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Traditional Ambrosian Chants from the Choir of Milan Cathedral

October 10, 2019, 1:53 pm
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Yesterday, the Church of Milan marked the centenary of the birth of Mons. Luciano Migliavacca. Ordained to the priesthood by the Bl. Cardinal Schuster in 1942, he studied Gregorian chant in Rome at the Pontifical Institute for Sacred Music, where he obtained a degree in music composition; he also studied at the theological faculty of the Univ. of the Sacred Heart in his native city, where he wrote a thesis on the Ambrosian orations of the seasonal Masses. In 1957, he was appointed director of the cathedral choir, and served in that role for 41 years; after some years in retirement, he passed away in 2013 at the age of 94. His original compositions include over 70 Masses, numerous motets based on the texts of the Ambrosian liturgy, settings of the Magnificat and various psalms, as well as pieces for organ, and an oratorio for soloists, choir and orchestra called “The Gospel of St Mark.” He was also an active contributor to many scholarly publications in the field of sacred music, and directed a project to transcribe the innumerable polyphonic works in the musical archives of Milan cathedral.

Mons. Migliavacca (lower left) conducts the choir of Milan cathedral during an Ambrosian Pontifical Mass celebrated coram Summo Pontifice in St Peter’s Basilica during the first session of the most recent ecumenical council.
Here is a recoding of several different pieces of Ambrosian chant, sung by the choir of Milan cathedral, conducted by Mons. Migliavacca, with one exception. Some notes on the individual pieced and their liturgical use are given below.


The recording begins with three hymns by St Ambrose:
1. (0:01) Splendor paternae gloriae, which is sung in the Ambrosian rite at Lauds every day when the Office is of the season per annum; in the Roman Rite, it is sung at Monday Lauds per annum.
2. (3:57) Agnes beatae virginis, for the feast of St Agnes.
3. (7:30) Apostolorum passio, for the feast of Ss Peter and Paul.

4. (10:14) Omnes patriarchae, the antiphon ‘in choro’ of Second Vespers of the Epiphany.
5. (11:31) Tenebrae factae sunt, the responsory sung at the service “post Tertiam” of Good Friday, before the Passion of St Matthew. In choir, the solo parts of this are supposed to be sung by the senior cleric present, which in the Duomo means the archbishop, but the piece is very complex, and it was commonly sung by a canon standing next to the him instead. Many parts of the Ambrosian liturgical repertoire are assigned by the liturgical books to be sung by specific people or groups. (This part of the recording was conducted by Luigi Benedetti.)
6. (15:18) The Ambrosian version of Rorate caeli, which, like its Roman counterpart, is an optional chant commonly sung at Benediction. In this recording, it is sung in a manner common to many Ambrosian pieces, alternating between the men’s and boy’s choirs, and concluding with both choirs singing together.
7. (16:58) The psalm In exitu Israel (113) with a triple Hallelujah after each verse, from Vespers of Easter Sunday. In the actual liturgy, the entire Psalm would be sung, with psalms 133 and 116 added on, followed by a single doxology; this is the oldest form of festive psalmody in the Ambrosian Rite.
8. (18:14) The antiphon Venite omnis creatura, from Matins of the Epiphany. In the Ambrosian Office, all antiphons are semidoubled; this is one of a handful of exceptions, called “double antiphons”, which are sung in two parts. Before the Psalm, the first part is sung by the men’s choir, the second by the boys’s; the reverse is done after the Psalm. “Venite, omnis creatura: adoremus Dominum, qui illuxit nobis, quem praedicaverunt prophetae a Moyse usque ad Joannem Baptistam. V. Hodie apparuit Christus, Deus de Deo, lumen de lumine. – Come, every creature, let us adore the Lord, Who hath shown upon us, Whom the prophets foretold, from Moses to John the Baptist. V. Today Christ hath appeared, God from God, light from light.”
9. The psallenda Pax in caelo, from Vespers of the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany. A psallenda is a chant like an antiphon, sung in full before and after the doxology, but without any psalmody, at the end of Lauds and Vespers; there is usually more than one, and it is also used make commemorations. “Pax in caelo, pax in terra, pax in omni populo; pax sacerdotibus ecclesiarum Dei. – Peace in heaven, peace on earth, peace among every people; peace to the priests of the churches of God.”
10. (21:42) The psallenda Videntes stellam Magi from Second Vespers of the Epiphany. “Videntes stellam Magi, gavisi sunt gaudio magno: et intrantes domum obtulerunt Domino aurum, thus et myrrham. – Seeing the star, the Magi rejoiced greatly, and entering the house, they offered to the Lord gold, frankincense and myyrh.”

In the photograph which provides background for the video, Mons. Migliavacca is wearing the cape of a “mazzeconico”, as they were called, an Italian/Milanese corruption of “magister canonicus – a master canon.” These were a group of cantors assigned to the two chapters of the cathedral specifically to maintain a high level of liturgical chant. The boys are standing with him in a circle, during the singing of an antiphon ‘in choro’ at Vespers, which was originally sung by the cantors in a similar formation around the throne of the celebrant.

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The Latin Mass in New Orleans in 1967

October 11, 2019, 7:10 am
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Our recent photopost for the Exaltation of the Cross included some photos from St Patrick’s Church in New Orleans; as I noted in the post, this is one of the very few places anywhere in the world to have a weekly Latin Mass going all the way back to 1967. Following up on that, the current parish priest, Fr Garrett O’Brien, was kind enough to send in photos of a bulletin from that year sent out to the clergy of the diocese, announcing why the Mass was being so instituted. It is particularly interesting to note that Sacrosanctum Concilium is cited to explain this step, in addition to a pastoral need to accommodate those who do not speak English. It is perhaps hard to believe now, given how cavalierly the letter of SC was dismissed in the execution of the post-Conciliar reform, but there was indeed a period immediately after Vatican II when people took the letter of it seriously. The relevant section begins at the end of the first page.



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Photo- and Videopost Catch-Up, October 2019

October 11, 2019, 9:00 am
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We are always happy to receive photos and videos of your liturgies, even when we haven’t specifically asked for them for a major feast. Here are a few items that have been sent in recently, and one (my apologies!) not so recently. I also include here a nice little documentary on the Usus Antiquior, featuring Cardinal Burke and our own Ben Yanke.


Chapel of Our Lady of Fatima - Trnava, Slovkia
In the city of Trnava, the traditional rite was introduced on the feast of Assumption of Our Lady, with a Solemn Mass celebrated in the presence of Archbishop Ján Orosch, and his vicar, Canon Róbert Kiss, by the private secretary and master of ceremonies of archdiocese Fr. Ľubomír Urbančok. More then 200 people partecipated; the regular celebration of the TLM is held every Sunday and holy day of obligation in this chapel within the archiepiscopal residence.
Tradition will always be for the young!
Mater Ecclesiae - Berlin, New Jersey
Closing Mass of 40 Hours Devotion, celebrated on Sunday. October 6th, the external solemnity of the feast of the Most Holy Rosary. (Photos by Tom Tonelli)
Immaculate Heart of Mary - Glasgow, Scotland
Last month, we featured pictures of a Pontifical Mass celebrated on the Exaltation of the Holy Crossby H.E. Raymond Cardinal Burke at the church of the Immaculate Heart in the Balornock district of Glasgow. Una Voce Scotland has just made a video of the complete ceremony available.

Marian Sisters of Santa Rosa - Santa Rosa, California
As we have noted on some other occasions, the sister sacristans make these designs with the amice ties when laying out the vestments for their chaplain, Fr Jeffrey Keyes, who very kindly sends us these photos.

Sacred Heart on First Friday
Sept. 21, the symbol of St Matthew, a winged man.
Sept. 23, Padre Pio
Sept. 25, a tomahawk for the North American Martyrs
 Oct. 2, the Guardian Angels
Oct. 3, St Thérèse of Lisieux (EF)
Oct. 7, the feast of the Holy Rosary

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St Augustine and the Translation of His Relics

October 11, 2019, 1:00 pm
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Many Augustinian congregations, both canons and friars, have traditionally celebrated October 11th as the feast of the Translation of the Relics of St Augustine. For centuries, the Premonstratensians even kept this feast with an octave, although this was suppressed after Pope St Pius X’s breviary reform.

The calendar for October from a Premonstratensian Breviary printed in 1490. The Translation of St Augustine is marked on the 11th; note that because the octave day, the 18th, is permanently impeded by the feast of St Luke the Evangelist, it is permanently anticipated to the 17th. (This may seem like an odd thing to do, but it was a common enough practice once upon a time, and the same is done with St Ursula and Companions on the 21st, since their octave is impeded by Ss Simon and Jude.)
St Augustine died on August 28, 430 A.D., as the barbarian Vandals were besieging the city of Hippo, where he had ruled as bishop for thirty-five years. The Vandals were Arians who often persecuted the Catholics of north Africa, and about 50 years later, their king Huneric expelled many of the Catholic bishops from his territory. Several of them fled to Sardinia, bringing Augustine’s relics with them to Cagliari on the south of the island, its major port and largest city. By the early 8th century, the Saracens had seized control of several coastal cities of the western Mediterranean, including Cagliari, while subjecting many others to continual raids and plunder. The king of the Lombards in northern Italy, one Liutprand, was able to ransom the relics from them in 724, and bring them to his capital city of Pavia, about 21 miles south of Milan. Since that time, they have been kept in the romantically-named church of San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro, “St Peter in the Golden Heaven,” where Liutprand himself is also buried.

From about 1360 to 1400, a monumental reliquary tomb for the Saint was made, of the type which is called an “arc.” (‘Arca’ in Italian; in the past we have shown similar arcs made for Ss Dominic and Peter Martyr.) It is attributed to a group of sculptors working under the brothers Matteo and Bonino da Campione, and Balduccio da Pisa. Originally kept in the sacristy, it was dismantled during the Napoleonic wars, and reassembled as the church’s altarpiece only in 1900. At four meters high, and covered with 90 statues, it is one of the most impressive monuments of late Gothic sculpture in Italy, with a remarkable richness of iconography. These photos were all taken by Nicola de’ Grandi.


Inside the altar is a silver box made by Liutprand for the relics of St Augustine, which were moved to a reliquary in 1833. They are exposed for the veneration of the faithful twice a year, on his principal feast day, August 28th, and the feast of his Conversion, April 24.


Inside the central register of the arc is depicted the death of St Augustine, who is shown in pontifical robes, with a Bible in his hand, surrounded by six deacons who hold his funeral veil. Above him, on the “ceiling”, as it were, of the open space, Christ appears to him, surrounded by Angels and Saints who are about to receive him into heaven. (Details can be seen by clicking the photo to enlarge it.)

The lower register shows the virtues of Faith (with the upside-down cross of the church’s titular Saint, the Apostle Peter, and a chalice), Hope (looking up to heaven), Charity (with a baby) and Religion, (founded on a rock, another reference to Peter.) On the panels between them are paired Ss Peter and John, James the Lesser and Andrew, Thomas and Bartholomew, each holding a scroll with a few words of the Apostles’ Creed. On the upper register are the episodes of St Augustine’s conversion: listening to the preaching of St Ambrose; the famous “Tolle, lege” episode; and the reading of St Paul’s words “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh in its concupiscences.” (Romans 13, 14) In the triangles at top are shown various miracles of St Augustine.
On the lower register of the left side are Chastity, Ss Stephen, Paul the Hermit and Lawrence, and Obedience (holding a copy of a religious rule.) In the center, St Ambrose and St Possidius, bishop of Calama, are seen from behind; the latter was an eyewitness to St Augustine’s death, and later wrote a biography of him. The upper register depicts Augustine when he was a teacher of rhetoric at Milan.
St Ambrose died 33 years before Augustine; he is represented as present, along with Ss Jerome and Gregory the Great on the opposite side, to make up the company of the four Saints first recognized as Doctors of the Church. (St Jerome died about 10 years before Augustine, while Gregory was born about a century after his death.)
On the right side, the lower register depicts Meekness with a lamb, and the Evangelists Mark and Luke, with St Paul between them, and Poverty on the right. Above them, Ss Jerome and Gregory the Great (with a dove on his shoulder) are seen from behind. In the upper register, the panel on the right shows Liutprand bringing the relics from Sardinia, and then on the left, into Pavia.

At the back of the arc, the four Philosophical Virtues are depicted: Prudence, with three faces; Justice with sword and scales; Temperance, carefully pouring water from one vessel to another without spilling it; and  Fortitude in a lion skin; between them, the remaining Apostles in pairs. Above the funeral scene are the funeral of St Monica, Augustine reading his rule to his disciples, and Augustine as bishop, catechizing and then baptizing the faithful. In the left triangle, he is shown in prayer, and then in the middle disputing with three people who have the feet of chickens, a curious medieval device to indicate the heretics Arius, Donatus and Pelagius, whose errors St Augustine did so much to combat.


