Monday, June 29, 2020

Help support "Mass of the Ages" Liturgy Film

Brother Knights,

As many of you know, our network has been supporting and promoting The Liturgy Film, also now entitled Mass of the Ages: How Tradition Will Restore the Church. This documentary will examine the loss of faith among Catholics and how it happened over the last 50 years.

Sacred Stories, a Catholic film production company in Dayton, Ohio (whose owner attends the local Latin Mass parish) is spearheading it.

We are pleased to share that they have launched their kick-starter campaign to raise the funds necessary to complete the film. Thanks to your help and others, they have raised over $14,000 - yet they still have a long ways to go.

Can you review the trailer and campaign site?

The Liturgy Film - Trailer

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1185360163/mass-of-the-ages-how-tradition-will-restore-the-church/description



If you enjoy the trailer - would you consider asking your council, friends and family to support this?

As Catholic author John Senior noted, we can't restore the culture until we restore the liturgy. "Mass of the Ages" begins that process by awakening Catholics to the importance of Sacred Liturgy.

For direct questions, please producer Cameron O'Hearn at: film(at)liturgyfilm.org

For the official film website visit: https://theliturgy.org/

Social media:
·         Twitter: https://twitter.com/liturgyfilm
·         Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/liturgyfilm/
YouTube:
·         Dr. Peter Kreeft interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bex8G76NsGI
·         Dr. Peter Kwasniewski interview: https://youtu.be/gjCp5hWXvYQ
·         Matt Fraad interview:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjCp5hWXvYQ

Thursday, June 25, 2020

The Return of the Image-Breakers

The Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), a Latin Mass society of priests has posted an excellent article on the iconoclasm taking place in our cities which roving mobs tear down statues. This isn't the first time this has occurred and like the other times, this will pass and as the article says orthodoxy will triumph. 

https://fssp.com/the-return-of-the-image-breakers/

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

Father's Day Sermon by Fr. John Perricone

We share with you a sermon written by Fr. John Perricone for Father's Day (3rd Sunday after Pentecost/External Solemnity of the Sacred Heart).  Fr. Perricone offers the Traditional Latin Mass at All Saints-Assumption parish in Jersey City, NJ and has offered many retreats and Latin Masses for Knights in the NJ/NY area over the years.




FATHER’S  DAY  SERMON
2020
Father John A. Perricone


As with every mystery of our Catholic Faith, the Holy Trinity is called a mystery not because it is like a riddle, but because it is like an ocean.  Divine mysteries are as incomprehensible as trying to count all the stars of the universe, or the sands on earth.  They are beyond our ken because their beauty, truth and wonder is infinite, exceeding reason’s grasp.  Even in the Beatific Vision the mysteries of the Faith will never be entirely comprehended by men or angels, because their intellects are created, and therefore limited.  All of eternity for the Blessed will be a series of new adventures into the bowels of Love, one never like another.  Each one fuller, deeper and bursting with an ecstatic joy far grander than the one before.

One of the ways to begin climbing near the edges of the mystery of the Holy Trinity is to look at human fathers.  They are faint echoes of the Trinity; traces of Their ineffable beauty.  St. Thomas teaches: “bonum diffusivum est.”  (good, of its very nature, pours itself out.)  Since the Trinity is the Good Itself, Its very nature is always pouring out Itself in love.  Father eternally begets (pours out Itself) the Son, and their infinite love spirates (pours out) the Holy Spirit.  Yet this divine diffusion could not end there.  Per impossibile, or else God’s Divine Nature would be violated.  So God then pours Himself out of Himself, resulting in creation.  In the words of Fr. Edoard Hugon, the great Thomist and friend of Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange: “The world (creation) is the first revelation of God, the first book where His eternal ideas are printed, the first vestiges of His attributes, the image of His beauty, the first echo of His voice.”  The apex of God’s material creation is man, but not man alone.  Man is truly man only with and in another in love (“It is not good for the man to be alone.”  Gen 2:18).  The heights of human love are reached in the nuptial union where the spouses pour themselves out to the other resulting in the pouring forth of new life.  This kind of motion, intrinsic to the Holy Trinity, imprints Itself in a unique fashion on fathers.  As the Father begets the Son in love, so fathers beget children in blessed union with their spouses.  Fathers are intrinsically allied to the Heavenly Father in the generation of new children.  This alliance is irreparably betrayed when man uses this generative faculty in any other way than the Father does.  Just as the Father’s actions are always fecund, so must every nuptial act of natural fathers.  Just as the Father’s acts are always overflowing with abundance, so must the marital acts of fathers result in abundance of children.  Our God is not a God of carefully calculated limits, neither should earthly fathers be.  If so, he ceases to be a man at all, and deforms himself into a caricature of a man.

