Documenta Latina

Gloria Deo! Cuniculus laetus sum!

Ecce! Hoc est locus in quo Papa noster linguam Latinam alere quaesivit.

Lingua mea fortasse emendabitur!

New Message Board

Well, I've taken the bull by the horns and set up a new message board.

http://anglodiaspora.proboards85.com/

"Why?" you ask and well you might.

My reason is essentially to help bring together a community of like-minded folk who are scattered across the world and have little recourse to Anglo-Catholic or Anglican Papalist worship. These are the folk who have to make do with what they have got and is usually the best of a bad lot.

My intention is that this board be friendly, with an intellectual flavour, as is the Tractarian wont, but not taking itself too seriously. I hope that there will be a good heated debate on points of Anglican order, but with good humour, and a healthy respect for everyone. I certainly do not want to exclude people from ECUSA or the C of E, after all, there are many of us who, for a catalogue of reasons have nowhere else to, nor wish to.

I'm still experiencing teething troubles as I get used to the software, but please bear with me. I hope you'll consider joining up and striking up a conversation.

Another new blog

Here is a new blog by one of my newer friends from Anglo-Catholic Central,
Father Deacon David Straw.

He makes some insightful thoughts and reflections which I do recommend.

Commenting Cuniculi

It occurs to me that I'm discriminating against non-bloggers by disallowing anonymous postings.

I have now enabled "anonymous" postings but I feel rather uncomfortable that someone can just leave a message and not claim ownership of that message. I will therefore only publish a comment if

a) the comment is reasonable, respectable and polite;
b) you leave a name or ID to which subsequent comments can refer.

I will not publish comments otherwise.

Mean, ain't I?

Blogday 2007

Youngfogey coined a rather useful term when describing the anniversary of setting up a blog, and 29th December 2007 marks this bloglet's second birthday!

So what did I say last blogday?

Well, I don't call myself an Anglo-Catholic these days except only as a rough guide to where my churchmanship lies since few people have heard of the Anglo-Papalists. Indeed, if I'm asked, I always say that I am Catholic. If anyone is astute to notice my Church of England Readers' badge then I have some explaining to do. I've certainly learned more about my Papistical leanings and the fact that Anglicanism does need the Church of Rome for guidance in its doctrine. This position has been ratified for me by the rati-zinger himself , His Holiness Pope Benedict, who demonstrates the importance for the Church to be faithful to its Tradition. Following the C of E's declaration that women in the Episcopate is consonant with Anglican Understanding, I am at present waiting to see what the "brief from Hell" is going to propose before I make my decision whether I need to swim or not. I am constantly reviewing this situation which is far from ideal. I certainly do not consider myself to be an Anglican if Anglicanism is consonant with women "bishops". As for my Benedictinism, well, that's on hold for a little while as I get used to my new job. I continue to develop my relations with Elmore Abbey in the hope that some more formal affiliation may result. I have found St Benedict very useful for balancing my life out. So one year on sees some growth and some change but still the same problems and irritations. We are stuck with the -isms, including the Neo-Arianism that Dan Brown seems to be selling as well as Gnosticism. These can only be fought by working on our beliefs as set down in Scripture and communicated through the Church. History does not fight the Church, it is modern historians who are trying to make it look as if the Catholic Church is responsible for cover-ups and conspiracies. I cannot see what it would gain from doing so. This year I do need to do more study, my Latin is horrible, my Greek worse and my Hebrew appalling. As I settle in my new job then hopefully I shall find the time to work on some things that I've laid aside for a while such as the proper ministry of Women and the "Natural Sacraments" that I proposed last year. No - I hadn't forgotten. Perhaps you wish I had! Well here's to another twelve months.

Well, events have taken me away from the theology of the "Natural Sacraments" more's the pity. At the moment, I appear to be in some self-imposed exile from my parish celebrating only the Morning Office until the Mass is treated with some respect. It's a bit of a bind when the only other parishes within walking distance (and since I don't drive, this is necessary) are an Aff-Cath church where things are done decently but the theology dodgy, and a Roman Catholic Parish which seems to treat the Mass with about as much reverence as the parish I'm trying to leave.

So I end this blogyear in some kind of ecclesiastical limbo - certainly not a perfect arrangement, and I hope that this is going to be entirely temporary. Now that I receive communion on a much more sporadic basis, I believe I appreciate the spiritual nourishment better.

Whatever state the C of E may be in, I still maintain my links with Elmore Abbey - the only place where I've really felt spiritually uplifted in past years, and it's partly for them that I am loathe to leave the C of E. The Abbey has always represented a weak link between the C of E and the Roman Catholic Church. I find that I need them and on some level they need me, and I find that this is enough for me to remain in a church whose establishment is falling around my ears.

I seem to have spent my year building up my (lack of) understanding of Anglo-Papalism which gets mentioned every other post making me sound like the stuck record of a monomaniacal parrot. It's important because of the confused nature of the discipline. Every Anglo-Papalist is confused on some level and that's because the Church is a confusing place to which to belong. I now have friends like Marco Vervoorst trying to draw me into the Holy See, and others, like my friends from the Continuum trying to call me into a Continuum parish. It just shows what good friends they are, caring about me like that, and it is very much appreciated even if their attempts are not proving successful. However, I pray about the situation nightly, and despite my pressing for a decision, I still feel that I am told to wait for the path to become clear. Perhaps I must wait for the inevitable fragmentation of the C of E - that would make sense (at least to me). I have to be patient, and so must my friends. Intellectual arguments are not enough at the moment.

