A significant feast day for lovers of chant

Above: Pope Gregory the Great dictating what the Holy Spirit puts into his mouth -- from the Golden Legend, image from Antiphonary of Hartker of Sankt-Gallen (Cod. Sang. 390, p. 13) Date: ca. 1000

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Today, Labor Day 2007, is the Memorial of St. Gregory the Great, pope and doctor of the Catholic Church. And for those who follow the old church calendar, it is the Memorial of St. Pius X, pope. Both of these popes had immense influence on the practice of plainsong (chant) in the Church. Pope Benedict XVI is likely to be remembered too for his own contribution to the preservation and practice of this kind of music when later ages look back at his reign.

Fortuitously, today was the day I had a chance to interview Stanford Professor WIlliam Mahrt on his work with the Church Music Association of America. We talked about his lifelong study and performance of Gregorian chant and Renaissance polyphony. Mahtt got swept into his lifelong love of this kind of music when he was a Stanford graduate student in musicology in 1963, and so he sang with the St. Ann choir when it was first created in 1963. He became its director in 1964, and he has continued to lead the choir almost all of the years since then, except for a few years when he taught at Case Western and Eastman School of Music after receiving his Ph.D -- before Stanford called him back to teach there.

God willing, today's interview will be the baiss for an article I have been asked to write for the National Catholic Register, and it will also serve as the start of a history I planned to write about the choir.

Partway through the interview, I mentioned that when I was praying the Office of Readings this morning, I realized it was the feast of St. Gregory the Great. St. Gregory the Great and St. Pius X pray for the success of this article and for the restoration of the chant to its "pride of place" in the liturgy.

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Below: Stereopticon of Pope St. Pius X walking in the Vatican gardens

The Crucifix That Once Was Lost and Now Is Found

This article was published in the Fall 2005 issue of the Northside Newsletter and in two installments in the Valley Catholic newspaper of the Diocese of San José, on September 20 and October 18, 2005, with some edits in each publication. It is a companion piece to SS Sacratissimus Crucifixus to Holy Cross: Northside San Jose Church History Click here for more photos.

Rosalia Villegas, parishioner at Holy Cross parish, San Jose, provided much of the information in this article about how a precious crucifix from Italy that once hung behind the altar was thrown away, and then rescued, stored in a garage, and finally returned to the church almost forty years later. Rosalia and her husband José are choir leaders, and they are part of a number of very-active Filipino parishioners at the parish.

In 1966, then-pastor Father Joseph Bolzon installed a new altar to face the congregation. During the remodeling, the 10 foot painted and gilded wooden crucifix that had formerly hung from the half-dome behind the altar was removed along with a marble Pieta and fourteen painted stations of the cross.

The crucifix in use after the remodeling was a much-smaller one that topped a gold tabernacle. The tabernacle was kept on a table behind the altar in front of a black marble backdrop with a gold-embossed depiction of the Last Supper.

Villegas said that both their sons were baptized while the black marble piece was in place, before another pastor, Father Mario Rauzi, did another renovation that removed the black marble piece some time in the 1970s. The walls behind the altar are now all made up of lighter marble, and a much-simpler smaller crucifix from the 70s occupies the center panel. A mural by well-known local artist, Anthony Quartuccio, was painted in the half dome in 1977.

By the time the first crucifix was removed, it had faded from the parish memory that the installation of the crucifix and the stations of the cross had been an important event. An item in the “Church News of the Week” section of The Monitor on 9/21/1907 reported about the erection of a large crucifix over the main altar on Sunday 9/17, and it lauded the stations of the cross as “beautiful oil paintings, imported from Italy.” (The Monitor was the newspaper of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, and Holy Cross was part of the San Francisco archdiocese at the time.)

Rosalia Villegas is Godmother (comadre) to Gloria Villaluz, daughter of Soledad Vallejo. Rosalia recalls that Vallejo, who was the church caretaker in 1966, rescued the crucifix, stations, and statues. Vallejo kept the Pieta in her family’s living room and stored the crucifix and the stations in the garage of her house on the 300 block of North 9th Street. For some time, Vallejo dreamed of building a small chapel in the Philippines to house everything, but eventually gave up the dream because the logistics would have been too hard to manage.

