Chalice, Not Cup

All the local clergy have accepted with alacrity, or in some cases resigned themselves to using, the new translation; one, however, still has "issues" with "them big words" – and, to the irritation of yours truly (a self-confessed pedant), insists on saying "cup" not "chalice" in the Eucharistic Prayer. (He was not best pleased when I coughed significantly at this mistake...)  Other words, too, seem beyond him or at least repugnant: "oblation" becomes "offering", "clergy" morphs into something along the lines of "those who minister to your Gospel" (not that that is quite grammatical in itself).

One wonders why a priest would avoid the word "clergy" – self-hatred? unmanly desire to approximate his priesthood to the good works of some religious sister? – but so it is, at least in E.P. II, since in E.P. III he appears comfortable with it.  So many shibboleths!  Yet why worry over such words, when he is seemingly happy to pray that "we may merit to be co-heirs to eternal life" and other such learnèd phrases?  (To be fair, I quite understand when the words "In a similar way" are omitted, since this phrase sounds lame in English, despite being a logical rendering of Simili modo.)

The other little passage that troubles Father refers to "my sacrifice and yours", and I recall that he usually made up his own version of it, the Orate fratres, even when the old translation was still around... defective theological training must be to blame: he did attend the Melbourne seminary in the bad old days before daily Mass was re-introduced (yes! believe it or not!) and the teachers still taught that the real presence ceased when Mass ended (a military chaplain, one Fr Paul, told some years back of how, as a seminarian then, he complained to the Rector about such teaching – and was forced to apologise to his lecturer for daring to doubt him).  The nasty ICEL paraphrase of old, and the errors spread throughout the seventies and eighties, still have potency...

Three out of Five

Having heard Mass at the city church to-day, it was comforting to find that the celebrant is happily using the new translation there, and the large noonday congregation of about 35 was also content.

From what I've seen of the five local priests (my own parish priest, for the north-western part of this city; the three priests in the central parish; and the one in the southern parish), it thus appears that three out of five are happily using the new translation.

One P.P. (about whose antics at Carmel I've blogged) last time I heard him say Mass had not fully adjusted to the new texts, though he seemed to be uncomplaining, thank God – he read from the new Missal without trouble, but for texts he said without looking at it, such as the offertory prayers and Ecce Agnus Dei, he reverted to the old text familiar to him, which is understandable; while another priest, last time I endured his infuriating travesty of the sacred liturgy, was in open rebellion against this "latest wickedness of the nasty old Pope" (to put into words the inner thoughts his demeanour manifested).

I rather suspect that three, or perhaps four, out of five is about the expected proportion of Australian clergy who have more or less implemented the new translation without puerile whinging.

Omitted Prayers

At Ordinary Form Mass, the following texts are sometimes omitted by unliturgical priests, despite the illicitness of doing so:

1. the Entrance Antiphon when nothing else is sung in its place;
2. either the Kyrie, when the Penitential Act does not contain it, or the Penitential Act, when the Kyrie is said by itself, as if it suffices alone (this shows ignorance of the distinction in fact and history between the two);
3. (one suspects) the priest's private prayer "Cleanse my heart" before reading the Gospel, and his private prayer "Through the words of the Gospel" when he kisses it after reading it;
4. (one suspects) various of the private prayers of the priest at the offertory (which occurs particularly if the priest, when saying Mass without a server, re-orders the offertory rites on his own initiative, and so first adds wine and water to the chalice at the credence, then carries across to the altar both the mixed chalice and the paten with hosts, offers them with a single prayer (see 5.), and decides not to bother washing his hands, omitting even the In spiritu humilitatis that should precede it – for one not conformed to the true spirit of the liturgy would see "With humble spirit" and "Wash me, O Lord, from my iniquity" not as what they are, short but potent priestly apologiæ, but as meaningless doublets of the Penitential Act and of the Orate fratres);
5. omitting saying a prayer of offering for each species, when instead illicitly combining the two prayers of offering of the bread and wine into one ("Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread and wine we offer you: fruit of the earth and work of human hands, they will become for us our spiritual food and drink" or somesuch mish-mash);
6. (one suspects) the commingling prayer "May this mingling" (because the fraction takes place during the Agnus Dei, especially if the priest doesn't have the Missal open before him at that page, he may forget or neglect that prayer and simply attend to the singing or saying of that chant);
7. (one suspects) the priest's private prayer of preparation before Communion (which also could easily be forgotten or neglected in favour of the Agnus Dei);
8. the Communion Antiphon when nothing else is sung in its place;
9. (one suspects) the prayer at the purification of the vessels, "What has passed our lips" – especially when the purification is carried out, not by the priest, but by another liturgical minister (this last I think is the most commonly omitted of all, because commonly the ablutions are carried out at the credence, with no Missal there, let alone open to that prayer).

These abuses boil down to three: omitting the Entrance and Communion Antiphons (a consequence of the way the Proper chants of the Mass are neglected everywhere in favour of poor quality hymns if sung), mixing up the Penitential Act with the Kyrie (encouraged by the option to trope the Kyrie and thus combine the two), and neglecting to say any and all of the private prayers of the priest (the very fact of their great reduction in number at the time of the reform of the liturgy has encouraged the neglect of those remaining, what with the radical change in self-image of the priest encouraged by such, from sacrificing priest to genial presider).

Obviously it is hard to be sure that the private prayers are omitted, but by the unusual speed of a priest at certain points, and, at the offertory at least, his seeming omission of certain accompanying gestures, one suspects that sometimes they are.

If the priest tends to vary and ad lib the prayers out loud, or otherwise behaves at the altar in an odd way, all the more reason exists to wonder if he is leaving items out.

