To the editor:
Aside from the fact that weekly attendance is an obligation, we attend Mass to worship God and to participate in the Pascal mystery. We are not there to be entertained or to see what we can get out of it. We attend for what we put into it.
To the editor:
Thank you for publishing Nico Fassino’s article in a recent edition of the Madison Catholic Herald, and also the excellent articles on the authentic role and scope of sacred music by Sr. Joan L. Roccasalvo, C.S.J. In the other letters to the editor that I have recently read, I have seen many fallacies and inconsistencies relating to the role of music in the liturgy in regard to our role in the liturgy that I feel I must address.
The Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, makes clear in §116 that Gregorian chant is the primary form of music for the Mass, having first place among liturgical music, alongside the great repository of sacred polyphony.
Dear Friends,
In the Gospel of this past Sunday we heard about Bartimaeus (Mk 10:46-52). Bartimaeus was not blind from birth, unlike the man in the fourth chapter of the Gospel according to John. Bartimaeus had his sight for many years and then lost it; so he knew what he didn’t have. And on top of his losing his sight, he was reduced by his blindness and disability to begging, so that he was treated as one lacking in human dignity.
Dear Friends,
In the Gospel of this past Sunday we heard about Bartimaeus (Mk 10:46-52). Bartimaeus was not blind from birth, unlike the man in the fourth chapter of the Gospel according to John. Bartimaeus had his sight for many years and then lost it; so he knew what he didn’t have. And on top of his losing his sight, he was reduced by his blindness and disability to begging, so that he was treated as one lacking in human dignity.
To the editor:
I must take vigorous issue with the guest columns by the “intellectuals” who are so overloaded with their degrees and superior intellect that they feel they must ridicule us ordinary Catholics in rather harsh words. The weight of all this arrogance has seemed to have squeezed out the humility that was exemplified by our Savior.
For those of us out in the real world, which, by the way, is the vast majority of God’s people, we are the branches of the Church. Jesus said, “I am the Vine and you are the branches.” He did not say, “I only want to hear you praise Me with 100-voice choirs singing Handel’s Messiah.”
To the editor:
I must take vigorous issue with the guest columns by the “intellectuals” who are so overloaded with their degrees and superior intellect that they feel they must ridicule us ordinary Catholics in rather harsh words. The weight of all this arrogance has seemed to have squeezed out the humility that was exemplified by our Savior.
For those of us out in the real world, which, by the way, is the vast majority of God’s people, we are the branches of the Church. Jesus said, “I am the Vine and you are the branches.” He did not say, “I only want to hear you praise Me with 100-voice choirs singing Handel’s Messiah.”
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| This column is the bishop’s communication with the faithful of the Diocese of Madison. Any wider circulation reaches beyond the intention of the bishop. |
Dear Friends,
We are approaching, hard as it is to believe, the First Sunday of Advent 2010. On the First Sunday of Advent 2011 we shall begin to use the new translations of our liturgical prayers at all of our Masses throughout the diocese and throughout our country. The new translations are in fact translations into English, though they sound differently than the translations to which we have become accustomed since the Second Vatican Council. In the translations presently at use, certain Latin words are left untranslated, and certain sentences or parts of sentences are more a “paraphrase” than a formal translation.
The new translation is a formal translation from the Latin to the English. No Latin words are omitted in the translation and the rich biblical allusions in the original Latin are all restored. For example, when the priest elevates the host just before Communion the congregation will say, “Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.” In this we are reminded of and echo the part of the Centurion in the familiar Gospel passage (Mt 8:8), a reminder which is lost when we simply say, “Lord I am not worthy to receive you.”
Dear Friends,
The Apostolic and state visit of our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, to the United Kingdom must be considered a very hopeful victory for Christ. This seems to be the general evaluation of those precious four days that many say have changed Great Britain.
To the editor:
This is in response to the article entitled “Concerns about Returning to the Use of Latin in Mass.” First of all, I do not understand why there is so much concern about offering the Extraordinary Form of the Mass in Latin along with the Ordinary Form of the Mass in English.
No one is being forced to attend the Latin Mass. It is there for those who prefer to worship God as the Church has done for centuries and who find this traditional form of worship to be very meaningful, reverent, and spiritually uplifting.
To the editor:
With great interest I read a reprint of the “Latin Mass Appeal” op-ed originally published in the New York Times on November 29, 2009. The op-ed discussed some developments underlying the construction of the Novus Ordo Mass, specifically liturgical changes forced by Cardinal Annibale Bugnini that were not called for by Vatican II, bringing liturgical “chaos and banality” to the Sacrifice of the New Law “in which Christ, through the ministry of the Priest, offers Himself to God.”
In addition, the op-ed pointed out an ongoing counterrevolution fueled by Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum with its liberation of the Tridentine Mass or the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.
