Post #181

Topics: Pius XI: Quadragesimo Anno...August 6th: The Blessing of Grapes...St. Anthony Parishioner: Commercial Work on Television

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• Tomorrow Sunday August 7 will be a low mass at St. Anthony.
• With the coming school year let's pray for our children and all students to recognize God's blessings and grace in his gift of intellect and that we may make the best of these gifts that have been given.
• Stephanie Mann was once again on Catholic Answers radio show this past week. Good job Ms. Mann. The link to her site is listed on the right side of this page.

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"What Are All These Things Compared with the Loss of Souls?"
Quadragesimo Anno

In the first place, it is obvious that not only is wealth concentrated in our times but an immense power and despotic economic dictatorship is consolidated in the hands of a few, who often are not owners but only the trustees and managing directors of invested funds which they administer according to their own arbitrary will and pleasure.  

This accumulation of might and of power generates in turn three kinds of conflict. First, there is the struggle for economic supremacy itself; then there is the bitter fight to gain supremacy over the State in order to use in economic struggles its resources and authority; finally there is conflict between States themselves, not only because countries employ their power and shape their policies to promote every economic advantage of their citizens, but also because they seek to decide political controversies that arise among nations through the use of their economic supremacy and strength.  

This dictatorship is being most forcibly exercised by those who, since they hold the money and completely control it, control credit also and rule the lending of money. Hence they regulate the flow, so to speak, of the life-blood whereby the entire economic system lives, and have so firmly in their grasp the soul, as it were, of economic life that no one can breathe against their will.  

This concentration of power and might, the characteristic mark, as it were, of contemporary economic life, is the fruit that the unlimited freedom of struggle among competitors has of its own nature produced, and which lets only the strongest survive; and this is often the same as saying, those who fight the most violently, those who give least heed to their conscience.  

The ultimate consequences of the individualist spirit in economic life are those which you yourselves, Venerable Brethren and Beloved Children, see and deplore: Free competition has destroyed itself; economic dictatorship has supplanted the free market; unbridled ambition for power has likewise succeeded greed for gain; all economic life has become tragically hard, inexorable, and cruel. To these are to be added the grave evils that have resulted from an intermingling and shameful confusion of the functions and duties of public authority with those of the economic sphere - such as, one of the worst, the virtual degradation of the majesty of the State, which although it ought to sit on high like a queen and supreme arbitress, free from all partiality and intent upon the one common good and justice, is become a slave, surrendered and delivered to the passions and greed of men. And as to international relations, two different streams have issued from the one fountain-head: On the one hand, economic nationalism or even economic imperialism; on the other, a no less deadly and accursed internationalism of finance or international imperialism whose country is where profit is.

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"Wherefore," to use the words of Our Predecessor, "if human society is to be healed, only a return to Christian life and institutions will heal it." For this alone can provide effective remedy for that excessive care for passing things that is the origin of all vices; and this alone can draw away men's eyes, fascinated by and wholly fixed on the changing things of the world, and raise them toward Heaven. Who would deny that human society is in most urgent need of this cure now?

Minds of all, it is true, are affected almost solely by temporal upheavals, disasters, and calamities. But if we examine things critically with Christian eyes, as we should, what are all these compared with the loss of souls? Yet it is not rash by any means to say that the whole scheme of social and economic life is now such as to put in the way of vast numbers of mankind most serious obstacles which prevent them from caring for the one thing necessary; namely, their eternal salvation.

Pius XI

Quadragesimo Anno

May 15, 1931

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August 6th: The Blessing of Grapes

Vultus Christi

http://vultus.stblogs.org/2011/08/august-7th-the-blessing-of-gra.html

The tradition of the Roman Church marks the feast of the martyrs Pope Saint Sixtus and his four deacon companions on the 6th/7th of August by blessing the first grapes of the harvest. This is a sign that, with the feast of the Transfiguration, the Church has entered into a time of fullness, a time that looks for completion.

BLESSING OF GRAPES

V. Our help is in the name of the Lord. 

R. Who hath made heaven and earth.

V. The Lord be with you.

R. And with thy spirit.

Let us pray.

Bless, we beseech Thee, O Lord, this fresh fruit of the vine, 

which Thou hast graciously brought to full ripeness 

with the dew of heaven, abundant rain, and calm and fair weather.

Thou hast given them for our use; 

grant that we may receive them with thanksgiving 

in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the True Vine, 

who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost,

God for ever and ever.

R. Amen.

(And they are sprinkled with holy water.)

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St. Anthony Parishioner Commercial Work on Television

Life long St. Anthony parishioner Bob Walterscheid, he of cinema fame with his cult classic movie King Kung Fu and his famous Pizza hut commercial (which I always think of when thinking of pizza), will once again grace the airwaves with his work this week on television.

This coming Tuesday, August 9  at  8:30 PM Central time and 9:30 PM Eastern time on the Discovery Channel, the show  THE AUCTION KINGS, they will auction off a HOP ROD. The HOP ROD is a gasoline powered pogo stick that was manufactured and marketed by Chance Rides here in Wichlta. During this auction, they will play a :30 second TV spot which was produced 37 years ago by Walterscheid Productions.  It features two of Bob Walterscheid's sons jumping.