06 June 2026
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Traditional Catholic Morning Prayers in English | June
The Dangerous Eucharist Question Pastors Can't Answer
Why St Norbert Was Called Apostle of the Blessed Sacrament
Today is the Feast of St Norbert, founder of the Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré (Norbertines), who are dedicated to Eucharistic worship.
From Aleteia
By Philip Kosloski
St. Norbert possessed an intimate love of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist and he tried to ensure that his followers remained rooted in the Blessed Sacrament.St. Norbert founded the Canons Regular of Prémontré (commonly called the "Norbertines") in 1120, and from the very beginning he wanted his followers to devote themselves to both private and public devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.
This desire flowed out of his own deep devotion to Jesus' presence in the Holy Eucharist.
Apostle of the Blessed Sacrament
Writer Cornelius James Kirkfleet provides a few details about St. Norbert's devotion in his book History of Saint Norbert:
He himself never undertook any important work without first offering up the holy sacrifice of the Mass and spending hours in prayer prostrate before the altar. The very first chapter of the Constitution of the Order has for its title De tremendo altaris Sacramento and explains how to derive from the Blessed Eucharist true zeal for the salvation of souls.
One of the primary aims of the Norbertine Order is "To spread and increase devotion to the Blessed Sacrament."
Pope Francis recognized this essential part of the Norbertines in an address he gave to the religious order in 2022:
Following in the footsteps of Saint Norbert, the piety of the Premonstratensians reserves an increasingly central place for the Eucharist, both in the solemn and intimate community celebration, and in silent worship. Precisely as he is present for us in the Sacrament, so the Lord wants to be present through us in the life of those we meet.
Restoring faith
St. Norbert is also known for his defense of the Holy Eucharist, in particular when the city of Antwerp called upon his help. At the time there was a heretical preacher who tried to eradicate the city's devotion to the Eucharist. St. Norbert then took it upon himself to evangelize the city and restore the faithful's understanding of the Blessed Sacrament.
He was successful in his endeavors and the local people proclaimed him the "Apostle of the Blessed Sacrament," for his work in restoring their faith and devotion.
This is one of the reasons why St. Norbert is traditionally depicted holding a monstrance, highlighting the deep devotion he had to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and his missionary zeal in proclaiming belief in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.
St. Norbert's legacy continues to be passed on today by many Norbertines across the world, putting an emphasis on Eucharistic worship.
SSPX in Kenya: Latin Mass Missionaries Rebuild Christendom in Africa
D-Day, 6 June 1944
Two days ago, 4 June, was the 86th anniversary of the completion of the evacuation of Dunkirk. In my post about it, I said, 'They would live to fight another day and would return in force to beaches called Gold, Sword, and Juno, a bit south and west, almost exactly four years later.' This is the 82nd anniversary of that day. 160,000 Allied troops stormed the beaches on D-Day, and by the end of August, when Operation Overlord ended, there were over 2,000,000 Allied soldiers on the Continent.
From this point on, the defeat of Hitler and his Nazi war machine was inevitable, and the War in Europe ended less than a year after D-Day on 8 May 1945.Here is an article about the D-Day operation from the Imperial War Museum.
D-Day - 6 June 1944 - was the largest amphibious invasion in the history of warfare. The statistics of D-Day, codenamed Operation Overlord, are staggering. The Allies used over 5,000 ships and landing craft to land more than 150,000 troops on five beaches in Normandy. The landings marked the start of a long and costly campaign in north-west Europe, which ultimately convinced the German high command that defeat was inevitable.
Here are 10 things you need to know about D-Day:
1. D-DAY WAS THE START OF OPERATION 'OVERLORD'
On D-Day, 6 June 1944, Allied forces launched a combined naval, air and land assault on Nazi-occupied France. The 'D' in D-Day stands simply for 'day' and the term was used to describe the first day of any large military operation.
