Problems with Weddings and How We Might Remedy Them

Now that we are turning the corner into May, we are entering into the main season for weddings, most of which take place on Saturdays in the warmer months.

The Catholic Church has been known throughout the ages for the strong, unambiguous stand she takes on the sanctity and indissolubility of marriage and of the naturalness, goodness, and social priority of the family that emerges, by God’s blessing, from the union of man and woman.

There is, nevertheless, a monumental disconnect between this exalted doctrine and the disgraceful, if not sacrilegious, manner in which weddings are often conducted. [1] Experience, records, and anecdotal evidence suggest that far too many Catholic weddings are not conducted as befits a holy or sacred occasion, but rather, are turned into carnivals, with the officiant acting as ringmaster. At times, the giddy banter in the church before or after Mass is so loud that an organist playing at full volume can still hear it. Sermons can become the priest’s own version of a wedding reception toast or a sentimental fireside chat with the couple, complete with reminiscences, chestnuts, and down-home advice. “The kissing of the bride” can be a real performance, complete with whistling and clapping; needless to say, everyone goes to Communion! A beautiful and sacred space is turned into a sports arena and a fashion show.

One thinks in this connection of Ratzinger’s rebuke:

Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment. Such attraction fades quickly — it cannot compete in the market of leisure pursuits, incorporating as it increasingly does various forms of religious titillation. [2]

If we actually believe in the “sanctity of marriage,” this kind of Hollywood travesty has to be stopped, and if we do not do all in our power to stop it, we are effectively endorsing a secular redefinition of marriage and allowing the faithful to be formed by it and in it. Clergy should take as a model the Lord Jesus expelling the money changers from the temple: “My house shall be called the house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves” (Matt. 21, 13). He didn’t set up a Pontifical Committee for Relations with Thieves, or make a public apology about how badly thieves have been treated over the centuries; he simply drew a line between sacred and profane, and threw them out. God’s house is, first and foremost, a house of prayer. The prophet Isaiah says: “The Lord of hosts, Him you shall honor as holy. Let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread” (Isa. 8, 13). The prophet Malachi likewise: “The son honoreth the father, and the servant his master: if then I be a father, where is my honor? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of hosts” (Mal. 1, 6).

Connected with the fear of the Lord and respect for His temple is the evangelistic opportunity presented by a beautiful liturgy. I do not mean, of course, that the liturgy should be turned into an occasion for catechesis or apologetics, but rather, that simply by being as it should be, dignified, expressive, and noble, it will touch the hearts and minds of at least some of the non-practicing Catholics and unbelievers present. To cite Ratzinger again:

If the Liturgy appears first of all as the workshop for our activity, then what is essential is being forgotten: God. For the Liturgy is not about us, but about God. Forgetting about God is the most imminent danger of our age. As against this, the Liturgy should be setting up a sign of God’s presence. Yet what is happening, if the habit of forgetting about God makes itself at home in the Liturgy itself, and if in the Liturgy we are only thinking of ourselves? In any and every liturgical reform, and every liturgical celebration, the primacy of God should be kept in view first and foremost. [3]

I remember a priest in Ireland telling me that when he offered a Novus Ordo funeral Mass in English, but merely prayed slowly, chanting the texts, and keeping silence at appropriate points, and generally acting as if he believed in what was happening and was earnestly praying for the deceased, a number of people said to him afterwards: “My goodness, Father, if every Mass was like that one, I’d start coming to church again.”

Has there not been an incredible failure to face the obvious fact that treating the most sacred mysteries casually and horizontally necessarily leads to the eclipse of God? I speak of the eclipse of His transcendent fatherhood and His right to our total homage, intellectual and moral, as well as the eclipse of man’s own nature, his need for redemption, his capacity for the infinite and the eternal, and his heavenly destiny, with all the self-denial and self-mastery it demands of us here and now. The use of such completely foreign imports as “the unity candle” or jars of sand to signify the uniting of two families or two lives exemplifies the stress on horizontality that, together with inventing ritual whole cloth, is one of the worst legacies of the general agitation for liturgical reform that afflicted all the Christian churches and ecclesial communities in the twentieth century.

There will never be a renewed acceptance of the full truth about marriage and family, an adherence to divine and natural law, if there is not a renewed acceptance of the full truth about the sacred liturgy: an adherence to the natural law of religious homage (the obligation of creature to Creator) and to the divine law of Christian worship (the sacrifice of the Cross).

Here are a few ways in which weddings could be improved in the context of the Novus Ordo. (Some of these suggestions would also apply, mutatis mutandis, to Tridentine weddings.)

1. The most important precondition for resacralizing weddings is that those who are to be married understand ahead of time something of the beauty, holiness, and lofty demands of the sacrament, not as described in some wishy-washy pamphlet, but by reading together, in segments, a robust treatment of the subject. In all my years of teaching, the best document I have yet found is Pope Pius XI’s Encyclical Casti Connubii, which has the benefit of being relatively short, frank, and challenging. I imagine that some couples would never do the reading at all, but some others would, and it could at least spark honest, difficult conversations that need to happen, such as the reasons behind the Church’s teaching on the good of abstention before marriage and chastity during it, the corrosive evil of contraception, the inherent ordering of married life to the begetting and educating of children, and the distinct but complementary roles of husband and wife in the family.

2. The ceremony of betrothal should be restored as a sacred way of marking the period of engagement and preparation. Lest this suggestion be viewed as a form of throwback romanticism, it is worthy of mention that one sees betrothals happening quite regularly at the more traditional colleges listed in the Newman Guide. My wife and I were betrothed in a ceremony led by the priest who married us about six months later, and the idea occurred to us in the first place because we’d seen so many others doing it. However, the rite is still not known as well as it should be known, and the recent publication by the USCCB of a pathetic “blessing of engagement” could throw some people off the scent of the real deal. The traditional rite of betrothal is available in a number of places, e.g., here, here, and here. A Google search turns up a number of good articles on the subject.

3. The pastor or celebrant should insist on worthy music being utilized for the wedding: the Ordinary of the Mass and the Propers of the Nuptial Mass (perhaps in simple English psalm tones, if the choir cannot handle more) and additional pieces chosen from a list of suitable hymns and instrumentals.[4] A priest friend of mine told a delightful story. One day he was meeting with a lady to go over the plans for her wedding Mass. She listed off for him a number of popular songs she wanted to have performed at the Mass. The priest smiled and said: “I’ll let you have those songs, as long as you agree to one request of mine.” — “What’s that, Father?” — “That you play Gregorian chant at your reception.” — “But Father, that’s not appropriate for the occasion!” — “Right. Neither are these songs appropriate for the occasion of divine worship. Now let’s rethink the music for the Mass.”

