“An Art Which Leads the Soul by Words”: Sacred Rhetoric in the Roman Liturgy

My esteemed NLM colleague Peter Kwasniewski included the following observation in a recent series of Substack posts:

The liturgical reform rejected form and quality—the intricately developed offering of worship as handed down across the ages, with its exaltation of rhetoric, poetry, the sacred dance of rubrically dense solemn ceremonial, architecture and the panoply of fine arts—and chose, instead, to privilege quantitative ways of thinking.

It is remarkable how rarely one finds references to rhetoric in liturgical discussions and debates. Indeed, it is remarkable how rarely one finds any sort of reference to rhetoric in postmodern society, except when the term refers to the vacuous or manipulative speech that politicians often employ. We ought not drag the noble term “rhetoric” through mud that is more properly described as bombast, fustian, or demagoguery. And we ought not overlook the thoroughly rhetorical character of the culture that composed and nourished the Roman liturgy.

James Tissot, The Sermon of the Beatitudes (c. 1890).

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Rhetoric is, quite simply, the art of language. If my students remember only one definition—or even only one vague definitional idea—of rhetoric, I want it to be this one. Though it requires a bit of elaboration and qualification, it is accurate and pleasing to the ear, and it counteracts the ruinous tendency to equate rhetoric with the deliberate misuse or even abuse of language.

Though the study of classical rhetoric is at low ebb in Western society, there are signs of a modest revival in secular educational circles, which means that a far more vigorous revival should be underway in Christian educational circles—because rhetoric cannot be filtered out of Christian life so easily as it can be filtered out of modern secular life. The culture at large may be resigned to hearing speeches that are merely informational, attending lectures that are merely sentimental, watching conversational (or downright childish) debates, reading novels that lack eloquence, writing poems that lack art, and so forth.

But Christian culture is so interwoven with rhetoric that the two are actually inseparable: Old Testament literature is filled with rhetorical techniques, Our Lord integrated rhetoric into His preaching, the epistolary style of St. Paul—recently described by a biblical scholar as “one of the greatest communicators in history”—was enriched by his rhetorical skill, and the Church’s ancient liturgies employed highly rhetorical texts. Indeed, rhetoric is so central to salvation history and the Christian experience that a new definition is called for, one that pertains specifically to Christian education and foregrounds the role of rhetoric in the spiritual and liturgical life of the Church. I will propose one: rhetoric is the sublimation of language. As I have written elsewhere,

Despite the ... obscure, Greek- or Latin-sounding terminology, rhetoric comes not from Greece or Rome but from God. He not only created language but also taught mankind to use it dramatically and artistically, so that literature and preaching and conversation and all other forms of human discourse might fulfill their crucial and exalted role in His epic plan to ennoble our lives and save our souls.

Maurycy Gottlieb, Christ Teaching in Capernaum (1878)

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You may be wondering why I haven’t said anything yet about persuasion. Isn’t that what rhetoric is all about—convincing others to share one’s opinion, perhaps through cunning and disingenuous language, perhaps even in opposition to right reason and legitimate authority? Didn’t Aristotle say that “rhetorical study, in its strict sense, is concerned with the modes of persuasion”?

He did, but Plato, speaking through Socrates in the Phaedrus, wrote that rhetoric is “an art which leads the soul by means of words.” To reconcile the thought of student and master, then, we must understand “persuasion” more broadly. Aristotle himself is quick to do this. In the next sentence he states that persuasion is actually a form of demonstration, “since we are most fully persuaded when we consider a thing to have been demonstrated,” and later he states unequivocally that “one ought not persuade people to believe what is wrong.” Thus, persuasion in Aristotle’s mind was strongly linked to truth, and etymology shows us that it is also linked to goodness: the English word “persuasion” reaches back to a Latin verb meaning “urge, recommend” and to a primitive root meaning “sweet, pleasant.”

Thus, when we speak of persuasion in the Christian and rhetorical sense, we must look far beyond the impoverished modern sense, whereby persuasion is little more than amoral or fallacious attempts to make others think as one wants them to think or do what one wants them to do. Rhetorical persuasion is language in the service and pursuit of truth; it is discourse that reveals the inherent goodness of an idea or action; and it is linguistic expression that beautifies these good and truthful things, thereby teaching us to find pleasure in that which otherwise might seem obscure, unreal, onerous, or even painful: “Learn of me,” says the divine Orator, “for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

James Smetham (d. 1889), Christ Preaching to the Multitudes

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There is one domain of Christian life that is rhetorical above all others. Within it are found compelling exhortations from Scriptural epistles, poetry from the Old Testament, dramatic narratives from the Gospels, inspiring hymns, finely crafted prayers, eloquent benedictions, homiletic oratory, and a visual language of unsurpassed emotional intensity—all united in a harmonious public ceremony that is persuasive in the fullest, most transcendent, most sanctifying and transformative sense that this word could ever hope to have. The domain of which I speak is the sacred liturgy, which glorifies the eternal God while marshalling every imaginable rhetorical resource to persuade fallen man that this God exists, and that His words are supremely true, and that His works are wondrously good.

The judgments of the Lord are true,
      and in themselves are justified:
they are more desired than gold,
      than great supply of purest gold: sweeter than honey and honeycomb.

The psalmist knew the sweetness of the Lord. He also knew, as we see elsewhere in the Psalms, the monumental tragedy that befalls when desolation enters the house of God. The rhetorical richness of sacred liturgy is not a foregone conclusion. There are many ways in which “divino-apostolic” liturgical rites, as Dr. Kwasniewski aptly designates them in the concluding essay of the series mentioned above, may be deprived of their “millennial fecundity”—or to state a similar idea in rhetorical terms, of their power to effect divine persuasion.

To better understand the rhetorical excellence of the Roman liturgy is to more fully appreciate its splendor, and to more duly lament what has been lost. We will, therefore, continue this discussion in future articles.

