Mass for the Church (White)

Deo gratias, white vestments!  My parish priest, being a wise pastor, celebrated a Mass to-day "For the Church", using the first of the formularies in the section of the Missal rather clumsily referred to as "Masses and Prayers for Various Needs and Occasions" – I give the orations below, and note for the moment (do not fear, gentle reader) that he used, as seemed appropriate, the Eucharistic Prayer for Use in Masses for Various Needs IV (to quibble, the rubrics suggest that perhaps variant I or II would have been more apposite) – this Prayer, as all men know, was originally drawn up in Switzerland, but was revised to make it more explicitly orthodox when done into Latin, and the new translation reflects this; and its peculiarity is that it exists in four variants, the variants being the four Prefaces alone appointed for use with it, matched with four intercessory passages that slot into the body of the Prayer.

1. For the Church

Collect

O God, who in your wonderful providence decreed that Christ's Kingdom should be extended throughout the earth and that all should become partakers of his saving redemption, grant, we pray, that your Church may be the universal sacrament of salvation and that Christ may be revealed to all as the hope of the nations and their Saviour. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Prayer over the Offerings

Look upon the offerings of the people consecrated to you, O merciful God, and, through the power of this Sacrament, grant that the multitude of those who believe in you may constantly be made a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of your own. Through Christ our Lord.

Prayer after Communion

O God, who constantly feed and strengthen the Church with your Sacraments, grant to us, who have been nourished at the heavenly table, that, by obeying your teachings of love, we may become for the human family a life-giving leaven and a means to salvation. Through Christ our Lord.

"Universal sacrament of salvation" - that is what Christ's Body, the Church, is: for it is His living instrument for applying the merits of His Passion to men, empowered by His grace, being the vehicle for the celebration of the sacraments that save and the preaching of His Gospel, moving all to believe and be saved. "[A] chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of your own" – marvellous are the words of I Peter ii, 9! I particularly like the reference in the Prayer after Communion to the faithful acting as leaven in the lump, acting as God's instruments for translating men from the massa damnata into the company of the elect.

The Four Enemies of the Church

To my delight, I've finally found that mediæval compendium of liturgical lore, Durandus' Rationale of the Divine Offices online, in the original Latin; it contains many a treasure, but my eye fell upon this passage, in the midst of a laborious discussion of why Matins is composed of Nocturns:

Potest etiam dici, quod quatuor sunt Ecclesiæ hostes: superiores, id est, dæmones malignantes, inferiores, id est, homines adversantes: interiores: id est, concupiscentiæ carnales: & exteriores, id est, illecebræ sæculares. De primis inquit Apostolus: Non est vobis colluctatio adversus carnem, & sanguinem, sed adversus… spiritualia nequitia in cælestibus (Ephes. 6:12).  De secundis Psalmista: Supra dorsum meum fabricaverunt peccatores, prolongaverunt iniquitatem sibi (Ps 128:3).  De tertiis Apostolus: Caro concupiscit adversus spiritum: spiritus autem adversus carnem (Galat. 5:17).  De quartis Joannes: Nolite diligere mundum, neque ea, quæ sunt in mundo… quia quicquid est in mundo, aut est concupiscentia carnis, aut oculorum, aut superbia vita (I Jo. 2:15 & 16).

(For it is able to be said, that the enemies of the Church are four: those above, that is, ill-willing demons; those below, that is, men opposing her; those within, that is, carnal desires; and those outwith, that is, worldly enticements.  Of the first the Apostle saith: “For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against… the spirits of wickedness in the high places.”  Of the second, the Psalmist: “The wicked have wrought upon my back: they have lengthened their iniquity.”  Of the third, [again] the Apostle: “For the flesh lusteth against the spirit: and the spirit against the flesh.”  Of the fourth, St John: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world… For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life.”)

—Durandus, Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, lib. 5, cap. 3, n. 4

How true: Holy Church, and every Christian soul, is beset by wicked demons above and men below; tried by temptations of the flesh within and the gaudy pomps of the meretricious world without.

How, true, alas, it is, that men of the church have been so eager to give in to sins of utter filth and depravity, spreading a foul canker of rot through the very Body of Christ!  The interior enemy is perhaps the most insidious and dangerous.  What need have men or demons outside the Church to rail against her and attack her (though of course they do, and with renewed avidity) when it is the very viper in the bosom that strikes and wounds to the quick?  And in prosperous nations, materialism has lured very many of the once-faithful into practical atheism, worshippers of Mammon, not God at all.  Why go to boring old church, when one can go shopping?

It may be wondered why heretics and schismatics are not listed – but these are listed among the homines adversantes, the opposing men; and also, as a bishop pointed out to me long ago, all dissent and heresy begins in moral turpitude, among the concupiscentiæ carnales, nowadays just as in the days of lustful Henry VIII and Luther and all dissidents back to the Gnostics: for men prefer to change their religion rather than their sins, by declaring black to be white.  That is why "spirituality" is popular with the world: one can continue to live in unrepented sin if one dabbles in feng shui, but not if one commits oneself to Christ.  Pure religion and undefiled, requires moral adhesion, not rationalization of one's faults as not one's fault.

St Agnes, Port Macquarie

To deconstruct a high altar "in the spirit of Vatican II"... let me count the ways:

1.  On the Epistle Side:

On the right as one looks from the body of St Agnes' Church, Port Macquarie, one finds what I suspect is a reworking of the exposition throne from the former high altar, turned into a not unfitting tabernacle.  Pretty obviously – and old photographs I'm told confirm it – time was there was a pretty side altar here.  The altar rails have become the edge of the raised and extended sanctuary: at least they weren't junked.

(Note the tasteful banner, a leftover from Trinity Sunday.)

2.  In the apse:

The mensa is retained, or a passable copy substituted; but, there being no footpace (predella), it just sits in the sanctuary, a stone holy table, indeed above the steps leading from the nave level, yet below the steps leading up to, not the bishop's throne (though that is the impression I had, I was wrong) but to the priest's chair, from which he must preside over the sacred synaxis.

The lectern would also be part of the former marble high altar reworked.

In an unconsciously Anglican or rather Sarum manner, there are no candlesticks on the altar (in any case covered with a Vesper cloth to keep the dust off), but two standard (or standing) candles flank the steps leading up to the chancel.

While a good large crucifix now takes the place once filled by the high altar, a giant flower arrangement (perhaps in honour of St Agnes, flower of virgin-martyrs) dominates, and would appear as a floral aureole about the celebrant's head...

(One can just see the arch on the left leading through into a side chapel – a small statue of St Agnes can be seen there.  Strangely, this is the only reminder of her in the church, aside from a learnèd wall-mounted tablet hidden by the doorway halfway down the nave on the left, giving the verses Pope Damasus wrote in her honour, in the Latin, and with an English version also)

3.  On the Gospel side:

Behold the fruits of an access of baptismal devotion!  The font, bizarrely, now occupies the space once kept for an altar, and keeps the Paschal candle company in the sanctuary all the year round.

One may wonder whether this could occasion the simple faithful, noting the equal honour given the tabernacle and font (one each side of the altar where sacrifice is offered to God the Father) to surmise that, as Christ in His Sacrament abides in the tabernacle on the right, perhaps the Holy Ghost imbues the mystic laver with His secret Presence on the left.  All hail, adorèd Trinity! 

An appropriate bas relief of Christ baptized by St John has been put in below that acme of modern worship, the overhead projector screen.  No doubt the words of the new revised English Mass will be put up there once Lismore officially brings these into use...

(I took these images before settling down to the Breviary on Friday morning.)