Our first ever Sewing Retreat finished, recently, and I,. for one (writes a Founding Member), enjoyed myself enormously. With snow falling outside over the panoramic views of the Oxfordshire countryside, an infinite supply of tea and biscuits, and good company, what could be more agreeable than a weekend of sewing, punctuated by Traditional Liturgy ?
Fr Richard Biggerstaff set the tone with his delightful and perceptive talks on Service (represented by the Amice), Authority (represented by the Stole), and the Distraction of the Laity (represented by the Chasuble).
He Celebrated Mass each day, as well as Compline and Benediction. He brought his own Vestments, including a beautiful Humeral Veil, with the Pelican in her Piety embroidered on it.
Te Deum laudamus, rendered as "Thee, O God, we praise".
The Hymn remains in regular use in The Catholic Church in The Office of Readings found in The Liturgy of The Hours (The Divine Office), and in Thanksgiving to God for a special Blessing such as the Election of a Pope, the Consecration of a Bishop, the Canonisation of a Saint, a Religious Profession, the publication of a Treaty of Peace, a Royal Coronation, etc.
It is sung either after Mass or The Divine Office or as a separate Religious Ceremony. The Hymn also remains in use in The Anglican Communion and some Lutheran Churches in similar settings.
Before the 1961 Reforms of Pope John XXIII, neither the Gloria nor the Te Deum were said on The Feast of The Holy Innocents, unless it fell on Sunday, as they were Martyred before The Death of Christ and, therefore, could not immediately attain The Beatific Vision.
A Plenary Indulgence is granted, under the usual conditions,
On Sunday, let The Brethren rise earlier for The Night-Office, which is to be arranged as follows.
When six Psalms and a Versicle have been sung (as already prescribed), all being seated in order in their Stalls, let four Lessons, with their Responsories, be read from The Book, as before; and to the last Responsory, only, let The Reader add a Gloria, all reverently rising as soon as he begins it.
After The Lessons, let six more Psalms follow in order, with their Antiphons and Versicle as before; and then let four more Lessons, with their Responsories, be read in the same way as the former.
Next, let three Canticles from the Prophets be said, as the Abbot shall appoint, which Canticles are to be sung with an Alleluia. After the Versicle, and the Blessing given by the Abbot, let four more Lessons from The New Testament be read as before; and, at the end of the fourth Responsory, let the Abbot begin the Hymn, Te Deum laudamus.
After the Hymn, let the Abbot read the Lesson from the Gospel, while all stand in awe and reverence.
The Gospel, being ended, let all answer Amen. Then, let the Abbot go on with the Hymn, Te decet laus; and, after the Blessing hath been given, let them begin Lauds. This order for The Night-Office is always to be observed on Sunday, alike in Summer and in Winter, unless per chance (which, God forbid) they rise too late, in which case the Lessons or Responsories must be somewhat shortened. Let all care, however, be taken that this do not happen; but, if it should, let him,, through whose neglect it hath come to pass, make satisfaction for it in the Oratory.
The Chanting of The Holy Gospel constitutes the summit of Sunday Matins; it is the moment that all anticipate after three long Nocturns (Night Watches) of Psalmody, Lessons, and Responsories. It is the παρουσία (Arrival and Presence) of “The Lord Christ, our True King” (Prologue: 3). At the Chanting of The Holy Gospel, all stand cum honore et timore (with honour and fear); it is The Voice of The Lord, the Vox Domini of Psalm 28.
Text from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal, unless stated otherwise. Saint Faustinus And Saint Jovita. Martyrs. Feast Day 15 February. Simple. Red Vestments.
English: Saint Faustinus and Saint Jovita with The Blessed Virgin Mary and Child.
Altarpiece artwork exhibited at the Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo, in Brescia, Italy.
"Guida della Pinacoteca Tosio-Martinengo di Brescia", Grafo, Brescia 1988.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Saint Faustinus and Saint Jovita, both born at Brescia, Italy, were brothers and of noble origin. During The Persecution, "they stood in the assault of sufferings, disgrace, and tribulations" (Epistle) in several Towns of Italy.
