Happy Gaudete Sunday and St. Lucy's Day!

Sorry for the lack of blogging this week. I was in the hospital receiving COVID-related pneumonia treatments. 

Thanks to good care, I was released on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe and am home recovering.

I appreciate all the prayers and help I received from friends and family.

Happy Gaudete Sunday:

Rejoice in the Lord always: again I say, rejoice. Let your modesty be known to all men: for the Lord is nigh. Be nothing solicitous: but in every prayer let your petitions be made known to God.

Ps. O Lord, thou hast blessed thy land: thou hast turned away the captivity of Jacob. ℣. Glory to the Father and to the Son . . . .

Rejoice in the Lord always: again I say, rejoice. Let your modesty be known to all men: for the Lord is nigh. Be nothing solicitous: but in every prayer let your petitions be made known to God.

(Introit for Gaudete Sunday in the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite from Phil 4:4-6)

And today is also the feast of Saint Lucy!

Happy Advent!

Ritual Matters: Liturgy and Personality

In the 1990's I went through quite a Dietrich von Hildebrand phase. Sophia Institute Press was reprinting many of his works, including Transformation in Christ, The Art of Living, Man and Woman, Jaws of Death: Gate of Heaven, and Liturgy and Personality. Other publishers and used bookstores supplied me with The Trojan Horse in the City of God, The Devastated Vineyard, and The New Tower of Babel, his series of books descrying problems in the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council. One of the problems that he saw was the reform of the liturgy that had sapped its Divine Mystery, downplayed the sacrificial aspect of the Mass, and of course, stripped it of the Latin that the Second Vatican Council required to be preserved and indeed, inculcated more firmly among the faithful, both in prayer and in chant in the other liturgical reforms mandated by Sacrosanctum concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. I remember hearing these issues discussed at the Newman School of Catholic Thought I attended in 1979, and von Hildebrand's works were mentioned then too.

But when I read Liturgy and Personality: The Healing Power of Formal Prayer the first time in the Sophia Institute Press edition, Latin in the liturgy was at its lowest point of usage in the Masses I attending. Monsignor William Carr at the Newman Center at WSU held a few Latin Masses in the Novus Ordo rite, but those may have been the only ones I'd ever attended. Now that I've attended Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Liturgy of the Roman Rite for about ten years since the 2007 issuance of Summorum Pontificum, however, re-reading von Hildebrand's study  in the Hildebrand Project edition has a much greater impact.

As in all of von Hildebrand's works, the basis of his exploration of the connection between Liturgy & Personality (I think that Sophia added the subtitle) is the appropriate response to the hierarchy of values. We are as human as we should be when we respond to the objective value of things: nature, works of art, God. God should receive our most exalted reaction and response: love, adoration, obedience, worship. When we offer Him what He deserves, with the Grace He has given us to do so, we fulfill our humanity: we will be authentically human. This structure of subjective response to objective value is also a theme in the philosophy of Karol Wojtyła and Edith Stein as a Phenomenological philosophy that acknowledges the objectivity of being while exploring the human response to being. When we respond correctly to objective goods and truth and beauty, we will have personality. The Hildebrand Project provides a substantial sample where you can read his argument.

Von Hildebrand uses this response-to-value framework through Liturgy & Personality. Chapters 4 though 11 describe the objective values of the Roman Rite: the Spirit of Communion, the Spirit of Reverence, the Spirit of Response to Value, the Spirit of Awakenedness, the Spirit of Discretio, the Spirit of Continuity, the Organic Element, and the Classical Spirit of the Liturgy. Then in each of those chapters, citing examples from the Latin Liturgy of the Roman Rite--it was published first in German in 1933, so it's not exactly the Mass of the Missal of 1962--he describes how the Mass or the Breviary exemplifies those qualities. Von Hildebrand further explains why we won't always respond to them: because of some defect (sin) in our personality. Our egocentrism, isolation, concupiscence, narrowness, unconsciousness, etc., prevent us from responding to the great spirits and elements of the liturgy.

I presume he would have acknowledge that the same spirit and elements are present in the Eastern Rites of the Church, but what he knew of course was the Latin Rite. Dietrich von Hildebrand obviously attended Mass often and must have prayed the Breviary throughout the day. He is completely attuned to the Latin Rite.

Corpus Christi Thursday and Sunday

I have already celebrated the Solemnity of Corpus Christi: our Latin Mass (Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite) community and Blessed Sacrament Parish collaborated on a Thursday night Mass with a Eucharistic Procession and Benediction. The choir of Blessed Sacrament sang the Sine Nomine Mass of Palestrina--and will again this morning at the 11:00 Mass today--and we chanted St. Thomas Aquinas' great sequence for the feast during Mass and the Pange Lingua during the procession, concluding with Tantum Ergo back at the Altar. Father Thomas Hoisington offered Mass beautifully and offered a great homily on the Paschal Mystery: the Passion and the Mass.

Pope St. John Paul II expressed the Church's doctrine of and his own love for the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in his 2013 encyclical letter ECCLESIA DE EUCHARISTIA:

3. The Church was born of the paschal mystery. For this very reason the Eucharist, which is in an outstanding way the sacrament of the paschal mystery, stands at the centre of the Church's life. This is already clear from the earliest images of the Church found in the Acts of the Apostles: “They devoted themselves to the Apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (2:42). The “breaking of the bread” refers to the Eucharist. Two thousand years later, we continue to relive that primordial image of the Church. At every celebration of the Eucharist, we are spiritually brought back to the paschal Triduum: to the events of the evening of Holy Thursday, to the Last Supper and to what followed it. The institution of the Eucharist sacramentally anticipated the events which were about to take place, beginning with the agony in Gethsemane. Once again we see Jesus as he leaves the Upper Room, descends with his disciples to the Kidron valley and goes to the Garden of Olives. Even today that Garden shelters some very ancient olive trees. Perhaps they witnessed what happened beneath their shade that evening, when Christ in prayer was filled with anguish “and his sweat became like drops of blood falling down upon the ground” (cf. Lk 22:44). The blood which shortly before he had given to the Church as the drink of salvation in the sacrament of the Eucharist, began to be shed; its outpouring would then be completed on Golgotha to become the means of our redemption: “Christ... as high priest of the good things to come..., entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” (Heb 9:11- 12).

