URGENT: An International Appeal in Defense of Summorum Pontificum

A wide scale international appeal to the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, has been organized to defend the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum against those who would want to restrict its application.

MOTU PROPRIO APPEAL

READ, SIGN, SHARE AND MAKE IT KNOWN

Extraordinary Form in Sunday TV Mass

Join us on Saturday, January 22 at 8:00PM for the taping of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass using the pre-Vatican II Missal of Pope John XXIII at the Parish of the Lord of the Divine Mercy in Sikatuna Village Quezon City. Celebrant is Father Michell Joe Zerrudo. It will be aired on Sunday, January 23 at 7:00AM over SOLAR-RPN9.

After Summorum Pontificum (at least in the Capital Region), this will be the first Sunday TV mass in the extraordinary form and the second televised mass. The first televised mass was in Christmas of 2008 at St. Jerome Emiliani and Sta. Susanna Parish in Alabang, aired in NBN4.

Changes in TLM Schedules in Metro Manila

The TLM at St. Therese of the Child Jesus at Villamor, Pasay City is now celebrated every Sundays at 9:00 am.

Parish of the Lord of the Divine Mercy in Sikatuna Village, Quezon City, Daily TLM is at 8:30 AM and Sunday TLM is at 2:00 PM.

Christ the King, Greenmeadows, Quezon City every Saturday TLM remains at 8:30 AM.

Jaleville Chapel TLM, Jaleville Subdivision, Paranaque City, every last Sunday of the Month TLM is scheduled at 10:00 AM but there will be slight changes on the schedule depending on the availability of the priest.

Pro Defunctis

Mass on All Souls Day in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite celebrated by Rev. Father Michell Joe Zerrudo at the Parish of the Lord of the Divine Mercy, Sikatuna Village Quezon City.

Prayer Crusade led by the SSPX

On October 10, 2010, eve of the traditional feast of Kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Society of Pius X (SSPX) led a prayer crusade against the passing of the RH Bill in Congress at the Our Lady of Victories Church in New Manila Quezon City. The prayer crusade started with the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament exactly at 12pm and a recitation of the Holy Rosary. At 2pm, the Blessed Sacrament was reposed as a Solemn High Mass, Votive Mass of our Lady of Mediatrix, was about to begin. (The Mass was suppose to be at the presence of the Blessed Sacrament but due to the complexity of the rubrics, the priests opted to repose the Blessed Sacrament at the duration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass). At the end of the Mass, the Blessed Sacrament was once again exposed. The Van De Steen Choir with the choir of the Our Lady of Victories sung the hymns.

We should commend the SSPX for taking the initiative of organizing the prayer crusade despite the fact that their regularization within the Church is still in the process.

Requiescat in Pace, Msgr. Melencio De Vera

I just received a news that Msgr. Melencio De Vera has passed away, yesterday, 20th of October 2010. Msgr. De Vera was one of the few priests who celebrates the TLM from the early beginnings of the movement until the present despite his advanced age. Farewell, dear friend of the extraordinary form, may God have mercy on your soul and may you intercede for us. Requiem aeternam in dona ei Domine et lux perpetua luceat ei, requiescat in pace.

File photo courtesy of Dennis Raymond Maturan.

Announcements: Baguio Lenten Schedule in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite

2010 Easter Triduum Liturgy

The Ecclesia Dei Society of St. Joseph will celebrate the Easter Triduum Liturgy according to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite for the Holy Week of 2010. The schedule is as follows:

Maundy Thursday - 10:00 AM
Good Friday - 10:00 AM
Easter Vigil - 12:00 Midnight

Important Clarifications from the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei

From the New Liturgical Movement:

The Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei has recently answered some important questions regarding the application of the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum submitted by the moderator for the faithful attached to the Extraordinary Form of the diocese of Rzeszów, Poland. The answers, however, are applicable generally. The original questions (in German) and answers (in Italian), published by Nowy Ruch Liturgiczny are reproduced below. Here is an NLM summary; questions 2 and 3 have easily the biggest impact:

1. If there is no other possibility, because for instance in all churches of a diocese the liturgies of the Sacred Triduum are already being celebrated in the Ordinary Form, the liturgies of the Sacred Triduum may, in the same church in which they are already celebrated in the Ordinary Form, be additionally celebrated in the Extraordinary Form, if the local ordinary allows.

2. A Mass in the usus antiquior may replace a regularly scheduled Mass in the Ordinary Form. The question contextualizes that in many churches Sunday Masses are more or less scheduled continually, leaving free only very incovenient mid afternoon slots, but this is merely context, the question posed being general. The answer leaves the matter to the prudent judgement of the parish priest, and emphasises the right of a stable group to assist at Mass in the Extraordinary Form.

3. A parish priest may schedule a public Mass in the Extraordinary Form on his own accord (i.e. without the request of a group of faithful) for the benefit of the faithful including those unfamiliar with the usus antiquior. The response of the Commission here is identical to no. 2.