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For thrice-weekly discussions of art, history, language, literature, Christian spirituality, and traditional Western liturgy, all seen through the lens of medieval culture, you can subscribe (for free!) to my Substack publication: Via Mediaevalis.

The Father of the Romans and Joseph Ratzinger, His German Son

Virgil’s Aeneid is one of the modern world’s many illustrious victims. The gradual abandonment of Latin has turned this epic masterpiece, one of the literary cornerstones of Western Civilization, into something that only a minuscule group of inveterate Latinists can truly enjoy in the original language. I’m sad to say that I’m not in that group—Virgil’s Latin is so rich and dense, so intricate and elegant, that reading quickly becomes laborious to the point of exhaustion, and the translations on my bookshelf appear as an oasis in the desert of my own incompetence. I take comfort in the fact that John Dryden, a Latinist of the old stripe and one of the Aeneid’s most famous English-language translators, also strained under the weight of Virgil’s genius:

Virgil called upon me in every line for some new word, and I paid so long, that I was almost bankrupt, so that the latter end must needs be more burdensome than the beginning or the middle; and, consequently, the Twelfth Aeneid cost me double the time of the First and Second. What had become of me, if Virgil had taxed me with another book?

Aeneas builds a fleet after escaping Troy. Sixteenth century, painted enamel on copper.

Written in the first century BC, the Aeneid recounts the journey of Aeneas out of defeated Troy, around Greece, over to eastern Italy, down to Sicily, across the sea to Carthage, back to Sicily, and finally up to western Italy, where he founded Lavinium, a port city in Latium and an ancestor of Roman civilization. Saint Augustine knew the story well and adopted it as an allegorical framework for his own spiritual journey from pagan Rome to Christian Rome:

I was obliged to learn the wanderings of Aeneas, and yet I was forgetful of my own wanderings. I learned to weep for the death of Dido, because she killed herself for love, while in the midst of these things I was miserable and dying, separated from Thee, my God and my Life, and I shed no tears for myself. (Confessions I, 13)

The Aeneid is the story of the founding of Rome, but the poem is more about the people than the city. A central question at stake is the Roman character—what does it mean to be Roman? Virgil’s very long poem offers a very short answer: to be a Roman is to be a child, culturally speaking, of Aeneas. And what was Aeneas? He was, above all, pius.

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Aeneas is Virgil’s epic hero, and his fundamental virtue—his renowned pietas—is an epic headache for translators. The classical Latin word pius doesn’t mean “pious,” and pietas doesn’t mean “piety.” In fact, these words have no adequate English equivalent. In his 2016 translation, the eminent classicist Barry Powell gave up and included the Latin terms in square brackets whenever they appeared, so that readers could form a better idea of what Virgil was actually saying. Powell’s attempt to convey the semantic field of classical pietas requires quite the bevy of English words: “sense of duty,” “religious behavior,” “loyalty,” “devotion,” “filial piety.” From Lewis and Short’s Latin–English dictionary we can add “affection,” “gratitude,” “love” (for one’s parents, benefactors, or homeland).

Dido weeps as Aeneas departs from Carthage.

Perhaps Virgil’s pius Aeneas is more easily understood through example than through explanation. Perhaps the best way for modern Catholics to really grasp the meaning of Roman pietas is to consider how the Roman Church treated (note the past tense) its liturgical tradition. We can reflect on the days when priests and prelates felt a sense of duty toward this tradition—the duty to preserve and reverentially enrich it as a sacred inheritance from the saints, scholars, sages, and heroes that preceded them in the great and perilous odyssey of human life. We can think of the devotion and loyalty of the faithful, who built the temples of Christendom with their labors and filled them with their prayers; who practiced and defended the Faith while humbly accepting that a layman is a layman and not a priest; who taught their children to savor the mysteries and silences and candlelit symbols of a ceremony whose object is the worship of the Triune God, not the exaltation of two-faced man with his long history of betraying himself, his friends, and his heavenly Father.

We can imagine a time when the liturgical rites of our fathers were received with gratitude and love, because they bring pleasure and beauty and divinity into the gritty, messy struggle to live as good Christians in this vale of tears. I dare say that we have our fill of utilitarian efficiency, experimental aesthetics, and prosaic banality from our earthly lives—and thus Catholics once cherished and honored a liturgy that gave them, if only for an hour or two, a vision and a foretaste of heaven.

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Seventeen years ago, Joseph Ratzinger wrote that “what earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too.” Resolved to liberate western Christendom’s ancient Mass from humiliating shackles that it did nothing to deserve, he insisted that “the Church’s Latin liturgy in its various forms has inspired countless saints in their spiritual life, confirmed many peoples in the virtue of religion, and enriched their devotion.” Though a German by birth, this priest sat on a Roman throne, and he proved himself a man of pietas—a faithful son of Aeneas.

The funeral of Joseph Ratzinger. Photo courtesy of Quirinale.it.

In Book II of the Aeneid, Troy is conquered and burning, and Aeneas rescues his elderly father in a manner that gave Western culture one of its most enduring and emblematic scenes of filial piety:

“Come then, dear father! On my shoulders I
Will bear thee, nor will think the task severe.
Whatever lot awaits us, there shall be
One danger and one safety for us both.”

Pope Benedict XVI has, Deo volente, gone to his reward, and his successor has chosen a different path. We must be patient, then, until a new hero comes to carry our paternal liturgy out of the flames.

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For thrice-weekly discussions of art, history, language, literature, Christian spirituality, and traditional Western liturgy, all seen through the lens of medieval culture, you can subscribe (for free!) to my Substack publication: Via Mediaevalis.

If Shakespeare Survived the Adapters, the Old Mass Will Survive the Reformers

The digital grapevine is astir with forebodings. I am told that the eucharistic liturgy of my ancestors—not the Protestants who settled in Pennsylvania, that is, but rather the von Keims of medieval Germany—is once again ritus non gratus at the Vatican.

