Orbis Catholicus Secundus reports that American Cardinal [Raymond]Burke celebrated a Pontifical Mass at the Lenten Stational Church of San Nicola in Carcere (St Nicholas in prison) with outdoor penitential procession and chanting of the Litany of Saints. San Nicola in Carcere is one of the traditional stational churches of Lent.
For the procession, His Eminence wore a very tall golden mitre (mitra aurifregiata), and a penitential purple cope bearing the coat of arms of Pius IX. For the Mass, he wore another tall white mitre and a purple chasuble and Pontifical gloves (chirothecœ). The use of episcopal gloves became customary at Rome probably in the 10th century. Most of these liturgical vestments have been rarely seen after the Pauline changes of the last ‘60s. The revised Caeremoniale Episcoporum no longer imposes on bishops the use of episcopal gloves.
I wanted you to see the gloves, which all too often seem to be not quite the right color and tend to clash with the other vestments. These chirothecœ are the best match I've seen yet. The vestments may seem somewhat splendiferous for the Lenten period, but think of it this way: Lent is a time of fasting, so the people who attend the services at least get to feast their eyes on colorful silk and beautiful lace during the penitential season.
Cardinal Burke explains the attraction of masses with elaborate pageantry and lavish vestments in the video below which was posted on the website of the National Catholic Reporter.
"What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful." Oh please, Benny! I remember when this happened in the late 60s. It was sudden then, but now that a lot of Catholics are used to it, you want to go back to the 'beautiful'? Get a grip.
ReplyDeleteI think it's really ironic that he talks about 'the abuses' that need to be corrected.
DeleteI think Jesus would look very much out of place at such a pageant. The sidemen holding up the ends of the cope are surely de trop. It seems to me that rather than enhance the focus on Christ in the Eucharist, the pageantry overload distracts.
Deletesusan s., in the interest of good PR, the cardinal could have chosen better words than "the abuses".
DeleteI thought the sidemen were kinda cute.
DeletePablito, I chose the picture with you in mind.
DeleteBy abuses I'm sure he means the many, many, MANY instances across the U.S.A. where parishes have opted to use inappropriate materials for Mass. These include, but are not limited to: guitars, drums, costumes, dances, fog machines, lasers, and much much more. And that's just what this movement is about, with regards to the traditional liturgy: bringing about a sense of reverence. Reverence is the key word here. There is absolutely no sense of reverence at a Mass where there are electric guitars being used. But on the other hand, one may have a choir singing the Church's own music - music written maybe 1800 years ago. You may think Jesus may look out of place in such a "pageant," but would he look so out of place at a concert or in a basement? Really, you can't say where Jesus would look in or out of place in. That's not for us to say.
DeleteCardinal Burke may have meant such "abuses" as guitars, drums, costumes, dances, fog machines, lasers, but, when he uses the word, child abuse and cover up is the sort of abuse that comes to mind for more than a few people.
DeleteI love the old traditional church music, too. Perhaps there's room for both ancient and modern. Do you approve of Vaughn Williams liturgical music?
Can you picture Jesus on the donkey leading (following?) the procession with Cardinal Burke wearing the cappa magna?
Child abuse should not be the first thought when used in a Catholic context; unfortunately it has become almost a household term. But still, abuse, when used in inference of the Church, most often refers to liturgical abuse, i.e. using smoke detectors in a church sanctuary, or singing "Going Off On A Jet Plane" at Ascension Mass. Those are the abuses Burke was referring to in that instance. It is a sort of plague in the Church today.
DeleteI would imagine Vaughn Williams music is appropriate for the liturgy, given that the piece is written with a liturgical purpose in mind. Songs intended for Catholic worship are obvious; secular music, not at so much... or at all.
Can you picture Jesus riding a chariot leading the saints through history? Can you picture Jesus in a sports car? I can picture Jesus on the ass; and I can picture any bishop in the cappa magna. (It is important to note that the role of the priest is to be "alter Christus" - another Christ. In any liturgical setting the priest is, ipso facto, Christ Himself... even if he is wearing a cappa magna.) Cardinal Burke's wearing a cappa doesn't detract from my seeing Christ at all. And in the case of Burke, he isn't wearing it to glorify himself. Burke is not in any way a material cleric, like some we may know of. The goal of all Liturgical practice is to glorify God.
