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The Brisbane Oratory

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A new oratory is in formation in Brisbane, Australia, and I have a particular interest in this because I will be in Brisbane in late November and early December. How fantastic it would be to meet up with the priests involved? We have say it is small world but that's really wrong when you think about how far away Australia is. So far as I can tell from my tickets, I'm going to be in flight some 23 hours! Crazy stuff. And yet, the idea that I would meet some of the people involved in this project makes the place seem closer in my own mind.

Mass Propers, 15th Sunday After Pentecost

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For musicians, and for everyone really, a beauty of the old calendar and traditional Latin Mass is its full coherence as a liturgical structure. The Missal is in lock step with the Gradual and the Kyriale, and there is no confusion about what belongs where. The ordinary form has been with us 43 years and this level of certainty and balance is still not there, though we are gradually working toward figuring it. What follows below are the sung propers that pertain to this particular day of the old calendar, this coming Sunday September 1.

To be sure, before 1963, average parishes were not singing these but cathedrals were and everyone understood the ideal and aspired toward it, even it was not possible. Psalm tones often replaced full chants in the high Mass, and even though the Low Mass was the norm, these sung propers were at least spoken by the celebrant even if the choir sang a hymn. What was normative and what was a permissable substitute was very clear. It was a structure that was widely understood and even taken for granted.

A combination of factors after the Council blew this up in more ways that anyone could have possibly intended. The main problems: vernacularization without preparation, populist ideology, the attack on professionalism and technique, the reshuffling of the liturgical calendar, the introduction of a vast array of options without any clear attempt to enumerate priorities -- all of these factors combined to create an atmosphere of chaos and confusion.

So one can only long for a restoration of the clarity of vision that yielded masterpieces such as these, some of which date from the 7th century and before and were preserved the oral culture and careful scholarship all through the the modern period. And it is particularly spectacular that now, for the first time in the long history of chant, we have a nearly complete set of videos that present the music and masterful performances that are accessible through any smartphone. Remarkable.











Pontifical Mass at Detroit's Cathedral - This Friday

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More wonderful news from Michigan!

This Friday evening, August 30th, at 7:00 p.m. at Detroit's Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament, auxiliary Bishop Donald Hanchon, episcopal vicar for the Central Region, will celebrate his first Traditional Latin Mass. Mr. Joe Balistreri, Pastoral Music Director for the Archdiocese, will play the organ and direct the schola.

In addition to the young adults of Juventutem Michigan, clerics and faithful of all ages are welcome to attend this Pontifical Low Mass. 

Incidentally, Windsor-Detroit's Tridentine Community News recently published an article about the Cathedral's treasures, whence come the photos in this post, as well as some others that would be of interest to readers here.

Confirmation at FSSP Parish in Omaha

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On Tuesday, August 27th, His Excellency, the Most Reverend George J. Lucas, Archbishop of Omaha, confirmed 37 at Immaculate Conception Church, the FSSP apostolate in Omaha, Nebraska.  His Excellency was greeted at the door of the church with an entourage of priests, seminarians, and servers, as is the tradition for the reception of a bishop. He then processed to the sanctuary where, after prayers for His Excellency by the Pastor, Fr. John Brancich, FSSP, he continued on with the Confirmation ceremony, followed by Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament in the Presence of a Prelate. About 25 from the parish were confirmed, along with some special needs Confirmandi and children from elsewhere who had received permission to be confirmed there.
                                            




Compendium of the 1961 Revision of the Pontificale Romanum - Part 15: Suppressed Blessings (1595 & 1961)

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In its varying revisions over the centuries, the Pontifical has often had removed from it material considered obsolete or otherwise no longer necessary. To give just one example, the edition of 1520 contains in the second part, that with which this series has been concerned, the blessings of a thurible, of a ciborium, (i.e. a fixed canopy over an altar,) of a credence table, and of a baptismal font. None of these are included in the 1595 Pontifical of Clement VIII.

Likewise, the revision of 1961 saw the complete removal of the last four blessings of the second part: the blessing and imposition of a cross on a crusader, the blessing of armor, the blessing of a sword, and the blessing and consignment of a military banner.

The first of these has already been described in part 10 of this series, since it was reworked to serve as the blessing of a bishop’s pectoral cross. Each of the remaining three begins with the versicles “Adjutorium nostrum” and “Dominus vobiscum”.

The blessing of armor consists of two prayers.
Let us pray. May the blessing of Almighty God, the Fa+ther, the + Son and the Holy + Spirit, descend upon this armor, and upon him that weareth it, that he may defend justice. We ask Thee, Lord God, that Thou protect and defend him, that livest and reignest, one God for ever and ever. R. Amen.
Let us pray. Almighty God, in Whose hand rests full victory, and who gave marvelous strength to David that he might subdue the rebel Goliath, we ask for Thy clemency in this humble prayer, that of Thy great holiness Thou may deign to + bless this armor, and grant to Thy servant who desires to wear it, that he may use it freely and victoriously for the protection and defense of Holy Mother the Church, of orphans and widows, against the assaults of enemies visible and invisible. Through Christ, our Lord. R. Amen.
The armor is then sprinkled with holy water.
The blessing of armor; illustration from a 1595 edition of the Roman Pontifical. (Permission to use this image, and the one below of the blessing of a military banner, has been very kindly granted by the Pitts Theological Library, Candler School of Theology at Emory University.)

