One year on...

Liturgiae Causa is one year old today. I wish to thank everyone for taking the time to read my posts, and especially those of you who have paid me the compliment of at least taking me seriously.

The blog was in embryonic form at Singulare Ingenium, my old Tolkien blog (which I started two years ago). Gradually, as I studied the history of the Papacy and the Liturgy in more depth, I decided to focus more and more on the Sacred Liturgy and the failure of the Traditionalist movement to properly cultivate a proper liturgical mindset in the Church. What really got it started was ruminating over the pseudo-feast of Joe the Worker and having to sit in absolute wrath in choir at a First Holy Communion liturgy in my old parish as the new, less than worthy propers were being chanted to a hideous melody. And so on Pentecost last year I decided to relaunch as a Catholic blogger in order to offer a more variegated and holistic view of Tradition, distinct from Ultramontane tendencies, the lace cotta, and fortified by Grace in the correct way of making the Sign of the Cross. I hope that amidst the endless bitterness and rambling I have got some coherent points across. That is that, like women and seamen, Tradition and Traddies don't mix.

The painting, which depicts Christ and the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, is significant in the understanding of this blog. Were not the disciples profoundly moved as Christ expounded to them the Scriptures? Were their eyes not opened to Him in the breaking of bread? It is precisely that Liturgy is the greatest link, like unto a chain, to the past, to the primeval liturgy at which Christ Himself was celebrant in the flesh, that disruption and tampering is to be eschewed by all who love Truth and godliness in the Church above the surpassing claims of popes and their whims. Are we not forgetful of Tradition, the Truth which sets us at liberty, and fundamentally Christ Himself, when the waking memory of the Church, which is Tradition (manifestly, namely also, the Liturgy), is disrupted when popes and their ilk (even the clergy and laity at local level, afflicted with the anti-liturgical heresy) take it upon themselves to interrupt the Tradition by the assaults of aggiornamento and such things? I personally fail to see how Tradition can be properly appreciated and loved when the Pope takes its place. ''Lest we forget'' is a term we ought all to remember, and not just about the dead which die in the Lord.

Anyway I hope that I haven't upset too many people. I hope also to keep blogging as often as I may. Certainly this year the quality of posts has declined, and perhaps this has something to do (perhaps a lot to do) with the spiritual wilderness I am currently trying to get out of without compromising my convictions. May God grant me the grace and patience to write more academically and dispassionately, and in the spirit of charity towards men, even the enemies of Tradition. Perhaps the next time I sit down to write, anything, I shall ask myself whether what I am about to write will make the world a better place; or something. God for His mercy give Grace!