Monsignor R. Michael Schmitz

"The Classical Roman Rite and the Renewal of the Liturgy"
Conference by Monsignor R. Michael Schmitz
February 19, 2007

Centrality of the Mass in the Life of the Church

My talk to you today is about the Classical Roman Rite and the renewal of the liturgy. First of all, I believe we are all convinced here that a renewal of the liturgy, in whatever way, is urgently needed for the good of Universal Church. And the good thing is that we are not the only ones who think this way, but there is a man on the Throne of Peter who is as convinced as we are that something has to be done, and something has to be done very soon. He has made that very clear in many books that he published as Prefect of the Congregation for the Faith, and he has repeated this publicly and privately many times.

In a preface to a book that Dom Alcuin Reid has published about the organic growth of the liturgy, the Holy Father compares the Church to a gardener and says that every change in the liturgy has to be organic growth. So you cannot cut away pieces, you cannot simply destroy a plant that you want to grow, but you must be very careful to find for this plant a good time in the year to plant it, the right nourishment, the best place for it to be and grow, and then you must take care of it with great prudence daily and without interruption. It is very important that our Holy Father has made this remark because this is implicitly a critique of so many things that have happened in the last forty years. People have believed that the wonderful plant of the liturgy that God has planted in the midst of the Church can be treated like a plastic plant, that you can expose it as you want to your whims, that this plant is more beautiful than a real rose.

The outcome of that is much too obvious to all of us, and I do not want to spend this evening by enumerating stories that you all know about the numerous abuses that the liturgy has undergone in these last years. The Holy See, in the famous document has far as I recall, enumerated at least sixty types of abuse that are prohibited and still continue, and with that has shown that there is a problem.

Well, the Institute of Christ the King is very clear about how to resolve the problem. The problem is, first of all, to recognize the place of the liturgy in the Church. This will be the first of my topics today. We have to understand that the liturgy is not a decoration on a cake, like a little bit of whipped cream that you place on a wonderful birthday cake to make it more beautiful. The Church, even today in the crisis that we are undergoing, is still a very impressive worldwide operation. If you only think that the Church most certainly has the greatest number of charitable organizations in the whole world, that the church has hundreds and thousands of hospitals, of kindergartens, of orphanages, of schools, of universities, of all kinds of operations that take care of the needs of people in our times. The Church is like -- and this is not a word coined by me but by a German scholar -- the Church seems to be like a frozen giant. It is sad that She is frozen, She seems paralyzed, but She is still a giant, and she is everywhere present, and under the rags and underneath the dust that seems to cover Her, She is still the powerful queen that She has always been.

But all that is not Her center. All this is only a consequence. The wonderful social doctrine of the Church -- everything we can do in this state and in politics to bring the realm of Christ to real brilliance and to power -- all this is a consequence. A consequence that is very important and cannot be belittled if we do not want to destroy society, but it is still a consequence because the call of the Church is not there. The call is a liturgy. The call is the foremost and grandest liturgical act ever. The call is the sacrifice of the cross that is perpetuated on our altars. If we belittle the fact that the drama of the redemption takes place on the most forlorn altar in Gabon in the middle of the jungle every day, if we belittle in our parish churches that what our parish priest does is the most important action that can ever happen in the world, if we do not understand that the great and magnificent apparatus of the Church is all about protecting and promulgating the flame of love that has been sacrificed for us in the Heart of Jesus on the Cross, we have totally misunderstood the Roman Catholic Church. And therefore, we have to go back to a deeper understanding of the Liturgy.

I do not want to hurt any feelings. I have studied with wonderful men in the past that had Catholic theology in their fingertips. The fathers of an order that I do not want to mention, have wonderfully preserved, even at that time, the orthodoxy. But as a young priest, as a young seminarian, I learned nearly nothing about the liturgy. The only thing that I really learned about the liturgy in depth, I may say a little jokingly, was in a half-course, how to purify the chalice in the quickest way. I am not an exception. There are many young priests or not so young, like me now, that have never been introduced to the mystery of the liturgy. And with the many priests, innumerous faithful have not been taught that the most important action of the Church is the liturgical action, is to honor God, is to put God in the middle of all what we do. God comes first. This reality has been totally forgotten. And we know that what has afterwards been called the anthropological change has dethroned God and has centered our attention on poor human nature. All of a sudden the Church, with Her majesty, cannot seem to turn any longer around the mystery of the altar but seems to incline Herself in front of this little slave of sin that is called Man.

It is the great grace that the Church has received in this Pontificate that we have a Pope who has always understood the centrality of the liturgical mystery. I have to say that I am deeply grateful to the founder of the Institute of Christ the King, Msgr. Gilles Wach, that he has always said that we have to go out and proclaim the Faith, but that before we do this, before we take any action, we have to concentrate on what the first task of the priest is -- the liturgy. There is no time, there is no amount of money, there is no energy too precious to foster a more solemn celebration of this first calling, which is the heart of the Church.

If the Church has been subjected to so many heresies in the last forty years, if ever the Church has been subjected to heretical thinking, it is because people have wrongly understood that God acts only on our brain. But God is a God incarnate, and He acts, therefore, as he has shown, in the heart, through the heart, and on our heart. And He does that also in the Church, and the Church has as Her heart the liturgical mystery from which all Her blood, all the pulsations of Her heart, all Her energy comes. If the Devil wanted to destroy the beauty of the handmaid of the Lord, the beauty of Holy Mother Church, he had to attack the liturgy. He had to weaken the heart. He had to undermine the understanding of Catholics that it is more important to be on your knees than to be activists alone. First, you have to be on your knees and then you can be active because God gives you grace for that. If you understand that, then, with our Holy Father, you put emphasis on the celebration of the liturgy.

Therefore, the liturgy is in the first place to be understood as the direction of our whole being toward God. In a few moments I will come back to this, but be assured that it is totally wrong to believe that the Mass is only for us. The consequences of the Mass are for us because we are poor beings and God knows it, and therefore sacrificed Himself on the cross knowing that the re-establishment of the glory of God would heal this sinful world. But the first step, the first sense of the sacrifice of the cross is to re-establish the glory of the Father. The Second Person of the Holy Trinity came into this world not only to heal a bunch of unrepentant sinners, but in the first place, to re-establish the glory of God and the possibility of Divine Love being poured on these creatures of God that are weak.

So the aim of the first liturgical act, the sacrifice of the cross, is much larger. It is, as a matter of fact, infinite, and it aims toward God and His eternal beauty and glory. And this is true for every Mass. If you assist at a Low Mass where the priest, silently perhaps, says and follows the rubrics, the glorification of God is always the goal and the aim of the celebration of this Mass. The glory of God is present at what the Chuch does because the good Lord asks her to do it because He has instituted it by His Sacrifice.

Can you imagine what it means if you destroy this universal outlook, this glorification of God, this invocation of His majesty that comes down on our altars, though human banality? Certainly, the call and the validity of the Mass, by the grace of God has not been touched, but if God, over 2,000 years, has taken time and effort and grace to really instruct us in every detail about how He wants to be glorified, how could I, because I have read a few books, believe I could do it better than the Holy Ghost. If I do it I will be rewarded with my own stupidity.

Therefore, the first step we must take, along with the Holy Father, within our own life and existence, is that we recognize this powerful reality of the centrality of the Mass in the life of the Church. And with the Mass, of the whole liturgy, the liturgy of the sacraments, the liturgy of the Divine Office, the liturgy that the whole Church lives from morning to evening, the liturgy that still today is celebrated without end, 24 hours a day throughout the entire globe for the glorification of God. This used to be a uniform liturgy with many beautiful expressions, but it would always incessantly say “holy, holy, holy,” with all of its details and expressions throughout the whole world. If you destroy that, if you diminish it, if you touch it, then, the heart of the Church perhaps does not stop beating, but the beats of this heart will be weakened and the energy of the Church, the energy of the proclamation of the truth, the energy to battle the enemy, will get weaker and weaker. And that is what we are witnessing.

So let us be grateful to the Holy Father that he insists that the clergy will rediscover the mystery of the liturgy. If my confrères will allow me to say a word about the clergy.
I do not want to offend the lay people present here. We know that the laity is very much, like us priests, called to holiness. And we know from our own mothers that we would not be here without the laity. And we know we would not have had a wonderful education without the efforts of our parents. We would not be the Church who has kept the Faith of our Fathers if not for the faithful lay people who have brought back the Latin Mass in so many locations, against the will of the clergy. And I thank you for that.

But still, St. Hildegard von Bingen, the great Benedictine, has said, omni malo ab clero, all evil comes from the clergy. That means if the clergy is forgetful about the mystery of the Mass, if the clergy does not grasp what the liturgy really means, then this disease will pass over to the lay people and weaken their own dedication and devotion.

Blessed Pope John XXIII, once said that “The devotion of the lay people, if it is authentic, has to be an objective liturgical devotion.” You can have many devotions, as I have, to many saints, but the core of your devotion has to be the Mass, has to be the liturgy. Whatever graces the Holy Ghost gives you to understand it [the liturgy] better, it is your attending daily Mass, Sunday Mass, your presence at the manifold liturgies of the Church that gives more meaning to your own private devotion and the strength you need in this world. And we the clergy have the task and the calling to help you gain an ever deeper devotion and understanding of the centrality of the liturgy.

Specificities of the Traditional Latin Liturgy

Let me therefore come to the second part of my talk. There are specificities of the traditional Latin liturgy that we have to rediscover if a renewal of the liturgy in the Church will be possible. Two so-called specificities of the old rite are also to be found in the so-called Novus Ordo if it is celebrated according to the rubrics. The first is Latin, and the second is the direction of the altar.

9

Ad Orientem

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The Holy Father, as perhaps you know, has written a Preface to a book by a very learned member of the London Oratory, Father Michael Lang, who is a very holy priest, about the direction of the altar. And the Holy Father fosters the results of that book. Father Lang has discovered that never was there anything else in the history of the Church other than an eastward-bound altar. And everyone would look toward the same direction together with the priest, toward the east, toward the resurrecting Son—toward Christ—toward the center of the liturgy. Father Lang makes it very clear that any other direction of the altar is not traditional. It is simply a recent introduction. And even if you go through the Novus Ordo Missae you will find a few rubrics that indicate that this Mass was meant to be celebrated at an altar facing the tabernacle. So even the new liturgy was not meant to be celebrated exclusively facing the people.

