i will sing a hymn
to our lady or queen of the holy rosary
and then crown the statue and then sing
one more verse
of the same hymn
o queen of the holy
rosary o bless us as we
pray and offer
thee our roses
in garland's day by day
while from our father's god and
with loving hearts and bold
we gather
white and red and gold
o queen of the holy rosary
each mystery blends within
the sacred life
of jesus
in every step divine
thy soul was his fair god and
thy virgin breast his throne
thy thoughts is faithful
mirror reflecting him alone
you may have a seat
so yes let's um take seriously
this rosary crusade it kind of
popped up out of nowhere for me just
about a week ago
and hopefully we'll all be faithful to
it all of us will pray
hopefully all of you will pray the
rosary in your home
and mark your tally sheet uh come kind
of brings back
memories of the bishop fellaia
administration
to me uh but we'll do that again
and also here at the church as you know
we'll be praying the rosary
one more time than we normally do we
normally play the rosary once a day
now we'll be praying it twice a day here
at the church
so hopefully you'll be able to pray your
rosary at least once a day
in your homes unless you want to come to
the church and pray with us
so i'd like to um return to our saint
who is the patroness of these classes
so far these spiritual conferences uh
saint philomena
and this is looking at the life the life
of pope pius ix
you might remember remember his name is
blessed pope pius ix
the year was about 2000 when
pope john paul ii declared that two
popes were going to be
declared declared blessed they were pope
john xxiii
and pope pius ix so you know how we
traditionalists are we heard
pope john the 23rd he's the one who
called the second vatican council and
said
let's mix the church with the world
and before we got all up in arms about
it they said but don't worry we're also
beatifying pope pius ix
he's the champion of orthodoxy in the
catholic church from the 19th century
so i guess we were kind of calmed and
soothed
and placated and then i think that was
the last time they ever mentioned pope
pius the 9th
pope john the 23rd went on to become a
saint along with pope john paul ii
himself
and i think pope paul vi is now a saint
so
you've all written witnessed that story
just as much as i have
so pope pius ix who is the hero and a
champion of
the declaration of the immaculate
conception of our lady in the year 1854
also he's the one who um
wrote the syllabus of errors and
quantikura
which show all the modern errors coming
from the
exaggeration of the rights of man over
the rights of god
and all the errors that will come from
that he said this is an error that's an
error that's in there and all this is to
be condemned
you know the religious liberty and um
uh the idea that um one can find his own
salvation without the catholic church
and one can find salvation
in all the the different religions which
are the sects
uh without the catholic church that's
all condemned and condemned and
condemned
and he's the hero of that and also he's
the hero pope pius ix
is the hero of um
vatican council the first or the first
vatican council
and most known for the declaration on
papal
infallibility that is pope pius the
ninth
blessed pope is a ninth
well when he was a child his name was
giovanni maria
peretti he was an epileptic
he had epilepsy the man who would become
pope
his mother prayed very hard for a cure
for him
from saint philomena and it was granted
he no longer was an epileptic
i've never heard of that happening
before perhaps you've all known person
with absolute epilepsy in your life
they're not always having seizures but
when they do you need to have medicine
you need to have
doctors and all the rest of it and that
stays with them their whole life
usually is the only case i know of
someone who was epileptic and then was
no longer epileptic
uh pope pius ix when he was a boy
he grew up and he became the archbishop
of spoleto
which is a very important diocese in
italy
and yes he spread the devotion of saint
philomena
while he was archbishop of spoletto
he became archbishop of imola
while he was archbishop there his
secretary
was that's a canonical position or
that's a
ecclesiastical position his secretary
that's not a woman that's a priest with
that assignment
don joseph stella was cured by
saint philomena because of the prayers
of pope is the ninth for
him through saint philomena he wasn't
the pope yet
then he himself uh archbishop giovanni
farati
became dangerously ill and his life was
feared for
so not only the epilepsy as a child but
also as an adult
he became dangerously ill and his life
was feared for him
he prayed the same mean saint philomena
for a cure
he always kept a beautiful statue of her
at his bedside that's what
we're working on here is acquiring a
beautiful statue of saint philimina
and he was miraculously cured
of his dangerous infirmity
then he became pope archbishop giovanni
marian
while he was pope there was a young man
named paul mary
who was deathly ill from cholera and had
gone blind this young man prayed very
hard for
hard for a cure and was healed on saint
philomena's feast day
august the 11th 1849
this young man went to the shrine of
saint philomena to thank her for the
cure
and that's where he promised to become a
priest
at the shrine of saint philomena
this young man got to know pope pius ix
and then the pope helped him through the
seminary and the young
young man did become a priest
you might remember that it was pope
gregory the 16th
