"The Practicing Catholic" Attends Her First Tridentine Latin Mass

Here are my words of advice to her. I pray that these benefit others as well. In response to My First Encounter with the Extraordinary Form.

Sexagesima Sunday 2009

I am so glad to have heard from you and I rejoice that Our Blessed Lord has used me as a means of spreading the beautiful Mass of the Ages to even just one more soul.

As you expressed in your post, it can feel clumsy and lost to attend anything new for the first time, but how beautiful the Mass of the Ages is! As I have heard it many times, it is not important for you to go there and understand everything. I am so proud to read that you were at least able to read along with the prayers, something that some people do not do at all at their first Tridentine Mass. During those first few Masses that you attend, just place yourself in the presence of the priest, who ascends to the altar like Moses ascended the Mountain in order to offer the sacrifice to God for the people. For me, as the priest ascends the altar and the Mass takes place, I find at the Tridentine Mass that I am closest to feeling and understanding that at the Mass Heaven and Earth are united.

In the context of this Mass, how beautiful it is hear the hymn "Faith of our Fathers".

I would encourage you to try to slowly obtain several wonderful works for your spiritual nourishment. Here are links to a few.

The Liturgical Year
The Angelus Press 1962 Daily Missal (in case that you don't have a Missal) These are at: http://sspx.org/en/media/books


A website to find many Traditional things at cheap prices is the Our Lady of the Rosary Library.
http://www.olrl.org/mm5/merchant.mvc

Image Source: Believed to be in the Public Domain, Image of the Society of St. Pius X SSPX.ORG

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Anthology: Chants and Polyphony from St. Michael's Abbey

I was recently given the opportunity to review "Anthology: Chants and Polyphony from St. Michael's Abbey". The CD features the recordings of the Norbertine Fathers of St. Michael's Abbey. While I have heard first-hand experience of the Norbertine order falling headfirst into liberalism, St. Michael's Abbey remains as a beacon of hope for the order. The CD features 18 beautifully Catholic titles including Exultet, Attende Coelum, Panis Angelicus, Ave Maria, Verbum Caro, and more! I highly recommend this CD to all Catholics.

Product Description

After "Christmas at St. Michael's Abbey" - "The singing on this album is so very beautiful, and thoroughly authentic," California Catholic Daily - Jade Music is proud to release the second album by the Norbertine Fathers: Anthology: Chants and Polyphony from St. Michael's Abbey, another rare release of chants and polyphony from a domestic U.S. abbey.

The eclectic selection on this album is a cross-section of music sung at the abbey that includes chants from the liturgy as well as motets and music from the Renaissance era. These latter are sung on more solemn occasions like Easter, Pentecost, Christmas, and other great feasts of the liturgical year. "Anthology: Chants and Polyphony from St. Michael's Abbey" is a testimony of the vigor and subtle beauty of Gregorian chant as sung today in the USA.

St. Michael's Abbey is a community of Norbertine Canons Regular in Orange County, California. Its first members were Hungarian priests who escaped communism to find refuge in the United States in 1957. The community was raised to the status of an abbey in 1984, because of its growth. St. Michael's Abbey now numbers nearly 70 members.

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His Excellency Richard Williamson: Mass after Confirmation: April 16, 2008

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SSPX BISHOPS ARE NOT EXCOMMUNICATED - OFFICIAL FROM THE VATICAN

Today, since today was an interim day for a silent retreat at which I was obligated to attend, I began to browse through the blogs on my sidebar. Then, I noticed the glorious news: the bishops of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X have been declared as not being excommunicated. I have long supported the idea, canonically legitimate, that the Priestly Society of St. Pius X was never excommunicated because the initial decree was unjustifiable per Canon Law.

Yet, regardless, today it is official: The Bishops Bernard Fellay, Alfonso de Gallareta [sic - Galarreta], [Bernard] Tissier de Mallerais, and Richard Williamson are not excommunicated!!

Sources:

New Liturgical Movement: Excommunications Lifted
New Liturgical Movement: Response of SSPX Superior General
New Liturgical Movement: FSSP Press Release

As additional information becomes available in the coming weeks, I will update this post. Check back at the bottom of this post for future updates in the coming weeks.

Update (February 7, 2009): It is unfortunate that political reasons have caused the following stories:

Rorate Caeli: SSPX expels Father Abrahamowicz
Bishop Williamson is no longer rector of the seminary in Argentina (confirmation)

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Requiem for His Royal Highness, King Louis XVI

 

Via The New Liturgical Movement. Scenes from the Requiem Mass at St.Eugene-St.Cecile (Paris, France) on the occasion of the anniversary of the death of the former King. Mass from January 2009. 

Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. Te decet hymnus Deus, in Sion, et tibi reddetur votum in Ierusalem. Exaudi orationem meam; ad te omnis caro veniet. Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.

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Anglican Use Requiem Mass

This requiem Mass was offered according to the Book of Divine Worship, the approved usage of the Latin Rite for certain congregations in the United States who have been received into the Catholic Church from the Anglican tradition.

I thought that this video was stunningly beautiful. I particularly love the black vestments, clearly illustrating our morality.

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Pope Benedict XVI Wears Fiddleback at the 2009 Mass on the Feast of the Epiphany

Image Sources: Franco Origlia/Getty Images

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Pledge Against Indecent and Immoral Motion Pictures

The American bishops at a meeting in Washington in 1938 requested all Ordinaries to have the Pledge of the Legion of Decency taken by all the Faithful at all Masses, in all churches and chapels throughout the United States, on the Sunday within the octave of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. For more information, see Vigilanti Cura: Encyclical of Pope Pius XI promulgated on June 29, 1936.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen

I condemn indecent and immoral motion pictures and television programs, and those which glorify crime or criminals. I promise to unite my efforts with all those who protest against them.

I acknowledge my obligation to form a right conscience about films and television programs that are dangerous to my moral life.

As a true Roman Catholic, I pledge myself to watch only good motion pictures and television programs. I promise, further, to stay away altogether from places of amusement and sources of entertainment which are offensive to God and occasions of sin for myself and others for whom I am responsible.

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Good King Wenceslas

In honor of the Feast of St. Stephen.

St. Stephen, ora pro nobis!
St. Wenceslas I, ora pro nobis!

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Christmas 2008 Urbi et Orbi

This year, The Holy Father will not wear cope and mitre for the Urbi et Orbi blessing

To forestall any rash comments, this is not without precedent, as may be seen from the accompanying picture of Pius XII imparing the Urbi et Orbi blessing on Easter 1952. The choice would seem to be connected to the fact that the Pope does not publicly celebrate the Missa in die, and is therefore not vested prior to the blessing. Msgr. Marini explains that it is "a solemn benediction which is not connected to a particular liturgical rite."

Source: NLM

Text:

"The grace of God our Saviour has appeared to all" (Tit 2:11, Vulg.)

Dear brothers and sisters, in the words of the Apostle Paul, I once more joyfully proclaim Christ’s Birth. Today "the grace of God our Saviour" has truly "appeared to all"!

It appeared! This is what the Church celebrates today. The grace of God, rich in goodness and love, is no longer hidden. It "appeared", it was manifested in the flesh, it showed its face. Where? In Bethlehem. When? Under Caesar Augustus, during the first census, which the Evangelist Luke also mentions. And who is the One who reveals it? A newborn Child, the Son of the Virgin Mary. In him the grace of God our Saviour has appeared. And so that Child is called Jehoshua, Jesus, which means: "God saves".

The grace of God has appeared. That is why Christmas is a feast of light. Not like the full daylight which illumines everything, but a glimmer beginning in the night and spreading out from a precise point in the universe: from the stable of Bethlehem, where the divine Child was born. Indeed, he is the light itself, which begins to radiate, as portrayed in so many paintings of the Nativity. He is the light whose appearance breaks through the gloom, dispels the darkness and enables us to understand the meaning and the value of our own lives and of all history. Every Christmas crib is a simple yet eloquent invitation to open our hearts and minds to the mystery of life. It is an encounter with the immortal Life which became mortal in the mystic scene of the Nativity: a scene which we can admire here too, in this Square, as in countless churches and chapels throughout the world, and in every house where the name of Jesus is adored.

Continue Reading

Image Source 1: REUTERS/Osservatore Romano
Image Source 2: Wikipedia

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Tridentine Mass Instructional DVD for Priests by the FSSP

The Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter has put together some great videos on the spirituality and the rubrics for the Traditional Latin Mass.

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Message from John Mallon

John Mallon is trying to assemble an email list of Blogs in the English speaking world, especially in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines. He is currently working as Contributing Editor for Inside the Vatican magazine, doing media relations for Human Life International, and assisting at the Envoy Institute in a promotional capacity. He has two degrees in theology and frequently has items of interest to Catholic Bloggers worldwide. With 25 years of experience in the Catholic Press, he has found that major secular outlets are often closed to these messages. If you have or know of Blogs that would be interested in receiving press releases and other pertinent materials for your Blogs, he would very much appreciate getting a mailing list of these blogs for this purpose. This is not spam. Anyone not wishing to receive these materials will be removed from the list immediately upon request. Catholic Blogs are absolutely critical for spreading credible information on the Church. This mailing list could serve as a News Agency supplying news and other information to Catholic Blogs.