Latin
Latin is still the language of the Church. Personally, I find it embarrassing when the members of the clergy do not understand Latin. It makes them victims of ignorance because if one cannot read and understand Latin, one cannot read and understand the original documents of the Second Vatican Council. One cannot read and understand even most of the Fathers of the Church that have been so widely propagated in the last forty years.
When the clergy would be made national, then all of a sudden, we would not have a Roman Catholic clergy anymore. We would have an American clergy. We would have a German clergy. We would have an Italian clergy. And when they come together, they have no language with which to communicate. This is not the intent of the Church. This has never been the intent of the Church.

The same Pope John XXIII, in the famous encyclical, Veterum Sapientiae, during the Council, asked that all clergy be instructed in the Latin language. Just recently, Benedict XVI has again underscored the importance of the Latin language for the Church and for the liturgy.
So if we are for the orientation of the altar toward the tabernacle, and if we want Latin as the language of the Church, we are just doing what the Second Vatican Council wanted, even though the Second Vatican Council is often misrepresented as being against these.

I will give you an important argument to make for the Traditional Latin Mass. The Traditional Latin Mass, from the beginning to the end, was the liturgy of the Second Vatican Council. Not one of the Fathers celebrated any other Mass privately or publicly [during the Council]. And the great liturgies during the Council were the Solemn Papal Masses according to the traditional ritual, every time the Pope was involved.

The liturgy was changed slowly, and with pressure by others, long after the Council was finished. No Father during the Council ever had to see, nor endure what many of us have to endure sometimes today.

With these two points, we are simply going with the direction of the Church of all time. And for the next points, which are much more clearly anchored in the Traditional liturgy, you will see that they also are most important if we want a real and lasting renewal of the liturgy.

The Mass – A Sacrifice

First of all, we have to understand that the Mass is in the first place a sacrifice. I will not linger on that because you all know it. In primi sacrificium est. In his famous letter, Dominicae Cenae, John Paul II said that the Church teaches, as always, that the Eucharist is in the first place a sacrifice. We cannot emphasize this too much. Even the part of the Mass that has the form of a meal -- and I speak of communion (and you know that communion of the people is not necessary for the validity of the Mass) -- even this part of the Mass is clearly a sacrificial banquet. It is not an ordinary meal. Everyone has known, right from the beginning, that this meal is the consequence of the sacrifice that God gives to him in order to strengthen him with the sacrificial fruit of the sacrifice of Christ. The Traditional Latin Mass makes that very clear.

If you have some time, and we don’t have that time this evening, go through the prayers of the Offertory and you will see that it is full of allusions and very clear statements about the Mass as a sacrifice: the oblatio munda, the pure sacrifice, the immolatio, the offering, the sacrifice even of the host that the priest offers to the good Lord, is already called an oblatio. It is all about bringing to God a gift to be sacrificed, and the priest at the very end of the Mass says again that he has sacrificed the host for the people. He says ”Placeat tibi, Sancta Trinitas, obsequium servitutis meae, et praesta, ut sacrificium quod oculis tuae Majestatis indignus obtuli, tibi sit acceptabile.” “Be pleased, Holy Trinity, with the observance of the rite that I have just offered, and grant that this sacrifice that I have offered to Your Majesty unworthily may be acceptable to you.”

The fact that the Mass is a sacrifice brings about the glorification of God and the honor of God that is objectively given to God in every valid Mass will be enhanced greatly if the priest knows that he is the priest of the sacrifice; that, accordingly, his life should be a life of sacrifice, and that sacrifice in our own lives is something extraordinarily positive.

The faith that is proclaimed today is a faith of comfort. We have comfort food; we have comfort houses; we have comfort faith. This is a lie. It is a lie because we know that our lives are not comfortable. We know that there is a cross in every life. You can be so successful: you can have a thousand acres in La Jola, California, you can have a big bank account and a Bentley, you can even be the President of the United States, but you know that somewhere there is the cross that God has prepared for you for your holiness. But if you do not hear about that in the most important celebration of the church, how can you understand it?

Go read in the Old Rite how many times the word sacrifice, offering, oblation, immolation, is used. You will understand that the priest who does not use these words daily anymore, does not understand the sacrifices in his own life. Then you understand why so many priests walk away, why so many priests in the moment of temptation get weak, why so many priests are led astray by a comfort faith that they have to offer to the faithful in the name of what-not. And therefore, try, if you can, to introduce young priests, if not to the actual celebration, at least to the texts of the Old Liturgy and you will see that their priesthood will deepen, as your own faith as lay people will deepen, from the understanding that the sacrifice of the Lord is identically brought about every time that the priest utters the words of the consecration. The sacrificial aspect of the celebration of the Mass has to be once again understood, in order for their to be a renewal of the liturgy, for it to once again become the center of the Church.

Adoration
Another aspect that I want to touch briefly on is adoration. Here I will be very brief. Fortunately in the United States there is a new and wonderful movement to bring back adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. More and more priests expose the Blessed Sacrament, more and more faithful adore the Blessed Sacrament. The traditional liturgy lives from this Adoration. The numerous genuflections in the course of the Mass show how wonderfully the church teaches the adoration of the mystery in the liturgy. I do not know whether you have assisted at the Mass of a very elderly priest when he says the Traditional Latin Mass. Sometimes these priests -- and I will be in this situation some time soon -- have a hard time genuflecting. But isn’t it always the witness of a wonderful act of faith to see the old priest grabbing the altar, and making slowly the twentieth genuflection and then getting back up again? This expresses the spirit of adoration. He should be on his face; he should be prostrated, if were possible to be say Mass this way, because indignus, unworthily, we say the Mass.

The most beautiful thing happens right after the consecration. When the priest has uttered the words of consecration, the rubrics of the Mass say: “quibus verbis prolatis, statim Hostiam consecratam genuflexus adorat.” “When he says the words of the consecration, he,” the priest, “will immediately adore the host on his knees.” This genuflection has been abolished. It had been there for a thousand years, in order to demonstrate that the consecration and the reality of the real presence is not dependent upon our own faith. It is an immediate reality: from the moment that the words of the consecration are uttered, according to the will of the Church and the commandment of God, God is present. There is no need to show the host to the people in so that they may believe in the presence, in order to make the presence real. The presence is real in spite of our weak faith. And every time a priest, immediately after the consecration, kneels down, we all know that he, like we, witnesses adoringly the real presence of the Lord. We have to bring back this adoration of the presence of the Lord to the liturgy if we want the renewal.

Realism
Then there is something that I want to mention because it touches again upon the priesthood. The Missal that I have the grace to use is very realistic. Sometimes we are accused of the purported fact that the Old Liturgy does not take care of reality: that it is distant from the people, that we do not really know what the situation of the world is, and so on and so forth.

But, first of all, the liturgy knows all about me as a priest. It addresses me all the time as a sinner. Already when I ascend the altar I have to say the Confiteor and I have to beg the forgiveness of the congregation represented by the altar boy. Then, when I ascend the steps of the altar, I say “Aufer a nobis, quaesumus, Dominue, iniquitates nostras, ut ad Sancta sanctorum puris mereamur mentibus introire.” I ask God to take away my iniquities. And then afterwards, still bowing over the altar, when I kiss it I say, “Oramus te, Dominue, per merita Sanctorum tuorum, quorum reliquiae hic sunt, et omnium Sanctorum ut indulgere digneris omnia peccata mea.”” When I kiss the altar where the relics of the saints are embedded I ask for the forgiveness of my sins before I dare to begin the holy sacrifice of the Mass and go to the side of the Missal to begin the Introit.
I cannot give you all the places where the priest is reminded of his own sinfulness, but this seems to me -- as we know from the recent past -- utterly realistic. The priests are sinners, as we all are. But in comparison with the layman – and this I quote from a saint -- a priest has not just one private devil; he has about five, who try to bring him to betray the good Lord. Therefore the church always reminds him that he is a sinner, that he needs purification and that he is not worthy to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

But there is another point of realism. This Missal knows about our sorrows. It knows about our needs. The prayers in this Missal -- every single little prayer, the Collect, or the other prayers -- are full of descriptions of our miserable situation. And, furthermore, in an annex to the Mass there are so called “special prayers.” You will find there prayers for everything and anything. There are special prayers for those who travel, for those who have died, for those who need rain, for those who need good humor, for those who need tears, for those who are persecuted, for those who need other blessings, for the Pope, for married people, for everyone and everything. And the priest is free to add these prayers in the private Mass every time he is asked to do so, or he himself needs prayers.

This Missal is also a document of the human need. In the first place it is a document of the need of the church for the glorification of God. But the Church, as a good Mother, has never forgotten that the glorification of God brings about the consequences of grace, and She knows about all the needs of us, her poor children. The Church is a realistic Mother and so is the liturgy. If sometimes we hear only about very theoretical social justice issues, this seems to me much less realistic than these down to earth prayers that the Church has developed in centuries.

Heaven
Another point that we need to especially emphasize if we want to bring back a beautiful liturgy and the renewal of the glorification of God in the Church, is Heaven. The liturgy has to reflect Heaven.

Well, ask yourself: does your parish church and her liturgy reflect Heaven? I don’t want answers. I can tell you, come to our Seminary, come to our churches [of the Institute of Christ the King] in the United States, go to other Traditional Latin Masses, especially High Mass, and particularly the pontifical High Mass; in these you know that you have a glimpse of Heaven. It is true what St. Jerome said: “He who has never had a foretaste of Heaven will probably not go to Heaven.” Well, the Church gives us a foretaste of Heaven. If you go to a small parish church where nothing has been changed and the liturgy is celebrated in a Missa cantata on Sunday with a nice choir that sings Gregorian Chant, there, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the jungles of Africa, you have a glimpse of Heaven, a glimpse of something that is so overwhelmingly divine that you understand that God is present.

So many people have been converted simply by being present at the heavenly beauty of the Mass. Among many others the Duke of Oldenborg, who came to a Low Mass at one of our houses and after the Low Mass said: “Now I have to become Catholic.” This comes from the fact that every detail in the Mass is not a human invention but an inspiration of the Holy Ghost. That every detail has been shaped into a harmonious unity, and if we change a tittle of it, then we will easily destroy the presence of the beauty that God, from heaven, wants to give us. We have to go back to a worship that is worthy of Heaven, and therefore, every human detail has to be as beautiful as it can.

