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

Take a look at this coverage by the incredibly connected NLM.

A sample:

I got this question by e-mail:

Greetings Father,

A question that the bishop and I were discussing today…If a priest celebrates Mass according to the Missal of 1962, is he REQUIRED to wear a maniple?  Certainly it would be preferable, but is it required? 

I am torn as to whether this is a matter of discipline, which would mean the reformed vestments would be acceptable in the Extraordinary Form, or a matter of rubrics, in which the priest would be bound by that particular missal.

Any documentation you or the readers could provide would be of great help.

 

I have written about maniples before.  Check here and here.

My first inclination is to say, yes, it is required.  If you have the maniple, it ought to be used.

In the editio typica of the 1962 Missale Romanum, we find in the first part of the Ritus Servandus the method of vesting.  In that section we find: Sacerdos accipit manipulum, osculatur crucem in medio, et imponit bracchio sinistro.  This seem pretty clear to me.

Moreover, the prayers to be said be the priest while putting on vestments, including the maniple are, in fact, printed in the 1962 edito typica of the Missale Romanum.  The prayers a bishop is to say, including that for the maniple, are also in the 1962MR.

Of course, no one is held to the impossible.  If there is no maniple available, that does not mean that the EF cannot be celebrated.  That would be silly, and it would never have been the case in the old days, either.

I think some silly people tried to block celebrations of the older Mass because, they claimed, you could not say Mass if you didn’t have the proper vestments.  That is far far too rigid an approach.

By "reformed" vestments I think you might be referring to variations from the old days. For example, if an alb closes at the nexk so that it entirely covers the street clothes or cassock, then no amice would be necessary.  Or if the alb is fitted, no cincture is necessary. 

BTW, how often do we see priests with their Roman, military, collars visible sticking out of their albs and chasubles during Mass, in violation of the rubrics.  Street clothes are to be covered! The collar of your shirt, or vest, or cassock, is part of your street clothes, Fathers!  But I digress.

The vestments had a purpose beyond the merely practical or functional.  They had a spiritual significance for the priest as he says Mass, a meaning which informs his words and actions at the altar. 

I fear that functionalism overtook a Catholic sense of things after the Council, must as the utilitarian spirit eviscerated sacred music and architecture.

Thus… against this error of functionalism, I remind you all of my anti-functionalist battle cry:

 

No sooner do I get back from Mass but…  one of my spies, a very reliable person whom I trust, sends me this:

 

I have heard from a source who has first-hand information that Cardinal Castrillon is happy with the answer from Bishop Fellay and has sent him a brief note in response.

I have also heard that the Cardinal will pass on the letter to His Holiness.

So behind the scenes it actually looks much brighter than the impression given by liberal press or some of the … SSPX bishops.

This is a very hopeful message.  I can take this as a confirmation of something I posted before.

I am hearing various things about this, and their cumulative effect reinforces the hope I did not abandon, even in the face of some of the press accounts and stories I have read. 

I will be starting Mass in about 15 minutes as of this post.

PRAY!  PRAY NOW!

May God the Holy Spirit soften hearts and illuminate minds.
May St. Paul, whose year we celebrate, help us all to greater unity.
May St. Peter, the Rock on whom Christ built the Church, gather us into one fold.
May St. Michael and the heavenly angels defend us from the attacks of hell.

This is posted by Reuters.

My emphases and comments.

FaithWorld
Religion, faith and ethics

SSPX “answer without response” to Vatican ultimatum

Posted by: Tom Heneghan

The schismatic [The writer is not going with the nuanced position of Card. Castrillon Hoyos, namely, that while the 1988 consecrations were a "schismatic act" they didn’t actually result in schism.] traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) has reacted to a Vatican ultimatum by challenging the conditions Rome set for its return to the Catholic fold. By sending this in a letter, SSPX leader Bishop Bernard Fellay partly fulfilled one condition of the ultimatum, i.e. answering by the end of this month. But he did not fulfill the more important other half of that requirement, i.e. that he respond positively. In fact, he told the Vatican that other conditions — to accept papal authority and not criticise the pope — were too vague to be accepted, according to SSPX spokesman Rev. Alain Lorans. As Lorans put it: “You can say he’s not responding, despite answering it.”

