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| St. Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-10-2023, 05:03 AM - Forum: Fathers of the Church
- Replies (18)
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St. Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Taken from here.
Exposition on Psalm 1
1. Blessed is the man that has not gone away in the counsel of the ungodly Psalm 1:1. This is to be understood of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Man. Blessed is the man that has not gone away in the counsel of the ungodly, as the man of earth did, 1 Corinthians 15:47 who consented to his wife deceived by the serpent, to the transgressing the commandment of God. Nor stood in the way of sinners. For He came indeed in the way of sinners, by being born as sinners are; but He stood not therein, for that the enticements of the world held Him not. And has not sat in the seat of pestilence. He willed not an earthly kingdom, with pride, which is well taken for the seat of pestilence; for that there is hardly any one who is free from the love of rule, and craves not human glory. For a pestilence is disease widely spread, and involving all or nearly all. Yet the seat of pestilence may be more appropriately understood of hurtful doctrine; whose word spreads as a canker. 2 Timothy 2:17 The order too of the words must be considered: went away, stood, sat. For he went away, when he drew back from God. He stood, when he took pleasure in sin. He sat, when, confirmed in his pride, he could not go back, unless set free by Him, who neither has gone away in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of pestilence.
2. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law will he meditate by day and by night Psalm 1:2. The law is not made for a righteous man, 1 Timothy 1:9 says the Apostle. But it is one thing to be in the law, another under the law. Whoever is in the law, acts according to the law; whoever is under the law, is acted upon according to the law: the one therefore is free, the other a slave. Again, the law, which is written and imposed upon the servant, is one thing; the law, which is mentally discerned by him who needs not its letter, is another thing. He will meditate by day and by night, is to be understood either as without ceasing; or by day in joy, by night in tribulations. For it is said, Abraham saw my day, and was glad: John 8:5-6 and of tribulation it is said, my reins also have instructed me, even unto the night.
3. And he shall be like a tree planted hard by the running streams of waters Psalm 1:3; that is either Very Wisdom, Proverbs viii which vouchsafed to assume man's nature for our salvation; that as man He might be the tree planted hard by the running streams of waters; for in this sense can that too be taken which is said in another Psalm, the river of God is full of water. Or by the Holy Ghost, of whom it is said, He shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost; Matthew 3:11 and again, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink; John 7:37 and again, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that asks water of you, you would have asked of Him, and He would have given you living water, of which whoever drinks shall never thirst, but it shall be made in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. Or, by the running streams of waters may be by the sins of the people, because first the waters are called peoples in the Apocalypse; Revelation 17:15 and again, by running stream is not unreasonably understood fall, which has relation to sin. That tree then, that is, our Lord, from the running streams of water, that is, from the sinful people's drawing them by the way into the roots of His discipline, will bring forth fruit, that is, will establish Churches; in His season, that is, after He has been glorified by His Resurrection and Ascension into heaven. For then, by the sending of the Holy Ghost to the Apostles, and by the confirming of their faith in Him, and their mission to the world, He made the Churches to bring forth fruit. His leaf also shall not fall, that is, His Word shall not be in vain. For, all flesh is grass, and the glory of man as the flower of grass; the grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord abides forever. Isaiah 40:6-8 And whatsoever He does shall prosper that is, whatsoever that tree shall bear; which all must be taken of fruit and leaves, that is, deeds and words.
4. The ungodly are not so, they are not so, but are like the dust which the wind casts forth from the face of the earth Psalm 1:4. The earth is here to be taken as that steadfastness in God, with a view to which it is said, The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance, yea, I have a goodly heritage. With a view to this it is said, Wait on the Lord and keep His ways, and He shall exalt you to inherit the earth. With a view to this it is said, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Matthew 5:5 A comparison too is derived hence, for as this visible earth supports and contains the outer man, so that earth invisible the inner man. From the face of which earth the wind casts forth the ungodly, that is, pride, in that it puffs him up. On his guard against which he, who was inebriated by the richness of the house of the Lord, and drunken of the torrent stream of its pleasures, says, Let not the foot of pride come against me. From this earth pride cast forth him who said, I will place my seat in the north, and I will be like the Most High. Isaiah 14:13-14 From the face of the earth it cast forth him also who, after that he had consented and tasted of the forbidden tree that he might be as God, hid himself from the Face of God. Genesis 3:8 That his earth has reference to the inner man, and that man is cast forth thence by pride, may be particularly seen in that which is written, Why is earth and ashes proud? Because, in his life, he cast forth his bowels. Sirach 10:9 For, whence he has been cast forth, he is not unreasonably said to have cast forth himself.
5. Therefore the ungodly rise not in the judgment Psalm 1:5: therefore, namely, because as dust they are cast forth from the face of the earth. And well did he say that this should be taken away from them, which in their pride they court, namely, that they may judge; so that this same idea is more clearly expressed in the following sentence, nor sinners in the counsel of the righteous. For it is usual for what goes before, to be thus repeated more clearly. So that by sinners should be understood the ungodly; what is before in the judgment, should be here in the counsel of the righteous. Or if indeed the ungodly are one thing, and sinners another, so that although every ungodly man is a sinner, yet every sinner is not ungodly; The ungodly rise not in the judgment, that is, they shall rise indeed, but not that they should be judged, for they are already appointed to most certain punishment. But sinners do not rise in counsel of the just, that is, that they may judge, but perhaps that they may be judged; so as of these it were said, The fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall then suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
6. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous Psalm 1:6. As it is said, medicine knows health, but knows not disease, and yet disease is recognised by the art of medicine. In like manner can it be said that the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly He knows not. Not that the Lord is ignorant of anything, and yet He says to sinners, I never knew you. Matthew 7:23 But the way of the ungodly shall perish; is the same as if it were said, the way of the ungodly the Lord knows not. But it is expressed more plainly that this should be not to be known of the Lord, namely, to perish; and this to be known of the Lord, namely, to abide; so as that to be should appertain to the knowledge of God, but to His not knowing not to be. For the Lord says, I Am that I Am, and, I Am has sent me."
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| Dom Guéranger: The History & Mystery of Paschaltide |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-09-2023, 04:25 AM - Forum: Easter
- Replies (2)
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THE HISTORY OF PASCHAL TIME
by Dom Guéranger
![[Image: ZS5qcGc]](https://imgs.search.brave.com/snXxi2PN4879gwPECq_MEnBgQslq2_iItEakBSrvNn4/rs:fit:660:470:1/g:ce/aHR0cHM6Ly9jYXRo/b2xpY2xlYWRlci5j/b20uYXUvd3AtY29u/dGVudC91cGxvYWRz/LzIwMTUvMDQvVGlu/dG9yZXR0b18tX0xh/X1Jlc3VycmV6aW9u/ZS5qcGc)
We give the name of Paschal Time to the period between Easter Sunday and the Saturday following Whit Sunday. It is the most sacred portion of the Liturgical Year, and the one towards which the whole Cycle converges. We shall easily understand how this is, if we reflect upon the greatness of the Easter Feast, which is called the Feast of Feasts, and the Solemnity of Solemnities, in the same manner, says St. Gregory, [Homilia, xxii.] as the most sacred part of the Temple was called the Holy of Holies; and the Book of Sacred Scripture, wherein are described the espousals between Christ and the Church, is called the Canticle of Canticles. It is on this day, that the mission of the Word Incarnate attains the object towards which it has hitherto been unceasingly tending: mankind is raised up from his fall, and regains what he had lost by Adam’s sin.