The blessing of a sword consists in the following prayer.
Let us pray. Deign Thou to + bless this sword, we ask Thee, Lord; and with the guard of Thy holiness defend this Thy servant, who at Thy inspiration desires to receive it, and keep him from every harm. Through Christ, our Lord. R. Amen.
The bishop sprinkles the sword with holy water, then hands it to the person who is to receive it as the latter kneels before him, saying:
Receive this sword, in the name of the Fa+ther, the + Son and the Holy + Spirit, and may thou use it for thy defense, and that of the Holy Church of God, and to the confounding of the enemies of the Cross of Christ, and of the Christian faith: and as far as human frailty shall permit, may thou harm no one with it unjustly. And may He deign to grant this to thee, Who with the Father and the Holy Spirit etc.
The Imperial Sword (Reichsschwert), part of the regalia given to the Holy Roman Emperor at his coronation. Believed to have been made for the coronation of the Emperor Otto IV in 1198, it is now kept in the Imperial Treasury of the Hofburg Palace in Vienna. On the cross-guard is written “Christvs • Vincit • Christvs • Reignat • Christvs • Inperat - Christ Conquereth, Christ Reigneth, Christ Commandeth.”
The prayer for the blessing of a military banner is as follows.
Let us pray. Almighty and everlasting God, Who art the blessing of all, and the might of the triumphant, look in mercy upon our humble prayers, and sanctify this banner, that is prepared for the use of war, with a heavenly bless+ing; that it may be mighty against opposing and rebellious nations, and surrounded by Thy protection, and be terrible to the enemies of the Christian people, the strengthening of them that trust in Thee, and certain confidence of victory. For Thou art God, that puttest an end to wars (Judith 16, 3) and grantest the help of heavenly defense to them that hope in Thee. Through Thy only Son our Lord etc.
The bishop sprinkles the banner with holy water, then hands it to the person who is to receive it as the latter kneels before him, saying:
Receive this banner, sanctified by a heavenly blessing, and may it be terrible to the enemies of the Christian people, and may the Lord give thee grace, that at His name, and to His honor, with it thou may pass in might both safe and sound through the bands of the enemies.
He then gives the man the kiss of peace, saying “Peace to thee”; he that has received it kisses the bishops hand and departs.
The blessing of a military banner; illustration from a 1595 edition of the Roman Pontifical.
This article concludes the descriptions of the various blessings of the Pontifical, and the changes made to them in the revision of 1961. The series will continue with excerpts from the official published notes of Frs. Bugnini and Braga on their work of revision, already referred to in the previous article in this series regarding the blessing of the bells.

In Honor of Saint Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

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We cannot let this august (in every sense) day pass without some small tribute to one of the greatest Doctors, Fathers, Bishops, and Confessors of the Holy Catholic Church: Saint Augustine of Hippo. Below is a particularly moving chapter from Book XIX of On the City of God, where the author is speaking of the hardships of being a social animal. I could not help thinking of Saint Catherine of Siena's later remark that God made us dependent on each other in order to learn all the virtues, especially humility, patience, and charity, at one another's hands, as we suffer one another and bear one another's burdens. And I also couldn't help thinking about the tendency of orthodox Catholics, especially in this confused and confusing age, to fissure and fragment into factions when we should be banding together to fight our common foes. The opening prayer of today's Mass in the Ordinary Form gives utterance to what our prayer ought and our aspiration ought to be: "
Renew in your Church, we pray, O Lord, the spirit with which you endowed your Bishop Saint Augustine that, filled with the same spirit, we may thirst for you, the sole fount of true wisdom, and seek you, the author of heavenly love. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Without further ado, here is the text from Saint Augustine.
BOOK XIX
Chapter 5
Of the Social Life, Which, Though Most Desirable, is Frequently Disturbed by Many Distresses
     We give a much more unlimited approval to their idea that the life of the wise man must be social. For how could the city of God (concerning which we are already writing no less than the nineteenth book of this work) either take a beginning or be developed, or attain its proper destiny, if the life of the saints were not a social life?
     But who can enumerate all the great grievances with which human society abounds in the misery of this mortal state? Who can weigh them? Hear how one of their comic writers makes one of his characters express the common feelings of all men in this matter: “I am married; this is one misery. Children are born to me; they are additional cares.” What shall I say of the miseries of love which Terence also recounts—“slights, suspicions, quarrels, war today, peace tomorrow?” Is not human life full of such things? Do they not often occur even in honorable friendships?
     On all hands we experience these slights, suspicions, quarrels, war, all of which are undoubted evils; while, on the other hand, peace is a doubtful good, because we do not know the heart of our friend, and though we did know it today, we should be as ignorant of what it might be tomorrow. Who ought to be, or who are more friendly than those who live in the same family? And yet who can rely even upon this friendship, seeing that secret treachery has often broken it up, and produced enmity as bitter as the amity was sweet, or seemed sweet by the most perfect dissimulation?
     It is on this account that the words of Cicero so move the heart of every one, and provoke a sigh: “There are no snares more dangerous than those which lurk under the guise of duty or the name of relationship. For the man who is your declared foe you can easily baffle by precaution; but this hidden, intestine, and domestic danger not merely exists, but overwhelms you before you can foresee and examine it.”
     It is also to this that allusion is made by the divine saying, “A man’s foes are those of his own household,”—words which one cannot hear without pain; for though a man have sufficient fortitude to endure it with equanimity, and sufficient sagacity to baffle the malice of a pretended friend, yet if he himself is a good man, he cannot but be greatly pained at the discovery of the perfidy of wicked men, whether they have always been wicked and merely feigned goodness, or have fallen from a better to a malicious disposition.
     If, then, home, the natural refuge from the ills of life, is itself not safe, what shall we say of the city, which, as it is larger, is so much the more filled with lawsuits civil and criminal, and is never free from the fear, if sometimes from the actual outbreak, of disturbing and bloody insurrections and civil wars?


