It’s often noted in conservative circles that the government spends money like a drunken sailor, but aside from the obvious massive outlays that go to things like welfare or Medicare, you might wonder sometimes where the fat in the budget goes. Well, I know of one rather amusing place: it goes to providing anyone who claims to be a physicist a free pocket diary annually. The Particle Data Group, run out of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, mails a nice paperback diary to me annually in addition to the Particle Data Book, which is a very useful and handy summary of everything known about elementary particles. The book is pictured here.

Aside from advertising this government service — and certainly not to encourage you all to run to their website to order yourself one –I was glancing through my new copy today and was surprised and pleased to note that they mark August 15th as “The Assumption of Our Lady.” Now, this is gratifying, but I should note that they also mark Kwanzaa and the birthday of, for instance, William Rowan Hamilton with the same font and placement, so it’s not exactly triumphalist Catholicism, but it’s better than nothing.

This is just a quick recommendation of a book I’ve been reading, the Spiritual Letters of Abbot John Chapman, OSB. I highly recommend it. It has a lot of quite good advice on prayer, and the best explanation for frequent communion, versus older pieties, that I’ve ever yet seen, and many other great things. Among his interesting positions is an argument that the medieval notion of religious vocations as being something to be sought in spite of any obvious spiritual compulsion is unwise, at least among men today. But the heart of the book is its treatment of, and advice for, prayer.

First Friday Traditional Solemn Mass
Votive Mass of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
With Solemn Benediction after Mass

June 6th, 2008 at 6:30PM
Presented by
The Oratory of the Sacred Heart
at The Church of the Guardian Angel
193 Tenth Avenue at 21st Street
NYC (West side)

Celebrant: Very Reverend Msgr. Gilles Wach
Superior General of the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest
Deacon: Father Andreas Hellmann
Subdeacon: Father Cyprian La Pastina

Please join us at a convivium in the church hall immediately following Solemn Benediction

1, V, F, C, E trains to 23rd Street Station
M23 Bus to 10th Avenue

For information: (917) 535-2054

In Honor of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

May 2nd, 2008 at 6:30 PM

Presented by
The Oratory of the Sacred Heart
at
The Church of the Guardian Angel
193 Tenth Avenue at 21st Street
Manhattan

C, E trains to 23rd Street Station
M23 Bus to 10th Avenue
For information: (917) 535-2054

flier here

A while back, I read The Heresy of Formlessness by Martin Mosebach, a marvelous book about the crisis in the liturgy and in the Church. At the time, I planned a lengthy review, but months have now intervened and now, lest the opportunity slip completely from me, I thought I should scratch together at least a sketch of why I think this book is such a fine one.

Mosebach is a novelist, in Germany, and thus writes with an author’s eye and pen, rather than with a philosophers sharp quill and deduction. Which is not to say the book is fluffy or poorly reasoned; in fact, quite the opposite. Unlike many of the diatribes of traditionalists bewailing the failed state of things today — and despite the sad necessity of such cris du coeur — Mosebach takes his reader on a journey through the affective dimension of contemporary Catholic life as viewed by one steeped in the broad tradition of the West and thoroughly transformed by Christ and his Church.

There is argument here, but not the typical kind. Mosebach’s evident purpose is to give a warm robe to the sometimes dry subject of correct liturgical praxis and theological orthodoxy. We need excoriators of the false in the new and scholars of the minutiae of the old; but we also need compelling testaments to the life of beauty and joy that follow from the humble heart guided by the age-old practices of the Faith. It’s similar to the 118th psalm: a book-length celebration of the joy of a life lived according to the new law, written for today’s Church, which has fallen into a state of affairs not unlike Judaism just before King Josiah reformed it, where everything seems to have been forgotten.

One of the most winning and compelling points that he makes is to admit what a sad state of affairs it is, for a well-lived Catholic life, to have to be debating these matters at all. How ridiculous and destructive it is, he points out, that ordinary folk merely trying to live in Christ should have to pore over liturgical documents and become amateur scholars merely to retain the heritage that is theirs by right.

In short, this is a fine book to read: for those who already agree, to be consoled and informed, yes, but also to be reminded of what the wonderful fruit of final success in restoring tradition shall be. But it is perhaps even a better book for the literate and well-meaning but dubious modern who wonders what all this traditionalism business is about. If I had the guts or position, I might ask someone like George Weigel to give it a read (though Fr. Fessio’s rather lame Foreword suggests that some good people just won’t “get it”). But, my dear reader, what are you waiting for? Buy it yourself!

