Tea at Trianon: Bad Faith Causes Bad Liturgy

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, April 14, 2018

Bad Faith Causes Bad Liturgy

From Church Militant:

A major problem with modern liturgy identified by Cdl. Sarah was the appearance of innovations that pushed people to activity and pre-occupation during Mass instead of promoting authentic worship:

It is necessary to recognize that the serious, profound crisis that has affected the liturgy and the Church itself since the council is due to the fact that its center is no longer God and the adoration of Him, but rather men and their alleged ability to "do" something to keep themselves busy during the Eucharistic celebrations.

Sarah noted that the crisis of faith caused by misguided liturgical practices can't be overlooked any longer: "[W]e cannot close our eyes to the disaster, the devastation and the schism that the modern promoters of a living liturgy caused by remodeling the Church's liturgy according to their ideas."

He highlights the fact that these reformers forgot that a "liturgical act is not just a prayer, but also and above all a mystery in which something is accomplished for us that we cannot fully understand." The cardinal explains that participation at Mass isn't external so much as it is internal: "It is not about exclusively external activity, the distribution of roles or of functions in the liturgy but rather about an intensely active receptivity."

Even priests and bishops have a problem of seeing the Mass as sacrifice, says Cdl. Sarah. "The serious crisis of faith, not only at the level of the Christian faithful but also and especially among many priests and bishops, has made us incapable of understanding the Eucharistic liturgy as a sacrifice."

He notes that instead of seeing the Mass as a sacrifice, clerics and liturgical reformers often see the Mass as a "convivial meal" or the "community's celebration of itself." Cardinal Sarah says many prelates refuse to see the crisis for what it is. "Many refuse to face up to the Church’s work of self-destruction through the deliberate demolition of her doctrinal, liturgical, moral and pastoral foundations," he comments. (Read more.)