Abbot Guéranger, O.S.B., Writes Upon Saint Joachim. Confessor. Father Of The Blessed Virgin Mary. Feast Day 16 August. White Vestments.

Saint Joachim.

Father of The Blessed Virgin Mary.

Illustration: UNA VOCE OF ORANGE COUNTY

Artist: René de Cramer.

“Copyright Brunelmar/Ghent/Belgium”.

Used with Permission.

Text, unless stated otherwise, is from

SOCIETY OF SAINT BEDE - LITURGICAL RESOURCES

This Feast is Celebrated on 16 August, but was formerly Celebrated on the Sunday within the Octave of the Assumption. 

The Monastic Breviary has a Feast of Saint Joachim and Saint Anne.

The following Text is from “The Liturgical Year”.

   By: Abbot Guéranger, O.S.B.

   Volume 13.

   Time After Pentecost.

   Book IV.

From time immemorial, the Greeks have Celebrated the Feast of Saint Joachim on the day following Our Lady’s Birthday. 

The Maronites kept it on the day after The Presentation, in November, and the Armenians on the Tuesday after the Octave of The Assumption of The Mother of God. 

Saint Joachim.

Feast Day 16 August.

God hears the Prayers of The Faithful.

Available on YouTube

HERE

The Latins at first did not keep this Feast. Later on, it was admitted and Celebrated sometimes on the day after the Octave of The Nativity, 16 September, sometimes on the day following the Conception of The Blessed Virgin, 9 December. 

Thus, both East and West agreed in associating Saint Joachim with his illustrious daughter when they wished to do him honour.

About the year 1510, Pope Julius II placed the Feast of the grandfather of The Messias upon the Roman Calendar with the Rank of Double Major; and, remembering that family, in which the ties of nature and of Grace were in such perfect harmony, he fixed the Solemnity on 20 March, the day after that of Saint Joachim’s son-in-law, Saint Joseph. 

The life of this glorious Patriarch resembled those of the first Fathers of the Hebrew people; and it seemed as though he were destined to imitate their wanderings also, by continually changing his place upon the Sacred Cycle.

Hardly fifty years after the Pontificate of Julius II, the critical “Spirit of The Day” cast doubts upon the history of Saint Joachim, and his name was erased from the Roman Breviary. 

Pope Gregory XV, however, re-established his Feast in 1622 as a Double, and The Church has since continued to Celebrate it. 

Devotion to Our Lady’s father continuing to increase very much, the Holy See was petitioned to make his Feast a Holiday of Obligation, as it had already made that of his spouse, Saint Anne. 

In order to satisfy the devotion of the people without increasing the number of Days of Obligation, Pope Clement XII in 1738 transferred the Feast of Saint Joachim to the Sunday after The Assumption of his daughter, The Blessed Virgin Mary, and restored it to the Rank of Double-Major.

On 1 August 1879, the Sovereign Pontiff, Leo XIII, who received the name of Joachim in Baptism, raised both the Feast of his glorious Patron and that of Saint Anne to the Rank of Doubles of The Second Class.

The following is an extract from the Decree “Urbi et Orbi”, announcing this final decision with regard to the said Feasts: 

“Ecclesiasticus teaches us that we ought to praise our fathers in their generation; what great honour and veneration ought we then to render to Saint Joachim and Saint Anne, who begot The Immaculate Virgin Mother of God, and are on that account more glorious than all others”.

“By your fruits are you known,” says Saint John Damascene, “you have given birth to a daughter who is greater than the Angels and has become their Queen.” Now since, through the Divine Mercy, in our unhappy times the honour and veneration paid to The Blessed Virgin is increasing in proportion to the increasing needs of the Christian people, it is only right that the glory which surrounds their Blessed Daughter should redound upon her happy parents. 

May this increase of devotion towards them cause The Church to experience still more their powerful protection.

Saint Roch. Confessor. Feast Day 16 August. White Vestments.

Saint Roch.

Artist: Francesco Francia (1447 - 1517).

Date: 1502.

Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Credit Line: Gift of George R. Hann, 1965.

Source/Photographer: 

https://www.metmuseum.org/

art/collection/search/436332

This File is made available under the 

Creative Commons CC0 

1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

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Text from “The Liturgical Year”.