Early on 6 June, Allied airborne forces parachuted into drop zones across northern France. Ground troops then landed across five assault beaches - Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. By the end of the day, the Allies had established a foothold along the coast and could begin their advance into France.
2. 'OVERLORD' OPENED THE LONG-AWAITED SECOND FRONT AGAINST GERMANY
The defeat of Germany was acknowledged as the western Allies’ principal war aim as early as December 1941. Opening a second front would relieve pressure on the Soviet Union in the east and the liberation of France would weaken Germany’s overall position in western Europe. The invasion, if successful, would drain German resources and block access to key military sites. Securing a bridgehead in Normandy would allow the Allies to establish a viable presence in northern Europe for the first time since the Allied evacuation from Dunkirk in 1940.
3. D-DAY REQUIRED DETAILED PLANNING
Lieutenant-General Frederick Morgan and his team of British, American and Canadian officers submitted plans for the invasion in July 1943. Although limited planning for an invasion of Europe began soon after the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940, detailed preparations for Operation 'Overlord' did not begin until after the Tehran Conference in late 1943.
A command team led by American General Dwight D. Eisenhower was formed in December 1943 to plan the naval, air and land operations. Deception campaigns were developed to draw German attention - and strength - away from Normandy. To build up resources for the invasion, British factories increased production and in the first half of 1944 approximately 9 million tonnes of supplies and equipment crossed the Atlantic from North America to Britain. A substantial Canadian force had been building up in Britain since December 1939 and over 1.4 million American servicemen arrived during 1943 and 1944 to take part in the landings.
4. D-DAY WAS AN INTERNATIONAL EFFORT
D-Day required unprecedented cooperation between international armed forces. The Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) was an international coalition and although the Allies were united against Germany, the military leadership responsible for 'Overlord' had to overcome political, cultural and personal tensions.
By 1944, over 2 million troops from over 12 countries were in Britain in preparation for the invasion. On D-Day, Allied forces consisted primarily of American, British and Canadian troops but also included Australian, Belgian, Czech, Dutch, French, Greek, New Zealand, Norwegian, Rhodesian and Polish naval, air or ground support
5. THE LARGEST NAVAL, AIR AND LAND OPERATION IN HISTORY
The invasion was conducted in two main phases - an airborne assault and amphibious landings. Shortly after midnight on 6 June, over 18,000 Allied paratroopers were dropped into the invasion area to provide tactical support for infantry divisions on the beaches. Allied air forces flew over 14,000 sorties in support of the landings and, having secured air supremacy prior to the invasion, many of these flights were unchallenged by the Luftwaffe.
Nearly 7,000 naval vessels, including battleships, destroyers, minesweepers, escorts and assault craft took part in Operation 'Neptune', the naval component of 'Overlord'. Naval forces were responsible for escorting and landing over 132,000 ground troops on the beaches. They also carried out bombardments on German coastal defences before and during the landings and provided artillery support for the invading troops.
6. GERMAN DEFENCES IN NORMANDY VARIED IN EFFECTIVENESS
Germany tried to defend the northern coast of France with a series of fortifications known as the 'Atlantic Wall'. However, German defences were often incomplete and insufficiently manned.
Members of the French Resistance and the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) provided intelligence and helped weaken defences through sabotage. The Allied deception campaigns succeeded in convincing the Germans as late as July 1944 that the main invasion force would still land elsewhere. The threat of this larger, second invasion kept German reinforcements tied down away from Normandy.
Defence also suffered from the complex and often confused command structure of the German Army as well as the constant interference of Adolf Hitler in military matters. However, the Allies faced a number of setbacks both on 6 June and in the months that followed.
On D-Day, the Americans came close to defeat on Omaha partially because the preliminary air and naval bombardment failed to knock out strong defence points, but also because they faced highly effective German troops who had gained hard-earned experience on the Eastern Front. Throughout the Battle of Normandy, the technical superiority of their tanks and anti-tank weapons, as well as the tactical skill of their commanders, gave German forces an advantage over the Allies. However, the Germans were never able to fully exploit their successes or the weaknesses of the Allies in a decisive way.
