“Instaurare omnia in Christo” The Eucharist A Pledge of Eternal Life The Sweet Guest The Eucharist Among the Orthodox November - December 2014 Continuing our issues on the sacraments, with this issue we come to the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. It is a daring feat to pretend to fathom the depth of this most sacred, most mysterious, and certainly most miraculous of all sacraments. In this presentation we have attempted to address some aspects and facets of this complex mystery. However thorough it might be, we needed to leave aside the aspect of the Eucharist as a sacrifice, which needs its own space to be addressed properly. Picture: The Ghent Altarpiece (also called The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb or The Lamb of God—Dutch: Het Lam Gods), a very large and complex 15th-century Early Flemish polyptych panel painting. The altarpiece is composed of 12 panels, 8 of which are hinged shutters. The lower register of the central panel shows the adoration of the Lamb of God, with several groups in attendance or streaming in to worship, overseen by the dove of the Holy Spirit. Letter from the Publisher Those who had the privilege of knowing Archbishop Lefebvre intimately knew that our dear founder never took the Mass and Holy Communion for a mere routine ritual which both priest and faithful went through day after day. He prepared his Mass with a proper meditation, he lived his Mass with the utmost devotion, and this intimacy with the Lord marked the rest of his day. His emphasis on the sacred mysteries was reflected in his love for the age-old rite and his deep hatred for anything aimed at diminishing it. Explaining the spirit of the Society of Saint Pius X, Archbishop Lefebvre would stress the central place of the Eucharist in the Church and in our lives: “The Church knows how to present and make us live the mysteries of Christ in a truly divine manner, in a way that our hearts are captivated and our souls uplifted. In the liturgy all has been thought out with the love of a faithful spouse and a merciful mother. We find edification in the holy places, the ceremonies, the chant, the choice of prayers from the Missal, the Breviary, the Pontifical and the Ritual. How could a soul that lives by faith and seeks to model its faith upon that of the Church seek to desecrate all this?” The love for the altar and Communion is the reason the Society of Saint Pius X establishes chapels worthy of the Divine Guest and worthy of the holy sacraments which take place there. Sanctity, cleanliness, beauty, and art should surround the sacred mysteries in sculpture and architecture, in liturgy and music, so that the souls are almost forced to soar towards God. “Nothing is too little, nothing insignificant in the service of such a Lord and King. Let us always remember this! It is a powerful means of apostolate. If the liturgy is, above all, the praise of the Holy Trinity, offering and sacrifice, a source of divine life, then it is also the most vibrant and effective means of catechizing. Happy the faithful who have a priest who is in love with the liturgy of the Church!” (Archbishop Lefebvre). In Christo, Father Jürgen Wegner Publisher November - December 2014 Volume XXXVII, Number 6 Publisher Fr. Jürgen Wegner Editor-in-Chief Mr. James Vogel Managing Editor Fr. Dominique Bourmaud Copy Editor Miss Anne Stinnett Design and Layout credo.creatie (Eindhoven, The Netherlands) Mr. Simon Townshend Director of Operations Mr. Brent Klaske Director of Marketing Mr. Jason Fabaz U.S. Foreign Countries Subscription Rates 1 year 2 years 3 years $45.00 $85.00 $120.00 $65.00 $125.00 $180.00 (inc. Canada and Mexico) All payments must be in U.S. funds only. Online subscriptions: $20.00/year. To subscribe visit: www.angelusonline.org. Register for free to access back issues 14 months and older. All subscribers to the print version of the magazine have full access to the online version. Contents Letter from the Publisher 4 Theme: The Eucharist ––Lauda Sion Salvatorem ––Preparation for Communion ––The Eucharist Among the Orthodox ––Fioretti of the Blessed Sacrament ––A Pledge of Eternal Life 6 12 16 20 22 Faith and Morals ––Doctrine: The Sweet Guest ––Liturgy: Origin and Rites of Corpus Christi ––Social Doctrine: Eucharistic Adoration ––The Carol of a Scrooge ––Lives of the Saints: The Real Presence 28 33 37 40 42 Spirituality ––Spirituality: Incarnation and Communion in Mary ––The Parish Vicar 45 48 “Instaurare omnia in Christo” 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. ©2014 by Angelus Press. Official Publication of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X for the United States and Canada Christian Culture ––Education: Eucharistic Congress at La Salette Academy ––History: The Tapestry of the Apocalypse ––Family Life: The Holy Eucharist and Your Family ––Questions and Answers 52 56 61 64 News from Tradition – Church and World – Theological Studies – Letters to the Editor – The Last Word 68 75 84 87 Theme The Eucharist Lauda Sion Salvatorem St. Thomas Aquinas’s Eucharistic Sequence by Fr. Paul Robinson, SSPX 1 The literal meaning of the Latin word sequentia is a following on. Most people think of St. Thomas Aquinas as a theologian, not as a poet. And rightly so, for while there are over 3000 articles in the Summa, there are only a handful of poems to his name. But what beautiful creations they are! There is not a traditional Catholic who has not memorized some part of his hymns, all of which treat of the Blessed Sacrament. The part of his poems that is well known, however, is always their end. Few realize that what they are singing at Benediction is actually a few stanzas of a much larger composition. The Tantum Ergo is the conclusion of the Pange Lingua, the O Salutaris of the Verbum Supernum, the Panis Angelicus of Sacris Solemniis, and the Ecce Panis Angelorum of the Lauda Sion. The latter is the longest of these four great Eucharistic paeans and the sequence for the Mass of Corpus Christ. It is the subject of our article. Sequences “Sequence” is the name given to the series of notes which originally followed on the last syllable of the Alleluia verse in the Mass.1 In the 6 The Angelus November - December 2014 2 While this third theme is the primary focus of the Adoro Te Devote, it just gets a passing mention in the Lauda Sion (stanzas 12 and 13). beginning, the sequence was purely musical, but later its notes were set to a text. At first the music was conjoined to a passage of prose, but liturgists later rewrote the text as poetry. Thus, over the course of the Middle Ages, an increasing textual sophistication in the liturgy kept pace with the remarkable developments taking place in music and architecture. It seems that writing sequences became hugely popular, as over 5000 of them have been uncovered by historical research. The purpose of the sequence was twofold: the expression of praise and the teaching of doctrine. St. Thomas’s Lauda Sion accomplishes both of these ends wonderfully. The Catholic Encyclopedia remarks of it: “Throughout the long poem the rhythmic flow is easy and natural, and, strange to say, especially so in the most didactic of the stanzas, despite a scrupulous theological accuracy in both thought and phrase. The saint ‘writes with the full panoply under his singing-robes’; but always the melody is perfect, the condensation of phrase is of crystalline clearness, the unction is abundant and, in the closing stanzas, of compelling sweetness.” This sequence belongs to what is called their second epoch, when sequences had developed to such a degree in their artistic form—uniformity of rhythm, purity of rhyme, and strict regularity of structure—that they were scarcely distinguishable from hymns. At the same time, they still retained more freedom than the latter. Hymns have a single melody for each stanza or strophe, while sequences have a different melody for each pair of stanzas. In this way, two sides of the alternating choir sing each melody once. This freedom shows, albeit in a small way, in the structure of the strophes in the Lauda Sion. In each of the strophes, the first verses all have eight syllables, while the last one has seven. Yet there are two exceptions. The following passage exhibits the normal pattern of 8-8-7 in the fifth stanza, and an irregular syllable count of 10-10-7 in the sixth one: 8 Sit laus plena, sit sonóra, 8 Sit jucúnda, sit decóra 7 Mentis jubilátio Let the praise be loud and high: Sweet and tranquil be the joy Felt today in every breast. 10 Dies enim solémnis ágitur, 10 In qua mensæ prima recólitur 7 Hujus institútio. On this festival divine Which records the origin Of the glorious Eucharist. The avid reader is invited to hunt through the remaining 22 stanzas for the other irregular one! A Didactic Poem St. Thomas’s Eucharistic poetry tends to focus on three themes: 1. the Eucharist as sacrifice replacing the sacrifices of the Old Law; 2. the way in which Our Lord is present in the sacrament; 3. the need for faith to believe in what the senses do not reveal.2 The Lauda Sion is no exception in this regard; the subject matter of its 24 strophes may be arranged as follows: 7 Theme The Eucharist 3 1- 6: 7-10: 11-14: 15: 16: 17-18: 19-20: 21-22: Theologians generally make a distinction between the Eucharist as sacrifice and as sacrament. The former refers to the Eucharist as an offering to God at Mass and the latter to the Eucharist as nourishment of the faithful in Holy Communion. 23-24: An invitation to the praise of the Eucharist The Eucharist as sacrifice of the New Law3 Our Lord is present sacramentally through transubstantiation Our Lord is wholly present in each part of the species Our Lord is received identically by all communicants But with different effects: life for the good but death for the wicked Dividing the species does not divide Our Lord Recapitulation—Our Lord is the sacrifice and sacrament of the New Law Closing prayer to Our Eucharistic Lord. As the sequence is far too lengthy for the scope of this article, let us only consider in detail its most famous stanzas, the twenty-first and second: 8 8 8 7 Ecce panis Angelórum, Factus cibus viatórum: Vere panis fíliórum, Non mittendus cánibus. Behold the Bread of Angels, For us pilgrims food, and token Of the promise by Christ spoken, Children’s meat, to dogs denied. 8 8 8 7 In figúris præsignátur, Cum Isaac immolátur: Agnus paschæ deputátur Datur manna pátribus. Shewn in Isaac’s dedication, In the manna’s preparation: In the Paschal immolation, In old types pre-signified. The alert reader will note that these strophes are longer than the ones previously quoted. St. Thomas, in fact, is following a happy practice of Adam of St. Victor, whose poems grew as they reached their end, as if the poet’s enthusiasm for the theme could no longer be limited to three lines per stanza. Thus, stanzas 19-22 have four verses, while 23-24 have five. “Behold the Bread of Angels!” says St. Thomas, the same expression that he uses in the “Panis Angelicus,” and which comes from the 25th verse of Psalm 77, referring to manna. But how, we may ask, could the Eucharist be angelic food when the angels do not receive Holy Communion? We will let St. Thomas himself answer: “The receiving of Christ under this sacrament is ordained to the enjoyment of heaven, as to its end, in the same way as the angels enjoy it.… Consequently, man is said to eat the “bread of angels,” because it belongs to the angels to do so firstly and principally, since they enjoy Him in His proper species; and secondly it belongs to men, who receive Christ under this sacrament” (III, q. 80, a. 2, ad 1). Thus, the angels, as it were, partake of Christ in the Beatific Vision as their daily bread, and He becomes our daily bread in the Eucharist so that one day we may taste Him eternally in Heaven with the angels. Truly a thought to be put into song! It might seem strange that St. Thomas advises that the Eucharist not be cast to dogs, but it is in fact an important point. Many theologians of his day held that Our Lord would withdraw His presence from the Host were it to touch the lips of a sinner, be consumed by an animal, fall into a sewer, etc. While the practical consequences of this position would be not to worry if 8 The Angelus November - December 2014 the Host were defiled, it was the theological consequences that immediately concerned St. Thomas. It was important for him to maintain that Our Lord was present in the manner of a substance, a truth that was foundational for his entire treatise on the Eucharist and the doctrine of transubstantiation. To say that Our Lord comes and goes mystically, therefore, and not according to the laws of a substance, “detracts from the truth of the sacrament” (III, q. 80, a. 3, ad 3). The following strophe presents to us three key Old Testament figures of the Blessed Sacrament. The first is Isaac, who was to be sacrificed by the command of the Father; the second is the manna, which nourished the Israelites in the desert; and the third is the paschal lamb, which was both immolated and eaten. Thus, St. Thomas gives us in the stanza images of the Eucharist as sacrifice (Isaac), the Eucharist as sacrament (manna), and the Eucharist as both (paschal lamb). Suffice it to say that the rest of the sequence is as rich as these two stanzas. Studying the whole of the piece on one’s own along with the rest of St. Thomas’s Eucharistic hymns can only be a source of spiritual profit. Conclusion While St. Thomas’s theology masterfully ranged across the entire spectrum of supernatural truths, his song rested on one alone, the Holy Eucharist. Like a troubadour with his love, the Angelic Doctor reserved all of his verses for a single subject. It was, in fact, after completing his treatise on the Eucharist that Our Lord spoke to St. Thomas from a crucifix, saying, “Thou hast written well of me, Thomas; what reward wilt thou have?” To which he replied, “None other than Thyself, Lord.” When St. Thomas was on his deathbed, a priest came to bring Holy Communion to him one last time. Before receiving Viaticum, St. Thomas made the following profession of faith: “If in this world there be any knowledge of this sacrament stronger than that of faith, I wish now to use it in affirming that I firmly believe and know as certain that Jesus Christ, True God and True Man, Son of God and Son of the Virgin Mary, is in this Sacrament....I receive Thee, the price of my redemption, for Whose love I have watched, studied, and labored. Thee have I preached; Thee have I taught.” Indeed, St. Thomas, you preached Him, you taught Him, and yes, you sang of Him. What wonderful words of praise you have put on our lips to our Eucharistic Lord. As much as we can, so much will we endeavor with them to laud our King. Quantum potes, tantum aude. Fr. Robinson was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and entered the Seminary in Winona in 2000, two years after completing a Master’s in Computer Science Engineering. He was ordained in 2006 by Bishop Bernard Fellay and is currently a professor at Holy Cross Seminary in Goulburn, Australia. 9 Lauda Sion “Lauda Sion” is one of only five medieval Sequences which were preserved in the Missale Romanum published in 1570 following the Council of Trent (1545–63). Before Trent many feasts had their own sequences. The Gregorian melody is borrowed from the 11th-century sequence “Laetabundi iubilemus” attributed to Adam of Saint Victor. Theme The Eucharist Preparation for Communion by Fr. Thomas Scott, SSPX. Address to the Eucharistic Conference of La Salette Boys Academy. I wish to talk about the meaning of the three prayers which the priest recites right before his own Communion at Mass. Not only are they an appropriate way of preparing the celebrant to commune with the thoughts of Christ but they show also a rich theological insight into the mystery of Holy Communion. The First Prayer “O Lord Jesus Christ, Who didst say to Thy Apostles, peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: regard not my sins, but the faith of Thy Church, and vouchsafe to her that peace and unity which is agreeable to Thy will. Who livest and reignest, God, forever and ever. Amen.” Here, this prayer is addressed to Christ to grant the Church the peace He gave to His Apostles at the last Supper and in the evening of Easter Sunday: “My peace I give to you… Peace be with you.” What is the nature of this peace? It is signified by what takes place at the solemn Mass: the priest along with the deacon kisses the altar, and gives him the sign of peace saying: “Peace be with you,” to which the deacon answers: “And with Your Spirit.” The deacon then transmits it to the subdeacon, who repeats this gesture to all clerics present. What is indicated in the sign of peace is the unity among all clergy members. This peace which Our Lord wishes to grant is not the same as the world understands it. In the world, perfect peace is absent. We are constantly tossed around, perturbed by events and people and things. Man in the world is distracted from that rest which alone feeds the deepest needs of our soul. We understand peace as that which satisfies all our desires. Wherever there is desire, there is no peace. But once we have it all, we are at rest and we enjoy peace. Raised to the spiritual realm, divine peace can only be the fruit of charity, the greatest of all virtues. And pretty much as charity feeds on the two horns of the love of God and the love of neighbor, peace, likewise, consists in the twin love of God and neighbor. We enjoy truly God’s love when He becomes the sole object of our desire. “God alone!” is written in every saintly soul. The Psalm 94 indicates that our rest is found in God. In its full sense, happiness, and beatitude, consists in the possession and vision of God’s goodness. True divine peace reigns in the soul, but it comes at a price. It is given us only when we wish for God alone and His glory. It is achieved only when we have silenced the distractions and nagging of creatures: “Love the Lord Thy God above all else.” And once purified, this love of God conveys along with it the love of neighbor. True charity consists in making ours the desire of our neighbor: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This translates into: “Love one another as you would have them love you.” This altruistic love must be free like Our Savior’s love for us. We need to offer love firstly, and hope it will be reciprocated; and if not, it will be so much the more gracious and Christlike. It must be unconditional too, seeking after all the things which our neighbors desire and which we would wish to receive from them. It must be affective and effective, that is to say, in thoughts, words and deeds, sometimes demanding a wholesale sacrifice: “Better love no one has had than to give his life for those he loves.” This double love of God and neighbor is the source of true peace. “Blessed are the peacemakers” is the beatitude which crowns the virtue of charity. By contrast, the more desires we have other than God and our neighbor, the less peace will reign in our soul. The Second Prayer “O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, Who according to the will of the Father, through the cooperation of the Holy Ghost, hast by Thy death given life to the world: deliver me by this, Thy most sacred Body and Blood, from all my iniquities and from all evils; and make me always adhere to Thy commandments, and never suffer me to be separated from Thee. Who with the same God the Father and the Holy Ghost, livest and reignest, God, forever and ever. Amen.” This prayer begins with a profession of faith in Christ. It echoes that of Peter in St. Matthew XVI: “Thou art Christ, the Son of the Living One.” Theme The Eucharist (The Jews would never dare utter God’s name.) Peter was rewarded for his solemn profession of faith by Our Lord promising to give him the Papacy over His Church. The prayer mentions the cooperation, besides the Son, of God the Father and God the Holy Ghost in the work of Redemption summed up in striking words said of Christ who “hast by Thy death given life to the world.” How the Father participated in the Redemption is told us by St. Paul to the Romans: “The Father did not spare His only Son, but delivered Him for us.” God the Father preordained the work of Redemption which was to be fulfilled in His own Son. St. Thomas Aquinas adds that the heavenly Father infused in the human soul of Christ the charity to suffer for us, so that He would thus fulfill “the will of His Father.” He also was involved in the Passion of Christ by not protecting Him from His executioners, which occasioned Christ’s cry on the cross: “My God, why hast Thou forsaken me!” But the Holy Ghost was also involved in the mystery of Redemption in that He provided the matter for the sacrifice, as it is indicated in the words of the Angel Gabriel to Mary: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon Thee.” After this preamble, the prayer begs for the communicant to receive the fruit of the Redemption, by saying: “deliver me from all my iniquities and from all evils.” It continues with a double positive petition: “make me always adhere to Thy commandments, and never suffer me to be separated from Thee.” Can we truly say that Holy Communion preserves us from all sins? In as much as Communion is received by way of food and medicine by the body, it signifies the help which the Eucharistic Christ gives the soul by protecting it from decay and corruption. Or, as St. John Chrysostom puts it: “Holy Communion makes us as lions breathing for fire and terrible to the devils.” After communion, we do not reach heaven. So how does Holy Communion provide us with eternal life? This effect is only mediately, after our human existence with Christ suffering. As Christ our Head suffered on earth, so we also must suffer with Christ in order to reign one day with Him. In this sense, and only in this sense, the Holy Eucharist is a pledge of eternal life. 14 The Angelus November - December 2014 The Third Prayer “Let not the partaking of Thy Body, O Lord Jesus Christ, which I, unworthy, presume to receive, turn to my judgment and condemnation; but through Thy goodness may it be to me a safeguard and remedy both of soul and body. Who with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, livest and reignest, God, forever and ever. Amen.” The third prayer starts with an avowal: only God is worthy of God. No man, however saintly he be, is ever worthy of hosting the Living God! It asks also that “it be to me a safeguard and remedy both of soul and body.” The aspect of protection and remedy refers again to the species of food. As human food and drink restore man’s health, so also the Holy Eucharist acts as a safeguard against temptations and a remedy to our spiritual losses. One might rightly wonder how the prayer can be so bold in mentioning the body along with the soul. How can one say that Holy Communion, the spiritual food for the spiritual soul, profits also the material body? This is due to the intimate connection—they call it psychosomatic union— that joins body and soul. It is not improper to affirm that the sanity and integrity which the soul enjoys by grace will have physical repercussions upon the body too, although the negative impact may be felt more visibly in souls dispossessed of God. Likewise, hereafter, the body will share in the glory and splendor of the just soul in heaven. By contrast with the other sacraments, the Holy Eucharist acts as a sustenance and preservation of divine life within the soul. It preserves from decay and ulterior death. It urges the soul to practice all Christian virtues under the motion of charity. This practice of the highest virtues should connaturally culminate in the perfect “communion” with Our Lord: our mind one with His mind, our soul with His soul, leading to the transformation into Christ in the words of St. Paul: “I live, not I, but Christ in me.” Holy Communion is the tremendous gift of God to unworthy man, and it belongs to us to approach this divine mystery with fear, humility and hope, not unlike Moses climbing the Sinai Mountain to meet the Lord of Hosts face to face. 287 pp. – Softcover – STK# 8246 – $14.95 Jesus, Make Me Worthy Originally published in 1960. Angelus Press has reprinted this classic in stunning full color. A prayer book for young Catholics in a language so simple that every child can understand, combining much useful instruction for Communion and Confirmation with a large selection of devotions and prayers. It is truly a beautiful little book. Ideal for First Holy Communions and Confirmations, but suitable for any occasion (or no occasion). Everything a Catholic child must know about the practice of the Catholic Faith & spirituality—all packed into 287 pages. Includes tons of prayers and over 90 illustrations (over half are in full color). 