Actually, the rite threatened with imposed obsolescence is not exactly that of my ancestors. Liturgical forms, like the living beings who enact and behold them, tend to change and grow in response to their environment, even after they have reached maturity. Tradition is not stagnation, after all, and the act of “handing down” implies both a giver, in the past, and a recipient, in the future. In fact, a certain Professor Grillo, of whom I know very little, explains that tradition is the future: “la tradizione non è passato, ma futuro.”

I agree that tradition is not the past, or at least not merely the past, but I do not see how it can be equated with the future. The professor no doubt recognizes how impossible this maxim is given the etymology and standard denotations of the word “tradition,” so I will assume that his language here is operating on an alternative plane of meaning—and I don’t fault him for that. I teach rhetoric, the sister of poetry, and therefore spend a great deal of time on alternative planes of meaning.

And it is precisely because I spend so much time wandering the poetic uplands of life that I do fault Professor Grillo, not for the style of his discourse, but for the apparent objective of his discourse—namely, the disappearance of the Roman-Frankish Mass of western Christendom from the lived reality of the modern Church. Such an objective is incomprehensible to me, for this Mass is not merely a means to a sacrificial or sacramental end. It is a work of art that transcends every other cultural achievement in European history. This Mass is poetry in the fullest sense of the word—a poetic masterpiece, in fact, encompassing and sublimating every facet of the artistic experience, and appealing to every facet of the human experience. What society treats their artistic heritage this way? Who even in the secular world—a world of convulsive re-evaluations and tenacious presentism, a world where nothing is sacred and where the very concept of sacrality is questioned—who even in that world espouses the wholesale suppression of an artistic corpus so magnificent and influential and historically momentous as the liturgical rites of western Christianity?

Let us at least be consistent. If we are to bury the Old Mass under the shifting sands of the Pauline rite, let us also bury Shakespeare and everything he wrote. We have plenty of new plays, including some written in the 1960s, and these are better anyway: shorter, more colloquial, more “relevant” to modernity, and of course, much easier to understand—all that archaic language and iambic pentameter and rhetorical artistry is passé de mode and just makes Shakespeare’s plays even less like a television show.

At least Shakespeare didn’t have the gall to write in a dead language like Latin—well, actually, Latin words and phrases do occur regularly in his plays, and one of these is among his most famous: Et tu, Brute? Dante condemned Brutus to the lowest circle of Hell, because he betrayed Julius Caesar, his benefactor and his lord. Two others were there with him. One was Cassius, also a leading figure in the betrayal and assassination of Caesar. The other was Judas Iscariot.

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Shakespeare’s works are still known, admired, and loved all over the world. And despite the widespread penchant for non-historical costuming and a few other experimental tendencies, modern scholars and readers and theater-goers are interested above all in the “authentic” Shakespeare, that is, in the plays as he originally wrote them. This was not always the case.

Shakespeare died in 1616. In 1642, the Puritans ordered all of the theaters in London to close. The prohibition was lifted in 1660, which marks the beginning of the historical period known as the Restoration. Newly reopened theaters needed something to perform, and since playwrights had little reason to compose new plays during the puritanical clampdown, the works of Shakespeare and other pre-1642 playwrights were revived.

However, Shakespeare’s style had already gone out of fashion—oh “cruel fate / And giddy Fortune’s furious fickle wheel, / That goddess blind, / That stands upon the rolling restless stone” (Henry V, III, 6). Since something very serious was at stake (namely, profits), the theaters called in the Reformers. The result was that “Shakespeare” plays performed in the Restoration and in the eighteenth century were commonly rewritten to satisfy a new generation of audiences. Some infamous examples include King Lear with a happy ending and a patchwork mutilation of As You Like It entitled Love in a Forest.

King Lear in the Storm, by Benjamin West (d. 1820).

But Shakespeare survived the adapters. The reason is simple: superlative poetry endures. This was known even in the early first century, when the Roman poet Ovid was writing the Metamorphoses:

And now a great work I have completed,
which not the ire of Jove, nor fire,
nor sword or devouring old age can unmake.
Whenever it will, let that day—
which only over this body hath power—
let that day bring an end for me
to life’s uncertain span.
In my better part, however, I, immortal,
shall be borne above the stars on high,
and my name shall never die.
Wherever Roman power to conquered lands extends,
by the mouth of the people I shall be read
and—if any prophecies of poets have truth—
I shall live in fame, till all ages end. (Book XV, lines 871–79)

The poet was right. Ovid is long dead, but his literary creations are still studied and admired to this day.

The precise status of poetic works, even the finest works ever created, will rise and fall as the great waves of fashion and ideology and innovation crash upon the shore of human society. Nevertheless, poetry has proven remarkably resilient. Like the divine Word from which its power ultimately flows, artistic language captivates, enchants, and purifies the hearts of men, in every age and in every land. I speak here of language in all its forms: verse, music, narrative, oratory, supplication, clothing, iconography, symbolic gesture, ritualistic movement, and yes, even silence. The “Latin” Mass speaks many languages, and not one of them is dead.

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The Metamorphoses survived the fall of the Roman Empire. Shakespeare survived the Puritans and the Age of Adaptations. And the Old Mass will survive the current pontificate. A poetic lamp so brilliant and edifying and passionate as the traditional Roman liturgy cannot be hidden under the bushel basket of papal directives, for the simple reason that it will set those directives aflame before the ink is dry. The Old Mass will endure, because it is a sanctifying, Truth-telling masterpiece wrought by God and man during the Church’s most fervent and fruitful centuries, and because ordinary Catholics all over the world thirst for its ancient, elevating, life-changing poetry.

