Another word to the wise from the Latin Mass blog. The Wednesday before betrayal.

It’s about the Suffering Servant who is Jesus:

Nothing so touches the heart as the tragic suffering of the innocent.

There oughta be a law, we think.

Christ was divinely innocent.

To be sure.

And the tragedy of His anguish and humiliation suggests something of what God thinks of sin.

That slap in the face of the Maker, multiplied over.

The sins of two thousand years after Christ are no more and no less real than the sins of two thousand years before Christ, because with God there is no time.

Timeless, he invented time. Gave us our options. World-class experiment.

All the iniquities from Adam to the present moment and to the end of time struck and bruised and crushed God’s Son.

Took it on Himself. Heavy, heavy load. Think about it.

The world’s covenant of forgiveness and pledge of heaven is soaked in the flowing blood of Christ.

Covenant. Promise. Agreement. The Maker committed Himself. How high the price, the Son showed us.

In each Mass that blood is again “poured out.”

Day in, day out, the world over. Lucky for us.

TUESDAY OF HOLY WEEK traditionally speaking . . .

. . . as delivered faithfully come hell or high water, rain or shine, snow or rain or dry, hot or cold or in between at Traditional Latin Mass Propers In English — on this day here.

The Christian way is not normally the way of violence. The use of authority sometimes requires forceful words, and Jesus Himself used such force.

. . . as in his shooing money-changers from the temple.

But usually the Christian appeal is simply through presentation of truth and through persuasion.

True enough.

Beyond that, the Christian becomes the sacrificial lamb who, like Christ, brings men to God by example, prayer, and meritorious suffering.

Who, me?

Redemption began on the cross and it must continue on the cross.

Of course.

“Behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

Heard in every mass, yes.

What the Baptist said of Christ remains true of every member of Christ.

Behold the sacrificial lamb, they say, when they see me? C’mon.

Man at Mass, November 2010. Adventures in the pew

That morning at mass, I was miles away and completely unaware — 8:30 mass and not at all crowded — when I came to and stood and saw a hand reaching out for mine from my left, in the pew in front of me. It was Our Father time.

I took the hand with my left, holding on to the pew with my right. This matters. I don’t fall down a lot, in fact not at all lately, in part because I do not ask too much of my balance. But the guy two rows up, having grasped his friend’s hand with his left, was leaning back, looking at me and extending his right — across an entire pew.

I tried to shake him off, but he persisted, and I finally had to stage-whisper, “Too far!” He pulled back, but by then I was not saying The Lord’s Prayer very well, in fact not at all, having narrowly missed a dangerous balancing act.

The prayer was over in a few more seconds, I dropped the hand to my left and put both hands on the pew in front, breathing a sigh. In a minute, the handclasp of peace. The woman whose hand I’d held, having witnessed my shaking off the man’s hand, put hers out tentatively. I grasped it gingerly, fingers to fingers, having incipient arthritic issues and being in general not the hand-shaker I used to be.

And of course I had to do the same for the guy two rows in front, including a wink and a nod as salve to whatever feelings I had hurt (none, I decided), and that was that for my going-the-extra-mile worship procedures for the day.

Oh yes, I’m afraid I didn’t meet the searching eyes of the woman giving communion as she seemed to expect, so that our souls might if ever so briefly coincide and commune, because, I must confess, my chief interest was in Jesus, with whom I was trying desperately to make contact. (I can walk and chew gum at the same time, but some dual performances escape me.)

I know I am to see Jesus in my neighbor, but if you don’t mind, I’m going to take that as my neighbor I meet on the street or at a meeting or party or in my house when I wake up in the morning and look across the bed, rather than at communion time, when I am refueling my soul for such encounters, which are where the rubber hits the road as far as neighbor-love is concerned.

In any case, I got in my “Amen” for her, I think even before she said her piece, and she placed the host on my palm.

Back I went to my pew, hands not folded but at my sides, for balance’ sake. It’s better that way. The high-wire man does not hold his hands folded in front, and neither do I returning from communion.

Meanwhile, the kissing for peace continues as strong as ever, in its handshaking incarnation and — it happened to me one morning — in a two-hands-slapped-on-shoulder from the parish deacon who had left the altar in vestments and sought me out as I sat in a back row off to the side, kneeling with one hand over my eyes trying my best to look absorbed.

Intent on his mission, he climbed into the seat in front of me and did the shoulder attack. I will have to keep eyes open so I can a least dodge this fellow or another of his ilk, determined as he was to give me religion.

He also changed “Go, the mass is ended” to “Go, the mass is never ended.” Wow. Amateur night and day at th olde parish church. When all is said and done, however, he is less to be blamed than the devil-may-care approach to decorum in the American church in these years of Paddy-bar-the-door approach to Mass and everything else liturgical.

He had apparently considered me a threat to public order and had to chastise me publicly, for a first in 21st-century North American Catholic ministerial thuggishness.

Along similar, if not assault, lines, was Father Quirky, who regularly subbed out official wording for his own while saying mass. For instance, saying “friends” for “disciples,” “God’s” for “His,” raising his voice to tell worshipers this is how to talk. Mass after mass. Eventually a solid core of worshipers, barely paying attention, say it his way.

Introduces gospel according to Matthew, not Saint Matthew, etc., making points with low-information parishioners, never explaining himself or otherwise calling attention to it. Would spoil things. He had the mike, we didn’t. Again, Paddy bar the door.

The 1974 Declaration of Archbishop Lefebvre denouncing Vatican II

In the midst of wholesale changing of how Catholics worshiped, having admittedly lost patience with his Vatican opponents, he made this foundational statement.