   By: Abbot Guéranger, O.S.B.
   Volume 13.
   Time After Pentecost.
   Book IV.

Three years of famine, three months of defeats, three days of pestilence: The choice given to the guilty David between these three measures of expiation shows them to be equivalent before the Justice of God.

The terrible scourge, which makes more havoc in three days than would famine or a disastrous war in months and years, showed in the 14th-Century that it kept its sad pre-eminence; the Black Death covered the World with a mantle of mourning, and robbed it of a third of its inhabitants.

Doubtless the World had never so well merited the terrible warning: The Graces of Sanctity poured in profusion on the preceding Century had but checked for a while the defection of the Nations; every embankment being now broken down, entrance was given to the irresistible tide of schism, reform, and revolution, by which the World must die.

Nevertheless, God has Mercy so long as life lasts; and while striking sinful mankind, He gave them at the same time the Saint predestined to appease His vengeance.

At his birth, he appeared marked with “The Cross”. When a young man, he distributed his goods to the Poor, and, leaving his family and Country, became a Pilgrim for Christ’s sake.

Going to Italy to visit the Sanctuaries, he there found the Cities devastated by a terrible plague. Roch took up his abode among the dead and dying, burying the former, and healing the latter with the Sign of The Cross.

Himself stricken with the evil, he hid himself so as to suffer alone and a dog brought him food. When, cured by God, he returned to Montpellier, his native Town, it was only to be there seized as a spy and thrown into prison, where he died after five years.

Such are Thy dealings with Thy Elect, O Wisdom of God !

But, no sooner was he dead, than prodigies burst forth, making known his origin and history, revealing the power he still enjoyed of delivering from pestilence those who had recourse to him.

The reputation of his influence, increased by fresh benefits at each visitation of plague, caused his cultus to become popular; hence, although the Feast of Saint Roch is not universal, this short notice was due for him.

Saint Joachim. Father Of The Blessed Virgin Mary. Feast Day 16 August. White Vestments.

Saint Joachim.
   Father of The Blessed Virgin Mary.
   Confessor.

Double of The Second-Class.

White Vestments.

Saint Joachim.

Father of The Blessed Virgin Mary.
Illustration: UNA VOCE OF ORANGE COUNTY
Artist: René de Cramer.
“Copyright Brunelmar/Ghent/Belgium”.
Used with Permission.

The first paragraph is taken from Wikipedia - the free encyclopædia.

Joachim ("he whom YHWH has set up", Hebrew: יְהוֹיָקִים Yəhôyāqîm, Greek Ἰωακείμ Iōākeím) was the husband of Saint Anne and the father of Mary, The Mother of Jesus. The story of Joachim and Anne first appears in the apocryphal Gospel of James. Joachim and Anne are not mentioned in the Bible.

Text and Illustrations: The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless otherwise stated.

Desiring to associate the name of Joachim with the triumph of his Blessed Daughter, The Church has Transferred his Feast Day from 20 March to the day following The Assumption.

Pope Leo XIII, whose Baptismal name was Joachim, in 1879 raised Saint Joachim's Feast, and that of Saint Anne, to the Rank of Double of The Second-Class.

"Joachim and Anne," says Saint Epiphanes, "earned Divine Favour by an irreproachable life and merited that their union should bear for its beautiful fruit, The Blessed Virgin Mary, the Temple and Mother of God. Joachim, Anne, and Mary, offered manifestly together a sacrifice of praise to The Holy Trinity. The name of Joachim signifies preparation of The Lord. Is it not he, in fact, who prepares the Temple of The Lord, The Blessed Virgin ? " [Fourth Lesson at Matins.]

Wherefore, the Introit and Gradual enhance the Virtues of this great Confessor and recall the frequent Almsgiving of the Saint, for, according to Tradition, he divided what he had into three parts, of which the first was given to the Temple and its Ministers, the second to the Poor, and the third was all he kept for himself.

"Most Blessed Couple," says, in his turn, Saint John of Damascus, "the whole Creation is in your debt. For it is through you that it has been enabled to offer The Creator a present above all presents, the chaste Mother, who alone was worthy of The Creator. Rejoice, Joachim, for unto us a Son is born of thy daughter." [Fifth and Sixth Lessons at Matins.]