Another view of the arc from the side.



Some of the original Lombardic capitals of the church.




The stone marking the tomb of Liutprand, who reigned as king of the Lombards, and hence much of northern Italy, from 712-744.


The church of San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro houses the relics of another Saint, whose feast day is coming up later this month; pictures will be posted on the feast day.
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Upcoming Lectures of Dr Kwasniewsk in Rhode Island, October 26 & 27

October 12, 2019, 7:18 am
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In two weeks’ time, in conjunction with the ordination of Rev. Mr. William Rock, FSSP, by His Excellency Bishop Athanasius Schneider in Providence, RI (as announced here), I will be giving talks at two different parishes in the area.

On Saturday, October 26th, at 7:00 pm, the topic will be “The Priority of Adoration, Fear of the Lord, and the Virtue of Religion in Catholic Worship,” at The Church of the Holy Name of Jesus (99 Camp Street, Providence RI 02906 [map]). In the past, NLM has featured this parish more than once because of Fr. Joseph Santos’s annual celebration of the Palm Sunday liturgy in the rare and beautiful rite of Braga.

On Sunday, October 27th, at 6:30 pm, the topic will be “It’s Not Just a Matter of the Heart: Why What We Do and How We Do It Matters So Much in the Liturgy,” at The Church of the Holy Ghost (316 Judson St, Tiverton, RI 02878 [map]). NLM readers may also recognize this parish, which, under Fr. Jay Finelli, has been the center of so many good initiatives.

Each lecture with be followed by a Q&A.

The posters below may also be used to announce the events. I look forward to meeting many lovers of liturgy and Catholic tradition!


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Edward the Confessor and John the Evangelist

October 13, 2019, 10:50 am
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St Edward the Confessor, king of England, died on January 5, 1066, after a reign of over 23 years. He is called “the Confessor” to distinguish him from King Edward the Martyr (died 978), another Saint who was very popular in pre-Reformation England. He is the last monarch of England honored as a Saint; Henry VI (1422-71) was the subject of a strong popular devotion, with many miracles attributed to him, but his cause for canonization was broken off at the Reformation, and subsequent attempts to revive it have failed. (This was a favorite subject of the great Mons. Ronald Knox.) The numeration of the English monarchs begins with the Norman Conquest, which took place shortly after, and largely because of, Edward’s death, and therefore neither he nor the Martyr is included in it. (Edward I reigned in the later 13th and early 14th centuries.)

Ss Edmund the Martyr (a 9th century King of East Anglia, also very popular before the Reformation), Edward the Confessor and John the Baptist present King Richard II to the Virgin and Child (The Wilton Diptych, 1395.) The Confessor holds a ring in his hand, in reference to the story recounted below.
He was canonized in 1161 by Pope Alexander III, who had a remarkably long reign (one week shy of 22 years), and lived to canonize another very important Englishman, St Thomas Becket. Since he died on the vigil of the Epiphany, which was considered far too important to displace, his feast was assigned to October 13, the day on which St Thomas himself translated his relics from their original place in Westminster Abbey to a shrine in the choir. They were later moved to a different shrine within the abbey behind the altar, where they remain to this day, one of two such shrines in all of England not destroyed by the impiety of Henry VIII and his successors. (The other is of a Saint called Wite of whom nothing is known.) In 1689, the year after the last Catholic monarch of England was dethroned, Bl. Pope Innocent XI extended his feast to the general calendar.

A Catholic Requiem Mass celebrated at the shrine of St Edward in Westminster Abbey in 2013 (from an NLM post by Charles Cole.)
The Sarum Breviary tells a charming story of St Edward and his devotion to St John the Evangelist. While attending the consecration of a church, Edward was approached by an elderly man who asked him for alms in the name of God and of St John. The royal almoner was not present, and having nothing else on him, Edward gave him his ring. Many years later, two English pilgrims in Jerusalem met an elderly man who, on learning where they were from, said to them, “I ask you brothers, return to your king, and give him the message which I shall send by you. I am John, the Apostle and Evangelist, and I love the holy king Edward for his chastity, for I know him to be near to God.” He then explained to them how he received the ring from Edward, “which I have kept unto this day for love and reverence for the man of God; I now send it back to him with glory, and within a short time, shall render even more pleasing gifts. For within half a year’s time, he will be clothed as I am in the robe of immortality…”

The pilgrims, cleverly described in the breviary as “apostolic legates”, returned to the king, delivering both the message and the ring. And indeed, St Edward took ill on Christmas night of that year, and by Childermas, was too sick to attend the consecration ceremony of the abbey of St Peter, which he himself had founded and built. The original Romanesque building was replaced by the famous Gothic church now known as Westminster Abbey in the mid-13th century. The only surviving representation of the original church is in the section of the Bayeux Tapestry which shows the body of King Edward being brought into it for burial.

“Here the body of King Edward is brought to the church of St Peter the Apostle.”
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St. John Henry Newman, the Traditionalist

October 14, 2019, 10:57 am
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This is the kind of atmosphere Newman associated with the Mass.
(The photo is recent — the New Evangelization banner gives it away —
but the feel is timeless, and not simply because the photo is monochrome.)
It is ironic, to say the least, that Cardinal Newman is so often hailed as “the theologian of the Second Vatican Council” or the great proponent of reforming trends within the contemporary Church, when — at least on matters concerning fundamental theology, Christian morality, and sacred liturgy — he argued strenuously and consistently throughout his career against rationalism, emotionalism, liberalism, and tinkeritis. In the realm of liturgy in particular, he was staunchly opposed to ritual modifications and modernizations designed to “meet people where they’re at” or to (as Paul VI put it in his April 3, 1969 Apostolic Constitution promulgating the Novus Ordo) “accommodate the mentality of today.”

Newman was not just anti-liberal (which he says expressly of himself); he was not just a Burkean conservative with a loathing for revolutionary schemes. He was what is now called a traditionalist in matters dogmatic and liturgical, one who would have lambasted the entire conciliar project, and certainly the liturgical reform carried out in its name, as misguided and doomed to failure. “What points in common are there between the easy religion of this day, and the religion of St. Athanasius, or St. Chrysostom? How do the two agree, except that the name of Christianity is given to both of them?” (Parochial and Plain Sermons, sermon 25, Feasting in Captivity).

In his Essay on the Development of Doctrine he claimed that the Fathers of the Church, were they to return to England in his day, would bypass the grand houses of worship owned by the Establishment and seek out a little Catholic chapel, in the liturgy of which they would be able to recognize the spirit and the reality of their own faith:
Did St. Athanasius or St. Ambrose come suddenly to life, it cannot be doubted what communion he would take to be his own. All surely will agree that these Fathers, with whatever opinions of their own, whatever protests, if we will, would find themselves more at home with such men as St. Bernard or St. Ignatius Loyola, or with the lonely priest in his lodging, or the holy sisterhood of mercy, or the unlettered crowd before the altar, than with the teachers or with the members of any other creed. And may we not add, that were those same Saints, who once sojourned, one in exile, one on embassy, at Treves, to come more northward still, and to travel until they reached another fair city, seated among groves, green meadows, and calm streams, the holy brothers would turn from many a high aisle and solemn cloister which they found there, and ask the way to some small chapel where Mass was said in the populous alley or forlorn suburb?
Is there any doubt, did Newman come suddenly to life in our midst, that he would (with consummate politeness and decorum, of course) ask the way to some small chapel where Mass was said as he knew it and said it, and where he would find himself at home?

Newman was, I maintain, a Catholic traditionalist avant la lettre. One can see this in so many writings from every period of his life, and of every genre, that it takes little more than opening pages at random to be able to start a fine personal collection of polished gems of perennial, hence anti-modernist, wisdom. (Next week, I will share an annotated florilegium of such texts.) Because the postconciliar “progressives” in the Church are accustomed to craft and lying, which is how they have obtained the mastery of all important positions right up to the top (for the devil is lavish with his own), Newman has been selectively misquoted and misrepresented as a friend of their cause, which has led to his falling under a cloud of suspicion in the minds of more conservative or traditional Catholics who do not know his work well. He has even been accused of being a modernist himself, although in fact one finds him expressly refuting the modernists, in many cases long before their ideas became fashionable and widespread.

Moreover, it is worthy of note that Newman has always been a favorite author for traditionalist writers. Michael Davies edited a volume of his sermons entitled Newman Against the Liberals; Arlington House publisher and conservative American littérateur Neil McCaffrey, founder of The Latin Mass magazine, quotes Newman frequently; and two of our most appreciated Catholic clergy who were former Anglicans, Fr. John Hunwicke and Fr. Richard Cipolla, are steeped in the thought and words of the great Cardinal.

Another recent photo, but it might as well be from 19th-century England.

Newman played a crucial role in my own intellectual and spiritual “conversion” to traditional Catholicism. In college, I got hold of the one-volume Ignatius Press edition of his Parochial and Plain Sermons and somehow persevered in reading the entire book, over 1,000 pages of glorious (Anglican!) preaching. It did not make me think of Anglicanism per se; it made me think: “So this is what serious, biblical, Patristic, earnest Christianity looks like! It’s not anything I ever saw in the Catholic Church growing up in suburban New Jersey.” That book was one among many influences (reading Butler’s Lives of the Saints, and Ludwig Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, were two more) that prompted me to search harder to find this Christianity, if possible. As we know, some people are led by that search to the Catholic Eastern rites or to Eastern Orthodoxy; others, myself in their number, are led to the full-blooded, 2,000-year old reality of Western or Latin Catholicism that finds its supreme exemplar in the Tridentine Roman Rite and the culture of faith and beauty that surrounds it, of which the postconciliar establishment has been like a photographic negative or an algebraic cancellation.

In the exploration of the tradition(s) of the Church, Newman has long been for me a compagnon de voyage. This fall, with all the buzz about the canonization, I decided to make a study of his writings on worship, reverence, and ritual. What I discovered amazed me anew with its richness, variety, and eloquence. In addition to a few passages already well-known to traditionalists — such as where he says that the Church never abolishes her traditional liturgical rites, but always carries them forward (tell that one to the Consilium!) — Newman has page after page on the beauty and solemnity of Holy Mass, the importance of its aesthetic and linguistic qualities, the spiritual fruitfulness of objective predetermined ceremonial, the ample room that exists within set forms for differences in individual devotional engagement, and similar themes, all of them current in the traditionalist movement.

I therefore decided to create and publish a collection of all of the best texts of this sort that I could find, and the book is now available (from different sources, depending on one’s location). Below are the cover, the description, and links:

DESCRIPTION: The life and thought of John Henry Newman were permeated with the ceremonies and hallowed texts of Christian liturgies, which he celebrated for over six decades, starting as an Anglican deacon in 1824 and ending as a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church. It comes as no surprise that allusions to liturgical worship are ubiquitous in his writings. The “ordinances” of the Church, her rich panoply of rites handed down through the centuries, are, for Newman, doors or windows into the heavenly society for which we were created and to which God is calling us throughout our lives. As Newman says in a number of places, we are given our time on earth to begin to live, through personal prayer and corporate worship, the life of the blessed in heaven. This new book gathers over seventy texts from a large number and wide range of Newman’s writings in all periods of his career, including forty-four of his incomparably great sermons. That Newman deserves his reputation as one of the finest English writers and theologians of all time is abundantly demonstrated in these spirited and subtle reflections on the duty of reverence, the benefits of ritual, and the privilege of divine worship.
Those in Europe may order from Amazon:
Those in the USA may order from Lulu:

Support independent publishing: Buy this book on Lulu.

Here is the Table of Contents for those who wish to see what is included (the pages are cropped and combined for convenience):


May St. John Henry Newman, who gave us a marvelous example of seeking the light of truth wherever it leads and who persevered in ecclesial prayer with Mary the Mother of God and the Apostles, intercede for us on earth, as we strive to love that same truth and to restore the lost splendor of our divine worship.
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The Coptic Orthodox View of a 21st Century Renaissance in Catholic Culture

October 15, 2019, 6:21 am
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I want to draw your attention to a new blog from my friend, Dr. Stephane Rene, who is one of the foremost proponents of neo-Coptic iconography today. You can find it here: copticiconography.com.

Stephane is not only a wonderful painter; he has a deep understanding of the Christian tradition, and he is always worth reading and listening to. He is based in London and teaches at the Prince of Wales’ school of traditional arts in Shoreditch. Here is an example of his work.


His latest post is intended for a Coptic readership, and is an appeal against the influence of Western kitsch art in Coptic iconography. It is interesting to me to see how sentimentality and kitsch are so virulent they can infect just about any milieu, even one that I had viewed as resiliently traditional as the Coptic culture.