If I live to see the day when the liturgy of my fathers is once again loved and honored by the popes and prelates of the Church, I’ll have an excellent reason to recall a few more of Shakespeare’s Latin words, this time spoken by King Henry V after his miraculous victory at Agincourt:

Come, go we in procession to the village,
And be it death proclaimèd through our host
To boast of this or take that praise from God
Which is His only.
...
Do we all holy rites.
Let there be sung Non nobis, and Te Deum,
The dead with charity enclosed in clay,
And then to Calais, and to England then,
Where ne’er from France arrived more happy men.

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For thrice-weekly discussions of art, history, language, literature, Christian spirituality, and traditional Western liturgy, all seen through the lens of medieval culture, you can subscribe (for free!) to my Substack publication: Via Mediaevalis.

A Hymn to the Holy Ghost by St. John of the Cross

The epic romance that was the life of John of the Cross began before he was born. His father, Gonzalo de Yepes, married for love, choosing a poor maiden named Catalina Álvarez over the good favor of his wealthy, merchant-class family. Their union was blessed with three children, among whom was Juan de Yepes, but Gonzalo’s ultimate reward for following his heart was poverty and death; his parents disowned him, leaving him burdened by hardships that brought his life to a premature end. Catalina, now both impoverished and widowed, did what she could to provide for her children’s needs, but John’s prospects were dim. Malnutrition had left him physically frail, stunted, and therefore barely qualified even to perform the manual labors that were the likely destiny of a boy with no money, no education, and no social connections.

John of the Cross (artist unknown). Oil on canvas.

It turns out that Juan de Yepes did not become a manual laborer. He died in 1591 as Fray Juan de la Cruz of the Discalced Carmelites, having reached the heights of sanctity and of literary achievement. Canonized in the eighteenth century and declared a Doctor of the Church in the twentieth, St. John of the Cross composed some of the most sublime poetry in the history of the Spanish language. His writings on the spiritual life have been immensely influential, and they are a compelling reminder of poetry’s exalted status in pre-modern Christianity: his famous prose treatises, noted for their systematic theology and rigorous philosophy, were originally conceived not as independent works but as commentaries on his poems.

 

This remarkable artifact, still on display in the museum of the Monastery of the Incarnation in Spain, is a sketch made by St. John of the Cross after he received a vision of Christ crucified.

Some of John’s poetic excellence was surely born of his extraordinarily poetic life, which is a tale of privations, wanderings, godsends, mystical yearnings, and heroic austerities interspersed with betrayal, torment, and exile. A turning point in his earthly journey was the cruel imprisonment imposed by his own Carmelite confreres, whose twisted logic marked him as a “rebel.” These misguided religious were, however, the unwitting instruments of the divine Author, for they offered John a personal rebirth worthy of well-crafted fiction: his narrow cell was perpetually dark, like the womb, and his captivity ended—after nine months—with an agonizing midnight escape. It was during this period of purgatorial silence and solitude that he composed some of his finest verse. Indeed, the overpowering darkness of that cell may have been the seed of John’s most enduring spiritual metaphor: the dark night of the soul.

 

A manuscript of John’s Spiritual Canticle, with marginal additions in the saint’s own hand. Courtesy of Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes.

Llama de amor viva (“Living Flame of Love”), a lyrical poem written relatively late in the saint’s life, was an attempt to express the inexpressible fulfillment of contemplative union with God. It does not identify the “living flame” to whom it is addressed, but St. John’s commentary on the poem states clearly that it is the Holy Ghost:

This flame of love is the spirit of her [i.e., the soul’s] Spouse, who is the Holy Spirit, whom the soul feels within itself, not only as a fire that has consumed and transformed her in tender love, but also as a fire that burns within her and casts a flame ...; and that flame bathes the soul in glory and refreshes her in the aura of divine life.

A vivid masterpiece of strong emotion and ecstatic paradox, Llama de amor viva challenges us to truly believe that human love, even during its most romantic and passionate stages, is but a pale reflection of the mystical love that unites the soul to her Creator.

Wishing all of NLM’s readers a most blessed Pentecost, a feast whose solemnity is second only to that of Easter, I offer below my translation of Llama de amor viva. For those who, like me, must sometimes groan under the burden of prosaic liturgies, I hope that it helps your Whitsuntide celebrations to feel a bit more poetic.

O living flame of love alight,
you who tenderly wound my soul,
you who deeply wound my heart,
since you no longer look away,
if you should wish, perfect me now:
break the thread of this embrace.

O burning, healing, tender fire,
O wound delightful as a gift,
O hand so soft, O touch so fine,
which savors of immortality,
which pays all debts most generously:
by giving death you make death life.

O fiery lamp, O gleaming torch
that shines into the depths of sense:
sense that once was dark and blind,
and now is giving warmth and light
—with beauty, rare and wondrous bright—
so near the Beloved’s side.

How tenderly, how lovingly,
you are awaking in my heart
and dwelling there, alone and true;
your breathing is to me delight,
—is glory, goodness in my sight—
so gently I fall, in love with you.

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For thrice-weekly discussions of art, history, language, literature, Christian spirituality, and traditional Western liturgy, all seen through the lens of medieval culture, you can subscribe (for free!) to my Substack publication: Via Mediaevalis.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux on the Sacristans of Her Convent

Many readers will be familiar with this wonderful photograph of St. Thérèse, shown posing in her work of filling the ciborium with hosts (among other typical functions of a sacristan) for the daily conventual Mass:

This, of course, is much in keeping with the usual customs of women’s monasteries, where the sisters perform many of the tasks that would otherwise be assigned to clerics, such as leading the entire Divine Office and chanting its readings and prayers; making the responses at low Mass from outside the sanctuary in situations where no servers are available; and, in some rare cases, chanting the epistle at Mass (see Shawn Tribe’s “Carthusian Nuns and the Use of the Maniple and Stole”).

