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Second Sunday of Lent (Daylight Savings Time)

Laudetur Iesus Christus! Sunday is the Second Sunday of Lent, and as custom we provide Dr. Mike Foley’s commentary on the Collect during Mass: http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2021/02/the-transformative-collect-of-second.html

Daylight Savings Time: Reminder that today Sunday March 13 begins Daylight Savings Time. Please set your clocks ahead 1 hour.

Six Sundays to Restore the Triduum

This Lent, in order to pray and sacrifice to help restore the canceled Latin Triduum, we are encourage all CLMC readers who are not currently attending the Sunday Latin Mass regularly, to consider making the sacrifice and join us each Sunday during Lent and pray for the Triduum’s restoration.  The attached flyer lists all of the diocesan Latin Masses in the Diocese of Charlotte.  Relatedly, the priests at St. Ann and St. Thomas Aquinas parishes (and others) are also praying a Memorare after the Latin Mass on certain days for the protection of the Latin Mass: https://charlottelatinmass.org/2022/03/01/six-sundays-to-restore-the-latin-triduum/

Juventutem Young Adults Event – Saturday March 26, 6pm

Juventutem, the young adults group centered around the Traditional Latin Mass is organizing traditional Latin Vespers at 6pm and afterwards a talk on iconography at the Cathedral on Saturday March 26 at 6:30pm (Cathedral Youth Room). Vespers will be prayed at 6pm near the Marion Grotto behind the school (on the backside of the parish). Please see announcement below. For questions or more info visit their Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/JuventutemCLT  

At 6pm we will gather at the Marian grotto behind St. Patrick’s School to pray Vespers in Latin. Following prayer, we will walk over to the Youth Room at 6:30pm for a talk on iconography by guest speaker, Rachel Willoughby. Learn about this Sacred Christian art form full of complex layers, symbolism, and meaning! There is also the potential for a future offering of a multi-session icon painting workshop.

Holy Face Apostolate at St. Mark – Mondays 2-3pm

Each Monday from 2-3pm, St. Mark parish’s Holy Face apostolate offers prayers of reparation to the Holy Face of Jesus.  As background, in 1843, Sr. Mary of St. Peter, a Carmelite nun in the monastery in Tours, France, received a series of revelations from Jesus telling her that reparation for certain sins were an imperative, and that it was to be done through devotion to the Holy Face.  The primary purpose of this apostolate is to, by praying certain prayers, make reparation for the sins committed against the first three Commandments of the Lord: The denial of God by atheism (communism), blasphemy, and the profanation of Sundays and Holy Days. Devotion to the Holy Face has been referred to as the devotion for Jesus Crucified.  Attend as your schedule permits.

Note of Thanks: We thank everyone who joined us in praying our annual novena to St. Gregory the Great. We close our e-mail below with more on this great Apostle of the Liturgy.

Latin Mass & Traditional News

  • Pray for the canonization of Ignatius Cardinal Kung – March 12: During the Cold War, there were two high ranking prelates imprisoned by communists on opposite ends of the earth for practicing their Catholic faith. In the west, it was Servant of God, Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty of Hungary (who later escaped to the U.S. Embassy in Budapest, and then was later exiled to Austria until his death in 1975).  In the east, it was Cardinal Ignatius Kung, the first bishop of Shanghai who stood strong for papal authority, and for it, spent the better part of 30 years in prison (1955-1985). His Eminence was exiled to Connecticut in the 1980s where he offered the Traditional Latin Mass occasionally until his death on March 12, 2000.  On this weekend which marks the 22nd anniversary of his death, please consider offering prayers for his canonization as he could be a powerful intercessor against Chinese Communism. The Cardinal Kung Foundation is also a worthy group to give alms to and allow people to request Masses be offered by underground priests in China: http://www.cardinalkungfoundation.org/
  • Ember Days in the Post-Vatican II Liturgical Reforms: An Accidental Elimination?: Last week we commemorated the Ember Days, the quarterly set of Masses and penance set aside to thank God for His creation and to ask for graces for the upcoming season. Rorate Caeli has a helpful post explaining how the Ember Days were tragically removed from the Vatican II Mass: https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2022/03/ember-days-in-post-vatican-ii.html
  • The Sacrificial Nature of the Mass in the Usus Antiquior: Our friend, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski pens a great “back to basics” article on why the Traditional Latin Mass is sacrificial in nature (as compared to the Novus Ordo which is often likened to a meal at a table). Dr. Kwasniewski explains why the Traditional Latin Mass best brings out the sacrificial nature of the Mass, which is a representation of the Sacrifice on Calvary: https://onepeterfive.com/the-sacrificial-nature-of-the-mass-in-the-usus-antiquior/
  • Liturgical Arts Journal: Sisters of Mercy Chapel in Belmont, North Carolina: A few months ago, we shared an article by local writer John Paul Sonnen on the tragic “renovation” of Belmont Abbey’s Basilica in the 1960s. While that interior was lost, there is another chapel just down the road from the Abbey which to this date has survived the 1960s. It’s the Sisters of Mercy chapel built in 1899, which is housed in the old Sacred Heart Academy/College campus: https://www.liturgicalartsjournal.com/2022/03/sisters-of-mercy-chapel-in-belmont.html

The Apostle of the Liturgy: St. Gregory the Great – March 12 by Dom Prosper Gueranger

The patron saint of the CLMC is St. Gregory the Great, whose feast day was Saturday March 12. It is fitting to close with some of Gueranger’s reflections from his book, The Liturgical Year:

Among all the Pastors whom our Lord Jesus Christ has placed as his Vice-regents over the universal Church, there is not one whose merits and renown have surpassed those of the holy Pope whose feast we keep today. His name is Gregory, which signifies watchfulness; his surname is the Great, and he was in possession of that title when God sent the Seventh Gregory, the glorious Hildebrand, to govern his Church.

In recounting the glorious of this illustrious Pontiff, it is but natural we should begin with his zeal for the Services of the Church. The Roman Liturgy, which owes to him some of its finest Hymns, may be considered as his work, at least in this sense, that it was he who collected together and classified the prayers and rites drawn up by his predecessors, and reduced to the form in which we now have them. He collected also the ancient chants of the Church and arranged them in accordance with the rules and requirements of the Divine Service. Hence it is that our sacred music is called the Gregorian Chant, which gives such solemnity to the Liturgy and inspires the soul with respect and devotion during the celebration of the great Mysteries of our Faith.

He is, then, the Apostle of the Liturgy, and this alone would have immortalized his name; but we must look for far greater things from such a Pontiff as Gregory. His name was added to the three who had hitherto been honored as the great Doctors of the Latin Church. These three were Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome; who else could be the fourth but Gregory? The Church found in his Writings such evidence of his having been guided by the Holy Ghost—such a knowledge of the Sacred Scriptures, such a clear appreciation of the Mysteries of Faith, and such unction and authority in his teachings that she gladly welcomed him as a new guide for her children.

The Traditional Latin Mass and the Gregorian Chant that accompanies it was safeguarded and organically developed by many saints who were guided by the Holy Spirit, most notably St. Gregory the Great. It was not hastily manufactured by men on some napkin in a Roman restaurant in the 1960s. What Mass are you attending Sunday?