Traditional Latin Mass at Oratory Prep enlightens

SUMMIT — When students at the Oratory Prep School entered the gymnasium recently for a special Mass, guest celebrant Reverend Michael Barone told them why Latin was used historically in Mass. “This is what distinguished the Catholics from the Protestants in years past. The use of Latin today heightens our sense of mystery and awe for that which is sacred.” The entire Mass was conducted in Latin by the guest celebrant and had an audience of students who are studying Latin.

Fr. Michael further explained, “We aren’t meant to understand all that’s going on in Mass; there’s mystery involved.” He went on to tell the boys in grades seven through twelve, “God won’t compete with electronic devices. Mass is not mere entertainment; it is the Mass of the Ages that endures for all time. You are being asked to preserve the traditions of the church.”

One of the traditions that Fr. Michael asked the boys to observe was to kneel during the consecration. Another tradition observed was to have the congregants kneel for the distribution of Holy Communion.

Junior Cormac Rada of Asbury said the priest’s words were important. “It’s a common misconception that priests have their backs to us at a traditional Latin Mass,” Cormac said. “But it’s a form of adoration: he’s not just officiating…he’s one of us as our representation. He is praying with us to God.”

...I urge you to become familiar with the Bible, and to have it at hand so that it can be your compass pointing out the road to follow. By reading it, you will learn to know Christ. Note what Saint Jerome said in this regard: "Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ" (PL 24,17; cf Dei Verbum, 25). A time-honoured way to study and savour the word of God is lectio divina which constitutes a real and veritable spiritual journey marked out in stages. After the lectio, which consists of reading and rereading a passage from Sacred Scripture and taking in the main elements, we proceed to meditatio. This is a moment of interior reflection in which the soul turns to God and tries to understand what his word is saying to us today. Then comes oratio in which we linger to talk with God directly. Finally we come to contemplatio. This helps us to keep our hearts attentive to the presence of Christ whose word is "a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts" (2 Pet 1:19).

I would like in particular to recall and recommend the ancient tradition of Lectio divina: the diligent reading of Sacred Scripture accompanied by prayer brings about that intimate dialogue in which the person reading hears God who is speaking, and in praying, responds to him with trusting openness of heart (cf. Dei Verbum, n. 25). If it is effectively promoted, this practice will bring to the Church - I am convinced of it - a new spiritual springtime.

Building Pastoral Liturgy through Ministry

I realize that the title of this particular talk may seem to be a bit on the soft and fluffy side, given our encounters up to this point. However, my words are intentional. In this talk, I want to examine the liturgy from a pastoral and practical standpoint. We will explore briefly the questions I posed in my previous talk: the who, what, where, how of the Mass, if you will; we will look at the true nature of ministry, a nuanced understanding of pastoral ministry, and we will touch on two of the more popular phrases in liturgy today: the hermeneutic of continuity and mutual enrichment.

I. Orientation of the Liturgy

When one uses the word “orientation” in terms of the Mass, most people’s minds immediately jump to images of a priest “with his back to the people,” or “facing the same direction,” or “everyone facing east.” Books like Cardinal Ratzinger’s Spirit of the Liturgy and Michael Lang’s Turning Towards the Lord have made compelling arguments for this type of liturgical orientation from historical, theological, and spiritual points of view. I do not intend to repeat everything that they have said or written.

Instead, I want to focus on a more basic aspect of liturgical orientation, namely the focal point of liturgical worship. In the postmodern age, liturgical worship is often relegated to being thought of as a “communal act” that focuses on, emphasizes, and even centers around the gathering of the congregation. Songs like “Gather us in,” “We are the Church,” etc., have solidified this in the minds of so many Catholics. We have lost touch with the true purpose for the sacred liturgy, which is worship of God, and of God alone.

It seems that I find myself going off on a diatribe with my own parishioners on a fairly regular basis, trying to make them understand the reason we celebrate Mass, and why it is important. And I say the same thing over and over again: There is nothing more sublime or profound than the sacred action in which we worship the one God, living and true. I repeat: There is nothing more sublime or profound than the sacred action in which we worship the one God, living and true. All our efforts, and the disposition of our minds and hearts must be singularly focused on this reality. The Mass is for God, not for us.

