Masses at the End of the Year (Revised)

Now we come to the end of the Church’s liturgical year. We are at the end of the season called the “Time after Pentecost,” which is a time when finding the Propers[1] for the Masses can be a bit confusing.

This article provide some guidance that may help make sense of the rules that govern which Propers are said for the Masses at this time of the year in the traditional Latin calendar.

• First thing to remember is that the liturgical year begins on the First Sunday of Advent.  
• The second thing is that the liturgical year ends on the Last Sunday after Pentecost. 

Comparing the Time After Epiphany with the Time After Pentecost

Two parts of the church year are variable.  All the other parts of the church year have a fixed number of days that do not vary. The two variable parts of the Church year are:

• "Time after Epiphany" 
• "Time after Pentecost"

The Time after Epiphany comes first, after Advent, Christmastide, and (of course) Epiphany.   The Time after Pentecost comes after Septuagesima, Lent, Easter Time, and (of course) Pentecost.

The following pie chart is from the Roman Missal.

• “Time after Pentecost” is on the left in green, which is the liturgical color for the season; it has by far the biggest wedge, which has between 23 to 28 Sundays.
• "Time after Epiphany" is shown on the right, also in green, and it has a small wedge with between 1 and 6 Sundays. 

These two times are reciprocally related.  When the "Time after Epiphany" has more Sundays, the "Time after Pentecost" has fewer Sundays.

Table: Boundaries

Variable Feasts Affecting the Numbers of Sundays

The number of Sundays after Pentecost and the number of Sundays after Epiphany both change every year because the dates of the First Sunday in Advent  and of Easter Sunday are variable:

• The First Sunday of Advent occurs on the fourth Sunday before December 25. Because December 25 can occur on any day of the week, the date of the first Sunday of Advent can be any Sunday from November 27 to December 3. 
• Easter is on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal (Spring) equinox (which is assigned to March 21).  Most of us are aware that the date of Easter changes because it is based on a lunar calendar to correspond to the Jewish feast of Passover.  As a result of the variability of  the dates of the full moon, Easter can occur on any of 35 possible Sundays from March 22 to April 25th.

Effects of Variable Feasts on the Numbers of Sundays

The variable dates of Advent and of Easter occurring earlier or later in a year are what lengthen and shorten the Time after Epiphany and the Time after Pentecost:

• If the start date of Advent is early, the total number of Sundays after Epiphany may be increased and the total number of Sundays after Pentecost may be reduced
• If the start date of Advent is late, the total number of Sundays after Pentecost may be increased and the total number of Sundays after Epiphany may be reduced.
• If Easter comes early, Septuagesima must also start earlier, which may reduce the number of Sundays after Epiphany and increase the number of Sundays after Pentecost by the same number.
• If Easter comes later, more Sundays (up to the maximum of six) may occur during the Time after Epiphany, and a corresponding fewer number of Sundays may occur during the Time After Pentecost.

Rules for Masses at the End of the Time after Pentecost

With all of the above being noted, let's look at the rules for which Mass Propers are said at this time when we are approaching the end of the Church year.

On the last Sunday before Advent, the Mass for the 24th and Last Sunday after Pentecost is always said. This Mass uses the Introit, Gradual, Offertory, and Communion from the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost, but it has its own Collect, Epistle, and Gospel.

23rd Sunday after Pentecost:

• If the 23rd Sunday is the Last Sunday before Advent, the Mass called the “Last Sunday after Pentecost” is said.
• Otherwise, the Mass called the “Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost” is said.

More Than 24 Sundays after Pentecost:

When there are between 24 and 28 Sundays after Pentecost, things get a bit more complicated.

• The Introit, Gradual, Offertory, and Communion of the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost are repeated on all the Sundays between the 24th and 28th Sunday after Pentecost.
• The Collect, Epistle, and the Gospel are taken from the Masses that were omitted from the Sundays after Epiphany. (Remember that during a year when there are more than 24 Sundays after Pentecost, there are always a corresponding fewer number of Sundays after Epiphany.)

The following table shows which Masses should be used for the Collect, Epistle and the Gospel, Secret, and Postcommuniion, according to whether the Time after Pentecost has 24, 25, 26, 27, or 28 Sundays.

Table: Rules for  What Propers to Use Between 23rd and 28th Sundays After PentecostHow to Use the Table

Find the number of Sundays after Pentecost for the current year in the columns under "If the Number of Sundays after Pentecost is:". For example, if the number is 28, follow the column under 28 for what Mass to use for the Collects, Epistle, and Gospel on the 24th, 25th, 26th, 27th, and 28th Sundays, which are given in the right column.