While he is critical of some Western traditions, most notably the High Renaissance, (and he is in good company here; Benedict XVI was too), he is refreshingly open to the first developments taking place in what he sees as a renewal of sacred arts in the Roman Catholic Church. As a member of the Coptic Orthodox Church, he is making such observations as an outsider. After first making some kind comments about my book, The Way of Beauty, he mentions two artists by name. One is known to me already, Ian Knowles the British iconographer whose style is influenced by that of his teacher Aidan Hart. The other is a French painter that I had not seen before, François Peltier who, he says, “has a more contemporary approach and uses modern materials, but his content and vocabulary are steeped in tradition.” The image below is one of his Stations of the Cross.


This is interesting work. It brings to mind the scripturally based work of the 20th-century Jewish French artist Marc Chagall. Benedict XVI is an admirer of Chagall’s art; I wrote in an article in 2011 that while I can see potential for devotional art in his style, I was skeptical about its value as liturgical art and the likelihood of it inspiring the rejuvenation of tradition. At the time I wrote:
Chagall’s work is highly individual in its stylization, and it relies much more on an interpretation of ideas that is directed by intuition rather than reason. Unless we can discern the principles that underlie it and characterize them very clearly, we can copy his work, but it is going to be difficult to do so with sufficient understanding for it to be the basis of a new tradition.
There is another factor that mitigates against Chagal: we live in the age where the tradition is one of anti-tradition. Today’s artists spend most of their time trying to be different be from everyone else. So even if Chagall does represent the beginning of a fourth liturgical tradition and somebody worked out his system of iconography, no tradition derived from it is is going to emerge as long as artists spend most of their time chasing ‘originality’ and consciously trying to differentiate themselves from other work.
Time will tell!
I’m not sure it is to my taste, but perhaps time is telling me something after all through the work of M. Peltier! Below is his Divine Mercy, which I prefer to the common image, as he has managed to purge it of the sentimentality which is so strong in the original.

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Michaelmas Events with the FSSP

October 15, 2019, 3:32 pm
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Here are some pictures of two events celebrated by the FSSP on the feast of St Michael, which this year took the place of the green Sunday after Pentecost in the Extraordinary Form. At the Roman church of Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini, two young members of the parish made their First Holy Communion; as you can see, the Italian tradition of wearing a special formal outfit for this event is still very much alive and well.

The two girls who made their First Communion offer lilies at the Lady Altar before Mass starts.
Tradition will always be for the young!
At the Cathedral of the Risen Christ in Lincoln, Nebraska, of Solemn Vespers of the feast were celebrated by Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary, at the gracious invitation of Fr Justin Wylie, the rector of the church, who attended in choro. Fr Josef Bisig, the founding superior general and currently rector of the seminary, celebrat Vespers, which was followed by the beginning of a 40 hours devotion; about 250 faithful were in attendance.
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Call for PhD Applicants in Liturgical Studies at Notre Dame Univ.

October 16, 2019, 7:54 am
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The Graduate School at the University of Notre Dame accepts up to two fully-funded PhD students per year in Liturgical Studies. The program integrates three sub-disciplines, Liturgical History, Liturgical Theology, and Ritual Studies, and offers a wide range of research opportunities, with particular strengths in early and late antique Christian ritual and material culture, medieval liturgy, Byzantine Christianity, manuscript studies, contemporary liturgical theology, and ritual studies. All applications must be submitted to the Graduate School by January 2, 2020. More information and a link to the online application may be found here: https://theology.nd.edu/graduate-programs/ph-d/


The Liturgical Studies program was founded in 1947 as the first graduate program in the Department of Theology, and quickly grew to become an international center for the study of liturgy. Pioneers in the discipline who have taught at Notre Dame include Josef Jungmann, Louis Bouyer, Robert Taft, Paul Bradshaw, and many others. The program is currently comprised of seven faculty members and represents one of the largest concentrations of liturgical scholars at one place in the world.

In addition to its core strengths, Liturgical Studies offers a variety of opportunities for research collaboration with other institutions at Notre Dame, including the Medieval Institute, the Program in Sacred Music, other departments at the university (esp. History, Anthropology and Sociology), and other programs within the Theology Department, including Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity (CJA), the History of Christianity (HC), and Systematic Theology (ST). The Hesburgh Libraries system has extensive holdings in theology and one of the nation’s largest collections in medieval and Byzantine studies, including the Milton Anastos Collection. The Theology Department also offers a broad range of ancient languages, including courses in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Hebrew, Coptic, Armenian and Ge’ez, with additional opportunities for studying Georgian, Slavonic, and Jewish Aramaic.
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More on the Greek Mass of St Denis

October 16, 2019, 11:12 am
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As I noted in an article last week, the Abbey of St Denis near Paris had the custom of celebrating Mass in Greek on the octave day of its patron Saint, a custom which was maintained until the French Revolution. This was not the Byzantine Divine Liturgy, but the Mass of the Roman Rite translated into Greek, although the Canon and other silent parts of the Mass remained in Latin. The website of the Schola Sainte-Cécile has just made available in pdf the complete text of a work published in 1779, which gives an historical introduction to this tradition, followed by the ordinary of the Mass in Latin and French, and then the liturgical texts of the Greek Mass, including the chant. All of the following, which explains the orgins of this custom in much greater detail, comes from the article which accompanies it, written by Henri de Villiers.

As an example of the chant, here is the introit of the Greek Mass from the 1779 edition:


Compare this with the original:


The parts of the Latin Mass have been translated into Greek, and set to the same chant, with some adjustments for the change in accent.

The whole Mass of the octave was chanted in Greek; however, on the octave, the Epistle and Gospel were repeated in Latin, while on the feast day, they were sung first in Latin, and then repeated in Greek. This custom of doing the readings twice goes back to the Carolingian era, and was also done on Easter, Christmas, Pentecost, the feast of St Matthias, and that of the abbey’s dedication on February 24th. (Mercure de France, 1728).

The work linked above is the second edition, after a first issued in 1777, and was clearly made to help the faithful to follow the Mass. Various witnesses of the 17th and 18th centuries attest that this unusual celebration, which was done with great magnificence and a large number of ministers in sacred vestments, was attended by large numbers of pilgrims, especially since, for the entire octave, the abbey would solemnly expose the relic of St Denis’ head, and the silver reliquary which contained his body and that of his companions, Ss Rusticus and Eleutherius, for the veneration of the faithful.

The origin of the Greek Mass of St Denis

The oldest surviving liturgical book from the royal abbey of Saint-Denis is a sacramentary of the second half of the ninth century, (BnF Latin 2290), at the beginning of which we find the Gloria, Creed, Sanctus and Agnus Dei in the Greek language, but written with Latin letters, and with the Latin text added between the lines.


There is also a fragment of the Gloria written in the same fashion in a sacramentary (Laon 118 f° 145v°) which the monks of Saint-Denis made in the later part of the 9th century or beginning of the 10th, and gave to the chapter of Laon as a gesture of thanksgiving for taking them in during a Norman invasion.

The second book which we have from St Denis is a missal written between 1041 and 1060 (BnF Latin 9436), which at the beginning has several parts of the ordinary in Greek and Latin, and also their musical notation in campo aperto (i.e., with notes, but no staff): three Kyries, a Gloria in Greek, followed by three others in Latin, and the Credo in Greek (but not in Latin!), then three each of the Sanctus and Agnus Dei in Latin only.

Another very notable rarity is the Cherubic hymn, one of the most famous pieces of the Byzantine Divine Liturgy, translated into Latin to be used as a second Offertory at the Mass of the Trinity (f° 58v°).

“Qui cherubin mystice imitamur et vivifice Trinitatis ter sanctum hymnum offerimus, omnem nunc mundanam deponamus sollicitudinem sicuti regem omnium suscepturi cui ab angelicis invisibiliter ministratur ordinibus, alleluia. – We, who mystically represent the Cherubim, and chant the thrice-holy hymn to the Life-giving Trinity, let us set aside the cares of life, that we may receive the King of all, Who comes invisibly escorted by the Divine Hosts.”

The following is a reconstruction of it, since there is no manuscript which gives this version on staff notation.

However, this Missal gives no Greek parts for the octave of St Denis.


The abbey’s ancient library contained various works in Greek, including a manuscript of the year 1020 (BnF 375), which give the scribe’s name, a Greek monk called Elias, and has the texts of the Byzantine Divine Liturgy for Easter and the Pentecostarion (the Easter season), followed by a menaion (sanctoral). It is unlikely that the monks of Saint-Denis actually used this for liturgical celebrations in the Byzantine Rite, but in the 11th century, a scribe added three Greek texts to it: the Office of St Denis, (ff. 153r°-154r°), the Genealogy of Christ according to St Matthew for Christmas Matins, (ff. 154v°-155v°) and at the very end, the Epistle of St Denis’ feast (Acts 17, 22-34, St Paul’s discourse at the Areopagus – ff. 194v°). This last has the inflexions of an epistle tone written above the Greek text, indicating that it was used in the liturgy.

However, these Greek texts used within the Latin liturgy are certainly not proper to the abbey of Saint-Denis. At the Papal Mass, the Gospel was chanted in both Latin and Greek, a custom which has endured even to our own time. Anciently, the Gloria was sung in Greek on Easter and Christmas, and there were various Alleluias sung with verses in Greek at the stational Vespers of Easter and its octave. As the Papal liturgy spread through the Carolingian Empire during the 9th century, this Roman custom was not only preserved, but further developed, very much in keeping with the scholarly renewal of the Carolingian Renaissance, and many similar pieces in Greek are found in other sacramentaries of the 9th and 10th century.

This usage began to disappear in most places in the 11th century, but at Saint-Denis, the monks, proud of the Greek origin of their Patron Saint, (much contested by more recent hagiographical scholarship) not only preserved it, but broadened its scope beyond that of the Carolingian period.

The first indications of a “Missa greca” on the octave of St Denis are found in an Ordo for the services at the monastery, dated to 1275 (BnF Latin 976 ff. 137r° et 137v°). Another version of this ordo from the same period is at the Bibliothèque Mazarine (ms. 526); here is a translation with some notes.

On the octave of Ss Denis, Rusticus and Eleutherius:
  • At the Mass, three cantors intone the Introit in Greek “Zeuete agallya” (probably a transcription of Venite exultemus, Ps. 94, 1). Six cantors continue (“four” in the Mazarine ms.). Verse, “Zeuete agallya” (same text as the Introit). Doxa Patri (Gloria Patri).
  • Kyrie, Fons bonitatis (frequently sung during octaves in the Use of Paris).
  • After this, the priest begins “Doxa en ipsistis [Gloria in excelsis Deo].”
  • Prayer: Protegat nos, Domine (the same given in the 11th century Missal of Saint-Denis for the octave, and also in the printed edition of 1779).
  • The Epistle is then read in Greek, and then in Latin: Stans Paulus (Acts 17 as noted above.)
  • Gradual: Phobite thon Kyrion (Timete Dominum – also in the Latin 11th century Missal of Saint-Denis on the octave). Verse: Ide ekztontes, by three [cantors].
  • Alleluia: Ekekraxan dykei, by four [cantors].
  • Sequence: Gaude prole [a work of the French King Robert II “the Pious”; the Mazarine ms gives a different one, “Supere armonie”].
  • Before the Gospel, the antiphon O beate Dyonisi is sung.
  • Then the Gospel is read in Greek, then in Latin: Videns Jesus turbas (Matthew 5, 1-12 – the edition of 1779 has Luke 12, 1-8 for the octave).
  • Phisteuo, that is the Creed, is said, even if it is not a Sunday.
  • Offertory: Y ta Cherubyn [The Cherubic hymn, in Greek, and not in Latin as in the earlier manuscripts].
  • Sanctus: Agyos.
  • Agnus: O Agnos tou Theu et Agnus Dei, three [cantors]. (‘Agnos’ is a mistake for ‘amnos’, one of several such transcriptions errors.)
  • Communion: Psallate Ysu (Psallite Jesu).
  • Postcommunion: Sumpsimus, Domine, pignus (also as in the 11th century Missal of Saint-Denis on the octave, still in use in 1779).
  • Ite missa est.
  • Sicut Angelorum (perhaps the responsory for the final procession).
Therefore, as of the 13th century, the Mass of the Octave of St Denis was sung entirely in Greek, except the prayers, the sequence, and a final chant. Unfortunately, no manuscripts of the chants themselves survives.

