THE CHURCH MILITANT - BELEAGUERED BY BERGOGLIANISM

Concluding Mass of the Sacred Liturgy Conference in Salem, Oregon. All photos by Marc Salvatore.

'Without the Eucharist, we cannot exist':
Reviving beauty and reverence in the Mass
The annual Sacred Liturgy Conference – with inspiring talks, gorgeous music,
and beautiful liturgies – comes again to western Oregon.
by Paul Senz

July 19, 2018

Nestled in the lush Willamette Valley of western Oregon, the city of Salem was host to the sixth annual Sacred Liturgy Conference from June 27-30, 2018.

According to the conference website, the mission of the gathering remains the same as it was at its beginnings in 2013: “to educate and inspire the faithful about the life-changing realities of the holy Mass, to encourage dignity and beauty in the celebration of the sacred liturgy, and to promote the use of sacred music according to the mind of the Church.”

This mission is evident in the many talks and workshops given throughout the four days of the conference.

“The impetus for the Sacred Liturgy Conferences is to promote the beauty, goodness, and truth of the Roman Catholic liturgy,” Dr. Lynne Bissonnette-Pitre, co-founder and director of Schola Cantus Angelorum, and one of the conference organizers, told me following last year’s meeting. “The liturgy is a gift from God to his Church for the right worship of him and as the efficacious path to holiness. It brings us to divine life in union with the Holy Trinity. Therefore, the liturgy should be beautiful and oriented toward God.”



Attendees from all over the country partook in the conference, the them of which was “Transfiguration in the Eucharist.” The conference featured workshops on Gregorian chant, the celebration of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, the sacrament of Reconciliation, and talks by many notable guests, including Bishop Athanasius Schneider of the Archdiocese of Astana in Kazakhstan, Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska, Archbishop Alexander Sample of Portland in Oregon, Father Cassian Folsom, OSB, of Norcia, Italy, and Msgr. John Cihak, a priest of the Archdiocese of Portland who is a former official of the Congregation for Bishops and Papal Master of Ceremonies under Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, among many more.

Msgr. Andrew Wadsworth was another of the conference speakers; he is executive director of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), a position he has held since 2009. He was brought on board at ICEL essentially to oversee the final two years of the new English translation of the Roman Missal. He has supervised every translation project since that time, covering most of the books of the Roman Rite. The major work at the moment is ICEL’s contribution to the revised edition of the Liturgy of the Hours.

Msgr. Wadsworth feels that conferences and other events like this are important.

“The liturgy is central to the life of the Church,” he said, “and the more people know about the liturgy the more they can enter deeply into the mystery of Christ, which is made present to us in the celebration of the liturgy. Any conference, any initiative like this, that offers the possibility of us deepening our knowledge and faith in the liturgical celebration is of great value.”

The question of the vernacular in the liturgy remains one of great debate, even 50 years after the introduction of the missal of Blessed Paul VI.

“I think that the fundamental task of the liturgical translations in their use in the liturgy is to be able to communicate the content of meaning of the Latin original in our own languages,” said Msgr. Wadsworth, “so that we can understand to the greatest degree possible – considering the time, the sensibilities, the culture – the ideas that are expressed in these ancient prayers, many of which are really from the first millennium.”

“So the use of the vernacular, really, is, from my point of view, to enable the content of meaning of these texts to be more widely understood.”

Msgr. Wadsworth pointed out that the Second Vatican Council “made it clear that the use of Latin is to be retained, and that Catholic faithful are to know how to say and sing the major parts of the Mass in Latin.” This was in the first utterance of the Council, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium.

“That’s a precious part of our patrimony and a precious expression of the unity of the Catholic faith across barriers of language. That’s a common patrimony to all Catholics of the Latin Rite,” he said.

