In several previous posts, I proposed that the Christology of Pope Francis, as evidenced in his public discourse, is such that his view of Christ is “diminished and distorted,” and this necessarily means that his view of the priesthood (as well as the papacy itself) is similarly deficient.
In his Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, for example, Pope Francis suggested that the dignity derived from Holy Orders is no greater than that derived from Baptism; something that even the heretics have received.
The ministerial priesthood is one means employed by Jesus for the service of his people, yet our great dignity derives from baptism, which is accessible to all. The configuration of the priest to Christ the head – namely, as the principal source of grace – does not imply an exaltation which would set him above others. (Evangelii Gaudium – 104)
This treatment of the priesthood by Pope Francis is an insult to Christ, the High Priest and King to whom the ministerial priest is uniquely configured, and from Whom his great dignity is derived.
Not only does that configuration imply an exaltation which would set the priest above others; he is above others!
As if one needs any more evidence of just how far the mind of this pope is from the mind of the Church with respect to the priesthood, consider the following:
Since 1963, the Church has designated the Fourth Sunday after Easter as the “World Day of Prayer for Vocations.”
An archive of the messages issued by the popes specifically for that day is available on the website of the Holy See as follows:
A quick review of each of the messages issued by the various popes over the years will reveal, just as one might expect, a focus on priestly vocations (meaning, the ministerial priesthood), along with some reference to consecrated religious life.
That is, until Pope Francis…
So far, he has issued two messages for World Day of Prayer for Vocations.
His first, in 2014, gives the priesthood just a passing mention, while deliberately lumping it together with the lay vocation:
Therefore every vocation, even within the variety of paths, always requires an exodus from oneself in order to centre one’s life on Christ and on his Gospel. Both in married life and in the forms of religious consecration, as well as in priestly life, we must surmount the ways of thinking and acting that do not conform to the will of God.
The message for World Day of Prayer for Vocations 2015 has already been published.
In it, Pope Francis doesn’t mention the priesthood even once.
Now, don’t get me wrong… None of the post-conciliar popes, including Benedict XVI who was clearly the best of the lot, were models of tradition. Every last one of them said and did things that are scandalous and gravely offensive to Christ and the faithful.
That said, Pope Francis is, as I stated very early on in his pontificate, the Generalissimo of Conciliar Revolution.
Are these World Day of Prayer for Vocations messages what one might call circumstantial evidence?
Sure, but only a fool-by-choice will dismiss it as meaningless, and likely for the simple reason that coming to terms with the reality of a pope who so clearly does not think and feel (much less act) with the mind of the Church is just too painful to acknowledge.
Almost from the very beginning of his papacy, it became clear that Bergoglio did not know, understand or appreciate his awesome responsibilities as the head of the Roman Catholic Church, especially his sacred duties as Vicar of Christ. His manner and behavior in public reduces the Holy Office to “just another job”. There is no need to list examples. Readers of this blog are too painfully aware. Why would a pope who disdains and is apparently repelled by his own priesthood do anything to promote vocations? The only reason Bergoglio loves being pope is because he could use this powerful position to promote his first love—-Vatican II.
I think that at his roots, Francis hates the priesthood. He would rather be a Pentecostal preacher but that option was not open to him in 1960’s Argentina.
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Having said the above, I am beginning to understand Francis a bit differently. It appears to me that what Francis is all about is this: he just wants to be different. He has this emotional and psychological need to do things differently. There isn’t one bit of dogma or one tradition that he has touched, that he has not tried to show that he “is not like all the others”. There is actually a logical fallacy that is know as the appeal to novelty. Here is how it is described in Wikipedia:
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“The appeal to novelty (also called argumentum ad novitatem) is a fallacy in which someone prematurely claims that an idea or proposal is correct or superior, exclusively because it is new and modern. In a controversy between status quo and new inventions, an appeal to novelty argument isn’t in itself a valid argument. The fallacy may take two forms: overestimating the new and modern, prematurely and without investigation assuming it to be best-case, or underestimating status quo, prematurely and without investigation assuming it to be worst-case.”
