As you may remember “Rome”, in their micromangerial zeal for the faithful being mauled by their pastoral care, forbade that Mass times for TLMs be put in parish bulletins. Some priests started calling their TLM the “Youth Mass”, for obvious reasons.
Really, folks, it’s not going away. It is going to grow and grow.
Meanwhile, this was posted by in a comment, but it deserves its own post.
They can’t win.
I was requested by a reader to repost something I wrote back in the relatively happier times of 2017. Upon re-reading it, I think it stands still, adjustments having been made for the cruelty of Traditionis custodes.
Published on: Jun 4, 2017
Today during Mass I was struck hard with something, which reinforced an observation I read recently in an email. In effect, the priestly writer said that priests, who are under constant and insidious attacks by the Devil, are therefore also constantly at risk of losing their faith in the Eucharist.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone, by the way, that priests sometimes struggle with belief. Think of the priest who, having doubts about the Eucharist while on his way to Rome, had a Host at his Mass bleed upon corporal, thus leading to the establishment of the Feast of Corpus Christi. Moreover, John Paul II wrote in Ecclesia de Eucharistia that priests are at risk of losing their focus because of the onslaught of the things of this world.
We all must contend with the three great foes: the world, the flesh and the Devil.
Back to my priestly writer. Given the trials and risks, the sight of the faithful kneeling at the altar rail to receive with such reverence, reminds us that what we do, what they are doing, is of the greatest importance. The reverence of the people in that humble and reverent way of receiving can be extremely helpful for priests.
Do you, dear lay readers, think about that at all? If how the priest celebrates Mass, his ars celebrandi, has an effect on you, doesn’t it make sense that your comportment and actions, your ars participandi will have an effect on the priest?
More and more I weigh the importance of the gift of Summorum Pontificum to the whole Church.
Learning to say Holy Mass according to the older, traditional Roman Rite has a huge effect on priests who didn’t know it before. Moreover, learning how to participate at the Traditional Mass, the Extraordinary Form – and, yes, people have to learn how to participate – is also going to have its own knock-on effect, most immediately on the priest celebrant.
Think about this. A seminarian, a deacon, who has been going to Mass with the Novus Ordo Missal for a goodly amount of time needs about 10 minutes to learn how to say Mass in the Novus Ordo.
However, even if a man has served at the older, traditional Mass for quite a while, he has to study and work on what to do as a priest celebrant.
Why would it not be the same for lay participation?
It takes work and time and effort.
On that note, I saw a post at Liturgy Guy about a priest, a convert (former Methodist), who learned how to say the TLM. He wrote:
“After 9 years of offering the Latin Mass, I can say that it’s made me a better priest. I’ve loved being steeped in its tradition and being formed by its rubrics and prayers. Most importantly, offering the Latin Mass has improved the way I offer the Novus Ordo Mass. The discipline that the Latin Mass requires in offering it has certainly carried over into the way I offer the Novus Ordo Mass. I’ve certainly experienced the mutual enrichment that Pope Benedict XVI hoped would happen when the Latin Mass and Novus Ordo are offered side by side, and I believe our parish has, too. I definitely have a renewed and greater appreciation for the awesome dignity of the Mass.”
This is from Fr. Timothy Reid. I’ve written about him before. HERE Also, he was recently on Marcus Grodi’s show, The Journey Home. In a few ways he had some remarkably similar experiences in his conversion to Catholicism that I had. But I digress.
It is hardly a leap to imagine that that experience, that transformation, would not have its own effect on the people of his parish. However, it was a group of people who approached Fr. Reid and asked for the older Mass. There is an interplay of roles.
Imagine the impact that you, dear readers, can have. I, for example, as a priest am profoundly moved by people who devoutly practice their faith. I am blown away by good confessions. I am stirred and edified when distributing Communion to people whom I know are really striving. Imagine, what it is like for a priest to give Communion to saintly people. Try to fathom the knock on effect that that must have, you on him, him on you.
In Washington DC, on Saturday, 17 September 2022, the faithful will mark the 15th anniversary of Summorum Pontificum, the motu proprio of Pope Benedict XVI, which went into effect on 14 September 2007, liberating the Traditional Latin Mass for all Catholics.
In response to the cruel and unjust restrictions being placed on the celebration of the usus antiquior in the Archdiocese of Washington and the Diocese of Arlington, as well as in many other places throughout the world, faithful Catholics will go on pilgrimage in a public act of sorrow for the destruction of the Western liturgical patrimony, and in support of its full and immediate restoration.