The famous “1974 Declaration” of Archbishop Lefebvre was an affirmation of the Catholic Faith in response to the Modernist crisis afflicting the post-conciliar Church.

On November 21, 1974 Archbishop Lefebvre, scandalized by the opinions expressed by the two Apostolic Visitors, drew up for his seminarians “in a spirit of doubtlessly excessive indignation” this famous declaration as his stand against Modernism.

Ten days before, two Apostolic Visitors from Rome arrived at the St. Pius X Seminary in Econe. During their brief stay, they spoke to the seminarians and professors, maintaining scandalous opinions such as, the ordination of married men will soon be a normal thing, truth changes with the times, and the traditional conception of the Resurrection of Our Lord is open to discussion.

We hold fast, with all our heart and with all our soul, to Catholic Rome, Guardian of the Catholic Faith and of the traditions necessary to preserve this faith, to Eternal Rome, Mistress of wisdom and truth.

We refuse, on the other hand, and have always refused to follow the Rome of neo-Modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies which were clearly evident in the Second Vatican Council and, after the Council, in all the reforms which issued from it.

All these reforms, indeed, have contributed and are still contributing to the destruction of the Church, to the ruin of the priesthood, to the abolition of the Sacrifice of the Mass and of the sacraments, to the disappearance of religious life, to a naturalist and Teilhardian teaching in universities, seminaries and catechectics; a teaching derived from Liberalism and Protestantism, many times condemned by the solemn Magisterium of the Church.

No authority, not even the highest in the hierarchy, can force us to abandon or diminish our Catholic Faith, so clearly expressed and professed by the Church’s Magisterium for nineteen centuries.

“But though we,” says St. Paul, “or an angel from heaven preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema” (Gal. 1:8).

Is it not this that the Holy Father is repeating to us today?  And if we can discern a certain contradiction in his words and deeds, as well as in those of the dicasteries, well we choose what was always taught and we turn a deaf ear to the novelties destroying the Church.

It is impossible to modify profoundly the lex orandi without modifying the lex credendi. To the Novus Ordo Missae correspond a new catechism, a new priesthood, new seminaries, a charismatic Pentecostal Church—all things opposed to orthodoxy and the perennial teaching of the Church.

This Reformation, born of Liberalism and Modernism, is poisoned through and through; it derives from heresy and ends in heresy, even if all its acts are not formally heretical. It is therefore impossible for any conscientious and faithful Catholic to espouse this Reformation or to submit to it in any way whatsoever.

The only attitude of faithfulness to the Church and Catholic doctrine, in view of our salvation, is a categorical refusal to accept this Reformation.

That is why, without any spirit of rebellion, bitterness or resentment, we pursue our work of forming priests, with the timeless Magisterium as our guide. We are persuaded that we can render no greater service to the Holy Catholic Church, to the Sovereign Pontiff and to posterity.

That is why we hold fast to all that has been believed and practiced in the faith, morals, liturgy, teaching of the catechism, formation of the priest and institution of the Church, by the Church of all time; to all these things as codified in those books which saw day before the Modernist influence of the Council. This we shall do until such time that the true light of Tradition dissipates the darkness obscuring the sky of Eternal Rome.

By doing this, with the grace of God and the help of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and that of St. Joseph and St. Pius X, we are assured of remaining faithful to the Roman Catholic Church and to all the successors of Peter, and of being the fideles dispensatores mysteriorum Domini Nostri Jesu Christi in Spiritu Sancto. Amen.

November 21, 1974
Econe, Switzerland

Keep those confessionals humming, if you please, before and during mass if necessary, so that all can be absolved and go to communion . . . Too much to ask?

An astute reader picked up on Receiving holy communion at mass. . . . Everybody does it, which ran in this space recently.

“The most pastoral move a priest can make is to offer confession before Mass and remind the faithful of the requirements for reception of the Blessed Sacrament before Mass,” he noted.

Which would be putting up front the long-standing warning from Paul,

27 Whoever . . . eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.

Ditto the church:

The Church teaches that there are two basic requirements Catholics must meet in order to receive Holy Communion worthily.

First, one must be in a state of grace.

To be in a “state of grace” means to be free from mortal sin. As the Catechism states, “Anyone aware of having sinned mortally must not receive communion without having received absolution in the sacrament of penance” (CCC 1415).

What is a mortal sin? The Catechism explains that a mortal sin “destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God’s law; it turns man away from God” (CCC 1855).

For a sin to be mortal, or deadly, one must be aware that the act is sinful and conscientiously commit it anyway.

As a kid, we were told three requirements — “serious matter, sufficient reflection, full consent of the will.” The sisters made it clear, so we’d remember.

Matter? what you did. Reflection? what you thought. Consent? what you chose.

Or: You did what? What were you thinking? Was it on purpose?

My friend further: “Amazing that even for traditional/conservative priests, this seems to be an insurmountable logistical challenge.”

Adding piquantly: “I am wholly in favor of the Eucharistic Revival, but it seems like a Penitential Revival is a necessary precursor.”

Lent would be a good time.

Brother Lawrence in 17th century, neither priest nor learned nor worth not much more than a kitchen hand . . .

. . . and his disappointment at God’s answer to his prayers:

. . . he had desired to be received into a monastery, thinking that he would there be made to smart for his awkwardness and the faults he should commit, and so he should sacrifice to GOD his life, with its pleasures: but . . . GOD had disappointed him, he having met with nothing but satisfaction in that state.

Too bad, Brother L. But consider your book, The Practice of the Presence of God, and the good things it can do for us. Gotta read that book . . .