A Latin Mass in Advent

"Intruders and Desecrators"

This day in the Liturgical Calendar, the First Sunday of Advent, 1969, marked the coming into force of the Novus Ordo Missae. Pope Paul VI, in a General Audience on 26th November, 1969, spoke thus:

"We may notice that pious persons will be the ones most disturbed, because, having their respectable way of listening to Mass, they will feel distracted from their customary thoughts and forced to follow those of others...

"...Not Latin, but the spoken language, will be the main language of the Mass. To those who know the beauty, the power, the expressive sacrality of Latin, its replacement by the vulgar language is a great sacrifice: we lose the discourse of the Christian centuries, we become almost intruders and desecrators in the literary space of sacred expression, and we will thus lose a great portion of that stupendous and incomparable artistic and spiritual fact that is the Gregorian Chant. We will thus have, indeed, reason for being sad, and almost for feeling lost: with what will we replace this angelic language? It is a sacrifice of inestimable price."

* * *

The Sacred Constitution of the Second Vatican Council Sacrosanctum Concilium spoke thus:

"23. That sound tradition may be retained... there must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them; and care must be taken that any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing."

"36. 1. Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites... 2. But since the use of the mother tongue, whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments, or other parts of the liturgy, frequently may be of great advantage to the people, the limits of its employment may be extended..."

Rorate Mass of Our Lady

Bishop Schneider at Carlow Cathedral

On 2nd December, 2013, St. Conleth's Catholic Heritage Association had the privilege to organise the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the Gregorian Rite by His Excellency, Bishop Athanasius Schneider.  After Mass, also through the kindness of the Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin and the Administrator of Carlow Cathedral, Bishop Schneider gave a talk on his new book Corpus Christi - Holy Communion and the Renewal of the Church, in the Cathedral Parish Center.

Bishop Schneider in Carlow

Pro Multis

I was rereading a particular portion of The Canon of the Mass and Liturgical Reform by Dom Vagaggini, published in 1966. Normally, I don't look at the English translation provided unless I need to know a technical word, because I find it a bit loose and I'm a stickler for accuracy in this regard. Anyhow, I was reading the proposal and my eyes drifted to the English, and I got a small shock. This is what the Latin says in Dom Vagaggini's proprosal C for another Eucharistic Prayer

"Hic est enim calix Novi Testamenti in Sanguine Meo qui pro vobis et pro multis effundetur..."

And this is translated as

"This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood which shall be poured out for you and for everyone..."

Quite surprised, I flipped to proposal B which had the same thing.

Then I flipped still further back to the critiques of revised versions of the Canon drawn up by other scholars. Amon's Latin reads

"Hic est enim calix sanguinis mei, novi et aeterni testamenti: mysterium fidei: qui pro vobis et pro multis effundetur in remissionem peccatorum"

but the English reads

"For this is the cup of my blood, of the new, everlasting covenant; for you and for all men it will be poured out for the forgiveness of sins."

And note two things (1) the translation for "pro multis" (2) the omission of Mysterium Fidei. Brings to mind, actually, the warning of the Holy Office on how these were being left out of vernacular translations.

Kung's version has the same English mistranslation except his Latin does not include "mysterium fidei"

Amazing what can escape one's attention!

The funny thing is that all the Eastern anaphorae in the book are translated correctly in this regard. Or maybe not so funny.......

First published in February, 2008

Christmas Eve in Sweden

In Sweden we really start celebrating Christmas a long time in advance with the beginning of Advent and St. Lucy's Day which is taken very seriously here in Sweden. Here in Gothenburg the whole city is covered in lights from Liseberg Park to the Harbour. This year the really cold weather has helped to create the perfect atmosphere (especially if you are warm and indoors looking out the window!).

The Swedes, being a particurly difficult people, prefer to celebrate the birth of Christ on December 24th. (Same thing with Easter - we really are a tricky bunch!) Traditions differ between families, but for most people Christmas is one of those seasons when you enjoy spending time with your family. We decorate the Christmas tree together, cook, drink glögg (mulled wine) or julmust (very sweet like beer but with no alcohol) and eat far to many oranges, knäck (fudge), lussekatter (St. Lucy buns eaten right through Advent) and pepparkakor (little ginger bread men). Then, at precisely three o'clock Christmas starts for real - with Donald Duck on TV.

