Ten Reasons To Attend The Traditional Latin Mass

An excellent article from Dec 2015 from One Peter Five on the top 10 reasons to attend a Traditional Catholic Mass. H/t to Peter Kwasniewski and Michael Foley, they state:-

"Given that it can often be less convenient for a person or a family to attend the traditional Latin Mass (and I am thinking not only of obvious issues like the place and the time, but also of the lack of a parish infrastructure and the hostile reactions one can get from friends, family, and even clergy), it is definitely worthwhile to remind ourselves of why we are doing this in the first place. If something is worth doing, then it’s worth persevering in—even at the cost of sacrifices.

This article will set forth a number of reasons why, in spite of all the inconveniences (and even minor persecutions) we have experienced over the years, we and our families love to attend the traditional Latin Mass. Sharing these reasons will, we hope, encourage readers everywhere either to begin attending the usus antiquior or to continue attending if they might be wavering. Indeed, it is our conviction that the sacred liturgy handed down to us by tradition has never been more important in the life of Catholics, as we behold the “pilgrim Church on earth” continue to forget her theology, dilute her message, lose her identity, and bleed her members. By preserving, knowing, following, and loving her ancient liturgy, we do our part to bolster authentic doctrine, proclaim heavenly salvation, regain a full stature, and attract new believers who are searching for unadulterated truth and manifest beauty. By handing down this immense gift in turn, and by inviting to the Mass as many of our friends and our families as we can, we are fulfilling our vocation as followers of the Apostles.

Without further ado, ten reasons:

1. You will be formed in the same way that most of the Saints were formed. If we take a conservative estimate and consider the Roman Mass to have been codified by the reign of Pope St. Gregory the Great (ca. 600) and to have lasted intact until 1970, we are talking about close to 1,400 years of the life of the Church—and that’s most of her history of saints. The prayers, readings, and chants that they heard and pondered will be the ones you hear and ponder. 
 
For this is the Mass that St. Gregory the Great inherited, developed, and solidified. This is the Mass that St. Thomas Aquinas celebrated, lovingly wrote about, and contributed to (he composed the Mass Propers and Office for the Feast of Corpus Christi). This is the Mass that St. Louis IX, the crusader king of France, attended three times a day. This is the Mass that St. Philip Neri had to distract himself from before he celebrated it because it so easily sent him into ecstasies that lasted for hours. This is the Mass that was first celebrated on the shores of America by Spanish and French missionaries, such as the North American Martyrs. This is the Mass that priests said secretly in England and Ireland during the dark days of persecution, and this is the Mass that Blessed Miguel Pro risked his life to celebrate before being captured and martyred by the Mexican government. This is the Mass that Blessed John Henry Newman said he would celebrate every waking moment of his life if he could. This is the Mass that the Fr. Frederick Faber called “the most beautiful thing this side of heaven.” This is the Mass that Fr. Damien of Molokai celebrated with leprous hands in the church he had built and painted himself. This is the Mass during which St. Edith Stein, who was later to die in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, became completely enraptured. This is the Mass that great artists such as Evelyn Waugh, David Jones, and Graham Greene loved so much that they lamented its loss with sorrow and alarm. This is the Mass so widely respected that even non-Catholics such as Agatha Christie and Iris Murdoch came to its defense in the 1970s. This is the Mass that St. Padre Pio insisted on celebrating until his death in 1968, after the liturgical apparatchiks had begun to mess with the missal (and this was a man who knew a thing or two about the secrets of sanctity). This is the Mass that St. Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei, received permission to continue celebrating in private at the end of his life.
What a glorious cloud of witnesses surrounds the traditional Latin Mass! Their holiness was forged like gold and silver in the furnace of this Mass, and it is an undeserved blessing that we, too, can seek and obtain the same formation. Yes, I can go to the new Mass and know that I am in the presence of God and His saints (and for that I am profoundly grateful), but a concrete historical link to these saints has been severed, as well as a historical link to my own heritage as a Catholic in the Roman rite.

2. What is true for me is even more true for my children. This way of celebrating most deeply forms the minds and hearts of our children in reverence for Almighty God, in the virtues of humility, obedience, and adoring silence. It fills their senses and imaginations with sacred signs and symbols, “mystic ceremonies” (as the Council of Trent puts it). Maria Montessori herself frequently pointed out that small children are very receptive to the language of symbols, often more than adults are, and that they will learn more easily from watching people do a solemn liturgy than from hearing a lot of words with little action. All of this is extremely impressive and gripping for children who are learning their faith, and especially boys who become altar servers.[1]
 
3. Its universality. The traditional Latin Mass not only provides a visible and unbroken link from the present day to the distant past, it also constitutes an inspiring bond of unity across the globe. Older Catholics often recall how moving it was for them to assist at Mass in a foreign country for the first time and to discover that “the Mass was the same” wherever they went. The experience was, for them, a confirmation of the catholicity of their Catholicism. By contrast, today one is sometimes hard pressed to find “the same Mass” at the same parish on the same weekend. The universality of the traditional Latin Mass, with its umbrella of Latin as a sacred language and its insistence that the priest put aside his own idiosyncratic and cultural preferences and put on the person of Christ, acts as a true Pentecost in which many tongues and tribes come together as one in the Spirit—rather than a new Babel that privileges unshareable identities such as ethnicity or age group and threatens to occlude the “neither Greek nor Jew” principle of the Gospel.

4. You always know what you are getting. The Mass will be focused on the Holy Sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross. There will be respectful and prayerful silence before, during, and after Mass. There will be only males serving in the sanctuary and only priests and deacons handling the Body of Christ, in accord with nearly 2,000 years of tradition. People will usually be dressed modestly. Music may not always be present (and when present, may not always be perfectly executed), but you will never hear pseudo-pop songs with narcissistic or heretical lyrics.

