American Atheists want to "Keep the MERRY" and "Dump the MYTH" -- to keep Santa, Christmas presents, and Jingle Bells, and dump Jesus Christ, who in the fullness of time, entered human history as God incarnate, was crucified, died, and buried in atonement for our sins, and then raised again as the New Adam through whom we have hope of eternal life -- an indispensable basis for all merriment, happiness, and joy.
How hollow the hearts and how absurd the thoughts of American Atheists who strive so mightily to generate merriment and hope against the gathering shadows of night -- by their own reasoning a night of nothingness cloaking an abyss of despair.
Rorate Caeli (December 13, 2012) posts the following:
It has always been this way in the Church, since Tradition is by its very nature permanent (stat Crux dum volvitur orbis...) - but The Economist is right to particularly identify Traditionalist Catholics as the avant-garde of our age, while everyone else still seems to be in the rearguard, or surrendering, or joining the enemy in the wars of the 1960s and their consequences...
Rorate: trendy avant-garde since December 2005
"Some swings of pendulums may be inevitable. But for a church hierarchy in Western countries beset by scandal and decline, the rise of a traditionalist avant-garde is unsettling. Is it merely an outcrop of eccentricity, or a sign that the church took a wrong turn 50 years ago?"
Ralph Martin, who was invited to serve as an official consultant at the October Synod on the New Evangelization in Rome, has also just published a book that is apparently creating quite a stir in the Catholic world. In his book, entitled Will Many Be Saved? What Vatican II Actually Teaches and Its Implications for the New Evangelization(Eerdmans, 2012), Martin examines the documents of Vatican II, particularly Lumen Gentium 16, in light of the Magisterial tradition and Scripture, and argues that the recent tendency (reinforced by the writings of Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar) to ignore the real possibility of damnation and to assume that most everyone is going to heaven is baseless.
John Lamont, who in 2004 wrote an article entitled "Why the Second Vatican Council was a Good Thing and Is More Important Than Ever," wrote a second article three years later, entitled "What was Wrong with Vatican II" (New Blackfriars, Vol. 88, 2007). In the latter article, Lamont basically concludes that the problem is not so much with anything that is stated in the Conciliar documents, but rather what was left unsaid. What was critically omitted, he suggests, was any unmissable statement, let alone elaboration, of the rationale for evangelization. In other words, the question left unanswered was: "Why evangelize?" The answer, of course, is that the world needs to hear and respond to the Gospel of Christ and His Church because of the very real possibility otherwise, as we put it in the Act of Contrition, of the "loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell."
What Martin points out, however, is that there are three sentences at the end of Lumen Gentium 16 that in fact do provide the needed rationale. They read as follows:
But often men, deceived by the Evil One, have become vain in their reasonings and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, serving the creature rather than the Creator.(129) Or some there are who, living and dying in this world without God, are exposed to final despair. Wherefore to promote the glory of God and procure the salvation of all of these, and mindful of the command of the Lord, "Preach the Gospel to every creature",(130) the Church fosters the missions with care and attention.
The Council fathers were quoting here from the clear statements of St. Paul in Rm. 1:28-29 and the Evangelist St. Mark in Mk. 16:16.
For much too long we have been subjected to a regime of catechetical ambiguity and theological double-speak. Enough. Yes, Virginia, there is a Hell. If we had any compassion as Christians, Francis Schaeffer used to say, we should all be wanting to share the Gospel of salvation with others ceaselessly. The Gospel, in other words, is one starving beggar telling another starving beggar where to find bread.
