Coincidence?

On March 22, 1970, Palm Sunday, the Novus Ordo Missae was first permitted to be used in these United States.  (It did not become mandatory until the First Sunday of Advent, 1971.)

On March 22, 2020, the Fourth Sunday of Lent, the public celebration of the Novus Ordo Missae is effectively almost entirely suppressed in these U.S.A., and in much of the rest of the world, as we labor under what one priest has aptly described as God’s Interdict.

It appears that the only public Masses now being offered are the traditional Latin Masses offered by the Society of St. Pius X (at least where they are not prevented by the civil authorities).  Although the Society has less than 700 priests worldwide, it has actually increased the number of Masses in order to have fewer people attend each one.

Notice also that the Fourth Sunday of Lent is Laetare Sunday, the midpoint of Lent, when special signs of joy are permitted in the liturgy to encourage the faithful in their Lenten penance.

So, on Palm Sunday, when the Church commemorates Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem in order to undergo His Passion, she entered into the eclipse of the traditional Mass and the rise of the New Mass, in which she would become all but unrecognizable.  Exactly 50 years later, the public celebration of the new Mass is all but completely shut down, leaving only the public celebration of the traditional Mass.

Coincidence?

According to St. Padre Pio, with Divine Providence there is no coincidence.

Convalescent Cogitations (UPDATED)

Sts. Cosmas and Damian: physicians and martyrs.

Going to the hospital for, if not a life-threatening, at least a life-inconveniencing procedure under general anesthesia causes one to pause and meditate upon one's vulnerability and mortality.  In the weeks leading up to this morning's surgery I mostly went about my daily business; but now, while I rest and metabolize the various sedatives out of my system, I have little to do except ponder Great Issues.  I probably should also make room in my cogitations to consider the wisdom of publishing their fruits while still in a condition that would make it illegal for me to drive; maybe I will hold off on clicking that button until tomorrow.  On the other hand, maybe today is the day to announce the happy news that I came through the surgery very well, with very little pain, and the doctor said everything looked good.  I should have lab results on the biopsy in a week.  UPDATE: Biopsy results were normal.

-- I have to first express my gratitude to my aunt, Margie Blake, who got up at an ungodly hour to drive out all the way from a neighboring county and get me to the hospital at 5:30 a.m.; stayed with me until I went into surgery; stayed at the hospital all morning until I was ready to go home; talked to the doctor for me after the surgery; and provided me with a very delicious potato soup and Jello.  Her response to being so sorely put out by me?  Happiness at being able to do it.

-- I have to also express my gratitude to the doctors and nurses and orderlies at St. Luke's Hospital in Boise for the extraordinary care they took to be kind and gentle, see to my physical comfort, avoid inflicting unnecessary pain and assuage my anxieties.  These were people who get up extremely early in the morning, work long hours, perform strenuous and sometimes stomach-churning duties, ford innumerable streams of government red tape, and treat difficult and demanding people with kindness and compassion on a daily basis.  I, who roll out of bed at the latest possible minute I can get away with and still make it to work, and then spend my days being difficult and demanding, don't know how they do it.

--  One point that forced itself upon me with great clarity this morning was the necessity of preparing spiritually in advance for that supreme moment when one is about to leave this life.  The only real way to do this is to get into the habit of praying -- in particular, praying for protection from a sudden and unprovided death -- and frequenting the Sacraments.  It is rash and foolhardy to count on being able to slide into heaven at the last minute after a lifetime of neglecting the things of God.  After all, even if you don't die suddenly, you may nevertheless be in excruciating pain at the end, or you may not have all your marbles, or you may suddenly lose consciousness.  (I tried but failed to be aware of the moment when I would lose consciousness in the operating room: I was waking up in recovery before I knew I had gone to sleep.)  But even if you have the capacity for quiet concentration, a hospital is too full of distractions and interruptions for it.  Make your preparations and intentions and resolutions for that time now, while you are still capable, and keep renewing them.

-- I did not seek the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick, or Extreme Unction, before my surgery.  This was because Extreme Unction is for persons who have begun to be in danger of death through bodily infirmity and not an anticipated cause from without.  All the evidence up to now indicates that, apart from certain symptoms, I am otherwise quite healthy, so that to the extent, if any, that I was in danger of death, it was from an external source and not from one internal to myself.  However, there are other ways to prepare for situations like this: going to confession and receiving Holy Communion ahead of time; getting in the daily Rosary before going in (even if you can't quite finish it); wearing the brown scapular (though the doctors will make you wear it someplace other than around your neck); arranging in advance to have a priest contacted in the event something goes wrong.  If -- which God forbid -- my biopsy turns up something potentially life-threatening, then I will seek Extreme Unction in the hell-whipping traditional form.

-- You never want to eat a thick, juicy steak so much as on Ash Wednesday or Good Friday, and you never want to go out and run errands so much as when you're not supposed to drive.  I also would really like to take a shower tonight but can't.

-- I hope the Swedish chemist Nils Löfgren made it straight into heaven without stopping in purgatory for inventing Lidocaine.

-- One downside to the Internet is that the ready accessibility of limitless information makes people think they can be experts without the expense and arduous labor of going to school and gaining experience.  Doctors and nurses must get really tired of having constantly and daily to burst people's Internet research bubbles.

-- I told myself to pick up some dark chocolate with almonds when I went to the store last night.  Should have listened.

Notes and Images from the Mary Magdalene Retreat

Our chapter's annual Mary Magdalene retreat on July 17-19 was a success.  A big thank you to all those who made it possible, from the cleanup crew to the cooks to Maria Turner and the chant schola to the newly-ordained Fr. Gabriel Mosher, O.P. who stepped in for Fr. Vincent Kelber, O.P. as our retreat master.  He offered a Dominican Rite Mass every day of our retreat, culminating in sung High Mass on Sunday.  We were glad to see a fair number of folks from outside the chapter join us for Mass in the main room of our chapter house, where we have set up a temporary chapel with a real battlefield altar.  Herewith some images (hopefully discreetly shot) from the retreat:

Adoration on Friday night.  Father leads us in the Holy Hour of Reparation to the Sacred Heart.

