Bishop Williamson exile to end soon?

Stephen Heiner, who has had the most access to Bishop Williamson over the last several years, hinted on his blog that H.E. may soon have his travel restrictions lifted.  Let us keep him in our prayers - we certainly need him!

What is wrong with this picture?

How many things can you find wrong with this Mass? To start with, the priest is not wearing a maniple and appears to be speaking into the aspergium.

Michael Jackson alive in the Novus Ordo

It appears that even as the Holy Sacrifice of The Mass has been inspired by the hand of many a Pope, the Novus Ordo takes its organic development from the likes of Michael Jackson.  This video clip is thankfully very short.  I wonder whether this was the Christmas Mass recessional hymn?

Filled Pews (with What, one wonders)

The following article is from NCR.  [My comments are in parenthesis].


Filled Pews [with What, one wonders]
By Joe Ferullo

My 23-year-old cousin from Italy has been staying with us for three months. A lot of things have surprised him about Los Angeles -- the wide streets, old buildings that were only built forty years ago, and that fact that people actually fill the churches around here.

My cousin is a business graduate student back at home, and is staying with us while doing a corporate internship in town for his master's thesis. He's gone to Disneyland and downtown, to Hollywood and Malibu -- but our local parish has made a real impression. [Hopefully, he still can differentiate between Disneyland, downtown, Hollywood, Malibu, and his local parish.  It doesn't appear to be a challenge in Italy.]

Usually the place is pretty full on Sundays [with only 30% of Catholics attending Mass every Sunday, I guess that still adds up to big numbers in the few churches still open in the big city.  I wonder how the American church would fare with a church on every corner, as in Italy? Where would we put the taverns?] , which is not the case in Italy. Not even in the small town outside of Naples where my cousin grew up and still lives. There, a scattered dozen or so old ladies in traditional black still bother to make church-going a steady habit. [TRANSLATION: The Catholic Church has ceased teaching that missing Mass on Sunday is a mortal sin.] An ancient organ heaves out traditional tunes, but no one sings along.

And the priests, my cousin says, are as ancient as everything else -- preaching an Italian version of fire-and-brimstone homilies to the few in the pews. He was stunned to meet our pastor, who is a youthful 50 years old and sometimes wears Hawaiian shirts on his days off.[neat - Fr. Beach Boy!] His homilies are humorous, thoughtful and straightforward, [Unless you have Jay Leno in a nightclub setting, no one will come] speaking to everyday life and tying that to the gospel. Same thing when our bishop came recently to deliver the sacrament of Confirmation to my daughter and forty other teenagers her age. He didn't speak over the heads of kids, nor did he condescend to them -- he was simple and direct and genuine.[Sounds like he makes them feel real good without burdening them with any unnecessary Commandments and such.]

My cousin said he understood why the church was full, and why the ones back home were not. [The church was full because it was a Catholic "Community" formed by closing and consolidating five other churches.]

Pope Benedict has made re-Christianizing Europe a central theme of his papacy -- but if he has lost even the traditionally devout people in small Italian towns, his job is tougher than I thought. [The traditionally devout people have defected to the TLM]. And does he have a plan to bring them back? Does that plan include a different approach to the congregation, a more American approach? [God forbid!] Not that I have heard -- the American approach does not seem to be his favorite.

To be sure, we have our problems here, too. A lot of them, and the list seems to grow. The priests are not get any younger nor any larger in number. [Traditional seminaries are bursting at the seams] In our big cities, parishes and schools continue to close. But we should know that - -to at least one smart kid from a country that is home to the Vatican -- we are doing most things right. [Have the smart kid check back in ten years and this Novus Ordo parish will be closed and consolidated with the local Presbyterian Parish]

San Galgano

Tuscany is truly a beautiful region, especially when viewed from one of the mountain villages. There are many fascinating landmarks, many dating to the middle ages and earlier.  One of the places we visited was the chapel and the ruins of the Abbey of San Galgano.  

Did King Arthur Come From Italy?

A mysterious "sword in the stone" said to have been thrust into a rock near Siena by a medieval knight proves that the legend of King Arthur, Excalibur and the Holy Grail originated in Tuscany, not Cornwall or Brittany, an Italian scholar claims. The sword, of which only the hilt and an inch or two of blade is visible, is preserved at the Gothic abbey of San Galgano at Montesiepi, about 19 miles (30 km) southwest of Siena. The Cistercian abbey, now ruined, was built to honor St Galgano, a 12th-century Tuscan nobleman named Galgano Guidotti who renounced a life of "arrogance, lust and violence" to become a hermit after seeing a vision of the Archangel Michael.

To symbolize his rejection of war, he supposedly plunged his sword into the rock, which miraculously "parted like butter", leaving only the hilt exposed to form the shape of the Cross.