Christmas gave us a Man-God; three days have scarcely passed, since we witnessed His infinitely precious Blood shed for our ransom; but now, on the day of Easter, our Jesus is no longer the Victim of death: He is a Conqueror, that destroys death, the child of sin, and proclaims life, that undying life which He has purchased for us. The humiliation of His swathing-bands, the sufferings of His Agony and Cross, these are passed; all is now glory,- glory for Himself, and glory also for us. On the day of Easter, God regains, by the Resurrection of the Man-God, His creation such as He made it at the beginning; the only vestige now left of death, is that likeness to sin which the Lamb of God deigned to take upon Himself. Neither is it Jesus alone that returns to eternal life; the whole human race also has risen to immortality together with our Jesus. ‘By a man came death,’ says the Apostle; ‘and by a Man the Resurrection of the dead: and as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.' [1 Cor. xv. 21,22].
The anniversary of this Resurrection is, therefore, the great Day, the day of joy, the day par excellence; the day to which the whole year looks forward in expectation, and on which its whole economy is formed. But as it is the holiest of days,- since it opens to us the gate of Heaven, into which we shall enter because we have risen together with Christ,- the Church would have us come to it well prepared by bodily mortification and by compunction of heart. It was for this that she instituted the Fast of Lent, and that she bade us, during Septuagesima, look forward to the joy of her Easter, and be filled with sentiments suitable to the approach of so grand a solemnity. We obeyed; we have gone through the period of our preparation; and now the Easter sun has risen upon us!
But it was not enough to solemnize the great Day when Jesus, our Light, rose from the darkness of the tomb: there was another anniversary which claimed our grateful celebration. The Incarnate Word rose on the first day of the week,- that same day, where on, four thousand years before, He, the Uncreated Word of the Father, had begun the work of the Creation, by calling forth light, and separating it from darkness. The first day was thus ennobled by the creation of light. It received a second consecration by the Resurrection of Jesus; and from that time forward Sunday, and not Saturday, was to be the Lord’s Day. Yes, our Resurrection in Jesus which took place on the Sunday, gave this first day a pre-eminence above the others of the week: the divine precept of the Sabbath was abrogated together with the other ordinances of the Mosaic Law, and the Apostles instructed the faithful to keep holy the first day of the week, which God had dignified with that twofold glory, the creation and the regeneration of the world. Sunday, then, being the day of Jesus’ Resurrection, the Church chose that day, in preference to every other, for its yearly commemoration. The Pasch of the Jews, in consequence of its being fixed on the fourteenth of the moon of March, (the anniversary of the going out of Egypt,) fell by turns on each day of the week. The Jewish Pasch was but a figure; ours is the reality, and puts an end to the figure. The Church, therefore, broke this her last tie with the Synagogue; and proclaimed her emancipation, by fixing the most solemn of her Feasts on a day, which should never agree with that on which the Jews keep their now unmeaning Pasch. The Apostles decreed, that the Christian Pasch should never be celebrated on the fourteenth of the moon of March, even were that day to be a Sunday; but that it should be everywhere kept on the Sunday following the day on which the obsolete calendar of the Synagogue still marks it.
Nevertheless, out of consideration for the many Jews who had received Baptism, and who formed the nucleus of the early Christian Church, it was resolved that the law regarding the day for keeping the new Pasch, should be applied prudently and gradually. Jerusalem was soon to be destroyed by the Romans, according to our Saviour’s prediction; and the new City, which was to rise up from its ruins and receive the Christian colony, would also have its Church, but a Church totally free from the Jewish element, which God had so visibly rejected. In preaching the Gospel and founding Churches, even far beyond the limits of the Roman Empire, the majority of the Apostles had not to contend with Jewish customs; most of their converts were from among the Gentiles. Saint Peter, who in the Council of Jerusalem had proclaimed the cessation of the Jewish Law, set up the standard of emancipation in the City of Rome; so that the Church, which through him was made the Mother and Mistress of all Churches, never had any other discipline regarding the observance of Easter, than that laid down by the Apostles, namely, that it should be kept on a Sunday.
There was, however, one province of the Church, which for a long time stood out against the universal practice: it was Asia Minor. The Apostle St. John, who lived for many years at Ephesus,- where indeed he died,- had thought it prudent to tolerate, in those parts, the Jewish custom of celebrating the Pasch; for many of the converts had been members of the Synagogue. But the Gentiles themselves, who, later on, formed the mass of the faithful, were strenuous upholders of this custom, which dated from the very foundation of the Church of Asia Minor. In the course of time, however, this anomaly became a source of scandal: it savoured of Judaism, and it prevented unity of religious observance, which is always desirable, but particularly so in what regards Lent and Easter.
Pope St. Victor, who governed the Church from the year 193, endeavoured to put a stop to this abuse; he thought the time had come for establishing unity in so essential a point of Christian worship. Already, that is in the year 160, under Pope St. Anicetus, the Apostolic See had sought, by friendly negotiations, to induce the Churches of Asia Minor to conform to the universal practice; but it was difficult to triumph over a prejudice, which rested on a tradition held sacred in that country. St. Victor, however, resolved to make another attempt. He would put before them the unanimous agreement which reigned throughout the rest of the Church. Accordingly, he gave orders, that Councils should be convened in the several countries where the Gospel had been preached, and that the question of Easter should be examined. Everywhere there was perfect uniformity of practice; and the historian Eusebius, who lived a hundred and fifty years later, assures us, that the people of his day used to quote the decisions of the Councils of Rome, of Gaul, of Achaia, of Pontus, of Palestine, and of Osrhoene in Mesopotamia. The Council of Ephesus, at which Polycrates, the Bishop of that city, presided, was the only one that opposed the Pontiff, and disregarded the practice of the universal Church.
Deeming it unwise to give further toleration to the opposition, Victor separated from communion with the Holy See the refractory Churches of Asia Minor. This severe penalty, which was not inflicted until Rome had exhausted every other means of removing the evil, excited the commiseration of several Bishops. St. Irenaeus, who was then governing tile See of Lyons, pleaded for these Churches, which, so it seemed to him, had sinned only through a want of light; and he obtained from the Pope the revocation of a measure which seemed too severe. This indulgence produced the desired effect. In the following century, St. Anatolius, Bishop of Laodicea, in his Book on the Pasch, written in 276, tells us that the Churches of Asia Minor had then, for some time past, conformed to the Roman practice.
About the same time, and by a strange co-incidence, the Churches of Syria, Cilicia. and Mesopotamia, gave scandal by again leaving the Christian and Apostolic observance of Easter, and returning to the Jewish rite of the fourteenth of the March moon. This Schism in the Liturgy grieved the Church; and one of the ponts to which the Council of Nicaea directed its first attention, was the promulgation of the universal obligation to celebrate Easter on the Sunday. The Decree was unanimously passed, and the Fathers of the Council ordained, that ‘all controversy being laid aside, the Brethren in the East should solemnize the Pasch on the same day as the Romans, the Alexandrians, and the rest of the faithful.' [Spicilegium Solesmense.] So important seemed this question, inasmuch as it affected the very essence of the Christian Liturgy, that St. Athanasius, assigning the reasons which had led to the calling of the Council of Nicaea, mentions these two: the condemnation of the Arian heresy, and the establishment of uniformity in the observance of Easter.’ [Epist. ad Afros Episcopos.]