My Latin is passable, Greek even worse, and Hebrew infinitesimally better, but at least I've settled into the school which is providing spiritual stimulation of an intriguing kind. Having to defend your beliefs to young adults is very bracing and I heartily recommend it.

Thanks for reading over the past year. I hope that you will stay with me and pray with me for the Holy Estate of the Church of God, whatever state she's in.

Catholic Cartoonery

I found this wonderful blog, which I'll now append to my links on the side here.

I've already used this cartoon at my church. Considering that, at Midnight Mass, instead of the intercessions we had a poem about Father Christmas praying for help delivering the presents, I think it's applicable to both the Liberal wing of the Roman Catholic Church and the present mush of the C of E.

Personal Patristics

Found this little piece of silliness.

Which Church Father are you?

You’re St. Melito of Sardis! You have a great love of history and liturgy. You’re attached to the traditions of the ancients, yet you recognize that the old world — great as it was — is passing away. You are loyal to the customs of your family, though you do not hesitate to call family members to account for their sins. Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers!

Of course, I am(!) How silly of me!

...and down comes the gauntlet!

I would very much appreciate your prayers. I have been asked by the powers that be in my school to give an address (reasonably light-hearted and yet a little challenging) to the sixth-form as part of a series of three addresses on belief in (or otherwise) God. It has fallen to me to begin the series with the address on Theism and I will be followed by an Atheist and an Agnostic.

It's a big ask to present an apology in front of young adults and, of course, out of my own steam I cannot do this but seek help from my Creator. Having your prayers supporting me would be a great fillip.

Thanks.

O Sabbath Rest by Galilee...

Well, that's my last sermon at Church for a little while, though I've homilies to preach at school.
I've decided that I need a six-month Sabbatical from my Readership owing to the many pressures, physical, intellectual and spiritual that are impinging on me at the moment. There has to be something wrong when you leave church feeling worse than when you went in, so I'm taking a break to rethink things.

I'll keep blogging as best I can as I find that it's the best way to offload all the thoughts that come to me, and indeed from the valuable comments that I'm getting (though not enough) I learn much.

Please pray for me at this time.

Don't shine, Jesus, Don't shine.

I was recommended this by David Straw on the Anglo-Catholic Central message board.

I'm in thorough agreement. Why at university I had to be part of a "worship band". To be honest, I'd rather have been playing the vapid and saccharine music instead of singing meaningless words which, in some cases verge upon the heretical. There were times when I could only cope with the tripe by playing Renaissance instruments. My renditions of "All over the World" on Soprano Krummhorn and "One shall tell another" on Bass Rackett have probably faded from memory.

But the purpose of modern church music is clear; it acts as entertainment in order to goad people into worshipping God by playing on their feelings. The overarching result is sheer superficiality and isolation into one's own experiential circle. There is no grappling with deep issues, there is no education into praxis, there is no engagement in the Divine beyond the "clap hands, here comes Jesus" phenomenon.

Pass me my cornemuse, please!

Clarification of terms?

With all the turbulence that's afflicting the Anglican Church at the moment, it's easy to get confused. Here's a glossary to help you understand what's what, with a tip of the biretta to the Young Fogey!

Elmore 2007: The Need for Monastic Vocations

Well, I've had my annual retreat at Elmore Abbey despite the attempts of the weather to prevent my arrival.

I am glad to see Dom Kenneth up and about, albeit slightly more bionic and with a rotten cold.

As usual I am praying for more to be called to the monasteries, since there are only five monks left at the Abbey. These Religious Communities are absolutely vital for the health of Christianity in the West because of their separation from much of the hurly-burly and corrupting tendencies of Western Culture.

I did find this article about the Monastic Vocation which I append here.

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The Monastic Vocation
by a Benedictine Monk

(This account of the monastic calling is the translation of a lecture given by Dom Gerard, Prior of the Monastery of Sainte-Madeleine a Bedoin, before an audience of nine hundred in the hall of the Mutualite in Paris on November 24, 1977. With thanks to 'Oriens', magazine of the Ecclessia Dei Society, Australia.)

Dear Friends,
I thank you for coming in such numbers this evening. You are here because we have launched an appeal: our little monastery in mid-foundation needs practical help. You will read on your invitations that this lecture is entitled Facing the Crisis in the Church and a Foundering Civilisation: A Benedictine Monk Bears Witness. His very modest witness seeks to identify the deep meaning of monastic life in the modern world. I shall divide my argument into three parts: first I shall show how monastic life is contemplative, secondly I shall emphasise its apostolic value, and, to finish, I shall say a few words about the little monastery in which you are kind enough to take an interest.

Recently an agnostic, faced with our foundering civilisation in thrall to liberalism ("to every man his own religion", and so "to every man his own morality":- you can see just how far that can go!) and to materialism (a two-dimensional universe without after-life or a beyond) remarked: "You monks, you are the most useful members of society". We retorted: "How can you say that if you believe neither in God, prayer nor heaven?" He replied: "Because we are witnessing a haemorrhage of values, a continuing evolution where everything is questioned, a real collective suicide. Now amidst the general rout you monks are witnesses to the permanence of values. And make no mistake the day you cease to be uncompromising you will interest us no longer".

Dear friends, shall we search together this evening for the secret of an institution which even agnostics regard as an immovable rock in the midst of this rush to the abyss?

Monastic Life is Contemplative

Let us being with an anecdote. Some time ago a celebrated guru from India was asked to visit Paris. They extolled to him the benefits of technological civilisation, they showed him Christianity in the light of its good works, social and charitable. Then he asked the following question: "Works, is that all? But the most excellent work is contemplation. Where are your contemplatives"? Was there not a stinging reproach in that question? The story is not finished: our guru was introduced to a literary circle in which he heard the spirituality of the
Hindu mystics extolled. Then he pulled himself up and remarked dryly: "You in the West have mystics superior to ours. They are called Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Jean-Marie Vianey".

