Adoremus Bulletin - July 2017 Issue

Adoremus Bulletin For the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy

JULY 2017

American-born Capuchin Solanus Casey to be Beatified

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he Catholic Church has moved one step closer to declaring an American, Midwesternborn Franciscan monk a saint of the Church: Father Solanus Casey, a Capuchin monk, born and raised in Wisconsin and active in his ministry in and around the Archdiocese of Detroit.

According to a May 4 story for Zenit, Deborah Castellano Lubov reports that Pope Francis has put the cause of the simple yet heroic monk on the track for beatification while also advancing the causes of 11 other individuals.

“Pope Francis has signed the decree paving the way for the beatification of US Capuchin Father Solanus Casey,” Lubov writes, noting that the decree follows Pope Francis’s meeting with Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Angelo Amato. During the meeting, according to Lubov, the pope authorized the Congregation to promulgate the decrees.

In a May 4 story for Catholic News Agency, Hannah Brockhaus reports that in the meeting with Cardinal Amato, “Pope Francis recognized a miracle attributed to the intercession of Venerable Solanus Casey, which allows for his beatification.”

In describing the saint, Brockhaus writes, “Venerable Casey was known for his great faith, attention to the sick, and ability as a spiritual counselor.”

Born on Nov. 25, 1870, Bernard (“Barney”) Casey was the sixth of Please see CASEY on next page

TEN YEARS LATER: Summorum Pontificum Inspires New Generation to Bridge the Liturgical Divide

By Father Michael Pawlowicz

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n July 7, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI liberalized the celebration of the Holy Mass according to the Missal of John XXIII with his Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum.

On the same day, in a separate letter to the bishops of the world (Con grande fiducia), the Holy Father explained the motive behind his decision, stating that “it is a matter of coming to an interior reconciliation in the heart of the Church.”1 If we are going to speak intelligently about the relationship between the Ordinary Form and the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, I think that this is the key line from which we need to begin our conversation. Pope Benedict is not reintroducing the traditional liturgy as an antiquarian who likes to keep old things on his bookshelf. Nor is he doing this as an archenemy of the liturgical reform, as some have made him out to be. Remember that he was a proponent of the reform during the Council and has never ceased to defend the Council as a whole—including Sacrosanctum Concilium.

Rather, Pope Benedict issued this motu proprio because he saw the sheep wandering off without a pastor. The Holy Father, concerned with the unity of the Church, laments that “Looking back over the past, to the divisions

“ Pope Benedict is not reintroducing the traditional liturgy as an antiquarian who likes to keep old things on his bookshelf. Nor is he doing this as an archenemy of the liturgical reform.” which in the course of the centuries have rent the Body of Christ, one continually has the impression that, at critical moments when divisions were coming about, not enough was done by the Church’s leaders to maintain or regain reconciliation and unity. One has

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Adoremus Bulletin JULY 2017

SAINT PETER AS POPE, PETER PAUL RUBENS (1577–1640). AB/WIKIMEDIA

News & Views

Vol. XXIII, No. 1

St. Peter commands that we be “of one mind, having compassion one of another, being lovers of the brotherhood, merciful, modest, humble” (I Pet 3:8).

the impression that omissions on the part of the Church have had their share of blame for the fact that these divisions were able to harden.”2 One Divided by Two? The motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, therefore, is an act of generosity on the part of the vicar of the Good Shepherd aimed at maintaining unity and regaining reconciliation where disunity has arisen. Benedict does not want to be with the lot of those who “have had their share of blame for the fact that these divisions were able to harden.”

Let’s take a look at some of these divisions:

Something Old, Something New The wedding feast of the Lamb takes many forms—two principal forms in the West.

Father Michael Pawlowicz explains how both lead to reconciliation in the heart of the Church..................................................1 Liturgical Blame Game Until we reach heaven, the liturgy is beset with human failings. But what is their source? The answer may not be the first place we think to look...................................3 Heavenly Formation Fatima’s Jacinta and Francisco had a model teacher—the Blessed Virgin Mary. Father

1. Apparent Schism: Since the episcopal consecrations of 1988, there has been a community of baptized Christians with a valid priesthood, a valid Eucharist, the same Canon of Scripture and the same Creed, who celebrate the Liturgy according to norms that were universal until 50 years ago, who claim that the Holy Father is truly the Vicar of Christ, but are in a dubious state of obedience to him. This is the Fraternity of St. Pius X. 2. Theological disagreement over the nature of the Holy Mass: Cardinal Ratzinger highlighted this in The Feast of Faith: “The crisis in the liturgy (and hence in the Church) in which we find Please see SUMMORUM on page 4

Frederick Miller shows how her brilliant instruction formed the Church’s newest and youngest saints....................................6 The Spirit Breaths Where It Will Pope John XXIII blessed a pipe organ at St. Peter’s just days before the Second Vatican Council. His remarks on the occasion inspire Dr. Denis McNamara to hear how the organ’s theological notes play out..............................................8 News & Views.............................................2 The Rite Questions...................................10 Donors & Memorials...............................11

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Adoremus Bulletin, July 2017

NEWS & VIEWS

Continued from CASEY, page 1 16 children born to Irish immigrants in rural Oak Grove, WI. Taking on various jobs as a young adult, Casey worked as a lumberjack in the northern woods of Wisconsin and Minnesota, a hospital orderly in those states, a prison guard in Minnesota and a streetcar operator in Superior, WI. During his time in this northernmost city of Wisconsin, while driving through the squalid and often dangerous wharves of Superior, the young man witnessed a drunken sailor stab a woman to death. This experience led Casey to reconsider the direction his life was taking and he began to draw more deeply from the faith of his youth for guidance.

“He decided to act on a call he felt to enter the priesthood,” Brockhaus writes in her May 4 story.

“Because of his lack of formal education, however, he struggled in the minor seminary, and was eventually encouraged to become a priest through a religious order rather than through the diocese.”

Hoping to study for the priesthood at St. Francis Seminary in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, Casey found seminary studies difficult—he knew neither Latin nor German, the two languages spoken and read at the seminary at the time—and he was counseled to seek admission to a religious order.

“So in 1898 he joined the Capuchin Franciscans in Detroit,” Brockhaus writes, “and after struggling through his studies, in 1904 was ordained a sacerdos simplex—a priest who can say Mass, but not publicly preach or hear confessions.”

He celebrated his first public Mass on July 31, 1905, in Appleton, WI. Despite Father Solanus’s intellectual challenges, the monk’s simplicity and humility were his greatest strengths—as the many faithful who sought his counsel would attest.

“He was very close to the sick and was highly sought-after throughout his life,” Brockhaus writes, “in part because of the many physical healings attributed

Blessed Solanus Casey

to his blessings and intercession. He is also known for his fondness for playing the violin and singing, although he had a bad singing voice because of a childhood illness which damaged his vocal chords.”

It was Father Solanus’s love for the violin that led to his receiving his religious name—in honor of his fellow Franciscan and South American missionary St. Francis Solanus, OFM (1549-1610)—who also had a great love for the stringed instrument.

Assigned to various communities in New York, Father Solanus eventually returned to Detroit in 1924 and took on the work for which he was best known: the porter of the St. Bonaventure Monastery. In this position, stationed before the doors of the monastery to greet visitors, Father Solanus soon become a destination point for visitors seeking counsel and healing.

Call for Clarity—Liturgical Conference Takes on Post-Modernity

Benedict’s Summorum Pontificum—A Bridge Over Troubled Liturgical Waters?

Is the Church living through a post-modern world, or a post-post-modern world? What do these terms even mean? And what challenges do they hold for the Catholic liturgy?

If the postmodern world is about anything, it’s about asking questions, sometimes in sincere honesty—sometimes in sincere confusion.

And if the Catholic Church, and especially in her liturgy, is about anything, she’s about possessing the truth that can answer the questions raised by post-modernity—with a certainty and clarity beyond all confusion.

It is those same questions and answers that participants of the 2017 Society for Catholic Liturgy (SCL) conference will be examining. The three-day annual event will be held this year, Sept. 28-30, at the Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul and the Archdiocesan Pastoral Center, Philadelphia, PA. Intoning the theme of the conference, “The Liturgy and Post-Modernity,” organizers hope to be able to provide clarity in these times of fuzzy thinking and moral relativism.

“With post-modernity, reality and truth, beyond individual preference, do not have a defining source,” the organizers note at the SCL website. “In fact, relativism and individualism are radicalized to the point of enshrining plurality, diversity and tolerance.”

According to the conference organizers, no aspect of life in the Church more powerfully or more clearly cuts through the post-modern morass than the sacred liturgy.

“The celebration of the sacred liturgy as the primary expression of God’s truth and revelation for reflection and living the Christian life must negotiate post-modernity without forfeiting its nature and purpose,” the organizers state at the SCL website. “The 2017 Conference of the Society for Catholic Liturgy will occasion academic and pastoral presentations on the topic of the liturgy and post-modernity.”

Papers will be delivered by scholars, pastors, liturgists, musicians and architects from every part of the United States and also from Europe on a wide variety of topics related to the theme of Liturgy and Post-Modernity. The Conference is open to any interested person. For more information about the conference, visit the conference page at the SCL’s website: www.liturgysociety.org/conference/.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s controversial 2007 motu proprio document Summorum Pontificum could turn out to be a great source of healing in the postconciliar Church.

According to a June 1 story for the Catholic News Agency, Elise Harris reports that hopes run high for liturgical accord in the Church a decade after issuing Summorum Pontificum, which expanded access to the Traditional Latin Mass (now known as the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite).

“Ten years after Benedict XVI broadened access to the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass,” Harris writes, “the document by which he did so is being hailed as a means of closing the rift of division following liturgical changes made after the Second Vatican Council.”

Identifying two forms of the Roman Rite—the ordinary form developed after the Second Vatican Council and the extraordinary form in use before the Council and continuing today—Benedict’s motu proprio document, Harris writes, “noted that the Traditional Latin Mass was never abrogated. He acknowledged clearly the right of all priests of the Roman rite to say Mass using the Roman Missal of 1962, and established that parish priests should be willing say the extraordinary form for groups of the faithful who request it.

Benedict also established that the faithful could have

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Active throughout his life, Father Solanus took great pleasure in playing with the younger among his fellow Capuchins in a pick-up game of tennis or volleyball, Brockhaus notes.

On July 31, 1957, Father Solanus died from erysipelas, a skin disease that had plagued him in his final years. His last words were reported to be “I give my soul to Jesus Christ.”

