From the second nocturne:
"So great was James' holiness of life that men strove one with another to touch the hem of his garment. When he was ninety-six years old, and had most holily governed the Church of Jerusalem for thirty years, ever most constantly preaching Christ the Son of God, he laid down his life for the faith. He was first stoned, and afterward taken up on to a pinnacle of the Temple and cast down from thence. His legs were broken by the fall, and he was wellnigh dead, but he lifted up his hands towards heaven, and prayed to God for the salvation of his murderers, saying " Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they do " As he said this, one that stood by smote him grievously upon the head with a fuller's club, and he resigned his spirit to God. He testified in the seventh year of Nero, and was buried hard by the Temple, in the place where he had fallen. He wrote one of the Seven Epistles which are called Catholic. "
Ss. Jim'n'Pip, pray for us!
I often wonder if people have a hard time accepting St. Joseph as an older man because the image of a young girl in her teens betrothed to and older fellow is unsavoury to some. Or maybe they just can't see th point of an old man marrying a teens who has apparantly decided to give her virginity to God?
ReplyDeleteSome people also think it limits the value of his chastity if he was old, since the sexual drive is lessened as one ages. However, while as a saint he was a model of purity, his being the most chaste spouse of the Blessed Virgin comes in his relinquishing the old patriarchal ways for the new spiritual fatherhood. St. Thomas talks about Abraham as someone who lived with the spirit of the evangelical counsels. Abraham’s age renders the criticism invalid... He had tk be chaste in old age, and the LORD did get angry for his taking of a concubine. St. Joseph fits Thomas’s scheme too...
DeleteFellow exiles to the Byzantine Rite yesterday unite! Now on to figure a way to stop Jerz the Werx from ever disgracing our Sunday Mass again...have six years to do it.
ReplyDeleteI couldn’t take it. “It’s a living tradition... said one friend. “But the church decided...” said another. My response to that was “No, Pius XII decided. The church decided it was a feast which didn’t catch on so it’s optional in the Novus Ordo.”
DeleteNorwalk apparently sang the Mass of the Sunday. That wasn’t completely satisfying, but it was better.
I had heard Norwalk would be doing the Sunday Mass too, though, I am puzzled why Fr. C didn't just offer Pip 'n Jim's Mass. Still a vast improvement over what Mater E did yesterday. Norwalk like Mater E is on a path in the right direction, but there are many things left to be desired now with the arbitrary stop-n-go ways the restoration is proceeding.
DeleteShake your head at this contradiction - I wasn't there, but I was told that yesterday Fr. P at Mater used the Proper Last Gospel of the Sunday at the end of the Jerz the Werz Mass. The irony that Proper Last Gospels and Joe the Communist were never contemporaneous!
I would say the 1962 police, but after Holy Week, the Apostles on May 1 is little to complain about.
DeleteWow.
We don't have a 1962 police problem (the police repented and it is he who is writing); what we have is a hesitation to adopt the older calendar. Older ceremonies, Proper Last Gospels, reading the Epistle quietly while it's chanted, fine, we're bringing those back at quite a pace this year. But, calendars, commemorations, and choice of feasts/Sundays, still stuck in the '62 box. If others are moving in that direction, it may provide some impetus to follow suit. Perhaps it's time now to consolidate gains and strategize how to effectively restore the older calendar in a seamless way.
DeleteThe ICRSS does the Credo on feasts of doctors.
DeleteMy thought would be that, for now, you could add collects at Masses that follow the 1962 calendar (I mean, more or less its festal assignments are the same...) according to the pre-1962 rules: either of lesser feasts or of the votive commemorations.
You know, I've never met anyone who was a big supporter of Giuseppe la Communista Day. The most I've seen is that trads treat it like a feast-day that should be there without questioning it. They get a bit stand-offish and defensive if you speak against it, but there just doesn't seem to be a widespread dedication to it.
DeleteIt should be easy to ax, should awareness of its origins become more widely known. No one in the Pauline Rite cares about it.
The Tradistani sermon was about Joseph's appearance at Fatima. I don't know how the priest managed to squeeze 15 minutes of material out of an old man waving hello from the sky.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
Delete"an old man waving hello from the sky"
DeleteThis comment is snotty and obnoxious, which is a common trend across these posts regarding St. Joseph. If you believe the Fatima apparition is genuine, then St. Joseph's appearance is significant. If you don't believe the Fatima apparition is genuine, then *that* belief is impious.
"an old man"
DeleteThe same people who claim to prefer the tradition that St. Joseph was an old men then belittle him as an old man! Old man -- maybe. Guardian and foster father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, definitely. If Our Lord should choose to appear in the presence of the saint who played the role of human father to him, and to have that saint bless the world, then Yes, I can perfectly well see a priest finding 15 minutes' worth of points to ponder there.
To say Joe the Commie feast? The feast is a complete travesty! It was already called such before the ink dried promulgating the novel feast and displacing the nearly 1500 year old feast of Ss. Philip and James.
DeleteBTw, what's so snotty? Why the focus on devotional things in liturgy, instead of using the Gospel or Epistle?! Even in Tradistan, there is too much focus on peripheral things than the liturgical readings!!
DeleteI suppose it was a bit on the cheeky side. If it helps, I mean no insult against the step-father of Our Lord. Just against the homilist. (Even on a Josephite feast day he couldn't stay on topic. Not a peep about Joseph as a worker. Tsk.)
DeleteI thought that, too. It really is a crying shame that many Tradistani priests can't stay on topic.
DeleteFootnotes from Fr Hunwicke's Blog:
ReplyDelete(1) H Davis Moral and Pastoral Theology (1934) Vol iii p 145 writes "To substitute for the Mass prescribed in the Calendar another Mass at choice would normally be a venial sin, but if great scandal arose or there was contempt or serious negligence, the sin would be a grave one. It would be no sin if the celebrant had a reasonable excuse for the change and if there were no scandal. But to make such substitutions frequently would connote contempt of the Rubrics, and would be a grievous sin unless, as stated, there was a serious reason for thus acting." Would a devotional desire, or the pastoral need for catechesis, be a iusta causa? Even a gravis causa?
(2) The current Roman Pontiff has given a most powerful lead, each and every Maundy Thursday since his success in getting elected Bishop of Rome, to those who feel that one should not worry too much about pettifogging liturgical red-tape and silly little rubrical prohibitions which prevent one from making some great and glorious point. Especially if one is oneself wiser than the rules, which, like the Holy Father, I almost always find I am. Does this particular rubrical Gordian Knot offer an occasion upon which Papa Bergoglio's example of splendid rubrical freedom should be embraced and followed? Does his praxis create what Fr Davis would have considered a iusta or a gravis causa? Surely!! Viva il Papa!