Exhausted!

I arrived back home to-night quite tired, after driving back from Hobart; I'd driven down yester-day, and to-day M.C.'d the Palm Sunday Procession and Missa Cantata there at St Canice, Lower Sandy Bay, our monthly Latin Mass.

All thanks to the choir - they sang beautifully, even successfully tackling the whole very lengthy Tract, to say nothing of the many processional chants preceding the Mass itself.  All thanks to Bede, Aidan, and Liam, the trusty servers, too.  And spare a thought for Fr Quinn: he'd already said one Mass, and was heading off to celebrate a third (for which reason, given the rubrical permission to do so, I suggested to him what seemed best, that is, to read only the short Gospel of the Passion, rather than the very lengthy full Passion). 

I was pleased that procession and Mass combined lasted a decent but not excessive 1 hour and 40 minutes.  A survey of attendees revealed that few were too upset at this allowable abbreviation.

I was also gratefully amused by what Tony said to me at lunch afterward: "You must have been the only person there who knew what to do during the blessing of palms" - true!  (But I had to actually bring Fortescue-O'Connell-Reid with me, into the very sanctuary during the service, despite a rehearsal beforehand; and – mea maxima culpa – I forgot to have Father say the prayer at the conclusion of the procession, instead conducting him straight to the chair to be vested for Mass.)  

Now, to bed...

Augustine, Tersteegen, Wesley

Having been away on retreat, while there, perusing a hymnal, I came upon a splendid hymn, very Augustinian I thought, given the lines "My heart is pained, nor can it be / At rest, till it finds rest in Thee" (cf. his Confessions, 1.1.1.), written by the Pietist Gerhard Tersteegen, translated by Wesley, and set to a good German tune harmonized by Bach – how ecumenical! how evangelical! – and must therefore share this gem, which to me seems redolent of the heart's fearful fumbling quest for God while still amidst this world's allurements:

Thou hidden Love of God, whose height,

Whose depth unfathomed no one knows,

I see from far Thy beauteous light,

And inly sigh for Thy repose;

My heart is pained, nor can it be

At rest, till it finds rest in Thee.

Thy secret voice invites me still

The sweetness of Thy yoke to prove;

And fain I would; but though my will

Seems fixed, yet wide my passions rove;

Yet hindrances strew all the way;

I aim at Thee, yet from Thee stray.

’Tis mercy all that Thou has brought

My mind to seek its peace in Thee;

Yet while I seek, but find Thee not,

No peace my wandering soul shall see.

O when shall all my wanderings end,

And all my steps to Theeward tend?

Is there a thing beneath the sun

That strives with Thee my heart to share?

Ah, tear it thence and reign alone,

The Lord of every motion there;

Then shall my heart from earth be free,

When it hath found repose in Thee.

O hide this self from me, that I

No more, but Christ in me, may live!

My vile affections crucify,

Nor let one darling lust survive

In all things nothing may I see,

Nothing desire or seek, but Thee!

O Love, Thy sovereign aid impart

To save me from low thoughted care;

Chase this self will from all my heart,

From all its hidden mazes there;

Make me Thy duteous child that I

Ceaseless may Abba, Father cry.

Ah no! ne’er will I backward turn:

Thine wholly, Thine alone I am!

Thrice happy he who views with scorn

Earth’s toys, for Thee his constant flame;

O help that I may never move

From the blest footsteps of Thy love!

Each moment draw from earth away

My heart that lowly waits Thy call;

Speak to my inmost soul and say,

I am thy love, thy God, thy all!

To feel Thy power, to hear Thy voice,

To taste Thy love, be all my choice.

A suitable song with which to finish the course of Lent, and prepare for the great days of Holy Week, now opened with Palm Sunday Mass this morning.

I, Barabbas

Yester-day at Mass (Ordinary Form, about the best that can be expected in a provincial city) we heard read the Passion according to St Luke.  There was no homily afterward; after all, what more can be said?  The Gospel speaks for itself; if one has no response to the Passion, one must have a heart of stone.

What struck me?  That I am Barabbas – indeed, every man is.  I, Barabbas, a rioter and murderer, justly imprisoned, rightly condemned, am released, while Christ, innocent and undefiled, suffers in my place.  Talk about vicarious atonement!