The Bishop of Alexandria was commissioned by the Council to see to the drawing up of astronomical tables, whereby the precise day of Easter might be fixed for each future year. The reason of this choice was, that the astronomers of Alexandria were looked upon as the most exact in their calculations. These tables were to be sent to the Pope, and he would address letters to the several Churches, instructing them as to the uniform celebration of the great Festival of Christendom. Thus was the unity of the Church made manifest by the unity of the holy Liturgy; and the Apostolic See, which is the foundation of the first, was likewise the source of the second. But, even previous to the Council of Nicaea, the Roman Pontiff had addressed to all the Churches, every year, a Paschal Encyclical, instructing them as to the day on which the solemnity of the Resurrection was to be kept. This we learn from the synodical Letter of the Fathers of the great Council held at Arles, in 314. The Letter is addressed to Pope St. Sylvester, and contains the following passage: ‘In the first place, we beg that the observance of the Pasch of the Lord may be uniform, both as to time and day, in the whole world, and that You would, according to the custom, address Letters to all concerning this matter.’ [Concil. Galilae. t. 1].
This custom, however, was not kept up for any length of time, after the Council of Nicaea. The want of precision in astronomical calculations occasioned confusion in the method of fixing the day of Easter. It is true, this great Festival was always kept on a Sunday; nor did any Church think of celebrating it on the same day as the Jews; but, since there was no uniform understanding as to the exact time of the Vernal Equinox, it happened sane years, that the Feast of Easter was not kept., in all places, on the same day. By degrees, there crept in a deviation from the rule laid down by the Council, of taking the 21st of March as the day of the Equinox. There was needed a reform in the Calendar, and no one seemed competent to bring it about. Cycles were drawn up contradictory to one another; Rome and Alexandria had each its own system of calculation; so that, some years, Easter was not kept with that perfect uniformity which the Nicene Fathers had so strenuously laboured for: and yet, this variation was not the result of anything like party-spirit.
The West followed Rome. The Churches of Ireland and Scotland, which had been misled by faulty Cycles, were, at length, brought into uniformity. Finally, science was sufficiently advanced in the 16th century, for Pope Gregory XIII. to undertake a reform of the Calendar. The Equinox had to be restored to the 21st of March, as the Council of Nicaea had prescribed. The Pope effected this by publishing a Bull, dated February 24, 1581, in which be ordered that ten days of the following year, namely from the 4th to the 15th of October, should be suppressed. He thus restored the work of Julius Caesar, who had, in his day, turned his attention to the rectification of the Year. Easter was the great object of the reform, or, as it is called, the New Style, achieved by Gregory XIII. The principles and regulations of the Nicene Council were again brought to bear on this the capital question of the Liturgical Year; and the Roman Pontiff thus gave to the whole world the intimation of Easter, not for one year only, but for centuries. Heretical nations were forced to acknowledge the divine power of the Church in this solemn act, which interested both religion and society. They protested against the Calendar, as they had protested against the Rule of Faith. England and the Lutheran States of Germany preferred following, for many years, a Calendar which was evidently at fault, rather then accept the New Style, which they acknowledged to be indispensable; but it was the work of a Pope! [Great Britain adopted the New Style, by Act of Parliament, in the year 1732. - Tr.] The only nation in Europe that keeps up the Old Style is Russia, whose antipathy to Rome obliges her to be thus ten or twelve days behind the rest of the civilized world.
All this shows us how important it was to fix the precise day of’ Easter; and God has several times shown by miracles, that the date of so sacred a Feast was not a matter of indifference. During the ages when the confusion of the Cycles and the want of correct astronomical computations occasioned great uncertainty as to the Vernal Equinox, miraculous events more than once supplied the deficiencies of science and authority. In a letter to St. Leo the Great, in the year 444, Paschasinus, Bishop of Lilybea [The modern Marsala] in Sicily, relates that under the Pontificate of St. Zozinius,- Honorius being Consul for the eleventh, and Constantius for the second time,- the real day of Easter was miraculously revealed to the people of one of the churches there. In the midst of a mountainous and thickly wooded district of the Island was a village called Meltinas. Its church was of the poorest, but it was dear to God. Every year, on the night preceding Easter Sunday, as the Priest went to the Baptistery to bless the Font, it was found to be miraculously filled with water, for there were no human means wherewith it could be supplied. As soon as Baptism was administered, the water disappeared of itself, and left the Font perfectly dry. In the year just mentioned, the people, misled by a wrong calculation, assembled for the ceremonies of Easter Eve. The Prophecies having been read, the Priest and his flock repaired to the Baptistery,- but the Font was empty. They waited, expecting the miraculous flowing of the water, wherewith the Catechumens were to receive the grace of regeneration: but they waited in vain, and no Baptism was ad ministered. On the following 22nd of April, the Font was found to be filled to the brim, and thereby the people understood that that was the true Easter for that year. [Sti. Leonis Opera, Epist. iii.]
Cassiodorus, writing in the name of king Athalaric to a certain Severus, relates a similar miracle, which happened every year on Easter Eve, in Lucania, near the small Island of Leucothea, at a place called Marcilianum. There was a large fountain there, whose water was so clear, that the air itself was not more transparent. It was used as the Font for the administration of Baptism on Easter Night. As soon as the Priest, standing under the rock where with nature had canopied the fountain, began the prayers of the Blessing, the water, as though taking part in the transports of the Easter joy, arose in the Font; so that, if previously it was to the level of the fifth step, it was seen to rise up to the seventh, impatient, as it were, to effect those wonders of grace whereof it was the chosen instrument. God would show by this, that even inanimate creatures can share, when He so wills it, in the holy gladness of the greatest of all days. [Cassiodorus, Variarum, lib. vii. epist. xxxiii.]
St. Gregory of Tours tells us of a Font, which existed even then, in a church of Andalusia, in a place called Osen, and whereby God miraculously certified to His people the true day of Easter. On the Maundy Thursday of each year, the Bishop, accompanied by the faithful, repaired to this church. The bed of the Font was built in the form of a cross, and was paved with mosaics. It was carefully examined, to see that it was perfectly dry; and after several prayers had been recited, every one left the church, and the Bishop sealed the door with his seal. On Holy Saturday the Pontiff returned, accompanied by his flock; the seal was examined, and the door was opened. The Font was found to be filled, even above the level of the floor, and yet the water did not overflow. The Bishop pronounced the exorcisms over the miraculous water, and poured the Chrism into it. The Catechumens were then baptized; and as soon as the sacrament had been administered, the water immediately disappeared, and no one could tell what became of it. [De Gloria Martyrum, lib. i. Cap. xxiv.] Similar miracles were witnessed in several churches in the East. John Moschus, a writer in the 7th century, speaks of a Baptismal Font in Lycia, which was thus filled every Easter Eve; hut the water remained in the Font during the whole fifty days, and suddenly disappeared after the Festival of Pentecost. [Pratum spirituale, cap. ccxv.]
We alluded, in our History of Passiontide, to the decrees passed by the Christian Emperors, which forbade all law proceedings during the fortnight of Easter, that is, from Palm Sunday to the Octave day of the Resurrection. St. Augustine, in a sermon he preached on this Octave, exhorts the faithful to extend to the whole year this suspension of law-suits, disputes, and enmities, which the civil law interdicted during these fifteen days.
