Stats...

I dismantled my Sitemeter when it went awry and I got no response from the moderators or whomever deals with their complaints. This means that I am happily oblivious to my site traffic. Blogger itself, however, offers some tracking. I was amused to discover that there have been people searching for Liturgiae Causa using the words "gay Liturgiae Causa[e]," and "hate Liturgiae Causa." Someone wrote to me recently saying that (my having given a good word to another blog) a correspondant had said: "that is high praise indeed because Patricius doesn't like anyone." That is not strictly true. I am just very intolerant and I have no qualms about publicly humiliating people (myself included); John Zuhlsdorf is a charlatan, for example, or pope-"emeritus" Benedict XVI is an old queen. I do so, you may be surprised to learn, for the good of humanity. You might say I am one of life's moaners or a spoil-sport but it's my crusade to make people understand. I do not think it is in anybody's interest to buy china mugs with Say the Black, Do the Red printed on them. Why? Not only because that is distasteful beyond belief but because the proceeds go to a man who is an unabashed leach and a carbuncle on the arse of the Roman church. Ratzinger is less utterly hateful, but only comparatively and his one saving grace is that he is not American.Nevertheless, his liturgical works exemplify an underlying ignorance which is hard for me to ignore.

Maybe I've got it completely wrong? Maybe I should start cashing in on my notoriety. I too have an Amazon wishlist (with about thirty or so books listed). Perhaps I should put up a donations tab in the sidebar linked to my bank account and offer to pray for people in exchange for money. It sounds like an honest and Christ-like life, doesn't it!

The '62 Police...

Five or six years ago I attended a Paschal Vigil at a prominent Roman Catholic church in South London. As we were outside and the celebrant was about to bless the new fire a helicopter flew overhead. I remember saying to the man next to me, in jest: "that'll be the '62 police overhead!" It was a running joke at the time; nobody really let on about using pre-1962 liturgy as we all knew the cautionary tales about spoil-sports and tittle-tattlers. Once I even compared it to the practise of Roman Catholicism in Elizabethan times, all very incognito; there we were, under the aegis of Summorum Pontificum, and doing something quite different. Unlike a lot of other traditionalists I wasn't too concerned about the Church as a whole. What the parish in the next town was doing didn't concern me in the least and, to an extent, I am still of that mindset. Not because I lacked the zeal and triumphalism of the typical traditionalist but because my whole mind and purpose was bent on what was going on in my immediate surroundings; with all its problems and shortcomings and certainly of those standing by. Other Catholics were a mistake! Nevertheless, I was only too well aware of the futility and fragility of the whole thing. A stiff breeze and the edifice would crumble. Why? Well, simply because you cannot resurrect a tradition without the right disposition and wherewithal, and this has nothing to do with the '62 police. Let them grass us up!

What am I trying to say? In short, I think, live and let live. You can't change the world let alone Christ's Church. Live by example. If the Traditions to which you aspire are in themselves good then live a Christ-like life to the best of your ability and with the comfort of the Sacraments. Abandon triumphalism! Abandon hauteur and separatism! Change your mindset. This does not endanger your love of Tradition. Do not blame the trendy liberals for their dissent when you yourselves rejoice in your dissent. Revise your bookshelves! Why not swap your Michael Davies for Gregory Dix? Why not go to a Byzantine church on Sundays instead of to the Society of Pius X? Now that the Prayer Book office has achieved some recognition in the Roman church, why not say Mattins therefrom on holy days? Church Tradition is not solely limited to the Latin patrimony and you will find that when you escape the mire of petty medals and ill-informed customs you will breathe an air wholly clean and refreshing.

I realise some of you think I am a fruitcake so you needn't take much notice. I just thought I'd write this to pass the time. It's the chief reason I write; to pass the time.

Ad meliora advocatus...

"A young country clergyman used his ample leisure for the study of astronomy. He was a brilliant mathematician. From his observations and calculations he predicted when the planet Venus would pass across the sun's disk. If he were right about this transit of Venus, great developments might be expected in the science of astronomy. He himself as the discoverer could be sure of fame. You can imagine his keenness with which he observed the planet on the predicted day. There he was, gazing through the telescope and making notes. If you were to read through his notes they would not convey much to you unless you were an astronomer. Even an astronomer might be puzzled by one note, of three Latin words, Ad meliora advocatus, which means 'Summoned to better things.' He was summoned by the church bell to take his part in the liturgy. That he esteemed as meliora - better things than important scientific discovery and the glamour of personal renown. That was his estimate of liturgy..." Taken from Addresses & Papers of Michael Lloyd Ferrar 1909-1960.