uh during the life of pauline jerichot
in the year 1837
uh pope gregory the 16th made her a
saint
he canonized her solely
solely on the merit of her miracles
he didn't even need historical
documentation
it was enough for him that they had the
miracles and they had the
tomb with her name and the instruments
of her
martyrdom
that part really uh grabs me
because it shows you how it shows us
how weak are the arguments of those who
would like to
take away some of the biggest cults
in a good sense huh called cultus of the
church
because saint philomena by a very
important pope
gregor the 16th was made a saint solely
on her merits
as a miracle worker and then 100 years
passed we get to 1961
and she was her name was taken off the
universal calendar solely because she
was only a miracle worker
come on what is this you know
today it's black and tomorrow's white
and today is this truth and tomorrow's
that truth
it's completely opposing she's made a
saint in one century solely because
she's a miracle worker
and for all
if practical purposes she was unsainted
the next century because she was solely
a miracle worker
somebody's got problems in their heads
up here unless they're purely malicious
i wouldn't want to say that
um so that was what pope gregory the
16th did for her
and then pope pius ix during his
pontificate just after
um this young man was healed and became
a priest about 1849
he gave saint philomena her own mass and
her own proper office in the breviary
on the feast day of august the 11th
before that time
they were celebrating her feast day but
you had to use the
common of virgin martyrs to
pray her mass and then he made her own
introit ramon
you know reading from the epistles etc
just for her
this had never been done before for a
roman martyr with no historical record
uh but as you know she had she had
already been canonized by pope gregory
16th
eventually pope pius and knife are met
with some difficulty
he was exiled from rome that's to say he
had a flea roam
to make sure that he was not kidnapped
or held as a hostage
in order to gain in order for some
worldly power to gain some
worldly advantage has that hope and head
help
has had happened with um i
the the pope at the time of the finding
of the relics of um
saint philippine about the year 1805. i
forgot which pope that was
so the freemasons forced pope pius ix
out of rome
that's after they claimed the papal
states
and just to make sure they got what they
got and they were gonna get
they're gonna take the pope also and say
we will keep the pope hostage until he
admits and you all admit that the papal
states belong to us
so he in a preemptive escape
got out of rome uh until those
freemasons calmed down
even after they had stolen the papal
states so where did pope pius and i
go for his exile he went to the united
nations building
i'm just kidding those are the last
people that will defend the papacy
[Laughter]
uh pope is the ninth lead to
fled sorry fled to muniano
uh the shrine of um
saint filomino to spend some weeks there
or maybe even months why did he go there
for why did he go there because there he
found
refuge and consolation with his great
saint she had already saved his life or
at least
saved his life once and saved and cured
him from epilepsy as a child
and then he watched all these other
miracles happening
through her for the church so he was
quite
close to her and he went there to spend
some time
he celebrated the holy sacrifice of the
mass at her altar
he signed his forehead with the vial of
her blood
and then carry this vial personally to
all the faithful that were present
at the shrine so they could venerate it
also
and then when kneeling before the relics
of saint philomena
he felt an interior certainty that he
would soon
return to rome much in the vatican
much sooner than it was thought he would
return
let's say providence made it clear to
him that it was safe to return and he
did
much before it was scheduled to return
and everything went well
thanks to the saint pope pius ix granted
many indulgences
to the pilgrims who went to visit saint
philomena shrine
in june of 1930
well that's got to be way off i must
have copied a date wrong
he didn't live that long uh
in june of 1800 and something he
introduced the cause of pauline
jerichot for beatification
and finally just a few weeks before his
death the death of pope pius ix
he gave a beautiful chalice to her
shrine
so that's pope is the ninth and saint
philomena i'd like to cover with you the
other popes
pope leo the 13th and pope is 10th next
time we have class
so we continue to our um
study of the holy sacrifice of the mass
in these spiritual conferences
uh last week we did kind of a conclusion
everything that we were studying on the
um level of principles
and level of um just sort of
abstract thought about what is sacrifice
and what is adoration
and why and what is propitiation
and the conclusion was that we what we
were concluding with last week
was uh the world is a great persecutor
of the church
but in the world there are many holy
people
who are very attached let's say
imbued with a imbued
inspired by transformed by the holy
sacrifice of the mass
and these people as much as they receive
persecution from the world
they are always sacrificing themselves
for the people in the world
while they are punished or whatever you
call a tortured
by the world they make sacrifice and
because of that other people from the
world convert
and it is the it is the holy sacrifice
of the mass that makes that happen
that's the point that we kept studying
last week over and over in different
