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The Most Essential Question of Every Liturgy – A Meditation on a Teaching From Joseph Ratzinger Msgr. Charles Pope • July 5, 2015 • There is a legend of how the liturgy and the Faith took hold in Rus (Russia). Prince Vladimir of Kiev was seeking a right worship for his people and sent representatives to look into various faiths and also liturgies. When emissaries went south to observe the Greek Christian Liturgy, they returned saying that they were not sure if they had been in Heaven or on Earth, so beautiful was what they had seen in the Hagia Sophia in...

Necessity of Mass While the faithful are obligated to attend Mass, the compulsion to do so shouldn’t take away the joy Msgr. Charles Pope OSV Newsweekly5/20/2015 Question: I wonder if the blessing of attending Mass would be greater if we didn’t compel Catholics to attend. Further, keeping the Lord’s Day holy is about 24 hours, not just one hour.— William Bandle, Manchester, MissouriAnswer: I am not sure on what basis you say blessings would be greater. Perhaps you mean that someone who joyfully attends Mass enhances both the experience of the one who attends and the communal experience of...

I was sixteen years old when the concept of the Transubstantiation became clearer to me.  Until that time, I attended Mass with my parents half-heartedly and out of obligation.  It wasn’t until I left my Catholic elementary school only to enter the cesspool of public high school, riddled with all varieties of unbelievers and even some colorful Satanists, that I began to question what I believed and why in terms of religion.My parents reluctantly permitted me to attend a megachurch youth group with my closest friends from school, as long as I agreed to continue attending Mass on the weekends...

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the close of the Second Vatican Council. Pope Francis has decided to mark the occasion with the “Year of Mercy.” Despite much happy-talk and positive papal press, it is a time of foreboding in the Church. The anxiety over the coming Synod on the Family is substantial and growing, with the German bishops’ recent moves to formally ignore the Church’s teachings on sexual morality and the family. Their corruption, and the decayed state of the Church in Europe, is a source of much distress.The social and political situation in the United States is...

A Reflection on the “Prayer of the Faithful” at Mass and Why The Intentions Are So Often Disappointing By: Msgr. Charles PopeOne of the parts of the Ordinary Form of the Mass that was “restored” from antiquity is the “Prayer of the Faithful.” However, there is (in this author’s mind) a certain disappointing quality to the intentions as they are used today. They are either overly particular and ideological or, at the other end of the spectrum, perfunctory and flat. Peter Kwasniewski, writing at New Liturgical Movement, summarizes the problem very well: It is surely no exaggeration to say that throughout the world the...

Featured Term selected at random:LITURGICAL KISS Touching with the lips as a mark of reverence during ceremonies of public worship. The frequency of this gesture has been reduced since the Second Vatican Council, but it is still prescribed. The priest must kiss the altar as he begins and concludes the Mass, and he is to kiss the lectionary after reading the Gospel. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

The Heavenly Elements of the LiturgyBy: Msgr. Charles PopeIn November, Catholics are encouraged to meditate on the “Last Things.” As you know, I write quite often on Hell. But I have written on Heaven, too. In this post I propose simply to set forth how much of our liturgy is a kind of dress rehearsal for Heaven.Indeed, Catholics are often unaware just how biblical the Sacred Liturgy is. The design of our traditional churches; the use of candles, incense, and golden vessels; the postures of standing and kneeling; the altar; the singing of hymns; priests wearing albs and so forth are...

Lost Liturgies File and an Invitation: Solemn Sunday Vespers By: Msgr. Charles Pope One of the fixtures of larger parish churches prior to the last century was the singing of Vespers (evening prayer) on Sunday afternoons. Prior to the 1950s, Masses were not permitted to be celebrated after 12:00 noon and thus the concept of a Sunday (or Saturday) evening Mass was unknown. Some very beautiful music, indeed some of the greatest music of the Church, was composed for Sunday Vespers. Best known is the 1610 Vespers of Claudio Monteverdi (Vespro della Beata Vergine). Monteverdi (a Catholic priest and composer) also composed the...

Ad Orientem and why we should go back to it  Ad Orientem is a liturgical orientation done by the priest since the Early Christian Church. It has held a historical and traditional way in which priests would celebrate Mass in the Roman Rite. This liturgical position and action are still celebrated in the Tridentine Latin Mass (Extraordinary Form), as well as in the Dominican and Norbertine Rites, as well as several others. It has however sadly lost practice and has been abandoned in most of the Novus Ordo (Ordinary Form)This article will help explain the historical, and theological significance, its...

Scenes from the Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified Gifts on the First Wednesday of Great Lent at the Optina Monastery. (Church Slavonic)

Today is the first day of Lent for Orthodox Christians. During Clean Week there are many special services of which one of the most important is The Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, also known as The Great Canon of Repentance. It is a penitential hymn, the longest ever composed, that is chanted in monasteries on Clean Monday. Because of its great length it is usually broken up in parishes and chanted over the first four days of Lent as part of Great Compline. The linked video is from one of those services. This particular rendition is entirely in...

