Removing Holy Water during Lent

From Father Z:

....Holy water is a sacramental.

We get the powerful theology of its use in the older ritual in the prayers for exorcism of the water and salt used and then the blessing itself. I wrote about this in an article for the WDTPRS series and it is on this blog. I’ll come back to it soon.

The rite of blessing holy water, in the older ritual, is powerful stuff.  It sounds odd, nearly foreign to our modern ears, especially after decades of being force fed ICEL pabulum.

Holy Water is a power weapon of the spiritual life against the attacks of the devil.

You do believe in the existence of the Enemy, … right?

You know you are a soldier and pilgrim in a dangerous world, … right?

So why… why… why would these liturgists and priests REMOVE a tool of spiritual warfare precisely during the season of LENT when we need it the most??

Holy water is a sacramental.

It is for our benefit.

It is not a toy, or something to be abstained from, like chocolate or television.

This is a response from the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments about this question. Enjoy.

The emphases are mine:

Prot. N. 569/00/L
March 14, 2000

Dear Father:

This Congregation for Divine Worship has received your letter sent by fax in which you ask whether it is in accord with liturgical law to remove the Holy Water from the fonts for the duration of the season of Lent.

This Dicastery is able to respond that the removing of Holy Water from the fonts during the season of Lent is not permitted, in particular, for two reasons:... (continued)

Read More at WDTPRS

A Mass and a milestone

By Damian Thompson

Here is a photograph taken at a Mass celebrated this month in Rome in the Archbasilica of St John Lateran. The full details can be found at the magnificent website of the New Liturgical Movement. I will point out two things:

1. The Mass was celebrated by Antonio Cardinal Cañizares Llovera, who as Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship is in charge of the worldwide liturgy of the Catholic Church.

2. It was a Tridentine Mass. Forgive the antiquated phrase, but it’s not so long ago that this form of the Roman Rite was celebrated clandestinely in the hotels of railway stations.

(Oh, and the subdeacon was Fr Tim Finigan, a great servant of the Church whose gifts not been fully acknowledged in England and Wales. Yet.)

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Priests’ conference in Rome to feature Tridentine liturgies

Posted on January 4, 2010 by Father Matthew Gamber

ROME — Top officials from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments will be principal celebrants at Tridentine liturgies during a conference in Rome this week. The Tridentine rite, in use before the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, is also called the extraordinary form of the liturgy.

U.S. Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia, secretary of the Vatican congregation, will celebrate solemn pontifical vespers and benediction in the extraordinary form at the Church of St. Stephen of the Abyssinians, located inside the Vatican walls, Jan. 6.

On Jan. 7, Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera, prefect of the worship congregation, will celebrate a solemn pontifical Mass in the extraordinary form at the Basilica of St. John Lateran.

The conference is being co-sponsored by the U.S.-based Confraternity of Catholic Clergy and the Australian Confraternity of Catholic Clergy to mark the Year for Priests.

Archbishop Raymond Burke, prefect of the Apostolic Signature, the church’s highest court, will be the main celebrant at the concluding liturgy of the conference Jan. 8. He will celebrate a solemn pontifical Mass in the ordinary — or new – form in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Archbishop Burke celebrated a Mass in the extraordinary form in St. Peter’s Basilica last October.

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Vatican liturgical official makes new plea for 'reform of the reform'

Feb. 23, 2009 (CWNews.com) -

A key Vatican official has called for "bold and courageous" decisions to address liturgical abuses that have arisen since the reforms of Vatican II.

Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, the secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship, cites a flawed understanding of Vatican II teachings and the influence of secular ideologies are reasons to conclude that-- as then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said in 1985-- "the true time of Vatican II has not yet come." Particularly in the realm of the liturgy, Archbishop Ranjith says, "The reform has to go on."