[I am not sure where the writer of Reuters is getting this, aside from (the item I posted the other day) from Radio Svizzera.]

This is a clever way of ducking deadline pressure, but it doesn’t answer the real issues. It looked like the Vatican had the SSPX in a corner when the ultimatum of June 4 became known early this week. By wording the five conditions so vaguely that contentious issues such as the new Mass and the Second Vatican Council reforms went unmentioned, Pope Benedict and Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos — the Vatican official dealing with traditionalists — may have thought they might win over the schismatics. Benedict had already taken the first step towards a possible accord last year by liberalising the use of the old Latin Mass that the SSPX has championed as its visible trademark. The ultimatum made a further conciliatory gesture by keeping the explicit requirements to a minimum.

But Benedict has his red lines too. Compare the current five conditions to the much more explicit five conditions that SSPX founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre accepted in May 1988 (with the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) but renounced the following month. The new list of conditions strips away the explicit demands of the 1988 document, but they basically remain implicit — a fact that Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi confirmed this week.  [However, the Five Conditions given by Card. Castrillon to Bp. Fellay were really "pre-conditions" for continued dialogue.  I don’t think they were intended only by themselves to resolve all the problems between the SSPX and Rome.]

Fellay clearly saw that and spoke out bluntly against the ultimatum a week ago at an SSPX seminary in Winona, Minnesota. The eye-catching quote in that sermon was “They just say ’shut up’ … We are not going … to shut up.” He also offered a longer and quite vivid image of two icebergs. The tip of one iceberg is the old Latin Mass and its underwater part stands for Church tradition. The other has the new Mass at its visible tip and the underwater part is a symbol, he said, “of Vatican II and of these modern ideas, what they call the spirit of the Council, which has come in with all these reforms which have almost kicked down the Church.” Referring to the restoration of the old Mass, he said:

    “What happens with this motu proprio is as if they would have taken this tip of the iceberg. When we see this, we have the impression, OK, they take the tip, so they take everything which is below. That’s not exactly what they did. They tried to take the tip and to plant it on the other iceberg, the iceberg of the new thing. And so we have two tips and they say it’s only one tip. But if you try to go and see and look under the water, what is below, you will see that they maintain that the only thing you can have below is the new thing.”

The text of that part of Fellay’s sermon and the full audio posted here show how firmly Fellay — who sharply criticised Benedict only days before meeting Castrillón Hoyos to discuss the Vatican’s conditions — is upholding the SSPX rejection of Vatican II reforms. Two other SSPX bishops (Alfonso de Galarreta and Richard Williamson) have also spoken out against the ultimatum. For his part, Benedict has changed the wording of the Vatican demands and partly conceded the old liturgy (”partly” because he supported it anyway). But he has not budged in principle on the Council that he himself attended and helped shape as a young theologian.

So it’s back to a rock and a hard place.  [Hmmm… a familiar phrase in this context.] Will either side blink? Fellay says he has plenty of time and the ultimatum showed Vatican’s in a hurry. He told Swiss radio RTSI (in Italian, from 17:44) “Maybe it’s wrong to say so directly that I reject, that I totally reject (the ultimatum), that is not true. Rather, I see in this ultimatum a very vague and confused thing … we have relations with Rome that develop at a certain pace, which is really slow … there may now be a chillier period, but frankly, for me, it’s not finished.”

The Vatican conditions may be the best the SSPX can ever get and Fellay has replied positively to one-half of one condition out of a total of five. That’s just enough for him to get semantic and say that maybe it’s wrong to say he totally rejected the ultimatum. Well, he certainly didn’t accept it, or even come anywhere near accepting it. Is he just buying time waiting for the Vatican to blink?

It looks like the Vatican’s turn to reply. What’s next?  [A very good question.]

I want to put this question, which I received via e-mail, out there to you readers.  I edited it a little.

I have been reading your blog as a "lurker" for some months now and give thanks regularly for your service through it.  I realize that you receive many, many emails and other contacts, and that you may not be able to respond but I thought to give it a try anyway.
 
