Free Republic

Sunday on CNN, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) decried Republicans and former President Donald Trump warning that they posed a threat to voting rights. Waters singled out Republicans because of efforts within GOP-led state legislatures to shore election integrity. Waters also called on attorneys general in Georgia and New York City to aggressively pursue Trump during her interview with Jim Acosta.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Once known as the Islamic State “public square from hell,” with regular executions, crucifixions, and lashings, Raqqa’s old Paradise Square is returning to its former glory, two years after its liberation. The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) liberated Raqqa in October 2017, after a heavy battle that lasted months. When it was retaken, the damage to the city’s infrastructure was extensive and grim. Now, the Raqqa Civil Council (RCC) is focused on rebuilding and providing services as life slowly comes back to the streets of the Islamic State Caliphate’s former capital in Syria. Just after its...

Green Semidouble MASS.—is that of the Sixth Sunday After Epiphany, with the exception of the Collect, Secret, and Postcommunion, which are those of the Third Sunday After Epiphany. INTROIT Adorate Deum omnes angeli ejus: audivit et lætata est Sion: et exsultaverunt filiæ Judæ Adore God, all ye his angels: Sion heard and was glad, and the daughters of Juda rejoiced. Ps. Dominus regnavit: exsultet terra, lætentur insulæ multæ. ℣. Gloria Patri. Adorate. Ps. The Lord hath reigned: let the earth rejoice, let many islands be glad. ℣. Glory, etc. Adore. COLLECT Præsta quæsumus omnipotens Deus: ut semper rationabilia meditantes,...

Green Semidouble FOR THE YEARS when the number of the Sundays after Pentecost is only twenty-three, the Mass for today is taken from the twenty-fourth and last Sunday: and the Mass appointed for the twenty-third, is said on the previous Saturday, or on the nearest day of the preceding week, which is not impeded by a double or semi-double feast. But, under all circumstances, the Antiphonary ends today. The Introits, Graduals, Communions, and Postcommunions, which are given below, are to be repeated on each of the Sundays till Advent, which may be more or less in number, according to...

Green Semidouble ACCORDING TO HONORIUS OF AUTUN, the Mass of today has reference to the days of Antichrist. The Church, foreseeing the reign of the man of sin, and as though she were actually undergoing the persecution, which is to surpass all others—she takes her Introit of this twenty-second Sunday from the Psalm De profundis. If, unitedly with this prophetic sense, we would apply these words practically to our own personal miseries, we must remember the Gospel we had eight days ago, and which, formerly, was the one appointed for the present Sunday. Each one of us will recognize...

Green Semidouble THE REMAINING SUNDAYS are the last of the Church’s cycle; but their proximity with its final termination varies each Year, according as Easter was early or late. This their movable character does away with anything like harmony between the composition of their Masses and the Lessons of the Night Office, all of which, dating from August, have been appointed and fixed for each subsequent week. This we have already explained to our Readers. Still, the instruction, which the Faithful ought to derive from the sacred Liturgy, would be incomplete, and the spirit of the Church, during these...

Green Semidouble THE GOSPEL OF LAST SUNDAY spoke to us of the nuptials of the Son of God with the human race. The realization of those sacred nuptials is the object which God had in view by the creation of the visible world; it is the only one he intends in his government of society. This being the case, we cannot be surprised that the parable of the Gospel, while revealing to us this divine plan, has also brought before us the great fact of the rejection of the Jews, and the vocation of the Gentiles, which is not...

Green Semidouble THE DIVINE LEADER of God’s people is their salvation and that in all their distress. Did we not last Sunday see him prove himself as such, and in a very telling way—by curing both body and soul of the poor Paralytic, who was a figure of the whole human race? Let us hear his voice, in the Introit, with love and gratitude; let us promise him the fidelity he asks of us; his Law, if we will but observe it, will preserve us from a relapse. The Anthem which follows is made up of several passages of...

Green Semidouble THE PARALYTIC CARRYING HIS BED is the subject of this day’s Gospel, and gives the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost its title. It has been thought, by some, that its having the number it bears has caused it to be inserted in the Missal immediately after the Ember Days of autumn. We will not, like the Liturgists of the Middle Ages, discuss the question as to whether we should consider it has having taken the place of the vacant Sunday, which formerly used always to follow the ordination of the sacred ministers, in the manner we have elsewhere...

Green Double THE GOSPEL, which is now assigned to the Mass of the seventeenth Sunday, has given it the name of the Sunday of the love of God, dating, that is, from the time when the Gospel of the cure of the dropsy and of the invitation to the wedding-feast, was anticipated by eight days. Previously, even, to that change, and from the very first, there used to be read on this seventeenth Sunday, another passage from the New Testament which is no longer found in this serial of Sundays: it was the Gospel which mentions the difficulty regarding...

