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Fifth Sunday After Easter (Rogationtide)

Christus Resurréxit! Resurréxit Vere! Sunday is the fifth and last Sunday after Easter, and as custom we provide a reflection on Sunday’s Collect and propers: http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2021/05/the-school-of-love-in-orations-of-fifth.html

Ascension Thursday Latin Masses – Thursday May 26

Although not a holy day of obligation in most dioceses (sadly), Ascension Thursday May 26 is indeed celebrated in the Traditional Latin Mass calendar on its actual date (40th day after Easter). As such, the following parishes will be offering Traditional Latin Masses on Thursday May 26:

  • St. Ann – 7pm Solemn High Orchestral Mass
  • St. Thomas Aquinas – 7pm High Mass
  • St. Elizabeth of the Hill Country, Boone – 9:30am Latin Mass (2 hours northwest of Charlotte)
  • St. John the Baptist, Tryon – 6:30pm Latin Mass (2 hours west of Charlotte)
  • Prince of Peace, Taylors, SC – 7pm High Mass (2 hours southwest of Charlotte)

Minor Rogation Days this Monday – Wednesday (Rogationtide)

This week, Monday through Wednesday of Ascension week are minor rogation days, a once penitential time where the Church implores God’s protection and aid against natural disasters (rogare is Latin for “to ask”). Traditionally a blessing of fields or procession would occur on this day as well. To learn more on this period please see this informative article by Dr. Mike Foley at The New Liturgical Movement, which we excerpt below: https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2022/05/rogationtide.html#.Yoh_oVTMKHs

“Rogationtide commemorates nature in relation to man and the city, from his tilling of the soil to his collective aversion of meteorological and seismic calamities. This not only invites a deeper meditation on our stewardship of the earth, it adds a communal dimension to Rogationtide’s acknowledgement of nature as both a source of bounty and potential harm. As one introduction puts it, ‘the processions are a reminder to feeble man to turn with humility and confidence to the Giver of all good.’”

Rogation Masses: Prince of Peace parish in Taylors, SC will be offering 12 noon Latin Masses followed by a Rogation procession on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week. They are located 1209 Brushy Creek Road, Taylors, SC: https://princeofpeacetaylors.org/

Deacon Peter Rusciolelli to Preach at Latin Mass on Sunday June 5: On Saturday June 4, seminarian Peter Rusciolelli will be ordained to the diaconate by Bishop Jugis. We are pleased to announce that the next day, Sunday June 5, the future Deacon Rusciolelli will preach at the 12:30pm Sunday Latin Mass at St. Ann parish where he has served the Latin Mass frequently. Please keep him in your prayers as he approaches his diaconate ordination.  

Upcoming Respect Life Latin Masses

  • Saturday May 28 is fourth Saturday and St. Ann will offer an 8am Respect Life Latin Mass, followed by prayers at the Planned Parenthood abortion facility (also a Holy Hour in the Church)
  • Wednesday June 1 Day of Prayer & Penance – With the Supreme Court decision on abortion expected in June, Bishop Jugis has declared Wednesday June 1 a day of prayer and penance. St. Ann will offer its regular 6pm Latin Mass that evening. Faithful are asked to pray and fast for the overturning of Roe & Casey Supreme Court decisions, and wear a white rose pin or sticker to generate awareness.

Tuesday May 24 – World Day of Prayer for Church in China: The universal Church sets May 24 as a day of prayer for the Catholics in China. Please consider offering a Rosary for the Chinese Catholics. To support the underground Church, please visit the Cardinal Kung Foundation: http://www.cardinalkungfoundation.org/

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

Latin Mass & Traditional News

  • Of Liturgical Interest: Three New Books on the Papacy, Tradition, Authority, and Obedience: There are many problems in the Church today, but one of them that intersects with, and poses obstacles for, the Traditional Latin Mass, is that of clerical hyper-obedience, also known as ultramontanism or hyper-papalism (where anything a bishop or Pontiff says or does must be obeyed).  In the “post-McCarrick Church” one would hope that most Catholics now realize that clerical authority has limits and declining to follow Church leaders when they order or request something that is immoral, spiritually harmful or merely outside their authority, is not sinful or disobedient. To expand on this topic, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski (whom the CLMC hosted last year) has recently penned an important book on the proper understanding of obedience, and now has an additional two-volume work on the nature of papal authority. We share his article and books here: https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2022/05/of-liturgical-interest-three-new-books.html
  • Mass of Ages Part II Trailer Released: The new installment on the documentary of the sacred liturgy, entitled Mass of Ages, has a new trailer from those who saw the first preview. The documentary will be released this Thursday May 26. View the trailer here: https://vimeo.com/711884489 To watch the documentary come Thursday, visit: https://latinmass.com/

CLMC comment: Although its joyful occasion to move into a new and formal parish, a question that remains unclear is whether this consecrated land will remain in the diocesan family, or will it be sold off by the diocese for profane uses as we find the old Our Lady of Assumption on Shenandoah Road in Charlotte, the old St. Therese in Mooresville, or the old St. James in downtown Concord.

