Rorate Caeli Purgatorial Society

In searching through my blog list this caught my eye. The Rorate Caeli Purgatorial Society. I want to spotlight this because I feel that praying for the souls in purgatory is becoming a lost practice. I encourage everyone who might stop by my blog to enroll your deceased loved ones and to pray for the souls in this society.

Rorate Caeli Purgatorial Society



Please pray for the enrolled souls and the holy priests of the Society:
"For all the souls enrolled in the Rorate Caeli Purgatorial Society: Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls and the souls of all the Faithful departed rest in peace. Amen."


Then ...

Eternal God,
please bless our priests,
who are selflessly saying Masses for this Society.
Make them more greatly aware of the grace
that You pour out through them
when they minister the sacraments,
and help them to fall more deeply in love with You
after each and every Mass that they celebrate.
Please strengthen our priests,
who shepherd Your flock,
when they are in doubt of their faith,
that they may be examples of Your Truth
and guide us always on the path to You.
We ask these things of You, our Eternal Priest.
Amen.

Ad Orientem

Over at the New Liturgial movement we see pictures of the Holy Father celebrating the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord ad orientem. A few years ago a former priest of ours referred to this as " celebrating Mass with his back to the people." I would like to offer a different perspective: Today the Holy Father celebrated Mass standing united in prayer with the people facing our Lord.

Click the link below to see more pictures at NLM.
NLM: Sistine Chapel, 10 January 2010

The sedia gestatoria would protect the Pope - Catholic Herald

The sedia gestatoria would protect the Pope - Catholic Herald

Security expert Dominic Scarborough urges the Vatican to draw on tradition to prevent a repeat of the Midnight Mass attack on Benedict XVI

8 January 2010

Many years ago there was a joke doing the rounds of the pubs and clubs about two Irishmen on pilgrimage in Rome who ask at a bar near the Vatican what the Pope likes to drink. Upon being told he likes Crème de Menthe the two intrepid drinkers order two pints of the stuff.

Several hours and a lot of pints later both are lying comatose in the street. When they eventually come around one says to the other: "No wonder they carry him around in a chair!"

On a more serious note, the attack on Pope Benedict during the entrance procession of Midnight Mass by Susanna Maiolo, a mentally ill woman who once again, as she did last year, vaulted over the barriers before lunging at the Pope, poses serious questions about the Holy Father's safety.

Since 1970 alone there have been three documented attempted assassinations of the Pope. In 1970 Pope Paul VI was attacked by a man with a knife at Manila Airport, in 1981 there was the shooting of Pope John Paul II in St Peter's Square and only a year later, when the same Pope visited Fatima to give thanks for his survival, he was attacked yet again by a deranged knife-wielding priest.

Aside from Pope Benedict's annual Christmas encounters with Miss Maiolo there was the attempt by a German man to get into his Popemobile during an audience in 2007. After these incidents and the rise of Islamic terrorism since 9/11 there have been many noticeable changes to the security surrounding the Pontiff.

Long gone are the days when it was deemed enough for Archbishop Marcinkus to stand next to the Pope as a kind of clerical "heavy". On all his travels around the world now the Pope is accompanied by armed close-protection officers from the 130-strong Vatican Corps of Gendarmes who accompany him and work with the close-protection teams afforded by the Italian state and the particular host country. His Popemobile is fitted with bullet-resistant glass and his movements by limousine are handled in exactly the same way as any head of state, with armed officers travelling with him and in a support vehicle. When the Pope visited Turkey he was even asked to wear body armour under his overcoat.

At every papal ceremony in St Peter's when the Pope is required to walk through the crowded basilica to reach the sanctuary it is possible to see not only his personal protection officer Domenico Giani, (who has been Inspector General of the Corpo della Gendarmeria since 2006), walking nearby but also other black-suited, close-protection officers walking at the sides of the procession. Indeed, the Pope's close-protection team are to be congratulated that one of their number seized Miss Maiolo as she leapt the barrier but the distance between the barrier and the Pope was so small that, ironically, it was the force of this officer tackling her at the very moment she grabbed at the Pope's vestments that actually brought the Pontiff crashing to the floor.

For these protection officers the security of their principal can never be guaranteed particularly when, like the Pope, he wants to be visible to the crowds who have turned out to see him and a degree of compromise is always required. Unlike a president or prime minister whose close-protection officers are usually found within an arm's reach of their principal, as any press photograph taken during a walkabout will show, the Pope is frequently engaged in liturgical acts which have no rubrical provision for an armed suited man wearing an ear-piece to be in the midst of things. That said, as with much of this pontificate the answer to this particular problem might just be found from recovering something from the past.