After about an hour of pretending not to laugh at the same silly things as the year before it's finally time to start eating. A traditional Swedish Christmas dinner or julbord is a huge meal with many differnet kinds of inlagd sill (pickled herring) and ägg (eggs - sometimes mixed together as gubbröra), rödbetor (beetroot), salad, prinskorv, fläskkorv and isterband (types of sausages), köttbullar (meatballs), rödkål, grönkål and brunkål (different kinds of cabbage - pickled and cooked), sweet bread, julost, bondost, herrgårdsost, prästost and getost (types of cheese), salmon, omelette, rökt ål (smoked eel), lutfisk, a special fish dish, paté and all sorts of pickles and condiments.

Recipes for the most important dish julskinka, the Christmas ham, are handed down through generations - they still all manage to taste exactly the same. The ham is enjoyed with mustard or apple sauce and is often accompanied by dopp i grytan, which means 'dip in the cauldron,' a slice of vörtlimpa (sweet bread) that's been dipped in the water in which the ham's been boiled.

Another Swedish Christmas tradition is the julbocken or Christmas goat. In the same way that the julbord is a reminder of pagan feasts the julbocken is pagan tradition based on the legend of the god Thor who used to ride in a chariot drawn by two goats, Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr but the tradition has been Christianised into the devil who would appear to menace St. Nicholas in the medieval mystery plays. In past centuries people used to play pranks disguised as the julbocken in the same way as on the Dymmelonsdag ('clapper Wednesday'). This is very like the Julebukking of Norway.

In some places, the julbocken brings the presents to children instead of jultomten, the Swedish Santa Claus. Unfortunately, not in my city. I would have loved a Christmas goat to bring me presents! Some towns such as Gävle build huge straw goats for the celebrations. Small straw goats wrapped in red ribbon can also be bought as a Christmas decoration.

There is also a tradition of carol singing associated with the julbocken that is very similar to the Wren Boys of Ireland.

Ireland and the Immaculate Conception

The feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, or Giniúint Mhuire gan Smál in the Irish Language, is one of the dearest feasts to Gaelic hearts.

Devotion to Mary's Immaculate Conception, although it is to be found in the earliest days of the Church, was not placed upon the Universal Calendar of the Church until 1708 by Pope Clement XI. Likewise, although the feast of the Immaculate Conception was being celebrated in Ireland long before 1708 (it is included in the calendar of the Martyrologium of Tallaght, c. 790, and the Féilre of St. Aengus, c. 800, and Synods in 1614, 1631 and 1685 declare it a holyday), we can trace the devotion in Ireland from before 1708, largely through the Franciscan Order and the friendship with Spain, whose Monarchs prided themselves upon their zeal for the Immaculate Conception.

The Irish Franciscan, Blessed John Duns Scotus, known as the Subtil Doctor (Doctor Subtilis), was the first to posit the solution to the great obstacle to the universal acceptance of the doctrine, namely, how could Mary be conceived free from all sin before the Redemption that her Son was to accomplish on Calvary had won the freedom of Mankind from sin.

Fr. Luke Wadding, O.F.M., had learned the pratice of devotion to the Immaculate Conception from his family. He had written a life of Blessed John Duns Scotus, the Vita Scoti. In 1618, King Phillip II of Spain appointed Fr. Wadding as theologian to the embassy that he sent to Rome to promote the definition of the Immaculate Conception as a Dogma of the Catholic Faith. Fr. Wadding was a mere thirty years old at the time.

Writing from Spain in 1625, Count Philip O’Sullivan Beare, nephew of the great O'Sullivan Beare, hero of Dunboy, makes reference to Ireland’s devotion to Mary and in particular to her Immaculate Conception. Likewise, the Irish College in Seville (founded in 1617) was dedicated to the Immaculate Conception.

Hugh MacCaghwell, O.F.M., Archbishop of Armagh (d. 1626), composed a tract and a litany honouring the Immaculate Conception. Several other Franciscans such as Florence Conry, Archbishop of Tuam, John Ponce or Punch (professor at St. Isadore's in Rome with Wadding), Anthony Hickey (pupil of the great Archbishop MacCaghwell and professor at St. Isadore's) and Bonaventure Baron (also of St. Isadore's) wrote tracts in Our Lady’s honour on the same theme.

