The Stabat Mater
describes the gradual acknowledging of guilt through the establishing of a
filial relationship between the penitent onlooker and the Mournful Mother,
leading to a brotherly relationship with Christ recognised as the Brother we slew
and as the Messiah who saves. This will be manifested through the awakening of
the moral conscience. Let us present more in detail each of the three parts.
Part One: The Stabat Mater teaches us to say ‘I’. What ‘I’ will speak, though? Not our inflated ego, inherited from the sinful pride of Adam and Eve. Not the rebellious ‘I’, setting itself against the divine Father and trampling underfoot God’s law of life in hellish brag: “I shall not serve!” Instead, the humble and filial ‘I’ will speak: that ‘I’ healed through contrition confessed and through filiation restored, as illustrated by the parable of the Prodigal Son: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee” (Lk 15:18). In that perspective, the anonymity of the narrator in Part One is loaded with deep meaning. No one says ‘I’ in Part One. No one dares or is able to take ownership for the words spoken. The vacant identity of the narrator indicates that sin has nearly killed the moral conscience. It is too weak to act. This stage could be called purgative. The selfish ego is incapacitated by the display of the Mother’s sorrow. That sinful ego is silenced by the detailed description of what the innocent Lady endures. And yet, already it benefits from absorbing the bitter depiction of the Sorrowful Mother. These stanzas correct the selfish use of emotions. They turn sentimentality into sensitivity, mere consciousness into conscience and mind into soul.
Part Two: Following this purgation, an essential improvement occurs in the healing process with Part Two. One could name this stage illuminative. A relationship is established. It connects the onlooker and the contemplated Mother, as he now comes to realise. No longer anonymous, he discovers his identity as her son, bearing responsibility for her sufferings since her Crucified One endures them for his sake. The gradual admitting of his personal guilt is painful. But to the soul’s surprise, this realisation does not crush it but liberates it. Where he expected to find a harsh or exacting judge, the penitent can only contemplate a beautiful Woman in tears. He dreaded having his pride humiliated, and instead he only finds his conscience pricked. If this revelation hurts, as he experiences, it also heals. This new filiation instils in the soul a peace subtle but all-powerful, a joy discreet but unmistakable. Those consign to oblivion the coarse pleasures of sin, held up to then as the measure of human fulfilment. The unidentified self of Part One grows into the self-confessed penitent son of the Mother in Part Two. This leads him to addressing her divine Son in Part Three.
Part Three: The Sorrowful Mother acted as a protective lens between the dying ego and Christ, Splendour of the Father. Now is the unitive stage, between the soul and Christ. Like the Blue Madonna on the Great Window of the Chartres Cathedral, the Mater Dolorosa spread as a merciful prism, granting time for the eyes of the muddy pilgrim to open wider and to welcome the blazing beams of the Sun of Justice, Jesus the Saviour. Thus is the personal and direct encounter between the penitent soul and Christ made possible in the last two stanzas of the Stabat Mater. We should not take for granted our relationship with Christ. While He (and his Mother) always will it for our good, we sinners need all their care to understand and accept it. If the penitent is emboldened to address Christ directly in Part Three, such improvement is necessarily owed to the Mother’s intercession in Part One and Two. Without it, the soul would proudly deny its guilt or collapse in dire shame at the mere thought of a direct contact with her Son, now undeniably identified as the God pierced by our sins. And yet, out of necessity for salvation, the guilty soul must relate to Christ, the only Saviour of men. Becoming child of Mary was the only way. Marian filiation is the mode allowing personal encounter with Christ. Since the crucified Saviour is also and supremely Son of the Virgin, kinship gives the penitent assurance of mercy. Brotherhood bodes well of pardon.
Starts Friday 4 December with Holy Mass at 6PM, followed by 7PM Supper (arrival from 4PM). Ends late morning on Sunday 6 December after last conference, in time for 1pm Mass in Waterford. Led by Fr Patrick O’Donohue, FSSP.
