Pontifical Mass in Ottawa on the Exaltation of the Cross

On Saturday, September 14, the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, His Eminence Gerhard Cardinal Müller, Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, will celebrate a Pontifical Mass at the church of St Clement in Ottawa, Ontario, home of the FSSP Apostolate in that city. The Mass will begin at 10am; the church is located at 528 Old St Patrick St.

Nostalgia? No Thanks! Tradition Will Always Be for the Young

Earlier this week, the Second Vatican Council passed its 60th anniversary; time to dust off the ever-dustier canard that those who prefer the liturgy that the Council Fathers wanted to be renewed and flourish to the one it never even remotely imagined are “nostalgic” for the wicked old days before the Council. I could not hope to write a better reply to this canard than these words from an article which Peter wrote a bit less than 3 years ago on One Peter Five.

“Most of the people in a modern TLM congregation were born well after Vatican II and have not the slightest clue what things were like beforehand, nor do they particularly care. They are not hankering for a lost culture or seeking to reconstruct a lost world. Rather, they desire a proper Catholic culture here and now, which begins with the solemn, formal, objective, beautiful divine cult we call the sacred liturgy, which we do inherit from many centuries of faith — but we live it and we love it now. ... (They) are clear-sighted, energetic, and future-looking people. They are too busy discerning vocations, managing a pewful of children, singing in chant scholas, or cooking for potlucks after Rorate Masses to have time for lollygagging in the lanes of an inaccessible memory.”

Case in point: on September 30th, the feast of St Jerome, His Excellency Bishop Athanasius Schneider, who is well known to all of our readers, celebrated a Pontifical High Mass at the Institute of Christ the King’s church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (The church is titled to the Precious Blood, a favorite devotion of St John XXIII, which, like the feast he chose as the opening day of Vatican II, was removed from the general calendar of the post-Conciliar rite.)

Bishop Schneider enters the church; behind him is Chorbishop Anthony Spinosa, rector of the Maronite National Shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon in North Jackson, Ohio, who attended the Mass in choir.

Anyone who has ever served this rite of Mass knows that it requires a good amount of organizing and rehearsal to do properly; the reward is a ceremony which truly impresses upon one, forcibly and unmistakably, the power and majesty of what the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass really is. We can all take encouragement once again from the fact that almost none of the people who are making the effort and commitment to put this together are old enough to be doing so from any sense of “nostalgia.” (Bishop Schneider himself was not even five years old when the last Council ended.) What we see here is a true and sincere love for the richness of our Catholic liturgical tradition. Feliciter! Once again, thanks to one of our favorite photographers, Allison Girone, for sharing her beautiful work with us.

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A Pontifical Mass for St Bridget in Sweden

Yesterday was the dies natalis of St Bridget of Sweden, the patron of the country, and, as of 1999, one of the co-patrons of all of Europe, together with Ss Benedict, Cyril and Methodius, Catherine of Siena and Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. At the church of Greyfriars Abbey in Ystad, Sweden, His Excellency Czeslaw Kozon, bishop of Copenhagen, Denmark, celebrated a Pontifical Mass for her feast; here is a nice video from EWTN with some excerpts. In her native place, St Bridget would have known one of the local uses of the Roman Rite, which in the Nordic countries had a lot in common with the Use of Sarum. However, she spent most of the last twenty-three years of her life in Rome, and it is pleasant to remember that in almost every way, this Mass would have been perfectly familiar to her. We thank Bishop Kozon for his fatherly solicitude towards those who love the traditional rite.

“Eucharistic Concelebration: Theological, Historical, and Liturgical Aspects” — Guest Article by Bishop Athanasius Schneider

New Liturgical Movement is pleased to be able to publish online the following incisive text by Bishop Athanasius Schneider, which also appears in print in the latest issue of Latin Mass magazine. In the first part, His Excellency looks at the historical roots and theological implications of Eucharistic concelebration, while in the second part he makes a concrete proposal for how concelebration might be rarely but appropriately used and how its ceremonial ought to unfold. This rich presentation comes at a critically important time, as concelebration has once again been much in the news.—PAK

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Papal Mass (1832)

Eucharistic Concelebration:
Theological, Historical, and Liturgical Aspects

Bishop Athanasius Schneider

I. The Theological and Historical Aspect

1. The first Holy Mass was celebrated by Our Lord in the cenacle. This Mass did not have the form of a sacramental concelebration because the apostles did not pronounce the words of consecration; only the Lord pronounced them. The apostles participated in the Eucharist, celebrated by the Lord, by sacramentally receiving His Body and His Blood. We could say they “concelebrated” in the first Mass in the form of a non-sacramental concelebration.

2. From the earliest times, the universal Church (both in the East and in the West) conserved faithfully this original form of Eucharistic concelebration with these two characteristics:

1. The main celebrant alone pronounces the words of consecration;
2. The main celebrant is always and exclusively the “high priest,” i.e. the bishop (and in Rome the Pope).

