Rasa Sayang Sayange!

This is not too right... but I love it!

根源

依次系第一次用广东话写blog. 去完广州翻黎, 突然间发觉到自己既广东话真系比我以前捻既仲差, 难免会有多少惭愧. 可能真系环境既关系; 除左同家人倾之外, 平時都無得用广东话, 想進步都艰难... 其实我而家可以用广东话写blog, 我捻都算唔错既了!

我真既好想翻家乡睇下. 我知道想揾翻爷爷以前细个个阵时住既地方系无乜可能, 不过我总系希望新会到今日都无咩太大既改变.

琴晚以为今日有得同Shine倾几句, 但系翻到来屋企太迟, 渠走左去训觉. 不过无所谓, 听晩(亦即系今晚)可能会有D时间倾.

不知不觉, 宜家三点几了哦. 我都应該训啦. 好彩听日(应该讲系今日)我翻午班. 如果唔系, 我真既会唔知醒... 好啦, 大家早抖. 系甘先啦.

A Little Reminder.

Here's why your comments weren't published, especially those comments sent in by those too pusillanimous to use proper names.

1. A weblog is not designed to be a forum for debate and therefore should serve no such purpose. The purpose of my writing is to put forth ideas, not debate. If you wish to debate, let me know and I will engage you in a suitable forum.

2. If you have a disagreement you must state, please use a real name, or at least one that does not betray your intention to hide your identity. Remaining anonymous is almost always a sign that you are ashamed of your own words and wish to avoid taking responsibility, or that you do not want people who know you know what you said. Since you would be ashamed to say similar things to your friends, I see no reason to tolerate such anonymous comments. If you have a grave reason to use a fictitious name, please think up one that at least sounds real.

3. If and when you do state your disagreements, please also explain why you disagree. If you have nothing more than vitriolic remarks you want me to read, please just email me.

4. Having said all that, I am the Pontifex Maximus of this blog, and as such, what I say goes. I have the absolute right to delete any comments that I find objectionable for whatever reason, including, but not limited to, vileness, colossal stupidity, or failure to stick to the subject of a post. If you don't like that, tough shite.

5. I may also delete comments for charitable reasons, namely, to prevent the commenter, who has failed carefully to read what he is commenting on, and/or not thought his words carefully through, from further embarrassing himself.

6. Furthermore, I do not owe anyone explanations as to why I have deleted a comment. And if I fail to apologize for something I said that you don't like, you may assume I stand by what I said.

7. If there's still any confusion on your part, refer to Rule 4.

8. If you still want to butt heads with me, but still imagine that there is some worming room for you, especially in light that you have read Rules 1 to 7, you are either obstinate in sin or irreversibly stupid. Either way, you are anathema. Have a nice life!

夜宴

夜宴 1

夜宴 2

Petition For The Beatification of His Holiness Pius XII felicis memoriae.

Please sign!

God, Church & Soul.

CatholicNews' "Vatican II: One Example of Progress and Tradition" --- A Response.

On page 10 of the Catholic News (Sunday, October 14, 2007), we find an article written by Fr Robert Kinast, entitled "Vatican II: One example of progress and tradition."

The title is as misleading as the content of the half-page long article.

Chesterton the Apostle of Common Sense once remarked in his book Saint Thomas Aquinas, "It is the fact that falsehood is never so false as when it is very nearly true." That is the danger of the article; for the uninformed reader, it all makes sense. But in this entry we shall unveil the beast that is modernism that lies beneath this seemingly orthodox article.

The Poverello of Assisi was once commanded by God, "Francis, rebuild My Church, which you see is falling into ruins." 800 years later, we find ourselves in the same situation. The Saint himself could not see the destruction of the Church at first. Hopefully, in this age we are in a slightly better situation to witness how the modernists are raping Holy Mother Church, so that we can better help rebuild Her - instaurare omnia in Christo, to restore all things in Christ, for judicabit in nationibus, implebit ruinas, conquassabit capita in terra multorum, He shall judge among nations, He shall fill ruins, He shall crush the heads in the land of many.

The article as quoted verbatim below (including the author's lack of appropriate capitalisation) will appear in blue.

IN HIS OPENING speech at the Second Vatican Council Pope John XXIII reiterated what he said when he convoked the council: that it would never depart from the sacred heritage of truth received from the beginning while looking to the present, to the new conditions and forms of life which the church had to address.

Unfortunately, Pope John XXIII did not live long enough to guide the Council on the intended course. Upon his death in 1963, Fr Ralph Wiltgen reports, the modernists hijacked the Council, and elected one of their own to the throne of Peter, and the rest is history.

It is often attested that St Pio of Pietrelcina cried as he lay dying, "Stop the Council!" Others say Pope John XXIII himself uttered it. We shall begin to see why it is no surprise that St Pio and John XXIII would have perfectly intended that.

In other words, the council would remain faithful to its own tradition while moving forward in a changing world. How well did it achieve this goal?

Not very well, if we take the saying of Our Lord recorded in the Gospel according to St Matthew, 12:33 - "Either make the tree good and its fruit good: or make the tree evil, and its fruit evil. For by the fruit the tree is known."

It has been more than forty years since the Council ended, and till today many cannot agree exactly what the Council taught or what it even intended to.

