“Time and a Timeless Mass”: Guest Article by Fr Joseph Faulkner

It’s been an intense 10 days. A close friend lost her mom. I learned the next day that my Confirmation sponsor, who inspired me in so many things, had died suddenly. It was a busy ordinations weekend here, and this year those days mark off twenty-five years since I visited Nebraska the first time and chose to move here and become a seminarian. That also means that June 6th was the 25th anniversary of my class graduating high school. Oh, and a group of students we called “The Babies” when I was in college are now 40. And my parents are seventy-five now.

As the philosopher F. Bueller said, “Life moves pretty fast.”

It has also been a year since my last blog post, which was my personal reflections on the full year that had passed since I started saying the Extraordinary Form of the Mass in addition to the Ordinary Form. And then today is the two year anniversary of my first time being the celebrant of a High Mass. Tick tick tick. Time makes itself heavily felt at every turn of life, it seems. And change too. Change of city, of time zone, of school building, of job, of state of life, of family size, of pants size, of vehicle, of technology, of medications, of aches and pains, of Presidents, of Popes, of hopes and dreams and worries.

I like history. I like people telling stories of their pasts. I like the little time capsules that books and movies and photos are. I like reminiscing with family and friends. I like remembering things. One of my Top Five strengths on Clifton Strengths Finder is “Context” because I always want things plotted on a timeline and I want to see how things connect over time. And while that’s a strength, I’ll happily admit that a weakness of mine is nostalgia. Not even in the sense of wanting to go back to something (I do not want to relive some 99.9% of my life), but just in the sense that I enjoy remembering things. I enjoy merely fishing for pieces of the past and trying to recreate scenes in my head.

This is me. I know me.

I bring this up because some people assume that if you like the traditional form of the Roman Rite it is because you are nostalgic either for something you yourself remember or for some imaginary scene crafted by a graphic designer purporting to capture a bygone era, like depictions of 1950s families in their 1950s neighborhoods, or of the 18th century Scottish highlands, or of a medieval French village. Or people think that maybe it’s just that you appreciate the Latin Mass as a slice of history itself, a peephole into a storied past. All of those theories imagine the Extraordinary Form as a conduit for nostalgia.

There is even a way in which a few adherents and apologists for the Old Form can rely on a positive spin of this theory in their advocating for the EF. I mean, we Catholics embrace tradition, right? We look to Scriptures written by ancient Jews to teach us, and to ancient Greek and Roman Church Fathers to unpack those texts. We see the unbroken flow of two thousand years of Church life as a key argument for why we today follow the successors of the apostles, instead of being, say, Baptists or Mormons.

So there can be a temptation to turn that positive spin into the argument in itself, i.e. Because the pre-Vatican-II Mass has been handed down with only small changes sometimes centuries apart, and has been prayed by billions of Catholics going back to Christian antiquity, and has good internal evidence that it may possess the oldest of all the Eucharistic canons, therefore it should be experienced and preserved and disseminated for those reasons primarily. Now, to be clear, the ancientness is a tremendous blessing: That it is fundamentally the same form of Mass since the time of Gregory the Great, and with a canon probably more than 200 years older than his pontificate, does resonate with us. But I don’t think folks in some dioceses keep driving three hours round trip to assist at a traditional Mass do so just because it is the oldest blueprint for divine liturgy available, and much less so because they want to cosplay 13th century peasants for an hour before returning to their Suburbans and french fries and juice boxes.

What I am saying then is that both a negative “oh such nostalgia!” critique and a positive “oh such antiquity!” apologetic are seeing the phenomenon back-to-front. For comparison, Natural Law morality challenges Voluntaristic morality by asking, “Is murder wrong because the Bible tells us it’s wrong, or does the Bible tell us murder is wrong because it is?” Likewise we can ask here, “Is the traditional Latin Mass a great good because it’s been around for 14+ centuries, or has it been around for 14+ centuries because it is a great good?” I vote for the later. Its bright and lucid form are why it has received only the gentlest of tinkering over the centuries.

Bringing things back around to my second and third paragraphs then: Yes, the press of time and change are constant. But the attraction (at least for me) of the Latin Mass isn’t one of nostalgia or of being a period piece or from claiming a very early copyright date. It is actually the opposite—it is its timelessness that is the draw. The old Mass was the same when the eight-year-old boy was learning to serve it as it was when eighty years later he celebrated his final Mass as a priest. I am 42 and there have been two major revisions to the 1970 Missal just in my adult life. The readings, the chants, the calendar of the usus antiquor could go centuries with no major changes. My grandma lived about fifty years with one form, forty years with a radically different form, and about five years in between those with two transitional missals. That which seeks to be up-to-date must always be updating; that which doesn’t, doesn’t.

The Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite for me isn’t about going back in time so much as stepping out of time entirely. I was taught and believe that the Ordinary Form lies outside of time too, but that is an objective truth that my brain has to struggle harder to accept when we just last year excised the “one” off of the “one God forever and ever” in the English translation, and had much bigger changes in the English in 2011, oh and now we can use Eucharistic Prayer IV on a Sunday also, and then we got some new reading options a couple years ago, etc.

And that’s nothing compared to the much more time-bound fields of music and architecture and art. Even a total novice can usually identify whether a church is “1960 modern” or “1980 modern” or “post-2000 modern”. That doesn’t automatically make such things within the Mass promulgated by Paul VI and John Paul II wrong, but I think there’s probably more nostalgia generated by hearing “Blest Be The Lord” and consequently remembering fondly the Masses at your elementary school than whatever nostalgia comes from hearing any of the Gregorian Mass settings, or even devotional hymns like Panis Angelicus or Salve Regina.

Now, I’m a priest so I know my experience at the Latin Mass is different from that of those in the pews. But when I talk to people who grew up with the Ordinary Form and later started going to the Extraordinary Form (especially to sung Masses) they consistently describe the experience as “almost otherworldly,” and not as ”somewhat-earlier-within-this-here-world-ly.”

When hearing a high school girl who texts like other teenagers and wears modern fashions say to her friends, “Wanna come to Latin Mass with me? They’re singing Mass XI today and that one always gives me goosebumps,” you don’t get the impression these people think of it like a quick trip to the Renaissance Fair. At a TLM one will meet single parent families, dual income families, college kids who study I.T. and exercise science and broadcast journalism—none of whom seem interested in time traveling to 1905 Catholic Boston for the day. They seem to think this Mass fits just fine into their modern lives.

Nobody seems to suggest that the Russian and Greek Orthodox liturgies are attempts to run away back to the first millennium. Even if Western Christians have only seen them in The Deer Hunter and My Big Fat Greek Wedding respectively, or YouTube videos of celebrity baptisms and intense Eastern sprinkling rites, their responses aren’t accusations of escapism, but rather ones of genuine appreciation, or at least “Well, that’s just how you do it when you’re Greek, I suppose.” Is it because slipping off to Chrysostom’s Constantinople is in some way better than galavanting off to Gregory’s Rome? Or do Westerners acknowledge a certain timelessness of forms to the East that they don’t grant in turn to their own traditional Western forms?

