NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2021 The “Instaurare omnia in Christo” ngelus T he V oice of T raditional C atholicism Liturgical Living Bridget Bryan: Candles, Lights, and a Recipe for Living Liturgically Jonathan Wanner on St. Michael, Duper of Devils David Clayton on Manuscript Miniatures Theology of Home and Around the Year with the Von Trapp Family The Life of St. Sergey of Radonezh Archbishop Lefebvre: The Liturgy as Jesus Christ Communicated Remembering Fr. Bourmaud with Fr. Michael Goldade L etter from the P ublisher Dear Reader, Fr. John Fullerton District Superior of the United States of America It is with a heavy heart that I introduce this issue of The Angelus magazine. As you may already know, Fr. Dominique Bourmaud, managing editor of this publication, passed away on September 4, 2021 following serious medical complications brought on by COVID-19. As the interview with Fr. Michael Goldade in this issue shows, Fr. Bourmaud made a singular contribution to the work of the Society of Saint Pius X for the past 40 years. To know Father was to love him, not simply for his impressive intellect but also his humor, levity, and dedication to Christ’s Holy Church. While we are still coming to grips with the magnitude of his loss, I humbly ask that you keep him in your prayers. May God quickly receive his humble servant into the Kingdom of Heaven. In this issue we focus on the theme of Liturgical Living. It is easy to think of liturgy as external, something those raised to the priesthood “perform” or “do.” Although Holy Orders confer a singular sacramental function on those who receive them, liturgy is the prayer of the Church. It is the prayer of us all who profess the Catholic Faith. From the earliest days of Christianity, the faithful would gather in the morning and evening to intone the Psalms, chant hymns, and collectively offer prayers. In time, these gatherings and additional commemorations came to form the Divine Office which is recited daily by clerics throughout the world. While not everyone has access to public recitations of the Office or, due to their station in life, can recite it themselves, it is still possible for all of us to sanctify the day with frequent prayer, meditation, and devotions to Our Lord and Our Lady. Attend public services, particularly Holy Mass, whenever possible, but never fail to make the Rosary, the Angelus, and morning and evening prayer part of your life and the lives of your family. Bring yourself close to Christ as often as possible and by your example, you may draw others to do so as well. Fr. John Fullerton Publisher ON OUR COVER: On the walls of Torre Aquila, located at the southern end of the Buonconsiglio Castle in Trento, seat of the prince bishops from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century, one of the most famous secular cycles of international Gothic develops, the one dedicated to the representation of the months. CONTENTS Volume LXIV, Number 6 NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2021 Publisher Fr. John Fullerton Editor-in-Chief Mr. James Vogel Assistant Editor Mr. Gabriel Sanchez Associate Editor Miss Esther Jermann FEATURED: 2 Bridget Bryan 11 Remembering Fr. Bourmaud with Fr. Michael Goldade Fr. Michael Goldade CULTURE: 16 LITERATURE St. Michael, Duper of Devils Jonathan Wanner Marketing Director Mr. Ben Bielinski 23 Design and Layout Mr. Simon Townshend Mr. Victor Tan 25 Director of Operations Mr. Brent Klaske Candles, Lights and a Recipe for Living Liturgically ART A Miniature Life of St. Nicholas David Clayton HISTORY The Day the Music Died John Rao, D. Phil. Oxon. 30 SAINTS St. Sergey of Radonezh Molly Palomnik 34 COMMENTARY How Much Do You Pray at Mass? Michael Warren Davis 42 “To publish Catholic journals and place them in the hands of honest men is not enough. It is necessary to spread them as far as possible that they may be read by all, and especially by those whom Christian charity demands we should tear away from the poisonous sources of evil literature.” –Pope St. Pius X BOOK REVIEWS Theology of Home: Finding the Eternal in the Everyday Benjamin Bielinski Around the Year with the Von Trapp Family Lisa Lamarra FAITH: 45 THEOLOGICAL STUDIES “A High Priest Forever” Pauper Peregrinus 50 FROM THE ARCHBISHOP The Liturgy: Jesus Christ Communicated Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre 54 SCRIPTURAL STUDIES Meditations on St. John’s Gospel—Chapter Eight Pater Inutilis 57  Q UESTIONS AND ANSWERS Fr. Juan Carlos Iscara, SSPX 65 THE LAST WORD Fr. David Sherry, SSPX The Angelus (ISSN 10735003) is published bi-monthly under the patronage of St. Pius X and Mary, Queen of Angels. Publication office is located at PO Box 217, St. Marys, KS 66536. PH (816) 753-3150; FAX (816) 753-3557. Periodicals Postage Rates paid at Kansas City, MO. Manuscripts and letters to the editor are welcome and will be used at the discretion of the editors. The authors of the articles presented here are solely responsible for their judgments and opinions. Postmaster sends address changes to the address above. ©2021 by Angelus Press. Official Publication of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X for the United States and Canada FEATURED Candles, Lights and a Recipe for Living Liturgically Bridget Bryan W e all hear “live liturgically” from the pulpit time to time, and we also see it in our spiritual reading. But what does that mean? I’d like to offer a breakdown of the phrase using the metaphor of the “Bride and the Bridegroom,” a “menu” of suggested how-to’s, and an application of the menu to the feast of the Purification. Living liturgically is living our lives with Holy Mother Church, especially our everyday life. The word “liturgical” comes from the word Liturgy: Liturgy (leitourgia) is a Greek composite word meaning originally a public duty, a service to the state undertaken by a citizen…leitos (from leos = laos, people) meaning public, and ergo … to do. From this we have leitourgos, “a man who performs a public duty,” “a public servant” … used as equivalent to the Roman lictor; then leitourgeo, “to do such a duty,” 2 The Angelus u November - December 2021 leitourgema, its performance, and leitourgia, the public duty itself. Liturgy [in the sense we are discussing here] … means the whole complex of official services, all the rites, ceremonies, prayers, and sacraments of the Church, as opposed to private devotions. … In the Roman Church, for instance, Compline is a liturgical service, the rosary is not.1 Therefore, Liturgy is the official public services of the Church. What and Who is the Church? The Baltimore Cathechism says she is … “the congregation of all those who profess the faith of Christ, partake of the same Sacraments, and are governed by their lawful pastors under one visible Head.” She is also the Bride of Christ. Metaphor To understand how the Bride of Christ connects to the Baltimore Catechism, picture an ideal new bride with her husband (see the FEATURED illustration). Both are newly married, handsome and beautiful. Throughout marriage, a bride lives the same life as her spouse—their lives become one. Then later their children live in harmony with the life of their parents. As with earthly spouses, so the Church and Christ. As she lives Christ’s life, we also live his life with her and through her. How? Imagine Holy Mother the Church as a gentle mother deeply in love with her husband. Every time we children come into contact with her, her face brightens as she begins to to tell us about her spouse, and our hero. Imagine what she shows us all through our earthly life: the Mass, the Sacraments, Tradition and Sacred Scripture (the story and love letters of her spouse, if you will). Then there is the Divine Office, in which she takes Sacred Scripture and makes it so when lay people pray it with one of her priests, who represent Christ himself, it is actually She speaking the divine office to Christ. But the Mass is the ultimate gem she shares with us. In this great event, we not only see the whole story of mankind reenacted through symbolism, but she takes us again and again to the same un-bloody Calvary where her hero and King died for her, for all of us. es Holy Scripture and the Church Fathers over and over again in the Divine Office and the Mass and Sacraments. Through this she teaches us to imitate her in praising and loving God, how to speak these praises to Him in proper reverent praise. Can you now see your missal as a metaphorical loving mother speaking to you of the hero God-man, her spouse? She is instructing us how to speak and think of God. The ancient Greeks had a word related to learning and art: “mimesis,” which means imitation. They knew that formation wasn’t The Liturgical Year The feasts which she throws throughout the year honor and relive Christ’s life. The arrangement of these feasts are called The Liturgical Year. This arrangement reveals God, the story of mankind, and God’s plan for our salvation through the life, suffering, death and resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. (See illustration.) Imitation Holy Mother Church is like a mother who teaches all of her babies how to speak properly. She referenc- “Christ and His Church,” is a painting based on a journal entry when thinking about our relationship with Christ and the Church. The necessity to remain loyal to them was driven home when they were visualized as a bride and groom. 3 FEATURED so much about what you were teaching, but who you were as the teacher because all of us end up imitating those around us. If we let ourselves be exposed to Christ, to be around him and those things of his Bride, eventually we will imitate what we expose ourselves to: we will decrease and He will increase.2 The more we do with her, our Mother and thus Christ, the more we will know both of them and we will see what sort of person this hero of mankind is, the bride He died for, and His Father from whence He came, and their Spirit. We will love them, see them as a close-knit family that we are called to be part of. 4 Friendship In Aristotle’s 8th Book in the Nicomachean Ethics, devoted to the degrees of friendship, he quotes an old saying—“Like attracts like,” and in speaking further of friendship, he notices how that the two seek to become one. You see this between spouses, and also with close friends and family who love getting together—close friends even take on characteristics of each other. We will feel welcome and crave the presence of our Mother, her Spouse, basking in the presence of God and being surrounded by their friends, the saints, just like we crave the warmth of human relationships. Except, this relationship with God and His Church will be eternally fulfilling. "A Mountain Climb through the Liturgical Year," a pencil project requested by Fr. Christopher Brandler. This is based on his old seminary notes from Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. FEATURED There will result not only union with our Holy Mother, but also her spouse, Christ. Union with Christ leads to union with God! But we have to make an effort to spend time with them. To hear them. To listen to them. To seek to understand their hears and to share ours as well. Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in virtue. … Further, such friendship requires time and familiarity; as the proverb says, men cannot know each other till they have “eaten salt together” [suffered together]; nor can they admit each other to friendship or be friends till each has been found lovable and been trusted by each.3 Live liturgically and you will see you are part of a living story, a mysterious adventure of love and friendship with the Church and Christ and, ultimately will partake in the loving embrace of the Holy Trinity. But how do we live that out in our daily life? Here are some concrete suggestions, to be taken as a “menu” of sorts. They all stem from the one idea of exposing yourself to the liturgy of the Church. If you can “afford” to order the entire menu, go ahead. However, the greatest chances of success come from picking one thing and doing it well. Eventually everything else follows: feast day Mass, do something special with your daily wardrobe, like a spray of perfume or cologne, a necklace, dress shirt or ties. Our bodies are the lanterns of our souls! • Option 2: Start asking questions about what you read in the liturgy and make connections. • A Menu for Living Liturgically Option 1: Prep the night before a feast, or even Sunday, “the day of grace,”4 since it is the weekly feast of the Lord. Suggested how to’s: • Get your missal right before bed and read the Liturgy—the propers of the feast—in the missal. (There’s lots of other books you can read to complement this, but most of us have immediate access to our missals. If you don’t have that, you probably have a phone: divinumofficium.com gives you the liturgy for the day. It’s great to use while traveling! • Get your clothes and shoes ready the night before. If you can’t make it to the Write the feast by the date on your planner, or family planning board. (I loved watching a mother write the feast name beautifully on a chalk board in the kitchen the evening before after the kids went to bed. She told me sometimes she talked about it with her kids before they left for school the next day.) Start asking what certain words mean, or “why” about things. Make connections with ideas/words of the liturgy with your daily life. Do this while you’re reading, at Mass, and just throughout the day before the feast and on the feast. Think of the season, the weather, books you’re reading, parts of movies, music. It’s okay if you don’t make connections the first time, but gradually you will. Once you make one, you’ll feel like you just got a little wink from God. Option 3: Celebrate with both body and soul: • After Mass, the Divine Office, rosary, or whatever we did for God with our souls that feast day, get food or do something special, even if it’s just a simple visit to a free garden, getting a beer, or putting a tablecloth and flowers on the table. We are creatures of habit—we will be more inclined to keep living liturgically if we take the time and to do something pleasing and memorable to celebrate the day. This menu can be altered according to your circumstances, needs, duty-of-state, personality, and inspiration from the Holy Spirit! 5 FEATURED In another discussion, he commented that a household starts within your soul: “The kingdom of God is within you!”7 If you have a soul, it follows that you can live liturgically within no matter your circumstances. If you start applying one option from the menu, a variation of it, or a self-concocted option, a little bit at a time, you will grow in light, joy, and love and spread it wherever you go. True joy is contagious, like a spark, a flame. “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the whole world on fire!”8 A note You “can order from the menu” whether you’re a kiddo, a single person, a family, or an elderly person! The prepping the night before was something we mastered as young kids: we always had a long drive to Mass when we were attending mission chapels: it was the only way to get eight plus kids up and ready to Mass the next day, and still it’s a habit. But beware of extremes: “God is in the sweet breeze.”5 Dr. John Cuddeback, professor at Christendom College and founder of Life-Craft. org, says in a wonderful article: Application to the Purification By the time this issue is published, it should be nearly Christmas. The Purification, also called Candlemas, is that grand feast which concludes the Christmas festivities and initiates the grand climb up the Liturgical Mountain to Easter were the Paschal Candle takes a central role. The Purification is a triple feast which celebrates the purifying ceremony that Jewish women would undergo to render themselves clean and able to interact publicly 40 days after the birth of a male child. This feast celebrates the Purification, the Presentation, and the meeting with Simeon the Just and Anna the Prophetess (also the first sorrow of Our Lady). Because of this the Armenians call it “The Coming of the Son of God into the Temple.”9 The Purification is often referred to as Candlemas in the English-speaking world because of the blessing of candles. It is a jubilant bookend to Christmas and begins a new mode of living: fasting and preparing through Lent for Easter. Many wandering or lost individuals have stepped into such a household of one [Like Little Red Riding Hood and her Grandma, or the hermits of old], and feel that someone has been waiting, and even preparing, just for them…The life-giving power of such a home cannot be measured. In every household, no matter the size, there is the challenge and the opportunity to live a truly human life, which is always a shared life, in generosity, in little ways and in big, every day.6 Purification and Illumination The feast begins with the blessing of the candles (many faithful bring bags and boxes of candles to be blessed during the beginning), at which the canticle of Simeon is sung “Nunc dimittis…” followed by a procession. It foreshadows the consecration and lighting of the paschal candle and the procession of it into the Church. Everything that day—the Procession, the Mass, and Vespers I and II Little Boy with a Candle: “Purification Day” a captures the sweet joy of seeing a young boy with his candle at St. Mary’s Academy Purification student Mass two years ago. 6 The Angelus u November - December 2021 FEATURED of this feast—highlights the illumination of the feast. So, how does one live liturgically on this feast? Looking back at the menu: Option 1: Preparation the night before • Get your missal right before bed and read the Liturgy—the propers of the feast—in the missal: Caution: you might be bored by this. Nothing may jump out at you. But if you maintain an open heart and an open mind, something will jump out at you. (This is the beginning of contemplation, by the way.) I’ll highlight a few areas that resonated with me further on. You’ll see a lot about candles and illumination and as you’re reading the missal, you might notice a liturgical pun: the next day’s feast is St. Blaise. • Get the clothes and shoes ready the night before: For this feast day, this is the evening narration in my head: “Clothes…hmmm…oh! there’s a procession! It might be cold and windy out—dress appropriately! Procession? Oh! The blessing of the candles! I need candles! There’s no time to run to Walmart to grab some decent pillar candles to get blessed before the procession...but look! I have a few ‘like new’ ones here on my shelf. Phew!” • Write out the name of the feast day under your date on your planning board or journal. a gap.”11 Therefore, if evil has no room in a soul, grace will abound, and be pure, unmixed… “Hail Mary, full of grace!” Grace is a form of God’s presence. God is Unmixed Goodness, Joy, Light. Just to think of that conjures up a magnificent vessel of light streaming gleaming rays into space. We, our Lady perfectly so, are the vessels, the lanterns, and He is the Light. A pure heart has nothing but room for Him and that which is like him. One who is full of him is full of grace. “Hail Mary, full of Grace.” Grace is God’s gift. She had her lantern fully lit, her heart full of pure love, unspoiled by any earthly sediment… we need to be purified. Option 2: Making connections • I’ll share how my f low of thoughts went: Purification. What does it mean? I grabbed my dictionary. It means “the act of purifying,” which can also mean “to grow or become pure or clean.”10 So, what does pure mean? That connected perfectly to my spiritual reading at the time. Fr. Jacques Philippe says that our hearts hold what we let into them, and that “evil comes to fill Journal/Med example: This journal entry was sparked by the study of the liturgy for the Purification while writing this article. 