Praxiteles

And here is a more general view of the sanctuary in St Vitus Cathedral in Prague. The photograph is taken from the side -the only view that you can have of the modern altar which, from the centre, is completely obscured by the presence of the enormous imperial mausoleum which we see in the lower right hand corner.

Fancy finding all that on the Cloyne diocesan website!!

@Rhabanus wrote:

Why all the recent hostility toward the Stations of the Cross? Folks ought to review the Vatican’s Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy: Principles and Guidelines issued by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (Vatican City, 2001). This is easily accessible online. Just go to the Vatican website and download it, then print it out. Or just google it. There is no excuse for being bamboozled by soi-disant liturgists and other charlatans.

Fortify yourselves and read the actual documents, then invite the liturgistas to explain the texts!

Hostility towards the Stations of the Cross -that is a good question. I suspect taht some of the answers to the question will be found lurking around the corridors of the Chicago Theological Insttitute. It is more than a bit ironic that the usual figurative depictions of the Stations should be displaced by figure 1-15 in Roman numerals -when those advocating these gimmicks will be able to figure out -with a little help – I, II and III but will be totally lost when it comes to IV, V, VI, VII, VIII and in outer space as far as IX is concerned, battered by X, XI, XII, XII dumbfounded by XIV and just flat oput with XV!!

Here is an interesting one from to-day’s IT:

Conservation officer says claim ludicrous

Gordon Deegan

Clare’s conservation officer has come under fire after a councillor claimed his intervention cost the Catholic Church an additional €4.5 million in restoring a church in Kilrush.

At the council’s January meeting, Tom Prendeville (FF) asked: “Is there no limit to the powers of the Conservation Office?” Mr Prendeville said conservation works at St Senan’s Church in Kilrush were delayed for almost two years by the council’s conservation officer Risteard Ua Croinín, resulting in the costs increasing from €1.5 million to €6 million.

He said: “I am reliably informed that even the Stations of the Cross, which were removed for conservation purposes before the works were carried out at St Senan’s Church, later became the subject of a tête-a-tête between the local parish priest and the Conservation Office long after the project was completed.”

In response, Mr Ua Croinín said it was “absolutely ludicrous” to suggest that he was responsible for delaying the project or adding to its cost.

Mr Ua Croinín said he actually helped to bring costs of the project down by holding numerous meetings with the church authorities in Kilrush and issuing declarations that allowed them to press ahead with works without the need for planning permission.

He said he advised the church not to lodge a planning application for additional works as they were inappropriate and would be refused.

“Planning permission was refused and An Bord Pleanála also refused planning permission for most of the works.”

Mr Ua Croinín said he came across the Stations of the Cross in a function room.

He said: “They are valuable mid-19th century crosses and I said that they had to be removed from the room to avoid coffee or drink being spilt over them.”

Mr Prendeville sought to dispute Mr Ua Croinín’s claims. However, Clare mayor councillor Patricia McCarthy said the debate had ended.
© 2008 The Irish Times

The latest from Cobh has it that more masonry has been falling from the South aisle. Still nothing is happening.

From this week’s Catholic herald:

Benedict XVI leads the faithful in ‘looking together at the Lord’

by Dr. Alcuin Reid

“What matters is looking together at the Lord.” These words, written eight years ago by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, explain a subtle but decisive liturgical reform being enacted through the personal example of Pope Benedict XVI.

The latest and perhaps most striking step in this reform took place on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord when, as has become customary, the Pope celebrated Mass in the Sistine Chapel and baptised newborn infants. As papal ceremonial goes, this is not usually a grand liturgical occasion: the Mass is in the vernacular and is largely said, not sung.

Yet it was precisely there – in perhaps as close to a parish setting as papal ceremonies often get – that the Holy Father chose to make a significant liturgical adjustment. Instead of celebrating the liturgy of the Eucharist at a temporary altar-table set up for the occasion that would have had him “facing the people” (as has often been done in recent years), at the preparation of the gifts Pope Benedict went up to the original altar of the Sistine chapel (which stands against the wall on which Michelangelo painted his Last Judgement) and celebrated “facing East” or “towards the Lord” as it were. The Pope faced in the same direction as all those present – towards the liturgical “East”, towards the cross – in continuity with popes (including Pope John Paul II) and generations of the faithful before him.

Let us be clear, this has nothing at all to do with the Pope’s decision that the more ancient rite of the Mass (in Latin) be available to those who wish it. No, this Mass was according to the modern Missal of Paul VI, in Italian. And that is why this occasion was so important. For in this silent gesture Pope Benedict stated once and for all that there is nothing at all wrong with using the older altars in our churches. For as he wrote in his preface to Fr Michael Lang’s book Turning Towards the Lord: “there is nothing in the [Second Vatican] Council text about turning altars towards the people.”

The Holy Father’s example is not an isolated one. In his book The Spirit of the Liturgy Cardinal Ratzinger wrote “facing toward the East…was linked with the “sign of the Son of Man”, with the Cross, which announces Our Lord’s Second Coming. That is why, very early on, the East was linked with the sign of the cross.” And, recognising that in many places, altars “facing the people” have been set up (sometimes as the result of costly and unnecessary reordering) that make a return to celebrating the liturgy of the Eucharist facing East difficult. “Where a direct common turning toward the East is not possible, the cross can serve as the interior ‘East’ of faith. It should stand in the middle of the altar and be the common point of focus for both priest and praying community.”

