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

Today is the anniversary of the launch of the first American satellite, which detected the Van Allen Belts.

Explorer 1… 52 years ago today… otherwise 1 February 1958 at 0348 GMT.

 

From APOD:

The Mysterious Voynich Manuscript 
Credit: Yale University ; Digital Copyright: B. E. Schaefer (LSU)

Explanation: The ancient text has no known title, no known author, and is written in no known language: what does it say and why does it have many astronomy illustrations? The mysterious book was once bought by anemperor, forgotten on a library shelf, sold for thousands of dollars, and later donated to Yale. Possibly written in the 15th century, the over 200-page volume is known most recently as the Voynich Manuscript, after its (re-)discoverer in 1912. Pictured above is an illustration from the book that appears to be somehow related to the Sun. The book labels some patches of the sky with unfamiliar constellations. The inability of modern historians of astronomy to understand the origins of these constellations is perhaps dwarfed by the inability of modern code-breakers to understand the book’s text. Can the eclectic brain trust of APOD readers make any progress? If you think you can provide any insight, instead of sending us email please participate in a fresh online discussion. The book itself remains in Yale’s rare book collection under catalog number "MS 408."

No… this is not about the offices of the NCR.

It is actually about a rap music song.

I have always thought that rap did for music what S&M did for romance… but I digress.

I came by a rap song by a rapper I had never heard of… which doesn’t mean much … named "Zuhlio".

Rap is sometimes about social issues.  This is about liturgical issues.

What I find odd about this is that the words were attributed to a "T. Ferguson", coincidentally the name of the official WDTPRS parodohymnodist.

UPDATE:

Readers have been asking for the lyrics.  With ZUHLIO’s permission I repost them here.  Many thanks to the lyricist, the official parodohymnist of WDTPRS, Tim Ferguson.

To the tune of Coolio’s "Gangsta’s Paradise"

(Modernist Priest): As I stroll to the altar and I bow at the waist
The choir sings banal lyrics of questionable taste
But I’ve been celebrating Mass like this for so long,
that even Eagle’s Wings sounds like a cool song
and I ain’t never worn a maniple or done an asperges
An amice or a cincture? You know I don’t wear these!
my church walls are bare now, I’ve got long hair now,
Following the rubrics? you know I don’t care!
I really hate to chant, or to genuflect,
I face the congregation, givin’ them respect, fool
I’m the kinda priest I think the kiddies wanna be like
Full of jokes, hugs and smiles,
With very little insight.



(with choir) Been saying Mass this way, though the congregation’s turning grey
Been saying Mass this way, though the congregation’s turning grey
Keep saying Mass this way, ‘til the congregation’s gone away
Keep saying Mass this way, ‘til the congregation’s gone away
 

(Traditional Priest) Here’s the situation, God you’re not facin’
Turn to the altar fool, and follow the book!
Red are the actions, the black words you read,
We’re not here to entertain, but to intercede.
You’re an educated fool, with your Kung and Bultmann
But your people wanna hear Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
You’re an outdated hippie, folk music and sandals,
Ignorant of piety, liturgical vandal, fool
put the hashpipe down, stow the guitars away,
Can the geriatric “teen” choir and the crap that they play
It’s past the millennium, Bob Marley is gone,
Can the rainbow vestments, put a fiddleback on!

(Modernist Priest) Tell me why was I, so blind to see
That the Church just wants reverent liturgy?

(with choir) Been saying Mass that way, while the congregation went away
Been saying Mass that way, while the congregation went away
In a modernistic haze, led the congregation all astray
In a modernistic haze, led the congregation all astray

(Both priests) Sin and absolution, end all the confusion,
More Latin, less ad libbing, that’s the real solution!
Put the veil on the chalice, give the deacon a dalmatic,
Reassemble the communion rail that’s stored up in the attic,
The rubrics can be learned, there are priests out there to teach you,
Send a shout out on the internet and Fr. Z will reach you!
It’s not so hard, just read the cards,
The Missal too, and you’ll say Mass like you’re s’posed to
 
(Modernist Priest) I said Mass Bugnini’s way, but the congregation went away
I said Mass McBrien’s way, but the congregation passed away,
Now I’ve turned the eastward way, and choir chants the Kyrie,
The Sovereign Pontiff I obey, off’ring Mass the Roman way

(choir) Tell me why were we stuck in ’73?
using Broadway tunes, tinged with heresy?
Now we’re celebrating proper liturgy,
Ditching Haugen and Haas, using Pergolesi!
A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-al-le-tu-ia!