About 20,000 people attended this beloved Capuchin’s wake and burial in St. Bonaventure’s cemetery.

In 1987, his remains were exhumed and reinterred at the Father Solanus Casey Center located at the monastery. Except for some deterioration at the elbows, his corpse was discovered to be incorrupt.

In an official statement on the news, Detroit Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron pointed to the important role Father Solanus plays as a model of sanctity for the Church: “The beatification of Father Solanus Casey is an incomparable grace for the Church in the Archdiocese of Detroit and for the whole community of Southeast Michigan. He is an inspiration to all us Catholics—and to all—of the power of grace to transform one’s life.”

In a May 9 story for The Michigan Catholic, official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Detroit, Mike Stechschulte reports on the miracle that led to Pope Francis’s decree. According to Stechschulte, quoting Father David Preuss, OFM Cap, director of the Solanus Casey Center, “the miracle needed to raise Father Solanus to ‘blessed’ involved a woman with an incurable genetic skin disease. The woman was visiting friends in Detroit and stopped at Father Solanus’ tomb to pray for others’ intentions. After her prayers, she felt the strong urging to ask for the friar’s intercession for herself, too, and received an instant and visible healing. The miraculous nature of her cure was verified by doctors in her home country, in Detroit and in Rome, all of whom confirmed there was no scientific explanation.”

Father Solanus’s beatification will take place on November 18 at a Mass at Ford Field in Detroit.

recourse to their bishop or even the Vatican if their requests for celebration of the extraordinary form were not satisfied.”

Addressing the question of unity, the document states that the two forms of the rite “will in no way lead to division…for they are two usages of the one Roman rite.”

Likewise, Harris adds, quoting from Pope Benedict’s letter to the bishops that accompanied the 2007 document, “the two Forms of the usage of the Roman Rite can be mutually enriching.”

In Harris’s story, Father Vincenzo Nuara, OP, president of the association “Priestly Friends of Summorum Pontificum,” explains how Benedict’s motu proprio is the perfect salve for liturgical politics in the Church today.

“Sometimes there are these polemics,” Harris writes, quoting Father Nuara, “but I think Benedict tried to overcome these polemics, saying that even in the liturgy there is a certain progress…but clearly in full continuity with the tradition of the Church.”

Acknowledging that the changes that occurred after the Second Vatican Council created heightened tensions, Father Nuara says, the 2007 document “was not an instrument to divide,” but “it was an instrument to unite. To unite, and to bring again that ecclesial peace that’s needed in this time.”

The document is progressive in the best sense of that word, according to Father Nuara, quoted by Harris: “I see it as a positive instrument, not negative. It’s not an instrument for going backwards. It’s an instrument to reconnect ourselves in continuity.”

Please see NEWS & VIEWS page 10

EDITOR - PUBLISHER: Christopher Carstens MANAGING EDITOR: Joseph O’Brien GRAPHIC DESIGNER: Danelle Bjornson OFFICE MANAGER: Elizabeth Gallagher PHONE: 608.521.0385 WEBSITE: www.adoremus.org MEMBERSHIP REQUESTS & CHANGE OF ADDRESS: info@adoremus.org LETTERS TO THE EDITOR EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE P.O. Box 385 The Rev. Jerry Pokorsky ✝ La Crosse, WI 54602-0385 Helen Hull Hitchcock The Rev. Joseph Fessio, SJ editor@adoremus.org Contents copyright © 2017 by ADOREMUS. All rights reserved.

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Adoremus Bulletin, July 2017

What’s Wrong with the Liturgy? —I am.

By Christopher Carstens, Editor

AB/WIKIMEDIA

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n the early 20th century, The Times newspaper of London is said to have asked notable authors, “What’s wrong with the world?” G.K. Chesterton responded simply: “I am.”

If the authenticity of the anecdote is difficult to prove, it is doubly so to determine just what he meant. In his 1910 book, What’s Wrong with the World?, Chesterton looks to those who comprise “the world”—men, women, children, families—and how the larger society’s politics, labor, and laws either advance or obstruct domestic flourishing.

Our understanding of this shared prosperity of the individual and the society, of the family unit and the world family, sheds some light on what Chesterton’s speculative quip might mean.

The famously stout apologist is saying that as the individual goes, so goes the world. When there is something wrong with me, invariably there will be something also wrong with the world—and vice versa.

Suppose Adoremus Bulletin, like the The Times, asked today’s liturgical leaders and participants a similar question: “What’s wrong with the liturgy?”

In reality, neither Adoremus Bulletin nor any other publication needs to ask this question to elicit responses. Suffice it to say that there is no lack of volunteers attempting to answer it—as Pope St. John Paul II himself once noted: “The liturgy! Everybody speaks about it, writes about it, and discusses the subject. It has been commented on, it has been praised, and it has been criticized.” The music is often poorly chosen and sung. Art and architecture are frequently mundane at the expense of the heavenly. Preaching and presiding can lack dignity. Participation is regularly associated with liturgical ministry. Liturgical language is deemed inaccessible by many. Opinions abound about “what’s wrong.”

But if I were answer in the spirit of Chesterton, that “I am” what’s wrong with the liturgy, I know that such a response would not be my first answer.

Nevertheless, this Q&A exercise is a timely one during this year’s 10th anniversary of Summorum Pontificum.

Anyone genuinely interested in the implementation of Pope Benedict’s 2007 motu proprio will rightly discuss the “mutual enrichment” of the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms, as well as consider the strengths and defects of each.

But if the two Missals are all we look toward, we’re only seeing half of the liturgical landscape—like a lackluster look at the world from having one eye closed.

Truly, our ritual execution is imperfect, and such will always be the case as long human beings are involved. Adoremus spends much of its energy working to promote beautiful and substantial celebrations, helping the liturgy’s ministers develop an ars celebrandi and thus become cooperators with the Holy Spirit, the premiere “artisan of ‘God’s masterpieces,’ the sacraments” (CCC, 1091).

There is always room for improvement on the ritual side of the liturgical ledger.

But what about the other side of the scorecard—what about me? While the liturgy glorifies God in an objective way—Jesus and his saving work remain its core—the glory of God, as St. Irenaeus famously says, “is man fully alive.”

If I want to glorify God, which is the beginning and end of the liturgy, then I too must be sanctified along the way.

The early twentieth century liturgical movement understood this human di-

English author G.K. Chesterton claimed to be “what’s wrong” with the world. While not of the same prominence, Adoremus’s editor, Christopher Carstens, is also what’s wrong—with the liturgy.

mension well. What moves in the liturgy, the change that was desired by those lobbying for the liturgy, was not principally the rites, but the hearts of men and women who celebrate. As a 1929 tract says clearly, the Liturgical Movement is a movement of the baptized “towards the liturgy, a movement towards the Christ-life giving mysteries.” For these early Fathers, it was the human heart that needed to move and change, not the liturgical rites.

Liturgist and theologian Romano Guardini spoke powerfully of the participant’s role in the liturgy on the heels of the Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. In a famous 1964 letter to the German Liturgical Congress (Sacrosanctum Concilium was promulgated in December 1963), he advises: “The question is whether the wonderful opportunities now open to the liturgy will achieve their full realization; whether we shall be satisfied with just removing anomalies, taking new situations into account, giving better instruction on the meaning of ceremonies and liturgical vessels, or whether we shall relearn a forgotten way of doing things and recapture lost attitudes.” By this “forgotten way of doing things” and the recovering of “lost attitudes” Guardini means forming participants to open themselves for the divinization made possible in the liturgy— changing what’s wrong with me, in other words. Furthermore, Guardini says, if the participant’s own formation “is not taken in hand, reforms of rites and texts will not help much.”

The liturgical education of individuals is, as it were, the other principal aim of Adoremus’s apostolate, and this dimension finds much food for thought in the present Bulletin. As noted above, July 2017 marks the 10th anniversary of Pope Benedict’s motu proprio, Summorum Pontificum. Even as the letter’s ongoing purpose remains a “mutual enrichment” between the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms of the one Roman Rite, the so-called “liturgy wars” between respective adherents often remain a regular yet unfortunate element in the contemporary Church. But as Cardinal Sarah has recently remarked: “it is inconceivable to celebrate the liturgy while having in one’s heart feelings of fratricidal struggle and rancor…. I vehemently refuse therefore to waste our time pitting one liturgy

against another, or the Missal of Saint Pius V against that of Blessed Paul VI.” Fr. Michael Pawlowicz, in his article “Ten Years Later: Summorum Pontificum Inspires New Generation to Bridge the Liturgical Divide,” sees the 2007 document not as a battle cry, but as an instrument of “interior reconciliation in the heart of the Church” (to quote Pope Benedict) and in the hearts of participants. In other words, Summorum Pontificum addresses not only “what’s wrong” with the two ritual forms of the Mass, but also “what’s wrong” with me.

In the current issue, too, Father Frederick Miller looks at the liturgical heart of the faithful today through the eyes of the Church’s most newly-canonized

and youngest saints. The angel which initially appeared to Fatima’s children didn’t speak of ritual reform, but of their own liturgical formation: he “taught the children how to worship the mystery of God; how to offer Jesus to the Father in sacrifice, how to offer themselves and their sacrifices in union with Jesus to the Father.” He sought to change the children by means of the sacraments—which is precisely what happened—until they were saints and no longer “what’s wrong” with the world.

“What’s wrong with the liturgy?”

While there may be many true answers, one of the answers is, unfortunately, “I am.”

Cardinal Sarah: One Holy Catholic Liturgy—One Holy Catholic Church Editor’s note: This excerpt is taken from Cardinal Robert Sarah’s address to the Colloquium “The Source of the Future” (“Quelle der Zukunft”), delivered March 20-April 1, 2017 at Herzogenrath, near Aachen, Germany, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the publication of Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict XVI’s motu propio on the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.

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ollowing the publication of my book God or Nothing, people have asked me about the “liturgy wars” which for decades have too often divided Catholics. I stated that that is an aberration, because the liturgy is the field par excellence in which Catholics ought to experience unity in the truth, in faith and in love, and consequently that it is inconceivable to celebrate the liturgy while having in one’s heart feelings of fratricidal struggle and rancor.

Besides, did Jesus not speak very demanding words about the need to go and be reconciled with one’s brother before presenting his own sacrifice at the altar? (See Mt 5:23-24.)

