TradNews Roundup

There's a lot of bad things going on in the world, for example Archbishop Müller accusing the SSPX bishops, priests and faithful of being heretics for making the exact same claim that many of his colleagues in the Curia have made regarding Vatican II (like Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, for one). Müller still has some explaining of his own to do, but don't hold your breath for that. There's also the extremely uncharitable words regarding all traditionalists spoken by Gianfranco Cardinal Ravasi, the president of the Pontifical Council for Culture.

Our Blessed Lord is hated. Tradition is hated. His enemies are in the Church as well as outside the Church. There's a crisis in the Church militant. Nothing in that is "news".

So, in these last few hours of the liturgical year, I'd like to give all the bad news the cold shoulder that its makers deserve, and meditate instead on the only news that matters, the Gospel.

God bless!

The Blessing of the Advent Wreath

(From Catholic Tradition.)

For use in the Catholic home.

Father or Head of Household: Our help is in the name of the Lord.

All: Who hath made Heaven and earth.



Father: Let us pray. O God, by Whose word all things are sanctified, pour forth Thy blessing upon this wreath, and grant that we who use it may prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ and may receive from Thee abundant graces. Through Christ Our Lord.

All: Amen.



(Sprinkles wreath with holy water.)



The father reads the prayer or the chosen Scripture passage [usually the lesson from the corresponding Sunday of Advent] for the first week, then holds up the youngest child to light the first candle, which is also lighted all through the week when the family gathers in the room with the wreath.



Two candles are lit by the oldest child the second week, three the third by the mother, four the fourth by the father. You may select the Advent Sunday Collects from the traditional Roman Missal.



In families where there are many children it is impossible to satisfy all who want to light candles since there are only four Sundays in Advent. They can take turns lighting the candles during the week. They are never lighted unless an adult is present. Every week as another candle is lit, the light around the wreath grows bigger which means that the birthday of the Light of the World is coming soon. On Christmas Day many families place a white candle, for Christ, in the center of the wreath. [In my family, we call this the "Jesus Candle", and it is used after Christmas season as the center piece for our dinning room table.]
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Another Advent Wreath Ritual for the home from Fisheaters.

The Day Before Advent Blessing of the Wreath

Father: O God, by whose word all things are sanctified, pour forth Thy blessing upon this wreath, and grant that we who use it may prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ and may receive from Thee abundant graces. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

First Sunday of Advent

As Mother lights the 1st candle

Scripture (John 1:1-5; Psalm 49:2-5, 71:2-8, 8-15)

Father: In the beginning was the Word: and the Word was with God: and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made. In him was life: and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness: and the darkness did not comprehend it.

Out of Sion the loveliness of his beauty. God shall come manifestly: our God shall come, and shall not keep silence. A fire shall burn before him: and a mighty tempest shall be round about him. He shall call heaven from above, and the earth, to judge his people. Gather ye together his saints to him: who set his covenant before sacrifices.

Give to the king thy judgment, O God: and to the king's son thy justice: To judge thy people with justice, and thy poor with judgment. Let the mountains receive peace for the people: and the hills justice. He shall judge the poor of the people, and he shall save the children of the poor: and he shall humble the oppressor. And he shall continue with the sun, and before the moon, throughout all generations. He shall come down like rain upon the fleece; and as showers falling gently upon the earth. In his days shall justice spring up, and abundance of peace, till the moon be taken sway. And all kings of the earth shall adore him: all nations shall serve him. For he shall deliver the poor from the mighty: and the needy that had no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy: and he shall save the souls of the poor. He shall redeem their souls from usuries and iniquity: and their names shall be honourable in his sight. And he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Arabia, for him they shall always adore: they shall bless him all the day.

Blessing

Father: Stir up Thy power, we beseech Thee, O Lord, and come: that from the threatening dangers of our sins we may deserve to be rescued by Thy protection, and to be saved by Thy deliverance. Who livest and reignest, with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end. R. Amen. Father: Alleluia, alleluia. Ostende nobis, Domine, misericordiam tuam, et salutare tuum da nobis. Amen. (Alleluia, alleluia. Show us, O Lord, Thy mercy; and grant us Thy salvation. Alleluia.)

Second Sunday of Advent

As Mother lights the 1st and 2nd candles in order

Scripture (Isaias 11:1-10)

Father: And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom, and of understanding, the spirit of counsel, and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge, and of godliness. And he shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge according to the sight of the eyes, nor reprove according to the hearing of the ears. But he shall judge the poor with justice, and shall reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: land he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. And justice shall be the girdle of his loins: and faith the girdle of his reins. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb: and the leopard shall lie down with the kid: the calf and the lion, and the sheep shall abide together, and a little child shall lead them. The calf and the bear shall feed: their young ones shall rest together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp: and the weaned child shall thrust his hand into the den of the basilisk. They shall not hurt, nor shall they kill in all my holy mountain, for the earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the covering waters of the sea. In that day the root of Jesse, who standeth for an ensign of the people, him the Gentiles shall beseech, and his sepulchre shall be glorious.

Blessing

Father: Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to prepare the way of Thine only-begotten Son: that through His coming we mat attain to serve Thee with purified minds. Who liveth and reigneth, with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end. R. Amen

Father: Alleluia, alleluia. Laetatus sum in his quae dicta sunt mihi: in domum Domini ibimus. Alleluia. (Alleluia, alleluia. I rejoiced at the things that were said to me: We shall go unto the house of the Lord. Alleluia.)

Third Sunday of Advent

As Mother lights the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd candles in order

Scripture (Isaias 9:2, 6-7, 40:3-5, 52:7, 7:14-15)

Father: The people that walked in darkness, have seen a great light: to them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death, light is risen.

For a CHILD IS BORN to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace. His empire shall be multiplied, and there shall be no end of peace: he shall sit upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom; to establish it and strengthen it with judgment and with justice, from henceforth and for ever: the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

The voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough ways plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh together shall see, that the mouth of the Lord hath spoken.

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, and that preacheth peace: of him that sheweth forth good, that preacheth salvation, that saith to Sion: Thy God shall reign! Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel. He shall eat butter and honey, that he may know to refuse the evil, and to choose the good.

Blessing

Father: Incline Thine ear, we beseech Thee, O Lord, to our petitions: and, by the grace of Thy visitation, enlighten the darkness of our minds. Who livest and reignest, with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end. R. Amen.

Father: Alleluia, alleluia. Excita, Domine, potentiam tuam, et veni ut salvos facias nos. Alleluia. (Alleluia, alleluia. Stir up, O Lord, Thy might, and come to save us. Alleluia.)

Fourth Sunday of Advent

As Mother lights all the candles in order

Scripture (Luke 1:24-33, 2:1-6; Apocalypse 22:20)

Father: And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David: and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. Who having heard, was troubled at his saying and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God. Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and shalt bring forth a son: and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever. And of his kingdom there shall be no end.

And it came to pass that in those days there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. This enrolling was first made by Cyrinus, the governor of Syria. And all went to be enrolled, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem: because he was of the house and family of David. To be enrolled with Mary his espoused wife, who was with child. And it came to pass that when they were there, her days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

He that giveth testimony of these things, saith, Surely I come quickly: Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Blessing

Father: O Lord, we beseech Thee, stir up Thy power, and come, and with great might succor us: that by the help of Thy grace that which is hindered by our sins may be hastened by Thy merciful forgiveness: Who livest and reignest, with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end. R. Amen.