Who knows when Zuhlio will strike again?

The intrepid Italian reporter Anrea Tornielli posted that His Eminence George Card. Pell of Sydney recently had an audience with Pope Benedict and that he is considered by some to be in "poll position" to become Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops. Card. Re will probably be stepping down soon.

Questa mattina Benedetto XVI ha ricevuto in udienza il cardinale George Pell, arcivescovo di Sidney. L’udienza era programmata alcuni giorni fa, ma il porporato australiano ha dovuto rimandarla per un piccolo problema di salute, prontamente risolto. E’ possibile che sia lui in pole position per prendere il posto del cardinale Giovanni Battista Re, nel delicato e cruciale ruolo di Prefetto della Congregazione dei vescovi, il dicastero che aiuta il Papa nella scelta dei nuovi pastori diocesani.

I has placed a question on the blog about the priests who concelebrate not consuming both species.  Because I was probably traveling and didn’t have the chance to dig, I opened things up for answers.

Well…!

Today, while sitting on another airplane about to take off, I picked up an e-mail from a priest friend who faced the situation while recovering from surgery of being told not to consume even the least amount of alcohol because of the post-op medication he was on.  He asked about concelebrants being able to consume under one kind alone.

SKADOOSH! 

After a twitch of my pinky finger, I was able to call him back between flights… right now, that is… and give him an explanation and concrete reference which answered his question and situation perfectly.

It is a great part due to the contribution of readers that this was possible.

First, because there are so many of you, I keep this going.

Second, because so many of you are well-informed, I keep this going.

Third, because so many of you think before posting, I keep this going.

Fourth, because I too learn so much, I keep this going.

Thanks to you all.  You helped me help a friend in a particular and important circumstance.

Team Rubicon is a self-financed and self-deployed group of former Marines, soldiers firefighters, Jesuits, health care professionals currently providing emergency relief in Haiti.  They provide their own security and deal with whatever they find.

UPDATE

Yesterday was the first time in my life that I had to get rid of a dead body.

Today was the first time in my life I had to get rid of a live one.

Fee Fee was discharged from the hospital today; she has no home, family, or friends, appears to be in her 80’ s, and is in full torso splint. We all knew that to put her on the street would mean death, and for some reason all the nursing staff decided she was my responsibility. After feeling helpless for a few minutes we loaded her into the back of a tap tap truck, and I had our driver take us on a wild ride that eventually ended at the missionaries of charity’s convent. Fee Fee is not on the street tonight.

Brother Jim Boynton,SJ

I had the great pleasure of visiting the WWI Memorial and museum today.

Don’t miss this museum.

It is one of the best of it’s kind I have ever seen.

The some KC BBQ!

Then a quick stop at a cigar store.

And the Cathedral.

From a reader:

My pastor "canceled" Sunday Mass this morning due to an icy parking lot from a recent snow/ice storm. Needless to say, I live in a part of the country where we rarely have such weather. However, while protestant churches all over the city canceled their services, ours was the only Catholic Church in town that where Masses were "cancelled."

If you were in my neck of the woods, where I grew up in Minnesota, that would not fly.

But while we know there is an obligation for Mass in Sundays, when people face a significant burden … such as truly inclement weather… their obligation is mitigated.

People are not bound to the impossible, or the truly burdensome when it comes to this obligation. Many people are sincerely afraid to out when weather is like that.

In places where winter weather is not normal inexperience with driving conditions and, frankly, fear of incompetent drivers, seems to me a sufficient reason to attenuate the obligation.

The pastor, by canceling Mass, could have been trying to put people ease about their obligation. Of course I hope he said Mass anyway at the times scheduled for those who showed up all the same.

This citation from NLM is really useful.

Bugnini’s own Consilium in 1969 offered the following instruction, consistent with the Vatican II emphasis on chant over vernacular hymnody. As printed in 1 Notitiae, 5 (1969), p. 406

That rule [permitting vernacular hymns] has been superseded. What must be sung is the Mass, its ordinary and proper, not “something,” no matter how consistent, that is imposed on the Mass. Because the liturgical service is one, it has only one countenance, one motif, one voice, the voice of the church. To continue to replace the texts of the Mass being celebrated with motets that are reverent and devout, yet out of keeping with the Mass of the day amounts to continuing an unacceptable ambiguity: it is to cheat the people. Liturgical song involves not mere melody, but words, text, thought, and the sentiments that the poetry and music contain. Thus texts must be those of the Mass, not others, and singing means singing the Mass not just singing during Mass.

