My advice to bloggers...

On average I get about 130-140 visitors to this blog a day. In the last week this has dropped (due to the lack of regular, and decent, posting - I also lost two ''followers'' after putting up that recent post about Pius XII and his haircut), but I sometimes wonder just how famous this small blog really is. I am convinced (from viewing some of my Sitemeter statistics, and one or two other things) that there are a number of readers who are quite famous in blogdom and think that this blog is like the pearl of great price, but sadly don't link to me because I am the only Catholic out there who talks any sense about Liturgy, especially about Summorum Pontificum, and they are just so beaten down with trivial things like politics, and keeping up the façade that Benedict XVI has made a quick-fix solution to a huge problem (by administering a small plaster to an enormous gash created by popes), that they just can't be seen to be in any way controversial...why bother? Speak your mind! I do! If you think that the Pope is an idiot, then go ahead and say so (I don't think that the present Pope is an idiot, just most of his 20th century predecessors). If you think that the Bishops are a host of spineless (even heretical!) morons, say so! If you think that the liturgical books of 1962 are a grotesque diabolical travesty of Liturgy which no-one in their right mind would admire, or think represents 2000 years of Catholic Tradition, then say so! I personally think that the liturgical books of 1962 were composed by Satan himself. If only people would face the facts and didn't make unnecessary compromises...

I don't like people who beat about the bush.

Castrati...

I have a morbid interest in the phenomenon of the castrati - men who were forcibly mutilated at a young age so that their vocal ranges retained their child-like uniqueness. I imagine that this was a rather callous gamble with the child's life - I mean there never was a guarantee that the boy's singing voice would remain absolutely wonderful was there? Years ago I listened to the only record made of a castrato singing (Alessandro Moreschi, the last castrato of the Sistine Chapel, who died (scarily) in 1922 - in the lifetime of my grandfather!) part of Eugenio Terziani's Hostias et Preces (you can find it on wikipedia), and to be quite honest I fail to see why they were so popular. The man's voice sounds to my ears like a cat screeching, and I felt quite horrified listening to it. I once heard that Allegri composed his Miserere with the castrati in mind; can anyone verify this? I doubt I'd have enjoyed it so much had I heard it sung for the first time by a choir consisting solely of men...

I fail to see how the Church (and not only the Catholic Church) got around the very serious moral questions surrounding the castrati. There is no warrant for the horrid practice in the Scriptures - just a very liberal interpretation of Matthew 19:12 and St Paul's command about the silence of women in church in 1Corinthians 14:34. Pope Benedict XIV tried to suppress the castrati in the 18th century, but so popular were they that he failed, although they declined eventually, until the Church stopped admitting castrati to the Sistine chapel choir in 1878.

I don't know this, of course, but what would the life of a castratus be like? I imagine that it must have been quite depressing, especially if the man had wanted to sire children. What do we think of castrati these days? I think personally that they were a huge mistake, and the practice laid the lives of many boys in ruin.

The above photo is of Mgr Lorenzo Perosi, Maestro Perpetuo della Cappella Sistina between 1898 and 1956 (gosh didn't he see many changes!) and the Sistine Chapel choir. Perosi saw the final departure of the castrati from the Vatican in 1913, when Alessandro Moreschi retired.

Boredom...

I try to keep this blog updated on a daily basis (I have nothing else going for me at the moment) but my mood has once again hit rock bottom since last week and I just haven't had the inclination. I began the composition of several posts, two about Liturgy (on the magnitude of Pius XII's reforms, only to find that Rorate Caeli had already done so (and far better than my own feeble attempt), and another on the question of the Julian Kalendar - how Liturgy, which is the sanctification of Time, can both transcend Time and be consonant with it), and one about the Papacy (how differently, even in the early Church, the Papacy was seen by east and west), but each was simply cut short because I got ''bored'' with them. The Papacy one basically ended with a discussion about how ''pentarchy'' compromises the Petrine ministry, and how the relationship of Western Christians to their Patriarch in Rome was naturally more ''intense'' than Eastern Christians; the question of language, going back to antiquity, the differences in nuance and meaning between Latin and Greek - Latin being more legalistic in the first place than Greek (it is such a logical language, far more so than English), and how this effected Western theology (St Augustine, greatest of the Latin Fathers, already spoke of the ''Greek church''), and after all this I simply wrote: ''Oh, what's the bloody point'', and I haven't looked at it since. Even more adventurous would be a post about the Filioque, although I am not trained enough in theology for that sort of thing.