And as soon as someone quotes from a preconciliar document, the person is slighted as "unecumenical" or "less Catholic" or something along those lines. It can only suggest two things: 1, that there IS a sort of break before and after the Council, and 2, that the postconciliar mindset is somehow fixed to the notion that Vatican II is the summation and perfection of the Faith and of the Church. This preposterous position is extremely unhealthy and dangerous, even heretical.

That answer depends in part on what one understands by tradition. Some people equate what they have learned in religious education classes with the sum total of the church's tradition. When they hear something new or are asked to do something different, they will often say, "That isn't what I was taught", as if everything has always been the same.

This paragraph raises a few of the first red flags through the article.

First, Fr Kinast fails to define properly exactly what is meant by "tradition", or at least, in the context of his usage. This ambiguity gives him a lot of room to interpret - even twist - it to fit whatever point he wishes to make.

Second, he uses a weak example of how some people equate catechism lessons with tradition. Equating catechism lessons with the sum total of the Church's tradition/Tradition is itself an error. For that reason, he should not use such an example to prove a point.

Third, "as if everything has always been the same" is an ambiguous statement. For some things, they have always been the same, to wit: the dogmas of the Faith, such as the Trinity, the Immaculate Conception, the Incarnation, the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Assumption, the inerrancy of Scripture, the infallibility of the Papacy, so on and so forth.

By not distinguishing what is immutable, the author lays the groundwork on which he can build a system in which everything - the Faith itself - can be subject to change.

It is Catholic doctrine that whoever denies one single Article of the Faith has lost the Faith altogether. By a simple ambiguity, orthodoxy can be threatened and slowly annihilated.

Vatican II certainly changed what a lot of people had been taught. These changes were well-researched and thoroughly discussed. The primary intent was to retrieve the best of Catholic tradition, not necessarily the most recent or familiar, and make it relevant to today's world.

Another red flag. The author admits contradiction in pre- and postconciliar teachings. He is not wrong, we shall soon see.

What is even more glaring is the last clause, "make it relevant to today's world." This favourite clause of the supporters of Vatican II suggests that they somehow think the Church of the Eternal God could, or did in fact become - God forbid - irrelevant!

Fr Kinast attempts to substantiate with an example...

For example, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy restored the notion that worship is a communal celebration. To implement this idea, it authorized the use of the vernacular so people could worship with "full, conscious and active participation" (No. 14).

... but the example, like the rest of the article, teems with error.

First, participation in the liturgy does not presuppose that everyone present speaks a common tongue or understands all that is said in the celebration of the liturgy. Such a cruel stance renders the deaf and dumb intrinsically incapable of participation in the liturgy.

Second, "active participation" is most misleading. The English translation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (or Sacrosanctum Concilium) offered at the website of the Holy See does indeed say "active participation" (see link). But if we refer to S.C. in its official language, that is Latin, we see the phrase "actuosa participatione". In other words, actual participation is what the pastors should see to, not "active" participation, and certainly not active in the sense that every faithful must sing audibly, shake a million hands, and so forth.

In short, there is a difference between active participation and actual participation. One can participate actually without being active. Participation is a matter of interior disposition, not outward appearance. I can think of a lot of people who are actively standing and sitting, but "actually" speaking are in fact elsewhere.

Likewise, the presider at Mass now faces the people to establish a more relational connection. Repetitious prayers and gestures were eliminated and the sacramental rituals were simplified to increase the people's awareness of what was going on.

The only "relational connection" should be between God and man, not priest and congregation. The Mass is the highest act of homage man pays to God. Therefore, the focus of the liturgy is God. The fourfold purpose of the liturgy is this: the adoration of the Most High, reparation/penance, thanksgiving, and petition. I reiterate, the relational aspect of the liturgy is purely between God and man, not man and man.

Another red flag: a common excuse the modernists give for reforming (deforming more like it) the liturgy is that there were too many repetitious prayers and gestures in the old Rite, and hence the new Rite simplified it: from reducing the ninefold Kyrie (in triple adoration of God Thrice Holy), to a mere sixfold devoid of all symbolic meaning; from removing the second Confiteor right before Holy Communion (in the old Rite, the first Confiteor is meant for the priest and servers, the second meant for the congregation); from introducing novel "Eucharistic Prayers" as alternatives to the Roman Canon, etc. the list goes on.

Do all that "increase the people's awareness of what was going on"? Please, get real. As it was then, so it is now: whether people are aware of what is going on at the liturgy is a matter of their personal disposition and religious education. If they are not interested or not catechised, no simplifying of the liturgy is going to help.

These changes represented a return to the earliest forms of the liturgy even though they may have been unfamiliar to those who had only experienced worship in Latin, performed by the priest, with little participation by the faithful.

That is a lie through and through. The modernist tries to justify the simplification of the liturgy by claiming it is a return to the earliest forms of the liturgy, but a lot of elements of the New Mass do not even date earlier than the traditional Latin Mass itself.

I quote some excerpts of Fr Romano Thommasi's article Is the New Mass Really a Return to Patristic Sources?:

1. The entrance procession, consecration, and recessional of the new Mass prescribe a genuflection in the presence of the Ss. Sacrament. As any liturgist knows, the genuflection is a late medieval addition to the liturgy which did not become predominant in the Mass until the 14th century, and then only in certain western liturgies.

2. Following the greeting and introductory remarks, there is the Confiteor or "I confess to Almighty God, etc." This new Mass version is based on the medieval Dominican form of the Confiteor which was a prayer found in the Gallican, or non-Roman, liturgies of medieval northern Europe, which have been demonized by liturgical reformers.