The first incident shows that for many, religion has become a social phenomenon, where activity is what counts. The Second shows that ignorance of our own mystical patrimony extends to looking abroad for what we have at home. And that raised the question of the place made for contemplative life in the present-day Church and the contemporary world. Well, let us say at once and boldly: A very great place must be made for contemplative life. Because it is not the very work of man. God is its beginning and end. God by His very perfection gives rise to the contemplative life. God infinitely merits that creatures surrender themselves, consecrate themselves entirely, forever and exclusively to contemplate, praise and adore Him. That is the truth, that is order, that is normality. Because God, as you know, is infinite in His perfections. He is the Lord, the Absolute Good, sovereignly desirable.

A religion which is not contemplative is unworthy of God. So because he interests himself in God above all, the monk not only points to God, not only testifies to Him, he bear witness to the excellence of God. The God whom the majority of men forget - it is He whom the monk makes the centre of his life. The only thing that interests him, the only interesting thing in the world for him, is God. A monk is thus simply someone who has been ravished by the thought - by more than the thought of God; the monk has been caught up by the very sweetness of God, by the goodness of God, by the beauty of God. So he reaches out to seize hold immediately, in this present life, of what others lose sight of and end by encountering, sometimes too late, at the moment of death, on the threshold of eternity.

This journey of the monastic life, this radical attitude before the All of God, is profoundly logical. I am certain that every baptised person, even if a little dazed by life, by work, by other activities, recognised, in the depths of his being, that interior logic. And I shall suggest a striking example: the story of the conversion of Charles de Foucauld. While still an agnostic, he agreed, at the repeated request of his aunt Mme. Moitessier, to meet the Abbe Huvelin. Begged to make his confession: "But I don't believe in God, Father"! "Kneel down". Touched by grace, the freethinker became a penitent and confessed the faults of a sinful life. Then he got up with an attraction to the consecrated life, and was to declare later on: "As soon as I believed that there was a God, I realized that I could do no other than live for Him alone".

Such is the logic of the saints! Because all questions, in the end, are contained in one: "Will God be adored, loved, served as He deserves and as the first commandment of the Decalogue requires"? On the reply to this question depend the happiness of souls and the survival of civilisations. Now monastic life is precisely the total consecration of human existence to the solemn service of God. And in the civilisation that may rightly be described as apostate, which seeks to build a world without God, this solemn service is a kind of shout, a shout like that of St. Michael's "Quis ut Deus"? (Who is like to God?). A monk's life is no more than a witness rendered to the transcendence of God. God is all, and because He is all, He deserves to be given all. The monk thus witnesses to the relative character, the insufficiency of the goods of this world. God alone is infinite Good. St. Teresa of Avila has recorded a splendid saying which came to her mind. "God alone is greater that the soul". And so He alone is capable of satisfying it. Dear friend, to say that monastic life is essentially contemplative is to define the monk as a man of prayer.

One day, some ten years ago in our monastery in the High Pyrenees, a group of pilgrims were being received. They were shown the church. It was about five o'clock and twilight on a winter afternoon. After a moment one of the visitors approached the choir. He thought he saw there, against a pillar, a statue that interested him. He went up to the immobile form, leaned down, and, embarrassed, immediately withdrew. The reason for his discomfiture was that the "statue" was a monk praying - a still form in the shadows unaware that there were people around. The story became known, and we realised yet again the radiance, the mysterious influence, which prayer exercises on men - on all men. It is this which is immediately tangible in a monastery.

Therefore a monk is orientated towards his principal activity. At an hour when everything round him is shifting, he remains immobile at his post of prayer. It was St. Francis de Sales who said: "The world was created for prayer". And the first impression of anyone making a retreat with us is precisely the atmosphere created by the hymns, psalms, silent prayer which bathe our existence.

Liturgical Prayer
Let us say a few words now about the famous liturgical prayer which makes up the pattern of our days. Seven times during the day, once at night. As you know, the figure seven signifies perfection plenitude. Let us recall that this prayer was settled in the earliest ages of the Church, at a period in which there was a sense of the sacred. In fact it was necessary for the earliest monks to practice, as it were, for eternal life, to give to God that proof of the love of uninterrupted prayer which makes their life a beginning of heaven. Hence the figure seven.

Another characteristic: While modern man since the sixteenth century seems to have shown a tendency to close the shutters and withdraw to a distant room to pray, man of old praised God through the whole of creation; and our whole liturgical office, made up of what are called the Canonical Hours, consists in adoring God and praising Him according to the place of the sun in the sky.

It is this which gives our prayer that noble, spacious character worthy of God. The sun is, after all, the most beautiful image of God, of the god Who is called Sun of Justice. Like the sun, God spreads His benefits and is never poorer for sending out His radiance. This is the order of our Offices, first, at 6.30 a.m. there is Lauds, which is the dawn prayer singing of the victory of light over darkness. Then, a short time afterwards (about 7.30 a.m.), comes Prime, with its reference to the first rays of the sun: Jam lucis orto sidere. Then, before the Conventual Mass, Terce, followed by Sext, which we sing when the sun is at its zenith: Splendore mane instruis et ignibus meridiem - in the heat of the noonday sun. In the afternoon there is None, which marks the setting sun and the vanishing of earthly things in face of the Immutable God: Immotus in te permanens. Then Vespers, the prayer of evening, and finally Compline at sunset: Te lucis ante terminum. We shall speak in a moment of the night psalmody.