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From where I stand, it appears that the total of FrancisSpeak can be easily placed into one of the two above categories. Add to it the “ecclesiastical gibberish” or as you call it once, the “pseudo sacral homopoetic prose”, and you got Francis pinned down to a T.
S. Armaticus, you make an interesting observation attributing Francis with ‘the appeal to novelty’. The Italian philosopher Vico, the greatest of all the first anti-Cartesian and anti-modern philosophers, warned about this appeal to all academics, calling it in Italian “La boria dei dotti”, translated as “the arrogance, smugness, or self-importance of the learned.” Obviously this ‘boria’ is a branch of the capital sin of Pride.
‘WORLD prayer……….day.’ World/Prayer. As if the Church doesn’t know by now that the ‘world’ doesn’t give a rat’s claw about prayer? ‘I am not of the world’, He said.
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BUT – Bergoglio understands things better than the Holy Ghost’s Christ because of the ‘beat of the age’… step down, Jesus, Jorge is in the house.
Dear Louie,
Shortly after his election, reporters – searching for info on the new Pope-turned to the book he wrote with Rabbi Skorka in 2010:
“Sobre el Cielo y la Tierra” (On Heaven and Earth)
Here are a few excerpts from the book, used in an article by NCR (April 2013) which talk about the meaning of priesthood in relation to “fundamentalism”
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— They “begin the conversation regarding fundamentalists by describing the roles of rabbis and priests. According to Skorka, the rabbi “should lead, carry and try to bring man closer to God.”
–BERGOGLIO explains that the priestly role is threefold: to be “a teacher, a leader of the people of God, and president of the liturgical assembly where prayer and worship take place.” “The priest, in his role as teacher, teaches, proposes the truth revealed and accompanies you. Even if he has to face failure, he is with you,” Bergoglio says. “A teacher who assumes the role of making decisions for the disciple is not a good priest. He is a good dictator, an annihilator of the religious personalities of others.” A priest dictator “weakens and holds back people in the search for God,” Bergoglio says. A true teacher “will let his disciple go and he will walk with him in his spiritual life.”
–SKORKA speaks of certain Jewish circles where fundamentalism is rampant, meaning that when the teacher says to do something, the followers don’t have any other choice but to comply. “Things are a certain way and they are not discussed, they cannot be any other way.”
“These leaders hold back the religiousness that should emanate from the most intimate depths of a person; they dictate the lives of others.”
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–BERGOGLIO posits that this type of rigid religiosity “disguises itself with doctrines that pretend to give justifications, but really deprive people of freedom and will not allow them to grow.” “Fundamentalism is not what God wants,” Bergoglio says.
— He believes that as a result of this religiosity, people are not prepared to overcome the crises of life, the failings one has, the injustices one commits. “They do not have tools to recognize or understand the mercy of God,” he says.
http://ncronline.org/news/art-media/book-co-written-argentine-rabbi-sheds-light-francis-views
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Mary, Help of Christians, pray for us. St. Joseph, protect the Church.
Dear Louie,
We posted the following (thought of the Saints on the dignity of the priesthood) -the last time you talked about this issue, and think it bears repeating:
–St. Francis de Sales once related that God favored him with the visible presence of his Angel guardian, who before he had received priesthood always remained at his right and preceded him, but afterwards walked on his left and refused to go before him.
–St. Francis of Assisi used to say, “If I saw an Angel and a priest, I would bend my knee first to the priest and then to the Angel.”
–The holy king St. Boleslans had so great a veneration for priests, that he would not dare to sit in their presence.
–St. Bernard: “The Priesthood transcends all the dignities of kings, of emperors, and of Angels.”
–St. Clement: “as much as the soul is more noble than the body, so much is the priesthood more excellent than royalty.”
–St. Peter deBlois said, “They willingly bend their knee before the priest of God; they kiss his hands, and with bowed down head receIve his benediction.”___
–St. John Chrysostom said: “The sacerdotal dignity “effaces the royal dignity; hence the king inclines his head under the hand of the priest to receive his blessing.”