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[1] The Propers of the Mass change either according to the season or to the feast or event being celebrated on a particular day. They include the Introit, the Collect, the Epistle, the Gospel, the Offertory, the Communion,  the Secret, and  the Post-Communion.
[2] The Roman Missal (1962) notes that the Mass for “The First Sunday after Pentecost” has been replaced with the Mass for Trinity Sunday. The old Mass called “First Sunday after Pentecost” is still in the Missal, but it is “only celebrated during the following week on days where there are no feasts of Saints.” The Mass for Trinity Sunday counts as the First Sunday after Pentecost; the next Sunday is the Second Sunday after Pentecost, and so on.
[3] Adapted from the Roman Missal (1962)

Exposing the Lie That the Gospels Are Not Historical

My Revision to the Controversy section of a Wikipedia article on Bishop Patrick Joseph McGrath:

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Controversy [Edited]

On February 19, 2004, Bishop McGrath published an opinion piece in the San Jose Mercury News prior to the opening of the movie The Passion of the Christ, which was produced and directed by Mel Gibson. The article was titled, "It's a Movie, not History," with a subtitle that read, "Whatever the 'Passion Message,' the Church Renounces Anti-Semitism."

Bishop McGrath may have been reacting to the fact that Jewish groups and others objected to the movie because it portrayed the Jewish leaders as arranging to have Jesus killed, and some feared that the portrayal would lead to increased anti-Jewish sentiments. The response of those responsible for the movie to the general outcry was that the movie was simply based on the Gospel accounts of the events leading up to Christ's death.

Bishop McGrath received a great deal of criticism for this paragraph in the Mercury News opinion piece:

While the primary source material of the film is attributed to the four Gospels, these sacred books are not historical accounts of the historical events that they narrate. They are theological reflections upon the events that form the core of Christian faith and belief.

A previous edit of this page [the Bishop Patrick Joseph McGrath Wikipedia page] claimed that what Bishop McGrath wrote is "fully in union with the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church as evidenced by Dei Verbum,"--which is the "Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation" that was promulgated by Pope Paul VI during the next to the last session of the Second Vatican Council. This assertion was not backed up by any quotations.

What Bishop McGrath wrote does in fact contradict several definitive statements about the historical character of the gospels that are found both in Dei Verbum, and in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC). Nowhere in either of these documents is it written that the Gospels are theological reflections and that they are not historical.
Dei Verbum^[3] states the following .....

19. Holy Mother Church has firmly and with absolute constancy held, and continues to hold, that the four Gospels just named, whose historical character the Church unhesitatingly asserts, faithfully hand on what Jesus Christ, while living among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation until the day He was taken up into heaven (see Acts 1:1).

The bishop's statement would appear to also contradict the teachings of the Catholic Church as expressed in the CCC. From the Catechism of the Catholic Church (Section 126):

"The Church holds firmly that the four Gospels, whose historicity she unhesitatingly affirms, faithfully hand on what Jesus, the Son of God, while he lived among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation, until the day when he was taken up."

"For, after the ascension of the Lord, the apostles handed on to their hearers what he had said and done, but with that fuller understanding which they, instructed by the glorious events of Christ and enlightened by the Spirit of truth, now enjoyed."

"The sacred authors, in writing the four Gospels, selected certain of the many elements which had been handed on, either orally or already in written form; others they synthesized or explained with an eye to the situation of the churches, while sustaining the form of preaching, but always in such a fashion that they have told us the honest truth about Jesus."

In the article "A Very Busy Bishop! Abortion Laws “Protect” Bishop from Rosary Praying Catholics^[4], Doug Zeitz, from the traditional St. Joseph's Men's Society, pointed out that claiming that parts of the Gospels are theological meditations was condemned in Pope St. Pius X's Decree "Lamentabili Sane, The Syllabus of Errors: Condemning the Errors of the Modernists."

"The Catholic Church has always, clearly and infallibly, taught that the Holy Scriptures are historical accounts and has condemned the proposition that they are mere theological reflections."

For example, 'Lamentabili Sane' states: 'T]he following propositions ... are condemned and proscribed. ... 16. The narrations of John are not properly history, but a mystical contemplation of the Gospel. The discourses contained in his Gospel are theological meditations, lacking historical truth concerning the mystery of salvation.'"

Bishop McGrath has repeatedly ignored requests to discuss the apparent contradiction of his statement with Church documents. The President of the St. Joseph Men's Society, Anthony Gonzales, made multiple phone calls and wrote multiple letters attempting to make an appointment with the Bishop to discuss this and other issues, with no response from the bishop.

For about two years after the article was published, the St. Joseph Men's Society and other Catholics staged monthly protests outside the bishop's residence, asking him to retract his comments, also with no reply from the bishop.

Not just traditional Catholics, but also Evangelical Protestants argue against the ideas expressed by Bishop McGrath. For example Wayne Jackson, Evangelical Protestant commentator at Christian Courier, noted in The Controversy Rages: Mel Gibson’s “The Passion”, that a secular author named Jon Meacham in a Newsweek article “Who Killed Jesus?” (Newsweek, 2/16/04, pp. 45ff) expressed these ideas (that are quite similar to Bishop McGrath's):

“Scripture is not always a faithful record of historical events; the Bible is the product of human authors who were writing in particular times and places with particular points to make and visions to advance."