The Dominican Rite, which belongs particularly to the Order of Preachers and which predates the Council of Trent, is similar in many, but not all respects, to the traditional Roman Rite.  Here the altar is set up for High Mass in the Dominican Rite.  Notice that the chalice is not set up as it would be for the Latin Rite.  In the Dominican Rite the chalice is set up at the beginning of Mass.  Also notice the extra, unlit candles at either end of the altar.  These are the Sanctus candles.  They are lit during the Sanctus.

Vesting for Mass.  Father has the amice over his head and is putting on his maniple.

The sprinkling rite, done sans chasuble.

Altar servers are much more integral in the Dominican Rite than in the Roman Rite.  There were three servers at this High Mass, and they had a lot of complicated maneuvers to perform.  There is a constant orbiting around the altar, like a solar system.  In fact, it is a kind of solar system, with Christ -- represented by the altar -- as the center around which all of creation revolves.  This makes the liturgy a sort of dance, proving that there is a legitimate form of liturgical dance, with no gauze involved.

Preparing the incense.  Notice that there are a lot of candles in the Dominican Rite.

Elevation of the Host, with incensing.

After Mass, Father blessed candles, rosaries, salt and water for us according to the traditional Dominican rites of blessing and the Rituale Romanum.  If you have access to a Dominican friar who is willing to use the traditional formulas, there is a special Dominican blessing on rosaries that allows one to gain a plenary indulgence with each use of the beads.  We have now a tsunami of holy water, and enough exorcised salt to carpet-bomb every level of hell. 

There are many places where the old guard from the '70s and '80s still has the upper hand; but, as we saw this weekend, many of our new young priests and friars love the treasures of our Catholic patrimony and have very little use for the "wonderful" "new" ideas that so captivated their elders. 

On Hell's Doorstep

Battlefield Mass: Korean War

When I saw For Greater Glory a couple of years ago, I was struck by the scenes showing the Cristeros at worship in their desert hideaways.  The priest at the altar was like a general leading his troops into battle -- onward and upward to Calvary, where the titanic battle for the salvation of the world was fought and won upon the Cross.  Reason number 454,823,231 to put an end to facing the priest toward the congregation at Mass.

Battlefield Mass: Iwo Jima

The Tridentine Mass on the field of battle, amid death and destruction, is simple, stark, masculine and beautiful.  Here, hell is crushed underfoot.  There is no room for the decadent displays that most of us are forced to settle for Sunday after Sunday, with their narcissistic accretions, beneath which the August Sacrifice is almost totally undetectable.

Fr. Willie Doyle, S.J., the "Trench Priest" of the First World War, describes offering Mass in the trenches during the Battle of the Somme in October of 1916:

By cutting a piece out of the side of the trench, I was just able to stand in front of my tiny altar, a biscuit tin supported by two German bayonets. God's angels, no doubt, were hovering overhead, but so were the shells, hundreds of them, and I was a little afraid that when the earth shook with the crash of the guns, the chalice might be overturned. Round about me on every side was the biggest congregation I ever had: behind the altar, on either side, and in front, row after row, sometimes crowding one upon the other, but all quiet and silent, as if they were straining their ears to catch every syllable of that tremendous act of Sacrifice - but every man was dead! Some had lain there for a week and were foul and horrible to look at, with faces black and green. Others had only just fallen, and seemed rather sleeping than dead, but there they lay, for none had time to bury them, brave fellows, every one, friend and foe alike, while I held in my unworthy hands the God of Battles, their Creator and their Judge, and prayed to Him to give rest to their souls. Surely that Mass for the Dead, in the midst of, and surrounded by the dead, was an experience not easily to be forgotten.

What could be more fitting than Holy Mass on hell's very doorstep?  Did not St. Paul say that where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more?  Where is the Blood of Christ more needed than those places lashed by the fury of demons?  There is nowhere that Blood has not penetrated.  Not even Hitler's death camps.

In 1941 Karl Leisner, a young deacon of the Diocese of Münster, was thrown into Dachau for his opposition to the Nazi regime.  Already tubercular, his health deteriorated further, until it seemed that he would never fulfill his dream of becoming a priest.  But Divine Providence had other plans.

Here indeed is a subject for meditation.  Picture the young deacon lying awake in his hard bunk, staring up into the darkness.  He imagines himself at the altar, holding his Eucharistic Lord in his hands; or in the confessional, freeing souls from the bondage of sin; or at a sickbed, bringing the comfort of Extreme Unction to the dying.  But now he himself is weak, and sinking toward death, and cut off from his bishop, and apt to be put to death as an unproductive prisoner at any moment.  It seems as though God does not want him for His priest after all.  

Then, one day, a group of French prisoners is brought to Dachau.  Among them is a bishop.  Here is a man who can confer the sacred priesthood on Karl!  But bishops cannot act without jurisdiction.  Permission from the local ordinary is needed.  With the aid of the other prisoners in his block, all clergy, and the intrepid Sister Imma Mack, who regularly visits the camp, Karl petitions the local cardinal for permission to receive ordination at the hands of his fellow prisoner.  Imagine Karl struggling to be patient as he awaits the cardinal's response.  Finally, the following week, it comes.  Not only does the cardinal grant his permission; he also sends along chrism, a stole, and the book containing the Rite of Ordination, all of which are to be returned after the ordination, along with credible documentation that it has taken place.  

Now the camp is abuzz with activity.  Secret preparations are afoot for the ordination that is to take place right in the heart of Hitler's extermination complex.  Imagine prisoners -- some Catholic, some not -- in various parts of the camp, risking their lives and sacrificing precious spare moments and hours of sleep in order to work on vestments for the bishop and for Karl.  The angels must have doubled their vigilance, for no hint of what is going on reaches the enemy.  At last, all is ready, and on Gaudete Sunday, December 17, 1944, Karl becomes Father Leisner.

A unique photo: Blessed Father Karl Leisner, moments after his ordination at Dachau.

