Usually the first stational altar in the Corpus Christi Procession is in the courtyard of the Hochschule, but this year, on account of construction work there, the firt altar was at the huge mosaic-sundial which is a monument to Vatican II’s teaching on religious liberty. Thus giving a kind of visual representation of Dignitatis Humanae-as-read-with-a-hermeneutic-of-continuity. I confess to finding this slightly amusing. Remember what Trent says about Corpus Christi processions?
The holy Synod declares, moreover, that very piously and religiously was this custom introduced into the Church, that this sublime and venerable sacrament be, with special veneration and solemnity, celebrated, every year, on a certain day, and that a festival; and that it be borne reverently and with honour in processions through the streets, and public places. For it is most just that there be certain appointed holy days, whereon all Christians may, with a special and unusual demonstration, testify that their minds are grateful and thankful to their common Lord and Redeemer for so ineffable and truly divine a benefit, whereby the victory and triumph of His death are represented. And so indeed did it behove victorious truth to celebrate a triumph over falsehood and heresy, that thus her adversaries, at the sight of so much splendour, and in the midst of so great joy of the universal Church, may either pine away weakened and broken; or, touched with shame and confounded, at length repent.
One of the best parishes in Austria is St Rochus, the parish of the Vienna Oratory. In a time when many in Austria are trying to find “new” pastoral strategies, the Oratorians do basically what the Redemptorists did in the 19th century under St Clemens Maria Hofbauer, “Apostle of Vienna,” but with something of the mischievous humor of the Oratory’s founder, St Philip Neri. They have glorious liturgy; simple and down to earth preaching and catechesis; perpetual eucharistic adoration; confessionals in which the lights burn most of the day; very effective, unpretentious programs for children, youth, and young mothers, and for the disabled, the poor of Vienna’s third district etc. And their Church is full, they have lots of families with young children, lots of altar servers, and so on. And there have been a good number of vocations to the religious life and to the priesthood from their parish in recent years.
The latest Pfarrkind of St Rochus to be ordained to the priesthood is my confrère Pater Johannes Paul. On Sunday he celebrated a homecoming Mass there with all the solemnity with which the Primizmesse is traditionally attended here in Austria. He celebrated Mass in the Ordinary Use of the Roman Rite, in Latin save for the readings and intercessions, and (as is usual in St Rochus) ad orientem. He wore a neo-baroque chasuble, sewn for him by the Cistercian nuns of Marienfeld. Here are some photos (all copyright cross-press.net except for the one of the sermon, which is from St Rochus’s facebook page).
Today, His Eminence Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna ordained my confrères Pater Kilian and Pater Johannes Paul to the diaconate and the priesthood respectively. Please say a prayer for them. Here are some pictures from PKW and http://www.stift-heiligenkreuz.org/:
The laying on of hands
The Cardinal arrives
The laying on of hands
The Canon
P. Johannes Paul thanks the Cardinal after Mass
Cardinal Schönborn consecrates a chalice for P. Johannes Paul
An acquaintance of mine from southern Austria is a postulant with the „Dominicaines du Saint-Esprit“ an “Ecclesia Dei” community of Dominican sisters, who teach in schools. She sent me some pictures of the solemn profession of some sisters. The the auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan Msgr. Athanasius Schneider, O.R.C. celebrated the Mass of Profession. Among the sisters professing vows were two Austrians – Mère Marie Barbara and Mère Maria Lucia. There is a long tradition of Austrians going to France in search of a particularly fervant religious life– Bl. Otto of Freising the son of St Leopold of Austria, for instance, went to Morimond Abbey. What is it with France and religious communities? Even in these days there is an extraordinary flourishing of various communities that have returned to the sources of religious life.
The history of France is so frustrating because France has such authentic greatness, and corruptio optimi pessima. As Thomas Merton remarks in The Seven Storey Mountain.
And yet it was France that grew the finest flowers of delicacy and grace and intelligence and wit and understanding and proportion and taste. Even the countryside, even the landscape of France, whether in the low hills and lush meadows and apple orchards of Normandy or in the sharp and arid and vivid outline of the mountains of Provence, or in the vast, rolling red vineyards of Languedoc, seems to have been made full of a special perfection, as a setting for the best of the cathedrals, the most interesting towns, the most fervent monasteries, and the greatest universities.
