Quarantine
has psychological impact which can be long-lasting, says review –
BelfastTelegraph.co.uk
People with even mild coronavirus symptoms have been told
they must stay at home for at least seven days, but what is the psychological
impact of isolation? A recent review of
the psychological impact of quarantine, published in The Lancet, suggested that
it is “wide-ranging, substantial, and can be long-lasting”.
DC archdiocese suspends public Masses, closes schools More dioceses do same or dispense with Sun.
obligation
Due to coronavirus, Archdiocese of Washington announces
plans to cancel public Masses and close Catholic schools – Catholic
Standard – Multimedia Catholic News
Another
French Church Ravaged by FireBurning
of St. Trivier follows hundreds of desecrations in recent yearsSaint-Trivier-de-Courtes (Ain): un incendie détruit le clocher de
l’église – France 3 Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Servitudo ex Caritate .pdf -> Free E-book Servitude through Charity (1985) by Atila S. Guimarães
An explanation of the Holy Slavery to Our Lady taking Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira as a mediator
The Defense of The Society Of The TFP and The Total Consecration To Our Lady
“Knight of the Immaculata” On Militia Immaculatae – The topic of this issue of “Knight of the Immaculata” is the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Another traditional order follows the Franciscans Of The Immaculata into the cross hairs of the Vatican mafias wrecking ball aimed at traditional orders
Saint Benedict Center Needs your Help: Its Survival is in Jeopardy – Catholicism.org
Cardinal Sarah: “We must rebuild the cathedral … We do not need to invent a new Church” – Catholic World Report
The spire of the cathedral of Paris has fallen: and this is no coincidence! Notre-Dame of Paris symbolizes the whole West, buckling and crumbling after turning away from God. It symbolizes the great temptation of Western Christians: no longer turned toward God, turning inward upon themselves, they are perishing. I am convinced that this civilization is living through its mortal hour. As once during the decline and fall of Rome, so today the elites care for nothing but increasing the luxury of their daily lives, and the people have been anaesthetized by ever more vulgar entertainments. As a bishop, it is my duty to warn the West: behold the flames of barbarism threaten you!
Spain: 14 nuns, martyred in Spanish Civil War, beatified – Cardinal cites vivid testimonies referring to their deaths
Homily of the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints at the Mass for the Beatification of María Carmen Lacaba Andía and 13 companion martyrs
Why the Confiteor Before Communion Should Be Retained (or Reintroduced) – On Novus Motus Liturgics
It reinforces the humility needed in the celebrant, who confesses his sins alone coram omnibus, and also exhibits the dignity of the servant who says to the master: “May almighty God have mercy on thee, and having forgiven thy sins, lead thee to eternal life.” It reflects the truth of cosmic and ecclesiastical hierarchy and pushes against one of the dominant errors of our time, that of democratic egalitarianism, which lumps everyone together into an undifferentiated mass (or Mass).
THE FRENCH CONNECTION: Michael Matt On Massive Catholic Rendezvous in France – On YouTube
The day before the 2019 Pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres, U.S. coordinator Michael J. Matt explains the significance of the largest international traditional Catholic annual rendezvous in the world today–the Notre Dame de Chretiente Pentecost Pilgrimage to Chartres. With over 10,000 traditional Catholics coming into Paris from all over the world, Michael comments on what this is, its history and what it portends for the future of the Catholic Church.
Once again making the case that Catholics will get their buildings back, Michael explains why this is not just wishful thinking. With the Novus Ordo now in its death throes, Michael makes some startling predictions based on this massive demonstration of traditional Catholic revival taking place Pentecost weekend in France.
If You Had All the Time in the World, How Would You Attack the Church? – On OnePeterFive
Then comes the most delicate phase of the plan. The products of the council must not raise alarm. They must be subtle. They must seem orthodox. At worst, they may be ambiguous. Do not make a new rule, but leave room for an exception to become the rule. Keep the changes small, like changing only one word, est, for example, to subsistit. Tap into the culture and mores of the times. Tell the curious to ignore that wisp of smoke in the chapel; call it fresh air.
With the products of the council in hand, the plan to attack the Mass, the Eucharist, and Jesus Christ Himself can be executed. These three, after all, are integral to each other: the Mass is a sacrifice, Christ is the priest and victim, and consumption of the Eucharist is required for eternal life.
It will be easy at first. If nothing else, Catholics are used to following orders. They have been conditioned for centuries to do so. If the bishop says this new Mass is good, then it is good. Ours is not to question the bishop. If the bishop says that the new Mass is still the Mass, then it is the Mass. Move slowly, imperceptibly.
In two or three generations, the people will have forgotten that the Mass is a sacrifice; they will look upon it as a communal meal. They will not understand that Holy Communion is the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. They will have forgotten the sound of Latin. They will confuse preaching with worship. They will substitute themselves for God. They will judge the Church. Perfect!
Pontifical Shrine Of Our Lady Of Mount Carmel NYC Photo – Courtesy of Teddy T
50 Years of a Religious and Cultural Catastrophe: When the Yearly Biblical Readings of Immemorial Tradition Were Cast Away
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the revised Lectionary, promulgated with the decree Ordo Lectionum of May 25, 1969, Rorate has obtained permission from Bloomsbury to post the full text (slightly revised), albeit without its 59 detailed footnotes, of Dr. Kwasniewski’s contribution to Sacra Liturgia 2015 in New York City, which was published in the proceedings, Liturgy in the Twenty-First Century: Contemporary Issues and Perspectives, ed. Alcuin Reid (London/New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016), 287–320. (See here for a book review.) The publisher is offering a 35% discount on the book if you purchase it from their website using the code REID35 at checkout. Offer ends July 31, 2019.
A Systematic Critique of the New Lectionary, On the Occasion of Its Fiftieth Anniversary
Peter Kwasniewski
While almost every other aspect of the liturgical reform following Vatican II has been the target of serious criticism, the revamped multi-year lectionary is the one element consistently put forward as a notable success, an instance of genuine progress. A popular Catholic author writes:
I believe, however, that the most significant change [in the liturgy] came about in 1969, with the introduction of the revised lectionary. The media missed this one because there was so little controversy. Almost everyone agreed that the finished product was a remarkable achievement. And there can be no doubt that it was a major development in the life of the church. The lectionary was designed specifically for the purpose of highlighting the essential relationship between scripture and liturgy.
Another well-respected theologian concurs:
It seems likely that, whatever future developments occur in the Roman Rite, this extended use and emphasis on Sacred Scripture in Catholic worship may prove to be Pope Paul’s most lasting contribution, and, arguably, even the most important long-term gift of his pontificate to the life of the Church.
No less a figure than Pope Benedict XVI, though an outspoken critic of many postconciliar changes, praised the gains of the new lectionary. Robert Moynihan relates this story:
When, for example, I expressed my belief (this was in 1993, so, almost 20 [now 26] years ago) that the annual cycle of readings should not have been replaced by a three-year cycle of readings (I argued that the annual cycle was in a certain way more ‘organic,’ more in harmony with the natural cycle of the seasons, and so more deeply penetrating, psychologically and spiritually, into the hearts and souls of ordinary faithful, who would here the same words on the same Sunday each year, but in the changed circumstances brought by the passage of time and life), he then was quite emphatic that the three-year cycle was an improvement, saying it allowed the faithful to hear more passages of the Word of God, and did not limit them to hearing the same passages each year. This argument made clear to me that Pope Benedict personally does in some ways favor at least certain aspects of the conciliar liturgical reform as an improvement over the traditional liturgy.
This story is supported by n. 57 of Benedict XVI’s Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini:
In the first place I wish to mention the importance of the Lectionary. The reform called for by the Second Vatican Council has borne fruit in a richer access to sacred Scripture, which is now offered in abundance, especially at Sunday Mass. The present structure of the Lectionary not only presents the more important texts of Scripture with some frequency, but also helps us to understand the unity of God’s plan thanks to the interplay of the Old and New Testament readings, an interplay “in which Christ is the central figure, commemorated in his paschal mystery.”
