The recent Decree of the CDF permitted the optional observance in the Old Roman Rite of Saints canonised since 1960.
But nobody, of course, will want to observe all the several hundreds of them! Journalists often do not understand that when a man or woman is added to the Catalogus Sanctorum, this does not mean that they are observed on their feast day in every Catholic Church in the world. Not even in every Latin Catholic Church in the world! And even if they do achieve the status of being in the (Novus Ordo) Calendarium Romanum Generale, this stiill does not mean that they have compulsory observations . They may be (mere!) ad libitum memoriae.
So I have tried to collect those post 1960 canonisations which are in the General Roman Calendar as Saints who are to be observed obligatorily in the Novus Ordo. One might say that these have settled down into the piety of the faithful, and enjoy the full confidence of the Latin Church.
So how many hundreds does that reduce the applicants to? Well, it reduces the pressing crowds to just five commemorations (three of which, however, commemorate groups of Martyrs). And two of these five, square bracketed on the list beneath, fail at the last hurdle to make the cut.
So then there were three.
They are these:
IUNIUS 3 S Caroli Lwanga et Sociorum Martyrum.
[AUGUSTUS 14 S Maximiliani Mariae Kolbe Martyris; but he will be kept out in the ccold by the II Class Vigil of the Assmption.]
SEPTEMBER 20 Ss Andreae Kim et Sociorum Martyrum.
23 S Pii de Pietrelcina Confessoris.
[NOVEMBER 24 Ss Andreae Dung-Lac et Sociorum Martyrum collides with S John of the Cross.]
So, if one desires, one can observe these three de facto as Class III Saints, using the Commons in the Missal and Breviary.
Please let me know if I've made mistakes or forgotten somebody ... I probably have.
If anyone wants a list of Commemorations which are optional in the Novus Ordo, let me know. I think it might amount to 12-15, including those post-Conciliar popes, Mother Theresa ...
And remember that there are also people like S Louis Grignion de Montfort, who were canonised well before 1960, but who only made the transition from pro aliquibus locis to the Calendarium Romanum Generale after that date.
13 April 2020
12 April 2020
RISUS PASCHALIS
Sandford Lock, at Sandford upon Thames, is not to be confused with Dry Sandford (where once the distinguished emeritus bishop of Ebbsfleet maintained his episcopium, sadly distant from his eponymous sandbank and his very grand private railway station). The other side of the Lock was the home of the recusant Powell family, and the church contains a fine Assumpta, which was concealed at the Reformation.
Regina caeli, laetare!
It is edifying to consider the importance of the River in the days before roads were anything better than mud-baths. At the Dissolution, loot from the suppressed Abbey ar Reading, including fine panelling, travelled upstream to grace Magdalen College; that carving of the Assumption hidden in Sandford churchyard could have come from Oxford or Abendon; the allegorical painting in the ceiling of Wren's first commission, the Sheldonian Theatre, was painted in London and barged upstream.
Now, of course, the Isis exists for little more than recreation and undergraduate rowing.
And for leisure. One of the aspects of this involves the longboats moored along the banks for summer use or, occasionally, as permanent or semipermanent homes.
The other day, taking the daily exercise still graciously permitted by the Authorities, I strolled down there to count the cormorants and to admire the kingfisher. And there was a new boat moored there which made me pause in thought. It is very smart, painted partly in a colour you might call Cardinals' Red.
Its name is "Vinny Boy".
Gracious, I thought. Warming to my theme, and suddenly inspired by the wraith of Warden Spooner, I wondered if this might be the Eminent Retirement Home of the Most Imminent the Father in God the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster.
The masculine name would otherwise be unusual. You see, most of those boats have feminine names. I assume this is because when the rude mechanicals who own them gather together for laughter and lager, they like to be able to make sophisticated jokes to each other such as "You gonna be getting on board Petunia next weekend?"
A few yards North of Vinny Boy, Nirvana II is safely tethered.
God bless her and all who sail in her. I wonder what fearful catastrophe befell Nirvana I.