There has been a recovery of that tradition, particularly over the last 20 years, according to Msgr. Wadsworth. “It has been understood that this is something important, it mustn’t be lost, and that while using the vernacular, to be able to have the major parts of the Mass – which are easily understood, because they’re the parts which are common to every celebration of the Mass – to be able to say and sing those parts in Latin is something that we want to allow people to have,” he said.

Father Cassian Folsom, OSB, gave two lectures at the conference: “The Patristic Fathers on the Transfiguration” and “Post-Communion Prayers and the Transfiguration.” This was his first time attending this particular conference, and he feels that such gatherings are very important.

“It seems to me that the people who come need to be nourished and encouraged,” he said, “because when they go to their respective homes or parishes, oftentimes they find themselves quite isolated. Here they can be nourished by the input and encouraged by meeting other people and forming networks and making new friends, so I think it’s very important and very encouraging, as it shows a certain vitality that gives people a real boost.”

The Benedictine spiritual life gives Father Folsom an insight into how the liturgy can and should be part of our daily lives.

“I am reminded of the comment of martyrs in North Africa, who were arrested and put to death because they gathered together for Sunday Mass against the law,” he said. “They said Sine Dominico non possumus: Without the Eucharist on the Lord’s Day, we can’t exist. I think that’s what we need in terms of an attitude – not ‘Oh, I have to go,’ but ‘Without this, I cannot live,’ and you’re willing to die for that.”

That means that the laity deserve the fullness and beauty of the Church’s tradition when they go to Mass on Sunday, he said. “Unfortunately, in the last 50 years there’s been so much confusion that the faithful are often given scraps instead of a royal banquet.” In this way, it is understandable that people might see it as an obligation rather than a joy.

“I think that’s missing in the lives of most people. They’re not immersed, it’s something occasional, and not always beautiful. And so there are real challenges there.”

Bishop James D. Conley is the bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska, where he has served since 2012. This year’s Sacred Liturgy Conference was the first he has attended, but he has a long history with Oregon and the Archdiocese of Portland, having worked in the vineyards for a summer while in seminary.

“I think that there is a great thirsting and hunger for beautiful liturgy,” said Bishop Conley, “especially among young people. People who grew up in the 80s and 90s are slowly discovering the great patrimony and heritage of the Church’s liturgical tradition, particularly sacred music.”



The sacrifice of the Mass was a part of each day’s schedule, with music provided by Schola Cantus Angelorum. “So we not only talked about music,” said Bishop Conley, “but we got to experience the music. I think all of these things are important because beauty in the New Evangelization takes the lead.”

Bishop Conley observed that of the three transcendentals (truth, beauty, goodness), truth and goodness may be compelling, but today they have been compromised in many ways by relativism and “a kind of hyper-sensitivity about ‘judging,’” so young people in particular may have a hard time understanding them and relating to them. “But beauty still has an appeal and attraction, and I think the beauty of the sacred liturgy, its rites and rituals, and its sacred music – the great treasures and patrimony we have – can be powerful and appealing to young hearts.”

The following article draws from concrete experience the liturgical principles discussed in Salem.

Novus Quodlibet:
The 'new whatever' liturgy
by ANTHONY ESOLEN

July 16, 2018

I have attended the Novus Ordo Mass all my life. I do not believe it was necessarily a mistake to have the Mass translated into the vernacular so that people could more readily understand the words and actions. Yet I have great sympathy for people who flock to, or flee to, the traditional rite, and have wondered why, if language alone were the point, the old rite had not simply been translated and otherwise left as it was. [But the point is that language was simply used as a pretext to justify the dumbed-down protestantization of the Mass that I still cannot 'forgive' Paul VI for agreeing to and imposing overnight as a totalitarian diktat, with nary a thought for the Mass of the Ages he discarded as reflexively as flicking ash from a cigaret.]