Hierarchical Order

And finally, if we want a renewal of the liturgy we have to go back to the hierarchical order that the Traditional Latin Mass reflects. I do not know how many of you have ever seen a Pontifical High Mass, but if so, and if it was celebrated according to the full rubrics, you will have seen, at the beginning, that the pontiff is vested at the throne. It is a little lengthy procedure, but I am always astonished how fascinated everyone is to see that the human being who comes into the chapel or church is slowly changed by Holy Mother Church into the sovereign high priest and the representative of Christ. [At the Institute] we have had bishops from the whole world, some pleasantly astonished at what was happening to them; but after the vestition no one could have mistaken the bishop except for what he really is -- a bishop, the representative of Christ, Christ on earth.

The Pontifical High Mass includes the bishop, the presbyter assistens, the deacon, the subdeacon, and all the servers of the minor clergy. They stand on different levels of the sanctuary. This shows you at one glimpse what otherwise has to be explained at length -- that the Church has a gradation of hierarchy, and this hierarchy is instituted by Christ, from the liturgy for the liturgy, to make clear that we need steps, that we need help, that we need support and elevation to come to the sancta sanctorum, [the “holy of holies”], to midst of it all, to the sacrifice and to the presence. If you assist at a beautifully celebrated Solemn High Mass you will come out a changed person because you will have seen the reality of the Church. You will have seen that she is still the beautiful queen. You will have seen that she is still the powerful queen of angels and saints. And you understand why the Church teaches that at these Masses, and at every Mass, the whole heavenly court is present, in gradations, in hierarchies, in the hierarchies of the angels and of the saints that lead to the culminating point – to the revelation of the Holy Trinity in the presence of Christ.

The liturgy has not been destroyed in her center, but perhaps weakened in her hierarchical expression, and this has bee reflected in the perception of the laity. And we cannot be astonished if lay people do not approach a bishop with a notion of his hierarchical station if he is not presented to them as the sovereign high priest during the liturgy.

Renewal Through the Traditional Latin Mass

So, that is what we can learn, and we shall learn, and we will learn if there is a renewal of the liturgy -- the Sacrifice, the Adoration, the Realism, the Beauty of Heaven, and the Hierarchy have to come back in the liturgy of the church. And to be frank, I know a solution. We, in the Institute of Christ the King, by the grace of God, live part of this solution in our humble condition, in our frailty, by the gracious permission of the Holy See. We can only hope that the renewal that the Holy Father wants to bring about is linked to a universal, generous permission of the Traditional Latin Mass to all groups, to all priests who want to say it.

It has already been confirmed by many canonists that the canonical situation seems to be such that every priest can already say the Mass privately. The public Mass will hopefully soon be reinstated at least as an opportunity for everyone.

In the last forty years we have heard so much about liberality, liberty and liberalism. I am for the liberalization of the Traditional Latin Rite. I’m very grateful to the Holy Father that he has brought about this discussion. When I was in the seminary in 1976, speaking about the Latin Mass was a reason to be thanked and showed out the door.
I want to be very optimistic, in the sense of Christian hope. What has happened in the last ten years is a miracle. That many other traditional groups and the Institute of Christ the King are everywhere now, that we have this wonderful church in St. Louis or the wonderful church in Wausau, and everyone can come and worship in the Traditional Latin Rite, would have been unthinkable under other popes. So we want to be very grateful to Pope Benedict XVI and to Pope John Paul II for having opened the door, first a little bit, and now hopefully more.

Well, this talk is taped, but still I want to say that we joke sometimes at table at our community, saying “Well, in thirty years we will all be here, white-haired, and we will say ‘The indult will come out any day now’.” Well, I hope not. To close this short talk, I can only tell you at least that the document is ready and that the person who is responsible for all of it does not want to discuss it any longer. We have now only to pray that the appropriate time to publish it will be found soon. This will bring about a great strengthening not only of Traditional Latin Mass groups -- it will bring about a renewal of the liturgy, it will bring about a renewal of the clergy, it will bring about a renewal of the beauty of the Church. It will be like seeing your mother all dusty and in rags on the streets; you go up to her and rip off the old dusty clothing and below that you see the golden clothes that she has brought for the most beautiful ball she has ever attended.

And that will be Holy Mother Church with the Traditional Latin Rite liberalized for everyone.

Nuns on a Comeback---Recruiting with Blackberries!

The seeds sown by His Holiness John Paul II, bearing fruit:

Pope Pius XII, Moscow and Liberal Catholics

An excellent discovery by Gerald Augustinius at The Cafeteria is Closed is this article from National Review.

Here's the beginning, but you must click on the link to read the rest...compelling!

Does anyone still doubt Bella Dodd?

January 25, 2007,
7:40 a.m.
Moscow’s Assault on the Vatican
The KGB made corrupting the Church a priority.
By Ion Mihai Pacepa

The Soviet Union was never comfortable living in the same world with the Vatican. The most recent disclosures document that the Kremlin was prepared to go to any lengths to counter the Catholic Church’s strong anti-Communism.In March 2006 an Italian parliamentary commission concluded “beyond any reasonable doubt that the leaders of the Soviet Union took the initiative to eliminate the pope Karol Wojtyla,” in retaliation for his support to the dissident Solidarity movement in Poland.

The Ottaviani Intervention

With the anticipation growing over the Moto Proprio of H.H. Benedict XVI restoring the place of the Traditional Latin Mass, it might be worthwhile to review this most prophetic statement. Cardinal Ottaviani was ignored, even laughed at by many; but the fact is, his fears of the Novus Ordo Missae have been realized.

If you have not read this before, take the time; I guarantee you will be enlightened as to how Ottaviani's fears have come to fruition.

Letter from Cardinals Ottaviani and Baccito His Holiness Pope Paul VI
(Translation)

Rome, September 25th, 1969

Most Holy Father,

Having carefully examined, and presented for the scrutiny of others, the Novus Ordo Missae prepared by the experts of the Consilium ad exequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia, and after lengthy prayer and reflection, we feel it to be our bounden duty in the sight of God and towards Your Holiness, to put before you the following considerations:

1. The accompanying critical study of the Novus Ordo Missae, the work of a group of theologians, liturgists and pastors of souls, shows quite clearly in spite of its brevity that if we consider the innovations implied or taken for granted which may of course be evaluated in different ways, the Novus Ordo represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent. The "canons" of the rite definitively fixed at that time provided an insurmountable barrier to any heresy directed against the integrity of the Mystery.

2. The pastoral reasons adduced to support such a grave break with tradition, even if such reasons could be regarded as holding good in the face of doctrinal considerations, do not seem to us sufficient. The innovations in the Novus Ordo and the fact that all that is of perennial value finds only a minor place, if it subsists at all, could well turn into a certainty the suspicions already prevalent, alas, in many circles, that truths which have always been believed by the Christian people, can be changed or ignored without infidelity to that sacred deposit of doctrine to which the Catholic faith is bound for ever. Recent reforms have amply demonstrated that fresh changes in the liturgy could lead to nothing but complete bewilderment on the part of the faithful who are already showing signs of restiveness and of an indubitable lessening of faith.
Amongst the best of the clergy the practical result is an agonising crisis of conscience of which innumerable instances come tour notice daily.

3. We are certain that these considerations, which can only reach Your Holiness by the living voice of both shepherds and flock, cannot but find an echo in Your paternal heart, always so profoundly solicitous for the spiritual needs of the children of the Church. It has always been the case that when a law meant for the good of subjects proves to be on the contrary harmful, those subjects have the right, nay the duty of asking with filial trust for the abrogation of that law.

Therefore we most earnestly beseech Your Holiness, at a time of such painful divisions and ever-increasing perils for the purity of the Faith and the unity of the church, lamented by You our common Father, not to deprive us of the possibility of continuing to have recourse to the fruitful integrity of that Missale Romanum of St. Pius V, so highly praised by Your Holiness and so deeply loved and venerated by the whole Catholic world.

A. Card. Ottaviani
A. Card. Bacci

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- THE ACCOMPANYING STUDY -
BRIEF SUMMARY

I: History of the Change.
The new form of Mass was substantially rejected by the Episcopal Synod, was never submitted to the collegial judgement of the Episcopal Conferences and was never asked for by the people. It has every possibility of satisfying the most modernist of Protestants.
II: Definition of the Mass.
By a series of equivocations the emphasis is obsessively placed upon the 'supper' and the 'memorial' instead of on the unbloody renewal of the Sacrifice of Calvary.
III: Presentation of the Ends.
The three ends of the Mass are altered:- no distinction is allowed to remain between Divine and human sacrifice; bread and wine are only "spiritually" (not substantially) changed.
IV:- and of the essence.
The Real Presence of Christ is never alluded to and belief in it is implicitly repudiated.
V:- and of the four elements of the sacrifice.
The position of both priest and people is falsified and the Celebrant appears as nothing more than a Protestant minister, while the true nature of the Church is intolerably misrepresented.
VI: The destruction of unity.
The abandonment of Latin sweeps away for good and all unity of worship. This may have its effect on unity of belief and the New Order has no intention of standing for the Faith as taught by the Council of Trent to which the Catholic conscience is bound.
VII: The alienation of the Orthodox.
While pleasing various dissenting groups, the New Order will alienate the East.
VIII: The abandonment of defences.
The New Order teems with insinuations or manifest errors against the purity of the Catholic religion and dismantles all defences of the deposit of Faith.

