What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

Musica Sacra has done us a great service.

The 1962 Missale Romanum is now online in PDF format.

Huzzah!

It’ll take a while to download for some people: 79.02 mb

Worth the wait.

Many thanks to my friend Fr. Robert Skeris for this great tool.

According to Javno:

Anti-Pope Graffiti Appears In Naples

The graffiti was probably made by leftwing and anarchic gangs. An investigation is being held, a source from the Italian police said.

Graffiti against Pope Benedict XVI, and amongst them the message “Death to Ratzinger”, appeared on walls in Naples before the Pope’s visit planned for later on this month, the witnesses said on Thursday.

A source from the Italian antiterrorism police reported that the graffiti was probably made by leftwing and anarchic gangs and that an investigation is being held.

Graffiti against the Pope and archbishop Bagnasco, head of the Italian Episcopal Conference, appeared in several Italian cities in May after Bernasco made declarations that irritated homosexuals.

The Pope, former cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, had planned to make a one day journey to visit the biggest city in the south of Italy on October 21 in order to open a interdenominational meeting.

 

Sputnik means "traveling companion". Despite the innocuous sounding name, the launch of planet Earth’s first artificial moon, Sputnik 1, by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, changed the world and set in motion events which resulted in the creation of NASA and the race to the Moon. Sputnik 1 was a 184 pound, 22 inch diameter sphere with four whip antennas connected to battery powered transmitters. The transmitters broadcast a continuous "beeping" signal to an astounded earthbound audience for 23 days. A short month later, on November 3, the Soviet Union followed this success by launching a dog into orbit aboard Sputnik 2.

Here is a great piece from

First Contact: Sputnik
To say the least, it was incredible. The news relayed by the voice on the other end of the phone line hit the president of the San Gabriel Valley Radio Club like a blow to the head. Too incredible, Henry Richter hoped, to be true.
 
Hope was something Richter knew quite well.  It went with the job.  Not only as president of a local ham radio club; although you always hoped the guy on the other side of the world talking to you over the shortwave would have something interesting to say.  No, Richter’s familiarity with hope came as a charter member of the nascent space exploration industry.
 
"Some of the things that occurred during that period I can recall like they happened yesterday," said 80-year-old Richter. "There was a warning that it was going to happen, but they were so secretive about everything. Why would they change now?"
 
The warning materialized in the form of a phone call from Richter’s boss, William Pickering, the director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Pickering was attending meetings in Washington when he heard from a Russian scientist that the Soviets would launch a satellite in the near future.
 
On October 4 at 10:28 p.m. Moscow time, a brilliant and deafening detonation of smoke and flame illuminated the Soviet Union’s rocket test site near Tyuratam, Kazkhistan, as the 32 nozzles announced the rise of the Russian R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile. 295 seconds and 142 miles later, the last of the R-7’s engines shut down for good. Soon after, pneumatic locks were activated, a nosecone fairing separated, and an antenna spike was released. Then, in one final act that signaled the dawn of the space age, a pushrod connected to a bulkhead of the R-7 was activated, shoving a 183-pound beach ball-sized aluminum sphere into the cold, harsh blackness of space. Sputnik had arrived.
 
"I was in my office in Building 125 at JPL when Dr. Pickering called again," said Richter. "I do not recall exactly what was said but it was a short conversation about Sputnik. I then went to a radio receiver and tried to dial it in."
 
The Russians were advertising that signals from their satellite could be received on a frequency 20 MHz (megacycles). But all Richter could dial in was static. He immediately suspected the high-tension wires located on a hill above JPL were blocking out the frequency. So the U.S. Navy veteran and Caltech graduate got on the phone, but not to his boss Pickering this time. Instead, he called a friend, and more importantly, a member of the San Gabriel Valley Radio Club.
 
"Bob Legg had a lot of ingenuity and his own ham setup, and he lived in nearby Temple City," said Richter. "At the time there were no high tension wires near Bob’s home, so he had a clear shot at receiving a signal."
 
The one thing Legg did not have was an antenna that could pick up transmissions on 20 MHz. So the resourceful Legg looked around his house and found something he thought could do the job:  a wire-mesh mosquito screen on one of his windows. He ran a wire from the screen to his radio, dialed in 20 MHz and listened.
 
"When Bob called me back and said he’d heard it I sort of went numb," said Richter. "America had been working toward being first in space. The United States had plans on launching a Navy satellite called Vanguard in the coming months. And the Russians had beaten us to it."
 
As stunned as Richter felt, he knew he still had a job to do. There were many questions to be answered. What could our Cold War enemies do that we could not? What exactly was it that was placed in an orbit above our heads? And most immediate, what was the significance of the continuous string of pulse transmissions radiating out of Sputnik? Richter knew his country’s leaders would need these answers as soon as possible. He also knew that JPL was one of the few places in the nation with personnel who had the knowledge, training and equipment to tell them.
 
