41 years ago, on the 29th June 1975, His Eminence Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke was ordained a priest of the Holy Catholic Church. He has served as the Bishop of LaCrosse, Archbishop of St. Louis, Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, and is presently a member of the College of Cardinals and Patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

Congratulations Your Eminence and thanks be to God for your vocation and your unwavering adherence to the teachings of the Universal Church.

Tu es vas electiónis, prædicátor veritátis in univérso mundo.

Dr Joseph Shaw, LMS Chairman and author of the series of FIUV Position Papers has published the latest paper on the Laity in the Traditional Mass.

It is a response to the argument that the Traditional Mass exemplifies 'clericalism', because it doesn't have swarms of lay people in the sanctuary, reading the lessons, cleansing the sacred vessels, leading prayers and hymns and distributing communion.

Dr Shaw says "The key point of the paper is that, while at least some 'special' lay roles in the liturgy are perfectly defensible - serving and singing being the obvious examples - even these don't exist for the sake of the liturgical participation of the people doing them. This is a crucial point. Without it the rest of the congregation may well feel excluded wrongly from graces available only to the parish elite."

The paper (number 29) can be read here.
All papers (1-29) can be read here.

“I have compassion on the multitude.” This sentiment of the Divine and Human Heart (Gospel), so endearing to us, inspires our pleas to God in the Introit, that He save us because we belong to Him.
 
The Prayer, alluding to our Baptism, when He implanted in us a love of His Name (which means “to save”) beseeches God to foster andthen to protect “what is good.” What is “good?” It is to “foster” the “new life” in Christ Jesus begun at Baptism (Epistle); “dead to sin” is its negative side; “alive to God” is its positive. To “protect” and to nourish this Life is the object of the Eucharist, which is its food.
 
A hunger for the Divine Life and “Goodness” is universal to all times and places, as prefigured in the Gospel, “Can anyone fill them in the wilderness” of life, where the mind hungers for Truth, the will and heart hunger for Love? At the altar of sacrifice God will not “allow the hopes of anyone to be in vain” (Secret). Only at the altar of the Sacrament are we really “filled” (Postcommunion).
 
The 26th June is the feast of SS John and Paul Mm., whose names are mentioned in the Canon of the Mass, brothers, who gave their lives for the Faith in the V Century, and are buried on the Coelian Hill in Rome. Although not commemorated in the 1962 rubrics of the Mass, we ought to pray to these Saints for strength to face down the evil world, flesh and devil.

Over at the Torch of the Faith there is an interesting article on Catholicism in Wales and a little review of the current perilous situation in the Diocese of Wrexham.

Firstly, a word of thanks for the encouraging words offered for our little mission to promote Traditional Liturgy in the diocese.

The current situation and the impending changes to the church network and Mass times are a concern for many. I am quite sure Bishop Brignall's mailbox has been quite full since he promulgated his pastoral letter!

One of the major issues the diocese faces is a shortage of clergy - there are simply not enough priests to go around. There are no vocations at seminary and there have not been any for a number of years. Please God, send us labourers for your vineyard in North Wales!

However, the crossroads we have now reached is not solely due to the lack of priests. Some of the churches are far from well attended and this has a knock on effect on the bank balance.

Of course, this untenable situation could well have come about due to the lack of priests .... No priests engenders a lack of pastoral support and leadership, leading to a crisis of faith and confidence and therefore culminates in low Mass numbers and little income.

I do not suppose that the Bishop published the plan lightly and one has to assume that all options had been explored to avoid closures whilst ensuring everyone has the opportunity to fulfil their Sunday obligation.

But perhaps one solution, highlighted by the good people at Touch of the Faith, has not been fully explored. That is the establishment of a Traditional parish. Be assured, I have already made this suggestion to the Bishop in written correspondence.

This could not be achieved by use of diocesan clergy, it would mean an invitation to one of the traditional communities. The diocese is located conveniently for the two locally based traditional priestly communities at New Brighton and Warrington.

The big question would be viability. If there was a realistic prospect that such a proposition was financially sound, then surely this is not such a silly suggestion.

This year another 11 new priests will be ordained by His Eminence Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke at the Church of Ss Michaele and Gaetano in Florence, Italy on the 7th July.

Of your charity, please pray for these young men as they make their final preparations.

