Sermon for the Sunday in the Octave of OL’s Ascension, May 16th, 2021
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen
My dearly beloved in Our Lord,
It is fascinating to study, think and meditate about the Church as founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ! Today we have the most annoying problem that rare are those who seriously undertake this studying, thinking and meditating.
The Society of St Pius X, for example, does not hesitate to twist the truth in order to make it fit into its ideology which pretends that a Catholic can recognize a public heretic and apostate to be truly the Pope; and at the same time resist him even in areas where his pronouncements are covered by the infallibility of the Church in her teaching and governing. While most of its priests and adherents – like myself for many years – have no clue about the gravity of such an attitude, the SSPX leaders obviously know better. A person who had first hand knowledge of the thing, certified that in one seminary St Robert Bellarmine’s (feast May 13)expositionof the five different theological opinions on what happens in the case of a Pope being an heretic, was being taught. But his conclusion was bluntly misrepresented and destroyed, simply by inverting the fourth and fifth point – whereas the holy Doctor clearly says that the fifth and last opinion is the one he holds to be true… a fact which shows how intellectually twisted people can be – something you can witness daily with facts as presented by the media, for example.
Catholics have always stuck to what is expressed by the words of St Paul in 1Cor 1:10: “in eodem sensu, et in eadem sententia” - “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you; but that you be perfect in the same mind, and in the same judgment.” We find it in the antimodernist oath, for example, published and prescribed by Pope St Pius X (Sept. 1st, 1910). “Sensus” appears six times in this important document, and in paragraph four, the phrase “eodem sensu eademque sententia” is used: “Fourthly, I accept sincerely the doctrine of faith transmitted from the apostles through the orthodox fathers, always in the same sense and interpretation, even to us; and so I reject the heretical invention of the evolution of dogmas, passing from one meaning to another, different from that which the Church first had; and likewise I reject all error whereby a philosophic fiction is substituted for the divine deposit, given over to the Spouse of Christ and to be guarded faithfully by her, or a creation of the human conscience formed gradually by the efforts of men and to be perfected by indefinite progress in the future.” It means that from whatever point of view you look at it, the teaching of the Church never changes in its meaning (“sensus”); and that the way the truth is expressed cannot vary indefinitely (“sententia”).
About St Bede the Venerable (feast May 27), another holy Doctor of the Church (+735), it is said that he “undertook the work of expounding the Sacred Books. In his interpretations he so strictly adhered to the teaching of the holy Fathers that he would advance nothing which was not approved by their judgment, nay, had the warrant of their very words.” (Brev.Rom. ad Matut. in II noct., lect. IV)
It is clear that in our days, after decades of the Church living in a state of being deprived of her authority, things are blurred and messy in the minds of most Catholics. Take for example the simple truth laid down in can.107 of the Code of Canon Law, that by divine institution there is a distinction in the Church between the clergy and the laity. Whereas “modern” man firmly believes that “priests are people like any others”, corroborated for example by the broad use and abuse of the “dialogue Mass”, even in setups that claim to be “traditional”. While there is nothing wrong intrinsically with several people or the entire congregation giving the answers at Mass instead of one or two altar servers, the “dialogue Mass” goes much further, and always has done so. The “Gloria”, “Credo” and “Sanctus” are also said by everyone – but they are the priest’s prayers in the low Mass. “But we do sing them, don’t we?” Yes! But a sung Mass is a sung Mass, and a low Mass is a low Mass. Their rubrics are partly different.
The inherent non-sense of the dialogue Mass being elevated to be a standard practice becomes apparent in the case of the “Sanctus”. It is the only longer passage (the others consisting of two or three words only) which the priest has to say in a slightly elevated voice – between silent and loud – and thus the priest’s role becomes basically impossible if everyone joins in reciting the “Sanctus” in a loud voice… very democratic maybe, but not Catholic.
Lately I picked up the parish bulletin in the local shrine of Our Lady (Maria Dreieichen). Lo and behold, the reverend in charge there is writing how beautiful it has been to have been allowed to celebrate Easter – with all the restrictions and precautions prescribed by the lay authorities, of course – after last year everything had had to be canceled. The contrasting “experiences” of these two years have taught him, among other things, that the liturgy was all about celebrating together; and that therefore “a Mass can never be ‘said’ or ‘read’” by the priest. I guess that last passage is for all those who are beyond reform, like myself and other very antiquated minds that die hard.
Why do I insist on the dangers of a dialogue Mass? Because it has been an important inroad for changing Catholics’ attitude. Even from the early experiments in the 1920s and 1930s it becomes clear that the goal was to have everyone say most of the prayers, and in the vernacular. Never mind the “sensus” or the “sententia” held by the Church, for many centuries, including the teachings and the anathemas of the Holy Council of Trent! The goal was to level out the difference between clergy and laity, priest and congregation.
It has been achieved in the openly heretical definition of the Montini Mass, in §7: “The Lord's Supper or Mass is a sacred meeting or assembly of the People of God, met together under the presidency of the priest, to celebrate the memorial of the Lord.” This definition had to be changed – but the texts of the “new Mass” remained the same! Bp Guérard des Lauriers, who wrote the theological part of the “Short critical examination of the new ‘Ordo Missae’”, commonly known as the “Ottaviani intervention”, points out the implications: “None of this (i.e. the elements of the ‘definition’ in §7) in the very least implies either the Real Presence, or the reality of sacrifice, or the Sacramental function of the consecrating priest, or the intrinsic value of the Eucharistic Sacrifice independently of the people's presence. It does not, in a word, imply any of the essential dogmatic values of the Mass which together provide its true definition. Here, the deliberate omission of these dogmatic values amounts to their having been superseded and therefore, at least in practice, to their denial.”
Ideas have consequences. Start tampering with one jot of Catholic doctrine, and your Catholic life will come down like a house of cards – maybe not straight away, but rather sooner than later.
Let us therefore task to understand well, and to practice faithfully, anything that pertains to the Catholic doctrine, most especially with regards to the Church which is now so badly in need of our faithful service and consideration. - Let us remain at the side of Our Blessed Lady who in these days between the Ascension and Pentecost remained in the midst of the Apostles and Disciples, and who never ceases to plead with her Son in favor of the Church founded by him!
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
P. Arnold Trauner (paterarnold@hotmail.com), njemački i engleski
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