Put differently, the traditional form of the Roman rite can never be completely co-opted. Like almost every other good thing this side of the grave, the Latin Mass can be botched, but it can never be abused to the extent that it no longer points to the true God. Chesterton once said that “there is only one thing that can never go past a certain point in its alliance with oppression—and that is orthodoxy. I may, it is true, twist orthodoxy so as partly to justify a tyrant. But I can easily make up a German philosophy to justify him entirely.”[2] The same is true for the traditional Latin Mass. Father Jonathan Robinson, who at the time of writing his book was not a friend of the usus antiquior, nevertheless admitted that “the perennial attraction of the Old Rite is that it provided a transcendental reference, and it did this even when it was misused in various ways.”[3] By contrast, Robinson observes, while the new Mass can be celebrated in a reverent way that directs us to the transcendent, “there is nothing in the rule governing the way the Novus Ordo is to be said that ensures the centrality of the celebration of the Paschal mystery.”[4] In other words, the new Mass can be celebrated validly but in a way that puts such an emphasis on community or sharing a meal that it can amount to “the virtual denial of a Catholic understanding of the Mass.”[5] On the other hand, the indestructibility of the traditional Mass’s inherent meaning is what inspired one commentator to compare it to the old line about the U.S. Navy: “It’s a machine built by geniuses so it can be operated safely by idiots.”[6]
 
5. It’s the real McCoy. The classical Roman rite has an obvious theocentric and Christocentric orientation, found both in the ad orientem stance of the priest and in the rich texts of the classical Roman Missal itself, which give far greater emphasis to the Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and the sacrifice of Our Lord upon the Cross.[7] As Dr. Lauren Pristas has shown, the prayers of the new Missal are often watered-down in their expression of dogma and ascetical doctrine, whereas the prayers of the old Missal are unambiguously and uncompromisingly Catholic.[8] It is the real McCoy, the pure font, not something cobbled together by “experts” for “modern man” and adjusted to his preferences. More and more Catholic pastors and scholars are acknowledging how badly rushed and botched were the liturgical reforms of the 1960s. This has left us with a confusingly messy situation for which the reformed liturgy itself is totally ill-equipped to provide a solution, with its plethora of options, its minimalist rubrics, its vulnerability to manipulative “presiders,” and its manifest discontinuity with at least fourteen centuries of Roman Catholic worship—a discontinuity powerfully displayed in the matter of language, since the old Mass whispers and sings in the Western Church’s holy mother tongue, Latin, while the new Mass has awkwardly mingled itself with the ever-changing vernaculars of the world.

6. A superior calendar for the saints. In liturgical discussions, most ammunition is spent on defending or attacking changes to the Ordinary of the Mass—and understandably so. But one of the most significant differences between the 1962 and 1970 Missals is the calendar. Let’s start with the Sanctoral Cycle, the feast days of the saints. The 1962 calendar is an amazing primer in Church history, especially the history of the early Church, which often gets overlooked today. It is providentially arranged in such a way that certain saints form different “clusters” that accent a particular facet of holiness. The creators of the 1969/1970 general calendar, on the other hand, eliminated or demoted 200 saints, including St. Valentine from St. Valentine’s Day and St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers, claiming that he never existed. They also eliminated St. Catherine of Alexandria for the same reason, even though she was one of the saints that St. Joan of Arc saw when God commissioned her to fight the English.[9] The architects of the new calendar often made their decisions on the basis of modern historical scholarship rather than the oral traditions of the Church. Their scholarly criteria call to mind Chesterton’s rejoinder that he would rather trust old wives’ tales than old maids’ facts. “It is quite easy to see why a legend is treated, and ought to be treated, more respectfully than a book of history,” G. K. writes. “The legend is generally made by the majority of people in the village, who are sane. The book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad.”[10]
 
7. A superior calendar for the seasons. Similarly, the “Temporal Cycle”—Christmastide, Epiphanytide, Septuagesimatide, Eastertide, Time after Pentecost, etc.—is far richer in the 1962 calendar. Thanks to its annual cycle of propers, each Sunday has a distinct flavor to it, and this annual recurrence creates a marker or yardstick that allows the faithful to measure their spiritual progress or decline over the course of their lives. The traditional calendar has ancient observances like Ember Days and Rogation Days that heighten not only our gratitude to God but our appreciation of the goodness of the natural seasons and of the agricultural cycles of the land. The traditional calendar has no such thing as “Ordinary Time” (a most unfortunate phrase, seeing that there cannot be such a thing as “ordinary time” after the Incarnation[11]) but instead has a Time after Epiphany and a Time after Pentecost, thereby extending the meaning of these great feasts like a long afterglow or echo. In company with Christmas and Easter, Pentecost, a feast of no lesser status than they, is celebrated for a full eight days, so that the Church may bask in the warmth and light of the heavenly fire. And the traditional calendar has the pre-Lenten season of Septuagesima or “Carnevale,” which begins three weeks before Ash Wednesday and deftly aids in the psychological transition from the joy of Christmastide to the sorrow of Lent. Like most other features of the usus antiquior, the aforementioned aspects of the calendar are extremely ancient and connect us vividly with the Church of the first millennium and even the earliest centuries.