To be honest, I am troubled.  I am Anglican, but over the past few years have become increasingly agitated by where the Episcopal Church is pointing itself.  [... Lots of personal stuff here… ]
 
Over the past several years as this has progressed, I have sensed a call to move toward the Roman Church, but I want to be sure that I am not just going "from" something, but "to" the Roman Church.  I have a general sense of the doctrinal, theological, and governance differences between our two Churches, but want to make sure I really understand.
 
Is there a book or series of books you can recommend?  I am currently working through a Catholic Study Bible, and the Navarre Bible Gospels.  I have added occassional use of LOTH to supplement my Daily Office (I should probably say "almost-Daily Office").  Where else can I go to understand?
 
Any time you might have to respond to this request would be greatly appreciated.

It seems to me that some of you out there may have made this journey yourselves.  You could help this fellow.

Here is an opinion piece in the Charlotte Observer.

My emphases and comments.

IN MY OPINION
Latin Mass is fine, but I like the new ways
MARY C. CURTIS
mcurtis@charlotteobserver.com

When in Rome – and you need to go to Mass – do as the Romans do. A few years ago, I did just that, dashing into a beautiful church a coin’s throw from the famous Trevi Fountain.

As I made my way through the ritual, following along, just barely, in Italian, I had a sudden longing for the Latin Mass of my youth. The feeling was only part nostalgia for lace mantilla head coverings and the soothing sound of “Dominus vobiscum” and its answer, “Et cum spiritu tuo.”

I wanted to fully share in the celebration with those gathered in the pews around me.  [But, by wanting to, and by being baptized, and by trying to, you were fully participating.] When Latin was the common language of the ancient liturgy, you could go to any Catholic Church anywhere in the world and be at home.

In the little church in Rome, the people were friendly, the handshakes sincere and the communion inspiring. [hmmm] But if we shared the words in Latin, I thought, there would be the comfort I did not feel stumbling my way through prayers and responses in bad Italian.  [Fair enough.]

The Latin Mass [Remember that the term "Latin Mass" should not be applied only to the TLM (traditional Latin Mass, according to the pre-Conciliar form)] retains a sense of mystery [YES!] at a time when little in life offers that particular quality. And it restores a sense of community with Catholics of every race and region.  [And era.]

I was curious when St. Ann Catholic Church became the first parish in Charlotte to begin offering a weekly Latin Mass. [I think she means the TLM.] Would a return to the rites of the past – with Mass a silent time of reverence and contemplation – bring a peace that’s needed in today’s complicated world?

At 8 in the morning on a recent Saturday, I joined the few, the proud, the traditional at St. Ann.  [For those of you not reading in the USA, the United States Marines has the phrase "the few, the proud, the Marines".]

I noticed the lace mantillas, lots of them, on the women’s heads – and the quiet.

The Mass has become more convivial of late, with lay readers and ushers and Eucharistic ministers. Someone or other is always marching up and down the aisle. Lay people – and altar girls – get to play a part.

I missed that.  [hmmm   She poses the question "Will the older rites and silence with contemplation bring the peace which is lacking but needed today?"  She asks the question and then veers into something else.]

Following along in the Latin-English Booklet Missal isn’t difficult. I did it easily enough as a Catholic grade schooler. But it isn’t the same.

I’ve also gotten used to the priest facing the congregation, drawing us in. [Into what?  His personality?  A sense of "peace needed in the world"?]  When he turns toward the altar, the feeling is just the opposite.  [Opposite of being drawn into what?]

It seems less inviting and more like a secret society, one I’m not sure I’m good enough to join.  [Okay… we are back to the challenge of being a Marine?] The sermon – about being vigilant in your faith – is fine, but a little muscular, a little Mel Gibson.  [I wonder if she has been exposed to effeminate priests for a long time?  Or if there is something in Mass facing the people, with all those other things she talks about, above ("lay readers and ushers and Eucharistic ministers. Someone or other is always marching up and down the aisle. Lay people – and altar girls") is not "muscular", that is, ... atrophied Catholicism?]

The Catholic Church was once more exclusive, [Um… "Catholic" means "universal".] the one true faith, we were taught. The one thing it wasn’t about was dialogue.  [Grrr.]

And I missed that dialogue at the Latin service.  [This is a problem, I think, with the way the TLM is often celebrated, wherein some communities nearly repress congregational responses.]