Remember That Thou Art Dust David Mills Ash Wednesday is the holy day on which you are asked to face the facts about yourself. Letting someone smear ashes on your forehead while telling you that you are dirt is a statement that you have seen and accepted the facts about yourself, and know they’re not in your favor. And, though this isn’t as obvious, it is also a declaration of the good news.The Church doesn’t give official explanations of what her rites mean, but here’s what I think what is being said through the imposition of ashes. Even if this...

How to Save the World, God’s Way – A Reflection on a Liturgical Teaching of Pope Benedict By: Msgr. Charles Pope Whenever I write on liturgy, I usually get a lot of comments. Many people obviously care deeply about it.Yet I also get comments that decry my “preoccupation” with liturgy, saying that it is of minor importance compared to the issues of poverty, abortion, etc. Some on the left will say, “Who cares if the Pope washes certain feet or doesn’t wear a fanon! Get out there and take care of the poor and show compassion. Frankly, your elaborate and expensive liturgies are...

A Portrait of Powerful Preaching – A Homily for the 4th Sunday of the Year By: Msgr. Charles Pope There are four aspects of powerful preaching displayed by Jesus in this passage. Jesus is not just a powerful preacher Himself, but also models what it means to be a powerful and effective preacher.In using the word “preacher” here we ought to be careful not to reduce preaching merely to what takes place in a church. For surely the clergy have churches in which to preach. But all Catholic parents ought also to learn from Jesus here, for they have...

A Look at the “Actual Mass” of Vatican II: the 1965 Missal By: Msgr. Charles PopeA couple of weeks ago I wrote a cautionary article aimed at my traditionally-minded brethren saying, among other things, that we ought to be careful in identifying the Ordinary Form of the Mass (1970 Missal and beyond) as the “Mass of Vatican II.”  I will not reproduce that whole article here. I will only recall three points:1. The Mass was already undergoing significant changes, beginning in the 1940s and picking up speed through the 1950s. More changes were planned by the Vatican before the Second Vatican...

My Roman Catholic friend, Michael Liccione, has written on his Facebook page that "the main disagreement among American Catholics is not about whether we should believe 'all that the Holy Catholic Church believes, professes, and teaches,' but which teachings we may safely disbelieve." I responded, "Aggiornamento has that effect on us! There is an interesting parallel between the Roman Catholic Church in the USA and the Anglicans in the USA in that liturgical reform suggested to many that the historic Catholic faith had changed. The Vatican II liturgical changes and the Episcopal Church's 1979 prayer book changed words and forms....

O magnum mysterium,et admirabile sacramentum,ut animalia viderent Dominum natum,iacentem in praesepio:Beata Virgo, cuius viscerameruerunt portare Dominum Christum.What a great mystery,what a wonderful sign,that animals should see the Lord, new-born,lying in a manger!Blessed is the Virgin, whose wombwas privileged to carry Christ the Lord.      ∼  From the Roman Breviary, the Matins of ChristmasWe’re in Rome, in the year 1572. The great Pope Pius V has passed to glory. Just one year before, the naval forces of the Holy League had crushed the superior fleets of the ever-marauding Turks at Lepanto, giving maritime Europe a chance to breathe free...

Strange Moments In Liturgical History – How a Paragon of Liturgical Tradition May Have Caused Unintended Effects By: Msgr. Charles PopeIn the modern struggles and disagreements over the Liturgy, there tends to be a list of friends and opponents depending on one’s stance. For those of us with a more traditional leaning, Pope St. Pius X looms large as a friend and an image of tradition. He is usually seen as a defender of the tradition and a great proponent of what is called today the Extraordinary Form or Traditional Latin Mass (TLM)—so much so that the Society of...

Don’t Forget to Worship God! A Call to Better Liturgy from an Unlikely Source By: Msgr. Charles Pope We have discussed before many of the trends of modern liturgy and how the focus has shifted from God to the “assembly.” Too much of modern liturgy today is anthropocentric (focused on man).Back in the 1990’s, Thomas Day observed in the book Why Catholics Can’t Sing, that liturgy today often comes down  to “the aware, gathered community, celebrating itself.” Many modern songs go on at great length about how we are the gathered, we are the flock, we have been sung throughout all of...

Hearts Aloft! A Reflection on our Mystical Transport to Heaven in Every Mass By: Msgr. Charles PopeBefore November ends and our consideration of the four last things (death, judgment, Heaven, and Hell) gives way to Advent preparations for the great Second Coming that ushers in those things definitively,  let us turn our attention to a short, often-overlooked summons to Heaven that takes place in every Mass. It takes place in a short dialogue just after the prayer over the gifts and before the singing of the Sanctus. It is called the “preface dialogue” and it is really quite remarkable...