While in the modern Roman liturgy, we today celebrated the 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time, and will celebrate the 5th and the 6th Sundays in Ordinary time respectively in the next two weeks, and while green vestments are worn in that form of the Roman liturgy, within the usus antiquior we would have noted today violet vestments, no Gloria and no Alleluia. This is because one has entered the pre-Lenten period within the ancient calendar that is denoted by the names of "Septuagesima" (seventieth), Sexagesima (sixtieth), and Quinquagesima (fiftieth) -- these numbers are probably symbolic, being tied to the reference of "Quadragesima" (fortieth) which comes in reference to the forty days of Lent of course.

This period of liturgical time is probably that which shows forth the single most noticeable variance between the two Roman calendars because of their varying characters and characteristics.

For Catholics who have only or primarily known the modern form of the Roman calendar -- and perhaps even for some of those who do worship within the context of the calendar of the usus antiquior -- it no doubt strikes one as one of the unique elements of the older Roman calendar, and it may invite the questions, "what is it and why is it done?"

Pre-Lent in the Byzantine Liturgical Calendar

While it might seem unique to the older Roman calendar, it is worth noting that within the Byzantine liturgical calendar, they too celebrate a pre-Lent period of similar duration. Accordingly, the pre-Lenten period is a point of unity between the calendar of the usus antiquior and the Byzantine East.

Within the Byzantine liturgical calendar, their pre-Lent begins with the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee (which constitutes their "70th"), continues through the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, followed by what is popularly known as Meatfare Sunday (after which fasting from meat begins), and finally Cheesefare Sunday (after which fasting from dairy products begins). The Sunday following is the 1st Sunday of Great Lent.

The Origins and Purpose of Pre-Lent

With regard to the origins of the pre-Lenten period in the West, many liturgical writers attribute the beginnings of pre-Lent to the fact of accomplishing the 40 days fast -- since there were non-fast days within the weeks of Lent proper which accordingly did not amount to 40 days of fasting. Through piety and devotion, this was extended further still. The specific time of origin is not agreed upon, but various dates surrounding the time of St. Gregory the Great in the 6th and 7th centuries are noted in various respects -- with the devotional extension of the fast being mentioned even earlier. According to Duchesne, the fourth Council of Orleans mentions Quinqagesima and Sexagesima around A.D. 541 -- albeit it by way of disapproval.

The purpose of pre-Lent seems to be the same in both the Byzantine East and more ancient form of the Roman rite; it is a period of progressive preparation and movement toward Lent and ultimately Easter.

Fr. Weiser, in his Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs speaks of it accordingly:

The liturgical preparation for the greatest feast of Christianity -- Easter -- proceeds in five periods of penitential character. As the observance of this preparation apporaches the feast, the penitential note grows progressively deeper and stricter. The first period of this season of pre-Lent, from Septuagesima Sunday to Ash Wednesday; the second extends from Ash Wednesday to Passion Sunday; the third comprises Passion Week; the fourth includes the days of Holy Week up to Wednesday; the fifth consists in the Sacred Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday.) In these three days, which are devoted entirely to the commemoration of the Lord's Passion, the penitential observance reaches its peak, until it ends (at the Easter Vigil) in the glorious and joyful celebration of the Resurrection. (p. 154-5)

Fr Guimarães celebrated Holy Mass in the Extraordinary Form in the main church of the Apostolic Administration of Saint John Mary Vianney at Campos on 14 September 2007, the day the motu proprio Summorum Ponticum came into effect:


As bishop of Garanhuns, he again celebrated Mass according to the usus antiquior there in 2009:


 H/T to Una Voce Málaga. 

Aging Hippie Paradise

The Consequences of Roe v. Wade
49,551,703
Total Abortions since 1973
Source: National Right to Life

"Requiescat in Pace"

                                                    Friday, January 22
                                  Anniversary of Roe vs. Wade 
                                                      St. Patrick Church
                                                            Nashua, NH
                                                 Votive Mass for Peace
                                                 1962 Missale Romanum
                                        Low Mass                             7:00PM
 
   His Eminence Cardinal Egan to offer  
   Pontifical TLM “at the throne” in NYC
                       on March 25
 - Fr. John Zuhlsdorf 

I had this nice piece of news in my mailbox today:

His Eminence Edward Card. Egan, Archbishop Emeritus of New York, accepted the invitation of the Agnus Dei Council of the Knights of Columbus in New York City to celebrate a Solemn Pontifical Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite – a Mass for Life – on 25 March 2010, the Feast of the Annunciation.  The Council’s annual Mass for Life emphasizes the special link between the Incarnation of Jesus from the moment of conception in the womb at the Annunciation and Catholic Pro-Life Values. 

More information about the location and time of the Mass will be released shortly.  