8. A Better Way to the Bible. Many think that the Novus Ordo has a natural advantage over the old Mass because it has a three-year cycle of Sunday readings and a two-year cycle of weekday readings, and longer and more numerous readings at Mass, instead of the ancient one-year cycle, usually consisting of two readings per Mass (Epistle and Gospel). What they overlook is the fact that the architects of the Novus Ordo simultaneously took out most of the biblical allusions that formed the warp and woof of the Ordinary of the Mass, and then parachuted in a plethora of readings with little regard to their congruency with each other. When it comes to biblical readings, the old rite operates on two admirable principles: first, that passages are chosen not for their own sake (to “get through” as much of Scripture as possible) but to illuminate the meaning of the occasion of worship; second, that the emphasis is not on a mere increase of biblical literacy or didactic instruction but on “mystagogy.” In other words, the readings at Mass are not meant to be a glorified Sunday school but an ongoing initiation into the mysteries of the Faith. Their more limited number, brevity, liturgical suitability, and repetition over the course of every year makes them a powerful agent of spiritual formation and preparation for the Eucharistic sacrifice.

9. Reverence for the Most Holy Eucharist. The Ordinary Form of the Mass can, of course, be celebrated with reverence and with only ordained ministers distributing Holy Communion. But let’s be honest: the vast majority of Catholic parishes deploy “extraordinary” lay ministers of Holy Communion, and the vast majority of the faithful will receive Holy Communion in the hand. These two arrangements alone constitute a significant breach in reverence for the Blessed Sacrament. Unlike the priest, lay ministers do not purify their hands or fingers after handling God, thus accumulating and scattering particles of the Real Presence. The same is true of the faithful who receive Communion in the hand; even brief contact with the Host on the palm of one’s hand can leave tiny particles of the consecrated Victim.[12] Think about it: every day, thousands upon thousands of these unintentional acts of desecration of the Blessed Sacrament occur around the world. How patient is the Eucharistic Heart of our Lord! But do we really want to contribute to this desecration? And even if we ourselves receive communion on the tongue at a Novus Ordo Mass, chances are we will still be surrounded by these careless habits—an environment that will either fill us with outrage and sorrow or lead to a settled indifference. These reactions are not helpful in experiencing the peace of Christ’s Real Presence, nor are they an optimal way to raise one’s children in the Faith!

Similar points could be made about the distracting “Sign of Peace”[13]; or female lectors and EMHCs, who, apart from constituting an utter break with tradition, can be clad in clothing of questionable modesty; or the almost universal custom of loud chitchat before and after Mass; or the ad-libbing and optionizing of the priest. These and so many other characteristics of the Novus Ordo as it is all too often celebrated are all, singly and collectively, signs of a lack of faith in the Real Presence, signs of an anthropocentric, horizontal self-celebration of the community.

This point should be emphasized: it is especially harmful for children to witness, again and again, the shocking lack of reverence with which Our Lord and God is treated in the awesome Sacrament of His Love, as pew after pew of Catholics automatically go up to receive a gift they generally treat with casual and even bored indifference. We believe the Eucharist is really our Savior, our King, our Judge—but then promptly act in a way that says we are handling regular (though symbolic) food and drink, which explains why so many Catholics seem to have a Protestant view of what is going on at Mass. This unfortunate situation will not end until the pre-Vatican II norms regarding the sacred Host are made mandatory for all liturgical ministers, which is not likely anytime soon. The safe haven of refuge is, once again, the traditional Latin Mass, where sanity and sanctity prevail.

10. When all is said and done, it’s the Mystery of Faith. Many of the reasons for persevering in and supporting the traditional Latin Mass, in spite of all the trouble the devil manages to stir up for us, can be summarized in one word: MYSTERY. What St. Paul calls musterion and what the Latin liturgical tradition designates by the names mysterium and sacramentum are far from being marginal concepts in Christianity. God’s dramatic self-disclosure to us, throughout history and most of all in the Person of Jesus Christ, is a mystery in the highest sense of the term: it is the revelation of a Reality that is utterly intelligible yet always ineluctable, ever luminous yet blinding in its luminosity. It is fitting that the liturgical celebrations that bring us into contact with our very God should bear the stamp of His eternal and infinite mysteriousness, His marvelous transcendence, His overwhelming holiness, His disarming intimacy, His gentle yet penetrating silence. The traditional form of the Roman rite surely bears this stamp. Its ceremonies, its language, its ad orientem posture, and its ethereal music are not obscurantist but perfectly intelligible while at the same time instilling a sense of the unknown, even the fearful and thrilling. By fostering a sense of the sacred, the old Mass preserves intact the mystery of Faith.[14]
 
In sum, the classical Roman Rite is an ambassador of tradition, a midwife for the interior man, a lifelong tutor in the faith, a school of adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, and supplication, an absolutely reliable rock of stability on which we can confidently build our spiritual lives.

As the movement for the restoration of the Church’s sacred liturgy is growing and gaining momentum, now is not a time for discouragement or second thoughts; it is a time for a joyful and serene embrace of all the treasures our Church has in store for us, in spite of the shortsightedness of some of her current pastors and the ignorance (usually not their own fault) of many of the faithful. This is a renewal that must happen if the Church is to survive the coming perils. Would that the Lord could count on us to be ready to lead the way, to hold up the “catholic and orthodox faith”! Would that we might respond to His graces as He leads us back to the immense riches of the Tradition that He, in His loving-kindness, gave to the Church, His Bride!
It is no time to flag or grow weary, but to put our shoulders to the wheel, our hand to the plough. Why should we deprive ourselves of the light and peace and joy of what is more beautiful, more transcendent, more sacred, more sanctifying, and more obviously Catholic? Innumerable blessings await us when, in the midst of an unprecedented crisis of identity in the Church today, we live out our Catholic faith in total fidelity and with the ardent dedication of the Elizabethan martyrs who were willing to do and to suffer anything rather than be parted from the Mass they had grown to cherish more than life itself. Yes, we will be called upon to make sacrifices—accepting an inconvenient time or a less-than-satisfactory venue, humbly bearing with misunderstanding and even rejection from our loved ones—but we know that sacrifices for the sake of a greater good are the very pith and marrow of charity.