Before I went to sleep last night I picked up The Lord of the Rings and began to read it, but got ''bored'' by the end of the second page. This has never happened to me before. I have read The Lord of the Rings countless times since I was 9 years old, and have never once got bored with it, which you might expect given my familiarity with the text. Is ''boredom'' the right word though? How could I possibly be bored with The Lord of the Rings? And now I am being called to do the washing up, which usually takes me at least an hour and a half (which I probably won't finish before I have to go to work), and even though I only do a five hour shift I'll come home feeling exhausted, then more washing up, then bedtime. Since I sleep late now, because I can't sleep at night, I wake up usually by around 1:30pm so I don't eat anything before I go to work, which means that I come close to fainting by the time that my 15 minute break comes around (at around 8:00pm and the only respite from the nightmare), and I don't much like eating Morrison's food so I don't eat anything before I get home at nearly 10:00pm (by which time my brother is fast asleep so I don't see much of him during the week), and I have to finish the washing up...just life's cycles.

Please don't tell me that I ''lack perspective'' - I get enough of this from my parents. Perspective means nothing to the individual, and it's just a veiled way of saying: ''you have no right to complain about your problems because there are others considerably worse off than you''...normal blogging will resume when I can be bothered.

Caramels...

Cooking things was what appealed to Georgina. ''Let's make caramels,'' she said.

I was surprised that two people in a kitchen could make caramels. I thought of them as a mass-production item, like automobiles, for which complicated machinery was needed.

But, according to Georgina, all we needed was a frying pan and sugar.

''When it's caramelized,'' she said, ''we pour it into little balls on waxed paper.''

The nurses thought it was cute that we were cooking. ''Practicing for when you and Wade get married?'' one asked.

''I don't think Wade is the marrying kind,'' said Georgina.

Even someone who's never made caramels knows how hot sugar has to be before it caramelizes. That's how hot it was when the pan slipped and I poured half the sugar onto Georgina's hand, which was holding the waxed paper straight.

I screamed and screamed, but Georgina didn't make a sound. The nurses ran in and produced ice and unguents and wrappings, and I kept screaming, and Georgina did nothing. She stood still with her candied hand stretched out in front of her.

I can't remember if it was E. Howard Hunt or G. Gordon Liddy who said, during the Watergate hearings, that he'd nightly held his hand in a candle flame till his palm burned to assure himself he could stand up to torture.

Whoever it was, we knew about it already: the Bay of Pigs, the seared skin, the bare-handed killers who'd do anything. We'd seen the previews, Wade, Georgina, and I, along with an audience of nurses whose reviews ran something like this: ''Patient lacked affect after accident''; ''Patient continues fantasy that father is CIA operative with dangerous friends.'' (Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted).

Benedictio aquarum...

The voice of the Lord is upon the waters, Alleluia, the God of glory thundereth, Alleluia.

A few months ago, at a friend's kind suggestion, I purchased a copy of The Blessing of the Waters on the Eve of the Epiphany (1901), arranged and translated from the original Latin, Greek, Syriac, Coptic and Russian by John, Marquess of Bute, and E.A Wallis Budge. It is a fascinating text, and the original, ''Old Rite'' (we might say), Latin ceremonies bear a striking similarity to the ceremonies of the other Rites.

Unfortunately most of the rubrics for the Latin version are obscure, scarce and in Italian (which I find rather strange), so I cannot give a detailed outline of the ceremony. On the Eve of the Epiphany (one of the four Greats of the liturgical year - I believe that only Easter, Pentecost, Epiphany and Christmas should have the rank of ''double of the first class'' - but this is besides the point), after the chanting of the ninth lesson at Mattins, the priest, vested in cope and with sacred vestments, with the Deacon and Subdeacon, likewise fully vested, preceded by Acolytes bearing the candles and processional Cross and the Thurifer, and choir, come to the appointed place. As they process a Responsory (Hodie caeli aperti sunt) is chanted. The rest of this ''old rite'' Latin version, which goes on for another 41 pages in my copy, is taken up with various Antiphons, Responsories, Blessings, Exorcisms, Scripture lessons and Psalms. As I have said, the rubrics are not entirely clear, although the text is very interesting for translation.

