News Item: : A Day Without the Mass?
(Category: Torch of The Faith News)
Posted by admin
Wednesday 26 April 2017 - 11:50:31

Among the many great words uttered by St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina during his earthly life, there are two that have always stood out particularly for me.

The first is the great saint's reminder to, ''always stay close to the Catholic Church, as it alone can give you true peace; because it alone possesses Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, Who is the true Prince of Peace.''

The second is St. Pio's stark warning that ''it would be easier for the world to survive without the sun, than to do without Holy Mass.''

Our Blessed Lord instituted the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and instructed His Church to ''Do this in remembrance of me'' down through all the ages until the end of time. In truth, the Holy Mass is the centre of all that exists in this world. To paraphrase T.S. Eliot, the Mass is that ''still point of the turning world''.

As I noted last September, in an article entitled Satan's War on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, St. Alphonsus de Liguori left a clear warning on this important theme.

He wrote: ''The Devil has always attempted, by means of heretics, to deprive the world of the Mass, making them precursors of the Antichrist, who before anything else, will try to abolish, and actually will abolish the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, as a punishment for the sins of men, according to the prediction of Daniel, 'And strength was given him against the continual sacrifice' (Daniel 8:12).''

If you've read that earlier article, you will recall that I had spoken there of how orthodox students were persecuted for their love of the Holy Mass at Ushaw seminary in the 1990's; and how a key member of the seminary staff had even been firmly pushing for a ''Mass-free ecumenical day to celebrate the Year 2000''.

I was thinking again of all these things at the weekend, when I heard from Angie's Irish parents, during a birthday phone-call from them across the Irish sea, that there would be no Masses offered in any of the parishes of the Diocese of Limerick, on Tuesday, 25th April, 2017. The reason given for this, was the crisis caused by the shortage of priests.

Sure enough, it has since been reported by LifeSiteNews that parishes in the Limerick Diocese would instead be holding ''lay-led liturgies'' yesterday.

As the Diocese of Limerick itself reported, Bishop Brendan Leahy sent out a ''pastoral letter'' last weekend to state that, on Tuesday of this week, every priest of the diocese would be ''away on important in-service formation''. Bishop Leahy thus requested that ''every parish in the Diocese of Limerick should host a lay-led Liturgy of the Word.''

In the following paragraph, Bishop Leahy added: ''In promoting this initiative of lay-led public prayer, I am conscious that our Diocesan Synod strongly encouraged formation in lay-led liturgies.''

Oh yes, I'll bet that Bishop Leahy is conscious of that!

There is no doubt that the Church in Ireland, as in so many places today, is facing a troubling vocational crisis. The problem is that much of this could have been avoided. Indeed, with a few simple measures, it could still be mitigated.

As I've noted several times here before, there were priests at Ushaw seminary who were involved in preventing orthodox candidates from being selected for training at selection weekends; and subsequently squashing orthodox vocations which made it past this ''gatekeeper'' stage. Those very same priests have since gone on to places of key involvement in diocesan ''formation'' teams; wherein they are now promoting lay-leadership in parishes to deal with the crisis caused by the shortage of priestly vocations!

In other words, like true Hegelians, they are now providing the solution to the problem which they helped to cause and foment in the first place...

Bishop Leahy's diocesan communication continues: ''As we move forward, we need to prepare for a time when, even though priests are not available, each local community will be prepared to arrange for moments of public prayer for various occasions. No parish should find itself deprived or ill-prepared for public lay-led prayers.''

''Handing on'' or ''handing over''? One wonders what is really being communicated by Bishop Brendan Leahy's actions.

At the end of the day, it has to be said that neither Bishop Leahy's words in this missive, nor the initiative involving the planned removal of all priests for in-service training to deliberately prevent Holy Mass being offered, sound anything like the actions of a true Catholic shepherd.