The practical question is then: Are folks willing to trust that Traditional Mass-goers can identify their own perceptions and reactions? And if so, then people need to let go of the temptation to guess at the motivations of Latin Mass attendees (nostalgia, museum-going, live-action role playing, etc). I keep hearing that “the Church needs to be a Listening Church,” and I think a good mark of that would be listening to traditionalists about their experiences and choices and not presuming about what their aspirations are.

I know for me the draw is having a moment when the relentless drive of time seems to pause, and the worries of the day melt away, and where I can find a respite from change, busyness, and noise here within the timeless bounds of the Latin Mass.

Bible Vigils: Guest Article by Sharon Kabel

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”.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

“Liturgy, Orality, and Rubricism”: Article by Samuel Nyom

This article by Samuel Nyom is reproduced here from the website Pro Liturgia with his permission, translated from the original French by Zachary Thomas. This essay certainly provides interesting food for thought, but we do not present it as the last or only possible word on the subject; please act accordingly in the combox.

It is very profitable to read Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980). A Canadian and former professor of literature who specialized in the subject of communication, he said some very interesting things that can help us find explanations for the liturgical crisis that ultimately rests on a very profound anthropological crisis.

His works are very numerous and detailed, and require a careful reflection. On a first reading, we have noted that he had the same intuition as many others about the faith and the liturgy. He remarks, I think very truly, that our passage from a traditional civilization founded on orality and oral tradition toward a modern civilization founded on a culture of writing may not have initiated the sort of substantial progress that we are so often sold on.

In this regard, a military officer tells the following anecdote: “During a common meal in the regiment, the printed lyrics of the songs we sing have to be put on the table because almost no one knows them by heart anymore, especially not the youngest. This reliance on writing reveals that a tradition has been interrupted and is thus in some way ‘dead.’ But it wasn’t always that way. The songs used to flow spontaneously during the meal. Today the soldiers sing without joy, without conviction, their eyes riveted on the words written on the sheets provided for each of them. It seems that in just a few years, there will no longer be any singing during these moments of conviviality.” In other words, from orality we pass to writing, and from writing we pass to the loss of the tradition in the noble sense of the term. The same thing came to pass when the staff and notes permitting the transcription of Gregorian chant were invented: memory became lax and the nature of Gregorian chant went out the window. And this event was closely followed by the loss of the melodies of “the chant proper to the Roman liturgy”, and their replacement by polyphony, plainchant, and songs…

All truly vibrant traditional cultures have been oral cultures. It was in this context that Christianity and its liturgy developed.

The beginning of an antiphonary for the Roman Rite, known from the scribe’s name as the Codex Hartker; San Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. San. 339. (CC BY-NC 4.0)

In the Gospels, Christ calls upon us to hear, to listen to the Word of God and remember it. Jesus wrote nothing. Or rather: he wrote a few words… in the sand. They were quickly erased. The Rule of Saint Benedict begins “Listen, my son…” and not “read” or “copy.” This is because the Gospels, just like the Rule of Saint Benedict and the Christian liturgy itself, were originally inscribed into this culture of orality in which chant, psalmody, and melodic-verbal rhythm, united to the “anthropology of gesture”, played a preponderant role. (cf. Father Marcel Jousse, SJ) Even in our own day, the liturgy restored by Vatican II is supposed to be entirely chanted—including the Canon, the readings, and the Gospel—at least recto tono. And why? Because a chanted liturgy allows the sacred words to be raised to a superhuman level, the only level that permits us to grasp their supernatural dimension, something that the simple tone used for a reading or historical narration does not permit. There are very few places where this is understood and practiced.

In the Eastern liturgies, everything is sung: it is not possible to conceive of an office that is not sung because the liturgy must be performed in the mode of proclamation and not of simple reading. In fact, the simple reading in some respect “chains” the sacred words to a written text, while the chanted proclamation renders the word (Biblical or liturgical) living, as if liberated from the written word which is nothing but their material support. One can never be reminded too much that authentic Christianity is not a “religion of the book” but a religion of the Word. At the Mass, after the proclamation of the Gospel, the priest or deacon chants “The Word of the Lord” and not “the book…” The one who goes to proclaim the divine Word raises the Gospel Book very slightly. The same for the entry procession at the beginning of Mass: the deacon who carries the Gospel book raises it very slightly and never over his head (cf. the General Instruction of the Roman Missal).

Thus Martin Luther’s “sola Scriptura” might be something of an error: “Verba sola” would be more in conformity with the teachings contained in the Gospels and the Apostolic Letters…

These considerations lead us to think that in the history of the Western Church, there is a very ancient source (beginning at the end of the Middle Ages, essentially with nominalism) that explains the present crisis. It is possible, as McLuhan thinks, that the printing press accelerated the crisis.

From the 15th century, we perceive the pressing urge to codify, to put in writing, to “fix” the liturgy, because it was thought to be threatened by the false philosophies and dubious theologies that were spreading at that time. This fixing may be designated by the expression “politics of the corset.” In sum, something about the liturgy, its connection with life, with the living Word, was lost. Couldn’t this be the sense of Christ’s warning: “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life?” In the immediate aftermath of this phenomenon, we begin to see the aberrations characteristic of the extreme codification of ritual inherited from the Council of Trent, which led to the normalization of the “Low” or “read” Mass. (how can the sacrifice of the Cross be “read”? Mustn't it be celebrated and lived?), then the “High Mass” which is actually a Low Mass on which a mass chanted by the faithful and the choir is artificially superimposed, thus breaking the unity of the celebration and creating a rift between the celebrant and the people. We point out in passing that in the first missal manuscripts, before Trent, rubrics are very rare… and this did not prevent the liturgy from being respected and faithfully transmitted.

This question of writing naturally poses the question of liturgical books: in the West, priests and faithful feel like they are lost if they don’t have their eyes fixed on some piece of writing: a missal, a Mass leaflet, a booklet, etc. This leads to some very strange attitudes during Latin and Gregorian masses celebrated in certain monasteries (Solesmes, for example, but not only there): at the entry procession, instead of turning toward the rite that is taking place and soaking up the liturgy, everyone “plunges” into his book and pays no attention to what is happening in the choir…

Now take a look at the Orthodox liturgies: there are very few books for the clergy (only the strict minimum, even though their liturgy is much more complicated) and for the faithful, nothing at all. This is explained by the fact that the celebrants know the most important prayers by heart (especially the Eucharistic prayers). Consequently, they can concentrate on the celebration itself and don’t have to shove their noses into some booklet or photocopy from start to finish.

