I am gearing up for a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. All Masses will be in the traditional Roman Rite.
I will take my benefactors and donors along in my intentions while I am saying Masses at the holy sites.
May I ask you all for your prayers for our travels? Ask your angel guardians also to accompany us and the Blessed Virgin to put her protective mantle on us, to protect us from all spiritual and temporal harm.
Meanwhile, busy day today with a serious “to do” list.
I almost forgot! Today, 17 February, is the anniversary of Giordano Bruno’s meeting with the stake in the Campo de’ Fiori of Rome. Anti-Catholics and masons put up a gloomy, ugly huge statue of him, the base decorated with plaques of famous heretics and Church haters.
Giordano Bruno was a seriously weird cat and a heretic. He would find himself right at Villanova or the Fishwrap (aka National Schismatic Reporter).
A few years ago, The History Blog had a longish piece about the heretic. It included a screen shot of a smart phone app which would let you burn Giordano at the stake. Here is a shot:
Okay, it’s a little grisly. But think about it. Heresy is a serious matter.
The moral of the story: don’t be a heretic!
On that note, please consider buying some well-roasted …
MYSTIC MONK COFFEE!
When your’re facing a hard day battling theological error and the miscreants who teach it, start out with a blazing hot Fr. Z swag mug of MYSTIC MONK Coffee! It’s just what you need to get fired up to face that To Do List. I like the dark roast.
The Wyoming Carmelites offer Mystic Monk TEA as well, if tea is your thing. They also have lots of gear.
MYSTIC MONK COFFEE!
It’s swell!
For your Just Too Cool file.
For the first time in centuries all 12 tapestries commission by Leo X and designed by Raphael are back in the Sistine Chapel where they belong. For a week only.
The 12 tapestries were being restored at the Vatican Museum over the last 10 years. They are being displayed together before they are again scattered. From The Times…
This is rather cool. A video on Twitter.
Wow.
Sigh.
Today I received an email with an interesting liturgical note.
I was reminded that on Tuesday after Sexagesima Sunday (in other words, as I write, tomorrow 18 Feb), there was a tradition of saying a Votive Mass of the Passion of the Lord.
There were once, various Votive Masses available focusing on the arma Christi, the instruments of the Passion (e.g., nails, crown of thorns, etc.). They were suppressed in 1961. However, this custom has continued in various places.
Moreover, Thursday after Sexagesima Sunday priests offered Holy Mass in Reparation for Insults Offered to the Most Holy Sacrament.
The Benedictines of Silverstream (recommend their wonderful Way of the Cross for Priests), created a PDF of the Mass formulary: HERE NB: When I posted that last year, one of you busy bees found various typos in the PDF (HERE). I will drop a note to the monks at Silverstream.
Was there a good point made in the sermon you heard at the Mass that fulfilled your Sunday Obligation? What was it?
There are a lot of people who don’t get many good points in the sermons they must endure.
For my part, I spoke about preparing the soil of the mind and heart to receive what God wants to sow in us in the sacred liturgy.
There were some technical problems this morning and someone made a lot of extra effort to get the video to me, alas a little less clear as usual. Maybe that’s a plus?
It can be a challenge to keep your mind on track when small children in the front pew are having a total – weekly – and multiple meltdown.
At Corriere today there is an odd story that might interest you.
Papa Francesco scrive al cardinale Müller: disgelo con i tradizionalisti
Il Papa in una lettera di 7 righe: «Caro fratello, molte grazie per il tuo libro: il tuo testo sul post-sinodo mi piace»Pope Francis writes to Card. Müller: detente with the traditionalists
The Pope in a letter of 7 lines: “Dear brother, thank you very much for your book: I like your text on the post-Synod”
The letter to the obviously side-lined former CDF Prefect was dated 12 February.
Card. Müller has a new book as of 12 February. Also, Müller gave an 1600+ word essay about the Synod (“walking together with Pachamama”) to the National Catholic Register. HERE
“Cardinal Müller: ‘Querida Amazonia’ Is a Document of Reconciliation… “The entire letter is written in a personal and attractive tone. The Successor of Peter [wants] to win all Catholics and Christians of other denominations, but also all people of good will, for a positive development of this region,” so that “all living there may experience the uplifting and unifying power of the Gospel.”
