A New Shrine to Bl. Karl of Austria in Taylors, South Carolina

This past Sunday, Prince of Peace Church in Taylors, South Carolina, inaugurated a new shrine to Blessed Karl of Austria, the 13th such shrine in North America, and the first in South Carolina. Fr Boniface Hicks, O.S.B., a monk of St Vincent Archab­bey in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and delegate for the Emperor Karl League of Prayer in the U.S.A. and Canada, celebrated Mass and preached, then solemnly blessed the shrine on behalf of the Gebetsliga. Our thanks to the pastor, Fr Christopher Smith, and to Dcn Jordan Hainsey, who is very active with the Gebetsliga, for this report and the accompanying photos.

Blessing of the Shrine

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Rogation and Ember Days - An Illustrated Guide

April 25th sees the coincidence of three observances this year: the Thursday within the Octave of Easter, the feast of St Mark the Evangelist, and the Major Litanies, or Rogation Days. Traditionally, St Mark would be transferred to the next free day after Low Sunday, but the Major Litanies would be celebrated together with the Easter Octave, with a procession and a Mass. In the Breviary, the Litany of the Saints would be recited after Lauds by those who do not participate in a Rogation process. Our friend Fr Christopher Smith, a priest of the Diocese of Charleston, South Carolina and one of the writers at Chant Café, put together an excellent illustrated guide explaining both the Rogations and Ember Days, with a number of very useful quotes from various liturgical sources. It can be downloaded from dropbox.

A New Catholic Hymnal from Corpus Christ Watershed - Review by Fr Christopher Smith

Our thanks to Fr Christopher Smith, one of our colleagues at Chant Café, for sharing with us his review of this exciting new project from Corpus Christi Watershed, the St John de Brébeuf Hymnal, a truly Catholic collection of hymns which can be used with both Forms of the Roman Rite.

The celebration of the Mass that best corresponds to its true nature, and to the Church’s magisterial teaching, is a fully sung liturgy, with pride of place given to Gregorian chant, and the Ordinary and Propers sung according to their proper texts. The all-too-common “Four Hymn Sandwich” is a curious holdover from a Low Mass culture in which people sang pieces unrelated to the liturgical texts, often in the vernacular, while the Mass was in Latin. It is a curious blindspot of the liturgical influence-makers of a certain age that they would keep this disconnect only to advance another part of their agenda, but this is the world we inhabit.

There are voices crying in the wilderness that the propers must be restored to their pride of place, and they are being heard. The melodies of the Graduale Romanum with their Latin texts are being heard in more and more places; vernacular adaptations of them, and new compositions, metrical and more chant-like, are coming forth and being used. This is creating a desire for better liturgy and better music, but we all know that sometimes we have to make baby steps towards our ideals.

Hymns have become such a part of Catholics’ expectation of their Mass experience that calls for their removal and replacement with antiphons alone are often met with suspicion or anger. And so they remain. But the question about the hymns is then reduced to, “What texts, what melodies, what styles are appropriate?” The unseemly battles in liturgy committee meetings over whether young people want Isaac Watts, Marty Haugen or Matt Maher at Mass all miss the point: the relative merits of those varied styles are all paltry in comparison with the treasury of hymnody which the Church already has, still, unfortunately, largely untapped.

How then do the discerning musician and pastor mine the tradition for hymns to introduce to Catholics? How can we unlock the treasury and unleash the riches?

Enter the Saint John de Brébeuf Hymnal for Both Forms of the Roman Rite, published by the John Paul II Institute for Liturgical Renewal in 2018. Those familiar with the other projects which Corpus Christi Watershed has assisted with, will note a familiar design. But this is not the ordinary run of the mill “collection of hymns that people know with a few they don’t know.” This hymnal is a work of incredible scholarship, and one which puts the fruit of that scholarship to work in a practical vehicle for opening the treasures of Catholic hymnody to the people.

