There is just so much Catholic news as of late that I thought I would leave the work to the real writers such as Wichita's own James Spencer (review of two ordos), a great piece from the granddaddy of blogs, The New Liturgical Movement, and some great news for Traditional Catholics from Catholic Online concerning the new head of the Congregation for Divine Worship.
With all that is going on I just had to step aside. I love to write (in my amateur fashion) but I have to face reality...me writing along side this talent? LOL!!!! (laugh out loud!!!) I'll save my ramblings for another day. :)
There is also a piece on Gaudete Sunday from Our Parish News Blog, the work of lay members (like us here at Venite) of Old St. Patrick Oratory, Kansas City, MO. Please visit their site and mention Venite Missa Est!.
Peace upon you.
Mark Llamas
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Book Review by James Spencer
TWO ORDOS
The Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) and Preserving Christian Publications (PCP) each publish an annual Ordo, which identifies the appropriate liturgy for each day of the year for those who use the 1962 Missal and Breviary. Together those two closely-related books (1962 Missal and Breviary) contain the Church’s entire Liturgical Prayer for the Extraordinary Form (E.F.). To use a football analogy, they constitute the Church’s E.F. liturgical “play book,” while the annual E.F. Ordo is the vehicle by which the Church (as “quarterback”) calls the specific E.F. “play” for each day. [Nota bene: Not surprisingly, in the Ordinary Form (O.F.), the 1970 Missal and the Liturgy of the Hours together constitute the Church’s O.F. “play book” and the annual O.F. Ordo calls the O.F. “play” for each day.]
Why is such a booklet called an Ordo? The Latin word, ordo, meaning order, has for centuries been the first word of this booklet’s title (see the Latin title of the PCP Ordo below), so Ordo became its “call name” among the clergy. To extend the above football analogy, the Ordo specifies the daily sequence in which the Church directs the “team” to run the liturgical “plays” through the calendar year.
Incidentally, the plural of ordo is ordines, not ordos. I misspelled it in the title above for the benefit of the one or two readers out there somewhere who aren’t yet fully fluent in Latin; from here on I’ll spell it correctly.
Clearly, every priest who uses the 1962 Liturgical Books needs an E.F. Ordo. For laymen who attend E.F. Masses, an Ordo simplifies setting up their hand-held missals. For those laymen who also say the Divine Office, an Ordo is essential. Ergo, since both of these Ordines are inexpensive, every Traddie household should have one or the other.
These two Ordines give the same liturgical information for each day of 2009, but in different formats. Believing what Emerson wrote long ago, namely, that “comparisons are odious,” I won’t compare the two, but will simply present each one separately. Whichever one you choose will do very nicely. That said, let’s take them one at a time.
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2009 Liturgical Ordo and FSSP Directory, published by The Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, North American Headquarters, St. Peter’s House, Griffin Road, P.O. Box 196, Elmhurst, PA 18416; (570) 842-4000; http://www.fssp.com/; info@fssp.com. 6”X9” spiral-bound softcover, 90 pages. $10.00 plus s&h.
This booklet’s main section, titled “The 2009 Liturgical Ordo,” contains the 2009 Ordo in a tabular or matrix form that is very easy to understand and follow. It goes from December 25, 2008 through January 13, 2010. Each liturgical season begins with a series of general instructions and comments, followed by the liturgical information for each day of that season. This section also contains several helpful explanations of related subjects, such as the 1962 Missal, a Table of Moveable Feasts, Holy Days, Days of Fast and Abstinence, Notes on the Office, Feasts Celebrated in some North American Dioceses.
This booklet’s second session, titled “The FSSP Worldwide,” gives contact information for each FSSP location throughout the world. After that section, this booklet includes the following helpful addenda: Responses for Serving Holy Mass; The Sunday Divine Office; Act of Reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus; Act of Consecration of the Human Race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus; Prayer before the Crucifix; Act of Consecration of the North American District of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter to the Blessed Mother of God; Canon Law Codes for Sundays and Holy Days; Indulgences; Benedict XVI’s motu proprio, titled “Summorum Pontificum,” and its accompanying letter to Bishops; John Paul II’s motu proprio, titled “Ecclesia Dei”; and the 1988 Decree from the Ecclesia Dei Commission giving FSSP the “Pontifical Right” to use the 1962 Missal, Breviary, and other related books and ceremonies.