We have given ten reasons for attending the traditional Latin Mass. There are many more that could be given, and each person will have his or her own. What we know for sure is that the Church needs her Mass, we need this Mass, and, in a strange sort of way that bestows on us an unmerited privilege, the Mass needs us. Let us hold fast to it, that we may cleave all the more to Christ our King, our Savior, our All."
 
NOTES
[1] See “Helping Children Enter into the Traditional Latin Mass” (Part 1, Part 2); “Ex ore infantium: Children and the Traditional Latin Mass” (here).
[2] Chesterton, Orthodoxy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995), 132.
[3] Jonathan Robinson, The Mass and Modernity (Ignatius Press, 2005), 307.
[4] Ibid., 311, italics added.
[5] Ibid., 311.
[6] The same author, John Zmirak (who is sound on this issue), continues: “The old liturgy was crafted by saints, and can be said by schlubs without risk of sacrilege. The new rite was patched together by bureaucrats, and should only be safely celebrated by the saintly.” John Zmirak, “All Your Church Are Belong to Us.”
[7] As documented in Peter Kwasniewski, Resurgent in the Midst of Crisis (Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2014), ch. 6, “Offspring of Arius in the Holy of Holies.”
[8] See, among Lauren Pristas’s many fine studies, her book Collects of the Roman Missal: A Comparative Study of the Sundays in Proper Seasons Before and After the Second Vatican Council (London: T&T Clark, 2013).
[9] Fortunately, acknowledging that this was a mistake, Pope John Paul II restored St. Catherine to the Novus Ordo calendar twenty years later, but what about all the other saints who got axed?
[10] Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 53.
[11] See, among the many who argue for this point, Fr. Richard Cipolla, “Epiphany and the Unordinariness of Liturgical Time.”
[12] See Father X, “Losing Fragments with Communion in the Hand,” The Latin Mass Magazine (Fall 2009), 27-29.
[13] The Novus Ordo “Sign of Peace” has almost nothing to do with the dignified manner in which the “Pax” is given at a Solemn High Mass, where it is abundantly clear that the peace in question is a spiritual endowment emanating from the Lamb of God slain upon the altar and gently spreading out through the sacred ministers until it rests on the lowliest ministers who represent the people
[14] For centuries, going all the way back to the early Church (and even, says St. Thomas Aquinas, to the Apostles), the priest has always said “Mysterium Fidei” in the midst of the consecration of the chalice. He was referring specifically to the irruption or inbreaking of God into our midst in this unfathomable Sacrament.

The new Eucharistic miracle in Poland reminds us of the REALITY OF THE REAL PRESENCE of our Lord

 
The chalice and paten of Bl. Charles de Foucauld 
(“Photo-Monique”, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

The new Eucharistic miracle in Poland reminds us of the REALITY OF THE REAL PRESENCE of our Lord BODY BLOOD SOUL AND DIVINITY. The short article below, advises us to renew our Eucharistic devotion, to not be complacent and to regain a sense of the real presence. It suggests we re-instate the paten at all Masses, not just in the Old Rite.

How many times have Eucharistic abuses been prevalent in our Churches, how many times do we talk in front of the Blessed Sacrament, how many times do we show our indifference by our lack of devotion in Church.

Please read this article at:- http://www.ncregister.com/blog/philip-kosloski/what-is-god-trying-to-tell-us-with-this-new-eucharistic-miracle-in-poland/#ixzz46gGJuT4j.

Philip Kosloski writes:-

On April 17, Bishop Zbigniew Kiernikowski of Legnica, Poland announced the approval of a Eucharistic miracle in his Diocese. The miracle happened about two years ago when, “a consecrated Host fell to the floor [during the distribution of Communion and] was picked up and placed in a container with water. Soon after, red stains appeared on the host.”

The miracle was tested and the “Department of Forensic Medicine found: ‘In the histopathological image, the fragments were found containing the fragmented parts of the cross striated muscle. It is most similar to the heart muscle.’ Tests also determined the tissue to be of human origin and found that it bore signs of distress.”
What is interesting is how this Eucharistic miracle differs from other miracles, such as the miracle at Lanciano. Often the Eucharist is changed into blood after the words of consecration and at the altar in response to a lack of faith from the priest.

This time, the miracle occurred after a Precious Host was dropped during Holy Communion. The miracle itself would have happened in the sacristy when they put the host in the water (as is proper procedure), but it appears one cause of the miracle was a lack of care for the Blessed Sacrament.
Now, accidents do happen and I am not trying to single out the person or priest who dropped the host. However, it does bring up an interesting topic: the use of patens.

In the Catholic Church, the paten is typically a gold disk that is used by an altar server to hold under the mouth or hands of the person receiving Communion. It is meant to catch any hosts or particles from the host from falling to the ground.

The practice has been abandoned by most in the Church for the past few decades, but the document, Redemptionis Sacramentum, cites this instruction, “The Communion-plate for the Communion of the faithful should be retained, so as to avoid the danger of the sacred host or some fragment of it falling.”

What this miracle should do is make us reconsider how we approach the Holy Eucharist. Do we truly believe that Jesus is present in the bread and wine at Mass? Do we treat the hosts with all due respect, being extremely careful in distributing the Precious Body of our Lord?

We shouldn’t abandon the use of patens at Mass because it seems “outdated.” The reason why we use patens at Mass is because of our love of God! Why do we hold our children with utmost care, making sure we don’t drop them? Why shouldn’t we have the same care for the Eucharistic Host at Mass that is Christ the Lord! What we hold in our hands is not just bread!

Maybe this miracle came at the right time in our world, when many Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence of Christ and during an era in the Church where the Eucharist is not cared for properly. The heart tissue found “bore signs of distress” and maybe it was to show us Christ’s hurt when we do not take care of Him.