Paraclete, Distributor of Solesmes books, picks up CMAA

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Having been involved with the publication of many books from the CMAA over the years, I do consider it a hugely significant thing that Paraclete--long-time distributor of book from the Solesmes monastery--is now carrying CMAA books. They start with the Parish Book of Chant, 2nd edition. This book is a wonder and perhaps the most useful music book available today. It is the only small book of chant that contains the ordo for both the ordinary and extraordinary form of the Roman Rite, and it contains vast amounts of the musical patrimony, particularly in its complete Mass settings and expansive hymnody. In any case, to me, this moment really does represent a kind of leap into a new sector, and that's very exciting.

Try out Paraclete's interface, and let's get this first batch from the warehouse to your house in record time. A quick move like this will only encourage them to make greater capital investments on behalf of the newest liturgical materials designed to recapture our heritage for modern times.

Musica Sacra Scotland

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A beautiful video -- a look at the thinking of the masters of our age.


In Honor of Msgr. Richard J. Schuler

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I wrote this piece today in Crisis to honor the memory of Richard Schuler and also to draw attention to a very important event in St. Paul, Minnesota, October 13-15.

Several years ago, I received a note from an older man who had been battling much of his life for good Church music, particularly Gregorian chant. He did this in terrible times following the Second Vatican Council when the cultural ethos warred against any settled liturgical forms. He had plenty of scars to show for his work, but not much progress emerged until recent days.

He wasn’t writing to congratulate me on my more recent work for chant. Instead, he wanted me to know that my writing generally got on his nerves. He noted my own optimism about the progress we were making to restore chant to its proper place in Mass, to publish vernacular settings of sacred music, to train up choirs.

And all this bubbly optimism from my writing he generally found annoying simply because I don’t seem terribly aware of the contribution that an earlier generation made to even make this moment possible. Was I ungrateful for what he and others did? Was I completely blind to the terrible conditions that his generation faced in the 1960s and 1970s to make it possible for us to hear and sing great sacred music today?

I was obviously taken aback by his comments. And yet, in some ways, he was right. We are too quick to forget the past. Every generation just imagines that the world it inherits is as it should be and could not be any other. I see progress because I have seen the worst and it couldn’t but improved, and I’ve lived through that improvement. He lived through nothing but disaster from the 1950s through the 2000s. His world collapsed. It’s all a matter of perspective.

And yet there had to be a bridge between the depths and the recovery. He and his generation served that role. They kept the chant going during the worst of times. They trained whomever was willing. They maintained the handful of choirs that kept singing. They kept the faith as others lost it. And today, we are beneficiaries of their efforts. The flame was never extinguished and now it is growing again.

We are prone to forget the sacrifices others made to make our present moment better than it would otherwise be. This tendency to forget—to take all things given to us as some kind of birthright—is why Catholicism has made the study and reflection on history extremely important in education. This is a facet of the lives of the martyrs and saints. They allow us to broaden our minds and learn to have a more intense appreciation of the sacrifices of those who have gone before.

So let me do propitiation for my smug optimism by discussing a man who did extraordinary things to bridge the gigantic gulf between the dark and the light. His name is Msgr. Richard J. Schuler, and he is most known as the man who persisted in building and running the nation’s most famous sacred music program following Vatican II. He was pastor of St. Agnes in St. Paul, Minnesota and the head of the Church Music Association of America. Even today the entire congregation knows the completely Kyriale of the music book of the Roman Rite. Even today, this is a parish where you can go to hear and experience the music that was recommended by the Council.