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I: HISTORY OF THE CHANGE

In October 1967, the Episcopal Synod called in Rome was required to pass judgement on the experimental celebration of a so-called "normative Mass" (New Mass), devised by the Consilium ad exsequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia. This Mass aroused the most serious misgivings. The voting showed considerable opposition (43 non placet), very many substantial reservations (62 juxta modum), and 4 abstentions out of 187 voters. The international press spoke of a "refusal" of the proposed "normative Mass" (New Mass) on the part of the Synod. Progressively-inclined papers made no mention of it.
In the Novus Ordo Missae lately promulgated by the Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum, we once again find this "normative Mass" (New Mass), identical in substance, nor does it appear that in the intervening period the Episcopal Conference, at least as such, were ever asked to give their views about it.
In the Apostolic Constitution, it is stated that the ancient Missal promulgated by St. Pius V, 13th July 1570, but going back in great part to St. Gregory the Great and still remoter antiquity, was for four centuries the norm for the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice for priests of the Latin rite, and that, taken to every part of the world, "it has moreover been an abundant source of spiritual nourishment to many holy people in their devotion to God". Yet, the present reform, putting it definitely out of use, was claimed to be necessary since "from that time the study of the Sacred Liturgy has become more widespread and intensive among Christians".
This assertion seems to us to embody a serious equivocation. For the desire of the people was expressed, if at all, when - thanks to Pius X - they began to discover the true and everlasting treasures of the liturgy. The people never on any account asked for the liturgy to be changed, or mutilated so as to understand it better. They asked for a better understanding of the changeless liturgy, and one which they would never have wanted changed.
The Roman Missal of St. Pius V was religiously venerated and most dear to Catholics, both priests and laity. One fails to see how its use, together with suitable catechesis, could have hindered a fuller participation in, and great knowledge of the Sacred Liturgy, nor why, when its many outstanding virtues are recognised, this should not have been considered worthy to continue to foster the liturgical piety of Christians.
REJECTED BY SYNOD Since the "normative" Mass (New Mass), now reintroduced and imposed as the Novus Ordo Missae (New Order of the Mass), was in substance rejected by the Synod of Bishops, was never submitted to the collegial judgement of the Episcopal Conferences, nor have the people - least of all in mission lands - ever asked for any reform of Holy Mass whatsoever, one fails to comprehend the motives behind the new legislation which overthrows a tradition unchanged in the Church since the 4th and 5th centuries, as the Apostolic Constitution itself acknowledges. As no popular demand exists to support this reform, it appears devoid of any logical grounds to justify it and makes it acceptable to the Catholic people.
The Vatican Council did indeed express a desire (para. 50 Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium) for the various parts of the Mass to be reordered "ut singularum partium propria ratio nec non mutua connexio clarius pateant." We shall see how the Ordo recently promulgated corresponds with this original intention.
An attentive examination of the Novus Ordo reveals changes of such magnitude as to justify in themselves the judgement already made with regard to the "normative" Mass. Both have in many points every possibility of satisfying the most Modernists of Protestants.

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II: DEFINITION OF THE MASS

Let us begin with the definition of the Mass given in No. 7 of the "Institutio Generalis" at the beginning of the second chapter on the Novus Ordo: "De structura Missae":
"The Lord's Supper or Mass is a sacred meeting or assembly of the People of God, met together under the presidency of the priest, to celebrate the memorial of the Lord. Thus the promise of Christ, "where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them", is eminently true of the local community in the Church (Mt. XVIII, 20)".
The definition of the Mass is thus limited to that of the "supper", and this term is found constantly repeated (nos. 8, 48, 55d, 56). This supper is further characterised as an assembly presided over by the priest and held as a memorial of the Lord, recalling what He did on the first Maundy Thursday. None of this in the very least implies either the Real Presence, or the reality of sacrifice, or the Sacramental function of the consecrating priest, or the intrinsic value of the Eucharistic Sacrifice independently of the people's presence. It does not, in a word, imply any of the essential dogmatic values of the Mass which together provide its true definition. Here, the deliberate omission of these dogmatic values amounts to their having been superseded and therefore, at least in practice, to their denial.
In the second part of this paragraph 7 it is asserted, aggravating the already serious equivocation, that there holds good, "eminently", for this assembly Christ's promise that "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. XVIII, 20). This promise which refers only to the spiritual presence of Christ with His grace, is thus put on the same qualitative plane, save for the greater intensity, as the substantial and physical reality of the Sacramental Eucharistic Presence.
In no. 8 a subdivision of the Mass into "liturgy of the word" and Eucharistic liturgy immediately follows, with the affirmation that in the Mass is made ready "the table of the God's word" as of "the Body of Christ", so that the faithful "may be built up and refreshed"; an altogether improper assimilation of the two parts of the liturgy, as though between two points of equal symbol value. More will be said about this point later.
This Mass is designed by a great many different expressions, all acceptable relatively, all unacceptable if employed, as they are, separately in an absolute sense.
We cite a few: The Action of the People of God; The Lord's Supper or Mass, the Pascal Banquet; The Common Participation of the Lord's Table; The Eucharistic Prayer; The Liturgy of the Word and the Eucharistic Liturgy.
As is only too evident, the emphasis is obsessively placed upon the supper and the memorial instead of upon the unbloody renewal of the Sacrifice of Calvary. The formula "The Memorial of the Passion and Resurrection of the Lord", besides, is inexact, the Mass being the memorial of the Sacrifice alone, in itself redemptive, while the Resurrection is the consequent fruit of it.
We shall later see how, in the very consecratory formula, and throughout the Novus Ordo, such equivocations are renewed and reiterated.

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III: PRESENTATION OF THE ENDS

We now come to the ends of the Mass.
1. Ultimate End. This is that of the Sacrifice of praise to the Most Holy Trinity according to the explicit declaration of Christ in the primary purpose of His very Incarnation: "Coming into the world he saith: 'sacrifice and oblation thou wouldst not but a body thou hast fitted me' ". (Ps. XXXIX, 7-9 in Heb. X, 5).
This end has disappeared: from the Offertory, with the disappearance of the prayer "Suscipe, Sancta Trinitas", from the end of the Mass with the omission of the "Placet tibi Sancta Trinitas", and from the Preface, which on Sunday will no longer be that of the Most Holy Trinity, as this Preface will be reserved only to the Feast of the Trinity, and so in future will be heard but once a year.
2. Ordinary End. This is the propitiatory Sacrifice. It too has been deviated from; for instead of putting the stress on the remission of sins of the living and the dead, it lays emphasis on the nourishment and sanctification of those present (No. 54). Christ certainly instituted the Sacrament of the Last Supper putting Himself in the state of Victim in order that we might be united to Him in this state but his self- immolation precedes the eating of the Victim, and has an antecedent and full redemptive value (the application of the bloody immolation). This is borne out by the fact that the faithful present are not bound to communicate, sacramentally.
3. Immanent End. Whatever the nature of the Sacrifice, it is absolutely necessary that it be pleasing and acceptable to God. After the Fall no sacrifice can claim to be acceptable in its own right other than the Sacrifice of Christ. The Novus Ordo changes the nature of the offering turning it into a sort of exchange of gifts between man and God: man brings the bread, and God turns it into the "bread of life"; man brings the wine, and God turns it into a "spiritual drink".
"Thou are blessed Lord God of the Universe because from thy generosity we have received the bread (or wine) which we offer thee, the fruit of the earth (or vine) and of man's labour. May it become for us the bread of life (or spiritual drink)".
There is no need to comment on the utter indeterminateness of the formulae "bread of life" and "spiritual drink", which might mean anything. The same capital equivocation is repeated here, as in the definition of the Mass: there, Christ is present only spiritually among His own: here, bread and wine are only "spiritually" (not substantially) changed.
SUPPRESSION OF GREAT PRAYERSIn the preparation of the offering, a similar equivocation results from the suppression of two great prayers. The "Deus qui humanae substantiae dignitatem mirabiliter condidisti et mirabilius reformasti" was a reference to man's former condition of innocence and to his present one of being ransomed by the Blood of Christ: a recapitulation of the whole economy of the Sacrifice, from Adam to the present moment. The final propitiatory offering of the chalice, that it might ascend "cum adore suavitatis", into the presence of the divine majesty, whose clemency was implored, admirably reaffirmed this plan. By suppressing the continual reference of the Eucharistic prayers to God, there is no longer any clear distinction between divine and human sacrifice.
Having removed the keystone, the reformers have had to put up scaffolding; suppressing real ends, they had to substitute fictitious ends of their own; leading to gestures intended to stress to union of priest and faithful, and of the faithful among themselves; offerings for the poor and for the church superimposed upon the Offering of the Host to be immolated. There is a danger that the uniqueness of this offer will become blurred, so that participation in the immolation of the Victim comes to resemble a philanthropical meeting, or a charity banquet.

