"Actuosa"

More rubbish on the NLM about participatio actuosa. I wonder if the author realises that the term was coined by Pius X, pope of the liturgy, in that Italian motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini? The later interpretation by conservative liturgical scholars is nothing but a cop out. Pius X actually meant "active participation," in the sense that people do things with their hands and voices; not some nebulous, Aristotelian idea of contemplation at a low Mass, which is elitist, clericalist nonsense and completely aliturgical. At the Lugano liturgical conference in 1953, "active participation" was on the agenda and such things as vernacular readings were proposed. The scholars there praised the new Paschal Vigil and called upon the pope for further reforms. Cardinal Ottaviani, another hero of Traddieland, was present at the conference and celebrated Mass facing the people. All a decade before the traditional 1962 missal!

Benedict XVI, "Doctor of the Liturgy?" Is this the very same who wore scarlet on Palm Sunday? He of the aliturgical "altar arrangement?" I attended an Orthodox Pontifical liturgy on Sunday and witnessed for the first time in my life the reception of the Metropolitan at the west doors of the cathedral. He was received by the clergy, gave the kiss of peace to his suffragan and was vested. I was moved, so beautiful it was, thinking to myself: "this is Liturgy; this is how to greet the LORD's Day!" In all the years I spent in Traddieland I never once saw something so simple yet magnificent. But Cardinal Burke celebrates an illicit votive Mass at the wrong time of the day according to a bastardised rite, preaches an egregiously bad sermon which just repeats the hackneyed old platitudes about "roman pontiff," and "holy sacrifice," and that's "Tradition?" For the sake of your eternal souls, stop spreading these constant lies! If you're not interested in Tradition, please call yourselves something else.

Contra mulieres...

See the threads here and here. There is nothing worse than a religious woman. That is to say, a loudmouth religious woman. We've all met them, to our sorrow. They are that grotesque combination of strident, ignorant and opinionated. They make me sick to my stomach, riding on the feminism of our time and making all our lives a bloody misery.

According to the Scriptures, women aren't supposed to have theological opinions and are to keep silence in the presence of men and in church. I bet this particular woman, like so many other "traditionalist" types that I have met or heard of, does none of that. Or if she rejects the "traditionalist" label, that's fine. Then I expect she's a lay reader, conducts Bible study sessions and sits on a parish council; she may even be a euphemistic monster of Holy Communion, taking as many liberties as she can get away with out of a church that denies her Holy Orders (which is what they all secretly want). Not the sort to cover her head in church. Does she wear trousers? Well, if she isn't clinically obese then that's highly likely.

God rot all such women!

St Mary, Mother of God, pray for us!

Hope for Lent, part I...

"And I concluded by saying that the Resurrection was the greatest 'eucatastrophe' possible in the greatest Fairy Story - and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love. Of course I do not mean that the Gospels tell what is only a fairy-story; but I do mean very strongly that they do tell a fairy-story: the greatest. Man the story-teller would have to be redeemed in a manner consonant with his nature: by a moving story. But since the author of it is the supreme Artist and the Author of Reality, this one was also made to Be, to be true on the Primary Plane. So that in the Primary Miracle (the Resurrection) and the lesser Christian miracles too though less, you have not only that sudden glimpse of the truth behind the apparent Ἀνάγκη of our world, but a glimpse that is actually a ray of light through the very chinks of the universe about us." The Letters of J.R.R Tolkien, no.89.

(I encourage you to read all this letter, if you have a copy of the Letters in your homes. And also, on this theme, his lecture On Fairy Stories in which his concept of the Eucatastrophe is elaborated; this can be found in Tree and Leaf).

Tolkien uses similar language to describe the mirth of the host gathered on the field of Cormallen after the fall of Sauron. This is not to be wondered at since this was a letter sent to Christopher Tolkien in 1944, when composition of The Lord of the Rings was well under way. But the victory at the Black Gate, we must remember, was not achieved (nor could have been so) by might in arms, but by weakness, evangelical meekness, "a veil before the eyes of the enemy." This is a resonating theme throughout the legendarium, from Ulmo's words to Turgon that the true hope of the Gnomes cometh from the Sea to Gwindor's words to Túrin in Nargothrond about petty victories, and the barest hope of survival against the lust and terror of the North. Always, the Dark Lord is in ascendancy; always his strength is overmastering and he has a power to corrupt the counsels of his foes and pursue his enemies whithersoever they might go. Yea, so great is his power that the very stuff of which the earth is made is corrupt, so much so that final victory over evil is impossible, even for the Lords of the West; unless God himself should intervene - concepts explored in Volume X of The History of Middle-earth.

