June 14: Corpus Christi, Flag Day, my Father, and Chesterton

Today, Sunday, June 14 is certainly a day filled with significance: The Catholic Church, in the Novus Ordo of the Latin Liturgy of the Roman Rite, celebrates the Solemnity of Corpus Christi in many places; it is a Sunday, and therefore a Solemnity under any circumstance in that Rite; it is also Flag Day in the U.S.A.; it's the 10th anniversary of my father's funeral, and the 84th anniversary of G.K.Chesterton's death. June 14 was the Sunday after the Thursday celebration of Corpus Christi in 1936. As Joseph Pearce asserts in an article for The Catholic World Report, Chesterton appreciated both the Truth and the Beauty of St. Thomas Aquinas' hymns for the feast of Corpus Christi.

In chapter five of Chesterton's The Dumb Ox, he discusses those hymns and Aquinas' poetry:

But the composer of the Corpus Christi service was not merely what even the wild and woolly would call a poet; he was what the most fastidious would call an artist. His double function rather recalls the double activity of some great Renaissance craftsman, like Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci, who would work on the outer wall, planning and building the fortifications of the city; and then retire into the inner chamber to carve or model some cup or casket for a reliquary. The Corpus Christi Office is like some old musical instrument, quaintly and carefully inlaid with many coloured stones and metals; the author has gathered remote texts about pasture and fruition like rare herbs; there is a notable lack of the loud and obvious in the harmony; and the whole is strung with two strong Latin lyrics. Father John O'Connor has translated them with an almost miraculous aptitude; but a good translator will be the first to agree that no translation is good; or, at any rate, good enough. How are we to find eight short English words which actually stand for "Sumit unus, sumunt mille; quantum isti, tantum ille"? How is anybody really to render the sound of the "Pange Lingua", when the very first syllable has a clang like the clash of cymbals?

I've been listening the past few weeks to the Cardinall's Musicke's recording of the Propers for Ascension, Pentecost, and Corpus Christi composed by William Byrd. It includes a section on Devotions to the Blessed Sacrament with Byrd's settings of O salutarius hostia (one verse), Pange lingua gloriosi, and of course, O Sacrum Convivium, the antiphon for the Magnificat of Second Vespers, but not the sequence of the Mass, Lauda, Sion. Speaking of translations, this resource includes translations by Edward Caswall, John Mason Neale, and Gerard Manley Hopkins! The Father John O'Connor that Chesterton mentions was the priest who inspired the Father Brown character and received Chesterton into the Catholic Church in 1922.

My brother and sister and I will gather to celebrate our father's life later this afternoon, after I attend the External Celebration of Corpus Christi in the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite in the late morning.

James Monroe Joseph Boyer died on June 10, 2010 and his Funeral Mass was on Monday, June 14, Flag Day.

Memories of Paris with Mark

You may have noticed that I did not post much during December last year and not much so far this year. My husband Mark's health was failing during these past several weeks and he collapsed and died on Wednesday, January 16. His Rosary, Funeral Mass, and burial are all today. I've just posted some fun pictures of our wining and dining in Paris during our visits there--plus one of us in front of Mark's favorite place to have a croques-monsieur--I think he had one there every time we went to Paris (10 times). Last week, at my request, Mark had just cropped out a gentleman to his left who was leaving the restaurant! We'll always have Paris!

Please pray for the repose of his soul and for me and his family and friends. He is a wonderful man!

A Funeral and a Miscarriage: January 29, 1536

In one of those incredible juxtapositions of history, Henry VIII's first wife Katherine of Aragon was buried in Peterborough Cathedral (correction!) and his second wife Anne Boleyn suffered a miscarriage on the same day, January 29, 1536.

Henry VIII refused at the end to acknowledge the validity of his marriage to Katherine and had her buried as the Princess Dowager of Wales, but it was a duly elaborate funeral. This blog, profusely illustrated, provides the detail from the state papers:

First, 16 priests or clergymen in surplices went on horseback, without saying a word, having a gilded laten cross borne before them; after them several gentlemen, of whom there were only two of the house, et le demeurant estoient tous emprouvez, and after them followed the maître d’hotel and chamberlain, with their rods of office in their hands; and, to keep them in order, went by their sides 9 or 10 heralds, with mourning hoods and wearing their coats of arms; after them followed 50 servants of the aforesaid gentlemen, bearing torches and bâtons allumés, which lasted but a short time, and in the middle of them was drawn a wagon, upon which the body was drawn by six horses all covered with black cloth to the ground.

The said wagon was covered with black velvet, in the midst of which was a great silver cross; and within, as one looked upon the corpse, was stretched a cloth of gold frieze with a cross of crimson velvet, and before and behind the said wagon stood two gentlemen ushers with mourning hoods looking into the wagon, round which the said four banners were carried by four heralds and the standards with the representations by four gentlemen.

Then followed seven ladies, as chief mourners, upon hackneys, that of the first being harnessed with black velvet and the others with black cloth. After which ladies followed the wagon of the Queen’s gentlemen; and after them, on hackneys, came nine ladies, wives of knights. Then followed the wagon of the Queen’s chambermaids; then her maids to the number of 36, and in their wake followed certain servants on horseback.

