Starting the New Year

As a combination Christmas and birthday give, I bought for myself the full set of The Liturgical Year (15 volumes) by Dom Proper Gueranger. What a treasure trove of wisdom and instruction! I have read through much of his commentary on the feasts following Christmas, and am finding my investment quite worthwhile already.

For today’s feast of the Circumcision, Dom Gueranger makes note of the epistle, which is from the letter to Titus:

Dearly beloved: The grace of God our Savior has appeared to all men, instructing us, in order that, rejecting ungodliness and worldly lusts, we may live temperately and justly and piously in this world; looking for the blessed hope and glorious coming of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, Who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity and cleanse for Himself an acceptable people, pursuing good works. These things speak and exhort, in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Titus 2:11-14)

Here is Gueranger’s expounds on this passage, giving a New Year’s message to us!

These counsels of our great Apostle, who warns the faithful of the obligation they are under of making a good use of the present life, are most appropriate to the first day of January, which is now the beginning of the new civil year. Let us, therefore, renounce all worldly desires; let us live soberly, justly, and piously, and permit nothing to distract us from the expectation of that blessedness, which is our hope. The great God and Savior Jesus Christ, Who shows Himself to us in these days of His mercy in order to instruct us, will come to us in a second manner in order to give us our reward. The beginning of a new year tells us plainly enough that this Last Day is fast approaching; let us cleanse ourselves from all iniquity, and become a people acceptable to our Redeemer, a people doing good works.

I thought that was a very good thought for the first day of the 2017.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

Christmas is Coming...

The snow keeps on comin'!

I vacillate between great joy and a bit of depression and sadness.

I love Advent and the sense of anticipation it engenders in me. The readings at Vigils are beautiful and powerful. The prayers at Mass are exceptionally rich, it seems. I love having the Advent wreath on our table and lighting the candles at dinner time. 

And then there's the liturgical life of our parish...which is impoverished. 

This year, there will be no night-time Mass. Not at midnight, not even at 10pm, not even at 8 pm. Nope. Just the 4:30pm Mass on Christmas Eve, which in past years has been billed as the "Children's Mass". I don't think it is called that now, but I also don't think it has changed any. That Mass is usually packed, and I'm sure there are quite a few "Christmas-and-Easter" Catholics in attendance, as well as non-Catholics from the local community who like a little entertainment on Christmas Eve.

Our choices for Mass, then, are the 4:30 Mass (Nooooooo. I cannot bring myself to attend.), or the Sunday morning 9:30 Mass. That one will include plenty of guitar-strumming, though one can always hope the tambourine will remain silent.  The bishop will be at the Sunday morning Mass for sure, and probably the 4:30 as well, though I don't know for sure. 

That leaves us with the 11:30am Christmas Mass at the mission church. Well, maybe they won't be playing CD's this time; in the past, they have just sung standard Christmas carols. But I'm telling you, if they break into "Feliz Navidad" (because the Hispanics, ya know), I will be this close to walking out. Though I probably won't. Or if I do, I'll return when they are done.

Maybe I sound like Scrooge. Bah, humbug! Well, if you have a lovely Christmas Mass to attend - hopefully one in the extraordinary form - then please say a little prayer for me! I will sing the Office in my little chapel and try to focus on that. I will also sing the propers for the Christmas Masses, just because I can, even if there is no Mass to go along with them. Singing Gregorian chant almost always lifts my spirit!

Well, maybe things will be different next year.  But for this year, Merry Christmas to all of you who read this! 

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!

An Anniversary in Advent

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception is the anniversary date of my profession of my  
personal private vow. This year was my 10th anniversary of that vow. However, since the vow is personal and private, the celebration of its anniversary is also private - but still significant, I think! 

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception is the Marian feast on which I usually renew my De Montfort consecration to Mary, as well. I first made that consecration before I was even Catholic! A friend recommended the devotion to me, lo, these 15 years ago. And that means that next Easter will be my 15th anniversary of being received into the Church. 