Full Cost: €140 for single room with en-suite, full board. €110 for couples, €120 for shared room.
If you have subscribed (for free) to Dowry, the printed version will be sent to you this month. You can also have it emailed to you here. Tell your friends!
Due to the Covid restrictions we are currently unable to take our usual Sunday collections. While public Masses are not permitted for now, our day-to-day running costs remain the same. Please consider making your offering via our Ireland bank account:
Bank name & Address: Bank of Ireland; Lower Baggot Street, Dublin 2.
Since no priest wishes to be mediocre, why do many think priestly holiness too ambitious a goal? This book identifies sinful hindrances and spiritual resources for a fruitful and rewarding priestly life in the twenty-first century. These reflections are drawn from the author’s traditional priestly formation and from his twenty years of experience as retreat master for clergy and laity, and as vocations promoter.
Praise for the book:
This call ‘back to basics’ for the Latin clergy, set within a clear doctrinal framework, is written with both imagination and rigour, and merits a wide readership, including bishops and religious superiors. – Fr Aidan Nichols, O.P., author of Holy Order: The Apostolic Ministry from the New Testament to the Second Vatican Council, (Veritas Publications)
No priest doing his duty, trying to love God and neighbor, and trying to pick up his daily cross will suddenly decide, “I think I’ll have a go at some adultery.” He might wind up in grave treason to Our Lord, but the winding will not be sudden. He will slide into it. Conversely, he will not be able to jump up to the heights of sanctity; he’ll have to climb. This book will be of great value to anyone who would like to know how to avoid the slide, and what to do in order to climb. Fr. de Malleray’s timely yet classic approach to the priesthood in our times is a jewel. I thank God he wrote it. – Fr James Jackson, FSSP, author of Nothing Superfluous (Redbrush)
This book presents a convincing and compelling account of the stamp and character of the priest. It is at once profoundly practical and sublimely spiritual. We have over forty men in our Faculty preparing for lives as priests across China, Latin America, East and South East Asia. I am convinced that every single one of them will profit greatly and be strengthened in their vocations by reading and re-reading carefully, attentively and prayerfully Fr de Malleray’s advice. – Revd Prof Stephen Morgan, Rector of the University of Saint Joseph, Macao, China
Written from an unapologetically traditionalist position, this book is in no way the less spiritually challenging and thought provoking. One does not have to agree with everything in it to come away with much material to help one discern how to be a better priest in the contemporary Church. There is also a good section on vocations. – Revd Dr Michael Cullinan, M.A.(Oxon.), M.A.St.(Cantab.), Ph.D. (Cantab.), S.T.D. (Alfonsianum), Director of Maryvale Higher Institute of Religious Sciences
Fr de Malleray’s reflections on the nature of the priesthood are fascinating and perceptive, and will edify both clerical and lay readers. – Dr Joseph Shaw, PhD, Oxf, Chairman of The Latin Mass Society
Father de Malleray has once more strengthened the sensus fidei, refining the themes introduced in Ego Eimi to focus more particularly on the gift of the Sacred Priesthood. We are grateful to Father for having penned these reflections, covering a wide scope of aspects of the greatest dignity conferred on man. His words gain particular resonance among our Sisters, who are dedicated to prayer, sacrifice and hospitality toward priests, as well as the making of sacred vestments. May Father’s meditations spur on an even deeper urgency in spiritual support of our priests, that they may ever remain faithful to their own vocations, and in handing down the traditions and fullness of our holy faith. This is wonderful book that I heartily recommend. – Mother Abbess Cecilia, osb, Abbey of Our Lady of Ephesus (Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, Gower, MO)
Full of instruction yet easy to read; an inspiring vademecum for priests, seminarians and those considering a priestly vocation. – Fr Thomas Crean, O.P., author of The Mass and the Saints(Family Publications)
LOVE AND REVERENCE DUE TO OUR LORD: LET’S ALWAYS RECEIVE HOLY COMMUNION ON THE TONGUE
An online conference “Love and reverence due to Our Lord: Let’s always receive Holy Communion on the tongue” will be held on Thursday, 16 July 2020 from 12:00pm EST until 2:30pm.
