Kneeling, please. Source: "The Hermeneutic of Continuity"
Father Z references a letter (in German) dated June 21st from Ecclesia Dei stating that
the celebration of Holy Mass in the Extraordinary Form envisages the reception of Holy Communion while kneeling, as the Sacred Host is laid directly on the tongue of the communicant. There is no provision for the distribution of Holy Communion on the hand in this Form of the Holy Mass.
One would think that in a Tridentine Mass the reception of Holy Communion kneeling and on the tongue would be obvious, but apparently this is not the case.
I thought that this letter would be worth a little hurrah, and a little discussion.
Mundabor
Catholicism Pure & Simple 
I don’t know. While I would wish that Communion in the hand had never been permitted, is every last detail of what practice was in 1962 inherently part of the rite? Since Communion in the hand is permitted, would it automatically follow that it should not be permitted in the Extraordinary Form? I’m not arguing with Ecclesia Dei over this, nor saying that I think it should be permitted.
I am, however, surprised that there would be people going who wished to receive on the hand.
LikeLike
I can’t understand why the altar rails were taken away, kneeling halted and Communion in the hand permitted in the first place.
In the old days the reception of Communion was reverential and uniform.
The thought of receiving Communion in the hand was surely, for the overwhelming majority of Catholics, unthinkable.
Nowadays, receiving Communion on the tongue is the exception.
And this is ‘progress’?
LikeLike
“I am, however, surprised that there would be people going who wished to receive on the hand”.
Father Hill, I think you have answered yourself here. You are surprised. Something tells you – I think – that those who go to a Tridentine Mass want their Mass as it was; that is, they want the Mass (though with the slow, organic changes intervened from time to time) that their grand-grandfathers had.
Their grand-grandfathers would have thought reception on the hands very, very strange and irreverent and would not have been impressed by anyone telling them that hey, that’s the new way and now it is allowed….
I think Ecclesia Dei‘s decision is important because the way of reception could have otherwise become, as you Brits so beautifully say, “the thin end of the wedge”. If we start to accept that some elements of the “new” can come into the “old”, who knows where it will end.
As I see it, the recovery of the sacredness of the Mass goes through the celebration of everything that was done, as it was done.
M
LikeLike
I grew up going to a church without altar rails (a converted barn and provisional church building) and with the NO. I was taught to receive communion on the tongue without alternatives. Everyone else did it, albeit standing. Being a child, I immediately linked this special, ceremonial way of taking communion with its special, sacred nature. What is Special and Sacred is received in a Special and Sacred way, I’d have told you if I had been able to express myself that way.
Therefore, it is perhaps only me, but I still can’t see anyone taking communion in the hands without having the clear impression that he is being his own celebrant. He takes the host from the priest (in the hands, like the change when he buys the newspaper) and then he performs the most sacred act of his entire existence by himself, on himself.
I have once heard a “theological” explanation of the receiving on the hand: it went on the lines of “the faithful prepares a vessel with his own hands on which he symbolically and physically receives the Lord”. Boy, did I smile.
It looks wrong, it feels wrong and it is not traditional. Come on, it can’t be right.
Perhaps the Protestants (the Anglicans, say) had this strange habit of putting their host in their hands first? In the same way as they had the strange habit of having the priests looking at them? I don’t know this, but I would be curious to know.
M
LikeLike
Yes, M. Receiving Communion in the hand smacks of the ‘customer’ to me.
As you said, it just doesn’t look right for a start.
LikeLike
Mundabor
I agree, and our First Communicants always receive kneeling, and on the tongue. A good number of them, having begun that way, continue to do so. The explanation I give them is the one you have outlined: that this food is not like any other food, so the way we receive it and eat it is also different. They are quite capable of understanding and appreciating that. Yes, those who wish can make all sorts of justifications about preparing a vessel and so on, but that is justification after the event. How many people are even aware of the communion procession? They call it a queue because that is what it looks like and moves like.
I think the most important thing if any changes are considered in the liturgy is to ask what will be gained if we make this change. Then to ask what will be lost. And the answers should not be comprehensible only to theological experts but to the bulk of the people in the pews. Sadly, the theological experts have their own way and the ‘ordinary’ people ignored.
LikeLike
Lutonia:
” … is every last detail of what practice was in 1962 inherently part of the rite?”
Yes, Father, that’s what Summorum Pontificum says. That the rubrics are to be those of the former Missale Romanum.
Communion in the hand is a very great abuse. I have never accepted it thus and never will. My former parish priest once asked me to be an “Eucharistic Minister”. I refused, on the grounds that his hands were consecrated and could touch the Lord, but mine were not. I will not accept any suggestion that I was being in some way spiritually proud. I cannot see how ANY Catholic would be so craven as to say “yes” to such a thing.
I am strongly of the opinion that every priest not only has the right, but the DUTY, to refuse the laity to receive in this manner, and the laity has no right to expect it.
As with everything else post Vatican II, the detailed history of its introduction shows clearly how it was brought in on the sly, contrary to the wishes and even explicit instruction of Rome.
It is one of the key reasons (there are many others) why belief in the Real Presence has collapsed, even amongst Catholics.
LikeLike
“It is one of the key reasons (there are many others) why belief in the Real Presence has collapsed, even amongst Catholics”.
Cue the many people happily chewing away the host as if they hadn’t eaten enough for breakfast. I always wondered how one can believe in the Real Presence and start with the chewing, though I do not doubt many people can. We were taught to stick the host on the roof of our mouth and stay in reverent prayer until the host is dissolved. Makes sense to me.
But if one is accustomed to stand as he does at the baker’s, to put the Host in his hand as he does with the baker’s change and to bring it to his mouth as he always does, he might well chew the Host because at this point he considers it just the same as at the baker’s: bread.
Kneeling and on the tongue: now you don’t have that at the baker’s…. 😉
M
LikeLike
Long, long ago we children were taught that only the priest’s purified hands were fit to touch the Host. Similarly, after he consecrated the Host he kept the thumb and forefinger of each hand together until the post-Communion ablution in order not to defile the Host. He tucked his middle finger round the stem of the chalice.
The vessel of reception for communicants was the mouth – and no chewing. The Host, being the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, was deemed sufficient; so no need for communicants to sup from the chalice.
