Category Archives: WDTPRS

EXCERPT:
For our sins we truly deserve damnation. God’s eternal remedy to the damnation we deserve causes us simultaneously to bend ourselves over as humble supplicants and, to raise our hands and hearts heavenward as we rejoice in our good fortune and God’s mercy. Our grateful humility prompts us to beg the Lord to continue His gracious work in us, to make us capable of venerating the gifts properly, and also to make them known to others. We wish others to share in the salvation He has so kindly made possible so that our joy may be increased.

Now put yourself in church at Holy Mass. For weeks now the sanctuary has been bare, stripped in Lenten mortification. Purple has been our visual theme. The liturgy is “dying” until it rises at Easter. Today some bright flowers bedeck the high altar, the only altar, around which the well-trained boys serve in cassock and surplice. The organ was played, sparingly, but well. Father’s sermon was solemnly amusing, spiritually insightful and comprehensively brief, but in a moving way. The echo of the Gregorian chant chased the fragrant incense tendrils aloft into the vaults. You helped to make sure the collection was generous. On the altar’s mensa glittering gold vessels now stand holding your gifts, the hosts and the wine with its water drops. The priest, all draped in rose over white linen, has turned around to face you. For your sake and that of Holy Church he calls upon you to unite your sacrifices to his. Hundreds of voices together with yours rise from the packed nave upward to God in pursuit of the chant and the incense. The priest turns back to face the liturgical East. Silence falls. He opens his hands and sings.

SUPER OBLATA (2002MR):
Remedii sempiterni munera, Domine, laetantes offerimus,
suppliciter exorantes,
ut eadem nos et fideliter venerari,
et pro salute mundi congruenter exhibere perficias. Read More →

EXCERPT:
Each of us has a state in life, a God-given vocation we are duty bound to follow. We must be devoted to that state in life, and the duties that come with it, as they are in the here and now. That “here and now” is important. We must not focus on the state we had once upon a time, or wish we had, or should have had, or might have someday: those are unreal and misleading fantasies that distract us from reality and God’s will. If we are truly devoted and devout (in the sense of the active virtue) to fulfilling the duties of our state as it truly is here and now, then God will give us every actual grace we need to fulfill our vocation. Why can we boldly depend on God to help us? If we are fulfilling the duties of our state of life, then we are also fulfilling our proper roles in His great plan, His design from before the creation of the universe. God is therefore sure to help us. And if we are devoted to our state as it truly is, then God can also guide us to a new vocation when and if that is His will for us. Faithful in what we must do here and now, we will be open to something God wants us to do later. This attachment to reality and sense of dutiful obedience through the active virtue devotio is a necessary part of religion in keeping with the biblical principle in 1 John 2:3-5:

“And by this we may be sure that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says ‘I know Him’ but disobeys His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps his word, in him truly love for God is perfected. By this we may be sure that we are in Him: he who says he bides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked.” Read More →

EXCERPT:
The Latin version identifies some important things. First and foremost in the prayer is our total reliance on God. It is He who gives us the “gifts of the eternal remedy”. Implicit in the need for a remedy, a concept entirely abandoned in the ICEL version, is the illness of sin. Our gratitude for the eternal remedy to the damnation we deserve for sins causes us at the same time to bend ourselves over as humble supplicants at the same time as we rejoice in our good fortune and the goodness of such a merciful God. Our gratitude and humility in turn prompt us to ask that same God to continue His gracious work in us an make us capable of venerating the gifts properly and also making them known (exhibere) to others, whom we also wish to share in the salvation He has so kindly made possible. Whereas in the ICEL prayer there is a petition “bring salvation to the world” in the Latin prayer we recognize that we, entirely dependent on God, are the ones who are to make that salvation know. With the reception of the gift comes a responsibility. Read More →