Father: Alleluia, alleluia. Veni, Domine, et noli tardare: relaxa facinora plebis tuae Israel. Alleluia. (Alleluia, alleluia. Come, O Lord, and tarry not: forgive the sins of Thy people Israel. Alleluia.)

Guéranger: The Mystery of Advent

From

The Liturgical Year

by Dom Prosper Guéranger, O.S.B.

THE MYSTERY OF ADVENT

If, now that we have described the characteristic features of Advent which distinguish it from the rest of the year, we would penetrate into the profound mystery which occupies the mind of the Church during this season, we find that this mystery of the coming, or Advent, of Jesus is at once simple and threefold. It is simple, for it is the one same Son of God that is coming; it is threefold, because He comes at three different times and in three different ways.

“In the first coming,” says St. Bernard, “He comes in the flesh and in weakness; in the second, He comes in spirit and in power; in the third, He comes in glory and in majesty; and the second coming is the means whereby we pass from the first to the third.”

This, then, is the mystery of Advent. Let us now listen to the explanation of this threefold visit of Christ, given to us by Peter of Blois, in his third Sermon de Adventu: “There are three comings of the our Lord; the first in the flesh, the second in the soul, the third at the judgment. The first was at midnight, according to those words of the Gospel: At midnight there was a cry made, Lo the Bridegroom cometh! But this first coming is long since past, for Christ has been seen on the earth and has conversed among men. We are now in the second coming, provided only we are such as that He may thus come to us; for He has said that if we love Him, He will come unto us and will take up His abode with us. So that this second coming is full of uncertainty to us; for who, save the Spirit of God, knows them that are of God? They that are raised out of themselves by the desire of heavenly things, know indeed when He comes; but whence He cometh, or whither He goeth, they know not. As for the third coming, it is most certain that it will be, most uncertain when it will be; for nothing is more sure than death, and nothing less sure than the hour of death. When they shall say, peace and security, says the apostle, then shall sudden destruction come upon them, as the pains upon her that is with child, and they shall not escape. So that the first coming was humble and hidden, the second is mysterious and full of love, the third will be majestic and terrible. In His first coming, Christ was judged by men unjustly; in His second, He renders us just by His grace; in His third, He will judge all things with justice. In His first, a lamb; in His last, a lion; in the one between the two, the tenderest of friends.”

The holy Church, therefore, during Advent, awaits in tears and with ardour the arrival of her Jesus in His first coming. For this, she borrows the fervid expressions of the prophets, to which she joins her own supplications. These longings for the Messias expressed by the Church, are not a mere commemoration of the desires of the ancient Jewish people; they have a reality and efficacy of their own, an influence in the great act of God’s munificence, whereby He gave us His own Son. From all eternity, the prayers of the ancient Jewish people and the prayers of the Christian Church ascended together to the prescient hearing of God; and it was after receiving and granting them, that He sent, in the appointed time, that blessed Dew upon the earth, which made it bud forth the Saviour.

The Church aspires also to the second coming, the consequence of the first, which consists, as we have just seen, in the visit of the Bridegroom to the bride. This coming takes place, each year, at the feast of Christmas, when the new birth of the Son of God delivers the faithful from that yoke of bondage, under which the enemy would oppress them. The Church, therefore, during Advent, prays that she may be visited by Him who is her Head and her Spouse; visited in her hierarchy; visited in her members, of whom some are living, and some are dead, but may come to life again; visited, lastly, in those who are not in communion with her, and even in the very infidels, that so they may be converted to the true light, which shines even for them. The expressions of the liturgy which the Church makes use of to ask for this loving and invisible coming, are those which she employs when begging for the coming of Jesus in the flesh; for the two visits are for the same object. In vain would the Son of God have come, [two thousand] years ago, to visit and save mankind, unless He came again for each one of us and at every moment of our lives, bringing to us and cherishing within us that supernatural life of which He and His Holy Spirit are the sole principle.

But this annual visit of the Spouse does not content the Church; she aspires after a third coming, which will complete all things by opening the gates of eternity. She has caught up the last words of her Spouse, “Surely I am coming quickly”; she is impatient to be loosed from her present temporal state; she longs for the number of the elect to be filled up, and to see appear, in the clouds of heaven, the sign of her Deliverer and her Spouse. Her desires, expressed by her Advent liturgy, go even as far as this; and here we have the explanation of these words of the beloved disciple in his prophecy: “The nuptials of the Lamb are come, and His wife hath prepared herself.”

But the day of this His last coming to her will be a day of terror. The Church frequently trembles at the very thought of that awful judgment, in which all mankind is to be tried. She calls it “a day of wrath, on which, as David and the Sibyl have foretold, the world will be reduced to ashes; a day of weeping and of fear.” Not that she fears for herself, since she knows that this day will forever secure for her the crown, as being the bride of Jesus; but her maternal heart is troubled at the thought that, on the same day, so many of her children will be on the left hand of the Judge, and, having no share with the elect, will be bound hand and foot, and cast into the darkness, where there shall be everlasting weeping and gnashing of teeth. This is the reason why the Church, in the liturgy of Advent, so frequently speaks of the coming of Christ as a terrible coming, and selects from the Scriptures those passages which are most calculated to awaken a salutary fear in the mind of such of her children as may be sleeping the sleep of sin.

This, then, is the threefold mystery of Advent. The liturgical forms in which it is embodied, are of two kinds: the one consists of prayers, passages from the Bible, and similar formulæ, in all of which, words themselves are employed to convey the sentiments which we have been explaining; the other consists of external rites peculiar to this holy time, which, by speaking to the outward senses, complete the expressiveness of the chants and words.

First of all, there is the number of the days of Advent. Forty was the number originally adopted by the Church, and it is still maintained in the Ambrosian liturgy, and in the Eastern Church. If, at a later period, the Church of Rome, and those which follow her liturgy, have changed the number of days, the same idea is still expressed in the four weeks which have been substituted for the forty days. The new birth of our Redeemer takes place after four weeks, as the first nativity happened after four thousand years, according to the Hebrew and Vulgate chronology.

As in Lent, so likewise during Advent, marriage is not solemnized, lest worldly joy should distract Christians from those serious thoughts wherewith the expected coming of the sovereign Judge ought to inspire them, or from that dearly cherished hope which the friends of the Bridegroom have of being soon called to the eternal nuptial-feast.

The people are forcibly reminded of the sadness which fills the heart of the Church, by the somber colour of the vestments. Excepting on the feasts of the saints, purple is the colour she uses; the deacon does not wear the dalmatic, nor the sub-deacon the tunic. Formerly it was the custom, in some places, to wear black vestments. This mourning of the Church shows how fully she unites herself with those true Israelites of old who, clothed in sackcloth and ashes, waited for the Messias, and bewailed Sion that she had not her beauty, and “Juda, that the scepter had been taken from him, till He should come who was to be sent, the expectation of nations.” It also signified the works of penance, whereby she prepares for the second coming, full as it is of sweetness and mystery, which is realized in the souls of men, in proportion as they appreciate the tender love of that divine Guest, who has said: “My delights are to be with the children of men.” It expresses, thirdly, the desolation of this bride who yearns after her Beloved, who is long a-coming. Like the turtle dove, she moans her loneliness, longing for the voice which will say to her: “Come from Libanus, my bride! Come, thou shalt be crowned. Thou hast wounded my heart.”