This is not a popular sentence. But allow me to explain. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, insofar as it is the re-presentation of the unbloody sacrifice of Christ on Calvary for the salvation of the world, makes real for us time and time again the salvation into which we have been baptized, and in which we share as members of the Christian Faithful. The Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, made present in the Mass, is—like all Sacraments—for the sanctification and edification of the People of God. But at its essence, the Mass remains our act of worshipping God—the new sacrifice of the Temple, the spotless lamb slain by the priest in the Holy of Holies for the expiation of sin—an offering to God, that He might be pleased with His people. It is how we worship! Plain and simple!

Yet, it is easy to see how this is often glossed over, diminished, or even outrightly rejected in favor of a more protestantized, post-modern, community-centered understanding that strips from the Mass any sense of worship aimed at the Divine, and leaves it a hollowed-out shell of a gathering that celebrates human beings and their relationship with God (which is always perfect—have you ever noticed that?!). This lack of orientation is what I’m speaking of...

The medievals distinguished between the intellect as ratio and the intellect as intellectus. Ratio is the power of discursive thought, or searching and re-searching refining and concluding, whereas the intellectus refers to the ability of 'simply looking' (simplex instuitus) to which the truth presents itself as a landscape presents itself to the eye. The spiritual knowing power of the human mind, as the ancients understood it, is really two things in one: ratio and intellectus: all knowing involved both. The path of discursive reasoning is accompanied and penetrated by the intellectus' untiring vision, which is not active but passive, or better, receptive - a receptively operating power of the intellect.

Following the "personal" appointment of Bishop Francis Moraglia as patriarch of Venice, Benedict XVI has hit a similar shot with the Church of France.

He did so last Saturday, February 11, the feast of the Blessed Virgin of Lourdes, when he appointed the new bishop of the diocese in which the famous Marian shrine stands, that of Tarbes and Lourdes. Pope Joseph Ratzinger has called to this post Nicolas Brouwet, who will turn 50 next August 31, since April of 2008 the auxiliary bishop of Nanterre, the diocese in which he was born and was ordained a priest in 1992.

The choice of Brouwet, like that of Moraglia, did not go through the scrutiny of the cardinals and bishops of the relevant congregation in one of their regular Thursday meetings. Both will take possession of their respective dioceses on March 25, the feast of the Annunciation.

[...]

Bishop Brouwet, however, although he is young, is recognized as having a liturgical sensibility that is particularly faithful to tradition. Last December 25, he celebrated Christmas Mass in the extraordinary form of the Roman rite, according to the motu proprio "Summorum Pontificum." He has also participated in the traditionalist pilgrimages from Paris to Chartres on Pentecost. His stance on moral issues is also in keeping with tradition.

This does not mean that Brouwet is a traditionalist tout court; it is enough to see his official photos in clerical dress to understand this. He belongs instead to that generation of young priests who, like pope Ratzinger, consider the traditionalist world – very lively in France even in its non-Lefebvrist component – more as a resource than as a problem, unlike the progressive old guard of the episcopate, less and less influential...

Lourdes is not a cardinal diocese, but with its famous Marian shrine it is like the spiritual heart of France. It is there, in fact, that the plenary assembly of French bishops regularly meets. Not to mention the international dimension of the diocese. Faithful, seminarians, priests, bishops and cardinals from around the world arrive there. Some problems of an administrative nature that have been seen recently in the diocese have been monitored with special attention by the Holy See as well.

For all these reasons, it is even more significant that Benedict XVI has entrusted the diocese of Lourdes to a young bishop with well-defined characteristics like Brouwet.

Yesterday, the world was busy in its pleasures, and the very children of God were taking a joyous farewell to mirth: but this morning, all is changed. The solemn announcement, spoken of by the prophet, has been proclaimed in Sion: the solemn fast of Lent, the season of expiation, the approach of the great anniversaries of our Redemption. Let us, then, rouse ourselves, and prepare for the spiritual combat.