In contradiction to the implied idea in the Newsweek article that the human authors of the Bible intended to advance a vision that condemned the Jews for Jesus' death, Jackson cited these facts from the Bible: that Jesus Himself was a Jew, that Old Testament prophets foretold the coming of the Messiah and His death by the hands of His fellow Jews, that Jesus willingly assented to His own death to save mankind, and that everyone who sins is as culpable for the passion of the Christ as the Jewish leaders of His time.^[5]

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Controversy [Before My Edits]

On February 19, 2004, McGrath published an opinion piece in the San Jose Mercury News prior to the opening of The Passion of the Christ, stressing that the Catholic Church does not support anti-Semitism in any form. McGrath received criticism from Traditionalist Catholics for one paragraph in the editorial:

While the primary source material of the film is attributed to the four Gospels, these sacred books are not historical accounts of the historical events that they narrate. They are theological reflections upon the events that form the core of Christian faith and belief.

Traditional Catholics take this statement as being contrary to documents from the First Vatican Council. Despite such opposition, Bishop McGrath's statements are fully in union with the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church as evidenced by "Dei Verbum", a document of the Second Vatican Council.

Despite such teaching an opposition group stages monthly protests outside the bishop's residence, asking him to retract his comments.

The St. Ann Choir's History at St. Ann Chapel and St. Thomas Aquinas Church

The St. Ann Choir first began singing at Masses at St. Ann Chapel, which has a complex and fascinating history of its own. At the time the choir started in 1963, St. Ann chapel was 12 years old. It had been built by Ambassador, Congresswoman, and playwright, Clare Boothe Luce, wife of the publishing giant Henry Luce, and donated for use by Stanford University’s Catholic student center. Claire Boothe Luce wished the chapel to be dedicated to St. Ann as a memorial to her daughter, Ann Brokaw, who had died in an accident months before she was to graduate from Stanford in 1944.

Luce intended the chapel to be a small gem that she hoped would illustrate that modernism and sacred art are compatible, and she commissioned artists to decorate the chapel with expressionistic (and experimental) painted windows instead of stained glass, painted stations of the Cross, a cubist-inspired mosaic of the Blessed Virgin, and a steel mesh flat canopy decorated with mosaics and Cubist-inspired angels over the altar.

St. Ann Chapel Altar with canopy

A large impressionistic green bronze of St. Ann with the Virgin Mary is mounted over the entrance on the flat, red brick front of the modern chapel.

Bronze relief of St. Ann with the Virgin Mary on the facade

St. Ann Chapel facade

St. Ann Chapel was used for worship by the Newman Center for almost 50 years. After Newman Center activities were eventually transferred to the Stanford Memorial Church on campus, the Diocese of San Jose sold the chapel, which was decommissioned as a Catholic church and came into the possession of the Anglican Province of Christ the King.

Ever since 1998, the choir has been singing at Masses on Sundays and major feast days at St. Thomas Aquinas Church, another historic Palo Alto church, which was built in an architectural style called Carpenter Gothic at the beginning of the 20th century.

St. Thomas Aquinas Church

At St. Ann chapel where the choir first began in 1963, the experimental paint is peeling from the painted windows, and the colors have faded with age. The modernist style of architecture and art has lost much of its appeal over the decades, but the choir has been able to maintain its own nostalgic attachment by continuing to sing Catholic Sunday Vespers at the chapel, by the gracious invitation of the Anglican Archbishop, Robert Morse.

St. Ann Choir Sings Vespers at St. Ann Chapel

The Renowned St. Ann Choir of Palo Alto Celebrates Its 50th Anniversary This Fall: Singing Gregorian Chant and Polyphony in Liturgies Since 1963

Palo Alto, California/September 5, 2013/The St. Ann Choir

In observance of its fiftieth anniversary, the St. Ann Choir will sing William Byrd's Mass for Four Voices at St. Thomas Aquinas Church, 751 Waverly Street, Palo Alto, CA 94301 on Sunday October 6, at the 12:00 noon Mass. A reception follows the Mass.

St. Thomas Aquinas Church

All are invited to join the celebration of the St. Ann Choir's unique achievement:  Fifty years of continual performance of Gregorian chant and polyphony in weekly liturgies.

The St. Ann Choir began singing the music for the traditional cycle of the Church year at Sunday Masses in 1963, before radical changes to Roman Catholic liturgy and music occurred after the Second Vatican Council.

By its perseverance in continuing to sing this music to this very day, the choir has made a unique contribution to the preservation of what the Vatican II Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy called “a treasure of inestimable value.” The weekly inclusion of this music as part of the liturgy, where it belongs, has allowed people to experience it as a living form instead of as a mere academic discipline.