Continue reading

The Visitation - More Modern Work in the Style of the School of St Albans

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Here's some more work from the summer painting course I taught in Kansas City, Kansas at the Savior Pastoral Center Kansas. It was sponsored by the Diocese of Kansas City, Kansas which runs the center. I thought I would show some of the work done by students. This is unusual in that we focussed on 13th century gothic illuminated manuscripts from the School of St Albans. The original is shown top left and the work of the class below. Apologies to those whose work isn't featured -  I really haven't deliberately cut anyone out. For some reason I didn't arrive home with photographs of everybody's work.
We have already booked up to do two more courses next summer, so those who are interested might even contact the center now. This year the places went quickly and we could have filled the class more than twice over. The center website is here.
At group of about a dozen adults attended the course and the level of experience varied. Some were themselves teachers of icon painting classes (who were interested in learning about the gothic style); and some were complete beginners. What was exciting for me was that all took to this western form of sacred art very naturally and were enthusiastic to keep doing it and develop this as a tradition for today. As with the work I showed recently (of St Christopher) what strikes me is how naturally the students took to this Western style. Withing a carefully controlled palette, I allowed some range of freedom in the use of colour, and encouraged them to use different borders around the painting. The ornate border is a characteristic feature of Western styles of sacred art.
I do my best to teach people so that they understand the underlying principles of what they are doing, and then they can work out things for themselves. I do stress the need for critiques of work from teachers in order to keep making progress, but at the same time, I want students to have the confidence to be able to do something on their own afterwards. So, I always try to explain why they copy precisely in some instances, and change things in others, for example. I also tell them how to examined the original painting and worked out how the artist did the original. 





Here is the original again, and below that the painting I did during the class for demonstration



“Faith and Tradition”, a new series on the NLM

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It is with joy that today I bring you the first installment in a new series on the NLM called “Faith and Tradition.”

This series will present the stories of people who have had their lives profoundly marked by the riches of the Church's liturgy, sacred art, and the beauty of tradition.

The stories will be given in the form of personal narratives. Some of the narratives, like that of today's first installment, will present a story of a long-suffering labor of love for the Church's traditions, often marked by profound trials. Others will be stories of how one's Catholic faith was profoundly deepened by contact with the Church's traditions and treasures. Still others will be of conversions to the faith as a result of contact with the splendor of the Church's liturgy. And still others will chronicle a return to the practice of the faith through contact with the traditions of the Church.  Some stories will simply share what the traditions of the Church have meant to the faith of the narrator. Some will relate the experience of incorporating more beautiful, sacred, and traditional elements into the Ordinary Form. Finally, the series will also include stories of the profound ability of the Church's traditions to catechize and evangelize, and the essential role that the Church's traditions play in the ability of the Church to evangelize and proclaim the Gospel of Christ. 

Some stories will herald from older souls who have endured much. Others will be from younger spirits who were born well after the Second Vatican Council.

Given the personal nature of these stories, the following must be kept in mind:

  • Many stories will be anonymous out of respect for the person sharing his story and/or out of respect for the identity of others involved in the story, including the narrator's current parish or situation.

  • Comments may be disallowed on the story, per the desire of the person telling their story.

  • If comments are allowed, they *must* be charitable and sensitive to the personal nature of the stories. These stories are not just about ideas, they are about real people - people who will likely read the comments on the story. The comment box will not be the place for griping and despair. Also, the comment box will not be a place in which speculation of the identity of the narrator and/or community involved is to be had - that is simply not the point of the sharing of these stories. In short, comments must address people with the same charity that would be expected in a face-to-face dialogue; there will be no room for hiding behind the anonymity and distance provided to readers by electronic interaction.  Comments contrary to this principle will be deleted, regardless of viewpoint. Charity and hope must reign supreme, even in sharing your own stories of extreme hardships borne out of love for Christ and His Church's liturgy. 

It is my hope that this series will inspire you.

It is my hope that this series will motivate you to work with ever greater diligence to bring people to Christ and His Holy Church through efforts to renew the Church's liturgy.

It is my hope that this series will evidence the vital role that the Church's tradition has in any renewed efforts to evangelize an increasingly secular world which bears hostility to the Gospel.

It is my hope that this series will invite those far from the life of the Church to take a second look at Christ's bride and the profound joy to be had in communion with Christ in His Church.

It is my hope that this series will touch the hearts of clergy and future clergy.

It is my hope that this series will help renew your faith in God and His providence for you, especially during times of great suffering.

**If you are interested in contributing your own story to this series, please contact me at jdonelson@newliturgicalmovement.org. Please include "NLM SERIES" in the subject line.

Finally, it is with filial gratitude that I dedicate this series to the patronage of St. Peter, who hasplayed a profound role in my own faith and discovery of the beauties of the Church's traditions, as well as Our Lady of Perpetual Help and St. Joseph, patron of the universal Church.  Orate pro nobis!

“Faith and Tradition” part 1: A Priest's Heroic Dedication

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The Power of the Old Mass

By Fr. “Fidelis”

I have been celebrating the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite for over 30 years now…  Ordained in the mid-1970s in the reformed ceremonies of the Roman Rite following Vatican Council II, out of frustration with the New Form I began to celebrate the old liturgy privately sometime in 1981.   It was a moving experience, one that brought me back to my childhood.  It was an awkward experience at first, since I had been trained in a  liturgical style completely opposite to the Old Rite.

