In Lismore for Corpus Christi

His Lordship (wearing a cope by reason of the Eucharistic Devotions after Mass).

It was a great joy to spend the weekend in Lismore, and while there to visit my former parish priest, now the Lord Bishop of that city.  Bp Jarrett was kind enough to let me serve his Mass on Saturday and Monday – on Sunday, of course, I went to St Carthage's Cathedral where he pontificated at Mass followed by Exposition, Procession, and Benediction.  

Obviously I couldn't take photographs during all that, but snapped this one hurriedly once the Sanctissimum was returned to the tabernacle and the altar party was turning to leave:

Some further images, taken once all the morning's rites and ceremonies were over (including the blessing of a new stone cross for the cathedral roof):

Throne and altar

The Lady Chapel

St Patrick's advice! 

"Be ye such Christians as to be also Romans"

The Wallace Window (left and right lights, featuring male and female Dominican saints) – I know this family; one brother is a Dominican priest, the other is a deacon and the chancellor of Lismore Diocese.  This window is a memorial to their late mother, Veronica: may she rest in peace.

St Carthage's Cathedral

(Note the scaffolding: restoration works began in 2009 and will conclude in 2012.)

Grafton Anglican Cathedral

Amongst other methods of wasting time, I decided to visit cathedrals while driving through Victoria and New South Wales: if a city has a Catholic one, I'll go there of course, but if – as in Wangaratta or Grafton there is only an Anglican one, I'll go see what those folks have.  

Crossing the mighty Clarence River, I drove into Grafton on Friday afternoon, and took these snaps in "Christ Church Cathedral", which appears to be reasonably high, but not so much as at Wangaratta.  To my signal displeasure, I noted that the local Anglican newspaper was crowing about their bishop ordaining the first Aboriginal woman to be a deacon.

On the columns flanking the nave are modernistic paintings of the Stations of the Cross, something I've not previously seen in Anglican churches.

The chancel: note the reversion to a Cranmer table, after the initial building of an altar in imitation of Catholic practice.

This notice (apologies for the bad reproduction, but it was very dark inside) I found concealed on a small bookcase for hymnals as one passes from the choir into the side chapel, where there was an aumbry flanked by a light, presumably for reservation.  This notice appears to teach the doctrine of the real presence, of adoration of Christ in the reserved sacrament, and of prayer for the dead.  Next to it were cards giving the texts for the Angelus and Regina cæli.

This attractive image of Christ the Priest (note maniple) reigning from the Cross was above the pulpit.

I found Our Lady making an appearance... and also St Cecilia, in naive style, playing on the organ:

St Agnes, Port Macquarie

To deconstruct a high altar "in the spirit of Vatican II"... let me count the ways:

1.  On the Epistle Side:

On the right as one looks from the body of St Agnes' Church, Port Macquarie, one finds what I suspect is a reworking of the exposition throne from the former high altar, turned into a not unfitting tabernacle.  Pretty obviously – and old photographs I'm told confirm it – time was there was a pretty side altar here.  The altar rails have become the edge of the raised and extended sanctuary: at least they weren't junked.

(Note the tasteful banner, a leftover from Trinity Sunday.)

2.  In the apse:

The mensa is retained, or a passable copy substituted; but, there being no footpace (predella), it just sits in the sanctuary, a stone holy table, indeed above the steps leading from the nave level, yet below the steps leading up to, not the bishop's throne (though that is the impression I had, I was wrong) but to the priest's chair, from which he must preside over the sacred synaxis.

The lectern would also be part of the former marble high altar reworked.

In an unconsciously Anglican or rather Sarum manner, there are no candlesticks on the altar (in any case covered with a Vesper cloth to keep the dust off), but two standard (or standing) candles flank the steps leading up to the chancel.

While a good large crucifix now takes the place once filled by the high altar, a giant flower arrangement (perhaps in honour of St Agnes, flower of virgin-martyrs) dominates, and would appear as a floral aureole about the celebrant's head...