7. D-DAY WAS POSSIBLE BECAUSE OF ALLIED EFFORTS ELSEWHERE
D-Day was made possible because of Allied efforts across all fronts, both before and after June 1944. In planning D-Day, Allied commanders drew important lessons from previous failures at Dieppe in France and Anzio in Italy.
The Allied strategic bombing campaign, which began in 1942, weakened German industry and forced Germany to commit manpower and resources away from Normandy to home defence. Securing air superiority allowed the Allies to carry out aerial reconnaissance, giving them vital intelligence on German coastal defences.
D-Day also depended on Allied control of the Atlantic, which was finally achieved in 1943 through victory in the Battle of the Atlantic.
The campaign in Italy directed German troops away from the Western and Eastern Fronts. The Soviet Belorussian offensive, Operation 'Bagration', was launched just after 'Overlord' and destroyed the entire German Army Group Centre. It also kept German forces tied down in the east. Ten weeks after D-Day, the Allies launched a second invasion on the southern coast of France and began a simultaneous advance towards Germany.
8. THERE IS MORE TO NORMANDY THAN D-DAY
The importance of D-Day often overshadows the overall significance of the entire Normandy campaign. Establishing a bridgehead was critical, but it was just the first step. In the three months after D-Day, the Allies launched a series of additional offensives to try and advance further inland. These operations varied in success and the Allies faced strong and determined German resistance.
The bocage - a peculiarity of the Normandy landscape characterised by sunken lanes bordered by high, thick hedgerows - was difficult to penetrate and placed the advantage with the German defenders. Yet the bloody and protracted Battle of Normandy was a decisive victory for the Allies and paved the way for the liberation of much of north-west Europe.
9. NORTH-WEST EUROPE WAS THE MOST SIGNIFICANT CAMPAIGN FOUGHT BY THE WESTERN ALLIES
'Overlord' did not bring an end to the war in Europe, but it did begin the process through which victory was eventually achieved. By the end of August 1944, the German Army was in full retreat from France, but by September Allied momentum had slowed. The Germans were able to regroup and launched a failed but determined counter-offensive in the Ardennes in December 1944. This defeat sapped German manpower and resources and allowed the Allies to resume their advance towards Germany.
10. THERE WERE MANY 'D-DAYS' THROUGHOUT THE WAR
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Paradigm Shifts and the End of Catholic Moral Doctrine
When Francis first announced the Synod, my immediate reaction was horror. I came to Rome via Anglicanism, which has destroyed itself through "synodality"!
From Crisis
By Monica Miller, PhD(Theol)
“The Synodal Church” is making a move to end Natural Law as the basis of the Moral Law…but that’s impossible.
The Church’s mission is not a matter of abstractly proclaiming and deductively applying principles that are set out in an immutable and rigid manner, but of fostering a living encounter with the person of the risen Lord Jesus, by engaging with the lived experience of faith of the People of God in its personal and social relevance, in relation to the diverse situations of life and the many cultural contexts. Only the fruitful tension between what has been established in the Church’s doctrine and Her pastoral practice and the practices of life in which what has been established is verified, in the exercise of personal and communal life in the light of the Gospel, expresses the generative dynamism of Tradition: against the temptation of the sterile and regressive ossification of principles and statements, of norms and rules, regardless of the experience of individuals and communities. As Jesus taught, “the Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27).
This quote above is taken directly from the Synod on Synodality Study Group No. 9’s Final Report focused on Theological Criteria and Synodal Methodologies for Shared Discernment of Emerging Doctrinal, Pastoral and Ethical Issues. This quote gives readers just a taste of the jargon employed throughout Study Group No. 9’s Final Report with special emphasis on what is called “a paradigm shift.”
The paradigm shift articulated in the above quote namely is this: The “immutable” Church’s propositions regarding Catholic morality deemed “rigid,”…“sterile and regressive ossification of principles…regardless of the experience of individuals and communities” is now replaced by discerning the “lived experience of faith” with attention to the “situations of life” with “particular care…given to those who find themselves living on the existential, social, and cultural peripheries.”