applications and now we come to
this study which is called the
liturgical part of the holy sacrifice of
the mass
so we're going to study prayers we're
going to study gestures of the priest
perhaps gestures of the faithful and
also all the
material items that are on the altar and
the altar itself
so as you know our divine lord
instituted
the sacrificial act with the last supper
and then he leaves that to the holy
mother church to
choose and form a liturgy where that
holy sacrifice will be
made present over and over again
he first celebrated the holy sacrifice
of the mass
on a wooden table that wooden table is
still preserved till this day
it's been covered over or let's say
put inside of a large marble box which
is a new which is an altar
and that's in the saint john lateran um
basilica or the basil arch basilica of
our divine savior
in rome uh
so that's what's happened with his altar
but then take for example the sacraments
our lord instituted all the sacraments
then he leads it to holy mother church
to keep repeating those sacraments
how did our lord institute confirmation
for instance
well the holy spirit descended upon the
apostles and our blessed mother
that filled them with the holy ghost all
truth
it made them understand all these things
of the world
in a supernatural sense it's because the
holy ghost is inside of them
we don't see and hear and feel a strong
violent wind
in an earthquake when we receive
confirmation
no we see a bishop he receives the
faithful
he puts the holy chrism on their
forehead with a formula
um i sign thee with the sign of the
cross
and i confirm the with the holy chrism
of salvation in the name of the father
son the holy ghost
and gives him a tap on the cheek or a
slap on the cheek
and that's confirmation how our lord did
it was
how he sent the holy ghost was the
violent wind but he leaves it to his
church to determine how they're going to
receive confirmation
with the means we have and that's with
through the bishop
same thing can be said with the
receiving of the um
extreme unction our lord makes the
sacrament and then he leaves it to the
church
how that sacrament is going to be given
to souls
when we offer the holy sacrifice we
always use what is noblest
most noble let's compare in the old
testament to the sacrifice of
the two sons of adam and eve at least
two of their sons
cain who was older and abel who was
younger
abel offered a sacrifice of the best
lamb or the best sheep from his whole
from his flock
abel was a man of sorry cain his brother
was a man of agriculture and he offered
vegetables which is still all right but
he offered to god vegetables which were
second class after he already took the
best for himself
or for sale or whatever for selling or
whatever the thing was was
god was happy with the sacrifice of abel
and he was not hacker
happy with the sacrifice of cain and
that came to rivalry between the
brothers and cain
smote his brother abel
does god need lambs and does god need
sheep no
what he does need or what he does want
is the sacrifice of what is most
precious to us
he wants us to give up what is most
precious to us
and say this belongs to you because
you're greater than i am
and so when we use uh gold and silver
and precious jewels on the altar or for
the monstrance or whatever it is
that's not because gold is precious to
god
he doesn't need our gold or our silver
our jewels but what he does need
what he does ask for from us is to give
him the best
of what we materially have and that's
the way we say to him that
you are better than we are you're higher
than we are
that's why i give up what is best in
this world
for you
god does not need our gold but what god
does want
is our contrite heart and our
humble heart which is expressed by
giving up which
what would be best materially for us in
this world to say no no no
this is for you we you are higher than
we are you get the best
that's why we must adorn the altar with
great
reverence to show the presence of god
our lord during his lifetime excuse me
the altar represents the body
of our lord jesus christ during the
lifetime of our divine lord
he allowed for his body to be honored
think of the occasion when mary
magdalene anointed the feet of our lord
with wright spikenard a very expensive
perfumy ointment
and judas became indignant and he said
we should have
sold that or whatever the price was 100
denarii something like that
and given the money to the poor
our lord said what she has done will
never be taken away from her she has
done this
in regard to my burial this should be
never this never should be taken away
from her
some have accused the church of
spending all those funds on uh material
wealth
or making big beautiful churches and
altars and investments and sacred
vessels
chalice and saboria and so forth this
could have been given to the poor
same argument as judas and the answer is
you've probably found this in your own
life
the amount that you're generous with the
poor
is always compensated for by the amount
that god is generous with you
or the amount that you're generous with
god
is compensated for how much that god is
generous with you
as well so we get this idea that
the church um
is generous with the poor and that's why
she continues to be blessed in providing
the most
the best things for god
if she were to stop
providing the best things for god she
wouldn't have the funds
to provide things for the poor as well
please take the example of saint
lawrence from the um
the year 250. you know that he was the
deacon of rome and he was given the