We’ve grown up a lot since the days when the watchword was silence and the priest had the last word. Secrecy can be suffocating and mystery just an excuse not to ask questions.  [For pity’s sake.]

Openness is not heresy.  [My heavens!  She has gone spinning off into the void!] As the lay organization Voice of the Faithful [Riiiight!] says: “provide a prayerful voice, attentive to the Spirit, through which the faithful can actively participate in the governance and guidance of the Catholic Church.”

There are things we know now that we never knew or chose not to see.

If the Latin Mass provides a clearer path to faith for anyone, it is worth having the choice.

But I see the world differently now. You can’t go back. I don’t want to.

 

This article exhibits some pretty sloppy thought.

Twenty years ago today, Archbp. Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the SSPX, consecrated four men as bishops against the expressed will of Pope John Paul II.  Everyone involved, Lefebvre, the four men and co-consecrator Bp. Antonio de Castro Mayer, incurred a latae sententiae excommunication which was confirmed by the Congregation for Bishops, which has competence in the matter.  John Paul II spoke of the excommunications, and even of schism, in his 2 July 1988 Motu Proprio Ecclesia Dei adflicta. 

Now we have come to the end of June. 

Lately, Card. Castrillon Hoyos, President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, gave to Bp. Bernard Fellay, one of the four excommunicated bishops and now Superior General of the SSPX, five conditions to be agreed upon before the end of June so that fruitful dialogue could continue between the SSPX and Rome.

This is the last day of the month, the twentieth anniversary of the unhappy consecrations.

We have heard from Bp. Fellay that he wrote to Rome.

I also have heard that Card. Castrillon reacted positively.

I have no additional news.

My anticipation is informed by Christian hope for the unity of the Church.

This afternoon I will say Mass, once again, for the intention I have indicated to you elsewhere, now well known to regular readers.

I ask that you spend some time in prayer, perhaps will a penance, for the positive outcome of this most recent development.

For those of you who read Italian, Paolo Rodari has an interesting piece on Communion in the Hand and what Pope Benedict is doing.

I don’t have a lot of energy for translation today.  Maybe later. 

In the meantime, I hope may one of the other interested blogs will dig in and help us all out, if they haven’t already.

I think that Pope Benedict, in shifting to distributing Communion only on the tongue of people kneeling, is not only trying to remind us that this posture is acceptable – in face of decades of false archeologizing progressivists haranguing us that everyone must stand with outstretched blah blah – he is trying to help us summon the courage to buck the status quo and return to the more reverent usage.

In any event, Rodari has a brief history of how the Italian Bishop’s Conference voted into possibility Communion in the hand even in Italy.  He show

Oh, how I remember that day when it went into effect for Italy.

I was in seminary.  I recall having a bit an argument with the rector about Communion in the hand.  He was against it and thought it would never catch on.  I said to him that in the USA we had had it for years and, mark my word, it would catch on in Italy too.  It would start with curiosity for some and then become habitual and that the progressivists would impose it on the young.  Impossible, he declared.  Then, as we were walking into the chapel we over heard two seminarians conversing about it.  One said to the other, "I think I’ll try receiving in the hand… to see what it is like!"

What a scourge this has been for the Church.  What damage it has done.

So long as the law remains that people have the option, priests must not explicitly deny people their right.

However, by catechesis and by example of how priests say Mass and handle the Blessed Sacrament, they should move people more and more away from this imprudent practice.

In 412 St. Augustine was preaching on the meaning of a psalm in the city of Carthage. 

Remember that Augustine had stenographers who wrote with astonishing accuracy everything he said.  You can hear the "oratorical" quality of this piece.  You can tell it is a sermon and that the people are reacting to him as he speaks.  The force of it builds and builds.  Here is the bishop:

 

When some festival of the martyrs falls due, perhaps, and some holy place is named at which all are to assemble to celebrate the solemn rites, remember how the throngs incite one another, how people encourage each other, saying, “Come on, let’s go!”  Others ask, “Where are we going?”  And they are told, “To that place, to the holy site.”  People talk to each other and catch fire with enthusiasm, and all the separate flames unite into a single flame.  This one flame that springs up from the conversation of many people who enkindle one another seizes them all and sweeps them along to the holy place.  Their devout resolve sanctifies them. 

