ASHHURST LATIN MASS: THREATENED BY JESUIT, CM INFLUENCES

To comment, please open your gmail account, use my email address, Facebook, Messenger or Twitter. Scroll down for comments.


The little jewel of St Columba's Ashhurst has been threatened with "a reshaping of seating in our church", a la Fr Joe Grayland's desecration of Our Lady of Lourdes, Palmerston North.

One Pat Mullin - could he/she possibly be responsible for parenting Dave 'Six Men in a Leaky Boat' Mullin? - says this should be done "in preparation for Pope Francis' call for the implementation of the Extraordinary Mission Month in October" (Mullins' emphasis) "as written about in the most recent Welcom.

"He (presumably Pope Francis) "suggests that we have "A personal encounter with Jesus Christ living in his Church: in the Eucharist, in the Word of God and in personal and communal prayer". 

So far, so good (except why are being asked to do something 'in preparation for Pope Francis' call' when that call has happened already?) 'A personal encounter with Jesus Christ living in his Church' is exactly what we've had going in the One, Holy, Apostolic, Roman Catholic Church since forever.

This isn't coming off Pat's own bat. The inspiration for all this is - goodness me - Frank Doyle SJ.  A Jesuit. Well I never. The genie is out of the box. I'll return to Fr Doyle, and to our other eminence gris, Father Grayland, later.

Such heretical fifth-columnizing doesn't deserve an in-depth response, but taking it point by point we discover that Pat wants the parish to view the DVD "The Journey of Meditation" by Laurence Freeman. Ah. We read that Christian Meditation, a form of silent prayer tried and found wanting by world-renowned retreat master, Father Thomas Dubay SM, who in his classic work Fire Within dismisses Christian Meditation as "a dead end", is underway at St Columba's. And lo and behold, it's supported by none other than the Catholic Workers of Napier Rd, Palmerston North, which some might call a neo-Marxist cabal. 

Given that CM took off in the '70s (post Vat 2, surprise surprise) and took the religious world by storm, we need only look at its fruits in terms of vocations to the priesthood and religious life to see that it's not just a dead end but a dead loss.

Next paragraph, who should pop up but Bishop Peter Cullinane. Talk about all the usual suspects   - if these weren't mostly clerics, one might call it a rogues' gallery.

But back to Pat Mullins, who "basically wants to open a conversation. Pat, you've asked for it.

•  We read Richard Rohr OFM declaring that "When the Spirit is alive in people. they wake up from their mechanical thinking and enter the realm of co-creative power". This would undoubtedly come as a surprise to all the Catholics and Christians who are in a state of grace, and so in whom the Spirit is alive but nonetheless look like they're sleep-walking through life.
  
• A Sister Ilia Delio, in a recent book, Christ in Evolution (trending!) states Christ is being formed in us … well, not if we're not in a state of grace. The good news of Jesus Christ is not so much what happens to us but what must be done by us … the choices we make … we must reinvent ourselves ... must consciously evolve … Is it really all about us? I thought it was about Christ crucified. I'd rather rely on the Holy Spirit than on me.
  
• Then we have Tui Motu and Welcom we might have known): Anything needs to change. Like for instance, the Mass should change (again)? The sacraments? The commandments? Church dogma? A good example can be found in Pope Francis. You can say that again.
• We need to make that sense of a faith community which appeals to younger age groups. Try the Traditional Latin Mass. OCDS Carmelite monasteries in the Eastern US who reintroduced the TLM in 2000 are now bulging with young novices, to the extent that they're building a new monastery.
• As well as remembering and giving thanks … the Eucharist is when we express unity. Excuse me, but the Eucharist is about adoring God, making atonement to God for our sins, and petitioning God for all our needs.
• 
  
• The key is … love not only for God, but for every single person. If we truly love God, we automatically love 'every single person'. "May they all be one … that the world will realise that it was You who sent me (John 17:21,23). It's only by becoming one with Christ in prayer, primarily the Mass and contemplation, that we become one with 'all'. NB: That means becoming one with Christ's disciples, not with other denominations or religions. Jesus was speaking to his faithful disciples, not those who deserted after his proclamation of the Mystery of the Eucharist. 
  
• Eating together … Sense of togetherness. Oh, spare me. Mullins takes a pot-shot (one of several, it's a scatter-gun approach) at faithful Catholics and the concept of 'saving my soul'. We come into the church on Sunday largely as strangers to each other. If we do, it's only because the other parish activities and devotions like Benediction, novenas, parish concerts and garden parties which were fostered and fed by the TLM have now vanished - which means that now well-meaning people like Mullins have to say things like Mass is not the time to manufacture community; rather it is time to celebrate it. 'Community' has largely vanished. along with the TLM.
• Mullins complains about stiff and formal signs of peace. It's instructive to read recommendations from the Congregation for Divine Worship in this regard: "Bishops’ conferences should consider “changing the way in which the exchange of peace is made.”
  