A photo that is much less known, and which I myself saw only for the first time recently, shows Thérèse with, if I may so say, her liturgical assistants in November 1896. Three of them are her blood sisters Marie, Pauline, and Céline (Sr. Marie of the Sacred Heart, Mother Agnes of Jesus, and St. Geneviève of the Holy Face) and one is her aunt Marie Guérin (Sr. Marie of the Eucharist). Sr. Marie of the Eucharist, Sr. Marie of the Angels (not in the photo), and St. Thérèse were the sacristans, while her three blood sisters were altar bread bakers[1]:

St. Thérèse was a gifted amateur poet and playwright who composed a surprising amount of literary work in her spare moments during her nine years as a Carmelite nun. Some of her work was intended for public occasions such as recreations, birthdays, and feastdays, while other pieces were more private, sent to one or a few of her religious sisters.

In the same month of November 1896, she wrote a poem called “The Sacristans of Carmel,” in rhyming octosyllabic verse, which I wish to share with readers in honor of the Little Flower’s feast (whether you are celebrating it today on the new calendar or two days from now on the old calendar).

The poem was written for Sr. Marie Philomena, who had asked Thérèse for something she could sing while baking; but it was first read by her aunt. Later, all of the sacristans and altar bread bakers got to know the poem, and apparently sang it regularly in their work, to whatever familiar tune they chose that would match the meter. In this we see a splendid example of the genre of a “work song” that has nearly disappeared from the world of mass-marketed and passively consumed entertainment. One may hope such work songs still survive in the Carmels.

The religious and theological content of the song are quite worth of attention. Here is the ICS translation, slightly modified to make it more literal[2]:

1. Here below our sweet office
Is to prepare for the altar
The bread and wine of the Sacrifice
Which brings to earth—“Heaven”!

2. Heaven, O supreme mystery!,
Hides itself under humble bread,
For Heaven, it is Jesus Himself,
Coming to us each morning.

3. There are no queens on earth
Who are happier than we.
Our office is a prayer
Which unites us to our Spouse.

4. This greatest honors of this world
Cannot compare
To the peace, profound and heavenly,
Which Jesus lets us savor.

5. We bring a holy envy
For the work of our hands,
For the little white host
Which is to veil our divine Lamb.

6. But his love has chosen us.
He is our Spouse, our Friend.
We are also hosts
Which Jesus wants to change into Himself.

7. Sublime mission of the Priest,
You become our mission here below.
Transformed by the Divine Master,
It is He who guides our steps.

8. We must help the apostles
By our prayers, our love.
Their battlefields are ours.
For them we fight each day.

9. The hidden God of the tabernacle
Who also hides in our hearts,
O what a miracle! at our voice
Deigns to pardon sinners!

10. Our happiness and our glory
Is to work for Jesus.
His beautiful Heaven is the ciborium
We want to fill with souls!...

The original draft

I heartily agree with the Carmelite commentators who find this poem both charming and insightful:

The sacristans are the untiring agents of this mysterious exchange [between heaven and earth]. In this poem, they readily call to mind something like Jacob’s ladder. These stanzas are full of “gentleness.” There is the discreet gentleness of the “housewife,” if we dare call it that: of the spouse “happier than a queen” whose heart remains attentive to her Husband, while her hands are diligently working for Him. There is also the discreet gentleness of the Carmelite nun, who is associated with the apostle at the altar in the role that is hers, that of the hidden companion. In both cases, the assistant becomes like the one she assists. …
       Here she [Thérèse] sings of her concrete way of sharing immediately in the “sublime mission of the Priest.” “Transformed” into Jesus by the Eucharist, “changed” into Him, does she not then also become an “alter Christus”…? She cannot leave her cloister to “preach the Gospel,” but Jesus, the first Missionary, walks in her and through her. He “guides her steps,” as He does those of the apostles she prays for, loves, and struggles for.
       She cannot absolve from sins. But Jesus present in her through the Eucharist gives her a share in his ministry of reconciling sinners.
       She will never fill the ciborium with consecrated hosts. But she is spending her life “filling Heaven with souls”—living hosts in which Christ lives alone from then on. …
       So Thérèse has no inferiority complex toward “men” or priests. She has no presumption either. For her, it is Jesus who acts in collaboration with men—and women. Even in 1892, she wrote to Céline: “I find that our share is really beautiful; what have we to envy in priests?”[3]

In fact, if we may use the awkward expression “holy envy,” it will always be the case that each Christian vocation has reason to admire the goods of every other, since these goods are not, simply speaking, compatible with one another. The priest may well “envy” the female religious her total and silent dedication to prayer, which he will almost never attain in his active ministry; the married man or woman may “envy” the consecrated soul its undivided attentiveness or availability for the things of the Lord (cf. 1 Cor 7); the consecrated man or woman may “envy” the married their sacramental realization of the faithful, fruitful union of Christ and the Church, which brings new immortal souls into the world, to complete the number of the elect. In the Mother of God alone do we find united that which nature cannot unite, combining and exceeding all Christian states of life: she is the wife unwed, the child-bearing virgin, mother inviolate, mediatrix of all grace as the inseparable minister of the High Priest. In her all vocations are at one, like white light before it splinters into a spectrum of colors. For the rest of us, the individual colors are distinct, complementary, and beautiful, as they are intended to be, for our individual benefit and for the common good of the Church.

St. Thérèse’s poem serves as a profitable meditation on several intertwined mysteries: the unique, exalted, and irreplaceable nature of the ministerial priesthood; the lofty participation in Christ the High Priest enjoyed by all who are baptized into His sacerdotal and royal dignity; the special position of consecrated religious, who follow the priestly and sacrificial Lamb whithersoever He goeth; and the value in God’s sight of the quiet, humble work done by sacristans whenever they reverently prepare the materials and environs required for worthily offering the sacrifice of praise.

NOTES

[1] For this and other details, I am indebted to the excellent commentary in The Poetry of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, trans. Donald Kinney, OCD (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1996), 169–70.