7 FEATURED And here we are, full circle back at the Purification. • • terns, candles, bonfires. Listen to songs that have to do with blazing lights, make desserts that get set ablaze…some people burn their Christmas trees that day! (Some good friends and I once had a scavenger hunt on this feast. It centered around keeping a lantern lit with candles blessed at Mass, and took the group across several cities, performing in shops and homes before ending back where we were before at the chapel.) Other connection: A group of us were driven around on carts in a dark salt mine. We were silent in the pure darkness, awed by the completeness of it. Chattering started when the guide’s flashlight light came on, pointing out details on the cavern walls. When she shined her light on an incredibly huge deposit of salt, and described the purity of its content, we all grew silent gazing in awe at the pure spotless white of the crystals which absorbed all the light which was signed on it. Here I understood that being pure means no room for anything else but true beauty, for God, who is Good, True, Beautiful, Light of Light. I hope that the illustration of Christ and His Bride will help to bring alive the liturgical year, and that with the selection of one thing from the suggested menu you will cook up your own tasty and joyful life of living liturgically! May this Purification echo Simeon’s Nunc dimittis as we go forth as living lanterns to live God’s holy will in our daily lives: Now thou dost dismiss Thy servant, O Lord, according to Thy word in peace; because my eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou has prepared before the face of all peoples: A light to the revelation of the Gentiles and the glory of Thy people Israel.12 There is another connection in the Blessing of the Candles and the Procession. The text reads: “…perfect wax by the labor of the bees…” This same sort of phrase is used in the blessing of the paschal candle at the Easter Vigil. About the Author: Bridget Bryan has been writing and drawing since she was ten years old. After obtaining an equivalent bachelors in Catholic General Education from St. Mary’s College, she taught for 10 years at various SSPX schools. She is grateful for specific impacts from Fr. Cooper, Fr. Torzala, Fr. Brandler, Acies, along with students and colleagues who all helped her to love living more liturgically. Miss Bryan currently works as a freelance artist. You can follow her work at bridgetbryan.com. Option 3: Marking the day with celebration • You could have something that goes along with the theme of the feast: light, offerings…feed the local pigeons? Lan- Endnotes: I Kings 19:12 “And after the earthquake a fire: the Lord is not in the fire, and after the fire a whistling of a gentle air.” 1 Fortescue, Adrian. “Liturgy.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 30 Sept. 2021. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09306a.htm 6 Cuddeback, John. “Living as a Household of One.” Lifecraft, formerly, Bacon from Acorns. October 16, 2019. https://life-craft. org/living-as-a-household-of-one/ Accessed 28 Sept. 2021. 2 St. John the Baptist, John 3:29-30 “He that hath the bride, is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, who standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth with joy because of the bridegroom’s voice. This my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.” 7 Luke 17:21. 8 St. Catherine of Sienna. 9 Holweck, Frederick. “Candlemas.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 14 Sept. 2021. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03245b.htm. 10 “Purify.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/purify. Accessed 27 Sep. 2021. 11 Philippe, Jacques. Interior Freedom. Translated, Helena Scott. Scepter Publishers, New Rochelle, NY, 2007. 12 Luke 2:29-32. 3 4 8 5 Aristotle. Translated by W. D. Ross. The Nicomachean Ethics. Book VIII. The Internet Classics Archive, 28 Sept. 2021. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.8.viii.html Trapp, Maria Augusta. “The Land without a Sunday.” Around the Year with the Trapp Family. New York: Pantheon Books Inc., 1955. Print. (The section is particularly helpful in rekindling a celebration and love of Sundays. The entire book is an excellent source of ideas of how to help live the liturgical year.) The Angelus u November - December 2021 FEATURED 9 BAC K PRI IN NT BACK IN PRINT! God, a Woman and the Way by Fr. Raymond, O.C.S.O HOLY WEEK for the Trappist is something tremendous. It is the noisiest of all the weeks in his swift, silent cycle of fifty-two. He opens it with “Hosannas” that once shook the City of Jerusalem, and closes it with “Alleluias” that have shaken the centuries, and will shake the City of God. But what lies between shakes the Trappist’s very soul. —Fr. Raymond, O.C.S.O The book follows the footsteps of our Lady from the birth of Christ all the way to His death and resurrection. Written in a simple, convincing tone, the book creates a vivid reality for each of the following moments in Mary and Christ’s life and enables a deeper understanding and appreciation for them all. ● The Prophecy of Simeon ● The Flight into Egypt ● The Loss of the Child ● Mary Meets Jesus on the Road to Calvary ● The Crucifixion ● The Pieta ● The Burial of Jesus Illustrated. 179 pp. 6” X 9”. STK# 6723 $14.95 CO MI SOO NG N Forty Hours by Rev. Fulgence Meyer, O.F.M. Reflections and readings on the Most Holy Eucharist with psalms and prayers for Forty Hours, the holy hour, and private Eucharistic visits. This book’s two parts run in parallel (1) A series of conferences on Our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament that is sure to fire up the reader’s appreciation and devotion, and (2) psalms, prayers and hymns that can be used during Eucharistic adoration. The prayers are taken from the Bible, the Imitation of Christ, the liturgical books of the Church, and other approved sources. The favorite vocal prayers of our Lord, our Model in prayer, were the psalms. They are inspired by God, having been written at His prompting and under His direction. They have been recited by the greatest saints of all ages with spiritual consolation, stimulation and joy. Their daily recitation is enjoined by the Church upon her priests and religious. Happy the layman who, by praying them regularly, conceives an abiding love for, and derives a vigorous comfort from them! This book makes it easy to spend your Holy Hour in prayer and contemplation! 583 pp. 4.25” x 6.5”. Skivertex cover. Sewn binding with ribbon. Gold gilding. STK# 8798 $29.95 10 www.angeluspress.org | 1-800-966-7337 Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music. FEATURED Remembering Fr. Bourmaud An Interview with Fr. Michael Goldade, SSPX, Rector of St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church, Kansas City, MO When did you first become acquainted with Fr. Bourmaud? I met Fr. Bourmaud when I was assigned to St. Vincent de Paul Church in August of 2014. Before that there was a nodding acquaintance at best. I recall that he was very welcoming and made the move to Kansas City a pleasant one. I had read his first book, One Hundred Years of Modernism, five years before then and knew that he was a man of stature among Society priests. Fr. Bourmaud and his family hail from the Vendée region of France. He took a lot of pride in that. What is significant about that region and why was it significant for him? The family town is Rocheservière, a small but smart looking village just south of Nantes. It lies just within the Vendée department. Historically, the Vendée has been a 11 FEATURED war-torn region; every other century saw some new significant strife. From the Hundred Year’s War to the Wars of Religion to the French Revolution, this strip of soil bordering the Atlantic formed a tough people. There was even a battle at Rocheservière between Vendean Royalists and a Napoleonic troop two days after Waterloo. Today, we remember the Vendée for its opposition and active military resistance to the anti-Catholic government and laws of the Revolution. When the revolutionary government required military conscription, the Vendée went into open revolt and 12 The Angelus u November - December 2021 formed The Catholic Army. One can understand the pride of a Catholic descending from such heroes of the Faith. Having known Fr. Bourmaud and having met two of his brothers, the spirit of the region lives on. An interesting detail: the coat of arms for the Vendée region is the double hearts, the very same of the Society of Saint Pius X. Fr. Bourmaud was ordained at a young age. Why did Archbishop Lefebvre decide to ordain him so young? In summary, there were two reasons: he was quali- fied and there was a need in the Church. He had finished his high school courses and was deeply impressed with Archbishop Lefebvre who was given large public attention for the cause of Tradition. It was 1976, a turbulent year in the life of the Archbishop and the Society. This inspired the response to his vocation. Dominique Bourmaud was serious and virtuous and further there was a need for priests. The seminary program was only five years at that time. Since then, depending upon the seminary, one or two years have been added. Also, the canonical age of ordina- FEATURED tion was 24 at that time, a year earlier than the present canonical age. Can you say something about Fr. Bourmaud’s ministry before he came to the United States? Where was he assigned to and why? Fr. Bourmaud’s immediate assignment was to Madrid, Spain. However, because of the crisis in the American seminary with nine priests leaving, he was sent to Ridgefield, Connecticut in his second year of priesthood. That would set the tone for most of his priestly life which was connected to the formation of priests. He would teach in the U.S. seminary until 1993. The last five years were in Winona, MN. He also taught at the Seminary of Our Lady Co-Redemptrix in Argentina from 1994 to 1997 and Holy Cross Seminary in Australia from 1997 to 2009. Even after returning to the United States, he spent the better part of a decade shepherding diocesan and religious priests to the traditional Mass or even the Society of Saint Pius X through its “priests program.” Fr. Bourmaud spent 25 of his 40 years of priesthood teaching in the SSPX’s semi- naries. He would spend only six months as a priest in his native France. His was a missionary life and he was most fit for it. He seemed to assimilate well and quickly to local languages and customs. Further, he embraced his missionary vocation. The following prayer from St. Louis de Montfort’s Prayer for Missionaries (Prière Embrasée) was written in his hand on the back of a card in his breviary: My God, what then am I asking for? Liberos. Priests who are free with the freedom that comes from you, detached from everything, without father, mother, brothers, sisters or relatives 13 FEATURED and friends as the world and the flesh understand them, without worldly possessions to encumber or distract them, and devoid of all self-interest. Fr. Bourmaud is probably most widely known for his book One Hundred Years of Modernism. What interested him in this topic and what motivated him to write about it? Being in the seminary milieu he understood deeply the importance of the philosophical ideas shaping Catholic thought. At the same time he understood the need to arm future priests against the philosophical errors of 14 The Angelus u November - December 2021 our time which have a long history. There is a bigger picture historically than meets the eye. The faithful needed this awareness as well. His book was a means to share his seminary work with them. What was Fr. Bourmaud’s impression of the United States? It seemed like he enjoyed his time here. Did he have any views of this country, its culture, and landscape? He was happy to be in the States. Americans are generally enthusiastic, and that fit his personality. He adapted himself very well here. I can’t guess the number of missions he covered through his years in the U.S., but they were many. It was a reprieve for him to cover a mission chapel occasionally and enjoy on the side a detour of historical or geographical interest. Fr. Boumaud’s death has been a great sorrow for many within the Society of Saint Pius X and the faithful who attend our chapels. If you could summarize, what do you think his most important contribution was to the Society’s mission and how do you think he should be remembered? I’ve mentioned already the amount of time and effort he placed in the formation FEATURED of priests. This is something which is hard to quantify in its effects, but there is no question that it was a very important contribution. Further, his effect upon priests came from more than his teaching. He was a model of priestly fidelity in the details of schedule and in the spirit of priestly charity. Fr. James Peek recalled to me that when he himself arrived at Ecône, two years after Dominique Bourmaud had entered, it was known throughout the seminary that if someone needed help, for example requiring a replacement on dish washing, Mr. Bourmaud would always be willing. This was how I knew him in the ministry as well. As I was sorting through his affairs, I came upon a card written in his hand in 1978 in which he lists several weighty resolutions. The card is entitled “Resolutions for the Whole of Life,” and ends with the resolution to read the card each week. Circumstances suggest that he kept the card close and was faithful to these resolutions. I’m sure Angelus Press feels his absence knowing how active he was in driving deadlines and organizing the plan for each issue. The priests at St. Vincent’s were aware that besides the arti- cles he wrote in his own name there were times he would write additional articles anonymously or credit the work to someone else. 15 LITERATURE St. Michael, Duper of Devils Jonathan Wanner H e is the idol of every Catholic lad—that muscle-clad crusader girted in God’s mithril, St. MoreManly-Than-Man Michael. As skull-cracker of demons, he hurled Satan into Hell; as Heaven’s herald, he forbade Abraham to sacrifice Isaac; as arbiter of God’s wrath, he riddled Egypt with plagues; as guardian of the chosen people, he piloted the Israelites to the Promised Land; as captain of the Heavenly Hosts, he will slay the Antichrist at the End Times. Outside the Bible, however, folk legends commonly assign the Archangel a less familiar and less militant role: the Swindler of Satan. Peasant tales frequently pit St. Michael against the Devil—not sword to sword, but wit to wit. With an acumen that could outriddle any Bilbo or Puss in Boots, the angelic Captain proves he has brain enough to match his brawn. Such is the case in “Why the Sole of Man’s Foot is not Even.” As the story goes, the Devil, after his rebellion, stole the sun and fled to Earth. So God sent St. Michael to retrieve it. After much deliberation, the Archangel challenged the Devil to a diving competition. The Saint, plunging first, plummeted all the way to the ocean floor before returning with sand between his teeth. Suspecting a ploy afoot, the 16 The Angelus u November - December 2021 Devil spat on the ground and transformed the wad into a magpie, instructing it to guard the sun. Finally the Devil submerged himself, whereupon St. Michael made the sign of the cross: in an instant the ocean’s surface transformed into a thick slab of ice. Seizing the sun, the Archangel hastened to Heaven, leaving the magpie to shriek and bawl. The Devil, hearing the din, rushed back to the surface only to find himself imprisoned under a frozen wall. Plunging back down, he fetched a boulder from the ocean floor, shattered the ice, and continued the chase. St. Michael already had one foot in Heaven when the Devil, clawing at his other foot, tore off a lump of flesh. After the misdeed, God honored St. Michael by deeming that all men shall live with uneven soles under their feet.2 Another legend tells of French peasants who used scissors to harvest their meadows. Only Satan had a magical tool that could cut the grass in short order, but out of selfishness he would lend it to no one and used it only in the stealth of the night. One day Satan agreed to mow for a slothful friend. Overhearing the offer, St. Michael devised a plan: he planted iron stakes in the meadow then hid in the hollow of an oak. When midnight came, the Devil arrived with his won- LITERATURE drous tool and began the produce equalto crop the grass in ly with the Demon. long swaths. Without The Devil, lazy as he warning, he struck was, ag reed. They the first iron stake; de c i de d t h a t t he t he t ool c r a cked. Saint would receive Before long he struck a ll t he crops t hat the second stake—and grew below ground, when his tool broke and the Sinner would at last, he cursed his receive those above. fortune and sought a Six months later, the smith in the village. lands yielded nothThe next morning, St. ing but roots: carrots, Michael came to the turnips, onions, and smith and bid him to parsnips. Satan, outrecreate the Devil’s raged, accused the tool. After hammerSaint of swindling. So ing it into shape, the St. Michael offered to man handed over the pay him everything scythe to St. Michael, t h a t g rew u nder who shared the tool g round the followwith peasants until it ing year. Only when was famously known. the next year came, Thirsting for revenge, the lands were teem1 St. Michael Slaying the Dragon. Satan challenged the ing with gold-haired Archangel to a duel wheat, plenteous oats, in an oven. For a weapon, St. Michael chose peas galore, and all things that thrive above a little wooden peg, so that when the Devil the ground. Tearing his hair in anger, Satan could not fit his shovel in the little cell, the took back his fields and vowed to take no heed Saint knocked him about his head until he of his crafty neighbor. A year rolled by before was thoroughly bruised. After knocking the St. Michael invited the Devil to dinner. The Demon over the head, the Saint won the day. 3 Demon greedily accepted, but after gorging Even better known is Guy de Maupassant’s himself on the feast he became nauseous to Legend of Mont-Saint-Michel, named after the the point of vomiting. Seeing his chance, St. famed abbey in Normandy. To guard himself Michael drove Satan out of his castle: giving from Satan’s malevolence, St. Michael built a the Malevolent Soul an almighty kick in the resplendent castle on an islet and surrounded rear, he threw him across the bay like a canit with perilous quicksand. Across the way, nonball. With a thud the Demon landed outthe devil dwelt in a humble cottage on the side the town of Mortain, sinking his claws hill, though he owned all the salt marshes deep into the rock. Even today you can see and fertile lands which abounded in the finthe vestiges of the Devil etched there in the est crops. Satan reveled in his wealth while St. earth. 