156 pp. – Softcover – STK# 8239 – $12.95 Marian Children’s Missal The perfect missal for children 4-8. Originally published in 1958, Angelus Press has reprinted this excellent children’s missal in an attractive, easy-to-use book. Includes: – The Ordinary of the Mass – Readings for All Sundays and Major Feast Days – Prayers Before and After Holy Communion – Indulgenced Prayers – A Child’s Preparation for Confession – Much More! 96 pp. – Softcover – Full color – STK# 1022 – $11.95 Know Your Mass The book presents the theology of the Mass in a manner easily understood by children and yet is interesting and informative for adults as well. This excellent catechetical tool covers all parts of the Holy Mass, the altar, sacred vessels, vestments, liturgical actions, and more. Help your children know and love the Mass. www.angeluspress.org — 1-800-966-7337 Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music. Theme The Eucharist Divine Liturgy The Eucharist Among the Orthodox by Gabriel S. Sanchez, J.D. In examining the question of how the Orthodox Church understand the Eucharist, it is important for Catholics to appreciate that the Christian East has taken a less doctrinally rigorous approach to the matter than the West. While some of the Eastern Catholic churches, such as the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the Maronites, serve bridges between Eastern and Western doctrinal outlooks, it is because they, unlike the Orthodox, have had recourse to the universal Church’s full theological patrimony. As such, the Eucharistic understanding of one Eastern communion cannot simply be transferred to another without prior reflection or qualification. With that noted, it can be said without reservation that the Orthodox share with Catholics the same faith in the Real Presence: the Eucharistic elements, bread and wine, are 16 The Angelus November - December 2014 truly transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ. But Orthodoxy dogmatically affirms only the mystery of such transformation without fully adopting the Catholic Church’s understanding of how and when it happens. Transbubstantiation? First, the term transubstantiation is not commonly used, as Orthodoxy considers it external to the Church’s normal mode of expression (in this case, by having recourse to Aristotelian categories of substance and accident). Thus, the term is considered also to suffer from proposing a too scientific manner of explaining the mystery of the Eucharist. Nevertheless, when necessary—for example, to differentiate the Orthodox Faith from Protestantism—the term has been used, or its Greek equivalent, metousiosis. Although carrying far less doctrinal heft than a normal ecumenical council of the Catholic Church, the 1672 Orthodox Synod of Jerusalem had this to say about the matter: “When we use the term metousiosis, we by no means think it explains the mode by which the bread and wine are converted into the Body and Blood of Christ, for this is altogether incomprehensible…but we mean that the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of the Lord, not figuratively or symbolically, nor by any extraordinary grace attached to them… but the bread becomes verily and indeed and essentially the very true Body of the Lord, and the wine the very Blood of the Lord.” Second, the Orthodox have started to drift away from the idea of declaring when during the Divine Liturgy (the Eastern name for Mass) metousiosis occurs. While the Roman Church liturgically centers our Lord’s Words of Institution, the Orthodox, historically, have placed a far greater premium on the epiclesis, that is, the point during the canon or anaphora when the priest calls on the Holy Ghost to make the bread and wine the Body and Blood of Christ. Today, however, Orthodox Church has begun encouraging its faithful to focus less on a particular “sacramental moment” and instead understand the entire Divine Liturgy as participation in God’s Kingdom, culminating in the receiving the Eucharist. For Orthodoxy, the Eucharist is the central event of liturgical worship. All other services— Vespers, Matins, the small Hours—are not separate but constitute one all-encompassing liturgical act that leads to the Eucharistic celebration, which, in turn, is intrinsically joined to the other liturgical mysteries of the Church. As a result, we find the Eucharist given immediately after Baptism. Baptism and Chrismation (Confirmation) are conceived as fundamental requisites for the reception of the Eucharist, “as the foundations of entry into the Christian body, which has its center and head in the presence of the Lord—the very Eucharistic reality,” to use the words of the Russian Orthodox priest Irenaeus Steenberg. Eucharistic Adoration Strangely, to Western Catholic eyes at least, the Orthodox never established the practice of Eucharistic adoration, either as a private devotion of the faithful or as a paraliturgical action, such as Benediction. The reasons for this are difficult to discern. The Orthodox Divine Liturgy features powerful gestures of adoration toward the Blessed Sacrament, including bows, prostrations, and incensing. However, these devotional elements remain, by and large, tethered to their liturgical context, “escaping” only occasionally, such as the practice of priests, deacons, and acolytes prostrating themselves toward the reserved Sacrament when entering the altar area behind the inconostasis (icon screen). Still, even this practice is not universally followed throughout world Orthodoxy, and some Orthodox even go so far as to consider any adoration of the Eucharist outside of the Divine Liturgy to be a “Latinization.” To be clear, the rift between Catholic and Orthodox adoration practices is not beyond mending, and there is good reason to question how important this difference actually is. Several sui iuris Eastern Catholic churches have practiced Eucharistic Adoration for centuries. Indeed, the late Fr. Julius Grigassy’s English/ Church Slavonic prayer book, published for American Eastern Catholics during the mid-20th C., has a set rite of Supplication to the Most Holy Eucharist which occurs outside of the Divine Liturgy. Although some contemporary Eastern Catholics hold that such practices should cease on the grounds that they are not “part of their tradition,” that is a far different argument than the more polarizing rhetoric of certain Orthodox who go so far as to call Eucharistic Adoration “wafer worship.” Sadly, that is hardly the only example of Orthodoxy showing a lack of sympathetic understanding toward the West. The absence of express Eucharistic Adoration among the Orthodox does not mean the absence of adoration altogether, as can be seen in the emphasis the East places on icon veneration. For both Orthodox and Eastern Catholics following the Byzantine Rite, the icon is an integral part of the liturgical space, which is the church, and 17 Theme The Eucharist an indispensable participant in divine services. It is not primarily intended for private devotional veneration. Certainly, every Christian has the right to hang an icon at home, but, as Russian Orthodox Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev notes in his 2011 lecture, “Theology of Icon in the Orthodox Church,” the Christian has this right only insofar as his home is a continuation of the church and his life a continuation of the liturgy. As the books of the Gospel in the liturgy, the icon, itself “the Scriptures in color,” is an object not only to be contemplated, but also to be venerated with prayer. The meaning of the icon as an object of liturgical veneration was expounded in the dogmatic definition of the Seventh Ecumenical Council which resolved that “icons should be kissed and that they are an object of veneration and honor, but not of real worship, which is reserved for Him Who is the subject of our faith and is proper for the divine nature.” For Orthodoxy, icons can take on a sacramental character through their capacity and function of transmitting to man the sanctifying presence of Christ and His Saints; and also the ability of raising up towards God both ecclesial and personal prayer. However, it is crucial not to conflate a sacramental with a sacrament. To put the matter in sharper relief, icons must be understood as representations which point beyond themselves rather than actually being or becoming that which they make present. An icon of Christ is not Christ Himself whereas, in the Eucharist, Catholics and Orthodox affirm His Real Presence. Over the past 1,000 years, particular icons have been granted their own liturgical feast days with extensive hymnography composed in their honor. As reception of the Eucharist dwindled in the East, icons took on a greater sacramental role, including being seen as unique transmitters of grace independent of the official Sacraments. The Way Forward A reigniting of Orthodox theological understanding over the past two centuries has improved matters considerably, though there 18 The Angelus November - December 2014 is an argument to be made that icons have a disproportionate place in the devotional and intellectual life of the Orthodox Church. In his landmark, though not uncontroversial, work, The Forbidden Image: An Intellectual History of Iconoclasm, Alain Besançon goes so far as to accuse the Orthodox of “iconolatry” by overinflating the representational capacity of the icon itself—an unfortunate matter that has not only negative theological implications, but artistic ones as well. To quote Besançon: “[The Orthodox have] the intimate feeling that the icon truly allows us to grasp the divine image, and that, as a result, nothing else is worth the trouble of being represented, [only] God, His glory, the transfigured world, the resurrected body, the Kingdom. After that complete vision, which fulfills every expectation and elicits every prayer, what is the point of falling back into the ordinary world, what reason is there to condescend to look at inferior sights? We are touching here on the hubris of the icon, which is part of the hubris of Byzantium.” There is, of course, no hubris of the Eucharist, for in it Jesus is wholly present—Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity—under the species of bread and wine. Neither Catholics nor Orthodox have to defend the “aesthetics of the Eucharist” as part of a larger discussion over the extent of its representational qualities for in the Eucharist there is the Real Presence of Christ. While it would be unfair to claim that the Orthodox are ignorant of this reality, there is ample room to reflect on whether or not it has been obscured by hundreds of years of animus against Catholic doctrinal, spiritual, and liturgical developments. Examining that question must, however, wait for another day. Gabriel Sanchez is an attorney and independent researcher living in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with his wife and four children. 325 pp. – Softcover – Indexed – 795 footnotes – STK# 8249 – $26.95 The Mass of All Time The prayers, actions, and history of the Mass Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre A collection of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s sermons, classes, and notes on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass—its rites, spirit, prayers, theology, spirituality, and grace. Part One is a running commentary on the prayers, parts, and actions of the entire liturgy. Part Two covers the New Order of Mass and includes commentary on liturgical history, the liturgical revolution and the history of the SSPX’s defense of the old Mass. Here we see the love and depth of understanding that Marcel Lefebvre had for the Mass of All Time. With the release of the motu proprio, it seems there has never been a more ideal time for traditional Catholics AND those who are being introduced to the “Old” Mass to reflect on this side of Archbishop Lefebvre. This book proves his love of truth and the Mass that fueled his battle to defend them. Order yours today at www.angeluspress.org or call 1-800-966-7337 Theme The Eucharist Fioretti of the Blessed Sacrament Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary Fortitude of Little Ones A few months before his death, the philosopher and historian Hippolyte Taine (1828-1893) was marveling at the tireless dedication of the religious orders, especially that of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, committed to the more toilsome works of charity. “How is it,” he asked their superior general, “that these weak women, voluntarily separated from the world, so often rebuffed by ingratitude, and exposed to the temptations of loneliness and the melancholy of discouragement, do not succumb? Where do they find the strength to overcome all these obstacles, and resume their usual tasks every day with the same patience, gentleness, and serenity?” “It’s quite simple,” replied the old priest. “They have the Eucharist. A quarter of an 20 The Angelus November - December 2014 hour of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament is enough to compensate them for all their pains, to console them in all their trials and tribulations.” Taine was amazed at his reply. He apparently could not grasp it. But Christian common sense understands wonderfully well. Solace of Penitents The story is told of the old grenadier, a resident of the Old Soldiers’ Home, Les Invalides, at Paris around the year 1760. Every day he used to spend a long time in the chapel before the Blessed Sacrament. One evening, the chaplain of the Home, about to lock up the chapel for the night, found the old soldier “prostrate before the altar, weeping.” “O Father,” the soldier pleaded seeing his chaplain, “let me have another fifteen minutes, I beg you by the birth of our adorable Redeemer.” The priest, deeply touched, grants the requested delay, returns to the sacristy and comes back after a quarter of an hour. “He found his penitent in the same position, but he was dead.” Protection of Innocents One April in 1794, Father Coudrin, the future founder of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (also known as the Order of Picpus after the street name of its first motherhouse), was being pursued by the Sansculottes. He hid at Poitiers in a house on Rue d’Olérons, just a hundred yards from the revolutionary tribunal. In this modest dwelling, an association of pious ladies had as its mission to roam the streets of Poitiers and care for the sick, assist the dying, catechize children, and hide refractory priests—and all of that during the darkest days of the Terror! But these brave souls do not let themselves be intimidated by the fury of the revolution. The secret of their intrepidity may be learned from Miss Geffroy, their superior: “Once, when a rigorous search of houses had been announced, being before our Lord, the thought came into my mind that if I were to place at His feet two adorers, nothing would happen to us. In those days I was prompt to act without deliberation or counsel; no sooner thought than done. So I placed at either side of the altar a small chair; I took one and had one of our religious take the other. That was the beginning of the perpetual adoration that is still practised in the Order of Picpus. The external ladies divide the daytime hours, and we take care of the night.” This pious and holy audacity procured for them a special protection throughout the Revolution. Constancy of Confessors In 1873, Fr. Damien De Veuster became the chaplain of the leprosarium located on the Isle of Molokai (in the Hawaiian Islands). He was to devote himself for sixteen years to this hard labor before dying as a leper himself. Thanks to his apostolate, the hell of Molokai, made of selfishness, immorality, and despair, was gradually transformed. Every day he held a procession of the Blessed Sacrament and established perpetual adoration by the lepers. Those who could not walk would face the chapel to adore. One year before his death, in 1888, he wrote: “This is the fifteenth year that we’ve been keeping up nocturnal adoration, lepers though we be.” And he explained: “It is at the foot of the altar that we delve the strength necessary in our isolation. Without the Blessed Sacrament, a situation such as mine would be unbearable. Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the tenderest of friends to souls that seek to please Him. His goodness knows how to proportion itself to the littlest of His creatures as to the greatest. Do not be afraid, then, in your solitary conversations, to tell Him about your wants and worries, your fears and anxieties, of those who are dear to you, your plans and hopes. Do not be afraid to speak freely and confidently.” 21 Theme The Eucharist A Pledge of Eternal Life by Archbishop Lefebvre, taken from The Mass of All Time 1 22 Homily, ordinations, Ecône, June 29, 1975. The Angelus Why will you offer the holy sacrifice of the Mass, my dear friends? “That they may have life, and may have it more abundantly” (Jn. 10:10). This is also what Our Lord wanted: “That they may have life, and may have it more abundantly,” because the sacrifice of the Mass has no other purpose than to give life. And what life? Not the life of this world, not the life of our bodies, but supernatural life, the divine life we had lost. Our Lord wanted to give us His own life, His divine life, to make us enter into the Blessed Trinity, every one of us, however little, however weak we may be. Our Lord wanted us to share in His divine life, and that is why He died on the Cross. Thus you will offer the holy sacrifice of the Mass to give life, and the fruit of the sacrifice of the Mass is the Eucharist, in which are present the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. How sublime all that is!­1 The Eucharist is the mystery of our hope. It was Our Lord Himself who said: “He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day” (Jn. 6:55). He will be our resurrection. The body of Our Lord Jesus Christ present in our poor bodies is a gage of our resurrection. We already possess within ourselves everlasting life; this eternal life will not leave us. Even at the hour of our death, this germ of the November - December 2014 2 Easter retreat, Ecône, April 6, 1980. 3 Homily, Mantes-la-Jolie, July 2, 1977. 4 Homily, Ecône, June 17, 1976. resurrection of our bodies for eternity will be in our souls because we have received Holy Communion, because we have been united to Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. It is Our Lord Himself who said it, and this Gospel was expressly chosen by the Church for the Mass of the dead. The Eucharist is like a seed within us, a seed of our bodily resurrection, because in our Communion we partake of Our Lord Jesus Christ risen. He is in us with His risen body, His glorious body. Thus He is for us like a seed of resurrection. All these thoughts are so beautiful and consoling that we will never thank the good God enough for our being able to receive Holy Communion every day.2 Bond of Perfection Communion is also the efficacious sign of the charity that should animate the Mystical Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for we are all members of this Mystical Body....It would be unacceptable that souls who partook of the same Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ should be divided. Charity should reign in the members of Our Lord Jesus Christ more than anywhere else. How can those who have partaken of the same Body and Blood, and of the same victim, Our Lord Jesus Christ, be divided; how can they not love one another? Certainly, the Sacrament of the Eucharist is the paramount cause of unity.3 I would like to emphasize the efficacy of the charity produced by the sacrament of the Eucharist. We too need this charity, we who believe, who have the Faith, who want to stay Catholic and Roman until the last moment of our lives. So we must remain in charity. This Sacrament is the sign and symbol of the love that emanates from Our Lord’s charity. Yet how painful it is sometimes to think that people who nourish themselves daily with the Eucharist never manage to be completely dominated by the virtue of charity! They need to criticize, to form factions, to make rash judgments, to display antipathy towards persons to whom they should show sympathy. Well, then, let us who want to keep Tradition, this holy faith in the Blessed Eucharist, make the resolution today to also keep the fruit of the Holy Eucharist. It does not suffice to believe in it; it does not suffice to say that we are attached to the tradition of faith and hope in the Eucharist without having within us all its fruits. The fruits of charity are so good, they show so clearly the presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ in our souls!4 Medicinal Effect The Eucharist has a medicinal effect. Catholic doctrine is a doctrine that enlightens souls and compels them to banish sin. It leads them to tell themselves: “I must get rid of my shortcomings and defects and my sins so that my soul will be ready to receive graces from Our Lord and be transformed in Him.” This is what the Church has always taught. For this reason she asks missionaries to preach the gospel to the whole world and to carry the grace of Our Lord to souls, and to transform souls in Our 23 Theme The Eucharist 5 Priests’ recollection, Paris, December 13, 1984. 6 Priests’ retreat, Ecône, September 1980. 7 Catechism of the Council of Trent, p. 244. St. Thomas teaches us that the Eucharist remits our venial sins, a part of the punishment due to sin, and preserves us from future sins (Summa Theologica, III, Q. 79, Art. 4-6). 8 Easter retreat, April 1, 1980. 9 Homily, Doué-la-Fontaine, May 19, 1977. 10 Homily, Unieux, July 1, 1979. Lord. Whence the importance of the holy sacrifice of the Mass, which is the continuation of the sacrifice of the Cross and the application to souls of Our Lord Jesus Christ’s Blood, which renews them, which transforms them by the manducation of the Eucharist. “May the partaking of Thy body be to me a remedy.” This we pray to Our Lord in the prayer before receiving Holy Communion: Give me your remedy. It is the propitiatory act of Our Lord renewed every day. We must be convinced of our need of a remedy.5 Heavenly Antidote The Eucharist lessens lust. The Eucharist has for effect to keep us pure and unsullied from all sin. It is a heavenly antidote that prevents us from being poisoned and corrupted by the deadly venom of evil passions, especially lust. It is the bread of virgins. That is why it is necessary to highly recommend Communion to people today, and also to couples, who have so many difficulties staying faithful to God’s law in the conjugal domain....The Eucharist is the remedy. People used to receive Holy Communion frequently in olden days. Christians nourished themselves with the Eucharist because it is a specific remedy for reducing our concupiscence. In the Eucharist, we receive the Author of every grace in us, the One who is precisely the opposite of sin, who is the contrary of concupiscence: Our Lord Jesus Christ.6 Insofar as one receives Our Lord Jesus Christ with the necessary dispositions, the fire of concupiscence abates and souls rest in peace; they are not always tormented by these problems. “The Eucharist restrains and represses the lusts of the flesh, for while it inflames the soul more ardently with the fire of charity, it of necessity extinguishes the ardor of concupiscence.”7, 8 Divine Life The Eucharist is heaven. What is the grace you receive in the Sacrament of the Eucharist? It is no more or less than the communication of Our Lord Jesus Christ’s divine life to you. Our Lord Jesus Christ came down upon the earth; He took a body like ours in order to communicate to us His Divine life. If today we could see souls as they are, the souls of those in a state of mortal sin would appear to us as leprous, or ulcerous, or afflicted by a dreadful malady. If today the good God revealed what souls in a state of grace look like, we would be amazed; we would think it is impossible for a soul in the state of grace to be so beautiful, so divine, so luminous, so full of charity! Grace is the good God in our souls; it is Jesus in our souls. And Jesus is nothing else than heaven.9 God is heaven; Jesus Christ is God; consequently, when we receive God in our hearts, we can truthfully say, “I have heaven in my soul; I have Paradise in my soul.” It would behoove us to be united to this Paradise in such a way that we would be prepared for the lasting Paradise, which will consist in being in the glory of Our Lord Jesus Christ for eternity. Only the true religion can possess such treasures. Only God could have invented such grand and beautiful expressions of His love and His charity for us.10 24 The Angelus November - December 2014 11 Homily, Ecône, June 17, 1976. Our Consolation 12 Homily, First Mass, Besançon, September 5, 1976. The Eucharist is our consolation. Imagine a Christian life without the Eucharist! What would we be without Our Lord Jesus Christ, without this extraordinary gift God gave us? What orphans we would be; how alone we would feel, a little abandoned by the good God. But with the Eucharist, when we need to speak to Him, to see Him, to tell Him that we love Him, or when we need special help we can go to our sanctuaries and kneel before Our Lord Jesus Christ, alone perhaps before the Blessed Sacrament. Surely it has happened to you to say to the good God before the Blessed Sacrament: “Come to my help; help me, I have worries and trials. Help my family; help my children.” And when you departed, you left the church comforted. And that is what you have felt, I am sure, after every Sunday Mass. How many times it has happened to us as priests to assist the dying. How many times we have had to bring Communion to the sick. What a joy it was for these suffering souls to receive God from the hand of the priest. What a consolation! What a source of courage it was for them. By this Sacrament, Our Lord Jesus Christ worked an extraordinary miracle of His love. Consequently, we too must show Him our love.11 Source of Civilization Communion is the source of civilization. Understand, my dear faithful, that in Holy Communion we unite ourselves to God, to Our Lord Jesus Christ: that is the source of Christian civilization. In Holy Communion, Jesus manifests Himself as our Savior and also as our King: the King of our intellects by giving us the truth; the King of our hearts and wills by giving us His commandments to help us act in accordance with His holy will. Then, going back home, the Christians who nourished themselves with the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ understand better what their duty is, how they must conduct themselves in daily life at home and in society. Conversely, to the extent that priests no longer celebrate the holy sacrifice of the Mass, our Christian civilization is reduced to nothing.12 25 The Catholic Church was the established church of Sweden from the Middle Ages until the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, when King Gustav I severed relations with Rome. The Church of Sweden became Lutheran at the Uppsala Synod in 1593 when it adopted the Augsburg Confession to which most Lutherans adhere. In 1654, Christina, Queen of Sweden, caused much scandal when she abdicated her throne to convert to Catholicism. She is one of the few women buried in the Vatican grotto. The Catholic Church in Sweden consists of one diocese, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Stockholm. Church of Arvidsjaur on a winter’s evening Faith and Morals The Sweet Guest by Fr. Dominique Bourmaud, SSPX The philosophers of old pretended that nothing remained the same and that we never really could swim in the same river twice. On the same line of thought, psychologists will tell you that your personality has matured and reaches the ripe age when you can be “be yourself,” or simply “be free” and pursue your dreams. In the spiritual realm, it means that man has reached perfection, which translates the Latin perfactum—made through and through. At this juncture, the soul has grown into the stature marked by God, closing in the ideal set by Christ. Yet, together with one growing upwards to reach God, is there no other activity at stake here? Or should we believe that God sits quietly on His throne and awaits patiently for His subjects to finish running the race and finally reach the Court where He will lavishly entertain 28 The Angelus November - December 2014 them with food and shelter? No! As