Fr. George Rutler, of Our Saviour’s Church in Manhattan, has a blistering, delightful review of Piero Marini’s book on the reform of the liturgy in the newest edition of First Things. Since it’s only for subscribers now, I thought I’d pull a couple of choice bits out to encourage people to read the whole thing. It’s a sore point among traditional Catholics, but I maintain that, whatever unfortunate material sometimes appears on its pages, First Things is a magazine that should be read by most thoughtful Catholics. But leaving that argument for later, a bit from Fr. Rutler:

“To young people today, Vatican II reposes in a haze with Nicaea II and Lateran II. Their guileless ignorance at least frees them from the animus of some aging liturgists who thought that the Second Vatican Council defined a whole new anthropological stage in the history of man. The prolix optimism of many interpreters of that council has now taken on a patina—not that of fine bronze but more like the discoloration of a Bauhaus building.”
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There is an old and learned priest, presently my confessor, of whom I heard an illustrative story. He heads a college seminary, and once when he was in the confessional a seminarian, writing a thesis on moral theology, came to him to confess. When the boy had finished, Father began his remarks by explaining the difference between a mortal and a venial sin. When the seminarian interposed that he didn’t need the explanation, noting that his thesis was on a related topic, Father shot back, “that’s not relevant here!”

The point, if I may expand, is that in this present darkness we humans can easily reach firm convictions and comprehension in our intellectual considerations that utterly fail to penetrate our lives generally. While this is an old theme, I return to it now because of late there has been some back-channel discussion among this site’s contributors about what does and doesn’t constitute prudent matter for discussion in this forum. I don’t want to address that question directly, though readers may leave their thoughts if they wish. Rather, I think a more interesting question is how a Christian views himself, his intellect, and his work in light of the demands of virtue, living under the shadow of the cross.
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Rote prayer gets a bad rap. We are given to believe that there is nothing so bad as saying a fifth Hail Mary in a row without quite having a heart overflowing with devotion, when one might instead be — say — making a common duty into a prayer, exploring a traditional meditation, or some such thing. And why not? ‘Words without thoughts never to heaven go,’ as that, ah, devout king says in a certain theatrical production. It’s useless praying away, multiplying words with an empty heart, thinking that a few more times through a long and ornate paragraph that even we aren’t paying attention to will act an incantation, winning us God’s favor and with it, maybe, a nice run of luck.

But is that all there is to it? The image of the devout ancient filipina tearing through rosary 8 or 17 before cutting ahead of you for communion, or the cruel eyed unreconstructed monk scrupulously reading his office while living a pharisaical and joyless vocation? I hardly think so.

We were sent this announcement by one of our correspondents, who happens to have volunteered his very able services for my and C.S.’s nuptial Mass, and who will likely be serving at the Mass in question:

On February 2, there will be a traditional Solemn Mass at Our Lady of Good Counsel in New York City. The church is located at 230 East 90th Street, between 2nd & 3rd Ave.

The traditional blessing of candles will start at 1pm. There will then be a procession inside then church before the beginning of the Solemn Mass.

Fr. Richard Trezza will be the Celebrant, Fr. Matthew Talarico (ICK) will be the Deacon and Fr. James Miara will be the Subdeacon.

All are welcome to attend! And may I say that Candlemas, or the Feast of the Purification, is the end of the Christmas season, and I can think of no better way to close out this holy Season of our Lord’s Birth than by attending such a celebration.

Today is the birthday of a virgin; let us imitate her purity. It is the birthday of a martyr; let us offer ourselves in sacrifice. It is the birthday of Saint Agnes, who is said to have suffered martyrdom at the age of twelve.

The cruelty that did not spare her youth shows all the more clearly the power of faith in finding one so young to bear it witness. There was little or no room in that small body for a wound. Though she could scarcely receive the blow, she could rise superior to it. Girls of her age cannot bear even their parents’ frowns and, pricked by a needle, weep as for a serious wound. Yet she shows no fear of the blood-stained hands of her executioners. She stands undaunted by heavy, clanking chains. She offers her whole body to be put to the sword by fierce soldiers. She is too young to know of death, yet is ready to face it. Dragged against her will to the altars, she stretches out her hands to the Lord in the midst of the flames, making the triumphant sign of Christ the victor on the altars of sacrilege. She puts her neck and hands in iron chains, but no chain can hold fast her tiny limbs.
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