charge of the
bank of rome uh for the christians
and he had an even distribution of what
was used for the church
and what was used for the poor
he was confronted by
the governor of that time to say turn
over the riches of the church
and he instead of turning over
everything that was invested in
whatever crucifixes chalices
statues they might have had at that time
i don't think they had very much of it
because they were still worshiping in
the catacombs what they had materially
was not so precious
to um the caesars and the governors etc
so he simply handed over to the governor
the poor people and said you want our
riches
here they are this is where we've
invested our riches
he would have been speaking about
prayers he would have been speaking
about
time spent on the poor people and
charity
and also the funds the material funds
given to those people
but we should have from lauren st
lawrence we should have this lesson
as if we are generous to god
in the wealth spiritual and material
that we give to the church
there will always be wealth for the poor
if we stop giving to god all of a sudden
we're not going to have it for the poor
also
it seems um kind of
in style nowadays and hopefully we'll
get to it we'll see
we'll see what has been lost in the
novus ordo mass
different things that should be on the
altar and the altar should be made of
etc
but it seems that it's the
very much in style these days at least
for about the last 50 years now
to say our lord was simple saint francis
was simple
and by all this material wealth on the
altar we are
blurring our vision of god we've got to
get back to simplicity
so that we can see god so what ends up
happening
beautiful gold chalice out the window
same with the ciborium same with the
candlesticks the same with the altar
itself
and we're left with something wooden
looking quite simple in the negative in
the
pejorative sense
chalices that are not even made out of
precious metals anymore
candles that aren't candles these are
just sort of a blob of
wax and the altar
and just very um
i would say non-uplifting things mundane
of boring trite
just unfortunate things in sanctuaries
nowadays
what is going on well this leaves
man or this leaves the christians
catholics who come to church
without anything to lift them up
you know it's a very important quality
of the catholic church
something called transcendence and
that's not just a word used by
modernists
that's been a word used all along
they've changed what they mean by it
by it but transcendence means to pull us
out of this world
we know we have to go to work in college
and we've got to make money and take
care of the family and
drive a car and buy gasoline for it we
know we've got to do all those things
but when i go to church i leave that
world behind for just about an hour
maybe two hours
to be in the mysteries of our lord jesus
christ
in in the sacrifice and with all the
reverence and all the glory
and adoration that that sacrifice
deserves
that fills my soul out that that's
transcendent
it takes me out of this world puts me in
the supernatural world
and then when i leave church i'm
refreshed and i can face these mundane
and trite and
boring things again with a supernatural
spirit that lets me see god working
through those things from my
sanctification
but if i just come to church and find
find things here
less elegant than a restaurant or even
less elegant than my own house sometimes
keep that in mind too huh people who
complain about things being too
rich and wealthy upon the altar kind of
have nice homes
despite what they say about the catholic
church
if i come to the church and i find just
boring and trite
things here and i don't transcend in any
way
then i leave the church tired and just
as exhausted as when he's like when i
came in
with no spirit of transforming the world
outside of you
because i didn't go through any kind of
transforming experience inside the
church
i had the occasion a few times within
the last couple years to be around
while novus ordo masses were going on in
big latin parishes
in nicaragua we had a deal there
when they were finished with their mass
we were able to use the church for the
true mass and we had our 40 or 50 people
whatever it was that was kind of nice
but they filled the church with their
three or 400 people
and my goodness is just music all
mass long and microphones and
loud you know just loud
not a moment of peace not a moment of
recollection
not a moment of transcendence
and i think that's the effect they're
going for which is unfortunate because
it leaves a catholic without any kind of
um
uh transforming influence on the world
outside after going through that kind of
i would say worldly atmosphere which is
supposed to be
holy mass
if one loves the sanctuary of god he
will necessarily love neighbor more
and be generous with neighbor if we give
god his place the good place
our behavior towards our neighbor will
improve
the items which are used for holy mass
must be
withdrawn from the world and withdrawn
from profane use
therefore the ultracloths
the linens that are used in the chalice
the cruets the candles candlesticks the
crucifix
everything you see is blessed at least
blessed
the chalice is consecrated chalice and
paten that's used on the whole on the
chalice
are consecrated by a bishop only a
bishop can
consecrate those these things must be
taken out of
profane use and dedicated only to the
use of god
we don't leave a chalice lying around
the house
in the contrary the chalice is always
either on the altar
or in the sacristy and usually when it's