–In the Council of Nice, the Emperor Constantine wished to sit in the last place, after all the priests, and on a seat lower than that which they occupied; he would not even sit down without their permission.
http://www.fisheaters.com/holyorders3.html
Thanks for posting that, Indignus.
Dear Paul
Always a pleasure to share the words of Faith from ages past…. 🙂 🙂
It would be gravely sinful for a priest to accompany a member of the Church in a rejection of the Deposit of Faith and morals.
Rather than admonish him and tell him to repent.
“Our Lord began His public life with the words, “Repent and believe the Gospel”. . Repentance must precede any experience of God’s love; else, any other “experience” is a cheap counterfeit at best and diabolical deception at worst.” (from a Letter of Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke)
Four words come to mind to explain PF…”Loss of Supernatural Faith”. It is the root of his modernist philosophy which is narcissistic and manifested through moral exhibitionism. He makes it up as he goes. His is a “Theology by the seat of his pants” express as a stream of conscious babble-mania.
“And the flame of corruption is even visibly increasing by the hour, working down from above.”
-Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Perfect response! I was going to say that the idea that he has to do things better (in his mind) or needs to be different stemmed from pride.
“Sure, but only a fool-by-choice will dismiss it as meaningless, and likely for the simple reason that coming to terms with the reality of a pope who so clearly does not think and feel (much less act) with the mind of the Church is just too painful to acknowledge.”
Absolutely! For sure! Amen!
But acknowledged it must be! It’s easy. Logic and Catholic doctrine compel it!
A Pope CANNOT teach error. The Holy Ghost will not permit it.
THIS MAN IS NOT POPE!!!
Peter, the limits of infallibility are laid out in the documents of VI. Bergoglio has not taught error in his office as supreme Pontiff while attempting to bind the universal Church. Frankly, I would love to see him attempt because it would prove, and be a wake up, to the entire Catholic world without question that he is a fraud and if he tried then the bishops will be forced to act.
Bravo!
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cardinal-brandmueller-advocates-for-changing-catholic-teaching-on-marriage
Dear James,
You are correct, he has not invoked the Solemn Magisterium to define dogma, but remember the Ordinary Magisterium is equally infallible and binding.
Me no theologian, but me thinks that in this time of instant communication, when he knows full well that every single word he utters, or writes concerning faith, or morals, will be disseminated worldwide in a flash and interpreted and quoted as Papal teaching by many, then all the conditions required for what he imparts to be considered teaching of the Infallible Ordinary Magisterium are fulfilled.
What you wish for you will see in October when communion for adulterers will be permitted and perversion will be blessed.
Dear JamesTheLesser,
Thanks for this important reminder on this central ” bone of contention” among the Faithful about whether a Pope CAN think error, wish to promote it, and still BE Pope?
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Relying on Divine Providence to prevent any and all official “binding” of error, has been proven fruitful in the last 2000 years, and since Our Lord promised to remain with His Church till the end of time, and there has been no official declaration that the Chair of Peter is empty, it’s proving confusing and dangerous for us each to “decide” individually–even though, ultimately each person has to act on a “rightly formed conscience” in order to stand before God at the end- in innocence..
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What happened with John XXII (22nd), impresses us greatly. He believed contrary to established tradition on the Beatific vision, spoke this error in many places, and didn’t recant until the end of his papacy. He was also opposed by Cardinals who held out to that end.
— We see here, with Francis–another personally’ warped set of ideas- about Divine Mercy “welcoming” unrepentant mortal sinners—to receive the Holy Eucharist, PURPORTING it to be for their GRADUAL/EVENTUAL healing, and INTENDED by God as such while we “walk” with them (Ignoring past teachings on this). CLEARLY error.