3. At the Collect (opening/closing prayer), and at other times, the clergy in the sanctuary are instructed to hold their hands in the traditional position of palms facing inward with fingers extended, a Gallican prayer and medieval fealty pose not in keeping with a puritanical concept of a Roman type Mass.

4. The Creed, recited only since the 11th century, is a medieval introduction which interrupts the flow of the liturgy according to modern liturgical understanding and yet persists as an obligatory element in the new Mass.

5. The Prayer of the Faithful, or petitions, is of doubtful existence in the early church of Rome or even the medieval church.

6. The offertory rite has offertory prayers over the bread and wine. There were no offertory prayers at all in the patristic Roman rite.

7. The Orate, Fratres or "Pray, brethren, that our sacrifice, etc." was a medieval accretion that the Consilium voted to expunge, but it was retained for sentimental reasons on the part of the Pope and some expert liturgists of the committee.

8. The new eucharistic prayers are all foreign to the Roman rite

9. Regarding the "Our Father", it is a source of confusion, since the old authentic Roman tradition, as attested to by Innocent I, was to recite it before the Canon, along with the sign of peace, while the Gregorian reform placed them both before the reception of Communion.

10. The embolism after the "Our Father" or "Deliver us, Lord from every evil, etc." was modified from the most ancient and patristic manuscripts conveniently omitting the special Roman devotion to the Ss. Peter and Paul and mention of the B. V. Mary. The prayer of peace "Lord Jesus Christ you said to your apostles 'I leave you peace…' etc." was a medieval private prayer that is now recited aloud instead of being thrown out

11. The priest's private communion preparatory prayers are Gallican (non-Roman) in origin and were thrown out by the Consilium, but reinstated by the wishes of the Pontiff. Moreover, the last blessing in its current form is Gallican in origin, and yet it is retained.

Fr Thommasi goes on to attest, "These observations are merely the beginning of a plethora of examples that demonstrate that the new Mass is not patristic, nor is it a restoration. It is merely a radical simplification based on the preferences of liturgists up to and including the 1960's who based their reform not on returning to a patristic liturgy, but on something quite different. The basis for each change varies according to the group assigned to discuss the particular ritual, or on a host of other factors. What is clear is that this liturgy has very little patristic about it. It is pure invention based on the arbitrary opinions of men who were historically conditioned by the thinking of the decade of the 1960's. What made their decisions any more valuable or inspired than another's has yet to be determined, since they had deep rifts and disagreements among themselves; as a perusal of the minutes of the meetings and the tally of votes demonstrates." (ibid.)

The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation is another example of the council's intent of making progress while honouring tradition. The document itself is a carefully articulated theological understanding of revelation which addresses technical questions most people don't think about, such as the relationship of Scripture and tradition as twin sources of revelation, the meaning of divine inspiration and the sense in which the Bible is free from error.

The prevalent postconciliar notion is that the Bible is only somewhat free from error. The soil has thus been made fertile for more modernistic innovations like "Catholic" historico-critical exegesis, making it possible to read and interpret Scripture symbolically at the expense of denying actual, historical events. The favourite victim of this form of exegesis is the Creation story, where the modernist is bent on denying the existence of Adam and Eve as real, actual persons in history. This allows the possibility of evolution and polygenism, condemned by Pope Pius XII (felicis memoriae) in his encyclical Humani Generis. To deny that Adam and Eve were real persons is to deny an aspect of Catholic belief, ipso facto a heretical position to adopt. Wrote Pope Pius XII:

For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.

The entire article can be found here.

However, in the final chapter the council spoke of sacred Scripture in the life of the church. It called for access to the Bible in readable translations (No. 22) and urged the faithful to read and pray the Scriptures (No. 25). This surprised some Catholics who equated Bible-reading with Protestantism, but it actually recalled the practice of the first centuries of Christianity when the sacred writings were read, studied and quoted by clergy and laity alike.

St Jerome remarked, "Ignorance of Scriptures is ignorance of Christ."

But methinks Fr Kinast stretches it when he claims that countless Christians of the first centuries were already quoting the Bible like we do today; not many had access to the Scriptures (the bishops who compiled and canonised the Bible unfortunately did not invent the printing press), and during that time, there were considerably fewer people who were literate.

To promote further the faithful's acquaintance with Scripture, the council called for a new Lectionary with many more selections of Scripture in the readings at Mass.

One area where the council seemed to reverse Catholic teaching was ecumenism and religious liberty. Instead of an unqualified assertion that the Catholic Church was the only true church and therefore the only one entitled to religious liberty, Vatican II adopted the ancient principle of recognizing the truth wherever it appeared.

Again, this attempt/excuse at/of "returning to the ancient" is but falsification of authentic Catholic teaching. The writings of the Fathers of the Church very clearly attest that outside of the Church, there can be no salvation: extra Ecclesia, nulla salus. We will elaborate on this later.

Here, we touch on one of the most controversial postconciliar issues: religious liberty. Without going deeper into it than necessary, it is important to understand the basic principle that underlies the doctrine of religious liberty: freedom.

Freedom can be defined in three senses: physical freedom, intellectual freedom, and moral freedom.

A man who is imprisoned lacks physical freedom, but he enjoys the freedom of his intellect and his conscience. He cannot choose where he wants to go, or where he wants to be.

