In the Slovak Republic, a country where I have lived for 75 years during the communist totalitarian period, the state took away the consent of the best, most faithful Catholic priests to perform pastoral work. Such a priest had to get a job and could not officially work in pastoral work. These people worked secretly in the underground Church (e.g. Ján Chryzostom Korec - later Cardinal - and many others) and did much good for the salvation of souls. For us believers, a priest without state consent was a sign of the highest quality.
I would like to expect that your dismissal from the Tyler diocese is clear evidence of the direction in which Pope Francis wants to lead the Church. It is not nice words that are important, but good deeds, because "by their fruits you will know them" (Mt 7:16).
After your dismissal from office, God has assigned you a much larger space than the Tyler diocese. Your work begins in the USA and the world, so the Pope honored you, even though he wanted to achieve the exact opposite.
We pray for you that the Lord will give you much strength, that the Holy Spirit will guide your steps, that the Virgin Mary will obtain for you an abundance of grace, and that you will have many, many people who will boldly and bravely proclaim the Word of God.
We cannot thank you enough Bishop Strickland for your love of God and His One True Church for being the one voice crying out in the desert the shepherd's voice ❤️ I will definitely forward You're beautiful Shepherd's Voice to many in need❤️ for We love you and we appreciate you and pray for you ❤️🙏❤️🔥🙏 JESUS I TRUST IN YOU ❤️🔥
Dearest Bishop Strickland, after attending a novus ordo Mass I felt compelled to write about the abomination I felt...I wrote to the Bishop of the Diocese who recommended me to contact the priest myself. I declined to do that. But this is emblematic of what Catholics suffer at the hands of novus ordo priests celebrating the Holy SACRIFICE of the Mass:
TITLED:
8 DEGREES OF REVERENCE:
My Lord and my God!
We gather in Your Presence at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
The “New Mass” imposed on faithful Catholics today:
Holy and Venerable is Your Body, Your Soul and Divinity
Sanctified in a sacred Host
but
Held no higher than eye level, and in only ONE ordained hand
expecting to be offered back to You in unspeakable gratitude,
Transubstantiated into You, our Sacrificial Lamb of God!
yet
the priest did not prostrate himself nor bow
In this sacred moment
At Your Last Supper.
Holy and Venerable is Your Blood, Soul and Divinity
Sipped from the cup of our Salvation, our saving grace
yet
Held no higher than eye level in both ordained hands
the priest then replaced chalice on the altar containing
Your crimson streams of blood
yet
neglected to protect with the pall
Your remaining drops of Preciousness,
Still clinging to purest gold
O, Sacrament most holy! O, Sacrament Divine!
ALL praise and ALL thanksgiving be every moment Thine!
O Savior of mankind!
Now mustering up trivial respect
And taking a baby step back from the altar
He does NOT genuflect
not even bends from his waist Before You,
Almighty and Eternal God!
His homage amounted to
A barely imperceptible nod of his head.
Creature remained standing before his Creator!
Lesson imparted to the attentive and inattentive multitude:
'What's the big deal?'
At this holiest moment,
on this Sabbath Day
In the year of Our Lord
Two thousand eighteen
Your priest granted a mere 8 degrees of reverence
To Your honor, our Prince of Peace!
our crucified Lord!
Naked and humiliated as on the Cross
Scarlet drops of Your Blood
vulnerable, abandoned and exposed to
This clumsy congregation,
The irreverent, the proud, the distracted,
The self-absorbed, the ignorant, the non-catechized.
You will continue to make the Novus Ordo more reverent. I hear this a lot from people. But if you are to do this in every aspect if the Mass, the prayers (the prayers themselves and the language they're said in), the signs, the gestures, the "smells and bells", the vestments etc... you will end up celebrating the Traditional Latin Mass. Just as the Latin Mass developed from its origins to what it is now (a perfect form of the Mass), the Novus Ordo would similarly grow and develop back to it that which its foundations are from, the Traditional Latin Mass. You can take a potato and cut a piece of it off, that piece may be mangled and ugly, but if you plant it it will grow back into the potato it once was (there are better analogies but this one was short and I think you will get my point). You are doing great things Bishop Strickland and I pray that your voice will sign to the world like Christ's Glorified body did to those who saw him, resurrected.