(One can just see the arch on the left leading through into a side chapel – a small statue of St Agnes can be seen there.  Strangely, this is the only reminder of her in the church, aside from a learnèd wall-mounted tablet hidden by the doorway halfway down the nave on the left, giving the verses Pope Damasus wrote in her honour, in the Latin, and with an English version also)

3.  On the Gospel side:

Behold the fruits of an access of baptismal devotion!  The font, bizarrely, now occupies the space once kept for an altar, and keeps the Paschal candle company in the sanctuary all the year round.

One may wonder whether this could occasion the simple faithful, noting the equal honour given the tabernacle and font (one each side of the altar where sacrifice is offered to God the Father) to surmise that, as Christ in His Sacrament abides in the tabernacle on the right, perhaps the Holy Ghost imbues the mystic laver with His secret Presence on the left.  All hail, adorèd Trinity! 

An appropriate bas relief of Christ baptized by St John has been put in below that acme of modern worship, the overhead projector screen.  No doubt the words of the new revised English Mass will be put up there once Lismore officially brings these into use...

(I took these images before settling down to the Breviary on Friday morning.)

Shrine of Blessed Mary MacKillop

Daughter of Scottish Catholic migrants, daughter of colonial Australia, daughter of the Church, mother of a religious family, and now forever reigning as a saint of God and Christ – Mary of the Cross MacKillop, about to be canonized on the 17th of October this year: it was her shrine that I visited in North Sydney, just after I crossed the Harbour Bridge, and I knelt and kissed her tomb, praying that Australia be blessed with many zealous and holy priests.  God grant it!

It is, after all, the end of the Year for Priests.  Having one friend a seminarian in Rome, another in Wagga Wagga, and a third preparing to join the F.S.S.P., plus many among the clergy, not to mention those truly concerned to train up much-needed vocations, I feel it only right to intercede for their good estate: God knows His people desperately need good priests, and how much Australia is in need of such.  I also knew a man who, after he became a priest, grievously dishonoured his sacred calling, doing terrible things and being a living scandal: for him, and his victims, pray.

Mary MacKillop's memorial chapel is a moving place of prayer; I stayed awhile, and read part of the Office of Corpus Christi, very appropriately given what God through His saint moved me to pray for:

Sic sacrificium istud instituit,
Cujus officium committi voluit
Solis Presbyteris, quibus sic congruit
Ut sumant, et dent ceteris.

(So He this Sacrifice to institute did will,
and charged His priests alone that office to fulfill:
in them He did confide: to whom it pertains still
to take, and the rest divide.)

— Hymn Sacris solemniis at Matins, 5th stanza

Finally getting out of Sydney, I drove on, and on, and on, along excellent roads through many forested hills... as I pressed north I ran into more and more heavy rain, and finally reached Port Macquarie at six o'clock.  Not leaving Sydney till after midday was a bit tardy of me.

BB Sadoc and Companions, Martyrs

Mass yester-day was of the feria; the celebrant had decided against keeping the memory of SS Marcellinus and Peter.  But as I told him, it was – in the Dominican Breviary at least – also the memorial of Blessed Sadoc and Companions, who were Dominicans martyred in Poland by the Tartars.  

The day before their martyrdom in the year 1260, when (as is the liturgical rule) the Martyrology for the succeeding day was read before the assembled brethren in choir, at the end of the entry the reader found – in letters of gold – an added entry for the 2nd of June: "In Poland, SS Sadoc and companions, martyrs of the Order of Friars Preachers, slain by the Tartars" or words to that effect.  God had deigned to reveal their predestined crown, that they might fitly prepare by godly works, prayer and confession.

On the morrow, as the brethren sang the Salve Regina, the Tartars irrupted into their priory and slew them, hewing them and shooting them with arrows.  Thus many holy martyrs went to heaven.

The Collect is singularly beautiful, lovingly reëchoing the words of the Salve:

Ostendat te nobis, Domine Jesu, post hoc exsilium clemens et pia Virgo Maria Mater tua: quam beati Sadocus et socii inter hostiles infidelium impetus incessanti voce salutantes, præoptatam martyrii palmam a te recipere meruerunt: Qui vivis et regnas...

(May the clement and sweet Virgin Mary Thy Mother, show Thee unto us, Lord Jesus, after this exile: who with unceasing voice blessed Sadoc and companions hailing amidst the onrush of infidel enemies, merited from Thee to receive the most desired palm of martyrdom: Who livest and reignest...)