3. In the beginning of the Middles Ages, in the Papal Liturgy in Rome there was a development of the original form by the fact that the concelebrants pronounced the words of consecration together with the Pope (cf. Ordo Romanus III, 8th century).

4. However, down to the present, the most ancient Oriental churches—the non-Catholic Greek Byzantines, the non-Catholic Copts, and non-Catholic Nestorians—have conserved the norm that only the main celebrant pronounces the words of consecration.

5. Until recent times in the universal Church, a priest never presided as the main celebrant of a Eucharistic sacramental concelebration.

6. From the seventeenth century on, the Byzantine Catholic churches introduced an innovation, that is, the form of concelebration among priests without a bishop as the main celebrant. Thereby the concelebration among priests became usual (cf. the article “Le rituel de la concélébration eucharistique” of Aimé Georges Martimort in Ephemerides Liturgicae 77 [1963] 147–168).

7. Such a form of Eucharistic concelebration only among priests was alien to the universal and constant tradition of the Church. Therefore the Roman Church forbade such concelebration among priests (cf. can. 803 of the Code of Canon Law 1917).

8. Only the Catholic Oriental churches adopted the custom that all concelebrants pronounce the words of consecration.

9. Until the Second Vatican Council, in the Latin Church a Eucharistic sacramental concelebration, where all concelebrants pronounce the words of consecration, was practiced only on three occasions:

1. Episcopal consecration: only the main consecrator and the newly consecrated bishops concelebrated.
2. Priestly ordination: only the bishop and the newly ordained priests concelebrated.
3. Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday in the Cathedral of Lyons (France): the bishop concelebrated with six priests.

10. For the Chrism Mass, the Roman Church conserved until the Second Vatican Council however the most ancient form, i.e. the words of consecration pronounced only by the bishop, although twelve priests assisted him clothed with all the vestments required for Mass. With this form, the Roman Church perhaps wished to recount the first Holy Mass on Holy Thursday, where the main celebrant, Jesus the High Priest, alone pronounced the words of consecration while the twelve apostles concelebrated non-sacramentally, since they did not pronounce together with the Lord the words of the sacramental consecration.

11. In the millennial tradition of the Roman Church, sacramental Eucharistic concelebration constituted always an extraordinary solemn act, which occurred on:

1. Ecclesiastically important circumstances, which reflected the hierarchically ordered constitution of the Church, such as in the aforementioned episcopal consecrations and in priestly ordinations;
2. When the bishop celebrated Mass in a most solemn and hierarchically structured form, such as was the case in the Chrism Mass of Lyons, or when the Pope (in the first millenium) celebrated solemnly on the four highest feasts in the year: Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, Ss. Peter and Paul (a custom that ceased in Rome in the high Middles Ages).

P. Villanueva, Blessing of the Chrism on Holy Thursday in the Lateran Basilica (ca. 1900)

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Pontifical Mass for the Annunciation in Western Pennsylvania

The church of St Titus in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, (about 30 miles north-west of Pittsburgh) will have a Pontifical Mass on the feast of the Annunciation, celebrated by H.E. William Waltersheid, Auxiliary Bishop of Pittsburgh. The church is located at 952 Franklin Avenue, the Mass will begin at 7pm.

Tradition is for the Young (17) - Pontifical Mass with Card. Burke in St Louis

On Sunday, January 20th, His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke celebrated a solemn Pontifical Mass in the traditional rite at the Oratory of Ss Gregory and Augustine in St Louis, Missouri, where he was archbishop from December 2003 until June 2008.

Once again, it should be a great source of encouragement for us all to see how young the people are who made the effort and committment to put together this kind of ceremony, which requires a good deal of work and rehearsal. This is plainly not based in nostalgia, but a real love for the richness and beauty of our Catholic liturgical tradition. We should also note that the Oratory is a parish of the archdiocese; for decades, Pontifical ceremonies in the traditional rite were almost unheard outside of the Ecclesia Dei orders. Finally, we also note that there were no deacons at the throne, but for the best of reasons, namely, that such a large portion of the diocesan clergy were away for the March for Life.

 The Epistle

The Deacon is blessed before singing the Gospel.

The Cardinal is incensed by the assistant priest after the singing of the Gospel.

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Announcement: February Events in the New York City Area

The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny is sponsoring two February events in the NYC area. The first is a lecture at St. Mary's in Norwalk by Dr. Peter Kwasniewski on Thursday, February 14th at 6:30 pm, preceded by Vespers and Benediction at 5:30 pm. The second is the Second Annual Lepanto Conference on Saturday, February 16th, opening with a Pontifical Mass at St. Vincent Ferrer's and continuing with lectures by Fr. Gerald Murray, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, and Fr. Richard Cipolla.

Full details may be found in the posters below.

Announcing the Seventh Annual Sacred Liturgy Conference, Spokane, Washington, May 28-31

Registration is now open for the 7th annual Sacred Liturgy Conference, hosted this year by the Diocese of Spokane.

