Travel Journal: 9th January

Again, I just wanted to sleep in... I eventually headed downstairs to breakfast, and then off (via a rather expensive taxi) to Mass at Mother of Perpetual Succour Catholic Oratory, for the Feast of the Holy Family (which I have thus kept twice, whereas I missed the Epiphany entirely this year).  

Low Mass was offered up by the famous, redoubtable Fr Rizzo, F.S.S.P., who is manning the Christchurch Latin Mass scene until the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer finally get their new men ordained and then send one out here (Fr Marshall having decided to join the Latin Mass apostolate in Melbourne).

As I recall has long been his practice, while Fr arranged the veiled chalice on the altar and went to open the missal before beginning Mass, he briefly instructed us as to the significance of this feast.  There were two servers, the usual notices, together with the Epistle and Gospel in English, read out before the sermon, and the Third Confiteor – thanks be, since I am used to this from Fr Rowe's Masses in Perth, and tend to say it secretly to myself out of habit if it is omitted, as it is in Melbourne, Hobart and Sydney.  

After Mass, there were the Leonine Prayers, then a special blessing of families from the Ritual, together with an aspersion with Epiphany water – for this, the ciborium was brought forth from the tabernacle, so the blessing was coram Sanctissimo, made more solemn by being before the Sacrament simply exposed – and thirdly the "Hail Queen of heaven" heartily sung out for a recessional.

Finally, after a brief retreat to the sacristy, Fr Rizzo returned to bless an engaged couple, using the approved formula from the Ritual.  All this took just an hour.

Worship done, I was glad to meet some of the parishioners, and renew my acquaintance with others: several recognized me from the Christus Rex Pilgrimage.  Fr Rizzo was personable as ever.  We all had a cup of tea and some cake in the adjoining house, and then I was invited to visit some live Kiwis...

Chris and Nancy, plus several of their children (Greg, Ruth and Hannah) very kindly took me back to their home at Rangiora, about 30 km outside of Christchurch, for lunch, and I ended up spending a very happy afternoon with them and several other visitors, including Br Paul, F.Ss.R., and Daniel, who's about to return to Ezechiel House in Sydney to complete his first year of studies with the F.S.S.P., ere he go to the U.S.A. for the remaining six years of seminary training.

Br Paul kindly dropped me off at my hotel at about six o'clock, and before dinner I took a long walk around the local Botanic Gardens.  Another beaut day.

The Holy Family

"And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and grace with God and men."  (St Luke ii, 42)

This morning — which in the Ordinary Form of the Mass is the feast of the Holy Family (in the Breviary, it is the Sunday in the Octave of Christmas), and which had the Gospel of the Finding of Our Lord in the Temple — Fr Peter, our Dominican visiting priest at Carmel, preached on the necessity of family to Christ, that in His humanity He grow up and develop: for as all men, the Son of Man could not grow up isolated and alone, but was formed as to His human nature as a member of society, needing parents, relations, friends and acquaintances;  for "no man is an island" - man is a social animal.

Our Lady was not merely Mother of Christ, but a Mother to Christ; and it was needful for St Joseph to be a true foster-father to Our Lord, not merely a breadwinner for the Holy Family, but a true father figure, teaching his putative Son how to live as a man by his example.  This is because Christ was true Man as well as true God, and therefore according to His human nature truly and not in similitude learned and grew up through experiential knowledge, as all men do.  Hence "He was subject to them" (St Luke ii, 51).

The Holy Family had gone up to Jerusalem for the feast, as usual — just as we go to Sunday Mass as usual.  But then, consternation!  They looked for Him "everywhere": note the poignant choice of word.  Yet they found Him about His Father's affairs, in His Father's house, and were not able then to quite grasp the situation (St Luke ii, 49-50).  Our Lord's answers more than satisfied the doctors of the Law as He sat with them the Temple; but His answer did not at once explain matters, not to Our Lady, not till she took it to her heart (St Luke ii, 51), turning it over and pondering on it.

Faith is like this — it is not an entire explanation to us, not this side of the Beatific Vision; it is what we lay hold of, "the assurance of things hoped for, the proof of things not seen" (Heb. xi, 1), but what we struggle to understand; difficulties, "doubts" in the improper sense, are a part of our life of faith, in the darkness of our earthbound understanding of matters above: the lack of clarity is because the light is in a sense too strong, rather than not strong enough.  But we must not be discouraged, and rather hold on to our faith.  "It is as a lamp shining in a dark place..." (cf. St James i, 19 - writing of the Scriptures).

(This seems to me somewhat of the gist of the homily.)

Breviary Offices versus OF Masses

As I'm now in Tasmania, and have been serving the Christmas Masses at Carmel, it's been back to a (quite acceptable) Novus Ordo; and one benefit of serving has been that I've been able to receive communion, kneeling, from our visiting priest, under both species.  (Some traddies have weird reservations about touching the chalice, but that's mad.)

In the Ordinary Form, to-day is the feast of the Holy Family, while according to the Breviary it's the Sunday in the Christmas Octave, and the Holy Family won't be feasted until Sunday the 11th of January.  (Ever since Benedict XV extended this feast to the whole world, it's been difficult to find an older Sunday to push aside so as to fit it in: and I must say it seems to me better to have the Holy Family celebrated in the Octave than after Epiphany.)

Indeed, there's plenty of confusion coming up; while the Octave of Christmas is really just about equivalent to the Solemnity of Mary Mater Dei, as a glance at the respective Offices demonstrates, here in Australia the bishops in their wisdom have transferred the Epiphany to the nearest Sunday, meaning that this year on Sunday the 4th in the Breviary I'll be celebrating the Most Holy Name of Jesus, while perforce I'll hear Mass of the Epiphany, whose Office will occur on the Tuesday; and the same thing will occur with the Baptism of the Lord...

And last but not least, to-day is Childermas, the Feast of the Holy Innocents (read more here), which took precedence over the Sunday until the last preconciliar simplification of the rubrics; Fr alluded in his homily to the truth that Our Lord sanctified the whole course of human life from conception onwards, and one might think that in this dark age of widespread fœtal murder, to have the child-victims of raging Herod commemorated even on a Sunday would be no bad thing.  

(Don't forget, BTW, that to-day is Proclamation Day in South Australia, marking the 172nd anniversary of that Province.)