Foundation Day

I headed off bright and early this morning to drive the 150 km south to Colebrook, arriving at 9:45 am. Gradually more and more familiar faces arrived. For we were all assembled with our Archbishop, well over a hundred laity and clergy together, to celebrate the foundation today of Notre Dame Priory at St Patrick’s, a beautiful Pugin-designed church that has waited 160 years for this great day, when, as we all remarked afterward, it was finally used for what it was built for: the full traditional liturgy of Solemn High Mass coram archiepiscopo in the late morning and Solemn Vespers mid-afternoon. The servers were the five young men who are the first candidates for the monastic life to arrive and begin the foundation, for the present in temporary accommodation in Lindisfarne; more will arrive in due course. 

The Mass Propers of the Chair of St Peter were expertly sung by Ronan and friends, as was the Ordinary of the Mass (Mass IV and the little-used Credo V), all sensitively accompanied by Stephen Smith on the church’s recently-installed organ. His Grace preached, and, the sacred mysteries consummated and received, Fr Prior gave a speech of thanks after the Last Gospel, before a final Sub tuum at the Lady Altar together with prayer to St Joseph and invocations of St Mary of the Cross, secondary patroness of the new monastery, and of St Patrick, titular of the church. The morning liturgy lasted an hour and forty minutes all told.

We decamped to the Colebrook Hall for luncheon, where all and sundry had a great time catching up, toasting the foundation and delighting in such a joyful day. Afterwards, I had time to stroll around the little township before returning to church for Solemn Vespers (again expertly sung, lasting about 35 minutes) followed by Benediction (at exposition, Jesu dulcis memoria, then silent adoration, the usual Tantum ergo &c. before the blessing, the Divine Praises afterward, and at reposition the Benedictine Te decet laus), concluding at 5:30 pm.

After final farewells, I set off for home at six o’clock, and got back by eight. A wonderful day!

Ninth Anniversary

I began this blog (which hasn't been kept up very often for a long time now) nine years ago, on the feast of that great monastic saint, Venerable Sabbas the Sanctified (Ὅσιος Σάββας ὁ Ἡγιασμένος), to whom I have since learnt is attributed the Typicon or set of directions for the liturgical rites of the Byzantine Liturgy – how appropriate for unworthy me, who often acts as M.C., directs a choir, prays the Office, etc. I was delighted to find his commemoration among the texts of the EF Mass today. May anything of good blogged here be attributed to Divine Providence through his intercession; may all the bad be forgiven me by the Lord at his prayers.

I was recently privileged to serve Mass for Fr Pius, who has recently moved to Tasmania to found a traditional Benedictine monastery with the blessing of our beloved Archbishop; to this end, I turn in prayer to St Sabbas, himself a great founder of monasteries, in the words of another famous monastic founder, Abbot Guéranger, from his masterwork The Liturgical Year (Vol. I, p. 337):

O Sabas, “thou man of desires” (Dan. x, 11)! in thy expectation of that Lord, who has bid His servants watch until He come (cf. Matt. xxiv. 42), thou didst withdraw into the desert, fearing lest the turmoil of the world might distract thy mind from its God. Have pity on us who are living in the world, and are so occupied in the affairs of that world, and yet who have received the commandment, which thou didst so take to heart, of keeping ourselves in readiness for the coming of our Saviour and our Judge. Pray for us, that when He comes we may be worthy to go out to meet Him (cf. Matt. xxv, 6). Remember also the monastic state, of which thou art one of the brightest ornaments; raise it up again from its ruins; let its children be men of prayer and faith, as of old; let thy spirit be among them, and the Church thus regain, by thy intercession, all the glory which is reflected on her from the sublime perfection of this holy state.

Amen, so be it!

In the Centre of Immensities

How good it is to have books with long titles; at my right sits The Missal Compiled by lawful authority from the Missale Romanum A New Edition agreeable with the Vatican Typical Edition With a supplement containing the Additional Masses used in English-speaking countries and those for the greater feasts of the Principal Religious Orders (London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1928). This handsome little hardback volume (151 by 86 by 35 mm – that's a shade under 6 by 3⅜ by 1⅜ inches) contains a very large collection of Masses, some of them rare and notable (such as the old Mass Egredimini of the Sacred Heart, and another equivalent proper, Gaudeamus, but celebrating the "Most Divine" Heart), spread across nearly twelve hundred pages.