[2] The translation is found in Kinney, Poetry, 170–71, as well as at this website. The French is contained in Kinney, pp. 301–302.

[3] Kinney, Poetry, 169–70.

The fair copy

Announcing Several Excellent New Books and Reprints

I have been remiss in reviewing good books sent to me by publishers. In fact, I am remiss even in announcing books that I have reprinted myself! So I will take some time now to recommend these works to NLM readers.

Ludwig Ott. Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. Trans. Patrick Lynch. Ed. James Canon Bastible. Revised and updated by Robert Fastiggi. N.p.: Baronius Press, 2018. Hardcover, with gold ribbon, 568 + xxii pp. $59.95.

I shall begin with what is certainly one of the most impressive books to appear in a long time, and something that should be on everyone's shelf: a beautifully printed new edition of the classic Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Ludwig Ott, published by Baronius Press with the same exceptional quality that we have come to expect from all of their books.

Many will already be familiar with this brilliant summary of dogmatic theology, first published in 1952. It has a special place in my heart because it was the first book of serious theology ever placed into my hands in high school, at a time when I was awakening to my Catholic faith for the first time, and looking for meaty explanations, which I had never heard or seen in 16+ years of mainstream Catholicism. A teacher put me on to Ott, and I was riveted to it. I even prepared handouts from it for my youth group, not realizing that the text and the audience did not quite match up. But enough of reminiscing. The point is that Ott is the best comprehensive guide to Catholic dogma ever produced, laying out the Scriptural, patristic, liturgical, and magisterial sources of each Catholic doctrine, and indicating the level of authority attaching to it. This latter feature is particularly helpful, in that one can quickly see whether a teaching is de fide or is held with a greater or less certitude by the Church.

An indication of the usefulness, completeness, and reliability of Ott is the fact that the monastery of Le Barroux (and perhaps others, too, unbeknownst to me) has all of its monks studying for the priesthood read Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma in its entirety, chapter by chapter, as they proceed through their program of formation. Really, any Catholic who wants to know the actual content of the Catholic Faith, as well as which doctrines are matters of opinion or dispute (and to what degree), should consult Ott on a regular basis.

The original English translation of Ott by Dr Patrick Lynch, while it helped countless readers, was afflicted with numerous errors of translation. There has been an "errata sheet" floating around for a long time. The Baronius edition has been compared page for page to the definitive German edition (Bonn: nova & vetera, 2010) and corrected in hundreds of details by Dr Robert Fastiggi. The formatting is cleaner and easier to follow, and of course, being newly typeset and printed in hardcover with a sewn binding, is much nicer on the eyes and much more durable than the old TAN glued paperbacks that would split if you just looked at them too intently.

This edition features an eloquent little foreword by Bishop Athanasius Schneider and a preface by Dr Fastiggi giving examples of how the translation has been improved.

I simply cannot recommend this book and this new edition of it highly enough. If you do not have Ott, wait not a moment longer. If you already have an old Ott, replace it with the new Ott, which is handsomer and better translated. To order, visit its Baronius Press page.

Uwe Michael Lang, ed. Authentic Liturgical Renewal in Contemporary Perspective. Proceedings of the Sacra Liturgia Conference, London, 5-8  July 2016. London/New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017. Paper, xii + 197 pp. $26.95.

I'm not sure why it is the case that this third Sacra Liturgia volume has been somewhat neglected or even forgotten in the world of liturgical studies and renewal. One might speculate that after two substantial volumes of Sacra Liturgia proceedings (both of which have been reviewed at NLM: the first here, the second here), there may be a market saturation phenomenon; but I think that this is not true, or at least not the main explanation. I believe that people are just not aware of this book and how valuable its contents are, and that the general ecclesial mayhem swirling around us, with seems to worsen with each passing year or even each passing month, is not a congenial atmosphere for the study of scholarly literature.

Yet this third volume is no less worthy than its predecessors of our careful attention. The book includes, needless to say, the definitive edition of Cardinal Sarah's plenary lecture in which he made his now-controversial recommendation that priests should begin celebrating the Ordinary Form ad orientem in Advent. This was not the first time the Cardinal had made this proposal, but it was the first time that he attracted the notice of hostile powers in high places. But the other papers in the volume, less notorious, are more intriguing: for example, Dom Charbel Pazat de Lys on "The Public Nature of Catholic Liturgy"; Stephen Bullivant on how confusion about the evangelistic needs of modern man not only dictated the liturgical reform but now require its reversal; Fr Uwe Michael Lang's precise and detailed account of the Tridentine liturgical reform, which nicely complements the study of the same subject by Anthony Chadwick in the T&T Clark Companion to Liturgy; and Alcuin Reid's fascinating account of the conciliar debate over what became article 50 of Sacrosanctum Concilium, namely, the demand that the Order of Mass be revised.

In short, if you have benefited from the earlier volumes, you will undoubtedly benefit from this one as well. The series, which I hope will soon be joined by a fourth containing the proceedings from Sacra Liturgia in Milan, truly sets a benchmark for current liturgical studies, which are submitting decades of ruling assumptions to penetrating critique and contributing to the recovery of lost elements of Catholic tradition.

Emile Mersch, S.J. The Whole Christ. The Historical Development of the Doctrine of the Mystical Body in Scripture and Tradition. Trans. John R. Kelly. First published 1938. N.p.: Ex Fontibus Company, 2018. Paperback, xvi + 623 pp. $21.77.

Emile Mersch was once among the most appreciated theologians, especially in regard to ecclesiology. Then the Second Vatican Council hit, and someone who is customarily depicted with cloven hoofs and a pointed tail pressed the "delete" button. Today, vast swaths of magnificent preconciliar theological work is totally forgotten. It would be more accurate to speak of "the Chernobyl" than of "the Council."

