Laudetur Iesus Christus! Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent begins the new liturgical year, and a new season – the time of penitential and joyful preparation for the coming of Christ at Christmas. As custom we share a reflection for Sunday’s Collect: http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2020/11/the-tempestuous-collect-for-first.html

Latin Masses This Week

• Wednesday November 30, 6pm – St. Ann, feast of St. Andrew
• Thursday December 1, 7pm – St. Thomas Aquinas, Feria (no feast day)
• Friday December 2, 7am (St. Ann) and 12:30pm (St. Mark), St. Bibiana, Virgin and Martyr
• Saturday December 3, 6am Rorate Mass, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Francis Xavier, Confessor (& First Saturday of Our Lady) (NO 10am Latin Mass)

Advent Schedule of Latin Masses

Rorate Latin Masses (Latin Mass by Candlelight at Dawn on a Saturday in Advent)

• Saturday December 3, 6am – St. Thomas Aquinas parish (no 10am Mass today) – after Mass blessing of religious objects
• Saturday December 3, 6:30am – Prince of Peace, Taylors, SC (2 hours southwest of Charlotte)
• Saturday December 10, 6:30am – St. Ann parish
• Saturday December 10, 6am – Holy Cross parish in Kernersville (1.5 hours north of Charlotte)
• Saturday December 10, 6:30am – St. Elizabeth of the Hill Country, Boone (2 hours northwest of Charlotte)
• Saturday December 10, 6:30am – Prince of Peace, Taylors, SC (2 hours southwest of Charlotte)
• Saturday December 10, 6:30am – St. Margaret Mary, Swannanoa (2 hours northwest of Charlotte)
• Saturday December 17, 6am – Our Lady of Grace, Greensboro (1.5 hours north of Charlotte)
• Saturday December 17, 6:30am – Prince of Peace, Taylors, SC (2 hours southwest of Charlotte)

Feast of the Immaculate Conception – Thursday December 8

• 6pm – St. Ann parish, Charlotte
• 7pm – St. Thomas Aquinas parish, Charlotte
• 12 noon – Prince of Peace, Taylors, SC (2 hours southwest of Charlotte)
• 12:15pm – Our Lady of Grace, Greensboro (1.5 hours north of Charlotte)
• 6pm – St. Elizabeth of the Hill Country, Boone, NC (2 hours northwest of Charlotte)
• 6:30pm – Our Lady of the Lake parish, Chapin, SC (2 hours south of Charlotte)

December 13 – 15 Advent Mission with Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) Priests (St. Thomas Aquinas parish): https://charlottelatinmass.org/2022/11/22/advent-mission-with-fssp-priests-st-thomas-aquinas-parish-december-13-15/

Sunday December 18, 12:30pm – St. Ann parish & the CLMC’s annual blessing of religious objects after the 12:30pm Latin Mass

Advent-Christmas Schedule: Please see our webpage for the most recent announced Latin Masses during Advent and Christmas: https://charlottelatinmass.org/mass-times/

Community News

• St. Ann parishioners receive minor orders: As noted last weekend, two St. Ann parishioners (David Carter and Brendan d’Amato) studying at the Fraternity of St. Peter’s Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary, received minor orders on Saturday November 19. We share photos of the occasion: http://www.fsspolgs.org/minor-orders-november-19th-2022/

• Second Fr. Ripperger Talk Added For Friday March 10: Due to the overwhelming interest in hearing exorcist and traditional theologian, Fr. Chad Ripperger, St. Thomas Aquinas parish is now hosting a second, identical talk, by Fr. Ripperger on Friday March 10. Please see the parish’s note:
  
  Due to the Saturday, March 11, 2023 event filling up so quickly, Fr. Codd asked Fr. Ripperger if he would be willing to come on Friday, March 10, 2023, to do an additional identical conference, in order to allow for more parishioners and folks from the diocese to attend.  Fr. Ripperger graciously agreed, and so we will now have him speak both on Friday and Saturday.  Note, these will be the same talk on both days.  Saturday is already full.  If you are signed up already to attend Saturday, please do not register for Friday as well, or we will delete your registration.  Please register as soon as possible in order to help us with planning.  As well, if you are able to help support us bringing Fr. Ripperger in for an additional talk, please use the registration form to do so, or use this link.  Thank you! https://www.osvhub.com/st-thomas-aquinas-rc-church/forms/frripperger-friday

• Holy Face Devotions (new updates)

• St. Mark – Mondays 2-2:45pm
• St. Thomas Aquinas – Tuesdays 6am in the main church
• St. Ann – Tuesdays 7:30am in the chapel after the Novus Ordo Mass (uses the booklet/chaplet which takes 15-20 minutes)
• St. Michael the Archangel, Gastonia – Tuesdays, 6:30-7pm, Holy Family Room
• Holy Spirit, Denver – Tuesdays 10-11am after the Novus Ordo Mass
• Don’t see your parish? Why not organize one? (e-mail us at info@charlottelatinmass.org)

Latin Mass & Traditional News

• The End and the Beginning of the Church Year: Interlocking Clasps in the Hidden Season: Dr. Mike Foley has an extended but excellent piece on why last Sunday’s and today’s gospel reading are the same, and beautifully summarizes the entire liturgical year and its symbolism: https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2022/11/the-end-and-beginning-of-church-year.html#.Y4L7Qn3MKHt

• Fraternity of St. Peter Statistics November 2022: The FSSP, a society of Latin Mass priests (which as noted above include two St. Ann parishioners), released their annual figures, showing the growth in this order: https://www.fssp.org/en/presentation-2/figures/

• Prayers and Support Needed for a Growing Order of Benedictine Nuns: An inspiring video about the growth of the traditional Benedictine Nuns in Missouri (who attend the Latin Mass exclusively) and their need for help in building a new, second Abbey: https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/headline-news-around-the-world/item/6245-prayers-and-support-needed-for-a-growing-order-of-benedictine-nuns

CLMC note: Many are worried about the future of the Latin Mass, yet these nuns aren’t worried, why should we?

• “Shortly Before Advent” – An Idea Inspired by St. Gertrude the Great: Dr. Foley has brief article on St. Gertrude and an idea for Advent: https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2022/11/shortly-before-advent-idea-inspired-by.html#.Y4MAP33MKHt

• The first Thanksgiving Mass in the New World: As Thanksgiving weekend draws to a close the Catholic News Herald published a piece on the first Thanksgiving, which was a Latin Mass, offered in 1565 in Florida. https://catholicnewsherald.com/faith/189-news/faith/faith-nov/8726-the-first-thanksgiving-mass-in-the-new-world

• Papal Responses to the Emergence of the TLM Movement: Over the past few months, three liturgical scholars coauthored a five part series on the recent history of the Mass (post Vatican II), which included the history of Papal interventions on the Latin Mass since 1965. Sadly, this article is no friend of the Latin Mass or traditionalists as it argues that the permissions by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI to offer the Latin Mass were only meant to be temporary (e.g. the Latin Mass will need to go away). Despite this position, it is nevertheless an instructive read for all traditionalists, as it gives an idea of what the “opposition” is thinking (and heading), theologically and liturgically. The original article (Part IV) is below but after that link we share two helpful rebuttals on the fifth part by traditionalists Drs. Joseph Shaw and Peter Kwasniewski: https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/papal-responses-to-the-emergence-of-the-tlm-movement/

• Dr. Joseph Shaw (Latin Mass Society UK): https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2022/11/a-reply-to-cavadini-healy-weinandy.html#more
• Dr Peter Kwasniewski: https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2022/11/earlier-today-dr.html

• Abp. Viganò: Faithful Catholics will escape the authoritarian suppression of the Latin Mass: In the diocese of Novara, Italy, the local ordinary has suppressed the Latin Mass. Archbishop Vigano writes an open letter to him warning him about how this action actually endangers the soul of this bishop. https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/abp-vigano-faithful-catholics-will-escape-the-authoritarian-suppression-of-the-latin-mass/

CLMC note: We are grateful for the charity of Abp. Vigano to defend the laity and priests when their bishop suppressed the Latin Mass – especially the reminder for a bishop to consider the four Last Things and his eternal destiny before making such decisions.

