Celestial Musings

Catholic 🙏📿. Homeschooling Momx9 😍. Pauline 🎙️. Wife 💑. Javaphilic knitaholic ☕️. Seeker of holiness through the Holy Family Institute. Might you be called?

[Celestial Musings @HolyWannabe]

@wingheart @Agacja2 @PhilShaw What a freaking coward.

[Emily Zanotti 🦝 @emzanotti]

The guys who ran out of wine during the wedding at Cana

[Celestial Musings @HolyWannabe]

@RaymondArroyo Absolutely not. I'm sure the Pope had nothing to do with it, but those who did could have chosen something more fitting.

[Celestial Musings @HolyWannabe]

@MichaelBattin49 @RealCandaceO Before criticizing something, you should understand what it is you are criticizing, otherwise you come off as ignorant and your arguments baseless...much as you did with your statement here. Why don't you learn what Catholicism *actually* teaches. You'll probably end up Catholic.

[Celestial Musings @HolyWannabe]

@chesterbelloc3 100% agree!

[Celestial Musings @HolyWannabe]

@UcheMaryOkoli Absolutely! Our family does!

[Celestial Musings @HolyWannabe]

@LiturgyGuy That's messed up.

[Celestial Musings @HolyWannabe]

@dianemontagna @HolySeePress It's about time! Thought he was moved in already! This is good!

[Celestial Musings @HolyWannabe]

@LibOrNormal Yes. Just take the first step. If God wants you to change, He will convict you of how and why.

[Celestial Musings @HolyWannabe]

@LepantoInst Shameful.

[Celestial Musings @HolyWannabe]

@BookGentleman @RealCandaceO @EmmanuelMacron It is an acknowledgement that her primary vocation is wife and mother. That is her identity, who she is. "Podcasting" is just something she does.

[Celestial Musings @HolyWannabe]

@JohnHansel77066 Happy Birthday, Emily!! I hope it was wonderful!!!

[Celestial Musings @HolyWannabe]

@Synod_va @16SynodAssembly Stop this travesty for goodness sake.

[Anthony Esolen @AnthonyEsolen]

I remember a variety of things that dismayed ordinary Catholics, post-1969, when they were told over and over that it was all required by Vatican 2. Others have told me of other things besides.

What I remember:

The removal of the Communion rail. It was made of Italian marble, with mosaic inlays in the uprights, featuring Eucharistic symbols: loaves of bread, two fish, a bunch of grapes, the Lamb of the Apocalypse.

The removal of the great high altar. Magnificent white marble ... replaced by drab but no doubt costly presider's chairs, so that we would be looking past the table not at an altar but at the priest and two altar boys. Why?

The demotion of certain popular saints from the official list: Barbara and Christopher are those I recall. This hurt more than you can imagine. People thought, "Maybe the Church was wrong about a lot of other things, too."

The whitewashing of all the painted designs on the interior walls and pilasters of my boyhood church. Those had bound the mural paintings on the wall with those on the ceiling, in one continuous artistic effect. The stark white now separated everything; the capitals of the pilasters were painted with gold. The result was disruptive and incoherent.

The carpeting over of ceramic tiles of white and dark green hexagons, set in cruciform patterns on the floor in the aisles; the red plush, which got dingy very fast, was both expensive and pointless.

Strife among the IHM sisters that staffed our school. We came to understand that the younger sisters were supposed to know better than the older ones.

My home town gave about 50 priests to the Church, and more than 90 religious sisters, from its incorporation in 1876 to 1965. Since that time, two priests that I know of, one religious sister, and one deacon. There may be a couple more, but I don't think so.

When I was a boy, we had 3 Masses in the morning from Monday through Friday, one said by each of the three priests in the parish. There were at least 4 Masses on Sunday: 7 AM, 8:00, 9:15, 10:30. We had about 400 children in the parochial school, 8 grades, one room per grade. My class had between 45 and 51 pupils. The numbers were written on the blackboard; and I remember their names. Usually we also knew who their brothers and sisters were, and sometimes also their cousins. That would collapse with astonishing speed, once the vocations to the IHM order dried up.

The parish lost the school, which is now the Borough offices. It lost the convent. The borough has MORE people now than then, but fewer of them are children, and almost all of those children are swallowed up and lost in the bowels of the public school system.

