Again, this year, for my friend, Father J.K., C.PP.S., on this Feast of the Most Precious Blood.

Priest of Jesus Christ,
you are forever marked by His Blood.
The Blood of the Lamb flows through you:
It sanctifies your touch;
It comes to flower on your lips;
It purifies and quickens all that you do
in your sacred ministry.

In the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
you offer the Blood of Christ to the Father.
In the Sacrament of Penance
you apply the healing balm of the Precious Blood to souls
and wash them in It’s laver.

Your purity, priest of Christ,
is itself the fruit of your intimacy with the Precious Blood.
It manifests the power of the Precious Blood,
making you, in spite of all your weaknesses,
victorious over the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Cultivate, then, a strong a lively devotion to the Most Precious Blood of Christ.
Apply it mystically — that is, through your priestly intercession –
to souls in need of healing, deliverance, and inner cleansing.
You are the guardian of the Blood of the Lamb,
responsible for It being treated with the utmost reverence and adoration.
Preach often on the power of the Precious Blood
received in Holy Communion.

Tell souls that the Most Precious Blood of Jesus is
the price of our redemption.
the salvation of the world,
the glory of the Holy Sacrifice,
the vesture of Christ’s priesthood,
the beauty of His altar,
the splendour of His saints,
the defeat of Satan,
the reconciliation of sinners,
the healing of those wounded by the evil serpent,
the shining purity of priests,
the life of those who follow the Lamb,
the peace of the troubled,
the remedy for every ill,
the soul’s desire,
the astonishment of the angels,
and the joy of the Church.

Priest of Jesus Christ,
you are His minister, set apart to handle and to dispense His Precious Blood.
In making you the minister of His Blood,
Jesus entrusts you with His Life,
so that through you His life might be communicated to souls.
You are the guardian and dispenser of His Blood:
heaven’s greatest treasure and the salvation of the universe.
He is the Lamb once slain Who lives forever.
His Blood flows still from the wound in His Side;
It is the stream that irrigates the Church
and brings health to souls weakened by sin.

Cultivate an intense devotion to the Precious Blood.
The Blood of Jesus is the power of your priesthood
and, where His Blood is, there too is the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is communicated most richly in the mystery of the Blood.
When you receive the Blood of Jesus
you receive an infusion of the Holy Spirit;
the Life of Jesus courses in your veins,
making you with Him one Priest, one Victim,
one Son eternally beloved of the Father.

Speak of the power of the Blood of Christ
to heal the soul’s wounds,
to bring peace to troubled hearts,
to reconcile enemies,
to transform sinners into saints,
to lift those degraded by vice into the pure and holy happiness of virtue.
Invoke the power of the Blood of Christ to defeat Satan,
to liberate souls from bondage to sin,
and to establish peace where there is unrest and disquiet.
Have a boundless confidence in the might of the Precious Blood.
Wheresoever you invoke the Blood of Jesus,
there will He establish the peace and joy of His Kingdom,
casting out the spirits of darkness who labour incessantly
to bring about the ruin of families,
and of communities,
and of every attempt to overcome evil with good
by living in prayer and in charity.

The Precious Blood is the most potent remedy
for the ills that cause so much suffering in the world;
and that remedy has been given to you, priest of Jesus Christ, in a limitless way.
You are a physician of souls,
sent out to bring healing to the brokenhearted
and freedom to those enslaved by sin.
When the Precious Blood of Jesus touches the lips of a priest,
it purifies them of sin,
and descending into his heart, makes him fit for the Work of God.
Reflect on the immense grace that is yours, day after day, at the altar.
You are marked by Christ’s Most Precious Blood in the eyes of the Father.
That same mark of the Precious Blood terrifies demons,
and It accredits you to do all that Christ commands you to do
through His Holy Church.

Priest beloved of the Heart of Jesus,
adore His Precious Blood.
Make known It’s power.
Teach souls to have the greatest reverence for the mystery of the Blood.
Call down upon yourself and upon souls
the protection and infinite merits of the Blood of the Lamb.
The Blood of Jesus Christ is fire in the soul of the priest who acknowledges It’s power.
Be the priest of His Precious Blood,
just as you are the priest of His Heart,
and of His Eucharistic Face.
These are the mysteries by which you are sanctified
and configured to Him,
Who is eternally Priest and Victim.

I am completely smitten by Bernini’s little known depiction of the Blood of Christ. The Eternal Father contemplates the outpouring of the Blood of the Son. The Angels are awestruck by what they see. Blood pours out of the hands, and feet, and open side of the Crucified.

The Mother of Jesus, she who is the perfect image of the Church, raises her hands to receive the crimson torrent gushing from the inner sanctuary of His Sacred Heart. Beneath the Cross there is an ocean of Blood: Blood to cleanse the world of every stain of sin, of every crime, of every defilement. If you would know the value of the Precious Blood, ask the Mother of the Lamb.

Priests and the Precious Blood

“My maternal heart yearns to lead all my priest sons into the presence of my Jesus, the Lamb by Whose Blood the world is saved and purified of sin. My priest sons must be the first to experience the healing power of the Blood of the Lamb of God. I ask all my priest sons to bear witness to the Precious Blood of Jesus. They are the ministers of His Blood. His Blood is in their hands to purify and refresh the living and the dead.

Apply It to Your Wounds

I desire that all priests should become aware of the infinite value and power of but a single drop of the Blood of my Son. . . . Adore His Precious Blood in the Sacrament of His Love. His Blood mixed with water flows ceaselessly from His Eucharistic Heart, His Heart pierced by the soldier’s lance to purify and vivify the whole Church, but in the first place, to purify and vivify His priests. When you come into His Eucharistic presence, be aware of His Precious Blood streaming from His Open Heart. Adore His Blood and apply it to your wounds and to the wounds of souls.

Purity Wherever It Flows

The Blood of my Son brings purity and healing and new life wherever it flows. Implore the power of the Precious Blood over yourself and over all priests. Whenever you are asked to intercede for souls, invoke the power of the Precious Blood over them, and present them to the Father covered with the Blood of the Lamb.”

(From In Sinu Iesu, The Journal of a Priest)

“This day shall be unto you for a memorial and ye shall keep it a Feast to the Lord throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a Feast by an ordinance for ever” (Magnificat Antiphon, Feast of the Most Precious Blood, Exodus 12:14)

It was in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, convened by Saint John XXIII, an ardent promoter of devotion to the Precious Blood, that the feast of the Precious Blood was removed from the reformed calendar. This was not something that Saint John XXIII could have foreseen. He would, I think, have found the suppression of a feast so dear to him quite shocking.

The argument that the cultus of the Precious Blood is included in the Mass and Divine Office of Corpus Christi or of the Sacred Heart fails to convince me that it was necessary to suppress the feast of July 1st. Its magnificent antiphons and responsories, drawn principally from the Letter to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse express the “Temple Theology” that Dr Margaret Barker has so brilliantly elucidated; they are, moreover, possessed of a spiritual unction that penetrates the heart.

The month of July is suitable for meditating the Apostolic Letter of Saint John XXIII, Inde A Primis, on promoting devotion to the Precious Blood. Here is the text:

Apostolic Letter of Saint John XXIII

To his Venerable Brother Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops and other Local Ordinaries in Peace and Communion with the Apostolic See: Venerable brethren: greetings and apostolic blessings.

Devotion to the Most Precious Blood

From the very outset of our pontificate, in speaking of daily devotions we have repeatedly urged the faithful (often in eager tones that frankly hinted our future design) to cherish warmly that wondrous manifestation of divine mercy toward individuals and Holy Church and the whole world redeemed and saved by Jesus Christ: we mean devotion to his Most Precious Blood.

Catholic Childhood and Family Life

From infancy this devotion was instilled in us within our own household. Fondly we still recall how our parents used to recite the Litany of the Most Precious Blood every day during July.

The Surveillance and Development of Piety

The Apostle’s wholesome advice comes to mind: “Keep watch, then, over yourselves, and over God’s Church, in which the Holy Spirit has made you bishops; you are to be the shepherds of that flock which he won for himself at the price of his own blood.”[1] Now among the cares of our pastoral office, venerable brethren, we are convinced that, second only to vigilance over sound doctrine, preference belongs to the proper surveillance and development of piety, in both its liturgical and private expressions. With that in mind, we judge it most timely to call our beloved children’s attention to the unbreakable bond which must exist between the devotions to the Most Holy Name and Most Sacred Heart of Jesus — already so widespread among Christians— and devotion to the incarnate Word’s Most Precious Blood, “shed for many, to the remission of sins.”[2]

Thinking With the Church

It is supremely important that the Church’s liturgy fully conform to Catholic belief (“the law for prayer is the law for faith”[3]), and that only those devotional forms be sanctioned which well up from the unsullied springs of true faith. But the same logic calls for complete accord among different devotions. Those deemed more basic and more conducive to holiness must not be at odds with or cut off from one another. And the more individualistic and secondary ones must give way in popularity and practice to those devotions which more effectively actuate the fullness of salvation wrought by the “one mediator between God and men, Jesus Christ, who is a man, like them, and gave himself as a ransom for them all.” [4] Through living in an atmosphere thus charged with true faith and solid piety the faithful can be confident that they are “thinking with the Church” and holding fast in the loving fellowship of prayer to Christ Jesus, the High Priest of that sublime religion which he founded and which owes to him its name, its strength, its dignity.

The Church’s wonderful advances in liturgical piety match the progress of faith itself in penetrating divine truth. (Saint John XXIII)

Wonderful Advances in Liturgical Piety

The Church’s wonderful advances in liturgical piety match the progress of faith itself in penetrating divine truth. Within this development it is most heart-warming to observe how often in recent centuries this Holy See has openly approved and furthered the three devotions just mentioned. From the Middle Ages, it is true, many pious persons practiced these devotions, which then spread to various dioceses and religious orders and congregations. Nevertheless it remained for the Chair of Peter to pronounce them orthodox and approve them for the Church as a whole.

Holy Name, Sacred Heart, Precious Blood

Suffice it to recall the spiritual favours that our predecessors from the sixteenth century on have attached to practicing devotion to the Most Holy Name of Jesus, which in the previous century St. Bernardine of Siena untiringly spread throughout Italy. Approval was given first to the Office and Mass of the Most Holy Name and later to the Litany.[5] No less striking are the benefits the popes have attached to practising devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, whose rise and spread owe so much to the revelations of the Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.[6] So highly have all the popes regarded this devotion that again and again in their official acts they have expounded its nature, defended its validity, promoted its practice. Their crowning achievement on this devotion are three splendid encyclicals.[7]

Greater Liturgical Splendour

Likewise the devotion to the Most Precious Blood, which owes its marvellous diffusion to the 19th-century Roman priest, St. Gaspar del Bufalo, has rightly merited the approval and backing of this Apostolic See. We may recall that by order of Benedict XIV the Mass and Office in honour of the divine Saviour’s adorable Blood were composed. And to fulfill a vow made at Gaeta Pius IX extended the feast to the whole Church.[8] Finally, as a commemoration of the nineteenth centenary of our redemption, Pius XI of happy memory raised this feast to the rank of first-class double, so that the greater liturgical splendour would highlight the devotion and bring to men more abundant fruits of the redeeming Blood.

Approval of the Litany of the Precious Blood

Following our predecessors’ example we have taken further steps to promote the devotion to the Precious Blood of the unblemished Lamb, Jesus Christ. We have approved the Litany of the Precious Blood drawn up by the Sacred Congregation of Rites and through special indulgences have encouraged its public and private recitation throughout the Catholic world. Amid today’s most serious and pressing spiritual needs, may this latest exercise of that “care for all the churches”[9] proper to our sovereign office awaken in Christian hearts a firm conviction about the supreme abiding effectiveness of these three devotions.

July, Month of the Precious Blood

As we now approach the feast and month devoted to honouring Christ’s Blood — the price of our redemption, the pledge of salvation and life eternal— may Christians meditate on it more fervently, may they savour its fruits more frequently in sacramental communion. Let their meditations on the boundless power of the Blood be bathed in the light of sound biblical teaching and the doctrine of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. How truly precious is this Blood is voiced in the song which the Church sings with the Angelic Doctor (sentiments wisely seconded by our predecessor Clement VI [10] ) :

Blood that but one drop of has the world to win
All the world forgiveness of its world of sin.

Adoration of the Precious Blood

Unlimited is the effectiveness of the God-Man’s Blood — just as unlimited as the love that impelled him to pour it out for us, first at his circumcision eight days after birth, and more profusely later on in his agony in the garden,[12] in his scourging and crowning with thorns, in his climb to Calvary and crucifixion, and finally from out that great wide wound in his side which symbolizes the divine Blood cascading down into all the Church’s sacraments. Such surpassing love suggests, nay demands, that everyone reborn in the torrents of that Blood adore it with grateful love.

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

The Blood of the new and eternal covenant especially deserves this worship of latria when it is elevated during the Sacrifice of the Mass. But such worship achieves its normal fulfilment in sacramental communion with the same Blood, indissolubly united with Christ’s Eucharistic Body. In intimate association with the celebrant the faithful can then truly make his sentiments at communion their own: “I will take the chalice of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. . . The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve my soul for everlasting life. Amen.” Thus as often as they come worthily to this holy table they will receive more abundant fruits of the redemption and resurrection and eternal life won for all men by the Blood Christ shed “through the Holy Spirit.”[13] Nourished by his Body and Blood, sharing the divine strength that has sustained count less martyrs, they will stand up to the slings and arrows of each day’s fortunes — even if need be to martyrdom itself for the sake of Christian virtue and the kingdom of God.