4. The hour of our redemption. Although deeply troubled, Jesus does not flee before his “hour”. “And what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour?' No, for this purpose I have come to this hour” (Jn 12:27). He wanted his disciples to keep him company, yet he had to experience loneliness and abandonment: “So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation” (Mt 26:40- 41). Only John would remain at the foot of the Cross, at the side of Mary and the faithful women. The agony in Gethsemane was the introduction to the agony of the Cross on Good Friday. The holy hour, the hour of the redemption of the world. Whenever the Eucharist is celebrated at the tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem, there is an almost tangible return to his “hour”, the hour of his Cross and glorification. Every priest who celebrates Holy Mass, together with the Christian community which takes part in it, is led back in spirit to that place and that hour.

“He was crucified, he suffered death and was buried; he descended to the dead; on the third day he rose again”. The words of the profession of faith are echoed by the words of contemplation and proclamation: “This is the wood of the Cross, on which hung the Saviour of the world. Come, let us worship”. This is the invitation which the Church extends to all in the afternoon hours of Good Friday. She then takes up her song during the Easter season in order to proclaim: “The Lord is risen from the tomb; for our sake he hung on the Cross, Alleluia”.

5. “Mysterium fidei! - The Mystery of Faith!”. When the priest recites or chants these words, all present acclaim: “We announce your death, O Lord, and we proclaim your resurrection, until you come in glory”.

In these or similar words the Church, while pointing to Christ in the mystery of his passion,also reveals her own mystery: Ecclesia de Eucharistia. By the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost the Church was born and set out upon the pathways of the world, yet a decisive moment in her taking shape was certainly the institution of the Eucharist in the Upper Room. Her foundation and wellspring is the whole Triduum paschale, but this is as it were gathered up, foreshadowed and “concentrated' for ever in the gift of the Eucharist. In this gift Jesus Christ entrusted to his Church the perennial making present of the paschal mystery. With it he brought about a mysterious “oneness in time” between that Triduum and the passage of the centuries.

The thought of this leads us to profound amazement and gratitude. In the paschal event and the Eucharist which makes it present throughout the centuries, there is a truly enormous “capacity” which embraces all of history as the recipient of the grace of the redemption. This amazement should always fill the Church assembled for the celebration of the Eucharist. But in a special way it should fill the minister of the Eucharist. For it is he who, by the authority given him in the sacrament of priestly ordination, effects the consecration. It is he who says with the power coming to him from Christ in the Upper Room: “This is my body which will be given up for you This is the cup of my blood, poured out for you...”. The priest says these words, or rather he puts his voice at the disposal of the One who spoke these words in the Upper Room and who desires that they should be repeated in every generation by all those who in the Church ministerially share in his priesthood.

This morning, I'll attend Mass of the External Celebration of the Solemnity of Corpus Christi at the Spiritual Life Center. Professor Bradley Birzer, author of Sanctifying the World: The Augustinian Life and Mind of Christopher Dawson and other works will speak on Russell Kirk and J.R.R. Tolkien on the last day of the Fourth Annual Catholic Culture Conference:

1:30 p.m. Bradley Birzer, presenting “The Christian Humanism of Russell Kirk—one of Catholicism’s greatest (but largely forgotten) 20th century figures”

A convert, Kirk went from spiritualism to Stoic Paganism to Catholicism in the first 45 years of his life. From 1964 to his death in 1994, he served the Church faithfully, in word, if not always in deed. He was, however, one of the single most charitable men of his age.

2:30 p.m. Break, and book signing/continued conversation with Dr. Birzer

3:00 p.m. Bradley Birzer, presenting “The Inklings and J.R.R. Tolkien’s mythology”

Most of you know something about J.R.R. Tolkien and his monumental work, The Lord of the Rings, and the literary impact of his friendship with C.S. Lewis and the rest of the “Inklings”. Below the surface, however, there is much in Tolkien’s work that lies hidden to the casual reader. In this lecture, Dr. Birzer will explore Tolkien’s mythology as a Catholic answer to the terrorist ideologies of the previous century.

The Tenth Anniversary of "Summorum Pontificum"

Today is the tenth anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI's Motu proprio Summorum Pontificum. It's wonderfully appropriate that I'll be able to celebrate this anniversary today by attending daily Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite at noon at my home parish, Blessed Sacrament, here in Wichita, Kansas. My husband and I attend EFLR Masses often when they are offered and have benefited spiritually from the reverence and the silence during the celebration of the Paschal Mystery. In many ways, that reverence and silence aids in our fuller participation in the Sacrifice of the Mass, and also in our celebration of the Mass in the Ordinary Form.

Robert Cardinal Sarah spoke about the implementation of Benedict's Motu proprio and the very real problems in Catholic worship that it addresses at a colloquium in Germany earlier this year:

Certainly, the Second Vatican Council wished to promote greater active participation by the people of God and to bring about progress day by day in the Christian life of the faithful (see Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 1). Certainly, some fine initiatives were taken along these lines. However we cannot close our eyes to the disaster, the devastation and the schism that the modern promoters of a living liturgy caused by remodeling the Church’s liturgy according to their ideas. They forgot that the liturgical act is not just a PRAYER, but also and above all a MYSTERY in which something is accomplished for us that we cannot fully understand but that we must accept and receive in faith, love, obedience and adoring silence. And this is the real meaning of active participation of the faithful. It is not about exclusively external activity, the distribution of roles or of functions in the liturgy, but rather about an intensely active receptivity: this reception is, in Christ and with Christ, the humble offering of oneself in silent prayer and a thoroughly contemplative attitude. The serious crisis of faith, not only at the level of the Christian faithful but also and especially among many priests and bishops, has made us incapable of understanding the Eucharistic liturgy as a sacrifice, as identical to the act performed once and for all by Jesus Christ, making present the Sacrifice of the Cross in a non-bloody manner, throughout the Church, through different ages, places, peoples and nations. There is often a sacrilegious tendency to reduce the Holy Mass to a simple convivial meal, the celebration of a profane feast, the community’s celebration of itself, or even worse, a terrible diversion from the anguish of a life that no longer has meaning or from the fear of meeting God face to face, because His glance unveils and obliges us to look truly and unflinchingly at the ugliness of our interior life. But the Holy Mass is not a diversion. It is the living sacrifice of Christ who died on the cross to free us from sin and death, for the purpose of revealing the love and the glory of God the Father. Many Catholics do not know that the final purpose of every liturgical celebration is the glory and adoration of God, the salvation and sanctification of human beings, since in the liturgy “God is perfectly glorified and men are sanctified” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 7). Most of the faithful—including priests and bishops—do not know this teaching of the Council. Just as they do not know that the true worshippers of God are not those who reform the liturgy according to their own ideas and creativity, to make it something pleasing to the world, but rather those who reform the world in depth with the Gospel so as to allow it access to a liturgy that is the reflection of the liturgy that is celebrated from all eternity in the heavenly Jerusalem. As Benedict XVI often emphasized, at the root of the liturgy is adoration, and therefore God. Hence it is necessary to recognize that the serious, profound crisis that has affected the liturgy and the Church itself since the Council is due to the fact that its CENTER is no longer God and the adoration of Him, but rather men and their alleged ability to “do” something to keep themselves busy during the Eucharistic celebrations.

