¡Hagan lío!
His Excellency Most Reverend (and I sincerely mean both of those honorifics), Alexander K. Sample, Archbishop of Portland, gave an outstanding address to liturgy conference in Germany.
He includes some personal reflections and analysis of the situation we are in, and where we need to go. It is very good. He received applause many times.
Archbp. Sample relates a moment during an ad limina visit with Benedict XVI.
He touches on ad orientem worship, the destruction of churches, the elimination of Latin and Gregorian chant. What the Council Fathers wanted is not what we got.
I’ve know the Archbishop since the mid 80’s. Both he and I were deeply influenced by the late Msgr. Richard Schuler.
This is the New Evangelization.
In his address, Archbishop Sample speaks ve-ry de-lib-er-ate-ly since he is speaking from a text which sounds, given the audio, as if it was being simultaneously translated. So, I will provide the video from YouTube as well as the audio accelerated 2x to make it a little shorter and easier for English speakers to listen to.
Make sure to visit the site of 2SPetrus which made the video.
The faster audio, 2x – twice as fast – as the video. Remember, the Archbishop was speaking deliberately slowly to the audience in Germany.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (9.8MB)
Here’s a shot of Archbp. Sample celebrating Holy Mass in the Basilica of St. Peter last fall for the Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage. Your’s truly is the deacon to the right.
Make sure you listen to Card. Sarah’s address HERE.
UPDATE:
I believe this is the video to which Archbp. Sample refers in his talk.
The video that first opened my eyes to the Traditional Roman Rite was also on VHS (back in the day before the internet… hard to imagine):
And here is another 2SPetrus short video of events during the 2016 Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage:
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Sounds like the new Bp. Fulton Sheen.
There is no going back after one has experienced the Extraordinary Mass. Even attending once ennobles our Church.
I have a lot to say about Bishop Sample. Or really about one parish in Portland. It truly saved my life as it was the Holy Rosary Church crossed my path as I was contemplating less than healthy options for the night. It is run by the Dominicans. It solidified what I was not quite ready to admit to myself. That the life of wine and women were over. I am quite pleased. It is a amazing place. I visit it every time I am in town. I really should learn more about the Dominicans. I have not read much about them on WDTPRS….
There seems to be some momentum in favor of liturgical reform, rightly understood, unexpectedly given the general deterioration within the Church — or maybe because of it. A few more archbishops and cardinals need to get into the act, along with a few national episcopal conferences.
I belong to his archdiocese! Portland is supposedly one of the most unchurched, unChristian cities in the nation…and considering the number of strip clubs and “adult bookstores” one drives by on almost any errand, I can believe it. How blessed we are to have such a great archbishop and a great local Catholic radio station: Mater Dei radio, 88.3 FM (on streaming online). There are certainly enclaves of Christ-followers here if you look for them.
On a personal note, last spring I wrote Archbishop Sample a thank you letter on the one year anniversary of our coming into full communion with the Catholic Church, telling him some of our story and how becoming Catholic has changed our lives. I didn’t expect to hear back; he’s a busy man! Imagine my joyful surprise a few months later when I received a letter from him (and clearly one that he wrote and not a form reply letter) thanking me for my letter and assuring us of his prayers. If that’s not accompaniment, as Pope Francis so often stresses, I don’t know what is! God bless him, and long may he continue at his post.
That’s my archbishop! God bless him!
Of all the many recent videos on the TLM, this video by Ab. Sample may well be one that would be most informative to those priests, bishops, and cardinals (and even the occasional pope)–if they could somehow be induced to view it–who might be perplexed as to why the TLM is attracting so many who are too young to have any personal memory of the older Mass.
Incidentally, the narration by Bp. Fulton Sheen of that classic 1941 video of a solemn high Easter Mass in Chicago, includes what is surely (in retrospect) one of the most ironic lines uttered by any human being during the 20th century. Where at the 3:50 mark– in describing the cope worn by the priest during the Vidi aquam (Asperges) rite—Bp. Sheen intones the words
“The large cape worn by the celebrant is called a cope. …. Its use today is continued in memory of the ancient tradition. It is a long-established principle of the Church never to completely drop from her public worship any ceremony, object, or prayer which once occupied a place in that worship.“
I always laugh when people wonder why we assist at a Latin Mass, and many of us study Latin. I mean, why would we want to make use, as Catholics, of a language that once allowed Rome to conquer and rule many people by a single language? It’s as if we think that we were sent to win the entire people of the world for God, or something.
Archbishop Sample is an example that others in the hierarchy should follow. I believe that many do not so follow him because they either no longer pray, or never learned that they need only look within themselves to find God.
Share this video with every priest you know and send it to your bishops……
Archbishop Sample is truly a miracle.
As he says in this talk, he grew up in the ’60s, same as many of us, and went to “catholic schools”, and still, same as us, had only vague and somewhat misinformed ideas about what the Mass truly is. Those of us Catholics who also grew up in the 1960s and later can really identify with this embarrassing ignorance.
What I really liked this time was that he said that in 2008, after becoming comfortable saying the EF, he said to himself “NOW I feel like a priest”. That says a lot.
And when the priest knows HIS identity, the rest of us are better able to figure out our Catholic identity and what we can do to encourage future good vocations. (Of course, Father Z’s blog helps too!)
Thanks, Fr Z, even for the 2x version, suitable for a medium commute..weird, but good.
We share something besides the Catholic Faith, Padre, and that is a rather seminal appreciation for the value of the Latin Mass Society video. That was my first exposure to the excellence of the traditional liturgy, and in my own way I have been acting on it ever since. In truth, it is part of what brought me to London in 1992, and the first thing I did was to seek out the traditional mass in Westminster. As a result I came to know quite a number of the people in that video, and was in every case the better for it. The fervent contribution of the people of the Latin Mass Society through the years, on both sides of the altar-rail, has been of inestimable value.
I’m having trouble hearing/understanding the Archbishop’s address on the audio clip. Could anyone be persuaded to transcribe it and post the text?
I passed on the link you gave to the Chicago Mass commented on by Bishop Sheen to a friend who is undergoing the RCIA course ready for baptism at the Easter Vigil. I had already pointed him in the direction of Bishop Sheen’s talks found on YouTube and when he told his course leader, she informed him that ‘Of course he was before Vatican II’ insinuating that everything which had gone before was irrelevant.
My friend’s comment on the Chicago Mass which he watched right through was ‘really magical’ – perhaps not quite the right word but we know what he means. He has no access to the EF where he lives but he is eager to experience it and hopefully he may one day.
I shall gradually introduce him to the Catholic blogosphere – he has made a start with Fr Z! I had no idea it existed when I first acquired a computer. I found out quite by accident while looking up details of a second-hand bookshop in London and discovering that an article on one of them was posted on a blog run by a local Priest. And one thing led to another…