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IV: THE ESSENCE

We now pass on to the essence of the Sacrifice.
The mystery of the Cross is no longer explicitly expressed. It is only there obscurely, veiled, imperceptible for the people. And for these reasons:
1. The sense given in the Novus Ordo to the so-called "prex Eucharistica" is: "that the whole congregation of the faithful may be united to Christ in proclaiming the great wonders of God and in offering sacrifice" (No. 54. the end)
Which sacrifice is referred to? Who is the offerer? No answer is given to either of these questions. The initial definition of the "prex Eucharistica" is as follows: "The centre and culminating point of the whole celebration now has a beginning, namely the Eucharistic Prayer, a prayer of thanksgiving and of sanctification" (No. 54, pr.). The effects thus replace the causes, of which not one single word is said. The explicit mention of the object of the offering, which was found in the "Suscipe", has not been replaced by anything. The change in formulation reveals the change in doctrine.
2. The reason for this non-explicitness concerning the Sacrifice is quite simply that the Real Presence has been removed from the central position which it occupied so resplendently in the former Eucharistic liturgy. There is but a single reference to the Real Presence, (a quotation - a footnote - from the Council of Trent) and again the context is that of "nourishment" (no. 241, note 63)
The Real and permanent Presence of Christ, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, in the transubstantiated Species is never alluded to. The very word transubstantiation is totally ignored.
The suppression of the invocation to the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity ("Veni Sanctificator") that He may descend upon the oblations, as once before into the womb of the Most Blessed Virgin to accomplish the miracle of the divine Presence, is yet one more instance of the systematic and tacit negation of the Real Presence.
Note, too, the suppressions:
of the genuflections (no more than three remain to the priest, and one, with certain exceptions, to the people, at the Consecration; of the purification of the priest's fingers in the chalice;
of the preservation from all profane contact of the priest's fingers after the Consecration;
of the purification of the vessels, which need not be immediate, nor made on the corporal;
of the pall protecting the chalice;
of the internal gilding of sacred vessels;
of the consecration of movable altars;
of the sacred stone and relics in the movable altar or upon the "table" - "when celebration does not occur in sacred precincts" (this distinction leads straight to "Eucharistic suppers" in private houses); of the three altar-cloths, reduced to one only;
of thanksgiving kneeling (replaced by a thanksgiving, seated, on the part of the priest and people, a logical enough complement to Communion standing);
of all the former prescriptions in the case of the consecrated Host falling, which are now reduced to a single, casual direction: "reventur accipiatur" (no. 239)All these things only serve to emphasise how outrageously faith in the dogma of the Real Presence is implicitly repudiated.
3. The function assigned to the altar (no. 262). The altar is almost always called 'table', "The altar or table of the Lord, which is the centre of the whole Eucharistic liturgy" (no. 49, cf. 262). It is laid down that the altar must be detached from the walls so that it is possible to walk round it and celebration may be facing the people (no. 262); also that the altar must be the centre of the assembly of the faithful so that their attention is drawn spontaneously towards it (ibid). But a comparison of no. 262 and 276 would seem to suggest that the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament on this altar is excluded. This will mark an irreparable dichotomy between the presence, in the celebrant, of the eternal High Priest and that same presence brought about sacramentally. Before, they were 'one and the same presence'.
SEPARATION OF ALTAR & TABERNACLENow it is recommended that the Blessed Sacrament be kept in a place apart for the private devotion of the people (almost as though it were a question of devotion to a relic of some kind) so that, on going into a church, attention will no longer be focused upon the Tabernacle but upon a stripped, bare table. Once again the contrast is made between 'private' piety and 'liturgical' piety: altar is set up against altar.
In the insistent recommendation to distribute in Communion the Species consecrated during the same Mass, indeed to consecrate a loaf for the priest to distribute to at least some of the faithful, we find reasserted disparaging attitude towards the Tabernacle, as towards every form of Eucharistic piety outside of the Mass. This constitutes yet another violent blow to faith in the Real Presence as long as the consecrated Species remain.
The formula of Consecration. The ancient formula of consecration was properly a sacramental not a narrative one. This was shown above all by three things:
a) The Scriptural text not taken up word for word: the Pauline insertion "mysterium fidei" was an immediate confession of the priest's faith in the mystery realised by the Church through the hierarchical priesthood.
b) The punctuation and typographical lay-out: the full stop and new paragraph marking the passage from the narrative mode to the sacramental and affirmative one, the sacramental words in larger characters at the centre of the page and often in a different colour, clearly detached from the historical context. All combined to give the formula a proper and autonomous value.
__________"To separate the Tabernacle from the Altar is tantamount to separating two things which, of their very nature, must remain together". (PIUS XII, Allocution to the International Liturgy Congress, Assisi-Rome, Sept. 18-23, 1956). cf. also Mediator Dei, 1.5, note 28.
c) The anamnesis ("Haec quotiescompque feceritis in mei memoriam facietis"), which in Greek is "eis emou anamnesin" (directed to my memory.) This referred to Christ operating and not to mere memory of Him, or of the event: an invitation to recall what He did ("Haec . . . in mei memoriam facietis") in the way He did it, not only His Person, or the Supper. The Pauline formula ("Hoc facite in meam commemorationem") which will now take the place of the old - proclaimed as it will be daily in vernacular languages will irremediably cause the hearers to concentrate on the memory of Christ as the 'end' of the Eucharistic action, whilst it is really the 'beginning'. The concluding idea of 'commemoration' will certainly once again take the place of the idea of sacramental action.
The narrative mode is now emphasised by the formula "narratio institutionis" (no. 55d) and repeated by the definition of the anamnesis, in which it is said that "The Church recalls the memory of Himself" (no. 556).
In short: the theory put forward by the epiclesis, the modification of the words of Consecration and of the anamnesis, have the effect of modifying the modus significandi of the words of Consecration. The consecratory formulae are here pronounced by the priest as the constituents of a historical narrative and no longer enunciated as expressing the categorical affirmation uttered by Him in whole Person the priest acts: "Hoc est Corpus meum" (not, "Hoc est Corpus Christi").
Furthermore the acclamation assigned to the people immediately after the Consecration: ("We announce thy death, O Lord, until Thou comest") introduces yet again, under cover of eschatology, the same ambiguity concerning the Real Presence. Without interval or distinction, the expectation of Christ's Second Coming at the end of time is proclaimed just at the moment when He is substantially present on the altar, almost as though the former, and not the latter, were the true Coming.
This is brought out even more strongly in the formula of optional acclamation no. 2 (Appendix): "As often as we eat of this bread and drink of this chalice we announce thy death, O Lord, until thou comest", where the juxtaposition of the different realities of immolation and eating, of the Real Presence and of Christ's Second Coming, reaches the height of ambiguity.

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V: THE ELEMENTS OF SACRIFICE

We come now to the realisation of the Sacrifice, the four elements of which were: 1) Christ, 2) the priest, 3) the Church, 4) the faithful present.
In the Novus Ordo, the position attributed to the faithful is autonomous (absoluta), hence totally false - from the opening definition: "Missa est sacra synaxis seu congregatio populi" to the priest's salutation to the people which is meant to convey to the assembled community the "presence" of the Lord (no. 48). "Qua salutatione et populi responsione manifestatur ecclesiae congregatae mysterium".
A true presence, certainly of Christ but only a spiritual one, and a mystery of the Church, but solely as an assembly manifesting and soliciting such a presence.
This interpretation is constantly underlined: by the obsessive references to the communal character of the Mass (nos. 74-152); by the unheard of distinction between "Mass with congregation" and "Mass without congregation" (nos. 203-231); by the definition of the "oratio universalis seu fidelium" (no. 45) where once more we find stressed the "sacerdotal office" of the people (populus sui sacerdotii munus excercens") presented in an equivocal way because its subordination to that of the priest is not mentioned, and all the more since the priest, as consecrated mediator, makes himself the interpreter of all the intentions of the people in the Te igitur and the two Memento.
In "Eucharistic Prayer III" ("Vere sanctus", p. 123) the following words are addressed to the Lord: "from age to age you gather a people to yourself, in order that from east to west a perfect offering may be made to the glory of your name", the 'in order that' making it appear that the people rather than the priest are the indispensable element in the celebration; and since not even here is it made clear who the offerer is, the people themselves appear to be invested with autonomous priestly powers. From this step it would not be surprising if, before long, the people were authorised to join the priest in pronouncing the consecrating formulae (which actually seems here and there to have already occurred).
PRIEST A MERE PRESIDENT2) The priest's position is minimised, changed and falsified. Firstly in relation to the people for whom he is, for the most part, a mere president, or brother, instead of the consecrated minister celebrating in persona Christi. Secondly in relation to the Church, as a "quidam de populo". In the definition of the epiclesis (no. 55), the invocations are attributed anonymously to the Church: the part of the priest has vanished.
In the Confiteor which has now become collective, he is no longer judge, witness and intercessor with God; so it is logical that his is no longer empowered to give the absolution, which has been suppressed. He is integrated with the fratres. Even the server address him as such in the Confiteor of the "Missa sine populo".
Already, prior to this latest reform, the significant distinction between the Communion of the priest - the moment in which the Eternal High Priest and the one acting in His Person were brought together in the closest union - and the Communion of the faithful has been suppressed.
Not a word do we now find as to the priest's power to sacrifice, or about his act of consecration, the bringing about through him of the Eucharistic Presence. He now appears as nothing more than a Protestant minister.
The disappearance, or optional use, of many sacred vestments (in certain cases the alb and stole are sufficient - no. 298) obliterate even more the original conformity with Christ: the priest is no more clothed with all His virtues, become merely a "non-commissioned officer" whom one or two signs may distinguish from the mass of the people: "a little more a man than the rest", to quite the involuntarily humorous definition of a modern preacher. Again, as with the "table" and the Altar, there is separated what God has united: the sole Priesthood and the Word of God.
3) Finally, there is the Church's position in relation to Christ. In one case only, namely the "Mass without congregation", is the Mass acknowledged to be "Actio Christi et Ecclesiae" (no. 4, cf. Presb. Ord. no. 13), whereas in the case of the "Mass with congregation" this is not referred to except for the purpose of "remembering Christ" and sanctifying those present. The words used are: "In offering the sacrifice through Christ in the Holy Ghost to God the Father, the priest associates the people with himself" (no. 60), instead one ones which would associate the people with Christ Who offers Himself "per Spiritum Sanctum Deo Patri".
In this context the follows are to be noted:
1) the very serious omission of the phrase "Through Christ Our Lord", the guarantee of being heard given to the Church in every age (John, XIV, 13-14; 15; 16; 23; 24);
2) the all pervading "paschalism", almost as though there were no other, quite different and equally important, aspects of the communication of grace;
3) the very strange and dubious eschatologism whereby the communication of supernatural grace, a reality which is permanent and eternal, is brought down to the dimensions of time: we hear of a people on the march, a pilgrim Church - no longer militant - against the Powers of Darkness - looking towards a future which having lost its line with eternity is conceived in purely temporal terms.
The Church - One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic - is diminished as such in the formula that, in the "Eucharistic Prayer No. 4", has taken the place of the prayer of the Roman Cannon "on behalf of all orthodox believers of the Catholic and apostolic faith". Now we have merely: "all who seek you with a sincere heart".
Again, in the Memento for the dead, these have no longer passed on "with the sign of faith and sleep the sleep of peace" but only "who have died in the peace of thy Christ", and to them are added, with further obvious detriment to the concept of visible unity, the host "of all the dead whose faith is known to you alone".
Furthermore, in none of three new Eucharistic prayers, is there any reference, as has already been said, to that state of suffering of those who have died, in none the possibility of a particular Memento: all of this again, must undermine faith in the propitiatory and redemptive nature of the Sacrifice.
DESACRALISING THE CHURCH Desacralising omissions everywhere debase the mystery of the Church. Above all she is not presented as a sacred hierarchy: Angels and Saints are reduced to anonymity in the second part of the collective Confiteor: they have disappeared, as witnesses and judges, in the person of St. Michael, for the first.
The various hierarchies of angels have also disappeared (and this is without precedent) from the new Preface of "Prayer II". In the Communicantes, reminder of the Pontiffs and holy martyrs on whom the Church of Rome is founded and who were, without doubt, the transmitters of the apostolic traditions, destined to be completed in what became, with St. Gregory, the Roman Mass, has been suppressed. In the Libera nos the Blessed Virgin, the Apostles and all the Saints are no longer mentioned: her and their intercession is thus no longer asked, even in time of peril.
The unity of the Church is gravely compromised by the wholly intolerable omission from the entire Ordo, including the three new Prayers, of the names of the Apostles Peter and Paul, Founders of the Church of Rome, and the names of the other Apostles, foundation and mark of the one and universal Church, the only remaining mention being in the Communicantes of the Roman Canon.
A clear attack upon the dogma of the Communion of Saints is the omission, when the priest is celebrating without a server, of all the salutations, and the final Blessing, not to speak of the 'Ite, missa est' now not even said in Masses celebrated with a server.
The double Confiteor showed how the priest, in his capacity of Christ's Minister, bowing down deeply and acknowledging himself unworthy of his sublime mission, of the "tremendum mysterium", about to be accomplished by him and even (in the Aufer a nobis) entering into the Holy of Holies, invoked the intercession (in the Oramus te, Domine) of the merits of the martyrs whose relics were sealed in the altar. Both these prayers have been suppressed; what has been said previously in respect of the double Confiteor and the double Communion is equally relevant here.
The outward setting of the Sacrifice, evidence of its sacred character, has been profaned. See, for example, what is laid down for celebration outside sacred precincts, in which the altar may be replaced by a simple "table" without consecrated stone or relics, and with a single cloth (nos. 260, 265). Here too all that has been previously said with regard to the Real Presence applies, the disassociation of the "convivium" and of the sacrifice of the supper from the Real Presence Itself.
The process of desacralisation is completed thanks to the new procedures for the offering: the reference to ordinary not unleavened bread; altar-servers (and lay people at Communion sub utraque specie) being allowed to handle sacred vessels (no. 244d); the distracting atmosphere created by the ceaseless coming and going of the priest, deacon, subdeacon, psalmist, commentator (the priest becomes commentator himself from his constantly being required to 'explain' what he is about to accomplish) - of readings (men and women), of servers or laymen welcoming people at the door and escorting them to their places whilst others carry and sort offerings. And in the midst of all this prescribed activity, the 'mulier idonea' (anti-Scriptural and anti-Pauline) who for the first time in the tradition of the Church will be authorised to read the lessons and also perform other "ministeria quae extra presbyterium peraguntur" (no. 70).
Finally, there is the concelebration mania, which will end by destroying Eucharistic piety in the priest, by overshadowing the central figure of Christ, sole Priest and Victim, in a collective presence of concelebrants.