Dear Bishop, I am a former Latin Mass Society of England and Wales representative and trustee. Whilst I love the Latin Mass, and have organised many in England, it is not true to state that the TLM, per se, is the correct expression of the Roman Catholic faith. It is the beginning point, but the grace it provides leads to what is known as union with God, through the three stages of the spiritual life (purgative, illuminative, and unitive). The TLM movement is not an intelligent movement. It is rather a movement led by lay trad leaders who do not understand the full truths of the faith. I would strongly urge you to revisit Pope John Paul II who prior to, during, and at the end of his Pontificate (and especially in Novo Millenio Inuente) stated that the path of St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila should underpin every Church Community in the Third Millennium, but there is something that has been missed. In Novo MIllenio Inuente he mentions the dark night twice, even mentioning the 'painful nights'. This request, as such, can never be separated from the three stages of the spiritual life. The unitive stage is the stage of Christian perfection, union with God, spiritual childhood, the perfection of charity and the perfection of virtue. With Bishop approval I extracted all the Mystical theology from the pages of Vatican II. I am the first to do this. This Mystical terminology is explicitly mentioned over 80 times (the references are stark). The Latin Mass does not make Catholics holy per se because active and passive purifications must also take place for Christian perfection to be attained. The TLM movement is only based on one dimensional rote scholastic manualistic spiritual teachings, and not the three dimensional spiritual teachings provided by Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, Fr. Juan Arintero, and Fr. Alphonsus Tanqueray prior to Vatican II. I would strongly urge you to consider that Pope Saint John Paul II was right, 'Be ye perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect' - Perfection is only reached in the unitive stage. I have a letter from Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury that at first reading for Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur that no doctrinal error was recorded in my work. I have also been validated by Fr. Aidan Nichols who is considered by many as the most renowned English Speaking theologian. This is how the Divine Order is restored... https://www.amazon.com/Ascent-Man-God-Answering-Perfection/dp/B08Q6SD3HY I have made no mistakes, and John Paul II got it right.
The words and gestures and actions within the weekly gathering of the faithful in fellowship, prayer and the breaking of the bread are to be reverent and uniformity and regimentation is irrelevant.
Jesus faced the apostles when He broke the bread and shared the wine, He spoke either Hebrew or Aramaic and they had sung traditional songs as was the custom of that time.
The current Ordo Missae is more true to that prototype than ever the Latin Mass was.
Our bishop or presbyter faces us, we hear the Sacred Scripture in our vernacular and understand the exposition and participate with knowledge and understanding in the worship, praise and intercession.
Your Excellency, I offer for your consideration that it is precisely because the Novus Ordo is NOT built on the TLM that people crave the traditional Mass. No one builds a building for people to be drawn to the basement foundations. If the Novus Ordo were truly built on the traditional Mass there would be no need nor reason to for anybody to wish to preserve it. And that is exactly why it is being ruthlessly opposed by those who want us to think the two are really the same. You will hear many people say that they love the TLM. Does anyone say that of the Novus Ordo? The fact is that the traditional Mass answers the needs of our souls. It asks God for the graces we need with petitions that have been suppressed in the Novus Ordo. It offers worship to God with a beauty that the modern(ist) Mass can never achieve. It teaches us the true unchanging Catholic faith. If the new Mass did that, there would be no need of Eucharistic congresses today to address the appalling lack of belief in the Real presence of Christ. Consider that Luther said that to destroy the Catholic Church he had to destroy the Mass, and what changes to the Mass did Luther want that the Novus Ordo doesn't do? And what has been happening to the Church since it was promulgated?
Thank you, Your Excellency, for defending our beautiful Tradition! I came to the TLM in 2023 and it makes me so sad to know all these decades what I've been missing. The Latin Mass feeds my mind and heart in ways the Novus Ordo has not and cannot. Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi indeed!
Dear Father Bishop,
In the Slovak Republic, a country where I have lived for 75 years during the communist totalitarian period, the state took away the consent of the best, most faithful Catholic priests to perform pastoral work. Such a priest had to get a job and could not officially work in pastoral work. These people worked secretly in the underground Church (e.g. Ján Chryzostom Korec - later Cardinal - and many others) and did much good for the salvation of souls. For us believers, a priest without state consent was a sign of the highest quality.
I would like to expect that your dismissal from the Tyler diocese is clear evidence of the direction in which Pope Francis wants to lead the Church. It is not nice words that are important, but good deeds, because "by their fruits you will know them" (Mt 7:16).