Like Lions Breathing Out Fire

Theirs will be the experience of that burning love which made Saint John Chrysostom cry out:

Let us, then, come back from that table like lions breathing out fire, thus becoming terrifying to the Devil, and remaining mindful of our Head and of the love he has shown for us. . . This Blood, when worthily received, drives away demons and puts them at a distance from us, and even summons to us angels and the Lord of angels. . . This Blood, poured out in abundance, has washed the whole world clean. . . This is the price of the world; by it Christ purchased the Church… This thought will check in us unruly passions. How long, in truth, shall we be attached to present things? How long shall we remain asleep? How long shall we not take thought for our own salvation? Let us remember what privileges God has bestowed on us, let us give thanks, let us glorify him, not only by faith, but also by our very works. [14]

Social Fruits of Devotion to the Precious Blood

If only Christians would reflect more frequently on the fatherly warning of the first pope: “Look anxiously, then, to the ordering of your lives while your stay on earth lasts. You know well enough that your ransom was not paid in earthly currency, silver or gold; it was paid in the precious blood of Christ; no lamb was ever so pure, so spotless a victim.”[15] If only they would lend a more eager ear to the apostle of the Gentiles: “A great price was paid to ransom you; glorify God by making your bodies the shrines of his presence.”[16] Their upright lives would then be the shining example they ought to be; Christ’s Church would far more effectively fulfill its mission to men. God wants all men to be saved,[17] for he has willed that they should all be ransomed by the Blood of his only-begotten Son; he calls them all to be members of the one Mystical Body whose head is Christ. If only men would be more responsive to these promptings of his grace, how much the bonds of brotherly love among individuals and peoples and nations would be strengthened. Life in society would be so much more peaceable, so much worthier of God and the human nature created in his image and likeness.[18]

More Eloquent than the Blood of Abel

This is the sublime vocation that St. Paul urged Jewish converts to fix their minds on when tempted to nostalgia for what was only a weak figure and prelude of the new covenant: “The scene of your approach now is Mount Sion, is the heavenly Jerusalem, city of the living God; here are gathered thousands upon thousands of angels, here is the assembly of those first-born sons whose names are written in heaven, here is God sitting in judgment on all men, here are the spirits of just men, now made perfect; here is Jesus, the spokesman of the new covenant, and the sprinkling of his blood, which has better things to say than Abel’s had.” [19]

Not Just Willingly but Enthusiastically

We have full confidence, venerable brethren, that these fatherly exhortations of ours, once brought to the attention of your priests and people in whatever way you deem best, will be put into practice not just willingly but enthusiastically. As a sign of heavenly graces and our affection we im part our most heartfelt apostolic blessing to each of you and to all your flocks, and particularly to those who respond with devout generosity to the promptings of this letter.

Given at St. Peter’s in Rome, the eve of the feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ’s Most Precious Blood, June 30, 1960, the second year of our pontificate.

1. Acts 20:28.
2. Matthew 26 :2&
3. Encyclical “On the Sacred Liturgy,” America Press edition (New York: 1954), No. 46.
4. I Timothy 2:5-6.
5. Acta Sanctae Sedis 18 (1886) :509.
6. Cf. Office for the feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, 2nd nocturn, lesson 5.
7. “On the Consecration of mankind to the Sacred Heart of Jesus,” The
Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII (New York: 1903), 454– 461; “The Reparation Due to the Sacred Heart,” The Catholic Mind
26 (1928): 221-235; “On Devotion to the Sacred Heart,” The Pope
Speaks 3 (1956): 115-149.
8. Decree “Redempti Sumus,” Aug. 10, 1849, Decreta Authentica S.RC. (Rome: 1898), II, No. 2978.
9. II Corinthians 11:28.
10. Bull “The Only Begotten Son of God,” Jan. 25, 1343, The Sources of Catholic Dogma (St. Louis: 1957), No. 550.
1. Hymn “Adoro te devote.” Translation from Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins (Oxford: 1930), No. 89.
12. Luke 22:43.
13. Hebrews 9:14.
14. “Homily 46,” Commentary on Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist (Fathers of the Church, New York: 1957), 469, 471-472.
15. 1 Peter 1:17-19.
16. I Corinthians 6:20.
17. Cf. I Timothy 2:4.
18. Cf. Genesis 1:26.
19. Hebrews 12:22-24.

Like most chaplets or repetitive prayers, this Offering of the Precious Blood for Priests is meant to be prayed quietly and gently as a way of “turning into prayer” (oratio), the Word of God received (lectio), and meditated (meditatio). This sort of prayer can, by the grace of God, lead one to a simple abiding in adoration in the presence of God (contemplatio).

This chaplet of reparation and intercession is meant to be prayed on an ordinary five decade rosary.

Incline (+) unto my aid, O God; O Lord, make haste to help me.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Alleluia. (After Septuagesima: Praise be to Thee, O Lord, King of eternal glory.)

On the Our Father beads:

Eternal Father, I offer Thee
the Precious Blood of Thy Beloved Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Lamb without blemish or spot (1 Peter 1:19)
in reparation for my sins
and for the sins of all Thy priests.

On the Hail Mary beads:

By Thy Precious Blood, O Jesus, purify and sanctify Thy priests.

In place of the Glory be to the Father:

O Father, from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named (Ephesians 3:14),
have mercy on all Thy priests, and wash them in the Blood of the Lamb.

Do Not Tire of Visiting Us

Full of wonder and gratitude
at your continuing presence in our midst,
in the name of all priests
I too want to cry out:
“Why is this granted me,
that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Lk 1:43).

Our Mother for all time,
do not tire of “visiting us”,
consoling us, sustaining us.
Come to our aid
and deliver us from every danger
that threatens us.

Pope Benedict XVI, 12 May 2010

I found it significant, and moving, that Pope Benedict XVI in his Act of Consecration and Entrustment of Priests to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 2010, said to Our Lady, “Do not tire of visiting us”. There is no priest who is not in need of being visited by the Mother of God. When Mary visits a priest, she consoles him, sustains him, and delivers him from the dangers that threaten his priesthood. The Holy Father words are echoed in the hymn at Matins.

Singing the Mystery of the Visitation

Every year on the feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (2 July in the traditional calendar) I rediscover with wonderment the magnificent hymn: Veni, praecelsa Domina. The hymn dates from the thirteenth or fourteenth century. Remarkably, each of its six strophes begins with the word, Veni: Come!

The Spirit and the Bride

The first thing that strikes me about this hymn is how deeply it resonates with the liturgical prayers that the Church addresses to the Holy Ghost. Just as, over and over again, we call upon the Holy Ghost, crying Veni — I am thinking of the Veni, Creator Spiritus and of the Golden Sequence the Veni, Sancte Spiritus — so too do we address the Virgin Mary, the Spouse of the Holy Ghost, singing Veni today. Here is the text of the hymn as I translated it:

COME, Lady upon the heights;
Mary, visit us,
you who already brought such joy
to the house of your kinswoman.

COME, Help of the World
remove the stains of sin
and, in visiting your people,
take away the threat of punishment.

COME, Star and Light of the Sea,
pour forth a ray of peace;
set straight what is crooked,
give innocence of life.

COME visit us, we pray you,
strengthen our vigor
with the energy of a holy impulse,
lest our soul waver.

COME, Royal Sceptre,
bring back the wave of those in error
to the unity of the faith
by which the citizens of heaven were saved.

COME, that together with you
we may ceaselessly praise the Son,
with the Father and the Holy Spirit;
may they give us their help. Amen.

The Visitation of the Virgin

The work of the Mother of God is closely associated with that of the Holy Ghost. Compare the graces asked of Mary in this lovely hymn with those asked of the Holy Ghost in the Veni Creator and, again, in the Veni Sancte Spiritus. The visitation of the Virgin brings joy, restores purity, sheds light, sets things right, restores innocence, strengthens the weak, quickens the flagging, reconciles the separated, and raises our spirits in praise of the Most Holy Trinity.

An Exhalation of the Holy Spirit

Where the Virgin Mary goes, the Holy Ghost follows. Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort says that as soon as the Holy Ghost finds Mary in a soul, He hastens there. We see that clearly in today’s Gospel. No sooner did Mary greet Elizabeth than she was filled with the Holy Ghost (cf. Lk 1:41). Even the infant John in his mother’s womb is quickened by the Holy Ghost and mysteriously sanctified at the sound of the Virgin Mary’s voice (cf. Lk 1:44). The salutation of Holy Mary, full of grace, is an exhalation of the Holy Ghost.

She Salutes Us With Grace

If you would experience the grace of Mary’s salutation, then greet her often. There is in a lovely episode in the life of Saint Bernard that demonstrates this. It took place while he was visiting the Abbey of Afflighem in Belgium. Saint Bernard raised his eyes to an image of the Blessed Virgin, saying, Ave, Maria, and the Mother of God, looking upon him with inexpressible sweetness, said, Ave, Bernarde. Mary’s salutation, says Saint Bonaventure, will always take the form of some grace corresponding to the needs of the person who greets her: “She gladly salutes us with grace, if we joyfully salute her with the Hail Mary.”

Always the Rosary

This is why the repeated salutations of the Rosary are so powerful. The Ave, Maria tirelessly repeated opens the heart to the gentle irrigation of the Holy Spirit, to the living water promised by Jesus to those who believe in Him (cf. Jn 7:38). The Rosary is one of the surest ways of obtaining the gifts and fruits of the Holy Ghost. One who invokes the Mother of God invokes the Holy Ghost, for she never visits us apart from the Holy Ghost who overshadowed her at the Annunciation, spoke through her at the Visitation, inspired her at Cana, descended upon her from the mouth of the Crucified on Calvary, and filled her with fire at Pentecost.

It is helpful to meditate those mysteries of the Rosary that reveal the relationship between the Virgin Mary and the Holy Ghost: 1) the Annunciation, 2) the Visitation, 3) the Wedding Feast at Cana, 4) the Death of Jesus on the Cross, 5) the Retreat in the Cenacle and the Outpouring of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost.

Veni, Maria!

Today, ask the Mother of God to visit you and to visit those most in need of her motherly presence. Take your inspiration from the prayer of the Church, and repeat over and over again: Veni, veni, veni, Maria! She will come. She will visit you. And with her visitation will come the grace of the Holy Ghost.

A New Arrival of the Mother of God

Today’s feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary is not merely the commemoration of an event described by Saint Luke — And Mary rising up in those days, went into the hill country with haste into a city of Juda. And she entered into the house of Zachary, and saluted Elizabeth — it is an actual visitation of the Mother of God, here and now, to all who, hearing her salutation, open their homes to her presence. Today’s feast is a new arrival of the Mother of God, the Cause of our Joy, the living Tabernacle of the Most High.  At Matins, Saint Ambrose said:

If at her first entrance so great an advantage was seen that at Mary’s salutation the babe leaped in the womb, and the mother was filled with the Holy Ghost: what great benefit should we think was bestowed upon him by his being in the presence of Mary for so long at time? Therefore was the prophet anointed, and trained like a good athlete, in his mother’s womb; for his strength was being prepared for a very great contest.

One of the characteristics of our vocation at Silverstream Priory is that we live every moment of every day and night, as Saint Ambrose says, “in the presence of Mary”. We venerate the Blessed Virgin Mary as our Abbess; she lives with us. Our Blessed Lady governs us, looks after us, and instructs us. She consoles us, corrects us, encourages us, and heals our infirmities. John the Baptist, hidden in his mother’s womb, lived and grew in the presence of Mary for three months. We have Mary not only for three months, but always. Our Constitutions have a beautiful section on the place of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the monastery:

The Abbatial Ministry of the Blessed Virgin Mary

16. The annals of monastic history demonstrate that the fruitfulness of any given community is directly proportionate to the holiness of the Abbot who, while tending the flock entrusted to him, continuously engenders new life.  It was, then, by a singular illumination from above that Catherine–Mectilde de Bar, in the seventeenth century, revived an ancient monastic tradition found in both East and West, by which the All–Holy and Immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of God, is chosen and honoured as Abbess of the monastery.

We, then, honour the Mother of Jesus, who sustained the unanimous prayer of the Apostles in the Cenacle of Jerusalem, as the Regina Monachorum and heavenly Abbess under whose protection we desire to persevere in adoration of the Lamb who was slain.

17.  Following the example of Saint John the Apostle who, obedient to the word of Jesus crucified, took Mary into his home and into the intimacy of his priestly heart, we consecrate ourselves to the Blessed Virgin Mary, relying upon her to render our monastery prosperous in the vineyard of the Church, and maintain its vigour.  In a particular way, we entrust to her maternal Heart the perpetual adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament, asking her to make it stable and permanent.

18. The Virgin Mary, being the first adorer of the sacred and august Mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist, and the immaculate victim most perfectly united to the sacrifice of her Son, possesses in fullness, and dispenses with munificence, the graces needed for the spirit of perpetual adoration and reparation to flourish.

19. Every year, therefore, on the Solemnity of the Assumption, August 15th, or on the Sunday within the Octave thereof, the monks, assembled around their Prior, renew the devotional act of election by which they choose the Mother of God as sovereign Lady, Abbess, and Advocate of the monastery.

20.  A worthy image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, depicted as the heavenly Abbess, holds a place of honour in the oratory, chapter room, refectory and corridor of cells in the monastery, so that she may be everywhere invoked and honoured.

On Saturday, 5 July 2014, I gave the following talk at the Evangelium Ireland Conference  for young people held at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth. Part II of the same talk will follow.

Man’s True Self

In my long monastic life how often have I heard young men aspiring to become monks say, “I want to be myself”? And how often have I found myself saying to young men aspiring to become monks, “Be yourself”? The one thing I can say unreservedly about this need to be oneself is that man becomes his true self only on the way to the altar. God created man to be an offerer, a sacerdos, one who makes things over to God. God gave man all created things that they might become, in his sacerdotal hands, an offering of thanksgiving. Finally, God willed that this whole round world, created by him, should serve as man’s altar: a place from which man can reach into heaven to present there his sacrifice to God. Man becomes his true self, his best self, the self God intends him to be insofar as he recovers his own sacerdotal dignity and discovers in all things created matter for a holy oblation. Ultimate the search to become one’s true self leads one to the altar and to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Hence, the title of my talk: “The Mass — You Can’t Live Without It”.

Homo Sapiens

We refer to man as the homo sapiens: that is, one who tastes life, who experiences all things through his senses; who interprets what he has experiened, organises what he has interpreted, and finds meaning in what he has organised.