But the wonderful thing about France is how all her perfections harmonize so fully together. She has possessed all the skills, from cooking to logic and theology, from bridge-building to contemplation, from vine-growing to sculpture, from cattle-breeding to prayer: and possessed them more perfectly, separately and together, than any other nation. Why is it that the songs of the little French children are more graceful, their speech more intelligent and sober, their eyes calmer and more profound than those of the children of other nations? Who can explain these things?
Having read a fraction of the things written about Pope Francis’s decision to disregard the Roman rubrics for the Mandatum by washing the feet of women as well as men (see: Vatican Press Office; Rorate Caeli; Caelum et Terra; Pius Pietrzyk, O.P.; Stratford Caldecott), I was struck by the fact that hardly anyone one mentioned what seems to me the obvious reason for the rubric.
In the Middle Ages it was customary in many places for the king to wash the feet of poor men on Holy Thursday, but when a Queen was regnant she would wash the feet of poor women. It seems to have never occurred to any one that a king might wash women’s feet or a queen men’s. The reason seems to be that there was a culture of what I suppose one would call “modesty.” That is, the recognition that the relation between men and women has been rendered fragile through disordered, post-lapsarian concupiscence. “Modesty” in dress and manners is a way of protecting that fragile relation.
It has often been noted that one of the reasons why people were so scandalized by the woman (or women) who anointed Our Lord’s feet (an action with interesting parallels to the washing of the feet at the Last Supper) is precisely a feeling that it violates modesty. In His whole Umgang with women– not only Mary of Bethany, but also the Samaritan woman at the well et al.– Our Lord gives a kind of preview of a redeemed creation in which the relation of men and women is no-longer strained by disorder. He shows an astonishing freedom.
Now, I think the reason why the whole discussion of Pope Francis’s Madatum has tended to ignore the question of modesty is because of the cultural gulf which separates us from past generations. So-called “sexual liberation” has had the effect of making things which once seemed immodest seem totally modest. One could say that there has been a kind of de-sensitization. This means that certain things that would have given scandal in another age simply don’t in ours. Modesty and immodesty are not wholly ”objective” predicates. I suppose, for instance, that while it would have been immodest for a woman to wear trousers in the 19th century, it simply isn’t now. People are so used to women wearing trousers, that it doesn’t give any special occasion to disordered concupiscence. Whether on deplores or applauds this, it seems to be a fact.
When Bl. Pope John Paul II died in 2005 I was a junior at Thomas Aquinas College in California. I remember praying the rosary during his final hours — we all had tears in our eyes, but it was a peaceful sadness. I thoroughly enjoyed the days that followed; praying a lot of course, but also watching the novemdiales on EWTN, reading Universi Dominici Gregis over and over, and speculating about who the next Pope would be. I envied my younger brother a bit who spent the whole period of the vacancy of the Apostolic See in Rome, but I enjoyed holding forth on things to people who knew less about the Cardinals. I remember telling one of my classmates that I thought the next Pope would be a disciple of Cardinal Ratzinger’s: Scola or Schönborn or even Ouellet. She asked me “What about Ratzinger himself?” I said that that would be wonderful, that I loved Cardinal Ratzinger, that I thought everything he wrote ought to be inscribed on tablets of gold, but that I didn’t think it would happen.
A few days later, as I came out of class, people were saying that white smoke had gone up. We all crowded into the chaplain’s house, which had the only TV on campus, and waited. Then Cardinal Medina-Estevez appeared on the street and greeted us in as many languages as he could think of, and then began to make the announcement as s l o w l y as possible. As soon as he said “Josephum” we started shouting YES!!YES!! We already knew who it was before he went any further… It was almost too good to be true.
What follows is the translation made available by ZENIT of the important speech given by the Holy at the Seminary of the Diocese of Rome on Febuary 14th (pointed out by Rorate Caeli). The Holy Father argues against historical critics who have tried to discredit the idea of Peter as the first bishop of Rome: “Saint Peter writes from Rome. It is important that we already have the Bishop of Rome, we have the beginning of the succession, we have already the beginning of the concrete primacy located in Rome, not only consigned by the Lord, but located here, in this city, in this capital of the world.”