"The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art. The main reason for this pre-eminence is that, as a combination of sacred music and words, it forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn liturgy.” -- Second Vatican Council, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium §112

The choir is directed by Stanford Professor William Peter Mahrt, who is also president of the Church Music Association of America and editor of the journal Sacred Music. Mahrt joined the choir as a Stanford graduate student shortly after it began under the leadership of the late William Pohl, and Mahrt became its director when Pohl took an academic job in another state.

Prof. William Mahrt surrounded by a few of his 10,000 books

“The main achievement of our choir is to have maintained the traditional music of the Roman Catholic Church. We began singing Gregorian chant and classical polyphony and included organ music in liturgies before the council, and our program is pretty much the same as it was when we started. “– Professor William Mahrt

“Our choir started one year before the language changed [from Latin to the vernacular]—if we had tried to start one year later, we might not have been able to do it," – William Mahrt

“It is rare to hear chant in Catholic churches, and it is rarely taught in Catholic institutions. Catholics who are familiar with the chant and polyphonic repertoire are more likely to have gained this familiarity from listening to recordings than to have experienced this music as "an integral part of the solemn liturgy". “Buried Treasure,” Adoremus Bulletin, Online Edition - Vol. VII, No. 1: March 2001. http://adoremus.org/0301buriedtreas1.html#sthash.Z6ylFaLh.dpuf

"I recently read a biography of Renaissance composer William Byrd that described the destruction of traditional Catholic liturgy and music that was in progress when the composer was born in England in 1540. That was the year King Henry VIII completed the dissolution of the monasteries. The monastic libraries were sacked, and the manuscripts were used for scrap. Frankly, I can’t help but see a similarity in the widespread disdain by many since the Second Vatican Council for the Church’s traditional doctrines and for the beautiful Gregorian chant and polyphonic music that had evolved as an intrinsic part of the Mass and the Divine Office over the centuries since the time of Christ. -- Roseanne Sullivan, former St. Ann Choir member, freelance writer and photographer, and blogger about music for Dappled Things magazine.

René Girard, Stanford Professor Emeritus, and one of only 40 members, or immortals, of the Académie Française, had this to say about Professor Mahrt’s achievement: “When I first attended, I assumed that the Catholic Church and the University actively supported this unique contribution to the spiritual and cultural life of the community. The truth is that ever since 1963, Professor Mahrt has been very much on his own in this enormously time-, talent- and energy-consuming enterprise.” As quoted in Stanford Magazine in “Noteworthy: On Wings of Song” by Cynthia Haven, March/April 2003.

The Blessed Virgin Mary and the Little Cloud Seen From Mount Carmel

The feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is today, July 16. Our Lady is believed to be symbolized by a little cloud that was seen from the top of Mount Carmel after a long drought. 

The arrival of the little cloud occurred in this way, as described in 1 Kings 17 and 18. When the wicked King Ahab and his even more-wicked wife Jezebel ruled the northern kingdom of Israel, Elias (Elijah) prophesied to the king that a drought would come over the land.

"As the Lord liveth, the God of Israel, in whose sight I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to the words of my mouth" 1 Kings 17:1.

The drought was in retribution for the fact that pagan Jezebel had led Ahab away from the worship of the true God. Together they had torn down the altars to the true God and kept hundreds of pagan priests on their payroll, who erected altars to Baal and worshipped the false god throughout the land.

A "grievous famine" then fell on land of Samaria, and "after many days," the Lord told Elias that He would again give rain.  Elias rose up and left his place of refuge and engaged the prophets of Baal in a showdown. (You can read about the showdown in 1 Kings 18.) After Elias defeated the prophets of Baal, he "went up to the top of Carmel, and casting himself down upon the earth, put his face between his knees, And he ordered his servant: 'Go up, and look towards the sea.'"

When the servant went up on Elias' orders and looked at the sea for the first time, he came back and told Elias, "There is nothing."  Elias told the servant, "Return seven times."

When Elias's servant went back up to look for the seventh time, he glimpsed a little cloud without blemish, the size of a man's hand (1 Kings 18:44), rising out of the sea. 

The arrival of the cloud was a welcome sight because it meant the rain was coming, as God had promised Elijah it would, to relieve the long drought. The Church also understands the little cloud without blemish as a prefiguration, or type,  of Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, who would relieve a longer drought. In the same way the cloud rose up out of the sea without any of the sea's impurities, Mary rose from among the human race without any stain of sin. 

Her son Jesus was to be  the long expected Savior promised to Adam and to Abraham and to Moses. The drought can be seen as the separation of the human race from eternal life after the sin of Adam and Eve. The birth of His Mother, who was conceived without sin, was a sign that His coming was near and the drought was about to come to an end.