Homo Liturgicus

Man, however, is more than the homo sapiens. He is also the homo liturgicus, the homo hieraticus, the sacerdos. All that is good, beautiful, and true has been given into his hands. Delighting in what is good, true, and beautiful, man plays in the sight of the Most High. His play is, at once, both solemn and divine. It is an innocent play, bringing joy to the human heart and delighting the Heart of God. Thus is the word fulfilled in which Wisdom says, “I was at his side, a master-workman, my delight increasing with each day, as I made play before him all the while; made play in this world of dust, with the sons of Adam for my play-fellows” (Proverbs 8:30–31).

Homo Eucharisticus

Man is, morever, the homo eucharisticus: the one creature uniquely capable of offering thanksgiving to God. All that he has received from God, he lifts up and gives back to God in thanksgiving. Being the homo eucharisticus, man sees the liturgical potential of all created things; he recognises their doxological finality — for all things attain that for which they were created by uttering something of the glory of God.

Sursum Corda

There is something deep in the soul that stirs to life when one hears the solemn cry from the altar, rising over the earth in the age–old intoning of the Sursum corda, “Hearts on high!” And again, Gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro, “Let us give thanks unto the Lord our God”. One becomes one’s true self only by saying to this solemn invitation: Dignum et iustum est, “It is right and just”.

Becoming an Offering

The human vocation is eucharistic, priestly, and victimal; that is to say that man becomes his true self by giving thanks, by making the holy offering and, finally, by offering not only things to God, but by making the oblation of himself. The Latin word for victim is hostia, from which we derive the English word host, signifying the bread set apart for the Holy Sacrifice. In the Eastern Churches, the same bread set apart for the Holy Mysteries is called the lamb. By offering himself to God, man becomes a sacrificial victim, a hostia (host), an offering made over to God and identified with “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Apocalypse 13:8).

In the Image of God

It is helpful to reflect, I think, on what Sacred Scripture means in saying: “And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). Man is created in the image of God the Word, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was facing God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). The Son, eternally begotten of the Father, finds Himself face–to–face with the Father and, in every moment of eternity, offers Himself to the Father in an oblation of self–giving love and of praise. The Father, for His part, holds the Son in the gaze of His love, and takes delight in the ceaseless offering that rises from the Son in the Holy Spirit. Already, even before His descent into the womb of His Virgin Mother as Priest and Victim, the Son exercises a divine priesthood, offering Himself to the Father.

Adam and Eve, a Royal Priestly Couple

Enchanted by the eternal priesthood of the Son, the Father willed to extend that priesthood to men and women created in His image. Adam and Eve emerged from the creating hands of the Father facing the Father, even as the Son faces Him from all eternity. Seeing the Father, their hearts leaped up in a surge of self–offering and of thanksgiving. Adam and Eve were, from the beginning, invested with a royal priesthood. Not only were they moved to make the spontaneous and gratuitous offering of themselves to God; they were given all of creation as matter for a grand priestly oblation of thanksgiving. Seeing all that God created for them in beauty, in goodness, and in truth, Adam and Eve were compelled to give back what they themselves had received. This was the sacrificial liturgy of the earthly paradise such as God intended it: a royal, priestly couple making over to God — that is sacrificing — what God had made over to them. In exercising this natural priesthood, Adam and Eve realised their highest vocation. Theirs it was to give back to God all that God has bestowed upon them.

Original Sin: Anti–Eucharistic

Then came the tragedy of original sin. Satan, hating the liturgy of the earthly paradise, despising the royal priesthood of Adam and Eve, and disgusted by the consecration of all things created to the Creator, laid his plans to destroy the liturgical, to defile the sacerdotal, and to stop the sacrifice. Deceived by Satan, Adam and Eve fixed their gaze upon one thing and refused to give it up to God. Instead of making an offering to God of the good, the true, and the beautiful things given them, they took what was given them to be sacrificed and left untouched for God — the fruit of the tree — and, grasping it, clutched it to themselves. In that terrible moment they sinned against their sacerdotal dignity. The temple of the earthly paradise was defiled; their royal priesthood was perverted; the earth, designed by God to be an altar, became instead a tomb. The original sin was, it is clear, anti–eucharistic, anti–sacerdotal, and anti–liturgical. Thus was the great and glorious plan of God frustrated; thus did man stop being himself as God intended him to be.

Cain and Abel

The divine spark of Adam’s natural priesthood survived, nonetheless, in the souls of their sons. In Abel, whose sacrifice is still recalled daily in the Roman Canon, it blossomed into a fair offering pleasing to God. In Cain it was troubled and perverse.

And Abel was a shepherd, and Cain a husbandman. And it came to pass after many days, that Cain offered, of the fruits of the earth, gifts to the Lord. Abel also offered of the firstlings of his flock, and of their fat: and the Lord had respect to Abel, and to his offerings. But to Cain and his offerings he had no respect: and Cain was exceedingly angry, and his countenance fell. (Genesis 4:2–5)

Noah Builds an Altar

After the Great Flood, all things having been destroyed, Noah responds to the sacerdotal spark within him and builds an altar. Man cannot be himself without an altar, without a sacrificial oblation, and without exercising his natural priesthood. Man is, by God’s unchanging design, an altar–builder, a sacrificer, and an offering.

“Then Noah built an altar to the Lord” (Genesis 8:20). While both Cain and Abel brought offerings to the Lord (Genesis 4:3), they did so without presenting them upon an altar. Noah is the first altar-builder of the Bible. He builds an altar and offers burnt offerings upon it (cf. Genesis 8:20). Thus does the mystic triad of altar, offering, and offerer appear in the Bible for the first time. Noah, his altar, and his sacrifice already foreshadow the mystery of Christ sung in the reformed Roman Missal’s magnificent fifth Preface for Paschaltide:

Christ, by the offering of His own Body,
brought to perfection the ancient sacrifices in the truth of the cross
and, in commending Himself to you for our salvation,
showed Himself to be at once the priest, the altar, and the lamb.

Earth Rising Heavenward

After Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all built altars to the Lord. In addition to being the place of sacrifices and libations, the altars built by the patriarchs marked a place of divine intervention. They localized and memorialized the encounter of man with God. Originally a mound of rocks or elevation, the altar symbolizes the earth rising above itself and straining heavenward. It is, at the same time, the place where heaven bends low to touch the earth, to receive man’s offering.

The Meaning of Sacrifice

When, in a sacrificial action, a creature is placed upon an altar, it is made over to God and given up to His hands. Jesus Himself says in Matthew 23:19 that it is, “the altar that makes the offering sacred”. It is by virtue of being placed on the altar that the offering becomes a sacrifice. Saint Augustine (in Book X of The City of God) teaches that whatsoever is placed on the altar becomes sacrificium, a thing made over to God, a thing made sacred. When the same creature is set ablaze in a holocaust, its rising smoke carries the prayer of the offerer into heaven where God takes pleasure in its fragrance.

Communion with God

The altar is the place of a mysterious exchange. The altar of the sacrifice is, at the same time, the sacred table of a mysterious at-one-ment (adunatio) with God. Offerings of food and libations become the food and drink of God; food and drink received from the altar become the means of communion with God.

Blood–Bonding

The altar is also the place of a bonding in blood. Moses takes the blood of sacrifices, pours it upon altar, and throws it over the people (cf. Exodus 24:5-8). Altar-blood becomes the blood of a covenant, the blood-bond between God and the people. “And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. . . . And Moses took the blood and threw it upon the people, and said, ‘Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you in accordance with these words” (Exodus 24:6-8).

An Altar You Shall Make for Me

In Exodus, the Lord speaks to Moses amidst thunders, lightnings, thick cloud, and trumpet blast (Ex 20:18), giving instruction on how to build an altar: “An altar of earth you shall make for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen; in every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you. And if you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool upon it you profane it” (Ex 20:24-5). Later, the Lord requires a portable “tabernacle of the tent of meeting” (Ex 39:32), a sign that He dwells in the midst of His people even as they journey in the wilderness. At the center of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting stands the altar. The Lord prescribes the form of this portable altar. “You shall make the altar of acacia wood, five cubits long and five cubits broad; the altar shall be square, and its height shall be three cubits” (Ex 27:1).

A History of Altars

In some way, the history of the Chosen People is a history of altars. The building of multiple altars marks a movement toward the one altar of the the one God that, in the temple of Jerusalem, will be the sign of the one worship offered by God’s one people. The religious life of Israel revolves around the altar. The prophet Ezekiel describes in detail the temple altar and its fittings (cf. Ezechiel 43:13-17). While the Levites will be charged with ordering the service of God in a more general way, the Aaronic priesthood will be centered exclusively on the service of the altar (cf. Numbers 3:6-10 and 1 Chronicles 6:48-49).

The Body of Christ

The one altar of the one temple, in turn, points to Christ. The true and indestructible altar is the Body of Christ Himself, covered with the outpouring of His Precious Blood. True God and true Man, Jesus, raised high on the wood of the Cross, fulfills the mystery signified in every mound of rock and earth straining heavenward to receive the descending glory of God. “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself” (John 12:32).  Christ, being our true Communion Sacrifice, establishes in the blood-bond of His new and everlasting covenant those who drink from the chalice offered in thanksgiving to God at the altar.

Christ the Altar

It is in this sense that the tradition speaks of the altar as Christ. The altar signifies Christ because His Body is the one altar of Christians, the one altar of the Church, the one altar of the cosmos, covered with the Blood of the Lamb. The altars we build are sacred signs pointing to Christ, the one altar upon which all men can be consecrated, the one altar from which ascends the “worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24) that the Father seeks.

Consecration of the Altar

The consecration of the altar is the high point of the rite of the Dedication of a Church. The altar is anointed lavishly with Holy Chrism, making it a sign of Christ, the Anointed of the Father. The smoke of burning incense rises from the altar itself; it is the prayer of Christ and of the Church ascending to the Father in the sweet fragrance of the Holy Spirit. The altar is clothed in holy vesture; more than merely functional or even festive table linens, the altar cloth signifies the splendor of the risen Christ in the midst of the Church. “The Lord has reigned; He is clothed with beauty” (Psalm 92:1). The illumination of the altar with candles evokes the gladsome radiance of Christ; all who look to the altar and all who approach it reflect something of the light of Christ. “Look towards Him” says the psalm, “and be radiant” (Psalm 33:6). Worked into the base of the altar, beneath the holy table itself, is a miniature sepulchre prepared for the relics of the saints. Thus does the altar signify Christ the Head’s indissoluble union with the members of His Mystical Body.

Overshadowed by the Holy Spirit

The altar is often considered in relation to Christ; less frequently is it seen as the rock from which the Holy Spirit flows to irrigate the Church and make her fruitful. In every celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Holy Spirit overshadows the altar, the offerings placed on it, and the people assembled around it. Even outside of Mass the altar remains a sign and pledge of the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit.

Theology of the Altar

A primary source for any theology — and for any spirituality — of the altar is the proper Mass given in the Roman Missal for the Dedication of an Altar. The Preface, in particular, deserves to be studied, repeated, and held in the heart:

It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation,
always and everywhere to give you thanks,
Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God,
through Christ our Lord.
He is the true priest and He is the victim
who offered Himself to you on the altar of the cross
and commanded us ceaselessly to celebrate
the memorial of that sacrifice.
And so your people have built this altar
which we dedicate to you with surpassing joy.
Here is the true high place
where the sacrifice of Christ is continually offered in mystery;
here perfect praise is given to you;
here our redemption is set forth.
Here is made ready the table of the Lord
where your children are refreshed by the Body of Christ
and gathered into the Church one and holy.
Here your faithful drink deeply of the Spirit
from the streams of water flowing from Christ the spiritual rock;
through Him they themselves become a holy oblation, a living altar.
Therefore, Lord, with all the Angels and Saints,
we praise you, singing in joy.

Veneration of the Altar

We express this rich significance of the altar and impress it upon ourselves by means of certain prescribed gestures. Clergy and laity alike, passing before the altar, venerate it with a profound bow; if the Blessed Sacrament is reserved there, one genuflects. The priest and deacon kiss the altar upon arriving in the sanctuary and before leaving it. In the traditional rite of Holy Mass the priest kisses the altar frequently; these repeated kisses signify the desire of the priest — representing both Christ the Bridegroom and the whole bridal Body of His Church — for the fruitful consummation of their sacramental union. The suppression of the repeated kissing of the altar in the Novus Ordo is a cold rationalistic innovation foreign to the language of love in which one or even two kisses are not enough.

The incensation of the altar at Lauds during the Benedictus (Canticle of Zechariah), at Vespers during the Magnificat (Canticle of the Blessed Virgin Mary), and at several key moments during Mass evokes the mystery of Christ through whom every prayer of ours ascends to the Father and through whom every “grace and heavenly blessing” (Roman Canon) descend to us.

The Heart of Ecclesial and Missionary Life

The altar at the heart of our churches is, in the deepest sense, the heart of the Church. Man becomes his true self only in relation to the altar of the Holy Sacrifice. “I will come to the altar of God, the God of my joy” (Ps 42:4). Man cannot become his true self, his best self, the eucharistic, sacerdotal, and oblative self that God wills him to be, apart from actual participation in the Holy Sacrifice of Mass.

To be continued.

Here is Part II of the talk I gave on Saturday:

The Liturgy, Summit and Wellspring

The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, affirms that,

The liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows. For the aim and object of apostolic works is that all who are made sons of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise God in the midst of His Church, to take part in the sacrifice, and to eat the Lord’s supper.

Ultimately, every missionary endeavour has but one goal: to bring men and women to the altar. It was the loss of this priestly, sacrificial, and eucharistic perspective that brought about a crisis in missionary life from which the Church has yet to recover.

Active Participation in the Most Holy Mysteries

Two papal documents (the first from Saint Pius X, and the second from Pope Pius XII) and a text of the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy constitute an authoritative teaching on participation in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The first of these, dated 22 November 1903, is contained pope Saint Pius X’s epoch–making Motu Proprio, Tra le sollecitudini, a document that, in many ways, still waits to be implemented in the Church.