we grow upwards to reach the “stature of the perfect man” and ascend towards Him, a condescending God Himself stoops down towards us and meets us half way. This is the secret of our spiritual life. Shedding some light on this mutual dynamics, of man towards God and of God towards man, may help clarify the role the sacraments play in this process. The Lord with You! We may start with a general statement all agree on: Christian life consists in uniting our soul to God. A couple of examples will illustrate this truth. In Eden, Adam and Eve were vested with the supernatural gifts of grace and other precious adornments whereby they had no fear of God. He would come in the evening breeze and converse familiarly with them. Men were the guests of the royal host and they hardly paid attention to the wonderful and elevated status they enjoyed. It was only when this paradisiac joy was lost that our first parents realized the emptiness of a life away from God. Another image from the New Testament offers the same nuances of intimacy and plenitude. It is the beloved Apostle John familiarly resting his head in the bosom of the Rabbouni. Words are useless to express the peace and joy which permeated the heart of the disciple. In both cases, the ideal of the spiritual life consists in that union and communion with the divine, either God the Creator or the Incarnate Word. But what of us? For us, this translates into becoming Christian through and through. Or, in the words of Sacred Scripture: “Through Him, with Him and in Him.” Christ is with us as long as we live in His grace. His company is that of a rich landlord reaching out to a beggar, allowing him to be “filled with all the plenitude of God” (Eph. 3:19). St. Augustine warns us against the over optimistic view that all Christians are catapulted into sainthood by the magic wand of Christ’s wish: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” He raises the objection thus: “Is there a being which would not be in Him of whom it is divinely written that ‘With Him, through Him, and in Him are all things’?...And yet, all are not in Him in the way in which it is said to the soul: I with you forever. He is not with all in the way in which we say: The Lord with you!” The Soul Christified How does this “I with you forever” occur? Our divine Savior has given us specific means best adapted to our imperfect nature. He is present radically by sanctifying grace infused in the soul of the just. Upon this trunk, not unlike the vine, God has grafted branches or infused virtues, those power houses made for knowing and loving and acting within God’s inner circle. God’s charity is ever active and diffuses the sap of grace all the way to the last ramifications. Thanks to that life of grace, the virtues can shoot out activities of the same supernatural order, like the vine branches bring forth vine leaves and clusters of grape. And, in as much as healthy shoots manifest a healthy branch and vine, so also the powerful supernatural activity reveals a healthy soul. The virtues are the lungs of the soul, and the purer the air they breathe, the deeper and firmer they imprint Christ’s image in the soul. Where do the sacraments fit into this divine grafting? If we follow the comparison of the vine with the soul, we might suggest that the sacraments act as the outer bark of the vine. Sacraments are the ordinary channels which allow the sap to run freely through the last branch, protected from outer danger. Our baptism, our penitential and Eucharistic life, all these are exterior forms of worship of God rendered by a Christian soul who is also a member of the visible Church. The sacramental system is a tool adapted to human life. Christ, who was no mere man since He was God incarnate, received no sacrament: He is the fullness and source of grace; He needs no visible channel of a scanty sacramental grace as we can receive. For us, when compared to the direct union through contemplation and vision, the sacramental life is a crutch. Yet it is a golden crutch so well suited to our needs. These visible signs are the choicest means of conveying an invisible grace suited to both the individual and the social dimension of man. The sacraments extend the impact of God’s activity in our soul, in depth as well as on the surface. A sacramental soul is a soul more attuned to Christ’s life. For example, three sacraments bring about a character. Their function is to incorporate us and render us apt to fulfill God’s service. But this they do by impressing Christ’s image in the soul. The character acts on the soul like a seal on wax. It makes us Christ-like and apt to perform Christ’s sacred functions. Also, in the Holy Eucharist, there occurs more than a mere connection. There is a physical union with Christ which lasts as long as the sacred species last. Yet, even after these have disappeared, the grace of the sacrament, 29 Faith and Morals which is the union with Christ, has a lasting effect within the soul. In ordinary life, all other things being equal, a daily communicant should grow exponentially in perfection as it is drinking directly at the fountain of divine Life. Fr. Plus, in Christ Within Us, explains that we should be “another Christ.” Yet it does not mean becoming something distinct from Him, but rather converting into Him. This is what St. Paul experienced when he exclaimed in pithy language: “emoi, zôein, Christos—for me, to live, Christ!” At this juncture the soul has reached the ultimate Christification, the summit of perfection which God may ever expect from it. The Sweet Guest of the Soul Simultaneous with this elevation of the soul to the threshold of the divinity, God descends to man’s level and makes His presence felt in various ways. As we saw in Adam’s early life, man was created indeed to enjoy God’s intimacy. There is a basic touch of God upon His creation: the presence of immensity. Thus we say that God is in all things by presence, essence, and power: by presence in that He sees everything; by essence in that He maintains all things in existence and motion; by power in that He intervenes at will upon His creation. St. Augustine’s Confessions set this concept in a poetic dress: “Where do I call Thee to, when I am already in Thee? Or from whence wouldst Thou come into me? Where, beyond heaven and earth, could I go that there my God might come to me, He who hath said, ‘I fill heaven and earth’?” However, in all things, there is nothing of the Friend and adoptive Father. The same St. Augustine knows the limits of such a generic presence, and points to another one reserved to fewer souls. “Who will send Thee into my heart so to overwhelm it that my sins shall be blotted out and I may embrace Thee, my only good? Tell me, by Thy mercy, O Lord, my God, what Thou art to me. Say to my soul, I am your salvation. The house of my soul is too narrow for Thee to come in to me; let it be enlarged by Thee.” 30 The Angelus November - December 2014 St. Elizabeth of the Trinity earlier in her religious life felt possessed by someone, as if someone inhabited her soul. God is no longer the outside model of our soul, whose traits we copy on the canvas of our soul. God now is in the driver’s seat and holds the fort. Rather than us being guests at His table, He Himself graces us with His presence. He enters as the friend and sweet guest of our soul, the dulcis hospes animae. This doctrine of the indwelling of the Holy Trinity is attributed more specifically of the Holy Ghost. The soul attuned to the divine enters in communion with the higher world, and even enjoys His presence. There it establishes an intimacy, a familiarity and commerce not unlike the experimental knowledge and affection which a shepherd could feel for his sheep. God or Christ is no longer the abstract being beyond space: He is felt, known and loved as a Person who lives within the soul. But intimacy or proximity is one thing. Yet, it does not really provide the possession of the Lord. A. Gardeil, in L’Expérience mystique, puts it this way: “The love of friendship demands the presence of the lover and pursues it, but it is not friendship itself which produces this presence, no more than the love of money makes it present to the avaricious. He needs hands!” So God has to stoop down to man’s lower level in order to establish the connection and possession. God opens Himself to the soul. And now, the soul is ready to take possession of its God, with its own hands, that is, with the intellect and will. We only need an eye and a heart apt to rise up to this contemplation of love. This mission of the Holy Ghost—although all Three Persons inhabit the soul—is described by the mystics as a secret touch and impression in the soul. This personal seal and this energy carry the soul away and orient it towards the divine sun. It sends a shock wave, a rebound of the soul under the divine touch... It is an act of love when charity is acted upon; it is an act of intelligence when it is wisdom. The Carmelite Spirituality If you talk to a Carmelite nun, she will readily explain to you that the center of her life consists in living the mystery of God present to the soul, this famous indwelling of the Holy Trinity in the soul. The chosen place for this is not so much the church as the cell. “Let each one remain in her cell…” There is no doubt that the Carmelite ideal is solitude and retreat in the cell. This is why the rule does not multiply expositions of the Blessed Sacrament, under pain of being no longer in the charism of the Carmel. If it were, Mother St. Teresa would have established that. In reality, the nun has Christ just the same without having the Host. The same roof covers both, Him and her. Such spirituality was understood and lived to the hilt by St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, who wrote this sublime consecration to the Blessed Three. “O my God, Trinity whom I adore, help me to become utterly forgetful of myself so that I may establish myself in you, as changeless and calm as though my soul were already in eternity. Give peace to my soul; make it your heaven, your cherished dwelling-place and the place of your repose. Let me never leave you there alone, but keep me there, wholly attentive, wholly alert in my faith, wholly adoring and fully given up to your creative action.” By way of conclusion, in order to show the vital link between the Indwelling and the Eucharistic life, nothing approaches perfection as the Fioretti given us by the Carmelite Reformers of the 16th century. St. Teresa of Avila, for one, seemed to have had these mystical touches of God’s intimacies especially in connection with Holy Communion. From her Autobiography, she explains: “Sometimes He comes with such great majesty that no one could doubt that in it the Lord Him­ self, especially after receiving Communion. For we know that He is present since our faith tells us this. He reveals Himself so much as the Lord of this dwelling that it seems that the soul is completely dissolved and consumed in Christ.” Also, Sr. Maria del Nacimiento reveals the miraculous origin of The Interior Castle: “When the said Mother Teresa de Jesus wrote the book called The Dwelling Places, she was in Toledo, and this witness saw that it was after Communion that she wrote this book, and when she wrote she did so very rapidly and with such great beauty in her countenance that this witness was in admiration, and she was so absorbed in what she was writing that, even if some noise was made there, it did not hinder her; wherefore this witness understood that, in all that which she wrote and during the time she was writing, she was in prayer.” Fr. Dominique Bourmaud has spent the past 26 years teaching at the Society seminaries in America, Argentina, and Australia. He is presently stationed at St. Vincent’s Priory, Kansas City, where he is in charge of the priests’ training program. 31 73 pp. – Softcover – STK# 4079 – $11.95 Spiritual Journey Describes a sanctity simple yet profound Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre This is the great Archbishop Lefebvre’s last book. In it, he describes a sanctity based on the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. Originally written for priests and seminarians, it is now a popular favorite. In this simple, yet profound book he encourages us to make “a total and unreserved offering of ourselves to God by our Lord Jesus Christ Crucified.” 176 pp. – Softcover – STK# 5046 – $13.95 The Mystery of Jesus 29 meditations Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre In these meditations 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? 352 pp. – Softcover – STK# 8472 – $15.95 A Life of Christ for Children As Told by a Grandmother Mme. La Comtesse de Ségur The life of Christ is fundamental to the Catholic Faith. This book, written with children in mind, lays the groundwork for a lifetime of learning about the Gospels. In this famous edition, a grandmother relays the stories of Jesus and His time on earth in a simple but profound manner. “The sunlight streams in on expectant faces, on golden curls, brown hair, and Grandma’s white head. The canary sings his loudest while the children scramble for the places at Grandma’s right and left. Finally all are seated, and Grandma, seated in her big armchair, begins The Story of Christ....” Visit www.angeluspress.org — 1-800-966-7337 Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music. Corpus Christi Origin and Rites by Fr. Christopher Danel Corpus Christi processions are an important part of maintaining and publicly professing the Catholic Faith. During the Communist persecution in Poland, for example, the main procession in Krakow would involve up to 250,000 participants each year boldly paying homage to our Eucharistic King. The numbers have waned since then, not only due to the crisis in the Church in the wake of Vatican II, but also because the main city procession has been somewhat eclipsed by suburban processions. However, even today the procession is attended by about ten thousand faithful and is still a powerful profession of Faith in the Blessed Sacrament, as this writer was able to observe during a recent SSPX Pilgrimage. At the head of the Cracovian procession come the various Confraternities with their embroidered banners, some regiments of the Polish military, followed by the many orders of male and female Religious—in Poland they have kept their traditional habits—then the Priests, the Cathedral Canons in full regalia, and the Bishops, followed by the Processional Canopy under which Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament is carried by the Cardinal-Archbishop. Along the sides of the canopy, in addition to the requisite torchbearers, there is an honor guard of the Polish nobility donning their mediaeval, Slavic fur attire. Following the Blessed Sacrament, the crowds of the faithful process devotedly, singing en masse the familiar Latin Eucharistic hymns in addition to some in Polish. Because not all can even glimpse the canopy from such a distance, nearby it a flag-bearer processes with a very tall flag marking its location, the flag bearing 33 Faith and Morals images of Christ the King and Our Lady of Czestochowa. The whole scene transcends time, and is reminiscent of the 13th century, which is in fact when the Feast of Corpus Christi began. Blessed Juliana of Mont Cornillon The origins of the Feast begin with a vision and a request given by Christ Himself to a humble nun and with a famous Eucharistic miracle. The nun was named Blessed Juliana of Mont Cornillon, from a town in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, in modern-day Belgium. She is also known as Bl. Juliana of Liège (1193-1258). Having been orphaned at the age of five, she was entrusted to the care of the Augustinian nuns of Mont Cornillon, where she eventually determined to enter the religious life, took the habit and professed vows, later becoming Prioress of the monastic convent. Bl. Juliana had an intense devotion to the Blessed Sacrament from her earliest youth. In Liège, in fact, there were some groups of pious women who lived in common, with a rich Eucharistic devotional life. Their example prepared the way for the remarkable events to take place in Bl. Juliana’s life. From the age of sixteen, whenever she would pray, she would see a remarkable sign: a splendid full moon with a slight gap across its spherical body. After some time of trying to understand the meaning of such a vision and being troubled by it, Christ Himself revealed to her that the moon was the Church at present, and the gap in the moon symbolized the absence of a solemnity which He still desired His faithful on earth to celebrate. (“Tunc revelavit ei Christus in luna praesentem ecclesiam; in luna autem fractione defectum unius sollemnitatis in ecclesia figurari, quam adhuc volebat in terris a suis fidelibus celebrari.” Vita Julianae II, 6.) Our Lord willed to increase the Faith and growth of His elect by means of a Feast dedicated to the Sacrament of His Body and Blood, above and beyond the solemnities of Maundy Thursday which are so intimately connected with the remembrance of His Passion. For a span of twenty years, purely out of 34 The Angelus November - December 2014 humility, Bl. Juliana hesitated to reveal this vision and begged Our Lord repeatedly to find a more worthy instrument for the establishing of this great Feast. Having been consoled by Our Lord, she finally described the vision and the request to her ecclesiastical superiors. She patiently suffered many trials and adversity in connection with the divine task she was given, and edified all by her constant humility and charity. She was able to see the Feast begin to take root in Liège already in her own lifetime. Twelve years later, she died in the odor of sanctity in 1258, with a special privilege: on her deathbed, the Blessed Sacrament was enthroned for exposition in her own cell, and she went to her eternal reward gazing upon Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. An authoritative account of her saintly life and revelations, the Vita Julianae, was written shortly after her death, and she would later be beatified by Bl. Pope Pius IX in 1869. The ecclesiastics to whom Bl. Juliana revealed her mission would each take on very important roles in the history of the establishment of the Feast. They were the Prince-Bishop of Liège, Mgr. Robert de Thorete, the learned Dominican Father Hugh of St-Cher, and the Archdeacon of Liège, Abbé Jacques Pantaleon. Mgr. de Thorete held a diocesan consultation in 1246, and as bishops then had the right of establishing feasts within their own diocese, he established the feast for his diocese of Liège, where it began to be devoutly celebrated. Fr. Hugh of St-Cher, native of Liège, became Cardinal-Legate to the Netherlands, and in 1251 established the Feast of Corpus Christi in all of his subsequent territories throughout central Europe. Abbé Jacques Pantaleon’s role was to be even greater: after becoming Bishop of Verdun and Patriarch of Jerusalem, he was elected to the Apostolic See as Pope Urban IV in 1261. The Eucharistic Miracles of Bolsena-Orvieto and Lanciano Pope Urban had already had the grace of assisting at the institution of the Feast of Corpus Christi in Liège and had intimate knowledge of the revelation given to Blessed Juliana. But the Eucharistic miracle of Bolsena-Orvieto in 1263 would be the strongest indication from Heaven that he should establish the Feast for the whole Church. Pope Urban was staying in Orvieto at the time, a hill city north of Rome, as was the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas. While a priest was celebrating Mass in the small town of Bolsena nearby, he noticed that the Sacred Host began to ooze blood onto the corporal, and it was clear to all that a new Eucharistic miracle had taken place, with certain similarities to the famous Eucharistic miracle that had occurred in Lanciano, in northern Italy, already five centuries before. In Lanciano, while a priest had been celebrat­ ing Mass, the Sacred Host and the Precious Blood, already transformed in substance, mirac­ ulously took on the visible appearance and qualities (the accidents) of Our Lord’s flesh and blood. The host appeared as a thin cross-section of heart flesh, and the blood congealed into five globules. Over the span of many centuries, they remain as they were, without having decayed. The blood proteins are in the same percentages as in fresh, normal blood. The blood type is AB, corresponding to the blood type on the Shroud of Turin. Modern cardiac surgeons trained in the most advanced techniques relate that the thin section of heart flesh could not have been extracted in such a way, i.e., that it is scientifically inexplicable. The weight of the blood globules on a scientific scale reveals that one globule weighs exactly the same as two or five globules, miraculously showing that Our Lord is present whole and entire in the sacred species no matter what the quantity may be. With the longstanding history of such an astounding Eucharistic miracle well in mind, surely, the new miracle at Bolsena was quite stirring. Pope Urban, in nearby Orvieto, was immediately informed and was able to inspect the blood-stained corporal himself. The Corporal was carried in procession throughout the city of Orvieto by the whole Papal Court, where thousands of the faithful gathered. Pope Urban had it enshrined in the Cathedral of Orvieto in an enameled reliquary, and subsequently a new and more splendid cathedral was constructed for the sole purpose of housing such an important relic. To this day, the corporal is visible and it is noted that, upon close inspection, the stains of blood show the profile of the Holy Face of Our Lord. Pope Urban IV and Transiturus Within a year after this miraculous sign, Pope Urban promulgated the Papal Bull Transiturus de hoc mundo on August 11, 1264, establishing the Feast of Corpus Christi for the whole Church. (The 750th Anniversary of this momentous occasion has just recently occurred.) Pope Urban’s Transiturus contains a beautiful meditation on the great gift of the Holy Eucharist, and explains some motivations for the Feast, much of which is based on the revelation of Christ to Bl. Juliana. Considering the gift Our Lord gives of Himself in the Blessed Sacrament, for example, Pope Urban notes that “when someone’s gift is more frequently gazed upon, the memory of him is more closely retained.” The first reason given for establishing the Feast is to make reparation for the insults given to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament by the “perfidy and insanity of heretics” and to confound them (“Ad confundendam specialiter haereticorum perfidiam et insaniam, memoria solemnior et celebrior habeatur.” Bullarium Romanum, 705 ff). Indeed, perfidious and insane attacks on such a profound dogma of the Faith had already come from the Waldensians and Albigensians, who would serve as the inspiration for the attacks on the Faith by John Wycliffe and Jan Huss, themselves the precursors of Calvin and Luther. The Pontiff secondly describes that, just as the Church sets aside one solemn day to celebrate the saints all together—All Saints’ Day—to repair for any lack of devotion due to human weakness or negligence through the year, it is even more fitting that, while the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, glory and crown of all the saints, is venerated in every Mass, there be a special Feast set aside when the faithful can adore the Body of Christ with singular fervor and solemnity. Pope Urban closes by making special mention of the 35 Faith and Morals revelation of Bl. Juliana: “We understood, while once constituted in a lesser office, that it was divinely revealed to some Catholics, that a Feast of this type should be celebrated throughout the Church” (“Intelleximus autem olim dum in minori essemus officio constituti, quod fuerat quibusdam catholicis divinitus revelatum, festum huiusmodi generaliter in Ecclesia celebrandum”). Pope Urban died only a couple of months after the promulgation of the feast, and several subsequent Popes picked up the torch, issuing decrees urging the devout celebration of Corpus Christi everywhere. Clement VI, in his decree, made reference to the Eucharistic miracle of Bolsena-Orvieto, while Gregory XI (1337) even provided a descriptive account of the miracle in his, as have subsequent Popes. Pope Urban enriched the festal Office and Mass with special indulgences, and later Pontiffs enriched the Processions with indulgences as well. The devout observance of the Feast in later years became so esteemed that Canon Law would forbid bishops to be absent from their cathedrals on Corpus Christi (cf. CJC 1917, c. 338). The Council of Trent would acclaim how the Church had rightly introduced the custom that “each year, on a certain special feast, the august and venerable Sacrament should be honored with singular veneration and solemnity, and that It should be reverently and with every honor carried in processions through the public roads and places” (Session XII, Ch. 5), anathematizing anyone who declared the contrary. The Liturgy of Corpus Christi Pope Urban had chosen St. Thomas Aquinas to compose the texts for the Divine Office and the Mass of the Feast. There had been a previous version composed for use in Liège, and one exemplar is preserved in the historic Strahov Monastery in Prague. Dom Gueranger speculates as to whether St. Thomas had the Liège version sous les yeux as he composed his own, although liturgical sources are unclear on this point. Never­­theless, the esteemed abbot concludes that “St. Thomas, the most perfect of the 13th-century 36 The Angelus November - December 2014 Scholastics, thus finds himself as the most sublime of poets” (Institutions Liturgiques, I, 334-5). St. Thomas’s Corpus Christi composition has given the Church the most magnificent Eucharistic hymns, especially the Pange Lingua with its conclusion, Tantum Ergo; O Salutaris Hostia, itself the final two stanzas of the hymn for Lauds, and the unparalleled sequence Lauda Sion Salvatorem. Eucharistic processions have been held since the 10th century, but with the Sacred Host enclosed or veiled. In the late 13th century, monstrances (ostensoria) with crystal enclosures were introduced. In Rome, the Corpus Christi procession customarily held by the Pope between St. John Lateran and St. Mary Major became an example of how splendid the theophoric processions could become. In longer Eucharistic Processions, a few altars of repose are used, at which the procession can rest, and Benediction is usually given at each. These altars and the streets along the way are decorated with great care, with flower carpets in intricate designs, tapestries, hangings, etc. In Poland, the faithful take home a branch of greenery from the altars of repose as a sacramental. In the USA, an indult of Nov. 25, 1885, stipulated that the External Solemnity of the Feast be celebrated on the following Sunday for the greater participation of the faithful, and it is then that the processions are usually held. The Roman Ritual of 1614, which provides the rubrics for processions, praises reverent participation: “The sacred public processions and solemn rites of petition used in the Catholic Church have their origin in the very ancient institution by our holy forefathers…. For they are the bearers of sublime and godly mysteries and all who devoutly participate in them receive from God the salutary fruits of Christian piety.” Fr. Christopher Danel was ordained in 2000. After completing the philosophical and theological curriculum, he took up specialization in the study of sacred liturgy, and is stationed in Atlanta, Georgia. Eucharistic Adoration by Pope Pius XII. Extracts from Mediator Dei (November 20, 1947) 1 John, 15:4. 