Liturgy

Catholic Church Conversation once again has whacked out photos from the diocese that makes Cardinal Mahony look traditional by comparison.

The figure in the center is quite freaky. What denominations does this one represent? Or did the invisible man find religion?

The figure is a good representation of watered-down Christianity. From a distance it almost looks solid, but the close you get the more you can see right through it.

Sometimes it seems there is hardly a bad idea that someone won’t attempt.

THE Vatican has put a stop to a joint Pentecostal service planned by the Newcastle and Maitland Catholic and Anglican bishops.

The confirmation service was scheduled for May 31 at Christ Church Cathedral, and was promoted as a “very exciting and special” event.

Parishes encouraged church members to consider being confirmed on that day.

But Rome intervened, forcing its cancellation, citing the possibility of “confusing messages” being given to churchgoers.

It is unclear how the headquarters of the Catholic Church learned of the service, as no formal notification was given.

It is a blow for the two bishops, as well as Bishop David Walker of the Catholic Diocese of Broken Bay, who together signed an agreement last year called the Tri-Diocesan Covenant to work towards common goals.

It committed the dioceses to improve relations between the Catholic and Anglican communities.

The “request” was made by the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, which is the central governing body of the Catholic Church handling most affairs relating to official public worship.

I pray for unity, but this type of attempt at a false unity brings us no closer. When you don’t have a valid priesthood you simply do not have the Sacrament of Confirmation. Pretending otherwise is not ecumenism.

Several years ago there use to be a joint Catholic/Anglican parish in the Diocese of Richmond under there previous bishop. In response I wrote a parody of what the bulletin would look like for the St. Thomas Moore & King Henry VIII
Roman/Anglo-Catholic Church.

>Ritual sprinkling via a Super Soaker done by a priest in vestments right out of a sixties poster.

The capybara kap-i-‘bar-uh, hydrochoerus hydrochaeris, is a semi-aquatic rodent of South and Central America. It is the only species in its genus, which belongs to the family Hydrochoeridae, order Rodentia.

When the Spanish missionaries found the capybara in Brazil during the 16th century, they wrote to the Pope to ask – there’s an animal here that’s scaly but also hairy, spends most of its time in the water but occasionally comes on land; can we classify it as a fish (and thus, the indigenous people could continue to eat it during Lent)?. Not having a clear description of the animal (and not wanting the petitioners to starve), the Pope agreed and declared it to be a fish.

Jimmy Akin has a good roundup of Lenten information.

Jimmy also has the guidelines for fasting from the Code of Canon Law.

I have also changed one of my top graphics to this.

Marcel LeJeune also has a solid Lenten FAQ.

Earlier this week I noticed the most ironic Facebook group ever. Giving up Facebook for Lent. Now I am not giving up blogging/social networking during Lent. I am giving up real world friends for lent instead.

I have an impressive list of things I am giving up for Lent to cure my pride. No doubt more impressive than yours.

I pray that all my readers will have grown closer to Christ by the end of Lent. Please pray that I will do likewise.

An article in the Tablet (unaffectionately known as the bitter pill) did a hit piece on Fr. Finigan from The Hermeneutic of Continuity blog. Evidently celebrating the extraordinary form of the Mass along with the ordinary form of the Mass and following the liturgical laws of the Church is something that must be done about.

Fr. Finigan replies to the article along with Father Z. in what Fr. Finigan calls a “simultaneous transatlantic fisk.”

I think father should consider it a badge of honor to be attacked in this way by the Tablet. In fact if he is ever considered officially for canonization the article could be used as proof of his obedience to the Church. No need for a devil’s advocate when you have the Tablet to substitute.

The article is unintentionally funny and it comes across like the tone of the movie “Reefer Madness” and they see Fr. Finigan’s liturgical moves in his parish as “Liturgical Madness.” Now I am not doing a full blown fisk, but just some fun parts.

In what was once a fairly typical parish, there are no extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist. Altar rails have been installed and the parish priest makes it clear that he prefers communicants to kneel and to receive the Host on the tongue.

Oh the horror! Can you imagine him having a preference for what is in fact the “ordinary” means for communicating?

Fr Finigan says the Eucharistic Prayer with his back to the congregation

Instead of his back to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

I have no objection to them having it once a month or once a week, but it should not be the main Sunday Mass and it should not be imposed over the whole parish,” said Les Thomas, a member of the delegation that went to see Bishop Lynch.

A parishioner that somehow couldn’t make it to any other ordinary form of the Mass held at the parish on Sunday. I love the “I have no objection”, wow that is pretty nice of him for his permission to allow what the Pope specifically allowed.

Most of the rest of the article is a whine fest from those that feel uncomfortable that the Mass isn’t a means for experimentation. It is rather sad that we have come to this point, but years of do-it-yourself Masses have lead to revolt at the mere idea of actually being obedient to the Church.