Schola Cantus Angelorum is pleased to announce the seventh annual Sacred Liturgy Conference, to be held in Spokane, Washington, from May 28 to 31, 2019. It will take place at the state-of-the-art Hemmingson Center on the campus of Gonzaga University. The liturgies will be held at the beautiful nearby churches of St Aloysius and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes. 

St Aloysius

Our Lady of Lourdes

Hemmingson Center

This year’s theme is “The Living Waters of the Eucharist” and will focus on the Eucharist as the preeminent source of supernatural grace in both our personal lives and the world.

Faculty will include Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, Bishop Thomas Daly, Bishop Robert Vasa, Msgr Andrew Wadsworth, Dr Peter Kwasniewski, Dr Nathan Schmiedicke, Msgr Richard Huneger, canon lawyer Magdalen Ross, Rev. Theodore Lange, Rev. Gabriel Mosher OP, Douglas Schneider, Alex Begin and Enzo Selvaggi. A special conference session will also include a pre-recorded interview with His Eminence Joseph Cardinal Zen from Hong Kong, China, on the current state of the liturgy in China.

There will be four beautiful Gregorian liturgies, including one celebrated in the ancient Dominican Rite. The highlight will be a Pontifical High Mass on the feast of the Ascension celebrated in the Extraordinary Form by Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone.

From its modest beginnings in 2013, this conference has grown into the largest liturgical conference in North America, with participants coming from throughout the United States and beyond. The conference is organized by the director of Schola Cantus Angelorum, Lynne Bissonnette-Pitre MD, PhD, LGCHS, and is open to anyone interested in the treasures of the Catholic faith.

To find out more specifics about the schedule, accommodations, and how to register for the conference, go to SacredLiturgyConference.org. You may also call (503) 558-5123 or email sacredliturgyconference@gmail.com. Don’t delay, as space is limited and registrations will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.

An “Early Bird Special” rate is available through March 1, 2019.

Find out more in this video:

Photos from Pontifical Rorate Mass with Cardinal Burke in La Crosse

Today, His Eminence Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke offered a Pontifical Mass in the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, Wisconsin. The nave was packed with faithful, with additional folding chairs set up around the church and overflow seating in the basement. The Mass was the traditional “Rorate” Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary for Advent. Music was provided by the Choir and Schola of St Mary’s Oratory in Wausau, Wisconsin (see final picture). Much gratitude is due to His Eminence for celebrating this resplendent, age-old rite in which Our Lord truly comes among us in word, chant, silence, and Sacrament, and for having initiated and guided the construction of this glorious temple of God built in honor of the patroness of the Americas and of the unborn.

This Shrine was begun in 2004 and dedicated in 2008

Tradition is for the young! This schola cantorum sang all the propers of the Mass in full (including the Gradual and the Alleluia), and the average age was about 18.

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A High School Choir Sings Two Pontifical Liturgies in One Day

We are very glad to share this article about a high school choir which recently sang both an EF Pontifical Mass and a Byzantine hierarchical liturgy in a single day. The choir in question is that of The Lyceum, a college preparatory school in South Euclid, Ohio, which follows a traditional classical curriculum, and, as you can read below, has a strong music program. We can all be grateful to see such examples of young people giving their best and working very hard indeed for the worthy celebration of the liturgy. Our thanks to headmaster Luke Macik and academic dean Mark Langley, the author of this piece, for permission to reproduce it; it was originally published on Mr Langley’s blog The Lion and the Ox.

In what might be a new world record, or perhaps simply a first of its kind choral accomplishment, the fifty-five voice Lyceum Choir sang back to back liturgies – one in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, celebrated by Cardinal Raymond Burke, and the other in a Hierarchical Liturgy of the Byzantine Rite, celebrated by Bishop Milan Lach, S.J.!

Now I have been a choir director for about thirty years and have had numerous occasions where I have been asked to prepare choirs for this or that solemn liturgy, at which this or that Bishop would be celebrating. Every such occasion is exciting for a choir, and of course these opportunities are events for which ordinarily a choir will attempt to do its very best. Of course cathedral and basilica choirs are habituated to such events. That is why many of them consist of both volunteer and professional choristers among their ranks.

The students of The Lyceum Choir know that they are primarily singing ad maiorem Dei gloriam, but it’s not every day that one gets to sing with a Cardinal in the morning and a Bishop in the afternoon!

As it was the feast of The Immaculate Conception, and as Cardinal Burke had been invited to celebrate the Mass at the gorgeous Immaculate Conception Church in Cleveland, we knew we had to meet such an occasion with every ounce of preparation we could muster. After all, this was a visit by the highest ranking Church prelate to the church since its cornerstone was laid in 1878!

The students arrived an hour early to warm up for the 10 AM Mass in high spirits. Although the church itself is fairly large, its architect did not envision both a pipe organ and a fifty-five voice choir in the loft. Consequently we made the decision to locate the choir in the last four rows at the back of the church. Given that the church was packed, this was no easy feat.

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Cardinal Burke Celebrates Pontifical Mass in Mexico City Cathedral

Earlier this month, His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke was in Mexico for the Sixth Worldwide Congress of Catholic Jurists, and celebrated a traditional Pontifical Mass in the cathedral of the Assumption in Mexico City. The Mass was organized by the priests of the Fraternity of St Peter’s apostolate in Guadalajara, by whose kind permission we reproduce these photos.