Pope Saint Pius X

Filled as We are with a most ardent desire to see the true Christian spirit flourish in every respect and be preserved by all the faithful, We deem it necessary to provide before anything else for the sanctity and dignity of the temple, in which the faithful assemble for no other object than that of acquiring this spirit from its foremost and indispensable font, which is the active participation in the most holy mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church. And it is vain to hope that the blessing of heaven will descend abundantly upon us, when our homage to the Most High, instead of ascending in the odor of sweetness, puts into the hand of the Lord the scourges wherewith of old the Divine Redeemer drove the unworthy profaners from the Temple.

Pope Saint Pius X declares “active participation in the most holy mysteries (the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass) and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church (the Divine Office)” the primary and indispensable wellspring of the true Christian spirit. One can be neither fully human nor fully Catholic apart from the altar, the priesthood, and the Holy Sacrifice. “Active participation in the most holy mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church” is not a mere option for those who are so inclined, nor is it one school of “spirituality” among many in an ever–expanding and ever–changing array of fashions in piety; it is the “foremost and indispensable font” of the true Christian spirit, the universal and supremely effective means by which, following the motto of Pope Saint Pius X, all things can be “restored in Christ”. Instaurare omnia in Christo (Ephesians 1:10). No pious devotion, no system of meditation, and no ascetical endeavour — however praiseworthy these things may be in themselves — possess the efficacy and virtue of “active participation in the most holy mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church”.

The restoration of humanity to man — that is the recovery of his eucharistic, sacerdotal, and victimal vocation — is the beginning of the restoration all things in Christ.  The finest flowerings of human culture are themselves the fruit of the cultus of latria, that is, of the sacrificial worship due to God alone.

Pope Pius XII and Mediator Dei

The question remains, then, of just how one participates actively “in the most holy mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church”. Pope Pius XII situates active participation in a personal and corporate adhesion to the sacrifice of Christ who, in every Holy Mass, exercises His priesthood and offers Himself as a spotless victim to the Father. One comes to Holy Mass, then, not after the manner of a consumer looking seeking spiritual gratification but, rather, as an offerer bearing to the altar the oblation of his own life, as a royal priest set over all created things in order to raise them heavenward in the Great Thanksgiving (Eucharist), and as a victim, a sacrificial lamb ready to be made over to God in Christ. In Christ and in the members of His Mystical Body are the prophetic words of Abraham to Isaac wondrously fulfilled: “God Himself will provide the lamb” (Genesis 22:8). Pope Pius XII writes:

All the elements of the liturgy, then, would have us reproduce in our hearts the likeness of the divine Redeemer through the mystery of the cross, according to the words of the Apostle of the Gentiles, “With Christ I am nailed to the cross. I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me.” Thus we become a victim, as it were, along with Christ to increase the glory of the eternal Father.

Victimhood

Pope Pius XII does not shrink from using the language of victimhood; rather does he elucidate its meaning and propose it as something essential to the holiness of all the baptized. He goes on to say:

Let this, then, be the intention and aspiration of the faithful, when they offer up the divine Victim in the Mass. For if, as St. Augustine writes, our mystery is enacted on the Lord’s table, that is Christ our Lord Himself, who is the Head and symbol of that union through which we are the body of Christ and members of His Body; if St. Robert Bellarmine teaches, according to the mind of the Doctor of Hippo, that in the sacrifice of the altar there is signified the general sacrifice by which the whole Mystical Body of Christ, that is, all the city of redeemed, is offered up to God through Christ, the High Priest: nothing can be conceived more just or fitting than that all of us in union with our Head, who suffered for our sake, should also sacrifice ourselves to the eternal Father. For in the sacrament of the altar, as the same St. Augustine has it, the Church is made to see that in what she offers she herself is offered.

United with High Priest and His Earthly Minister

Pope Pius XII evokes the compelling image of the sacrificing priest standing before the altar in persona Christi capitis — in the person of Christ the Head. Behind him, and facing with him in the same direction, stand the faithful participating in the Holy Sacrifice. Here, in the words of Pope Pius XII, quoting Saint Augustine, is “the general sacrifice by which the whole Mystical Body of Christ, that is, all the city of redeemed, is offered up to God through Christ, the High Priest”. The priest alone offers the sacrifice in persona Christi capitis, but the people, members conjoined to the same Head, place the seal of their assent upon the Great Thanksgiving by singing “Amen”.

Let the faithful, therefore, consider to what a high dignity they are raised by the sacrament of baptism. They should not think it enough to participate in the eucharistic sacrifice with that general intention which befits members of Christ and children of the Church, but let them further, in keeping with the spirit of the sacred liturgy, be most closely united with the High Priest and His earthly minister, at the time the consecration of the divine Victim is enacted, and at that time especially when those solemn words are pronounced, “By Him and with Him and in Him is to Thee, God the Father almighty, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honor and glory for ever and ever”; to these words in fact the people answer, “Amen.” Nor should Christians forget to offer themselves, their cares, their sorrows, their distress and their necessities in union with their divine Savior upon the cross.

The Second Vatican Council

Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council, promulgated on 4 December 1963, simply repeats and reaffirms the teachings of Pope Saint Pius X and of Pope Pius XII. For this reason, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy must be interpreted in a hermeneutic of continuity with the teachings of Pope Saint Pius X and Pope Pius XII.

Christ indeed always associates the Church with Himself in this great work wherein God is perfectly glorified and men are sanctified. The Church is His beloved Bride who calls to her Lord, and through Him offers worship to the Eternal Father.

Rightly, then, the liturgy is considered as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ. In the liturgy the sanctification of the man is signified by signs perceptible to the senses, and is effected in a way which corresponds with each of these signs; in the liturgy the whole public worship is performed by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the Head and His members.

From this it follows that every liturgical celebration, because it is an action of Christ the priest and of His Body which is the Church, is a sacred action surpassing all others; no other action of the Church can equal its efficacy by the same title and to the same degree. (Sacrosanctum Concilium, article 7)

The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy express the Church’s earnest desire that all the faithful should participate fully, consciously, and actually in liturgical celebrations. This, of course, is but a rephrasing of what Pope Saint Pius X wrote sixty years earlier concerning, “the active participation in the most holy mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church”.

Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that fully conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy. Such participation by the Christian people as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a redeemed people (1 Pet. 2:9; cf. 2:4-5), is their right and duty by reason of their baptism.

In the restoration and promotion of the sacred liturgy, this full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered before all else; for it is the primary and indispensable source from which the faithful are to derive the true Christian spirit; and therefore pastors of souls must zealously strive to achieve it, by means of the necessary instruction, in all their pastoral work.

Into the Sacrifice of Christ

The highest and most fruitful degree of participation in the liturgical action is achieved when the faithful, drawn to the altar and represented there by the priest, inhere in the great eucharistic and sacrificial movement for which they were created, and into which they were baptized: Christ the High Priest making Himself over to the Father. Christ offers Himself in sacrifice, not in isolation from His members, for He exercises His priesthood as the Head of His Body, the Church. He is the sacrifice by which all creation is sanctified. He is the Lord of History, the Alpha and the Omega in whom all things that are in heaven and on earth are recapitulated and restored to their primal liturgical and eucharistic finality.

Man Liturgically Fulfilled and Realised

One comes to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, then, not to “get something out of it” but to pour oneself into it. And, in doing this, one becomes one’s true self  in a manner that glorifies God and causes one to go forward, impelled by the sacrificial love of Christ, “from glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:1). The Mass — you cannot live without it.

Dr Peter Kwasniewski, writing on The New Liturgical Movement offers a cogent and encouraging reflection on the 7th anniversary of Summorum Pontificum. Here is Dr Kwasniewski’s text. The boldface emphases are my own.

I remember distinctly the day of July 7, 2007.

Over the course of the preceding year, there had been a number of amicable but highly tentative discussions about the extent to which the traditional Latin Mass should find a place in the life of our newly established college, which was to open its doors in August 2007. At that time, the Gregorian rite was the preserve of a vibrant minority of Catholics gratefully receiving the fruits of Ecclesia Dei communities, along with the occasional lone priest who had managed to secure episcopal permission or who had been tapped to provide this service for a group of the faithful. Adherence to the old Mass was slowly growing, but the movement dwelt in the margins, in the shadows.

For our college as for so many communities, Summorum Pontificum simply changed the whole nature of the conversation, forcefully and yet peacefully. There was no longer any question of whether the old Mass would be welcome at our school; it was a foregone conclusion for those who wished to be obedient to the Magisterium, as we did. Rather, we began working out a practical plan for making it available to all who desired it.

For Catholics loyal to the Church’s Tradition, this motu proprio meant the end of a sort of Thirty Years’ War of outrageously mismatched armies. It was a surprising triumph for the faithful who had insisted that the ancient liturgy, the Mass of the Saints, has and will always have an important place in the Church’s life, and who begged to be able to worship God as so many generations had done before. Pope Benedict XVI established equal canonical rights for the OF and the EF. He did not say they were altogether equal in every way; he noted that the OF is more prevalent, while the EF “must be given due honor for its venerable and ancient usage.” Nevertheless, for the immediate peace of the Church, what matters most is that, canonically speaking, they are equal. After Pope Benedict, the EF can never be seen as the ugly duckling, the unwanted stepchild, the nutty aunt of the family, or a radioactive material to be encased in lead. It is part of the living heritage of every Roman Catholic priest, every Roman Catholic believer.

In the United States alone, the growth of the TLM is impressive indeed: from about 20 Sunday Masses in 1988, to 220 in 2006, to over 500 today. The religious communities that either serve the faithful in active ministry or utilize the old liturgical books in their contemplative life have prospered and grown, with a vastly disproportionate number of vocations for their size. There is no vocations crisis within this traditional realm—only in the larger Church whose leaders are still all too often wandering in the desert of modernism, wondering what happened to the once-filled churches and seminaries, and thinking that “more of the same” has got to be the solution. In reality, it’s time for “something completely different”—something altogether different from the postconciliar modus operandi. Something so different … it is, thankfully, the same as the Roman Church has always had for all her centuries, with the natural growth and flux of an organic reality.

The New Evangelization will stand or fall on the strength of authentic liturgical renewal, and this renewal will stand or fall depending on whether or not it is rooted in the traditional Latin Mass as an immense good in itself and as a constant point of reference for the Ordinary Form.

No, the motu proprio and its accompanying letter are not perfect; even taking Universae Ecclesiae into account, some thorny theoretical and practical difficulties remain. For example, if the explicit requirement in Canon Law that seminarians be well instructed in Latin is routinely ignored, how much hope is there that, on the basis of a papal commendation, they will be taught the traditional Mass, Office, and sacramental rites as a component of their comprehensive training in the Roman Rite? And when little or no effort is made to enforce the Church’s standing law or to protect clergy from well-intentioned but misguided superiors, will a mere legislative framework adequately defend the rights of priests and the faithful? Disciplinary actions of incredible harshness against traditional religious communities and individual priests continue to make headlines. We are far, alas, from the peaceful resolution Pope Benedict wished and worked for; in fact, it would be no exaggeration to say that the Pope’s impassioned invitation to his brother bishops has been culpably rejected by many:

Let us generously open our hearts and make room for everything that the faith itself allows. … What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.  (Benedict XVI, Letter to Bishops, July 7, 2007)

And yet, in spite of this mixed reception and internecine strife, have we not abundant cause for rejoicing in all that the Lord has done through his servant Benedict and through this courageous incentive to the modern Counterreformation? For there can be no doubt that Summorum Pontificum has reshaped the liturgical landscape profoundly and permanently.

The most important thing right now is for priests everywhere to live confidently according to what Pope Benedict established as their canonical right—that is, to celebrate the Extraordinary Form for the glory of God in communion with His saints, for their own priestly benefit, and for the spiritual nourishment of their flocks. And to do this means learning the old Mass if they have not already done so—a challenging task, but by no means insurmountable. I have known and worked with several priests who started from scratch and who, having achieved their goal, feel privileged and blessed to be able to offer this venerable rite of the Mass. The resources and opportunities have only multiplied with the passing of these seven years.

Priests, men of God, shepherds ordained for the altar and the flock: take courage, be stouthearted! Respond as generously as you can to this great invitation, this movement of grace sweeping through the Church.

Men Wise and Mature

Silverstream Priory is blessed to have among its Oblates, several married deacons in the service of the Church in the Diocese of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Today’s reading from the Holy Rule applies, with a particular relevance, to our deacon Oblates. What the cellarer of the monastery is to his abbot, deacons are to their bishop. It is helpful, I think, to read through Chapter XXXI of the Holy Rule, replacing “abbot” with “bishop” and “cellarer” with “deacon”. Here, then, is Saint Benedict’s text, with bits of the commentary that I gave this morning in Chapter.

CHAPTER XXXI.
What kind of Man the Cellarer of the Monastery is to be
8 Mar. 8 July. 7 Nov.

Let there be chosen out of the community, as Cellarer of the Monastery, a man wise and of mature character, temperate, not a great eater, not haughty, nor headstrong, nor arrogant, not slothful, nor wasteful, but a God-fearing man, who may be like a father to the whole community. Let him have the care of everything, but do nothing without leave of the Abbot. Let him take heed to what is commanded him, and not sadden his brethren. If a brother ask him for anything unreasonably, let him not treat him with contempt and so grieve him, but reasonably and with all humility refuse what he asks for amiss. Let him be watchful over his own soul, remembering always that saying of the Apostle, that “he that hath ministered well, purchaseth to himself a good degree.” Let him have especial care of the sick, of the children, of guests and of the poor, knowing without doubt that he will have to render an account of all these on the Day of Judgment. Let him look upon all the vessels and goods of the Monastery as though they were the consecrated vessels of the altar. Let him not think that he may neglect anything: let him not be given to covetousness, nor wasteful, nor a squanderer of the goods of the Monastery; but do all things in proper measure, and according to the bidding of his Abbot.