The modern Dominican books still contain this prayer; here is the suggested translation for liturgical use, slightly paraphrasing rather than producing a stilted crib like my own; oddly, it inverts te nobis to become "show us to you", and seems to oversimplify "deserved to receive from thee" into just "received":

Lord Jesus, in the midst of fierce attacks of the foe Blessed Sadoc and his companions greeted the Virgin Mary in song and received the longed-for palm of martyrdom.  After this exile may your merciful and loving Mother show us to you, who live and reign in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Bathurst to Sydney

It was a special privilege on Wednesday to attend the Mass of an old friend of mine – especially as he used the new translation of the Eucharistic Prayer.  Despite alerting me to this forward-thinking move (quite licit, of course, and happening more and more in anticipation of the official changeover), I managed to momentarily surprise him by replying "And with your spirit" at the outset of the Preface dialogue.  Unfortunately I couldn't remember the rest of the changes in wording of the people's parts...

Earlier that day, I visited Bathurst Cathedral.  Apparently it bears the unusual joint dedication of St Michael Archangel and St John Baptist because the two pioneer priests in Bathurst had each named an earlier church there after their respective name-saints Michael and John, and when the decision was made to build a larger, finer edifice, to be the Cathedral of the new diocese, the only alternative to a feud or duel was to re-use both names!

Most regrettably, the place of reservation of the Blessed Sacrament (off in the north transept, in what was once the nuns' chapel) is scarcely fitting, and ought be improved upon pronto: it looks like Granny's antique dresser or meatsafe.

I eventually realized, given the kneeler and chairs before it, the corporal in front of the curtains, and the lamp (way over to the right, out of shot), that this odd thing was the tabernacle....

As Bp Elliott remarks in one of his works, it is quite wrong to separate the Sacrament from the Altar – if (as is the norm in cathedrals) there is to be a separate Blessed Sacrament chapel, it should have its own altar; the Sacrament could be reserved on or near it, in a fitting tabernacle or Sacrament House.  This would also make for a smaller and more convenient venue for weekday Mass. 

The sanctuary was re-ordered, in what by Australian standards is a fairly conservative way, at the time of the Council, by moving the table of the high altar forward.  The carpet is, well, typical for the era...  I wonder what happened to the old episcopal throne?

Most bizarrely, the deceased bishops of Bathurst are accommodated, not in a crypt (for Bathurst is criss-crossed by underground streams, even under the Cathedral, rendering excavations impractical), but in a room in the steeple!  Talk about bats in the belfry.  Apparently their charnel house resembles a walk-in luggage locker, with the caskets each on a shelf.  Bishops and priests do make very strange decisions sometimes.

Before leaving the Cathedral, I prayed before Our Lady of the Central West at her altar just off the nave midway down its length.  May she intercede for the good of this diocese!

Later in the day in Bathurst, I had the pleasure of an excellent lunch in good company: it's always most enjoyable to engage in conversation with a well-read, cultured person, while partaking of the best of the local gourmet produce.  Moreover, thanks to his extensive knowledge of wines, we shared a smooth and most drinkable bottle of petit verdot grown near Canowindra (close to Cowra).  It was hard to drag myself away in mid-afternoon; I do hope I'll be back from time to time.

On to Sydney!  The drive through Lithgow was easy, but the steep Victoria Pass caught me unawares – quite luckily, since I have a fear of heights, and would have brooded on its approach overmuch, instead of just driving it.  It brought me up to the first of the Blue Mountains townships, Mt Victoria, over a kilometre about sea level.  First, a meander through various other of these settlements, including a detour through Katoomba (where for lack of time I had to forego visiting the lookout overlooking the Three Sisters that I remember from a visit as a child); then, the long, slow descent toward Sydney, as the shadows lengthened.  By the time I was down to Penrith and onto the freeway, it was dark – for a long way, the traffic shot along, but then there was a real snarl once Homebush was passed.

I was very impressed with myself for finally getting out of the heavy traffic and correctly turning off Paramatta Road just two blocks from my friend's place.  It's only 205 km from Bathurst to Sydney, but it was a tough and wearing drive I found.

