Book Review: St. Lawrence Press Ordo Recitandi & Interview

I am grateful to the St. Lawrence Press for the opportunity to review their Ordo Recitandi Officii Divini Sacrique Peragendi for 2015, as well as for the time spent by the compiler, Rubricarius, to answer questions about the history of the Ordo, provide us with some invaluable history told from experience, and his thoughts on the future of the traditional Roman liturgy. I have never looked at an Ordo other than a quick glance at the FSSPX one while at the Oxford Oratory (more accurate than the LMS), so I cannot compare the St. Lawrence Press version's quality to other ordines, but I think the thoughtful layout and the efficient presentation will speak for themselves. This booklet, which continues the praxis of the early traditionalists in following the 1939 typical edition of the Missal, should be helpful for all gradations of use: laymen, solitary priests, and for public prayer settings. Even non-users might find the Ordo an interesting study in the traditional liturgy's kalendar and commemoration system, although this booklet does deserve to be put to practice.

Part I: Reviewing the Ordo

The first page contains immediately useful information on the dates of the variable feasts of the year and the four sets of ember days. Atop the third page is the proclamation of the variable feasts sung after the Gospel every year on the feast of the Epiphany, which would be helpful to someone working without a form. 

The Ordo, which is entirely in Latin—no Classical word flourishes, mercifully—publishes exhaustive, straight forward, and concise details on such things as external solemnities, titular feasts and the dedication of churches, private and public votive Masses—normal and Requiem, and the guidelines for the Forty Hours devotion, which, despite being eleven paragraphs long, is quite simple and more thorough than what one finds in Fortescue. 

Yes, there can be an external solemnity of the Sacred Heart. The rubrics on the left continue the extensive directions for the Forty Hours.

The rules around Masses for the Dead vary in strictness depending on whether or not the Mass is a sung Mass or not. This Ordo forgets not the finer details of the commemoration system, too, such as the use of the orations for the dead on the first feria of the month at Mass.

When I first heard that the Last Gospel is replaced with another text on some days, I was a bit confused when told that this only occurs when the displaced text is "strictly proper." The Ordo contains a very good explanation that any priest should be able to remember and understand when consulting the Ordo listing for a feast or Sunday which displaces another day.

Guidelines for orations, the Ordinary of Mass, and prefaces in private votive Masses, which differs in many respects from 1962.

In order to be succinct, the Ordo does not give long explanations like the LMS and FSSPX ordines, but instead employs an abbreviation system. At first all these potential entries look intimidating, but the layout of the pages containing the liturgical orders of the days makes everything more intelligible.

For example, the R next to the octave day of St. Stephen indicates that the Mass and Office of the day are observed in red vestments and with a red altar frontal. The A midway through the entry directs a change to white (albus) for V seq (Vespers of the following day). 

I believe most ordines begin at Advent. The St. Lawrence Press Ordo begins with January 2015 and, considerately, runs to the 10th of January, 2016. 

This page is a nice example both of the clarity of the Ordo and the depth of the old Roman rite. The page is for March. The 23rd is a Lenten Monday which, noted by the X to the right, permits a votive Requiem Mass (as do all ferial Mondays of Lent). At Vespers the color changes to white for the feast of St. Gabriel the Archangel, a greater-double feast. At Mattins, the lessons and responsories in the first nocturne are proper to the feast. The ninth lesson is that of the displaced feria. The feria is commemorated with its Benedictus antiphon and collect at Lauds, as well as with a commemoration and proper Last Gospel at Mass (it is strictly proper). A private Mass may be celebrated of the feria with a commemoration of St. Gabriel and a proper Last Gospel, the prayer super populum per the Lenten feria, and the Benedicamus Domino dismissal, all done in violet for the Mass alone. Vespers is of the following feast of the Annunciation, a double of the first class, with the Incarnation doxology used in the hymns that night and during the hours on the 25th. 

Certain days, such as those of the Triduum, contain long descriptions of unique rites and ceremonies proper to the day. Any church master of ceremonies would already be expected to know this information, but I suspect it would be a very helpful reminder to the sacristan, who might read it over to remember everything he needs to prepare the altar, the vestments, and any other articles necessary for the day. A thoughtful sacristan might even read ahead and ask the priest if he anticipated celebrating a votive Mass or a ferial Lenten day on a feast and then write an emendation in the generous margins. 

This is an excellent Ordo for use and study by both clerics and laymen. I would recommend getting a copy yourself and putting it to some good use. To order the St. Lawrence Press Ordo for 2015, click here. They take PayPal.

Part II: Interview with the Compiler

Herein follows an interview with Rubricarius, the compiler of the Ordo and friend of this blog. He gives us some history about the Ordo as well as some very unique views of the future of the old rite and about Summorum Pontificum which should get the comment box rolling.

Q. Thank you, Rubricarius, for sending me your Ordo 2015 for review. I have long been an avid reader of the St Lawrence Press blog and appreciate its efforts to educate the public on the Roman liturgy as it existed prior to Pius XII and the general process of change. Could you perhaps tell us more about the specifics of your Ordo, such as the year it follows and how that came about?

