Lex orandi, lex credendi

Great observations, Mr. Gibson, including Your claim that Vatican II “was needed by the Church”. It’s necessary (and easy) to point out and try to repair the many aberrations and tawdry innovations that have damaged the liturgy since Vatican II. Some extremists -”ultra-Tridentists”?- seem to think the Novus Ordo is actually invalid and should be suppressed, the only solution being to revert to the Tridentine liturgy. Personally, I’m more inspired by and drawn toward the Tridentine than the Novus Ordo Mass, but I reject claims that either is invalid. And while the Novus Ordo has been battered and debased through laziness, ignorance, and misguided meddling, I doubt that the pre-Vatican II Mass was always as pristine, reverent, and sublime as the ultra-Tridentists would have us believe.

If the pre-Vatican II decades were all holiness and refinement, how is that large numbers of the children of those raised in that culture abandoned the Church, or turned to attack and ridicule it from within? And how is it that the stage was set for the decades of liturgical inanity and experimentation which followed?

If, as You say, Vatican II was needed, it wasn’t just because the liturgy needed a new coat of paint. If liturgy ultimately is a meeting point between God and man, then one of its main purposes is to foster the sort of interior life that man needs in order to commune with God. Perhaps the Pope, perhaps the Holy Spirit, knew that the interior life of the Church was vitally in need of a restoration, or better yet a re-ignition. If the liturgy is a shambles today, perhaps that’s a reflection of the weak, disordered interior life of many of us in the pews.

We do need the liturgy badly, and we need to adorn it with all the sublimity and reverence we can muster from language, music, and the arts. Getting to that point will be both the cause and, paradoxically, the result, of a deepening of our own interior lives. For some this may involve baby steps. For example, I have to do better with keeping my appointment for daily morning prayer, and struggle not to give up even when it seems like my prayer is superficial and weak.

Hmmm. I guess that’s the same lesson I have to learn about the liturgy: not to give up even when it seems pedestrian and dry.

We preach Christ crucified

Bishops fear new Bill could force schools to take down crucifixes - Catholic Herald Online

"Catholic schools and care homes could be forced to remove crucifixes and holy pictures from their walls in case they offend atheist cleaners, bishops have warned MPs.

They said that under the terms of Equality Minister Harriet Harman's new Equality Bill they could be guilty of harassment if they depicted images 'offensive' to non-Catholics."

But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews indeed a stumblingblock, and unto the Gentiles foolishness: But unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:23-24, Douay Rheims)

Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

Ave verum corpus, natum de Maria Virgine, vere passum, immolatum in cruce pro homine, cuius latus perforatum unda fluxit et sanguine: esto nobis praegustatum in mortis examine.

Hail, true Body, born of the Virgin Mary, truly suffered, sacrificed on the cross for man, from whose pierced side flowed water and blood: Let it be for us a foretaste in the trial of death.

Make me believe Thee ever more and more,
In Thee my hope, in Thee my love to store.

-Saint Thomas Aquinas

And here is the Great Secret, the greatest reason of all to be Catholic, to be Christian, to be human, to be alive: Jesus present to us in His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. And not only present to us, but united to us personally.

This is the promise of eternal life. This is Life in abundance, a life not content to wait until heaven, but bursting open within our hearts today.


Since the thirteenth century Catholics around the world have observed a solemn feast day in honor of "Corups Christi" -the Body (and Blood) of Christ, truly present in the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist.

After Mass today at Saint Mary of the Angels Church in Chicago, we observed this solemnity with our annual Corups Christi procession honoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Hundreds of people accompanied Jesus as He was carried in turn by His priests and a deacon down the street, and around the block. A gold canopy, incense, and a squad of altar boys marked His way. Young girls who had just recently received Jesus in their first Holy Communion carpeted His path with thousands of scarlet and yellow rose petals. Boys in black suits marched alongside. And the faithful followed close behind, singing Tantum Ergo Sacramentum and other hymns, praising the One Who turned bread and wine into Himself, so that He could remain with us in invisible glory until He visibly returns in glory. At the happy spectacle neighbors opened their doors, stood on their porches, or watched from their windows as the King of the Universe passed by cloaked in the humble appearance of bread.

On each side of the block the priests paused at a temporary altar, prayed aloud with the faithful, and elevated the Lord to receive the love and adoration of the crowd.


Finally returning to the church building, we ascended the steps, and the Lord stopped briefly to bless us at the altar before returning to His repose in the tabernacle.

Lord, how good it is to be here! How lovely is Thy dwelling place, O Lord!