Sacred music is not an add on to the liturgy.  It is liturgy.  Sacred music is pars integrans in the sacred liturgy, that is, an integral part or, better integrating part of the whole of liturgical worship.

Thus, music for Mass must be sacred and it must be artistic.  The texts sung must be sacred and relevant to the liturgy of the day.  It must be composed and performed in the best manner possible, a truly artistic way. 

Pastors and church musicians should… must… rethink the "four hymn sandwich".

Today’s Collect was not in the post-Tridentine editions of the Missale Romanum but it does have its origin in the "Leonine Sacramentary" or, as it is better titled by its editor, the scholarly L. Cunibert Mohlberg, the Veronese Sacramentary. 

The three most important ancient sacramentaries are the Leonine/Veronese, Gelasian and Gregorian.  The Sacramentarium Veronense (SV hereafter), so called because it exists in a single manuscript in Verona, is dated by famed paleographer E.A. Lowe to the first quarter of the 7th c.  The material of the SV is a collection of Roman Mass books perhaps made by Maximianus, archbishop of Ravenna from 546-557 and, according to Joseph Lucchesi, its calendar follows that of Ravenna of the time.  The prayers in the SV are attributable to Popes Leo I (+461), Gelasius (+496) and Vigilius (+557).  Were you to hear this prayer intoned in Latin, or at least in an accurate translation, you would be thereby transported back 1500 years to our most Roman of Catholic roots.  

COLLECT (2002MR):
Concede nobis, Domine Deus noster,
ut te tota mente veneremur,
et omnes homines rationabili diligamus affectu.

LAME-DUCK ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord our God,
help us to love you with all our hearts
and to love all men as you love them.

Is this what the Latin really says?  Lewis & Short, that Dictionary of inestimable value, says the deponent verb veneror means, “to reverence with religious awe, to worship, adore, revere, venerate… to do homage.”  We sing in the well-known hymn to the Blessed Sacrament Tantum Ergo by St. Thomas Aquinas, “veneremur cernui…we adore / venerate with religious awe, our heads bowed to the ground.”   The noun affectus, us signifies, “A state of body, and especially of mind produced in one by some influence (cf. affectio), a state or disposition of mind, affection, mood”.  In post-Augustan Latin it comes to mean “affection” in the sense of “love, desire, fondness, good-will, compassion, sympathy”.  Diligo, lexi, lectum is composed from from lego, legi, lectum. “to bring together, to gather, collect” (not from lego, legavi, legatum, “to send with a commission; choose”).  The punctilious etymological dictionary of Latin by Ernout & Meillet shows that diligo aims conceptually at distinguishing one thing by selecting it from others.  Thus diligo comes to mean, “to value or esteem highly, to love” although Cicero used diligo in a somewhat less strong sense than amo, amare.  Diligo can also suggest “thrifty, frugal” and “careful or attentive with regard to things”. English “diligence” and its antonym “negligence” correspond to this.  Rationabilis is a post-Augustan word for the more classical rationalis and means “reasonable, rational”.

SLAVISHLY LITERAL VERSION:
Grant us, O Lord our God,
that we may venerate you with our whole mind,
and may love all men with rational good-will.

“Affection” just doesn’t cut it for affectus and something more pointed than “love” is needed too.  I came up with “rational good-will”.  We mustn’t reduce all these complicated Latin words to “love”.  Why not?  Note in the prayer the contrast of the themes “reason” and “mood”, the rational with the affective dimension (concerning emotions) of man; in short, the head and the heart.   The fact is, a properly functioning person conducts his life according to both head and heart, feelings under the control of reason and the will.  The terrible wound to our human nature from original sin causes the difficulty we have in governing feelings and appetites by reason and will.  