The Church puts upon all her children the obligation of receiving Holy Communion at Easter. This precept is based upon the words of our Redeemer, who left it to His Church to determine the time of the year, when Christians should receive the Blessed Sacrament. In the early ages, Communion was frequent, and, in some places, even daily. By degrees, the fervour of the faithful grew cold towards this august Mystery, as we gather from a decree of the Council of Agatha (Agde), held in 506, where it is defined, that those of the laity who shall not approach Communion at Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, are to be considered as having ceased to be Catholics. [Concil. Agath. Canon xviii.] This Decree of the Council of Agatha was accepted as the law of almost the entire Western Church. We find it quoted among the regulations drawn up by Egbert, Archbishop of York, as also in the third Council of’ Tours. In many places, however, Communion was obligatory for the Sundays of Lent, and for the last three days of Holy Week, independently of that which was to be made on the Easter Festival.
It was in the year 1215, in the 4th General Council of Lateran, that the Church, seeing the ever growing indifference of her children, decreed with regret that Christians should be strictly bound to Communion only once in the year, and that that Communion of obligation should be made at Easter. In order to show the faithful that this is the uttermost limit of her condescension to lukewarmness, she declares, in the same Council, that he that shall presume to break this law, may be forbidden to enter a church during life, and he deprived of Christian burial after death, as he would be if he had, of his own accord, separated himself from the exterior link of Catholic unity. [Two centuries after this, Pope Eugenius the Fourth, in the Constitution Digna Fide, given in the year 1440, allowed this annual Communion to be made on any day between Palm Sunday and Low Sunday inclusively. - In England, by permission of the Holy See, the time for making the Easter Communion extends from Ash Wednesday to Low Sunday. Tr.]] These regulations of a General Council show how important is the duty of the Easter Communion; but, at the same time, they make us shudder at the thought of the millions, throughout the Catholic world, who brave each year the threats of the Church, by refusing to comply with a duty, which would both bring life to their souls, and serve as a profession of their faith. And when we again reflect upon how many even of those who make their Easter Communion, have paid no more attention to the Lenten Penance than if there were no such obligation in existence, we cannot help feeling sad, and we wonder within ourselves, how long God will bear with such infringements of the Christian Law?
The fifty days between Easter and Pentecost have ever been considered by the Church as most holy. The first week, which is more expressly devoted to celebrating our Lord’s Resurrection, is kept up as one continued Feast; but the remainder of the fifty days is also marked with special honours. To say nothing of the joy, which is the characteristic of this period of the year, and of which the Alleluia is the expression,- Christian tradition has assigned to Eastertide two practices, which distinguish it from every other Season. The first is, that fasting is not permitted during the entire interval: it is an extension of the ancient precept of never fasting on a Sunday, and the whole of Eastertide is considered as one long Sunday. This practice, which would seem to have come down from the time of the Apostles, was accepted by the Religious Rules of both East and West, even by the severest. The second consists in not kneeling at the Divine Office, from Easter to Pentecost. The Eastern Churches have faithfully kept up the practice, even to this day. It was observed for many ages by the Western Churches also; but now, it is little more than a remnant. The Latin Church has long since admitted genuflexions in the Mass during Easter time. The few vestiges of the ancient discipline in this regard, which still exist, are not noticed by the faithful, inasmuch as they seldom assist at the Canonical Hours.
Eastertide, then, is like one continued Feast. It is the remark made by Tertullian, in the 3rd century. He is reproaching those Christians who regretted having renounced, by their Baptism, the festivities of the pagan year; and he thus addresses them: "If you love Feasts, you will find plenty among us Christians; not merely Feasts that last only for a day, but such as continue for several days together. The Pagans keep each of their Feasts once in the year; but you have to keep each of yours many times over, for you have the eight days of its celebration. Put all the Feasts of the Gentiles together, and they do not amount to our fifty days of Pentecost." [De Idolatria, cap. xiv.] St. Ambrose speaking on the same subject, says: "If the Jews are not satisfied with the Sabbath of each week, but keep also one which lasts a whole month, and another which lasts a whole year;- how much more ought not we to honour our Lord’s Resurrection? Hence our ancestors have taught us to celebrate the fifty days of Pentecost as a continuation of Easter. They are seven weeks, and the Feast of Pentecost commences the eighth. ... During these fifty days, the Church observes no fast, as neither does she on any Sunday, for it is the day on which our Lord rose: and all these fifty days are like so many Sundays." [In Lucam, lib. viii. cap. xxv.]
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| Archbishop Viganò: Easter 2023 |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-08-2023, 05:29 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò: REGNAVIT A LIGNO DEUS: God reigns from the Cross
![[Image: 4d48445cf701469812740b1814080890_L.jpg]](https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/media/k2/items/cache/4d48445cf701469812740b1814080890_L.jpg)
gloria.tv | April 7, 2023
Vexilla regis prodeunt, fulget crucis mysterium: The insignia of the King advance, the Mystery of the Cross shines forth. These are the words of the hymn which we have sung during the moving liturgical celebration of Good Friday, when the Blessed Sacrament is carried from the Sepulcher to the altar for the Communion of the priest. And these same solemn words were adopted in 1793 as the hymn of the Vendéean Army during the heroic Catholic uprising against the French Revolution.
At that time too, in the face of the antichristic fury that raged against Catholic Kingdoms and against the Church, the faithful people rose up to oppose the destruction of the Christian Civilization. And at that time too – as later happened in Mexico with the Cristeros against the liberal Masons or in Spain against the Communist atheists – only a few rose up, and among them were many who fell as martyrs. It is the destiny of the pusillus grex, of the little flock, of the remainder, the remnant. The destiny of the Holy Maccabees. But what a fate, to fight under the insignia of Christ!
Those who fight the good fight today – and you are among these – find themselves facing a no-less tremendous enemy: rebel governments, institutions devoted to evil, conniving judges, hordes of fanatics who hate Christ, just as has always happened throughout the course of History. The enmity between the offspring of the Woman and the offspring of the serpent invariably recurs, and every attempt to impose a forced coexistence between Good and Evil is destined to fail. Our Lord has said this: Whoever is not with Me is against Me (Lk 11:23). Because even the choice not to do good is some way a help to those who do evil. One cannot be neutral in the war between God and Satan.
In America – but also in many other Western Nations whose governments are in the hands of emissaries of the subversive elite of NATO, the UN, and the World Economic Forum – a war is underway against Christ and against Christians: not only against the Catholic Church, but also against any Christian denomination that still preserves the principles of the Gospel and the Natural Law. A war that wants to cancel – just as in the Vendée, Mexico, Spain, Communist Russia, or Pol Pot’s Cambodia – any trace whatsoever of the Good, even to the point of affecting life itself with abortion, gender mutilation, euthanasia, and genetic manipulation. The present is cancelled for those who want to live honestly following the Commandments; the past is cancelled in order to tear people away from their Christian roots and history; and the future is cancelled by indoctrinating our children in perverse and corrupting ideologies. And what is most painful is that in this infernal work of establishing the Kingdom of the Antichrist there is even a part of the Catholic hierarchy actively cooperating, betraying the mandate received from Christ and abandoning souls to damnation.
We feel powerless, just as Our Lord’s disciples felt helpless during the terrible days of the Passion; just as the Martyrs massacred before the pagan crowd in the circus felt powerless; just as the Cristeros or the Spanish Catholics shot by the Masonic army felt, or the Orthodox believers who were exterminated by Stalin.
And yet, look at what remains of Herod, Nero, Diocletian, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, Robespierre, and Pol Pot: nothing. They are all dead, and along with them their ideologies and their armies. While the followers of Christ are still here, and with them the Church that Christ has founded on earth as the one Ark of Salvation. They continue suffering, enduring, dying: seeing their churches burned, their Creed derided, their pastors persecuted. But they are always there, as the Mystical Body of Christ, completing in their flesh what is lacking in Christ’s sufferings for the good of His Body which is the Church (Col 1:24).
