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

The future Archbishop of Westminster, His Hermeneuticalness Fr. Tim Finigan tipped me off about a Novus Ordo Mass in Latin every week in Glasgow, Scotland. 

I am very happy to promote this on WDTPRS!

Here is the post from The Hermeneutic of Continuity.

Gregorian chant in Glasgow

My good friend Fr Gerard Byrne says a Latin (novus ordo) Mass every Sunday at 4pm in the beautiful late Victorian gothic Church of St Patrick’s, Anderston in Glasgow. The Mass is a model of good practice for the ordinary form of the Roman rite – celebrated ad orientem, with the parts of the Mass all properly sung in Latin.

A small schola sings the parts of the Mass. Once a month, they sing the full chants from the Graduale Romanum and on the other Sundays, they use the Graduale Simplex. New members for the schola would be warmly welcomed. This would be a good opportunity if you would like to learn to sing Gregorian chant. The practice each week is on Wednesday evening from 7.30-9.30pm. Contact email is: schola_glasguensis@hotmail.co.uk.

Excellent!

More Latin!

Here is an interesting story about the use of low-gluten Hosts for people who are intolerant of gluten.  By extension it reminds us of the use of mustum, a wine whose fermentation process is halted by freezing.

Almost gluten-free Communion for celiac sufferer

A row between Catholic authorities in Spain and a family was settled in order to allow their son – who suffers from wheat-gluten intolerance – to receive Holy Communion in the form of nearly gluten-free wafers.

Martin Barillas

A Spanish boy will be allowed receive his first Holy Communion this week after an agreement was reached with Catholic diocesan authorities in Huesca, a town in the Aragon region of Spain.

The boy who suffers from celiac disease, rendering him intolerant of the wheat gluten found in ordinary communion wafers, will receive Holy Communion in the form of a host specially confected of nearly gluten-free wheat flour made in Germany.

The boy’s mother had earlier requested that her son receive Holy Communion in the form of a wafer made of maize flour, [Nope.  Can’t happen.] saying in that way she could be absolutely certain that he would have no reaction.

The pastor of their parish had refused to offer Holy Communion in the form of gluten-free wafers, having recurred to a document written by Benedict XVI before becoming pope that ruled these are invalid under Church law. [Not just law.  This is something that cannot be changed by a change in law.  This is part of the divine constitution of the Eucharist, the matter of the sacrament.] According to local press reports, the priest also refused to allow the boy to receive communion in the form of mustum – grape juice that has only and imperceptible amount of alcohol.  [Hmmm…]

However, the 2003 letter written by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger stated that nearly gluten-free hosts are permitted, "Low-gluten hosts (partially gluten-free) are valid matter, provided they contain a sufficient amount of gluten to obtain the confection of bread without the addition of foreign materials and without the use of procedures that would alter the nature of bread."

Likewise, according to the document "Mustum, which is grape juice that is either fresh or-preserved by methods that-suspend its fermentation without altering its nature (for example, freezing), is valid matter for the celebration of the Eucharist.", and may be used by celebrants of the Catholic liturgy and consumed by the congregation.

Church authorities had offered Holy Communion under the species of wine. However, this was refused by the boy’s parents who pointed out that consumption of alcohol by minors is prohibited in Spain.   [At this point it sounds rather like she was merely being difficult.  She wanted her way, the corn thingie?  Dunno.]

Catholic authorities had reached an agreement with the Celiac Association of Aragon (Spain) after examining a 2004 agreement reached in the neighboring province of Navarre that allows Catholic Spaniards suffering from celiac disease to receive Holy Communion in the form of hosts made of wheat starch. These will now be made available to the parish in question in Huesca.

The wheat-starch hosts, which are nearly gluten-free, are manufactured in Germany by Franz Hoch GMBH and are marketed by Arte Sacra de Candotti Claudio of Italy.

 

The USCCB has this about the issue. 

A reader sent my this article.

I resonate with what follows.  

Very often I notice though I am very obviously dressed in my black suit with Roman collar, people in, for instance, banks et alibi, address me by my first name.  Or, priests are reduced to "sir", which, though better by far, is still sorely lacking.  I think more than one of you might remember what might have happened to you in a Catholic school, decades ago, if you slipped and called Father, "sir".

The title is not important for me, personally.  What is signals, however, is a societal break down in decorum. 

Anyway… I think your readers will have your own comments about what follows.

Miss Manners: A Priest Walks Into a Bank …

Dear Miss Manners,
I am a 50 year old Catholic priest who appreciates your contribution to a more civilized world. As a priest, people are usually polite and well-mannered in my presence, with one glaring exception.

I confess that I am a bit irked by the growing popularity of addressing total strangers by their first names in the banking industry. The tellers at my bank always address me by my first name, even when I am attired in full priestly garb. I have tried responding, "Oh, do I know you? Since you used my first name, I feel sure I should remember yours. I am so sorry." 

Am I being too persnickety in thinking that one should use a title (Fr., Mr., etc.) when addressing an older, business client? I spoke once to a branch manager who informed me it was the "company policy." Am I wrong for preferring a little more decorum in these situations?

Gentle Reader,
You are neither wrong nor persnickety, but you are not achieving your very legitimate desire to be addressed respectfully. Your being a stranger to the speaker is sufficient reason alone, as is your being an adult, and a priest.

Unfortunate as it is that the teller has been instructed to use your first name, Miss Manners is guessing that he probably doesn’t even know how else to address you. It would therefore be a kindness to say gently, "Please call me Father Gardner."

 

Father Z agrees with Miss Manners.