So instead of an authoritarian Church pronouncing moral doctrine, the People of God together must listen to “life experiences” and discern together, “in conversation with the Spirit,” as Part I, I.I headlines: “A Paradigm Shift that is faithful to the journey of the Christian experience.” The point being that “lived experience” is at least equal to if not even more ecclesially and spiritually foundational for Catholic morality than a Church “abstractly proclaiming and “deductively applying” her moral doctrines. This is why Report No. 9 will climax with the “lived experience” of two homosexuals”—according to one who discovered, based on his experience: “that sin, at its root, does not consist in the (same-sex) couple relationship, but in a lack of faith in a God who desires our fulfillment.”
The Synod on Synodality began in October 2021. However, the paradigm shift was already established in 2016 when Pope Francis appointed Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia as the new head of the Pontifical Academy for Life and grand chancellor of the John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences—posts he held until his retirement at the age of 80 in 2025. Under new statutes put in place by Pope Francis, the Institute departed from its original focus and a majority of its staff and professors faithful to the teachings of the Church were dismissed.
The Institute’s redirection came into sharp focus when, under Archbishop Paglia, its mission was now to be geared toward what Paglia described as a “new pastoral theology” that tended to the “concrete reality of situations.” Dismissed staff were replaced by scholars with dissenting views on homosexuality and contraception, such as Msgr. Gilfredo Marengo and Fr. Maurizio Chiodi, who respectively expressed a willingness to revisit Humanae Vitae, St. Pope Paul VI’s encyclical banning artificial contraception and questioned the Church’s doctrine on homosexuality—in direct opposition to John Paul II’s teaching on moral theology which defended Catholic teaching on marriage and the family.Natural Law Out—Personal Experience In
In a May 26th interview with the Italian outlet Settimana News, Paglia revealed, in keeping with Francis’ vision, that Catholic moral teachings would no longer rely on natural law—which he described with derision (similar to Synodal Report No.9) as “static,” “immutable,” “essentialist” and “ahistorical.” He admitted that a “very profound reform was at stake.”
Indeed, this author seeks to explain what exactly is at stake for the Church in this absolutely revolutionary so-called “paradigm shift.” The overthrow of natural law as the foundation of morality ultimately amounts to a denial of God’s good creation as revelatory of His divine will.
To understand the crisis, we need to have a proper understanding of natural law. It is very interesting to note that even before the giving of the Ten Commandments, the first order of God’s revelation is actually creation itself. This is taught, for instance, in Dei Verbum, the Vatican II Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation: “God, who through the Word creates all things (see John 1:3) and keeps them in existence, gives men an enduring witness to Himself in created realities (see Rom. 1:19-20).”
Note that the document cites the teaching of St. Paul where we may find the earliest Christian affirmation of natural law as the basis for morality. For, while the Jews were directly aided by divinely revealed law, the Gentiles, according to St. Paul, also knew that same law by recourse to nature:
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against the irreligious and perverse spirit of men who, in this perversity of theirs, hinder the truth. In fact, whatever can be known about God is clear to them; he himself made it so. Since the creation of the world, realities, God’s eternal power and divinity, have become visible, recognized through the things he has made. (Romans 1:18-20)
And Paul goes on to teach, contrasting the Jews and Gentiles:
Sinners who do not have the law will perish without reference to it; sinners bound by the law will be judged in accordance with it. For it is not those who hear the law who are just in the sight of God; it is those who keep it who will be declared just.