The liturgy in its turn moves the faithful, filled with “the paschal sacraments,” to be “one in holiness” (Cf. Postcommunion for the Easter Vigil

and Easter Sunday); it prays that “they may hold fast in their lives to what they have grasped by their faith”; the renewal in the Eucharist of the covenant between the Lord and man draws the faithful into the compelling love of Christ and sets them on fire. From the liturgy, therefore, and especially from the Eucharist, as from a font, grace is poured forth upon us; and the sanctification of men in Christ and the glorification of God, to which all other activities of the Church are directed as toward their end, is achieved in the most efficacious possible way. (Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 10) In this “face-to-face encounter” with God, which the liturgy is, our heart must be pure of all enmity, which presupposes that everyone must be respected with his own sensibility. This means concretely that, although it must be reaffirmed that Vatican Council II never asked to make tabula rasa of the past and therefore to abandon the Missal said to be of St. Pius V, which produced so many saints, not to mention three such admirable priests as St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, St. Pius of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio) and St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, at the same time Please see SARAH on page 10

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Adoremus Bulletin, July 2017

Pope Benedict XVI released Summorum Pontificum on July 7, 2007, to maintain unity and restore reconciliation where disunity has arisen.

ourselves has very little to do with the change from the old to the new liturgical books. More and more clearly we can see that, behind all the conflicting views, there is a profound disagreement about the very nature of the liturgical celebration, its antecedents, its proper form, and about those who are responsible for it.”3 3. Disenchantment with celebration of the Novus Ordo: Pope Benedict refers to this directly in his letter, writing, “This occurred above all because in many places celebrations were not faithful to the prescriptions of the new Missal, but the latter actually was understood as authorizing or even requiring creativity, which frequently led to deformations of the liturgy which were hard to bear.

I am speaking from experience, since I too lived through that period with all its hopes and its confusion. And I have seen how arbitrary deformations of the liturgy caused deep pain to individuals totally rooted in the faith of the Church.”4 Note that this has more to do with the way that the modern Mass is celebrated than a critique of the Missal itself.

4. Psychological vertigo: Nearly every aspect of the Roman Liturgy was changed and restructured in a period of years. The Mass according to the Novus Ordo—as it is experienced by the people—differs radically from the experience of the Mass according to the preConciliar books. The Book of Blessings is incomparable to the blessings found in the Roman Ritual. The prayers are different. The lectionary is different. The music is different. The language is different. The architecture of the parish is different. It would be naïve to think that this dramatic series of changes would not cause at the very least some type of psychological disorientation among the people of God. Blessed Paul VI clearly understood this, as he spoke in a 1969 General Audience on the coming changes, “We must prepare for this many-sided inconvenience. It is the kind of upset caused by every novelty that breaks in on our habits. We shall notice that pious persons are disturbed most, because they have their own respectable way of hearing Mass, and they will feel shaken out of their usual thoughts and obliged to follow those of others. Even priests may feel some annoyance in this respect.”5 In light of such discord and disturbances, Christ’s faithful have done a pret-

ty good job of hanging on. Summorum Pontificum is, in part, an acknowledgement of something that every doctor knows: you can only do so many surgeries at once. Even if they are all good and all aimed at full health—at some point you need to send the patient home to rest for a bit.

Blueprints for a Bridge What I am intending to convey

THE TRINITY, BY AGNOLO GADDI. AB/LAWRENCE OP ON FLICKR

Continued from SUMMORUM, page 1

the same God. Both profess the same here is that before we look at the theoCreed, and both groups understand it in logical, liturgical, canonical, and practithe same way. Catholics attracted to the cal content of the relationship between Extraordinary Form and those drawn to the Ordinary Form and the Extraordithe Ordinary Form have been baptized nary Form, we must consider the Holy Father’s intention to act as the “perpetual with the same baptism. They eat the and visible principle and foundation of “ Before we look at the theological, unity of both the bishops and of the liturgical, canonical, and practical faithful.”6 He sees a divided Church, a content of the relationship between group very much on the Ordinary Form and the Extraordithe peripheries of communion, those nary Form, we must consider the who are brokenhearted, confused Holy Father’s intention to act as and some quite the ‘perpetual and visible principle angry. What good shepherd would not and foundation of unity of both the ask: “Is there nothing we can do?” bishops and of the faithful.’”

Those who work in the ecumenical realm will immediately recognize the application of the same Body and drink the same Blood. words of Unitatis redintegratio: “WhatBoth are sons of the same Mother.

As you can tell, I believe that the greatever is truly Christian is never contrary to what genuinely belongs to the faith; er onus in this work of reconciliation and indeed, it can always bring a deeper real- unity falls upon the “Novus Ordo folk.”

I think that this position is Scriptural, ization of the mystery of Christ and the coming to us from St. Paul: “Now, we Church.”7 If such can be said about what that are stronger ought to bear the infironce was ours and has been reshaped outside of the Church, how much more mities of the weak and not to please ouris it true for that which has always been selves” (Rom 15:1). I do not want to imours and left unmodified? ply that the friends of the traditional litSummorum Pontificum, therefore, is urgy are weak in the physical, emotional, a tool towards reconciliation and unity. or psychological sense. The fortitude that If we are to understand it correctly, we they have shown over the last 50 years must acknowledge that there has been shows that to be patently false. However, and continues to exist disunity, and that they are the weak insofar as they are the we cannot discount this disunity as minority in the Church. It is extremely acceptable collateral damage. difficult to find an Extraordinary Form The people most interested Mass in most dioceses. Where they in the Extraordinary are offered, generally they are at inopForm hold the same portune hours or only once or twice a faith as those obmonth, as though the 3rd Commandserving the Orment were suspended for them. They have at times been ridiculed, mocked, dinary Form. and publicly shamed by their local Both adore priests and bishops. Some have been derided by theologians, liturgists, diocesan curia, directors of religious education, and parish worship councils. When they finally find somewhere friendly to them, within a few years the pastor is moved and the new one either kicks them out or waits for them to leave. I am not making these things up. These are all experiences of my own parishioners. Decades of this kind of treatment leave you tired, at best, or bitter and suspicious, at worst.

Yes, they are weak for the simple reason that they are the ecclesiological, liturgical, aesthetic, and devotional minority in the Church. That being said, perhaps with the exception of the more hardened Lefevrists, everything that they hold and desire is firmly rooted in the perennial teaching and tradition of the Church. They believe the same faith, receive the same sacraments, read the same Scriptures and pray for the health and intentions of the same Pope. So, again, St. Paul reminds us: “Now, we that are stronger ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please ourselves” (Rom 15:1).

The people most interested in the Extraordinary Form hold the same faith as those observing the Ordinary Form. Both adore the same God. Both profess the same Creed, and both groups understand it in the same way. Both have been baptized with the same baptism.

They eat the same Body and drink the same Blood. Both are sons of the same Mother.

Liturgical War and Peace St. Peter commands that we be “of one mind, having compassion one of another, being lovers of the brotherhood, merciful, modest, humble” (I Pet 3:8). If we are, indeed, to be of one mind and to reconcile with our brothers before offering our gifts (cf. Mt 5:24), I see two principle obstacles that need to be overcome.

Both of these obstacles, by the way, are rooted in a lack of trust between those who favor the traditional liturgy and those who are perturbed by it.

The principle charge by those in favor of the traditional liturgy is that the reformed rites (or, at least, the celebration thereof) are not faithful to the Church’s

own understanding of the nature and proper celebration of the Holy Mass. This perceived failing might be expressed in the lack of a sense of sacrality, mundane music, ‘performing’ priests and ministers, the versus populum orientation of the priest, the lack of silence and opportunity for prayer, the total exclusion of Latin and the chant tradition of the Church. Interestingly enough, I rarely hear any difficulties about the scriptures being read during the Liturgy of the Word in the vernacular. I do not think that the issue is the presence of the vernacular as much as the absence of Latin.

The central point is this: walking into a traditional Mass, it is very clear that we are here to worship the Omnipotent God and to commune with things unseen. I think that any honest person will admit that it is sometimes much easier to read sacrality into the current celebration of the Mass than for it to naturally strike the congregant.

The principal charge of those who are hesitant toward the traditional liturgy is a bit harder to pin down. You hear some bile and wormwood from people who say that the “Latin Massers” hate Vatican II and the liturgical reforms a priori, but I do not really find this charge convincing.

It is true that the abrupt implementation and abuses committed in the name of the Council have hardened many to the reforms, but I think that this posture is more fundamentally a reaction to certain bad fruits of the last 50 years than to the Council itself. A more convincing argument against the traditional liturgy than accusations of “bad attitude” is one of accessibility and community. It is true that it takes a bit of training to fruitfully assist at the Extraordinary Form. You have to learn what is happening and be comfortable with that fact that you are far from the center of attention. You also have to learn the communal aspect of the Mass springs first from the union of souls to God, then by means of God, to one another. The accessibility argument also speaks to the intended effect of the liturgical reforms: that Christ’s faithful should be led “ad plenam illam, consciam atque actuosam liturgicarum celebrationum participationem ducantur” (“to that fully conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations”).8 In the end, this charge is not new, and it is fair. It was the impetus for the liturgical reforms in the first place.

So, where do we stand? One side asserts that it has achieved the Council’s designs by making the Mass more accessible and communitarian. The other agrees, but notes that this was achieved by emptying the Mass of God. In a sense, their response is, “What’s the point?

Better just to stick with what we know works.”

The irony in all of this is that the root of either’s hesitations ends up being the same thing. The people who are suspicious of the traditional form say that it somehow impedes them from adoring the Lord Jesus. The people who are suspicious of the ordinary form say that it somehow impedes them from adoring the Lord Jesus. Both sides want to adore the Lord Jesus and they are asking the same question, “How to best facilitate that?” Both sides want the same thing, and I think recognizing this common goal and dwelling upon it for a bit is the first clear step in overcoming some of the divisions and mistrust that continue to exist. The questions of sacrality and accessibility must be subjugated to the overarching principle that the Mass is the central means by which we adore God and are “made partakers of the divine nature” (II Pet 1:4).

To put the case in plain language, we have to recognize that we are on the same team: everyone that is going to Mass is going because they want to meet with Jesus the Lord. The Novus Ordo is a valid and currently predominant mode of that

“ This young generation does not know anything about the tradition of the Church, about her music, art, architecture, devotions, or saints. When we do encounter them, we do not always think, ‘This is old.’ In fact, we often think, ‘This is new. I had no idea that this existed.’” meeting. The Usus antiquior is also valid and the traditional expression of that same meeting. The two are not enemies.