John was a very gracious host, and it was good to meet his flatmate, Sydney (yes, that's right).  We all talked away till the midnight hour...

I twitted John about his peculiar taste in sacred art: what do readers make of this shrine to St Sebastian that graces his library?

The painting is an original artwork by an inmate of Pentridge Prison

Cootamundra, Young & Cowra

As I wound my way through parts of New South Wales new to me, I stopt off at three shrines of different sorts...

The first, a very Australian shrine: the very room in which that unsurpassable sporting hero, our Don Bradman (Sir Donald, formally speaking), was born over a hundred years ago, in Cootamundra!  Let Bowral have the fame of his youth, and all Australia pride in his success, but his birth was there.  The volunteer guide was very helpful, and the amount of cricketing memorabilia on display was immense.  (Unfortunately, there are two exceptions – not mentioned at his natal shrine, naturally! – to the virtue of the Don: he was quite anti-Catholic, and was suspected of shonky dealings in his career as a stockbroker.)

The second, a shrine of a peculiar and shamefaced sort: as I drove into Young, I saw and followed the sign leading out to the "Lambing Flat Chinese Tribute Gardens".  This sent a chill down my spine.  I hadn't known that Young was originally named Lambing Flat, and then renamed.  It was even weirder to visit the Gardens, a decent attempt at a Chinese garden... because, despite the name referring to that place, there was no notice anywhere of what happened there, and why a memorial was deserved: even the odd name of "Tribute" seemed very euphemistic.

For those not up on this matter, in 1860, during the gold rush in that area, the anti-Chinese sentiments of the Australian (i.e. white) miners broke all bounds: at Lambing Flat, a furious mob of thousands assaulted and drove off the Asiatics and Chinamen on the goldfields, burning and looting their camp.  When the police arrested the ringleaders, the miners attacked the police encampment and had to be fought off with guns and drawn sabres!  In the end, justice was done, the offenders gaoled, and order restored...

I was reminded of a notorious cartoon, published a decade ago when a certain female xenophobe, having achieved some transient political success in Queensland, proposed to take her fight into Federal Parliament: it shewed her followers, redneck hicks and rubes, trundling cannon and shouldering pitchforks as they crossed the border south into New South Wales, with Pauline on a white charger – the scandal caused by this image, published in The Australian, was that, in the background, in silhouette, could be seen a Chinese hanging by his pigtail.  

That is how Lambing Flat has been magnified in folk history, into a massacre: until I checked my facts, I honestly believed that murder most foul had been committed there...  This was all quite confronting: all I'd known of Young prior to seeing that sign was that they grow cherries there.  I ate my cherry pie in chastened spirit.

The third shrine was the most formal, and the most moving: at Cowra.  During the Second World War, the Australian Army maintained a P.O.W. camp there for captured Italian and Japanese combatants, amongst other enemy aliens; the Italians were no trouble at all, were quite friendly and helpful, and many settled in Australia after the war; but the Japanese were the opposite – resolved on death to restore their honour (for to be a prisoner was a source of terrible shame), very early on the 5th of August 1944 over eleven hundred Japanese broke through the barbed wire with primitive weapons.  

This was the notorious "Cowra Breakout": 4 Australian soldiers were killed, two of whom won the George Cross posthumously for their courage against overwhelming odds; and 334 Japanese perished, machine-gunned, entangled in barbed wire, or done to death by their own hand.  An Oriental take on Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori!  It was strange and tragic to stand looking at the open field where the P.O.W. camp once stood, and to think that hundreds perished in desperate battle there, within living memory.  Lord, have mercy.

As the years have passed, the town of Cowra has striven to bring good out of evil, striving to reach out in reconciliation.  From the start, the local returned servicemen maintained the Japanese graves; later, all Japanese who died in Australia were relocated to the Japanese War Cemetery, next to the Australian War Cemetery where are buried those who died on our side.

The Australian War Cemetery, and gravestones of two of those slain in the Cowra Breakout – note the fresh-laid wreath left by the Consul-General of Japan.

The Japanese War Cemetery – note the obvious religious significance of the (heathen) altar and memorial stele – with the hundreds of graves of those who perished in the suicidal Breakout.