4. Moving to the wedding itself, if one is working with Catholics who have a modicum of faith and open-mindedness, one could suggest holding a Holy Hour after the wedding rehearsal while the priest hears confessions, particularly those of the bride, bridegroom, and wedding party. Among other benefits, this practice would greatly increase the possibility of the bride and bridegroom marrying in a state of grace so that they actually receive the fruits of the sacrament of matrimony rather than being vowed to one another in a graceless state of mortal sin. (Theologians teach that when marriage is contracted in a state of sin, the parties are indeed indissolubly wed, but the grace of the sacrament is not actually received by the sinful party until he or she is restored, through absolution or perfect contrition, to a state of grace, and then the sacramental grace is said to be “revived.”)

5. At the ceremony itself, the priest should bring out the most beautiful vestments and vessels he has access to, chant his own parts of the Mass, avoid the pitfalls of showmanship, and see to it that the service is conducted with solemnity. Such an ars celebrandi, together with the aforementioned music and the Holy Hour and confessions of the evening before, would accentuate the sacredness of the great mystery being celebrated.

When I have discussed these matters with priests, I generally get two reactions (and usually from the same people): “You are right,” and “It’s impossible.” I think there is a lot of discouragement out there about weddings and funerals, because these occasions, more than any others, bring home to the clergy just how horribly lacking in basic Christian faith and morals most baptized Catholics actually are. Nowhere is the postconciliar collapse of the Church and the destruction of the liturgy more apparent.

Nevertheless, with St. Thérèse, I maintain that discouragement is a form of pride, and that Christ is looking for “a few good men” to make the strenuous efforts needed, “brick by brick,” to elevate the seriousness and beauty of all of our sacramental life — be it baptisms, confirmations, weddings, and funerals, or daily and Sunday Mass. This is obviously a long-term project, but it begins with making whatever improvements we can, here and now. With all the care and goodwill in the world, we will sometimes offend people who do not know better, but let us strive to explain clearly and patiently the rationale behind all that we ask or propose to do.

NOTES

[1] There is a similar disconnect between Catholic eschatology and modern-day Catholic funerals, which have degenerated into maudlin wakes of the Protestant “low church” kind. The primary purpose of the Mass for the Dead is to pray for the soul of the departed, that it may be saved and, if in need of purification (as the vast majority of saved souls will be), may be delivered soon from the fires of Purgatory. Hence the traditional Requiem Mass focuses all of its attention on the faithful departed: there is no homily; gone are blessings of certain objects or of the people; a special Agnus Dei begs for the repose of souls; the Propers are a continuous tapestry of prayers for the dead; and so forth. The way that modern funerals have been turned towards the emotional relief of the living and the “celebration” of the mortal life of the deceased is, in reality, a double act of uncharity: first, it deprives Christians of the opportunity to go out of themselves in love by praying for the salvation of their loved one’s soul, thus exercising a great act of spiritual mercy rather than being a passive recipient of an act of spiritual mercy; second, it deprives the departed soul of the power and consolation of collective prayer on its behalf. Of course, all of this presupposes an orthodox understanding of the Four Last Things.

[2] Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, trans. John Saward (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), 198–99; also in idem, Collected Works, vol. XI: Theology of the Liturgy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2014), 125.

[3] Joseph Ratzinger, Preface to Alcuin Reid, The Organic Development of the Liturgy: The Principles of Liturgical Reform and Their Relation to the Twentieth-Century Liturgical Movement Prior to the Second Vatican Council (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005), 13; also in Ratzinger, Theology of the Liturgy, 593–94.

[4] Fr. Samuel Weber’s book The Proper of the Mass for Sundays and Solemnities has several settings of the Nuptial Mass propers, ranging from psalm-tone to melismatic.

Visit www.peterkwasniewski.com for events, articles, sacred music, and classics reprinted by Os Justi Press (e.g., Benson, Scheeben, Parsch, Guardini, Chaignon, Leen).

The Assault on Catholic Language and the Rebellion of the Poets

Let us attempt an Orwellian thought experiment. A new government has taken the reins of power and wishes to alter permanently the character of the people and even the range of their thoughts, the range of what is conceivable or desirable, the parameters of reality. What would be their most effective weapon? They would take a dictionary of the people’s language, cross out half of the words, and forbid anyone to use or teach those words. Initially, many would slip and fall, still inadvertently mouthing the forbidden vocables. Over time, however, with enough ruthless enforcement, the language would be successfully purged. After a few decades, what would have happened to public discourse? To poetry? To the entire culture? All would have been profoundly damaged, with the damage compounding for each subsequent generation.

This is no mere thought experiment when it comes to the Catholic Church on earth, for it is exactly what happened with the Church’s public discourse, her supreme lyrical and epic poem, her divine cultus: the sacred liturgy. An abridged, expurgated dictionary of worship was strenuously enforced. The whole field of discourse contracted and shriveled up, as clergy attempted to celebrate public rituals with an emaciated vocabulary. The range of our theological ideas and religious sentiments shrank in proportion to the paucity of means with which to express them. We went from Dante and Shakespeare to The Beatles and worse.

Man becomes rational through language. For the same reason, he loses the full range of rationality through the loss of language. In the 1960s and beyond, the Church was experiencing not the energetic advancement of childhood, as displayed in her acquisition of liturgical riches over the ages, but the retrogression of “second childhood,” characterized by an accelerating loss of memory and a weakening ability to communicate.

It is no wonder that those who have rediscovered the rich, arcane, archaic poetry, the luminous and varied sentiments of the Church’s traditional modes of prayer, become enraptured over what they find. These rebellious poets have gotten hold of the original dictionary, impressive in its heft, exotic in its nuances, dangerous in its implications. The explorers — for such they are, in spite of not having left a harbor for distant lands — discover that there are twice as many colors, sounds, and tastes than they had ever known before. One could say that they emerge from a black and white world into a colored world; they step from two dimensions into three.

The Novus Ordo Missae has horizontal and vertical dimensions, but what it lacks is precisely depth. The depth has to be brought to it from the outside — from the interior spirit of the celebrant, from the accidents of place and time, from the luck of options well-chosen and well-executed.[1] As it stands, the modern liturgy does not supply that depth in and of itself. It is utterly at the mercy of the ars celebrandi, the community, the authorities, the prevailing mores of society. Even as contemporary society is living off of the fumes of traditional morality, so too the contemporary liturgy, to the extent that it is sanctifying of men and glorifying of God, is living off of the fumes of traditional liturgy.

It is true, of course, that one must bring the right disposition to any liturgy, Eastern or Western, ancient or modern. However, the traditional liturgies of East and West are demanding “schools of prayer” that offer a complete ascetical-mystical formation to those who enroll in them and submit with docility to their curricula. One could derive the entire content of the Faith, in its dogmatic, moral, spiritual, and political doctrine, from the old Roman Missal and Pontifical. It is highly doubtful that one could do the same with the Novus Ordo books. One might, perhaps, extrapolate a shallow and inconsistent dogma, morality, spirituality, and politics, a message garbled and mingled with foreign elements. In any case, one would be reminded of a teacher who tells her pupils what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear.