This motif of flight, secrecy, preservation and tradition was began during the Siege of Angband; Sindarin Doriath with its girdle of enchantment, the delving of Nargothrond and the uttermost secret of Gondolin. But it was continued in the Second Age during the wars between Sauron and the Elves of Eregion. The forging of the Rings of Power is well known, but their purpose in the mind of the Elves is less so. They were desirous of an anamnesis of the West, or an enhancement thereof. Gimli remarks in Book II of The Lord of the Rings that to the Elves, memory is more like to waking life than among lesser folk, and the Elven Rings were designed and worked to this end. If you consider our own memories of times past, of bliss and of sorrow, they are often fleeting, like the recollection of a dream. But to the Elves it was not so, and this keenness only increased their sorrow and so the Rings were designed to assuage this; to heal the hurts of the world and preserve in reverent tradition much that was in peril against the flowing tides of time. There is something quintessentially liturgical about this; that is if we understand the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy in memorial, traditional terms as opposed to liturgy-by-decree.

To be continued...

Neophytes...

All I offer here is the Truth. Accept it who will, or depart!

With respect to those more learned than I but it seems presumptuous for a convert to enter his new religion and then pronounce triumphant charges against the majority of the members who, in his view, do not possess valid rites and that genuine rites can only be found under the auspices of a fringe minority of crackpots and fanatics; fanatics who propound deliberate lies and, on the contrary, celebrate impious rites; and crackpots who go about quoting religious hierarchs who are to their liking ad nauseam and conspicuously ignoring contemporary ones of coæval dignity who are less so. It also seems disingenuous to believe that he was a validly ordained minister of his religion prior to his reception within his new religion; that is to say, to uphold the ancestral teaching of his new religion while simultaneously (inevitably) drawing on his experience of the old and letting on that it is the same thing. It also seems strange for a neophyte to rush headlong into the embrace of the fringe party of his new religion with complete disregard for the majority.

One could well ask, was the conversion genuine? Or did this person simply exchange one superior for another, and decided to maintain all the prejudice of the old and not bother with a rigorous examination of belief and conscience? Perhaps in time this person will realise that his new religion is just suffering incurred needlessly and bravely borne? It is to be hoped then that the scales will fall from his eyes that he might see a harlot dressed in scarlet and be sick to his stomach. Then let him convert to the True Faith!

As for me, my beliefs have changed; or at least I have come to the realisation that I was never happy believing what I used to believe. All my life I have searched in the dark and a very blindness for the Truth, not comfort and ease which can be got easily enough in Mammon, lies and prejudice.

Wisdom! Let us attend!

"Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." Matthew 7:13-14.

Four years ago to-day...

I left the Papal communion. I had been writing this blog for just under a year and my faith in the Papacy by then had fallen to the point of hatred. I had also been attending Anglo-Catholic services for many months (well, we all make mistakes). It was a Saturday morning and I had gone down to Blackfen. I put on my cassock and helped prepare for Mass. The MC asked me what I was doing there and I said I had come to serve Mass; he nodded and said nothing, but waited. The Fat Woman was hovering around the sacristy, lest she miss something. Then the priest walked in and greeted everyone, then saw me. Tim Finigan honoured me then by turning me out of the parish in the presence of four other people for reasons of sexual perversion (or, in modern parlance, homosexuality). He told me to remove my cassock and leave the sacristy. I wasn't forcibly ejected by the Fat Woman and I did not remove my cassock but I sat down and produced a miniature Book of Common Prayer from the pocket in my cassock; I felt suddenly the need to sit down. I pointed to 1st May but I was again asked to leave, so I did. I went into the parish hall and waited for the Mass procession to pass by (the show must go on!) and then I returned to the sacristy and removed my cassock. On the way out of the parish hall one of the young girls in the parish asked me if I was all right, and I said I was fine. I went home and sat in dark thought. That afternoon I made public my decision to sever the communion of Rome and, in token of this, burnt my copy of Summorum Pontificum.

Since that time I have been wandering. I have tried to keep this blog going, albeit I cannot tell you how hard that has been at times. Sometimes I think the content whereof it is written is too vulgar to be believed. At other times, rarely now, my soul is kindled to a new liturgical zeal but it's all fleeting and Realitas is an harsh lady. When you realise you're the only sincere person in a world of charlatans it is not altogether comfortable. I said to myself once, with absolute conviction, "of course they are!" "They" were, of course, the traditionalists, and they "are" hopelessly incompetent. They are the guardians of what passes for the Roman Rite in our time but they have no idea how to celebrate the Roman Rite, one of the chief treasures of Western civilisation, with any kind of solemnity, ceremony, dignity or according to the spirit of the rubrics. Public celebration of the Breviary services are conspicuously absent. But they cannot be told. You cannot remonstrate with them; they shew an ultimate obstinacy that reasoned argument avails only to make more obdurate. They cannot be wrong. "Modernists" (an obsolete term, surely?) are wrong, but they aren't; how could they be wrong? It is the only conceivable world view for them; the world, that is to say non-Roman Catholics and most of the Roman communion (and even the pope himself these days), versus them.