At the foot of the Cross, which we have adored in the silence of Good Friday, we lift up our eyes to the Lord who offers His life to the Father for us. We do not listen to the shouts of the crowd, the cries of his enemies, the offenses of the Sanhedrin: that God who seems defeated, in the darkness of the Ninth hour, as he breathes his last breath; He who precisely because He is the Son of God does not descend from the Cross, because he wants to fulfill the Father’s will even unto death, resurrect from the dead three days later, triumph over Satan who believed that he had defeated Him on Calvary, ut qui in ligno vincebat, in ligno quoque vinceretur, that he who seemed to conquer by the Tree would by the Tree be defeated.
Let us therefore celebrate, dear Friends, this Holy Easter of the Resurrection with the certainty of the victory of Christ. A victory that the more impossible it seems – and it certainly is impossible to resurrect someone who is dead – will be all the more dazzling and total. Because that victory is accomplished on the Cross: regnavit a ligno Deus, God reigns from the wood of the Cross, which is His throne of glory, the same throne that we will see shine forth on the Day of Judgment, as Saint John describes in the Apocalypse.
George Soros will also die, as will Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and all those who today seem to be powerful and invincible, but who cannot add a single moment to their lives. And when their corpses are resurrected on the Day of Judgment, they will find themselves before the terrible and tremendous Face of Christ the Judge, and the abyss of unquenchable fire prepared for them will open before them, if they remain obstinate in their sins.
Let us ensure that the radiant Face, the same one that illuminated the Dawn of the Third Day, will find us worthy of the Glory of Heaven after following the Divine Master along the Way of Golgotha. And let us remember that the first person to whom the Risen Lord wanted to reveal Himself was the Magdalene: a great consolation for those who, like us, are sinners and seek the Lord in order to anoint His Body with the balsam of penance and the spices of repentance.
Mors et vita duello conflixere mirando, we will sing during the eight days of Easter: death and life have contended in a terrible duel. Dux vitæ mortuus regnat vivus: the Lord of Life, who died, reigns alive. And so may it be.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
9 April 2023
Dominica Resurrectionis
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| Abp. Viganò: Good Friday 2023 |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-08-2023, 05:20 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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Abp. Viganò: We have been created to love, let us prostrate ourselves in adoration before the Cross
This is the mystery of God: the ardent charity that envelops and inflames everything.
![[Image: shutterstock_1780880084-810x500.jpeg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/shutterstock_1780880084-810x500.jpeg)
The crucifixion by Giotto in Scrovegni Chapel
spatuletail/Shutterstock
Apr 8, 2023
(LifeSiteNews) —
Popule meus, quid feci tibi?
My People what have I done for you? In what have I offended you? As we prepare to adore the blessed wood of the Cross, the words of the Improperia or Reproaches echo in our hearts. They are words of disconsolate reproach, of the excruciating suffering of the Lord, who addresses His people and each one of us. The words of a God who became man in order to save each one of us, dying by the most infamous of tortures, and who in Gethsemane looks with horror on the multitude of sins of all times, of all men.
Άγιος ο Θεός, άγιος ισχυρός, άγιος αθάνατος ελέησον ημάς. Sanctus Deus, Sanctus Fortis, Sanctus Immortalis, miserere nobis. So cries out the Humanity of Christ to His Father, imploring forgiveness in our name, as the Lord of the human race and as Head of the Mystical Body. As the Lamb of God who has taken upon Himself the sins of the world. And in that disconsolate cry is contained all the infinite love that is so often unrequited, the ardent charity outraged by selfishness, and the awareness of our ingratitude in the face of the boundless magnificence of the gifts we have received.
A single drop of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord would have been enough to redeem the entire world: cujus una stilla . . . But the charity of God – the charity who is God Himself – knows no measure, and reaches the point of giving the life of His Incarnate Son in order to redeem us, the children of wrath. We who have spat a thousand times upon that Blessed Face, struck that Sacred Head crowned with thorns with the reed, lacerated that Most Sacred Flesh with scourges, and driven nails into those Venerable Hands.
Let us gaze upon the lifeless Redeemer, opprobrium hominum et abjectio plebis (Ps 21, 6). The King of kings raised up on the scaffold reserved for slaves. The most beautiful of the sons of men rendered unrecognizable, stripped of his garments, exposed to derision and insults. And for whose sake? On behalf of arid souls, petrified hearts, and rebellious minds.
And yet, in this sacred representation that involves nature, darkens the sky, and shakes the depths of the earth in witnessing the Death of the Man-God, we are just able to glimpse the abyss of Divine Love of which only a God is capable. The Adversary does not understand Mercy, because he does not understand Love, he is not capable of loving or of choosing to love. He does not understand that the only reason why the Divine Majesty tolerates the presence of sin is that it is an occasion for repentance and conversion, and that it is precisely in the mercy of a God who reaches the point of offering Himself to redeem sinful humanity that the perfect coherence of truth and charity, of justice and mercy, manifests himself.
In the delirious illusion of defeating God by killing him on the Cross, Satan has signed his own condemnation. O mors, ero mors tua. Morsus tuus ero, inferne (1 Cor 15:55; Hos 13:14). O death, I will be your death; I will be your ruin, O hell! Ut unde mors oriebatur, inde vita quoque resurgeret; et qui in ligno vincebat, in ligno quoque vinceretur: so that whence death came, there life could be born; and he who conquered by the Cross would also be conquered by the Cross. That instrument of torture and death has become the throne of the Lord of life, on which He reigns. Regnavit a ligno Deus. What an unfathomable Mystery! And what an abyss of deaf selfishness, the abyss of Satan, of blind pride, of mute rancor that devours the lost soul of the most luminous angel. The same wretched ὕβρις, the same delirium of omnipotence that moves the wicked of the earth, the enemies of Christ and His Church, who believe they can overthrow the Lord of hosts and can snatch from Him the souls that His Son has redeemed from them by dying.
Satan’s hatred is not infinite, nor is his power infinite, nor is the kingdom of the Prince of this world eternal. But the charity of God is infinite, His Omnipotence is infinite, and His Kingdom is infinitely eternal. His Mercy is infinite, which burns and consumes every sin and every shortcoming in the fire of love for us, poor creatures that we are, if only we surrender, recognizing that we are sinners in need of forgiveness and help, so that we may then participate in His eternal beatitude, in His glory. We have been created to love and to be loved. To reciprocate with our nothingness all that we have received without merit. To allow ourselves to be loved by God just as we allow ourselves to be warmed and illuminated by the Sun, just as a child allows himself to be embraced and held in his father’s strong arms without any fear of being crushed.
Misericordiam volo, et non sacrificium (Mt 9:13), the Lord says to us. Because the Divine Mercy is manifested in the Sacrifice of the Eternal Son of the Father, which we perpetuate in an unbloody form in the Mass; and we ought to correspond to this miracle of divine charity by offering what costs us the most – our self-love, our ego, our claim to have merited something when in fact we are indebted for all that we have – showing mercy to our brothers and sisters and doing so in the knowledge that no one has greater love than he who lays down his life for his friends (Jn 15:13).
This is the mystery of God: the ardent charity that envelops and inflames everything. And the mysterium iniquitatis consists in the inability to bow down to this love, in the stubbornness of fighting a lost battle, in deluding oneself that Evil can conquer the Good, that lies can obscure the Truth, that darkness can overpower the Light, that the creature can overcome the Creator.