When Gentiles who do not have the law keep it as by instinct, these men though without the law serve as a law for themselves. They show that the demands of the law are written in their hearts. Their conscience bears witness together with that law, and their thoughts will accuse or defend them on the day when, in accordance with the gospel I preach, God will pass judgment on the secrets of men through Christ Jesus. (Romans 2:12-16)
St. Paul very clearly teaches that all people, even pagans, have God’s law revealed to them by reference to the demands of human nature, that law “written in their hearts.” And how weighty is the keeping of natural law? It even impacts a person’s eternal destiny. Thus no “paradigm shift” can replace natural law as the foundation of morality as natural law has to do with exactly what it means to be human—and thus the meaning of human dignity itself.
Aquinas’ teaching on natural law is found in the Summa Theologica “Treatise on Law” (ST I-II, Q. 90-97). In the natural law teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas there is a unity of mind, body, and divine wisdom—the latter synonymous with God’s eternal law. The Angelic Doctor’s very definition of natural law emphasizes the unity between eternal law and natural law:
[A]ll things subject to divine providence are ruled and measured by the eternal law…it is evident that all things partake in some way in the eternal law, in so far as, namely, from its being imprinted upon them, they derive their respective inclinations to their proper acts and ends. Now among all others, the rational creature is subject to divine providence, by being provident both for itself and for others. Therefore, it has a share of the eternal reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act and end; and this participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law. (Emphasis Added, ST I-II, Q. 91, a. 2,)
God created all things according to His divine wisdom. Everything God has created is His art. Things bear inner truth in relation to God’s eternal law, and the rational creature’s participatory relationship with the eternal law is called natural law.
For St. Thomas, natural law is a moral foundation that directs the human race to its ultimate end. It is anything but the rational mind imposing order and structure upon the world arbitrarily and from the outside, so to speak. Order, including moral order, already exists in the world because it was put there by God. And human happiness is bound up with it.
According to Aquinas, the human being is ruled by human “ends”: natural inclinations that, when followed, perfect human nature. Acting contrary to these ends is to act “against reason,” violating the intelligible unity between the bodily world, man’s reason, and God’s eternal wisdom. For even the human body bears an inner rationality of its own, provided by God’s divine wisdom, that gives it meaning and guides it to its perfection.
This is important to remember because a common misinterpretation of Aquinas is that “animal nature” must be humanized by coming under the control of reason, which can sound not-dissimilar to the neo-gnostic view. Instead, there is, in St. Thomas, a marvelous understanding and appreciation of the inherent relation, one could even say unity, between man’s rational faculties, the moral order rooted in human corporeal nature, and divine wisdom. All things have meaning and order given by God. Human reason would be incapable of discovering any real meaning if “things” were not already imbued by divine wisdom with an intelligibility. Let us quote the Angelic Doctor again!
The human intellect is measured by things, so that a human concept is not true by reason of itself, but by reason of its being consonant with things, since an opinion is true or false according as things are or are not. But the divine intellect is the measure of things, since each thing has its truth in it in so far as it is like the divine intellect… Consequently, the divine intellect is true in itself, and its exemplar is truth itself. (Emphasis Added, ST I-II, Q. 93, a. 2)
For Aquinas, there is no mere biology! Yes, the Angelic Doctor does place emphasis on the primacy of the intellect, as the faculty peculiar to humanity. But equally important in Aquinas’ natural law ethic is that all things have an inherent order and truth in themselves, toward which the intellect itself is ordered. The truth in things—and the intellect’s ordering to this truth—saves the Thomist system of ethics from dualism.
Natural human ends are in no sense mere biology propelling the human being to a fate he or she cannot control. There is no gulf between the body, the intellect, and divine wisdom. Human “animal” nature is filled with divine—one might even say sacred and transcendent—meaning because “natural inclinations” have no other end than God Himself. For us, corporeal nature has a spiritual meaning. We can’t know the truth about ourselves, or God, without it.
