Preview: Newman's Sympathy for the Sorrows of Mary (More than Seven!)

On Monday, March 31, we'll conclude our discussion of Saint John Henry Newman's meditation on how "Our Lord Refuses Sympathy" on the Son Rise Morning Show as Newman focuses on Mary's sorrow after Jesus leaves Nazareth for His public ministry and the Cross. I'll be on the air at my usual time at the top of the second national hour of the Son Rise Morning Show on EWTN, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

Remember these are Catholic meditations: Newman reflects on Catholic devotions to the Blessed Virgin Mary, relating them to the parting of Mother and Son at the Marriage Feast of Cana: 

Let us linger for a while with Mary—before we follow the steps of her Son, our Lord. . . . O Mary, we are devout to thy seven woes—but was not this, though not one of those seven, one of the greatest, and included those that followed, from thy knowledge of them beforehand? How didst thou bear that first separation from Him? How did the first days pass when thou wast desolate? where didst thou hide thyself? where didst thou pass the long three years and more, while He was on His ministry? Once—at the beginning of it—thou didst attempt to get near Him [Matt. 12:48-50], and then we hear nothing of thee, till we find thee standing at His cross. And then, after that great joy of seeing Him again, and the permanent consolation, never to be lost, that with Him all suffering and humiliation was over, and that never had she to weep for Him again, still she was separated from him for many years, while she lived in the flesh, surrounded by the wicked world, and in the misery of His absence.

Newman alludes to the warning Jesus gave Joseph and Mary when they found Him in the Temple in Jerusalem when he was 12 years old [Luke 2:41-52]: "And he said to them: How is it that you sought me? did you not know, that I must be about my father's business?".  But He had gone back to Nazareth with them and stayed 18 more years until beginning His Father's business and she would not see Jesus again until she was at the foot of the Cross:

The blessed Mary, among her other sorrows, suffered the loss of her Son, after He had lived under the same roof with her for thirty years. . . . [At last] and she reached him in time, to see Him hanging on the cross and dying. He was only forty days on earth after His resurrection, and then He left her in old age to finish her life without Him. Compare her thirty happy years, and her time of desolation.

In the next paragraphs, Newman describes his own "composition of place", imagining Mary at home without Jesus for the three years between Cana and Calvary, as she yearned to hear about Jesus and to see her Son. Newman has used Saint Ignatius of Loyola's method, to see "the persons in my imagination, contemplating and meditating in detail on the circumstances surrounding them, and I will then draw some spiritual fruit from what has been seen":

I see her in her forlorn home, while her Son and Lord was going up and down the land without a place to lay His head, suffering both because she was so desolate and He was so exposed. How dreary passed the day; and then came reports that He was in some peril or distress. She heard, perhaps, He had been led into the wilderness to be tempted. She would have shared all His sufferings, but was not permitted. Once there was a profane report which was believed by many, that He was beside Himself, and His friends and kindred went out to get possession of Him. She went out too to see Him, and tried to reach Him. She could not for the crowd. A message came to Him to that effect, but He made no effort to receive her, nor said a kind word. She went back to her home disappointed, without the sight of Him. And so she remained, perhaps in company with those who did not believe in Him. [Mark 3:20-21; John 7:3-5]

Then he imagines her life after the Resurrection and Ascension: 

I see her too after His ascension. This, too, is a time of bereavement, but still of consolation. It was still a twilight time, but not a time of grief. The Lord was absent, but He was not on earth, He was not in suffering. Death had no power over Him.

Then Newman finds and offers "the spiritual fruit" from what he has imagined as he thinks of Mary receiving Holy Communion: 

And He came to her day by day in the Blessed Sacrifice. I see the Blessed Mary at Mass, and St. John celebrating. She is waiting for the moment of her Son's Presence: now she converses with Him in the sacred rite; and what shall I say now? She receives Him, to whom once she gave birth.

O Holy Mother, stand by me now at Mass time, when Christ comes to me, as thou didst minister to Thy infant Lord—as Thou didst hang upon His words when He grew up, as Thou wast found under His cross. Stand by me, Holy Mother, that I may gain somewhat of thy purity, thy innocence, thy faith, and He may be the one object of my love and my adoration, as He was of thine.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Image source (Public Domain) at the top: Mater Dolorosa with Clasped Hands by Titian and his studio c. 1550-1555

Image source (Public Domain) at the bottom: The Virgin of the Host by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1854

Preview: Father Faber on "What We Should Give Thanks For"

In our final Son Rise Morning Show segment on Father Frederick Faber's Little Book of Holy Gratitude, drawn from the seventh chapter of All For Jesus, on Monday, November 25, Matt or Anna and I will look at some of Faber's thoughts about what exactly we should thank God for. 

I'll be on the air at my usual time! about 7:50 a.m. Eastern Time/6:50 a.m. Central Time. Please listen live here or listen to the podcast later.

Faber begins in an intriguing direction, since we might be inclined to concentrate on the blessings we individually have received:

"We should thank God for the blessings that are common to the whole human race."

Among those blessings Faber lists that we are created with a body and a soul; health and temporal blessings; that "God not only created the world, he redeemed it, and prepared for us eternal glory, and He thinks specifically and distinctly of each one of us." Faber highlights "the graces of the sacred humanity of Jesus, the glorious privileges of the Mother of God, and all the splendor of the angels and the saints" as worthy of our gratitude.

He lists other things and events to be thankful for:

--Personal Blessings Received

--Afflictions and Tribulations

--Trifling Blessings

--Blessings We've Obstructed

--God's Non rational Creatures (birds, dogs, horses, even cats!)

--Blessings Given to Our Enemies

--All God's Angels and Saints

--The Gift of Faith

Some of these suggestions might seem odd. Why should we be thankful for our troubles? Because we trust that God only wants what's best for us. How do we thank God for blessings we didn't receive through our own fault? Because He wanted to bless us and we thank Him for that, Faber says. Faber comments that the non-rational creatures whose presence we enjoy are signs of "the presence of God, enabling us everywhere, and at all times, to rise to Him by means of his creatures." Being thankful for the blessings our enemies--if we have any--is a great act of charity and "brotherly love", Faber advises, as we will eventually feel "gentleness and tenderness, even toward those who have wronged us most, or who show the greatest dislike of us." Thus, we will be at peace with them and within ourselves.

In our era of the "nones" I think the gift of faith is one of the greatest things to be thankful for: To trust in God's holiness, truthfulness, and mercy; to be certain that He loves me and wants me to be happy; that He established His Church on earth to guide me to Heaven. Those are great blessings.

Most of all, of course, Faber returns to how thankful we should be for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, for the Real Presence, and for Holy Communion:

In our thanksgiving after receiving Holy Communion, he emphasizes the gratitude we should express for "the adorable Sacrifice of the Mass and the Personal Presence of Jesus with His Church," because "wheresoever He is, there is infinite praise, unspeakable worship, unfathomable thanksgiving!" He recommends the guidance of Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint Alphonsus Liguori, and his own patron, Saint Philip Neri for different means and methods.

