The Eastern Churches: 'it's a guy thing'

The Traditional Mass through a Pugin Rood Screen, at St Edmund's College, Ware

I've given a lot of space on this blog recently to the question about men being lost to the Church, and a reader kindly mentioned a book which notes the contrasting situation in the Orthodox Church. This is the testimony of an American, female, convert to Orthodoxy. She begins with a reminiscence about attending Vespers when she was new to it.

The struggling choir was weak and singing in an unintelligible language that may have been English. The few other worshipers weren't participating in the service in any visible way. Why did they hide the altar behind a wall? It was annoying how the priest kept popping in and out of the doors like a figure on a Swiss clock. The service dragged on following no discernible pattern, and it was interminable.
...

Something about Orthodoxy has immense appeal to men, and it's something that their wives--especially those used used to worshipping in the softer evangelical style---are generally slower to get. The appeal of joining this vast, ancient, rock-solid communion must be something like the appeal of joining the marines. It's going to be demand a hell of a lot out of you, and it's not going to cater to your individual whims, but when it's through with you you're going to be more than you ever knew you could be. It's going to demand, not death on the battlefield, but death to self in a million painful ways, and God is going to be sovereign. It's a guy thing. You wouldn't understand. 

Filial appeal to the Holy Father on marriage

Read it. Sign it. Spread the word. (Click on the image.)

Christ, the great Prophet, who proclaimed the Kingdom of His Father both by the testimony of His life and the power of His words, continually fulfills His prophetic office until the complete manifestation of glory. He does this not only through the hierarchy who teach in His name and with His authority, but also through the laity whom He made His witnesses and to whom He gave understanding of the faith (sensu fidei) and an attractiveness in speech so that the power of the Gospel might shine forth in their daily social and family life.

Lumen Gentium, 35

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Priests' Training Conference, April 2015: Prior Park, Bath

Prior Park College, originally built as a seminary, has one of the most spectacular views in England, probably worth the train fare on its own. Priests, deacons, seminarians and servers are all welcome at this event to learn about the Extraordinary Form.

From the Latin Mass Society

CLICK HERE TO BOOK

Priest Training Conference: 14 to 17 April 2015 (Low Week). (Seminarians Go Free*)

The Latin Mass Society is delighted to announce the latest in its series of Priests' and Servers' training conferences. This year it will be held at Prior Park College, Ralph Allen Drive, Bath BA2 5AH.

The LMS has been organising training conferences for priests to learn how to celebrate the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite since 2007 - the year Pope Benedict XVI issued the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, which confirmed what many had always argued, namely, that the Traditional Latin Mass was not only legal and licit, but could be celebrated by any Catholic priest without any sort of permission whatsoever.

Ever since then, a steady stream of priests has attended the LMS training conference each year and last year's event was arguably the most successful so far - it was completely booked out.

Over the years we have held the training conferences at seminaries, academic institutions, and other Church-owned venues. This year we are delighted to be going to the Catholic independent school Prior Park College at Bath. With landscaped gardens and even a Palladian style bridge, this should prove a glorious setting for a glorious rite of Mass!

The Latin Mass Society will be organising a residential training conference for priests wishing to learn to celebrate Mass in the usus antiquior. Tuition, which will be given by experienced priests, will be tailored to suit the needs of each priest. The conference will also be open for servers who wish to learn or improve their skills with the older form of the Mass.

Booking forms and payment can be made here: LMS Priest and Server Training Conference 2015

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Chant meeting in London, 14th March

A previous meeting of the GCN, addressed by the composer James MacMillan and
Fr Guy Nichols, Director of the Newman Institute of Sacred Music

The next meeting of the Gregorian Chant Network will take place on Saturday 14th March. For the first time it will be open to all. Directors of chant groups registered with the GCN will get a discount.

We will be addressed by Daniel Saulnier, former choirmaster at Solesmes, and Giovanni Varelli, Cambridge researcher who discovered the manuscript of the earliest written polyphonic music, which will be performed at the meeting.

The meeting includes lunch, for those who want it, and concludes with Vespers, followed by tea.

