Liturgical Dance -- Very Much Alive.

From Catholic and Loving It:

     

This was apparently the Mass celebrated by Bishop Tom Williams, Auxiliary of Liverpool, at 3:00 PM on January 6, to welcome the relics of St. John Bosco to the Metropolitan Cathedral.

Benedict XVI on the task of bishops in our own time

How can we not think, in this context, of the task of a Bishop in our own time? The humility of faith, of sharing the faith of the Church of every age, will constantly be in conflict with the prevailing wisdom of those who cling to what seems certain. Anyone who lives and proclaims the faith of the Church is on many points out of step with the prevalent way of thinking, even in our own day. Today’s regnant agnosticism has its own dogmas and is extremely intolerant regarding anything that would question it and the criteria it employs. Therefore the courage to contradict the prevailing mindset is particularly urgent for a Bishop today. He must be courageous. And this courage or forcefulness does not consist in striking out or in acting aggressively, but rather in allowing oneself to be struck and to be steadfast before the principles of the prevalent way of thinking. The courage to stand firm in the truth is unavoidably demanded of those whom the Lord sends like sheep among wolves. “Those who fear the Lord will not be timid”, says the Book of Sirach (34:16). The fear of God frees us from the fear of men.  It liberates.

Here I am reminded of an episode at the very beginning of Christianity which Saint Luke recounts in the Acts of the Apostles. After the speech of Gamaliel, who advised against violence in dealing with the earliest community of believers in Jesus, the Sanhedrin summoned the Apostles and had them flogged. It then forbade them from preaching in the name of Jesus and set them free. Saint Luke continues: “As they left the council, they rejoiced that they were considered worthy to suffer dishonour for the name of Jesus. And every day… they did not cease to teach and proclaim Jesus as the Messiah” (Acts 5:40ff.).  The successors of the Apostles must also expect to be repeatedly beaten, by contemporary methods, if they continue to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a way that can be heard and understood. Then they can rejoice that they have been considered worthy of suffering for him. Like the Apostles, we naturally want to convince people and in this sense to obtain their approval. Naturally, we are not provocative; on the contrary we invite all to enter into the joy of that truth which shows us the way. The approval of the prevailing wisdom, however, is not the criterion to which we submit. Our criterion is the Lord himself. If we defend his cause, we will constantly gain others to the way of the Gospel. But, inevitably, we will also be beaten by those who live lives opposed to the Gospel, and then we can be grateful for having been judged worthy to share in the passion of Christ.

Benedict XVI

Homily on the Solemnity of the Epiphany

January 6, 2013

Photo source: Reuters.

Another monastery rediscovers its traditional Rite

Vyšší Brod (photo source)

One of the least-known major news stories of 2012 for the "world of Tradition" in the Latin Rite has been the return of the Cistercian monastery of Vyšší Brod in the Czech Republic (see also their more updated Czech website) to the traditional Cistercian Rite (as it existed prior to Vatican II).

Although the monastery's own website seems to show that it still uses the Novus Ordo, we have received confirmation that the monastery now has its daily Conventual Mass (Sunday to Saturday) and its whole Divine Office according to the Traditional Cistercian Rite. We expect that the website will eventually be amended to reflect this change.

Vyšší Brod belongs to the Ordo Cisterciensis (O.Cist) or Cistercians of the Common Observance.

Mass in the Monastery. (Source)

Vyšší Brod is now the third monastery in the Benedictine tradition (after the Trappist monastery of Mariawald and the Benedictine monastery in Norcia) to make the switch, in the years since the promulgation of Summorum Pontificum, from being all "Reformed Rite" to being predominantly or exclusively Traditional Rite.

The following is a video of a Pontifical Mass celebrated in Vyšší Brod by Dom Josef Vollberg OCSO, Abbot of Mariawald, on December 15 of this year. 

Epiphany: to work our our salvation is to distinguish ourselves from the rest of men

Jean-Baptiste Massillon,
Bishop of Clermont

The cause, my brethren, of truth being always unavailingly shown to us is that we judge not it by the lights which it leaves in our soul, but by the impression which it makes on the rest of men with whom we live: we never consult the truth in our heart; we consult only the opinions which others have of it. Thus, in vain doth the light of Heaven a thousand times intrude upon us, and point out the ways in which we ought to go; the very first glance which we afterward cast upon the example of others who live like us, revives us, and spreads a fresh mist over our heart. In those fortunate moments when we consult the sole truth of our own conscience, we condemn ourselves; we tremble over the future; we promise to ourselves a new life; yet, a moment after, when returned to the world, and no longer consulting but the general example, we justify ourselves, and regain that false security which we had lost. We have no confidence in the truth which the common example disproves; we sacrifice it to error and to the public opinion; it becomes suspicious to us, because it has chosen out us alone to favor with its light, and the very singularity of the blessing is the cause of our ingratitude and opposition. 

We cannot comprehend, that, to work out our salvation, is to distinguish ourselves from the rest of men; is to live single amidst the multitude; is to be an individual supporter of our own cause, in the midst of a world which either condemns or despises us; is, in a word, to count examples as nothing, and to be affected by our duty alone. We cannot comprehend, that, to devote ourselves to destruction, it requires only to live as others do; to conform to the multitude; to form with it only one body and one world; seeing the world is already judged ; that it is that body of the antichrist which shall perish with its head and members; that criminal city, accursed and condemned to an eternal anathema. 

Yes, my brethren, the greatest obstacle in our hearts, to grace and truth, is the public opinion. How many timid souls, who have not the courage to adopt the righteous side, merely because the world, to whose view they are exposed, would join against them! Thus, the king of Assyria dares not declare himself for the God of Daniel, because the grandees of his court would have reprobated such a step. How many weak souls, who, disgusted with pleasures, only continue to pursue them through a false honor, and that they may not distinguish themselves from those who set an example of them! Thus, Aaron, in the midst of the Israelites, danced around the golden calf, and joined them in offering up incense to the idol which he detested, because he had not the courage, singly, to resist the public error and blindness. Fools that we are! It is the sole example of the public which confirms us against truth; as if men were our truth, or that it were upon the earth, and not in heaven, that we ought, like the magi, to search for that rule and that light which are to guide us.