Being a German bishop, Müller has a valuable perspective on the machinations of his countryman when it comes to their instrumentalization of money and the Amazonians and every else who fell for it. He is also detested by the junta surrounding Papa Bergoglio and the New catholic Red Guards who slavishly curry favor with the junta in nearly papalatrous determination.
It looks like olive branches have been exchanged.
The writer at Corriere then devolves into typical Italian fantasies about a new rapprochement perhaps being the spark of schism: “Negli Stati Uniti, ma non solo, qualcuno aveva di nuovo evocato scenari scismatici. … In the United States, but not only, some have once again evoked schismatic scenario.”
Meanwhile, hard-core Team Bergoglio is trying to spin Francis’ door slam on the pet projects of the left. For example, the quondam ghost writer Argentinian Bp. Victor Manuel Fernandez (who penned that super-creepy book about kissing), said that, in fact, Francis didn’t really close the door definitively on a hypothetical “Amazonian Rite”.
That slam has clearly left them rattled.
Although Müller is maybe extending an olive branch, and receiving one back, he did also comment in strong opposition to aspects of the Amazon Synod. Thus, Corriere:
“Those forty or so Indians with feathers on their heads, colored faces and idols of Mother Earth, received by the Pope, did not seem to me that they came from the Amazon rainforest. I have the impression that they were brought to Italy from Brasilia, from San Paolo, and hosted in Rome in five-star hotels, paid for by the German bishops”, explains Müller. Abrasive words from which it is sensed that the ‘document of reconciliation’ is seen by the conservative Catholicism camp as partial payback, and by Francesco’s usual allies as a retreat or in any case a slowing down of the reforms. In sum, the rebuilding of the Church still seems an more of a attempt rather than a reality.
From a reader…
QUAERITUR:
Father, I had a conversation with someone who said that we were all kneeling and standing at the wrong time in the traditional Latin Mass that we have. Instead, we are supposed to be doing what priests would do when they are in choir. That doesn’t seem right to me. Besides there are directions in the booklets we used and we follow them. He said they were wrong. What’s the real story?
I’ll bet that the “booklet” is the famous… infamous?… “red booklet” used in very many places.
This’ll probably get things going!
Two things, right off the bat. I once heard about the origin of the “red booklet”, which was put out originally, I think, by the Coalition in Support of “Ecclesia Dei”. Back in the day, when resources for the traditional Mass were in short supply, this booklet was created. I was told that the rubric for the laity in the booklet were based on the memory of the priest they were working with. But he got it wrong. His memories wound up enshrined in the book and are now pretty much everywhere. At least everywhere where the “red booklet” is used, which is pretty much everywhere.
Also, there are no official rubrics for lay people at the traditional Mass. Do it this way. Do it that way. Fine.
It is interesting to note that the Novus Ordo imposes behavior on the congregation, while the Traditional Mass does not. And yet the libs who hate the TLM say that it’s rigid and demands uniformity. Ironic.
That said, perhaps is something is going to be done, there are better ways and less good ways. Iron control of people is not good. However, complete chaos is not good either.
If the “red booklet” isn’t the best source, is there a better source?
It seems to me that the principle of following what the clergy would do in choir is a good place to start. Lay people aren’t clerics, but by their baptism they nevertheless share in their own way in Christ’s priesthood. They aren’t priests in the same way as priests are priests, but Christ has shared his priesthood with them in their own mode, so that they, too, can offer pleasing sacrifices to God. Priesthood is for sacrifice. So, reflecting how the clergy compose themselves in choir is not a bad starting point.
What is a good source for how clergy stand, sit and kneel in choir? We can start in English with Alcuin Reid’s reworking of the famous Fortescue/O’Connell classic, The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described. US HERE – UK HERE Reid, who is now helping to build a monastic community in S. France, reworked the old classic in 2009 after Summorum Pontificum was issued in 2007. It isn’t cheap. But not everyone has to have it. Priests should have it! Get one for your priests. And seminarians. And bishops, too!
That said, there is a longish essay about body postures assembled by a fellow named Richard Friend. It is online and available in a PDF.
He has extreme detail about this issue, way too much for most people. However, he distills his findings into handy tables. He compares the directions in various rubric sources, including hand missals. NB: This is not for, for example, participation in Rome. In Rome you would kneel just before the consecration and perhaps even stand up afterward.