One also notices, among the Orthodox, the absence of pews or rows of chairs that in the West “confine” the faithful in unnatural positions. Among Eastern Christians the faithful enjoy a great liberty to come and go, but always with the dignity and respect, entirely adapting themselves to the rites. We too used to enjoy such things: pews and missals are very late inventions that we owe in part to the Protestant Reformation. The point isn’t to get rid of the pews and missals: that would not be a realistic expectation. Nevertheless, we must all the same reflect on these “rubricizing” tendencies, whether they be “traditionalist” or “progressive”: before Vatican II, the Church was usually seen as primarily a juridical institution (when it is truly a divine-human, spiritual and mystical reality) which affected the liturgy to the point that it was understood more or less as a “solemn ceremony” (something equally applicable to a funeral) and almost never as a celebration. Liturgy was thus reduced to an ensemble of prescriptions to apply the letter of the law, which was justified by giving them an allegorical sense that did not get at the deeper sense or the true origins of the rite.

Necessarily, when one no longer understands the meaning of the liturgy, one tries to save the form by resorting to a strict ritualism, which for a time maintains the illusion...until the day when the “corset” falls and the ignorance is unveiled in full view. That is what happened in the 1970s and led to the present state of disaster.

This subject is vast and complex and many volumes would not suffice to explain all its facets. For those interested in reading more, it has been discussed notably by Aidan Kavanagh in the sixth chapter of his book On Liturgical Theology (Ch 6, pp. 96 -121). Commenting on the gradually shift, brought about by humanism and the printing press, toward a form of Christian piety based on the written word, he writes:

“God’s Word could now for the first time be visualized by all, not in the multivalency of a ‘presence’ in corporate act or icon, but linearly in horizontal lines which could be edited, reset, revised, fragmented, and studied by all--something which few could have done before. A Presence which had formerly been experienced by most as a kind of enfolding embrace had now modulated into an abecedarian printout to which only the skill of literacy could give complete access. God could now be approached not only through burning bushes, sacralized spaces and holy symbols and events, but through texts so cheaply reproduced as to be available to all. Rite and its symbols could be displaced or go round altogether, and so could the whole of the living tradition which provided the gravitational field holding them together in an intelligible union Rite became less a means than an obstacle for the new textual piety” (pg. 104).

Forgiveness Sunday in the Byzantine Rite: Guest Article by Philip Gilbert

As we begin the Roman Lent, we are happy to share with our readers this guest article by Mr Philip Gilbert on the first ceremony of Lent in the Byzantine Rite, Vespers on the Sunday of the Expulsion of Adam from Paradise, also known as Forgiveness Sunday. We recently published photographs and a video of Mr Gilbert’s subdiaconal ordination, which took place on December 31st at his home parish, St Peter Eastern Catholic Church in Ukiah, California, also the setting of the photo and the three videos below.

In the Byzantine tradition, the Great Fast begins on a Monday, two days before the Ash Wednesday of the Latin tradition. Lent is a time of preparation for the celebration of the passion, death, and resurrection of Our Lord, which have granted us salvation. However, in order to fully enter into the events of Holy Week and Pascha, man must be restored to communion with God through repentance. Through sin Adam was barred from Eden, and by sin each of us joins him in his exile. In the liturgical books, the Sunday before Lent is known as “The Expulsion of Adam from the Paradise of Bliss”, but also called the Sunday of Forgiveness. Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) writes in his introduction to the Lenten Triodion, “Lent is a time when we weep with Adam and Eve before the closed gate of Eden, repenting with them for the sins that have deprived us of our free communion with God. But Lent is also a time when we are preparing to celebrate the saving event of Christ’s death and rising, which has reopened Paradise to us once more. So sorrow for our exile in sin is tempered by hope of our re-entry into Paradise.”

A Russian icon of the 16th century, representing the Holy Trinity, the expulsion from Paradise, and monks contemplating mortality as they see an open coffin with a half-decayed corpse in it.

Fallen and exiled man can only find God and be united with Him—re-enter paradise—after leaving behind those things that pull him away from God. Man needs cleansing and repentance. This aim of Lent is indicated by the popular name of the first day of the Fast, “Clean Monday.” The hymnography of the first half of the Fast contains very little mention of Our Lord’s crucifixion and death on the Cross, and instead focuses on our being cleansed from sin and from the passions that lead us there. The first four days of Lent feature the Great Canon of St Andrew of Crete, which is a unique, beautiful, and incredibly long work of hymnography, sung with the refrain “Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me!” This canon is split into four parts and sung at Great Compline on the first four days of Great Lent, and again in its entirety on Thursday of the fifth week. For the sake of example, some troparia from the portion of the canon sung on Clean Monday:

Adam was justly banished from Eden because he disobeyed one commandment of Thine, O Saviour. What then shall I suffer, for I am always rejecting Thy words of life? (from the 1st Ode)
When Saul once lost his father’s asses, in searching for them he found himself proclaimed as king. But watch, my soul, lest unknown to thyself thou prefer thine animal appetites to the Kingdom of Christ. (7th Ode)
Riding in the chariot of the virtues, Elijah was lifted up to heaven, high above earthly things. Reflect, O my soul, on his ascent. (8th Ode)
I have put before thee, my soul, Moses’ account of the creation of the world, and after that all the recognized Scriptures that tell thee the story of the righteous and the wicked. But thou, my soul hast followed the second of these, not the first, and hast sinned against God. (9th Ode)

Yet before we set out on the journey of the Fast and fully enter the time of purification and repentance, there is the Sunday of Forgiveness. The season of the Great Fast begins liturgically on Sunday evening, at what is known as “Forgiveness Vespers.” This service begins with bright (festive) vestments and altar cloths, but halfway through, these are exchanged for dark-colored Lenten ones. At this point the music also changes to the more somber music of the season.

The most notable feature of the service is the asking of forgiveness. At the end of Vespers, all of those present, starting with the priest and clergy, approach every other person and ask forgiveness. The two people prostrate themselves, and the first asks, “(name), forgive me a sinner.” The second person then responds, “May God forgive us both,” and they exchange the kiss of peace. (The form of this varies from place to place.)

God is ready and willing to forgive sinners, but we sinners must be ready and willing to be forgiven. For the Lenten journey to be of any effect, we must be open to be forgiveness; if we cannot forgive others nor admit our faults and be forgiven by those we have offended, there is no room within us for God’s mercy. Father Alexander Schmemann writes in his book Great Lent: Journey to Pascha, “the triumph of sin, the main sign of its rule over the word, is division, opposition, separation, hatred. Therefore, the first break through this fortress of sin is forgiveness: the return to unity, solidarity, love. To forgive is to put between me and my “enemy” the radiant forgiveness of God Himself. . . . Forgiveness is truly a ‘breakthrough’ of the Kingdom into this sinful and fallen word.”  God’s forgiveness is given to us via others, not alone; thus it is through mutual forgiveness that we truly begin the journey to the Resurrection. This is especially evident at Forgiveness Vespers, for the Typicon prescribes that as the faithful exchange forgiveness, the cantors sing portions the matins of Pascha.

We begin Great Lent with our eyes on the goal, singing “This is the day of Resurrection, let us be illumined by the feast! Let us embrace each other! Let us call brothers even those that hate us, and forgive all by the Resurrection. And so, let us cry, Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!”

Inculturation Through Tradition - Guest Article by Claudio Salvucci

Our thanks to Mr Claudio Salvucci for sharing this article with NLM.