One only has to look at old black and white footage of pontiffs prior to Paul VI to see how popes always used to enter the basilica being carried shoulder high in the sedia gestatoria. Not only that, but there was always a throng of people around the chair, not only the actual bearers but numerous chamberlains and nobility and a large number of guards: Swiss Guards, uniformed Gendarmes, the Palatine Guard and Noble Guard. These comprised the old papal court which Pope Paul VI abolished and which formed a kind of buffer zone between the Pope and the crowds, no doubt as much a practical defence measure as a piece of ceremony.

The use of the sedia continued until very recently and many are unaware that the last pope to use the sedia was actually Pope John Paul I. While the abolition of this ancient form of transport may have since been considered appropriate in the context of the late 20th century and the need to democratise the appearance of papal ceremonies, the reality has left the Pope an isolated and vulnerable figure separated from the deacons ahead and the MCs behind, one who appears all too often like the figure in the Third Secret of Fatima: a victim walking alone simply waiting to be attacked.

While there are bound to be some who would see the return of the sedia as yet another example of this Pope "turning the clock back", in fact not only would it save an elderly man's tired legs but it would allow more of the crowd to see him. Most importantly, it would actually insulate him from the kind of physical assault we saw at Christmas by virtue of the mob of people surrounding it (who could these days be swelled by Swiss Guards and the gendarme officers in suitably formal garb) to work alongside the suited officers at the perimeter.

Naturally, the risk of attack from a gunman or explosive device would still be present and indeed potentially magnified by the sedia but the use of X-ray machines at the entrance to the basilica and physical searches of congregants should by now be mandatory at such events to confront these risks which are no more heightened by the Pope presiding at Mass from an elevated platform, as he does, than from being carried in a chair.

It was being reported earlier in the year on several Catholic blogs that the Vatican was actively considering a return for the sedia gestatoria for ceremonies in St Peter's, more because of the Pope's age than as a protection against attack. Perhaps the latest incident will persuade them that what tradition hands down frequently has a practical origin beyond merely the visually impressive spectacle that to sceptical modern eyes it had appeared to have become.

Dominic Scarborough is a regular commentator in the press and internet on Catholic affairs. His company, Proteus Risk, advises companies on security issues

The Sedia Gestatoria

Since the attack on the Holy Father on Christmas Eve there has been talk of restoring the use of the Seda Gestatoria. Below is a post I found on Overheard in the Sactristy that explains a little about it.


I would guess that the more liberal Catholics would cry foul if the Sedia is brought back, however, I will say this, it would allow more people to see the Pope and it would protect him much more especially if they also brought back the noble guard as well.

Overheard in the Sacristy - The Sedia Gestatoria

The sedia gestatoria is a portable throne on which Popes were once carried. It consists of a richly-adorned, silk-covered armchair, fastened on a suppedaneum, on each side of which are two gilded rings; through these rings pass the long rods with which twelve footmen (palafrenieri), in red uniforms, carry the throne on their shoulders.

The sedia gestatoria is an elaborate variation on the sedan chair. Two large fans (flabella) made of white ostrich feathers—a relic of the ancient liturgical use of the flabellum, mentioned in the Constitutiones Apostolicae[1]are carried at either side of the sedia gestatoria.

The sedia gestatoria was mainly used to carry popes to and from papal ceremonies in the Basilica of St. John Lateran and St. Peter’s Basilica. The sedia was used as part of papal ceremony for nearly one millennium. Its origins are sometimes thought to date back to Byzantium where Byzantine emperors were carried along in a similar manner, but many sources indicate the use of the sedia is of a much earlier date, probably being derived from rituals accompanying the leadership of the ancient Roman Empire.

This throne was used more especially in the ceremonies at the coronation of a new pope, and generally at all solemn entries of the pope to St. Peter’s or to public consistories. In the first case three bundles of tow are burnt before the newly-elected pontiff, who sits on the Sedia Gestatoria, whilst a master of ceremonies says: “Pater Sancte, sic transit gloria mundi,” (Holy Father, so passes the glory of the world). The custom of carrying the newly-elected pope, and formerly in some countries the newly-elected bishop, to his church can be, in some instances, traced back very far and may be compared with the Roman use of the sella curulis, on which newly-elected consuls were carried through the city.