All the same, there is good reason to revisit the lectionary half a century later, in light of experience and maturity of reflection, and to ask whether the principles guiding its revision and the actual realization of those principles are everything hoped for.
The Liturgical Movement and the Second Vatican Council
There were sound reasons for wishing to supplement the old lectionary. As a simple matter of liturgical history, it must be admitted that Western rites of the Mass, including the Roman, had once contained a wider range of Scriptural lessons than we find in the Roman rite codified by St. Pius V after the Council of Trent and still in use today as the Missal of St. John XXIII. As one recent author describes it:
The 1962 Lectionary corresponds (with the exception of newly created feast days) with that of the Roman Missal of 1570. This, in turn, is dependent upon the Missale Romano-Seraphicum (the Franciscan Missal) of the 13th century, which did not include the lections for the non-Lenten ferias found in earlier Roman books, as well as in the books of other rites and usages. Gallican Missals with lections for non-Lenten ferias continued in use into the second half of the 19th century. Typically, readings would be given for some, but not all, days of the week, such as Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and would include, for example, parallel accounts of the pericope used in the Sunday Gospel.
The increasing prominence of the sanctoral cycle and the great popularity of votive Masses tended to displace these ferial readings to such an extent that, from the 13th century onwards, it seemed nugatory to include in the missal readings that would only rarely be used. This fact, together with a desire to include everything needed for Mass in one conveniently printable and portable volume, explains why it was deemed sufficient for the 1570 Missal to contain a reduced selection of readings.
By the middle of the 20th century, there was widespread agreement among participants in the Liturgical Movement that the Roman rite would benefit from an increase in the variety and extent of biblical lections—a judgment that emerged, in large part, from the contemporaneous biblical movement, with its renewed emphasis on salvation history. Fr. Morin, a friend of Louis Bouyer’s, stated in 1944: “Whether we rejoice in it or deplore it, the liturgy is . . . biblical. To claim to make anyone understand it without initiating him into the Bible is a contradiction in terms.” Liturgists at Maria Laach were talking in 1951 about having a three- or four-year lectionary cycle. In a 1956 meeting of Pius XII’s Commission for the Reform of the Sacred Liturgy, a new Capitulare lectionum et evangeliorum for the Roman Missal was examined. The conversation touched on a triennial cycle of readings. To Cardinal Cicognoni’s formal query: “In general terms, should the scriptural pericopes of the Mass be expanded?,” the Pian Commission unanimously replied in the affirmative.
Given this background, it is hardly surprising that the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council discussed the revision of the lectionary but did not give it a great deal of attention. If one is looking through the Acta SynodaliaSacrosanctiConciliiOecumeniciVaticaniSecundi for sensational speeches in the aula where council fathers sparred over Scripture in the Mass, one will be somewhat disappointed. A number of fathers were concerned about the inconvenience of spreading out Scripture over multiple years and therefore requiring multiple volumes for the celebration of Mass. Others suggested the compromise of enriching the annual cycle with weekday readings, particularly from the New Testament. Still others noted that the Sunday readings were lacking in some of the most touching passages of the Gospels. But it was not a matter on which many had much to say. Modifications to the Ordo Missae and the retention of Latin were far more controversial and time-consuming subjects of debate.
In the end, the great majority of Fathers voted to approve the following provisions in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium:
Sacred scripture is of the greatest importance in the celebration of the liturgy. For it is from scripture that lessons are read and explained in the homily, and psalms are sung; the prayers, collects, and liturgical songs are scriptural in their inspiration and their force, and it is from the scriptures that actions and signs derive their meaning. Thus to achieve the restoration, progress, and adaptation of the sacred liturgy, it is essential to promote that warm and living love for scripture to which the venerable tradition of both eastern and western rites gives testimony.
That rite and word may be clearly seen to be intimately conjoined in the liturgy:
1) In sacred celebrations a more abundant, more varied, and more suitable reading from Sacred Scripture should be restored [instauretur].
2) The best place for a sermon, since it is part of the liturgical action, is to be indicated even in the rubrics, as far as the rite will allow, and the ministry of preaching is to be fulfilled most faithfully and well. The sermon, moreover, should draw mainly from the fonts of Scripture and the Liturgy, as a proclamation of God’s wonderful works in the history of salvation or the mystery of Christ, which is ever made present and active within us, especially in liturgical celebrations.
The treasures of the bible are to be opened up more lavishly, so that richer fare may be provided for the faithful at the table of God’s word. In this way a more representative portion of the Holy Scriptures will be read to the people in the course of a prescribed number of years.
The Consilium’s Revised Lectionary
The carrying out of these conciliar mandates was left in the hands of the Consilium adexsequendamConstitutionem de Sacra Liturgia. If the committee in charge of the lectionary, Coetus XI, had diligently followed two important principles of Sacrosanctum Concilium—namely, section 23, “There must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them; and care must be taken that any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing,” and section 50, “elements which have suffered injury through accidents of history are now to be restored to the vigor which they had in the days of the holy Fathers, as may seem useful or necessary”—the result would have looked significantly different. For in that case, the process of lectionary revision would have involved, first and foremost, restoring to the Roman rite lessons that once actually belonged to it, and second, cautiously introducing new lessons in a manner harmonious with the genius of the rite itself.
But it was not to be so. In this area as in so many other areas, the ambitions of the Consilium were monumental and innovative. It was not enough to enhance what already existed; the entire lectionary was to be recast from the ground up. The council fathers never debated the merits or demerits of such a plan because nothing had ever been said in the aula about scrapping the existing lectionary and starting more or less from scratch. As was true of other liturgical metamorphoses, it would have been unthinkable to the vast majority of the council fathers that the liturgy would soon be treated as a laboratory experiment whose parts could be removed, replaced, and fabricated ad libitum.
Coetus XI’s work resulted in the Novus Ordo lectionary with which we are all familiar: a three-year cycle of Sunday readings, a two-year cycle of weekday readings, and a veritable mountain of reading options for feasts, sacramental rites, and other special occasions. A fairly full account of the principles behind the reform and many of the practical decisions made was offered in the document called General Introduction to the Lectionary, the first edition of which appeared in 1969, and a second, revised and expanded, in 1981. In the pages that follow, I will be engaging ideas explicitly stated in this General Introduction.
Critique of the Revised Lectionary
To be sure, there are gains in the new lectionary, such as the splendid selection of prophetic readings for the ferias of Advent, the selection of readings for Paschaltide, and the felicitous pairing of certain Old Testament and New Testament pericopes. Nevertheless, lone voices over the decades have pointed out various problems with it, ranging from the selection, length, and sheer number of readings, to the academic structuring of the cycles, to worrying omissions, to incidental problems that have arisen in practice.
In this section, I will re-examine four guiding principles of the lectionary revision, namely: the lengthening of the readings; their arrangement as a multi-year cycle; the general preference for lectio semi-continua or continuity of readings over the readings of the sanctoral cycle; and the decision to omit “difficult” readings. Then I will consider how the new lectionary was implemented in the flesh, namely the ars celebrandi it inaugurated.
(a) The purpose of Scripture in the Mass
Before examining any particular principle behind the new lectionary, however, there is the more fundamental question of the very purpose or function of the reading of Scripture in the Mass. Is it a moment of instruction for the people, or is it an element of the latreutic worship offered by Christ and His Mystical Body to the Most Holy Trinity?
It can and should be both, but in a certain order. The Word of God is proclaimed at Mass as part of the spiritual preparation for the sacrifice of our Redeemer and the communion of God and man in the sacrament of His Passion. Because it is the sacrifice of the Mystical Body, head and members, it is also the sacrifice we, as children of the Church militant, offer to God in union with the Church triumphant and on behalf of the Church suffering. Consequently, the lessons have an ecclesial identity, a sacerdotal orientation, and a eucharistic finality, all of which ought to determine which lessons are the best for their purpose and how they are best to be proclaimed. The readings at Mass are not so much didactic as iconic, pointing the way beyond themselves.