Arlington’s restrictions go into effect on 8 September, and Washington’s on 21 September.
Here is a link to the necessary information, time, gathering sites, etc. HERE
Legendary left-wing radical Walter Cronkite – redeemed a little by being a ham radio operator – gave us this in 1960. I couldn’t not post it:
1960 on what the year 2000 would be like pic.twitter.com/HaM72kYqCx
— Historic Vids (@historyinmemes) September 15, 2022
This Sunday’s Collect for Holy Mass in the Traditional Roman Rite survived the long knives of the Consilium to live on the in the Novus Ordo editions of the Missale Romanum on Monday of the 3rd Week of Lent. Figure that one out. We find it in the 8th century Gelasian Sacramentary for a Sunday, with a minor spelling variation. Hence, it is ancient. There are reasons to think that the prayer is even more ancient. But here is the text:
COLLECT (1962MR):
Ecclesiam tuam, Domine, miseratio continuata mundet et muniat: et quia sine te non potest salva consistere; tuo semper munere gubernetur.
We must not pass over the sound of this prayer.
The Roman, Latin prayers, particularly those which were handed down intact from earlier centuries, such as the time of St. Pope Leo the Great (+461), are elegantly sculpted both in their rhythm and their sounds. Notice the wonderful alliteration throughout. Tying the whole thing together from top to bottom are the glottal sounds (made in the back of the throat with the tongue), on the voiced or unvoiced “k” sound of Ecclesiam… continuata…quia…consistere…gubernetur. Then we have an interlocking series of alliterations. There are many humming “m” and “n” sounds: Ecclesiam tuam, Domine, miseratio continuata múndet et múniat…. Keep in mind that in ancient times, the final “m” was pronounced in a very nasal way, which survives in many instances in French and Portuguese. So, this pray begins with a deep hum. Then you shift to sibilants, the hissing “s”, with snappy “t”s along the way: et quia sine te non potest sálva consístere; tuo semper…. Then we go back to our humming “m” and “n”, but with a lovely rhythmical closure or clausula: semper múnere gúbernétúr.
Speak or sing this to get at the real beauty of this gem, with its glittering facets of phonemes.
And now vocabulary.
Gubnero was a favorite word of the great ancient Roman orator Cicero. That feast of Latin lemmata, our thick and juicy Lewis & Short Dictionary, says guberno is “to steer or pilot a ship”. Logically, it also means “to direct, manage, conduct, govern, guide”. The Liddell, Scott, Jones Greek Lexicon, or LSJ, says that kubernao is “steer”, “drive” and metaphorically “guide, govern” and then “act as a pilot, i.e., perform certain rites in the Ship of Isis”.
I can’t quite imagine – don’t want to imagine – what those “rites of Isis” are. I suspect they are used now by certain Jesuits.
The super-charged word munus is a little hard to get at in English is this Collect. A munus can be “a service, office, post, employment, function, duty”. Should we avoid reducing God to a functionary? It is true that God is often said in our prayers to have pietas, which carries a strong sense of “duty”, but in Latin prayers pietas, when applied to God, is really more like “mercy”. For man the term pietas is “duty”. In this instance of munere, we ought to lean toward another, less common meaning in the L&S, namely, “a service, favor”. In fact the liturgical Latin dictionary we call Blaise/Dumas has, “don, faveur (de Dieu)”. There is a connection between munus as “duty, service” and as “gift”, in that munus stood also for a public work given to the city by an individual. For example, a great Roman might put on public games and feasts for the people, or erect a temple or public building as a munus given from civic duty as well as to increase his and his family’s gloria, that is, his share in the honor of the state.
Let’s leave aside the debate about the meaning of munus in Benedict XVI’s odd resignation speech.
The verb consisto is “to stand still, stand, halt, stop, make a stop” but also many other sorts of “taking a stand”, such as what soldiers do when about to fight, or what you do in court to defend your position. There is a “moral” stand one takes, as well as “stand with” someone. However, both in the L&S and Blaise/Dumas we see that consisto can simply mean “to be, exist”. In fact, this notion of “standing” (sisto) is also the root for existo. It is as if, in the case of the later, that as things come into being, they “stand forth” (ex-sisto) from nothingness.
It seems to me that our author was also having a good time with the similar sounds of mundet, muniat, and munere, all very different but with phonic hooks that pull them conceptually together.
This week allow me also to play around with some alliteration in rendering our prayer, still sticking to a slavish version of the Latin lines. I will also try to capture something of the nautical imagery.
LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Let Your continuous compassion, cleanse and defend Your Church, O Lord, and because without You she cannot stand to, safe, may she forever by Your favor be steered.