 TLMass held in Rio de Janeiro
by Shawn Tribe

The NLM is always interested in hearing news from various parts of the world, be it of the reform of the reform, the usus antiquior, or other rites and uses for that matter. Accordingly, I was interested to receive the following pictures from a Mass this past Sunday in the usus antiquior from Rio de Janeiro at the Outeiro da Glória (Imperial Church of Our Lady of the Glory at the Hill).

The celebrant was Fr. Demétrio Gomes, who, the NLM is informed, is the prefect of Theological studies at the Archdiocesan seminary of Niterói, and the homilist, Fr. Paulo Ricardo de Azevedo Jr., the rector of the Archdiocesan seminary of Cuiabá.

 
 
  Marble Altar Rail to be restored 
 Mary Immaculate of Lourdes, Newton, MA 
 announces Church Renovation/Restoration

Left:
Exterior of Mary Immaculate of Lourdes Church in Newton, MA
      
       Below:
       Interior view of High Altar

     

Una Voce NH - Below is an announcement from Fr. Charles Higgins on January 2, 2010 regarding planned 2010 Renovations of Mary Immaculate of Lourdes Church: 

"With this new year of 2010 we begin the centenary year of our parish church building which was consecrated on Thanksgiving Day, 1910. Having attended to the capital repairs on the outside of the building and the restoration of the stained glass windows (2007-2008), we now hope to refurbish more of the church’s interior, which was so magnificently appointed at its construction. Since the summer plans have been in the works to restore the marble altar rail which was formerly across the sanctuary of the church. A perfect match of the original marble has been imported from Italy. The iron posts and two gates have been readied. Now, during this month of January, the installation work will be done, together with other projects to restore the sanctuary more to its historical look.

Specifically, the sanctuary work will involve the following items:
 1. The red carpeting in the sanctuary will have to be temporarily removed.
 2. An extension of the bottom step of the already-existing extension of the sanctuary will create the adequate space for the altar rail.
 3. The altar rail (with two gates in the center) will extend from the pillar by the pulpit to other pillar, near where the organ is.
 4. The organ will temporarily be placed in storage for safe-keeping during construction. After the work in the lower church hall is done, it will be relocated there.
 5. Ramps for wheel-chair access into the sanctuary will be constructed on the Oak St. side.  
 6. The Last Supper sculpture will be restored to its place under the high altar.
 7. The main altar, which is put together from the two former side altars, will be taken apart and the side altars will be put back.
 8. The marble altar in the lower sanctuary of the church, and which is currently unused, will be dismantled, brought upstairs, and reconfigured as a worthy, free-standing altar for our “Ordinary Form” Masses, while still being movable so that it can allow for an open sanctuary space during the celebration of our “Extraordinary Form” Latin Masses.
 
Obviously, these projects will create some disruption in the short term, but we will soon have our beautiful sanctuary back together. I ask for your patience and understanding." 

                             
 NY Times editorial
on
Pius XII 
from 1941 

by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf  



These are posted on the site of the Catholic League.  They are editorials from the New York Times in 1941 and 1942: 

On Christmas Day, 1941, the New York Times, commenting on Pius XII’s Christmas Message, carried the following editorial:

The Pope’s Message
The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas. The Pope reiterates what he has said before. In general, he repeats, although with greater definiteness, the five-point plan for peace which he first enunciated in his Christmas message after the war broke out in 1939. His program agrees in fundamentals with the Roosevelt-Churchill eight-point declaration. It calls for respect for treaties and the end of the possibility of aggression, equal treatment for minorities, freedom from religious persecution. It goes farther than the Atlantic Charter in advocating an end of all national monopolies of economic wealth, and so far as the eight points, which demands complete disarmament for Germany pending some future limitation of arms for all nations. 

The Pontiff emphasized principles of international morality with which most men of good-will agree. He uttered the ideas a spiritual leader would be expected to express in time of war. Yet his words sound strange and bold in the Europe of today, and we comprehend the complete submergence and enslavement of great nations, the very sources of our civilization, as we realize that he is about the only ruler left o the Continent of Europe who dares to raise his voice at all. The last tiny islands of neutrality are so hemmed in and overshadowed by war and fear that no one but the Pope is still able to speak aloud in the name of the Prince of Peace. This is indeed a measure of the "moral devastation" he describes as the accompaniment of physical ruin and inconceivable human suffering.   

Another TLM announced for St. John the Baptist, Allenstown

Una Voce NH - Father Ed Crowley, pastor of St. John the Baptist in Allenstown (a.k.a. "Suncook") wishes to let all know that a public celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, according to the Extraordinary Form will take place this upcoming Sunday, Jan. 10, 2010 @ NOON.
  
The Holy Sacrifice will be offered up by Father Adrien Longchamps.
 
All are invited, refreshments to follow in the hall.
 