2 Council of Trent, Sess. 13, can. 1. Mysterious Reality 128. The divine Redeemer is ever repeating His pressing invitation, “Abide in Me.”1 Now by the sacrament of the Eucharist, Christ remains in us and we in Him, and just as Christ, remaining in us, lives and works, so should we remain in Christ and live and work through Him. Theme for Praise and Joy Profound 129. The Eucharistic Food contains, as all are aware, “truly, really and substantially the Body and Blood together with soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ.”2 It is no wonder, then, that the Church, even from the beginning, adored the body of Christ under the appearance of bread; this is evident from the very rites of the august sacrifice, which prescribe that the sacred ministers should adore the most holy sacrament by genuflecting or by profoundly bowing their heads. 130. The Sacred Councils teach that it is the Church’s tradition right 37 Faith and Morals 3 Second Council of Constantinople, Anath, de trib. Capit., can. 9; compare Council of Ephesus, Anath. Cyrill, can 8. Cf. Council of Trent, Sess. 13, can. 6; Pius VI Constitution Auctorem fidei, n. 61. from the beginning, to worship “with the same adoration the Word Incarnate as well as His own flesh,”3 and St. Augustine asserts that, “No one eats that flesh, without first adoring it,” while he adds that “not only do we not commit a sin by adoring it, but that we do sin by not adoring it.”4 4 Cf. Enarr. in Ps. 98:9. 5 Apoc. 5:12, cf. 7:10. Origins of Eucharistic Adoration 6 Cf. Council of Trent, Sess. 13, c. 5 and can. 6. 131. It is on this doctrinal basis that the cult of adoring the Eucharist was founded and gradually developed as something distinct from the sacrifice of the Mass. The reservation of the sacred species for the sick and those in danger of death introduced the praiseworthy custom of adoring the blessed Sacrament which is reserved in our churches. This practice of adoration, in fact, is based on strong and solid reasons. For the Eucharist is at once a sacrifice and a sacrament; but it differs from the other sacraments in this that it not only produces grace, but contains in a permanent manner the Author of grace Himself. When, therefore, the Church bids us adore Christ hidden behind the Eucharistic veils and pray to Him for spiritual and temporal favors, of which we ever stand in need, she manifests living faith in her divine Spouse who is present beneath these veils, she professes her gratitude to Him, and she enjoys the intimacy of His friendship. Forms of Eucharistic Worship 132. Now, the Church in the course of centuries has introduced various forms of this worship which are ever increasing in beauty and helpfulness: as, for example, visits of devotion to the tabernacles, even every day; benediction of the Blessed Sacrament; solemn processions, especially at the time of Eucharistic Congress, which pass through cities and villages; and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament publicly exposed. Sometimes these public acts of adoration are of short duration. Sometimes they last for one, several, and even for forty hours. In certain places they continue in turn in different churches throughout the year, while elsewhere adoration is perpetual day and night, under the care of religious communities, and the faithful quite often take part in them. In the Spirit of the Liturgy 133. These exercises of piety have brought a wonderful increase in faith and supernatural life to the Church militant upon earth and they are reechoed to a certain extent by the Church triumphant in heaven, which sings continually a hymn of praise to God and to the Lamb “who was slain.”5 Wherefore, the Church not merely approves these pious practices, which in the course of centuries have spread everywhere throughout the world, but makes them her own, as it were, and by her authority commends them.6 They spring from the inspiration of the liturgy, and if they are performed with due propriety and with faith and piety, as the liturgical rules of the Church 38 The Angelus November - December 2014 7 In I ad Cor., 24:4. 8 Cf. 1 Peter, 1:19. 9 Matt. 11:28. 10 Cf. Roman Missal, Collect for Mass for the Dedication of a Church. 11 Roman Missal, Sequence Lauda Sion in Mass for Feast of Corpus Christi. require, they are undoubtedly of the very greatest assistance in living the life of the liturgy. 134. Nor is it to be admitted that by this Eucharistic cult men falsely confound the historical Christ, as they say, who once lived on earth, with the Christ who is present in the august Sacrament of the altar and who reigns glorious and triumphant in heaven and bestows supernatural favors. On the contrary, it can be claimed that by this devotion the faithful bear witness to and solemnly avow the faith of the Church that the Word of God is identical with the Son of the Virgin Mary, who suffered on the cross, who is present in a hidden manner in the Eucharist, and who reigns upon His heavenly throne. Thus, St. John Chrysostom states: “When you see It [the Body of Christ] exposed, say to yourself: Thanks to this body, I am no longer dust and ashes, I am no more a captive but a freeman: hence I hope to obtain heaven and the good things that are there in store for me, eternal life, the heritage of the angels, companionship with Christ; death has not destroyed this body which was pierced by nails and scourged, ...this is that body which was once covered with blood, pierced by a lance, from which issued saving fountains upon the world, one of blood and the other of water....This body He gave to us to keep and eat, as a mark of His intense love.”7 Celestial Benediction 135. That practice in a special manner is to be highly praised according to which many exercises of piety, customary among the faithful, and with benediction of the blessed sacrament. For excellent and of great benefit is that custom which makes the priest raise aloft the Bread of Angels before congregations with heads bowed down in adoration, and forming with It the sign of the cross implores the heavenly Father to deign to look upon His Son who for love of us was nailed to the cross, and for His sake and through Him who willed to be our Redeemer and our brother, be pleased to shower down heavenly favors upon those whom the immaculate blood of the Lamb has redeemed.8 136. Strive then, Venerable Brethren, with your customary devoted care so the churches, which the faith and piety of Christian peoples have built in the course of centuries for the purpose of singing a perpetual hymn of glory to God almighty and of providing a worthy abode for our Redeemer concealed beneath the Eucharistic species, may be entirely at the disposal of greater numbers of the faithful who, called to the feet of their Savior, hearken to His most consoling invitation, “Come to Me all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will refresh you.”9 Let your churches be the house of God where all who enter to implore blessings rejoice in obtaining whatever they ask10 and find there heavenly consolation. 39 The Carol of a Scrooge by Patrick Murtha I A baby’s cry unstilled the night, Like trumpets through the world-end’s air. “Bah!” hailed the Humbug, “I say bah! I hear a cry—another blight Is born with only one who’ll care”— Sing loud, sing long His tra-la-la. The multi-morphing phantom woke Him from his sleep, unveiling life’s Long, long forgotten tome-like tomb Of memories—where echoes spoke Of mystic dreams and blithe-souled strifes— “Bless’d is the fruit of the woman’s womb.” The infant’s challenge shook the earth And roused the warriors of the east. “Bah!” droned the Humbug, “still it’s bah!” With babe-like looks he lay at birth, Unseen by westward-looking priests— From crib He cried His tra-la-la. II A mother’s cooing caught the night And wonder filled the angeled air. “Bah!” hissed the Humbug, “I say bah! A beggared damsel’s brief delight Shall end in dollar-less despair”— Sing loud, sing long her tra-la-la! Larger than life, alive but a day, He lingered with sick and poor, Crafting their joy with a touch of divine Till all around was mirth and play. And from his torch, God’s plenty poured— She said, “My Son, they have no wine.” And loosened tongues, with tones of laud, Extolled the Maid’s God-suckled breast— “Bah!” droned the Humbug, “still it’s bah! He looks like man, but acts like god!”— The lover kissed the face-flushed guest, And harmonized the tra-la-la. III Then nothing else but a lantern light That heaven hung in the heavy air— “Bah!” hummed the Humbug, “I say bah!...” But he was hushed. The Robe of Night Like Death’s dumb angel lingered there— Sing loud, sing long their tra-la-la! Mute but not mum, his gestures spoke A thousand eerie words more wild Than sound. The thunderous silence burst His heart, and from His cedar yoke, He saw His Mother and her child— He sighed his battle-cry, “I thirst.” On Eden’s tree, the Virgin’s fruit, Now ripe for death, in silence hung. The passing Humbug tried to bah, But in God’s face his mock fell mute, And from his lips a new tune sprung. He lilted heaven’s tra-la-la. Faith and Morals The Real Presence by Fr. Daniel Cooper, SSPX Do any of us truly understand what an incredible gift we have in the Real Presence of Our Savior in the Blessed Sacrament? The Son of God waits for us in the tabernacle, but few take advantage of this incredible opportunity. As St. Peter Julian Eymard wrote, “Man has time for everything, except visits to his Lord and God, Who is waiting and longing for him in His tabernacle. The streets and houses of amusement are filled with people; the House of God is deserted.” In the Old Testament, no one was permitted into the Holy of Holies, except the high priest, and he was allowed to go in only once a year. Yet we have the true holy of holies available to us almost any time night or day. “Blessed are the eyes that see the things that you see!” It is so amazing that even Catholics have trouble believing It could 42 The Angelus November - December 2014 really be Jesus in His very person. I remember an occasion when such a doubt came into my mind. Many years ago, I was at allnight adoration in a chapel in Wappingers Falls, New York. A very large fly was buzzing back and forth in front of the monstrance, between the candles, in the darkened church. He was annoying me, so loud and distracting was this one fly. The thought came into my head, “If this were truly God, He would never permit such disrespect.” It was a silly thought, but the Lord heard me. As soon as that thought came to my lips, I heard a rather loud pop, and one of the candles’ flames shot up, rapidly melting down the candle. I hurried to the altar, mumbling to myself, “It couldn’t be!” But there it was, the fly had been zapped by the flame and was now a burnt offering in the candle wax. I know it’s a little thing, but the timing was so perfect, it really helped my still immature faith. Many young people must have similar thoughts from time to time: How could this wafer of bread be Almighty God? But once the belief is firmly there, they are truly Catholic, and their lives are changed. Conversion of Elizabeth Ann Seton St. Elizabeth Ann Seton was converted in this way. She was a devout Protestant, and was astonished by what the Catholic Church claimed to possess: “How happy would we be, if we believed what these dear souls believe: that they possess God in the Sacrament, and that He remains in their churches and is carried to them when they are sick! Oh my! ...how happy would I be, even so far away from all so dear, if I could find You in the church as they do...how many things I would say to You of the sorrows of my heart and the sins of my life.” As Elizabeth prayed for guidance, to know the Truth, she was drawn to the Real Presence, even while still attending her Episcopalian church: “I got in a side pew which turned my face towards the Catholic church in the next street, and found myself twenty times speaking to the Blessed Sacrament there, instead of looking at the naked altar where I was.” Elizabeth was Catholic in her heart, and despite fierce opposition from family and friends, she joined the Catholic Church in New York City (the city of her birth) on March 14, 1805, at the age of 30. She would move to Emmitsburg, Maryland, and become the foundress of the Sisters of Charity in the United States. She was to become the first American-born saint, being beatified in 1963 and canonized in 1975. Jesus Christ is truly on our altars. Protestants of good heart, like Mother Seton, recognize there’s a sacred presence in the Catholic churches. I had a Protestant lady tell me as much in the Society’s beautiful church in Dickinson, Texas. She was in awe, almost scared, as she stood before the Communion rail. “There’s something or Someone here,” she exclaimed, knowing nothing of the doctrine of the Real Presence. Conversion of Hermann Cohen The conversion of Hermann Cohen (1821-71) is even more amazing than Elizabeth Ann Seton, since he was not even Christian, but a German Jew. A world-class pianist, protégé of Franz Liszt, Hermann was something of a celebrity, traveled in elite circles, but nearly lost everything due to his gambling addiction. Asked to direct a choir during a church service in Paris, Hermann made his first visit inside a Catholic church. During Benediction he felt himself deeply stirred and touched by some unknown power. “My mind,” he wrote, “found itself perturbed, so to speak, and withdrawn from the agitation of the world, penetrated by something totally unknown to it previously. I was constrained to bow, against my will without a doubt. The following day, I had the same experience and, suddenly, the thought touched me to become a Catholic.” Baptized on August 28, 1847 (the feast of St. Augustine), Herman Cohen received his new Christian name, Augustin-Marie Henri, and he vowed then and there to live and die for the Truth. As one converted by the Blessed Sacrament, he spent hours in front of the tabernacle. One evening in November 1848, he was praying in a Carmelite chapel in Paris when he was asked to leave. Only women were allowed to pray and worship Our Lord at night. Undaunted, Hermann received permission to organize nocturnal adoration for men, which he would promote for the rest of his life. In order to pay off his debts, Hermann continued to give concerts. His last concert was in Paris, and it was a tremendous success. “Now I am done with the world forever,” he wrote. “What happiness I had when I bowed after the last note!” On July 16, 1849, he joined Carmel, receiving the name Augustin-Marie du Très SaintSacrament. Ordained priest on April 19, 1851, and, despite his limited training, he became known as a fiery preacher, promoting Eucharistic devotion in all his sermons. His life was like another St. Augustine, a complete about-face from his former ways. He had the joy of knowing that his old 43 Faith and Morals teacher Franz Liszt had also changed. Liszt became a Franciscan tertiary, and even received the four minor holy orders. In 1867 Fr. Augustin-Marie or Fr. Hermann (as he came to be known) rejected surgery for his failing eyesight, instead putting his trust in Our Lady. Going to Lourdes, he bathed his eyes in the miraculous spring and was instantly cured! During the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 he became a chaplain for the French prisoners at the Spandau prison just outside Berlin, but contracted smallpox during his ministry there and died on January 19, 1871. These converts put most of us to shame, so well did they perceive and understand the beauty of the Real Presence. Until we realize the same, we may easily be led astray. It is the firm faith in the Real Presence that will keep us Catholic. This is the reason we say Mysterium Fidei—“the Mystery of the Faith”—at the consecration. The belief in the Real Presence has always been the divider between real Faith and a weak, superficial faith. Our Savior had already shown this to us. In St. John’s Gospel, Chapter VI, He said, “I am the Living Bread that has come down from Heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.” When the Jews were shocked by this doctrine, Our Lord did not back down or try to explain it in another way, but insisted: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eats My flesh and drinks My blood, has everlasting life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed…” Christ Our Lord lost many followers at that time, because they could not accept the Real Presence of His flesh and blood in the Holy Eucharist. The same thing is still happening today. Many who claim to believe in Jesus are not true Christians, since they will not accept that He is really and truly present in the Blessed Sacrament. Come to Him and Be Enlightened (Psalm 33:6) Archbishop Fulton Sheen had a great faith 44 The Angelus November - December 2014 in the Real Presence and had a theory that if he could just get souls before Him, Our Lord would increase their faith and devotion. Once when giving a retreat in a large monastery church, he genuflected before the altar, only to be told that the Blessed Sacrament was not present. Finding out that Our Lord was kept in a little room way down the corridor, Sheen refused to start the retreat until Our Lord was restored to His proper place. Sheen was rewarded for his faith, for he made a remarkable number of converts, restored the lost faith of many priests and had the grace to die on his knees in front of the Blessed Sacrament on December 9, 1979. Like Bishop Sheen, we just have to come before the Holy Eucharist to be enlightened. I often think of Moses before the burning bush. God hid Himself there under the appearance of fire so that Moses could come before Him. After conversing with God, Moses’ face was so radiant with reflected glory that the children of Israel could not look upon him, and he had to cover his face. A similar thing happened in the lives of several saints. When in front of the Blessed Sacrament, St. Francis Caracciolo’s face usually emitted brilliant rays of light. He would die on the feast of Corpus Christi in 1608. St. Benedict Joseph Labre, the beggar saint, although pale from his constant fasting, would glow with a rosy hue while he remained before Our Savior. That external light on their faces was a miraculous external manifestation of the faith and devotion that burned within their souls reflecting the glory of the Real Presence. As Isaias said, “Truly Thou art a hidden God!” (Is. 45:15). Our Lord Jesus Christ is hidden, but He is truly there, as real and present to us as He was to His Apostles. Go into His presence and be enlightened, and if your faith is still weak, pray for an increase of faith in the Real Presence: “I do believe Lord, help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:23). Fr. Daniel Cooper was ordained at Ecône in 1987 and exercised various posts mostly as prior throughout the United States, including editor of The Angelus for a few years. He is presently residing in the Los Angeles priory of Arcadia. Spirituality Incarnation and Communion in Mary by M. M. Philipon, O.P. There is one whom the Christian tradition has always regarded as the highest ideal, the incomparable model of every soul seeking to advance in its life of union with the God of the Eucharist. This is the Virgin of the Incarnation, whose life was one of uninterrupted union with the mystery of Christ. In her there was never any stain or defilement, never even a trace of evil. She is immaculate. In her virginal life all was pure; her love was preserved whole and intact for God alone. Neither in her body nor in her soul, which were both wholly consecrated to the service of God and the redemption of the world, did the Word meet with any obstacle to His supernatural operation; for He, the living God, dwelled in her, becoming even her Son in the flesh. In her His divine work of sanctification could go on freely, unhampered. In every soul this supernatural work needs only to be allowed to operate freely in order to produce its effects; and in Mary it found full freedom of operation. During the nine months of real and physical presence in her womb, the Son of God produced in her soul, in a supra-sacramental manner, the most exalted and the most wonderful effects of His grace. In Mary, therefore, the usual effects of the Eucharist were infinitely surpassed. Work of the Incarnation in Mary At the very moment of His coming into the Virgin of the Incarnation, the Word bestowed on her the grace of divine motherhood. Through this singular prerogative the whole mystery of Mary 45 Spirituality was brought to share, in a most profound manner, in the hiddenmost life of the Trinity, since it gave her a son who was the true Son of the eternal God Himself. To this initial privilege (initial, not in the order of time, since the Immaculate Conception had preceded it, but in the order of excellence)— to this privilege, which is the foundation and raison d’être for all of Mary’s glories, were added all the graces which the Virgin of the Incarnation needed to be a worthy Mother of God and of men. The fact of the Word being present in her as her Son became the dominant influence in the whole mystery of her life. Mary became the first beneficiary of the universal restoration and reconstruction that was wrought by the presence in the world of the Word made flesh. Her whole life was transformed by this presence. Furthermore, the God of the Crib and of the Eucharist, from whom men and women receive the power to remain steadfast in purity, did not violate her virginal integrity, but rather consecrated it forever, so that for all generations the Mother of Jesus will retain, above all, her beautiful title of “Virgin.” Moreover, death itself spared from its customary ravages the immaculate body of this woman who was the Mother of the Word. It is generally believed that her body was promptly restored to life and assumed into heaven, where now her whole being, body and soul, are in the state of glory forever. Through the power of the blood of redemption, which the Word took from her virginal body, Mary received all those supernatural gifts and endowments that made her the masterwork, the most wonderful effect, of the redemption. And as for the union of soul, of heart and mind, that existed between the Mother and the Son from the first moment of the incarnation, human understanding may try to fathom it, but must ever stop short of the reality. We do know that the Blessed Trinity made them partners in one and the same work of salvation. With the new Adam, God associated a new Eve, whose coredemptive and maternal action extends over the whole mystical body, reaching as far, if not so deep, as the power of Christ Himself. Indeed, God the Father, having given her His own Son to be her Son, would hardly have 46 The Angelus November - December 2014 failed to give her all the rest: having given her the greater, He would surely not withhold the lesser. And the Holy Spirit, having produced in her the greatest of miracles, also bestowed on her, in measureless abundance, the fulness of His gifts. And the Word, who dwelled in her as Son, the source and creator of all graces, imparted to her, from His infinite and all-powerful bounty, a store of supernatural riches and merits to which it is impossible for us to affix any limits. A Life of Communion As for the further life of Mary after the incarnation, it, too, was one of uninterrupted union and communion with the entire mystery of Christ. The Virgin of the Incarnation, associated once and for all with the redemptive work of the Word made flesh, remained intimately united with Him in all the mysteries of our salvation. Bethlehem, Nazareth, His public life, His suffering culminating in death on Calvary—all were so many stages in Mary’s own life; each found her more and more united and identified with the thoughts and aspirations of Christ’s own soul. The return of Jesus to heaven ended abruptly for Mary the visible presence both of the human and the divine nature of her Son. But the effect of this departure was not to halt the progress of her life of union with Christ; rather it made this union more divine, more pure, by removing all that was perceptible by sense. It was now that the life of faith reached its highest perfection in the soul of the Virgin of the Incarnation. Now the Eucharist played the dominant role in her life, bringing to her, in a real though different manner, the same Son, the same God. Together with the small but growing body of first Christians, the Mother of Jesus continued steadfastly in prayer and in the breaking of bread, communicating with the other believers in the body and blood, in the soul and divine nature, of her own Son. In receiving the body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist Mary relived all the joys of the incarnation; but each Communion also brought back the poignant memory of her Son’s sorrowful immolation on Calvary. For in the Eucharist she, like all Christians, shared in the sacrificial offering of a victim. In fact, the blood of redemption which was in the chalice and which Jesus received from her own blood she had already offered to the Blessed Trinity at the foot of the Cross. Hence, in the Christ of the Mass and of her Eucharistic Communions, Mary could discern as none other could, the Christ that was contained in all the mysteries associated with the redemption. It is impossible for us to penetrate the depth and intensity of the union of soul experienced between the Mother and the Son through the Eucharist. Even the initial grace which Mary received with the inaugural of her divine motherhood surpassed in fullness the sum total of all graces bestowed on all the angels and saints. But now she had advanced far beyond the first degrees of holiness and merit that marked the beginning of each of her mysteries. Through her divine motherhood the Virgin of the incarnation had been raised aloft to the very confines of the Deity, to occupy a place within the realm of the hypostatic order. As we know, through the Person of the Son this order is substantially united with the hiddenmost life of the Blessed Trinity. Furthermore, in virtue of her role on Calvary, Mary’s participation in this divine life was extended in scope so as to include participation in the universal redemption of all mankind through Christ. Union Consummated Now, at the end of her life on earth, the spiritual and mystical life of the Mother of God reached its point of culmination. Her love of God had reached such intensity and such a degree of utter selflessness as to be beyond the power of a creature to understand, let alone to express in words. Here we can only guess and vaguely surmise; but even the little that we can grasp is enough to fill us with awe and wonder. For example, each of her Communions brought her a fullness of grace without equal, a fullness with which no other saint’s holiness can even remotely compare. We shall, indeed, never understand Christ’s Mother at all, unless we view her from the perspective of Christ Himself; for she was associated with Him in all His work. Her faith was so full and complete and so blessed with light and understanding by the gifts of the Holy Spirit that she could already, though still on earth, glimpse the bright visions of the beatific life. Through the virtue of hope she possessed her soul in peace and joy. That joy came from the certain knowledge that, by her unique association with Christ, a whole spiritual universe as vast in scope as redemption itself, was receiving from her the divine life of grace. But it was her love, especially her love, that exceeded all bounds, for now it had brought her to those summits of the transforming union beyond which no mere creature can go, summits which only the soul of Christ could exceed. Her whole life was centered in the Eucharistic sacrifice: her love, her atonement, her adoration, her prayer, her thanksgiving. By her merits and her power of reparation she supported and strengthened the disciples of Jesus in their apostolic labors, and the martyrs in their sufferings, and the entire Church in her struggle for the cause of Christ. If the infant Church displayed such irresistible power of conquest, and such unyielding fidelity to God in the face of the most frightful tortures and agonies that marked the first persecutions, it was due to the prayer and the quiet but unfailing influence of the Coredemptress of the world, who herself drew all her strength from the Eucharist, from this real and ever efficacious presence of Christ in the midst of His faithful. When the Mother of God gathered with the growing body of faithful, who were all her children and partook of the body and blood of her Son, her soul became one with the Word Incarnate, one with all His thoughts and aspirations; and through the merits and power of this union, through Him and in Him she nurtured the Church into the fullness of unity in the Trinity. Extracts from The Sacraments in the Christian Life, trans. Rev. John A. Otto, Ph.D. (Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1954), pp. 116-120. 