A man who is mentally handicapped is pretty much physically and morally free, but he lacks the intellectual freedom to make informed choices between right and wrong.

The last sense of freedom is a little more complicated. A normal man is always physically and mentally free to punch his neighbour and break his nose, but is he morally free to do so? No, because there is such a thing as law, whether it be natural law, social law etc. Law regulates and governs. It dictates what is right and wrong. All law, regardless of its category, comes from the Supreme Lawgiver, Who is God.

Man is a creature governed by the Supreme Lawgiver, Who fashions each man with a conscience. The Lawgiver has laid down certain universal laws, which man of all nations and ages must follow. One such law is that there is only one God, and He alone must man worship. Man is not morally free to choose otherwise, simply because he is made by the Lawgiver and is thus governed by His universal laws.

In other words, very strictly speaking, man is not morally free to choose whether he wants to worship this God or not, because man cannot choose that which is unlawful. Man is bound to follow the universal law, and that is to worship the One True God, Who has given His statutes - His Revelation - to us through the Lord Jesus Christ and His Catholic Church. Dignum et iustum est! It is right and just!

This had been a governing principle in the church's attitude toward Greek philosophy from the outset, to Roman politics after the conversion of Constantine, to the recovery of ancient texts in the Middle Ages by way of Muslim scholars, and to the beautification of the church through art, sculpture, architecture, poetry and dance.

It is one thing to draw the good and leave the bad in philosophy, politics, art, architecture, and poetry. It is another thing altogether when it comes to Truth.

We cannot think of Truth in the same way as we think "let's keep the good half loaf of the bread and throw the mouldy half away." Half a loaf of bread is half a loaf of bread. Half a truth is poison. Chesterton remarks with greatest precision, wit, and clarity: "It is the fact that falsehood is never so false as when it is very nearly true."

For God Himself is the Absolute Truth, and the Church alone possesses the Truth in Its entirety.

Now the council applied this principle to its relations with other Christian communities and all those who sincerely seek the truth. It affirmed the priority of Christian unity, admitted its own past mistakes and pledged itself to the ecumenical quest while defending the right of all to follow their consciences (Declaration on Religious Freedom, No. 3).

Ecumenism is not "let's meet halfway" or "let's agree to disagree." It is not "let's set aside our differences, for we are all Christians and we work towards a common goal."

No! True ecumenism is the return of all schismatic Christian bodies to the One, True Fold of Christ: the Catholic Church. "And other sheep I have, that are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd" says Our Lord (John 10:16).

Unfortunately, Vatican II is a council of compromise and ambiguity. The modernists of the Council are not about to contradict their own doctrine of universal salvation. Consequently, the position left to adopt is a false ecumenism. To carry this false ecumenism to its logical conclusion, the system must necessarily depart from the traditional teaching of extra Ecclesia nulla salus.

This carries with it the implication that the Sacraments are not really necessary after all, which implies that a person can be saved without the Sacraments, which in turn implies that even babies who die without Baptism i.e. still not cleansed of original sin, can enter heaven.

The conclusion? Limbo does not exist. Which is exactly what the modernist theologians are pushing for now.

While maintaining that the fullness of God's revelation and the means of salvation subsists in the Catholic Church, it acknowledged the measure of truth and sources of grace in those other communities (Decree on Ecumenism, No. 3) without suggesting that all churches are equal (as Pope Benedict XVI recently recalled).

Hence my earlier statement, Vatican II is a council of compromise and ambiguity.

Even today, there rages countless debates on the intended meaning of "subsists". Documents have been issued from Rome regarding this alone! It seems the modernist theologians cannot agree.

When God works in the Church, it is because of the Church's belief. If God works outside of the Church (since God is not bound by His own laws), God works in spite of their unbelief.

Part of the church's traditional openness to the value and validity of other religions, cultures and human endeavours (especially in science) has been its concern for the poor, the sick, the illiterate and the exploited people of the world.

If the Church forgets the Faith, She becomes no different from any other humanitarian organisation.

"Concern for the poor, the sick, the illiterate and the exploited people of the world" definitely has nothing to do with the validity (invalidity, more precisely) of other religions.

In both the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World and the Decree on the Church's Missionary Activity, the council reiterated those commitments, putting human needs first and using all the resources of the church to meet them without proselytizing or imposing Catholic doctrine.

That sums up a problem very succinctly. Any charity that does not find its origin in God is a charity on a purely human level, therefore an imperfect charity. Charity that finds its origin first in God, and then directed towards neighbour, is a supernatural charity, a perfect charity.

If the Church puts human needs above all else, above the Faith even, then the work is born of a falsely directed charity. This is not to say that the Church or the individual should help solely with the intention of winning the conversion of those in need. Rather, man must order his actions with the appropriate disposition so that his works may bear fruition for the betterment of mankind.

On issues ranging from married life to global economy, human activity to warfare, evangelization to conversion, Vatican II spoke to contemporary conditions out of its rich heritage of service, moral principle and the implications of Christ as the full embodiment of what is human.

This dribble, I don't quite understand.

The Second Vatican Council represented a unique instance of the church progressing into the modern world because of, not in spite of, its tradition. That's an achievement the postconciliar church strives to continue.

