Surrexit Dominus

Jokes as Common Goods

Surely Advent of all seasons is the time when one ought especially to remember St Benedict’s warning against “speech provoking to laughter,” (Regula Benedicti, VI) and yet seldom have I heard such uproarious laughter in the monastery as at chapter the other day. We were discussing the fact that during the recitation of the rosary some people omit the “Amen” after the Our Fathers. Now, in German the last petition of the Our Father runs “erlöse uns von dem Bösen. Amen”. (deliver us from evil. Amen.) One of my confreres (the venerable old man pictured above) recounted that as a child he always heard it (an therefore prayed it) as,  ”erlöse uns von den bösen Damen”. (Deliver us from the evil ladies).

Why is it that on hearing really good jokes one immediately wants to tell them to others?

Ordination

On Trinity Sunday three of my confreres and I were ordained to the Priesthood by Cardinal Schönborn. Photos can be seen here.

The following is a reconstruction and translation of the words of thanks which I said on behalf of all four of us at the end of Mass:

Two Prayer Intentions for 2011

Abbatial Election in Stift Heiligenkreuz, February 10th

After twelve years as abbot— years full of blessings, including the historic visit of the Holy Father to Heiligenkreuz— our Abbot Gregory II is resigning. Please keep us in your prayers as we prepare to elect a new abbot on February 10th.

Abbot Gregory II of Heiligenkreuz, Good Friday 2007

Ordination to the Priesthood, June 19th

Please also pray for me as I prepare for ordination on Trinity Sunday, this year. The ordination begins at 4.00 PM: all sancrucensis readers are invited. I am delighted that Trinity Sunday was chosen as the date.

Per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso, est tibi Deo Patri omnipotenti, in unitate Spiritus Sancti, omnis honor et gloria per omnia saecula saeculorum.

Midnight Mass 1979 and 2010

P. Martin of The Monastic Channel has posted a video of Midnight Mass in Heiligenkreuz  from the year 1979:

As you can see, Mass was said ad orientem. The neo-gothic reredos, which was then still under the ciborium magnum, was moved against the east wall of the church in 1981. It was not until then, three years after the death of Abbot Karl Braunstorfer, who had been a father of the Second Vatican Council (and had had a very clear idea of how it ought to be implemented), that his successor started celebrating versus populum in the Abbey Church. Here is a clip of Midnight Mass from this year– you can just see the old reredos on the sacrament altar through the bars of the grill behind the high altar:

The neo-gothic reredos was a mediocre artistic achievement, and it can be argued that the painted crucifix that replaced it gives the sanctuary more focus, drawing all eyes toward the Lord. Unfortunately, this effect is contrecarré by the change to celebration versus populum.

All Times Are Bad Times

Gloriosus apparuisti inter principes Austriae, sancte Leopolde, ideo diadema suscepisti de manu Domini; ora pro nobis ad Deum qui te elegit. (Magnificat Antiphon for the Feast of Saint Leopold)

Earlier this month the Austrian Bishop’s Conference met here in Heiligenkreuz. By some chance the first day of the Conference coincided with the Feast of Saint Leopold, the great Margrave of Austria and founder of Stift Heiligenkreuz (November 15th). These are, shall we say, challenging times for the Church of Austria, and one could not but be struck by the contrast between our times and those of Saint Leopold. But perhaps there is more illusion than reality in the contrast.

Certainly the impression that one gets from the liturgical texts etc. for Saint Leopold is of a kind of golden age in which everything went right for the Holy Prince. The antiphon for the Dixit Dominus at vespers goes, “Dominus confregit in die belli inimicos Leopoldi”! But this impression must be largely mistaken. Man is fallen from Paradise so it is natural to look back to a pre-lapsarian age, but one is inclined not to look back far enough and to project pre-lapsarian perfection on very lapsarian times. Saint Leopold’s greatest contemporary, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, thought that his own times were the worst times in the history of the world. To us they only seem great because the people we remember from them are the great exceptions: SS. Bernard, Leopold etc. The extreme example of this is of course the time of Our Lord, the fullness of time, but the generation which our Lord Himself says will be condemned on the Day of Judgment by Sodom Gomorrah.