A. Thank you, Rad Trad for your interest.  The Ordo began back in the early 1970s as the idea of Fr. Peter J. Morgan (the first priest ordained by Mgr. Lefebvre for the Fraternity back in 1971).  Fr. Morgan soon gathered a sizable group of interested clergy and somehow managed to create Mass centres almost out of thin air. He felt it was time to resurrect a traditional Ordo.  What must be born in mind is that the Ordo reflected the liturgical praxis of what the St. Pius Association (the precursor to the $$PX) and other traditional clergy were using at the time.  Fr. Morgan asked Mr. John Tyson, the compilator emeritus, to produce an Ordo for 1973. John is a truly exceptional and talented man and could basically think an Ordo in his head for any given year.  John’s rather difficult-to-read script – it looks very like classical Armenian - was patiently deciphered and typed up on foolscap by the late Miss Penelope Renold and published in three sections by the ‘St. Pius V Information Centre’.  The first volume. ‘Pars Prima’ was clearly somewhat rushed with the cover in Miss Renold’s handwriting.  ‘Pars Secunda’ and ‘Pars Semestris’ followed with typed covers. The two following years saw again a simple foolscap size production but integrated into a single volume.  The current format has its origins in the 1976 edition.

The ‘pre-Pius XII’ rubrics were what clergy and their supporters used at that time.  What is now called the ‘EF’ had, obviously, been used for the couple of years of its existence a decade earlier – but not by everyone I would add - but no one who was supporting the cause of ‘Old Rite’ used it in the UK in the 1970s and it did not make an appearance until a decade later.

Q. Who were the principle people behind the Ordo when it began publication under the St Pius V Information Center? What sort of structure runs the administration of the St Lawrence Press Ordo today?

A. We have covered this, in part, with the first question.  The driving force was Fr. Morgan who channeled the considerable talents and knowledge of John Tyson.  Miss Renold did the typing and, I would conjecture, the posting to interested parties.  The Ordo was published by the St. Pius V Association up to and including Ordo 1978.  Ordo 1979 was published by the $$PX and they continued to publish it up to Ordo 1983.  All this time Mr. Tyson was continuing to exercise his considerable talents.  Since 2002 the Ordo has been published by The Saint Lawrence Press Ltd.  This is a legal entity of a company limited by shares in English Law. It has three directors, including myself, and a company secretary.

Q. How did the St Lawrence Press survive the liturgical about-face of 1983, when the Society of St Pius X reversed its 1977 decision to allow celebrants of the old rite to continue their established custom and imposed the 1962 liturgy on all priests in the Fraternity? Why was the pre-Pius XII rite worth saving, from the perspective of those who continued the St Lawrence Press at the time?

A. If I may answer these questions together Rad Trad?  As I mentioned earlier it was actually the $$XP itself that was publishing the Ordo from 1979 onwards with a considerable number of its clergy using it.  When the trustees of the St. Pius V Association had handed over its assets to the $$PX one of the conditions was that the pre-Pius XII liturgy was to continue to be used.  I understand that one of the original trustees deeply regrets now not having taken legal action when the $$PX reneged on the terms.  Who knows what might have been...   Anyway, as to the ukase to enforce the use of the 1962 books this was a consequence of discussions Lefebvre was having with Rome in the early 1980s.  I have letters from both Michael Davies and Bishop Donald Sanborn – from opposite ends of the Traddieland spectrum - confirming this to be the case.  In his letter Michael Davies states that the indult Quattuor abhinc annos was a direct consequence of these discussions. (We can see the parallels with Summorum Pontificum and Fellay’s overtures to Rome although back in the early 1980s at least Lefebvre was not claiming to be told what to do by putative visions of the BVM).  Lefebvre’s ukase caused great upset, particularly in the NE district of the USA.  Here in England Lefebvre announced this when he came to bless the newly acquired church of SS Joseph and Padarn in London.  A friend of mine, Dr. Thomas Glover, witnessed the argument that took place in the sacristy after Mass between Lefebvre and the then district superior, Edward Black.  Fr. Black put up a spirited defense of the existing practice with both he and Lefebvre getting angrier with each exchange.  The argument took place in French, a language which Dr. Glover is not fluent in.  Dr. Glover tried to interject in Italian and observed that Fr. Black was winning the argument but then, suddenly, just shrugged his shoulders and capitulated.  I am sure you are familiar with Fr. Cekada’s account of what happened in your country and I am sure Fr. Cekada is quite correct in maintaining that if Lefebvre had stayed for the meatloaf the problem would have been resolved. 

Anyway, Fr. Black realised that he could no longer produce the Ordo so he asked two dear friends of mine, now my fellow directors, to produce the Ordo.  This decision was made immediately after Lefebvre left London that fateful day.  So, from 1984 the Ordo was produced by the Saint Lawrence Press – not Ltd – which was what we call in England a trading partnership.  Ordo 1984 caused quite as stir as its cover had the Arms of John Paul II on the cover.

This did cause some upset with customers so 1985 had an absolutely plain cover.

The artist Gavin Stamp was a university friend of Mr. Warwick and drew the cover image for Ordo 1986.  Yours truly came across the $$PX in 1988 and became instantly fascinated by the Ordo.  Despite what had happened five years earlier the majority of clergy were still using ‘pre-Pius XII’ then.  I recall a whole year of Sunday’s without a hint of 1962 – happy days.  The current UK district superior even celebrated the major services of the Triduum at Highclere in 1991 at 10:00am and a Pentecost Vigil at the unearthly hour of 4:30am – or something like that.