Natural fathers possess a special duty to uphold and defend the natural order of things.  They are guardians of truth.  The Trinity bequeaths fathers a singular imitation of Their inner life, and expects them to be on the front lines of exhibiting Their riches.  Hence, the obligation of nurturing their own families in the truth of God’s life.  Today this is a formidable task.  Navigating the heaving swells of secularism demands the courage of a hundred armies and the savvy of a dozen Patton’s.  As we have seen in the past few weeks, swarms of militants will not rest until they have shredded every fabric of civility, morality and Western Civilization.  They must be met and scattered.  First, by fathers.  This is a part of their principal vocation.  Yes, they must furnish food, shelter and security for their families.  However, all of that will be in vain if truth is permitted to die on the vine.  Where were the voices of the millions of good fathers when political leaders, sports idols, Hollywood elites and the Fortune 500 titans bowed to the Maoist venom of Black Lives Matter and Antifa?  Where was the million-man-march of good fathers as Stalinists occupied actual sectors of our cities?  Fathers, you are marked with the sign of the Trinity.  Where is your valor?  What has become of your thirst for heroism? Before the Holy Trinity, it is your solemn obligation to find it again.

Fathers, with all that the Trinity has blessed you, you are invested by Them with even more.  Threaded into the very fiber of your being is an aching homesickness: a homesickness for heaven.  Never rest in reminding your boys and girls of this homesickness.  Even as they admire your success and wealth, warn them that life is not about these, though important in their proper place.  Life is using all these things to win heaven.  Teach them that every hour in the classroom, all the days in the library, all their struggles for good grades are for one purpose: ad maiorem Dei gloriam.  Remind them of the stirring exhortation of the seventeenth century Archbishop of Paris, Benigne Bossuet, who exclaimed from the pulpit of Notre Dame: “Woe to the knowledge that does not turn to loving God!”  Tell your children that Christ Crucified matters above all things.  They will not believe you unless they see you acting day in and day out with this primacy of purpose.  When you become lukewarm, they will become bad.  To your horror, they will become the heirs of the children looting stores and tearing down our nation.

On this Fathers’ Day, the Trinity and Holy Church begs you to be true fathers.  Only when you execute that role will our lost world find its way back to God.  Your virile example will teach other men to be men again, and resist the cowardly retreat we have seen on full display these past few weeks.  Let ring in your minds the warning of Shakespeare in Julius Caesar: “Before a coward dies, he dies a thousand deaths.”  Make your campaign to take captive the debased ideas that have brought our beloved America to her knees, and chain them in cages.  Then drag your conquest to the throne of Christ the King and present it as the booty of your brave war for Him.

Fathers, be the standard bearers of the Blessed Trinity.  Though you are not that Mystery, you bear the royal mark of that Mystery.  Heavy responsibilities lay upon your shoulders.  Don’t fear them.  The Blessed Trinity expects you to make Their echoes heard to every corner of the earth. 

We wait to see the mark you make.  More importantly, God waits.

Monday, June 22, 2020

Christopher Columbus' canonization

Brother Knights,

We want to share with you a fascinating article by Catholic historian Roberto DeMattei about the canonization process for Christopher Columbus. Before Vatican I in the mid 19th century, there was a groundswell of support for his canonization but was interrupted, and now has waned due to secularist bias against Columbus, and the Church he represents.

Perhaps the time has come to re-start this canonization process:

https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2020/06/de-mattei-columbus-noster-est.html

We also direct you to an article posted by the Knights of Columbus in 2017 decrying the fake news about Columbus:

http://www.kofc.org/en/columbia/detail/christopher-columbus-fake-history.html

Vivat Jesus! 