The use of long vestments comes from a long-standing tradition of never removing anything from the Liturgy that appeared in the Church through her history, used in antiquity.The cappa was first used in Italy in order to protect the prefects from the scorching Italian sun, or from the harsh cold of winter. The Church retained the tradition. The same is with the gloves seen in other pictures. Gloves were worn by all priests to protect the hands from the cold in the castles and in order to ensure hygiene - being the Middle Ages and all. Then, when the situation became more practical, the use of gloves became reserved for bishops. All of these items have a story, an origin, and a tradition, a tradition that really was never meant to be set aside. Vatican II sure didn't make that a goal.
Andrew, I was Roman Catholic for 60 years. I know about mass and high mass. In all my 60 years, I never saw such extravagant excess. If you like it, fine. Enjoy.
DeleteWas? Okay then... i
DeleteIf you've never seen this much excess then, please, refrain from visiting St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, because the artworks from Michelangelo and Bernini must be overboard excess...
None of this is excess; in fact, it could be a lot more.
Never seen such excess in liturgical vestments, Andrew. I've visited St Peter's in Rome more than once, seen the pope, and enjoyed my visits and the lovely art there very much. I had a private tour of the Vatican Museum and visited a number of other churches in Rome, Florence, Assisi, etc.
DeleteUnless I'm much mistaken, the original subject of our discussion was liturgical vestments, and I consider we've pretty well exhausted that subject. I am finished.
You speak of "excess" in the Liturgy... as if that is a bad thing or that it detracts from the Liturgy itself.
DeleteWell I do understand what the father in the video is getting at. Having spent much of my youth in an extremely plain, barren, utterly prosaic "low-church" sort of outfit, with metal folding chairs for seating and ordinary bulletin boards on the back walls - yes, there is something to be said for the "attraction of beauty" and it IS a spiritual experience in and of itself to those who, like me, were so starved for the least trace of it over many years.
ReplyDeleteOne Episcopal church I used to attend many years ago in another state was historic, in the old Gothic style, and had a small rose window, filled with pink, green, blue, and gold glass, directly above the altar. On some summer Sunday mornings, when the angle of the sun was just right at the 11 a.m. service, the scene at the Eucharist was breathtaking: the altar, priest, and other servers entirely bathed in rays of multicolored light, seeming from the pews to be floating back and forth in a kind of unearthly, paradisaical light. Unforgettable, and deeply moving.
I'm not sure anyone planned that particular effect, but it was lovely, and gave an extra little boost to one's prayers. In somewhat the same way, brightly colored vestments, embroidered altar cloths, and all the other bells-and-smells effects satisfy something deep within me, which part of the yearning to know God.
Of course, I have sense enough to realize that one can as often meet God in the hardware store, or Mickey D's, as in the full panoply of high-church mass. But I think the poor low-church people are missing out on a lot - I know they are, because I used to be one of them. Beauty might not make you a better person, not directly, but it certainly encourages those who are sensitive to its effects.
Of course, as with all things sublunary, one can go too damn far with it - and then it becomes not an enhancement but a distraction, an end in itself, which is to miss the point. Some of that comes down to a matter of taste, and some to a sense of what is adequate and what is excessive. I can't imagine an Episcopal bishop doing velvet gloves, can you Mimi?
Yes, Russ. Your last paragraph says it much better than I did! But then I started out a Methodist. I love the 'semi-high' masses that are done in my church, but I just have trouble with the large amount of money used to 'make the mass beautiful.' I hope he sings well.
DeleteI very much understand wanting beauty at a Eucharistic service. I love the large, beautiful churches myself, but what's really dear to my heart are the small, plain Norman chapels I've seen in England.
DeleteThough I enjoy high church services with smells and bells and pretty vestments, I would not want them as a steady diet. I prefer our rather low church services, which are simple but still beautiful. I do like a liturgy done well with care.
I have to say that the kind of production that I've seen the cardinal involved in seems way over the top to me. Ritual should point to God and not be an end in itself.