4. The calendar, readings or prefaces of the 1970 Missale Romanum may not be substituted for those of the 1962 Missale Romanum in Masses in the Extraordinary Form.

5. While the liturgical readings (Epistle and Gospel) themselves have to be read by
the priest (or deacon/subdeacon) as foreseen by the rubrics, a translation to the vernacular may afterwards be read also by a layman.

Announcement: St. Jerome Emiliani Christmas Midnight Mass

The St. Jerome Emiliani and Sta. Susanna Parish will be celebrating a Traditional Latin Missa Cantata Christmas Midnight Mass on December 24, 2009 at 11pm. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass will be celebrated by the parish priest, Father Grato Germanetto, C.R.S. He will be assisted by the altar servers and Van De Steen choir of the Societas Liturgiae Sacrae Sancti Gregorii. The church is located along Zapote Road, Alabang Town Center, Muntilupa City.

Year of Priests - Clergy Conference 2009

Clergy Conference: January 4 to January 8, 2010

From the website: http://www.yearforpriests-clergyconferencerome2010.org/programme.htm

The programme includes the daily celebration of Holy Mass in the great basilicas, and on some days Vespers and Benediction. Our celebrants will include: His Eminence, Antonio Cardinal Canizares, His Eminence, James Cardinal Stafford, and His Excellency Archbishop Raymond Burke. We hope to be at the Holy Father's Mass on the Solemnity of the Epiphany.

As part of the programme, on January 7 at 5pm, his Eminence, Antonio Cardinal Canizares, will celebrate a Solemn Pontifical High Mass according to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite at the Lateran.

Deo Gratias!

Care of Supreme Pontiffs: Stability of Roman Liturgy as God's Gift

By the late Msgr. Moises Andrade, Jr. H.P., at the University of Santo Tomas last January 7, 2008

Pope Benedict XVI offered his care for the Roman Liturgy in his motu proprio letter of July 7, 2007. Here, he conveyed his support for the maintenance of sacredness, reverence for God's presence, and the participant's awareness of sinfulness during the celebration of the Roman Liturgy.

1. Awareness of Sinfulness.

Keeping the hands joined, kneeled and bowing low in prayer, and the striking of the breast are bodily gestures expressing fidelity to God's gift of Sacred Liturgy. They are occuring in various moments of the Holy Mass primarily. They instill to every officiating priest and all participants in Sacred Liturgy the readiness to welcome God's gift of forgiveness and remission of sins.

2. Reverence for God's Presence.

The Divine Presence in the Word of God and in the Mystery of the Eucharist are experienced in the epistles and gospels of a one year cycle of the 1570 Roman Missal and in the Roman Canon, conveniently articulated by the rubrics, when faithfully implemented. Rather than require the ability of so many trained ministers, servers, singers and other assistants, the availability of at least one ordained priest and his acolyte always makes accessible the sacraments in their solemn prayerfulness.

3. Maintenance of Sacredness

Focus on the salvific grace of Christ's holy cross through ritual gestures and its sacred image at the central place at the altar will yield the harvest of piety and clear signal of the role of the priest - not so much as presider, but as a servant to facilitate the encounter of the living God with the praying people including the priest as well.

Conclusion

The awareness of the Roman Liturgy's sacredness, reverence of God's presence, and the consciousness of human sinfulness yet graced by God's self-giving are constantly transmitted through the various historical periods of the Church's liturgy and are especially expected through the exposure of the faithful to the ritual celebration elaborated extraordinarily in the 1962 Roman Missal (the 7th retouching of the 1570 mass book) and ordinarily, in the 1970 Roman Missal (the 8th retouching of tthe roman liturgical text).

An Interview with Mons. Domenico Bartolucci on the liturgical reforms and the reform of the reform.

Mons. Domenico Bartolucci, Maestro Perpetuo of the Sistine Chapel under five Popes.

Was the reform not done by people who were conscious of what they were doing and well educated in the teachings of the Roman Church?

I beg your pardon, but the reform was done by arid people, arid, arid, I repeat it. And I knew them. As for the doctrine, Cardinal Ferdinando Antonelli himself, once said, I remember it well: “How come that we make liturgists who know nothing about theology?”

(....)

But how could it have come to this twisting of the liturgy?

It became a kind of fashion. Everybody talked about it, everybody “was renewing”, everybody was trying to be like popes (tutti pontificavano) in the wake of sentimentalism, of eagerness to reform. And the voices that raised themselves to defend the two thousand year old Tradition of the Church, were cleverly hushed. There was the invention of a kind of “people’s liturgy” … when I heard these refrains, it came into my mind something which my professor at the Seminary used to say: “the liturgy is something given by the clerics to the people” (“la liturgia è del clero per il popolo”). It descends from God and does not come up from the bottom. I have to admit, however, that this foul-smelling appearances have made themselves a bit more rare. The young generations of priests are maybe better than those who came before them, they do not have the ideological fury of an iconoclastic ideology, they are full of good feelings, however they lack in education.