True and lasting renewal in the Church begins with an unequivocal commitment to the great Catholic tradition of liturgy, devotions, theology, and catechetics, in all its colorfulness, depth, and complexity — not with the status quo, which lies shattered in a thousand plastic pieces. Thus, while it is not a bad thing to patch up a sinking vessel and keep it in operation, it is far better to invest time and energy in the strong and fast sailing of a nobler vessel that is more beautiful and deserves to carry more people to their goal.

Think of a comparison: you can pour money into an ugly, run-down tenement building complex from the 1960s/70s, or you can invest in the restoration and inhabitation of beautiful historic buildings that are more orderly, more stately, and more worthy of human persons. Which is the better use of limited capital? Eventually, the tenement will have to come down anyway, since it was poorly built to begin with, and looked ugly due to the Bauhaus functionalist philosophy of its designers. In contrast, the old building, if slightly dilapidated, remains beautiful and admirable in every age, from the time of its creation to the present. Most people recognize this sort of thing to be true in the realm of architecture, but is not the very same contrast found in the realm of liturgy, when we compare premodern liturgy to the Bauhaus constructs of the 1960s?

It is sobering to run through the “-isms” condemned in Leo XIII’s Libertas Praestantissimum and Testem Benevolentiae and in Pius X’s Pascendi Dominici Gregis. These “-isms” have their analogues in the modern liturgy, in contrast with a traditional liturgy that opposes them on every side. If the crisis in the Church is largely a crisis of her liturgy, as Joseph Ratzinger maintains (most recently in the Foreword he wrote for the Russian edition of his volume of writings on the liturgy), then the longed-for renewal of the Church will come primarily from a renewal of her liturgy. Concretely, this will mean the recovery of the beautiful and reverent liturgy that developed organically over the span of nearly 2,000 years, not the desperate maintenance of rites constructed by liberal and rationalistic clergy in the middle of the 20th century.

We can borrow a line from Psalm 19: Ipsi obligati sunt, et ceciderunt; nos autem surreximus, et erecti sumus. “They are entangled and brought low, but we rise up and stand erect.” They are entangled in this modern claptrap and brought low, but we rise up in the strength of tradition and stand erect.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of being a traditional Catholic today is that we feel ourselves to be constantly at war, beleagured on all sides — wishing to be brothers with our coreligionists, who insist on being our sworn enemies. It may not be a consolation but it can at least preserve our sanity to know that serious disagreement is possible, even among saints: the Acts of the Apostles shows us a falling-out between St. Paul and St. Barnabas, and we learn in Galatians about a confrontation between St. Paul and St. Peter over a matter of no small importance. We should not be surprised that there are deep differences of opinion in the Church. We should not allow this fact to paralyze, confuse, or embitter us.

There have always been and will always be laymen, religious, and clerics who appear to be ignorant of the Catholic faith, who do not practice it consistently or care to transmit it, who even openly reject elements of it in formal heresy. This is all the more reason for us who do want to serve Our Lord with our whole mind, heart, soul, and strength to dedicate ourselves to knowing and living the great mysteries of our faith, to seek total consistency in our practice, and to pass on to others, in its full integrity, the gift we have received — the unabridged dictionary of Catholic life, thought, and culture.

NOTE

[1] A sign of the truth of this claim was the great need for, and runaway success of, Msgr. Peter J. Elliott's pair of books from Ignatius Press, Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite and Ceremonies of the Liturgical Year, which actually create a somewhat coherent rubrical and ceremonial framework for the Modern Rite, based, of course, on older liturgical books.

Painting at the head of the article by Ephraim Rubenstein.

Sacred Music, the Need for Beauty, and the Beatific Vision

A few years ago, I had the privilege of hearing Fr. Jonathan Robinson of the Oratory deliver a lecture on beauty and the ars celebrandi in liturgy, with special reference to sacred music. Not one to spare his audience a pessimistic opening, Fr. Robinson argued that today the whole question of beauty has become increasingly irrelevant for many people. To Our Lord, Pilate cynically replied: “What is truth?”; today’s Christians could as easily say to their Master: “What is beauty?” Instead of being revered as an ancient witness to the awesome mysteries of Christ as well as their perennial adorable presence in our midst, liturgy is treated as a vehicle for acting out and celebrating a particular priest’s or community’s version of Christianity, usually in the form of moralistic therapeutic deism. Sincerity has replaced “making according to a rule” (the classical view of an art or skill). The results are plain for all to see and hear: verbosity, superficiality, sentimentalism, boredom, and randomness.

Art is a skilled performance; ars celebrandi refers to a skilled action done according to a true rule. No amount of distress for the poor, or openness to the world, or sincerity of opinion, can substitute for the lack of a true ars celebrandi, any more than a poet's good will and winsome personality can substitute for the discipline of learning how to write verse in rhyme and meter. This is what makes a celebrant do his work and do it well, and without it, the liturgy, as a human exercise and experience, becomes something between an embarrassment and a mockery. Because the liturgy is an exercise of the virtue of religion through which we offer fitting worship to God, and because it gives expression to our faith, mere sacramental validity can never make up for defective liturgical rites or for the lack of art in performing them.

If we were looking to capture post-modernity in a single word, we might choose “pluralism.” In the universities, in the fine arts, in religious practice, in every aspect of culture, there is an ever-increasing multiplication of choices, ways of life, identities, now even “genders,” without any axis or center around which they revolve and to which they might be tethered. Pluralism in liturgy, too, is connected with the post-modern view that there is no greater reality outside ourselves to which we must submit, and to which an appropriate response must be made: the response of the creature to the Creator, of the sinner to the Savior, of the child to the Father, of the adorer to the Holy One.

In spite of this inhospitable environment, the beautiful retains certain special qualities of its own. Beauty points beyond itself to something which is not reducible to the “true” or the “good.” When we ask whether something is true, we want to know if it corresponds to reality; when we ask whether something is good, we want to know if it is an object of desire or love. But when we ask whether something is beautiful, we are looking to its immediate captivating quality, its radiance in our eyes, its resounding in our ears. Beauty is disinterested, existing for its own sake, and needs no further justification. We delight in it because it simply is delightful. That which is beautiful exists to be seen or heard, and we rejoice in it just because of its splendor. This is why beauty reflects God, who exists for His own sake, and whom to see is to be blessed. Without beauty, the good loses its very attractiveness. Beauty is like a mask that guards, veils, and presents the face of the true and the good. They cannot stand on their own feet. Whoever banishes beauty will end up no longer being able to pray, nor, finally, to love. The beautiful cannot be banished without drawing into exile, sooner or later, the true and the good.