I can't imagine an Episcopal bishop doing velvet gloves, can you Mimi?
DeleteRuss, I cannot.
Ritual should point to God and not be an end in itself. Precisely.
DeleteComing from a very low-church background, what I call "high church" might be someone else's "middling church." When it begins to verge into Anglo-Catholicism is where I start to say, "No, thank you."
But I can also get a lot out of what Muthah, further below in the comments, calls a "beautiful simplicity." Years ago, my work schedule was such that I could only get to the 5 p.m. Eucharist on Sundays, and that was lovely - in a newly-built chapel with pine floors, high ceilings, a simple altar, and three unadorned but very tall gothic-arch windows that faced an enormous oak - perhaps a century or more old - draped with Spanish moss - the blue paint of the simple window frames was a very near match for the pale blue sky seen beyond and through the old tree - in a word, the effect was charming, and I came to love those quite Eucharists with a small crowd in the chapel, no organ, no choir, no fuss, no muss - just the minimum of candles and vestments, and the evergreen beauty of the liturgy.
Alas, one day some catholocizer started putting up garish Italian plaster Stations of the Cross - so out of place in a plain, simple room like that - and then somebody hauled in a grand piano, so suddenly instead of the soft murmur of prayer in the vesper light, we had someone BANGING OUT HYMNS ON THE PIANO - imagine that, with pine floors and hard surfaces all around in a room perhaps no bigger than 24 x 32 - the reverberations were ghastly. Which utterly, utterly ruined it all for me, so I stopped going there.
BTW, that church continued its Anglo-Catholic trends and some years ago, I heard, seceded and joined ACNA. Figures.
This Mass is a High Mass, specifically Pontifical High Mass, meaning celebrated by a Pontiff, or bishop. High Masses, as the name suggests, are very up-key. Low Mass, a Mass that is un-sung and only spoken, not chanted, would be much more low-key. One of the advantages of the traditional form of the liturgy is that there were variations of the Mass, Low and High. On days of little or no extreme importance, Mass would be Low, quiet and un-sung, and take very little time to celebrate, maybe twenty minutes, top. But on major feast days and holy days of obligation, Mass would be High, sung (with or without a choir), using incense, many candles, and much more up-key vestments, with the celebration lasting up to an hour and a half. There was a clear distinction between minor celebrations and major ones. Disappointingly, Masses all around today don't offer this variation; the Mass is either "Low" or "High," with no differentiation for specific days of celebration. It's either "High Mass, High Mass, High Mass" with loud music and lots of energy... or "Low Mass, Low Mass, Low Mass," with minimalist everything. I appreciate the traditional liturgy's understanding of HOW to celebrate certain feasts appropriately.
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DeleteSorry Susan - I changed my wording from "tone-deaf" to "color-blind" exactly as you posted.
DeleteOne thing is clear from that first scan - that no-one so impossibly color-blind when it comes to accessorizing could possibly be gay.
ReplyDeleteWhoever chose to combine the outer fabric of the cope with the lining must indeed have been color-blind and not gay.
DeleteAs often as possible, I enjoy attending the Extraordinary Form. I love the plainsong and the complete reverence. What has shocked me is that it's not a congregation of old people about to breath their last.Two-thrids of the congregation is teenagers and 20s-40. They have no sentimental attachment to the "way it used to be", rather, they come because the Extraordinary Form transports them from the mundane to the heavenly - they want something that's not McDonald's - they want something that is completely unlike the rest of their week and they want that magnificent beauty the Extraordinary Form provides.
ReplyDeleteWe should have found one of those tall mitres for KJS to *carry* while she was in England. :)
We should have found one of those tall mitres for KJS to *carry* while she was in England. :)
DeleteKJS might have poked the person following her, James.
Whatever draws one to God is fine by me so long as the focus is on Christ in the Eucharist and not on the ritual itself, which would, of course, be idolatry.
"Old people about to breath their last" remember that "complete reverence" was seldom a feature of the average parochial celebration of the Tridentine mass, James. Between the speed at which the mass was usually, in my experience, gabbled (masses, beginning to end, took perhaps 30 minutes) and the fact that slabs of the Canon were muttered by the priest to himself, not forgetting the "Last Gospel", strangely tacked on to the end, the Latin mass was not an audience-friendly business.
