Oh, no! Got that wrong didn't I?
Sorry, I meant members of the Argentine football team. Got my priorities mixed up there.
Showing posts with label Bishop Fellay and the Vatican. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bishop Fellay and the Vatican. Show all posts
Thursday, 15 August 2013
Holy Father welcomes Bishop Fellay and the SSPX team
Oh, no! Got that wrong didn't I?
Sorry, I meant members of the Argentine football team. Got my priorities mixed up there.
Saturday, 30 June 2012
Sunday, 24 June 2012
It is the real thing
Last week, whilst with Catholic friends our discussion touched on the SSPX.
I was surprised to find our friends making a statement that, up until then, I had only believed in myself in a very private way.
They stated that it was only really when attending an SSPX Mass that they felt that all was right - all was perfect and complete.
I perfectly understand this view and find it refreshing that others believe it also.
That is not to show any disrespect whatsoever to our great priests who struggle in their parishes, offering both the old and the new in an effort to hold all together, to abide by the orders of their Bishop and to the guidance of the Holy Father.
But an SSPX priest, when he celebrates Mass, does so in an environment that is wholly Catholic, wholly at one with Christ.
And he is completely dedicated to the Mass of all Time as is the church where he celebrates Mass.
The air is not defiled by echoes of guitars and tambourines, there has never been any inane pre Mass chatter in the church, no one has ever walked across the path of the tabernacle and bowed instead of genuflecting.
No lay person has ever laid hands on the Blessed Sacrament, the ambience evokes totally the hermeneutic of continuity; when you attend Mass there you are back in the time of Christ. The basic elements of the liturgy that materialised over the first three or four hundred years of Christianity are palpable - Christ lives, God is present!
That is one reason why we so badly need the SSPX back within the fold. They provide the gold standard against which, others may set their benchmark.
When the continuity of tradition has been fractured, and to a large degree lost, it is invaluable to be able to take that missing gem and restore it to its rightful place in the crown that is Christ's.
A Mass untainted by modernism
Monday, 21 May 2012
Last bus for the SSPX three!
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| All aboard for the Vatican! The last bus for Rome is about to leave and the three SSPX Bishops who are having difficulty in signing up to Bishop Fellay's joint plan with the CDF need to make up their minds, pronto! Or the Holy Father will make up their minds for them.
It is a cause for sorrow that the Society is verging on a split but there is at least one Bishop whose loss will not be mourned.
Father Paul Morgan, Superior of the British District of the Society, has been reported as being "disappointed" (we presume at the 'breakdown') of the talks; and there is speculation that he will lead the British District away from the table.
It may be distasteful to discuss the issue of property and goods, rather like relatives gathering around a much loved family member in their final moments and dividing up the spoil before there is even a corpse, but, in this instance, it could be a matter of spiritual life or death for many Catholic families who, at present, legitimately attend SSPX Masses but for whom, lies an uncertain future.
Who will inherit the family silver?
Not Fr Morgan and his group, surely? They are really tenants for the Swiss HQ of the Society.
If this is the case then, assuming that Rome and Econe are as one, Bishop Fellay will have to despatch squads of his priests to assume control over Bristol, Wimbledon, London and all other SSPX Mass centres.
And Fr Morgan and co will have to do the other thing.
One thing is certain, it will not be a happy situation. For all of those concerned.
Maybe we should all go down on our knees to the Saint whose feast it is tomorrow (Tuesday 22nd May).....it is...of course.....St Rita..........Patron of Hopeless Causes.
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Sunday, 13 May 2012
Of Bishop Fellay, Confirmations, Coincidences and a Consecration
Come with me back in time to January1990.
We lived in a desert then, a spiritual one, of course.
West Wales, (in fact all of Wales), was without the Latin Mass and any priest who wished to celebrate one was hunted down ruthlessly by Bishops 'Topcliffe' and 'Wade'.
There were, as far as we were aware, no other traditional Catholic families within 150 miles of us and whilst our youngest child had made her First Holy Communion in our own chapel within the house, courtesy of our visiting priest, Fr Lessiter, and our middle daughter was still too young to be confirmed, our two eldest children did urgently require the Sacrament of Confirmation.
Nowhere in the British Isles could one receive the traditional rite of Confirmation other than at one of the SSPX churches, and then only once each year when Bishop Fellay visited.
So, with a high degree of planning we commenced the process of applying to Fr Black who was the coordinator for such visits. We applied with the usual paperwork and were accepted and, duly on the day, we arrived at the church of St Joseph and St Padarn in North London.
We knew in advance that we had a problem. We did not know anyone who could act as sponsors. All of my surviving siblings were in the modernist camp and Mrs L's relations were all Protestant.
"No matter" wrote Fr B, "we can find sponsors on the morning for you".
But when we arrived on the day and tried to register, the good Fr Black (not especially known for his social skills) told me that he had no record of us and that we could not put our children forward.
It took a lot of talking and, I'm sorry to say, a lot of straight talking from me, to get him to change his mind.
Having made a round trip of some 520 miles, we were not going to return without a positive result.
We were then instructed to find two sponsors from the assembled congregation.
My wife approached a woman who kindly agreed and, upon asking my daughter's chosen Confirmation name exclaimed that it was also her Confirmation name. First coincidence.
I then approached a man who also agreed and, on being told that my son had chosen the name of Francis, he also stated that this was his Confirmation name. Coincidence number two.