We must all remember to wish Cardinal Vincent a buoyant retirement (Plaudite! Plaudite!), when he retires.
Regina caeli, laetare!
It is edifying to consider the importance of the River in the days before roads were anything better than mud-baths. At the Dissolution, loot from the suppressed Abbey ar Reading, including fine panelling, travelled upstream to grace Magdalen College; that carving of the Assumption hidden in Sandford churchyard could have come from Oxford or Abendon; the allegorical painting in the ceiling of Wren's first commission, the Sheldonian Theatre, was painted in London and barged upstream.
Now, of course, the Isis exists for little more than recreation and undergraduate rowing.
And for leisure. One of the aspects of this involves the longboats moored along the banks for summer use or, occasionally, as permanent or semipermanent homes.
The other day, taking the daily exercise still graciously permitted by the Authorities, I strolled down there to count the cormorants and to admire the kingfisher. And there was a new boat moored there which made me pause in thought. It is very smart, painted partly in a colour you might call Cardinals' Red.
Its name is "Vinny Boy".
Gracious, I thought. Warming to my theme, and suddenly inspired by the wraith of Warden Spooner, I wondered if this might be the Eminent Retirement Home of the Most Imminent the Father in God the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster.
The masculine name would otherwise be unusual. You see, most of those boats have feminine names. I assume this is because when the rude mechanicals who own them gather together for laughter and lager, they like to be able to make sophisticated jokes to each other such as "You gonna be getting on board Petunia next weekend?"
A few yards North of Vinny Boy, Nirvana II is safely tethered.
God bless her and all who sail in her. I wonder what fearful catastrophe befell Nirvana I.
We must all remember to wish Cardinal Vincent a buoyant retirement (Plaudite! Plaudite!), when he retires.
10 April 2020
Our Lady of Solitude
May the Mother of God, our blessed Lady of Solitude, Mediatrix of All Graces, pray for all those who, this Pascha, have been left alone by the loss of those whom they loved.
Pestilence, Abortion and Euthanasia in Perelandra?
"And will you teach us Death?" asked the Lady to Weston's shape, where it stood above her.
"Yes", it said, "it is for this that I came here, that you may have Death in abundance".
"Yes", it said, "it is for this that I came here, that you may have Death in abundance".
Geoffrey Kirk
Early this Good Friday morning, Dr Geoffrey Kirk, priest, theologian, wit, satirist, blogger, bon viveur, slipped away into the Eternal Pasch. Tu, qui cuncta scis et vales, Qui nos pascis hic mortales: Tuos ibi commensales, Coheredes et sodales Fac sanctorum civium.
9 April 2020
Join us at the Table
It seems an eternity ago; another age; but in reality it's hardly a decade. Back in those Church of England days I had the considerable privilege of sitting round a table in a basement in Gordon Square with half a dozen others in a Working Party, putting together a statement about our theological position (Consecrated Women). There was a great sense within that group of a mission: to fill up and then to guide a lifeboat to the rescue ship. Most of us are now in the Ordinariate; but others, including some of those who seemed most enthusiastic and vocal about the 'Roman Option', are still with the remnants in the Church of England, gratefully scavenging whatever scraps they can. They include one who was, as well as being a member of our Working Party, also the secret Theological Adviser to an initiative unrelated to the Working Party: a secret group of Anglican bishops (seven diocesans and at least a couple of others) who made secret dead-of-night visits with secret overtures to Rome but who drew their secret and trembling toes back up out of the water when Benedict XVI made public his offer of an Ordinariate. (I wonder if those bishops - especially those of them who are now associated with the Society of SS Wilfred and Hilda - feel at all ashamed about how they treated that dear good old man as they sit in their retirement homes, nothing to do now except to polish carefully each day their Reasons For Not Going and to feed the cat and to go to Waitrose with their wives).