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EF Pontifical Mass for Epiphany in Nashua, New Hampsire

The Fraternity of St Peter’s Church in Nashua, New Hampsire, St Stanislaus, will welcome His Excellency Peter Libasci, bishop of Manchester, for the celebration of a solemn Pontifical Mass in the Extraordinary Form on Saturday, January 6th, the feast of the Epiphany. The Mass will begin at 9 a.m.; the church is located at 43 Franklin Street.

Octave of Christmas Pontifical Mass with Bishop Perry in Gary, IN, January 1

The Northwest Indiana Latin Mass Community announces that, for the first time in over 50 years, a Pontifical Latin Mass will be celebrated at Holy Angels Cathedral in the Diocese of Gary, Indiana. His Excellency, Bishop Joseph Perry, Auxiliary of Chicago, will visit to celebrate the Extraordinary Form Mass on January 1, 2018, at 11:00 AM. There will be special music for the occasion, with Gregorian chant and Renaissance choral polyphony. All are welcome to attend this historic event. The Cathedral is located on a beautiful campus at 640 Tyler St., Gary, Indiana. Further details and images are available at https://nwilatin.org/cathedral.

EF Pontifical Mass with Bishop Serratelli on Saturday

On Saturday, October 14, His Excellency Arthur Serratelli, Bishop of Paterson, New Jersey, will celebrate a Solemn Pontifical Mass at the Cathedral of St John the Baptist, beginning at 9:30 am. The cathedral is located at 341 Grand Street in Paterson The Mass is taking place entirely upon the initiative of Bishop Serratelli himself, who is a great supporter of the Traditional Latin Mass.

Bishop Perry on “Summorum Pontificum” 10 Years Later

Photo courtesy of Brothers, Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Still River, Massachusetts)

On Sept. 21st (Feast of St. Matthew), His Excellency Joseph Perry, Auxiliary Bishop of Chicago, celebrated Pontifical Solemn Mass at the faldstool at St. Adelaide Church in Peabody, Massachusetts—the site of last week’s “Culmen et Fons” liturgical conference. With his kind permission, I share his sermon here.

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This year 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the six appearances of the Blessed Mother to the three shepherd children of Fatima, Portugal. We had the opportunity in June to lead a group to Fatima to join in the observances there, where Pope Francis the month before canonized as saints Jacinta and her brother Francisco, who had passed on much earlier in their tender years. Those of you familiar with the Fatima story know that, prior to the Blessed Mother’s first appearance to the children on May 13, 1917, an Angel had appeared to the children on three separate occasions, seemingly to prepare them for our Lady’s arrival, identifying himself as the Angel of Peace and the Guardian Angel of Portugal. Bowing profoundly with his forehead to the ground upon his first visit he taught the children to pray this prayer: “O God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love you. I ask pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love you.”

The second apparition saw this same Angel give catechesis to the children, exhorting them to offer their sacrifices and humiliations for the cause of the conversion of sinners. The third and last such apparition the Angel gave the children their First Holy Communion. He came this time holding a chalice with a large Host. He gave the sacrament to them under both species. From her diary, Lucia, the oldest of the three children, describes the apparition this way:

After we had repeated this prayer, I do not know how many times we saw shining over us a strange light. We lifted our heads to see what was happening. The Angel was holding in his left hand a chalice and over it, in the air, was a Host from which drops of blood fell into the chalice. The Angel leaves the chalice in the air, kneels near us and tells us to repeat three times: Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore you profoundly and I offer you the most precious Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifferences by which He is offended. And by the infinite merits of His most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg the conversion of poor sinners.

After that he rose, took again in his hand the chalice and the host. The host he gave to me and the contents of the chalice he gave to Jacinta and Francisco, saying at the same time: Eat and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ terribly outraged by the ingratitude of men. Offer reparation for their sakes and console God. Once more, he bowed to the ground repeating with us the same prayer thrice, and disappeared. Overwhelmed by the supernatural atmosphere that involved us we imitated the Angel in everything, kneeling prostrate as he did and repeating the prayers he said.

Notice, with the Fatima theophany, endorsed as being worthy of belief by successive popes in our lifetime, the Angel taught the children how to worship the mystery of God; how to offer themselves and their sacrifices in union with Jesus to the Father; how to draw life from the reception of and adoration of the Lord’s Body and Blood. The Angel catechized the children on the Real Presence and the Real Sacrifice of Christ in the Eucharist. The Angel Messenger introduced a theme that our Lady would make much more explicit in the subsequent apparitions: namely, the oblation of Christ truly present in the Eucharist that must be lived out every day in our lives.

How like the Mother of God to prepare her children with proper spiritual nourishment for serious tasks she was about to hand over to them! From these acknowledged apparitions also, we can pick up on a modeling for our own approach with prayer and a disposition appropriate for handling the rites surrounding and receiving the sacrament of the Lord’s Body and Blood. We can appropriately join these three shepherd children in a faith and posture that carried them through the rest of their lives.