in sacristy it's in the cupboards
why because it's something sacred it
must stay veiled
it's not normal to have a chalice
unveiled around while we just have a
normal
worldly conversation that's not correct
it's something holy
in the old testament they had to pass
through three different sort of cells
to get to the presence of god which was
the ten commandments and the
staff of aaron and a little bit of manna
those are symbols of god
the chalice touches god god becomes
present in the chalice
so of course we don't treat it in a
common and mundane way
it's veiled out of respect
nothing is insignificant in the holy
mass
whether that's called you know what's on
the altar the altar itself
the priest and the way he behaves at the
altar his gestures
nothing is without its meaning
every gesture every bow every kiss of
the altar every genuflection has its
purpose
there must be about 20 genuflections
that a priest does in every mass
every time that the priest touches the
sacred host when it's been consecrated
he doesn't touch the host without first
genuflecting and when he's done touching
the host he genuflects again
and there's no touching of the host
without geniflections
speaking of genuflections uh
it has been known in the past that just
a genuflection well made
is enough to convert a person looking on
at the mass without being a catholic or
having been a catholic that was
separated from practice in the faith for
a lot of years
just to see a genuflection not even by
the priest but by a layman
well made in the church that's enough to
convert a soul
it's been said by protestants before
i hear that you catholics believe that
that host up there is jesus
well yes of course i do and the
protestant is known to say
well hey if i believed that i would
never be on my feet in the church
i would only crawl in in the what do you
call the center aisle to get up to the
altar to receive him
if i really believed it i'm surprised
you you catholics behaved so
casually in church was the comment
i mean that kind of puts us in our place
i understand
and that's the way we should take it but
i don't know if that protestant who said
that ever converted either
uh there we are
mass the holy mass must always be
offered in a sacred place
there must always be a consecrated altar
stone at least
for the holy mass mass may never be
offered without an altar
keep that in mind novus ordo priests who
like to celebrate
mass at a dining room table
where there is no sacrifice there is no
altar
so those who might try from the novus
ordo to have a
some sort of ceremony without an altar
you could say to them
don't worry there's no sacrifice here
anyway
so we must aim for
having a consecrated church in a
consecrated altar
kind of hard to do i know that this
parish i have no problem calling you all
a parish
i'm called pastor so that means it must
be a parish
you as a parish started out years ago
probably in hotel rooms
and eventually people's houses or maybe
start the other way around people's
houses
and then you had the um the apartment or
more than apartment or this
the rented space and kill any drive kill
any road and now you're here
i would guess that those were not
consecrated churches
and cantonese nor even consecrated
altars i don't think
but here we are and i've seen pictures
bishop tisi de molare did the
consecration of your altar
that's beautiful and he probably blessed
the church
but he didn't consecrate it because in
order to have a consecrated church
he needs to stand on 12 stone pillars
12 representing the apostles and some
churches are built that way
they have 12 pillars i'm not totally
convinced that they're holding up all
the way to the church but at least they
have their 12 pillars
and that's their 12 apos apostle
represented and therefore they can have
a consecration of the church
not just a blessing but a consecration
and then to have a consecrated altar
the altar needs to be of stone like this
one i think i've already talked about
this in some other class
how it has a five crosses traced out
or carved out on the on this table
surface which is called the mensah
and in the very center there's actually
what they call what they call a
sepulcher
which contains three relics of at least
two martyrs and one other saint with
certificates and the um seal of the
bishop
that's very hard to get to that point to
get all these things taken care of
but normally and in the best scenario
that's the way it should be
a consecrated church with a consecrated
altar
and the consecration of the altar is the
most splendid
uh blessing ceremony that exists in the
church
and let me do a little quote
um about what's
how that has devolved in the novus ordo
must be a consecrated altar in the
consecrated church
this is talking about the novus ordo
church the practice of mass
facing the people was the most striking
of the post-vatican to innovations
affecting the altar but it was not the
only one
some were obvious altars that looked
like butcher blocks
salad bars meteorites giant anvils or
copies of rubik's cube
that's how the newer alters look
and just a moment
all right i guess that's all i have to
say about what's happened to the altars
so i told you that the altar that our
lord used was a wooden table which is
still preserved and made into an altar
now
and then from the time of the apostles
stone became the norm
for altars something that moved this
along
i think i've told told you this before
was a lot of the worship
most of the worship of early christians
was in the underground
burial grounds of the christians