I often think about the still-Anglican members of that Working Party, and my other friends in the priesthood and episcopate of the provinces of Canterbury and York, with great affection, mingled with sadness at the thought of how much fun, how much sense of real purpose, they are missing out on; how much real talent is being wasted on a dead end; how very much some of them could offer to the great project outlined by Aidan Nichols, of repatriating to Catholic Unity all that was good in Anglicanism. So far, we haven't attended to much more than the liturgical side of things; I claim that I am doing my humblest best but there's work here for dozens (especially, but by no means only, those with academic skills). And there are others who have spent decades talking about Unity with the See of Peter ... what is one to say ...
Yes; I know that 'Papalism' seems much less attractive, even less convincing, under the present clique in Rome. But, honestly, that is a reason for diving in rather than digging in. The Papacy is more than just one Argentinian.
I ought to make it clear that I am not 'proselytising'. I do not have in mind younger clergy who have, with a good conscience, discerned a particular ministry to be completed within the Church of England. I am not thinking of those who are not and never have been 'papalists'; those for whom going to Rome is as problematic (or even more so) than staying. I have in mind solely those who, when we were together, by their words and body-language, made clear that Rome, 'the rock from which we were hewn' as one of them repeatedly put it, was the answer to our pressing need; those who cheerfully said to a PEV 'Give us the lead, Bishop, and we'll follow'; those who told us that they would just put in the few more years necessary to secure their pensions and then join us; and, inexplicably, have been nowhere to be seen since the publication of Anglicanorum coetibus.
Of one thing I am sure. When their time comes, it must be made easy for them (and indeed also for those ex-diocesan bishops, if only they can be man enough and humble enough). There must be no unpleasant nonsense about how they missed the opportunity when the 'terms' were easy. Men who have spent 50 years in the Sacred Priesthood, who are priests to their fingertips, must not be told that they are "too old" for the presbyterate of the Ordinariate; that never again can they expect to stand at an altar holding in their hands the Adorable Sacrifice, that vocation which in the Mind of the Eternal was theirs before the ages began. There must be no manufacturing of hoops ... detoxification periods ... long periods of 'formation' ... There must be no subtle (or unsubtle!) systems of discouragement. The spirit of Benedict's gracious intentions must be honoured to the full. The doors must be widely and generously and permanently open. These are good and able men, fine priests, who are called by God to give service in His Vineyard. To treat them in any way otherwise would be positively very wicked.
But I do urge them not to hang around. We're Keeping The Home Fires Burning until you are ready to Come In From The Cold! Risky, however, to leave it! Do you really want to die in the C of E as it is now, let alone as it will be in a couple of decades? What would you lose by making discreet enquiries?
I often think about the still-Anglican members of that Working Party, and my other friends in the priesthood and episcopate of the provinces of Canterbury and York, with great affection, mingled with sadness at the thought of how much fun, how much sense of real purpose, they are missing out on; how much real talent is being wasted on a dead end; how very much some of them could offer to the great project outlined by Aidan Nichols, of repatriating to Catholic Unity all that was good in Anglicanism. So far, we haven't attended to much more than the liturgical side of things; I claim that I am doing my humblest best but there's work here for dozens (especially, but by no means only, those with academic skills). And there are others who have spent decades talking about Unity with the See of Peter ... what is one to say ...
Yes; I know that 'Papalism' seems much less attractive, even less convincing, under the present clique in Rome. But, honestly, that is a reason for diving in rather than digging in. The Papacy is more than just one Argentinian.
I ought to make it clear that I am not 'proselytising'. I do not have in mind younger clergy who have, with a good conscience, discerned a particular ministry to be completed within the Church of England. I am not thinking of those who are not and never have been 'papalists'; those for whom going to Rome is as problematic (or even more so) than staying. I have in mind solely those who, when we were together, by their words and body-language, made clear that Rome, 'the rock from which we were hewn' as one of them repeatedly put it, was the answer to our pressing need; those who cheerfully said to a PEV 'Give us the lead, Bishop, and we'll follow'; those who told us that they would just put in the few more years necessary to secure their pensions and then join us; and, inexplicably, have been nowhere to be seen since the publication of Anglicanorum coetibus.