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Thanks to Fray Eric for the original photo of Mount Carmel that I cropped for this blog.

Some Art Historical Musings About the Bent Cross. Is It Expressive or Satanic?

In April of this year, Pope Francis began carrying the rough-hewn silver papal staff that is shown in the above photo to some of his public appearances. This staff isn't new. It has been carried by four popes since Pope Paul VI. Partway through Pope Benedict XVI's reign, the staff was temporarily retired. Some critics of the staff's design are decidely not happy to see it back in use again.

Storms of controversy have always swirled around the staff's design. Some critics of the staff are disturbed by how the corpus, the figure of Christ, is distorted and how the crossbar of the cross is bent. Some believe that the distortions are appropriately expressive of the intense weight of the burden of our sins that Christ bore on the Cross, while others believe that the distortions and what they call the "bent cross" are Satanic in origin and intent. My intention here is to describe the origins of this disputed papal staff, and show some of its artistic predecessors in hopes of setting the record straight. Like it or not, it is a valid sacred symbol.

Paul VI, Lello Scorzelli, and the Commission of the Pastoral Staff

As mentioned above, Pope Paul VI was the first to carry this staff, which was created for him by sculptor Lello Scorzelli.  As I discovered when I started researching this post, Paul VI was an active patron of the arts like many popes before him. While he was still Archbishop Montini, Paul VI began a long association with Scorzelli[1]. Montini first hired Scorzelli in 1959 to make portraits of all the clergy who participated in Vatican II, and those portraits are now in the Vatican Museum.

After he was elected pope, Paul VI gave Scorzelli a studio in the Vatican in 1963, where the sculptor lived for 15 years. Scorzelli executed several big works during that time, including panels of the Stations of the Cross and the Last Supper for the Pope’s private chapel. The most presigious of Scorzelli's pieces by far were four bas-reliefs Scorzelli created for Porta della Preghiera, which is one of the five doors of St. Peter's Basilica. (Two other doors of St. Peter were also commissioned from other artists by Pope Paul VI.)[2].

However, the most well known of all of Scorzelli's creations for Paul VI is the papal staff.

 The Staff with the Upward Curving Crossbar

Paul VI Pastoral Staff

What is not as well known  is that Pope Paul VI actually used multiple staffs with a similar hanging corpus, one with straight cross bar, and another with a crossbar that curved upward [3].

Staff with upward-curving crossbar

The staff with the downward curving crossbar is the only one that continued in use by popes after Paul VI's reign.











The History of Papal Staffs

It is significant to realize that before Paul V previous popes did not use staffs, which are also called ferulas. According to an article title "The Staff"  at the Vatican website,  the staff has been the liturgical insignia of bishops and abbots since at least the seventh century, but not of popes.  "The reason why the pope did not use the staff resides in the fact that the staff was a symbol of investiture of a newly elected bishop given to him by the metropolitan archbishop or by another bishop ... . The pope, however, did not receive investiture from another bishop. ... The pope receives his power from God alone."

Around the time of the High Middle Ages or earlier, the "traditional crozier came into use as an expression of papal authority. ... The use of the staff [crozier] was never a part of the papal liturgy, except on some occasions such as the opening of the Holy Door and the consecration of churches." With all that historical precedent I'm sure firmly in mind, Pope Paul VI invented a new type of staff, and he first used it at the closing of the Second Vatican Council. Paul VI's new staff was called a pastoral staff, and he used the papal pastoral staff in most liturgical celebrations.

After Pope Paul VI died, Pope John Paul I used the pastoral staff of Paul VI  during his month-long reign, and Pope John Paul II took it up when he was elected to the office after his predecessor's death. And the staff with the downward curving cross bar is most identified with him.

Partway through his reign, Pope John Paul II started using a lighter modified copy of the staff. Pope Benedict also carried the staff with the downward curving cross for several years (although it is not clear whether the one he used was the original or the copy). 

Pope Benedict XVI with the Staff of Paul VI

Then in 2008, Pope Benedict XVI made more liturgical history when he started using the crozier of Pope Pius IX, which bears a traditional cross without a corpus.  This was not a totally unprecedented departure, since this crozier had been used by  Pope John XXIII in some liturgical celebrations during Vatican II.  In 2009, Benedict XVI, began to use a new staff that was similar in style to the Pius IX crozier. And now the current pope is using the Paul VI pastoral staff alternately with the Pius IX-style crozier of Benedict XVI.



Satanic Symbol? Come On, Do You Really Think So?

Some have expressed a hatred and misunderstanding about the so-called bent cross on the pastoral staff that Pope Francis has begun to carry. Some seem to despise it just as a modernist piece of bad art.

