Sacred Liturgy & Sacraments – Page 16

Vox Clara Committee meets in Rome this week

The group of bishops and experts who oversee the translation and promulgation of liturgical texts in English met in Rome this past week. Read the CNS story on the meeting by Cindy Wooden. Here is the press release.

The Vox Clara
Committee met from July 24-26 in Rome. This Committee of senior Bishops from
Episcopal Conferences throughout the English-speaking world was formed by the
Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments on July
19, 2001 in order to provide advice to the Holy See concerning English-language
liturgical books and to strengthen effective cooperation with the Conferences
of Bishops in this regard.

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Monastic Worship Forum launched

Periodically the Benedictine monks, nuns and sisters meet to discuss issues pertaining the sacred Liturgy and sacred music as done in their monasteries. They met two weeks ago at the Archabbey of Saint Meinrad for the meeting and decided to formally merge the liturgical and musicians’ groups into one: The Monastic Worship Forum. This work has been in process since 2009. The purpose of the Forum is to provide support, education, and formation in the sacred Liturgy for monastic contexts in order that God maybe glorified.

Benedictine monk Father Godfrey Mullen chairs the committee that will lead the Forum. Father Godfrey earned his doctorate in Liturgy from the Catholic University of America and serves as the VP for Saint Meinrad Seminary and the Archabbey’s director of Liturgy.

The new website can be found here.

Blessed Ildefonso Schuster, and all Benedictine saints and blesseds, pray for us.

Work of Human Hands: A Theological Critique of the Mass of Paul VI: Alcuin Reid reviews

Much has been said about Anthony Cekada’s book Work of Human Hands, some of the critique is lazy, or rigidly steadfast to one’s limp opinion. Nothing is so relevant as information, and nothing so problematic as ignorance (being “untrained”). My hope is that we’d not be too preoccupied by our our thinking; I have confidence that Truth can be revealed in honest thinking and dialogue. The sacred Liturgy, because of its import in our worship of the Triune God, needs to be faithful to Christ and to the Tradition the Church. Cekada’s work is a sizable and it deserves attention. Because of my interest in the sacred Liturgy I am re-posting the book review originally posted on the New Liturgical Movement blog. I am grateful to Dr Alcuin Reid for his tour of the work and the author, and to Shawn Tribe for posting Reid’s review.

Anthony Cekada, Work of Human Hands: A Theological Critique of the Mass of Paul VI, Philothea Press, West Chester, Ohio 2010.

I have long been in Father Cekada’s debt, for it was his booklet The Problems with the Prayers of the Modern Mass that alerted me almost twenty years ago to the significant theological difference between the pre-conciliar and post-conciliar Roman Missals. Work of Human Hands is by no means so succinct a publication. It is a substantial attempt to demonstrate profound theological rupture between the two, and more. It deserves serious attention.

Some will dismiss this study because Father Cekada is canonically irregular and a sede vacantist. Whilst these are more than regrettable, ad hominem realities are not sufficient to dismiss this carefully argued and well researched work. We must attend to his arguments on their merits.

The principal thesis is that “the Mass of Paul VI destroys Catholic doctrine in the minds of the faithful and in particular, Catholic doctrine concerning the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the priesthood and the real presence,” and that it “permits or prescribes grave irreverence.” His secondary thesis is that the Mass of Paul VI is invalid. His practical conclusion is that “a Catholic may not merely prefer the old rite to the new; he must also reject the new rite in its entirety. The faith obliges him to do so.” These strong, even extreme, positions may themselves repel readers. But again, they must be examined.

Continue reading Work of Human Hands: A Theological Critique of the Mass of Paul VI: Alcuin Reid reviews

The Feast of the Most Holy Trinity

The Church celebrates her belief in the Most Holy Trinity, a communion of persons of Love. This feast given to us not to celebrate the revelation of an idea and divine works in history, but to meet in a personal way the community of the Trinity.

While in Genoa for Trinity Sunday in 2008, Pope Benedict taught that

From the reality of God which he himself made known to us by revealing his “name” to us comes a certain image of man, that is, the exact concept of the person. If God is a dialogical unity, a being in relation, the highest creature made in his image and likeness reflects this constitution; thus he is called to fulfill himself in dialogue, in conversation, in encounter.

The Collect of the Mass for today is (trans. by Fr Z):

Almighty everlasting God, who granted to Your servants, in the profession of the true Faith, to recognize the glory of the eternal Trinity and to adore Its Unity in the might of majesty: we beseech You; that, in the steadfastness of that same Faith, we may always be defended from all adversities.

Perhaps you’d consider reading Joseph Ratzinger’s book, The God of Jesus Christ: Meditations on the Triune God.

“The Western Mass” — now really…..

Clearly the liturgical formation of seminarians in the Archdiocese of Vienna is pretty bad if what is protrayed here is true. Gloria.TV exposes yet another example of how some trash the sacred Liturgy under the guise of making it accessible to the people: “The Western Mass.”

The celebrant was the rector of the Vienna Cathedral, Father Anton Faber; AND, according to Father Faber, the Cardinal-Archbishop Christoph Maria Michael Hugo Damian Peter Adalbert Graf von Schönborn, OP, approves of the way Father Faber celebrates the sacred Liturgy.