But from the responses Martin has received in some quarters, one would think he had called for the return of the Spanish Inquisition and the canonization of Tomas de Torquemada. Even the celebrated Fr. Robert Barron, whose good work one might justly admire in almost every other respect, bent over backwards in his article, "How Many Are Saved?" (CNA, December 3, 2012), searching for a way to deflect the magnitude of this threat of Hell. He cites what he identifies as precedents for the notion of universal salvation that appear to be present in the writings of Origen, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Maximus the Confessor. He refers to the writings of Karl Rahner, Hans Urs von Balthasar, as well as the Pope's remarks in "Spe Salvi" (45-47). He adopts the now almost standard "liberal" interpretation of Lumen Gentium, and concludes by treating the matter at issue as though it were a debate over the moot point concerning the number of people of Hell:
It seems to me that Pope Benedict’s position – affirming the reality of Hell but seriously questioning whether that the vast majority of human beings end up there – is the most tenable and actually the most evangelically promising.
"Evangelically promising"??? But isn't this precisely the problem with the collapse of Catholic missions and the virtual disappearance of Confession lines today? Most Catholics are so oblivious to the reality of Hell they no longer "dread the loss of Heaven or the pains of Hell" either for themselves, their own families, or anyone else. What happened to the passion for lost souls that animated men like St. Francis Xavier, who dropped everything and hazarded travelling across the globe to win Catholic converts?
Below is a video, entitled "The strait and narrow path of the new evangelization," in which Martin summarizes the thesis of his book:
There will doubtless be fallout from more than one side on this issue, especially in light of the continued mixed-messages one hears. Another of my colleagues told me today that he was offended by the way Michael Voris, in this connection, raises the question whether Protestants can be saved. My own thought is that I am more concerned at the moment with whether vast numbers of sacramentalized pagans who call themselves "Catholics" can be saved. Perhaps a better way for Voris to have formulated the issue would have been to ask whether there is any other Gospel than that passed down to us through the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church by which we may be saved; and the answer to that question is no.
And, yes, one very good reason to care about these issues is that there is a Hell, and it's possible for us to go there. Nobody in the New Testament speaks more frequently and consistently about this dread fact of "everlasting punishment" and the "fires of Hell" and the "wailing and gnashing of teeth" than -- you guessed it -- "Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild" (Mt.10:28; 13:41-42; 22:13; 25:41,46; Mk. 9:44; Lk. 12:5; 16:19-31; etc.). And, yes, this possibility of our going to Hell is the question to which Christ and His Church and His Gospel are the answer. Too long have we heard vague chatter about God's love and how, somehow or other, "Christ is the answer," while nobody seems to have stopped long enough to ask: "What is the question?"
Although I am a member of The Confraternity of Saint Peter and although my heart and soul remains anchored in the Traditional Mass, I am trying (since Advent) to assist at daily mass in the normative [ordinary] rite but it is a veritable way of the cross to do so.
Tomorrow I will be trying the third Parish in my area.
The first Parish has video screens on each side of the Sanctuary and while the Eucharist was being confected, the screen displayed the word "Jesus" with bright yellow leaves shimmering as they were being lightly fluttered by a zephyr; and then the Hosanna flashed on the screen with the (mis)translation "Holy...Lord, God of power and might..." that all recited...
And then, in search of a less fractious Mass, I went to another Parish where there was a substitute Priest at one of whose masses I had assisted, sadly, once before. He has a habit of dispensing the last Blessing and then he strolls over to the lectern to tell a joke - giving me enough time to exit before his joke is completed. Today, as soon as he finished the blessing, he immediately launched into a joke as he stood behind the altar.
Maybe the third time/Parish tomorrow will be the charm.
Typically when I think of French Catholic writers I think of Jean Danielou and Henri De Lubac and Louis Bouyer and Vatican II. But I have just also discovered Meditations for Advent,by Jacques Bossuet. I had not come across this author's name before, and now, rolling out as it does right alongside the Pope's new book on the Infancy Narratives, it is shaping up as a welcome addition to my updated canon of Christmas lit.
"Sonorous prose ... Lofty monuments of French style..." How often do you hear Catholic reading commended with such descriptions? And while it's seldom that someone entices by an exercise in name dropping that leaves me feeling woefully ignorant of an entire tradition, that's exactly the net effect former preacher to the papal household Romanus Cessario manages in his introduction.