One sometimes meets with the notion that “traditional Catholicism”, as understood today, is wholly unsuited to the non-European mind. One prominent professor and musician has even boldly stated that:

“…pastors must take care to introduce current liturgical reforms in a manner conducive to the cultural expression of worshiping communities as mandated by Vatican II. African American culturally based worship models are forward looking, progressive, creative and universal in nature and will never fit into a pre-Vatican II mold.”

In this thinking, Vatican II represents a kind of cultural zero point. The Novus Ordo Missae is granted a lofty status as a de-Romanized, de-Europeanized, culturally “neutral” Catholicism—as the only truly primeval base from which true authentic inculturation can then properly begin.

The sentiment is very typical of the last half century: that the classical Roman Missal has little or nothing to contribute to the liturgical and devotional life of modern Catholics. That attitude is not restricted to liturgical inculturation proponents, of course, but among them it seems particularly pronounced.

Whether that thesis is historically defensible we’ll come to in a minute.

From the canonization ceremony of the Martyrs of Uganda in St Peter’s Basilica, October 18, 1964.

But first, it’s important to point out that such a total repudiation of tradition is a Faustian bargain: its promise of a glorious liberated future subtly hides a ruthless eradication of the past. It tempts us with immense wealth we can bestow on our grandchildren, if only we agree to forge them from the melted-down remnants of our grandparents’ heirlooms. The etymological connection between “culture” and “cultivation” is not accidental—and every gardener knows that the difference between pruning limbs and sawing into the trunk is the difference between life and death.

There is a plain fact about the Novus Ordo Missae that we must finally acknowledge. And that is that the radical break in 1970 was not solely a single rupture with a wider, general patrimony of the Western Church. It was also a thousand ruptures with local, national, and cultural patrimonies—many of them non-European and hundreds of years old. In my book The Roman Rite in the Algonquian and Iroquoian Missions (2008), I discussed how just such a break played out in the Indian Missions of Eastern Canada and the U.S. In the 1940s, priests who visited the town of Kahnawake, the site of St. Kateri’s shrine, marveled at the sheer wealth of local liturgical tradition they found there—including plainchant and polyphony in the Mohawk language. This tradition was broken with the introduction of the English Mass at Kahnawake—and there and elsewhere, many American Indians felt betrayed by the loss of what they themselves called, tellingly, “the Indian Mass.”

Whatever we want to argue about the Novus Ordo Missae, there is one thing we can never say about it: that it was the Mass of our ancestors. And that is universally true no matter who our ancestors were. St. Kateri and the Kahnawakeronnon who hunted in the forests of Quebec did not know it. The Servant of God Augustus Tolton and other former slaves who battled racial prejudice did not know it. The English recusants who sailed to Maryland on the Ark and the Dove did not know it. My great-grandparents who labored under the Italian sun did not know it. No one anywhere in the world knew it.

This is not a mere rhetorical point; it is a glaring unacknowledged contradiction at the heart of our liturgical life. How can we assert the inviolate nature of non-Catholic customs and demand their preservation in the Church, while simultaneously discarding our native Catholic customs and culture in the process? A case has been made by Monsignor Pope for gospel music in predominately black churches, and no doubt many self-declared progressives would heartily agree with his arguments. But Monsignor also offers his parishioners the Traditional Latin Mass. After all, it would hardly make sense to promote the music of black Protestantism as the ne plus ultra of black religious culture while rejecting the liturgy and music that defined black Catholicism for centuries. Inculturation may make use of cultural norms that are Protestant in origin (Advent wreaths and the Ordinariates are good examples). But it must give priority to that culture’s Catholic heritage wherever it can, or it is intrinsically self-defeating.

Bishop Joseph Perry of Chicago is among those successfully realizing this principle. His Excellency is a notable proponent of the traditional Roman Mass. He has also served as chairman of the USCCB committee on African American Catholics, vice-president of the National Black Catholic Congress, and postulator for the sainthood cause of Father Tolton. In a discussion of inculturation he argued:

“It occurs to me that what is black and Catholic is not wholly the same as what is black and Protestant. Although black Christians hold membership in greatest numbers in the Protestant traditions and have fine-tuned a black Protestant style, what is black and Catholic carries its own genius. We must explore what is uniquely ours and enrich it. We must steer clear of adapting wholesale Protestant modes in order to impress African Americans with our brand of religion.”

Putting those ideas into practice, Bishop Perry offered a Solemn High Pontifical Mass last year in honor of Father Tolton that featured motets by Afro-Brazilian composer José Maurício Nunes Garcia. It would be hard to argue that this Mass failed the standards of inculturation. The traditional Mass all by itself provided an essential liturgical connection to Father Tolton—it being the only Mass he ever knew or offered. And by linking Tolton to Nunes Garcia’s sacred music, the Mass was implicitly creating a distinct African tradition within the classical Roman liturgy.

I’d like to pause on that verb “creating” for a bit.

Can we not see from His Excellency’s good example that there is no loss of cultural creativity and progress in promoting the traditional Mass? There is no room to talk of fossilization, of stagnation, of repressively stifling traditionalism in an environment where black Catholics delve ever deeper into their own pre-Vatican II historical material, discover lost treasures mostly forgotten by other liturgists and scholars, and reintroduce them to new generations. I do not know whether “good Father Gus” ever had the time or resources to deliberately bring composers like Nunes Garcia into the schola of St. Monica’s. But with the resources we have, we can now do that. And so much more besides.

No matter what our ethnicity, the Church’s long, long tradition is like a treasure trove in the attic, most of which has just been collecting dust and is ever in need of enterprising scholars to sift through, analyze, and bring into the present.

Old St. Joseph’s church in Philadelphia had a community of black parishioners since the late 1700s—the French diplomat François Rene de Chateaubriand wrote a hymn specially for them that was then translated into English and was regularly sung into the turn of the century. A special Sunday Mass was offered for black Catholics, as well a Sunday Vespers service known as “Evening Hymn”. The band of celebrated black composer Francis Johnson (1792–1844) and the black vocalist Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield (1809?–1876) were featured, attracting crowds of all colors with music that was “sweet and silvery beyond description“. And that all from one single black Catholic community! Most of the great orders and organizations that form the pillars of black Catholicism today—the Black Catholic Congresses, the Society of St. Joseph, the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the Knights of St. Peter Claver—arose in the pre-Vatican II period, and their archives no doubt contain many, many more fruitful avenues for research.

Old St Joseph’s Church in Philadelphia (image from Wikipedia)

Even secular scholars of the African diaspora are providing us with some fascinating information that can prove immensely valuable to the goal of inculturation. The Kongo Kingdom, once assumed to be only superficially converted by the Portuguese, is now increasingly seen as a self-defining Catholic nation where the faith had a profound impact on its folklore and culture. A fifth to a quarter of the Africans brought to America as slaves came from this region, of whom many were likely baptized Catholics. In much of the southern U.S. they were mostly subsumed into Protestant denominations, though some rebelled. When brought to Catholic nations, on the other hand, they quickly organized confraternities under saints such as St. Benedict the Moor. Processions in his honor were performed “with such devotion, majesty and pomp” that in 1619 they were attended by the King of Spain. In French Louisiana, the “Mardi Gras Indians,” often dismissed as a somewhat tawdry imitation of Indians or Wild West shows, have been connected by recent studies to Afro-Iberian Catholic ceremonies throughout the diaspora.