In my own parish I have a holy priest who has tirelessly poured himself out for his flock. We had the indult Latin Mass for quite a while along with at times the ordinary form of the Mass said in Latin and all Masses without liturgical abuses of any sort. In addition he says another Mass on Sunday in Spanish. Four Masses on Sundays along with two daily Masses in a downtown parish that would have been closed down in the hands of many others. Yet I know that there are people that are always upset at him and complaining to the bishop at times. This is a source of suffering for him, but not of bitterness and something that he uses in redemptive suffering for the sins of others. Some people just are never satisfied and can only see what they want to see in their limited liturgical mindset.

Yesterday Damian Thompson reported:

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor has invoked Canon Law to justify banning Archbishop Raymond Burke, a senior Vatican prelate, from saying the traditional Latin Mass at Westminster Cathedral in June.

Yesterday Damian also noted on Twitter that this is the same Cathedral where the 99 names of Allah were said set to music.

Today Father Z gives a nicely balanced perspective on this. Surely the Cardinal was well within his rights to do this, but prudentially this was a mistake to say the least.

Today Damian Thompson tweeted.

Cardinal Cormac tells God that Second Coming has not been cleared with his office. Invokes Canon Law.

Damian Thompson on Twitter tweeted “You have to wonder – what do you have to be on to write a song called Alleluia Ch-Ch.” The song by Paul Inwood is even worse than the title indicated. If you are looking for a severe penance for Lent here goes. We have enough crappy liturgical song writers here so OCP does not have to import one from England.

Fr. Cory Sticka tweeted in reply “You know, it might make a great test for hiring music ministers: if they think it’s good, NEXT”

Fr. Z with the latest Fr. Greg J. Markey letter on the liturgy. What an awesome priest that not only does he take care of the liturgy in his parish, but that he helps to teach his parishioners what he is doing in following the norms of the Church.

iBrievary is the Liturgy of the Hours for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The original release was in Italian only, but the new version includes support for English, Spanish, French, Latin, and Rite Ambrosiano. The app is available for 99 cents.

I downloaded it to give it a try out. As someone who has the 4 volume set of the liturgy of the hours I have always wanted an e-book version that automatically had the correct readings for each day. Even after you learn to use the Liturgy of the Hours there is a lot of page flipping going on.

To get started after downloading the app from the iTunes App store you need to go to the settings button, select iBrievary and then select the language to use and the font size. The settings are not accesible through the app itself, but are part of the settings displayed for the iPhone/iPod Touch.

Once the main menu is displayed you can select the readings you want. You can use the refresh button to make the language displayed match the language you selected.

The bottom tab area allows you to select the Brievary, the Mass Readings for the day, provided prayers, and the info & credits section.

Like most iPhone/iPod Touch apps you can choose to view it vertically or horizontally.

When you have selected the section to read you simply swipe down to move the page down.

In practice this works very well and you can be praying the Liturgy of the Hours quite easily and not thinking about the mechanics of moving around the application.

I have read a couple of books via my iPod Touch and it does make a very good book reader which you can hold and control one handed.

The English translation is different from what you would find in the 4 volume set, but I think I like this translation better. You get all of the same texts that you would in the 4 volume set including the two readings in the Office of Reading and the readings they had today were for the exact same readings as I had read today.

The only thing really missing is having a hymn inserted. The text simply says "A suitable hymn may be inserted here." Though I have read that there are plans for an audio accompaniment with Gregorian Chant. The text could also be formatted better for reading. Though I could wish that you could swipe left or right to advance one page.

I would certainly recommend this application. For 99 cents you can’t go wrong and this provides a great introduction to the Liturgy of the Hours for those just starting and might have been put off by all the ribbons you have to use in a paper set. The fact that you get pretty much the full LOH in such a portable fashion is pretty cool.

The Application is written by an Italian Priest, Fr Paolo Padrini and can be downloaded here via iTunes.Some stories about this application have said it is the only iPhone/iPod Touch application approved by the Vatican. Well I certainly doubt that there is some app approving department in the Vatican, it has been mentioned by the Vatican’s Council for Social Communications.

Universalis has a Liturgy of the Hours application that was available from the beginning when the iTunes Application store first opened up. Though the price for this application is $32.99 which certainly kept me from checking it out. The pictures available for it makes it look to have the text formatted much better, though it also includes no hymns.

Regardless iBrievary is a nice addition for my iPod Touch which also has an excellent Advent Calendar and RC Calendar (free saint of the day information), and Douay-Rheims Bible Translation. Though I wish there was an RSV-CE edition of the Bible available for it. While there is a New American Bible version, I am certainly not fond of that translation.

Update: Around the beginning of 2009 the texts for iBrievary have been updated specifically the English version. It now uses the approved texts that identical with the 4-Volume set of the Liturgy of the Hours. It includes the antiphons and the invitory and at times a hymn. It really is now a fully functional replacement for the hard cover copies and can even be used in community. Since the addition I have been using this app full time now and I really love being able to pray the different hours as a single stream without a bunch of page flipping. The formatting of the text could still be improved and I hope to see this in a later version.

There is also a Facebook version called Praybook for those who don’t have an iPhone/iPod Touch.