Friday, June 19, 2020

Supporting a traditional seminarian

Brother Knights,

If you are looking for a charitable cause to financially support, have you considered supporting a traditional seminarian? Our future Latin Mass priests offer some of the best hope for the Church in the next generation. The Angus Dei Council (#12361), Bronx, NY shared an appeal from a seminarian of the Fraternity of St. Peter, a Latin Mass society of priests.


Vivat Jesus!
------------------------


Fellow Knights,

            I hope you have all remained well despite the pandemonium surrounding the pandemic. I have now completed my first year of seminary formation with the Fraternity of St. Peter at Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Denton, Nebraska. Despite the panic, I was able to continue and, eventually, complete my year of studies and formation. 

            My seminary-brothers and I are quite well. My class started with 18 members; we are still 18 strong. My class includes persons from Nigeria, Vietnam, England, Mexico, and divers portions of the United States. Our first-year education primarily consisted of Latin and music studies with a heavy emphasis on the spiritual life and prayer. We worked frequently together and spent our recreation as a class. We were equipped by the seminary to endure an exceedingly difficult conclusion of the year. The corona virus made it that most seminarians were sent home to conclude their year digitally. Nonetheless, my class remain united and strong. 

            This year of hardship demonstrated to me the sacrifice required of a good and holy priest. Just as the contemporary police officer, the priest must go out into a world that despises his office and person to save the lives of those who attack him. This is what Christ did; this is what His priests do. We can not heal this world without the saving touch of Christ. We will never progress without an explicit social recognition of the Incarnation, for through this the world changed forever. Please pray for the Fraternity, as vocations continue to rise. Next year’s class will consist of 23, bringing the seminarian total close to 100 (not counting the European seminary with a similar number). 

            Once again, my formation is dependent upon your generosity. Please consider tithing towards my tuition by going to my gofundme (https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-a-catholic-seminarian-pay-tuition) or sending a check to me directly (*editors note: you can contact him via the website for his mailing address). All donations are used towards my tuition and necessary expenditures (books, materials, etc.). God reward you for your generosity.

            In Christ,
            ~ Joseph M. Falciano

Monday, June 15, 2020

Corpus Christi sermon by Fr. Perricone

We share with you a sermon written by Fr. John Perricone for the feast of Corpus Christi.  Fr. Perricone offers the Traditional Latin Mass at All Saints-Assumption parish in Jersey City, NJ and has offered many retreats and Latin Masses for Knights in the NJ/NY area over the years.



CORPUS CHRISTI
2020
Father John A. Perricone

There was one part of the house I had yet visited, and I went there now.  The chapel showed no ill-effects of its long neglect; the art nouveau paint was as fresh and bright as ever; the art nouveau lamp burned once more before the altar.  I said a prayer, an ancient, newly learned form of words, and left, turning towards the camp…

Something quite remote from anything the builder had intended has come out of their work, and out of the fierce little human tragedy in which I played; something none of us thought about at the time: a small red flame -  a beaten copper lamp of deplorable design, relit before the beaten copper doors of a tabernacle; the flame which the old knights saw from their tombs, which they saw put out; that flame burning again for other soldiers, far from home, farther, in heart, than Acre or Jerusalem.  It could not have been lit except for the builders and tragedians, and there I found it this morning, burning new among the old stones.
            I quickened my pace and reached the hut which served us for our ante-room.
            “You’re looking unusually cheerful today,”, said the second-in-command.

So ends Brideshead Revisited.  An ending sweetly triumphant.  Not only does the bon-vivant Ryder come to the Faith, but the thing that transfixes him in that manorial house he knew so well was the burning red flame of the sanctuary lamp.  Like a magnet, it drew him. It announced, like a hundred silver trumpets, that the King sat upon His throne again.  With the understatement of a true genius writer, Waugh simply concludes: “You’re looking unusually cheerful today.”  Little did the second-in-command know that that singular joy climbed deep from within Ryder’s soul.  It was the joy of a Man meeting his God.  It is the joy which fills all of us when we spot the flickering flame in the red sanctuary lamp.  No joy on earth matches this joy.