 

After urging Catholics to "think more immediately of the Blessed Sacrament and of the presence of Jesus within them at that moment", Faber closes this section on thanksgiving after receiving Holy Communion by citing the opening words of Canto 27 of Paradise in the Divine Comedy , when Dante is coming closer to the heights of heaven, as an image for meditation after Holy Communion:. 

Then “Glory to the Father, to the Son,
And to the Holy Spirit,” rang aloud
Throughout all Paradise, that with the song
My spirit reel’d, so passing sweet the strain:
And what I saw was equal ecstasy;
One universal smile it seem’d of all things,
Joy past compare, gladness unutterable,
Imperishable life of peace and love,
Exhaustless riches and unmeasur’d bliss.

--Henry Francis Cary translation (1805-1814)

Who wouldn't be grateful for that?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Preview: Another Newman Easter Season Sermon, "The Eucharistic Presence"

On Monday, April 29, the penultimate day of the month, we'll continue our Newman Easter Sermon series on the Son Rise Morning Show with "The Eucharistic Presence" sermon 11 in volume 6 of the Parochial and Plain Sermons ("This is the Bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die." John 6:50.) 

So I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time, about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern on Monday, April 29. Please listen live here and/or catch the podcast later (and sometimes the show does repeat these segments later in the week during the first national hour).

Saint John Henry Newman, then an Anglican minister, preached this sermon on May 13, 1838, according to the chronology "given at the end of Longmans' Sermons on Subjects of the Day (pp. 411-424)". It is definitely an Anglican sermon as Newman is careful to distinguish between the Eucharistic doctrines of the Church of England and what he calls "one very large portion of Christendom" (the Catholic Church)--but more about that later!

In this Season of Easter, when those who entered the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil, receiving the Sacraments of Initiation (Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Communion) and Second Graders have received their First Holy Communion, this seems an appropriate Newman Sermon to consider, even though he did not believe at that time what those new Catholics and Second Graders do about Holy Communion.

He begins with calling the Lenten and Easter Seasons the "Sacramental Season" and particularly the season in which Anglicans receive Holy Communion, according to the rites of the Book of Common Prayer:

THE quarter of the year from Ash-Wednesday to Trinity Sunday may fittingly be called the Sacramental Season, as the Season preceding it is the Season of grace; and as we are specially called in the Christmas Season to sincerity of purpose, so now we are called to faith. God does good to those who are good and true of heart; and He reveals His mysteries to the believing. The earnest heart is the good ground in which faith takes root, and the truths of the Gospel are like the dew, the sunshine, and the soft rain, which make that heavenly seed to grow.

And in this sermon Newman does refer to Holy Communion as an Anglican sacrament:

The text speaks of the greatest and highest of all the Sacramental mysteries, which faith has been vouchsafed, that of Holy Communion. Christ, who died and rose again for us, is in it spiritually present, in the fulness of His death and of His resurrection. We call His presence in this Holy Sacrament a {137} spiritual presence, not as if "spiritual" were but a name or mode of speech, and He were really absent, but by way of expressing that He who is present there can neither be seen nor heard; that He cannot be approached or ascertained by any of the senses; that He is not present in place, that He is not present carnally, though He is really present. And how this is, of course is a mystery. All that we know or need know is that He is given to us, and that in the Sacrament of Holy Communion.

Just a little background, via this article from Adoremus by Father Michael Ewe Lang:

The early Tractarians (the members of the Oxford Movement were known for the publication of their Tracts for the Times) advocated a full application of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, especially the daily services of Matins and Evensong, which had fallen out of use, and a more frequent celebration of Communion. . . . On June 30, 1834, Newman began with the daily service of Matins in St. Mary the Virgin, and from 1836 he ensured that Evensong was celebrated every day in his newly built church in Littlemore. After some consideration, Newman instituted an early Sunday morning Communion service in the University church at Easter 1837.[4]

Newman was careful to follow the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer to the letter, since any alteration of the established customs would have added fuel to the controversy about the Oxford Movement, which was seen as “Romanizing.” . . .

Also, please note that according to the 1662 version of the Book of Common Prayer, those who wished to receive Holy Communion at the Sunday service notified the Curate of the parish in advance so that there was time to determine if there was any reason the communicant should NOT present herself to receive the Sacrament to avoid "grave and immediate scandal"!

After his introduction of the text for his sermon, Newman addresses how the Gospel of St. John, in chapter 6 and elsewhere, supplements the narratives of the Lord's Supper and other Sacraments in the Synoptic Gospels with a doctrinal explanation:

Now, with reference to the text and the chapter from which it is taken, I begin by observing, what at first sight one would think no one could doubt, that this chapter of St. John does treat of the Lord's Supper, and is, in fact, a comment upon the account of it, given by the other three Evangelists. We know it is St. John's way to supply what his brethren omit, and that especially in matters of doctrine; and in like manner to omit what they record. Hence, while all three give an account of the institution of Holy Communion at the last Supper, St. John omits it; and, because they omit to enlarge upon the great gift contained in it, he enters upon it. . . .

So in what we now usually call "the Bread of Life discourse", Newman tells his listeners/readers that

The bearing, then, of our Lord's sacred words would seem to be as follows, if one may venture to investigate it. At Capernaum, in the chapter now before us, He solemnly declares to His Apostles that none shall live for ever, but such as eat and drink His flesh and blood; and then afterwards. just before He was crucified, as related in the other three Gospels, He points out to them the way in which this mystery of grace was to be fulfilled in them. He assigns the consecrated Bread as that Body of which He had spoken, and the consecrated Wine as His Blood; and in partaking of the Bread and the Cup, they were partakers of His Body and Blood. . . .

When, then, Christ used the words of the text and of {140} other parts of the chapter containing it, He was describing prospectively that gift, which, in due season, the consecrated bread and wine were to convey to His Church for ever. Speaking with reference to what was to be, He says, "I am that Bread of Life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the Bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. I am the Living Bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this Bread he shall live for ever: and the Bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

And then Newman goes on to explicate the connections among the Manna of the Holy Testament, the miracle of loaves and fishes Jesus had just performed before the crowds followed Him to get more, the meaning of the words in the Discourse, the Institution of the Eucharist, and even the words and rubrics of the Anglican Prayer of Consecration. 

His effort throughout is to demonstrate that Jesus was not speaking figuratively or metaphorically about His Body and His Blood in chapter six of the Gospel of John but that the Institution of the Holy Eucharist the night before He died described in the Synoptic Gospels was the fulfillment of that earlier message: He gave the Church the means of consecrating and receiving His Body and His Blood.

There's just too much detail for us to consider in the time we have at the end of the hour to review it all! You may certainly read it all here.

Of course, Newman's conclusion is important, since it prescribes the congregation's response to these mysteries. Note especially the connection Newman makes between the doctrine of the Incarnation and the Sacrament of Holy Communion:

Such reflections as the foregoing lead us to this conclusion,—to understand that it is our duty to make much of Christ's miracles of love; and instead of denying or feeling cold towards them, to desire to possess our hearts with them. . . . Let us feel interest and awful expectation at the news of them; let us put ourselves in the way of them; let us wait upon God day by day for the treasures of grace, which are hid in Christ, which are great beyond words or thought.