The Church also, during Advent, excepting on the feasts of saints, suppresses the angelic canticle, Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonæ volutatis; for this glorious song was sung at Bethlehem over the crib of the divine Babe; the tongues of the angels are not loosened yet; the Virgin has not yet brought forth her divine Treasure; it is not yet time to sing, it is not even true to say, “Glory be to God in the highest, the peace on earth to men of good will.”

Again, at the end of Mass, the deacon does not dismiss the assembly of the faithful by the words: Ite missa est. He substitutes the ordinary greeting: Benedicamus Domino, as though the Church feared to interrupt the prayers of the people, which could scarce be too long during these days of expectation.

In the night Office, the holy Church also suspends, on those same days, the hymn of jubilation, Te Deum laudamus. It is in deep humility that she awaits the supreme blessing which is to come to her; and, in the interval, she presumes only to ask, and entreat, and hope. But let the glorious hour come, when in the midst of darkest night the Sun of justice will suddenly rise upon the world: then indeed she will resume her hymn of thanksgiving, and all over the face of the earth the silence of midnight will be broken by this shout of enthusiasm: “We praise Thee, O God! We acknowledge Thee to be our Lord! Thou, O Christ, art the King of glory, the everlasting Son of the Father! Thou being to deliver man didst not disdain the Virgin’s womb!”

On the ferial days, the rubrics of Advent prescribe that certain prayers should be said kneeling, at the end of each canonical Hour, and that the choir should also kneel during a considerable portion of the Mass. In this respect, the usages of Advent are precisely the same as those of Lent.

But there is one feature which distinguishes Advent most markedly from Lent: the word of gladness, the joyful Alleluia, is not interrupted during Advent, except once or twice during the ferial Office. It is sung in the Masses of the four Sundays, and vividly contrasts with the somber colour of the vestments. On one of these Sundays, the third, the prohibition of using the organ is removed, and we are gladdened by its grand notes, and rose-coloured vestments may be used instead of the purple. These vestiges of joy, thus blended with the holy mournfulness of the Church, tell us, in a most expressive way, that though she unites with the ancient people of God in praying for the coming of the Messias (thus paying the debt with the entire human race owes to the justice and mercy of God), she does not forget that the Emmanuel is already come to her, that He is in her, and that even before she has opened her lips to ask Him to save her, she has been already redeemed and predestined to an eternal union with Him. This I the reason why the Alleluia accompanies even her sighs, and why she seems to be at once joyous and sad, waiting for the coming of that holy night which will be brighter to her than the most sunny of days, and on which her joy will expel all her sorrow.

Guéranger: The History of Advent

From

The Liturgical Year

by Dom Guéranger, O.S.B.

THE HISTORY OF ADVENT

The name Advent is applied, in the Latin Church, to that period of the year, during which the Church requires the faithful to prepare for the celebration of the feast of Christmas, the anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ. The mystery of that great day had every right to the honour of being prepared for by prayer and works of penance; and, in fact, it is impossible to state, with any certainty, when this season of preparation (which had long been observed before receiving its present name of Advent) was first instituted. It would seem, however, that its observance first began in the west, since it is evident that Advent could not have been looked on as a preparation for the feast of Christmas, until that feast was definitively fixed to the twenty-fifth of December; which was done in the east only towards the close of the fourth century; whereas it is certain that the Church of Rome kept the feast on that day at a much earlier period.

We must look upon Advent in two different lights: first, as a time of preparation, properly so called, for the birth of our Saviour, by works of penance; and secondly, as a series of ecclesiastical Offices drawn up for the same purpose. We find, as far back as the fifth century, the custom of giving exhortations to the people in order to prepare them for the feast of Christmas. We have two sermons of Saint Maximus of Turin on this subject, not to speak of several others which were formerly attributed to St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, but which were probably written by St. Cesarius of Arles. If these documents do not tell us what was the duration and what the exercises of this holy season, they at least show us how ancient was the practice of distinguishing the time of Advent by special sermons. Saint Ivo of Chartres, St. Bernard, and several other doctors of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, have left us set sermons de Adventu Domini, quite distinct from their Sunday homilies on the Gospels of that season. In the Capitularia of Charles the Bald, in 846, the bishops admonish that prince not to call them away from their Churches during Lent or Advent, under pretext of affairs of the State or the necessities of war, seeing that they have special duties to fulfill, and particularly that of preaching during those sacred times.

The oldest document in which we find the length and exercises of Advent mentioned with anything like clearness, is a passage in the second book of the History of the Franks by St. Gregory of Tours where he says that St. Perpetuus, one of his predecessors, who held that see about the year 480, had decreed a fast three times a week, from the feast of St. Martin until Christmas. It would be impossible to decide whether St. Perpetuus, by his regulations, established a new custom, or merely enforced an already existing law. Let us, however, note this interval of forty, or rather of forty-three days, so expressly mentioned, and consecrated to penance, as though it were a second Lent, though less strict and severe than that which precedes Easter.

Later on, we find the ninth canon of the first Council of Mâcon, held in 582, ordaining that during the same interval between St. Martin’s day and Christmas, the Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, should be fasting days, and that the Sacrifice should be celebrated according to the lenten rite. Not many years before that, namely in 567, the second Council of Tours had enjoined the monks to fast from the beginning of December till Christmas. This practice of penance soon extended to the whole forty days, even for the laity: and it was commonly called St. Martin’s Lent. The Capitularia of Charlemagne, in the sixth book, leaves us no doubt on the matter; and Rabanus Maurus, in the second book of his Institution of Clerics, bears testimony to this observance. There were even special rejoicings made on St. Martin’s feast, just as we see them practiced now at the approach of Lent and Easter.

The obligation of observing this Lent, which, though introduced so imperceptibly, had by degrees acquired the force of a sacred law, began to be relaxed, and the forty days from St. Martin’s day to Christmas were reduced to four weeks. We have seen that this fast began to be observed first in France; but thence it spread into England, as we find from Venerable Bede’s history; into Italy, as appears from a diploma of Astolphus, king of the Lombards, dated 753; into Germany, Spain, etc., of which the proofs may be seen in the learned work of Dom Martène, On the ancient rites of the Church. The first allusion to Advent’s being reduced to four weeks is to be found in the ninth century, in a letter of Pope St. Nicholas I to the Bulgarians. The testimony of Ratherius of Verona, and of Abbo of Fleury, both writers of the tenth century, goes also to prove that, even then, the question of reducing the duration of the Advent fast by one-third was seriously entertained. It is true that St. Peter Damian, in the eleventh century, speaks of the Advent fast as still being for forty days; and that St. Louis, two centuries later, kept it for that length of time; but as far as this holy king is concerned, it is probably that it was only his own devotion which prompted him to this practice.