Here was a thing unheard of inside a death camp and, so far as known, absolutely unique.  Imagine the bishop and the newly ordained priest in their simple yet lovingly-made purple vestments; the candle-lit faces of the other prisoners; the Litany of the Saints being sung; the smell of holy chrism pervading the air of Dachau itself.  Here, surely, is a little taste of what the Harrowing of Hell must have been like: when Christ descended into hell to liberate the souls of the Just; whereupon, in that moment, that part of hell ceased to be hell.  Now Christ stooped down to hell on earth to raise up a priest out of its depths.  

But Father Leisner's ministry would consist mainly in suffering.  His health would not permit him to offer his first and only Mass until December 26th -- fittingly enough, the feast of St. Stephen.  Meanwhile, the fortress of death where he was consecrated to God was doomed.  Only a few months later, on May 4, 1945, the Allies liberated Dachau.  On August 12, 1945, Father Leisner -- now Blessed Karl Leisner -- closed his eyes forever on this fallen world that had been his battlefield.

When we find ourselves wondering where God is in the midst of our trials and tribulations, perhaps it would pay to think about Holy Mass on the battlefield, and the priestly ordination at Dachau.  The God Who has never failed to make His presence known and felt on the very doorstep of hell is surely with us now in our own troubles.

Christmas

This silver star in the Grotto of the Nativity in Bethlehem marks
what is believed to be the exact spot where Christ was born. 

From the Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide on the Gospel of St. Luke:

There is a question as to what place was the first to receive Christ at His birth.  Barradius thinks it was the ground, that Christ might teach us humility.  Others think that Christ was received into the arms of His Mother, with exceeding joy -- for this would seem to be becoming for such a mother and such a son, and would be natural, and is gathered from what Luke immediately adds, "and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes."  Taking Him in her hands she adored Him, kneeling, and then kissed Him most sweetly, and wrapped Him in the clothes and bands.  Suarez thinks that Christ, as soon as He was born, was laid by angels in the arms of His most holy and loving Mother; S. Gregory of Nyssa implies the same.  This would be the place most becoming to Him, and most consonant to the wishes both of Son and Mother; and from thence she placed Him in the manger.

From St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Incarnation, Birth and Infancy of Jesus Christ:

But why did Mary, who had so earnestly desired the birth of this Son -- why did she, who loved Him so much, allow Him to lie and suffer on this hard bed, instead of keeping Him in her arms?  This is a mystery, says St. Thomas of Villanova: "Nor would she have laid Him in such a place, unless there had been some great mystery in it."  This great mystery has been explained by many in different ways, but the most pleasing explanation to me is that of St. Peter Damian: Jesus wished as soon as He was born to be placed on the straw, in order to teach us the mortification of our senses: "He laid down the law of martyrdom."  The world had been lost by sensual pleasures; through them had Adam and multitudes of his descendants till then been lost.  The Eternal Word came from heaven to teach us the love of suffering; and He began as a child to teach it to us by choosing for Himself the most acute sufferings that an infant can endure.  It was, therefore, He Himself Who inspired His Mother to cease from holding Him in her tender arms, and to replace Him on the hard bed, that He might feel the more cold of the cave and the pricking of this rough straw.

From St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, III, Q. 35, Art. 7:

...Christ willed to be born in Bethlehem for two reasons.  First, because "He was made...of the seed of David according to the flesh," as it is written (Romans 1:3); to whom also was a special promise made concerning Christ; according to 2 Kings 23:1: "The man to whom it was appointed concerning the Christ of the God of Jacob...said."  Therefore He willed to be born at Bethlehem, where David was born, in order that by the very birthplace the promise made to David might be shown to be fulfilled.  The Evangelist points this out by saying: "Because He was of the house and of the family of David."  Secondly, because, as Gregory says (Hom. viii in Evang.): "Bethlehem is interpreted 'the house of bread.'  It is Christ Himself Who said, 'I am the living Bread which came down from heaven.'"

...According to a sermon in the Council of Ephesus...: "If He had chosen the great city of Rome, the change in the world would be ascribed to the influence of her citizens.  If He had been the son of the Emperor, His benefits would have been attributed to the latter's power.  But that we might acknowledge the work of God in the transformation of the whole earth, He chose a poor mother and a birthplace poorer still."

The Collect for Midnight Mass in the Traditional Latin Mass:

Deus, qui hanc sacratissimam noctem veri luminis fecisti illustratione clarescere : da, quæsu-mus, ut cujus lucis mysteria in terra cognovimus, ejus quoque gaudiis in cælo perfruamur.

O God, Who hast made this most sacred night to shine with the brightness of the true light : grant, we beseech Thee, that we who have known the mystery of His light upon earth, may enjoy also His happiness in heaven.

Terrible Is This Place

Bernini's baldocchino at St. Peter's Basilica.
Photo by Ricardo Andre Frantz.

Last Sunday, before Mass, I happened to open my 1962 Missal up to the Common of Saints, and my eye fell on these lines: 

Terribilis est locus iste: hic domus Dei est et porta coeli: et vocabitur aula Dei.

Terrible is this place: it is the House of God, and the gate of Heaven; and it shall be called the Court of God.

That is the antiphon from the Introit of the Mass for the Dedication of a Church in the Extraordinary Form.  "Terrible" here is used in its older sense of "awe-inspiring."  I looked around the cathedral and thought of those words ringing inside that space at its dedication 92 Easter Sundays ago.  I must confess that it increased my anger and sorrow at the thought of the mutilation of that beautiful cathedral in 1979, and indeed the similar desecration of many other old churches, brutally inflicted against the will of the laity who built them, and in accordance with notions falsely attributed to the Second Vatican Council.

The Collect of this Mass:

Deus, qui invisibiliter omnia contines, et tamen pro salute generis humani signa tuae potentiae visibiliter ostendis: templum hoc potentia tuae inhabitationis illustra, et concede; ut omnes, qui huc deprecaturi conveniunt, ex quacumque tribulatione ad te clamaverint, consolationis tuae beneficia consequantur.  