Even though I've renewed the Marian consecration every year, I must admit that some years I am perhaps a bit lackadaisical in keeping up with the readings and prayers over the 33 days of preparation. This year, probably because it was in conjunction with the 10th anniversary of my vow, I was determined to pray and read with extra effort at attention, reverence and devotion.  And I was given a great consolation in the form of a deepening of my devotion to and appreciation of Our Blessed Mother.

We've had quite a bit of snow here
 in the last week.
This photo is from a few days ago...
there's more now. But you get the idea.

Another great consolation came to me in my own vocation as mother: my daughter went to confession last Saturday! I was so relieved, as she has missed Sunday Mass a few times with no excuse whatsoever, and I had been nudging her toward confession for months. We also went to Mass together that night, at with some additional urging, she received Holy Communion...for the first time in I don't know when. She was so reluctant, though...and I said, "It's not supposed to be torture!" But to her, she said, it was, because she feels angry and resentful towards our parish priest. Well, I can relate to that!  In the end, she overcame her distaste of the minister in order to receive the sacrament, and I am sure it did her good! I noticed that the next day her mood was the best it's been in a long, long time.

This whole escapade with my daughter made me sad, too. I'm sad that I didn't do a better job of catechizing her...but you can only give what you have, I didn't have as much to give her when she was young as I do now. She is not as willing to receive it now, though; I hope that will change. I am also sad that our Church doesn't do more to catechize all of us. Everything is so watered down. Our faith happens on Sunday, for most people, it seems; even in my own family! Case in point: since I was out of town and didn't give reminders to my husband and daughter, they both completely forgot about going to Mass on December 8! My husband was pretty embarrassed by his omission, but both husband and daughter defensively justified their mistake by saying "I didn't mean to". My spiritual director pointed out to me, though, that there is a "sin of negligence". The more we are attuned to the liturgical rhythm of our life in Christ, the less likely we are to forget a holy day of obligation, it seems to me.

And...the private pizza with which we celebrated the anniversary of the private vow:

Yum!

Happy Advent!

I like Advent! There are many parts of the Divine Office that I love - like singing "Conditor alme siderum" at Vespers, and just having a whole different set of antiphons for each Sunday. Then there are the readings at Vigils, and the constant message that "He is coming!" And when we get to the O Antiphons...O! O! O! I love those! 

I'm off for an overdue retreat this week. Oh...and by the way, I have gone to the Saturday night Mass the last two weeks, and it is much more bearable! Last night, I actually could pray.

Happy Second Sunday of Advent from my chapel to yours!

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!
  

Another Sunday, Another (unbearable) Mass

So...this was the most painful Mass I've been to in a long time.

When we came in, I was surprised to see the folk group poised to wield their guitars and that abominable tambourine. They played last week, and the schedule generally includes them every other week. I was immediately on the lookout for the bishop…and in fact, he was there.

Our bishop has a very nice voice, and he is able to sing the priest parts of the Mass splendidly. He did so on this occasion: he intoned some of the prayers, and he chanted the preface. But each time he does the appropriate chants, the contrast with the ridiculous country twang of the folk group is highlighted, and it almost makes me weep. (The off-key violins don't help.) It's especially unbearable when the bishop has chanted the preface, and then we have the guitars’ strum-strum-strumming of the “Holy holy holy” at the end. The bishop also intones the doxology (and so does our pastor, sometimes); and if the folk group hesitated for just one second, the people would spontaneously sing the proper Amen. But no, the folk group jumps right in with a quick guitar strum, followed by a triple Amen. I think they do it on purpose to prevent the people from doing the spontaneous thing.

Then there were the servers. One of the regular adult male acolytes was the "MC", and was vested nicely in cassock and surplice. And all but one of the altar servers were boys, though they were all wearing the stupid 7-dwarf hooded flour bags rather than cassock and surplice. There was one girl altar server; at least she had her hair neatly contained in one single braid, and she's pretty reverent. But still.

There was incense. Hurray! But then we were witness to a deacon-less bishop incensing the altar. It just seemed so odd. In the EF, of course, our pastor would have served as deacon. But in a concelebrated novus ordo Mass, he just becomes an ornamental cleric on the opposite side of the sanctuary from the bishop. In that role, he is unable to assist the bishop as a deacon would. He did read the Gospel, though, and the servers processed with candles and incense from the bishop's chair to the ambo.