The discipline of the Churches of the west, after having reduced the time of the Advent fast, so far relented, in a few years, as to change the fast into a simple abstinence; and we even find Councils of the twelfth century, for instance Selingenstadt in 1122, and Avranches in 1172, which seem to require only the clergy to observe this abstinence. The Council of Salisbury, held in 1281, would seem to expect none but monks to keep it. On the other hand (for the whole subject is very confused, owing, no doubt, to there never having been any uniformity of discipline regarding it in the western Church), we find Pope Innocent III, in his letter to the bishop of Braga, mentioning the custom of fasting during the whole of Advent, as being at that time observed in Rome; and Durandus, in the same thirteenth century, in his Rational on the Divine Offices, tells us that, in France, fasting was uninterruptedly observed during the whole of that holy time.

St. Charles Borromeo

This much is certain, that, by degrees, the custom of fasting so far fell into disuse, that when, in 1362, Pope Urban V endeavoured to prevent the total decay of the Advent penance, all he insisted upon was that all the clerics of this court should keep abstinence during Advent, without in any way including others, either clergy or laity, in this law. St. Charles Borromeo also strove to bring back his people of Milan to the spirit, if not to the letter, of ancient times. In his fourth Council, he enjoins the parish priests to exhort the faithful to go to Communion on the Sundays, at least, of Lent and Advent; and afterwards addressed to the faithful themselves a pastoral letter, in which, after having reminded them of the dispositions wherewith they ought to spend this holy time, he strongly urges them to fast on the Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, at least, of each week in Advent. Finally, Pope Benedict XIV, when archbishop of Bologna, following these illustrious examples, wrote his eleventh Ecclesiastical Institution for the purpose of exciting in the minds of his diocesans the exalted idea which the Christians of former times had of the holy season of Advent, and of removing an erroneous opinion which prevailed in those parts, namely, that Advent concerned religious only and not the laity. He shows them that such an opinion, unless it be limited to the two practices of fasting and abstinence, is, strictly speaking, rash and scandalous, since it cannot be denied that, in the laws and usages of the universal Church, there exist special practices, having for their end to prepare the faithful for the great feast of the birth of Jesus Christ.

The Greek Church still continues to observe the fast of Advent, though with much less rigour than that of Lent. It consists of forty days, beginning with November 14, the day on which this Church keeps the feast of the apostle St. Philip. During this entire period, the people abstain from flesh-meat, butter, milk, and eggs; but they are allowed, which they are not during Lent, fish, oil, and wine. Fasting, in its strict sense, is binding only on seven out of forty days; and the whole period goes under the name of St. Philip’s Lent. The Greeks justify these relaxations by this distinction: that the Lent before Christmas is, so they say, only an institution of the monks, whereas the Lent before Easter is of apostolic institution.

But, if the exterior practices of penance which formerly sanctified the season of Advent, have been, in the western Church, so gradually relaxed as to have become now quite obsolete except in monasteries, the general character of the liturgy of this holy time has not changed; and it is by their zeal in following its spirit, that the faithful will prove their earnestness in preparing for Christmas.

The liturgical form of Advent as it now exists in the Roman Church, has gone through certain modifications. St. Gregory seems to have been the first to draw up the Office for this season, which originally included five Sundays, as is evident from the most ancient sacramentaries of this great Pope. It even appears probable, and the opinion has been adopted by Amalarius of Metz, Berno of Reichnau, Dom Martène, and Benedict XIV, that St. Gregory originated the ecclesiastical precept of Advent, although the custom of devoting a longer or shorter period to a preparation for Christmas has been observed from time immemorial, and the abstinence and fast of this holy season first began in France. St. Gregory therefore fixed, for the Churches of the Latin rite, the form of the Office for this Lent-like season, and sanctioned the fast which had been established, granting a certain latitude to the several Churches as to the manner of its observance.

The sacramentary of St. Gelasius has neither Mass nor Office of preparation for Christmas; the first we meet with are in the Gregorian sacramentary, and, as we just observed, these Masses are five in number. It is remarkable that these Sundays were then counted inversely, that is, the nearest to Christmas was called the first Sunday, and so on with the rest. So far back as the ninth and tenth centuries, these Sundays were reduced to four, as we learn from Amalarius, St. Nicholas I, Berno of Reichnau, Ratherius of Verona, etc., and such also is their number in the Gregorian sacramentary of Pamelius, which appears to have been transcribed about this same period. From that time, the Roman Church has always observed this arrangement of Advent, which gives it four weeks, the fourth being that in which Christmas day falls, unless December 25 be a Sunday. We may therefore consider the present discipline of the observance of Advent as having lasted a thousand years, at least as far as the Church of Rome is concerned; for some of the Churches in France kept up the number of five Sundays as late as the thirteenth century.

The Ambrosian liturgy, even to this day, has six weeks of Advent; so has the Gothic or Mozarabic missal. As regards the Gallican liturgy, the fragments collected by Dom Mabillon give us no information; but it is natural to suppose with this learned man, whose opinion has been confirmed by Dom Martène, that the Church of Gaul adopted, in this as in so many other points, the usages of the Gothic Church, that is to say, that its Advent consisted of six Sundays and six weeks.

With regard to the Greeks, their rubrics for Advent are given in the Menæa, immediately after the Office for November 14. They have no proper Office for Advent, neither do they celebrate during this time the Mass of the Presanctified, as they do in Lent. There are only in the Offices for the saints, whose feasts occur between November 14 and the Sunday nearest Christmas, frequent allusions to the birth of the Saviour, to the maternity of Mary, to the cave of Bethlehem, etc. On the Sunday preceding Christmas, in order to celebrate the expected coming of the Messias, they keep what they call the feast of the holy fathers, that is the commemoration of the saints of the old Law. They give the name of Ante-Feast of the Nativity to December 20, 21, 22, and 23; and although they say the Office of several saints on these four days, yet the mystery of the birth of Jesus pervades the whole liturgy.

The Mass that Saved Sacred Music

The Kyrie, Gloria and Creed

The Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei

Legend has it that Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina composed the Missa Papae Marcelli to convince the Council Fathers of Trent not to place a ban upon polyphonic chant. After hearing Palestrina’s Mass, Charles Cardinal Borromeo was so convinced of the intelligibility and beauty of polyphony that he persuaded the Fathers of Trent to jettison a prepared draft of a cannon that would have severely limited sacred music. With his art Palestrina courageously saved sacred music… or so the legend goes. It’s the kind of tale, one wherein a single work of art changed the world, that all artists dream for themselves.

Recent scholarship, however, demonstrates that Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli was probably composed some ten years before the Council Fathers of Trent considered the question of sacred music. Such is "recent scholarship", always a wet blanket. However, it can be safely concluded that Palestrina and the Roman School of Polyphony was a great influence on the Council, and served in the end to temper the mood of churchmen that had been blackened by unfortunate developments in church music prior to the Council.

At that time motets, madrigals, and secular chansons were mixed and sung together with the liturgical texts so that several voices would be singing several different texts, often in various languages. The end result could be very beautiful, with intricately interlace harmonies, but it was often liturgically incomprehensible. The Gloria could hardly be distinguished from the Kyrie or Credo, and often the choir would sing Mass parts at inappropriate times. While aesthetically pleasing, such music did little else in service to the liturgy.

The Council of Trent by Pasquale Cati da Iesi, 1588

One practice in particular, the parody Mass, could even be blasphemous, though not intentionally so. The word “parody” here does not indicate comedic or satirical. A parody Mass, or imitation Mass, was composed by borrowing melodies and harmonies from motets and secular chansons, and applying the liturgical texts to these melodies. Often the melodies of the secular chansons would bring to mind the sensual or otherwise inappropriate themes of the original lyrics. In fact, congregations would often take to singing the original lyrics during the Mass. Obviously this practice constituted a rather serious abuse, and the Fathers of Trent saw it as an attack on the very integrity of the Roman Rite, no matter the artistic merit or demerit of any given parody Mass.