Above all, let us pray Him to draw us to Him, and to give us faith. When we feel that His mysteries are too severe for us, and occasion us to doubt, let us earnestly wait on Him for the gift of humility and love. Those who love and who are humble will apprehend them;—carnal minds do not seek them, and proud minds are offended at them;—but while love desires them, humility sustains them. Let us pray Him then to give us such a real and living insight into the blessed doctrine of the Incarnation of the Son of God, of His birth of a Virgin, His atoning death, and resurrection, that we may desire that the Holy Communion may be the effectual type of that gracious Economy. No one realizes the Mystery of the Incarnation but must feel disposed towards that of Holy Communion. Let us pray Him to give us an earnest longing after Him—a thirst for His presence—an anxiety to find Him—a joy on hearing that He is to be found, even now, under the veil of sensible things,—and a good hope that we shall find Him there. Blessed indeed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed. They have their reward in believing; they enjoy the contemplation of a mysterious blessing, which does not even enter into the thoughts {152} of other men; and while they are more blessed than others, in the gift vouchsafed to them, they have the additional privilege of knowing that they are vouchsafed it.

Now, about his comments in this sermon re: the [Roman] Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation. This is what he says in 1838:

Nothing can show more clearly how high the blessing is, than to observe that the Church's tendency has been, not to detract from its marvellousness, but to increase it. The Church has never thought little of the gift; so far from it, we know that one very large portion of Christendom holds more than we hold. That belief, which goes beyond ours, shows how great the gift is really. I allude to the doctrine of what is called Transubstantiation, which we do not admit; or that the bread and wine cease to be, and that Christ's sacred Body and Blood are directly seen, touched, and handled, under the appearances of Bread and Wine. This our Church considers there is no ground for saying, and our Lord's own words contain marvel enough, even without adding any thing to them by way of explanation. Let us, then, now consider them in themselves, apart from additions which came afterwards.

But if you turn to his Apologia pro Vita Sua from 1864, you'll read in the last chapter, "The Position of my Mind since 1845", Newman writes of the doctrine of Transubstantiation:

People say that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is difficult to believe; I did not believe the doctrine till I was a Catholic. I had no difficulty in believing it, as soon as I believed that the Catholic Roman Church was the oracle of God, and that she had declared this doctrine to be part of the original revelation. It is difficult, impossible, to imagine, I grant;—but how is it difficult to believe? Yet Macaulay thought it so difficult to believe, that he had need of a believer in it of talents as eminent as Sir Thomas More, before he could bring himself to conceive that the Catholics of an enlightened age could resist "the overwhelming force of the argument against it." "Sir Thomas More," he says, "is one of the choice specimens of wisdom and virtue; and the doctrine of transubstantiation is a kind of proof charge. A faith which stands that test, will stand any test." But for myself, I cannot indeed prove it, I cannot tell how it is; but I say, "Why should it not be? What's to hinder it? 

He compares faithful acceptance of the doctrine of Transubstantiation to faithful acceptance of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, One God in Three Persons:

 And, in like manner, of that majestic Article of the Anglican as well as of the Catholic Creed,—the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity. What do I know of the Essence of the Divine Being? I know that my abstract idea of three is simply incompatible with my idea of one; but when I come to the question of concrete fact, I have no means of proving that there is not a sense in which one and three can equally be predicated of the Incommunicable God.

Please note that the date at the bottom of this chapter is on the Feast of Corpus Christi, May 26, 1864.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Image Source (Public Domain): 16th-century painting of the Lord's/Last Supper by Juan de Juanes

Image Source (Public Domain): The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament (Raphael 1509–1510) depicts theologians debating Transubstantiation, including four Doctors of the Church, with Pope Gregory I and Jerome seated to the left of the altar and Augustine and Ambrose to the right, Pope Julius II, Pope Sixtus IV, Savonarola and Dante Alighieri.

Book Review: Francois Mauriac's "Holy Thursday"

My best friend and I read this book during Lent and got together after Mass on Friday last week to complete our discussion of Nobel Prize winning Francois Mauriac's Holy Thursday: The Night That Changed the World in the Sophia Institute Press edition and translation. It's evidently not in their catalog now, but Cluny Media has a different edition, The Eucharist: The Mystery of Holy Thursday, available.

I went through a Francois Mauriac phase after college, reading The Viper's Tangle, Therese, and The Woman of the Pharisees, in my pursuit of covering the "Catholic Revival" in Literature. This is a very different book as Mauriac describes his memories of attending Holy Thursday Mass, with the Stripping of the Altars and the Mandatum (the Washing of the Feet) as major events. 

It would have been helpful to the reader if Sophia Institute Press would have explained that the Mass on Holy Thursday was different than it is today when Mauriac wrote and when he experienced it as a child. The Stripping of the Altars and reposition of the Host for the Good Friday service (when only the priest received Holy Communion) took place before the Washing of the Feet. When he discusses First Holy Communions, a note to explain that until Pope Pius X's reform that Sacrament was sometimes delayed until the age of 14 would also have been helpful. It was like the "graduating" Sacrament then and Mauriac comments that many stopped receiving Holy Communion or attending Mass after that. A reader not knowing that in 1910 Pius X set the age of seven (7) as the appropriate time of receiving First Holy Communion wouldn't understand Mauriac's comment.

Writing in 1931, Mauriac also comments on how good it was that frequent reception of Holy Communion was encouraged; another contribution of Pope Pius X (in 1905). The influence of Jansenism had discouraged many from going to Communion more than once a year.

In spite of these criticisms, I wouldn't want anyone to be dissuaded from reading this book. There are some beautifully written (translated) passages, like this one:

The anniversary of that evening when the small Host arose on a world sleeping in darkness should fill us with joy. But that very night was the one when the Lord Jesus was delivered up. His best friends could still taste the Bread in their mouths and they were going to abandon Him, to deny Him, to betray Him. And we also, on Holy Thursday, can still taste in our mouths this Bread that is no longer bread; we have not finished adoring this Presence in our bodies, the inconceivable humility of the Son of God, when we have to rise hastily to follow Him to the garden of agony.

We should like to tarry, to see on His shoulder the place where St. John’s forehead rested, to relive in spirit this moment in the history of the world when a piece of bread was broken in deep silence, when a few words sufficed to seal the new alliance of the Creator with His creature.

Already, in the thought of the One who pronounced the words, millions of priests are bending over the chalice, millions of virgins are watching before the tabernacle. A multitude of the servants of the poor are eating the daily Bread which compensates for their daily sacrifice, and endless ranks of children, making their First Communion, open lips which have not yet lost their purity. (Chapter I, "The Breaking of the Bread", pp. 3-4)

Or this one:

It is not when He withdrew into the desert that He felt the greatest loneliness, but when He was in the midst of the flock of those wavering hearts which the Spirit had not yet kindled. Doubtless, it was necessary that the man in Him be reassured by the God so that He would not lose heart when confronted by the infinite disproportion between His message and the poor human race destined to receive it.