He gives variations for places where it is not customary to kneel for the whole Canon. The “red booklet” is in the right column.
And… this table follows Fortescue/O’Connell/Reid for 1962MR.
I wouldn’t get overly worked up about this. There are no official rubrics assigned by the Church for the laity at the TLM. However, there are customs based on what the clergy are to do in choir. Variations are okay, even within a congregation.
Variations, yes. However, if you are trying to stand out, to be different, I’d examine your conscience.
Demonic ritual bowl on the altar of St. Peter’s Basilica at the end of “Walking Together With Pachamama”, Oct 2019
The left has a problem in view of the Amazon Synod (“walking together”) and Francis’ document Querida.
More than a little ironic.
Caught in this bind, the libs are spinning the disconnect into a dream of opening up even greater synodality, the promise of more and more process in the future, glorious and unending process. Somehow, they envision, there won’t be any conflict between the ever processing synod and the Pope. The Pope will be subjected to the process, not the initiator.
Here’s the problem with the synodizers, those dreamers of process. They all get something wrong. If you can stomach it, read what Madame Defarge wrote at Fishwrap. If you can stand it, read what Beans wrote at Commonweal.
They are eager for greater synodal process. That’s the gold ring.
A true synodal process, however, would have to be representative.
But was this last synod representative? Hardly. Is any synod? Any and every synod is going to be stacked. John Paul did it towards the right. Francis does it towards the left. Let’s admit it. Synods are not truly representative. No synod in history every really was.
The Amazon Synod was stacked like cord-wood with the people Francis wanted. It was aimed at a certain outcome. Synodal process, for the libs, is great when you get the outcome you want. But if there is any dissenting view, the dissenters are labelled as resistance and vilified. They must be side-lined.
The mistake that the synodizers make is to juxtapose a stacked synod against the resistance to the synod. Only their sort of stacked synod is permitted a voice, because it is stacked in the direction they desire. The Resistance doesn’t have a role in their synodizing fantasy. So synods aren’t really synodal at all. They are un-synods (“not walking together”).
Synodizers say they want synodality. In reality, what they want is totalitarianism.
You might think that would be “a Pope”. Popes are totalitarians, right? Full power, jurisdiction over everything, can’t be judged by anyone?
What’s the old phrase from the American Revolution? “Which is better? To be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away or by three thousand tyrants one mile away?”
What synodizers want is for the unending process to be the totalitarian power. But that’s impossible. Someone will always be running the show.
They are wishing for something that can never exist.
“Woke Synods” and “Woke Popes”?
Best not to get stuck in the tar baby of synodality.
I leave you with the thought of St. Gregory of Nazianzus writing to Procopius in 382.
I am, if the truth be told, in such a tone of mind that I shun every assemblage of bishops, because I have never yet seen that any Synod had a good ending, or that the evils complained of were removed by them, but were rather multiplied….
As you know, the great Card. Zen is in NYC now for a great meeting and Mass. We will hear all about it. How I wish I could have been there.
That said, I just received a great photo from a friend in the NYPD. This is terrific.
Cardinal Zen with the NYPD Holy Name Society. (Of which I am proud to me an honorary member.)
In the traditional Roman calendar, last week was the first of the pre-Lenten Sundays, Septuagesima or “Seventieth” before Easter. This Sunday is called Sexagesima, “Sixtieth”. This number is more symbolic than arithmetical. For a fuller explanation, HERE.
Pre-Lent Sundays have Roman Station churches. The Roman Station is at St. Paul’s outside-the-walls.
The Fore-Lent or Pre-Lent Sundays prepare us for the discipline of Lent, which once was far stricter. Purple is worn rather than the green of the season after Epiphany and there is a Tract instead of an Alleluia.
The prayers and readings for the pre-Lent Sundays were compiled by St. Gregory the Great (+604).
In the Novus Ordo of Paul VI there is no more pre-Lent, which was a real loss. Yet another reason to be grateful for Summorum Pontificum.
This Collect was in the 8th c. Liber sacramentorum Engolismensis.
COLLECT:
Deus, qui conspicis, quia ex nulla nostra actione confidimus: concede propitius; ut, contra adversa omnia, Doctoris gentium protectione muniamur.
