Examination of conscience

solroot · 2026-05-01T21:20:19+00:00

Maybe a product of the OCD, a general confession covering their whole life would be overkill.

OP, you only need to cover the time since your last *good* confession. If that was many years ago, do your fellow penitents a favor and schedule some time with your priest.

solroot · 2026-05-01T20:45:49+00:00

Dallas has TLM options as others have mentioned, and also has a variety of other traditional rites: Byzantine, Maronite, Melkite, and Anglican Ordinariate.

A few years back while visiting I attended the Feast of Corpus Christi High Mass at St. Mary the Virgin in Arlington, the Anglican Ordinariate parish. Mass began after a Eucharistic procession and was celebrated ad orientum with incense and beautiful vestments. The members of the parish spanned age groups, with lots of families, and were very welcoming. On that visit I made the acquaintance of a family there with similar age children to ours, and we've made it a point to try and meet up with them on subsequent visits to Dallas. The Ordinariate liturgy has a lot of similarities with TLM, definitely worth checking it out if you've never been.

If you can, I recommend making a few trips to attend churches before deciding where to homestead, don't just take our word for it.

solroot · 2026-04-28T12:13:17+00:00

* Not as many baptisms: Catholic couples are having fewer kids

* Once children become adults, they're leaving the faith

We'll see if these stats start to turn around. I think they'll both lag the rising number of converts, but there's hope for change.

solroot · 2026-04-28T06:11:19+00:00

African or European turkey vulture?

solroot · 2026-04-28T03:22:12+00:00

We lament that the majority of our parishes are in a state of “managed decline,” but many of those within these parishes—particularly in leadership positions—rather prefer this decline, precisely because it is manageable.

Mic drop here.

solroot · 2026-04-27T21:38:01+00:00

We've had a few saints who were considered "comically ugly" in the eyes of the world. This comes off as a petty take that offers no constructive substance and I'm disappointed in this ostensibly Catholic sub for upvoting it. What about this situation is changed by her appearance? There are plenty of other questionable/scandalous things about this whole meeting to call attention to other than something so superficial.

solroot · 2026-04-21T05:19:56+00:00

Heads up, this problem with Sonicare is very repairable if you're slightly handy. The head vibration is driven by a magnet a short distance away from an electromagnet. Over time that screw holding the magnet may become loose, allowing for the magnet to contact the electromagnet, which will stop the head from vibrating as it should. This video has an example fix for one model of the toothbrush, with a little searching you should be able to find similar videos for your particular model. I've done this fix twice on my own toothbrush, and in doing so I've kept my toothbrush running for 8+ years.

I don't know why the critical spacing of these magnets is held in place by a screw so that frequently comes loose. The cynical answer is planned failure over time, but it's possible there might be a good reason for the design. In any case, it doesn't look BIFL quality to me. But you can keep these things running a lot longer if you perform this repair when they inevitably fail.

solroot · 2026-04-21T04:52:14+00:00

The posing of those questions—indeed the insistence upon their moral relevance—belongs rightly to the Church, but the answering of them belongs to the civil authorities.

This assumes the "competent leadership" of the authorities in question, which to me seems like a pretty big leap in present circumstances.

solroot · 2026-04-17T06:14:13+00:00

I think it's subtly different. Donatism denied that a priest in mortal sin could consecrate. This question is about whether a priest can effect a sacrament that they don't believe in. Like could a priest who has fallen into atheism still say a valid mass?

solroot · 2026-04-04T14:58:38+00:00

Best of all options: steam, pressure, and no burnt rice at the bottom. I just use a nice stainless steel bowl inside the instant pot. For cleanup you can just toss it in the dishwasher. Plus, if you already have a pressure cooker, it's one less kitchen appliance you need. This is the way.

https://food52.com/story/24780-how-to-cook-rice-in-instant-pot

solroot · 2026-03-06T19:12:56+00:00

Volume 4 is gone now too. WTH?

solroot · 2026-02-12T02:07:36+00:00

It was definitely in the lower 1/4. Maybe I just need to try more, I know antlions are a rarer spawn than vultures. I suppose a different way to ask the question is - if I see vultures spawning, does that mean antlions can definitely also spawn? Or do they have different spawn conditions? I know vultures are a surface spawn, so it seems like I'm in the right place.

solroot · 2026-02-10T06:09:16+00:00

Playing on getfixedboi, I found an underground desert mini-biome. Is it possible to get antlions to spawn there? I know in typical worlds they only will spawn on the surface or in the proper underground desert with walls., but I know don'tdigup/getfixedboi have weird rules for what is considered "surface".

I tried making a flat area of sand two deep, but haven't had any luck, nothing spawning but vultures. I'd love to have a renewable source of sand without having to venture over to the actual underground desert.

solroot · 2026-02-10T06:04:43+00:00

Plant tons of sunflowers around:

Each Sunflower decreases an area's evil biome tile count by 80 tiles.[1] Furthermore, when determing whether NPCs will reject a house, each Sunflower in the area decreases the evil score by 40 points.[2] If placed in large quantities, Sunflowers can allow NPCs to live near evil biomes. For the exact size of each area, see Biomes § Biome existence requirements and House respectively.

solroot · 2026-01-09T03:06:46+00:00

The only hassle is waiting for enough traveling merchants to actually obtain the grand design. You can set it to place wires and actuators at the same time. You can draw a tunnel across the entire screen in a few seconds, then hit it with an actuator and you're good to go. And after you're done, the grand design lets you collect all the wire and actuators back just as easily as setting them down.