Corpus Christi is the grand feast that reminds of that great Mystery – Man meeting God.  This happens only in the Most Holy Eucharist.  Yes, man meets God in the inspired words of the Bible; the infallible teachings of Mother Church; the intimate conversations with God in prayer and even in the vast sweep of God’s marvelous creation.  But in all those meetings, we meet God spiritually.  In the Most Holy Eucharist, we meet Him physically.  This astonishing mystery causes us to fall to our knees, or should, unless we have suffered a fatal breach of Faith. It has prompted the Church to build her breathtaking churches, compelling even unbelievers to stare in wonderment. It has stirred the Holy Spirit to guide the Church in constructing the sublime drama of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; as a spiritual monument, ineffable; as a cultural jewel, a pièce de résistance   All this for one purpose: homage to the Immolated Lamb who lays upon our altars, and Who houses Himself in golden tabernacles.

He promised that He would not leave us orphans.  The sacred Host is everlasting testimony to that.  With a display of divine condescension that baffles the mind, He Who crafted the universe now resides in a tiny room dwarfed by the universe.  This disguise of his Kingly majesty is done out of love, lest His ravishing glory make us tremble as It did Moses on Sinai, or the Apostles on Tabor.  Our Savior permits nothing to stand in the way of sinful man’s approach to the Son of God.  Yet, when we plumb the depths of the Mystery of the Tabernacle, we understand Chesterton who confessed to being ‘frightened by that tremendous Reality.”

In attempting to shed light upon the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, the esteemed Thomist, Fr. Dominic Hughes, unveils the dogma under the rubric of the Gift of Understanding, given us by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and Confirmation:

Understanding is likewise aware that Christ is not present (in the Holy Eucharist) as in the Upper Room, but substantially and without any distinguishable bodily position.  His arms are not outstretched, but His mercy is unrestrained.  He is not a captive in the Tabernacle, but rather He captivates the hearts of all who leave the imprisonment of their own selfishness long enough to share His happiness. In the Sacrifice of the Mass, Christ is not some prelate of past ceremonies but the principal priest Who offers the holocaust of Himself to His Heavenly Father.  Nor is He passive in the act of Holy Communion; He absorbs the soul to Himself in a union of love which binds the soul to all who share in Him.

When J.R.R. Tolkien was writing to his son, Michael, during the dark days of the Nazi bombing of London, he told him to bind his heart to the Most Holy Eucharist:

Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: The Blessed Sacrament…There you will find romance, glory, honor, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth…”

Do you find ‘romance’ when you pray before the Tabernacle?  Impulses of greater ‘fidelity’?  Do all your ‘loves’ find their way, their perfection, their raison d’etre when you gaze upon the Holy Eucharist?  As you adore Our Savior truly present in the Tabernacle, think of this.  Of all God’s actions in the economy of salvation, the mystery of the Holy Eucharist is most perfect.  In the Creation, God gives us things out of nothing; In the Incarnation, He gives the sight of His Sacred Humanity; on Calvary, He gives us the offering of His life; in the Resurrection, He gives us the manifestation of His power; in the Ascension, He gives us the delight of His glorification.  But in the Holy Eucharist, He gives us Himself. Even hearts stiffened by sin soften before the Eucharistic Mystery. Graham Greene’s whiskey priest in The Power and the Glory is distributing Holy Communion in a secret hovel to a group of Mexican peasants. As he does, Greene writes hauntingly that the reprobate priest realized that “he was placing God on the tongues of men.” Reflecting upon the Holy Eucharist, St. John Henry Newman writes:

Thou dwellest on our altars, Thou the Most Holy, the Most High, in light inaccessible, and angels fall down before Thee there; and out of the visible substances and forms, Thou choosest what is choicest to represent and to hold Thee.  The finest wheat flour, and the purest wine, are taken as Thy outward signs, the most sacred and majestic words minister to the sacrificial rite; altar and sanctuary are adorned decently or splendidly, as our means allow; and Thy priests perform their Office in befitting vestments, lifting up chaste hands and holy hands.

Artists have composed some of the most transporting music to express our homage and devotion to the Most Holy Eucharist.  Though they all touch the hem of the Mystery, perhaps the words of the Divine Liturgy of St. James capture most fully man’s spellbound awe:

Let all mortal flesh keep silence
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly minded
For with blessings in his hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth
Our full homage to demand

At His feet the six-winged seraph;
Cherubim with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the Presence,
As with ceaseless voice they cry,
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, Lord Most High!