Archbishop Ranjith, who was called to the Vatican personally by Pope Benedict to serve as a papal ally in the quest to restore a sense of reverence in the liturgy, makes his comments in the Foreword to a new book based on the diaries and notes of Cardinal Fernando Antonelli, who was a key figure in the liturgical-reform movement both before and after Vatican II.

The writings of Cardinal Antonelli, Archbishop Ranjith says, help the reader "to understand the complex inner workings of the liturgical reform prior to an immediately following the Council." The Vatican official concludes that implementation of the Council's suggested reforms often veered away from the actual intent of the Council fathers. As a result, Archbishop Ranjith concludes, the liturgy today is not a true realization of the vision put forward in the key liturgical document of Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium (doc).

Specifically, Archbishop Ranjith writes:

Some practices which Sacrosanctum Concilium had never even contemplated were allowed into the Liturgy, like Mass versus populum, Holy Communion in the hand, altogether giving up on the Latin and Gregorian Chant in favor of the vernacular and songs and hymns without much space for God, and extension beyond any reasonable limits of the faculty to concelebrate at Holy Mass. There was also the gross misinterpretation of the principle of "active participation."

The Sri Lankan prelate argues that it in order to carry out a "reform of the reform," it is essential to recognize how the liturgical vision of Vatican lI became distorted. He praises the book on Cardinal Antonelli for allowing the reader to gain a better understanding of "which figures or attitudes caused the present situation." This, the archbishop says, is an inquiry "which, in the name of truth, we cannot abandon."

While acknowledging "the turbulent mood of the years that immediately followed the Council," Archbishop Ranjith reminds readers that in summoning the world's bishops to an ecumenical council, Blessed John XXIII intended "a fortification of the faith." The Council, in the eyes of Pope John, was "certainly not a call to go along with the spirit of the times."

However, he continues, the Council took place at a time of great worldwide intellectual turmoil, and in its aftermath especially, many would-be interpreters saw the event as a break from the prior traditions of the Church. As Archbishop Ranjith puts it:

Basic concepts and themes like Sacrifice and Redemption, Mission, Proclamation and Conversion, Adoration as an integral element of Communion, and the need of the Church for salvation--all were sidelined, while Dialogue, Inculturation, Ecumenism, Eucharist-as-Banquet, Evangelization-as-Witness, etc., became more important. Absolute values were disdained.

Even in the work of the Consilium, the Vatican agency assigned to implement liturgical changes, these influences were clearly felt, the archbishop notes:

An exaggerated sense of antiquarianism, anthopologism, confusion of roles between the ordained and the non-ordained, a limitless provision of space for experimentation-- and indeed, the tendency to look down upon some aspects of the development of the Liturgy in the second millennium-- were increasingly visible among certain liturgical schools.

Today, Archbishop Ranjith writes, the Church can look back and recognize the influences that distorted the original intent of the Council. That recognition, he says, should "help us to be courageous in improving or changing that which was erroneously introduced and which appears to be incompatible with the true dignity of the Liturgy." A much-needed "reform of the reform," he argues, should be inspired by "not merely a desire to correct past mistakes but much more the need to be true to what the Liturgy in fact is and means to us and what the Council itself defined it to be."

Archbishop Ranjith's 10-page Foreword appears in the English-language edition of a book entitled True Development of the Liturgy is written by Msgr. Nicola Giampietro, who serves on the staff of the Congregation for Divine Worship. It will be available in September from Roman Catholic Books.

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h/t to the New Liturgical Movement

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Ecclesia Dei to to be Attached to the Congregation for Divine Worship?

From Monde et Vie via RORATE CÆLI:

"The pope wishes to use the nomination of his right-hand man [Cardinal Cañizares Llovera] at the helm of the Congregation for Divine Worship [as a means] to profoundly reorganize the Ecclesia Dei Commission, where Cardinal Cañizares is already a member. According to the rumor, which seems to be just backstage gossip, Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos, who has surpassed the age limit for a long time, would cede his place to his current second, Mgr. Camille Perl, a personal friend to Pope Ratzinger, who would be consecrated a bishop for the event.