In the final paragraph, Fr Kinast returns to the principle of a constant progress of the Church, as if the Church would be outdated - "left behind" - if She does not constantly evolve, change, keep up, progress. This principle of constant development finds its roots in the modernist philosophies of Rahner, Teilhard, and to Hegel himself. The maxim "what follows is always superior to what precedes" gives a very convenient excuse of disposing anterior beliefs, for the anterior is inferior; in this case, it gives them an excuse to discard preconciliar beliefs in order to accept the conciliar and postconciliar ones.

He holds Vatican II as "a unique instance" of the Church's progress, but as we have seen, the Council has done much to bring about the detriment and decay of the Church's great heritage.

Contrary to what Fr Kinast claims, Vatican II is a "progress" that is a complete break with tradition. It is not an achievement, but a farce.

Those who are infected by that spirit develop a keen dislike for all that savors of antiquity and become eager searchers after novelties in everything: in the way in which they carry out religious functions, in the ruling of Catholic institutions, and even in private exercises of piety. Therefore it is Our will that the law of our forefathers should still be held sacred: "Let there be no innovation; keep to what has been handed down."
- Pope Benedict XV (1914-1922), Encyclical Letter Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum, November 1, 1914

The Rupture of Our Lady's Psalter.

As mentioned in the previous post, today the Church marks the solemnity of Our Lady Queen of the Rosary.

It is fitting on this occasion to write about my thoughts regarding the introduction of the so-called Five Luminous Mysteries by the late Pope John Paul II. But while searching for some pictures for the previous entry, I stumbled upon an article written by John Vennari, published first in the November 2002 edition of Catholic Family News (a traditional Catholic monthly), and then re-published at SeattleCatholic.com.

Vennari's article is not too lengthy, and it deserves to be read in its entirety.

I particularly enjoy his conclusion of the article, lamenting with brutal clarity and accurary that the Rosary itself has fallen victim to the modernist's "insatiable lust for change and novelty".

The only thing Vennari did not mention is that it was supposedly Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, the main architect of the New Mass, who first suggested altering the Rosary.

In 1960, Bugnini was appointed Secretary to the Preparatory Commission for the Liturgy. This allowed him to draw up "The Bugnini Schema" in 1962, the liturgical draft document that wound up being nearly identical to what was later adopted by the Liturgy Constitution at Vatican II.

A few months later, however, Bugnini was mysteriously and promptly removed both from his position as Secretary of the Commission and his chair at the Lateran University, which could not have happened without the consent of Pope John XXIII himself.

In 1964, for inexplicable reasons, Bugnini was made the Secretary of the Consilium, a commission charged with implementing the Council's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. Bugnini was now implementing the changes he personally created.

In 1969, Paul VI made him the Secretary of the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship (a Congregation the Pontiff would suppress only six years later).

In 1972, Bugnini was consecrated an archbishop, but not long after that, he was once again removed from office, this time by Paul VI himself, and then sent to Iran.

Though no reasons were given for both accounts of his hasty dismissal, it is reasonable to assume that there must have been some very grave offense he was culpable of to deserve such treatment by two Pontiffs. There is speculation that Bugnini was exposed as a Freemason, but the evidence provided has been controversial.

Anyway, back to the article, all emphasis that appear in blue are mine.

"When one lives by novelty, there will always have to be a new novelty."
- Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

On October 16, 2002, Pope John Paul II marked the 24th Anniversary of his papacy with the release of the Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, in which he proclaimed a "Year of the Rosary" from October 2002 to October 2003. The document also contained a major innovation from a Pope whose Pontificate has been marked by a steady stream of novelties. He announced that he would add five new mysteries to the Rosary.

Two weeks previously, the pontiff announced he was preparing a document to stress the value of the Rosary. He urged the faithful to recite the Rosary, including together as families. John Paul said then that he wanted people to "rediscover the beauty and depth of this prayer".

What is this strange post-conciliar belief among today's Church leaders that Catholics will not find a traditional devotion interesting unless John Paul updates it? Why is it thought necessary to disfigure our devotions in order to capture a Catholic's attention? Why was it requisite for the Pope to put his personal stamp on the Rosary, rather than simply promote it as is: as did all the Popes before him, as did countless saints, and as did the Mother of God at Fatima?

The Pope says that these additions are not mandatory, and explains his reason for the change. "I believe" he writes, "that to bring out fully the Christological depth of the Rosary, it would be suitable to make an addition to the traditional pattern which, while left to the freedom of individuals and communities, could broaden it to include the mysteries of Christ's public ministry between His Baptism and His Passion." (Rosarium Virginis Mariae, No. 19.)

Do you know of any Catholic, any saint, any Pope who ever considered the Rosary "lacking" in Christological depth? Did not the saints and the Popes constantly speak of the excellence of the Rosary? Did they ever suggest a radical addition to alter the structure of the Rosary in order to "improve" what was already excellent?

And the question is, why?

Perhaps we should first ask, why not change the Rosary?

A constant characteristic of the pre-Vatican II Popes was to abhor novelty and to safeguard tradition, including traditional devotions.

Thus, if one could go back in time and ask any of the pre-Vatican II Popes why they never added "new mysteries" to the Rosary, the answer is easy to presume. "Because," the pre-conciliar Pope would say, "if I add 5 new mysteries, I will have to add 5 new decades. If I add five new decades, then the Rosary can no longer be called 'Our Lady's Psalter'. Now Catholic tradition, my holy predecessors and Our Blessed Mother referred to the Rosary as Her 'Psalter', because the 150 Hail Mary's of the 15-decade Rosary correspond to the 150 Psalms of David. It would be audacious of me to add 5 decades. This would be the decimation of the entire concept of Mary's 'Psalter', a term hallowed by centuries of usage, a term that explains the origin and essence of the Rosary, a term used by the Queen of Heaven Herself. Further, if I make this radical change to the Rosary, then what is to prevent more radical changes in the future?"

