Chairman's Blog
Evangelising the Culture: guest post
Evangelising the Culture: The Great Commission for Traditional Catholics
By Mike Carrol, LMS Representative for Lincolnshire.
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| Titian: great art still evangelising after five centuries. Seen by SCT Summer School pupils in 2016. |
It is now ten years since Summorum Pontificum and it is now time for those within the traditional Latin Mass community to collectively use the great virtue of prudence to transmit the message of the Gospel into the culture and society. It is time to evangelise the culture. The great virtue of prudence gives us foresight and the mental and spiritual means of achieving even the most great and overarching goals. After we sanctify ourselves and our families through the Latin Mass, devotions, mortification, and dieing to self by way of The Imitation, we have one Great Commission left which to evangelise. Our traditional message can no longer be kept under a bushel. Christ's light must once again enlighten a society which is groaning under the weight of sin and a dystopian nightmare.
It is now the responsibility of traditionists to evangelise the culture, because since Vatican II we have not collectively as a Church become the Lumen Gentium as was predicted by the council. The great hope was that the faithful would also become 'The Light of the Nations' and that the faith would be transmitted into society from the bottom up, but this never happened.
Firstly there is our personal duty. It has been noted elsewhere that true evangelisation is a consequence not a program. The renewal of the Church, the culture, and our broken society will not come about by plans and structures, but by holiness of life. What is required is the sort of mortifications taught us by St. Thomas A Kempis, St. Francis de Sales, St. Therese of Lisieux and Christ Himself, when He said "Go and sin no more". In order to transmit the Gospel to the men and women of today we must first become a holy people.
Secondly, there are those of an artistic, cultural, and literary ilk whom with great transcendant skills whom, with a girding of grace from God, can transmit great works of literary, cultural, and artistic merit from the top down. The airwaves, the broadcasting media, our libraries, and galleries can be transformed into conduits of God's grace through high artistic endeavours.
As Archbishop Gomez eloquently put it, "Catholicism creates a culture. Catholicism is a way of living born from the encounter with a divine person, Jesus of Nazareth, who is the Word of God and the Son of God humbling himself to come among us in human form. With the incarnation, the world becomes charged with the grandeur of God."
Since the fruits of Vatican II have so far not provided the solutions to transmit the faith into the culture, the responsibility now falls on tradition to enlighten the world and bring Christ to the world once again. This message must be transmitted into the culture from the top down, starting with the high culture.
Archbishop Gomez goes on to say...
"For nearly 20 centuries, the world’s greatest artists were inspired by religious themes. By the search for God in a fallen world and by the great questions of human existence — who are we, where do we come from, why do we suffer and what is it that truly matters?... The people of our times are not satisfied by the temporary consolations and diversions of our consumer, secular society. Their hearts are troubled. They are restless to know that their life has value and meaning. They want to know love and wholeness and community. They want to know that there is something that lies beyond here, something more than this life. So let us pray for artists and writers, students, teachers, critics and readers."
This revolution will only come from individuals and brave souls who are willing to step up to the plate in mortification and from the fullness of grace that flows from tradition and the Latin Mass. It will take courage of individuals, but it is clear that there should now be a clarion call to transmit the goodness, beauty, and truths of Our Lord Jesus Christ into the culture and wider society.
Rosary on the Coast
Letter from the General Secretary of the Bishops’ Conference of England & Wales, with the good wishes and prayers of Cardinal Nichols for this act of witness, and stating that Mgr. Armitage and Fr. Harries from the two National Shrines of Our Lady have recommended the project, and that the Bishops Conference of Scotland have given it a strong endorsement.
3 min YouTube with message of support from Bishop John Keenan of Paisley, Scotland
Interactive map with many locations already registered
Form to sign up a new Location, and link to sign up for email updates
Rosary on the Coast logo to use on any local event promotional material
A schedule of National Preparations from 1st March - Feast of St David, Patron of Wales
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Chartres Pilgrimage: booking open
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| British pilgrims setting off from Notre Dame in Paris in 2014 |
From Francis Carey, Chartres UK.
