Transitions

Major life transitions are always tricky.  You have to have the proper balance among virtue, strength, poise, resign, trust, openness, and closedness.  A small Catholic university with which I have some familiarity and small-city Texas is just a little different from Fruit and Nut Central, California.  It's been a crazy ride, but, after 5 solid months of being here, I'm finally starting to adjust :-)  I have a good job, good friends, an opportunity to go to the Latin Mass and meet people of the same mindset as myself, and I sing in a good choir

Quid retribuam Domino pro omnibus quid retribuit mihi?
What shall I render unto the Lord for all that He hath rendered unto me?

It makes me wonder...what was the major life transition for Our Lady like?  She was just a young girl when the Angel rocked her world.  The prophecies rang through her ears: Behold, a virgin shall conceive..., By His stripes, we were healed..., He hath born the sins of many...  What an overwhelming and terrifying message.  And yet...through it all...she rose to the call, accepted  her "vocatio", as one called by God, even by name: FIAT.  But after that moment in the Incarnation/Annunciation, the Angel departed from her.  In Christoph Cardinal Schönborn's new book The Joy of Being a Priest (Ignatius Press, 2010), he describes Mary after this departure as being left with no consolation (con+solatio = to be with [another] in solitude), no ecstacies, no visions, nothing - save the promise of seven swords.  And the promise of VICTORY.  Mary "held all these things in her heart".  She didn't complain, she didn't protest, she didn't even defend herself when Joseph found out she was pregnant.  Assumedly, she would have accepted the quiet divorce from her upright husband.  What a burden it must have been to go through life alone.  At least, that's what we, on a human level, would think.  But Mary was the Theotokos, mother of God, full-of-grace, tabernacle of the Holy Ghost, one without blemish, without sin.  She was human, yes, but she knew better than any of us do that she was never alone.  She threw herself entirely upon the mercy and the love of God.  Her Magnificat is arguably the most glorious praise a human being could have ever rendered to God.  "The Almighty has done great things for me: HOLY is His Name."  She was called to a Love and an obedience so far above our own levels of comprehension, and she did not deny her Master.  (Side note: Reading St. Alphonsus Liguori on obedience is one of the most humbling and most eye-opening exhortations I've ever read.  It reminds me how attached to my own will I am every time.  Obedience is most pleasing to God, even if it sounds crazy, even if you don't understand it.)

"What shall I render unto the Lord...?"  Trust.  Humility.  Obedience.

"Do you truly trust Me?"
"Yes, Lord, I do."
"Then why do you keep worrying?  It has been taken care of."

Note the use of past tense.  From all eternity, He has a plan for us.  We worry on our own ends to no avail.

Vulgate editions

 Interesting! Again from Fr. Z:

A reader alerted me to this interesting post at Canterbury Tales:

How do you know which "Vulgate" you have? Open up your Latin Vulgate to Genesis 3:20. How is Eve’s name spelled? This will immediately tell which "Vulgate" you have in your hands:

• If it’s spelled Heva: Clementine Vulgate (1592) – the standard printed Vulgate of the Catholic Church for Scripture and Liturgy until the Nova Vulgata (1979)
  
• If it’s spelled Hava: Stuttgart Vulgate (1969) – a scholarly critical edition of the Vulgate from the German Bible Society, not used in the liturgies of the Catholic Church. This is an academic Vulgate with a critical apparatus – it often includes the Pslater iuxta Hebraeos.
  
• If it’s spelled Eva: Nova Vulgata (1979) – the official Catholic edition of the Vulgate currently used in the liturgies of the Catholic Church (i.e. Missale Romanum 1969 & Liturgia Horarum)
  

This is the only fool-proof way for knowing which edition of the Vulgate that you have in your hands. So grab your Vulgate and check it out. I checked out the New Advent Vulgate at Gen 3:20 and happily discovered that it’s the Clementine Vulgate.