A footnote on the first page reads:

''When the writer saw the ceremony performed in the church of Sant' Andrea in Valle, at Rome, the water was in a large silver vessel somewhat like a wine-cooler, placed upon a table in the middle of the Nave. In Egypt there are tanks for the purpose adjoining the churches in the cities; but he understands that in Christian districts the Nile itself is blessed, and it seems to be more usual to bless a natural river where it can conveniently be done. At St Petersburg this is the Neva, in the frozen surface of which a hole is cut in order to get at the water, near which is a chapel beautifully decorated, in honour of the Baptist, built of blocks of ice. In Abyssinia, if the stream nearest to the church is not sufficiently large, it is dammed at a convenient spot so as to make a pool.''

Interestingly there are two forms in the Latin Rite; the ''Old Rite'' one which I have already mentioned, and a ''New Form,'' approved by the S.R.C in 1898. Bute says:

''This form is chiefly interesting as marking an entire variance from the ancient form used in the Church of Rome, and also in all other churches. Those forms are all in commemoration of the baptism of Christ, while in this that subject is entirely ignored and the form made simply one for blessing holy water to be used against evil spirits.''

The Old Rite version is 41 pages long, and features lengthy chants and long prayers of exorcism. The ''new form'' is 3 pages long and seems to be little different from the blessing of ordinary holy water before High Mass on Sunday. The tale, as long as years of torment, of liturgical deform in the Roman Rite goes on...

Hair...

I'd like to know exactly how this man combed his hair so that the horns didn't show...

Attend to the East...

The absolute worst thing you can do liturgically is face the wrong way...discuss [I shall in time write something more detailed on this most critical of subjects, but poor old Patricius is back to work today and is rather short of time and inclination at the moment].

Authority...

This painting (by Vasily Perov) depicts an Old Ritualist priest Nikita Pustosviat disputing with Patriarch Joachim the Confession of Faith.

I was thinking this morning what the use of authority is when authority so obviously departs from ancient norms and liturgical tradition. In the above painting, it is a poor lonely priest (whose attire is clearly in stark contrast to that of the Partiarch's retinue) who questions the liturgical changes brought about by Patriarch Nikon, which history shows was not wanted by anyone in the first place and the Greek liturgical forms, which Nikon sought to emulate, were in fact the newer ones. I have written about the Old Believers before, and while such things as using three instead of two fingers to make the Sign of the Cross, or the direction of a liturgical procession, might seem to Western eyes, long accustomed to arbitrary change, as rather trivial, to the Orthodox such changes are of fundamental importance, and could mean the difference between the profession of heresy, or even complete apostasy from the Faith, or not. It's the little things, as much as the whole, that constitute the Liturgy, and thereby also the Faith.

The Old Ritualists in Russia were harshly persecuted. It was the age of Cuius Regio, eius Religio (which had disastrous consequences for the Church of England - how ironic that this same principle was fundamental to the conversion of the English people to the Faith in the first place!), and anyone who dared question the changes was either driven as an exile into Siberia to wander hopelessly, or was burned at the stake, which was probably the fate of the aforesaid priest. Aren't we in the West lucky that the changes brought about under 20th century Popes were not enforced on pain of death - but it is certainly interesting to wonder that if they were brought about 450 years ago whether there'd be such a furor about them now, and what a ''traditionalist'' might be like. Would they still exist? The Old Believers, sundered from the Moscow Patriarchate (the ''authority''), went into schism and eventually splintered into many sects (many of them downright heretical), some don't (because of the ''apostasy'' of the Orthodox hierarchy) have priests or bishops of their own and merely hold prayer meetings led by some sort of elder, others still have a hierarchy of a sort and retain the ante-Nikonian liturgical tradition. Would the old Western traditionalists have a hierarchy? Would they be as fanatical as their Russian equivalents? That I think no one will ever know...

The history of the Old Ritualists just goes to show the fine balance which ought to exist between authority and tradition. Authority should conform to Tradition not the other way around. If only juridical hermeneutics of ecclesiology could be shaken off by Catholics and we could return to the simplicity of St Ignatius of Antioch's famous, and self-evidently liturgical, formula: Where the Bishop is there let the multitude of believers be, even as where Jesus is there is the Catholic Church. I don't see why we should accept, as Catholics, what the Church does with the Sacred Liturgy as acceptable when it so obviously is not acceptable. This is why I hate the liturgical books of 1962 and think that Summorum Pontificum is not so great as people make it out to be. Summorum Pontificum only exists because of a false understanding of the Petrine ministry. Pope Benedict has just as little authority to create a distinction between the so-called ''extraordinary'' and ''ordinary'' forms of the Roman Rite as Pius XII had to do away with folded chasubles. That authority simply does not exist. Popes are the guardians of Tradition, not the lords thereof, and 20th century Popes have failed, failed spectacularly, at their jobs. In 1957 (in the immediate aftermath of the new ''restored'' Holy Week) Tolkien wrote to his grandson Michael, and said quite rightly that God ''won't be dictated to by high ecclesiastics whom he himself has appointed.'' Of course he said this in the context of his translation of Jonah, who fled into Ninevah from the face of the Lord.