Others go so far as to claim that the bent cross is a deliberately chosen Satanic symbol. A 1983 book that makes this extravagent claim is quoted by some extreme Protestant sects who use it to support their claims hat the Church is the anti-Christ.  Satanists, they claim, twist our holy symbols to pervert them, and the distorted corpus denotes the anti-Christ.  They claim that the reason that last four popes after the second Vatican council carried this staff with the bent cross is that the Vatican has been infiltrated with satanists.

These fantastic ideas have even been picked up by some traditionalist Catholics of my acquaintance. I ask them how they can believe such things and still be Catholic, and I haven't heard a satisfactory answer yet.

The Actual Truth
The actual truth seems to be that the distorted figure of Christ on the controversial papal staff was based on a drawing made by the great Carmelite mystic monk, St. John of the Cross, from a vision that he had of Christ crucified.

One reason John Paul II  liked this staff may be that he himself almost became a Carmelite contemplative, before he was told by his bishop that the Church needed him to stay in the world instead of be cloistered away in a monastery. The title of the doctoral dissertation written by Karol Wotyla, the future pope, was titled Faith in the Mystical Writings of Saint John of the Cross.

Papal Pastoral Staff or Crozier by Taylor Marshall is a good article that speculates on the source of the bent cross design. Marshall mentioned Salvador Dali's painting Christ of St. John of the Cross without showing it.  The image below is from the surprisingly good Wikipedia article about Salvador Dali's painting. Notice that in Dali's depiction of the suffering body of Christ on the Cross, the corpus is bent but not the cross.

Marshall also posted the Grunewald crucifixion, without specifically attributing it as an inspiration for the bent cross. But really, all you have to do is look at it to grasp the connection between the Grunewald painting and the Scorzelli staff.

 

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[1] Article on Scorzelli's life and work
[2] Italian article about Saint Peter's with a description of the basilica's five doors.
[3[ Details about the papal staffs used by Paul VI 
[4] Article from the Vatican website from November 2013 titled "The Staff."

Death's on Your Doorstop

This afternoon, my front doorbell rang multiple times, insistently. Liberty mumbled, "That's annoying" and went to answer the door. The man on the front steps asked him, "Do you speak Spanish?" "No," Liberty said. The visitor handed him the following pamphlet and left without saying anything.

Cover of the pamphlet

When Liberty showed this picture to me, he wondered what would have happened if he had replied yes, he does speak Spanish. He quipped that the visitor then would have revealed himself as the Mexican grim reaper and would have taken a scythe to his head.

All joking aside, it is true that Death can appear on any of our doorsteps at any moment, as this quote from my friend Evangeline's email signature says: "Since everything here today might well be gone tomorrow, do you see how essential it is to live a holy life?"

Is living a holy life the way to get to heaven and avoid hell? The little pamphlet with the grim reaper on the cover claims that all you need to do for salvation is to believe in Jesus and accept Jesus as your personal savior. The pamphlet quotes Ephesians 2:8-10: "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." And it quotes number of other verses that are frequently used to try to prove only faith is needed. In Latin, that belief is referred to as sola fide. Protestants sometimes refer to the related notion that we cannot lose our salvation as "blessed assurance" or "once saved always saved (OSAS)." OSAS is not a Catholic doctrine. During my sojourn as a fundamentalist Christian when I was (unknowningly) on my way back to the Catholic Church, I scoffed at the Catholic teachings and accused the Church of teaching Eternal Jeopardy.

Catholics don't usually memorize Bible verses the way Protestants do, and so they can easily get led astray by someone who appears at the front door with a string of Bible verses ready to support whatever interpretation their denomination believe in.

You should know that taking a verse or a number of verses out of context from the Bible to prove a point is called proof texting. Catholics have to keep in mind that the teachings of the Catholic Church are based on the entire revelation of Christ, including both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, not on isolated verses cherry picked from books of the Bible and strung together. The Church teaches we are saved by faith in Jesus Christ and the Sacrament of Baptism is necessary, but that we also need to "work out our salvation in fear and trembling." A person who lapses into sin after Baptism and does not repent is in as much danger of eternal damnation as if he never believed.

People that believe in OSAS have trouble with the actual doctrine taught by Christ's Church. My friend, Rita, told me a few days ago about a now-fervent Catholic who almost walked out of classes that she was taking to prepare for being received into the Catholic Church when she first discovered that Catholic church does not teach "once saved always saved."

The truth is what St. James wrote in his second letter, verses 14-24. Faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

"Being saved" is a Protestant formulation anyway. Christ died to redeem us from sin and death. But we need to become like Him. We are going to be judged and deemed worthy or not of heaven by works, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked. These are the actual words of Christ [Matthew 25:31-46]

No matter what the pamphlets may say, we do not get an automatic pass into heaven if we merely accept Jesus as our personal savior. "Not every one that said to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father which is in heaven. Matthew 7:23

My reading of some of the writings of Luther gave me to understand that Luther struggled unsuccessfully with sins of impurity. To me it seems obvious that his doctrine that Christ's sacrifice hides our sinfulness from God the Father was formulated from his losing battle. Luther rejected books of the Bible that contradicted his formulations. Because St. James's 2nd letter denied OSAS, Luther dismissed it as "the epistle of straw."

