SUMMUM SILENTIUM

I have not blogged in recent weeks prefering rather to observe a self imposed silence at a time when so many voices where raised for and against the Holy Father.  His words and actions in England are a sufficient response to his detractors and a consolation to me.

I have followed keenly, events on the blog "theanglocatholic.blogspot.com" - my heart goes out to all those who have been cast out to sea - talk about a "tempest tossed church"!  Waiting on the shore to welcome the weiry pilgrims, it is as disheartening as it is anticipated that further fracturing and splintering of this kind continues.

Time for more silent prayer...

Eminent Sense and sensibility

Well, as you are no doubt aware all the Latin Rite Bishops of the world have by now sent off their Summorum Pontificum Reports to Rome (along with a great many regional reports by laypeople) as required by the Holy Father. 

It cannot have escaped the attention of the authorities to whom these documents have been sent that these reports are from the same people who systemically failed to implement the Ecclesia Dei Decree of John Paul II, with some noteable exceptions.  Yet despite it's failure at one level, the decree did make it clear that to desire the Classical Roman Rite was a "rightful aspiration"  The use of the term "rightful" was a significant turning point for those who had fought so hard for this rite.  The erection of religious institutes devoted to the use the "liturgical books of 1962" gave traditional catholics the opportunity to prove what they had for so long proclaimed; that young people where not only attracted to the traditional liturgy but that they where also attracted to the challenges of the traditional religious life both male and female.

The release of Summorum Pontificum took the rightful aspiration even further.  It recognised the attempt to suppress the Usus Antiquior as an injustice, by affirming that the rite hand never been legally forbidden whilst proclaiming it "rightful" to desire the traditional liturgy, which must be perceived "as a treasure for the whole church".  In other words you would have to question the thinking of any priest who would deny that the "extraordinary form" or "Usus Antiquior" was anything but a treasure of the church.  Puting aside the reality that few clergy perceive, let alone think about the "Usus Antiquior" in these terms, they are nevertheless aware that whilst they may not have met any "traditional catholics" lattely they very well might in the near future.  They are also vaguely aware that these people are on the increase and that their attitude is supposed to be a welcoming one, despite their best instincts. Of course the fact is that no authority is required beyond that required for the celebration of the new rite.  Neither Bishop nor Prior nor Parish Priest need approve, nor necessarily be informed other than for the reason of common courtesy.

So where to from here? What will come in response to the reports? Let us take a Sybilic glance into the future.

 Summorum Pontificum asks for nothing less than equity, and it accords at least a status of legal parity to the Usus Antiquior.

Could this sense of equality be taken to one place that will ensure the survival of the Classical Roman Rite and even ensure its restoration to the altars of our own diocese?

The answer in short is yes.

How eminently sensible it would be to cause every (latin rite) seminary in the world to instruct it's seminarists in how to celebrate both rites.  How wonderful if our seminaries where caused to add to their curriculae instruction in who to celebrate the Usus Antiquior.  This would of course have to be done in conjunction with enforcement of the requirement that all Latin Rite seminarians be taught latin.

Missa Cantata - Wallsend, Newcastle NSW AUSTRALIA

SUNG MASS CELEBRATED AT THE CHURCH OF ST PATRICK, WALLS END - a simple and dignified celebration of Holy Mass preceeded by the Asperges.

A little break but the injustice just never stops

I have had a little break from blogging to recharge the batteries.

So much seems to be happening around the world but so little here.  Indeed, as with so many country dioceses, the drawbridge remains firmly and permanently up.

A certain dispair, at least regarding the situation in the Wollongong Diocese has set in, this was primarily due to the annual cycle of diocesan spending on useless, fruitless and pointless projects.  It doesn't get easier to take as the years go on - less people in the pews, less religious, critical shortage of priests, what's the solution throw a couple of hundred thousand at the same kind of programme that we have been pursuing for the last 40 odd years, no matter that nothing really substantial ever results.

Let us spend the capital of the past and throw caution to the wind...it never occurs to the authorities to be self reflective, perhaps these things have not really worked - could we, should we go back, NO! Never! that would be regression.  What you call regression was once known as humility, when you look for something you have lost, most people retrace their steps.  Who will be accountable for these failures for this expense - not our good bishop surelly?

Yet since the release of Summorum Pontificum a group of more than 60 people in the Macarthur (western) region of the diocese attempted to organise the celebration of the Classical Latin rite (Usus antiquior).

The Macarthur Community had a priest lined up servers sacred vessels and vestments all they needed was a key with access to a Church.  Their request to use the Parish Church at Picton/Tahmoor was refused by the Parish Priest the Rev. Fr. John Ho*.

Not surprisingly these people now largely travel an hour on Sundays to attend the Extraordinary form of the Mass (UA) outside the Diocese (mosty in the Parramatta and Sydney Dioceses).  They have given up on this diocese for now, at least until the next bishop. Does anyone really care?  What ever your view it remains a grave injustice.