It is absolutely maddening trying to harvest emails off of Blogs, where people won't post their emails. He is only interested in people who want to receive these messages, not bothering anyone.

For more on John Mallon please visit his website at: http://johnmallon.net

Please let me know if you can help.

Thanks & God bless you,

John Mallon

Email: johnmallon@mac.com

Editor note: the Website is no longer available.

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Armistice Day: 90th Anniversary

The Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month at the Eleventh Hour...

Before Omaha Beach, D-Day (June 1944)

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England. There shall be

During World War I (1914 - 1918)

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

Funeral Mass (Date Unknown)

A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers blest by the suns of home.

Mass on the Battlefield (Date Unknown)

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thought by England given;

Mass on the Battlefield (Date Unknown)

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English Heaven

Source: "The Soldier" by Rupert Brooke (1887 - 1915)

Image Sources: Believed to be in the Public Domain

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Tridentine Mass at St. Rose of Lima in Kankakee, IL

This past month the annual Tridentine Latin at St. Rose of Lima Parish in Kankakee, Illinois took place. The Mass is yearly celebrated by the Institute of the Christ the King Sovereign Priest and includes a Rosary Procession.

Attached are the parts of the pamphlet for the Mass.

If anyone is interested in the DVD of the Mass, please email me as I have a copy and can produce additional copies for those interested.

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Proposition 17: Women to be Lectors!?

From HallowedGround, illustrating the alarming presence of modernism still deep within the modern Church. This is completely antithetical to the Order of Lector.  St. Pius X, ora pro nobis!

Probably the most newsy — and somewhat unexpected — item in the final propositions of the Synod of Bishops on the Bible was a proposal to allow women to be officially installed in the ministry of lector.

The issue was raised in Proposition 17 on “The ministry of the word and women,” and on Saturday morning it passed with 191 votes in favor, 45 opposed and three abstentions, according to our sources***.CNS article

Isn’t that special? I cringe when I hear people speak of Modernism in the past tense, as if it was some early 20th century heresy that was crushed, vanquished, and we can now breathe easy. Nonsense. Modernism has the Church in a strangle hold, and is slowly squeezing the life out of Her as we watch. These men with itchy ears are running the Church, and are the instruments of destruction. You never know what they are going to do, they’re almost totally untrustworthy. Another abuse becomes the norm.

Source: Hallowedground

Shall we ever see a return to the minor orders?

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Summorum Pontificum Is Being Used to Expose Conservative Seminarians so that They Can be Expelled

Summorum Pontificum Is Being Used to Expose Conservative Seminarians so that They Can be Expelled From: The Fathers

Reports are coming in that Summorum Pontificum is being used by Newchurch bishops to ferret out conservative seminarians and expel them. The same technique was used with the "indult" of 1988. The seminarian thinks that he is protected by Benedict-Ratzinger's Apostolic Letter, but fails to recognize that the post-conciliar popes have given up their control of Newchurch and passed that authority down to the Newchurch bishops. Novus Ordo seminarians admitting to an interest in the "Motu" Mess are being kicked out of Novus Ordo seminaries. Loyalty to the Novus Ordo service is being used as a litmus test.

The current policy of the Newchurch bishops simply confirms the advice that the TRADITIO Network has given: no one considering himself Catholic should ever attend a Novus Ordo seminary. They are simply not Catholic, and, in the end, you will not even be ordained to offer Mass for the living and the dead, but only be "installed preside over the assembly" in the Novus Ordo Protestant fashion. It will be a waste of many years, and the seminarians won't even get a decent education out of it.

Source: http://www.traditio.com/comment/com0709.htm

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50th Anniversary of Pope Pius XII's Death

Image Source: REUTERS/Osservatore Romano

Related Posts:

• Coronation of Pius XII (Video)
• Strong defense of Pius XII by Cardinal Bertone (2007)
• Cause for Beatification of Pius XII advances (2007)
• Pope Pius XIl condemned Nazism (POPULAR POST)
• Quotations by Pope Pius XII

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Pope Benedict XVI Recalls Apostolic Trip to France

