What to Do with a Ceramic Chalice?

If faced with a detestable and unrubrical ceramic chalice, one can either apply the shorter rite (the aptly-named "Fr Fessio Drop Test" - if it breaks, it ain't fit for use at Mass) or the longer rite, as follows:

DECOMMISSIONING OF AN UNFIT VESSEL

V/.  Our help is in the name of the Lord.

R/.  Who made heaven and earth.  (Ps. cxxiii, 8)

V/.  He that hath an ear,

R/.  Let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.  (Apoc. ii, 29)

A Lesson from the Book of Wisdom. (Wis. xv, 6a. 7. 9. 13a; xvi, 1a)

The lovers of evil things deserve to have no better things to trust in, both they that make them, and they that love them.  The potter also tempering soft earth, with labour fashioneth every vessel for our service, and of the same clay he maketh both vessels that are for clean uses, and likewise such as serve to the contrary; but what is the use of these vessels, the potter is the judge.  But his care is, not that he shall labour, nor that his life is short, but he striveth with the goldsmiths and silversmiths: and he endeavoureth to do like the workers in brass, and counteth it a glory to make vain things.  For that man knoweth that he offendeth above all others, who of earthly matter maketh brittle vessels.  For these things, and by the like things to these, they were worthily punished.  R/.  Thanks be to God.

A lesson from the Epistle of the blessed Apostle Paul to the Romans. (Rom. ix, 20b-22)

Brethren: Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it: Why hast thou made me thus?  Or hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?  What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction?  In Christ Jesus our Lord. 

R/.  Thanks be to God.

Thou shalt break them in pieces like a potter's vessel.

V/.  As the vessel of a potter they shall be broken.  (Ps. ii, 9b; Apoc. ii, 27b)

The continuation of the holy Gospel according to Matthew.  (St Matt. xxiv, 15)

R/. Glory be to Thee, O Lord.

At that time, Jesus said to his disciples: When therefore you shall see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place: he that readeth let him understand. 

R/.  Praise be to Thee, O Christ.

DESTRUCTION OF THE UNFIT VESSEL

Holding the vessel in the left hand, recite:

And thou shalt say: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: even so will I break this, as the potter's vessel is broken, which cannot be made whole again. (Cf. Jer. xix, 11)

The vessel is immediately to be broken; then shall be said:

And it shall be broken small, as the potter's vessel is broken all to pieces with mighty breaking, and there shall not a sherd be found of the pieces thereof, wherein a little fire may be carried from the hearth, or a little water be drawn out of the pit.  (Is. xxx, 14)

Thereupon it shall be smashed utterly till not even a fragment of any use remains, in accordance with the words of the prophet.  Then shall be said:

And the earthen vessel shall be broken.  (Cf. Lev. vi, 28a)

And all the remains of the vessel, being thus pulverized, shall be gathered up and buried, that its memory perish.

SS Peter and Paul

May the Princes of the Apostles ever intercede for us all, that Peter's Barque may ride out the storm, and the preaching of Paul convert all nations.

(Though I didn't make it to Mass this morning - it being a Monday, the sacrosanct day off for priests, the only available Mass would have been the early one at Carmel - I did at least do something: I donated blood plasma, as I am trying to be more regular about doing.  Think of it as practice in shedding one's blood for the Lord...)

David and Goliath

To-day (and to-morrow and the next day, were it not for supervening feasts), Holy Church presents us at Matins with the sacred history of David and Goliath, in chapter seventeen of the first Book of Kings (or I Samuel, in modern Bibles).  Why?

It seems to me that there is more to this story than an encouragement to the underdog!  True, the secular world likes any tale of the puny weakling overcoming the big bad bully, but the world would rather play down any embarrassingly religious angle.  So, what angle?

David explicitly places all his trust in God and then, like a good pupil of St Ignatius in later ages, strives with all his cunning skill to achieve victory for the Lord.  "Thou comest to me with sword and spear and shield, I however come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, of the God of the armies of Israel..."  And a sly slingshot to the forehead felled the Philistine, and grabbing Goliath's own sword, David struck it off.  Good riddance to bad rubbish.

David's achievement in single combat, moreover, was not for his benefit only; for the rival armies of the Philistines and the Israelites hung upon the outcome, the Israelites, indeed, King Saul included, were hanging back in fear, since no one had dared stand up to Goliath - he personified the helplessness the Israelites felt before their oppressors, against whom they had taken arms, yet without much hope of success.  It was David's unexpected vanquishing of big bad Goliath that gave his fellows hope and heart to take to the fight themselves, and defeat their fearsome foes, throwing off their cruel yoke.  David's victory was not for himself only. 

Now David, as all men ought know, is a type of Christ; and as Christ Himself insinuates in His parables, He it is Who despoils the "strong man armed", that is, the Devil, who held us all in thrall as once his minions the Philistines oppressed the Israelites; Satan rejoiced to mock the Saviour as He was dragged to Calvary by demonic inspiration, but it was otherwise when the Lord, conquering by His sacrificial death, descended to Hades not as victim but Victor, destroying the false kingdom of Lucifer, casting out the Prince of this world, smashing the doors and breaking down the gates of Hell, which had held men captive in death these many many thousand years since Adam's fall had enslaved our sorry race to the malign deceiving Serpent.  

With Christ as our triumphant King, rising again, returning to us as our victorious Champion, we have in reality what David, returning victorious over the Philistine, was in figure: the One Who has won: the field of battle is won, and we can go forth to our own small wars confident that He will triumph in us, who are His, as He has once and for all conquered through His Own Self-Sacrifice.  He must reign until all His enemies are crushed beneath His feet: therefore we as behooves Christians must tread down Satan under our feet, as Our Lady and Her Son ever trample the Serpent.  As Newman noted, Those who are on the side of the Apostles [and therefore of their Master, Christ] are on the winning side.

The Greeks retain, as a curious apocryphon, the so-called Psalm 151, not used in the Liturgy, which relates, first, God's choice of David and His anointing of Him via His instrument, the prophet Samuel (which the Breviary Lessons proclaimed yesterday), and second, David's besting of Goliath:

I was the smallest among my brethren, and the youngest in the house of my father; I did shepherd the sheep of my father.

My hands made an instrument, and my fingers fashioned a psaltery.

And who shall tell my Lord?  The Lord Himself, He Himself shall hearken.