–His mention of Penance at least three times in this official opening statement for the Year of Mercy, obscures that issue –(typically Jesuit move?) for the many who have not been aware of what he’s been up to these many months—beginning with His praising Kasper’s Book of the Theology of sacrilege; calling Kasper as keynote speaker to the Synod fathers; forcing the controvery that failed to receive the necessary votes, to be published in the relatio; his references in homilies to the “healing” properties of the Eucharist, (with NO distinction between Mortal and Venial sin) and Church’s need to stop being “closed off” or “fall like a house of cards” etc….
— Add all that to that his Argentinian history- having concubines receive at weekend retreats, supporting an ex priest and his “wife” and family, who often said Mass together; and the infamous phone call as “Father Bergoglio” from the Vatican, giving an adulterer his ” permission to receive” (she publicized) and we have a picture of a man on a mission to “change” what cannot BE changed, to bring down what he views as unwelcoming walls..
–Your’re right about the gravity of all this being SO EASILY seen as serious error. It has already emboldened many laity like us, and some Bishops and even Cardinals to speak out publicly against it.
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We trust that Our Lord will prevent these “desired” changes from being officially promulgated, OR that He will have the Chair of Peter officially declared vacant, if that is the case. In the meantime we must keep speaking out against these errors, just as St. Cyprian of Carthage did in the 200’s–regarding the “Lapsed” who were coming to receive Communion before publicly doing penance-as was required :
writing:
(551) “The Apostle [St.Paul] likewise bears witness- “You cannot be a communicant at the table of the Lord and of the table of devils” (1 Cor 10:21).. he threatens the stubborn and perverse and denounces them, saying: “Whoever eats the Bread or drinks the Cup of the Lord unworthily, will be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord” (1 Cor 11:27).
— [16]” But they spurn and despise all these warnings; and before their sins are expiated, before they have made a confession of their crime, before their conscience has been purged in the ceremony and at the hand of the priest, before the offense against an angry and threatening Lord has been appeased, they do violence to His Body and Blood; and with their hands and mouth they sin against the Lord [by unworthy reception of the sacrament] more than when they denied Him.”
–553 ”God cannot be mocked or outwitted; nor can He be deceived by any clever cunning. Indeed, he but sins the more if, thinking that God is like man, he believes that he can escape the punishment of his crime by not openly admitting his crime. . . [29] I beseech you, brethren, let everyone who has sinned confess his sin while he is still in this world, while his confession is still admissible, while satisfaction and remission made through the priests are pleasing before the Lord.”
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If you want your hair to stand straight up – listen to the Confessions of a Novus Ordo Seminarian:
http://www.restorationradionetwork.org/season-iii-true-restoration-flagship-xxxvii-confessions-of-a-novus-ordo-seminarian/
Of course, that’s his way around doing it officially. 🙂
It’s still personal opinion or interpretation. I’m no theologian either but I don’t believe the Church has ever said the Holy Ghost protects against everything the Pope says or does based on his personal human understanding. Blessed are you Simon B because flesh and bone didn’t reveal this but your Father in Heaven.
Here’s some good food for thought from “Unum Sanctum Catholicam”: about the over-emphasis on Mercy -to the exclusion of Divine Justice:
–“We spend a lot of time discussing what the enemies are of Tradition, but these attitudes come from the enemies of Contrition.”
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“A Christian in mortal sin may be saved without confession or absolution, but he cannot be saved without contrition.” Father O’Keefe from “Contrition”
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“Of true contrition and humbling of the heart, arises hope of forgiveness; the troubled conscience is reconciled; the grace which was lost, is recovered; man is preserved from the wrath to come; and God and the penitent soul meet together with a holy kiss.”
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–“You think such a thing is obvious? I assure you it is not. How do I know? Because God has to keep sending us reminders of these fact through his servants, confirmed by miracles, and spread by ecclesiastical mandate. We all know that we fail to trust our Lord when we prefer our own will to His when we disobey the commandments, when we think we can find some shortcut to happiness other than walking in His ways.”
http://unamsanctamcatholicam.blogspot.com/2015/04/enemies-of-contrition.html
It seems like the enemies of the Church have used religious liberty, collegiality, and ecumenism to wage war against Our Lord’s Messianic Dignity. They attack Him as Priest, Prophet, and King and they also use these declarations to deny that Our Lord is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
It is interesting that Sister Lucia was told that some Pope would repent and consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart. Perhaps that means that he will repent from what keeps him from making the consecration. It might even be that the consecration itself is a public act of reparation. The Pope would necessarily have to renounce religious liberty before the whole world if he were to consecrate Russia for it’s conversion to the Catholic Faith. He would also offend against collegiality by publically ordering the Bishops to join him in this act and together they would have to ask it of the Immaculate Heart which offends the Protestants. The consecration looks like a three-fold public act of reparation for a three-fold denial.