But it was compelling.  It involved me in praying the Mass in an intense and concentrated way.  I celebrated this Mass mostly over a period of 15 years or so from that point, without a congregation since my Bishop had forbidden that, and it was only in the mid-1990s that I was asked to pastorally care for a congregation of Catholics who had achieved permission to celebrate this liturgy in our diocese.

At this point, a whole new world opened up for me.  I was able to learn how this Mass, the Mass of the Ages, affected other people, and not simply people who had some special liturgical awareness, but all sorts of people whose religious inclinations were very different.

Still, I have been, over and over again, reminded of the spiritual power of the Traditional Mass.  My Bishop assigned me to hospital ministry in a non-Catholic hospital, and it is there that I have spent countless hours over the last 17 years.   Hospital ministry is demanding;  it is spiritually rewarding in the most profound way, but it is often physically and emotionally exhausting in the extreme.  Nights get mixed with days, moments of joy get mixed with the most heart-rending tragedies,  many times one feel s completely helpless and is tempted to be angry with God, who seems to place horrible demands upon people’s  sense of trust and faith.

Because for so many years I was the only chaplain in my hospital and the only one who offered Mass in our small chapel, I chose to celebrate in the Old Rite, which was for me most satisfying.  Interestingly, this met with the approval of our Protestant department head, who regarded this as something “special” and a sort of attraction to the spiritual opportunities afforded by our hospital’s pastoral care department.  Wonder of wonders!   A Protestant defending the Old Mass!   A sort of following developed for this liturgy---people who started coming to the hospital Mass simply because it was there.

But most memorable for me, though, were the times when someone would sort of stumble into our little chapel by accident, when Mass was going on, and I would hear weeping behind me.  Oft-times, I would have no server, and sometimes no congregation when I started the Mass, so I would simply be unaware that anyone had come in to the chapel.   Until I turned around for the “Ecce Agnus Dei” at the people’s Communion, I did not know whose sobs I had been hearing.  After Mass, the explanation of these impromptu visitors was almost always the same:  “Father, I haven’t seen this Mass in thirty (or forty) years.  I have forgotten how beautiful it is.”    This was a Low Mass, without any of the grandeur of the Sung Mass or the Solemn High Mass.  But people remembered how intensely God-centered it was, how awesome it presented the Mercy of God and the call to holiness---how it invited one to such humility before the omnipotence of God.

I heard the same thing from visitors to our Sunday liturgies, but over the years something dramatic has begun to happen.

One now hears these things from people who have no experience of the old liturgy at all from their earlier years.

The same thing is at work:  The beauty of the chant, the lingering odor of incense, which permeates one’s clothing and reminds one that they’ve been to Mass, the dignity and beauty and the color of vestments and altar furnishings, the “littleness” of kneeling to receive the Lord on one’s knees at Communion time---all these things tell of something great.

The Old Mass changes hearts.

Years ago, the Traditional Latin Mass was disparaged as being something yearned for by people out of a sense of “nostalgia.”

But there can be no nostalgia for something which one cannot remember.  The real answer is that God calls us to something greater---an intimate surrender of our hearts and minds to His lasting truth. The old Mass does that.

It demands more, it takes more energy and self-discipline, it requires more preparation and attention in every way, but it brings us closer to God.  It challenges us to love one another more closely and be more attentive to their needs.

It is the real call to holiness and to evangelization, so that people everywhere can come to know God’s love.

Fr. "Fidelis"

8/30/2013
St. Rose of Lima

---------------------------------
This is the first installment in the "Faith and Tradition" series on the NLM. Please be mindful of comment-posting guidelines outlined in the series announcement.

An Amazing Alma Redemptoris performance

The Beatification of Mons. Vladimir Ghika, Priest and Martyr in Romania

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A reader from Romania, Viviana Dimcev, has sent us the following information about a Romanian priest, Mons. Vladimir Ghika, who will be beatified as a Martyr today, August 31. The Mass of Beatification will be celebrated in Bucharest, the capital of Romania, by Angelo Cardinal Amato, the prefect for the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints.

A descendent of a princely family, Vladimir Ghika was born on Christmas Day of 1873 to an Orthodox family. After studying in France and Rome, he became Catholic in 1902. (Today, Catholics of both Latin and Byzantine Rite together make up just over 5% of the population of Romania; most of them, however, are in Transylvania, which was not part of Romania in 1902.) After years of dedication to various charitable works, he was ordained a priest in 1923, with faculties to celebrate the liturgy in both the Roman and Byzantine Rites. He traveled all over the world in service to his countrymen and the Holy See; he was the founder of a hospital in Bucharest, and served as an envoy of Pius XI, who jokingly called him his "apostolic vagabond".  Despite continued service to his country in the trials of the Second World War, he was arrested by the Communist authorities in 1952; after 18 months of violent beatings, cold and starvation, he passed to eternal life on May 16, 1954. This day will be kept as his feast day.

