Saturday, March 26, 2016

Roman Easter Vigil of Year of Mercy

Go to the seventh reading Ezekiel 36:16-17a, 18-28
Very movingly done in English by an apparently autistic lady.
Better than Latin!
I always love the new Exsultet chanted in Latin.

Not to be critical, but you would think that after two thousand years the Vatican should know well how to handle candles! The Paschal candle went out before the first "Lumen Christi!" And the altar boys could not light the first altar candle during the entire "Gloria!" Let us call it emblematic of  the post Vatican II liturgical sloppiness, even at the Vatican. It betrays a lack of brains or gravitas or both.

The Deacon is chanting the triple Easter Vigil "Alleluia" which I recall in the past Pope Benedict himself doing, very movingly.

So far the Mass' use of Latin seems very appropriate, i.e. the Holy Father gives instructions in vernacular (Italian) and all the formal prayers of the Liturgy are in Latin. Readings in vernacular and all chant in Latin! Excellent. Exemplary for every Cathedral and Shrine (and dare I say Parish and Chapel) in the world.

Gospel chanted in Latin.

Quite the baptismal font!

As I have noted before, the Papacy has greatly improved Bergoglio's Latin. He is much more at ease in it after three years of using it again. You can tell he understands what he is saying and does so with deliberately. The question is this, why should a priest, a bishop, and a cardinal neglect this primary liturgical, theological, and philosophical Catholic language and only feel compelled to use it for the papacy?

His Holiness should have used Latin, the Church's universal tongue, to address that international body of catechumens and to interrogate them for the sacramental ritual. A typical modernist mistake.