Rhabanus

@Praxiteles wrote:

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

Great article by Dr Reid. Thanks for posting it, Prax.

The Pope, in his personal theological writings (Spirit of the Liturgy), his magisterial teaching (Summorum pontificum), and his own example (Mass at high altar of the Sistine Chapel for the Baptism of the Lord 2008, plus daily Mass in his own private chapel) consistently applies the “hermeneutic of continuity” to the teachings of the Church.

Those ecclesiastics still stuck in the grip of the ‘hermeneutic of rupture’ ought to step aside in favour of those better equipped to implement the hermeneutic of continuity. The costs to the people in the pews would be considerably reduced, and they would stand a better chance of finding peace rather than discord and uproar in the liturgical worship of God.

Is St Colman’s Cathedral still standing? What about the drainage problem raised earlier on the thread? Anything fallen from the ceiling lately? When is the plywood altar going to be retired in favour of the high altar? That would solve the problem of insufficient room in the sanctuary for the throngs of candidates awaiting ordination. And everyone’s attention then would be drawn to the altar and the actio liturgica.

Do the bells at St Colman’s work? Are they used often? Or do they merely toll the Angelus and mark funerals?

@ake wrote:

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And today;

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It seems they’ve even painted over the figures in the apse.

All that beautiful detail, not to mention the more subtle tones and hues recorded on the postcard, now gone. Replaced by garish colours and unsympathetic lighting.

NEXT!

@Praxiteles wrote:

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!

The Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy: Principles and Guidelines, published in 2002 by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, treats the Stations of the Cross (Via Crucis) in sections 131-135.

The arrangement of fourteen stations is retained: “In its present for, the Via Crucis, widely promoted by St Leonardo da Porto Maurizio (+1751), approved by the Apostolic See and indulgenced, consists of fourteen stations since the middle of the seventeenth century” (132).

“… the traditional form of the Via Crucis, with its fourteent stations, is to tbe retained as the typical form of this pious exercise” (134).

Although “from time to time … as the occasion warrants, one or other of the traditional stations might possibly be substituted with a reflection on some other aspects of the Gospel account of the journey to Calvary which are traditionally included in the Stations of the Cross” nowhere does the Directory order the abolition of any of the Stations. No warrant for iconoclasm here.

Note the third subsection of 134:
“the Via Crucis is a pious devotion connected with the Passion of Christ; it should conclude, however, in such a fashion as to leave the faithful with a sense of expectation of th eresurrection in faith and hope; following the example of the Via Crucis in Jerusalem which ends with a station at the Anastasis, the celebration could end with a commemoration fo the Lord’s resurrection.”

This does not mandate a fifteenth station. Rather, as explained earlier on this thread, the traditional Stations concluded with prayers before the Risen Christ really, truly, and substantially present in the Blessed Sacrament reserved in the Tabernacle.

The Directory cannot be credited (blamed) for destroying sets of Stations of the Cross.

The Pope and Marini the Younger have done wonders in uncluttering the Sistine Chapel. Can’t wait for them to get to the Altar of the Chair beneath the Glory of Bernini.

I hope that Daniel Murphy is sitting up, pencil sharpened, and taking note!

@Praxiteles wrote:

Well as a matter of fact, our brave Danny is in fact proposing a fifteenth station of the Cross.

Could you perhaps recommend a book or two (in English of course) should our Danny want to learn something about liturgy and liturgical movement?

There once was a time when the Stations of the Cross had to be erected canonically by the local bishop. I presume that this stipulation would have provided some desirable (or, rather, needed) supervision, and guaranteed a certain standardisation from church to church and from chapel to chapel. In other words, it likely aimed to prevent the Stations from being erected backwards or out of the proper sequence. Lately, however, innovations have crept into the Stations – a sure-fire way of dampening the flames of devotion, particularly in those who have embraced the devotion and incorporated it into their spiritual routine. The introduction of novelties serves often to disorient and confuse the faithful. Is this the aim of the exercise?

Some have their favourite set of mediations on the Stations. Cardinal Newman”s are particularly good. Newman composed two sets – a longer and a shorter version, depending on whether they were being prayed publicly with a congregation, as on Lenten weekdays, or privately by individuals or small groups. The latter are somewhat more intimate or personal.

The Servant of God Pope John Paul II asked Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to compose a series of meditations and to lead the Stations of the Cross at the Colisseum on Good Friday 2005, shortly before the Pontiff returned to the Father’s House.

A new trend in some churches in North America involves embedding the Stations of the Cross not on the walls of the church (far too conventional and helpful to the faithful) but IN THE FLOOR! Explain that one!