47 Spirituality The Parish Vicar Anonymous This priest was servicing two parishes. To both he was giving exactly the same offices, the same care, zeal, and heart. These were happy and privileged parishes. What an admirable parish priest! These were my thoughts as I was preaching there for the Jubilee. When I commented on it, I received a protest commanded by humility. It concluded in these terms: “And also, my Vicar does more than myself.” “Your Vicar? But Father, for the two days that I have lived with you, I have not seen the shadow of a Vicar…” “I shall show you this shadow of Vicar as soon as we get a free afternoon. For this we need some time, a car… and a great spirit of faith.” The time finally came, and driving we were to find the whereabouts of the Vicar! The sun 48 The Angelus November - December 2014 was giving the countryside a seductive touch, quite irresistible. Through mountain tracks, the light and speedy car is climbing the windy road, singing with all its cylinders. There, over the plateau finally the first farms of a large hamlet. “He lives here!” whispered the parish priest. “Ah! Now I understand. This Vicar of yours must be servicing a mission chapel, I imagine?” “Oh, no! He would be absolutely incapable, the dear friend… He simply takes care of my parishioners.” “You must be joking, Father!” “This is very serious… This is the pure truth.” I decided to keep silent, ready for any eventuality. Had I seen come under my nose the devil or a cherub, I would not have been surprised. But what I saw, all of a sudden, left me pallid. I remained standing, with a tight throat, moved to tears, for a few minutes unable to articulate a sound. There before me, on the porch, lying in a child’s cart, an unfortunate cripple, I saw his arms and legs incredibly atrophied with knots and twists from rheumatism. And topping this deformed body and little baby hands was the head of a man of thirty years, strong, lit with intelligence, radiating goodness, all smile and joy. His lips were as if ready for the welcoming word and witty humor… He was the Vicar! Right away, I understood… I understood that his priesthood, his apostolate, were none other than those of the sacrament of suffering accepted and offered for his two parishes… And the tears which filled my eyes were about to burst out… But he, suddenly, restored calm by the sparks of his good humor! “Hey! Father, what a great idea you have had to bring here the good priest!” “Well, I thought that you would not be too upset if you too could follow the Jubilee.” “Indeed! If, however, you are willing to dispense me from the six visits to the church!” And he burst out into laughter. I, disconcerted by so much joy, was gazing at him who was mimicking the child about to be scolded. “I must look a strange fellow, mustn’t I? As you see me, I cannot remain serious for two minutes… I always feel like singing. It is too much for me. I am so happy! Ah! God is so good, if you only knew!” “And you are admirable, dear friend, to adapt so well to His will. Not everyone enjoys your happy resignation.” At that very moment, the parish Priest showed him a piece of paper. He glanced at it. “Father, this is my home work. Father says Mass and administers the sacraments; he preaches—and quite well, I have been told although I have never heard him; he visits the sick and buries the dead… Meanwhile, I pray for the intentions which he brings me once a week. And there are quite a few! So, I can hardly have time to rest.” (Another outburst of laughter.) “Well! My dear Michael,” the priest told him, “I count on you. We’ll work it up together, won’t we? Alone I would not last long… Pray steadily and offer your day for my parishioners.” “Of course, dear Father! And make it back soon!” “Yes, I shall be back on Thursday to bring you the good God.” Five minutes later, our car was speeding downhill. “You’ve seen him now, my Vicar?... He has been like this since the age of seven, and now he is thirty two. And never a moan. People come from three leagues away to be edified. In the evening the neighbors watch with him. He tells them stories. He reads aloud some instructive or pious pages. Without meaning it, he preaches in his own way. He recites the night prayers… and this, daily. The only thing he cannot do are the Mass and the sacraments. This is too much for him. It is my part of the load.” And I started to think, and I still think of so many invalids in pain and suffering: pains and sufferings turned into revolt and blasphemy when they could be working out the redemption of the world! You who suffer, think of the souls in need of salvation! Become our Vicars! Heaven’s gates open more readily when one pushes them with wounded hands. 49 Therefore the Word of God, Himself God, the Son of God who in the beginning was with God, through whom all things were made and without whom was nothing made (John 1:1-3), with the purpose of delivering man from eternal death, became man: so bending Himself to take upon Himself our humility without decrease in His own majesty, that remaining what He was and assuming what He was not, He might unite the true form of a slave to that form in which He is equal to God the Father, and join both natures together by such a compact that the lower should not be swallowed up in its exaltation nor the higher impaired by its new associate. St. Leo the Great, Sermon 21 Christian Culture Eucharistic Congress at La Salette Academy by James Golightly “Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto life everlasting, which the Son of man will give you.” Jn. 2:17 Humble Origins The Eucharistic Congress at La Salette Academy was a grand and historic event which certainly brought many graces upon the Academy and United States District. The conception and origin of this magnificent event began quite humbly. At the beginning of each academic year, the students are given a recollection in order to lay before them a certain theme for the year, setting the tone, goal and accompanying means. Past years have focused upon Saint Michael, King David and the Book of Kings, the wedding feast at Cana, for example. Last year we decided to go to the very heart of 52 The Angelus November - December 2014 Catholic worship and the center of the spiritual and supernatural life by focusing all our efforts on a better understanding of and devotion to Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist and His sacrifice perpetuated in the Holy Mass. The material through three conferences preached by Headmaster Father McMahon was the Liturgy of Corpus Christi and the wonderful hymns of Saint Thomas, principally the Pange Lingua as well as the sixth chapter of St. John’s Gospel. The motto for the year was fittingly taken from St. Paul: Probet autem seipsum homo (But let a man prove himself) and the year’s special patrons were Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament and Saint Thomas Aquinas. Once a theme and the goal have been established, we then seek to emphasize, accentuate and make concrete the application of the theme throughout the year. Thus the monthly recollections given to students and staff also dealt with aspects of the Holy Eucharist, for instance Our Lady and the Mass in October, the Mass and the Holy Souls in November, etc. In addition to the sung Mass, on the First Friday of each month we scheduled allday Eucharistic adoration that day; appropriate readings at dinner time, enlightening the intel­ lects of the students; and finally we conceived the culmination of this Eucharistic year with a “congress” to be held in the month of May. The Plot Thickens​ At the beginning this was simply meant to be internal for the La Salette community. Annually we invite priests and other distinguished guests to give conferences throughout the year on a variety of topics in religion and apologetics, on historical and current events. This year we would invite a number of speakers over one weekend and focus entirely upon the Blessed Sacrament. Once this decision was made it seemed evident that the potential spiritual benefits which might be obtained through such an event could be spread outside the walls of the Academy throughout the District and beyond. Thus Father McMahon, the headmaster at the Academy, presented our plan to the District Superior along with the idea of opening the congress to a District-wide participation. Though the amount of time and energy necessary for the proper planning and putting into practice of this great event would be enormous, the honor and glory of God and the good for souls which would result seemed well worth the potential pains. The will of God was providentially manifested through the positive response of our then District Superior, Father Arnaud Rostand, who not only encouraged our efforts but also made the Eucharistic Congress at La Salette Academy an official District event. Full speed ahead… Remote Preparations​ The first order of business was to seek distinguished speakers on both relevant and interesting topics pertaining to various aspects of the Holy Eucharist. The three District Superiors of North America were contacted with only Father Rostand being able to commit to those proposed dates in May. In addition to the Superior himself, the District office was well represented by Secretary Father Steven McDonald and Bursar Father Patrick Rutledge. St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary was duly contacted and graciously responded by promising not only the vice-rector, Father Patrick Abbet, and a professor, Father Joseph Wood, but also a large contingent of La Salette alumni seminarians. Retreat master Father Thomas Scott completed the list of illustrissimi. The great coup was to secure one of our bishops to preside and cap the event with a Pontifical High Mass and sermon. Our own “American” bishop, H.E. Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, graciously obliged. Conference Titles​ While many topics were considered, the ones finally chosen were: St.​​Pius X & the Eucharist (Fr. Arnaud Rostand), Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament (Fr. Stephen McDonald), St. ​ John’s Gospel, Chapter VI (Fr. Patrick Rutledge), Thanksgiving after Communion (Fr. Patrick Abbet), the Mass & the Holy Eucharist (Fr. Joseph Wood), and the Three Communion Prayers (Fr. Thomas Scott). With this crucial element in place the immense material preparations began as early as the fall of 2013. In conjunction with and to properly inform these, spiritual preparations were a priority. The readings at table, the monthly recollection, all contributed and facilitated a better knowledge and, consequently, a greater love of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. The priestinstructors of the religion classes for each grade, 8-12, were told to spend extra and concentrated time devoted to this great Mystery. Among material preparations were the negotiating of prices for the various items needed for the proper celebration of the Pontifical Mass such as a tent, chairs, various items for the ceremony, etc., the organization of a food menu, schedules, hotel accommodations, registration packets and the variety of necessary arrangements for a dozen or more visiting priests were among the many remote preparations for this historical event. 53 Christian Culture Proximate Preparations​ The proximate preparation comprised a thorough cleaning and manicure of the property as true Christian hospitality demands and an event in honor of Our Eucharistic Lord manifestly deserves. It was not only the headmaster and administration that took on this monumental task; the students likewise busied themselves with preparing a plethora of projects. From the choir loft to the refectory, young men immersed themselves in everything from serving practices, making sure that the Pontifical Mass was carried out excellently, to thoroughly cleaning the kitchen in preparation for feeding our distinguished guests and His Excellency. Seniors, who are in charge of their respective crews, made sure that all lent a helping hand. The campus buzzed with an electricity that was infectious in the week that led up to the Congress. The Lions, with now six months of recollections and classes all dedicated to this central Mystery of the Faith, made the final roar towards the goal—A Eucharistic Congress. most of the day. As the sun began to set on the 18-acre campus, all clergy, attendees and students lined up for procession of the Blessed Sacrament. Weaving through the side streets of rural Olivet, Illinois, was a group of young men, families and alteri Christi worshiping their God, the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. Tuesday, May 13, 2014 Pax Vobis rang throughout the tent as His Excellency, Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais celebrated the Pontifical Mass to conclude the Congress. The votive Mass of the Blessed Sacrament was celebrated in honor of the supreme gift of the Holy Eucharist. His Excellency’s sermon both inspired and edified. After Mass there was a reserved brunch with the Bishop, and all departed after a weekend steeped in prayer, meditation and reflection. Conclusion The Main Event On Sunday, May 11, 2014, a solemn high Mass was celebrated by our recent District Superior to kick off the triduum of talks, devotions and prayer that permeated the event. At 6:00 p.m. that evening, Father Rostand gave the opening conference on St. Pius X and the Holy Eucharist after a general welcome and introduction by Father McMahon. The evening was capped off by exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, which was exposed over the entire three days, and ended with Compline in front of the Eucharistic King. Monday, May 12, 2014 Monday morning began with a solemn high Mass under the tent, celebrated by Father McMahon, flanked by the District Bursar, Father Patrick Rutledge, and Father Elias, O.S.B. (a former housefather at St. Joseph’s Academy in Armada where La Salette was alive in potency). After Mass and a quick breakfast, conferences 2-5 took up 54 The Angelus November - December 2014 From a natural perspective it was a strange sight; a conglomeration of people from across the country seemingly following a gold container while singing hymns in an unfamiliar tongue. But through the eyes of Faith! What majesty is contained in the monstrance! So many Catholics wish they could have walked the streets of Nazareth and seen Christ. We did that day. Not the streets of Nazareth, but the streets of Olivet. Not the body in human appearance, but under the appearance of bread. To think that our God would not only take on the human condition, but that after He had been brutally executed by His children, Christ the leader, the Lord of History, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, in this great act of Love, remains with us as our spiritual food. What humility of our God! G. K. Chesterton’s poem Lepanto puts it, as only he knew how, of the beauty of the abiding presence of Christ hidden in the Eucharist: The hidden room in man’s house where God sits all the year, The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear. 5-CD set – STK# 8629Q – $24.95 2014 Eucharistic Congress CDs The congress was held at La Salette Boys Academy May 13-15 at the same time Harvard’s Extension Club proposed holding a Black Mass. Harvard’s plans were cancelled while the Eucharistic Congress continued. Reparation and honor to Our Lord present in the Eucharist included six conferences. -- Fr. Arnaud Rostand, U.S. District Superior: St. Pius X and the Blessed Eucharist -- Fr. Steven McDonald, Assistant to the District Superior: Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament -- Fr. Patrick Rutledge, District Bursar: St. John’s Gospel, Chapter VI – The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes -- Fr. Patrick Abbet, Vice-Rector of St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary: Thanksgiving after Communion -- Fr. Joseph Wood, Professor of Liturgy and Latin at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary: The Mass and the Holy Eucharist -- Fr. Thomas Scott, St. Vincent de Paul Priory in Kansas City, Missouri: The Three Prayers Preceding Holy Communion The Sermons of St. Francis de Sales Advent and Christmas 135 pp. – Softcover – STK# BD363 – $13.95 Lent On Our Lady On Prayer 230 pp. – Softcover – STK# BD364 – $15.95 219 pp. – Softcover – STK# 9031 – $15.95 58 pp. – Softcover – STK# BD365 – $8.95 Visit www.angeluspress.org — 1-800-966-7337 Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music. Christian Culture The Tapestry of the Apocalypse by Dr. Marie-France Hilgar Even if you are not fond of superlatives, they all come to mind when you first encounter this wonderful artwork, the Tapestry of the Apocalypse at Angers, France. It is now being presented on the dark blue wall of a huge and long room built especially to house it. It is the largest tapestry ever woven in Europe: 140 meters long, 850 square meters. Originally it was formed by an ensemble of six pieces, each one 23 meters long and 6 meters high, each piece composed of 14 scenes presented on two levels. The outrages of the centuries and the stupidity of men amputated it by almost one third; many scenes have disappeared. We are left with “only” 104 meters. By the thirteenth century, the art of tapestry reaches its summit in France. This brings us to the House of Anjou. The Duchy is a buffer 56 The Angelus November - December 2014 between Brittany and France. Jean le Bon (13191364) had four sons who grew up in the cultivated and refined court of the Valois, surrounded by musicians, poets and painters. They love anything beautiful, collect precious jewels and rare manuscripts. Louis I, Duke of Anjou, is very ambitious, very careful of his image. He wants to show his power and astonish his peers. In 1373 he orders the weaving of a beautiful tapestry illustrating the last book of the Gospel, the Apocalypse according to St. John. The work is completed in 1382. Louis I will not have much time to admire his tapestry: he dies two years later. What did he intend to do with it? Nobody knows for sure, as there was no room big enough in the chateau to exhibit it. Louis II of Anjou had it transported to Arles for his wedding to Yolanda of Aragon in 1400. Everyone, according to the commentaries and writings of the time, was amazed. Louis XI in 1474 takes Anjou for the crown of France. The son of Louis II decides to exhibit the tapestry when the king enters the City of Angers. Louis XI admires it so much that Louis, worried, decides to donate it to the Cathedral of Saint Maurice in Angers. The tapestry can be seen stretched in the sanctuary or hung along the nave. It is shortened, cut here and there. The canons complain that it smothers the sound of the choir and of the sermons. The eighteenth century hates anything medieval. The canons put the tapestry for sale in 1782, at a very low price: supreme humiliation, there is no buyer! It is then thrown in a junk room, cut to plug holes, protect from mud and rain, to wipe feet, bandage horses.” A Rebirth The 19th century rehabilitates the Middle Ages. One of the canons discovers the tapestry and is horrified to see in what state it is. He cleans it in the river Maine. Colors have not survived well. But it is exhibited during the Universal Exposition of 1867 and is classified as a “Monument historique” in 1902. In 1905 it becomes the property of the government. It is returned to the Chateau d’Angers where it can be admired, but there is no room large enough to show all of the pieces that are left. The bright light makes it fade even more. In 1952, the decision is taken: a gallery will be built that will be large enough to show the whole thing. By 1954 the tapestry is put in its definite place, but the large windows allow too much sun to come in. In 1975, drapes are installed. In 1980 it is discovered by miracle that the back side of the tapestry has kept the beautiful and joyful colors which made its beauty. In other words, the back side is as beautiful as the front used to be. It is called a “tapisserie sans envers.” In 1996, the gallery is refitted: the walls are dark blue to show off the scenes. They are presented on two levels and the light is filtered. What we see nowadays is six pieces, each piece composed of twelve tapestries. The first one explains how St. John was seized by the Spirit and heard a voice which proclaimed: “What you see, write it in a book.” The second one illustrates the events seen from heaven. The third one evokes the coming on earth of witnesses sent by Christ to preach His word. The fourth one is a warning: men who worship the Beast and cultivate evil will be punished. The fifth is more precise about the scourges of God announced by the seven trumpets of the beginning scene. The sixth and last tells the final victory of the Messiah and of the True Faith. A Closer Look Scene 35, The lady clothed with the sun. Apocalypse XII, 1, 3-4. And there appeared a great wonder in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars: and there appeared another wonder in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his head seven diadems and his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. Mary shows the newborn child to the angel who takes Him toward heaven and a sheltered throne to take Him away from the seven-headed dragon with horns who wants to grab the Baby. The crown of Mary bears twelve stars. She is dressed in sunrays, her feet are on the moon. Satan has failed, but he takes with him stars that have fallen. Notice the angels do not have halos; they have crosses on their heads. By this woman, interpreters commonly 57 Christian Culture understand the Church of Christ, and the twelve stars with which she is crowned were the twelve apostles and their successors. And the dragon is of course Satan who tries to undermine the Church. Scene 36, St. Michael fights the dragon. Apocalypse XII, 7-8. And there was a great battle in heaven: Michael and his Angels fought with the dragon: and the dragon fought and his angels: and they prevailed not. The dragon is brought down by angels. The many spears show how ferocious the fight is. St. Michael’s spear ends with a cross, symbol of the triumphant Church. The angel with the phylactery claims victory. Exceptionally we have a geometrical design for the background. Scene 39, The dragon fights God’s servants. The background shows the initials of Louis I and his spouse. The fight between the dragon and the 58 The Angelus November - December 2014 believers gives us a good idea of 14th-century costumes. The Franciscan friar wears the long robe with hood, his belt is a cord with three knots. The lay people wear shirts over their pants and long pointed shoes. Two of them have head covers, a turban and a hood. The seven heads of the monster are very visible, symbol of his scary intelligence, and the horns are signs of its power. Scene 40, The Beast of the sea. Apocalypse XII, 1-2. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns and the beast which I saw was like to a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion. It represents pagan power, the Antichrist who persecutes the Church. It comes out of the water and gives to Satan the scepter of royalty, thus asking him to fight the believers. The Beast has seven heads of lions, ten horns and ten diadems with a body that looks like that of a leopard and feet that resemble those of a bear. It shows the strength and power of evil. Notice that the Beasts have a kind of a parallel connection. Notice also the background full of flowers. Commentators see the dragon as representing antichrist, the seven heads and ten horns signifying a great number of kings and princes who shall be overcome by antichrist and submit themselves to him. It could also be the whole company of infidels, enemies and persecutors of the people of God, from the beginning to the end of the world. The seven heads could be seven principal kingdoms or empires which have exercised or shall exercise tyrannical power over the people of God: of these, five were then fallen—the Egyptian, Assyrian, Chaldean, Persian and Grecian monarchies; the sixth one present Rome; and the seventh yet to come. According to Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, the leopard represents Maximian, a changeable, restless and cruel prince. The bear figures Galerius Maximin, a man of cruel and brutal disposition and gigantic stature. We are told he took pleasure in feeding bears, which bore a great resemblance to him in size and brutality. The lion is the symbol of Diocletian, who was cruel and vehement against Christians. Sixth piece. Scene 73, The Word of God charges the Beasts. Apocalypse XIX, 14. And the armies which are in Heaven followed him on white horses. It is a typical scene of a besieged city. The inhabitants take refuge in the castle, they look at the attackers. Soldiers posted in front of the portcullis defend the entrance. Satan pulls with him the unbelievers who will be defeated by the fire of heaven. Scene 80, The new Jerusalem. Apocalypse XXI, 1. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. And I, John, saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven. God’s armies charge the Antichrist. Three horsemen symbolize armies. At their head is Christ with a halo and a beautiful galloping horse, and armed with the sword of Faith. The Beasts of earth and sea and the men seduced by Satan run away and seem to take cover behind a large rock. The scene exalts divine victory, the triumph of God’s Word over Satan. Scene 77, Satan besieges the city. Apocalypse XX, 9. And fire comes down from God out of heaven, and the devil was cast into the pool of fire where both the beast and the false prophet shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. Many details underline the perfection of the heavenly city. Suspended between heaven and earth, above the waves, the city is outlined on a blue background ornamented with branches of foliage. Christ with a cruciform halo addresses Himself to St. John from a cloud. St. John looks at, with admiration, the home of the Chosen Ones, rewarded for their faith. Christian Culture Scene 82, River flowing from the throne of God. Apocalypse XX, 1. And he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God, and of the Lamb. Christ and the Lamb appear in majesty in a mandorla. From their throne flows pure water (baptismal water?). It brings water to the hills where flowers and trees full of fruit grow. This vision brings to mind the Garden of Eden before the fall of Adam and Eve. St. John seems ready to run to the Lord, and the believers are finally able to contemplate God. To recapitulate: The tapestry is an allegory, and the numerous symbols are not always easy to understand. We can even say it carries a certain abstruseness. God is the central person. He appears eighteen times, either in the shape of a man or as a lamb with signs of His Power. The animals around, eagle, bull, lion, represent creation with its vitality. The lion incarnates nobility, the eagle swiftness, the bull strength. Many angels are scattered everywhere. They have 60 The Angelus November - December 2014 a human appearance, chubby, blond, with short curly hair, blue-eyed, bare-footed. They have halos and, of course, wings. They wear a long robe, in general white, sometimes blue, usually covered by a coat. They are the messengers of God and ornament the borders of the tapestry where they play 14th-century instruments: harp, crecelle, cithara. The tapestry shows divine persons, diabolical ones, a fantastic bestiary. Let us not forget that it presents not only religious but also political connotations. For instance, the leopard/devil looks exactly like the one on the English coatof-arms. The Valois are fighting the Plantagenets for the throne of France. Times are tough. The black plague of 1348 has killed one-third of the European population. In 1356, the king of France, Jean le Bon, is prisoner of the English. Even if there were some kind of a cease-fire when the tapestry was woven, war was not far and started again. The tapestry is also a work which reflects the worries and dramas of the 14th-century men and women who wove it. Many scenes are coded and destined to a knowledgeable public. Let us keep in mind that there are several levels of readings and analyses. But there is one that deserves only one commentary, and that is the admirable realization of this exceptional work of art. Dr. Marie-France Hilgar, Ph.D., member of the Order of the Academic Palms, was Distinguished Professor of French at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and International President of the Foreign Language Honor Society. She specialized in 17th-century literature and authored three books and more than 100 articles, while her interests extend to the art and history of every century. The Holy Eucharist and Your Family by Michael J. Rayes “I never knew about any of this. I just did what I thought was okay.” Adam is in his late thirties. A husky, jovial husband and father, he seemed genuinely shocked when he learned more about the Faith and specifically, sacraments and precepts of the Church. Adam told me that despite doing his best as a father, he hasn’t had much direction until now. He also confided that he sometimes gets into heated arguments with his wife. That was almost two years ago. Today, Adam is a stronger Catholic, having devoted himself to regular Mass attendance. He also received Confirmation as an adult. His role as a husband and father, and his renewed life as a devout Catholic, all go hand-in-hand for him. Adam no longer escalates arguments with his wife, and he spends more time with his children. He attributes the changes in his life to Jesus and Mary, especially to regular reception of Holy Communion. Center of Your Family Pius XII said in an address given on June 7, 1939, that when it comes to the family, the Eucharist “unites and almost fuses hearts together.” With the graces attached to Holy Communion, Catholic parents can and ought to focus on making family life peaceful and edifying to each member of the family. Generations ago, this was perhaps easier due to stable family structures in society. How can Catholic parents do this today, when many seem to sorely lack good examples and supportive extended family? 61 Christian Culture Before you consider any work of your own to build up your family, consider turning first to our Blessed Lord and offer your family to Him. If you and your spouse have discussed ways to strengthen your Catholic family life and you are ready to implement your plan, perhaps the best way to begin is offering this plan to Jesus in the tabernacle. You and your spouse could also ask our Lord for His blessing when you each receive Holy Communion at the same Mass. If your family is already consecrated to the Sacred Heart, this would involve turning again to Him and remembering His image in your home. The important thing is to rely on God’s work, not your own. You could first do this in your own individual mental prayer. Then, come together with your spouse to offer your family to our Lord. A wonderful truth about the Eucharist is that Mary is always near her Son, as St. Alphonsus de Liguori taught in his 1745 treatise titled “Visits to the Blessed Sacrament and to the Blessed Virgin.” Mary’s closeness to her Eucharistic Son means that when you receive Holy Communion, Mary is very near to your soul. Your family has a maternal advocate in heaven when you center your family on our Eucharistic Lord. Strongly consider making the Eucharist the center of your family’s spirituality, with the Blessed Mother near Him. Peace and Practicality Peace results from centering your family life on our Eucharistic Lord. Your children certainly notice this peace and benefit from it. What are some practical ways to develop this? First, consider spending time to develop peace in your home. It is important to spend time with our Eucharistic Lord, visiting Him often in the tabernacle, and if it is good for your parish to have regular expositions of the Blessed Sacrament, it is certainly good to spend time together with your spouse. If you need to spend regular time with our Lord to maintain your spiritual life, you also need to spend time with your spouse to maintain your marriage. These visits could be combined. If you are going out on a date with your spouse, what if you visited 62 The Angelus November - December 2014 our Lord together first? A ten-minute chapel visit together as a couple before the rest of your date night could set a peaceful tone for the rest of your evening together. Another way to center your marriage on the Eucharist is to offer a Mass intention for your spouse. You could offer your Holy Communion for your husband or wife. You may also consi­ der offering your intention and your Holy Com­ munion for your children. Sometimes I offer my Mass for one particular child who seems to need more support that week. Consider that the fruit of Eucharistic adoration is a peaceful quietude. Fr. M. Muller, C.SS.R., wrote in 1868 that, “by whatsoever passion he may be agitated, let him frequently receive the Body of Christ, and his soul will become tranquil and strong” (The Blessed Eucharist: Our Greatest Treasure, 1994, p. 119). How do you apply this quietude to your marriage? You could do this by creating an environment which invites your spouse to communicate with you. In other words, encourage your spouse to talk while you listen without interrupting. When you feel the urge to cut off your spouse’s words, remember that our Blessed Lord waits quietly in the monstrance, making Himself completely vulnerable under the appearance of mere bread simply to be visited by sinful men. To be more Christ-like, you could listen patiently and give your spouse a little smile and a nod to affirm his or her feelings. If you aren’t used to “active listening,” Father Raoul Plus wrote in 1941 about offering ourselves to others to co-operate with Redemption (Progress in Divine Union, 2004, p. 36): “This truth ought to change our usual way of thinking. Most of us passively assume that Christ has done everything, that we are concerned in the Redemption only insofar as we have benefitted by it. We are not even aware of the importance of our active duties: that we are also redeemers with a definite work to carry out in the salvation of the world.” The Eucharist and Family Life Another practical method for centering your family life on the Eucharist is to encourage your children to make spiritual communions. When they want to take a step closer to our Lord and meditate on Him, you could encourage them to think of the Real Presence and remind them that He is present right now in a tabernacle, perhaps only a few miles from you. You can also include a visit to the Blessed Sacrament when running errands. I recently had to wait a while in the post office, which is only a half-mile from my church. My wife took the kids and went to the grocery store, but my errand ended first. By the time she returned to pick me up, I had already walked to the church. She and the kids came into the chapel to meet me, and we all paid an impromptu visit to our Eucharistic Lord. This isn’t the first time I’ve had my kids meet me in the chapel or paid a visit on the way from one place to another. This teaches children that God isn’t Someone we only think about on Sunday, and it also orients a part of their day toward quiet meditation. You might also encourage your children to reflect on their next Holy Communion. Catholics focus a lot on a child’s first Holy Communion. What about his twelfth? Or ninetieth? Three months after the first Holy Communion, you should notice positive changes in your child. Perhaps rough edges of behavior are smoother, or the child is at least somewhat more reverent at Mass. It may be only a slight change, but something is…different. The difference is the impact that our Eucharistic Lord makes on the soul of your little one. You may help these changes grow stronger as you remind your child throughout the week that our Lord is waiting for us in the tabernacle, and He wants us to persevere until our next Holy Communion. This focus also strengthens family life. de Sales wrote in 1608 that in marriage, “This mutual support should be such as never to admit of anger, dissention, or hasty words. Bees cannot dwell where an echo or other loud noise prevails, neither will the Holy Spirit abide in that house which is disturbed by strife, altercation, and noisy discussions.” A family which builds consistent habits of Holy Communions, visits to the Blessed Sacrament, and regular spiritual communions will soon see peace replace strife, and harmony replace altercation. Michael Rayes is a counselor and a catechism director in Arizona. He and his wife are lifelong Catholics and the parents of seven children. Rayes holds Master’s degrees in professional counseling and business, and is the author of Bank Robbery! and 28 Days to Better Behavior, both available from Rafka Press. Changing Your Family Tree Many married Catholics today were not raised in a peaceful, sacrificial home. Thus, like Adam at the beginning of this article, they do not have an example of ideal Catholic home life. Yet the saints consistently urged Catholic families to be centers of harmony and charity. St. Francis 63 Christian Culture by SSPX priests Is altar wine addictive, and if so, how could Christ have used it? All alcoholic beverages are addictive in certain persons, namely in alcoholics, but not in others. Wine is no exception to this. Yet it is certainly true that grape wine is natural and does have some special qualities, recalled even by Sacred Scripture. It certainly does rejoice the heart of 64 The Angelus November - December 2014 man, as the Psalms say, and it does soothe nerves in those who do not have the predisposition to become alcoholics. However, with respect to its alcohol content, wine is not any different from other alcoholic beverages and is easily prone to abuse. Winedrinking persons can certainly become alco­ holics, and frequently do. It is probably true that it is not so frequently abused as whiskey and other spirits and stronger drinks that alcoholics indulge in. Nevertheless, it must be counted with those fermented drinks that can ruin a person. Our Lord is not responsible for the abuse of this good substance that God in His goodness provided for us and that Our Divine Savior elevated to become the species under which He would give us His Precious Blood. Nevertheless, the wine that was drunk in the time of Our Lord was much weaker than modern-day wine— probably only 7-8 %, which is only half the strength of modern-day wine. Also, the Jews, like all peoples of antiquity, mixed water with their wine in large quantities. Consequently, it was less open to abuse and to cause alcoholism. Present-day sacramental wine is 12-18 %, which higher concentration of alcohol gives the best natural preservation from corruption. The main difference between sacramental wine and table wine is that sacramental wine must be entirely pure from any additives or preservatives and must not contain any alcohol or other product that is not fermented from or fruit of the vine. This is what the Church has to say: “In order that wine may be valid and licit matter for consecration, it must be wine, which has been pressed from fully ripened grapes, which has fermented, which has been purified of sediment or dregs, which has a vinous alcoholic content of around 12 %, which has not been adulterated by the addition of any non-vinous substance, which is neither growing nor grown bad by acescence or putrefaction” (Matters Liturgical, 10th edition, 1959, pp. 327-328). Either red or white wine may be used for altar wine. Can couples decide for themselves when they are able to use NFP? Natural family planning is the intentional and exclusive use of the sterile part of a woman’s menstrual cycle for marriage relations, in such a way that a child is not conceived. The Catholic principles for the resolution of this question are to be found in the 1917 Code of Canon Law, which states that “the primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of children,” so that if anybody would deliberately exclude the right to acts in themselves apt to engender children (Canon 1081, § 2), including by the use of NFP, then the marriage would not only be illicit, but also invalid, as Pope Pius XII declared in his discourse to midwives of October 20, 1951. The Pope goes on to explain that if the limitation of marriage to the sterile periods alone refers not to the right, but only to the use of marriage, then it clearly does not invalidate the marriage. The question of the licitness or morality of such a practice is going to depend upon the intentions of the married couple: “The moral licitness of spouses acting in such a way is to be affirmed or denied inasmuch as the intention to constantly observe these periods is founded or not on sufficient and certain moral motives. The simple fact that the spouses do not pervert the natural act and that they are ready to accept a child who, despite their precautions would come into the world, does not suffice alone to guarantee the rectitude of the intentions and the absolute morality of the motives themselves. “The reason for this is that marriage obliges to a state of life which, if it confers certain rights, also imposes the accomplishment of a positive work in relationship with the same state [= children]. In this case, the following general principle can be applied, according to which a positive duty can be omitted if grave reasons, independent of the good will of those who are bound, establish that the fulfillment of this duty is inopportune…and cannot in justice be demanded” (ibid.). The Pope’s conclusion is very simple. A grave reason is required to exempt a couple from their duty of contributing to the good of society and the Church by having children. A light motive or some personal reason, such as the inconvenience of a pregnancy, or the desire to pursue professional formation, or to space out children, does not suffice. The Popes continues: “To always and deliberately use marriage in such a way as to exempt oneself from its first duty without a GRAVE reason would be to sin against the very meaning of conjugal life” (ibid.). 65 Christian Culture The Pope goes on to list the “serious reasons” that can exempt a couple from this positive obligation of having children, and can thus be used as the grave reason for the exclusive use of the sterile period or NFP, which he lists as “medical, eugenic, economic, and social” reasons, emphasizing that if these or “similar grave reasons” do not exist “according to a just and reasonable judgment,” then the use of NFP is illicit and sinful. From these considerations follow two important reasons why the spouses themselves cannot determine with certitude whether or not the method of NFP is licit in their particular case: 1. Nobody is a good judge in his own case, on account of the natural tendency to give undue weight to personal considerations which are of a light nature and consequently not sufficient to justify the use of NFP. When the Pope requires “a just and reasonable judgment,” he is asking for an expert in judging moral questions. This is the role of the priest, and in particular a pastor of souls, whose duty it is to direct his faithful on how to best live their Catholic lives, and how to avoid both mortal and venial sin. It would be, to say the least, presumptuous for an individual or couple to think that they could make such a judgment on their own. As the saying goes, “A person who chooses himself for a spiritual director, chooses a fool.” 2. Matrimony is a sacrament instituted pri­ marily for the good of society, and not only for the two spouses themselves. The positive duty, from which a couple can only be exempted for grave reasons, concerns society as a whole. It is not something that concerns just the couple, but being a sacrament is under the jurisdiction of the Church. Given that the exemption from this duty concerns society as a whole, it is not a decision for a couple to think that they can make without reference to anybody else. The advice of medical, psychological, and financial professionals may very well be required as to the existence of a grave reason, and finally of the priest in making the decision of prudence. The priest’s authority in such a case is not a strictly canonical one, as given to him by the Church’s law. It is a moral authority, as of the confessor or spiritual director, who guides a 66 The Angelus November - December 2014 person in how to save his soul, either in the confessional or outside in spiritual direction. The attitude of the post-conciliar Church to this question is radically different. A small difference in principles leads to a great difference in conclusions. The difference in principle concerns the ends of marriage, expressed in precisely the opposite order as in the traditional code, and without any hierarchy of primary and secondary: “Marriage….is ordered to the good of the spouses and to the engendering and education of children” (Canon 1055, § 1 of the 1983 Code). This very attitude was condemned by Pius XII in the same address as the error of personalism, which inverts the two ends of marriage, placing the good of the spouses as the first end, and that of children as a secondary end: “This manner of judging…is a grave inversion of the order of values and of ends that the Creator Himself established. We are faced with spreading of a collection of ideas and feelings directly opposed to the clarity, profoundness, and seriousness of Catholic thought….” “It was precisely to cut short all uncertainty and all the deviations that threatened to spread their errors with respect to the hierarchy of the end of marriage and their reciprocal relationships, that we ourselves made a declaration on the order of these ends (March 10, 1944), ...and that the Holy See in a public decree declared that one cannot hold the opinion of certain recent authors, who deny that the primary purpose of marriage is the procreation and education of children, nor that of those who teach that the secondary ends are not essentially subordinate to the primary end, but equivalent and by the very fact independent ends” (April 1, 1944). Hence, if one chooses NFP for personal or light reasons, or if one denies the need for a prudent judge to help in discerning truly grave reasons that exempt from one’s duty towards society, then one has opted for the post-conciliar Church, and can no longer truly call one’s way of thinking profoundly or even truly Catholic. 13 months — STK# Cal2015 — $12.95 Angelus Press 2015 Calendar O ur Lord Jesus Christ’s goal was to offer Himself on the Cross. He came for no other reason. And the Mass is the continuation of the Cross; Our Lord’s goal is then to continue His Cross by the holy sacrifice of the Mass until the end of time. It seems that many souls have forgotten this. They have been looking for the source of grace in little devotions, in the recitation of certain personal prayers, in private devotions to this or that saint. –Archbishop Lefebvre, The Mass of All Time F or the glory of the most Blessed Trinity, for the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, for the love of the Church, for the love of the Pope, for the love of bishops, of priests, of all the faithful, for the salvation of the world, for the salvation of souls, keep this testament of Our Lord Jesus Christ! Keep the sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ! Keep the Mass of All Time! –Archbishop Lefebvre, Golden Jubilee Sermon The 2015 Liturgical Calendar presents inspiring photographs and works of art depicting the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Each month features a beautiful quote of Archbishop Lefebvre helping us understand better and reflect more deeply on the august nature of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, “the most beautiful thing this side of Heaven.” N othing prepares us to receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist so well as meditating upon the holy sacrifice of the Mass, because the sacrifice of the Mass is a source of suggestions, encouragements, and thoughts that create in us dispositions of charity towards God and our neighbor. Our Lord’s sacrifice was indeed the greatest act of charity ever performed in the history of the human race. “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (Jn. 15:13). –Archbishop Lefebvre, The Mass of All Time N ow, everything that happens from the Offertory and the Consecration to the Pater is the accomplishment of God’s love for us, and the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ for His Father. Consequently, the two essential commandments, which sum up the Decalogue, are realized in this part of the Mass. For can there be an act of love for God greater than the act accomplished by Our Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary? Jesus Christ, by dying on the Cross, manifested His infinite love for His Father, and this is accomplished again on our altars. –Archbishop Lefebvre, The Mass of All Time “Our objective today must be to restore to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass its due and rightful place, the place it has held in the Church’s history and doctrine.” —Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre Visit www.angeluspress.org — 1-800-966-7337 Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music. News from Tradition Bishop Athanasius Schneider Speaks about the Extraordinary Synod Bishop Athanasius Schneider, the auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Maria Santissima in Astana, Kazakhstan, has given an extensive interview concerning the recently ended Extraordinary Synod on the Family. For those not familiar with His Excellency, he is the author of the book Dominus Est, which is a scholarly presentation of why Holy Communion “in the hand” should NOT be allowed. Additionally, he has called for Rome to issue a “Syllabus” of Vatican II clearly presenting the meaning of the texts of the council. This was done after Pope Benedict XVI spoke of the “hermeneutic of continuity” regarding the council documents and how the documents must be understood within the context of the Tradition of the Church. He has also celebrated the Traditional Mass many times and is a strong supporter of Tradition in general. In the interview, His Excellency “pulls no punches” regarding the Synod and the danger it poses. Here are some excerpts: “During the Synod there had been moments of obvious manipulation on the part of some clerics who held key positions in the editorial and governing structure of the Synod. The interim report (Relatio post disceptationem) was clearly a prefabricated text with no reference to the actual statements of the Synod Fathers. In the sections on homosexuality, sexuality and ‘divorced and remarried’ with their admittance to the sacraments the text represents a radical neo-pagan ideology… “This is the first time in Church history that such a heterodox text was actually published as a document of an official meeting of Catholic bishops under the guidance of a pope, even though the text only had a preliminary character… “A person who still has the indissoluble sacramental marriage bond and who in spite of this lives in a stable marital cohabitation with another person, by Divine law cannot be admitted to Holy Communion. To do so would be a public statement by the Church nefariously legitimizing a denial of the indissolubility of Christian marriage and at the same time repealing the sixth commandment of God: ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’… “This fact is in itself grievous and represents 68 The Angelus November - December 2014 an attitude of clerical arrogance towards the Divine truth of the Word of God. The attempt to put the Divine truth and the Divine Word to a vote is unworthy of those who as representatives of the Magisterium have to hand over zealously as good and faithful rulers (cf. Matt. 24:45) the Divine deposit. By admitting the ‘divorced and remarried’ to Holy Communion those bishops establish a new tradition on their own volition and transgress thereby the commandment of God, as Christ once rebuked the Pharisees and Scribes (cf. Matt. 15:3). And what is still aggravating is the fact that such bishops try to legitimize their infidelity to Christ’s word by means of arguments such as ‘pastoral need,’ ‘mercy,’ ‘openness to the Holy Spirit.’ Moreover they have no fear and no scruples to pervert in a Gnostic manner the real meaning of these words labeling at the same time those who oppose them and defend the immutable Divine commandment and the true non-human tradition as rigid, scrupulous or traditionalist… “The final Relatio of the Synod also unfortunately contains the paragraph with the vote on the issue of Holy Communion for ‘divorced remarried.’ Even though it did not achieve the required two-thirds of the votes, there remains nevertheless the worrying and astonishing fact that the absolute majority of the present bishops voted in favor of Holy Communion for the ‘divorced and remarried,’ a sad reflection on the spiritual quality of the Catholic episcopacy in our days… “In this extraordinarily difficult time Christ is purifying our Catholic faith so that through this trial the Church will shine brighter and be really light and salt for the insipid neo-pagan world thanks to the fidelity and the pure and simple faith firstly of the faithful… “Catholic young people have to say to themselves: I refuse to conform to the neo-pagan spirit of this world, even when this spirit is spread by some bishops and cardinals. I will not accept their fallacious and perverse use of holy Divine mercy and of ‘new Pentecost.’ I refuse to throw grains of incense before the statue of the idol of the gender ideology, before the idol of second marriages, of concubinage. Even if my bishop were to do so, I will not do so; with the grace of God I will choose to suffer rather than betray the whole truth of Christ on human sexuality and on marriage…” Although never shy to proclaim the Faith, Bishop Schneider has shown a high level of courage in speaking as he has given the current climate in Rome. It would do us all well to remember him in our prayers, that he will continue to have the required fortitude to defend the true Faith. The entire interview is more than worth a careful reading. It is available here: www.pch24.pl/againstpharisees,31907,i.html. Extraordinary Synod on the Family Many thousands of words have been written to date regarding the truly extraordinary “Extraordinary Synod on the Family” which took place in Rome during October. Leaving aside all the discussions on who was responsible for the mid-synod Relatio post disceptationem (a document supposedly presenting the thoughts and discussions of the Synod Fathers up to that point) and how it did not represent what was actually said by the various presenters, the reaction of a few of the Cardinals present at the synod is of particular interest to those in Tradition. After seeing that the Relatio presented the reception of Holy Communion by the divorced and civilly remarried as acceptable pastorally (à la Cardinal Kasper) and that homosexual “unions” had “positive aspects” which should be recognized by pastors, Cardinals Pell, Burke, and Mueller all took the floor to dispute the accuracy of the Relatio and demanded that the reports from the committees be made public. At their insistence this was reluctantly agreed to, and it became clear that the Relatio did not accurately reflect the discussions at the Synod. What is most interesting is that in an interview after these interventions, Raymond Cardinal Burke made the extremely correct statement that one cannot separate pastoral activity from doctrine. Unfortunately, this is precisely what has been going on for the past 50 years since Vatican II first set the Church on the trajectory of implementing all sorts of actions which undermined doctrine under the label of being “pastoral.” The fact that churchmen are critical that a synod in 2014 is doing something that has been applauded (or, at the very least, tolerated) by these same churchmen and their predecessors since the close of Vatican II, without laying the blame where it belongs (i.e., the separation of doctrine from pastoral practice following Vatican II—seen mostly clearly in the Novus Ordo Missae), seems disingenuous. The sad reality is that, until the root cause of fiascos such as occurred at the Extraordinary Synod is recognized and corrected, we should fully expect that continued attempts will be made to separate doctrine from pastoral practice and that documents like the Relatio will continue to be produced. Having said this, there is need to be thankful that a few of the Synod Fathers had the fortitude to stand up and defend true Catholic teaching regarding the indissolubility of marriage and the disordered nature of homosexuality. The frightening part is that more cardinals and bishops did not do the same, and many even supported the attempted overturning of immemorial Church teaching. 69 News from Tradition Archdiocese of New York Closing Parishes At the end of October, the Archdiocese of New York became the latest in a long line of dioceses and archdioceses throughout the world to shutter a significant number of its parishes (after having done so to many of its schools over the past 5 years) to merge 112 parishes into 55 new “parish communities,” which is almost onethird of its current number of parishes. This will effectively mean that 57 parishes will be closed under the program the Archdiocese has dubbed “Making All Things New.” In the mid 1980s, the archdiocese had 413 parishes; following the latest round of “Making All Things New” closings the total number will be approximately 300—and this from an archdiocese which boasts of over two million Catholics, though only twelve percent of these attend Mass each week according to the Archdiocese’s own figures, which are overly generous. These parish closings are coming three years after the Archdiocese merged its seminary (St. Joseph’s in Yonkers) with the seminary of the dioceses of Brooklyn and Rockville Centre. Though the three bishops involved attempted to put a good spin on the situation, it was clear that this was done due to a decrease in priestly vocations (for nearly 40 years, the number of yearly priestly ordinations in the Archdiocese has been significantly less than the yearly number of Archdiocesan priests who have died, and the median age of archdiocesan priests is 69 and rapidly increasing) and a shortage of priests for the faculty. Needless to say, given the parish closings, school closings and seminary merger, it is very hard to see how there is the “new springtime” of the post Vatican II period in the Archdiocese of New York, despite the continual emphasis that there is no crisis in the Church. The only positive news that emerged as these closures/mergers were announced was that the parish of the Holy Innocents in Manhattan that was originally scheduled to be merged with another parish (the “gay friendly” parish of St. Francis of Assisi) was not on the final list and will remain a parish in its own right. Holy Innocents is the only parish in the Archdiocese of New York where the Traditional Mass is offered daily. The uproar raised and the prayers offered by traditional Catholics in New York clearly had some effect on the powers that be in the Archdiocese. Changes in the Congregation of Divine Worship The Congregation of Divine Worship (known as the Sacred Congregation for Rites before Pope Paul VI’s reorganization of the Curia) is responsible for all matters liturgical in the Church. Pope Benedict XVI had named the then Archbishop of Toledo, Antonio Cardinal Cañizares Llovera, as Prefect early on in his pontificate. Cardinal Cañizares was a close friend and collaborator with Pope Benedict (he was often called “The Little Ratzinger”) and was very sympathetic to the Traditional Mass, having offered it a number of times since he came to Rome. He was also a strong presence in the “reform of the reform” as the attempt to restore some dignity to the Novus Ordo Missae was called. Cardinal Cañizares was removed from his prefectship in August 2014 by Pope Francis 70 The Angelus November - December 2014 and was named Archbishop of Valencia in his native Spain. On November 5, 2014, the two undersecretaries of the Congregation (Monsignor Anthony Ward and Monsignor Juan Miguel Ferrer), who were brought in by Cardinal Cañizares, did not have their appointments as undersecretaries renewed the Pope. Both these priests were supporters of the Traditional Mass and worked tirelessly in the “reform of the reform.” Msgr. Ward was the driving force behind the corrected English translation of the Novus Ordo Missae which went into effect in the Englishspeaking world three years ago (this corrected version was an exact translation of the Latin text and was a major step in trying to restore some nobility of language to the Mass in English). Msgr. Ferrer is considered the foremost expert on the Mozarabic Rite. This very early Latin rite is still celebrated in some rare spots in Toledo and Salamanca. Fr. Corrado Maggioni, the current Capo Ufficio of the Congregation, was named Undersecretary, replacing Ward and Ferrer. Maggioni is a devoted disciple of the liturgical thought of Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, the main architect of the liturgical revolution which resulted in the Novus Ordo Missae, and was recently also named to the Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff. On November 23, 2014, Pope Francis nominated His Eminence, Robert Cardinal Sarah as the new Prefect of the Congregation. Cardinal Sarah had previously been in the Roman Curia as President of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum and also served in the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. He was ordained in 1969 for the Archdiocese of Conakry (Guinea, Africa) and in 1979 became its Archbishop. It should be noted that His Eminence was one of the cardinals who spoke out against the Relatio post disceptationem during the Extraordinary Synod on the Family this past October. Also of interest is the fact that Cardinal Sarah has spoken against the dangers of “liturgical deviations,” and of turning the Church’s mission into a merely humanitarian effort. Where His Eminence will take Pope Benedict’s “reform of the reform” is an open question at this point, but it is clear that Cardinal Sarah will be more likely to maintain the current direction of the Congregation than the rumored choice for Prefect, Archbishop Piero Marini. Raymond Cardinal Burke Demoted What had been rumored to be happening became reality on Saturday, November 8. Raymond Cardinal Burke was removed from his position as Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura (the “supreme court” of the Church which hears cases referred to it from other ecclesiastical courts) and given the purely honorary role of Cardinal Protector of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. This honorary role was normally given to a Cardinal over 75 years of age or as an “add on” position for a curial cardinal. Simply put, in and of itself, being Cardinal Protector is a job that entails very little work. To give the job to Cardinal Burke, who is only 66 years old, while replacing him at the Apostolic Signatura cannot be explained except as a demotion. It needs to be noted, as well, that there have been absolutely no revelations of incompetence or impropriety to warrant Burke being removed from office, and no official explanation of the move has been brought forward. This sort of removal is utterly unheard of in the etiquette of the Roman Curia (commonly called Romanitá)—the norm being to remove someone from one office by promotion or at least to one equal to the position he is being removed from, as long as no impropriety or incompetence exists. This of course begs the question as to why has Pope Francis chosen to remove Cardinal Burke from the Apostolic Signatura? The answer can never be definitively known, of course, unless one is in the Holy Father’s “inner circle,” but it must be remembered the Cardinal Burke has been extraordinarily supportive of the Traditional Latin Mass and one of the few Cardinals to publicly critique Cardinal Kasper’s call for the admission of divorced and remarried persons to Holy Communion. Though no traditionalist (he is still an ardent supporter of Vatican II), he was clearly one of the least modernistic in the Roman Curia and we would do well to keep him in our prayers. 71 How the Work of God Is to Be Performed During the Day “Seven times in the day,” says the Prophet, “I have rendered praise to You” (Ps. 118:164). Now, that sacred number of seven will be fulfilled by us if we perform the Offices of our service at the time of the Morning Office, of Prime, of Terce, of Sext, of None, of Vespers, and of Compline, since it was of these day Hours that he said, “Seven times in the day I have rendered praise to You” (Ps. 118:164). For as to the Night Office the same Prophet says, “In the middle of the night I arose to glorify You” (Ps. 118:62). Let us therefore bring our tribute of praise to our Creator “for the judgments of His justice” at these times: the Morning Office, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline; and in the night let us arise to glorify Him. Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter 16 11 CDs – STK# 8630 – $39.95 2014 Angelus Press Conference Audio Recording The Mass This fall, Angelus Press welcomed over 500 souls who traveled to Kansas City to attend the 5th Annual Conference for Catholic Tradition. Over the weekend of October 10th, 11th, and 12th, a topic that is both vital to Catholic culture and to Catholic spirituality was considered and contemplated: The Mass, Heart of the Church. We encourage Catholics to listen to these talks and find a renewed source of Light, Strength, and Peace in attending the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass—which is the Heart of the Church. Presenting 13 important lectures from traditional Catholic speakers. -- The Symbolism of the Offertory (Fr. Daniel Couture, SSPX) -- The Mass in Times of Persecution (Fr. Juan-Carlos Iscara, SSPX) -- Apologetics: What is Our Objection to the New Mass? (Fr. Daniel Themann, SSPX) -- The Spirituality of the Holy Sacrifice (Fr. Patrick Rutledge, SSPX) -- Ecumenism: The Original Sin of the New Mass (John Vennari) -- The Motu Proprio and the Future of the Mass (Michael Matt) -- Luther and the Protestant Attack on the Church -- Archbishop Lefebvre and the Traditional Mass (Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, SSPX) -- The Mass as Vehicle of Catholic Culture (Andrew Clarendon, M.A.) -- Sermon at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church, Kansas City, Missouri (Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, SSPX) -- The Mass and Catholic Marriage (Fr. Joseph Wood, SSPX) -- A Diocesan Priest Discovers the Traditional Mass (Fr. X) -- Conclusion (Fr. Jürgen Wegner, SSPX) (John C. Rao, Ph.D.) www.angeluspress.org — 1-800-966-7337 Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music. Christus Dominus The Vatican Council’s Decree on the Bishop’s Pastoral Office in the Church by Fr. Gabriel Billecocq, SSPX A Doctrinal Primer A few reminders of Catholic doctrine on the constitution of the Church are certainly not superfluous. It is of faith that the Church was founded directly by our Lord during His earthly life. It was not the result of men desirous of putting in common their experience. It was most certainly at Lake Tiberias, with the triple “Pasce” (“Feed my lambs...feed my sheep”), that Jesus Christ instituted the Church. The Church our Lord desired is hierarchic. More precisely, it is a monarchy whose supreme power was vested in a single person: St. Peter. This has been a defined dogma of faith ever since the First Vatican Council.1 The Pope, the Apostles, the Bishops The power of St. Peter is transmissible to his successors, who are the popes. It is of faith that the bishop of Rome is the successor of Peter.2 He holds the primacy over the entire Church (a truth of faith). In other words, his power is full (legislative, executive, and judicial), universal (it extends to all the members of the Church), and immediate (it extends to them without need of any intermediary). As regards the Apostles, certain distinctions must be made. It can be said that the Apostles have a twofold title. First of all, they are bishops and, as such, subject to St. Peter. But they are not ordinary bishops, for our Lord called them personally to be Apostles, that is to say, to complete Revelation and to found the Church. Because of this, they have, extraordinarily, a universal power. Bishops, therefore, are genuine successors of the Apostles as bishops, but not as Apostles. The bishops then hold a real power, which is called ordinary: they are not mere delegates. Their power is plenary (they can legislate, execute laws and decisions, and judge). But their power is subordinate to that of the sovereign pontiff; in other words, it is the pope that gives the bishop his canonical mission. 75 News from Tradition Order and Jurisdiction The pope and the bishops (called the Teaching Church) have three distinct functions: teaching, sanctifying, and governing. In order to do this, two powers have been entrusted to them. First of all, the power of order is conferred on them by their consecration, and it is inamissible: once consecrated, they remain bishops for life! As for whether or not episcopal consecration is a sacrament, the answer is still debated by Catholic theologians. By the power of order, they have the office of sanctifying. Besides this power, they receive a jurisdiction which gives them the mission of governing (and of teaching). This jurisdiction is given to the bishops by investiture and is, consequently, amissible. Traditional opinion (St. Thomas Aquinas in particular) holds that the bishop receives his jurisdiction directly from the pope and not by virtue of his consecration. Different Kinds of Bishops In order to clarify a few ecclesiastical terms and facilitate the reading of texts, it is good to recall that the bishop who heads a diocese is called a residential bishop, or ordinary; for there exist bishops who do not direct, or who no longer direct, a diocese. They are given the title of a diocese that no longer exists; in which case, one speaks of a titular bishop. For example, Archbishop Lefebvre, when he left the diocese of Tulle, was named titular bishop of Synnada in Phrygia. Finally, within a diocese, the residential bishop is sometimes seconded by other bishops (who are then titulars). These are auxiliary bishops. One of them may be designated coadjutor: he has the right of succession to the head of the diocese. Vatican II on the Bishops During the work of preparation for the Second Vatican Council, a preparatory commission “On Bishops and Diocesan Governance” was created, directed by Cardinal Paolo Marella. Several pastoral problems had been brought up, and this commission was charged with studying them. Among the subjects were the territorial division of the dioceses, the relations between the bishops and the Roman Curia, the place of religious in the dioceses, the case of emigrants and travelers. In 76 The Angelus November - December 2014 response to these requests, the preparatory commission drafted seven schemas set to be discussed at the Council. Before Any Discussion During the first session of the Council in 1962, and before the schemas had even been placed on the agenda, the Commission for Bishops was tasked with combining all the topics of the seven schemas into two documents, one more canonical or administrative, and another more pastoral. The work took several months and, in the spring of 1963, two documents saw the light of day: one of 38 pages (Decree on the Bishops’ Pastoral Office in the Church) and the other of 123 pages (Of the Care of Souls). The Debates During the second session, Cardinal Marella presented the Council Fathers the schema on the bishops and made clear that he wanted it to harmonize perfectly with the discussions on the De Ecclesia.3 The discussions lasted from September 1-18. From the first day, the critics took the lead. The defenders of the Curia were soundly attacked, and the Holy Office was not spared. The Bishops Gabriel-Marie Garonne and François Marty in particular accused the schema of not sufficiently setting forth the collegial aspect of the episcopacy. Quite conscious of the danger of collegiality for the papacy and the constitution of the Church, Archbishop Lefebvre intervened during these discussions.4 Yves Congar, who summarized the Archbishop’s intervention, held that he was right as regards his awareness of what was going on, but then took the counterpart, since in his eyes, it is the papacy that has usurped the place of the Ecclesia and the bishops. A New Revision Following these discussions, numerous modifications had to be made. During the intersession, the two texts were melded into a single document and, in April 1964, the schema numbered only 45 pages. It was discussed at the beginning of the third session, from September 18-22, 1964, but the schema Lumen Gentium was uppermost on their minds. There were, nonetheless, a few challenges that postponed the definitive examination of the schema to the following session. Meanwhile, Paul VI published his motu proprio on the Synod of Bishops, thus facilitating the vote on the whole schema—the pope has spoken, ergo... The vote in the aula was held on October 6, 1965, and won 2,167 votes in favor among the 2,181 voters. As for the vote of promulgation of October 28, there were only two out of the 2,322 Fathers against. Analysis It is not without significance that the discussions in the conciliar aula of the Decree on the Bishops took place concurrently with those on the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium. In 1963, Lumen Gentium was discussed until October 31. Discussion on Christus Dominus began five days later, November 5. The following year, discussion of Lumen Gentium finished on November 18; the same day in the train of that discussion, consideration of Christus Dominus was taken up. Lumen Gentium “redefined” the Church. May it be said that Christus Dominus “redefined” the bishop? The Bishops’ Complex In reading about the document, in the writings of some authors one comes across the expression “renewed “episcopate. This is surely not an abuse: the Council (and the bishops in particular) intended to develop a new theology of the episcopacy. Perhaps its use is also a response to a preoccupation in the air at the time. The two preceding Councils did not develop the question; they “buried” it. For if the Council of Trent emphasizes the sacrament of order (Session 23), it did not settle the question as to whether the episcopate is a distinct sacrament of order. Certainly, it gave the bishop a place in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, but it did not develop the relations between sacrament and government, between order and jurisdiction. On the other hand, the First Vatican Council defined the infallibility of the Roman pontiff, by this fact incontestably placing the pope above the bishops. Neither pope nor simple priest, what then is the place of the episcopacy in theology? Good Pastors The title given to bishops (like that of the pope) by Vatican II is that of pastor.5 The title of the docu- ment is itself quite revealing: Decree on the Bishops’ Pastoral Office in the Church. In the adjective there is a reference to the Council itself, which John XXIII qualified as pastoral. But the use of the word is intended to comprehend the three functions of the bishop: teaching, sanctifying, and governing. The ambiguity is found here, for the word pastor is more fitting to denote the act of governing. To designate the bishop’s teaching function, the word doctor6 is used, and to designate that of sanctifying, it is the word pontiff.7 But henceforth, all must be pastoral. As regards the teaching office, it is written that the bishops “teach with what seriousness the Church believes these realities should be regarded: the human person with his freedom and bodily life...”8 and that Christian doctrine must be presented “in a