Like a Father to the Whole Community

The abbot chooses his cellarer from among the brethren, taking care to appoint to this task a man who is “wise and of mature character, temperate, not a great eater, not haughty, nor headstrong, nor arrogant, not slothful, nor wasteful, but a God-fearing man, who may be like a father to the whole community”. The description of Saint Benedict’s cellarer is, I think, exactly what a bishop looks for in his deacons. Note that Saint Benedict says that he would have the cellarer be “like a father to the whole community”. It is the abbot’s responsibility, as father of the monastery, to generate other fathers, to foster in each one of his sons the full development of their manly potential. Only by growing into fatherhood does a man realise his God–given potential.

A Father Among Fathers

Recently, I read the comment of an abbot in Europe who said in an interview, “Do not call me Father; I am just a brother among brothers, even if I have been chosen to lead the community”. (One hears the same sort of discourse among religious women.) Balderdash! This is no more than a rehashing of the tired old principles of the French Revolution —Liberty, Equality, Fraternity— that have infected and poisoned religious life for the past fifty years, rendering it tired, sterile, and degenerative. An abbot is not a brother among brothers; he is the Father among fathers.

Generative or Degenerative

A monastic community must be generative  . . . or it will become degenerative. Without men who have grown into spiritual fatherhood, in any one of its many expressions, and assumed the responsibilities inherent in it, a community will wither, and die. Spiritual fruitfulness is intrinsically linked to fatherhood and motherhood in the order of grace. “I am the vine: you the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing. If any one abide not in me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up, and cast him into the fire, and he burneth” (John 15:5–6). Just as the cellarer is like a father to his monastery, the deacon is, in his own right, like a father to the Church.

Visible and Yet Invisibly Equipped

By saying, “let him have the care of everything”, Saint Benedict is making an important distinction. The cellarer has the care of everything; the abbot, in contrast, as the care of everyone. The abbot of the monastery has the care of souls; it is his mission to look after the men in his care by providing them with the daily bread of godly teaching, with the sacraments, with spiritual food, drink, and medicine and, above all, with his blessings and intercessory prayer. The cellarer has the care of things. Saint Benedict does not minimise the value and importance of things. On the contrary, he would have them be handled “as though they were the consecrated vessels of the altar”.  The cellarer carries out his mandate of administration in submission to the abbot, for here, as in all things, the material is at the service of the spiritual, the human at the service of the divine, the transitory at the service of what is eternal. I cannot help but relate this to the marvelous opening section of Sacrosanctum Concilium:

It is of the essence of the Church that she be both human and divine, visible and yet invisibly equipped, eager to act and yet intent on contemplation, present in this world and yet not at home in it; and she is all these things in such wise that in her the human is directed and subordinated to the divine, the visible likewise to the invisible, action to contemplation, and this present world to that city yet to come, which we seek. (Sacrosanctum Concilium, article 2)

Graciousness

The cellarer is not to grieve or vex his brethren. The cellarer’s mission is, in fact, to foster an atmosphere of contentment and joy in the community. Even requests that may be judged unreasonable are to be considered graciously. This attitude of graciousness is quintessentially Benedictine; it is an expression of gentleness, of humility, and of a noble character. Should it be necessary to refuse a request, even the refusal is to be made in such a way that the brother making the request goes away contented, and with peace in his heart. The cellarer must acquire the art of saying “no”, whenever necessary, in so gracious and courteous a manner, that charity is in no way offended, and joy in no way diminished.

A Dispenser of Merciful Relief

“Let him have especial care of the sick, of the children, of guests and of the poor, knowing without doubt that he will have to render an account of all these on the Day of Judgment”. In reading this sentence, Saint Laurence, the Roman deacon martyr, immediately comes to mind. The cellarer is the abbot’s almoner, that is, the authorised dispenser of merciful relief to those in need. Again, one can see clearly that the deacon ministers in relationship to his bishop in the very same manner as the cellarer ministers in relationship to his abbot.

Reverence, Good Order, and Cleanliness

“Let him look upon all the vessels and goods of the Monastery as though they were the consecrated vessels of the altar”. This is one of the most quoted passages of the Holy Rule. The principle applies not only to the cellarer, but to each monk and to the reverent stewardship of the things in his care. A monk’s cell is no less worthy of good order and cleanliness than the sanctuary of the Oratory.  The library, kitchen, refectory, laundry, tool and garden sheds, storage rooms, and guest quarters are no less sacred than the choir and sacristy, and this because the whole monastery is the house of God, a temple of perpetual adoration. A chaotic cell makes for a chaotic soul. Disorder in the office or workshop creates disorder in the mind. Untidiness leads to discouragement, depression, and apathy.

According to Christ’s Bidding

As always, Saint Benedict insists on “proper measure”. Saint Benedict would have all things be fitting, suitable, and well–chosen. If the cellarer must err, let him err on the side of generosity, for there is nothing more unpleasant than a mean–spirited, pinching, economy that cuts too close to the edge. The cellarer is not an independent agent; he does all things according to the bidding of the abbot. The abbot, for his part, must do all things according to Christ’s bidding, sought in prayer, and revealed by the Holy Ghost.

Today is the 374th anniversary of the profession of Catherine de Bar under the Rule of Saint Benedict. It was the feast of the Translation of Saint Benedict, 11 July 1640. Catherine de Bar was 25 years old; she changed her name to Catherine de Sainte–Mectilde in honour of the medieval Benedictine mystic of the liturgy, the famous “Nightingale of Helfta”

Saint Teresa: La Madre

Saint Teresa of Jesus, mystic, teacher of prayer, reformer, and Doctor of the Church, has, without any doubt, set the benchmark for measuring the influence of holy women in the life of the Church. People do not, for example, find it at all odd that La Madre, as she is widely known, should be the primary reference for men who embrace life in any of the reformed expressions of Carmel that claim her as their inspiration and teacher. I have often heard Carmelite friars speak enthusiastically of Saint Teresa as their “holy mother.” So well known was Saint Teresa in the 17th century that Bossuet, “the eagle of Meaux”, found no better way of describing Blessed Marie of the Incarnation, the intrepid mystic of Tours and of Québec, than to call her “the Teresa of the New World”.

Dyed-in-the-Wool Benedictine

Is Saint Teresa the only woman at whose feet men are permitted to sit as disciples at the feet of a master? Is she so unique in the annals of holiness that, as far as men are concerned, a vast chasm separates her from all other mystics and doctors of her sex? My own veneration for Saint Teresa is immense. I would consider it a wondrous blessing to sit at her feet and be numbered among her spiritual progeny . . . but God had another idea for me. He called me to the Benedictine way of life. Ever since Blessed Abbot Marmion introduced me to the Benedictine ideal of holiness, in the middle of the madness of the 60s, I have experienced, over and over again, that it suits me better than any other school of Christian life.

The Benedictine Way

There is no doubt that grace builds on nature. A natural predisposition to the full liturgical life made me take to Benedictine life with a certain ease and, sometimes, with positive delight. The same natural predisposition has caused me terrible sufferings over the years, especially in the endemic liturgical chaos that I experienced as a violence done to my soul. For all of that, I never ceased experiencing the enchantment produced by an antiphon, by a psalm, a responsory, or a collect. The givenness of the liturgy is a masterpiece of divine craftsmanship. The Holy Ghost infuses every detail with a freshness and grace that is hidden from the learned and the clever, but disclosed to little souls, to the man who trudges into choir day after day, knowing, in faith, that there Christ waits for him, and that there, the prayer of Christ will fill his soul.

Enter Henri Brémond

Only when I was nineteen years old did I meet the great lady who would, in these later years of my life, become my own Teresa of Avila. Like Saint Teresa, Mectilde de Bar is a mystic, a teacher of prayer, and a reformer. She is not a Doctor of the Church, but she certainly has the makings of one. It was Henri Brémond (31 July 1865 – 17 August 1933) – say what you will about him, I know that he had a dodgy side — who, in his monumental 11 volume Histoire litteraire du sentiment religieux en France depuis la fin des guerres de religion jusqu’a nos jours introduced me to Mother Mectilde du Saint-Sacrement. I was blessed to have a Benedictine spiritual mentor, Dom R.C., who supplied me with one volume after another of Brémond’s master work. Being nineteen, and having a youthful appetite for reading, I made my way through all 11 volumes, poring over them well past my bedtime. Something about Mectilde de Bar struck a chord deep inside my own soul. Little did I suspect then that the chord would continue resounding even into the sixth decade of my life.

Who is Mectilde de Bar?

So who is Catherine (Mectilde) de Bar (1614-1698), and why would I want to sit at her feet? Why do I call her the Benedictine Teresa of Avila? Her God-seeking journey, though consistent, was torturous, and marked by danger, exile, illness, poverty, and uncertainties on all sides. At the tender age of nineteen she entered the monastery chosen for her by her father; a house of the Annonciades, religious of The Ten Pleasures (or Virtues) of the Blessed Virgin Mary, situated at Bruyères, in the diocese of Toul.

Taught by Our Lady

As a novice, Catherine, who, as an Annonciade had received the name, soeur Saint-Jean-l’Évangéliste, suffered a devastating season of dryness in prayer and interior desolation. She turned to the Blessed Virgin Mary, saying, “I don’t know how to pray, nor do I know where to turn to learn how. If thou thyself wilt not deign to become my teacher, just as, up until now, thou hast been my mother, I am lost.” Our Blessed Lady heard her request, so much so that years later, Mectilde was able to write: “I can assure you that all that I know I learned from the Most Holy Virgin; she has always been my teacher, and, in all the situations in which I have found myself during my life, she has never failed to instruct me in my duties.”

Refugees

The Thirty Years War (1618-1648) was raging at the time, pitting France against the House of Austria. When Swedish soldiers, many of them fanatical Lutherans fighting for the French, invaded Lorraine, they had no scruples about sacking churches and desecrating the Most Blessed Sacrament. After the Swedes, notoriously undisciplined French mercenary soldiers tore through Lorraine, completing the utter devastation of the country. One of these was a former suitor of Catherine de Bar. Donning masculine attire, Catherine and a companion, also disguised as a man, fled. A farmer hid them under bales of hay loaded on his cart. When Catherine’s pursuer, alerted to her escape, pierced the bales with his sword, not one thrust touched Catherine and her companion. They had prayed continuously to the Blessed Virgin to protect them.

Benedictine Hospitality

By this time, the whole community of Annonciades was obliged to abandon the monastery of Bruyères. They elected 20 year old Mother Saint-Jean-l’Evangéliste superior of the group and, in search of safety and quiet, moved from one place to another until, in the end, they accepted the invitation of the Benedictines of Rambervillers to take refuge with them. These Benedictines had embraced the observance of Dom Didier de la Cour (1550-1623), founder of the reformed Congregation of Saints Vanne and Hydulphe. The Annonciades lived alongside the Benedictines for a year (1638-1639) during which Catherine de Bar discovered the Rule of Saint Benedict.

Profession as a Benedictine

After placing her five Annonciades in houses of their Order, Mother Saint-Jean was clothed in the Benedictine habit on 2 July 1639, receiving the name Catherine de Sainte-Mectilde. On the feast of the Translation of Saint Benedict, 11 July 1640, 25 year old Catherine de Sainte-Mectilde made her monastic profession. The Franciscan Friars Minor, charged with the oversight of the Annonciades, bitterly contested the validity of this Benedictine profession. Not until 1660 did a rescript of Pope Alexander VII settle the question by recognizing Catherine de Sainte-Mectilde as a proper Benedictine, owing no allegiance to the Friars Minor.

Montmartre

The Duchy of Lorraine, already ravaged by war, now fell to famine and plague. Saint Vincent de Paul, moved by so much suffering, sent a group of ten Lazarists to Lorraine to help the poorest of the poor. Learning of the plight of the itinerant Benedictines, Saint Vincent had them brought safely to Paris, where, on the evening of 29 August 1641, Mademoiselle Legras (Saint Louise de Marillac (August 12, 1591–March 15, 1660) received the exhausted travelers into her own home. The next day, Catherine de Sainte-Mectilde and her companion climbed to the summit of Montmartre where Lady Abbess de Beauvilliers was waiting to welcome them into the great Benedictine abbey that, at the time, covered la butte, close to the site of the present Basilica of the Sacred Heart.

Normandy and Holy Gentlemen Friends

An opportunity to reconstitute her community in Normandy became the occasion for Catherine to meet some of the greatest spiritual figures of 17th century France’s mystical invasion: Saint John Eudes, Monsieur de Renty, and Monsieur de Bernières were among them. Normandy was, however, but another halt in the journey. In June 1643, Mother Catherine de Sainte-Mectilde, together with her companion, Bernardine de la Conception, returned to Paris, hoping to find there, a place that the whole community from Lorraine might finally call home.

Chrysostom of Saint Lô Makes HIs Prophecy

In Paris, Catherine de Sainte-Mectilde met the famous Father Chrysostom of Saint-Lô, provincial of the Franciscans of the Third Order Regular in France. Catherine wrote an account of her soul for Father Chrysostom. He was to be her spiritual guide until his death three years later in 1646. Father Chrysostom taught a contemplative prayer that was the pure abandonment of the soul to the action of the Divine Bridegroom. There was, however, nothing of the quietist about him; he enjoined Catherine to practise silence, withdrawal from the world, hiddenness, annihilation of self, abjection, obedience, and love of the cross. He imposed frightening practices of penance on Catherine: no more than three hours of sleep, the discipline, hair shirt, and a girdle of iron set about with points. Concerning Catherine de Sainte-Mectilde, Father Chrysostom made this astonishing prophecy: “God, by a most special providence, obliges you to honour the Blessed Sacrament with a particular devotion. It is in this sacrament that Our Lord Jesus Christ lives and shall live until the consummation of the ages in a life that is all hidden.” Father Chrysostom authorized Catherine to receive Holy Communion daily, something extremely rare at the time.