 In case anyone cares/ uses this edition of the Vulgate, the Vulgate online is apparently the Stuttgart Vulgate.

The Pope's Message for Lent

Though it was published 4-Feb, I found it a little late.  Good thing Lent is so long.  This is the Pope's message:

From Zenit:

 Dear Brothers and Sisters!

Each year, on the occasion of Lent, the Church invites us to a sincere review of our life in light of the teachings of the Gospel. This year, I would like to offer you some reflections on the great theme of justice, beginning from the Pauline affirmation: "The justice of God has been manifested through faith in Jesus Christ" (cf. Rm 3, 21-22).

Justice: "dare cuique suum"

First of all, I want to consider the meaning of the term "justice," which in common usage implies "to render to every man his due," according to the famous expression of Ulpian, a Roman jurist of the third century. In reality, however, this classical definition does not specify what "due" is to be rendered to each person. What man needs most cannot be guaranteed to him by law. In order to live life to the full, something more intimate is necessary that can be granted only as a gift: we could say that man lives by that love which only God can communicate since He created the human person in His image and likeness. Material goods are certainly useful and required – indeed Jesus Himself was concerned to heal the sick, feed the crowds that followed Him and surely condemns the indifference that even today forces hundreds of millions into death through lack of food, water and medicine – yet "distributive" justice does not render to the human being the totality of his "due." Just as man needs bread, so does man have even more need of God. Saint Augustine notes: if "justice is that virtue which gives every one his due ... where, then, is the justice of man, when he deserts the true God?" (De civitate Dei, XIX, 21).

What is the Cause of Injustice?

The Evangelist Mark reports the following words of Jesus, which are inserted within the debate at that time regarding what is pure and impure: "There is nothing outside a man which by going into him can defile him; but the things which come out of a man are what defile him … What comes out of a man is what defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts" (Mk 7, 14-15, 20-21). Beyond the immediate question concerning food, we can detect in the reaction of the Pharisees a permanent temptation within man: to situate the origin of evil in an exterior cause. Many modern ideologies deep down have this presupposition: since injustice comes "from outside," in order for justice to reign, it is sufficient to remove the exterior causes that prevent it being achieved. This way of thinking – Jesus warns – is ingenuous and shortsighted. Injustice, the fruit of evil, does not have exclusively external roots; its origin lies in the human heart, where the seeds are found of a mysterious cooperation with evil. With bitterness the Psalmist recognises this: "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me" (Ps 51,7). Indeed, man is weakened by an intense influence, which wounds his capacity to enter into communion with the other.

By nature, he is open to sharing freely, but he finds in his being a strange force of gravity that makes him turn in and affirm himself above and against others: this is egoism, the result of original sin. Adam and Eve, seduced by Satan’s lie, snatching the mysterious fruit against the divine command, replaced the logic of trusting in Love with that of suspicion and competition; the logic of receiving and trustfully expecting from the Other with anxiously seizing and doing on one’s own (cf. Gn 3, 1-6), experiencing, as a consequence, a sense of disquiet and uncertainty. How can man free himself from this selfish influence and open himself to love?

Justice and Sedaqah

At the heart of the wisdom of Israel, we find a profound link between faith in God who "lifts the needy from the ash heap" (Ps 113,7) and justice towards one’s neighbor. The Hebrew word itself that indicates the virtue of justice, sedaqah, expresses this well. Sedaqah, in fact, signifies on the one hand full acceptance of the will of the God of Israel; on the other hand, equity in relation to one’s neighbour (cf. Ex 20, 12-17), especially the poor, the stranger, the orphan and the widow (cf. Dt 10, 18-19). But the two meanings are linked because giving to the poor for the Israelite is none other than restoring what is owed to God, who had pity on the misery of His people. It was not by chance that the gift to Moses of the tablets of the Law on Mount Sinai took place after the crossing of the Red Sea. Listening to the Law presupposes faith in God who first "heard the cry" of His people and "came down to deliver them out of hand of the Egyptians" (cf. Ex 3,8). God is attentive to the cry of the poor and in return asks to be listened to: He asks for justice towards the poor (cf. Sir 4,4-5, 8-9), the stranger (cf. Ex 22,20), the slave (cf. Dt 15, 12-18). In order to enter into justice, it is thus necessary to leave that illusion of self-sufficiency, the profound state of closure, which is the very origin of injustice. In other words, what is needed is an even deeper "exodus" than that accomplished by God with Moses, a liberation of the heart, which the Law on its own is powerless to realize. Does man have any hope of justice then?