        New Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei
           members have just been announced

Fr. Vincenzo Nuara offering Mass in Santa Maria Maggiore, Feast of St. Pius V, 2009 

Note from Una Voce NH - Sounds quite positive in the direction of tradition and our goals and aspirations.  As we know, the PCED has the designated authority to implement the Holy Father's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum (July 7, 2007).  Having advocates in full support of the traditional Latin Mass on this Commission is directly relevant to implementation in areas that have, thus far, been denied or neglected. 

Please do pray for His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI and consider offering Masses for his intentions and well being.  The recent security breach (at the Christmas Mass in St. Peter's) shows how fragile the situation can be for him and he deserves our prayerful support now more than ever.
Happy New Year!

Messa in Latino has announced that the newest members of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei will be Fr. Vincenzo Nuara OP and Fr. Almiro de Andrade FSSP.

Fr. Almiro de Andrade is the first member of any of the "Ecclesia Dei Communities" to be officially appointed to the Commission. He also serves as MC at SS. Trinita dei Pellegrini, and is already considered as the de facto "secretary to the Secretary" of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, Msgr. Guido Pozzo.

Fr. Vincenzo Nuara, on the other hand, is the founder of the "Amicizia Sacerdotale Summorum Pontificum" and of "Giovane e Tradizione". Fr. Nuara, who had been removed from his position as vicar for religious in the Diocese of Acireale for his role in assisting the organizers of the celebration of the Traditional Mass in that diocese (in Sicily, which currently has only two locations with a regular TLM) -- a Mass that was saved only upon the intervention of the PCED -- has been very much at the forefront of promoting Summorum Pontificum,being one of the leaders in organizing study days and conferences on the Traditional Roman Rite, in Rome most notably the October 2009 conference that concluded with Archbishop Burke's Pontifical Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.


     St. Monica's, Methuen may move Sunday
         afternoon TLM to Sunday morning

Una Voce NH - Fr. Patrick Armano, Pastor, St. Monica's in Methuen,  has announced that the Parish is studying the possibility of offering the Sunday TLM earlier in the day. The current 3rd Sunday TLMass is scheduled for 1:30PM...the plan would be to offer the Mass on Sunday mornings at 10 or 11AM instead. This would require finding a different church for the Mass as there is a regular Ordinary Form Mass celebrated at St. Monica's during this time. The Parish is looking at smaller Parishes in the Methuen area that may have the time available.
This may or may not affect the current weekly TLM offered on Wednesday evenings at St. Monica's. 
UnaVoceNH will keep you posted on plans as they are announced.

ImmaculateConception, Portsmouth announces  
        Updated January Mass Schedule 
                                                                                                                  
                                                      
  Una Voce NH - Fr. Kerper has announced an
  updated schedule for Traditional Latin Masses
  at  Immaculate Conception Church at Corpus
  Christi Parish in Portsmouth, NH.

  Note that the weekday Masses for the 2nd half of   
  January will be cancelled due to Fr. Kerper's
  absence. 
  Sunday, January 03, 11:00 AM  
  The Most Holy  Name of Jesus 

           Solemn High Mass to be offered for
           Immaculate Conception in Lynn, MA

Latin Mass North Website - Fr. Mario López, O. Carm, will celebrate a
 Solemn High Mass on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of
 the Blessed Virgin Mary at 7:30 PM on Tuesday, December 8, in the
 main church at St. Joseph Parish, 115 Union St., Lynn. Fr. Daniel Marino-Barragan will serve as deacon for the Mass.

Click for directions to churches and a complete, up-to-date calendar of
area Masses.

Turn by turn: Benedict XVI again
offers Mass ad orientem/versus deum
Fr. John Zuhlsdorf  

What do you think?

No matter what, it is nice to see the Roman Pontiff celebrating ad orientem versus.

Brick by brick, friends.

Turn by turn.

Altar by altar.


 
Latin Mass Appeal

By KENNETH J. WOLFE

Published: November 28, 2009

WALKING into church 40 years ago on this first Sunday of Advent, many  
Roman Catholics might have wondered where they were. The priest not 
only spoke English rather than Latin, but he faced the congregation instead 
of the tabernacle; laymen took on duties previously reserved for priests;
folk music filled the air. The great changes of Vatican II had hit home.

All this was a radical break from the traditional Latin Mass, codified in
the 16th century at the Council of Trent. For centuries, that Mass served
as a structured sacrifice with directives, called “rubrics,” that were not
optional. This is how it is done, said the book. As recently as 1947,
Pope Pius XII had issued an encyclical on liturgy that scoffed at
modernization; he said that the idea of changes to the traditional Latin
Mass “pained” him “grievously.”

Paradoxically, however, it was Pius himself who was largely responsible
for the momentous changes of 1969. It was he who appointed the chief
architect of the new Mass, Annibale Bugnini, to the Vatican’s liturgical
commission in 1948.