And the Commission would then be attached to the Congregation for Divine Worship, bearing responsibility, within a dicastery, for the Traditional form of the Roman rite, under the patronage of Cardinal Cañizares. [...] This means, at any rate, that the Ecclesia Dei Commission is placed within the ecclesial landscape..." - more

And NLM:

"Such an integration of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei into the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments would indeed be excellent for several reasons. It would clearly and unmistakably demonstrate, as the article mentions, that the usus antiquior is now a normal and regular part of the life and liturgy of the Church, attended to by a regular discastery of the Curia, and one of the most important at that, and not by a Special Commission named after a now obsolete indult. It makes sense that the curial authority charged with the Sacred Liturgy should have competence over both forms of the Roman Rite, not only because, once again, the Extraordinary Form is a living and regular part of the Sacred Liturgy, and not some isolated special interest concern, but also because, as we have seen, there are many questions which concern both forms, and where a seperate treatment of the same question can cause frictions..." - more

• Reform at Ecclesia Dei? Pontifical Commission downgraded?
• Rumor Watch: Ecclesia Dei to Become Part of CDW?

Vatican Approves New English Translation For The Order Of Mass

July 25, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON— The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has received approval (recognitio) from the Holy See’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments for the new English-language translation of the Order of Mass (Ordo Missae).

This is the first section of the translation of the third edition of the Roman Missal. It includes most of the texts used in every celebration of the Mass, including the responses that will be said by the people.

In its letter, the Congregation pointed out that while the texts are binding, the approval “does not intend that these texts are to be put into use immediately.”

Cardinal Francis Arinze, Prefect of the Congregation, explained the reasons for providing the text at this time. The purpose is to provide “time for the pastoral preparation of priests,deacons and for appropriate catechesis of the lay faithful. It will likewise facilitate the devising of musical settings for parts of the Mass.”

The text is covered by copyright law and the Statutes of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy.

The more significant changes of the people’s parts are:

1. et cum spiritu tuo is rendered as “And with your spirit”
2. In the Confiteor, the text “through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault” has been added
3. The Gloria has been translated differently and the structure is different from the present text
4. In the Preface dialogue the translation of “Dignum et justum est” is “It is right and just”
5. The first line of the Sanctus now reads “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts”
6. The response of the people at the Ecce Agnus Dei is “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”

At this time, no date is available as to when the entire translation of the Roman Missal will be released.

USCCB

h/t to NLM via Mulier Fortis
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Fr. Z wrote:

"Various internet news agencies put out stories, all with lists of some changes to common parts of the translation which will affect people directly.

Whereas CWN, for example, reported that in the words of consecration of the Most Precious Blood the priest will say, "poured out for you and for many (pro multis)", which is the single most important change in the English translation, CNS was entirely silent about it!

The left-leaning news agency of the USCCB was silent about the change to the words of consecration.

No one can believe they missed that part.

You will recall that since Paul VI made this decision, the Pope reserves to himself the tranlation of sacramental forms. Benedict XVI determined that a correct translation of pro multis must be included in all the vernacular versions and told Card. Arinze to write to that effect to all the Conferences of Bishops: the form had to be something like "for many", "for the many", "for the multitude" (French has "pour la multitude"), for example.

WDTPRS has four lengthy articles on the pro multis issue. I am happy to report that they played a role in the deliberations about what to do with pro multis. Also, in my recent PODCAzT I included an an answer to a question put to me in voicemail about this controversial point.

That said, I observe that the news report said "for many".

While I am glad that we will have a more accurate translation, I think that the better form would be the more precise "for the many", rather than the less precise "for many".

First, "the many" seems, to my ears, larger.

Second, "the many" sets it off as a group.

Third, "the many" has more of an eschatological direction to it, making the group sound like the body of the Chosen before the throne of God in heaven.

Either way will be an improvement.

However, I will continue gently to lobby in a happy sort of way until the Missal is ready for publication."

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