As you may remember, some liberals got their knickers in a knot about a group of good, orthodox priests who made some changes in parishes. The dissidents caused problems, harmed the financial well-being of a parish in such a way that they had to close their parish school. Bishop Morlino weighed in a with a letter to try to resolve the tensions.  The liberals did the spittle-flecked thing, as they are wont to do when Catholic bishops act like Catholic bishops. Even the Fishwrap staged a nutty about the affair.

In any event, along the way I made a suggestion that some of you might want to send a donation to the diocese as a sign of moral and concrete support for the bishop and those priests who were viciously demonized by the lefties.

It seems that you responded to me suggestion generously.

A new development:

Today emails have come in from readers all over the place who receive a thank you note from Bishop Morlino. His letter, necessarily generic because of the number of addresses, was really nice.  I suspect that the letter came with another note for taxes and so forth.

If you want to have a look at the letter, click the image for a larger version or go HERE.

You can STILL send signs of support, by the way, and you can designate to which fund or institution you want them to be applied.

Click HERE.

This magnificent Sunday (which in the Roman Rite’s Extraordinary Form retains its Octave along with the special Communicantes and Hanc igitur) has in the Ordinary Form a Collect rooted in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary.

Deus, qui sacramento festivitatis hodiernae universam Ecclesiam tuam in omni gente et natione sanctificas, in totam mundi latitudinem Spiritus Sancti dona defunde, et, quod inter ipsa evangelicae praedicationis exordia operata est divina dignatio, nunc quoque per credentium corda perfunde.

I like that defunde and perfunde.  Spiffy.

Cor is “heart” and corda “hearts”.  Sacramentum translates Greek mysterion.  Sacramentum and Latin mysterium are often interchangeable in liturgical texts.  Defundo means “to pour down, pour out”. Perfundo, is “to pour over, moisten, bedew”, and “to imbue, inspire” as well as “to dye”.

Exordium means “the beginning, the warp of a web”. Exordium invokes cloth weaving and selvage, the cloth’s edge, tightly woven so that the web will not fray, fall apart. Exordium, also a technical term in ancient rhetoric, is the beginning of a prepared speech whereby the orator lays out what he is going to do and induces the listeners to attend.  From Pentecost onward Christ the Incarnate Word, although remote by His Ascension, is the present and perfect Orator delivering His saving message to the world through Holy Church. “He that heareth you, heareth me”, Christ told His Apostles with the Seventy (Luke 10:16).  Much hangs on exordia.

LITERAL VERSION:

O God, who by the sacramental mystery of today’s feast do sanctify Your universal Church in every people and nation, pour down upon the whole breadth of the earth the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and make that which divine favor wrought amidst the very beginnings of the preaching of the Good News to flow now also through believers’ hearts.

OBSOLETE ICEL (1973):

God our Father, let the Spirit you sent on your Church to begin the teaching of the gospel continue to work in the world through the hearts of all who believe.

CURRENT ICEL (2011):

O God, who by the mystery of today’s great feast sanctify your whole Church in every people and nation, pour out, we pray, the gifts of the Holy Spirit across the face of the earth and, with the divine grace that was at work when the Gospel was first proclaimed, fill now once more the hearts of believers.

Unity and continuity are keys to this Collect.

The Holy Spirit pours spiritual life into the Body of Christ.

The Holy Spirit wove the early Church together through the preaching of the Apostles and their successors and, in the Church today, extends their preaching to our own time.

The Holy Spirit guarantees our unity and continuity across every border and century.

The Holy Spirit imbues and infuses, tints and dyes the fabric of the Church as He flows through it.

When the Holy Spirit poured over the Apostles, they poured out of the upper room and began to preach in public speeches to people from every nation.  The Holy Spirit, in the preaching of the Apostles, began on Pentecost’s exordium to weave together the Church’s selvage, that strong stable edge of the fabric, through the centuries and down to our own day.

The bonds of man and God symbolically unraveled in the Tower of Babel event, when languages were divided (Gen 11:5-8).  Ever since the Pentecost exordium’s “reweaving”, though here and there and now and then there may be rips and tatters, Holy Church’s warp and weft hold true.

Let our hearts and prayers be raised for unity. Sursum corda! In our Collect we pray that our corda may be imbued with the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Let them be closely woven into, knit into Holy Church and even over-sewn with her patterns, not ours. Let our hearts be bounded about by her saving selvage, dyed in the Spirit’s boundless love.