This coming Pentecost will mark five years of Liturgiae Causa. I set out to try and rehabilitate the traditionalists, and failed; failed utterly. In some respects I probably reached too far. I had no qualms about demonising Pius XII, for example; a cardinal sin to lampoon a pontiff of tradition! But in others, even if my approach could have been more conciliatory, did I not make cogent points? At one time the shibboleth of Liturgiae Causa was the feast of "Joseph the Worker," (hence my reference to the Prayer Book kalendar on that fateful day four years ago); a feast so gratuitously awful that it is worthy of a thousand anathemas. Well, San Giuseppe Comunista struck in Blackfen ere ever I conceived this blog and between then and Pentecost, when I published the first post, my resentment at the hypocrisy and malpractice of the traditionalists increased in bitterness so that I could not keep silent anymore. Then, on Assumption 2010, Signum Magnum struck with a vengeance too! I remember the argument I had with the parish priest that morning, to which he only responded that he was obeying the infallible magisterium. "No I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't share your view," said I, "and I think this is very much a part of the problem." But my principled objection availed nothing to assuage the evil of that day. I went home thinking: "if they do Palm Sunday properly, why not Sts Philip and James or the Assumption?"

Before that summer I had still some shred of faintest hope that the traditionalists could be educated because I believed in the inherent goodness of Christians, but it was at that point that I just gave up. I started going to the Anglo-Catholics for Sunday services that August and went rarely back to Blackfen. My absence was widely discussed; one Sunday one of the servers said that I was the "talk of this parish." Another Sunday, I sat in the congregation and the sermon was obviously intended for me personally as I vividly remember the charges of schism and grave sin for not attending Mass in the conventicles of the Papal communion! After I was publicly ejected, I stopped going altogether. I left some very fine people with regret but I can say with total confidence that none of these were in the traditionalist caste.

And there is no Blackfen anymore! That is if what made Blackfen a parish was its small traditionalist oligarchy, and with the departure of their priest they have all gone whither they would. I see this now as a divine judgement for their sins and I pray God sends them light to illumine their darkness, but there isn't much hope of that.

So what of me? Well, I am attending Orthodox liturgies as often as I may. Not so much this week to date as my mother is on annual leave and the less she knows about my ecclesial activities, the more comfortable my existence. But I thank God that He has given me strength enough to make some amends to my religious life which, for long, has lain in ruin. I am yet to be received but we cannot be too hasty. I would say give me the wisdom of Treebeard in respect of haste but Treebeard was old; and the days of our age are threescore years and ten. God grant me light and a measure of His Wisdom!

Art: Ted Nasmith.

Hubris...

See here. It seems rather cheap to hang one's every objection to Orthodoxy on its perceived teachings on divorce, remarriage and human sexuality and then make a cynical attack upon Orthodox fasting rules. In my experience, if ever Roman Catholics shew any misgiving about Orthodoxy it invariably takes the form of moral objection to the Church in Soviet Russia (and what does that have to do with doctrine?) or the perceived inconsistencies in Orthodox theology or, if they're really desperate, "they're schismatics and they despise the Pope!"

Well, look at Rome. I was eager to be gone and now I cannot wait to be received into Orthodoxy.

Ciceronian or Christian?

Many years ago when, for the kingdom of heaven's sake, I had cut myself off from home, parents, sister, relatives, and - harder still - from the dainty food to which I had been accustomed, and when I was on my way to Jerusalem to wage my warfare, I still could not bring myself to forgo the library which I had formed for myself at Rome with great care and toil. And so, miserable man that I was, I would fast only that I might afterwards read Cicero. After many nights spent in vigil, after floods of tears called from my inmost heart in recollection of my past sins, I would once more take up Plautus. And when at times I returned to my right mind and began to read the prophets, their style seemed rude and repellent. I failed to see the light with my blinded eyes; but I attributed the fault not to them, but to the sun. While the old serpent was thus making me his plaything, about the middle of Lent a fever fell upon my weakened body, and while it destroyed my rest completely - the story seems hardly credible - it so wasted my unhappy frame that scarcely anything was left of me but skin and bone. Meanwhile, preparations for my funeral went on; for my body grew gradually colder, and the warmth of life lingered only in my poor throbbing breast. Suddenly I was caught up in the spirit and dragged before the judgement seat of the Judge; and here the light was so bright, and those who stood around were so radiant, that I cast myself upon the ground and did not dare to look up. Asked what my rank was, I replied: "A Christian." But he who presided said: "You lie. You are a Ciceronian, not a Christian. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Instantly, I became dumb, and amid the strokes of the lash - for he had ordered me to be scourged - I was tortured more severely still by the fire of conscience, considering with myself that verse: In the grave who shall give thee thanks? Yet, for all that, I began to cry and to bewail myself, saying: "Have mercy upon me, O LORD: have mercy upon me." Amid the sound of the scourges this cry still made itself heard. At last the bystanders, falling down before the knees of him who presided, prayed that he would have pity on my youth, and that he would give me space to repent of my error. He might still, they urged, inflict torture on me, should I ever again read the works of the Gentiles. Under the stress of that awful moment, I should have been ready to make even still larger promises than these. Accordingly I made oath and called upon his name, saying: "LORD, if ever again I possess worldly books, or if ever again I read such, I have denied thee." Dismissed then, on taking this oath, I returned to the upper world* and to the surprise of all I opened my eyes so drenched with tears, that my distress served to convince even the incredulous. And that this was no sleep or idle dream, such as often mock us, I call to witness the judgement seat before which I fell down, and the verdict which I feared. May it never be my lot to appear again before such a court! I declare that my shoulders were black and blue, and that I felt the bruises long after I awoke and that thenceforth I read the books of God with zeal greater than I had previously given to the books of men.
St Jerome, Ep. XXII.