Richter and three others piled JPL’s best radio gear into a trailer, hooked it to a JPL truck and headed as far away from those infernal high-tension wires as they could. An hour later they pulled up to the substation of the Temple City Sheriff’s Department. 
 
"We went here because they were part of a disaster preparedness group. I knew they had a ham radio station and that they could get clear signals from their location," said Richter, "which was appropriate because this certainly qualified as a disaster in my book. Furthermore, the hams had built a Microlock Station there in anticipation of tracking our American satellite."
 
Moments after arrival, the JPLers hooked into the station’s power supply, powered up their best receiver, adjusted their antenna and waited. They soon became among the first humans to hear the ‘beep-beep-beep’ that was announcing the birth of the space age.
 
In the name of national security Richter and company soon took over the basement of the sheriff’s building and set up for the long haul.
 
"It came in loud and clear," said Richter. "But we did more than listen. We took audio on a reel-to-reel recorder and rolls of strip chart plots of these first signals. We were looking for anything, trying to decipher the significance of what Sputnik was sending out."
 
Over the next days, weeks and even months, the significance of Sputnik’s signals was fiercely debated. Some scientists stated the space transmissions were simply a carrier signal, intended to assist in the confirmation and tracking of the satellite. Others charged that the Soviets were receiving scientific information from Sputnik in code.
 
While the debate raged, Richter and his group concentrated on the job at hand. Ensconced in the sheriff’s basement, they did not immediately appreciate the effect the Soviet achievement had on world opinion. As they monitored and documented the satellite’s orbits, the word Sputnik itself, which means "companion" in Russian, quickly became part of the American lexicon. Sputnik was on the front page of just about every major newspaper in America. Within days of their discovery, a wave of VIPs began streaming in to the Temple City Sheriff’s Department to hear for themselves what America’s Cold War enemies had achieved.
 
"JPL and Caltech staff were dropping by to get an earful and it soon got pretty crowded in that basement," said Richter. "Then the media came, including the three networks. There were so many people crowded into that small room, it got to be too much. So I said the next guy to come down those stairs was getting kicked out. Sure enough, here comes someone and without looking I told him to get the heck out. Turns out, it was the Under-Sheriff Pitchess of Los Angeles County. It was his station and he could have kicked me out, but instead he turned around and left his own basement; more than once he referred to that incident publicly. He was a proud American and knew we were doing important work."
 
JPL’s important work in the basement of the Temple City Sheriff’s Department would go on for several months. But well before Sputnik gave its final beep 22 days later, Richter was pulled away to work on another important project. On behalf of JPL and his boss Dr. William Pickering, Richter crisscrossed the country, representing the team that would find the perfect instruments to go into a JPL-made satellite.
 
The first chance to reach the high ground of space came two months and two days later.
 
At 11:45 AM on December 6, 1957, a nationwide audience watched as the Navy’s Vanguard rocket, the United States first orbital space attempt, exploded on the pad. America’s next shot at the high ground came from JPL and the US Army’s Explorer program.
 
"Explorer was a crash program," said Richter. "We were determined to get this thing up one way or another and Sputnik merely pushed the button."
 
On January 31, 1958, a Juno rocket climbed eastward into the night’s sky over Cape Canaveral, Florida. Within minutes, the Juno and its cargo, the JPL-manufactured satellite called Explorer 1, disappeared over the horizon—its fate unknown.
 
"I was at the Cape that night waiting for our JPL listening post on the West Coast to confirm that they heard signals coming down from the satellite," said Richter.  "We had all these listening posts and the first call I get is from one of my club’s ham radio operators saying they were receiving Explorer 1. My guys were first to hear we made it, that we made it for America."
 
The 50th Anniversary of JPL’s Explorer 1 mission is January 31, 2008.
 
Hear beeps from Sputnik and other audio in a podcast at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/podcast/sputnik20071002/

I hate Microsoft Vista.  If you are getting a new box, get XP.

I received an e-mail request from The Crescat to publicize what sounds like a wonderful event.

Let’s take a look:

On Friday October 5th, at the approval of Bishop Jugis, the Tridentine Latin Mass will be celebrated by Fr. Samuel Weber, OSB at the Davis Chapel of Wake Forest University. Fr. Weber asks participants to be at the Chapel at 6:45 PM.