Rogationtide

We close this update by revisiting the topic of the fields and rogation days, which the Church commemorates this week with beautiful processions in the fields to implore God’s assistance and to appease His anger due to the sins of man. Furthermore in a few weeks the Whit Ember Days will arrive where the Church sets aside three days of fasting and penance each season to thank God for the gifts of creation. Today Church leaders often preach on the need to “care for creation”, which results in mainly support for Marxist-environmental policies. Yet Catholics who truly desire to “care for creation”, would benefit from learning from the riches of the Church’s traditions and ancient teachings relating to man’s dominion over creation, agriculture, and the connection between sin and natural calamities (as noted below). To ignore the Church’s wisdom and embrace naturalistic ideologies promoted by today’s pagans (or even some Church leaders) can only render the cause sterile and fruitless. To learn more about the Church’s teachings on creation, we recommend the Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation.  Additionally, these following books about Church and agriculture are also excellent reads:

For Rogation Tuesday, we share Dom Prosper Gueranger’s reflection (perhaps prophetic) on the importance of this week:

The Rogation Days were instituted for another end besides this of averting the Divine anger. We must beg our Heavenly Father to bless the fruits of the earth; we must beseech him, with all the earnestness of public prayer, to give us our daily bread. The eyes of all, says the Psalmist, hope in thee, O Lord! and thou givest them food in due season. Thou openest thy hand, and fillest with blessing every living creature. In accordance with the consoling doctrine conveyed by these words, the Church prays to God, that he would, this year, give to all living creatures on earth the food they stand in need of. She acknowledges that we are not worthy of the favor, for we are sinners: let us unite with her in this humble confession; but, at the same time, let us join her in beseeching our Lord to make mercy triumph over justice. How easily could he not frustrate the self-conceited hopes, and the clever systems of men! They own that all depends on the weather; and on whom does that depend? They cannot do without God! True,—they seldom speak of him, and he permits himself to be forgotten by them; but he neither sleepeth nor slumbereth, that keepeth Israel. He has but to withhold his blessing, and all their progress in agricultural science, whereby they boast to have made famine an impossibility, is of no effect. Some unknown disease comes upon a vegetable; it causes distress among the people, and endangers the social order of a world that has secularized itself from the Christian Law, and would at once perish, but for the mercy of the God it affects to ignore.

If, then, our Heavenly Father deign, this year, to bless the fruits of the earth, we may say, in all truth, that he gives food to them that forget and blaspheme him, as well as to them that make him the great object of their thoughts and service. Men of no religion will profit of the blessing, but they will not acknowledge it to be His; they will proclaim louder than ever, that Nature’s laws are now so well regulated by modern science, that she cannot help going on well! God will be silent, and feed the men that thus insult him. But why does he not speak? Why does he not make his wrath be felt? Because his Church has prayed; because he has found the ten just men, that is, the few for whose sake he mercifully consents to spare the world. He therefore permits these learned Economists, whom he could so easily stultify, to go on talking and writing. Thanks to this his patience, some of them will grow tired of their impious absurdity; an unexpected circumstance will open their eyes to the truth, and they will, one day, join us both in faith and prayer. Others will go deeper and deeper into blasphemy; they will go on to the last, defying God’s justice, and fulfilling in themselves that terrible saying of holy Scripture: The Lord hath made all things for himself; the wicked also for the evil day.

As to us,—who glory in the simplicity of our Faith, who acknowledge that we have all from God and nothing from ourselves, who confess that we are sinners and undeserving of his gifts,—we will ask him, during these three days, to give us the food we require; we will say to him, with holy Church: That thou vouchsafe to give and preserve the fruits of the earth: We beseech thee, hear us! May he have pity on us in our necessities! Next year, we will return to him, with the same earnest request. We will march, under the standard of the Cross, through the same roads, making the air resound with the same Litanies. We will do this with all the greater confidence, at the thought that our holy Mother is marshalling her children in every part of Christendom, in this solemn and suppliant Procession. For fourteen hundred years has our God been accustomed to receive the petitions of his faithful people, at this season of the year; he shall have the same homage from us; nay, we will endeavor, by the fervor of our prayer, to make amends for the indifference and ignorance which are combining to do away with old Catholic customs, which our forefathers prized and loved.

Rogation Days – Tuesday: https://sensusfidelium.com/the-liturgical-year-dom-prosper-gueranger/easter/rogation-days-tuesday/

Only the Traditional Latin Mass retains the prayers, litanies and customs of Rogation week. What Mass are you attending Sunday?