Novus et Antiquior…

Happily, I think that we are at a point in time where we are moving beyond the tensions of Old Rite-New Rite in the generation of Catholics who are around my age (29 years old). We did not live through the so-called ‘Liturgy Wars’, most of us were not alive when Lefebvre consecrated the bishops, and the most horrible abuses are all just stories to us.

We laugh at them, shrug and say, “That’s really weird.” Because we did not live

Forecasting the Fruits of Pentecost in Real Time A Report on the Celebration of the Extended Form of the Vigil Mass for Pentecost

By Father Gerald Dennis Gill Editor’s note: Father Gill opened the riches of the Extended form of the Vigil of Pentecost in the May 2017 Bulletin. Adoremus followed-up by asking how this year’s Vigil went, especially in light of his recent reflections.

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everal-hundred people assembled in the Philadelphia Cathedral on Pentecost Eve to celebrate the Extended Form of the Vigil Mass this past June 3, 2017. This would be the second year in a row for this celebration at the Cathedral.

There was a greater ease with the extended form this year and a palpable enthusiasm to celebrate this renewed manner of anticipating the Fiftieth Day of Easter.

The chants, the additional biblical texts, the prayers from the Roman Missal for the Extended Form of the Vigil Mass, all combine to beautifully forecast a new and

great outpouring of God, the Holy Spirit, with the Church’s celebration of Pentecost, the birth of the Church. The liturgical content of the Vigil vividly declares that this is a moment of urgent prayer as the Church watches and waits with Mary and the Apostles for “the Spirit promised by the Lord.”

Now that the celebration has taken place and Pentecost arrived the following day, a type of mystagogy is in order. Objectively, what are the unique fruits of the celebration of the Extended Form of the Vigil Mass, for all of us who watched and waited in prayer in such a heavenly company? I am certain that there were personal and individual graces and blessings for many who encountered the Lord and his Holy Spirit that Saturday evening. However, with every celebration of the Sacred Liturgy the Church gives an indication of an objectively discernible fruit. What is that fruit for the Pentecost Vigil?

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The questions of the Ordinary Form’s sacrality and Extraordinary Form’s accessibility must be subjugated to the overarching principle that the Mass is the central means by which we adore God and are “made partakers of the divine nature” (II Pet 1:4).

through this history, we are not scarred and bitter. We do not necessarily see the Church divided into camps. We do not really know what the terms ‘Old Church’ and ‘New Church’ mean. For us, it is much more a question of what is Catholic or not Catholic.

Eucharistic adoration? —Great.

Praise and worship? —Great.

Latin chant? —Great.

Work with poor? —Great.

Small groups and evangelization?

— Great.

Avoid nuclear war? —Great.

End abortion? —Great.

This young generation does not know anything about the tradition of the Church, about her music, art, architecture, devotions, or saints. When we do encounter them, we do not always think, “This is old.” In fact, we often think, “This is new. I had no idea that this existed.”

This discovery should be a cause of joy for us, that the Church is always young, finding awe and wonder in places that we would not have expected or that we ourselves have discounted.

If we are to speak of “mutual enrichment,” we first have to be able to realize that both forms have something to offer to one another. Mistrust must be overcome before divisions can be healed.

Mistrust is only going to be overcome if we can recognize each other’s arguments

and hesitations, find what is valid, move beyond what is not, and understand— with good will—that the desire of all involved is to draw near to God and thus have communion amongst ourselves. If we are to be true to Benedict XVI’s hope of “an interior reconciliation in the heart of the Church,”9 we must understand Summorum Pontificum primarily as an instrument of ecclesial healing, and only after that as a contribution to the liturgical renewal.

The General Instruction of the Roman Missal gives us an indication of where to go to find a description of the fruit of our liturgical celebrations. It is the Prayer after Communion: “To bring to completion the prayer of the People of God, and also to conclude the whole Communion Rite, the Priest pronounces the Prayer after Communion, in which he prays for the fruits of the mystery just celebrated” (GIRM 89).

And so, at the conclusion of this second great Vigil in the Church Year, after meditation on the Word of God as it announces the great deeds of God and engaging in the paschal act of Christ and receiving his Holy Spirit in the Eucharist, we prayed the proper Prayer after Communion “for the fruits of the mystery just celebrated”: May these gifts we have consumed benefit us, O Lord, that we may always be aflame with the same Spirit, whom you wondrously poured out on your Apostles.

Through Christ our Lord.

With the same confident faith with which we all assembled at this Vigil to hear

Jesus announce his own Gospel to us, to actually participate in the death and resurrection of the Lord and receive this same mystery with the Eucharistic Prayer and Communion, we receive the chief fruit of the Extended Form of the Vigil Mass which is to be “aflame with the same Spirit…wondrously poured out on [the] Apostles.” What an amazing fruit! This objective fruit invites all of us who celebrated the Vigil to confess our faith in God, the Holy Spirit, to believe like the Apostles that this same Spirit gives the power to be credible witnesses to the Gospel and to be a part of the Savior’s enduring work through his Church to renew the face of the earth.

This fruit, being aflame with the same Spirit, continues to be at work in us and in the Church with every reception of Holy Communion until we will receive it anew at the next Vigil of Pentecost!

____________________________ Fr. Michael Pawlowicz was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Joliet in Illinois in 2013. He is currently the parochial vicar at St. Matthew Parish in Glendale Heights, IL, and also serves as chaplain to the parish’s grade school. He studied theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome while attending seminary at the Pontifical North American College.

1. Benedict XVI, Letter Con grande fiducia (7 July 2007).

2. Benedict XVI, Letter Con grande fiducia (7 July 2007).

3. Joseph Ratzinger, The Feast of Faith (San Francisco : Ignatius Press, 1986), 61.

4. Benedict XVI, Letter Con grande fiducia (7 July 2007).

5. Paul VI, General Audience, 26 November 1969.

6. LG 23.

7. UR 4.

8. SC 14.

9. Benedict XVI, Letter Con grande fiducia (7 July 2007).

Father Dennis Gill is currently the Rector and Pastor of the Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul and the Director of the Office for Divine Worship for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

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Francisco (right) spent long hours each day praying in front of the Blessed Sacrament in the parish church. Jacinta (left), the youngest of the three, distinguished herself by acts of heroic penance to save sinners but, before all else, to console the Sacred Heart of Jesus, wounded by sin. Jacinta had a special love and concern for the Holy Father in Rome.

The Mother of Our Love for Christ: Our Lady of Fatima and The Holy Eucharist This study of Our Lady of Fatima is dedicated to Sister Mary Elizabeth, O.C.D. and Sister Margaret Mary, O.C.D of the Carmel of the Holy Name of Jesus, Denmark, Wisconsin in gratitude for all they have done to promote the Fatima message through their prayers and sacrifices in Carmel.

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he celebration of the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of the Mother of God in Fatima, Portugal, led me to reflect on the 75th anniversary in 1992. At that time, I was the Executive Director of the World Apostolate of Fatima (The Blue Army) and the rector of the Shrine of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Washington, NJ. As part of the 75th anniversary celebrations, my staff and I organized a symposium on the Fatima message.

A week or two before the symposium, one of the speakers, Monsignor Eugene Kevane, founder and director of the Notre Dame Catechetical Institute in Arlington, VA, fell critically ill. We had invited him, a distinguished scholar, to present a paper titled “Mary, Catechist at Fatima.” If my memory serves me well, Monsignor Kevane himself suggested the topic.

Since Monsignor Kevane had been one of my esteemed professors in graduate school, I decided to take his topic as my own and compose an essay entitled, “Mary, Catechist at Fatima.” I hid away in a retreat house for a week to prepare the conference that Monsignor Kevane had been scheduled to deliver. I knew that I had to focus on Monsignor Kevane’s amazing understanding of the role of catechesis in the life of the Church. I reread the story of the apparitions with an eye on its pedagogical orientation and content.

After a day or two of study, I realized anew Monsignor Kevane’s genius. The apparitions of Our Blessed Mother at Fatima and the supernatural phenomena that surrounded them were from beginning to end a catechetical lesson given to three innocent children. The simplicity and profundity of the insight engulfed me. God had sent the Blessed Mother to Fatima to instruct and form three youngsters, and

through them, the Christian world, in the fundamental message of the Gospel: The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel (Mk 1:15).

When I began to reread the accounts of the apparitions, I understood that Monsignor Kevane had grasped with acuity an essential component of what we might call the mystery of Fatima. Certainly, God had sent the Lady of the Rosary to Fatima in 1917, as the First World War raged in Europe, with a plan for peace. She came to alert the Church to the evils of Russian Communism. Above all, she came to call her children, many of whom were and are in danger of eternal loss, to faith, conversion, and a life of prayer and penance for the salvation of all people.

The message of Our Lady of Fatima is remarkably simple. The first recipients and beneficiaries of the message were three poor children: Lucia Dos Santos and her cousins, Francisco Marto, and Jacinta Marto, ages 10, 9, and 7 respectively at the time of the apparitions. They understood the message perfectly: Reject sin, pray the rosary, do penance for the salvation of sinners.

Twenty-five years ago, my research led me to isolate a number of catechetical truths that Our Lady taught the children of Fatima. I must confess, though, that in 1992 I did not adequately appreciate the central role the Eucharist played in the Fatima mystery. The centenary celebration offered me the opportunity to revisit the topic in “Mary, Catechist at Fatima.” I have come to realize that the Mother of God through the agency of an angel brought the Christian initiation of Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia to completion. Then, Mary, as the children’s spiritual mother, helped them to internalize the Eucharistic Sacrifice in every facet of their lives.

Praying with Angels In 1916, the year before Mary herself came, an angel appeared to the children on at least three occasions. Identifying himself as the “Angel of Peace,” he came from God to teach the children how to exercise their baptismal priesthood. In the first apparition, the Angel bowing pro-

foundly with his forehead on the ground taught the children this prayer: “My God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love You. I ask pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope, and do not love You.” The Eucharistic theme of this prayer was repeated with a slightly different emphasis in the second apparition of the angel. He said to them, “in every way you can offer sacrifice to God in reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and in supplication for sinners. In this way, you will bring peace to our country, for I am its guardian angel, the Angel of Portugal.

Above all, bear and accept with patience the sufferings God will send you.”

