To elaborate on the Magisterium of the Catholic Church is our mission on Plinthos (Gk. "brick"); and to do so anonymously, so that, like any brick in the wall, we might do our little part in the strength of the structure of humanity almost unnoticed.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Random Advice on Liturgically Accenting the Upcoming Year of Faith (11 October 2012 - 24 November 2013)
Laymen
Receive communion (daily, if possible) only kneeling and on the tongue and only from an ordained minister. Promote and frequent the Traditional Latin Mass. Make at least a daily visit to the Most Blessed Sacrament and get to confession every week. And pray the daily family Rosary celeriter!
Priests
Learn to offer the Traditional Latin Mass and offer it as often as possible. Encourage the laity to kneel for communion and to receive directly on the tongue and to refuse to unnecessarily receive the Sacrament from lay people, and to frequent and promote the Traditional Latin Mass.
Pastors and Chaplains
Restore the Tabernacle to front and center.
Restore the high altar of your Parish (if it had one) making a worthy mensa for it if it was destroyed and exclusively use that restored ad orientem altar during this year of faith to accent the hermeneutic of continuity (continuity with our fathers' faith who built these precious churches and altars all over our land, and continuity with the fathers of the Second Vatican Council all of whom offered the Mass ad orientem on the most venerable altars of the Vatican throughout the Council itself!).
Restore the Communion rails and have cushions made for them for the convenience of the faithful to again receive at the altar on their knees during this year of faith. Encourage them to do so, and only on the tongue. The Communion rail is so efficient that you will not need any help besides the clerics of the parish to distribute Communion in most cases.
To ensure that everyone receive only on the tongue you can distribute the host by intinction and thereby also eliminate the unnecessary and ubiquitous Communion "cup"!
Construct traditional confessionals to eliminate the problematic and ubiquitous confessional room and "face to face" confession, which will also help to "protect God's children"...and God's priests!
Learn to offer the Traditional Latin Mass and do so as often as possible.
Schedule and you yourself offer at least on public Traditional Latin Mass (preferably at least a Missa Cantata if not a High Mass) per month (if not weekly or even daily!) and promote it.
Give Gregorian chant its Vatican II "pride of place" alongside sacred Latin Polyphony in all of the Parish ceremonies. Send your choir directors to the Musica Sacra annual gregorian chant and polyphony Colloquium.
Bishops
Learn to offer the Traditional Latin Mass and do so as often as possible, and participate in Pontifical Masses as often as possible. Defend, promote and use the Extraordinary Form rituals.
Bishop Ordinaries
Learn to offer the Traditional Latin Mass and do so as often as possible, and participate in Pontifical Masses as often as possible. Make them happen!
Establish (at least) a weekly traditional Mass at the Cathedral and offer it yourself at least monthly.
Restore the tabernacle to front and center in the Cathedral.
Restore the communion rail and its use, encouraging all of the people of the diocese to receive kneeling and directly on the tongue. You yourself follow the example of Pope Benedict and only distribute communion that way, to the kneeling communicant on the tongue. Have the priests of the Cathedral be the exclusive ministers of holy communion in the Cathedral, the clerics of the parish coming out to help with the distribution as necessary.
Give Gregorian chant its Vatican II "pride of place" alongside sacred Latin Polyphony in all of the Cathedral ceremonies. Send your choir directors to the Musica Sacra annual gregorian chant and polyphony Colloquium.
Restore traditional confessionals to your cathedral and eliminate the ubiquitous face to face confessional room which is a problem that has already happened! Help protect God's children and God's priest by reestablishing the age old norm of no priest behind a closed door alone with a woman or a child!
Establish at least one diocesan parish for exclusive use of the Extraordinary Form Rituals.
Firmly require all of the priests and religious within your diocese to always wear their proper clerical and religious attire in public and in the parish and establish and enforce a stiff fine (e.g. $300.00) for each infraction.
Just some random thoughts on how to concretely exercise more deeply our liturgical piety under the rubric of Pope Benedict's "hermeneutic of continuity" and the present "reform of the reform." The year of faith should look and feel like a year of faith: the faith of our fathers, the faith of Pope Benedict XVI, which is the one and only faith of the Church. If we do these simple things we will do much in the exercise of our religious liberty with supreme clarity and thereby change the world regardless of who is president and what laws he enacts. Remember that the purpose of religious liberty is to rightly worship God according to our Tradition under His commands.