However, one must be careful not to oversimplify the artistic state of affairs prior to the Council. Not all parody Masses were tasteless entertainments for a rabble rousing laity. Palestrina was responsible for composing over fifty parody Masses, himself. It could be done tastefully, and even in such a way that the liturgical texts were respected. Nevertheless, the parody Mass, at base, risked reducing sacred music to mere entertainment that served as a distraction from the primary intentions of the Church's liturgy.

On the other hand, while there were real problems regarding the nature of sacred music, there were, no doubt, Council Fathers of a more austere Augustinian bent who would have preferred homophony, and, we can be sure, there were no doubt one or two musical iconoclasts in their ranks, stark rubricists, who would have been happy with a complete ban of music all together. There were both reasonable concerns and radical ideologies on both sides of the debate.

Nevertheless, it would be a mischaracterization to reduce sacred music after the Council to some kind of whimsical ecclesiastical Hegelian dialectic, a simple compromise emerging between the artist and the churchmen. Anyone who has walked into a Baroque Church or heard Mozart’s Requiem Mass knows that the artistic expression of the following centuries can not be explained as compromise. Rather what developed was a flourishing of artistic achievement made possible by, ironically, the imposition boundaries.

The early Renaissance marked an important turning point in Church art, one that was not rejected, but rather welcomed by the ecclesiastical establishment. Throughout the medieval period, sacred art was largely defined by the great monasteries and by monastic ideals. The artistic output of the medieval period was symbolic and iconic, heavily influenced by Eastern iconography. Western art lacked a distinctive character until the advent of the Renaissance. The new and distinctive art of the period, which was realistic while at the same time idealistic, helped to reinforce the perennial truths of the Catholic religion in a unique way.

The new medium of sacred art, however, was conveyed by a professional class of artists who worked on commission, and thus they had to compete with each other for the attention of their patrons. In such an environment, artistic license could easily be given to base entertainment, and such artistic license ran head on with ecclesiastical discipline. The debates that surrounded the twenty-second session of the Council of Trent where intended to re-enforce the obligation of artistic expression to confine itself to the service of salvation. Sacred art was sacred, not so much because of its theme, content or circumstance, but it was sacred in as much as it directed the senses, imaginations, minds and hearts of the faithful toward God.

In the end the Council Fathers never agreed on the infamous canon 8 that would have severely limited artistic expression. Instead the Council Fathers settled on less strident verbiage: “They shall also banish from churches all those kinds of music, in which, whether by the organ, or in the singing, there is mixed up any thing lascivious or impure” (Decree Concerning the Things to be Observed, and to be Avoided, in the Celebration of the Mass, from the twenty-second Session of the Council of Trent). The Council Fathers limited themselves to the easily recognizable and specific problem of the parody Mass.

Still, the theological principle, that sacred art should be at the service of the divine, turning the hearts and minds of the faithful toward God, persisted among both the churchmen and the artists. This principle is judged by modern musicologists and art historians as a factor that limited artistic expression. Strict forms, such as a Mass setting, limited the artistic freedom of the composer or artist.

However, sacred art is not an arena wherein human artistic expression should be given free reign. This was a practical reality that both churchman and artist understood and accepted. A humanist historian or musicologist sees only lines and colors, and appreciate only technique, but the magnificence of the Baroque is stunning for no other reason than it was infused by hearts, minds and hands turned toward the divine. The Council of Trent’s restraint was guided by the realization that sacred art turned toward God could be complex, many layered, colorful and grand. Sacred art not only brought the mind to God, but revealed the true greatness of man as the image and likeness of God.

The only way man is truly great is when he is transparent before the light of the Divine. While Palestrina and the artists who followed him were confined by a particular principle and rigid form, that principle and form, the sacred liturgies of Christ’s Church, are the only things that can truly reveal the greatness of man. In short, art directed toward God is stunningly polyphonic, breathtakingly symphonic because the object is stunningly polyphonic, breathtakingly symphonic, divinely sublime.

Artistic expression without these confines, given to unfettered license, suffers from entropy, not greatness. Modern art history is a chronology of a decent into entropy as the artist embraced his own license freed from the confines of the sacred, the confines of doctrine, and ultimately the confines of order itself, a direct result of the sixteenth century doctrinal dissent and the humanism that developed in its wake. Take for example the chaotic blur of expressionism, the violence of Romanticism and the sterility of the International Style. In music, this entropy is characterized by dissonance and emotionalism, which has spiraled down to our day in the overtly sexual beat of rock music, and the absolute disorder of “Goth” music, which can only be appreciated by equally disordered and cacophonic minds and souls.

A twenty-six year old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart abandoned in frustration what is considered his most brilliant composition, his Mass in C minor. Mozart at that age was unable to restrain his individualistic and human creativity within the boundaries of the sublime, God created structure of the liturgy. As a result, a Mass composition was impossible for him. However, as he matured he came to either realize or accept the God given boundaries imposed on sacred music. For the humanist, the unfinished Mass in C minor is a tragedy, an unfinished symphony. However, the Mass is not a human symphony or stage on which man might demonstrate his human genius. Mozart, perhaps begrudgingly accepting this fact later in later life, taught himself to remain in the boundaries of something much greater than a symphony, and a reality that far surpassed even his natural musical genius.

Of equal import, the Council Fathers of Trent, by their prohibition of the parody Mass, also defined what sacred music is not. Sacred music is not easy. It is not something that can be borrowed from the profane and given a polish by setting it in a liturgical context. Nor is it simply entertainment or mere sentimentalism. A difference was perceived between music that elicits an emotive response, something that remains on the mere visceral level of human experience, and that breathtakingly symphonic music that is a response to the encounter between man and God. When liturgical music patterns itself on eliciting an emotional, visceral response rather than directing the hearer toward God, liturgical music closes in on itself, and likewise closes the congregation into a circle wherein they focus simply on each other. The folk liturgical music of the post-Vatican II era, inflicted upon the Church by Marty Haugen, John Michael Talbot, the St. Louis Jesuits and all the others who have made careers out of dumbing-down John Rutter with folk riffs, is an example of sentimentalist mush that distracts from the sublime rather than suggesting prayer and communion with the divine. This folk music is easy, sentimentalist, and strives to entertain. It succeeds only in closing the congregation in on itself, reduced to looking at each other to fill a visceral, emotional, and all too mundane, human need. Modern liturgical music is self-centered, self-serving and ultimately self-destructive.

There’s no doubt that the wise restraint of the Council Fathers was at least in part inspired by the sacred music of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. Palestrina demonstrated that there was no conflict between the Mass and artistic expression. There was no struggle wherein the Mass triumphed over music, or humanism triumphed over applied form. At the same time the Council Fathers taught Palestrina that sacred music was not his play thing. Together, Palestrina and the Council Fathers demonstrated that there is a marriage in sacred music between the form and the art, both having the same object, the divine.