Let us prostrate ourselves in adoration before the Cross and repeat those words which we already know, but whose significance we will never fully comprehend: Adoramus te, Christe, et benedicimus tibi: quia per sanctam Crucem tuam redemisti mundum.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
April 7, 2023, Feria VI in Parasceve
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| Rumors: Pope Francis Will Force Indult Seminaries to Conform to VII? |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-05-2023, 05:59 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
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New Francis Document Attempts to Corrupt Roman Rite Seminarians
gloria.tv | April 4, 2023
A document that will further crack down on the Catholic Faith is expected this month, writes Summorum-Pontificum.de (April 4).
Voices have been circulating about this since January. However, it will not be an apostolic constitution as was previously rumoured, but a decree of the Congregation for Religious focussing on the seminaries of the Roman Rite [Indult/Latin Mass] communities.
They will be obliged to conform to "Vatican II" in their doctrine and discipline. However, Vatican II assumes that the seminaries are like the present Pius X seminaries.
The benchmark for the imposed changes are the empty Novus Ordo seminaries. The text requires the liturgical formation of the Roman Rite seminarians according to the clown Novus Ordo.
The bulk of their studies must take place in outside theological faculties with an anti-Catholic bias. [...]
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| Chinese Communists blindside Vatican by appointing new bishop without its involvement |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-05-2023, 05:54 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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Chinese Communists blindside Vatican by appointing new bishop without its involvement
The Vatican was told of the new bishop's installation only ‘a few days’ prior to the event and was left out of the decision.
![[Image: Bishop-Shen-Bin-810x500.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Bishop-Shen-Bin-810x500.jpg)
Bishop Shen Bin
Screenshot
Apr 4, 2023
SHANGHAI (LifeSiteNews) — The Chinese Communist Party authorities have appointed another Catholic diocesan bishop in disregard for the Sino-Vatican deal and the Vatican itself, with the Holy See not being involved in the decision.
On April 4, Bishop Shen Bin was installed as the new bishop of the Diocese of Shanghai, an event predicted by AsiaNews the day before. His appointment as head of the diocese came only from the state-controlled Chinese Catholic Bishops’ Group, part of the official Chinese state-approved Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA).
The CPA reported that the ceremony was led by “Father Wu Jianlin, Director of the Catholic Academic Committee of Shanghai and Deputy Director of the Catholic Patriotic Congress of Shanghai.”
Bishop Shen’s appointment letter came from the Chinese Catholic Bishops’ Group — of which he is head — and was read aloud by Father Yang Yu, the group’s secretary general. The Chinese Catholic Bishops’ Group does not recognize the authority of the Holy See with regard to appointing new bishops. Meanwhile, Chinese Catholic Patriotic Congress chairman and bishop of the Beijing diocese Li Shan gave a speech.
According to AsiaNews, Shen promised to continue “patriotism and love” for the Church in Shanghai. He reportedly highlighted “the principle of independence and self-administration,” and committed to attempts to “sinicize” Chinese Catholicism.
Vatican not involved in decision
The appointing of Shen as bishop of Shanghai marks yet another instance of Beijing authorities disregarding the Vatican’s involvement in the nomination of bishops.
The Vatican-recognized bishop of Shanghai is actually Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin. He had been appointed to the see as its auxiliary in 2012, with the CCP believing him to be loyal to them. However, after his consecration he denounced and left the CPA and was subsequently sequestered to house arrest in a nearby seminary.
Bishop Shen had been the bishop of Haimen, in China’s Jiangsu province — a position he had held since 2010, and one that had been approved of by the Vatican. The CCP moving him to Shanghai means that two Vatican-recognized diocesan bishops have been thus rejected by the CCP — Ma of Shanghai and Shen of Haimen.
In a statement issued after AsiaNews reported on the ceremony, the Holy See Press Office director Matteo Bruni highlighted how the Vatican was not involved in the decision, but merely “informed.”
“The Holy See had been informed a few days ago of the decision of the Chinese authorities” to move Shen to Shanghai. The Vatican only “learned from the media of the settlement this morning,” said Bruni.
“For the moment, I have nothing to say about the Holy See’s assessment of the matter,” he added.
Yet this is not the first time that Beijing has openly reneged on the Vatican’s deal. In November 2022 the CCP appointed Bishop John Peng Weizhao as auxiliary Bishop of Jiangxi. The diocese is not recognized by the Holy See, and in a subsequent statement the Vatican declared that it learnt of the ceremony with “surprise and regret.”
The installation ceremony “did not take place in accordance with the spirit of dialogue that exists between the Vatican and Chinese sides and what was stipulated in the Provisional Agreement on the Appointment of Bishops, Sept. 22, 2018,” wrote the Vatican. The Holy See continued by issuing an appearance of subjugation to the CCP authorities, expressing a wish “that similar episodes will not be repeated,” and adding the Vatican “remains awaiting appropriate communications on the matter from the Authorities, and reaffirms its full readiness to continue respectful dialogue concerning all matters of common interest.”
First signed in 2018 and later renewed in both 2020 and 2022, the Sino-Vatican deal’s specific details remain undisclosed with a peculiar air of mystery surrounding them. China expert Stephen Mosher described the deal as an action which was “perhaps the most controversial of a papacy dogged by controversy.”
It is believed to recognize the state-approved version of the Catholic Church and allows the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to appoint bishops. The Pope apparently maintains a veto power although in practice it is the CCP that has control. It also allegedly allows for the removal and replacement of legitimate bishops by CCP-approved bishops.
While Both Francis and Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin have continually defended the deal, emeritus bishop of Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen has repeatedly criticized it strongly. He described the agreement as an “incredible betrayal” of China’s Catholics, and accused the Vatican of “selling out” Chinese Catholics.
It has led to a heightened increase in religious persecution since the deal was signed, which the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China described as a direct consequence of the deal. In its 2020 report, the Commission wrote that the persecution witnessed is “of an intensity not seen since the Cultural Revolution.”
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| Abp. Carlo Maria Viagnó: Palm Sunday 2023 |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-04-2023, 06:21 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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Abp. Viganò: Just as Jesus was betrayed by His disciples, so the Church is betrayed by Her ministers
May the contemplation of the Passion of Christ and of His Mystical Body rouse us from our torpor, snatch us from the slavery of sin,
and spur us on the heroism of holiness; that the Blood poured out for us does not fall upon us as a condemnation
but as a salutary font that confers grace.
![[Image: Photo-2-scaled-e1680515757649.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Photo-2-scaled-e1680515757649.jpg)
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganó
Apr 3, 2023
Improperium exspectavit cor meum, et miseriam: et sustinui qui simul mecum contristaretur, et non fuit: consolántem me quæsivi, et non inveni: et dederunt in escam meam fel, et in siti mea potaverunt me aceto.
My heart hath expected reproach and misery: And I looked for one who would grieve together with me, but there was none: And I searched for one who would comfort me, and I found none: And they gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink – Ps 68:21-22
(LifeSiteNews) — “Israël es tu Rex, Davidis et inclyta proles: You are the King of Israel, the noble lineage of David.” In these solemn words of the ancient hymn to Christ the King, we find the Holy Church identified with Israel, the people of God with the chosen people. “Plebs Hebræa tibi cum palmis obvia venit: cum prece, voto, hymnis, adsumus ecce tibi: the Hebrew people came to meet you with palms: behold we too stand before you with prayers, vows, and songs.”