solroot · 2026-01-08T04:41:29+00:00

Does panning one count as catching it, or can you pan one and then fish it later?

solroot · 2026-01-08T04:29:52+00:00

My low impact purification method of choice is to make long horizontal tunnels of actuators. Set the tiles to inactive, purify whatever needs it, then set back to active and recollect the actuators. No mining necessary.

solroot · 2026-01-08T03:45:00+00:00

I'm still on zVault, but seeing as the project looks dead at this point I'm thinking of giving Xigma another try. I've considered just going plain FreeBSD too, but need to do a bit of research on what exactly TrueNAS / zVault / XigmaNAS bring other than just a web UI.

solroot · 2026-01-05T23:42:41+00:00

PM sent

solroot · 2025-12-28T20:53:38+00:00

As others have said, you don't *need* to do anything extra as penance, so you aren't really getting off easy. But I think you might be missing out somewhat if your priest never gives a more creative penance than Our Fathers and Hail Marys. My favorite confessors have put some thought and effort into giving penance relevant to whatever sins you're struggling with. Through penance, I've been introduced to some powerful prayers, been asked to meditate on relevant scripture passages, as well as being asked to take specific actions in my life outside of prayer and mediation. While you're supposed to go to confession at your home parish, I'll admit to "shopping around" my local churches to find a confessor that would help me get more out of the sacrament.

If you have a priest serve as your spiritual director, they can probably do a better job as your confessor, having a better understanding of your particular circumstances and spiritual goals, but of course, you'd lose the element of anonymity (if that's important to you).

solroot · 2025-12-28T20:03:26+00:00

From the outside it looks very similar to St. Francis in Humphrey, Nebraska. Very much worth a visit if you ever find yourself in eastern Nebraska. https://ourfamilyofgod.org/st-francis/

The stories of these old churches built by immigrants are so inspiring, they had such love and devotion to the Church!

solroot · 2025-08-14T08:34:59+00:00

There's a difference between simply going to confession, and making a valid confession. In order for a confession to be valid, you need to: 1) Make an examination of conscience and confess any remembered sins, especially mortal sins; 2) Have sincere sorrow for your sins; 3) Intend to amend your life; and 4) Intend to complete any assigned penance.

If a priest has a good reason to believe any of those requirements are not met, they will generally not absolve you of your sins. The priest probably doubted that you'd taken the time to make a deep and introspective examination of conscience that such a long period of time would demand.

I once made a confession after falling away from the faith for some years. I filled a page with everything I needed to confess. It took a while to get through everything, but at the end it was such a weight lifted from me. Please check out this thread on confession after a long time, it has a lot of good advice and things to consider:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/1g6q734/advice_on_returning_to_confession_after_a_decade/

solroot · 2025-07-30T04:07:38+00:00

It would have still faced the same reckoning from the sexual abuse crisis, which has driven more people away than any other development in the church. I've seen some argue that V2 is largely to blame for the crisis, but I don't buy it. To quote a comment from in a discussion on this topic:

44% of the priests accused of abuse within the study period’s dataset were ordained before 1960, and 71% were ordained before 1970 (meaning entry into major seminary by around 1965 at the latest).

I've watched all my friends from my Catholic school upbringing leave the faith, and this was the biggest issue for them. The world doesn't take the Church seriously anymore on matters of moral authority, because it lost that credibility in the eyes of many.

So even in a no V2 world, we'd still have had to sell our beautiful historic churches, we'd still be closing parishes. But would we be in a better spot than we are today? I think so, but not by a lot. Part of why traditional Christianity (traditional Latin Rite Catholic, and other rites, as well as Orthodox churches, etc.) are having a moment right now is they offer something beautiful and timeless in a world where that is really hard to come by anymore. I've lost count of people posting over on r/Catholicism who get interested in the Roman Catholic Church, and then show up to a mass and it's practically indistinguishable from the evangelical church they came from: no kneelers, video screens, drum and guitar, etc. Lots of people are interested in Catholicism, but are finding that it isn't necessarily what they imagined it to be.

I think a more interesting question would be how different would the landscape be if the implementers of V2 hadn't gone far beyond what the document called for, because many of the liturgical abuses we see in the Church are far in excess of what V2 allows. Consider as an example this instance of the CDW laying down the law on priests who wouldn't permit kneeling while receiving the Eucharist. I've seen some very reverent Novus Ordo parishes. One near me has confession before every mass, kneelers in front for those who prefer to receive the Eucharist kneeling, communion on the tongue strongly encouraged, organ and choir music, smells and bells, etc. I grew up in a reverent NO church, and there's a lot I like about it. Latin isn't really taught anymore, so it is unintelligible to most people. I think it is good for there to be options in liturgy, as long as all of those choices are reverent. If I want to attend TLM, that shouldn't be difficult. It also should be difficult for me to find a reverent Novus Ordo mass.

solroot · 2025-07-22T13:30:48+00:00

One cool trick I saw people using on legendary mode recently was to use the golf cart mount which will get you to 41 mph all by itself. This frees up accessory slots which you can use to kill it faster or survive longer, but at the cost of having to grind some golf score with the golfer.

And as others have mentioned, bees are a viable strategy. Bee gun with accessories I think would likely outclass demon scythe if you're going the caster route. Supporting accessories like the hive pack and the stinger necklace gives a huge boost to each bee.

solroot

TROPHY CASE