I think the Protestant idea of priest facing the congregation was born of turning the Mass from sacrifice into a commemoration of the Last Supper and ditching the miracle of transubstantiation, so the service became merely a communal meal. Receiving in the hand is neither here nor there if transubstantiation has not taken place because people are just eating bread and wine as a commemorative act. Unfortunately, it’s what many Catholics today believe.
LikeLike
“Wherever I go in the whole world, the thing that makes me the saddest is watching people receive Communion in the hand.”- As reported by Fr. George Rutler in his 1989 Good Friday sermon at St. Agnes Church, New York. When Mother Teresa of Calcutta was asked by Fr. Rutler, “What do you think is the worst problem in the world today?” without pausing a second she gave the above reply. She stated that to her knowledge, all of her sisters receive Communion only on the tongue.
When I first read the this some years ago, I was stunned. Why of all the horrors in our world would Mother Teresa be most saddened by Communion in the hand? By the grace of God I have since come to understand that the Eucharist, that most awesome gift whereby heaven unites with earth and the Creator becomes one with his creature, demands nothing less than the highest expression of our gratitude and love, both inwardly and outwardly.
Mother Teresa, who so loved the Blessed Sacrament, pray for us!
LikeLike
Last week I took the train from Canterbury to Ashford for a meeting with Fr. John Boyle, an outstanding traditional priest in our Archdiocese of Southwark. His church was dedicated to St Simon Stock, a Kentish-born Carmelite, contemporary of Bonaventure in the 13th century, and the friar entrusted by Our Lady with the message of the Carmelite scapular.
Father Boyle was preparing to go off to Michigan for a year, and he will be sorely missed in his parish. I remember seeing a lovely photo of him in the snow last year, outside this parish church, wearing full cassock and biretta. The last time I saw a priest so attired in the street in England was during my last Anglican Pentecost pilgrimage to Walsingham in 1989!
However, Father John will not be missed by some in his parish, he tells me! At the end of our meeting, he took me inside the church and I immediately picked up the scent of the new timber, reminding me of Pablo Neruda’s Ode to the smell of wood (apologies to Mundabor, BC and Fr Stephen Langridge – Vocations Director for Southwark – for the wrong and clearly norty left-wing Chile reference). The source of this pleasant scent turned out to be a new altar rail which had been erected around the sanctuary. Fr John clearly saw as his final legacy to the parish.
“We lost a few over that,” he said, and I wondered where he lost them to? Perhaps to the local Mormons.
LikeLike
Well now, just back from a few pints with my confrere who is directly involved in an important discussion with a certain bunch, but I’m afraid I can’t say anything about that without incurring excommunication…
Now, to get to the point: Yes, Ben is right, if the EF in its 1962 version is celebrated the rubrics as set must be followed strictly – no Communion in the hand but in the mouth and kneeling.
But, and I shall now be my usual contrarian self, some of you, dear friends, look upon this matter as if you were one of a very small number of people at a Mass. I wonder how many of you have had the experience, that I had repeatedly at one point, of being one of three priests distributing Communion to a congregation of some two-thousand people? Do you have the slightest idea of what your hand is like by the time you arrive at, say, the 700th person receiving communion in the mouth, and what it would be like for that communicant? Think about it, for, let me assure you, there is very little edifying about it.
Moreover, and here I take up Crescenda’s remark, there is nothing specifically Protestant about the priest celebrating ad occidentem – that is, facing the people.
If you have any acquaintace with early Christian churches, you realize that the architecture is such that that was obviouly the way Mass was celebrated well up to the high Middle Ages. On HS a couple of weeks ago I posted a link to a pic of Card. Newman’s titular church in Rome, the 9th century basilica of St. Giorgio in Velabro, go back to it and look at the altar arrangement.
LikeLike
” “We lost a few over that,” he said, and I wondered where he lost them to? Perhaps to the local Mormons.”
They were lost already, then.
——————
“Do you have the slightest idea of what your hand is like by the time you arrive at, say, the 700th person receiving communion in the mouth, and what it would be like for that communicant?”
Extreme cases make bad laws.
Anyway: if the priest is so tired that he can’t go on, I’d personally prefer that he says so and pauses and the distribution goes on for five ( or ten, of fifteen!) minutes more rather than to let the distribution become irreverent for the sake of practicality.
In the end, the 700th Communion should be given – and received – with the same reverence as the first, I think.
At the Oratory the distribution goes on for fifteen minutes every Sunday. Great time for prayer!
M
LikeLike
Hello, everyone! I have a post about your blog here:
http://churchmousec.wordpress.com/2010/07/06/are-there-no-lay-driven-traditionalist-catholic-blogs-left-in-the-uk/
I started it at the end of last week. It has a link to your new one at the end.
Thanks for all the good work you do!
LikeLike
Yes, Father, all tue: but WHY should we try to re-capture some point in the past where this or that practice was current? It smacks very much of “Let’s wipe out the entire 12th century to the 19th: we went wrong” about it.
By the way, I am glad you are back to calling me “Ben”. I was worried by your earlier Mr. Carter!
LikeLike
mmcv:
Point very well made! Next!!
Crecsenda
Exactly. Excellent post.
LikeLike
Ben, I only refer to you as Mr. Carter when we discuss liturgical music.
But let me quote you “but WHY should we try to re-capture some point in the past where this or that practice was current?” You have made my point admirably.
LikeLike
“If you have any acquaintance with early Christian churches,….”
I cannot hide a slight vexation (an emotional reaction of mine, no doubt; and to be condemned with firmness) at every mention of what the early Christians did.
Yes, they did that. But after them later Christians came and due to the guidance of the Holy Ghost, they started doing things better. This was so evident to anyone, that the improvements thus introduced became integral part of the wonderful cultural tradition of the Church.
Much as we admire the early Christians, I don’t think they should influence the form of the liturgy at the point of modifying improvements loved and respected for many centuries now.
M
LikeLike
Mr. Carter for musical threads accepted.
Yes, I seem to be hoist by my own petard. But no.
What I am saying is that what happened in the 1960’s was SO radical that it cannot possibly be seen as a mere modern version of this codification or that subjugation of a rite or of a practice in the past. It has been much more, much more. A radical break. Those who fully support the “nu-Church” accept this point without demur.
