Here are a couple of quotes from G.K. Chesterton,
Alter Christus…Another Christ
Our Priests Act In Persona Christi Capitis
From The Catholic Church Alone: The One True Church of Christ, Catholic Education Company, New York, 1902, page 551
from an article at Catholic Family Vignettes at http://catholicfamilyvignettes.wordpress.com/
THE MASS OF THE CATECHUMENS
1. Introibo ad altare Dei
* The priest going to the foot of the altar represents Christ going to
2. Judica me, Deus…
* The priest commencing the Holy Mass represents Christ beginning to pray in the Garden.
3. Confiteor Deo…
* The priest saying the Confiteor represents Christ falling down and sweating blood at
4. Oramus Te, Domine, per merita Sanctorum Tuorum
* The priest going up and kissing the altar, after praying Aufer a nobis…, represents Christ being betrayed by Judas with a kiss.
5. Oremus
* The priest going to the Epistle side represents
Christ being captured, bound and taken to Annas.
6. The INTROIT
* The priest reading the Introit represents Christ being falsely accused by Annas and blasphemed.
7. Kyrie Eleison
* The priest going to the middle of the altar and saying the Kyrie eleison represents Christ being brought to Caiphas and these three times denied by Peter.
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Exaltation of the Cross
This Sunday, Sept. 14th is the Exaltation of the Cross. According to fisheaters.com this is the story:
The Jews had hidden the Cross in a ditch or well, and covered it over with stones, so that the faithful might not come and venerate it. Only a chosen few among the Jews knew the exact spot where it had been hidden, and one of them, named Judas, touched by Divine inspiration, pointed it out to the excavators, for which act he was highly praised by St. Helena. Judas afterwards became a Christian saint, and is honoured under the name of Cyriacus.
During the excavation three crosses were found, but because the titulus was detached from the Cross of Christ, there was no means of identifying it. Following an inspiration from on high, Macarius caused the three crosses to be carried, one after the other, to the bedside of a worthy woman who was at the point of death. The touch of the other two was of no avail; but on touching that upon which Christ had died the woman got suddenly well again.
From a letter of St. Paulinus to Severus inserted in the Breviary of Paris it would appear that St. Helena herself had sought by means of a miracle to discover which was the True Cross and that she caused a man already dead and buried to be carried to the spot, whereupon, by contact with the third cross, he came to life. From yet anoth er tradition, related by St. Ambrose, it would seem that the titulus, or inscription, had remained fastened to the Cross.
After the happy discovery, St. Helena and Constantine erected a magnificent basilica over the Holy Sepulchre, and that is the reason why the church bore the name of St. Constantinus. The precise spot of the finding was covered by the atrium of the basilica, and there the Cross was set up in an oratory, as appears in the restoration executed by de Vogüé. When this noble basilica had been destroyed by the infidels, Arculfus, in the seventh century, enumerated four buildings upon the Holy Places around Golgotha, and one of them was the "Church of the Invention" or "of the Finding". This church was attributed by hi m and by topographers of later times to Constantine. The Frankish monks of Mount Olivet, writing to Leo III, style it St. Constantinus. Perhaps the oratory built by Constantine suffered less at the hands of the Persians than the other buildings, and so could still retain the name and style of Martyrium Constantinianum. (See De Rossi, Bull. d' arch. crist., 1865, 88.)
A portion of the True Cross remained at Jerusalem enclosed in a silver reliquary; the remainder, with the nails, must have been sent to Constantine, and it must have been this second portion that he caused to be enclosed in the statue of himself which was set on a porphyry column in the Forum at Constantinople; Socrates, the historian, relates that this statue was to make the city impregnable. One of the nails was fastened to the emperor's helmet, and one to his horse's bridle, bringing to pass, according to many of the Fathers, what had been written by Zacharias the Prophet: "In that day that which is upon the bridle of the horse shall be holy to the Lord" (Zechariah 14:20). Another of the nails was used later in the Iron Crown of Lombardy preserved in the treasury of the cathedral of Monza.
Scientific study of the relics of the True Cross show it to be made of some species of pine. The titulus crucis -- the wood on which the inscription "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" was written in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew (Matthew 27:37, Mark 15:26, Luke 23:38 and John 19:19) -- is made of an olive wood. The titulus has been scientifically dated to the 1st c. and the script is still legible (interestingly, the Latin and Greek are in reverse script), though the Hebrew is missing due to the entire thing being halved, t he second half having been lost in the 6th century. It is from the Latin inscription -- "Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudeorum" that we get the abbreviation "I.N.R.I." that is found on many Crucifixes.
The titulus crucis and relics of the True Cross can be seen in Rome's Basilica di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. A book on St Helena and the True Cross which is an enjoyable, easy read is "Helena" by Evelyn Waugh.
Traditional Latin Mass: Sacred Music
from Monterey Traditional Latin Mass blog at
http://monterey-tlm.blogspot.com/2008/09/faq-about-traditional-latin-mass-sacred_10.html
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Q: What are the characteristics of Sacred Music?
A: On the centenary of its promulgation, John Paul II urged us to revisit and learn from St. Pius X’s Motu Proprio on Sacred Music, Tra le sollecitudini (1903).
Pope Pius distinguished three characteristics of Sacred Music: “it must possess holiness and beauty of form: from these two qualities a third will spontaneously arise—universality” (§2). Concerning holiness, for music to be sacred means it is not the ordinary, not the every-day. It is set aside for the purpose of glorifying God and edifying and sanctifying the faithful. It must therefore exclude all that is not suitable for the temple—all that is ordinary, every-day or profane, not only in itself, but also in the manner in which it is performed.
The sacred words of the Liturgy call for a sonic vesture that is equally sacred. Sacredness, then, is more than individual piety; it is an objective reality. Concerning beauty, the Latin speaks more precisely of bonitate formarum or “excellence of forms.”
This refers to the tendency of sacred music to synthesize diverse ritual elements into a unity, to draw together a succession of liturgical actions into a coherent whole, and to serve a range of sacred expressions. Excellence of forms also serves to differentiate those elements, to distinguish the various functions of liturgical chants by revealing their unique character.
Each chant of the various Gregorian genres presents a masterly adaptation of the text to its specific liturgical purpose. No wonder the Church has consistently proposed chant as the paradigm of sacred music. Sacred music must be true art, says Pope Pius, “otherwise it will be impossible for it to exercise on the minds of those who listen to it that efficacy which the Church aims at obtaining in admitting into her liturgy the art of musical sounds.” Beauty is what holds truth and goodness to their task. To paraphrase Hans Urs von Balthasar, without beauty, the truth does not persuade, goodness does not compel (The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, I: 19).
Beauty, as expressed in the Church’s liturgy, sy nthesizes diverse elements into a unified whole: truth, goodness, and the human impulse to worship. Concerning universality, sacred music is supra national, equally accessible to people of diverse cultures. The Church does admit local indigenous forms into her worship, but these must be subordinated to the general characteristics of the received tradition.
By insisting on the continuous use of her musical treasures, especially chant, the Church ensures her members grow up hearing this sacred musi cal language and receive it naturally as a part of the liturgy.
Domina Nostra Publishing
You can find such material as Beginner's Guide to Ecclesiastical Latin by James Spencer and the Rosary in Latin and English amongst others.
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