The 25th British Pilgrimage leaves London on Friday, 18 May 2018 at 7:30 AM. (There will be a Mass of Departure in Westminster Cathedral Crypt at 7:00 AM). The Registration Form (attached/enclosed) should be completed and returned with a deposit of £50 per person to reserve your place. Payment in full by 25 March 2018 (Palm Sunday this year) please. We arrive back in London about 8PM on the following Tuesday, 22 May 2018. Following the Mass before departure; we take the Ferry to France; overnight stay Friday at the Hotel ibis, Aulnay sous Bois; 3 days of Pilgrimage; a hot meal and overnight stay in Chartres (L’Hotel); Mass in Chartres Cathedral Crypt; and return via Eurotunnel to London. We have decided to maintain the cost at £275.00 (£140.00 for Children under 12). Preliminary information is contained in the attached/enclosed sheet.
We will have one Youth chapter (ages 13-30) dedicated to St. Alban and one chapter (Our Lady of Walsingham) for everyone else! Please note that we have been unable to obtain our usual allocation of rooms in our hotel in Chartres and, therefore, there will be very few single rooms available. A single room in the Paris hotel only will be at a supplement of £30.00.
Further information and updates may be posted to our website, www.chartresuk.blogspot.com. Please contact us for any further information on email: Chartres@duc-in-altum.co.uk. We look forward to seeing you on the road to Chartres, Deo volente!
Video from the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest
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An attack on older Traditionalists in the Catholic Herald
I'm cross-posting this from Rorate Caeli.
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| Davis in the Catholic Herald |
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| 2nd snippet |
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| 3rd snippet. |
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Vestment repair day in the LMS Office
From the Guild of St Clare.
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The Guild of St Clare has been asked to repair some vestments for the Latin Mass Society. These repairs will need to be undertaken in the LMS's office, in central London. We have arranged two dates when we will do this work: the 21st April and the 12th May, between the hours of 10am and 4pm. Lunch will be provided.
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| This violet High Mass Set is among the things needing attention |
If you would like to join us, or want to know more about the details, please email me at lucyashaw@gmail.com. Space in the LMS office is fairly limited, so we need to know how many people are planning to come.
The Office is at 11 - 13 Macklin Street LONDON WC2B 5NH
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LMS Pilgrimage to Caversham this Saturday, 24th Feb
Our Lady and St Anne, 2 South View Avenue, Caversham RG4 5AB. (Click for a map.)
High Mass at 11:30am followed by buffet lunch in the parish room.
Mass will be celebrated by Fr Anthony Conlon, assisted by Fr Gabriel Diaz and Fr James Mawdsley FSSP.
Mass will be offered for the Irish abortion referendum.
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Chair of St Peter: Sung Mass in Didcot
Church of English Martyrs, 15 Manor Crescent, Didcot OX11 7AJ (click for a map)
Sung Mass at 7:30pm, Thursday 22nd February 2018.
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Call for Masses for Ireland's referendum
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| A Dominican Rite High Mass in the Priory of the Holy Spirit (Blackfriars), Oxford |
Latin Mass / Una Voce groups throughout Britain and Ireland call for Masses to be offered for the Irish abortion referendum
Many readers will have heard of the attack on the unborn currently being planned in Ireland. The background is that in 1983, in the context of fears that Ireland’s historic legal protection of the unborn would be undermined by the courts, the Irish voted to amend their constitution—the Eighth Amendment—as follows:
The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.
A referendum is now being planned to abolish this amendment. This will take place in late May or early June.
Ireland’s protection of the unborn is of special significance because it is unique in Europe, and among ‘developed’ countries in general. It is therefore a test case for the argument, so often made, that abortion is necessary for the safety of mothers. In fact Ireland has one of the best records for maternal mortality in the world, a fact deeply embarrassing to the abortion industry. Abortion is not necessary for the protection of women’s health, but indeed is a direct attack on it.
In response to this threat, four affiliates of the Una Voce Federation in the British Isles have come together to appeal for Masses to be said for this intention. Ireland has two national associations: the older Latin Mass Society of Ireland, and the more recently founded Una Voce Ireland. They are joined by Una Voce Scotland, and the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales.
The act of abortion, the direct killing of an innocent person, is never permissible. Many pro-life groups are engaged in valiant campaigns to educate people on the reality of abortion and its effects. The role of God’s grace is recognised too in the prayer campaigns which have commenced. What better way to implore God’s grace than to offer the ultimate prayer, the Mass, in its most worthy form – to implore Almighty God to enlighten Irish citizens so that we better understand and fight this evil, which not only kills the bodies of our unborn brethren, but deprives their souls of baptism, the gateway to spiritual life (vitae spiritualis ianua)? (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1213, quoting the Council of Florence).