Programme (Subject to minor changes)

10.30 Registration
11.00 Talk by Daniel Saulnier
12noon Angelus and talk by Giovanni Varelli
1pm Lunch
2.30 Joseph Shaw on the GCN
2.45-4pm Rehearsal for Vespers with Daniel Saulnier
4.15 Vespers in the Little Oratory
5pm Tea

Prices: Directors of scholas and chant choirs which are members of the Gregorian Chant Network: £10 including lunch. Others: £10 without lunch; £25 including lunch.

The Latin Mass Society is hosting a booking page here.

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Loftus attacks Bishop Doyle over funerals

Requiem for Michael Davies, St Mary Moorfields, last October.

In the unlikely case that Bishop Doyle of Northampton thought that the female pastoral administrator in Milton Keynes would make liberals pleased with him, he would have been disapointed by the insatiable bitterness of Mgr Basil Loftus. He spreads his bile far beyond the people we might think of as standard-bearers of conservatism.

Mgr Loftus, 23rd Jan 2015
Why in England is there in one diocese a re-iteration of Holy See instructions whereby a grieving mother is forbidden from placing her infant child's teddy-bear on the coffin?

To hold back the tide of liturgical anarchy which could end up turning the Rite of Christian burial into a neo-pagan ceremony, Mgr? Or something more sinister?

The Vine, January 2015, on new guidelines for funerals issued by Northampton diocese.
Christian symbols alone are allowed on the coffin. Other items, such as personal mementos and Mass cards should be places on a table nearby.

Mass in London for Ebola victims: Maiden Lane 16th Feb

A recent Sung Mass in the historic Corpus Christi Maidan Lane, where Sung Mass is celebrated every Monday evening.

The Feoderatio Internationalis Una Voce (International Una Voce Federation, FIUV) has had an appeal from Una Voce South Africa, on behalf of all our African friends, that where possible Processions, Litanies, and Votive Masses be said for the victims of the Ebola epidemic which is ravaging many parts of Africa.

In response, the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales is arranging Litanies of the Saints and a Sung Votive Mass 'in Time of Pestilence' at 6.30pm on Monday 16th February 2015 (feria before Shrove Tuesday) at Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane, London (click for a map) to be celebrated by Fr Patrick Hayward.

The FIUV calls on all its members and supporters to take up this example, at this time of suffering.

On men taking back the Church

Solemnity, discipline, beauty, awe. The Dominican Rite in Oxford.

Further to the debate about masculinity and the liturgy, and an article about Cardinal Burke's remarks on related issues (which quotes me) by Tim Stanley in the Catholic Herald, Madeleine Teahan asks a pertinent question:

An implicit difference in expectation is the glaring irony at the heart of Cardinal Burke’s argument: namely, that men are passive victims of radical feminism, bad liturgy and poor catechesis. It’s as if they are a sex who are done unto; totally enfeebled and powerless to fight back. Doesn’t this portrayal undermine the typically masculine capacity for chivalry and strength that Cardinal Burke also refers to?

It's not that Miss Teahan denies that men are absent from our churches, it is just that she thinks the blame should be assigned squarely to the victims of poor catechesis and bad liturgy, and not to those who create those things. Perhaps she has in mind that passage in the Gospel where Jesus says that anyone who causes scandal to (i.e., causes to sin), one of these 'little ones' puts a millstone round the little ones' necks and gets away scot free.

No, wait...!

A warning about them rabbits.

Profanity warning, but an illustration of what rabbits can do when roused.



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Sung Requiem for the Air Asia tragedy

A High Mass of Requiem for Prince Rupert Loewenstein,
President and Patron of the Latin Mass Society, last year.

At the initiative of the Latin Mass Society, a Sung Requiem Mass will be celebrated for all those who perished in the recent Air Asia disaster. 

This will take place at St James' Church, Spanish Place, 

at 7pm on 

Wednesday 4th February, 

the celebrant being Fr David Irwin.

The regular EF Sunday congregation at St James' includes relatives of some of the victims.

An airliner, Air Asia flight QZ8501, crashed into the sea on 29th December 2014; all 162 people on board were killed. This Requiem is conceived as a 'month's mind', arranged as close as possible to the month's anniversary of the crash.

Please unite yourselves to these prayers for the souls of those lost, and for their loved ones left behind. And may God preserve us all from an unprovided death.

To make a contribution to the cost of this Mass, which will be accompanied by a professional choir, please make a donation using the button on the LMS homepage; you will be able to specify the purpose.

The address of the church is 22 George Street, London W1U 3QY; click for a map.

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