An image…
Despite the horrid weather, and despite the Packers playing Atlanta on Monday Night Football (the Packers won), we still had quite a good attendance.
These happy people were able to fulfill their Mass Obligation with a Pontifical Mass at the Throne.
From a reader…
QUAERITUR:
Father, is it appropriate to replace the penitential rite with the lighting of the advent wreath?
No.
Just… no.
The longer explanation is, course, Nooooooooo.
I think there is a blessing for a wreath that can be used during Mass in the Ordinary Form on the 1st Sunday of Advent only, and only in countries where it has been approved. That doesn’t apply to other Sundays of Advent. Also, in no way does it substitute for the penitential rite of Mass. You bless the thing, light the candles, Mass goes on as it should according to the book.
This sounds like the triumph of low information sentimentality over good Catholic common sense.
Tonight in Madison, the Extraordinary Ordinary, His Excellency Most Reverend Robert C. Morlino, Bishop of the same Madison, will celebrated a Pontifical Mass at the Throne in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. The Mass will begin at 7 PM at the Chapel of the Bishop O’Connor Center. (BTW… there is no Cathedral in Madison at the moment, for, sadly, it burned down some time ago).
Tonight His Excellency will use a new set of pontifical vestments I recently obtained. HERE
His Excellency will have to put on an array of vestments, each of which have their particular significance and prayers. The bishop, before saying Mass, symbolically puts on the full armor of God.
For example, when the Bishop puts on his gloves, he says:
Circumda, Domine, manus meas munditia novi hominis, qui de caelo descendit; ut, quemadmodum Jacob dilectus tuus pelliculis hoedorum opertis manibus, paternam benedictionem, oblato patri cibo potuque gratissimo, impetravit; sic et oblata per manus nostras salutaris hostia, gratiae tuae benedictionem mereatur. Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium tuum, qui in similitudinem carnis peccati pro nobis obtulit semetipsum.
Place upon my hands, Lord, the cleanliness of the new man, that came down from heaven; that, just as Jacob Thy beloved, covering his hands with the skins of goats, and offering to his father most pleasing food and drink, obtained his father’s blessing, so also may the saving victim offered by our hands, merit the blessing of Thy grace. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who in the likeness of sinful flesh offered Himself for us.
The biblical references are Genesis 27 and Romans 8.
He has prayers for his cross and the shoes he wears, etc., all beautiful and packed with meaning.
However, in these modern times, we have a new vestment that bishops, and priests for that matter, put on: the wireless microphone.
I can’t stand these things, by the way. But I digress.
We came up with a prayer for the Vesting of the Microphone:
Concede, Domine, virtutem labiis meis et prudentiam ad Tuam proclamandam veritatem, ut per indigni servi Tui vocem, vox Tui tonitrui in rota contremat terram.
I will let you, dear readers, render this into your own perfect, yet smooth, English version. Extra credit for identifying the allusion.
BTW… the prayer in its original version, composed by another, was offered first to His Excellency Archbishop Sample of Portland. I tweaked it for style and a couple points of syntax.
Finally… His Excellency Bp. Morlino hasn’t used the mic for the last several Pontifical Masses and I have no reason to think he will this time.
The Blessed Virgin compared to the Air we Breathe
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Wild air, world-mothering air,
Nestling me everywhere,
That each eyelash or hair
Girdles; goes home betwixt
The fleeciest, frailest-flixed
Snowflake; that ’s fairly mixed
With, riddles, and is rife
In every least thing’s life;
This needful, never spent,
And nursing element;
My more than meat and drink,
My meal at every wink;
This air, which, by life’s law,
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise,
Minds me in many ways
Of her who not only
Gave God’s infinity
Dwindled to infancy
Welcome in womb and breast,
Birth, milk, and all the rest
But mothers each new grace
That does now reach our race—
Mary Immaculate,
Merely a woman, yet
Whose presence, power is
Great as no goddess’s
Was deemèd, dreamèd; who
This one work has to do—
Let all God’s glory through,
God’s glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so.
I say that we are wound
With mercy round and round
As if with air: the same
Is Mary, more by name.