  In particular, “familiar and worldly gestures of greeting” should be substituted by “other, more appropriate gestures.” The CDW also noted several abuses of the rite which are to be stopped: the faithful moving from their place to exchange the sign; the priest leaving the altar to exchange the sign with the faithful; and when, at occasions such as weddings or funerals, it becomes an occasion for congratulations or condolences.
  
  The GIRM states that "As for the actual sign of peace to be given, the manner is to be established by the Conferences of Bishops in accordance with the culture and customs of the peoples. However, it is appropriate that each person, in a sober manner, offer the sign of peace only to those who are nearest."
  And in fact the Sign of Peace is optional. So people who find it out of place when they're preparing to receive the Lord can keep their eyes closed and ignore it. They're allowed.
• We … are taking part in the joyful celebration of a community of brothers and sisters. Regrettably, that ain't necessarily so. We're brothers and sisters only if we're all Catholic and in a state of grace. There's not much joy in realizing that as the Sacrament of Reconciliation has so diminished in importance, and the number of divorced and 'remarried' Catholics has risen, we are quite likely not 'a community of brothers and sisters'.
• Mullins likens the Mass, in particular receiving the Son of God in Holy Communion, to going to a birthday party. Truly. What Dr Peter Kwasniewski describes as "the formal, solemn, public cultus of God, wherein the Church, on behalf of mankind and all of creation, adores, blesses, glorifies, and gives thanks to the Most Holy Trinity" is like a birthday party. How dumbed-down can we get?
• This one Bread and one Cup represent Jesus in his Risen Body. In this banquet of heresies, this might be called an item on the graze table. This 'one Bread and one Cup' is Jesus in His Risen Body. In the US, new PEW research shows just one-third of Catholics still believe in the Real Presence and it's likely the same here. Sounds like Mullin belongs to the two-thirds; is this document intended to swell that number?
• Jesus is … in the hand of the one who receives. Communion in the hand is perhaps the major driver of these tragic statistics. St Basil the Great considered Communion in the hand "a great fault", permitted "only  in times of persecution". Mullins takes another pot-shot, this time  at ultra-devotional people who genuflect just before receiving. What does Mullins call someone who kneels to receive, like me? (Actually, I don't care.)
• Now Mullins dishes up the whole baked salmon, the main course: By right, they should genuflect to the whole congregation because that is where the real presence (sic) of Christ is. This is egregious, appalling heresy.
• Sooner or later we were bound to get around to lay Eucharistic ministers - because we have moved from a purely priest-centred Eucharist at which the laity are passive spectators to one that is community-centred, because that is where Christ is to be found.They're not 'Eucharistic ministers'. The only Eucharistic Minister is the priest. At best, those helpful people can be described as Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion.
• Our sick brothers and sisters cannot come personally to the community celebration. How about someone picks them up and takes them? How many Masses are celebrated in private homes, or in retirement homes? Just asking.
• In communion (sic) not just Jesus but the whole parish comes to them. Pardon me? My theology's not up to this one. Tell me its doctrinal dogmatic basis.
• Jesus' flesh and blood comes to us through the Word. Words actually fail me. I can't even crack a joke on this one.
• Mullins quotes at length from Sacrosanctum Concilium, in particular the popularly misinterpreted 'active participation' which literally-minded liturgists with no sense of recollection take to mean getting 'up and doing'.
  
  But as St John Paul II stated in 1998, "Active participation does not preclude the active passivity of silence, stillness and listening: indeed, it demands it. Worshippers are not passive, for instance, when listening to the readings or the homily, or following the prayers of the celebrant, and the chants and music of the liturgy. These are experiences of silence and stillness, but they are in their own way profoundly active. "
• THE CHALLENGE then, says Mullin, is to rethink how we use our church building as a place of worship and prayer and to show how well we are all "celebrating" together. Here we arrive at the nub of the whole thing. We sense the dead hand of the Jesuit, revealed in the accompanying article by Frank Doyle SJ - who harks back to 'active participation' and blithely dismisses that 'one-to-one' relationship with Him which was the making of all the saints of the Church. No, in Father Doyle's view the saints got it wrong.
   