I would say that I have seen or at least very strongly suspected celebrants of having committed all these errors at various Masses I have attended over the years, though thankfully they are a minority.

Indeed, another even worse, though rarer, springs to mind: entirely omitting the Orate fratres!

Remember, liturgical minimalism leads ineluctably to the temptation to liturgical abuse.

Good Priest, Bad Priest, Poor Crazed Layman

No, the poor crazed layman is not in fact me (though close enough), but Vincent - pray for him - who became disturbed when he heard voices after Mass the other day (my voice and Father's! - I had popped into the sacristy to drop off his Christmas present), and started praying out loud such choice orations as "Send their demons back to hell"; which made me worry for his sanity.  Father told me this morning that he calmed him down by reading Vespers and Compline with him.  Do pray for Vincent, a well-known Mass-goer in these parts, who seems to have become stranger and stranger lately.

The good priest is of course my parish priest, at whose weekday Mass I was privileged to serve this morning; how good to sing Kyrie in Greek, Sanctus and Agnus Dei in Latin; how good to hear the new translation prayed with devotion in its entirety.  The Mass was prayerful.  Alas, not all Masses I've attended this Advent have been thus...

The bad priest?  One who couldn't be bothered even to don a chasuble for Mass.  One whose Mass was badly hacked about: no Penitential Act; the bread and wine offered up together using a made-up prayer mish-mashed together from the two actually provided; the Orate fratres utterly omitted; as much as possible of the Mass recited from memory using the old translation, including the Eucharistic Prayer and the words of consecration (doubtlessly forgetting for the moment that only the new translation - the one in the Missal before him - is the only one permitted now); and us poor layfolk incited to use the old responses!  

I made sure I said the right ones loudly.  By the end of that wretched liturgy, I was furious (to the extent, I regret to say, I swore under my breath).

Does this make me as mad as poor Vincent?

Mass Began So Late

The celebrant of Monday Masses at Carmel spared us a dodgy homily this morning – as he was more than 20 minutes late to Mass.

At least I had my wish of managing to finish Lauds before Mass began!

Previous to his belated arrival, owing to some mix-up with his alarm clock, apparently, I had been wondering whether he would manage to use the new Mass translations without some grimacing: as matters transpired, he read Mass more or less alright, though he still hasn't learned the up-to-date wording of those two "Blessed are you" offertory prayers, nor the newer versions of the Orate fratres, Per ipsum and Ecce Agnus Dei.  In charity, given that he was rushed he may have said these from memory rather than waste time finding them in the new Missal before him.  Then again, my own parish priest, aged in his late seventies, has had no trouble getting used to the new translation...

Moreover, this fellow also has that most irritating and stupid habit of saying "May almighty God bless us" at the end of Mass, thus denying his own liturgical office.  He is a priest, for all his faults, and ought say the Mass the way it's laid down, as we laity – not to mention the Carmelite nuns – have a right to.

Yet another fellow Mass-goer confirmed after the service that she, too, finds his antics intolerable.

What was that prayer about "Who will free me from this troublesome priest?"  I entrust him to Our Lady of Guadalupe, whose maternal intercession for errant priests is most potent.

The Temptation of Donatism

After enduring a most pestilent priest as Mass-sayer on Monday, to-day a most pleasant surprise: a visiting priest from Melbourne (he told me afterward his name is Fr Ian Waters) who, by his devotion and tone of voice at Mass gave ample testimony that he was truly believing and praying the words thereof, rather than just going through the motions at maximum speed.

This making of comparisons between "nice Father and his devout Mass" and "nasty Father and his crap preaching and worse", of course, is a temptation toward Donatism – the heresy that the validity of the sacraments depends on the holiness of the minister.  Undoubtedly it is less disturbing to the faithful to depend on the ministrations of a priest who not only "does the red and says the black" but exemplifies devotion and belief, rather than endure some fellow who seems to think a quick Mass is a good Mass (he being partially correct, in that the faithful have the consolation of "Thank God that's over" all the sooner), and preaches in a manner offensive to pious ears – but of course Our Lord nonetheless becomes present in the Sacrament and Sacrifice of His love in both cases.

The crime here is that the unworthy celebrant, whether secretly (if in occult mortal sin) or openly (if irreverent, for – as Trent teaches – such is inseparable from impiety), fails to handle the holy and the sacred with due worship, and commits sacrilege; naturally, such sacrilege is either revolting to the faithful, or, worse still, perverts the belief of the faithful, corrupting them and sundering them from true piety, even from our holy religion: as was done by that unhappy apostate priest, the renegade Kennedy, who has dragged so many souls from the Faith.

Your Grace, You're Wrong

Pity poor old Archbishop Doyle: just a few weeks back, when visiting my parish, he apparently went out of his way to tell priest and people that in reading the Scriptures at Mass, the phrase used must not be "A reading from..." but simply, strangely, "From..." – which is plainly contradicted by both the old and the new translations of the Mass, as easily confirmable online (see the musical settings ICEL provides, for the Old Testament and Acts, the Epistle and Revelation, and the Gospel: I assume no one would be so mad as to claim that "A reading" is only to be uttered when sung).  Indeed, the General Instruction to the Lectionary says:

121. The formula to be used is always: “A reading from the Book of…” “A reading from the Letter of…” or “A reading from the holy Gospel according to…” and not: “The beginning of…” (unless this seems advisable in particular instances) nor: “The continuation of…”

Still more embarrassingly for His Grace, the 2007 Australian edition of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal – which he must surely have seen and discussed as a member of the Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference, since the Conference had to seek approval from Rome for the local adaptations made, none of which mandate what he claims – most explicitly states that the priest when reading the Gospel begins by saying:

134. At the ambo, the priest opens the book and... says: Lectio sancti Evangelii (A reading from the holy Gospel)...

Someone was asleep at meetings it appears!