During the week, when I pray from the Baronius Press edition of the old Roman Missal, I am struck by the sheer richness of that old order. It is a work of tremendous theological insight and power, and of artistic beauty.
- We find subtlety, as the psalms and readings are cunningly arranged to fit the time of day, the season of the year, and the feast being celebrated.
- We find taste and intelligence, as the hymns combine the specifics of petition or praise with a comprehensive grasp of Scripture. We find breadth, as the hours and the seasons touch upon all of the vicissitudes of human life; sorrow and joy, shame and glory, suffering and exaltation, and sin and redemption.
- We find a massive power, as in the matins of nine lessons for the major feasts, or the antiphons that place beside one another, in a single sentence or two, verses from Scripture that we do not generally hear simultaneously. The effect is like joining two high voltage wires.

And then I go to Sunday Mass.

When school is in session at Northeast Catholic College, we go to Mass there, and it is superb. Our old parish in Rhode Island (Sacred Heart, West Warwick) is terrific. Elsewhere, it is what I’ll call the Novus Quodlibet: the New Whatever.

I kneel and try to pray before Mass. I’m trying to say those preparatory prayers that used to be in the old missal, but seem to have been banished, certainly from the experience of the churchgoers, because the place is usually abuzz with conversation. Mainly I hear whispers from old ladies. It would tend to be old ladies, as their demographic opposites, young men, seem to have been wiped out in a massacre, and are nowhere to be found. [What a contrast to our congregation for the traditional Mass at Holy Innocents- where male teenagers and young men in their 20s are just as numerous as their female counterparts.]

A woman ascends the pulpit. She says her name, then welcomes everybody. I do not want to know her name, and I am trying to pray. She announces the names of the readers, the Eucharistic ministers, and the altar servers. She announces the name of the priest. At one church, I am urged to get up (if I can; they make allowances for people with disabilities) and greet the people around me by name. I do not want to do this. I find it false. I do not remember the names of strangers, and I do not like to give my name out to strangers, either. It’s an act of aggressive etiquette, parading as bonhomie. I do not go to church for bonhomie. If I ever wanted it, I would go to a bar and order gin and tonic.

The choir, milling about up front, finally puts themselves in order. Then comes the hymn. Here I am three and four times cursed.

I have read and taught poetry all my adult life. This is one curse. I know English grammar. That is a second curse. My family and I are versed in the long tradition of Christian hymnody; we collect hymnals from all traditions, and we have sung one or two thousand of them, sometimes in languages other than English. This is a third and most terrible curse. And we know our Scripture. Cursed a fourth time, cursed and damned to writhe in eternal pain. Well, not eternal. The pain is transient but real — pain mingled with frustration and disappointment, that well-meaning people should give their talents and energies to stuff that is so worthless, and sometimes worse than worthless. For sometimes it is flat-out heresy.

Well, I won’t sing heresy, and I won’t sing chloroform for the brain, and this means that I hardly ever sing at such Masses. (I say a quiet prayer of gratitude for the goodwill of the singers instead.) No need here to bring up, like ill-digested onions, the specifics.

What strikes me, though, is the general liturgical lassitude. I don’t mean that there is not often a lot of energy, with drums, verses projected on the wall, and sometimes applause. I mean that there’s no plan to it, no aim. You are as likely to sing the peculiarly awful “Gather Us In” — well, that’s an onion, sorry —during Advent as in the middle of the summer, and if the choristers, or the lady at the piano, or the tenor at the organ likes it, you may be singing it twenty times a year. The hymns are chosen by the musicians for the same reason as the cartoon-like banners on the wall. Somebody who has wangled his way into the works likes them.

If you go to Mass every Sunday and every holy day during the year, and if four hymns are sung at each Mass, this gives you the opportunity to sing over two hundred different hymns. Need I say that, outside of the Christmas carols and three or four old Easter hymns, the typical Novus Quodlibet church boasts a repertoire of eight or nine? The same, the same, the same, like the drip, drip, drip of cold rain, without meaning, without artistic coherence, and without any feint toward the whole of the liturgical year and the history of salvation.