The goal of liturgy is not to make us familiar with Scripture in the manner of a Bible study or catechism class—which, of course, ought to be taking place at some other time—but to give us the right formation of mind and heart with regard to the realities of our faith so that we may worship God in spirit and in truth. In the traditional rites of East and West, Scripture serves as a support to the liturgical action; it illustrates or magnifies something else that the worship is principally about.
(b) Caution regarding the length of readings
As we saw, the Council Fathers desired that there be more Scripture in the Church’s liturgies. The first way to pursue this goal is to put more Scripture into each individual liturgy. This was done both by adding a reading to Masses on Sundays and feasts and by lengthening the readings on average in all Masses. In light of Scripture’s purpose within the Mass, however, I believe we should reconsider the wisdom of increasing the readings within a given Mass. It is a truism that more is not necessarily better, but there are specific reasons to be concerned about what one might call the ecology of the Mass, the delicate balance of its interacting parts.
The generally longer readings of the revised lectionary, together with a new emphasis in Sacrosanctum Concilium on the homily as an integral part of the liturgy, have contributed to what one might call “verbal imperialism,” that is, the tendency of words and wordiness to take over at many Masses, suffocate silence and meditation, and obscure the centrality of the Eucharistic sacrifice. It happens all too frequently that the homily will last a good fifteen minutes or more whereas the most solemn part of the Mass will last approximately three minutes due to the choice of the Second Eucharistic Prayer.
We must keep in mind that, in the Novus Ordo, nearly everything in the Mass is said aloud from start to finish. From the greeting to the collect to the readings to the homily to the Eucharistic prayer and so on until the end, everything is placed on the same level phenomenologically; done badly, it can be like going point by point through the items on a meeting agenda. This means that sheer length translates inevitably into emphasis. In this world of total exposure and extroversion, the Eucharistic Prayer tends to be the loser; it simply does not have enough prominence to holds its own. In the usus antiquior, the silent Roman Canon provides a center of gravity that no text or talking can outshine. It was and will always be the great counterbalance to lengthy sermons or sub-optimal music—or even sumptuous music.
The total size of the Sunday Liturgy of the Word, if one takes into account the two readings, a responsorial psalm, the Gospel, a possibly bloated homily, the Creed, and the prayer of the faithful, when followed by a diminished Liturgy of the Eucharist, has left far too many Catholics with a false impression of what the Mass primarily is. It seems like the main thing we do together is read Scripture and talk about it. A reenactment of the Last Supper is then added on so that everyone gets to receive something before going home. As we know, Catholics like to get something at Mass, whether ashes or palms or bulletins, and, in a way, the lamentable phenomenon of everyone lining up to receive communion fits in with this pattern. The Mass as a true and proper Sacrifice has therefore been almost entirely eclipsed by the Mass as “a table of the Word and a table of the Eucharist from which we are fed.” Obviously there is some truth in this language, but when it becomes the central way of understanding the Mass, we are looking at a profound distortion.
If the purpose of the readings at Mass is to prepare people for and lead into the great Eucharistic sacrifice, then the danger of verbal imperialism is obvious: by unduly prolonging the readings, the words have broken off and become their own thing, a center of gravity that dominates the liturgy. At this point, the readings are no longer in harmony with their purpose at Mass but are militating against it. Here we see, for the first time, the possibility of Scripture in tension with the Eucharist rather than serving it as a handmaid. The lengthening of the readings and the overemphasis on the homily, coming together with other liturgical changes (more often than not, abridgements or simplifications) made after Vatican II, has disturbed the balance of the Mass, as excessive farming can lead to soil erosion and the destruction of an ecosystem.
(c) Fittingness of annual cycle
We have considered some of the problems of increasing the readings within one Mass. A second way of putting more Scripture into the Mass would be to extend the readings over a greater number of Masses. While this could be done even within the scope of one year, it seems that the liturgical reformers quickly moved to the assumption of a multi-year cycle. With multiple years at its disposal, the new lectionary is able to cover a remarkable portion of Scripture, comprising the whole of salvation history and offering a remarkable array of important biblical passages. This, more than anything else, is seen as the great achievement of the reform.
However, I would like to urge caution even here. A one-year cycle of readings can be considered not only with regard to the quantity of Scripture it presents but also with regard to the way in which it presents the Scripture it contains. One year is a natural unit of time, with a satisfying completeness, like that of a circle. Historically, Western and Eastern rites have always had a one-year cycle of readings, as does synagogue worship. Indeed, every culture has linked the rhythms of human life to the combined rhythms of the sun and the moon, joining the human to the cosmological. Sacrosanctum Concilium itself furnishes a convincing account of why the liturgical year is just that—a year:
Holy Mother Church is conscious that she must celebrate the saving work of her divine Spouse by devoutly recalling it on certain days throughout the course of the year. Every week, on the day which she has called the Lord’s day, she keeps the memory of the Lord’s resurrection, which she also celebrates once in the year, together with His blessed passion, in the most solemn festival of Easter. Within the cycle of a year, moreover, she unfolds the whole mystery of Christ, from the Incarnation and birth until the Ascension, the day of Pentecost, and the expectation of blessed hope and of the coming of the Lord. … In celebrating this annual cycle of Christ’s mysteries, holy Church honors with especial love the Blessed Mary, Mother of God, who is joined by an inseparable bond to the saving work of her Son. … The Church has also included in the annual cycle days devoted to the memory of the martyrs and the other saints. (SC 102–104, emphasis added)
With the one-year cycle comes repetition and its fruit of familiarity, which leads to internalization—the planting of the seed deep in the soil of the soul. One who immerses himself in the traditional liturgy becomes aware that its annual readings, over time, are becoming bone of one’s bone, flesh of one’s flesh. One begins to think of certain days, months, seasons of the year, or categories of saints in tandem with their particular readings, which open up their meaning more and more to the devout soul. If the Word of God has an infinite depth to it, the traditional liturgy bids us stand beside the same well year by year, dropping down our bucket into it, and in that way awakening us to an inexhaustible depth that may not be so clear to someone who is dipping his bucket into different places of a flooding stream over the course of two or three years.
The fundamental elements of faith and habits of prayer need to be inculcated week after week, day after day; and thus it is pedagogically most appropriate to have readings repeated annually: the age-old Epistle and Gospel assigned for the various Sundays after Pentecost, the readings for the Easter Octave, the readings for certain categories of saints—Martyrs, Apostles, Confessors, Doctors, Popes, Virgins. In this way, the Christian people are strongly formed by a set of “core texts” throughout the cycle of the year, rather than being carried off each day into new regions of text—especially some of the drier historical narratives or longer passages of the Prophets, from which it may be hard to benefit except by extra-liturgical study.
It seems inarguable that the faithful need more Scripture in their lives. But it does not follow that we must cover as much Scriptural ground as possible at Mass. Consider the matter from a psychological point of view. The reading at Mass is a “feature of an event”: the mind does not easily connect yesterday’s reading to today’s, or today’s with tomorrow’s. A bunch of things are happening in the course of the liturgy and in the rest of my day, and unless the priest very deliberately connects the readings, each day is an entity unto itself. The daily Mass is the discrete unit, and so the readings should be proportioned to it, not to a larger time sequence (apart from the general character of the liturgical year and its seasons). The result is that with an expanded lectionary people will hear and forget more Scripture than they did before; whereas on the old one-year cycle, people hear things repeatedly and have the opportunity to become familiar with them. We stand to get more, spiritually, out of one inspired passage that becomes familiar than from a long-term cycle attempting to “get through” a lot of Scripture.
The situation is quite different with lectio divina, where each day one is focused exclusively on the Bible, and so it’s easier to connect days to each other. Because they essentially practice lectio divina or at least some form of concentrated Bible study as they prepare their homilies, priests are the ones who stand to benefit the most from the two-year/three-year cycles, which could explain the enthusiasm of many of the clergy for the lectionary. But what about the laity? Note that the Catholic biblical renewal in recent years is largely from Protestant converts who have introduced salvation history and lectio divina into parish programs. This suggests that the work we need to be doing is more at home outside the Mass than inside.