I don’t think this prayer in any form survived to live in the Novus Ordo. The jam-packed Lewis & Short Dictionary informs us that conspicio means “to look at attentively”. In the passive, it is “to attract attention, to be conspicuous”. Conspicio is a compound of “cum…with” and *specio. The asterisk indicates a theoretical form which has to do with perception. The useful French dictionary of liturgical Latin we call Blaise/Dumas says that conspicio refers to God’s “regard”, presumably because God “sees” all things “together”.
The last word here is from munio, which is “to build a wall around, to fortify, …protect, secure, put in a state of defense; to guard, secure, strengthen, support”.
LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O God, You who perceive that we trust in no action of our own: propitiously grant; that we may be fortified against every adverse thing by the protection of the Doctor of the Gentiles.
This ancient prayer makes explicit reference to St. Paul, the Doctor of the Gentiles.
Remember: the Roman Station today is the Major Basilica of St. Paul “outside the walls”. Few prayers of the Roman Missal display such an intimate connection with the place where the Mass was celebrated in Rome and with the readings.
In 2 Cor 11 and 12 St. Paul presents a portrait of how we must live, the battle we face as Christians, and the suffering we may be called to endure. It is an apt reading before Lent, to inspire us to consider the discipline of our Christian life.
The Gospel is the Lord’s parable about the sower of seeds. Some seeds make it but many do not. Some people hear the Word of God and it bears fruit. Many hear it and fail. It is our own disposition that makes the difference, not the seed that the Sower sows in us.
Consider the context of the prayer: Holy Mass. The Eucharist, the Host we dare to receive, is the seed Christ the High Priest sows in us. St. Paul teaches us a stern lesson about the reception of the Eucharist by the worthy and by the unworthy. We are in control of our disposition to receive what God offers. Our Lenten discipline, which these pre-Lent Sundays remind us of ahead of time, provides terrain for God’s grace. We must till and tend the terrain, take better control of that over which we can exercise control so that God can do the rest.
SECRET:
Oblatum tibi, Domine, sacrificium vivificet nos semper et muniat.
An oblatum is a thing that is “offered”. This is from offero, “to bring before; to present, offer” and in Church Latin, “to offer to God, to consecrate, dedicate; sacrifice”. An “oblation” is something sacrificed to the divinity. An “oblate” is someone consecrated to God. The sacrificium oblatum here is what has been placed on the altar for the Sacrifice: bread and wine.
LITERAL TRANSLATION:
May the sacrifice which is offered up to You, O Lord, quicken us always and secure us.
This prayer, concise as it is, has layers of meaning. First, we have the concept of “vivify… give life” which is also “restore”. This is coupled with “defend… strengthen… protect”. There is the positive, but also the dire. If we need protection, that means there is something out there which is dangerous. There is also something within us that is dangerous as well which needs to be “restored… brought to life”. The oblatum sacrificium on the altar must not only be the bread and wine, but also our own aspirations and our weaknesses.
Again, consider the context: the priest just prepared the chalice moments before. A tiny amount of water, symbolizing our humanity is joined to the wine, representing Christ’s divinity. The water is taken in and transformed in to what the wine is.
POSTCOMMUNIO:
Supplices te rogamus, omnipotens Deus, ut, quos tuis reficis sacramentis, tibi etiam placitis moribus dignanter deservire concedas.
This prayer survived and made it into the Novus Ordo as the Post communionem of the 1st Week in Ordinary Time. It is also, if I am not mistaken, used for the 2nd Sunday of Lent in the older Missal. Here is a question for you Latin students. Quaeritur – There are four instances of the ending is: How are they different/similar?
LITERAL VERSION
Humbly we beseech You, Almighty God, that You may grant that those whom You refresh with Your sacramental mysteries, may also serve You worthily in pleasing moral conduct of life.
Here we pick up on what is implied in the invocation of St. Paul at the beginning of Mass. Without a proper Christian conduct of life, there is no proper disposition for reception of the Blessed Sacrament, or admission to the Beatific Vision. Good works, which are good through the merits of Christ, along with the graces we are given in the sacraments make us worthy of eternal life.
This time of Pre-Lent, Fore-Lent, reminds us that our season of penance is coming.
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
A Daily Prayer for Priests
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