Today’s prayer aims at the totality of a human person: our wholeness is defined by our relationship with God.  We seek to know God so that we may the better love Him and His love drives us all the more to know Him.  Furthermore, possible theological and Scriptural underpinnings of this prayer are Deuteronomy 6 and Jesus’ two-fold command to love God and neighbor: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.  And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets” (cf. Matthew 22:36-38; Mark 12:2-31; Luke 10:26-28).  In Deut 6:5-6 we have the great injunction called the Shema from the first Hebrew word, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD; and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might….” Jesus teaches the meaning and expands the concrete application of this command in Deuteronomy 6.   There is no space here for the subtle relationships between the Latin words St. Jerome chose in his translations and the Greek or Hebrew originals of these verses.  Suffice it to say that in the Bible the language about mind, heart, and soul is terrifically complex. However, these words aim at the totality of the person precisely in that dimension which is characteristic of man as “image of God”.  Heart, mind and will distinguish us from brute animals.  We are made to act as God acts: to know, will and love.  Thus, “mind” and “heart” in man are closely related faculties and cannot be separated from each other.  Mind and heart are revealed in and expressed through our bodies and thus they point at the “real us”.  Love is at the heart of who we are and it the key to our prayer today.

We are commanded by God the Father and God Incarnate Jesus Christ to love both God and our fellow man and God the indwelling Holy Spirit makes this possible.  But the word and therefore concept of “love” is understood in many ways and today, especially, it is misunderstood.  “Love” frequently refers to people or stuff we like or enjoy using.  Bob can “love” his new SUV. Besty “loves” her new kitten.  We all certainly “love” baseball and spaghetti.  But “love” can refer to the emotional and affections people have when they are “in love” or, as I sometimes call it, “in luv”.  Luv is usually an ooey-gooey feeling, a romantic “love” sometimes growing out of lust.  This gooey romantic “love” now dominates Western culture, alas.   The result is that when “feelings” change or the object of “luv” is no longer enjoyable or useable, someone gets dumped, often for a newer, richer, or prettier model.

There some other flavors of “love” you can come up with, I’m sure.  But Christians, indeed every image of God in all times everywhere, are called to a higher love, the love in today’s prayer, which is charity: the grace-completed virtue enabling us to love God for His own sake and love all who are made in His image.  This is more than benevolence or tolerance or desire or enjoyment of use.  True love is not merely a response to an appetite, as when we might see a beautiful member of the opposite sex, a well-turned double-play, or a plate of spaghetti all’amatriciana.  True love, charity, isn’t the sloppy gazing of passion drunk sweethearts or the rubbish we see on TV and in movies (luv).  Charity is the grace filled adhesion of our will to an object (really a person) which has been grasped by our intellect to be good.  The love invoked in our prayer is an act of will based on reason. It is a choice – not a feeling.  Charity delights in and longs for the good of the other more than one’s own.  The theological virtue charity involves grace.  It enables sacrifices, any kind of sacrifice for the authentic good of another discerned with reason (not a false good and not “use” of the other).  We can choose even to love an enemy.  This love resembles the sacrificial love of Christ on His Cross who offered Himself up for the good of His spouse, the Church.  Rationabilis affectus reflects what it is to be truly human, made in God’s image and likeness, with faculties of willing and knowing and, therefore, loving.

Knowledge and love are interconnected.  The more you get to know a person, the more reason you have to love him (remember… love seeks the other person’s good in charity even if a person is unlikable).  Reciprocally, the more you love someone or (in the generic sense of love) something, the more you want to know about him and spend time getting to know him. For example, Billy is fascinated by bugs.  From this “love” for bugs Billy wants to know everything there is to know about them.  He works hard to learn and thus launches a brilliant career in entomology.  Given Our Creator’s priority in all things, how much more ought we seek to know and love God first and foremost of all and then, in proper order, know and love God’s images, our neighbors?  He is far more important that the bugs He created.  Even spouses must love God more than they love each other.  Only then can they love each other properly according to God’s plan.

We also have a relationship with the objects of both love and knowledge.  What sort of relationship?  With bugs or spaghetti it is one thing, but with God and neighbor it is entirely another.  In seeking to understand and love God more and more we come to understand things about God and ourselves as his images that, without love, we could never learn by simple study.  The relationship with God through love and knowledge changes us.  St. Bonaventure (+1274) the “Seraphic” doctor wrote about “ecstatic knowledge”. This kind of knowledge is not merely the product of abstract investigation or analytical study (like Billy with his bugs).  Rather, it comes first from learning and then contemplating. According to Bonaventure, by contemplation the knower becomes engaged with the object. Fascinated by it, he seeks to know it with a longing that draws him into the object.  Consider: we can study about God and our faith, but really the object of study is not just things to learn or formulas to memorize: the object of our study and faith is a divine Person in whose image and likeness we ourselves are made.  To be who we are by our nature we personally need the sort of knowledge of God that draws us into Him.  Knowledge of God (not just things learned about God) reaches into us, seizes us, transforms us.  To experience God’s love is to have certain knowledge of God, more certain than any knowledge which can be arrived at by means of mere rational examination.