When Vallejo died in the past few years, her daughter, who by that time had moved away first thought she would donate the crucifix and the stations to her church in Fresno. The difficulties she would face in transporting the crucifix to Fresno led her to contact Brother Charles Muscat, C.S., the Director of Religious Education, to ask if Holy Cross would want the crucifix back. Soledad’s son took the Pieta; her daughter took the stations; and Holy Cross took back the crucifix, which by that time was in broken in pieces. Brother Charles’s brother, Grezio Muscat, put the pieces back together while visiting from Canada for a month, and the brothers got the patched-together crucifix hung in one of the classrooms.

The current pastor Father Orso, C.S., hired David Dittmann, a Santa Clara art restoration expert, to restore the crucifix, which as it turns out is an irreplaceable piece of art that was originally crafted in Italy. Dittmann told this reporter that the crucifix was crafted of close-grained, knot-free joined wood that was skillfully aged beforehand to prevent shrinkage, a quality of wood that would be impossible to obtain today. The body of Christ, the corpus, is painted, and the wood of the cross is gilded. A small painting of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove is at the head of the cross, and another small painting of Our Lady with John the Evangelist and Mary Magdalen is at the foot. The arms have silvered representations of the symbols of the four Gospel writers, the lion, the eagle, the ox, and the man.

Dittmann is currently reapplying 23 carat gold leaf on the front of the cross, resilvering the symbols of the Gospel writers, and finishing the repainting of the corpus and small pictures on the cross. Dittmann’s work will be completed in time for unveiling on the Feast of the Triumph of the Holy Cross on September 14 after the 6:30 p.m. Mass. As Dittmann’s wife, Regina, said when the couple was being interviewed for this article, “The Triumph of the Holy Cross is the Resurrection. And the triumph of this little cross is its resurrection.” On the feast day, the rescued and resurrected crucifix will be reinstalled in a place of honor behind the altar after almost forty years absence.

Sacratissimus Crucifixus to Holy Cross: Northside San Jose Church History

This article was published in the Fall 2005 issue of the Northside Newsletter and in two installments in the Valley Catholic newspaper of the Diocese of San José, on September 20 and October 18, 2005, with some edits in each publication. I've updated the Latin names of the Church, which were incorrectly copied from the parish record book in the earlier draft.

Holy Cross Parish on East Jackson and North 13th streets, in the Northside neighborhood of San José, began celebrating its 100th anniversary this past September [2005] with a multi-ethnic parish festival called the Kermess de la Santa Cruz (Feast of the Holy Cross) in the Scalabrini Hall.

The Kermess, which literally means "parish festival," raised more than $20,000 for parish upkeep through the sale of food, games and raffle tickets. In the months before the Kermess, boys and girls competed for the title of king and queen, not on their popularity, but on how many raffle tickets they sold. The winners were crowned and given scepters and capes.

On Sept. 14 after a Mass held in honor of the Feast of the Triumph of the Holy Cross, the parish's special feast, a priceless restored crucifix from the earliest days of the parish was unveiled. [See Holy Cross' Historic Crucifix Restored for details about the crucifix.]

The anniversary celebration will continue for a year and will conclude on December 10, 2006, almost exactly 100 years after the first church building for the parish was blessed on December 8, 1906.

The first parish church was built to serve the many Italian immigrants in the Northside San José neighborhood. The parish has evolved with the neighborhood’s changing demographics to serve Mexicans, Filipinos, and others from many varied national and economic backgrounds who make their homes in the area, including many who have been attracted by the number of well-kept Victorians and Craftsman-era bungalows and the chance to live in a safe, pleasant neighborhood near the city’s downtown.

Today the regular weekend schedule includes three English Masses, two Spanish Masses, and one Italian Mass. Multi-ethnic Masses are held on major feasts of the Church year, when the diversity of the parish is even more apparent. Parishioners parade into the church in procession, wearing native dress, carrying flags from their nations of origin, from Mexico, Italy, the Philippines, Portugal, Vietnam, Korea, Fiji, Canada, Brazil, and Malta, along with the flag of the U.S.A.