It is true, that, frequently, it is not respect for the world's opinion, but the sufferings and self-denials it holds out to us, which extinguish truth in our heart: thus, it makes us sorrowful, like that young man of the Gospel, and we do not receive it with that delight testified by the magi on seeing the miraculous star. They had beheld the magnificence of Jerusalem, the pomp of its buildings, the majesty of its temple, the splendour and grandeur of Herod's court; but the Gospel makes no mention of their having been affected by that vain display of human pomp: they behold all these grand objects of desire without attention, pleasure, or any exterior marks of admiration or surprise; they express no wish to view the treasures and the riches of the temple, as those ambassadors from Babylon formerly did to Hezekiah: solely taken up with the light of Heaven manifested to them, they have no eyes for any earthly object; guided by the truth alone which has enlightened them, every thing else is an object of indifference, or a burden to them; and their heart, viewing all things in their proper light, no longer acknowledges either delight, interest, or consolation to be found in any thing but the Truth.

Bishop Jean-Baptiste Massillon

Sermon for the Feast of the Epiphany

[Recess for several days.]

Pocket-sized Diurnale Romanum

A truly useful liturgical publication  has recently come our way - not exactly a new book, but a new version of an old acquaintance: the Diurnale Romanum (the day hours of the Breviarium Romanum). Its original version, in perfect accordance with the 1960 rubrics, is well known, and loved by many in Traditional communities - see reviews for it here and here, for instance. This large original version is 4 1/2 x 7 1/2 in, and, as it is quite bulky, it seems to defeat one of the main purposes of a Diurnale.

Now, a new version of this Diurnale is available in 3 1/4 x 5 1/4 in, or 8.5 x 13.5 cm, slightly smaller than a 32mo and about an inch thick, a truly pocket-sized version. While the original version has a hard cloth cover and clumsy square corners (in the cover), the new pocket-size comes in a flexible leatherette cover, with rounded corners. The typesetting is (or seems to be) exactly the same as in the larger version, in the appropriate red and black printing. The only drawbacks in our opinion are that, differently from the larger version, the first pages with repeated prayers are not in heavier/thicker paper, and that it still comes with only four ribbons - one or two more would be welcome . Some kind of cover or slip would also be much appreciated. In any event, this little book is a great gift for a traditional priest, or for any layman who prays the hours, as long as they have reasonable eyesight (the printing is excellent and wonderfully readable, but naturally the letters are smaller than what many prefer). 

We have no idea if a bilingual Latin-English version, similar to the Latin-German one mentioned by us here in the past, is being planned by any publishing house.

[The small Diurnale is available online, as far as we are aware, only in the bookstore/boutique of the Abbey of Sainte-Madeleine du Barroux - as Diurnale Romanum (format poche), but the image does not exactly match the actual book. The larger version is widely available. As usual, this is a disinterested post, and the book was bought.]

Mercy begins with denouncing of sin

Today it seems that the condemnation of sin has disappeared from the Church.

We are not saying that it is, or that sin is no longer declared as such; we are simply saying that it is done timidly and sweetly, to appear, even for the Church, not a grave matter. Yes, generally speaking, today it is done so. If an action is still defined as sinful, instantly a work of softening up the accusation begins, so as not to frighten the sinner, so as to make him feel welcome, declaring immediately that mercy triumphs over (everything). However, the mercy of God is understood well only if the complete gravity of the sin has been grasped. Today, sadly, this line prevails in the Church and is disastrous from the point of view of the care of souls - disastrous for pastoral work - as it is typically called today.

It is not only the world that has wreaked the moral havoc of today. It is too easy to blame only those on the outside! It is we who have not spoken anymore with clarity on the gravity of sin – of mortal sin and of the danger to souls who die in a state of final impenitence. It is we who have “trifled” speaking of sin and mercy (almost as if this is a preventive concession in the betrayal of God) and thus not helping souls to mend their ways and live according to God. To live in sin means to lose your life. We no longer say that sin displeases God, that it ruins our existence here on earth and closes Paradise (to us). We no longer speak about the pain of sin, of contrition - and afterwards we are astonished that nobody confesses anymore!

The new line began when the (“modern”) Church started saying that the medicine of mercy is to be preferred to that of condemnation. Yes, even a Council was held in order to declare that [the Church] no longer wanted to condemn error. By authority it was decided , for example, to keep silent about the “religious” evil of the 20th century – atheistic communism with all its errors and horrors.

By contrast, the Church of the past never differentiated mercy from the condemnation of sin! They are both necessary actions in the work of God, in the work of the salvation of souls: the serious condemnation of sin opens the soul to the possibility of that sorrow which saves, and mercy bestows the grace of forgiveness to those who ask for it.

Let us finish with a page from J.H. Newman’s Apologia pro Vita Sua, where in addressing the infallibility of the Church, he presents it in this way:

“And first, the initial doctrine of the infallible teacher must be an emphatic protest against the existing state of mankind. Man had rebelled against his Maker. It was this that caused the divine interposition: and to proclaim it must be the first act of the divinely-accredited messenger. The Church must denounce rebellion as all possible evils, the greatest. She must have no terms with it; if she would be true to Her Master, She must ban and anathematize it. […] The Catholic Church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one willful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse.”*

We see how Blessed Cardinal Newman, erroneously considered as a precursor of Vatican II, echoes the great Tradition of the Church, and also on the aspects of morality is of keen and simple clarity. Completely different are the pastoral lucubrations of today, which have produced parishes where the majority of the faithful live in structured, mortal sin.

Let us listen to Newman, let us listen to the Church: Mercy begins with the denouncing of sin, articulating it in all its gravity.

*Chapter 5, Apologia pro Vita Sua

[Editorial: Radicati nella fede, January 2013, bulletin of the Catholic community of Domodossola and Vocogno, Diocese of Novara, Italy - Translation and tip: Contributor Francesca Romana]

A publication worth your attention: The St. Edmund Campion Missal & Hymnal for the Traditional Latin Mass

In issuing Summorum Pontificum the Holy Father, Benedict XVI, spoke of giving the Usus Antiquior its proper place, and preserving the treasury of the Church’s faith and prayer. Thanks to his generosity, many souls have been able to discover the riches contained in its prayers, chants, signs, gestures, and moments of silence.