Praying with the Pentecost sequence

In the days that lead up to the great solemnity of Pentecost meditating on the sequence for Pentecost, “Veni Sancte Spiritus” (Come Holy Spirit), is appropriate. Take the text of the “Veni Sancte Spiritus” use it for your Lectio Divina up to Pentecost, and perhaps in days following.

For many people in the pew, the Church’s use of the sequence 4 times a year jumps out of no where and it sinks into oblivion because it is infrequently spoken of in bulletins or in homilies. With rare exception priests sadly ignore the sequences. Today, the priest actually made the suggestion to pray with the Pentecost sequence, “Veni Sancte Spirtus”.

The sequence, as you know, is a poem of the Middle Ages that was composed for specific feasts of the Paschal Mystery, holy days and feasts of saints to draw our attention to the truth of the faith. It is the lex orandi tradition at its best. While not taken from the Bible, the sequence relates to us the major themes of sacred Scripture to which we need to give some attention. The sequence is sung after the second reading and right before the Alleluia verse (Gospel acclamation).

Here are but a few lines from “Veni Sancte Spiritus” to bring to prayer:

O most blessed Light fill the inmost heart of thy faithful.

Without your spirit, nothing is in man, nothing that is harmless.

Wash that which is sordid water that which is dry, heal that which is wounded.

Make flexible that which is rigid, warm that which is cold, rule that which is deviant.

The full text of the Pentecost sequence is noted here.

Good Shepherd Sunday: which are the authoritative voices that guide you?

Good Shepherd Sunday, the Fourth Sunday following the great feast of Easter, is celebrated today by the Church. Today is a day in we all focus on the tenderness of the Lord and smoothing quality of his voice gently calling us to deeper and fuller communio with him. The Fourth Sunday of Easter is the day in which the Holy Father draws our attention to vocations in the Church (priest, brother, sister, nun, deacon, perhaps consecrated lay person) for one’s salvation but also for the glory of God in the proclamation of the Gospel and in the iconic life of a Catholic in the sacraments. As Blessed John Paul said in Pastor Bonus, “the task of its [the Church’s] shepherd of pastors was indeed to be that service ‘which is called very expressly in Sacred Scripture a diaconia or ministry'” (1). Benedict’s message for the 48th World Day of Prayer for Vocations can be read here.

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Lætáre Jerúsalem — Rejoice, O Jerusalem

Rejoice, O Jerusalem: and come together all you that love her: rejoice with joy you that have been in sorrow: that you may exult, and be filled from the breasts of your consolation.

Lætáre Jerúsalem :et convéntum fáciteómnes qui dilígitis éam: gaudéte cum lætítia, qui in tristítia fuístis: ut exsultétis, et satiémini abubéribus consolatiónis véstræ.

Psalm verse: I rejoiced at the things that were said to me: we shall go into the house of the Lord.

Lætátus sum in his quæ dícta sunt míhi: in dómum Dómini íbimus.

The Mass prayers and Divine Office for today was written particularly for Laetare Sunday and for the Roman Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme (Holy Cross in Jerusalem). You can go to Jerusalem without having to leave Rome when you visit this basilica! I had the great joy of spending a month with the Cistercian monks of Santa Croce in 2007 and celebrating today’s feast with them. The monks pastorally administer the basilica which contain the relics of the Holy Passion of Lord and the mortal of remains of the Servant of God, Nenolina Melo.

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Acquiring the Mind of the Church

Père [Cardinal] Yves Congar, OP, in 1963 quoted by Geoffrey Hull in The Banished Heart (2010):

Nothing is more educative for man in his
totality than the liturgy. The Bible is certainly a marvelous teacher of
prayer, of the sense of God and of the adult convictions of conscience. Used
alone, the Bible might produce a Christian of the Puritan tradition, an
individualist and even a visionary. The liturgy, however, is the
“authentic method instituted by the Church to unite souls to Jesus”
(Dom Maurice Festugière). The sort of Christian produced by an enlightened and
docile participation in the liturgy is a man of peace and unified in every
fibre of his human nature by the secret and powerful penetration of faith and
love in his life, throughout a period of prayer and worship, during which he
learned, at his mothers knee and without effort, the Church’s language: her
language of faith, love, hope, and fidelity. There is no better way of
acquiring “the mind of the Church” in the widest and most interior
interpretation of this expression.

My friend, Father Mark posted this paragraph quoting Cardinal Congar from a recently published book, The Banished Heart (Continuum, 2010 – the link above takes you to the book) on his blog and I am shamelessly posting it here because I think it fully captures what this blog is about, and more importantly, what the Christian life is exactly about.

Thinking about the sacrament

There is no such thing as pure spirituality because there is no such thing as spirituality without reality. One needs a body to have a healing, water is required for holy water.

As Chesteron reminds us, the sacraments are both certain and incredible, both ideas are true and yet a paradox. The sacraments of the Church are solidly physical and wonderfully spiritual. The sacraments, as known by the Church, are ways of seeing (faith) the invisible. Any of the seven sacraments are philosophically the same as knowing the paradox of God: Spirit becoming flesh. Look at the greatest sacrament, the Eucharist, it is spirit and substance together, it is the Presence of the One who was crucified and risen, it’s healing and food and a pledge. And all these things are true we can never exhaust the meaning of the sacrament because of its divine reality.

Sacraments coming face to face with God, and face to face with ourselves. They reveal God’s face of love and mercy, and they also pull back the veils that cover our face. God comes and finds us through the sacraments.