If, then, holy love energizes people and tugs them to a material place, what kind of love must it be that tugs persons united in heart toward heaven, as they say to each other, We are going to the Lord’s house?  Let’s run, let’s run fast, they say, for we are going to the Lord’s house!  Let’s run and not weary, because we shall reach a place where fatigue will never touch us.  Let’s run to the Lord’s house, and let our soul be gladdened by those who tell us these things; for those who cheer us on have seen out homeland before we have, and they shout from afar to us latecomers, “We are going to the Lord’s house!  Walk!  Run!”  The apostles have seen it, and they exhort us, “Run, walk, follow: we are going to the Lord’s house!”  And what do we reply, every one of us?  “I rejoice over those who told me, We are going to the Lord’s house.  I rejoiced over the prophets and I rejoiced over the apostles, for all of them have told us, We are going to the Lord’s house.”  (En. ps. 121.2) 

There is simultanously in this tour de force imagery of pilgrimage and also of the athletic race.  This is so appropriate for today, which is the feast of the Proto-martyrs of Rome. 

Yesterday, on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, Rome saw thousands upon thousands of people flow to the Basilica of St. Peter and outside the wall to the Basilica of St. Paul to visit the tombs of the martyrs. 

Each day in Rome people visit the churches and catacombs to venerate the tombs of martyrs, some few who are famous and many thousands whose names are known only to God and their blessed companions in heavenly glory.

This prayer was not in pre-Conciliar version of the Missale Romanum, though it was in the Proper for Rome itself. 

COLLECT:
Deus, qui Romanae Ecclesiae copiosa primordia
martyrum sanguine consecrasti,
concede, quaesumus,
ut firma virtute de tanti agone certaminis solidemur
et pia semper victoria gauedeamus.

There are ancient fragments here, however: the origin seems to be from the so-called “Leonine” Sacramentary, better known as the Veronese for the feast of the Roman deacon and martyr St. Lawrence (IIII IDUS AUGUSTAS. NATALE SANCTI LAURENTI):

Concede nobis, domine, gratiam tuam in beati Laurentii martyris celebritate multiplicem, ut de tanti agone certaminis discat populus christianus et firma solidari patientia et pia exsultare victoria.

Words like agon and certamen, words for “battle” and “struggle” and “athletic contest” which St. Paul himself employs to describe the Christian apostolic experience, are used often for the early martyrs.  Martyrs “run races” and win “unfading crowns”.  Their “victory” in death is the reward of heaven.

LITERAL VERSION:
O God, who consecrated the rich beginnings
of the Roman Church with the blood of martyrs,
grant, we beseech You,
that from the struggle of such a great contest may be made steadfast in constant virtue
and we may rejoice always in pious victory.

When certain ancient portions of this prayer were crafted, the memories of the martyrs had not really faded from memory.  The people of the Church knew that their freedom of Faith had been won by the blood of their forebears. 

Can we say the same?  

The comfy Church of the 21st century may yet have to face terror, persecution and death.  It already does in not so comfy places in the world.  When will the “comfy” part change?   We should remember the martyrs, friends, and take upon ourselves something of a daily martyrdom with the practice of voluntary penances.  These will help us to secure a holy victory in the moment of challenge and a reward in heaven.

We can and must encourage each other each and every day.  In a way, is not what many of us are doing with the Catholic blogosphere another way of urging each other on?  With the technology of creating links and interconnecting our comments and informing each other, are we not in a way doing what in that sermon Augustine describes as making many individual flames become one brighter flame? 

For this reason I thank all of you who, read, comment and link.  Something special occurs thereby.

Today during the Mass for the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, Benedict XVI and Bartholomew I recited the Creed together in Greek.

This is interesting for several reasons.

First, for so long it has been nearly obligatory to have the whole congregation sing the Creed alternating with the Sistine Chapel "Choir". 

Apparently it isn’t so obligatory as we thought that the whole congregation recite the Creed.

Second, the text of the Creed is that the 381 Council of Constantinople, and thus it is the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed:

The Patriarch and the Pope both use the singular "I believe", rather than "We believe" of the conciliar formula.  The conciliar form of the Creed was a group document, that needed a plural form.  The liturgical form is a personal declaration made together with everyone else gathered.