We honor today the 10th anniversary of the going into effect of Pope Benedict XVI’s Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, September 14, 2007, which caught the whole Church by surprise. But then again, reading Pope Benedict’s length of writings and listening to his reasoned discourses on liturgy and his sober analysis of the state of the liturgy since the Council, we weren’t surprised. The surprise stemmed largely from our conditioning over intervening years that set forth that no order of the Mass was legitimate save that produced by the aftermath of Sacrosanctum Concilium (1963). Benedict, like an Angel from heaven, offered a catechesis that urged a respect for continuity with the Church’s rich tradition of Eucharistic worship in the Mass and informed the discussion by naming for the first time two legitimate forms of the Roman liturgy: the extraordinary form or usus antiquior with usage of the 1962 Missal of Pope John XXIII, and the ordinary form of the Mass or missa normativa with usage of the 1970 Missal of Pope Paul VI—and that both forms of the Mass can coexist side-by-side.

Amidst great hope and love for the Church, priests, consecrated religious and people finding rich graces in the usus antiquior are now found in every country where Catholic faith is found; not by protest, but ever insistent and humble (if not quiet) request by the faithful over the years. It is the Mass that nourished countless saints raised to the altars within the last millennium. It is the Mass of our rearing—those of my generation and older. It is the Mass that has met up with the curiosity and devotion of young adults and young families, people who honor the rich patrimonial tradition of the Church. Naturally, the older forms are not for everyone. Ours is a distinct period of history where diversity and pluralism and participation are new code words shaping communities. Only the passage of time can judge these trends valid or invalid. The Ordinary Form of the Mass is said by some to match the religious sentiments of this age and the need of people to come together to hear and speak in the vernacular their experience of God and to touch one another in a society today that is increasingly impersonal and suspicious of the neighbor, a society less classically bent, less structured, where the informal is the new normal. Yet, just around the corner are found fellow Catholics who pray easily through elevated language that evokes the God of our ancestors and praises God through smells of incense, poetry, iconic prayer formulas and holy movement and a treasury of sacred music.

Something is going on here beyond mere nostalgia. Both dynamics are givens noticeably in our society.  Both dynamics, immanent and transcendent experiences, run parallel to each other in these times and exist simultaneously in complementarity and in tension with each other and, logically, spill over into religious experience. So, as Catholics we can bring out from our storeroom both the old and the new where something is rich fare for everyone. Liturgy in the Catholic experience is not simply pageantry or, for that matter, communal recreation. Liturgy emerges from the profound depths of our desire to touch God. Liturgy must speak out of the ground of the questions of today, our hopes and fears and joys. But while we do this there are forces that work interference with this God-search, forces often identified as secularism and its desacralization of life and its tendency to keep God at a distance. And we sincere religionists often get lost in the confusion of this life-dynamic because most things secular and imminent as opposed to the transcendent are often promoted as the latest fads.

Subsequent to faculties to use the usus antiquior under certain conditions by Pope John Paul II in two separate initiatives, Quattour abhinc annos (1984) and Ecclesia Dei (1988), Pope Benedict did not want the Church to become disconnected from its moorings and, therefore, insisted upon the continuity of our liturgical tradition from the past to the present; that liturgical renewal can only be understood in terms of an abiding respect for how we worshipped in the past; that past was not to be discarded as so much rubbish but seen to inform and infuse wisdom for the present. Both ancient and contemporary forms provide snapshots of liturgical development going back centuries.

Pope Benedict, it occurs to me, envisioned both extraordinary and ordinary forms dialoguing with each other in order to eventually come up with something genuinely suitable and workable for the Church’s lex orandi. After all, the Eucharist is the center of all activity in the Church. And its nourishment secures that we proceed with ministry in ways faithful to the Gospel, to make sure we are worshiping God in spirit and in truth. A workable dialogue this way between the two liturgical forms is possible if both forms are allowed to function side-by-side in the life of the Church where this is possible. If we can get liturgy right everything else will follow in right order. In this light, the sacrality in worship that we seek amidst the world’s current condition is not an end in itself but must show itself in all aspects of life—first in how we handle our neighbor and ministering to the agonizing social imperatives of our day, or somehow worship itself is not authentic. Life too often affords an emptiness that leaves us wondering and wandering like orphans on the street. Life for so many is sometimes like a dark night of the soul. We expect a lot out of liturgy, more so than previous generations perhaps. We lay so much that accrues as burdens placed upon the liturgy, namely, our heartfelt needs for peace, resolution and comfort. We pine to find God in our confusion.