Please read the rest there.

One thought I have when I attend the EFLR is that this is the ritual of the Mass for which William Byrd wrote his three Masses and his Gradualia; this is the Mass that St. Edmund Campion, St. John Southworth, St. Oliver Plunkett, Blessed John Cornelius, Blessed Thomas Maxfield and so many others learned to say in exile and brought back to England. This is the form of the Mass that English laymen and laywomen risked their lives to attend.

Thank you, Pope Benedict XVI! Thank you to all the priests in our diocese who have offered the EFLR to our Latin Mass Community in the Catholic Diocese of  Wichita, Kansas!!

Image Credit: from Wikipedia Commons, by the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, available from http://fssp.org.

Newman on Christ the King

Today in the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate the Feast of the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ. While he was an Anglican, Blessed John Henry Newman preached about Jesus as King:

Yet it must be borne in mind, that even before He entered into His glory, Christ spoke and acted as a King. It must not be supposed that, even in the days of His flesh, He could forget who He was, or "behave Himself unseemly" by any weak submission to the will of the Jewish people. Even in the lowest acts of His self-abasement, still He showed His greatness. Consider His conduct when He washed St. Peter's feet, and see if it were not calculated (assuredly it was) to humble, to awe, and subdue the very person to whom He ministered. When He taught, warned, pitied, prayed for, His ignorant hearers, He never allowed them to relax their reverence or to overlook His condescension. Nay, He did not allow them to praise Him aloud, and publish His acts of grace; as if what is called popularity would be a dishonour to His holy name, and the applause of men would imply their right to censure. The world's praise is akin to contempt. Our Lord delights in the tribute of the secret heart. Such was His conduct in the days of His flesh. Does it not interpret His dealings with us after His resurrection? He who was so reserved in His communications of Himself, even when He came to minister, much more would withdraw Himself from the eyes of men when He was exalted over all things.

I have said, that even when a servant, Christ spoke with the authority of a king; and have given you some proof of it. But it may be well to dwell upon this. Observe then, the difference between His promises, stated doctrinally and generally, and His mode of addressing those who came actually before Him. While He announced God's willingness to forgive all repentant sinners, in all the fulness of loving-kindness and tender mercy, yet He did not use supplication to these persons or those, whatever their number or their rank might be. He spoke as one who knew He had great favours to confer, and had nothing to gain from those who received them. Far from urging them to accept His bounty, He showed Himself even backward to confer it, inquired into their knowledge and motives, and cautioned them against entering His service without counting the cost of it. Thus sometimes He even repelled men from Him.

For instance: When there went "great multitudes with Him ... He turned and said unto them, If any man come to Me, and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple." These were not the words of one who courted popularity. He proceeds;—"Which of you intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? ... So likewise, whosoever he be of you, that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple." [Luke xiv. 25-33.] On the other hand, observe His conduct to the powerful men, and the learned Scribes and Pharisees. There are persons who look up to human power, and who are pleased to associate their names with the accomplished and cultivated of this world. Our blessed Lord was as inflexible towards these, as towards the crowds which followed Him. They asked for a sign; He named them "an evil and adulterous generation," who refused to profit by what they had already received [Matt. xii. 39; xxi. 23-27.]. They asked Him, whether He did not confess Himself to be One with God; but He, rather than tell such proud disputers, seemed even to abandon His own real claim, and made His former clear words ambiguous [Note 1]. Such was the King of Israel in the eyes both of the multitude and of their rulers; a "hard saying," a "rock of offence even to the disobedient," who came to Him "with their lips, while their hearts were far from Him." Continue this survey to the case of individuals, and it will still appear, that, loving and merciful as He was most abundantly, yet still He showed both His power and His grace with reserve, even to them, as well as to the fickle many, or the unbelieving Pharisees.

Read the rest there.

Image: Jesus before Pilate (Duccio)

Christ the King

Next Sunday, the last Sunday of October, on the Calendar for the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite, will be the Feast of The Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ.  I wrote about that Feast and the celebration of the Solemnity of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe in the Ordinary Form--which falls on Sunday, November 20 this year, for the National Catholic Register:

My husband and I attend Sunday Mass in both forms of the Roman Rite: the Ordinary Form in the vernacular and the Extraordinary Form in Latin. Because we have this opportunity, at least partially because of Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 Summorum Pontificum, and mostly because of the generosity of several priests, we will celebrate the feast of Christ the King twice this fall—once before Election Day and once after. Thus, no matter who is elected President, Christ will be King.

1925: Pope Pius XI

On the Extraordinary Form calendar the Feast of the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ is celebrated on the last Sunday of October. Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical “Quas Primas” on December 11, 1925 to establish the feast and provided this reason for its scheduling:

The last Sunday of October seemed the most convenient of all for this purpose, because it is at the end of the liturgical year, and thus the feast of the Kingship of Christ sets the crowning glory upon the mysteries of the life of Christ already commemorated during the year, and, before celebrating the triumph of all the Saints, we proclaim and extol the glory of him who triumphs in all the Saints and in all the Elect.

The propers of the Mass (Introit, Collect, Epistle, Gradual, Alleluia, Gospel, Offertory, Secret, Communion Verse, and Post Communion prayer) all emphasize what Pope Pius XI stated as truths about Jesus Christ’s Kingship. He reigns as the maker and enforcer of Law; His Kingdom, as he told Pilate, is not of this world: it is “spiritual and concerned with spiritual things”; nevertheless, He is King of all the nations on earth, whether their citizens are Catholic or not, baptized or not, and He reigns as the King of peace.

Please read the rest there.

Image credit. (Christ Pantocrator (“ruler over all”) from the Hagia Sophia in Instanbul)

Two Assumptions

I attended Mass twice for the Solemnity of the Assumption on Monday, August 15. My husband and I went to Noon Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, which was very well attended, even though the bishops in the USA had removed the obligation to attend on this Holy Day because it fell on a Monday (!). The choir director and organist ought to be a little concerned, because we sang "Immaculate Mary", Parisian Plain Chant, and "Hail, Holy Queen" without their assistance quite ably.