John Smeaton, Society for the Protection of Unborn Children
No registration is necessary. Please tune in Thursday, 16 July 2020 beginning at 12:00pm EST!
All presentations will be readily available to watch immediately afterwards if you cannot attend.
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About the theme of this conference
Voice of the Family in union with the pro-life movement worldwide advocates for the inviolability and value of human life and proudly so. Indeed, we consider it a privilege and honour to defend the most vulnerable human lives. Many in the pro-life movement are prepared to lay down their own lives for the lives of those they seek to protect. This is the strength of our commitment.
And yet there is something even more precious than the sanctity of human life, and this is the divine life truly present in the Holy Eucharist in His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. Our greatest treasure on earth is the Blessed Sacrament. There is no other nation so great, the Divine Office of Corpus Christi sings, “as to have its gods so near as our God is present to us”. The Eucharist is our dearest treasure and the thought of having it so near to us in our Catholic churches fills us with gratitude and awe.
We rejoice as churches around the world re-open. Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist can be received again. But whilst the life of a Catholic might be characterised as discerning how we can best offer the love and reverence due to Our Lord, Catholics in many places in the world are now faced with a new and terrible challenge of how are we allowed to worship Our Lord. New regulations, issued by some of the world’s bishops, recommend that the faithful receive Holy Communion in the hand and, in the most radical cases, including in Britain, bishops attempt to ban Holy Communion on the tongue. These recommendations contradict divine and Church law, they obscure the reality of the Real Presence, and they lead the faithful, albeit, please God, in most cases unintentionally, to engage in practices lacking in reverence towards the divine life.
What are we, the laity, to do in such a situation? How can we defend the Eucharist and offer Our Lord the love and reverence due to Him?
First, we must know that by insisting on receiving Holy Communion on the tongue, we are standing on solid ground, prepared by the Tradition of the Church and made fertile with the blood of her martyrs. Tradition demands the greatest possible reverence towards the Holy Eucharist. In fact, serious punishments used to be reserved for practices which are being recommended by some bishops today. The faithful are being misled into believing that the responsible option is to receive Our Lord in the hand despite the very real danger of losing and desecrating fragments of our Eucharistic Lord. And following the instructions issued in the current crisis, Catholics are being schooled to remember in future that this is the so-called “safer option” when similar problems arrive.
But generations of Catholics before us have kept their devotion to our Eucharistic Lord unchanged throughout wars, epidemics, and other disasters that have struck the world – not because they did not know the danger they were in, but because they knew Who is in the Eucharist they approached.
St. Thomas taught: “Out of reverence towards this Sacrament, nothing touches it, but what is consecrated; hence the corporal and the chalice are consecrated, and likewise the priest’s hands, for touching this Sacrament. Hence, it is not lawful for anyone else to touch it except from necessity, for instance, if it were to fall upon the ground, or else in some other case of urgency.” (16 ST, III, Q. 82, Art. 13)
The Real Presence does not change. It is not possible that what the Church has always taught about the Holy Eucharist does not apply following the coronavirus.
Secondly, receiving Holy Communion on the tongue remained the norm even after the practice of Communion in the hand was introduced in 1969 under certain conditions despite the opposition of the overwhelming majority of the bishops at the time. Thus, it is a practice that the Church in modern times, tragically, tolerates.
However, the universal law of the Church states that the faithful have the right to receive Communion on the tongue and that this right cannot be denied to them. This is the universal norm that no bishop or a bishops’ conference can overrule. As lay faithful, we must insist upon our right to receive Holy Communion on the tongue. But above all, we must insist that Our Lord has the right to be received in the most reverent manner possible. This is not a matter of our personal piety but justice due to Him.