We should also remember the degree to which, from the very beginning, black Catholics consciously repatriated the heritage of Roman Africa, already present within the Latin Church but long since uprooted by the Islamic invasion. By repeatedly naming churches after St. Augustine, St. Monica, and St. Cyprian, black churches were not merely selecting heavenly patrons. They were also locally modifying the Roman liturgical calendar in an African direction, because the patronal feast of a parish church was automatically raised to the highest rank and given an octave for all the clergy attached to it. (Here perhaps we realize what damage was done with the 1955 decimation of liturgical octaves!)

Moreover, we have already seen how St. Benedict the Moor’s feast was kept with great festivity by members of the African diaspora. But this feast is not found in the general Roman or American calendars either pre- or post-Vatican II; it is a peculiarity of their own tradition, long shared only with local calendars in the Franciscan order and Sicily, and now spread to African nations like Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria. There is certainly ample opportunity for more additions along these same lines, as the Roman Martyrology lists dozens of African saints that are not found in the general calendar.

If we wish to make use of all this history, the way forward should now be clear. Creative inculturation ought to come not at the expense of tradition, but through tradition. It must continue to build on any new information that comes to light and revive old practices that have been allowed to lapse, while respecting the integral character of the rituals already used, expected, and cherished by the people over generations.

Cutting ourselves off from traditional Catholicism does not keep us from being contaminated by excessive European influence. It just keeps us from discovering the fascinating ways over the centuries that non-European communities and cultures interacted with the faith, enriched it, and made it their own.

Claudio Salvucci is the founder of Ancilla Press and the author of The American Martyrology (Arx Publishing, 2015). His current projects include a traditional Roman Missal for Afro-American communities.

The Office of Vespers as Sacrifice - Guest Article

Skyler Neberman is a student of Theology and Philosophy at Benedictine College, and hopes to continue on to graduate studies in Systematic Theology and the Liturgy. He is interested in the restoration of Gregorian chant, especially in the Divine Office, and the Mixolydian is his favorite mode. We are very pleased to be able to share with our readers this article which he has written on the Office of Vespers as a Sacrifice.

The Evening Sacrifice

A Historical Case for the Office of Vespers as Sacrifice

One of the first experiences that began my formation in and devotion to the Liturgy was attending Cathedral Vespers in my youth. Though I have since experienced much more solemn Vespers in many rites and forms, I was struck even in that office’s simplicity, which stirred a dormant sense that it was “right and just” to worship at eventide. Vilma Little says in The Sacrifice Of Praise, “Of the two original offices of praise the Evening Hour has always been the prime favorite. It was in the calm of evening that God walked with our first parents in the Garden.” That Evensong stirred something of the first homo adorans that awoke in the evening of Creation, when the evening star first arose upon the imagines Dei, who saw it and offered thanksgiving to God. In this essay I will attempt to trace the tradition of the early Church in an effort to discern the theology of the office of Vespers, especially the understanding of Vespers as the evening sacrifice of the Last Supper and of Christ on the Cross.

The Creation of the World; mosaic in one of the cupolas of the Basilica of St Mark in Venice, 1215-35.

The liturgy of the hours has its earliest roots in the Jewish Temple sacrifices and prayers. Exodus mandates “thou shalt sacrifice upon the altar: Two lambs of a year old every day continually. One lamb in the morning and another in the evening. … It is a sacrifice to the Lord, by perpetual oblation unto your generations” (Ex 29:38b-39, 42a). When the Divine Office comes into its own in the 4th century, the Church Dathers develop this connection, but as Fr Robert Taft says in The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West, the “raw material and symbols for what would later become the Liturgy of the Hours” are already present.

The earliest Church documents show little in the way of a Liturgy of the Hours beyond exhortations to pray at set hours of the day: St Clement of Rome, in his Letter to the Corinthians, encourages us to keep Christ’s commands by observing the “sacrifices and services … at the set times and seasons he fixed” (40.2-3). But Taft points to the greater importance of Clement’s comments, which develops the symbolic value of the times of day: “We see, beloved, that the resurrection was accomplished according to the time. Day and night make visible to us a resurrection. Night goes to sleep, the day rises; the day departs, the night follows.”

Among the most important of the earlier writings is the Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus, from around the year 215. In chapter 25, Hippolytus covers what Taft calls the “evening agape.” The agape is a rather curious office, which begins with “The Lord be with you. … Let us give thanks to the Lord. … It is proper and just. Greatness and exultation and glory are due to him,” but doesn’t continue to the “Lift up your hearts … for this is only said at the oblation.” (25:2-6) This is a meal which is not the Eucharist, though bread and the cup are blessed, and the blessed bread is given to the faithful by the deacon or bishop, “Yet it is not the Eucharist, like the body of the Lord” (25:15-26:1). Still, the agape is very Eucharistic, in the sense that it is a thanksgiving; where the translation I have used says the bishop “shall bless the cup” (25:15), Taft’s translation says “give thanks over the cup.” The prayer over the lamp, a precursor to the lucernarium of Cathedral Vespers according to Taft, is also Eucharistic in nature:

We give thanks to you, O God, / through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, / because you have enlightened us / by revealing the incorruptible light. / Therefore, having finished the length of a day, … and since we now do not lack a light for the evening through your grace, / we sanctify you and glorify you. (25:7-8)

The Divine Office comes into its own in the 4th century Cathedral Office. In this period, Taft shows us St. Basil, who tells us that at the lucernarium “thanksgiving for the light” was made with the hymn Phos Hilaron. Later on, St. John Chrysostom makes another important contribution. Taft notes that in commenting on psalm 140 - which forms the fulcrum of cathedral Vespers (16) - Chrysostom applies the Old Testament sacrifices to Matins and Vespers (43); these sacrifices show that “it is necessary to be zealous in worshipping him at both the beginning and the end of the day.” (The Phos hilaron is still sung at Vespers every day in the Byzantine Rite; here is a version in Old Church Slavonic.)

The last ancient source we shall consider is the Institutes of St. John Cassian. In chapter 3, Cassian discourses on the theological significance of the canonical hours, connecting them to significant moments in Scripture. When he comes to evening prayer, he calls it the “evening sacrifice”, which even in the Old Testament we can see is offered in the morning and night,

although with figurative victims, from the fact that David sings: “Let my prayer come like incense in your presence, the raising of my hands like an evening sacrifice.” Here the true evening sacrifice can be understood in a more spiritual way as either that which the Lord, the Savior, delivered to his apostles as they supped in the evening, when he initiated the sacred mysteries of the Church, or as that evening sacrifice which he offered to the Father on the last day—namely, at the end of the ages—by the raising of his hands for the salvation of the whole world. (3, 3, 8-10)

Cassian is saying that Vespers is the Evening Sacrifice of Christ on the cross and the offering of the Last Supper, the fulfillment of the old Jewish Temple sacrifices wherein the Lamb of God is offered.