 This bizarre determination not to say "A reading" – which is self-evidently the English for the Latin word Lectio that prefaces all readings from the Bible in the modern Mass – is traceable, I suspect, to some busy-body liturgy consultant who has neither Latin, nor an ability to think with the Church (its remote origins probably stem from the U.S.A. via Queensland): it is just the sort of mistaken idea that a person would seize on if they were insufficiently educated in the true principles of liturgy, probably as the result of a throwaway line from a lecturer.  (It may also have something to do with the 1992  Canadian lectionary – whose rules of course have no authority here.)  Neither that person, nor apparently His Grace, have bothered to read through the new translation of the Mass sufficiently carefully so as to realize their blunder.  It is rather poor for him who is the chief liturgist of his diocese to make so odd an error, let alone foist it on the people.

Certainly, wherever in Australia and New Zealand I've attended Mass, in backwards Tasmania alone have I ever come across this strange shibboleth: I would appreciate it if anyone who has encountered this mistake elsewhere could leave a comment detailing their experience thereof.  I am quite at a loss to know why this aversion to saying "A reading" arose, although I do know it's been trendy here for a decade or more.  Perhaps it is a last leftover of the aborted new translation of the Missal by bad old ICEL in the 1990's?  That would be typical of the outlook of this Archdiocese.

To add insult to injury, the new edition of the proper Mass for St Mary of the Cross quite explicitly says that each reading indeed begins with "A reading from..."

At least Doyle's retiring any time now, and hopefully the next Ordinary will be less clueless.  One can but pray.

Intercommunion in Queensland

While some Catholics now access the Traditional Rite unimpeded, and the Benedictine Reform proceeds, what with the newly retranslated Missal coming in and even Eastward facing celebrations occurring, in other corners of the Church abuses fester.

Years ago, I heard tell of the long-term plan of the Catholic episcopate and clergy in Queensland: to foster "Eucharistic sharing", or rather purported intercommunion between Catholics, Anglicans, Uniting Church persons and other Protestants.  At the time, I rejected this as unbelievable, but now – hearing that such may have occurred in Toowoomba – I am not so sure.

The project intended to solve the shortage of clergy by having Catholic Mass said in a given place only a few times a month, but to arrange with the local mainstream Protestants to do likewise, staggering the times so that all local Catholics, Anglicans and so forth would indiscriminately attend Catholic Mass on one or two Sundays (this being the only service for all groups), and on the other Sundays go to an Anglican Eucharist or even a Uniting Church Communion service.

I repeat, this idea seemed to me so outré that I refused to countenance such a scheme existing, but now I fear it may be true.

Recall the strangeness of Morris' notorious Advent pastoral letter in calling, not merely for having married clergy (which all know to be a disciplinary matter most unlikely to be changed) or women ordained (which the Church declares impossible), but for recognizing Anglican and Uniting Church holy orders?  To recognize Anglican orders would of course be impossible according to the decision of Leo XIII (which itself but reaffirmed the constant practice of the Church), and as the Uniting Church (derived from the amalgamation of Methodists, Congregationalists and Presbyterians) has no threefold ministry, there is no chance of their orders being ruled valid by Rome.

However, given the mindset and the heterodox theological education of most clergy in Australia, they simply would not regard these in truth insuperable obstacles as serious issues.  Hence this madcap plan.

I am sure aCatholics would have little trouble with such intercommunion: indeed, if they will not join the Anglican Church despite their utter agreement with its ordination of women and allowance of divorce, remarriage, homosexual liaisons, contraception, abortion and so forth, what better than to be in full intercommunion with it?

Morris was simply so great a fool and so arrogant that he made public, in writing, what subtler and more knowing clergypersons preferred to discuss and work towards on the quiet.

I have myself seen, at the Catholic funeral of a friend of mine in country Victoria, a Mass celebrated in presence of the local Catholic bishop, the local Protestant clergy come up and receive communion!  This friend was no friend of them, nor a lover of the new rite (indeed, I arranged a Missa cantata of Requiem for his soul back in Melbourne as some sort of making up for this hideous abuse at his funeral), so I can see no pretext for this illicit intercommunion.

Illicit intercommunion for Protestants at Catholic services, and invalid intercommunion for Catholics at Protestant services: as I say, I thought this simply impossible to believe, but I have heard of cases of both.

In all this, there is no understanding nor acceptance of the Catholic practice of closed communion: only those in full communion with the Church may receive Communion at Catholic altars (with certain exceptions made by recent Canon Law, which do not extend to such abuses as mentioned above – as if a Catholic could validly, let alone licitly, receive Protestant communion: it would be bread-worship; or as if a Protestant, not believing Catholic doctrine about the Eucharist, could receive It).  Bizarrely, Lutherans understand this better than some Catholics!

Reprobated Abuses

Sunday 16th January 2011: Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Ordinary Form Mass at Auckland’s Cathedral of St Patrick and St Joseph, 4.30 pm.

The music was quite decent, the congregation filled the cathedral, the use of the new words for the Ordinary of the Mass was pleasing, but some elements of the service!

To begin with, the servers wore green monklike scapulars over their albs; one suspects that these are changed to match the liturgical colour of the day.  How ridiculous.

Secondly, the responsorial psalm sung did not appear to be the correct one, nor was it taken from the approved Grail Version, but was in a transparently “neutered” paraphrase, omitting any male pronoun referring to God (how stupid, given that the new words for the Mass employ such pronouns).

I pass over the earnest, chatty, smiling banter of the celebrant.  As one Dominican used to say in booming tones, “He means well”.

Betraying a distorted view of the Mass, the altar candles were not lit until the Preparation of the Gifts began.