The prefatory material (an introduction by Adrian Fortescue, usage guide, contents pages, Table of Moveable Feasts, Kalendar, prayers before and after both Mass and Holy Communion, the Litanies of the Saints, &c.) amounts to only sixty pages or so – but then comes the Ordinary of the Mass, and after that all the usual Temporal and Sanctoral, Commons and Votives, a few pages of blessings, twenty-four pages of diocesan calendars, then Commons pro aliquibus locis (including the amusingly-titled Commons "of Many Virgins Martyrs", "of Many Virgins not Martyrs", "of Many Martyrs not Virgins" and "of Many Holy Women neither Martyrs nor Virgins"), a great number of Masses said in the different dioceses of England & Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, then Benedictine and Jesuit calendars and yet many more Masses for those and other religious orders.

This handy collection, dating as it does from 1928, piqued my interest because it contains proper Prefaces (most of them conceded for use fairly recently, I understand) for the following feasts of Our Lord, Our Lady, and important Saints celebrated by the respective Orders named below: 

• Preface of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus (Redemptorist);
• Preface of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Carmelite) ;
• Preface of St Augustine (Augustinian);
• Preface of St Benedict (Benedictine);
• Preface of St Dominic (Dominican);
• Preface of St Elias (Carmelite) ;
• Preface of St Francis (Franciscan);
• Preface of St Francis de Sales (Visitandine);
• Preface of St John of the Cross (Carmelite);
• Preface of the Seven Holy Founders of the Servites (Servite);
• Preface of St Teresa of Avila (Carmelite);
• "Parisian" Preface of All Saints & Patrons, used for St Vincent de Paul (Vincentian);
• Preface of Reparation for Insults Offered to the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist (related to but distinct from the Neo-Gallican Parisian Preface, and indeed Mass, thereof).

I posted the Preface of St Augustine – which, to be honest, strikes me as a bit long-winded and pedestrian – the other day; to-day I have been thinking on the Preface of St Benedict, and the light it shines on the littleness of all things here below:

Vere dignum et justum est, æquum et salutare, nos tibi semper et ubique gratias agere, Domine sancte, Pater omnipotens, æterne Deus. Qui beatissimum confessorem tuum Benedictum, ducem et magistrum cælitus edoctum, innumerabili multitudini filiorum statuisti. Quem et omnium justorum spiritu repletum, et extra se raptum, luminis tui splendore collustrasti. Ut in ipsa luce visionis intimæ mentis laxato sinu, quam angusta essent omnia inferiora deprehenderet. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Quapropter profusis gaudiis totus in orbe terrarum monachorum cœtus exsultat. Sed et supernæ virtutes atque angelicæ potestates hymnum gloriæ tuæ concinunt sine fine dicentes: 

Sanctus...

It is truly meet and just, right and wholesome, for us ever and everywhere to give thanks unto thee, O Lord holy, Father almighty, God eternal. Who didst appoint Benedict thy most blessed Confessor, taught from heaven, to be leader and master to a numberless multitude of sons. Whom also, filled with the spirit of all the just, and rapt out of himself, thou didst illumine with the splendour of thy light. That in the very light of that close vision, his mind being unfettered, he might see how truly little are all things below: through Christ our Lord. Wherefore with freest joys doth the whole choir of monks throughout the world exult. But the hosts above, and the angelic powers also join in singing the hymn of thy glory, saying without ceasing: 

Holy... 

The protocol of the Preface is the usual Vere dignum; the eschatocol is that of Pentecost, with the charming difference that instead of declaring that mundus, the world, exults, instead the priest sings that monachorum cœtibus, the company of monks, corporately rejoices.

St Benedict, by a natural play on words, is called a "most blessed" confessor – that is, turning to the original signification of the term, one who, while not a martyr, endured obloquy and confessed the Faith even when persecuted (for not all were happy to have him as their abbot). He is justly named as leader and master or teacher, himself taught by Heaven, having first learned to be wisely unwise in earthly matters (scienter nescius et sapienter indoctus – S. Greg. Magn., Dial., II, Pro.) and instead to seek the one thing necessary by betaking himself to the eremitic life, ere he founded monasteries and composed his Rule, enlightened from above: and thus the Almighty has established him and set him up as the father in God of a numberless multitude of sons (as once he promised Abraham), the monks Benedictine who have been as lights in the world ever since.