Happily, this is beginning to change as some of the old classics are rediscovered and reprinted. Ex Fontibus has played a vital role in this process, as one can see from consulting their now-extensive catalogue. The latest addition is Mersch's extraordinarily rich and illuminating study of the concept and reality of the Church as Mystical Body of Christ, as it was prefigured in the Old Testament, clearly shown forth in the New Testament (he has many chapters on St. Paul and St. John), powerfully proclaimed by the Greek Fathers (chapters on St Ignatius of Antioch, St Irenaeus, St Athanasius, St Hilary of Poitiers, St Gregory Nazianzen and St Gregory of Nyssa, St John Chrysostom, and St Cyril of Alexandria), and fully articulated in the Western tradition (chapters on Tertullian, St Cyprian, St Augustine, the early Middle Ages, the Scholastics, and the French school).

When I taught ecclesiology at the International Theological Institute, I always assigned the chapters on St Cyril of Alexandria and St Augustine out of this book, as there is no better synthesis of their theology of the Church. In general, I would place it in the top ten books on ecclesiology for any serious reader's shelf. The quality of the reprint is fine.

The last two books featured today are reprinted under my own reprint service, Os Justi Press. I do not yet have a website, but posts about other titles may be found here, here, here, and here.

Pius Parsch, The Breviary Explained. Trans. William Nayden and Carl Hoegerl. First published in 1952 by Herder in St. Louis. Reprinted by Os Justi Press, 2018. Paperback, viii + 459 pp. $19.95.

Does Pius Parsch require any introduction? Although one can see occasional touches of pastoralism and antiquarianism in his work, Parsch was in fact one of the finest writers of the original Liturgical Movement and his commentaries on the Mass and the Divine Office always make for worthwhile reading. His insights are copious and his style sparkles with his strong love of the Church's daily round of public worship.

This book is a particular masterpiece, and it surprises me greatly that it has been out of print for so long. The contents spell out the scope of the work: Fundamental Notions (e.g., Why pray the breviary?); The Constituent Parts (psalms, lessons, orations, verse and versicle, antiphons, responsory, hymns); The Spirit of the Breviary (structure, cursus, seasonal variations). It is, in fact, a compendious introduction to the Roman Breviary in Pius X's revision, and will immensely enhance the understanding and devotion of anyone, cleric or layman, who uses this edition of the breviary, which would be the vast majority of members of the traditionalist movement.

Anthology of Catholic Poets: 200 Years of Catholic Poetry in English. Compiled by Joyce Kilmer. First published in 1917; last edition 1939. Reprinted by Os Justi Press, 2018. Paperback, xxx + 389 pp. $19.95.

It has always been my intention to bring this fine anthology by Joyce Kilmer back into print, alongside a similar sort of volume (also from 1939) by Thomas Walsh, The Catholic Anthology: The World's Great Catholic Poetry. The difference is simply that Walsh's much larger book contains translations from all major languages and spans many more centuries, while Kilmer's focuses on English poets only, from the start of the 18th century onwards. As one would expect, it includes selections from such literary lights as Belloc, Benson, Faber, Hopkins, Lionel Johnson, Maynard, Meynell, Newman, Patmore, Thompson, and Wilde.

New Reprints: Scheeben – Papal History – Latin Lore – Catholic Poetry

My little reprint enterprise, Os Justi Press (I do not have a website yet, but one is in progress), has brought out four new titles, reprints of older books either not available at all, or available only in ugly or overpriced editions. Links to Amazon.com may be found below, but the titles will be at the Amazon affiliates in the UK, Germany, etc.

A brief description of the books follows.

Matthias Scheeben, Nature and Grace. Trans. Cyril Vollert. xxiv + 361 pp. Originally published 1954. $18.95.

The exposition will be as profound and comprehensive as I can make it; nature and grace must furnish the basis for a reasonable chart of life and growth. My cherished aim is to bring out the supernatural character of the Christian economy of salvation in its full sublimity, beauty, and riches. The main task of our time, it seems to me, consists in propoupding and emphasizing the supernatural quality of Christianity, for the benefit of both science and life. Theoretical as well as practical naturalism and rationalism, which seek to throttle and destroy all that is specifically Christian, must be resolutely and energetically repudiated.

Thus writes the great 19th-century theologian Matthias Scheeben, a vibrant, original, and poetic author who re-opened the enchanting world of St. Thomas to new generations of Catholics in a period marred by the desiccated rationalism of the Enlightenment period in its last rays before the darkness of modernism. In the new Thomism that has emerged in recent decades as the superficial sloganeering of the postconciliar Church evaporates, Scheeben makes for essential reading.

John Farrow. Pageant of the Popes. 420pp. Originally published 1942. $18.85.

This history of the popes documents both the highs and lows of the Church. From St. Peter to early in the reign of Pius XII, this book provides historical, theological, and personal accounts of this rare group of mortals who have reigned as Vicars of Christ. Without inflationary praise or discrediting zeal, Farrow manages to convey something of the sweep and drama of papal history, bestowing praise where praise is due, while not shirking from unsavory periods. A fine book for our current times, when there is so much ignorance of the nature and limits of the papacy.

F. Brittain. Latin in the Church: The History of Its Pronunciation. 98 pp. Last edition 1954. $9.95.

A fascinating, obscure, and slightly eccentric book about the many different ways in which Latin has been pronounced and spelled over the centuries as it traveled from its ancient seat to far-flung regions of Europe and beyond. The author makes the case that we should not be too fussy or insistent on a "correct" way of pronouncing the language, given that every context has its own justification, and that even scholars are not always sure about their own theories. An entertaining read for Latin lovers.

Thomas Walsh. The Catholic Anthology: The World's Great Catholic Poetry. 602 pp. Last edition 1932. $25.95.

The Catholic Anthology is intended primarily as a selection of Catholic poems written by Catholics and bearing the impress of Catholic dogma, tradition, and life; so that the editor has purposely chosen the completely Catholic utterances of his poets in preference, sometimes, to their pieces of general aesthetical charm.