More serious still, two glass carafes of wine were placed on the altar alongside the chalice, and were consecrated in due course.  This is a reprobated abuse, according to Redemptionis sacramentum, n. 106 (quoted below).  I will be complaining of this scandal to the priest, the Bishop, the Nuncio and the Congregation for Divine Worship.

As I saw also in Wellington, the priest did not make any act of reverence after consecrating and elevating the Host (at least he genuflected after consecrating and elevating the Chalice).  This is either liturgical minimalism gone too far, or an outward manifestation of a distorted view of the consecration.  He ought obey the rubrics which specify that he must “genuflect in adoration”.  Who is this who refuses to bend the knee in worship of his Saviour?

Most scandalously – the grossest sacrilege – at communion time, a layperson poured out the Most Precious Blood from the carafes into a half-dozen or so chalices.  This surely is another reprobated abuse about which I plan to complain.

Both these abuses are condemned in Redemptionis sacramentum, n. 106:

However, the pouring of the Blood of Christ after the consecration from one vessel to another is completely to be avoided, lest anything should happen that would be to the detriment of so great a mystery. Never to be used for containing the Blood of the Lord are flagons, bowls, or other vessels that are not fully in accord with the established norms.

Indeed, glass vessels are in and of themselves explicitly reprobated in n. 117 (my underlining):

... Reprobated, therefore, is any practice of using for the celebration of Mass common vessels, or others lacking in quality, or devoid of all artistic merit or which are mere containers, as also other vessels made from glass, earthenware, clay, or other materials that break easily. ...

Indeed, according to n. 173, these two abuses are in and of themselves grave matters (as I underline below):

Although the gravity of a matter is to be judged in accordance with the common teaching of the Church and the norms established by her, objectively to be considered among grave matters is anything that puts at risk the validity and dignity of the Most Holy Eucharist: namely, anything that contravenes what is set out above in nn. 48-52, 56, 76-77, 79, 91-92, 94, 96, 101-102, 104, 106, 109, 111, 115, 117, 126, 131-133, 138, 153 and 168. Moreover, attention should be given to the other prescriptions of the Code of Canon Law, and especially what is laid down by canons 1364, 1369, 1373, 1376, 1380, 1384, 1385, 1386, and 1398.

This document was promulgated in 2004: I think after seven years some obedience ought be given it.

Another strange thing: the Prayer after Communion was read while the priest and congregation remained seated.

What a pity I missed the Mass I intended to attend, where such abuses would have been absent; however, in God’s Providence I am called to act now so as to try and avert further mischief of this sorry sort.

For the record, I do not attribute malice or deliberate dissent to the priest and so forth!  No doubt they love Our Lord and would be shocked to think they were acting improperly.  This sort of strange carrying-on has flourished because of much misguidedness and lack of proper oversight.  Hopefully they will take to heart what the Church requires of her ministers when offering the sacred liturgy, once their attention is drawn to their mistakes.

Ordinary Mass in Wellington Cathedral

This morning I went along to Mass in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel of the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Wellington, at 8.30am on Wednesday 12th January.

The chapel after Mass, the candles &c. having been packed away.

Mass, being in the Ordinary Form, was for Wednesday of the 1st week in Ordinary Time [sic].

The liturgy, a simple said service, was basically normal for a weekday celebration in the Ordinary Form in Australasia (no server, a layperson coming up to read the first reading and later to act as Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, a short boring homily), excepting:

1. The celebrant said “In the name of the Father…” in Maori:

Ki te ingoa o te Matua, o te Tamaiti, o te Wairua Tapu.

2. In N.Z., the new words and responses for the Ordinary of the Mass are being introduced already; there were booklets provided, endorsed by the local episcopate, which many were using; it was good to say “And with your spirit” (though I noticed some didn’t, I forgot later on, and the priest himself got confused between the old and new words at points, such as during the formulæ of offering up the bread and wine at the Preparation of the Gifts, and in the Embolism – switching over to the new version takes practice).

3. Instead of the responsorial psalm, a portion of Psalm 105 was read chorus contra chorum: I don’t know if this is the correct psalm for today; I do recall that the psalm can be read in this manner, but what of the response? and furthermore, the version was the Grail version, but “inclusified” by replacing references to God as “he/him” with “God” – the manic avoidance of pronouns is very clunky, not to mention illicit – yet this curious translation is in a book printed for the Cathedral!

4. There were, thankfully, no prayers of the faithful: I say so because too often, if the priest asks the congregation to add their own prayers, and as too often all remain seated on their behind rather than standing, the whole thing degenerates into a Quaker prayer meeting rather than integrates into the larger liturgical act.

5. A wooden paten was used – surely Redemptionis Sacramentum reprobates this?  Maybe it was gilded on the inside…

6. To my surprise, no one stood at the Orate fratres, but followed the former practice of standing only for the Prayer over the Gifts – hasn’t N.Z. implemented this yet?  Even in the booklet with the new words there is no mention of this, but it says to stand at the old point instead.  I noticed the same in Italy – even at Mass in St Peter's!

7. Greatly to my shock and scandal (I think I may have gasped), the priest didn’t genuflect or even bow afte elevating the Host, and only bowed, not genuflected, after elevating the Chalice – it is a foolish abuse to only “reverence” the Sacrament once, just perhaps betraying a distorted idea of the consecration of the Host as not complete until the Chalice is also consecrated, or more likely out of misguidedly overzealous liturgical minimalism; at the end of Mass he only bowed (I didn’t notice what he did at the start).  He may have a health problem meaning he cannot genuflect, but otherwise it was a sorry example of gross irreverence that certainly scandalized me and set a bad example for the faithful.  "Irreverence can scarce be separated from impiety" (Council of Trent, Decretum de observandis et evitandis in celebratione missæ, l7th September 1562).