However, He did not dedicate Himself to solitude as have so many men of genius. He did not flee from the crowd, but gave Himself up to it. What gives Christ as a man a unique character among the masters of the world is first this gift of Himself, this complete abandonment of Himself to the crowd. Before being delivered, He delivered Himself. He does not belong to Himself, not having come to be served, but to serve. He is the slave of slaves. Nothing belongs to Him. He lives in the street, in the fields, in villages. Miserable bodies affected with leprosy crowd Him, suffocate Him. He seeks refuge in a fishing boat, in order to be able to breathe. Dirty hands grab His cloak; virtue springs from Him.

No one kept less aloof; no one was ever less guarded, more accessible — such He is still today in the tabernacle, given up entirely to all — yet nevertheless, He was alone with His Father, in that mysterious, ineffable union which He sometimes confessed, for this secret also escaped Him: “No one knows who the Father is, except the Son.” (Chapter VIII, "The Secret of Holy Thursday", pp. 58-59)

Mauriac obviously loves and admires St. Therese of Lisieux: he cites her several times, and he relies upon St. Thomas Aquinas and his Corpus Christi Office and hymns when discussing Transubstantiation. He also cites Bishop Bossuet and Jacques Riviere without naming his sources and recommends Jacques Maritain's The Angelic Doctor.

Reading this book by Mauriac makes me wonder about three books Cluny Media also publishes: The Son of Man, The Life of Jesus, and What I Believe. But they will have to wait for another day . . . before I decide to purchase them. There's a line!

Schiller's "Maria Stuart" at Newman University

My sister and I went to an adaptation of Friedrich Schiller's romantic play, Maria Stuart (the source for Donizetti's opera) at Newman University Saturday night, March 5th. They used the title Mary, Queen of Scots. The director, Mark Manette, used the translation of Schiller's play by Joseph Melish, which includes this poignant scene of Mary, finally being comforted by a priest before her execution:

MARY. 

Melvil! Oh, yes, I understand you, Melvil! 

Here is no priest, no church, no sacrament; 

But the Redeemer says, "When two or three 

Are in my name assembled, I am with them," 

What consecrates the priest? Say, what ordains him 

To be the Lord's interpreter? a heart 

Devoid of guile, and a reproachless conduct. 

Well, then, though unordained, be you my priest; 

To you will I confide my last confession, 

And take my absolution from your lips. 

MELVIL.

 If then thy heart be with such zeal inflamed, 

I tell thee that for thine especial comfort, 

The Lord may work a miracle. 

Thou say'st Here is no priest, no church, no sacrament— 

Thou err'st—here is a priest—here is a God; 

A God descends to thee in real presence. 

[At these words he uncovers his head, and shows a host in a golden vessel.] 

I am a priest—to hear thy last confession, 

And to announce to thee the peace of God 

Upon thy way to death. I have received 

Upon my head the seven consecrations. 

I bring thee, from his Holiness, this host, 

Which, for thy use, himself has deigned to bless. 

MARY. 

Is then a heavenly happiness prepared 

To cheer me on the very verge of death? 

As an immortal one on golden clouds 

Descends, as once the angel from on high, 

Delivered the apostle from his fetters:— 

He scorns all bars, he scorns the soldier's sword, 

He steps undaunted through the bolted portals, 

And fills the dungeon with his native glory; 

Thus here the messenger of heaven appears 

When every earthly champion had deceived me. 

And you, my servant once, are now the servant 

Of the Most High, and his immortal Word! 

As before me your knees were wont to bend, 

Before you humbled, now I kiss the dust.

And she makes her Confession, not mentioning any involvement in the plots to kidnap, depose, or murder Elizabeth. Father Melvil presses her on this point and she denies have anything to do with such plots, while admitting that she requested aid from Catholic monarchs in Europe to secure her release from her captivity in England. So she ends up the moral victor in the play, regal, resolute, and composed, as she goes to the block.

Elizabeth's last scene, on other hand, depicts her as equivocating and irresolute, accusing others, like William Cecil, Lord Burleigh and Sir William Davison, her Secretary of State, of carrying out her wishes--she'd signed the death warrant--against her wishes. So she ends up left alone on the throne, with Leicester on the way to France (with Mary's heart?), and Shrewsbury, who had counselled mercy to Mary earlier in the play, calling her out for her duplicity and leaving her service:

ELIZABETH. (speaking to Burleigh)

And dared you then to execute the writ 

Thus hastily, nor wait to know my pleasure? 

Just was the sentence—we are free from blame 

Before the world; yet it behooved thee not 

To intercept our natural clemency. 

For this, my lord, I banish you my presence; 

And as this forward will was yours alone 

Bear you alone the curse of the misdeed! 

[To DAVISON.] 

For you, sir; who have traitorously o'erstepped 

The bounds of your commission, and betrayed 

A sacred pledge intrusted to your care, 

A more severe tribunal is prepared: 

Let him be straight conducted to the Tower, 

And capital arraignments filed against him. 

My honest Talbot, you alone have proved, 

'Mongst all my counsellors, an upright man: 

You shall henceforward be my guide—my friend. 

SHREWSBURY. 

Oh! banish not the truest of your friends; 

Nor cast those into prison, who for you 

Have acted; who for you are silent now. 

But suffer me, great queen, to give the seal, 

Which, these twelve years, I've borne unworthily, 

Back to your royal hands, and take my leave. 

ELIZABETH (surprised). 

No, Shrewsbury; you surely would not now 

Desert me? No; not now. 

SHREWSBURY. 

Pardon, I am 

Too old, and this right hand is growing too stiff 

To set the seal upon your later deeds. 

ELIZABETH. 

Will he forsake me, who has saved my life? 

SHREWSBURY. 

'Tis little I have done: I could not save 

Your nobler part. Live—govern happily! 

Your rival's dead! Henceforth you've nothing more 

To fear—henceforth to nothing pay regard.

Those last lines will soon prove false: King Philip of Spain will plan his great Armada against England after the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. England and the weather will defeat his Armada, but Elizabeth still has something left to fear. She still fears dissent--both Catholic and Puritan--among her people; she still regrets that she will leave the throne upon her death with no heir of direct family succession and yet she lived her life without ever marrying and being the mother of her heir! 

Schiller depicts another example of that same kind of equivocation in her method of dealing with great issues: wanting one end while living and acting toward another end: wanting the threat that Mary of Scotland poses removed without accepting the responsibility for causing her removal (signing the warrant while not wanting it carried out); maintaining the security of her rule alone while preventing a smooth transition of the throne by never naming her successor or marrying to "produce" an heir of her own. 

Both Elizabeth and Mary rely upon plots and subterfuge to obtain their ends and both are aghast at what those plots require of them. Mary recoils from Mortimer's zeal when she discovers its source is his lust for her; Elizabeth recoils from sentencing Mary to death because she realizes the danger it poses to the idea of monarchy, undercutting her own claim to rule. 

But at the end of Schiller's play, Mary is at peace while Elizabeth is left frustrated and alone: "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." (Henry IV, Part Two, Act 3; Scene 1). Mary may have lost her head, but she, the Catholic queen of Scotland, is Schiller's heroine, while Elizabeth, the Protestant queen of England, is his villain.