The first part of the book, entitled, “Ancient Hymns of the Catholic Church,” contains many of the hymns of the breviary. But these are presented in such a way as to provide several tunes and several texts in English, often taken or adapted from a wealth of English translations from centuries past, some of them even taken from English Catholic primers of the Renaissance and Baroque era. But they are not just borrowed from these sources wholesale. Discerning editors have given great thought to how a large swath of people in our pews would take to singing certain words or turns of phrase, and carefully adapting to what people might actually get their mouths around in singing!

(A version of the communion hymn Sancti, venite, from the 7th century Bangor antiphonary, in a translation by Adrian Fortescue.)

The second part of the book, entitled “Additional Hymns”, will be attractive to those who are open to introducing these “old but new for most” hymns, but want a resource that also contains appropriate hymns for the liturgical year, as well as general use hymns more familiar to English-speaking congregations.

An interesting feature of the book is that the index is placed not at the back, but in the middle of the book, after an attractive set of color plates exploring hymnals. The indices are quite well thought out. They provide the ability to search for name, hymn tune, and occasion in an admirable way, and their placement in the middle makes looking for them easier than wrangling the book at the end. There is also a section at the end with several versions of the Stations of the Cross, which is useful to have, in the same volumes as the hymns for many parishes, text and hymns without the multiplication of more little booklets.

A good choir program will of course contain many pieces of complexity, whether by Palestrina, Bach, or Duruflé. But the mature choirmaster knows well that simple pieces—such as the magnificent hymn tunes in the Brébeuf Hymnal—can be utterly sublime. Moreover, these simple melodies can always be enhanced by new harmonizations, descants, counter-melodies, and SATB arrangements.

This volume is useful to have in any music library or pastor’s office for reference, but is also the kind of volume which can be profitably sought out for choirs and for congregations. As a hymnal without the readings in it, which provides ample resources both old and new, it can truly be said to mark a new and exciting phase in the recovery of ancient liturgical texts for the use of the faithful in a practical way for all involved!

Book Review: Liturgy in the Twenty-First Century: Contemporary Issues and Perspectives

Liturgy in the Twenty-First Century: Contemporary Issues and Perspectives. Ed. Alcuin Reid. London/New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016. xxvi + 367 pp. Paperback, $24.95. [Publisher's site] [Amazon].

This review will be shorter than the richness of this collection deserves, but I hope it will encourage NLM readers to add this compendious, challenging, and eminently readable volume to their personal libraries -- a step greatly facilitated by the book's affordable price in paperback. (A hardcover is available for those who prefer the Rolls Royce.)

Liturgy in the Twenty-First Century brings together all the papers delivered at the second of the Sacra Liturgia conferences, namely the one held in New York City in June 2015. Those who remember that event will recall the excitement generated by the message sent to the conference by Cardinal Sarah, who strongly endorsed the program of Pope Benedict XVI and stated that this was still the mind of the Church. If more recent events have cast a cloud over that happy prognosis, the content of this book nevertheless helps us to see why Cardinal Sarah was (and is) essentially correct and why the promotion of sacred liturgy in its traditional fullness is the permanent, ineradicable, and immutable task of the Church on earth, regardless of contrary voices.

Along these lines, a number of well-known contributors offer penetrating analyses of the current situation. Fr. Thomas Kocik's "The Reform of the Reform" (pp. 19-50) furnishes not only a theoretical map of the ROTR but also a thorough account of the ways in which one could reform the reform. Dr. Lauren Pristas's "The Post-Vatican II Revision of Collects: Solemnities and Feasts" (pp. 51-90) continues her long line of studies on the massive rewriting of the prayers of the Pauline missal, emanating from dubious theological commitments. Fr. Christopher Smith's "Liturgical Formation and Catholic Identity" (pp. 260-86) presents what may be the best short account of what went wrong with liturgy in the sixties and seventies, the various psychological and sociology factors at play, different ways of responding to the crisis and their relative merits and demerits, and the need for a gradual restoration of liturgical tradition, including the old rites, if we are ever to overcome the incoherence of our contemporary situation. My favorite lecture is Michael Foley's "The Reform of the Calendar and the Reduction of Liturgical Recapitulation" (pp. 321-41), which I would consider the single best critique of the severe, not to say brutal, redesign of the liturgical calendar by the Consilium.

