Pathetic ... but I discerned a suggestion of a tear as I looked through the Winter Number of Mass of Ages, the free magazine of my country's Latin Mass Society. There were pictures of Pope Benedict. Memories; memories.
And how Anglican some of it is. The Pope is shown carrying a cross, of a type which will be most familiar to 'middle-of-the-road' Anglicans. At the extremity of each of the Cross's four arms, there is an emblem of one of the Four Evangelists. And in the middle, instead of the Figure of the Lord, there is the Lamb of God. Even today, there must be hundreds of Anglican churches where it was felt that a Crucifix would be too high church, too popish. So a cross such as I have just described found a place upon the altar instead.
Not so extreme!!
Those interested in the niceties of liturgical garments will be interested to see Benedict wearing a fanon over his amice ... the fanon was a simple covering garment ... did it, perhaps, originally, protect the collar of the chasuble from a pontifical wig?
And the pallium ... Benedict XVI changed the colour of the crosses from black to the original papal red. Francis I promptly changed it back!
And Anglicanism gets its elbow in again as Mass of Ages advertises a reprint of Enid Chadwick's My Book of the Church's Year.
Chadwick was an Anglican artist who did most of the artwork in the Anglican Shrine at Walsingham. This little book is a very fine example of where Anglo-Papalist popular art had got to in the 1930s. Children be ... er ... damned; you'll enjoy this little art-history gem yourself!
Joining the British Latin Mass Society is a splendid step you can take in these hard times to uphold the Faith. I beg you to do so ... or, if your membership has lapsed, to renew!
6 comments:
I was delighted to see that the Patrimony is being honoured by Angelico Press, who have reprinted Dr. Mascall's 'The Christian Universe' and 'Existence and Analogy'. Sound stuff. It would have been fascinating to see what the Doctor would have said on the subject of the current theological and 'magisterial' utterances from Rome...
May God love and cherish the soul of Pope Benedict, as well as you Father Hunwicke.
Sancto subito
Interesting description of vesting a Pope with the canon:
“After the deacon vests the pope with the usual amice, alb, the cingulum and sub-cinctorium, and the pectoral cross, he places the fanon on the pope by means of the opening (with the embroidered cross in front), and then pulls the back half of the upper piece over the pope's head. Then he vests the pope with the stole, tunicle, dalmatic, and chasuble, after which he turns down that part of the fanon which had been placed over the head of the pope, draws the front half of the upper piece up from under the chasuble, and finally arranges the whole upper piece of the fanon so that it covers the shoulders of the pope like a collar. The pallium is placed over the fanon” [Wikipedia]
The same article notes that the fanon has been worn by a Pope only four times since the second Vatican Council - once by Pope John Paul II and three times by Pope Benedict XVI
"... fanon was a simple covering garment ... did it, perhaps, originally, protect the collar of the chasuble from a pontifical wig?" It did, indeed. Fanon is originally the Roman amice. When later the clergy started to use the smaller "Gallican" amice, fanon become a mere Papal decoration.
In the Mass of Ages magazine, a more significant feature showing at what times we have arrived is the announced decision to publish Traditional Mass listing in the "members only" part of their website. Digital catacombs, so to say...
Unlike last year when I dithered due to this and that, I renewed my subscription to the LMS on the same day the Hon Secretary's email arrived.
Oh. I guess that was just yesterday, the 6th-- these grey and rainy December days pass into each other without
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