If the intention was to provide a sufficient shock to encourage new priestly vocations then the methodology was still shoddy. On the other hand, if the intention was merely to ''empower the laity'' in taking on roles of ''lay-leadership'' then it is nothing short of despicable. Either way, the whole debacle represents a great spiritual poverty and danger. The sense of that poverty and danger is increased, when one reads that the neighbouring Cork Diocese is also considering the introduction of lay-led ceremonies to cope with the increasing priest shortage there.

Years before I converted to the Faith, God's Providence allowed for me to find myself working in a high-street bank in which the assistant manager was a committed Catholic.

Bob used to show me videos about Our Lady of Fatima on the lunch room video player. It was he who explained to me what a Monstrance was; introducing me to the concept of Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament and Eucharistic Adoration. When one of my friends was tragically killed in a car accident at the age of 19, Bob warned me not to put off my religious instruction and conversion.

I mention Bob today, because he also explained to me something of the centrality and power of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. He pointed out that the offering of Holy Mass in a given location draws down graces, applies God's redemptive power and pushes back evil in that place.

Even though I was not a Catholic at that time, I have never forgotten the things Bob said to me all those years ago, as we unloaded the nightsafe and helped to set up the bank branch for business each morning.

Another man who consistently taught about the absolute centrality of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was the late, great Canon Michael Culhane; the strong priest who received my parents and I into the Catholic Church in three stages between 1989 - 1993.

The good Canon Michael frequently used his sermons to remind his flock that there was no higher way to pray on this earth than by taking part in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It was in this light that he also reminded everyone, on a regular basis, of the Sunday obligation to attend Holy Mass.

Canon Michael explained that this was because it was none other than Jesus Christ, the Son of God - He Who is one with us in all things but for sin and ignorance - Who was lovingly offering Himself to the Father on our behalf in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Canon Michael also frequently highlighted the truth that the Holy Sacrifice of Calvary and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass were one and the same sacrifice.

Canon lived these central mysteries so much in his own life that, although he was clearly of his time in his keenness to promote lay involvement in the Church and Liturgy, he would have been totally baffled by the present attempts to promote lay-leadership and lay prayer services in lieu of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

In light of yesterday's Mass-free day in Limerick, it is certainly interesting to recall that Canon Michael Culhane was actually born and raised in that fine place many decades ago.

Like so many places in Ireland, Limerick was so richly blessed in the Catholic Faith, at that time in the early 20th-Century, that she could spare many of her faithful sons and daughters to go and live and work throughout the mission territories of the world.

I have to say that I am mighty glad, and above all grateful to God, that Canon Culhane made that same sacrifice and lived as a faithful Catholic priest in Liverpool for so many decades. I hope to be eternally grateful!

The Limerick that Canon Michael Culhane came from was so rich in vocations, because it was still so rich in the truths and culture of the Catholic Faith; with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass right at its living heart.

A great sign of that past vitality in Limerick is the traditional devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Succour.

This was a devotion that Canon Culhane had brought with him from Limerick and also promoted on Merseyside through a weekly parish novena; which was always accompanied by Adoration and traditional Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

In 1866, to fulfill the wishes of Bl. Pope Pius IX, two Redemptorist Fathers, Marchi and Bresciani, had first brought the original, sacred and miraculous image, of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour to the church of St. Alphonsus in Rome.

One year later, an authentic copy was taken overseas, to the Redemptorist monastery church in Limerick.

Subsequently, a mission was held there for local Limerick men. By God's grace, and Our Lady's mediatorship, this splendid mission bore incredible fruits in the form of a massive and growing Confraternity for men.

In fact, the fruits of that mission were still being felt many decades later here in England.

This is because, the weekly novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Succour at Canon Culhane's church in Liverpool, was one of the very first Catholic liturgies that my late father attended in the late 1980's. Dad was amazed by the beauty, reverence and truth that he encountered in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and traditional devotions like the Perpetual Succour Novena and St. Alphonsus de Liguori's Stations of the Cross.

Looking back to my own early encounters with these beautiful things, and other traditional devotions at the parish of English Martyrs in Litherland, I can see that it was the wonder of God's Presence and Action in the Sacred Liturgy, and associated devotions, which eventually moved our hearts, minds and wills to convert.