*St Jerome appears to have regarded this judgement as taking place in the classical Hades! I wonder if God sees me as a Tolkienian?

Cardinal Burke comes to Kent!

Is that constipation? Or his Harry Enfield impression?

At about the time Cardinal Burke was celebrating Mass on Monday (what time did he sing vespers, I wonder?) I was some sixty miles away in the Sainsbury's at Crayford with my mother. Seen in this photo, his eminence wears the traditional scarlet mozzetta with matching biretta reserved for traditional prelates during traditionalist Lent. No Lenten violet, then, for Cardinal Burke, the herald of tradition and orthodoxy in these latter days! No, to adhere to tradition in respect of prelatial dress would be perhaps too ambiguous, a tendency to archaeologism, not clear enough, doctrinally unsound, and who are we to judge; and whatever other charges are miserably leveled against the Lord Pope, gloriously reigning, clearly Burke's nemesis.

Or put another way: evening Mass, an abomination, 1953; presumably the rite was the bastardised rite of 1962; and that prelatial dress is circa 1970. Am I alone in thinking that these people just make it up as they go along? How is any of this "tradition?" Or is this just the theatre in which they can all feel smug and superior, rejoicing in the slightness of their numbers, being, during the dark days of pope Francis' pontificate, the persecuted minority?

The Lay...

A countless company     that king did lead

through the darkened dales     and drear mountains

out of ken of his foes     and he comes not more

in the tale; but the triumph     he turned to doubt

of Morgoth the evil,     whom mad wrath took.

Nor spies sped him,      nor spirits of evil,

nor his wealth of wisdom     to win him tidings,

whither the nation     of the Gnomes was gone.

Now a thought of malice,    when Thalion stood,

bound, unbending,    in his black dungeon,

then moved in his mind     that remembered well

how Men were accounted     all mightless and frail

by the Elves and their kindred;     how only treason

could master the magic     whose mazes wrapped

the children of Corthûn,    and cheated his purpose.

"Is it dauntless Húrin,"    quoth Delu-Morgoth,

"stout steel-handed,    who stands before me,

a captive living     as cowards might be?

Knowest thou my name,     or need'st be told

what hope he has     who is haled to Angband -

the bale most bitter,     the Balrogs' torment?"

"I know and I hate.     For that knowledge I fought thee

by fear unfettered,     nor fear I now,"

said Thalion there,     and a thane of Morgoth

on the mouth smote him;     but Morgoth smiled:

"Fear when thou feelest,     and the flames lick thee,

and the whips of the Balrogs     thy white flesh brand.

Yet a way canst win,     an thou wishest, still

to lessen thy lot     of lingering woe.

Go question the captives     of the accursed people

I have taken, and tell me     where Turgon is hid;

how with fire and death     I may find him soon,

where he lurketh lost     in lands forgot.

Thou must feign thee a friend     faithful in anguish,

and their inmost hearts     thus open and search.

Then, if truth thou tellest,     thy triple bonds

I will bid men unbind,     that abroad thou fare

in my service to search     the secret places

following the footsteps     of these foes of the Gods."

"Build not thy hopes     so high, O Bauglir -

I am no tool     for thy evil treasons;

torment were sweeter     than a traitor's stain."

"If torment be sweet,     treasure is liever.

The hoards of a hundred     hundred ages,

the gems and jewels     of the jealous Gods,

are mine, and a meed     shall I mete thee thence,

yea, wealth to glut     the Worm of Greed."

"Canst not learn of thy lore     when thou look'st on a foe,

O Bauglir unblest?     Bray no longer

of the things thou has thieved     from the Three Kindreds.

In hate I hold thee,     and thy hests in scorn."

"Boldly thou bravest me.     Be thy boast rewarded,"

in mirth quod Morgoth,     "to me now the deeds,

and thy aid I ask not;     but anger thee nought

if little they like thee.     Yea, look thereon

helpless to hinder,     or thy hand to raise."

Then Thalion was thrust     to Thangorodrim,

that mountain that meets     the misty skies

on high o'er the hills     that Hithlum sees

blackly brooding     on the borders of the north.