A new step towards a more complete version of the Greek Mass took place in 1280, when a series of nine folios were added to a precious Gospel book originally donated to the abbey by Charles the Bald in the 9th century. These new folios, made of purple parchment, and decorated with letters of silver, contain the Epistles and Gospels in Greek for Christmas, the dedication of the abbey Easter, Pentecost, and the feast of St Denis. (F-BnF 9387, ff. 17r°, 160v°–161v° et 207r°) The Gospel texts are preceded by the introductory rites of the Byzantine Liturgy: “Wisdom. Stand aright. Let us listen to the Holy Gospel. Peace to all.) This is also still done at the Papal Mass, but had fallen out of use at Saint-Denis by the 18th century; in the 1779 edition, the Gospel is introduced as in the Roman Rite. Some of these readings are also accompanied with the notes of the Epistle and Gospel tones.

The Missa greca of Saint Denis: the Gospel of the feast in Greek, with the notes of the Gospel tone in red.
The anonymous author of the introduction to 1779 edition writes, “During the printing of this Mass, the Abbey of St Denis shared with us a Greek manuscript, in which we find the Greek Mass of St Denis revised by the famous Guillaume Budé, who added at the end a letter signed and initialed by his own hand. He died in 1540. This Mass is different from the one which is sung today.”

I believe that the monks must have entrusted the job of revising the texts of the Greek Mass of the octave to the famous Parisian humanist and Greek scholar Guillaume Budé (1476-1540). We may suppose that Budé translated into Greek the few pieces of the Mass that remained in Latin according to the 13th century ordos: namely, the sequence, the prayers, and perhaps some of the other parts of the Ordinary of the Mass, such as “Dominus vobiscum”, the Preface, the Lord’s Prayer, and its introduction, the O salutaris hostia (the singing of which was, since the reign of Charles V, obligatory in France at the Elevation), the pontifical blessing, and the prayers for the commemorations.

At some point between 1540 and 1658, the monks of Saint-Denis revised all of the proper texts of the Mass: the introit, gradual, alleluia, offertory and communion were changed, and the Cherubic hymn was dropped. The texts of the feast day were now used for the whole octave, where previously, there were proper texts for the vigil, the feast, and each day of the octave. The three prayers of the Mass are identical to those in the 13th century sources, but now translated into Greek. This revision may have taken place after the arrival of the Benedictines of the Congregation of Saint-Maur, which took over the abbey in 1633.

This revision was printed in a very nice edition by the king’s music printer Robert III Ballard (c. 1610-1672). Here is the copy in the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, in which a later hand has added a phonetic transcription to help the cantors. Unfortunately, this edition only gives the chant parts, with nothing at all to indicate the origin of the new texts of the propers.


However, we do know that, beginning in 1658, Ballard began to publish several books of plain-chant, most of which were revised or composed by Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers (c. 1632-1714), organist at Saint-Sulpice. It seems possible that that he, as a specialist in plain-chant, and then at the beginning of his career, may have been asked to supervise or even create the new texts chosen by the monks of Saint-Denis.

Ballard’s edition of 1658 served as the model for the writing of several manuscripts of the 17th and 18th century, as for example this beautiful one from the Bibliothèque Mazarine, ms 4465, which dates to the 18th century, and was also the basis for the edition of 1779. (Some of the pages in the version linked above are mutilated, but their content could easily be reconstructed from the previous edition of 1777, and the manuscripts on which they are based.)


Finally, we note that in the 18th century, a Roman Rite Mass was celebrated in Greek for the knights of the Holy Sepulcher in their Parisian church. As with that of St Denis, this was a means of celebrating the eastern origins of the institution. Unfortunately, no liturgical document survives to give us a better idea of how this other Missa greca was celebrated; like that of St Denis, it was ended by the French Revolution.
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Two Franco-Flemish Polyphonic Masses

October 17, 2019, 3:49 am
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Here are a couple of more wins for YouTube’s suggestions algorithm, two very nice Masses of the late Franco-Flemish school of Renaissance polyphony. The first is by Philippe Rogier, who was born ca. 1561 at Arras in the Spanish Netherlands (now in France); the kings of Spain recruited so many musicians and singers from that area that they maintained a full choir of them, known as the Flemish chapel (“capilla flamenca”), in addition to the native choir, the “capilla española.” Rogier became the assistant director of the Flemish chapel in 1584, and director of all the music at the court of Philip II of Spain two years later. He was ordained a priest at an uncertain date, but died in Madrid in 1596 at the age of only 35. He was a prolific composer, with over two hundred compositions, the majority of them sacred works, listed in the 1649 catalog of the library of King John IV of Portugal where they were kept. This library was destroyed by the terrible Lisbon earthquake of 1755, and the corpus of Rogier’s surviving works counts fewer than 60 pieces, over half of which are motets. Here is one of his seven surviving Masses, the Mass Domine, Dominus noster for three choirs.


Rogier’s contemporary and fellow Netherlander, Géry de Ghersem, was born at Tournai ca. 1574, and as a boy, sang in the capilla flamenca under his direction. In 1604, he returned north, and found a position in Brussels as the director of music for the court of Albert VII, archduke of Austria and sovereign of the Spanish Netherlands; he was also ordained a priest, and worked in several different positions until his death in 1630. He apparently did most of his composing while he was in Spain, and almost of his corpus, which was very large (perhaps even larger than that of his friend and teacher Rogier), was also destroyed in the library of John IV. In his will, Rogier had asked Ghersem to publish a group of six of his Masses and dedicate them to the King of Spain; Ghersem did this, while adding one of his own to the collection, the only work of his that survives complete, based on a motet by Francesco Guerrero, Ave Virgo Sanctissima.


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Book Announcement: Christus Vincit by Bishop Athanasius Schneider

October 17, 2019, 6:24 am
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Readers may have already picked up the buzz about the book-length interview with Bishop Athanasius Schneider done by American journalist Diane Montagna, which has just appeared from Angelico Press with the title Christus Vincit: Christ’s Triumph Over the Darkness of the Age (US | UK). Having read it twice, I can vouch that it’s as good as people are saying it is, and then some. . . and then some more. In fact, I haven’t enjoyed an interview this much since I read The Ratzinger Report back in high school, which was part of my turning to embrace a more serious Catholicism. This book by Schneider will, I believe, have a similar effect on many who read it.

I’ve published a review at Rorate Caeli, with copious quotations; here, for the announcement, I will simply reproduce the publisher’s description and the blurbs, which are more noteworthy than usual. However, it should be pointed out especially for readers of NLM that Christus Vincit contains considerable material on the liturgy and kindred matters.
  • Chapter 14, “The Eucharist and Holy Communion,” features lengthy and profound treatments of the Real Presence, transubstantiation, the crucial pedagogical and spiritual role played by external gestures of reverence, worthy and unworthy communions, the Protestant rejection of sacramental realism, the aberration of extraordinary ministers of communion (here, Bishop Schneider gives, and refutes, all of the arguments used in favor of them), and the tension between lay initiatives and episcopal approval. 
  • Chapter 15, “Reform of the Reform,” addresses the vexed question of the intentions of Vatican II, the rupture of the Consilium’s product, the impossibility of leaving the Ordinary Form as it stands, liturgical orientation (ad orientem and versus populum), the fears of lower clergy as they consider taking the right steps, anthropocentrism and clericocentrism, the new and old lectionaries, the Offertory prayers, the sign of peace, the liturgical calendar, Latin, active and passive participation, and the return of the traditional Roman rite. 
  • Chapter 16, “Reform of the Clergy,” speaks at length about priestly celibacy, seminary formation, clerical abuse and homosexuality, and asceticism.


PUBLISHER’S DESCRIPTION

In this absorbing interview, Bishop Athanasius Schneider offers a candid, incisive examination of controversies raging in the Church and the most pressing issues of our times, providing clarity and hope for beleaguered Catholics. He addresses such topics as widespread doctrinal confusion, the limits of papal authority, the documents of Vatican II, the Society of St. Pius X, anti-Christian ideologies and political threats, the third secret of Fatima, the traditional Roman rite, and the Amazon Synod, among many others. Like his fourth-century patron, St. Athanasius the Great, Bishop Schneider says things that others won’t, fearlessly following St. Paul’s advice: “Preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching” (2 Tim 4:2). His insights into the challenges facing Christ’s flock today are essential reading for those who are, or wish to be, alert to the signs of the times. Reminiscent of The Ratzinger Report of 1985, Christus Vincit will be a key point of reference for years to come.

“At this critical moment in the life of the Church we must reflect carefully on all that confronts us and discern what is true, good, and beautiful from what is evil. We cannot but be grateful to a faithful apostle such as Bishop Athanasius Schneider for his clear and courageous analysis of the state of the Church in our day. May this book assist all who read it in living their particular vocation with greater fidelity and zeal, for the glory of Almighty God and the salvation of souls.” — ROBERT CARDINAL SARAH

“No other bishop in recent memory has so tirelessly given of himself in the service of the truths of the Catholic Faith. In this wide-ranging interview, Bishop Schneider, through the account of his life and ministry and through his responses to the crucial questions of the day, gives powerful witness to his profound love of Our Lord and of His Mystical Body, the Church. This book will be of great help to the faithful, and to all people of good will, in navigating the grave confusion, division, and error prevalent in our times. It reveals the heart of a true shepherd of souls, after the Heart of Christ, the Good Shepherd.” — RAYMOND LEO CARDINAL BURKE

“St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus (‘the Little Flower’) said that humility is courage for the truth, and courage to serve. Bishop Schneider is a humble and heroic witness to the truth, and a courageous servant. His love for Christ and the Church is strong and deep and heartfelt, like St. Paul’s (Gal. 2:11–20). To the various questions regarding the crises we face (relativism, secularism, modernism, indifferentism), he responds as a faithful pastor and a perspicacious theologian. I found myself inspired and challenged.” — SCOTT HAHN

“A product of the persecuted Church in the Soviet Union, Bishop Athanasius Schneider powerfully appeals in this interview for a return to the classical doctrine, worship, and devotion of the Roman Church. Not all readers will agree with everything in his analyses, but they will find it difficult to dissent from his fundamental perception: the Church requires a radical re-supernaturalization that will save it from internal secularization, free it from the domination of all-too-human agendas, and inspire it with new ardor for its divinizing mission.” — FR. AIDAN NICHOLS, O.P.

“Reading this wide-ranging interview with one of the most outstanding bishops in the Church today is an experience of profound joy and gratitude. Bishop Schneider explains and defends Catholic truth with deep insight and total conviction. He reminds us that fidelity to Christ — the full embrace of His truth as taught by the Catholic Church — is the purpose of our existence and the only source of our salvation.” — FR. GERALD E. MURRAY



ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Athanasius Schneider was born in 1961 in Kyrgyzstan to a German family and baptized with the name Antonius. In 1973 the family emigrated to Germany. He joined the Order of Canons Regular of the Holy Cross in Austria in 1982 and received the religious name Athanasius; he was ordained a priest in Brazil in 1990. Having earned a doctorate in Patrology at the Augustinianum in Rome, he has taught since 1999 at the seminary in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. In 2006 he was ordained bishop in the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome and appointed titular bishop of Celerina and auxiliary bishop of Karaganda. From 2011 to the present he has been auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana, Chairman of the Liturgical Commission, and Secretary General of the Conference of the Catholic Bishops of Kazakhstan. Bishop Schneider is the author of two books on the Holy Eucharist: Dominus Est—It Is the Lord and Corpus Christi: Holy Communion and the Renewal of the Church.

Diane Montagna is an American journalist based in Rome.

The links again: US& UK. (Also available at Amazon sites in other countries.)
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Season 2 of Square Notes - Two-Part Interview with Cardinal Sarah

October 17, 2019, 9:09 am
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Square Notes: The Sacred Music Podcast is back for season two! We begin this season with a two-part interview with His Eminence Robert Cardinal Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.