Architects and artists, no less than parish priests ought to take cognizance of the fact that the Stations of the Cross actually comprise not the images that adorn each individual station, but rather the wooden cross that marks each one. An engraving of a Roman numeral in the floor does not suffice for an authentic set of Stations of the Cross. DO NOT BE FOOLED by innovations that cost plenty of $$$ and then leave you in the lurch because they lack due materials and arrangement.

Who comes up with these novelties, anyway? We certainly know who pays for them! Caveat emptor!

@Praxiteles wrote:

Well as a matter of fact, our brave Danny is in fact proposing a fifteenth station of the Cross.

Could you perhaps recommend a book or two (in English of course) should our Danny want to learn something about liturgy and liturgical movement?

Rhabanus recommends: Widdershins For Dummies; Everything You Wanted to Know About Catholic Processions But Were Afraid To Ask; Stop The World; I Want To Get Off; Rock Around The Clock. Then there are the more prosaic titles: Edmond Martene, De antiquis ecclesiae ritibus (Venice, 1788), III, 177; IV, 45 sq., 280 sq.; Giuseppe CATALANI, Commentarius in Rituale Romanum (Rome, 1750) – although Rhabanus always uses the third corrected edition from the 1850s – much more reliable; GRETSER, De processionibus in Opera omnia, V (Ratisbon, 1735), v; SANDERUS, Auctarium de ritu processionum (Ypres, 1640); EVEILLON, De processionibus ecclesiasticis (Paris, 1641); QUARTO, De processionibus ecclesiasticis (Naples, 1649); WORDSWORTH, Ceremonies and Processions of the Cathedral Church of Salisbury (Cambridge, 1901); Ceremonial of the Church (Philadelphia, 1894).
For more current sources, one might try John Baldovin’s Urban Stational Liturgy. The bibliogrpahy in Baldovin’s book is very useful.

Rhabanus is on manoevers, so is not handy to a library just at the moment. He may have new items to report tomorrow.

In the meantime, start Danny out on a processional pilgrimage to Croagh Padraig. As long as he keeps going counterclockwise, he’ll be right as rain.

@Praxiteles wrote:

St. Joseph’s Church, Liscarroll, Co. Cork

Well, Cork County Council is due to make a decision this week on the planning application that has been lodged by the Parish Priest to wreck the interior of this church. As usual, Danny Murphy, the liturgical guru of the Cloyne HACK, provided some of the most interesting “liturgical” justifications for this barbarism in another paper he submitted just before Christmas to the Planning Authority.

It looks as though this poor man has discovered something about liturgical movement and its anti-clockwise direction in the Latin Church. Unfortunately, as is always the case with a modicum of learning, he does not appear to have understood much about the anti-clokwise direction of Western liturgical movement – given some of the howlers he came up with on positioning the Stations of the Cross that the HACK want to put into this church.

Basically, poor old Danny had the idiotic idea of erecting the stations of the Cross in an anti-clockwise direction from the door of the church!! If Danny had been half educated, he should have known that the anti clockwise direction of liturgical movement is anti-clockwise from the ALTAR -not the back of the church or any where else in the church.

Neither did he notice that while “liturgical” movement is anti-clockwise in direction, non-liturgical movement is not anti-clockwise and can be clockwise. Danny should have realized that the Stations of the Cross, not being a liturgical practice but being a DEVOTIONAL practice, usually move in a clockwise direction. Hence, looking from the ALTAR, the first station will be on the left and progress around the church to the right.

Clearly, he has not carefully read the relevant section of the Directory on Liturgy and Popular Devotions. Indeed, he may well not have read a single word of the document for all we know and the evidence points in that direction.

Reading the latest piece of guff from him, the reader cannot easily escape the impression that the writer has confused liturgy for a very eccentric and, dare one say, daft bit of personal codology.

Perhaps Rhabanus might like to comment further.

Here goes:

The Christian liturgy adopts the classic Roman method of marching counter-clockwise in procession. Pagan Romans returning from battle purified themselves ritually by marching into the Forum on the Via Sacra in a counterclockwise direction. This movement was chosen in order to purify the troops from contact with blood in battle. The procession, which involved a display of the spoils of victory, including even captives, would lead to one of the great temples in the forum.

The Christian Church in Rome adopted the same practice, advancing to the right of the principal celebrant and proceeding in a counter-clockwise direction around the perimeter of the space or along a circular or rectangular path that wound up at the point of departure. This obtained in the Candlemas Day processions on the Esquiline Hill into the Basilica of St Mary Major, which replaced the pagan temple dedicated to Juno in Childbirth. It was there that a Christian procession would wend its way around the Esquiline and into the Basilica of St Mary Major on the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, also known as Hypapante, the “Encounter” between Christ and Simeon, representative of the all the just.