The third and final apparition of the Angel is explicitly Eucharistic. In fact, in this apparition, the angel gave Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia their first Holy Communion. The Angel gave the Eucharist to the children under both species. It is worthwhile to ponder the entire description of the marvelous event from the diary of Sr. Lucia: “After we had repeated this prayer, I do not know how many times we saw shining

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By Father Frederick L. Miller

Little Jacinta and Francisco are not saints because they saw an angel and the Mother of God. They are saints because they heard the Word of God, believed it, and put it into practice in their lives through prayer and sacrifice.

over us a strange light. We lifted our heads to see what was happening. The Angel was holding in his left hand a chalice and over it, in the air, was a host from which drops of blood fell into the chalice. The Angel leaves the chalice in the air, kneels near us

and tells us to repeat three times: “‘Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore You profoundly, and I offer You the Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifferences by which He is offended. And by the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg the conversion of poor sinners.’

“After that he rose, took again in his hand the chalice and the host. The host he gave to me and the contents of the chalice he gave to Jacinta and Francisco, saying at the same time, Eat and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ terribly outraged by the ingratitude of men. Offer reparation for their sakes and console God. “Once more, he bowed to the ground repeating with us the same prayer thrice: ‘Most Holy Trinity,’ etc. and disappeared.

Overwhelmed by the supernatural atmosphere that involved us, we imitated the Angel in everything, kneeling prostrate as he did and repeating the prayers he said.”

Messenger of Mystery The Angel taught the children how to worship the mystery of God; how to offer Jesus to the Father in sacrifice, how to offer themselves and their sacrifices in union with Jesus to the Father, how to draw life from the reception of the Lord’s Body and Blood. He catechized the children on the Real Presence and the Real Sacrifice of Christ in the Eucharistic celebration. He taught them how to exercise their baptismal priesthood in making the oblation.

He introduced a theme that Our Lady would make much more explicit in the subsequent apparitions: the oblation of Christ, truly present in the Eucharist, must be lived out every day by members of the Church.

The significance of the Eucharist in the mystery of Fatima is most evident in these three apparitions of the Angel to the children. It is of some importance to address two thought-provoking questions.

First, from whence came the consecrated host and chalice that the Angel gave to the children? Surely, the complete answer to this question is enfolded in the mystery of

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God. Suffice it to say, the Eucharistic species had to come from the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice somewhere. The children’s reception of the body and blood of Christ united them to the Lord and the sacramental representation of his Calvary sacrifice, to the local and universal Church in which the sacrifice is offered, and to a bishop or priest who makes the offering.

Second, had the children received the sacrament of confirmation before the apparition of the Angel? During the first half of the 20th century in many places throughout the world, whenever the local bishop came to town he confirmed all the baptized men, women, and children, even those children who had not yet attained the use of reason. Without having the resources to answer this question definitively now, I venture to opine that when the children received their first Holy Communion from the hands of the Angel, they may have already received the sacrament of confirmation. Certainly, their willingness to defend, suffer for, and bear witness to the faith in the world manifests the res proper to confirmation, the sacrament of Christian maturity. I might suggest that the first Holy Communion of Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia brought their initiation into the Body of Christ to completion.

This specific encounter with Jesus in the presence of an angel was the sacramental apex of their spiritual lives. The event determined and gave form to all that would follow.

Perhaps the greatest miracle of all is the holiness wrought by grace in the lives of St. Jacinta and St. Francisco, which Pope Francis recognized when he enrolled them in the canon of the saints on May 13, 2017. Here Pope Francis visits the “Chapel of Apparitions” during his Fatima visit on May 12.

interior life, the life of sanctifying grace. In each apparition, Mary taught the children to work with her in the application of the grace of Christ’s redemption through their faith, hope, obedience, and burning charity.

Obedient Creation The Blessed Virgin gave the children prophetic messages for the local Bishop and the Pope. Mary revealed to the Church and the world the evil of Russian Communism. This helped prepare the Church for other forms of modern totalitarianism. Perhaps God’s choice of Fatima, a town named after Mohammad’s daughter, indicates that the Virgin of Nazareth will one day be the path that Islam will take to Jesus.

There was a spectacular miracle on October 13, 1917, “the miracle of the sun.”

The children saw St. Joseph with Mary and the Christ Child. The thousands present saw the sun dance in the sky. Many of them believed that the world was about to end. This great sign demonstrated the veracity of the Fatima message. It revealed

MADONNA WITH ANGELS AND SAINTS, BY DUCCIO. AB/WIKIMEDIA

Motherly Lessons Like all fully initiated children, though, the future seers of Fatima were in need of further catechesis. The Mother of God would provide it. In each of Mary’s apparitions, Our Lady of Fatima led the children to worship and adore God whom they perceived to dwell within her Immaculate Heart. The holy presence of Mary established and greatly intensified the milieu of worship already familiar to the children through the vision of the Angel of Peace.

Our Lady taught the children that the Incarnation of the Eternal Son of God is

praying in front of the Blessed Sacrament in the parish church. Jacinta, the youngest of the three, distinguished herself by acts of heroic penance to save sinners but, before all else, to console the Sacred Heart of Jesus, wounded by sin. Jacinta had a special love and concern for the Holy Father in Rome. All three of them prayed the Rosary many times each day to console God and save sinners from the fires of hell.

When the Blessed Virgin asked the children to pray for Russia who was spreading errors (atheism and materialism) throughout the world, the children thought she was speaking of one particularly wicked woman who needed conversion.

The Blessed Virgin by her simple presence created an atmosphere of worship for the children. She helped them as a master catechist to understand that the disciples of Jesus never worship God alone. When they celebrate the Eucharist, Christians worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in spiritual solidarity with all other Christians in the state of sanctifying grace.

These holy ones, when their holiness is real, experience the desire to bring those men and women, Christians and nonChristians, who are far away from God in the state of mortal sin to reconciliation and Eucharistic communion.

The driving impetus of this movement of grace-love is the consolation of Jesus who thirsts for human faith and love in return for his love. Through their union with Christ in the Eucharist, Christians in the state of grace have the power, through prayer and penance, to help their brothers and sisters, estranged from God, to receive and cooperate with Jesus’ redeeming grace (Col 1:24). The truth, that Christians are co-workers with Christ (1 Cor 3:9) and Mary in the application of the grace of the redemption, is perhaps the centerpiece of the Fatima message. Mary during the August apparition could not have stated this truth more clearly. With an expression of deep sadness, she told the children: “Pray, pray very much. Make sacrifices for sinners. Many souls go to hell, because no one is willing to help them with sacrifice.”

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Adoremus Bulletin, July 2017

Through their union with Christ in the Eucharist, Christians in the state of grace have the power, through prayer and penance, to help their brothers and sisters, estranged from God, to receive and cooperate with Jesus’ redeeming grace (Col 1:24). The truth, that Christians are coworkers with Christ (1 Cor 3:9) and Mary in the application of the grace of the redemption, is perhaps the centerpiece of the Fatima message.

the greatest manifestation of God’s love for all men and women. In Jesus Christ, the God-made-man suffered and died to make us holy and draw us into his life. Mary revealed that because of their free choice to reject grace and live in mortal sin, some, perhaps many people, would spend their eternity in hell fire. Lucia said that after their vision of hell, Jacinta, Francisco, and she would have died of fright had not Mary told them in a previous apparition that they would each go to Heaven.

After the vision of hell, the three little shepherds redoubled their prayer and penance for the conversion of sinners. In fact, Francisco spent long hours each day

Whereas the Angel of Peace came to catechize the children in the mystery of the Eucharist and instruct them in the exercise of their baptismal priesthood, Mary came six times as the children’s spiritual mother to teach them how to allow the Eucharistic Sacrifice to permeate every facet of their lives. As the Second Vatican Council notes, Mary was she who had “cooperated through her faith, hope, obedience, and burning charity in the Savior’s work of restoring supernatural life to souls” (Lumen Gentium, 61), and she showed herself to be the mother of the life of Jesus in the children’s souls. They recognized Mary and clung to her as the mother of their

that all creation is involved in the worship of the Trinity. It gave a glimpse into the cosmic pyrotechnics that will precede and accompany the Lord’s return in glory. The miracle of the sun was the climax of the Fatima apparitions. However, Mary would return later to Sister Lucia to ask for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart and for the devotion of the five First Saturdays. We do not know if Mary visited Lucia again during her long sojourn in Carmel. One might suspect that she had.

Perhaps even greater than the miracle of the sun is the fact that so many millions of people have responded to the message of Our Lady of Fatima by praying her Ro-

sary each day for peace in the world and the conversion of sinners. The connection of the Eucharist and Rosary is luminous.

In both prayers, one liturgical, the other devotional, there is an epiclesis (invocation of the Holy Spirit), an anamnesis (a sacred remembrance of the Mystery of Christ that makes him present), and an increase of agape-love. The praying of the Rosary helps the Catholic understand and experience at a new depth the Eucharistic epiclesis, anamnesis, and agape-love. The Rosary also allows the disciple to savor and enjoy the epiclesis, anamnesis, and agape-love that unites heaven and earth at Holy Mass.

Perhaps the greatest miracle of all is the holiness wrought by grace in the lives of St. Jacinta and St. Francisco. His Holiness, Pope Francis recognized and praised their remarkable holiness when he enrolled them in the canon of the saints on May 13, 2017. Little Jacinta and Francisco are not saints because they saw an angel and the Mother of God. They are saints because they heard the Word of God, believed it, and put in into practice in their lives through prayer and sacrifice. They are saints because they offered, received, and internalized the Mystery of Faith, the Holy Eucharist.

Many foresee that Sister Lucia, who will undoubtedly join her cousins as a saint soon, has an important doctrinal mission to fulfill as the Church assimilates her experiences and writings. Perhaps the Church will recognize her as the Catechist of the Fatima Message. As such, she will help Christians encounter more intentionally Mary’s motherhood in the order of sanctifying grace. She also has much to teach us about the transformative power of the Holy Eucharist, the source and summit of the Church’s life. Her models of this transformative power are St. Jacinta and St. Francisco of Fatima.

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Father Frederick L. Miller, a priest of the Archdiocese of Newark, holds a doctorate in sacred theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. He has served in three parishes of the Archdiocese of Newark. He was the Executive Director of the World Apostolate of Fatima and Rector of the Shrine of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Washington, NJ. He has taught at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, Overbrook, PA, St. Joseph’s Seminary, Dunwoodie, NY, Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, Emmitsburg, MD and the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. He is presently spiritual director at the College Seminary of the Immaculate Conception and adjunct professor at Immaculate Conception School of Theology (Seminary) at Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ. Father Miller’s latest book, The Grace of Ars, published by Ignatius Press, is on the spirituality of the diocesan priest.

