Today, sunrise was at 0630 and sunset will be at 1952. The Ave Maria is at 2000.
It is Friday in the Octave of Easter, which according to the Novus Ordo calendar is held as a Solemnity. Hence, there is today no obligation for Friday penance.
The Roman Station is at Santa Maria ad Martyres in the Campo Marzio. It’s other name is The Pantheon. There is a great account of when St. Pope Boniface IV exorcized this ancient temple to pagan gods (aka demons) on 13 May 609.
That date, 609, got me thinking. St. Pope Gregory the Great died in 604. I looked up Boniface and, sur’nuf, he was one of Gregory’s deacons, mentored by Gregory. You can imagine the sort of men that Gregory surrounded himself with in those difficult and dangerous times. Gregory himself was highly educated and devout, with a strong incl
ination to asceticism. In his governance he was quite practical, though he had that powerful evangelical spirit that comes from love of the Faith. After all, when you love something you want to share it with others, right? Surely this is one of the reasons for immense care he lavished on the sacred worship of the Roman Church, which careful alterations are still with us in the Traditional Latin Mass and, to a lesser extent, in the Novus Ordo. Gregory chose as his collaborators men like Boniface, who would stand in the doorway of the Pantheon and exorcize raging demons. I wonder what Gregory would think of those in certain key positions today.
On another note, for nibbles last night I had some little peppers stuffed with tuna and some marinated anchovies.
Some chicken was roasted with the remains of my enormous caprese tomato. Note the the traces of feathers.
Today dawned, dreary and cold. On the horizon to the south and the Castelli are indications of a later sunny day. When the forecast intermittent rains settle down, I’ll run errands. Walking around in Rome in the rain is a miserable exercise.
I found a good video on Youtube, one of the best I’ve seen that explains the lay out of the city and who made it happen.
Speaking of beauty, the Grand Masters who commented on yesterday’s game 4 between Ding Liren and Ian Nepomniachtchi. Ding emerged victorious after a terrible blunder by Nepo. After that blunder and during the mopping up, the commentators opined about Nepo’s future performance in light of how he collapsed when facing Magnus last time.
One of the most interesting bit in the coverage of Game 4 was a rather philosophical discussion about chess and beauty. Anish Giri opened the topic and they went back and forth with it in quite a thoughtful way. I’d be very interested in your thoughts about what they came up with. In the video, below, I have set the starting point to just before their conversion, about 3:02:10.
Meanwhile,… white to move. Tricky position for white. Use your first principles.
NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
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Meanwhile… I just received a copy of Fr. Claude Barthe’s book, now in English, A Forest of Symbols: The Traditional Mass and Its Meaning
Fr. Barthe was ordained by Archbp. Lefevbre in 1979 and is incardinated in the Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon.
This is published by the wonderful Angelico Press.
Here is an excerpt. I really like approaches like this. Many of the things we do at Mass developed from ancient uses and then took on spiritual meanings, depending on the loving meditation of the commentator. Some of the spiritualized interpretations differ, and that’s okay. There is no reason to force any of them. Here is Fr. Barthe on the incensation of the offertory gifts. I went right to this section, because I’ve been looking for some time now for an explanation of the way the priest makes the circular incensations, echoed in, for example, the rite of consecration of a church.
The priest then traces three circles with the smoking censer around the offerings consisting of the bread and the chalice, while saying, Et descendat super nos misericordia tua . . . (and may thy mercy come down upon us) in order to show that this host and this sacrifice are surrounded by the merits of Jesus Christ. This good savor of the merits and prayers of Christ, which fills the entire house (Jn 12:3), also recalls the gesture of Mary Magdalen. We will therefore note that this triple censing recalls the three occasions when she anointed Christ (or, in the case of the last, the anointing prepared for the tomb and which she wished to carry out on Easter morning, the occasion when she wanted to anoint Christ, since the intention is as good as the action): the first being when she anointed Jesus’s feet in the house of Simon the Pharisee (Lk 7:36–38); the second being when she spread perfume on his hair (Mt 26:6–7) and his feet (Jn 12:3) in the house of Simon the leper; and the third being when she bought aromatic spices to go and anoint Jesus when he had been laid in the tomb (Mk 16:1). The spread of the incense, like that of the perfume spread by Mary Magdalen’s vase, signifies that this action, which heralds the meritorious death of Christ, shines out over all the church: “Amen I say to you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, that also which she hath done, shall be told for a memory of her” (Mt 26:13).
Beautiful.
This pattern of incensation was destroyed for the Novus Ordo by the “experts” of the Concilium who were tasked with a reform that was supposed to make no changes that were a) not organic developments from existing forms and b) truly for the good of the people.
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Thank you for presenting this book. I’m aware of the richness of the TLM and have learned about some of indulgences it offers, but only some. This looks like a great source to deepen my understanding.
Thank you, Father, for sharing that excerpt from Fr. Barthe’s book. I have been wondering about the same, the incensing of the gifts and the meaning of tracing three circles. So very beautiful. Thank you.