Are student residences dangerous?

At least, in the spiritual sense?

Surely, some students commit terrible stuff in halls. There may even be students who, seriously or not, dabble in pagan worship or Satan worship. Does this have an effect on our spiritual lives? Are we more likely to come under attack from demons? Are we therefore more likely to lose sanctifying grace through mortal sin? Is it just the atmosphere of more alcohol and hedonism which can prevail in student residences? Or do we just become lazy in our spiritual warfare?

Future of this Blog

As my reader may have noticed, I've not posted anything for over a month now. Even when I get the impulse to write something, I often feel as though it's stupid and not worthwhile posting. So now I'm considering whether to continue with it at all. Furthermore, I'm almost finished with my year abroad, which is half the reason I started it. I'm just all dried up on material and if you want to read an opinion about anything Catholic, you can most definitely read a better one elsewhere. I'm basically not a writer.

On another note, I passed my third year at university, meaning only one more year to go till I've finished my degree. :D

Evening Hymn to the Trinity

Firmly I believe, and truly
God is Three, and God is One;
And I next acknowledge duly
Manhood taken by the Son;

And I trust and hope most fully
In that manhood crucified;
And each thought and deed unruly
Do to death, as He has died.

Simply to His grace and wholly
Light and life and strength belong;
And I love supremely, solely,
Him the holy, Him the strong.

Adoration aye be given,
With and through the angelic host,
To the God of earth and heaven, 
Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Venerable J. H. Card. Newman 

Pro seipso sacerdote

I read this great post by the incomparable Father Z today on the prayers that the priest said for himself on the anniversary of his ordination. The first mentioned are those of the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite. They emphasise the humility of the priest as a servant to all, above all to God, who in His mercy established the priesthood. The post speaks for itself so I'll just post it all here.

In the traditional, Extraordinary Form a priest can add orations for the anniversary of his ordination, Pro seipso sacerdote.

The 2002MR has three formularies Pro seipso sacerdote while the 1962MR has but one.

Since this is a time of year when new priests are being ordained, and many priests are observing their own anniversaries, let’s have a WDTPRS look at the prayers Pro seipso sacerdote from the traditional, Extraordinary Form.

COLLECT (1962MR):
Omnípotens et miséricors Deus,
humilitátis meae preces benígnus inténde:
et me fámulum tuum, quem,
nullis suffragántibus méritis,
sed imménsa cleméntiae tuae largitáte,
caeléstibus mystériis servíre tribuísti,
dignum sacris altáribus fac minístrum;
ut, quod mea voce deprómitur,
tua sanctificatióne firmétur.

SLAVISHLY LITERAL VERSION:
Almighty and merciful God,
kindly hark to the prayers of my humility:
and make me, Your servant, whom,
no merits of my own favoring me,
but by the immense largess of your indulgence,
You granted to serve the heavenly mysteries,
to be a worthy minister at the sacred altars;
so that, that which is called down by my voice,
may be made sure by Your sanctification.

The prayer focuses on priest’s self-awareness of his lowliness and that who he is and what he does is from God’s grace and choice and not his own. 

It also emphasis the relationship of the priest to the altar, that it, the bond of the priest and Holy Mass.  In the older form of Holy Mass, after the consecration during the Canon at the Suppplices te rogamus... the priest bends low over the altar, puts his hands on it… they were annointed, the altar was annointed… kisses the altar, makes the sign of the Cross over the consecrated Host on the corporal, over the Precious Blood in the chalice, over himself.  Christ is Victim.  Christ is Priest.  The priest is victim and priest as well.  This moment during Holy Mass reveals the mysterious bond of altar where the priest sacrifices the victim, the sacrificial victim and the sacrificing priest.  They are one. At the altar he is alter Christus, another Christ, offering and offered.

What also comes to mind as I look at this is the Augustinian reflection of the speaker of the Word and the Word spoken, and the message and reality of the Word and the Voice which speaks it.  The voice of the priest and the priest himself are merely the means God uses in the sacred action, the sacramental mysteries at the altar, to renew in that moment what He has wrought.  Finally, this is done through mercy.  The words misericors, clementia, largitas, benignus all point to the mercy of God.

The priest speaks and God makes what he speaks reality.  He takes the insubstantial words and makes them firm and real.  How important it is for the priest to get himself out of the way when he is at the altar, where the True Actor is in action, Christ the Eternal and High Priest.

SECRET (1962MR):
Huius, Dómine, virtúte sacraménti,
peccatórum meórum máculas abstérge:
et praesta;
ut ad exsequéndum injúncti offícii ministérium,
me tua grátia dignum effíciat.

SLAVISHLY LITERAL VERSION:
O Lord, by the power of this sacrament,
cleanse the stains of my sins:
and grant;
that it may make me worthy by Your grace
unto the performance of the ministry of the office that has been imposed.

Priests are sinner in need of a Savior just like everyone else.  They confess sins and receive absolution like everyone else.  They, to, must do penance for past sins like everyone else.  They come to the altar as sinners.  In the older form of Holy Mass, the texts of the ordinary constantly remind the priest of who he is and who he isn’t.  In this Secret, spoken quietly, the priest prays for what only God can do: remove the stains of sins from his soul.

