by

Trinity Sunday

Laudetur Iesus Christus! Sunday is the ancient octave day of Pentecost, otherwise known as the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, the beginning of the season after Pentecost.  According to Dom Prosper Lefebvre, OSB, in the St. Andrew Daily Missal, the reign of the Holy Ghost begins in this season after Pentecost, giving the faithful roughly six months of sanctoral feasts (e.g. the saints) to help deepen one’s faith and in love of God. The feasts of the Holy Trinity (today), Corpus Christi (this Thursday June 16), the Sacred Heart (June 24), followed by Ss. Peter & Paul (June 29) help to emphasize this aspect of the calendar. As custom, we share commentary on Sunday’s collect: https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2021/05/the-confessional-collect-of-trinity.html

Additionally, Dr. Mike Foley provides a rare look into the collect of the first Sunday after Pentecost, which would be today if it were not replaced by the feast of the Holy Trinity centuries ago: https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2022/06/the-rare-collect-of-first-sunday-after.html#.YqQYnOzMKHs

June Festal Latin Masses (Feast of Corpus Christi this Thursday)

As the Church moves into the season after Pentecost, June has some important feast days to celebrate:

Feast of Corpus Christi – Thursday June 16*

  • 6pm (Solemn High Mass): St. Ann parish
  • 7pm (High): St. Thomas Aquinas, with Eucharistic Procession to follow
  • 7pm (Solemn High Mass): Prince of Peace parish, Taylors, SC (2 hours southwest of Charlotte)

* The traditional calendar commemorates Corpus Christi on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday.

Feast of the Sacred Heart – Friday June 24

Nativity of St. John the Baptist – Saturday June 25*

  • 8am – Respect Life Latin Mass, St Ann
  • 9am – Prince of Peace parish, Taylors, SC (2 hours southwest of Charlotte)

* The feast of St. John the Baptist normally falls on June 24; however due to the feast of the Sacred Heart occurring on that day this year, the Nativity of St. John is transferred to June 25. This is confirmed via the FSSP liturgical calendar.

Feast of SS. Peter and Paul – Wednesday June 29

  • 6pm: St. Ann

June – The Month of Octaves

June can also be thought of as a month of ancient octaves. Prior to Archbishop Bugnini’s liturgical “reforms” of 1955, the Church celebrated many more octaves than today. In fact, June would not only have the octave of Pentecost (if Easter/Ascension occurred late enough), but also commemorated octaves of Corpus Christi, Sacred Heart, and of Ss. Peter and Paul – each for 8 days. Occasionally, this also would mean a saint’s feast day was placed on the calendar only after a certain octave concluded, such as St. Isabel of Portugal who died on July 4 (during the Octave of Ss. Peter & Paul); thus her feast day was fixed to July 8. The same occurred with St. Thomas More, who was martyred on July 6 (octave day of Ss. Peter and Paul), but is celebrated in the Traditional Rite on July 9.  As the Church rediscovers the Traditional Latin Mass, especially the calendar prior to 1955, we can pray for a return to more of these octaves, as some feasts are too glorious to be celebrated for just one day.

Prayers for the Seminarians: Please pray for the two Charlotte deacons set to be ordained this coming week, Deacons Aaron Huber and Darren Balkey.

Community News

  • Temporary Latin Mass Changes in Taylors, SC: Due to clergy summer retreats, sabbaticals, etc., Prince of Peace parish in Taylors, SC (2 hours southwest of Charlotte) will not be offering Latin Mass on weekdays during the summer. It will have 1st Saturdays at 9am and the regular 12 noon Latin Mass each Sunday. The normal schedule should resume by mid-August. Please visit the website before making a visit: https://princeofpeacetaylors.org/

Latin Mass & Traditional News

  • Modesty Announcement at St. Ann:  Last year around this time, Fr. Reid issued a gentle reminder about the importance of dressing modesty at St. Ann parish (see bulletin here).  With summer here please note the sign in the narthex denoting the parish’s modesty reminder. We encourage all to read Fr. Reid’s message:

    As our weather begins to warm up, please be attentive to dressing modestly for Mass. Attending Mass is the most important thing we do each week, and the way we dress should reflect this. When we come to Mass, we are coming to visit our Lord, and thus we should be dressed appropriately. Thus, as your pastor I respectfully ask you to refrain from wearing shorts, t-shirts, short skirts, low-cut or revealing clothing at Mass. Moreover, clothing that is revealing or very tightly fitting can be a distraction to your fellow parishioners. So out of respect to our Lord, and in charity to your fellow parishioners, please be modest when selecting your clothes for Mass. I appreciate your attention to this important matter.
  • Restoration, Not Reform, Is The Only Way Forward: Dr. Peter Kwasniewski (who visited the CLMC and St. Thomas Aquinas parish last year) posts a letter he wrote to a priest in which he advocates that clergy should abandon the “Reform of the Reform” (e.g. trying to make the Novus Ordo Mass more traditional) and instead just replace it with the Traditional Latin Mass. Dr. K says succinctly (emphasis ours):

“There is no future for a liturgy that has severed its ties to the past, its bond to the Faith of every generation, unfolding across the ages…[T]he modern lex orandi is defective in its texts, rubrics, and ceremonies; it fails to embody adequately and communicate clearly the full lex credendi of the Catholic Church. This is an objective wound in the Body of Christ and cannot be papered over with charitable intentions or surreptitious improvements…It is worth pointing out that the journal Notitiae, which has provided official guidelines for the Novus Ordo for decades now, stated repeatedly that elements from the old missal were never meant to be incorporated into the new, and that the celebrant should not do so.”

https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2022/06/restoration-not-reform-is-only-way.html#.YqV7lOzMKHt

CLMC comment: Is it not long overdue for conservative priests and seminarians to abandon the sinking Reform of the Reform ship, and fully embrace the Mass of Ages?

  • Are US dioceses ‘in a corner’ over Traditionis custodes?: With the Synod in Charlotte completed, we share an article about how some US Bishops may have boxed themselves into a corner as they desire to follow Pope Francis’ Motu Proprio Traditiones Custodes which restricts the Latin Mass, and yet desire to follow Pope Francis’ call to listen to the laity’s needs during the Synod – including the Latin Mass faithful who are being harmed by the restrictions: https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/are-us-dioceses-in-a-corner-over?s=w

CLMC comment: We reshare our Synod response here: https://charlottelatinmass.org/about/clmc-synod/

Trinity Sunday Reflection – Dom Prosper Gueranger, OSB

After the Ascension, and Pentecost, the importance of today’s feast day is often overlooked but the great liturgist Dom Prosper Gueranger, in The Liturgical Year, gives some excellent reasons on why the feast of the Most Holy Trinity is quite foundational for the Church and her faithful. We provide an excerpt and a link to read further:

“Every homage paid to God by the Church’s Liturgy has the Holy Trinity as its object. Time, as well as eternity, belongs to the Trinity. The Trinity is the scope of all Religion. Every day, every hour, belongs to It. The Feasts instituted in memory of the mysteries of our Redemption center in It. The Feasts of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints are but so many means for leading us to the praise of the God who is One in essence, and Three in Persons. The Sunday’s Office, in a very special way, gives us, each week, a most explicit expression of adoration and worship of this mystery, which is the foundation of all others and the source of all grace.

On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Apostles received, as we have seen, the grace of the Holy Ghost. In accordance with the injunction of their divine Master, they will soon start on their mission of teaching all nations and baptizing men in the name of the Holy Trinity It was but right, then, that the solemnity which is intended to honor the mystery of One God in Three Persons should immediately follow that of Pentecost, with which it has a mysterious connection. And yet it was not till after many centuries that it was inserted in the Cycle of the Liturgical Year, whose completion is the work of successive ages.

This explains to us how it was that the Church was so long in instituting a special Feast in honor of the Holy Trinity. The ordinary motive for the institution of Feasts did not exist in this instance. A Feast is the memorial of some fact which took place at some certain time, and of which it is well to perpetuate the remembrance and influence. How could this be applied to the mystery of the Trinity? It was from all eternity, it was before any created being existed, that God liveth and reigneth, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. If a Feast in honor of that Mystery were to be instituted, it could only be by the fixing some one day in the Year whereon the Faithful would assemble for the offering a more than usually solemn tribute of worship to the Mystery of Unity and Trinity in the one same divine Nature.”

Trinity Sunday: https://sensusfidelium.com/the-liturgical-year-dom-prosper-gueranger/the-time-after-pentecost/trinity-sunday/

What Mass are you attending Sunday?