Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,


I hope all my dear and loyal readers had a restful and blessed Easter!

You humble blogger was traveling with the family and is just getting back today to normal life. Easter was spent in Poland this year, on the Baltic Coast in a small and very pictureque resort town named Sopot.

Given the time difference, read “a rather long case of jet-lag”, a 13:30 Mass was in order. Needless to say, it was a Novus Ordo Mass at a military garrison chapel. The chapel was a rehabilitated Lutheran sight with stunning Gothic internal and external architecture. The “coffee table” was a stone structure, with no proper altar, but the choir seating in the sanctuary was still in place. The priest sat on the Epistle side of the alter in a proper place for the Alter Christus, instead of the usual seating in front of the Tabernacle. And then there was Holy Communion. MOST of the Faithful knelt in front of a non-existent communion rail and received Our Lord on the tongue. It was truly a beautify sight.

But the aspects of this NO liturgy that surprised this blogger the most are twofold: 1) the church, which seated about 250 souls was packed and 2) the priest made the observation, in a surprised voice, at least twice in the “celebration” that… the church was packed. And this was during the off season in a resort town.

Moving on, Palm Sunday a week earlier, was spent at the SSPX Warsaw chapel, and that chapel was also packed. Speaking with one of the parishioners, it would appear that this is the norm these days (for High Mass), and the earlier Low Mass is also filled to capacity these days. The overflow is now being absorbed by the 17:30 Low Mass which is also drawing larger attendances. On an aside, children all over the place and a new building housing a new pre-school has been erected since my last visit.

The Easter Monday Mass was attended at a parish church outside of Warsaw operated by the Marian Fathers, who also operate the Sanctuary in Lichen. For those who might recall, Lichen hosts the Ars Celebrandi workshops, which are the largest of the Traditional gatherings these days. Anyways, what struck me was that during the Gloria, most of the Faithful bowed their heads when the name of Our Lord was sung. The first time I ran across something like this, but qualifying I need to state that I don’t do too many NO “celebrations”. So if this is a new “trend” it is one I haven’t witnessed before.

Anyways, coming back your humble blogger will stay with a Sacred Liturgy theme. At the ccwatershed.org website, we get a pretty interesting, and I must add SIGNIFICANT post appearing under the title: I Was Wrong to Dread the “Pre-1955” Holy Week. 

What makes this post significant is that the pre-1955 Holy Week rite can be considered the ground zero of the Modernist/neo-Modernist/post-Modernists assault on Catholicism. The 1960’s radicals of the Concilium could be seen as getting their “sea legs” in the early 1950’s. It was then that they convincing Pope Pius XII that the Holy Week rite needed to be changed because of one “mistranslated word”, namely PERFIDIUS. I have an entire page on the Anatomy of the Destruction of the Sacred Liturgy at the top of the blog, so please go over there for the details when time permits.

Now back to the SIGNIFICANCE of the pre-1955 Indult. It is not so much important as to the reason behind this very surprising decision, and regardless of whether the underlying intentions were good or not, what is important is that it appears at all.

Just think about this aspect of the Indult for a second: if this had happened when the decision could have been traced back to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, we would be in the middle of a major international #fakenews affair. It would have been as major, if not greater than the Bishop Williamson #fakenews affair during the SSPX excommunication lifting exercise. But seeing as Francis is the bishop of Rome, this major EVENT went for all intents and purposes unnoticed.

And even if someone from the international #fakenews media noticed, the Scalfari affair made sure that nothing else was spoken about during Easter weekend.

Concluding, slowly the Catholic Faith is reasserting itself. The PROCESS is slow, but it is steady and it is moving in the correct direction. For those who have not been following these events for the past 40 years, the SIGNIFICANCE might be missed. But SIGNIFICANT it is, none the less.

And when this three year Indult ends, the reintroduction of the pre-1955 Holy Week rite precedent would already have been set.

And once again, the The Greatest Sentence Written By Human Hands… will have returned the Fabric of Reality to a sustainable trajectory and the Restoration will proceed according to His will.

Once again, the greatest sentence written by human hands:

“What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.”

And on that pleasant note, I send you dear reader over to the CCWatershed website…

*****

I Was Wrong to Dread the “Pre-1955” Holy Week

published 2 April 2018 by Jeff Ostrowski

IN A STAGGERING turn of events, Rome gave permission this year for certain parishes to use the ancient rites of Holy Week—the so-called “Pre-1955 version.” If everything goes well for three years, the permission might be broadened. Until last week, I had only experienced the 1962 version, which is done according to Pius XII reforms that became mandatory in 1955.