To a stool of stone     on its steepest peak

they bound him in bonds,     an unbreakable chain,

and the Lord of Woe     there laughing stood,

then cursed him for ever     and his kin and seed

with a doom of dread,     of death and horror.

There the mighty man     unmovéd sat;

but unveiled was his vision,     that he viewed afar

all earthly things     with eyes enchanted

that fell on his folk-     a fiend's torment.

(J.R.R Tolkien, The Lays of Beleriand, Chapter I).

Changes and explanations of names in this part of the narrative:

Gnomes > Noldor

Thalion > An epithet or surname often given to Húrin; it means "hardened."

Corthûn > A primitive name for Tûn, the hill upon which Gnomish Tirion stood in Valinor. In The Silmarillion it is called Túna.

Delu-Morgoth > A form of Morgoth's name but of unknown meaning.

Bauglir > An epithet of Morgoth that survives into The Silmarillion; it is Sindarin for "constrainer." Comparable forms: Belcha, Belegur, &c.

The Worm of Greed > A reference to Glórund, who became Glaurung in later versions of the legendarium.

The Three Kindreds > Teleri, Noldoli and Solosimpi, elvish houses; or the Vanyar, Noldor and Teleri, as in The Silmarillion.

Thangorodrim > here conceived to be a single peak and incidentally the first occurrence of that name in the legendarium.

This poem, which is far longer than these staves (it is some 2000 lines), was written by Tolkien soon after he took up the professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College, in 1925. It is one of the two major poems concerned with the legends of the Elder Days, written in alliterative verse; the other poem is the Lay of Leithian. The alliterative poem is especially important not only because it represents a key moment in the evolution of Tolkien's conception of Beleriand and the hopeless war of the Gnomes and their allies upon Morgoth but also because it exemplifies Tolkien's own mastery of the alliterative form and just how rich the old English style can be. There are other staves in this poem of great majesty, among my favourites even so:

To the throne of Thingol     the three were come,

and their speech sped them;     for he spake them fair,

and held in honour     Húrin the steadfast,

Beren Ermabwed's     brother-in-arms.

Remembering Morwin,      of mortals fairest,

he turned not Túrin     in contempt away;

said: "O son of Húrin,     here shalt sojourn

in my cavernous court     for thy kindred's sake.

Nor as slave or servant,     but a second king's son

thou shalt dwell in dear love,     till thou deem'st it time

to remember thy mother     Morwin's loneliness.

Thou wisdom shalt win     unwist of Men

and weapons shalt wield     as the warrior Elves,

and Thalion's son     no thrall shall be.

This was the moment, in great wonder, when Thingol, who before the coming of Beren into the woods held Men in scorn, took Túrin to be his foster son in honour of his father's valour; a very precious moment in the history of Elves and Men. The language is rolling and melodious, "cavernous court," "nor as slave or servant," "dwell in dear love," etc. It pains me when people say that English is a bastard language. It might be for people who use words like perambulate, or aspersion; not so for Tolkien, or for me.

Vernacular...

There is an interesting article on the use of vulgar tongues in the liturgy here. Years ago I found the very idea of vernacular liturgy a monstrosity, a Protestant innovation and not to be countenanced. My view was fortified not only by what I then considered to be the General Council par excellence, Trent, which pronounced an anathema on those who said that the liturgy ought to be in the vulgar tongue (the hermeneutic of continuity in action!), but also tracts published by the Society of Pius X and various Sedevacantists, which, ten years later, I can no longer find. The general consensus was that liturgy (or what passes for it in Traddieland) is, of its very nature, exclusive, isolationist, that the mere laity can "participate" thereto in their own rude way by telling beads or staring into space. I'm sure I don't need to spell it out; the priest in his Roman tabard ambling his way to a side altar with a chalice followed by a server; they bow (or the priest does), and then commence the inaudible mumbling in a dead language while the common folk look on aghast. And this is the liturgical ideal? The organic growth of two thousand years of piety and orthopraxis? Or is it rather a hideous, stinking growth like a tumour which ought to be cut away? And this is quite apart from the question of language! It makes little difference for a priest to say under his breath Introibo ad altare Dei that the faithful hear not and the server to mumble unto God which giveth joy to my youth. When I was at Blackfen my father attended a low Mass on a Saturday morning once. He sat at the back and spent the twenty minutes staring blankly at a pew book. Afterwards he shrugged his shoulders and said he didn't understand why I wasted my time with religion. No doubt the traditionalists will accuse him of philistinism but I know exactly what he meant. He meant, of course, that it's boring, unimpressive, and "I got out of bed for this?!" And my father is a very shrewd man; a bit like Farmer Maggot.