As to why it was worth saving I think that is because it was the best thing available at the time and within living memory of so many involved.  A great many people identified this as ‘Old Rite’ as it was what they had experienced before the changes.  What I did notice was that many people I met who were supporting the $$PX had been servers or singers at Fr. Clement Russell’s church at Sudbury which you posted about recently.  I was much influenced by the late, and much lamented, Mgr. Gilbey.  Mgr. Gilbey never used 1962 and saw it as just an intermediate stage in the changes. 

Q. How did the 1983 decision and the 1984 indult influence celebrations of the pre-Vatican liturgy among traditionalists? What sorts of groups, other than sedevacantists, continued the old rite?

A. A very interesting question.  Again, what I think needs to be emphasized is that in the early days 1962 was not being used. Indeed, a very good friend of mine was close friends with an elderly priest from the NW of England twenty years ago.  The elderly priest told my friend that he and a group of other parish priests just quietly refused to adopt the new Holy Week.  “We thought Pius had flipped” he told my friend and that ‘normal’ service would be resumed after Pius’ death.  The Old Rite though never entirely died out in England.  Another friend told me that one could go into the Brompton Oratory in the late 1970s and early 1980s and find half a dozen or so private Masses that all followed the Ordo except one, where the 1956 changes were observed.  Not one of those good men used 1962 though.  Very few sedevacantists used the ‘pre-Pius XII rubrics.  The strict sedevacantists, such as CMRI, follow the 1956 changes but not those of 1962.  A wide range of the spectrum of Traddieland have used, and continue to use, the Ordo and I think it would be difficult to categorise them into any particular group – which is interesting in itself.

Q. Please explain, how you became involved with the Ordo?

A. When I first discovered the ‘old rite’ in 1987 I found it all very confusing as celebrations I attended did not match the ‘Saint Andrew’s Daily Missal’ I had.  When I first met Mgr. Gilbey his Masses matched it perfectly so that set me thinking.  I first attended $$PX Masses in 1988 and soon discovered the Ordo.  I found it fascinating as at the same time I was being instructed by a friend, now sadly departed, to learn the Breviary.  I knew John Tyson of course and remember asking him about (I V) in the Ordo.  I said to him ‘John, I think I have worked out commemorations except the hymn element.  What do you do if the hymn does not have five verses?’  John gave one of his famous chuckles and said ‘You fool, you Tom fool, it is not one to five but of first Vespers.’  Anyway I soon became involved with proof reading the Ordo.  It was all relatively primitive in those days. Although we have moved on from typing the thing it was being produced in WordPerfect which was not a WYSIWYG software programme.  The symbols for holy days and days of devotion were drawn in by hand before the pages went off to the printers.  Then came along Word2 and Word6 and subsequent editions by Mr.Gates and it became much easier.  Eventually, and I do not recall exactly when, sometime in the mid-1990s yours truly was producing the scripts and then took over completely with the Saint Lawrence Press Ltd.

Q. Who are some past or present customers of the St Lawrence Press that our readers today would recognize?

A. Customer details are covered by legislation such as the Data Protection Act, notwithstanding basic morality, and so cannot be revealed without the person’s express consent.  However, a wide range of people from all continents form the current customer base with the majority of customers coming from the United States and from France.  Of the main Traddie groups there has been an interesting change in the customer base.  From the early days when a large number of $$PX clergy took the Ordo the $$PX is now a minority customer.  A decade or so ago there were many orders from members of the Institute of Christ the King but, sadly, they now seem more interested in what they wear than liturgy.  Of the current major groups in Traddieland member of the FSSP take the most Ordines but the majority of sales are to individual diocesan clergy and laity.  A small number of Curial prelates take the Ordo – the fascinating thing is that none of them have any connection with PCED or CDW!

Q. Personally, I find the Roman rite from 1911-1955 far more complicated in rubrics and kalendar than what preceded or succeeded it. How do you deal with the challenges of the Divino Afflatu system?

A. It certainly made the rubrics of the Roman rite far more complicated than they were.  Indeed, if I were into conspiracy theories – which I am not - I think one could be forgiven for thinking it was a deliberate ploy to make life so complicated that any reform would be received with open arms.  My view is that in reality the reform was rushed through and its ramifications only began to be understood in the years that followed.  Clarifications and differing interpretations were appearing in Ephemerides Liturgicae throughout the 1920s and 1930s.  Looking at extant Ordines of the period it is interesting – to compilers of Ordines at least – to see the lack of consistency in interpretation.  A good example was a few years ago when the feasts of St. George, St. Mark and SS Philip and James had to be transferred out of the Paschal Octave.  I consulted four Ordines from 1943, two in my collection and two in the British Library.  None had exactly the same solution: three were similar but one was way off.  After carefully considering the rubrics I decided none were actually correct.  To those of us with an interest in such matters it was an amusing study but life should not be that complex.  As to ‘dealing’ with the system I am afraid that exposure to the ‘Pius X’ rubrics was part of my formative period so I can think the system in my sleep.  Indeed, when I first looked at pre-1911 praxis I found it very hard and it required a lot of effort to understand it, but I did persevere.  It is far superior in my view but we are limited by the lack of availability of books at the moment to promote a serious restoration. 