These liturgical Offices are made up mainly of the Psalms of David which Jesus sang in the synagogue with Mary and Joseph when he was a child. He gave them their true meaning. The psalms speak of Christ, and it is Christ who speaks through the psalms. We do no more than lend our voices to Holy Church singing, in unison with her Divine Bridegroom, the new canticle of the New covenant. Do you know that these psalms are poems of wonderful beauty? They correspond to all the sentiments of the soul, all the aspirations, all the needs of the spiritual life: adoration, thanksgiving, praise, awareness of our poverty, penitence, supplication of divine aid and the outpourings of a tender, filial piety. The tenderness is palpable in certain psalms as is also love of the law, of the will of God, and a rapt confidence in Providence. Such are our psalms. And Christians have been singing-them since the Church first came into existence.

The liturgical Offices also express something very particular which I shall call the spirit of gratuitousness. You have noticed how modern living is marked by the sign of the useful, the profitable faced with a manufactured object, the first question posed is "What is it for"? or "How much does it cost"? But the most noble activities of man are those which are, by contrast gratuitous'. The Louvre is full of things which are not used for anything. They are nevertheless guarded by alarm signals and a powerful security network, which indicates that man values them above all else. Their 'uselessness' is all their glory. Well, these things are only a pale image on that libation of love poured out for the honour of God. Contemplative life is thus entirely 'gratuitous', in the sense that it is not a means to anything beyond itself. I would even say that it is perfectly useless, if I were not afraid of giving scandal. So ask these young monks, these apprentices to contemplative life in our monastery "Why do you pray"?, and they will answer, with perhaps a touch of malice. "We don't pray for anything"! Understand, we do not pray for anything, we pray to someone. For this reason monastic prayer consists primarily of adoration, admiration and praise.

Dom Marmion said: "A monk's life is one endless Gloria Patri", that conclusion to the psalms at which the monks bow gravely while singing Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto. A perpetual Gloria Patri that suffices, because we are made for it. The creature is fulfilled in acknowledgement of the infinite goodness of God. Dom Gueranger defined the Church as the society of divine praise. He wanted his monks to be "living alleluias". Why? Because God in Himself is above all praise. So the Benedictine spirit expresses itself in a free outpouring of love, in thanksgiving enraptured by the splendour of God. "We give Thee thanks for Thy great glory", as we sing in the Gloria. Andre Charlier, a man to whom we owe much, used to say: "It matters more than anything to preserve the gratuitousness of love". I thing that this gratuitous character of love is best expressed precisely in prayer which is first of all praise; because in praise the soul forgets itself and total forgetfulness of self is most difficult and most rare. And already one glimpses the apostolic role of contemplative life, of which we shall be speaking in a moment, because, anticipating eternity, monastic life is a proclamation of the Kingdom where
perfectly pure and disinterested love will finally triumph.

I would not wish to end this brief account of contemplative prayer without telling you something about the night Office which, with us, begins at two in the morning (or two thirty, according to the feast day). Our Father Abbot founder, Dom Romain Banquet, used to say: "Night with its darkness, its silence, its pure and secret charm from on high, invites the soul and draws it to nterior, luminous sanctifying ascents". Do you know, dear friends, that the night rising is a very ancient custom? It belongs to the beginnings of monastic life. When the first monks, those whom we call the Fathers of the Desert - Paul the Hermit, Anthony, Pacomius began the great monastic adventure, they instituted the night psalmody. Besides, we have a very exalted example: it is Our Saviour, who gave us the first example of night prayer. St. Luke reports that Our Saviour spent nights of prayer - erat permecians in onetione Dei, "He spent the night in prayer to God". In the Acts of the Apostles there is a delightful scene. Paul and Silas are in prison loaded with chains, and they rise in the middle of the night to sing their psalms in front of their guards, who come to listen to them with curiosity.

Holy Church thus instituted the Office known as Matins, and that so that the night should not escape the universal praise of creatures. It too must resound with our singing. And then, you see, by praying night and day the monk sends out a message to his contemporaries, a message to which they are in general very responsive: this message tells them of eternity, the heavenly country which we do not see and towards which we go. Certainly, I shall not hide from you that it is a difficult observance and consequently one which is endowed with a penitential character - and hence a work of reparation. Think, then, of the sins committed at night: that black tide of lust which breaks on the world, the crimes of every kind calling for punishment. The monk must station himself as an intercessory and pray at that time for his brothers. Think too of those lying in hospital, of the sleepless for whom the night is never-ending, of the misery, the nightly anguish of which we can have no idea. Finally, let us think of Christians behind the Iron Curtain who are imprisoned and tortured.

You all know the story, as charming now as ever, told by Joinville. One night at sea a storm broke over the returning Crusaders. Among the passengers there was panic, but King St. Louis cried out: "Don't be afraid, they are praying for us" And the tempest subsided. At one time France, and indeed all Europe, were literally covered with great abbeys, monasteries and monastic granges. Archaeologists find remains of such foundations below the soil every twenty-five kilometres. France was as if held in a chaplet, a network of prayer. Think of those thousands of hands raised to heaven, of those monks and nuns who watched over the temporal cities, who pleased, who called for the reign of God on earth (which is what we too ask). What an immense grace what a lightning-conductor for civilisation! It made the grandeur of the Middle Ages, it makes possible those extraordinary works which are called cathedrals, crusades, order of chivalry, monastic schools, works of mercy, hospices and those monuments of intellectual wisdom which are the writings of a St. Bonaventure and a St. Thomas Aquinas. Think above all of the yearnings for sanctity, of those princesses who went to bury their beauty and youth in the cloisters, of those knights who renounced the honours or the glory of arms to embrace the cross of Jesus Christ, of men and women who set out for heaven.