She, wild web, wondrous robe,
Mantles the guilty globe,
Since God has let dispense
Her prayers his providence:
Nay, more than almoner,
The sweet alms’ self is her
And men are meant to share
Her life as life does air.
If I have understood,
She holds high motherhood
Towards all our ghostly good
And plays in grace her part
About man’s beating heart,
Laying, like air’s fine flood,
The deathdance in his blood;
Yet no part but what will
Be Christ our Saviour still.
Of her flesh he took flesh:
He does take fresh and fresh,
Though much the mystery how,
Not flesh but spirit now
And makes, O marvellous!
New Nazareths in us,
Where she shall yet conceive
Him, morning, noon, and eve;
New Bethlems, and he born
There, evening, noon, and morn—
Bethlem or Nazareth,
Men here may draw like breath
More Christ and baffle death;
Who, born so, comes to be
New self and nobler me
In each one and each one
More makes, when all is done,
Both God’s and Mary’s Son.
Again, look overhead
How air is azurèd;
O how! nay do but stand
Where you can lift your hand
Skywards: rich, rich it laps
Round the four fingergaps.
Yet such a sapphire-shot,
Charged, steepèd sky will not
Stain light. Yea, mark you this:
It does no prejudice.
The glass-blue days are those
When every colour glows,
Each shape and shadow shows.
Blue be it: this blue heaven
The seven or seven times seven
Hued sunbeam will transmit
Perfect, not alter it.
Or if there does some soft,
On things aloof, aloft,
Bloom breathe, that one breath more
Earth is the fairer for.
Whereas did air not make
This bath of blue and slake
His fire, the sun would shake,
A blear and blinding ball
With blackness bound, and all
The thick stars round him roll
Flashing like flecks of coal,
Quartz-fret, or sparks of salt,
In grimy vasty vault.
So God was god of old:
A mother came to mould
Those limbs like ours which are
What must make our daystar
Much dearer to mankind;
Whose glory bare would blind
Or less would win man’s mind.
Through her we may see him
Made sweeter, not made dim,
And her hand leaves his light
Sifted to suit our sight.
Be thou then, O thou dear
Mother, my atmosphere;
My happier world, wherein
To wend and meet no sin;
Above me, round me lie
Fronting my froward eye
With sweet and scarless sky;
Stir in my ears, speak there
Of God’s love, O live air,
Of patience, penance, prayer:
World-mothering air, air wild,
Wound with thee, in thee isled,
Fold home, fast fold thy child.
At Monday Vatican Andrea Galiarducci, has an interesting piece. It is worth reading, but be prepared for a clunky translation, some rambling, and a buried lead. To be sure this writer is smart, well-informed, and solid. He could benefit from a better translator and an editor.
What Galiarducci does in this piece is talk about how Francis’ pontificate builds on and contrasts from Benedict’s. He underscores an important point in most coverage of Francis: It is as if the Church was never interested in “the poor” before Francis came along, which is patently absurd. The absurdity about that discontinuity just scratches the surface of what is absurd about some coverage of Popes Francis and Benedict.
Galiarducci goes into the weeds a bit with information about the reform of Vatican finances, but wade through them.
I was struck by a couple paragraphs which come toward the end of the longish article. Samples:
Media need to understand that between one Pope and another there is a series of reforms that need to be carried out to ber effective, and that Francis cannot carry anything forward without appreciating and valuing the work of his predecessor. For instance, as Francis, Benedict XVI had spoken of a poor Church for poor. He did during his 2011 trip to Germany, when he outlined a Church that had to be less worldy, less appeased on its own structure. [We can, and must, read Francis through Benedict, but with a difference.]
It was a slap on the face, for the wealthy German Church. Benedict XVI revoked the latae sententiae commination of excommunication for those who do not pay the “Kirchensteuer,” the Church tax. The excommunication was an outcome of the fact that when one declared he was not going to pay the tax because he was not Catholic anymore, this declaration was considered the equivalent of an act of apostasy. The German bishops responded with a document which stated that not paying the Kirchensteuer was equivalent to a “grave public sin,” which bore in the end the same consequences of an excommunication. Until now, this is the only “grave public sin” German bishops have listed, while for every other “grave public sin,” included that of being divorced and civilly remarried (which also has a social impact), German bishops (including reformer Cardinals Marx, Kasper and Lehmann) ask to act with mercy.