And the Gospel selected shows us the Royal Lineage of this Son, for, by his marriage with Mary, daughter of Joachim (or Heliachim), Joseph, son of Jacob, made Jesus the legal heir of David.

As Grace perfects nature without destroying it, it may be affirmed that Joachim, united like Saint Joseph and Saint Anne by a very intimate tie to The Mother of God and her Son, is called to exercise his perpetual patronage (Collect) with regard to The Church, The Body of Christ, or with regard to our Souls, of which Mary is Mother.

Let us, on this day, offer to God The Holy Sacrifice in honour of The Holy Patriarch, Joachim, father of The Virgin Mary, in order that his Prayer, added to that of his spouse and of their Blessed Child, may obtain the full remission of our sins and eternal glory (Secret).

Mass: Dispérsit.

Creed: Is Said.

Preface: Of The Blessed Virgin Mary. “Et te in Assumptióne”.

THE SAINT ANDREW DAILY MISSAL.

THE SAINT ANDREW DAILY MISSAL

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SILVERSTREAM PRIORY

Cathedral And Metropolitan Church Of Saint Stephen And All Saints, Vienna, Austria. (Part Three).

English: 

Cathedral and Metropolitan Church of 

Saint Stephen and All Saints, Vienna, Austria.

Deutsch: 

Dom-und-Metropolitankirche zu 

Sankt Stephan und allen Heiligen, 

Wien, Österreich.

Photo: 8 October 2017.

Source: Own work.

This File is licensed under the 

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Share Alike 4.0 International licence.

Author: C.Stadler/Bwag

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Text from Wikipedia - the free encyclopædia, unless stated otherwise.

Duke Rudolf IV, the Founder, Albert II’s son, expanded the Choir again to increase the Religious clout of Vienna. On 7 April 1359, Rudolf IV laid the cornerstone for a Westward Gothic extension of the Albertine Choir in the vicinity of the present South Tower. 

This expansion would eventually encapsulate the entirety of the old Church and, in 1430, the edifice of the old Church was removed from within as work progressed on the new Cathedral. 

The South Tower was completed in 1433, and Vaulting of the Nave took place from 1446 to 1474. The Foundation for a North Tower was laid in 1450, and construction began under Master Mason Lorenz Spenning, but its construction was abandoned when major work on the Cathedral ceased in 1511.

Saint Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna.

Organ playing during Holy Mass.

May 2023.

Available on YouTube

HERE

In 1365, just six years after beginning the Gothic extension of the Albertine Choir, Rudolf IV disregarded Saint Stephen’s status as a mere Parish Church and presumptuously established a Chapter of Canons befitting a large Cathedral.

This move was only the first step in fulfilling Vienna’s long-held desire to obtain its own Diocese; in 1469, Emperor Frederick III prevailed upon Pope Paul II to grant Vienna its own Bishop, to be appointed by the Emperor. 

Despite long-standing resistance by the Bishops of Passau, who did not wish to lose control of the area, the Diocese of Vienna was Canonically established on 18 January 1469, with Saint Stephen’s Cathedral as its Mother Church. 

In 1722, during the Reign of Emperor Charles VI, Pope Innocent XIII elevated the See to an Archbishopric.[3]

During World War II, the Cathedral was saved from intentional destruction at the hands of retreating German forces when Wehrmacht Captain Gerhard Klinkicht disregarded orders from the City Commandant, “Sepp” Dietrich, to “fire a hundred shells and reduce it to rubble”.[4] 

English: Saint Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna, Austria.

Deutsch: Stephansdom, Wien, Österreich.

Photo: 30 June 2007.

Source: Own work.

This File is licensed under the 

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Author: Andrew Bossi

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PART FOUR FOLLOWS.

The Time After Pentecost (Part Three) And A Historical Note.

Illustrations: Zephyrinus,
unless stated otherwise.

Text from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless stated otherwise.

The last scene of the Apostolate of Saint Andrew was Achaia, where he died a Martyr at Patras.

Saint Thomas took himself to Persia and India, where he was put to death at Calamina.