5 Michael lived as a pauper. One fine morning, A variation on this Norman legend recounts St. Michael crossed the water and found the how St. Michael, to prove God’s might, chalDevil dining on soup in his garden. Seeing lenged the Devil to a castle building contest. the Saint, the demon offered him a drink. A With the aid of demonic minions, Satan built glass of milk later, St. Michael put forward a a mountainous citadel of granite. St. Michael proposition. He asked the Devil for his land; responded by erecting a monumental fortress in exchange, he would cultivate it and share out of ice crystals: it was clear that its luster 17 LITERATURE The renowned abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel is on a tidal island about 0.6 miles off the northwestern coast of France. 4 and brilliance far outshined the Devil’s somber stones. Envious, the Devil begged the Saint to swap castles. Michael agreed. Only when summer came, the ice melted in the heat while Michael’s fortress remained intact. It still stands as Mont-Saint-Michel, the castle-like abbey.6 Unique as these tales are, they follow the same general formula. St. Michael either outwits the Devil by a deal (e.g. to cultivate crops, to come to dinner, to swap castles) or by a competition (e.g. diving, a duel in an oven, castle building). More often than not, brute force is unnecessary because the Devil ironically defeats himself: by his greed, his sun and scythe are stolen; by his slothfulness, his farming profits come to naught; by his gluttony, the strength food should supply is diminished; by his envy, his enviable castle melts. Cleverly exploiting sin’s self-destructive nature, St. Michael’s best weapon ironically ends up being the Devil himself. Another similarity these folk tales share is their genre: they are origin stories. The genesis each tale depicts may not be historically 18 The Angelus u November - December 2021 accurate, but that hardly matters. Their value lies in their ability to reconstruct our memory so that more trips down that lane lead to St. Michael. Just as a kaleidoscope transmutes a room into a stained-glass window, these legends transfigure ordinary images into divine symbols. Man’s foot is not only misshapen so that he can maintain balance—it is a memento of angelic honor; a scythe is not simply a tool—it is a celestial gift to mankind; a scarred rock is not merely a natural phenomenon—it signifies a demon’s defeat; an abbey is not just a building—it is a trophy of heavenly wit. Such associations may not be Biblical, but one can do worse than turn the material world into a reminder of immaterial realities. It is more than a pretty thought that fiction reveals non-fictional truths that fly before our winking eyes: after all, the fertile crescent of the ordinary is where our veneration of the divine may find arable ground. So, at the risk of replaying that eon-old battle between angel and demon once more, I would like to end, not with the quip of a literary critic, but with the harp of a storyteller: 18 LITERATURE St. Michael the Starbuilder Man was wandering in the wilderness of this world when God saw he had lost his way. So the Almighty sent St. Michael to build a guiding star. Faster than a hawk, the Archangel threshed his wings across the sky, when along came the Devil on the Cosmic Road. “Whither dost thou wend?” the Great Deceiver inquired. St. Michael’s eyes gleamed: “To build a star as bright as Heaven’s doorstep.” The Devil cackled: for the very name of Lucifer means “Light Bearer,” and he regarded himself the sole master of light. Before no time at all, the two agreed to see which of them could build the brightest star. The Devil opened his mouth, and out poured a rancid stench which attracted a mighty fleet of bat-riding demons. “Hurry to earth,” he scowled, “and gather all burning things that cause harm to men.” So they went to the Sahara and chopped down six million trees until the land was barren; and they drilled deeper than the ocean until they extracted six million pounds of coal; and they piled these into a large heap and threw upon it six million barrels of gunpowder, so that when the Devil lit the match, the explosion rivaled the sun. Then St. Michael strummed his harp. He sang to the bees, who gathered for him seven million honeycombs; he sang to the worms, who dug up for him seven million gems; he sang to the rivers, who brought him seven million golden nuggets. Then he boiled and sifted the honeycombs until they became a fragrant wax, and he sanded and polished the gems until they outshone the rarest diamond, and he melted and refined the golden nuggets until they were the purest mirrors. Into one great ball he rolled the wax, embedding ropes in it until it became a candle of cosmic proportions. On its surface he lodged the gems and gold. When the Archangel held his flaming sword to the wick, the brightest star was born. Words cannot wield how radiant it appeared. In comparison, the Devil’s sphere seemed a mere firefly. So furious was Satan that smoke steamed out of his nose. But St. Michael was not one to gloat. Rather, he proposed that the dim star may wax brighter if it were stoked. At this, the Prince of Demons took up his pitchfork. He poked and prodded and goaded his star until its embers were red with anger. Then he conjured with his breath a mighty hurricane of fire, only instead of beaming brighter, the star suddenly exploded and collapsed into a cold, hard wad. Ashamed of his defeat, the Devil kicked the dead star. To this day, it sails across the sky every 75 years: some call it Halley’s comet. But St. Michael’s masterpiece, the North Star, you may see every day. Endnotes 1 Martin Schongauer, St. Michael Slaying the Dragon (148090). https://library-artstor-org.proxycu.wrlc.org/asset/ARTSTOR_103_41822001143492. 2 “Why the Sole of Man’s Foot is Not Even,” in Michaelmas, ed. David Mitchell (Chatham: Waldorf Publications, 2015), 142143. 3 “The Devil’s Scythe,” in Michaelmas, ed. David Mitchell (Chatham: Waldorf Publications, 2015), 144-145. 4 Br uno Barbey, Mont-Saint-Michel (Normandy, France, 1988). https://library-artstor-org.proxycu.wrlc.org/asset/ AWSS35953_35953_37855095. 5 Guy de Maupassant, “La Légende du Mont-Saint-Michel,” Vol. 7 of Oeuvres Complètes de Guy de Maupassant (Paris: Louis Conard, 1908), 101-113. 6 “What the Peasants of Normandy Tell about Michael,” in Michaelmas, ed. David Mitchell (Chatham: Waldorf Publications, 2015), 146-147. 19 NEW FROM ANGELUS PRESS Consecration to St. Michael by Cathal Ó hAimheirgin, M.A. Now is the time for Catholics everywhere to consecrate themselves to the angel who stood, millennia ago, against Satan and vanquished him to the deepest region of Hell. Take up this ancient devotion to our most powerful angelic defender. Over the course of the last century, as we measure the decline of civilization and faith, it is no surprise that the devotion to St. Michael has diminished. The removal of the Leonine prayers as well as St. Michael’s name from the prayers of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass leave little doubt that this glorious victor and powerful intercessor has all but been forgotten by the world. This little book aggregates the history of devotions that have been offered to St. Michael and presents them once again to be used and spread throughout the world. Consecration to St. Michael is a powerful weapon. Consecrating yourself to St. Michael is simply an act of dedicating yourself to his service, for which in return he offers you his help and protection. Such a consecration does not take away from a person’s consecration to Mary or St. Joseph. Consecration to St. Michael only complements these highly recommended practices. 144 pp. 4¾"x 6¾". Hardcover. STK# 8802 $14.95 The Sword of St. Michael The legendary “Sword of St. Michael,” an imaginary line linking seven monasteries all dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel stretching all the way from Ireland to Israel. 1 Skellig Michael (Kerry, Ireland) 2 Saint Michael’s Mount (Cornwall, United Kingdom) 3 Mont-Saint-Michel (Normandy, France) 4 Sacra di San Michele (Turin, Italy) 5 Sanctuary of Monte Sant’Angelo (Mount Gargano, Italy) 6 Monastery of the Taxiarchis (Symi Island, Greece) 7 Stella Maris Monastery (Mount Carmel, Haifa, Israel) Also of note: Castel Sant’angelo, (Rome, Italy) Santuario de San Miguel del Milagro (Tlaxcala, Mexico) www.angeluspress.org | 1-800-966-7337 Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music. 13 25 31 39 47 53 61 67 73 Featured in the Book: The legendary “Sword of St. Michael” is an imaginary line linking seven monasteries all dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel stretching all the way from Ireland to Israel. Skellig Michael (Kerry, Ireland) The ancient monastic Island of Skellig Michael comes from the Irish for “St. Michael’s Rock.” Situated on a craggy, mountainous island off the west coast of Ireland, this monastery was founded by St. Finnian of Clonard sometime around the 6th century. It is now a tourist attraction, mostly famous for its appearance in the Star Wars movie series. But for centuries Skellig Michael was a place of prayer and penance, where a small band of ascetic monks dedicated their lives to St. Michael, residing in stone beehive-shaped huts subject to the harsh Atlantic weather conditions. 9 Like many of the monastic islands off the coast of Ireland, Skellig Michael is no longer occupied by any religious institution but it continues to stand as a testament to the Catholic heroism and the Christian civilization on which Western Civilization was built. A pious tradition holds that Skellig Michael is also the location where St. Patrick forever banished all snakes from Ireland. Saint Michael’s Mount (Cornwall, United Kingdom) Saint Michael’s Mount is situated on the southwest coast of England. Accessible by foot only when the tide permits, many of the religious structures on the island were built by the same Benedictine monks responsible for the famous Mont-Saint-Michel in France. These monks received the island as a gift from the English king, St. Edward the Confessor, in the eleventh century. But even before the island was occupied by any religious order, it was a site of pilgrimage for Catholics due to the frequent apparitions of St. Michael there, who would guide sailors and fishermen. This is why St. Michael has traditionally been called the patron of sailors and fishermen. Mont-Saint-Michel (Normandy, France) Mont-Saint-Michel is situated on the Norman coast of France. This is one of the most recognizable landmarks of the great Catholic civilization that was Christendom. The origins of this monastery go back to the 8th century when St. Aubert, bishop of Avranches, was instructed by St. Michael to build an abbey in his honor. According to the Revelatio ecclesiae de Sancti Michaelis, the oldest text recording the origins of Mont-Saint-Michel, the first foundations of the Abbey were laid in the year 708. St. Michael is said to have appeared to St. Aubert three times, asking him to establish a sanctuary in his name. On the third attempt, the archangel poked his finger into St. Aubert’s skull to get him to perform his wishes. The head of St. Aubert, kept as a relic in the Church of Saint-Gervais in Avranches, can still be seen to have a hole pierced in the skull. Mont-Saint-Michel was turned into a prison during the French Revolution, but it is now overseen by a community of monks and nuns of the Monastic Communities of Jerusalem. Consecration to St. Michael is a new and vibrant approach to two age-old devotional practices: consecration or dedication of self, and spiritual pilgrimage. Here, these two devotions are seamlessly melded into one nine-day journey. The images of St. Michael’s shrines across the world accompany the text of the consecration each day, providing a concrete place for the mind to rest as it contemplates the great Saint. —E.T. Jermann Introduction ART ART A Miniature Life of St. Nicholas David Clayton T his image is of St Nicholas, who was Archbishop of Myra in the 4th century, and whose Feast is December 6th. He was Archbishop of Myra, in Lycia (in modern-day Turkey). He has been venerated throughout the Church. Because of his help to the poor, he is the saint of pawnbrokers. His insignia of three golden balls represent three purses of gold he gave secretly to a poor man who could not afford dowries for his three daughters. He attended the Council of Nicea, where, by tradition, he was temporarily barred from attendance for losing his temper and striking an Arian. This image, which comes from a late 14th-century manuscript which is a French translation of a book called the Golden Legend, depicts another story from his life in which he raised three young men from the dead who had been killed by a butcher several years earlier. The Golden Legend is a series of lives of saints which was compiled in Italy in the 13th-century by Jacobus de Voragine, in which he pulls together the popular accounts of the saints. St Nicholas is a saint of whom more and more was written as devotion to him increased, especially after the 10th century. The story of three boys only appears in later accounts of the life of St Nicholas and so will often be dismissed as “hagiography” today. This is meant to indicate that is part of a growing mythology surrounding the person and that it is probably not historically true. However, we do not need to accept this argument because it rests on an assumption, born of lack of faith, that accounts of miracles should be viewed with skepticism; and that word of mouth and oral tradition are not reliable mechanisms for the preservation of truth. The fact that this particular story only appears in writing relatively late does not mean automatically that this story was an invention of the writer, which is what seems to be assumed. It is possible, alternatively, that 23 ART it did happen and was preserved faithfully by oral tradition. While we must acknowledge the possibility that details can be added in the repeated telling of a story, without evidence that the author of the book composed the story, it is as reasonable to assume that it is true, it seems to me. The question that I ask myself first is: does this narrative portray a picture of a saint that is consistent with our beliefs as Catholics about what is generally known of him as a person, and which can reasonably inspire us to greater virtue? The answer to this question, in this case, is for me unequivocally yes. As one who believes that through faith miracles happen today, I do not wonder that they happened in the past, too. Given this, why doubt the truth of the story? In regard to the image itself, it is classed as a “miniature.” The term “miniature” is used here as a generic term for all medieval illumination and originally does not refer to its size but rather to a particular red pigment, “red lead” commonly used by artists for the foundational establishment of line and tone in the production of a painting. Red lead is a lead oxide called, in Latin, minium. Red lead was used primarily in manuscript illumination because it was preferential to use a lighter-toned line to describe form in a picture that would be seen from close up. It was not used in the same way for art used in churches, which would use bolder contrast since images would be viewed, relatively, from a distance. For this reason, the term miniature came to mean any manuscript art. Over centuries, and because illuminations are generally smaller than the art that would be used in churches, it gradually became a general term for all smallscale art. Finally, in the English language, it became a descriptor for any object of small size, not just art. Consistent also with the idea of presenting this scene as a historical event that is, nevertheless, a heavenly reality, the artist does not place the figures in a pictorial scene or landscape that creates a sense of depth and space behind the plane of the painting. Instead, they occupy the plane of the parchment. He delib24 The Angelus u November - December 2021 erately eliminates any illusion of three-dimensional space by filling the negative space, which surrounds the figures, with a geometric pattern. This two-dimensionality creates a symbolic quality to the image which is consistent with the idea of a heavenly realm that exists outside time and space, that is outside the three-dimension world that we occupy. Other ways of achieving this elimination of space would be to use gold leaf or a single flat painted color for the negative space. The latter two are more common in Eastern iconography, while the use of geometry is employed more regularly to the same end in the Western Gothic tradition. HISTORY The Day the Music Died John Rao, D. Phil. Oxon. Luther at the Marburg Colloquy, 1529 (Debating Zwingli over the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist). U lrich Zwingli (1484-1531), the leader of the Protestant Reformation in Zurich, faithfully echoed his German predecessor, Martin Luther (1483-1546), in his expression of utter contempt for the Sacrifice of the Mass and the liturgy that solemnly—and joyfully—emphasized its reality. During Holy Week of 1525, when he felt that his influence over the governing City Council in Zurich had sufficiently matured, Zwingli demanded the abolition of the Mass as “blasphemous idolatry.” On Wednesday, April 12th, the Council voted by a bare majority to gave him the prohibition that he wished. Demonstrating the fact that this action was the coup of an ideological oligarchy, “the last Mass was celebrated before a great crowd of citizens ‘who wanted to have the Holy Sacrament administered to them according to the old custom, as before’.” The voice of the people revealed that “something that was still entirely alive was abolished by official decree.” From henceforward, services were to be focused purely upon the written 25 HISTORY The Grossmünster in the center of the medieval town of Zürich, from where Zwingli initiated the Reformation in Switzerland. “words” of Scripture stripped from contact with the living Word of God and the loving adornment traditionally given to His worship by a natural world that He had created and redeemed. (See H. Jedin and J. Dolan, History of the Church, V, 167-168). There was no community singing. Quite otherwise than Luther, the musically gifted Zwingli gave no psalms and hymns to those of his church. The organs remained silent. With the singsong of the Latin choral chant, which was not understood, what pertained to music entirely disappeared. 