This is a good discussion of the issue on Catholic Forum

This link has the entire 2nd letter of St. James. Read for yourself.

St. James also quotes Jesus as saying even the devils believe. And they certainly aren't saved.

Some Reasons It Was Hard to Return to the Church After Vatican II

Today's post is a response to a Canterbury Tales blog from May 6, 2013, titled: "Ten Reasons Why It's Hard to Become Catholic." 

I was a lapsed Catholic, then I relapsed to Catholicism. For several years I believed in society's message that there is no God, then I dabbled in odd and dangerous spiritual alternatives to Christianity for a while. After I became converted to Christianity, I spent several more years as an evangelical Protestant, and so the things Taylor Caldwell wrote here ring true to me.

I had left the Catholic Church in 1963, and I came back to the Catholic faith in 1980 or so. To my dismay, the Church of my childhood with its liturgy and certainties and dogmas was apparently gone. I had come back because the good zealous Protestant denominations I had tried were contradicting one another all over the place because they lacked Tradition as a guide and because the Eucharist was to be found nowhere else than in the Catholic Church.

I attended several RCIA programs and was shocked at most of what I heard and saw. For just one example,  I heard from one converted Lutheran RCIA leader that Jesus was just an itinerant  Jewish story teller.  Nope, sorry sir. Jesus is God made Man, and while He was on this earth, He told stories. That didn't make him merely an itinerant Jewish story teller.

Jesus Teaches About the Kingdom of God

And I was discouraged by Novus Ordo Catholics who thought my faith in the Bible was outmoded.  I quipped (to myself) that as far as I could tell the only Catholics left were me and the Pope, and sometimes I wasn't too sure about the Pope. Many of the Catholics I met seemed to be living the world's morality, to my dismay

If I hadn't had the good Catholic education I'd obtained as a child behind me, I may have thought the new Church was right. But I was well-grounded. And I was in love with Christ in His Body the Church, and so even if nobody else I ran into believed any more what I had been taught, I stayed like Peter because where else was I to go? In prayer in my isolation, Christ taught me that in the midst of bad liturgy and bad theology (in the purported spirit of Vatican II) I was to climb up on the Cross and find my comfort with Him.

By God's providence, I was eventually led to start singing with a Gregorian chant choir that sang the propers of the traditional liturgical year during Novus Ordo Masses. Eventually I was led from there to sing in a small schola at a Traditional Latin Mass. In the small oratory where the schola sings, I have finally found people who sincerely accept the teachings of the Magisterium on birth control and other morality, along with the unchanged dogma and pious practices of the Church. It is a joy to be surrounded by families with large numbers of happy, bright, accomplished, mostly homeschooled children who haven't been contracepted or aborted out of existence. And kindnesses abound. People help the large families with gifts of money and food, and with other expenses like orthodontia. And when one choir member died, people chipped in and made the arrangements for a Requiem Mass and Catholic burial, since the family was going to cremate him without ceremony. The corporal and spiritual works of mercy are being acted out.

I marvel  that I had to wander in the desert after my relapse  for about 25 years, between 1980 and 2005, until I found this oasis.

What I want to say is that if anyone who reads this has come back or come newly to the Catholic Church and is not happy with the liturgy or dogma he's finding, I suggest you should google for traditional Latin Mass locations near you, and try to get connected to the true believers you are likely to find there.

A traditional priest will probably give you instruction, if you ask, rather than delegate the instruction to an RCIA leader who might just be too fond of spouting his own erroneous ideas about how the Church has changed instead of teaching the authentic doctrine of the Catholic Church. 

Beyond Salve Regina: The Four Great Seasonal Marian Antiphons

Most traditional Catholics know how to sing Salve Regina. But did you know Salve Regina is only one of a total of four great seasonal Marian antiphons? Alma Redemptoris Mater, Ave Regina Caelorum, and Regina Caeli are the other three.

Each of the four Marian antiphons has a season assigned to it during the liturgical year. Traditional Latin Masses usually end with the appropriate Marian antiphon for the season. In the Divine Office, the Marian antiphon of the season is sung after Vespers and Compline.

Roughly stated, the dates of each Marian antiphon are:

• Alma Redemptoris Mater (Advent through February 2)
• Ave Regina Caelorum (February 3 until the Easter Vigil)
• Regina Coeli (Easter until the Saturday after Pentecost Sunday) 

        Note: Between Easter and Pentecost, the Regina Caeli replaces the Angelus.

• Salve Regina (Trinity Sunday --which is the Sunday after Pentecost Sunday) until the Saturday before Advent)
  

Each antiphon has two versions: a simple tone and a solemn (or monastic) tone. In my experience, at the end of a Mass the Marian antiphon is sung in the simple tone. In the Divine Office, the Marian antiphon may be sung in either the simple or the solemn tone.

