PHOTOS: Candlemas Followup in the @MadisonDiocese with @BishopMorlino

Last night we had a beautiful Candlemas with the blessing of candles, a procession and Pontifical Mass at the Throne. Many heartfelt thanks and kudos to the Extraordinary Ordinary, His Excellency Most Reverend Robert C. Morlino, Bishop of Madison, for doing the honors.  The Mass was organized by the Tridentine Mass Society of the Diocese of Madison.

Getting ready for Mass.  There is a lot to do: furniture to move, flowers to place, altar to set up, credence table and places for the clergy to arrange, extra episcopal hardware to assemble, vestments to array….

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We decided to start in traditional violet for the blessing and procession and then change to our beautiful gold set.

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People brought their candles from home.  We also blessed a mess of candles for the chapel.

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We went around the church as the choir sang the Antiphons.  Listen to one of them.


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Then we switched to gold for the Mass, which continued without the prayers at the foot of the altar.  The sign on the wall says that people could take their candles.  We also had larger candles for each household.

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Getting ready for the Gospel, sung to the Tonus ad libitum, since I am all about options.  Right?

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On the way out.  I am grate to my friend Fr. Ferguson, official Parodohymnodist of this blog, for coming so far to be the Assistant Priest.  I am open to priests coming here who want the experience of being celebrant for Masses or to participate in Pontifical Masses.  Also many thanks to the clerics of Madison.  Two of them were Pontifical newbies and they did a great job.

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The Extraordinary Ordinary.  Thank you!

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The New Evangelization doth continue, thusly.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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12 Comments

  1. Ben Yanke says:

    Neat historical point: the crosier used (focused on in the first picture) is a historical crosier of the diocese, used by the last several bishops of the diocese.

  2. Johnny Domer says:

    Looking at this post, I wonder if Fr. Z is tempted to expand the Vestment Fundraiser project to include a few violet pianete plicate!

    [“Folded chasubles”? I am not strongly tempted, no. However, since you are interested, you can pay for them. I can get a quote from Gammarelli.]

  3. Fiat Domine says:

    In tears, i thank you Father Z for a little niche in the world where we can go for fond memory, Beauty, True Knowledge of Holy Mother Church, and even a couple of “chuckles”. Deo Gratias.

  4. Bishop Morlino was one of the two factors which decided ny move from NJ to WI. Health concerns are being addressed here thankfully, but His Excellency was the X factor. After going through the mill in an impossible diocese in NJ, it became apparent that working for Truth in a supportive truly Catholic environment was a pleasant reprieve.
    I know we are called to suffering and I try to offer my health issues up daily and as well as added prayer life for those in impossible situations. My physician in NJ (a prolife devout Catholic) urged me to move as it seems being under our Shepherd in Madison is JUST THE MEDICINE the doctor ordered. Deo Gratias.

  5. Mary Jane says:

    Beautiful photos Fr Z!

    We had a lovely Candlemass at our FSSP parish as well. Distribution of candles (during which the chant and polyphonic Lumen was sung, alternating – chant verses and polyphonic refrain) followed by the candlelit procession during which the chanted antiphons were sung. Mass followed, Miss O Magnum Mysterium by Victoria, as well as some great motets Senex Puerum Portabat (Victoria) and Sancta et Immaculata (Guerrero). Lots of incense, and lovely gold vestments.

  6. Latinmass1983 says:

    In the older rubrics, the first part of the Mass called for folded chasubles, but most people do not have easy access to them (in the older rubrics, the omission of the dalmatics/tunicles would have solved that, given that they are considered “festive”). With some creativity (and assuming that a church will have at 4 or 5 purple chasubles), regular chasubles could be folded and pinned in the front and that would be a good solution as well.

  7. Ben Yanke says:

    @Latinmass1983 – Or perhaps even a few cheaper chasubles permanently modified for the purpose from somewhere like CatholicLiturgicals.com

    http://catholicliturgicals.com/index.php?URL=product.htm&pro_id=384

    A parish on the east coast did something similar, which they used before their dedicated set of custom-made folded chasubles arrived:

    https://www.facebook.com/foldedchasubles/photos/a.938184169563000.1073741828.938181886229895/941001739281243/?type=3

  8. Serviam says:

    Okay.
    This settles it.
    Must move to Wisconsin.