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VI: THE DESTRUCTION OF UNITY

We have limited ourselves to a summary evaluation of the new Ordo where it deviates most seriously from the theology of the Catholic Mass and our observations touch only those deviations that are typical. A complete evaluation of all the pitfalls, the dangers, and spiritually and psychologically destructive elements contained in the document - whether in text, rubrics or instructions - would be a vast undertaking.
BY PRIEST OR PARSONNo more than a passing glance has been taken at the three new Canons, since these have already come in for repeated and authoritative criticism, both as to form and substance. The second of them gave immediate scandal to the faithful on account of its brevity. Of Cannon II it has been well said, among other thins, that it could be recited with perfect tranquillity of conscience by a priest who no longer believes either in Transubstantiation or in the sacrificial character of the Mass - hence even by a Protestant minister.
The new Missal was introduced in Rome as "a text of ample pastoral matter", and "more pastoral than juridical", which the Episcopal Conferences would be able to utilise according to the varying circumstances and genius of different peoples. In the same Apostolic Constitution we read: "we have introduced into the New Missal legitimate variations and adaptations".
Besides, Section I of the new Congregation for Divine Worship will be responsible "for the publication and 'constant revision' of the liturgical books". The last official bulletin of the Liturgical Institutes of Germany, Switzerland and Austria says: "The Latin texts will now have to be translated into the languages of the various peoples; the 'Roman' style will have to be adapted to the individuality of the local Churches: that which was conceived beyond time must be transposed into the changing context of concrete situations in the constant flux of the Universal Church and of its myriad congregations."
The Apostolic Constitution itself gives the coup de grace to the Church's universal language (contrary to the express will of Vatican Council II) with the bland affirmation that "in such a variety of tongues one (?) and the same prayer of all . . . may ascend more fragrant than any incense".
COUNCIL OF TRENT REJECTEDThe demise of Latin may therefore be taken for granted; that of Gregorian Chant, which even the Council recognised as "liturgiae romanae proprium" (Sacros Conc. no 116), ordering that "principem locum obtineat" (ibid.) will logically follow, with the freedom of choice, amongst other things, of the texts of the Introit and Gradual.
From the outset therefore the New Rite is launched as pluralistic and experimental, bound to time and place. Unity of worship, thus swept away for good and all, what will become of that unity of faith that went with it, and which, we were always told, was to be defended without compromise?
It is evident that the Novus Ordo has no intention of presenting the Faith as taught by the Council of Trent, to which, nonetheless, the Catholic conscience is bound forever. With the promulgation of the Novus Ordo, the loyal Catholic is thus faced with a most tragic alternative.

__________
VII: THE ALIENATION OF THE ORTHODOX

The Apostolic Constitution makes explicit reference to a wealth of piety and teaching in the Novus Ordo borrowed from Eastern Churches. The result - utterly remote from and even opposed to the inspiration of the oriental Liturgies - can only repel the faithful of the Eastern Rites. What, in truth, do these ecumenical options amount to? Basically to the multiplicity of anaphora (but nothing approaching their beauty and complexity), to the presence of deacons, to Communion sub utraque specie.
Against this, the Novus Ordo would appear to have been deliberately shorn of everything which in the Liturgy of Rome came close to those of the East.
Moreover in abandoning its unmistakable and immemorial Roman character, the Novus Ordo lost what was spiritually precious of its own. Its place has been taken by elements which bring it closer only to certain other reformed liturgies (not even those closest to Catholicism) and which debase it at the same time. The East will be ever more alienated, as it already has been by the preceding liturgical reforms.
By the way of compensation the new Liturgy will be the delight of the various groups who, hovering on the verge of apostasy, are wreaking havoc in the Church of God, poisoning her organism and undermining her unity of doctrine, worship, morals and discipline in a spiritual crisis without precedent.

__________
VIII: THE ABANDONMENT OF DEFENCES

St. Pius V had the Roman Missal drawn up (as the present Apostolic Constitution itself recalls) so that it might be an instrument of unity among Catholics. In conformity with the injunctions of the Council of Trent it was to exclude all danger, in liturgical worship, of errors against the Faith, then threatened by the Protestant Reformation. The gravity of the situation fully justified, and even rendered prophetic, the saintly Pontiff's solemn warning given at the end of the Bull promulgating his Missal "should anyone presume to tamper with this, let him know that he shall incur the wrath of God Almighty and his blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul. (Quo Primum, July 13, 1570)
When the Novus Ordo was presented at the Vatican Press Office, it was asserted with great audacity that the reasons which prompted the Tridentine decrees are no longer valid. Not only do they still apply, but there also exist, as we do not hesitate to affirm, very much more serious ones today.
It was precisely in order to ward off the dangers which in every century threaten the purity of the deposit of faith (depositum custodi, devitans profanas vocum novitates" Tim. VI, 20) the Church has had to erect under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost the defences of her dogmatic definitions and doctrinal pronouncements.
These were immediately reflected in her worship, which became the most complete monument of her faith. To try to bring the Church's worship back at all cost to ancient practices by refashioning, artificially and with that "unhealthy archeologism" so roundly condemned by Pius XII, what in earlier times had the grace of original spontaneity means as we see today only too clearly - to dismantle all the theological ramparts erected for the protection of the Rite and to take away all the beauty by which it was enriched over the centuries.
And all this at one of the most critical moments - if not the most critical moment - of the Church's history!
Today, division and schism are officially acknowledges to exist not only outside of but within the Church. Her unity is not only threatened but already tragically compromised. Errors against the Faith are not so much insinuated but rather an inevitable consequence of liturgical abuses and aberrations which have been given equal recognition.
To abandon a liturgical tradition which for four centuries was both the sign and pledge of unity of worship (and to replace it with another which cannot but be a sign of division by virtue of the countless liberties implicitly authorised, and which teems with insinuations or manifest errors against the integrity of the Catholic religion) is, we feel in conscience bound to proclaim, an incalculable error.


With thanks to the Latin Mass Society.

Who crushes the serpent.

In Canada, we know little of Our Lady of Guadalupe, yet she is considered to be for the "Americas." Perhaps, it is our own inferiority and fear of the elephant next door that we never refer to ourselves of being part of "America" that keeps us from recognizing our beautiful Patron and Mother.

It is so remarkable that the apparition to Juan Diego has gone so ignored amongst the "elites." Political correctness and revisionist history would have us believe that all native societies in the Americas were so benign until the "white Europeans" arrived. While that may be true to some of the natives of the plains in Canada and the United States and the east coast, it certainly was not of the Iroquois, Apache, Haida and many other nations. But nothing was as evil and vile as the Aztec and Mayan "civilizations." While in many ways they were gifted in intelligence with their ability to develop a pretty accurate calendar, that is not enough to praise them as so many are wont to do. Human sacrifice was so integral to their culture of death that at one feast over 80,000 were estimated to have been sacrificed. Children were the most favoured. And these were not merciful deaths! Hearts wripped out, disembowlment, boiling--and then cannabalism. And, it wasn't the Spanish that were shrinking heads.

Except today, we slaughter millions of babies, 40,000,000 in the United States since Roe v. Wade. Here in Canada there is no regulation, total free access to abortion. Our societies and cultures are dying, for the sake of sexual delight. Are we much different from those who practiced human sacrifice? Actually, we are worse. They did not know any better!

How powerful a symbol yet how ignored that within five years of the Apparition of Our Lady at Guadalupe the pagan culture and its human sacrifice was ended once and for all and the people were converted.

What else is there about this Apparition of Mary? What is the less than obvious connection with Fatima and Islam?

Could the little unknown village of Fatima been chosen by God for Mary's appearance be mere coincidence? Or was there a more profound reason, Fatima, was named for a convert from Islam and the wife of a Portuguese Prince. Fatima was also the name of Mohammed's daughter.