  
• It is a horizontal faith, says Father Doyle. Speak for yourself, please, Father. Our faith is in God the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit, who are in God's children, yes, but also utterly, transcendently and infinitely beyond them.
• 
  
• Every Lord's Day we come together as that Body, to say thanks to him. It is regrettable, then, if we are only in church to "keep the Third Commandment". 
• Father, it is far more regrettable if we are in church only to give thanks to Him (see above).
• Mass is not a time for contemplative prayer. Really, Mullins and Doyle's apologia is so shallow that wading into it as we have we barely get our feet wet. The Mass may certainly be prayed contemplatively, on a deeper level of understanding of the Mass than apparently these liturgists dream of (read Fr Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen OCD, on the subject).The Jesuitical neo-Marxism which has the Catholic Church in its coils also appeals to none other than Cardinal John Dew. For him the Church's mission is to be out there serving the poor, those who are struggling, and give them hope, and caring for the environment. Does it ever occur to Cardinal Dew that the 'poor' to be served in the Church now are the spiritually poor, the people who've never been catechized, who've never been shown the way to God, let alone how to find Him.
• 
  

The church (sic) is here to be at the service of the world, not just to be looking inwards. The Church is here primarily to be at the service of God the Most High, to "keep our minds fixed on the things that are above" so that we are fit to look outwards to the world.

Enter Father Grayland once more (for the last time, I promise):
The church building ... is a tool to help us worship. (We thought it was the house of God.) He talks about how the influence of Maori and Polynesian cultures have shaped the liturgical environment. But how many Maori or Pasifika people do we see in that 'liturgical environment'?

The argument that their (sic) is a form of church building that must be adhered to be (sic) historically and culturally naive. ... Many communities still sit (in) the 'liturgical bus' seating pattern facing the back of the person in front of them. (And, we might add, in the tabernacle in most Novus Ordo churches, unless He's been sent out of the room or offside, God faces the back of the priest.)

We can't escape the conclusion that Pat Mullins is being used as a Trojan Horse by Father Grayland who is being used as a Trojan Horse by Father Doyle who is being used as a Trojan Horse by the Jesuit Order for the abolition of the Traditional Latin Mass,  specifically in the humble little church of St Columba's Ashhurst. 

Because if the seating there is rearranged to Father Grayland's requirements, shifting the altar to a lateral position, that would invalidate the church for the TLM. And that would trangress the shared use arrangement at St Columba's whereby each group - the Novus Ordo group and the TLM group - leaves the church as it is now, for both groups' use.Which would seem only right and fair, would it not? Putting individual and collective egos aside as we should, the more Masses celebrated, the better.

The late, great Fulton Sheen (come back, Bishop Sheen, we need you now!) emphasises that the Mass doesn't depend on us, on who says it or who hears it; it depends on the One High Priest and Victim who is Christ our Lord.The Mass is the greatest event in the history of mankind; the only holy act which keeps the wrath of God from a sinful world, because it holds the Cross between heaven and earth.”

Sharon Crooks says:

I’m really not sure why laity like yourself haven’t been headhunted to guide Liturgy in this Diocese, given you clearly have the grace of God on your side, guiding your thoughts and your pen to spell out THE TRUTH!  Putting all this into practice would probably yield a bigger harvest of vocations locally! 

Well done!

Long may the little jewel at Ashhurst shine, and if the numbers in attendance late Thursday night for the TLM offering of The Assumption of Mary was anything to go by, along with the reverence and beauty with which the Mass was celebrated,  it sparkled for all heaven to see and wish to preserve it!”

Philippa O'Neill says:

Groan … I am so pained reading this … but best not to have my head in the sand. Surely Julia … it's not all about me?!!

I say:

Who's 'me'? There's quite a selection in this post - and then of course there's its author.  Do you mean the motivation behind the St Columba's biz is ego? 

Philippa O'Neill The Mass is not all about me! It is becoming my byline... I really mean us.. the people, the people, the people... :-) Oh how it hurt at the Mass of the Feast of the Assumption of our Blessed Lady to see people sitting in Mass with their backs to Our Lord in the Tabernacle. How can that be right?

I say: 

It's not right, in the eyes of the Lord I believe it is criminal. (But possibly not so much as the priest seated at Mass in place of our Lord in the tabernacle, as in Wellington's Sacred Heart Cathedral. No wonder it's closed.) 

Just where is your church? Are you prepared to 'name and shame', Philippa?  

Janferie Sefo Kelekolio says:
And yet I see it as we sit at his feet (esp when we are singing at mercy parish as our choir sit in front of the Tabernacle) .. He is behind us in front of us and beside us. We are in his Tabernacle and even more we are a temple of the Holy spirit x
I say:

Sitting at the feet of Jesus in the tabernacle is beautiful, but because He is Really Present we must face Him, just as we would face Queen Elizabeth, not sit with our backs to her. In the Blessed Sacrament Jesus is either behind us, or in front of us, or beside us, just as the Queen would be. In the Blessed Sacrament He is as Real as the Queen. We are 'in his Tabernacle' and we are 'a temple of the Holy spirit', but that's talking about God's spiritual presence, not his Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament.

• •