100 Days of Peace Event

Vigil of Prayer

 for the 2012 30th Olympiad and Paralympics, the athletes and the visitors
 for London, the host city, for peace and goodwill for all
 for all those nations attending the Games, for dignity and respect for all cultures and differences
 for people of all faiths
 for young people, their health, happiness and future
 for peace in our cities
 for athletes who have come from countries where there has been war, conflict or natural disaster
 for the flourishing of international art, culture and music

From 11pm Friday June 8th to midday on Saturday June 9th 2012
we will gather to pray in :-

St Martin-in-the-Fields,

Trafalgar Square 

a place of peace in the heart of London

Young people, leaders, preachers, musicians, will celebrate the start of the ‘Sacred Truce’ with prayer, and as in ancient times, will proclaim peace for London, the host city of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
To find out more and to register to take part, apply to:

100 Days of Peace SMITF vigil, 4 Vincent Road, London N15 3QH, or email barbarakentish@rcdow.org.uk
*The original Greek Olympics were preceded by a Sacred Truce, which enabled competitors to reach Olympia without being attacked, as they passed through the small warring city-states of the Greek peninsula. Peace was an original ideal of the Greek Olympics, and also of the Games revived in

Archbishop Ganswein: Pope Benedict Part of an "Enlarged" Papal Ministry?

Archbishop Ganswein, the Secretary of both, Pope Francis and Pope Benedict, has given an extraordinary and dare I say it,  puzzling interview to Edward Pentin. What does this enlarged ministry mean? Please see Edward Pentin's article below:-

Prefect of Pontifical Household also recalls "dramatic struggle" of 2005 Conclave. 

by Edward Pentin 23/05/2016 

Archbishop Gänswein delivering his speech at the Pontifical Gregorian University, May 20.

 

"In a speech reflecting on Pope Benedict XVI’s pontificate, Archbishop Georg Gänswein has confirmed the existence of a group who fought against Benedict’s election in 2005, but stressed that "Vatileaks" or other issues had "little or nothing" to do with his resignation in 2013.

Speaking at the presentation of a new book on Benedict’s pontificate at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome May 20, Archbishop Gänswein also said that Pope Francis and Benedict are not two popes “in competition” with one another, but represent one “expanded” Petrine Office with “an active member” and a “contemplative.”

Archbishop Gänswein, who doubles as the personal secretary of the Pope Emeritus and prefect of the Pontifical Household, said Benedict did not abandon the papacy like Pope Celestine V in the 13th century but rather sought to continue his Petrine Office in a more appropriate way given his frailty.

“Therefore, from 11 February 2013, the papal ministry is not the same as before,” he said. “It is and remains the foundation of the Catholic Church; and yet it is a foundation that Benedict XVI has profoundly and lastingly transformed by his exceptional pontificate.”

Reflecting on Benedict's time as Pope, Archbishop Gänswein said that although he was “a classic ‘homo historicus’, a Western man par excellence who embodied the richness of the Catholic tradition like no other,” at the same time he was “so bold as to open the door to a new phase, for that historic turning point that five years ago no one could have imagined.”

Gänswein drew attention to “brilliant and illuminating” and “well documented and thorough” passages of the book, written by Roberto Regoli and entitled Oltre la crisi della Chiesa. Il pontificato di Benedetto XVI — “Beyond the Crisis of the Church, The Pontificate of Benedict XVI.”

The German prelate especially highlighted Regoli’s account of “a dramatic struggle” that took place in the 2005 Conclave between the “so-called ‘Salt of the Earth Party’” (named after the book interview with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) comprising “Cardinals Lopez Trujillo, Ruini, Herranz, Ruoco Varela or Medina" and their adversaries: "the so-called St. Gallen group” that included “Cardinals Danneels, Martini, Silvestrini or Murphy O’Connor” — a group Cardinal Danneels referred jokingly to as “a kind of mafia-club,” Archbishop Gänswein recalled. (His reference to that struggle backs up an interview German journalist Paul Badde gave the Register last November and EWTN Germany, during which Badde also mentioned German Cardinals Kasper and Lehmann as being part of the St. Gallen group) (THIS IS BIG NEWS, why would Archbishop Ganswein report this?).

“The election was certainly the outcome of a battle,” Gänswein went on, adding that the “key” to the Conclave was Cardinal Ratzinger’s “dictatorship of relativism” homily that he gave on the first day of the election when he was Dean of the College of Cardinals.

Benedict’s personal secretary then referred to how Regoli highlights the “fascinating and moving” years of Benedict’s pontificate, and his “skill and confidence” in exercising the Petrine ministry. He recalled, in particular, the “black year” of 2010, when Manuela Camagni, one of the four Memores Domini consecrated women who assisted Benedict, was tragically killed in a road accident in Rome.

The year, which he attests was a dark one, was further blackened by “malicious attacks against the Pope” ....But nothing affected Benedict’s “heart as much as the death of Manuela”, whom he considered part of the “papal family” of helpers. “Benedict wasn’t an ‘actor pope’, and even less an insensitive ‘automaton Pope’,” Gänswein said. ”Even on the throne of Peter, he was and remained a man… ‘a man with his contradictions’.”

Then, after having been so affected by the death of Camagni, Benedict suffered the “betrayal of Paolo Gabriele”, his “poor and misguided” former valet who was found guilty of leaking confidential papal documents in what became known as the ‘Vatileaks’ scandal. That episode was “false money” traded on the world stage as “authentic gold bullion” he said, but stressed that “no traitor, ‘mole’, or any journalist” would have caused Benedict to resign. “The scandal was too small” for the “greater, well considered step Benedict made of millennial historical significance.”