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Adoremus Bulletin, July 2017

Pope John XXIII’s “Quiet” Theology of the

Noble Pipe Organ Resounds with Liturgical Implications

“ Surprisingly, official Church documents say relatively little about the foundational theology of the pipe organ itself.” cal movements of the faithful; (3) symbolizes the renewal expected from Vatican II; (4) forms an image of both the Church’s unity and its diversity; and (5) gives a foretaste of the heavenly liturgy.

Keying up Beauty and Splendor Of Pope John’s five points, the most expected and traditional move was the reiteration of the organ as an instrument contributing beauty and splendor to the Church’s worship. But the pope does not speak of the organ renovation

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ust days before the opening of the Second Vatican Council, Pope John XXIII delivered a now little-known allocution at the blessing of the newly renovated pipe organ in St. Peter’s Basilica. While it may seem unremarkable that the pope would say a few words on such an occasion, his text gives an intriguing theological explanation of the nature of the pipe organ in Catholic worship not found in other ecclesiastical documents.

Surprisingly, official Church documents say relatively little about the foundational theology of the pipe organ itself. Sacrosanctum Concilium treats the organ in one sentence, stating that it should be held in “high esteem” because it is “the traditional instrument” which adds a “wonderful splendor” and “lifts minds up to God and higher things” (120). The 1967 instruction, Musicam Sacram, restated this sentence verbatim, but little else is said on the organ. The current General Instruction of the Roman Missal gives the pipe organ merely half a sentence, simply saying it should have “pride of place” among musical instruments (393).

Although the notion of the pipe organ’s majesty and splendor are common tropes in Church documents, some documents ignore the organ completely. Pius XII’s 1947 encyclical Mediator Dei, the first encyclical specifically dedicated to the nature of the sacred liturgy, said nothing about the organ. Indeed, Pope Pius X’s famous 1903 motu proprio on sacred music, Tra le sollecitudini, widely considered to have begun the twentieth-century renewal of the liturgy, treats the organ

with an evident suspicion. Pius’s deep desire to emphasize the primacy of the voice in liturgical worship comes, perhaps, at the expense of the organ, since the letter simply states that music “with the accompaniment of the organ is also permitted” as long as it “merely sustains and never oppresses” singing (15-16). While indeed a good liturgical principle, it hardly formed a ringing endorsement or foundational theology of the organ.

John XXIII’s allocution, then, remains a timely read for those seeking to understand the very nature of the pipe organ. It reads a bit like a mystagogical catechesis, to use a term championed by his successor Pope Benedict XVI. Pope John did not simply repeat the common descriptions of the organ regarding solemnity and grandeur, but used the organ as a way to lead to the sacramental mysteries of the Church, especially regarding unity, diversity, and eschatology. Though quite short, his address nonetheless highlights five intriguing points about the organ, noting that it (1) expresses liturgical beauty and splendor; (2) aids in mysti-

Pope John XXIII dedicated St. Peter’s newly-installed pipe organ in 1962, just days before the opening of the Second Vatican Council. The “solemn and joyful” ceremony of the dedication of the new organ, he remarked, was especially fitting during the excited “fervor” on the eve of the Second Vatican Council. The same joy and excitement that stirred in the hearts of those preparing for the Council would be stirred up by the beautification of “the greatest temple in Christendom.”

as a kind of high-end spiffing up of St. Peter’s when expecting guests. Rather, he notes that the “solemn and joyful” ceremony of the dedication of the new organ was especially fitting during the excited “fervor” on the eve of the Second Vatican Council. The same joy and excitement that stirred in the hearts of those preparing for the Council would be stirred up by the beautification of “the greatest temple in Christendom.”

This association of the beautification of St. Peter’s Basilica with the event of the Council itself is made several times.

“Because the basilica of St. Peter itself is concerned,” he said, “it takes on a new and deeper significance.” Seeing himself as the successor of St. Peter about to collaborate with the successors of the apostles, he noted that St. Peter’s Basilica “is the focal point of the devotion and admiration of the faithful throughout the world, where the vital life of the Church can be seen and felt.” This same

vital life would be indicated by the pipe organ since it leads people to a “lovely and mystical exultation” not only in the liturgy, but in the processes of the council itself.

“ St. Peter’s newly-dedicated pipe organ would do its part in ‘lifting men up to the throne of the Most High’ and aid in the establishment of the dispositions needed on the eve of the Council: adoration, exultation, and gratitude.”

He noted that like the basilica itself, the new organ fittingly symbolized the human efforts of its participants joined with the supernatural grace of the Petrine Office. The building tangibly represented the “matchless expression of human genius” but would join with the

When seeing the organ as an image of the Church—for which he credits The City of God by St. Augustine—Pope John XXIII noted that “the giving of a proper and ordered harmony to different musical sounds is an image of the well-governed city, where peace and order reign, thanks to the harmonious union of the different elements.”

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By Denis McNamara

9

Adoremus Bulletin, July 2017

Pope John’s words give today’s pastors and liturgists a fresh way to look at liturgical unity and diversity within the framework of Christ’s liturgical headship: the pipe organ’s many pipes—some bright and reedy, others low and somber, some hidden and some in the line of public view—symbolize the diversity of the members of any worshipping assembly anywhere in the world, yet all unite in a single voice of praise.

evanescence of music, which he called the “most spiritual of the fine arts.” The organ’s music, then, would likewise do its part in “lifting men up to the throne of the Most High” and aid in the establishment of the dispositions needed on the eve of the Council: adoration, exultation, and gratitude.

Mystical Movements Under a heading called “Effects of Organ Music,” the pontiff called the pipe organ the “king” of sacred musical instruments that leads the Christian populace to the threshold of the church door and therefore “belongs to the temple in a very special way.” Echoing the ideas of the Liturgical Movement that emphasized the worshipper’s responsibility to offer him or her self in the liturgy—including interior sentiments and desires—he suggests that the expressive possibilities of the pipe organ bring unity to worshippers, forming them into one body: “it becomes the spokesman for the feelings of all, for their noblest and holiest flights.”

Moreover, he claimed that the organ would aid the soul in opening “wide to the mystical influences of grace,” stating: “Its melodies make it easier for the mystical movements of the sacred event to penetrate into the depths of the soul; admiration of virtue or desire for it; resolutions of penance and purification; a longing for a more intimate union with God; a pledge to struggle against evil; a foretaste of the happiness of heaven.”

Pope John then quoted St. Augustine, who wrote that the sweet sound of music had stirred up in him deep and consoling love for the Church, and because of it, “truth poured into” his heart. The pontiff noted that the symbolism for his own day was obvious, calling it a “gentle touch of divine Providence” that just before the Council, love for the Church and deep knowledge of the truth would be essential, and the pipe organ would make both easier to attain.

Breathing Symbol of Renewal As he moved along in his address, the pope made a not-so-subtle pun and vivid claim that the powerful sound of the organ gave a “prelude of that renewal of Christian life” expected after the Council which would take “its be-

Prelude to the Heavenly Liturgy Perhaps the master image for the entire allocution is the notion of the organ as foretaste of the heavenly liturgy, a phrase that would appear explicitly in Sacrosanctam Concilium. This new eschatological emphasis, which saw the Church’s worship as not only an earthly activity of the virtue of religion but also as a formative foretaste of the glorious heavenly future, involved the organ as well.

Simply put, when renewed by the Council, the Church would display its own sacramental beauty and therefore lead the Christians to the mystical movements which allow them to participate in their own heavenly future.

The sound of the organ would not simply signify the unity of Christians, then, but also anticipate the perfect unity of heaven and earth.

John XXIII’s claim could not be more clear. If the organ blended the voices of all into its overarching melody, it would then invite “the Christian faithful to form a kind of harmonious chorus with their bishops and with the priests.” This choral symphony, then, would bring to earth a participation in the very realities of heaven. “The strings of the lyre will be different,” he said, but one single symphony uniting heaven and earth would indeed come forth. Though the earthly Church would still be a pilgrim waiting for its heavenly homeland, it would also be “united with the neverending procession of the blessed in heaven, who sing hymns in praise of the spotless lamb.”

ginning from this temple.” The air that concept then took what might today be flowed through the organ’s pipes and called a “multicultural” turn, natural on cause a “sweet and penetrating sound” the eve of a council where participants was the very symbol of this renewal, would come from all over the globe. but more importantly, it symbolized Under the great vaults of St. Peter’s “the life-giving breath of that spirit of Basilica, he said, the Council fathers the Lord that fills the world.” The sound would be united as members of a single of the organ would help the Council family despite differences in race, language, and national origin. The sound fathers to “feel the solemnity of the historical event,” he claimed, and therefore of the newly-refurbished organ would A Theology for All serve the needs of the Church. not drown out this variety, but rather While John XXIII spoke of a particuMoreover, the new pipe organ would blend “all their voices into a single cholarly grand organ at the very center “help the faithful hear the rustle of new life that will be spreading through the Church” and “cause more fervent prayers to well up in hearts asking God that his divine Spirit…renew in our day the wonders of Pentecost.” In this way, the “king” of musical instruments would contribute its part to the very action of the Council itself, inspiring people— through sacramental encounter—to call down the Holy Spirit to renew the Church The pipe organ, according to Pope John, is the “king” of sacred musical instruments. “Its melodies make it easier for the and through mystical movements of the sacred event to penetrate into the depths of the soul” and are “a foretaste of the happiness of heaven.” it, the world.

Image of the Unity of the Church When seeing the organ as an image of the Church—for which he credits The City of God by St. Augustine—Pope John noted that “the giving of a proper and ordered harmony to different musical sounds is an image of the wellgoverned city, where peace and order reign, thanks to the harmonious union of the different elements.” He takes the image further, seeing the organ as a symbol of the Church itself, calling it “a living symphony” of many parts. This

rus” and therefore become “a living expression and active principle of the unity of the Church.”

Interestingly, the allocution mentions St. Peter’s Basilica itself several times, noting that the activities of the Council could find no more fitting place than literally and figuratively “under” the protection of the saint who established the Petrine Office. The organ would guide and blend “all the faithful who lift themselves up to God with their whole heart” so that all the Christian

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people might “be vivified” and “harmoniously united for the unity of the faith.”

of Catholicism, his claims prove quite relevant today for any parish church.

His allocution remains particularly relevant, particularly in light of today’s interest in multiculturalism and a general confusion about the nature of liturgical music.