After receiving Holy Communion St. John Chrysostom writes, “we are like lions breathing forth fire, thus do depart from this altar, being made terrible to the devil.”

Where are the Catholics that leave the altar rail “like lions breathing forth fire?”  Where are the altar rails?  Where are the Churches reminding us of the Paradise that every church is because the Kings of Kings reigns there among us?  Why aren’t Catholics in rapt wonder as are the Cherubim and Seraphim? 

Do you mourn the disintegration of Western civilization? Do you weep at the tidal wave of nihilistic rage besetting our beloved America?  Do you now know fully the pain of the memorable words of Yeats, when he moaned in the Second Coming, “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”?  Do you retch at wave after wave of every once reliable institution in America groveling before the Barbarians in our midst?

Then know that on this Corpus Christi 2020 only a return to a robust and visible adoration of this august Sacrament will bring these agonies to an end.  Yes, our enemies are not only outside the Church.  But we must brave them all.  Think what hangs in the balance.

Saturday, June 13, 2020

Columbus is still ours

Brother Knights,

As our nation continues to be affected by civil unrest, some agitators have taken advantage of the situation to promote their own revolutions and have, in some cities, attacked statues of the name sake of the Knights, Christopher Columbus.

Our network has followed the lead of Pope Leo XIII and have promoted the authentic Catholic legacy of this pious man and explorer. As this pontiff of holy memory wrote in 1892:

For Columbus is ours; since if a little consideration be given to the particular reason of his design in exploring the mare tenebrosum, and also the manner in which he endeavored to execute the design, it is indubitable that the Catholic faith was the strongest motive for the inception and prosecution of the design; so that for this reason also the whole human race owes not a little to the Church. - Quarto Abeunte Saeculo - The Columbus Quadricentennial, by Pope Leo XIII, July 16, 1892
Let us pray that all those who seek to undermine the Catholic faith experience a beautiful conversion to Christ, and to have the concern for the salvation of souls as Columbus did.

Additionally, we encourage Knights to follow in Pope Leo XIII's request to honor Columbus with the votive Mass of the Holy Trinity in the Extraordinary Form.  To learn more visit our Columbus Day webpage at: https://www.latinmassknights.org/p/blog-page.html

Thursday, June 11, 2020

Fr. Kenneth Walker FSSP - June 11, 2014


Brother Knights, 

Today, June 11 is a somber day for us traditional Knights, as it is the 6th anniversary of Fr. Kenneth Walker FSSP’s death.   

For those who are unfamiliar with Fr. Walker, he was a priest of the Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), ordained in 2012, and offered the Latin Mass exclusively. He was assigned to Mater Misericordiae Latin Mass parish in Phoenix, Arizona. And became chaplain for the new Knights Council there. He even joined our monthly teleconference in the winter of 2013 to help network with other Latin Mass Knights. He was a pious and faithful priest.  

 Fr. Kenneth Walker, FSSP

Tragically on June 11, 2014, an assailant broke into the rectory and attacked both Fr. Walker, and his brother priest, Fr. Terra (who was badly injured).  Sadly, Fr. Walker succumbed to his wounds and passed into eternal life.  He is buried at the FSSP’s Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Denton, Nebraska.  

Today however, Fr. Walker’s virtues live on in the Knights, as 3 FSSP councils & one squire circle now bear his name. 

  • Fr. Kenneth Walker Council 16076 – Vancouver, British Columbia (Holy Family Parish) 
  • Fr. Kenneth Walker Council 16168 – Maple Hill, Kansas (St. John Vianney Parish) 
  • Fr. Kenneth Walker Council 16878 – Lincoln, Nebraska (St. Francis of Assisi Parish) 
  • Fr. Kenneth Walker Columbian Squire Circle 5809 – Mableton, Georgia (St. Francis de Sales FSSP Parish)
Please offer prayers today for the repose of Fr. Walker’s soul, and for the conversion of his assailant, Gary Moran.  

Please also visit our website devoted to Fr. Walker: 

We conclude with a recently published article by a college friend of Fr. Walker:


Vivat Jesus!
Traditional Knights Latin Mass Network