Monday Morning Musings While Watching a Dancing Candle Flame

I start my day with prayer and the first thing I do after dipping my finger in the holy water fount and making the sign of the cross is to light a candle. I love to watch the flame flicker and dance inviting me to enter into the joy of worship. It reminds me of the expression "Chance or the Dance." Did all the wonder of creation come about through the mindless randomness of evolution? Or did it not come from the overflowing love of the Holy Trinity embracing humanity in an enthusiastic and joyful dance? 

I have no doubt of the answer!

"Jesus is a smart guy. He must keep his underwear dry or people will die."

The Holy Spirit in his tighty-whities. 
Are they damp or are they dry?

Somehow the above title translates into "We are the Body of Christ." I'm still trying to figure it out, even after seeking clarification by asking visiting priest Fr Jerry Cunningham if Jesus' damp underwear was the theme of his Corpus Christi homily. [Orlando Diocese, St Mary of the Lakes Catholic Church, Eustis, FL, June 23rd, 10am Mass]

He said yes, then mumbled something which was difficult to understand because he speaks too fast. It went like this...

Me: "So the theme of your homily was that Jesus must keep his underwear dry because it could make people die?"

Guest Post by Fr. Tom Collins -- Mary as Co-Redemptrix Part II: The Mystery of Redemption

Editors Note: See the Premises and Foundations for this article here and Part I here. 

From this covenant perspective, a beautiful dimension of the mystery of the Redemption becomes more evident. Scripture is quite clear in stating the fact that Jesus died for us because God loved us (John 3:16, Rom. 5:10, I Jn 4:19). Jesus' death on the cross did not cause God to love us, since God is beyond the control of the cause-effect dynamic. Thus the Redemption is not an act of appeasing the anger of a wrathful God, but rather the epiphany of the merciful God in the midst of the mercy-less condition that festers in the heart of sinful humanity. This condition of the human heart is the consequence of our free choice to reject a covenantal life with God and with one another. In the mystery of the Redemption, each human person is given the opportunity to break away from the power of sin and, by God's mercy, be restored to the status of membership in His covenant family. In the process, the redeemed are given the strength to break away from the corrupting "covenant" of sin; i.e., the tendency to commit one's self to the perverted fellowship of complicity with the spirits of evil, such as lust, envy, pride, avarice, anger, gluttony and sloth for the sake of some transient pleasure or advantage. 

Fulton Sheen: "We Live by What We Slay" - A Reflection on the Mass

Traditional Latin Rite Sacrifice of the Mass

I recently read The Ottaviani Intervention, compiled by Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, Antonio Cardinal Bacci, and A Group of Roman Theologians (who are not named). It is a Critical Study of The New Order of Mass, written shortly after the close of Vatican II.
Because I came into the Catholic Church in 1968, I barely remember attending mass at which the Novus Ordo mass was not in use. I did not realize at the time the change was made that I was witness to a great change in the Church, a change that would reverberate throughout the world causing more damage than we dare to imagine.