How Benedict’s pontificate fares or fared is – now – the least of our problems. There’s an awful lot going on and we had better keep our heads on a swivel. But some sobriety needs to be applied to assessments of the present pontificate. Much of what we read these days is sycophantic slop.
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Our Collect (once called the “Opening Prayer”) for the 2nd Sunday of Advent was not in the pre-Conciliar Missale Romanum but it was in the so-called Rotulus (“scroll”) of Ravenna, dated perhaps as early as the 5th century.
Omnipotens et misericors Deus,
in tui occursum Filii festinantes
nulla opera terreni actus impediant,
sed sapientiae caelestis eruditio
nos faciat eius esse consortes.
Impedio (built from the word pes, pedis, “foot”), at the core of this prayer, is “to snare or tangle the feet”. A consors is someone with (con-) whom you share your lot (sors). The phrase “faciat eius esse consortes” recalls both the Collect for Christmas Day and the priest’s preparation of the chalice during the offertory. Deus, “God”, is declined irregularly. In solemn discourse the nominative is used as the vocative form (e.g. cf. Livy 1, 24, 7). Sapientia (“wisdom”) and eruditio (“learning”) are packed, technical terms from ancient rhetoric and philosophy.
BRUTAL LITERAL RENDERING:
Almighty and merciful God,
let no works of worldly impulse impede
those hurrying to the meeting of Your Son,
but rather let the learning of heavenly wisdom
make us to be His co-heirs.
OBSOLETE ICEL (1973):
God of power and mercy,
open our hearts in welcome.
Remove the things that hinder us
from receiving Christ with joy,
so that we may share his wisdom
and become one with him
when he comes in glory,…
NEW CORRECTED ICEL (2011):
Almighty and merciful God,
may no earthly undertaking hinder those
who set out in haste to meet your Son,
but may our learning of heavenly wisdom
gain us admittance to his company.
Last week in our Collect we rushed to meet the Coming Lord while striving for our reward through works made meritorious by Him alone. During Advent, as the Baptist warns us, we are to make ready the path for the coming of the Lord. This week we are still rushing but perhaps we are wiser after the first rush of excitement.
This week we are wary of obstacles which could impede us, snare our feet. These impediments are merely worldly ways and works, not meritorious for salvation since they are not performed in Christ. Worldly ways entangles us. St. Paul contrasts the wisdom of this world with the Wisdom of God (cf. 1 Cor 1:20; 3:19; 2 Cor 3:19). In Romans 12:2 Paul admonishes, “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” This is not just a Pauline concept. Compare today’s Collect with 2 Peter 1:3-4: “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge (cognitio: cf. eruditio) of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature (efficiamini divinae consortes).”
St. Augustine of Hippo (d 430) dismantled Donatist arguments that all clerics ordained by a sinful bishop would automatically be stained by the same guilt. He used imagery reminiscent of today’s prayer: “The mire (lutum) their feet are stuck in is so thick and dense that, trying in vain to tear themselves out of it, they get their hands and head stuck in it too, and lingering in that muck they get more tightly enveloped” (c. Don. 25). The Donatist argument was based on worldly, not heavenly, wisdom. Sticky lutum is a metaphor for a worldly, sinful life. Augustine contrasts being lutum with being children of God. “Noli esse lutum …Don’t be muck, but become (efficere) a child of God through His mercy!” (diu. qu. 68.3).
If we neglect God, we weak sinners can eventually convince ourselves of anything: down becomes up, back becomes front, black is white, wrong is right, and muddy is clean. We excuse away our sins. Once self-justification becomes a habit, it is a vice in more than one sense of that word. Our consciences may occasionally struggle against the vice of self-deception, but the proverbial “Struggle” supplies permission: “I really ‘struggled’ with this, … before I did it.”
If we go off the true path into the sticky mire of error, we escape neither the Enemy lion seeking whom he might devour (1 Peter 5:8), nor the glorious Lion of Judah who will open the seals and read the Book of Life (Rev 5:5).