Holy Cross parish was first staffed by Italian-speaking diocesan priests and then by priests from the Jesuit order. Since 1961, starting with Father Joseph Bolzon, Holy Cross has been staffed by members of the Missionary Order of St. Charles Borromeo (C.S) founded by Blessed John Baptist Scalabrini, whose members are commonly called the Scalabrinians. The church hall is named after the order's founder. Since the central mission of the Scalabrinians is to serve immigrants, migrants, and refugees, their presence at Holy Cross could be seen as a providential fit.

In its long history, the parish has gone through three name changes. In the 1906 pages of the parish record book, the name was written in Latin as Sacratissimus Crucifixus, which can be translated as Most Holy Crucified or Most Holy Crucified One. Between 1912 and 1914, a second Latin name, Pretiosissimus Sanguis, Most Precious Blood, started appearing. The final name change to the English name Holy Cross was made in 1927.

According to an article published in the archdiocesan newspaper The San Francisco Monitor on 9/11/1911, the first “neat little Italian church … was built in the memorable year of 1906.” A typewritten history of the parish written in the 1930s, which was found in the Diocese of San José’s archives, stated that the church was built for “the convenience of the Italians living in St. Patrick’s parish” by the St. Patrick’s pastor Father J. Lally. Since San José was at that time part of the San Francisco archdiocese, Archbishop Montgomery, coadjutor of San Francisco Archbishop Riordan, formally blessed the new church on December 8, 1906.

Left:  Photo is from The Monitor article from 9/11/1911 captioned “Church of the Precious Blood (Italian), San Jose." The church had been changed from being a mission of St. Patrick’s parish to being a parish church by the time this photo was published.

Father Lally’s completion of the  Sacratissimus Crucifixus Church is especially noteworthy considering that his own St. Patrick’s Church was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake two months earlier in September. (St. Patrick’s was replaced by a wooden structure dedicated in April of 1907 by Archbishop Riordan.)

Father Clair Antonio Orso, C.S., the current pastor of Holy Cross, found the first baptism in the earliest record book of the parish, September 9, 1906, which was recorded and witnessed by the parish’s first priest, Father Ser. Scanavino. Father Scanavino was the assistant at St. Patrick’s Church, and he continued to live in the rectory at St. Patrick’s Church a mile away on 389 East Santa Clara Street while he celebrated a Mass every Sunday, held evening devotions, gave religious education classes, presided at marriages and baptisms, anointed the sick, and held funeral services at the new church.

Some of the older Italian families in the Northside might remember the names of the parents and godparents of the first child to be baptized, Ignatius Cortorice was born September 7, 1906 [the day after the earthquake] and baptized when he was only two days old. His parents were J.B. Cortorice and Maria Labarbera. The godparents were Salvatore Guadino and Lorenz Labarbera.

SS Sacratissimus Crucifixus Church continued as a mission of St. Patrick’s Parish until it was changed in 1911 to an Italian national parish at the same time as its name was changed to Pretiosissimus Sanguis.

The first pastor installed in 1911, Father Egisto Tozzi, according to the previously-mentioned SF Monitor article, was “noted for his scholarly attainments and devout piety.” Father Tozzi rented “a nearby cottage,” since a residence for priests had not yet been built. He celebrated two Masses every Sunday, one in English and one in Italian. The article also praised the work of the Sisters of the Holy Family who continually helped the people of the parish for sixty-six years, from 1907 until 1973.

“The parish is populous but very poor owing principally to the fact that the people own no property and have very large families to support while obliged to work for low wages. The Sisters of the Holy Family do much in the way of caring for the little ones in the absence of their mothers and instructing them in their religious duties. The present indebtedness amounts to $4063.47. In time this may be paid off and the people of the parish will have one of the neatest and most artistic church in San José.”

After a new, larger stucco church was dedicated in 1920 (during the pastorate of Father A. Bruno), the old church was used for catechism classes and parish offices for many years.