The first time one attends the Usus Antiquior he quickly discovers that it is multilayered, as is the tradition in other Rites. He may choose to pray the Offertory chant, or the prayers silently said by the priest at the same time, or simply follow the gestures which accompany them. Indeed, the riches never seem to be exhausted, but there is another level to discover; as the first text of the liturgy for Sundays after Pentecost exclaims: O altitudo divitiarum sapientiae et scientiae Dei!

One of the great efforts of Benedict XVI has been to restore the liturgy to its proper place in the life of the faithful. One can see an increase in articles, sermons, and courses which try to encourage the faithful to enter into this liturgical life. Perhaps no greater aid is available to the faithful than the missal used at each Mass.

For this reason, the St. Edmund Campion Missal & Hymnal for the Traditional Latin Mass is an important contribution for souls desiring to delve into the vast wealth of the Usus Antiquior. It is more than a translation of the Mass into the vernacular. In a certain sense it is analogous to the Rites themselves in that it is multilayered. One who first picks it up can use it to follow the texts or the gestures through the pictures for both Low Mass and Solemn Mass. For one who is already familiar, it also provides references to the meaning and history of these same prayers, chants, signs and gestures, and thereby serves to encourage one to dig deeper and come to know the “depth of the riches” of the Church’s liturgy.

The Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter was therefore very pleased to make a small contribution to the St. Edmund Campion Missal by providing the setting for the Mass pictures at its parish in Rome and the church of St. Michael at its General House in Fribourg, Switzerland. Fittingly, under the altar in the latter, St. Peter Canisius is buried. This great apostle of the Catholic, postTridentine Restoration worked tirelessly to instruct souls and help them come to a better understanding of their faith. This missal follows very much in that tradition; may it serve in the work of restoration in our times as well !

Rev. John Berg

Superior General, Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter

26 September, 2012

Ss. John de Brébeuf, Isaac Jogues & Companions

This is the foreword of a remarkable new missal for the laity, a nearly 1000-page heavily illustrated pew missal published by Corpus Christi Watershed, the St. Edmund Campion Missal, now available for pre-ordering. 

The features of this new work, that intends to highlight the whole beauty of the Traditional Mass, are quite extensive, and are presented in the video below - one of our favorites is the placing, side by side, of some ancient images of liturgical books, some over over 1200 years old, with the exact same words used by the Latin Church all the way down to the 1962 typical edition. This feature displays in a stunning fashion how Traditional Catholics worship with the exact same words used by their Roman Rite ancestors in the faith from time immemorial .

More information and pre-ordering here. We hope it soon becomes available in versions in different languages, it seems an excellent introduction to the Traditional Mass. [As usual, this is a disinterested presentation.] 

Cardinal Stickler and Michael Davies, precursors of Summorum Pontificum

The following article was published by Vatican Insider soon after the Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage to Rome, in November. Its translation was recently sent to us by a reader.

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The precursors of the Motu proprio "Summorum Pontificum"

Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos speaks about Cardinal Stickler and Michael Davies, who promoted the revival of the ancient liturgy

Alberto Carosa

Rome

The pilgrimage of the Summorum Pontificum people did not end only with a religious moment, the pontifical in the extraordinary ritecelebrated at the chair of  St. Peter’s basilica by the Prefect of Divine Worship, Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, and greeted by a message from the Pope to the faithful, but was followed by a more "secular" evening event: a conference organized by Centro Culturale Lepanto  (CCL) led by Fabio Bernabei at the Centro Russia Ecumenica in Borgo Pio: “They lived in expectation of Summorum Pontificum: Cardinal Alfons Stickler (1910-2007) - Dr. Michael Davies (1936-2004)”.

Bishop Fellay: A Look Back at 2012

Rorate note: If you plan to post this audio link, which is exclusive to Rorate Caeli, or any other original Rorate work, especially our translations, please properly cite your source as being Rorate Caeli, if only as a simple matter of courtesy. 

As we ring in the Year of Our Lord 2013, Bp. Bernard Fellay, superior general of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), takes a look back at 2012, and the constant drama surrounding the talks between Rome and the Society - according to his view of things. 

While there's not much new news here, there are some fascinating anecdotes, which will surely keep the Vatican press office busy for a few weeks fielding questions on who really said what.

Listen here to the audio, delivered December 28 at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Ontario, Canada.

Lepers no more

From the Bollettino of the acts of the Holy See, the following nominations were made public on this last day of the year:

The Holy Father Benedict XVI has named Judges of the Court of Appeals of the Vatican City State the Rev. Msgr. Egidio Turnaturi and the Honorable Dr. Riccardo Turrini Vita.

So what? As Sandro Magister recalls today, the Honorable Judge is a member of Una Voce Italia - not only a member, but former President and part of the current Presiding Council elected in 2011. He was named based on his great personal merits, but his obviously public attachment to the Traditional Mass has not hindered him.

Auguri per il nuovo incarico!

Plenary Indulgence reminders: Te Deum on Dec. 31 Veni Creator on Jan. 1

26

§ 1. A plenary indulgence is granted to the Christian faithful who, in a church or in an oratory, are present [take part] in a recitation or solemn chant of: ... 

1° the hymn Veni Creator ... on the first day of the year, imploring divine assistance for the whole of the coming year...

2° the Te Deum hymn, on the last day of the year, in thanksgiving to God for the favors received in the course of the entire year.

(Reference: Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, 4th edition, al. concessiones.)

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Gratias agimus tibi, omnipotens Deus,

pro universis beneficiis tuis,

qui vivis et regnas in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

A happy new year to our readers and their families!

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This is the sign of the Church always, the Sign of Blood

Seven years were my people without my presence;
Seven years of misery and pain.
Seven years a mendicant on foreign charity I lingered abroad:
Seven years is no brevity.
I shall not get those seven years back again.
Never again, you must make no doubt,
Shall the sea run between the shepherd and his fold.

...

It is not I who insult the King,
And there is higher than I or the King.
It is not I, Becket from Cheapside,
It is not against me, Becket, that you strive.
It is not Becket who pronounces doom,
But the Law of Christ's Church, the judgement of Rome.

