7 June 2021

An Indelicate Post

A lovely Jesuit has recently said (I saw this in Fr Zed) that the Old Mass should only be allowed for "older people who do not understand the need for change". Younger people, he suggests, should not be allowed to attend. The Chinese communists have had exactly the same brilliant idea with regard to Christian worship in general!! Oh dear! Governments are discussing the introduction of Covid Passports restricting entry to to certain events to people who have Had The Jabs. Now the Jesuits will want to encumber us with documentary evidence that we are old enough to attend Traditional Worship.

Frankly, on the (thankfully, rare) occasions since we entered into Full Communion when I have had to attend 'mainstream' Novus Ordo  worship, the Enemy has afflicted me sorely with the temptations consequent upon boredom. On these occasions, I have deeply resented the lack of provision, in such Catholic Churches, of the Book of Common Prayer, the quintessential antidote to boredom..

Let me explain. 

In Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (various editions 1785-1796) is an intriguing usage: a very promiscuous woman is called 'an Athanasian wench'. 

No connection here with Bishop Schneider.

The usage rather puzzled me. But then I noticed that such a woman, according to Grose, could also be called 'a Quicunque vult'. Then the denarius belatedly dropped.

Those familiar with the Book of Common Prayer will be aware of the 'Athanasian Creed', otherwise known by its first phrase as The Quicunque vult. 

These two words could rendered as "Whosoever wants [to be saved ... he must believe the Catholick Faith ... etc.]". 

However, to a sufficiently disordered mind ... 

What intrigues me is the little peephole this gives us into a Regency mindset. Regency bucks may have been mired in gambling, drinking, horses and whoring, yet they knew their Prayer Book well enough ... and their Latin ...

Are we to picture them in Church, when convention compelled them to attend, in a scene such as the one portrayed in that engaving by Hogarth? Did they, perhaps, when bored and with no other reading matter and no girl in sight worth ogling, browse through their Prayer Books?

I will own up to having whiled away excruciating sermons by calculating (from the extensive data provided at the beginning of the Prayer Book) the date of Easter.

Interesting, how religion can so permeate even the libertine classes.

The many terms in Grose for women also induce in me this sobering thought: they seem so full of desire and so full of hatred. As if those same libertine classes were driven by the extremity of their lust to resent and to hate the figures who inspired it.

Are promiscuity and misogyny inevitable bedfellows?




14 comments:

fitzhamilton said...

I'm roughly three years into my departure from the New Order for the old. It took a while for it to make sense to me. I'd gone eastward first, the eastern liturgies were more immediately mysterious and accessible to me, somehow.

It took me until this past year to really begin to enter into the ancient Roman ritual, so that it began to resonate, my prayer to expand. This evening, at consecration, the choir singing.. It was transcendental in the most pellucid sense.

There is no way I'll return to the Neuordnung. If they try and force me, well..

The result will be schism. One in which certain daft doughy tergiversatory (turning away from the Son rising, from the East) prelates may be presiding over Presbyterian, Lutheran, Anglican rites dripping tar while waving away feathers.

Caveant clerici.

Tim O. said...

The beauty of your observation regarding misogyny is that it's both temporal and spiritual (a la chasing after the flirtatious gods of this world)

Fr William Bauer said...

As you Fr know (as an ex Anglican) you celebrate Mass which is quite similar to the TLM. I do too. I guess we are old. I saw yesterday at Mass: as 23 year old, a 37 year old, a 38 year old, an 8 year old and more. They might be old too, but will have a chance to live forever in a land without time.

John Patrick said...

It's almost funny how this old chestnut about the Traditional Latin Mass being for the older people that can't change being trotted out every few years. Especially since the majority of older people I run into at church strike me as being totally happy with the Paul VI Mass. No more lengthy kneeling! No more confession! I get to see what the priest is doing! I get to take the wafer in my hand and to drink the wine! The number that can actually remember the TLM is shrinking rapidly: you would have to be at least 65 and even then the winds of change were already sweeping through the churches as you received your First Communion.

I see this as Satan's last desperate attempt to hold back the Mass of the Ages. They may partially succeed in the short term; but a faithful remnant will remain.

Scribe said...