O God, Who, though unseen, upholdest all things, and yet for the salvation of mankind dost visibly show signs of Thy power: give glory to this temple by the might of Thy indwelling, and grant that all who in their deep distress shall come and call upon Thee here, may receive Thy goodly comfort.

Imagine a bishop chanting this stirring prayer in a tiny church in a poor, humble town -- a tiny church that is no less the House of God and Gate of Heaven than a cathedral.  Indeed, how much more the Mighty Indwelling must uphold it in its littleness.  The Gradual:

Locus iste a Deo factus est, inaestimabile sacramentum, irreprehensibilis est.  Deus, cui adstat Angelorum chorus, exaudi preces servorum tuorum.

This place was made by God, a priceless mystery, it is without reproof.  O God, before Whom stands the choir of angels, give ear to the prayers of Thy servants.

The Lesson of the Mass for the Dedication of a Church is from Chapter 21 of the Apocalypse, the vision of the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven; and the Gospel is the story of Zacheus from the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus declares that "this day is salvation come to this house."

I don't know how the dedication of a church goes according to the Mass of Paul VI, but I can see here one of the many reasons Pope Benedict XVI took the Traditional Mass out of mothballs.  We have gotten so casual and careless anymore about where we are when we are in church: we talk, we laugh, we dress like slobs, we let kids roughhouse in front of the tabernacle.  Priests and deacons behave in church as though they are merely at work and not inside a sacred space.  Of course, it doesn't help that many new churches are sterile and ugly, and do not appear to be in any way connected with religion.

Every new Latin Rite church should be dedicated according to the Extraordinary Form, and every Catholic should meditate on these propers, so that we can be reminded of just where we really are every Sunday, and how we ought to act there.

The Still, Small Voice

Weekend before last, I went down to Ogden to visit the grandparents.  Among other things, Sunday the 8th was (a) my birthday, and (b) the date set for Missa Cantata at St. James the Just, the inimitable Fr. Erik Richstieg celebrating, and Michael Wooden directing the schola cantorum.  It was a great treat to be able to attend Mass in the Extraordinary Form on my special day.

Meditating on this beautiful Mass gave rise to some reflections.   My attention was drawn to the professionalism of Michael, the altar server, in all his movements.  He did not look stiff and rigid, but on the other hand, there was nothing lazy or sloppy in how he carried out his duties.  I particularly noticed how, whenever he passed in front of the tabernacle, instead of just walking across the front of the altar, he descended to the bottom of the steps, stopped directly in front of the tabernacle, genuflected, then re-ascended the steps and continued on his way.  He was clearly committed to striving for excellence at the altar and doing everything exactly right.  There is an almost military precision to the traditional Mass, and the ministers in the sanctuary who love it, like Michael and Fr. Erik, work hard to be faithful to it.  There is a rubric to govern everything they do at the altar, and it must be done in a particular way.  Part of the purpose of all this strict ritual is to shield the people from the distraction of having the priest's personality intrude on the Mass; to safeguard the priest from feelings of self-importance; and to remind us all that the Mass is the work of God and not of mere men.  So crucial was -- is -- fidelity to the ritual that it was once considered a mortal sin for a priest deliberately to deviate from it.

Things are more relaxed for the people in the pews in the traditional Mass.  Except for genuflecting during the Credo and the Last Gospel, standing for the Gospels and kneeling for the consecration --  instinctive for believing Catholics -- there seem to be no set rules to what the people are supposed to be doing.  My 1962 Missal has a loose-leaf cheat sheet with a table that tells you generally when to sit, stand and kneel, but in practice, one just does whatever is done in a particular place.  You can never go wrong by kneeling through the whole Mass if you want to, but you don't have to; and if you want to sit after Communion, there's nobody to tell you you can't.  Nor are you required to sing, or say any responses, or make gestures.  You can just listen, and watch, and be, and quiet your soul, and leave all the heavy lifting to the alter Christus in the sanctuary.  That is what he is there for.

One can't help contrasting this order of business with the way things are done in most places with the Mass of Paul VI.  The New Mass is supposed to be an expression of the New Spirit of Freedom and Openness...and yet have you ever noticed how strictly regimented we in the pews are?  We are expected to say our parts, and sing the songs, and generally busy ourselves with doing a bunch of stuff.  We have ushers to keep us in line, and priests and deacons to lecture us sternly on our failures of "active participation" if we do not keep up with our many appointed tasks.  We are essentially driven like cattle through a noisy, fast-paced proceeding that leaves us no time to pray or recollect ourselves or remember that we are at the foot of the Cross.  Meanwhile, many priests do pretty much whatever they want at the altar, whatever the books may say.  

And this is what is known as the "golden age of the laity."

Personally, I envision the Golden Age of the Laity as something more along the lines of what I got on September the 8th.  I would much rather let the priest be the priest, and have him let me be me, and shut out the din of everyday life and listen in silence for the still, small voice.

The Cruise Ship of Peter

The modern world, which denies personal guilt and admits only social crimes, which has no place for personal repentance but only public reforms, has divorced Christ from His Cross; the Bridegroom and Bride have been pulled apart. What God hath joined together, men have torn asunder. As a result, to the left is the Cross; to the right is the Christ...The Western post-Christian civilization has picked up the Christ without His Cross. But a Christ without a sacrifice that reconciles the world to God is a cheap, feminized, colorless, itinerant preacher who deserves to be popular for His great Sermon on the Mount, but also merits unpopularity for what He said about His Divinity on the one hand, and divorce, judgment, and hell on the other. This sentimental Christ is patched together with a thousand commonplaces....Without His Cross, He becomes nothing more than a sultry precursor of democracy or a humanitarian who taught brotherhood without tears.  

Ven. Fulton J. Sheen, Life of Christ

This weekend, I had the joy of attending Low Mass in the Dominican Rite, for the feast of St. Vincent de Paul; then a Novus Ordo Vigil Mass for Sunday celebrated ad orientem.  But it all had to be paid for this morning, when I found myself at a Mass with muzak-like campfire ditties played on piano and bass guitar and bongos and cymbals and tinkly chimes; girl altar servers with loose hair and flip-flops; people encouraged to socialize with each other instead of getting recollected for Mass; a priest improvising Mass parts; the canon gone through hastily and almost carelessly; and applause at the end for Murph and the Magictones, followed by raucous yakking inside the church.