[Dr. Thomas Carr O.P. @ArdorNew]

Advantages of Altar Rails:

1. They speed up distribution of the Eucharist
2. They eliminate need for EM's
3. They beautify the sanctuary
4. They help older folks get down and up with less pain
5. They signal the sacredness of what lies beyond them
6. They give recipients time to dispose themselves properly, in a kneeling position, while waiting for the priest
7. They appeal to younger members of the parish

So why did we get rid of them in the first place?

[Celestial Musings @HolyWannabe]

@SenWarren Look at you fighting to mandate the poisoning of our nations mothers and children! Pro-woman indeed!

[Celestial Musings @HolyWannabe]

@CoffinMedia Love him. He exudes a down to earth, kind, humility. You can see his love and genuine affection for those he encounters, but he's not overly-emotive, and that's good. He speaks Truth with simplicity and clarity. He doesn't seek to create headlines, confuse ppl, or "make a mess."

[☩ 𝕁𝕄𝕋 ☩ @SecretFire79]

You know, it’s funny when people hear that Pope Leo XIV has a math degree, taught physics, and wrote a thesis on monastic leadership, they act like it's some wild plot twist. The Catholic Church has always been low-key obsessed with education. I mean, did you know nearly every pope since the Renaissance has had a PhD? Benedict XVI had five. Cardinals today basically need doctorate-level expertise to even get a seat at the table. Leo XIV isn't an outlier; he's following a 2,000-year-old playbook where faith and reason are BFFs. This is the same institution that gave us the Big Bang theory (thanks to a Jesuit priest, Georges Lemaître) and the guy who invented genetics (shoutout to Gregor Mendel, the pea-plant-obsessed Augustinian friar). Yet somehow, we still think of the Church as just incense and hymns.

The Church's duality; defending doctrinal tradition while pioneering intellectual frontiers, is its defining paradox. Consider the Vatican's astronomical observatory, which has operated since 1582, or the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which has included members like Hawking and Einstein.

Let's break it down. Those monks and nuns you picture copying manuscripts in candlelit monasteries? They weren't just praying, they were preserving ancient Greek philosophy, advancing math, and basically saving Western civilisation during the Dark Ages. Fast-forward to today, and the Vatican still runs its own space telescope (yes, really, Jesuit brothers track asteroids). The Chúrch condemned Galileo, sure, but now it funds ethical stem-cell research and partners with IBM on AI ethics. It's like the ultimate comeback story: "Oops, we messed up on heliocentrism; here's a think tank on quantum physics."

And let's talk about those religious orders. Jesuits? They basically invented the modern university system. The Jesuits founded in 1540, by a chap called Ignatius Loyala, (half monk, half soldier) ran over 800 universities globally. Franciscans gave us Occam's Razor; you know, that "simplest explanation is best" rule you learned in science class? That came from a 14th-century friar who loved logic more than the Pope loved his fancy hat. The Dominicans had Thomas Aquinas, who merged Aristotle's philosophy with theology. Augustinians, Leo XIV's crew, were all about community and critical thinking, traits he took to Peru, where he spent 20 years teaching in slums while quietly holding dual citizenship. The guy's got more layers than a medieval manuscript.

But here's the upper-cut: the Church thrives on this weird paradox. It's conservative enough to make your grandma nod approvingly ("No women priests? Classic.") but progressive enough to have a Pope who trash-talks eco deniers and slams border politics. Leo XIV fits right in; he's a Republican primary voter who also called Trump's family separations "illicit," a social media critic who warns bishops not to be divisive online. It's like the Church says, "We'll debate evolution with Darwinians by day and chant Latin psalms by night and we'll look good doing both."

So next time someone acts shocked that a pope knows quantum physics or tweets about refugees, just smile. The Catholic Church has been playing 4D chess with knowledge for centuries. It's not a relic; it's a living library, where friars argue about black holes over breakfast and nuns run coding bootcamps. Leo XIV? He's just the latest chapter in a story where faith doesn't fear science…It fuels it.

[Celestial Musings @HolyWannabe]

@DecreviD2BC Thank goodness.

[Celestial Musings @HolyWannabe]

@RobertKennedyJc Depends. Raw, unless you have a dairy allergy. If a dairy allergy, then coconut milk, preferably. If you go for nuts, get the cleanest nut beverage you can find, with no gums/stabilizers/etc. Elmhurst is a very clean brand.