Saint James the Less, brother of Saint Jude, and Bishop of Jerusalem, was stoned to death about 62 A.D. by order of The High Priest, Hanan II.

In the division of the Apostolate, Scythia fell to Saint Philip. He converted this Country and then went to Hierapolis in Phrygia, where he was crucified and stoned.

According to The Breviary, Saint Bartholomew traversed that part of India which lies beyond The Ganges, this region falling to him by lot. He then directed his steps towards Armenia, where he was skinned alive and beheaded.

A Tradition assigns Ethiopia to the author of the first Gospel, Saint Matthew, who was Martyred while Celebrating The Holy Mysteries.

“The Taking Of Christ”.

Artist: Caravaggio (1571–1610).

Date: 1602.

Collection: National Gallery of Ireland.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The East was assigned to Saint Jude, brother of Saint James the Less, who wrote a Catholic Epistle and who died a Martyr like Saint Simon the Canaanite.

Saint John had fixed his Seat at Ephesus, from whence he governed the Churches of Asia Minor. It was there that he wrote his Gospel and probably, as Preface and Introduction to it, his First Epistle.

The Fourteen Auxiliary Saints.

The name of “Auxiliary Saints” is given to a group of fourteen Saints particularly noted for the efficacy of their intercession. They are often represented together.

Illustration: UNA VOCE OF ORANGE COUNTY

Artist: René de Cramer.

“Copyright Brunelmar/Ghent/Belgium”.

Used with Permission.

Brought to Rome, under Emperor Domitian, he was thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil (Feast 6 May) and emerged unscathed. He was then banished to Patmos. He died at Ephesus under Emperor Trajan in 100 A.D. or 101 A.D.

With very few exceptions, such as Saint Gregory the Wonderworker (Feast 17 November), Saint Mary Magdalen (Feast 22 July), Saint Martha (Feast 29 July), Saint Petronilla (Feast 31 May), the Saints of the first four Centuries A.D., in The Roman Calendar, suffered Martyrdom.

[Editor: The Epistles and Gospels referred to in this Article are those read on Sundays After Pentecost.]

This concludes the Article on The Time After Pentecost.

Why Restoring The Roman Rite To Its Fullness Is Not “Traddy Antiquarianism”.

Illustration: NEW LITURGICAL MOVEMENT

The Case For Liturgical Restoration:

Una Voce Studies On The Traditional Latin Mass.

Edited by Joseph Shaw.

Preface by Raymond Cardinal Burke.

(Brooklyn: Angelico Press, 2019. 428 pp.

Paper $19.95; Cloth $30.00.

This Publication can be viewed HERE

This Article is taken from, and can be read in full at,

NEW LITURGICAL MOVEMENT

By: Peter Kwasniewski.

This Article is reprinted from 15 August 2020.

In a recent address, Archbishop Thomas Gullickson, Papal Nuncio to Switzerland and Liechtenstein, made a rousing case for “pressing the reset button” on The Roman Liturgy by abandoning a failed experiment and taking up again The Traditional Rites of The Catholic Church. He is giving us a brisk version of what the newly-published book, The Case for Liturgical Restoration, provides in much detail.

Then, with admirable candour, Archbishop Gullickson broaches the million-dollar question:

“I am avoiding the burning issue of setting a date for the reset. I used to think that going back to The 1962 Missal and to Pope Saint Pius X and his Breviary reform was sufficient, but the marvels of the pre-Pius XII Triduum, as we have begun to experience them, leave me speechless on this point. 

Perhaps the teaching of Pope Benedict XVI on the mutual enrichment of the two Forms will provide the paradigm for resolving the question of which Missal and which Breviary. 

My call for a return to the presently-approved Texts for the Extraordinary Form, then, is inspired by a certain urgency to move forward, to further the process. I do not feel qualified to take a stance in this particular matter of where best to launch the restoration”.

The position that has dominated the Tradisphere, for a long time, is that we should be content with 1962 as our point of departure for a healthy Liturgical future. After all, 1962 is the last “Editio Typica” prior to the upheavals occasioned by The Council; it is still recognisably in continuity with The Tridentine Rite; and it is enjoined upon us by Church authority in The Motu Proprio “Summorum Pontificum”.