He sent forth His angel and took me from the flocks of my father, and anointed me with the oil of His anointing.

My brethren were big and good, yet the Lord took not pleasure in them.

I went forth to meet the alien, and he cursed me by his idols.

But I drew his own sword and beheaded him, and took away the reproach from the sons of Israel.

Glory be...

Australian Calendars Old and New

Compare and contrast the particular calendars for the dioceses of Australia - what a topic for an introductory course in liturgical studies!

Here is my take on what a traditionalist would say...

First, it must be observed that three feasts have stayed the same: St Patrick (out of piety toward the Irish origins of our churches here, despite not being a Patron of Australia) and Our Lady Help of Christians (designated Patroness by an early synod, despite there being little devotion to her under this title) are 1st class feasts in the old calendar, and solemnities in the new; and St Peter Chanel (Protomartyr of Oceania, and canonized only shortly before the Council) has the identical feast (3rd class in old, which is a memorial in the new) in both calendars.

Second, several new saints have been inserted into the new calendar: as optional memorials (to be celebrated if desired), St Bernadette and St Peter To Rot (a native Papuan who was martyred by the Japanese - recall that Papua New Guinea only gained independence from Australia in 1975); and as a feast, Bl Mary MacKillop, "Australia's First Saint" as the media and dear religious sisters like to call her proleptically (a cynic might well ask, why only one blessed after more than 200 years? - whatever has happened in the Antipodes to the universal call to holiness but yesterday reaffirmed by Vatican II?).  To make room for Bl Mary MacK., St Dominic has been transferred to another day in the new calendar - prompting angry ineffectual noises from the Friars Preachers, one of whom rightly noted that "It would never have happened to St Francis!".

Thirdly, several saints have been removed or downgraded, in accordance with postconciliar measures to encourage noble simplicity (such as smashing statues), presumably connected somehow with promoting the universal call to holiness.  Since Australia is no longer a missionary country (!) - in other words, since 1976 its bishops have not been under the jurisdiction of Propaganda Fide - the universal patrons of the missions, St Francis Xavier and St Thérèse of the Child Jesus, no longer have 1st class feasts (solemnities) here, but only 3rd class (memorials).  This does not stop some Traditionalists arguing that the old calendar still applies in their cases, meaning that they are both secondary patrons of Australia, and not, at the same time.  Three saints - all Irish - have been altogether deleted from the new calendar for Australia: St Brigid, St Columba, and St Oliver Plunket.  Presumably it was felt that to fete St Patrick and everything Irish sufficed; surviving Brigidines and Columbans may feel differently.  (If only the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales had been inserted in their place, as an ecumenical gesture.)

Finally, two rather unfortunate new proper Masses have been composed and inserted into the Missal: a Mass for Australia Day, the 26th of January (necessitating transferring SS Timothy and Titus to another day), and a Mass for ANZAC Day, the 25th of April (and therefore moving the feast of St Mark the Evangelist!).  The Australia Day Mass I find downright embarrassing: it seems to be a Mass of thanksgiving for God's benefits received, but is somehow clunky.  As for "the one day of the year", Australia's real national day, ANZAC Day, prior to the Council, a rescript of the Sacred Congregation for Rites had allowed a Requiem Mass for ANZAC Day, when Australia recalls its war dead; now we are subjected to a Mass that doesn't know what its for, as the formulary is a confused mixture of petition for the faithful departed, and sixties-style longings for peace and justice ad nauseam.  Even the entrance and communion antiphons, plus the readings for the Mass can be either suitable for a funeral, or wholly focussed on hopes for peace, and the Preface can be either "of Christian Death" or "of Easter".  What the veterans must make of it I don't know: I find it very unsatisfying, and the civic ANZAC Day services at the cenotaph in every city and town frankly hit the mark better (leaving aside for the sake of argument the Holy Sacrifice truly reënacted at Mass).

What Reform of the Reform is called for?  For a start, an improvement in the texts of the Australia Day and ANZAC Day Masses.  Probably it is not necessary to restore the feasts of St Brigid et al., since with the dilution of the Irish strain in the Australian milieu they are no longer as popular saints as of old.  Arguably, given her great prominence in (remaining) Catholic statuary - and piety - St Thérese could have her feast day upped in importance as formerly.  Similar considerations would apply in having Our Lady of Perpetual Help given a nationwide feast day - dare I suggest Our Lady Help of Christians make way?

Our Lady of Perpetual Succour

I am the mother of beautiful love, of fear, of knowledge and of holy hope.  

(Ecclus xxiv, 24.)

Terra has alerted me that to-day is the feast-day of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour (or Help), pro aliquibus locis: in Australia, the Blessed Virgin under this title is the Patroness of three dioceses, and so two of them (poor bushwhacked Wilcannia-Forbes, and Maitland-Newcastle) keep her hallowed memory this day as a Solemnity - but Sale (newly supplied with a decent Catholic for bishop at last, so all power to His Lordship Christopher Prowse, and goodbye silly Jeremiah Coffey) wierdly keeps the feast instead on the 15th of November, who knows why (even more oddly, prior to the Council Sale kept the feast on the 3rd of July).

It astonishes me that the bishops of Australia didn't long ago, before the postconciliar decades of crisis, have Our Lady under this title given a feast throughout the land: basically, in having Our Lady Help of Christians as "Australia's Forgotten Patroness" - to quote the title of an ancient pamphlet I found - they missed the boat of popular devotion completely, since every single parish has a reproduction image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, usually with banks of lighted candles before it kept resupplied by eager votaries, but very few one of her as Help of Christians.  Typically, advised by undevout "liturgists", the bishops - even His Eminence - now push a new title, Our Lady of the Southern Cross, that again has no real popular support in the piety of the masses.  Now, don't get me wrong, de Maria numquam satis, but it really would make far more sense to have Our Lady of Perpetual Succour's feast day raised in importance.