Take a listen here:


We’ve got a great lineup for the upcoming weeks, too.
  • Episode 2 - Directing all to God: The Sacred Liturgy at the Heart of the Mission of the Church - part 2 with His Eminence, Robert Cardinal Sarah
  • Episode 3 - All about Saint Cecilia, Or: When in Rome - with Gregory DiPippo
  • Episode 4 - The Spiritual Fruits of Singing the Mass for Both Priests and the Laity - with Fr. Nathan Cromly, CSJ
  • Episode 5 - Musical Treasures of the Mozarabic (Hispanic) Rite - with Jim Monti
  • Episode 6 - Beauty, Happiness, and Whether It’s All in the Eye of the Beholder - with Dr. Alice von Hildebrand
  • Episode 7 - St. Elizabeth of the Trinity as Musician and Spiritual Friend - with Dr. Anthony Lilles
  • Episode 8 - The Catholic Traditions of Hymn Singing - with Jeffrey Ostrowski
  • Episode 9 - The Pipe Organ: King of the Instruments, and Splendor in the Roman Rite - with Dr. Nathan Knutson
  • Episode 10 - William Byrd: English Catholic Composer and Recusant - with Dr. Kerry McCarthy
  • Episode 11 - The Hows and Whys of Illuminated Chant Manuscripts - with Elizabeth Lemme
  • Episode 12 - Pope Pius X’s Motu Proprio on Sacred Music - with Dr. Susan Treacy
  • Episode 13 - From Ragas to Responsories: A Hindu Becomes a Catholic Priest - with Fr. Gaurav Shroff
  • Episode 14 - A Catholic Portrait of Abbé Franz Liszt - with Dr. Jay Hershberger
  • Episode 15 - Sacred Music, Liturgy, and Church Authority - with Dom Alcuin Reid, OSB
  • Episode 16 - Lectio Divina and Biblical Exegesis of Gregorian Chant - with Dom Mark Kirby, OSB
  • Episode 17 - Sacred Music as a Vital Part of Parish Life and Fellowship - roundtable with MaryAnn Carr Wilson, Charles Cole, and Fr. Robert Pasley
  • Episode 18 - Swimming the Thames and the Tiber - with Dr. Jay Hershberger
You can catch us on our website, YouTube, iTunes, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app. Please note that we have discontinued publishing on SoundCloud.
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Cardinal Newman’s Church in Oxford

October 18, 2019, 12:02 am
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Since the Church has just celebrated the canonization of St John Henry Newman, I thought I would share some pictures I took of the famous university church of Oxford, St Mary’s, while I was there in August. Newman was appointed vicar of this church in 1828, and became very popular as a preacher; it was also here that John Keeble, on July 14, 1833, preached the famous sermon titled “National Apostasy”, an event which Newman himself considered to be the formal beginning of the Oxford Movement. There was a church on this site before the Norman Conquest, which became Oxford’s very first building, used for lectures, for the meeting of senior members known as “congregation”, and for the awarding of degrees; however, only one part of the building as we see it today dates from the 13th century, its very beautiful spire, constructed in 1270, with pinnacles added ca. 1320.

The side of the church on High Street has a Baroque porch added in 1637 by Nicholas Stone, the master-mason of King Charles I; the twisted columns to either side of the door were clearly designed in reference to the ancient columns of similar design at St Peter’s in Rome. Four years earlier, Gian Lorenzo Bernini had just finished the magnificant bronze canopy over the main altar of St Peter’s, which copies the same ancient model. During the trial of William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, in 1641, which would lead to his execution under the Puritans, this portico with its statue of the Virgin Mary was adduced as evidence of his “Popish” leanings; bullet holes made by Cromwell’s soldiers can still be seen in the statue.
The nave of the church, seen here from the loft at the back of the building, was completely rebuilt in 1510. There was a rood screen that separated the chancel from the nave, which was taken out at the Reformation; the current one, which is much smaller, was installed in 1827. The organ mounted on it is modern, from 1986.
The chancel was completely remodelled in 1453, and is obviously now much less decorated than it would have been originally. The stalls, however, are originals of the late 15th century; the altarpiece of the Virgin and Child is by the Venetian painter Francesco Bassano the Younger.
The neo-Gothic baptismal font was added to the church in the later 1820s, along with several other features such as the pulpit in the nave, and most of the stained glass windows.
An inscription added to the church in 1966 in commemoration of the Blessed Duns Scotus, an Oxford alumnus, for the seventh centenary of his birth. “John Duns the Scot, of the Order of Friars Minor, who in his lectures at Oxford represented the words of the Psalm ‘The Lord is my light’ (Ps. 26, 1, the motto of the university), with the placing of this stone by his brothers after 700 years is commemorated, in the year 1966.”
Random Oxonian architecture.
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Bible Vigils: Guest Article by Sharon Kabel

October 18, 2019, 6:31 am
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Last month, we published two items (here and here) about the paraliturgical “Bible vigils” which are mentioned in Sacrosanctum Concilium, and were fashionable to one degree or another during the fairly brief period when the letter of that document was still taken seriously. Writer Sharon Kabel has done some more extensive research on them, and we thank her very much for sharing the results with NLM. She has also an extensively bibliography on the subject available for consultation here.
“Include New Vigil in Family Weekend.” The Catholic Advocate, Sept. 27, 1962
Bible vigils were a Catholic phenomenon of the 1960s. They were called by a variety of names, “Bible vigil” being the most common but also “Bible” or “Biblical” “ritual, service, devotion”, “celebration of the Word”, and most confusingly, sometimes used synonymously with Vespers. The most generous timeline for their use spans 1959-1978, but their most active period was about 1963-1967 (see graphic below). While the service may have originated in Germany, they were popular around the world, popping up in Brazil, Hong Kong, Korea, and East Germany. Cardinals Bea and Döpfner celebrated one in 1964; Thomas Merton discussed them; Paulist Press and Liturgical Press both published books on them; Worship, The Bible Today, The Furrow, and Review for Religious all published numerous articles on them; at least half a dozen twentieth century archival search aids mention them; and Pope St Paul VI closed the Second Vatican Council with an interfaith Bible vigil, at perhaps the peak of their popularity.

Two men commonly associated with the development of Bible vigils were Fathers Clifford Howell and Lawrence Dannemiller. Fr Howell’s obituary notes his famous progressive positions, liturgical innovations during his World War II chaplaincy, and his relief at having four options for the Eucharistic Prayer. Most notably, he was a peritus for an Australian bishop at the Second Vatican Council, and had a significant hand in the writing of Sacrosanctum Concilium, the document that was the justification for Bible vigils. Fr Dannemiller wrote Reading the Word of God, a work frequently referenced by those who wished to construct Bible vigils. (In 1970, he married a woman without requesting formal laicization.)

Liturgy and Laity, a handbook for Bible vigils published by the Confraternity of the Precious Blood, said of Bible vigils:
Essentially, this is a prayer book for personal and liturgical use. The first part, a series of reflections followed by discussion questions, treats the fundamental truths that underlie the liturgical outlook and spirit… Personal prayer and discussion, however, are not enough. We must actually pray together if we are to be truly the family of God, His people on pilgrimage to Heaven united in His Perfect Son, Jesus. The Bible Vigils, which constitute the second part, were selected and designed to foster a continual renewal of the action of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the Church. Prayed together in our homes, study groups, parishes, they will be a source of true Christian spirit. [emphases added]
Liturgy and Laity provided Bible vigils (and explanations, in a separate section) for 31 feasts or topics - including Septuagesima, a season which would be suppressed shortly afterward.

Sample Bible vigils

But what was a Bible vigil? Its exact structure and order varied, but it was explicitly modeled after the Liturgy of the Word, including Bible readings, a homily/sermon, prayer, silence, and music. They were usually celebrated on an important feast or liturgical season, and seem to have dovetailed neatly with the desire for Catholics to have greater exposure to Scripture, and for more use of the vernacular. They were frequently described as paraliturgical or quasi-liturgical, and the fluid format allowed for both instruction, commentary, and meditation on Scripture.

Two outlines of Bible vigils can be found here:
● Father Gerard Dubois, O.C.S.O., “Celebrations of the Word.“ Liturgy 2, no. 3 (October 1967): 1-8. This source is quite valuable, because it is open about the significant overlap between the Liturgy, the Divine Office, and Bible vigils.
● Hiley H. Ward, Documents of Dialogue. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966. Book.

Two examples of complete Bible vigils can be found here:
● Kevin Nies O.C.S.O., “Holy Cross Abbey: A Short English Vigil.“ Liturgy 2, no. 3 (October 1967): 12-23.
● Carl J. Pfeifer S.J., “An Evening Service for Thanksgiving Day.” Review for Religious 20, no. 6 (1961): 397-407.

In all four of those resources, one can see a substantial degree of customization and flexibility allowed. Some parts are fixed, such as the reading of a specific psalm, but very often, several options for prayers, readings, and songs are provided.

Below is the Bible vigil for marriage from Liturgy and Laity: The vigil begins with an announcement from the leader, a silent prayer, a reading of Tobias 8, 1-10, a silent prayer, and an antiphon that borrows from the Nuptial Blessing. (The Introit for the Misso pro Sponso et Sponsa is Tobias 7, 15; 8, 19.)
After the antiphon, a reader reads Ephesians 5, 22-33, the Epistle for the Missa pro Sponso, followed by a silent prayer, and an antiphon from Psalm 70.
After the antiphon, all stand for the reading of John 2, 1-12, the Wedding at Cana, a pericope not used in the Missa pro Sponso, but thematically relevant.
The Gospel reading is followed by a homily or a silent prayer, a renewal of vows where appropriate, an antiphon, or prayers of the faithful, and the leader reading the Collect of the Missa pro sponso (the words “what is administered by our service” are changed to “what is performed by our ministry”), and closing with a prayer said by all.

This is basically the same format as the Liturgy of the Word, with both Old and New Testament readings, a homily, silence, communal prayer, and, in this instance, occasional mirroring of the actual nuptial liturgy. And indeed, the introduction of this book refers to Bible vigils as “liturgical events”.
Uses and Associations

The phenomenon of Bible vigils is interesting not only for its content, but also for what was commonly associated with it, especially ecumenism. Identical prayers and prayer books were used for Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and Jewish services.
The Catholic Advocate, Volume 12, Number 5, Jan. 24, 1963
They were also associated more than once with mixed marriages, public confessions, political causes, Cursillo, and “agapes” or “love feasts.”
“(Nun) Says Farm Groups Should Federate.” Catholic News Service, Aug.17, 1965
“Mixed Marriages Permitted in Protestant Churches.” Catholic Transcript, Aug 23, 1968
Attempts were occasionally made to replace funeral services with Bible vigils, and in 1989, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops allowed the reading of the Office of the Dead to be replaced by Bible vigils.
Order of Christian Funerals; NCCB, Chicago, 1989.
Bible vigils also sometimes replaced novenas, sodality meetings, May processions, Vespers, and the Rosary - most of which are associated with Marian devotion, and all of which were regular features of mid-century parish life.
“Vespers Inaugurated At Ferndale Seminary.” Catholic Transcript, Sept. 27, 1962
Fr Gerard Dubois O.C.S.O., “Celebrations of the Word.” Liturgy 2, no. 3 (October 1967): 1-8
“ ‘Melting Pot’ an Illusion, Says Polish-American Scholar.” Catholic Transcript, Oct. 1, 1971.


“Priest, 3 Converts Demonstrate New Parish Bible Vigil Service.” Catholic News Service, Aug. 27, 1962.
While much has been written to deny the charge that the Second Vatican Council “downgraded” Mary, the reality on the parish level was sometimes felt to be quite different, and it may have been difficult to reconcile the goal of ecumenism with conflicting positions on Mary between Catholics and other Christians. A priest in 1965 denied a request for an interdenominational Bible vigil: “I will not consider ‘Ecumenism’ until some honor is given by them to our Blessed Mother.”

Hailed for their novelty (and possible future status as “liturgical rites”) in 1963, Bible vigils were upgraded to “traditional” in 1966 (right at the start of their decline), perhaps in response to growing complaints and suspicions.
National Catholic Reporter, Oct. 12, 1966
Less than 15 years later, in book “Everything You Wanted to Know About the Catholic Church but Were Too Pious to Ask”, Fr Andrew Greeley deemed Bible vigils “moribund.”

An even stranger association of Bible vigils was with a rapid and enormous decline in religious vocations. By 1971, priests leaving the priesthood was such a problem that the Vatican issued a special directive on the subject, instructing bishops on the pastoral care of ex-priests . This included stern reminders that ex-priests were absolutely not to run liturgical rites or services, but seems to have permitted them to run Bible vigils.
“Pastoral, Teaching Ban on Laicized Priests Emphasized.” Catholic News Service, March 15, 1971.
Conclusion

The powerful influence of Bible vigils was noted, as at least two bishops forbade them without previous permission, and one article asking for feedback on Bible vigils described them as “resembl[ing] the Liturgy of the Word in the Mass.”

What we find, then, is a prayer service designed to imitate the Liturgy of the Word while being endlessly customizable and flexible to any religious theme or political cause. Bible vigils were used as a vehicle to normalize women and girls taking active roles in the liturgy, non-sacred music, including folk hymns and jazz , parish councils, anti-Gothic architecture sentiment , increased use of the vernacular, lay people role-playing quasi-liturgical ceremonies with “Gospel enthronements”, and ex-religious using them to remain in some form of ministry.