But in this battling of the spirit against the flesh we need good armor. Our holy mother the Church knows how much we need it; and therefore does she summon us to enter into the house of God, that she may arm us for the holy contest. What this armor is we know from St. Paul, who thus describes it; 'Have your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of justice. And your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace. In all things, taking the shield and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. The very prince of the apostles, too, addresses these solemn words to us: 'Christ having suffered in the flesh, be ye also armed with the same thought'. We are entering, today, upon a long campaign of the warfare spoken of by the apostles: forty days of battle, forty days of penance. We shall not turn cowards, if our souls can but be impressed with the conviction, that the battle and the penance must be gone through. Let us listen to the eloquence of the solemn rite which opens our Lent. Let us go whither our mother leads us, that is, to the scene of the fall.

The enemies we have to fight with, are of two kinds: internal, and external. The first are our passions; the second are the devils. Both were brought on us by pride, and man's pride began when he refused to obey his God. God forgave him his sin, but He punished him. The punishment was death, and this was the form of the divine sentence: 'Thou art dust, and into dust thou shalt return'. Oh that we had remembered this! The recollection of what we are and what we are to be, would have checked that haughty rebellion, which has so often led us to break the law of God. And if, for the time to come, we would preserve in loyalty to Him, we must humble ourselves, accept the sentence, and look on this present life as a path to the grave. The path may be long or short; but to the tomb it must lead us. Remembering this, we shall see all things in their true light. We shall love that God, who has deigned to set His heart on us notwithstanding our being creatures of death: we shall hate, with deepest contrition, the insolence and ingratitude, wherewith we have spent so many of our few days of life, that is, in sinning against our heavenly Father: and we shall be not only willing, but eager, to go through these days of penance, which He so mercifully gives us for making reparation to His offended justice.

This was the motive the Church had in enriching her liturgy with the solemn rite, at which we are to assist this morning. When, upwards a thousand years ago, she decreed the anticipation of the lenten fast by the last four days of Quinquagesima week, she instituted this impressive ceremony of signing the forehead of her children with ashes, while saying to them those awful words, wherewith God sentenced us to death: 'Remember, O man, that thou art dust, and into dust thou shalt return!' But the making use of ashes as a symbol of humiliation and penance, is of a much earlier date than the institution to which we allude. We find frequent mention of it in the Old Testament. Job, though a Gentile, sprinkled his flesh with ashes, that, thus humbled, he might propitiate the divine mercy and this was two thousand years before the coming of our Savior. The royal prophet tells us of himself, that he mingled ashes with his bread, because of the divine anger and indignation. Many such examples are to be met with in the sacred Scriptures; but so obvious is the analogy between the sinner who thus signifies his grief, and the object whereby he signifies it, that we read such instances without surprise. When fallen man would humble himself before the divine justice, which has sentenced his body to return to dust, how could he more aptly express his contrite acceptance of the sentence, than by sprinkling himself, or his food, with ashes, which is the dust of wood consumed by fire? This earnest acknowledgment of his being himself but dust and ashes, is an act of humility, and humility ever gives him confidence in that God, who resists the proud and pardons the humble.

-- Dom Prosper Gueranger, The Liturgical Year

Bernini's Chair decorated with candles for the feast of St. Peter's Chair last year.

Dear brothers and sisters, this Gospel episode that has been proclaimed to us (Matthew 16, 13-19) finds a further and more eloquent explanation in one of the most famous artistic treasures of this Vatican Basilica: the altar of the Chair. After passing through the magnificent central nave, and continuing past the transepts, the pilgrim arrives in the apse and sees before him an enormous bronze throne that seems to hover in mid-air, but in reality is supported by the four statues of great Fathers of the Church from East and West. And above the throne, surrounded by triumphant angels suspended in the air, the glory of the Holy Spirit shines through the oval window. What does this sculptural composition say to us, this product of Bernini’s genius? It represents a vision of the essence of the Church and the place within the Church of the Petrine Magisterium.