"They were tortured to death" (Gospel) at Brescia, Italy, at the beginning of Emperor Hadrian's reign in 117 A.D.
"Following the example of The Holy Martyrs, Faustinus and Jovita, let us apply ourselves with ardour to Penance, so that we may enjoy The Fruits of The Redemption."
On 10 June 1942, the German government announced that it had destroyed the small village of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, killing every adult male and some fifty-two women.
All surviving women and children were then deported to Concentration Camps, or, if found suitable to be "Germanised", sent to The Greater Reich. The Nazis then proudly proclaimed that the village of Lidice, its residents, and its very name, were now forever blotted from memory.
The most significant act of Czech resistance was the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich during a mission, code-named "Operation Anthropoid". Two Czech patriots, Jan Kubis and Joseph Gabcik, serving with the Polish forces in Britain, volunteered to be dropped by parachute, near Prague.
Their mission, to assassinate SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, the Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. The ambush took place on 227 May 27 1942, as Heydrich drove to his office. Severely wounded, he was rushed to Bulovka Hospital, where he died eight days later.
Soon after his death, the Nazi reprisals began when an enraged Hitler ordered Heydrich's underling, SS Gruppenführer Karl Hermann Frank, to initiate mass executions of the Czech populace, but Frank persuaded him first to search for the assassins.
The Germans raided 5,000 towns and villages arresting some 3,180 people, 1,344 were sentenced to be executed. This number however was far too small for Adolf Hitler, who ordered severe reprisals threatening to kill 30,000 Czechs.
Thankfully for many Czech civilians, Hitler's threat never materialised, however. Karl Hermann Frank, now Secretary of State for the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, reported from Berlin that the Führer had commanded the following concerning any village implicated in the Heydrich assassination:
Saint Valentine was a Holy Priest of Rome, who was Martyred under the Roman Emperor Aurelian in 270 A.D.
He co-operated in The Saviour's Redemption "by bearing The Cross after Him" (Gospel). "Having made the sacrifice of his life for Him, he finds it again" (Ibid.), for, "victorious in his terrible fight" (Epistle), God "Crowns him in Heaven with glory and honour" (Offertory).
Sharing in a spirit of penitence The Redeeming Sufferings of The Saviour, let us ask Him, "through the intercession of Saint Valentine, to be delivered from all the ills that threaten us" (Collect).
Mass:In virtúte.
Saint Valentine receives a Rosary from The Virgin Mary,
The following Text is from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia.
Saint Valentine (Latin: Valentinius) is a widely-recognised 3rd-Century Roman Saint, Commemorated on 14 February and associated, since The High Middle Ages, with a Tradition of courtly love.
All that is reliably known of the Saint is his name, and that he was Martyred and buried at a cemetery on the Via Flaminia, Rome, close to the Milvian Bridge, to the North of Rome, on 14 February. It is uncertain whether Saint Valentine is to be identified as one Saint or the conflation of two Saints of the same name. Several different Martyrologies have been added to later hagiographies that are unreliable.
Because so little is known of him, in 1969 The Roman Catholic Church removed his name from The General Roman Calendar, leaving his Liturgical Celebration to Local Calendars. The Roman Catholic Church continues to recognise him as a Saint, listing him as such in the 14 February entry in The Roman Martyrology, and authorising Liturgical Veneration of him on 14 February in any place where that day is not devoted to some other obligatory Celebration.
Use of the Pre-1970 Liturgical Calendar is also authorised under the conditions indicated in the Motu Proprio "Summorum Pontificum" of 2007. Saint Valentine's Church in Rome, built in 1960 for the needs of The Olympic Village, continues as a modern, well-visited, Parish Church.