Of one thing I am sure. When their time comes, it must be made easy for them (and indeed also for those ex-diocesan bishops, if only they can be man enough and humble enough). There must be no unpleasant nonsense about how they missed the opportunity when the 'terms' were easy. Men who have spent 50 years in the Sacred Priesthood, who are priests to their fingertips, must not be told that they are "too old" for the presbyterate of the Ordinariate; that never again can they expect to stand at an altar holding in their hands the Adorable Sacrifice, that vocation which in the Mind of the Eternal was theirs before the ages began. There must be no manufacturing of hoops ... detoxification periods ... long periods of 'formation' ... There must be no subtle (or unsubtle!) systems of discouragement. The spirit of Benedict's gracious intentions must be honoured to the full. The doors must be widely and generously and permanently open. These are good and able men, fine priests, who are called by God to give service in His Vineyard. To treat them in any way otherwise would be positively very wicked.
But I do urge them not to hang around. We're Keeping The Home Fires Burning until you are ready to Come In From The Cold! Risky, however, to leave it! Do you really want to die in the C of E as it is now, let alone as it will be in a couple of decades? What would you lose by making discreet enquiries?
8 April 2020
Olives, oil, and Chrism ... the end! (5)
In 1955, the Bugnini reformers eliminated the final paragraph from the Prayer to Consecrate the Chrism.
It was a paragraph which, in some early Missals, had served as the proper preface of the Mass itself. So Hannibal and chums restored it to its former use as the preface of the Mass, removing it at the same time from the Prayer to Consecrate Chrism.
If one has to fiddle, I had better admit, that was not a bad piece of fiddling to do, and it did have solid tradition behind it. An Anglican liturgist Leonard Mitchell, commenting in 1966, wrote "The preface of the missa chrismalis is of great beauty, and it has been again assigned by the Roman Catholic Church to the chrismal mass in the 'restored' Holy Week rites of 1955".
Well, after the Council, the next group of Clevers to start bodging clumsily all over Holy Week decided they could, after all, write a yet better Preface. Richer and Cleverer. They needed to allude to the "renewal of the vows of priestly servic" and all that sort of thing. And (such was the way of things in the 1960s) because they could, they did. The policy of the rapist all down the ages.
But the passage to which I referred in my first two paraphs was shoved back into one of the alternative Prayers for Consecrating Chrism, so I suppose I should not complain too much.
So I offer you in my own wooden and literal translation this passage "of great beauty":
" ... that, for those who are to be made new by the Baptism of spiritual washing, thou mightest strengthen the creature of Chrism to be a sacrament of perfect salvation and of life; that, the sanctification of anointing being poured forth, the corruption of their first birth being taken away [literally, swallowed, absorpta] the holy Temple [i.e. body] of each one of them may be redolent with the perfume of the innocence of an acceptable life; that, according to the sacrament of thine institution [secundum constitutionis tuae sacramentum], being drenched [perfusi] with kingly and priestly and and prophetic honour, they may be clad in the garment of thine incorrupt gift [vestimento incorrupti muneris induantur]."
It was a paragraph which, in some early Missals, had served as the proper preface of the Mass itself. So Hannibal and chums restored it to its former use as the preface of the Mass, removing it at the same time from the Prayer to Consecrate Chrism.
If one has to fiddle, I had better admit, that was not a bad piece of fiddling to do, and it did have solid tradition behind it. An Anglican liturgist Leonard Mitchell, commenting in 1966, wrote "The preface of the missa chrismalis is of great beauty, and it has been again assigned by the Roman Catholic Church to the chrismal mass in the 'restored' Holy Week rites of 1955".
Well, after the Council, the next group of Clevers to start bodging clumsily all over Holy Week decided they could, after all, write a yet better Preface. Richer and Cleverer. They needed to allude to the "renewal of the vows of priestly servic" and all that sort of thing. And (such was the way of things in the 1960s) because they could, they did. The policy of the rapist all down the ages.