26 The Angelus u November - December 2021 Yes, it is true that Luther, the founding father of the Protestant Reformation, unlike Zwingli, very much disapproved of the iconoclasm represented by “the day the music died” in Zurich. But this was only because he also— unlike the more rational Swiss reformer—willfully refused to accept the full logic of his own basic principle of the total depravity of mankind after Original Sin. Zwingli embraced that logic and ran with it, beginning the process by means of which the destruction of the liturgy centered on the Word made flesh unraveled the entire “liturgical” life of Christendom as a whole. This process eventually replaced a diverse, vibrant Christian community that was making its pilgrimage to eternity while singing the song of the “harmony of the spheres” with a drab collection of the living dead, chanting its enslavement to fallen nature in flat, cacophonous, monotonous words without any meaningful context or melody at all, on a journey to nowhere; words shoved down the throats of the bulk of the community in question by the strongest and most willful minority in its midst to boot and slavishly accepted by it. Those following Zwingli took their place on this toneless and purposeless plod quite swiftly; others, following Luther and similar “conservative revolutionaries” like him, did so only gradually, as the dike waters they had unleashed overcame their attempts to use their fingers to hold them back. Both groups would have to pass through the still more convoluted but ultimately perfectly logical development of their message provided by the naturalist Enlightenment, itself advancing towards hell in similarly radical and moderate forms. In short, the “day the music died” in Zurich was a prophetic warning to the whole polyphonic chorus of a once charming Christendom of what it was that commitment to the anti-natural Protestant message and its unnaturally “naturalist” Enlightenment progeny would ultimately inevitably mean: silencing the schola and its song. I think that the best way that I can succinctly introduce the full tragedy of this muzzling of the music of life is with reference to Dietrich von Hildebrand’s book on Liturgy and Personality. In this work—which I highly rec- HISTORY ommend for arguments against a multitude of evils—Professor von Hildebrand points to the basic difference and consequence of a liturgy that is Christocentric and one that seeks to take its guidance from the worshipper rather than from the God who is worshipped. A Christocentric liturgy emphasizes that we, as sinners, are only saved and perfected through membership in the Body of Jesus Christ, whose flesh and blood we literally eat and drink under the communal authority of the Church, His mystical continuation on earth until the end of time. A worshipper-focused liturgy, rather than being primarily receptive to the corrective community and grace that comes “from above, from the Father of Lights,” looks first and foremost to the perceived “needs” of human beings for guidance as to how to shape it. The former, learning of mankind’s true necessities by focusing on the teaching of its Creator and Redeemer, knows that this blesses all earthly tools as God-given, but then purges them of their fallen sinful characteristics before happily using them in worship, in an ordered hierarchy of values, each in its proper place, all “for the greater glory of God.” The latter, even if concocted by well-meaning people, inevitably responds to the flawed, confused, and narrow desires of sinful men—especially its authors—who cannot accurately know what they require for their own betterment, confirming them in their blindness and encouraging them to “perfect” their dogmatic and moral slumber rather than awakening them to God’s divinizing grace. Traditional Christendom as a whole was Christocentric in nature. Following the model given by the Savior and His Mystical Body, which taught that the human person reached perfection through membership in a supernatural community, Catholic Christian civilization spontaneously organized individual activity on the earthly level through natural communities, ranging from families through to schools, guilds, militant lay crusading and religious “orders,” cities, and states. It understood from the supreme communal model that life in community makes us aware of insights, merits, and, perhaps most importantly, flaws in our thinking and behavior. Moreover, wave after wave of different monastic influences over the development of Christendom gave to all of its component communal elements a liturgical character as well. Monks dedicated to the hours of prayer drilled in the teaching that everyone was on an earthly pilgrimage to eternal life through Christ. They stimulated bishops, popes, and Doctors of the Church to encourage the use of all of the physical tools of nature created and redeemed by a good God to reach that safe port, and to do so in the many distinct ways offered to different individuals in their manifold natural conditions and in fulfillment of their varied natural responsibilities. In consequence, each had its particular customs, symbols, feasts, patron saints, and place in the pilgrimage to God through Christ. Each sang its own special song, danced, and made merry in its own unique but clearly Catholic way. Each admitted—even if, alas, it did not necessarily always match its behavior to its beliefs—that it needed the grace that came from the highest of liturgies—that of the Eucharist; of Holy Mass—to ensure that its own melody, movements, and merriment fit into the proper hierarchy of values guaranteeing the harmony of the spheres. Catholic Christendom could thus be said to have viewed the universe as an Unfinished Symphony. It called an orchestra together under the vaulted hall of the heavens, and explained to the musicians that a composer had given them parts of a magnificent piece that He had prepared, in order to test their ability to play it. It noted that the entire symphony would be given to them only after successful performance of the first movement. The musicians worked hard, though some fell by the wayside. They began to polish their instruments, put on their finest clothing, and walked with confidence and quiet pride as they realized the quality of the music with which they are dealing. They waited for the day that they would be given the rest of the piece with humility and with joy. They knew that they could finish the Unfinished Symphony. In Zurich, on “the day the music died,” the baffled citizens of that still Catholic city had played out for them a “prelude” to what was inevitably to come with the consequences of 27 HISTORY acceptance of the doctrine of total depravity: a prohibition of the completion of the Unfinished Symphony and the silencing of the sounds of the harmony of the spheres. This outcome was unavoidable regardless of the fact that Luther, the actual founder of Protestantism, did not himself “personally”—and quite illogically—particularly desire the dreadful hush that would ensue. For what the pillar doctrine of the Protestant Revolution teaches is that nothing wrought by man and nature can please a God reduced to righteous anger due to the betrayal accomplished by Original Sin. No community, beginning with that of a supposedly “Mystical Body of Christ” now identified as the “Whore of Babylon,” and ultimately continuing to include that of the State, the school, the guild, and the family can be of any value to the wretched, valueless individual, who is driven back to begging for the mercy of the angry God alone to enter His realm; no community, and no Catholic “good work” making use of all the tools of an originally good natural world, corrected of its sins and become thereby so very many valuable steps on an earthly stairway leading to heaven. And all this was drilled in by a liturgy of “words” preached by the charismatic oligarchs leading the Revolution not to a real congregation, but to a basically inchoate mob of cowed “individuals” who needed to be told that each and every one of them and each of every one of their actions was contemptible and could not be otherwise. “Thud” is the only musical tone that can accompany the pastoral approach that the doctrine of total depravity entails. But to make matters worse, that “thud” did not maintain the charismatic oligarchs in their commitment to unite atomistic individuals in the construction of a new social “pen” composed of terrified sinners. Instead, and quite ironically, what it actually did was to breed ideologues preaching the replacement of the real society and authority of complex Catholic Christendom, composed of many communities working to perfect their members, with a jungle like pseudo-civilization in which all of the unredeemed sins of fallen individual men 28 The Angelus u November - December 2021 misusing nature somehow become untouchable “needs” which must perforce be satisfied. This is not the time or place for us to show how the liturgy of Zurich on the day the music died drastically changed from one focused on answering the “needs” of a depraved people by abandoning the confection of the Sacrament and the eating of the Body and Blood of Christ, and preaching the absurdity of the attempt to correct the f laws of God’s good natural world so as to use all of its elements as a stairway to heaven; how it changed to a message that would have seemed grotesque to the initial Protestant revolutionaries themselves. But change it did. Losing its Christocentric focus, the liturgy of “modernity,” moving from Zurich Protestantism to the Enlightenment and, finally, to the madness of our own End Time, came to preach with fine-sounding, disconnected, undefined “words” the importance of satisfying the “needs” of men subject to natural passions no longer viewed as depraved but obvious, and built into the machine of the universe. This liturgy is “preached” today, in exactly the same manner, by the “religious” authorities of Progressive Church, Press, State, and of all the emasculated communities manipulated by them alike. The “thud” of the “music” accompanying such a sick liturgy is the sound of the slamming of our minds and hearts into the flesh of a Creation that now wants to know nothing whatsoever of its sinful rejection of God’s original plan for it, or what it is that it can know and do to lift itself out of the pathetic, parochial, debasing, and blinding consequences of the Fall. “Restore all things in fallen nature” could readily serve as the official motto of the preaching “liturgy” of our time. And the “mercy” offered by the ecclesiastical authorities under these circumstances comes at the expense of dumping a thick, wet blanket over all of nature’s healthy characteristics and tendencies—whose cultivation is treated as though it were an arrogant reproach to the poor suffering vices they would uncharitably help to repress. Rather than end by offering one of the many contemporary examples of the debasement of the glorious liturgical-minded world HISTORY of Catholic Christendom due to the consequences coming from the teaching of “the day the music died,” I would ask you to consider one closer to the initial destruction at the hands of the naturalist, Enlightenment, revolutionary heirs of the original Protestant heresiarchs. Listen to J. J. Norwich’s account of the enslavement—ending in tragic self-enslavement—of a people to a liturgy of meaningless words guaranteed by rejection of the Christocentric liturgy focused on the full message of the Word Incarnate celebrated in Venice in 1797 soon after its takeover by Napoleon: ( J.J. Norwich, A History of Venice [Knopf, 1982], pp. 632-633). It was Sunday, 4 June—Whit Sunday, a day which in former years the Venetians had been accustomed to celebrate with all the pomp and parade appropriate to one of the great feasts of the Church. But this year, 1797, was different. Shocked and stunned to find their city occupied by foreign troops for the first time in its thousand years of history, the people were in no mood for rejoicing. Nevertheless, General Louis Baraguey d’Hilliers, the French commander, had decided that some form of celebration would be desirable, if only to give a much-needed boost to local morale. He had discussed the form it should take with the leaders of the Provisional Municipality, in whom, under his own watchful eye, the supreme political power of the new Republic was now entrusted; and plans had been accordingly drawn up for a Festa Nazionale, at which the citizens were to be given their first full-scale public opportunity to salute their “Democracy” and the resonant revolutionary principles that inspired it. Those who, prompted more by curiosity than by enthusiasm, made their way to the Piazza that Sunday morning had grown accustomed to the “Tree of Liberty”—that huge wooden pole, surmounted by the symbolic scarlet Phrygian cap which bore more than a passing resemblance to the ducal corno— rising incongruously from its centre. This they now found to have been supplemented by three large tribunes, ranged along the north, south and west sides. The western one, which was intended for the sixty members of the Municipality, carried the inscription LIBERTY IS PRESERVED BY OBEDIENCE TO THE LAW; the other two, destined for the French and other less distinguished Italian authorities, respectively proclaimed that DAWNING LIBERTY IS PROTECTED BY FORCE OF ARMS and ESTABLISHED LIBERTY LEADS TO UNIVERSAL PEACE. The Piazzetta was similarly bedecked, with a banner in praise of Bonaparte stretched between the two columns by the Molo, one of which was draped in black in memory of those brave Frenchmen who had perished victims of the Venetian aristocracy…. After Baraguey d’Hilliers and the Municipality had taken their places, the bands began to play—there were four of them, disposed at intervals around the Piazza, comprising a total of well over 300 musicians—and the procession began. First came a group of Italian soldiers, followed by two small children carrying lighted torches and another banner with the words GROW UP, HOPE OF THE FATHERLAND. Behind them marched a betrothed couple (DEMOCRATIC FECUNDITY) and finally an aged pair staggering under the weight of agricultural implements, bearing words “referring to their advanced age, at which time liberty was instituted.” The procession over, the President of the Municipality advanced to the Tree of Liberty, where, after a brief ceremony in the Basilica, he proceeded to the most dramatic business of the day: the symbolic burning of a corno and other emblems of ducal dignity (all obligingly provided for the purpose by Lodovico Manin [the last doge] himself) and a copy of the Golden Book (of Venetian aristocrats). He and his fellow-municipalisti, together with the General and the senior members of his staff, then led off the dancing round the Liberty Tree, while the guns fired repeated salutes, the church bells rang and the bands played La Carmagnole. The celebrations ended with a gala performance of opera at the Fenice Theatre, completed less than five years before. This was the level to which Venice had sunk within a month of the Republic’s end—the level of tasteless allegory and those empty, flatulent slogans so beloved of totalitarian governments of today: a demoralization so complete as to allow her citizens, many of whom had been crying “Viva San Marco!” beneath the windows of the Great Council as it met for the last time, to stand by and applaud while all their proud past was symbolically consigned to the flames. Long live “the music of the harmony of the spheres” and the liturgy of the Holy Mass that faces God in its prayer encouraging the completion of the Unfinished Symphony! Down with the “thud” of the liturgy of Modernity! 29 SAINTS St. Sergey of Radonezh Molly Palomnik S earching for a lost foal, a Russian schoolboy espied an elder standing motionless under an oak. The boy approached as the elder wept in prayer. Making obeisance, the young boy asked for enlightenment: his brothers and schoolmates harassed him since he was slow to learn, and could neither read nor write. The monk blessed him. He took bread out of his satchel with three fingers, and gave it to the boy. With this, he said “Take this in thy mouth, child, and eat; this is given thee as a sign of God’s grace and for the understanding of Holy Scriptures. Though the gift appears but small, the taste thereof is very sweet.” The bread tasted like honey. The boy replied with scripture, saying “Is it not written, ‘How sweet are thy words to my palate, more than honey to my lips, and my soul doth cherish them exceedingly?’” In answer, the monk said “If thou believest, child, more than this will be revealed to thee. Do not vex thyself about reading and writing: thou wilt find that from this day forth the Lord will give thee learning above that of thy brothers and others of thine 30 The Angelus u November - December 2021 own age.” Having so prophesied, the monk turned to leave. The boy prostrated himself, and begged the man to visit his parents. Hailing from a noble and devout household, Bartholomew was certain that his parents would be glad to host a religious. When Bartholomew returned with a monk instead of a foal, his parents were surprised. When this same monk took him to the family’s chapel and instructed Bartholomew to read the Psalms aloud, however, his parents were astounded. The whole family began to fear and to praise the Lord. They related how Bartholomew, while still in his mother’s womb, proclaimed “Holy, Holy, Holy” for the whole congregation to hear during the course of the liturgy. The parents begged the monk to stay and calm their fears about their son, who was a marvel to them. The family shared a meal with the monk, and accompanied him to the door. The monk declared that many would be led to the Holy Trinity through this child, stepped outside, and vanished. After these events, Bartholomew disciplined his body, tirelessly attending daily lit- SAINTS urgies and reading scripture. When his parents lost their wealth and their lands to the invasion of the Tatar hordes, they moved from the province to the town of Rostov, about 135 miles northwest of Moscow. With misfortune following closely at their heels, Rostov was soon taken by Ivan Danilovich, Grand Duke of Moscow. Its residents were forced to surrender their estates. In exchange they “received wounds and humiliation,” and were sent forth as beggars. Cyril again uprooted his family, this time settling 90 miles closer to Moscow in the town of Radonezh, whence our saint received his toponymic. Upon his parents’ death, Bartholomew joined the Monastery of the Theotokos at Khotkov which his brother, Stefan, had also entered. Bartholomew convinced Stefan to seek a harsher rule with him. Both set out for the forest, where they sought a true wilderness. When they came upon a wasteland, they settled down, finding satisfaction in accepting that which God bestowed on them. Their daily lives were dedicated first to the construction of a small hut, and then to a chapel. Upon its completion, Bartholomew asked Stefan to decide in whose honor the chapel would be named. Remembering the prophesy and the miracle in the womb, Stefan wondered at the question. He declared that the chapel must be