Catholic bloggage.

1. First, some wise words from Fr. Jay Toborowsky of Young Fogeys. After finding out that he was being moved to another parish after five years, he wrote:

Wednesday's Gospel, with the Sadducees asking Jesus the loaded question about the woman who married seven brothers and whose wife she'd be at the final Resurrection, particularly helped. To paraphrase it in my mind, I thought to myself, "If a Priest spends two years in College Seminary, then four years in the Major Seminary, then five years at one parish, then five years at another parish, whose Priest is he? Is he a Seton Hall priest? A Mount St. Mary's Priest? A St. James Priest? or a St. Mary's Priest?" The answer is, "None of the above." The Priest is Jesus Christ's Priest, and wherever Jesus asks the priest to serve, he should serve. This is obedience to Christ, speaking to each Priest through the Bishop.

Today's Gospel helped me break the news to the daily Mass attendees. For today's Feast of St. Norbert, the Gospel (from Luke) had Jesus tell the crowd following him, "... every one of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple." There are many things we don't think of as possessions: our health, our family, our friends. One of the dearest "possessions" I have had for the past five years, I explained to them, has been this parish of St. Mary's. Now, Jesus is asking me to trust him enough to "let it go". Boy, I don't want to, but I know I have to. I remember having the same feelings of dread (along with the accompanying knot in my stomach) with every change of scenery that I've had, going back to the day I left my home to go to the seminary. God has been great to me thus far; I have no reason to believe he won't continue to do so.

2. From AmericanPapist: Rumors that the Pope "plans to curtail the practice of organizing large-scale Eucharistic celebrations with hundreds of priests concelebrating the Mass, according to a report in Italy's Panorama magazine."
While I do enjoy "giant Masses" in some ways, I can see why this would be done (if it's true). Celebrations like this have the real potential to become shows - losing focus on the real center of the Mass.
We'll see what happens.