In the midst of the post-modern deconstruction which is so sadly taking place throughout the Church these days, the whole focus is only on men and women and on what they try to do; or at least be seen to do!

And so, there is all this talk of lay-leadership and activity in the church and on the sanctuary.

However, in Catholic worship, it is primarily about God acting through the priest, who stands and acts sacramentally in persona Christi. Of course, we are all caught up into that action, but the centrality of the priest and the offering at his hands cannot be overstated.

In truth, aren't we all really fed up with just focusing on ourselves all the time? Isn't that just boring and ultimately rather depressing? Isn't it much better when we lose ourselves in adoration of God, and in receiving His unfathomable grace and power?

It was Rorate Caeli who, with a certain amount of glee, noted the irony of the fact that the only church scheduled to have Holy Mass in the Limerick Diocese yesterday was that of the ICKSP Traditional Mass shrine church in Limerick City itself.

As LifeSiteNews reported, there were two Traditional Latin Masses being offered there during yesterday. (The Irish Times has since noted that, in the evening, three Novus Ordo parishes also had Masses yesterday).

Still, to quote Rorate Caeli: ''So history truly is being made Tuesday in Limerick. This will be the first time in nearly 50 years, the first time since Paul VI invented and imposed his committee-made new Mass, on the First Sunday of Advent, 1969, that the only Mass a Catholic can attend in an entire Irish diocese will be the Traditional Latin Mass. Deo gratias. Alleluia. Alleluia.''

Indeed!

Perhaps it would be good to conclude by reminding Bishop Leahy, his opportunist lay-leaders and various lay-facilitators, of the words which I first posted here last October, in an article entitled, It is the Mass that Matters.

Those words are taken from the great Irish Archbishop Michael Sheehan (1870-1945). He was Co-adjutor Bishop of Sydney and a brilliantly influential Catholic apologist.

His Grace wrote as follows:-

The Mass, according to St. Francis de Sales, is ''the centre of the Christian religion, the mainspring of devotion, the soul of piety, an ineffable mystery which embraces the untold depths of divine charity.'' It is the very life of the Church, the secret of her holiness and vitality.''

No wonder that the spirits of darkness should have inspired the heretic with hatred for the Mass, for they know that when they strike at the Mass, they strike at the heart of the Church.

No wonder that Pope Urban VIII should say that, if the angels could envy man anything, it would be his power to offer the Holy Sacrifice. 

No wonder that the faithful in all the ages of persecution, from the days of the Catacombs to recent times, were willing to pay with their lives for the privilege of assisting at Mass.

Go back in thought to the penal era in Ireland: at daybreak in some mountain fastness you see a little group of men, women and children, clustered around a rude altar at which a hunted priest is celebrating the Sacred Mysteries. They take no heed of the cruel blasts of winter. So intent are they on the progress of the great Sacrifice that their persecutors come upon them unawares: the ravening wolf descends on the flock of Christ; and their blood commingled with the very Blood of the Lamb is borne by Him to the High Throne of God.

Think of the martyrs of England and Wales: how they risked everything, including their lives, if only they could have a priest, if only they could assist at Mass. 

No need to say that we, their descendants in the Faith, should never fail in loyalty to the Mass; that we should never tarnish their proud name by indifference to the most precious gift of Christ.''

When all is said and done, lay-led services can only ever be, at best, a stop-gap measure until vocations to the priesthood return. 

And, anyway, the present ''lack of vocations'' is caused by the loss of the sense of the true meaning and nature of the Holy Mass and the associated dignity of the Sacred Priesthood, faulty conceptions of the place and role of the laity, and the persecution of orthodox seminarians in the seminary system. To a large degree it is being engineered.

All of this can only be overcome when, like the vocations-rich ICKSP which continued to offer the Traditional Latin Mass in Limerick City yesterday, all Catholics everywhere come back to remembering that it truly is the Mass that matters!

O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine, All Praise and All Thanksgiving be Every Moment Thine!

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This news item is from Torch of The Faith
( http://www.torchofthefaith.com/news.php?extend.1629 )