In a contrasting position, Dom Hugh Somerville-Knapman, of “Dominus Mihi Adjutor”, urges that we must still take seriously the Constitution “Sacrosanctum Concilium” and that, accordingly, the 1962 Missal will not pass muster:

“I still see a validity in a mild reform in The Liturgy along the modest lines actually mandated by The Council: Vernacular Readings, setting aside the duplication of The Celebrant having to recite Prayers, etc., that were being sung by other Ministers, a less obtrusive Priestly preparation at the beginning of Mass, etc. And The Conciliar mandate for reform cannot be just forgotten as though it never happened; it must be faced and dealt with, either by reforming the reform made in its name, or by a specific magisterial act abrogating it.

That is why the interim rites interest me – OM65 [The Ordo Missae of 1965] is clearly the Mass of Vatican II, while also clearly being in organic continuity with Liturgical Tradition. It left The Canon alone, as well as the integral reverence of The Liturgical action. Even Lefebvre was approving of it. What distorts our perception of OM65 is that we have seen fifty years of development since, and cannot help but see OM65 as tainted by what came after it.

Moreover, MR62 is a rather arbitrary point at which to stop Liturgical Tradition. For some committed Trads, this is an imperfect Missal, even a tainted one. Is a pre-53 Missal better ? Or a pre-Pius XII one ? Or maybe pre-Pius X ? Why not go the whole hog and argue for pre-Trent — after all, Geoffrey Hull sees the seed of Liturgical decay there ? We end up in a situation in which each chooses for himself on varying sets of idiosyncratic principles. It is ecclesiologically impossible.

The Catholic Church has a magisterial authority which establishes unity in Liturgy. That this has been sadly lacking for some decades is not an argument for ignoring magisterial authority altogether. Then, we may as well be Protestants”.

Dom Hugh is willing to admit that Bugnini and Co. were busy behind the scenes throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, plotting and eventually carrying out the rape and pillage of all that remained of The Western Liturgical Tradition.

He nevertheless thinks that, in the World outside the Politburo, the 1965 Missal was generally seen — and can still be seen today — as the reform that lines up with The Council’s “desiderata”. This, then, should be where the reset button takes us. (To brush up on what the 1965 Missal was like, read this account by Msgr. Charles Pope.)

A Missal from the Mid-60s: 

Trying to keep up with the changes.

As far as I can tell, however, the purist 1962 and reformist 1965 positions are rapidly losing ground throughout the World, particularly as the Internet continues to spread awareness of the ill-advised and sometimes catastrophic reforms that took place throughout the 20th-Century to various aspects of the Roman Liturgy, with Holy Week looming largest. Since I, too, disagree with the 1962 and 1965 positions, I would like to make the case for returning to the last “Editio Typica” prior to the revolutionary alterations of Pope Pius XII: The Missale Romanum of Benedict XV, issued in 1920.

The principal argument, used to defend adherence to 1962, is that we should all do “what The Church asks us to do.” But who, or what, is “The Church”, here ? In this period of chaos, it is no longer self-evident that “The Church” refers to an authority that is handing down laws for the common good of the people of God.

From at least 1948 onwards, “The Church”, in The Liturgical sphere, has meant radicals, struggling to loose the bonds of Tradition, who have pushed their own agenda of simplification, abbreviation, Modernisation, and pastoral utilitarianism on The Church, with Papal approval — that is, by the abuse of Papal power.

These things are not rightful commands to be obeyed, but aberrations that deserve to be resisted — of course, patiently, intelligently, and in a principled manner, but nevertheless with a firm intention to restore the integrity and fullness of The Roman rite as it existed before The Liturgical Movement in its cancer phase took over at the top level and drove The Roman Rite into the dead end of The Novus Ordo.

For a long time, I sincerely tried to understand, appreciate, and embrace “Sacrosanctum Concilium”. But it was not possible, after reading Michael Davies, and later Henry Sire’s Phoenix from the Ashes and Yves Chiron’s biography of Annibale Bugnini, to see in this document anything more than a carefully contrived blueprint for Liturgical revolution. It contradicts itself on several points and takes refuge more often than not in massive ambiguities that were deliberately put there — and we know this based on documentary research, no conspiracy theories are needed.