Bring this all with you back to the last line of our prayer and the command to love our neighbor, all of them made in God’s image and all individually intriguing – fascinating, in a way that resembles the way we love God and ourselves.  This we are to do with our minds, hearts, and all our strength.  

In the pre-Conciliar calendar this period before Ash Wednesday is called the Season of Epiphany. This year, because Easter falls so early, there aren’t many Sundays immediately after Epiphany.  Some will be bumped to the end of the liturgical year.  The time after Epiphany and the time after Pentecost are both called the tempus per annum, “the time through the year”.  That terminology remained in the Novus Ordo to describe the two parts of “Ordinary Time”.

In the traditional Roman calendar this Sunday is called Septuagesima, Latin for the “Seventieth” day before Easter.  This number is more symbolic than arithmetical. The Sundays which follow are Sexagesima (“sixtieth”) and Quinquagesima (“fiftieth”) before Ash Wednesday brings in Lent, called in Latin Quadragesima, “Fortieth”.  These pre-Lenten Sundays prepare us for the discipline of Lent, which once was far stricter.

Septuagesima gives us a more solemn attitude for Holy Mass.  Purple is worn on Sunday rather than the green of the time after Epiphany.  These Sundays have Roman stations.  Alleluia is sung for the last time at First Vespers of Septuagesima and is then excluded until Holy Saturday.  There was once a tradition of “burying” the Alleluia, with a depositio ceremony, like a little funeral.  A hymn of farewell was sung.  There was a procession with crosses, tapers, holy water, and a coffin containing a banner with Alleluia.  The coffin was sprinkled, incensed, and buried. In some places, such as Paris, a straw figure bearing an Alleluia of gold letters was burned in the churchyard.  Somehow that seems very French to me.

The prayers and readings for the Masses of these pre-Lenten Sundays were compiled by St. Gregory the Great (+604), Pope in a time of great turmoil and suffering.  Pre-Lent is particularly a time for preaching about missions and missionary work, the evangelization of peoples.  In the Novus Ordo of Paul VI there is no more pre-Lent.  A terrible loss.  We are grateful that with Summorum Pontificum the pre-Lent Sundays have regained something of their ancient status.

NB: The antiphons for the first part of Mass carry a theme of affliction, war, oppression.  We hear from 1 Corinthians on how Christians must strive on to the end of the race.  The Tract (which substitutes the Gradual and Alleluia) is the De profundis.

COLLECT:
Preces populi tui,
quaesumus, Domine, clementer exaudi:
ut, qui iuste pro peccatis nostris affligimur,
pro tui nominis gloria misericorditer liberemur.

This prayer, as well as the other two we will see, is in versions of ancient sacramentaries, such as the Gregorian. Our wonderful Lewis & Short Dictionary says ex-audio means “listen to” in the sense of “harken, perceive clearly.” There is a greater urgency to exaudi (an imperative, or command form) than in the simple audi. Clementer is an adverb from clemens, meaning among other things “Mild in respect to the faults and failures of others, i.e. forbearing, indulgent, compassionate, merciful.” We are asking God the omnipotent Creator to listen to us little finite sinful creatures in a manner that is not only attentive but also patient and indulgent.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
We beseech You, O Lord, graciously to hark
to the prayers of Your people:
so that we who are justly afflicted for our sins,
may mercifully be freed for the glory of Your Name.
 
The first thing long time readers of this column will note, as well as you who attend mainly the Novus Ordo, is the profoundly different tone of this prayer.  It is just as succinct as most ancient Roman prayers.  It has the classic structure.  But the focus on our responsibility and guilt for our sins is very alien to the style of the Novus Ordo.  For the most part, such direct references to our sinful state were systematically excised from the ancient prayers which survived in some form on the post-Conciliar Missale Romanum.

SECRET:
Muneribus nostris, quaesumus, Domine,
precibusque susceptis:
et caelestibus nos munda mysteriis,
et clementer exaudi.

This ancient prayer was also in the Mass “Puer natus” for 1 January for the Octave of Christmas.  The first part of the prayer is an ablative absolute. In the second part there is a standard et…et construction.  The prayer is terse and elegant. 

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Our gifts and prayers having been received,
we beseech You, O Lord:
both cleanse us by these heavenly mysteries,
and mercifully hark to us.

