Liturgy and Music

Spirit and Truth

"A liturgist is an affliction sent by God so that Catholics living in a time when there is no overt persecution need not be denied the privilege of suffering for the faith." - Christopher Derrick

Pope Benedict XVI, as Cardinal Ratzinger, wrote in the preface of Monsignor Klaus Gamber's famous book, The Reform of the Roman Rite, "What happened after the Council was altogether different: instead of a liturgy fruit of continuous development, a fabricated liturgy was put in its place. A living growing process was abandoned and the fabrication started. There was no further wish to continue the organic evolution and maturation of the living being throughout the centuries and they were replaced -- as if in a technical production -- by a fabrication, a banal product of the moment."

When a photographer focuses his camera, he does not see, at the moment he has the image razor sharp, anything that he was not seeing when the image was blurred; he merely sees it more clearly. This is a excellent analogy of the way in which the Church develops Sacred Tradition, i.e. the deposit of faith or revelation; truths pass from being implicitly believed to being explicitly stated, i.e. they are brought into sharp focus, but nothing is ever taught that was not already there.

The Mass codified by Pope St Pius V in the 1570 bull Quo Primum was the summit of centuries of liturgical development; it was the point at which the Church brought into sharp focus what she had always implicitly believed about the nature of the Mass and the sacred priesthood.

In contrast, the New Mass is a step backwards and therefore cannot possible be considered a valid development, since the truth is less clearly manifested, the Real Presence is less clearly affirmed, the propitiatory sacrifice sidelined and the sacrificial nature of the priesthood played down.

It is as if a photographer, having brought an image into sharp focus, deliberate moved it out of focus again so that he would have a blurred image in order that it will be less displeasing to some of his subjects.  And this indeed is actually what did happen: the committee in charge of fabricating a new rite deliberate moved the Mass out of focus to render it less displeasing to heretics!

LINKS

The Heresy of Formlessness: The Heresy of Formlessness is the best book on the liturgy written thus far.  Its remarkable author, Mösebach, is a new Catholic genius: a new Pushkin; a new Goethe; an admirer of GK Chesterton and an apologist for the Mass of Ages.  A novelist, a poet, a playwright, an essay writer of rare distinction, with a versatility and range such that he has adopted every one of the art forms and re-energized them, filling them with polemics and a wry theological edge.  This is definitely one of those books that when you pick it up, you can't put it down.

Latin Mass Society The Latin Mass Society holds firmly to its belief in the value of the Church's traditional ritual as the most perfect and effective means of reaching the innermost depths of our being, of lifting us out of the finite and worldly sphere and into the world of Christ - and therefore of fulfilling the fundamental purpose of the Second Vatican Council 'to restore all things in Christ'. The Latin Mass Society is a founder member of the International Una Voce Federation. In a message to the Federation dated 25th July 1996 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said: "The International Una Voce Federation has played an important role in supporting the use of the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal in obedience to the directives of the Holy See. For this valuable service I express my gratitude to the members of the Federation and extend my blessing."

Society of St Gregory  The UK's national society for music and liturgy in the Catholic Church.  It is a network of people involved in liturgy in their parishes, dioceses, schools and communities.  The site has an extensive online account of its Summer School, information about the composers' group and a collection of links to other music and liturgy sites.

Traditional Masses in France; This useful site list the times and places of traditional Masses by department throughout the whole of France.

VOICES - Chant from Avignon: The Nuns of the Abbaye de Notre-Dame de l'Annonciation, from a remote region of France near Avignon, won a worldwide search to find the world's finest female singers of Gregorian Chant. The search took in over seventy convents, including communities as far afield as North America and Africa - More