1920 Stucco Church as it appears today

Parishioner Mae Ferraro, who is 85 and lives on E. Taylor Street, recalls taking catechism classes as a child from the Holy Family Sisters in the old church building. Mae says that even though the church’s address has been always listed as 560 or 580 North 12th Street the first church was on the corner of East Jackson and North 13th Streets and the new church was built to the right of it on the corner of East Jackson and North 12th Streets. The original rectory was also on North 12th.

[Ferraro, who is a lector and a Eucharistic Minister and distributes Communion to many who are homebound, is secretary of the Italian Catholic Federation Branch 4 at the parish, and is involved daily with innumerable parish and other projects and organizations in Santa Clara Valley, including the University of Santa Clara Catala Club. Ferraro was born in the parish of an Italian mother from Trabia and an Italian-American father from San José. Her life and the parish are intertwined, since it is where she was baptized, received her First Holy Communion and Confirmation, was married 66 years ago, baptized her two sons, and where the funeral Mass was held for her husband Nick last year.]


Mae Ferraro with her 1927 First Communion photo

No one I talked to remembers what happened to the original church building. It may have been razed in the early 1970s after the parish purchased adjacent properties and tore down several buildings to clear the way for a new convent and the present classrooms, which were dedicated as a CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine) center on May 23, 1974.

[The current term in use for those who teach the faith in parishes is “catechetical ministers,” so for those who may not remember the term CCD, the following information from the dedication booklet for the CCD center might be of interest. CCD was a lay organization created in 1605, and it eventually gained the status of “the Church’s official parish society devoted solely to the religious education of all children and youth not enrolled in Catholic schools, and of adults, both Catholic and those outside the fold.” CCD was approved by St. Pius V in 1581, and in 1905, St. Pius X ordered that it be established in every parish.]

Holy Cross parish, aside from being an Italian mission church that evolved into a parish for the immigrants from many nations, is noteworthy for its religious education complex. Although the parish has never had a school, Holy Cross is the only church in the area that has dedicated classroom space for teaching children who do not go to Catholic schools, according to Brother Charles Muscat, C.S., Director of Religious Education at Holy Cross.

The parish is also noteworthy for its bingo night. Long after most parishes have given up bingo as a money-raiser, Holy Cross still has a big sign on the corner of its parking lot on 13th and Jackson Streets advertising BINGO MONDAYS in large red letters, and on Monday evening every week the parking lot is jammed with bingo players’ cars.

[With bingo still an important fund-raiser for the church, it was cause for a smile to find in the church’s archives this clipping from the San Jose Mercury News classifieds in the mid-1970s: “SPLIT POT BINGO GAMES every Wed. afternoon at 1:30 p.m. Also Bingo every Mon. night at 7:30 p.m. Holy Cross Church Hall, 13th & Jackson St. San Jose.” The clipping accompanied a handwritten note to Chancellor Monsignor Daniel F. Walsh from someone in the Chancery Office (initials BR?) complaining about the ad, “Nobody asked me, but I think this is in poor taste. If the only thing we have to put in the paper is a paid bingo ad, we aren’t doing our job.” Chancellor Walsh jotted down a reply on the same note: “Father Nalin strikes again! I will give him notice!” Also included was a copy of a subsequent letter from the chancellor asking the pastor to stop placing the bingo advertisements because “it does hold the Church up to some criticism when they actually advertise bingo.”]

Baptism in the Traditional Manner: Dying with Christ and rising again with Him, the old way

You might enjoy these photos of a Baptism August 25 in the Traditional Rite by ICKSP priest Fr. Michael Wiener.

The baptism shown in these photos took place at St. Margaret Mary Church, Oakland, CA., using the traditional rite. As it happened, I witnessed another Baptism the next day at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Palo Alto, where I was singing the usual Sunday Noon Novus Ordo Latin Mass with The St. Ann Choir. That new rite Baptism of an 18 year old young man who converted to Catholicism too was performed reverently at St. Thomas Aquinas by a wonderful conventual Franciscan priest. Fr. Nahoe. But it lacked the richness and depth of the ritual used for Martha's Baptism.