The link between St. Isadore's and present-day Ireland is a direct one in that, when the Papal States were invaded in 1870, many precious manuscripts that had been lodged there, having been saved from destruction at the hands of the heretic invaders at home, were returned to Ireland, to the Franciscan Convent at Merchant's Quay, Dublin, where the Church known as 'Adam and Eve's' is more properly called the Church of the Immaculate Conception.

On the eve of the feast of the Immaculate Conception in 1650, the Catholic Confederation, sitting in the City of Kilkenny, and which then governed almost the entire Kingdom of Ireland solemnly consecrated the Kingdom to the Immaculate Conception of Mary in the following terms:

“By a unanimous vote of the Supreme Assembly it was decreed that the Virgin Mother of God, under her title of her Immaculate Conception, should be solemnly and publicly proclaimed Patroness of the Kingdom of Ireland, and that as a perpetual memorial to the happy event, the feast of the Immaculate Conception should be solemnly observed in Ireland from that day forward until the end of time.”

*The image of the Immaculate Conception in this post is by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770), dated 1767-69, housed in the del Prado Museum in Madrid.

"Intruders and Desecrators"

This day in the Liturgical Calendar, the First Sunday of Advent, 1969, marked the coming into force of the Novus Ordo Missae. Pope Paul VI, in a General Audience on 26th November, 1969, spoke thus:

"We may notice that pious persons will be the ones most disturbed, because, having their respectable way of listening to Mass, they will feel distracted from their customary thoughts and forced to follow those of others...

"...Not Latin, but the spoken language, will be the main language of the Mass. To those who know the beauty, the power, the expressive sacrality of Latin, its replacement by the vulgar language is a great sacrifice: we lose the discourse of the Christian centuries, we become almost intruders and desecrators in the literary space of sacred expression, and we will thus lose a great portion of that stupendous and incomparable artistic and spiritual fact that is the Gregorian Chant. We will thus have, indeed, reason for being sad, and almost for feeling lost: with what will we replace this angelic language? It is a sacrifice of inestimable price."

* * *

The Sacred Constitution of the Second Vatican Council Sacrosanctum Concilium spoke thus:

"23. That sound tradition may be retained... there must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them; and care must be taken that any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing."

"36. 1. Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites... 2. But since the use of the mother tongue, whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments, or other parts of the liturgy, frequently may be of great advantage to the people, the limits of its employment may be extended..."

The Hallowing of Time

The Catholic Church, both in its wisdom and in its understanding of humanity, has many means of sanctifying time. Today, set between Candlemas, which brought Christmastide to a close, and Septuagesima, which opens the long period of preparation for Easter, is an excellent moment to consider the lesser cycles that sanctify time which are blessed by the Church.

Liturgically, we have Ember Days, seasonal periods of prayer and fasting, or Rogations, the twice-yearly occasions for rogating or imploring the mercy and goodness of God.

We also have the dedication of days and months to particular devotions. One traditional method, for example, dedicates Monday to the Holy Ghost, Tuesday to the Holy Angels, Wednesday to St. Joseph, Thursday to the Blessed Sacrament, Friday to the Sacred Passion, Saturday to Our Lady and Sunday to the Most Holy Trinity. The cycle of Votive Masses in the Missal varies from this formula slightly, dedicating Monday to the Most Holy Trinity and including the Holy Ghost on Thursday, while including the Holy Apostles in the dedication of Wednesday.

Of the days dedicated, the most familiar and the most commonly practised, even in our own day, is the dedication of Saturday to Our Lady. The visions of Simon Stock and the children of Fatima would seem to be confirmation from Heaven of this venerable tradition. However, the origin of the dedication of Saturday seems to originate in the Court of Charles the Great (742-814) with the monk Alcuin of York, who composed two Masses in honour of Our Lady for Saturdays. By the 11th Century, the devotion was well established in the Universal Church when St. Peter Damien famously promoted the devotion and Pope Urban II prescribed prayers to Our Lady on Saturdays for the success of the first Crusade.

