Holy Thursday is just a week away. The Triduum is in sight. Sunday - Palm Sunday - marks the start of the holiest week in the Church's year.
On Sunday our Mass at St. Patrick's, Bradford at 1.00 p.m. marks the start of Holy Week and at the moment it looks as if the weather will again be favourable to us. We are hoping to have an outdoor procession as part of the observance of this feast. Last year cars slowed down to watch the procession and one elderly Muslim gentleman stopped and bowed his head as we walked round the block back to the church singing All glory praise and honour whilst bearing our palms.
Masses for Holy Week at St. Patrick's (BD2 1RU):
Holy Thursday - Mass of the Last Supper - 6.00 p.m.
Good Friday - Mass of the Presanctified - 3.00 p.m.
Holy Saturday - Easter Vigil Mass - 7.00 p.m.
Easter Sunday - Mass of the Resurrection of the Lord - 1.00 p.m.
Tonight I have spent an hour and a half watching the third of a series of videos produced in America about the Traditional Mass. It was on You Tube and was well worth the time spent watching it. Here is the link:
Mass of the Ages — GUARDIANS OF TRADITION - YouTube
I am mystified as to why there are subtitles in Russian!
Continuation of Bishop Wheeler's booklet, "Let's get this straight".
The Mass
it doesn't really matter weather the mass is in English or
Latin. It is the mass itself that matters. This is primarily a sacrifice but
also a sacred meal. You cannot begin to understand it unless you remember 3
great days: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. The mass is not
only a meal: it is a sacrifice and death, and also a resurrection. It is the
presence of all these things. Christ is present in the congregation. Christ is
present in the Scriptures. Christ is present in the priesthood. And the climax
and fullness of his bodily, physical presence is uniquely with us in the Blessed
Sacrament. By Holy Communion his presence is deepened and strengthened in all
his people. God is with us. This is the source and apex of the Christian life. The
Mass is so great a mystery That it can never be entirely grasped. But to enable
us to understand it's different aspects more fully, the church emphasises now 1
aspect and then another. Sometimes she stresses the sacrifice: Christ’s self offering on Good Friday. At other times (as
when the altar faces the people) she stresses the family meal which is also the
Paschal Meal; The night of Maundy Thursday.
The Priesthood
The mass is an act of Christ, of Christ the great High Priest:
It is also the act of the priest who, by the Sacrament of Holy Order, shares in
a special way in the high Priesthood of Christ. That is why we should venerate
and love the priesthood. For this is the office of men chosen by God and set
apart to perform with him the sacrifice. In a way that is unique, Christ the Priest
is Christ the Shepherd. The priesthood is a loving service because it is an
identification with the Good Shepherd who gave his life for the sheep. It is
necessarily therefore a life of sacrifice, coupled with the joy which comes
from the resurrection. Priestly service is the call to be as Christ: all things
to all men. It gives a new dimension to all earthly forms of service, which in
the priesthood our sacramentalised and exercised on a plane that is different
from all else. Priestly joy and priestly identity may be found only in that
happy sacrifice which is shared with Christ the great High Priest of all the
human race.
Participation
The Mass is also the act of God's people: for each and
everyone by Baptism shares in this priesthood too. All Christians are called to
offer this sacrifice. We should participate to the full and so the Church in
our time helps us to do this, perhaps with full understanding in the language
of our day. We should make full use of new approaches but never despise or
underrate those who have gone before us and participated according to the
insights of their times in full measure. Never delude yourself in this life
that you have understood the Mass to the full. Christ is in his people, but the
Mass is more than the congregation: Christ is in the word, boot the Mass is
worship as well as edification: Christ is in the priest, but the priest will
have his imperfections: Christ, after the consecration. Is present
substantially and completely in the species off bread and wine: present as he
is now in Heaven, risen, ascended, glorified.
Reverence
If the Church has simplified the ceremonies of the mass,
those things are done two leaders to the fundamentals, to render the scriptural
events before our eyes in starkness and reality. We would fail the Church’s
purpose If our reverence decreased. As our understanding grows, our attitudes
must deepen. We must become a holier people.
The community
Another insight about the Mass comes from the awareness of
community sense. Together we are the people of God. The community sense must
deepen our faith, deepen our hope, deepen our love: make us aware of our
obligations to all men in Christ. But we are individuals of infinite worth as
well. Each is made different. Each is known and loved by God. No man can
therefore afford to neglect his own communing with God. As well as being part
of the Christian community, we must enter, as the gGspel tells us, into our
rooms secretly and pray to God: a man who thinks that prayer is solely a
community exercise performs a disservice to the community itself and imperils
his own soul. We must become a holy people to bring Christ to the world of our
time. We cannot become a holy community without realising, each one, his
individual responsibility of prayer.
Original sin
We should delude ourselves if we minimised sin. We have all
sinned and fallen short of God's glory. First there is original sin which all
men inherit, accept the Blessed Virgin, Who by her Immaculate Conception and
through the merits of her Son was preserved from ever incurring it. In us it is
destroyed by baptism, which is a death to sin and a putting on of Christ.
Actual sin
Secondly there our own sins actually committed. Saint John in
his first Epistle English distinguishes sin which is mortal from that which is
not Saint Paul tells us we must not go to Holy Communion if we are in a state
of grave sin. Such a man eats and drinks, he says, damnation to himself.
Forgiveness
Our Lord is ever waiting to forgive us when we are sorry for
our sins. He does this whenever we make an act of perfect contrition, which
includes the desire to go to confession. In the sacrament of penance, when we
have acknowledged our sins with true sorrow, with real purpose of amendment and
readiness to make satisfaction, he forgives our sins in the words of absolution
spoken by his priest, to whom in the Gospels and in the Sacrament of Order, he
gives this power.
Next time: indulgences, frequent confession and conscience.