I know that say in the 11th century, a monk travelling through France on his way to Rome, who stops off en route in Spain and Portugal for some Summer sun-tanning would have heard a slightly different rite most probably at every major monastery he stopped at.
But even that bears no comparison with the true “Liturgical Revolution” and wholesale realignment of the Church with the world that we have witnessed in recent decades.
A Pope can codify, harmonise, such as this blog’s Patron Saint did; he cannot enforce a protestantised Church on all of us.
Well, he can: and the result is that we are on this blog because of the resulting fiasco we see all around us.
LikeLike
Mundabor, emotional reactions are part of our humanity and, as such, rarely deserving of condemnation.
Quite correctly, it’s not a question of what the early Christians did, for, as you say, after that due to the guidance of the Holy Ghost, they started doing things better for many centuries. So, at what point did the Holy Ghost stop guiding the Christian community? Who determines that?
LikeLike
It is difficult for me to accept that the Holy Spirit wanted a wholesale apostacy from the Catholic Faith, Father.
LikeLike
OK, let’s not question the documents of Vatican II. It was an Oecumenical Council and I accept its documents.
So when are our priests going to start saying Mass as determined by its very first document, on the liturgy?
LikeLike
“So, at what point did the Holy Ghost stop guiding the Christian community? Who determines that?”
Exactly. I once heard a lady talking of the leavened bread used at communion “by the Fiiiirst Christiaaans” with a ravished voice as if Christianity were a sort of Troy, something to be found digging under centuries of useless layers which have deposited themselves between where you stand and The Real Treasure.
I didn’t say it to the woman, but I can’t see how one can reconcile the (implicit) belief that things have gone awry for seventeen century with the faith in the Church as the Body of Christ and guided by the Holy Ghost.
M
LikeLike
Ben and Mundabor, while I accept readily that many unfortunate abuses have taken place (and as I’ve remarked elsewhere, I doubt that anyone here has a greater stock of true horror stories), I do not, in the least, see myself as a member of a Protestantized Church, let alone see myself as an apostate. I see myself as a member of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church (as the Nicene creed proclaims) at a particular stage in its two-millenial history, a stage like all previous ones guided by the presence of the Holy Spirit notwithstanding that, once more like all previous stages, it’s a troubled one. If I were ever to stop believing that, I’d be bound in conscience to no longer reckon myself a member of that Church.
LikeLike
Benedict,
I agree with you that the Novus Ordo is a change so radical as to constitute the biggest change (I would translate the Italian “strappo”, but cannot) in 2000 years of liturgy.
But as I believe that the Church is the Body of Christ and that the Holy Ghost has not stopped guiding Her, I refuse to think that the Church has been guided (or has wanted to guide her sheep) into apostasy. Therefore – in my simple mind – the Mass must be valid, exactly as the light must be luminous. It is valid because it is the Mass of the Only Church.
What I do think has happened is that Pope Leo XIII’s vision has come to pass: the devil was allowed to have a go at subverting the Church. This attempt has damaged the building, but not destroyed it. One of the results of the attempted (but failed) subversion is the substitution of the Mass of the Ages with the shallow, mediocre, childish Novus Ordo and his apparatus of innovations (the altar “girls” – actually old aunts-; the removal of the altar rails; the standing; the receiving in the hand; the neglect of the confession; the guitars (oh, the guitars!) and so on). Very fittingly, the “aggiornamento” has thought that the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel (introduced by Leo XIII after that very vision, to protect the Church from that very danger) could be made without. Now, is this not a coincidence….
The building is damaged, but it still stands; the Mass is shallow, but still sacramentally valid; the altar “girls” are an awful sight, but they don’t “consecrate” the Bread and Wine; the guitar strumming is atrocious, but not enough as to let Christ go away from the Host, etc.
Still: better days ahead, I hope.
M
LikeLike
Cumanus, you have said it much shorter and better than I ever could.
All that faggot-burning must sharpen the mind a lot… 😉
LikeLike
Mundabor,
strappo = wrench? (‘tear’ is too soft)
Better days, worse days, better days, worse days… It will go on till He returns in glory to judge the quick and the dead. Till then all we can do is not lose faith and fight the good battle.
I see our mutual hero has a new topic, and that repulsive Oistralian broad is on the rampage again, sounds full of pints too.
LikeLike
Father, you challenge me to go beyond – but I will not.
I believe as you believe. I only wish I could believe with your calm and acceptance. However that may be, in the final analysis you will find me lined up on the barricades beside you.
LikeLike
I’ll go with “wrench” then….. 😉
As far as Homo Smoke is concerned, I must say in the last days I only went in to read the beautiful impersonations of you three musketeers. I’d like to keep company but your level of wit and sophistication is such that my language skills would never cope.
Excellent job!
M
LikeLike
Father Cumanus, Mundabor:
Apostacy: I’m not referring to Catholics!!!!
I’m referring to the millions who WERE Catholics but are not now practicing. How on earth could either of you make that mistake? Is it an Italian thing?
LikeLike
Leo XIII’s vision has come to pass.
Yes, I am certain that this is what has happened and is still happening, and it is these times that we are unfortunate enough to live in. But the Church will emerge trimumphant, I am certain of that too.
But I REALLY dislike mistakes made by your own side.
LikeLike
Ah, now I understand where you come from!
In my eyes they are not apostates. Merely very ignorant sheep, very badly kept by very bad shepherds. No one of those I know has the knowledge and lucidity to make a choice for apostasy. To me the number of Catholics stays at 1.15 bn, of whom very many very badly instructed.
If not even their priests have the gut to tell them that they have to go to mass, be against abortion and believe everything that the Church believes, how are they to know? Most people are not so well read as you and I 😉
M
LikeLike
Mundabor:
They’ve voted with their feet and buggered off! By the million.
LikeLike
Ben,
apostaSy is not an Italian thing, although it has certainly plagued northern Europe since the 20s of the sixteenth century.
I’d be grateful for a reliable, documented source on Leo XIII’s alleged vision = not a link to an undocumented claim made on some site.
LikeLike
Cumanus,
I can only offer a link to a documented [Ephemerides Liturgicae (V. LXIX, pages 54–60)] but unlinked and as such unprovable (by me) source:
This would be the direct testimony of Fr Domenico Pechenino, who worked there in Leo XIII’s years, as reported in “Ephemerides Liturgicae” albeit many years later (1955).