It reminded men that there is another world, the world of God. The sacred penetrated human institutions. It shaped the piety of Christians, because our West, however sick it is, however decadent because unfaithful to its vocation, has nevertheless received a seal, an impression that has marked it forever: it was the first monks sent out by the Benedictine Pope St. Gregory the Great who completed the evangelisation of Europe. He sent them to England, to the Friesians in Germany, to Spain and as far as Scandinavia. St. Maurus, the first disciple of our Father St. Benedict, had already planted the Benedictine monastic life among the Gauls. These missionary monks were sent not at first to preach, because at the beginning that was impossible, but to live their monastic life among the pagans. They founded monasteries, they lived the Rule of St. Benedict, they taught men how to work. It is good when a man works well, when he does a beautiful piece of work. They taught men to read in a beautiful book which the pagans did not know, the book of Holy Scripture. And, above all they taught them how to pray, thanks to the liturgical river which flows throughout the year and which is the best school of prayer.

In this way, Western Christianity was moulded by the first Benedictine monks. And something of it remains, something not always found on other continents where Anglo-Saxon Protestantism has placed its mark, where temporal success is considered a blessing from God, where luck evidently has its place. With us, it is not the same pattern. In our West, sick as it is (it is perhaps stricken to death), despite our degradation, our surrenders, there is a sense of God, a spiritual quest. Why? Because it is in our blood. It was instilled into us in our cradle. Our civilisation was signed by the Benedictines in the early centuries. They laid stress on the gratuitousness of divine service on disinterested love. And I believe it is this which will
save the world.

Apostolic Value of the Contemplative Life

To grasp what it is which makes fruitful the vocation whose gratuitous character we have been emphasising, it will be enough to state a universal principle. The more a man is at one with a cause, the more he shares in its efficiency. It is quite simple. If one explains to a child, he understands at once. For example: the more the spirit of the disciple is in tune with the master, the better he propagates his doctrine. It is obvious. This is what Christ Jesus expressed when He chose to begin His human existence with thirty years of hidden life, silent life, apart from the world, unknown to man, entirely absorbed in a secret dialogue with God the Father. Thirty years of hidden life for three years of public life!

That is the model set before us by Jesus Christ Who is the apostle par excellence. He began His work of salvation with thirty years of hidden life, in the apparent inactivity of prayer and humility. What a lesson for us! It shows in what high esteem we should hold the interior life, silence, solitude - things so undervalued by the world: the example of Jesus Christ is enough to save the honour of contemplatives.

From all this we can already draw a certain conclusion: the salvation of the world is dependent of the prayer of a few souls in love with God. And now, to demonstrate the apostolic character of the contemplative life, that life of prayer and sacrifice hidden in God, we shall, with your permission, invoke the exemplary character of the life of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus. As you know, St. Theresa died aged twenty four, without ever leaving her Carmel. Yet at her beatification Pope St. Pius X called her "the greatest saint of modern times", and Pius XI proclaimed her patron of the missions of the universal church, by the same title as St. Francis Xavier. So we now ask a question: how can contemplative life be missionary?

Two anecdotes will make us understand St. Theresa at the end of her brief life, continued heroically to observe the Carmelite rule. Her sisters recount that shed was sometimes so crushed by the illness which was to carry her away that, returning from Matins, she would climb the stairs very slowly, leaning her hand on the wall to catch her breath. A sister noticed this. As it was then the hour of the Great silence, she waited until the next day and then said to her "Sister Theresa, why do you not ask for a dispensation from Matins? Why do you go on walking like that? You are exhausted". And she replied: "I am walking for the missionaries"! That is the Communion of saints in all its splendour.

That is why Pius XI, who has been called the Pope of the Missions, declared one day that he would prefer to see a monastery of contemplatives founded in a mission country than to learn of the conversion of 30,000 pagans. And it was the same Pius XI who wrote for the Carthusians, who are pure contemplatives, the famous bull Umbratilem, from which I shall quote for you the following passage:

"Those whose assiduous zeal is vowed to prayer and to penance, much more than the labourers engaged in cultivating the Lord's field, contribute to the progress of
the Church and the salvation of human kind, because if they did not cause abundant divine graces to descend to irrigate the field, the evangelisers would draw very scanty fruits from their labour."

The second incident took place before Theresa's entry into Carmel and decided her apostolic vocation in favour of the salvation of souls. We read her account in the History of a Soul. It is the well known Pranzini affair. There was at the time a criminal called Pranzini, a man responsible for several murders, who had been captured and sentenced to death. He was to be guillotined on August 31, 1887. Now the chaplain who visited him in prison had never succeeded in making him regret his crimes. Pranzini received him with arrogance and sent him away without showing a shadow of repentance. The young Theresa heard talk about the notorious criminal, she was moved by compassion (as she herself said) and she asked God for a sign of his conversion. The day after his execution, she, opened the newspaper with, she admitted, unusual haste. And she read the account of his last moments. Pranzini had mounted the scaffold without confession, without absolution. The chaplain behind him was holding a crucifix in his hand when suddenly the condemned man turned and kissed three times the crucifix which the priest offered him. St. Theresa of the Child Jesus herself recounts the miracle in her history. Let us hear her:

The lips of my first child went to press themselves on the Divine wounds. What an ineffable reply! Ah, since that unique grace, my desire to save souls has grown day by day"!

That was in 1887 when Theresa was fifteen years old. The following year she entered Carmel.