This brings the third point: It did not contain the so-called "Filioque" clause.  This is why they could recite it together easily.  The Filioque clause has been a source of division from the time when the Latin Church and the Greek Church were talking past each, with a lack of comprehension on both sides of the theology of the Holy Spirit and His relationship to the Father and the Son.  Now that there is greater comprehension about this relationship and what each side means when they talk about the Holy Spirit, there is far less reason to stress the differences that historically surround the Filioque clause.

Thus, the fourth point is notice how well the Holy Father reads the Greek text. 

Fifth, could your local priest, seminary instructor, or bishop do the same, even with the Creed in Latin?

I have received a few e-mails about this, but they are all very vague.

    Father:
  

    After the decree of suppression was read at the 9:00 TLM today at Holy Trinity Church in Boston, the parochial administrator (who is also the outgoing rector of Holy Cross Cathedral) announced that there will be a TLM at the Cathedral (in the downstairs chapel) next Sunday at 11:00.

And also,
  

    Accordingly the incoming Cathedral rector, "with the encouragement of Cardinal Sean", is starting a Gregorian-rite Mass next Sunday at 11 AM.The outgoing Cathedral rector also invited the congregation of the OF Mass to join the Cathedral’s principal English Mass at 11:30 AM.   The overlapping times will let the two congregations meet together.    

    The 11 AM EF Mass will use the lower church

I think this means that there will be a weekly Sunday Mass at the Cathedral.

One wonders about which factors were behind this decision.

Still, we can only rejoice at it!   Kudos to the Rector!

Summorum Pontificum is bearing fruit.

The Collect for the Novus Ordo today is in part inspired by that of the parallel prayer in the 1962 Missale Romanum.  However, it seems to be a rather new creation, if not entirely new.

COLLECT:
Deus, qui huius diei venerandam
sanctamque laetitiam in apostolorum
Petri et Pauli sollemnitate tribuisti,
da Ecclesiae tuae
eorum in omnibus sequi praeceptum,
per quos religionis sumpsit exordium.

There is a usage in late Latin of sumo and exordium, which is surely at work here: "to make a beginning". 

Since this seems to be a fairly new prayer we have a little flexibility with very complex religio.  Let’s refer to the great Lewis & Short Dictionary: "Reverence for God (the gods), the fear of God, connected with a careful pondering of divine things; piety, religion, both pure inward piety and that which is manifested in religious rites and ceremonies; hence the rites and ceremonies, as well as the entire system of religion and worship, the res divinae or sacrae, were frequently called religio or religiones".  On the other hand, the source for liturigcal Latin Blaise/Dumas suggests merely: "piete" and "religion".  Religio in our context needs a word or phrase that gets at the external express or our interior attitude.

VERY LITERAL VERSION:
O God, who for the solemnity of the
apostles Peter and Paul
bestowed the holy and venerable joy of this day,
grant to Your Church
to follow in all things their instruction
through whom she made a beginning of the life of faith.

There has been much buzz about the pallium this year.  Pope Benedict has shifted the the papal pallium away from the very ancient, drapy stole-like "archeological" form back (and forward) to one of the historical forms which can be seen as a "bridge" along the organic development into its modern form.

Here is the form Benedict started to use at the beginning of his pontificate.



Back in April 2005 I have a clear memory of thinking that this odd shift of the pallium was engineered by the former MC Archbp. Piero Marini and planned long before the death of John Paul II.   Marini also engineered all sorts of changes in the rites for the funeral and burial of the late Pope.  I was struck by the fact that the stole-like "archeological" pallium, which is still like the stole of deacons in the Eastern Churches, was a little too short, almost as if the maker had been certain that someone else was going to be elected… but I digress.  

Anyway, I am pleased with the shift this this pallium, which symbolically shows continuity between the "archeological" form and the "modern form" still imposed on Archbishops.



The pallium is a sign of the jurisdiction Metropolitan Archbishops have in their provinces as well as a sign of their closer bond with the Successor of Peter.  This is one of the reasons why before the pallia are conferred, they rest in a niche at Peter’s tomb.

Before they receive the pallium the Archbishops take an oath:

    Ego…
    Archiepiscopus [PLACE and NAME]
    beato Petro apostolo,
    Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae,
    ac tibi, Summo Pontifici,
    tuisque legitimis Successoribus
    semper fidelis ero et oboediens.
    Ita me Deus omnipotens adiuvet.