Do men, generally speaking, fall in love with ugly women? No — unless they find an invisible beauty that calls to the heart in a different way. It is always the beautiful that appeals and attracts, that awakens desire, that causes one to stop thinking of oneself and to be preoccupied with the other. The same is true for “modern man” and the liturgy of the Church. If the liturgy is ugly, it will not attract us, awaken our desire, or cause us to go out of ourselves and be caught up in the divine, so that we may become a Christian who is ready to go out of himself for the sake of others. This is why bad liturgy is, sooner or later, always connected with bad ethics. Bad liturgy is the single greatest cause of the collapse of the Church’s missionary and charitable activities, in the same way that the sinking or rotting or shifting of a building’s foundations compromises the entire structure.

My experience with priests formed in the 1970s is that they consider music in a purely utilitarian way: it is just a means to some further end, usually “active participation” understood in a reductive sense. It has no intrinsic value; it is not a holy thing; it is not “a moving image of eternity.” It is just something you do in order to be doing something religious together. This is why the music does not have to be of a high artistic quality. In fact, music of such quality would tend rather to thwart the end of general involvement than to promote it.[1] The implicit lesson of utility music is that liturgy is a pragmatic service to oneself, rather than a losing of oneself in something higher, greater, stranger, more demanding, and ultimately more wonderful than anything we can invent out of our immediate resources.

On a final exam, a student of mine wrote these words: “Sacred music … does not convey life on earth, it takes us into the afterlife. It makes us focus on the things of God. We meditate on Christ’s Incarnation, his earthly life, and His Passion and Death. We are brought to the angels in heaven and have a brief glimpse of the idea of a beatific vision.” This student has captured a key truth with admirable directness and childlike candor. The beauty of sacred music is a foretaste of the beatific vision in which we will rest in the fullest possible activity of gazing on the unveiled face of God, in whom is all our delight, to whom we will rapturously submit ourselves in a freedom that knows no limits, and whom we will love with all the power of our being because He is all-lovable and all-beautiful. Good liturgy initiates us — step by step, symbol by symbol, veiled glimpse by veiled glimpse — into this fearful and fascinating, stirring and stilling vision.


Note
[1] Sacro-pop music cannot truthfully be said to have achieved that “We Are the World” level of cooperative singing that was its sole justification. Meanwhile, we have had to suffer battery and siege on our eardrums, while the Muses scurried away for cover. We can be consoled at least by the inevitable operation of a divinely revealed law: the fashion of this world is passing away, and all that is conformed to this world will also pass away.

Worthily Celebrating the Mass Outdoors: A Gallery of Reader-Submitted Photos

In response to my article "Worthily Celebrating the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass Outdoors" (May 23, 2016), many readers sent me photos of their own. These included some of the most beautiful images of outdoor liturgies I have ever seen, as well as a couple of items of great historic interest. Without further ado, I now share them with NLM's readership.

Outdoor Masses with European Scouts

Mass in Ireland (also, the next three photos)

Continue Reading this Article. . .

“Ars Celebrandi” Workshops 2016 in Licheń, Poland (Press Release)

The third edition of the “Ars Celebrandi” traditional liturgy workshops will take place at the Sanctuary of Our Lady in Licheń, Poland, from August 4-11, 2016. This is the largest event of its kind in Eastern Europe.

Registration of participants has just started. Some 150 participants from Poland and abroad, a few dozen priests among them, will learn or better their knowledge of how to celebrate Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, serve at it, or sing liturgical chant, both Gregorian and polyphonic, under direction of experienced practitioners.  A number of lectures and encounters with special guests are planned.

Celebrations of read, sung or solemn Masses in the Roman or Dominican Rites, as well as the Divine Office will constitute the heart of the day during the workshops, enable the participants and staff to experience the workshops as time of retreat and spiritual growth. Those who wish focus on the time as a spiritual retreat can take part only in liturgical celebrations, and dedicate rest of their time to private prayer or meditation.

The Ars Celebrandi Liturgy Workshops are taking place under the honorable patronage of His Excellence Wiesław Mering, bishop of the diocese of Włocławek, as well as that of the 31st World Youth Day, to be held in Cracow in 2016. Una Voce Polonia Association is in charge of the whole event.

For more information, photo galleries of previous editions and registration form, see the website: www.arscelebrandi.pl

For any additional information, please e-mail our press department: media@arscelebrandi.pl

The following video was released last year, with pictures and music from some of the many activities at the 2015 workshops.

More from the Ars Celebrandi Workshops in Poland

The organizers of the Ars Celebrandi workshops recently held in Poland have produced a nice video highlighting their many different activities, the various liturgies, as well as the seminars and lectures. There are a few captions in Polish, but most of it covered by music. They have also set up galleries with over 800 photographs, which you can access here by clicking here.

Bishop Schneider at the “Ars Celebrandi” Workshops in Licheń, Poland

Our thanks to the organizers of the Ars Celebrandi workshops for sending us these photographs and the accompanying press release. I would call our readers’ attention particularly to the report in the second paragraph of Bishop Schneider’s words about the false opposition between the observance of liturgical norms and interior participation in the liturgy, and the “deep wound” in the heart of the Church caused by lack of reverence for the Blessed Sacrament. Most of the photographs below were taken at the Pontifical Mass, but the last one is of the blessing of new chalices, and the three before that are of Pontifical Vespers.

On 19 August 2015, at the Ars Celebrandi workshops on the traditional liturgy, Bishop Athanasius Schneider celebrated Pontifical Mass and Vespers, and gave a lecture on the proper renewal of the liturgy and due adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. He also answered questions from participants in the workshops, and signed copies of his latest book Corpus Christi.

In a lecture entitled “The Renewal of the Liturgy and the Perennial Sense of the Church”, His Excellency pointed out that the essential feature of the sacred liturgy is the adoration of God. The Eucharistic liturgy is the most sublime realization of the first commandment of which Jesus reminded us: “You shall adore the Lord your God and worship Him alone” (Matt 4, 10). Bishop Athanasius referred to the liturgical norms of the Church and the importance which should be attached to them in accordance with the whole of Scripture and Catholic doctrine.

To establish an opposition between exterior norms and the attention of the heart would be against the Divine truth. Such a contrast was often established by heretical movements, by neglecting or refusing exterior norms, e.g. Christian Gnostics, Cathars and Albigensians, Calvinists, and some Catholic Pentecostals and progressives of various degrees in our days. He also pointed to some alarming data about an increasing number of profanations related to giving Holy Communion on the hand. Then Bishop Schneider went on to present a sublime model to be imitated in liturgical celebrations: the liturgy of the Heavenly Jerusalem described in the Book of the Apocalypse. It is characterized by seven elements: kneeling, deep inclinations, and prostrations; incense; sacred songs, not performing wordly or sensual music (“a new song”); freedom from concentration on oneself; praying and singing together with the Angels; a prolonged time for silence; putting Eucharistic Christ in the visible centre of the liturgical assembly (and not the seat of the human celebrant).

