Category Archives: WDTPRS

EXCERPT:By the English word “continuum” the seasoned Catholics understand “an uninterrupted whole or a series of things without a break”. Those of us who are of the Star Trek generation know that “continuum” refers to a time/space phenomenon which, though incredibly rare, figures in episodes about every other week. An imbalance in the time/space continuum will usually destroy the whole galaxy, which would be very bad. To prevent this bad thing the Captain and crew must “reverse the polarity” of a gizmo with a long name, often the big dish on the front of the ship. They have only five seconds left before the ship explodes and everyone everywhere dies. The unflinching Captain tells someone sporting a forehead with ridges or bluish skin to do an amazingly risky thing, which the first officer must passionately question. The risk works miraculously, probably because there are more episodes left in the season, and the time/space continuum is restored to its proper order. Everyone throughout the galaxy are until the next week. Now, you would think that after saving the galaxy, the galaxy saviors would get more recognition from saved. They should all be offered their own luxury resort planets or, if that sounds too much like Mormon afterlife, at least some stock options or a medal or… something. Maybe a high school named after them. I don’t get it. In any event, I digress…. Read More →

EXCERPT:
Today’s Mass has various “pastoral” images. Two years ago we saw what the Collect really said for this Sunday: “Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, deduc nos ad societatem caelestium gaudiorum, ut eo perveniat humilitas gregis, quo processit fortitudo pastoris… Almighty and ever-living God, lead us unto the communion of heavenly joys, so that the humility of the flock may reach that place from whence the might of the shepherd came forth.” Clearly there is a thematic connection between the collect and final prayer today: gregis…pastoris. Notice the intertwined meanings of “flock, communion, society”. Both the Collect and Post communion seem to be from similar sources. Neither were in the 1962MR while the Super oblata was. I may be going out on a limb, but I am guessing they were put together by the same person. Read More →

EXCERPT:
The once for all time Sacrifice of the Cross transcends all time and space. God makes it possible for the very same reality to be renewed and represented to the Father through the constant and faithfully fulfilled religious offering of the Church (operatio continua), which is His own mystical person continuing in this earthly realm. This bloody Sacrifice which occurred at a single point in the continuum of both time and physical space, which took place on the Cross outside the walls of Jerusalem nearly 2000 years ago, is both completed and is still taking place on our altars in all places and at all times. By this Sacrifice, Christ reversed the course of the human race, hurtling headlong into the darkness of oblivion and the hellish separation from God that sin deserves. Now all peoples of all times and places have the opportunity of salvation, even though they have no idea of whence it comes. And yet so many of those who actually know Him will blithely go on their way without so much as a “Thank you, O Lord, for the unfathomable act of self-emptying and brutal, painful death, by which you saved us from the hell our sins merited, and by which you taught us who we really are.” Many who profess His Holy Name will come to Sunday Mass and receive the very sacrament of our salvation without discerning what it is or what they do. Some will even take the Lord and head for the door to beat the parking rush. Read More →

EXCERPT:
Here we have an image of the Christ as shepherd, proceeding forth in mighty resolve to lead the humble flock to the place of never-ending joys. This collect reminds me of the mosaics in the apses of ancient basilicas in Rome and Ravenna. These ancient works are wrought in tiny bits of colored stone and glass are assembled in to beautiful works of great spiritual significance. In a way, the Body of Christ, the Church, is rather like a mosaic: small members each playing a part to make a larger work, each stone (or tessera) serving to make the others more beautiful, each giving a purpose to the other as if they were members of a societas. Seen up close the individual stones are not much to look at. They can be flawed and unremarkable. But once that are placed together in an order by the hand of the artist, they make something stunning. In those apse mosaics Christ is sometimes depicted in glory with imperial trappings. On either side are often arranged apostles and saints as His imperial court, bracketed by images of Bethlehem or the earthly and heavenly Jerusalem in the manner of bookends. Often in these mosaics there are gathered beneath the feet of the glorious Christ are lines of sheep being lead to a safe green place, where there is flowing water symbolizing the river Jordan and therefore our baptism. Read More →