8. The priest elevated, not the paten and chalice, but the Host over the chalice at the Doxology at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer (which was the “Swiss” one, using the variant referring to Christ as Mediator and including “joys and sorrows”, quoting Gaudium et spes).  How amusing that he thus did something Tridentine!

9. The annoying N.Z. modern version of the “Our Father” was used – I cannot bring myself to do so, so I said the traditional one under my breath (their booklet contains both).  Where exactly does permission for this N.Z. peculiarity come from?  Won't it ipso facto be done away with by the new translation, seeing as there will be one English-language Missal?

I shouldn't gripe too much, as I suspect Mass in the vernacular is usually done in a pretty slapdash manner in most places: I joked years ago with a friend that when at Mass in a new place, one tends now to classify the liturgical abuses (and oddities) present as "normal" or "unusual".

And they wonder why – even without any other motive – I prefer the Extraordinary Form...

Invalid Absolutions? – II

I've been ill the last few days with a heavy cold, but am now getting better; and therefore, at last having turned to books of sacramental theology that I have at hand, find that I was mistaken in assuming that the Trinitarian formula is essential to validity of absolution.

(These comments of course pertain only to the Roman Rite; the absolution used in the Byzantine Rite is cast in a different, precatory form, including the words "May the same Lord God, through me a sinner, forgive you all the sins of your life" – though I understand that in the Russian recension of the Byzantine Rite, and perhaps in others, a prayer similar to the Western form came into use some centuries ago as a result of liturgical and theological cross-fertilization.)

For example, Fr Nicholas Halligan, O.P., in his The Administration of the Sacraments (Cork: The Mercier Press, 1962), informs me that "It is certain that the words absolvo te are required for a valid form... it is probable that the words a peccatis tuis also pertain to validity... thus, in practice, these words must be included, lest the sacrament be exposed to nullity, and where they are omitted the form is to be repeated conditionally.  The words in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti are not required for validity" (p. 175f).

As an Anglican writer, F. G. Belton, in his A Manual for Confessors (London: Mowbray, 1936), quite sensibly explains (p. 16), "Our Lord made no mention of the Blessed Trinity in the institution of the sacrament, so the words, 'In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen' cannot be considered of the essence of the sacrament; but they express the fact that the priest absolves from sin by the power of God."

Obviously, the priest ought use the lawfully appointed form – e.g. that given in the 1962 liturgical books, or that in the more modern books – but if he stray therefrom without invalidating the sacrament, that is his own fault and failing, a venial sin.  As Halligan says, omission of an essential or probably essential word of the form of the sacrament is gravely sinful, as it invalidates the sacrament or "exposes it to the danger of nullity", and this also applies in "the case of substantial corruption of the form", whereas "Absolution imparted in an equivalent form would be gravely unlawful but valid" (p. 176) – hence a Western priest deciding to use the Byzantine formula, or some other, would absolve validly, of course, but would sin by using a formula not approved for the Roman Rite (unless he had biritual faculties).

What rather confused and upset me with the priests I mentioned in my last post below was that, before getting to the essential words of the absolution, they used, not the modern Roman form of words, but strange formulas apparently made up by themselves – one always mentions that God the Father "sent the Holy Spirit for peace and love" [sic] and the other began a very odd sentence with "Holy Church" does such-and-such.  It seems to me that both had once heard the proper, lawfully appointed formula, but have made up their own partial reminiscence of it without bothering to learn or read out the correct words!  Neither used the words which any penitent in the last forty years would recognize: 

God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son, has reconciled the world to himself, and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins.  Through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

While rarely used in the original Latin (those using Latin usually use the older form), in that tongue it runs as follows:

Deus, Pater misericordiarum, qui per mortem et resurrectionem Filii sui mundum sibi reconciliavit et Spiritum Sanctum effudit in remissionem peccatorum, per ministerium Ecclesiæ indulgentiam tibi tribuat et pacem, et ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.  Amen.

(Attentive readers will notice that the English version breaks the Latin up into two sentences, omitting "who" and changing "he" to "God", and moreover inserts "among us", which the Latin does not have.)

******

When all is said and done —

Is it really too much to ask that priests confess their penitents properly, according to the very straightforward ritual laid out in the relevant liturgical books?

One gets the feeling – and I think this applies also to other sacraments – that "anything will do"; only the fact that most priests read from the Missal, and are too lazy to compose their own Eucharistic Prayers or ad lib beyond a few changes here and there, prevents Mass from being similarly mucked about.

I recall once being at a nursing home with an old priest, who went to anoint a patient there and only used half the sacramental formula!  I tried respectfully to remind him of his duty, but got nowhere.  Given this nonresponse, I was rather impertinent and told him to be careful when leaving the facility, lest the staff think he was one of theirs...

I take up the words of the Prayer for the Church from the Anglican Patrimony (already come home to Rome, via the American 1979 B.C.P., in the Book of Divine Worship):

Give grace, O heavenly Father, to N., our Pope, to N., our Bishop, and to all bishops and other ministers [especially N....], that they may, both by their life and doctrine, set forth thy true and lively Word, and rightly and duly administer thy holy Sacraments.

Yes, may the holy Sacraments be rightly and duly administered!  That is, after all, the absolute minimum to demand, not some holy devout add-on extra to be praised and overlauded!

Ah, the so-called Gaudium et spes generation of priests: let them remember, as their ill-judged preaching and ministrations ever remind the unlucky faithful, that the next words of that document of Vatican II are the all too prophetic luctus et angor, sorrow and distress.

Invalid Absolutions?

I had to ring a priest friend for advice this morning – had the priest who'd heard my confession absolved me using a valid formula? would I have to go to confession again?