Corvopolis - II

Some photographs of St Michael's Cathedral, Wagga Wagga:

Mass at St Mary's Chapel (dedicated by Bp William Brennan on the 8th of September 1991, so its patronal feast is Our Lady's Nativity), Vianney College, was quite impressive: all the seminarians in choir, all in cassock and surplice; all and sundry bowing their head at the Holy Name; a sermon on St Justin Martyr, pointing out how the pains of study are necessary, that we be able to give a reason for our hope, and be able to defend the Faith against intolerant secularism; communion administered by intinction to all, on the tongue.

The "low" Mass (all said, no singing) was about as reverent and devout as possible in the modern form, saving only that it was not eastward facing, and communion was received standing.  (Thank God for the communion plate!  I nearly dropt the intincted Host when Fr went to communicate me – it is much harder to give communion on the tongue to people when they are standing than when they are kneeling, especially when the communicant, like myself, is tall.)  

The seminarians start each day with Lauds at 6.20 am, then a half-hour meditation before Mass: very rigorous.  I was edified that after Mass ended, they all knelt to make thanksgiving for about 10 minutes or so.  A nice custom followed at Vianney is that, Mass ended, before the priest genuflects, he leads the seminarians in an Ave, then an invocation of the saint of the day and of the patron of their College, St John Mary Vianney, patron saint of parish priests.  I pray God make them all one day to be holy priests as he was.

Corvopolis

To-night finds me at Wagga Wagga, "the place of many crows" – hence in Latin, this is the see of the episcopus Corvopolitanus, "the Corvopolitan bishop" (in English we prefer the possessive form to the adjectival, and say the Bishop of Wagga Wagga).  I had lunch at Wangaratta – as another bit of toponymic trivia, the a's in Wang. are all pronounced as a's (though some old folks there still say "Wongaratta"), whereas here the correct thing to say is "Wogga Wogga".  Why is it that so many English words contain "wa" pronounced "wo" – swan, wan, want, waltz, etc.?

The ferry trip across Bass Strait was uneventful (mainly because I went to bed very early, just as we pulled out of dock in fact!), thanks be.  I did have a very busy day yester-day in Melbourne, however, being up at 5.30 am (ready to drive off the ferry at 6.30) and not in bed till after midnight.  Things to do, people to see...

For old times' sake I had breakfast at the European Café, just opposite Parliament House, of which eatery I was an habitué in when first studying theology... huevos madrileños, with chorizo and black pudding, went down a treat.  

There's something very Melburnian – marvellous Melbourne! – about drinking good coffee, reading the newspaper, and having a cooked breakfast somewhere decent.  The fellows at the adjoining table gave some local colour, by seeming, insofar as appearance, manners and overheard snatches went, rather like the stereotypical mafiosi of this city...

After thus fortifying my body, I did my duty to my soul by making a visit at St Patrick's Cathedral just a few blocks away, and caught the blessing at the end of the early Mass.  Bizarrely, many older Italians  were assembling outside, ladies in traditional dress, men in outlandish military outfits, since the 9.30 am Mass was to be in celebration (?!) of the anniversary of the foundation of the Italian Republic (with commemoration of the Most Holy Trinity).  While I am as glad as anyone that the cursèd House of Savoy lost their ill-gotten throne, pinched from the Pope with the aid of Freemasons and worse, I wonder about celebrating a Republic...

Having admired the Cathedral, I drove over to North Fitzroy, off Alexandra Parade, to attend the Divine Liturgy at the Russian Catholic Chapel of St Nicholas; friends of mine were to be singing in the choir, and the service was to be in English.  (Also, because of the contretemps occasioned by my comments pursuant to my last visit to St Aloysius when the schola was singing there, as it was again on Sunday as I luckily found out in advance, I decided discretion was the better part of valour: let sleeping dogs lie.)

Archpriest Lawrence was assisted in the altar by Fr Bogdan, who I was delighted to discover is a convert  priest, formerly Russian Orthodox: he and his wife have both become Catholics.  The sublime mysteries of the Byzantine Liturgy lift one up into the heavenly places: I was deeply moved.  