The prayer brings also to mind the burden of the yoke of the priesthood, symbolized as by the priestly vestment, the chasuble.  As the priest vests he says as he puts on this vestment, "O Lord, Who said: My yoke is easy and My burden light: grant that I may bear it well and follow after You with thanksgiving. Amen."   The yoke is the ancient sign of subjugation.  The ancient Romans caused the conquered to pass under a yoke, iugum. 

POSTCOMMUNION (1962MR):
Omnípotens sempitérne Deus,
qui me peccatórem sacris altáribus astáre voluísti,
et sancti nóminis tui laudáre poténtiam:
concéde propítius, per hujus sacraménti mystérium,
meórum mihi véniam peccatórum;
ut tuae majestáti digne mérear famulári.

SLAVISHLY LITERAL VERSION:
Almighty eternal God,
who desired me, a sinner, to stand at the sacred altars,
and to praise the might of Your Holy Name:
propitiously grant, through the mystery of this sacrament,
the forgiveness of my sins for me;
so that I may merit to wait upon Your majesty.

On the day of ordination the priest lies down upon the floor.

He becomes the lowest thing in the church.

As I read this, I am struck by the two sets of contrasts.

First, there is the contrast of the low state of the servant sinner and the majesty of God.

Second, there is the present moment contrasted with the future to come.

Majestas is like gloria, Hebrew kabod or Greek doxa, a divine characteristic which – some day – we may encounter in heaven in such a way that we will be transformed by it forever and forever.  When Moses encountered God in the cloud on the mountain and in the tent, he came forth with a face shining so brightly that he had to wear a veil.  This is a foreshadowing of the transformative power of God’s majestas.

A priest waits on this majestas.  He awaits it and waits upon it.  He desires it for his own future, but in the present moment he waits upon it as a servent.  He is an attendent, in every sense, one who waits and one who waits.

May God have mercy on priests, sinner servants, attendent on the unmerited grace and gifts of the Victim Priest and Savior.

Consider the mercy of God in His gift of the priesthood during these last days of the year of the priest.

The feast of Corpus Christ this year falls on the first Thursday of June, the last day lay people can gain a plenary indulgence by praying for priests in this Year of the Priest.

The rejection of God's love and its consequence

Now, correct me on this if anything's a bit heterodox.

I was pondering on the suggestion that the existence of hell is contrary to an all-loving God. How is it that God can love us so much but yet let people go to hell? The way I understand it is that it comes down to free will.

Chesterton says in his book Heretics that the theological virtues are by their essence irrational. Faith is the belief of something unbelievable; hope is only a virtue in hopeless situations; and love is only charity when it forgives the unforgivable. In this sense, we offend God so often, yet He has shown how He loves us by what He has done for us, by sending His only Son into the world and then to die so that we might have everlasting life with Him. Even just on Thursday, as we celebrated the Ascension, God loved us by raising our humanity up to the highest heaven, in the person of Jesus, and in Him it is permanently united to divine life. When faced with such love, such infinite love, what are we to do then? Our only response would be to love in return with every fibre of our being. Jesus told us what the main commandments are: love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might; and love your neighbour as yourself. These commandments are not an imposition upon us, a mere ruling that we must follow, but rather they lay it out loud and clear what our response to such love of God should be.
But what do we actually do?
We reject this love, again and again. We turn to ourselves, we trust ourselves, we ignore God and give Him no thanks. We do everything imaginable that is contrary to the correct and just response. God keeps coming at us heavy with love and sometimes we accept it, though many times we reject it. So what is God to do? He gave us free will and so He will not force us to love Him. The logical conclusion to a rejection of God's infinite love, to remaining in the darkness, to loving oneself - all free choices of ours - is Hell.

Confiteor

Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, beatae Mariae semper Virgini, beato Michaeli Archangelo, beato Joanni Baptistae, sanctis Apostolis Petro et Paulo, et omnibus sanctis, quia peccavi nimis cogitatione, verbo et opere; mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Et ideo precor beatam Mariam semper Virginem, beatum Michaelem Archangelum, beatum Joannem Baptistam, sanctos Apostolos Petrum et Paulum, et omnes sanctos, orare pro me ad Dominum Deum nostrum.

Inclusive language and the decline in interest among younger women.

Here in Germany I am studying at the Seminar für Übersetzung und Dolmetschen (School for Translation and Interpreting) where I take some classes in interpreting and translation. The majority of these classes are held by the same Australian woman who is retiring next year. While this woman is an excellent teacher - truly outstanding - she has also clearly been heavily influenced by the modernist and feminist agendas of her age bracket (that of my parents and just a little older) for she is always banging on about using "they" instead of "he", which the Germans would do naturally. For her, she doesn't feel at all included in collective nouns such as mankind, brotherhood, or in German die Lehrer (which is strictly speaking the masculine plural of teacher - the exclusively feminine plural would be die Lehrerinnen, where the singular is die Lehrerin - feminine persons are usually ascribed the suffix -in, with the plural suffix being -innen). However, when questioning the German students in the class (the majority of which are female, like at home), they generally respond with indifference, saying that they DO feel included when they see a word like Studenten, Freunde, usw. and that they find the politically correct forms of StudentInnen or Student/innen to be cumbersome and stupid. More and more I am seeing that people of nowadays are actually less sensitive to the idea of language being dominated by masculinity, especially when feminizing it means making it more cumbersome. Although it is still definitely out there, it's clearly not as popular with the yoof of today as it was for those in the 60s.