The "visiting priest" officiating in the confessional had said "...I absolve you from your sins, and may almighty God bless you, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit".  Now, interpolating a blessing was all very nice, but misguided – it left me puzzled and upset, trying to work out if I had to go to confession again.

My friend told me over the phone that this formula was invalid – I had rather hoped it wasn't – but that I would not need to go to confession again, as the Church supplies (Ecclesia supplet).

The same problem comes up regularly here in Launceston: another priest, the usual confessor in fact, always ends a divergent version of the absolution with "I absolve you from your sins, Father, Son and Holy Spirit".  Now, I suspect he is not attempting to absolve the Trinity, nor enumerating my sins as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, but this odd apparent vocative or accusative, missing out "in the name of" by some sort of elision, is quite serious, and could invalidate it also, my interlocutor told me this morning.  It is at the least grammatically incoherent.

I was advised over the phone, therefore, to explain to the priest (if it happen again) that I have a Theology degree, and therefore know of what I speak, and then to get the priest to say the correct words...

This happened to me once some years ago – the priest tried, three times, to say the formula right, without success, and finally I had to say, "Father, repeat after me", and I taught it to him!!!  (To be fair, he told me afterward he had suffered a lapse of memory, and was going to bring the words written out with him in future.)

As I said to my friend very testily, if these priests can't learn the correct formula, let alone make up some sentimental nonsense of their own, they have no business being priests – let them go and dig holes, since literacy is not required in that case!

Another thought: after the words of consecration at Mass (the same in every Eucharistic Prayer), the sacramental formula most used by priests would be the words of absolution, since I doubt the average priest baptizes more than he shrives.  It is therefore most damning for a priest not even to know the correct words with which to absolve – it is after all easily found in the relevant liturgical book.

The lips of a priest should drip wisdom, and his flock seek God's law from his mouth, since he is an angel of the Lord (cf. Mal. ii, 7).  We have instead too many stammering, shitten shepherds, through sheer ignorance neglecting, even harming their flocks.

All this reminds me of the thousands of invalidly baptized babies in Brisbane, albeit in that case there was heretical malice aforethought, the priests involved wickedly refusing to employ the Trinitarian formula due to their fanatical misbelief.  It took Roman pressure to force the lazy Archbishop there to stop winking at their crimes and finally, after decades, to suspend them from the ministry.

I do feel rather aggrieved by all this – I just hope I haven't sinned again by slagging off at clerical misbehaviours, given that I have only this morning confessed, and, I think, been forgiven my own sins.  It's all very confusing.  And people wonder why I prefer the Traditional forms of the Sacraments... well, for a start there's more security that they'll be confected aright: those who use such forms tend to be careful, and not inclined to make it up as they go along.

Doctor Who and the Novus Ordo

Thank God for Doctor Who: the episode (this year's series final) that I've just watched was as engrossing and enjoyable to this sci-fi nut as the Novus Ordo I unwillingly attended earlier was craptacular, to use the word of a friend of mine...

Doctor Who was worth it if only for one line: in an alternative universe in which there are no stars at all, the concerned mother of a daughter who thinks that stars might exist is heard to say that she is worried her little girl might join a star cult - "I don't trust that Richard Dawkins" (evidently in that world as barking as he is in this).  Professor Bonkers indeed!

As for bonkers, well, I was lazy, having felt off yester-day, and not at all oriented properly this morning; I did visit several people this after-noon, however, including a poor old priest I know who kindly hears my confessions from time to time.  That done, and after an early dinner (nothing fancy, just truffled chicken roast; we gave the leftovers to the cats), I perforce dragged myself to the banalities of Mass at a certain parish.  As Mother Teresa famously said, I met Jesus to-day in a most distressing disguise.

How about this for unpleasant: the Gospel was not read to us, but instead the kiddies acted it out - of course, the man fallen among thieves was turned into a girl, the priest and levite became businesswomen (at least they shewed both sides of femininity), and the Samaritan a homeless man.  The priest made the usual P.C. modifications to the favourite-because-shortest Eucharistic Prayer II.  As a final indignity, I somehow ended up in the communion line that took me to one of the female altar servers handing out Hosts... and after Communion, the 2nd reading (mysteriously omitted earlier) was read in a saccharine voice while musak was played on a keyboard.  Yetch.  You really couldn't dream this stuff up.

(In fairness, I doubt anyone else there realizes how incorrect and indeed vitiating all this sad mucking about is.)

In order to make Mass bearable, I brought alone my Diurnal, and, having found a quiet side pew right down the back, I filled in the time by reading Terce through to Compline.  If Mass is to be vile and alienating, I can't see why I can't be completely eccentric and odd.

To think how much I valued Mass over in Perth, as this blog in its first year records: how I felt such a part of things, how I sang at Mass, and served Mass, and knew the priest, and looked forward to catching up with my friends afterwards, and all that.  Now, if I didn't know it was my duty to go to Mass on Sundays, frankly I'd not darken the door again.  Thank you, Bugnini, son of the Evil One, and thank you, Paul VI, Pope of stuff-ups!

Thank God for Doctor Who.  He battles monsters and makes the universe safe for children everywhere.  I do wish he would go back in time and tinker a little so that these forty years and more of liturgical and doctrinal confusion never happened.  Ah, as the wit said, Reality is for those who can't stand science fiction.  What a punishment!

Our Lady Help of Christians, pray for us!

To-day, which in the Traditional Calendar is Whit Monday, in the modern Roman Rite's local Australian Calendar is the Solemnity of Our Lady Help of Christians.  Given the importance of the feast, and the need to pray for a relative undergoing a medical procedure, I went to Mass...