“I do not remember the exact year. One morning the great Pope Leo XIII had celebrated a Mass and, as usual, was attending a Mass of thanksgiving. Suddenly, we saw him raise his head and stare at something above the celebrant’s head. He was staring motionlessly, without batting an eye. His expression was one of horror and awe; the colour and look on his face changing rapidly. Something unusual and grave was happening in him.
“Finally, as though coming to his senses, he lightly but firmly tapped his hand and rose to his feet. He headed for his private office. His retinue followed anxiously and solicitously, whispering: ‘Holy Father, are you not feeling well? Do you need anything?’ He answered: ‘Nothing, nothing.’ About half an hour later, he called for the Secretary of the Congregation of Rites and, handing him a sheet of paper, requested that it be printed and sent to all the ordinaries around the world. What was that paper? It was the prayer that we recite with the people at the end of every Mass. It is the plea to Mary and the passionate request to the Prince of the heavenly host, (St. Michael: Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle) beseeching God to send Satan back to hell.”
This is a religious, so people like you and I would tend to trust him. This is also a rather shocking experience so I think he would remember it well many years later. And being a religious, I do not think he would do it for personal glory or with second motives.
Or one might try to verify this:
“According to the same article in Ephemerides Liturgicae,[9] Cardinal Giovanni Nasalli Rocca di Corneliano wrote in his Litteris Pastoralibus pro Quadragesima (Pastoral Letters for Lent) that “the sentence ‘The evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls’ has a historical explanation that was many times repeated by his private secretary, Monsignor Rinaldo Angeli. Leo XIII truly saw, in a vision, demonic spirits who were congregating on the Eternal City (Rome). The prayer that he asked all the Church to recite was the fruit of that experience. He would recite that prayer with strong, powerful voice: we heard it many a time in the Vatican Basilica. Leo XIII also personally wrote an exorcism that is included in the Roman Ritual. He recommended that bishops and priests read these exorcisms often in their dioceses and parishes. He himself would recite them often throughout the day.”
Still: I was not there and admittedly there is nothing so explicit about satan being authorised to try to subvert, but such a vision must have been terrible anyway….
But it’s very late now and I am not very lucid anymore so don’t believe anything of what I write…. (which you don’t do anyway..).
Good night
M
LikeLike
Father, I have one somewhere, will try to find it. A very old cleric who as a much younger man witnessed the event wrote about it in the early decades of the new century and confirmed the facts and the immediate creation by Pope Leo of the prayer to St. Michael Archangel. I will try to find it.
God bless one and all and goodnight!
PS I used to say to my little daughter just as her eyes were closing, “And may God send His angels and saints to stand by the four corners of your bed through the night and keep all evil far, far away”. I say it too for all the readers of our blog 🙂
PPS It’s colonialists!
LikeLike
Sorry Mundabor, I read yours only now. That’s the reference I have seen, too.
LikeLike
Mundabor, thanks for the reference. We have the full set of Ephemerides Liturgicae in our library, so I’ll make a point of looking it up.
The last remark was uncalled for, let me assure you that if I didn’t take seriously what you write, I wouldn’t bother replying to you.
LikeLike
“I see our mutual hero has a new topic, and that repulsive Oistralian broad is on the rampage again, sounds full of pints too.”
Fr Cumanus, I think in her part of the world they don’t use pint glasses (very rare anyway), but something they call “pots” which is 10 fl. oz. or a half-pint.
Yes the self-absorption, ignorance and humourlessness of the old biddy made for very boring moments indeed.
LikeLike
Who? Damian? He’s not that old.
LikeLike
No, the Australian cringe-making pseud, who Father Cumanus thought was “full of pints”. “Full of pots”, however, is more accurate if the biddy is from Melbourne (and hence “potty”?).
LikeLike
In this regard, I seem to recall the self-absorbed pseud referring to just about everybody else as “potty-mouthed”. However, in view of the above it has just dawned on me that she actually must have been referring to herself!!! 😉
By the way, Ben, do you never sleep? I looked at your posts in these wee hours and see that you have only been inactive between 1.30 a.m. and 4.30 a.m. Are you chanting matins?
LikeLike
Fr Cumanus said: “Quite correctly, it’s not a question of what the early Christians did, for, as you say, after that due to the guidance of the Holy Ghost, they started doing things better for many centuries. So, at what point did the Holy Ghost stop guiding the Christian community? Who determines that?”
Well that’s an easy one, Fr Cumanus.
Of course, in the Anglophone world it’s the ageing dissident Establishment (who strangely still call themselves Catholics) who know all about the Holy Spirit’s movements and nobody else does apparently! The one justification they feebly assert for their de facto schism is that they are “prophetic” and “lead by the Spirit” who “blows where She wills”. They above all know for a fact that the Holy Spirit has nothing to do with the hierarchy and, in fact, “She” and the hierarchy haven’t even been introduced.
The Establishment is so confident of their monopoly on the Holy Spirit that many if not most of their “religious congregations” haven’t had one postulant for 25 years or more and virtually all the live ones are drawing their state pensions as well as living off the generous bequests of orthodox Catholics of previous decades!
Check out these old dears, for example: http://www.pbvm.org.au/qld/index.html
A few Judy Haddock look-alikes there, I bet, rabbit . . .
LikeLike
“The last remark was uncalled for, let me assure you that if I didn’t take seriously what you write, I wouldn’t bother replying to you”.
Come on Cumanus, it was a joke! 🙂
I was dying from sleep, do you forgive me for forgetting the emoticon? 😉
LikeLike
After spending considerable time in the darkest recesses of our library periodical stacks I have found the article in Ephemerides Liturgicae LXIX (1955) pp. 54-60 – “Notae practicae. De precibus post missam imperatis.” It traces the history of those prayers from ca. 1859-1886 and sets them in the context of the struggles facing the papacy at the time.