Now of necessity he [Pilate] was to release unto them one upon the feast day.  But the whole multitude together cried out, saying: Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas: who, for a certain sedition made in the city, and for a murder, was cast into prison.  And Pilate again spoke to them, desiring to release Jesus.  But they cried again, saying: Crucify him, crucify him.  And he said to them the third time: Why, what evil hath this man done? I find no cause of death in him. I will chastise him therefore, and let him go.  But they were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified; and their voices prevailed.  And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required.  And he released unto them him who for murder and sedition, had been cast into prison, whom they had desired; but Jesus he delivered up to their will.  (St Luke xxiii, 17-25)

For being a poor fallen man, am I not a riot of unrestrained, disordered passions?  And have I not all too often given way and caused a melée or affray?  Have I not brought sin and trouble into Jerusalem, that is, the Church?  Have I not been a cause of sedition, by my turning away from God?  Have I not revolted against the good order of society natural and supernatural?  Have I not opposed due order?  Am I worthy of living in Jerusalem, that is, in grace, in heavenly peace?  No!  I am stained with the contagion of sin and sinful passions.  Am I not, still more gravely, my brother's murderer, having given way to hate, when I should have instead been ever my brother's keeper?  Do I not bear the mark of Cain?  For such reasons, justly am I removed from the City of God, and kept imprisoned, having made liberty an excuse for lawlessness.  A shameless criminal am I.

St John tells us that Barabbas was a robber (xviii, 40), and so am I, for sin is robbery, depriving God of the glory due Him, wickedly insulting the Divine Majesty, and paying to creatures what is not their right.  Barabbas, then, is unquestionably a malefactor, a doer of evil; while Christ, Who "went about doing good", is our greatest Benefactor – not least by the wondrous deed He wrought of expiating our sins by taking them upon Himself, and bearing their weight upon the Cross of pain.

By the inscrutable Providence of God the Father, the wicked machinations of evil men lead to His Son dying in my stead.  A most unexpected turn for the better, a eu-catastrophe, results!  Deicide, rather than provoking the damnation of all men, instead most strangely reconciles and saves all who will acknowledge themselves sons of God and free.  I, who am Barabbas, Bar-Abbas, a "son of the Father" gone astray, still bear (wounded) God's image and likeness; and as His Onlybegotten Son, my brother whom I slew by sin, has died for me, I am set free and redeemed.

It was a significant custom that Pilate followed in releasing one upon the feast: for was not Passover the celebration of unexpected and as it were unmerited liberation from bondage?

Why is the Passion read on Palm Sunday anyway?  Because Good Friday not being a Holy Day of Obligation (I recall the obligation to attend Divine service on Good Friday was abolished in 1612 or thereabouts), on Palm Sunday the Passion is read, so that for those who next come to Mass on Easter Sunday, they will first hear this sobering truth – that God the Son came and died for us in our place – before next week hearing gladly the good tidings of the next event in the saving deeds of God Incarnate – the Resurrection.

Having died the death for our sins, Christ rises again for our justification.

Palm Sunday

Well, I've been five hours on the road to-day: 200 km to Hobart and back, so I can get to real Mass...

The Palm Sunday Procession and Missa cantata - including the long Passion according to St Matthew - took an hour and forty minutes (oh dear!); Fr Gerard, a Passionist who has generously volunteered to say this monthly Mass, ever since its initiator, Fr Jarrett, was made Bishop of Lismore, wisely I think read the Passion in English as the Motu proprio permits (he perforce monotones all the items he has to chant, since he's not very certain about his singing), and in a brief fervorissimo reminded us of St Paul of the Cross's dictum that above all else, the Passion proves in an overwhelming way how much God loves us, and went on to beg that, at Mother Mary's prayers, we would the more surely grasp this amazing love, and live accordingly.

The choir sang the chant competently, with yours truly joining in from the pews, not always quite in time or in tune!  Again, it would have been nice had they supplied something to fill the long Offertory - the Vexilla Regis prodeunt perhaps, or the Stabat Mater, which would have meshed well with the message of the sermon.

I think the servers, who are still getting better - just as Fr is getting faster at getting through the Offertory and Canon - next need to extend themselves to providing an M.C., who could have fixed such little points as the procession going to fast for Fr both to and from the grotto where the palms were blessed and distributed, and the unfortunate omission of the prayer after the last responsory of the procession (Fr began vesting for the Mass forthwith).