The dedication of months is also very traditional and frequently enriched with Indulgences. One traditional method devotes January to the Holy Name of Jesus, March to St. Joseph, May to Our Lady, June to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, July to His Precious Blood, September to the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady, October to the Holy Rosary, November to the Holy Souls, and December to the Holy Infancy. Most of these are derived from liturgical feasts ocurring during the month.

The tradition of special devotions to Our Lady during the month of May can certainly be traced to the High Middle Ages, the Cantigas de Santa Maria of Alfonso X of Castille being frequently cited. The dedication of the entire month to Our Lady may have taken until the 17th Century to be widespread. However, to Pope Clement VIII we owe the custom of the Crowning of Images of Our Lady, now strongly associated with May.

The origin of the dedication of June to the Sacred Heart is less clouded in the mists of history. We owe it to Angéle de Saint Croix, a Parisienne schoolgirl of the 1830s, who was inspired to propose it to the Superioress, not because the feast of the Sacred Heart falls in June, since it is a movable feast dependent upon the timing of Easter, but because Angéle felt that, if Our Lady had a whole month of May, the Sacred Heart should have a whole month of June.

The Superioress recommended her to make the suggestion to the Archbishop when he visited the school the following week. This she did and the Archbishop responded immediately, dedicating the month of June to the Sacred Heart of Jesus throughout the Archdiocese for the joint intentions of the conversion of sinners and the return of France to the practice of the faith. The devotion soon spread and became universal throughout the Church.

In such ways, the Church recommends to the Faithful to dedicate each moment of time to God and to His Angels and Saints, to sanctify time and, by doing so, to sanctify ourselves.

The Swedish celebration of St. Lucy

St. Lucy (283-304 AD) from Syracuse, is the patroness of the blind, having plucked her own eyes out. She also protects prostitutes regretting their unfortunate choice of career, this because she herself was condemned to work in a brothel.

Her name is derived from the word lux or lucis meaning light. She was an early Christian martyr. She consecrated her virginity to God, and would not marry the man her parents had promised her to. She did, however, send him her own eyes, after having removed them herself, which is why she is often depicted with a pair of eyes on a plate. Our Lady then gave her a new pair of eyes, even more beautiful than the ones she'd had before.

It is said that before her death she was attacked in the most horrifying of ways; she was drenched in burning oil, but was not hurt; she had a sword thrust through her neck, but survived just until recieving the Last Rites.

St. Lucy is one of the few saints celebrated in lutheran Sweden. The night of her feast day, the 13th of December - roughly half way through advent - was, during the middle ages, according to the Julian calendar, the winter solstice - the longest night of the year. This changed, however, with the conversion to the Gregorian calendar in 1753.

On the evening of the 12th, a popular custom is to have a Lussevaka - Lucy wake - staying up all night and preparing for the feast of St. Lucy. At dawn on the 13th, groups of young people, dressed in white and carrying candles, used to go from door to door singing, and, for this, getting treats or money. Nowadays, this tradition is kept alive in schools and universities by early morning choir performances, and by children singing to their parents, and bringing them breakfast. This is what goes on in the picture here to the left, painted by Carl Larsson, Sweden's most famous painter.


Treats may include lussekatter - Lucy cats - a kind of saffron bun made especially for St. Lucy's day, but often enjoyed throughout Advent, along with ginger bread and coffee or mulled wine. The bun comes in many different shapes, the one to the right here being the most popular. A more luxurious kind is stuffed with marzipan.

The celebration of St. Lucy in Sweden is very much a part of the preparation for Christmas and many of the songs sung during the celebrations are, indeed, Christmas carols. Often, little children will dress up as little house gnomes or ginger bread men while taking part in the celebrations.

In the video below is a girls' choir, dressed up in the customary St. Lucy dresses, and singing the St. Lucy song. There are several versions of the lyrics to this song, but they all describe how St. Lucy brings light into the dark and prepares us for Christmas.

The girl with the candles in her hair is the one representing St. Lucy. Being chosen for this is an honour and there are usually elections and preparations months in advance to get the perfect Lucy.