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Ordo Divini Officii Persolvendi Missaeque Sacrificii Peragendi Pro Anno Domini 2009, published by Preserving Christian Publications; (866) 241-2762; http://www.pcpbooks.com/. 5.5”X8.5” perfect-bound softcover, 159 pages. $15 plus s&h.
The title of this Ordo is in Latin (translation: “Order of the Divine Office Recited and of the Sacrifice of the Mass Celebrated for the Year of our Lord 2009”), but the contents are in “user-friendly” English. In this, it differs from the pre-Vatican II Ordines used throughout the Church, which were (as I recall) totally in Latin. In all else, it is just like the pre-Vatican II Ordines.
This booklet’s main section contains the 2009 Ordo in a “bulleted paragraph” form, in which each calendar date serves as the bullet for one or more paragraphs of liturgical information. It goes from January 1, 2009 through December 31, 2009.
It also contains the following four Appendices: A: Proper Feasts Kept in the Dioceses of The United States; B: Proper Feasts Kept in the Dioceses of Canada; C: Proper Feasts Kept in the Dioceses of Great Britain; and D: Proper Feasts Kept in the Dioceses of Australia and New Zealand. These Appendices give Ordo information for each listed feast.
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Copyright, 2008, by James B. Spencer. First Serial Rights
Ad Orientem
From The New Liturgical Movment
Fr. Peter Stravinskas 12/05/08 Homily to the Poor Clares in Portsmouth, OH
When you came into the Chapel this morning, if you were somewhat awake, you may have noticed that there is a slightly different arrangement of the sanctuary. The different arrangement is to suggest a different focus.
In theological or liturgical language, we call this liturgical orientation, the liturgy celebrated facing east; which cannot always be a geographical east. But it does mean that priest and people face Christ, the coming Dawn, together, who’s coming to them out of the east.
And there are some very practical implications to all of this: there is much less attention on the priest and much more attention on Christ. John the Baptist, the particular voice and figure par excellence for the Advent Season, said, “He [Christ] must increase, I must decrease.” And so, there is less of a personality cult centered on the priest, there is less distraction for the priest who ought to be looking at God not the congregation and less distraction for people - who are not diverted by some of the idiosyncrasies of priests.
And let me then offer a few clarifications." And let me then offer a few clarifications."
First, there is nothing in the Second Vatican Council that ever once called for the turning around of altars, just as nothing in Vatican II called for getting rid of Latin in the Liturgy, nor did they ever envision things like communion in the hand, or extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion or female servers. All of that is something that happened many, many years after the Council, and that the Council Fathers themselves would have been quite shocked to discover ever happened.
Secondly, the current or reformed Roman Missal, even in English as a matter of fact, presumes that the priest is not facing the congregation, and, therefore, the rubrics (the directives for the celebration of the Liturgy) consistently say things to the priest like, “The priest now turns faces the people and says, ‘The Lord be with you.
Thirdly, for the parts of the Mass that are directed to the people, the priest continues to face the people, and so, the Liturgy of the Word. It makes no sense for me to read the Gospel facing the wall or to preach in that direction. (Although, sometimes you get the impression you might get as much of a reaction.)
Fourth, for years, Cardinal Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, wrote repeatedly about the importance of returning the former practice of facing east. Why? To restore a healthy sense of the sacred, the transcendent. So that this is not perceived as a social hour or “Entertainment Tonight”, but the Church’s worship of the triune God.
Fifthly, many priests (especially younger ones interestingly enough) are taking the former Cardinal’s, now present Pope’s, admonition to heart. Last week, I was in Greenville, South Carolina, and all the Masses in that parish have been celebrated ad orientem, as we say, facing east for a full year now. Just Wednesday, I visited Holy Family Church in Columbus, where since the beginning of Advent, three of the four Sunday Masses are now celebrated facing east.
As I indicated the other day, Advent is a time of new beginnings. And so, this is a good time for us to make this act of restoration here at the Monastery and, appropriately, also during the nuns’ annual retreat. Now, this may take a bit of readjustment for some of you, but I think you’ll find great spiritual benefit in reasonably short order.