After Mass, some dear friends of mine had myself and others around for lunch; it was good to see again my old choirmaster, Bede, who's now blind, alas, but still bearing up well.

As always, on the way to and from Hobart I remembered those three priests buried at Campbell Town, and my godmother buried at Pontville; and on the way home had a sobering reminder of mortality, seeing the wreckage of a fatal car crash on the highway near Bridgewater.  Sweet Jesus, mercy!

Off to Hobart for Palm Sunday

To-morrow being the first Sunday of the month, I'll motor down to Hobart (200 km away) for the Traditional Mass, which will be offered up at 11.30 am at St Canice chapel, Lower Sandy Bay.

Anyone wishing for transport down South for Mass (and back), please leave a comment below...

Three Masses

I am going to do what I have never done, and omit all today's Office except for Compline. After singing at the 9.15am High Mass (which ended at 11am), then driving some of the reverend clergy out to Kelmscott for to join them in singing at the Missa Cantata there (2.05pm till about 3.25pm), returning to Fr Rowe's place and rustling up food and drink for three, then going over to St Bridget's to help ferry church supplies for a funeral there tomorrow, and, last but not least, driving back to the Pro. to serve a Low Mass for a visiting priest who had bolstered the choir for the earlier Masses, I really think I've done enough for to-day.

If more than one Mass relieves priests of their obligation to the Office, by the same logic a layman nowise bound thereto (but for his love thereof) may without scruple - indeed, in order to prevent and abolish any scruple - most rationally omit it, after singing at two and serving one. So I shall.

As for today's music - 'twas great to sing the Pueri Hebræorum (both chants), the Gloria laus et honor, and - albeit it with difficulty and mistakes, owing to lack of practice - the Proper of the Mass. I really stuffed up the Communion, since we were to sing psalm-verses with it (in itself, it's easy), and fitting the Introit-style psalm-tone to unseen text was a bit much for me; I've asked my betters to shush me lest I ruin something like that again, rather than realize I shouldn't blunder on, mea culpa.

High Mass, BTW, was unique in that it featured 2½ priests - Fr Holmes, the subdeacon, had another Mass to say elsewhere, and had to doff his tunicle and speed away after the Passion had been read, leaving Fr Terence Mary Naughtin O.F.M. Conv. (here to assist for Holy Week and Easter Week) to make do with Fr Rowe as deacon sine subdiacono!

Strange to say, singing Mass was much easier second time round! - especially as we psalm-toned not just the Tract, but the Gradual and Offertory as well. This left time to sing the superb Vexilla regis at the offertory, and the simple tone of the Stabat Mater at Communion: both are among my favourite hymns.

Oh, and at both Masses we sang "All glory, laud and honour" while the priest revested for Mass after the Procession, and at the second Mass we ended with "Hail Redeemer, King Divine". Fr Rowe had preached a fervorino, reminding us that the Procession with palms has no purpose other than to glorify the kingship and victory of God and His Christ, and our bearing the palms is to summon us to imitate the saints, oft portrayed (the martyrs in especial, as is most proper) holding the palm of victory - would that we may so walk as to persevere in this unto death, unto the gates of the new and eternal Jerusalem, that we may with all the angels and saints forever celebrate the triumph of Our Lord in heaven.

Serving a private Low Mass was a last delight today: it struck me how the Roman liturgy (since the solemn ceremony of Good Friday is sui generis, and not a Mass) uses today - and also the coming Tuesday and Wednesday of Holy Week - to offer the Sacrifice in special memory of the Passion, and hearing the appointed short Gospel of the Crucifixion and Death of Christ our God (St Matthew xxvii, 45-52) and the proper Last Gospel of His Entry into Jerusalem (St Matthew xxi, 1-9 - that of the Palms otherwise), after the earlier, longer ceremonies helped crystallize the importance of this day.

All Glory Laud and Honour

Neale's famous translation of Theodulph's great hymn always brings tears to my eyes, thinking of today's triumphant welcome given to Christ our King, and his fast-coming rejection, condemnation, insulting and death; hear the tune, read the words, and sing it to yourself courtesy of Cyberhymnal.

Gloria, laus, et honor tibi sit, Rex Christe, Redemptor!

Now I must fly: time to get ready to drive to Mass, and sing. We'll be having Solemn High Mass this morning, and in the afternoon, at Kelmscott, we'll do it all again with a Missa Cantata.