Well worth reading, particularly what he says about the corporate nature of Trinitarian worship viz my post on low Mass. Traddies go on about how the Novus Ordo is a one-man-shew but they can't see the connexion between a priest wearing a tasteless chasuble and facing down the church with a microphone and a priest ad orientem at low Mass supplanting the rôles of deacon, subdeacon, choir and other ministers.

Quoth the Traddie: "Well, at least he's wearing a maniple and he's saying Mass in Latin!"
Ait Patricius: "But liturgy is common prayer. Even Presbyterians have the co-operation of a number of elders around the officiating minister at the Lord's Supper!"
Quoth the Traddie: "Oh, you're just a bloody heretic."

Art: From "The Ceremonies and Religious Customs of the Idolatrous Nations" By Bernard Picart.

On low Mass...

The variations in the ceremonies practised in the celebration of the Eucharist make a division into two heads easy: missa solemnis and missa privata. The missa solemnis is the publick, or high Mass, and gives us the rule for the celebration of the Eucharist. The priest is assisted by a deacon and subdeacon....The private, or low Mass, on the other hand, must be regarded as the exception, and in this the priest is assisted by a server only. It is the presence of the deacon and subdeacon which makes the difference between high Mass and private Mass, and not whether any part of the service be sung. Now, it cannot be too often repeated that it is only high Mass which gives us the antient, typical ceremonies of the celebration of the Eucharist, and from which we may learn the true idea of the Eucharistic rites. Low Mass only gives us the rite in a maimed and imperfect, not to say corrupt and irregular way. Private, or low Mass, that is, a celebration of the Eucharist without deacon or subdeacon, was as little known to the Church at large for the first 800 years, as it is to this day to the Eastern Church. It seems to have come in when Latin ceased to be understood by the people, who betook themselves, therefore, to their private prayers. Low Mass robbed the mediaeval church of the idea of common prayer, which it is the glory of our Prayer Book to have brought back. The celebration of the Eucharist in private (I am only using the word still used by the Roman Missal) shews but small respect to the Christian mysteries. It may be borne with in country parishes where there is no one in holy orders but the curate himself, but to see in a church with a large staff the altar served by some boy taken out of the street, who probably does not know his Catechism, and has not been confirmed, while men in holy orders are doing nothing in the stalls of the choir, or only come into church to distribute the Communion, shews that there is little or no zeal for the solemnity of the Eucharist. It shews a contempt for the practices of antiquity, to which in all questions of ceremonial, as well as in faith and morals, the Church of England appeals.... Even the more learned Roman Catholick authorities dislike the boy server, and tell us that it is the deacon who is the proper minister of the altar. Dr John Wickham-Legg, ''On Some Antient Liturgical Customs Now Falling Into Disuse,'' in Transactions of the St Paul’s Ecclesiological Society, vol. II (London, 1890), 123-24.

Many contemporary Roman Catholic liturgists consider Dr John Wickham-Legg's scholarship obsolete and understood solely in the context of the late 19th century Anglo-Catholic ceremonial wars. For my part (in this passage at any rate) I would dissent only from Dr Wickham-Legg's supposition that low Mass evolved largely on account of the obscurity of Latin to the people. I would say that it was more a case of bad theology latent in the Scholastic movement than necessarily a linguistic problem, although the Latin language may have been a case in northern Europe. Otherwise, what he says about the distinctions between the services, that out understanding of the Eucharistic liturgy is by recourse to high Mass only, and that low Mass is defective is absolutely right. I consider low Mass, except in cases of utmost necessity, to be a liturgical abuse akin to turning away from the East or an extempore Anaphora, and the custom certainly contributed to the decline of the Divine Office as an act of corporate worship as opposed to clerical recitation in private.