During the Pontifical Mass celebrated in the Basilica of Licheń, Bishop Schneider gave a sermon in Polish in which he said, “The true renewal of the Church begins in an area which is the most important and which is the heart of the Church: in the Eucharistic Lord. However, a deep wound appeared in the heart of today’s Church because of a horrible lack of reverence towards the Blessed Sacrament, and numerous cases of unworthy reception of Holy Communion, without full belief and true contrition.” He also added, “Sinful man wants to put himself in the centre, even in church interiors, even during the Eucharistic feast; he wants to be seen and noticed. For this reason Eucharistic Jesus, who was made man, present in the tabernacle under Eucharistic species, is put to the side in many churches.”

After the Holy Mass, Bishop Schneider shared his feeling that it was one of the most beautiful ones in his life, praising the masters of ceremony and altar servers, as well as the musicians.

Before leaving Licheń, the bishop said a few words to the participants and organizers of the “Ars Celebrandi” Workshops on Traditional Liturgy.

I was deeply impressed by this Ars Celebrandi conference, especially as I met so many young people and young priests who seek to show real love for the holy liturgy and greater honor for Jesus in the holy liturgy. It was for me an experience of little piece of springtime of the Church, because this holy liturgy, the traditional liturgy, is a treasure for the whole Church, as Pope Benedict said, and this is a treasure which our forefathers handed over to us; so we have to love it and to pass it on to the next generation. This liturgy guides us closer to experience the presence of God, of Jesus, and the mystery of His sacrifice of the Cross, and the beauty, the majesty of God, and draws us closer to Him. Of course it is necessary that such beautiful celebrations influence our private lives, our Christianity, our moral lives. This should be a new force to give us new strength and new joy to live a real Christian life; and give an example of good Catholics. So I was favourably impressed and I hope that this Ars Celebrandi meeting will continue in the future and attract ever more young people, seminarians, young priests, to help them to live closer to Jesus, to live deeper this infinite, ineffable mystery of the holy Mass.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Ars Celebrandi Worshops to be Held Again in Poland

We reported last September on the Ars Celebrandi workshops held in August 2014 at the Basilica of Our Lady of Licheń, the largest Marian shrine in Poland, with the blessing of Bishop Wieslaw Mering of Wloclawek. A second series begins this coming Sunday; we are pleased to share the official press release with our readers.

Ars Celebrandi – the biggest traditional liturgy workshops in Eastern Europe

From August 16-23, 2015, at the Shrine of the Virgin Mary in Licheń, Poland, will be held offered the second series of the Ars Celebrandi Liturgy Workshops, for the number of participants the largest such gathering workshops in Eastern Europe. One-hundred and eighty people from Poland and abroad are already registered, including 40 priests. His Excellence Bishop Athanasius Schneider will celebrate both a Pontifical Holy Mass and Pontifical Vespers; the workshops are being held under the patronage of His Excellency Bishop Wiesław Mering of the Diocese of Wrocław.

As was the case last year, participants will be able to choose from a wide range of practical workshops dedicated to priests, seminarians, servers, musicians, and any one else who cares about the Sacred Liturgy. Highly qualified and experienced leaders will be teaching:
- Celebration of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Mass (read and solemn).
- Serving as acolyte at read, sung and solemn Masses.
- Chorale singing
- Polyphonic singing
- Organ
- Preservation of liturgical vestments.

Among the leaders there are some famous Polish and international church musicians, including Joanna Orzeł, Paweł Bębenek, Marcin Bornus Szczyciński, Robert Pożarski and Robert Hugo from Prague. Practical training will be enhanced by discussions about the liturgical calendar, choir apparel and other topics.

Every day there will be two main Holy Masses celebrated, Solemn and sung, and two in the Dominican Rite, during which the participants will be using their skills gained on the workshops. We will also celebrate the Liturgy of the Hours, Lauds or Vespers and Compline. Apart from the above every priest will be able to celebrate the Holy Mass privately. Workshops going on for a full week offer valuable time for socializing, integration and interchange of experience from different circles of people who care about traditional liturgy, both in Poland and abroad.

Those responsible for the organization are both priests and laymen; Una Voce Polonia is in charge of the all workshops. More information is accessible on our website arscelebrandi.pl, where you can also see the photo gallery from last year: arscelebrandi.pl/galeria/). You can also find us on Facebook at Ars Celebrandi. For any additional information please e-mail our press department: media@arscelebrandi.pl.

Some images from last year’s liturgical celebrations during the Ars Celebrandi workshops: Solemn Vespers, Dominican missa cantata, and a Eucharistic procession.

Classics of the Liturgical Movement: The Soul of the Apostolate

One of my all-time favorite spiritual books is The Soul of the Apostolate by Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard, O.C.S.O. It was St. Pius X’s bedside reading, which already tells you a lot about the quality of Chautard (and, frankly, about the quality of Pius X, who, were he alive today, would not touch a book by Kasper, Martini, or other neo-modernists except to condemn their propositions—but I digress). Of the many pages where Dom Chautard touches on ways of living the Church’s liturgical life more profoundly, here is an exquisite taste of his wisdom, at once utterly practical and motivated by the highest and purest ideals, the ideals of the original liturgical movement that we would do well to recover for ourselves today. While it is clear that Dom Chautard in this passage has the clergy foremost in mind, his counsel applies analogously to any Catholic involved in a liturgical apostolate, such as serving or singing the chant, or any member of the faithful who simply wants to participate more actively (in the right sense) in the mysteries of Christ.

Without further ado, let us hear what the gracious Abbot has to say:

          To do well my liturgical work is a gift of Your bounty, O my God! Omnipotens et misericors Deus, de cujus munere venit ut tibi a fidelibus tuis digne et laudabiliter serviatur. [Almighty and merciful God, whose gift it is that the faithful serve Thee worthily and laudably.] O Lord, please grant me this gift. I want to remain in adoration all during my liturgical function. That sums up all the methods in one word.
          My will casts down my heart at the feet of the Majesty of God and keeps it there. All its work is now contained in the three words, digne, attente, devote [worthily, attentively, devoutly] from the prayer Aperi, and they most aptly express what must be the attitude of my body, of my mind, and of my heart.

          DIGNE. A respectful position and bearing, the precise pronunciation of the words, slowing down over the more important parts. Careful observance of the rubrics. My tone of voice, the way in which I make signs of the Cross, genuflections, etc.; my body itself: all will go to show not only that I know Whom I am addressing, and what I am saying, but also that my heart is in what I am doing. What an apostolate I can sometimes exercise [this way]!