A particular strength of this volume that I have not seen plentifully in other recent literature is its sensitivity to and seriousness about the aesthetic dimension of liturgy and the necessary artistic "clothing" of worship. Several of the papers delve into this area with great subtlety and vigor. In "The Ease of Beauty: Liturgy, Evangelization, and Catechesis" (pp. 91-104), Margaret Hughes pleads that we must let beauty be so that it may woo and win over our minds and hearts to the Lord, with a certain "ease" that is not the passivity of relaxation but the intensification of rational activity in confrontation with the manifestation of the divine. (I am making it sound academic, but the paper is easy to read and persuasive!) In "Addressing the Triumph of Bad Taste: Church Patronage of Art, Architecture, and Music" (pp. 105-24), Jennifer Donelson argues that good intentions without theological grounding and some training in the arts is destined to produce results nearly as disastrous as bad intentions and theological heresies, and that the wave of iconoclasm seen in the Church since the Council can be blamed not only on false ideas and dubious motives, but also on a grave lack of sound judgment as to what is artistically tasteful, appropriate, and in conformity with the spirit of the liturgy. Gregory Glenn makes the bold claim that "Liturgical Music is Non-Negotiable" (pp. 125-39), and explains the benefits of investing in it, using his long experience at the Choir School of the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City. The most magisterial paper in this category is Raymond Cardinal Burke's "Beauty in the Sacred Liturgy and the Beauty of a Holy Life" (pp. 1-18), where he demonstrates that concern with liturgical beauty is not only not antithetical to the pursuit of holiness, as a misguided spiritualism or utilitarianism might maintain, but is in fact an indispensable support to it, and a sign of the interior health of a Christian community with well-ordered priorities and the ability to make sacrifices for the honor of God.

Other papers in the book are valuable for their insights into particular "spheres" of liturgical life and their peculiar challenges, needs, and successes -- whether it be the seminary (Fr. Kurt Belsole, pp. 189-217), youth ministry (Matthew Menendez, pp. 156-173), the monastery (Abbot Philip Anderson, pp. 342-359), the spiritual life of the priest (Fr. Richard Cipolla, pp. 218-233), or the leadership of the bishop (Archbishop Cordileone, pp. 140-155). Finally, Dom Alcuin Reid looks into interesting historical details about the waves of revision to the Holy Week rites in order to raise questions for further research (pp. 234-259), and Fr. Allan White delves into theories about preaching and proclamation (pp. 174-188).

In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I was one of the presenters at the conference; my lecture is included herein as "The Reform of the Lectionary" (pp. 287-320). In this work I offer a multifaceted critique of the revised lectionary and the entire set of presuppositions behind its compilation and execution, as well as a defense of the traditional lectionary. In general, it is a healthy sign that this and so many other topics taken up in the book can be openly discussed and debated, at least among people of younger generations who do not feel personally invested in the liturgical reform and offended by the suggestion that it may have serious, indeed malefic, flaws.

The book is rounded out by messages of Cardinal Dolan, Cardinal Sarah, and Bishop Rey, and the homily preached by Fr. Jordan Kelly, OP, at the Solemn Votive Mass of the Holy Angels that took place during the conference.

For those who are keen on the practice and study of the sacred liturgy, recognizing in it the font and apex of the Church's life and mission, Liturgy in the Twenty-First Century offers a feast of discourse not to be passed over. Its pages scrutinize the meandering paths of pseudo-reform while scattering abroad hopeful seeds of genuine renewal. I am triply grateful -- first, to have played a small part in the event myself; second, to have heard so many fine papers presented in New York in 2015; and third, to be holding this book in my hands, a permanent record that will enable the authors' work to benefit many more people over the years.

