The Hermeneutic of Continuity

Just a quick post after today's magnificent celebration of Pontifical Mass at the Basilica of St John Lateran, celebrated by Cardinal Canizares Llovera. I had the great honour of being subdeacon for the Mass. There will be some pictures fairly soon so I hope to be able to share those with you tomorrow. NLM has the text of Mgr Guido Marini's talk from yesterday: Introduction to the Spirit of the Liturgy . They also have photos from the Mass with Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos in the ordinary form at Santa Maria in Trastevere (including the above). Tomorrow morning, we have Mass (ordinary form) with Archbishop Raymobnd Burke in St Peter's Basilica, followed by a trip out to Bagno Regio, the birthplace of St Bonaventure.

Fr Armand de Malleray FSSP will be giving a retreat for Clergy from Monday 13 July (3pm) to Thursday 16 July (12noon) at Douai Abbey in Berkshire, on the theme ”The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and our priestly identification to Christ.” The retreat celebrates the Year of the priesthood with St John Mary Vianney, Curé of Ars. This will be a silent retreat with reading at meals related to the theme of the retreat. There are full details at the website for the FSSP in Great Britain . Donations are invited to help clergy attend the retreat: cheques should be payable to ”FSSP England” and sent to Fr Armand de Malleray, FSSP, 179 Elgar Rd, Reading RG2 0DH, Berks. (Please mention ”Retreat Sponsoring”.)

There are some places left on a Spiritual and Liturgical Retreat for priests, organised by the Society of St Catherine of Siena, to be held at the Abbey of Sainte-Madeleine du Barroux, from 25th to 29th May 2009. The theme of the retreat will be ‘The Monastic Heart in the Everyday Life of a Priest’. The foundation and growth of this Benedictine monastery has been one of the remarkable stories of faith arising in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. The courage of its founder, Dom Gérard Calvet who died only last year, has been richly rewarded in the establishment of what is now an active and thriving community of young monks. Full details can be found on the monastery website . Retreatants will share the life of the community, joining them for the glories of the traditional monastic office and Conventual Mass and taking meals with the monks in the monastic refectory. There will be a series of spiritual conferences which will include the insights of members of the monastic communi...

The other day, Shawn Tribe at NLM posted a question from a young man soon to enter the seminary. See: Question from a Seminarian: Where to Get a Good Cassock? The readership were invited to contribute their expertise and there are now well over 50 comments, so if you are asking yourself the same question, that is a good place to start.

A correspondent recently found the text of this letter from Cardinal Ugo Poletti which was published in 1982. It promulgates norms approved by Pope John Paul II regarding the wearing of clerical dress in the Diocese of Rome. The most striking provision was his requirement that those who had received "candidacy" should wear clerical dress. In many seminaries, including my own, this was actually forbidden. I remember the afternoon that the news appeared in the Italian edition of L'Osservatore Romano which a priest studying canon law gleefully showed to myself and a good friend who had been made "candidates" earlier in the year. The following morning, we came down to chapel in clerical dress. It may not seem much in hindsight but it was a very controversial matter at the time. My correspondent kindly typed out the letter and suggested that I should post it so that others would not have to undertake the lengthy search that he did. I am very happy to oblige. Sources...

My attention has been drawn to a website that offers Fair Trade clergy shirts . Currently, only the "tunnel collar" variety are available: I have been criticised for wearing these. I certainly would not wear blue jeans and a white belt, though (I hope they are Fair Trade too.) It does seem that christian charitable organisations have assumed that there is no discussion needed about the merits of the Fair Trade movement which has drawn criticism from both ends of the political spectrum. At Wikipedia there is a comprehensive article on the Fair Trade Debate with criticisms and responses so that you can begin to make a judgement about the matter.