The purpose thus avowed by the editor is carried through in this massy volume with singular thoroughness. I do not know quite how many poems are packed into its pages (it is a vast number), but I can testify to countless hours spent paging through this book over the years, discovering quite a few gems—one of which was the first poem I ever set to music, "I See His Blood Upon the Rose" by Joseph Mary Plunkett:

I see his blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of his eyes,
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.

I see his face in every flower;
The thunder and the singing of the birds
Are but his voice—and carven by his power
Rocks are his written words.

All pathways by his feet are worn,
His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,
His cross is every tree.

I have lost the music, but not my affection for this and many other poems in Walsh's collection. It would make an excellent homeschool resource for literature and poetry memorization. The book also features detailed author and title indices, a biographical glossary of poets, and a wrap-around cover with stained glass images of the four evangelists.

The Psalms - Unlocking David’s Code for Slaying Cultural Philistines Like Me

Anyone who has read my book The Way of Beauty knows that I consider myself unliterary. I have never much enjoyed reading poetry or “great-book” fiction, and I managed to get through high school and university without doing a single literature class.

Woody Allen was once asked if he had any regrets and replied that he did - he wished that he had never read Beowulf. I am one up on Woody Allen: I have never read Beowulf and have no intention of ever doing so.

I was not always so firm in the conviction that literature isn’t for me. When I left university, I did wonder if I had missed out and decided that I would start to read some literary greats. So, for several years afterward, going to and from work on the Tube, I often pulled out a Penguin Classic and buried my nose in it (and hoped people would notice, of course). I found that if I persevered I might enjoy it to a degree, but in the end, I decided, it wasn’t worth my effort.

The purpose of reading novels and poetry, it seemed to me, was primarily entertainment. Certainly, there were lessons about life, the universe and everything that could be drawn from great literature, but given that there were other ways to learn those lessons, why bother puzzling over a poem that seemed to me to be written to mystify rather than reveal the truth? I found it far more stimulating to read about the important things in life directly in Scripture, or theology or philosophy books, or the Catechism of the Catholic Church, than to winkle them out from some impenetrable text.

So, I gave it a fair go and concluded that high literature isn’t for me. I don’t feel I'm missing out - I can enjoy music, art, architecture, a beautiful garden, a walk in the country, or many other aspects of the culture, high and low (I play the banjo and secretly sing along to 1970s disco greats such as Shalamar and The Real Thing in the car! The Real Thing are the second best band to come out of Liverpool, by the way).

But please, don’t invite me to a poetry recital.

I should say, at this point that I am aware that not everyone is like me, nor should they be. Many people love literature and derive great pleasure from reading it, and provided that the reading contributes in some way to the highest end, the worship of God in the liturgy -  as all human activity should - then I say, follow your passion!

There is one exception to my literary philistinism, and appropriately, that is the poetic form that is associated with the man who defeated the Philistines in battle, David. I love the Book of Psalms and the canticles from Scripture that are sung in the Divine Office. For me, they are a well of wisdom and inspiration that can never run dry and which flows from the pages like honey.

I reflect on this now because I am currently sitting in on Father Sebastian Carnazzo’s course, The Psalms in Words, Images, and Prayer, offered by Pontifex University. (I am teaching too, cover the traditional illumination of Psalters as part of the class). I am only partly through it, but am finding it hugely enriching.

A couple of things have struck me particularly so far. First is that the fact there is no existing pure and unadulterated original text from which all translations derive. The oldest texts we have are themselves three, four or who knows how many more steps removed from the original composition, given to us by the work of scribes or translators. And do we know that the “original” was even written? Perhaps it was first preserved through an oral tradition. This lack of a first text should not be a cause of worry; God can inspire scribes and translators too. He does not reveal anything new by this, but rather, guides them so that their work of inscription and translation can be done well.

So whether it’s St Jerome, Myles Coverdale, Ronald Knox, or Mr. and Ms. Revised Standard Version, each in his own way has polished a facet of the prism that directs the Light to us faithfully. God also inspires us in our prayer and understanding as we read and chant the text, and to the degree that we follow that inspiration, each of us can say “I have more understanding than my teachers, for thy testimonies are my study.” (Psalm 119 (118), verse 99...through the prism of the 1928 Coverdale psalter!)

Second is that the poetic structure of the Psalms is much more related to a thematic pattern than it is to a pattern of the language itself. The Psalms don’t rhyme, for example; they use devices such as synonymous parallelism in which the thought of the first line is repeated in different words in the next line or lines.

Lord, how they are increased that trouble me; many are they that rise up against me. (Ps. 3, 1)

There are a number of other such thematic devices, by which themes are contrasted, reinforced and developed. The great value of this approach is that unlike rhyme, it is relatively easy to bring across into a translation, in a way that allows the translator to express the truth elegantly and beautifully without having to compromise the sense of it.

In the light of this, it occurred to me that there may be lessons for the modern poet who wants to do what a poet ought to do, create noble and accessible work might connect with the millions of literary philistines in the modern world, such as me. (Of course, what he wants to say must also be of interest; it doesn’t matter how noble and accessible the style, of the content is dreary!) So, other things being equal, here is what our modern poet might do:

First, he should use thematic patterns as Scripture does. Not only will this prime people to receive the Word through the Psalms, but also, it will probably be more popular. Just as scripture is inspired by God, so man is made by God to respond to it and to be sensitive to its structure. If the Psalms can appeal even to a philistine like me, then perhaps, so could your poetry could too if you use a similar device!

Second, it will be easily translated, and so potentially reach a much wider market and transcend its own time. Such your writing will speak of God in the four corners of the world; it will declare the works of the Lord amongst all peoples! People of all nations will understand it; and if you declare the truth, generations through all time will delight in its form.

And you might save people like me from cultural destitution by showing them that there is something higher...

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.