dedicated to the Holy Trinity, as Bartholomew himself was forechosen to be dedicated to the Trinity in his life. After this work was completed and the chapel was dedicated by a priest, Stefan returned to community life in the monastery and left his brother to his wilderness hermitage. After a time, Bartholomew desired to take monastic vows. He invited an abbot to stay with him for a time, and to give him tonsure. On October 7th, the feast of Saints Sergius and Bacchus in the Byzantine Calendar, he received tonsure and was given the name Sergius. After the abbot left, Sergey lived off the land in obscurity. However, he was not entirely alone in the wilderness: he was often visited by wildlife, most famously befriending a bear. The bear did not come to harm him, but to wait for its share of bread. When even this was scarce, St. Sergey would leave his slice for the bear and go hungry himself. The entry gate to the modern-day monastery complex, built on the site of this first chapel, is decorated with a fresco of St. Sergey and the bear. It represents his supernatural mastery of the earthly world, as well as his generosity and hospitality to all who enter in. At other times, demons would visit the monk in animal form, in order to disturb his peace and disrupt his holy life. The medieval hagiography does not pretend to know how many years St. Sergey lived there alone, but after some years, his reputation became known. Monks from other monasteries sought him out and petitioned to endure the ascetic life with him. While he took the monks on as his brothers, he explained that he would not be their abbot, as the root of all evil lies in pride of rank and such ambitions. They all became monks living under the rule of the abbot who had tonsured St. Sergey. When that abbot died, however, the monks besought St. Sergey to be made a priest and abbot. He eventually gave in, though he had desired to live out his life as a regular 31 SAINTS monk among the brethren. St. Sergey established a rule of cenobitic life for the monks—a rule which is still in use today. Thereby, he is recognized by some as an Eastern St. Benedict, the father of monasticism. As the fame of St. Sergey and his monastery grew, so did the number of his monks. A lay community likewise grew around the compound. The monks no longer relied entirely on the land for their sustenance, as the town (posad) growing up alongside the monastery began to provide for some of their needs. St. Sergey led this monastery in humility and obedience until the natural end of his days at the age of 78. He served as a witness to the Holy Trinity in word and in deed. Through the enduring fame of his still-extant Sergius-Trinity Lavra monastery complex at Sergiev-Posad—one of the largest in Russia—this witness continues today. Although renamed Zagorsk after a Bolshevik revolutionary by the secularizing Soviet government in 1930, and invaded by the Germans in 1941, the monastery was protected from destruction. The complex contains a graveyard, which features figures prominent in Russian history, such as Boris Godunov. It also houses architectural and artistic treasures, such as pristine Naryshkin Baroque architecture of the refectory, Muscovite-Pskovian style belltowers, and Andrei Rublev’s original icon of the Trinity. All this led to the complex being named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Lavra is also the Orthodox equivalent of the Vatican—their Patriarch has had his main residence there since the late 17th century. Pilgrims largely come to reverence the relics of St. Sergey of Radonezh, and to ask him for healing. They come to collect or bathe in the waters of a miraculous spring, which is said to have appeared within the walls of the monastery during the Polish Siege. By tradition, pilgrims bottle this water to bring home. It is consumed every morning during the Lenten Great Fast in order to help purify spirit, mind, and body in the way of the monks and St. Sergey. Although Catholics and Orthodox share many martyrs, St. Sergey is one of the rare Russian Orthodox confessors who lived entirely after the schism, and 32 The Angelus u November - December 2021 is recognized and honored as a Saint in both traditions.* As such, St. Sergey could be a powerful advocate for healing and unity in the apostolic churches. The holy apostle Bartholomew received the gift of martyrdom some 1,200 years before the birth of St. Sergey in 1314—or 1319, or 1322—but is still intimately connected with the medieval account of the life of St. Sergey (given, in brief, above.) The apostle was martyred in the “Persian way”—that is, flayed alive and beheaded—as retribution for converting Polymius, then King of Armenia, by the King’s successor and brother, Astyages. As such, St. Bartholomew is classically depicted wearing his skin draped over his body, or shedding the skin of his earthly life and entering Heaven. By the Middle Ages, St. Bartholomew became connected with manuscripts—themselves being made of flayed and dried skin. Christened Bartholomew (or Varfolomey), St. Sergey was converted to a life of quiet obedience by a miraculous encounter which rendered him literate. Through our weaknesses, may we, too, be quietly converted evermore to Christ. St. Bartholomew is surely pleased by his namesake. While St. Sergius was born into the Russian Orthodox Church *nearly three centuries after the schism between Rome and Constantinople, he was among 21 Russian saints approved by Pope Pius XII in 1940 for liturgical veneration in the Russian Greek Catholic Church. This decision is consistent with the increasingly prevalent view that the Great Schism did not occur, or at least did not occur in full, in 1054 but rather took centuries to fully manifest itself. Sources Burke, Tony. “Martyrdom of Bartholomew (Armenian).” • e-Clavis: Christian Apocrypha. Accessed 03 October 2021. https://www.nasscal.com/e-clavis-christian-apocrypha/martyrdom-of-bartholomew-armenian/. Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra. “Life and Iconic Sites of • The St. Sergius Radonezh.” Retrieved October 03, 2021. https:// artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/life-and-iconic-sites-ofst-sergius-radonezh/QQ JRZ-Nj. S. (2006). “Original Skin: Flaying, Reading, and Think• Kay, ing in the Legend of Saint Bartholomew and Other Works.” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. 36 (1): 35–74. communication, January, 2015 tour of the grounds of • Personal Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, Sergiev-Posad, Moscow Oblast, • Russian Federation. UNESCO World Heritage Centre. “Architectural Ensemble of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra in Sergiev-Posad.” Retrieved October 3, 2021. https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/657/. Serge A., ed. Medieval Russia’s Epics, Chronicles, • Zenkovsky, and Tales. Revised & enlarged edition. New York: Meridian, 1974. SAINTS The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius is the most important Russian monastery and the spiritual center of the Russian Orthodox Church. The monastery is situated in the town of Sergiyev Posad, about 44 mi to the north-east from Moscow by the road leading to Yaroslavl, and currently is home to over 300 monks. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Soviet government closed the Lavra in 1920. Its buildings were assigned to different civic institutions or declared museums. Part was used for training electrical engineers specializing in radio. In May 1923, Charles Ashleigh reported how the hall was used to demonstrate the new radio technology before a mixed audience primarily composed of peasants and soldiers, but with some townspeople. The broadcast started with an announcement followed by music with a band from the Moscow cavalry playing Stenka Razin. Then the audience were treated to a short lecture on the benefits of chemical manure and machine plows. After a gypsy song the performance was brought to a conclusion with a talk about the wonders of radio. In 1930, monastery bells, including the Tsar-Bell of 65 tons, were destroyed. Pavel Florensky and his followers prevented the authorities from stealing and selling the sacristy collection, but overall many valuables were lost or transferred to other collections. In 1945, following Joseph Stalin’s temporary tolerance of the church during World War II, the Lavra was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. On April 16, 1946, divine service was renewed at the Assumption Cathedral. The Lavra continued as the seat of the Moscow Patriarchate until 1983, when the patriarch was allowed to settle at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow. After that, the monastery continued as a prime center of religious education. Important restoration works were conducted in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1993, the Trinity Lavra was inscribed on the UN World Heritage List. 33 COMMENTARY How Much Do You Pray at Mass? Michael Warren Davis H ow much do you pray at Mass? It’s an odd question. If you’re like me, your first answer is: “Well, the whole time! That’s the point, isn’t it?” Then your conscience starts to gnaw at you. You remember how much time you spend thinking about what you’re going to have for breakfast, or how sweet that baby is, or how well Father Jones chants, or how badly Father Smith chants, or how that man should iron his trousers…. Then, every five minutes or so, we might snap back to attention. We’ve been following along in the missal with our eyes—seeing, but not reading. Of course, the most important thing is that we do snap back to attention. Distraction in prayer is inevitable. That’s not an excuse, but it can help us guard against discouragement. I’m sure you’ve heard the story of St. Bernard of Clairvaux who challenged a farmer to say 34 The Angelus u November - December 2021 one Paternoster without getting distracted. If so, Bernard would give him his mule. The farmer agreed, and so began: “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy… Wait, does that include the saddle?” No doubt I’m preaching to the choir, but this is one of the reasons I’m so grateful for the Latin Mass. Growing up as a Protestant in the Catholic school system, I didn’t even know the Old Mass existed until I became friends with a traditional Catholic in college. I have to admit: at first, I hated it. Even if I spoke Latin, the priest was talking so quietly that I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Half the people were reading from a brick of text—something that looked like the Book of Common Prayer we used in the Episcopal Church, only much thicker. Others were fingering rosary beads. An alarming number COMMENTARY were wrestling with small children. What was the point? Looking back years later I realize: They were praying. Why couldn’t I see that? Because I had been brainwashed by the Cult of Participation. I would have insisted that, since I was there, I should be given some role to play. No, it wasn’t all about me. But it was partially about me. Wasn’t it? Of course, it is, in the sense that Our Lord died on the Cross for me (and for you). But I never stopped to think that the Mass could get along perfectly well if I wasn’t there. In fact, it could get along perfectly well if nobody was there. Christ doesn’t need an audience to change the bread and wine into His body and blood. There’s nothing I can do to make the Holy Sacrifice any better or worse. It is complete. It is sufficient. It is perfect. So, what are we there to do? To be fed on the Body and Blood, yes. But we don’t have to be physically present at Mass in order to do that (although, of course, we should). The reason we attend Mass is to pray. That’s what strikes me as so mortally dangerous about the Cult of Participation. For many of us, we can spend so much time fretting about whether or not we’re “participating” that we forget to pray. This is also one of the great paradoxes of the post-conciliar Church, which has often come under the power of that Cult, often without realizing it. We’re told that Vatican II was intended to make it easier for folks to “participate” in the Mass. And no doubt some of the Council Fathers meant this literally. They took the Modernist view that the Holy Sacrifice is somehow incomplete without the involvement of the laity. (Last year, the website of the German Bishops’ Conference said that private Masses do not “fit with contemporary ideas of the Eucharist” because the priest alone cannot provide “representation of the community.”) But no doubt others felt the liturgical changes would assist the laity in their prayer. Like me, they noticed how many laymen appeared to have no interest in what the priest was saying. They might not have used the word “participation”; they might have preferred engagement. They wanted to make it easier for us to engage in the Mass. These bishops meant well, but they were wrong. And while we would like to give them the benefit of the doubt, they should have known. Those who championed the error tended to be academic theologians from Europe. Meanwhile, Vatican II’s most vocal critic was a gentleman called Marcel Lefebvre. When he arrived at the Council, Archbishop Lefebvre was already known as the most effective missionary in Africa. He might have known a thing or two about the laity’s prayer habits. Of course, His Excellency was ignored. But so were many of the great Catholic minds of our age, who cautioned against this attempt to make the liturgy more rigid and impose a one-size-fits-all prayer life on the laity. Yes: one of the great casualties of the post-conciliar era is the sheer variety, the glorious diversity, of Catholic spiritualities. The great Vincent McNabb, O.P., anticipated this new comformism as early as 1951. That was the year he published “Prayer—How Easy It Is.” It’s a beautiful essay. Fr. McNabb writes, Thank God, when we go into a church where there are numbers of poor people, we see real prayer. There is old Bridget in the corner, asthmatical and can’t hear; others are following the ritual in Latin or Greek; some are saying the Rosary; others looking at the candlesticks; a mother is looking after her baby,—perhaps she is praying best of all. He goes on to warn against those who would assert that their way is the best, the proper, the only way of worshiping God. Here’s where it becomes a little eerie: Probably the best way [to follow Mass] is the way that humbled us most. If we preened ourselves that nobody else was following Mass as well as we were, that would be the worst way for us. There is that difficulty about the modern liturgical movement. It might become a sort of stunt. The Liturgy for me is a land flowering with milk and honey; but I must not despise 35 COMMENTARY someone who is saying the Rosary. That may be far more prayer. For God’s sake let us never criticize anyone who is praying. The Pharisee did that, and he was a most loathsome person. Fr. McNabb saw very clearly that this “modern liturgical movement” was nothing more than spiritual snobbery. That’s why it’s difficult to ignore the Pharisaical spirit that runs through Vatican II. Curiously enough, the renowned Catholic novelist Evelyn Waugh made the same exact point during the Council. He, too, perceived the movement for “reform” as an attack on the spirituality of ordinary Catholics. In November of 1962—less than a month after Vatican II was convened—Waugh wrote in The Spectator that those who desired to impose a single standard for “full participation by the laity” could not possibly understand how most Catholic laymen operate. 36 The Angelus u November - December 2021 He observed that, “The time we spend in church—little enough—is what we set aside for renewing in our various ways our neglected contact with God”: Some of us are following the missal, turning the pages adroitly to introits and extra collects, silently speaking all that the liturgists would like us to utter aloud and in unison. Some are saying the rosary. Some are wrestling with refractory children. Some are rapt in prayer. Some are thinking of all manner of irrelevant things until intermittently called together by the bell. Would that we could all spend the Mass rapt in ecstasies, as did St. John of the Cross. Would that we could all at least keep our eyes fixed in front of us. But we can’t. “It is not how it should be,” said Waugh, “but it is, I think, how it has always been for the majority of us and the Church in wisdom and charity has COMMENTARY always taken care of the second-rate.” Hear, hear. You have to chuckle when Waugh talks about “silently speaking all that the liturgists would like us to utter aloud and in unison.” To think that, in the autumn of 1962, the worst traditional Catholics had to fear was being forced to read out of the Missale Romanum! We know now, of course, that the reformists had a great deal more in mind. As Fr. McNabb and Waugh both noted, the Old Mass made allowances for a great variety of prayers. We have the missal, but also our rosary beads. If we can’t focus on either of those, we might try mental prayer. The parents soothing fussy babies are given graces simply by being present. And even if our minds should wander, they will wander to the altar candles, or to the priest’s ornate chasuble, or to the mural of Christ the King over the altar, or to the marble statues of Our Lady and St. Joseph. Otherwise, we may turn over the beads in our fingers, or take a whiff of incense, or simply listen to the chant. Our eyes will wander, yes. But at the Latin Mass they wander from God, to God. That’s one of the glories of Catholic tradition. There’s always some anchor for our senses; we may drift from our prayers, but we can’t drift far. Really, we must try very hard to completely draw our minds away from heavenly things. The same is obviously not true with the Novus Ordo. Anyone who has attended the New Mass will know the anxiety of trying to keep time with the rest of the congregation during the responses. Is my voice too high? Is it too low? I can’t be worse than Debbie. Why do they let her cantor? What’s with that banner on the wall? What’s it supposed to be? Is that the Holy Spirit? It looks like someone spilled mayonnaise. And who’s that meant to be a statue of? It’s either St. Anne or one of the Wise Men, I can’t tell. Oh gosh, the psalm. What was the response again? If you hear his voice today... No! If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. If you hear... No, no! If today you hear his voice... “The Lord be with you.” And also with… I mean, And with your spirit. Time for the Gospel. Hal-le-LU-jah... Oh, we’re doing the A-A-A LE-E LU-U-U YA-A-A one. Right. A-A-A LE-E-E... Peace be with you. Peace be with you. God’s peace. Hello, Debbie, peace be with you. Peace be with you. “The Body of Christ.” Hi, Bob. Didn’t know you were a Eucharistic Minister. You washed your hands, didn’t you? Yes, amen. Thanks. See you later. Great, my favorite hymn. “Rejoice, and be glad!