I do wish the celebrant would recall that the Creed ought be read, it being a solemnity!  It is of far greater importance to join the Church in confessing our Holy Faith than to indulge in what was the great time-wasting session that ensued instead: while all sat (meditating on their latter end, as the saying goes), we had tiresomely longwinded extempore prayers of the faithful, one of which, from an over-pious middle-aged female, as well as being inaudible, was longer than the sermon.  I resent turning the Mass into a pathetic prayer-group.

Alas!  I had come to "Lazy Mass", an unfortunately common variant of the Ordinary Form, especially when Mass is celebrated for a small coterie, middle-aged and up, on weekdays.  (The virulent form is such a Mass dominated by foul religious sisters or fouler layfolk of the dissenting variety.)  Note that I write not of Mass for the very aged or frail, since they of course can hardly be expected to sit, stand and kneel in due order: I write of those perfectly able to kneel at Mass on Sunday, but who manifest an aversion to the same on weekdays.

Sitting – apparently this is the acceptable posture in which to worship God.  Or so one not conversant with the actual directions of the Roman Rite might conclude, given the lazy way all but two rested in their chairs during the Preface, when they should have stood (as had done at the start of Mass, and as they did for the Lord's Prayer later on), and, most scandalously, during the entire Eucharistic Prayer (the amply-carpeted floor being too uninviting for most knees).  The rationale seemed to be that if one sat dumbly during the very Consecration, why bother standing for the Preface?  The well-known and reinforced requirement that one must now stand up at the Orate fratres seems not to apply to such Lazy Masses.

I expect that if I had asked why, there would have been horror at the question even being posed: apparently at a weekday Mass this sort of thing reigns in some places.  There is an entire blindness to the scandal of such material irreverence and disobedience to the clear directions given for the Mass, which allow no exceptions for such pretended exceptions.

It is wrong to sit at such times unless one is incapacitated.  If kneeling is not possible, it has been pointed out in Notitiæ, official organ of the Congregation for Divine Worship, that standing is the next best.  But no, ignorance triumphs again.

It particularly offends and upsets me that such a bad custom perverts the proper understanding of what liturgy and due reverence require, and turns the dread mysteries of the Mass into a safe little sit-down.  People even get the wicked idea (Luther I think first gave voice to it) that somehow such an "intimate" little affair is more "authentic" than the norm, when it is in fact a corruption inimical to a true perception of religious respect.

How typical that in backward Tasmania, the notorious coffee-table Masses of the sixties and seventies are still alive and well!  At least those who destroyed the liturgy back then largely drew the logical conclusion and either reformed themselves (as one hopes) or left altogether (as one fears), their innovating irreverence slipping away into indifference and atheism...

Despite the priest (personally devout), who has I know improved matters in the parish to some extent, I discovered anew that I cannot bear the way weekday Mass is arranged, not on his part, but on that of the congregation.  It drives me away every time, and has for years, whenever for any reason have I steeled myself to go again.  But I suppose this would be considered evidence of my having a problem, not those folks in their unthinking laxity, no...

Thursday Afternoon in Rome

I was very tired, and my time in the Eternal City was fast passing away...

In the mid-afternoon, I slowly walked down across one of the Tiber bridges into Trastevere, stopt for a Belgian beer, then found the ancient basilica of Santa Cecilia.

It brought me to my knees, seeing the beautiful sculpture of that Virgin Martyr - a statue copied from her incorrupt body, which was discovered, and displayed to all Rome, for almost the whole of 1599 (at least thirteen hundred years after her death in witness to Christ). To think that her body still sleeps in the reliquary of the crypt below (which I viewed through a grille), together with several other early martyrs!

The mosaic of the apse is of the ninth century, and in its ancientry and naive style breathes the pristine spirit of holiness. Pope Paschal (who then rebuilt the church, even then falling into ruin by reason of the centuries having elapsed since its foundation) is pictured with St Cecilia, SS Peter and Paul, Our Lord, St Valerian (the chaste husband of Cecilia, and fellow martyr), and St Agnes (another primitive Virgin-Martyr). Below, there is a procession of sheep (Christians) approaching the Lamb of God.

******

I then walked further down the Tiber, crossed over on the Ponte Sublico (?) and made my way toward Santa Sabina - but first, and very fittingly, found the property of the Knights of St John (whose estate is the smallest sovereign state in the world, they having previously lost Jerusalem and then Rhodes to the Turks, and Malta to Napoleon), where, looking through the keyhole of their gate, one espies a perfect prospect of the dome of St Peter's at the end of a beautiful path hedged about by vegetation.

******

Santa Sabina, HQ of the Dominicans...

Well, let's just say it was very Dominican - let the reader understand!

The church is very bare and sober, in antique Roman style: excellent. I finally got around to reading Lauds. But then, the advertised bookshop being closed because the person manning it "just popped out for a minute", I sat down and read several more Hours, till finally they got the message and found some Pole to open it up.

I bought a number of interesting items, such as small reproductions of works of Fra Angelico, and best of all (E15.50) a mint-condition 1956 Dominican Diurnal, in perfect pocket-book size. It was so well-preserved the pages needed carefully to be separated, so as to read it.

But... the Polish fellow had put on what turned out to be an excruciatingly corny and heterodox CD of mad US Dominicans, singing wicked propaganda - for instance, one song said, If your image of God is an old man on a cloud, discard it because it doesn't exist and it is a symptom of your fears and repressions... Need I say more? Oh, and there was the expected feminist revisionist angle represented as well. Puke, puke, puke!

I went back into the basilica to finish off the Hours through to Vespers - and found an even more bizarre thing. I was moving round from the altar of St Hyacinth, when I noticed a friar I'd seen earlier doing something odd at the Bl Sacrament altar: to my consternation, he had the tabernacle open, revealing a mini-monstrance (before which he had lit several tiny candles, commendably enough), but had pulled a chair right up onto the altar step, and was lounging on this, with his bare feet stretched out in front against the altar, and his hands on his head!