Several quotations from Book II of the Dialogues of Pope St Gregory the Great complete the body of the Preface. Peter the Deacon, Gregory's interlocutor as portrayed in the Dialogues, says of St Benedict that he was filled with the spirit of all the just (Book II, Chapter 8); but, more notably, the Preface briefly summarizes and quotes from the famous vision St Benedict beheld one night before Matins, as told in Chapter 35 of Book II of those Dialogues.

For St Benedict, praying at the window of his chamber, suddenly beheld a glittering light brighter than that of day shining forth with splendour in the darkness: and "During this vision a marvellously strange thing followed, for, as he himself afterward reported, the whole world, gathered together, as it were, under one beam of the sun, was presented before his eyes". 

When Peter the Deacon interrupts, as it were, the account of this vision to query how anyone could behold the whole world, Pope Gregory wisely answers that:

All creatures are, as it were, nothing [angusta est omnis creatura] to that soul that beholds the Creator. For though it sees but a glimpse of that light which is in the Creator, yet all things that are created seem very small [breve ei sit omne quod creatum est].

By means of that supernatural light, the capacity of the inward soul is enlarged [quia ipsa luce visionis intimæ mentis laxatur sinus], and is so extended in God, that it is far above the world. The soul of one who sees in this manner, is also above itself [super semetipsam]; for being rapt up in the light of God, it is inwardly in itself enlarged above itself [cumque in Dei lumine rapitur super se conspicit]. When it is so exalted and looks downward, it comprehends how little all creation is [exaltata comprehendit quam breve sit]. ...

The man of God, therefore, who saw the fiery globe... could, no doubt, not see those things but in the light of God [in Dei lumine]. What marvel is it, then, that he who saw the world gathered together before him – rapt up in the light of his soul [qui sublevatus in mentis lumine] – was at that time out of the world [extra mundum fuit]? ...

The soul of the beholder was more enlarged, rapt in God [qui in Deo raptus], so that it might see without difficulty that which is under God.  Therefore, in that light which appeared to his outward eyes, the inward light which was in his soul ravished the mind of the beholder to supernatural things [lux interior in mente fuit, quæ videntis animum, quia ad superiora rapuit] and showed him how small all earthly things are [ei quam angusta essent omnia inferiora monstravit].

Thus it is clear that, when the Preface sings in praise to God that, when St Benedict was "rapt out of himself, thou didst illumine [him] with the splendour of thy light. That in the very light of that close vision, his mind being unfettered, he might see how truly little are all things below" (extra se raptum, luminis tui splendore collustrasti. Ut in ipsa luce visionis intimæ mentis laxato sinu, quam angusta essent omnia inferiora deprehenderet) – this refers to and indeed quotes directly from the account of that vision of the splendour of divine light enlightening the Holy Patriarch of Monks, rapt out of himself in ecstasy, in Dialogues, II, 35: "in the very light of that intimate vision, the capacity of the mind enlarged" [(quia) ipsa luce visionis intimæ mentis laxat(ur) sinu(s)], he was shown "how small all earthly things are" [quam angusta essent omnia inferiora (monstravit)].

Of course, this marvellous vision, and all other graces gracing St Benedict, we confess to come "Through Christ our Lord".

This Preface of St Benedict points out the "one thing necessary", upon which contemplatives of all people ought ever fix their gaze: the Godward glance in comparison to which all terrestrial matters are revealed as transient, "for the world as we know it is passing away". This Preface, I would argue, is profoundly apposite, since monks ought ever be reminded not to love the world, nor the things of the world: theirs of all vocations should be the most eschatologically oriented: they should ever be intent on things above, where Christ is, at the right hand of God, and live lives hidden in Him; they ought "behold the Man, the Orient is His Name" and look East to Christ and the coming of His Kingdom, not turn back to the West, that is, to the paltry affairs of mortal, sinful man.

While ever extending hospitality to all, receiving those who visit as if they were Christ Himself, and like Moses when Israel battled Amalek ever lifting up holy hearts and hands to God in heaven, invoking Divine aid for all enduring the spiritual warfare of this miserable and naughty world, they should as it were have but the left eye on mundane things, and the right eye, the eye of the heart and soul and mind, on the things that are eternal.

The wonderful vision of St Benedict – the whole world seen in the coruscating light of God – makes me think of the title of an old book on astronomy: In the Centre of Immensities; which may be understood in a spiritual manner. It may be going a bit too far, however, given the somewhat offensive quality of the phrase, to think of the science fiction novel The Mote in God's Eye! 

