The Cathedral of Solothurn, Switzerland, is a late baroque/early Neoclassical structure. On January 4, a man, in a rage against the Church, set the interior ablaze. Extensive damage , especially from smoke, resulted.  But the specific target of the arsonist – and the location of most of the damage from flames – is the new “versus populum” altar, known in German as the “Volksaltar” (“people’s altar”). Now, where exactly was this arsonist coming from?

(Photo: 20 Minuten, Peter Marbach)

We have only received word now that Archbishop Francois Gayot, former Archbishop of Cap-Haitien, Haiti died Thursday, Dec. 16, 2010 in Rome following a seizure.

In retirement for several months, Bishop Gayot represented the Catholic Church of Haiti at the meeting of the International Migration Committee. Bishop Gayot was between 1992 and 1998 President of the Episcopal Conference of Haiti.

Born in St. Louis du Nord in 1927, Francois Gayot was ordained priest in 1954. Appointed on August 1974 as Bishop of the ecclesiastical province of Cap-Haitien, he was promoted to Archbishop in 1988. François Gayot had resigned in November 4, 2003 after reaching the retirement age of 75.

We here in New York unfortunately only encountered Archbishop Gayot briefly as the celebrant of a magnificent liturgy at St. Jean Baptiste on June 11, 2010. Anyone who was present could hardly guess this was his first pontifical Traditional Mass.

Information thanks to Unavoce Malaga.

Yesterday, Thursday, January 6, the feast of the Epiphany was celebrated with appropriate splendor in New York. It is a tragedy and a scandal that this feast – the twelfth day of Christmas – has been virtually abolished in the Novus Ordo church in this country. For it is the greatest significance to the Eastern liturgies and in many countries and regions of Western Europe as well. Such as the city of Cologne, which contains the relics of the three kings in Nicholas of Verdun’s magnificent shrine.

Thanks, however, to the Confraternity of the Sacred Heart the city of New York celebrated this feast with proper solemnity on the correct date. The celebrant was Fr. Richard Cipolla. I am looking for names of the other two clergy as well as that of the choir master responsible for the magnificent music.

The blessing of the chalk.

The distribution of the chalk. It is then used to mark the door of the house.

The following churchs will be offering the Traditional Mass on the Feast of the Epiphany this Thursday, January 6.  If you have information about other Masses, please let us know.

St. Gabriel, Stamford,  Connecticut,   Solemn High Mass, 7:30 pm

Church of the Holy Innocents, Manhattan, Solemn Mass, 6 pm, Fr. Richard Cipolla, celebrant

St. Eugene Church, Yonkers, NY, 8:30 am

St. Peter Church, Harford, CT, 9 am, includes blessing of the Chalk according to the Traditional rite.  Chalk will be distributed to the Faithful at the end of Mass

Our Lady of Fatima Chapel, Pequannock, NJ, 7 am, 8 am, 7 pm

 St John Bosco Chapel, Geneva, NY, 6pm, low Mass, with blessing of the chalk. The chalk and Epiphany Water will be distributed to the attendees after Mass. Website:www.stjohnboscochapel.org

By Fr. Richard Cipolla

Given at St. Mary’s Church, Norwalk Connecticut on Sunday, January 2, 2011

From the introit:  At the name of Jesus every knee must bend.  From the epistle: For there is no other Name under heaven given to men by  which we must be saved. And  from the gospel: His name was called Jesus, the Name given Him by the angel before He was conceived in the womb.

It seems odd to us to have a feast celebrating a name, even if the name is Jesus.  One of the greatest of baroque illusionist paintings is the painting by Gaulli known by his nickname of Baciccia on the ceiling of the Gesu church in Rome.  It is the most amazing composition of painting and sculpture, with angels falling from and rising to heaven, and there in this wonderful center of light there is the apotheosis of the monogram IHS which is formed by the first three letters of Jesus’ name in Greek.  People come to this church to see this remarkable painting and there is a mirror installed in the nave so that you can look at the painting without crinking your neck.  I often ask myself:  what do people think about the apotheosis of a name, even if the name is Jesus.  For we breathe the air of a perverse nominalism that dismisses a name as something merely assigned to a person or thing without any relationship to the reality of that person or thing.  Umberto Eco’s novel, The Name of the Rose ends with the chillingly enigmatic sentence; Stat rosa pristina nomine; nuda nomina tenemus.  For Eco, names are ultimately empty, for a rose is merely a name that exists quite apart from the reality of the rose. 