Such assumptions that they did have something to do with it, he said, “have little or nothing to do with reality”, adding that Benedict resigned because it was “fitting” and “reasonable”, and quoted John Duns Scotus’ words to justify the decree for the Immaculate Conception: “Decuit, potuit, fecit” — “He could do it, it was fitting that He do it.”

Various reports have suggested that pressure was exerted on Benedict to step down. One of the latest came last year from a former confidant and confessor to the late Cardinal Carlo Martini who said Martini had told Benedict: "Try and reform the Curia, and if not, you leave.”

But in his speech, Gänswein insisted "it was fitting" for Benedict to resign because he "was aware that the necessary strength for such a very heavy office was lessening. He could do it [resign], because he had long thought through, from a theological point of view, the possibility of a pope emeritus in the future. So he did it.”

Drawing on the Latin words “munus petrinum” — “Petrine ministry” — Gänswein pointed out the word “munus” has many meanings such as “service, duty, guide or gift”. He said that “before and after his resignation” Benedict has viewed his task as “participation in such a ‘Petrine ministry’. “He left the Papal Throne and yet, with the step he took on 11 February 2013, he has not abandoned this ministry,” Gänswein explained, something "quite impossible after his irrevocable acceptance of the office in April 2005.“

Instead, he said, "he has built a personal office with a collegial and synodal dimension, almost a communal ministry, as if he had wanted to reiterate once again the invitation contained in the motto that the then-Joseph Ratzinger had as Archbishop of Munich and Freising and naturally maintained as Bishop of Rome: "cooperatores veritatis", which means ‘co-workers of the truth’.”

Archbishop Gänswein pointed out that the motto is not in the singular but in the plural (really??), and taken from the Third Letter of John, in which it is written in verse 8: "We must welcome these people to become co-workers for the truth".

He therefore stressed that since Francis’ election, there are not “two popes, but de facto an expanded ministry — with an active member and a contemplative member.” He added that this is why Benedict XVI “has not given up his name”, unlike Pope Celestine V who reverted to his name Pietro da Marrone, “nor the white cassock.” “Therefore he has also not retired to a monastery in isolation but stays within the Vatican — as if he had taken only one step to the side to make room for his successor and a new stage in the history of the papacy.” With that step, he said, he has enriched the papacy with “his prayer and his compassion placed in the Vatican Gardens.”

Archbishop Gänswein repeated that Benedict’s resignation was “quite different” to that of Pope Celestine V. “So it is not surprising,” he said, “that some have seen it as revolutionary, or otherwise as entirely consistent with the gospel,  while still others see in this way a secularized papacy as never before, and thus more collegial and functional, or even simply more humane and less sacred. And still others are of the opinion that Benedict XVI, with this step, has almost — speaking in theological and historical-critical terms — demythologized the papacy.”

Our Lady of Good Success, in Quito, Ecuador

by Marian Theresa Horvat

Question: I have never heard of the prophecies of Our Lady of Good Success. Is this a new apparition? Has it been approved by the Church?

Answer: This is not a new apparition. It took place in the early 17th century. The revelations of Our Lady of Good Success and devotion to Her miraculous Statue have been approved by the Catholic Church since the beginning. It was the 9th Bishop of Quito, Salvador de Ribera, who attested in official documents to the miraculous completion of the Statue by St. Francis of Assisi and the three Archangels – St. Michael, St. Gabriel and St. Raphael – and presided over the anointing of the solemn consecration of the Statue in the Church of the Royal Convent of the Immaculate Conception on February 2, 1611. The devotion and apparitions were also authorized and promoted by the next Bishop of Quito, Pedro de Oviedo, who governed the Diocese from 1630 to 1646. Thus this devotion has enjoyed the support and approval of the Church since its very beginning.

Question: What do these revelations talk about?

Answer: Many of the prophecies of Our Lady of Good Success have already been fulfilled. She predicted the proclamation of the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and Papal Infallibility, the consecration of that country to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the martyrdom of a Catholic president of Ecuador by Masons (President Gabriel Garcia Moreno, assassinated in 1875), and many others things that have come to pass. (Msgr. Luis E. Cadena Y Almeida, postulator of the cause for beatification of the Servant of God, Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres, has written a book in Spanish on the many prophetic messages that have already taken place. Mrs. Horvath translated his book into English, under the title “Our Lady of Good Success: Prophecies for Our Times.”)

The most important prophecies of Our Lady of Good Success, however, spoke of the worldwide crisis in the Church and society that would begin in the 19th century and extend throughout the 20th century. During that time, She warned, there would be an almost total corruption of customs and Satan would rule almost completely by means of the Masonic sects. In the Catholic Church the Sacraments would be profaned and abused, and the light of Faith would be almost completely extinguished in souls. Truly religious souls would be reduced to a small number and many vocations would perish. Great impurity would reign and people would be without any care for spiritual matters.

Question: Who was Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres, the sister who received those revelations?

Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres

Answer: Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres (1563-1635) was a Spanish Conceptionist sister who traveled from her country to the New World to help to found the Royal Convent. The life of Mother Mariana was truly extraordinary. The number of visions and mystical favors granted to her as well as the miracles worked through her intercession are numerous. During her live, she was the superior of the Convent three times. During her first term as Abbess, she suffered persecutions from a group of rebellious nuns who wanted to relax the Rule. The rebellion grew, and the “inobservant” sisters put Mother Mariana and the other Spanish Founding Mothers in the Convent prison. Mother Mariana accepted all this and agreed to Our Lord's condition to suffer the torments of Hell for five years in order to obtain the conversion of the leader of those rebellious sisters.