Thus, although it is common to praise the new lectionary for containing much more Scripture than its predecessor, experience with both could lead one to the opposite conclusion—namely, that the multi-year lectionary is unwieldy and hard to absorb, whereas the old cycle of readings is beautifully proportioned to the rhythm of the natural cycle of time and the fullness of the ecclesiastical year of grace that builds upon nature. And we can say, in general, that an annual cycle of well-chosen readings is more suited to the iconic and latreutic purpose of Scripture in the Mass as articulated earlier.
(d) Primacy of the sanctoral cycle
Having looked at the extension of the readings both within a given Mass and over many Masses, I turn now to a third guiding principle of the revised lectionary, namely, the preference for continuous reading or lectio semi-continua, in other words, that we read sequentially from a certain book or letter or Gospel over a period of time, and that maintaining this continuity for the most part trumps the sanctoral cycle. This is a distinct and important principle.
Everything said above about the impracticality of continuity in readings could be repeated here, but I want to draw attention to the special relationship the saints have to Scripture and to the Mass. Since the goal of Christian faith is not a material knowledge of Scripture but personal sanctification and conversion, which is the formal content and aim of Scripture itself, the saints are rightly put forward in the liturgy as our example of how to live, how to believe, how to love—and Scripture is rightly pressed into service for this purpose, by the correlation of specific readings with specific saints or classes of saints. On account of both their more limited number and their memorable (and mandated) alignment with particular saints, these lessons and gospels facilitate familiarity with the Word of God as it illustrates or teaches us about the triumph of God’s holy ones.
The saints are, one could say, Scripture in flesh and blood, and that is why the written word is so appropriately called upon to minister to them and reflect their existential primacy. Scripture, by itself, is a dead letter. It is the saints who are the ultimate proof and most glorious manifestation of the truth of the Christian faith. The saints demonstrate that Scripture is not a lifeless book but a living paradigm. We must understand the role of Scripture at Mass in reference to its embodiment in the lives of the saints and its continual directing of our gaze to the supreme reality of Jesus Christ, Eternal and Incarnate Wisdom.
Allow me to offer just one example. On May 4, the feast of St. Monica in the usus antiquior, the Epistle of the Mass is St. Paul speaking of the honor due to true widows (a reading Monica shares with other holy widows), but the specially chosen Gospel recounts when Jesus raised the weeping widow’s son from the dead and restored him to his mother. What more perfect Gospel could there be for the mother of St. Augustine! What could better impress both the Gospel and Monica’s life on our minds than this striking juxtaposition! Each year, throughout her sojourn on earth, no matter how many thousands of years will pass by, Holy Mother Church will thus commemorate the mother who never lost faith in God and eventually regained her son, dead in sin and error, risen in the life of grace.
(e) Coherence of Mass Propers and Ordinary
The three guiding principles of the new lectionary that I have examined so far have to do with the quantity of Scripture in the Mass. Before moving on to a fourth guiding principle that does not concern quantity, I want to pause and raise a question about the category of quantity itself as regards Scripture in the Mass.
We can take the question of the sanctoral cycle as an example of what I mean. The use of an all-embracing proper or common of the Mass within the sanctoral cycle has the effect of knitting an entire liturgy together as a seamless garment: the prayers honor and invoke the saint; the readings and antiphons extol the virtues of the saint, who is put forward as our example and teacher; the Eucharistic sacrifice links the Church Triumphant, represented by the lists of saints in the Roman Canon, to all of us pilgrims in the Church Militant. The whole liturgy acquires a unity of sanctification, showing us both the primordial Way of sanctity—Jesus in the Holy Eucharist—and the models of sanctity achieved.
The feast of St. Thérèse of Lisieux (Appendx A, below) can serve as a particular example of the immense literary and theological richness of the traditional Missale Romanum, which centers the variable parts of the Mass around the saint whose memory we celebrate on earth. As can be easily seen, the elements of the Mass connect with one another like links in a chain, providing the worshiper with a focused spiritual formation and a powerful incentive to prayer.
If we take a step further back and look at the antiphons, prayers, and readings against the backdrop of the presence of Scripture throughout the Ordo Missae, we can see just how impressive is the result (Appendix B). One might call this phenomenon “biblical permeation” or “scriptural suffusion,” a suffusion supported by the unchanging Ordo Missae. Because the Order of Mass is not subject to a plethora of options, it is much easier to connect the variable parts to the invariable. For example, the characteristic use of Old Testament texts in the antiphons strongly harmonizes with the Roman Canon’s express mention of Abel, Abraham, and Melchizedek and with its hieratic language of sacrifice, so reminiscent of the Mosaic Law. The solidity and stability of the Canon is like a massive foundation of rock on which the carefully hewn stones of the propers are built up into a spacious edifice for prayer.
As the diagram shows, Scripture permeates the usus antiquior at every level. Even though many of the prayers are said silently, Catholics who are well acquainted with the old rite follow along in their missals and make these rich prayers their own. This has certainly been my experience: I have come to cherish not only the changing propers but also the fixed verses from Psalm 42, Psalm 25, Psalm 115, and the Prologue of John’s Gospel.
In the new liturgy, by contrast, the prayers, readings, and Eucharist are awkwardly situated vis-à-vis one another: they no longer fit together into a single flow of action. The biblical lessons are extrinsic and accidental to the celebration of most saints’ days, in tension with Scripture’s inner purpose. The general problem here is the overall integrity of the liturgical service. Going beyond the formal “readings” at Mass, we should also look to how Scripture is present throughout the rest of the liturgy. How “saturated with Scripture” is the liturgy as a whole? Do the proper antiphons, prayers, and readings cohere with one another and with the Ordo Missae?
Accordingly, while there is obviously a vastly greater extension of Scripture in the new rite, one may still raise a question about its intensity. Is the new Roman Missal as deeply imbued with the language, imagery, and spirit of Scripture as the old Missale Romanum?
(f) Omission or dilution of “difficult” passages
To this point I have called into question those guiding principles behind the reform of the lectionary that concerned the quantity of Scripture in the Mass. I want to look briefly at one of the non-quantitative aspects of the reform, namely, the decision to omit or marginalize “difficult” passages.
It might be assumed that once the reformers allowed themselves three years of Sundays and two years of weekdays, they would certainly not fail to include in their new lectionary all the readings that are found in the traditional Roman liturgy, and that in their march through various books of the Bible they would not omit any key passages. Instead, they made a programmatic decision to avoid what they considered “difficult” biblical texts. What kind of texts did they have in mind? I will offer a couple of examples.
In the vast new Lectionary, the following three verses from 1 Corinthians 11 never appear, not even once: “Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink of the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the Body and of the Blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself; and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. For he that eatheth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the Body of the Lord” (1 Cor 11:27–29). St. Paul’s warning against receiving the Body and Blood of the Lord unworthily, that is, unto one’s damnation, has not been read at any Novus Ordo Mass for almost half a century. And yet, in the traditional Latin Mass, these verses are heard at least three times every year, once on Holy Thursday (where the Epistle is 1 Cor 11:20–32), and twice on Corpus Christi (where the Epistle is 1 Cor 11:23–29, and the Communion antiphon is 1 Cor 11:26-27). Catholics who attend the usus antiquior will never fail to have these challenging words placed before their consciences. Let us be frank: the concept of an unworthy communion has simply disappeared from the general Catholic consciousness, and the new lectionary must share some of the blame.
It is well known that the cursing or imprecatory psalms were removed from the Liturgy of the Hours, but it is less well known that selective psalm suppression affected the Mass as well. There are a surprising number of psalm verses prominent in the old Missal that are either absent in the new lectionary or much more rarely found. For example, the moving lines of Psalm 42 with which every celebration of the usus antiquior begins were, in the new lectionary, exiled to Friday of the 25th week of Ordinary Time in Year 1 and a couple of verses in the Easter Vigil. That’s it. Psalm 34 [35], so beloved to our ancestors for its Passiontide language and ascetical images, was whittled down from eight appearances in the usus antiquior to a single appearance in the usus recentior—if, that is, the Introit is said or sung, which is optional (Appendix C).