manner adapted to the needs of the times, that is to say, in a manner corresponding to the difficulties and problems by which people are most vexatiously burdened and troubled.”9 Besides, the Church no longer teaches, she “dialogues.”10 Pastoral here contrasts with “dogmatic.” It is no wonder that the Council had no intention to define anything. As for the office of sanctifying, it is odd that the decree11 should emphasize the “esprit de corps” of the laity and the bishops, whereas the confection and the reception of the sacraments are almost occulted. Moreover, the reference for liturgical matters is the constitution by this same Council,12 whose worship is ordered to man. Pastoral? indeed! Redefining the Bishop The preceding remarks, even if they may seem rather unimportant, conceal a new theology of the episcopacy. The Decree Christus Dominus is merely the concrete application of Chapter III of Lumen Gentium.13 The outline of this short decree first considers the bishop in his relationship with the universal Church, not as head of a diocese. And for a reason: since Vatican II, the consecrated bishop belongs first and foremost to the “body” of bishops and with them forms a college. Henceforth, the episcopal consecration makes the bishop-elect a member of the college.14 The result is obvious. By virtue of his membership of the episcopal body, the bishops, “sharing in solicitude for all the churches...exercise this episcopal office of theirs...with respect to teaching the universal Church of God....”15 This is their 77 News from Tradition first office; the diocese comes second.16 Supported by Lumen Gentium, the decree asserts that the college of bishops is subject of a plenary and supreme power over the whole Church.17 It is the affirmation of a universal jurisdiction properly possessed by the college of bishops. And the decree, by its explicit references, maintains the ambiguity of a second power in the Church beside the pope. “The principle lesson...concerns the theological image of the apostolic hierarchy. To speak of a college is to abandon the image of a pyramid with a pope at the top and the bishops beneath....To speak of an episcopal college is, on the contrary, to privilege the image of the crown of bishops, provided that the Bishop of Rome is placed within the crown....”18 The Council makes of the consecration a sacrament the confecting of which gives the power, not only to sanctify, but also, and this is an absolutely untraditional novelty, to teach and to govern.19 In continuation with this novelty, the diocese is no longer called a local Church, but a particular Church. The change in terminology is not anodyne.20 The Spirit of the Council Applied before the Letter The conferral of such power to the bishops could not be done without provoking a reaction. Besides the novelty of such a doctrine, the Curia was the first ecclesiastical organ to suffer the effects. Several Conciliar Fathers had asked that the bishops be dispensed from interacting with it and even suggested that laymen be introduced there. In order to get the decree passed without too many difficulties, Pope Paul VI published motu proprio the Apostolic Letter Apostolica Sollicitudo instituting the Synod of Bishops. It is an assembly charged with informing and counseling the pope. By publishing this text before the vote on the decree, the pope clearly intended to prompt the Council Fathers to vote in favor of Christus Dominus. What Sort of Bishops for the Church? Where have bishops like Augustine, Athanasius, Francis de Sales, and all the glorious bishops the Church has ranked among the number of holy pontiffs and doctors gone? Collegiality, bishops’ conferences, synods of bishops—the point is clear: the bishop is no longer the faithful guardian of the revealed deposit, a doctor and guarantor of Christian doctrine as well as pontiff...21 Vatican II has 78 The Angelus November - December 2014 made of him one of these pastors open to all the questions that anguish modern man, a pastor who more resembles the mercenary unable to defend the sheep against the dangers that threaten their eternal life. Translation of “Vatican II: Christus Dominus,” Fideliter, July-August 2014, pp. 82-87. 1 Mt. 16: 18-19; Lk. 22:32; Jn. 21:15-17; Vatican I, Pastor Aeternus, DS 3055. 2 Vatican I, DS 3058. 3 That is, with the schema that was to become the Constitution Lumen Gentium. In fact, the schema on the Church was also under discussion at the same time. 4 AS II/IV, 643-44, cited by Yves Congar in his Journal (Cerf), I, 526. 5 Christus Dominus, Art. 1, 2, 9, 11, 16. One will note, moreover, that the term pontiff is used only once concerning the bishops (No. 2), and otherwise only designates the pope. 6 Rest assured, the word doctor does not appear even once! 7 For instance, one speaks of a pontifical, not a pastoral, Mass. For a pontiff is the pons—bridge, a mediator between God and men. Yet the bishop is not referred to even once in the conciliar decree as pontiff. 8 Christus Dominus, Art. 12. 9 Ibid., No. 13. 10 Ibid. 11 No. 15. 12 The Constitution on the Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium. 13 To be convinced of this, in addition to the explicit commentaries of certain Council Fathers and theologians, a look at the footnotes of the decree should suffice. Of 38 notes, 10 refer to the Constitution on the Church, without counting those that refer to another document of the same Council. 14 Nos. 3 and 4 in particular. A note references Lumen Gentium 22, which has no reference, neither scriptural nor traditional... 15 No. 3. 16 Msgr. Carli, clearly saw the error and, during an intervention in the aula, demanded the inversion of the chapters. Request denied! 17 No. 4, and Lumen Gentium No. 22. 18 Henri Bourgeois, Henri Denis, Maurice Jourjon, Les Évêques et l’Église (Cerf, 1989), Ch. 2. 19 No. 3 and its reference to Lumen Gentium, No. 21. 20 Cf. Laurent Villemin, “Le diocèse est-il une église locale ou une église particulière, in Le Ministère des éveques au concile Vatican II et depuis (Cerf, 2001). 21 Cf. the Mass and office of confessor pontiffs (and not confessor pastors). Extract from the Intervention of Archbishop Lefebvre Fourth Intervention, November 6, 1963 On the Schema for the Decree on the Bishops and Government of the Dioceses 2. As the relations between the bishops and the Sovereign Pontiff must be based upon principles which are absolutely certain, in no way can mention be made of the principle of juridical collegiality. In fact, as His Eminence Cardinal Brown pointed out, this principle of juridical collegiality cannot be proved. If, by some miracle, this principle should be discovered in this Council, and solemnly affirmed, it would then be logically necessary to assent, as one of the Fathers has almost declared: “The Roman Church has erred in not knowing the fundamental principle of her divine Constitution, namely, the principle of juridical collegiality. And that over many centuries.” Logically, too, it would have to be stated that the Roman Pontiffs have abused their power up to the present day by denying to the bishops rights which are theirs by divine law. Could we not then say to the Sovereign Pontiff what some have said to him in equivalent terms: “Pay what thou owest”? Now, this is grotesque and without the slightest foundation. To conclude: if we are speaking of moral collegiality, who will deny it? Everyone admits it. But such collegiality only produces moral relations. If we are speaking of juridical collegiality, on the other hand, then, as Bishop Carli has said so well: “It can be proved neither by Holy Scripture, nor by theology, nor by history.” It is thus more prudent not to have recourse to this principle, since it is by no means certain. (I Accuse the Council, pp. 12-13) 79 News from Tradition Collegiality by Fr. Jean-Pierre Boubée, SSPX The SSPX is not infrequently accused of being against the pope. The usual arguments are of this level of theological sophistication: “You mustn’t exaggerate!” or “We have a wonderful pope!” or “Who are you to judge?” (which is to say, Who are you to use your minds?) Sometimes they’ll add an amazingly ingenuous “This pope has the faith!”—which is, we have to say, an extremely minimalist qualification for this office in the Church! The boldest thinkers would end the debate by a solemn renunciation of truth: “I’d rather be wrong with the pope,” thereby succeeding in contradicting St. Paul himself: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema” (Gal. 1:8). Defense of the papacy does not lie in huddling round the TV screen to receive a blessing urbi et orbi, nor in globe-trotting to participate in World Youth Days. The simple Christians of old did much more for Christendom than those who get enthused over the Wednesday audiences. 80 The Angelus November - December 2014 By a mysterious design of divine Providence, it is not always those one would expect who are on the front line. If there is one point of doctrine that has undergone the greatest challenge in its history over the last fifty years and that the SSPX defends, it is the pontifical mission of Peter, the role and power of the Supreme Pontiff, which is of divine constitution. The Mission of the Pope The classical teaching about the Pope’s mission seems to be obvious, so often has it been reiterated throughout the history of the Church.1 There are two perfectly distinct powers in the Church, and therefore two elements constituting the hierarchy. They are mutually supportive and complementary: 1. The power of sanctifying souls. This power is conferred by the sacrament of Holy Orders. It comprises numerous degrees, the highest of which are the episcopacy and the priesthood. It is conferred by a sacrament; thus it is our Lord Jesus Christ who acts in the soul of its recipients and renders them immediately apt to fulfill their function. The essential act of this role is the power to consecrate the Eucharist, power over the body and blood of the Savior Himself. The effects, according to the Council of Trent, are “the power of consecrating, of offering and administering His body and blood, and also of forgiving and retaining sins...”2 2. The power of governing and teaching. This power is called jurisdiction. The Church possesses the power to make laws and guide its members. Likewise for teaching, authority over its subject is needful. The Code of Canon Law describes it this way: “Of divine institution, the sacred hierarchy, as founded on the power of order, is composed of bishops, priests, and ministers; as founded on the power of jurisdiction, it comprises the supreme pontificate and the subordinate episcopacy; of ecclesiastical institution, other degrees have been added.”3 By its very nature, the power of jurisdiction does not devolve from the power of order, even though generally the two are joined together, and for the bishop, the Church intends to unite them.4 But a bishop can begin to govern his diocese once he has been appointed, even before the episcopal consecration takes place. These two powers are of a very different nature: one is a sacrament and is derived from the power over the physical body of Christ; the other is moral and organizes the Mystical Body of Christ. The one is transmitted by consecration, which is a physical cause; the other is by mandate, which is a moral cause. The one can absolutely never disappear; the other can be withdrawn. But the two are joined together in the same person, for one power exists for the sake of the other—the power of jurisdiction is in view of the power of order. For all things must concur in the sanctification of souls by the direct operation of Jesus Christ. Supreme Power of Jurisdiction The longstanding received doctrine also teaches us that the Lord, who is head of the Church, communicates His power of governing directly to the pope once he accepts the mandate to which he has been elected. It is the pope who transmits it to the Church in different ways according to norms of law and custom. “And upon Peter alone Jesus after His resurrection conferred the jurisdiction of the high- est pastor and rector over His entire fold,” the First Vatican Council teaches us.5 A Novel Teaching In 1961 a book came out, co-published by Karl Rahner and Joseph Ratzinger: Episkopat und Primat. The two authors set forth the thesis that supreme power in the Church is held by the “episcopal college.” The pope would merely act, then, as its representative. Even if the logical connection is not apparent, the thesis argues that Christ did not want to lose governance over the Church. But such would be the case were He to entrust it to Peter! Overlooking any possibility of delegation or instrumentality, they assert that in the opposite case, the Church would be bicephalous. Therefore Jesus communicated His power to “all the Apostles collegially” with presidency given to Peter. The Conclusions of Vatican II The Second Vatican Council, enlightened by the new theologians, held to a mid course that set the stage for many a set-back. The conciliar Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, declares that “episcopal consecration, together with the office of sanctifying, also confers the office of teaching and of governing. (These, however, of their very nature, can be exercised only in hierarchical communion with the head and the members of the college.)”6 Every bishop, then, would be invested with both powers upon his episcopal consecration. In effect, it makes him enter into the “college of bishops,” which possesses power along with the pope. Confronted by the full import of such an assertion, a “Prefatory Note” was appended in order to clarify that the power of the episcopal college can only be exercised at the pope’s bidding! Even if this paragraph aims at hierarchical union, the notion of power of jurisdiction conferred directly by Christ to bishops independently of the pope was to have deleterious consequences.... The Declaration Dominus Jesus It was not until the year 2000 with the publication of the Declaration Dominus Jesus by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) that an attempt was made to give an official explication of the meaning of the affirmation made 81 News from Tradition by Vatican II that “...the unique Church of Christ... subsists in the Catholic Church....”7 The obvious meaning of this text gives scandal since it leads one to believe that there exist other forms of the Church of Christ. The document informs us: “16. ...This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in [subsistit in] the Catholic Church, governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him” [Lumen Gentium, 8]. With the expression subsistit in, the Second Vatican Council sought to harmonize two doctrinal statements: on the one hand, that the Church of Christ, despite the divisions which exist among Christians, continues to exist fully only in the Catholic Church, and on the other hand, that ‘outside of her structure, many elements can be found of sanctification and truth’ [Ibid.], that is, in those Churches and ecclesial communities which are not yet in full communion with the Catholic Church. But with respect to these, it needs to be stated that ‘they derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Catholic Church’ [Unitatis Redintegratio, 3]. “17. Therefore, there exists a single Church of Christ, which subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him [CDF, Declaration Mysterium Ecclesiae, 1]. The Churches which, while not existing in perfect communion with the Catholic Church, remain united to her by means of the closest bonds, that is, by apostolic succession and a valid Eucharist, are true particular Churches [Unitatis Redintegratio, 14 and 15]. Therefore, the Church of Christ is present and operative also in these Churches, even though they lack full communion with the Catholic Church, since they do not accept the Catholic doctrine of the Primacy, which, according to the will of God, the Bishop of Rome objectively has and exercises over the entire Church [Vatican I, Constitution Pastor Aeternus (DS 3053-3064); Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, 22].” The Church is unique, but in other respects, the document recognizes modes of existence beyond the pope’s power. Required are a valid episcopate and Eucharist. From the standpoint of Vatican II, episcopal consecration suffices to confer the power of governing to a schismatic bishop, as in the Eastern “particular Churches” or in China. By epis82 The Angelus November - December 2014 copal consecration alone, he becomes a member of the college of bishops, which is the depositary of jurisdiction. Thus there can be multitudes of “sister Churches” which are lacking only one thing, it would seem. Consequently, a constitutive element of things needful for salvation—that is, belonging to the Church under the governance of Peter—becomes optional. It is hard to see why this fact should become necessary only in the Catholic Church. An Incomplete Church The last leaf of this new ecclesiology thus opens. This Church will only be complete when all the scattered members of the episcopal college are in communion with one another and with the Sovereign Pontiff. Therefore the Catholic Church is imperfect. She is “one” without possessing the elements that make her “one”! It is not souls in peril of damnation that need the Church, but the Church that needs them in order to attain her fulness. This is the justification for the ill-considered ecumenism with the Orthodox and the Chinese “Churches”—mental meanderings in which the doctrinal affirmations of the Creed clash with contrary explanations.8 A few authoritative acts of the Supreme Pontiff will never suffice to rectify the theological principle of a two-headed Church, nor check the destructive effects of an ecumenism that concedes an intrinsic power of salvation among the schismatics. Excerpted and translated from Le Chardonnet, No. 265, February 2011. 1 Just to mention a few: Pius VI, Super Soliditate, Charitas, Deessemus; Vatican I, Constitution Pastor Aeternus; Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum; Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi, Ad Sinarum Gentes. 2 Denzinger, Sources of Catholic Dogma [hereafter, Dz.], 957 (DS 1764). 3 Canon 108, §3. 4 In this domain, John Paul II introduced innovations. 5 Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ, Pastor Aeternus, Dz. 1822 (DS 3053). 6 Art. 21, §4. 7 Lumen Gentium, Art. 8, §2. 8 We recommend to the readers the excellent article by Don Mauro Tranquillo in Tradizione Cattolica, No. 2, 2010 (translated and published in the March 2011 issue of The Angelus, available on line at www.angelusonline.org.) 1,980 pp. – Sewn binding, gold-embossed cover – STK# 8043 – $65.95 1962 Roman Catholic Daily Missal Angelus Press is pleased to announce the fourth printing of the first totally re-typeset, 1962 Latin-English daily missal for the laity since the Second Vatican Council. Certainly the most complete missal ever produced in the English language, this beautiful edition includes everything in a missal that is important to you. The Roman Catholic Daily Missal will become your life-long liturgical companion. In addition to an elegant, easy-to-read text of both the Ordinary of the Mass and the entire liturgical year’s propers, this Missal contains: – Morning and evening prayers – Table of movable feasts updated to AD 2050 – Complete Rite of Baptism and Confirmation – The Churching of Women – Special devotions for Confession and Communion – Much more! This durable and affordable Missal is an excellent addition for any Catholic serious about the liturgy, and will make an excellent Christmas gift for any Catholic on your list! 1,980 pp. – Sewn binding, gold-embossed cover – STK# 8043 Spanish – $45.95 1962 Misal Diario Catolico Apostolico Romano We are delighted to offer the Spanish-speaking faithful a completely re-typeset 1962 daily missal. This is the most complete missal ever produced in Spanish, and will become your liturgical companion—in church, at home and when traveling. Contains all the appropriate feasts for Spanish-speaking countries. These missals are beautifully bound and made to last for generations to come, but may contain slight cosmetic imperfections that most people won't even notice. The printer gave them to us at a discount and we are passing that discount on to our valued customers. Visit www.angeluspress.org — 1-800-966-7337 Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music. Letters to the Editor Dear Angelus Press, I just put down the latest issue of The Angelus on War. I am certainly very grateful for the attention given to a question which is as old as humanity but becoming prevalent worldwide. Please allow me to bring out one aspect which I thought could have had a broader and perhaps better place. I wished the issue had focused more on WWI since this year celebrates the centenary of the “great war” which has had so much impact on Europe in particular and the world at large. What WWI initiated was much of the toppling down of Christian Europe and the Freemasonic agenda with the surge of the American dream, the early steps of what was to be the United Nations. Dear Reader, Thank you for your kind observations, so much the more welcome as they are quite pertinent. No doubt, we could have had a whole issue exclusively addressing the First World War in its causes, its nature, development, and especially its aftermath. This is probably something which could have been done, had we had the right authors for the job. We offered only one article on the reasons for the huge casualties of war which gives an interesting and new insight on the question. We sincerely wished we had also brought out the anti-Christian ripple effect of WWI to the forefront. You know that we cannot give a full-fledged run on every item on the question of war. So, given our small means and our limited pool of professional authors, we wished to stress the practical problems associated with modern war since many tend to deny the legitimacy of war at all, and they do have some valid points here. Also, it seems useful to bring up practical questions which young adults coming of age ask themselves before jumping into the military career. And, yes, we did wish to stress the Christian use of war with the examples (and centenaries) of St. Louis IX and Charlemagne, who were certainly pioneers in the formation of Christian Europe. 82 pp. – Softcover – STK# 8540 – $8.95 Patron Saint of First Communicants Gifts were piled high for 5-year-old Imelda’s birthday. Imelda was delighted, but still she asked, “I was wondering if I could have just one more present.” “Greedy girl!” laughed her father. Unfortunately, her parents could not give her this one present—Our Lord in Holy Communion. But Imelda decided to ask Our Lord Himself. What would He reply? This book gives the answer and tells how little Imelda came to be the Patroness of First Communicants. 64 pp. – Softcover – STK# 4005 – $5.95 St. Joseph First Communion Catechism From the Baltimore Catechism The most popular traditional preparation for children’s first confession and Holy Communion. All necessary knowledge presented in childlike Q&A format. Demonstrative color illustrations throughout. Excellent for grades 1-2. God, the Holy Trinity, Incarnation, Redemption, Our Lady, Sin, Ten Commandments, Sacraments, Holydays, Prayers, etc. Sections on Examination of Conscience and learning to follow Holy Mass. 106 pp. – Softcover – STK# BD369 – $5.95 Visits to the Blessed Sacrament and the Blessed Virgin Mary “Here, then,” says St. Alphonsus, “is our heaven on earth—the Most Blessed Sacrament.” This book was conceived and written to help us grow in the knowledge and love of God and in appreciation for what He has done for us. For each of the 31 days of the month, St. Alphonsus provides for us a “Visit to Our Lord”—which is a brief meditation on and a fervent prayer of love toward Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament. Each Visit to Our Lord is followed by a “Visit to Our Lady.” Visit www.angeluspress.org — 1-800-966-7337 Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music. 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Through the invention of this Holy Mass and Holy Communion, He, the Emmanuel, was literally going to be God with us, partaking in our daily needs, joys, sorrows, consoling us in our last moments. How could He not rejoice at the thought of these millions of children, as those of the Eucharistic Crusade (at one time over 20 million), receiving him at a tender age to secure their innocence, to console Him and be united to His Cross? How could He not interiorly weep with joy seeing this little Chinese girl, aged 3 or 4 perhaps, who, having been told by the kind missionary that she was too young to make her first communion because she still had her baby teeth, came back the next day with a bloody mouth having broken all of these herself with a rock, and asking if she could, now that the obstacle was removed, receive Him who calls the little ones? And at the sight of these fervent and generous parents, even very sickly such as Mrs. Zélie Martin dying of cancer, starting the day with the Bread of Life giving them the strength needed in the hard task of begetting and educating their children with all the crosses that go with it? What about these legions of consecrated souls, leaving all things to be His Eucharistic court, believing, hoping and loving for those who do not believe, hope and love Him? And these other angels of peace, as the military chaplains were often called, carrying the Lord of Hosts often through bloody battlefields, these priests in prisons, concentration camps, these untiring missionaries, hospital chaplains and parish priests returning love for Love? Yes, the miracle of the Consecration was well worth it! Thank You, my Lord! God be with you. Father Daniel Couture The Society of St. Pius X is an international priestly society of common life without vows, whose purpose is the priesthood and that which pertains to it. The main goal of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X is to preserve the Catholic faith in its fullness and purity, to teach its truths, and to diffuse its virtues. Authentic spiritual life, the sacraments, and the traditional liturgy are its primary means of bringing this life of grace to souls. The Angelus aims at forming the whole man: we aspire to help deepen your spiritual life, nourish your studies, understand the history of Christendom, and restore Christian culture in every aspect. $ 9.00 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: The Angelus, 480 McKenzie Street, Winnipeg, MB, R2W 5B9