Tongues have been wagging of late about the celebratory Mass to mark the 50th anniversary of the first Mass in Italian, celebrated by no less than Paul VI himself. The only thing I can think to say on this is that it was too late, and not just by a few decades but a few centuries. The Latin liturgy may work, or may have worked, in countries with a Romance language as the mother tongue, that is to say with languages similar to Latin in many words and devices, but in England, Germany, Scandinavia and elsewhere, where Latin has ceased to be the language of lore due, ironically, to the Renaissance, it can't be expected to work in the same way. In the United Kingdom, Latin has been on the decline for over a century. My mother was taught Latin at school, my father was not. I read GCSE Latin but Mrs Granden followed a curriculum that assumed that none of us would ever achieve fluency and when she retired, she was not replaced. And I am the exception! So to what avail did the Church of the 19th-20th centuries continue to celebrate her rites in a tongue not understanded of the people? Nobody can argue for the retention of Latin for theological reasons; while it may be the language of the Latin Fathers and the Vulgate, Greek is the real language sacred to our religion so even patrimonial reasons don't really hold due also to the scandalous manner in which much of that patrimony has been neglected. A low Mass mumbled in Latin might as well be mumbled in English, as opposed to choral Tenebrae with Victoria's exquisite Responses. I suppose for pastoral reasons questions arise as to the nature of a "liturgical" language when faced with a demonstrable decline in classical education. Even Tolkien ascribed to the language of liturgy a certain "eminence" when he described Gothic as raised thereto in Wulfilas' translation of the Bible; and Tolkien, who as a young scholar worked on the compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary, notoriously continued to respond at Mass in Latin despite the rude English to which he became subjected in his later years. Until the 1960's it was the wisdom of the Church of England to retain its Prayer Book, with its courteous English style richer in beautiful words and yet intelligible. W.H Auden wrote that a child can be made to understand what "the quick and the dead" means, and not be put out. But comparatively by 1960's the Prayer Book was already old and established in tradition and so the notion of a liturgical language was logically inapplicable to the Church of England. What of Rome?

...
I hesitate because it's a moot point. I've said already that it was centuries too late and to somebody like me, sensitive to right goodliness of speechcraft, the translations produced by Rome have invariably been wanting in some respect. That which I grew up with was crass and unlovely; the most recent is worse in many ways, inauthentic, artificial, sounds like the narration of a bus schedule (I got that impression from Fortescue), against which men do well to oppose. It was, and is, too late. And because the plainsong melodies of the Graduale are in Latin, the works of the great Renaissance composers are in Latin, &c, Latin has become the shibboleth of the traditionalist cause. Therein is their wisdom, yet also their downfall or, rather, can be discerned the tragedy of the Roman communion. Where, at Trent, it was almost treasonable to the Roman communion to even countenance vernacular rites, deemed later to be "impious" by Pius V, I would argue that she missed the chance to reform herself on holistic principles rather than unflinching, erroneous ones. The Reformation, while largely tragic, had some wisdom yet Rome refused it and continued in her error.

And so to-day, in this godless age of misrule, the question of Latin is more important than ever. We're faced with problems in education, problems in translation, problems in music; so many that a man's life would not suffice if I told all. Ultimately, I would argue that Latin is more important to a literate congregation, which is a question of education. Latin has almost completely disappeared from our schools, to our great loss and the permanent marring of our society. John of Salisbury, in the Metalogicon, complained of educational standards of his time and he was the beneficiary of a classical education and lived during the springtime of the Middle Ages! In our own time, if Latin as the language of liturgy is to be salvaged and made worthwhile then work must needs begin with the classroom and here we are miserably subject to the competing liberal idealogues, ministers of education, Ofsted, &c, and my, do they despise Latin! And the reason they despise Latin (and Greek) is because it's old, irrelevant and a classical education is by no means a moral activity. Sex education and tolerance is more important nowadays.

It's all vain and the dark ages are here. If vernacular liturgy was ever to work in the Roman communion the Council of Trent should have made provision for it. Only it didn't. Rome persisted with the meandering, mumbling priest for four hundred years and then produced banal translations that are to nobody's liking and quod erat demonstrandum. The tree is known by its fruit, and what are the fruits thereof? A church that is largely ashamed of its own tradition, with hordes of clueless priests and lay people and a remnant who make a fetish of the worst abuses prior to Vatican II just because they're performed in Latin.

Christ's Rood token...

Initially published on 31st May 2010, indeed one of the earliest posts on Liturgiae Causa.

My apologies for not posting something on this yestermorn, but when I got in from Mass I was very tired. Incidentally, due to the shortage of servers, Mass yesterday was a sung Mass with the ceremonies of low Mass (albeit I refused to kneel for the collects) with incense; most extraordinary, but competently done. Now, why can't all low Masses be like this? Incense is integral to liturgy...Since yesterday was Trinity Sunday, a word on the noble, antient and apostolic tradition of signing oneself with the Sign of the Cross seems apposite, since this Sign (the terror of demons, the cause of all graces and all blessings - Sts Cyril and Leo respectively) calls to mind not only the Cross of the LORD, the instrument of Salvation, but also the Blessed Trinity.