One often hears it said "But there is already a Mass in diocese celebrated every second Sunday at 3pm in the afternoon why can't they attend that?"  -

• How many people do you know, that go to Mass at 3pm in the afternoon on Sundays?
• How many Catholic Priests do you know who regularly attend and assist inappropriately at noncatholic liturgies  - and are surprised that Catholic families will not attend their's or have doubts about their doctrinal orthodoxy.
• How many communities do you know where a cup of tea or (fellowship) is forbidden for fear that people might begin to organise or associate with each other.
• How many catholics do you know who are forced to attend a rite they do not like every second week. (It would not be so bad if it went both ways).
• Charity does not permit all the aspects of this situation to be raised here.

This is just the tip of the Iceberg in terms of the issues and the complexities surrounding this matter, suffice it to say that travelling out of the diocese on sundays ensures both a higher level orthodoxy and orthopraxis.

Summorum Pontificum was meant to remedy this situation;

• For pities sake let them have the Mass in their region -
• Let the doors of the Church of St Anthony in Picton, be opened to them.

If Fr Ho will not them, then let Bishop Ingham  intervene and do what is required. Is there really no room at the Inn?  No was never an option here - must the matter go to Rome?

___________________________

*Reverend Fr John Ho, Parish Priest of St Anthony's Parish, TAHMOOR has 3 Churches Mass times follow;( No question of a shortage of Churches or time slots so Fr Ho what is the problem?)

TAHMOOR
Sat Vigil 6.00pm
Sun 7.30am, 9.30am


MENAGLE
St Patrick's Church
(119 Menangle Road, Menangle)
Sun 6.00pm


PICTON
Sheil Memorial Church
(Menangle Street, Picton)
6.00pm


WEEKDAY MASSES

Tuesday: 7pm (Tahmoor)
Wednesday: 8am (Tahmoor)
Thursday: 8am (Tahmoor)
Friday: 9.30am (Picton)

Public Penance and the Orders of the Penitents

Some images of public penitents and cultural spin off's...

 

Why the Biretta will never die....

Baby biretta for Corpus Christi

CORPUS CHRISTI

Here is reprinted a charming article by James Chegwidden written in 1998 a luminary of the Thomistic Studies Centre

CORPUS CHRISTI AND ST THOMAS

The feast of Corpus Christi is cause for major celebration in the Church on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday. For Thomists it should be highly regarded, for the author of the Mass and Office of Corpus Christi was St Thomas Aquinas himself.


Corpus Christi is a late feast, being only introduced in the 13th century, by which time most of the other feasts in the classical Roman Missal had been established for almost a millennium. In 1264, Pope Urban IV issued a papal bull, Transiturus, promulgating Corpus Christi as a feast for the Universal Church. He was acting after years of petitions from several sources, most notably from St Juliana de Cornillon, who had received visions from the Saviour requesting such a feast. Urban cast his eyes around the known world for candidates to compose a Mass and Office for the Feast. His search ended with Thomas Aquinas, the friar whose fame was fast spreading through out Europe.

What a glorious choice! The commission came from the Pope, but the call was from Christ – "Write, Sing of This, for This is My Body that was delivered for you, and My Blood that was shed for you". And sitting in his quiet cell, Thomas began to write, and to sing. His song would soon resound on every hill and echo in every valley of Christendom.

The Mass and Office he wrote can still be seen and heard in the classical rite of the Roman Church. It is work of genius, which the famous Abbot Cabrol described as "one of the most beautiful canticles in the Catholic liturgy", and Pius Parsch as "unquestionably a classic piece of liturgical work". The poet Santolius avowed that he would have given his whole life’s work to become the author of just one verse of the Hymn for Lauds, Verbum Supernum. Testimony to the greatness of work comes also from other great saints, such as St Bonaventure. Having also been commissioned by the Holy See to write an office for Corpus Christi, upon reading just one page of Thomas’ efforts, he immediately took his work – almost certainly a great masterpiece as well – and burned it in front of St Thomas. When the shocked St Thomas asked "But why?" he replied, "Because I would not have it on my conscience, Thomas, that I had attempted to stand between the world and this."

Thomas had begun with words that have been compared to the clash of cymbals – "Pange Lingua":

Pange lingua, gloriosi,
Corporis mysterium,
Sanguinisque pretiosi,
Quem in mundi pretium,
Fructus ventris generosi
Rex effudit gentium.


Sing, my tongue, the Saviours glory,
of his flesh the mystery sing:
of the blood all price exceeding
shed by our immortal King,
destined for the world’s redemption
from a noble womb to spring.


For St Thomas the mystery of Christ's Body and Blood is the mystery of the Incarnate God, the Word made Flesh, and his work does not merely cover the main themes of the doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament. The Mass text is richly theological in content, as is the Office, combining in exquisite poetry the precise teaching of the Church on the Real Presence, the nature of Christ's sacrificial offering in the Mass, and Holy Communion. The Lauda Sion, the sequence of the Mass, reveals much of this fine teaching:


What He did at supper seated,
Christ ordained to be repeated,
In his memory divine;
Wherefore we, with adoration,
Thus the Host of our salvation
Consecrate from bread and wine.