But the passage to which I referred in my first two paraphs was shoved back into one of the alternative Prayers for Consecrating Chrism, so I suppose I should not complain too much.
So I offer you in my own wooden and literal translation this passage "of great beauty":
" ... that, for those who are to be made new by the Baptism of spiritual washing, thou mightest strengthen the creature of Chrism to be a sacrament of perfect salvation and of life; that, the sanctification of anointing being poured forth, the corruption of their first birth being taken away [literally, swallowed, absorpta] the holy Temple [i.e. body] of each one of them may be redolent with the perfume of the innocence of an acceptable life; that, according to the sacrament of thine institution [secundum constitutionis tuae sacramentum], being drenched [perfusi] with kingly and priestly and and prophetic honour, they may be clad in the garment of thine incorrupt gift [vestimento incorrupti muneris induantur]."
6 April 2020
Best wishes and prayers ...
... to and for all my friends in the US of A at this terrible time. And particular good wishes to friends ... friends I know and friends I don't know ... not least, 'Gardone' friends ... in and around New York, which has been much on our tv screems in these recent days.
And all the good friends I have made ... 'Anglican Use' friends ... in the Lone Star State. Perhaps you might remember me to our Lady of Candellaria, our Lady of the Atonement.
And those throughout the world with whom I have been in touch , or who have thought either well or ill of me as they have read what I have written.
And my fellow Countrymen; including my fathers and brothers and sisters in the Ordinariate or whom I may have served in the cause of Tradition.
Naturally, one becomes aware that at any moment one could, oneself, be struck down. Nine tenths of those dying in Britain of the Coronavirus Plague are above the age of 60! Should this happen to me, I ask the charity of your prayers, and ... of all my brother priests ... the charity of the August Sacrifice.
If God wills, I will offer Mass tomorrow for all of you.
Post Scriptum: if you should chance to hear of my demise or incapacity, please do not stop reading this blog. You see, I do keep a bit ahead of the Calendar with drafted blogposts in case I am on some particular day too busy or preoccupied to write something, so it might even appear that I am addressing you from beyond the grave. Spooky, yes??
And all the good friends I have made ... 'Anglican Use' friends ... in the Lone Star State. Perhaps you might remember me to our Lady of Candellaria, our Lady of the Atonement.
And those throughout the world with whom I have been in touch , or who have thought either well or ill of me as they have read what I have written.
And my fellow Countrymen; including my fathers and brothers and sisters in the Ordinariate or whom I may have served in the cause of Tradition.
Naturally, one becomes aware that at any moment one could, oneself, be struck down. Nine tenths of those dying in Britain of the Coronavirus Plague are above the age of 60! Should this happen to me, I ask the charity of your prayers, and ... of all my brother priests ... the charity of the August Sacrifice.
If God wills, I will offer Mass tomorrow for all of you.
Post Scriptum: if you should chance to hear of my demise or incapacity, please do not stop reading this blog. You see, I do keep a bit ahead of the Calendar with drafted blogposts in case I am on some particular day too busy or preoccupied to write something, so it might even appear that I am addressing you from beyond the grave. Spooky, yes??
Once upon a time ...
There exists indisputable archival evidence, including a photograph, that, on December 26 1966, a major Religious Superior, an Archbishop, celebrated Holy Mass facing the people, and concelebrating with his brother priests.
This is hardly remarkable. It was a year and a half since the promulgation (7 March 1965) of the post-Conciliar Ritus Servandus in Concelebratione Missae. And, of course, disorderly clergy had been experimenting according to their personal whimsies for years, if not decades.
What does give a certain piquancy to this information is that the Archbishop concerned was Marcel Lefebvre, Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers.
