I'm glad I was at work today; it took my mind off things papal.
Today is one of those days that my blood runs cold within me, and I wish that the papacy were forever banished from this world. Centuries and centuries of unchanged Tradition, gone forever at the stroke of a pen. The Roman Rite is accursed, ruined by ancient hatred and power. Those who inherit this burden of tat, and propound it as good for the soul, are liars without shame. I am actually beginning to despise anyone who celebrates the modern Roman Rite, in whatever form. Who could go to Mass on this day and not think of Gaudeamus without intense longing? Whose ears could endure the atrocious Collect of this day and not be filled with wrath, and a burning hatred of the papacy, destroyers and usurpers? Only the Ultramontanists, possessed of devils, and doing only his will in their madness. I no longer desire any part in the Roman Rite, and wish I could forget all that I know (which, confessedly, isn't much) about it. Even if anyone could resurrect the Uses of the mediaeval English Church, it would be empty, shorn of authenticity, and all that's left would be sentimentalism, nostalgia, and regret about the waning of lore and the passing of the years.
But maybe this was doomed to be. Good liturgy is a thing of the past, gone long into the grave with out catholic ancestors, and all that is left will die out with my generation. Knowledge of Latin and Greek is waning among men, so also is the memory of things past, things needful for the wise to know. There is no hope left, which is why I have disavowed religion - or at least religious people. Does anyone remember the vision of the hobbits on the Barrow-downs, of the shadow-shapes of Men, a great expanse of years behind them, marching with bent backs in the shadowy hills? Do we not, like the Company of the Ring, observe the passing away of all that is fair, while we sit helpless on the shores of a grey and leafless world?
All I can say now is alas, alas for Our Lady.
Art: Ted Nasmith. The painting depicts a scene from the Quenta Silmarillion to rend one's heart, and says more to me about this once wonderful day than can be expressed in words.
Get. A. Grip.
ReplyDeletePish posh. You westerners are always moaning, hoping that there might have been something of value in the west to pine away for. The Spirit was rejected the first time the Filioque was uttered, and the great branch of the West fell to the ground centuries ago dead. Stop pawing at the dirt for the last bit of sap that may have slipped out of that dry, dusty bough, and look up at the bright greenery, taste and see the East.
ReplyDelete@ Alex Ferrara,
ReplyDeleteSo what are you suggesting? The complete revision of liturgical texts in the 1970MR is unacceptable but do do so before the 'wicked Council' or whatever your particular beliefs are is OK?
@ Stephen,
An interesting point of view. Hypothetically speaking if the RCC repented and submitted itself to the Church would, in your opinion, that dead branch gain vivification as the dead bones of Israel did in the lesson sung at the end of Mattins (Byzantine rite, Holy Saturday or in the ancient Vesperal Liturgy of Holy Saturday, Roman rite)?
Clearly. That is but one way, and may be the one that takes a little longer. It's already underway elsewhere.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rwrv.org/news_120813_1.html
Stephen,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your reply. But you imply that there is another way/ other ways?
Yes. You posited the first way as the RCC sort of wholesale from the Pope on down saying effectively, we will no longer recite the Creed in the Latin rite using the Filioque.
ReplyDeleteThe other way is a bottom-up organic embrace of the Orthodox rites of the western patrimony by Eastern-rite bishops, as you see happening via the link.
The latter is underway, the former may take a little more time. But the message is that for westerners who, such as our gracious host, despair of the loss of this patrimony - which Orthodox attribute to the Papacy - their fears are unfounded, and they may rejoice and be fulfilled thanks to these Eastern-rite bishops.