Q. Have you noticed any change in your clientele or in business to the St Lawrence Press since Summorum Pontificum in 2007? If so, why?

A. There was an initial flurry of interest and indeed I recall one cleric asking if we would now adopt the 1962 rubrics.  Needless to say the answer was strongly in the negative.  What is noticeable is that those with a more serious interest in liturgy see through 1962 quite quickly and look to move to something more traditional.  There is a steadily increasing number of customers – which is much needed because many of the original customers have now passed over to Eternity.  I think that, ultimately, Summorum Pontificum will be seen as something that had a damaging effect on the liturgy but the influence of which faded over time.  Indeed, I expect that Summorum Pontificum will be negated by legislation from Rome but not within Josef Ratzinger’s  lifetime. 

Q. In what direction do you see the future of the old rite headed? 

A. After the period of specious interest following Summorum Pontificum, and I think we really have seen the A to Z of specious interest, I see a period of contraction and confusion – as we see today – that will be followed by an implosion.  I take the view that there will be a more real discovery of liturgical orthopraxis and patrimony but that will take time, a couple of decades at least.  I also believe we will see structural change too – rather like what you have alluded to in some of your posts mentioning the Minster system for instance.  I believe that reform – in a good sense – will be from grass roots upwards, not from the top down. 

Q. In what sort of research does the St Lawrence Press engage?

A. My own research interests are the reform of the Roman rite 1903 – 1963; the reform of the Roman typical editions of the liturgical books from 1568 to 1634, the celebration of Holy Week, liturgical theology in general and the psychology of religion.

Q. Given that the early traditionalists and the St. Lawrence Press stopped at 1939, what would you say in the liturgical legacy of the pope elected that year, Pius XII? 

A. I don’t think the proto-traditionalists thought it terms of 1939 per se but of ‘pre-Pius XII’  As we know men like Evelyn Waugh were totally disparaging about the Pacelli pontificate.  Sadly, what we have seen over the last quarter of a century or so is the development of what a blogger friend of mine termed cognitive dissonance.  There is a steadfast refusal to acknowledge the well document facts of the damage done to the Roman liturgy by Pius XII.  In my own view he as much a showman and narcissist as John Paul II.  The inversion of the axiom lex orandi, lex credendi was an unmitigated disaster and a charter for the modernists.

Q. Some insist that the Pauline liturgical changes assimilated new doctrines and that, by contrast, the Pacellian novelties and reductions are tame, unworthy of attention in the quest to restore the Roman liturgy.  Your thoughts?

A. Well, we have seen the development of a fallacious revisionism whereby any reform before the Second Vatican Council is magically ignored and excised from memory. I recall many years ago that when I came across photographs of Mass versus populum from the 1940s and 1950s my fellow ‘Traddies’ far from being interested hated me for showing them.  There is the creation of a false construct by these people, they loathe Paul VI but adore old Pacelli.  There are the old canards about a) the differences between 1962 and earlier edition being ‘minor’ and b) the radical nature of Paul VI’s 1970 changes.  With respect to the first point if the changes are so minor, so trivial, not to be of any significance or not to be notice then why not just use pre-1962 anyway?  Of course, the reality is very different and the whole point is that the 1962 brigade want to feel superior to everyone else and use legalism as a weapon against everyone else.  As the second point that argument is wildly over made.  What was Mass like the day before Paul VI’s Missal became law?  People, very conveniently forget, that the 1962MR had not been used for almost a decade but the 1967 rite with the new Anaphorae, with various lectionaries and, of course, the vernacular and the fashion of versus populum.

We appreciate your time, Rubricarius, and thank you again for the opportunity to review you Ordo for the impending liturgical year. I speak for my readers in wishing you and the St Lawrence Press the best in your efforts to preserve the old rite and commending our prayers for that same intention.

Clericalism

What do we make of 19th century clericalism? It is still with us in neo-conservative and Tradistani circles, but not in the mainstream. In previous times, the Church did not distinguish so much between the priest and the laity as much as she did between monks and everyone else. The parish priest was a familiar individual who dressed much like a common person, except perhaps for a cross and, of course, the noticeable tonsure. Deacons were often city or diocesan administrators. Bishops were accorded the same dignities as other persons of esteem in a given land. In France, much like a noble or the king himself, a bishop was called monseigneur. In England a bishop was called "your grace," as were the kings before Henry VIII discovered his supposed Roman lineage to justify his separation from the Church and styled himself "your majesty." Parish priests in England were called "sir." In France they were called "monsieur le cure," literally "mister priest." High ranking priests in the Curia were, and still are, called monsignor, "my lord." Monastic priests received the unique title of "father" and wore their habits as part of their religious order, not in virtue of their ordination. All this changed around the time of Pio Nono.

Pope Pius encouraged secular priests to wear the cassock, formerly the undergarment of choir dress, as every day clothing where the circumstances permitted it; I recall hearing of one English priest who wore his cassock in London and rejoiced that he was dispelling the people's invincible ignorance. Anti-clericalism during the French Revolution and 1848 revolutions turned the old social order and the priest's place in it upside down. Wearing the cassock and taking the esteemed title "father" put the priest on a higher religious pedestal than he previously held, compensating for his absence on the social pedestal. Devotional literature began to emphasize the priest's place as alter Christus more than previous writings and made his work during the Mass the sole component of the liturgy. In growing areas, such as the United States, priests did not wear the cassock in public, but they did gain a remarkable foothold over parishioners. "Father knows best" applied as much to one's parson as to one's progenitor. His judgments on entertainment, music, and politics were final. 

