A First at St. Giles-in-the-Fields

From the Jesuits in Britain site, this good news:

On Saturday April 9th Fr Dominic Robinson SJ led a Mount Street Jesuit Community excursion to St Giles-in-the-Fields to celebrate a Mass in honour of the five Jesuit martyrs of the so-called ‘Titus Oates’ or ‘Popish’ plot of 1679, the last major executions of Catholics in England.  The five Jesuits are all buried in unmarked graves on the north side of the church, a mark of some respect compared to the quartering and piking of the bodies of those martyrs hung at Tyburn in the previous century. 

Fr Dominic said "I think this may be the first time a Mass honouring these later martyrs has been celebrated and we were very grateful for the permission of St Giles-in-the-Fields Rector The Revd Alan Carr, his Parish Council, and the Bishop of London The Rt Revd Richard Chartres; and a graced opportunity to learn from our Jesuit ancestors who struggled to live lives of courage and authenticity in more dangerous times in the history of the city in which we minister."

The five buried are: Blesseds Thomas Whitbread, William Harcourt, John Fenwick, John Gavan, Anthony Turner. 

Their executions took place on June 20, 1679. Read more about their executions on that day--when the promise of a pardon seemed an opportunity to save their lives--here.

Photo: St. Giles-in-the-Fields (used by permission).

My Easter Mystagogy

Now that I have finished reading Volume I of Pope Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth trilogy, I am reading an old book that is experiencing quite a revival: Romano Guardini's Meditations Before Mass. I have the 1959 "A Newman Paperback" from The Newman Press in Westminster, Maryland with me to read. I also have the hardcover edition from Sophia Institute Press (1993) on the shelf:

Sophia has reissued Guardini's book in a blue paperback (there's also an ebook) with an introduction by Archbishop Samuel Aquila:

The profound wisdom found in this Romano Guardini classic will help you to quiet your soul, concentrate your mind, and grow more receptive to God's grace in the Holy Mass.

Written for ordinary Catholics who are struggling to become closer to Christ, Meditations Before Mass is full of wisdom and yet offers practical, straightforward advice that will help you overcome distractions and restlessness while leading you into a more enriching experience when you enter into Holy Communion with God.

Over fifty years ago, Msgr. Romano Guardini resolved to help his parishioners move beyond the petty hindrances to full participation in the Mass—hindrances to which we are all prone. Just before Mass each Sunday, he gave a brief talk on some aspect of the Mass, teaching them week by week, topic by topic, how to prepare themselves to participate more prayerfully.

So helpful were these 32 talks that they were soon published and have since been reprinted countless times in numerous countries and languages, helping generations of Catholics to deepen their devotion during Mass.

And Ave Maria Press has issued their own edition (also with an ebook), with an introduction by Reverend Eugene F. Hemrick:

A treasury of spiritual wisdom on how to prepare your mind, body, and heart for Mass from one of the twentieth century’s great theologians, Meditations before Mass is Romano Guardini’s smart and beautiful guide to spiritual preparation for the source and summit of Christian worship.

Meditations before Mass is a wise, pastoral, and timeless classic on preparing for Mass—it is an example of twentieth-century theologian Romano Guardini at his very best. Meditations before Mass was written before Vatican II, but its relevance has endured over the past sixty years. Not a “how to” book for either the old or the new Roman Rite, it is instead a spiritual feast for the mind and heart, and a guide for modern people who wish to make sense of the Church’s feasts and liturgies. Meditations before Mass has helped thousands of readers participate more fully in Christian liturgy and continues to do so today.

In the early 1990's Sophia Institute Press began to re-issue many titles by Monsignor Romano Guardini, and I (just as I had with Thomas B. Costain's books) bought and read them all: 

The Inner Life of Jesus

The Rosary of Our Lady

Living the Drama of Faith

And the Word Dwelt Upon Us

The Art of Praying

Then I found more:
 

The Lord

The End of the Modern World

Sacred Signs

The Spirit of the Liturgy

The last title, you might recall, was re-used by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger in 2000, paying homage to Guardini's great efforts in the renewal of liturgy before the Second Vatican Council. As then Cardinal Ratzinger stated in the foreword to his book The Spirit of the Liturgy, "My purpose here is to assist this renewal of understanding of the Liturgy. Its basic intentions coincide with what Guardini wanted to achieve. The only difference is that I have had to translate what Guardini did at the end of the First World War, in a totally different historical situation, into the context of our present-day questions, hopes and dangers. Like Guardini, I am not attempting to involve myself with scholarly discussion and research. I am simply offering an aid to the understanding of the faith and to the right way to give the faith its central form of expression in the Liturgy."