I'm sure all Redemptorists would agree - and I must inquire of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer in Christchurch for a copy, if possible, of the Traditional Office of Our Mother of Perpetual Help.  The Proper Mass I have to hand:

MASS OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY OF PERPETUAL SUCCOUR

27^th June, pro aliquibus locis

INTROIT

Gaudeámus omnes in Dómino diem festum celebrántes, sub honóre beátæ Maríæ vírginis: de cujus solemnitáte gaudent ángeli, et colláudant Fílium Dei.  Ps. 44, 2.  Eructávit cor meum verbum bonum: dico ego ópera mea Regi.  V/.  Glória Patri…

COLLECT

Dómine Jesu Christe, qui genitrícem tuam Maríam, cujus insígnem venerámur imáginem, matrem nobis dedísti perpétuo succúrrere parátam: concéde, quæsumus; ut nos, matérnam ejus opem assídue implorántes, redemptiónis tuæ fructum perpétuo experíri mereámur: Qui vivis…

EPISTLE (Ecclesiasticus xxiv, 23-31)

Ego quasi vitis fructificávi suavitátem odóris: et flores mei, fructus honóris et honestátis.  Ego mater pulchræ dilectiónis, et timóris, et agnitiónis, et sanctæ spei.  In me grátia omnis viæ et veritátis: in me omnis spes vitæ et virtútis.  Transíte ad me omnes qui concupíscitis me, et a generatiónibus meis implémini.  Spíritus enim meus super mel dulcis, et heréditas mea super mel et favum.  Memória mea in generatiónes sæculórum.  Qui edunt me, adhuc esúrient: et qui bibunt me, adhuc sítient.  Qui audit me, non confundétur: et qui operántur in me, non peccábunt.  Qui elúcidant me, vitam ætérnam habébunt.

GRADUAL & ALLELUIA (Canticle vi, 3 & 9; Judith xiii, 22; St Luke i, 28)

Tota formósa et suávis es, fília Sion, pulchra ut luna, elécta ut sol, terríbilis ut castrórum ácies ordináta.  V/.  Benedíxit te Dóminus in virtúte sua, quia per te ad níhilum redégit inimícos nostros.

Allelúja, allelúja.  V/.  Ave, María, grátia plena: Dóminus tecum: benedícta tu in muliéribus.  Allelúja.

GOSPEL (St John xix, 25-27)

In illo témpore: Stabant juxta crucem Jesu mater ejus, et soror matris ejus María Cléophæ, et María Magdaléne.  Cum vidísset ergo Jesus matrem, et discípulum stantem, quem diligébat, dicit matri suæ: Múlier, ecce fílius tuus.  Deínde dicit discípulo: Ecce mater tua.  Et ex illa hora accépit eam discípulis in sua.

OFFERTORY (cf. Jeremias xviii, 20b)

Recordáre, virgo Mater, in conspéctu Dei, ut loquáris pro nobis bona, et ut avértat indignatiónem suam a nobis.

SECRET

Tua, Dómine, propitiatióne, et beátæ virginis et matris Maríæ intercessióne, ad perpétuam atque præséntem hæc oblátio nobis profíciat prosperitátem et pacem. Per…

PREFACE of Our Lady (…Et te in festivitáte…)

COMMUNION

Regína mundi digníssima, María virgo perpétua, intercéde pro nostra pace et salúte, quæ genuísti Christum Dóminum Salvatórem ómnium.

POSTCOMMUNION

Adjuvet nos, quæsumus, Dómine, immaculátæ genitrícis tuæ sempérque vírginis Maríæ intercéssio veneránda: ut, quos perpétuis cumulávit benefíciis, a cunctis perículis absolútos, sua fáciat pietáte concórdes: Qui vivis…

The Collect, the solemn asseveration of Holy Church, teaches us by its confident plea that it is Our Lord Himself Who deigned to give us His Mother to be our mother of perpetual help, whose singular image we revere, that we may assiduously implore her maternal aid, and thereby ever deserve to receive the fruit of the redemption He wrought for us on Calvary.  (Of course, all this is but a consequence of Our Crucified Lord's donation to us of His Mother to be ours, as St John's Gospel reveals; and of the truth that we may rightly view with loving regard such a beautiful portrait of she who is our mother.)  

Note how the Secret and Postcommunion, originally from the common fund of Marian orations, have been slightly reworded - clearly they were selected because both contain the word "perpetual"; in the Secret, the words "and mother" have been inserted, albeit with "ever" removed, while in the Postcommunion, the original word "glorious" has been replaced with "immaculate": these minor adjustments emphasise in both cases that the Virgin Mary is also Mother, Mother of God and, by her maternal intercession, the Mother of Perpetual Succour for all her faithful children, vouchsafed to her by her dying Son in the person of the Beloved Disciple (as the Gospel of the Mass portrays).  The Offertory and Communion chants also focus on her endless prayers to God on our behalf, the Offertory being a daring rewording of the words the prophet Jeremias prayed to God: "Remember that I have stood in thy sight, to speak good for them, and turn away thy indignation from them".  As for the Epistle... "I am the mother of beautiful love, of fear, of knowledge and of holy hope."  (Ecclus xxiv, 24.)  It says it all really.

All this reminds me: I really have yet another shrine to visit in Rome: the church of St Alphonsus, where reposes the hallowed icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour - the church and icon being in care of the Redemptorists, who as indefatigable missioners sedulously promoted this devotion worldwide, as in their famous Perpetual Novena to her (familiar to me from the Redemptorist's great church in Perth, W.A., which is absolutely packed for the Novena every Saturday afternoon; the same devotion is so popular at their church in Singapore that the nearest railway station is actually called Novena Station!) with what fruits are obvious in the ubiquitous nature of this sacred image of the Blessed Virgin. 

Don't forget to look to Redemptorist Father Scott Bailey's blog for the traditional three Novena prayers...

Our Lady's Office

Apart from reading Lauds of the Day, all the other Hours I've read to-day, for convenience sake while out, and pro pia devotione, from my little pocket edition of Our Lady's Little Office - not from the Baronius Press edition, full as it is of misprints, but from my smaller, well-thumbed and annotated Carmel Books edition of 1997, being a facsimile of a 1914 publication.  This I did apart from anything else because to-day the Office of Our Lady on Saturday is read anyway in the Breviary, and because the Little Office, while being quite as liturgical as the full Office, is shorter, and this comforted me.  (I will soon enough return to the larger volume for 1st Vespers of the 4th Sunday after Pentecost, and therein will pray again the moving Psalms 143 and 144.)

