Laudetur Iesus Christus! Sunday is the 14^th Sunday after Pentecost, and also happens to be the commemoration of the beheading of St. John the Baptist. As custom, we provide Dr. Mike Foley’s commentary for this Sunday’s collect and propers: https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2020/09/perpetual-propitiation-in-fourteenth.html#.X1RMktR7nwc

Beheading of St. John the Baptist – Sunday August 29

As noted above, Sunday is also the feast of St. John the Baptist’s beheading. As readers may recall, King Herod’s sister in law Herodias, and daughter Salome did not appreciate (to put it mildly) St. John’s speaking of the truth about adultery and instead requested St. John be beheaded at a party honoring Herod. Yet God’s justice was not withheld forever as Dom Prosper Gueranger notes as he describes the fate of these three profane individuals: Herod and Herodias were eventually exiled to modern day France, while Salome herself met a similar fate of St. John when she danced on a frozen river, fell into the water, and the sharp ice beheaded her. Back to St. John, his beheading apparently took place closer to the Pasch in late March or April, but the Church choose August 29 as his feast day to celebrate when his head was found in what is now modern day Syria. Here are a few articles with history and reflections:

• https://sensusfidelium.us/the-liturgical-year-dom-prosper-gueranger/august/august-29-decollation-of-st-john-the-baptist/
• http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2020/08/the-beheading-of-st-john-baptist-2020.html#.X0sPudR7nwc

Let us consider praying for our priests that they will not shy away from preaching the truths to the King Herods of today who promote immoral activities from abortion, sodomy, transgenderism, usury, paganism and mandatory experimental inoculations, etc.

The Holy Face of Jesus and the Battle against Communism

America and North Carolina now face a communist menace, not driven by red-shirt fanatics of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, or Khrushchev, but of militants in white lab coats, otherwise known as “public health experts”, who, using a false pandemic, have declared a new religion of bodily health with its own set of sacraments and sacramentals (masks, experimental inoculations (“vaccines”), lockdowns, and social distancing). For the Church, this is nothing new. In his 1974 autobiography, Memoirs, Venerable Jozsef Cardinal Mindszenty, the Primate of Hungary who was imprisoned and tortured by the Communist government, noted that the government in the 1940s would undermine Catholic events such as processions by using the excuse of a false epidemic outbreak:

“The Communists did not dare to prohibit these ceremonies [Catholic processions], but they tried to interfere with them…In some areas mass meetings and travel were banned on the pretext that there was danger of epidemics…The following incident was characteristic of the situation. On September 12, 1948, the Benedictine Church of Celldomolk was to celebrate its two hundred anniversary.  Two days before, the government issued a notice that cases of epidemic encephalitis had occurred in various parts of the country. All travel from place to place was therefore forbidden…On the day of the festival itself, armed police checked those attending church.  All those whose papers showed they came from elsewhere were turned away. A police cordon encircled the church. During the services the fire department sprayed a yellow fluid around the vicinity of the monastery.  When, at the end of the solemn ceremonies, the monks came out of the portal in procession, they too were sprayed with these “antiseptics.” – Memoirs (p. 77)

How to combat this “sanitary dictatorship”? The solution is very powerful – it’s called the Holy Face devotion. 

Steve Cunningham at Sensus Fidelium has an excellent and instructive webpage on the Holy Face devotion and the pious souls who promoted its devotion, including Sister Mary of St. Peter who received revelations of the Holy Face and how it can be used to fight Communism; and Venerable Leo DuPont who was declared by Bl. Pope Pius IX as the greatest miracle worker in the Church’s history and helped promote the Holy Face devotion. Learn how devotion to the Holy Face can be used to combat Communism:

• Leo DuPont – Apostle of the Holy Face & The Greatest Miracle Worker the Church Has Ever Had: https://sensusfidelium.us/resistance-podcast-198-leo-dupont-apostle-of-the-holy-face-the-greatest-miracle-worker-the-church-has-ever-had/

• The Golden Arrow: The Revelations of Sr. Mary of St. Peter: https://tanbooks.com/saints/saint-autobiography-books/the-golden-arrow-the-revelations-of-sr-mary-of-st-peter/