Nota Bene:

1. NUMBERS ARE IMPORTANT! Get the word out!
2. If you have the "old" Missal with the Mass of Blessed John XXIII, bring it.
3. Davis Chapel has no kneelers, nor does the altar rail. If you have disabilities or kneeling issues you might wish to bring something to kneel on. There will be a single prie-dieu to use to receive communion.
4. Davis Chapel is on the Wake Forest University Campus in Winston-Salem. Email SID CUDNIFF if you need directions to the campus. Davis Chapel is located in the building that houses the big Wait Chapel, the building with the tall steeple. DO NOT GO INTO THE LARGE ROOM OF WAIT CHAPEL PROPER! The Davis Chapel is in this building, but Davis Chapel’s entrance is NOT on the campus quadrangle but instead it is right on the road that circles around the campus, through the entrance on the left of the building. If you think you’ll have problems finding Davis Chapel , allow yourself time and plan on arriving early. Wake’s web: http://www.wfu.edu/. Information desk 336-758-5255.
5. Directly across the street is both street parking and a large student parking lot. On Friday evenings the students are usually gone, so there should be plenty of room to park.
6. Fr. Weber would like everyone to meet at 6:45 in Davis Chapel for a meeting before Mass.

Sid Cundiff

Included in this email correspondence was Mr. Cudniff’s phone number. I will leave it up to his discretion to make this available. Please use the email provided to reach him, if he feels so inclined he may give you his contact number.

He has asked me to include Fr. Zuhlsdorf’s 5 Rules of Engagement, with the addtional comments added:

i. Do NOT be belligerent or unkind
ii. You can do more harm than good if you are nasty.
iii. Be courteous and level headed.
iv. Do NOT get in anyone’s face.
v. Do not harden hearts by aggression.
vi. If you think you cannot contain yourself, don’t go.

Okay… what a lot of rules.   Still, there is a lot of wisdom to them.  It is important that lots of people come and that everything is joyful and filled with a prayerful spirit of gratitude. 

I think this deserves great support.  If you are within reasonable striking distance of Wake Forest University, even if you have to organize some car pooling, I warmly suggest you attend.

Heck… if they need a celebrant, I’ll go.

Under another entry about the Holy See reprinting (or not) the 1962 Missale Romanum there is discussion of other reprints of liturgical books.

Let’s get focused and create a really useful entry about what books are available and from whom, what they are actually like, how much they cost, etc.

For example, I reviewed the reprint of the 1962 Missale Romanum that the guys at St. John Cantius in Chicago were peddling.  A kind reader gave me a copy.  However, it is now out of print… already.

So… where does one now get a true 1962 Missale Romanum in any format?  I am NOT interested in hand missals.  This is about books priests need.  Missals and breviaries.

PCP (Preserving Christian Publications) is going to be issuing a 1962 Missale Romanum with this claim:

Missale Romanum:  an exact reprint of Benziger’s classic 1962 edition of the traditional altar missal which was specially tailored for the USA dioceses. [NB:  this is the May 1963 printing, i.e., the final "1962 edition" which includes St. Joseph’s name in the Canon]

 

I know the Benzinger editions.  I have used them many times.  This reprint could be a very good tool, it it turns out alright.  I own an edition by Benzinger: the 1961, the last issued before the 1962 editio typica (thus, Joseph is not in the Canon, etc.).  The 1962 will be nearly exactly the same as far as format is concerned.  It isn’t a fancy book.  It is a useful book.  I look forward to seeing what PCP does with it.

Otherwise, I read that PCP is also making available the Breviarium Romanum, the two-volume set which has the older Psalter and not the dreadful Psalter approved by Pope Pius XII.  Alas, the volumes don’t seem very interesting in the photo.  I would like to get then in my hands to see what they are really like to feel and use.

For breviaries, priests generally would like something like those wonderful old softbound leather volumes with gilded pages that so perfectly fit in the hand.  If you are going to spend that much of your day with a book in your hand, each and every day for years, you want something nice, even if you have to spend a little more for it.

So, let’s get practical information.  Who, what, where, how much, etc.

Do we know about other reprints of the 1962 Missale Romanum and the Breviarium Romanum?

There will be a fine and interesting event in the Basilica of St. Peter on 10 October.  Read on in this piece from Style Magazine, a monthly for men published by Corriere della Sera (the NYT of Italy).

My translation.

L’organo del Papa
di Alessandra Borghese

It’s been around a hundred years, since the time of Anton Bruckner, that a Mass dedicated to a Pope has been composed.  The very first, Tu Es Petrus, produced specifically for Benedict XVI, premiered in the Cathedral of St. Hedwig in Berlin last April to celebrate Pope Ratzinger’s 80th birthday.  Among those present was the Chancellor Angela Merkel.  This coming 10 October, in the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome, there will be presented again, for an Italian premier, the Mass dedicated to the Pope.  The creator of this symphonic project is Wolfgang Seifen, organist of note, once a student of the reknowned Regensburg Domspatzen directed for over twenty years by Georg Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI’s big brother).  Tu Es Petrus will be performed by 240 musicians making up both orchestra and choir, all students of Humboldt University in Berlin, none of whom are professionals, many non Catholic, some in fact atheists.  It is thus a project with strong spiritual force.