EXCERPT:
Some of you are probably thinking, “Okay, Father, you have gone too far this time in making that connection.” Have I? I admit that we must always be careful in making our connections and avoid getting too creative, going too far afield. But, since I am writing a column and not actually making the official translation I suppose I allow myself some real latitude. After all, these articles are meant to draw you in, help you to love the prayers and pray them with full, active and conscious participation. Be that as it may, our prayers and especially the prayers having ancient roots, Christian as they undoubtedly are, all spring forth from a vast heritage formed and permeated in great part by two thousand years of Latin literature and culture. In previous centuries, people made rapid connections between texts, sometimes needing only a few words to provide the hook, sometimes requiring only a single unusual or surprisingly placed word. In the pages of Scripture we hear Our Lord constantly make allusions to the psalms and Prophets and His listeners caught those allusions immediately. Oral/aural cultures were and are better at that than we are today in modern Western society. So, the use of the word adoptionis together with exsultet would be sufficient for Latin speakers to make the connection between the prayers. Read More →

EXCERPT:
For a true revival of any of these great liturgical arts to take place, the first great “art” that must be resurrected is the language of the Mass. We need far more Latin in the Latin Rite and we need truly beautiful and accurate translations. If we want new and grand forms of artistry for use in the liturgy, then we need language that reflects the reality of what the Church believes about the Mass. If we want vestments that look better than horse blankets or 1960 couch covers, buildings that don’t instantly remind you of juvenile detention centers, movie houses or bomb shelters, music that doesn’t cause you instantly to crave Campbell’s Soup or reruns of Gilligan’s Island, then the most fundamental element – the language – must change. Read More →

EXCERPT:
Another thing that might be worth mentioning is a possible connection between the theme of restored “youth” and the Psalm that the priest would say always at the beginning of Mass: Introibo ad altare Dei, ad Deum qui laetificat iuventutem meam…. “I will go unto the altar of God, of God who makes my youth joyful.” In baptism we are made members of Christ’s own mystical Person. While there is a clear qualitative distinction between the priesthood of the ordained priest and that of the baptized laity, this idea of youthful and renewed priesthood is part of our Easter joy. All of us, ordained and lay, each in our own way must in the manner of a priest offer our spiritual sacrifices to the Father, uniting them to those of Jesus our High Priest. In Him, we therefore already share that eternally youthful life that will never age. We will one day be risen and glorious, with glorified bodies that will not know age or deficiency and will reflect the beauty of the purified soul. Easter and indeed our own baptism anticipate this glory. I do not think I would have eliminated the concept of glory from the English translation. Read More →

EXCERPT:
Concerning the title of lay people who help the priest and deacons distribute, I could write reams of material. Suffice to say that the proper term is “Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion”. The bishop, priest and deacon are the only “Ministers of the Eucharist”. Lay people are never “Ministers of the Eucharist”, but they can be, in case of genuine necessity, a great help in distribution of Communion, either in church or to the homebound, and so forth. It is helpful to review what the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments wrote in its document Redemptionis Sacramentum about the participation of lay people involving the Eucharist (my emphasis):…
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EXCERPT:
In our prayer today we recognize the “renewal” that we as a Church have experienced. Like grains of wheat we fell and died during Lent. We rise now to life and bear fruit. Just as we prune flowering bushes and certain trees and they then burst into even more abundant blossoms and fruit, we too are pruned back in Lent. And not only in Lent, but constantly during the year. Each Friday is a little Lent when we are all required by law to do penance. Each Sunday is a little Easter when we rise to new life. Each week is a chance for us to bear great fruit because of the ongoing cycle of dying and rising.
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EXCERPT:
The Church is being forced into a new kind of fast through the scandals caused by wicked clergy. It is bad enough that the people of God have been cheated of their heritage for decades through a poor or even maliciously false implementation of the liturgical reforms mandated by the Second Vatican Council. It is bad enough that catechetics have been neglected or subverted. It is bad enough that seminaries were hijacked by ideologically driven dissenters. Now we are being brought as a Church to pay for the sins of bishops and priests who commit the abomination of sexual abuse of children and minors. While I loathe the way the media exaggerates the charges and inflates the numbers of men involved, I cannot help but be grateful in a reserved way. Jackals clean the land of rotting flesh, after all. They cull the sick of the herd. I think that we have at last now the chance to clean our house with a real spring cleaning. Just as Lent (which means “spring”) is our spiritual preparation through penance and mortifications and Easter is our Resurrection, so too as a Church we must now go into the desert and fast and suffer and pray. The enemy of the soul will tear at us, tempting us to vainglory, pride, desire for material comfort. Read More →