One of the most extraordinary facts of her life was a mystical-physical phenomenon: her several deaths and resurrections. Documented records from the Convent and Diocesan archives show that this truly holy religious died three times. Her first death was in 1582. Standing before the Judgment Seat, she was judged blameless and given a choice: to remain in celestial glory in Heaven or to return to earth to suffer as an expiatory victim for the sins of the 20th century. She chose the latter. Her second death was on Good Friday of 1588 after an apparition where she was shown the horrible abuses and heresies that would exist in the Church in our times. She was resurrected two days later on Easter Sunday morning. She finally died on January 16, 1635. Miracles worked through her intercession immediately followed.

The body of Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres, along with the incorrupt body of another Founding Mother, is preserved in the lower level of the cloistered Convent. In 1906 during the remodeling of the Convent, the sarcophagus in which she had been buried in 1635 was opened and her body was discovered, whole and incorrupt. Today it is preserved in the lower level of the cloistered Convent.

Question: Why haven't I heard of these apparitions until recently?

Answer: It can seem strange that such an important devotion has been almost unknown outside of Ecuador for so long a time. But there is a supernatural explanation for this. The Mother of God told Mother Mariana various times that only after three centuries of mysterious silence would the message of the apparitions become known. Our Lady linked the spread of this devotion to a miraculous and extraordinary intervention she would make for the restoration of the Catholic Church when the crisis would be so great that almost all would seem lost. Our Lady also promised to give her good success to those who had recourse to her under this invocation during these difficult times. Thus, in a very special way, this prophecy is for our days.

Question: What is the origin of the invocation?

Answer: In 1607 Pope Paul V gave the name Virgin of Good Success to a statue miraculously found by two Spanish Brothers of the Order of Minims for the Service of the Sick. After the death of Brother Bernandine de Obregón, its founder, Gabriel de Fontaned was elected his successor. Accompanied by Guillermo de Rigosa, the new Superior set off for Rome to plead the case for official approval of their Order before the Roman Pontiff. As they were passing through the town of Traigueras (in Catalonia), they were caught in a storm so severe it made them fear for their lives.

In their fear, they prayed to Our Lady for shelter and succor. Seeing a soft light in the distant mountains, they left the path and climbed toward it. They found a cave carved like a polished stone and fragrant with flowers that enshrined a very beautiful statue of Holy Mary carrying Her Divine Son in Her left arm, a scepter in Her right, and a precious crown on Her head. The dress was simple but elegant. They fell to their knees to venerate the beautiful statue, and wondered how She came to be in this distant place.

The next day they traveled to the closest hamlets to make inquiries. None of the inhabitants, not even the eldest who knew the history of everyone and everything in the area, had every heard of the cave or the statue. Thus, the Brothers became the owners of the holy statue, offering Her their warmest thanks and choosing Her as their special patroness. With this amiable and powerful companion, they continued on their journey to Rome.

Arriving there, they told the Sovereign Pontiff what had happened, and Pope Paul V not only acknowledged the supernatural nature of that discovery, but upon confirming the new Order, he placed it under the protection of the same Virgin, whom he gave the name of the Virgin of Good Success.

The statue was placed in the Royal Hospital of Madrid, and soon became famous for the numerous favors granted by Heaven through it. In 1641 King Philip III ordered the construction of the splendid sanctuary in the Puerta del Sol in Madrid. With the passing of time as the devotion spread, the statue was copied and placed in various places, sometimes under a different invocation. Today there are a number of localities in Spain where this image is venerated: Orduña, La Puebla de Gordon, Tudela, Abla, among others.

The invocation was not long in making its way across the ocean to the New World. The Blessed Virgin deigned to favor the Convent of the Immaculate Conception in Quito in a very special way by means of this particular avocation. In an apparition to Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres, the Blessed Virgin appeared and asked that a statue be made of Her under the title of Good Success. She should be made just as she appeared to Her there, with the Child Jesus in her right arm, and the Abbess' crozier and the keys of the Convent in her right hand. She should be placed above the Abbess chair in the upper choir because She desired to be Abbess of that Convent until the end of time. And so the Virgin of Good Success of Quito appears with the crosier in Her right hand, instead of the scepter that She carries in Madrid.

The Sisters of the Convent of the Immaculate Conception of Quito have always had a great love for their heavenly Abbess. The Statue of the Virgin of Good Success has been loved and venerated by the people of Quito for almost three centuries.

Question: How is the devotion spreading today?

Answer: Today the fame of this apparition is extending far beyond Quito. Our Lady of Good Success told Mother Mariana that She wanted to be known and loved throughout the world, and that the devotion would begin to spread only in the 20th century. This is, in fact, what has happened. She reserved this devotion for these times because the Church would be so embattled and suffering that only the divine power and love of the Blessed Virgin would sustain the faithful.

Question: What is meant by the words “good success”? In English, it can give the impression that one is asking for material success.

Answer: That is not the original Spanish connotation. The invocation of “good success” refers to the happy development of the gestation of Christ from the Conception to Birth. The invocation of “good success” was understood by the faithful in its first meaning as a simple plea for safe childbirth. This easily extended to the invocation of Mary's meditation and intercession in times of personal need (sickness, travel, marriage).

The expression later broadened further to be understood in the sense of good success in various undertakings. For example, its popularity in the seafaring regions of Catalonia, Isle of Gomera, and Granada indicates a connection with maritime travel. Sailors would ask Mary for a safe return to port. The extended meaning can also be that of a holy death. In short, sucesso, meaning success or luck, refers to well-being and safety where strictly human means find no issue.

Question: When can the public see the miraculous Statue of Our Lady of Good Success?