which is the catacombs so it was very
convenient to start celebrating mass
upon
the tombs of the saints and the martyrs
which were above ground underground
underground buried place but the
you could the the the the tomb itself
was not buried
when they were underground with it and
they celebrated mass upon that
and that became the norm to have a stone
altar
and so now we have a stone altar we try
to have stone altars in our churches
and this is what is called an immovable
altar as opposed to the portable altar
which would be made of wood even though
it's big and got all kind of decorations
and weighs a couple tons
it's called a portable altar because the
wood itself
is not the altar what really is the
altar in a wooden altar is the very
center
where you'll find a stone or ara
i um can't think of the other word but
it means altar
in latin and uh it's made of stone
inside of that stone just like this
altar here are three relics
uh two of a martyr two one of a
non-martyr
and with their certificates and sealed
by a bishop
speaking about the altar it is good if
it's elevated like this altar here
because the altar symbolizes our lord
jesus christ
who is in triumph with his father in
heaven
showing his wounds of his victory to his
father
we look up to christ on the altar in
heaven
and so therefore we look up to christ on
the altar
it is good if the altar can be facing
east
i kind of lose concept of what is east
out here i don't have enough there are
not enough windows in the building
the reason that we try to make altars
face east
is because our lord is the son
s-u-n son of justice and our lord is the
great orient
meaning that everything should be
directed towards him
he's the rising of the sun and he is the
center of orientation
it is good if both the altar and the
church can be consecrated together
and why is that because the church
the nave represents the mystical body
and the faithful of our lord jesus
christ the altar represents our lord
jesus christ himself
by doing both ceremonies one after the
other or on the same occasion
we're showing this union of the mystical
body
with our lord jesus christ
the martyrs bodies are enclosed in the
altar
they reign in triumph with our lord
jesus christ
saint john the apostle saw under the
altar
in the apocalypse he saw under the altar
the souls of them that were slain for
the word of god
therefore the mortal remains of the
saints are more valuable
than gold and precious stones
i ran into this question some just about
a week ago with someone
i think the person was heckling me and
just probably having a little fun
so i didn't take it too seriously but i
tried to answer well
the person was saying um why do you
place so much importance on where
catholics are buried uh
and why do you think so much about
people coming to visit your grave
after your death to pray for you
the person said to me there's no
soul in that body anymore why go to
someone's grave to pray for them
it's just as good if you bear them
anywhere that you're not going to visit
them because you're really not visiting
them when they're
dead uh and i responded by saying
you know we have these relics on the
altar we have veneration of relics and
so forth why is that
because those relics
belong to saints and their bodies
were the house of god temples of the
holy ghost
their bodies were transformed by the
presence of our lord jesus christ in
them
and therefore we venerate them that's a
canonized saint but
really all of us and saint paul actually
does this he calls the christians
saints he would call us saints
you have our lord jesus christ dwelling
in you you're the temple of the holy
ghost
maybe we're not going to be canonized
after our deaths but it's very like
very possible that we'll go to heaven so
that body
which was so long a temple of the holy
ghost deserves veneration
even if we're not canonized and just by
you know
when we have a relic of a saint near us
we have a certain
closeness proximity to that saint by
having the relic with us
and we venerate it that saint intercedes
for us because we're venerating the
relic
so maybe a person is not a canonized
saint but still
to be near their body is to somehow be
near
them and they're interceding for us if
they're in heaven
or we're meriting for them by praying
for them at their sight
in the cemetery
and of course that would bring up the uh
consequential
subject of um cremation
catholics have never cremated their dead
and why is that for the same reason just
gave
that would be a great disrespect on our
part to destroy
to change into ashes a body
which was just the temple of the holy
ghost so it's very
pagan to uh cremate a body
catholics have never done it i'm
speaking universally
there might be some countries or even
the catholics did it for some
extreme reason but that's not the
general practice of the church
let me compare that about relics
in the altar necessarily to uh what has
happened
well first of all i think i missed one
there
i was talking about altars made of stone
and what has happened with that with the
novus ordo since the
general instruction of 1969
uh the general instruction paid lip
service to the sanctum tradition
and said the table the altar should be
made of stone
but the very next sentence added that
bishops conferences can improve the use
of
other materials they must be solid
becoming and
well-crafted materials so with 15 words
the innovators demolished
a tradition which went back at least
sixteen hundred years of altars made a
stone
and now what about relics
church law maintained this tradition of