At no time in history has this marriage ever been so threatened, both from outside, by the attacks of the humanist musicologists, and from within, from the purveyors of modern folk liturgical music. For the humanist who judges music by the standards of the concert hall, none of Mozart's other Masses compare to his unfinished one in C minor. The rest are stagnant by their judgment, a judgment formed by a teleology of entropy. On the other hand, for the modern churchgoer, liturgical music is a self-serving emotional pick-me-up. Caught in the hold of the Devil’s pincher movement, most Catholics have lost a sense of sacred music, if not a sense of the sacred entirely.

However, there are a few who perceive what the Council Fathers of Trent perceived. They immediately recognize the profound depth of music inspired by the encounter of man with God. These are they who understand Gregorian chant as both a product of and an invitation to contemplation. These are those who soar on the wings of Mozart's Sparrow Mass or are impressed by the power of his Requiem, because they set the symphonic Mass in the context of the Mass and not the concert hall. It is these few who don’t seek to be entertained, but rather seek an encounter with God. These few truly appreciate the driving force, the substance, that lies at the heart of the legend of Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli.

That driving force, that substance, is the Traditional Latin Mass.

The Obama-Nation (of Desolation) Came Out in Force on Black Friday

The day after Black Friday makes the “beefs” column article easy pickings. There certainly is no shortage of images that demonstrate the materialism, hedonism, and unmitigated greed of our modern godless American society. This video alone, however, really says it all.

Notice that everyone in this clip acts as though what is happening is so very normal. No one seems surprised or disgusted or out of sorts. This is now acceptable behavior.

A cursory Google search on the world-wide-web reveals one incident after another of sub-human behavior by the masses on the high-holy-feast-day of materialism in this post-Christian nation. Really, I did try to find something positive! I searched and searched for just one story of someone acting nobly on this day, because I wanted to post something positive about Black Friday for a change. I couldn't find a single story. I’m sure someone, somewhere did something good in the face of modernism’s barbarity, but I couldn't find it.

The people who re-elected Obama to guarantee unfettered sexual license and government handouts are totally bereft of nobility. Ever more and more people, saturated in sugar-laden food and drink, addicted to television, video games, the internet, and one distraction after another, have forsaken what little humanity is left to themselves as they clamor for more and more stuff to fill the voids of their spiritually empty lives. Reason has been replaced with the mindless dribble of reality television shows and "conservative" radio talk show hosts. A "have-it-now" mentality, that allows for no sacrifice and thinks no luxury too excessive, has driven consumer debt up to its highest level in history, and this even after the "tightening" of credit in the wake of the "Great Recession".

One sobering fact: in the United States there is such a thing as chocolate covered bacon and plenty of obese, ignorant and barbarous people who buy it. Many places that sell this kind of disgusting slop readily take food stamps!

This country and this society are so far removed from the traditional Catholic that we traditionalists simply can not call this country ours anymore. It is time to drop the pretense and lower the flag. This is the country of Obama and deep fried Oreos, and it was probably always destined to be, especially in the wake of the complete collapse of the Catholic Church militant in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. We traditional Catholics are exiles in a foreign land, and our captors aren't even asking us for songs... they are too busy fornicating and lusting for pizza topped with cheesy fries.

Not all is a lost cause, though. We are still given a divine mission, and the graces to carry it out. However, instead of being worried about "transforming the culture", we have to get back to what we should have been doing all along: endeavoring to save souls, one soul at a time, by bravely proclaiming Christ Crucified. It's a dirty job; it's trench warfare getting out there and standing up for our faith and inviting others to share it, and it might even come to costing us our lives. But I'm convinced that, because of the Traditional Latin Mass and because we cherish the fullness of our Catholic faith, traditional Catholics are up to the task.

TradNews Roundup

*The Traditional Latin Mass comes to Brazil, Indiana. Please pray for the success and growth of this fledgling TLM community.

*The Traditional Latin Mass in Boston helps to stop a parish closure.

*Manitowoc, Wisconsin is blessed with the Traditional Latin Mass.

*A Mother? A Nurse? A Nun.

*Thousands of Catholics march against Satanic gay "marriage". Meanwhile, the Satanic rite of gay "marriage" could be approved in England within weeks.

*Longstanding TLM in the eternal city to be canceled.

*Much to-do about nothing. While the world continues to sink into a pit of moral decline that is nothing short of apocalyptic, the pope speculates and dithers about dates. Meanwhile, Bertone updates the curial dress code, a return to the norm?

*It's hard to argue with any of the points brought out by Christopher Gawley: the sun has indeed set on America. This piece proves that America has become a cesspool of sexual immorality. The majority of women (and, no doubt, their partners) ignored all other issues, and focused instead on maintaining sexual license in the face of a manufactured threat. Americans will pull the liberal cart as long as the sex-carrot is dangled in front of their faces.

*Broken Altar Rails: the demise of authentic Catholicism.

*This one really makes me mad. The average $30 a week that people receive in food stamps does not mean that everyone on food stamps only has $30 a week to spend on food. The amount of food stamps is (supposed) to be based on income. Those who make more, receive less in food stamps. Food stamps are (supposed) to be a supplement to one's funds to purchase groceries, not the sum total of all funds to buy groceries. Yet these typical social welfare liberals, including Fr. John Enzler, willfully ignore this fundamental fact of the food stamp program, and try to make us believe that everyone who receives food stamps only has $30 a week to buy food. This is a willful attempt to misconstrue the facts to trick us into supporting more government spending of unjust welfare programs that help no one. The only people Fr. John Enzler is in "solidarity" with is his Socialist and liberal friends.

A Catholic Thanksgiving

Duck instead of turkey?

Garbanzo beans and giant clams?

Either way, Eucharista is its name.

Don Juan de Oñate

Happy Thanksgiving

The Ordinary Form Renders Archbishop Vigano's Arguments Irrelevant

Few things irritate the university elites more than the sentiments expressed in the traditional Collect for the feast of St. Albert the Great that we observed this past week.

Deus, qui beátum Albértum, Pontíficem tuum atque Doctórem, in humána sapiéntia divínæ fídei subjiciénda magnum effecísti…

Translated: O God, who didst make blessed Albert, thy Bishop and Doctor, great by subjecting human wisdom to divine faith…

The meaning is clear. St. Albert’s greatness was not to be found in his brilliant mind, though he definitely had one. His greatness was to be found in the fact that he subjected his science to the rule of faith. Academic pursuits are to be laid open and exposed to the power and the force of faith. Academic pursuit is to be submissive to faith; academic pursuit must obey faith.

And this is how it ought to be in the rational order, for faith is what we know with certainty, while human science is, and always has been, changing law. Each generation either discards previous science for new, or adds to and modifies past science to explain new discoveries and new propositions. The faith, on the other hand, has always been the same, and always will be. No discovery in the natural order, no new philosophical proposition, will ever change the reality of God and the truth revealed to us in His Incarnation. From atomism to quantum physics, and on to some other understanding as contradictory as all previous understandings, no matter what, God is in His heaven, unchanged. Thus, if human science contradicts the faith, the logical and clear sighted man would be skeptical of the ever changing human science.