Saint Valentine's Day, the Feast of Saint Valentine, is an official Feast Day in the Anglican Communion, as well as in the Lutheran Church. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Saint Valentine, the Presbyter of Rome, is celebrated on 6 July, and Hieromartyr Valentine (Bishop of Interamna, Terni in Italy) is celebrated on 30 July. Notwithstanding, because of the relative obscurity of these two Saints in the East, Members of The Greek Orthodox Church named Valentinos (male) or Valentina (female) may observe their "Name Day" on the Western Ecclesiastical Calendar date of 14 February.
Videte, omnes populi, si est dolor similis sicut dolor meus.
O vos omnes, qui transitis per viam, attendite,
et videte si est dolor similis sicut dolor meus.
The following Text is from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia.
The Improperia are a series of Antiphons and Responses, expressing the remonstrance of Jesus Christ with His people. Also known as The Reproaches, they are sung in The Catholic Liturgy as part of the observance of The Passion, usually on the afternoon of Good Friday.
In The Byzantine Rite, they are found in various Hymns of Good Friday and Holy Saturday. The Improperia appear in The Pontificale of Prudentius (846 A.D. - 861 A.D.) and gradually came into use throughout Europe in the 11th- and 12th-Centuries, finally being incorporated into The Roman Ordo in the 14th-Century.
My people, what have I done to Thee ? How have I offended you ? Answer me !
I led you out of Egypt, from slavery to freedom, but you led your Saviour to The Cross.
Holy is God !
Holy is God !
Holy and strong !
Holy and strong !
Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us.
Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us.
The following Article, in February 2016, was taken from,
The following Article is taken from, and can be read in full at, VULTUS CHRISTI
Answer Thou Me.
The Feast of Reparation for offenses committed against Our Lord in The Sacrament of His Love was instituted in the 17th-Century, when, particularly in a France ravaged by The Thirty Years War
(1618—1648), Churches were Desecrated and burned, The Most Blessed Sacrament was thrown to the ground, trampled, and even fed to animals. Bands of mercenary soldiers descended from the Protestant Countries of Northern Europe to pillage and destroy everything that represented The Catholic Faith. Two things, in particular, became the object of their fanatical wrath: Images of The Blessed Virgin Mary and The Most Holy Sacrament of The Altar.
At the same time, in certain ostensibly Catholic circles, there was a surge of interest in Black Magic and in engagement with The Powers of Darkness. Not infrequently, Sacred Hosts were stolen from Churches, or taken away surreptitiously after a Sacrilegious Communion. Too many Priests were seen to offer Holy Mass hurriedly and with scant reverence. Tabernacles were neglected. Churches were forsaken. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Apocalypse 19:16), the Thrice-Holy God, before Whom The Angels veil their faces and Adore, hidden beneath the fragile appearance of The Sacred Host, remained silent in a state of utter abjection, abandoned to the coldness, indifference, and carelessness of men.
“O, My people,
what have I done to thee,
or in what have I molested thee ?
Answer thou Me” (Micheas 6:3).
Sorrowing Love.
A multitude of Souls, grieved by the offences committed against Our Lord in The Sacrament of His Love, sought to make up for the Honour, Reverence, Adoration, Gratitude, and Love, that others refused Him. Believing Hearts were pierced through with a Sorrowing Love. The Holy Ghost inspired a vast Movement of Compunction and Reparation that came, over time, to find expression in The Sacred Liturgy, itself.
A special Mass and Office were composed, by which The Church approved this Movement of Compunction and Reparation. Mother Mectilde de Bar entered wholeheartedly into this Movement and, in some way, made its essential thrust so much her own that it came to be identified with The Benedictine Monasteries of Perpetual Adoration that she generated.
The True Body And Blood of Jesus Christ.
One might think that all of this belongs to the past, that things have changed since the dark and turbulent days of 17th-Century France, but this, alas, is not so. Remember recent events in Pamplona and in Fontainebleau. The Desecration of Churches and Sacrilegious Offenses against The Most Holy Sacrament of The Altar proliferate.