The accounts of Leo XIII’s alleged visions are relegated to footnote 9 of p. 58 and the author is extremely cautious: “Attamen in tractu relato (= Pechenino’s article of 1947) censendum inveniri aliquid veri, et aliquid incerti, seu non omnino ad unguem…”
The testimony of Card. Nasalli Rocca of 1946, who cites Leo XIII’s secretary, Msgr. Rinaldo Angeli, seems more credible. But, note well, whatever might have been the substance of Leo XIII’s alleged vision of “infernal spirits” in no way does it lend itself to being taken as a prophetic statement concerning the Church in our time, as has often been done rather tendentiously by some would-be Catholic sites.
For those interested, I have made scans of the article and posted them in an appropriate place. Please do read them.
LikeLike
And while we’re on the subject of Pope Leo XIII:
LikeLike
For those interested, I have made scans of the article and posted them in an appropriate place. Please do read them.
Thanks Cumanus,
could you provide the link to the “appropriate place”?
I do agree with you that the talk is about a vision, not a prophecy. If Pope Leo XIII had considered it necessary to issue some prophetic statement, I think he would have given the matter a much wider notoriety.
M
LikeLike
Mundabor, you’ll find the reference in your email.
Here’s more Leo XIII
LikeLike
Nevertheless, Father, given what has happened in the Church in recent decades, one would find it difficult to suggest that there was (a) definitely NOT a link between Leo XIII’s vision and what has happened in recent decades; (b) no reason for the Pope to have sat down and immediately composed the prayer to St. Michael Archangel.
On the contrary, it would be more rational to believe that there IS a link and that Leo XIII had a very good reason so to do.
You then dismiss the linkage to ” .. some would-be Catholic sites”.
That’s not in the least balanced nor fair. There are many commentators, writers, who were making the link well before the internet was even invented, and they were most certainly Catholics.
One appreciates your own opinion that the current crisis in the Church is no worse than at other times (many, on the contrary, think it is of a substantively different nature than crises of the past, the majority of which were about wordly corruption rather than now, about matters of faith), but the end result is that you effectively say that there is no crisis at all.
And in THIS, precisely in this, lies the clerical inability to even admit that there IS a crisis. Of course there is. The Holy Father (who ultimately bears some responsibility for bringing the crisis into being) says so and has done for years.
LikeLike
golden chersonnese:
Always struggle to sleep during these hot Latin Summers.
Need to get myself back to Blighty at some point. Temperature is more conducive there to sleep.
LikeLike
Pace golden chersonnese , it is perfectly possible to get a pint in Australia, at any rate in Western Australia, where I live.
LikeLike
Indeed, archiewedderspoon, pots in Melbourne, but pints just about anywhere else in Australia, especially in NSW.
Ben, you just can’t argue that way. So little is known of Leo XIII’s alleged vision, that one just can’t go anywhere by starting from it, let alone assert a link to anything else. Authors who have done so, have in fact written penny dreadfuls that, no matter how well they sold and how much money they made for their authors, no serious scholar would ever even bother with – for example, the rubbish pooped out by the late Malachy Martin. Yet, garbage of this sort, is pushed on soi-disant Catholic sites.
And it’s a heartbreaking thing, for people who no doubt are sincere, well-intentioned Catholics concerned about the Faith, finish up reading these confabulations while they could be reading literally thousands of worthwhile books on Catholic history and the Catholic Faith instead.
LikeLike
Dear all, find you all here. Just made an entry, if there is any mistake in it, please correct it. Many thanks!
LikeLike
Cumanus, I have received no email. It’s the hotmail one but I also found nothing at the gmx one.
—
On Leo XIII’s vision.
You either believe he had the vision, or you don’t. I do. Not only I do because among others a Cardinal says it (I am assuming here that the average quality was much better than today’s and personally don’t doubt it in the least), but because it makes perfect sense with Leo’s adding of an additional prayer in 1886 after he had already introduced the Leonine Prayers only two years before.
If one believes the vision, one must perforce believe that the vision must have been terrifying. The link between the terrifying vision, the new prayer and the rather terrifying things happened in the last century is all but natural.
I think we can safely say that if anyone had proposed to, say, St. Pius X (or Leo XIII, come to that) a “reform” like the one put in place, his career would have ended instantly. I also think that if anyone could have showed one of our grand-grandmothers a video of some of today’s most “adventurous” Masses they would have stubbornly refused to acknowledge *that* as Catholicism and rather believed we were pulling their legs in a very stupid way. This is not to say that it isn’t Catholicism; merely to point out the scale of the devastation.
Whether this mess is more or less grave than having sluts as nuns and pigs as priests is not any of my concerns. I know that the Church will survive this one as it has survived everything else or I’d not call myself a Catholic. But it was a catastrophy and it still is a plague. The sooner the Church comes back to doing everything as she used to do it, the better.
M
LikeLike
Just to clarify something.
Is it not the case that the Novus Ordo may be celebrated wholly or mainly in Latin, ad orientem and with Communion received soley on the tongue?
Is it not the case that much of what we see at so many Masses nowadays, and which gives rise to distress, is the result of novelties foisted upon us by Liturgy Commissions and lay activists?
I’m thinking, for example, of the displacement of the taberbacle, receiving Communion in the hand, ‘dance’, the guitars and so on.
The Novus Ordo mass is clearly valid.
It’s the antics of post-Vatican II liberals, some of which have been later reluctantly regularised by Rome, which confuse the faithful and provide fertile soil for scandal.
LikeLike
Father Cumanus:
Well, I do accept that.
This was brought home to me when I posted in another place about the book “Catholic Prophecy” by Yves Dupont and it was proved in the subsequent discussion that the author had arranged various texts, including splitting them up, to present the conclusion he wanted.
Look, Father, how to stop the spirit of .. what would it be? Continually moaning basically about the state of the Church and not seeing things in their proper perspective? Which I probably don’t. I don’t think I will ever be a fan of the Novus Ordo but I do know that I need to partake in the life of the Church today and not stand on or even sometimes just outside the margins. Pissing out of the tent is better than pissing in, as the saying goes. I have already come a long, long way (courtesy of Fr. Ryan in Moscow) but I know there is further to go.
How to do it?
LikeLike
Let me add I’m delighted that Pope Benedict has cleared away obstacles to celebrating the wonderful Mass in the older form.
LikeLike
How to do it, when Mundabor’s last post above is exactly my thinking too?
LikeLike
Omvendt:
What is the real cause of all this is the collapse in authority.
Everywhere, including the Church now, people are refusing to accept received wisdom or even direct orders; and Popes refuse to impose themselves.