In the first prayer we acknowledge our sinfulness and beg God’s mercy.  In this prayer we show humble confidence that God is attending to our actions and we focus on the means by which we will be cleansed from the filth of our sins, namely, the Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross, about to be renewed upon the altar.

As the Mass develops there is a shift in tone after the Gospel parable about the man hiring day-laborers.  An attitude of praise is introduced into the cries to God for help.

POSTCOMMUNIO (1962MR):
Fideles tui, Deus, per tua dona firmentur:
ut éadem et percipiendo requirant,
et quaerendo sine fine percipiant.

Glorious. 

In an ancient variation we find per[pe]tua, turning “by means of your…” into “perpetual”. That éadem (neuter plural to go with dona, “gifts”) is the object of both of the subjunctive verbs which live in another et…et construction.  Requiro means “to seek or search for; to seek to know, … with the accessory idea of need, to ask for something needed; to need, want, lack, miss, be in want of, require (synonym: desidero)".  Think of how it is used in Ps. 26(27),4: “One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek after (unum petivi a Domino hoc requiram); that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.”  Quaero is another verb for “to seek”, as well as “to think over, meditate, aim at, plan a thing.”  The first meaning of the verb percipio is “to take wholly, to seize entirely” and then by extension “to perceive, feel and “to learn, know, conceive, comprehend, understand.” 

Notice that these verbs all have a dimension of the search of the soul for something that must be grasped in the sense of being comprehended.

The New Roman Missal – 1945:
May Thy faithful, O God, be strengthened by Thy gifts,
that receiving them they may still desire them
and desiring them may constantly receive them.

The New Marian Missal – 1958:
May Thy faithful people, O God, be strengthened by Thy gifts;
that in receiving them, the may seek after them the more,
and in seeking them, they may receive them for ever.

Saint Andrew Bible Missal – 1962:
O Lord, may your faithful people be made strong by your gifts.
By receiving them may they desire them.
And by desiring them, may they always receive them.

Just to show you that we can steer this in another direction, let’s take those “seeking/graping/perceiving” verbs and emphasize the possible dimension of the eternal fascinating that the Beatific Vision will eventually produce. 

A LITERAL ALTERNATIVE:
May Your faithful, O God, be strengthened by Your gifts:
so that in grasping them they will need to seek after them
and in the seeking they will know them without end.

In this life, the closest thing we have to the eternal contemplation of God is the moment of making a good Holy Communion.  At this moment of Mass, which so much concerned struggling in time of oppression, we strive to grasp our lot here in terms of our fallen nature, God’s plan, and our eternal reward.
 
I don’t believe this prayer, like Septuagesima Sunday, made it into the Novus Ordo, to our great impoverishment.

I was disturbed by this story, which I received by e-mail from a traditionally-minded priest.

What you will read here is hard to believe.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

SSPX Group In Mexico Attacks FSSP Church.

I have just got word from a first hand source of a terrible act committed by an SSPX group in Mexico. The FSSP Chapel of St Peter Apostle in Guadalajara (The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter) was asked to schedule a Mass for the conversion of those outside the Church, in an effort to promote true unity among all Christians. [It was, I believe the Week of Christian Unity.] The Mass was called a Mass for the conversion of sinners outside the Church, to be followed by a rosary in reparation for false ecumenism.  [Get that?  "false ecumenism"_... but entering stage left…] The SSPX [I wonder what his means.  The actual priest members of the SSPX, or people who follow the priests of the SSPX?] however heard through the grapevine that an ecumenical Mass was going to take place and they jumped to false conclusions. As a result, the SSPX went ballistic, [Again… who precisely would that be?] calling for a protest against the upcoming scheduled Mass at the FSSP chapel.

A first hand witness from the FSSP parish notes, "We started hearing gossip about what people were saying about us. One man said at the Mass on Sunday, [NBç] that the Pius X priest told his people to go to all these events to say the rosary in reparation for ecumenism." [That sort of sounds like the aim of the FSSP event, right?] Apparently the FSSP assistant priest who is currently at the FSSP parish wrote two emails trying to clear up the confusion before any type of protest could be organized. One email was sent to the SSPX priest, the other to all the laity of the parish, telling them that it was [NB:] not going to be an ecumenical service for the purpose of legitimizing all other Christian professions of faith outside the Catholic Church, but a Mass in reparation for false ecumenism, and praying for the  conversion of those outside the Catholic Church. These emails however were ignored by the SSPX priest, and what happened next is truly appalling.