A Romanian website to promote his cause has the following prayer to ask for his intercession:

Lord, Jesus Christ, Eternal High Priest, you sent your apostles and disciples into the whole world to bring the good news of your love to all peoples. At the Last Supper, just before your supreme self-offering for the Salvation of the world, you prayed to your Heavenly Father that your church might become One.
Look with kindness upon the people of Romania from whose midst you chose Vladimir Ghika, noble by birth and noble by vocation. He was your witness throughout the world, confirming his faith in you through his martyrdom, with the zeal of an apostle. May his example of faith and love shine ever more brightly amongst us.
During his earthly life, he accomplished great deeds of charity through your power and brought East and West together in harmony. We pray for the grace that through the merits and the sanctity of his martyrdom, he may be recognized as a saint and that through his intercession, in the near future, all Christians may be united. We ask this for your greater glory, you who live and reign for ever and ever. Amen.
Our reader also sent us a link to a video tour of a museum established by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bucharest in his honor, in which various liturgical garments and other objects owned and used by Bl. Vladimir. Beate Vladimire, ora pro nobis!

In the Liturgy, Man is Most Active—and Most Receptive

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For this feast of St. Pius X on the traditional Roman calendar and St. Gregory the Great on the new calendar (two great pontiffs whose legacies are fittingly, if strangely, thus intertwined), it seemed appropriate to offer a meditation on a fundamental principle of liturgical theology.

Although liturgy is the greatest act of man, it is never an act of man by himself, but always and essentially the action of Christ the High Priest, true God and true man, who allows and enables us to participate in His theandric action, His all-sufficient Sacrifice for the salvation of the world. This being so, liturgy is a peculiar kind of action, one in which man is also most passive, in the sense of being utterly receptive to the gift God wishes to give him, through the hands of the Church.

If we were to fall into a way of thinking about the liturgy as a kind of workshop, an evolving sphere of self-expression, a communal celebration of the here and now, then we would be truly guilty of Pelagianism. We would be making ourselves the central agents or actors—activists instead of imitators of the Virgin Mary who received the angel’s greeting, gave her consent to the divine initiative, and conceived by the Holy Spirit to bring forth the ultimate gift to mankind: the Son of God, in flesh and blood. The liturgy and its music have and must have this Marian dimension of receptivity, a virginal intention to stay untainted by the profane world and a faithful mothering of the Word-made-flesh.

One important expression of our Marian receptivity is that we receive the liturgy from the Church and her Tradition, we do not create it, and we follow her rubrics and rules, not our own. Although duty has been given a bad name by Immanuel Kant, rightly understood it remains a fundamental reality of Christian life. It is our duty, as Catholics, to follow the Church’s doctrine and discipline concerning the liturgy (especially the Mass). For example, when it comes to sacred music for the Ordinary Form, we must follow the full and clear teaching of the Second Vatican Council, the General Instruction on the Roman Missal, and other documents such as Sacramentum Caritatis that have made clear how we should be singing the Ordinary and the Propers, giving Gregorian chant the foremost place in the repertoire. There are norms, rules, standards, because the public worship of the Church does not belong to us, it belongs to her Master, the Lord she worships.

Recently I read this moving passage from Martin Mosebach’s endlessly insightful Heresy of Formlessness:
Many people regard the rubrics as the most distinctive—and most problematical—feature of the old Missal. . . . . Rubricism stands for a liturgy where all subjectivism, all charismatic enthusiasm, all creative inventiveness has been condemned to silence. . . . Public prayer, not the prayer of the individual but of the Church’s whole Mystical Body, possessed a binding quality that, in an atmosphere of emancipation from all pressure whatsoever, could be felt as a kind of dictatorship. Now, however, after more than a century of the destruction of forms in art, literature, architecture, politics, and religion, too, people are generally beginning to realize that loss of form—almost always—implies loss of content. . . . Formerly, seminarians learned rubrics so well they could perform them in their sleep. Just as pianists have to practice hard to acquire some technique that is initially a pure torture, but ultimately sounds like free improvisation, experienced celebrants used to move to and fro at the altar with consummate poise; the whole action poured forth as if from a single mold. These celebrants were not hemmed in by armor-plated rubrics, as it were: they floated on them as if on clouds.
Along the same lines, Ryan Topping, in his book Rebuilding Catholic Culture, has this to say about rubrics:
If you no longer see yourself as the servant of a tradition, but as its master, no longer believe that the rubrics veil a mystery, that the soul requires truth to be wrapped in the garment of beauty, then reasonably you are likely to treat the Mass more as a gathering of friends than as a sacrifice of God.
Is this not precisely what has happened, in spite of the noble witness and teaching of Pope Saint Pius X and many of his holy successors?  There is such sanity and sanctity in these words of Dom Mark Kirby of Silverstream Priory:
To begin with the liturgy is not to set about tinkering with it; it is to submit to it, as it is. To begin with God is not to engage in a critical analysis of theology; it is to fall prostrate saying, “The Lord he is God, the Lord he is God” (1 Kings 18:39). To begin with adoration is, in the inspired words of the Cherubic Hymn of the Byzantine Divine Liturgy, “to lay aside all earthly cares” in homage to “the King of Kings who comes escorted invisibly by Angelic hosts.” 

