The iTunes App[lication] store is a treasure trove of cack, but occasionally you'll find something fun or useful - you just have to know where to look. Last week, I found the Lewis & Short Latin Dictionary (something I have wanted for ages, but can't afford!) for iPhone, an App that was only about £3! (cheaper than it's ''Collins Latin Dictionary'' equivalent). The disadvantage is that you cannot browse, you have to look words up, but the entries are still far more thorough and edifying than my Oxford Latin Dictionary. I found this this afternoon, under bibo (I drink): bibere naturae est, potare luxuriae. I cannot possibly translate this since, heretofore, I had not realised that there was a difference between the verbs. The Dictionary says that bibo is to drink from a natural thirst, whereas poto is to drink from passion, at leisure etc, although the latter is occasionally used in deference to water. Interestingly, over lunch this afternoon, Fr Finigan told me about the New Rite Offertory prayers, which in their Latin originals (seldom heard - I think that in my whole life I have attended only one New Rite Mass entirely in Latin, and I found it just as boring as the New Rite in English) describe the Chalice of Salvation as potus spiritualis (''spiritual drink''). I am not a clever Latinist but quite apart from the ambiguity of the term ''spiritual drink,'' I am not entirely satisfied with the rather carefree connotation potus seems to render the Precious Blood...since the Sacraments are things that we hunger and thirst after as things that we need, surely potus falls short of defining the Sacrament...
As I have said, I am a poor Latinist, and maybe there is no other word for it. No one else seems to have picked up on this though, even the SSPX. I have read lots of their stuff, and often it's very good, but I stopped reading their ''Problem of Liturgical Reform'' when they described the 1962 Missal as the last ''traditional'' edition. Why do so-called ''traditionalists'' (and the most famous ones) so often get in the way of real Tradition?
Why isn't it the 'last ''traditional'' edition'? The Novus Ordo is hardly "traditional"...
ReplyDelete"To drink is natural; to imbibe is luxury"?
ReplyDeleteThe 1962 books are not traditional at all. Bugnini and his other Modernist cronies were active long before the 1960s.
ReplyDeleteThe history of liturgical reform is a complex and rather sad affair which, arguably, goes back to around 1911 - although there were instances of tampering with the Liturgy before then, eg: an abridged form of the Blessing of Waters on the Vigil of the Epiphany was approved by the SRC in 1892; Leo XIII authorized priests to say a Votive Office in place of the long ferial in the 1880s (I would only appprove of this if the priest were a parish priest with endless other commitments, but I would rather the obligation were lightened). Urban VIII spurned the style of Latin used by the Western Fathers in his decision to match the metre of the Breviary hymns with a more Horatian style. The Tridentine reforms themselves (how I cringe when the 1962 liturgy is stupidly called the ''Tridentine Rite'' - this so-called rite hasn't been celebrated since the early 17th century...) were wide and wild, with the abolition of many Sequences proper to certain Feasts, a codified set of rubrics for Low Mass when the Council would have been better off doing away with Low Mass as a liturgical abuse and many things beside...the tale goes on...
The tricky part is finding a period in liturgical history where one feels most at home. I am certainly not happy with Missals and Breviaries, but then I like Psalm 42. I don't much like the Ecclesiastical style of pronouncing Latin, but then to change that would affect sacred music among other things...
There you go again with your "Low Mass = liturgical abuse" thing! Show me proof! ;-)
ReplyDeleteI appreciate what you say about Sequences and so forth. But, restoration has to go in small steps. I would still rather the '62 Missal as a so-called Tridentine rite (though, again I take your point there), than the hideous Novus Ordo Mess.
By the way, I was thinking about bibo vs. poto. Potare can be to drink deeply, in a "plumbing the depths" kind of way. Maybe the expression 'potus spiritualis' is not so far off the mark then. Yes, we need the Sacraments for their natural (as in immediate, ontological reality) ends, but maybe it is just far too profane to use a common verb like bibere.
A converse example can be found in German. One normally uses the verb "essen" for 'to eat', hence "man ißt" (one eats), but there is another verb "fressen", 'to eat' (but like an animal). So, if one wants to talk disparagingly about how someone or other gobbled/gorged, one says "man frißt" - utterly insulting!
Not sure what you mean when you say "The tricky part is finding a period in liturgical history", though. No-one has a time-machine. What's a real (i.e. possible) solution? Can we pray for 1) the shrivelling up and dessicating of the Novus Ordo, and then 2) a natural re-evaluation of the '62 Missal, and a restoration of all the bits that were far too much tampered with (I can name but a few on Palm Sunday!)...?
I stopped reading their ''Problem of Liturgical Reform'' when they described the 1962 Missal...
ReplyDeleteAt a tangent, my parting of the ways with the SSPX (and ultimately with the RCC) began with a reading of that strange work, eagerly downloaded in PDF format, printed out, and consumed with ever-decreasing relish in a West Midlands Travel Lodge. It's remarkable how many Trads continue to imagine that the SSPX care tuppence about the Liturgy. I was an active supporter for 25 years, through the consecrations and beyond, and I never got that until it was pointed out to me by an SSPX ex-Seminarian turned Eastern-rite monk.