Appendix 1: Data

Appendix 2: Selected Photos
“At East Catholic, Elective Courses Put Zip In Study Of Religion”: Catholic Transcript, June 9, 1967, Manchester, Connecticut. Caption: “At right, having decided on Bible Vigil, students practice setting up of vigil table.”
Bible Vigil, The Monitor, Dec. 27, 1963, San Francisco, California
Make Holy These Moments, The Catholic Advocate, Dec. 24, 1964, Park Ridge, New Jersey
The Catholic Standard and Times, Aug. 27, 1965, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The Monitor, Dec. 20, 1963, San Francisco, California (?)
The Monitor, Nov. 15, 1963, Baltimore, Maryland. Caption: “Right ... group singing climaxed the discussion period following each Bible Vigil... Karen Bunda was guitarist; Father Durken is pictured in center background.”
“Mass, Bible Vigil Features of MSJA Liturgical Day”, Catholic Transcript, Oct. 10, 1963, West Hartford, Connecticut.

Crown - Regina High School Yearbook, 1965, Harper Woods, Michigan
Althoff Catholic High School Yearbook, 1966, Belleville, Illinois
Marquette - Bishop Noll High School Yearbook, 1966, Hammond, Indiana
“The Liturgy and Scripture.” Pittsburgh Catholic, Aug. 11, 1960
Paul Laverdure, “The Years of the Second Vatican Council, 1958-65.” In Redemption and Renewal: The Redemptorists of English Canada, p. 219, 1996.
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Celebration in Honor of St John Henry Newman in Trumbull, CT, This Weekend

October 18, 2019, 9:00 am
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In thanksgiving for the canonization of St John Henry Newman, the parish of St Catherine of Siena in Trumbull, Connecicut will hold a weekend-long celebration on Saturday, October 19 and Sunday, October 20. The homily at each Mass will consider the life, thought, and relevance of the Catholic Church’s newest Saint; the music sung at Mass will feature hymns written by him: Firmly I Believe and Truly, Lead, Kindly Light, and Praise to the Holiest, which was also sung at the Church’s dedication in March. An authenticated first-class relic of St. John Henry Newman will be available for veneration. Masses will be held on Saturday, at 4:00 pm and 7:15 pm, and on Sunday at 7:30 am, 9:00 am, 10:30 am, and 12:00 pm. For information, please contact the parish office at (203) 377-3133; the church is located at 220 Shelton Road.


When St Catherine of Siena Church was consecrated by Bishop Caggiano in March, a relic of St John Henry Newman was deposited and sealed inside the new altar. At the same time, frames were added around the fourteen Stations of the Cross which feature his Meditations on the Stations of the Cross, so that visitors to the church can pray with the new Saint in contemplating our Lord’s journey to Calvary.
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Liturgical Notes on the Feast of St Luke the Evangelist

October 19, 2019, 5:09 am
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Although Ss Mark and Luke are given the title “Evangelist” in the liturgy, but are not called “Apostles”, the former is really a subcategory of the latter, and the liturgical texts of their feasts do not differ significantly from those of the other Apostles. One distinguishing feature of St Luke’s feast is that it is not kept with a vigil on the day before, since vigils were reserved for martyrs. The tradition accepted in the West is that he did not die as a martyr; his Preface in the Ambrosian Missal specifically calls him a “confessor”, and the liturgical commentator Sicard of Cremona says in the later 12th century that “he did not end his life by martyrdom.” (Mitrale 9.47) (The only other Apostles who have no vigil are Barnabas, who was not one of the Twelve, and the three whose feasts occur in Eastertide, from which penitential observances are excluded: St Mark on April 25th, and Ss Philip and James on May 1st.)

The Vision of Ezekiel, by Raphael, 1518
Already towards the end of the second century, St Irenaeus of Lyon identified the four animals (or “living beings”) seen by Ezechiel in the vision at the beginning of his book as prophetic symbols of the four Evangelists. These are a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle, the same four which later appear to St John in Apocalypse 4. This tradition was followed by Ss Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory the Great, although they differ from Irenaeus as to which animal symbolizes which Evangelist. (Jerome’s explanation, confirmed by Gregory, eventually prevailed.) They all agree, however, that the ox, an animal commonly used in temple sacrifices in the ancient world, including those of the Jews, is the symbol of St Luke, who begins his Gospel with the story of St John the Baptist’s father, the priest Zachariah. This interpretation is also strongly suggested by Ezechiel’s words, “the face of a man, and the face of a lion on the right side of all the four: and the face of an ox, on the left side of all the four: and the face of an eagle over all the four.” (1, 10) The man and the lion, who represent Matthew and Mark respectively, are both on the right, since their Gospels are very similar to each other; Luke records many stories that are not in the other two Synoptics or John, hence the ox which represents him is on the left; while John says the most about the divinity of Christ, and hence his eagle is placed above the others.

The traditional Gospel of St Luke’s feast is taken from his tenth chapter, verses 1-9, Christ’s instructions to the seventy-two whom He sent out in pairs to preach “in every city and place where He himself was to come.” It is also read on St Mark’s day, and was later extended to the feasts of various Confessors.

The revised liturgies which held sway in most of France from the mid-17th to the later 19th centuries, (now often called “Neo-Gallican,”) contain a great many lapses in taste and judgment which almost beggar belief. Like most people who put their hand to changing historical liturgies, the Neo-Gallican revisers were painfully obsessed with making everything “more Scriptural,” but in the process of expanding the Missal’s corpus of readings, they did manage to make a number of rather clever choices. One of these was to read St Luke’s prologue as the Gospel on his feast, as in the 1738 Parisian Missal.
Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a narration of the things that have been accomplished among us; according as they have delivered them unto us, who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word: it seemed good to me also, having diligently attained to all things from the beginning, to write to thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou may know the verity of those words in which thou hast been instructed. (Luke 1, 1-4)
In the original Greek, this passage is written in a notably higher style than the rest of the Gospel, perhaps a signal that the author is indeed a man of education, and hence suitable to the writing of such an important work. It is likely that he received his education while training as a doctor in his native city of Antioch, one of the most important cities in the Eastern Mediterranean at the time, which he mentions several times in the Acts.

St Luke writing his Gospel, and the beginning of the Gospel, from the 9th century Evangeliary of Ebon (folios 90v and 91r. Bibliothèque nationale de France  
A tradition attested since the sixth century states that St Luke once (or more than once) painted an image of the Virgin Mary, for which he has long been honored as a patron Saint of artists as well as doctors. This tradition may have arisen as a metaphorical way of describing the “portrait” of the Virgin which he gives in his Infancy Narrative; the first two chapters of his Gospel recount the events of Christ’s conception and birth from Her point of view, as it were, where St Matthew speaks more about St Joseph’s role. It is also he who records most of the actual words spoken by the Virgin, far more than the other three combined. However the story arose, there are a number of ancient icons which are said to be the original painted by St Luke himself, or a faithful early copy thereof, and “St Luke Painting the Virgin and Child” has been a popular subject for artists in both East and West.

On the other hand, the Byzantine Office makes only one glancing reference to this tradition, in the following text from Matins.
Luke, apostle of Christ, revealer of ineffable things, and teacher of the nations, with the divine Paul, and the holy Mother of God, about whose divine image thou didst inquire, pray for us who bless thee, and honor thy holy falling-asleep, o beholder of God, and all-wise revealer of the divine mysteries. 
The vagueness of “about whose divine image thou didst inquire” is significant, because the Canon with which this is sung was written by one Theophanes, who, together with his brother Theodore, is honored as a Saint for his defense of the holy images in the days of the iconoclast heresy. (They are called “the written-upon ones”, since the iconoclast emperor Theophilus had lines of verse cut into their skin.) Arguments from silence vary in force according to circumstance. However, it seems likely that if the tradition that St Luke made an image of the Virgin rested on a solid historical foundation, a defender of the holy icons would make much of that fact when writing a Canon in honor of him.

St Luke Drawing the Virgin and Child, by Rogier van der Weyden 1435-40
The Byzantine Office also refers explicitly to an Eastern tradition that St Luke was one of the two disciples who met Christ on the way to Emmaus, the one not named in the Gospel itself. This would be in accord with the common ancient practice of authorial anonymity; for the same reason, it was sometimes supposed that St Mark was the anonymous follower of Christ who escaped arrest in the garden of Gethsemani by running out of his clothes, an episode which is mentioned only in his Gospel. (14, 51-52) However, this story was completely unknown in the West; St Ambrose, for example, says that Cleophas’ companion was called Ammonas.
From thy writings we know, as thou said, the verity of the words which thou set forth and revealed under divine inspiration; since thou didst put thy hand to write for us of the matters of which thou were fully informed, and as the eye-witnesses handed on to thee. And thou becamest their equal, and a servant of the incarnation of the Word, whom thou didst see at Emmaus after the Resurrection; and with burning heart, thou ate together with Cleophas. Fill also our souls with His divine fervor as we honor thee.
Another text from Vespers admirably sums up the whole career of St Luke as follows.
Rejoice, thou who alone in joy did write for us “Rejoice!” (Χαῖρε, Ave), the Gospel of the Holy (Virgin), and of her giving birth to the Lord, of the Baptist speaking from the womb, of his conception, and the Incarnation of the Word, His temptations and miracles, His discourses and sufferings, the Cross and Death, and the Resurrection, which thou saw, and the Ascension, and the descent of the Spirit, and the deeds of the heralds, especially of Paul, whose companion thou wert, healer, revealer of the mysteries, and enlightener of the Church, which do thou ever guard!
Christ Appears to Cleophas and Luke on the road to Emmaus; the Supper at Emmaus; Cleophas and Luke report the Resurrection to the Apostles (Luke 24, 13-35). Fresco of the 15th century in the nave of the Gračanica Monastery in Kosovo; St Luke is named in each of the captions. (Click to enlarge.)
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St. John Henry Newman, the Traditionalist — Part 2: Quotations

October 21, 2019, 12:27 pm
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Newman wearing a saturno and a winter cappa
Last week I spoke about Newman’s anti-liberal, anti-progressive, anti-modernist side, against those of his fairweather friends and misguided enemies who paint him as a proto-Congar or a proto-De Lubac, as one who practically sketched out the Second Vatican Council and left his notes to Papa Roncalli. The truly Catholic Newman was faithfully expounded in seven books written by Fr Stanley Jaki and still in print, albeit nearly ignored, as they do not flatter modern readers. In a timely manner, Bishop Edward O’Dwyer’s 1908 essay Cardinal Newman and the Encyclical ‘Pascendi Dominici Gregis’ has also just been republished.

Today I would like to make good on my claim that Newman would oppose just about every trend in the Church today, except for the active role taken on by laity — I mean, by conservative and traditional laity who pass on and defend the Catholic and Apostolic Faith in spite of the resistance or indifference of their shepherds, a situation that echoes the fidelity of the laity during the Arian crisis, as Newman carefully documented. I shall quote particularly sparkling passages from his writings. Some of these will be found in the book that I announced on Monday, Newman on Worship, Reverence, and Ritual: A Selection of Texts (US | UK), but most are from other places in his writings. I am not putting these in any particular order, nor am I attempting to canvas his entire career or cherrypick the “best.” Like most great authors, Newman wrote an astonishing amount, and wherever one dips in, one is apt to find treasure.

Ancient Israel as a Model and Warning

In my opinion, one of Newman’s greatest strengths as a biblical exegete is his keen sense, indebted to the Church Fathers, that the Old Testament is not just a record of a particular ancient people or nation, but a mirror we hold up to our faces to see our own image. The virtues of Israel are the virtues of Christians, and their vices our vices.

