Ite Missa Est Stumbling Block
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Ite Missa Est Stumbling Block 1 September - October 2021 Newsletter of the SSPX in Great Britain and Scandinavia Let all everywhere ad- opt and observe what has been handed down by the Holy Roman Church, the Mother and Teacher of the other churches, and let Masses not be sung or read according to any other formula than that of this Missal published by Us. This ordinance applies henceforth, now, and forever, throughout all the provinces of the Christian world... Quo primum Pope St. Pius V 1570 Photo by John Aron Ite Missa Est Newsletter of the Society of St. Pius X in Great Britain & Scandinavia Bristol Priory Price: suggested donation £2 To Order: request in writing or by email Publisher Society of Saint Pius X St. George‘s House 125 Arthur Road Carluke Priory Wimbledon SW19 7DR United Kingdom +44 20 8946 7916 [email protected] District Superior Rev. Fr. Robert Brucciani Preston Priory Donation options 1. Cheque to: "The Society of Saint Pius X" at the above address Wimbledon Priory 2. Standing Order: contact us for a form either: at the above address or: [email protected] or: www.fsspx.uk/en/donate-gb 3. Transfer to: Lloyds Bank plc Account: The Society of St. Pius X Account Number: 00279661 St. Michael’s School Sort Code: 30-99-80 BIC/SWIFT: LOYDGB21061 IBAN: GB07LOYD30998000279661 4. Paypal: [email protected] 5. Scan a QR code on this page District of Great Britain Please ask for a Gift Aid declaration form if you pay income tax or complete online form at www.fsspx.uk/en/donate-gb Contact the District Superior if you would like to leave money to the Society in your will. Internet fsspx.uk All causes (PayPal) St. Michael Archangel [email protected] Church Project 4 StumblingBlock Editorial 6 LetterfromtheSuperiorGeneral 12 Mattersarising:Onrelics 18 Visitationofthesick 23 LightoftheWorld 30 Ite Missa Est Society of St. Pius X in Great Britain and Scandinavia Requiescantinpace 34 LiturgicalCalendar 36 Chronicle 40 YearPlanner2021 44 MassTimes 45 Addresses 46 Editorial Stumbling Block The Tridentine Rite of Mass Rev. Robert Brucciani, District Superior The Tridentine Rite of Mass is a sacrament of faith and holiness, the sign of contradiction and a living banner. It is the moment stumbling block of the revolution of victory over sin and death that seized control of the rendered present. It is the means institutions of the Church at the by which that victory is brought Second Vatican Council to souls across the centuries. (1962-5). Yes, over the centuries it remains My dear faithful, unchanged in its essential parts. It is the same sacrifice, with the same priest, with the same Tridentine Rite of Mass purpose and the same words at its heart as were uttered by Christ The Tridentine Rite of Mass is the Himself. The prayers surrounding supreme prayer of the Church the words of consecration (the which most perfectly expresses Canon of the Mass) were added the doctrine and sanctity of the over the first six centuries and Church. It is not a passive sign of were fixed by the time of Pope St. doctrine and sanctity like a Gregory the Great (590-604). Pope crucifix or devotional picture, it St. Pius V, following a decree of is an efficacious sign, a sacrament the Council of Trent, promulgated which produces what it signifies, the Bull Quo primum to fix the 6 September - October 2021 Rite of Mass for all time for the always compete with the Latin Church. Henceforth the Rite temptation to make himself God. was known as the Tridentine Rite Revolutions came and deposed of Mass. the Church in civil society When Church and state walked (Protestant Reformation), then together, Christendom was Jesus Christ (the Enlightenment), organised around the Mass. then God, (the French and Hilaire Belloc, in his Europe and Communist Revolutions), then the the Faith, observed that any natural order that He created (the medieval historian who does not Culture of Death and now Woke understand what the Blessed Ideology). Sacrament is (and by implication The most devastating revolution what the Holy Sacrifice of the of them all, however, was the one Mass is), cannot possibly by which “Non serviam” sounded understand the ordinary motives within the very corridors of the of his ancestors and hence the Church. At the Second Vatican great crises of civil history. Council, man attempted to deify The Mass was the pinnacle, the himself and put God at his jewel and the motive force of service. civilisation. It was the meeting of heaven and earth: God Man redefined descending; man reaching According to the Council, the upwards and touching God. dignity of man was no longer held tobehis potential to be raised by What happened to the