Bugnini was born in 1912 and ordained a Vincentian priest in 1936.
Though Bugnini had barely a decade of parish work, Pius XII made
him secretary to the Commission for Liturgical Reform. In the 1950s,
Bugnini led a major revision of the liturgies of Holy Week. As a result,
on Good Friday of 1955, congregations for the first time joined the
priest in reciting the Pater Noster, and the priest faced the congregation
for some of the liturgy.

The next pope, John XXIII, named Bugnini secretary to the Preparatory
Commission for the Liturgy of Vatican II, in which position he worked
with Catholic clergymen and, surprisingly, some Protestant ministers on
liturgical reforms. In 1962 he wrote what would eventually become the
Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, the document that gave the form of
the new Mass.

Many of Bugnini’s reforms were aimed at appeasing non-Catholics, and
changes emulating Protestant services were made, including placing
altars to face the people instead of a sacrifice toward the liturgical east.
As he put it, “We must strip from our ... Catholic liturgy everything which
can be the shadow of a stumbling block for our separated brethren,
that is, for the Protestants.” (Paradoxically, the Anglicans who will join
the Catholic Church as a result of the current pope’s outreach will use
a liturgy that often features the priest facing in the same direction as
the congregation.)

How was Bugnini able to make such sweeping changes? In part because
 none of the popes he served were liturgists. Bugnini changed so many
 things that John’s successor, Paul VI, sometimes did not know the latest directives.
 The pope once questioned the vestments set out for him by
his staff, saying they were the wrong color, only to be told he had
 eliminated the week-long celebration of Pentecost and could not
wear the corresponding red garments for Mass. The pope’s master
of ceremonies then witnessed Paul VI break down in tears.

Bugnini fell from grace in the 1970s. Rumors spread in the Italian press
that he was a Freemason, which if true would have merited
excommunication. The Vatican never denied the claims, and in
1976 Bugnini, by then an archbishop, was exiled to a ceremonial post in Iran.
He died, largely forgotten, in 1982.

But his legacy lived on. Pope John Paul II continued the liberalizations of
Mass, allowing females to serve in place of altar boys and to permit
unordained men and women to distribute communion in the hands of
standing recipients. Even conservative organizations like Opus Dei
adopted the liberal liturgical reforms.

But Bugnini may have finally met his match in Benedict XVI, a noted liturgist
himself who is no fan of the past 40 years of change. Chanting Latin,
wearing antique vestments and distributing communion only on the
tongues (rather than into the hands) of kneeling Catholics, Benedict
has slowly reversed the innovations of his predecessors. And the
Latin Mass is back, at least on a limited basis, in places like Arlington,
Va., where one in five parishes offer the old liturgy.

Benedict understands that his younger priests and seminarians — most
born after Vatican II — are helping lead a counterrevolution. They value
the beauty of the solemn high Mass and its accompanying chant,
incense and ceremony. Priests in cassocks and sisters in habits are
again common; traditionalist societies like the Institute of Christ the
King are expanding.

At the beginning of this decade, Benedict (then Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger) wrote: “The turning of the priest toward the people has
turned the community into a self-enclosed circle. In its outward form,
it no longer opens out on what lies ahead and above, but is closed
in on itself.” He was right: 40 years of the new Mass have brought
chaos and banality into the most visible and outward sign of the
church. Benedict XVI wants a return to order and meaning.
So, it seems, does the next generation of Catholics.

Kenneth J. Wolfe writes frequently for traditionalist Roman Catholic publications.

NY City to get daily TLM at Holy Innocents

UnaVoceNH - Beginning Monday, November 30th there will be a new daily Low Mass (in the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite) every weekday at 6:00 PM at the Church of the Holy Innocents in Manhattan.  

   

 

The Roman Catholic Church of The Holy Innocents is located in the Fashion
Center, mid-town Manhattan. Founded in 1868, the mission of the church is
to be a spiritual oasis in one of busiest business districts in the world -
imes/Herald Square. The celebration of six daily Masses, confession,
and public devotions, enable visitors time for personal and communal prayer.

The Church of the Holy Innocents
128 West 37th Street, New York, NY 10018
Phone: (212) 279-5861         Fax: (212) 714-9313

New TLM announced
St. John the Baptist, Allenstown, NH
announces first TLM for this Sunday, 11/29

(Una Voce NH) - Father Ed Crowley, pastor of St. John the Baptist in Allenstown (a.k.a. "Suncook") N.H. wishes to let all know that a public celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, according to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Missal, will take place on the 1st Sunday of Advent, November 29, 2009 at 12:00 Noon. 

The Mass will be offered by Fr. Adrien Longchamps.
Directions/Link to map:
link to map
St. John the Baptist Church
12 School St
Allenstown, NH 03275-1917
(603) 485-3972