Of course, there is also an inherent danger in separating oneself from the Church (you only have to look at the various Protestant sects - Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses - which in a certain sense resemble some of the most extreme Old Ritualists of the Russian Church) completely. Schism heals nothing. I perceive the providence of God, then, in the fact that Pius XII was born in 1876 rather than 1576...

Laurelindórenan...

Utinam habitare possim in terra vallis auri cantantis...

A pertinent question...

I am not a ''traditionalist.'' Traditionalism is a rather recent reactionary movement which is doomed to failure (unless it has not already failed) because it seeks to emulate the errors of the pre-Conciliar church (and they are many). I daresay that it is thus in the same class as such things as modernism (just another 'ism'), a 19th century reaction against the infallibism of Pius IX, and soundly condemned by Pius X. It is greatly ironic that George Tyrell's understanding of Liturgy was more holistic and traditional than Pius X's - George Tyrell being a man held in contempt by Traditionalists, and Pius X (a man who did more violence to Tradition than any Modernist could) seen as the arch-defender and guardian of Tradition. Both, in my view, appear to have been exponents of an understanding of the Church which is fundamentally inimical to the Apostolic Tradition. Modernism is a heresy - it can offer nothing to the Church except doctrinal relativism. But then Ultramontanism is also a heresy - this false understanding of the Papacy has demonstrably had catastrophic effects on the Sacred Liturgy, and can offer nothing to the Church except fanatical legalism and an untraditional cult of the Pope - seeing not only Liturgy, but also Theology in merely juridical terms, and hanging onto the Pope's every word as though it were the very breath of the Holy Ghost.

I think that since I have started this blog, or rather the other one, I have been poorly understood. ''I can't work you out!'' Someone on another blog accused me of heresy for thinking I am ''more catholic than the Pope'' (and someone else thinks I am a Jansenist!); others are confused that I seem to advocate an even more traditional approach to Liturgy than most Trads (you know, things like Joe the Worker and Signum Magnum on the feast of St Mary's Assumption - Propers which are simply unworthy of the feast) whilst I simultaneously think that the High Altar is no place for the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament, Tabernacles really ought to be either in the Presbytery or a side Chapel, the Bishop's Throne ought to be in the apse of the church rather than on the Gospel side (the Ceremonial of Bishops still provides for this arrangement), I advocate Communion under both kinds (and I have no real theological problem with the communicants standing either - but I would have them receive less frequently, and having fasted from Midnight, as is traditional), the permanent Diaconate, decentralization of the Church, free-standing Altars etc. When I was talking to my mother a few weeks ago about the damnable heresies of the Sacred Heart cult she asked: ''what do you believe Patrick?'' Hmmmm...

Is there a label for little old me? I hope this doesn't sound too pretentious but I am rather fond of the term Old Believer - the term used of the old ritualists of the Russian Orthodox church who repudiated the reforms of Patriarch Nikon. Since I hail from the Roman Church of about the 12th century this seems especially apposite. I am a fundamentally liturgical person, and there is no hope for the Church outside of traditional Liturgy. There is no quick-fix solution to the liturgical crisis but for the meantime I would have the Pope abolish the New Rite (and '62) as an aberration having no intrinsic value, and I would have the Church go back to the Mass and Office as they were before 1911, using the hymns of the Breviary as they were before 1629. Only later can we work on things such as Communion under both kinds and a sacramental concelebration rather than Low Mass, the curtailment of other late accretions etc...

But to what extent does this treatment of Liturgy express rather artificiality than Tradition? Am I another Bugnini or Antonelli for trying to forever fix the Liturgy in some era (I am not advocating this, but mentioning particular dates is always going to entail this criticism)? He alone sees all ends though...

The above image is the famous fresco from the cathedral church of Orvieto of the Antichrist. It could well be how the Devil whispered the text of Maxima Redemptionis into the ears of Pius XII...

Morgoth's Ring...

I can't be bothered with Liturgy at the moment so a nice Tolkien post will do...