Dear IF,
According to the Vulgate, Our Lord’s words were, “Do penance and believe the Gospel.” Novus Ordo attendees have been subjected to Protestant biblical translations for decades and it has affected their Faith. Another example pertains to the time when Our Lord healed the woman and said, “Go thy way. Thy faith has made thee WHOLE.” The current renderings have, “Your faith has SAVED you.” It reinforces the “saved by faith alone” meme and is completely un-Catholic.
Dear 3littleshepherds1
We’ve been amateur students of Fatima for a long time, and although we don’t deny that it may be necessary for a Pope to “repent” of modernism before doing the Consecration, we’ve never heard this version of Our Lady’s words before this. Can you provide us with a source for it? All we’ve ever read agrees with this version:
Sr. Lucia reporting that Our Lady told her:
“In the end My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted and some time of peace will be granted to the world.”
–That’s part of the reason we’ve always thought it would take the ELECTION of a Pope already Faithful to Tradition and the Fatima message, who knows the importance of mentioning Russia specifically in the Consecration, while not ruling out a sudden conversion, of course.
Dear Lake Erie,
Is it possible you’re making a “knee-jerk” response to the Cardinals words here, based on a personal prejudice against his not being as anti -N.O. as you think he should be ?
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Our Latin Vulgate (Mark 1: 15) reads:
“et dicens: Quoniam impletum est tempus, et appropinquavit regnum Dei:
poenitemini, et credite Evangelio. ”
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The Douey Rheims English version lists it as:
“And saying: The time is accomplished, and the kingdom of God is at hand:
repent, and believe the gospel.”
–Exactly as Cardinal Burke’s letter states it.
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This is a side issue, but we also don’t understand why you think it would take a “protestant” point of view to take the idea that there is a need to repent implicit in the words “do penance”, found in other quotes of Our Lord, making that an equally accurate translation?
P.S. to our comment on translations of the Scriptures:
–Don’t mean to leave you with the impression we disagree with your overall point– that the modernists have tried to attack the Church via translations of Scriptures;
A good example are the newer Dutch Bible(s)- made by joint committees with protestants—one of which claims to be closer to the original meaning (of course) and translates “Virgin” where it refers to Our Lady, as “young girl”.
–You can imagine what that does to the prophesy of Isaiah — an its sign of the fulfillment of God’s promise to send a Messiah -a Virgin giving birth. A young girl. What would have even been unusual about THAT in Biblical times?
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No surprise Francis got a report last year from their Bishops saying: “churches have been closing at a rate of one or two a week, and about two-thirds of all Roman Catholic churches in the Netherlands will have to be shut or sold by 2025 because congregations and finances were “in a long-term shrinking process”
Indignus famulus
In August of 1931, Our Lord told Sr. Lucia,
“Make it known to My ministers that given they follow the example of the King of France in delaying the execution of My command, they will follow him into misfortune …
Later He complained again; “They did not want to heed My command. Like the King of France they will repent and do it, but it will be late. Russia will already have spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The Holy Father will have much to suffer.”
Dear 3littleshepherds1
Thank you for this reminder. The quote is a very familiar one to us. Our understanding of the word repent in that context was always as a synonym for the word “regret” –meaning they would regret not having done the Consecration, and do it. It very well could have the meaning you attribute to it.