Ennodius, Bishop of Pavia (d. 521) records in his “Apologia pro Synodo”, Gestatoriam sellam apostolicae confessionis, alluding to the Cathedra S. Petri, still preserved in the choir of St. Peter’s at Rome. This is a portable wooden armchair, inlaid with ivory, with two iron rings on each side.

Besides the constant use of the Sedia Gestatoria at the coronation of the pope (which seems to date from the beginning of the sixteenth century), etc., it served in the past on different other occasions, for instance when the pope received the yearly tribute of the Kingdom of Naples and of the other fiefs, and also, at least since the fifteenth century, when he carried the Blessed Sacrament publicly, in which case the Sedia Gestatoria took a different form, a table being adjusted before the throne. Pius X made use of this on the occasion of the Eucharistic Congress at Rome in 1905.

Pope John Paul I at first declined to use the sedia gestatoria, along with the papal tiara and several other symbols of papal authority, but was eventually convinced by the Vatican staff that its use was necessary in order to allow crowds to see him. Pope John Paul II refused to use the sedia gestatoria completely; Benedict XVI has not, as of yet, restored its use. The sedia gestatoria has been functionally replaced in modern times by the motorized and secured “popemobile”. — Wikipedia

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Expectation of the Blessd Virgin Mary

This interesting post came from the The LION & the CARDINAL blog.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

This feast, which is now kept not only throughout the whole of Spain but in many other parts of the Catholic world, owes its origin to the bishops of the tenth Council of Toledo, in 656. These prelates thought that there was an incongruity in the ancient practice of celebrating the feast of the Annunciation on the twenty-fifth of March, inasmuch as this joyful solemnity frequently occurs at the time when the Church is intent upon the Passion of our Lord, so that it is sometimes obliged to be transferred into Easter time, with which it is out of harmony for another reason; they therefore decreed that, henceforth, in the Church of Spain there should be kept, eight days before Christmas, a solemn feast with an octave, in honour of the Annunciation, and as a preparation for the great solemnity of our Lord's Nativity. In course of time, however, the Church of Spain saw the necessity of returning to the practice of the Church of Rome, and of those of the whole world, which solemnize the twenty-fifth of March as the day of our Lady's Annunciation and the Incarnation of the Son of God. But such had been, for ages, the devotion of the people for the feast of the eighteenth of December, that it was considered requisite to maintain some vestige of it. They discontinued, therefore, to celebrate the Annunciation on this day; but the faithful were requested to consider, with devotion, what must have been the sentiments of the holy Mother of God during the days immediately preceding her giving Him birth. A new feast was instituted, under the name of the Expectation of the blessed Virgin's delivery.

This feast, which sometimes goes under the name of Our Lady of O, or the feast of O, on account of the [antiphon] which begins O Virgo virginum [and because on that day the clerics in the choir after Vespers used to utter a loud and protracted O, to express the longing of the universe for the coming of the Redeemer], is kept with great devotion in Spain. A High Mass is sung at a very early hour each morning during the octave, at which all who are with child, whether rich or poor, consider it a duty to assist, that they may thus honour our Lady's Maternity, and beg her blessing upon themselves...

Most just indeed it is, O holy Mother of God, that we should unite in that ardent desire thou hadst to see Him, who had been concealed for nine months in thy chaste womb; to know the features of this Son of the heavenly Father, who is also thine; to come to that blissful hour of His birth, which will give glory to God in the highest, and, on earth, peace to men of good-will. Yes, dear Mother, the time is fast approaching, though not fast enough to satisfy thy desires and ours. Make us redouble our attention to the great mystery; complete our preparation by thy powerful prayers for us, that when the solemn hour has come, our Jesus may find no obstacle to His entrance into our hearts.

O Virgo virginum, quomodo fiet istud? quia noc primam similem visa es, nec habere sequentem. Filae Jerusalem, quid me admiramini? Divinum est mysterium hoc quod cernitis.

O Virgin of virgins! how shall this be? for never was there one like thee, nor will there ever be. Ye daughters of Jerusalem, why look ye wondering at me? What ye behold, is a divine mystery.

Advent First Vespers

Fr. Gonzales at Overheard in the Sacristy posted this picture of the Holy Father at Advent First Vespers. It is a beautiful photo of the Holy Father with his new ferula (Pastoral Staff).