DeleteThe most reverent masses I remember in the Roman Catholic church were the simple liturgies at the weekday masses with only a few people present...people who really wanted to be there to worship God and were not simply fulfilling their Sunday obligation. Of course, the priest had to be of the same mind and not hasten through the liturgy just to fulfill his obligation.
DeleteIn the words of Oscar Wilde, "It's just too ... too!"
ReplyDeleteIndeed. In the end, one is left without words.
DeleteJust too much of a good thing, perhaps? That Lace should be either on underwear or on the dining room table.
DeleteI did not realize I had done so many posts on Cardinal Burke's liturgical fashions. One might almost think I'm obsessed. Of course, I'm not, but there is a sort of fascination in the splendor of the silk and lace.
ReplyDeleteDo I see a purple pointy-toe, possibly strappy slingback, possibly Prada peeking out from under all that lace? Oooooh, I hope so. Although on second thought it really doesn't match the hat.
ReplyDeleteBex, I believe it's a red toe, though I can't say what the back of the shoe is like. Real cardinals wear red, you know, which can be a problem, as the red cassock doesn't always match up with the colors of the vestments.
DeleteI understand that "Burke the Jerk" is significantly responsible for the HORRORS inflicted (via Archbishops) in Scotland (Tartaglia) and San Francisco (Cordileone).
ReplyDeleteGod have mercy, I'm tryin'...
Keep tryin', JCF.
DeleteI remember the beautiful simplicity of the Roman mass shortly after Vatican II. It had the austerity and beauty without all the geegaw accretions of the Romantic era. The simplicity of the mass is so powerful and yet so humble at the same time.
ReplyDeleteBut in the reaction to Vatican II the RC's have returned to all those accretions and preciousness. They are making the mass unavailable to the rank and file. Eventually the mass will become just a show--not an invitation to a relationship with God. What a shame.
I don't know of any Episcopal bishops who would wear the gloves, Mimi. But I do know a number of our brethren who would LOVE to.
But I do know a number of our brethren who would LOVE to.
DeleteAnd Muthah, I assume you will not name names.
I watched the video with the sound off because we have house guests and it is late and the bedrooms close ---and ....frankly, it all looks kinda like a mad-hatter tea.... !
ReplyDeleteWhat is the purpose of the display of silk and lace and tall, gold mitres if not to have the congregation Oooh and Aaah at the silk and lace and tall gold mitres?
DeleteHey y'all, check out the moiré cape and full skirt His Eminence is sporting here - pure 1890's:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GibbonsPhotoStanding.jpg
Fabulous is the only word for it.
Wow! That is some moiré. I note the portrait is by Bachrach who was THE photographer of his day.
DeleteIn the rather silly movie "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" there is striking scene of Francis and his friars meeting with the Pope and a crowd of Cardinals - striking because of the sharp contrasts in clothing. I have in my library a book by Alan Crite. His illustrations show a priest celebrating a low mass with the reredos disappearing and the spiritual reality becoming visible. As much as beautiful vestments may help open us to that reality, they can be a distraction.
ReplyDeleteDaniel, I remember the movie and the scene, which was striking. If the vestments serve any purpose other than to draw us to God...
DeleteSigh! Growing up Catholic. Yikes! Drove me into the ranks of the nones for many years. When I think of the edifice (a very beautiful one), the smells, the bells, the statues, the stations, the rosaries, medals, little white first communion and confirmation dresses, the pomp and the pageantry, the vestments, the smells, and the bells. Was I ever moved by any of this? Never. I couldn't wait to become a "none." Although being a third daughter I think I was supposed supposed to be nun.
ReplyDeleteWhere have I found the simplicity that speaks to and of Jesus? As a LEV I have set up communion on radiators, tiny tables, dressers, and even outdoor tables for years. There is a real presence. It is an experience that I have no words to describe. There is quiet joy and anticipation. The space actually feels holy to me.
Can't say that about the experience of my childhood. It just felt phony and I don't miss any of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c62iZ4ufOY
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