During Advent, let us make straight Christ’s path and watch our step. Nevertheless, no matter how sticky may be the mess we have gotten ourselves into, Christ’s loving mercy washes its stain away in a good, complete confession before Christmas.
I am glad when I get feedback about how this blog has been useful for someone, especially in important matters having to do with the life of faith.
Today I received a note about something that happened in a seminary class room about a really important matter that someday could (please God!) affect us all!
I am a transitional deacon and would especially like to thank you for your post of 8th June 2011 on the Apostolic Pardon. I remember reading it at the time. This morning at seminary we were discussing the sacrament of anointing of the sick and the question of the Apostolic Pardon came up. The priest leading the discussion was not especially clued up as to it’s significance, so afterwards I e-mailed your post to our class and a number of them said how helpful it was. I just thought you would like to know that. Thanks for your continued good work.
We should all pray often that God will preserve us from a sudden and unprovided death, that is, death without the opportunity of the Last Sacraments, Penance, Anointing, Eucharist as viaticum, and, with them, the Apostolic Pardon.
I can’t tell you what what a grace and consolation it is for a priest to be able to administer these rites along with the Apostolic Pardon. Surely it is also a great consolation to family members and to the dying person when they know what is taking place.
As I having written before, the Apostolic Pardon, or Benediction, forgives temporal punishment due to our sins, not the sins themselves.
If anything remains from our lives, provided we die in the state of grace, for which we have not done adequate penance, the temporal punishment due to those sins, if we have not done adequate penance in life, is forgiven us through the Apostolic Pardon. This is why the Apostolic Pardon is often given after the Last Rites of sacraments of penance, anointing, and Viaticum.
This is a marvelous faculty, given by Holy Church to the priest so that he can grant this remission of temporal punishment and forgive sins. Used in conjunction with the Last Rites a soul is well prepared to go on to judgment. Well prepared. We cannot force God and force souls, but we have confidence that God’s promises to the Church and the Church’s teaching to us are all true.
I am glad that this blog played a part in a classroom full of men to be ordained. These are your future priests!
One of the best monastic communities of men that I know are the outstanding Benedictine Monks in Norcia, the presumed birthplace of St. Benedict in Umbria.
These are the monks who put their sung hours and Masses online on demand HERE
These are the monks who make spectacular beer… truly spectacular beer HERE
They have the older, traditional form of Holy Mass and, just as happened for centuries now, they are helping to revive a dormant town into new life. They’ve put Norcia back on the map.
They have, once again, a nice calendar for 2015 with images of their monastic life. You can help the monks by buying some of their calendars and giving them as gifts. Quick! Before Christmas is upon us and you have to rush to get things done!
Here are some snaps of mine:
Each day as indications for the liturgical calendar in both Extraordinary and Ordinary Forms, as well as abstinence or fast symbols. Note that under each day of the week there is an theme which is traditionally observed.
Some spiritual direction about fasting.
Yes, friends, it looks like this.
And then there is the brewery.
You get great calendars, you take care of some gift ideas, the monks benefit… everyone wins.
In these USA Monday, 8 December, is a Holy Day of Obligation because Our Lady under the title of Immaculate Conception is the Patroness of our nation.
So, several readers have asked about fulfilling the Mass obligation. Here’s is one:
If I have already fulfilled my Sunday mass obligation for December 7, if I go to mass again on the evening of December 7, will that fulfill my obligation for December 8th even if it is not the “official”
anticipated mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception?
Ah… my old nemesis!
I posted on this scenario in the past and differing opinions were offered. I find in this instance that the otherwise brilliant and distinguished Dr. Ed Peters, canonist extraordinaire is wrong about this one. At least I think there is a doubt to be raised about this situation. A principle of interpretation of law in our Church is that when an obligation or burden is imposed, then we have to interpret the law strictly, that is, in such a way as we favor the people upon whom the burden is placed.
And so, for Sunday and Monday one has two obligations. The obligation to hear Holy Mass for Sunday (every Sunday is a Holy Day of Obligation), and the obligation for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.