While on the subject of the Breviary, I note an article on the New Liturgical Movement blog, and the very large numbers of comments made, all in earnest discussion of it as it pertains to the laity's use of it and suchlike forms of the Divine Office - all such praying, united in the differing forms of the Prayer of the Church, is excellent and laudable.  While I have declined from reading the Night Office, I still adhere to the Day Hours of the Breviary, and aim at least to read each day's Lessons if not the whole of Matins.   There is something very good about the weekly praying the Psalms - each day of the week, I am pleased to read again the same Psalms at each Hour, and certain verses become as old friends.  On Tuesdays, for example, I read at None Quoniam propter te mortificamur tota die, and am forcibly put in mind of my old friend Peter, now Br Paul Marie of the Cross, who prays the selfsame words and lives them in his godly penitential life devoted to the Lord as a Carmelite Monk in Wyoming.

As I read at Matins of Our Lady, Nos cum Prole pia benedicat Virgo Maria - or, as the Marquess of Bute once rendered it, "Bless us, Mary, Maiden mild; Bless us, Jesu, Mary's Child."

True Brotherhood

Six months to Boxing Day... exactly half a year before the feast of St Stephen, Protomartyr, first of that white-robed army of those who bore witness to Our Lord usque ad mortem, in sincerest imitation of Him Who is the True and Faithful Witness, Who shed His Blood to save us all.

Fittingly, to-day is the feast of SS John and Paul, themselves holy Martyrs of Christ; last year on this feast I blogged a deal about them, but this year I wish to focus on their Collect, and also in passing to rejoice that I will, God willing, be in Rome come September staying not far at all from their church, the ancient basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo al Celio ("on the Caelian Hill"), where these brothers repose awaiting the Last Trump. (Very pleasingly, given the benefits I have received from the Passionist Fathers in their ministry in Hobart, it turns out that it is their Congregation that has charge of the basilica, and indeed their founder, St Paul of the Cross, is also buried therein.) There is a link to St Stephen, too: for another church on the Caelian is that of San Stefano Rotondo.

As to their Collect:

Quaesumus, omnipotens Deus, ut nos geminata laetitia hodierna festivitatis excipiat, quae de beatorum Joannis et Pauli glorificatione procedit, quos eadem fides et passio vere fecit esse germanos. Per...

(We beg, almighty God, that we obtain the twofold joy of today's feast, which proceeds from the glorification of blessed John and Paul, who were made true brothers by their joint faith and suffering. Through...)

Relics of St Philip Neri

The Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer have given a glimpse of their Roman pilgrimage, including visiting the Chiesa Nuova, and venerating the relics of St Philip Neri...

Have a good look at these images.  I hope to behold them with my own eyes, come September.

Half-way to Christmas

Somewhere Pius Parsch put it that we could think of the Liturgical Year as beginning at Septuagesima (when the Breviary begins at the beginning, with Genesis chapter i), and coming to its end with Advent (presaging the final Coming of the Lord) and then, at Christmastide through to Epiphanytide and Candlemas, delighting now in what will happen at the consummation of all the ages - the Lord having come, God and His people will be united forever, at the Nuptial Feast of the Lamb.  With this in mind, the 25th of June marks half-way to Christmas, when we celebrate not just the historical birth of Christ in Bethlehem of Judæa, but His eternal begetting by the Father, and His future return to abide in our midst evermore as our King.  

The time after Pentecost is the time of the Church, the Body of Christ on earth, the Kingdom in germ, His Immaculate Bride, given life by the promised Holy Spirit.  Therefore, quite rightly is this season illuminated by two principal celebrations: the ever-present power of the Crucified and Risen One, which is our focus every Sunday, the Lord's Day; and the ever-present power of the same Crucified and Risen One, which is our focus every Saint's Day, for then we delight in the triumph of His grace in a chosen soul, a true Christian, since Christianos means "one belonging to Christ".  What eternal Victory each Sunday shews us in the Saint of Saints, the selfsame victory achieved in the life of one baptized we see in each Saint whose anniversary we recall.  This is why St Paul could say, "Be ye imitators of me, as I am of Christ" (I Cor. xi, 1) - and the Church, guided by the Spirit into all truth, has feast by feast various Saints say the same to us would-be Christians: Imitate me, as I imitated Christ, and won the immarcescible crown.

Yesterday, and even the day before that, on the Vigil, we had the superlative witness of St John Baptist to behold, that as he told us and all men, Behold the Lamb of God, so too we should turn to Christ.  Heeding His Herald's wonderful humility we should - as is most just - cry out with St John, He must increase, I must decrease.  Not for nothing does the New Testament make so much of the Forerunner of the Lord; his example is peerless.  

Byzantine iconography, in the type of image called the Deësis ("supplication"), loves to portray Christ, on His throne as our coming Judge, attended by the Virgin and the Baptist, both of whom are pleading with Him on our behalf.  

The Holy Roman Church likewise puts great emphasis on the Baptist's prayers - at Mass, he is named in the Confiteor, the Suscipe Sancta Trinitas, the Nobis quoque peccatoribus of the Canon, and the Last Gospel, while his words of witness to the Lamb of God are repeated in the Gloria in excelsis, the Agnus Dei, and the Ecce Agnus Dei.  Holy Mother Church prays in the Vigil Collect that, walking in the way of salvation, following John's exhortation, we may come safely unto Christ; she prays in the Vigil Postcommunion - just as Byzantine art depicts - that his potent prayer obtain for us the mercy of the Lord Whose coming he foretells; and all the orations of the Day Mass say much the same and more.

To-day the Traditional Rite places St William (Guglielmo) of Vercelli, Abbot of Monte Vergine, before us; a monastic founder of long ago... perhaps in our unmonastic age it is not for nothing that we should recall a monk, that is, one who is monachos, one alone with the Alone, seeking after the one thing necessary, the One Who alone is necessary.  His collect, which I have been mulling over this day, actually inspired these thoughts and this post:

Deus, qui infirmitate nostræ ad terendam salutis viam in sanctis tuis exemplum et præsidium collocasti: da nobis, ita beati Gulielmi Abbatis merita venerari, ut ejusdem excipiamus suffragia, et vestigia prosequamur.  Per...

(God, Who hast set in Thy Saints an example and defence for our infirmity, to smooth the path of salvation, grant unto us so to revere the merits of blessed Abbot William, that we may obtain the suffrages, and follow after the steps of the same.  Through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who with Thee liveth and reigneth in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.  Amen.)