Monsieur le apostat Hans Kung

Then, of course, that pedestal crumbled in the 1950s and 1960s. Some efforts, the worker-priest movement specifically, had the noble goal of re-assimilating the priest into normal life, but failed in their coalition with liberalism. The "Spirit of Vatican II" and the loose, communitarian rubrics of the Pauline liturgy were the anti-thesis of Pian clericalism, but not its cure. Some priests and theologians—from the parish priest to Hans Kung—insisted that the priest is an assembly's president, but not in possession of any unique spirit in the Church which enables him to celebrate the Sacraments. I knew one priest who was driven from a church merely for telling his congregation that "I am necessary" for Mass!

The old clericalism survives in neo-conservative and traditionalist settings, usually in "reform of the reform" type parishes and in traditionalist fraternities. I have not seen this problem among diocesan clergy who celebrate the old rite, but my experience is also limited. In America, telling women what to wear with drive half of them out of the Church and make the other half trust the priest more than their own husbands. Wearing a cassock on the streets of Houston, aside from giving its wearer heatstroke, will raise eyebrows, but people may not associate it with the priesthood as readily as they once did. By contrast, in Istanbul only the Patriarch of "Constantinople" and, when he visits, the Pope are allowed to wear clerical dress in public, although the rule was loosely enforced until the last ten or fifteen years.

On the whole, I would have opposed clericalistic measures during Pio Nono's time, but cannot fault people for continuing them today. With low religious practice, the priest has little place in the spiritual world of the populace, as little a place as he has in the social order. Even seemingly modest things, like wearing the cassock on Church grounds or only the priest or deacon administering Communion, can tell the faithful that the priesthood—not the priest—is something important. In other countries, like France, the non-integrist clergy have shown precious little interest in clericalism. Perhaps the restoration of clerical distinction will come from the monasteries. Monasticism thrives no where in the world like it does in France. Regardless, we will not be returning to either the 19th or 12th centuries, at least not yet....

Two Words & Paganism

It is Advent, which means to secular society it is "Christmas time," which means it is time for the "apologists" to caterwaul about commercialization and the "real meaning of Christmas," which was evanescing from living memory when Dickens walked the streets of London during the Darwinian and Industrial Revolutions. We make hot cocoa and watch movies with our families about snow and kindness on Friday night only to trounce our fellow shoppers in the toy aisles the next Saturday morning. Post-modern paganism has infiltrated "Christmas," but do many realize how deep the treachery goes?

Two ideas that were once fundamentally Christian now and inherently held to be positive, suffering and heaven, have evolved into new ideas more consonant with Egyptian and Hellenistic religions than the one Europe practiced from Charlemagne until Luther.

No....

Heaven. We know precious little about it. We do know that Christ will come again to "judge the living and the dead." We give the last Sunday after Pentecost and the Divine Office of Advent to the consideration of this simple fact. We also believe in the "resurrection of the dead" and the "resurrection of the body." Christ will raise those already in heaven back to life in their physical bodies to judge them, not in a particular way, but for His own glory and to separate the sheep from the goats for all creation to see. Some of the Greek Fathers of the Alexandrian tradition held that there would be a renewal of all things at this point, wherein all creation would be restored to God; Origen's reputation fell in part because he extended this idea to the evil one. Between heaven and earth, death, resurrection, and judgement, there will be a continuity of both consciousness and body. Passing from one to the other is akin to graduation from an engineer training program to an engineering job. The latter fulfills the promises and manifests the greater reality latent in the former. Modern society has taken "Paradise," the word Our Lord used to describe heaven from the Cross, and made it into something quite separate from our current vivacity, something similar to the pagan afterlife. Media depictions of heaven as a puerile, nebulous playground with chubby winged children do not help our cause nor do saccharine family consolations about a "better place." If the "afterlife" or generic heaven has anything in common with our current life, it is that we will have a great family reunion and barbecue in the backyard for eternity while some fellow named Jesus stands eerily in the background. Frankly, I do not see why we would not barbecue for eternity with people who held similarly erroneous concepts about God.