Another Saint often mentioned during the St. Lucy celebrations is St. Stephen, who even has his own song sung during the St. Lucy festivities. He is rarely mentioned here in Sweden, though, on his proper feast day - the 26th of December.

St. Stephen is sometimes referred to as the protomartyr, since he was the first Christian to be martyred. He was stoned to death in 35 AD. In Swedish tradition he is very closely connected with horses, like a stable boy, and this is also the theme of the St. Stephen's song; "Staffan var en stalledräng, vattnade sina fålar fem, för den ljusa stjärna" - "Stephen was a stable boy, he watered his five horses, for the bright shining star."



Why the tradition of celebrating St. Lucy's day has survived for so long in lutheran Sweden, where so many other Saints and religious practices are now, by most, forgotten, is not easy to say. Some will explain it as the longing for light during the dark season in a dark country. Others say that the St. Lucy celebrations are a Christian excuse to celebrate the winter solstice, a somewhat more pagan tradition.

Advent II

In his magistral work, L'Année liturgique, Dom Prosper Guéranger notes the commencement of the Great Antiphons of Advent on December 17 thus:

"The Church enters to-day on the seven days which precede the Vigil of Christmas, and which are known in the liturgy under the name of the Greater Ferias. The ordinary of the Advent Office becomes more solemn; the antiphons of the psalms, both for Lauds and the Hours of the day, are proper, and allude expressly to the great coming. Every day, at Vespers, is sung a solemn antiphon, consisting of a fervent prayer to the Messias, whom it addresses by one of the titles given Him in the sacred Scriptures.

In the Roman Church, there are seven of these antiphons, one for each of the greater ferias. They are commonly called the O's of Advent, because they all begin with that interjection."

In this video we hear the well-known metrical setting of the seven 'O Antiphons', known as 'Veni, Veni Emmanuel', although there are only five in this version. When we sing this well-known Advent hymn, we can help to recapture the true spirit of Advent by singing all seven verses and by relating each verse to the relevant 'O Antiphon'.

Advent I

The music of Christmas dominates our thoughts during December - and it assaults our ears too as Christmas (or the Winter Sales Season) 'begins' earlier and earlier. Advent - preparation, as opposed to instant gratification - runs counter to the ideas of the modern mind. What modern minds forget is that, just as there is no CHRISTmas without Christ, there is no Christmas without Advent.

With the loss of the sense of Advent, the music of Advent has been lost too. Maybe we can restore the sense of Advent by restoring the music of Advent. Here is one example, 'Rorate Caeli', the great refrain of Advent. It's not difficult to learn and, once learnt, it's even harder to forget.

Mass in Stamullen, Co. Meath

Fr. David Jones, O.Praem., of Duleek, Co. Meath, has just advised us that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass will be offered in the Gregorian Rite (1962 Missal) every Sunday from the First Sunday of Advent at 10.45 a.m. in the Visitation Convent, Stamullen, Co. Meath.

Fr. Jones preaching in Emo

This Visitation Convent is located in what was formerly Silverstream House, built about 150 years ago as a dower house to the Preston family of Gormanston Castle. In 1941 it passed to the Order of St. John of God and in 1955, they passed it to the Visitation Nuns. This first Irish foundation at Silverstream was led by Mother Theresa O'Dwyer, with 8 sisters, 3 sisters from America and 5 from England. It was a foundation of the Visitation Convent in Snellville, Georgia, USA.

Saint Jane Frances de Chantal

The Congregation of the Visitation was founded on Trinity Sunday, 6th June, 1610, by St. Francis de Sales, Bishop of Geneva, and Baroness, later Saint, Jane Francis de Chantal, seen here in the traditional habit, including the barbette or white wimple that is still a part of the habit of Visitation Nuns today.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque
Receives the Vision of the Sacred Heart

The Visitation Order was privileged to receive, through one of its members, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, the revelation of Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In the same regard, we can say that Fr. Jones also advises that a High Mass is celebrated at the Hermitage in Duleek, Co. Meath, every First Friday at 12 noon.

To the Sacred Heart of Jesus, thanks; to the Visitation Sisters of Stamullen, blessings; to Father Jones, many years; to the Mass on Sundays at 10.45 a.m., much fruit!