The Silmarillion, containing the vast corpus of the canonical history of Middle-earth and Valinor, is really the compromise of a compromise - narratives, some of them very beautiful, being curtailed or missed out altogether, often for the sake of publication, sometimes because one manuscript or typescript doesn't agree with a later one, or the published Lord of the Rings etc. One such story is that of the making of the Sun and Moon - in The Book of Lost Tales it comprises a whole lengthy chapter, whereas in the published Silmarillion the whole narrative is cut down, many ancient (and to a certain extent theological) elements have been lost, to the detriment of the Tale, and the whole feel of the later version is rather compendious and succinct. As such, I prefer The History of Middle-earth to the canonical stuff - which, by comparison, is often quite ''boring'', and to a certain extent reflects the growing tendency in Tolkien's later work (cf. Myth's Transformed, Volume 10 of The History of Middle-earth) to ''rationalize'' everything.

One such story, which I shall relate here in part, is that of The Darkening of Valinor, which is quite at variance with what you'll find in The Silmarillion.

When Manwë heard of the ways that Melkor had taken, it seemed plain to him that Melkor purposed to escape to his old strongholds in the North of Middle-earth, as was indeed his most likely course. Though there was little hope in this, Oromë and Tulkas with many of their folk went with all speed northward, seeking to overtake him if they might; but they found no trace or rumour of him beyond the shores of the Teleri, and in the unpeopled wastes that draw near to the Ice they could hear no tidings even from the birds. Therefore at length they returned, but the watch was redoubled along all the northern fences of Aman.

This indeed Melkor had expected; but he had other things to do before he would return to Middle-earth, and ere the pursuit set out, indeed ere the messengers came to Valmar, he had turned back and in great secrecy passed away far to the South. For Melkor was yet as one of the Valar, and he could still (though with pain) change his form, or walk unclad, as could his brethren; though that power he was soon to lose for ever.

Thus unseen he came at last to the region that once was called Avathar, beneath the eastern feet of the Pelóri; a narrow land it had become, eaten away by the Sea, and was long forsaken. There the shadows are deepest and thickest in the world. In Avathar, secret and unknown save to Melkor, dwelt Ungoliantë, and she had taken spider's form, and was a weaver of dark webs. It is not known whence she came, though among the Eldar it was said that in ages long before she had descended from the darkness that lies about Arda, when Melkor first looked down in envy upon the light in the kingdom of Manwë. But she had disowned her Master, desiring to be mistress of her own lust, taking all things to herself to feed her emptiness. To the South she had fled, and so had escaped the assaults of the Valar and the hunters of Oromë, for their vigilance had ever been to the North, and the South was long unheeded. Thence she had crept towards the light of the Blessed Realm; for she hungered for light and hated it.

In a ravine she lived and wove her black webs in a cleft of the mountains. All light she sucked up and spun it forth in dark nets of gloom. But now she was famished, and in great torment; for all living things had fled far away, and her own webs shut out from her all light that could come to her dwelling, whether through passes in the walls of Aman, or from the heavens above. Yet she had no longer the strength or will to depart.

Now Melkor sought for her, and he put on again the form that he had worn as the tyrant of Utumno: a dark Lord, tall and terrible. In that form he remained ever after. And when Ungoliantë saw him coming she was afraid, knowing his hatred for all who tried to escape from him. She shrank into her deepest lair, and tried to shroud herself in new shadow; but such darkness as in her famine she could weave was no defence against the eyes of Melkor, Lord of Utumno and Angband.

''Come forth!'' he said. ''Thrice fool: to leave me first, to dwell here languishing within reach of feasts untold, and now to shun me, Giver of Gifts, thy only hope! Come forth and see! I have brought thee an earnest of greater bounty to follow.'' But Ungoliantë made no answer, and retreated deeper into the cloven rock. Then Melkor was angered, for he was in haste, having reckoned his times to a nicety. ''Come forth!'' he cried. ''I have need of thee and will not be denied. Either thou wilt serve me, or I will bury thee here and under black stone thou shalt wither into naught.'' Then suddenly he held up in his hands two shining gems. They were green, and in that lightless place they reflected the dreadful light of his eyes, as if some ravening beast had come hunting there. Thus the great Thief set his lure for the lesser.

Fiery dragons...

793 In this year dire portents appeared over Northumbria and sorely frightened the people. They consisted of immense whirlwinds and flashes of lightning, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air. A great famine immediately followed those signs, and a little after that in the same year, 8th June, the ravages of heathen men miserably destroyed God's church at Lindisfarne, with plunder and slaughter. And Sicga died on 22nd February. (from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle).

The ''heathen men'' were, of course, the '62 police. Were they wearing lace cottas I wonder...