/ Blessed are you; holy are you!” Remember when hymns used to be about God? I wonder why they stopped that. Whew! Now that Mass is over maybe I can get a quick prayer in. Or maybe not. I guess we’re all going to stand in the aisle and chat, then? Good. Let’s make sure we all shout, so we can hear each other over the organ. Of course, we shouldn’t think this way. But we will. Perhaps not all of us, and perhaps not all the time. But it’s inevitable. Some would argue that this is not in keeping with the true spirit of Vatican II. They would point out that Latin is still supposed to be the normative language. They would observe that Gregorian chant is still meant to be the standard for church music. They would explain that Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion are only supposed to be used in emergencies. And that would all be true. Yet even before Vatican II was convened, it was clear to men like Fr. McNabb that the point of this “modern liturgical movement” was not to foster a deeper sense of prayer. It was to encourage “participation.” More precisely, it was to ensure that laymen had only one way of following the Mass, which was to “participate” as the reformers saw fit. That is the Spirit of Vatican II, at least so far as the liturgy goes. The use of the vernacular instead of Latin, tone-deaf cantors, Extraordinary Ministers in Bermuda shorts and golf shirts... All of these naturally follow from the reformers’ ideals. After all, why shouldn’t we take a break during the consecration for a meet-and-greet? 37 COMMENTARY Why shouldn’t we sing hymns about how lovely and virtuous we all are? And why should we say prayers of thanksgiving after Mass when we just spent the last 45 minutes talking to God? Why not see if Cheryl’s managed to house-train her new Pomeranian yet? At some point, we’ll have to accept that the drive for lay “participation” was a failure. It has not succeeded in making the average Catholic more prayerful. On the contrary: it has prevented us from “renewing in our various ways our neglected contact with God,” as Waugh so beautifully put it. So, what do we do with this knowledge? It would be easy to slip into triumphalism, to congratulate ourselves for attending the Latin Mass, and be done with it. We could easily forget those God-fearing, Christ-loving Christians who grew up in the Novus Ordo. Few of them know about the Latin Mass and reject it. Most simply don’t know anything beyond female altar boys and “Blessed are you; holy are you!” But, really, it’s no virtue of ours. It’s a gift. And so we should be grateful, unutterably 38 The Angelus u November - December 2021 grateful, that God has put the Latin Mass in our lives. It’s not just the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass—blessed, approved, ratified, reasonable, and acceptable. It’s also the near occasion of prayer. 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STK# 3000 $4.95 NEW Requiem Booklet www.angeluspress.org | 1-800-966-7337 Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music. 39 The term Labours of the Months refers to cycles in Medieval and early Renaissance art depicting in twelve scenes the rural activities that commonly took place in the months of the year. They are often linked to the signs of the Zodiac, and are seen as humankind’s response to God’s ordering of the Universe. Examples are found in Très Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry, the most famous and possibly the best surviving example of manuscript illumination in the late phase of the International Gothic style. It is a book of hours: a collection of prayers to be said at the canonical hours. 40 The Angelus u November - December 2021 March January 41 BOOK REVIEW Book Reviews Theology of Home: Finding the Eternal in the Everyday Reviewed by Benjamin Bielinski C arrie Gress and Noelle Mering, in this well-intentioned work, attempt to weave a synthesis of Catholic home life, homemaking, and Catholic Culture. Unfortunately, the authors fall short of the task, relying too much on superficial stories and images which fail to convey what it means to be Catholic in a three-dimensional sense. Credit should be given to both for recommending classically pious practices such as consecrating the home to Christ the King, the Sacred and Immaculate hearts, and blessing it with Epiphany Chalk, but these are only a starting point for developing not just a Catholic home, but a Catholic family. The authors are right that “[h]ome is a source of grace and conversions for all.” Where the book falls short is exploring that theme with requisite depth. There are several nods about finding the eternal in the everyday items and tasks before us, but the text simply does not go far enough in directing readers toward that end. For instance, there is a great deal said about incorporating beauty into the home, but beauty alone is not enough. Aesthetics take up too much space in this text, which gives the impression that beauty and the sacred are always synonymous. A well-decorated home, even one decorated with sacred art, is not necessarily a home where holiness thrives. A statue of the Virgin Mary only draws us closer to holiness if we are willing to connect with what it points to, namely our Blessed Mother and the example of devotion she set for all Christians. While the authors do not ignore this entirely, they also do not provide a strong roadmap for how home design can lead to an authentic conversion of the heart. The risk in placing too much emphasis on 42 The Angelus u November - December 2021 beauty is that it naturalizes what should be supernatural. It also leads to a problematic misunderstanding that creating a home that “looks Catholic” in and of itself produces good Catholics. Obviously, this is not what the authors intended to do with their book, but is a common enough misunderstanding that ought to have been addressed better. Moreover, although the book claims to be a “theology of home,” there is a noticeable lack of theological sophistication throughout. And so instead of delivering an intellectually rigorous account of the home in all of its aspects, specifically the sacred, what is presented instead is a handbook for giving the appearance of a Catholic home, whether it truly is or not. Those interested in reading Theology of Home should pay attention to these shortcomings and not fall into the trap of thinking this book provides the whole picture. Perhaps supplementing it with more classical works that focus on Catholic family life is the best route to go. One can hope, of course, that the authors may revisit their work in the future and add the necessary details which, in this edition at least, are sorely missing. BOOK REVIEW Around the Year with the Von Trapp Family Reviewed by Lisa Lamarra A book well worth owning is Around the Year with the von Trapp Family by Maria Augusta von Trapp. First published in 1955, Sophia Institute Press gave us a lovely hardback reprint in 2019. Often before I start a book, I try to find out a little about the author, which helps me read through his or her voice. Maria was raised in Vienna, Austria, losing her mother at two, and her next caretaker at nine. Her third custodian formed her to be atheist but fortunately for us, she discovered the Truth of the Church for herself while attending the State Teacher’s College. After graduation, she entered a Benedictine Abbey intending to become a nun. Apparently, God intended her elsewhere. She ended up married a few years later to widower Baron Georg von Trapp with his seven children to mother. The von Trapps had three more children in the ensuing years. Also fortunately for all of us, the Baron had befriended a musical priest, Father Franz Wasner, who subsequently directed the von Trapp Family Singers in concerts all over Europe and on to the safety of the United States, escaping the suffocating Nazi culture in 1939. It seems that every part of Maria’s life helped her to see the necessity of centering the all-important family life around the liturgical calendar of Holy Mother Church. The greatest thing this book does is to bring out the joy of living fully in the arms of the Church. Maria shows us how to celebrate life with God, within the context of family, interweaving each liturgical season with our daily activities. Her writing style is very accessible: she gives a bit of historical background to the various Masses, processions, and feast-days, tells stories of some notable Saints, and gives meaning to the Sacraments. She offers her opinions on subjects dealing with both the secularisation and modern inventions affecting our world. The book provides many doable activities for all ages, including recipes, games, songs, parent-led discussions, and suggested reading, all geared toward keeping one’s family, church, and community focused on and appre- ciative of the spiritual life. Nearly all customs come from Maria’s homeland. Of these she says: “Still our Austrian ones are an expression of a deeply held Catholic feeling, and they have grown out of times and from people who found it natural to carry over their beliefs into the forms of everyday life.” Maria has given me a myriad of ideas. Some activities are not practical or possible for my family, such as walking to church, using real candles on the Christmas tree, or having our farm horses blessed in the Spring. I can adapt them, though, by walking my neighborhood with the family while praying a rosary, making other ornaments for the Christmas tree, or having our new car blessed. Other activities are probably ones families already have in their traditions: counting down the days to Christmas with an Advent calendar, covering crucifixes and statuary with violet cloth during Passiontide, and visiting the sick on Sunday. Other ideas are new to me: implanting into our children our European culture of music and literature little by little, devoting part of Saturday to going over the readings for Sunday, and learning folk songs and dances from various cultures. What I take from Maria is the idea that sanctifying our daily lives is paramount. It has made me realize the tremendous importance of the family, which is the domestic church that helps us to consecrate every moment of our lives in gratitude to God. I highly recommend this book for every Catholic family bookshelf. 43 THEOLOGICAL STUDIES 44 The Angelus u November - December 2021 THEOLOGICAL STUDIES “A High Priest Forever” Pauper Peregrinus P riesthood, like marriage, goes all the way back to the beginning (Mk. 10:6). Most theologians have supposed that even had human beings remained unfallen, they would still have been obliged to offer sacrifices of adoration and thanksgiving to God. Sacrifice is a matter of natural law, St. Thomas Aquinas tells us. But priesthood and sacrifice go together, as much as a painter and a painting. You can’t have one without the other. Doubtless, our first father was intended to be high priest of creation, just as he was to be its king. Perhaps he retained both offices even after the Fall. Yet Scripture nowhere speaks of Adam as offering sacrifice. He was to prefigure mankind in need of redemption: it would have been confusing if the Bible had presented him also as a prefigurement of the Redeemer. Instead, it is his first two sons, Abel and Cain, who are first found sacrificing. The sacrifice of Cain, who offered only “fruits of the earth”—and not necessarily first-fruits, either—was rejected. Abel had the faith to perceive that without blood there is no remission of sin (Heb. 9:22); he thus merited to become the first martyr-priest, and he continues to be remembered at the altar whenever a Catholic priest recites the Roman canon. How were priests designated, in the most ancient times? St. Jerome and others tell us that until the giving of the Law to Moses, it was generally the first-born son of each family who had the right to offer sacrifice to God. In that simple manner was verified in those days the principle later recalled by St. Paul, that no man takes the honor of the priesthood to himself (Heb. 5:4). Nobody can decide to be a first-born son. But God was also foreshadowing the day when another first-born Son would become a priest. It was to those patriarchal times, before the call of Moses, that the mysterious Melchisedech belonged. Who was he? St. Ephraim the Syrian, a doctor of the Church, thinks that he was Shem, the son of Noah, and that it 45 THEOLOGICAL STUDIES was he whom Rebecca went to consult when she was suffering in her pregnancy from the twins who tussled inside her (Gen. 25:21). The fact that Abraham himself did him homage shows that Melchisedech was greater than all the Jewish high-priests to come. This is one reason why our Lord would later be called a priest of the order of Melchisedech. When He gave the Law to Moses, God made a change in the priesthood. No longer would it be all the first-born sons who would have the right and duty of offering sacrifice, but only the male descendants of Aaron, Moses’s brother. This was perhaps partly a punishment for the affair of the golden calf, where Aaron’s tribe were more faithful than the others. But it was also done in order that, in due time, Christ’s priesthood would appear in all its newness. For He was not a descendant of Aaron, nor did He even come from Aaron’s tribe. “When the fullness of time was come,” writes St. Paul, “God sent his Son, made of a woman,” made a priest. At what moment did this unique priestly ordination occur? At the incarnation itself. Although theologians discuss the finer details, all of them agree that the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, by taking to Himself a human nature, became our Priest. Yet it is as man, rather than as God, that Jesus is a priest. A priest is by definition a kind of mediator between two parties. In His divine nature, Christ is perfectly equal to the Father, not a mediator and intercessor with Him. It is in His human nature that He was “anointed” with the Holy Spirit: filled with all the graces and virtues by which He would offer Himself as a ransom for many. When, I wonder, did the disciples first begin to think of their Master in this way? During His public ministry, He showed Himself, rather, as teacher, exorcist, and thaumaturge. He deferred to the existing hierarchy, sending lepers to have their cures verified by the Jewish priests, as the Law required. He speaks divinely excoriating words against scribes and Pharisees, but we never find Him rebuke a priest as such, not even Caiaphas, who declared Him worthy of death. Perhaps it was not until the Last Supper, when “He took 46 The Angelus u November - December 2021 bread into His holy and venerable hands” that the minds of the apostles were enlightened to see that their Master was also the priest foretold in the book of Psalms (Ps. 109:4). Our Lord offered the first Mass on that occasion, and ordained the Twelve as His ministers. After all, He could hardly be a highpriest, as St. Paul insists He is, unless there were other, lesser priests beneath Him. Christ also foresaw, as He consecrated the Bread and the Chalice for the first time, all the sacrifices that His ministers would offer until the end of the world. He willed that whenever a duly ordained priest pronounced the sacred words, the substance of the bread and wine would be converted into the substance of His body and blood. In His humility and magnanimity, He willed this even while foreseeing that some of His ministers would use their power unworthily. There was so much to think about on that great and terrible night, that the apostles could hardly have realized that they had just witnessed the change from the old to the new priesthood. And which of them, next day, was able to see that the Crucifixion, though the act of greatest injustice on the part of those who perpetrated it, was, on His side, the supreme priestly act, reconciling heaven and earth, and gaining all the graces that would be bestowed on mankind through the sacrifices and sacraments of the Church? Perhaps St. John, at least, perceived something of this, remaining as he did by the side of our Lady. But it must have been after the resurrection, during those forty days when He was speaking of the kingdom of God (Acts 1:3), that Christ explained to the apostles how they were to do what He had done in the cenacle, and become dispensers of the mysteries of God (I Cor. 4:1), the sacraments of grace. Nor is the liturgy of the Church exhausted by the Mass and the sacraments. It contains also the hours of the divine office, which whether sung in choir, in Gregorian or Byzantine or Coptic chant, or recited sotto voce by a cleric in his private chapel, or even if need be in a bus or train, form part of the Church’s public prayer. In the first century, Pope St. Clement I reminded the Corinthians that the liturgy is not a human invention, but goes back to THEOLOGICAL STUDIES Christ Himself: “He commanded us to celebrate sacrifices and services, and that it should not be done thoughtlessly or disorderly, but at fixed times and hours” (First Letter of St. Clement, 40). Now that our Saviour has ascended, He is still acting as high-priest. It was fitting, says St. Paul, that we should have a high priest separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens (Heb. 7:26). It was fitting, because what He obtains for us by His priesthood is holiness and eternal life. Yet though He is separated from us sinners, as glory is from mortality, He is not distant from us. A priest who says Mass, or forgives sins, or anoints a sick or dying man, is not simply acting in virtue of the mandate which Christ gave to the apostles long ago. Christ acts through him here-and-now, using him as an instrument, just as the painter uses his brush. “When you see the priest make the offering,” St. John Chrysostom told his flock in Constantinople, “do not think about the man who does this, but see instead the hand of Christ invisibly stretched forth” (Homily 83 on St. Matthew). More than this, Jesus is always living to make intercession for us (Heb. 7:34). He expresses to His Father the holy desire of His soul for our salvation. It is an unimaginable prayer, as the life of heaven must be for us wayfarers. The five sacred Wounds that He retained after the resurrection are the outward signs of its eloquence and power. It is in virtue of this prayer that our own prayers to the Father can be acceptable, and, especially, that the liturgy of the Church possesses its hidden power to turn back the advance of evil on the earth. The Mass and the sacraments will come to an end one day, when Christ returns. Yet He will be a high-priest forever, and through Him the blessed will perpetually offer their sacrifice of praise, adoration and thanksgiving. As St. Augustine put it: “There we shall rest and see, see and love, love and praise. This is what shall be in the end without end.” Pauper Peregrinus is a priest ordained after the year 2000, with a degree in sacred theology. Thought for the Day By Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre “WHAT WILL THIS NEW YEAR BE FOR US? God only knows, but by our desire for sanctification we can turn for help to Our Lord’s will to save our soul and all souls. How consoling it is to think that our everyday life can be transformed into numerous graces of sanctification and Redemption! So it was throughout the life