But to make sense of the devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus, from its beginning in St Paul’s epistle to the Philippians to St Bernadine of Siena and St Ignatius Loyola, we have to leave aside our dichotomy between names and reality and listen to the brief gospel once again:  his name was called Jesus,  the name given him by the angel before He was conceived in the womb.  From all eternity this child was given the name Yeshuah which means God who saves, because this name is not merely a name that Mary and Joseph gave to the child: the name of Jesus tells us who He is as both God and man: the God who saves by becoming man in order to die on the cross for the sins of the world.  Thus the name Jesus not only signifies who the child is: the name from the moment of the Incarnation becomes holy because it is a name from the depths of God Himself.  Or rather, the name is holy from the beginning of time when it would be the name of the enfleshment of God and that holy name becomes part of the history of this world, not merely as my name and your name, but as the real symbol of the God who saves.

But another problem for us modernists and post-modernists is the very idea not only of a holy name but also the very idea of the holy, period.  The grey ravages of secularism that are the logical outcome of the evacuation of meaning that is the triumph of nominalism has for so many evacuated the very meaning of the word, holy.  It is true that we still mouth the word holy in discourse, that we confess one holy Catholic and apostolic Church: but what does the word really mean to us today?  Isn’t it often just a part of religious jargon we use when we want to do God-talk? The holy cannot co-exist with self-sufficient man. The holy cannot co-exist with the collapse of morality into the amorality of self-love.  You see, holiness can exist only if we believe that we are not the center of being, only if we accept the possibility of something or someone extraordinary beyond our comprehension, only if we believe in fear and trembling at the center of our lives.  For the most part, a holy person today is merely a moral person. The phrase: holier than thou, says it all.  Holiness is not something we aspire to, despite our dutiful recitation of the call to holiness in religious texts.  If we encounter holiness we say:  that’s weird.  Which is not a bad thing to say, because holiness is indeed weird because the holy is radically different from us, for it deals with, it is about wholly Other who is holy. 

Catholics used to encounter at least a whiff of the holy, a hint at least, in the liturgy.  This was true not because Mass was always celebrated in the past with great beauty and reverence.  But the Mass itself, in its organically traditional form, was perceived as  an action rather than mere words, and so pointed to the possibility of holiness, gave glimmers into the presence of the Divine that went beyond mere doctrine about the Real Presence: the combination of the visible beauty in churches that pointed away from the mundane to a real splendor that lay beyond, the familiar ritual that was familiar in the deepest sense, the sense of family that went beyond time and space, the time of quiet, of silence, all helped the Catholic to in some sense understand holiness and its relationship to God and to himself. 

There can be no doubt, as Cardinal Canizares who heads the Congregation for Divine Worship says, that there is a certain crisis in the Catholic liturgy.  We really do not need poll data to tell us that this is true.  But if we want data, we can look at the survey done just a few weeks ago by a reputable firm that shows that 28% of Catholics now attend Mass regularly.  In 1960 it was 68%.  Now of course there are several reasons for this precipitous drop in Mass attendance these past 50 years.  But if one is scientific about it, one cannot help noting that this decline begins with the radical liturgical reform that was not a product of the Second Vatican Council but rather a product of that very rationalistic nominalistic mindset that was determined to demystify the mystery that is at the heart of the Mass, the mystery of the death of Christ and his living presence within the Church.  And so we now hear the call to revive and promote a new liturgical movement and revive the sense of the sacred and of mystery, putting God at the center of everything.  Can the understanding of Mass as high school assembly be overcome?  Can the ironical situation of the priest facing the people as he speaks to God be remedied by a return to the tradition of the priest and people together, united, facing God in prayer and thanksgiving?   Can the banality of Mass tunes be displaced by the Gregorian chant and polyphony that Vatican II denoted as pride of place in Catholic music?  Can canned sermons about feel good trivialities be driven out of the temple to allow sermons that challenge intellectually and spiritually based on scripture and tradition?  On this feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, I would say that what we are doing here is at least a start. It is a start not to some restoration project but to a return to the sense of the holy in Mass because the Mass IS holy. Without this all we can do is to look in a mirror on the floor of the church at a wonderful illusionist painting and say to ourselves:  what in the world is a holy name and why are all those angels staring at those three funny letters that make no sense?  Nomina nuda tenemus.  We have, we hold on to empty names.

