Turning Towards the Lord

I've been reading U.M Lang's 'Turning Towards the Lord: Orientation in Liturgical Prayer' the last couple of days, the 2004 published book on the liturgy of the Church that won so much admiration from the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, that the man who would later become Pope wrote the foreword to it.

If what took place after Vatican II amounted to a violent revolution within the Church and the 40 years afterwards have been a period of liturgical tyranny enforced by a machine of ecclesiastical government that clamped down on those who questioned the wisdom of the new regime, then it can only be said that what we are witnessing within the Church today is what political observers described taking place in the Czech Republic, in 1989, as the Velvet Revolution, a revolution so gentle, loving and benign that the Church barely notices that it is taking place, a Velvet Revolution enacted by a gentle, loving and benign Chief Shepherd, who goes by the name of Benedict XVI.

With thanks to Offerimus Tibi Domine for highlighting this speech...

At the Liturgy Convention of the Archdiocese of Colombo held at Aquinas University College on 01st Sept - 3rd September 2010,on 2nd September, Mr. Martin Mosebach spoke on " The Old Roman Missian ; Loss and Rediscovery ".

'The history of the Holy Catholic Church is full of mysteries; and as well as good mysteries there are evil mysteries, The Apostle Paul speaks, significantly, of the mysterium iniquitatis, the "mystery of iniquity." Down the centuries the so-called Theodicy—that is, the question "How can there be evil in a Creation that God made good?"—has constantly been bursting into flame. It is a question that comes from a profound unease, from a deep distress. St. Paul's "mystery of iniquity" recognizes the distress caused by the existence of evil, but he absolutely refuses to give an answer to it. As for myself, I will not say whether the mystery of which I am about to speak is good or evil, or an inseparable mixture of both elements. Why am I reticent on this point? Each one of history's great events has consequences that send ripples down the centuries, and these consequences are constantly changing their aspect. Something that is a curse in one century may turn out to be a blessing in a later century. But it is also the case that diseases can persist while their manifestations change.

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith of Colombo

These introductory remarks, I must admit, express a certain hesitation on my part. This is because I am deeply aware of the seriousness of my subject. I wish to speak to you about the tremendous upheaval in the Church's history since the Second Vatican Council. For it was then that something entirely new happened: something that, until then, was unthinkable. Whenever a Catholic hears the word "new" in connection with the Church, he must always be on his guard. What is really "new" in the history of the world is the Incarnation, God's becoming man; and this has already taken place. At the same time this Incarnation never ceases to present itself to us as something new: it is something so new that we cannot fully grasp it. It points ahead to a time after the end of times when the world will be re-created. It anticipates this new creation, but until then the Incarnation lodges in the world's body like a annoying and irritating thorn.

Martin Mosebach talking in the Diocese of Columbo

Besides Jesus Christ nothing can be "new" unless it is totally saturated with him. On the contrary, anything that tries to modify, intensify, re-touch or re-vamp what has been revealed once-and-for-all will always remain doubtful and possibly even dangerous, however interesting and attractive it may sound. There is a cultural axiom that states, "Old things are best": this is surely the experience of every culture, every civilization. Culture is necessarily connected with confidence in the tradition: culture consists in the expansion of a brief human life into the wide horizons of the past and the future. Culture gives people the opportunity to assimilate the experiences of earlier generations and to hand them on the future generations. Based on the experience of past generations, trees can be planted now so that, eventually, generations to come will be able to enjoy their fruit. What is old has proved that it can survive over many generations. It has not sunk into oblivion like things that are valueless and dead, but has demonstrated its fruitfulness over centuries or even millennia. As Goethe, the great German poet, observed: "Only the fruitful is true." What is old and has remained a living reality can even be the visible form of truth in past and present...'

For full text of the speech, click here...If you need any reminding of just how extreme and antithetical to the Church's tradition was the ideology of those who staged a coup d'etat within the Bride of Christ in the 1970s, then check out Creative Minority Report's post today on the 'Ecological Liturgy' promoted in that decade. Could hardly believe my eyes! Also, it is good to keep in touch with what is going on in the Faith in far-away lands. I've discovered a blog by a Catholic husband and father in the Philippines called, The Pinoy Catholic, another devotee of Mass in the Extraordinary Form and, luckily, its all in English!

If you have a devotion to the Divine Mercy, you can also obtain the Image URL for this Divine Mercy image in which Our Blessed Lord actually blesses you and your readers.

Here it is ------------------------------>