What is happening in such examples (and they are numerous) is quite simple. Embarrassed by a divinely-revealed doctrine or spiritual attitude, certain members of the Church do what they can to ensure that it is either never or only very rarely mentioned. The men of Coetus XI knew what the traditional lections were, and it appears that they deliberately suppressed some of them. The novelty of the multi-year cycles and the monumental fact of “more Scripture” distracted our attention from the subtler question of what was lost in the transition. A similar process of doctrinal attenuation can be seen in the Consilium’s editing of the Collects, whose postconciliar versions frequently omit or downplay mention of “unpleasant things.”
(g) The arscelebrandi
Everything I have said to this point has to do with the lectionary itself: what led to its creation, what principles guided its formation, and how particular readings were selected or excluded. But how Scripture is treated, how it is reverenced by the ministers, how it is integrated into the entire liturgy, is arguably no less important than the selection and quantity of readings. A metaphor would be the contrast between the modern printed book and the medieval illuminated manuscript. A Bible that has been written out by hand in a beautiful script ennobled with an elaborate initial and surrounded by lavish ornamentation is a certain way of viewing and treating the Word of God, no less than a cheap modern paperback that crams the words onto thin sheets with a drab, uniform layout and no special images. In this final portion of my critique, I would like to turn our attention to the domain of the ars celebrandi.
One sign of whether we are grasping the Eucharistic nobility and finality of the readings is whether the lections are proclaimed with due solemnity. They should be surrounded by a rich ceremonial, including the chanting of the sacred text, candles, and incense. At a High Mass, the priest’s chanting of the readings elevates them in a manner fitting to the depth and beauty of God’s own words and fitting, also, to the public act of transmitting divine revelation. The chant is like musical incense. At a solemn Mass, the hierarchical chanting, first by the subdeacon, then by the deacon, wonderfully expresses the metaphysical relationship of the elements: the lowliest minister sings the Epistle, the mid-level minister sings the Gospel, and the highest minister, the one who directly represents Christ the High Priest, whispers the words of consecration that infinitely exceed any song on earth. In such ways, the classical Roman rite brings out forcefully the fact that when we are handling Scripture, we are not handling mere human verbiage, but precious secrets proceeding from the mouth of God. Paradoxically, the usus antiquior treats the Word of God with tremendous veneration and yet decisively subordinates that written Word to the Mysterium Fidei, the Word made flesh.
At a High Mass, the chanting of the Epistle and Gospel and the slow-moving elaborate beauty of the interlectional chants—the Gradual and the Alleluia or Tract—prompt us to receive the Word as God’s Word and to meditate on it. While theoretically available to the OF, chanted readings and the chants between the readings are encountered extremely rarely. Rather, the delivery of the Sunday readings—up to four of them in a row, read aloud in the manner of a lecture, and all too often with monotonous elocution—treats these words as merely human, not divine, and discourages meditation. (Low Mass in the usus antiquior is a separate question, but I would argue that the overall atmosphere of silence and reverence characteristic of the Low Mass endows the readings and antiphons with a similarly meditative poignancy, and their being read at the altar by the priest serves a function similar to their solemn chanting at a High Mass.)
We saw earlier that the Council had stated, in words that warmed the hearts of Fr. Bouyer, Fr. Morin, and others of their generation: “To achieve the restoration, progress, and adaptation of the sacred liturgy, it is essential to promote that warm and living love for scripture to which the venerable tradition of both eastern and western rites gives testimony” (SC 24). How, in a manner proper to liturgy, do we best promote a warm and living love for Scripture? We treat Scripture in a special ceremonial way: we enclose it in a silver or gold case; we chant the readings; we incense and kiss the Gospel, and flank it with candles. With its simultaneous introduction of a multitude of readings and of lay lectors, the Novus Ordo has ironically rendered a sung and solemn Liturgy of the Word extremely rare, and, as we know too well, the spoken version tends to be unremarkable and eminently ignorable, when it is not positively annoying due to well-meant attempts to declaim the readings with dramatic flair.
Finally, we can ask ourselves: Does there need to be a homily at a weekday Mass? Cannot the Word of God, or better yet, the liturgy as a whole, sometimes be allowed to “speak for itself”? We need to find ways to make our liturgies less centered on human wisdom and the personalities of the actors and more centered on Jesus Christ, His Word, His Sacrifice.
Conclusions
The criteria we have considered in this paper—the function of Scripture in the Eucharistic sacrifice, the internal cohesion of the Mass as an ‘ecosystem’, the psychology of memory, the natural unit of the year, the due place of the sanctoral cycle, the spiritual role of difficult passages, the aesthetic and ceremonial treatment suited to the divine Word, and, not least of all, the authority inherent in traditional practice—permit us to draw a number of general conclusions.
First, like much else in the liturgical reform conducted under Pope Paul VI, the new lectionary exhibits signs of unseemly haste, overweening ambition, and disregard of principles approved by the council fathers. The Council’s call for “more Scripture” was open to different and even conflicting realizations. The revised lectionary, while it does represent one possible implementation of numbers 35 and 51 of Sacrosanctum Concilium, ends up contradicting outright numbers 23 and 50 of the same Constitution, which enunciate the controlling principle of continuity with tradition as well as the request that elements already present in our tradition be restored. It is worth noting that the bulk of the readings in the preconciliar Missale Romanum represent an inheritance from the early centuries of Catholic worship, a stable body of lessons on which generations of pastors, preachers, theologians, and laity had been nurtured, a tradition deserving of immense respect for its venerable antiquity. It is, to speak plainly, outrageous that this unbroken tradition, which had withstood all the ravages of time, fell victim to the scalpels of liturgical specialists. The result has been an obvious rupture and discontinuity at the very heart of the Roman rite, in spite of legal fictions and constructs necessary to help us through this period of crisis.
Second, quite apart from whether or not it can be seen as faithful to the Council’s desiderata, the Novus Ordo lectionary is gravely flawed because of its overall conception, its unwieldy bulk, its politically correct omissions, and its watering down of key spiritual goods emphasized in the old readings. No human mind can relate to so great a quantity of biblical text spread out over multiple years: it is out of proportion to the natural cycle of the year and its seasons; it is out of proportion to the supernatural cycle of the liturgical year. The revised lectionary does not lend itself readily to the sacrificial finality of the Mass but, inasmuch as it appears to serve a didactic function, sets up a different goal, quasi-independent of the offering of the Sacrifice. The use of the names “Liturgy of the Word” and “Liturgy of the Eucharist” underlines the problem: it is as if there are two liturgies glued together. They are seldom joined by the obvious connection of being related to one and the same feast, since the new lectionary prefers to ignore the saints in its march through the books of Scripture. Nor has it often been the custom to join the two liturgies by means of ceremonial practices that show the chanting of Scripture to be one phase of the journey towards Jerusalem and the hill of Calvary (cf. Lk 9:51).
Third, in light of this critique, we are in a better position to acknowledge that the usus antiquior possesses what is, in many ways, a superior lectionary, and Catholics who rejoice to worship in this form of the Roman rite should be unafraid to maintain and argue this advantage. We have a magnificent treasure to preserve and to share generously with our fellow Catholics, as Pope Benedict XVI expressly hoped we would do.
Fourth, the current usus antiquior readings are less varied and numerous than they have been at different points in the Roman rite’s history, and there is no inherent reason why the annual cycle could not be judiciously enriched with daily readings for certain seasons and by the selection of appropriate new readings for certain saints’ feasts, all the while scrupulously respecting and maintaining the cycle of readings already in place. In this way, the primacy of the liturgical year and the coherence of the sanctoral cycle could both be maintained, and neither sound tradition nor valuable spiritual goods would have to be compromised.