You can find the chant for the Marian antiphons in the Liber Usualis. Buying a copy of the Liber can be expensive, around $200. But the good news is that you can download a PDF for free from The Church Music Association of America website.

This post has the the music and links to music videos for each of the antiphons.

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Latin and English Words to the Antiphons

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Alma Redemptoris Mater, quae pervia caeli porta manes et stella maris, succurre cadenti, surgere qui curat, populo: tu quae genuisti, natura mirante, tuum sanctum genitorem, Virgo prius, ac posterius, Gabrielis ab ore sumens illud ave, peccatorum miserere.

Holy mother of our Redeemer, thou gate leading to heaven and star of the sea; help the falling people who seek to rise, thou who, all nature wondering, didst give birth to thy holy Creator. Virgin always, hearing the greeting from Gabriel’s lips, take pity on sinners.

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Ave Regina Caelorum, ave domina angelorum: salve radix, salve porta, ex qua mundo lux est orta: Gaude Virgo, gloriosa, super omnes speciosa, vale o valde decora, et pro nobis Christum exora.

Hail, queen of heaven, hail lady of the angels. Hail, root, hail the door through which the Light of the world is risen. Rejoice, glorious Virgin, beautiful above all. Hail, O very fair one, and plead for us to Christ.

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Regina Caeli, laetare, alleluia; quia quem meruisti portare, alleluia; resurrexit sicut dixit, alleluia; ora pro nobis Deum, alleluia.

Queen of heaven, rejoice, alleluia; for He whom thou was chosen to bear, alleluia; has risen as He said, alleluia; pray for us to God, alleluia.

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Salve Regina, mater misericordiae, vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra salve. Ad te clamamus, exules filii Evae. Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes, in hac lacrimarum valle. Eia ergo, advocate nostra, illos tuos misericordes oculos, ad nos converte. Et Jesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui, nobis post hoc exsilium ostende. O Clemens, o pia, o dulcis virgo Maria.

Hail holy queen, mother of mercy, hail our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears. Turn then most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy towards us. And after this, our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, o loving, o sweet Virgin Mary.

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Some interesting additional details are in this post.

And this.

Flannery O'Connor an Abbess? Maybe Anchorite, not Abbess

My Amazon Review of the Book: Abbess of Andalusia from December 14, 2012

The misuse of the word abbess in the title might help explain why this book doesn't totally sit right with me. This definition of abbess from Wikipedia is as good as any: "An abbess (Latin abbatissa, feminine form of abbas, abbot) is the female superior, or mother superior, of a community of nuns, often an abbey." Obviously, from this definition of the word, Flannery O'Connor was not even metaphorically an abbess. Perhaps the title was suggested by the book's editor or by the publisher. Accepting such a title, or worse yet, choosing it, indicates to me that that the author might have a bit of a tin ear when it comes to word definitions.

Anchorite might be a better word. "[S]omeone who, for religious reasons, withdraws from secular society so as to be able to lead an intensely prayer-oriented, ascetic, and--circumstances permitting--Eucharist-focused life. As a result, anchorites are usually considered to be a type of religious hermit."

But then, Flannery did not abandon the world, her illness wrested her away from it. After having some success as a writer, she had been living among the fast-living intelligentsia of her era, and perhaps she would have been influenced in the wrong direction had she stayed with them. Circumstances that forced her to return home to live with her mother in an out-of-the-way Georgia farmhouse as an invalid were perhaps her salvation. If she had a dark night of the soul as a result, she was too tough to mention it. She was a reluctant anchorite, maybe. Stolidly resigned anchorite, more likely. But that wouldn't look as good as a book title: "Resigned Anchorite--Flannery O'Conor's Spiritual Journey."

As a product of the assimilationist world of Catholic believers in which I was raised in the 1950s, I have always been astounded at O'Connor's deep conviction about the truth of the doctrines of the Catholic Church and her passion to communicate these truths through her fiction and her letters. What also amazes me is that she had these strong convictions as a resident of the mostly Protestant South. How about this as a possible title? "The Odd Catholic in Georgia: Flannery O'Connor's Spiritual Journey." I think it was Baudelaire who said that he wrote in meter because restrictions free a writer. That thought could be seen as applying to O'Connor's life too. Constrained with the limits of her life, she created an impressive body of spiritually charged work that ranks high in American and world literature.

I've read much of what has been written about Flannery O'Connor, and I didn't learn a great deal from this book that I didn't already know. However, the book includes many new details from previously unavailable sources, which are good to see. And the author makes a laudable and generally successful attempt to use the new details to illustrate how O'Connor lived out her faith and used her talents in the small ways that were available to her. I believe this book makes a unique contribution to the body of O'Connor criticism.