While the Hours of the Day, according to my Breviary, were of course of the Trinity, in the Byzantine Rite this Sunday is All Saints Day, since the Easterners consider that Pentecost is the manifestation of the Trinity's irruption into the world.  That said, since I crossed myself the really traditional way (three fingers conjoined, two in the palm, right to left), ever so many times at the Liturgy, since one does so at each and every mention of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I by no means missed out on remembrance of the Trinity – indeed, the Byzantine Rite leaves the West for dead in this respect.  The East never ceases to praise the Trinity; how Trinitarian are Western Christians I wonder?

Fr Lawrence, as always, preached a very deep sermon about what holiness really is: the action of the Holy Spirit in one, transforming one's person.  To receive the Sacrament of Christ's Flesh and Blood is very great, but this is but the beginning: thereby we ought be filled with the Spirit Who sanctifies, the Lord and Lifegiver.

After the Liturgy, I then had to find my way to the Balaclava Hotel, where the Latin Massers lunch after the Solemn High Mass.  It was a good chance to catch up with friends, to profit by Fr Tattersall's counsel, and to congratulate Fr McDaniels on the occasion of his 70th birthday: ad multos annos!  After lunch, I had afternoon tea with my friends Justin and his sister, Karina, at their nearby flat.

Finally, having booked in where I was staying, again for old times' sake I drove over to East Camberwell, and joined the Dominicans for Vespers there.  It was great to see them again; Rev Br Paul and I caught up for dinner afterward, something I had been very keen to do since I had unavoidably missed his solemn profession and diaconal ordination last year.  God willing, come December, perhaps I will be able to make his priestly ordination and first Mass...

******

After such a hectic Sunday, to-day, my longest driving day, seemed almost anticlimatic.  I left at 9 am, and stopt at Euroa a bit after eleven o'clock.  There's a fine little secondhand bookshop there that I came across quite providentially; I must say, the magnificent four volume Breviarium Romanum (Antwerp, 1770) on display was a bit out of my price range at $1150, but I did find some little items to console myself with.

I had lunch at Wangaratta, and was careful to visit both St Patrick's Church (which should really be the Cathedral of a Catholic diocese based at Wangaratta, if Shepparton misses out; it's silly for all  north-east Victoria to be managed from Bendigo) and the Anglican Cathedral of the Holy Trinity (for the Anglicans do have their own separate diocese for this area, unusually, since nearly all Catholic dioceses in this country have a corresponding Anglican one, and vice versa).  The former visit was an occasion for prayer, of course, while the latter was an occasion for snooping about and estimating the degree of their churchmanship!  

I hear from my TAC sources that the new Anglican bishop of Wangaratta – once an Anglo-Catholic stronghold – is a strange and dangerous liberal: amongst recent enormities, rather than open the doors of his episcopal palace to too many visitors, he staged the elaborate dinner to host them all inside the very cathedral.  For the record, their cathedral had such accoutrements as a holy water stoup, votive candle stands, statues of Our Lady, and a tabernacle with a lamp burning beside it.  Unlike St Patrick's church, there were no statues of saints, but certainly stained glass images of several.

Most curiously, in a tiny oratory off to the left of the nave, on the small side altar therein were a set of altar cards (see photographs below), displaying an exact rendering into English of all the prayers on altar cards for the Traditional Latin Mass.  I wonder if they are used still?

I reached Wagga Wagga in the late afternoon, and have enjoyed catching up with a friend of mine here.  He tells me that there is a public Mass at 7.05 am at Vianney College chapel to-morrow, so I hope to start the day bright and early there.  All kudos to Bp Brennan who established his own diocesan seminary in the dark days of the early nineties, before either the Melbourne or the Sydney seminary was reformed and purged of illiberal liberals: thanks to his not uncontroversial move, Wagga Wagga diocese has the highest priest-to-people ratio, and the youngest average age of priests, in the whole of Australia: and they're orthodox, naturally.

Happy feast of the Queenship of Our Lady to all readers!

(I must say, though, the revisers of the Roman Rite were correct in moving the feast of the Queenship to the Octave Day of the Assumption, and therefore transferring the feast of the Immaculate Heart from that day to the Saturday after the feast of the Sacred Heart.  That said, why in the Novus Ordo the Visitation was moved to to-day, the 31st of May, from its old date of the 2nd of July I don't know!)

