Mass in Dundee

On Sunday 14th I had the privilege to attend Mass in the Lawside Convent in Dundee. Different parts of the complex now house the Marian Franciscan Friars and Sisters. Mass was celebrated by Fr Philomeno.

 

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Conversation with 'Learn Latin'

The other day I had a live conversation with Diego of @latinedisce Learn Latin, on a Twitter 'space'.

@latinedisce promotes Latin, and has created free online resources to learn it.

This was a wide-ranging conversation, introducing the Traditional Mass, its history, and the way people engaged with it. If you missed it, here it is on YouTube.

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LMS Annual General Meeting: photos

Annual General Meeting are notoriously dull but the Latin Mass Society's are a bit different, and this year's was rather fun. It took place on the feast of SS Peter & Paul on 29th June; things have been so hectic since then I have only now got round to processing my photos.

We are especially grateful to the Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory for hosting us and for the beautiful Mass which preceded the meeting proper. 

Two more petitions to save the Traditional Mass: in the Catholic Herald

My latest in the Catholic Herald.

Sir James MacMillan, Catholic , published on 3rd July in a British newspaper, The Times, calling on Pope Francis not to impose fresh restrictions on the Traditional Mass. I have commented extensively on this petition and the petitioners: see here.

Today, in part responding to this petition and to the persistent rumours that Pope Francis is planning these restrictions, perhaps even to be published this very day, two other letters have been published with the same intention.

First, a letter from a retired Mexican Cardinal, Juan Sandoval Iñiguez, which had been sent to Pope Francis a week ago, has been published, together with a 'Letter of Adherence' from personalities from all over the world.

Second, a petition organised by the American poet Dana Gioia, has been published with eleven signatures, representing American Catholic artists and academics.

Read it all there.

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48 Public figures support the Traditional Mass: materials

The Latin Mass Society's Annual Requiem in 2023, in Corpus Christi Maiden Lane

This post is to gather together links to materials on this subject.

You can see the petition and signatories here. You can sign an open petition supporting it here.

The Latin Mass Society's press release is here.

News reports: The Tablet, The European Conservative, The Pillar, The Catholic Herald. 

Commentary by me: in The European Conservative, in The Catholic Herald, in OnePeterFive

Chairman's Briefing on the petition. 

Response to Fr Raymond de Souza in Crisis.

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George Galloway on the Traditional Mass

George Galloway:
Official photo from the UK Parliament

Cross-posted from Rorate Caeli.

George Galloway, the radical left-wing politician vying for Muslim votes in Britain's current general election, who was too hot to handle for the British Labour Party and so created his own--first, the Respect Party, now the Workers' Party of Britain -- yes, that George Galloway -- loves the Traditional Mass and has advised the Pope not to restrict it.

This has emerged in an interview with Timothy Stanley in the Daily Telegraph. Galloway, who is seeking re-election as the Member of Parliament for Rochdale in England's north west, noted that he is a practicing Catholic, and a 'big fan' of Pope Francis.

Stanley, a Catholic convert who also has experience of the radical left, felt inspired to ask him about the Traditional Mass.

The article is paywalled (here) but this is the money quote:

The Sign of Peace, for Catholic Answers

The Kiss of Peace at the LMS Walsingham Pilgrimage 2023: High Mass in the Shrine

The Pax, the Kiss of Peace, is one of my favourite ceremonies of High Mass: one of the most dramatic and easily understood symbolic actions. The celebrant kisses the Altar and given the deacon a stylised embrace; the deacon embraces the subdeacon, the subdeacon the MC, and if there are clergy in choir it can be passed on down a whole row of them on both sides of the church.

For a photographer it is easy to miss. It only happens at High Mass with deacon and subdeacon, and not at Requiem Masses or on Maundy Thursday. At Prelatial Masses and First Masses of newly ordained priests, you get an extra chance to catch it, with the 'Assistant Priest'.

This is the historical context for the ceremony in the Novus Ordo, which sadly can take a form that feels not only somewhat secular but even disruptive and an invasion of personal space. I always think of a letter to the Catholic press from one worshipper in Bristol some years ago:

In my church, one elderly widower tours the pews 'making a meal'; of his license to to make contact with female bodies. ... When the 'feel good' moment arrives, they approach me expectactly, but I ignore such cheap, shallow, bonhomie. I have often felt like adding 'a little peace before Mass would not have gone amiss.'

My latest piece for Catholic Answers is on this topic. It begins:

The Sign of Peace, the handshake that takes place at Sunday Mass between the Our Father and the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) before Holy Communion, is sometimes a source of friction and confusion.

The friction derives from the experience of it getting out of hand—being disruptive and even an intrusion. These problems were serious enough to raise the question, at the 2009 Synod of Bishops in in Rome, of moving the Sign of Peace to before the Offertory. Here, I want to shed some light on the meaning of the rite, which helps to put the question into some context.

Read the whole thing there.

At the LMS Annual Mass of Reparation in Bedford.

 

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