All in line with Scripture …. . Wasn’t it St. Paul who wrote somewhere about people following their own ways and chaos ensuing?
LikeLike
Thanks Cumanus, I have now found the documents in the mail loop.
.
I am even more impressed than before.
I find it not very apposite to put in question the direct testimony of Fr Pechenino just because, more than 60 years later, he remember “after 1890” instead of “1886”. It is a fact that the prayer is dated 1886 so either the man was gaga (improbable), or he was just confusing the date (very easy).
Even more impressive is the recollection of Cardinal Nasalli Rocca, who not only mentions another influential prelate (Mons. Rinaldo Angeli, the Pope’s secretary, no less) , but vividly recollects the importance Leo obviously, publicly and frequently gave to the entire matter.
More impressive still is that that very same Leo XIII, not satisfied with having even modified the Mass, also wrote his own particular exorcism, recommended its use to everyone and recited it extremely often himself.
Now it can of course be said that he had the Freemasons particularly in mind. But one can’t demand from him that such a vision would give him every detail.
I am not being “melodrammatico” when I tell you that the reading of the document (particularly the part over the exorcism) sent a shiver down my spine. Thanks again for the scanning and posting.
M
LikeLike
“How to do it, when Mundabor’s last post above is exactly my thinking too?”
Benedict, I do not think that we have the same thinking.
I have never doubted, and will never doubt, the sacramental validity of the NO Mass. I couldn’t do that and call myself a Catholic. I couldn’t do that and believe that the Church still is the Body of Christ, still is helped and guided by the Holy Ghost.
What I do think (and passionately so) is that the NO is a sorry mess fruit of the very populistic mentality of the Sixties and of the desire to be “modern” at all costs; that it not only allows, but invites every kind of liturgical abuse and less-than-orthodox priestly show; that it makes childish what is sacred, and banal what should be edifying; that it is at the root of every other problem which has afflicted the Church, because the liturgy is the very heart of the Church and if you disease the Liturgy you will introduce disease into the life of the Church; that future generations will look at the NO in shame as we now look in shame at the slut nuns and pig priests; that for all these reasons the NO should be put into the coldest drawer of the freezer and left there forever.
I am, in saying so, no less Catholic and no less orthodox than all those Christians of the past 2000 years who would have looked with stunned unbelief at everything even remotely similar to the NO. Be sure that they are the absolute vast majority of Pope, Bishops, Cardinals, and good souls of every age, as proved by the fact that in 2000 years there has never, ever been a change of such scale as the one of the NO.
But those were times where people didn’t try to be modern and popular.
M
LikeLike
I do not doubt it either. So your estimation of my thinking is not accurate.
I have certainly been tempted to think it, but in the final analysis I do not believe that the Lord would leave His people without means of Sacramental Grace.
I repeat again to Father Cumanus, how to banish the spirit of contention and feel part of today’s Church when my thinking is exactly that of Mundabor’s previous post?
LikeLike
Well, Ben, one way, I suppose, of banishing contention could be by all of us taking a step back now and then and casting a critical glance at the bluster and rhetoric we all almost inevitably produce in the context of heated discussions over issues about which we care so much.
On the other hand, I dare say contention is here to stay. It follows from the very nature of the Church as a divine institution instantiated in an all too human (and, unfortunately, not always humane) body. Just look back at the extremely contentious nature of the goings-on at, say, the council of Nicea and, worse, the council of Trent. Yet these two unbelievably contentious assemblies managed to formulate the very stuff of the Faith in a series of dogmatic statements to which all Catholics today assent unswervingly and, indeed, must do so if they are to be counted as such.
LikeLike
There are indeed many faithful who are not well-versed in Catholic history or even faith matters (I for one am very much “work-in-progress”, hoping amongst others, to learn from this blog) and who have a very real sense that the relentless, disfiguring attacks on the Church – not merely from without but from within – have reached unprecedented proportions in our time. Whilst today’s explosion of pseudo-prophets/visionaries/mystics seems to be another of the adversary’s ploys to sow confusion and doubt in the Church, surely Catholics can’t be wrong to seek confirmation of the “signs of the times” from the Saints and from sources of approved private revelation and to resort to their spiritual weapons…
Needless to say, I was overjoyed when at the end of today’s midday Mass, the celebrant, an assistant priest from Africa, intoned Pope Leo’s St Michael prayer!!
LikeLike
Father:
Yes, I must try to do this and calm my soul.
Some may be able to combine the spirit of contention with a calm assurance that all will be well. It’s a difficult combination for me, given my combative nature. Trying to juggle both would send me mad in the end. A faithful soul is a calm soul at rest, I must remember that.
LikeLike
If the above ‘thread’ is not a classic example of the now hopelessly cliched ( can’t do accents) reference to the deckchairs on The Titanic, I will eat my sombrero.
LikeLike
Toad, here’s another cliche: why do you say that? Explain thinking please.
LikeLike
“Some may be able to combine the spirit of contention with a calm assurance that all will be well”.
I must admit that I don’t have any problem with that, apart from the fact that I do not think that there will ever be a time when “everything is fine” (ecclesia sempre reformanda is another saying which I try to remember).
Still, I do believe that no Schoenborns will ever succeed in breaking the toy. Disfiguring it, scratching it, throwing it in the fireplace and from there in the mud, then trample it with their little deluded feet…..they do it all the time. But destroying it, now that is a different matter altogether….
Think, say, at the times of the Arians and Nestorians and other major heresies. Seen with the eyes of today it almost looks as if Christianity had been on the brink of a precipice. Still, we know that the Holy Ghost always takes her out. Until the next problem, of course.. 😉
I love to think of the Church as one of those ducks that people once had in their bathtubs. Very easy to keep it under water for a while; but in the end, unsinkable.
M
LikeLike
”Toad, here’s another cliche: why do you say that? Explain thinking please.”
Ben, I suspect you really know what I meant, but here goes…
Bothering whether or not one should take the host by hand or mouth – when an ever-increasing amount of people seem utterly unconcerned which way the body of Christ is delivered – by hand, mouth, or email or Twitter (whatever that is) since they aren’t taking it anyway – seems, to this admittedly uncommitted bystander, to be immaterial.