St. Theresa of the Child Jesus had a very bold doctrine of the apostolic role of prayer. She drew it from the theology of the Mystical Body in St. Paul. She explains in History of a Soul that out of love for the Church she would have liked to take on every role - to be missionary, martyr, doctor, priest, warrior, hospital worker - but she could not, since one cannot do everything: Non omnia omnes passunt. Because of the state of her health, she was not even able to answer the appeal of the Saigon Carmel for a reinforcement of French sisters. Nevertheless, in her autobiography she left a testimony to the illuminating grace which made her understand that if she could not take on all vocations, she could embrace them all. Reading St. Paul, she had grasped that in a body there are several members, but the central organ which drives the blood through the arteries, bring life to each member, is the heart. St. Theresa exclaimed them, in a tone of triumph "I have found my vocation in the heart of the Church, my mother. I shall be love, and because I shall be love, I shall be everything". From then on she practiced the perfection of charity. She said: "One can' save the world while picking up a pin which has fallen to the ground". She was a worthy daughter of St. John of the Cross, that great Doctor of the Church, who wrote in his spiritual Canticle: "The smallest part of pure love IS more precious in the eyes of God, and more profitable to the Church in its apparent inactivity, than all other works taken together".

You see, dear friends, that the contemplative monk may also become a soldier of the Church Militant and a saviour of souls.

Our Monastery at Bedoin

And now, as I promised you, a few words on our little monastery at Bedoin, for which I am asking your generous support. It was founded in 1970 by a Father and a Brother. The Father, who is speaking to you this evening, came from an abbey in the High Pyrenees, where he had made his profession some twenty years earlier. That abbey was then in decline. He could not reconcile himself to having his whole existence unfold in a sense contrary to the Rule which he had embraced with solemn vows. The vows of religion are chains of love which bind you in the depths of the conscience. So he asked his Father Abbot's blessing and resolved to leave, and to continue to live according to the Holy Rule in the strict observance and customs of the Order.

At the end of a year of solitary existence a very small place of worship offered itself. It was an ancient romanesque chapel. Five days after he had carried in his few belongings, a young man came to him asking to be initiated into the monastic life. He received the reply one should always give a postulant: "It is not possible, it is beyond your strength". Moreover I had an excellent excuse: "By myself, how do you expect me to form you in the Benedictine life? There must be a Father Abbot, a Master of Novices, older monks". Then I sent him away - it is our way of welcoming postulants. He came back three months later saying: "If you don't accept me, I shall go and live my monastic life alone in the woods". "No, don't do that, it is dangerous"! And so he stayed. I tried to teach him what I had been taught: the Holy Rule, the Holy Liturgy. He was our first novice. Today he is a priest.

Then, some months later, another young man arrived: he was the son of a working man. I said to him, "You want to be a monk?" "Yes, but I have no education; I am self taught. My father humped grain sacks. I do have the technical certificate". "You don't know Latin"? "No", "What is it that interests you in our life"? "Prayer". "But you don't understand any of it since we sing the psalms in Latin". "I don't understand, but it helps me to pray". He had put his finger on that incantatory value of our splendid Catholic liturgy with its sacred language and Gregorian chant. What a magnificent instrument of prayer! We received the young man. He was made to do half an hour of Latin a day. Now he is able to translate the Psalter at sight.

Some time later a third came, then a fourth. But the whole Office was already being sung, the great solemn office, all the Hours were sung. Oh, it was no concert! It was not as beautiful as at Solesmes. It was not beautiful. It was grand. Because these young men felt themselves to be repositories of a grand tradition and they wanted to be worthy of it. One of them confided to me that without the splendour of the liturgical life, he would not have persevered.

Now they are fifteen, if one includes postulants. And I will admit that what encourages me is their youth (they are between twenty and twenty-five years of age) and their love of the monastic tradition. The 'progressive' Benedictines have chosen evolution. And so they empty their monasteries. It is understandable. For our young men want the solid, the traditional, they love demanding forms, true contemplative life, and not "adaptations". You see, when I ask them - and it is a question I always ask - "Why have you come? What is the reason for your action"?, they reply: "I have come for prayer, for union with God". God, prayer, and let us add, the life of brethren. In the end they come to know that marvellous Benedictine balance where prayer, study, and manual labour alternate, making possible a true harmony. It is a challenge to nature, you know, to make men live together all their lives. It would not be possible if there were not first the grace of the good God and then the miracle which is the Rule of St. Benedict.

Yet please, believe that their wish to imitate the monks of old who for centuries - for fourteen centuries - embrace a life of gravity and recollection does not take away from them their simplicity and gaiety. You should see them on their Monday morning walk as, after good talk and laughter, they come down from Ventoux saying their rosary and singing their Gloria Patri so that it resounds on the evening air before they plunge again into the life of silence: "What can be sweeter to us dearest brethren, than this voice of our Lord inviting us? Behold in His loving mercy the Lord showeth us the way of life" (Prologue to the Rule).

That is what will continue, thanks to you, if your are generous if you allow us, by your gifts by your aims to raise towards the sky of Provence stone walls like those of the beautiful peasant houses, so humble, so noble in their simplicity. Like those churches, those little romanesque monasteries of Provence blend perfectly into the countryside. We desire this for the glory of God and also to help our brothers in the world, to enable them to stay from time to time in the haven of peace which is a Benedictine monastery.

Conversions

Sometimes a man may meet God there for the first time. There are conversions. They are matters of which one should not speak. But we are among Christians. We know it is grace which does these things. It is not us. And I shall tell you that these conversions are made by the radiance of liturgical prayer. It is the choir of monks in unison day and night which has led certain Protestants to become Catholics, and certain souls who had left the Church or abandoned sacramental practice to return to the good Lord. And that shows to what point Tradition, our holy liturgical Tradition, is a bearer of graces. How good to realise that souls come to know themselves, are touched, come to the truth at such moments. That too deserves to continue, don't you agree?