It is the Tradition of the Church that Our Lord, before He ascended above the Heaven of heavens into the glory of the Father, blessed the Apostles with the Sign of the Cross. This is why we, in mirroring the divine praxis, also make the Sign of the Cross in the Liturgy and in private devotions. How then do we, traditionally, make the Sign of the Cross?



As mentioned heretofore, the Sign of the Cross goes back to apostolic times. In the most antient days, it appears to only to have been the tracing, by the thumb, of the Rood token of the LORD upon the forehead, as we do before the Gospel at Mass. However by about the time of the Council of Chalcedon (A.D 451), this had developed into the more common "broad" Sign of the Cross, making use of two fingers; expressive, perhaps, of assent to the Two Natures in Christ and a refutation of the Monophysite heresy. When Sts Cyril and Methodius brought the apostolic faith to the Slavic tribes beyond the confines of the Roman Empire, it was this way of making the Sign of the Cross that they brought with them and was still in use in the Russian Orthodox Church until the 17th century.



Until the early Middle Ages, Christians of the Latin Rite made the Sign of the Cross as it was done (and is still done) by the Greeks; that is, adjoining the thumb and forefingers (in deference to the Blessed Trinity) and touching the forehead, the breast, and thence from the right to the left shoulder. In the Ancrene Riwle, a 13th century monastic rule translated by J.R.R Tolkien, the author directs his nuns at Deus in adiutorium to make a little cross from above the forehead down to the breast with three fingers, from right to left. However this practice gradually fell into abeyance, and by the time of pope Innocent III, he of the Lateran Synod, there seems to have been a twofold praxis of tradition and innovation side-by-side in the West. The pope then gave new instruction as to how to make the Sign of the Cross, and gradually the newer method of passing from left to right replaced the older form. Eventually (by about the 14th century) this newer method was modified to an even newer form, and the old custom of adjoining the thumb to the forefinger and middle finger was replaced with the modern practice of making no such distinctions at all, but by simply signing oneself with the open palm. Later apologists for this novel formula created a scaffold around it by claiming that the open palm represented the Five Wounds, but devotion to the Five Wounds is itself a Mediaeval innovation. Seen side-by-side with the gradual loss of liturgical sense in the Latin West (due to a complexity of matters that I will not elaborate here), this gradual waning of Tradition in the Sign of the Cross creates interesting food for thought. I wonder what state the present Roman Church would be but for it?

In Russia the situation was markedly different. Until the liturgical reforms of Patriarch Nikon (1605-1681), the Russian Church kept to the most antient praxis received from Sts Cyril and Methodius. Nikon, in his zeal for everything ''Greek'' (he, in fact, said that he was a Russian in all things but his Faith, which he said was Greek), changed this. He demanded that all Russian liturgical practices conform to the liturgical practices of the contemporary Greek Church, even if these were at variance with the apostolic Faith brought to the pagan Slavs by Cyril and Methodius. And so he commissioned a general liturgical reform, hitherto unknown in the Orthodox world, and brought the Russian liturgical books and ritual practices into line with those of the Greek Church. Now the Russians would make fewer prostrations in the Liturgy, they would sing the Alleluia thrice instead of twice, they would make the Sign of the Cross with three fingers instead of two, and a host of other, seemingly trivial things, such as the direction of liturgical processions, &c. All seemingly trivial to us of the Latin West, long accustomed to arbitrary innovation.

These reforms, comparatively trivial, met with huge opposition in Russia, from parish clergy, the monks and the lay people and a schism ensued. The Old Believers (or, more accurately, the Old Ritualists) retain the traditional liturgical praxis of early 17th century Russia to this day (the Sign of the Cross included - indeed it has become a great Shibboleth for them), although they were persecuted harshly, and many splinter sects went into heresy. Adrian Fortescue treats very disparagingly of them in The Orthodox Eastern Church, saying that the only good thing about their existence is that they afford unequalled opportunities for the scientific study of lunacy! What I find most interesting is the parallel between the near-autocratic authority of Patriarch Nikon to instigate such a huge-scale liturgical reform and to impose liturgical uniformity upon Russia at whatever cost and Papal authority to do just the same.



So to return to the question I asked at the beginning of this post - how do we traditionally make the Sign of the Cross - a sacramental so simple yet intrinsic to our Faith - the answer is obvious. It is not ''do as the pope says because he is the Vicar of Christ, supreme master of all doctrine and the dispenser of grace," but rather do as the Tradition would have us do. Only thus do we mirror the divine praxis and truly bless ourselves with that selfsame Sign of the Cross with which Christ blessed the Apostles.

A belated Tolkien post...