That, however, is not the case in regards to modern man, who is skeptical of all things having to do with faith, but absolutist in regards to the ever changing laws of human science. I was once asked why I didn’t “agree with the obvious facts of evolution.” I answered that I haven’t enough faith to believe in evolution. Indeed, it takes more faith to believe in the unseen and unobserved and unexamined and untested “facts” of evolution than it takes to believe in what is seen and heard and felt daily in regards to my Catholic faith. This speaks to the realism of religious faith. We believe what we experience. The modern sophisticate, who hasn’t the time for religious faith, but banks instead on his human science, believes only that which he can quantify and chart out. While this might be nice and neat, mathematical, and precise, it’s hardly an adequate or humane substitute for lived experience.

And how utterly sad it is when this attitude is applied to the divine sciences. There is a kind of quantifying that goes on in the modern Catholic university. The “datum” of the faith is subjected to human science, to the changing laws of natural science, sociology, economics, philosophy, etc. The “datum” of faith, it is judged by the university elites, must be modified, re-molded, re-envisioned, adapted, updated, in order to bring the "datum" of faith into conformity with the science of modern man. The end result of this subjecting faith to science is a faith changed, and certainly not the faith given to us by God. This is the recipe for dissent, the same dissent that runs rampant through our Catholic colleges and universities.

This is the dissent and division that Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, papal nuncio to the United States, recently addressed at the University of Notre Dame. He spoke of the danger posed by faculty members at Catholic universities that present opinions and positions at odds with the teachings of the Catholic Church. This, Archbishop Vigano contended, weakens the Church and makes it susceptible to manipulations and even persecutions.

The problem has been identified. It has been addressed. But is the proper remedy being applied? It apparently is not, as is evidenced by what most Catholics in the United States heard on the feast of St. Albert the Great at their novus ordo Masses:

O God, who made the Bishop Saint Albert great by his joining of human wisdom to divine faith…

Joining? That is terribly different than subjecting, isn’t it? The Collect in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite means something very different from what the Collect in the Traditional Latin Mass conveys. While the traditional Collect conforms both to what the Church has always taught and to logic, the novus ordo Collect conforms to only one thing: the pride of modern man who puts his science on the same level as divine faith.

If the novus ordo is the liturgical standard that Archbishop Vigano proposes to those he addressed at the University of Notre Dame, then he might as well have been speaking to the wall. He can wax eloquently all he wants about division and dissention in our Catholic universities, but the liturgy he celebrates does nothing but foment those same divisions and dissentions.

TradNews Roundup

*Agreed! Reform yourself, Cardinal Dolan! Start by apologizing to all of us for this:

*This is who you were laughing it up with, Your Eminence!

*But wait, Your Eminence. You need to apologize for hanging with this equally anti-Catholic liberal too:

*And where is the reform of the CCHD, which has gone right back to their old tricks? In fact, it is worse than it was before. Are any of the bishops going to confess this? Will any of the bishops make a public apology for this?

*Will the bishops apologize for boring us to death?

*California priest takes a sabbatical for a good reason: the Traditional Latin Mass!

St. Remy Catholic Church in Russia (pronounced: "Roo-shee"), Ohio

*More TLMs spring up in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, which is always close to my heart. It is especially heartening that the TLM is making a regular appearance north of Dayton in Shelby (my boyhood home) and Mercer counties.

*Best line of the week: "Much of the talk was on how wonderful the Second Vatican Council was, followed by how Catholics need to repent and reverse the decline of faith since the Second Vatican Council with a 'new evangelization.'" Part of a bigger post about meatless Fridays in the United States. (It's hard to take His Eminence seriously, though, considering he still had some barbecue sauce on his chin from the Al Smith Dinner.)

*Bishop Fellay: "We are back to 1974-1975 situation." The full sermon can be read here.

*Nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, explains how internal divisions and dissension in the Catholic Church threatens the freedom of the Church.

*Motu Proprio Latina Lingua, establishing the Pontifical Academy of Latiney. And there's an English translation of the same by our friends at Rorate Cæli at the same post... proving that we all might need this new Pontifical Academy.

*Last in the series on the theological virtues, new papal encyclical on faith due out in early 2013. The last two encyclicals have been criticized for being practically weak, and even for controversial content. From a traditional Catholic perspective the last two encyclicals were feint blimps with little if any merit or interest. There is little indication that this new encyclical will offer any better fair. We can be sure it will be filled the same old contradiction: accolades for Vatican II, and the reiteration of the necessity of returning to the true faith in the aftermath of Vatican II.

*What lead to the collapse of the missionary spirit in the Church? "The watershed was Vatican Council II"!!

*Michael Matt shatters George Weigel's Vatican II fantasy land.

*Socialism via welfare and the transformation of the United States of America.

*Please pray for the heroic Phill Kline.

*What are the odds that this guy is going to last long as the CEO of the New York Times?

Redesigned Again... Simple is better

I got this message a couple days ago from a friend of mine:

My computer crashed about nine months ago, so I've been off line for awhile. One of the first things I did with my new laptop was click over to Ars, and I was shocked by the new layout. It is way too feminine, Dave! What's with all the light pastels and blues? It's kind of hard to read things like "do manfully" at your blog when it appears on my computer in baby blue text.

He had a point, so I made some big changes.

First, I jettisoned the old template, which was creating problems with the new Blogger interface. I went with the Simple template at Blogger. There's no reason to re-invent the wheel. Now there's more functionality to the site that wasn't possible with the old hand written template I was using before. I simplified the weblog as much as possible, and reduced the size of the header. I went back to the old black background; sorry to all of you who complained about the dark background, but I just like it better. It is also better for the art, and the text color isn't extremely bright, so it should help to offset the contrast. (If the background appears brown, please adjust your computer color settings.)

The image in the header is of Fr. Glen Tattersall (of the Catholic Community of Blessed John Henry Newman) offering the Immortal Mass in the Chapel of the Sacred Heart at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Melbourne, Australia.

TradNews Roundup: Amendum - Bishop Fellay's Sermon

I didn't get a chance to add this to the TradNews Roundup before it posted this evening. Dici posted a lot of news items this morning, and it didn't give me enough time to go through them all before publication. At any rate, this is definitely is an important piece of news.

*Bishop Fellay's sermon at Ecône, and his explanation of the relations between the SSPX and the Roman authorities.

I'm sure that most people will find the meat of the sermon in His Excellency's explanation of the relations between Rome and the SSPX, but I thought the best part was in the very beginning:

Why is there a Society of Saint Pius X? Why do we become priests? It is not just for the pleasure of celebrating the old Mass. It is in order to go to Heaven; it is in order to save souls! Certainly, while preserving the treasures of the Church, but with the purpose of saving souls, of sanctifying them by snatching them away from sin, by leading them to Heaven, by leading them to Our Lord.

Authentic Catholicism, centered on Christ, with eyes firmly set on the Kingdom of Heaven, pure and simple.

TradNews Roundup

The joke was on us, Your Eminence.

*Obama wins with the help of the Catholic vote. We have Cardinal Dolan and the rest of the mainstream novus ordo establishment to thank for it. The pope to Obama? "Congratulations". Oh, brother! But the presidential election was just the tip of the rotten iceberg, as various ballot initiatives and state elections demonstrated the United States has become an overwhelming liberal country that loves itself some "gay" (fake) marriage and abortion. Use this as a wake up call. Write your bishop as soon as possible and let him know we blame this on our bishops.

*Is there a silver-lining in the formation of a resistance movement?