For it is a whole little world that gravitates round the monastery. It is sometimes even funny to see and officer alongside a student, sometimes a vagabond, priest, seminarian, boy scout. All go to make up that good Christianity which comes to us, which makes with us a single thing round the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. At the same time it all evidently constitutes a bastion, a taking root, a guiding mark in the raging sea in which Holy Church finds herself battered by the tempest of revolutionary modernism. Well, there will be islets which will continue Tradition.

A great cardinal came to see us (he was not entirely in agreement with us), and he told us: "Continue, your are witnesses, you are guiding marks and later on it will be known what exactly the great Catholic liturgy was". The name of the cardinal was Charles Journet.

And so, my dear friends, nothing remains for me except to ask for the support of your generosity. In this way you will be taking up again the medieval tradition by which it was once the whole Christian people which built the monasteries. Every man brought his stone, and each monastery built was a window pierced in the sky!

I shall conclude this talk, with your permission, by expressing two wishes. The first concerns you. It is that your generosity towards us may rebound first upon you in graces of personal sanctification, so that we may all walk shoulder to shoulder in the Communion of Saints; then that it may rebound on your families, your sick and your dead. The second concerns us: I ardently desire that the young monks whose charge I have accepted may live a holy life behind the walls that you will have helped raise towards the sky; that they may live there to their last breath in the daily labour of conversion, faithful to their vocation of adoring God and saving souls.

This article was taken from the November 1995 issue of "Christian Order". Published by Fr. Paul Crane, S.J. from 53, Penerley Road, Catford, London SE6 2LH. The annual subscription to "Christian Order" is $20.00. Copyright (c) 1996 EWTN
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Mormon Firefighters

This made me chuckle at the Axegrinder's blog.

What do you think?

It's a start, if nothing else.

Reading through the Catechism of the Catholic Church I found paragraph 818.

"However, one cannot charge with the sin of the separation those who at present are born into these communities [that resulted from such separation] and in them are brought up in the faith of Christ, and the Catholic Church accepts them with respect and affection as brothers. . . . All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church."

I find this somewhat comforting because it does some justice to my view of my separation from the Holy See as being an accident of history. Of course it still denies me the epithet of Catholic in the eyes of Rome; it still denies me access to receiving the Sacrament with those in Communion with the Pope; it still requires me to have my confirmation repeated whether or not it regards it as sub conditione, but there is a start, a point of recognition.

I look at the Benedictine Order both those of the Anglican and Roman Catholic branches and I see the statement of the Catechism lived out. It is in places like Elmore and Prinknash that the schism, although present is thin. I for one pray for more to embrace the monastic orders because through their prayers and through their working of the Opus Dei, they are making some petition towards Unity. These Religious folk like Dom Kenneth Newing and Abbot Christopher Jamison are making a difference.

Please pray with me for more men and women to hear the call of God and take up the cross of Religious Orders.

The shape of things to come?

Sometimes the Internet seems such an impersonal thing - indeed one could easily come to the conclusion that the people who email and comment on message boards are figments of the imagination and/or programmed responses given by the computer like a chinese box.

However, today I can refute this technological solipsism in the shape of Albion Land and the various members of the Anglican Catholic Church with whom I received communion with their gracious permission today. Albion, as you may know runs The Continuum blog and is striving to hear God's vocation for him realised as a priest in the ACC. Certainly my prayers go with him.

Today has been very special as I have witnessed my first ordination, and received the Sacrament with people who actually agree with me (more or less) with what is happening in the Eucharist. I also heard Fr Damien Mead's sermon based upon the sermon of a previous bishop (now at peace) written for ordinations. What struck me was that for once I was receiving a guarantee - a guaranteed Sacrament administered by a guaranteed bishop (The Rt Rev'd Rommie Starks) in a church which has orders guaranteed by the Grace of God. The Church of England cannot guarantee that her own priests believe the orthodox faith judging from the recent comments by Dr Jeffrey John.

While I am, like Fr. Vervoorst was, confused about my role in a confused church, I am beginning to see some where that I may be calling home. Pray for me please that I may hear God's will in this matter.

The Anglican Breviary

I love the Anglican Breviary. It is just so rich in its expression of Anglican Catholicism.

I got a little worried recently because it looked as if the webpage had lapsed, but thanks to the Young Fogey at A Conservative Blog for Peace (very well worth visiting, by the way) and chum Cindy Curran from the Anglo-Catholic Central forum, I've since found out that the domain name has changed to www.anglicanbreviary.net.

One year on...

Well, as of 29th December 2006, this little bloglet is a year old. Thanks to the folk who do click in regularly, I hope you've found this first year interesting and thank you for the comments.

I've learned a lot this year about myself and about the state of the Church.

This is how I began:

Where do I start? I am a Catholic, not a Roman one, mind you, though I'd dearly
love to be in Communion with His Holiness for whom I have a profound respect.
No, I'm an Anglo-Catholic in the Church of England, though if the decision goes
through to "ordain" women as bishops then I'm dropping the Anglo bit. I remain
in the Church of England since I was born into it, and I don't really wish to
leave it.I'm a schoolteacher, but I confess that I don't like it very much for
various reasons both political and personal. I am exploring a vocation into
Benedictine Orders. So becoming an OSB may fulfil my love of academic study and
my Catholic affectations. The trouble is that Anglican Religious orders seem to
be on the wane. This would be a disaster if this actually happens.I have a lot
of friends in the Continuum, i.e. those Anglo-Catholics standing outside the
Anglican communion. My dearest wish is that somehow all those various Catholic
denominations should strive for a unity which will fight the growing menaces of
Liberalism, Relativism and Individualism that are infecting the Church as well
as society. Such a wish can only come through prayer, but we need the prayer
centres too. Pass me my hassock, please.