The reflection draws from 1 Peter 1:3-5: “Peter, apostle of Jesus Christ, To the exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and to an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
* * *
Eminence,
Dear Brothers in the Episcopate and Priesthood,
Dear Friends!
It is a great joy for me to be with you every year, to see so many young men who walk toward the priesthood, who are attentive to the voice of the Lord, who wish to follow this voice and seek the way to serve the Lord in this our time.
We heard three verses of the First Letter of Saint Peter (cf. 1:3-5). Before going into this text, it seems important to me to be attentive to the fact that it is Peter who is speaking. The first two words of the Letter are “Petrus apostolus” (cf. v. 1): he speaks, and he speaks to the Churches in Asia and calls the faithful “chosen and exiles of the Dispersion” (ibidem). Let us reflect a bit on this. Peter speaks, and he speaks – as we hear at the end of the Letter – of Rome, which he calls “Babylon” (cf. 5:13). Peter speaks: it is almost a first encyclical, with which the first Apostle, vicar of Christ, speaks to the Church of all times.
Peter, apostle. Hence, he speaks who has found Christ Jesus the Messiah of God, who has spoken as the first in the name of the future Church: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (cf. Matthew 16:16). He is speaking who has introduced us to this faith. He speaks to whom the Lord said: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven” (cf. Matthew 16:19), to whom he entrusted his flock after the Resurrection, saying to him three times: “Feed my lambs, tend my sheep” (cf. John 21:15-17). Speaking also is the man who fell, who denied Jesus and who had the grace to see Jesus’ glance, to be touched in his heart and to have found forgiveness and a renewal of his mission. However, it is important that this man, full of passion, of desire for God, of desire for the kingdom of God, for the Messiah, that this man who found Jesus, the Lord and the Messiah, is also the man who sinned, who fell, and yet he remained under the eyes of the Lord and thus remains responsible for the Church of God, he remains entrusted by Christ to be the bearer of his love.
Peter the apostle is speaking, but the exegetes tell us: it is not possible that this Letter is of Peter, because the Greek is so good that it cannot be the Greek of a fisherman of the Lake of Galilee. And not only the language, the structure of the language is optimal, but also the thought is now quite mature, there are already concrete formulas in which the faith and the reflection of the Church is condensed. Hence, they say: it is already a state of development that cannot be Peter’s. How to respond? There are two important positions: first, Peter himself – namely the Letter – which gives us a key because at the end of the writing he says: “I have written to you through Silvanus – by Silvanus.” This through [by] can mean several things: it can mean that he [Silvanus] transports, transmits; it can mean that he helped in the writing; it can mean that he was really the practical writer. In any case, we can conclude that the Letter itself tells us that Peter was not alone in writing this Letter, but expresses the faith of a Church that is already on the path of faith, an ever more mature faith. He does not write by himself, an isolated individual, he writes with the help of the Church, of the persons who help to deepen the faith, to enter into the profundity of its thought, of its reasonableness, of its profundity. And this is very important: Peter does not speak as an individual, he speaks ex persona Ecclesiae, he speaks as man of the Church, certainly as a person, with his personal responsibility, but also as a person who speaks in the name of the Church: not just his private ideas, not as a genius of the 19th century who wished to express only personal, original ideas, which no one was able to express before. No. He does not speak as an individualistic genius, but speaks in fact in the communion of the Church. In Revelation, in the initial vision of Christ, it is said that the voice of Christ is the sound of many waters (cf. Revelation 1:15). This means that the voice of Christ gathers all the waters of the world, he bears in himself all the living waters that give life to the world; he is Person, but in fact this is the greatness of the Lord, who bears in himself the whole river of the Old Testament, in fact of the wisdom of the peoples. And what is said here about the Lord is true, in another way, also for the apostle, who does not wish to say his own word, but really bears in himself the waters of the faith, the waters of the whole Church, and thus, in fact, of fertility, of fecundity and precisely because of this, he is a personal witness that opens to the Lord, and so becomes open and wide. Therefore, this is important. Continue reading →
“Suscitábo mihi sacerdótem fidélem, qui iuxta cor meum et ánimam meam fáciet; et ædificábo ei domum fidélem, et ambulábit coram me cunctis diébus.” –Missa pro eligendo Papa vel Episcopo, Ant. ad introitum, 1 Sam 2, 35