Taught by Christ the Church maintaineth,
That the bread its substance changeth,
Into Flesh, the wine to Blood.
Doth it pass thy comprehending?
Faith, the law of sight transcending,
Leaps to things not understood.


Here, beneath these signs are hidden
Priceless things, to sense forbidden;
Signs, not things are all we see –
Flesh from Bread, and Blood from wine,
Yet is Christ in either sign,
All entire confess’d to be.


They, too, who of Him partake,
sever not, nor rend nor break,
But entire their Lord receive.
Whether one or thousands eat,
All receive the self-same meat,
Nor the less for others leave.


Lo the wicked with the good
Eat of this celestial food:
Yet with ends how opposite!
Life to these, ‘tis death to those:
See how from life taking flows
Diff’rence truly infinite!


Nor do thou doubts entertain,
When the Host is broke in twain;
But be sure, each part contains
What was in the whole before.


'Tis the simple sign alone.
Which hath changed its sign and form,
While the signified is one
And the same for evermore


What joy for Thomists to read the doctrine expressed by Christ rendered into pristine exactitude by St Thomas, and sung in the liturgy annually! Take the antiphon for Vespers:


O Sacrum convivium,
in quo Christus sumitur,
memoria recolitur Passionis
Ejus, mens impletur gratia
Et futurae gloriae pignus
nobis datur.


Oh blessed banquet,
Wherein Christ is received.
His Passion is again with
us, the soul o'erflows
with grace: a pledge
of future glory is given to us.


This great summary of the effects of Holy Communion was so appreciated that it became part of the rubrics for every distribution of Holy Communion outside Mass.


St Thomas was a master in choosing psalms and other biblical texts for the feast, particularly for his skill in isolating many texts of the Old Testament prefiguring the Eucharist. His Office is far more biblical than most of the compositions of the time. We see Christ, the priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech offering bread and wine (Ps 109); we see Christ, the divine Moses, on the desert journey of life, giving food to them that fear Him (110). We remember the Church’s hymn of thanks in Psalm 115: What shall I render unto the Lord for all He has granted me? I will take the chalice of salvation. Psalm 127 shows the Church as a mother, a fruitful vine, Christ the Father of His family, winning His Bread by great toil. Ps 147 shows Jerusalem at peace, where her Lord nourishes her guests with the fat of wheat. The Magnificat recalls of course that He fills the hungry with good things, and sends the haughty rich empty away.


The second nocturn of Matins contains St Thomas’s own writings, the very ones for which Christ spoke to him from a crucifix and said Thou hast written well of me, Thomas. They are sermons written by the saint, from which I take here a brief extract:


O banquet most precious! … Can anything be more excellent than this repast, in which not the flesh of goats and heifers, as of old, but Christ the true God is given us for nourishment? What more wondrous than this Holy Sacrament! In it bread and wine are changed substantially, and under the appearance of a little bread and wine is had Christ Jesus, God and perfect man. In this sacrament sins are purged away, virtues are increased, the soul is saturated with an abundance of spiritual gifts. No other sacrament is so beneficial. Since it was instituted unto the salvation of all, it is offered by the Church for the living and the dead, that all may share in its treasures.


When St Thomas first heard his brethren singing the Office he had composed and arranged, he started to cry, weeping tears of love and gratitude to the Eucharistic Lord who had inspired such a thing of splendour. Did God, I wonder, give Thomas a glimpse, perhaps, of the mighty future his Feast was to have? Did He show him the panorama of millions of processions, winding through street, town, hill, valley, countryside and cloister, involving billions of Christian faithful in the one great cry – Pange lingua gloriosi Corporis Mysterium! Did he see the flowers strewn on the streets of Spain for the enthroned Body of Christ to see or the hushed English recusants adoring the Real Presence in a small cellar or the vast square of St Peter’s Rome with hundreds of thousands of the faithful being blessed with the Host in the monstrance by the Vicar of Christ himself, after singing that canticle – Pange Lingua? Whether he knew it or not, St Thomas had written the hymn by which Christ’s bride the Church would forevermore praise her divine Spouse.


May we always sing with St Thomas the closing words of the Lauda Sion:


Jesu, Shepherd, Bread indeed,

Thou take pity on our need!

Thou Thy flock in safety feed,

Thou protect us, Thou us lead,

To the Lord of Heavenly Life.

Amen.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

James Chegwidden is a student at the Centre for Thomistic Studies, in Sydney, Australia.

This article posted May 2000. It was published in Universitas, Vol 2 (1998), No. 2.

Permission is granted to copy or quote from this article, provided that full credit is given to the author and to the

Centre for Thomistic Studies, Sydney, Australia.

The potrait is not a likeness

This rather lovely depiction of a euchatistic procession at a glance looks like the work of Pustet, the (accesively floriated backgroud gives it away) but perhaps more interesting are the various forms of apparel and the great number of deacons and subdeacons - who seem to be destingished by the degree of ornamentation between their clavi.  Dom Roulin would not approve of the canopy though - too rigid a construction.