CHAPTER XXXIII. Whether Monks Ought to Have Anything of Their Own

11 Mar. 11 July. 10 Nov.

The vice of private ownership is above all to be cut off from the Monastery by the roots. Let none presume to give or receive anything without leave of the Abbot, nor to keep anything as their own, either book or writing-tablet or pen, or anything whatsoever; since they are permitted to have neither body nor will in their own power. But all that is necessary they may hope to receive from the father of the Monastery: nor are they allowed to keep anything which the Abbot has not given, or at least permitted them to have. Let all things be common to all, as it is written: “Neither did anyone say that aught which he possessed was his own.” But if any one shall be found to indulge in this most baneful vice, and after one or two admonitions do not amend, let him be subjected to correction.

Neither Body nor Will in Their Own Power

I find it remarkable that the daily reading of the Holy Rule in course should, on this feast of our glorious father Saint Benedict, fall on Chapter XXXIII, “Whether Monks Ought to Have Anything of Their Own”. It is precisely this chapter that contains the sentence that best expresses and sums up the distinctively Mectildian hermeneutic of the Holy Rule: They are permitted to have neither body nor will in their own power. Saint Benedict’s radical uprooting of the vice of proprietorship, far from being a merely negative list of prohibitions — Let none presume to give or receive anything without leave of the Abbot, nor to keep anything as their own, either book or writing-tablet or pen, or anything whatsoever — leads to an oblative poverty, to the disappropriation by which a victim laid upon the altar, a hostia, a sacrificial lamb, is made over to God. Herein, according to Saint Augustine, lies the essence of sacrificium.

This Is My Body Given Up for You

The core sentence of Chapter XXXIII — They are permitted to have neither body nor will in their own power — cannot be understood apart from the very words of Jesus on the night before He suffered, “This is my body, which shall be given up for you” (1 Corinthians 11:24), nor apart from the first priestly utterance of the Word upon taking flesh in the sanctuary of the Virgin’s womb: “Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldest not: but a body thou hast fitted to me” (Hebrews 10:5), and again, “Behold I come: in the head of the book it is written of me: that I should do thy will, O God” (Hebrews 10:7).

Configuration to Jesus the Host

The monk who, according to Saint Benedict, has not even his own body and will at his disposal, has entered into the way of a mystic configuration to Jesus the Host, the Victim, the sacrificial Lamb. With Jesus, the Benedictine monk called to live a specifically Mectildian hermeneutic of the Holy Rule, learns to say, day by day and hour by hour, “This, O Father, is my body given up to Thee in Christ, the body thou hast fitted to me, that I should do thy will”.

One Same Victim with Christ Himself

It is in contemplating the Host — Christ in the state of sacrificial victimhood — that the monk begins to learn the depth of what Saint Benedict says when he prescribes that monks are permitted to have neither body nor will in their own power. The monk has nothing, not even his body and his will, because, by receiving the Body of Jesus daily in Holy Communion, he is drawn into the mystery of the Holy Sacrifice, becoming as the liturgy says, “one same victim with Christ Himself.” This is ultimate meaning of Benedictine disappropriation.

Haec munera, Domine, mediator noster Iesus Christus
Tibi reddat accepta;
et nos, una secum,
hostias Tibi gratas exhibeat.

May our mediator Jesus Christ, O Lord,
make these offerings acceptable to Thee;
and together with Himself
may He present us to Thee as victims.

(Secret of the Mass of Jesus Christ, Eternal High Priest)

Good for Evil and Blessings for Curses

Good rendered for evil; blessings for curses; pardon, peace, concord, and reconciliation. A Collect for the Memorial of Saint John Gualbert speaks the language of the Gospel, ageless and ever new.

Almighty and ever-living God,
source of peace and lover of concord,
to know Thee is to live, to serve Thee is to reign;
establish us in Thy love,
that by the example of the blessed abbot John Gualbert,
we may render good for evil and blessings for curses,
and so obtain from Thee both pardon and peace.

Victory Over Vengeance

John Gualbert’s monastic vocation unfolded in dramatic circumstances. A medieval Florentine nobleman, he lived in an age and culture that, in spite of the Gospel, exalted vengeance as a matter of honour. When his elder brother was murdered, John felt compelled to avenge him.

On a certain Good Friday, riding through a narrow mountain pass, John came face to face with his brother’s killer. The man was alone. The place was isolated. There was no escape. John drew his sword, ready to exact a bloody vengeance. The murderer raised his arms in the form of a cross and, in the Name of Jesus Crucified, begged John’s forgiveness.
The Encounter With Jesus Crucified

Cut to the heart by the grace of the Cross, John dropped his sword, embraced his enemy, and made his way straight to a church in Florence. There, kneeling before the crucifix, John saw Jesus Crucified bow His head, acknowledging his act of forgiveness and, by the same token, forgiving him all his sins. And so, John became a monk.

A splendid stained-glass window telescopes the story into one scene. John is shown as a young nobleman. With his eyes fixed on the image of the Crucified, he is embracing his enemy, the murderer of his brother. The iconography of Saint John Gualbert makes for a fascinating study. In nearly every image the saint is represented looking at Jesus Crucified, embracing Him, or holding the Cross against his heart.

Life in the Shady Valley

After a few years in Florence, a sympathetic Lady Abbess gave John Gualbert land at Vallombrosa — the name means “Shady Valley” — where he established a new monastery. He never became a priest. The Benedictine observance of Vallombrosa was characterized by simplicity, poverty, and the care of the sick in the monastery hospice. In some ways, Saint John Gualbert prefigured Saint Francis of Assisi.

Peace in the Shadow of the Cross

What speaks to us in all of this, I think, is that John Gualbert’s monastic vocation began on Good Friday in a decisive encounter with Jesus Crucified. Saint John Gualbert points to the Cross as the source of all forgiveness and reconciliation, giving peace to those who dwell in the shadow of its branches. “They shall return,” says Hosea, “and dwell beneath my shadow, they shall flourish as a garden” (Hos 14:7).

The reformed Benedictine lectionary offers proper readings today: Leviticus 19:1-2, 17-18; and Matthew 5:43-48. The lesson taken from Leviticus, speaks powerfully: “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason with your neighbour, lest you bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the Lord” (Lev 19:17-18). The Benedictus Antiphon proposed for today is another stroke of liturgical genius: “Save us, Lord, from our enemies, and from the hands of all who hate us, to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Lk 1:71, 79).

The Face of Christ

The Word of God compels us always to seek the Face of the crucified, risen, and ascended Christ. One cannot look at the Face of Christ and harbour resentment in one’s heart. One cannot look at the Face of Christ and refuse to look at one’s brother. One cannot look at the Face of Christ with compassion and then refuse a look of mercy to one who waits for it.

The Refusal to Look at the Other

It is a matter of simple psychological observation that when one is holding a grudge against another person, one avoids looking at the person’s face. Refusal of the face-to-face is a way of protecting oneself from the heart-to-heart. This is as true of our relations with one another as it is of our relations with Our Lord.

It will be a terrible thing to hear Our Lord say in the hour of judgment: “I sought from you a look of tenderness, a look of reverence, a look of acceptance and you refused to give it to me.” Then one will reply, “Lord, when did I refuse to look at Thee? When did I turn away from Thy Face? I looked at Thee in the Most Holy Eucharist. I contemplated Thine images. I sought Thy Face in the Scriptures.” And He will say, “So often as thou didst refuse thy gaze to one of the least of my brethren, thou didst refuse to look at Me.”

Show Me Your Face That I May Know Your Heart

Ask Saint John Gualbert today to obtain for us the grace to seek always the Face of Jesus Crucified: His Eucharistic Face, His Face hidden in the Scriptures, His Face depicted in holy images — yes — but also His Face in one another. One who refuses to meet the gaze of Our Lord will never come to know the secrets of His Sacred Heart. Quaerite faciem Domini semper. “Seek always the face of the Lord” (Ps 104:4b).

While Keeping Vigil

Benedictine Oblates living and working in the world have two holy patrons: Saint Francesca of Rome whom we celebrated in March, and today’s Saint Henry. One of the things related about Saint Henry is that, on arriving in any town, he would spend his entire first night there in a vigil of prayer in a church dedicated to the Holy Mother of God. When he arrived in Rome in 1014, he spent the night in the Basilica of Saint Mary Major, Rome’s Bethlehem. While keeping vigil, he saw the “Sovereign and Eternal Priest-Child Jesus” enter to celebrate the Holy Mysteries. Saints Lawrence and Vincent assisted Our Lord as deacons. A throng of saints filled the basilica; Angels chanted in choir. It is noteworthy that in Henry’s vision Christ the Priest is a Child. One wonders if he was not keeping vigil before the altar of the Crib of the Infant Jesus in Saint Mary Major, a place of grace for countess souls through the ages.

Touched by the Book of the Gospels

Henry’s vision is very much like those of Saint Gertrude the Great: a pulling back of the veil, a glimpse of “what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived” (1 Cor 2:9). After the Gospel, an Angel bearing the book of the Gospels was sent to Henry by the Mother of God. Normally, one kisses the book of the Gospels. Instead the Angel touched Saint Henry’s thigh with it, saying, “Accept this sign of God’s love for your chastity and justice.” From that moment on, Henry limped like Jacob after his night vigil spent wrestling with the angel (cf. Gn 32:24-25). How fascinating — and how consistent with God’s dealings with men — that a mark of weakness should be the sign of a special grace!

The Oblate Emperor

Henry was crowned Emperor in Saint Peter’s Basilica by Pope Benedict VIII in 1014. Henry cherished Benedictine life, spending time in monasteries whenever he could. His greatest joy was to occupy a stall in choir and join the monks in singing the Divine Office. Henry founded monasteries throughout the Empire and endowed them liberally. He became an oblate of the Abbey of Cluny and then asked to make profession as monk at the Abbey of Saint-Vanne. The abbot received him as a monk, and then ordered him, in the name of obedience, to take his place again on the imperial throne.

Set Your Mind on Things That Are Above

Living in virginity with his wife Saint Cunegonda, Saint Henry preserved the heart of a monk. Limping through life, because of his thigh touched by the Angel bearing the Book of the Gospels, Saint Henry represents every man who, while living in the world, is not entirely at home in it. “Set your minds on things that are above,” says the Apostle, “not on things that are on earth” (Col 3:3).

Oblation

In what way was Saint Henry a monk in the midst of the world? He understood that his basic task as a Christian was to contemplate the Face of Christ. The Face of the Child Christ was shown him in that mysterious dream by night in Saint Mary Major. The Child Christ he saw was also the High Priest ascending the altar for the Holy Sacrifice. As an Oblate, Saint Henry surely knew that, in every Mass, his place was on the corporal, close by the bread and the chalice. The Child-Priest, in raising the paten and the chalice heavenward was lifting up Henry’s life, making it an oblation to the Father. He will do the same for us today. We have only to seek His Face and abandon ourselves into His hands.

Tomorrow we will be keeping the feast of Saint Bonaventure, Doctor of the Church. The Seraphic Doctor counsels us wisely:

Question grace, not instruction;
desire, not intellect;
the cry of prayer, not pursuit of study;
the spouse, not the teacher;
God, not man;
darkness, not clarity;
not light, but the wholly flaming fire
which will bear you aloft to God
with fullest unction and burning affection.

Pope Benedict XVI explained the mystical teaching of Saint Bonaventure in his General Audience on 10 March 2010; these are the words of a Doctor explaining a Doctor, of a mystic explaining a mystic, of a theologian of love explaining a theologian of love:

The six wings of the Seraph thus became the symbol of the six stages that lead man progressively from the knowledge of God, through the observation of the world and creatures and through the exploration of the soul itself with its faculties, to the satisfying union with the Trinity through Christ, in imitation of St Francis of Assisi. The last words of St Bonaventure’s Itinerarium, which respond to the question of how it is possible to reach this mystical communion with God, should be made to sink to the depths of the heart:  “If you should wish to know how these things come about, (the mystical communion with God) question grace, not instruction; desire, not intellect; the cry of prayer, not pursuit of study; the spouse, not the teacher; God, not man; darkness, not clarity; not light, but the fire that inflames all and transports to God with fullest unction and burning affection…. Let us then… pass over into darkness; let us impose silence on cares, concupiscence, and phantasms; let us pass over with the Crucified Christ from this world to the Father, so that when the Father is shown to us we may say with Philip, “It is enough for me‘” (cf. ibid., VII 6).

Dear friends, let us accept the invitation addressed to us by St Bonaventure, the Seraphic Doctor, and learn at the school of the divine Teacher:  let us listen to his word of life and truth that resonates in the depths of our soul. Let us purify our thoughts and actions so that he may dwell within us and that we may understand his divine voice which draws us towards true happiness.

Yvonne-Aimée Makes Herself Known

It was July 9, 1956. Someone entered the life of Julian Green (1900-1998) in a most unforeseeable way. Green’s sister Anne, who had remained in Paris and was to join him in Mareil (Seine-et-Oise) a few days later, arrived in Mareil, bringing with her an article by Colonel Rémy that she had torn out of a magazine picked up in her hairdresser’s. The article was about the Augustinian of Malestroit, Mother Yvonne-Aimée de Jésus (1901-1951). Mother Yvonne-Aimée had died only a few years earlier in 1951 after a lifetime of extraordinary love: Jesus’ love for her, and hers for Him. Her life was marked as well by charismatic manifestations of all sorts, including the stigmata and, alas, by frightful persecutions and assaults from below.

A Connection

What most fascinated Julian Green about Mother Yvonne-Aimée was that, for twenty years, she was directed by the Jesuit Father Crété, the same priest who prepared him for reception into the Catholic Church at the age of fifteen, and wanted to see him become a Benedictine monk in the Isle of Wight. Green never really got over the bitter disappointment he caused Father Crété by not leaving the world for the cloister.

Discovering the close bond between Father Crété and Mother Yvonne-Aimée, and the prodigies and signs wrought by God through her, Julian Green had an inner certitude that Father Crété had asked the holy nun of Malestroit to pray very specially for him.