So, liturgy is a work in progress, unfinished as it is currently. Would that we could allow the dialogue without accusation and without rancor, for this search must be done together under the guidance of the Church and with mutual respect and sincerity. The optimum results we seek will be curtailed if we judge or pre-judge one another’s questions, needs and preferences. Aware that we are in search for what will aid us in our journey toward the liturgy of heaven, aware that we are in the world and not of it and that sometimes we must leave where we stand on ground in order to go to the high place to address God, Saint Paul’s counsel to the Church at Rome seems apropos here: “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may approve what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Rom. 12:2). In this era of vernacular worship we have searched for the right words with which to address God. We have tried several times at this rubrical task and still some feel we are not quite there.  Much work lies ahead for present and succeeding generations of Catholics to find balance, to find God who is both immanent and transcendent, our God who is both unfathomable mystery and incarnate Lord. Our age finds the two in tension with each other in day-to-day life. We search to make sense of it all, similar to what is necessary in other spheres of life where tensions exist between tradition and innovation.

It is probably impossible to work through this tension with mathematical or theological precision. Some of us long for God to reveal Himself in His fearsome majesty while at the same time His beloved Son Jesus is revealed to us in His simple humanity which has more potential for glory than we can ever imagine. Pope Benedict was concerned about the unity of the Church with this act of his generosity. Above all, the children should not squabble at the dinner table but be concerned about the unity of the family while we eat the same food. May we be sustained by sharing the life that food sustains. Summorum Pontificum is essentially an instrument towards reconciliation and unity while we continue to apply genius to work things out liturgically. Regardless which liturgical form feeds our inner spirit, we all hunger for beauty, because God is beautiful beyond our ability to describe and we hunger for God’s beauty that we know one day we will witness in the Kingdom. The two liturgical forms each have their own definition of beauty in complementary ways, and in other ways in contrast to each other. We have yet to achieve consensus whether there is only one way or more than one way to respect the varied religious experience of the people of God and that pluralism that has entered Catholic experience. The result cannot be accomplished by a meeting or a convention addressing such fundamental matters. The result comes after an organic development with an eye on tradition, past and present. Ideally, the result comes later, in the future, through prayer, careful attention, study and praxis.

What is Catholic worship for a people dragged through the Protestant Reformation, the French Revolution, down to the sexual revolution and now the “gender revolution,” someone has asked. What structure of Holy Mass addresses and brings healing to a generation ravaged by the drug culture, fear of nuclear annihilation, and that rabid gun violence that plagues our communities? Somehow, liturgy must sacralize contemporary life in all its pathos and all its struggle. Some of us are predisposed to the image of God appearing to Moses in the burning bush; others of us are inclined toward the image of God found in Bethlehem in His incarnated humanness, in the messiness and lack of neatness found in the human condition. God is found in both experiences. We are like the several disciples at the Mount of Transfiguration who want to hold on to the light that is Jesus with us. At the same time others of us are convinced that returning to the reality of physical life down from the mountain top is just as rewarding. We have experienced both. How can the liturgy serve these contrasting images that sustain religious experience for us here and now? How can liturgy bring these religious images together to benefit the whole Church within our principal act of worship, the Mass?

We crave connections between what we hear in the Word and witness here in the worshipping assembly with what is being acted out in our day-to-day lives. Contributing to this effort ideally should be a reconciliation between the extraordinary and ordinary forms. Right now one might say they exist as two camps that foist partisan division among us. We need a genius that can accomplish a marriage here. I believe this is what Benedict XVI was after. In all this we are aware that we are not the authors of the liturgy. Our Catholic worship issues forth from the Lord’s Supper, Good Friday and Easter.  The paschal mystery leaves us stunned speechless before all that God has given us. The Mass must leave us wholly inspired by a narrative that keeps on saving. The age within which we live is hesitant about mystical experience, dismissing the numinous parts of life often to the macabre or the delusional. And those who might gravitate toward mysticism are often at a loss for words how to describe this dimension of natural life that is fused with the transcendent. Ordinary day-to-day parlance is absent a lexicon of words to describe mystical experience encountered in the elevated moments of life. Encroaching secularism means that the culture chooses, if not prefers, the tangible and the explainable. Could it be that the culture is too muddied to be able to decipher the presence of the holy in life? The very word “mystery” means that Holy Mass deals with things that cannot be seen with our eyes or grasped by our hands, but that nevertheless are genuine, supernatural, miraculous truths that fill us with joy.

The Mass is ultimately a sacrifice. The priest, with use of the Eucharistic prayer, holds conversation with God the Father about how His Son was made a victim for our deliverance. In turn, God gives back to us His Son in the sacrament. Something takes place on that altar that only God can do. This sacrifice the Church cannot forget. The memorial of that sacrifice must be handled in every way with all due sensitivity and reverence and wonder.

On the Bishop’s Sung Mass and the Recent PCED Decree

We recently published notice of a clarification issued by the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, to the effect that the so-called Pontifical Sung Mass, i.e., Mass sung by a bishop without the full ceremonies of the Pontifical Solemn Mass, and without assistant priest, deacon and subdeacon, does not exist according to the liturgical books of the Extraordinary Form currently in use. This was met with some negative reactions in the Disqus combox and on our Facebook page, and so I make bold to offer some thoughts on what this clarification really means and entails.