We’ve often thought that when the Consecration is finally done, it will automatically be a complete repudiation of the “hiding-away” of Our Blessed mother in favor of allegedly “not offending” Protestants who object so strongly to her as intercessor, mediatrix and especially co-redemtrix, which many of them consider to be blasphemous concepts–not accepting her special roles as able to be done AS a human -the sinless version of our first mother.
For a Pope to be willing to do that, elevating her as Our Lord said–to a place of honor right next to Him, would require some degree of repudiation of the “bad-spirits” of VII, breaking the verbal agreements made with Russia in the past, acknowledging the Church as the One True Faith, which automatically means all other religions are false to some degree; –i.e.your point about religious liberty, and commanding the Bishops to act collegially, once again asserting Papal responsibility AND authority, in the name of God’s will. Thanks for your insightful comments.
God Bless,
🙂 🙂
Bergolio makes it clear what he thinks of the Priesthood every Maundy Thursday when he symbolically demotes the Apostolic dignity of the First Bishops of Holy Mother Church by washing the feet of any one who happens to be a symbol of scandal, rather than the Priesthood. He mocks every sacrament – the Piesthood, the Holy Sacrament of Matrimony, and even Holy Communion itself. It was on Maundy Thursday, when Our Lord gave us the Sacrament of His Body and Blood, and it is in this context the feet of His First Bishops are ritually washed. But Bergoglio with his modernist licence to reinvent, misinterpret and outright mock what preceded him, are there any more surprises?
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PS. The little Office reminds as well that at the same time on the following day, Good Friday, He was taken down from the Cross laid into the arms of Our Lady; at the same time on Easter Sunday, He spoke to the discples on the road to Emmaus who understood Him only in the ‘Breaking of the Bread’.
Dear Salvemur,
We have the same reaction to this. Can’t recall where right now, but we read on a website somewhere, the idea that Our Lord washed his Apostles feet, not only to show them the example of the Master acting as servant of all, but in a kind of ritual preparation/cleansing before giving them His precious body and blood.
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By that standard, anyone not Catholic and in a state of Sanctifying Grace, should not be participating in that annual ceremony. And since it is part of our Holy Thursday celebration, it should only be Catholic Males who are standing in for the Apostles. This type of thing has been going on for a long time in our part of the world. Francis is just breaking all the barriers he can–as usual, to bring sinful, unrepentant people into our holiest moments of ritual. That’s a new low. We hope all this is building up frustration in enough of the Cardinals, that something will get done officially about it soon.
Those of you in your youth, do not remember my beloved “ghetto church” where there was an abundance of priests and nuns and they had the respect of the laity of being something special from God. Now in my older age I have to drive 25 miles to attend the Latin Mass but the sermons never quote any pre-counciliar popes or saints but only the modernist “saints” of the post-council era. Mark my words, if things continue down this path you will not be able to find a Latin Mass, or a good priest, at the end of your lifetimes. Better brush up on what the Jews in captivity in Babylon did to keep the faith.
God have mercy on us.
Blessed Mother intercede for us.
Good advice, Old Catholic: ‘I have to drive 25 miles to attend the Latin Mass but the sermons never quote any pre-counciliar popes or saints.’ God Bless you and St Paul pray that you ‘win the Race’.
Around it goes. Be interested to know the later application, but Our Lord washed the feet of His First ‘Fishers of Men’ Bishops on Maunday Thursay, where and when the Saracament of His Body and Blood (Our Holy Communion) was given) as a sign of the hieght of the Sacraments. Oi vey. Seems to me, ‘sarcramentalism’ in the Novus Ordo is getting a short shift?!
At the Novus Ordo Mass celebrated at our Cathedral and outlying Good Shepherd Church several of our very devout articulate priests quote from St Augustine,St Bernard of Clairvaux,St Ignatius of Antioch and of Loyola, not to mention Sts Matthew,Mark,Luke and John and Paul.
Podcasts such as Audio Sancto, Discerning Hearts and Word on Fire contain plenty that informs and uplifts, and audiobooks of a Sacred Scripture and The Imitation of Christ will certainly keep your thoughts focused on Heaven.
And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honourable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.
Philippians 4:8-9