Description:

On the front side of the new ferula is depicted in the centre the Lamb of God, and on the four points of the cross, the symbols of the four Evangelists. The arms of the cross are decorated in a net-like pattern which evokes the fisherman whose successor Pope Benedict is. On the backside there is in the centre the Chi-Rho, the monogram of Christ, and on the four points of the cross, four Fathers of Occident and Orient, Augustine and Ambrose, Athanasius and John Chrysostom, the same who also carry Bernini's cathedra. On the top of the shaft is the coat of arms of Pope Benedict XVI. Source: http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/



Also the mitre that the Holy Father is wearing is form Pope Pius IX. This mitre is referred to as the Immaculate conception mitre.On the front is an image of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and on the back is a image of Jesus the Good Shepherd. For those wondering, on December 8th, 1854 Blessed Pope Pius IX wrote the Apostolic Constitution INEFFABILIS DEUS which defined for us the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.

Traditional Latin Mass celebrated in Diocese of New Ulm

[NOTE: The following article appeared in the November 2009 issue of the Prairie Catholic. This news is encouraging to me because not only has the number of EF Masses being celebrated in our diocese doubled, but so has the number of priests celebrating them.]

On July 7, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI wrote a letter titled Summorum Pontificum to the Universal Church granting explicit permission for the Mass to be celebrated in Latin as it was according to the Missal of 1962 for those of the faithful who request it, as well as the celebration of other sacraments as they were at that time.

The Holy Father asked the bishops of the Church to do what they can to make the celebration of this Mass available. Pope Benedict called it the extraordinary form of the Mass to distinguish it from the Mass that is presently celebrated in English.

Soon after the Holy Father’s letter, Bishop John C. Nienstedt, third bishop of the Diocese of New Ulm, (2001-2008) established a monthly Traditional Latin Mass in the
Diocese of New Ulm offered at the Church of St. Michael in Morgan on the 2nd Sunday of every month at 11:30 a.m. For the past two years that Mass has been celebrated.

As of October 2009, a second Mass each month is being celebrated according to the Missal of 1962 on the 4th Sunday of every month, at the Church of St. Michael in
Morgan, also at 11:30 a.m.

At this time, the Mass on the second Sunday of each month is a High Mass by Msgr. Robert Wyffels, and the Mass on the fourth Sunday of each month is celebrated as a Low Mass by Fr. Mark Steffl. For those who wish, attendance at these Masses counts for their Sunday obligation to attend Mass.

A Web site has been established that will be updated regularly with information (schedules and times) on the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass in the Diocese of New Ulm. Visit [LINK REMOVED: I have removed the link to this site. After reviewing the site I have problems with some of their content -- Dave]

Michaelmas Ember Tide

On Wednesday of next week begins the Fall Ember tide. Three days (Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday) of partial abstinence from meat, fasting, and prayer. Traditionally, there are 4 times each year where the church would set aside successive Wednesday, Friday ,and Saturdays as Ember Days.

The first set of Ember Days occurs in winter during Advent, the second comes in spring the week after Ash Wednesday, the third in the summer after Pentecost Sunday, and the fourth during the fall after the Feast of the Exultation of the Cross.

On these days Catholics would spend time fasting (They would have one principal meal during the day and if necessary for strength two smaller meals. No snacking between meals), partially abstaining from meat (They would only eat meat at one principal meal of the day), and praying to God, thanking Him for the many gifts he has given them.

The Church no longer requires Catholics to observe Ember tide, however, many Catholics still do. This year, I am going to join them in abstinence, fasting and prayer. In addition to thanking God for the gifts he has brought into my life I will also pray for the success of the upcoming harvest and for our area farmers, for Bishop LeVoir and the Diocese of New Ulm, for unity in the Catholic church, and for all priests and seminarians of the Diocese of New Ulm.

Gregorian Masses

Father Z has a really interesting post about Gregorian Masses. Here is a little bit of it:

What are "Gregorian Masses"?

When you hear "Gregorian Masses" you are usually talking about the celebration of thirty Masses for thirty consecutive days for the soul of someone who has died. It is thought that St. Pope Gregory I (+604) spread this practice, which was already a tradition by his day. Pope Gregory had these Masses said for, at least, a fellow Roman monk named Justus (Dialogorum 4,57: Vade itaque, et ab hodierna die diebus triginta continuis offerre pro eo sacrificium stude, ut nullus omnino praetermittatur dies, quo pro absolutione illius salutaris hostia non immoletur.) At the end of the thirty days the dead monk appeared to his brother to let him know he was free from Purgatory. In any event, this became a widespread practice after Pope Gregory. I believe that the Dominican’s even had special Mass prayers in their Rite for this practice.

One of the things I love about being Catholic is learning about the many traditions and practices the church has. This is one of them. I wonder how often 30 days of Masses is done in this day and age. It is a big committment on the part of the priest.