Many of them are narcissistic, rather like “I Feel Pretty” from West Side Story. “Let us build the City of God,” really? I cannot build the City of God. I can be made, by God, into a stone for the building of that spiritual city, but the action is his, not mine. “We have been sung throughout all of history”? I haven’t been sung even once in my whole life, and if I ever were to be, I would surely want to slug the singer. “Here I am, Lord, is it I, Lord?” Why, who ever would have thought!

But as the music, so the rest.

Often the priest will, after the entrance hymn, arrogate attention to himself, and say hello to the people, and crack a joke, and there’s nothing evil about that, no. It’s all friendly, in a pleasant and shallow way, and it gives you the sure sense that you are there for this reason or that reason, whatever floats your boat. Sometimes the altar servers have nothing to do but stand by and look pretty, while lay people potter about. Everybody gets involved, right, except the churches aren’t full.

In Canada, we have been instructed not to kneel, no, except for the first part of the Eucharistic prayer. We do not kneel after the Agnus Dei. We are not supposed to kneel after communion, but are to remain standing, in solidarity with the other people in line at Tim Horton’s — I mean, in line for communion; and then when everyone has received, why, naturally, everyone sits down. There is no sense to this, no art of prayer.

When I delve into the riches of the old Missal, I see order within order: the whole is like a cathedral, in which each element reflects the integrity and the structure of the entire work.

You feel the difference between an ordinary day and a feast, between feasts of the second class and feasts of the first class, and between those and first class feasts with an octave: fuller and more complex antiphons after the readings (antiphons set to polyphonic music in the old days, by such composers as Palestrina, Tallis, and Gregorio), special hymns, and a departure from the ordinary series of psalms.

In other words, what you say or do not say, or sing or do not sing for a weekday of the third class is oriented toward, for example, what you will be singing on Easter or Pentecost. It all fits together, rather as the largo in a symphony echoes the allegro past and the maestoso to come.

I am not suggesting that laymen should become liturgists. Was that not one of the plagues of Egypt? Most people are not great artists, or even good artists. The work is already given, and the task of the priest, who alone should determine what the ancillary people are doing or not doing, is to conform the praying of the Mass, in word, gesture, and spirit, to that work.

Let us take, for example, one of the many Sundays after Pentecost, and ask what hymns might be sung for that day. Suppose it is the seventeenth Sunday in ordinary time, this year. The first reading tells of how the prophet Elisha fed a hundred people with twenty barley loaves. In the second reading, Saint Paul urges the Ephesians to live with one another in the unity of love, as worthy of their one baptism. In the Gospel, Jesus feeds the multitudes with five barley loaves and two fishes.

On such a day it should be easy for the priest to choose hymns. We have two sacraments, baptism and the Eucharist, and the great miracle recounted by John, just before the Lord’s discourse on his body as true flesh and his blood as true drink. The focus is on God’s nourishing us and making us one in him. Think of hymns accordingly: Shepherd of Souls, The King of Love My Shepherd Is, At That First Eucharist, Pange Lingua Gloriosi, Blest Be the Tie that Binds, In Christ There is No East or West, At the Lamb’s High Feast We Sing, The Lamb’s High Banquet, Adoro Te, Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence, and perhaps concluding with Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones, sung, of course, to its grand completion.

If someone objects that the choir does not know those hymns, I reply that the choristers should be dismissed, then, because hymns are not hard to learn and to sing. If the organist cannot play them, they may be sung a capella. The work comes first. The feelings of the choristers do not come second; they do not come in at all.

In general, no one in the congregation should be choosing anything, nor should there be any perception that the priest, or anyone assisting the priest is making something up for the nonce. Unless you are yourself an artist of world class, when you sit down at the piano to play Beethoven, you should want to disappear, so that the people hear Beethoven and not you.

With the Mass, we want no one’s personal interpretation, not even if he was the most learned liturgist in the world. We want the order of the work of art — not whatever, or whoever.