Well, I don't call myself an Anglo-Catholic these days except only as a rough guide to where my churchmanship lies since few people have heard of the Anglo-Papalists. Indeed, if I'm asked, I always say that I am Catholic. If anyone is astute to notice my Church of England Readers' badge then I have some explaining to do. I've certainly learned more about my Papistical leanings and the fact that Anglicanism does need the Church of Rome for guidance in its doctrine. This position has been ratified for me by the rati-zinger himself , His Holiness Pope Benedict, who demonstrates the importance for the Church to be faithful to its Tradition.

Following the C of E's declaration that women in the Episcopate is consonant with Anglican Understanding, I am at present waiting to see what the "brief from Hell" is going to propose before I make my decision whether I need to swim or not. I am constantly reviewing this situation which is far from ideal. I certainly do not consider myself to be an Anglican if Anglicanism is consonant with women "bishops".

As for my Benedictinism, well, that's on hold for a little while as I get used to my new job. I continue to develop my relations with Elmore Abbey in the hope that some more formal affiliation may result. I have found St Benedict very useful for balancing my life out.

So one year on sees some growth and some change but still the same problems and irritations. We are stuck with the -isms, including the Neo-Arianism that Dan Brown seems to be selling as well as Gnosticism. These can only be fought by working on our beliefs as set down in Scripture and communicated through the Church. History does not fight the Church, it is modern historians who are trying to make it look as if the Catholic Church is responsible for cover-ups and conspiracies. I cannot see what it would gain from doing so.

This year I do need to do more study, my Latin is horrible, my Greek worse and my Hebrew appalling. As I settle in my new job then hopefully I shall find the time to work on some things that I've laid aside for a while such as the proper ministry of Women and the "Natural Sacraments" that I proposed last year. No - I hadn't forgotten. Perhaps you wish I had!

Well here's to another twelve months.

When the heart's ahead: an anatomy of a gut reaction.

Oh dear, I've just made a fool of myself over at Anglo-Catholic Central when I brought the attention of the 400 or so members to an article in this week's Church of England Newspaper which seemed to encourage composers of modern Church music not to think and compose meaningless trash, only to read it more carefully and see that it was actually criticising Modern church music and the whole ghastly "worship song" genre, by lampooning the inherent vapidity that modern songwriters think consitutes a good song to sing at Mass.

It's struck me that I have just behaved very much like so many religious folk around the world, in being far too reactionary without listening to the details carefully. This does seem to put me in line with the members of Christian Voice who criticised Jerry Springer: The Opera before they saw it, and, more recently with the Moslems reacting to the words of His Holiness, Pope Benedict.

It's easy to do. So what happened? I saw something which caught my eye, just a phrase which filled me with dread, a single sentence which touched a nerve, which for me was in the sensitive area of Church Music. So automatically I read looking for more bits to fuel the indignation, and it seems missing out the vital bits in which the author had said that he was satirising those who are presently diluting our liturgical music with meaninglessness.

Each of us has a raw area, and Anglo-Catholics are usually raw all over having been rejected from Anglicanism. It's something we have to expect, and consequently we leap (or at least I do) to defend our practices in a world which presses us to heresy. This leads me to wonder whether we need to defend ourselves so readily, and on such an intellectual level. Anglo-Catholicism is small in comparison with the Anglican Communion, but it is robust. We have the doctrines of the Catholic church which have lasted through centuries, and while there are good Catholics in the world, will always continue.

Anglo-Catholics have recently been accused of using too many words to defend themselves. Are we wasting our breath?

So what must I do in future. Be careful, is the answer, and don't react until I have fully comprehended the situation. Sometimes a wound stings from its own healing rather than from someone prodding it.

Elmore Abbey

Well, my week on retreat is up, and I'm now back from an oasis of holiness to my usual little den of iniquity.

Seriously, though. For those of you who don't know, Elmore Abbey is the latest reincarnation (or regeneration for you fans of Doctor Who) of what was Pershore and Nashdom Abbeys. I've gained an awful lot during my visit here and so will anybody who pays a visit.

There's a worry though. The Abbot left recently to embark upon a new phase in his vocation is San Francisco, leaving 5 monks behind. This is too small a number to be lead by an Abbot, and so they are now under the auspices of their conventual prior, Dom Simon. Of these five, Dom Kenneth and Brother Hugh are, quite frankly, feeling the ravages of Time, though remain utterly committed to their profession. Despite the arrival of Brother Gordon and over 300 Oblates, the remaining 4 more able-bodied monks are struggling to keep their Abbey in order as well as maintain their commitment to the Benedictine Opus Dei (i.e. the Divine Office, not the Roman Catholic Organisation).

The world needs places like Elmore, more than ever in a society that is against the idea of community other than a means to gain social power and standing. These monasteries around the world, committed to the timeless Rules of Life and Faith according to the most influential Christians of the past, are our beacons to the Christian way of living in peace, in love and holiness. If Elmore were to fail, then a light would go out in England which would mark a terrible depth to which the spiritual health of this nation has fallen.

I do ask that you would pray sincerely with me for the wonderful Brothers of Elmore, and that they may be given strength and new members to continue their arduous and assiduous task.

Getting what we've been promised.

And what did the Lord promise us? Here's the answer.