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Wednesday 26 July 2017

Sorry Cardinal Sarah, I'm not buying what you're selling!

Image result for lectionary

You are probably familiar with how Cardinal Sarah, in his earnest attempt to keep the "Reform of the Reform" alive, was slapped down last year over the "ad orientem" posture matter. I wrote then that the idea of the ROTR was dead and that the "bastard rite" was not reformable. 

The tools needed to put lipstick on the pig are already there. The mock of the Mass brought to you by Giovanni Montini already has all that which is necessary to bring it more in line with the traditional. Use the Graduale Romanum of 1975 for the chant, face east, use incense, Penitential Rite A and the Roman Canon (EPI), incense, and so on. But this is all window dressing, it is lipstick on a pig. The fundamental problems remain in the Offertory, the theology behind that Missal and, yes the Lectionary.

Others have written erudite articles on this. Dr. Shaw, Father Zuhlsdorf and more, Father Raymond J. DeSouza has come out backing it and then, backed off. You can read them.

I'm a little behind on this post, so there is no sense me rehashing them, but I will give a few of my thoughts, given my over thirty years of work in both "forms" of the Roman Rite.


  • The one improvement that could benefit the traditional Lectionary is the structured Advent weekday readings. This follows the ancient Lenten lectionary in the traditional rite where each day has prescribed readings rather than ferial or Sunday repetition.
  • An Old Testament Lesson could be added to Sundays and First Class Feasts.
  • There are no other benefits, notwithstanding Sacrosanctam Concilium.

The loss would be greater. Embers. Rogations. Vigils. Octaves, the yearly repetition of beautiful Catholic doctrine. The Mass is not a bible study.

When one reads the Divine Office, particularly even with the 1961 revisions, one sees the intricate connections between the Office and the Mass. It is especially evident in the Divino Affaltu and the Sanctoral cycle. The readings in the Office are related to the readings of the Mass and the chants of the Mass are also intricately woven in to the readings.

At one time, I hoped for a unified calendar and lectionary. That was when I worked with both, "forms". I see now that folly.

The calendar is the other challenge put forth by the good Cardinal, and I do not doubt his sincerity, but it is simply not possible. The modern must give way to the traditional. The traditional feast days for saints would require restoration. What about the Embers, the Rogations, Vigils, Octaves, Christ the King?

No, get back to paying attention to bringing the Novus Ordo back where it belongs, at least to the point of the "1965 Missal."

But get your hands off the traditional.




16 comments:

Elizabeth said...

I'm not buying what he's selling either.

Ana Milan said...

The Unity of the CC has been deliberately & grossly damaged by the NO Mass & by the EF not being mandated by PBXVI which has left us with an elite few who can access TLM while the vast majority of Catholics worldwide cannot. There should be no difference between the Sacrifice of the Mass a Catholic in India attends & what a Catholic in Canada attends. Such was the case prior to VII when members of the Masonic Order & Communist Agents trading as Catholic priests usurped that ecumenical council & laid to waste our Liturgy of Ages together with our Sacraments & Catechesis. This has put a blockade between them and us that can never be removed other than by ditching the NO Rite & going back to the Tridentine Mass which was the cement that held everything together & was pleasing to God. I’m astonished that Cardinal Sarah is now wavering in his support for Tradition in order to seem politically correct to so-called ecumenism which hasn’t worked & won’t work.

Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque said...

Excellent points, Vox. The Mass is not a bible study but the modern focus on the different levels of the presence of Christ in the Mass has been an enormous distraction.

The Holy Sacrifice of The Mass is a Holocaust in which the Pluperfect Self-Sacrifice of Jesus Christ on Calvary (where His burning love for us substituted for the O.T. holocaust fire) is offered up as a Sacrifice of propitiation and our prayers/intentions at the sacramental re-presentation of His Holocaust is swept-up into His pluperfect sacrifice and, thus, made acceptable to God.

Since the Last Supper/First Mass there has only ever been one Holocaust and this Holocaust has not been protected by The Hierarchy nor has the Hierarchy taught this truth to its lambs but, rather, it has bowed and scraped before its ancient and permanent enemies, the Messias-Deniers, as it adopts the misuse and abuse of the word, Holocaust, as war crimes committed against those who are Messias-Deniers - and them alone.

There is only one Holocaust and it is the Holocaust of Jesus Christ on Calvary and the Hierarchy must restore the Real Mass as normative in all of its ancient goodness, truthfulness, and beautifulness.

God deserves our very best,. Period.

Enough already with the Lil' Licit Liturgy and its attempts to appeal to and appease the ancient and permanent enemies of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

At Mass, we Christian Catholics profess the Creed, part of which describes th unity - I believing in ONE.....