But how can it be the Evening Sacrifice without the Eucharist? The answer can be found in Psalm 115, 17, “I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and call on the name of the Lord,” as well as in Psalm 49, 23 “He who brings thanksgiving as his sacrifice honors me; to him who orders his way aright I will show the salvation of God!” The psalmist writes in Psalm 140 “Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice!” The offering of our selves in worship is a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews writes, “Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God” (13, 15-16). At Vespers we offer up to God, not the Bread of Heaven which is the Body and Blood of Christ under the appearance of bread and wine, but rather the Bread of Heaven as the word that proceeds from the mouth of God (cf. Mt. 4:4).

The incensation of the altar during solemn Vespers in the Ordinariate Use. (Photo by Fr Lew.)

The General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours says this.

In the Liturgy of the Hours, the Church exercises the priestly office of its Head and offers to God ‘without ceasing’ a sacrifice of praise, that is, a tribute of lips acknowledging his name. … All who render this service are not only fulfilling a duty of the Church, but also are sharing in the greatest honor of Christ’s Bride for by offering these praises to God they are standing before God's throne. (I-III.15).

This is especially true of the character of Vespers, for as the Evening Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, it commemorates and offers the wedding feast of the lamb, for according to St. Chrysostom in his Catecheses, the Church is born and wedded to Christ when, in the sleep of death, His side is pierced and blood and water pour forth—the Sacraments of the Eucharist and Baptism—just as Eve is born from and wedded to Adam from the rib of his side after God places him in a deathlike sleep. Therefore, while Morning Prayer celebrates the Resurrection, Vespers celebrates the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, which is ratified in the offering of the last supper, and consummated upon the cross. In the modern office, we could posit too that this is expressed in the twofold nature of Vespers on Sundays and Feasts or Solemnities in the Roman Rite; First Vespers can be seen as the offering, and Second Vespers as the consummation, wherein in the Ordinary Form the New Testament canticle is taken from Revelation: “The wedding feast of the lamb has begun … and his bride is prepared to welcome him.”

Today, the Divine Office has to a large degree fallen by the wayside in terms of devotion, but given the incredible purpose that it fulfills—especially in Vespers—of bringing us into the eternal worship of God, we should strive to celebrate it in our Cathedrals, Parishes, religious communities, and even our families, and where possible, with the greater perfection of Gregorian Chant, as the music proper to the Roman Rite. Benedict XVI makes this very exhortation in Verbum Domini (62), asking that prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours, especially Lauds and Vespers be promulgated among the people of God: “Emphasis should also be placed on … First Vespers of Sundays and Solemnities … To this end I recommend that, wherever possible, parishes and religious communities promote this prayer with the participation of the lay faithful.” In the Church offering Vespers with greater frequency and devotion, we her members may better enter into the mystery of the eternal offering of Christ the eternal high priest and sacrificial lamb, and ultimately reach consummation in the vision of Divine light, to which humanity was first drawn when they looked upon the stars and gave thanks.

A Greek icon of the Second Coming of Christ, ca. 1700

Drawn through Beauty - Guest Article by Fr Charles Byrd

Fr Charles Byrd, pastor of Our Lady of the Mountains in Jasper, Georgia, here writes about his encounter with a man who wasn’t quite sure his church was Catholic, because the liturgy was done with some care for beauty. Our thanks to Fr Byrd for sharing this with our readers.

After the 11 a.m. Sunday Mass, I was spending time greeting people beneath the porch and in the narthex. It is a time when most pastors have a hundred or more conversations with folks who wait just to say a few words. There are some regular families who always want to briefly chat. Others might want to comment on the homily, and still others might want a scapular blessed, ask for prayers or for a special blessing before they travel. The narthex after Mass can be a joyful place really. On this particular Sunday, as the crowds grew thinner, I decided it was time to make my exit and go to divest, so I turned to walk towards the vestry.

From the shadows emerged a man I had never met before, who was obviously visiting for the first time, and who had evidently been waiting to speak to me last, once the crowds had cleared out. He was an older gentleman. You could tell by his stance and the diplomatic caution with which he was trying to form his question that he really didn’t want to be rude, but he needed some clarification. I could tell his heart was troubled, so I stopped to hear him out. He asked “Father, excuse me, but might I ask … is this parish under the auspices of the Holy See … that is to say the Pope?” To which I responded, “Yes sir, we are.” But he still needed further clarification “So then this parish is under the Archdiocese?” And again, I assured him, “Yes sir, we are.” He seemed relieved, and smiled, and just to make sure he said “Well, you see, Father, there are some parishes that claim to be Catholic but they really aren’t.” I nodded and assured him we were really Roman Catholic and in communion with the Pope.

Evidently, our guest was trying to make sure we really were not a schismatic parish. The reason this is so ironic is because it was summer, and during ordinary time our Mass parts are ordinarily sung in English. I mean we sung a Kyrie in Greek, but the rest of the Mass was entirely in the vernacular. Looking back over the liturgy in fact, there was not even a peep of Latin in any other part of that Mass. The summer break means there was no choir, and so it was a Mass with a cantor and an organist. All the proper chants were done in English. There was a hymn after communion and a hymn at the recessional, but both of these were in English too. My point is this was a congregational singing Mass … there were none of the anthems or polyphonic offerings we might hear when our choir gathers.

I also recall that some of our altar servers had failed to show up that Sunday so all we had were two servers for that Mass, which is unusual for us. One was the crucifer and the other was the thurifer. Moreover, our deacon’s dear wife was not well, so we had no deacon that weekend either. Consequently the liturgy was a bit sparse for us. I remember that I had preached briefly on the new stained glass windows in the narthex, and that we had prayed the Roman Canon that Sunday (again, in English, and versus populum). We had prayed for the pope and bishops in the anaphora and in the prayers of the faithful, and we had prayed for the cardinals in the upcoming Synod for the Family, that they would uphold the teachings of our Founder, and yet still, this gentleman wanted to make sure that we were Catholic.

This is a funny story, but it is also a sad one. You see this kind man wanted us to be Catholic, but he wasn’t sure we were Catholic because, well, we seemed to be really Catholic. I am not even sure he communicated that Sunday, so concerned was he that we might not really be Catholics (though he came back later that week for a daily Mass, and came up for Communion). Still this story demonstrates a point that needs to sink in. Our little parish does use Latin Mass parts seasonally, and our choirs will sing in Latin motets here and there, but none were heard that Sunday. Our rural parish doesn’t offer the Extraordinary Form Mass, though we might pray the Roman Canon in Latin but once a year. We routinely sing the dialogue prayers and presiding prayers on Sundays, and our cantor or choirs sing every sequence they can throughout the year, but again these are sung in English, and we almost never sing the Gospel. Our Sunday Masses are usually over within an hour, and if they go longer, it is because most folks come to the choir Mass, and those communion lines are longer (I’m sorry, but communion rails were just so much faster). The point is, our parish tries but we aren’t overly fussy about things (especially in the summer). This is not a city parish with lots of money and loads of nearby professional musicians for hire. We like to think of ourselves as poor, but classy, but we are decidedly rural and small. Nevertheless, because we are mindful of the liturgy, and because we sing the propers, and because our liturgies are noble and dignified, this confused guest presumed we must not really be Catholic.