Christ, the Justice of God

The Christian Good News responds positively to man’s thirst for justice, as Saint Paul affirms in the Letter to the Romans: "But now the justice of God has been manifested apart from law … the justice of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction; since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith" (3, 21-25).

What then is the justice of Christ? Above all, it is the justice that comes from grace, where it is not man who makes amends, heals himself and others. The fact that "expiation" flows from the "blood" of Christ signifies that it is not man’s sacrifices that free him from the weight of his faults, but the loving act of God who opens Himself in the extreme, even to the point of bearing in Himself the "curse" due to man so as to give in return the "blessing" due to God (cf. Gal 3, 13-14). But this raises an immediate objection: what kind of justice is this where the just man dies for the guilty and the guilty receives in return the blessing due to the just one? Would this not mean that each one receives the contrary of his "due"? In reality, here we discover divine justice, which is so profoundly different from its human counterpart. God has paid for us the price of the exchange in His Son, a price that is truly exorbitant. Before the justice of the Cross, man may rebel for this reveals how man is not a self-sufficient being, but in need of Another in order to realize himself fully. Conversion to Christ, believing in the Gospel, ultimately means this: to exit the illusion of self-sufficiency in order to discover and accept one’s own need – the need of others and God, the need of His forgiveness and His friendship. So we understand how faith is altogether different from a natural, good-feeling, obvious fact: humility is required to accept that I need Another to free me from "what is mine," to give me gratuitously "what is His." This happens especially in the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist. Thanks to Christ’s action, we may enter into the "greatest" justice, which is that of love (cf. Rm 13, 8-10), the justice that recognises itself in every case more a debtor than a creditor, because it has received more than could ever have been expected.

Strengthened by this very experience, the Christian is moved to contribute to creating just societies, where all receive what is necessary to live according to the dignity proper to the human person and where justice is enlivened by love.

Dear brothers and sisters, Lent culminates in the Paschal Triduum, in which this year, too, we shall celebrate divine justice – the fullness of charity, gift, salvation. May this penitential season be for every Christian a time of authentic conversion and intense knowledge of the mystery of Christ, who came to fulfill every justice. With these sentiments, I cordially impart to all of you my Apostolic Blessing.
From the Vatican, 30 October 2009

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

© Copyright 2010 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Liturgical Issues in a new light...

A little comic relief from Fr. Z:

There is a fun post over at St. Louis Catholic:

If today’s faithful Catholic is represented by Elizabeth Bennet, bright, hopeful and coming of age, then the liturgical forms would have to be represented by Mr. Darcy and Mr. Wickham.

Mr. Wickham is immediately accessible, loves to talk—especially about how bad ol’ Darcy is—has some initial minor flash but soon proves to be tedious and unreliable.

Mr. Darcy at first glance looks stuffy and condescending, but proves over time to be noble, true, of high quality and charitable.

The ordinary and the extraordinary.

_____________

Yes, I actually thought this, and then typed it, and therefore I am a loser.  [No… people who can’t refer to Austen are the losers.]