Well, the Catholic Church will not be unified until the Real Mass is restored as normative and the Lil' Licit Liturgy is left to wither on the wine. Let those who do not know the Faith or are lackadaisical about the Faith have the Lil' Licit Liturgy but fervent and zealous Catholics require the real Mass to sustains us, to quicken us, and to revivify us during this epic epoch of execrable ecclesiastical existence.

Peter Lamb said...

Vatican II and the doctrinal, disciplinary and liturgical reforms which have proceeded from it are substantial alterations of the Catholic Faith.
The central question for every Catholic since Vatican II is this: Is the religion which has come out of Vatican II and its changes the same religion as before Vatican II?
If the answer is “Yes, it is the same religion,” then there is no need to reject it or condemn it. It would be schismatic and even heretical to reject it.
If, on the other hand, the answer to the question is “No, it is not the same religion,” then Catholics must uncompromisingly reject it, in the same way that the Church rejected and condemned all heresies in the past. Just as there is no middle ground between yes and no, [or partial pregnancy,] so there is no middle ground between accepting the Vatican II reforms as the Catholic Faith or rejecting them as non-Catholic.
The Vatican II reforms constitute a new religion which substantially alters the Catholic Faith in doctrine, discipline, and liturgy.
These heretical, evil, and blasphemous reforms can in no way proceed from the Roman Catholic Church, since she is infallible and indefectible in her doctrines, her disciplines, and her liturgical worship.
(Roman Catholic Institute.) http://romancatholicinstitute.org/

If one has to "set someone straight" keep the following in mind:
"But if thy brother shall offend against thee, go, and reprove him between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou shalt gain thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand. And if he will not hear them: tell the church. And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican" (St. Matthew 18: 15-17)
This was spoken to the Apostles and not laymen. No need to keep trying to correct those who err over and over again. Take our Lord's advice. If it was good enough for the Apostles, who had the authority to teach, it should be good enough for us, who are more prone to err.
(Daily Catholic.)
A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid: (Titus 3:10)

Lasserre deVillier said...

Yep, you've been red-pilled if you finally realize the Norvus Ordo is non-reformable, and needs to be tossed along with a good chunk of Vatican II. Welcome to the club.

Kathleen1031 said...

Aw, the poor armadillo. Hope he got up and scampered off after that photo was taken. Do they fake it like possums?

Sorry, even Cardinal Sarah can no longer be trusted when they start talking about diddling with the TLM. Just say no, as, no good can come from that diddling. We've been traumatized enough gentlemen, whatever you feel you need to do to the NO, do it and be done with it then. Surely the people who attend the NO won't mind! They won't even notice, and if they make a face, tell them Francis wants it and they'll cool down. But the TLM, no, leave it alone. If you fool with that and mess it up, Sundays are going to find me sitting on my couch reading the Bible.

Irenaeus said...

There is no such thing as the Reform of the Reform. None. The Reform needs to be abolished, and the fallibility of the Second Vatican Council be emphasized to the masses.

As a young man who grew up in the Nervous Disorder, and has only recently in the greater scheme of things come back to the true Faith, I have witnessed horrible destruction in the Nervous Disorder. Not physically, no. I have been fortunate thus far to escape seeing the destruction of sacramentals and churches firsthand. I am speaking of the mental and spiritual destruction wrought in families. I have seen family members leave the faith because of pretentious commentators in the pulpit. I have several family members who don't go to church anymore because they weren't taught well growing up, and left because of the over-confident attitude in the Church rampant since the 1970s. My younger brother doesn't go anymore because he doesn't like the church he was raised in anymore and thinks it is a cult. My youngest brother - while still having a touch of the faith, and goes to Mass, Deo gratias - is involved in some soul-sucking youth activities like EDGE, LifeTeen and is set to go to Steubenville this weekend. I shudder thinking about it.

So to those readers who think Reform of the Reform is possible, I present to you my family. I also present to you the thousands of men and women who went to the cool Masses as teens but came back only sparingly afterwards. I present to you the sheer mess of the world, the defense of men like Thomas J. Rosica who criticize Our Lady, the awful, awful things we see day in and day out on the streets by transgender people and the like.

The Reform of the Reform is simply not possible. It needs to be destroyed, completely and utterly.

JayJay said...

HaHaHaHaHaHa There's not a Traditionalist in the world that would be attracted to this concoction. Unless he be the Novus Ordo-Goer who really prefers the "vetus ordo" (gag me). As sincere as Sarah may be, he has made it clear he has no understanding of the crisis in the Church. He is a modernist through and through and doesn't know it.

Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque said...

Dear Dr. Lamb, Is, say, Dei Verbum a legitimate development of Doctrine?

ABS read a comment by Vox which identified you as Dr. and ABS wasn't aware of that then but every Dr is deserving of that earned tile, and so you will responded to as Dr from now on.

Peter Lamb said...

Whatever liturgical, or disciplinary concession one Pope can grant, another can rescind. This is Catholicism. The Pope has full authority in liturgical matters. And that is what Catholics have traditionally believed:

…[T]he Sovereign Pontiff alone enjoys the right to recognize and establish any practice touching the worship of God, to introduce and approve new rites, as also to modify those he judges to require modification. Bishops, for their part, have the right and duty carefully to watch over the exact observance of the prescriptions of the sacred canons respecting divine worship. Private individuals, therefore, even though they be clerics, may not be left to decide for themselves in these holy and venerable matters, involving as they do the religious life of Christian society along with the exercise of the priesthood of Jesus Christ and worship of God; concerned as they are with the honor due to the Blessed Trinity, the Word Incarnate and His august mother and the other saints, and with the salvation of souls as well. For the same reason no private person has any authority to regulate external practices of this kind, which are intimately bound up with Church discipline and with the order, unity and concord of the Mystical Body and frequently even with the integrity of Catholic faith itself.
(Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Mediator Dei, n. 58)

The Church, as the Bride of Christ, cannot give us universal liturgical rites that are impious, heretical, harmful, or sacrilegious. This is one way, incidentally, that we can know that the Novus Ordo Missae, which is filled with sacrilege and error and has led to worldwide apostasy, did not come from a true Pope.

The Catholic teaching is clear:
If anyone says that the ceremonies, vestments, and outward signs, which the Catholic Church uses in the celebration of Masses, are incentives to impiety rather than the services of piety: let him be anathema. (Council of Trent, Session 22, Canon 7; Denz. 954)

"…as if the Church which is ruled by the Spirit of God could have established discipline which is not only useless and burdensome for Christian liberty to endure, but which is even dangerous and harmful and leading to superstition and materialism, — [this is] false, rash, scandalous, dangerous, offensive to pious ears, injurious to the Church and to the Spirit of God by whom it is guided, at least erroneous."
(Pope Pius VI, Apostolic Constitution Auctorem Fidei, no. 78; Denz. 1578.)

Peter Lamb said...

Furthermore, the discipline sanctioned by the Church must never be rejected or branded as contrary to certain principles of the natural law. It must never be called crippled, or imperfect or subject to civil authority. In this discipline the administration of sacred rites, standards of morality, and the reckoning of the Church and her ministers are embraced."
(Pope Gregory XVI, Encyclical Mirari Vos, n. 9)

"The Church is infallible in her general discipline. By the term general discipline is understood the laws and practices which belong to the external ordering of the whole Church. Such things would be those which concern either external worship, such as liturgy and rubrics, or the administration of the sacraments. . . . If she [the Church] were able to prescribe or command or tolerate in her discipline something against faith and morals, or something which tended to the detriment of the Church or to the harm of the faithful, she would turn away from her divine mission, which would be impossible. (Rev. Jean Herrmann, Institutiones Theologiae Dogmaticae, Vol. 1 [4th ed., Rome, 1908], p. 258.)

This is what Catholics believe. The true Church is good and holy, the very Bride of our Blessed Lord. She cannot offer a liturgy that is an affront to God or a danger to souls.

Fr. Frederick Faber has expressed what a Catholic’s attitude to the Church must be:

"But we may forget, and sometimes do forget, that it is not only not enough to love the Church, but that it is not possible to love the Church rightly, unless we also fear and reverence it. Our forgetfulness of this arises from our not having laid sufficiently deeply in our minds the conviction of the divine character of the Church… The very amount of human grandeur which there is round the Church causes us to forget occasionally that it is not a human institution.
Hence comes that wrong kind of criticism which is forgetful or regardless of the divine character of the Church. Hence comes our setting up our own minds and our own views as criteria of truth, as standards for the Church’s conduct. Hence comes sitting in judgment on the government and policy of Popes. Hence comes that unfilial and unsage carefulness to separate in all matters of the Church and Papacy what we consider to be divine from what we claim to be human. Hence comes the disrespectful fretfulness to distinguish between what we must concede to the Church and what we need not concede to the Church. Hence comes that irritable anxiety to see that the supernatural is kept well subordinated to the natural, as if we really believed we ought just now to strain every nerve lest a too credulous world should be falling a victim to excessive priestcraft and ultramontanism>"
…Only let us once really master the truth that the Church is a divine institution, and then we shall see that such criticism is not simply a baseness and a disloyalty, but an impertinence and a sin.
(Rev. Frederick W. Faber, Devotion to the Church [London: Richardson & Son, 1861], pp. 23-24.)