It should arouse dismay that the triumph of Christ, who was welcomed into Jerusalem as the Son of David and greeted as He who comes in the name of the Lord, could have changed in just a few hours into the violent uproar of the crowd standing outside the Praetorium, into shouts and insults, into the torments of the Passion, and finally into the death of the King of the Jews on the wood of the Cross.
A dismay that comes from the consideration of how changeable the crowd is in its propensity to allow itself to be manipulated by the Sanhedrin and by the elders of the people, in its ease in forgetting – as if it never happened – the tribute of honors, the olive and palm branches, and the garments spread out along the road for the passage of the Lord.
We do not know if among the pueri Hebræorum there were also those who later mocked the Savior as he was dying on the Cross. But we know that they were Jews, just as the high priests, scribes, and temple guards were Jews, as well as those who cried out, “Crucify him!” as Jesus stood before them scourged and crowned with thorns.
And the apostles who fled were Jews, just as Simon Peter who denied Christ three times was a Jew, the pious women who wept for Him were Jews, Simon of Cyrene was a Jew, and Joseph of Arimathea was a Jew.
But if part of the Jewish people, despite the prophecies and God’s interventions under the old law, came to put the promised Messiah to death, we should ask ourselves if this betrayal could not be repeated in a part of the new Israel, the Church, when we see Catholic faithful and even members of the hierarchy who, like the Pharisees and the leaders of the Sanhedrin in Christ’s time, still today cry out their Crucifige, or repeat St. Peter’s quia non novi hominem (I do not know the man – Mt 26:72).
The people, not in the Latin sense of populus – a society that gives itself laws and observes them – but rather in the sense of vulgus – that is, a people without identity, who have no awareness of rights and duties, who are maneuverable, unaware of what their heritage and destiny is, profanum, insensible to the sacred.
If we look at what is happening in the Church, at the crisis that afflicts Her, at the apostasy that corrupts the hierarchy and the faithful, the events of Palm Sunday seem forgotten, while living right before our eyes we see the horrors of the Passion and the Crucifixion. The Church, which in the past celebrated the triumphs of Christ and preached his Gospel, today seems to have been eclipsed by the Sanhedrin which accuses the Son of God of blasphemy and by the high priests who call for His death.
The society which once was Christian now shouts out its “Take him away; take him away,” spits on the face of the Savior, mocks His tormentors, and calls for His cancellation. Today’s scribes and Pharisees seem determined to place guards to watch over the sepulcher in which the Church lies, as if to avert Her resurrection, which would expose them as liars.
The very disciples of the Lord flee, hide, and deny ever having known Him in order not to be excluded and marginalized, in order not to appear to go against the stream, in order not to contradict the powerful. And, at the same time, many pious women, many Cyreneans, many Josephs of Arimathea, mocked and insulted, help the Church to carry Her Cross, remain at Her feet with the Virgin Mary and St. John, seeking a place in which to lay that mystical body, awaiting its resurrection.
Today’s betrayal is no less serious than what our Lord had to suffer; the passio Ecclesiæ is not less sorrowful than that of Her Head; the desolation and discouragement of those who contemplate the Domina Gentium exposed to dishonor from Her very own ministers is no less harrowing than the suffering of the Mater Dolorosa; the hatred that moved the executioners then is the same hatred that moves today’s executioners, and the love of the good Jews who recognized the Messiah then is the same as the love of good Christians who see His agony still perpetuated today.
“I freed you from slavery in Egypt, and you have repaid your Savior by crucifying Him,” we sing in the Reproaches. I gave you the Mass, and you have replaced it with a rite that dishonors Me and drives away the faithful. I gave you the priesthood, and you profane it with heretical and fornicating ministers. I made you steadfast against your enemies, and you throw open the doors of the citadel, run towards your enemies, and honor them while they prepare to destroy you. I taught you the truths of the faith, and you adulterate them or keep silent about them in order to please the world. I showed you the royal road of Calvary, and you follow the path of perdition, of pleasures, and of perversion.
“Popule meus, quid feci tibi? aut in quo contristavi te? responde mihi!: My people, what have I done to you? Or how have I offended you? Answer me!” Are not these words applicable to so many Catholics, to so many prelates, to so many souls to whom the Lord, as He did to the Hebrew people, has shown His ardent love thousands and thousands of times?
Should we not tremble at the mere thought of being able to be accomplices in the betrayal of Christ and His Church, which perpetuates Christ’s unbloody Sacrifice on our altars? She who is the ministress and dispensatrix of His infinite merits until the end of the world? She who is the witness of His miracles, the preacheress of His Word, and the guardian of His Truth?
Let us meditate, dear friends, on where our immortal soul is placed in this ferocious battle that shakes the world even to its foundations. Whether we are among the scoundrels, torturing the most sacred flesh of the Redeemer, or if we instead make our hearts available to welcome that adorable Body. Whether we tear our garments at the proclamation of His Divinity, or instead bow down like the Centurion before the Savior who dies for us. Whether we are among those who incite the mob against the Son of God, or are instead among those who bear witness to His Glorious Resurrection.
Because this soul of ours, for which Our Lord has shed His Blood and given His Life, shall remain immortal, either in the eternal bliss of paradise or in the eternal torment of hell.
May the contemplation of the Passion of Christ and of His Mystical Body rouse us from our torpor, snatch us from the slavery of sin, and spur us on the heroism of holiness; that the Blood poured out for us does not fall upon us as a condemnation but as a salutary font that confers grace. And so may it be.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
2 April 2023
Dominica II Passionis seu in Palmis
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| “What if all these brilliant innovators were nothing more than a bunch of atrocious imbeciles?” |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-04-2023, 06:14 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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“What if all these brilliant innovators were nothing more than a bunch of atrocious imbeciles?”: Msgr. Celada on the 1960s
PETER KWASNIEWSKI/NLM | April 3, 2023
Last October 24, I published here a translation of a remarkable open letter written by Msgr. Domenico Celada in 1969. What follows is an article he published late in February 1969 in the periodical Il Tempo. Enjoy the clarity of this distinguished musicologist and — we must surely say looking back — prophet of the Lord. —PAK
![[Image: Beat%20Mass%20from%20Celada.jpg]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjomrOJGCtqcDHLx5xI3DzfXwWUrKgobpBURiK5Z6VRk96536iIL75PfXt1ixJxxExZfjgBlv15VMoQbwalcMu9CBw2OU4yau-6-FHqBslJ8dAonDzmz0o4N1RMb6gpNg1_qK--9bWazcfg1Su5dkEI3Niaz7iE2zy9wGJjymIaCB5MD_w-3w/w363-h509/Beat%20Mass%20from%20Celada.jpg)
A “beat” Mass in Italy, from a book by Msgr. Celada
I remember having written, in the April-June 1966 issue of a music magazine, a note on the liturgy after the Second Vatican Council. Those were the months in which the destructive plan of certain “liturgists” was taking shape, in all its tragic significance, and they had come to propose those so-called “youth masses,” accompanied by dance-hall orchestras, which represent—even leaving aside any consideration of a religious nature—the triumph of ignorance and stupidity.
I wrote at the time: “The sacred liturgy is going through a period of great crisis, perhaps the most painful in its history. Never has there been so much decadence and confusion: it was truly reaching rock bottom.”
On that occasion I received messages of consent and praise, I can well say, from every part of the Catholic world: letters from simple faithful, from many priests and parish priests, even from bishops and cardinals. However, to be honest, I must say that I also received a strong “reprimand” from the ecclesiastical office in charge of the so-called liturgical reform, an office known by the name of “Consilium,” about which there is already a vast literature that is certainly not benevolent.