Then I drove to Pilsen, Kansas in Marion County to attend Low Mass in the Extraordinary Form at the Church of St. John Nepomucene, which was the home parish of Servant of God Emil Kapaun. St. John Nepomucene is the patron saint of Czechoslovakia and of confessors--he was martyred because he refused to reveal the confession of the queen to her husband, King Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia. Thus, the patron saint of the church, one of the four churches in the Holy Family Parish of Marion County, is depicted with his finger on his lips at the High Altar:

The side altars were beautiful too:

And the exterior of the church, facing the westward setting sun:

And here is the statue depicting Chaplain Kapaun helping a wounded soldier:

The horizon:

Our Lady, assumed into Heaven, pray for us!
St. John Nepomucene, pray for us!
Servant of God Father Emil Kapaun, pray for us!

Finally, the old Fina Gas Station (I should have stopped to see what the prices were the last time gas was pumped there, but I wanted to reach Kansas 15 before it was completely dark):

My Favorite Feast: Corpus Christi

Next to attending Mass, my favorite devotion is Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction. Today's feast, traditionally celebrated on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday but usually moved to the following Sunday, combines both: Mass with special emphasis on the doctrine of the Real Presence, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in Exposition (the Host in the Monstrance), a public procession, and Benediction.

Penn State University Press published a book about the development of this feast in 2006:

The feast of Corpus Christi, one of the most solemn feasts of the Latin Church, can be traced to the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 and its resolution of disputes over the nature of the Eucharist. The feast was first celebrated in Liège in 1246, thanks largely to the efforts of a religious woman, Juliana of Mont Cornillon, who not only popularized the feast, but also wrote key elements of an original office.

This volume presents for the first time a complete set of source materials germane to the study of the feast of Corpus Christi. In addition to the multiple versions of the original Latin liturgy, a set of poems in Old French, and their English translations, the book includes complete transcriptions of the music associated with the feast. An introductory essay lays out the historical context for understanding the initiation and reception of the feast.

In 2012, during his homily for the celebration of this feast, Pope Benedict XVI spoke about the important connection between actual participation in Holy Communion at the Sacrifice of the Mass and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament outside of Mass, commenting upon the unfortunate idea that the latter detracts from the former:

First of all, a reflection on the importance of Eucharistic worship and, in particular, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. We shall experience it this evening, after Mass, before the procession, during it and at its conclusion. A unilateral interpretation of the Second Vatican Council penalized this dimension, in practice restricting the Eucharist to the moment of its celebration. Indeed it was very important to recognize the centrality of the celebration in which the Lord summons his people, gathers it round the dual table of the Word and of the Bread of life, nourishes and unites it with himself in the offering of the Sacrifice.

Of course, this evaluation of the liturgical assembly in which the Lord works his mystery of communion and brings it about still applies; but it must be put back into the proper balance. In fact — as often happens — in order to emphasize one aspect one ends by sacrificing another. In this case the correct accentuation of the celebration of the Eucharist has been to the detriment of adoration as an act of faith and prayer addressed to the Lord Jesus, really present in the Sacrament of the Altar.

This imbalance has also had repercussions on the spiritual life of the faithful. In fact, by concentrating the entire relationship with the Eucharistic Jesus in the sole moment of Holy Mass one risks emptying the rest of existential time and space of his presence. This makes ever less perceptible the meaning of Jesus’ constant presence in our midst and with us, a presence that is tangible, close, in our homes, as the “beating Heart” of the city, of the country, and of the area, with its various expressions and activities. The sacrament of Christ’s Charity must permeate the whole of daily life.

Actually it is wrong to set celebration and adoration against each other, as if they were competing. Exactly the opposite is true: worship of the Blessed Sacrament is, as it were, the spiritual “context” in which the community can celebrate the Eucharist well and in truth. Only if it is preceded, accompanied and followed by this inner attitude of faith and adoration can the liturgical action express its full meaning and value. The encounter with Jesus in Holy Mass is truly and fully brought about when the community can recognize that in the Sacrament he dwells in his house, waits for us, invites us to his table, then, after the assembly is dismissed, stays with us, with his discreet and silent presence, and accompanies us with his intercession, continuing to gather our spiritual sacrifices and offer them to the Father.

In this regard I am pleased to highlight the experience we shall be having together this evening too. At the moment of Adoration, we are all equal, kneeling before the Sacrament of Love. The common priesthood and the ministerial priesthood are brought together in Eucharistic worship. It is a very beautiful and significant experience which we have had several times in St Peter’s Basilica, and also in the unforgettable Vigils with young people — I recall, for example, those in Cologne, London, Zagreb and Madrid. It is clear to all that these moments of Eucharistic Vigil prepare for the celebration of the Holy Mass, they prepare hearts for the encounter so that it will be more fruitful.

To be all together in prolonged silence before the Lord present in his Sacrament is one of the most genuine experiences of our being Church, which is accompanied complementarily by the celebration of the Eucharist, by listening to the word of God, by singing and by approaching the table of the Bread of Life together. Communion and contemplation cannot be separated, they go hand in hand. If I am truly to communicate with another person I must know him, I must be able to be in silence close to him, to listen to him and look at him lovingly. True love and true friendship are always nourished by the reciprocity of looks, of intense, eloquent silences full of respect and veneration, so that the encounter may be lived profoundly and personally rather than superficially. And, unfortunately, if this dimension is lacking, sacramental communion itself may become a superficial gesture on our part.

Our Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite community, which usually gathers for Mass on Sunday at the Church of St. Anthony of Padua at 1 p.m., will instead worship today at the same hour at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament. The choir and a small orchestra will sing and play one of Mozart's Credo Masses, and other music proper to the feast:

- Asperges Me, Stephen A. Erst
- Gloria, Mozart's Credo Mass
- Lauda Sion (sequence), Samuel Webbe
- Sacerdotes Domini (offertory antiphon), William Byrd
- Ave Maria, Jacob Arcadelt
- Sanctus, Mozart Credo Mass
- Benedictus, Mozart Credo Mass
- Agnus Dei, Mozart Credo Mass
- Ave Verum Corpus, Mozart
- Pange Lingua, Thomas Aquinas

And there will be Exposition of the Blessed, a procession and Benediction after Mass.

Fortunately for me, there will be two more opportunities for Exposition, Adoration, and Benediction next week: First Friday on June 3rd at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and the Parish Holy Hour next Sunday on June 5th at Blessed Sacrament! 

And there's also First Friday Benediction at Blessed Sacrament on June 3rd!

What Catholics Lost Because of the English Reformation

I think that Devin Rose expresses these thoughts very well, after attending an Anglican Use Mass:

The Order of the Mass for the Anglican Ordinariate is what the English Mass should be: traditional, yet in the vernacular; accessible, yet reverent.

