So slack and lazy

Mea culpa: having, finally, taken the beam out of my eye, I see clearly how slack and lazy I've been about my spiritual life. For, while the Holy Mass and Divine Office are my two great devotions, I have been remiss about going to the former (except on Sundays of course!) and about reciting the latter.

Ever since moving back to Tasmania, I have found it difficult to get to daily Mass – firstly, because I'd become so used to going to the Extraordinary Form (my definite and settled preference, for so many clear and cogent reasons) that I found return to the Novus Ordo very trying; but, secondly, since the only daily Mass that fits my work schedule is the early Mass at Carmel, and I prefer sleeping in, quite frankly.

Now Mass is Mass, the same Christ our God is offered and received as our all-prevailing Sacrifice and lasting Peace; and the presence of the holy nuns at Carmel puts priests on their best behaviour (so one who slumps in a chair and confects the Eucharist on a coffee table in his own parish tries to celebrate properly, not sloppily, in the nuns' chapel), so, while ideally I'd prefer Introibo ad altare Dei, I can cope, and fondly imagine an ad orientem liturgy; and the new translation renders the Latin well, so I don't need to bring along Fr Z's translations any more, nor read along in the Latin of the Ordinary.

But how slumber makes one forgetful of one's higher calling! Yet, as an Old Believer Canon of Preparation for Holy Communion sings (in Ode 3, troparion 3), "The preacher crieth out and commandeth us always to come to the House of God; let us not be lazy, but let us hasten now, for the time is at hand." Yes, in the words of that golden book, The Imitation of Christ, I will confess myself "So wakeful for tales, so drowsy at the sacred vigils" (Book IV, chapter 7): over the past years, I have in the main risen for work at seven or later, too late to get to Mass; and thus I've become disengaged from what ought be my priority.

As I wrote in my missal in a first flush of piety when at University, "I will always be thankful for the Mass, and put the Mass first in my life". What a shame to repeat these words and consider how I have neglected them! From being a daily or near-daily Mass-goer, for the past five years I've rarely gone to daily Mass, except while on holiday, strangely enough, and for a period last year, I think, when I got back into the habit - and then gave it away.

Now I am fearful that, having just resumed getting up at six and going to daily Mass, I will soon slacken off and reject the offer of grace again. As St Philip Neri taught his followers to say, "Do not trust me, Lord, for this day I will betray thee". Judas has more followers.

How did I manage to make a sudden, and, I beg and pray, a lasting change (as time will tell)? - by going on the Christus Rex Pilgrimage, and returning to my senses. On pilgrimage, I got up at five thirty every morning, in order to be ready for our early start each day: and the mornings are beautiful. I resolved – God grant I keep it – to get up with the dawn and go to Mass. Nowadays, when I open my curtains just after six, the sky is bright and soon the sun rises to the south-east, casting a beautiful glow over all things.

The second item so needful to me and yet so neglected has been the Breviary. Again, I must accept the rebuke of Thomas à Kempis, upbraiding me from beyond the grave with being "So negligent in saying thy office" (Im. Christi, IV, 7). I said the modern Divine Office for years; when in Perth, I switched to the Breviary – and since moving back to godless Tasmania, I've slipped further and further away from both. At one stage, I used the Little Office; but even that I gave up.

Any more slackness and I wouldn't have remembered God at all. As it was, I have become disengaged from the liturgical year, the true Year of the Lord, the year of salvation, with feasts even of apostles and evangelists slipping by unnoticed, seeing a reference to sundry celebrations even of the Lord and His Mother only by reference to reading blogs online after they had passed, and the words of the Venite being proven all too true: "if to-day you should hear His voice, harden not your hearts".

Oh, so the Divine Office is too long? I said it daily for years, and it takes less than half an hour. Oh, so the Breviary is a burden insuperable? Yet I said the Hours thereof while working full-time when in Perth, I said it while on pilgrimage this weekend past, and now am again fitting it into my schedule (I said Matins and Lauds before Mass this morning and the morning before quite easily).

I am angry at myself for listening to the siren voice of laziness and slackness, which is really the flesh, not to mention the world and the Devil, luring one down to Hell: a most beguiling journey. And it is entirely unsurprising that, daily Mass and Breviary gone, even the Angelus unsaid, and my other prayers neglected, or haphazardly said sometimes but less and less frequently, I find myself more sinful, judgemental, selfish, slack, nastier, coarser, and worse off. The Devil laughs to lead us astray, promising nothing in return.