Advent Reflections by Dom Prosper Gueranger, OSB

Lastly, as we begin Advent, we close with a few reflections by the great Benedictine liturgist, Dom Prosper Gueranger in his book, The Liturgical Year, for this coming week to better place ourselves in the context of Advent and preparing for Christ’s coming at Christmas. The first entry addresses the question of whether Advent was penitential in origin or not (click on the link below for the full history). Additionally, we especially draw your attention to the fourth entry, the December 3rd reflection which eerily parallels our times:

• History of Advent: We must look upon Advent in two different lights: first, as a time of preparation, properly so called, for the birth of our Saviour, by works of penance: and secondly, as a series of ecclesiastical Offices drawn up for the same purpose…The oldest document in which we find the length and exercises of Advent mentioned with anything like clearness, is a passage in the second book of the History of the Franks by St. Gregory of Tours, where he says that St. Perpetuus, one of his predecessors, who held that see about the year 480, had decreed a fast three times a week, from the feast of St. Martin until Christmas.  

• December 1: Four thousand years of expectation preceded that coming, and they are expressed by the four weeks of Advent, which we must spend before we come to the glorious festivity of our Lord’s Nativity. Let us reflect upon the holy impatience of the saints of the old Testament, and how they handed down, from age to age, the grand hope, which was to be but hope to them, since they were not to see it realized.

• December 2 (Feast of St. Bibiana): We will today consider the state of nature at this season of the year. The earth is stripped of her wonted verdure, the flowers are gone, the fruits are fallen, the leaves are torn from the trees and scattered by the wind, and every living thing stiffens with the cold. It seems as though the hand of death had touched creation. We see the sun rise after the long night of his absence; and scarcely have we felt his warmth at noon, than he sets again, and leaves us in the chilly darkness. Each day he shortens his visit. Is the world to become sunless, and are men to live out the rest of life in gloom? The old pagans, who witnessed this struggle between light and darkness, and feared the sun was going to leave them, dedicated the twenty-fifth day of December, the winter solstice, to the worship of the sun. After this day their hopes revived on seeing the glorious luminary again mounting up in the sky, and gradually regaining his triumphant position.
  
  We Christians can have no such feelings as these; our light is the true faith, which tells us that there is a Sun to be sought for which never sets, and is never eclipsed. Having Him, we care little for the absence of any other brightness; nay, all other light, without Him, can only lead us astray.

• December 3 (Feast of St. Francis Xavier): Let us consider the wretched condition of the human race, at the time of Christ’s coming into the world. The diminution of truths[3] is emphatically expressed by the little light which the earth enjoys at this season of the year. The ancient traditions are gradually becoming extinct; the Creator is not acknowledged, even in the very work of His hands; everything has been made God, except the God who made all things. This frightful pantheism produces the vilest immorality, both in society at large, and in individuals. There are no rights acknowledged, save that of might. Lust, avarice, and theft, are honoured by men in the gods of their altars. There is no such thing as family, for divorce and infanticide are legalized; mankind is degraded by a general system of slavery; nations are being exterminated by endless wars. The human race is in the last extreme of misery; and unless the hand that created it reform it, it must needs sink a prey to crime and bloodshed.
  
  There are indeed some few just men still left upon the earth, and they struggle against the torrent of universal degradation; but they cannot save the world; the world despises them, and God will not accept their merits as a palliation of the hideous leprosy which covers the earth. All flesh has corrupted its way, and is more guilty than even in the days of the deluge: and yet, a second destruction of the universe would but manifest anew the justice of God; it is time that a deluge of His divine mercy should flood the universe, and that He who made man, should come down and heal him. Come then, O eternal Son of God! give life again to this dead body; heal all its wounds; purify it; let grace superabound, where sin before abounded; and having converted the world to Thy holy law, Thou wilt have proved to all ages that Thou, who camest, wast in very truth the Word of the Father; for as none but a God could create the world, so none but the same omnipotent God could save it from satan and sin, and restore it to justice and holiness.

December is the darkest time of the year and yet the time of year when the Light of the World comes at Christmas. In December 2022, the Church finds herself in one of the darkest times of her history, restrictions on the Latin Mass loom, yet at the same time the Latin Mass remains because it is the Mass of Ages, past, present and future. What Mass are you attending on Sunday?