• Abbé Heitor MATHEUS
• Abbé Cyprien PARANT
• Abbé Cosme MONTJEAN 
• Abbé Erwan WAGNER
• Abbé Erwan JOSSEAUME
• Abbé Grégoire de GUILLEBON
• Abbé David SILVEY
• Abbé Florian BRAUN
• Abbé Joseph de PONCHARRA
• Abbé Martial PINOTEAU
• Abbé John O’CONNOR
  
  

In addition to the priests ordained, 8 sub-deacons and 7 deacons will be ordained on the preceding Wednesday.

The theme of today’s Mass is love of neighbour.

The Gospel should give us pause. Jesus tells us that hating our brother is equivalent to murder and puts us in “danger of hell fire.” The advice Our Lord renders is that before we make an offering at the altar but remember that our brother has something against us, to “leave thy offering...and be reconciled” to him first before presenting our gift. Thus, if we wish that God “forsake me not” (Introit) love toward others must be shown.

We ask God to help prepare us by pouring into our hearts “love toward Thee.” St. Augustine in discussing the Gospel reading tells us that the Pharisees regarded perfection as not murdering anybody physically, which is a minimum morality. However, God desires perfection and Our Lord teaches that avoiding anger is perfection in that we avoid murdering somebody interiorly. Thus, if we think about it, Our Lord was subjected to the lies, hatred and open insults of the Sanhedrin who accused Him of blasphemy falsely and thus shared in murdering Jesus. St. Peter explains how we love our neighbor by refraining our “tongues from evil” and seeking after “peace” with our brother. The Offertory tells of the joy that comes from having received “understanding” from God.

The Secret asks that the gifts which we have brought before the altar be of benefit to all. The Communion hymn expresses our aspirations to “dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life” and that we may be “cleansed” from our “hidden faults” and delivered from “our enemies” (Postcommunion).

Though not commemorated in the Sunday of the II Class, the 19th June is also the feast of St. Juliana Falconieri V., foundress of the Servite sisters, devoted to the Seven Sorrows of the BVM, who had a great devotion toward the Holy Eucharist. On the day of her death Holy Communion was placed near her breast. Miraculously, It entered her body to nourish her one last time. SS Gervase and Protase Mm., brothers, martyred near Milan in the II Century, are commemorated. St. Ambrose found their bodies in 386 and are entombed with St. Ambrose himself in the crypt. The Martyrs are invoked in the Litany of the Saints. St. Ambrose is in a glass sarcophagus above the altar in the crypt in full Episcopal splendour.

A really interesting article over the NLM. Read it here.

I cannot disagree with a word of the contents. Peter Kwasniewski has captured all the various factors that by default see the Low Mass as the most common that one will encounter. Locally, the lack of musical resource has seen Sung Mass become something of a rarity.

It was the prayerful peace of the Low Mass that brought me to love the Extraordinary Form, so I cherish it for its simple beauty. However, as my love of Old Rite developed so did my appreciation of more elaborate liturgy. I think many have the same experience.

Ad maiorem Dei gloriam!

The Mass of this Sunday reflects the call of St. Peter as a fisher of men. The Introit expresses s our confidence in God to overcome enemies that oppose us.
 
The Collect is a prayer that the course of the world may be ordered by the Lord and “joyfully serve Thee to quiet devotion.” In the Epistle we ask for “deliverance” from  corruption into the “liberty” enjoyed by a child of God. The Gradual continues the theme of asking for help from God lest the “Gentiles” ridicule our religion.
 
 The Gospel teaches that Christ is the great Fisher of Men who relies upon the Apostles, priests and Bishops, for success. We are the fish drawn out of the water by the teaching of Christ from the sea of the world. In the Offertory we ask Jesus to “enlighten my eyes” and in the Secret entreat Him to “draw our rebellious wills” to Him. The Communion reflects the sentiment that the Lord is my “firmament...and ...refuge,” while the Postcommunion tells us that the Mass and Holy Sacrament of the Altar will “purify” our hearts and protect us.
 
Today is Feast of St. John of St. Facundo C., known as a peacemaker from early childhood. Giving all his worldly goods to the poor, he became a Saint devoted completely to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, joined the Augustinian Order, finally passed away in 1479. A commemoration in the Mass of St. John of Ss Basilides, Cyrinus, Nabor and Nazarius Mm., martyred at Rome. Although not commemorated in the newer rubrics of the Mass, pray to the Saints for courage to help those less fortunate to the best of our ability, to love Holy Mass as did the holy Saint, and to be ready to become a martyr for Our Lord if called upon by Him to do so.

The Latin Mass Society Pilgrimage to Holywell takes place on Sunday 3rd July at 2.30pm.