*Reaction around the blog-o-sphere: Paenitentia - disgusted! Nymphios - a fellow monarchist! Dr. Taylor Marshall - the solution is Catholic procreation! Robert Ritche - break out the beads and the swords! Fr. Z - the coffee speaks! First Things - Let the analysis begin.

*Liberalism's (Socialism's) war on the family is destroying the lives of individuals and destroying society. The ravages of this new world order is part and parcel of a fundamental social disorder, that not only destroys society and culture, individuals, but also souls. Socialism is diabolic. The unconditional principles of sound government.

*Cardinal Cañizares' comments on the occasion of the Traditionalist Piligrimage to Rome in thanksgiving for Summorum Pontificum and Cardinal Bertone relays the sentiments of the Holy Father to the pilgrims.

*The Lutherans are snickering into their sleeves on this one. Imagine their delight when the Catholics are cowed into celebrating Martin Luther! However, all they are doing is taking up the Modernists on their ecumenicalism.

*Enough! It's high time to get back to what makes us Catholics.

*Traditional Pilgrimage in Rome.

The Pro-Life Movement Loses the Culture War in the Year of Faith

The Pro-Life Movement has failed.

As the election results rolled in on Tuesday night the devastating defeat of the Pro-Life Movement was more than evident, signaled by the triumph of Barack Obama, who brazenly ignored the worst economy in living memory, and ran on his pro-abortion, pro-gay “marriage”, free contraception platform. These were not mere side issues for the Democratic Party. These social issues were at the heart of not just Obama’s campaign, but the campaigns of Democrats across the nation. Even the so-called “Pro-Life” Democrat Joe Donnelly in Indiana defeated his opponent due to the twisting of his opponent’s position on the dignity of all life, including life conceived in rape. Even that election, supposedly between two “Pro-Life” candidates was decided on the abortion issue, and it was an electorate that wanted abortion that elected the Democrat.

America has decided, and the American people want baby killing. Americans love baby killing, if not abortion on demand, then at least as a treatment for rape or incest, and they think Pro-Lifers are full of it to argue otherwise.

The Culture War over life has been decided for death, and there’s no claiming of future victory or hoping that some good might come of it now, this despite the valiant words from Lila Rose, president of Live Action, who said that the fight to end abortion is not dependent on a single election. However, such bravado is all sound and fury, and it most certainly lacks any teeth once one contemplates the practical results of this one election. The re-election of Obama in the short term means that the courts, including most importantly the Supreme Court, will be stacked with judges who must pass one, and only one, litmus test—their fidelity to upholding Roe v. Wade. Obama will now have at the very least two more appointments to the Supreme Court. That means Roe v. Wade will stand for the next half century if not for the rest of the history of this nation.

In the long term, it means we will never have anything but a pro-abortion federal government. The Republican Party will probably back away from the social issues altogether. From the sounds of Fox News, before the mid-terms, the Republican Party will drop the “Pro-Life” and anti-gay “marriage” planks of its platform entirely. I believe that Fox News is actually pushing for this.

But what is in or out of the GOP platform doesn't matter one wit any more. The Republican Party has just had its last great hurrah, and it was a loss. Never again will the Republican Party be able to even come close to winning a national election. Demographically the Republican Party is doomed. As minority populations grow, the Republicans will lose mathematically every time. The Republican Party cannot win without cutting into the Hispanic vote. However, the only way to get the Hispanic vote is to adopt a liberal position on immigration reform, and if the GOP does that, it will lose its Tea Party base that will not tolerate anything short of deporting mom and dad and building a fence. The Republican Party won’t be able to win without that Tea Party base. Can the Republicans convince Hispanics to vote for them on some other issue? Make no mistake about it. The exit polls just proved, in contradiction to my formerly held belief, that among Hispanics the number one issue is immigration, and it always will be. There’s nothing else to appeal to them on, so the GOP will never come out a winner in that category. Without any good strategy to bite into the Hispanic vote, or the Black vote, or the Asian vote, the GOP voter base will continue to shrink at an alarming rate. It’s the end of the road for the GOP, and everyone else who hitched his horse to that wagon, and this most definitely includes the Pro-Life Movement.

Baby killing is now a permanent fixture of the present political and social landscape of the United States of America.

It is obvious that the Pro-Life Movement bet on the wrong pony. Sure they made a mistake in tying their fortunes to a political Party that will soon be the Grand Old Party of Ancient History, but the movers of the Pro-Life Movement made an even more fundamental mistake. They tied their lot to politics in general, when all along it was never a “conservative” issue to begin with. It was, and still is, a RELIGIOUS issue. That’s right. It’s about God and Man and Man’s place in God’s plan. In the movement’s effort to be “ecumenical” it even came up with the ridiculous possibility of marrying contradictory propositions such as “Atheists for Life”, as though someone whose only measure is disorder could ever understand the dignity of a human being, especially an unborn one. Abortion was born out of a disregard for God and His order! No one who disregards God and His order can truly grasp the sacred nature of human life.

Likewise, it never sat well with me that Catholics walk hand-in-hand with their Protestant “brothers and sisters” at “Pro-Life” rallies and parades. The Protestant Revolt was a pivotal moment in the Revolution that sent our Western culture spiraling down toward sectarianism, confusion, disorder, Socialism, atheism, and finally the hedonistic materialism that drives a majority of people to relish the slaughter of their unborn children. To ignore the errors of Protestant sectarianism for political gain is disingenuous, hypocritical. If we don’t stand up against Protestant sectarianism, why should others take us seriously about the sacredness of human life? Indeed, why should we take ourselves seriously?

I was once accused by a novus ordo Neo-Cat of “not being Pro-Life enough.” How idiotic, I thought. I’m a traditional Catholic—I have no choice but to be anti-baby killing! The reason I’m against killing innocent human beings is because I’m Catholic. It is because I’m religious, and it is because being against baby killing flows logically and dogmatically from my Catholicism. Our Protestant “brothers and sisters” can’t say this. Their religious convictions are fraught through and through with logical and dogmatic inconsistencies that only serve to weaken their arguments against baby killing.  Certainly those Atheists for Life are walking logical contradictions, but in a very similar way so are Protestants for Life. The reason why most people in the United States are perfectly alright with baby killing is because they are irreligious, or they are in error religiously. There’s no other possibilities.

Pro-Lifers across the board, instead of beating their chests and burying their heads in the sand, need to sit down and ask themselves exactly why they are against baby killing. Is it because of a religious conviction? Have they suffered this defeat because they decided to cover over the religious foundations of their Pro-Life sentiments? They also need to ask themselves if there are any logical inconsistencies in their religious beliefs. Do they ignore whole passages of Scripture, or whole centuries of Christian history, because those things don’t fit well with the positions of their given sect or personal beliefs? Is it possible that this sectarianism and internal contradictions contributed to this devastating defeat?

The loss of right religion is the reason why the baby killers won this election. It is something that has been in the making for a long time. Western man lost his religion—specifically his Catholicism. I could write much about the failure of the post-Vatican II Catholic Church, but that should be saved for another time. For the time being, in this Year of Faith, I would like to offer this to all you Catholic Pro-Lifers:

It has just been proven; you can’t be Pro-Life without being thoroughly CATHOLIC. You can’t be Pro-Life unless you profess Jesus Christ as Sovereign King over everything and everyone. You can’t be Pro-Life without having the faith!