But whatever of that, there are several very famous images of the Earth from space that are somewhat analogous to this supernatural insight, insofar as anything natural can be analogous to things above.

I think of the image of Earthrise, snapped by the Apollo 8 crew on Christmas Eve 1968 as they rounded the Moon, which is considered one of the most notable photographs ever taken, and whose import for those here below ought be profitably linked to the near-contemporaneous reading of Genesis 1:1-10 by the three astronauts of Apollo 8 when they broadcast to the world from lunar orbit.

What a sight on Christmas Eve – when the Word by Whom all was made was born for us in true human nature and dwelt among us, sanctifying all things, the Uncreated having taken to Himself creaturehood as the Firstborn of all creation, He Who made the Sun, the Earth, the Moon, the stars...

Likewise, I recall that other famous image called "The Blue Marble" – Earth photographed from Apollo 17 on its journey out to the Moon on the Vigil of the Immaculate Conception in 1972. How significant that date! For that feast celebrates the greatest and humblest of all creatures at the moment of her coming to be: not Gaia, but the Blessed Virgin, in due season alone accounted worthy to be the true Mother of God Incarnate of her flesh.

However, far from (as in popular usage) merely helping to engender "global consciousness" (no doubt laudable insofar as it goes) or environmental concern (also praiseworthy in due measure), with all their attendant temptations to so magnify tree and flower, sea and air, as to be entrapped in their beauty and drawn away from the Divine, this image and the other ought instead make us comprehend how our created world is as but a tiny thing the size as it were of a hazelnut, as was revealed to Dame Julian of Norwich long ago: indeed, her vision was not merely of the Earth, but of the whole Universe, "all that is made" – she "marvelled how it might last, for it seemed it might suddenly have sunk into nothing because of its littleness", but was reassured "It lasts and ever shall, because God loves it." 

The vision of St Benedict doubtless was of all that is, not merely of the Earth – for by the world is oft meant the cosmos in older works; but nonetheless its sphericity and tininess may be compared to yet a far more distant image of our world, that referred to as "The Pale Blue Dot", showing the Earth as the merest mote caught in a sunbeam, imaged from six billion kilometres away by the space probe Voyager 1 in 1990 as it departed our solar system forever. 

That image reminds me of something Tolkein wrote – he perceived as it were his soul as a speck of dust illuminated by a ray, and that ray seemed as it were to be his guardian angel, and the Light shining forth that ray and lighting up that speck to be the Origin and End of both and their Creator.

All these three images of Earth have become modern "icons", to use a significant term: but icons too often of merely mundane concerns – for, while obviously it is important to apprehend the true value and beauty and rareness of our planet, and prudently to care for it (as man was put in the garden so to do in the beginning), the message that modern man misses in his obsession with even the best of created things is precisely what ought be most obvious – that Earth is but a speak of dust compared to boundless space, and that is an apt illustration of how truly little all things are here below, while above lies infinity, and the Infinite God.

May I dedicate this reflection to a good and devout priest, Fr Mark Withoos, late of the Roman Curia, whom I understand to have decided to enter the Benedictine foundation at Norcia in Italy, seeking the pearl of great price, God alone – may the Lord bless and ratify his calling in heaven, at the prayers of Our Lady, St Benedict and all the saints.

Just Received

A kind soul put me on the mailing list of the Abbey of Our Lady of the Annunciation at Le Barroux, where one of my friends, the Wills, entered holy religion a few months back, in presence of her immediate family and of the peripatetic Fr Rowe; just now I've received the good sisters' communication concerning this:

24 janvier : ... notre postulante australienne reçoit l'habit bénédictin et son nouveau nom : sœur Mechtilde. Pour la famille et les amis venus de l'autre côté de la terre, Père Basile prononce un sermon en anglais...

(24th January: ... our Australian postulant receives the Benedictine habit and her new name: Sister Mechtilde. For family and friends from the other side of the world, Father Basil delivers a sermon in English ...)

And the monastic chronicle noted a later comic moment: when the question was raised: « Qui célèbre la messe ? », sister heard it as « Qui est la Mère abbesse ? » - and replied innocently, « Mère Placide Devillers. » Consternation all round!