For Those in Peril on the Sea

After lunch to-morrow, I set out on my driving holiday.  First, to Devonport, where I will bring my car as well as myself aboard The Spirit of Tasmania, for the overnight crossing to Melbourne (about 450 km).

I think of Purcell's anthem "They that go down to the sea in ships" (Psalm 106(107):23-32)...

Bass Strait is notoriously rough, and I am no sailor, so I would appreciate prayers for a smooth passage!

Deus, qui transtulisti patres nostros per Mare Rubrum, et transvexisti eos per aquam nimiam, laudem tui nominis decantantes: te suppliciter deprecamur; ut in navi famulos tuos, repulsis adversitatibus, portu semper optabili, cursuque tranquillo tuearis.  Per...

(O God, Who didst bring our fathers through the Red Sea and didst guide them in safety through the overflowing waters, whilst they sang praises to Thy name, we humbly pray that Thou wouldst keep in safety Thy servants on board ship and grant them a calm voyage to the haven they desire.  Through...)

— Roman Missal, For those at Sea, Collect

Impera, Domine, ventis et mari: et navigantibus famulis tuis fiat tranquillitas; Qui vivis…

(Command, Lord, the winds and sea: and for Thy servants, seafarers, make it calm: Who livest...)

— Paris Missal, For those at Sea, Postcommunion

The Modern Carthusian Mass

A comparison between the 1981 Missale Cartusiense (available for download online!) and the former Carthusian Mass, as detailed in A.A. King's 1956 Liturgies of the Religious Orders (a facsimile of which I own), shews that the monks of the Charterhouse have made but few changes in their manner of offering up the Sacrifice.

In general, these wise sons of St Bruno have adopted and adapted some few modern Roman revisions, but have maintained their distinct, settled Use better than all other reforming liturgists.  This may well be because the Carthusian Mass was always the most spare and simple of the many different ways of celebrating the Roman liturgy, with an entire absence of unnecessary ceremonial, and so had less to be messed with!

What changes have they made?  

At the start of Mass, they have transferred the sign of the cross, still made secretly, not aloud, by the priest, from before the Introit to become the very first words of the liturgy, and likewise have moved the Dominus vobiscum from before the Collect to directly after this In nomine... – these modifications clearly parallel those made to the Roman Mass.

They have removed the curious choice of versicle formerly used before the Confiteor – the Pone Domine used in the Traditional Roman Mass during the censing at the offertory – and replaced it with the more apposite versicle Adjutorium nostrum that they used to say after the Misereatur.

Their Confiteor they have lightly revised inasmuch as they have changed from confessing "to blessed Mary and all the saints" to asking their prayers – which if anything is a distinct improvement.  Now, too, as in the Novus Ordo, all say the Confiteor together.  It may be noted that the Carthusians have always said the Confiteor &c. aloud and before the singing or reading of the Introit.

Finally, instead of the former Pater and Ave before going up to the altar, there is now a rubric specifying that the priest should pray in silence for a time.

The rest of the fore-Mass remains much as it has always done, with an Epistle, Responsory (Gradual), Alleluia and Gospel; a Lesson before the Epistle, to make three readings in all, is only used at the Masses of Christmas, as in the Dominican Rite.

What of the Offertory?  If Mass is not sung, the Offertory antiphon is omitted.  The Dominus vobiscum and Oremus have been suppressed; the In nomine... at the end of the formula for mixing the chalice with wine and water has been dropt; the Orate fratres has been changed back to its primitive form of those words alone (there was never a response to it, other than the heartfelt prayers of those around, in the Carthusian Rite); the Oremus before the Prayer over the Gifts (formerly known as the Secret) has been removed as a doublet of the Orate fratres.  The Prayer over the Gifts now has only the short ending.  That's all.

What of the rest of the Mass, the Consecration and Communion?  The three new Eucharistic Prayers from Rome have been introduced as options, and, if Mass is concelebrated, the Prayer used is to be said aloud (how else could it be done, after all!).  The modern text of the Embolism (the Libera nos) has been substituted for the old, but without its strange doxology.  A short new prayer for peace, Dómine Iesu Christe, da nobis illam, quam mundus dare non potest pacem – this seems the least happy innovation, and a needless redoubling of the prayer for peace in the Embolism! – has instead been sandwiched in between it and the Pax Domini.  Pretty clearly, the Fathers were under some pressure here and had to compromise...