Let us also pray for the unwitting agents of the Enemy of the soul, hanging onto Holy Church’s edge but in such a way that they tear at and fray the Church’s fabric.  Pardon my homographs, but though they be on the fringe, they endanger necessary threads, precious souls of our brothers and sisters who through their work of unraveling can be lost in the fray.  When we mesh with the Successor of Peter and remain true in the Faith and charity, our holy selvage and our salvation will not be undone.

I did a jailbreak on my old phone and installed some packages. However, by doing this you can open up some security holes. You never know when some enemy out there, seeking whom he may devour, is scanning about for phone your signals looking for holes through which they can slither. I took some steps to secure the phone. Most of you would never have to think about this.

I had to use the phone’s terminal mode to get at the system files. I then changed the passwords in admin areas.

The iPhone has a default password, btw, and it is not a secret at all: alpine

Some people modify their phones but leave the passwords unchanged. Not good.

I also installed MultiIconMover which is handy.

In any event, I changed my passwords.

We have to pay attention to security for our electronic things!

Change your online passwords occasionally.

Change your computer and phone passwords occasionally, even routinely.

So regular maintenance on your computer, cleaning old files, checking the registry, checking for malware, defraging, and then BACK UP EVERYTHING! Remember that Jesus saves and you should imitate Him. If you don’t, you’ll be sorry. It’s

Once you are done doing all these things, examine your conscience and GO TO CONFESSION.

FYI… I will be accepting a few paid ads – at my discretion – for the sidebar. I’ll use a CPM formula, for a month or portion, based on my page impressions. Gotta do it, I’m afraid.

I also want to help some groups as best I can. For example:

• Priests: Mark on your calendars the upcoming meeting of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy in Chicago 31 July – 3 August.
• There is another Canon Law conference, for canonists, this year at the Shrine of O.L. of Guadalupe near LaCrosse with Card. Burke. 1-2 August.
• There is also, open to anyone if there are still spots open, Acton University 12-15 June. I should be there this year. Always excellent and the people you meet are fantastic.
• Also, check Buckfast Abbey (a Benedictine Abbey in the UK). They wrote to me today asking for help. They have conferences. I like that they have a workshop on beekeeping! Also, just go to the page and look for the cool little bees flying around on the side bar. Fun! I wish I had some cool bees. I only have a lazy hamster.

HEY! There is also the big LCWR Assembly 7-11 August about “Mystery Unfolding: Leading in the Evolutionary Now”! But I think you have to be invited.  Darn.

So, you can add some things. I have the moderation turned on.

Is anyone observing the new Ordinary Form extended form of the Vigil of Pentecost, with First Vespers (possibly) and the four OT readings and responsories preceding the Vigil Mass proper–analogous to the Vigil of Easter?

Let us know!

In the traditional, Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite a priest can add orations for himself, Pro seipso sacerdote, on the anniversary of his ordination.

The 2002MR has three formularies Pro seipso sacerdote while the 1962MR has but one.

Let’s look at the prayer in the Extraordinary Form.

COLLECT (1962MR):
Omnípotens et miséricors Deus,
humilitátis meae preces benígnus inténde:
et me fámulum tuum, quem,
nullis suffragántibus méritis,
sed imménsa cleméntiae tuae largitáte,
caeléstibus mystériis servíre tribuísti,
dignum sacris altáribus fac minístrum;
ut, quod mea voce deprómitur,
tua sanctificatióne firmétur.

SLAVISHLY LITERAL VERSION:
Almighty and merciful God,
kindly hark to the prayers of my humility:
and make me, Your servant, whom,
no merits of my own favoring me,
but by the immense largess of your indulgence,
You granted to serve the heavenly mysteries,
to be a worthy minister at the sacred altars;
so that, that which is called down by my voice,
may be made sure by Your sanctification.

The prayer focuses on priest’s self-awareness of his lowliness and that who he is and what he does is from God’s grace and choice and not his own.

It also emphasis the relationship of the priest to the altar, that it, the bond of the priest and Holy Mass.

In the older form of Holy Mass, after the consecration during the Canon at the Suppplices te rogamus… the priest bends low over the altar, puts his hands on it… they were annointed, the altar was annointed… kisses the altar, makes the sign of the Cross over the consecrated Host on the corporal, over the Precious Blood in the chalice, over himself.