HOLY FATHER RECALLS HIS APOSTOLIC TRIP TO FRANCE VATICAN CITY, 17 SEP 2008 (VIS) - In today's general audience, which was held in the Paul VI Hall, the Pope spoke of his recent apostolic trip to France, which culminated in his pilgrimage to Lourdes for the 150th anniversary of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to St. Bernadette. The Church in France "has since the 2nd century played a vital civilising role", said the Holy Father, noting how, "in this context, the need developed for a healthy distinction between the political and religious spheres. ... True laicism", he went on, "does not mean overlooking the spiritual dimension, rather it means recognising that such a dimension is, in a radical way, the guarantor of our freedom and of the autonomy of earthly things, thanks to the dictates of creative Wisdom which human conscience knows how to accept and put into effect. "This was the perspective of my broad-ranging reflections on the theme of 'the origins of western theology and the roots of European culture', which I delivered at my meeting with the world of culture in a place chosen for its symbolic significance, the College des Bernardins". The starting point of that talk, Benedict XVI explained, was "a reflection upon monasticism, the aim of which was to seek God, 'quaerere Deum'". This practice, "by its nature, led monks to a culture of the word. ... In seeking God Who revealed Himself to us in Sacred Scripture, an important role was played by the physical sciences, which seek to investigate the secrets of language. Consequently, what developed in monasteries was the 'eruditio' which facilitated the formation of culture. Precisely for this reason 'quaerere Deum' - seeking God - is today, as it was yesterday, the foundation of all true culture".

The Pope recalled how he had encouraged priests, deacons, religious and seminarians "to give priority to listening to the divine word", while to young people "I consigned two treasures of Christian faith: the Holy Spirit and the Cross. The Spirit opens human intelligence to horizons larger than itself, and brings it to understand the beauty and the truth of God's love revealed on the Cross". During the Eucharistic celebration on the esplanade of Les Invalides, said the Pope, "I invited the faithful ... to seek the living God, Who showed us His true face in Jesus, present in the Eucharist, encouraging us to love our fellows just as He loved us". "In Lourdes", he went on, "I immediately joined thousands of faithful on the 'Jubilee Way'" and "participated in the traditional torchlight procession, which is such a stupendous expression of faith in God and of devotion to His Mother and ours. Lourdes really is a place of light, of prayer, of hope and of conversion, ... where pilgrims learn to see the crosses of their own lives in the light of the glorious Cross of Christ". The Pope highlighted the fact that "the first gesture Mary made when she appeared to Bernadette in the Grotto of Massabielle was the sign of the cross. ... That gesture encapsulates the entire message of Lourdes", he said. During the Mass for sick people, celebrated in front of the basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary on the liturgical feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, Benedict XVI recalled, "I meditated upon the tears Mary shed upon the Cross, and upon her smile which illuminated Easter morning". Having called on the faithful to render thanks to God for the fruits of this apostolic trip, the Holy Father affirmed that "in Lourdes the Holy Virgin invites everyone to consider the earth as the place of our pilgrimage towards our definitive homeland in heaven. The truth is we are all pilgrims, we need the Mother who guides us; and in Lourdes her smile invites us to continue our journey trusting in the knowledge that God is good, God is love".

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Rev. John Del Priore of St. Barnabas Parish in Mazomanie, Wisconsin

This is an excerpt from an article in the Remnant. God bless and protect Rev. Fr. John Del Priore for abolishing the "altar girl" program at the parish. I encourage you to visit the article and send Fr. Del Priore a letter of support at this time.

On July 3, 2008, an obscure radical group calling itself "Women's Ordination Conference" (WOC) released a press release blasting the courageous decision of Rev. John Del Priore of St. Barnabas Parish in Mazomanie, Wisconsin to terminate the altar girl program as part of a larger measure to encourage vocations to the priesthood. Having been installed as pastor only one month before, Father Del Priore obviously wasn't wasting any time righting the ship.

Update (April 2009): I have written him a letter of support

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Catholic University of San Diego Nixes Feminist Professor

SAN DIEGO, Aug. 20 (UPI) -- The University of San Diego has withdrawn its offer of an endowed chair to a Catholic feminist scholar who supports abortion rights.

The announcement that Rosemary Radford Ruether had been appointed to the Monsignor John R. Portman Chair in Roman Catholic Theology was greeted with dismay by many Catholic and anti-abortion groups, the San Diego Union-Tribune said Wednesday. Ruether sits on the board of Catholics for a Free Choice.

University spokeswoman Patricia Gray Payton said that one person who did not object was the anonymous benefactor who endowed the chair.

"Her public position and the symbol of this chair are in direct conflict," Payton said. "This chair is a powerful, visible symbol of Roman Catholic theology, and in Roman Catholic theology abortion is disallowed."

The news that Ruether's appointment had been rescinded has created more controversy. Two Catholic women's groups have gathered 2,000 signatures on petitions asking the university to change its mind again.

Source: UPI

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