(And this is where the cliche comes in.)
To get all bent out of shape about such trivia would be akin to re-arranging the deckchairs on a steadily-sinking ocean liner.
For, in the end, who cares how the deckchairs were arranged? The damn thing is sliding majestically beneath the waves, even as we are faffing about.
I suppose there is little talk in Portugal about The Titanic and deckchairs these days, what with the crisis and this and that.
So I can understand your puzzlement.
Hope I made that clear.
(I may be wrong, of course. Usually am.)
Just let ’em get it down them, somehow…is what I suggest.
LikeLike
Toadspittle,
the question is one of liturgical relevance, not one of popularity or concern for the people. If it were so, football would be right at the centre of the liturgy.
In the country where you live, 50 years ago the churches were full. In 50 years,they might be full again. This depends, among other things, from the recovery of a proper liturgy.
Therefore, liturgical matters have a huge relevance and not only a religious, but a societal one.
M
LikeLike
Toad:
In fact, you are mistaken, there is a lot of talk about the “Titantic”, the town’s name for a new hotel built on the front here in Figueira da Foz which has resulted in the former Mayor being investigated for corruption over the very dodgy way in which the necessary permits were issued.
Yes, to outsiders fights over things like Communion Rails must seem a total nonsense. Like asking a Taliban fighter his opinion of Clint Eastwood’s performance in ‘The Good, the Bad and The Ugly’.
But to a Catholic it’s the stuff of life and death, and rightly so. Why? Because everything to do with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass has its true importance and effect not only in this world, but in the eternal spiritual reality beyond us. Particularly there.
Which is what Catholicism is all about, after all.
If you then react by saying, “What, things done in this or that way in the world we are living in have an effect outside visible reality? If you believe that, then it’s time for the men in white coats”, then I have to answer “Yes”, and will try to explain when you are interested to ask.
LikeLike
“Like asking a Taliban fighter his opinion of Clint Eastwood’s performance in ‘The Good, the Bad and The Ugly’. ”
I think Lee van Cleef was the best of the three anyway 😉
For those who shouldn’t know, the immortal music is from Ennio Morricone.
LikeLike
Sorry everyone, but now I cannot, really cannot go to sleep without giving you, as a special gift, another wonderful creation of Morricone: the main theme of a film probably never well known here, but at the time extremely famous in Italy: “Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto”.
Gian Maria Volonte’ is simply stellar. The film is a bit “sixties” (conspiracy theories, “bad policemen” and the like), but truly fascinating.
If you can find the English version, don’t miss it.
LikeLike
BEN said:
”If you then react by saying, “What, things done in this or that way in the world we are living in have an effect outside visible reality? If you believe that, then it’s time for the men in white coats”, then I have to answer “Yes”, and will try to explain when you are interested to ask.”
If I didn’t think actions can have an effect beyond that which is visible, it would be time for the men in white coats to come for me. (I will save others the trouble by suggesting that that time has likely already come
And there would be no point in watching Spain win the World Cup on Sunday
LikeLike
Not sure what the following has to do with the topic, but I’m reminded of what Mao (I think it was) was reputed to have said when asked what he thought of the French Revolution; ”It is too early to tell,” he said.
Maybe we should give Christianity a chance to get over its teething troubles. After all, it’s only a couple of (millennia) millenniums old. Maybe another five hundred years? Once the rough edges get knocked off, it might be quite serviceable.
LikeLike
“everything to do with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass has its true importance and effect not only in this world, but in the eternal spiritual reality beyond us”.
Beautiful.
It depends on your system of value or if you wish, on where your priorities are. For many of us, the priority of our life (priority is not enough, this aim clearly eclipsing all others) is to gain Heaven and to help – as we can – other people obtain it. The idea that such matters be not “relevant” does not enter our mind.
If I were an atheist, I would observe that the people who seem so fanatical to me are perfectly rational and “normal” people in the other activities of their lives. And this would make me think….
LikeLike
Toadspittle, that’s a brilliant image for the life of every Christian: a systematic knocking off of the rough edges with the help of the Almighty. But too often we don’t get over the teething troubles associated with this ardous process until we are long in the tooth ourselves!
LikeLike
“… but I’m reminded of what Mao (I think it was) was reputed to have said when asked what he thought of the French Revolution; ”It is too early to tell,” he said.”
Toad:
I know this is irritatingly pedantic of me, but I think it was Chou En-lai who allegedly made that remark.
LikeLike
omvendt
I had a feeling I was wrong about Mao. That why I added the bracketed bit. But was too lazy to check. Bad Toad!
LikeLike
Where in the rubrics of the 1962 Missale Romanum does it say that communion is to be received on the tongue and kneeling?
If the rules are to be observed as in 1962 why did the Latin Mass Society Committee have a lunch before their recent Mass in Westminster Cathedral? In 1962 people fasted a minimum of three hours before receiving communion.
LikeLike
Fair point.
We have all grown cold and lax.
LikeLike
Bjro,
as to the rubrics, the fact that the tradition has been for so long to take the communion kneeling and on the tongue should make this feel normative enough even in the absence of explicit rule. As the kneeling and receiving on the tongue was the absolute norm in the past, the fact that it is not mentioned underlines one more that this is what was expected.
On the three hours rule, I fully agree with you and I also condemn this kind of mixing old and new. If one follows the old Mass one should do everything as it was in old times.
Personally I try to respect the three hours rule even before going to a Novus Ordo Mass. It’s no great feat, just a small attention which helps me to better prepare for Communion.
M
LikeLike
Mundabor,
Certainly in the past a high value was placed on custom and the law of custom.
Would you be so tolerant of say the priests in London who disregard the 1962 MR in favour of older forms – for the richness and tradition of Holy Week for example?
As to fasting a wise priest told me that the ancient Apostolic fast from midnight was so venerable (and after all observed by the Orthodox and Oriental Churches to this day – and their ‘Uniate’ equivalents I believe) that any other discipline is simply not fasting. After all the three hour period was introduced in 1953, for a very limited number of circumstances, and extended in 1957. Hardly traditional?
LikeLike
“Would you be so tolerant of say the priests in London who disregard the 1962 MR in favour of older forms – for the richness and tradition of Holy Week for example?”