I will make three points:
(1) Only four Conciliar Fathers voted against the Conciliar liturgical Decree Sacrosanctum Concilium. How is this to be understood? There are still people around who lie and deceive; they remind us of this statistic in order to try to convince us, wickedly and mendaciously, that all the Fathers except for a mere four were strongly in favour of
(a) all the vicious and unnecessary textual revolutions in liturgical books which (unmandated) followed the Council; and
(b) the drastic abolition, accompanied by what one can only call bullying, of an entire liturgical culture; and
(c) the massive vandalisation of churches.
The claim, explicit or implicit, that these things were 'ordered by the Council', is a wantonly and grossly mendacious retrojection. It bears the finger-prints of the Father of Lies himself. Most of the Council Fathers expected a very much more modest reform. That is why only four voted against the draft decree. The Fathers certainly did not anticipate the displacement, however optional, of the Roman Canon -- a move which is not even hinted at in the Decree.
(2) There was an expectation that a modest reform was going to happen. And only four Fathers, of whom Archbishop Lefebvre was not one, resisted this general expectation. Accordingly, it is in no way surprising that Marcel Lefebvre was prepared to concelebrate and (as the Ritus Servandus prescribed) to do so facing the people. Indeed, as early as April 1963, the Archbishop had written to the Rectors of the major scholasticates of his order forbidding Mass versus populum but with a caveat: "other than exceptionally and after necessary permission has been obtained". He was not an integriste bigot.
(3) The 1965 liturgical rules still envisaged only one Eucharistic Prayer, the Canon Romanus, and expected the Latin language and all the usual rituals to be observed (concelebrants even wore maniples!). Only Iudica me Deus and the Last Gospel had been, three months earlier, removed from the Mass.
An important piece of collateral damage, resulting from the disasters of the 1960s and 1970s, is that we have been deprived of the sort of very gentle and principled liturgical evolution which happened after Trent and which most bishops rightly expected after Vatican II.
The highly intelligent optional permissions for the Usus Antiquior granted by the two recent decrees of the CDF, combined with the possibilities allowed in Summorum Pontificum, constitute exactly the sort of thing which should have been able to follow Vatican II.
Finally, the proper organic evolution of the Ancient Roman Rite has been, with gentle skill, got under way. These two CDF decrees are not as significant as Summorum Pontificum; SP opened up the possibility of thousands of priests learning how to celebrate, and indeed celebrating, a form of the Old Rite only slightly deformed by the period 1950-2000. But the CDF decrees, combined with permissions to celebrate the Old Holy Week, are a very important step, theologically as well as liturgically.
These are the sort of developments which were prevented from happening half a century ago by a gang whom Louis Bouyer rightly called the Madmen ... intent on bringing the whole edifice of Catholic worship crashing down in an atmosphere of hate-filled Rupture.
This is hardly remarkable. It was a year and a half since the promulgation (7 March 1965) of the post-Conciliar Ritus Servandus in Concelebratione Missae. And, of course, disorderly clergy had been experimenting according to their personal whimsies for years, if not decades.
What does give a certain piquancy to this information is that the Archbishop concerned was Marcel Lefebvre, Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers.
I will make three points:
(1) Only four Conciliar Fathers voted against the Conciliar liturgical Decree Sacrosanctum Concilium. How is this to be understood? There are still people around who lie and deceive; they remind us of this statistic in order to try to convince us, wickedly and mendaciously, that all the Fathers except for a mere four were strongly in favour of
(a) all the vicious and unnecessary textual revolutions in liturgical books which (unmandated) followed the Council; and
(b) the drastic abolition, accompanied by what one can only call bullying, of an entire liturgical culture; and
(c) the massive vandalisation of churches.
The claim, explicit or implicit, that these things were 'ordered by the Council', is a wantonly and grossly mendacious retrojection. It bears the finger-prints of the Father of Lies himself. Most of the Council Fathers expected a very much more modest reform. That is why only four voted against the draft decree. The Fathers certainly did not anticipate the displacement, however optional, of the Roman Canon -- a move which is not even hinted at in the Decree.