Meanwhile, back at Court, Anne Boleyn suffered a catastrophic miscarriage that may have contributed to her fall and execution. Henry VIII had pursued her and married her, divided England from Christendom, abandoned his first wife and daughter all because he expected Anne Boleyn to deliver a healthy baby boy who would survive infancy, and she failed again. This blog describes the repercussions of that miscarriage, as recounted by Eustace Chapuys, the Holy Roman Emperor's ambassador:

On the day of the interment the Concubine had an abortion which seemed to be a male child which she had not borne 3½ months, at which the King has shown great distress. The said concubine wished to lay the blame on the duke of Norfolk, whom she hates, saying he frightened her by bringing the news of the fall the King had six days before. But it is well known that is not the cause, for it was told her in a way that she should not be alarmed or attach much importance to it. Some think it was owing to her own incapacity to bear children, others to a fear that the King would treat her like the late Queen, especially considering the treatment shown to a lady of the Court, named Mistress Semel, to whom, as many say, he has lately made great presents.

I think that Katherine of Aragon would have felt grief for the loss of another little baby, as she had lost several herself to miscarriage, stillbirth or death during infancy.

Mistress Semel was Jane Seymour, who would be Henry VIII's third wife. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Justice Scalia and St. Thomas More

Father Paul Scalia celebrated his father's funeral Mass at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. Video of his homily is readily available on several media outlets. He began with a trap, setting us up to think his homily would be a eulogy for Antonin Scalia:

We are gathered here because of one man. A man known personally to many of us, known only by reputation to even more. A man loved by many, scorned by others. A man known for great controversy, and for great compassion. That man, of course, is Jesus of Nazareth.

It is He whom we proclaim. Jesus Christ, son of the father, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified, buried, risen, seated at the right hand of the Father. It is because of him. because of his life, death and resurrection that we do not mourn as those who have no hope, but in confidence we commend Antonin Scalia to the mercy of God.

Scripture says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday today and forever. And that sets a good course for our thoughts and our prayers here today. In effect, we look in three directions. To yesterday, in thanksgiving. To today, in petition. And into eternity, with hope.

If you've heard the homily, you should have caught the reference to St. Thomas More, whom Justice Scalia admired and revered:

God blessed Dad, as is well known, with a love for his country. He knew well what a close-run thing the founding of our nation was. And he saw in that founding, as did the founders themselves, a blessing, a blessing quickly lost when faith is banned form the public square, or when we refuse to bring it there. So he understood that there is no conflict between loving God and loving one’s country, between one’s faith and one’s public service. Dad understood that the deeper he went in his Catholic faith, the better a citizen and public servant he became. God blessed him with the desire to be the country’s good servant because he was God’s first.

This blog post discusses how Scalia admired St. Thomas More:

Justice Antonin Scalia’s veneration of St. Thomas More was well known. His chambers included a replica of Hans Holbein’s portrait of Thomas More. At Barack Obama’s second presidential inauguration, Antonin Scalia wore a replica of the round black hat More wears in that portrait.

Scalia revered Thomas More for his conscientious and principled loyalty to Catholic teaching. Scalia scorned the image promoted in Robert Bolt’s Man for All Seasons of More as being some free-thinking individualist who happened to find himself in disagreement with King Henry VIII over his second marriage to Ann (sic) Boleyn. Instead, Scalia honored Thomas More as the loyal Catholic he was in historical fact.

On the Theophilus Blog, in association with the Catholic Theological Union, Gerald E. Nora goes on to recount an example of Scalia citing St. Thomas More at a meeting of the Catholic Lawyers Guild of Chicago. More about that hat here.

As I listened to the homily on Saturday, I thought of the other St. Thomas More connection as Father Paul reminded us, as More did in his Supplication of Souls, not to canonize the dead immediately, but to pray for the Poor Souls in Purgatory:

So we look to the past, to Jesus Christ yesterday. We call to mind all of these blessings, and we give our Lord the honor and glory for them, for they are His work. We look to Jesus today, in petition, to the present moment, here and now, as we mourn the one we love and admire, the one whose absence pains us. Today we pray for him. We pray for the repose of his soul. We thank God for his goodness to Dad as is right and just. But we also know that although dad believed, he did so imperfectly, like the rest of us. He tried to love God and neighbor, but like the rest of us did so imperfectly.

He was a practicing Catholic, “practicing” in the sense that he hadn’t perfected it yet. Or rather, Christ was not yet perfected in him. And only those in whom Christ is brought to perfection can enter heaven. We are here, then, to lend our prayers to that perfecting, to that final work of God’s grace, in freeing Dad from every encumbrance of sin.

But don’t take my word for it. Dad himself, not surprisingly, had something to say on the matter. Writing years ago to a Presbyterian minister whose funeral service he admired, he summarized quite nicely the pitfalls of funerals and why he didn’t like eulogies.

He wrote: “Even when the deceased was an admirable person, indeed especially when the deceased was an admirable person, praise for his virtues can cause us to forget that we are praying for and giving thanks for God’s inexplicable mercy to a sinner.”

Now he would not have exempted himself from that. We are here then, as he would want, to pray for God’s inexplicable mercy to a sinner. To this sinner, Antonin Scalia. Let us not show him a false love and allow our admiration to deprive him of our prayers. We continue to show affection for him and do good for him by praying for him: That all stain of sin be washed away, that all wounds be healed, that he be purified of all that is not Christ. That he rest in peace.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon him. May the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen.