Christus Resurréxit! Resurréxit Vere! Sunday is the 4th Sunday after Easter, and as custom we share a reflection on Sunday’s Collect: http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2021/04/the-school-of-love-in-collect-for.html

Additionally we share Dom Prosper Gueranger’s commentary for this Sunday: https://sensusfidelium.com/the-liturgical-year-dom-prosper-gueranger/easter/fourth-sunday-after-easter/

CLMC Synod Response

We thank everyone who participated in our Synod survey over the past two weeks and are pleased to share the results with our Community. Among the highlights are:

• The importance of the Traditional Latin Mass in each person’s life and how it has helped us grow further in holiness
• The challenges, often imposed by the Diocese of Charlotte’s antiquated pastoral framework, that have caused spiritual difficulties for the Latin Mass faithful
• The near unanimous desire for a dedicated Latin Mass chapel in Charlotte which offers the Latin Mass exclusively, daily, with fulltime priests
• How this survey has inspired the CLMC to pursue further the idea of requesting a Traditional Latin Mass chapel in Charlotte

We encourage you to read our Synod response which was submitted to the Synod this past week: https://charlottelatinmass.org/about/clmc-synod/

Please consider praying that the diocese will be open minded to meeting the needs of the Latin Mass the faithful and finding alternative pastoral solutions.

Holy Face Devotions

Three parishes in Charlotte now offer the Holy Face devotions – a timely and powerful devotion to combat communism (among which abortion is its “anti-sacrament”). 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.  The schedule is as follows:

• St. Mark – Mondays 2-3pm
• St. Thomas Aquinas (new!) – Tuesdays 6am in the main church
• St. Ann – Tuesdays 7:30am in the chapel after the Novus Ordo Mass (uses the booklet which takes 15-20 minutes)

Latin Mass & Traditional News

• Newly Ordained Priests and Permission to Offer the Traditional Latin Mass: Ordination season is almost upon us and the big question on many minds is – what will new Latin Mass-friendly diocesan priests (and their bishops) do when ordained? Will they offer the Latin Mass as granted by the Church for well over a thousand years, or “obey” Traditiones Custodes (albeit selectively) and restrict themselves or their new priests from offering the Mass of Ages? Dr. Peter Kwasniewski (whom we hosted last November) examines this issue and references a February interview with canonist Fr. Gerald Murray on the canonical limitations of the new Motu Proprio and how bishops are not authorized to seek permission for their newly ordained priests: https://onepeterfive.com/newly-ordained-priests-and-permission-to-offer-the-traditional-latin-mass/

• Obedience, Disobedience, and Rash Obedience: a Virtue in a time of Crisis: On the topic of obedience, Dr. Joseph Shaw has written a helpful review of Dr. Peter Kwasniewski’s recent book on said topic, and Shaw wisely addresses the problems caused by conservative priests (orthodox priests, who may even offer the Latin Mass, but try to operate under the problematic modernist theology established after Vatican II) in obeying certain spiritually harmful rules that come down from authority and the problems it causes.  https://onepeterfive.com/obedience-disobedience-rash/

CLMC note: Although Dr. Shaw’s article doesn’t explain it explicitly, his analysis can help explain the rigid legalism that is practiced in many “conservative” dioceses (as noted in our above Synod report), much to the detriment of the Church.  

• Viganò on Liturgical Revolution and the Holy Week Reforms of Pius XII: Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò pens a fascinating letter to priest offering his thoughts on the 1955 Holy Week liturgical “reforms” and expresses the view that there is no reason why a traditional priest or traditional society of priest that offer the Mass of 1962 exclusively cannot also offer the Pre-1955 Holy Week (as we had for a few years). Furthermore, His Excellency spells out his preferences plain and simple:

First of all, because I do not agree with the co-existence of two forms of the same rite in the Church of the Roman Rite…and I am convinced that the Novus Ordo should simply be abolished and prohibited and the traditional rite should be declared the only Roman Rite in force.

https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/fetzen-fliegen/item/5963-vigano-on-liturgical-revolution-and-the-holy-week-reforms-of-pius-xii

CLMC note: Viganò is setting the stage for the future Church, in which after the liturgical wars have ended and the Latin Mass is restored to the throne as the unique expression of the Roman Rite.   

Cardinal Burke’s Reflection: Mary the Mirror of Justice

Lastly, to close out this Sunday’s update, we share with you Cardinal Raymond Burke’s most recent letter, during the month of Mary, about the Blessed Mother compared to the secular view of justice.

In a totally secularized culture, the exercise of judicial power becomes simply a way to accomplish certain ends without respect for the order with which God has created us and the world for which we are His stewards. In its worst manifestations, it becomes absolute and leaves society bereft of all justice and on the way to self-destruction. The ministry of justice, on the other hand, is exclusively at the service of the order inscribed by God the Father in creation and, above all, in the human heart, and restored by the Redemptive Incarnation of His only-begotten Son. It protects and builds up the individual and society in unity and peace. Our Blessed Mother inspires us and guides us in the service of our brothers and sisters through the administration of justice. Given to us as our Mother by her Divine Son, as He died upon the Cross for our eternal salvation, the ever-Virgin Mary draws us with maternal love to her Immaculate Heart, under which God the Son took a human heart, as Pope Saint John Paul II reminded us (Angelus Address, 14 July 1985). She leads us to place our hearts, with her Immaculate Heart, totally into His Sacred Heart. She guides us to trust in God’s never-failing mercy, to trust, as she trusted, that God’s promises to us will be fulfilled.

https://www.cardinalburke.com/presentations/mirror-of-justice

What Mass are you attending Sunday?