For her, the ritual of Baptism started outside the church door.. Martha was asked for her baptismal name (Martha Philomena), salt was put on her tongue, she was exorcised, many prayers were said for her, she was annointed, all before Father Wiener covered her head and led her into the Baptistry.



Once she was at the font, there were many more prayers, another exorcism, several more annointings, and finally the Baptism.

In 1989, the Most Rev. John S. Cummins, former Bishop of Oakland, granted St. Margaret Mary Church permission to use the 1962 Roman Missal for Mass, so they have been offering it ever since. In 2005, he Most Rev. Allen H. Vigneron, Bishop of Oakland, appointed Fr. Michael Wiener of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, as Episcopal delegate for the Latin Rite of 1962 in the Diocese of Oakland, where he ministers at St. Margaret Mary. The Traditional Latin Mass is said at a daily low Mass at 6:00 p.m. Every Sunday the High Mass (Gregorian Schola, Children's Choir, Adult Choir, and Organ) is offered at 12:30pm.

Fr. Wiener also ministers at the Santa Clara Oratory of Our Mother of Perpetual Help, established by Most Reverend Patrick McGrath. Bishop of San Jose, and exclusively dedicated to the traditional form.

After many years of trying to convert to Catholicism and many misadventures and diversions along the way, including off the wall RCIA programs, Martha Wilson found Fr. Wiener, who instructed her in the Catholic faith. And so it came about on August 25, 2007, he baptized her at St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church. She received her first Communion the next day at the Santa Clara Oratory. Her confirmation will be performed this Fall by Bishop Vigneron -- in the traditional Roman Rite.

Versus Populum Versus Ad Orientem: A Change of Direction at EWTN TV Masses

Here is a comment I posted at The New Liturgical Movement website today. The discussion was about how EWTN will be televising the extraordinary form of the Mass on Sept. 14. The discussion had brought up the prohibition that former Bishop David Foley had made against televised ad orientem Masses.

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I chanced upon a highly odd example of authorial self-indulgence on this topic, while I was using the amazon.com "Inside this Book" feature to browse definitions of Latin phrases in the book _Consecrated Phrases_, by Jesuit James Bretzke. Modern moral theologian and in this book Latin dictionary writer, Fr. Bretzke, defines "ad orientem" as "Expression used primarily in a recent liturgical dispute . . .." [How weird is that definition, just for starters?]

Fr. Bretzke wrote, "Certain 'traditionalists' allied with Mother Angelica's Eternal Word Television Network, based in the diocese of Birmingham, Alabama, claimed that the only 'true' tradition in the Church was for both the presider and the people alike to face toward the east in celebrating the Eucharist."

The way Father Bretzke spins it in his "definition," Bishop Foley won a judgement against the EWTN "traditionalists" from the Congregation for Divine Worship. The Congregation "rejected the traditionalists' claims . . . The Congregatipn's Prefect, Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez wrote that it is 'incorrect and indeed quite unacceptable' that anyone should claim that to celebrate toward the apse is the more orthodox choice for the presider."

Fr. Bretzke ommitted the fact that the Congregation also said in the same letter that it was incorrect to prohibit the use of the ad orientem posture or for anyone to claim that ad populum was the more orthodox choice.

And he also neglected to mention that EWTN was not trying to prohibit the Mass being said "ad populum," but only trying to celebrate it "ad orientem" -- which was never disallowed.

The way Arroyo's bio of Mother Angelica tells the story, the EWTN friars started using Latin because Mother Angelica was alarmed at the inclusive language that was being inserted into the English translations of the Mass. She set her nuns to studying the Vatican II documents and found that Latin and saying the Mass ad orientem had never been forbidden. So she changed the way the Masses were being said.

Arroyo's story gave me the impression that Bishop Foley lost face -- he had forbidden ad orientem Masses completely, but he had to withdraw that prohibition after the Vatican firmly made it clear that he was not allowed to do that. So he did what was in his power, with a Vatican representative's permission (if not approval) and prohibited the ad orientem Masses on TV.