Now, I mentioned earlier in this post that we had our own chapel; we were also in possesion of an unconsecrated chalice. This we had not been able to get consecrated due to the fact that no Bishop would have come within a thousand miles of us.
So, before Mass began I approached Bishop Fellay, duly bending my knee and kissing his ring.
He pondered on my request, holding the chalice and examining it as if it was a antique. Why, he asked, was I in possession of such a thing. I explained.
He listened intently and his eyes bore through me as he sized up exactly what sort of a person I was.
Eventually, he said that he would consider it and that I should approach him after Mass.
When I did this, he again subjected me to the third degree treatment but without rancour or unpleasantness.
Finally, he agreed but not before he wrote out in freehand a certificate verifying the chalice's sacred provenance, in Latin and without hesitation, as if it was something that he did twenty times a day every day of the year.
He then blessed the chalice and all was well.
This tale may be of little interest to you but to me it illustrates several things.
It shows me the apparent intransigence of the Society, even when all arrangements had been gone into in great detail many months in advance.
It showed also, the great stature of Bishop Fellay (who struck me as the epitome of a walking saint) and who wanted to be certain that I was not some demonic nutjob before he blessed a sacred vessel.
And it punched home to me that what we were doing in bringing our children up in the "traditional Faith was the right course to take.
We had been to modern Confirmations and found them totally lacking in reverence, so much so that it was hard to believe that a Sacrament had been validly bestowed.
That is an issue worth pursuing; Baptism, Holy Communion, Confession, Matrimony and Extreme Unction, along with Confirmation, are all available in the traditional rite and, if you attend the Latin Mass you should be aware that, with a little bit of shove and push, you can arrange to receive them, either on your children's behalf or your own.
Pray for the Holy Father and Bishop Fellay today, we need the SSPX back fully in the fold.
We lived in a desert then, a spiritual one, of course.
West Wales, (in fact all of Wales), was without the Latin Mass and any priest who wished to celebrate one was hunted down ruthlessly by Bishops 'Topcliffe' and 'Wade'.
There were, as far as we were aware, no other traditional Catholic families within 150 miles of us and whilst our youngest child had made her First Holy Communion in our own chapel within the house, courtesy of our visiting priest, Fr Lessiter, and our middle daughter was still too young to be confirmed, our two eldest children did urgently require the Sacrament of Confirmation.
Nowhere in the British Isles could one receive the traditional rite of Confirmation other than at one of the SSPX churches, and then only once each year when Bishop Fellay visited.
So, with a high degree of planning we commenced the process of applying to Fr Black who was the coordinator for such visits. We applied with the usual paperwork and were accepted and, duly on the day, we arrived at the church of St Joseph and St Padarn in North London.
We knew in advance that we had a problem. We did not know anyone who could act as sponsors. All of my surviving siblings were in the modernist camp and Mrs L's relations were all Protestant.
"No matter" wrote Fr B, "we can find sponsors on the morning for you".
But when we arrived on the day and tried to register, the good Fr Black (not especially known for his social skills) told me that he had no record of us and that we could not put our children forward.
It took a lot of talking and, I'm sorry to say, a lot of straight talking from me, to get him to change his mind.
Having made a round trip of some 520 miles, we were not going to return without a positive result.
We were then instructed to find two sponsors from the assembled congregation.
My wife approached a woman who kindly agreed and, upon asking my daughter's chosen Confirmation name exclaimed that it was also her Confirmation name. First coincidence.
I then approached a man who also agreed and, on being told that my son had chosen the name of Francis, he also stated that this was his Confirmation name. Coincidence number two.
Now, I mentioned earlier in this post that we had our own chapel; we were also in possesion of an unconsecrated chalice. This we had not been able to get consecrated due to the fact that no Bishop would have come within a thousand miles of us.
So, before Mass began I approached Bishop Fellay, duly bending my knee and kissing his ring.
He pondered on my request, holding the chalice and examining it as if it was a antique. Why, he asked, was I in possession of such a thing. I explained.
He listened intently and his eyes bore through me as he sized up exactly what sort of a person I was.
Eventually, he said that he would consider it and that I should approach him after Mass.
When I did this, he again subjected me to the third degree treatment but without rancour or unpleasantness.
 |
| A scrap of Church history - A chalice consecrated by Bishop Fellay |
He then blessed the chalice and all was well.
This tale may be of little interest to you but to me it illustrates several things.
It shows me the apparent intransigence of the Society, even when all arrangements had been gone into in great detail many months in advance.
It showed also, the great stature of Bishop Fellay (who struck me as the epitome of a walking saint) and who wanted to be certain that I was not some demonic nutjob before he blessed a sacred vessel.
And it punched home to me that what we were doing in bringing our children up in the "traditional Faith was the right course to take.
We had been to modern Confirmations and found them totally lacking in reverence, so much so that it was hard to believe that a Sacrament had been validly bestowed.
That is an issue worth pursuing; Baptism, Holy Communion, Confession, Matrimony and Extreme Unction, along with Confirmation, are all available in the traditional rite and, if you attend the Latin Mass you should be aware that, with a little bit of shove and push, you can arrange to receive them, either on your children's behalf or your own.
Pray for the Holy Father and Bishop Fellay today, we need the SSPX back fully in the fold.
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