In nautical parlance, to “stand to” means to “stay on a certain course”. This is how I try to unpack the meaning of consisto, which aims at the concept of “consistency” and “staying” firm. Because in this world the Church is on a journey, as a pilgrim, I didn’t want simply to say “stand firm”. But gubernator, as the master of the ship’s course, who “governs” where the ship goes, helped me think of “stand to”. Also, I could have said “safely”, but salva is an adjective, not an adverb, and I am feeling a bit more archaic than usual as I write today.
CURRENT ICEL VERSION (2011 – during Lent):
May your unfailing compassion, O Lord, cleanse and protect your Church, and, since without you she cannot stand secure, may she be always governed by your grace.
They didn’t go for the nautical image. Too bad. It is impoverished as a result.
One of the meanings of munio, which gives us the muniat in the prayer (“to build a wall around, to defend with a wall, to fortify, defend; to guard, secure, strengthen, support”, for munio stems from moenia “walls”) is also “to open a road”, viam munire.
Maybe we can get our heads into this prayer by thinking of the Church, often portrayed as a ship, as in Peter’s Barque or the sailing ship in the vision of St. John Bosco, as that fortified way through the heaving waters of the world, with its distractions both sensual and diabolical, that threaten to blow us off our course.
As they sail in dangerous waters, ships need a well-prepared steersman to govern her through the shoals and currents, to avoid the reefs and rocks hidden beneath the waves.
There are times when we have a following wind, that favors smooth and direct sailing. At other times, we must tack back and forth to make slow headway, or even run before the wind, when the sea and the storms rise in frightful force against us.
In all these conditions, the captain and navigator and steersman seek the best course for the good of the whole ship and all who sail in her, according to the charts available, personal experience, the smell of the wind, the look of the sea, and the map of the sun, moon and stars.
In many ways these images of the ship at sea exemplify the experience of the Church. Our Popes, bishops and pastors seek the best course as they know how, seeking to guide the barque in perilous waters and times. Well… most of them them try to do that.
In human terms we do our best to steer our course and we can make mistakes. But in divine terms we know that no matter how terrifying are the winds and seas which buffet us and threaten to bear away our spars and sails, Christ’s sure hand rests on the wheel.
We can take a couple things from this.
It might feel sometimes that the Church heading for this…
Instead of this…
Firstly, nothing contrary will prevent Holy Church from finding safe harbor in Him. We will come home to a safe landfall. Eventually, though storms and becalmings, we will make it.
Also, when we personally get off course, we can find our way back… in the confessional. GO TO CONFESSION.
The ramifications for a priest of being canceled are manifold. Depending on their past (whether they are late vocations and have a pension) or their families (perhaps well-to-do), life can be really complicated.
“Canceled” usually means not just emotional turmoil and enduring moral injury but also financial devastation.
There is a Coalition for Canceled Priests now, which is a good initiative. They too, as I have tried to do with Gregorian Masses, help to arrange Mass stipends to help men get by. Give them some consideration.
Here is a concrete instance of a canceled priest and a concrete way of support.
Fr. James Mawdsley was ordained in 2016 for the FSSP. He was subsequently suspended because he refused to go along with COVID restrictions about Communion on the tongue and face diapers and because on account of Traditionis custodes which complicated reassignment. He is a man of very firm will. For example, he once spent 17 months in solitary confinement in Burma as a prisoner of conscience.
Fr. Mawdsley has some books. You can give him some support by getting his books and perhaps also giving them to others. HERE For example, for the Kindle edition (there are also paperback and hardback)
Adam’s Deep Sleep: The Passion of Jesus Christ Prefigured in the Old Testament
Here is a video in which he explains his situation. Biretta tip to Ann. o{]:¬)
I had some bad news today. I had a service come to check my house’s AC system. It is original to the house and it is on its last legs. I paid for some immediate attention to keep it going, but I am going to have to replace it. I’m going to need help, because I have to deal with the roof and some other things. Pardon me in advance for another fundraiser in the near future. Being canceled is not fun.
Speaking of houses… Real Estate for Life can get you in touch with an agent who will contribute a portion of the fees to a pro-life cause.
Meanwhile…
Thank to TonyB and Adam who chimed in yesterday. I have posted a response THERE.
But here, BLACK to move and start a chain of moves. Things are looking bad for black, material wise. Hence, black better force moves with the right checks, not just any checks. The first one isn’t so hard to find, but after that, don’t put your foot wrong for mate in 4.