of Our Lord and of the Virgin Mary.” —Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (January 3rd Feast of St. Genevieve) This little collection of quotes, taken from the sermons and writings of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, assigns a short reading to every day of the year. It is a beautiful and simple way to practice daily recollection and elevate the mind to God. This new collection of the Archbishop’s words helps to develop the daily habits that can shape our eternal destiny. “With the shepherds, we will go to that little Child, and despite His frail appearance we will believe in His divinity, confronting all those who, on the contrary, think of doing away with the Child as soon as He is born. Herod is already sending his troops to kill all the infant boys less than two years old, hoping that this future King will be among those children. Madman! He is opposing the One who comes to save him.” —Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (December 28th Feast of the Holy Innocents) 191 pp. Softcover. STK# 8796. $12.95 47 ARCHBISHOP LEFEBVRE The Liturgy: W e have examined the professions of faith of the Church, the attitude of the Church’s enemies towards our Lord and the manifestations of His divinity. Now let’s look at the place that our Lord holds in the liturgy and in the life of the Church. It is in the liturgy that the Church expresses most perfectly what she thinks of our Lord Jesus Christ and what she asks us to contemplate in His Person. It would be wrong to think of the liturgy as just a beautiful page of history that is recounted to us throughout the year. To consider the liturgy under this aspect alone would be to misunderstand it. The liturgy is not just a reminder of the events of the life of our Lord, of His actions and His teaching; it is above all a life. By means of the liturgy, our Lord communicates to us not only the Faith, but also sanctification. He communicates to us His grace, sanctifying grace. For the Church, it is clear that the central point of the salutary action that communicates grace to us is the holy sacrifice of the Mass. In order to help us participate more fully in the Mass, the Church has set it amidst a cycle of feasts and reminders of the life of our Lord and the lives of the saints. Each event of the life of our Lord brings a particular grace. Unfortunately, left to ourselves we are unable to understand the depth and magnitude of the mystery of our Lord. That is why the ARCHBISHOP LEFEBVRE Jesus Christ Communicated Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre Church, like a wise mother, adapts it to our level. She distributes the graces of the liturgy throughout the year marked by the feasts of our Lord, and especially by the two great cycles of the liturgical year, Christmas and Easter. This is what Fr. Pius Parsch in Guide to the Liturgical Year expresses: What should we expect of the liturgical year? Divine life, and life in abundance. The divine life planted in our soul by the sacrament of Baptism must develop during the ecclesiastical year, and tend to its perfection by means of liturgical prayer. The liturgy is like a precious ring whose diamond is the Eucharist and the eucharistic Sacrifice, and whose setting is formed by the feasts and the ecclesiastical seasons. The journey through the liturgical year is like an excursion in the mountains. There are two peaks to climb: the first summit which is the mountain of Christmas, and the dominant peak which is the mountain of Easter. In both cases there is an ascent, the time of preparation: Advent before Christmas, Lent before Easter; and a walk along the ridge from one peak to another, from Christmas till Epiphany, and from Easter to Pentecost. This image given us by Fr. Parsch helps us to understand better what the liturgical year is: Consequently, we have two cycles of feasts to travel through. In both, the object of their particular considerations is the kingdom of God in the soul and in the Church. Twice a year we seek the kingdom of God, we find it, and we build it. In the ecclesiastical year, the Church teaches us. It is a school of the Faith. Throughout the course of the liturgical year, the truths of the Faith, one by one, are presented and recalled to us. The liturgical year is a zealous educator; it desires not only to communicate to us the truths of the Faith, but it wants to make us better and bring us up for heaven. Every day of the liturgical year the same appeal is addressed to our hearts: “Take off the old man and put on the new.” This is what Dom Gaspard Lefebvre also reminds us. It must be remembered that from the beginning of the century, a considerable effort was made to enable the faithful to better understand the liturgy. And the faithful were very interested. The Liturgical Year by Dom Guéranger, for example, was extraordinarily successful. It used to be that one could easily find people who assisted at Mass with a book of The Liturgical Year in hand. Or at least many people had it in their library, and loved to prepare themselves for the Mass by reading from its pages. If we really desire to penetrate the mystery of our Lord, to know Him truly, to love Him as we ought to love Him, to cleave to Him and to receive His graces, it is absolutely necessary to know, study, and appreciate the liturgy. This is certainly a great means of sanctification: Public worship, rites, sacraments, official prayers, feast days and liturgical seasons are all means which the Church uses to unite us 51 ARCHBISHOP LEFEBVRE to Christ and to transform our souls unto His own likeness. Each year from Advent to Pentecost, she has us celebrate the principal events of the life of the Savior, not as a mere reminder.... The liturgy is not just a reminder of the events of the life of Which is the opinion of the Protestants. For them, the liturgy (if indeed the liturgy our Lord, of His actions and His can be modified by the adjective Protestant) teaching; it is above all a life. By is only a reminder, a history that is narrated about the life of our Lord. It lacks the vital means of the liturgy, our Lord significance it has for Catholics, and it is not the source of life and sanctification which is communicates to us not only capital for all Catholics. Our Lord desired that His life, the life of grace, be transmitthe Faith, but also sanctificated by means of the sacraments and by the tion. He communicates to us liturgy: ....but to renew us by the application of His grace, sanctifying grace. the particular graces that He brings us at each celebration. The vital communication of the mysteries of Christ imbues our souls with an authentic Christian life intimately tied to the life of the Church. The meaning and the spirit of these liturgical celebrations is impressed upon us by the Church herself. One has only to let oneself be guided by her in order to reach the heart of the Christian mystery and to profit fully from its supernatural efficacy. Dom Marmion says the same in an admirable way: Guided by the Holy Spirit, Who is the Spirit of Jesus Himself, the Church unfolds every year before the eyes of her children, from Christmas to the Ascension, the complete cycle of the mysteries of Christ, sometimes greatly condensed, sometimes in their strict chronological order, as during Holy Week and Eastertide. She thus makes us relive, by a very animated and lively representation, each of the mysteries of her Divine Spouse; she makes us retrace each of the stages of His life. If we allow ourselves to be conducted by her, infallibly we shall end by knowing the mysteries of Jesus and especially we shall penetrate the sentiments of His divine heart. (Christ in His Mysteries, p.22; French ed.). It is in fact because the mysteries of Christ, Dom Marmion says, are not just scenes to look upon and examples to imitate; they are also sources of graces. There is thus a special grace attached to each 52 The Angelus u November - December 2021 ARCHBISHOP LEFEBVRE mystery of our Lord in the liturgy: spiritual rebirth (Christmas), death to sin (the Passion), freedom of soul and living for God (Easter), life in heaven by faith (the Ascension): By following Christ Jesus in all His mysteries in this way, by uniting ourselves to Him, little by little yet surely, and each time more intensely, we shall participate in His divinity, in His divine life. According to the beautiful sentence of St. Augustine: “What came to pass before in a divine reality, is renewed spiritually in pious souls by the repeated celebration of these mysteries”1 (Op. cit., pp. 26-27). — Extract from, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, The Mystery of Jesus. (Saint Marys: Angelus Press, 2000), chapter 7. Endnote: 1 “Quod semel factum in rebus veritas indicat, hoc saepius celebrandum in cordibus piis solemnitas renovat” (Sermo 220, in vigil. Paschae II). The Mystery of Jesus Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre In these twenty-nine meditations inspired by Sacred Scripture, spiritual theology, and the fruit of his own years of contemplation and experience, Archbishop Lefebvre speaks about the life of Christ, His mind and will, the love He had for His Father, and His thirst for souls. How can Christ be a pattern for us? Why is it good for us that Jesus Christ is both divine and human? How can His heart be our heart? What was Christ’s mission and what does it have to do with ours? Excerpts: Cloaking the Divinity with Humanity “We must constantly remind ourselves that this humanity cloaks the divinity, and that it is a miracle that Our Lord was not always as radiant as He appeared on Mount Thabor during the Transfiguration. Normally, He should have been radiant and have had a glorious body...but in order to suffer for us, Our Lord wanted to wed our mortal condition such as it is, capable of suffering and death...” Why Are Mysteries Essential “The mysteries of the Faith are necessary. There must be mysteries. It would be abnormal if there were no mysteries for us, because that would mean we have nothing more to learn from God, and that our little knowledge would be equal to that of God, which is utterly impossible because the divine knowledge, like God Himself, is infinite, whereas ours is finite, limited.” Understanding the Person of Jesus “How then can we understand this Person who possessed the Beatific Vision and, at the same time, lived as we do? Those who encountered Our Lord in Palestine saw Him as just another traveler, as any other companion for the journey, as any other dinner guest: the simplicity of the discussions and the conversations reported in the Gospels are the best proof of this. The human soul enjoyed the Beatific Vision, but in fact the Person was God Himself, with all the power and infinitude of God. These are extraordinary realities ... this is exactly what God wants us to realize.” 176 pp. Softcover. STK# 5046. $13.95 53 Meditations on St. John’s Gospel Chapter Eight Pater Inutilis SCRIPTURAL STUDIES O ur Lord’s verbal confrontation with the Jews of Jerusalem, begun in Ch. 7, continues, and, we might say, becomes more acrimonious. While our Savior has come not to judge but indeed to save (3:17; 12:47), there are those who are “already judged” (3:18) because refusing to believe and not coming to the light (3:18-20) that is Christ (8:12; 12:46). His interlocutors are of their number. This verbal opposition would turn more physical and violent by chapter’s end—“They took up stones therefore to cast at him” (vs. 59)—but in vain, “because his hour was not yet come” (vs. 20). St. John takes this phraseology from Jesus, as we saw back in chapter two (2:4)—it does refer to His passion and death, as explained back then. So, for now, He will elude them: “Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple” (vs. 59). This passage of the gospel begins though with the narrative of Our Lord and the woman caught in adultery. St. John sees this as very to the point, when there is a question of Jesus as Savior or Judge. The Jews, as we have just seen in chapter 7, want to kill Jesus (7:20 & 25). This is now very much out in the open, and Christ will openly accuse and rebuke them for it: “You seek to kill me” (vs. 37 & 40); such murderous thoughts make them worthy sons of the devil who “was a murderer from the beginning” (vs. 44). Before killing Him, they want to gain popular approval, or at least acquiescence, before the deed. They jump, therefore, on the opportunity just provided by catching a woman “even now taken in adultery’’ (vs. 4). How will Jesus “Master” (vs. 4) judge such a sinner? He has been drawing to Himself and winning the hearts of “publicans and sinners” (Matt. 9:10; 11:19; etc.) unto having the hated Samaritans (cf. vs. 48) call Him “the Savior of the world” (4:42). He is a lamb, “the Lamb of God... who taketh away the sin of the world” (1:29). But the Law of Moses is very clear: such a sinner must be stoned (vs. 5). Will Jesus be untrue to Himself and forget His meekness, and show Himself as judge after all and not savior, and so disillusion His followers, or will He go against the law and offend all God-fearing Jews? Our Lord surprises them: He ignores them. He just writes in the sand. They insist. “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her’’ (vs. 7). This does not mean that those only who are in the state of grace can judge. Even a Pontius Pilate was given power from above over Him (19:11). And He just writes again. These “whitened sepulchers” may have recognized their own wickedness, or Jesus may have been writing their sins (thus St. Jerome), but they do not insist, and leave. No one, for now, is 55 SCRIPTURAL STUDIES condemning her; neither Jesus. His second coming will be as Judge (5:22-30; Mt. 25:4146). His first is as Savior. Our Savior is our Redeemer: He will set us free (vs. 32, 36). Free from sin, which is a slavery (vs. 34)—for one is not consulting one’s own good, but the will of another, an adversary: “You are of your father, the devil, and the desires of your father you will do” (vs. 44). Free to walk not in darkness, but in the light (vs. 12); free from eternal death (vs. 51f). Jesus Himself is sinless—which the Jews cannot deny: “Which of you shall convince me of sin?” (vs. 46). He requires of His disciples this spirit of renouncing sin: “Go, and now sin no more” (vs. 11). His opponents, though, walk in darkness (cf. vs. 12), they are blind (ch. 9); and so, they are of those who are “already judged.” “You are not of God” (vs. 47); “You shall die in your sin(s)” (vs. 21 & 24). Terrible words from One Whose “testimony is true” (vs. 14) and Who is judge (vs. 26). It is not easy for our meek Savior, Who is “from above” (vs. 23), to preach “heavenly things” (3:12) to those blinded by self-interest and already determined to kill Him. And yet He wants them to accept Him, and as the Son of God. St. John Chrysostom points out all Our Lord’s endeavors not to offend the Jews’ susceptibilities while trying to get them to realize that, though there be only one God, He is not One in Person. Jesus is repeatedly extolling the greatness of His Father and His owing everything to Him. Jesus is but the “one sent” by the Father (vs. 16, 18, 26, 29, 42) Who can speak only what He has from His Father (vs. 26, 28, 38, 40); He honors His Father (vs. 49) and always does what is pleasing to Him (vs. 29). He condescends to their understanding that the testimony and judgment of one are insufficient, but “the testimony of two men is true” (vs. 17). [Of course, were He alone in giving testimony, it is true (vs. 14), or alone in judging, it would be true (vs. 16).] But He is not alone—there are He and the Father (vs. 18). The Father’s testimony is by way of miracles and prophecies having been fulfilled, as we saw in 5:36-39. Yes, our Lord is repeating Himself, but still “they understood not that 56 The Angelus u November - December 2021 He called1 God his Father” (vs. 27). Odd, because they had understood that at Jesus’ previous visit to Jerusalem:2 they are now more obtuse. This is a normal fruit of ill will. And yet it is time that they know with Whom they are dealing, and so, when asked directly “Who art thou? Jesus said to them: The beginning, who also speak unto you” (vs. 25). Indeed, He is “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end” (Apoc. 1:8; 21:6; 22:13).3 He does not answer as clearly on other occasions because of the same ill will—an ill will which justifies Christ’s calling them “liars” (vs. 55), and so, on this head too, sons of the devil (vs. 44); but “His hour” is nearing. He will make Himself more clear. The discussion moves on to His preeminence over Abraham and it is such that “before Abraham was made, I am” (vs. 58).4 The “He Who is,” Yahweh, was the divine name par excellence (Ex. 3:14), too holy to be pronounced. Now they understand. Now they react: “They took up stones therefore to cast at him” (vs. 59). But though His hour be nearing, it is not yet the hour of the power of darkness (Lk. 22:53). From Jesus Christ, let us learn not only the spirit of meekness, of a charity that tries all to touch even the hardest of hearts, that loves its enemies, but also the fundamental principle of a Christian life: “I do always the things that please him,” my Father (vs. 29). Pater Inutilis is a priest of the Society of Saint Pius X. Endnotes: 1 He calls God His Father by claiming that He and the Father are two giving testament, equally. 