By the way: here's a 2009 review of a New York production of Schiller's Maria Stuarda from First Things. David P. Goldman reflects on how sympathetically the anti-Catholic Schiller portrays both Mortimer's conversion to Catholicism on the Continent and Mary's reception of the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Communion. He offers excellent background on Schiller and his historical views.

Image Source (End of Act 5, Scene VII): Melvil giving Mary Holy Communion ("This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org")

Image Source (Public Domain): Portrait of Elizabeth I from 1586 to 1587, by Nicholas Hilliard.

Saint Thomas More for Corpus Christi (The Body of Christ)

While he was in the Tower of London, St. Thomas More wrote a treatise on Holy Communion: To receive the Blessed Body Of Our Lord Sacramentally and Virtually both. Since my last post was about Macaulay's wonder that St. Thomas More believed in the Real Presence of Christ in Holy Communion, I thought this was good follow up. This document written by More shows how devoutly he did believe in that Presence. You can read the entire treatise here.

And, therefore, have we great cause with great dread and reverence to consider well the state of our own soul when we shall go to the Board of God, and as near as we can (with the help of His special Grace diligently prayed for before) purge and cleanse our souls by Confession, Contrition, and Penance, with full purpose of forsaking from thenceforth the proud desires of the devil, the greedy covetousness of wretched worldly wealth, and the foul affection of the filthy flesh, and being in full mind to persevere, and continue in the ways of God, and holy cleanness of Spirit: lest that, if we presume so irreverently to receive this precious Margarite, this pure Pearl, the Blessed Body of our Saviour Himself, contained in the Sacramental sign of bread, that like a sort of swine, rioting in the dirt, and wallowing in the mire, we tread it under the filthy feet of our foul affections, while we set more by them than by It, intending to walk and wallow in the puddle of foul, filthy sin; therewith, the legion of devils may get leave of Christ so to enter into us as they got leave of Him to enter into the hogs of Genezareth; and as they ran forth with them, and never stinted till they drowned them in the sea, so run on with us, (but if God of His great mercy refrain them and give us the grace to repent) and not fail to drown us in the deep sea of everlasting sorrow. . . .

We must (I say) see, that we firmly believe that this Blessed Sacrament is not a bare sign, or a figure, or a token of that Holy Body of Christ: but that It is in perpetual remembrance of His bitter Passion, that He suffered for us, the self-same precious Body of Christ that suffered it, by His own Almighty power and unspeakable goodness consecrated and given unto us.

St. Thomas More urges both careful preparation before receiving Holy Communion and prayerful gratitude and meditation after:

Now, when we have received our Lord, and have him in our body, let us not then let him alone… and get us forth about other things, and look no more unto him (for little good could he… that so would serve any guest); but let all our busyness be about him. Let us by devout prayer talk to him, by devout meditation talk with him. Let us say with the prophet, “Audiam quid loquatur in me Dominus”—“I will hear what our Lord will speak within me.” (Psalm 85:9) For surely, if we set aside all other things… and attend unto him, he will not fail with good inspirations to speak such things to us within us… as shall serve to the great spiritual comfort and profit of 30 our soul. And therefore let us with Martha provide… that all our outward busyness may be pertaining to him: in making cheer to him, and to his company for his sake; that is to wit, to poor folk—of which he taketh every one… not only for his disciple, but also as for himself. For himself saith, “Quamdiu fecistis uni de his fratribus meis minimis, mihi fecistis”—“That that you have done to one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it to myself.” (Matthew 25:40) And let us with Mary also sit in devout meditation… and hearken well what our Savior, being now our guest, will inwardly say unto us. Now have we a special time of prayer: while he that hath made us, he that hath bought us, he whom we have offended, he that shall judge us, he that shall either damn us or save us… is, of his great goodness, become our guest, and is personally present within us… and that for none other purpose but to be sued unto for pardon—and so, thereby, to save us. Let us not lose this time, therefore; suffer not this occasion to slip… which we can little tell whether ever we shall get it again… or never.

I think that for a time More was allowed to attend Mass in the Tower and perhaps he received Holy Communion a few times--but he must have known that those opportunities would probably end. There's no record of him receiving any Sacraments (Confession or Viaticum) before his execution. 

Very appropriate reading for the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, celebrated in Catholic Churches today (on some calendars it was celebrated on Thursday, June 3).

Image Credit (public domain) Thomas Morus (1478-1535), based on Hans Holbein.

The Tenth Pope Named Pius

There have been twelve popes named Pius; the first (Pope Saint Pius I) in the second century; the latest (Pope Pius XII) reigning from 1939 to 1958. Popes named Pius have seen the Church through tumultuous times: During Pope St. Pius V’s pontificate, the Catechism of the Council of Trent was published and also revised editions of the Roman Missal and Breviary as he continued the Church’s implantation of the reforms of the Council of Trent. Pope Pius VII, whose cause for canonization was promoted by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, endured imprisonment and exile at the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte and worked for the freedom of the Church in France after the Revolution and Reign of Terror. Pope (Venerable) Pius XII served during World War II, doing all he could to aid civilians affected by the war, especially leading efforts to save Jews in Italy and Rome, descrying the Nazi regime’s campaigns against non-Aryans, including the Polish Catholics.

Pope St. Pius X, who reigned a little more than 11 years from 1903 to 1914, was a reforming pontiff, taking the motto Instaurare Omnia in Christo, or "to restore all things in Christ" to guide his papacy. Like Pope St. Pius V, he lived simply, stating that he had been born poor, had lived poor, and wanted to die poor. He shared Pius V’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, writing an encyclical on the fiftieth anniversary of the proclamation of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Also like Pius V—and his immediate predecessor Pope Leo XIII—he promoted the method and works of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Pius X was born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto on June 2, 1835 in what was then the Kingdom of Lombardy. As a parish priest and then bishop he had more pastoral experience than previous popes, but he also taught theology in seminary even though he never earned a doctorate. When he succeeded Pope Leo XIII, he saw the great danger to the Catholic faith as Modernism, which he considered the "synthesis of all heresies." Setting out a long list of Modernist propositions which he said Catholic could not agree, he also wrote an encyclical descrying Modernism, Pascendi dominici gregis ("Feeding the Lord's Flock"), pointing out that the agnosticism of the Modernists on matters of Church doctrine, the inspiration of the Scriptures, and the Sacraments could lead to atheism. Pius X demanded loyalty oaths against Modernism from all Catholic priests.

Some scholars and theologians, like Alfred Loisy and George Tyrell, were removed from teaching positions, forbidden to publish their works, and even excommunicated. Some faithful but innovative scholars and theologians, like Father Marie-Joseph Lagrange, OP, founder of the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem, were also suspected and hampered in their efforts. During the reign of Pope Pius XII, the Ecole Biblique would publish The Jerusalem Bible translated not from the Latin Vulgate but from Greek and Hebrew texts; during Pope St. Pius X’s campaign against Modernism, such a volume might not have been possible. Marvin R. O’Connell provides an excellent overview of the period in Critics on Trial: An Introduction to the Catholic Modernist Crisis (Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995).

