Rubricarius of The St Lawrence Press has informed us of a number of decent Pentecost Vigils this year. You see the only reason this Vigil was suppressed (by Pius XII, the Pope) was because it was so like to the Paschal Vigil that it might put the Roman faithful in mind of real Liturgy and not the made up Ultramontane rubbish put on in their parishes between 1956 and the mid-1960s (the palmy days prior to the Council, when everything was hijacked by liberals) - that is the ''Extraordinary Form'' celebrated and praised by latter day Traditionalists.
Unfortunately, in spite of having had every intention of doing so, I won't be able to go either to Brighton or to the other place I had planned to go around midday, for domestic reasons (thrust upon me moments ago in fact). However I feel privileged to be able to go to the Solemn Celebration at St Magnus the Martyr at 6:30pm. It will be the first Solemn Pentecost Vigil in this country since it was suppressed 55 years ago. Now to go through my wardrobe and find something suitably red...
If you're going to break with Rome, at least go to a Church with valid orders and sacraments.
ReplyDeleteShouldn't that be some thing red, covered with something violet? And maybe a white coverall if you are going to say None on the way?
ReplyDeleteThis is wonderful news indeed. Please pray for your readers in the desert at the Vigil. I pine for the opportunity to pray the Roman Holy Week and intimately associated rituals like those of Pentecost rather than suffer the affliction of the Pacelli/Bugnini rites. May our scribe relish it vicariously for his readers!
ReplyDeleteA question: is the time for this (6:30pm) correct or would it have been celebrated in the morning as the Easter Vigil? Is this not an evening Mass?
I ask without polemic and simply to know.
Evagrius - I understand and sympathise with your point, but surely a "break with Rome" entails necessarily rejection of Rome's competence, as well as its authority, to judge such matters as "validity"? This is a circularity to which RCs seem especially prone: asserting Roman self-understanding as an argument for Roman self-understanding.
ReplyDeleteAnagnostis, quite possibly. However, since the Church of England is manifestly heretical by both Eastern and Western standards. As far as I understand it, the two conditions in Eastern Orthodoxy for validity are (1) personal orthodoxy, and (2) communion with orthodox bishops.
ReplyDeleteThe Church of England fails on both counts.
Is the LACE Cotta the correct garment for a crucifer at these celebrations?
ReplyDeleteMr Cavendish looked resplendent in his Surplice, and used the proper tone for the prophecies he sang.
Roman Catholicism has neither orders nor sacraments.
ReplyDeleteThe teaching of Orthodoxy is quite unequivocal: sacraments (to which we generally refer as 'mysteries'—though the Western term 'sacraments' pre-dates the East–West Schism, and may, therefore, be safely regarded as Orthodox) can only exist within the Church. Popery broke away from the Church many centuries ago. (I have, recently, been criticized for stating—in a couple of recent posts to this blog—that the Roman Patriarchate separated itself from the "REST of the Church". My critics have, correctly, pointed out that I had been far too 'soft-line', and should simply have said that that Patriarchate separated itself from 'the Church', even though I subsequently qualified my remarks.) Orthodoxy does not enter into casuistic arguments concerning 'validity'; Roman popery is "manifestly heretical", and, therefore, cannot belong to the Church. Hence, it possesses no sacraments.
The question of communion with an Orthodox bishop has also been raised. Please forgive me now for stating what I have already written elsewhere.
"Apostolic Succession is […] dependent upon maintaining the Apostolic Faith: in a word, Orthodoxy. If a bishop were to lose the Apostolic Faith through apostasy, then he would cease to be a successor of the Apostles, and would forfeit the capacity of bequeathing Apostolic Succession to others. Likewise, to have Apostolic Succession, a bishop must belong to the Apostolic Church; if he were to break away from the Church in a deliberate act of schism, then he would no longer be able to function validly as an Orthodox bishop.
"In his two epistles to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul does not write to the 'Church of Corinth', but rather 'unto the church of God which is at Corinth' (I Cor. 1:2 & II Cor. 1:1). This is because every local Church is an embodiment of the One Orthodox Church in Her catholicity, or 'wholeness'. Such wholeness does not depend upon a diocese’s being in communion with any other particular see or local Church—though, in normal circumstances, every diocese ought to be in communion with every other diocese professing Orthodoxy. This should be contrasted with the Roman Catholic view, according to which one can only remain a member of the 'Church' by maintaining communion with one particular 'bishop': namely, the Pope of Rome.
"The Church is always to be found, whole and entire, wherever there be a body of the faithful governed by an Orthodox bishop. Fr Thomas Hopko explains this:
"'The term "catholic" as originally used to define the Church (as early as the first decades of the second century) was a definition of quality rather than quantity. Calling the Church catholic means to define how it is, namely, full and complete, all-embracing, and with nothing lacking.
"'Even before the Church was spread over the world, it was defined as catholic. The original Jerusalem Church of the apostles, or the early city-churches of Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, or Rome, were catholic. These churches were catholic—as is each and every Orthodox church today—because nothing essential was lacking for them to be the genuine Church of Christ. God Himself is fully revealed and present in each church through Christ and the Holy Spirit, acting in the local community of believers with its apostolic doctrine, ministry (hierarchy), and sacraments, thus requiring nothing to be added to it in order for it to participate fully in the Kingdom of God.'"