Dear Father, That 'lovely Jesuit' is living in a world of his own making. Vatican II took place a lifetime ago, and most of the original 'old people' either grimly remained in the Church, or lapsed in their thousands. They were contemporaneous with the 'old people' in Soviet Russia - 'only the old people go to church, now'. Today, the many new churches and cathedrals of Russia are packed. All these 'old people' are now either very ancient, or dead; today's 'old people' in the Catholic Church have never known anything but the novus ordo. If the 'lovely Jesuit' would care to visit St Mary's shrine in Warrington, run by the Fraternity of St Peter, he would see the Mass served by a large team of boys, aged about eight to sixteen, who are quite superb. A lot of young people are attracted to the Tridentine Mass, and the congregation includes a large number of young families. Our Jesuit friend needs to move with the times!

Anonymous said...

how's your eyes Fr./

Compton Pauncefoot said...

The 'Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue' is an immensely entertaining and illuminating window into the late 18th/early 19th centuries.
Is PF attempting to clamp down on the Latin Mass?

Confitebor said...

"As if those same libertine classes were driven by the extremity of their lust to resent and to hate the figures who inspired it."

Reminds me of King David's firstborn son Amnon and his lust for and rape of his half-sister Tamar.

"But he would not hearken to her prayers, but being stronger overpowered her and lay with her. Then Amnon hated her with an exceeding great hatred: so that the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her before . . ." (II Kings 13:14-15)

MichelleMidwestDumVitaSpes said...

Dear Fr. Hunwicke,

Pax Christi. May this find you firmly on the mend and in good comfort. We are praying for your recovery.

I haven't a clue about how I should construe the sense of this blog post, but I eagerly read your postings daily.

Thank you very much.

God bless you.

Sincerely,

Midwest Michelle D.V.S.



jaykay said...

Scribe: he could equally well go to the Chartres Pilgrimage - and most likely be horrified. About 18,000, I think, in its last full year in 2019, from Paris to Chartres over 3 gruelling days. 75% under 20, or 20s. Check out the Notre Dame de Chrètienté website for full details. With God's help, we'll have it back in its totality in 2022.

Banshee said...

Yes, men who can get women to give them whatever they want, generally despise women with all their hearts. It's very creepy, especially since it tends to make women more desperate. (See "negging.")

Grant Milburn said...

Now is the time for all young trads to come to the aid of the TLM. They can turn the tables on aging Jesuits by singing the words which a certain 80-year-old Nobel Laureate almost wrote:

Come Jesuit fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’

Tempora mutantur! Those with better Latin than me can, if they wish, turn the entire song into Latin.

PM said...

Bishop Umbers, Auxiliary of Sydney who occasionally celebrates the Traditional Mass and is known for his internet memes, made a cheeky meme some time ago on a dictum by someone or other that liturgical celebrations should be adapted to the age and condition of the congregation:

Age Rite
Under 35 1962 Missal
50 to 70 Youth Mass
Over 70 with one child present Children's Mass

There is, of course, enough truth in that for it to sting.

scotchlil said...

An enterprising young priest in Derby has recently begun offering the Usus Antiquor at 8am on Sunday mornings (with hopes to expand to weekday celebrations when possible). This in spite of coldness (if not downright contempt) on the part of his elders and contemporaries. I gather that there are 20-30 in attendance each week. There are no teenagers (yet) but the whole range of ages is otherwise represented. The significant point to me is that almost none of those worshipping date back to the 'old days', and are coming to the Latin Mass for the first time and finding great nourishment in it. By contrast, the RC parish where we live is 'twinned' with a parish in a nearby town. The parish priest apologised at the end of the stricter lockdown, saying that he was out of practice as he hadn't said Mass for so long. He has decided on the tremendous step of offering Mass on a weekday morning - at 9.30am when most parishioners will be at work... The friend who now attends the UA made the point to me the other day that the 'old' Mass is part of a whole discipline of prayer and worship, day in and day out, while the NO gives the appearance of 'just another thing'. I do find it peculiar and abhorrent that the rites - the ethos - which made saints for 2000 years is viewed with such contempt and hatred by so many clergy - most of whom have never experienced the old rite for themselves. And as far as I can see, inmost NO parishes in this part of the country, daily Mass is a thing of the distant past; which raises (for me, anyway) the question of what priests in these places are doing all day. It is very lowering to the spirit...