Because low Mass is codified into the Roman liturgy with a set of rubrics and was given sanction by the Tridentine missal, people aren't prepared to admit what a mistake it was. If Trent really was an holy synod it would have abolished the custom as a mediaeval superstition. Unfortunately, it's seen to-day as complimentary to high Mass (seldom provided), with its own inherent qualities of contemplation, of quietude and piety. That it detracts from the nature of liturgy itself, and even from Scripture itself, "where two or three are gathered in my name," etc, puts the Traddies out of reckoning. So we're stuck with it.

Venite, venite...

This is exquisite. Emma Kirkby and Evelyn Tubb sing Monteverdi's motet Venite, sitientes, ad aquas Domini. Simply marvellous.

O come, O come, ye that thirst, to the waters of the LORD; make haste ye for to gain this milk and honey beyond price. O come, drink ye this wine which hath imparted unto you unfathomable wisdom. Eat and drink ye, friends, of this godly milk and honey. For richer is God's love than wine to console the world.

I used God's "love" as a euphemism for ubera, which means something completely different of course. Is it out of season, do you think?

The Stars of Night...

An English rendering of one of the finest hymns in the Latin tradition. No jokes, please, in the comments as to which verb the Liturgia Horarum has in mind when in the ham-fisted revision of the hymns creator was substituted for conditor. Enjoy!

Occupational Health...

I don't mind discussing personal things on this blog because I have no secrets. Secrecy is a terrible sin but it also doesn't work. On Domesday all our peccadillo's will be revealed for worldwide scrutiny as we stand in the longest queue imaginable to receive judgement for our deeds so why not swim faster than the tide?

I have been off sick from work with stress recently. This is more because of my unabashed laziness than anything else but I suppose even for someone like me to be constantly reminded of my inability to perform at work is hardly a fulfilling way to spend five out of five working days. I am sorely tempted not to go back but that will hardly work out in my own best interests. So anyway, I had an assessment with a psychiatrist called Dr Long two weeks ago. He had a weak handshake; not a good sign, and it was apparent that he wasn't really interested in listening to what I had to say because he kept interrupting me. The meeting/interview/assessment lasted for about two hours and then I went home. It was a Wednesday. This meant that mother was at home and I would have to make some excuse for not being at work. I gave up and thought I'd brave her inexorable wrath with the truth. After soaking up her put-downs like a sponge I went to my room.

As they have a tendency of doing, the days passed. Then the other day I received a copy of the assessment, all ten pages of it. It said:

Diagnosis
Axis I - Asperger's syndrome (ICD-10 Code F84.5)
             Problems related to employment and unemployment (ICD-10 Code Z56)
             Mental and behavioural disorders due to harmful use of alcohol (ICD-10 Code F10.1)
Axis II - Significant interpersonal difficulties. No specific personality disorder documented
Axis III - Frequent headaches, enjoys good physical health otherwise
Axis IV - Describes current work environment as stressful and unfulfilling. Some financial pressure.
Axis V - GAF 81-90

This was followed by a discharge plan, no prescribed medication but a strong recommendation to find alternative employment using the Bexley Council "Mind" service, and the report of the two hours I spent answering questions. I took exception to their describing my alcoholism as clinically significant. I admit to drinking too much but I wouldn't have said that it interferes with my ability to function. Then, at the end of the report, was this:

"Patrick was appropriately dressed and there were no obvious signs of self-neglect despite his reference to his having bathed very infrequently in recent weeks. Throughout the assessment appointment he appeared relaxed and at ease and conveyed a sense of confidence with a rather contemptuous and dismissive manner; he was generally disparaging of many professionals he had previously encountered. He was distractible and did not always answer questions directly - instead focusing on peripheral and sometimes irrelevant issues which he clearly preferred to talk about such as existentialism. He tended to intellectualise rather than talk candidly about his own difficulties whenever possible. It was frequently necessary to interrupt him and ask him again the questions he had already been asked. He was not obviously agitated, restless or over-active but he fidgeted and picked at his nails intermittently. He described his mood as 'disinclined' and 'tired' and rated his mood subjectively as 5 out of 10. He displayed detailed knowledge of what a diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome amounted to in terms of how it might be described in a textbook beyond which he appeared to lack insight into how it might influence his own difficulties."

Think of that what you will but I rather think this justifies my "contemptuous" manner and "disparaging" attitude toward people who treat the mind. I did not talk once about philosophical existentialism (which I studied at college) but about life's problems existentially. I did not rate my mood at all subjectively; I was asked how I felt on a scale of one to ten and I gave a random answer, and I lied more than once just to enjoy watching him scribble onto his pad.