It almost sounds like an examination of conscience that we might pursue: do we truly begin with liturgy as something first, something that preexists us and will continue long after we are gone, rather than something we master, manufacture, produce, shape at will? Do we submit to the liturgy, not as we think it should be for “modern man,” but as it has come down to us from holy tradition, passing relatively unchanged through centuries of doubt, dismay, and disaster like a strong ship sailing over the churning waves of a stormy sea?  Is our most characteristic action to fall prostrate before the mystery and majesty of God as He deigns to reveal Himself in the ritual words, actions, and signs that He has left among us?

Traditionalists might have a tendency to think that such questions need not be put to them, as if they are automatically “covered” by their faithful adherence to traditional forms. I think this is an incorrect and perhaps spiritually dangerous assumption. We, too, need to be sure that we are following the full teaching of Holy Mother Church in all that pertains to our offering of public worship. For example, in our zeal to set aside a widely prevalent superficial understanding of active participation, are we zealous to embrace and promote Saint Pius X’s clarion call for the active participation of the people in the singing of the Gregorian chants of the Ordinary of the Mass and the responses that belong to them in a High Mass? Are we careful, as we sift the good results of the liturgical movement from the bad, not to throw out the baby with the bathwater? Would St. Pius X, Pius XII, and John XXIII, among others, recognize us as their children, as the ones who have finally taken their magisterium to heart and made it shine forth more brightly in the world, for the spread of the light of Christ?

St. Pius X and St. Gregory the Great, pray for us.

Microphones in Church

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I just received a query from a person who is dealing with a microphone controversy in her parish. Her director of music is very much against their use but parishioners themselves complain that they can't understand the words being sung in this very live environment (7 second echo!) with a tall dome. As I read this, I found myself very sympathetic with the music director. After all, the Christian liturgy somehow managed to go about 1,950 years without the use of microphones.

In the balance, I don't think it can be said with certainty that the net effect of microphones has been good. Too many churches have been built with the presumption that electronic mics and mixing would be the norm -- and hence there's no problem with flat roofs, carpet, and sound tiles. This environment is a mortal enemy of chant, which requires not a studio-style acoustics but the liveliness of stone, concrete, wood, and angles.

It's truly tragic when parish wants to move from pop music to liturgical music only to discover that the chant ends up as flat and dead in the space. Without microphones, the singers have to scream and they lose all subtlety in singing. Without microphones, the chant comes across as just another form of the same type of music that had been there before. The only real solution is to rip up the carpet and tear down the sound tiles.

But what about a situation in which the sound is actually too live to the point that the text can't be understood at all? After all, the purpose of microphones is not just to make the music louder but also to make it more defined and clear. This is really a matter of the specifics of time and place. I can easily imagine how microphones could help in this case, and I see nothing somehow outrageous or contrary to the faith in using them.

Certainly in the case of a carpeted and acoustically dead space, using microphones and accompaniment on chant can be a beneficial thing. Even more than that, it might be essential. So long as we understand the goal -- sacred music that sounds as beautiful as possible -- the use of microphones is really up to the discretion of the singers in consultation with pastors and others.

Catholic Children's Choirs

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Every September, at the start of the academic year, I receive quite a number of enquiries from parents who are seeking a choir for their children. Aside from the usual benefits of singing in a choir, such as a sense of shared purpose, an acquirement of discipline, confidence and artistic skill, many of these parents rightly see a Catholic Church Choir as a place in which their child will grow in their love of the Faith. Choirs such as these are nurseries for young Catholic musicians and absolutely vital to the future welfare of the Liturgy. It would be wonderful to publicise any children's choirs, especially those which seek to teach and nurture the traditional elements of Catholicism such as Gregorian Chant, catechetical hymns and music from the treasury of riches composed over the centuries to adorn the Liturgy and glorify God. Pastors or music directors who would be happy to promote their children's choirs here on NLM, please email me the contact details at ccole@newliturgicalmovement.org and I will put up a post in the next few days.

Monk-a-Thon with Regina Magazine!

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This weekend, Regina Magazine is running their first "Monk-a-thon", an effort focusing on letting people know about the rise of traditional orders committed to the beautiful celebration of the liturgy and preserving the traditional charisms of Western monasticism.
They've posted a vocation story from The Community of St. Benedict in Enfield, Connecticut.  Here's a bit about the community's charism from their website:

The Liturgy has been at the heart of community life since the beginning of Western Monasticism founded by St. Benedict himself. All of the other events of daily life give way to the primacy of the liturgy of the hours known as The Divine Office, (Lectio Divina). And in a monastery, the principal liturgy is first the Holy Sacrifice of The Mass. Mass is celebrated in the Extraordinary Form of The Roman Rite. Then the Liturgy of the Hours throughout the day. The Monks arise before dawn and enter the church to offer Morning Prayer. And the monks return throughout the day to offer communal prayer known as the Canonical hours established by Saint Benedict. The Divine Office is chanted in Latin and sung in Gregorian chant throughout the seven Canonical hours of the day. Devotion to the Blessed Sacrament is a fundamental value of the Monks life. Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament is celebrated before Vespers of Each Saturday and Sunday.