When a Saint Takes an Interest in a Soul

The fact that Mother Yvonne-Aimée, of whom he knew nothing previously, entered his life, in this way, only days after the decisive confession of his “second conversion”, and at a time when he was experiencing an compelling spiritual tension in his life, convinced Julian Green of the grace of her intercession for him. Yvonne-Aimée pursued him into his desert. She made herself known to him in order to help him break free of the bonds of sin that, for so long, had held him enslaved in a moral torment. Julian Green began to pray to her, and in his absolute break with a sinful past, recognized the proof of her action.

Chastity and Charity

Julian Green always secretly longed for holiness. He knew, all the same, that “one is not necessarily holy because one is chaste.” He recalled the line of the old poet William Langland that, “chastity without charity is enchained in the very pit of hell.” For Green, charity was everything. “God,” he said, “has given us but one heart only to love him and to love men.” Julian Green desired chastity because, almost without being able to articulate it, he wanted to be a saint. And he wanted to love as God would have him love.

The Anniversary of a Heavenly Friend

Tomorrow, July 16th is the 113th birthday of one of my dearest heavenly friends: Mother Marie–Yvonne-Aimée de Jésus (Yvonne Beauvais), Augustinian Canoness, Hospitaller of the Mercy of Jesus, of the Monastery of Malestroit in Brittany, France. Born on the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in 1901, Mother Yvonne-Aimée died at 49 years of age on 3 February 1951.

Beloved of Jesus

Mother Yvonne-Aimée’s life was indescribably rich . . . in the most bitter sufferings and in an avalanche of the most astonishing charisms. From the time of her girlhood she knew of Our Lord’s tender love for her. She believed in it. She trusted it, and she staked her life upon it. She was, in the truest sense of her name in religion, Aimée de Jésus, the Beloved of Jesus.

An Intercessor

Mother Yvonne-Aimée’s intercession is powerful. From her place in heaven she is, like Saint Thérèse, her own special friend, attentive to all the prayers addressed to her. She responds graciously, willingly, generously, and promptly to those who ask her for help. In a word, she is in heaven as she was on earth: a dispenser of the Divine Hospitality, of tenderness, mercy, healing, and joy.

A Victim of Violence

It is all to the credit of Mother Yvonne–Aimée’s spiritual son, Father Paul Labutte, that, after more than fifty years of silence, he chose to reveal one of the most painful secrets of her life. On 10 August 1925, three men ambushed Yvonne Beauvais, then twenty-four years old, in the Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt. The three men beat Yvonne, and tortured her. One of the three, a depraved priest, whom she had previously tried to help by addressing to him a warning from Our Lord, violated her. Yvonne lived for some time thereafter in anguish. The reprobate priest later repented of his crime and was converted.
Father Labutte chose to write of this episode in the life of Yvonne-Aimée, believing that victims of similar crimes would take comfort in seeking the intercession of one with a personal experience of their suffering.

Her Care for Priests

Beginning in her early twenties, Mother Yvonne-Aimée had a particular mission to priests. Ever respectful and discreet, she was sensitive to priests in moral distress and in temptation. She readily took on herself the temptations and sufferings of priests. She calmed many a troubled conscience, dispensed wise motherly advice, and communicated joy and hope to priests haunted by depression and tempted to despair. Many times she was sent by Our Lord to deliver a message to priests in the throes of temptation or spiritual combat.
To my brother priests and, in particular to those among them enduring emotional or spiritual sufferings, as well as to those struggling with depression and weariness, I recommend recourse to the intercession of Mother Yvonne-Aimée.
Father Paul Labutte, borrowing a line from the famous French literary critic, Charles du Bos, said of Mother Yvonne-Aimée, with all due proportion, what Du Bos said of Our Lady: “There will never be but one way to come to know her; it is by addressing her. No sooner does one call upon her than she reveals herself by answering.” Personally, I can attest that this is true.

Gaston Courtois and Other Priests

Among the many priests who sought her out was the Abbé Gaston Courtois, Fils de la Charité. The Abbé Courtois exercised a profound influence over the French clergy between 1930 and 1950. It was said of him that he was priestly “to the very last fibre of his soul.” Mother Yvonne-Aimée referred priests in difficulty to the Abbé Courtois. He, in turn, entrusted priests, especially those in need of a real conversion of life, to her. The Abbé Courtois wrote of Mother Yvonne-Aimée:

Only those who were very close to her know to what point she suffered, in a great spirit of Redemption, most especially for priests.

The Impressions of Two Great Abbots

Dom Marie-Gabriel Sortais (1902-1963), Abbot General of the Trappist Order (O.C.S.O.) considered Mother Yvonne-Aimée a great Superior who built all her work on the rock of faith. Dom Sortais remarked Mother Yvonne-Aimée’s gift for pacifying and opening up souls. Until his death in 1963, Dom Sortais kept her photograph on his desk; it was the only photograph of a woman, apart from one of his own mother, that he allowed himself to keep.

The Abbot of Solesmes, Dom Germain Cozien (1921-1959), personally helped while hospitalized at Malestroit, by conversations with Mother Yvonne-Aimée, observed that she was marked by “the sense of prayer, of liturgical beauty, of praising God, in the school of the Church.” And he added: “All the life of Mother Yvonne-Aimée was under the influence of God.” Yvonne-Aimée was not afraid of expressing her friendship. To Dom Cozien she wrote in 1939:

I say it to you simply: I miss your presence. It is so when the Lord permits and seems to want a bond between souls. My prayer, then, will join yours in your dear abbey, which I loved, and love even more now. Did you not feel that also, my Very Reverend Father? May the Most Sweet Lord Jesus be thanked for having sown this joy of heart and soul on my path. Say to Him in the morning when He is all yours, when you hold Him in your hands (how fortunate you are!) even at the risk of prolonging the elevation a little bit, oh, say to Him, Give her, O Lord, Your light, Your strength, and Your mercy.” I have such need of light to know what I must do; of strength, to follow through generously; and of mercy to repair the mistakes that I make.

My Own Experience

Almost thirty years ago, after having tried for a very long time, as most monks do, to practice the ceaseless prayer of the heart, providentially I came upon an out-of-print French biography of Mother Yvonne-Aimée in a used–book store, and learned of her Little Invocation, “O Jesus, King of Love, I put my trust in thy merciful goodness.” One day, kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament without trying to think of anything in particular, I realized, to my surprise, that Mother Yvonne-Aimée’s prayer was repeating itself ceaselessly and effortlessly in my heart. I found myself praying the Little Invocation at every waking moment and even during the night, in a way similar to the practice of the “Jesus Prayer” by monks of the Eastern Church. Over the years, the grace of ceaseless prayer by means of the Little Invocation has not abated. It is always there: a gentle murmur of confidence bubbling up deep inside.

As a newly-ordained priest, I often gave the Little Invocation as penance to those who came to me for Confession. Individuals from all walks of life began attesting to the graces received: graces of inner healing, of victory over persistent and deeply rooted habits of sin, of trust in the mercy of Christ, and of a ceaseless prayer of the heart.

The Little Invocation

O Jésus, Roi d’Amour,
j’ai confiance en ta miséricordieuse bonté.

O Jesus, King of Love,
I trust in thy loving mercy.

Mother Yvonne-Aimée received the inspiration of the Little Invocation in 1922. The invocation began to spread almost immediately, first within her own Order and among patients in their hospitals, and then, especially during World War II, on a world-wide scale. Before long, persons praying the Little Invocation began witnessing to the graces and favours they received. In 1932 the Bishop of Vannes, France, approved the prayer for his diocese. The following year, Pope Pius XI indulgenced it for the Augustinian Canonesses of the Mercy of Jesus, for their sick and for all those hospitalized in their health care facilities. Pope Pius XII renewed the favour, and on December 6, 1958, Pope John XXIII extended it to the universal Church.
Mother Yvonne-Aimée cherished the Little Invocation to Jesus, King of Love; she wanted to make it known and see it spread because such was Our Lord’s own desire. In a letter requesting that Pope Pius XI indulgence the prayer, she wrote:

It is so sweet, so strong, so rich, this little invocation . . . This invocation is appreciated by the sick; it consoles them. They love this prayer because it appeals to the Kingship of Christ Jesus, to His Love, His Mercy, His Goodness; in some way, it compels us to trust. It condenses our familiar invocations to the Sacred Heart and sums them.

In 1927, Mother Yvonne-Aimée had little cards printed in order to spread the prayer. In 1940, during World War II, in order to make the prayer even better known and loved, she had a medal struck. She drew an image of the Child Jesus, King of Love, which has since been distributed around the globe. Her drawing is naive and sweet; let the art critics say what they will, it appeals to the little and the poor, to the weak and the fearful, and has a way of touching their hearts.

Mother Yvonne-Aimée had but one aim: to draw souls to trust in the Heart of the Child King, to hope in His merciful goodness, and to abandon to Him all their worries, their fears, their cares, and even their sins.

More information on Mother Yvonne-Aimée de Jésus and on the invocation, as well as images, statues, and medals of Jesus, King of Love, may be obtained from Silverstream Priory’s Confraternity of Jesus, King of Love.

It occurred to me that today’s feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is most suitable for letting readers of Vultus Christi see the wood–carved statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary (from Montserrat) that is now enthroned in our Chapter Room. The Child Jesus, Eternal Wisdom is seated in her lap. In one hand, the Mother of God holds the orb of the world, signifying that she is the Sovereign Lady and Queen of the Universe; in her other hand she holds the pastoral staff, signifying that we venerate and obey her as our Abbess.

The Blessed Virgin Mary gazes ahead and, in her eyes of mercy, we see an unfailing hope and the assurance of her maternal care. The Son, who reigns from her lap as from a throne, is the King of Love in whose merciful goodness we place our trust.

The statue of Our Lady Abbess is in the very centre of the Chapter Room; she is enthroned above the place where the prior sits each day to explain the Holy Rule, the instruct, comfort, encourage, and correct the brethren. To all who open the ear of their heart to her, Our Lady says: “I am the mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope. In me is all grace of the way and of the truth, in me is all hope of life and of virtue. Come over to me, all ye that desire me, and be filled with my fruits; for my spirit is sweet above honey, and my inheritance above honey and the honey-comb” (Ecclesiasticus 24:24–26).

In the centre of the Chapter Room, between the two rows of oaken stalls, is the lectern bearing the book of the Holy Rule. The Chapter Room is so called because a chapter of the Rule of Saint Benedict is read and explained there each morning after Lauds. The daily Chapter is integral to a healthy monastic life; it keeps the text of the Holy Rule from becoming old, remote, and vague.

Here is a lovely photo of the morning sun streaming through the windows into the Chapter Room. The Mother of God, speaking through the sacred liturgy, says: “My memory is unto everlasting generations. They that eat me, shall yet hunger: and they that drink me, shall yet thirst. He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded, and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me, shall have life everlasting” (Ecclesiasticus 24: 28–31).

Cardinal Cañizares Llovera’s luminous introduction to the doctoral dissertation of Benedictine Father Alberto Soria Jiménez, O.S.B., monk of Santa Cruz del Valle de los Caídos, speaks for itself. We read the full text last evening in refectory; the following compelling paragraphs made a profound impression on all of us. Need I say that Cardinal Cañizares Llovera is Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, the Church’s highest authority in matters liturgical? My own comments are in italics.

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Equal Right and Dignity

It is absolutely unfounded to state that the prescriptions of Summorum Pontificum should be considered an “attack” against the Council; such an affirmation displays a great ignorance of the Council itself, because the fact of offering to all the faithful the chance of knowing and appreciating the multiple treasures of the liturgy of the Church is precisely what this great assembly desired when it declared: “in faithful obedience to tradition, the sacred Council declares that holy Mother Church holds all lawfully acknowledged rites to be of equal right and dignity; that she wishes to preserve them in the future and to foster them in every way (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 4).

What was the mind of the Second Vatican Council? Was it not that all the faithful should be given “the chance of knowing and appreciating the multiple treasures of the liturgy of the Church”? From Sacrosanctum Concilium, article 4, two things are of capital importance. The first is that all lawfully acknowledged rites are of equal right and dignity. The second is that the Church wishes to preserve them in the future and to foster them in every way. This principle applies not only to the many and varied rites of the Eastern Catholic Churches, but also to the Usus Antiquior of the Roman Rite, and to the variants of it that are proper to certain local Churches and religious Orders.

Ecumenism

Another aspect to which this work we present calls attention, and that it is urgent never to lose sight of, is the negative repercussion that these intra-ecclesial debates can have in the field of ecumenism. Amidst the controversy, it is often forgotten that the criticisms made against the rite received from the Roman Tradition also apply to the other traditions, first of all to the Orthodox: almost all liturgical aspects that those who have been opposed to the preservation of the ancient missal strongly attack are precisely the aspects that we had in common with the Eastern Tradition! A sign that confirms this, in contrast, are the enthusiastically positive expressions that arrived from the Orthodox world with the publication of the motu proprio. This document becomes in this way a key aspect for the “credibility” of ecumenism because, according to the expression of the president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the Unity of Christians, Cardinal Kurt Koch, “it promotes in fact, if we may call it thus, an ‘intra-Catholic ecumenism.’ ” We could consequently say that the premise ut unum sint presupposes the ut unum maneant, in such a way that, as said Cardinal writes, “if the intra-Catholic ecumenism failed, the Catholic controversy on the liturgy would also extend to ecumenism”.

Here the Cardinal makes a most astute observation: Almost all liturgical aspects that those who have been opposed to the preservation of the ancient missal strongly attack are precisely the aspects that we had in common with the Eastern Tradition”. The attack by contemporary Western critics on certain elements of the  ancient missal is, in effect, an attack on the corresponding elements that the Eastern Churches preserve, venerate, and cherish. What are some of these elements? The multiplication and repetition of signs of the cross; the one year cycle of the liturgical lectionary; the silent Canon; the surrounding of the sacred mysteries with a certain hiddenness; the position of priest and people facing together in the same direction; the repetitive nature of certain elements of the liturgy; the clear expression of the sacrificial nature of the Holy Mysteries in the rites and prayers of the Offertory; the exuberant richness of the sanctoral cycle. I could point to other elements, but these are an adequate representation of the Cardinal’s thinking on this point. One thing that stands out glaringly in the post–Conciliar reform of the Roman Rite is that the liturgical traditions and practice of the Eastern Churches were given scant attention. The chief points of reference were exclusively western, and were, in fact, situated within northern European Protestantism. Even the allusion to Eastern Christian practice with regard to the proposed rite of concelebration was misconstrued and, in the end, implemented in a manner that places it at odds with concelebration as the Eastern Churches understand and, even today, practice it.

