Monthly Archives: March 2006

Saturday in the 3rd Week of Lent

COLLECTObservationis huius annua celebritate laetantes,quaesumus, Domine,ut, paschalibus sacramentis inhaerentes,plenis eorum effectibus gaudeamus.Today we have a nice parallel of the forms laetantes and inhaerentes and also of paschalibus sacramentis and plenis effectibus. This was in the Gelasianum Vetus on Saturday of … Read More

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Benedict XVI on “active receptivity”

WDTPRS has been sustaining for years now that "active participation" really means "active receptivity".  For the most part clerics and liturgists misunderstand this term.  I have argued this from documents and from semantic/philological grounds. Today during the Holy Father’s sermon … Read More

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“I’m, shocked, shocked to find zat ENGLISH iz spoken here!”

This just in… Chirac ‘shocked’ by use of English at summitUpset French leader bolts EU meeting after Frenchmen switches languagesBRUSSELS, Belgium – President Jacques Chirac said on Friday he had been so shocked to hear a fellow Frenchman speak English … Read More

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Birettaquette

There was some biretta confusion this morning.  Birettas are to be worn with the center point to the right, so that you can grasp it with the right hand and move the thing.  Birettas are always handled with the right … Read More

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PCR flag not PC in St. Peter’s Square

This is an amazing photo.  The flag of the People’s Republic of China in the Square of St. Peter.  I note with satisfaction the similarity of color to that of the cardinalatial habit, symbolizing the williness to shed blood for … Read More

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Explication of Expletives

During the Public Consistory, His Holiness spoke a homily in Italian.  The official text released by the Holy See has this following paragraph. La Parola di Dio, che poc’anzi è stata proclamata, ci porta indietro nel tempo. Con l’evangelista Marco … Read More

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Title Town

His Holiness focused in his homily today on the title, "dear to St. Gregory the Great": Servus servorum Dei…. Servant of the servants of God. This is illuminating in light of the fact that Benedict has dropped another title, that … Read More

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Friday in the 3rd Week of Lent

EXCERPT:
All good things come from God. When we make the choice to grasp hold of those things, God makes our hands strong enough for the grasping. Together we bring to completion those things He began. So, God crowns His own works in us, so that they are simultaneously His and ours. Read More

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Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog,

Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog, Ei-I-Ei-I-OOOO!  OR, I guess, it should really be EUOUAE I tip my biretta to Argent by the Tiber   o{]:¬)    for the heads up about a fun new blog redolent of Geoffrey Chaucer called Geoffrey Chaucer … Read More

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A vexing tax on paxilluli

And you can’t even get a cheap drink to dull the pain…. BEIJING, China (Reuters) — China will slap a tax on chopsticks and a range of goods ranging from yachts to petrol in a bid to save trees and … Read More

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Thursday in the 3rd Week of Lent

EXCERPT:
We are half way into Lent now. At the beginning of Lent the Church began to die to herself liturgically speaking. Elements of the liturgy, in which we can “actively participate” are taken away from us. The Church says that there is to be no instrumental music in Lent, with the exception of sustaining congregational singing. What the Church means is a little organ, not a band, to do so. Flowers and ornaments in church are curtailed. We no longer have the Gloria and Alleluia.

When 1st Passion Sunday would arrive in the older, Roman calendar, the Iudica me was stripped out of the prayers at the foot of the altar. There was no Gloria Patri at ends of antiphons. Statues and images were drapped and hidden from view. Again, the Church is dying to herself and our active participation in the sensory elements of Mass is being reduced.

At the Triduum, we are given a brief flash of glory at the Mass of the Last Supper and then the Blessed Sacrament is hidden away. The altar is stripped entirely. Bells are no longer sounded. Holy Water is removed. On Good Friday we are deprived even of Mass, though we can have Communion and on Holy Saturday we cannot even have Communion. Remember that reception of Holy Communion is the most perfect form of “active participation”. So, it is as if on that day the Church is dead, awaiting the resurrection. At the beginning of the Vigil we are even deprived of light with which to see.

This is, to my mind, what is is in the background of that quanto…tanto construction. Read More

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Patriarchal News

EXCERPT:
Okay, everyone, I am now waiting for the day when they take the title “Patriarchal” away from the Lateran Basilica, the Pope’s Cathedral as Bishop of Roma and, once upon a time, Patriarch of the West. Read More

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UPDATE: INTERNET PRAYER: Swahili

The Internet Prayer project is rolling right along! This week we already posted both Dutch and Maltese.  Now we have the great African language Swahili. If you can contribute to the collection, please do!  Any language missing from the list … Read More

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Wednesday of the 3rd Week of Lent

EXCERPT:
Day by day our Lenten observance ought to be a polishing not a torture. Sometimes people make the mistake in the spiritual life of putting themselves on the rack. The rock tumbler is a better model than the rack. Read More

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A convert’s reaction to a conversion story

As a convert to the Catholic Church I am interested in hearing and reading about the conversion experiences of others.  Pontifications, to which I tip my biretta, alerted me to one posted on Argent by the Tiber about the writer’s … Read More

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Archbishop Marini and the Strawman

EXCERPT:
Not every celebration of the new Mass is bad, though many are. Not every celebration of the older Mass is perfect, … indeed few are. However, there are fewer differences between them, when celebrated according to the books and with a traditional style in mind, than there are differences between, say, St. Ipsidipsi and St. Idealia just down the street in your town. You can go from church to church in some places and see Masses so different you would think they were all representative of different religions. And this doesn’t even bring into the discussion the fact that Ukrainian Catholics and Maronite Catholics are celebrating in their own particular Rites. Are they somehow less Catholic than Latins just because one group prays one way and another group prays in another? Piffle. Read More

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UPDATE: INTERNET PRAYER – Maltese and Dutch!

Folks, a couple friends came through with version of the famous Internet Prayer in both Dutch and Maltese!  Kindly say a prayer for each of the them.  If you can contribute to the collection, please do!  Any language missing from … Read More

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Tuesday of the 3rd Week of Lent

EXCERPT:
As we think about this prayer, remember that originally it was recited by the priest after Communion, rather than at the beginning of Mass. So, we are praying herewith that the graces and effects of the Communion just received would endure. Fairly soon after this prayer we receive the final blessing, wait for the last Gospel and (for a few decades at least) the Leonine prayers after Mass. Then after a quiet moment of thanksgiving out of church we would go to our work, whatever that might be. Read More

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The true meaning of “active participation”

EXCERPT:
This all has implications for everything which is chosen for the Church’s sacred rites and worship. Proper understanding of active participation as “active receptivity” the perfection of which is reception of Holy Communion in the state of grace, must have an impact on choice of music, placement of choirs, organization of processions, how the reading are handled, use of vestments, organization of the sanctuary, and nearly everything else you can think of about Holy Mass. Read More

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Monday in the 3rd Week in Lent

EXCERPT:
“Lord, your Church often seems like a boat about to sink, a boat taking in water on every side. In your field we see more weeds than wheat. The soiled garments and face of your Church throw us into confusion. Yet it is we ourselves who have soiled them! It is we who betray you time and time again, after all our lofty words and grand gestures. Have mercy on your Church; within her too, Adam continues to fall. When we fall, we drag you down to earth, and Satan laughs, for he hopes that you will not be able to rise from that fall; he hopes that being dragged down in the fall of your Church, you will remain prostrate and overpowered. But you will rise again. You stood up, you arose and you can also raise us up. Save and sanctify your Church. Save and sanctify us all.” Read More

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