Friday, September 24, 2010
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
Sacred Liturgy
Communio has a great posting on the need for the faithful to reclaim their sense of mystery and awe at the power of the Sacred Liturgy of the Church. In this Liturgy, we as a people of faith, truly and wholly encounter the Paschal Mystery of Christ and we are subsequently drawn into His saving Mission of Redemption and Communion.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Seasons of Change & Transition
Well, another academic year has begun in full force at the Seminary and at Cabrini College. Our seminarians and Br. Dominic have begun their respective academic rigor. Added to the community at the Monastery of Our Lady of Mercy, in Philadelphia, are 3 new postulants. Josiah Ross, Joe Potillor, Jr, and Michael Bowes have survived week 1 of their Postulancy. They have settled into their classes at the seminary -- 1 College and 1 Pre-Theology, respectively. Br. Dominic has, likewise, enthusiastically begun his Junior year at Cabrini College. Our own Br. Daniel has been inaugurated into the tiresome and intensely stressful 2nd Theology, while our "senior" seminarian students -- Br. David and Br. James -- have gladly accepted the rather, easy, 4th year of Theology. Please keep our men in your daily prayers....
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Archbishop Burke clarifies the roles of girls and Catholic lay faithful!!!
.- The rights of girls and Catholic lay faithful to carry out certain roles on the altar are not prescribed as "rights" within the Church, according to the Church's top legal authority, Archbishop Raymond Burke. The statement came in a clarification he wrote about the consequences of the reintroduction of the Latin Rite Mass by Pope Benedict.
The Catholic Church of Germany recently printed a commentary on the application of Benedict XVI's 2007 motu proprio, "Summorum Pontificum," which made Pope St. Pius V's Latin Rite Mass more widely available. In the preface of the volume, printed for the third anniversary of the motu proprio, Archbishop Raymond Burke clarified some confusion about the legislation's practical use.
Archbishop Burke is the prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, which is often described as the supreme court of the Catholic Church.
According to Vatican Radio, the archbishop explained in the preface that due to the motu proprio's papal origins, it is not just an act of legislation brought about as a "favor" to a specific group for the celebration of the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite, the Mass in Latin, but one that applies to the entire Church.
Archbishop Burke wrote, "it is about a law whose finality is the protection and promotion of the life of all the mystical body of Christ and the maximum expression of this life, that is to say, the Sacred Liturgy."
It implies an obligation of the Church "to preserve liturgical tradition and maintain the legitimate celebration of both forms of the Roman Rite, that preceding the Second Vatican Council and that which followed it," he said.
Archbishop Burke pointed out that the Holy Father himself explained that for the communion of the Church in the past and the future, "universally accepted uses of uninterrupted apostolic tradition" must be observed.
This, he he pointed out should be done "not only to avoid errors, but also to transmit the integrity of the faith, so that the law of the prayer of the Church might correspond to her law of faith."
The American archbishop went on to point out that certain elements may need to be clarified in this regard. For example, he wrote, among the "rights" of the baptized, assistance by "persons of the feminine sex" at the altar is not included. Additionally, serving as a lector or as an extraordinary distribution of communion is not a right of the laity, he noted.
As such, out of respect for the integrity of the liturgical discipline within the Roman Missal of 1962, these more modern modifications are not observed in the extraordinary form.
This clarification comes just a week after L'Osservatore Romano writer Lucetta Scaraffia published an article on the altar server pilgrimage to the Vatican which drew thousands of boys and girls alike. She drew some attention as she proposed that the introduction of girls into the position of serving at the altar "meant the end of every attribution of impurity to their sex ... it meant a different attention to the liturgy and an approach to the faith in bringing it near to their very hearts."
Archbishop Burke clarified, however, that the reality of the matter is that neither the presence of girls at the altar, nor the participation of lay faithful "belong to the fundamental rights of the baptized."
Courtesy of:
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/lay-eucharistic-ministers-not-entitled-to-position-archbishop-burke-clarifies/
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