It is very likely that most people today have little or no clue about how to address people, including priests.

 

This just in: 

Vatican to issue conciliatory note to Jews

Mon Mar 17 12:26:06 UTC 2008

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Benedict has approved a conciliatory statement for Jews upset by a Good Friday prayer that many saw as a call for their conversion, Catholic and Jewish sources said on Monday.

The statement, likely to take the form of a letter from Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone to the chief rabbi of Israel, is expected to be released soon but perhaps not in time for this Good Friday on March 21.

Bertone is second only to the Pope in the Vatican hierarchy, meaning the clarification is coming from the highest levels, as had been requested by the Jews, the sources said.

The Vatican last month revised a contested Latin prayer used by a traditionalist minority on Good Friday, [later the "minority" issue will be repeated] the day marking Jesus Christ’s crucifixion, removing a reference to Jewish "blindness" over Christ and deleting a phrase asking God to "remove the veil from their hearts".

Jews criticized the new version because it still says they should recognize Jesus Christ as the savior of all men. It asks that "all Israel may be saved" and Jews say it keeps an underlying call to conversion that they had wanted removed.

But Cardinal Bertone will say in the letter that the new prayer is not a call for conversion or proselytism and that there was no turning back on dialogue between the two religions.

The letter is expected to stress the concept that all salvation, including that of Israel, is in God’s hands and that the prayer is not a call for missionary activity. [Hmmm…]

Jewish groups complained last year when the Pope issued a decree allowing wider use of the old-style Latin Mass and a missal, or prayer book, that was phased out after the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, which met from 1962 to 1965.

They protested against the re-introduction of the old prayer for conversion of the Jews and asked the Pope to change it.

Jewish organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee and the International Jewish Committee on Inter-religious Consultations criticized the new version of the Good Friday prayer.  [This makes it sound as if the change in the prayer for Jews on Good Friday was, definitively, because some Jewish groups complained.  I don’t think that is the entire story.]

According to sources familiar with drafts of the letter, it will say that the Vatican still takes as its reference point the landmark 1965 declaration Nostra Aetate (In our time).

This repudiated the concept of collective Jewish guilt for the killing of Christ and urged dialogue with Jews. [Yes… but is that really what this controversy is about?  I don’t think so.]

Rabbis around the world had asked the Vatican to clarify the new prayer. Italy’s Jewish community was particularly tough, saying the new prayer was a serious step backward that posed a fundamental obstacle to continued Catholic-Jewish relations.

Sources on both sides said they hoped Bertone’s letter to the chief rabbi would end the controversy.  [Yah… right…  This will escalate until Good Friday.  And it will happen again nest year.]

They said it would say that the Church had no intention of returning to what one source called "the language of contempt" [I reject that the earlier version of the prayer expressed "contempt".] it had used in the past and wanted to stress mutual respect.

The prayer will be heard only by a tiny minority [2nd time] of Catholics who attend services on Good Friday that are held in Latin rather than in their local languages as usual.  [Again… this is lousy homework.  For example, the Good Friday services in Latin with the Novus Ordo, the revised prayer will not be used.  It is amazing that, after all this time, reporters convering the Holy See can seem to get this into their heads. CLARIFICATION: I mean the equation of "Mass in Latin" with only the older form of Mass.  I am not talking about the "tiny minority" phrase, which I hear as rather dismissive.]

(Reporting by Philip Pullella, editing by Tim Pearce)

Here is a reading of the Via Crucis, the Way of the Cross, composed by Joseph Card. Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, for the 2005 Good Friday observance at the Colosseum in Rome.

The text is English, though I use Latin responses and prayers between the Stations.

http://www.wdtprs.com/prayercazt/080318_stations_ratzinger.mp3

Welcome to another installment of What Does the Prayer Really Sound Like? 

Today we will hear the Passion of St. John, to be sung on Good Friday using the 1962 Missale Romanum.   We hear it sung according to the traditional passion tone from the book called the Passionale. 

The Passionale is often divided into three books for each of the three parts, the voice for the words spoken by Christ (Christus), the voice of the narrator (Chronista), and all the voices of speakers in the Gospel narrative other than Christ (Synagoga).  The three parts are sung in different registers to differentiate them more easily.  In this recording I sing all three parts.

Often if a Passionale or set of Passionalia are available, they are older editions and some adaptations must be made to be usable with the Novus Ordo.  There are also now available new editions of a Passionale with Gregorian notation based on these old tones for use with the Novus Ordo.  In this recording, we hear the version used in the Extraordinary use of the Roman rite.

My main purpose in making this PRAYERCAzT is to help men who must prepare to sing the Passion in Latin on Good Friday get the words, these tones and the relationship between them into their ears.

http://www.wdtprs.com/prayercazt/080318_passion_john.mp3



However, these audio projects can be of great help to lay people who attend Holy Mass in the Traditional, or extraordinary form: by listening to them ahead of time, and becoming familiar with the sound of the before attending Mass, they will be more receptive to the content of the prayers and be aided in their full, conscious and active participation.

My pronunciation of Latin is going to betray something of my nationality, of course. Men who have as their mother tongue something other than English will sound a little different.  However, we are told that the standard for the pronunciation of Latin in church is the way it is spoken in Rome.  Since I have spent a lot of time in Rome, you can be pretty sure my accent will not be too far off the mark.

If this was useful to you, let your priest friends know this resource is available.  And kindly make a little donation using the donation button on the left side bar of the blog or or by clicking here.  This is a labor of love, but those donations really help.  And don’t forget to check out the PODCAzTs!

Pray for me, listen carefully, and practice practice practice.