After the prohibition (or as some say is more true to the case, discouragement) of televised ad orientem Masses, beautiful reverent ad orientem Novus Ordo Masses in Latin continued to be said routinely at the Shrine of the Blessed Sacrament. I've been there for a few.

While the prohibition has been in effect, Mother delayed her plans to start televising Masses at the Shrine, which are still said ad orientem.

In the little chapel near the EWTN studios in Birmingham, the friars began to say Masses again facing the people when the Mass was being televised, because their bishop said they had to.

Now that the ad orientem Masses will be allowed on television under the new bishop, expect to see the televised Masses coming from the Shrine.

EWTN friars and nuns must be rejoicing. Probably the prayers of the nuns (Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration) in front of the Blessed Sacrament had a lot to do with the good changes that are coming down.

BTW, I loved reading that a Tridentine Mass in Burlington VT filled the cathedral. Deo gratias, vere!

ICKSP priest Michael Wiener cooks the truth of the Catholic faith in charity until it tastes sweet

Father Wiener from the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest is rector at Santa Clara Oratory of Our Mother of Perpetual Help and Episcopal Delegate for the Latin Rite at St. Margaret Mary Church in Oakland. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle published online at SFGate, Fr. Wiener speaks very well about the Catholic position on the controversies swarming around the recent motu proprio from the pope, which allowed more widespread use of the Tridentine Mass.

I also chanced tonight upon an above-average 2005 article by Christopher Zehnder, former editor of the now-defunct San Francisco Faith newspaper, which gave Fr. Wiener a chance to explain very eloquently the charism of the ICKSP.

I love this quote from the interview in which Fr. Wiener is telling SFFaith about the influence of the patron saints of the ICSKP:

From St. Francis de Sales, the institute receives the charge to "cook the truth of the Catholic faith in the milk of charity until it tastes sweet," said Father Wiener. "We know that today it would not be a very effective endeavor to pronounce the pure truth of the Catholic teaching without being charitable. It never was effective, but especially today we try to combine charity and truth, because they belong together. Truth without charity is not the truth of Christ, and charity without truth is not the truth of God."

May we all always cook the truth of the Catholic faith in the milk of charity until it tastes sweet!

Below: Corpus Christ, Adoration at St. Margaret Mary, June 10, 2007

The Children of Contraception

The following quotes are from a blog about the open dissidence of Canadian bishops to Humanae Vitea, the official prouncement of the Pope on birth control. I post them here because I agree wholeheartedly.

The children of the contraceptive mentality are many and depraved: adultery, fornication, venereal disease, homosexuality, pornography, radical feminism, sterilization, violence, child abuse, corrupt family life education, abortion and euthanasia.

[Ed: Condoning the separation of marital love from fertility (which is an intrinsic aspect of the union between a man and a woman) led to a full acceptance of non-fertile unions and hence of fornication, homosexual practice, and abortion. The pleasure of lust persued for its own sake leads to a disregard of the full humanity of the partner. It kills something in the soul of a person who lives to pursue his or her bliss. And it leads to greater and greater excesses.]

The Winnipeg Statement has been the occasion of many invalid marriages. "Follow Your Conscience" has meant to many "I have the right to exclude children by contraception for a time or until I am ready, or forever." To exclude the right to have children, whether for a time or forever, whether on the part of one or both parties, invalidates the marriage covenant. To concede the right to dissent from Humanae Vitae is to concede the right to enter an invalid
marriage.

On the Liturgy, with Some Thoughts About Reforming the Benighted Past of the Church

[M]istrust is always in order when the greater part of living history must be tossed out into the dustbin of old misunderstandings now happily clarified. That is all the more true of the Christian liturgy, which lives out of the continuity and the inner unity of prayer based on faith. Adoremus article by then-Cardinal Ratzinger published 10/12/1996

The quotes in this blog are from "In the Presence of the Angels I Will Sing Your Praise: The Regensburg Tradition and the Reform of the Liturgy" by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. It was pubished in Sacred Music, the CMAA journal in 1996.