As St Augustine taught, if we do not make continual progress in the spiritual life, then we begin to go backwards. My backsliding has been most wretched. At least I have kept going to confession, else God knows how practically atheistic I would have become. But frankly my love of what is holy is so caught up with receiving our Divine Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, and singing God's praises in the psalms, that if I but weekly (yes, weakly) partake of the one, and less and less (indeed, hardly ever) of the other, then I turn from the Divinity towards the wretchedness of secularity.

A wise Dominican, Fr Gregory, told me that the last thing to do if one loses one's faith is to stop praying and stop going to Mass, since that is when one needs most of all to say one's prayers and go to Mass! But all unawares I have been praying less and less, and going to Mass less and less – tempting me to live a less and less Catholic life, tempting God, in fact, by spurning the great helps He provides by prayer and the sacraments, rejecting His graces, and preparing my soul to lose the little it has.

Now, thanks be to God that I have always had a strong Faith, ever since I received the grace of a real conversion of heart while a young man at University, and I cannot but believe (though, Christ absolve me, sometimes I have dared wish I didn't) – but I tremble when I think of how throughout my adolescence I hardly went to church, never went to confession, and held many erroneous notions, issuing in despairing thoughts. It was God's grace that delivered me then, lead me into the goodness and truth of orthodoxy, and spurred me on; but the old man is not dead, and my spiritual life has not been in a good way for a long time.

Dear readers, please pray for me, a sinner, that these good resolutions I have made, and the baby steps I have taken, may please God form again the good habits I have lost, to my enduring benefit. I hope this public rebuke of myself may remain fresh in my mind, and force me not to shame myself by going back on my word.

Early to Rise...

Unlike those Dormitionists, I have been rising earlier than ever the past few days: for the first time in years, I've been going to daily Mass again.

I had best explain: I am not (it will no doubt be suspected) a fan of early rising; and, given the small number of priests based here in Launceston, and their propensity to schedule Mass at times inappropriate for full-time workers, the only Mass I can attend and still do my job properly is the the 7:30 am at the Carmelite Monastery.  For years, literally, I have toyed with the idea of getting up a precious half-hour earlier than my wont, and going to this Mass – but, until Monday, I had always just turned over and slept on instead.

I had also best explain that, given my strong preference for the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, having mainly attended it for the better part of two years while in Perth, it has proven very difficult for me, psychologically, to face going even to Sunday Mass in the Ordinary Form: it has been a trial.

At the same time, I have wasted spiritually for want of the Eucharist.  My discipline of praying the Office has also slipt.  Getting back to what I've done for most of my adult life – going to daily Mass – (and, incidentally, having more time to read the Breviary) is just marvellous, thank God indeed.

I attribute this inspiration of my will, under God, to my Guardian Angel and, humanly, to a chance meeting I had while in Lismore the other week, when I paid a visit to the Carmel there, and profited from a spiritual conversation with the extern sister there: I thank her for her evidently potent and efficacious prayers!

A Fine End to Advent

To-day is the Vigil of Christmas in the old rite: a strange Vigil, already shot through with the anticipated joy of Christmas, since - though at Matins the ferial psalms are read, as normally for vigils - all the Day Hours use the psalms of Sundays and feasts.

I again was just a little late in arriving for Mass in the new rite this morning, slipping into the pew as the first reading's title was read... this at least gave me reason to quietly read the traditional Collect pro pia devotione, which is used through the Hours of the Office until Vespers:

Deus, qui nos redemptionis nostræ annua expectatione lætificas: præsta; ut Unigenitum tuum, quem Redemptorem læti suscipimus, venientem quoque judicem securi videamus, Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium tuum: Qui tecum vivit...

(God, Who dost gladden us by the yearly expectation of our redemptin: grant, that Thy Onlybegotten, Whom we joyfully receive as Redeemer, we also may securely behold as the coming Judge, Our Lord Jesus Christ Thy Son, Who with Thee liveth...)

What an excellent prayer! It sums up both our Advent recapitulation of the desire of the ages for the coming of Christ as Redeemer, Whom again as our Redeemer here and now we celebrate in this feast, and moreover our looking forward to His return as our Judge, praying that on that Day we will receive him without shame.

Our awareness of the mystery and solemnity of weekday Mass at St Francis -our daily encounter with our Redeemer, yes, and our coming Judge - has been heightened, I would add, by the simple expedient of the singing of the Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus Dei in the simplest of chant: it really helps.