I cannot say that I feel depressed at this time. Or even disinclined, except about work (which I have always avoided if possible). I have problems; don't we all? I have a few minor addictions; my thumb nails are disfigured from years of picking (I had to put pressure on an exposed hangnail I pulled back this morning as it would not stop bleeding); I grind my teeth; I click my fingers; I do spend money on impulse and recklessly; I am very selfish; I seldom commit to things I start; I hate lots of people; I am prejudiced and hold a number of unpopular views; I won't ever clean my room and am rather proud of my collection of dust; or, as my father would say, I am simply "odd in my ways."

Basically, I am a person.

I couldn't think of anything to illustrate this post so I settled for the classic mini. It is, undoubtedly, the greatest car ever made.

More snides...

If I have any calling in life, it is to expose the ignorance and falsehood of traditionalists for the ridicule of the world. See the comment thread here on Fr Hunwicke's blog for a few gems. Anselm, by his typical comment, proves himself to be a true tradunculus, that is a nasty, wretched little Traddie. The air of intellectual and moral snobbery, of separatism, etc. It's like to qualify for their model Roman Catholick you have to sell your soul. No wonder they're so weird! And the reticence! Everything has some qualification; everything is "well perhaps," or "with hindsight," or "but, my lord pope, thy will be done!" God! Do you have no spine, sir?! Are you entirely innocent of the history of liturgy? I'm guessing that is so since you call upon your readers to re-read Summorum Pontificum. To what, pray, in that canonical and liturgical waste paper do you refer? "What earlier generations...sacred and great," perhaps? What rubbish! I dealt with Summorum Pontificum some months ago in a post that went unanswered!

"Very interesting indeed for private study and for a possible reform of the Usus Antiquior in fifty or so years time." Which is but to say that you oppose the use of the Saint Lawrence Press Ordo, which is the best liturgical ordo for use in the Roman Rite in modern times, in parishes and publick oratories. But why would you think it a suitable stimulant for further reform of the Extraordinary Form, presumably by the time you are dead? Why not bypass the red herring and simply say: "Oh, all very interesting as a museum piece but I rather think that people who go in for these outdated rites are fringe weirdos; we don't want that kind of influence in the Church!" Very condescending, I must say.

However the Usus Antiquior (1962) is also in continuity with what 'B John Henry Newman, Bishop Challoner, the English Martyrs, all the Saints (and sinners and common ordinary Christians) of the Western Church in the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, centuries' prayed. You speak of continuity but I cannot understand what you mean by that. Do you mean that continuity is there if we look harder? Or perhaps you and I reckon continuity in different ways? In my world, the world of reason, 2+2=4. In yours the answer is whatever the pope says. He is Peter!

If you don't believe me, then re-read 'Summorum Pontificum'. I have, again and again. Everything it says is a lie.

There is also this important question : 'Why not go back to the time before Pope St. Pius X, or even further back to the first edition of the Breviarium Romanum and the Missale Romanum ? Or even further back ? Oh, not that again! I've heard these arguments before. Following this logick, why express any liturgical preference whatever? Why not just content yourself with a via media Novus Ordo parish, liturgy said at the chair, hymns and lay readers and extraordinary ministers of communion? Yea more, why even undertake any study of liturgy? Since you are so ready to sacrifice your intelligence and integrity on the altar of Ultramontanism, why not go further and seek admittance at the insane asylum and sit with a dazed expression by a window you can lick when you get bored?

Despite unfortunate changes in the history of the Roman liturgy, we can still speak of continuity. One of the Nazis, I think it was Goebbels, said that if you repeat a lie often enough, people soon start to believe it. I would go further and say that Traddies are like the creature Gollum, wracked with doubt and stuck in a labyrinth of lies and formulas. They, like Gollum, repeat to themselves, over and over and over, the same hackneyed falsities, "before the Council," "wicked Bugnini," "Novus Ordo sprung on an unsuspecting episcopate," ad nauseum. It really is reminiscent of an inpatient psychiatric patient undergoing therapy. I can read the nurse reports now: "patient continues delusion that Paul VI is a subhuman monster," and "patient lacked affect after remonstrance about what really happened."

Change can also be beneficial too. What are you basing that on?