A splendid example of his approach is the following passage, in which he explains that it would make no difference to have miracles, if we have not faith and love, illustrating the more general (and uncomfortable) truth that Christianity does not somehow automatically make us better than the ancient Israelites. It gives us more access to truth and grace — that is all. We can still imitate their disbelief, even as the best of them foreshadowed our saints and indeed are counted among our saints.
What is the real reason why we do not seek God with all our hearts, and devote ourselves to His service, if the absence of miracles be not the reason, as most assuredly it is not?
       What was it that made the Israelites disobedient, who had miracles? St. Paul informs us, and exhorts us in consequence. “Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness ... take heed ... lest there be in any of you” (as there was among the Jews) “an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the Living God.” Moses had been commissioned to say the same thing at the very time; “Oh that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear Me, and keep My Commandments always!”
       We cannot serve God, because we want the will and the heart to serve Him. We like any thing better than religion, as the Jews before us. The Jews liked this world; they liked mirth and feasting. “The people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play;” so do we. They liked glitter and show, and the world’s fashions. “Give us a king like the nations,” they said to Samuel; so do we. They wished to be let alone; they liked ease; they liked their own way; they disliked to make war against the natural impulses and leanings of their own minds; they disliked to attend to the state of their souls, to have to treat themselves as spiritually sick and infirm, to watch, and rule, and chasten, and refrain, and change themselves; and so do we. They disliked to think of God, and to observe and attend His ordinances, and to reverence Him; they called it a weariness to frequent His courts; and they found this or that false worship more pleasant, satisfactory, congenial to their feelings, than the service of the Judge of quick and dead; and so do we: and therefore we disobey God as they did, — not that we have not miracles; for they actually had them, and it made no difference.
       We act as they did, though they had miracles, and we have not; because there is one cause of it common both to them and us — heartlessness in religious matters, an evil heart of unbelief; both they and we disobey and disbelieve, because we do not love.  (Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 8, sermon 6, Miracles no Remedy for Unbelief)
In a similar vein, Newman speaks of how even the incarnate Christ remains the “hidden Savior” of Israel, one whose presence calls for reverential fear and faith in things unseen. We can quarrel and commit blasphemy towards Christ just as the Jews of His day did:
If He is still on earth, yet is not visible (which cannot be denied), it is plain that He keeps Himself still in the condition which He chose in the days of His flesh. I mean, He is a hidden Saviour, and may be approached (unless we are careful) without due reverence and fear. I say, wherever He is (for that is a further question), still He is here, and again He is secret; and whatever be the tokens of His Presence, still they must be of a nature to admit of persons doubting where it is; and if they will argue, and be sharpwitted and subtle, they may perplex themselves and others, as the Jews did even in the days of His flesh, till He seems to them nowhere present on earth now. And when they come to think him far away, of course they feel it to be impossible so to insult Him as the Jews did of old; and if nevertheless He is here, they are perchance approaching and insulting Him, though they so feel. And this was just the case of the Jews, for they too were ignorant what they were doing. It is probable, then, that we can now commit at least as great blasphemy towards Him as the Jews did first, because we are under the dispensation of that Holy Spirit, against whom even more heinous sins can be committed; next, because His presence now as little witnesses of itself, or is impressive to the many, as His bodily presence formerly.”  (Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 4, sermon 16, Christ Hidden from the World)
One of very few pictures we have of Newman in liturgical garb

Church Services Too Long and In Need of Modification?

Newman sees the liturgical services (or “ordinances”) of the Church as an opportunity to test our actual resolve to be holy, to attend in faith and love to God’s presence. If we cannot bring ourselves to go to church at a set time to meet the Lord and to concentrate our minds on Him when the means are provided to us, why should we presume that we will succeed in putting our minds on Him elsewhere, when no consistent means are given? Back in Newman’s day, proposals were afoot for shortening and simplifying the Church’s public worship, and he opposed them staunchly. As we know, one of the principal goals of twentieth-century liturgical reform in the Catholic Church was to abbreviate all the ceremonies, because they were considered too long for Modern Man.Ô This tendency was at work in Pius XII’s Holy Week deformation before the epitome of exiguity was achieved in the hieratic haiku of the rites of Paul VI. Newman has something helpful to say to this self-sabotaging reformism:
If any one alleges the length of the Church prayers as a reason for his not keeping his mind fixed upon them, I would beg him to ask his conscience whether he sincerely believes this to be at bottom the real cause of his inattention? Does he think he should attend better if the prayers were shorter? This is the question he has to consider. If he answers that he believes he should attend more closely in that case, then I go on to ask, whether he attends more closely (as it is) to the first part of the service than to the last; whether his mind is his own, regularly fixed on what he is engaged in, for any time in any part of the service? Now, if he is obliged to own that this is not the case, that his thoughts are wandering in all parts of the service, and that even during the Confession, or the Lord’s Prayer, which come first, they are not his own, it is quite clear that it is not the length of the service which is the real cause of his inattention, but his being deficient in the habit of being attentive. If, on the other hand, he answers that he can fix his thoughts for a time, and during the early part of the service, I would have him reflect that even this degree of attention was not always his own, that it has been the work of time and practice; and, if by trying he has got so far, by trying he may go on and learn to attend for a still longer time, till at length he is able to keep up his attention through the whole service.  (Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 1, sermon 11, Profession without Hypocrisy)
Newman makes mention of the Lord’s Prayer, which for him exemplifies the value of simple, clear, unemotional, formal prayer — as long as it remains true to its type:
Christ gave us a prayer to guide us in praying to the Father; and upon this model our own Liturgy is strictly formed. You will look in vain in the Prayer Book for long or vehement Prayers; for it is only upon occasions that agitation of mind is right, but there is ever a call upon us for seriousness, gravity, simplicity, deliberate trust, deep-seated humility. Many persons, doubtless, think the Church prayers, for this very reason, cold and formal. They do not discern their high perfection, and they think they could easily write better prayers. When such opinions are advanced, it is quite sufficient to turn our thoughts to our Saviour’s precept and example. It cannot be denied that those who thus speak, ought to consider our Lord’s prayer defective; and sometimes they are profane enough to think so, and to confess they think so.  (Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 1, sermon Sermon 14, Religious Emotion)
One wonders what Newman would have said about a pope twisting the last line of the Lord’s Prayer to say something that the Greek New Testament doesn’t say, and then to enforce his “new and improved” version on segments of the Church. We know what he would say about a pope abandoning the Latin language for Catholic worship:
The Mass must not be said without a Missal under the priest’s eye; nor in any language but that in which it has come down to us from the early hierarchs of the Western Church. (Idea of a University, Part II, ch. 6: “University Preaching,” 1855) 
Along similar lines, Newman preached on the quality of zeal that befits the confessor of Christ, and complained quite movingly of coreligionists who dared to suggest purging verses from the Psalter because they were no longer fitting to recite. We pick up the thread where he is telling us how much we are supposed to keep learning from the Old Testament. Watch where he goes with the Psalter:
A certain fire of zeal, showing itself, not by force and blood, but as really and certainly as if it did — cutting through natural feelings, neglecting self, preferring God’s glory to all things, firmly resisting sin, protesting against sinners, and steadily contemplating their punishment, is a duty belonging to all creatures of God, a duty of Christians, in the midst of all that excellent overflowing charity which is the highest Gospel grace, and the fulfilling of the second table of the Law.
       And such, in fact, has ever been the temper of the Christian Church; in evidence of which I need but appeal to the impressive fact that the Jewish Psalter has been the standard book of Christian devotion from the first down to this day. I wish we thought more of this circumstance. Can any one doubt that, supposing that blessed manual of faith and love had never been in use among us, great numbers of the present generation would have clamoured against it as unsuitable to express Christian feelings, as deficient in charity and kindness?
       Nay, do we not know, though I dare say it may surprise many a sober Christian to hear that it is so, that there are men at this moment who (I hardly like to mention it) wish parts of the Psalms left out of the Service as ungentle and harsh? Alas! that men of this day should rashly put their own judgment in competition with that of all the Saints of every age hitherto since Christ came — should virtually say, “Either they have been wrong or we are,” thus forcing us to decide between the two. Alas! that they should dare to criticise the words of inspiration! Alas! that they should follow the steps of the backsliding Israelites, and shrink from siding with the Truth in its struggle with the world, instead of saying with Deborah, “So let all Thine enemies perish, O Lord!”  (Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 3, sermon 13. Jewish Zeal, a Pattern for Christians)
Yet Paul VI did exactly what Newman railed against: he had “parts of the Psalms left out of the Service” (that is, the Liturgy of the Hours of 1970), following the steps of the backsliding Israelites. See this link for a full listing of the omitted verses.

I would go further and say that Newman, of all modern theologians, is the one whose thought stands most opposed, as a matter of principle, to the postconciliar liturgical reform.
There never was a time since the apostles’ day when the Church was not; and there never was a time but men were to be found who preferred some other way of worship to the Church’s way. These two kinds of professed Christians ever have been — Church Christians and Christians not of the Church; and it is remarkable, I say, that while, on the one hand, reverence for sacred things has been a characteristic of Church Christians on the whole, so, want of reverence has been the characteristic on the whole of Christians not of the Church.  (Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 8, sermon 1, Reverence in Worship)
Did those who radically altered the inherited liturgy, with its profound spirit of reverence exhibited and inculcated in a thousand turns of phrase, bows of the head, kisses of the altar, bending of the knees — did they “prefer some other way of worship” to what had been, for so many centuries, “the Church’s way”? Did they show “reverence for sacred things” or rather an appalling “want [lack] of reverence”? As if continuing his train of thought, Newman says in a different sermon:
It is scarcely too much to say that awe and fear are at the present day all but discarded from religion. Whole societies called Christian make it almost a first principle to disown the duty of reverence; and we ourselves, to whom as children of the Church reverence is as a special inheritance, have very little of it, and do not feel the want of it.  (Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 5, sermon 2, Reverence, a Belief in God’s Presence)

A Church is Like Heaven — or Should Be

Newman’s vision of what heaven will be like is all the more challenging to read in the postconciliar period, when his comparison of it to services in church seems to apply to nearly no Catholic parish except those that have resolutely returned to tradition:
Heaven then is not like this world; I will say what it is much more like, — a church. For in a place of public worship no language of this world is heard; there are no schemes brought forward for temporal objects, great or small; no information how to strengthen our worldly interests, extend our influence, or establish our credit. These things indeed may be right in their way, so that we do not set our hearts upon them; still (I repeat), it is certain that we hear nothing of them in a church. Here we hear solely and entirely of God. We praise Him, worship Him, sing to Him, thank Him, confess to Him, give ourselves up to Him, and ask His blessing. And therefore, a church is like heaven; viz. because both in the one and the other, there is one single sovereign subject — religion — brought before us.  (Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 1, sermon 1. Holiness Necessary for Future Blessedness)
Such views about the afterlife and the way in which a church service should emulate the state of beatitude would probably be written off today by many as “romantic” or “romanticized,” as much as would be Guéranger’s reconstruction of medieval monasticism, Mocquereau’s reinterpretation of plainchant, or Pugin’s and Viollet-le-Duc’s reclamation of Gothic architecture. Yet what all of these 19th-century geniuses had in common is their strong artistic intuition and lively religious imagination. In short, they were not rationalists and historicists, but believers and emulators.

Newman was concerned about the worldliness that ever threatened to creep into the Church, as he complains about “the American Church,” i.e., the Episcopalians.
If this view of things is allowed a footing, a sleek gentlemanlike religion will grow up within the sacred pale, with well-warmed chapels, softly cushioned pews, and eloquent preachers. The poor and needy, the jewels of the Church, will dwindle away; the clergy will sink in honour, and rich laymen will culminate. Already, Mr. Caswall informs us, “there are churches which rather resemble splendid drawing-rooms than houses of worship, and in which the poor man could hardly feel himself at home. Handsome carpets cover every part of the floor,” and “the pews are luxuriously cushioned in a manner calculated to invite repose.” (Essays Critical & Historical, Volume 1, VIII. The Anglo-American Church)
We are not far here from the utterly non-transcendent comfortable religion that Bishop Barron years ago, before he busied himself with the more urgent business of evacuating hell, memorably dubbed “beige Catholicism.” Not heaven on earth, but a second-rate country club.

Carpeted and cushioned churches: Newman is not amused

Refraining From or Approaching Holy Communion

The question of who may or may not, who should or should not approach to receive the true Body of Christ in the most holy sacrament of the altar has always been and will always be a pressing one in the Church, as it is a matter of spiritual life or death: those who receive worthily grow in God’s friendship, while those who receive unworthily, that is, in a sinful condition offensive to God, heap damnation on themselves, until and unless they repent. When Newman speaks about the receiption of communion, even in the Anglican context, he is dreadfully serious about what he believes is at stake for souls (and indeed, as any Thomist would say, if an Anglican believes his Eucharist is truly Christ, he would commit a further grave sin by receiving it with grave sin on his conscience):
The true reason why people will not come to this Holy Communion is this, — they do not wish to lead religious lives; they do not like to promise to lead religious lives; and they think that that blessed Sacrament does bind them to do so, bind them to live very much more strictly and thoughtfully than they do at present. Allow as much as we will for proper distrust of themselves, reasonable awe, the burden of past sin, imperfect knowledge, and other causes, still after all there is in most cases a reluctance to bear, or at least to pledge themselves to bear, Christ’s yoke; a reluctance to give up the service of sin once for all; a lingering love of their own ease, of their own will, of indolence, of carnal habits, of the good opinion of men whom they do not respect; a distrust of their perseverance in holy resolves, grounded on a misgiving about their present sincerity. This is why men will not come to Christ for life; they know that He will not impart Himself to them, unless they consent to devote themselves to Him.  (Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 7, sermon 11. Attendance on Holy Communion)
Would that we had a mere fraction of this sense of self-awareness among us today, when the vast majority of those present at any Mass walk up to receive, without heeding St. Paul’s instruction to examine their consciences for impediments! If one had to choose between this pervasive laxity and the bad old days when few received, the latter situation was far better, as simply being more honest. Christian love builds on truth, not on free lollipops for all comers. Mortal sinners used to refrain from committing an act of sacrilege. Today, they get what has been called the “Sin-nod.”