Fifth, now does not seem to be the best time to undertake this task. Those who love the classical Roman liturgy deeply appreciate the stability and serenity of the old missal and often (quite reasonably, in my opinion) feel shell-shocked by changes, small or great. And those who are in charge of liturgical matters in the Church still seem doggedly committed to the defense (one might say, at all costs) of the novelties of the 1960s and 1970s. It is not an environment favorable to the preservation of tradition or to its legitimate and prudent development. There is a spiritual danger, too, in setting about to “improve”: reformatory arrogance, one of the curses of modern progressivism. Our age does not seem to be especially talented at subtle or judicious improvements; we are an age of demolitions with wrecking balls. Nor should we be surprised that something put together in a matter of a few years would not be as solid and coherent as something that developed organically for many centuries. I sympathize with those who say we need a breathing space, a season of refreshment, in which we rediscover and rejoice in the traditional liturgy of the Church, with the notion of change far from our minds. The Lord in His kindness may someday provide a peaceful opportunity for gently supplementing the lections of the usus antiquior. We should neither try to rush the advent of that day, nor close off our minds to that possibility.
Contemporary ars celebrandi at its worst
Practical Steps
Since we are also interested here in practical steps, there are several things we can be doing right now to address at least some of the problems that have been raised.
First and foremost, we must celebrate the usus antiquior ever more widely, and learn again from our own tradition the properly liturgical function, configuration, and ceremonial of the readings. In this realm, it is crucial to promote the sung Mass and, where possible, the solemn High Mass, so that all things, including the proclamation of God’s Word, may be done beautifully and nobly.
Again, pastors in charge of usus antiquior communities ought to promote lectio divina and Bible studies and not be afraid to base their preaching on Sacred Scripture, while not neglecting texts from the missal, the catechism, and other classic homiletic sources. The tight integration of the propers of the Mass often make it easy to fulfill the Council’s request that “the sermon . . . should draw its content mainly from scriptural and liturgical sources” (SC 35.2, emphasis added). How rare it is to hear sermons that comment at any length on the texts of the Mass, whether proper to the day or from the Ordinary! Is it not strange that, apart from baptisms, first communions, and other special events, priests so rarely draw their themes from the immense treasury of the liturgy itself?
Within the sphere of the Novus Ordo, there are several things that can be done.
First, since one of the most notable characteristics of the historic Roman rite is its permeation with the Word of God, the proper antiphons at Mass should always be sung—at least the Entrance, Offertory, and Communion chants. In this way we can overcome one of the greatest ironies of the post-conciliar period, namely, that while the Council, like Scripture, bestows praise on sacred song, the Liturgy of the Word today is rarely chanted, and, even worse, our authentically scriptural songs—the propers—have been replaced with hymns of notoriously variable quality and fidelity to the Bible.
Second, we should take a hermeneutic of continuity approach to the modern lectionary. On memorials and feasts, we can choose from the optional readings those that correspond to the former missal, or in any case, those that fit well with the saint in question. During the suppressed Octave of Pentecost, we should celebrate Votive Masses of the Holy Spirit, selecting appropriate readings, once again emulating the old rite as closely as possible. The proclamation of the readings should be heightened with ceremonial features such as chanted lessons (whenever lectors, deacons, and priests can be sufficiently trained), incense, and candles.
Third, and in spite of the problem of verbosity, we should not fall into the trap of using the so-called “short forms” of readings, which are often ruses for omitting the uncomfortable bits—as when the American and British lectionaries provide for the silencing of the verse “Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord.” If a priest sees that “difficult” verses of Scripture have been altogether omitted under the pressure of liberalism and secularism, he would do well to bring up those very verses in his homily.
Fourth, lectors should be more carefully selected and trained for their purpose, and suitably vested, as befits the dignity of their office. A deliberate effort to increase the number of male lectors would also be a worthy endeavor.
Fifth, to counterbalance the problem of “verbal imperialism,” the Liturgy of the Eucharist should be given due weight and dignity by the sacred music employed, by the adoption (whenever possible) of an eastward orientation at the altar, and by the use of the Roman Canon, so that this part of the liturgy truly appears to be the Mass’s point of arrival—in the words of the poet Richard Crashaw, “the full, final Sacrifice / On which all figures fix’t their eyes. / The ransomed Isaac, and his ram; / The Manna, and the Paschal Lamb.” It need not take longer in terms of the clock, but it ought to feel weightier. In a traditional Solemn High Mass, the Mass of the Catechumens often takes considerably longer than the Mass of the Faithful, yet the latter always stands out as the summit of the holy mountain.
Lastly, the Catholic parish, like the life of every Catholic, should manifest a variety of prayer forms and a breadth of education. The vast increase in the quantity of Scripture at Mass reflects a mentality that sees Mass as the only time when Catholics are ever going to be in church or anywhere near a Bible, so one has to pack everything one can into that time. This mentality obviously neglects the role of the Divine Office or Liturgy of the Hours, which is and has always been a dedicated liturgy of the Word of God and deserves its important place—for example, in publicly celebrated Vespers. Moreover, nothing can substitute for extraliturgical formation in catechism classes, prayer groups, and Bible studies, through pamphlets, books, and DVDs distributed to the faithful, and even through well-written bulletins. As Pope Benedict XVI reminded us, lectio divina should be taught and encouraged. The formation of the faithful in the Word of God is not a burden that the Mass was ever meant to carry or is even well-suited to carry.Allow me to close with the moving words of Cardinal Ratzinger in his preface to Dom Alcuin Reid’s The Organic Development of the Liturgy—words that apply extremely well to the revision of the lectionary.
Growth is not possible unless the Liturgy’s identity is preserved, and . . . proper development is possible only if careful attention is paid to the inner structural logic of this “organism.” Just as a gardener cares for a living plant as it develops, with due attention to the power of growth and life within the plant, and the rules it obeys, so the Church ought to give reverent care to the Liturgy through the ages, distinguishing actions that are helpful and healing from those that are violent and destructive. If that is how things are, then we must try to ascertain the inner structure of a rite, and the rules by which its life is governed, in order thus to find the right way to preserve its vital force in changing times, to strengthen and renew it
[Postscript: At the time I wrote this lecture, in 2015, I was more favorable to the “reform of the reform” and the “hermeneutic of continuity.” At this point I am skeptical about both, for reasons I have explained elsewhere. Nevertheless, I understand that many clergy find themselves in the position of celebrating the Novus Ordo and they wish to do the best they can with the materials at hand. The recommendations given in the lecture are to be taken as pragmatic steps towards the ultimate goal of recovering traditional Catholic worship in its fullness.]
ICKP Summer Study Program on Galatians with Daily Traditional Mass – As Posted On Rorate
The program will be held at St. Mary’s Oratory in Wausau, Wisconsin, a parish of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest. The 19th-century church, renovated in the first years of the 21st century, is considered one of the most beautiful examples in North America of German High Gothic
Shepherd’s Fountain – This fountain stands near the Shepherds Chapel outside Bethlehem. It marks the field where shepherds were told by an angelic choir of Christ’s birth. Source: Lawrence OP on Flickr – On gloria.tv
Watch – Idolatrous Afro ritual in a Turin church – On Church Revolution In Pictures – Via TIA
When Fr. Giancarlo Gosmar, the parish priest, received complaints, he answered that he had seen nothing irreverent in that performance, although the dance is part of a pagan ritual and the dancers had their torso semi-naked.
Distancing oneself from the profane and returning to tradition in order to remain Catholic
Max Jacob, French Born Saintly Sinner – That Felt It Necessary To Leave Paris – On Crisis Magazine
After a few more years of struggle in Montmartre, Jacob realized that his life as a Christian would be impossible as long as he lived in Paris. In 1921, he left the capital for the small village of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, spending almost all his remaining days in proximity to the Abbaye Fleury in prayer with the Benedictines. “This is the only place,” said Jacob, “where I can live without sinning seriously every day of my life.” His many friends in the worlds of art and literature would visit him there, where conversations that began on art, poetry, or cinema would always end on religion and in prayer
St. Louis IX of France Takes the Cross – On Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites
A model 3rd Order Franciscan Who Used His Vast Wealth For Crusades , Construction Of Hospitals , Cathedrals , Churches , Schools , And The Glory Of God
Preservation Society Works to Stop Sell-Off of Catholic Churches – Once-sacred spaces are being torn down or re-purposed into clubs or offices – On CMTV
Social Hierarchy Helps Us Love God -On Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites
Man is his expansiveness, whereby He wants what is convenient to Him, not just what is necessary. This abundance, this type of superfluity—[revolutionaries] today speak so much against the superfluous—all of Creation is God’s superfluity. Creation is this kind of superfluity made by God.