You may not realize it, but all religions have used geography as a theological reference point. You know, I’m sure, that Muslims turn to face Mecca, no matter where they are. When they go to pray, they turn to face Mecca. Orthodox Jews, to this very day, turn to face Jerusalem. Each day in the celebration of Lauds (or Morning Prayer) the Church prays the Benedictus, the Canticle of Zechariah, which he recited as he reacted to the birth of his newborn son, John the Baptist. In that canticle Zechariah prophesies, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that the Dawn from on high shall break upon us. We know that the dawn breaks in the east; that Dawn, that rising Sun shall appear on this altar in but a few minutes. And so, let us, you and I, priest and people, face east together, prepared to meet the One who is coming into the world as the Light of the world.
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The third Sunday of Advent, so called from the first word of the Introit at Mass (Gaudete, i.e. Rejoice).
The season of Advent originated as a fast of forty days in preparation for Christmas, commencing on the day after the feast of St. Martin (November 12th), when it was often called "St. Martin's Lent"-- a name by which it was known as early as the fifth century.
The introduction of the Advent fast cannot be placed much earlier, because there is no evidence of Christmas being kept on December 25th before the end of the fourth century (Duchesne, "Origines du culte chrétien", Paris, 1889), and the preparation for the feast could not have been of earlier date than the feast itself.
In the ninth century, the duration of Advent was reduced to four weeks, the first allusion to the shortened season being in a letter of St. Nicholas I (858-867) to the Bulgarians, and by the twelfth century the fast had been replaced by simple abstinence.
St. Gregory the Great was the first to draw up an Office for the Advent season, and the Gregorian Sacramentary is the earliest to provide Masses for the Sundays of Advent. Our thanks to New Advent for this information.
Venite Missa Est! thanks Our Parish News Blog, the work of lay members of Old St. Patrick Oratory - Kansas City, MO at http://ourparishtoo.blogspot.com//. Please visit their site and be sure to mention Venite Missa Est!.
By Deacon Keith A. Fournier, Catholic Online 12/10/2008
http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=30968
ROME (Catholic Online) - Pope Benedict XVI accepted the retirement of Cardinal Francis Arinze from his position as Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and appointed the Primate of Spain, Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera of Toledo, to succeed him.
The Cardinal is sometimes called a “little Ratzinger” in stories and commentaries discussing his theological convictions and deep love for the Liturgy. The expression indicates the closeness of his theological and liturgical positions with those of the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI. In addition, the Cardinal served the Spanish Bishops conference as a protector and defender of orthodoxy. This was similar to what was done by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger when he was head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, prior to ascending to the Chair of Peter.
The new prefect was the youngest of those chosen in the consistory by Pope Benedict XVI to be elevated to Cardinal. He is known to be a friend of the Holy fathers as well. He comes from Valencia, Spain and has special expertise in catechetical theology.
This position is of great significance because of the centrality of the Sacred Liturgy in the life and worship of the Catholic Church. Just who would be chosen to succeed Cardinal Arinze has been watched very closely by observers. It was of particular concern to those who have an interest in the implementation of the “Motu Propio” wherein Pope Benedict authorized the expansion of the use of the extraordinary form of the Liturgy (often called the Tridentine Rite) for all the faithful who request it. The new Prefect is known to be a friend of this use of the Extraordinary form and is a man deeply committed to liturgical fidelity.
The appointment process was also watched closely by multitudes of the faithful throughout the world who are concerned with the minimalist trends in certain liturgical circles, the declining quality of liturgical music and what seems to be a growing disregard of fidelity to liturgical norms.
The appointment of Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera is seen by most observers as an indication of the continued emphasis on fidelity in the application of the Holy See’s liturgical directives and the implementation of what is being called the “reform of the reform” of the Sacred Liturgy.
This appointment has been the subject of much speculation among the “Vaticanisti’s” on the World Wide Web and was accurately predicted by the chief among them, Rocco Palmo of the increasingly popular and almost always correct “Whispers in the Loggia”.
Spanish news sources report the new Prefect will have the unusual distinction of remaining the apostolic administrator of his Diocese in Toledo, Spain until his successor, the 63 year-old Archbishop Manuel Ureña Pastor arrives. However, the new Prefect will be in Rome and in his new seat of responsibility within 48 hours.