"Now Úrin and his followers fled not from that battle as did most of the kindreds of Men, but many of them were slain fighting to the last, and Úrin was made captive. Of the Noldoli who fought there all the companies were slain or captured or fled away in rout, save that of Turondo (Turgon) only, and he and his folk cut a path for themselves out of that fray and come not into this tale. Nonetheless the escape of that great company marred the complete victory that otherwise had Melko won over his adversaries, and he desired greatly to discover whither they had fled; and this he might not do, for his spies availed nothing, and no tortures at that time had power to force treacherous knowledge from the captive Noldoli.

"Knowing therefore that the Elves of Kôr thought little of Men, holding them in scant fear or suspicion for their blindness and lack of skill, he would constrain Úrin to take up his employ and go seek after Turondo as a spy of Melko. To this however neither threats of torture nor promises of rich reward would bring Úrin to consent, for he said: 'Nay, do as thou wilt, for to no evil work of thine wilt thou ever constrain me, O Melko, thou foe of Gods and Men.'

"'Of a surety,' said Melko in anger, 'to no work of mine will I bid thee again, nor yet will I force thee thereto, but upon deeds of mine that will be little to thy liking shalt thou sit here and gaze, nor be able to move foot or hand against them.' And this was the torture he devised for the affliction of Úrin the Steadfast, and setting him in a lofty place of the mountains he stood beside him and cursed him and his folk with dread curses of the Valar, putting a doom of woe and a death of sorrow upon them; but to Úrin he gave a measure of vision, so that much of those things that befell his wife and children he might see and be helpless to aid, for magic held him in that high place. 'Behold!' said Melko, 'the life of Túrin thy son shall be accounted a matter of tears wherever Elves or Men are gathered for the telling of tales;' but Úrin said: 'At least none shall pity him for this, that he had a craven for father.'" (The Book of Lost Tales, Part II, Chapter II, Turambar and the Foalókë).

Changes made to names in this part of the narrative:

Úrin > Húrin, a lord of Men.
Noldoli > Noldor (or Gnomes), exiled Elves.
Turondo > Turgon, the King of Gondolin.
Melko > Morgoth, the Dark Lord.
Kôr > Tirion, the Gnomish city in Valinor.

It's interesting that the general shape of this part of the tale, composed in 1919 (gosh, almost a century ago...), is still recognisable in The Children of Húrin (hereafter, the Narn). The escape of Turondo from the battle, the capture of Úrin by the soldiery of Melko, threats of torture and offers of reward for treachery, the curse of doom, the high seat in the mountains, are all present in later versions of the legend. In the Lost Tales, however, it is not clear where Úrin dwelt ("in the woodlands" is all that's said); it's said afterwards that Mavwin (his wife) went into Hisilómë "where all Men must now dwell;" however, in the Narn Húrin was the Lord of Dor-lómin, a region of Hisilómë (or Hithlum), as a vassal of Fingon, King of the Gnomes. While the last stand of Úrin's men is present in the Lost Tales, there is no mention of Morgoth's knowledge of Húrin's counsels with Turgon and his command that he be brought back alive to Angband; indeed, since it's said that the Elves of Kôr held men in scant fear and suspicion, and so Úrin's capture can only be explained by reference to the vicinity of his men to the flight of Turondo, and that Úrin was the last left alive. In the Narn, Húrin's part is greatly expanded before the battle; he is renowned in hardihood with his brother Huor, he was deep in the counsels of the Gnomes, and in his youth he had seen Gondolin, which no mortal Man had yet seen (hence the bounty) and that, during the battle, the orcs could not capture him. Only Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs, could subdue him and drag him to Angband.

The curse of Melko "with dread curses of the Valar" is described only briefly in the Lost Tales. In the Narn, it is greatly expanded. Morgoth's kinship with the Valar is not mentioned at all in reference to the curse and consequently the curse takes on a far more powerful, more sinister characteristic. As the prime mover of evil in the world, Morgoth does not call upon some higher agent when he says that he is "master of the fates of Arda," and that "all that is in it [the world] bends slowly and surely to my will." When he says that the deeds, purposes and counsels of Húrin's kin shall turn against them wheresoever they go, it's interesting to reflect upon the reach of Morgoth's power, even in his fallen, incarnate state. Christopher Tolkien describes this beautifully in the introduction to The Children of Húrin, wherein it's said that Morgoth, master of both fate and curse, actually crafts the future of the accursed; they walk ever in his shadow, doing his will whatsoever they might do otherwise. Túrin, Húrin's son, often cries, "Lo! Is there a curse upon me, for all I do is ill..." His life, and that of his mother and sister, is tragic, and the price of Húrin's valour is that he must watch it from the mountains with the eyes of Morgoth, powerless to prevent it.

I haven't referenced the Lay yet. Perhaps to-morrow.

I encourage you to read The Children of Húrin. It's a sad story; indeed all the tales of Middle-earth are sad (as Aragorn said), but I'm finding comfort and solace therein as Lenten reading.

Art: Ted Nasmith.