Such is the Cruise Ship of Peter, the favorite fantasy of so many Catholics, even in the hierarchy.

Unlike the Barque of Peter, constantly under assault and in danger of sinking, yet manfully plowing forward through rough seas, the Cruise Ship of Peter is nice.  Its worship is uncontroversial.  It is bland.  It is insipid.  It is jejune.  It is decadent.  It is effeminate.  It kindles no fires, stirs no ardor, pricks no consciences.  Its lifeblood is mediocrity.  It docks at any old port, and will strike any old compromise to do so.  It insulates man from the uncomfortable mystery of the supernatural, and protects him from transports of zeal.  There is little enough to distinguish it from any other organization calling itself a church, or even from secular society: its very furnishings are precisely those of a posh country club.  That is why it always has smooth sailing, at least for as long as this serves the purposes of the prince of this world.  Even when sailing is not smooth, the ship is so grand and luxurious that nobody on board notices.  One leaves the liturgy on the cruise ship feeling as though one has just been to a really nice wine and cheese reception.  With its affluence and its amphitheater layout and its cushioned pews and its polished wood and its orchestra pit next to the sanctuary and its soothing, tranquilizing liturgy, the Cruise Ship of Peter is all ordered, down to the smallest detail, with a view to sealing up Catholics in a soft, warm cocoon of niceness and upper-class comfort, making them forget, or even filling them with friendly feelings toward, the pirates and cutthroats that smile back from their little boats that nevertheless daily increase and close in.

All are welcome aboard the Cruise Ship of Peter -- they even have a song about it that they sing at the beginning of Mass! -- all, that is, except anyone who might rock the boat.  What might the Cruise Ship do, one is tempted to wonder, with a Francis of Assisi, or a Dominic de Guzman, or a Catherine of Siena, or an Alphonsus Liguori, or a Fulton Sheen?  Would they have to walk the plank?  How much has the Cruise Ship liturgy to do with immemorial tradition?  Does it inspire missionaries and fortify martyrs?  Does it remotely resemble the Masses of Aquinas, wrapped in awe; or those of the Recusants in Elizabethan England, where it was death to be a priest; or of Father Willie Doyle on makeshift altars in the muddy trenches of the First World War; or of the Cristeros in their secret refuges from the Masonic Mexican regime; or of the first and only Mass celebrated by Bl. Karl Leisner, secretly ordained in Dachau on Gaudete Sunday, 1944, desperately ill yet on fire for souls?  Can one picture Father Augustine Tolton on board, his soul blazing like a beacon from the crumbling lighthouse of his overworked body, his trembling hands raised amid the mellow strains of "On Eagle's Wings"?

Is it worth it to try to trade the Barque of Peter in for this new luxury model?  Does the Cruise Ship of Peter connect Catholics to their illustrious past?  Does it prepare Catholics to meet their adversaries in battle in these increasingly stern times?  Is it counter-cultural?  Does it provide Catholics with a distinctive identity apart from the secular society?  Does it actively promote unity, rather than Balkanization, of Catholics of differing ethnic and linguistic backgrounds?  Does it make Catholics know that we are not of the world, though we are in it?

Or does it merely fatten and soften up the sheep for the slaughter?

You decide.

Thou Art a Priest Forever

Fr. Scott Carroll, probably as a seminarian.  Source.

The Holy Mass and the Sacrifice of Calvary are one and the same.  At Mass, we are really at the foot of the Cross.  What the priest does at Mass is really done by Christ; and what Christ does is also really done by the priest.  Christ offers Himself; the priest offers himself.  The priest and the victim are one.  This identity of the priest and victim is shown in the traditional Mass, where each article of the priest's vestments is a symbol of the Passion, and the chalice is also clothed in vestments to match those of the priest.  The priesthood is about self-sacrifice.

Sometimes God is pleased physically to accept this sacrifice.

Deacon Scott Carroll, aged 45, was a seminarian for the Diocese of Toledo and was to have been ordained to the priesthood on June 22nd.  But the deacon had been battling cancer for some time, and during the week of May 6th, it became clear that the disease had taken a grave turn.  Confronted with these circumstances, Bishop Leonard Blair rose to the occasion.  To fulfill the desire of this son of his, and to ensure that he would not die without the indelible character of Holy Orders on his soul, Bishop Blair ordained Scott Carroll to the priesthood at his parents' home on Wednesday, May 8th, and assigned him as associate pastor of his home parish of St. Joseph in Maumee, Ohio.  

Now Father Carroll, failing in body, could unite his sufferings to Christ's on the cross in a new and greater way.  On Friday, May 10th, the new priest, alter Christus, offered Mass -- Christ offering Himself, Father Carroll offering himself.  He fell asleep after it was over, and opened his eyes on eternity.

How great is the goodness of God, to implant in this man the desire to be His priest; to sustain him in his sufferings; to bring him through cancer to the end of his priestly studies -- and then, in the last hours of his life, to lavish him with graces to strengthen him at the moment of death and increase his glory in heaven!  If He wills, God can give us everything in an instant.  Nor should we be surprised if it should turn out that Father Carroll was a man of constant and fervent prayer.  That his last acts on earth should be the reception of Holy Orders and the offering of Holy Mass was surely a reward for perseverance in prayer not only for himself but also for the consolation of his family and friends, who were privileged to be shown such evident proofs of God's love and mercy.

We should pray for the family and friends of Father Carroll, newly bereaved, and also for his soul, in case he still has some Purgatory time to serve -- it is a very bad habit we have fallen into of instantly canonizing the dear departed, and leaving them without the assistance of our intercession.  

Yet it seems more likely that it is Father Carroll, a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek, who is busy doing from heaven the work he intended to do on earth, interceding for his family and friends, and for us.

Source.