The Pontifical Sung Mass was created by the decree Inter Oecumenici, which was issued on September 26, 1964, and became legally active on March 7 of the following year. The decree simply states that “It is allowed, when necessary, for bishops to celebrate a sung Mass following the form used by priests.” It says nothing at all as to whether the bishop should retain any of the ceremonies of the Pontifical or Prelatitial Mass, and if so, which ones. Ad litteram, since none are stated, they should all be omitted. This is a change without precedent in the history of the Roman Rite; it has never been licit for a prelate to celebrate Mass with no indication of his rank.

This rubrical gap was the first sign of an emerging carelessness and chaos in regard to the liturgy which was also hitherto unknown. The Church had previously been extremely prudent and precise in guaranteeing that the rites of the Holy Mass properly reflect Her theological understanding of the Mass and the priesthood, and all the more so in regard to the Mass of a bishop. It is completely inappropriate for a bishop to simply pretend to not be a bishop when exercising the fullness of the priesthood vested in him as a successor of the Apostles. This was recognized by the post-Conciliar reform itself, in which this change was walked back.

I recall someone telling me once that different forms of the Pontifical Mass existed in the Middle Ages, and that they were often simpler than the Roman Pontifical Mass of the Tridentine liturgical books. I see no problem with someone doing a serious study of how they were done, if indeed sufficient documentation exists to make such a study possible, and reviving them for cases where it is genuinely impossible to put together a proper solemn Pontifical. We may make the analogy with something which was done by the Cistercians in the 1930s, when they successfully revived a medieval form of solemn Mass without a subdeacon, sometimes known as a Missa diaconalis. (This practice was also permitted by Inter oecumenici.)

For reference, here is a link to a set of rubrics put together by the SSPX for a bishop’s sung Mass, importing into it the use of the miter, crozier, pectoral cross and skull cap, the ewer and basin, and a variety of the ceremonies of the Solemn Pontifical Mass, e.g. putting the maniple on before saying “Indulgentiam.” For the most part, these provisions seem to me fairly reasonable, regardless of their liceity, and certainly more appropriate than a bishop celebrating “in the manner of a priest.”

http://acss.sspxusa.org/rubrics/highmass/HighMass-Offered-by-Bishop.pdf

(I cannot help but note in passing that these rubrics begin by saying that a bishop’s Missa cantata “is allowed”, without citing who allowed it or when. As one of my Latin teachers was fond of pointing out, the word or words immediately after the opening words of a Papal document are often extremely significant, as in “Gaudium et spes, luctus et angor - The joy and hope, the mourning and anguish.” In this case, the significant third word, after “Inter” and “Ecumenici”, is “Concilii”, as in “Among the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council’s primary achievements must be counted the Constitution on the Liturgy…”)

The problem, as I see it, therefore lies not in the concept of the Pontifical Sung Mass per se, but in the specific formulation of it, or rather, the completely lack thereof, given by Inter oecumenici.

Some readers have commented that their local bishops had been celebrating a Missa cantata for their communities, which they will now perhaps either cancel or reduce to a low Mass. This is certainly to be regretted, as the preferable option would be to arrange for a Pontifical Solemn Mass. (For example, Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison, Wisconsin, has celebrated quite a number of Solemn Pontifical Masses in recent years.) However, the alternative is at the very least problematic, namely, the celebration of Mass according to a form which does not exist, and therefore can only take place in a rubrical vacuum.

Pontifical Mass for the Transfiguration in Brooklyn

This coming Sunday, the feast of the Transfiguration, His Excellency James Massa, Auxiliary Bishop of the diocese of Brooklyn, will celebrate a Pontifical Mass in the traditional rite at the church of the Holy Name, located at 245 Prospect Park West. The Mass will begin at 5 pm. (Readers may remember that Holy Name Church was beautifully un-wreckovated, as we reported in January of 2017.)

PCED Issues Clarification on Bishop’s Missa Cantata

In response to a query from the Cappella Gregoriana Sanctae Cæciliae, a traditional rite choir based in the Philippines, the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei has issued a clarification on the subject of the so-called Pontifical Sung Mass. The historical custom of the Church has been that a bishop may celebrate either a Low Mass of the type known as a missa praelatitia, or a full solemn High Pontifical Mass, attended by an assistant priest, deacon, subdeacon, the requisite minor ministers, and of course a choir; there was no provision for a bishop to sing Mass without the major ministers, analogous to the priest’s Missa cantata.

The first permission for a bishop’s sung Mass was given by the decree Inter oecumenici, which was issued on September 26, 1964, and became legally active on March 7 of the following year. This decree states simply that “It is allowed, when necessary, for bishops to celebrate a sung Mass following the form used by priests.” Wholly in keeping with that era’s nascent liturgical chaos, it says nothing about which, if any, ceremonies of the Pontifical Mass are to be retained, or whether the bishop is to simply pretend to not be a bishop when exercising the fullness of the priesthood vested in him as a successor of the Apostles.

The PCED has now formally clarified that, since this provision was not in force in 1962, according to the terms of the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum and the instruction Universae Ecclesiae, is not licit to celebrate a Pontifical Sung Mass. (Click image to enlarge. Thanks to the Capella Gregoriana Sanctae Caeciliae for making this available to us.)