P.S. Mrs. Bennet would represent Marek Bozek. Just sayin’.  [LOL]

8.8 Earthquake in Chile

In your kindness, say a prayer for Chile...  From Fox News:

BREAKING NEWS —  President Michele Bachelet declared a state of catastrophe in central Chile after a massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck early Saturday.
     The most powerful quake to hit the country in a half century cut electricity, water and phone lines to many areas, meaning there was no word of death or damage from many outlying areas.
     There have been conflicting reports on the death toll, with some placing the count as high as 122, a number Chilean officials expect to rise.
     ...

 Go to Fox to read more.

FSSP interview on opening of new chapel

From Rorate:

Recent FSSP Interview on EWTN Live

by Shawn Tribe

One of our readers sent in this video which shows a recent interview on EWTN of two members of the FSSP by Fr. Mitch Pacwa. The interview speaks about the FSSP, the matter of the sacred liturgy, the EF and OF, and about the forthcoming consecration of the new chapel at the North American Seminary of the FSSP.

---

Posted Friday, February 26, 2010

Click the link to view the video; I had some problems embedding it...

From WDTPRS: Update on OLGS

From WDTPRS:

Your the Brick by Brick file from the Journal Star with my emphases and comments.

Consecration at Denton seminary to celebrate ‘crown jewel’

By ERIN ANDERSEN / Lincoln Journal Star

Sitting atop a hill in Denton, Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary is visible for miles around.

Passers-by sometimes confuse it with a hotel.

But in this sprawling complex of multicolored brick and glass live 72 men studying to become priests of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite—priests who perform the traditional Latin Mass. [I admire the chutzpah in this phrase, but no Roman priest is ordained for a book.  Latin, Roman priests are not ordained for the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.  We are ordained for the Roman Rite, which – juridically at least – has two forms.  If a man is in a group which uses only one form, that is another matter.  And we can debate whether or not there is really only one Roman Rite from a theological point of view.  But we are all priests of the Roman Rite.  So… that corrective in mind, let’s move along in reading the article, which from the first paragraph shows that the writer did some homework…]

Wednesday, the Catholic Church marks the completion of the $14 million seminary with the consecration of its newly finished Chapel of Saints Peter & Paul. It is the first U.S. chapel built for seminarians in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite in 40 years, said Father Joseph Lee, former seminarian and now ordained priest serving in Kansas City. [Kanasas, I think.]

Lee and others refer to the chapel as "the crown jewel" of the seminary.

Designed by Thomas Gordon Smith Architects, the 10,000-square-foot chapel reflects a contemporary rebirth of classical Catholic architecture.

That includes wooden choir stalls facing the center of the chapel, rather than church pews facing the altar. The stalls seat 92 priests and seminarians. Chairs will be set in the back of the chapel for laity and visitors.

The seating, and the four-story-high ceiling, provide ideal acoustics for the awe-inspiring Gregorian chants through which seminarians present the liturgy. [Hmmm… okay.  Perhaps "pray the liturgy" might have been a little clearer, but that’s fine.  The good point here is "awe".]

An elevated white marble altar, featuring a 31-foot marble canopy or baldachin, stands at the end of the chapel. The ornately carved structure once sat in a Quebec, Canada, church that was decommissioned in 2000. Seven smaller altars named for saints are throughout the chapel. A choir loft sits in the back. [Do choir lofts sit?  Yah… picky, I know.]

The Denton seminary is operated by the Lincoln Roman Catholic Diocese. It is one of two southeastern Nebraska seminaries overseen by the Lincoln Diocese. St. Gregory the Great Seminary opened in Seward in 1998 – the first free-standing diocesan seminary to open in the U.S. in decades. It teaches priests mainly for the Lincoln Diocese.  [Do you get the sense that in Lincoln someone has his head screwed on in the right direction?]

Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary, which opened in 2000, teaches priests from all over the world to celebrate Mass in Latin. It is the only seminary in the United States devoted exclusively to teaching the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, Lee said.

Our Lady of Guadalupe is the English-speaking seminary of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, an international community of priests dedicated to the traditional Latin Mass. The fraternity was established in 1988 by Pope John Paul II. The fraternity has two seminaries, one in Denton and the other in Bavaria, Germany.