December 25th: Christmas

Though coming in the form of man, yet not in every thing is He subject to the laws of man's nature; for while His being born of a woman tells of human nature; virginity becoming capable of childbirth betokens something above man.  Of Him then His mother's burden was light, the birth immaculate, the delivery without pain, the nativity without defilement, neither beginning from wanton desire, nor brought to pass with sorrow.  For as she who by her guilt engrafted death into our nature, was condemned to bring forth in trouble, it was meet that she who brought life into the world should accomplish her delivery with joy.  But through a virgin's purity He makes His passage into mortal life at a time in which the darkness was beginning to fail, and the vast expanse of night to fade away before the exceeding brightness of the light.  For the death of sin had brought an end of wickedness which from henceforth tends to nothing by reason of the presence of the true light which has illuminated the whole world with the rays of the Gospel.

St. Gregory of Nyssa

Benedicta et venerabilis es, Virgo Maria: Quae sine tactu pudoris inventa es mater Salvatoris.  virgo Dei Genitrix, quem totus non capit orbis, in tua se clausit viscera factus homo.

Alleluia, alleluia.  Post partum Virgo inviolata permansisti: Dei Genitrix, intercede pro nobis.  Alleluia.

Blessed and venerable art thou, O Virgin Mary: who without loss of purity wert found to be the Mother of our Savior.  Virgin Mother of God, He whom the whole world cannot hold enclosed Himself in thy womb, and became man.

Alleluia, alleluia.  After His birth a Virgin entire thou didst remain: O Mother of God, intercede for us. Alleluia.

The Gradual of the Mass: Salve, Sancta Parens, from the Common of Feasts of the Blessed Virgin in the 1962 Missal

Ours Is the God of Victories

Having an old post of mine about prayers against enemies got me to thinking about -- well, prayers against enemies.  We in the Church have really gotten wimpy in the face of our enemies over the last several decades, and now we can't figure out why they have the upper hand.  We need to remember that the enemies of the Church are the enemies of God, and that behind them is the primordial enemy, the devil himself.  We should pray for the conversion of the humans under the devil's sway, but we should also do what we can to thwart them: this includes praying for their defeat.  

Such prayers are not only permissible, but laudable, and perfectly in line with Scripture and Tradition.  Running my finger down the table of contents of my trusty 1962 Missal, I find votive Masses against the persecutors of the Church, and against persecutors and evildoers.  Consider the Collect of the Mass against Persecutors and Evildoers:

Hostium nostrorum, quaesumus, domine, elide superbiam: et eorum contumaciam dexterae tuae virtute prosterne.

O Lord, we beseech Thee, crush the pride of our enemies and humble their insolence by the might of Thy hand.

What ever possessed us to stop offering this Mass, and praying this prayer?

Then of course there are the maledictory Psalms, such as Psalm 68; the St. Michael prayer, that is said after every Low Mass; and, one of my favorites, the Litany of Saints sung in procession on Rogation Days, in which we pray, among other things, that God would deign to humiliate the enemies of His Church.  What good has come of our having largely abandoned these prayers?

We need to remember that our God is not the God of Mediocrity or the God of Level Playing Fields, but the God of Victories.  We must remember that those who pit themselves against Him should be given no quarter.  We must both strive and pray for their absolute, crushing, decisive and humiliating defeat, even if we do not hope to witness such a defeat with our own eyes.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Yesterday, I found myself at a Mass caught in the clutches of a sort of pop music "choir." The guitars, tambourines, mics, and bee-boppy quality of the repertoire destroyed all meditation and recollection.  I couldn't look at the priest through most of the Mass, because he was on the verge of dancing to the beat.  Despite the presence of a perfectly good choir loft, the oversized group and their many accoutrements were parked next to the altar.  The sight of even the best-behaved musicians next to the altar is a major distraction; even more so when they are dancing around and/or dressed outlandishly or immodestly.

Yet, for some reason, this circus is still considered by many to be preferable to sacred chant, in Latin (I don't think chant and English are a good fit), sung from the choir loft, or at least from the back of the church.  I never cease to be amazed at the visceral hatred of and prejudice against sacred chant -- all of a piece with the irrational hatred of the Extraordinary Form Mass, often on the part of people who have either never attended one or only remember it as a distant childhood memory. I guess the problem with chant is (a) it takes effort, talent and discipline to master; (b) it suffers no mediocrity; (c) one cannot imprint one's own idiosynchratic stamp on it. 

But the reality is that there is true freedom in chant. Once I have mastered a piece of chant, singing it makes me feel as though I am soaring. Not being metrical, it is free of time, which is a prison; it is thus, in its own way, a little taste of eternity, which is beyond time.  Which, maybe, come to think of it, is part of the problem with chant: (d) it embodies too much freedom, the unbearable lightness of being.  That's a threat to our taskmasters, the liberals in both the religious and political spheres, who live in dread lest we develop a taste for true freedom, as in the freedom of the sons of God.  

So now would be a good time to dig through our old trunks and pull out the much ballyhooed non-conformity of our youth.  Remember that?  Now we can press it into the service of something really worthwhile.  Try chant.  Get used to singing it, or at least listening to it, and you find that it quite puts the lie to the idea that it and other aspects of traditional worship represent repression and hide-bound uptightness.  On the contrary, it opens our eyes to the difference between the banal and the transcendent.  The discipline of chant is itself freeing: one is only free to create or convey beauty with discipline, because true beauty must be orderly, as Truth is orderly.  Freedom without order is really chaos, and chaos is another prison, the prison of ugliness and insecurity.  That is what we have had in our worship for far too long, and our faith has suffered on account of it.  We no longer recognize chaos for what it is, and we fail to embrace Truth and Beauty, which, as Keats said, are the same.

We need to break out of this prison.  But when we've grown up not knowing anything else, it's hard.  Freedom is dangerous and frightening in our increasingly regimented, collectivist, atheistic age.  Yet we have the tools we need to make our escape, if we just use them.  Consistent exposure to sacred chant and traditional worship are the files that Pope Benedict has baked into the cakes of Summorum Pontificum and Universae Ecclesiae and smuggled to us in our cells.