A happy and blessed New Year to all our members and readers! The Society will begin this year be sponsoring a return visit to the New York area by the eminent German novelist Martin Mosebach.  Mr. Mosebach spoke last in New York and Connecticut in September 2007. His prior visit coincided with the entry into force of Summorum Pontificum. Much has changed since then! It is a privilege to welcome back Mr. Mosebach and also to participate in the festive liturgies that will precede each of his presentations.

There are two main “events” scheduled so far:

Sunday, January 30, at the Church of Our Saviour, New York

5:00 PM Solemn High Mass
7:00 PM Presentation by Mr Mosebach in the undercroft: “The Old Roman Missal: Loss and Rediscovery”

Music:

Prelude: Prélude pour le troisième Dimanche après l’Epiphanie (Tournemire)
Missa Ave Maris Stella (Victoria)
Gregorian Mass of the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany: Adorate Deum
Motet at the Offertory: Dextera Domini (Palestrina)
Motet at the Communion: Dominus regnavit (attrib. Josquin)
Postlude: Postlude et fugue modale libre (Tournemire)

Directed by David J. Hughes, Choirmaster of  St. Mary’s Church, Norwalk

Wednesday, February 2 at St. Mary’s Church, Norwalk CT

6:00 PM Solemn High Mass, Blessing of candles and procession for Feast of the Purification of the BVM (Candlemas)
8:00 PM Presentation by Mr. Mosebach in parish Hall: From Chapter 4 of the “Heresy of Formlessness”; “Tear the Images out of their Hearts”

Music:

Prelude: Herr Gott, nun schleuß den Himmel auf (BWV 617) (Bach)
At the blessing of candles: Lumen ad revelationem gentium (plainsong,
mode viii)
At the procession: Adorna thalamum (plainsong, mode vi), etc.
Missa de Beata Maria (Hughes) [WORLD PREMIERE]
Gregorian Mass of Candlemas: Suscepimus, Deus
Motet at the Offertory: Senex puerum portabat (Byrd)
Motet at the Communion: Nunc dimittis (Josquin)
Postlude: Toccata in F Major (BWV 540) (Bach)

David J. Hughes, Choirmaster

We will add further details as to additional sponsors, celebrants and events as they are confirmed.

To celebrate Christmas day: a small photographic essay on the Midnight Mass for Christmas celebrated this morning at St. Mary’s Church, Norwalk. (click on the images for a larger view). A congregation of over 330 was in prayerful attendance. The sermon was given in Spanish and then in English.  The music included works of Victoria, Messiaen and Byrd. It also featured an original composition by the choirmaster, David Hughes:the carol “Of one that is so Fair and Bright.”

A tunicled crucifer.

For a Christmas treat, we bring you pictures of the Anchor Academy Christmas pageant, which was recently performed on December 15. Anchor Academy school is an independent Catholic school in Norwalk, CT. The school is committed to providing a curriculum from the classical tradition of the Roman Catholic Church, with a strong emphasis on religious formation. Classes are small, the faculty are committed Catholics, and the tuition is reasonable. Many students, faculty and parents begin the day by attending the 8:00 am Mass at nearby St. Mary Church. The school is currently conducting a fund-raising campaign, with the aim to keeping the tuition affordable. If you would like to know more, visit the school website at http://www.anchoracademy.org/.

David Hughes conducted the student choir, which performed many carols for the pageant. Mr. Hughes is a member of the faculty at the school and provides instruction in choral singing each week. The student choir performs once a month at the Extraordinary Form Mass at St. Mary Church.

A Blessed and Holy Christmas to all Our Readers!

We have compiled the follow list of churches that will have Masses for Christmas. 