relics in the altar
until the advent of the new mass
enclosing the relics of martyrs in the
altar is no longer required
the diocesan bishop decides the
suitability
of retaining the practice by considering
the spiritual good of the community
whatever that means
let me just study this i'm pretending
that
one is a bishop of the diocese in the
modern church
i consider that it is for the spiritual
good of our church that there are relics
in the altar
that sounds nice or i consider that it's
not for the spiritual good of our
community that there be relics in the
altar
how is one argument compared have any
way compared to the
other argument how can i possibly argue
that it would be against the spiritual
good of our church to have relics in the
altar
there's no it's not even and then they
let's see they made it even more
impossible
as a further obstacle to observing this
tradition of relics in the altar
the new legislation states that relics
placed in the altar must be large enough
to be recognized to be recognizable as
parts of the human body
so it has to look like a little has to
be evidently a chunk of bone
uh or evidently a piece of dust from the
human body or evidently um
coagulates of blood from the human body
are you going to find relics that look
that big that are that big how are you
going to bury those relics in the center
of your altar
you know by the time they put all the
all these rules on it i don't think it's
suitable to have relics in the altar
or there must be an evidently uh
obviously large p large enough piece of
bone to call it bone
in the altar to have a relics what's
going to happen
effectively as a result of all this
since it is difficult enough to obtain
even a small relic from a martyr's bones
the rule in effect abolishes the
traditional practice of having
relics relics in the altar
moreover it is now forbidden to praise
place relics in the table
top or the mensa of the altar and this
practice
practice dates back at least to the 8th
century
i didn't tell you but in a marble altar
as we have here
the whole table top which is called
mensah
must be of one only of only one piece of
stone
it cannot be several pieces connected so
that's um
that's important because there we are it
is our lord jesus christ it represents
our lord jesus christ
our lord jesus christ is not broken
therefore it's one big piece
so relics have been effectively
uh overturned unfortunately
my brother father kenneth is a real um
he's a priest of the society and he's a
real
crusader i guess you call it and he
loves to get boys on
crusades get them all enthused like he
is so i don't know what his occasion was
or where
why or when but he was
in an airport with a group of young boys
from a summer camp or something like
that they must have been 10 or 20 of
them
and they visited the uh local
uh they visited the uh multi-religious
uh church or chapel in the airport and
they found there an
altar and they found the altar stone
and i think he got a little crusade with
those boys to get that altar stone and
take it to one of our churches i don't
normally advocate that sort of thing
he must have assumed they weren't using
that altar anymore for a catholic
purpose
and therefore they acquired a an altar
stone that's not normally what we do but
some are known for doing those sort of
things
uh i guess his argument is reasoning
would have been that
altar stones are no longer required in
the new mass
relics that you just heard about are no
longer required in the new mass
so that's what happened on that occasion
i won't go on that much longer because
some of these things start to sound the
same after a while
i'll talk about the um
speaking about the stones and the stone
altar
our lord jesus christ the god man is the
chief cornerstone
saint paul speaks of him so it makes
sense
that the altar will be of stone
those who assist at mass those who are
the faithful
they are the spiritual temple which
grows up to eternal salvation
they are the living stones
from the wounds of our divine lord flow
the saving
clothes the saving ointment of all
graces
very good so i'll move on now to the
dressing of the altar and the decoration
of the altar
you've probably noticed that the altar
has ultra cloths on it
and there are three of them
um the altar is covered with a mantle of
gladness
and thus it is crowned only things
necessary for the mass are permitted on
the altar
it's not permitted to have loose sheets
of paper
no extra books no photographs of
families
the altar is not a place of storage the
altar is only a place of sacrifice
there are three linen cloths on the
altar
why three first of all there's the
practical reason
in case uh during the mass the precious
blood
should spill if it does spill
it will be absorbed by all these cloths
we have in the altar
rather than going to the stone getting
into the stone
and then we won't be able to pull it out
easily because believe it or not
so stone is a little bit porous if you
have a stone table like granite
and you have something spill on it and
you don't wipe it up you'll notice a few
hours later that that part of the stone
is a darker color
than the other part of the stone stone
is porous
so we don't want the precious blood of
our lord seeping into the stone
also three cloths are used
to symbolize our lord wrapped in the
holy shroud
when our lord was in the shroud
the cloth went over his body on the
front side
went behind his body on the reverse side
and overlapped again to a certain degree
on the front side
so uh the holy shroud covered our lord
in three
and also um