UPDATE:
I just sat down for a lunch. Really. I sat down instead of standing by the kitchen sink with a sandwich. Instead, I made a Friday appropriate tuna melt. I also broke stride and, for the first time in a long time turned on the TV for live news and, for the first time in many moons, FNC. I saw something interesting.
I entered in the middle of live coverage of a White House presser, in which the spox, a woman named hyphened something or other French looking was aggressively dodging a question from the Fox correspondent about how Florida shipped illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard. The spox used chess imagery: how dare those republicans used children as pawns.
Cutting away from the presser, they went to coverage of the story of shipping illegals to Martha’s Vineyard, where there was video of a Massachusetts state senatrix talking about how Gov. Santis used children as pawns.
Coincidence? I think not. It was perfect example of distribution of and coordination of talking points.
I also saw something about the inflation rate. Believe me. We know about it. I sure do.
And… the tuna melt (mayo, celery, onion, a couple dashes of hot sauce and Genova Tuna in Olive Oil, on toasted rye with havarti).
UPDATE:
Reading from a script…again. https://t.co/EC5b9Z0ztO
— A Milwaukee Catholic (@CCityCatholic) September 16, 2022
Francis went to Astana (Nur-Sultan), Kazakhstan to participate in the VII Congress Of the Leaders Of World And Traditional Religions.
That Congress issued a final declaration, surely prepared ahead of time and distributed to the signatories ahead of time.
This declaration is reproduced in The Astana Times.
After a string of whereas-es, there is a string of declarations…
We, the participants of the VII Congress – spiritual leaders of world and traditional religions, politicians, heads of international organizations,…
[whereas-es]
…
10. We note that pluralism in terms of differences in skin color, gender, race, language and culture are expressions of the wisdom of God in creation. Religious diversity is permitted by God and, therefore, any coercion to a particular religion and religious doctrine is unacceptable.
Francis signed this. I don’t think he should have signed any such thing, but they didn’t ask me.
NB: Permitted by God and not willed by God.
It may be that some people will not read this carefully. While I don’t like the wording as it is, at least he didn’t sign something that said that God willed diversity of religions. Diversity is permitted by God.
THE PROBLEM HERE IS…. differences of “gender” (aka “sex”), are not just permitted by God, they are WILLED by God. To have the same verb in one sentence applied to “gender” and also “religion” is a problem. “Permitted” does NOT mean the same thing in the cases of “sex” and “religion”!
Diversity in religion is permitted in the sense that it is tolerated by God. A diversity of religions is an evil, so God cannot have willed it.
Diversity of sex is permitted in the sense that it is actively willed by God. A diversity of sex is a positive good, and God wills it to be so.
In 2019 Francis had in the UAE accepted a statement that diversity of religions was willed by God, but he backtracked and explained that it was God’s permissive will that there are various religions, not God’s active will. As a matter of fact, Bp. Athanasius Schneider obtained a clarification from him. HERE
Bp. Athanasius Schneider is not only an alumnus of my school in Rome, the Augustinianum, he is also Auxiliary Bishop of Maria Santissima in Astana, Kazakhstan.
Coincidence?
Meanwhile, Francis did say all sorts of goofy things during his time in Astana. He has an earworm these days – perhaps in the person of a Wormtongue – and has to wedge it into everything. Get this in an address to clergy and religious. Talking about “memory and future”…
Yet we need to be attentive. It is not about looking back with nostalgia, getting stuck in the past and letting ourselves be paralyzed and immobile. When we do that, we are tempted to take a step backwards. [Can’t even keep it in house.] … If we look more closely at this inheritance, what do we see? That the faith was not passed down from generation to generation as a set of ideas to be understood and followed, as a fixed and timeless code. No, our faith was passed on through life, though witnesses who shed the light of the Gospel on different situations in order to illumine and purify them, and to spread the consoling warmth of Jesus, the joy of his saving love and the hope of his promise. By remembering, then, we learn that faith grows through witness. Everything else comes later. This is a call that is addressed to everyone. I want to repeat this: to everyone, to the lay faithful, bishops, priests, deacons, and the consecrated men and women working in various ways in the pastoral life of our communities. May we never grow weary of bearing witness to the very heart of salvation, to the newness of Jesus, to the newness that is Jesus! Faith is not a lovely exhibition of artefacts from a distant past or a museum, but an ever-present event, an encounter with Christ that takes place in the here and now of our lives. So we cannot pass it on by simply repeating the same old things, but by communicating the newness of the Gospel. In this way, faith remains alive and has a future. As I like to say, faith is transmitted through the “mother tongue”.