Suffering. Most egregiously, the idea of suffering is now devoid of any significant meaning. Suffering, for us Catholics, is a difficulty given by Christ for our sanctification and salvation. Suffering never exceeds our capacity to endure it with His help. Some may be weighed down by suffering while others experience it only in moderation, but there is no escaping it. I know one faithful Catholic who has led quite an unhappy life, at odds with his siblings, losing his parents, and his vocation crushed. This fellow calls the 1950s spiel about God's "perfect plan for you" a "bad sales pitch two generations old. The only real message I have found in life is 'Embrace the Cross'." Even the saint of joy, Philip Neri, suffered from his joy. After receiving the Holy Spirit as a ball of fire, his heart enlarged and broke some ribs, which remained broken and probing into his heart for the rest of his life. Suffering is a part of life after the Fall. Christ touched this ordinary part of life and made it extraordinary and a means to Him! Suffering to post-modern man means varying gradations of unhappiness, the lowest of which being crimes against humanity publicized on university campuses (campi?). The most common argument against God's existence or His goodness that I hear is "How could a loving God create a world with so much suffering?" to which I retorted, "He made the world. We made the suffering." Mankind is infallible, God is not. Suffering is an affliction visited upon man by some ulterior and impersonal force—like racial discrimination. To the Christian, this is irrational rubbish. The unhappy do not necessarily suffer. Those killed in great war crimes do not necessarily suffer either. They can die. They can be unhappy and miserable, but they may not be suffering. Suffering, in this writer's private opinion, partially consists of knowing something is not as God wishes it to be. A monk suffering under an oppressive abbot or a student failing a class or a man about to be killed by a warlord's militia can all suffer if they realize their predicament contravene's God's order and they recognize that God has offered them this irregularity to put their own lives right. The monk with take his prayer more seriously, the student will study harder, and the doomed man will repent of his sins and think of his family. For the non-believer, this is not suffering. It is worse. It is unhappiness.

St. Paul's words, "But we preach Christ crucified," have never been more relevant. Embrace the Cross. The rest follows. Retain the "Keep Christ in Christmas" bumper stickers by all means, too.

Advent UPDATED

With first Vespers tonight, Advent is upon us, the richest season of the Roman liturgical year. Above is the stunning hymn for Vespers.

Please take a moment to notice the tab for the Office of the Dead above. A friend of mine was kind enough to create a bilingual version of the Office and upload it for our use. Post your intentions in the comment box of the page!

UPDATE: Again, please put your prayer intentions in the comment box for the Office of the Dead page, accessible by the tab atop the website. The Office itself has been updated. It was brought to our attention that the responsories at the end of the third nocturne at Mattins differs depending on whether one or three nocturnes have been said. And please, do consider praying the Office, or one of its hours, for your deceased family and friends as well as the gone loved ones of your fellow readers.

Celestial Word, to this our earth

Sent down from God's eternal clime,

To save mankind by mortal birth 

Into a world of change and time;

Enlighten our hearts; vain hopes destroy;

And in thy love's consuming fire 

Fill all the soul with heavenly joy, 

And melt the dross of low desire.

So when the Judge of quick and dead

Shall bid his awful summons come,

To whelm the guilty soul with dread,

And call the blessed to their home.

Saved from the whirling, black abyss,

Forevermore to us be given 

To share the feast of saintly bliss, 

And see the face of God in heaven.

To God the Father and the Son 

Our songs with one accord we raise;

And to the Holy Spirit, One 

With them, be ever equal praise

Amen.

Liturgy & Tradition: Sensus Fidelium

"When the Church is self-referential, inadvertently, she believes she has her own light," Cardinal Bergoglio said to the College of Cardinals before the Conclave that elevated him to the Petrine See. Bergoglio's message continued the engagement with existential modernity begun by other dubious figures like Henri de Lubac, Karl Rahner, and Rudolf Steiner decades earlier, but this isolated statement reveals a rare moment of clarity from the modern Roman See. When the Church is self-referential, she disables herself from spreading the Gospel because she does not know what she is or what she does. 

Such is the contemporary state of the Roman liturgy. Many readers have asked over the last two years what the point of the liturgy is. They are being cynical. The question carries the utmost gravity. Is it a divinely imparted ritual with its own powers? Is it a set of didactic actions that ornament the more important mechanical acts of transmitting grace? What is it? If we do not know what the liturgy is, then we are truly lost. The liturgy, in my own private opinion, is the sensus fidelium of the Church expressed according to separate, non-contradicting traditions and lived out in the Church universal. There is no citation for this definition in an ecumenical council—nor is there a definition of the Resurrection. Previous generations needed no definitions or binding statements to understand the relationship between the liturgy and the faith. If they believed it, they prayed it. They did not leave what they believed out of their worship, nor did they believe in novelties unfounded in the traditions of the Church. Liturgy does not merely teach belief and transmit grace. It revives and renews the sacred mysteries of Christ in time for the faithful. In doing so, one encounters Christ, the angels and saints, and glimpses into the greater spiritual reality of the Lord while remaining on earth, blurring the lines which separate the eternal and the temporal. One leaves the liturgy and the "mystical supper" of Christ not only having learned what to believe, but also how to believe when he returns to the world outside the temple.

Christ taught simply. His teachings tell the listener as much about how to engage Him as much as they do what to think of Him. Chesterton wrote that when he first read the Gospel, contrary to everything he was told about a kind rabbi divinized by his followers, Jesus spoke authoritatively as God. As God, He commanded love, fidelity, and trust in Him as well as care and attention towards one's neighbor. Above all, He taught the forgiveness of sins and the metanoia of the sinner. The last part concerns us. How does one orient one's self to God and away from sin? How does one see the world and God as He wishes? In conjunction with being the setting for the Sacraments, where the Holy Spirit acts and makes the work of Christ immediately accessible to the believer, the liturgy shows us this. It only makes sense. When a friend asks about the Catholic faith, one does not give him a catechism. One takes him to Mass or the Divine Liturgy.