Benedictines vs Jesuits Revisited: Further Thoughts on Models of Liturgy in the Church

Over at the Chant Café, Fr Christopher Smith has posted yet another excellent article, “Mutual Enrichment and the Coexistence of Varying Models of Liturgy in the Church”, elaborating on some of the ideas in Dr Kwasniewski’s recent post here on “The Ironic Outcome of the Benedictine-Jesuit Controversy.” Click the link above to read the whole article, which is, as always, well worth your time.

Ascertaining what current of thought prevails can help us understand why people react the way they do about matters liturgical. Those who argue for the retention of the classical Roman tradition, whether they be SSPX adherents or the people who have been inspired by Sacrosanctum concilium and the liturgical theology of Ratzinger and Gamber, all have the first school as their fundamental principle. The second school is behind movements as various as Reform of the Reform to the original set of ideas behind the foundation of the Society for Catholic Liturgy in the United States. The third school is behind some of the calls for greater experimentation and inculturation, such as the work of Keith Pecklers and Piero Marini.

The great influence of three very different schools of thought on the liturgy have led Kwasniewski to posit:
The legacy of the post-conciliar reform is a Benedictine insistence on the primacy of liturgy, fused with a Jesuitized re-conception of liturgy as collective private devotion. It is as if new Jesuit wine has been poured into old Benedictine wineskins, causing them to rupture. The moment of triumph was the moment of disaster, as the very notion of a rite—a formal ritualized act of common worship based on a common orthodox tradition—gave way to a pluralistic, relaxed, malleable, and privatized praxis of variations on a more or less Catholic theme. In short, the Consilium’s exploitation of Sacrosanctum Concilium left us with a volatile mixture that makes genuine reform today much more difficult.

This is a bold claim, and one which I think needs to be examined more closely. It removes the discussion of the liturgical reform away from hackneyed labels of liberal vs. conservative, and also removes it from the thorny question of hermeneutics of continuity vs. rupture vis-à-vis Vatican II. This claim instead relocates the debate within the history of Christian spirituality, and within a broader historical context. Now, that having been said, to the extent that one of the aforementioned three schools rises to prominence, it is clear that reaction ensues. But the reactions have tended to be expressed in terms of fear: fear that the uniqueness of the historical liturgical tradition of the Church will be lost, fear that Vatican II and the liturgical reform is in danger of being undone by reactionaries plotting to usher a kingdom of pharisaical rubricist status quo ante, fear that all of these liturgical battles are losing sight of what is truly important and central to our Christian faith. ...

Benedict XVI had hope that the celebration of the two forms of the Roman Rite would lead to mutual enrichment, and a corresponding renewal in the life of the Church. Much ink has been spilled on promoting or proscribing one form or another of the rite. I am beginning to wonder whether we need to examine, not which form is better or worse, but what lines of thought are driving the way we think about and execute the sacred liturgy, and whether, if they are allowed peacefully to coexist along side each other, that a true synthesis may emerge, one not forced by the work of human hands, but by the action of the Holy Spirit.

A Report on Altar-Boy Camp from Taylor, SC

National Catholic Register has a great report by Mr Brian Mershon on a training camp held at Prince of Peace in Taylor, South Carolina in late July, an event which proved to be an enormous success, well beyond the organizers expectation.

Father Christopher Smith, administrator of Prince of Peace, and Father Renaurd West, both priests of the Diocese of Charleston, together with Michael Cunningham, a third-year seminarian for the FSSP whose home is in nearby Spartanburg, S.C., offered boys and young men of all ages the opportunity to learn altar-boy movements and rubrics as well as experience three daily Masses culminating with a Missa Cantata (Sung Mass) on July 25.

In addition to the academic and spiritual activities, seminarian Cunningham led afternoon activities in football, while Father West competed head-to-head on the basketball floor. The camp was free to all, with funds donated for food and training materials by area parishioners, other Catholics and businesses. “I was at most expecting 10 or 15 from our parish,” said Father Smith. “The initiative of people who were enthusiastic about the project led to 62 boys and young men coming from as far away as Ohio.”