The significance of this referendum is world-wide. Over many decades, Ireland has demonstrated that a developed nation can protect the unborn and mothers at the same time, with one of the best records for maternal mortality in the world, giving the lie to the claim that access to abortion is necessary for the protection of women.
This is an issue which is close to hearts of our members and supporters, who are well represented in the Pro-Life movement.
It behoves us as Catholics to pray and offer Masses to protect our brothers and sisters in Ireland.
Masses to be offered for this intention include the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales’ annual Pilgrimage to Our Lady of Caversham, in Reading, on Saturday 24th February, and its annual Pilgrimage to Preston on Saturday 5th May.
The Dominicans of Holy Cross, Leicester, will be offering a Novena of Masses for this intention culminating on the Feast of St Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on 19th March.
We hope readers will feel inspired to add their own Masses, prayers, and sacrifices for this important intention.
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Support the polyphony database today!
Today is the last day of a Crowdfunder initiative to support a project to digitise a huge database of early Sacred Polyphony, to be provided free for scholars and musicians. Not only is it worthy of support, but the 'benefits' you can claim for donations are fantastic!
Some details below. Go to the Crowdfunder page.
What is the Polyphony Database?
- To assist performers, directors, and editors by cataloguing the contents of primary sources, source concordances, and basic information about how each piece of music can be performed.
- To provide a reliable starting point for academic research by linking to library catalogues, other existing databases, and facsimile images of early music manuscripts and prints.
- To provide a repository for properly sourced critical editions, performing scores, and recordings of as much of this music as possible, each carefully vetted for typesetting quality and accuracy, and made available for free download, so that this music might be discovered and appreciated by a wider audience.
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Ten Weeks in Africa: review
The stories about Oxfam and Unicef stimulate me to repost this, from October 2012. The book I'm talking about is more prescient than I realised. Buy the book here.
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Ten Weeks in Africa by JM Shaw (my brother) has been reviewed by Charles Moore. Read the review here.
The novel has turned out to extremely topical, with a series of stories appearing about how aid is misspent. Here's Charles Moore:
But the point to understand about international development, at least as it is usually conducted between modern states, is that it cannot achieve its intended results. Just now, this paper’s Sunday sister has been running some splendid stories of aid money wasted on tourist projects and overpaid consultants; much of it is commandeered by the European Union for unworthy causes. It is good to expose such things. But this novel looks at the question even more radically.
People often say that if only more were done to “get rid of corruption” then aid would be wonderful. What they miss is that aid is the greatest stimulant to corruption offered by rich countries to poor ones. It is an uncovenanted, and often unaudited, blessing for those who already have power, and therefore — because the recipient countries are kleptocracies — a curse for the people they rule.
The point is that aid, rather like diamonds or oil wealth, isn't just spoilt by corruption, it creates and sustains corruption. It also creates and sustains famine and war. Which isn't to say that it can and does do good. But there isn't a sharp contrast between 'good' aid and 'bad' aid: aid does bad, sometimes, because it does good: because people benefit from it, say in a refugee camp, people can leave their homes to go it. Again, it can do good, sometimes, because it is addressing a bad situation which it has created: having created a dependency, yes indeed the people really do need it to survive.
As I read the book I wondered about how people in these desperate situations can really be helped, and how the saints of the past, and present, in the Church, have gone about it. How did St Francis, or the Jesuits in the 17th Century, or Mother Theresa, do it? Part of the answer is the solidarity with the poor which they exemplified. They didn't swank about in Toyota Landcruisers and live in air-conditioned hotels, and throw handfuls of bank-notes to the beggars - or the equivalent. They became poor themselves to help the poor. Instead of representing an opportunity for graft, kidnapping, theft, corruption, and fraud, by coming into a situation with resources beyond the dreams of anyone they met, they addressed the poor personally, by service. They came to understand their needs, and yes of course they took money from donors and spent it on useful things like orphanages, but that was not the whole of what they were about, and when they did it they did it on the basis of a real knowledge of the people they were helping, and how they could be helped. And they didn't leave after three months to move on to another prestigious project, leaving everything they had done to be destroyed. If necessary they stayed with their adopted people and faced death from wars and persecutors. This is something, of course, which consecrated religious can do more easily than married people with children to think about.
Oh yes the aid workers the West sends out are very generous with their time and effort, and they really care about the people they want to help. But if they fail it is partly because they are giving their time, but not themselves.