For me, the evaporation of the validity of “Sacrosanctum Concilium” came from a deeper reflection, thanks to a lecture by Wolfram Schrems, on the meaning of its abolition of The Office of Prime. A Council that would dare to abolish an ancient Liturgical Office of uninterrupted universal reception vitiates itself from the get-go. Since none of the documents of Vatican II contains “de fide” statements or anathemas, the charism of Infallibility is not expressly involved.

Given their very nature, a bunch of practical pastoral recommendations can be mistaken, and there is ever-mounting evidence that the aims and means of the radical arm of The Liturgical Movement were grievously off-target.

The assumptions of The Council, about what “had to be done” to The Liturgy, misread the sociology and psychology of Religion. Their proposals for reform bought into modern assumptions that have not stood the test of time and had, indeed, already been effectively criticised before and during The Council. So, it seems to me somewhat immaterial that ‘65 better reflects the conflicting and, at times, problematic ideas of The Council.

Moreover, the idea that The 1965 Ordo Missae represents the implementation of “Sacrosanctum Concilium” is hard to sustain in the light of repeated statements by Paul VI that what he promulgated in 1969 is the ultimate fulfilment of The Liturgy Constitution (see here and here for examples culled by the selectively papolatrous PrayTell; I discuss the infamous addresses of 1965 and 1969 here). 1965 was presented publicly (though not always consistently) as an interim step on the evolutionary process away from Mediæval-Baroque Liturgy to relevant Modern Liturgy.

The “moment of truth,” I think, is when students of Liturgy realise that the 1962 is extremely similar to 1965 in this respect: It was an interim Missal, in the preparation of which Bugnini, and the other Liturgists working at The Vatican, had changed as much as they felt they could get away with.

Even assuming all the good will in the World, these Liturgists had experienced a triumph of renovationism with The Holy Week “reform” of Pius XII — a reform that was notable as a dramatic deformation of some of the most ancient and poignant Rites of The Church — and they were rolling along with the momentum.

The abolition under Pius XII of most Octaves and Vigils, multiple Collects, and Folded Chasubles, “inter alia”, is part of this same sad tale of cutting away some of what was most distinctive and most precious in the Roman heritage.

This is why it is not arbitrary for Traditionalists to say that The Missal, circa 1948 — which means, in practice, the “Editio Typica” of 1920 — is the place to go.

The reason is simple: Except for some newly-added Feasts (the Calendar being the part of The Liturgy that changes the most), it is in all salient respects The Missal codified by Trent. It is The Tridentine Rite “tout court”. For those of us who believe that The Tridentine Rite represents, as a whole and in its parts, an organically developed apogee of The Roman Rite, that it behoves us to receive with gratitude as a timeless inheritance (in the manner Greek Catholics receive their Liturgical Rites, which also achieved mature form in The Middle Ages), a pre-Pacellian Missal gives us all that we are looking for, and nothing tainted.

People like to point to “improvements” that could be made to the old Missal, but those who have lived long and intimately with its contents are usually the last to be convinced that the suggested improvements would actually be such. I have addressed some examples here, here, and here.

A Maria Laach Altar Missal from 1931.

Wait a minute, an interlocutor might say. Isn’t all this “Traddy Antiquarianism” ? Aren’t we guilty of doing the same thing we blame our opponents for doing, namely, reaching back to earlier forms while holding later developments in contempt ?

No, none of what I am proposing amounts to “Traddy Antiquarianism.”

What is clear is that The Liturgical Movement after World War II went off the rails. Changes to The Liturgical Books, from that point on, were motivated by global theories about what is “best for The Modern Church,” which led to the abundant contradictions and ambiguities of “Sacrosanctum Concilium”, the Montini-Bugnini reign of terror, and the crowning disgrace of The 1969 Ordo Missæ and other Rites of that period.

The point is not to go back indefinitely, but to take a Missal that is essentially the one codified by Trent and Pius V, with the kind of small accretions or small emendations that characterise the slow progress of Liturgy through the ages. As Fr. Hunwicke likes to point out, for many Centuries since Pius V, it is possible to take up an old Missal and put it on the Altar and offer Mass. The changes are so minor that the Missal is virtually the same from “Quo Primum” to the 20th-Century.