Added Father Smith, “I was stunned by the response of the boys, their families and those who wanted to defray the cost of the camp. I should learn to trust in God's providence more!” Parishes dedicated solely to the traditional Latin Mass and sacraments periodically host altar-boy camps and training sessions, but a diocesan parish hosting one in the midst of South Carolina and drawing more than 60 boys is unique.

Read the full article by clicking here. (Fr Smith is a regular contributor to one of our sister CMAA blogs, the Chant Café, and we have had more than one occasion to highlight his articles here.)

Friday at the Colloquium: Votive Mass of the Sacred Heart

Mass today at the Colloquium in Indianapolis was a Votive Mass of the Sacred Heart, celebrated by Fr Christopher Smith. The musicians featured in the photographs below are Wilko Brouwers (Conductor), Ann Labounsky (Organist) and Melanie Malinka (Conductor). The final photograph shows Jeffrey Morse giving one of his hugely popular early morning solfege sessions at the hotel.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Evangelii Gaudium and the Liturgy: First Thoughts

Today Fr. Christopher Smith has published at Chant Café a reflection on Pope Francis’s Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, taking a close look at the document’s liturgical teaching and in particular at the areas of music, beauty, preaching, devotion, and balance. Fr. Smith's analysis of the relationship between liturgy and evangelization is particularly key. It is a magnificent piece. A sample:

Liturgy and Personal Relationship
         One of the things I find fascinating here is that nowhere is the liturgy seen as a source of evangelization itself, nor is it seen as an end towards which evangelization should strive.  Am I to conclude from this that the Bishops at the Synod and/or Pope Francis do not consider the liturgy to be even a part, much less central, to the New Evangelization?  This certainly seems to be distanced from the one of the central themes of Vatican II’s Sacrosanctum concilium: “The liturgy is the summit towards which the activity of the Church is directed: at the same time, it is the font from which all her power flows.  For the aim and object of apostolic works is that all who are made sons of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise God in the midst of His Church, to take part in the sacrifice, and to eat the Lord’s Supper.” (SC 10).  Is the liturgy as fons et culmen of the Christian life merely taken for granted in this document, or is its omission indicative of a shift of perspective on the role of liturgy in the life of the Church which evangelizes and is evangelized?
         Throughout Evangelii gaudium there is an insistence on a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ.”  As early as paragraph 3, Francis writes, “I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ . . . every day.”  There is great emphasis on the fact that the Church is a place of encounter, where human being must personally witness to their faith from a place of this relationship with Christ.  The notion of a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ” is a very familiar one in evangelical and charismatic circles.  It is also one often described in emotional terms to describe an essentially spiritual experience.
         There is certainly an aspect of this personal, emotional, spiritual experience, which is an undeniable part of Christian faith and its presence is a sign of its vitality.  It also, however, can easily remain individualistic, even atomistic.  A personal relationship with Jesus Christ, for the historical Catholic faith, is never set up against or separate from the ecclesial, sacramental, doctrinal and liturgical aspects of that faith.  They are all part of one whole.  EG notes that “secularization tends to reduce the faith and the Church to the sphere of the private and the personal” (64), yet it is not apparent that the document considers the personal transformative relationship of an individual with Christ in the context of his encounter with a visible, institutional Church that lives the sacraments and the liturgy of the Church.  Baptism is seen as the door to the Church (47), but the deeper implications of the connection between Baptism, professing the integrity of the faith as handed down from the apostles, and the rest of the sacramental economy, are only vaguely hinted at.
         If the objective of the New Evangelization were merely to introduce the non-believer to the person of Jesus to begin some form of relationship with Him, it would be hard to find the difference between it and the admirable forms of evangelization already done by our Protestant brethren.  But if its objective is full communion with the Catholic Church, it is hard to see how the New Evangelization can ignore the fact that the liturgy is not tangential to it, but part and parcel of it.

To read the full piece…