Christ is Victim.  Christ is Priest.  The priest is victim and priest as well.

This moment during Holy Mass reveals the mysterious bond of altar where the priest sacrifices the victim, the sacrificial victim and the sacrificing priest.  They are one. At the altar he is alter Christus, another Christ, offering and offered.

What also comes to mind is the Augustinian reflection of the speaker of the Word and the Word spoken, and the message and reality of the Word and the Voice which speaks it.

The voice of the priest and the priest himself are merely the means God uses in the sacred action, the sacramental mysteries at the altar, to renew in that moment what He has wrought.  Finally, this is done through mercy.  The words misericors, clementia, largitas, benignus all point to the mercy of God.

The priest speaks and God makes what he speaks reality.

He takes the insubstantial words and makes them firm and real.

He takes unworthy men and gives them His own power.

How important it is for the priest to get himself out of the way when he is at the altar, where the True Actor is in action, Christ the Eternal and High Priest.

SECRET (1962MR):
Huius, Dómine, virtúte sacraménti,
peccatórum meórum máculas abstérge:
et praesta;
ut ad exsequéndum injúncti offícii ministérium,
me tua grátia dignum effíciat.

SLAVISHLY LITERAL VERSION:
O Lord, by the power of this sacrament,
cleanse the stains of my sins:
and grant;
that it may make me worthy by Your grace
unto the performance of the ministry of the office that has been imposed.

Priests are sinners in need of a Savior just like everyone else.

They confess sins and receive absolution like everyone else.

They, to, must do penance for past sins like everyone else.

They come to the altar as sinners.

In the older Extraordinary form of Holy Mass, the priest is constantly reminded about who he is and who he isn’t.

In this Secret, spoken quietly, the priest prays for what only God can do: remove the stains of sins from his soul.

The prayer brings also to mind the burden of the yoke of the priesthood, symbolized as by the priestly vestment, the chasuble.

As the priest vests he says as he puts on this vestment,

“O Lord, Who said: My yoke is easy and My burden light: grant that I may bear it well and follow after You with thanksgiving. Amen.”

The yoke is the ancient sign of subjugation. The ancient Romans caused the conquered to pass under a yoke, iugum.

POSTCOMMUNION (1962MR):
Omnípotens sempitérne Deus,
qui me peccatórem sacris altáribus astáre voluísti,
et sancti nóminis tui laudáre poténtiam:
concéde propítius, per hujus sacraménti mystérium,
meórum mihi véniam peccatórum;
ut tuae maiestáti digne mérear famulári.

SLAVISHLY LITERAL VERSION:
Almighty eternal God,
who desired me, a sinner, to stand at the sacred altars,
and to praise the might of Your Holy Name:
propitiously grant, through the mystery of this sacrament,
the forgiveness of my sins for me;
so that I may merit to wait upon Your majesty.

On the day of ordination the priest lies down upon the floor.

He is that moment, next to the floor, part of the floor as it were, the lowest thing in the church.

As I read this, I am struck by the two sets of contrasts.

First, there is the contrast of the low state of the servant sinner and the majesty of God.

Second, there is the present moment contrasted with the future to come.

Maiestas is like gloria, Hebrew kabod or Greek doxa, a divine characteristic which – some day – we may encounter in heaven in such a way that we will be transformed by it forever and forever.  When Moses encountered God in the cloud on the mountain and in the tent, he came forth with a face shining so brightly that he had to wear a veil.  This is a foreshadowing of the transformative power of God’s maiestas.

A priest waits on this maiestas.

He waits on it in that he awaits it and waits upon it, serves it, as a waiting waiter he serves it out as well. He desires it for his own future, but in the present moment he waits upon it as a servent.  He is an attendent, in every sense, one who waits and one who waits.

May God have mercy on all priests, sinner servants, attendent on the unmerited grace and gifts of the Victim Priest and Savior.  May God have mercy on me, a sinner.

I got up that morning, ate breakfast, said my prayers, and walked alone across town to the basilica, where I entered through the main doors with the rest of the crowd. After that, however, I went to the right, to the nave, where we vested and waited for the Holy Father. My family members came separately from a different part of town. They had special tickets which brought them very close to the altar.