The strange Carthusian manner of singing or saying only the first petition of the Agnus Dei before communion, and then singing or saying the other two afterward, has been abolished.  A rubrick directs that the priest prepare either by a short meditation for communion, or may say either the traditional version of the Domine Jesu Christe, Fili Dei vivi... or the Roman Percepti Corporis et Sanguis... – and the words of administration are changed to the Novus Ordo's short form as well.  Contrariwise, the Charterhouse monks have retained the use of the long ending for the Prayer after Communion, which the modern Roman Mass kept only for the Collect.

These changes, so far as I can tell, are the only ones made to the Carthusian Mass since Vatican II and all that.

The Order still retains such special variants as its own wording of a phrase in the Gloria in excelsis: they read propter gloriam tuam magnam, "for Thy glory great", emphasising how boundlessly great is the glory of God; so too the Creed in the Use of Chartreuse still retains a variant phrase at its end: et vitam futuri sæculi, "and the life of the future age" – very appropriate for an assembly of monks trampling upon the passing things of this world, and looking forward to the true life.  In both these cases, as the Order retains and sings its proper plainsong still, no change could be made without affecting their chant.

For interest's sake, here is the Carthusian suite of offertory prayers (NB their rite never had the Suscipe sancta Trinitas so commonly found in other Uses):

When the priest puts water into the chalice, he says:

De látere Dómini nostri Iesu Christi exívit Sanguis et aqua in remissiónem peccatórum.

When he washes his hands, he says:

Lavábo inter innocéntes manus meas, et circúmdabo altáre tuum, Dómine.

And he adds two or three of the following verses:

Ut áudiam vocem laudis, et enárrem univérsa mirabília tua.
Dómine, diléxi decórem domus tuæ, et locum habitatiónis glóriæ tuæ.
Ne perdas cum ímpiis, Deus, ánimam meam, et cum viris sánguinum vitam meam.

Standing before the middle of the altar, the priest offers the chalice with the paten on top, holding them elevated, saying secretly:

In spíritu humilitátis et in ánimo contríto suscipiámur a te, Dómine, et sic fiat sacrifícium nostrum in conspéctu tuo hódie ut pláceat tibi, Dómine Deus.

And he makes a cross with the same chalice, saying:

In nómine Patris, et Fílii, et Spíritus Sancti. Amen.

He replaces the chalice on the corporal, and the paten in front of it, containing the bread to be consecrated.  He covers the chalice with the farther part of the corporal [this is the universal ancient use, prior to the development of the pall].

If incense is to be used [at the Conventual Mass], the priest, having poured water into the chalice, at once makes the oblation.  Then he adds incense to the thurible and holds this lifted over the oblations, saying: 

Dirigátur, Dómine, orátio mea, sicut incénsum in conspéctu tuo.

Then he censes once over the oblations in the form of a cross with these words:

In nómine Patris, et Fílii, et Spíritus Sancti. Amen.

And once in the form of a crown, and then, toward the cross, to the right corner, to the left corner, and thrice lower down before the front of the altar.  Then he returns the thurible to the deacon, he washes his hands and stands with joined hands at the altar corner, turned facing the cross, until the deacon has thrice censed him;then before the middle of the altar he remains with folded hands until the deacon has gone round about it [censing].

When he turns to the people he says:

Oráte, fratres.

(The Prayer over the Gifts follows.)

I have noted below that the Carthusian Mass still ends with the Placeat sancta Trinitas.

From a Roman Correspondent

I received this message from a friend of mine in the Eternal City; as it relates to St Philip and his feast day on the 26th of May, I could not but publicize the good cheer it brings:

Wonderful!

I went to visit the tomb of St. Philip after class, and I did manage to remember you in my prayers before the Holy Saint. There were lots of guys from the NAC streaming in and out during the day. It was quite moving. The chapel was decorated with beautiful red roses and there was a delightful aroma in the air.

God be praised!