God’s grace to share in the Mass? Divine Life, but was his autonomy by which he was like unto God: Revolution – autonomy of will to chose Alas, by the fall of Adam, the echo good and evil free from the of Satan’s “Non serviam” will restraint of natural or reverberate through history until revealed law (this is the end of time. Man’s natural liberalism); desire for the Divinity must – autonomy of the intellect to 7 Editorial adhere to “truths” God (Gaudium et Spes). The unmeasured by reality (this is Catholic Church merely “subsists” intellectual relativism); in this Church of Christ which is – the supremacy of calculated to imply that the conscience over the Eternal Church of Christ is wider than the Law as the guide for human Catholic Church and that behaviour (moral relativism); membership of the Church of – possessing by nature the Christ by baptism, or by means to his ultimate end sanctifying grace, or by which is natural, rather than submission to the Church’s requiring supernatural grace doctrine, authority and liturgy, is for an end which is not necessary. supernatural (naturalism). The Church of Christ, according toLumen Gentiumisan St. Augustine said that “God made efficacious sign or sacrament of man so that man might become the unity of the whole human race God”. This is true if “becoming with Christ. It is clearly a new God” is understood as Church and its faithful are given a participating in His Divine Life new name: “the People of God”. by supernatural grace,butitis false if it means becoming Liturgy redefined autonomous as the Council document Dignitatis Humanae For a new religion and a new suggests. Church, a new liturgy was required. Hence the Novus Ordo Religion redefined Missae was promulgated on 3rd April 1969 and then allowed to Man was thus redefined at the mutate freely (see https:// Council and so his religion was catholicherald.co.uk/the-strange- also redefined. The new religion birth-of-the-novus-ordo/ ). was the Religion of Man by which men were made autonomous. It was indeed a malignant liturgy for it objectively obscured the The Church of this new religion, sacrifice of Christ by presenting the Church of Christ, seems to the Mass as a meal, and it embrace all mankind as being obscured the sacramental already redeemed by the Son of 8 September - October 2021 priesthood by turning the priest Religion of Man; a religion at the into the president of an assembly. service of a New World Order, so In practice, by its frequent much so that Pope Francis disrespect of the Blessed promulgated a new motu proprio, Sacrament, it dragged God to Traditionis custodes, on 16th July earth and treated Him 2021 to nullify Summorum contumeliously. Its effect was to pontificum and to put in place kill the supernatural life of the the apparatus necessary to limit faithful, dry-up vocations and future use of the Tridentine Rite empty the churches. in the conciliar Church. In the motu proprio, Pope Summorum pontificum & Francis justifies his measures by Traditionis custodes claiming that the Tridentine Rite of Mass is a cause of disunity in After nearly forty years of auto- the Church. Such an accusation, destruction, Pope Benedict XVI like the title of the motu proprio, admitted that some blame for the is not a little ironic, for the Church’s decline must be laid at promulgation of the Novus Ordo the door of deficient liturgy, but Missae was perhaps the greatest he failed to perceive the doctrinal cause of disunity in the entire deviance from whence it sprang. history of Church. The new rite of In 2007, he promulgated Mass broke the unity of liturgy, Summorum pontificum which the unity of language, the unity of gave every priest the right to culture and, most important of all, celebrate the Tridentine Rite of the unity of belief and Mass once more. The result was supernatural life across the world felicitous, for by exposure to this and across the centuries. It was a traditional lex orandi, many new liturgy for a new religion, for faithful discovered or re- a false conception of man. discovered the lex credendi of the Church that the Council had Stumbling block sought to supplant. The Tridentine Rite began to be If the Tridentine Rite of Mass may regarded as a threat to the be regarded as a cause of revolution and its dream of a new disunity, it is only as a sign of 9 Editorial contradiction to the revolution a certain Rev. Fr. Benoît Philip- and a stumbling block against pon is granted a U.S. visa, which the revolution will whereupon his return is prom- ultimately dash itself and be ised. We suspect, however, that broken. his mother will do all that is possible to frustrate this plan, St. Joseph, Protector sanctae for his family live only half an Ecclesiae, ora pro nobis.