 Then, Dom Chautard adds a substantial footnote to this point:

          Apostolate or Scandal. There are many souls who look at religion through a hazy intellectualism or ritualism, and to such persons, a whole sermon by a second-rate priest has far less meaning than the apostolate of a genuine priest whose great faith, piety, and compunction shine forth in his ministrations at a baptism, funeral, or, above all, at Mass. Words and rites are arrows that strike deep into such hearts. When the liturgy is thus lived, they see in it the certitude of the mystery expressed. The invisible begins to exist for them, and they are prompted to invoke Jesus, whom they hardly know at all, but with whom they sense that the priest is in close communication. But only weakening or total loss of their faith follows when the spectacle before them merely turns their stomach, and moves them to cry out: "Why, you can't tell me that priest believes in a God or fears Him! Look at the way he says Mass, administers baptism, recites his prayers, and performs his ceremonies!" What responsibilities! Who would dare to maintain that such scandals will not be visited with the strictest of judgment?
          How the faithful are influenced by the way a priest acts: whether it be that he displays deeply reverential fear, or an insolent nonchalance in his sacred functions!
          Once, when studying in a university graduate school, into which no clerical influence entered at all, I chanced to observe a priest reciting his breviary, he being unaware that he was the object of my attention. His bearing, full of respect and religion, was a revelation to me, and produced in me an urgent need to pray from then on, and to pray in the way this priest was praying. The Church appeared to me, concretized, so to speak, in this worthy minister, in communion with his God.

Dom Chautard’s meditation on the three words digne, attente, devote continues:

          In the courts of earthly kings, a simple servant considers the least function to be something great, and unconsciously takes on a majestic and solemn air in performing it. Cannot I acquire some of that distinctive bearing which will show itself by my state of mind and by the dignity of my bearing when I carry out my duties as member of the guard of honor of the King of Kings and of the God of all Majesty?

          ATTENTE. My mind will be eager to go foraging through the sacred words and rites in order to get everything that will nourish my heart. Sometimes my attention will consider the literal sense of the texts, whether I follow every phase or whether, while going on with my recitation of the prayers, I take time to meditate on some word that has struck my attention, until such time as I feel the need to seek the honey of devotion in some other flower: in either case, I am fulfilling the precept mens concordet voci [let mind and voice agree—from the Rule of Saint Benedict].
          At other times, my intellect may occupy itself with the mystery of the day or the principal idea of the liturgical season. But the part played by the mind will remain in the background compared to the role of the will. The mind will serve only as the will’s source of supply, helping it to remain in adoration or to return to that state.
          As soon as distractions arise it shall be my will to return to the act of adoration; but I shall make this movement of the will without irritation or harshness, without a sudden violent jerk, but peacefully (since everything that is done with Your aid, Lord Jesus, is peaceful and quiet), yet powerfully (since every genuine desire to cooperate with Your aid, Lord, is powerful and strong).

          DEVOTE. This is the most important point. Everything comes back to the need of making our Office and all our liturgical functions acts of piety, and, consequently, acts that come from the heart. “Haste kills all devotion.” Such is the principle laid down by St. Francis de Sales in talking of the Breviary, and it applies a fortiori to the Mass, Hence. I shall make it a hard and fast rule to devote around half an hour to my Mass in order to ensure a devout recitation not only of the Canon but of all the other parts as well. I shall reject without pity all pretexts for getting through this, the principal act of my day, in a hurry. If I have the habit of mutilating certain words or ceremonies, I shall apply myself, and go over these faulty places very slowly and carefully, even exaggerating my exactitude for a while.
          With all due proportion, I shall also apply this resolution to all my other liturgical functions: administrations of the Sacraments, Benediction, Burials, and so on. As far as the Breviary is concerned, I shall carefully decide in advance when I am to say my Office. When that time comes, I shall compel myself, cost what it may, to drop everything else. At any price, I want my recitation of the Office to be a real prayer from the heart. O my Divine Mediator! Fill my heart with detestation for all haste in those things where I stand in Your place, or act in the name of the Church! Fill me with the conviction that haste paralyzes that great Sacramental, the Liturgy, and makes impossible that spirit of prayer without which, no matter how zealous a priest I may appear to be on the outside, I would be lukewarm, or perhaps worse, in Your estimation. Burn into my inmost heart those words so full of terror: “Cursed be he that doth the work of God deceitfully” (Jer 48:10).
          Sometimes I will let my heart soar, and take in by a panoramic synthesis of Faith, the general meaning of the mystery which the liturgical Cycle calls to mind; and I will feed my soul with this broad view. At other times, I will make my Office a long, lingering act of Faith or Hope, Desire or Regret, Oblation or Love. Then again, just to remain, in simplicity, LOOKING at God will be enough. By this I mean a loving and continuous contemplation of a mystery, of a perfection of God, of one of Your titles, my Jesus, of Your Church, my own nothingness, my faults, my needs, or else my dignity as a Christian, as a priest, as a religious. Vastly different is this simple “looking” from an act of the intellect in the course of theological studies. This “look” will increase Faith, but will give even greater and more rapid growth to Love. It is a reflection, no doubt a pale one, but still a reflection of the beatific vision, this “looking” and it is the fulfillment of what You promised even here below to pure and fervent souls: “Blessed are the clean of heart for they shall see God.”

          And thus every ceremony will become a restful change because it will bring my soul a real breathing spell and relieve it from the stifling press of occupations. Holy Liturgy, what sweet fragrance you will bring into my soul by your various “functions.” Far from being a slavish burden, these functions will become one of the greatest consolations of my life. How could it be otherwise when thanks to your constant reminders I am ever coming back to the fact of my dignity as a child and ambassador of the Church, as member and minister of Jesus Christ, and am ever being more and more closely united to Him Who is the “Joy of the elect.”
          By my union with Him I shall learn to get profit out of the crosses of this mortal life, and to sow the seeds of my eternal happiness and by my liturgical life, which is far more effective than any apostolate, I will see that other souls have been drawn to follow after me in the ways of salvation and sanctity.

Ars Celebrandi Workshops in Poland

Reader Dawid Gospodarek very kindly sent us an account of a series of workshops recently held in Poland at the Basilica of Our Lady of Licheń (Lee-chen; ch pronounced as in German), the largest Marian shrine in the country. The event has its own website, http://arscelebrandi.pl/, with an enormous gallery of high quality and very beautiful photographs of the various events. (My experience is that the translation feature of the Chrome browser works quite well with Polish.) There are also a large number of photos available on their facebook page.

First Mass in the Basilica

Solemn Vespers

On Sunday, August 24, a series of workshops on the Ars Celebrandi began at the Basilica of Our Lady of Licheń, the largest Marian shrine in Poland, with the blessing of Bishop Wieslaw Mering of Wloclawek. The participants came from all parts of Poland, but also the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia and France, totaling nearly 150 people, including almost 30 priests.

The Ars Celebrandi Workshops are a response to the invitation of Benedict XVI’s motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, and its encouragement to “preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place”.

The workshops cover all the elements that make up the beauty of the liturgy in the traditional Roman rite: priests learn to celebrate and to serve in various functions (as deacon, subdeacon and assistant priest), altar servers learn to serve in all the different roles, and scholas learn how to accompany the liturgy.

The musical part of the workshops was lead by Joanna Orzeł, Magdalena Krzywda-Krzysteczko, Marcin Bornus-Szczyciński, Robert Pożarski (Gregorian chant) and Paweł Bębenek (Baroque polyphony).