I deliberately give the full ending of the Collect, because it reminds us that whatever example, whatever deserts, whatever prayers, whatever benefits soever, all are of avail and are inspired and are empowered and are granted only in and through and by Our Saviour, Who with His Father and the Holy Spirit is One God in perfect Trinity, evermore.

Gregorian Chant Group

Many thanks to Paul, a reader (God help him) of this silly blog, who met me at Carmel at Christmas, and subsequently let me know that at St Francis, which according to the actual borders on the ground is my local parish here in Launceston (though I hardly ever go there!), there was a group of parishioners interested in Gregorian chant about to meet - so I braved the cold and fog and went along...

Fr Allan, a very pleasant Franciscan (new to me, though 14 months in the parish), was there already, at the organ.  Once a half-dozen of us interested persons assembled, and he'd led us in a Glory be, prayer, and a "St Cecilia, pray for us, St Gregory, pray for us" - it's nice to see humble unaffected piety in a priest - we began: fortuitously (or providentially) enough, this evening is the eve of St John Baptist, and Fr explained, from the handout he'd provided, that the familiar sol-fa scale derives from the first verse of the hymn Ut queant laxis, whose words are a supplication to St John that he cleanse sordid lips to sing the wonders of his life.

To begin with, Father had provided us with In manus tuas Domine, the usual form of the Responsory at Compline, the night prayer of the Church: I can't say how good it was to be among those singing the chant again!  In due course we practiced a simple syllabic setting of the Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus Dei; and concluded learning for now (the hour having ended) with the first stanza of the Veni Creator Spiritus.  As a final prayer, we sang through In manus tuas once more, said a Glory be and prayed a blessing.  It made for a very gentle meditative closure of our first meeting.

Clearly Father has a lot of knowledge of the chant: and I recognize from his photocopies that some of the chants come from an old edition of the Liber Usualis with English rubrics, while other items from an old-rite Compline book put out only a few years back (the font is distinctive).  

As I mentioned to the others, I was actually baptized there in the church at yon font, only a few metres from where we were practising around the organ: my spiritual birthplace, strange to think!  Please remember, however, poor Fr Anthony, who baptized me, but has left the ministry subsequently.

Afterward, while lingering in the narthex and saying a quick goodbye, to my embarrassment-and-gladness (let's be honest, we all like a bit of attention), it turned out three of my fellow singers knew of me via this blog; Hi, Paul, Mary, and Daniel- it'll be good to see you, Fr, and everyone next week on Tuesday at 7.30 pm.

Solemn Vows

May I extend my congratulations and friendly prayers to Br Paul Rowse, O.P., who has just made his lifelong solemn vows as a Friar Preacher on the Feast of the Sacred Heart last Friday.

I look forward to soon seeing him a deacon, and, please God, a priest.

St Dominic, pray for him.

Turn the Altars Round

Augustine says (De Verbis Domini, Sermone 100, 2): “The East,” that is Christ, “calleth thee, and thou turnest to the West,” namely mortal and fallible man.  

– St Thomas Aquinas, S.T., IIaIIæ, 189, 10, resp.

Glad tidings of great joy I bring: the Archbishop of Westminster has cast out the 'temporary' forward altar at his Cathedral, and henceforth Masses will be celebrated at the original high altar, as is most just; while still Mass can be said there facing the people, nonetheless the return to the proper, more evidently sacral high place of sacrificial worship ought help the restoration of what is much to be desiderated: liturgy ad orientem.

In the Coptic Liturgy, directly before the Sursum corda dialogue that leads into the Preface, or rather into the whole Eucharistic Prayer or ‘Anaphora’, the deacon (or, in his absence, the server) exclaims: “Stand up with fear and trembling! Look toward the east and say: ‘Mercy, peace, and sacrifice of praise!’”. This  “Look toward the east” is expressed in Greek as Εἰς νατολὰς βλέψατε, and in Latin as Aspicite ad orientem – a phrase founded upon Baruch 4:36 and 5:5. The Coptic admonition states explicitly what all classical liturgies down the ages have assumed, as an Apostolic tradition: that worship is directed toward the (liturgical) east. For the east, synonymous with the dawn and with the sun, is a symbol of Christ our Lord and God, Who is the true East (cf. Zech 6:12, LXX & Vulg.), the Dawn from on high (Lk 1:78), the Sun of justice (Mal 4:2a (or 3:20a)), the true Light of the world (Jn 8:12; 9:5), Who has risen and shall never set, Who has ascended above the heaven of heavens to the east (Ps 67(68):33, Vulg.), Who shall come again in glory as lightning flashing from the east to the west (Mt 24:27), as was prophesied by Ezekiel (43:2).

Winter Solstice

Yesterday marked the shortest day in our austral winter, with sunrise at 7:38 am and sunset at 4:49 pm; it wasn't too bad a day at all, however, being fine and 8-16°C... I even went walking around the Gorge, such as I haven't done for ages given the early evenings, rainy days and work fatigue. Unfortunately, next comes miserable wet and foggy July, then still cold and unpleasant August, before things brighten in September.

Pray for Priests

Fr Flader once told me that "the Devil hates priests - if he can get them with women, he will; if he can get them with men, he will; if he can get them with children, he will; if he can get them with alcohol, he will... the Devil hates priests."  Of course, as we are not Manichæans, we know that God is infinitely above the machinations of Satan, and that God's grace and His angels are sent to all men, including priests, to guard and save them; and the grace of state that comes with Holy Orders ought suffice to keep priests on the straight and narrow path that leads to life - if, that is, life is lived with fidelity to grace, a life focussed on prayer and the Sacraments, a life of charity, hope and faith - and as part of the Divine plan, we ought intercede for each other, and especially for priests, whose calling is so supernatural, and constitutes a difficult path.

In this Year for Priests, the following indulgences have been conceded to all the faithful, precisely to encourage them to pray for priests:

The Plenary Indulgence is granted to all the faithful who are truly repentant who, in a church or in a chapel, devoutly attend the divine Sacrifice of Mass and offer prayers to Jesus Christ the Eternal High Priest, for the priests of the Church, and any other good work which they have done on that day, so that he may sanctify them and form them in accordance with His Heart, as long as they have made expiation for their sins through sacramental confession and prayed in accordance with the Supreme Pontiff's intentions: on the days in which the Year for Priests begins and ends [that is, the Feast of the Sacred Heart], on the day of the 150th anniversary of the pious passing of St John Mary Vianney [that is, the 4th of August, NOT his traditional feast day of the 8th], on the first Thursday of the month or on any other day established by the local Ordinaries for the benefit of the faithful.