Saint Thomas Aquinas explains that the Psalter of David, composed as it is of one hundred and fifty Psalms, is divided into three equal parts of fifty Psalms each. These three equal parts represent figuratively the three stages in which the faithful find themselves: the state of penance, the state of justice, the state of glory. Likewise, explains Father Anthony Fuerst, "the Rosary of Mary is divided into three parts of fifty Hail Mary's each in order to express fully the phrases of the life of the faithful: penance, justice and glory."

"Saint Dominic," writes Saint Louis, "seeing that the gravity of the peoples' sin was hindering the conversion of the Albigensians, withdrew to a forest... Our Lady then appeared to him, accompanied by three angels. She said, "Dear Dominic, do you know which weapon the Blessed Trinity wants to use to reform the world?"

Saint Dominic asked Her to tell him. Our Lady responded:

"I want you to know that, in this kind of warfare, the battering ram has always been the Angelic Psalter which is the foundation stone of the New Testament. Therefore if you want to reach these hardened souls and win them over to God, preach My Psalter."

Our Lady's words contain two special points of interest:

1. She uses the language of the Church militant. She does not speak of the Rosary in a sentimental manner in order to achieve good feelings or pan-religious unity. No, She refers to it as battering ram against heresy.

2. She twice uses the term "Psalter", which is the Rosary designated as 150 Aves that link it to the Psalms of David.

The term "Psalter" of Mary, as a link to the 150 Psalms of David, is what we find consistently from the Popes throughout the centuries.

The Apostolic Constitution of Pope Leo X, Pastor Aeterni October 6, 1520, uses the term "Psalter of Mary" in connection to the Rosary. (Msgr. Shea writes: "The Apostolic Constitution of Pope Leo X, Pastor Aeterni, Oct. 6, 1520, gives the first indication from a Pope that the Psalter of Mary is commonly called "rosary": "et modum orandi huiusmodi Psalterium sive Rosarium eiusdem Beatae Virginis vulgariter appellatum". Mariology, Juniper Carol, Volume III, p. 92, note 18.)

Pope Saint Pius V wrote in Consueverunt Romani of September 17, 1569, "And so Dominic looked to that simple way of praying and beseeching God, accessible to all and wholly pious, which is called the Rosary, or Psalter of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in which the same most Blessed Virgin is venerated by the angelic greeting repeated one hundred and fifty times, that is, according to the number of the Davidic Psalter, and by the Lord's Prayer with each decade." (Pope Saint Pius V, Consuerverunt Romani, September 17, 1569. Found at www.papalencyclicals.net.)

Pope Leo XIII wrote "Just as by the recitation of the Divine Office, priests offer a public, constant, and most efficacious supplication; so the supplication offered by the members of this Sodality in the recitation of the Rosary, or 'Psalter of Our Lady' ..." (Pope Leo XIII, Augustissimae Virginis Mariae - September 12, 1897. Taken from The Rosary of Mary, Letters of Pope Leo XIII. (Paterson: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1945).)

Pope Leo XIII later said, "The formula of the Rosary, too, is excellently adapted to prayer in common, so that it has been styled, not without reason, the 'Psalter of Mary'." ( Fidentem Piumque September 20, 1896. Taken from The Rosary of Mary, Letters of Pope Leo XIII.)

Pope Pius XI wrote in his Encyclical Ingravescentibus Malis. "Among the various supplications with which we successfully appeal to the Virgin Mother of God, the Holy Rosary without doubt occupies a special and distinct place. This prayer, which some call the Psalter of the Virgin or Breviary of the Gospel and of Christian life, was described and recommended by Our Predecessor of happy memory, Leo XIII ..." (Pope Pius XI, Ingravescentibus Malis, Encyclical on the Rosary, September 29, 1937. It is true that Pope John Paul II mentions the "Psalter" Rosarium Virginis Mariae, No. 19. He writes: "Of the many mysteries of Christ's life, only a few are indicated by the Rosary in the form that has become generally established with the seal of the Church's approval. The selection was determined by the origin of the prayer, which was based on the number 150, the number of the Psalms in the Psalter." But he then immediately follows this with the recommendation of the five new mysteries, an addition that shatters the concept of Our Lady's Psalter. It's almost as if he mentioned the term only to kiss it goodbye.)

Sadly, Pope John Paul II has made the term "Psalter of Mary" with its rightful connection to the Psalter of David, as obsolete as fund drives for Pagan Babies. Anyone who accepts the twenty-decade Rosary, and still refers to the Rosary as Mary's Psalter, will use the term divested of meaning. Why introduce this destabilization? Would not Pope John Paul show more respect to the pious sentiments of Catholics worldwide, to his predecessors and to the Mother of God by leaving Her Psalter at peace?

At Fatima, the Mother of God did not ask for a radically updated Rosary. Through the children, she told us to recite daily "a third of the Rosary," 25 and warned of dire consequences if Her requests were not fulfilled. Thanks to the latest update, however, every new book that recounts these words of Our Lady of Fatima will require a footnote to explain that when She said "a third of the Rosary," She meant 5 decades, since a third of the new twenty-decade Rosary is 6.66 decades.