Not sure I understood your question. As far as I know, a priest can only celebrate according to the 1962 Missal. As things stand, the 1962 IS the tradition. Tradition is not immobility.
I do not know under what circustances a priest would be allowed to celebrate according to, say, the 1955 missal. If he is authorised (or, say, his religious order is allowed to do so in the first place) I wouldn’t have a problem with that; if it is an individual initiative of the priest tailoring the mass to his individual preferences, I would. But I would have to know more in detail what the rules about the use of alternative missals are.
M
LikeLike
Mundabor,
Sorry if I was not clear. Several priests in London celebrated the Old Holy week ceremonies and have done so for several years.
You stated above “If one follows the old Mass one should do everything as it was in old times. ” Something like Holy Week in the 1962 MR is rather a novelty dating from the mid-1950s.
So are you saying that if something is really old, like the Holy Week rites found in the Roman rite before 1956 then it shouldn’t be followed because it is old and that ‘old times’ are not really that old?
You further state “As things stand, the 1962 IS the tradition. Tradition is not immobility.” So if Tradition is not immobile what is wrong with the 1965 Ordo Missae? After all the 1965 Ordo Missae was approved by the Pope and is promulgated in AAS (AAS 57, 1965, pp.408-9) unlike the 1962 MR which was promulgated by a private decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, not by Pope John, and never appeared in the AAS.
So you say anything after 1962 is not Traditional but anything before 1962 is not Traditional either because it is too old? I am a tad confused by your logic.
LikeLike
Bjro,
the MR of 1962 is not “a novelty”. It is an organic evolution of the Only Mass.
What is wrong with the 1965 is that it is not the organic continuation of what was before. It is a wrench with Tradition. You surely do not want to compare the changes represented by the 1962 Missal with the changes represented by the NO.
So I say everything until 1962 was Traditional. The Ordo Missae of 1965 is not traditional.
LikeLike
Mundabor,
Two things: 1) The 1965 order of Mass was produced by a committee the important members of which were on another committee which produced the 1956 Holy Week and the 1956/1960/1961 changes. Why is one organic development the other not?
2) What is the essential difference between 1962 and 1965 to be concerned about? Most of the changes in the 1965 rite were those that had been introduced into the 1962 rite anyway e.g. curtailment of prayers at the foot of the altar, omission of the last Gospel (changed introduced originally in the 1956 Holy Week reform). Other than that what is the issue? Surely the 1962 rite is defective in some ways: e.g. at High Mass the celebrant no longer reads the pericopes sung by the subdeacon and deacon but he still says in a low voice the Gradual and Alleluia/Tract sung by the choir. In 1965 that idiosyncrasy is ironed out. I believe Le Barroux have used 1965 for a long time.
“So I say everything until 1962 was Traditional. The Ordo Missae of 1965 is not traditional” But what about pre-1962? Are priests who use pre-1962 too Trad? I ask again are you saying that if something is really old, like the Holy Week rites found in the Roman rite before 1956 then it shouldn’t be followed because it is old and that ‘old times’ are not really that old?
LikeLike
Dear Mundabor,
Sorry I was unclear above: my reference to the curtailment/omission of the prayers at the foot of the altar and last Gospel in the 1962 rite should have stated ‘on certain days’ e.g. the reforms introduced for Holy Week c.f. Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday (last Gospel), Holy Saturday, Rogation Days (preparatory prayers), Corpus Christi, Abosolutions at a Requiem (last Gospel) etc.
Apologies for the lack of precision.
LikeLike
Bjro,
irrespective of details I hope you get my point. I (and many others) see a stream of continuity from the beginning to the 1962 Missal. And then a wrench and something still sacramentally valid, still a Mass, but nevertheless the most brutal change in 2000 years, by far.
LikeLike
1) Because the one is the evolution of the Mass of the Ages, the other isn’t. You only need to read both.
2) See 1). If you can’t see the differences between the two, you either haven’t been to both or you weren’t paying attention. As the entire planet seems to see the differences, I would think that you are missing a rather biggish point here.
3) But what about pre-1962? Are priests who use pre-1962 too Trad?
Are they allowed to use the 1955 missal? If they are, I haven’t a problem. If they use the 1955 missal to make a point that, say, they do not recognise John XXIII as a Pope, I have.
LikeLike
Dear Mundabor,
Frankly no. Why is a committee work revision of parts of the rite in 1956 and a missal in 1960/61 organic when a committee work revision in 1965 is not? Please explain.
Distinguished scholars such as the late Mgr. Klaus Gamber (and others) have argued that the 1965 rite is the ‘organic’ revision of the Roman liturgy that the Council called for (c.f. Gamber, K., ‘The Reform of the Roman Liturgy – Its Problems and Background’, Una Voce, California, 1993).
Again, why is pre-1962 not Traditional? Why is the 1956 reform ‘part of a stream of continuity’? Why supress the elaborate blessing of Palms? Why bless Palms facing the people? Why bless baptismal water in the sanctuary rather than at the font etc?
What about something like planetis plicatis? Perhaps one of the very oldest and most Roman characteristics of the liturgy were the vestments worn by deacons and subdeacons in Lent, Advent and the Ember Days – that was suppressed and changed in 1960- Continuity? I don’t think so.
LikeLike
Bjro,
if you don’t get simple things, I will not be able to help you as you will, I am afraid, not see them anyway.
I suggest that you do a bit of work yuorself, or else read here the various comments about all that is wrong with the NO.
1962 IS traditional btw. I have never said it isn’t.
“Continuity? I don’t think so”. I do. Continuity is not immutability.
M
LikeLike
Mundabor,
Because I don’t agree with you I ‘don’t get simple things’?
Please explain why Pius XII appointing members to a commission for reform of the Mass and Office is different to Paul VI doing the same thing (especially when some of the key players were the same people Bugnini, Bea, Jungmann etc).
I asked you why pre-1962 is not traditional in your view. If you believe it is better to follow the rules for fasting that existed in 1962 rather than those in force now why don’t you think the fast before Pius XII’s change, i.e. to fast from midnight is better that the rules in force in 1962?
Perhaps it is a question it raining spiritually but some of us are too sinful to see it.
LikeLike
BRJO
”Perhaps it is a question it raining spiritually but some of us are too sinful to see it.”
This is a declaration of Waugh!
LikeLike