For the second time today I choked up a little.
The first time was this morning during Mass. The profundity of the moment, place, act smothered me and I could barely breathe.
Let not the partaking of Thy Body, O Lord, Jesus Christ, which I, though unworthy, presume to receive, turn to my judgment and condemnation; but let it, through Thy mercy, become a safeguard and remedy, both for soul and body; Who with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, livest and reignest God, world without end. Amen.
There was of old a Mass formulary “for the gift of tears” that priests used to pray precisely for this grace. It is in the 1962 Missale as “Ad petendam compunctionem cordis – For asking compunction of heart”. Today I was celebrating St. Bruno but sometimes you get ambushed.
The second time was a few minutes ago. I had received a note in my mail box about the video that Michael Matt and the good folks at The Remnant created about the annual Chartres Pilgrimage at Pentecost. There are beautiful images of beautiful people doing a beautiful thing: walking from Paris to the legendary cathedral some 90km, some 20 hours by foot.
The images themselves are enough to move you emotionally, even if you are a bit stony hearted as I am. However, what struck me so hard is the perfect cruelty of the powers that be who have set out to hurt these people under the pretext of an ecclesiology they claim to have gleaned from Vatican II. In fact, even if there were anything to the claim that there are ecclesiologies at variance with each other, that wouldn’t justify the wretched treatment of the people who desire the Vetus Ordo and what goes with it.
There is no justification for the way traditional Catholics, even those who can admittedly be hard to deal with, are being treated.
The video show so many of the faithful of various nations and ages coming together for the pilgrimage, precisely when there are those who would suppress them, drive them from churches or guilt them into a morally injurious acquiescence to abuse… it’s wrenching.
And it’s all for nothing. And it’s all for everything.
It’s for nothing, because their efforts to suppress Tradition are bound to fail.
It’s for everything, because what they are trying to suppress is the faith of our forebears.
Change the way people pray and you change what they believe and how they live. That’s plenty evidence in 2022.
It’s not going to work.
Meanwhile, if you are one of those backwardizing home-altar building restorationists, keep yourself clean and clear. GO TO CONFESSION!
Loading ...
The Chartes Pilgrimage, a superb example of authentic Catholic “walking together”! I actually thought of this pilgrimage as I was reflecting on that Synod of Synodality video from yesterday, which is another “ape of the Church” moment. Thanks for sharing this!
I would love to go on this holy pilgrimage!
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Having attended diocesan TLM in France a couple months ago, and witnessed within my own eyes a young, superb congregation in a packed historical old church, it boggles my mind to consider that this vibrant subculture is under direct attack from the Vatican. Filled with young families and young adults, the parish should be a (sane) hierarchy’s dream come true. But, no, anything but trads. They see a packed TLM with well-dressed, respectable young people and families, and they’re horrified. They see a nearly empty Novus Ordo Missae with an elderly congregation and some nice LGBT couples, and they swoon. Up is down. Black is white. Kyrie eleison.
The organization Notre-Dame de Chrétienté also recently created an outstanding video on this year’s walk.
As a two-time veteran (1996 & ‘98), I’d say that their 9 min. video, at bit.ly/3SKKiru (or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jTkmxlw_Gk) is far and away the best I’ve ever seen for capturing the experience of the Paris-to-Chartres video. Particularly for the fact that it’s all in French, which for a non-French-speaker is the big challenge of making this pilgrimage.
I’m happy to see that it hasn’t changed much in the 24 years since I last went. Go if you can.
Pingback: SVNDAY EDITION – Big Pulpit