Christopher Blum's uncluttered translation pays Bossuet the compliment of being straightforward and nicely accessible. Elsewhere our translator sets up Bossuet's preaching by explaining the latter's conviction that "God... is normally quiet. In the face of his reserve, our hardened hearts quickly become deaf to his goodness... Into the breach step [his] preachers. They are the 'clear and intelligible voice' of God, calling all Christians to repent..." Sounds almost reminiscent of the Protestant definition of an evangelist to me [not suggesting that's a bad thing].
Anyway, for a sample of Bossuet's style, here is his take on Mary's virginity, rather poetically realized:
Here then is a new created dignity upon the earth, the dignity of the Mother of God, which includes graces so great that thought must not attempt or even hope to understand them. The perfect virginity of body and soul is part of this high dignity. For if concupiscence, which since the Fall ordinarily attaches to the conception of men, had been found in this one, Jesus Christ would have contracted the primitive stain, He, the one who came to efface it... Chaste mysteries of Christianity, how pure we must be to understand them! Yet how much more pure we must be to express them in our lives by the sincere practice of Christian truth! We no longer belong to the earth, we whose faith is so exalted: “Our commonwealth is in heaven.” (Phil 3.20).[i]
Then there is this explanation of the dignity reflected in the profile of Joseph:
In my plan of basing the praise of Saint Joseph not upon doubtful conjectures, but upon a solid doctrine drawn from Holy Scriptures and the Fathers, [I present] this great saint to you as a man singled out to guard God’s treasure and to be his trustee here below… It is a simple matter to show you how estimable is this quality. For the name of a trustee is a mark of honor and testifies to probity; if, in order to confide a trust, we choose the one whose virtue Is most assured, whose fidelity is most proven, and finally, the one who is the most intimate and most confidential of our friends, then how shall we measure the glory of Saint Joseph? God made him the trustee not only of blessed Mary, whose angelic purity made her so acceptable in his eyes, but still more of his own Son, the sole object of his delight and the unique hope of our salvation. Saint Joseph he made the trustee of the common treasure of God and man: the person of Jesus Christ. What eloquence could equal the grandeur and majesty of that title.[ii]
And finally, if such snippets successfully pique you interest, here is Cesarrio’s complete introduction to Jacques-Benigne Boussuet, a Frenchman I suspect we may count ourselves remiss for not knowing sooner. His devotional is another addtion to the consistently good titles being reprinted over at Sophia Institute Press. Happy meeting.
“There is enough here for both heart and mind ...”
Every year our holy mother the Church invites us to make our way back to Bethlehem. And when we arrive, what is it that we see there? Nothing but “three poor people who love one another,” as the poet Claudel said, but three poor people who “will change the face of the earth.” [And] like the Holy Family, we too are poor. Yet we are poor in the very way that they were rich, and rich in the way that they were poor. And this is why we sorely need Advent as an annual occasion to listen to the prophet Isaiah, to marvel at the Annunciation, the Visitation, and the birth of Saint John the Baptist, to enter more deeply into the meaning of those two great songs of faith that frame the Church’s daily prayer, the Benedictus and the Magnificat, and to join Saint Joseph and the Blessed Virgin in silent adoration of the incarnate Son of God. For just such an Advent journey of contemplation, this slim volume is an admirable vade mecum. In it you will find a distillation of the doctrine and the piety of an eloquent preacher and a man of deep and weighty prayer.
The days are not so long ago when the figure of Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627-1704) needed no introduction and when the very thought of translating his sublime French into English would have been considered an impertinence. But we no longer live in the world of Monsignor Knox and Mr. Waugh – and certainly not that of Mr. Belloc – a world in which it could be taken for granted that educated men and women read French and that educated Catholics read the right sort of French authors. And so there is another task of resourcement that must be undertaken, a reclaiming of an inheritance, one of whose central figures is the Eagle of Meaux, as the great Bossuet was called, after the name of his bishopric and for his clear vision and elevated style.