(2) There was an expectation that a modest reform was going to happen. And only four Fathers, of whom Archbishop Lefebvre was not one, resisted this general expectation. Accordingly, it is in no way surprising that Marcel Lefebvre was prepared to concelebrate and (as the Ritus Servandus prescribed) to do so facing the people. Indeed, as early as April 1963, the Archbishop had written to the Rectors of the major scholasticates of his order forbidding Mass versus populum but with a caveat: "other than exceptionally and after necessary permission has been obtained". He was not an integriste bigot.
(3) The 1965 liturgical rules still envisaged only one Eucharistic Prayer, the Canon Romanus, and expected the Latin language and all the usual rituals to be observed (concelebrants even wore maniples!). Only Iudica me Deus and the Last Gospel had been, three months earlier, removed from the Mass.
An important piece of collateral damage, resulting from the disasters of the 1960s and 1970s, is that we have been deprived of the sort of very gentle and principled liturgical evolution which happened after Trent and which most bishops rightly expected after Vatican II.
The highly intelligent optional permissions for the Usus Antiquior granted by the two recent decrees of the CDF, combined with the possibilities allowed in Summorum Pontificum, constitute exactly the sort of thing which should have been able to follow Vatican II.
Finally, the proper organic evolution of the Ancient Roman Rite has been, with gentle skill, got under way. These two CDF decrees are not as significant as Summorum Pontificum; SP opened up the possibility of thousands of priests learning how to celebrate, and indeed celebrating, a form of the Old Rite only slightly deformed by the period 1950-2000. But the CDF decrees, combined with permissions to celebrate the Old Holy Week, are a very important step, theologically as well as liturgically.
These are the sort of developments which were prevented from happening half a century ago by a gang whom Louis Bouyer rightly called the Madmen ... intent on bringing the whole edifice of Catholic worship crashing down in an atmosphere of hate-filled Rupture.
2 April 2020
Funny?
Circulating on the Internet are texts purporting to come from the Congregation for Divine Worship, allegedly authorising formulae for use (in the Naughty Ordo) in time of plague.
One phrase sticks out: God is invited to "grind your people down" (tere).
Is this
(1) a cheeky compositor's attempt at a witticism, rather like the infamous Harcourt Interpolation in The Times newspaper of 23 January 1882? Or
(2) an April Fools' Day joke in rather poor taste? Or
(3) yet another typo in the unbroken tradition of typos and howlers which have made the CDW such a laughing stock over the last half-century?
One phrase sticks out: God is invited to "grind your people down" (tere).
Is this
(1) a cheeky compositor's attempt at a witticism, rather like the infamous Harcourt Interpolation in The Times newspaper of 23 January 1882? Or
(2) an April Fools' Day joke in rather poor taste? Or
(3) yet another typo in the unbroken tradition of typos and howlers which have made the CDW such a laughing stock over the last half-century?
Mariam invoca: our Lady in time of plague
I offer you my own my recension of this medieval antiphon to our Lady in time of plague. I have expanded e into ae where modern convention requires this, and arranged it so as to bring out the rhymes.
You could call it a sort of sonnet ...
Stella caeli extirpavit
(quae lactavit Dominum)
mortis pestem, quam plantavit
primus parens hominum.
Ipsa stella nunc dignetur
sidera compescere,
quorum bella plebem caedunt
dirae mortis ulcere.
O gloriosa stella maris,
a peste succurre nobis.
Audi nos: nam Filius tuus
nil negans te honorat.
Salva nos, Jesu, pro quibus
Virgo mater te orat.
The first two stanzas and the final one employ trochaic tetrameters catalectic in the style of those of Pange lingua. But at O gloriosa a syllable gets added and the regularities of both rhyme and rhythm are subverted: does this heighten the emotion?
In the final stanza, I suggest that Filius is to be pronounced Filyus, and I write nil for nihil. I am far from sure that I am right about these two lines!
A translation on the internet makes a hash of quorum ... ulcere by not realising that the verb is caedunt and that ulcere .is an ablative singular, its ending guaranteed by the rhyme with compescere.