Since we were 60 in number, and from many countries, the basilica was absolutely jammed with people from all over the world who had come for the ordinations. The number of people, probably some 50k since it was packed to the gills with families and friends and whole colleges and the inevitable tourists, made the responses during the Litany of Saints flow over us palpably as we lay on the floor. Bl. Mother Theresa of Calcutta was there because a couple men were being ordained for the male component of the Missionaries. That group never really got traction. In any event, my parents and grandmother sat right behind her. I had arranged for my grandmother, a convert to Catholicism in her 80′s, to receive Communion from the Holy Father.

I often wonder what happened to the other men with whom I was ordained. I only knew a couple of them personally, since I had been at the Lateran University with them. I know that one fellow is now a bishop in poor Haiti. Also, it was the first year that the Iron Curtain was raised enough in Romania so that a few men were permitted out of the country to come to Rome to be ordained by the Pope. There were quite a few Opus Dei guys ordained with us. Another was the sad, so very sad, John Corapi of the SOLT group. Another of them was ordained that day too. One priest is in England, in Southwark, and it would be great to meet with him during some trip. I reached out to a few some years ago and got only a few responses. I may try again some day, perhaps by writing to their dioceses or institutes and asking that my letter be forwarded.

God doesn’t choose men who are worthy. He chooses those whom it pleases Him to choose. In regard to myself, it’s all a great mystery to me and I will probably won’t get it until I die.

Anecdote: After Mass we lined up, new priests on one side of the side nave, all the cardinals and various prelates on the other, and the Holy Father came and greeted us all.  To my shock, my boss the late and great Augustine Card. Mayer who had joined the recessional, came across the nave and, in the sight of the Roman Pontiff, knelt down and asked for my blessing. It was one of several startling lessons he gave me.

COLLECT:
Deus, qui fideles tibi servos
sanctitatis gloria sublimare non desistis,
concede propitius,
ut illo nos igne Spiritus Sanctus inflammet,
quo beati Philippi cor mirabiliter penetravit.

Sublimo, according to the thorough Lewis & Short Dictionary, is “to lift up on high, to raise, elevate”.  Penetro is, in the first place, “to put, place, or set any thing into any thing”. You might use this verb to describe a person putting his foot inside a house. It can also mean “to betake one’s self” or “go” in some direction. For example, one way to say “to take flight” as in “run away” is se in fugam penetrat. After that, it is “to pierce into any thing; to enter, penetrate any thing”. In a related sense, penetralia are the interior of a place, or the secret places, even a sanctuary or chapel.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O God, who by the glory of sanctity 
do not cease not to raise on high
servants faithful to You,
propitiously grant,
that the Holy Spirit inflame us with that same fire
with which He wondrously entered into  Saint Philip’s heart.

We could say “pierced” instead of “enter”, but with fire I think that is the wrong image.

And here is the relic of the praecordium of St. Philip Neri in the chapel in the Oratory in Rome where the saint said Mass. The praecordium is not the heart itself, but it is close!

CURRENT ICEL (2012):
O God, who never cease to bestow the glory of holiness
on the faithful servants you raise up for yourself,
graciously grant
that the Holy Spirit may kindle in us that fire
with which he wonderfully filled
the heart of Saint Philip Neri.

I don’t like that “filled” for penetravit, but you can see how they chose it.

This is my relic of St. Philip.

Yet another!

These are “extras”, that is, short comments they did not have in other videos.

What is so amazing about these videos is that they would have been unthinkable – from CNS – even a couple years ago!

How times are changing.

Benedict XVI is the Pope of Christian Unity.

I want to share with you my high school friend’s first experience with the EF.

Last week, we had the first mass in the Extraordinary Form in our area by a priest who has been waiting a long time to do it. So, I was telling everyone about it and how it went last Friday. Well, she heard all these things and wanted to learn more. So, I gave her the Baltimore Catechism to read about the mass. She then decided she wanted to go. So, I took her with me tonight. I told her what was different, no amen for communion, etc, went through the booklets they had at the church with her, and went in for Holy Mass.

At the end, I asked if she got lost, and she said: “Not really, if I did I just watched.” Then I asked her what she liked the most. Well, my high school friend, who only knew about the EF for a week, said: “I really like the silence of the mass. It helps me reflect and concentrate on what is happening. What is actually happening. I also like the Latin.” She now wants to go more often and is telling her friends and family about it.

To all high school students like me, talk about the EF at school around your friends, you never know who might be interested in it!