  9. FranzJosf says:

    Once I converted, or reverted (being of European ancestry), and learned about Tradition and the Old Rite, the 1962 Candlemas ceremonies became the window through which I looked and learned about all the pre-Vatican II Missal changes being urged by the Bugnini/Modernist/Progressive school of thought. I’m sure that dissertations could be/have been written about the Modernist assault on the Old Missal and how the German political reaction to WWI crept into the Missal and all the experimentation that took place in German-speaking lands in the late 1940’s.

    To the matter at hand:

    In the Candlemas ceremonies we see, on the one hand, the thrust of the changes to come, yet, on the other hand, we see the things that had begun to change but had not yet come to full fruition. The Left is always happy to use incrementalism to get their way in the long run. (These ideas were crystallized for me in an old alaysis, whose author I don’t recall.)

    1. On the one hand: the vestment color for the blessing and procession was changed from violet to white. As far as I know, this is the first time in the history of the Western liturgy in which what had been considered a penitential procession was jettisoned in favor of the happy-clappy-we’re-all-going-to-heaven idea. Let’s get rid of the humility idea. We’ll use white vestments; we’ll CELEBRATE!

    1a. Let’s bless the candles on a table facing the people. (Bugnini!) That change may have occurred before 1962, but originally the candles were blessed upon the altar (on the Epistle side, if memory serves.) Ironically, at the time I was studying this issue, I found photos of an Anglican Anglo-Catholic parish that did everything the old way (I know!) according to an Elizabethan English translation of an earlier Roman Missal, with the old rubrics–St. Clement’s Church, Philadelphia.

    1b. Using the table facing the people instead of upon the altar had already crept into the Missal with the 1955 Holy Week changes. Palms were to be blessed upon a table facing the people, instead of upon the altar.

    1c. The Prayers at the Foot of the Altar were removed, although they hadn’t been in earlier missals. I’m not sure if this happened in 1962 or before, but at some point “someone” decided to eject them when they could find the slightest “justification.”

    2. On the other hand: The five collects of blessing the candles were retained. “They” hadn’t gotten around to reducing it to one, according to the ‘needless repetition’ Bugnini crowd. Yet, the Palm Sunday blessing collects, in the same Missal, had already been reduced to one (down from seven, if memory serves–or was it nine?) (An aside: What constitutes a ‘needless’ repetition? Some we’ll say that aesthetic only considerations should be ignored, but I think that one short collect doesn’t sustain the ‘weight’ of the moment; it’s over before it’s started. I can’t really explain why this goes beyond aesthetics, but somehow it does.)

    The study of the Candlemas ceremonies, with the retentions and changes opened my eyes to many agendas that were in play at least a two decades before Council. (I still don’t understand why Pope Pius XII allowed all these things. Perhaps he thought that the Calendar had become too cumbersome, with too few ferias, and the revisers became what seemed like harmless Innovators?)

    Anyway, I’m glad that you all restored the Violet vestments, perhaps relying ‘immemorial custom’, not unlike some Traditionlist groups that still call Jan. 1 the Feast of the Circumcision. In my opinion, you did the right thing.

  10. Gaz says:

    Everyone can be a torchbearer for Candlemas

  11. Quote: Looking at this post, I wonder if Fr. Z is tempted to expand the Vestment Fundraiser project to include a few violet pianete plicate!

    [“Folded chasubles”? I am not strongly tempted, no. However, since you are interested, you can pay for them. I can get a quote from gammarelli]

    Is anyone else interested in this? I’d certainly donate to a GoFundMe for folded chasubles for Pontifical Mass in these USA…

  12. Ozark Catholic says: I’d certainly donate to a GoFundMe for folded chasubles for Pontifical Mass in these USA…

    I’ll do some checking around. Then you can send a big check, rather than go through GoFundMe.

    GoFundMe is great for large base. But individuals get more bang for the buck by sending a check.

Comments are closed.