I honestly didn't know whether to cry or laugh, it was so hysterically eccentric and peculiar. Talk about giving scandal. And then, his mobile phone rang, so he just walked away from Our Lord and took a long, loud telephone call right in the middle of the church. Eventually he returned, only for his phone to ring again and him to abandon his wierd adoration for a second conversation...

For the benefit of posterity, I have acquired a photograph of this madness, which I will upload once I'm back in Australia. I think even Coo-ees couldn't come up with a strange thing like this.

******

Well, I missed seeing St Paul's outside the Walls, and many other churches (including several, like San Stefano Rotondo and San Clemente, that are quite close to where I've been staying), but I have done much... till next time.

Light from the East

Patricius over at Singulare Ingenium has an excellent post describing the dismay the Orthodox feel at the modern Roman Rite, which is to them a bare, stripped-down rite too often celebrated, not at a high altar, but a trestyl trist, a Cranmer table.

If the Western Church wishes to strive to heal the terrible schism that has cut off the East these thousand years, we could begin by removing the stumbling block that is our modern threefold affliction caused by the infamous hermeutic of discontinuity and rupture: impoverished liturgy, and too many abuses with it; doctrinal and moral deviations running riot, unchecked; and a complete abandonment of the discipline of fasting. The East prides itself on maintaining the glorious worship of the Fathers, their pure doctrine and practice, and the strict ascetical disciplines of the past ages - if we are to reëstablish their admiration and their trust, ut unum sint, it will not be by displaying our poverty, confusion and decadence.

With this in mind, I note that Saturday two weeks' hence I'll be joining some friends of mine at the local Greek Orthodox church here in Launceston (served only monthly, by a priest from Hobart) for the Sacred Liturgy on its titular feast day of the Dormition of Our Lady (according to the Julian Calendar).

What to Do with a Ceramic Chalice?

If faced with a detestable and unrubrical ceramic chalice, one can either apply the shorter rite (the aptly-named "Fr Fessio Drop Test" - if it breaks, it ain't fit for use at Mass) or the longer rite, as follows:

DECOMMISSIONING OF AN UNFIT VESSEL

V/.  Our help is in the name of the Lord.

R/.  Who made heaven and earth.  (Ps. cxxiii, 8)

V/.  He that hath an ear,

R/.  Let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.  (Apoc. ii, 29)

A Lesson from the Book of Wisdom. (Wis. xv, 6a. 7. 9. 13a; xvi, 1a)

The lovers of evil things deserve to have no better things to trust in, both they that make them, and they that love them.  The potter also tempering soft earth, with labour fashioneth every vessel for our service, and of the same clay he maketh both vessels that are for clean uses, and likewise such as serve to the contrary; but what is the use of these vessels, the potter is the judge.  But his care is, not that he shall labour, nor that his life is short, but he striveth with the goldsmiths and silversmiths: and he endeavoureth to do like the workers in brass, and counteth it a glory to make vain things.  For that man knoweth that he offendeth above all others, who of earthly matter maketh brittle vessels.  For these things, and by the like things to these, they were worthily punished.  R/.  Thanks be to God.

A lesson from the Epistle of the blessed Apostle Paul to the Romans. (Rom. ix, 20b-22)

Brethren: Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it: Why hast thou made me thus?  Or hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?  What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction?  In Christ Jesus our Lord. 

R/.  Thanks be to God.

Thou shalt break them in pieces like a potter's vessel.

V/.  As the vessel of a potter they shall be broken.  (Ps. ii, 9b; Apoc. ii, 27b)

The continuation of the holy Gospel according to Matthew.  (St Matt. xxiv, 15)

R/. Glory be to Thee, O Lord.

At that time, Jesus said to his disciples: When therefore you shall see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place: he that readeth let him understand. 

R/.  Praise be to Thee, O Christ.

DESTRUCTION OF THE UNFIT VESSEL

Holding the vessel in the left hand, recite:

And thou shalt say: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: even so will I break this, as the potter's vessel is broken, which cannot be made whole again. (Cf. Jer. xix, 11)

The vessel is immediately to be broken; then shall be said:

And it shall be broken small, as the potter's vessel is broken all to pieces with mighty breaking, and there shall not a sherd be found of the pieces thereof, wherein a little fire may be carried from the hearth, or a little water be drawn out of the pit.  (Is. xxx, 14)

Thereupon it shall be smashed utterly till not even a fragment of any use remains, in accordance with the words of the prophet.  Then shall be said:

And the earthen vessel shall be broken.  (Cf. Lev. vi, 28a)

And all the remains of the vessel, being thus pulverized, shall be gathered up and buried, that its memory perish.

Quotation of the Day

Too many would fall under this malediction to-day, sloppy priests and abusers of the sacred...

Jeremias xlviii, 10a:  Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord carelessly (Vulg. fraudulently, Sept & Neo-Vulg. negligently)!

In the originals:

אָרוּר, עֹשֶׂה מְלֶאכֶת יְהוָה--רְמִיָּה

(MT: Jer. xlviii, 10a)

ἐπικατάρατος ὁ ποιῶν τὰ ἔργα κυρίου ἀμελῶς 

(LXX: Jer. xxxi, 10a - the Septuagint differently orders certain chapters)

Maledictus qui facit opus Domini fraudulenter* 

(Vulg: Jer. xlviii, 10a - the Neo-Vulgate reads *neglegenter)

Compare and consider this following instructive tale told of some religious: two of the brethren were reciting the Office together in an unbecoming posture, when on a sudden the devil appeared in their midst, said "This is the incense suited to your prayers," and disappeared again, leaving behind a foul stench!