Born to an industrious and dignified Burgundian family, Bossuet labored mightily in the vineyard of the Word, as a preacher should. He knew the Scriptures by heart. He read and reread the Fathers, chiefly Saint Augustine. He made his own the doctrine of the Church, especially as transmitted by Saint Thomas Aquinas. With his inimitable craft, he put this solid learning to work, producing monuments of French style such as the funeral orations for the princess Henriette-Marie and the great Condé and becoming the schoolmaster not only of the dauphin, son of the Roi Soleil, but of generations of Catholics in la belle France and wherever the French tongue was read. His Discourse on Universal History and History of the Variations of the Protestant Churches cast a long shadow, shaping minds as varied as Joseph de Maistre and T. S. Eliot, Christopher Dawson, and Paul Claudel.
The work here at hand is a careful selection of forty daily meditations – sufficient to stretch from Thanksgiving into the Octave of Christmas – taken from a much longer work, the Elevations a Dieu sur tous les mystéres de la religion chrétienne. The first word of this title defeats easy translation, although its meaning is plain enough. These are texts meant to assist the Christian in the difficult task of lifting the mind to the consideration of God. The notion here is one common to the French School of spirituality that descends from Pierre de Bérulle: that the omnipotent and eternal God is not like us, but because of his infinite condescension in becoming man, we are apt to think that he is. And so, as an astute commentator on Bossuet has said, these meditations spring in part from the author’s conviction that “the majority of our errors in the Christian life and particularly in the life of devotion arise from our failure sufficiently to respect God, from our failure to esteem him highly enough.”
It is Bossuet’s lofty sense of God’s grandeur that gives us the sonorous meditations on the Creation, on the Word, and on the priesthood of Jesus Christ. Yet the same Bossuet who was heir to the austere theological vision of Cardinal de Bérulle was equally the follower of the mild Saint Francis de Sales and the charitable Saint Vincent de Paul. So here too we find stirring calls to poverty, silence, and simplicity of life within the context of reflections on the Blessed Virgin and – in one of the earliest and most celebrated examples of its kind – a sermon in appreciation of the holy patriarch Saint Joseph. The Father, as we are told by the Incarnate Word himself, seeks souls who will adore him “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23). There is work enough here for both heart and mind, and these gleanings from Bossuet’s harvest of the French School of spiriitua1ity are trustworthy help for the task.[iii]
--Romanus Cessario, O.P.
Joe Martin is Assistant professor of Communication & Graphic Design at Hampton University, where he keeps a watchful eye on students’ tracking and kerning as well as the Atlantic surf. His favorite Christmas song is Sergio Franchi’s "Buon Natale (Christmastime in Rome)."
The combination of Beethoven's music and the most exquisite culinary delicacy in the world is just perfect -- as I was again reminded when my son Christopher recently sent me the link to the same trailer, a guilty pleasure which I indulged yet again.
I have yet to see the movie. Hard to understand, I know. A little more exploration on the Internet has simply whetted the appetite for what I should call "I Dream of Jiro's Sushi":
Just imagine: a fifteen course dinner in twenty minutes, served one piece at a time, made to perfection, ingredient, technique, timing. Every item is served at the right time and temperature and stage in its preparation, and in the correct order, so that the flavors complement one another and don't detract.
Anthony Bourdain says at one point, "I'm ready to die now." I can remember thinking just that myself on occasion. It can be just that good. You can't touch this, Fr. Z.
Update: Just found the film on Amazon, where Prime members can stream it for free!
When students ask me what they need to do to become good church historians, I always answer -- Read history, any history, as long as it is well-written. So here are five recommendations of new books in 2012 which some might want to think about asking for as presents:
...
Best new book to make it onto my syllabi:
Robert Louis Wilken, The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity(Yale). I have been a fan of Wilken, a leading Roman Catholic historian of early Christianity, ever since I went to Princeton to hear him give a lecture on the secularisation of modern Christianity. When asked by a member of the audience -- and remember, this is Princeton we are talking about -- to give an example of selling out to the world, he declared (without taking a breath) 'Inclusive language translations of the Bible.' The place descended into uproar.
Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!
"Quite magnificent," adds Trueman. Indeed.
He concludes: "This book is a superb tour of the first millennium of the Christian faith, written with his usual learning, wit and clarity. It will be on both my Ancient Church and Medieval syllabi from now on."
Reading these pages I am impressed anew by the faithfulness of Michael Davies, a layman and a high school teacher who had such a far-reaching impact through his long labors. Also renewed appreciation for Newman, who with Wilfrid Ward after him so acutely saw where modern thought was heading even as it was just emerging out of the gate ...
Catholics still like to laugh at the Episcopal Church. I cannot blame them, but I think we remain overly unaware of our own blind spot (is that redundant?).
"The devastation wrought by Liberalism within the Church of England in the 19th century has been magnified a thousandfold within the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council. It seems hard to believe that much of what is included in this collection ... was not addressed specifically to the contemporary situation within Western Catholicism..."
Our reader next refers us to William Doino's article, "The Real John Henry Newman" (First Thoughts, September 20, 2012), with the comment: "Fascinating dogged exchange in the comments." Fascinating indeed!
Well, it's not as if Mr. Obama hasn't presented the Church in the USA with a problem. He has. But if this external threat becomes yet another pretext for ignoring the elephant in the room -- namely the internal failure of the Church to communicate its truth to its rapidly dwindling constituency -- then it's simply another distraction from the proper task of the Church in the world.
TORONTO, November 29, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Homeschoolers are incensed after Anna Maria Tremonti, host of CBC’s The Current, decided to air what she called the “last word” on her show discussing homeschooling.
Following her November 14 show, a two minute skit cast homeschooling mothers as incompetent, uneducated, and sexually irresponsible.
The home-schooled teenage male—who was cast as unchallenged, resentful, rebellious, and delinquent—suggested at one point that he would rather not have been created than homeschooled.
“OK, so I’m supposed to learn geometry from a lady who never graduated college and wasn’t smart enough to use condoms?” rants the teenager in the skit.
Tremonti also reportedly badgered a homeschool spokesperson over homosexuality.
Oh, I get it. The secular state-run schools have done such a stellar job, so that home schoolers are supposed to feel deprived and improverished? Let me see . . . John Stewart Mill was home schooled and read the Latin classics as a lad. Blaise Pascal was home schooled and discovered the Pythagorean Theorem on his own as a youngster.
Or is it that they can't abide the thought of kids being trained to actually use their brains to think for themselves instead of marching in lock step formation with their state-imposed totalitarian indoctrination programs?
Another impressive set of photographs has come to our attention: The “Catholic Sanctuaries” collection on Flickr. The work of an anonymous seminarian, this collection is indexed multiple ways: by church name; by church type (e.g.: Basilicas, Cathedrals, Eastern Churches); by geographic location (e.g.: Michigan, subset Detroit); and by architectural feature (e.g. “Naves”, “Organs”, and “Side Altars”).
Detroit’s St. Josaphat is one of countless churches that have been documented. The author has made a special effort to seek out striking architecture; the photo below of the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis, Minnesota is an example.
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” – that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. – from Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats
These words from a famous poem are words to live by in our Catholic faith. There is much talk nowadays about the need to evangelize the unchurched and the underchurched, non-Catholics as well as those Catholics lacking a thorough understanding of our Holy Faith. What better way to do that than using the diverse arsenal of beauty surrounding the Extraordinary Form of Mass? Humans are sensory beings, and what may be challenging to explain via words may be much easier to convey via imagery.
Within a Catholic context, beauty leads one to truth. The visual and auditory beauty of Catholic art, architecture, and sacred music can move one to learn more about the truths of our religion.
The Extraordinary Form of Holy Mass makes use of all of this artistic beauty. Indeed, it has inspired enduring forms of sacred art and music that characterize the classic designs we see in so many of our historic churches. The imagery and architectural features are all intended to move us to prayer and contemplation.