Pope John’s words give today’s pastors and liturgists a fresh way to look at liturgical unity and diversity within the framework of Christ’s liturgical headPlease see ORGAN on page 11

10 Continued from SARAH on page 3 it is essential to promote the liturgical renewal intended by that same Council, and therefore the liturgical books were updated following the Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium, in particular the Missal said to be of Blessed Pope Paul VI. And I added that what is important above all, whether one is celebrating in the Ordinary or the Extraordinary Form, is to bring to the faithful something that they have a right to: the beauty of the liturgy, its sacrality, silence, recollection, the mystical dimension and adoration. The liturgy should put us face to face with God in a personal relationship of intense intimacy.

It should plunge us into the inner life of the Most Holy Trinity. […]

I vehemently refuse therefore to waste our time pitting one liturgy against another, or the Missal of St. Pius V against that of Blessed Paul VI. Rather, it is a question of entering into the great silence of the liturgy, by allowing ourselves to be enriched by all the liturgical forms, whether they are Latin or Eastern. Indeed, without this mystical dimension of silence and without a contemplative spirit, the liturgy will remain an occasion for hateful divisions, ideological confrontations and the public humiliation of the weak by those who claim to hold some authority, instead of being the place of our unity and communion in the Lord. Thus, instead of being an occasion for confronting and hating each other, the liturgy should bring us all together to unity in the faith and to the true knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ… and, by living in the truth of love, we will grow into Christ so as to be raised up in all things to Him who is the Head (cf. Eph 4:13-15).

Continued from page 2

NEWS & VIEWS AB Contributor Appointed Associate Director of Secretariat for Divine Worship Father Randy Stice, a priest of the Diocese of Knoxville, KY, has been appointed associate director of the Secretariat for Divine Worship of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on July 1, 2017.

Ordained to the priesthood in 2007 for the Diocese of Knoxville, Father Stice has most recently served as pastor of St. Mary Catholic Church in Athens, TN. He also serves as Director of the Diocesan Office for Worship and Liturgy. In the past, he has taken on the duties of diocesan Master of Ceremonies and in previous assignments as parochial vicar.

After earning the Licentiate in Sacred Theology from Mundelein Seminary in 2007, Father Stice received an MA in Liturgy from the Liturgical Institute at Mundelein in 2011. He has published articles in The Heythrop Journal, Sacred Architecture, and the Adoremus Bulletin.

Father Stice is also the author of three books on the Sacraments: Understanding the Sacraments of Healing: A Rite-Based Approach (LTP, 2015); Understanding the Sacraments of Vocation: A Rite-Based Approach (LTP, 2016); and Understanding the Sacraments of Initiation: A Rite-Based Approach (LTP 2017).

Adoremus Bulletin, July 2017

THE RITE QUESTIONS

QPontificum, and does it allow for any English texts?

A

: Which version of the Rituale Romanum is allowed by Summorum

: While many rightly focus on Summorum Pontificum’s restoration of the Missal of St. John XXIII as an “extraordinary expression” of the Roman Rite, it is often overlooked that Pope Benedict’s motu proprio likewise reestablished the use of the other pre-conciliar liturgical books, one of which was the Rituale Romanum (“Rituale”). The lone reference to the Rituale is found in article 9, §1 of Summorum Pontificum. Here pastors are granted permission “to use the older ritual in administering the Sacraments of Baptism, Matrimony, Penance and the Anointing of the Sick,” the “older ritual” being the 1952 Rituale, the last typical edition prior to the Second Vatican Council. In addition to the Sacraments, the 2011 instruction on the proper application of Summorum Pontificum by the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, the document Universae Ecclesiae, clarifies that the Rituale can be used in its entirety (35). The Rituale was a sacerdotal book containing all of the rites typically celebrated by the priest. For ceremonies pertaining to the bishop, a separate liturgical book was used: the Pontificale. Thus, in addition to the administration of the aforementioned Sacraments, the Rituale contained the rites related to Christian burial, deputed exorcisms, and the majority of blessings. The section on blessings, the De benedictionibus (Tit. IX), was by far one of the most substantial of the Rituale, comprising 360 of the liturgical book’s 878 total pages.

Although the formularies found in the 1952 Rituale were in Latin, the Holy See often permitted local Churches to produce their own editions that allowed for some use of the vernacular. A local edition, referred to as a Collectio Rituum—or “Collection of Rites”—typically featured a mix of Latin and vernacular texts, and contained all of the rites for Baptism, Matrimony, Penance, and Anointing, as well as some select blessings. This Col-

lectio served as a practical compendium that the priest could use as an alternative to the full Rituale. While the last Collectio approved for use in the United States was issued in 1964, the lone American Collectio permitted according to the norms set

by Summorum Pontificum and Universae Ecclesiae appears to be that of 1961. According to these two documents, the use of books in forma extraordinaria is limited to those that were in effect in 1962, the year in which the Second Vatican Council opened.

Although both the 1961 and the 1964 editions are based on the 1952 typical edition of the Rituale, there are some noticeable differences between the two.

While a large number of prayer texts in the 1961 Collectio are permitted in the vernacular, Latin remains obligatory for some texts, particularly those containing sacramental formulae or exorcisms.

On the other hand, the 1964 Collectio, which sought to update the 1961 edition according to the norms established

by Sacrosanctum Concilium, permits all of the texts to be used in the vernacular, with no restrictions. An example of this easing of the restriction on the use of the vernacular can be seen in the “Blessing of Candles and Throats on the Feast of St. Blaise.” Whereas the 1961 Collectio does not allow the option of saying the blessing of the candles or the blessing of throats in English, the 1964 Collectio does. Indeed, in every instance where the 1961 requires Latin, the 1964 appears to give the vernacular as an alternative.

Although the U.S. bishops requested and received permission in 1964 to use an English translation of the entire Rituale Romanum produced by Father Philip Weller and published in 1965 by Bruce Publishing Company, this permission does not appear to satisfy the terminal date of 1962 established by Summorum Pontificum and Universae Ecclesiae. Thus, while the vernacular may be used when

giving blessings in the Extraordinary Form, its use is limited only to that which one finds in the 1961 Collectio.

Moreover, apart from easing restriction of the vernacular, the 1961 Collectio also features content that is not found in the 1964 Collectio, and vice versa. For instance, the 1964 Collectio contains a precursor to the RCIA entitled the “Rite for the Baptism of Adults arranged according to the Stages of the Catechumenate” (Ordo Baptismi Adultorum per gradus Catechumenatus Dispositus). Not only is this ordo not found in the Collectio of 1961, but it is likewise not found in the Rituale of 1952, having been devised by the liturgical Consilium following the promulgation of Sacrosanctum Concilium. Furthermore, the selection of blessings in the 1961 Collectio is more ample than those found in the 1964 Collectio.

For instance, the 1961 edition features the blessing of a crucifix, of images of our Lord, the Blessed Mother and other saints, of herbs on the Feast of the Assumption, of a harvest, of herds, as well as some reserved blessings delegated to a priest. None of these are found in the 1964 Collectio, probably to account for Sacrosanctum Concilium 79 that called for the decrease in the number of reserved blessings and for the revision of Sacramentals according to the needs of the time.

Thus, given that the norms established

by Summorum Pontificum and Universae Ecclesiae, and given the differences that exist between the two editions of the American Collectio, it would appear that a strict reading of the motu proprio and subsequent instruction that set the terminus for the use of liturgical books in forma extraordinaria to those that were in force in 1962, is more in keeping with the mind of the legislator.

—Answered by Father Ryan T. Ruiz, S.L.D. Director of Liturgy and Assistant Professor of Liturgy and Sacraments The Athenaeum of Ohio/Mount St. Mary’s Seminary of the West

Can a tabernacle reside in a non-Catholic institution, Qsuch as a hospital?

A :

: It is important to keep firmly in mind that given the Catholic belief of the true presence of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Eucharist, the question of where and how the Blessed Sacrament is to be reserved is of serious importance. The Code of Canon Law requires that the Most Holy Eucharist be reserved in cathedral and parish churches and other churches or oratories connected to the house of a religious institute or society of apostolic life (cf. can. 934 §1, 1º).

The 2004 instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum further clarifies that apart from the places listed in canon 934, it is forbidden for the Blessed Sacrament to be reserved in a place that is not subject in a secure way to the authority of the diocesan bishop, or where there is a danger of profanation (RS, 131). It further instructs that where such is the case, the diocesan bishop should immediately revoke any permission for reservation of the Eucharist that may already have been granted.

The 1993 Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism (DAPNE) envisions that there may be situations where there is shared ownership or use of buildings or facilities (cf. DAPNE, 138-140). In these cases, DAPNE instructs that judicious consideration should be given regard-

ing permission to allow reservation of the Blessed Sacrament so that “sound sacramental theology with the respect that is due” to the Most Holy Eucharist is secured. That is, along with the assurance of non-profanation and of appropriately retained authority of the diocesan Bishop, before permission can be granted, consideration must be given as to whether other norms associated with the construction and care of the tabernacle and the reservation of the Most Holy Eucharist can be adequately secured.

These include questions concerning, for example: who is to be responsible for the tabernacle (cf. can. 938 §5); whether it is possible to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass there at least twice a month so that the hosts can be replenished (cf. can. 934 §2); the construction of the tabernacle (cf. can. 938 §3); the room in which it will be placed (cf. can. 938 §2 and DAPNE, 139); whether there can be a sanctuary lamp (cf. can. 940); and other such norms listed in canons 937-938, 940 and other documents concerning the tabernacle and reservation of the Most Holy Eucharist.

The DAPNE further points out that before any such permission be given by the diocesan bishop, both Catholic and non-Catholic authorities involved should enter into a clear, written agree-

ment as to how the tabernacle and space is to be handled, particularly with regards to sacramental celebrations and the norms listed above but also any civil law or other financial issues. These should include matters such as: who would have access to the room or tabernacle? Will other activities be taking place in the room or facility that would be incompatible with Catholic belief in the true presence or that would be scandalous? What right of access does the diocesan bishop or designated Catholic personnel have to the tabernacle and space? Can it be shown under civil law that the Catholic entity retains ownership of the tabernacle? Who carries liability and insurance responsibility should there be damage? Does the diocesan bishop retain the authority to direct how the tabernacle is to be handled in the space where it is located? Where these and other such issues cannot be agreed to clearly beforehand, permission should not be given.

Finally, following the norm of canon 134 §3, the permission may be given only by the diocesan bishop himself and not by the other ordinaries or local ordinaries listed in canon 134 §§1-2.

