for the countless graces He has showered upon this apostolate, for the many souls that have been nourished by Catholic truth, encouraged by signs of hope, challenged by the demands of tradition, driven to prayer and fasting by the need to exorcise the demons of our time -- and, above all, moved to greater love and fidelity to Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

How often have we felt like crying out, with the Prophet Isaiah, with the people of Israel, with all God-fearing souls throughout the centuries: "O that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at thy presence -- as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil -- to make thy name known to thy adversaries, and that the nations might tremble at thy presence!" (Isa 64:1-2). Now, more than ever, O Lord, rend the heavens and come down to save Thy People, in captivity, in exile, wandering in the desert of modernity!

Rorate Mass at the FSSP European Seminary

Wigratzbad, Bavaria, Saturday, December 12, 2014