Saints come on and Saints come off, but even the Calendar is remarkably stable. After Pius XII’s reign, however, it is much harder for an “old” Missal and a “new” (i.e., 1955 Pacellian, 1962 Roncallian, 1965 Montinian) Missal to share the same ecclesial space; they cannot be swapped one for the other, including at some very important moments in The Church Year.

This already shows, in a rough and ready way, that a rupture has occurred — and this, prior to The Novus Ordo.

Pope Saint Pius V’s condition that only Rites older than 200 years could continue to be used, after his promulgation of The Tridentine Missal, is another way to see that our argument here is backed by common sense.

A Rite, younger than 200 years, old might seem like a local made-up thing, but a Rite that’s clocked up two Centuries of age, or more, has an “immemorial” weight to it — something not to be disturbed or replaced.

This, indeed, is the basic reason for the illegitimacy of The Novus Ordo; that which it replaced was not merely something older than 200 years, but something with a 2,000-year history of continual use that shows no momentous ruptures, but only a gradual assimilation and expansion.

But the 200-year rule of Pius V also suggests that the revival of something less than 200 years old need not be an example of Antiquarianism, but could be simply an intelligent recovery of something lost by chance, error in transmission, or bad policy.

Thus, if certain Octaves and Vigils were abolished only a few decades ago, and if the rationale for this change deserves to be rejected, their recovery cannot be considered, by any stretch of the imagination, an example of Antiquarianism.

After all, as The Case for Liturgical Restoration points out (pp. 14, 16), The Old Testament gives us examples of Liturgical Restoration far more dramatic than the recovery of pre-Pacellian Rites is for us.

Antiquarianism or Archaeologism — often qualified with the adjective “False” — is the attempt to leap over Mediæval and Counter-Reformation developments to reach a putatively “original, authentic” Early-Christian Liturgy. The term does not correctly apply to setting aside Modernist, progressive, or utilitarian deformations.

How ironic if a move against false Antiquarianism were now to be targeted as being, itself, an example of the same ! Let us put it this way: Catholics have always been intelligently Antiquarian in that they care greatly for, and wish to preserve, their heritage, and seek to restore it when it has been plundered or damaged. The Liturgical Movement, on the other hand, presented us with the spectacle of an arbitrary, violent, and agenda-driven Antiquarianism. The two phenomena are as different as Patriotism and Nationalism.

Our situation in The Latin Church has achieved the clarity of a Silver-Point drawing:

(1) The modern Papal Rite, risibly dubbed The Roman Rite, has established itself as a pseudo-tradition of vernacularity, versus populism, informality, banality, and horizontality, as NLM contributor William Riccio described with gut-wrenching accuracy;

(2) The “Reform of the Reform,” on which hopeful conservatives during the reign of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had gambled away their last pennies, is not only dead but buried six feet under;

(3) The Traditional Latin Liturgy, though by no means readily available to all who wish for it, is firmly rooted in the younger generations on all Continents and in nearly every Country, and shows no sign of budging.

There are few Traditionalist Clergy who would not be content to use a Missal from the early part of the 20th-Century, even as there are plenty who, in moments of honesty, and with trustworthy friends, will admit they have problems with the ersatz Holy Week and the Pope Saint John XXIII Missal. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis: If you have made a wrong turn, the only way to go forward is to go back. That is the fastest way to get on.

In this Article, I explained why it is legitimate, praiseworthy, and indeed necessary, to seek The Restoration Of The Fullness Of The Roman Liturgy that was lost in the Post-War period.

I am not touching on the more delicate and controversial question of what kind of permission, and from whom, is, or may be, required for utilising an earlier edition of the Missal.

It does not follow, simply because an earlier edition of the Missal is better, that anyone is “ipso facto” entitled to give himself permission to use it. But, regardless of permissions already in effect or still remaining to be ascertained, we should not see 1962 as a neighbourhood where Liturgical Life may settle down.

In comparison to the strife-ridden ghetto of The Novus Ordo, where opposing gangs of progressives and conservatives engage in a never-ending turf war, the 1962 status quo comes across as far safer, lovelier, more commodious. It is, nevertheless, a trailer park, a way station along the road to a better place.