—Answered by Benedict Nguyen, M.T.S., J.D./J.C.L., D.Min (ABD) Chancellor, Diocese of Corpus Christi, TX.

11

Adoremus Bulletin, July 2017 Continued from ORGAN, page 9 ship: the pipe organ’s many pipes— some bright and reedy, others low and somber, some hidden and some in the line of public view—symbolize the diversity of the members of any worshipping assembly anywhere in the world.

Yet the grandeur, power, majesty, and unity that comes from their great symphonic sound aptly makes present the voice of that same body transfigured to heavenly glory under the headship of Christ.

The great theological concept of the Mystical Body of Christ, so prevalent in the twentieth-century liturgical theology that influenced the Council fathers, involved the many members of Christ’s body as distinct, unique, and particular entities. Yet they are joined under Christ’s headship to complete the mis-

sion of glorifying God and sanctifying his people. Each member presents its particular capacities, yet surrenders those capacities to the greater good of all. It is not surprising, then, that John XXIII spoke elsewhere of music as a means of purification of man, one which breaks man away from his selfabsorbed “egoism” and turns humanity “toward universal horizons.” Certainly this notion can lend its voice to the discussions about the nature of liturgical music today. Though 55 years old, John XXIII’s allocution on the organ gives a hermeneutic for understanding the liturgy and a rich theology of the pipe organ which remains rare among magisterial documents.

Denis R. McNamara is Associate Director and faculty member at the Liturgi-

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1. For the full text of the address in English, see R. Kevin Seasoltz, The New Liturgy: A Documentation, 1903-1965 (New York: Herder and Herder, 1966), 466-469. The original appeared in L’Osservatore Romano, September 27, 1962. An allocution is a solemn form of address, often to the College of Cardinals or Roman Curia, as was the famous speech Gaudet Mater Ecclesia, which opened the Second Vatican Council.

2. See for example, Pius XI’s 1928 Divini Cultus: “The traditionally appropriate musical instrument of the Church is the organ, which, by reason of its extraordinary grandeur and majesty, has been considered a worthy adjunct to the Liturgy….”

Musicae Sacrae, which was released in 1955 by the Vatican’s Congregation for Rites under Pius XII, noted that the organ holds the “principal position” among musical instruments because it is suited to the chant of the liturgy (58) and adds a “wonderful splendor and a special significance” to the rites. John Paul II’s Chirograph on sacred music simply restates SC, 20.

3. Allocution of John XXIII to the UNESCO Conference of Music, September 29, 1962.

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Adoremus Bulletin, July 2017

Letter of His Holiness, Benedict XVI To the Bishops on the Occasion of the Publication of Summorum Pontifiucm

M

y dear Brother Bishops, with great trust and hope, I am consigning to you as Pastors the text of a new Apostolic Letter “Motu Proprio data” on the use of the Roman liturgy prior to the reform of 1970. The document is the fruit of much reflection, numerous consultations and prayer.

News reports and judgments made without sufficient information have created no little confusion. There have been very divergent reactions ranging from joyful acceptance to harsh opposition, about a plan whose contents were in reality unknown.

This document was most directly opposed on account of two fears, which I would like to address somewhat more closely in this letter.

In the first place, there is the fear that the document detracts from the authority of the Second Vatican Council, one of whose essential decisions—the liturgical reform—is being called into question.

This fear is unfounded. In this regard, it must first be said that the Missal published by Paul VI and then republished in two subsequent editions by John Paul II, obviously is and continues to be the normal Form—the Forma ordinaria—of the Eucharistic Liturgy. The last version of the Missale Romanum prior to the Council, which was published with the authority of Pope John XXIII in 1962 and used during the Council, will now be able to be used as a Forma extraordinaria of the liturgical celebration. It is not appropriate to speak of these two versions of the Roman Missal as if they were “two Rites.” Rather, it is a matter of a twofold use of one and the same rite.

As for the use of the 1962 Missal as a Forma extraordinaria of the liturgy of the Mass, I would like to draw attention to the fact that this Missal was never juridically abrogated and, consequently, in principle, was always permitted.

At the time of the introduction of the new Missal, it did not seem necessary to issue specific norms for the possible use of the earlier Missal. Probably it was thought that it would be a matter of a few individual cases which would be resolved, case by case, on the local level. Afterwards, however, it soon became apparent that a good number of people remained strongly attached to this usage of the Roman Rite, which had been familiar to them from childhood. This was especially the case in countries where the liturgical movement had provided many people with a notable liturgical formation and a deep, personal familiarity with the earlier Form of the liturgical celebration.

We all know that, in the movement led

by Archbishop Lefebvre, fidelity to the old Missal became an external mark of identity; the reasons for the break which arose over this, however, were at a deeper level. Many people who clearly accepted the binding character of the Second Vatican Council, and were faithful to the Pope and the Bishops, nonetheless also desired to recover the form of the sacred liturgy that was dear to them. This occurred above all because in many places celebrations were not faithful to the prescriptions of the new Missal, but the latter actually was understood as authorizing or even requiring creativity, which frequently led to deformations of the liturgy

which were hard to bear. I am speaking from experience, since I too lived through that period with all its hopes and its confusion. And I have seen how arbitrary deformations of the liturgy caused deep pain to individuals totally rooted in the faith of the Church.

Pope John Paul II thus felt obliged to provide, in his Motu Proprio Ecclesia Dei (2 July 1988), guidelines for the use of the 1962 Missal; that document, however, did not contain detailed prescriptions but appealed in a general way to the generous response of Bishops towards the “legitimate aspirations” of those members of the faithful who requested this usage of the Roman Rite. At the time, the Pope primarily wanted to assist the Society of Saint Pius X to recover full unity with the Successor of Peter, and sought to heal a wound experienced ever more painfully. Unfortunately this reconciliation has not yet come about. Nonetheless, a number of communities have gratefully made use of the possibilities provided by the Motu Proprio. On the other hand, difficulties remain concerning the use of the 1962 Missal outside of these groups, because of the lack of precise juridical norms, particularly because Bishops, in such cases, frequently feared that the authority of the Council would be called into question.

Immediately after the Second Vatican Council it was presumed that requests for the use of the 1962 Missal would be limited to the older generation which had grown up with it, but in the meantime it has clearly been demonstrated that young persons too have discovered this liturgical form, felt its attraction and found in it a form of encounter with the Mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist, particularly suited to them.

Thus the need has arisen for a clearer juridical regulation which had not been foreseen at the time of the 1988 Motu Proprio. The present Norms are also meant to free Bishops from constantly having to evaluate anew how they are to respond to various situations.

In the second place, the fear was expressed in discussions about the awaited Motu Proprio, that the possibility of a wider use of the 1962 Missal would lead to disarray or even divisions within parish communities. This fear also strikes me as quite unfounded.

The use of the old Missal presupposes a certain degree of liturgical formation and some knowledge of the Latin language; neither of these is found very often. Already from these concrete presuppositions, it is clearly seen that the new Missal will certainly remain the ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, not only on account of the juridical norms, but also because of the actual situation of the communities of the faithful.

It is true that there have been exaggerations and at times social aspects unduly linked to the attitude of the faithful attached to the ancient Latin liturgical tradition. Your charity and pastoral prudence will be an incentive and guide for improving these. For that matter, the two Forms of the usage of the Roman Rite can be mutually enriching: new Saints and some of the new Prefaces can and should be inserted in the old Missal. The “Ecclesia Dei” Commission, in contact with various bodies devoted to the usus antiquior, will study the practical possibilities in this regard. The celebration of the Mass

AB/WIKIMEDIA

July 7, 2007

Roman Missal, 1962.

according to the Missal of Paul VI will be able to demonstrate, more powerfully than has been the case hitherto, the sacrality which attracts many people to the former usage. The most sure guarantee that the Missal of Paul VI can unite parish communities and be loved by them consists in its being celebrated with great reverence in harmony with the liturgical directives. This will bring out the spiritual richness and the theological depth of this Missal.

I now come to the positive reason which motivated my decision to issue this Motu Proprio updating that of 1988. It is a matter of coming to an interior reconciliation in the heart of the Church. Looking back over the past, to the divisions which in the course of the centuries have rent the Body of Christ, one continually has the impression that, at critical moments when divisions were coming about, not enough was done by the Church’s leaders to maintain or regain reconciliation and unity. One has the impression that omissions on the part of the Church have had their share of blame for the fact that these divisions were able to harden. This glance at the past imposes an obligation on us today: to make every effort to enable for all those who truly desire unity to remain in that unity or to attain it anew. I think of a sentence in the Second Letter to the Corinthians, where Paul writes: “Our mouth is open to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. In return…widen your hearts also!” (2 Cor 6:11-13) Paul was certainly speaking in another context, but his exhortation can and must touch us too, precisely on this subject. Let us generously open our hearts and make room for everything that the faith itself allows.

There is no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal. In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture.

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. Needless

to say, in order to experience full communion, the priests of the communities adhering to the former usage cannot, as a matter of principle, exclude celebrating according to the new books. The total exclusion of the new rite would not in fact be consistent with the recognition of its value and holiness.

In conclusion, dear Brothers, I very much wish to stress that these new norms do not in any way lessen your own authority and responsibility, either for the liturgy or for the pastoral care of your faithful. Each Bishop, in fact, is the moderator of the liturgy in his own Diocese (cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium, 22: “Sacrae Liturgiae moderatio ab Ecclesiae auctoritate unice pendet quae quidem est apud Apostolicam Sedem et, ad normam iuris, apud Episcopum”).

Nothing is taken away, then, from the authority of the Bishop, whose role remains that of being watchful that all is done in peace and serenity. Should some problem arise which the parish priest cannot resolve, the local Ordinary will always be able to intervene, in full harmony, however, with all that has been laid down by the new norms of the Motu Proprio.

Furthermore, I invite you, dear Brothers, to send to the Holy See an account of your experiences, three years after this Motu Proprio has taken effect. If truly serious difficulties come to light, ways to remedy them can be sought.

Dear Brothers, with gratitude and trust, I entrust to your hearts as Pastors these pages and the norms of the Motu Proprio. Let us always be mindful of the words of the Apostle Paul addressed to the presbyters of Ephesus: “Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the Church of God which he obtained with the blood of his own Son” (Acts 20:28).

I entrust these norms to the powerful intercession of Mary, Mother of the Church, and I cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing to you, dear Brothers, to the parish priests of your dioceses, and to all the priests, your co-workers, as well as to all your faithful.

Given at Saint Peter’s, 7 July 2007 BENEDICTUS PP. XVI