What is the connection between the River of the Wolf (Guadalupe) in Spain and Coatlaxopeuh which in the Aztec language translates to "crushes the serpent." The words themselves are remarkably similar and pronunciation identical.

What is the connection with the statue of Our Lady holding Jesus allegedly carved by St. Luke which was discovered in 1326 after having been lost for 600 years by a shepherd near the town of Guadalupe in Spain? He dug after being instructed to do so by an apparition of Our Lady. But had it gone lost? Or was it directed to be buried in the 8th century to save it from the Mohammedan hordes?

The Koran frequently mentions Mary and holds her higher than all women. While not be the same expression, Mohammedans acknowledge her Immaculate Conception, Annunciation by the Angel Gabriel, Virgin Birth of the Messiah, Jesus and her perpetual virginity!

One could almost say that given what they deny about Jesus, they almost hold Mary in higher esteem!

"And I shall put enmity between your seed and her seed, and she shall crush your head, and you will bruise her heal."

"And behold, I saw a woman clothed with the sun with the moon at her feet."

As we gaze upon the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, let us look at that upon which she is standing. It is the moon. Yet, it is no ordinary moon, it is a "crescent" moon and it was Mary through the power of God who placed the image on Juan Diego's cloak.

Perhaps she is trying to tell us something more?

Barney loves youuuuu...stand for your "Barney Blessing"

Perhaps some of you have heard about the goings on in Orange County California. This is the diocese of the infamous Bishop Todd Brown. Bishop Brown is the Bishop banned kneeling at one church and refused to give the Eucharist to a woman who kneet at another. Yet, he tolerates or even appreciates the antics of Father Fred Bailey which took place on Saturday, October 28, 2006. Yes, this is the good father dressed up like Barney!

No, not this Barney...

George W. Bush's dog

Nope, not this one...

not quite, but getting closer...

Yes, THIS BARNEY!

Well, at least he's dressed for Advent!

How fantastic is technology that finally these disgusting abuses can be seen by all the world. No longer do we need to just "hear" them and wonder if they are "true" or just come from some "right-wing traddist nutbar." You see the nutbars have been right all along...only now they can prove it and you can see it too with a click of the mouse.

And even better...

Cardinal Arinze has a computer!

Oremus, pro Pontifice

Oremus pro Pontifice nostro Benedicte.

Dominus conservet eum, et vivificet eum, et beatum faciat eum in terra, et non tradat eum in animam inimicorum eius. [Ps 40:3]

Pater Noster, Ave Maria, Gloria.

Deus, omnium fidelium pastor et rector, famulum tuum Benedicte, quem pastorem Ecclesiae tuae prae esse voluisti, propitius respice: da ei, quaesumus, verbo et exemplo, quibus praeest, proficere: ut ad vitam, una cum grege sibi credito, perveniat sempiternam.

Per Christum, Dominum nostrum.

Amen.

+ + +

Let us pray for Benedict our Pope.

May the Lord preserve him, and give him life, and make him blessed upon the earth, and deliver him not up to the will of his enemies. [Ps 40:3]

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be.

O God, Shepherd and Ruler of all Thy faithful people, look mercifully upon Benedict, Thy servant, whom Thou hast chosen as shepherd to preside over Thy Church. Grant him, we beseech Thee, that by his word and example, he may edify those over whom he hath charge, so that together with the flock committed to him, may he attain everlasting life.

Through Christ our Lord.

Amen

PRO MULTIS! FOR MANY! DEO GRATIAS!

Pro multis means "for many," Vatican rules

Vatican, Nov. 18 (CWNews.com) - The Vatican has ruled that the phrase pro multis should be rendered as "for many" in all new English-language translations of the Eucharistic Prayer, CWN has learned.

Although "for many" is the literal translation of the Latin phrase, the translations currently in use render the phrase as "for all." All new English-language translations will use "for many" when they appear.

Cardinal Francis Arinze (bio - news), the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, has written to the heads of episcopal conferences of the English-speaking world, informing them of the Vatican decision.

The translation of pro multis has been the subject of considerable debate because of the serious theological issues involved. The phrase occurs when the priest consecrates the wine, saying (in the current translation):

...It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven.

The Latin version of the Missal, which sets the norm for the Roman liturgy, says:

...qui pro vobis et pro multis effundetur in remissionem peccatorum.

Critics of the current translation have argued, since it first appeared, that rendering pro multis as "for all" not only distorts the meaning of the Latin original, but also conveys the impression that all men are saved, regardless of their relationship with Christ and his Church. The more natural translation, "for many," more accurately suggests that while Christ's redemptive suffering makes salvation available to all, it does not follow that all men are saved.

The Tridentine Mass: Organic Development and what, if anything, can be gained from the Missa Normative

Thank you to all who called or wrote to me in the comments or privately on the passing of my mother. I thank you for your prayers and your kind and warm thoughts.

Soon, perhaps, His Holiness Benedict XVI will release the long-expected news. In a comment on The New Liturgical Movement, Tim states: "not to be maudlin, but do you think Benedict understands that to delay this Moto Proprio until after his dangerous and ill-advised trip to Constantinople is asking for trouble? Tim 11.03.06 " I also think that Benedict should not go to Turkey. I fear for his life. But, go he must and put his faith in Divine Providence. However, this is all the more reason that he must act on these measures before he travels.

I know that Trads everywhere will want to lynch me for this; but, let’s consider for a moment two things; Organic development in the liturgy of the Traditional Latin Mass; and, is if there is anything in the Missa Normative or Novus Ordo rite could be incorporated into the Traditional Latin Mass as “organic” development?

The TLM or Tridentine Rite was codified at the Council of Trent. That is to say, it became the norm for the western church. It was not composed at Trent but it was the way that Mass was said in Rome since the 6th century. Any liturgy at the time that had existed for at least 200 years in the west was maintained—thus we have the Ambrosian, Mozarabic and Sarum Rites. Any changes in the Tridentine Rite since Trent have been slow, moderate and were accepted as genuine development. For example the last was the introduction of Saint Joseph in the Canon after the Blessed Virgin.

Consider what the Council Fathers intended in Sacrosanctum Concilium by way of reform to the TLM liturgy and the Missa Normative which, in my opinion, was not organic growth but a wholesale change and therefore, not what was intended by the Fathers. Many also share this view hence, the “Reform of the Reform.”

Now whilst I am a Choir Director and involved in the Liturgy, I do not consider myself a “liturgist.” I find those post-Vatican II pretenders who use such a term to describe themselves anathema. There are no liturgists; there is only the “Liturgy.” The Liturgy is approved by the Church and is to be carried out with no additions or deletions, simple as that.

Again, the following is only my opinion and is simply put forward as an idea to enhance or grow the TLM with some of what we may have learned to be positive from the Novus Ordo.

Silence is an important part of the TLM. Contemplation, prayer, mystery is found in abundance compared to the noisy and distracting NO. But it seems to me that one good thing from the NO is greater dialogue between the people and priest.

Consider the Confiteor. The priest’s private Confiteor is a must. Traditionally, the “Servers” have responded with the Confiteor on their and our behalf. Would not a public expression of our confession be appropriate? Again, this is not a “change” but, growth.

No doubt the Fathers seemed to have in mind the use of the vernacular languages for the readings. Rather than the readings read by the Priest/Celebrant at the Altar, let them be proclaimed from the pulpit in the vernacular.

The next question is whether or not the Gradual chanted in Latin was to be modified to a response between Priest/Schola and the people. There are advantaged to both. However, if the Gradual is adapted to a response style, it could be in the vernacular, but must follow the Gregorian tones. To introduce the NO style of music to the TLM for this purpose would seem to me a vulgar intrusion.

The Fathers indicated some type of “bidding prayer” what we know as the Prayers of the Faithful. Unfortunately, these follow no pattern and are an opportunity to introduce suspicious intentions. I think perhaps these are unnecessary in the TLM unless they follow a specific pattern that is unalterable. For example: The Pope and Bishops; Unity of the Christian Church; Conversion of fallen-away Catholics; Conversion of non-believers in Christ; the Sick of the Parish; the Deceased of the Parish and the Holy Souls in Purgatory. The final prayer could be a silent one for “our own intentions.” These would be in the vernacular followed by Christ, hear our prayer—Christe, exaudi nos.

Beyond these changes which are to the Liturgy of the Word portion of the mass or what was known as the “Mass of the Catechumens” modifications to the “Mass of the Faithful” or “Liturgy of the Eucharist” must be minimal. There may be some benefit to the Canon being said or even sung in an audible (not loud) voice. Certainly, one advantage of the aloud NO is that abuses become self-evident.

However, there are two practices in the NO that I think would enhance the Canon. The first is the said or particularly sung “Minor Elevation”—“per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso.” It simply seems that this proclamation prayer by the priest is more fittingly proclaimed aloud and in joy for the Sacrifice which has just taken place at the Altar. The second is the dialogue or “Peace” following the Pater Noster. And there is no place for the handshake!

I recall that the Final Gospel was originally said by the priest on his return to the sacristy. But it is a theologically powerful point to maintain. But again, proclaim it aloud and from the Pulpit for all to hear and understand the wonderful theology of John’s dissertation on the Word.

Next: the “Reform of the Reform” to the Missa Normative or Novus Ordo.ive er both what the Council Fathers intended in Sacrosanctum Concilium by way of reform to the liturgy and the Missa NO.

Getting back to blogging and a funeral as it should be!

At the wonderful old age of 91, my mother passed away on October 16, 2006. Obviously, there have been other things to do than blog, but time waits for no one and life continues.

My mother was a wonderful woman. Of course I would say that. But she really was! Sadly many do not have the mother that I was fortunate enough to have. An old musical colleague prima donna type whose mother passed away a few months ago chanted the song from The Wizard of Oz, in celebration "ding dong the witch is dead."

How sad...how terribly sad.

My mother, Martha, suffered much in her old age the maladies of a life long lived and in service to others. A broken leg, hip and collarbone were all due to falls because no doctor could figure out she needed something as simple as a pacemaker.

But at 82, she underwent emergency surgery for a thoracic aneurysm of the aorta and lived to become famous for it in Toronto emergency rooms. "She had a what?" the nurses would ask, incredulously. So, maybe the system wasn't so bad after all...at least not then!