The dramatic announcement of "new mysteries" eclipsed notice of another major innovation to the Rosary proposed at the document's end. In Section 42, Pope John Paul II... writes: "To pray the Rosary for children, and even more, with children, training them from their earliest years to experience this daily 'pause for prayer' with the family, is admittedly not the solution to every problem, but it is a spiritual aid which should not be underestimated." So far so good. But then we read:

"It could be objected that the Rosary seems hardly suited to the taste of children and young people of today. But perhaps the objection is directed to an impoverished method of praying it."

What does this mean? The traditional method of silence and reverence? Is this suddenly considered "too much" for children and young people?

The Letter reads:

"Furthermore, without prejudice to the Rosary's basic structure, there is nothing to stop children and young people from praying it - either within the family or in groups - with appropriate symbolic and practical aids to understanding and appreciation. Why not try it? With God's help, a pastoral approach to youth which is positive, impassioned and creative - as shown by the World Youth Days! - is capable of achieving quite remarkable results. If the Rosary is well presented, I am sure that young people will once more surprise adults by the way they make this prayer their own and recite it with the enthusiasm typical of their age group."

As CFN readers know, I've been to World Youth Day and reported extensively on its radical notion of jazzed-up prayer. I've said repeatedly that the dominant atmosphere of World Youth Day is not Catholicism but the rock 'n roll culture. World Youth Day is built on the falsehood that young Catholics find Catholicism boring (impoverished) unless we make it bouncy and fun, unless we shuck it of reverence, unless we enliven it with rock 'n roll rhythms.

Until October 2002, the Rosary was the only major Catholic institution to escape renovation. The Mass was changed to accommodate Vatican II's new ecumenical religion, we now have a "new theology," a "new evangelization," a new catechism, a new Code of Canon Law, Religious Orders liberalized their Rules and Constitutions, seminaries "loosened up," church interiors were gutted, the Breviary was revolutionized, Pope John Paul II changed the traditional Way of the Cross in 1991, adding a fifteenth Station.

Now the Rosary will never be the same. The insatiable lust for change and novelty, a defining element of post-Conciliar pontificates, increasingly takes the form of an in-the-flesh manifestation of one of Modernism's chief precepts.

Speaking of the Modernists, St. Pius X warned, "First of all they (modernists) lay down the general principle that in a living religion everything is subject to change, and must change, and in this way they pass to what may be said to be, among the chief of their doctrines, that of evolution. To the laws of evolution everything is subject - dogma, Church, worship, the Books we revere as sacred, even faith itself."

Today, the modernist notion that "everything must change" is called the continuous aggiornamento of the Council. The Holy Rosary, once thought beyond the reach of man's tinkering, has now fallen victim to Vatican II's evolutionary rage.

Dear Holy Father, we are happy that you wish to revitalize the Holy Rosary. But by downplaying Fatima, and by needlessly subjecting the Rosary to the continuous aggiornamento, you tear our hearts again.

October 7 - The Solemnity of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary.
(II Class Votive Mass.)

Today, Holy Mother Church commemorates the solemnity of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary.

The Catholic Encyclopedia gives us a little summary of the origin of this joyous occasion:

Apart from the signal defeat of the Albigensian heretics at the battle of Muret in 1213 which legend has attributed to the recitation of the Rosary by St. Dominic, it is believed that Heaven has on many occasions rewarded the faith of those who had recourse to this devotion in times of special danger. More particularly, the naval victory of Lepanto gained by Don John of Austria over the Turkish fleet on the first Sunday of October in 1571 responded wonderfully to the processions made at Rome on that same day by the members of the Rosary confraternity. St. Pius V thereupon ordered that a commemoration of the Rosary should be made upon that day, and at the request of the Dominican Order Gregory XIII in 1573 allowed this feast to be kept in all churches which possessed an altar dedicated to the Holy Rosary. In 1671 the observance of this festival was extended by Clement X to the whole of Spain, and somewhat later Clement XI after the important victory over the Turks gained by Prince Eugene on 6 August, 1716 (the feast of our Lady of the Snows), at Peterwardein in Hungary, commanded the feast of the Rosary to be celebrated by the universal Church. A set of "proper" lessons in the second nocturn were conceded by Benedict XIII. Leo XIII has since raised the feast to the rank of a double of the second class and has added to the Litany of Loreto the invocation "Queen of the Most Holy Rosary".

The Battle at Lepanto

St Louis de Monfort in "The Secret of the Rosary" attests how the Rosary "was given to the Church by Saint Dominic who had received it from the Blessed Virgin as a powerful means of converting the Albigensians and other sinners."

I will tell you the story of how he received it, which is found in the very well-known book "De Dignitate Psalterii" by Blessed Alan de la Roche. Saint Dominic, seeing that the gravity of people's sins was hindering the conversion of the Albigensians, withdrew into a forst near Toulouse where he prayed unceasingly for three days and three nights. During this time he did nothing but weep and do harsh penance in order to appease the anger of Almighty God. H used his discipline so much that his body was lacerated, and finally he fell into a coma.

At this point Our Lady appeared to him, accompanied by three angels, and she said: "Dear Dominic, do you know which weapon the Blessed Trinity wants to use to reform the world?"