...

Lastly, the Partial Indulgence is granted to all the faithful every time they devoutly recite five Our Fathers, Hail Marys and Glorias, or another expressly approved prayer, in honour of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to obtain that priests be preserved in purity and holiness of life.

I rather like the prayer for priests that St Thérèse composed (though I'm unsure if it is "expressly approved", yet the general grant of partial indulgence in the Enchiridion would seem to extend to it):

O Jesus, eternal Priest, keep your priests within the shelter of Your Sacred Heart, where none may touch them.  Keep unstained their anointed hands, which daily touch Your Sacred Body.  Keep unsullied their lips,daily purpled with your Precious Blood.  Keep pure and unearthly their hearts, sealed with the sublime mark of the priesthood.  Let Your holy love surround them and shield them from the world's contagion.  Bless their labours with abundant fruit and may the souls to whom they minister be their joy and consolation here and in heaven their beautiful and everlasting crown.  Amen.

Year of the Priest, Year of the Sacred Heart

I have just read our Pope's Letter inaugurating a special Holy Year for Priests, running from the Feast of the Sacred Heart in 2009 (the 19th of June) until the return of that feast in 2010 (on the 11th of June), to mark the sesquicentennial of the death - or rather, the passage to eternal life - of the holy Curé of Ars, St John Vianney, patron of parish priests.

I must say, until I read this letter I had no idea of the beauty and depth of the Holy Father's evidently long meditation on the priesthood, the Sacred Heart, and St John Vianney.

What an extraordinary manifestation of traditional priestly piety is this Letter!  It shrinks not from proposing voluntary adherence to the evangelical counsels, and not excluding serious self-discipline and penitential living, as helping bring about that holiness in the priest which comes of fidelity to grace and perseverance in prayer, that thus the holy, zealous priest as a true and faithful witness of the One Priest, Christ, will impel himself to undertake a vigorous evangelization of the scattered sheep, a preaching by word and example, centred on the Eucharist and Confession as the great sacramental means of salvation proposed  by the prodigious love of God to men, and providentially mediated to all through the sublime gift of Holy Orders that makes the priesthood so wonderful, and so unmerited by those truly conscious of what it is that they all unworthy receive, to what they are called to be configured, and what they must needs hand over to the multitudes: the priest must shine forth as the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

This is what our world, and we sinners need: holy priests, priests after the Sacred Heart of Jesus, who alone can minister to the doubts and fears and wounds of man in the Lord's Name.

After God Himself, I must attribute the hope of my salvation to the fatherly guidance and sacred ministry of His priests: for it is they who feed us with the Eucharist, offer up the all-sufficient Sacrifice, preach to us and bless in His Name, even washing us of our sins, as the Lord gave them command.  Retribuere, dignare, Domine, omnibus nobis bona facientibus, propter Nomen tuum, vitam æternam.  Amen.

Please pray for priests.

At Adoration

Stupidly I forgot last night that it was the eve of the Sacred Heart, and so read the wrong Vespers and Compline; oh well.  Because of my late-discovered mistake, I didn't organize myself to get to early Mass, the only Mass I could have attended to-day; but at least there was - unusually - Eucharistic Adoration at Church of the Apostles, the mother-church of Launceston, this afternoon from noon to six o'clock, and I made it along for the last 45 minutes.  It may seem tepid and lukewarm of me, but I simply knelt and read the Day Hours, Vespers, then Matins (which I'd had no time for earlier), just occasionally lifting up my eyes and heart to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.

I would comment to all readers the sweetly devout and loving words of St Bonaventure that comprise the last three lessons of this feast, and also the moving sketch of the growth in devotion to the Sacred Heart down the ages that is given in the middle three lessons.

It was a pity that Adoration did not end with Benediction, and a greater pity that Father saw fit to repose the blessed Sacrament wearing a stole but no alb: it appeared lazy and irreverent.

Many years ago now I was a parishioner at Sacred Heart, New Town, and there learnt what is my customary petition to the Sacred Heart, the prayer that Fr (now Bp) Jarrett had put together and had printed on the back of holy cards of the handsome statue of the Sacred Heart he'd commissioned for the church from Oberammergau, whose plinth bore the inscription "Divine Love in a Human Heart" (from the Australian poet and hymnwriter James McAuley, another former parishioner):

Sacred Heart of Jesus, burning with love for us, inflame our hearts with love for Thee.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, I give myself to Thee, through Mary.

Jesus, gentle and humble of heart, make my heart like unto Thine.

May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be ever loved, praised and adored.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, bless and protect our families.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, our peace and reconciliation, have mercy on us.

Santa Maria in Vallicella

The titular of the Chiesa Nuova, seat of the Roman Oratory and resting-place of St Philip Neri, is Our Lady, and the patronal feast is kept each passing year on her birthday - the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the 8th of September, some nine months having passed since her Immaculate Conception:

On the eighth of September 

Saint Anna gave birth 

and all of the world 

was filled with joy and mirth: 

Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria, 

Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria.

Whatever of this little ditty (to the tune of the famous Lourdes hymn), on the 8th of September I will arrive early in the morning in the Eternal City, and hope to keep the feast of Our Lady's Birth  at her famous church there.  

Infant Mary, Joy of earth,

We with all this world of mirth,

Light-hearted and joy-laden,

Greet the morning of thy Birth,

Little Maiden.

I note certain other saint's days of special Roman relevance ensue:

• Thursday the 10th is the feast of St Nicolas of Tolentino: his church, San Nicola da Tolentino agli Orti Sallusti ("in the Gardens of Sallust"!) is home to Rome's Armenian Rite Catholics;
  
• Friday the 11th is the commemoration of SS Protus & Hyacinth, specially venerated at both Propaganda Fide and the church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini (where St Philip and his first disciples conducted their devotions; they even had charge of it for some years);
  
• Monday the 14th is of course Holy Cross Day, and I hope to go to Santa Croce in Gerusalemme to adore* the portion of the Holy Cross and other relics of Our Lord's Passion preserved therein;
  
• Thursday the 17th is the commemoration of the Sacred Stigmata of St Francis, and an excellent day to visit Assisi, being the day before I return to Australia (and that day itself is amusingly appropriate: it's the feast of St Joseph of Cupertino, a holy Franciscan best known for his miraculous flights and levitations, who is thereby a patron saint of air travel).