It has been assumed that the Tuscan "sword in the stone" was copied to echo the Celtic legend of King Arthur as told by Geoffrey of Monmouth and Chretien de Troyes and by Thomas Malory in his celebrated 15th- century Le Morte D'Arthur. But a study by the medieval historian Mario Moiraghi suggests that the story of St Galgano and his sword was the origin of the myth of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, embellished by medieval troubadours as it spread from Tuscany.

It was here at this chapel, that Fr. Voigt offered Mass on May 1st.  It turned out that a chapel full of Italian tourists and their priest was coincidentally visiting at the same time our Mass was to be offered.  Fr. Voigt gave a talk on the Seven Seals binding the Seven Capital Sins as Dr. D'Amico translated the sermon into Italian for the group.  It was obviously the first time many had seen the Traditional Latin Mass and many offered their approval afterward.

Mass in the San Galgano.

Just a few feet from the altar in the center of the chapel under a protective Plexiglas cover, the sword of San Galgano embedded in the stone.

The ruins of the Abbey built by San Galgano after an apparition of St. Michael.

This is a view of the surrounding countryside.  I have also included a short video of a group of children playing outside the chapel after Mass.

Mass at St. Peter's Tomb

The treasure of Rome is the Vatican and the treasure of the Vatican is St. Peter's Basilica.  The site was originally the Roman circus and consequently the site of martyrdom for many early Christians, one of the first of which was St. Peter. Crucified upside down in the Roman circus, his body was interred in the adjoining graveyard. Eventually, his tomb was given a humble monument and eventually enclosed in marble by Constantine.  A basilica was eventually built over it and the current St. Peter's Basilica is a replacement for the original basilica.  The pinnacle dome of St. Peter's is directly over the tomb of St. Peter.  However, the exact grave was never uncovered until modern times when Pope Pius XII authorized excavation and a necropolis was discovered far below the current St. Peter's Basilica.  The actual bones of St. Peter were discovered and identified during the pontificate of Pope Paul VI. If you take the Necropolis tour, you will be able to view his grave and his bones which lie in the underground tomb far below the main altar of the basilica.  It is a very humbling experience that is usually met with silence and ended in a prayer offered by our seminarian guide.  The altar build against and touching his grave is in a small ornate chapel the Clementine Chapel.  It only holds about eight people and is just about 100 feet away from the tomb of Pius XII.

The pinnacle of our journey was that Fr. Voigt received permission to offer Mass on this privileged altar.  Our Mass was scheduled for 8AM so we arrived at around 7:30AM. By that time, there were already numerous Masses being offered at several of the side altars. I was very heartened to find that of the seven Masses I counted as we walked in, four of them were the Traditional Latin Mass, and the other three were the modern Mass.  What a grace to see how freely the Traditional Mass was being chosen by the priests this morning. At 7:40AM, we went to the grand sacristy where 15-20 priests were in the process of vesting or devesting.  There was a
station set up for Fr, Voigt and a priest helped him vest for Mass.  While all priests wore the Gothic chasuble of St. Peter's, when Fr. Voigt indicated that he would offer Mass in the 'Extraordinary Rite', he was provided with an amice and he wore his maniple.

Tony and I vested in cassock and surplice and we were let down to St. Peter's crypt for Mass along with our wives who assisted at Mass as usual. We were also joined by 2 nuns and and an elderly couple who received permission to be in the crypt to assist at Mass.  As we had done before, we placed our rosaries and religious articles on St. Peter's tomb before Mass.  Fr. Voigt gave a short reflection on St. Peter and the gravity of offering the Mass on this altar in the presence of the relics of St. Peter.  There were tears at the Consecration.

 Fr. Voigt offers Mass on the tomb of St. Peter in the ornate Clementine Chapel.

We took more time after Mass to view the basilica.  We stopped and prayed for a moment at the altar containing the body of Pope St. Pius X.  A Novus Ordo Mass was just beginning there concelebrated by three priests. Although St. Peter's still inspires awe, it is a travesty that it is largely treated like a museum.  People tramp around oblivious to the presence of the Blessed Sacrament on side altars.  Laymen and even priests and nuns pass by side chapels with the Blessed Sacrament exposed for adoration without so much as a nod, let alone the reverential double genuflection.  Tourists mockingly pose and smile in prayerful positions from unused Confessionals for their laughing friend's cameras without interference.

Sistine Chapel

Vatican Museum

A must-see when at the Vatican is the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel.  The tour takes one through the museum proper, through the original Papal apartments occupied by pope Julius II who commissioned Michelangelo for the Sistine Chapel and Rafael for his own apartments, through the ghastly Borgia apartments, and finally the Sistine Chapel.  The next few pictures were randomly snapped throughout the museum.






This is the Colossus head of Nero that once adorned the Colosseum.