So there was a lot of a leaning in the right direction, but there were enough oddities to make it apparent that no one had a clue as to why we might be doing those more traditional things. Since no one has a clue, it all becomes just a hodge-podge – a little of the old, a little of the new, and mix them altogether for liturgical stew. And that does not make for good liturgy, of course.

Why can't the folk group – who are excellent musicians – see/hear that their music does not match the bishop's intoning? Why doesn't the bishop correct this nonsense?!  He spoke at a recent diocesan chant conference, and said publicly that guitars were not appropriate at Mass; so why does he not change this practice at his cathedral, the mother church of the diocese!?!  

Apparently, the folk group will be playing their guitars and tambourine (yes, there was tambouring-playing today, even in the presence of the bishop!) next week, too. We are going to the Saturday evening Mass. I will not have the first Sunday of Advent ruined for me by attending Sunday morning Mass with the folk group.

I seldom post links here, but if you “resonate” with my complaints, and if you know the tune and some of the words of “My Favorite Things” from “The Sound of Music”, you’ll probably enjoy this post.

http://ecclesandbosco.blogspot.com/2016/11/my-favourite-things.html

Today's Mass

It's a beautiful Cathedral. Guitars do not belong here!

Mass today...with the "folk group"... ugh.

If I never hear the sound of a strumming guitar again, it will be too soon. And I don't mean just at Mass! It has reached the point that even guitar music in an appropriate setting evokes a negative response in me. In fact, a still photo of a guy holding a guitar makes me cringe!

And then there's that tambourine. The tambourine player isn't overpowering, thanks be to God, but still! Why is there a tambourine at all?!

And the violins. Oh dear. Now, I have been a violinist myself. I understand the difficulty of playing the instrument. That said, if you can't play the violin well, DO NOT PLAY IN PUBLIC. Especially at Mass. They are off-key and scratchy. The entrance song today featured an introduction by the violinists. They started off-key, and my daughter and I both winced. Things did not improve.

Then, the priest reverently intones, in chant modality, "Through Him, with Him, in Him..." etc., and instead of letting the people answer in the appropriate, simple, chant-mode, "Amen", the folk group jumps in with strumming guitars and a sung "Amen" that does not in any way, shape, or form match the priest's doxology.

I'd love for my daughter's fiance to become Catholic. I am not sure how to encourage that, but I do my best. One thing I will NOT do is take him to a novus ordo Mass with guitars strumming and tambourines jingling. That would be the kiss of death. No, I want him to know what the Catholic faith is really all about before he attends a Mass like that. Even then, I'm sure I would have to do some "repair" work. Even a reverently said Novus Ordo Mass (which our priest does accomplish) is destroyed by guitar music. That kind of music does not lead to reverent worship. In fact, I find it so distracting that I can barely focus on the prayers in my little red EF Mass booklet.

I'm really fed up with this.

Sigh.

Election Day

Well, it's been a while since I posted here. Life is busy, it seems. Time flies.

And now we arrive at election day. I am anxious, and yet at peace. God's will be done. I hate to think of Hillary as our next president; I think her election would usher in persecution of Christians, and especially faithful Catholics, the likes of which we are barely prepared to accept. But...God's will be done. Next year is the 100th anniversary of Fatima, after all. I'm expecting something big. It might be painful, too, at least in this world. But the payoff in Heaven will be spectacular.

If Trump wins, I think all that will happen is that the slide into the abyss will be slightly less rapid. This society is going down. We've already got one foot in the pit, and really, it doesn't seem like there are too many in our country who understand morality well enough to begin to pull us out of it. Even the well-intentioned, who want to do the right thing, have been so brain-washed and intimidated by the liberal left, that they are unsure whether their moral inclinations are correct, or whether they are simply "right for me".  Moral relativism is the order of the day, and is fast infiltrating (or, has already infiltrated?) the minds of those who still think there might be a right and wrong. There is a remnant, though, and this remnant will have to rebuild once the collapse is complete. So, know your faith! You might have to teach it to new converts.

I look forward to the end of today. There will still be questions about our future, but at least one question will be answered!