The Star of Heaven (who nourished the Lord) rooted up the plague of death which the first father of mankind planted;
may that same Star now deign to hold in check the constellations, whose wars strike down the people with the sore of a dread death.
O glorious Star of the sea, succour us from the plague.
Hear us: for thy Son, denying thee nothing, honours thee. Save us, Jesus, for whom thy Virgin Mother implores thee.
Medieval science attributed plagues to configurations among the constellations ... helpfully reminding us that all 'scientific laws' are really just falsifiable hypotheses, God bless them.
I wonder if the Astronomer Royal is present at COBRA meetings ...
You could call it a sort of sonnet ...
Stella caeli extirpavit
(quae lactavit Dominum)
mortis pestem, quam plantavit
primus parens hominum.
Ipsa stella nunc dignetur
sidera compescere,
quorum bella plebem caedunt
dirae mortis ulcere.
O gloriosa stella maris,
a peste succurre nobis.
Audi nos: nam Filius tuus
nil negans te honorat.
Salva nos, Jesu, pro quibus
Virgo mater te orat.
The first two stanzas and the final one employ trochaic tetrameters catalectic in the style of those of Pange lingua. But at O gloriosa a syllable gets added and the regularities of both rhyme and rhythm are subverted: does this heighten the emotion?
In the final stanza, I suggest that Filius is to be pronounced Filyus, and I write nil for nihil. I am far from sure that I am right about these two lines!
A translation on the internet makes a hash of quorum ... ulcere by not realising that the verb is caedunt and that ulcere .is an ablative singular, its ending guaranteed by the rhyme with compescere.
The Star of Heaven (who nourished the Lord) rooted up the plague of death which the first father of mankind planted;
may that same Star now deign to hold in check the constellations, whose wars strike down the people with the sore of a dread death.
O glorious Star of the sea, succour us from the plague.
Hear us: for thy Son, denying thee nothing, honours thee. Save us, Jesus, for whom thy Virgin Mother implores thee.
Medieval science attributed plagues to configurations among the constellations ... helpfully reminding us that all 'scientific laws' are really just falsifiable hypotheses, God bless them.
I wonder if the Astronomer Royal is present at COBRA meetings ...
1 April 2020
Modern Anglican Liturgy
The Christian Year: Calendar, Lectionary, and Collects (Church House Publishing, 1997, ISBN 0 7151 3799 9) gave Anglicans a very fine text, authorised in Old Mother Damnable for use on today's festival of Priscilla Proudie, Educationalist and Worker for Women's Rights.
Almighty and Everlasting God, who raised up Priscilla Proudie from the low estate of the niece of a Scottish Earl, and made her equally adverse to impropriety of every description: grant us so to benefit from the example of her meekness and humility; that we may ever practise perfect abstinence from any cheering employment upon the Sabbath.
This collect is a perfect composition. Those learned in such matters will recognise the natural grace of the rhythmic cursus with which it is composed: one trispondaicus, and two examples of velox. None but a liturgical genius could have been so served by his own fine instincts as to produce such a masterpiece.
I feel sure that it must come from the pen of 'Bubbles' Stancliffe himself, quondam Bishop of Salisbury, whose deft and skilful hand guided the Church of England through the minefields of Liturgical Revision. You might call him the Great Anglican Bugnini. Does any reader know whether he, too, belonged to 'The Craft'?
He had begun life as One of Us; opposed to disorders such as the 'ordination' of women. But something led him astray. I remember to this day the moment when a dear episcopal friend of mine, Christopher Luxmoore, strode into the Senior Common Room during breakfast complaining "Have you heard? Stancliffe has ratted".
The postman, faithful soul, brought Bubbles his mitre the very next morning.
[Perhaps I have condensed that narrative a trifle ... but notalot ...]
As a somewhat 'rigid' authority might have put it, "Verily I say unto you, he had his reward".
So many of those right reverend b*****ds did.
H/t to Joshua, Liturgiste Extraordinaire, for his painstaking research.
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