This is what Pope Benedict has done: the cross is now at the centre of the papal altar in St Peter’s Basilica (which faces East in any case), as well as at the freestanding modern altar behind it that replaced the old altar of the Chair. He has even adopted this rule when celebrating outside the Vatican – as seen in his Advent Mass in the thoroughly modern chapel at the Knights of Malta hospital in Rome .

Here in England those few priests with the courage to take Cardinal Ratzinger’s words seriously and return to the use of what we call “the high altar” in their churches have been misunderstood or even ridiculed by clergy and laity. Some have been upbraided for doing so by their superiors.

This is undoubtedly due to the erroneous impression that “facing the people” is a mandatory part of the modern liturgy. Well, now the Holy Father – in his customarily humble way – has definitively shown us that it is not. Indeed, he has shown us that facing East where that is all that is possible, or indeed facing the cross – which is possible everywhere, can and ought to be very much a part of the modern liturgy, for “a common turning to the East during the Eucharistic Prayer remains essential. This is not a case of accidentals, but of essentials. Looking at the priest has no importance. What matters is looking together at the Lord.”

Dr Alcuin Reid is the author of The Organic Development of the Liturgy (Ignatius, 2005).

© 2008 The Catholic Herald Ltd

A short biography of James McMillan

Dr James MacMillan (born on July 16, 1959) is a Scottish classical composer and conductor.

[edit] Biography
MacMillan was born at Kilwinning, North Ayrshire, but lived in the south Ayrshire town of Cumnock until 1977.

He studied composition at the University of Edinburgh with Rita McAlister, and at Durham University with John Casken, gaining a PhD in 1987. He was a music lecturer at the University of Manchester from 1986–1988. After his studies, MacMillan returned to Scotland, composing prolifically, and becoming Associate Composer with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, working on education projects.

He came to the attention of the classical establishment with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s premiere of The Confession of Isobel Gowdie at the Proms in 1990. Isobel Gowdie was one of many women executed for witchcraft in 17th century Scotland. According to the composer, “the work craves absolution and offers Isobel Gowdie the mercy and humanity that was denied her in the last days of her life” (programme note).

The work’s international acclaim spurred more high-profile commissions, including a percussion concerto for his fellow Scot, Evelyn Glennie. Veni, Veni, Emmanuel was premiered in 1992 and has become MacMillan’s most performed work. He was also asked by Mstislav Rostropovich to compose a violoncello concerto; this was premiered by Rostropovich in 1997.

James MacMillan’s compositions are infused with the spiritual and the political. Catholicism has inspired many of his pieces, including many sacred works for choir, e.g. Magnificat (1999), and several Masses. This central strand of his life and compositions was marked by the BBC Symphony Orchestra in early 2005, with an unparalleled survey of his music entitled From Darkness into Light. MacMillan and his wife are lay Dominicans, and he has collaborated with Michael Symmons Roberts, a Catholic poet, and also Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Scottish traditional music has had a profound musical influence, and is frequently discernible in his works. When the Scottish Parliament was reconvened in 1999 after 292 years, MacMillan’s fanfare accompanied the Queen into the chamber. Weeks after the opening ceremony, MacMillan lauched an outspoken attack on sectarianism in Scotland in a speech entitled Scotland’s Shame. (BBC News).

MacMillan’s use of (even subliminally) familiar themes, coupled with his colourful orchestration, has made his music more accessible than the more academic style of avant-garde composers. This accessibility is further demonstrated by the range of his liturgical music: his Mass of 2000 was commissioned by Westminster Cathedral and contains sections which are for liturgical use only, some of which the congregation may join in [1]; his St. Anne’s Mass and Galloway Mass do not require advanced musicianship, being designed to be taught to a congregation.

James MacMillan was appointed composer and conductor with the BBC Philharmonic in 2000, and is expected to continue working with them until 2009. His collaboration with Symmons Roberts is continuing with his second opera, based on the ancient Welsh tales of the Mabinogion. The Sacrifice was premiered by Welsh National Opera in Autumn 2007. Sundogs, a large-scale work for chorus a cappella, also on texts by Symmons Roberts was premiered by the Indiana University Contemporary Vocal Ensemble in August 2006.

[edit] Key works
After the Tryst (violin + piano – 1988)
The Confession of Isobel Gowdie (orchestra – 1990)
The Berserking (piano concerto – 1990)
Veni, Veni, Emmanuel (percussion concerto – 1992)
Seven Last Words from the Cross (cantata: choir and strings – 1993)
In̩s de Castro (opera, libretto: John Clifford Р1991-95)
The World’s Ransoming (cor anglais and orchestra – 1997)
Cello concerto (1997)
Symphony: Vigil (1997)
Quickening (soloists, chorus, orchestra – 1998)
Mass (choir, organ – 2000)
Cello Sonata no2 dedicated to Julian Lloyd Webber
The Birds of Rhiannon (orchestra + optional chorus, text: Michael Symmons Roberts – 2001)
O Bone Jesu (2001), for SSAATTBB + Soli
Piano concerto No. 2 (2003)
“Sun-Dogs” (2006)
The Sacrifice (opera)
He has recently become a Patron of the London Oratory School Schola Cantorum along with Simon Callow and HRH Princess Michael of Kent. He became a CBE in 2004.

A reflection by James McMillan on the manner in which the liturgical renewal of the Second Vatican Council was highjacked:

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/features_opinion/features_3.html

Notice also taht the large stations of the cross have disappeared.

Bullseye!!

Here is what we have all be waiting for: little Danny Murphy bleates again – this time on the Stations oft he Cross in Liscarroll church.

Perhaps Rhabanus would like to comment!