The Black Mass at Harvard and the English Reformation

Catholic print and social media have been reporting and commenting frequently the last several days about the planned, but cancelled, Black Mass to be "celebrated" at Harvard University, sponsored by the Harvard Extension Cultural Studies Club. First it was announced that the event organizers had obtained a Consecrated Host, which to Catholics meant that the Real Presence of Jesus, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity was to be desecrated in the mockery of the Black Mass--then they backed off from that claim. According to the updated accounts, the venue that was to "host" this educational event, "The Queen's Head" pub cancelled the reservation. Harvard's president descried the campus organization's plan to present the Black Mass but declined to cancel the event herself--she announced her intention to attend the Holy Hour and Benediction scheduled at St. Paul's Parish on Harvard Square. The Harvard Crimson published a student editorial against the event, while the organizers tried to have it both ways--yes, we're mocking Catholic beliefs but we don't really mean anything by it. This controversy has certainly rallied Catholics at Harvard to defend the Real Presence and make reparation for this abuse of our Faith.

The name of the pub originally set to host the Black Mass--and the fact that a pub was initially chosen for the site--called to mind some aspects of English Reformation history. The Queen's Head in Cambridge, Mass., was named for The Queen's Head pub at Southwark in London, founded by John Harvard's family; he is honored in Southwark Cathedral, the former Catholic church, now Anglican, where he was baptized. Harvard willed his library and half his estate to found a college in the Massachusetts's Bay Colony; he was a Puritan minister and his family had connections with William Shakespeare.

But the significance of the location of the Black Mass re-enactment goes deeper, I think. The true Catholic Mass was indeed celebrated in pubs, secretly, during the Penal/Recusant period in England, which lasted from the reign of Elizabeth I to the late eighteenth century. Bishop Richard Challoner celebrated Mass at The Ship Tavern as Vicar Apostolic--the pub's website gets its history wrong, indicating that Henry VIII had made the Catholic Mass illegal during his reign, when of course he still attended Catholic Mass. Under the Elizabethan recusancy laws, lay attendance at Catholic Mass was a felony; the presence of a Catholic priest in England an act of treason, and both "crimes" were punishable by execution. John Harvard probably would have viewed the celebration of the Catholic Mass at his family pub an act of idolatry--but he also would have been appalled at the worship of Satan in a pub on the campus of the university that bears his name.

Notre Dame de Paris Desecrated (Twice) in May, 2013

I was so stunned and sad to hear about the two demonstrations and desecrations of Notre Dame de Paris--a Cathedral I have visited, photographed, attended Mass in, prayed in, and been so impressed with for so many years. I remember the first time I crossed Pont au Double from the Left Bank, saw the towers and flying buttresses and wept for joy.

To hear that a man killed himself near the Altar and then that a half-naked woman pretended to commit suicide [WARNING: story includes photograph] to mock him the next day made me weep for sorrow.

Cathedrale Notre Dame de Paris is a tourist site, I know, but it is also an active sanctuary of worship, with Mass celebrated many times a day, the Sacrament of Confession offered to penitents (and an opportunity for counseling for non-Catholics), and the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament behind the choir (with a sign proclaiming it is only for prayer)--Notre Dame de Paris is NOT the place for political protests. My husband and I have attended Sunday Mass there several times, at least twice on Trinity Sunday, thrilling at the history, enjoying the beatiful Gregorian chant (we usually attended Lauds and the Gregorian Mass), and wondering at the patience of the ushers, who had to shoo the tourists from the nave during Mass!

As Canon Lawyer Ed Peters on his blog, In the Light of the Law, reminds us:

Suicide—whatever mental/emotional problems induce some to commit it and which might even mitigate its culpability—is objectively a gravely evil action (CCC 2280-2283) and may never be licitly chosen. When committed in a sacred place such as a church or shrine, suicide effects the “violation” of that space and divine worship (as opposed to personal prayers) may not be offered there until the place is rehabilitated in accord with canon and liturgical law (1983 CIC 1211, olim 1917 CIC 1172; see also 1983 CIC 1376).

When Dominique Venner killed himself with a shotgun blast to the head inside Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral (indeed, it seems, within the sanctuary itself) he desecrated that great church. If it turns out that Venner killed himself in protest over France’s new “gay marriage” law, then, besides condemning the classical scandal his deed produced, one may further observe that all he really accomplished was to make opponents of “gay marriage” look like kooks, and to deprive, for a time, the faithful of France of a particularly powerful place of worship from which to ask God’s help in preserving the natural and holy institution of marriage in their nation.

Only the Evil One would take pleasure in that.

 

Our Lady, pray for us!

In reparation for these horrors of the week after Pentecost, here are some words by Blessed John Henry Newman on the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity:

On this day, then, we should forget ourselves, and fix our thoughts upon God. Yet men are not willing to forget themselves; they do not like to become, as it were, nothing, and to have no work but faith. They like argument and proof better; they like to be convinced of a truth to their own satisfaction before they receive it, when, perhaps, such satisfaction is impossible. This happens in the sacred subject before us. The solemn mystery of the Trinity in Unity is contained in Scripture. We all know this; there is no doubt about it. Yet, though it be in Scripture, it does not follow that every one of us should be a fit judge whether and where it is in Scripture. It may be contained there fully, and yet we may be unable to see it fully, for various reasons. Now this is the great mistake which some persons fall into; they think, because the doctrine is maintained as being in Scripture by those who maintain it as true, that therefore they have a right to say that they will not believe it till it is proved to them from Scripture. It is nothing to them that the great multitude of good and holy men in all ages have held it. {329} They act like Thomas, who would not believe his brother Apostles that our Lord was risen, till he had as much proof as they, and who said, "Except I see and touch for myself, I will not believe." . . .