Keats’ words thus have a special resonance to those of us who have discovered the Tridentine Mass. We can use Beauty to bring people to appreciate the Truth. And well we should.
Yet something has been missing in this Beauty-Truth link. Something long overdue in this modern day and age. The wait is about to be over, however, and the Tridentine Community at Assumption Church will have a key role. Come to the reception in the Social Hall underneath Rosary Chapel after the 2:00 PM Mass at Assumption Church next Sunday, December 9, to find out what we’re talking about.
Masses at Ss. Peter & Paul (west side)
Two special Tridentine High Masses have been scheduled at Ss. Peter & Paul (west side): This coming Saturday, December 8 at 11:00 AM, there will be a High Mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a Holy Day of Obligation in the U.S. On Sunday, December 16 at 12:15 PM, there will be a High Mass for the Third Sunday of Advent. Ss. Peter & Paul is located at 7685 Grandville, north of Warren Ave., one half mile west of the Southfield Freeway.
Rules on Requiem Masses
A reader asked for clarification on the regulations for when Requiem Masses are permitted during the week. With a few exceptions that are too obscure for discussion here, the Daily Mass for the Dead is permitted on any Fourth Class Feria or Fourth Class Feast Day outside of Advent, Christmastide, or Lent. With regards to Assumption Church, there are seven such Tuesdays in 2013. There is a strong demand for Mass Intentions for Requiem Masses, so if you wish to have one said for your intentions, kindly submit a Mass Intention Request Form, available at the entrance to the church, as soon as possible.
As it happens, some of these days fall on consecutive weeks, which results in the occasional situation where we may have Requiem Masses on two successive Tuesdays. Let us recall that Requiem Masses offer a particular opportunity to pray for all of the faithful departed, not just the person(s) for whom the Mass is being offered.
Tridentine Masses This Coming Week
Mon. 12/03 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Josaphat (St. Francis Xavier, Confessor)
Tue. 12/04 7:00 PM: Low Mass at Assumption-Windsor (St. Peter Chrysologus, Bishop, Confessor, & Doctor)
Sat. 12/08 11:00 AM: High Mass at Ss. Peter & Paul (west side), Detroit (Immaculate Conception)
[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@detroitlatinmass.org. Previous columns are available at http://www.detroitlatinmass.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Josaphat (Detroit) and Assumption (Windsor) bulletin inserts for December 2, 2012. Hat tip to A.B., author of the column.]
The Veni Creátor: The Church’s Prayer to the Holy Ghost
Following up on our discussion two weeks ago of the Te Deum, the Church’s prayer of thanksgiving, today we present its sister prayer, the Veni Creátor, a hymn to the Holy Ghost. Once again we provide for your comparison two approved English versions, one traditional and one modern, the former quite clearly more faithful to the Latin original. The Veni Creátor is sung at Windsor’s Assumption Church on January 1 and on the Feast of Pentecost. Its public recitation or singing on those days is enriched with a Plenary Indulgence, under the usual conditions. Praying it on other days is enriched with a Partial Indulgence.
Hostem repéllas lóngius,
Pacémque dones prótinus;
Ductóre sic Te praévio,
Vitémus omne nóxium.
Per Te sciámus da Patrem
Noscámus atque Fílium,
Teque utriúsque Spíritum,
Credámus omni témpore.
Deo Patri sit glória,
Et Fílio, qui a mórtuis
Surréxit, ac Paráclito,
In sæculórum saécula. Amen.
Veni Creátor [1913 Blessed Sacrament Prayerbook translation]
Come, Holy Ghost, Creator, come,
From Thy bright heavenly throne;
Come, take possession of our souls,
And make them all Thine own.
Thou Who art called the Paraclete,
Best gift of God above;
The living spring, the living fire,
Sweet unction and true love
Thou, Who art sevenfold in Thy grace,
Finger of God’s right hand,
His promise, teaching little ones
To speak and understand.
Oh! guide our minds with Thy blest light,
With love our hearts inflame,
And with Thy strength, which ne’er decays,
Confirm our mortal frame.