What does that say about what is going on in other parishes?

I later came to find out that our guest was a Fourth Degree Knight of Columbus. He was an ordinary Catholic man who wanted nothing more than to be a good Catholic. And I have to say he was so happy to find an ordinary Catholic parish that offered the Mass with dignity. I won’t be surprised if he makes us his permanent home. As a Catholic priest, I would like to challenge other parishes to consider this story. Keep in mind that I have nothing against the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. We’re just so small and rural, and I am all alone as a priest in the county, and swamped, and I want to bring unity to my parish. So we forge ahead the best we can out here. But I get a lot of folks driving up from the suburbs looking for something different. Why? I think it is because too often in the frenetic delirium to be relevant and up-to-date, and to try to reach the masses, we Catholics may just be losing the masses. So maybe it is time we paid more attention to the Mass. Seems to me what we need is stability and sanity. Just saying.

Abp. Cordileone Leading by Example

Back in January, we posted a guest article by Roseanne Sullivan about the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship, newly founded in the archdiocese of San Francisco by His Grace Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone and Fr. Samuel Weber, O.S.B. Ms. Sullivan has just sent us some excerpts from two new articles which she has published in the current edition of The Latin Mass magazine; we are grateful to her and to the editors of The Latin Mass for permission to publish these excerpts.  

The Summer 2014 issue of The Latin Mass magazine has an interview with Archbishop Cordileone titled “Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone Leading by Example,” and an accompanying article titled “San Francisco’s Archbishop Cordileone and the Traditional Latin Mass.” The interview and the article give additional details beyond those that were previously available about the encouraging initiatives Archbishop Cordileone has been taking since he was installed, including steps to make the Extraordinary Form of the Mass more widely available in the San Francisco archdiocese and to improve the quality of liturgies in the Ordinary Form.

If you don’t subscribe to The Latin Mass magazine, you can read the full interview and article by clicking here. You might consider subscribing. As stated on their website, its editors are committed to “developing The Latin Mass journal into the intellectual arm of Catholics working for the return of the Church to tradition and authentic organic development.” It is informative, intelligent, and positive in its approach.

Some excerpts from the article “San Francisco’s Archbishop Cordileone and the Traditional Latin Mass” are quoted below.

His Excellency Salvatore Joseph Cordileone was installed as Archbishop of San Francisco on October 4, 2012 at the relatively young age of 56. During the year and a half since then, the energetic, articulate, and personable Archbishop Cordileone has taken several encouraging steps to make the traditional Latin Mass more widely available in his archdiocese. The archbishop has also taken several other initiatives to promote more-reverent liturgies in the Ordinary Form of the Roman rite, which will also be touched on in this article.
As he expressed in a recent interview elsewhere in this issue (see “Archbishop Cordileone Leading By Example”), the archbishop hopes that educating clergy and laity and exposing them to the beauty and majesty of the traditional form of the Mass will help make it less of a contentious issue and help enable it to be restored to a regular place in the life of the Church. His goal is also to make sure that Catholics in the San Francisco Bay Area come to better understand their liturgical tradition so they will be able to worship well in both forms of the Roman Rite.
Behind all of his work on the liturgy is his belief what he called the Benedictine vision, which is a shorthand phrase he uses to refer to the teachings of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI on renewal of the sacred liturgy. .... 

Oratorians to Come to Star of the Sea

Archbishop Cordileone announced a few months ago that he was going to create an Oratory at a downtown parish. At an Oratory, parish priests live in community under a rule of life, and so the archbishop noted that the planned Oratory would need to be located in a parish with a large rectory. On April 25, 2014, the archdiocese announced that the St. Francis Oratory of St. Philip Neri would be established at Star of the Sea parish on August 1, 2014. Two priests will be the first Oratorians.
Fr. Joseph Illo, who will be leaving his current post as chaplain of Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, CA, will take over as pastor. Like Archbishop Cordileone, Father Illo is quite familiar with the traditional Latin Mass, since he celebrated it regularly when he was a parish priest for 12 years at St. Joseph's Church in Modesto, California. After a six month sabbatical, Fr. Mazza will return to another assignment in the archdiocese.
In establishing the new Oratory, Archbishop Cordileone is responding to the Second Vatican Council’s call for diocesan priests to live a ‘common life or some sharing of common life.’ Father Illo described the Oratory life this way in a National Catholic Register article: The members of the oratory ‘will live together under a common roof, with a superior, and have a rule of life that includes common prayer, meals and activities for priests as they go out and perform their tasks in the diocese.’
Father Illo also said that ‘the oratory will not start in San Francisco until August, but he is already received inquiries from priests and seminaries all over the country.’
Fr. Illo made the following additional statement on his blog: ‘The Oratory is an Institute in the Church that allows “secular” (parish) priests to live in community under a rule of life. St. Philip Neri founded the Oratory in Rome in 1575 as a religious congregation of priests and brothers who lived in the parish of Santa Maria in Vallicella, now known as Chiesa Nuova, in downtown Rome. It provides a supportive rule of life for priests who desire a greater commitment to prayer in common. The most famous Oratorian Father for English-speakers is Blessed John Henry Newman, who brought the Oratory to England in 1848. Today there are 85 Oratories with 500 Oratorians in 19 countries. We would establish the first congregation of Oratorian Fathers in the Archdiocese of San Francisco. ….
We would build up the parish through beautiful liturgy and lay apostolate, but focus on evangelizing young adults. The Archbishop has mentioned possibly establishing a Catholic center in one of the larger office buildings with daily Mass and confessions.

Guest Review: The Music of Charles Tournemire

Professor Ann Labounsky, chair of the programs in organ and sacred music at Duquesne University, offers her review of a new volume about Charles Tournemire.  Mystic Modern brings together essays about the French composer in a collection edited by Jennifer Donelson and Stephen Schloesser. Prof. Labounsky writes:

Mystic Modern: The Music, Thought, and Legacy of Charles Tournemire

Charles Tournemire (1870-1939) died in the year I was born. Naturally, I have always found that year fascinating, and I often have felt a connection to this man. He was a modern composer who influenced Messiaen, Langlais, and many other 20^th-century French composers. While the extent of his “modernism” led many to dismiss his music as obtuse, his mysticism was a reason for others to dismiss his music as unapproachable.

My first exposure to this modern mystic was during the 1950s upon hearing my first organ teacher, Paul Sifler, play some Tournemire on several occasions. I remembered it as a strange, exotic-sounding music, like the works of Olivier Messiaen which he played, music that as a teenager I did not understand. It was later, when I was a pupil of Jean Langlais in Paris during the early 1960s, that I came to know Tournemire’s music in a different way.