The distribution of Holy Communion IN THE HAND [Editor: Emphasis is mine], notably, has led to every manner of irreverence. Sacred Hosts have been found on the floor of Churches, stuck into the pages of books, and lying on pews. The disappearance of The Communion Rail; the widespread practice of Priest and people facing each other during The Holy Sacrifice; the indiscriminate use of Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion in ordinary circumstances — all of these things have contributed to a massive loss of Faith in The Real Presence of Our Lord in The Blessed Sacrament and in Holy Mass as The Perfect Sacrifice of Calvary offered in an unbloody manner.
Many of those who present themselves for Holy Communion have no notion of what The Church believes and teaches: that this is no mere bread of Holy Remembrance, but is The True Body and Blood [Editor: And Soul and Divinity] of Jesus Christ, Priest and Victim: The Very Body and Blood formed by The Holy Ghost in The Womb of The Virgin Mary, nailed to The Wood of The Cross, Gloriously Risen from The Tomb, Ascended into The Heavenly Sanctuary, and Coming in Majesty at The End of Time to Judge The Living and The Dead.
In order to understand fully the meaning of the Text of today's Mass, we must study it in connection with The Lessons of The Breviary, since, in The Church's mind, The Mass and The Divine Office form one whole.
The Lessons and Responses in The Night Office are taken this week from The Book of Genesis. In them is related the story of The Creation of the World and of man, of our first parents' fall and the promise of a Redeemer, followed by the murder of Abel and a record of the generations from Adam to Noah.
"In the beginning," we read, "God created Heaven and Earth and upon the Earth He made man . . . and He placed him in a garden of paradise to be mindful of it and tend it" (Third and Fourth Responses at Matins).
All this is a figure. Here is Saint Gregory's exposition. "The Kingdom of Heaven is compared to the proprietor who hires labourers to work in his vineyard. Who can be more justly represented as Head of a household than Our Creator, Who governs all creatures by His Providence and Who, just as a Master has servants in his house, has His Elect in this World, from the Just Abel to the last of His Chosen, destined to be born at the very end of time ?
De Profundis (Septuagesima Sunday, Tract).
Gregorian Chant notation from The Liber Usualis (1961), p. 499.
The vineyard which He owns is His Church, while the labourers in this vineyard are all those who, with a true Faith, have set themselves, and urged others, to the task of doing good. By those who came at the first, as well as at the third, sixth and ninth hours, are meant the ancient people of the Hebrews, who, from the beginning of the World, striving in the persons of their Saints to serve God with a Right Faith, ceased not, as it were, to work in cultivation of the vineyard.
But, at the eleventh hour, the Gentiles are called and to them are spoken the words: "Why stand ye here all the day, idle ?" (Third Nocturn). Thus, all are called to work in The Lord's vineyard, by Sanctifying themselves and their neighbour in Glorifying God, since SSanctification consists in searching for our supreme happiness in Him, alone.
Adam failed in his task and God told him: "Because thou hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat, cursed is the Earth in thy work; with labour and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee . . . In the sweat of thy face, shalt thou eat bread, till thou return to the Earth out of which thou was taken."
Being exiled from Eden," says Saint Augustine, "The First Man involved all his descendants in the penalty of death and reprobation, being corrupted in the person of him from whom they sprung. The whole mass of condemned humanity was, therefore, plunged in misery, enslaved and cast headlong from one evil to another" (Second Nocturn). "The sorrows of death surrounded me," says the Introit, and, as a matter of fact, it is in the Basilica of Saint Laurence-without-the-Walls, close to the cemetery at Rome, that "The Station" for this Sunday is made.
The Collect adds that we are "justly afflicted for our sins". In the Epistle, the Christian life is represented by Saint Paul as an arena, where a man must take pains and strive to carry off the prize, while the Gospel bears witness that the reward of Eternal Life is only given to those who work in God's vineyard, where work is hard and painful since the entrance of sin.
"O God", prays The Church, "grant to Thy people, who are called by the name of vines and harvests, that they may root out all thorns and briars, and bring forth good fruit in abundance" (Prayer on Holy Saturday, after The Eighth Prophecy).