In Anglo–Saxon and Northern European countries, even very simple layfolk sensed something undefinably and vaguely Protestant about the ethos of the “New Mass”. Many felt betrayed. Most were confused. The closer any given population was to a predominantly Protestant demography, the more did the Protestant influence come to bear upon the actual ars celebrandi. Thus, while Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean countries were less affected by the Protestant liturgical ethos; its impact on Catholics in Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, and the English–speaking countries, is undeniable. The protestantization of the ars celebrandi led, inexorably, to a protestantisation of the lex credendi. One who begins to worship like a Protestant will, with the passage of time, find himself thinking and believing like a Protestant. This phenomenon is evident today in the massive loss of faith in the real presence of Christ in the Most Holy Eucharist and in the sacrificial nature of the Mass.

Pastoral Solicitude for the Ecclesially Marginalized

Benedict XVI displayed, with his legislation, his fatherly love and understanding for those who are especially attached to the Roman liturgical tradition and who risked becoming, in a permanent way, ecclesially marginalized; it is in this way that, speaking of the matter, he clearly recalled that, “nobody is in excess in the Church,” showing a sensibility that anticipated the concern of the current Pope, Francis, for the “existential peripheries.” All these undoubtedly present a strong sign for the separated brethren.

Those of us who are old enough to remember the imposition of the Novus Ordo Missae at the local level on that fateful First Sunday of Advent in 1969, will recall the stern appeals to “obedience”; the brutal sweeping aside of the most reasonable, respectful, and worthy objections and questions; and the impression of febrile haste that attended the whole process. There was, in most countries, little in the way of pastoral sensitivity for the “existential peripheries”. On the contrary, all were expected to march in lockstep conformity to the newly devised liturgical code, with little concern for its lack of organic continuity with the past. Those who objected, questioned, or expressed reservations about what was being imposed, were taxed with being disobedient, hostile to “the spirit of the Council”, and out of step with “the Church”.

Appeal to the Young and Numerous Vocations

But the motu proprio also produced a phenomenon that is for many astonishing and is a true “sign of the times”: the interest that the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite elicits, in particular among the young who never lived it as an ordinary form and that manifest a thirst for “languages” that are not “more of the same” and that call us towards new and, for many pastors, unforeseen horizons. The opening-up of the liturgical wealth of the Church to all the faithful made possible the discovery of all treasures of this patrimony to those who still ignored them, with which this liturgical form is stirring up, more than ever, numerous priestly and religious vocations throughout the world, willing to give their lives to the service of evangelization.

Herein lies the good news. The Usus Antiquior has proven itself a seedbed of fervent priestly and religious vocations. These are not stereotypical rigid “traddies” wedded to a certain ideological and political stance; they are young people who have discovered the beauty of the Church’s tradition, and want to live out their faith in organic continuity with the liturgy and doctrine of the saints of every age.

It is not at all unlikely that, within less than fifty years, the number of priests ordained for, or habitually celebrating, the Usus Antiquior form of Holy Mass, will outnumber those attached to the Novus Ordo Missae. One of the significant characteristics of communities attached to the Usus Antiquior is the presence of large families of young children. These children, being raised in the wonder and beauty of the Usus Antiquior are the priests and religious of tomorrow.

Letter of Dom Columba Marmion, Abbot of Maredsous, to Father Louis Peeters, S.J., Provincial of the Belgian Province of the Company of Jesus

I took pleasure in translating this letter of Blessed Columba Marmion — written a hundred years ago — to the esteemed Father Provincial of the Jesuits in Belgium. Blessed Marmion’s humility, gentleness, candour, wisdom, and zeal for the sacred liturgy are transparent in this important text. The original French text of the letter is found in Columba Marmion, Correspondance 1881–1923, François Xavier de Guibert, Paris, 2008, pp. 685–689. The letter speaks for itself and remains astonishingly relevant.

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Abbey of Maredsous,
15 April 1914

Confidential
Reverend Father,

I sincerely thank you for having been so kind as to send me a copy of your work on the liturgy. I had already precedently requested of the Reverend Father Festugière that he not continue the polemic, first of all, because I know from experience that controversy in no way advances the cause that we all have at heart — the glory of God and the good of souls — and then, also, because I have a great love and a profound veneration and affection for the Company. I was a student of the Jesuits, having completed nearly seven years of the Humanities at Belvedere College, Dublin. At the end of my studies, I asked to be admitted into your noviceship, and I was received by the Reverend Father Provincial, but because of the lack of secular priests, the Cardinal prevented me from following my desire. Since that time, I have remained in relations of great intimacy and friendship with several of your Fathers in Ireland, in Belgium, and in France. All of this by way of saying that there is not the slightest bitterness, or the slightest resentment in the remarks that I shall permit myself to make to you.

I regret that I was unable, because of a want of leisure, to respond sooner to the letter that you were so kind as to write to me, and I thank you for the perfect frankness and openness which characterize it. Before addressing the question, allow me to say a word about Reverend Father Festugière. If you knew him personally, you would not be able to attribute to him “ironic” answers or hostility towards the Company. He is the humblest, the meekest, the most considerate religious that one could meet, truly incapable of wanting to cause pain to anyone at all. A former officer in the French navy, he holds in horror all that seems to depart from perfect uprightness, and, as he believed to have found this defect in the attitude of some members of the Company towards the monastic Order and the cause of the liturgy, which things he regards as sacred, he sometimes expressed his displeasure in too caustic a manner. For my part, I find that these outbursts take away from his work and, in a second edition, I shall see to it that they disappear.

In your letter, Reverend Father, you will allow me to indicate what I believe to be a profound error into which you fell in perfectly good faith. You seem to believe that all the wrongs are on the side of the monks, that all the attacks come from us, and are gratuitous and without provocation. Allow me, then, to show you that it is nothing of the sort. If we have remained, until present, in silence, it is because our motto “Pax” obliges us to keep silence so long as one attacks our persons only. I know, by my own experience and by that of my monks, that several Fathers of the Company do not hide their disdain for our Order and do us real harm in trying to prevent the entrance of young men to our abbeys and of students to our colleges. Here are the proofs that I affirm: 1) During the six years  that I spent as a secular priest in the world, I habitually went to the Reverend Jesuit Fathers for confession, and when I declared my intention of becoming a monk to my confessor (one of your Fathers in Dublin), he mocked me, saying that the Benedictine Order is a thing of the past, an Order gone out of fashion and, at present, no longer had any reason to exist. You will find the same arguments held publicly in the article on the Abbey of Villers by the Reverend Father de Moreau, S.J., page 132; one even finds there words entirely offensive to the monastic Order; scorn can be found in many other passages of the book, for example, on page 85, and following. Since becoming Abbot of Maredsous, five young men who had the intention to enter our community (two of whom I had accepted) were turned from their project by Fathers of the Company by means of analogous arguments. Not long ago, one of my scholastics encountered one of your Fathers (a man very much in view at the moment): this Father said to him that we monks will have a terrible account to render to God “for all the time that we lose in choir”. I could multiply the examples, but we never judged that we had to protest; we preferred to remain in “peace”  And we have never thought nor said about the Company what many of your Fathers say and what Father de Moreau printed concerning monks.

When, however, the Holy Father (Pope Saint Pius X), who resurrected frequent Communion and the Communion of children in the Church, made appeal to all priests, pressing them to work for the restoration of the liturgical spirit, we noticed two things: 1) that the reviews and other organs of the Company were keeping a systematic silence on this subject; 2) that when, to obey the Holy Father, we were trying to make the liturgy come out of the oblivion into which it had fallen (outside of monasteries) for four centuries, the same disdain, which certain members of the Company displayed for the monastic Order, was brought to bear upon a cause, which one made the mistake of identifying with us — because it goes beyond us — but that, all the same, is dearer to us than life. Several highly placed ecclesiastical personalities asked us, then, to protest and to defend the cause of the liturgy. This is why I asked Father Festugière to write, and also why, in his writings, he found himself led to target the Company in too direct and personal a way. I said that certain Fathers of the Company spoke of the liturgy, before Father Festugière had written anything, in a scornful way. Here are a few specimens:

The Reverend Father Brou, S.J., (well–known writer, editor of Études), in his life of Saint Augustine of Canterbury, published in 1897, page 41: “It was the time when the disciples of Pope (Saint Gregory), reformer of the chant of the Church, were branching out all over Gaul and Germany. One sees that Gregory did not forget his dear England; he counted, undoubtedly, on music to open the way to souls; our missionaries today are not doing anything different with their accordions and their music boxes”. This publication goes back to the time of Leo XIII, but the inspiration of Études has not changed from 1903 to 1913, as any attentive reader can see for himself.

The Reverend Father Maréchal, S.J. (La mystique chrétienne, Revue de Philosophie, L’expérience religieuse, 1912, pp. 127, 128) treats of the liturgy as “an artifice for beginners”, of being “a provisional state”. “We are very much at ease in recognizing that rites and vocal prayer are a useful introduction to the mystical life, etc.”. So as not to lengthen this letter unduly, I limit myself to citing those specimens that represent the general mentality.

As for the “Exercises of Saint Ignatius”, I can speak of them with a certain knowledge. I made them twice (before my entrance into the monastery) under the guidance of eminent Fathers of the Company. I drew a very great profit from them for my whole life. During my eight years of seminary, I studied and regularly followed the method of meditation called “of Saint Ignatius”. Then, as a secular priest, fir six years, I practiced it with a certain fidelity. I judge that one who would speak or write against these exercises as a means of conversion, as a most powerful method to break with the world and with vice, would be going against historical truth and the teachings of the Holy See; but I have received several (confidential) letters from a member of the Company, eminent by his learning and holiness, in which he informs me that there exists in the very bosom of the Company a double current: some, with him, argue that the asceticism of the Society deviated, since the 17th century, under the influence of Rodriguez and, that, from being liturgical and organic as it was in the thought of Saint Ignatius, it became methodical and individualistic. Another Father, my intimate friend and compatriot, confirmed the truth of these utterances, and assured me that Saint Ignatius never had the intention of imposing the exercises as a permanent method of the spiritual life, but, to employ the terms of Father Maréchal, as a “provisional state” for beginners, and that, moreover, after their solemn vows, the Fathers of the Company were exempt from them. I do not forget that the Reverend Father Croiset in the 17th century wrote a Liturgical Year in 18 volumes. This book, which had 40 editions, is a perfect assemblage of liturgical piety, which witnesses to the harmony that then existed between the spirituality of certain Fathers of the Company and the liturgy.

Whatever may be said with regard to the validity of the affirmations (a bit contradictory, you will admit) that one gathers concerning the authentic spirituality of your blessed Founder, my experience of thirty–three years of priestly ministry (I have confessed and directed a great number of priests and religious of both sexes) has produced in me the following convictions:
1) That the exercises of Saint Ignatius made under the direction of an enlightened guide are a means of incomparable efficacy for breaking with a worldly life, and to enter upon the way that leads to God;
2) As an habitual method of mental prayer, I have found, in practice, that a very great number, the strongest majority of priests especially, who followed it in seminary, and who promised themselves that they would continue it as priests, overcome by the difficulty and dryness of this method, abandoned all meditation shortly after leaving the seminary, to the very great detriment of their soul and their ministry.
3) That for those who desire to find in their mental prayer the preparation for their liturgical life (Office, Mass, administration of the sacraments), this method is of little help, and that when they adopt a more simple method, they find that their mental prayer prepares their Office, and that their Office powerfully helps their mental prayer.
4) I have noticed that those who follow this method with fidelity are inclined to separate themselves from the parochial and organic life of the Church, to sequester themselves in a prayer that is individual in its source and in its tendencies.
5) Finally, I have noticed that the persons who follow this method often have an extremely complicated interior life, drawn, in great part, from their own reflections, subject to many dangers, and errors, and having need of a learned and continuous direction, whereas those who receive from the liturgy the matter and inspiration of their interior life, being guaranteed by this lex orandi, lex credendi against the errors of their own sense, have, ordinarily, an interior life that is very simple, luminous, ambulantes sicut filii carissimi in dilectione (Ephesians 5:1–2).

I would, Reverend Father, have many more things to add, but this letter is already too long. My aim in writing it is not at all to attack the Company, but to dispel equivocacies by showing 1) that what you call attacks against the Company are but responses to systematic attacks, which, be they hidden (or even open), are nonetheless real and dating from some time; 2) that what our Fathers have written in favour of the liturgical movement has, as their direct goal, obedience to the injunctions of the Holy See, and the good of souls; 3) that if, in defending liturgical piety, it was necessary to demonstrate that certain methods of piety can be reconciled, only with difficulty, to the liturgical and organic piety of the Church, it is, in no way, to a polemical end, but to the end of a positive teaching that these comparisons were instituted. For the future, I desire with all my heart that every appearance of polemics or of controversy be banished from our studies on the liturgy. Father Festugière will do a second edition of his work, from which will be eliminated all that resembles a personal attack; if, in the studies that we will carry out on prayer, we are obliged to express our preferences for a liturgical piety in harmony with the organic life of the Church, we, in no way, intend to condemn those who prefer to follow other methods, provided that they do not seek  to obstruct the liturgical movement by imposing these methods.

I am persuaded, Reverend Father, that you will receive this letter in the spirit in which it was written, a spirit of loyalty and frank simplicity. I do not intend to make it public, and I shall communicate it only to those who believe that we are, gratuitously and without provocation, launching attacks on institutions and persons.

Kindly accept, Reverend Father, the expression of respectful and devoted sentiments in Our Lord.