We’ve been to the Extraordinary Form (Latin) multiple times, and of course to the normal Ordinary Form (English) thousands of times, and the Ordinariate Mass captures the best of each Form in its own unique style.

What We Lost As English Catholics

In studying for many years the history of the Protestant Reformation, I have slowly realized the devastating loss that we as English-speaking Catholics have suffered due to King Henry VIII and the Anglican Protestant usurpation of Catholic England.

I know that sounds extreme, but it is the candid truth.

We should have had five hundred years of English Catholic music, culture, and life, but instead Catholics were hunted down and killed and the Church went underground there for a long time.

So Pope Emeritus Benedict showed great wisdom and brilliance in establishing the Anglican Ordinariate. He realized what we had lost, and he saw a way to retrieve some part of it, all while building a bridge to Anglicans (including Episcopalians) who have grown appalled at the fall of the Anglican Communion into unsalvagable heterodoxy.

He established the Ordinariate to include a reverent Mass, in English, of the Roman Rite, that also includes aspects of authentic Anglican patrimony. The result is a breath of fresh air: the accessibility of our English language with the reverence and tradition of the Extraordinary Form.

The only comment I would make is that Catholics in nineteenth century England, most of them converts from the Church of England, did work hard to revive the Catholic spirit of English literature through good translations of Latin hymns and prayers, and good original poems and hymn lyrics. I'm thinking of Blessed John Henry Newman, Father Frederick Faber, Father Edward Caswall--three Oratorians, and I'm sure there were others. Like Father Frederick Oakeley, who started out with Newman's community but then followed Cardinal Wiseman to Westminster. T.E. Muir describes this period in his book from Ashgate: Roman Catholic Church Music in England, 1791–1914: A Handmaid of the Liturgy? Perhaps here in the USA we did not receive the benefits of this revival, partially because of--as I have read and written about before--the Irish influence here. 

Read the rest there.

I wish that Pope Benedict XVI would have been able to live out the normal course of his pontificate instead of having to cut it short because he could not fulfill his obligations. His program of renewing the liturgy, saving it from banality and reviving the sense of reverence and mystery was developing in the Extraordinary Form, the Ordinary Form (new English translation, the "Benedictine" Altar arrangement, return to the use of the Propers of the Mass instead of hymns and songs), and the Anglican Use. What might have been: what might still be.

Suppressing Septuagesima--Surprised by Lent?

As I have been preparing for my Cardinal Newman Day talk next Wednesday (Ash Wednesday) and reading Blessed John Henry Newman's sermons for Lent and Septuagesima, we've been attending Sunday Mass at St. Anthony of Padua with a mixture of liturgical seasons in evidence. In the Extraordinary Form we've celebrated Septuagesima and Sexagesima so far, the first two Sundays of the transition season from Epiphany to Lent. The priest wears purple vestments--we do not sing the Gloria or the Alleluia or any hymns--but the church is still filled with Christmas poinsettias and the Infant of Prague statue in the side chapel is wearing green since in the Ordinary Form it's Ordinary Time. The purple vestments and humeral veil do look beautiful against the background of red poinsettias!

As Amy Welborn notes on her blog, the suppression of the Septuagesima season after the Second Vatican Council was unfortunate for many reasons, including ecumenical ones--after all, the Church of England observes it, some high church Lutherans observe it, and Eastern Rite Catholics observe a pre-Lenten season too. Within the Roman Rite, the Anglican Use of the Ordinariate (thus the poster from St. Luke's Ordinariate in Washington, DC) and the Extraordinary Form still observe Septuagesima.

Welborn links an article explaining the development and purpose of Septuagesima and why it was suppressed--Welborn summarizes the latter: "As usual, it was determined that all this was too hard for us."

The intuition of faith that gave rise to the season of Septuagesima, then, is a recognition of the goodness, or even the necessity, of preparing oneself mentally, physically, and spiritually for the ascesis of Lent. The same recognition expresses itself in the Eastern practice of observing the Sundays of Meatfare and Cheesefare on the second and first Sundays, respectively, that precede the last Sunday before Lent. From Meatfare Sunday the faithful lay aside all flesh foods until the Pasch. From Cheesefare Sunday the faithful abstain from animal products such as eggs, milk, yogurt, butter, and cheese.

Meatfare and Cheesefare Sunday are practiced and well understood in Eastern Rite Catholic and Eastern Orthodox communities, but the committee reviewing Septuagesima thought it was too hard for Western Roman Rite Catholics:

"The penitential character of the time of Septuagesima or pre-Lent (the suppression of the Gloria and Alleluia, the color violet) is difficult for the faithful to understand without many explanations. At present the exterior signs of a penitential season are used as in Lent, but are not retained for the sake of particular penance as in Lent. According to the mind of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, the arrangement of the liturgical year may become clearer through the suppression of the penitential character of this season. As it pertains to the names Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima: because these names are also used by some of our separated brethren, it is necessary to proceed cautiously in this matter and to promote conversations on this matter as on others."

If you go to Welborn's blog post she gives examples of easily understood catechesis for 7th graders on Septuagesima's preparation for Lent. 

I'll be citing Parochial and Plain Sermons by Newman from all three Sundays next Wednesday and really look forward to saying their names: Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and QUINQUAGESIMA!

Kansas Has Three Local American Chesterton Societies!

While attending the Eighth Day Institute Symposium I was very happy to see Father Robert McElwee and his wife Ginger. Father McElwee is a retired Catholic priest of the Diocese of Wichita--he had been an Episcopalian minister but as a convert to Catholicism was able to become a (married) priest under Pope St. John Paul II's Pastoral Provision. The Pastoral Provision was kind of an antecedent to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI's Anglican Ordinariate.

I gave Father McElwee a review copy of my book--he later told me that he would read it during Lent (my husband said that's a perfect penance; I love my husband, but . ..). We hope to collaborate some time in the near future when Father can broadcast some "local" programming (right now he's just carrying EWTN's schedule).

Father McElwee has started a Catholic radio station in Southeast Kansas, KOOJ, which stands for Kause of Our Joy, and he and his wife host the local American Chesterton Society group in their home, according to this article:

For the past year and a half, Fr. McElwee, retired priest, and his wife, Ginger, have hosted a Chesterton discussion group on the second Sunday of the month in the living room at their home, 4084 Mt. Carmel Road, Frontenac.

“I’ll do a traditional Latin Mass at 4 p.m. for those who wish to attend it, then around 5 p.m. we have our Chesterton discussion group with food and some adult beverages,” Fr. McElwee said.