Langlais often played Tournemire’s works at Sainte-Clotilde on the organ that Tournemire knew and loved. He played the Eli, eli, lama Sabacthani from the "Seven Words", and taught me that movement and the last--Consummatum est-- on late Wednesday evenings when the church was dark and we were alone in Sainte-Clotilde with those incomparable sounds.

He spoke about Tournemire as someone he knew well--telling me little things about how Tournemire had taught and how his personality was particularly quirky and unpredictable. Langlais encouraged me to meet Mme. Alice Tournemire in her apartment, the apartment where her husband had lived and taught. She read to me portions of his journal regarding the Symphonie–Choral, which I was planning to play at Sainte-Clotilde.

The more I played and heard Tournemire’s music, the more fascinated I became with it--for his music is not the type that has instant appeal, but rather gets inside your being slowly and compellingly.

Now, through the efforts of Jennifer Donelson and the CMAA, this august organization has expanded its academic outreach and sponsored two Tournemire conferences, the first in Miami in 2011 and the second at Duquesne University in 2012. Mystic Modern is the first publication in this outreach that builds upon the academic papers given at the first Miami conference.

Edited by Jennifer Donelson and Stephen Schloesser, this 456-page book is divided into three sections: Tournemire the Liturgical Commentator, Tournemire the Musical Inventor, and Tournemire the Littéraire. Whether you are a long-time devotee of Tournemire or someone who is interested in liturgy, music, and theology, this book is a must.

Drs. Donelson and Schloesser are to be complimented on the physical beauty of the book, not to mention the depth of scholarship it represents. The book's cover has been chosen to reflect the mystical character of its subject. It is a surrealistic picture of the Basilica of Sainte-Clotilde, with dramatic blood-red clouds in the background. The typesetting and illustrations are exquisitely reproduced. 

The contents of the book

Five contrasting articles discuss the liturgical aspects of Tournemire’s compositions:

1. The Organ as Liturgical Commentator—Some Thoughts, Magisterial and Otherwise, by Monsignor Andrew R. Wadsworth 
2. Joseph Bonnet as a Catalyst in the Early-Twentieth-Century Gregorian Chant Revival, by Susan Treacy 
3. Tournemire’s L’Orgue Mystique and its Place in the Legacy of the Organ Mass, by Edward Schaefer 
4. Liturgy and Gregorian Chant in L’Orgue Mystique of Charles Tournemire, by Robert Sutherland Lord 
5. The Twentieth-Century Franco-Belgian Art of Improvisation: Marcel Dupré, Charles Tournemire, and Flor Peeters, by Ronald Prowse

The second section deals with Tournemire’s music and that of his contemporaries in the liturgy:

1. Performance Practice for the Organ Music of Charles Tournemire, by Timothy Tikker 
2. Catalogue of Charles Tournemire’s “Brouillon” [Rough Sketches] for L’Orgue Mystique BNF, Mus., Ms. 19929, by Robert Sutherland Lord 
3. Creating a Mystical Musical Eschatology: Diatonic and Chromatic Dialectic in Charles Tournemire’s L’Orgue Mystique by Bogusław Raba 
4. From the “Triomphe de l’Art Modal” to The Embrace of Fire: Charles Tournemire’s Gregorian Chant Legacy, Received and Refracted by Naji Hakim, by Crista Miller 
5. From Tournemire to Vatican II: Harmonic Symmetry as Twentieth-Century French Catholic Musical Mysticism, 1928–1970, by Vincent E. Rone.  

The last section deals with the literary aspects of Tournemire’s music:

1. The Composer as Commentator: Music and Text in Tournemire’s Symbolist Method, by Stephen Schloesser 
2. Messiaen’s L’Ascension: Musical Illumination of Spiritual Texts After the Model of Tournemire’s L’Orgue Mystique, by Elizabeth McLain 
3. Desperately Seeking Franck: Tournemire and D’Indy as Biographers, by R. J. Stove 
4. How Does Music Speak of God? A Dialogue of Ideas Between Messiaen, Tournemire, and Hello, by Jennifer Donelson 
5. Charles Tournemire and the “Bureau of Eschatology” by Peter Bannister. 

All of the articles will be of interest, but this review will focus on those of the editors and Dr. Robert Lord.

”How Does Music Speak of God?” by Jennifer Donelson compares in great depth the approaches of the address of God through music in the writings of Tournemire, Messiaen, and the mystic writer from Brittany, Ernest Hello (1828-1885). She explains how the work of Hello, particularly his 1872 composition L’Homme: La Vie--La Science--L’Art, “encapsulates an understanding that was friendly to the Symbolist and anti-positivist tendencies of both composers.”

Tournemire’s influences from Hello are found in his writings, particularly in his unpublished memoirs and correspondence between these two composers. With great care, Donelson explains the differences in philosophy between Messiaen as seeking a perfect expression of the Catholic faith and that of Tournemire. In conclusion, she sums up the answer to the title of her essay in quoting Hello:

In a “clear vision of the role of the Catholic faith in art and culture. Hello saw spiritual realities as more real than material (indeed, as their source) and concluded that, for art to be truly beautiful or ‘sincere,’ the artist must have a clear vision of the world as redeemed by God with the Incarnate Christ at the center of God’s plan for salvation.” 

Stephen Schloesser’s chapter is titled “The Composer as Commentator: Music and Text in Tournemire’s Symbolist Method.” Schloesser is well-known for his important book with a somewhat misleading title: Jazz Age Catholicism: Mystic Modernism in Postwar Paris 1919–1933, which may have inspired the title for Mystic Modern.

He shows the importance of the texts in Dom Guéranger’s L’Année liturgique to Tournemire as he composed l’Orgue mystique. So what then is the symbolist method Schloesser describes? He describes it simply as: “. . . an essential relationship between a work and the literary text upon which it is based.”

Robert Lord studied the 1,282 pages of rough sketches of Tournemire’s l’Orgue mystique found in the Bibliothèque Nationale after he had written an extensive article on this seminal work of Tournemire. In his conclusion he stated:

After having completed the manuscript catalogue, we can verify that the “Rough Sketches” document—in sharp contrast to the “Plan” considered in my 1984 study—is far more than a mere framework for L’Orgue mystique. The “Rough Sketches” provide the harmonies, the rhythms, and the paraphrases for forty-two of the fifty-one offices. The BNF Ms. 19929 remains the only evidence we have of Tournemire’s musical preparation for any work he composed. 

Dr. Lord’s article “Liturgy and Gregorian Chant” is a reprint of his 1984 article published in The Organ Yearbook, in which he describes Tournemire’s original plan for the composition of l’Orgue mystique and the ways in which Tournemire departed from his plan in the choice of chants. It is fortunate to have these two seminal articles within the same book for easy comparison.

Look for this impressive new volume at the Sacred Music Colloquium in Indianapolis (in progress this week through midday July 6). The price is only $40, and if you buy it at the Colloquium, you can save the postage and can get Jennifer Donelson to autograph it for you!