...

I am here.
No traitor to the King.
I am a priest,
A Christian, saved by the blood of Christ,
Ready to suffer with my blood.
This is the sign of the Church always,
The sign of blood.
Blood for blood.
His blood given to buy my life,
My blood given to pay for His death.
My death for His death.

...

For my Lord I am now ready to die,
That His Church may have peace and liberty.

T. S. Eliot

Murder in the Cathedral

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Our yearly post in honor of Saint Thomas Becket.

Christmastide recess

Manuel Sanz Domínguez, Restorer, Martyr

Fr. Manuel Sanz Domínguez, Martyr

In the agitation that followed the promulgation of the decree recognizing the "heroic virtues" of a recent pontiff, many great names remained somewhat in the shadow, including a long list of new martyrs now recognized, who were killed by the Spanish Republican forces in the greatest anti-Catholic persecution of the 20th century.

Keeping our long-held devotion to this blessed multitude of martyrs, we will present some of those who will be beatified in the upcoming months, beginning on this feast of the Holy Innocents.

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Spain and Portugal brought countless millions to the Church of God - a work of great missionary orders. But back home, many religious men and women stayed "behind" helping with their cloistered prayers the expansion of the Catholic faith through the great enterprise of the Discoveries. Among these was one particular order that is quintessentially Iberian, and whose houses were always greatly favored by the Iberian royal houses: the Hieronymites (the Jerónimos).

In Lisbon, the greatest national monument is their splendid Monastery, in whose abbatial church the great navigator Vasco da Gama is buried: Santa Maria de Belém. (Below, the leaders of the European Union sign the Lisbon Treaty in front of the Monastery - expropriated by the government in the 19th century.)

Cuius regio, eius religio.

In Spain, the Jerónimos were also everywhere: their well-deserved fame of sobriety and religious seriousness led them to receive intense royal support. It was in their Royal Monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in Cáceres, in 1486, that Christopher Columbus first tried to persuade Queen Isabella that his design could have great religious consequences for Castille.

Abp. Hernando de Talavera

It was the Queen's confessor and main spiritual advisor, Fray Hernando de Talavera, Prior of the Jerónimos of Valladolid, who would convince her to support the adventurous Italian. It was also to the same Royal Monastery that Queen Isabella would return to give thanks to God and the Virgin for the reconquest of Granada, in 1492, having Talavera appointed first Archbishop of Granada.

Cloister, Royal Monastery of
Santa María de Guadalupe, Cáceres

It was in the Hieronymite monastery of Yuste that Emperor Charles V chose to remain in the last few years of his life. It was in the San Jerónimo Monastery of Madrid that he would have his son Philip proclaimed Prince of Asturias in front of the Cortes. It was for the Jerónimos that King Philip II would build one of the greatest religious bulidings of all time, the Royal Monastery and Palace of San Lorenzo de El Escorial. As in Portugal, in Spain a liberal monarchy would also expel the Jerónimos from their houses in the 19th century, though most Spanish religious buildings were later returned to the Church.

While the feminine branch of the Order managed to survive the ordeal in Spain - but not in Portugal - the monks were disbanded, apparently forever.

Until, that is, a 37-year-old layman tried and managed to do the impossible, reconstitute the most significantly Iberian monastic order: and he did in under 12 years, right in the middle of the most troubled time in Spanish history.

Moved by Providence and encouraged by the remaining feminine houses, Manuel Sanz Domínguez, a high manager in a bank, left his life as a banker and went to Rome in 1923-24, persuading the Curial authorities that he had what it took to restore the Order. And he established it in 1925, in the ruined remains of the Hieronymite house of the Royal Monastery of Santa María del Parral, just outside Segovia.

The troubled years of the Second Spanish Republic, founded in 1931, did not hamper his work - but the restorer, ordained to the priesthood in 1928, was caught in the anti-Catholic wave that swept through Spain in the 1930s, and grew much worse during the Soviet-inspired Republican response to the alzamiento of July 18, 1936. It was not only the active religious who were threatened, the contemplative orders were persecuted with particular ferocity. And Fr. Manuel Sanz was captured, imprisoned, murdered and buried in the greatest open-air reliquary in the world, the Field of Saints that is in Paracuellos de Jarama, outside Madrid. (Previous post on the Paracuellos massacre here. Note: the Augustinian friars who were placed in charge of El Escorial in the 19th century were also almost entirely annihilated at Paracuellos. El Escorial remains an Augustinian house.)

The Monastery that remains today is only one, El Parral, but it stands - as always, the nuns have expanded much more. Only six members were left alive following the Republican persecution. The Hironymites were also, of course, hit by the modernizing trends of the 1960s: Father Manuel Sanz would never recognize the liturgy forced upon Spain after the Council. But considering the war and the Council, the fact that they are still there is nothing short of amazing. He did his part, and was called by God to receive his glorious crown in 1936. With such a powerful intercessor, it is unlikely that the Jerónimos and Jerónimas are going to disappear anytime soon.

Cementerio de los Mártires, Paracuellos de Jarama, Madrid

Das ist sehr cool!

Saint Stephen's Cathedral (Stephansdom), Vienna

[Tip: pius.info]

The Reform in the Trappist Abbey of Mariawald: "Putting God back at the center of the life of the monastery"

Divine Office in Mariawald, prior to the renewal of the High Altar (source) 

In 2008, the sole Trappist Monastery in Germany, the Abbey of Mariawald, became the first (and, so far, the only) Trappist monastery to completely return to the pre-Conciliar liturgical books since the liturgical reforms of the 1960s. The Abbot of Mariawald, Dom Josef Vollberg, was interviewed very recently by Paix Liturgique, which has published a partial English translation of the interview: “Restoring Her Youth To the Church”: an interview with the Abbot of Mariawald". I would like to highlight the following portion of the interview (emphases mine):

2) Can you tell us the motivations that led you to embrace the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum and to choose the extraordinary form at your Abbey, late in 2008? 

Dom Josef: In our community there had been no visible fruits of the changes brought about by the second Vatican Council and our numbers had fallen drastically. From 1965 to 2011, many monks left the monastery and we had only two confirmed vocations.

