Friday, September 19, 2008

Mass at Brinkburn Priory


Tomorrow the annual EF Mass at Brinkburn priory will take place. The weather forecast is good and we have a full clergy team for a Solemn High Mass as well as servers and two choirs. The Schola will be re-united with its former director Ian Graham who has recently moved south for work. The Rudgate Singers will be singing Josquin`s Ave Maris Stella Mass and motets by Guerrero and de Rivafrecha. All in all it should be a fabulous occasion. Mass starts at noon.
Above is a picture of last year`s Missa Cantata.

6 comments:

Rubricarius said...

The planned music should be rather stunning. However, it did bring home to me how different the 1962 liturgy will be tomorrow to that of the Old Rite.

I see his Hermeneuticalness was lamenting the downgrading of St. Joseph of Cupertino but the same has happened to SS Eustace and Companions tomorrow. The Vigil of St Matthew has gone and the Ember Saturday is a week later.

Old Rite Vespers tomorrow would be of St Matthew with a commemoration of the fourth Sunday of September) whilst 1962 is green, no mention of St. Matthew and the third Sunday.

Call me a fuddy-duddy but I shall stick to the old ways and avoid novelties.

PeterHWright said...

I realise what a great gift Summorum Pontificum is, but do sometimes wonder if 1962 was the best date to settle on. I also wonder why SSPX chose 1962.

What Rubricarius says in his comment is a strong argument in favour of the older liturgical books (not that this is ever likely to happen, of course).

Rubricarius said...

Dr. Wright,

Your question is most pertinent and really warrants a dissertation.

Briefly, according to both Bishop Sanborn and the late Michael Davies, Abp. Lefebvre suggested the right to use the 1962 books as part of his conversations with Rome in the early 1980s. He felt this was 'reasonable' whilst what a third of the SSPX was then using (pre-Pius XII) was not. Lefebvre then imposed the 1962 rite on all SSPX members which caused much unpleasantness.

A year later, and according to Davies as a consequence, of course Quattuor abhinc annos appeared specifying the 1962 missal. Hitherto, with the exception of permission to use the 1967 rite for old priests and the 'Heenan Indult', Rome was always rather vague as to precise editions.

I believe that at least subliminally, and often consciously, parameters are set when discussing problems in the Church whereby any criticism of pre-Conciliar practice, and most certainly of pre-Conciliar popes, is taboo. The motivation to establish these parameters is so strong that history becomes 'bent' to comfortably fit in. To give but two examples: firstly, Mass facing the people is not a post-Conciliar aberration but had become widespread in the 1950s; secondly, some schools of contemporary thought promote the concept of 'organic development' in the liturgy and criticise the 1970-2003 missal as 'fabricated' as it was the product of committee work. Whist that argument certainly has some validity one can only ask why it is not applied to other committee work (with most of the same members) to the books that governed Saturday's celebration at Brinkburn Priory causing it to be so different from what would have been celebrated less than a decade earlier than 1961.

Fr Michael Brown said...

Rubricarius you may notice if you look at the picture carefully that I was being incensed after the Gospel at a Missa Cantata. I am told this is not allowed in the 1962 which i don`t understand as it is part of High Mass.

Anyway I`m glad in one way that September 24 th isn`t an Ember day as I`ll be celebrating my birthday!

Rubricarius said...

Fr. Brown,

Many happy returns of the day!

I must admit to not having noticed the incensation and its implication. I did notice the lack of antependium and thought the altar would have looked better for having one.

Yes, not incensing the celebrant at a Missa Cantata is a feature of the 1962 revision. There was a rather strange logic that at High Mass as it is the deacon who censes the celebrant then the celebrant chanting the Gospel himself should not be incensed. I fail to appreciate the reasoning and would have thought the traditional practice far more sensible where the High Mass ritual is 'compressed' into that of a Missa Cantata.

Again a very happy birthday and a happy feast.

Fr Michael Brown said...

Rubricarius, I can`t remember how you might have known September 24th was my birthday! Many thanks for the good wishes. I spent the day travelling and for the last part of the journey I was seriously ripped off by an Italian taxi driver but more of that later...