Connecticut

St. Mary Church, Norwalk

Christmas: Solemn Mass, Midnight (carols at 11:30 pm) and at 9:30 am

Octave of Christmas, Jan.1, 9:00 am

Sts. Cyril and Methodius, Bridgeport, Christmas, 10:15 am

St. Stanislaus, New Haven,

Christmas, High Mass, 2 pm

Jan. 1, Low Mass, 2 pm

St. Gabriel, Stamford,   Epiphany, January 6, Solemn High Mass, 7:30 pm

St. Bridget of Kildare, Moodus

Christmas, Missa Cantata, 10:30 am

Jan. 1, Missa Cantata, 9 am

St. Margaret Church, Waterbury, Christmas, Midnight at 12

St. Peter Church, Hartford,

Christmas, 10:30 am

Jan. 1, 10:30 am

Epiphany, Jan. 6, 9 am

First Friday, Jan.7, 6:30 pm

New York

Immaculate Conception, Sleepy Hollow

Christmas, Missa Cantata, 3 pm

Jan. 1, low Mass, 1 pm

St. Agnes, Manhattan

 Christmas, 11 AM 

 December 26,  11 AM.

Holy Innocents, Manhattan

Christmas,  Solemn Masses at Midnight and 10 am

Dec. 26, Solemn Mass, 10 am

Sung Masses on Tues., Wed. and Fri at 6 pm, low Masses on Mon. and Thurs.

January 1, Missa Cantata at 1 pm.

Our Saviour, Manhattan

Christmas, Missa Cantata, 10 am

Dec. 26, Missa Cantata, 9 am

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, East Harlem, Christmas, Missa Cantata, 10 am

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Bronx, Christmas, 9:30 am

Our Lady of Peace,  Brooklyn, 522 Carroll St., Christmas, 11 am

New Jersey

Holy Rosary, Jersey City 

Christmas Eve, Solemn High Mass, 9 pm

January 1, Missa Cantata, 10 am

Our Lady of Fatima Chapel, Pequannock

Christmas Eve, Midnight mass at 12 preceded by carols at 11 pm

Christmas day, 7 am, 9 am and 12

St. Anthony of Padua Oratory, West Orange

Christmas Eve 11pm (confessions at 9:30 pm)

Christmas day, 7:30 am, 9:00 am and 11 am

 Our Lady of Victories Church, Harrington Park,  Christmas Eve Missa Cantata, 9 pm

St. Peter, Hartford.

 By   Fr. Jonathan Robinson

 (Ignatius Press, San Francisco 2005)

The literature on the Catholic mass in its current forms – modern, Latin, Traditional – is legion. Works which try to situate the current state of the mass in a broader philosophical and historical context are very few.  Fr. Jonathan Robinson has undertaken that task in “The Mass and Modernity.” The author approaches the issue primarily as a philosopher. But he is also a priest and a founder of the Toronto Oratory.  Those familiar with the Church in England know how – on the whole – the Oratory took the lead over the years on preserving the form of the Catholic liturgy and theology. This author thus is no mere academic theorist but an actual practitioner of what he speaks. I therefore approached this work with high expectations. However, let me state at the start that this text, although easy to follow, shows a certain wordiness and lack of polish. It often reads like an unedited transcript of a lecture.

In the first section of “The Mass and Modernity”, the author reviews the work of seminal thinkers of the modern age.  Fr. Robinson is clear on the anti-Christian element inherent in the enlightenment and its offshoots. He shows how, in the thought of a succession of philosophers and ideologues, God was repudiated outright, reduced to a residual concept or transformed into a “projection” of the community.  And these concepts -especially an emphasis on “community” derived ultimately from Hegel – exercise a direct influence on modern theories of the liturgy. Fr. Robinson’s text is strewn with interesting observations that cry out for more development. He discusses, for example, the problem of how these non-Christian influences actually impact the Church – not through a direct reading of Hegel or Kant but by “osmosis” from a culture that has absorbed their influences. I should also mention Fr. Robinson’s discussion of “civil society,” its relationship to the Church and how the Church cannot be reduced to a component of it.