More positively, Pius X encouraged frequent reception of Holy Communion and earlier First Communion. First Holy Communion had been delayed until the teenaged years, but he moved it to the age of reason, about seven years old, when a child could accept the doctrine of the Real Presence of Jesus, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the Host. He is the “Pope of the Blessed Sacrament”.

Other liturgical reforms included the restoration of Gregorian chant in the Mass instead of classical settings by Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, or Cherubini. His motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini, written in Italian, also encouraged Renaissance polyphony, leading to the revival of works by Victoria, Palestrina, Byrd, and others from the sixteenth century.

Pius X also began the process of revising and regularizing the Code of Canon Law for the universal Church and, because of his pastoral experience, required the teaching of catechism classes in every parish in the world, establishing the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. Pope Pius X described the duties of a catechist in his 1905 encyclical, Acerbo Nimis (“At this very troubled and difficult time”):

The task of the catechist is to take up one or other of the truths of faith or of Christian morality and then explain it in all its parts; and since amendment of life is the chief aim of his instruction, the catechist must needs make a comparison between what God commands us to do and what is our actual conduct. After this, he will use examples appropriately taken from the Holy Scriptures, Church history, and the lives of the saints - thus moving his hearers and clearly pointing out to them how they are to regulate their own conduct. He should, in conclusion, earnestly exhort all present to dread and avoid vice and to practice virtue.

As a pastor, Pius X knew this material had to be taught so that the students, both young and old, would understand it, but he also required that the catechesis be comprehensive and complete:

The catechetical instruction shall be based on the Catechism of the Council of Trent; and the matter is to be divided in such a way that in the space of four or five years, treatment will be given to the Apostles' Creed, the Sacraments, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer and the Precepts of the Church.

As pastor in Rome, Pope Pius X preached a homily every Sunday at St. Peter’s and gave catechetical instructions himself.

Pope Pius X dealt with some difficult church-state relationships in Europe, particularly in France, where conflict led to the official secularization of French society, called laicite. France had long been known as the Eldest Daughter of the Church and after the French Revolution, strong links between the government and Church, especially in education and healthcare, had been re-established. The official 1905 separation of Church and State ended that cooperation and Pius X condemned that action.

In the United States, he recognized the growth and stability of the Catholic hierarchy, and removed it from the authority of the Congregation of Propaganda—the U.S.A. was no longer considered mission territory. On August 15, 1913, Pope Pius X authorized the building of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, making a donation in Italian lire to its construction.

When he died on August 20, 1914, Europe was on the brink of World War I. Devotion to him led to the process for his canonization to begin quickly and he was beatified by Pope Pius XII on June 3, 1951 and canonized on Mary 29, 1954—the first pope to be canonized since Pope Pius V in 1712.

Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us!

Pope St. Pius X and Holy Communion

I wrote this for the Pray the Mass website which shut down last year. I thought it was appropriate to bring it back to the web for the 100th anniversary of Pope St. Pius X's death--his is feast, however, is tomorrow:

Although we may think of the Middle Ages as a time of great faith and devotion to the Holy Eucharist, Catholics did not receive Holy Communion often. As the late Eric Ives pointed out in his 2013 study, The Reformation Experience, 16th century Catholics in England demonstrated great devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. At Sunday Mass, they were most attentive at the moment of consecration, worshipping the Body and the Blood of Jesus as the priest elevated the Host and the Chalice. At great shrines and cathedrals, the faithful wanted to see the Precious Body and Blood as each Mass was celebrated in separate chapels. The Feast of Corpus Christi was instantly popular in England with its processions and special sequence and hymns. During Holy Week, the Sarum rite vigil protecting the consecrated Host from Good Friday to Easter also demonstrates their devotion to the Real Presence. The one thing they did not do is receive Holy Communion often. They were obligated to receive during the Easter Season (Easter Duty), but the practice of frequent Communion had fallen off during the Middle Ages.

The Council of Trent addressed this issue of Catholic laity not receiving Holy Communion and urged frequent reception of the Eucharist by the laity at Mass, provided that they were free of Mortal Sin. Many of the great religious orders founded after the Reformation, like the Society of Jesus, the Oratorians, the Redemptorists, and others, encouraged the laity to receive Holy Communion and also aided the laity with devotions and prayers.

Jansenism, a heretical movement beginning in France during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, discouraged frequent Communion. Pope St. Pius X referred to this problem in his “Sacra Tridentina: On Frequent and Daily Reception of Holy Communion,” issued on December 20, 1905:

Piety, however, grew cold, and especially afterward because of the widespread plague of Jansenism, disputes began to arise concerning the dispositions with which one ought to receive frequent and daily Communion; and writers vied with one another in demanding more and more stringent conditions as necessary to be fulfilled. The result of such disputes was that very few were considered worthy to receive the Holy Eucharist daily, and to derive from this most health-giving Sacrament its more abundant fruits; the others were content to partake of it once a year, or once a month, or at most once a week. To such a degree, indeed, was rigorism carried that whole classes of persons were excluded from a frequent approach to the Holy Table, for instance, merchants or those who were married. 

Jansenism required such rigorous standards of preparation because of its overall belief “that there are some commands of God which just men cannot keep, no matter how hard they wish and strive” as stated in one of the five propositions condemned by Pope Innocent X in 1653.

Although, as Pope St. Pius X wrote, several of his predecessors made statements against these rigorist views,

The poison of Jansenism, however, which, under the pretext of showing due honor and reverence to the Eucharist, had infected the minds even of good men, was by no means a thing of the past. The question as to the dispositions for the proper and licit reception of Holy Communion survived the declarations of the Holy See, and it was a fact that certain theologians of good repute were of the opinion that daily Communion could be permitted to the faithful only rarely and subject to many conditions.

The Pope pointed out that others went to the opposite extreme:

They held that daily Communion was prescribed by divine law and that no day should pass without communicating, and besides other practices not in accord with the approved usage of the Church, they determined that the Eucharist must be received even on Good Friday and in fact so administered it.

(Note that he was writing before the major revision of the Holy Week liturgy, which now includes a Communion service on Good Friday with Hosts consecrated at Mass on Holy Thursday.)

So Pope St. Pius X stated unequivocally that members of the laity were to be encouraged to receive Holy Communion frequently, even daily, as long as they had the correct disposition and were not in a state of Mortal Sin. He called on both factions to unite around this discipline and not place obstacles in the way of the lay faithful. For this document, and his decision on the proper age for First Holy Communion, Pope St. Pius X became known as “the Pope of the Eucharist”.

In 1910 he approved a “Decree of the Sacred Congregation of the Discipline of the Sacraments on First Communion” setting the age of discretion or reason at about age seven. Inspired by the verse from the Synoptic Gospels: "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for of such is the kingdom of God”; he again urged that the Church unite around this discipline because of the sacramental benefits of Holy Communion.