To illustrate the idea of liturgy as worship joining heaven with earth, then-Cardinal now-pope recalled a 1992 visit to the monastery at Mt. St. Mary (Marienberg) in the valley of the Etsch:

The real treasure of this monastery is the crypt (dedicated July 13, 1160) with its glorious frescoes . . .. As is true of all medieval art, these images had no merely aesthetic meaning. They conceive of themselves as worship, as a part of the great liturgy of creation and of the redeemed world in which this monastery was intended to join. Therefore, the pictorial program reflects that common basic understanding of the liturgy which was then still alive and well in the Church universal, eastern and western. On the one hand these images show a strong Byzantine influence while remaining at bottom quite biblical; on the other hand they are essentially determined by the monastic tradition, concretely: the Rule of Saint Benedict.

...

The risen Lord is not alone in these Mt. St. Mary's frescoes. We see Him in the images which the Apocalypse uses to depict the heavenly liturgy -- surrounded by the four winged creatures and above all by a great throng of singing angels. Their singing is an expression of that joy which no one can take from them, of the dissolution of existence into the rejoicing of freedom fulfilled. From the very beginning, monastic living was understood as a life lived after the manner of the angels, which is simply adoration. Entering or assuming the lifestyle of the angels means forming one's whole life into an act of adoration, as far as that is possible for human weakness.2 Celebrating the liturgy is the very heart of monachism [monastic life], but in that respect monachism simply makes visible to all the deepest reason for Christian -- indeed, for human existence!

As they gazed upon these frescoes, the monks of Mt. St. Mary surely thought of the 19th chapter of the Rule of Saint Benedict, which treats the discipline of Psalm singing and the manner of saying the Divine Office. There, the father of western monasticism reminds them, among other things, of the verse of Psalm 147 (Vulgate): In conspectu angelorum psallam tibi In the sight of the angels I will sing to Thee. And Benedict goes on: "Let us then consider how we ought to behave ourselves in the presence of God and His angels, and so sing the psalms that mind and voice may be in harmony ut mens nostra concordet voci nostræ."


It is, therefore, not at all the case that man contrives something and then sings it, but rather the song comes to him from the angelic choirs, and he must raise his heart on high so that it can harmonize with the tone which comes to him.


But one fact is of fundamental importance: the sacred liturgy is not something which the monks manufacture or produce. It exists before they were there; it is an entering into heavenly liturgy which was already taking place. Only in and through this fact is earthly liturgy a liturgy at all -- in that it be -- takes itself into that greater and grander liturgy which is already being celebrated.


And thus the meaning of these frescoes become completely clear. Through them, the genuine reality, the heavenly liturgy, shines through into this space. The frescoes are, as it were, a window through which the monks peer out into that great choir of which membership is the very heart and center of their own vocation. "In the sight of the angels I will sing to Thee." This standard is constantly present to the gaze of the monks, in their frescoes.

...

Let us descend from Mt. St. Mary and the wondrous panorama which those heights opened to us, and come down to the level of liturgical reality in today's world. Here, the panorama is much more confused and disordered. ...


A great abyss divides the history of the Church into two irreconcilable worlds: the pre-conciliar and the post-conciliar world. As a matter of fact, many believe that it is impossible to utter a more fearful verdict over an ecclesiastical decision, a text, a liturgical form or even a person, than to say that it is "pre-conciliar." If that be true, then Catholic Christendom must have been in a truly frightful condition -- until 1965.

..

[M]istrust is always in order when the greater part of living history must be tossed out into the dustbin of old misunderstandings now happily clarified. That is all the more true of the Christian liturgy, which lives out of the continuity and the inner unity of prayer based on faith.
[Ed: Amen!]

Feast of St. Ann: Missa Canonica by Josquin Des Prez and Gregorian Chants Proper to the Feast

Are you going to be anywhere near Palo Alto, CA Thursday July 26?

All are invited to celebrate the Feast of St. Ann with a sung Mass in Latin Thursday July 26, 2007 at 8:00 p.m. at St. Thomas Aquinas Church. In honor of its patron saint, the St. Ann choir will be singing Missa canonica by Renaissance composer Josquin Des Prez along with Gregorian chants proper to the feast.