And so, faced with the new liturgy's anthropocentric tendency, the desire was born to put God back at the center of the life of the monastery. Just as a tree lives only when it is fed by the energy it draws up through its roots, so too the monk (and not only the monk!) needs the wisdom of a centuries-old treasure to restore her youth to the Church.

Note that the liturgy at Mariawald is not completely identical with the Roman rite. It has its own specific features in terms of the calendar, Eucharistic liturgy, and especially as far as concerns the Breviary (the Liturgy of the Hours).

3) What changes has this choice meant for your religious life?

Dom Josef: The reform as (sic) made the monks' spiritual life more demanding. The new--understand “ancient”--liturgy requires an appropriate learning process: singing Gregorian chant is an art that demands a specific formation; attention to Latin as the proper language of worship demands willpower and diligence; reciting the Breviary takes longer and starting the Office at 3am demands a true willingness to surrender onself. All these sacrifices are rewarded by the discovery of heretofore unknown riches.

Service at the altar too requires appropriate training and the faithful themselves have to be formed to the liturgy versus Deum. Celebration versus Deum rather than versus populum demands a different kind of 'participatio actuosa' on their part--and for the most part, a more conscious one. Communion on the tongue also leads to deeper adoration. By the way, the Holy Father himself distributes Communion on the tongue in the Novus Ordo, thus giving an example of the much desired “reform of the reform.”

4) What influence has it had on the quality of your community life?

Dom Josef: Forty years of the new liturgy make any new change of orientation difficult, especially for the older brethren.

These days, however, the earlier tensions have eased and the situation is more serene. Openness to the Church's uninterrupted tradition and the more intense spiritual life are slowly bearing fruit, especially when it comes to new vocations. There is no room for impatience. If I may use the image of one of the Abbey's friends: reforming Mariawald is like turning around an ocean liner going at full steam: it takes time. Mariawald needs time . . . and also everyone's prayers.

5) What assessment are you in a position to make of this choice today? Has it had an effect on the vocations you have been attracting?

Dom Josef: If you wish to ask me for an assessment, I would say: “I would do it again, despite many, and sometimes subtle, difficulties.” There have been and there still are many candidates to enter at Mariawald: since the 2008 reform, between forty and fifty. But most of them do not stay because of the demands specific to the strict rule that we observe. This reflects a general phenomenon in our present-day society: the inability to commit on the long term. Ones sees it in the refusal to marry, the ever more general practice of cohabitation, and the increasing number of civil divorces.

This fear of commitment reaches all religious orders and is not tied to the nature of our reform. In 2008 we were twelve monks at the monastery. Two have since passed away. Today, therefore, there are ten of us, including a brother who has recently made his solemn profession (there's one who isn't afraid to commit!). We also have a novice and shall welcome a postulant this year, and there are two or three people who have shown serious interest in joining us. We also have three monks who live outside the monastery.

Christmas Octave: Devotion to the Child Jesus First part

The devotion to the Child Jesus

Fr. Alban Cras, FSSP - Conference 

The devotion to the Child Jesus goes back to the very origins of Christianity. There are somewhat legendary depictions of the Child Jesus in the Apocryphal Gospels (cf. Infancy Gospel of Thomas, that presents a super-hero Child Jesus). We then see the Child Jesus appear notably to Saint Jerome, and also to Saint Catherine of Alexandria.

In the Middle Ages, the entire world is aware of the closeness between Saint Anthony of Padua and the Child Jesus. But it was in the 16th century that the devotion to the childhood of Christ received a great boost thanks to the Theresian reform; therefore, it was mainly the Carmelite spirituality that favored it. In all her travels, Saint Teresa of Avila took with her a statue of the Child Jesus, and she placed a new one in each new Carmel. It was thus that the Child Jesus was considered the true founder of each new monastery.

You are aware perhaps of the famous apparition of the Child Jesus to Saint Teresa of Avila, whose name in religion was Teresa of Jesus. The Child Jesus appeared to Teresa on a staircase in the monastery of the Incarnation, and told her: "You, you are Teresa of Jesus, and I am Jesus of Teresa."

All those sisters who accompanied Saint Teresa shared this devotion, and those who came to France to found the reformed Carmels naturally brought it with them. And precisely in France the arrival of the Spanish Carmelites was in great measure the work of Cardinal de Bérulle, one of the main founders of the French School of spirituality, that is so insistent on the Incarnation. Bérulle's theological choices prepared prepare him therefore to encourage the development in France of the devotion to the Child Jesus, and the Carmelites would play a great part in this.

One Carmelite in particular, the Venerable Margaret of the Most Holy Sacrament, entered the Carmel of Beaune at 11 and died, at 29, in 1648. She would have an immense influence, even in the Court of Louis XIII, because Queen Anne of Austria goes so far as to join the confraternity founded by her. The famed baron Gaston de Renty offers the Beaune Carmel a statue that will become famous under the title of King of Grace. It is a crowned Child Jesus, at once childlike and majestic. Margaret of the Most Holy Sacrament establishes a confraternity (the Family of the Holy Child Jesus), creates a "small rosary" of 15 beads, distributes thousands of images, and has the Child Jesus feasted on the 25th of every month.

But why this devotion to the Child Jesus? Because the childhood of Our Lord has something to teach us, it is filled with lessons, and the first lesson is certainly the path of spiritual childhood. And when we speak of the path of childhood we clearly think of another Carmelite, a successor of her mother Saint Teresa of Avila, but also of the first French Carmelites. This is obviously Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, or rather Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus. At the Lisieux Carmel, the statue of the Child Jesus that Thérèse was charged with decorating with flowers is preciously kept.

And why is it necessary for us to have a deep devotion to the Child Jesus? Baron de Renty describes the spirit of childhood as "a state in which life is lived day by day, in a perfect death to oneself, in complete abandonment to the will of the Father."

Marianne Stokes, Madonna and Child (detail)

The Child Jesus is, first, in the manger, an infinitely feeble and dependent being. He is Almighty, but He is reduced to helplessness, to swaddling clothes he cannot even move. Then he is forced to flee from Herod. "Exinanivit," says St. Paul: He reduced Himself, taking upon Himself our condition of captivity. Swaddled, he cannot move, as up on the Cross - or the Host. (cf. Bérullian portrayals of the Child Jesus). The state of childhood is primarily a state of confidence and abandonment.