Answer: The miraculous Statue of Our Lady of Good Success is taken from the cloistered upper choir three times a year and placed above the main altar of the Convent Church, so that it can be venerated by the people of Quito. It can be seen by the public at the following times:

1. During a nine-day novena in commemoration of the Feast Day of the Purification of Our Lady (February 2) – from around January 24 to February 4;

2. During the month of May;

3. During the month of October.

Mother Mariana: victim for the 20th century

Mariana Francisca was born in Spain the province of Viscaya in 1563, the first-born child of Diego Cadiz and Maria Berriochoa Alvarez. On the day of her First Communion, at age 9, Our Lady appeared to her and told her she was destined to be a religious of Her Immaculate Conception in the New World. In 1577, when Marianna was only 13 years old, she left Spain in the company of her aunt, Mother Maria de Jesus Taboada, and four other sisters, to found a branch of the Order of the Immaculate Conception in San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador.

In 1582, when Mother Mariana was praying before the Blessed Sacrament, for the first time she was given to see the heresy, blasphemy and impurity that would inundate the world as punishment in the 20th century. Our Lady asked her: “My daughter, will you sacrifice yourself for the people of this time?” Mother Mariana replied, “I am willing.” From the violence of the shock of previewing the horrors of our day, Mother Mariana fell dead.

Historic and documented evidence record that this holy religious truly died in 1582 and resurrected. Before the divine tribunal, she was given the choice to remain in heaven or return to suffer in the world. Following the example of Our Lady, who left the glories of heaven to protect her children during those difficult first years of the fledgling Church, Mother Mariana chose to return to life to expiate for the great sins of our times. (A second death and resurrection happened on Easter Sunday of 1588.)

The Existence of Hell

The First Secret of Fatima breaks the myth, the lie of 20th century, that hell does not exist. On July 13, 1917, Our Lady told three children, ages 10, 8,7, to “pray, pray very much because many souls go to Hell. Then She opened Her hands and showed the three children a hole in the ground, a place. That hole, said Lucy, was like a sea of fire in which we saw the souls of human forms, men and women, burning, shouting, and crying in despair.” Mary said to the children: “You have seen Hell where sinners go when they do not repent.” A Roman Catholic dogma: The existence of Hell.

During her life, Mother Mariana begged Our Lord to save the soul of an insubordinate sister in the convent. He agreed that this rebellious sister would be saved, although she would be required to remain in purgatory until the end of the world. In recompense, Mother Mariana had to suffer five years on earth the pains of hell. For five years, she suffered all the tortures of the senses reserved for souls in that terrible place and the most intense suffering of the sense of the loss of God.

It seems very clear that Our Lady wanted 20th century man to realize that hell exists: it is a place, and it is not empty.

The breakdown of morals and customs

During Jacinta's stay at the orphanage of Our Lady of Miracles in Lisbon in 1920, Our Lady told her, “The sins that lead more souls to hell are the sins of the flesh.” There were other prophecies She revealed to the little girl: “Styles will come that will offend Our Lord very much. Persons who serve God should not follow the styles. The Church does not have styles. Our Lord is always the same.” She said that the sins of impurity would be so great there would be almost no virgin souls. She said that many marriages are not good, that they do not please Our Lord and are not of God. Finally, Jacinta repeated continually to Lucia and Mother Godinho: “Pray much for priests and religious. Priests should be pure, very pure!”

Three centuries before, in Quito, Ecuador, on Jan. 20, 1610, Our Lady appeared carrying a crozier in Her right hand and her Divine Son in her left arm so that “all will know that I am merciful and understanding. Let them come to me, for I will lead them to Him.” She told Mother Mariana that in the twentieth century “the passions will erupt and there will be a total corruption of customs, for Satan will reign almost completely by means of the Masonic sects. They will focus particularly on the children in order to achieve this general corruption. Woe to the children of these times.” Obviously she is speaking of the secular humanist revolution about which so much has been written that has completely invaded the secular as well as religious institutions of our times.

Our Lady continued, describing the abuses that would attack each of the Sacraments: “Woe to the children of these times because it will be difficult to receive the Sacrament of Baptism and also that of Confirmation.” She warned that the devil would assiduously try to destroy the sacrament of Confession and Holy Communion. She lamented the many sacrileges and abuses of the Blessed Sacrament that would occur. The Sacrament of Extreme Unction would be little esteemed and many people would die without receiving it, thus denied assistance they would need for that “great leap from time to Eternity.”

The Sacred Sacrament of Holy Orders would be ridiculed, oppressed and despised. The demon would labor unceasingly to corrupt the clergy and would succeed with many of them. And these “depraved priests, who will scandalize the Christian people, will incite the hatred of the bad Christians and the enemies of the Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church to fall upon all priests. This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings upon the good pastors of the Church.”

About the Sacrament of Matrimony, which symbolizes the union of Christ with His Church, she said this: “Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the objective of doing away with this Sacrament, making it easy for everyone to live in sin. The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of customs. In these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury that would conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost. Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women. In this supreme moment of need of the Church, those who should speak will fall silent.”

Our Lady told Mother Mariana, the religious Conceptionist who received the revelations, that the souls who would remain faithful in those difficult times would need great strength of will, constancy, valor and confidence in God. Moments would come when everything would seem to be lost and paralyzed, but that would be the moment, she promised, of the “happy beginning of the complete restoration.” “My hour will arrive” she foretold, “when I, in an amazing manner, will overthrow proud Satan, crushing him under my feet, chaining him in the infernal abyss, leaving the Church and the land free of this cruel tyranny.”

Thus, while the message of Our Lady of Good Success is quite sad and serious, it is also one of great hope. It is the promise echoed by Our Lady at Fatima in 1917: “In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph.”

Copies of the book “Our Lady of Good Success: Prophecies for our times” (72 pages) can be purchased for $7 U.S. each from: Tradition in Action, Inc., P.O. Box 23135, Los Angeles, CA 90023. Add $3 for U.S. orders. Canadian orders should add $2 for each order.

This article was published in the May-June-July, 2004 issue of “Michael”.

Back to the list of articles

Back to the Michael's homepage

H/t to http://www.michaeljournal.org