Fortnight for Freedom: Votive High Mass of St. Thomas More

It has been a red-letter week for some of us who love pre-conciliar rites.  Last weekend, my chapter had a visit from our religious assistant, Fr. Vincent Kelber, O.P., and he gave us sung High Mass for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart in the Dominican Rite.  Yesterday, we had a visit from our dear friend, the Inimitable Fr. Andrew Szymakowski of the Baker Diocese,  on vacation from canon law school, who gave us sung High Mass of St. Thomas More in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.  

Although yesterday was the feast of Thomas More on the new calendar, on the preconciliar calendar it falls on July 6th -- the actual date of his martyrdom -- so this was a votive Mass.  This was our contribution to the Fortnight for Freedom: this Mass was offered for the intention of religious freedom in our country, and the crushing, humiliating defeat of the Church's enemies.

Here, then, appropriately enough, is our battlefield altar -- an actual, collapsible altar for use on the battlefield -- at our temporary chapel in the big room at Chapter House in Homedale, prepared for Mass.  Though this was not an actual battlefield Mass, our conditions are nevertheless pretty primitive: we don't even have matching candlesticks, and we have to borrow supplies anytime we have Mass in the Extraordinary Form.  Fr. Joseph Levine, also of the Baker Diocese -- and who, by the way, preaches a rocking homily and celebrates a beautiful TLM -- was kind enough to lend us the altar cards, altar missal and a set of red vestments.

We tried to get Father to pose for a nice picture in those beautiful vestments, but unfortunately, he wasn't cooperating.  He does love to clown around...  

...but once Mass starts, he's all business.  I have to say that Fr. Andy is a character and a half and has as much personality as any priest, or indeed, any human being I have ever known.  He is highly intelligent, gifted, a great conversationalist, a talented speaker (in no fewer than three languages), and loves to laugh.  But not one iota of any of this shows while he is at the altar.  When he celebrates Mass, Andy Szymakowski is totally hidden -- as he should be, as Holy Mass is not his work or indeed the work of any mere mortal.  Here is a priest who gets out of God's way, and he does it by the simple expedient of saying the black and doing the red.    

Which, frankly, he finds it much easier to do in the Extraordinary Form than his inexperienced little congregation, which made many mistakes.  Here we are.  The best part of this pic is you can't see me in it.  But I'm there!

Father says the words of institution.

The Bread of Life.

And the Chalice of Salvation.

Here is a close-up of that image embroidered on the back of his chasuble.

And Holy Communion on the prie-dieux.

Incidentally, one thing that is not captured by any of these pictures is the howling dust storm that began raging during Mass.  The ferocity of the wind outside, while the August Sacrifice proceeded calmly inside, seemed a perfect analogue of the world's wrack and turmoil as the forces of hell vent their fury on the Church, which nevertheless enjoys the peace the world can neither give nor take away.

The time has come for America to decide where she prefers to be during the storm: outside or inside?  May she choose wisely.   St. Thomas More, pray for us.

¡Viva Cristo Rey!

I come home tonight, a little queasy from the greasy popcorn that was my dinner, after seeing For Greater Glory.  I hereby mount the bandwagon of bloggers who think every Catholic ought to see this movie -- including the credits, all the way to the end.  I saw For Greater Glory in a theater that I shared with about six other people, illustrating the need to promote by word of mouth this independently-made film that enjoys the backing of no major studios in post-Christian Hollywood.

For Greater Glory is about the 1926-1929 Cristero War in Mexico, a rebellion against Plutarco Calles' brutal persecution of the Catholic Church.  The Catholic forces made mistakes and had plenty of sinners in their ranks, including priests who actually took up arms, thereby excluding themselves, if not from heaven, at least from potential causes for canonization.  Indeed, the most unlikely people found their way into the ranks of the Cristeros, especially Enrique Gorostieta (played by Andy Garcia), the retired liberal atheist general who turned the rebels into an army.   The war did not result in the overthrow of Plutarco Calles, or in total restoration of liberty for the Church; but it did produce many saints and martyrs, including the boy martyr Jose Sanchez del Rio (played by Mauricio Kuri), who was beatified by Pope Benedict during the first year of his reign.  Bl. Miguel Pro, perhaps one of the best-known figures of the war, is not mentioned by name in this film, but there is a scene instantly recognizable as a re-enactment of his martyrdom.

Why is For Greater Glory worth promoting?  Despite liberties taken with the history for the sake of drama, it is a worthy film in every respect.  There is certainly violence, resulting in an R rating, but the violence does not attain to levels of gratuitousness.  There is no sex, no nudity (in one brief scene, female Cristeros are seen in their underwear, secreting on their persons ammunition for smuggling to the troops), no blue language.  And, for once, Catholics are the good guys, and priests are not shown as perverts -- not even Fr. Reyes Vega, who was known not only for his brilliant soldiery but also for his cruelty and his less-than-strict adherence to his priestly obligations.  There are a number of scenes showing the Cristeros at worship.  The Tridentine Mass has a particularly compelling, edgy beauty  when celebrated on the battlefield, or amid ruins, or in a fugitive camp hidden in the desert.  The priest at the altar, with hundreds of scruffy soldiers kneeling behind him, looks like a general leading his troops into battle. Indeed, he is doing precisely that: exercising the priesthood of the baptized, the Cristeros will offer themselves up on the field of battle in union with the Sacrifice of Calvary, for the sake of the Kingdom.  The physical battles of the Cristero War are but the outward, sensible manifestations of the greater spiritual war against the forces of hell; the stakes are nothing less than the eternal destiny of souls.  For Greater Glory is about so much more than freedom in the political order; it is about how individual souls find redemption -- or lose it.     

Finally, For Greater Glory comes out at a time when it has taken on a far greater relevance in the United States than what its makers had anticipated when it was filmed.  Politicians of the same ideological stamp as Plutarco Calles have taken power in this country and have already begun enacting laws that encroach on the freedom of the Church.  In Mexico, Calles' laws against the Church were followed up by brute force; is it not naive to suppose that the same could not happen here?