[Published in Communicantes (Newsletter of the French District of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter), December 2012]

Christus natus est nobis

A very joyful Christmas and a blessed Christmastide to all!

Breviarium Romanum - In Nativitate Domini, ad matutinum

Antiphona ad invitatorium

Gaspar Fernandes (Évora, Portugal, 1566 - Puebla, New Spain, 1629)

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Grazie, Santità! Auguri anche a Lei!

You report: Midnight Mass in Australia And Christmas program in the land of Saint Benedict

Already our first report of a Midnight Mass - in Australia:

The Gloria is back!

Summorum Pontificum Wangaratta were blessed to again host Midnight Mass at Glenrowan (Victoria), a town made famous by the Bushranger, Ned Kelly.

The music was provided by a great choir based up in Albury (New South Wales) and was backed up beautifully with folks driving as far as Echuca (Vic.) and Canberra (ACT). SPWang would like to thank all those involved from singers and servers tothe flower ladies, and a special public thanks to Fr. Terence Mary Naughtin OFM Conv., whose tireless work helps provide the old Mass to those in more remote parts of Australia.

Merry Christmas!

And our friends at the Monastery of Saint Benedict in Nursia (Norcia, Umbria) send us the details of masses (all masses Traditional) today, tomorrow and on St. Stephen's for those who are anywhere nearby. Buon Natale!

The Most Hopeful Night for the Poor Souls

Below, please find the sixty-fifth posting of enrolled Souls of the Rorate Caeli Purgatorial Society.

It's been a long-held belief that Christmas is the time when the most souls are released from Purgatory. It is also said that the consecration of the Mass is the time that many souls are released. So for those of us going to Christmas Masses, the consecration at these Masses in particular, we know the graces pouring forth from the altar are sending many souls to Heaven. 

While they won't be posted online, please send the names of your deceased loved ones today. As long as they're in our inbox they're enrolled in the Society. Get them in just in time for Christmas then make your offertory intention for all the souls enrolled in the Rorate Caeli Purgatorial Society. 

How to enroll souls: please email me at athanasiuscatholic@yahoo.com and submit as follows: "Name, State, Country." If you want to enroll entire families, simply write in the email: "The Jones family, Ohio, USA". Individual names are preferred. Be greedy -- send in as many as you wish and forward this posting to friends as well.

Please consider forwarding this Society to your family and friends, announcing from the pulpit during Holy Mass or listing in your church bulletin. We need to spread the word and relieve more suffering souls.

Please pray for the enrolled Souls and the 17 holy priests saying Traditional Masses for the Society:

7 years of RORATE CÆLI - and a special gift: An essay on Modernism by Don Pietro Leone

Heinrich Isaac (1450-1517)
Propers, Mass of the Fourth Sunday in Advent: Introit

Today is Rorate Sunday, the Fourth Sunday in Advent, and a very special day for us: it is the seventh anniversary of this web log, founded on this same Sunday, 2005, and named after its introit - recurrent words throughout Advent, from its very first liturgical moment (First vespers of the First Sunday). It is a perfect day, then, for us to present a special essay on Modernism and why its presence is so strong in our days - by Don Pietro Leone Monselice, the pen name chosen by a traditional Catholic priest, whose solid work on the Traditional Roman Rite and the Pauline Rite we happily published in 2011.

We thank Father deeply for his new contribution to our website - and we also thank you, our readers, for the faithful readership in the past seven years. And thanks also to our followers on Twitter (@RorateCaeli).

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In his book “Athanasius”, Bishop Rudolf Graber, of Regensburg, explains how the Evil One in the course of the ages has attacked the Holy Catholic Church in ways increasingly refined, insidious, and intimate. He began by attacking the faithful through persecutions, but seeing that these lead rather to an increase of the Faith, he adopted another method: that of attacking the Faith itself.

With the heresies of Martin Luther he managed to detach a great number of people from the Catholic Church; with the heresies that comprise Modernism, he has even succeeded at present in contaminating the Faith of a great number of people within the Church Herself.

What is Modernism? Saint Pius X defines it in his encyclical Pascendi as “the synthesis of all heresies”. The Code of Canon Law (CIC. 751) defines heresy as: “the obstinate denial, after receiving baptism, of a truth which is to be believed by Divine and Catholic Faith, or the obstinate doubt concerning it…”

Now, what is defined by the words ‘a truth which is to be believed by Divine and Catholic Faith’ is Catholic dogma. We observe that Modernism has in fact a wider scope than Catholic dogma as here defined, in that it extends to all traditional Catholic doctrines, even if they have not yet been defined as dogmas. In other words, Modernism includes the denial not only of all dogmas, but also of all traditional Catholic doctrine.

For the purposes of this essay we shall understand ‘heresy’ in a wide sense, as the obstinate denial of any traditional Catholic doctrine (or the obstinate doubt in its regard).

First of all, we will present two particular characteristics of Modernism: 1. Ubiquity; 2. Obscurantism.

I The Characteristics of Modernism

1. Ubiquity

Ubiquity concerns the extension of the heresy.

In the past the Church always condemned heresies, and took this opportunity to formulate Her doctrines more profoundly and more clearly. Consequently, the rotten, heretical, branch of the Church was cut off from its healthy trunk; and the healthy trunk, nurtured by a new influx of the light of Truth, was able to flourish yet more gloriously than before.

For the past fifty years, by contrast, the heresies of Modernism have no longer been condemned; or if they have been condemned, they have been but seldom, feebly, and without sanctions. As a result almost the entire tree of the Church has by now been infested by error.

This infestation takes its cue from the Magisterium itself, from the teaching of the Church: of the hierarchy and the clergy. This said teaching constitutes an illegitimate use of the munus docendi entrusted to the Church by Our Lord Jesus Christ: a use illegitimate and therefore a use that also exceeds the competence of those who exercise it: a use that is extra vires.