[* To relics or icons of the saints, one pays a relative veneration - since it is directed not to the material object, but "through" it to the holy elect of God whose relic or image it is, since to such friends of Christ in heaven are due our love and reverence - while to relics or icons of Our Saviour, one pays a relative adoration - not adoring the object, which would be mad and detestable idolatry, a bowing down to sticks and stones, but a faithful direction of our worshipping gaze beyond the material to God the Son Incarnate; and in the special case of relics of His Passion, such as fragments of the Holy Cross, the Lance, the Nails, the Crown of Thorns, we must ever bear in mind that these were drenched in His Precious Blood, in the Gore of God!]

Remember to pass on any useful hints for a first-time traveller to Italy...

Callista

The last few evenings - as my bedtime reading! - I've gone back to Newman's novel Callista, which sits beside Wiseman's Fabiola in the "Catholic novel" section of my bookshelf (alongside Cather's Death Comes to the Archbishop - no, not a wish-fulfilment fantasy, but a lovely lyric work, well-able to be dipped into as a soothing tonic - Robinson's melodramatic The Cardinal, and Marshall's comic but moving All Glorious Within).

Wiseman and Newman, writing in the mid-1850's, have the quaint old-time habit of interjecting as the omniscient author throughout their works, but that is part of the charm of both books, which deal with Christianity during the great persecutions - Newman's, that of Decius, as it struck North Africa; and Wiseman's, the greatest and last of all, that of terrible Diocletian, in Rome itself, then truly the seat of Antichrist, drunk with the blood of the saints (many of whom have cameo roles in the novel).

Both romances, for their true Christian message, their loving portrayal of the sanctity of the primitive Church, and their old-fashioned style are well-worth reading.  I turn now to a work of non-fiction: Frend's Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church.

Pray for us, all ye holy Martyrs, - That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

By the triumph of Thy grace in all Thy holy Martyrs, – Lord, deliver us.

To Rome - and Florence

I have decided that it really would be remiss of me to spend over a week in Rome, partly as a pilgrimage to the churches associated with St Philip Neri, and not at least take a side trip to Florence - where he was born, where he was baptized (at the Duomo, surely), where he was schooled (at the famous Dominican Convent of San Marco, illuminated by the sacred art of Bl Fra Angelico) - and also stop by the headquarters of the ICKSP, at Gricigliano...

(That well-known traveller, my former parish priest, Fr Rowe, visited there with parishioners, and all found it a blessed experience as I recall.  As for myself, my only encounter with the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest is that one of their priests was in attendance at Juventutem during World Youth Day in Sydney - one year ago - and heard my confession.)

Again, any advice on travel to and around Rome - and Florence - in early to mid-September would be most appreciated...

Misprint of the Day

This is getting ridiculous:

For Confudantur at the start of Psalm 39 part iii (Tuesday Terce), read Confundantur.

(1962 Breviarium Romanum, Nova et Vetera edition, Vol. II, p. 471.)

Breviary Misprint Again

The Nova et Vetera edition of the 1962 Breviary incorrectly gives St Gregory Barbarigo's feast as occurring on the 15th of June (Vol. II, p. 644) - that should be (as in the Calendar) the 17th of June.

Please don't think me curmudgeonly, this edition is really very fine and handy, it's just that I do feel bound to note its misprints, especially as some reviewers overtly contrasted its purity of text with the F.S.S.P. reprint edition.

Schola Gregoriana Hobartiensis: a Retrospect

While filing papers this evening I found my old Gregorian chant folders from my years as a member of the Schola Gregoriana Hobartiensis Spiritus Sancti ("the Schola"), from 1995 until 1999 - from when I learnt of its existence from a member, Bronwyn (please pray for her - she has a hole in the heart), to when I left Hobart for Melbourne, though I remained a guest member when in town...  

The Schola had been founded some years before by Bede Dunne, an accomplished musician and chant expert who had been conducting church choirs since before the Council; he is now very old, blind and frail (pray for him and his dear wife Joan, herself unwell), and in the past few years the Schola as I knew it, with its Benedictine ethos, died a natural death, though its latter function of providing music for the monthly Missa cantata has been continued by a new choir arising phœnix-like under new leadership with a new membership.

When I joined the Schola, its raison d'être was to chant Vespers roughly monthly (and occasionally other paraliturgical devotions, such as singing the Litanies of the Saints on St Gregory's day at the Cathedral, though that was before my time).  Once Fr (now Bp) Jarrett organized to begin monthly Latin Masses, he prevailed upon Bede to change our purpose to singing at these Missæ cantatæ, although in effect this meant the end of our orientation toward the sung Office.  

Despite this, the Schola maintained a monastic spirit: our weekly practices always began with the chanting of the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus, with versicle and collect, and concluded with sung Compline according to the Monastic Rite, observing due ceremonial.  I remember that my role (later taken by Ben) was to chant the lectio brevis - but one night, at the mention of adversarius vester Diabolus, who goeth about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, Yvonne mischievously made a comic clawing gesture toward me - I couldn't sing my part straight-faced for a year afterward!

At one stage, Bede, in an access of fervour, even designed cream habits for us Gregorianists to wear, complete with scapulars embellished with a design signifying our Schola... owing to the embarrassment some of us felt at thus appearing in public (and in one newspaper article), these costumes were quietly laid aside.

But to return to my beginnings, chant-wise: the first liturgical function at which I sang with the Schola was (Monastic) Vespers of the Ascension, which was held at St John's, Richmond - site of our recent pilgrimage - back on Sunday (yes) the 28th of May 1995; as I recall, there was Benediction to follow, and Fr Hayres was only too pleased to preside.  According to my surviving copy, I was to intone the first antiphon, Viri Galilæi, and later the Magnificat antiphon O Rex gloriæ; still their tunes are in my head, as some of the first chant that ever I learnt.  It's strange to think that was fourteen years ago...