Let us, then, learn from this Festival to walk by faith; that is, not to ask jealously and coldly for strict arguments, but to follow generously what has fair evidence for it, even though it might have fuller or more systematic evidence. It is in this way that we all believe that there is a God. A subtle infidel might soon perplex any one of us. Of course he might. Our very state and warfare is one of faith. Let us aim at, let us reach after and (as it were) catch at the things of the next world. There is a voice within us, which assures us that there is something higher than earth. We cannot analyze, define, contemplate what it is that thus whispers to us. It has no shape or material form. There is that in our hearts which prompts us to religion, and which condemns and chastises sin. And {340} this yearning of our nature is met and sustained, it finds an object to rest upon, when it hears of the existence of an All-powerful, All-gracious Creator. It incites us to a noble faith in what we cannot see.

Let us exercise a similar faith, as regards the Mysteries of Revelation also. Here is the true use of Scripture in leading us to the truth. If we read it humbly and inquire teachably, we shall find; we shall have a deep impression on our minds that the doctrines of the Creed are there, though we may not be able to put our hands upon particular texts, and say how much of it is contained here and how much there. But, on the other hand, if we read in order to prove those doctrines, in a critical, argumentative way, then all traces of them will disappear from Scripture as if they were not there. They will fade away insensibly like hues at sunset, and we shall be left in darkness. We shall come to the conclusion that they are not in Scripture, and shall, perhaps, boldly call them unscriptural. Religious convictions cannot be forced; nor is Divine truth ours to summon at will. If we determine that we will find it out, we shall find nothing. Faith and humility are the only spells which conjure up the image of heavenly things into the letter of inspiration; and faith and humility consist, not in going about to prove, but in the outset confiding on the testimony of others. Thus afterwards on looking back, we shall find we have proved what we did not set out to prove. We cannot control our reasoning powers, nor exert them at our will or at any moment. It is so with other faculties of the mind also. Who can command his {341} memory? The more you try to recall what you have forgotten, the less is your chance of success. Leave thinking about it, and perhaps memory returns. And in like manner, the more you set yourself to argue and prove, in order to discover truth, the less likely you are to reason correctly and to infer profitably. You will be caught by sophisms, and think them splendid discoveries. Be sure, the highest reason is not to reason on system, or by rules of argument, but in a natural way; not with formal intent to draw out proofs, but trusting to God's blessing that you may gain a right impression from what you read. If your reasoning powers are weak, using argumentative forms will not make them stronger. They will enable you to dispute acutely and to hit objections, but not to discover truth. There is nothing creative, nothing progressive in exhibitions of argument. The utmost they do is to enable us to state well what we have already discovered by the tranquil exercise of our reason. Faith and obedience are the main things; believe and do, and pray to God for light, and you will reason well without knowing it.

Let us not then seek for signs and wonders; for clear, or strong, or compact, or original arguments; but let us believe; evidence will come after faith as its reward, better than before it as its groundwork. Faith soars aloft; it listens for the notes of heaven, the faint voices or echoes which scarcely reach the earth, and it thinks them worth all the louder sounds of cities or of schools of men. It is foolishness in the eyes of the world; but it is a foolishness of God wiser than the {342} world's wisdom. Let us embrace the sacred Mystery of the Trinity in Unity, which, as the Creed tells us, is the ground of the Catholic religion. Let us think it enough, let us think it far too great a privilege, for sinners such as we are, for a fallen people in a degenerate age, to inherit the faith once delivered to the Saints; let us accept it thankfully; let us guard it watchfully; let us transmit it faithfully to those who come after us.

Note: both pictures taken by Mark Mann.

St. Margaret Clitherow and Holy Week

I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show this morning at 7:45 a.m. Eastern and 6:45 a.m. Central (etc) to discuss St. Margaret Clitherow, who was crushed to death on March 25, 1586 at the age of 30. Brian Patrick and I will also discuss the liturgical celebration of Holy Week before and after the English Reformation. You can listen live here--otherwise tune in on your local EWTN affiliate radio station!

Remember that St. Margaret Clitherow was a convert--when she was 18 years old--and since she was born just two years before Queen Mary I died, she almost certainly had no memory and little knowledge about the processions, rituals and traditions of Holy Week in England before the Reformation under Henry VIII, further advanced by Edward VI and his Protectorate, and briefly restored by Mary. At the beginning of Elizabeth I's reign, and particularly in York, of course, there was a transition period and some Catholic priests continued to celebrate Mass and the Sacraments according to the old ways, but even in York, government pressure to uniformity succeeded in ending those practices.

More about St. Margaret Clitherow from last year here--note that the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales will honor her with a pilgrimage this year on Saturday, May 4 (the Feast of the Martyrs of England and Wales)--and more about the pilgrimage to York I'll lead this September here.

For more information about Holy Week before the English Reformation, please see my posts from last year on the Pray the Mass website: on Palm Sunday and on the Triduum.