 


The Community of Saint Benedict is a community of monks striving to live a simple, genuine and full monastic life according to the Scriptures and the Rule of St. Benedict. As members of The Benedictine Congregation of The Holy Spirit, we seek to remain faithful to our authentic tradition continually revitalized by the Holy Spirit. We are committed to honor and glorify God through the harmonious balance of prayer, study work and hospitality.  We recognize our affinity with all who follow the monastic way of life, especially those who are part of the Benedictine tradition. Called together by God to a community of fraternal love, we believe our life itself to be apostolic and in the context of the church and the world community, we seek to serve all God’s people. United in faith, we celebrate God’s kingdom through prayer, life in common and work.


Here's an excerpt from the Regina Magazine interview with one of the monks:

Beginning in 2000, the number of young men seeking to visit this Benedictine Monastery in rural Connecticut to discern their vocation has skyrocketed. These Benedictines now routinely field as many as 15 vocation requests a month.

 


In fact, the Benedictines now have ‘no more room at the inn’ – with 36 life-professed monks, 22 priests and 14 brothers, in addition to six novices, four candidates and three men studying for the priesthood. Interest is so high, in fact, that they now must house would-be monks in their former retreat center, as they have run out of room for interested candidates to stay.

 


Father Andrew Proulx, OSB, explains:

 


Q. Why are young men so attracted to your Community?

 


Young men are seeking the traditional values of the Church, the liturgy and prayer. Many seek a more inner call to a life that offers them peace from a world so mixed up. Today’s young men are looking for spiritual substance. The liturgy of the community, which follows the ancient Canonical Hours of the Day bring wellsprings of a life they feel attracted to, which parish life cannot.

“Within our Community men seek a more secure reason for existence; the attraction to serving God with others who are of like mind.” The Latin phrase for this is – as the Apostles were known – “Cor unum et anima una” – “They were of one heart and of one soul.”


You can check out the gift shop where they sell goods they make themselves, as well as goods from other traditional religious communities.  



Remastered Mozart: Requiem - Solemn Pontifical Requiem Mass in Memory of J.F. Kennedy

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This looks wonderful. It's the Mozart: Requiem - Solemn Pontifical Requiem Mass in Memory of J.F. Kennedy. This is a remarkable recording for several reasons, among them being it was the only pontifical requiem mass ever celebrated for a United States president. Also, it is extremely rare to hear the Mozart setting of the requiem in liturgical context, even rarer using the Tridentine Rite.

A stunning setting of ‘O magnum mysterium’

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Around this time of year choir directors tend to start thinking about December, choosing carols and planning Christmas music lists. For those of us in the northern hemisphere, the height of the summer is always a strange time to be looking ahead to Christmas, and as I write, appositely enough from Bethlehem in the middle of a choir tour to Palestine, the dusty heat makes snow seem unimaginable. However, the idea of a cold and icy landscape still serves in a figurative sense, representing the world before Christ.

One of the most well-known Christmas texts, 'O magnum mysterium', has inspired many composers for centuries and there are several beautiful settings in the repertoire, notably by Victoria, Gabrieli and Poulenc. Another one which I recently came across is by Frank La Rocca, the Emeritus Professor of Music at California State University and a leading Catholic composer. His is a very powerful contemporary setting, immensely beautiful and of great integrity. There is a very strong sense in his music that his primary focus is to serve the text and illuminate its meaning, rather than use choral effects for their own sake, a route sometimes taken by other modern composers.

His paper The Apologetics of Beauty, which focuses on his 'O magnum mysterium', attempts to answer the question of what defines the concept of beauty in sacred music. He writes:

1. That which arouses in the beholder a longing for the transcendent; that which serves as a bridge from the material to the spiritual world to unite us to the transcendent.

2. That work of art which possesses attributes of harmony, integrity, proportion and clarity appropriate to its subject.

Ave Maria by Robert Parsons (excerpt)
In the same paper he goes on to talk of the kreuz motif which was used by J.S.Bach as a melodic representation of the Cross. This is a musical shape generally built around four consecutive notes, the second of which is lower than the first, the third rising above both, and the fourth returning to the original pitch of the first note. There are many variations of this musical shape, and a possible precursor to Bach's kreuz motif can be found in the extended Amen of the beautiful Ave Maria by the Tudor composer Robert Parsons. This contains a series of melodies which bear a cruciform resemblance, perhaps intended as a sign of the cross at the end of the prayer. La Rocca's use of this device in his setting is a very powerful way of turning our mind to Christ's ultimate purpose on earth. Below is the first page of his piece with the cruciform melodies marked:


You can listen to the piece beautifully rendered by the Artists Vocal Ensemble directed by Jonathan Dimmock in the YouTube clip below. This comes from a CD of works by Frank La Rocca entitled 'In This Place' which was described by American Record Guide as containing 'luminous sacred introspection, transcendental effect, and breathtaking beauty'. You can buy the CD from Amazon, and Frank La Rocca's website is here.

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