I noticed, winking at me from my revolving book-case, my 1845 (Hanicq) Pontificale Romanum. Nice engravings! Idly wasting the lazy moment, I just happen to notice that, on Ash Wednesday, the Pontiff expels the Penitents from Church and warns them not to darken its doors again until Maundy Thursday.
Ah, happy days, when the clergy told people not to come to Church!
The (barefoot) penitents were to be garbed in sackcloth and ashes; the penitential psalms and the Litany were to be sung and then the Pontiff was to say: "Look! You are chucked out today from the thresholds of Holy Mother Church on account of your sins, just as Adam the first Man was ejected from Paradise on account of his transgression."
Then the choir were to sing a couple of very heart-warming anthems: "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread ... etc. etc.."
Tomorrow: the next stage (2) in the story.
I wonder how this penitential system fits into the conviction of PF and his Teutonic Knights that (as long as people pay their Church Tax) they ought not to be expelled?
And I do rather wonder how those people nuance I Corinthians chapter 5 (especially arthei ek mesou humon ... ego kekrika ... paradounai toi satanai ... me sunanamignusthai pornois ... exarate ton poneron ex humon auton ...).
It is often a good idea, when listening to a slippery/dodgy politican, to notice what s/he is very careful not to claim. When PF claimed not long ago that Jesus never sent anybody away (datum sed non concessum), what about S Paul's praxis?
Or are the 'Pauline writings' yet another bit of the Bible which Ming the Mighty and Merciless has cut out of the Canon of Holy Scripture?
When PF issues to the Bishops some document headed Sacrae Scripturae custodes, what action should we take?
Big Man, Huge Errors, Hefty Scissors.
6 comments:
Datum sed non concessum that Our Lord never sent anyone away, the Gospels record several instances when his hearers chose to walk away because they found his teaching hard or even intolerable. As the late and much lamented Fr Ian Ker once pointed out in a homily, the same Gospels do NOT record that He went running after them saying 'Hang on, I didn't really mean it'.
The obsession of PF and his kind with imprisoning the Latin Mass reminds me of the Maoist outbreak of self-hatred of what was most ancient and authentic in China, for the sake of some Brave New World, which rather quickly ran out of steam. But only after an ocean of blood and grief.
And I see the same disease of soul throughout the West, where the elites hold their own nations' history, culture, religion and especially population in contempt, kowtowing to a deluge of invading Third World savages as "migrants" and "refugees" and requiring everyone to pretend that Muslims can be British, Africans can be Irish, well, that anyone from anywhere can claim ownership of Europe and North America except the people to whom these lands actually belong.
When organisms turn against their own deep structure, what a frighful sickness is afoot.
The ancient public penitential rite was strict, indeed, however, it only regarded capital sins, i.e., those who had committed adultery, murder, apostasy/heresy had first to confess to the Bishop, then do the prescribed Lenten penance, and finally receive absolution from the Bishop on Holy Thursday. Thus it was quite unlike our presentday system of "confessions of devotion", introduced in the later middle ages, most likely on the pattern of monastical weekly confession before the abbot and the whole community of faults and breakings of the monastic rule. So that the ancient discipline was something solemn, liturgical and exceptional! Most were never subject to it. Mortal sin wad truly mortal back then. In my childhoid and early youth, nearly everything was (quite wrongly) considered to be mortal sin and thus necessary matter of confesdion. Nowadays even murder (abortion) and adultery and heresy/apostasy/public sacrilege (esp. pontifical) is no longer considered sinful. From one extreme to the other. Perhaps the Church should go back to her roots and reintroduce confession and public penance for the three truly mortal sins, and let lesser sins be absolved optionally in the confessional, or else , at ones own discretion, by saying the pater noster (as St. Augustine taught), or by receiving the liturgical absolution (Indulgentiam...) just before Communion, or any number of other ways.
Exactly So!
"Ah, happy days, when the clergy told people not to come to Church!"
And yet today we see those days - not so happily - returning, as the Prefect of the CDW bans the faithful from attending Holy Mass in the traditional Roman Rite in every parish church of the world.
I have seen it suggested that bishops will have to make so many applications for exceptions, the CDW may take years to address them. In theory, everything remains as it is until an application is answered. Aaaah, but will it? Will it? I've no doubt the good Cardinal is fully aware of the glacial pace at which the vast number of applications will proceed, and I can envisage a little footnote being casually issued that states 'Until any application is fully answered, it should be assumed that no exception is allowed, with immediate effect'.
I hope I'm mistaken.
"Ah, happy days, when the clergy told people not to come to Church!"
Of course we recently had the not so happy days of COVID theatre when bishops eager to kowtow to the secular authorities rushed to close churches and shut down masses, while taverns, cannabis and liquor stores and various other "essential" businesses remained open.
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