The highlight of each day was the celebration of the Holy Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, whether solemn, sung or low. At one of the morning Masses, the faithful could also sing traditional Polish devotional songs. The order of every day was defined by canonical hours, which on certain days were celebrated in a solemn way.

On Tuesday, the feast of Our Lady of Czestochowa, after the Mass a solemn procession took place. Wednesday was a day of penance, devoted primarily to prayers for the dead. A solemn Requiem Mass was celebrated for Pope Sixtus V on the anniversary of his death.

Masses in the Dominican Rite were also celebrated daily, on Wednesday a sung Mass, with the participation of a women’s schola, and on Thursday a particularly important event, a Dominican Solemn Mass. This was only the third time that such a liturgy was celebrated in Poland after the post-Conciliar liturgical reforms. The schola was led by experts in Dominican chant, Marcin Bornus-Szczyciński and Robert Pożarski.

On Friday the main Mass was celebrated in the Basilica of Our Lady of Licheń; this was also the first solemn Mass celebrated by Fr. Peter Wulgaris. The schola, led by Paweł Bębenek, sang a polyphonic Mass by Orlando di Lasso. All sung and solemn Masses were enriched by the organ music played by Robert Hugo, an outstanding musician, organist of the Holy Savior Academy church in Prague, the head and founder of Capella Regia Praha, which gives concerts all over the Europe and overseas.

The organizers of the workshop are priests and faithful working in the diocesan chaplaincies and communities of the Latin tradition in Poland, in cooperation with Foundation of St. Gregory the Great and other organizations of the faithful attached to the traditional form of the liturgy. The event was under the official patronage of the Una Voce Polonia Federation.

Absolution over the Catafalque

Preparation of the chalice at Dominican Solemn Mass

Singing of the Gospel at Dominican Solemn Mass

Eucharistic Procession on the feast of Our Lady of Czestochowa

Bishop Paprocki's Pastoral Letter on the "Ars Celebrandi et Adorandi"

Many of our readers have undoubtedly already heard about the pastoral letter issued on the feast of Corpus Christi by the Most Rev. Thomas J. Paprocki, Bishop of Springfield, Illinois, with the auspicious title “Ars celebrandi et adorandi”. His Excellency makes several very good points in the letter, which can be read in full at the website of the diocese. Most notable is his direction to restore to the main sanctuary of the church any tabernacle which had been moved to a side chapel that was too small or lacking in prominence within the building.

...in order that more of the faithful will be able to spend time in adoration and prayer in the presence of the Eucharistic Lord, I direct that in the churches and chapels of our diocese, tabernacles that were formerly in the center of the sanctuary, but have been moved, are to be returned as soon as possible to the center of the sanctuary in accord with the original architectural design. Tabernacles that are not in the center of the sanctuary or are otherwise not in a visible, prominent and noble space are to be moved to the center of the sanctuary; tabernacles that are not in the center of the sanctuary but are in a visible, prominent and noble space may remain.

Bishop Paprocki rightly notes that the removal of tabernacles to side chapels on the analogy of what is done at St Peter’s in Rome (and many other churches in Europe) is quite incorrect, inasmuch as the Sacrament Chapel of St Peter’s is more than large enough to accommodate all those who wish to pray there, while the Eucharistic chapels in some churches today are repurposed supply closets. Just as important, His Excellency “strongly encourages” the clergy to keep churches open, in order that the faithful may more readily be able pray.

This deep-seated desire to be in the presence of the Lord resounds in the heart of every person, even if they cannot at first name this desire for what it truly is. We should therefore do all that we can to help them encounter the Lord who waits for them to seek and find him. In this regard, I strongly encourage keeping our churches open to the public in so far as can be done with the safety of people and the building in mind. Pope Francis spoke about this in his Apostolic Exhortation on the Joy of the Gospel, Evangelii Gaudium: “The Church is called to be the house of the Father, with doors always wide open. One concrete sign of such openness is that our church doors should always be open, so that if someone, moved by the Spirit, comes there looking for God, he or she will not find a closed door.” (no. 47)

He also offers this very nice explanation of the reason why genuflecting is more appropriate gesture before the tabernacle.

To genuflect means, literally, “to bend the knee.” In the ancient world the knee symbolized the strength of a man. If a man is struck in the knee, he stumbles and falls; his strength is taken from him. When we genuflect before the Lord, our strength is not taken from us; rather, we willingly bend our strength to the Lord and place ourselves humbly in his service. When we bend our knee to the Lord of heaven and earth we should hear the words of the Psalmist ever in our hearts, “Lord, I am your servant,” remembering that before the Lord every knee must bend (Psalm 116:16; cf. Philippians 2:10).

Let us pray that more bishops will follow Bishop Paprocki’s example in encouraging similar norms within their dioceses.

Book Review: The Sacred Liturgy, Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church

The Sacred Liturgy, Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church. The Proceedings of the International Conference on the Sacred Liturgy – Sacra Liturgia 2013. Ed. Alcuin Reid. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2014. 446 pp.

Have you ever wished you could bring together a dream team of scholars, pastors, monks, liturgists, musicologists, all of them completely orthodox and totally committed to the sacred liturgy, and then have them commit to writing their finest insights, born of careful study, deep reflection, and pastoral experience? When I attended the Sacra Liturgia conference last summer in Rome (June 25–28, 2013), I found to my immense joy and profit that that was exactly what had been done by the conference’s organizers. The results are now in print for all the world to see, in the form of the complete proceedings of the conference, just published by Ignatius Press.

Publishers are aware that conference proceedings, like the genre of collected essays, are usually hard sells because readers tend to think: “Oh, this is just a random collection, and who can say whether the quality will be high across the board.” Fortunately, in this instance, we have a winner from cover to cover. I recently told a friend in charge of a library that this book is the most comprehensive, eloquent, insightful, hard-hitting, and refreshing volume on the liturgy that I have seen in the past ten years. It is a sheer pleasure to read most of the contents, and profitable to read all of it. The contributors are both clerical and lay, hailing from several continents, bringing their different cultural backgrounds, experiences, and professional expertise to bear on the most pressing (one is sometimes tempted to say intractable) questions of the liturgy in the Church today. These questions include sacred music, church architecture and furnishing, the ars celebrandi, the relationship of the old rite and the new evangelization, weaknesses or errors in the liturgical reform, liturgical formation and catechesis, the role and responsibility of the bishop, the meaning of “pastoral,” the Anglican contribution, the relationship between liturgy and social doctrine, and the canonical structure supporting liturgy.

It would be far too easy to turn this review into a lengthy summary of all the contents, which will be hardly necessary if, trusting my judgment, you get this book and read it yourself. But I cannot refrain from drawing attention to a few addresses that seemed to me particularly luminous and rousing when I heard them in Rome and that strike me as equally magnificent now that I am renewing my acquaintance with them in print.

Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith’s magisterial opening address, “The Sacred Liturgy, Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church” (pp. 19–39) has the virtue of covering just about everything in a cosmic sweep that ranges from creation through Israel and the covenants to the Paschal Mystery of Christ, touching along the way such hot topics as the style of celebration, the use of Latin, the betrayal of the Fathers of the Council, and active participation.

Gabriel Steinschulte’s “Liturgical Music and the New Evangelization” (pp. 41–67) is an entertaining, perceptive, wide-ranging analysis of what has happened to church music and why, and the reasons behind the traditional stance of the Church on chant and polyphony. He sounds a theme that is taken up by several contributors, namely, how the new evangelization relies entirely on a sound, beautiful celebration of the sacred mysteries.

Bishop Peter J. Elliott, famed author of Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite, offers a reflection (pp. 69–85) on the principles of the ars celebrandi as applied to both the old and new forms of the Roman Rite, valuable reading for every celebrant and master of ceremonies. For those keen on liturgical arts, especially the design and arrangement of sacred buildings, the exquisite pieces by Fr. Stefan Heid and Fr. Uwe Michael Lang (pp. 87–114 and 187–211) provide ample nourishment. (My sole criticism of this book is the lack of the diagrams and photos that Fr. Heid and Fr. Lang shared with the conference in Rome to illustrate their arguments. But I do understand that adding a section of illustrations to this volume would have increased its bulk and price, and I also know that one can quickly find images on Google of most, if not all, of the things referred to by the authors; and fortunately, their arguments and descriptions are easy to follow.)

Tracey Rowland’s tour de force of theological anthropology, “The Usus Antiquior and the New Evangelization” (pp. 115–37) is required reading both for those who already know that the traditional Latin Mass is crucial to the Church’s mission in the contemporary world (these will gobble it up) and for those who suspect and worry that it might be so (these will come to a sobering realization and then start making plans for learning how to celebrate the EF). Here is a sample of Rowland’s vigorous style:

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Aidan Nichols and other lesser names have argued that the liturgy exists to worship God and that if we promote it for any other reason we are promoting sub-theological ideologies. The most common of these are liturgy as group therapy and liturgy as community building. Nonetheless, it is possible to hold that while the sole purpose of liturgy is worship, there are obvious spiritual and educational side effects and it is in this context that the usus antiquior can play an important role in the New Evangelisation. Specifically, the usus antiquior may be an antidote to the ruthless attacks on memory and tradition and high culture, typical of the culture of modernity, and it may also satisfy the desire of the post-modern generations to be embedded within a coherent, non-fragmented tradition that is open to the transcendent. (p. 117)

Alcuin Reid’s contribution, “Sacrosanctum Concilium and Liturgical Formation” (pp. 213–36) is, as we have all come to expect from him, brilliantly incisive and well-documented, as he demonstrates the central role given by the Council Fathers to a genuine immersion and formation in the “spirit and power of the liturgy” that would govern and control all reform and renewal. Sad to say, such a formation was utterly lacking, which is why the reform went sour and the renewal never happened. Reid urges us to take seriously the Council’s counsel by not neglecting ongoing liturgical formation in our own day, if we would ever surmount the difficulties in which we are mired.

Archbishop Alexander Sample’s “The Bishop: Governor, Promoter, and Guardian of the Liturgical Life of the Diocese” (pp. 255–71) created a stir at the conference for its comprehensiveness and clarity, bringing into one place all the most important conciliar and post-conciliar magisterial teachings on the precise role and responsibility of the bishop over the liturgy in his diocese—what he is obliged to do and what he should not do. His Excellency then makes a point of addressing Summorum Pontificum and its implications for the ministry of the bishop:

I would urge bishops to familiarize themselves with the usus antiquior as a means of achieving their own deeper formation in the liturgy and as a reliable reference point in bringing about renewal and reform of the liturgy in the local Church. Speaking from personal experience, my own study and celebration of the older liturgical rites has had a tremendous effect on my own appreciation of our liturgical tradition and has enhanced my own understanding and celebration of the new rites.
           I would further encourage bishops to be as generous as possible with the faithful who desire and ask for the opportunity to worship in the usus antiquior in their dioceses. Allowing for its natural flourishing will have its own effect on the liturgical life of the whole diocesan Church. It must never be seen as something out of the mainstream of ecclesial life, that is, as something on the fringes. The bishop’s own public celebration of it can prevent this from happening. (p. 270)

Complementary to this talk is Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke’s far-reaching, authoritative, and typically thorough “Liturgical Law in the Mission of the Church” (pp. 389–415), which refutes postconciliar antinomianism, establishes the right of God to receive due worship, and demonstrates how canon law supports this right and duty. It is worth mentioning, as a heartening "sign of the times," that among the 23 contributors to this volume are 4 cardinals, 4 bishops, 2 ordinaries, and 2 abbots. We are, thanks be to God, well past those dark days when the liturgical movement had nearly no hierarchical support or public profile.

For me personally, the talk that hit me in the gut and left me speechless was Msgr. Ignacio Barreiro Carámbula’s “Sacred Liturgy and the Defense of Human Life” (pp. 371–88). With incomparable candor, detail, and theological acumen, Msgr. Barreiro exposes the relationship between the ravaging of liturgical tradition and the destruction of the family, and how the lack of reverence towards God, especially as present in the mystery of the Mass and the Most Holy Eucharist, has trickled down into contempt for the unborn. His address held no less power for me when I re-read it in the book. An excerpt:

Recently Bishop Athanasius Schneider reminded us that the worst sin that humanity can commit is to refuse to adore God, to refuse to give Him the first place, the place of honor. A man that does not adore God in the liturgy will not value the main gift of God, which is life. A secularized man that considers himself autonomous will be uncomfortable that the tabernacle would be at the center of the Church or that the cross should be at the center of the altar.
          Secularization rejects the right relation of man with God. Secularization denies our dependence from God, so it refutes Him as giver of life and that man by his nature is a being that adores, giving due worship to God. We are all sensitive to the justice that is due to our neighbor, but the precedence should be given to the justice that is due to God. Catholicism has to be understood as a society of men who give to God the right worship and as a consequence they provide service to their fellow men. Service [to the neighbor] should not have priority, instead service should be the consequence of worship. In some ways we can say that service is a continuation that flows from worship. (p. 372)

The contributions from Fr. Nicola Bux, Fr. Andrew Burnham, Fr. Guido Rodheudt, and Fr. Paul Gunter are also noteworthy, but having said that, I want to reiterate that, surprisingly, there is no weak link in this lengthy chain: all 21 papers in this book are worth reading and re-reading carefully. Indeed, I predict that whoever gets this book and dips into it will either start photocopying pages from it for his friends (and perhaps also his enemies), or will buy more copies and give them away as gifts. Our profound gratitude is owed to all the conference speakers who, by means of this superb collection, now share their work with a worldwide audience.

In conclusion, I am willing to say, without the slightest hyperbole, that this book can serve as a kind of charter for the new liturgical movement—and I hope it shall do so.