"In His wisdom", says Saint Gregory, "Almighty God preferred rather to bring good out of evil than never allow evil to occur". For God took pity on men and promised them a Second Adam, who, restoring the order disturbed by the First Adam, would allow them to regain Heaven, to which Adam had lost all right, when expelled from Eden, which was "the shadow of a better life" (Fourth Lesson). "Thou, O Lord, art our helper in time of tribulation" (Gradual); "with Thee, there is merciful forgiveness" (Tract).
"Make Thy face to shine upon Thy servant and save me in Thy mercy" (Communion). "Show Thy face, O Lord, and we shall be saved", The Church cries similarly in The Season of Advent, when calling upon her Lord. The truth is that God, "Who has wonderfully created man, has more wonderfully redeemed him" (Prayer on Holy Saturday after The First Prophecy), for "The Creation of The World in the beginning was not a more excellent thing than The Immolation of Christ Our Passover at The End of Time" (Prayer on Holy Saturday after The Ninth Prophecy).
This Mass, when studied in the light of Adam's fall, prepares our mind for beginning the Season of Septuagesima, and understanding the sublime character of the Paschal Mystery for which this Season prepares our hearts.
In response to the call of The Master, Who comes to seek us even in the depths wherein we are plunged, through our first parents' sin (Tract), let us go and work in The Lord's vineyard, or enter the arena and take-up with courage the struggle which will intensify during Lent.
The "Gloria in excelsis" is not said from this Sunday until Maundy Thursday, except when the Mass of a Feast is said.
From Septuagesima to Ash Wednesday, the Tract is said only on Sundays and Feast Days. On Ferias, when The Mass of The Sunday is said, the Gradual is said, without the Tract.
Every Parish Priest celebrates Mass for the people of his Parish.
Mass: Circumdedérunt.
Preface: Of The Most Holy Trinity. During the week, The Common Preface.
From this day until Holy Saturday, when the Gloria in excelsis is omitted, the Ite Missa est is replaced by Benedicamus Domino.
The following Text is taken from "The Liturgical Year"
The Season of Septuagesima comprises the three weeks immediately preceding Lent. It forms one of the principal divisions of The Liturgical Year, and is, itself, divided into three parts, each part corresponding to a week: The first week is called Septuagesima; the second week is called Sexagesima; the third week is called Quinquagesima. All three are named from their numerical reference to Lent, which, in the language of The Church, is called Quadragesima, that is, "Forty", because The Great Feast of Easter is prepared for by The Holy Exercises of Forty Days. The words Quinquagesima, Sexagesima, and Septuagesima, tells us of the same great Solemnity as looming in the distance, and as being the great object towards which The Church would have us now begin to turn all our thoughts, and desires, and devotion.
Now, The Feast of Easter must be prepared for by Forty Days of Recollectedness and Penance. Those Forty Days are one of the principal Seasons of The Liturgical Year, and one of the most powerful means employed by The Church for exciting, in the hearts of her children, the spirit of their Christian Vocation. It is of the utmost importance that such a Season of Grace should produce its work in our Souls — the Renovation of the whole Spiritual Life. The Church, therefore, has instituted a preparation for The Holy Time of Lent. She gives us the three weeks of Septuagesima, during which she withdraws us, as much as may be, from the noisy distractions of the World, in order that our hearts may be more readily impressed by the solemn warning she is to give us at the commencement of Lent by marking our foreheads with Ashes. This prelude to The Holy Season of Lent was not known in the early ages of Christianity: Its institution would seem to have originated in The Greek Church. Besides The Six Sundays of Lent, on which by universal custom The Faithful never Fasted, the practice of this Church prohibited Fasting on the Saturdays, likewise; consequently, their Lent was short by twelve days of the Forty Days spent by Our Saviour doing Penance in the desert. To make up the deficiency, they were obliged to begin their Lent so many days earlier.
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