The emitter of the “reprimand,” written on official letterhead, with a coat of arms and a protocol number, began by expressing his shock at my diagnosis of a “crisis” in the liturgy, and maintained, on the contrary, that “the liturgy is going through one of its most flourishing and promising periods”; after which he declared that my remarks were of a “supine falsity,” and that the entire text represented an “offensive insinuation” and a “subjective and erroneous evaluation.” My prose was, moreover, “disconcerting, brazen, offensive, and audacious.”
I barely emerged, though completely unharmed, from that landslide of adjectives, grouped in foursomes, under which I could have been suffocated. Not even three years have passed since then.
About twenty days ago, I opened L’Osservatore Romano and found a seven-column article (an entire page of the daily newspaper of the Holy See!) entitled “History of the Church and Crisis of the Church.” [1] In it, the distinguished historiographer Hubert Jedin writes verbatim: “There is first of all, visible to all, the liturgical crisis, not to speak of chaos. When today, on a Sunday morning, one goes around the parish churches of a city, one finds in each one a divine service differently ‘organized’; one encounters omissions; one sometimes hears readings different from those provided for by the liturgical ordo; if one then comes to another country whose language one happens not to know, one feels quite a stranger.”
It seems important to note that Hubert Jedin, in his clear diagnosis of the current situation of the Church, mentions “first and foremost”—even before the crisis of faith—precisely the liturgical crisis, now “visible to all.” Considering the authority of the writer and that of the Vatican newspaper, which never hosts an article except after the most rigorous control, one must conclude that today the crisis of the liturgy is an indisputable fact, and that it is licit to speak and write about it without fear of receiving missives full of unflattering adjectives. [2]
On the other hand, many things have happened in three years. The Congregation of Rites was forced to intervene against the many arbitrary experiments with a “declaration” of December 29, 1966 (which, moreover, remained a dead letter), and the pope himself, in the famous allocution of April 19, 1967, expressed his pain and apprehension about what is happening in the liturgical field, emphasizing the “disturbance of the faithful” and denouncing a certain mentality aimed at the “demolition of authentic Catholic worship,” also implying “doctrinal and disciplinary subversions.”
But of particular interest is the comparison that the scholar makes between the crisis experienced by the Church in the sixteenth century and that of the present time. How did the Church overcome this earlier crisis? Jedin answers: “Not by renouncing her authority, nor by accepting equivocal formulas of compromise, nor by welcoming the liturgical chaos created [at that time] by arbitrary innovations in the divine service.”
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Trent: a model of what to do in a time of crisis
This is very true. If the Tridentine decrees re-established the security of faith, the Missal and Breviary issued by St. Pius V further unified the liturgy. In fact, we must not forget that the “lex orandi,” according to the ancient saying, is also the “lex credendi”: the law of faith. It therefore seems logical that today’s “licentia orandi” corresponds to a “licentia credendi.”
Hubert Jedin writes: “I fear that before long, in some places, one will no longer find a Latin missal...” And yet (the scholar recalls), “the Liturgical Constitution itself (art. 36) maintains the Latin liturgy as a rule, the same way as it was before. Would it not be nonsense for the Catholic Church in our century—in the century of the unification of the world—to completely renounce such a precious bond of unity, as is the Latin liturgical language? Would this not amount to a very belated slide into a nationalism already considered outdated?”
These are purely rhetorical questions, since the inexplicable renunciation of Latin has already practically taken place “in fraudem legis”: against the obligatory nature of a conciliar law that clearly prescribes the preservation of the use of Latin, and against the right of the Catholic faithful to the enjoyment of a common good.
Now, having broken the unity of the language and destroyed the identity of the rites, the chaos has extended from the liturgical field to the doctrinal one. Already in April 1967, Paul VI began to lament “something very strange and painful,” the “alteration of the sense of the one and only genuine faith.” But this was the consequence, with a perfect and inexorable logic, of tampering with the grandiose edifice of the Liturgy—that is, of having translated, mutilated, and replaced texts and formulas that in themselves represented a “summa” of piety and doctrine. One understands today more than ever the truth of Pius XII’s teaching in the encyclical Mediator Dei: “The use of the Latin language is a clear and noble sign of unity, and an effective antidote to any corruption of pure doctrine.”
The crisis of the liturgy is now indeed “visible to all.” Many deceptions have been discovered. In spite of this, the innovators continue to work with the zeal of those who are not quite sure of themselves, they continue to tamper with, distort, and demolish what little remains. A recent conference of liturgists was held to discuss “new Eucharistic prayers” and a new “ordo Missae”... [3]
With regard to these obstinate reformers who are disrupting the liturgy, the famous Catholic novelist François Mauriac wrote not long ago: “I ask myself, in a sudden panic: what if all these brilliant innovators were nothing more than a bunch of atrocious imbeciles? Then there would be no more escape: for it has happened that the deaf regain their hearing, that the blind see again; it has even happened that the dead are resurrected; but there is no proof, no document, about an idiot who has ceased to be an idiot.”
It seems to me that the French academician is a bit too pessimistic. He seems to have forgotten that any idiot, even if he cannot cease to be an idiot, can simply be put in a condition not to do harm.
![[Image: Italian_(Venetian)_School_-_Fra_Paolo_Sa..._Trust.jpg]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY7bVyLrZ5P9NB14OMCfgbgaE3TAZgNOEi7CbUvMQBdPYTJ2iyBUlhSLTWR6_jxIrHlLIq6woQvkz9rhmQV4JhwCx0PgKC3Is4GiMh6agEevRGM-ag6LeF6-gVv2W2NGlhy_IOdYewrztBeGRQ8BrPQIAP6677mK-YY0UAjXSrf-6J3sRyoQ/w416-h546/Italian_(Venetian)_School_-_Fra_Paolo_Sarpi_(1552%E2%80%931623),_Eviscerator_of_the_Council_of_Trent_-_1139719_-_National_Trust.jpg)
Fra Paolo Sarpi (1552–1623), “Eviscerator of the Council of Trent”: a nickname better suited to Annibale Bugnini?
NOTES
[1] This article appeared in the January 15, 1969 issue of L’Osservatore Romano.
[2] Angered by this article of Hubert Jedin, Annibale Bugnini wrote a private letter of protest to the author—and was later careful to quote it at length in his tome The Reform of the Liturgy (p. 283). This impassioned attack on the Church’s liturgical practice for most of her history must surely be one of the most remarkable passages ever written by a Catholic (if its author may be considered such):
As a good historian who knows how to weigh both sides and reach a balanced judgment, why did you not mention the millions and hundreds of millions of the faithful who have at last achieved worship in spirit and in truth? Who can at last pray to God in their own languages and not in meaningless sounds, and are happy that henceforth they know what they are saying? Are they not “the Church”? As for [Latin as] the “bond of unity”: Do you believe the Church has no other ways of securing unity? Do you believe there is a deep and heartfelt unity amid lack of understanding, ignorance, and the “dark of night” of a worship that lacks a face and light, at least for those out in the nave? Do you not think that a priestly pastor must seek and foster the unity of his flock—and thereby of the universal flock—through a living faith that is fed by the rites and finds expression in song, in communion of minds, in love that animates the Eucharist, in conscious participation, and in entrance into the mystery? Unity of language is superficial and fictitious; the other kind of unity is vital and profound… Here in the Consilium we are not working for museums and archives, but for the spiritual life of the people of God.
[3] This article was published in late February 1969, only about six weeks before Paul VI issued his apostolic constitution Missale Romanum promulgating the Novus Ordo Missae.
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