“We do designate a book, a chapter of a book, a poem or essay for discussion,” added Michael Ehling, an avid member of the group who assists the priest with it.

They are going to read The Flying Inn at their February and March meetings. Our Greater Wichita group is reading The Well and the Shallows, as I've mentioned--but I'm not sure what the Northeast Kansas group is reading (they meet in Eudora, Kansas). Perhaps we'll all meet up together at the Catholic Culture Conference in Wichita this April, at which Dale Ahlquist will speak!

Christ the King

Today is the Solemnity of Christ the King of the Universe in the Ordinary Form; it is also the last Sunday of Ordinary Time--Advent begins next Sunday. In the Extraordinary Form we celebrated the Solemnity of Christ the King on the last Sunday of October, before the Solemnity of All Saints. The New Liturgical Movement site posted a link to an explanation of the different purposes of the different timings of this great solemnity--as originally intended by Pope Pius XI in 1925 and as intended after the Second Vatican Council:

Pius XI’s intention, as can be gleaned from n. 29 [of the Encyclical Letter Quas Primas, which proclaimed the feast], is to emphasize the glory of Christ as terminus of His earthly mission,a glory and mission visible and perpetuated in history by the saints. Hence the feast falls shortly before the Feast of All Saints, to emphasize that what Christ inaugurated in His own person before ascending in glory, the saints then instantiate and carry further in human society, culture, and nations. It is a feast primarily about celebrating Christ’s ongoing kingship over all reality, including this present world, where the Church must fight for the recognition of His rights, the actual extension of His dominion to all domains, individual and social.

Indeed, there's also the obvious fact, unmentioned in Quas Primas but surely in everyone's mind, that the last Sunday in October had, for centuries, been celebrated as Reformation Sunday. A Catholic counter-feast, reminding the world not only of the comprehensive Kingship of Jesus Christ—so often denied socially and culturally by various teachings of Protestantism—but also of the worldwide kingly authority of His Church, would certainly be a reasonable application of the principle lex orandi, lex credendi.

In the liturgical reforms following the Second Vatican Council, its place was changed to the last Sunday of the Church year—that is, so that one week later would fall the first Sunday of Advent. This new position emphasizes rather the eschatological dimension of Christ’s kingship: the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, though begun in time, is here present “as in a mystery” (as Lumen Gentium phrases it) and in a “crucified” way. This Kingdom will be perfected and fully manifested only at the end of time, with the Second Coming. Hence in the new calendar the feast comes at the very end of the Church’s year, as the summation of the whole of salvation history and the symbol of what we hope for:expectantes … adventum salvatoris nostri Jesu Christi, as the liturgy in the Ordinary Form proclaims after the Lord’s Prayer.

Read the rest here.

Good News from Preston, England

I reported on this good news about a historic church in danger of closing in Preston, England, earlier this year. On Sunday, September 27, the Institute of Christ the King celebrated the first Solemn High Mass in St. Walburge's in the presence of Bishop Michael Campbell of the Lancaster Diocese, who invited the Institute to take over the church and establish a shrine for Eucharistic Adoration!

You may find pictures of the Mass here and here. This is the second church in England saved by a diocese and the Institute of Christ the King. The Church of St. Peter, St. Paul and St. Philomena in New Brighton, Diocese of Shrewsbury was the first:

The majestic dome of the little altered Catholic church of Ss. Peter, Paul & St. Philomena, New Brighton, dominates the Wirral skyline at its tip, opposite Liverpool’s famous maritime frontage. During the Second World War the church was nicknamed the ‘Dome of Home’ by merchant seamen returning in their convoys across the Atlantic. Once they spotted the dome they knew they were safe from the ever present threat of U-boat attack.

The church was closed in 2008 due to concerns about the cost of repair. There followed an enthusiastic local campaign to save the building and in 2012 it reopened under the aegis of the Institute of Christ the King. With full support from the Diocese of Shrewsbury, the church is now established as a Shrine Church for the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and celebration of the Liturgy in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. Open 8am until 8pm daily, this church welcomes anyone wishing to escape the modern rat-race for a few minutes and appreciate the peace in its wonderful Baroque interior. One of the few remaining vestiges of New Brighton's heyday, this prominent landmark is, as Bishop Davies calls it, “a Beacon of Hope” to us all.

Book Review: The Heresy of Formlessness

I purchased this book at Eighth Day Books, BTW. Martin Mosebach is a Catholic German layman, a writer (novels, screenplays, short stories, poems, essays, etc). Ignatius Press published this translation of his book on the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Liturgy of the Roman Rite with a foreword by Father Joseph Fessio, SJ in 2006.

Sure to be the subject of much discussion, this book takes a look at the post Vatican II approach to liturgy through the eyes of a man who says the Church has lost much and gained nothing through the promulgation of the “Novus Ordo” Mass. An accomplished novelist and writer, German author Martin Mosebach gives a plea for a return to the preconciliar Latin Rite, giving a persuasive and compelling argument against what he sees as a jarring break in tradition. Yet there is another way to approach the Liturgy.

In his foreword, Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J., points out the difference between Mosebach’s approach and “those who, like myself, the Adoremus Society, and—I think I can assert this with confidence—Pope Benedict XVI, advocate a rereading and restructuring of the liturgical renewal intended by the Second Vatican Council, but in light of the Church’s two-thousand-year tradition.”

Mosebach writes about his experience of the changes in the Mass after the Second Vatican Council with the regret that he has had to become a liturgical specialist. Instead of actual participation in the Mass, he has had to experience the Mass because of the changes to the liturgy and their effect on Catholic theology and belief. In these essays, he discusses everything from Latin, to Gregorian chant, Catholics' belief in the Real Presence, veiling, gestures, art, iconoclasm, and beauty. He even discusses problems with the way that the Extraordinary Form of the Mass IS celebrated with the delays caused by the choir's singing of the parts of the Mass! One passage I thought particularly unfortunate was his regret that the priest would speak in the vernacular to give a homily and perhaps even make parish announcements. Since the homily or sermon has always been part of the Mass, and since the Mass is celebrated most often at least in the context of a parish with activities and community events, his concern that the homily breaks through the mystery of the liturgy and disrupts the Mass with the personality of the priest seems all too pedantic to me.

This is a collection of essays, and even includes a chapter from a novel, and is a very personal book, even in translation.The author's interest in and knowledge of history and art shine through clearly, as does his passion for holy worship of God in the liturgy.

As I have been attending Sunday Mass in the Extraordinary Form for several years, I'm glad to say that recently I have been able to put aside the Missal at certain points of the liturgy and enter into the mystery of the Sacrifice without reading it. Thus my worship is less literary and more sacramental, I hope.