Farnborough

I have been advised by a certain prelate, who shall remain nameless, that St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough, is the place to visit - and now Rob, a mate of mine from W.A. (he's a fellow Tasmanian, actually), sends me a postcard of same...

He tells me he's been there a fortnight, and by now will be in Oxford (at the home of our semi-detached brethren, Pusey House), pursuing his academic researches into eighteenth century Anglicanism. (I have no trouble with a purely academic interest in Anglicanism as quaint history, just as studying Egyptology is of no danger so long as one realizes that the beast-headed deities so dignifiedly represented in ancient arts and hieroglyphic inscriptions are but fables and dust.)

Famously, Farnborough, to return to matters Catholic, is not just possessed of a splendid history - having been founded by the exiled Empress Eugénie to pray for her fallen royal house, that of the (in)famous Bonapartes, becoming the final resting place of her husband Napoleon III, of their son the Prince Imperial, who died fighting not against but for the British Empire, in a remote conflict against the Zulus, and finally of herself* - but is very much a living cloister, with beaut church and monastery, wherein, by their services and labours, much is being done "to foster a new liturgical revival". Rob reckons rightly that "You would love their bookshop!" Too right.

God bless, Rob, hope your visit to the Old Dart is a blessing.

[* In a nice touch, the 45th asteroid to be discovered, in 1857, was named Eugenia, after the Empress Eugenie, and in 1998 it was found to have a moon, which was named Petit-Prince, in allusion not just to the famous novel by de Saint-Exupéry, but to him who would have been Napoleon IV.]

Then and Now

One of my housemates has been reading a book about early Catholic Australia.  Readers outside of Oz may not know that, despite the initial Catholic portion of the settlers being nearly all Irish, and mostly convicts, the first bishops and many priests sent to minister to them were not Irish - but English Benedictines.  

Unfortunately, but perhaps all too understandably, the grand dream of turning Catholic Australia into a monastic stronghold faded - there were never enough vocations either from England or among the Australian settlers to sustain the Benedictine vision, and in the end, even St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney, which had been for many decades a Benedictine abbey in name if not in fact, was given over to the triumphant Irish secular clergy, to the delight of the new generation of Irish bishops that replaced those first Benedictine prelates, like Polding, Ullathorne (who returned to England), and Vaughan.

Now to the issue at hand: a quotation from the Benedictine Journal of 1845 describes

'the splendour of the ceremonies in St. Mary's' especially of the sung High Mass and Vespers, which... also attracted many Protestants 'if not for prayer at least to look on and admire the magnificence of the sacred ceremonies'.

Of course, back then Anglicans scarcely even sang hymns, making their pre-Oxford Movement Sunday 'liturgy' horribly intolerable and boring compared to the numinous pomp of the Roman Mass.

'...the magnificence of the sacred ceremonies'

Consider, contrariwise, what one would find in a Catholic parish to-day: as my mate said, "Probably a B-grade Protestant service" - with bad preaching, bad reading, and awful singing.  The Irish have triumphed indeed!

To be fair, however, a Protestant coming to St Mary's in 2008 would still find a fairly grand liturgy, with an excellent choir and quite some liturgical splendour; having served there myself a few years back, I can attest to this.  

Also, way back when, a Low Mass would probably have seemed mysterious, but not quite magnificent to a visitor: I must say, it's the High Mass that displays real splendour even to the untutored eye; the sacred mutter of the Low Mass takes a bit of getting used to.  And recall also the suspicion with which all things Popish were regarded - as Dix relates in The Shape of the Liturgy (p.145f),

...I remember that my own grandmother, a devout Wesleyan, believed to her dying day that at the Roman Catholic mass the priest let a crab loose upon the altar, which it was his mysterious duty to prevent from crawling sideways into the view of the congregation.  (Hence the gestures of the celebrant.)  How she became possessed of this notion, or what she supposed eventually happened to the crustacean I never discovered.  But she affirmed with the utmost sincerity that she had once with her own eyes actually watched this horrible rite in progress; and there could be no doubt of the deplorable effect that solitary visit to a Roman Catholic church had had on her estimate of Roman Catholics in general, though she was the soul of charity in all things else.  To all suggestions that the mass might be intended as some sort of holy communion service she replied with the wise and gentle pity of the fully-informed for the ignorant.

This may explain why to this day in Sydney the local Anglican leaders (of that sort of churchmanship best described as 'lower than a snake's belly', to quote a High Churchman) refuse any and all invitations to attend Mass!