At this point we observe that we understand the term ‘Magisterium’ as the organ or instrument of the munus docendi of the Church, and we distinguish two senses of the term: a positive sense which refers to its legitimate exercise; and a neutral sense, which is the sense in which we will understand it in this essay, which refers to its exercise simpliciter, without specifying if it is legitimate or illegitimate. That the Magisterium may be exercised in an illegitimate way, will be demonstrated by the examples given below. This is obvious, and may be denied only by an ideologist.

Modernism inside the Church is difficult to combat for various reasons:

-it is difficult to discern inasmuch as it is ubiquitous or omnipresent - Jacques Maritain speaks of ‘immanent apostasy’. This signifies that it has become part of the very fabric of the Church Herself, or, using another image, it has become too vast even to see;

-it is difficult to understand because it is obscurantist (as we shall show it in the next section);

-it is difficult to evaluate since in order to evaluate it, theological knowledge is required which is no longer taught in seminaries or in parishes, or at least not exclusively so taught;

-it is difficult to accept because it requires intellectual honesty and courage, which are necessary to face the doctrinal devastation in the Church today;

-it is difficult to criticize, above all for a priest, because he will be regarded not only as ‘hard’, but also as ‘lacking in piety’ or even ‘schismatic’ (or ‘crypto-schismatic’) towards the Church, the Pope, and the Magisterium (understood in the first sense of the term); and will have to steel himself for some mauvais quarts d’heure with his Superior or Bishop, and perhaps even the loss of his apostolate.

2. Obscurantism

Obscurantism concerns the communication of heresy. Heresy is the obstinate denial, or doubt, of a Catholic dogma. 1.

In the past, heresy was explicit. Examples are Martin Luther’s 95 Theses posted on the cathedral door at Wittenberg. Nowadays, by contrast, in the context of Modernism, the heresy is implicit: it is implied, insinuated, suggested, favoured by obscurantism.

This obscurantism operates in two principal ways: by silence or by equivocation (ambiguity). By silence a given doctrine is no longer taught; by equivocation it is expressed in a way that furthers heresy.

We shall consider each way in turn.

a) Silence

Many doctrines are passed over in silence, i.e. those that are considered “negative”, such as the existence of Hell, Mortal Sin, and sacrilegious Holy Communion.

Let us look at sacrilegious Communion. This doctrine is almost never taught or preached any more. In fact, the passage from Saint Paul that condemns it, which appears in the Old Roman Rite on the Feast of Corpus Christi and on Maundy Thursday, was suppressed in the New Rite.2.

Clearly this silence, as indeed silence on any article of doctrine, is not merely something neutral: the failure to accomplish an act; but something positive: a veritable act, an act of denial. Because if someone is entrusted with a doctrine to preach as a moral principle and does not preach it, the only explanation possible is that he does not deem it necessary for moral conduct, and therefore, for all intents and purposes, he denies it.

If a worker notifies the headmaster of a school that there is a live electric cable in a certain classroom, and cautions him to warn students not to enter for fear of electrocution, but the headmaster omits to warn them, his silence, for all intents and purposes, amounts to a denial of the fact in question.

To the Modernists’s silence on Catholic doctrines, we can apply the declaration of Pope Felix III regarding the Patriarch Acacio in the 6th century: ‘Error cui non resistitur approbatur, et veritas quae minime defensatur, opprimitur: error which is not opposed, is approved, and the truth which is defended only minimally, is oppressed’.

b) Equivocation

The second method of obscuring doctrine is equivocation. Let us put this equivocation in its context.

As for witnessing to the Faith, the Catholic assents to that which a doctrine declares and denies that which it denies: he says yes to yes and no to no, as the Lord Himself teaches us (Mt. 5.37): ‘But let your speech be yea, yea, no, no: and that which is over and above these is of the evil one.’ The heretic of the past, by contrast, says yes to no and no to yes; while the modern heretic, by means of equivocation, says yes and no to yes, and yes and no to no.

As for epistemology, it should be said that if a strength of dogma is its clarity, a strength of Modernism is its confusion. Clarity illuminates the mind to accept the truth, while confusion confounds the mind to accept falsity.

We will proceed to give three examples of equivocation.

i)The Ends of Marriage 3.

Until quite recently, the Holy Catholic Church has always taught that the primary end of Marriage is procreation, and the secondary end the reciprocal assistance, or love, between the spouses. Whereas at the Second Vatican Council, in the new code of Canon Law, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and in various recent encyclicals, love is now put in the first place and procreation in the second (without, however, explicitly defining love as “the primary end” nor procreation as “the secondary end”).

Let us ask ourselves the following questions: Was the doctrine of the past true and the doctrine of the present false? Or was the doctrine of the past false and the doctrine of the present true? Or was the doctrine of the past true then but is false now? Or was the doctrine of the past true in one sense and is the doctrine of the present true in another sense? And in this case, why does the doctrine of the present take precedence over that of the past? And answer comes there none.

ii)The Holy Mass

In the final version of Art.7 of the Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani (n. 27 in the 2000 typical edition of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal), the official introduction of the Novus Ordo Missae, the Holy Mass is presented in these terms: ‘Missa seu Cena dominica....memoriale Domini seu sacrificium eucharisticum: the Mass or The Lord’s Supper[…] the Commemoration of the Lord or the Eucharistic Sacrifice’. In other words the Holy Mass is identified with the Lord’s Supper in the first instance and with the Commemoration of the Lord in the second. This, however, is an equivocation. The Holy Mass is the Lord’s Supper and the Commemoration of the Lord (that is Calvary) in a certain sense (not essential), but presenting it thus simpliciter, suggests that it is so essentially: which is a Protestant position.4 In other words, to present Holy Mass in terms laden with a Protestant sense, is to present it in a Protestant sense.

iii)The Papacy

Professor Romano Amerio, in his contribution at the Theological Congress “Sì, si, no, no” ‘The Dislocation of the Function of the Magisterium’ cites the following initiative expressed in an official document about ecumenism: ‘to discover a form of exercise of the Papacy, which, while not renouncing anything essential to its mission, opens up to a new situation’ and he comments: “This means: it cannot be renounced, but at the same time it can be renounced. It is an absolute principle, but it is not an absolute principle. The infallibility of the Pope is an immutable rock ‘but’… and when you say the ‘but’ the move has already been made.’

c)The Nature of Obscurantism

In summary, we have given various examples in order to show how Modernism obscures Catholic doctrine: it obscures the Catholic doctrine on sacrilegious Communion; on the order of the ends of Marriage; on the sacrificial nature of Holy Mass; and on the primacy of Peter.