Leonine Prayers after Mass

With the two crises of Black Masses in Cambridge, Mass. and Oklahoma City, Okla, mocking the Catholic faith and desecrating the Sacramental Host, Catholics have been urged to pray the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel, composed by Pope Leo XIII:

Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle;
be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host,
by the Divine power of God, cast into hell Satan,
and with him all evil spirits
who prowl through the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen

The prayer to Saint Michael is just one of the prayers that Pope Leo XIII ordered to be said after Low Mass by the priest and the congregation in Catholic churches throughout the world. Pope Pius IX had required Catholics in the Papal States to offer certain prayers after Mass during the crisis of the Italian revolution in 1859: three Hail Marys, the Salve Regina and a special Collect. Pope Leo expanded the use of those prayers in 1884 and added the St. Michael the Archangel Prayer in 1886 Popes Pius XI and XII emphasized that the Leonine prayers, named for Pope Leo XIII, were to be prayed for the conversion of Russia.

In 1964, the Instruction on Implementing the Constitution on Sacred Liturgy, Inter oecumenici suppressed both the Last Gospel, read after the dismissal and final blessing, and the Leonine Prayers. On Sunday, April 24, 1994 St. John Paul II nevertheless encouraged Catholics to pray the St. Michael Prayer during his Regina Caeli message and prayers:

May prayer strengthen us for the spiritual battle we are told about in the Letter to the Ephesians: ‘Draw strength from the Lord and from His mighty power’ (Ephesians 6:10). The Book of Revelation refers to this same battle, recalling before our eyes the image of St. Michael the Archangel (Revelation 12:7). Pope Leo XIII certainly had a very vivid recollection of this scene when, at the end of the last century, he introduced a special prayer to St. Michael throughout the Church. Although this prayer is no longer recited at the end of Mass, I ask everyone not to forget it and to recite it to obtain help in the battle against forces of darkness and against the spirit of this world.

Archbishop Coakley in Oklahoma City asked that this prayer be said at the end of every Mass and that Eucharist Holy Hours be offered "to honor Christ's Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist". Bishop Slattery in the Tulsa Oklahoma diocese asked Catholics there to pray a decade of the Rosary and the St. Michael Prayer. And although we have the good news that the organizers of the Black Mass have returned the consecrated Host they planned to desecrate, those prayers are still needed as they still plan to hold some mockery of the Mass at the Civic Center in Oklahoma City.

You may find the full text of the Leonine Prayers in both England and Latin here. Although the congregational praying of them has been suppressed, anyone may pray these prayers after Mass, High or Low, in the Ordinary or Extraordinary Form--or whenever!

St Eugene-Ste Cecile on the "Chant Cafe" Blog

I "like" the Schola Ste Cecile and the St Eugene-Ste Cecile pages on facebook, and often wish I could attend Sunday Mass when they post the program for the next Sunday. I even have a dream to spend Holy Week in Paris to attend at least Holy Thursday and Good Friday of the Triduum at St Eugene-Ste Cecile (with a visit to Notre Dame on Good Friday for veneration of the Crown of Thorns). I was thrilled therefore to see this post on the Chant Café blog about the Schola Ste Cecile, pictured above in the loft during our March visit this year:

If you ask most people what names come to mind when you associate the words church, music and Paris, there are lots of beautiful places that rise up in the imagination: Notre Dame, Ste Clothilde, St Germain des Pres, St Eustache, the Madeleine: the list goes on and on.  It is no secret that the City of Lights has been an inspiration to many a church musician through the ages.  And it is still unparalleled when it comes to organ music.  It's hard to go far on a Sunday afternoon and not stumble into a first rate organ concert.

Many moons ago when I lived in Paris, I used to go to a small little church off of Grands Boulevards which may not be a household name, but it certainly will be someday.  Not far from the Conservatoire, already home to so many promising musicians of the future, this neo-Gothic wonder not too far off the beaten path is home to what in my opinion is one of the brightest spots in the sacred music scene in the world.

The Church of Saint Eugène is twinned with the parish of Sainte Cécile and in this space you will find a home where the liturgical thought of Pope Benedict XVI and Tradition flourishes.  On any given Sunday, you can attend Mass in the French Novus Ordo as well as the Extraordinary Form.  In my day, Philippe Guy was the mastermind behind the whole musical affair, and the Abbé François Poté attracted numerous families and young people to a parish which otherwise might have suffered, as the neighborhood around it changed. 

The musical programme is quite impressive, if for no other reason than here you can listen to some of the best of the classical repertoire of French sacred choral music.  It's one thing to hear Charpentier's famed Messe pour minuit de Noël in a fashionable French church.  It's another to experience it alongside sequences from the Parisian Missal, Eucharistic motets from the ancien régime and chant at its finest, Sunday after Sunday in a parish that celebrates both forms of the Roman Rite well.

Read the rest here. It is such a beautiful church too, with all the Gothic elements inside and no flying buttresses outside, since the architect used cast iron in the columns. One feature we noticed this year is that the Stations of the Cross are represented in stained glass windows! Bon dimanche!

The Extraordinary Form on EWTN

Although not at a convenient hour for me at least, EWTN is broadcasting a series called "Extraordinary Faith", which started Monday, April 14:

Extraordinary Faith is a monthly 30 minute television program on EWTN that celebrates the beauty of classical Catholic sacred art, architecture, music, and liturgy. We’ll take you to some of the world’s most awe-inspiring churches. We’ll introduce you to dynamic young Catholics whose faith has survived the demands of a secular world and who are becoming key players in the New Evangelization by sharing their enthusiasm for the traditions of Catholicism. We’ll show you the rich vocations harvest that is synonymous with the movement to restore the Extraordinary Form of Mass to mainstream parish life. We’ll give you the resources to find churches that offer traditional worship experiences, and we’ll even assist you to organize your own Latin Masses.

EWTN airs the program at 4:30 a.m. Eastern and 2:00 a.m. Eastern (Monday and Friday) this week, but the Extraordinary Faith website will post the 30 minute programs on the website a month after. The first episode centers on the Masses in the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Liturgy of the Roman Rite in the chapel at San Juan Capistrano:

We visit one of California’s oldest Catholic Missions, located one hour south of Los Angeles. Mission San Juan Capistrano is home to one of the first Extraordinary Form Mass sites established in North America after Vatican II. Pastor Msgr. Art Holquin explains the Mission’s history and current membership. We chat with George Sarah, a Hollywood composer and organizer of Latin Masses in Los Angeles, and with Joy Lanfranchi, organizer of the annual Lenten Pilgrimage in Orange County.