The opposite error is equally natural: to look forward to a coming generation which will set everything right. This is all very well if one looks forward to the Second Coming, but I’m afraid even Catholics have the tendency not to look forward far enough. How many times have we heard so-called “conservatives” say that soon the present unfortunate generation of “liberals” will die off and their places be taken by the rising generation of “traditionalist” churchmen who will reverse the excesses of the past decades? But every generation of churchmen is full of heresy, pride, cowardice, envy, and folly; all we can hope for is a occasional saint to keep our hopes up till the eschatological solution to all problems.

Sternkreuzorden

In Heiligenkreuz we celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross twice every year. On the Feast itself we have a monastic celebration, in which practically only the community itself takes part. On the Sunday following there is a more exoteric celebration to which lots of pilgrims come, with a solemn procession in the afternoon with our relic of the True Cross. Among the pilgrims on “Kreuzerhöhungssonntag” are always a group of ladies from the so-called “Sternkreuzorden” (Order of the the Starry Cross). The Sternkreuzorden comes in the morning and listens to some spiritual conferences (i.e. talks), before taking part in the celebrations of the afternoon. As I have been asked to give the conferences this year, I have done a little research on what the Sternkreuzorden is. The secretariat of the Order sent me a summary of its history and the latest version of its statutes, and I have also checked a few reference works. Here is what I have discovered.

The Sternkreuzorden is what is called in German a “Damenorden,” that is a chivalric order for ladies. In his rather curious book The Orders of Knighthood, British and Foreign, Rajah Sir Sourindro Mohun Tagore (ah, British India…) describes its founding as follows:

The Imperial House of Austria is said to have been in possession of a small piece of the Cross of Christ. The Emperors Maximilian and Ferdinand were accustomed to bear with them constantly in war and peace this relic inserted in a Cross of Gold. After the death of Ferdinand, his successor Leopold, presented it to the widowed Empress Eleanora, a daughter of Duke Charles of Mantua in order by its means to soften the sorrows of Her widowhood. She kept it very carefully locked in a small box, adorned with crystal and enamel and covered with silk. It happened that in the night of the 2nd February 1668, a fire suddenly broke out in the Imperial Castle at Vienna, just below the apartments of the Empress Eleanora, and it soon reached the Imperial apartments, from which she escaped with considerable difficulty before they were entirely consumed. On the following day search was made for the relic, and it was discovered amongst the ruins, fortunately untouched by the conflagration, with the exception of the metal The Empress was so rejoiced at the incident, that She ordered a solemn procession, and resolved to found a Female Order, not only, as the Statutes say, to commemorate the miraculous events but also to induce the Members to devote themselves to the service and worship of the Holy Cross, and lead a virtuous life in the exercise of religion and works of charity.

The relic in question is now kept in the Schatzkammer in Vienna. According to the Kurzgeschichte sent me by the Order, the empress had canonical court examine the preservation of the relic, and it came to the conclusion that the preservation of the wood, while the metal casing melted was miraculous. The Order’s statutes were approved by Pope Clement IX in the Bull Redemptoris et Domini Nostri (August 2, 1668).

The badge, [Rajah Sir Sourindro writes] which has undergone four alterations since the time of Maria Theresa, is an oval medallion, with a broad blue enamelled border, inclosing a black enamelled Eagle with two heads, and claws, both of gold, on which lies a Gold Cross, enamelled green, and bordered with brown wood. Over this, on an intwined wreath in black letters, on a white ground, is the motto of the Order, “Salus et Gloria”— (Hail and glory.) It is worn, pendent to a strip of black riband, on the left breast.

Originally members of the order had to prove sixteen noble great-great-grand parents (and if they were married they had to prove the same for their husbands), but the current statutes (approved by the Archbishop of Vienna in 2007) only stipulate that the members be Catholics and not living in invalid marriages, though in the first article it does say that the order is a association of “hochadelige Damen,” that is, they have to be duchesses, princesses or countesses.

The members are appointed by the guardian, who is always a member of the House of Austria. Since the death of Princess Regina the guardian has been  Archduchess Gabriela. Her Imperial and Royal Highness recently gave an interview to the Tagespost in which she says the following about the Order:

At the centre of the order is the orientation toward the cross of Christ. We also support some great works of mercy, for example in Albania, but the most important [part of our mission] is the contemplative [part].

Sunday, being the long-awaited day of Card. Newman’s beatification, I shall be using two of Newman’s sermons for my conferences: Order, the Witness and Instrument of Unity and Omnipotence in Bonds, I shall use them, and the beggining of S. Ignatius’s Excercises to talk about the epistle of the Exaltation (Phil 2:6-11), but more on that later.