Nero's bath tub.

One of the many fine tapestries.

One of the door crests.

The next few are from the Papal apartments of Julius II.

That ended the paintings on the walls of the rooms of Pope Julius II.  We next proceeded to the Borgia apartments which Pope Paul VI had redecorated.  Apparently, he not only sought to modernize the Mass and theology, but also the paintings in these apartments.  I have included a few of these which are in stark contrast to the beauty and elegance of the Vatican to this point.  Some of these painting border on offensive, such as the "crucified businessman" which I chose not to include.  You can see from the art below why we hurried through these rooms with undue haste.

St. Mary Major

Of the other significant churches we visited was Saint Mary Major.  It had magnificent side altars and ceiling and the main altar was elegant.  One of the side chapels contained the body of Pope St. Pius V.

The Main Altar.

Below the main altar was an ornate shire ....

...which contained a piece of Christ's manger.

Around Rome

Here  are some general pictures from our wanderings around Rome.

Here is a church which was originally a Roman temple.  You can see the re-use plainly from the side where an ancient temple became a Catholic Church.

Here is picture from inside the Pantheon. Formerly a temple to many Roman gods and now a shrine to our Lady and the Martyrs.

This is the (in)famous Trevi Fountain - splashpoint for various starlets.

Dr D'Amico has been teaching Shari how to do extractions over the course of our trip.  Here Shari demonstrates the D'Amico technique on a stone (but frightened none the less) Muse.

The Roman Forum.

Constantine's Arch.

Obligatory picture of your humble narrator contemplating going on the Scaresdale Diet upon return to States with the lovely Mrs. smiling her approval.

Julius Caesar's funeral pyre. Obviously,  guilty members of the Brutus family continue to put fresh flowers on the spot.

The Colosseum.

Inside the Colosseum.

Finally, an exchange between between Tony and our 75 year old taxi driver.

Rome

Our first day in Rome, Mass was offered in the St. Sebastian catacombs on the crypt of St. Sebastian.  In this picture, you can see that we laid our rosaries and metals on the lid of the tomb at the beginning of Mass so that they would become 4th class relics.

Once again, the experience of assisting at Mass in the crypt of this great martyr was a sublime experience.

Here is a collection of photos from our first day in Rome.  The city is beautiful but also marred by excessive graffiti everywhere you looked, except within the walls of Vatican City.

Michelangelo's Pieta - every bit as exquisite in person as one would expect from this, his most beautiful piece of art.

The body of Pope St. Pius X within this side altar in St. Peter's.

This is a view of the outside wall of the Vatican from our convent.

Vicenzo

Sunday May 2nd was our last day at Vicenzo. We assisted at Mass at Camp Darby before heading off to Multipulciano in search of a couple of bottles of the areas excellent wines.  The fresh Pecorino cheese was also excellent.

As we drove between the different mountain towns of Italy, one of the sources of entertainment was our Garmin GPS, which announced turn-by-turn directions to us in a British accent.  Here is an example of the GPS giving us directions for a turn on our way up to Multipulciano.  Some of the long Italian names spoken by an upper-class Brit were really hilarious.



We next drove south to spend a couple of days in Assisi.  We found lodgings in a convent in the old city just a short walk to the Basilica di San Francisco.  The convent was humble but elegant and the Sisters were a delight.

Fr. Voigt celebrated Mass in their old grotto chapel and Dr. D'Amico translated Father's sermon into Italian for the Sisters and a few other guests.  Dr. D'Amico not only did most of the driving and tour guiding, but he also translated sermons.

Seeing the Basilica here in Assisi and throughout Italy is a bittersweet experience.  The sweetness comes from the beauty and grandeur of these churches where countless artists have created an atmosphere that lifts one's attention and spirit up to a heavenly level with beauty beyond description.  The immediate reaction for most Catholics would be to find the glowing sanctuary light indicating the presence of the Blessed Sacrament and kneel
in prayer. The bitter part is that most of these great houses of worship have been turned into museums and the treasured side altars and tabernacles bare of the great treasure that Christ left for us in His True Presence. Often, after much searching, one may find the Blessed Sacrament in the farthest corner of the church while the grand main altar is roped off and relegated as an article to be observed like some fine art gallery.

Ancient relics of the crown of thorns and the bones of the Apostles are kept n display cases in the Basilica basement instead of adorning the bare altars as they once did.

Every once in a while, a particular item catches the eye and gives pause.  For me, it was this crucifix in the lower Basilica beneath the tomb of St. Francis.  It depicts Christ's passion as testified by the evidence on the Shroud of Turin and needs no further description by me.

Finally, Fr. Voigt offered Mass at the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi.  Unfortunately, the picture came out blurry but the experience was humbling and could not be captured by a single photo.