Giuseppe Sarto succeeded Pope Leo XIII in 1903 and began his reign at Pope Pius X with the motto “To Restore all Things in Christ” (Ephesians 1:10). Among other liturgical reforms, he also revised the Breviary and issued the motu proprio “Tra le Sollecitudini” in 1903 soon after becoming pope encouraging not only the revival of Gregorian chant in the celebration of Mass, but active participation by the laity in chant. He acknowledged progress in the arts by commending the use of Renaissance polyphony (especially the works of Palestrina), but warned against any “theatrical” or “profane” influences in liturgical music.

Pope Pius X died in on August 20, 1914 at the beginning of World War I and was succeeded by Benedict XV. In 1954 he was canonized and his feast is on August 21 (since St. Bernard of Clairvaux’s feast is on August 20).

Pope St. Pius X, the Pope of the Eucharist, pray for us!

Mosul Today and England Yesterday

Father Christopher Colven, rector of St. James, Spanish Place, offers these reflections on the current state of affairs in Mosul, Iraq and in the England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries:

The Christian communities of Iraq are among the oldest that have existed and it is particularly painful to see the witness of 2,000 years persecuted and dispersed. As our bishops reminded us last weekend, the Eucharist will have been celebrated in Mosul for the best part of two millennia – but now no more – no altar, no priest, no Christian people. We must continue to pray and do whatever we can for our brothers and sisters as they seek a new security, but it does us well to remember that what we take so easily for granted is a great privilege denied to many in our own times, and that there were many sad years here in England when the state forbade the celebration of the Mass. The reredos above the Martyrs altar in Saint Michael’s Chapel (this is the original which has been reproduced in many other Catholic churches) depicts a few of those who were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice of their own lives for the sake of the Mass. Several of those depicted were ordinary working people - John Roche, the Thames lighterman, together with three housewives Margaret Clitheroe, Anne Line and Margaret Ward – all of them martyred for trying to ensure that, despite every attempt to frustrate them, the Holy Sacrifice would continue to be offered on English soil.

Father Colven goes on to highlight our proper dispositions for receiving Holy Communion at Mass, citing Pope St. Pius X, whose memorial we will celebrate on Thursday this week:

The new Bishop of East Anglia has recently made the point that we are in danger of losing our grasp on the Eucharistic Mystery: because the Mass is now so easily available (a minimum of three Masses each weekday here at Spanish Place alone) and Holy Communion is received as a matter of course (often without any real time of preparation) we can become blasé in approaching the Bread of Life. It was Saint Pius X at the beginning of the last century who encouraged all Catholics to make their Holy Communion as regularly as possible – and that is clearly a very good thing to do – but Saint Paul issues a stern warning in his dealings with the Corinthian Christians about any failure to “discern the Lord’s Body” when doing so: we must never treat holy things in a casual way. “Everyone is to recollect themselves before eating this bread and drinking this cup because a person who eats and drinks without recognising the Body is eating and drinking his own condemnation” (1 Corinthians 11:28).

Then he brings us back to the memory of the English Catholic martyrs who were willing to suffer so much for the sake of the Holy Eucharist, the source and summit of our Catholic faith:

The current suffering of so many of those who are with us “in Christ", as well as the particular history of the Catholic Church in these islands, should give  pause for thought and the opportunity to think out afresh what the celebration of the Eucharist means to us.  Tyburn Tree, where so many of countrymen and women accepted terrible deaths is only a few hundred yards from Saint James’s doors – “lest we forget”. Mother Teresa of Calcutta caused a notice to be  put up in the sacristy of each of her convents worldwide: it was an admonition to the celebrant – but it applies as well to the faithful gathered around any altar: “O priest of God, offer this Mass as if it were your first … and as if it were your last”.

Image credit.

Henry VIII's Church and Female Bishops/Priests

When Henry VIII separated the Catholic Church in England from the universal Catholic Church, he set himself as the new authority for Catholics in England--the Supreme Head and Governor of the Church. (I read once that even Archbishop Thomas Cranmer recognized that claiming to be the "Head" of the Church was a little much--Jesus Christ is the Head of His Church). Henry created and all his successors save one maintained control over the worship, prayer, doctrine, and discipline of the Church of England. When the monarch represented the State, this ecclesial power was centered on the king or queen.

Through the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution, the concentration of power in the monarch was distributed to Parliament, representing the people, and control of the Church of England transferred to Parliament--and thus to the political party forming the government as the majority in Parliament and the Prime Minister. The Church of England (the CofE), being part of the State, does not lead the State, but the State--representing the people--leads the Church of England. This change in authority is crucial because it means that the CofE is not leading the people into what Jesus teaches through his Church, but that the people influence the CofE to accept what they want--and British society today wants women priests and bishops because it values equal access to power and influence above everything else.

Henry VIII would never have imagined women ordained to the priesthood or the episcopate, but he set in motion the Church's decision this week to ordain women bishops, because he placed the State above the unity of the Jesus Christ's Church on earth. For the sake of his dynasty's succession he contributed to the division of the Church, already riven on the Continent by Martin Luther and other reformers. This, when he had sought the title of Defender of the Faith by protesting against Luther's teaching against the Catholic doctrine of the Sacraments--including Holy Orders and the Eucharist, two Sacraments completely intertwined. According to the Church's doctrine, which Henry defended in Assertio Septem Sacramentorum and seemed to continue to uphold throughout his reign condemning those who denied the Real Presence to death by being burned alive, only a sacramentally ordained priest, with the valid and licit Form and Matter, can celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Henry not only continued to defend the Real Presence of Jesus in Holy Communion; he demanded an unmarried priesthood and episcopate (Cromwell had to hide his wife from Henry--and Elizabeth I made the same demands); he did nothing to end the ordination of secular, non-order priests (he eliminated the orders when he dissolved the monasteries AND the friaries.)

So Henry set up the succession, with his heirs leading the Church that would destroy nearly all the Seven Sacraments he had defended, leaving only Baptism--but there is a great range of opinion on what Baptism really is within the CofE, with even the denial of the Holy Trinity which is at the core of its sacramental grace countenanced as something "indifferent" to Christian doctrine and worship. Although Henry's authority in the CofE kept it from making greater "progress" into Lutheranism or Protestantism, to some extent, Edward VI and Elizabeth I, with the help of Thomas Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer and Thirty-nine Articles, brought it firmly into the Protestant doctrine of salvation and sanctification. And Parliamentary conflict between Puritans and Elizabeth and then the Stuart monarchs James I and Charles I culminating not just in the Civil War and Interregnum but even more decisively in the Glorious Revolution, consolidated the Protestantism of the CofE.

Father Dwight Longenecker notes on his blog that we've been living in a dream when we hoped that the CofE was a via media between Catholicism and Protestantism, and that there was a real hope for full, true and corporate reunion. Blessed John Henry Newman woke up from that dream in September and October of 1845 and joined the Catholic Church that October 9th--but he and his Oxford Movement companions had indeed dreamed the dream:

On July 14 1833 John Keble preached his famous sermon on National Apostacy–which is regarded by historians as the beginning of the Oxford Movement. (You can read the sermon here) In one of those nice historical co-indidences (sic) (if you believe in such things) the Church of England General Synod’s vote in favor of women bishops took place on the 181st anniversary of Keble’s sermon.