The second episode, I presume to be broadcast the week of May 12, centers on Harvard and Cambridge:

We visit one of America’s most famed Catholic musical institutions, the Boys’ Choir School at St. Paul Church in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Music Director John Robinson and Pastor Fr. Michael Drea explain the history of the parish and school. The ladies who help organize Harvard’s Latin Masses discuss the challenges and opportunities they face, from dating to promoting the Extraordinary Form. We meet a prodigal young organist and composer, and we attend the first Tridentine Mass sung by the choir school in over 40 years.

Since we've visited both San Juan Capistrano--and witnessed the moving live Stations of the Cross in the modern Mission parish church--and St. Paul's in Cambridge, I do look forward to these programs, even if I have to wait for the on-line showings in May and June (etc).

Image Credit: from Wikipedia Commons, by the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, available from http://fssp.org.

St. Walburge's Catholic Church, Preston

From the UK Catholic Herald newspaper site comes good news for an endangered historical church:

Bishop Michael Campbell of Lancaster announced on Sunday that Mgr Gilles Wach, General Prior of the institute [of Christ the King Sovereign Priest], together with parish priest Fr Simon Hawksworth, have agreed to establish a foundation of the Institute at the Church of St Walburge, Preston, in the early autumn.

Bishop Campbell said that the arrival of the institute meant that the church will now be open every day with Eucharistic adoration and devotion.

Masses will be celebrated in both the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms.

My husband and I have attended Sunday Mass at Old St. Patrick's Oratory in Kansas City, Missouri, so we have seen the results of a revival and restoration of a beautiful church, with a young and growing congregation, led by the Institute and, of course, the parishioners.

St. Walburge's, named in honor of St. Walpurga, an 8th century Saxon princess, abbess, and saint, was built in the mid-19th century during the Catholic revival in England after Emancipation. Begun in 1850--the year of the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy by Pope Pius IX--it was designed by Joseph Hansom and dedicated in 1854. Its spire is the third tallest in England and is the tallest parish church spire (as opposed to a cathedral, like Salisbury and Norwich, the first and second tallest!). 

It was designed by Joseph Hansom, Gothic revival architect and inventor of the Hansom cab. Hansom designed over 200 buildings in England and Wales, including Arundel Cathedral in West Sussex, St. John's Cathedral in Portsmouth, St. Beuno's Jesuit College in Wales, and St. Aloysius in Oxford (now the Oxford Oratory). He worked both A.W Pugin and Pugin's son Edward Welby (though he and the latter dissolved their partnership unhappily). 

It's great to see such an historic building not just preserved, but used for its glorious purpose of worship and praise--besides the celebration of Mass in the Ordinary and Extraordinary Form, St. Walburge's will be a shrine of Eucharistic Adoration!

Image credit: Wikipedia commons.

An Advent Hymnn for Christ's Second Coming: The Dies Irae

If we think of the Dies Irae, The Day of Wrath, we think of it as the sequence in the Catholic Requiem Mass according to the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite--but it is the ultimate Advent hymn to proclaim Christ's Second Coming, which the first part of Advent anticipates. Here is a translation by the Very Reverend James Ambrose Dominic Aylward:

That day of wrath and grief and shame,

Shall fold the world in sheeted flame,
As psalm and Sibyl songs proclaim.

What terror on each breast shall lie
When, downward from the bending sky,
The judge shall come our souls to try.

The trump, through death's dominions blown,
Shall summon with a dreadful tone
The buried nations round the throne.

Nature and death in dumb surprise
Shall see the ancient dead arise,
To stand before the judge's eyes.

And lo, the written book appears,
Which all that faithful record bears,
From whence the world its sentence hears.

The Lord of judgment sits him down,
And every secret thing makes known ;
No crime escapes his vengeful frown.

Ah, how shall I that day endure ?
What patron's friendly voice secure,
When scarce the just themselves are sure ?

O king of dreadful majesty,
Who grantest grace and mercy free,
Grant mercy now and grace to me.

Good Lord, 'twas for my sinful sake,
That thou our suffering flesh didst take ;
Then do not now my soul forsake.

Thou soughtest me when I had strayed ;
Thy blood divine my ransom paid ;
Shall all that love be fruitless made ?

O just avenging judge, I pray,
For pity take my sins away,
Before the great accounting-day.

I groan beneath the guilt, which thou
Canst read upon my blushing brow ;
But spare, O God, thy suppliant now.

Thou, who didst Mary's sins unbind,
And mercy for the robber find,
Dost fill with hope my anxious mind.

Though worthless all my prayers appear, S
till let me not, my Saviour dear,
The everlasting burnings bear.

Give me at thy right hand a place,

Amongst thy sheep, a child of grace,

Far from the goats' accursed race.

Yea, when thy justly kindled ire

Shall bind the lost in chains of fire,

Oh, call me to thy chosen choir.

Lo, here I plead and suppliant bend,

Nor cease my contrite heart to rend,

That so thou spare me in the end.

Oh, on that day, that day of weeping,

When man shall wake from death's dark sleeping,

To stand before his judge divine,

Save, save this trembling soul of mine :

Yea, grant to all, O Saviour blest,

Who die in thee, the saints' sweet rest.

The original sequence is attributed to Thomas of Celano, a Franciscan from the thirteenth century. The translator, the Very Reverend James Ambrose Dominic Aylward, was a

Theologian and poet, born at Leeds, 4 April, 1813; died at Hinckley (England), 5 October, 1872. He was educated at the Dominican priory of Hinckley, entered the Order of St. Dominic, was ordained priest in 1836, became provincial in l850, first Prior of Woodchester in 1854, and provincial a second time in 1866. He composed several pious manuals for the use of his community and "A Novena for the Holy Season of Advent" gathered from the prophecies, anthems, etc., of the Roman Missal and Breviary (Derby, 1849). He reedited (London, 1867) a "Life of Blessed Virgin St. Catherine of Sienna", translated from the Italian by the Dominican Father John Fen (Louvain, 1609), also an English translation of Father Chocarne's "Inner Life of Lacordaire" (Dublin, 1867). His essays '' On the Mystical Elements in Religion, and on Old and Modern Spiritism " were edited posthumously by Cardinal Manning (London, 1874). Father Aylward's principal monument is his translation of Latin hymns, most of which he contributed to "The Catholic Weekly Instructor." In his "Annus Sanctus" (London, 1884) Orbey Shipley has reprinted many of them. He says of Father Aylward that he was "a cultivated and talented priest of varied powers and gifts."