After your dismissal from office, God has assigned you a much larger space than the Tyler diocese. Your work begins in the USA and the world, so the Pope honored you, even though he wanted to achieve the exact opposite.
We pray for you that the Lord will give you much strength, that the Holy Spirit will guide your steps, that the Virgin Mary will obtain for you an abundance of grace, and that you will have many, many people who will boldly and bravely proclaim the Word of God.
With deepest respect
Ján Masarik and his wife, Svit, Slovak Republic
We cannot thank you enough Bishop Strickland for your love of God and His One True Church for being the one voice crying out in the desert the shepherd's voice ❤️ I will definitely forward You're beautiful Shepherd's Voice to many in need❤️ for We love you and we appreciate you and pray for you ❤️🙏❤️🔥🙏 JESUS I TRUST IN YOU ❤️🔥
Your Excellency, Thank you for a message of truth and charity. May Christ be always praised and adored!
Dearest Bishop Strickland, after attending a novus ordo Mass I felt compelled to write about the abomination I felt...I wrote to the Bishop of the Diocese who recommended me to contact the priest myself. I declined to do that. But this is emblematic of what Catholics suffer at the hands of novus ordo priests celebrating the Holy SACRIFICE of the Mass:
TITLED:
8 DEGREES OF REVERENCE:
My Lord and my God!
We gather in Your Presence at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
The “New Mass” imposed on faithful Catholics today:
Holy and Venerable is Your Body, Your Soul and Divinity
Sanctified in a sacred Host
but
Held no higher than eye level, and in only ONE ordained hand
expecting to be offered back to You in unspeakable gratitude,
Transubstantiated into You, our Sacrificial Lamb of God!
yet
the priest did not prostrate himself nor bow
In this sacred moment
At Your Last Supper.
Holy and Venerable is Your Blood, Soul and Divinity
Sipped from the cup of our Salvation, our saving grace
yet
Held no higher than eye level in both ordained hands
the priest then replaced chalice on the altar containing
Your crimson streams of blood
yet
neglected to protect with the pall
Your remaining drops of Preciousness,
Still clinging to purest gold
O, Sacrament most holy! O, Sacrament Divine!
ALL praise and ALL thanksgiving be every moment Thine!
O Savior of mankind!
Now mustering up trivial respect
And taking a baby step back from the altar
He does NOT genuflect
not even bends from his waist Before You,
Almighty and Eternal God!
His homage amounted to
A barely imperceptible nod of his head.
Creature remained standing before his Creator!
Lesson imparted to the attentive and inattentive multitude:
'What's the big deal?'
At this holiest moment,
on this Sabbath Day
In the year of Our Lord
Two thousand eighteen
Your priest granted a mere 8 degrees of reverence
To Your honor, our Prince of Peace!
our crucified Lord!
Naked and humiliated as on the Cross
Scarlet drops of Your Blood
vulnerable, abandoned and exposed to
This clumsy congregation,
The irreverent, the proud, the distracted,
The self-absorbed, the ignorant, the non-catechized.
But to a few of us, we knew
Knew this cannot be your Calvary, our redemption
This Novus Ordo Happy Meal
With our King of kings orphaned on the altar
I could not avert my gaze from chalice unveiled.
As I inadequately wanted to be
Your sentry,
yearned to be Your Veronica.
It was then I realized
How careless and inconsiderate had I been
To love You for decades as I ought.
Overcome with sorrow
I shed tears of repentance for us all.
Oh, come, let us adore Him!
Thank you Bishop Joseph Strickland. From a friend of Fr Michael Rodriguez.
Thank you Bishop Strickland. :)
Thank you for your brave and important words, Your Excellency!
An excellent and important reflection on the honor we owe to God.
You will continue to make the Novus Ordo more reverent. I hear this a lot from people. But if you are to do this in every aspect if the Mass, the prayers (the prayers themselves and the language they're said in), the signs, the gestures, the "smells and bells", the vestments etc... you will end up celebrating the Traditional Latin Mass. Just as the Latin Mass developed from its origins to what it is now (a perfect form of the Mass), the Novus Ordo would similarly grow and develop back to it that which its foundations are from, the Traditional Latin Mass. You can take a potato and cut a piece of it off, that piece may be mangled and ugly, but if you plant it it will grow back into the potato it once was (there are better analogies but this one was short and I think you will get my point). You are doing great things Bishop Strickland and I pray that your voice will sign to the world like Christ's Glorified body did to those who saw him, resurrected.