Fr. Robinson next reviews various contemporary thinkers who have responded to the challenge of modernity and its relationship to the Church. Fr. Robinson himself has no illusions on the fundamental opposition between modernity and Christianity. He makes a far more subtle analysis of the status of religion in modern civil society than many other thinkers of the “Conservative Catholic” stripe. For example, the relentless activity of the churches in the US does necessarily indicate that the faith is flourishing under democracy. A more sophisticated analysis of American civil society by “layers” reveals that its leading elements are all relentlessly anti-religious. Fr. Robinson also considers and rejects “postmodernism” as a potential ally of the Church against modernity: in reality it perpetuates elements of the enlightenment case against religion.

Fr. Robinson devotes much space to his heroine, Iris Murdoch. Although not a Christian, she argued forcefully for a kind of Platonic “transcendence.” But perhaps more interesting to our readers is the discussion of the “Catholic” Charles Taylor. A kind of court philosopher to the Conciliar Church, he expresses in a clear and radical way what others in the hierarchy and Catholic academia merely hint at. For Taylor, “modern liberal political culture” has realized in a much more real way the values of the gospel (equated with “universal human rights”) than did the Catholic confessional states of the pre-enlightenment past. Those who fought against the Church for the enlightenment were advancing the cause of true Christianity.  This line of thought is related to Pope Benedict’s recent remarks that the seeds of modern democratic states are to be found in the gospel. We see then, that in one very influential school of thought, the Church of Vatican II is not merely open to modern state but positively divinizes it. The role of the Church, according to Taylor, is to hand over the gospel values to the more effective administration of the modern state. Fr. Robinson, although respectful of a hometown hero, is forced to point out the incompatibility of this vision with Catholicism.

How do these philosophical considerations apply to the liturgy? In the third section of his book, Fr, Robinson develops a theory of the liturgy as God reaching out to His creation and then drawing all things back to Himself: “exitus-reditus.”  To support his analysis, Fr. Robinson draws on Dionysus the Areopagate but also on the more modern concept of the “Paschal Mystery” (as Fr. Robinson understands it). It is heartening to see this restoration of the thought of Dionysus. Indeed, Dionysian thought emphasizes the hierarchical nature of the liturgy, in extreme contrast with exclusive focus on the unstructured  “community” prevalent today. Fr. Robinson writes passionately of the need to restore movement (ritual) and symbolism to the mass. And well in advance of Pope Benedict’s “hermeneutic of continuity” Fr. Robinson denounced “ the philosophy behind the changes (to the liturgy)  which seems determined to emphasize novelty over continuity” (at 310)

When we get to the concrete application of his principles, however, Fr Robinson gets cold feet. The “Novus Ordo” must be retained, a priori. This book predates Summorum Pontifcum and most clerical conservative writers still felt the need to carefully distinguish themselves from the Traditionalist outcasts. There are a several pages of not very well articulated disparagement of the Old Rite.  According to Robinson, restoration of this Rite is neither feasible nor desirable.  We must, after all, take account of “parish realities.” As to the specifics: The celebrant ought to face east for the Canon. One or two Latin masses “at regular intervals” would suffice to promote return of the sense of transcendence. There should be more traditional music – Fr. Robinson concludes this recommendation is not inconsistent with the magisterium – and  better translations of the liturgical texts  too. Perhaps his criticism of the three year cycle of readings is the most “revolutionary” element of  Fr. Robinson’s “Reform of the Reform” although what his suggested changes to the lectionary would be remains unclear. Throughout these passages, Fr. Robinson is compelled again and again to acknowledge the superiority of the “Old Rite” over at least the currently practiced version of the New.

“Much ado about nothing” – but then the advocates of the “Reform of the Reform” often find themselves in such impasses. The contrast could not be greater between this book’s drastic, even apocalyptic descriptions of the disasters of modernity and the feeble reaction. For, if one really was convinced that:

 “ Present liturgical practice has in fact reinforced a good deal of the anti-God initiatives and false teaching about community. In this way the liturgy has exemplified and deepened modern trends that are destructive, not merely of liturgy , but of the Catholic world view itself.” (at 307)

Would not the only possible Christian  response be a radical assault on the offending practices, cost what it may?  But let us ignore much of  the final pages of this book. On the whole, Fr. Robinson has provided us with a very  impressive updated philosophical apologia against the poison of modernity as it specifically impacts the liturgy. It remains for traditionalists to implement the obvious antidote.