Newman understood sacramental logic better than all the bishops at the various modern synods that have wasted the time, money, and patrimony of the Catholic Church:
If the dead bodies of Christians are honourable, so doubtless are the living; because they have had their blessedness when living, therefore have they in their sleep. He who does not honour his own body as something holy unto the Lord, may indeed revere the dead, but it is then a mere superstition, not an act of piety. To reverence holy places (right as it is) will not profit a man unless he reverences himself. Consider what it is to be partaker of the Body and Blood of Christ. We pray God, in our Church’s language, that “our sinful bodies may become clean through His body;” and we are promised in Scripture, that our bodies shall be temples of the Holy Ghost. How should we study, then, to cleanse them from all sin, that they may be true members of Christ! We are told that the peril of disease and death attends the unworthy partaking of the Lord’s Supper. Is this wonderful, considering the strange sin of receiving it into a body disgraced by wilful disobedience? All that defiles it, intemperance or other vice, all that is unbecoming, all that is disrespectful to Him who has bought our bodies with a price, must be put aside.  (Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 1, sermon 21, The Resurrection of the Body)
I take it as a peculiar virtue in Newman that he uncompromisingly sizes up sin for the gross disorder it is, and sees the entire work of the Church to consist in freeing man from sin so that the divine life may take root in him. In a famous passage, our author articulates a view that is not just worlds apart from the currently reigning moral theology, but, one might say, its direct and categorical opposite.
“The Catholic Church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many 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 wilful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse.” I think the principle here enunciated to be the mere preamble in the formal credentials of the Catholic Church, as an Act of Parliament might begin with a “Whereas.” It is because of the intensity of the evil which has possession of mankind, that a suitable antagonist has been provided against it; and the initial act of that divinely-commissioned power is of course to deliver her challenge and to defy the enemy. Such a preamble then gives a meaning to her position in the world, and an interpretation to her whole course of teaching and action.  (Apologia Pro Vita Sua, ch. 5, quoting internally from Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching, Volume 1, Lecture 8)
It cannot be denied that “the Catholic Church” about which Newman spoke so majestically and with such certitude in the preceding passage is in mortal danger today, fifty years after the last Council, languishing in a sickness that, from all appearances, is unto death, and will require a divine Physician to heal. From time to time, Newman could wax apocalyptic, as in this Anglican sermon where he is reflecting on the internal schisms of his own community, in words that tragically apply today to the Catholic Church he recognized by her notes and praised for her unity:
Alas! I cannot deny that the outward notes of the Church are partly gone from us, and partly going; and a most fearful judgment it is. “Behold ... the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light; the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.” “I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day. And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation.” “All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over them, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord God.” This in good measure has fallen upon us. The Church of God is under eclipse among us. Where is our unity, for which Christ prayed? where our charity, which He enjoined? where the faith once delivered, when each has his own doctrine? where our visibility, which was to be a light to the world? where that awful worship, which struck fear into every soul? And what is the consequence? “We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes; we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.”  (Sermons on Subjects of the Day, Sermon 22. Outward and Inward Notes of the Church, citing Isa. xiii. 10; Amos viii. 9, 10; Ezek. xxxii. 8; Isa. lix. 10)
Yes, these passages are stern and sobering. They are not the happy-clappy stuff of BunnyLuv liturgy. Newman could see the developing secularism of England, Europe, America, the deepening shadow of infidelity that threatened to suffocate the entire West. He knew that there was only one answer: absolute faithfulness to Jesus Christ and His revelation, without compromise, without shame, without cowardice, and with the joy that comes from resting in the truth of God’s love, which is too intense to leave us, Grand Inquisitor-style, in our self-absorbed mediocrity. For Newman there is not, nor could there be, a “new paradigm” for Christianity; there is the one and only paradigm, already given, given once and for ever. Our work is to conform to it, not to transform it; to apply it, not to subvert it.

A Lighter Interlude

There is plenty of humor, especially of a satirical kind, in Newman’s work. I shall offer just one example, especially pertinent to readers of NLM. How often do we bump into people who insist on repeating their liturgical mistakes, because “that’s the way we’ve always done it (or: the way it’s always been done)”?
It is related by the learned Dr. Bentley . . . [that] his opponent happened to spell wrongly the name of a Greek town; and when he was set right, he made answer that it was the custom of our English writers so to spell it, and he proceeded to quote as many as five of them in proof of his assertion. On this Bentley observes, “An admirable reason, and worthy to be his own; as if the most palpable error, that shall happen to obtain and meet with reception, must therefore never be mended.” After this, the slashing critic goes on to allude to the instance of an unlearned English priest, truly or not I know not, “who for thirty years together” (perhaps it was on taking the first ablution in the Mass) “had always said, ‘Quod ore mumpsimus,’ instead of ‘Quod ore sumpsimus,’ and when, says Bentley, “a learned man told him of his blunder, ‘I’ll not change,’ says he, ‘my old Mumpsimus for your new Sumpsimus.’”  (Present Position of Catholics in England, Lecture 3, Fable the Basis of the Protestant View)
A contemporary parallel: “I’ll not change my old Missa murmurata for your new Missa lecta,” or, “I’ll not change my rubricae personales for your rubricae generales.”

Conclusion

I would like to close with a well-known meditation in which Newman reminds us that God has made us and placed us here, right now, for a reason, whether we grasp it or not, and that each of us has our role in the great scheme of things — in the working out of His plan for the salvation of men and the triumph of the Cross:
God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission — I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his — if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.
       Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me — still He knows what He is about.
       O Adonai, O Ruler of Israel, Thou that guidest Joseph like a flock, O Emmanuel, O Sapientia, I give myself to Thee. I trust Thee wholly. Thou art wiser than I — more loving to me than I myself. Deign to fulfil Thy high purposes in me whatever they be — work in and through me. I am born to serve Thee, to be Thine, to be Thy instrument. Let me be Thy blind instrument. I ask not to see — I ask not to know — I ask simply to be used.  (Meditations and Devotions, Part III, I. Hope in God — Creator, n. 2)
How moving is this meditation, when we think of Newman’s own heroic fidelity, often under very trying circumstances, to the “definite service and mission” God entrusted to him! And how moving for us today, when so many Catholics feel themselves to be “in sickness, in perplexity, in sorrow,” at the spirit of worldliness that has swept through and conquered the human side of the Church!

What a marvel to behold the sublime realism, the integrity and honesty, the unbending trust in Providence disclosed in this meditation and prayer. Christ will conquer. Truth and righteousness will have the final word. We are not likely to see it or know it in this life, but we still beg the Lord to use us for His glory, to work in and through us during our pilgrimage of faith. “I do not ask to see / The distant scene — one step enough for me.”

St. John Henry Newman, pray for us.
Newman's private chapel, where he offered the Tridentine Mass
(photo courtesy of Liturgical Arts Journal)
Visit www.peterkwasniewski.com for articles, sacred music, and classics reprinted by Os Justi Press (e.g., Benson, Scheeben, Parsch, Guardini, Chaignon, Leen).
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Catholic Kenesiology - How We Can Evangelize Through Sports Psychology

October 22, 2019, 5:21 am
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Last month I spoke at the annual conference of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, which took place at Montreal in Canada. While there I met Dr David Cutton, who teaches in the Department of Health and Kinesiology at Texas A&M University, Kingsville.

Kinesiology is the study of the mechanics of body movements, and it incorporates not only the purely physical aspects, but also the related psychological aspects, especially in relation to improving performance through motivation.

This is not a Catholic university, and the field is not taught from a particularly Catholic perspective, but David has been telling me how his study of Christian anthropology has given him deeper insights into what is taught there, and why certain aspects of it work so well. I wanted to know more about this. I have a growing conviction that greater recognition of the unity of body, the soul and the spirit in the human person, especially in relation to people’s general health and happiness, could be the driving force for the evangelization of the West. We have to see it more clearly first ourselves, I think, before we can articulate it to others. My hope is to see the development of a Body, Soul, Spirit movement founded in Christian principles that supplants the neo-pagan Mind, Body, Spirit movement that began the 1970s that has driven much of what passes for spirituality in the West today. I wrote about this recently here. So much “wellness” and yoga-inspired meditation, for example, comes out of this. People are searching for God - even if they don’t know it - in order to escape the dullness, and the fear, anxiety, even dread, that goes with an atheist materialist worldview. We can give them what they truly desire if we can communicate the Good News to them in a way that can understand.


When I asked David for some examples from his experience, he directed me to a paper he had written for the winter 2019 edition of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly entitled Interior Dialogue, or Self-Talk: Psychological and Theological Foundations. He describes how sports psychologists recognize that we dialogue with ourselves. The dialogue takes place because there are thoughts that occur to us first, and then there is part of us that observes those thoughts and responds to them. “Self-talk” is the name given to this interior dialogue. In a book to which he refers in the paper, Charles Fernyhough’s The Voices Within: The History and Science of How We Talk to Ourselves (New York: Teachers College Press, 2016), the author even describes how so many people attribute the source of this natural process of inner dialogue to divine inspiration.

In the context of sports psychology, this dialogue is then directed so as to help the motivation of the sportsman and enhance performance, perhaps, or to aid in the motivation to complete rehabilitation. In very simple terms, this method teaches the person to distinguish good thoughts from bad thoughts, and then to reinforce the good while discarding the bad. In this context, good is a thought that will help a weightlifter, for example, to lift more weight - perhaps a strong internal affirmation that it is possible for him to do it. A bad thought might be a doubt that it is possible. It is broadly accepted that these techniques have measurable effects on the performances of sportsmen and women.


Cutton then goes on to point out that some traditional methods of Christian contemplative prayer are techniques whereby we do just this, and it can help us to strive for virtue.

As I read the paper, I could immediately see possibilities for engagement with the secular world through this. It occurs to me that we could offer the sportsman techniques in Christian contemplative prayer (perhaps without even letting them know initially that they are Christian, if this is likely to arouse prejudice) as a technique for developing within us that faculty of good self-talk.

If we get this far, we are already making great progress, for this is introducing what will be very likely to be perceived as just another meditation technique, but one that is crucially different from the usual techniques that come from Eastern non-Christian religions and philosophies. This is not a process of no-thought, or even one of indifference to thought; rather, it is one that recognizes a distinction between good and bad thoughts. This is opening the door in their hearts to the recognition of objective truth and leading them away from the relativism that New Age movements encourage. Even if there is no discussion beyond this as to what the good is, or no explicit introduction of the Christian message, it is still good; it is sowing mustard seeds that might germinate and grow into trees of faith in time.

A mustard tree
Furthermore, the recognition of this internal dialogue is consistent with the person who is not just aware, but aware that he is aware. The faculty of this self-observation is the spirit of man, as it is understood in Christian anthropology. So when we explain to the person why it works, we can start to talk of a Christian and scriptural anthropology of body, soul, and spirit.

Where it goes from there will depend on the situation. But I could envisage, for example, a situation in which the sports psychologist or coach could go on to introduce discerningly and by degrees a steadily deeper description of the authentic spiritual life. We might gradually introduce the idea, for example, that this is not exclusively a conversation within ourselves; some of those thoughts, especially the good ones, are the result of openness to inspiration from beyond. As they are spiritual in nature, the source, it might be argued, is a spiritual being that is good and divine. If the research referred to is correct, the seeds of such ideas are likely to be occurring to them intuitively already.

Going further, one can imagine that we could get to the point where we say that the most powerful encounter with that source of inspiration and which will encourage the most beneficial “self-talk” is the worship of that being, God, whereby the whole person - body, soul, and spirit - is engaged in the greatest conformity to an attitude of receptivity... “And would you like to come to Vespers with me this evening?”

What will make non-Christians take notice is a positive experience of this prayer. The reason that people immerse themselves in yoga is that they feel better for doing it, and they are curious as why. While wanting to do well at sport is not the noblest goal in life, it need not be a bad one, and it might be the first step that leads to the best end in life, God.

I see no reason why such techniques might not just aid in their physical performance but simultaneously lead to a greater and more general sense of well-being. It is this that will stimulate their yearning for something nobler also.

This is the pattern of my own story of conversion. As described in my book The Vision for You, I was offered a series of generic “spiritual” exercises in order to help me to be an artist. I had no interest in God whatsoever. Even as I noticed that these exercises were helping me in my goals, and began to see that some sort of Loving Power was in my life, I first thought of this newly found God as a means, not an end. This changed in time, however, as I started to desire more the happiness that it gave me. Ultimately, this led to my conversion and reception into the Catholic Church. However, while my reason for doing so might have changed over the 30 years since I started this journey, I have never stopped wanting to be an artist.

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