When permission from Rome was first announced, I smiled—but deep down was worried. My most precious memories were from the 1962 Holy Week. Moreover, several priests who remembered the ancient version always spoke bad things about it: e.g. how the priest had to quietly read all twelve Prophecies while they were proclaimed by another minister. I simply couldn’t imagine how all this stuff worked, and my biggest concern was the timing of the ceremonies. Traditionally, they took place in the morning; whereas Pius XII changed them to evening. But I loved Holy Thursday happening in the evening, when our Savior was betrayed by Judas…and now this was being taken away?

It turns out I was dead wrong.

The ancient rites blew me away!  To examine all the differences—leaving aside their vast history and theological connotations—would require years, but allow me a few reflections:

(1) I was wrong about the “Morning/Evening” controversy. The times are immaterial to the substance of the ancient rites. Indeed, Rome has stipulated they are to be done in the evening. (At least, that is my understanding.) The precise time they take place, I have come to understand, is insignificant. Moreover, it is a simpleminded and anti-liturgical person who is incapable of calling to mind the Exsultet’s “blessed night” unless it’s dark outside.

(2) Whoever created the 1955 version (Annibale Bugnini seems to have been prime mover) was often sloppy and arbitrary. These faults are highlighted when one experiences the ancient version. Fr. John Parsons and others have already pointed out, for example, sloppy typos which ended up wreaking havoc. Something I’ve not seen mentioned is the “short form” of the 1955 Palm distribution, which is horrific in terms of antiphon placement, and I’m convinced the rubric in question was a typo nobody caught. The three antiphons in the 1955 Good Friday Communion service—all in different modes, with no psalms—are bizarre from a musical standpoint. And so forth and so on.

But the ancient rites “flow.” For example, the music assigned for the Veneration of the Cross doesn’t have to be crammed and condensed because it was designed for the ancient manner of veneration. (Pope Saint John XXIII famously chose the ancient version, though it was against the rubrics in force at the time.) Even as a boy, I sensed something inadequate about placing the Footwashing in the middle of Holy Thursday Mass, and this innovation happened in 1955. And likewise for the other ceremonies. The biggest difference, in other words, is how the ancient rites “flow” naturally and logically.

(3) I had previously believed certain items to be “aesthetic” (unimportant), such as the weird vestments—Broad Stole and Folded Chasubles—but I was wrong. I now understand the vestments to be incredibly powerful reminders of the antiquity of the sacred rites, because they go back so many centuries.

(4) I was worried the congregation would hate having twelve (12) long Prophecies at the Easter Vigil; but again I was wrong. It is a sacred time to sit quietly in Church and ponder one’s relationship with Almighty God. It is a sacred time to examine one’s conscience and contemplate eternity.

(5) The “weeping tone” after our Lord dies is haunting and breathtaking. I had only heard it on recordings before last week.

THE CURRENT SITUATION could never have been imagined by those of us who began attending the Traditional Mass in the 1990s. These days, I see countless newly-ordained priests choosing the Extraordinary Form: with beautiful vestments, young families, and traditional sacred music. This is something that drives progressive liturgists bonkers, because they hate the Traditional Mass. Indeed, their golden age was the 1980s, followed closely by the primitive Church (which they misunderstand and distort). They abhor anything Medieval, and especially anything admired by saints from the Middle Ages. Such people increasingly struggle to hide their rage at what is happening.

And let’s be honest: who could have anticipated what’s happening? Young priests are voluntarily choosing the ancient rites of Holy Week, even though it requires tons more work. Leave aside all the preparations: booklets, special vestments, tridents, and so on. To offer the ancient rites requires them to stand on their feet and quietly pray boatloads of Sacred Scripture eliminated in 1955. I cannot help but recall an excerpt from the life of St. Jean de Brébeuf:

In addition to the spiritual exercises prescribed by the Society, Brébeuf performed many other devotions and penances, and was careful to do so in as great privacy as possible. “To the continual sufferings,” wrote his spiritual director, “which are inseparable from the duties which he had in the missions, on the journeys, in whatever place he was; and to those which charity caused him to embrace, often above his strength—although below his courage—he added many voluntary mortifications… And after all these, his heart could not be satiated with sufferings, and he believed that he had never endured aught.”

I would never compare the ancient Holy Week to what St. Brébeuf endured.

But did you notice that sentence?

“…his heart could not be satiated with sufferings…”

These holy priests put forth that extra effort because they want to do more for Jesus Christ. My family is so blessed to be exposed to such men.