"The Problem of the Liturgical Reform" is a real eye-opener on the extreme poverty and "parochialism" of their liturgical and sacramental theology. However, Patricius, it's a mistake to make their mistake of consigning everything inimical to the category of "Modernism". The stubborn fact (to which most of TradWorld remains wilfully blind) is that the vast majority of those responsible for the collapse of the Roman rite were not "modernists" at all, formally or materially. Now there's something worth exploring at length - if you're willing to be carried to where you'd rather not go...
Now there's something worth exploring at length - if you're willing to be carried to where you'd rather not go...
ReplyDeleteAre you seriously suggesting that this would lead anyone to consider to claims of so-called "Orthodoxy".
I love it how the "Orthodox" love to lecture Catholics on how philistine they are for changing their liturgical tradition when they have abandoned the apostolic teachings on divorce and birth control?
I would accept that point. Even the name "Society of St. Pius X" is rather ironic, seeing as St. Pius X himself was an archreformer. The same could be said of Pius XII and Mediator Dei (an encyclical which many Traditionalists champion but which is really part of the problem). The real problem is ultramontanism. Both St. Pius X and Pius XII were just as bad as Paul VI in this respect, indeed they set the example for Paul VI. Fortunately, Benedict XVI is really trying to put to rest such a mindset.
ReplyDeleteHester, my point was not a partisan one. I'm simply not interested in that kind of polemics. To answer directly the issues you raise I'd make the point that Orthodox criticism of Roman liturgical decadence has nothing whatever to do with "philistinism"; that the Orthodox canons relating to divorce are as old as Nicaea 1, and that artificial contraception is, in my direct experience, treated with deeper seriousness by Orthodox confessors than their RC counterparts, Humanae Vitae notwithstanding.
ReplyDeleteNo, I simply wanted to make the point that the familiar "Trad" narrative (SSPX-line in particular) is for the most part absurdly simplistic, and that the truth is a great deal murkier and more complex than the tired "Modernist vs. pre-Conciliar" dualism can accommodate; it raises implications that challenge a great many of TradWorld's cherished myths and attitudes (as Paul suggests above). That's why they'll never consent to address it dispassionately.
With regard to the potare / bibere question, I think Mark M is probably on the right track with the notion of 'drinking deeply'.
ReplyDeleteThis would also fit well with the line from the Anima Christi - 'Sanguis Christi, inebria me.' Clearly this is not intended to imply an association of the Precious Blood with drunkeness, but rather with being filled or overwhelmed by Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.
The SSPX like 99% of Traddieland plays the game that the Second Vatican Council and 'wicked modernists' were the cause of the liturgical mess the Western liturgy is in. It is a comforting game because to blame, as Paul Knight suggests above, some of the popes who directly caused so much wreckovation would be far too uncomfortable and disorienting particularly as two of them are now regarded as champions of 'tradition'.
ReplyDeleteThe malaise is much deeper I believe and involves the loss of liturgical consciousness in the West over many centuries.
In England at least the SSPX, or the St. Pius V Association as they were in the days of Fr. P.J. Morgan, started off well. Not a 1962 missal in sight as the old Holy Week ceremonies were celebrated in Highclere Village Hall and other now half-forgotten places. During Fr. Black's early tenure four psalm Compline was the order of the day. Then sadly came the 1983 betrayal of the old litury of received tradition and the imposition of novelties of the 1962 liturgical books... As Moretben has pointed out before the problem with the SSPX is not that they are radical it is that they were never radical enough. Now they are just another obstacle to Tradition, not a solution.
the problem with the SSPX is not that they are radical it is that they were never radical enough. Now they are just another obstacle to Tradition, not a solution.
ReplyDeleteBravo Rubricarius!
- and yes, I remember in the mid 80's we used still to have the three collects, the vigils and octaves; I remember a very young Fr Simenon explaining why we always had Benedicamus Domino when in violet; I remember an entire pre-Pius XII Triduum in a front room in St Leonards-on-Sea (Holy Fire kindled in the back garden)! It seems to have become rigidly '62 only after the Consecrations IIRC. The Winona lot care for nothing but Low Mass and the "Social Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ".
It's rather odd in my opinion that a passing comment should generate so many comments, while whole other posts (eg: my Tolkien posts) are left ignored...
ReplyDeleteBut I ask questions about Liturgy and so I guess I should expect answers...
Well, I don't have an iPhone and I'm not at all interested in Tolkein - but I do have form as a Trad. That's the button you pushed. ;o)
ReplyDeleteI don't have an iPhone either (and confess to not knowing really what one is) but do have a liking for Tolkien. I had form too for being a Trad but my liturgy button was pressed.
ReplyDeleteYour posts on Tolkien are wonderful, but they are complete without comment. Hence I certainly don't comment.
ReplyDelete