However, it does not only obscure these doctrines, but it obscures them in favour of heresy, since keeping silent about sacrilege is the same as denying it; the reversal in listing the ends of marriage insinuates a reversal of their valuation; presenting Holy Mass in Protestant terms, favours Protestant theology on the Eucharist; and qualifying that which is absolute relativises it.

This obscurantism can be considered as a sort of partial or total eclipse of the Faith. It is partial when it consists of an equivocation which does not amount to a formal contradiction; it is total when it passes over Catholic doctrine in silence, or when it expresses the doctrine in contradictory terms: since the denial of the principle of non-contradiction regarding a given doctrine is the denial of the very possibility of its truth. The result of such denial is a Faith without truth: a Faith determined merely by sentiments and subjective attitudes, which is no longer Faith at all.

II The Consequences of Modernism

If the heresy of the past is like ‘a dagger thrust’ in the words of the Abbé Dulac, the modernist heresy is like a slow poison, in such a way that one can go to bed at night with the Faith and wake up in the morning without it.

Modernism acts like a slow poison inasmuch as, by obscuring a dogma, it weakens the virtue of the Faith: that is to say it weakens the adherence of the will to revealed Truth. In this way Modernism disseminates doubt about all the dogmas of the Faith.

As a result, dogmas are labelled as ‘problems’: ‘the problem of the Resurrection’, ‘the problem of Original Sin’, ‘the problem of Hell’, etc. However, the dogmas of the Faith are not problems: rather they are supernatural Truths 5. They are problems only for those who deny the Faith.

The Faith becomes a problem, then, and is relegated to a place alongside other Religions, or is treated as one theme amongst a variety of others. In this way the Faith is substituted for “fables”: ‘they will refuse to listen to truth and will turn to fables’: a veritate quidem auditum avertent, ad fabulas autem convertentur’ (2. Tim.4.4).

The members of the hierarchy and clergy, then, in an illegitimate exercise of their munus docendi, lend importance to other Christian confessions or religions, or alternatively, abandon in large measure the teaching of the true Faith in favour of subjects such as anthropology, sociology, psychology, or politics. Abandoning definitions and anathemata, they make recourse in their official declarations to cascades of intellectualizing and impenetrable verbiage and in their sermons to stories and jokes

The emptiness of this teaching, once stripped of its sophistication, is manifested all too clearly in the children’s catechesis. What visions of truth and of holiness are given them in the pure days of their childhood to root them in the Faith and in the life of the sacraments and the virtues, and to summon them in the final hours of their life to the embrace of Divine Mercy?6.

Obscuring a doctrine, in particular by denying the principle of non-contradiction, has a further, and even more notable, effect, inasmuch as it not only obscures the Faith in its entirety, but also the very notion of Truth. For Catholic doctrines are Truths, objective Truths, indeed they are absolute Truths, more certain than the truths of the senses; and to claim that at the same time and in the same way they can be both true and false, is to deny the very possibility of Truth.

The further one departs from the conception of objective truth and reality, the closer one draws to that of subjective truth and reality. In so doing, however, one is on the road that leads to madness, because madness is nothing other than embracing subjective reality.

The order of the True yields to the order of the Good. Truth is no longer considered a guide to behaviour, but “love”: love, however that is no longer defined by reality. This love, inasmuch as it is rational, is manifested in humanism, a humanism lightly coloured by Christianity with a tendency towards activism; inasmuch as it is emotional, it is manifested in sentimentalism and the excessive concern for the sensibilities of others.

The objective yields to the subjective, and the river of Modernism flows back into that vast ocean of subjectivism from whence it came.

[MODERNISM: an essay by Don Pietro Leone Monselice. Translation: Contributor Francesca Romana]

Traditional Liturgy Schedules for Christmastide

We invite our readers to post in the combox about the schedules in their communities for Christmastide Masses, Matins and Vespers according to the Classical Roman Rite. Schedules of traditional devotions are also welcome. 

You Report: The Traditional Latin Mass in the Archdiocese of Toronto and Suffragan Dioceses

(For an earlier "You Report" article on the TLM in Ontario: You report: The TLM in Ontario)

Rorate has received this lengthy and valuable report from the Toronto Traditional Mass Society. 

The pictures accompanying this article come from the Rorate Mass celebrated on December 15, 2012 in Kinkora (Population 30 and 160 km northwest of Toronto) in the Diocese of London in Ontario. More pictures can be found on their Facebook page. 

Early history of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite in Toronto (post-Vatican II):

For decades the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite was never to be found in Toronto. For liturgical sanity in the Ordinary Form, one could have always attend St. Michael’s Cathedral  which preserved dignity in the liturgy with the aid of the renowned St. Michael’s Choir School which is affiliated with the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music. At times, there was the odd travelling priest and eventually the SSPX arrived once a week to celebrate Mass in a borrowed Ukrainian Catholic parish until that was aggressively stopped and then displaced to a university lecture hall. The SSPX eventually purchased an old Baptist building and converted it and began their apostolate which now includes a school about an hour from Toronto. 

A great blessing to Toronto was the erection almost 35 years ago, of the Toronto Oratory of St. Philip Neri . The Oratorians initiated the proper celebration of the Ordinary Form and set a standard unknown in 1978, even celebrating it in Latin. Eventually, they began celebrating the Extraordinary Form under the indult regime and they were only the second in the entire Archdiocese of Toronto to do this, the first being a kind and humble priest, Fr. Liam Gavigan, who was once alone in this work and to whom we owe so much. He is  now 80 but still going strong and celebrates two EF Masses every Sunday. The Oratorians now celebrate daily in their primary parish at Holy Family and on Sundays at their second parish, St. Vincent de Paul and within their various chapels at the Oratory and St. Philip’s Seminary. 

(For a more comprehensive listing of Extraordinary Form Masses in the Archdiocese of Toronto, as well as for a listing of Christmas liturgies according to the Extraordinary Form for Christmas in 2012, please see the list at the end of this article.)