2 5:18 3 This is a divine title – Is. 41:4; 44:6; 48:12 -which Christ’s hearers miss. 4 This is already insinuated in vs. 27: “quia ego sum.” QUESTIONS & ANSWERS Fr. Juan Carlos Iscara, SSPX Is there historical evidence that the early Christians prayed to Our Lady? There is a bit of a problem when we talk of the “early Church” or the “early Christians.” The beginning of such historical period is clear, the foundation of the Church, Pentecost—but when does that period end? For answering the present question, to be on the safer side, we will restrict ourselves to the evidence for the devotion to Our Lady in the relatively obscure 2nd and 3rd centuries, up to the formal magisterial acknowledgment of the divine maternity in the council of Ephesus, in 431. In Scripture, Mary appears veiled in the Old Testament prophecies, coming into full light in the first chapters of St. Luke’s Gospel; then, she drifts back into relative obscurity during Christ’s ministry, and reappears into full light in the Apocalypse. This pattern of highlights and obscurities was somehow repeated in the development of Marian doctrine and devotion during the first centuries of the Church. The first Christians preached one God, incarnate in Christ, both creator and redeemer, in opposition to the multiplicity of pagan gods. At the early stages of this preaching, to have emphasized the person of the Virgin-Mother could have created confusion, unfortunate comparisons, or syncretism with pagan myths. But, on the other hand, Mary’s humanity and maternity had to be emphasized, so as to stress the reality of the Incarnation, of Christ as Man-God, especially against 57 those early heresies which denied the reality of Christ’s humanity. Therefore, the Fathers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries only progressively stressed the exceptionality of Mary, her holiness, the extraordinary privileges granted by God to carry out her unique and universal mission at the side of her Son. They made clear that their Marian doctrine was not superfluous, or a theological opinion, but necessary to preserve the integrity of the faith, as Mary is intimately united to the mystery of the union of divine and human natures in Christ. Thus, in the very first professions of faith, the confession of Christ was inseparably united to a confession of the exceptionality of Mary. The first great theologian, St. Irenaeus of Lyon († 202), in developing a parallel between Eve and Mary, stressed this exceptionality. Mary has cooperated in the work of our salvation; she “has become the cause of salvation for herself and the entire human race.” As she is “the pure womb that regenerates men unto God,” she has become “Eve’s advocate” before Christ. These themes where developed even more by Origen, in the mid-3rd century, not only addressing Mary as “Mother of God,” but, on the basis of her being the “new Eve,” also addressed her as “Mother of the faithful.” Being doubly sanctified by a double consecration (the descent of the Holy Ghost in her soul and of the Son in her womb), she has become an active channel of the Holy Ghost for the sanctification of men. As the theological understanding of the role of Mary in the economy of salvation developed in these centuries, so did Marian piety in correspondence with it, prompting the recourse to her intercession. The first evidence of this piety of the faithful is to be found in the decoration and the inscriptions of Christian tombs. The most important and ancient are from the Roman catacomb (Priscilla, Agnes, Coemeterium majus), from the 3rd and 4th centuries, representing the Virgin with Child, or the adoration of the Magi, with a man standing behind 58 The Angelus u November - December 2021 the Virgin and pointing to a star, or even the Annunciation. These are straightforward, “literal” representations of evangelical passages and of the Mother and Child, directly pointing to the mystery of the Incarnation, as the images assert what heresy denied, both the reality of the human nature of Christ, and the divine maternity of Mary. Thus, these images were not objects of veneration, but a sign of recognition, a profession of faith and hope and an invitation to visitors to pray for those buried there. Around the time when these images began to be painted in the Roman catacombs, that is, by mid-2nd century, a pilgrim came to the City, Abercius, bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia Salutaris (a big name for a very small town in what is now Turkey). Being an old man, on returning from his long journey he prepared his tomb, with an inscription that is now in the Lateran Museum. This inscription gives testimony, mostly in veiled terms, not only to the spread of Christianity, to the preeminence of the Roman See, to Baptism and the Eucharist, but it also mentions Our Lady: Faith everywhere led me forward, and everywhere provided as my food a Fish of exceeding great size, and perfect, which a holy Virgin drew with her hands from a fountain and this faith ever gives to its friends to eat, it having wine of great virtue, and giving it mingled with bread. The mention of the “Fish” is an acronym for Iēsous Christos, Theou Yios, Sōtēr, “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior,” as St. Augustine explains (De Civ. Dei, XVIII:23), and the Virgin is the one who has brought Christ to us. From almost a century later, we have a fragment of Egyptian papyrus, in Greek, now in John Rylands Library, Manchester, UK. It is dated from c. 250-280, a period of increasingly violent and methodical persecutions (Valerian, Decius, building up to Diocletian). It contains a version of a prayer we still use, the Sub tuum praesidium: Under your mercy we take refuge, O Mother of God! Our prayers do not despise in QUESTIONS & ANSWERS our necessities, but from the danger deliver us, only pure, only blessed. It expresses the faith of the Church regarding Our Lady, in simple, succinct way. She is the Mother of God, the Theotokos, “God-bearer,” Deipara, Dei Genetrix, “birth-giver of God.” She has an unheard-of power of intercession—without giving her yet the title, she is acknowledged as the Mediatrix of all graces. Finally, She is the “only blessed,” especially chosen by God, and She is the “only pure,” perpetually Virgin. By the end of the 4th century, in the Eastern Roman empire, the first recorded liturgical feast in honor of Our Lady was observed on the day after Christmas. By the 4th and 5th centuries, the different liturgical prayers in use in the East piled up, in oriental fashion, the terms of praise of Mary and invoked her intercession. For example, in the Antiochene Liturgy of the Twelve Apostles: Let us make the memorial of the all-holy, immaculate, highly glorious, blessed Lady, Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary by whose prayers and supplications may we be preserved from evil and may mercy be upon us in either world. Finally, on June 22, 431, the ecumenical council assembled in Ephesus solemnly declared: “If anyone does not confess that Emmanuel is God in truth, and therefore that the holy Virgin is the Mother of God (for she bore in a fleshly way the Word of God become flesh), let him be anathema.” The devotion of the people to Our Lady was such that, when this sentence was known through the city, spontaneously a joyous multitude gathered around St. Mary’s Church, where the Council was held, and accompanied the conciliar Fathers back home, in procession, with lighted torches. Until Ephesus the theological discourse on Mary was closely bound with the expression of Christological truths, but after Ephesus attention focused on Mary herself, and a triumphal veneration of the Theotokos spread like wildfire, in arts, liturgy and popular devotions. Is there historical evidence that the early Christians rendered cult to the Saints and venerated their relics? “Cult” is the public manifestation of honor rendered to the memory of a Saint by the community of the faithful, and ratified by the ecclesiastical authority. From the very early times of the Church, the bodies of martyrs were recuperated by pious faithful, sometimes at the risk of their own lives, and honorably buried. Even their bloodied clothing was reverently collected and preserved. Thus, the Proconsular Acts of the martyrdom of St. Cyprian relate that the faithful of Carthage spread linens before him, to collect the blood to be shed in his beheading. The martyrs were the first to become the object of the veneration of the local Church, because martyrdom is the highest expression of faith and the most intimate communion in the mystery of Christ. They were solemnly remembered on the anniversaries of their deaths, which Christians regarded as their dies natalis, the day of their birth to Heaven. This periodical commemoration and praise was invariably associated with the celebration of the Eucharistic sacrifice, as witnessed in the 3rd century by the Apostolic Constitutions. It was joyful Eucharist for the triumph of Christ in one of the members of His Mystical Body. The eagerness of Christians to honor and commemorate the martyrs is clearly seen in the relation of the martyrdom of St. Polycarp of Smyrna († 155): We took up his bones, as being more precious than the most exquisite jewels, and more purified than gold, and deposited them in a fitting place, whither, being gathered together, as opportunity is allowed us, with joy and rejoicing, the Lord shall grant us to 59 celebrate the anniversary of his martyrdom, both in memory of those who have already finished their course, and for the exercising and preparation of those yet to walk in their steps (Martyrium Polycarpi, 18). The same narration clearly states the nature of the cult that is rendered to the martyr: Christ, indeed, as being the Son of God, we adore; but the martyrs, as disciples and followers of the Lord, we worthily love on account of their extraordinary affection towards their own King and Master, of whom may we also be made companions and fellow disciples! (Martyrium Polycarpi, 17). The special veneration for the martyrs also manifests itself in the burial inscriptions. Ancient Christian inscriptions abound in prayer formulas for the deceased, asking God’s favor for them—Requiescat in pace, Vivat in Christo, “Rest in peace,” “May he live in Christ.” But as martyrdom had opened the gates of Heaven for them, prayers addressed directly to the martyrs arose spontaneously from the conscience of the Christian people, asking them to intercede for us. Thus, for example, under the basilica of St. Sebastian in Rome, dating from around the year 260, is found an inscription: Paule et Petre, petite pro Victore, “Peter and Paul, pray for Victor.” In the catacomb of Praetextatus, another asks for the intercession of the deceased before God: Succurrite cum judicabitis, “Help us when you come before the judge.” And in the church of S. Sabina, from around the year 300: “Atticus, sleep in peace, secure in your safety, and pray anxiously for our sins.” St. Augustine clearly set out the distinction between these two forms of prayer. If we remember the martyrs, taking our places at the Lord’s table, it is not in order to pray for them, as for the other deceased who rest in peace. It is rather so that they pray for us, and that we follow in their footsteps. For they have fulfilled that love which the Lord said cannot be greater. They offered to their brethren that which they received at the Lord’s table. 60 The Angelus u November - December 2021 Besides prayer asking for their intercession, the cult of the saints was also manifested by the veneration of their remains and of their images, a veneration that soon acquired a liturgical character. Although writing centuries later, St. Thomas Aquinas expresses the rationale for the practice of the Church in this respect since the earliest times: He who has a certain affection for anyone, venerates whatever of his is left after his death, not only his body and the parts thereof, but even external things, such as his clothes, and such like. Now it is manifest that we should show honor to the saints of God, as being members of Christ, the children and friends of God, and our intercessors. Wherefore in memory of them we ought to honor any relics of theirs in a fitting manner: principally their bodies, which were temples, and organs of the Holy Ghost dwelling and operating in them, and are destined to be likened to the body of Christ by the glory of the Resurrection. Hence God Himself fittingly honors such relics by working miracles at their presence (Summa Theologiae, III, q. 25, a.6). In the early Church, the catacombs were above all the burial places of the martyrs. Contrary to legend, if Christians in Rome gathered in the catacombs to celebrate the Eucharist, it was less to hide, as the catacombs being very public places, than to be near the tombs of the martyrs. The faithful were eager, and even competitive, to be buried ad martyres, ad sanctos, “close to the martyrs, to the saints.” As St. Paulinus of Nola explained, when deciding to bury his son Celsus close to the martyrs of Complutum, he wished to do it “so that by the closeness to the blood of martyrs, he may draw the virtue that purifies our souls as fire.” In the circumstances, the tombs themselves became the altars. From this first liturgy, almost dictated by the layout of the catacombs, arose the idea that there could be no real celebration without the protective presence of the body or, at least, of some remains of a martyr. According to the Liber Pontificalis, Pope St. Felix I († 274) transformed the custom into an QUESTIONS & ANSWERS obligation. At the end of the 4th century, St. Ambrose of Milan respectfully deposited the martyrs’ bodies under the altar: Let triumphant victims take their place where Christ offers Himself as victim. On the altar, He who suffered for all and, below, those whom He redeemed by His passion. The 5th Council of Carthage, in 401, formalized this practice, making it compulsory to provide any altar with relics, even going so far as to order the destruction of altars that were not thus provided. Since that date, there can be no question of consecrating an altar without having placed relics there. The solemn translation of the remains of the saints will become part of the liturgy of the dedication of the churches, even to this day. Unfortunately, misguided popular piety risked turning the cult of relics into superstition. In the 4th century, Vigilantius, a Toulouse priest, even condemned it as idolatry. But then St. Jerome († 420) wrote a scathing letter, Contra Vigilantium, in which he explained that we render honor to the relics of the martyrs in order to adore the One of whom they were martyrs. All the Fathers of the Church supported with their authority and enlightened with their science such an estimable veneration. In the East, St. John Chrysostom († 407) made himself its inspired cantor: Do you want to taste inexpressible delights? Come to the tomb of the martyrs, bow humbly before their sacred bones, devoutly kiss the reliquary that contains them, read the combats they have sustained, the edifying features of their faith and their courage […] and you will feel the effects of their powerful intercession with God (Homily I on the Martyrs). Early Christian piety also honored the images of the saints: paintings in cemeteries, mosaics in the basilicas. These representations were not originally an object of veneration, but part of a decorative setting of glory and an instructive reminder of the virtues to be practiced. It was the East that developed a theology of the icon, after upholding the legitimacy of its veneration against iconoclastic emperors. The Best of Questions and Answers The best questions and the best answers of 40 years of The Angelus. This will be a family’s heirloom reference book for everyday Catholic living to match the Catholic Faith we believe and the Latin Mass we attend. Over 300 answers classified under 30 subtitles. 344 pp.–Hardcover–STK# 8343✱–$25.55 • • • • • • • • • Marriage, Parenting, Family Life and Child Rearing Science and Medical Matters Life After Death Church Practices and Customs The Papacy and the Church Teachings The Bible and Biblical Matters The Trinity, Jesus Christ, The Virgin Mary, Angels, and Saints The Mass and the Liturgy The SSPX and the Crisis 61 coming soon! CO MI SOO NG N 2022 Liturgical Daily Planner — Standard Edition This popular journal takes the liturgical elements of our best-selling Calendar and offers these as a highly functional, attractive, and traditional Catholic Daily Planner. It clearly indicates the feast or saint of the day, the class of the feast, the vestment color, fast and abstinence days, as well as Holy Days of Obligation according to the 1962 Roman Missal. Includes: Space for day-to-day journal entries Monthly notes ● Monthly to-dos ● Popular saints of the month with illustrations and short biographies ● Monthly virtues worksheet ● Goals checklist ● Full year calendars, full month calendars ● Names and addresses ● Pages for additional notes and sketches ● ● The main bulk of St. Louis de Montfort’s excellent treatise, Letter to the Friends of the Cross, is found in this volume. 244 pp. 5.8" x 8.5". Hard board cover. Full color illustrations. Twin loop wire binding. STK# 8804 $15.95 62 www.angeluspress.org | 1-800-966-7337 Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music. 2022 LITURGICAL PLANNERS CO MI SOO NG N 2022 Liturgical Daily Planner — Professional Edition In this product, the liturgical elements of our best-selling Calendar are presented as a highly functional, professionally-bound traditional Catholic Daily Planner. It clearly indicates the feast or saint of the day, the class of the feast, the vestment color, fast and abstinence days, as well as Holy Days of Obligation according to the 1962 Roman Missal. Includes: Space for day-to-day journal entries Monthly notes ● Monthly to-dos ● Monthly virtues worksheet ● Goals checklist ● Full year calendars, full month calendars ● Names and addresses ● Pages for additional notes and sketches ● ● This professionally-bound Liturgical Daily Planner is a must-have for those Catholics who like to have something physical in which to schedule their day, week, month and year. The main bulk of St. Louis de Montfort’s excellent treatise, Letter to the Friends of the Cross, is found in this volume. 210 pp. 7.6" x 9.75". Navy leatherette cover, gold-embossed. Sewn binding. Ribbon. STK# 8803 $29.95 www.angeluspress.org | 1-800-966-7337 Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music. 63 The ngelus Support the Cause of Uncompromised Traditional Catholic Media For over three decades, The Angelus has stood for Catholic truth, goodness, and beauty against a world gone mad. Our goal has always been the same: to show the glories of the Catholic Faith and to bear witness to the constant teaching of the Church in the midst of the modern crisis in which we find ourselves. 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Then they had an idea: they got some verses of the first chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke, and they put them together. Then they went to their mother to show her the new prayer they had found. “What is it?” she asked. “Look, we found these verses and made a new prayer. It goes like this: ‘Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb!’ What do you think, Mom?” Well, Mom forbade them to read that chapter again. But the Word of God is Life. That little boy became a priest, and his sister founded a congregation of sisters in their true home, the Catholic Church. 450 years ago, Ali Pasha led one of the greatest fleets ever seen on a mission to conquer Christendom. Don Juan of Austria led a Christian fleet to certain doom off the shores of Turkey. St. Pius V bade Christendom to pray the Rosary. To mark the victory, the Feast of the Most Holy Rosary was instituted. What is the meaning of all this? It is that Catholics must ever keep in mind that in the battle against the forces of evil, they have a weapon which is stronger than the strongest evil. Many good Catholics forget this. They are fundamentally mistaken. They see that the powers of evil make use of weapons that are strong, and they think to themselves: “Why can’t we use the same weapons?” They see propaganda of the enemies of God: engineered street manifestations, manipulative advertising, young and beautiful spokespeople, pithy slogans and they say “Why can’t we do the same? After all, the truth is more powerful than lies!” Are human means bad? Not necessarily, but in God’s fight, they are no good on their own. We have a weapon that is more powerful than all others put together. It is prayer. “Seek first the Kingdom of God and Its Justice” applies to prayer. If you preach, manifest, and do all sorts of good works, but you do not pray, they are almost no good. 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