To receive notifications about future St. Ann choir events, contact choir director Prof. William Mahrt (mahrt@stanford.edu).

If you are local and willing, please forward the following announcement to be submitted to your parish bulletin, local newspaper, or other publication.

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All are invited to celebrate the Feast of St. Ann with a sung Mass in Latin Thursday July 26, 2007 at 8:00 p.m. at St. Thomas Aquinas Church, Waverley at Homer, Palo Alto, CA. The St. Ann choir will be singing Missa canonica by Renaissance composer Josquin Des Prez along with Gregorian chants proper to the feast. To receive notifications about future St. Ann choir events, contact choir director Prof. William Mahrt (mahrt@stanford.edu).

The clip art is from an illuminated chant page for the feast by choir member, artist Susan Altstatt.




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If you would like a copy of the poster for yourself or for printing and distributing, you can get it here.

Thank you, Holy Father! from the Rector of the Oratory of Our Mother of Perpetual Help

The Oratory of Our Mother of Perpetual Help in Santa Clara, CA, on Sunday July 8 celebrated the event of the Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum (otherwise known as the Motu Proprio on the use of the traditional Latin Mass) as a “great occasion of thanksgiving.”

Since January 6, 2007, the oratory has been the only place in the diocese of San Jose allowed to use the traditional rite. The oratory’s Rector Rev. Michael Wiener (Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest) preached a sermon about the event, which was based almost entirely on a sermon on this topic by Msgr. R. Michael Schmitz, Vicar General and Provincial for the United States of America. Fr. Wiener intoned a Te Deum of rejoicing that was completed by the small choir and the congregation at the end of the 5:30 p.m. Sunday High Mass.

The sermon happily quoted Pope Benedict XVI,: “What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.”

The history of the Oratory is interesting in the context of current events. Before it was an oratory, the traditional Latin Mass had been celebrated at all Masses at the little chapel near Santa Clara University every Sunday without the bishop’s permission for several years. At one point, Bishop Patrick J. McGrath sent a letter to all churches in the diocese of San Jose admonishing Catholics not to attend the chapel’s services because he had not given it canonical status.

Then a turn-around took place. Perhaps responding to requests from Catholics who desired to worship in the traditional rite, the status of the chapel was raised last January 6 to an oratory. The care of the oratory was placed in the hands of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, and Rev. Wiener was appointed rector.

A letter was sent out around the same time to another Santa Clara Church, Our Lady of Peace. The founding pastor, Monsignor John Sweeny, had long ago begun the approved-by-the-bishop practice of offering Mass in the Tridentine rite on First Saturdays along with Latin Novus Ordo Masses on the other Saturdays of each month.

Choir members from St. Ann choir sang the Latin Masses at Our Lady of Peace for years under the direction of Stanford Professor William Mahrt and choir member David Webb. The monthly Tridentine Masses continued when Monsignor Sweeny retired. and the bishop gave the care of the parish to priests from the IVE order, but the Latin Novus Ordo Masses dwindled away. The letter from the bishop to the parishioners at Our Lady of Peace put an end to the remaining once a month Tridentine rite Masses.



Above: Some St. Ann choir members and regulars attenders of the Our Lady of Peace Tridentine Mass (with some family members) after the last Tridentine Mass sung at the parish in January 2007.

As noted in a Q and A at The New Liturgical Order, one effect of the Moto Proprio will be to do away with the either/or principle. Having a dedicated chapel like Our Mother of Perpetual Help will no longer mean that the traditional rites will be forbidden at other parishes.

Fr. Wiener's sermon did not mention the backstory I have here at all. He ending by thanking both the pope and the bishop.

“We feel very blessed that here, at the Oratory of Our Mother of Perpetual Help in the Diocese of San Jose our Bishop Patrick J. McGrath, in a profound pastoral understanding has anticipated the decision of the Holy Father by entrusting the oratory to the pastoral care of the Institute of Christ the King. ... Thank you, Holy Father! Thank you, your Excellency!”