    I…
    Archbishop of the _ diocese (these are adjectives)
    will always be faithful and obedient to
    St. Peter the apostle,
    the Holy Roman Church,
    and to you, the Supreme Pontiff
    and to your legitimate Successors.
    So help me God Almighty.

In recent decades this oath is made also in the presence of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople or his delegate.

The Holy Father blessed the pallia today with these words (my close but not too literal translation):

    O God, eternal Pastor of souls, who committed to blessed Peter the Apostle those who are called "the flock" by Jesus Christ Your Son, that  they should be governed by him after the model of the Good Shepherd (boni Pastoris typo) , through our ministry pour forth the grace of Your blessing upon these Pallia, which as symbols You desired to be concrete signs (documenta) of pastoral care.

    Receive the our humble prayers and grant through the intercession and merits of the Apostles, that whoever will bear them, You generously making it so, may understand himself to be the Shepherd of Your flock, and will show forth in his work that which is signified by the name.

    Let him take up the evangelical yoke lain upon his neck, and let it be for him so light and sweet, that in running by example swiftly along the way of your commands, he may merit to be admitted into the everlasting pasture.

When the Pope places the pallium on the neck of the archbishop kneeling before him, he says:

    For the glory of Almighty God and the praise of the blessed Virgin Mary and of saints Peter and Paul, for the decorum of the Sees committed to you, unto a sign of the authority of a metropolitan, we bestow upon you the Pallium taken from the Confession of saint Peter, so that you may use it within the confines of your ecclesiastical provinces.

    May this Pallium be for your a symbol of unity and a token (tessera) of communion with the Apostolic See; may it be a bond of charity (vinculum caritatis) and a spur of fortitude, so that in the day of the Coming and the revelation of the great God and prince of shepherds Jesus Christ, you may together with the the flocks entrusted to you obtain (potiamini) the stole of immortality and glory.

There are some nice things here.  First, the image of a tessera is lovely.  A tessera is literally a small block or cube.  It is used to describe the little cubes that make up a mosaic.  It is still the Italian word for an officially issued pass or a ticket or i.d. card.  In this case it makes me think of how each of these archbishops, so different in themselves and in very different places through the world, are contributing in their individual way to the "big picture".

I received a tip via e-mail.

Before reading this, I am getting it second hand and also I have no way to get separate confirmation.  So, we have to take this for what it is worth.  It’s up to you.

Here is one sentence of the three sentence message  I edited it to fix the English:

I´m back from Econe. I spoke with some people. Rome has accepted a response and wrote back positively. All is going well … this was said by Castrillon.

Remember that Card. Castrillon Hoyos, President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei gave Five Conditions to Bp. Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the SSPX.

These five points were conditions for continuing dialogue about closer unity between the SSPX and Rome.

The conditions did not concern explicit doctrinal issues about Vatican II or the Novus Ordo of Mass.

They focused on the public attitude of the SSPX toward the person of the Roman Pontiff and about unity.

Important factors to keep in mind:

• Twenty years ago, 30 June 1988, the split took place with the illicit consecrations of bishops.
• Pope Benedict has been a key figure, history, in the dialogue of the SSPX and Rome.
• Pope Benedict is the Pope most favorable toward the goals of the SSPX the SSPX is like to see.
• The longer the split continues, the harder it will be to heal it.
• After all this time, there are now followers of the SSPX who have never know anything other than this serious state of division and conflict.
• Card. Castrillon Hoyos is approaching 80 years of age, when he will more then like step down as President of Ecclesia Dei.
• Bp. Fellay will be under tremendous pressure to placate the hardcore followers of the SSPX who give financial support in an increasingly expensive world.
• Bp. Fellay is likely the least hardcore of the four excommunicated SSPX bishops.
• Bp. Fellay has been a bit cagey about the response he sent to Rome, neither saying that he accepted the conditions nor saying outright that he refused them.
  

I pray that the rumor/report I received is true.

I provide this so that you can motive to PRAY! PRAY NOW! that before the end of the month, Rome and SSPX can take these mutal steps toward each other.