EXCERPT:
Some ink can be given to rose vestments. This custom is tied to the station churches in Rome. For centuries in Rome there have been celebrations of Mass during the great seasons of Lent/Easter and Advent/Christmas at “station” churches. The station Mass for Laetare Sunday is the Basilica of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem in Rome, where the relics of Cross and Passion are kept. It was the custom on Laetare for the Pope to bless roses made of gold that were then sent to Catholic kings and queens. Thus Laetare was also called Dominica de rosa…. Sunday of the Rose. Rose vestments developed naturally from this occasion. So, rose came to be used on Laetare Sunday in the Basilica of the Holy Cross when the Pope came for the station Mass. The use of rose (the technical term for the color is rosacea) spread to the rest of the City on this day. As a Roman custom it became part and parcel of the Roman Missal promulgated through the world by Pius V. The custom is, thanks be to God, coming back into vogue again. Read More →

COLLECTObservationis huius annua celebritate laetantes,quaesumus, Domine,ut, paschalibus sacramentis inhaerentes,plenis eorum effectibus gaudeamus.Today we have a nice parallel of the forms laetantes and inhaerentes and also of paschalibus sacramentis and plenis effectibus. This was in the Gelasianum Vetus on Saturday of … Read More →

EXCERPT:
All good things come from God. When we make the choice to grasp hold of those things, God makes our hands strong enough for the grasping. Together we bring to completion those things He began. So, God crowns His own works in us, so that they are simultaneously His and ours. Read More →

EXCERPT:
We are half way into Lent now. At the beginning of Lent the Church began to die to herself liturgically speaking. Elements of the liturgy, in which we can “actively participate” are taken away from us. The Church says that there is to be no instrumental music in Lent, with the exception of sustaining congregational singing. What the Church means is a little organ, not a band, to do so. Flowers and ornaments in church are curtailed. We no longer have the Gloria and Alleluia.

When 1st Passion Sunday would arrive in the older, Roman calendar, the Iudica me was stripped out of the prayers at the foot of the altar. There was no Gloria Patri at ends of antiphons. Statues and images were drapped and hidden from view. Again, the Church is dying to herself and our active participation in the sensory elements of Mass is being reduced.

At the Triduum, we are given a brief flash of glory at the Mass of the Last Supper and then the Blessed Sacrament is hidden away. The altar is stripped entirely. Bells are no longer sounded. Holy Water is removed. On Good Friday we are deprived even of Mass, though we can have Communion and on Holy Saturday we cannot even have Communion. Remember that reception of Holy Communion is the most perfect form of “active participation”. So, it is as if on that day the Church is dead, awaiting the resurrection. At the beginning of the Vigil we are even deprived of light with which to see.

This is, to my mind, what is is in the background of that quanto…tanto construction. Read More →

EXCERPT:
Day by day our Lenten observance ought to be a polishing not a torture. Sometimes people make the mistake in the spiritual life of putting themselves on the rack. The rock tumbler is a better model than the rack. Read More →

EXCERPT:
As we think about this prayer, remember that originally it was recited by the priest after Communion, rather than at the beginning of Mass. So, we are praying herewith that the graces and effects of the Communion just received would endure. Fairly soon after this prayer we receive the final blessing, wait for the last Gospel and (for a few decades at least) the Leonine prayers after Mass. Then after a quiet moment of thanksgiving out of church we would go to our work, whatever that might be. Read More →

EXCERPT:
“Lord, your Church often seems like a boat about to sink, a boat taking in water on every side. In your field we see more weeds than wheat. The soiled garments and face of your Church throw us into confusion. Yet it is we ourselves who have soiled them! It is we who betray you time and time again, after all our lofty words and grand gestures. Have mercy on your Church; within her too, Adam continues to fall. When we fall, we drag you down to earth, and Satan laughs, for he hopes that you will not be able to rise from that fall; he hopes that being dragged down in the fall of your Church, you will remain prostrate and overpowered. But you will rise again. You stood up, you arose and you can also raise us up. Save and sanctify your Church. Save and sanctify us all.” Read More →