"I have passed on to you what I have received," St. Paul wrote to the Church in Corinth some time in the 50s, merely a generation after the Passion of the Lord. The Apostle to the Gentiles passed on to the Corinthians both the tradition of the Lord's work and the tradition of what He commanded His followers to do. The two were inseparable. Belief and the primitive liturgy were received by believers simultaneously. They did not remain static, however. Passing on something does not preclude its development, its clearer enunciation, its deepening. Chapter 23 of St. Vincent of Lerins' Commonitorium applies to the liturgy as much as to doctrine:

"But some one will say, perhaps, Shall there, then, be no progress in Christ's Church? Certainly; all possible progress. For what being is there, so envious of men, so full of hatred to God, who would seek to forbid it? Yet on condition that it be real progress, not alteration of the faith. For progress requires that the subject be enlarged in itself, alteration, that it be transformed into something else. The intelligence, then, the knowledge, the wisdom, as well of individuals as of all, as well of one man as of the whole Church, ought, in the course of ages and centuries, to increase and make much and vigorous progress; but yet only in its own kind; that is to say, in the same doctrine, in the same sense, and in the same meaning."

Local churches developed their liturgical rites around their own settings, needs, and cultural tendencies. The Roman rite is, to say the least, highly efficient. More so than the Eastern rites, replete with hymns and elaborate gestures, the Roman rite uses the words of Holy Writ as its almost exclusive textual basis for the propers and many of the prayers, reflective of the Roman legal tradition's emphasis on the binding power of authoritative words. The more philosophical Greeks had a mystical and excessive liturgy consonant with its philosophical tradition. And the various far Eastern rites too reveal their origins. The Roman Patriarchate tolerated variation more than any other patriarchate until Trent, permitting, often begrudgingly, "dialects" of the Roman rite like the French, English, and Portuguese uses as well as further departures like Toledo, Milan, and L'Aquila. The multiplicity of uses in the Latin Church multiplied the spiritual wealth of the Western Church and gave her saints and thinkers recognized across national borders. Uses were often suppressed, but local variety was accepted as the norm with Rome as the original, the standard, the canon. One can trim the branches of a tree, but not the trunk.

"That we may receive the King of All, invisibly
escorted by angelic hosts."
source: preachersinstitute.com

These various dialects teach the Christian to perceive the world in a divine language. Language, Noam Chomsky begrudgingly admits, is something for which human beings seem uniquely wired. Language creates learning, interaction, and introspection. The liturgy, in a very real way, makes all these things possible with the Holy Trinity. The liturgy of the Church, Alexander Schmemann taught, is the continued presence of the Lord in the world and in time. Laurence Hemming develops this idea and notes the medieval concept of the liturgy as the opus Dei, the work of God which man engages and shares. In prior times, the bells of monasteries and cathedrals signaled the various canonical hours and stages of the Mass in town. The liturgy was the pulse of the community, not a feature of it. Schmemann's interpretation of the entirety of the liturgy of the Church as Christ's continued presence is not verified by baroque and modern writers, but by the liturgy itself. In it, the Christian meets God as He is, not as He is imagined to be or desired. The understanding of God in the liturgy may be deepened or hallowed by previous generations, but the sensus cannot be changed. The literal encounter with God liturgically, but not exclusively in the Sacraments, finds confirmation in the oldest texts of the Church. On Holy Saturday the deacon, in the blessing of the Paschal candle, sings of "this night," not "a night we remember," as the night of the passage to salvation. Then the cynosures of pre-Incarnational salvation history are recounted by the lectors, the story of the fall of both Man and creation. Then, water, a symbol of creation and the fundamental element of creation itself, is blessed and made into the matter of our salvation in Christ, Who Himself first made it holy in creating it and then re-sanctified it by seeking St. John's baptism in the Jordan. He brought the world back into Himself in that act and segmented a new creation that the baptized join. So water is blessed and sprinkled on the faithful. Catechumens join that new creation in Baptism themselves. This transcends decoration around simple Sacraments of Baptism and Communion. Indeed, it is this liturgical context that those Sacraments make sense. The re-visitation of the divine mysteries continues in the morning with the Mass, "I am risen and am still with you." The Church uses the psalm in the present tense and does not adapt it to a commemorative tone. Similarly, the collect of Pascha refers to the Resurrection as having transpired hodierna. The Byzantine rite also speaks of the Resurrection as a current reality, singing countless times "Christ is risen from the dead...." On Holy Saturday, Pascha, and the other Sundays, ferial days, and feasts of the year, the faithful see the Trinity, the Sacraments, and the Saints as they really are and are united to heaven in the sacred rites, when God comes down from heaven and gives the Christian a glimpse above in a heavenly tongue.

"All of Paradise is close to the altar when I celebrate Mass. The angels
attend my Mass in legions. The Virgin assists me."

To those who think this "high" interpretation inappropriate or misguided, the author poses the question: why consecrate a church? The objection to interpreting the liturgy as a very real thing which imbues the sensus fidelium by bringing the faithful to the sacred acts of Christ usually rests on the misguided belief that a religious act is either real or symbolic, but never both. Yet Baptism is both real and symbolic. It symbolizes creation, restoration, the eighth day, the Divine Adoption, and the cleansing of spiritual dirt. And still, it actually accomplishes all these things and incorporates a person into the Body of Christ, the Church. The Cathedral of Our Savior at the Lateran palace in Rome was the first church ever to be consecrated in the sense that churches are consecrated. It is not a Sacrament and the rejection of a high view of the liturgy would necessarily elicit one to interpret the actions as a series of exorcisms and drawn-out, pious actions of instruction. Does the church then become a house of God? Can there be such a thing as a house of God in a post-Mosaic Law Church without the authority of the Church to develop and deepen its tradition to allow for such an act of consecration? The Church does indeed symbolize the Temple of Jerusalem and the future New Jerusalem of heaven, but it is actually a very real house of God where, as in heaven, God lives and dwells and, for a few hours a week, acts. If the liturgy is anything less, then it is just bad literature.