Through the “mother tongue”. However, when you translate something from, for example, Latin that has been handed down for some 1500 years into a modern “mother tongue” you change the meaning by translating it. Change the meaning and it isn’t the same. Without a stable point of reference, you fly off into a whole new vector that doesn’t point at your destination.
This is redolent of Card. Kasper’s approach that permits one to say that, back in His time, Jesus was right about divorce, or in another age, the Church was right about just war theory or the death penalty, but times change and, while neither Jesus nor the Church are wrong, exactly, they aren’t right – now. We have, therefore, to reinterpret what Jesus and Church said about everything in light of present lived experience. It may look like they are asking us to accept that up is really down, black is really white, or 2+2=5, but that’s just a sign that you aren’t nuanced enough to get the deeper meaning. They will explain it to us over time. And if lots of confused people drop out? Well, you have to break eggs to make an omlete.
At the conclusion of the aforementioned Congress Francis said:
Brothers and sisters, in thinking of this shared path, I asked myself: What is our point of convergence? Pope John Paul II, who visited Kazakhstan twenty-one years ago this very month, stated that “for the Church all ways lead to man” and that man is “the way for the Church” (Redemptor Hominis, 14). I would like to say that today man is also the way for all the religions. Yes, man, men and women, concrete human beings, weakened by the pandemic, worn out by war, wounded by indifference! Human beings, frail and marvelous creatures, who, “once God is forgotten, are left in darkness” (SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 36) and apart from others cannot survive! The good of humanity should be taken into consideration ahead of strategic and economic objectives, national, energy and military interests, and in advance of crucial decisions.
This is a little eerie.
Consider inculturation, which is permanent, unavoidable and indeed desirable in the Church. There is an ongoing. simultaneous exertion of influence of the world on the Church and – according to Christ’s will and command – the Church on the world. It must be so. When what the Church has to give to the world has logical priority, human welfare and different cultures flourish. However, when the logical priority is given to the world in this mutual exchange, disaster results. This is what we see going on today.
How to reverse this? A recovery of Catholic identity is necessary. If we don’t know who we are, we can’t explain who we are or give reasons for why others should even listen to us, much less join us. Hence, the Church’s role in the public square is massively eroded. Just witness the feckless irrelevance of the USCCB in public life in these USA, or bishops in their dioceses, or once-Catholic universities, etc.
The recovery of Catholic identity must start and continue with a renewal of our sacred liturgical worship… and all three of those terms have their import.
We are our rites.
Another jackass priest, in Ireland, Fr. Roy Donovan, of Limerick, committed an act of sacrilege, during the consecration in a Mass. He is part of the Ass. of Catholic Priests in Ireland. Hence, he’s a crackpot.
What did he do this time? During Mass, he raised the chalice for the consecration and, as we hear in a recording provided by a video at the site Catholic Arena, he went to the zoo.
Background. The “Liam McCarthy Cup” is the trophy awarded annually to the winners of the Irish hurling championship.
The one who posted this, provided the audio and then rants for a while, clearly upset.
In another video, the jackass Donovan addresses a probably small, elderly “We Are Church” group.
He compares the Church to the Taliban.
In the video above, at the consecration, the jackass Donovan says… it’s a little hard to hear and he has a typical oatmeal mouth, so he slurs and elides:
“At the end Jesus took the cup filled with wine, again he gave thanks, and (unintelligible) lifted wine lifting the Liam McCarthy Cup high, the cup of victory, Jesus once said to us, this is the cup of my blood, the cup of victory over evil, victory over death, victory over all that defeats us(?) as humans, it will be poured out for our liberation(?) / renovation(?), through this memory of me.”
I think I got that right. Correct me if you have a better ear.
But remember… the TLM is NOT, apparently, the unique expression of the Roman Rite.
Today, the day after the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, is the Feast of Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary. There is an analogous commemoration on Friday after 1st Passion Sunday.
Some time ago, I wrote a series of reflections on the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin. I invite you to have a look.
Here are links to the individual posts
1st Sorrow – The Prophecy of Simeon
2nd Sorrow – The Flight into Egypt
3rd Sorrow – The loss of the Child Jesus in Jerusalem
4th Sorrow – Mary meets Jesus on the way to Calvary
5th Sorrow – The Crucifixion of Jesus
6th Sorrow – The Piercing of the Side of Jesus, and His Deposition
7th Sorrow – The Burial of Jesus
At the famous Basilica in Rome, Santo Stefano Rotondo we find this well-known image:
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
A Daily Prayer for Priests
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