Msgr. Enrico Dante, Papal MC -As posted by Eddie Toribio MC – Holy Innocents NYC
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Every lover of the Roman Liturgy will at some point run across a video or a photo of the ceremonies at the Papal Court with Msgr. Dante as the main Papal Master of Ceremonies (MC).
Fifty-two years ago today (April 24, 1967), he passed to the next life. He was one of the greatest lovers, defenders, and promoters of the traditional and immemorial ceremonies of the Roman Church, which he piously and faithfully served for 51 years (from 1914 till his forced retirement in 1965). No one suffered more than he when Bugnini (with Paul VI’s approval) mutilated, limited, suppressed, and attempted to destroy the traditional ceremonies of the Roman Mass. During one of the Vatican sessions, he publicly demanded that the Liturgy had to remain “the sole prerogative of the Holy See,” but he was ignored and changes to the Liturgy were made without scruples and reverence.
He knew how to coordinate very complex and long ceremonies with impeccable precision and efficiency. He was a doctor in philosophy, theology, and civil and canon law. He was also an official member of the Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary.
His “career” as Master of Ceremonies began on March 25, 1914 when he was admitted as a member of the Academy for Pontifical (Papal) Ceremonies, and on October 26, 1923 he was nominated to the Sacred Congregation of Rites by Pope Pius XI, of which he became “substitute” in September of 1930. In 1943, he was made sub-secretary of the Sacred Congregation of the Papal Ceremonies as a Domestic Prelate.
During the years of the horrible changes to the traditional ceremonies of the Roman Rite, he was not consulted much and was actively sidestepped by Bugnini and company. He was eventually made a Cardinal in 1965 in order to get him out of the way as Papal MC because “he would not be able to cope with the changes.”
He was called “the director of God,” as he was the only one who whispered orders (in Latin) to the Supreme Pontiff (“stand up,” “sit down,” “genuflect,” “kneel,” “bless,” etc.). He served under 5 popes, took part in 5 conclaves and 5 coronations, about 100 beatifications, and about 50 canonizations.
Little known is the fact that after the election of Paul VI one of the “obediences” to the newly-elected Pope by the Cardinals was delayed by 30 minutes because the good Msgr. Dante had overslept, due to the fatigue after all the demanding work that went into the conclave.
For over 40 years he heard confessions at Sacro Cuore al Suffragio in Rome. He was also an avid sports fan (soccer, tennis, swimming, and mountain climbing), which motivated him to help found the Associazione Sportiva Roma.
With his removal as Papal MC and with his death, a whole genetic type of Papal M.C.s came to such a drastic and icon
The only sure way to Christ Our Savior unto ensuring that we are consolidating a relationship with the authentic Jesus of Sacred Tradition & Sacred Scripture is through and with Our Lady. There is no other way.
2 Cor 11:1 – 5
Would to God you could bear with some little of my folly! But do bear with me. For I am jealous of you with the jealousy of God. For I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear lest, as the serpent seduced Eve by his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted and fall from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth another Christ, whom we have not preached; or if you receive another Spirit, whom you have not received; or another gospel, which you have not received: you might well bear with him. For I suppose that I have done nothing less than the great apostles. For although I be rude in speech, yet not in knowledge: but in all things we have been made manifest to you.
A former Satanist priest who became a Saint – Blessed Bartolo Longo Had An Amazing Devotion To Propagating The Rosary – Our Lady Of Pompei And The Dominican 3rd Order – – On Dominican Friars Foundation
Bartolo Longo was also responsible for the movement towards the elevation of the Assumption of Our Lady from a regional observance to an international and dogmatic recognition beginning with his work with Pope Leo XIII and also his cisionary draft of the Luminous Mysteries which has traditional origins
May, Mary’s Month – II: The Immaculata, the Exterminatrix of all heresies – On Rorate
She bore His dead body to the tomb, but never for a moment doubted that He would rise again. Then the love of God with which she burned made her a partaker in the sufferings of Christ and the associate in His passion; with him moreover, as if forgetful of her own sorrow, she prayed for the pardon of the executioners although they in their hate cried out: “His blood be upon us and upon our children” (Matth. xxvii., 25).
Our Lady of Good Success On The St. Colman Mac Duagh Site The coming chastisement will be severe but The Message of Our Lady of Good Success ends with a note of Great Hope for the Church
[She foretells of, “…the happy beginning of the complete restoration.”]
400 Years Ago, Our Lady Sent Us A Message From Ecuador – OnePeterFive
Woe to the children of these times! It will be difficult to receive the Sacrament of Baptism and also the Sacrament of Confirmation. They will receive the Sacrament of Confession only if they remain in Catholic schools, for the Devil will make a great effort to destroy it through persons in position of authority. The same thing will happen with the Sacrament of Holy Communion. As for the Sacrament of Matrimony, which symbolises the union of Christ with His Church, it will be attacked and deeply profaned. Freemasonry, which will then be (invisibly) in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the aim of doing away with this Sacrament, making it easy for everyone to live in sin and encouraging the procreation of illegitimate children born without the blessing of the Church.
The Miracle of the Palazzo Massimo, Then and Now By Roberto de Mattei , translation by Giuseppe Pellegrino – On The Remnant Newspaper
Highlights #1 The victims of what is considered the worst carnage of the Spanish Civil War belonged mostly to the Catholic ruling class, such as the Spanish playwright Pedro Munoz Seca, who said, “They accuse me of being a monarchist because I carried the mantle of the Virgin of Pilar to Rome on behalf of Alfonso XIII. With this mantle I also go to die.”In the Spanish Civil War the anarchist-communist Revolution showed its bloody face, which it had already shown in Russia and Mexico. Over the years, the masks worn by the Revolution change, but the anti-Christian essence of the revolutionary process does not change. Its goal is the destruction of the Church and Christian civilization.
#2 Today we are living in a world immersed in secularism that is impermeable to the supernatural. The progressive nouvelle théologie contributed to this secularism, with its lack of any distinction between the natural and supernatural order.
#3 To believe in the possibility of miracles is a necessary condition to hope for salvation.
Capuchin Administrator In Chile Isn’t Walking in the Steps of Padre Pio – On Jesus Christ Our Shepard Blog
The Capuchin Celestino Aos Braco, who has not served as Administrator of Santiago de Chile for four weeks, is denying Communion kneeling on the tongue to the faithful.
‘Church needs a paradigm shift’ in order to reverse dropping attendance Mass Attack in Malta on those in favour of the Tridentine Mass ‘Church needs a paradigm shift’ in order to reverse dropping attendance – On Times Of Malta
Collect O God, the glorious bishop Stanislaus fell beneath the swords of evil men in defending Your name. May all of us who seek his help be brought closer to our salvation through his intercession. Through Our Lord . . .
Lesson from the book of Wisdom 5:1-5 The just shall stand with great assurance before their oppressors who set at nought their labors. Seeing this, these shall be shaken with dreadful fear, and amazed at the suddenness of the unlooked-for salvation. They shall say among themselves, rueful and groaning through anguish of spirit: These are they whom once we held as a laughingstock and as a type for mockery, fools that we were! Their life we deemed madness, and their death dishonored. See how they are accounted among the sons of God; how their lot is with the Saints!
They believed in the religious exemption, but only at first -The Tortured Martyrs Against Protestantism On Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites
Statue of St John of Beverley on the Minster, Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire. Photo by Graham Hermon.
