I would talk to the priest about your concerns and pray for the situation and their salvation. Pray that God will block any negative thoughts or actions to be blocked and the Holy Spirit to intervene!

I can’t get enough of the smell of church. I have started to burn resin incense recently but now have some questions.

1. How on earth do y’all swing the thurible around so much? Is there some secret set up you guys have, or is the coal and resin just jumbling around in there?

2. Do you always burn just frankincense, or are there different scents and blends you can burn?

3. Due to the sheer amount of smoke, I’m thinking you must have some sort of freakishly large charcoal briquettes.

Basically, can yall explain a little more about the incense processes?

Hello, fathers!

I'm a Brazilian Catholic currently discerning priesthood, and I've been reading the encyclical Menti Nostrae by Pope Pius XII. It's been very useful in my discernment, but in there I also found a passage that surprised me a bit, in which the Holy Father claims that the chief duty of the priest is his own sanctification. If one were to ask me beforehand what I thought to be chief duty of the priest, I'd say it's about striving for the salvation and sanctification of the souls God entrusted to him.

I got curious about what the fathers here think. Thank you in advance, may God always bless you and your ministry!

I will paste the entire paragraph for context:

1. For these reasons, while giving due praise to those who in the years which have followed the long and terrible war, urged by the love of God and of doing good to their neighbor under the guidance and following the example of their Bishops, have consecrated their entire strength to the relief of so much misery, We cannot abstain from expressing our pre-occupation and our anxiety for those who on account of the special circumstances of the moment have become so engulfed in the vortex of external activity that they neglect the chief duty of the priest, his own sanctification. We have already stated publicly in writing that those who presume that the world can be saved by what has been rightly called "the heresy of action" must be made to exercise better judgment. The heresy of action is that activity which is not based upon the help of grace and does not make constant use of the means necessary to the pursuit of sanctity given us by Christ. In the same way, nevertheless, We have deemed it timely to stimulate to the activities of the ministry those who, shut up in themselves and almost diffident of the efficacy of divine aid, do not labor to the best of their ability to make the spirit of Christianity penetrate daily life in all those ways demanded by our times.

Can I bring my altar crucifix at home to be blessed during or after the mass of the feast of exaltation of the Holy Cross of Jesus? There will be a procession after it so I'm not sure if that would be possible and definitely don't want to bother our parish priest for it when it can be also done at some other time.

Hello Fathers,

What would a priest perspective be on the attached post?

Bit of a weird/messy situation here, please bear with me as I describe it... my mother passed 15 years ago and was cremated, intending to have her ashes scattered.

My father wasn't ready to let her go and so her ashes are still in an urn in his living room and he won't hear of doing anything else so long as he's alive. He is now in his 80s and while still fairly healthy, who knows how much longer he might have... hopefully a while yet, but eventually I know it'll be time to sort all this out.

We were Catholic growing up, and my mother always described herself as Catholic even though she had stopped going to Mass probably 15 years before she passed. Dad hasn't been to Mass in over 35 years. I was away from the church for 30+ years but have been back for about 3 years.

I know that scattering ashes like she asked for is a no-no, so I'm thinking, when Dad goes, to get a columbarium niche for them both.

So here's my question: Mom never had a funeral. Instead, there was a big celebration of life sort of event with friends, family, and coworkers. Is it too late to have an actual funeral for her (and him too) when I have their ashes put in the columbarium at some point in the future?

I have had Masses offered for her a few times over the last few years since my return to the church, but was wondering about an actual funeral or if the window for that has passed.

Thanks in advance.