The purpose of the liturgy, especially during the great periods of the year, is to unite the faithful to God so that they might know Him and save their souls. He gathers them to Himself and to His new Jerusalem, the Church, and to His Body, again, the Church. The belief and the sensus fidelium of the Church is diffused among the various rites and usages the Church enjoins and has practiced through out the ages. Christ's Body, the Church on earth, is much like His physical body when He was present among us in flesh in that it is organic and prone to growth. I recall years ago reading interviews with both a prominent sedevacantist and a priest of the FSSPX. Both were asked if a pope could create a new rite of Mass and both answered "In theory, yes, but the New Mas is bad, so we reject it." I think a more prudent reply excludes the possibility that the pope, or any bishop, can create a new liturgy or discard large portions of the old liturgy. Many of the additions to the Roman rite over the years—introductory rites in the Office, hymns, prayers before the altar, the offertory, the monastic choir ceremonies, the Eastern feasts imported etc—were just that, additions, neither replacements nor fabrications. If we concede this point, then we lose part of the sensus fidelium and instead embrace the inner-mind of some dodgy bishop. Worse yet, we lose the greater meaning of the mysteries and lessen the Sacraments, turning them into transmission channels for grace and nothing more. To retain the sensus fidelium and keep the faith, we ought to guard the liturgy of the Church with Davidic fortitude lest we embrace Christ as we want Him to be and not as He actually is.

My fellow Americans: Happy Thanksgiving. Fast tomorrow!

Modern Church in 1318

One bad priest can irreparably destroy a community and the parish. We have been witnessing this first hand for the past several decades. Every other week, one article appears about a felonious priest who wrought misdeeds or taught heterodoxy decades ago only to be saved by his bishop; only now do the accusations come to light. Out of politeness and piety we smile, say it was an isolated shame, and pretend that the damage does not endure. It does. Perhaps we would do well to consider an example from history that parallels our modern travails quite well.

In the early 14th century, an abbot-turned-bishop in Pamiers, Jacques Fournier, was eager to root out remnants of the Cathar heresy in his diocese in southern France near the Spanish border in the Midi-Pyrénées, a region so separate from the rest of France that its native tongue was Occitan. He was given a tip about a potentially heterodox conversation involving the parish priest of Montaillou, Pierre Clergue. Bishop Jacques launched an inquisition into Montaillou and discovered that virtually the entire town had slipped into either heresy or apostasy. While the rest of southern France had left Catharism and returned to the true faith, either by compulsion or, in fewer cases, with the help of Dominican preaching, this small town held firm to the ascetic religion which denied many fundamental doctrines of the Church, held the physical world to be evil and scorned, and which held their perfecti as the models and exemplars of human behavior. Worse yet, After years of investigation, Fourner found that Clergue himself was the root of the problem. Simultaneously, he lived off the Church and celebrated the Sacraments while giving private instruction in Catharistic ideas. Unlike mainstream Cathars, who in their scorn of the body denied pro-creative relations, Clergue and his brother were willing to have sex anywhere at any time. He leveraged his authority, his false teachings, and his lust over the women of Montaillou. Beatrix de Planissoles recounted that Clergue first approached her sexually while he was hearing Confessions behind the altar of St. Mary Magdalen in the village chapel of St. Peter. He told her that the Sacraments of Confession and Eucharist are meaningless, that the body is evil and hence God would not deign to enter it and that Confession does nothing, only Confession to God is meaningful. On these grounds, he continued his priestly ministry, saying Mass and granting absolutions, because he needed ecclesiastical revenues to support his lifestyle, but he did not believe it one bit. One villager openly professed that Christ did not pre-exist time, God did not make the world, and that Jesus came into the world by "screwing," as did everyone else. Clergue enjoyed a year and a half of sexual encounters with Beatrix and many other women in the village, staging liaisons in barns, his rectory, and even in the chapel itself. He kept them quiet by maintaining good relations with the diocesan office and threatening to report the more active Cathars for heresy. As the informant, he would enjoy credibility with the inquisition. It was not to be. Fournier threw Clergue into prison, where he rotted until drawing his last breath. Most of the town surrendered their Cathar beliefs and accepted various kinds of public penance such as wearing a yellow cross. Five remained in open, obdurate apostasy and were burned at the stake. Sixteen years later bishop Jacques was elected pope. 

There will be no rescue by the institutional Church, no grand restoration that will put our many modern Pierre Clergues in prison and bereft them of their pensions. We overestimate our woes though if we assume that the modern debacle is without precedent. It happened in France in 1318. The difference is that back then, those looking from the outside inward knew something was amiss.

This Morning

Pontifical Divine Liturgy with Bishop Kurt at St John Chrysostom....