Prayers for Traditional Latin Mass Orders (FSSP, Institute of Christ the King)

As bishops and priests study the new Motu Proprio, there are always rumors about what may happen next. Rather than worry about “what ifs”, we share that the Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), a society of priests which offer the Latin Mass and manage parishes, is taking the matter to prayer, and encouraging all members of their Confraternity of St. Peter (a lay group which prayers daily for the FSSP priests) to offer a Rosary at a specific time and date in September so to have people praying the Rosary at every hour, 24/7 during September:

• Confraternity Message from Fr. Reiner, FSSP: https://fssp.com/confraternity-message-from-fr-reiner-fssp/
• If you’re not a Confraternity of St. Peter and would like to learn more or join, please visit: https://fssp.com/confraternity-of-saint-peter/

Latin Mass & Traditional News

• Cancelling Pope Benedict: Reflections on a recent article and the “hermeneutic of rupture”: This looks to be an interesting analysis by a priest that the recent Motu Proprio on the Latin Mass is also a break with tradition of the Church: https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2021/08/cancelling-pope-benedict-reflections-on.html#more

• ‘We will enter into the time of the Apocalypse’: Bishop Schneider warned about vaccine mandates: A helpful review of Bishop Schneider’s comments last year about the apocalyptic dangers of having vaccine mandates across the globe.

“Maybe I’m wrong, but I have the suspicion that partly this COVID situation was created not only to implement a new dictatorship and control of the population, but in some way to legalize abortion globally – the killing of unborn babies – so that the entire planet will be collaborating in the process of killing babies through the vaccine which will use parts of aborted babies. The vaccine will be imposed and obligatory – so that you cannot work, travel, go to school without it, obliging the entire population to receive the vaccine, but the only vaccine will be that made with cells from aborted babies. Perhaps they will not accept other vaccines, and they will lie, saying that these are not effective, that the only effective vaccine will be from aborted babies. I am not affirming now that this will happen, but it is my suspicion: it appears to me realistic that this could come. This is for me the last step of Satanism: that Satan and the world government – ultimately the masonic world government – will oblige all, even the Church, to accept abortion in this way. And therefore we must resist very strongly against this, if it comes. We must even accept to be martyrs.” – Bishop Athanasius Schneider October 2020

CLMC comment: How many priests in the Carolinas – including Latin Mass priests – are truly preparing their flocks for martyrdom, either red or white, in this current crisis? Or are they simply promoting compromise with the culture through face masks requirements; “morally permissible” abortion-linked vaccines, or the need to “obey” illegitimate government mandates?

• Can Church Officials Require Us to Get Vaccinated?: This is a lengthy but helpful canonical review on why Church leaders cannot mandate vaccines and a review of the traditional teachings related to morality of abortion-linked vaccines and of participating in a global political-medical experiment. Honestly, there should not even be such a question since the Church has long opposed such horrific policies: https://canonlawmadeeasy.com/2021/08/26/can-church-officials-require-us-to-get-vaccinated/

• When a Bishop Outlaws Private Traditional Masses: Dr. Peter Kwasniewski has a great piece on how a bishop’s prohibition on private Latin Masses was not only wrong, but shows how the recent Motu Proprio on the Latin Mass is a last gasp from a dying group of revolutionaries: https://onepeterfive.com/when-a-bishop-outlaws-private-traditional-masses/

• Will the Real Lex Orandi of the Roman Rite Please Stand Up? A Comparison of the Old and New Feasts of St. Louis: This past Wednesday was the feast of one of the greatest kings in Christendom, St. Louis IX. To commemorate, Dr. Kwasniewski compares the prayers and reading of the 1962 Traditional Latin Mass vs. the 2002 Novus Ordo Mass. The differences are quite stark: https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2021/08/will-real-lex-orandi-of-roman-rite.html

• Liturgy, Beauty, and the World: Dr. Joseph Shaw, head of the Latin Mass Society of the UK, has penned an inspiring article on the influence liturgy has on beauty and the world. https://voiceofthefamily.com/liturgy-beauty-and-the-world/

On the topic of beauty and liturgy, is the Mass you attend on Sunday a fabrication, a banal product of the moment? Or is it the beautiful Mass of Ages? What Mass are you attending on Sunday?