My dear Monsignor, the influence of these kind of liturgists is very strong in the Philippines. i.e. they advocate people-centric and/or inculturated liturgies, who think that the only way for people to actively participate is to celebrate the mass as reformed in 1970's in a very different way from how the church celebrated in the past 2000 years and they even hold key positions in the dioceses.

Complete Interview here at Rorate-Caeli: A bombshell of an interview. Mons. Domenico Bartolucci on the liturgical reforms and the reform of the reform.

Requiem Mass for President Corazon Aquino

A sung requiem mass according to the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite (Traditional/Tridentine Latin Mass) for President Corazon (Tita Cory) Aquino will be offered by Fr. Michell Joe Zerrudo on Wednesday, August 5, 2009 at 1:30 PM at the Parish of the Lord of the Divine Mercy, Sikatuna Village, Quezon City.

TLM at the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral

From an email:

On July 7, 2009, two years after our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, issued "motu proprio" the Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was offered in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite at no less than the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Cebu at 1:30p.m. The Holy Sacrifice was offered by Msgr. Cristobal Garcia, the chairperson of the Archdiocesan Commission on Worship.

The Archdiocese continues to celebrate a Special Year of Grace on the occasion of its 75th year as an archdiocese.

Hope you can come and visit the Basilica minore del Santo Nino, the newly-renovated Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral, the National Shrine of St. Joseph (Mandaue City), and the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Rule (Lapu-lapu City).

TLM in Diocese of Baguio

[Update: Carlos Palad of Rorate Caeli has informed me that the images were unreadable. I have mistakenly uploaded the wrong size of images. The images below are the correct ones.]

A reader has sent this brochure being distributed by the Commission on Liturgy of the Diocese of Baguio containing an introduction and information on Summorum Pontificum and the Traditional Latin Mass for the benefit of the faithful in the diocese. The TLM is being celebrated every Sundays at 7:30AM and 3:30PM at the Chapel of our Lady of Atonement at the back of the Cathedral.

Summorum Pontificum

Thank you your dear Holiness for unlocking the chest containing this great treasure of our Holy Mother the Church. I pray that this new year of motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, the Year for Priests, more priests would begin to see the immense value and appreciate what the Holy Father's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum has given for the whole Church.

Corpus Christi 2009

Photos by: Ed Cenir

Photographs of the celebration of the Feast of Corpus Christi according to the extraordinary form with first communion and a solemn Eucharistic procession and benediction around the Parish of the Lord of the Divine Mercy, Sikatuna Village Q.C.

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2009 Holy Week Celebration (Extraordinary Form)

The Parish of the Lord of the Divine Mercy, Diocese of Cubao, in cooperation with the Ecclesia Dei Society of St. Joseph recently celebrated the Holy Week of 2009 according to the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite under the leadership of Rev. Father Michell Joe Zerrudo.

The celebrations were attended, actively participated, meditated upon, and shared by both the regular parishioners of the parish and the TLM community. The parish altar servers committed their time to learn and practice the rubrics of the rite while the readers provided english translation of the Epistles after it was said in Latin. Others helped in preparing the flowers, carosas and other materials needed for the celebration. This year, the choir of the Ecclesia Dei Society of St. Joseph, provided the beautiful chants and sacred music for the whole Holy Week celebrations.

The rite of the Holy Week according to the extraordinary form was also celebrated last year.


Palm Sunday
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Easter Triduum
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Vatican Issues Clarification to the Guidelines of the Archdiocese of Manila

The Vatican, through Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, has clarified to the Archdiocese of Manila regarding the Guidelines by Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales on the Implementation of Celebration of the Roman Mass of 1962 issued last Dec 8, 2008, Feast of the Immaculate Concepcion, as reported by the Tablet.

The letter, dated March 6, 2009 said that the guidelines has set restrictive conditions for the celebration of the extraordinary form, that the

"guidelines allowing only a monthly Mass in a chapel of [the] Metropolitan Cathedral" were in violation of the norms established by the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum. Cardinal Castrillón said the papal decree was “part of the universal law of the Church” and could not be limited by the “particular law” of a diocesan bishop.

Another quote in the Tablet reports:

“There is simply no legitimate reason why this [Tridentine] Mass cannot and should not be celebrated in any church or chapel of your Archdiocese,” Cardinal Castrillón said in his letter to the Archbishop of Manila.

In the said letter, Cardinal Hoyos also praised Cardinal Rosales who:

...actively promote the implementation of the motu proprio by “helping priests who are desirous to learn how to celebrate” the old rite Mass, which he said only required that the priest be “reasonably competent in Latin”, and that there
were faithful who wished to assist at its celebration.