this represents we are us the faithful
who surround our lord i like how this
study is constantly bringing out the
point
that we are important for our divine
lord i know that we're just miserable
sinners but we are converted by our lord
jesus christ to grace
through baptism and he worked his whole
life long
and it culminated with his death on the
cross to
win us and to put his life into us
it is his greatest delight as
man the human nature it is his greatest
delight to be with us
and when he makes saints out of us we're
something like his greatest trophy that
he presents to his father
now i don't mean to make this kind of
thinking
make us into something presumptuous and
say you know what a great thing am i for
our lord jesus christ
without doing any kind of prayer and
sacrifice and penance
but it is noteworthy that quite a few of
the things that are significant on the
altar
have to do with how glorious are
the saints that follow our lord jesus
christ
christ died for humanity
and we his redeemed christians are very
valuable to him and so the three cloths
on the altar represent us
the faithful who surround our divine
lord we are
his precious garments he is clothed
with beauty saint john says in the
apocalypse that the golden girdle
which he sees signed around around the
person that looks like our lord this
signifies the hosts of the saints
also the three altar claws on the altar
symbolize
the three branches of the mystical body
the church militant
the church suffering and the church
triumphant
and only the whitest linen is used
because it shows cleanness of heart
just as during the holy mass only the
whitest hosts are used
i remember the archbishop talking in his
book letter to confused catholics
why do they use whole wheat hosts at the
new mass
it's because they want to get away from
this idea of the spotless victim
our lord jesus christ is pure and white
and clean and spotless
he that's why the hosts are white same
with the altar claws
they're white and they're linen linen is
one of the purest
fibers we have for cleanliness
and for just how white you can keep it
white is linen because it shows
cleanness of heart which can only be
acquired
by constant and laborious prayer
watching
and mortification cleanness of heart as
precious linen is prepared with much
labor so keeping the state of grace
is hard work it means confession it
means
rosary means the holy sacrifice of the
mass all of us might think well the ten
commandments
i mean i would never go completely
against just one or the other of them
that that'd be horrible
you know maybe but still there are many
mortal sins that can happen
if we're not practicing sacrifice and
not receiving the sacraments and not
being present the holy sacrifice of the
mass
there's no forgiveness without the
shedding of blood and there's no
salvation without penance
that means if we don't do penance we are
going to violate the ten commandments
the three cloths this kind of a
practical level now
uh the first two that are on the altar
only have to cover the table surface or
the mensa they don't have to reach down
the sides
but the one which is on top and the one
which is usually decorated
that one should reach down to both sides
to the floor
and the reason for that is they are part
of the altar
as the altar itself touches the floor
that top ultra cloth which is
part of the altar must touch the floor
also
uh and let me just see if i can compare
that with
what's done now
the traditional rubrics rubric means
let's say laws about the material things
the traditional rubrics prescribe three
blessed linen cloths for the top of the
altar
out of reverence for the precious blood
should it be spilled by
accident during the course of mass it is
easy to unders
easy to understand why the rubrics
prescribe linen
the altar symbolically represents christ
and all four gospels recount that his
body
his body was wrapped in linen
the general instruction of the novusardo
on the other hand
required only one cloth made no mention
you
made no mention of the use of linen and
did not require that the cloth
be blessed
there it is so whatever they can do to
make the liturgy
less transcendent and more mundane
mundane doesn't just mean boring mundane
also comes the word mundus which means
world
so whatever they can do to make make the
less less transcendent and more worldly
they will do and they tell us that they
do that because
they don't want to leave to leave people
out in the cold with the impression that
mass is just for
an elite uh who only have
rich clothing and and uh can buy rich
vestments
mass is for everyone jesus didn't turn
down anyone
that's the impression they'd like to
give but that's a lot of words
what they really mean to say is what
they really mean
is our lord jesus christ is not going to
get the reverence and adoration
he used to get and by taking that away
from him
you all are going to be a lot less
sanctified that's what's going on there
then they put some
malicious words on the maliciously
deceptive words on the thing
to say well this is the way it should
have always been people feeling more
welcome to be in the presence of jesus
christ
and uh i don't know if they do feel more
welcome
they feel more exhausted when mass is
finished they don't feel uplifted
they don't feel transformed and all this
transformation happens because
of the reverence we give to our lord
jesus christ first of all
so we'll continue from there next week
talking about different items
of the altar which need to be observed
and we'll close with a prayer
praise the lord
huh