The window of the apse opens the Church towards the outside, towards the whole of creation, while the image of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove shows God as the source of light. But there is also another aspect to point out: the Church herself is like a window, the place where God draws near to us, where he comes towards our world. The Church does not exist for her own sake, she is not the point of arrival, but she has to point upwards, beyond herself, to the realms above. The Church is truly herself to the extent that she allows the Other, with a capital “O”, to shine through her – the One from whom she comes and to whom she leads. The Church is the place where God “reaches” us and where we “set off” towards him: she has the task of opening up, beyond itself, a world which tends to become enclosed within itself, the task of bringing to the world the light that comes from above, without which it would be uninhabitable.

The great bronze throne encloses a wooden chair from the ninth century, which was long thought to be Saint Peter’s own chair and was placed above this monumental altar because of its great symbolic value. It expresses the permanent presence of the Apostle in the Magisterium of his successors. Saint Peter’s chair, we could say, is the throne of truth which takes its origin from Christ’s commission after the confession at Caesarea Philippi. The magisterial chair also reminds us of the words spoken to Peter by the Lord during the Last Supper: “I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren” (Luke 22:32).

The chair of Peter evokes another memory: the famous expression from Saint Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to the Romans, where he says of the Church of Rome that she “presides in charity” (Salutation, PG 5, 801). In truth, presiding in faith is inseparably linked to presiding in love. Faith without love would no longer be an authentic Christian faith. But the words of Saint Ignatius have another much more concrete implication: the word “charity”, in fact, was also used by the early Church to indicate the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the Sacramentum caritatis Christi, through which Christ continues to draw us all to himself, as he did when raised up on the Cross (cf. John 12:32). Therefore, to “preside in charity” is to draw men and women into a eucharistic embrace – the embrace of Christ – which surpasses every barrier and every division, creating communion from all manner of differences. The Petrine ministry is therefore a primacy of love in the eucharistic sense, that is to say solicitude for the universal communion of the Church in Christ. And the Eucharist is the shape and the measure of this communion, a guarantee that it will remain faithful to the criterion of the tradition of the faith.

The great Chair is supported by the Fathers of the Church. The two Eastern masters, Saint John Chrysostom and Saint Athanasius, together with the Latins, Saint Ambrose and Saint Augustine, represent the whole of the tradition, and hence the richness of expression of the true faith of the holy and one Church. This aspect of the altar teaches us that love rests upon faith. Love collapses if man no longer trusts in God and disobeys him. Everything in the Church rests upon faith: the sacraments, the liturgy, evangelization, charity. Likewise the law and the Church’s authority rest upon faith. The Church is not self-regulating, she does not determine her own structure but receives it from the word of God, to which she listens in faith as she seeks to understand it and to live it. Within the ecclesial community, the Fathers of the Church fulfil the function of guaranteeing fidelity to sacred Scripture. They ensure that the Church receives reliable and solid exegesis, capable of forming with the Chair of Peter a stable and consistent whole. The sacred Scriptures, authoritatively interpreted by the Magisterium in the light of the Fathers, shed light upon the Church’s journey through time, providing her with a stable foundation amid the vicissitudes of history.

After considering the various elements of the altar of the Chair, let us take a look at it in its entirety. We see that it is characterized by a twofold movement: ascending and descending. This is the reciprocity between faith and love. The Chair is placed in a prominent position in this place, because this is where Saint Peter’s tomb is located, but this too tends towards the love of God. Indeed, faith is oriented towards love. A selfish faith would be an unreal faith. Whoever believes in Jesus Christ and enters into the dynamic of love that finds its source in the Eucharist, discovers true joy and becomes capable in turn of living according to the logic this gift. True faith is illumined by love and leads towards love, leads on high, just as the altar of the Chair points upwards towards the luminous window, the glory of the Holy Spirit, which constitutes the true focus for the pilgrim’s gaze as he crosses the threshold of the Vatican Basilica. That window is given great prominence by the triumphant angels and the great golden rays, with a sense of overflowing fullness that expresses the richness of communion with God. God is not isolation, but glorious and joyful love, spreading outwards and radiant with light.

For the past few years, a number of people have asked why we can’t use the Altar Rail for Sunday Masses. So, after much thought and prayer, distribution of Holy Communion will take place at the Altar Rail, beginning on the 1st Sunday of Lent.