A few years ago, on New Years Eve, she lost her first son, Raymond; he lost his son, Christopher, her eldest grandson to cancer a few years before--not something a great-grandmother should have to go through; but inevitably, some of the things that happen when you live into your tenth decade.

She always maintained that one of the reasons that she was living so long was that she had something to live for. She wasn't hidden away in a nursing home. She had support from her family and she lived with me. My 18 year-old son whom she helped me care for since he was 3 kept her young. She looked at the ear-ring, nose-ring, lip-ring, blue hair, green hair, purple hair, spiked hair, leopard-skin hair and tatoo with humour and reminded me that he was a "teenager" and that these things too would pass.

Ten years ago, a neurologist diagnosed her as having Alzheimer's. Even her personal physician agreed last year that it was a mis-diagnosis; either that or Aricept is a wonder drug for the treatment of Alzheimer's Disease.

She lived with me, and other than needing help to walk due to a most crippled body from osteo-arthritis, she was functioning fully with all her senses and faculties. Sight, hearing, speech and an appetite as if she was 20. She still charmed everyone she met. She was as sharp on the day she died as she was twenty years ago.

Four days before she died, I turned fifty. A week earlier she wished me a Happy Birthday. I said "Mum, it's next week." "Well" she replied in her ever happy way, with a wink in her eye, "that's just in case I'm not here on your birthday." No doubt, she was tired...she wanted to go, and she was ready.

We had a talk that Friday night two weeks ago as I write this and three days before she died. I acknowledged to her that I understood how hard it was for her. She replied that, "I'm ready to go whenever the good LORD takes me." Well, I told her that when she got to heaven (that I thought God would consider her purgatory was her suffering here on earth) that she needed to remember to pray for me so I would get there too. I said I would miss her when she was gone and she replied, "I'll miss you too!" "Nah," I replied, "You won't miss me, you'll be too busy with St. Charbel and St. Rafqa (a reportedly distant cousin) and making grape-leaves with Aunt Rose for Jesus!" Later in the night she called from her room for me. I asked what she needed, thinking perhaps she needed to use the washroom and she replied, "nothing, I just wanted to know where you were." It was as if she knew it would not be long.

But that's the way we were. And, that's the way she was. She did not fear death. First, she had faith and second, she saw lot's of death in her life and she knew, as best as anyone could know, what to expect. We joked and she understood when I lost my cool at someone or something stupid...a not uncommon trait for me; but she was always there with the sage advice: "Save the trouble, David," she would say. "Save it, save it for what?" I would reply. But she was right. Don't sweat the small stuff. Let it roll of your back. You have thick skin. Be the bigger man. All of these old sayings and cliches that are around because they're true! But more than that, in her own way, she was still teaching the Gospel of Christ. "Turn the other cheek." "Forgive those who persecute you." "Know that they have persecuted me and that they will persecute you." "Love your enemies." She lived it, she taught it and in her old age she prayed for all her family that they would either come back to it, or never lose it.

She left Fredericton at 21 and came to the big city of Toronto where she studied for that nursing career at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto in the days when the big hospitals all had nursing schools. She loved the old Silver Rail at Shuter and Yonge, Massey Hall, St. Michael's Cathedral, the Sisters of St. Joseph and her nursing vocation. She loved chocolate, kibeh, Lebanese Arak, Captain Morgan Rum and Crown Royal Canadian Whiskey. She smoked menthol cigarettes until she was 88!

Being a nurse in the old days, comfortable running shoes in hospitals were verboten! Nurses wore a white uniform and the starched hat, white stockings and hard leather-soled shoes. Not terribly comfortable on the hard terrazzo floors of St. Mike's. But they looked great in that white uniform under a black wool cope!

They also did more hands on work back then. Fortunately, they could. There were no computers and not anywhere near as much paperwork. They were expected to, well,--nurse. And nurse they did! They lifted patients twice as heavy or more as themselves, cleaned the bedpans, closed the eyes of the dead and said a little prayer. All in time to take the verbal abuse from the holier-than-thou Doctors who thought they were gods unto themselves. But they loved the nuns at St. Mike's and St. Joe's and the hospitals were caring, cost-efficient centres of love and healing. Now there are no nuns the hospitals are not as caring and not as cost-efficient and certainly not as clean.

Before she was a nurse, she was a teacher in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Figuring she'd probably swat some kid for saucing her; she thought she should give up teaching before getting in trouble. Later in life, when I was a young lad, she did return to supply teach in Toronto because of the convenience. That and the ever-present nurses midnight shift so she could be home during the day...when did she sleep?

She met her husband through nursing his mother Farida Doumit. My grandmother ran a boarding house and my grandfather had a grocery store downstairs in a building at 198 and 1/2 Queen Street. Yes there is a "one-half" in the address and the building still stands there today, down the street from St. Patrick's Church and across from the old Rex Hotel. As the story goes my mother heard Farida talking Arabic (Lebanese) and started up a conversation. Well as any good Lebanese mother would do, Farida said to come over for dinner sometime. So after she got out of hospital over my mother went for dinner. The shy guy at the table, Norman, was scolded by his father, Wadea to "get up and walk her home." It was about 6 big city blocks from Queen and St. Patrick to Victoria Street and Shuter. They must have had a good chat on the way, the rest of course, is history.

She did it all.

Two careers, wife, mother of four, neighbourhood nurse, Catholic Women's League President, Moose Lodge Officer and much, much more. She never complained. She just did it! It was done for faith, family and love.

Martha's funeral took place last Saturday, October 21 at the Toronto Oratory Church of the Holy Family. This was my mother's second parish. She spent the last 15 years of her career as the Director of Nursing in a large nursing home in the same Parkdale neighbourhood. She made it a place of compassion as did the very Catholic owner. 

They were good people, he and his wife were nothing like one would read about private nursing homes and, they had a strong, religious, caring, compassionate woman in charge. She even found room at the White Eagle for her old aunt, her mother's sister Eva Deeb who buried husbands and children. Born in Lebanon, old Aunt Eva or "Marcola" died at 97. Of the nine children born to Martha's parents, four made it into their 90's, four died into their 80's and the last one, my godmother Francis, is still going strong at a local nursing home...she will be 99 on January 3, God willing it. (died at 104)

I suppose at these ages you pretty well outlive anyone you knew. We joked at the funeral where over 200 attended and 130 sat down after her interment for the "mercy feast" that if she died 10 years earlier, they'd have been overflowing on the street at the church; such was her life; such was the state of her family and friends with so many gone.

My parents did all the things expected of them for a Catholic family in parish life. In fact, it was not out of expectation that they did it and while it was certainly their duty, they always did it with joy. It was just such a natural part of their life. There was no TV and when they bought the first one just after I was born in 1956, there were only two stations; there was no internet, no other worldly diversions. There was home, family and the church. The Catholic Womens' League, Holy Name Society, Altar Guild, Altar Boys, bazaars, fund-raising for the new Catholic school, the new church and so much more.

My family was, and I know my mother would have been, honoured that Father Jonathan Robinson, C.O., the Superior of the Oratory celebrated the Requiem Mass of Christian Burial for her. Father Robinson always says a wonderful, spiritual Mass. He did nothing different for my mother. I hope the people that came to the funeral not from Holy Family figure this out. He did nothing different than he would on a Sunday. This is not to say that he did not do anything special. He did! He said/sang the Mass as it was meant to be done, thouigh according to the Novus Ordo.

He wore a splendid black chasuble with gold trim and design. The sacred vessels were covered in "black." The pall on my mother's coffin was dark purple with a black cross. Not the white that is presumptious that we all go to heaven. There was enough incense to create a run on Salbutimol, the Mass was in Latin, "ad orientem" with four altar servers, seminarians, a young reader with a charming British accent and Father singing the Gospel in English. I know my mother was always fond of Father Robinson from back in the early days of the Oratory. She would recall his blonde hair and smile. She loved the Latin Mass (was displeased with the reforms and preferred the Tridentine); she loved choral music, chant and high liturgy. The highly regarded Toronto Oratory Choir (I am an alumnus) under the direction of Mr. Peter Bishop, M.A., sang. It was a funeral Mass of great solemnity, dignity, prayer and of course, the worship of Almighty God. To me and I think to all of us there, it was also a Mass of Thanksgiving to God for her wonderful life.

The music was the Officium defunctorum a VI by Tomas Luis de Victoria 1548-1611--the stupendously beautiful, moving, overflowing with religiosity-Victoria Requiem.

Even those of none or little faith were moved. That's a good thing--maybe the Holy Spirit will be at work here.

From the opening Requiem aeternam through the Dies Irae to Father's sermon on the inevitability of death, the need to pray for Martha's soul, the need of all of us to proclaim Jesus Christ as LORD, to the "in Paradisum" it was the funeral my mother deserved.
She went by the old Lebanese belief that in everything God comes first followed by your spouse and then your children. She lived the Good News of Jesus Christ every day of her life. She accepted her suffering in the later years with grace and dignity and the will of God. She died the death we can all hope for, quietly, quickly in her own home. No doubt with her beloved St. Anthony of Padua, St. Joseph and of course Her's and Our Blessed Lady Mary at her side to help her.

She loved Jesus more than anyone I know.

She endured in her faith and the Eucharist nourished her in her suffering.

All of us should strive for the life and hope and for the faith and death of Martha.

Thank you Mum.

Thank you God.

Martha Joan Stephen Domet, R.N.

With sadness at our loss but joy at what was a wonderful life, I wish to announce the sudden passing of my mother, Martha two months past her 91st birthday.

Martha was a woman of the ages. Teacher, Registered Nurse, Mother, Homemaker, Catholic Women's League President and known as the Mother Teresa of 22nd Street. Mostly, Martha was a woman of faith in her Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

He took her today, swiftly with no suffering, on Friday evening she told me that she was ready to go anytime that the LORD called her!

For this, to God be the thanks!

To God be the thanks for the Mother who taught me my Catholic faith!

Please visit http://funeralformartha.blogspot.com for funeral information.

Fun with pictures...

Feast of the Holy Rosary and a Poem by Chesterton

You must visit the blog "The New Crusade by my friend Jovan-Marya Weismiller, T.O.Carm. On his posting for today, October 7, the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary; Jovan has provided his own erudite comment of the day and has graciously reminded us for our own edification of a wonderful Chesterton poem; White Founts Falling.
(click on the Cross)