¡Viva Cristo Rey!  

Recovering Our Lost Weapons

At this moment, the little chant schola I belong to is working on the Mass propers for the feast of Bl. Margaret of Castello, the patroness of my lay Dominican chapter.  I don't believe there is a Mass for her feast in the Roman Rite, but there is in the Dominican Rite; and the plan is to have a votive Mass in her honor the next time the inimitable Fr. Vincent Kelber, O.P., our religious assistant and Dominican Rite expert, comes to visit.

These propers are no easy proposition.  Like chant Mass propers in the Roman Rite, the Bl. Margaret propers are quite intricate; the score to the Responsorium (the Dominican Rite's term for the Gradual) particularly resembles a seven-lane ant highway.  But these chants are not dissimilar to those sung on any Sunday or feast day in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite: thumb through a copy of the Liber Usualis, or look at the sacred music files on the Institute of Christ the King website, and it becomes clear that music of this caliber is business as usual in the older forms of Mass.  Within living memory, there must have been many places where chants like these were sung every week.  Certainly, the Liber Usualis is organized in such a way as to make clear that a high degree of knowledge is presumed on the part of those who use it.

Sadly, such a presumption can no longer be made.  Music in the same league as Bl. Margaret's propers are not business as usual, or even business as unusual, in many places today.  Those of us who are trying to bring back traditional worship, and who have no teachers except what we can find in books or on the internet, are like kindergartners trying to learn calculus.  But what is even sadder is that so many people are happy about this state of affairs.

Let these incredible and appalling facts sink in.  We have fallen from excellence in our worship.  That, in itself, is bad enough.  But it gets worse.  Not only have we fallen from excellence; we do not in the least regret having done so.  Not only do we not regret it; we rejoice in it.  Not only do we rejoice in it; we even go so far as to consider ourselves morally superior to those for whom the excellence we have lost was a way of life.  We do this instinctively -- even those who have never attended any Mass according to the rites of 1962, and therefore have no idea what it is they are so glad to be rid of.  

In short, by having cast off the high and the excellent, we think we have embraced humility and cast off vanity, pride and conceit.  But it is precisely vanity, pride and conceit that we have embraced, and humility that we have cast off, blinding ourselves to the true, the good and the beautiful; and, being thus puffed up and blinded, we find ourselves horribly disadvantaged in the face of the Enemy whose armies, seeing our weakness, advance rapidly and relentlessly upon us.

This, surely, is why Pope Benedict has taken the pre-conciliar rites -- including the Dominican Rite -- out of mothballs and made a gift of them, not only to those who were devoted to them before the changes of Paul VI, but to all Catholics.  We need to recover our lost weapons, and rearm for battle.  And this is why the little schola -- which has never done a sung Mass in the Dominican Rite -- will, with the help of God's grace, struggle on stubbornly to master the propers for our little patroness, and hopefully win for ourselves and those who attend this Mass a share in the virtues that brought her safely through a lifetime of tribulations. 

If We Turn Out the Lights, We Can Expect to Stumble in the Dark

Ever stop to think about why it is that the world is steeped in darkness, and in particular, why the Church is under siege in our time?

I was thinking tonight that maybe part of the reason we are so inundated with evils is because, for the last half-century or so, we quit praying for protection from them. 

The Extraordinary Form of the Mass is full of powerful, muscular, soldierly prayers.  The 1962 Missal is also well-stocked with votive Masses for all sorts of occasions and all sorts of intentions.  There is a Mass for the propagation of the faith; a Mass for the defense of the church; a Mass for deliverance from death in time of pestilence; a Mass for the forgiveness of sins; a Mass for the grace of a good death.  How often have any of these Masses been offered since Vatican II?  And what about the St. Michael prayer for protection from the forces of hell that used to be said at the end of every Low Mass (and still is said wherever the Extraordinary Form is celebrated)?  Consider Compline according to the breviary of 1962: the hymn "Te Lucis ante Terminum" contains a powerful verse that has been expunged from the breviary of Paul VI:

Procul recédant sómnia,
Et nóctium phantasmata;
Hostémque nóstrum cómprime,
Ne polluántur córpora.

From all ill dreams defend our eyes,
From nightly fears and fantasies;
Tread under foot our ghostly foe,
That no pollution we may know.

A couple of weeks ago, this space featured a piece on the old Rituale Romanum, full of petitions for blessing and protection from various evils, and how these prayers help us, among other things, to avoid sin and excess in the use of material goods.  Why did we get rid of this?  How are we better off for having done so?

The Church used to pray constantly for protection from all sorts of ills, temporal and spiritual.  Yet for the last almost half-century, those prayers have been all but wiped out.   Somewhere along the line, we got the idea that we no longer needed divine protection. This was, and is, a dumb idea.  It was especially dumb in the midst of the blackest and bloodiest century in human history, wracked with apostasy, heresy, immorality and fratricidal slaughter.  But the horrors of the 20th century came in no small part precisely because this dumb idea had long been brewing under the surface: we had long ceased to pray from our hearts, and that made it easy to cease praying with our lips.  We ceased to view the world in the light of eternity; that made it all the easier to scrap the traditional Mass and the Rituale Romanum, and replace them with the spiritual gruel that has been rationed out to us most of our lives.  And the Church and the world are far poorer because of it.

St. Alphonsus Liguori says there are certain graces God doesn't ordinarily grant us unless we ask for them.  We haven't been asking for the conversion of sinners, deliverance from natural disasters or protection from harm for 40+ years, so we probably shouldn't be surprised that the world is saturated in sin, widely stricken by natural (and often man-made) disasters, and physically exceedingly dangerous.  Now, after decades of dumbness, we need to re-learn the long-forgotten words in order to re-train our hearts.  We need to recognize our utter dependence on God, and call on Him once again to protect us from evil.  We need to reconnect with our immemorial Catholic traditions in order to remind ourselves how to do this.  We need the Extraordinary Form of the liturgy -- Mass, Sacraments, Divine Office -- to be restored in every parish.  We cannot survive on business as usual.