Before 1962, Catholic Mass was always in Latin. But reforms by the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) allowed priests to celebrate Mass in the language of that country.  ["Allowed" that parts of Mass sometimes be in the vernacular.  The Council did not oblige this or that all the Mass be in the vernacular.  Indeed, the Council required that Latin remain the language of worship and that pastors should make sure their flocks knew to sing and speak the parts pertaining to them in Latin and their mother tongue.]

In the early 1980s, Pope John Paul II asked bishops from around the world how this new form of liturgy was being accepted. People stood on both sides – some liked hearing Mass in their language, and others said the traditional Latin Mass was more meaningful, explained Father Calvin Goodwin, Latin instructor at Our Lady of Guadalupe.  [This focuses on the language, but leaves apart the other issues of changes to the theology of the prayers.]

In 1984 the pope made some initial and cautious steps toward the re-emergence of the traditional Latin Mass, he said. Four years later, he expanded permission for Catholic churches to return to the Latin Mass.  [Remember!  The newer form of Mass in Latin is also "the Latin Mass".]

"In 1988 there were about six regular celebrants authorized for Latin Masses," Goodwin said. "By 2005, there were around 250 Latin Mass celebrants."

Since then, Pope Benedict XVI has made it possible for all priests to celebrate Latin Mass if they choose, [They always could, in the Novus Ordo, use Latin… clean up these terms when using them yourselves.] and has made it obligatory for churches to provide a Latin Mass if Catholics request it.  [Well… that has a long way to go yet.]

"Weekly up to around 400 churches celebrate Latin Mass," Goodwin said. "It has grown steadily over the past 20 years, as has our community (the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter). We started with 10 to 12 priests; now we have well over 200 priests."

Many of those priests are younger; the average age is 36. Among other priestly fraternities, the average age is 65 to 75, Goodwin said.  [As I have been saying, younger men want this.  Even those not in the ranks of a specialty group want our Church’s patrimony.  In another few years, maybe five years or so… we are going to see something remarkable happening.]

Much of the demand for Latin Mass comes from younger Catholics seeking a return to the old ways of worship.  [Not just "old" ways, but "Catholic" ways… "traditional" ways… "continuous" ways.]

Experts may see Latin as a "dead" language, but it is ideal for the church because the meaning of the words stand the test of time, Lee said.

"Thus Latin is excellent for theology and the transmission through succeeding ages of the unchanging – and unchangeable – doctrines in which the continuity of precise meanings is necessary among different cultures and times," he said.  [Well said.]

"Also, one finds the sound of Latin to be sublime and lofty, devoted as it is uniquely to the worship of God."

Catholics do not need to understand Latin to appreciate the Latin Mass, Goodwin said.

In fact, it was only when Mass was said in the language of the community that "people drifted to the idea that the primary point of Mass was to understand everything that was said and going on," he said.

"Mass is not a lesson or a class, or a primary form for the exchange of information.

"The primary point (of Mass) is not to understand it for the information conveyed. The primary point is to be present with your heart and soul as our lady St. Mary and St. John were present at the foot of the cross," Goodwin said.  [We can add a lot to this, but I think that Fr Goodwin hit it on the head by steering the point of Mass away from the didactic.]

Mass is the re-presentation, in an unbloody manner, of the sacrifice of Calvary in which Jesus offered his life to atone for the sins of all humanity, Lee said.

Catholics attend Mass to "understand the experience and the reverence and the devotion and the solemnity that are proper to the worship of God," Goodwin said.

Well done.  And WDTPRS kudos to the Fraternity for their new jewel!

Brick by brick.

Please pray for vocations to the priesthood.  Fr. Z also posted a rant about how the Catholic faithful need to be much more specific in praying for vocations SPECIFICALLY to the PRIESTHOOD.