For example, the introduction of new feast days, more prominence given to the seasons of Advent and Lent, and ordinary Sundays, and 'some' simplification of rubrics. For example, supplanting feasts of considerable antiquity with new ones with no religious value? For example, the abolition of folded chasubles during Lent and Advent? For example, the obliteration of all commemorations on Sundays of occuring feasts? I don't know what you mean by simplification of the rubricks. Perhaps you refer to arbitrary changes like bows to a missal instead of the altar cross?

It is also worth re-reading Pope Pius XII's groundbreaking encyclical, 'Mediator Dei', specially in relation to 'archaeologism'. We should not be too hard on this great and venerable pope. I read Mediator Dei. I often spend my evenings reading the decrees of popes. The one thing that sticks in my memory is the reversal of the Lex Orandi, but we shan't go into that now. It's been done to death, like Swan Lake or Low Mass. Archaeologism? Mediator Dei might as well be called Ego sum Liturgia. "What I say, goes. I am the pope." That's all it boils down to.

Thank you. No, thank you!

Milk...

In contemporary Europe it is common to regard a vessel as something which is purely functional. For example, people to-day buy milk in cartons and when the milk runs out the carton is thrown away as rubbish. Until quite recently we used to have milk delivered in glass bottles. When the milk ran out, we left the bottles out on the porch step for the milkman to collect the next day and, presumably, he took the bottles back to the dairy to be used again; an attitude (taken for granted) which already suggests something more respectful than throwing plastic cartons away. Going further back into the deeps of time I am sure that there are people, perhaps even readers of this blog, who can remember when they took their own china or earthenware jugs to a milk cart to have it filled with a churn. That jug may have been cared for for many generations and may have had some great sentimental value; a simple container but a small treasure.

I was thinking this when the milk ran out this morning. Yes, milk is more valuable than a plastic carton thrown away.

Enigma...

For Latinists:

Omnia devorat id, florentia ubique per orbem;

cum chalybe et ferro morsis, tum saxa moluntur;

necantur reges, montes caeduntur et urbes.

What am I?

Ordo 2015...

The Saint Lawrence Press Ordo for 2015 is now available. Visit the Online Shop to make your purchase.

Notes on Kingsfoil...

I wrote "Kingsfoil" in the small hours of Sunday night (for those of you who use the twenty-four hour clock, that means something like 03:00 of Monday); as a result some things didn't occur to me as they ought.

As mentioned, the Royal Touch was tied inextricably to the Coronation Service. It was, therefore, a token of dynastic legitimacy. In Aragorn's case, you will remember Frodo's discourse with Faramir in the woods of Ithilien in which Aragorn's claim to the throne was mentioned. Gondor had been a kingless state governed by the Stewards since the days of Mardil Voronwë, almost a thousand years before the War of the Ring. Eärnur, the last King of Gondor, had ridden with a small retinue to the gates of Minas Morgul to challenge the Witch-king but was ensnared by the Nazgûl, and was never seen again. He had no children; there was, therefore, no heir to the throne. The Númenóreans had no elective monarchy. Theirs was a system of agnatic primogeniture so when the line failed with King Eärnur, a new king was not elected from among the lords of the fiefs of Gondor - they would not be of the Line of Elros Tar-Minyatur - but the realm was committed to the Stewards of the House of Mardil "until the King returns." Therefore, while the Rangers of the South, at hearing Frodo's news of Aragorn, were moved by the great tidings he brought, Faramir, son of the Steward, was unmoved and said that "clear proofs will be required." And the proof, of course, would not only be the Sword that he carried but the Royal Touch.

Consider also this passage:

"At the doors of the Houses many were already gathered to see Aragorn, and they followed after him; and when at last he had supped, men came and prayed that he would heal their kinsmen or their friends whose lives were in peril through hurt or wound, or who lay under the Black Shadow. And Aragorn arose and went out, and he sent for the sons of Elrond, and together they laboured far into the night. And word went through the City: 'The King is come again indeed.' And they named him Elfstone, because of the green stone that he wore, and so the name which it was foretold at his birth that he should bear was chosen for him by his own people." (The Lord of the Rings, Book V, Chapter VIII).

Having considered this, it is clear to me that Tolkien believed in the Divine Right of Kings.

Art: Ted Nasmith.