[But wait… there’s more.] The SSPX laymen came to the FSSP church the morning before the Mass on Wednesday Jan 20th, 2010, and they spray painted the walls around the church! A first hand account wrote, "Ecumenismo no! Judas!" was spray painted in huge letters three times, almost all the way around, and one time on the side walk. One was in black and the others in red." Parishioners at the church then had to use gasoline to try and remove the graffiti from the walls and the sidewalk before Mass. That however was not the end of the malicious attack. Once again, a first hand account wrote, "We had arranged for the Choir to sing so we could have a High Mass, using the ‘missa pro  Ecclesiae Unitate‘. [A votive Mass in the pre-Conciliar editions of the Missale Romanum.] As Mass was beginning we could hear a lot of noise outside: there was a bunch of people and someone with a megaphone or loudspeaker saying the rosary and singing hymns as loud as they could." Apparently one of the FSSP priests then went outside to try and talk to the SSPX protesters, but to no avail. Others carried signs around the church which said, "Outside the Church there is no Salvation!" (in Spanish)." The protesters also handed out fliers to those around the FSSP church, which labeled them as being evil, and as being in support of false ecumenism. The FSSP priests are in complete dismay over the vandalism committed and public disturbance incited by this SSPX group.  [They sound a bit like the circumcelliones.]

We see here why little progress has been made over the years in fully reconciling the SSPX with the Catholic Church. It is incidents like these that make charitable headway almost impossible to take place.  The FSSP are officially sanctioned by the Church to lead the way in promulgating the Extraordinary Form of the Mass to the Catholic faithful. Some groups of the SSPX however, appear to have taken the FSSP as a threat to their communities. Some of the SSPX loath the fact that many people want to be in full communion with Rome. We can only hope that cooler heads will prevail, and that the talks will continue with success at a higher level in Rome. I also hope that the those in higher positions within the SSPX will acknowledge the injustice that has taken place here and put a swift stop to it.

At the very least, this is require some explanations and a meeting of mind.  Some sort of reconciliation, leading to a stronger bond that before, ought to be able to come of this, provided people don’t behave like jackasses.

Please stop and say a prayer for all involved.

Even if the report above is not entirely true, pray for those involved. 

We need closer unity and prayer is a key to bringing it about. 

There can be no true charity without prayer, and there can be no true unity without charity in truth.

Damian Thompson has an interesting piece about the reaction of Her Majesty the Queen of England, who is the head of the Church, and her reaction to Pope Benedict’s Anglicanorum coetibus.

My emphases and comments:

‘Unhappy’ Queen sends Lord Chamberlain to ask Archbishop Nichols about Pope’s Anglican plan

In a surprising departure from protocol, the Queen has sent the Lord Chamberlain, the most senior official of the Royal Household, to see Archbishop Vincent Nichols, leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, to discuss Pope Benedict XVI’s offer to Anglicans wanting to convert to Rome en masse.  [My first question is: When did Her Majesty hear about this?  Was this recent news to her?]

My source says Her Majesty – who is expected to meet the Pope when he visits Britain this autumn – was “unhappy” about aspects of the scheme as she understood it. So, late last year, she dispatched Lord Peel with a list of questions for the Archbishop. The nature of the questions has not been revealed, but Archbishop’s House confirms that the meeting took place and was “mutually beneficial”.

The Queen – a somewhat “Low Church” Anglican who feels it is her solemn duty to preserve the Protestant identity of the Church of England – appears to have been alarmed by press reports of Pope Benedict’s Apostolic Constitution, Anglicanorum coetibus. This allows groups of ex-Anglicans anywhere to convert to Rome together, retaining aspects of Anglican worship. Some members of the Church of England have expressed interest in doing so, but are very keen to carry on worshipping in their former Anglican parish churches. Possibly the Queen felt that this process might conflict with her Coronation Oath to maintain all the “rights and privileges” of the bishops, clergy and churches of England.

My source was surprised that the Queen should ask one of her courtiers, the Ampleforth-educated but Anglican 3rd Earl Peel, to quiz Archbishop Nichols on the subject. The source felt that the meeting – thought to have been held in November [Ahhhh…. I see….  She acted back then.]  at Archbishop’s House, Westminster – could be seen as a breach of protocol: one would expect the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, to represent the Church’s Supreme Governor in such a discussion.  [Therefore…. the head of the Church of England is perhaps not so confident in the leadership demonstrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury in this matter?  Who would have thunk it.  After all, America Magazine, in an effort to prove that irony, in their regard, is redundant, gave their Campion Award to Archbp. Williams.  Right?]

There have been rumours that the Queen is dismayed by the Anglican drift towards homosexual blessings and women bishops. Perhaps she felt that she needed an adviser answerable only to her to convey information impartially – particularly given that she will probably meet Pope Benedict in Scotland, either at Balmoral or Holyrood, when he visits Britain in September. (The discussion between Lord Peel and the Archbishop is unlikely to have been about this meeting, however, since the Scottish Catholic Church is independent of England and Wales.)

At any rate, the spokesman for Archbishop Nichols insisted tonight that the meeting was a success. “It gave the Archbishop the opportunity to correct some of the misunderstandings about the Apostolic Constitution created by misreporting in the media,” he told me. “It was a very successful meeting and mutually beneficial.”  [Hmmm….]

What the spokesman couldn’t tell me – and indeed, didn’t seem to know – was why the leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales should have been asked to see the Lord Chamberlain, of all people, to discuss what is essentially a theological and constitutional question.

The Catholic Bishops of England and Wales have been asked by Rome to discuss a provisional structure for the ex-Anglican “Ordinariate” (a quasi-diocese). Archbishop Nichols is a key figure in this process, and I don’t envy him. On the one hand, some of his bishops hate the Pope’s proposal and will work to make its provisions as ungenerous as possible; on the other, he has to report to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is ultimately in charge of the Ordinariate scheme on behalf of the Pope, and which does favour generosity.

Now, it would seem, the Archbishop has also to bear in mind the Queen’s early misgivings about a scheme which could see a few parish communities moving from the Church that she governs – and that she promised to protect at her Coronation – to the jurisdiction of the Holy See.

And while you are over at Damian’s place check out his extremely amusing dig at the aging hippies behind the "Stand Up For Vatican II" thingy some geriatic dissidents began.  

After a long illness the well-known author and teacher Ralph McInerny has gone to his reward.

Pray for the repose of his soul.

RIP

Long-time readers of WDTPRS know that I often post about astronomical phenomena. 

I was looking up a few things about astronomers and happened on some interesting tidbits on the false-nosed Dane, Tycho Brahe (+1601), interesting especially since I find news stories about moose to be amusing.

Yes… moose. 

Amusing when they aren’t deadly. 

By the way, as he was in extremis Tycho is thought to have uttered to Johannes Kepler the words "Ne frustra vixisse videar".  Kepler came to work with Brahe in 1600. Ironically, after Brahe died the next year, the Copernican Kepler stole his data.

Now about that term "nova"... obviously Latin.

Did you know that Tycho … really, Tycho Brahe had a pet moose?

Yes, indeed.  At his castle, Landskrona, – Tycho was very rich – he kept a moose which followed him around, ... along with a clairvoyant dwarf named Jepp. 

Please no "white dwarf" jokes from you astronomers, this is serious.

But first, this is where the amusing part begins.

Tycho was going to lend his moose to a friend, a Landgrave, for a race against a reindeer to determine which was faster. 

A question we often ask ourselves where I grew up, by the by.  And to think I also have Danes in my family tree.  Hmmmm…  I digress.

Sadly, Tycho was unable to hold up his end of the race.  The moose went to its untimely demise when it drank too much beer and fell down the stairs.

It may not have been so funny at the time, now that I reflect on it… but…

"But Father! But Father! ..... "

To my point.

Tycho, who wore a fake nose of metal after a little dueling problem, observed a bright unmoving star which was "new" in the sense that it did not conform to the ancient Aristotelian ideas of immutable heavens, etc: it suddenly appeared and got brighter, which in a perfect heaven shouldn’t have been happening!

What Tycho observed was Super Nova 1572 in Cassiopeia.  It grew to be as bright as Venus!

Tycho wasn’t the first to spot the change to this new star, which brightened from 2-6 November 1572, but he was the one with whom it has ever after been associated because of his 1573 work De nova et nullius aevi memoria prius visa stella. 

Thus, nova for an newly appearing star.

So, Tycho seems to have coined the term "nova" for this sort of star … though it may have been a Swiss named, I am not making this up, Fritz Zwicky.

SN 1572 faded again in 1574, leaving a pretty cool looking nebula.



No one can say that these guys weren’t interesting.