MOST HOLY THEOTOKOS SAVE US! 🌐 ☦️ 🔔
Madre Saint Teresa of Jesus, help us to perceive beauty and to pray....⛪📿🕯️💎 🏰 ⛲🕊️✍🏼 📚
Holy Prophet Saint Elijah, pray for us! ⛰️🔥🗡️🌦️
Dear Bishop, I am a former Latin Mass Society of England and Wales representative and trustee. Whilst I love the Latin Mass, and have organised many in England, it is not true to state that the TLM, per se, is the correct expression of the Roman Catholic faith. It is the beginning point, but the grace it provides leads to what is known as union with God, through the three stages of the spiritual life (purgative, illuminative, and unitive). The TLM movement is not an intelligent movement. It is rather a movement led by lay trad leaders who do not understand the full truths of the faith. I would strongly urge you to revisit Pope John Paul II who prior to, during, and at the end of his Pontificate (and especially in Novo Millenio Inuente) stated that the path of St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila should underpin every Church Community in the Third Millennium, but there is something that has been missed. In Novo MIllenio Inuente he mentions the dark night twice, even mentioning the 'painful nights'. This request, as such, can never be separated from the three stages of the spiritual life. The unitive stage is the stage of Christian perfection, union with God, spiritual childhood, the perfection of charity and the perfection of virtue. With Bishop approval I extracted all the Mystical theology from the pages of Vatican II. I am the first to do this. This Mystical terminology is explicitly mentioned over 80 times (the references are stark). The Latin Mass does not make Catholics holy per se because active and passive purifications must also take place for Christian perfection to be attained. The TLM movement is only based on one dimensional rote scholastic manualistic spiritual teachings, and not the three dimensional spiritual teachings provided by Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, Fr. Juan Arintero, and Fr. Alphonsus Tanqueray prior to Vatican II. I would strongly urge you to consider that Pope Saint John Paul II was right, 'Be ye perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect' - Perfection is only reached in the unitive stage. I have a letter from Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury that at first reading for Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur that no doctrinal error was recorded in my work. I have also been validated by Fr. Aidan Nichols who is considered by many as the most renowned English Speaking theologian. This is how the Divine Order is restored... https://www.amazon.com/Ascent-Man-God-Answering-Perfection/dp/B08Q6SD3HY I have made no mistakes, and John Paul II got it right.
Thankful for being able to read everything you write and explain
The words and gestures and actions within the weekly gathering of the faithful in fellowship, prayer and the breaking of the bread are to be reverent and uniformity and regimentation is irrelevant.
Jesus faced the apostles when He broke the bread and shared the wine, He spoke either Hebrew or Aramaic and they had sung traditional songs as was the custom of that time.
The current Ordo Missae is more true to that prototype than ever the Latin Mass was.
Our bishop or presbyter faces us, we hear the Sacred Scripture in our vernacular and understand the exposition and participate with knowledge and understanding in the worship, praise and intercession.
We are NOT taking the Lord's Name in vain.
Finally I've found your page in this app. Than you so much Father Strickland. Your evangelization is a treasure. Thanks!!!
Your Excellency, I offer for your consideration that it is precisely because the Novus Ordo is NOT built on the TLM that people crave the traditional Mass. No one builds a building for people to be drawn to the basement foundations. If the Novus Ordo were truly built on the traditional Mass there would be no need nor reason to for anybody to wish to preserve it. And that is exactly why it is being ruthlessly opposed by those who want us to think the two are really the same. You will hear many people say that they love the TLM. Does anyone say that of the Novus Ordo? The fact is that the traditional Mass answers the needs of our souls. It asks God for the graces we need with petitions that have been suppressed in the Novus Ordo. It offers worship to God with a beauty that the modern(ist) Mass can never achieve. It teaches us the true unchanging Catholic faith. If the new Mass did that, there would be no need of Eucharistic congresses today to address the appalling lack of belief in the Real presence of Christ. Consider that Luther said that to destroy the Catholic Church he had to destroy the Mass, and what changes to the Mass did Luther want that the Novus Ordo doesn't do? And what has been happening to the Church since it was promulgated?
Thank you, Your Excellency, for defending our beautiful Tradition! I came to the TLM in 2023 and it makes me so sad to know all these decades what I've been missing. The Latin Mass feeds my mind and heart in ways the Novus Ordo has not and cannot. Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi indeed!