Far from us drive our hellish foe,
True peace unto us bring;
And through all perils lead us safe
Beneath Thy sacred wing.
Through Thee may we the Father know,
Through Thee, the eternal Son,
And Thee, the Spirit of them both –
Thrice-blessed three in one.
All glory to the Father be,
And to His risen Son,
The like to Thee, great Paraclete,
While endless ages run. Amen.
Veni Creátor [1991 Handbook of Indulgences translation]
O Holy Spirit, by whose breath
Life rises vibrant out of death;
Come to create, renew, inspire;
Come, kindle in our hearts your fire.
You are the seeker’s sure resource,
Of burning love the living source,
Protector in the midst of strife,
The giver and the Lord of life.
In you God’s energy is shown,
To us your varied gifts made known.
Teach us to speak, teach us to hear;
Yours is the tongue and yours the ear.
Flood our dull senses with your light;
In mutual love our hearts unite.
Your power the whole creation fills;
Confirm our weak, uncertain wills.
From inner strife grant us release;
Turn nations to the ways of peace.
To fuller life your people bring
That as one body we may sing:
Praise to the Father, Christ, his Word,
And to the Spirit: God the Lord,
To whom all honor, glory be,
Both now and for eternity. Amen.
Tridentine Masses This Coming Week
Mon. 11/26 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Josaphat (St. Sylvester, Abbot)
Tue. 11/27 7:00 PM: High Mass at Assumption-Windsor (Daily Mass for the Dead) [High Requiem Mass with Choir]
Fri. 11/30 7:00 PM: High Mass at St. Francis Xavier, Tilbury (St. Andrew, Apostle)
Fri. 11/30 7:30 PM: High Mass at Resurrection Parish, Lansing (St. Andrew, Apostle)
[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@detroitlatinmass.org. Previous columns are available at http://www.detroitlatinmass.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Josaphat (Detroit) and Assumption (Windsor) bulletin inserts for November 25, 2012. Hat tip to A.B., author of the column.]
There's a lot about the Americanization of Christmas that traditional Catholics rightly find distasteful. The advertizing for Christmas begins as early as July. After Thanksgiving it becomes a full-tilt sprint. By December 1, any family that doesn't have it's tree up and decorated seems to lack "Christmas spirit." By December 26th, families are relieved to be finished with the ordeal of credit card-leveraged overspending and trash full of wrapping paper and cardboard boxes and glad to dump their trees on the sidewalk -- oblivious, of course -- entirely oblivious! -- that this is merely the SECOND of twelve days of Christmas concluding with Epiphany in January.
Once in a rare while, however, something comes along that makes a half-way decent point, such as this little Christmas jingle, for what it's worth.
Watch and pray. He is coming. He is coming not only on Christmas, hidden under the form of a marginal Jewish baby, born to a peasant girl and construction worker in the back of a motel. He is coming again, and, as one writer once put it, He will invade! Maranatha! Come, King Jesus!
Today we celebrated the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart in our home. One part of the private liturgy by the Men of the Sacred Hearts struck me, which reads:
"This action of Enthroning the Sacred Heart has an impact on families and individuals that carries over to society and becomes the basis for spreading the Social Reign of our King and Savior."
Precisely. This is how it's done, painstakingly, brick by brick, heart by heart, community by community. No other way.
(St. Augustines Press, 2010).
Joe Martin is Assistant professor of Communication & Graphic Design at Hampton University, where he keeps a watchful eye on students’ tracking and kerning as well as the Atlantic surf. His favorite Christmas song is Sergio Franchi’s "
When students ask me what they need to do to become good church historians, I always answer -- Read history, any history, as long as it is well-written. So here are five recommendations of new books in 2012 which some might want to think about asking for as presents:
Watch and pray. He is coming. He is coming not only on Christmas, hidden under the form of a marginal Jewish baby, born to a peasant girl and construction worker in the back of a motel. He is coming again, and, as one writer once put it, He will invade! Maranatha! Come, King Jesus!