Processions into and around the stational churches of Rome follow the same pattern.

The procession of the Stations of the Cross follows this method as well. The celebrant, with various attendants bearing cross and candles, leaves the sacristy and proceeds to the foot of the altar in the sanctuary. After the opening prayers, the celebrant turns toward the gate of the sanctuary, proceeds through it into the nave and then turns to his right (Gospel side of the church). The first station (Pilate condemns Jesus to death) is placed in the side aisle. After the first station, the procession advances down the nave or side aisle toward the entrance of the church or chapel. Once the seventh station is prayed (Jesus falls the second time), the procession moves to the other side of the nave and carries on with the eighth station (Jesus comforts the daughters of Jerusalem). The procession now moves from the entrance of the church toward the sanctuary along the side aisle (Epistle side) or remaining in the middle aisle but facing each station for reflection and prayer.

After the fourteenth station (Jesus is laid in the Sepulchre) the procession leaves the Epistle side and enters the sanctuary by the gate; then prayers are recited at the foot of the Altar before the tabernacle.

The novel contrivance of a fifteenth station (The Resurrection) is an innovation encouraged by church suppliers ($$$) and nouveaux liturgistes (???), but is quite redundant, considering the tradition of concluding the procession and prayer at the foot of the altar, before the Blessed Sacrament – the Risen Lord Himself! DUHH!!

“Ya! That makes a whole lot of sense.” Glad you agree! It makes eminent sense if one possesses even a modicum of liturgical instinct (not to mention common sense), and are capable of distinguishing right from left, east from west, and your knee (?) from your elbow!

The marble Altar of Sacrifice made not by combining two side-altars. Instead, molds were made from the high altar and a completely new altar was built anew from Carara marble and shipped to the USA. Only two windows, in the Lady chapel, survived the fire that had destroyed the cathedral on 6 February 1898. They depict St Cecilia and St Agnes. The rest of the stained-glass windows were executed by the Innsbruck Glassmakers of the Austrian Tyrol around 1904.

The restoration of the cathedral was carried out by Conrad Schmitt Studios of New Berlin, Wisconsin. Check the website: http://www.conradschmitt.com.

Bishop Kevin Boland and Monsignor William O’Neill deserve recognition and high praise for a remarkably faithful and tasteful restoration of a beautiful cathedral.

Cloyne should take a leaf from their tome!

What’s the latest word from Cobh? Is there still a ceiling over the nave?

@ake wrote:

Here’s a nice little surprise; Ferrybank parish church, on the north side of the river Suir in Waterford City;
You can read an excellent, detailed history of it here;http://www.ferrybankparish.com/history/index.htm

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A couple more pictures here; http://www.flickr.com/photos/58086761@N00/sets/72157603540601172/

What, may I ask, is the projection screen doing between the chair and the reredos?
Slideshow? Saturday Night at the Movies? Hymnsing without Hymnals Or: Follow the Bouncing Ball? Hymnenanny for Hootenunnies [A Ray Repp confection from the swingin’ sixties]?
The thing looks out of place in such an elegant building.

@samuel j wrote:

Heads should roll immediately…… the waste of money is just beyond belief….and the only benefactors seem have been consultants and legal fees….

Meanwhile the whole structure is in jeopardy…..
It should be taken completely out of the hands of the Bishop and his merry men…. it is too serious to be let to them one more minute.

BTW Basic first year lectures given to civil engineers know about messing with draining

“Foundation settlement and/or upheaval – Poor drainage can result in wetting of the foundation bearing soils, which then consolidate under the weight of the foundation as the moisture leaves the soil. This is especially evident if the foundation (or a portion thereof) was placed on fill material. 100 year old homes with no history of movement suddenly settle after the drainage was changed, so the “test of time” only applies when environmental conditions are consistent. In some cases the simple condition of a blocked roof downspout can trigger a dorment condition”

The Bishop and his Muppets should be made pay the remedial works without delay:mad:

The rolling of heads is only the first stage of a much greater plan needed to secure St Colman’s Cathedral. To date, the FOSCC is the only institution over there trying to salvage a glorious monument of faith and the spiritual home of a faithful flock.

Faced with the distinct possibility of the collapse of St Colman’s Cathdral, higher ecclesiastical authorites may take an interest, not to mention the civil authorities.

At what point does malfeasance metamorphose into misfeasance?