The essential point of the Oxford Movement–coming just a decade or so after Catholic Emancipation [actually, just three (3) years after!]–was that the Church of England was not, at it’s (sic) core, a Protestant Church, but the ancient Catholic Church reformed. The men of the Oxford Movement were called “tractarians” after the series of leaflets or tracts written and published by John Henry Newman and his friends. In tracts and sermons the Tractarians tried to re-weave into the three hundred year old Protestant Church of England a new Catholic strand. (Read more about Newman here) The success of the Anglo-Catholic movement was a witness to their work. Not only in theology, but in literature and liturgy, in art and architecture, in music and academic studies there was a flourishing revival of a Catholic sentiment and spirituality.

It was, however, simply an additional Anglican costume. Already within the Church of England there were two strands: the old Protestant liberal strand of religion which was firmly attached to the principles of the Enlightenment, bonded with the political establishment and which was upper class, educated and elitist. The Methodist movement of the eighteenth century grafted onto the historic Protestant, rationalist liberalism a new kind of Evangelical, Calvinist fervor. Now, a century after the Wesleys (and also springing from Oxford) the Tractarians added a Catholic strand which came to be called Anglo-Catholicism.

For the next 180 years (1833 – 2014) members of the Church of England were able to perpetuate the Tractarian myth–the nineteenth century invention that the Church of England was, in fact, the ancient Catholic Church in England–but properly reformed. . . .

Read the rest of his article there. 

Individual Anglo-Catholics have been "poping" since the CofE condemnation of Newman's Tract 90. One by one, or family by family, they came into the Catholic Church. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI showed the true path to a more corporate reunion between Anglicans and Catholics: the Personal Ordinariate. The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham is reaching out to those who because of this Anglican decision and the previous decision to ordain women as priests, are beginning to see that the via media is a church of paper and that the Catholic Church is "the one true fold of Christ". If they want the truth, they need to follow Blessed John Henry Newman, the late Father Ray Ryland, Father Dwight Longenecker, and those who are making up the Ordinariates in Great Britain, North America and Australia now. 

May God bless them and protect them along the way--we need to pray for them. Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for them; Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for them; Blessed Dominic Barberi, pray for them. Amen.

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.

Pope St. Pius X and Frequent Communion

Allow me to draw your attention to an article I wrote last year for the PraytheMass.org website on Pope St. Pius X and his influence on liturgy, the age at which children receive First Holy Communion, and more frequent reception of Holy Communion:

Jansenism, a heretical movement beginning in France during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, discouraged frequent Communion. Pope St. Pius X referred to this problem in his “Sacra Tridentina: On Frequent and Daily Reception of Holy Communion,” issued on December 20, 1905:

 

Piety, however, grew cold, and especially afterward because of the widespread plague of Jansenism, disputes began to arise concerning the dispositions with which one ought to receive frequent and daily Communion; and writers vied with one another in demanding more and more stringent conditions as necessary to be fulfilled. The result of such disputes was that very few were considered worthy to receive the Holy Eucharist daily, and to derive from this most health-giving Sacrament its more abundant fruits; the others were content to partake of it once a year, or once a month, or at most once a week. To such a degree, indeed, was rigorism carried that whole classes of persons were excluded from a frequent approach to the Holy Table, for instance, merchants or those who were married.

 

Jansenism required such rigorous standards of preparation because of its overall belief “that there are some commands of God which just men cannot keep, no matter how hard they wish and strive” as stated in one of the five propositions condemned by Pope Innocent X in 1653.

 

Although, as Pope St. Pius X wrote, several of his predecessors made statements against these rigorist views,

 

The poison of Jansenism, however, which, under the pretext of showing due honor and reverence to the Eucharist, had infected the minds even of good men, was by no means a thing of the past. The question as to the dispositions for the proper and licit reception of Holy Communion survived the declarations of the Holy See, and it was a fact that certain theologians of good repute were of the opinion that daily Communion could be permitted to the faithful only rarely and subject to many conditions.

 

The Pope pointed out that others went to the opposite extreme:

 

They held that daily Communion was prescribed by divine law and that no day should pass without communicating, and besides other practices not in accord with the approved usage of the Church, they determined that the Eucharist must be received even on Good Friday and in fact so administered it.

 

(Note that he was writing before the major revision of the Holy Week liturgy, which now includes a Communion service on Good Friday with Hosts consecrated at Mass on Holy Thursday.)
 

So Pope St. Pius X stated unequivocally that the laity were to be encouraged to receive Holy Communion frequently, even daily, as long as they had the correct disposition and were not in a state of Mortal Sin. He called on both factions to unite around this discipline and not place obstacles in the way of the lay faithful. For this document, and his decision on the proper age for First Holy Communion, Pope St. Pius X became known as “the Pope of the Eucharist”.

 

In 1910 he approved a “Decree of the Sacred Congregation of the Discipline of the Sacraments on First Communion” setting the age of discretion or reason at about age seven. Inspired by the verse from the Synoptic Gospels: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for of such is the kingdom of God”; he again urged that the Church unite around this discipline because of the sacramental benefits of Holy Communion.

 

Giuseppe Sarto succeeded Pope Leo XIII in 1903 and began his reign at Pope Pius X with the motto “To Restore all Things in Christ” (Ephesians 1:10). Among other liturgical reforms, he also revised the Breviary and issued the motu proprio “Tra le Sollecitudini” in 1903 soon after becoming pope encouraging not only the revival of Gregorian chant in the celebration of Mass, but active participation by the laity in chant. He acknowledged progress in the arts by commending the use of Renaissance polyphony (especially the works of Palestrina), but warned against any “theatrical” or “profane” influences in liturgical music.

 

Pope Pius X died in on August 20, 1914 at the beginning of World War I and was succeeded by Benedict XV. In 1954 he was canonized and his feast is on August 21 (since St. Bernard of Clairvaux’s feast is on August 20).

 

Pope St. Pius X, the Pope of the Eucharist, pray for us!

Anglican Orders

Taylor Marshall, himself a former Episcopalian minister, writes about the vallidity of Anglican orders on his blog. He's answering a quesation he received after talking to Marcus Grodi on EWTN's The Journey Home: Does the Anglican Church have a valid Eucharist?

Dr. Marshall has a short answer (No.) and a longer explanation.

To quote: Here's the short answer: No, Anglicans or Episcopalians (the tradition deriving from Henry VIII's Church of England) do not have a valid Eucharist. This question was settled by His Holiness Pope Leo XIII in his papal bull Apostolicae Curae on the nullity of Anglican orders, issued 18 September, 1896. There are two reasons for the nullity of Anglican Holy Orders. After explaining these two reasons, I'll respond to the objection that Anglicans/Episcopalians have since "revitalized" their Apostolic Succession through the intervention of schismatic bishops of the Old Catholic/Orthodox/Polish National Catholic communities.

There are two reasons for the invalidity of Anglican Orders and Eucharist: First Reason Against Anglican Eucharist: Invalid Form of Priestly Ordination.

And the second reason is: "Invalid Form of Priestly Intent"--read the rest at "Canterbury Tales".