The weekend of Friday the 2nd to Sunday the 4th of February 1996 was used for a Gregorian chant workshop: Terce, Sext and None according to the Monastic Rite for Saturday and for Sunday, plus first Vespers of Septuagesima, all practiced hectically then sung in the church of St Canice - and there was much else...

Vespers of St Matthew, at St Matthew's, Pontville (1998); of the First Sunday of Advent at the Cathedral (1998); St Cecilia's Day at St John's, Glenorchy; various Sundays after Pentecost (such as in late October 1997 at the Cathedral again); Vespers of the Dead, which we sang at our practice venue, the parish hall of Sacred Heart, New Town; the fourth Sunday of Advent, according to the Roman Rite, at Corpus Christi, Bellerive (1997); Passion Sunday; the second Sunday after Easter; the third Sunday after Pentecost, or "within the Octave of the Sacred Heart", sung at Sacred Heart with Fr Jarrett presiding...

We even sang - and sang, and sang - unusually for us, mainly in English, at Sr Catherine Maria's eremitical consecration at St Francis Xavier's, South Hobart.  I can still hear Bede referring to "I am the Bread of Life" as having "a fairground tune"!

About the last Masses I find myself having sung were those of the Epiphany, and of a Sunday after the Epiphany, in early 2001.  But there were many others: Septuagesima 1996; second Sunday of Lent, 1996; Fourth after Easter, 1996; Trinity Sunday, 1996 and 1998; sixth and tenth and nineteenth and twenty-third after Pentecost, 1996; Advent Sunday, 1996; second Sunday of Advent, 1997 and 1998; Candlemas, 1997; third Sunday of Lent, 1997; Low Sunday, 1997; fifth after Easter, 1997; Corpus Christi, 1997; seventh and eleventh and sixteenth and twentieth after Pentecost, 1997; All Souls, 1997; fourth after Epiphany, 1998; first Sunday of Lent, 1998; Palm Sunday, 1998; third after Easter, 1998; fifth and ninth and fourteenth and eighteenth after Pentecost, 1998; All Saints, 1998; Sexagesima 1999; sixth and tenth after Pentecost again, in 1999...

During Bede's absences overseas or, increasingly, due to ill-health, Em would step in as choir-mistress pro tempore, but she was always first among equals, helping us master simple psalm-tones; Bede it was who would make our heads go round in circles as he carefully expounded the secrets contained in the adiastematic notation transcribed from old manuscripts into the Graduale Triplex, while we struggled to hit the right note!  We learnt many useful terms, such as celeriter, quilisma, epizema, and so forth world without end.

The Schola, when singing Mass, tended to restrict itself to attempting the proper Gregorian Introit, Offertory and Communion, plus perhaps the Alleluia (but not its verse); the Gradual was too difficult usually, and if time were short or our skills unequal, we would psalm-tone much of the Proper.  However, Bede would also give us interesting things to attempt, such as singing the Alleluia in organum, a fifth or an octave apart, producing a magnificently barbarous sound.  Since the people knew it, we nearly always sang Missa VIII - de Angelis - and Credo III.

From getting to know Ben and Jane, who came along to our early 1996 workshop, joined up and ended up giving me lifts to our practices, I gained an enduring friendship; the missal I take to Mass was a gift from them - it had belonged to Ben's mother Kathleen, a convert who had raised him and his brothers in straitened circumstances, and a staunch member of the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales: May she rest in peace.

I also remember in particular Kevin, a most humble and kindly older man, a secular Franciscan, who some years after perished in a house fire: Requiescat in pace.  I still remember sitting in the sun room reading Lauds with him one morning when we were attending a Gregorian chant intensive weekend workshop leading up to Pentecost in 1998, which we kept at Deloraine, again with Fr Hayres, that peripatetic priest (now retired), himself a noted astronomer, musician and ex-Olympic swimmer.  That weekend we sang the Proper chant at the Novus Ordo parish Mass, and then Vespers with Benediction in the evening.

You learn useful things in choirs: such as, "You're never louder than when you're wrong."

Absit omen!

Varia

Various goings-on this week: for a change, there will be Benediction at Carmel this afternoon at 5.45 pm, it being the transferred solemnity of Corpus Christi, and on Friday, the feast of the Sacred Heart, there will be Exposition at Church of Apostles from after the noon Mass until 6 pm (presumably concluding with Benediction, though who knows these days).

On the domestic front, I've just bought a new bookcase, to deal with the ever-growing overflow and inflow of books that I purchase... at the moment, I actually have four empty shelves, but that won't last long!  (A friend of mine and fellow bibliophile, Jennifer - one of the members of Psallamus, the choir at St Aloysius, the Latin Mass parish in Melbourne - tells me that she's had to give away twelve boxes of books in order to free up the spare room: I was tempted to say, Why didn't you send them here? but realize that was my biblio-avarice talking.)

In other news, two seminarians I know are off to Rome in due course for studies, and another seminarian (currently at Wagga) is doing well, Deo gratias. 

******

Litanies - which to say when?  I came up with a scheme for this years back, which I may resurrect pro opportunitate:

• Sunday - Litanies of the Most Holy Name of Jesus;
  
• Monday- Litanies of the Most Precious Blood;
  
• Tuesday - not litanies, but the Veni Creator or Veni Sancte in honour of the Holy Ghost;
  
• Wednesday - Litanies of St Joseph;
  
• Thursday - Litanies of the Most Blessed Sacrament;
  
• Friday - Litanies of the Sacred Heart;
  
• Saturday - Litanies of Loreto, that is, of Our Lady.

There are various systems by which certain days are considered as set aside for sundry devotions - this scheme is a composition of these.  Of course, Saturdays are devoted to Our Lady, as all men know; and so likewise Wednesdays for St Joseph, her most chaste spouse.  The Litanies of the Holy Name mention the Resurrection, to which mystery Sunday is dedicated; Mondays traditionally are days to pray for the Holy Souls in Purgatory, and the Litanies of the Precious Blood contain the words "Precious Blood of Jesus, delivering souls from the lake of purgatory"; God the Holy Ghost is customarily specially adored on Tuesdays; and of course Thursday is the weekly commemoration of the institution of the Eucharist, while Friday is devoted to the Passion, which is mentioned in the Litanies of the Sacred Heart.

It ought be observed that the full Litanies of the Saints are suitable for every day, but given their length may be used on penitential days especially.