This year, a High Mass will be celebrated by Canon Scott Tanner of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest and it will come at the end of his first year as a Priest.

This blog post is an appeal to servers Men and boys alike - if you are able to assist on this special day, please do bring your cassock and cotta with you! If you do plan to assist, let me know via e-mail here.

 “I say to you that, even so, there will be joy in heaven  over one sinner who repents, more than over ninety-nine just who have no need of repentance.” Lk. 15:7
 
From Divine Intimacy by Fr. Gabriel of St. Magdalene

Today’s liturgy is a warm invitation to confidence in the merciful love of Jesus. Even from the beginning  of the Mass, the Church has us pray thus: ‘Look toward me and have pity on me, O Lord, for I am desolate and unhappy. See my misery and sadness, and pardon all my sins’ (Introit); then in the Collect we add: ‘O God… pour out upon us Your mercy,’ and a little later we are exhorted: ‘Cast your care upon the Lord and He will support you’ (Gradual). But how can we justify all this confidence in God since we are always poor sinners?   The Gospel (Lk. 15:1-10) explains the grounds for this justification by relating two parables used by Jesus Himself to teach us that we can never have too much  confidence in His infinite mercy: the story of the lost sheep and the account of the missing drachma.”

In today’s Epistle, I Peter 5: 6-11, we can see complementary passages on how the Christian is to deal with the sufferings God sends him.  He is to have confidence in God:  “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in time of visitation; cast all your anxiety upon him, because he cares for you.” I Pt. 5: 6.  Those who humble themselves before God are confident that God’s “mighty hand” will sustain them because He cares for all who trust Him with  their anxieties.
 
“Rejoice with me, because I have found my sheep that was lost.” Mt.  15:6
 
In his book, The Liturgical Year, Vol. 10,  Dom Prosper Gueranger explains the meaning of today’s gospel parables. “The parable of the sheep that is carried back to the fold on the shepherd’s shoulders was a favourite  one with the early Christians; and they made representations of it at almost every turn. The same is put before us in today’s Gospel; that our confidence may be strengthened in God’s infinite mercy. It reminds us, in its own beautiful way, of our Lord Jesus; whom we contemplated, a few weeks back, ascending triumphantly into heaven, carrying thither, in His arms, the lost human family, which He had won back from satan and death and sin.  For, as St. Ambrose said, ‘who is the Shepherd  of our parable?  It is Christ, who carries thee, poor man, in His own Body, and has taken all thy sins upon Himself. The sheep is one, not by number, but by its kind. Rich Shepherd this, of whose flock all we human beings form but the hundredth part!  For He has Angels, and Archangels and Dominations, and Powers, and Thrones, and all the rest; all those other countless flocks, whom He has left  yonder in the mountains, that He might run after the one sheep He had lost.’”
 
The Lost  Coin  is Man Lost by Sin
 
Dom Gueranger quotes Pope St. Gregory the Great who also explains the meaning of the Parable of the Woman and Ten Groats (Drachmas) as a symbol of the redemption of man from original sin.  “He that is signified by the shepherd is also meant by the woman. Jesus is God; He is the Wisdom of God. And because a good coin must bear the image of the king upon it, therefore, was it that the woman lost her groat, when man, who had been created after God’s image, strayed from that image by committing sin. But the woman lights a lamp; the Wisdom of God hath appeared in human flesh. A lamp is a light which burns in a vessel of clay; and Light in a vessel of His Body, that this Wisdom says; My strength is dried up like a potsherd (cf. Ps. 21:6).   For, just as clay is made hard by the fire, so His strength was dried up like a potsherd, because it has strengthened unto glory of His resurrection, in the crucible of sufferings , the Flesh which He (Wisdom) has assumed…. Having found the groat she had lost, the woman called together her friends and neighbours, saying: Rejoice with me! Because I have found the groat which I had lost. Who are these friends and neighbours (cf. Lk. 15:9), if not the heavenly spirits, who are so near to divine Wisdom by the favours they enjoy of the ceaseless vision?  But we must not, meanwhile, neglect to examine why this woman, who represents divine Wisdom, is described as having ten groats, one of which she loses, then looks for, and again finds. We must know, then, that God made both angels and men, that they might know Him: and that having made both immortal, He made both to the image of God. The woman, then, had ten groats, because there are nine orders of angels, and man, who is to fill up the number of the elect, is the tenth groat; he was lost by his sin, but was found again, because eternal Wisdom restored him, by lighting the lamp, that is, by assuming his flesh, and through that working wonderful works, which led to his recovery.”