"Oh, my Lady," answered Saint Dominic, "you know far better than I do because your next to your Son Jesus Christ you have always been the chief instrument of our salvation."

Then Our Lady replied: "I want you to know that, in this kind of warfare, the battering ram has always been the Angelic Psalter which is the foundation stone of the New Testament. Therefore, if you want to reach these hardened souls and win them over to God, preach my Psalter."
- St Louis de Monfort, The Secrety of the Rosary, Monfort Publications (Bay Shore, New York), p. 18.

Let us not forget these words of the Blessed Virgin herself: "Say the Rosary every day, to obtain peace for the world." (Our Lady of Fatima, 1917.)
Our Lady gives St Dominic the Rosary.

Many holy men have also commended recourse to the Holy Rosary as a mighty spiritual weapon, in such words as these:

There is no surer means of calling down God's blessings upon the family... than the daily recitation of the Rosary. - Pope Pius XII.

... a powerful means of renewing our courage will undoubtedly be found in the Holy Rosary... - Pope Leo XIII.

... We have elsewhere brought it to the attention of the devout Christian that not least among the advantages of the Rosary is the ready means it puts in his hands to nurture his faith, and to keep him from ignorance of his religion and the danger of error. - Pope Leo XIII.

We do not hesitate to affirm again publicly that We put great confidence in the Holy Rosary for the healing of evils which afflict our times. - Pope Pius XII.

I think that I did not miss a single day in reciting it, including the most terrible times of battle when I had no rest night or day. How often did I see her manigest intercession in the decisions which I made in choosing a precise tactic. Take, then, the advice of an old soldier seasoned by experience: Do not neglect the recitation of the Rosary for any reason. - Marshal Foch, military leader of WWI.

Among all the devotions approved by the Church none has been favoured by so many miracles as the devotion of the Most Holy Rosary. - Pope Pius IX.

No one can live continually in sin and continue to say the Rosary - either he will give up sin or he will give up the Rosary. - Bishop Hugh Boyle.

For an easy guide to the Rosary, visit http://www.fisheaters.com/rosary.html. To close the entry, here is a hymn to the Queen of the Holy Rosary.

O Queen of the Holy Rosary,
O bless us as we pray,
And offer thee our roses
In garlands day by day,
While from our Father's garden,
With loving hearts and bold,
We gather to thine honor
Buds white and red and gold.

O Queen of the Holy Rosary,
Each myst'ry blends with thine
The sacred life of Jesus
In ev'ry step divine,
Thy soul was His fair garden,
Thy virgin breast His throne,
Thy thoughts His faithful mirror,
Reflecting Him alone.

Sweet Lady of the Rosary,
White roses let us bring,
And lay them round thy foot stool,
Before our Infant King.
For, resting in thy bosom,
God's Son was fain to be
The child of thy obedience
And spotless purity.

For the midi to this beautiful hymn, please click here.

You'd Better Believe It.

As related by a friend:

This is a true story of a young polytechnic girl who passed away last month. Her name is Priya. She was hit by a lorry.

She had a boyfriend named Shankar, a well-behaved and responsible young man from Malaysia. Both of them were true lovers. They were always on the phone. You could never see her without her handphone. She spent 3/4 of the day talking with Shankar. Priya's family knew about their relationship and approved of it.

Shankar is very close with Priya's family. Before she passed away, she always told her friends, "If I pass away, please burn me with my handphone". She also said the same thing to her parents. After her death, people couldn't lift her coffin.

I was there. I saw this.

Many of them tried to do so but still couldn't. Everybody including me, had tried to carry the coffin, but the result was still the same. Eventually they called their neighbour, a "bomoh" from Thailand (Pak Darin), who is a friend of her father. He sat beside the coffin and started speaking to himself slowly. After a few minutes, he said "This girl misses something here". Then her friends told Darin about her intentions to burn her with her phone. He then opened the coffin and place her phone and SIM card inside the casket. After that they tried to carry the coffin. It could be moved and they carried it into the van easily. All of us were shocked.

Priya's parents didn't inform Shankar that Priya had passed away. They couldn't bear to break the news to the poor boy. After 2 weeks Shankar called Priya's mom.

Shankar: "Atte (aunty), I'm coming over today. Please cook something nice for me. Don't tell Priya that I'm coming home today. I wanna surprise her."

Her mother with tears in her eyes, replied: "Please just come here... We need tell you something very important."

After he came to Singapore, they told him the truth about Priya. Shankar couldn't accept this and thought they were playing him for a fool. He laughed said "Aunty, Uncle...don't try to fool me. Tell Priya to come out. I have a gift for her. Please stop this nonsense".

Then they show him the original death certificate. They gave him proof to make him believe. Shankar was speechless. He started to sweat.

He said: "But this is not true...We were spoke yesterday. She still calls me."

Shankar was shaking. Suddenly, Shankar's phone rang.

"See, this is from Priya! See this..." He showed the phone to Priya's family.

All of them told him to answer. He talked using the loudspeaker mode. All of them heard his conversation. Loud and clear. No crossed lines, no humming. It was the actual voice of Priya and there was no way others could use her sim card since it was nailed inside the coffin!

They were shocked and asked for Pak Darin's help again. Pak Darin brought his master (Tok Yunus) to solve this matter. He and Darin worked for 5 hours straight. Then finally they discovered one thing...

SingTel has the best coverage.