The ultimate target of Satan’s attacks is the Holy Eucharist, in which Jesus Christ is really present. The devil will do everything in his power to obscure the sacred reality of the Eucharist in order to diminish reverence due to Him. Today his scheme aims to lead large groups of faithful to desecration of the Eucharistic Body of Christ on an unprecedented scale. He wants the Body of Christ to be trampled on by the feet of clergy and laity in Catholic churches around the world. For a vast number of Catholics in the past fifty years, the practice of receiving Communion in the hand has weakened faith in the Real Presence, in transubstantiation and in the divine character of the Sacrament. The devil would use anything to advance his wicked plots, even our longing to be united with Our Lord again in the Holy Eucharist after being deprived of assisting at Holy Mass for months.
We must join in making acts of reparation for sins committed against the Holy Eucharist in our churches. The Eucharistic fragments falling down and crushed by the feet of God’s own people has to be for us a tragedy that demands action.
And this brings us to the role of the pro-life movement. We could take the view that this painful development troubles us as Catholics, but does not relate to our noble work of saving babies. However, this is not the case.
On the contrary, to be fully pro-life means being fully Catholic: offering everyone the gift of eternal life, which comes only through Jesus Christ and the saving truth He has confided to the Catholic Church. How can we say we care deeply about an unborn child, his mother, or anyone, and not offer them the possibility of eternal life, which only comes through the Catholic Church?
We in the pro-life movement defend the reality of hidden life. We are accustomed to defending human life hidden in the womb and now we are being called upon to defend the divine life hidden in the tabernacle, Who is being abused by many of those who should be the first to love Him. Catholics in the pro-life movement are uniquely well prepared to counter these offences.
Also, we may wonder, is it merely a co-incidence, that Communion in the hand that obscures the dignity of divine life was introduced about fifty years ago, just as abortion in many western countries that denies the dignity of human life was introduced about fifty years ago? Today we reap the bitter fruits: human life has lost its value in human society and the Body of Christ has become abused in His churches.
And just as it is impossible to calculate the countless desecrations of the Body of Christ in the sacrilegious treatment of the Holy Eucharist brought about by the practice of Communion in the hand, it is also impossible to number the unborn children – made in the image and likeness of God – killed worldwide not only under permissive abortion legislation, but also those killed as a result of abortifacient contraceptive drugs and devices, and through IVF procedures.
The truth about the sanctity of human life before birth cannot triumph without the recognition of the truth about Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
This is why we have organised this online conference, as Voice of the Family, uniting pro-life and pro-family groups from all around the world. With this conference we wish to mobilise our fellow lay Catholics to offer the love and reverence due to Our Lord truly present in the Holy Eucharist. We are very pleased to bring you some moving personal witnesses, as well as interviews and presentations by some of the outstanding Catholic thinkers and activists today.
I regret to inform you that the FSSP England summer camps scheduled for this coming August in the Peak District have had to be cancelled. This is due to the restrictions imposed by the government, which made it unrealistic for Savio House to host us this time.
Here’s hoping and praying that the 2021 camps will be even better to compensate!
To Robert Jenrick, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government,
All of the signers of this petition have experienced, like everyone else, the separation from our loved ones… but also the separation from places of worship as part of the COVID lockdown imposed on our country.
On 11th May the government published a 50 page roadmap outlining the steps which will be taken in order to alleviate some of the restrictions placed on the population. We respectfully ask you to also pay attention to the needs of Christians, the UK’s largest aggregate community and to consider our need to celebrate our faith. In particular, we ask you to prioritise the immediate reopening of churches as places of private prayer along with the swift resumption of weekly worship services, Masses, wedding ceremonies, funerals and baptisms.
Places of worship will know how to organize adequate instruments of social distancing within their facilities, and you should trust people of faith to be smart about protecting themselves and others. Please take a step forward to protect the right to believers to freely profess one’s religious faith and practice its worship, as recognized by the European Convention on Human Rights.
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