May 7 – Bl. Agnellus of Pisa – Franciscan Friar Of the noble family of the Agnelli; died at Oxford, 7 May, 1236 – On Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites
With the crises in the world today, more and more people (especially young people) seek an alternative to the “modern world.” They are returning in droves to the wisdom of the ages, to things tested and timeless.
For many young Catholics and converts to the Catholic Faith, this has included a return to the Traditional Latin Mass.
Recognizing that the Traditional Latin Mass has never been abolished or forbidden, Pope Benedict XVI affirms in his July 7, 2007 Motu Proprio entitled “Summorum Pontificum” the right of every Catholic priest in the world to offer this Mass.
On The Journal of Catholic Culture and Tradition – The Latin Mass Magazine
An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine: For The Use of Sunday-School Teachers and Advanced Classes Also known as Baltimore Catechism No. 4: Rev Thomas L Kinkead, Brother Hermenegild: On Amazon Books
What we are battling against via Sacred Tradition are the mounting forces of the demonic within our Holy Mother Church
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Persecution Of Traditional Apostolates And Priests Continues – Catholic priest moved from Tasmanian church over ‘personal and theological differences’ – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation Mass) – On The Catholic Herald
Arianism On Display In Rome – Vatican Sends A Rep To Celebrate The Dethroning Of Christ The King – Stunning new photos of the Rome Italy Temple capture the interior for the first time – On Church News
Watch This Important Video – On Arianism – Syncretism – and Pan Religion In Practice – The fallen Saint of the light is revealed in its theology and worship
The Light that enlightens and unifies all mankind in the humanism The light that gives power regardless of creed or denominations , sound familiar. Watch “Ex freemason/illuminati member SPEAKS OUT: Meeting Anubis, Chakras, Atlantis, New Age(Luciferianism)” – On YouTube
The Mother Of God In The Core Of Catholics Sacred Tradition
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Why Saturday Is Dedicated to Our Lady – On The American TFP
There is, however, a vessel that Our Lady wanted to be one of honor and glory, a vessel of chastity and fidelity in which she gathered the whole Catholic sense, all devotion to her, entire love of all traditions that others are foolishly abandoning
Charles Dickens was a great literary genius. He had a gift for complicated plots, for colorful characters, and for emotionally evocative storytelling. As a social critic, he also penetrated into the unseemlier side of industrial capitalism, that Protestant beast that grew up in post-Reformation England and turned the merry cities and towns of that nation once known as Mary’s Dowry into appropriate backdrops for Bleak House, Oliver Twist, and Little Dorrit.
St. George Theatre By Tom McDonald, A NYC Transit retiree
St. George Theater in Staten Island, NY.
Constructed in the same era as the Loew’s Wonder Theatres, the St. George Theatre in Staten Island is another classic old hall that has been brought alive through some renovations done by very generous individuals. Located at 35 Hyatt Street, a short walk from the ferry terminal, the St. George Theatre was once considered the most magnificent theatre in the borough. Since its revival in the early 21st century, it may well be again.
Solomon Brill of the Isle Theatrical Company was an independent owner of 15 theatres in the New York City area at a time when most movie houses were built by Hollywood studios. He began construction in 1928 and the St. George opened its doors on December 4, 1929 as a movie and vaudeville house, where one could see a flick and catch a live performance in the same sitting. This two-tiered entertainment was abandoned in 1934, but revived during the 1940s to help sell war bonds. After World War II, it remained a movie palace until 1977, under the stewardship of the Fabian Theater chain, which had acquired the St. George in 1938.
Subsequent owners used the venue for a roller rink, an antique showroom, and a night club, all unsuccessful ventures. In the mid-1990s, it briefly opened as a performing arts center, but closed down quickly. The St. George Theatre remained dark until 2003, when the film “School of Rock” used it for its final scene.
In 2004, Mrs. Rosemary Cappozalo and her daughters, Luanne Sorrentino and Doreen Cugno, started a not-for-profit organization to save this historic theatre from being torn down with Cappozalo donating over a million dollars for a renovation of the site. Since re-opening in June of 2004, over 800 events have been held there, with performers like Tony Bennett, Jerry Seinfeld, Whoopi Goldberg, and Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo among the headliners.
Today, the St. George Theatre seats 1,800 people. It is a fine place to see a show of any kind, with the distinctive look of the old, classic movie palaces of the 1930s, including murals on the walls in the lobby, winding staircases to the mezzanine, and stained-glass chandeliers. The updated sound system is another attractive reason to drop by to see a show at this wonderful venue.
The 1 train to South Ferry, the 4 and 5 to Bowling Green and the R and W to Whitehall Street/South Ferry all leave you by the Manhattan entrance to the Staten Island Ferry. Upon arrival at the St. George Ferry Terminal in Staten Island, the St. George Theatre is two blocks away, at 35 Hyatt Street.
The Top 10 Secrets of the Landmark Loew’s Jersey Theatre | Untapped Cities
A social evening in 1909 at the restaurant Le Pré Catalan Henri_Alexandre_Gervex_-_Une_soirée_au_Pré_Catelan_-_1909
From the book of the prophet Isaiah 27:1-13 The Lord cares for his vineyard once again
On that day, The Lord will punish with his sword that is cruel, great, and strong, Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the coiled serpent; and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.
On that day – The pleasant vineyard, sing about it! I, the Lord, am its keeper, I water it every moment; Lest anyone harm it, night and day I guard it.
I am not angry, but if I were to find briers and thorns, In battle I should march against them; I should burn them all. Expunging and expelling, I should strive against them, carrying them off with my cruel wind in time of storm.
In days to come Jacob shall take root, Israel shall sprout and blossom, covering all the world with fruit. Is he to be smitten as his smiter was smitten? or slain as his slayer was slain?
Or shall he cling to me for refuge? He must make peace with me; peace shall he make with me!
This, then, shall be the expiation of Jacob’s guilt, this the whole fruit of the removal of his sin: He shall pulverize all the stones of the altars like pieces of chalk; no sacred poles or incense altars shall stand. For the fortified city shall be desolate, an abandoned pasture, a forsaken wilderness, where calves shall browse and lie.
Its boughs shall be destroyed, its branches shall wither and be broken off, and women shall come to build a fire with them. This is not an understanding people; therefore their maker shall not spare them, nor shall he who formed them have mercy on them.
On that day, The Lord shall beat out the grainb between the Euphrates and the Wadi of Egypt, and you shall be gleaned one by one, O sons of Israel.
On that day, A great trumpet shall blow, and the lost in the land of Assyria and the outcasts in the land of Egypt Shall come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain, in Jerusalem.
From a spiritual Canticle by Saint John of the Cross, priest
Though holy doctors have uncovered many mysteries and wonders, and devout souls have understood them in this earthly condition of ours, yet the greater part still remains to be unfolded by them, and even to be understood by them.
We must then dig deeply in Christ. He is like a rich mine with many pockets containing treasures: however deep we dig we will never find their end or their limit. Indeed, in every pocket new seams of fresh riches are discovered on all sides.
For this reason the apostle Paul said of Christ: In him are hidden all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God. The soul cannot enter into these treasures, nor attain them, unless it first crosses into and enters the thicket of suffering, enduring interior and exterior labors, and unless it first receives from God very many blessings in the intellect and in the senses, and has undergone long spiritual training.
All these are lesser things, disposing the soul for the lofty sanctuary of the knowledge of the mysteries of Christ: this is the highest wisdom attainable in this life.
Would that men might come at last to see that it is quite impossible to reach the thicket of the riches and wisdom of God except by first entering the thicket of much suffering, in such a way that the soul finds there its consolation and desire. The soul that longs for divine wisdom chooses first, and in truth, to enter the thicket of the cross.
Saint Paul therefore urges the Ephesians not to grow weary in the midst of tribulations, but to be rooted and grounded in love, so that they may know with all the saints the breadth, the length, the height and the depth—to know what is beyond knowledge, the love of Christ, so as to be filled with all the fullness of God. The gate that gives entry into these riches of his wisdom is the cross; because it is a narrow gate, while many seek the joys that can be gained through it, it is given to few to desire to pass through it.
