Tea at Trianon: So Controversial

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

Sunday, February 12, 2023

So Controversial

Ad orientem. From Catholic World Report:

Until the 1960s, Catholics worshipped ad orientem, with priest and congregation facing the East during Mass. Originally Christians celebrated Mass before daybreak Sunday morning with the rising sun serving as a symbol of Christ’s resurrection (testified by Pliny the Younger’s letter to the Emperor Trajan in 112 A.D.). The common liturgical direction toward the East honored the resurrection and anticipated the Lord’s coming in glory.

The oldest Christian church discovered in the world (without a later structure built over it), the house church at Dura-Europos in Syria, dating from the early 200s, was found with its altar touching the wall, facing East. Churches were constructed throughout history in this same fashion, with the altar (whether against the wall or not) oriented toward the East.

Even though there were more exceptions to a strict interpretation of this geographical direction in recent times, priest and people still worshipped facing the Lord together throughout the entire history of Catholic worship. Services facing the people arose during the Reformation, because ministers were focused on speaking to and leading the congregation. The priest during Catholic worship, however, acts in the person of Christ and leads the members of the Body in a common approach to the Father. The Mass does not focus on the people but seeks to give glory to the Father through Christ and in the Holy Spirit. The Mass is not about us ultimately but about coming into communion with God, worshipping him and being drawn into his life.

Why, then, did we change the direction of Catholic worship to face the people, called ad populum, in contrast to ad orientem?

The Second Vatican Council did not mention this change and there is no official liturgical document from the 1960s that directed it. The thought following Vatican II’s constitution on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, was that the Mass, which had been celebrated in an oft-inaudible Latin, should be more accessible to the people. In the experimental period between the constitution in 1963 and the promulgation of the reformed Mass of Pope Paul VI in 1969, the posture of facing the people had already become standard as a kind of spontaneous reaction to the liturgical mood of greater transparency and accessibility.

It is truly amazing that a timeless practice of Christian worship, such as the posture of ad orientem, would be abandoned without the directives of a Council or even any deliberation from authoritative bodies. Over the last 50 years, it has become the absolute norm.

At the same time, works such as Pope Benedict XVI’s Spirit of the Liturgy and Uwe Michael Lang’s Turning Towards the Lord (both published by Ignatius Press) have pointed to the implications of this change for the way Catholics perceive the meaning of liturgy. It appears to have become more human-centered rather than God-centered, indicating more of an enclosed circle than a transcendent action that draws us beyond the confines of the church. Inspired by these reflections, some priests have been seeking to recover the ad orientem posture. (Read more.)

From Pints with Aquinas:

We in the West live in possibly the most consumeristic age in history. We accumulate things that have little worth. We gorge ourselves on unhealthy food. We spend hours mindlessly scrolling on social media. Limitless porn is only a few clicks away.

We have everything we need to “satisfy” our appetites, but we’re starving for authentic truth, goodness, and beauty. The Traditional Latin Mass shocks those who first attend it with a radiance not of this world. The beautiful gestures, prayers, silence, and chants lift us up to a higher spiritual plane.

Not that there can’t be a beautiful Novus Ordo Mass. Priests need to follow Vatican II’s guidance on the liturgy and bring back a sense of the sacred to this form of the Mass. For example, Vatican II called for Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony. But we rarely find these in parishes that supposedly follow Vatican II.

[...]

This is an uncomfortable truth for those still convinced that the Mass needs to be radically modernized. If you go to many “modern” parishes today, you’ll often see a sea of older people. Young adults are noticeably absent.

But young people are flocking to the Traditional Latin Mass, and are wondering why this treasure was denied to them. They don’t want “fashionable” liturgy; they want something that is eternally relevant.

So if you’re still not convinced of the Latin Mass’s intrinsic worth, there’s also a practical aspect: the Catholic Church today is losing young people like crazy. Without them, many parishes will close in the future. (Read more.)