The future of the ancient Mass depends upon priests being able and willing to celebrate it. We in the Latin Mass Society are unsparing in our efforts to ensure that we continue to have such priests.
 
Each year we have a Priest Training Conference, attracting priests, deacons, and seminarians, not only from England and Wales, but Scotland and overseas, from Dioceses and religious orders which do not provide this training themselves.
 
No less important is the support we can give to the young men from England and Wales who offer themselves to the traditional Religious Institutes. In recent years the number of such men has not fallen below ten, studying with the Fraternity of St Peter, the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, and the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer. Last summer, as reported in Mass of Ages, we saw the fruits of this study, in the priestly ordinations of two young English priests, one for the Fraternity and one for the Institute, who have remained in England to support their confreres in their English apostolates.
 
The Latin Mass Society is very proud to provide financial support for these young men while t~ey are studying. The Institutes are generous to those of their seminarians who lack financial means, but they do not have the resources of dioceses, and seminarians need support from families and friends. The Latin Mass Society provides a key component of this support, with an annual bursary and help on occasion with travel costs.
 
With the current, large number of seminarians to support, these bursaries cost the LMS thousands of pounds every year, and, at this moment, our Seminarians' Fund is almost empty.
 
Will you help?
 
We are appealing to our members, but there is no reason why those who are not perhaps members but who cherish Traditional Roman Catholic Liturgy to send a donation to the LMS's Seminarians' Support Appeal so that we can continue to provide this much needed help to the priests of the future.
 
Your generous donations will make all the difference.
 
You can donate by sending a cheque (made payable to ‘LMS’) to:

LMS Seminarians' Support Appeal 
11-13 Macklin Street
London
WC2B 5NH
 
If you are a UK Taxpayer, do consider ‘GiftAiding’ the donation. This can be done by adding a covering letter with your name and address and confirming that you are a UK taxpayer and that you wish for your donation to be Giftaided.
 
If you wish to donate via PayPal, then this can be done by clicking here. Once again, If you are a UK Taxpayer, then consider ‘GiftAiding’ the donation. This can be done by adding a information in the combox that indicates your name and address and that you are a UK taxpayer and that you wish for your donation to be Giftaided.
 
 Thank you for your generous support of this crucial appeal.

Regarding the Stations at Holywell that I referred to here, I thought that I would take a photo to share.

I wonder what their origin is? A generous benefactor at some point no doubt provided the means for them. Did they come with the Welsh legend? or did this get added a later date?

Incidentally, I took the photo after the LMS organised fourth Sunday Mass on Sunday last. Even accounting for the fact it was Easter Sunday, the attendance was double the usual!

Thou art looking for Jesus of Nazareth, Who was crucified. He has risen. He is not here...Go, tell His
disciples...that He goes before you” (Gospel).

Yes, we too, searchers after Christ, now confess we have found Him. The task before us is to “tell” others of His victory that all may be “of one mind and heart” Postcommunion.

Why? .....  Because if Christmas is the loveliest Feast as we behold God born of Mary unto man’s life, certainly Easter is the greatest as we behold Jesus born of a tomb so that man may rise unto God’s life. Our faith in His Divinity is confirmed because He “overcame death.” Our hope is enlivened because He has “opened  unto us the Gate of Eternity” (Prayer).

Is it any wonder that the “earth trembled...when God arose” (Offertory)? How are we to prepare for our Easter Communion? A Resurrection Day effort to “purge out the old” life for the “new!” How could we be nourished by the “sincerity and truth” of Divine Bread if it were spoiled by the “leaven” of an insincere will, of an untrue mind (Epistle)?

A nice short film depicting individual Stations of the Cross at various locations associated with the Latin Mass Society - one thing missing - a Station from St Winefride's, Holywell - one of the few places that I know that has bi-lingual English/Welsh legends under each image on the journey of the Via Crucis.

My sincere congratulations and thanks be to God for the twelve men ordained to the FSSP Diaconate on Saturday last.

Included in the 12 is Deacon Alex Stewart of the Wirral, who is pictured above during his ordination as a sub deacon which occurred on the 20th February.

Both ordinations took place at the US Seminary of the FSSP, Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary, Denton, Nabraska.

 ... Speaks of ‘deep crisis’ facing Church post-Vatican II

Today, speaking publicly on a rare occasion, Pope Benedict XVI gave an interview to Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Bishops' Conference, in which he spoke of a “two-sided deep crisis” the Church is facing in the wake of the Second Vatican Council.

The report has already hit Germany courtesy of Vaticanist Guiseppe Nardi, of the German Catholic news website Katholisches.info. Pope Benedict reminds us of the formerly indispensable Catholic conviction of the possibility of the loss of eternal salvation, or that people go to hell:

The missionaries of the 16th century were convinced that the unbaptized person is lost forever. After the [Second Vatican] Council, this conviction was definitely abandoned. The result was a two-sided, deep crisis. Without this attentiveness to the salvation, the Faith loses its foundation.

He also speaks of a “profound evolution of Dogma” with respect to the Dogma that there is no salvation outside the Church. This purported change of dogma has led, in the pope's eyes, to a loss of the missionary zeal in the Church – “any motivation for a future missionary commitment was removed.”

Pope Benedict asks the piercing question that arose after this palpable change of attitude of the Church: “Why should you try to convince the people to accept the Christian faith when they can be saved even without it?”

As to the other consequences of this new attitude in the Church, Catholics themselves, in Benedict's eyes, are less attached to their Faith: If there are those who can save their souls with other means, “why should the the Christian be bound to the necessity of the Christian Faith and its morality?” asked the pope. And he concludes: “But if Faith and Salvation are not any more interdependent, even Faith becomes less motivating.”

Pope Benedict also refutes both the idea of the “anonymous Christian” as developed by Karl Rahner, as well as the indifferentist idea that all religions are equally valuable and helpful to attain eternal life.

“Even less acceptable is the solution proposed by the pluralistic theories of religion, for which all religions, each in its own way, would be ways of salvation and, in this sense, must be considered equivalent  in their effects,” he said. In this context, he also touches upon the exploratory  ideas of the now-deceased Jesuit Cardinal, Henri de Lubac, about Christ's putatively “vicarious substitutions” which have to be now again “further reflected upon.” 

With regard to man's relation to technology and to love, Pope Benedict reminds us of the importance of human affection, saying that man still yearns in his heart “that the Good Samaritan come to his aid.”

He continues: “In the harshness of the world of technology – in which feelings to not count anymore – the hope for a saving love grows, a love which would be given freely and generously.”

Benedict also reminds his audience that: “The Church is not self-made, it was created by God and is continuously formed by Him. This finds expression in the Sacraments, above all in that of Baptism: I enter into the Church not by a bureaucratic act, but with the help of this Sacrament.” Benedict also insists that, always, “we need Grace and forgiveness.”

The Latin Mass Society will be holding its 12th training conference for priests, deacons and servers wishing to learn the older form of the Mass from Monday 4th to Thursday 7th April 2016.  It will be at Prior Park College, about a mile and a half to the southeast of Bath’s city centre.

PRIOR PARK

Prior Park, which currently houses an independent Catholic school, is set in 28 acres of parkland, and was built in the 1730s as a country mansion for a local quarry owner named Ralph Allen.  Its architect, John Wood, used Bath stone from Ralph Allen’s quarries to create a building in the Palladian style on a hillside site that overlooks the city. The grounds contain several of impressive features, including an ornamental bridge, also in the Palladian style, over an artificial lake. 

After the death of Ralph Allen, the property passed through a number of owners, and in 1828 was purchased by Bishop Baines, the Vicar Apostolic for the Western District.  His intention was to establish a seminary on the site, which he eventually did, along with a school.  It was also his intention to build a cathedral at Prior Park, but this never happened, due to the ever present shortage of money. However, a fine chapel was added.

The seminary closed in 1856, with the students transferred to Oscott College.  The school continued until the buildings were occupied by troops during the First World War. A fresh attempt was made to establish a boys’ boarding school at Prior Park in 1925, which is the fore-runner of the present school.

Prior Park College is very suitable for the needs of the LMS training conference.  There is plenty of sleeping accommodation in single rooms, and common rooms will be available for relaxation at the end of each day.  Also, Prior Park has a reputation for serving excellent food. The chapel is particularly beautiful, and retains its original High Altar and reredos in a spacious sanctuary very suitable for the traditional liturgy.  It also has four side altars, which will be used to give tuition to small groups.

TUITION

Tuition will be given by experienced priests and laymen in Low Mass, Missa Cantata and Solemn Mass according to the requirements of each student.  Full board is included in the package, although day visitors can attend for a reduced fee. 

MASSES DURING THE TRAINING CONFERENCE

Mass will be celebrated daily throughout the Conference. Held in the chapel at Prior Park College, these are public Masses and are open to all to attend.

Monday 4th April
5.00pm Solemn Mass of the Annunciation
Tuesday 5th April
11.00am Mass of Vincent Ferrer
Wednesday 6th April
11.00am Solemn Requiem Mass
Thursday 7th April
11.00am Solemn Votive Mass of Our Lord Jesus Christ

COST

The following prices are inclusive of board and lodging at Prior Park College.

Standard fee: £110
Full-time students: £55
Seminarians attend FREE OF CHARGE

HOW TO GET THERE

Address: Prior Park College, Ralph Allen Drive, Bath BA2 5AH. Directions to the college can be found on the college's website.

HOW TO APPLY

Bookings are now being taken from priests, deacons and servers to attend the conference at Prior Park.  To make an application, please complete the form here. 

Photo credit: Prior Park College

The Crucifix over the main altar is veiled today. Think it over in amazement!
 
Jesus is obliged to hide Himself when “humanity” ‘stones” ‘Divinity” (Gospel). The Jewish synagogue makes its final decision to ignore the miracles, the doctrine and the sinless of Christ, even though all these were prophesied in their own Old Testament.
 
Due to stiff-necked pride and hard-hearted materialism, their part of the covenant had become a dead letter. Jesus makes a terrifying analysis of them: “You are not of God.”
 
 In the Epistle St. Paul indicates how the High Priest of the Old Testament offered the blood sacrifices of victim goats, an offering which acknowledged that man deserves to be done away with for trying to do away with God by sinful rebellion. He now beholds the Altar of Calvary where Jesus, Eternal High Priest, sheds His Precious Blood to “cleanse our conscience” and “to serve the Living God.” Let us not “stone” Christ or cause Him to hide Himself.

We now enter the two weeks before Easter - Passion Sunday, via Palm Sunday and the greatest events of the Triduum.
 
The last week is Holy Week, while the first is called in Latin "Hebdomas Passionis", by the Greeks "Week of the palms" (from the Sunday following).
 
The rubrical prescriptions of the Roman Missal, Breviary, and "Caeremoniale Episcoporum" for this time are:
 
Before Vespers of Saturday preceding Passion Sunday the crosses, statues, and pictures of Our Lord and of the saints on the altar and throughout the church, with the sole exception of the crosses and pictures of the Way of the Cross, are to be covered with a violet veil, not translucent, nor in any way ornamented.
 
The crosses remain covered until after the solemn denudation of the principal crucifix on Good Friday. The statues and pictures retain their covering, no matter what feast may occur, until the Gloria in Excelsis of Holy Saturday.
 
Interestingly, there has been allowance for the statue of St. Joseph, if outside the sanctuary, to remain uncovered during the month of March, which is dedicated to his honour, even during Passiontide.
 
At the Mass of Passiontide, the Pslam Judica is not said; the Gloria Patri is omitted at the Asperges, the Introit, and the Lavabo; only two orations are recited and the Preface is of the Holy Cross.
 
In the Dominical and ferial offices of the Breviary the doxology is omitted in the Invitatorium and in the responses, whether long or short.
 
The crosses are veiled because Christ during this time no longer walked openly among the people, but hid himself. Hence in the papal chapel the veiling formerly took place at the words of the Gospel: "Jesus autem abscondebat se." Another reason is added by Durandus, namely that Christ's divinity was hidden when he arrived at the time of His suffering and death. The images of the saints also are covered because it would seem improper for the servants to appear when the Master himself is hidden (Nilles, "Kal.", II, 188).

Dr. Joseph Shaw, Chairman of the Latin Mass Society, has prepared his 28th Position Paper for the Foederatio Internationalis Una Voce.

This paper concerns the Good Friday Prayer for the Jews.

Last November the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales announced that they had petitioned the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei to replace the Prayer 'Pro conversione Iudaiorum' in the Good Friday Liturgy, with the one used in the Ordinary Form. Readers will know, of course, that the prayer officially approved for use in the Extraordinary Form was composed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008, replacing a prayer which had been used in the Church since, probably, the third century.

Dr. Shaw provides some commentary on the paper on his own blog here.

You can download the paper here.

You can download all the papers (1 to 28) here.