Sean Mercer said...

It is truly discouraging to see how so many who identify as "traditional" are constantly lionizing these men with miters who have achieved their ecclesiastical status by cooperating with the Revolution (or remaining silent about it -- same thing) throughout their careers.

There remains this insane desire for a cult of personality.

Read my lips: there is no Cavalry being led by some mitered hero to come charging over the hill.

I will change my mind when I see one of them get up and say: "The 'experiment' of the past 50 years has been a complete failure and has been the cause of the destruction of the Church."

Peter Lamb said...

ABS: " Is, say, Dei Verbum a legitimate development of [Catholic] Doctrine?"

The short answer is NO, it is not.
Notice ABS said "development", not "change". Can Catholic doctrine develop? Yes, it can. Can Catholic doctrine change? No, it cannot.

There is much confusion and misunderstanding these days, about whether Catholic teaching can ever change, whether it has changed in the past, and if so, what this means for an infallible Church.
In 1947, Fr. Francis J. Connell of the Catholic University of America tackled the issue head-on and, drawing the necessary qualifications and distinctions, shows what part of Catholic teaching can change, what cannot change, and how this relates to the Church’s infallibility and her divine mission to obtain the salvation of souls. All Catholics should read this article. (“Does Catholic Doctrine Change?” by Fr. Francis J. Connell, C.SS.R. American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 117 (Nov. 1947), pp. 321-331.)

http://novusordowatch.org/2016/08/can-catholic-doctrine-change/

So, Catholic doctrine can develop, but is Dei Verbum such a development of Catholic doctrine? No, for the simple reason that Dei Verbum is not a Catholic document. It is an heretical modernist document produced by a false council and promulgated by an heretical, modernist, Ephod-wearing, sodomitic, judeo-masonic anti-pope.
If you don't believe me, read this:

http://padrepioandchiesaviva.com/uploads/Chiesa_viva_441_S_en_New_Corrected.pdf

Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque said...

Dear Dr. Lamb. the justly famous and holy priest, Msgr. Brunero Gherardini, a world-renowned Thomistic scholar, claims otherwise. In his "The Ecumenical Vatican Council II A much needed discussion," he
observes that Vatican 1 presented a problem in that it treated Tradition and Scripture almost as if they were from two different sources but that Vatican Two brought forth a corrective (DV).

As to the rest of your reprehensible and rebarbative attacks on Pope and Council, has it ever occurred to you that those charges objectively place you in the same partisan party as the ArchHeresiarch, Martin Luther, who also opposed Pope and Council?

Liberate yourself from the dark spells cast by The Novus Ordo Witch and step back into the light and do some reading of the writings of a faithful and famous Catholic like the Msgr who maintains the Bonds on Unity in Worship, Doctrine, and Authority (The sine qua non of Catholicism) while also challenging and critiquing that which is not consistent with Tradition in Vatican Two.

But to reject an ecumenical council in its entirety and to call it a false council is to place yourself in the worst possible situation for a Catholic- EENS.

Please reconsider what you are doing as your hatred for Pope and Council is an unedifying example of execrable extremism that has absolutely no precedence in Catholic Tradition - protestant tradition, yes- but not Catholic Tradition.

http://catholicism.org/monsignor-brunero-gherardini.html

Sean Mercer said...

Amateur Brain Surgeon:

The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican was a "Pastoral" Council. There is NOTHING binding in those documents EXCEPT when they repeat previous doctrine and dogma. Don't believe me? Ask Msgr. Gherardini.

Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque said...

Dear Mr. Mercer. At his crummy blog, ABS has posted a scan from his interesting book about the council. It is from page 60 and treats of the council as one possessing dignity and authoritativeness...it must always be received in a religious manner as conciliar teaching... and another page scanned observes that Vatican Two included a legitimate development of doctrine in the are aof scripture and tradition that corrected a serious weakness in the doctrine of Vatican 1.

How can a faithful Christian Catholic reject that legitimate development of doctrine out of hand while still claiming to be fully Catholic?

Msgr Gherardini is a model worthy of the imitation of all soi disant traditionalists for he safely steers between the Charybdis of ultramontanism and the Scylla of sedevacantism..

It is a product of the binary bonds produced by the mysterium iniquitatis that many formerly faithful Catholics have chosen to bind themselves to one of the binary classifications that are proving to be an anchor on their souls.