Green Semidouble THE RESURRECTION OF THE SON of the widow of Naim, on which our thoughts were fixed last Sunday, has reanimated the confidence of our beloved Mother the Church; her prayer goes up all the more earnestly to her Spouse, who leaves her on earth, for a time, that she may grow dearer to him, by sufferings and tears. Let us, of course, enter into these her sentiments, which guided her in the choice of today’s Introit. INTROIT Miserere mihi, Domine, quoniam ad te clamavi tota die: quia tu, Domine, suavis ac mitis es, et copiosus in misericordia...

Green Semidouble THIS SUNDAY’S INTROIT—which now goes under the name of the Sunday of the widow of Naim, because of the Gospel read on it—gives us a sample of the prayers we should address to our Lord in our necessities. Last Sunday, we heard our Jesus promising to provide for all our wants, on the condition that we would serve him faithfully, by seeking his kingdom. When we present our petitions to him, let us show him the confidence he so well deserves from us; and we shall be graciously heard. INTROIT Inclina, Domine, aurem tuam ad me, et...

Green Semidouble IN THE WESTERN CHURCH, this Sunday is called that of the two masters, because of the Gospel which is read upon it. The Greeks give it the name of the Sunday of the Invited to the Marriage-feast, or the fourteenth of Saint Matthew, unless the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross happen to fall during the ensuing week. In this latter case, this and the following Sundays are called of the Exaltation, and take for their Gospels the first from St. John, the second from St. Mark. After this, follow the Sundays called of Saint...

Green Semidouble THE DOMINICAL SERIES—which, formerly, counted from the feast of Saint Peter, or of the Apostles—never went beyond this Sunday. The feast of Saint Laurence gave its name to those which follow; through that name began with even the ninth Sunday, for the years when Easter was nearest the Spring equinox. When, on the contrary, that Solemnity was kept at its almost latest date, the weeks began from today be counted as the Weeks of the seventh month (September). The Ember-Days of the Autumn quarter sometimes occur even this week, while, other years, they may be as late...

Green Semidouble ON THIS SUNDAY, which is their Twelfth of St. Matthew, the Greeks read, in the Mass, the episode of the young rich man who questions Jesus, given in the 19th of the Saint’s Gospel. In the West, it is the Gospel of the good Samaritan, which gives its name to this twelfth Sunday after Pentecost. The Introit begins with that beautiful verse of the 69th Psalm: Come to mine assistance, O God! O Lord, make haste to help me! Cassian, in his tenth Conference has admirably drawn out the beauty of these words, and shows how they...

Green Semidouble WITH THE GREEKS, this Sunday—their eleventh of Saint Matthew—is called The Kings Parable, who calls his servants to account. In the Western Church, it has gone under the name of Sunday of the deaf and dumb, ever since the Gospel of the Pharisee and Publican has been assigned to the tenth. Today’s Mass, as we now have it, still gives evidence as to what was its ancient arrangement. Our commentary on today’s liturgy will show us this very plainly. In those years when Easter falls nearest to the 21st of March, the Books of Kings are continued...

Green Semidouble THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM has closed that portion of the prophetic Scriptures which were based on the institutions and history of the figurative period. The Altar of the true God, built by Solomon on the the summit of Moriah, was the authenticated evidence of the true religion, to those who were then living under the Law of expectation. Even after the promulgation of the New Testament, the continued existence of that Altar (the only one heretofore recognized by the Most High as his own), was some sort of an excuse for such of the Jews as were...

Green Semidouble THE LAMENTATION over Jerusalem’s woes is, in the Western Church, the subject of today’s Gospel; and it gave its name to this ninth Sunday after Pentecost, at least among the Latins. We have already observed that it is easy to find, even in the Liturgy as it now stands, traces of how the early Church was all attention to the approaching fulfillment of the prophecies against Jerusalem, that ungrateful City, upon which our Jesus heaped his earliest favors. The last limit put by mercy upon justice has, at length, been passed. Our Lord, speaking of the ruin...

White Double IN THE MIDDLE AGES, this Sunday was called, the sixth and last Sunday after the Natalis of the Apostles (that is, the Feast of St. Peter); it was, indeed, the last, for the years when Easter had been kept was late in April as was possible; but, it was only the first after that Feast of St. Peter, when Easter immediately followed the spring equinox. We have already noticed the variable character of this last portion of the liturgical cycle, which was the result of Easter’s being kept on a different day each year; and that, in...

Green Semidouble THE DOMINICAL CYCLE of the Time after Pentecost completes today its first seven. Previous to the general adoption of the changes introduced into the Sunday Gospels for this portion of the Year, the Gospel of the multiplication of the seven loaves gave its name to the seventh Sunday; and the mystery it contains is still evident in more than one section of today’s liturgy. As we have already seen, this mystery was that of the consummation of the perfect in the repose or rest of God himself; it was the fruitful peace of the divine union. Nothing,...