Can one Mass satisfy two obligations? I think so. Others don’t. The situation is at least doubtful, so I think we get the benefit of the doubt. At least I don’t remember ever seeing an official clarification about this point from the Pont. Comm. for Legislative Texts of from the Cong. for Divine Worship. I hope that, if there is one, someone will send it to me.
And so, I answer that one fulfills one’s Sunday obligation anytime from the evening of Saturday, 6 December, through midnight on Sunday, 7/8 December.
The obligation for the Monday, 8 December, Immaculate Conception, is fulfilled anytime from Sunday evening through Monday, 8/9 December at midnight.
Therefore, if one attended Mass at 5:00 PM on Sunday, 7 December, in order to fulfill one’s Sunday obligation, I think one would also fulfill the Monday Obligation.
However, just to introduce a wrinkle into this reckoning, if one went to the 5:00 PM Mass and then stuck around for the 7:00 PM Mass also, then there is NO QUESTION that one has fulfilled both obligations. Rigid canonists might say that 2 obligations require 2 Masses. That is not, however, what Canon Law says.
Can. 1248 §1. A person who assists at a Mass celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite either on the feast day itself or in the evening of the preceding day satisfies the obligation of participating in the Mass.
A person who has gone to Mass on Sunday evening has simultaneously gone on the day itself and in the evening of the preceding day. It happens to have been one Mass.
That said… I am NOT advocating slithering out of going to Mass on Monday. I want each and everyone of you to make plans to find a Mass on Monday for this beautiful feast. My fellow Americans… we are obliged to hear Mass. Make that plan! Do more, not less. And do more love, even if it’s hard.
And, remember, people in a state of grace may receive Holy Communion at both Masses, in the course of one day. You can receive twice a day, provided that the second time in in the context of Holy Mass. Danger of death, of course, changes everything.
In Madison, we have an Extraordinary Form Pontifical Mass at the Throne at 7 PM at the Bishop O’Connor Center.
UPDATE:
Distinguished canonist Ed Peters has chimed in with a really interesting response at his fine blog In The Light Of The Law. He takes me to task to educate me on my point about “doubt”. We may be talking past each other here, but I am glad he drilled into what I wrote. This is how the blogosphere ought to work! Why? Because we want the truth! And… we can handle the truth!
Check out Dr. Peters.
I have stopped looking at Crux as often as I did when it first entered the fray.
Why? They say they want “balance”. I don’t see much balance.
Today an email blurb arrived with teases about the fare they are proffering today. Leaving aside the subject matter:
Cathy Lynn Grossman
Margery Eagan
David Gibson
Nicole Winfield
Lisa Miller
Sapienti pauca.
That said…
One of you readers brought to my attention that Crux has a POLL today about the last Synod. I wouldn’t ordinarily pay much attention to this either but I was irritated at the blatant distortion in the questions. Scroll down from the top, it’s a way down on the left side.
Here is a screen shot… NB: It’s not like I’m trying influence your vote or anything…
UPDATE: The poll questions are, I hear, now rearranged. Don’t just click the choice at the bottom. Read them first.
First… how do I “feel”? Second, “not more mercy shown”? Really?
The implication is that since the Synod participants did not simply endorse Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried, they didn’t show “mercy”. I respond that it is NOT MERCIFUL to tell people who are objectively living in a bad state can go to Communion, it is NOT MERCIFUL simply to jettison the clear words of Christ in the Gospel.
Also, note how they pit “mercy” against “doctrine”. Grrrrr.
So, I think that you readers ought to go over there and help them with their poll. Scroll down, watching the left side.
Right now here are the results.
Get out and vote… Chicago style or not… and get your friends to vote too. Maybe even guide the mouse for them. CLICK HERE and scroll down, watching the left side.
UPDATE 1916 GMT:
I posted this just over 3 hours ago. Now just look what you have gone and done!
It’s nice to be helpful. Please make sure their poll is a great success! Get the vote out!
UPDATE 0601 GMT
And where are we now?
UPDATE 7 Dec 2045 GMT:
It seems that you are still working on this. Good! Vote!
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
A Daily Prayer for Priests
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