Just as our nature comes from God and directs us back to him, Aquinas teaches that when we violate our nature we do injury to God:
Just as the ordering of right reason proceeds from man, so the order of nature is from God himself; wherefore in sins contrary to nature, whereby the very order of nature is violated, an injury is done to God, the Author of nature. (ST I-II, Q. 154, ad. 2)
I end this presentation of natural law as it relates to the God of the Good Creation by citing an important—and indeed famous—teaching of Aquinas:
Human law has the nature of law insofar as it partakes of right reason; and it is clear from this respect, it is derived from the eternal law. But insofar as it deviates from reason, it is called an unjust law, and has the nature not of law but of violence. (ST I-II, Q. 93, a. 3)
And, relying on St. Augustine, Aquinas adds:
That which is not just seems to be no law at all: wherefore the force of a law depends on the extent of its justice. Now in human affairs a thing is said to be just, from being right, according to the rule of reason. But the first rule of reason is the law of nature…. Consequently, every human law has just so much the nature of law, as it is derived from the law of nature. But if at any point it deflects from the law of nature, it is no longer a law but a perversion of law. (ST I-II, Q. 95, a. 2)
And why should unjust laws, laws contrary to nature, be a kind of violence? Because such decrees undo the good creation of God.
Natural law is also the basis for understanding the sacramental meaning of creation—as all things bear a God-given internal truth according to the way God intended things to exist. Thus, all of nature bears a kind of sacramentality that discloses the mind of the Creator. The Catholic Church can no more “go beyond,” remove, or even subordinate natural law according to a “paradigm shift” that emphasizes “personal experience,” historical conditioning, and a communal discernment than the Church could deny God Himself! That is what is at stake here.
Paradigm shifts are not necessarily wrong or bad. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is loaded with them. And here we see a definite shift when Jesus taught the apostles the true meaning of greatness in response to James and John asking to sit in the highest places within the Kingdom:
Jesus called them together and said to them “You know how among the gentiles those who seem to exercise authority lord it over them; their great ones make their authority felt. It cannot be that way with you. Anyone among you who aspires to greatness must serve the rest; whoever wants to rank first must serve the needs of all.” (Mark 10:42-45)
Within Christianity, paradigm shifts should call believers to a deeper life of sacrifice—and that’s hardly the case with Synod Report No. 9.
Synod Report No. 9’s undoing of Catholic moral doctrine drew sharp criticism from Cardinal Archbishop Willem Eijk, Metropolitan Archbishop of Utrecht. His comments appeared in The Catholic Herald. He pointed out that the “deeper problem” lies in the report’s underlying methodology.
It explicitly rejects “immutable” principles in favor of a “‘synodal process focused on people’s practices and experiences.” It also openly and explicitly celebrates a “fruitful tension between what has been established in the Church’s doctrine and her pastoral practice and the practices of life.” “Study Group 9’s report fundamentally contradicts Catholic moral teaching,” and the relativization of moral doctrine has far-reaching consequences, affecting even the “protection of human life itself.”
And the cardinal rightly pointed out that Report No. 9 misapplies Jesus’ statement regarding the Sabbath rest in its attempt to argue that people, according to their life experience, are free from the application of moral norms:
Jesus’ teaching about the Sabbath concerned divine positive law—norms revealed in Scripture that are not intrinsically absolute unless they coincide with natural law. Accordingly, Old Testament Jewish liturgical laws are no longer binding. By contrast, the moral law regarding marriage and sexuality comes from natural law, which is unchanging and “reflects God’s purposes in creating human beings, marriage, and sexuality itself.
It is true that the Church needs to be pastorally sensitive to those members who are in relationships that are objectively immoral, to witness Christ’s truth to them with understanding and compassion—but without compromising the demands of the Gospel. I personally know full well the path a committed Christian must follow in loving those in such relationships as my homosexual brother, with whom I was very close, died of AIDS at the age of 42; and I have another close family member who is in a same-sex “marriage.”
Paglia’s troubling interview reveals the rejection of natural law, and thus the rejection of Catholic moral doctrine, was already in place in the shake-up of the John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences. The rejection has bled into the Synod. Pray for the Holy Father. Pray for Leo, that he has the courage to stop this heterodox flow of blood and stand up for God’s Wisdom in the Church’s moral doctrine as found in natural law.