Photos of Pontifical Mass at Rolduc with Archbishop Sample

The 18th Liturgische-Tagung in Herzogenrath, Germany — now rather well-known in the news, due to Cardinal Sarah's remarkably impassioned address that was read aloud to the participants — featured as its closing liturgy on Saturday, April 1, 2017 a solemn Pontifical Mass celebrated by the Most Reverend Alexander K. Sample, Archbishop of Portland, held at the former 12th-century abbey church of Rolduc in the Netherlands (just a few minutes' drive from Herzogenrath).

The liturgy was glorious. The majesty of the pontifical ceremonies conducted in the elevated sanctuary of a Romanesque church, accompanied by the chanted Propers for a Votive Mass of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Missa Misericorde by Jacobus Clemens non Papa (1510-1556), raised our minds and hearts to the threshold of the heavenly Jerusalem. The church architecture itself strongly suggested this kind of elevation, as the eye was drawn up from the nave to the choir to the high altar beyond, and finally upwards to the vaults and domes with their elaborate iconography. It was the kind of situation (alas, too rare) in which one felt that Roman Catholic worship could hold its own over against the acknowledged splendor of Byzantine worship.

Although the main point of this post is to make available a gallery of the day's visual beauty, I did want to mention one thought that occurred to me as I reflected on the liturgy afterwards. One hears so much about "active participation," but seldom do its postconciliar proponents dwell on the implications of the fact that participation means, if it means anything, "taking part in" some already existing reality, some action that is larger than us and embraces us. Think of Plato's account of participation: the individual thing participates in its eternal Form, the image reflects its unchanging exemplar. To participate is to receive partial being from the full actuality. Therefore, liturgical participation presupposes the form, the exemplar, which is the Church's celebration of the mysteries. This has to be already taking place so that we can enter into it and derive our momentary worship from it.

That is how I experience a pontifical Mass, as I follow the audible prayers or pray in silence, and hear the music gently pulsing through the spacious temple: it is a certain fullness of worship that already exists, so to speak, outside myself — it exists exemplarily in the heavenly Jerusalem; it exists formally and efficiently in the clergy who offer it on earth; it exists materially in the tradition and liturgical books of the Church — and I am granted the undeserved privilege of entering into it, taking part in it, participating in it.

In contrast, what is usually called participation — that is, producing liturgy out of our own actions, so that a person who is doing more or even inventing more is thought to be "participating" more — is actually the opposite: it should rather be called active fabrication, active projection, active expression, but never active participation, since it is not psychologically and metaphysically an entering into and taking possession of some fullness that is of another, from another, for another. It is the difference between being heated by a fire and making an artwork. The one who sits near a fire and gets warm is participating in that external warmth. The one who makes an artwork is not participating but producing. The liturgy is, at its root, the fire to which we draw near, so that we may undergo its action and assimilate a likeness of its being. It is not the artwork we produce out of our consciousness by the manipulation of raw material.

This fundamental contrast was brought home to me by the very "passivity" of the laity (as the progressive liturgists would have seen it) at Saturday's liturgy. We did not do much of anything, at least outwardly. The Schola sang the Propers; the Choir sang the Mass Ordinary; the ministers in the sanctuary sang and whispered most of the prayers; the people sat quietly in the pews, opening their mouths occasionally for a thunderous "Et cum spiritu tuo" or "Amen." And yet, I felt intensely involved, intensely connected with what was happening around me and before me — indeed, I could barely take it all in, so bright was the fire, so strong the warmth. I was taking part through and through in the whole that was set before me, taking as much a part of it as I could. It was like a fountain bubbling up so abundantly that I could fill my cup with ease and get as wet as I wished. It was refreshing to know that none of this was coming from me, dependent on me, produced by me, or validated by me — any more than water from the ground or rain from the air, light from the sun or song from the birds. It was the greatest privilege to receive, to watch and listen, pray and adore. Nothing more was needed to make this participation complete, as it already summoned and satisfied all of my powers.

Divini muneris largitate satiati, quaesumus, Domine Deus noster: ut hujus semper participatione vivamus. Per Dominum... Filled with the abundance of Thy divine gift, we beseech Thee, O Lord, that we may ever live by participation in it. Through our Lord... [Postcommunion, Saturday in Passion Week]

Looking for an "active participation" worthy of the name — active rather than activist, participation rather than production? Do your best to get to a solemn Pontifical Mass. This experience teaches more than any books can teach.

[All photos courtesy of the Liturgische-Tagung.]

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EF Pontifical with Card. Burke in Oakland. California, March 19

His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke will celebrate a Pontifical High Mass on March 19, the Third Sunday of Lent, at the church of St Margaret Mary in Oakland, California, beginning at 12:30 pm. The church is located at 1219 Excelsior Avenue. The Mass will be followed by a reception at the cathedral of Christ the Light, (2121 Harrison St.), with Solemn Benediction afterwards.