Actus Contritionis

Deus meus,
ex toto corde poenitet me omnium meorum peccatorum,
eaque detestor, quia peccando,
non solum poenas a Te iuste statutas promeritus sum,
sed praesertim quia offendi Te,
summum bonum, ac dignum qui super omnia diligaris.
Ideo firmiter propono, adiuvante gratia Tua,
de cetero me non peccaturum peccandique
occasiones proximas fugiturum.
Amen.

Act of Contrition

O my God,
I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee,
and I detest all my sins
because of Thy just punishments;
but most of all because they offend Thee, my God,
Who art all-good and deserving of all my love.
I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace,
to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life.
Amen.

Today’s Latin Lesson |1.7 |

Agnus Dei / The Lamb of God

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, misere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, misere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.

(See Lesson 1.0 for pronunciation guide)

Today’s reading

The wicked said among themselves,
thinking not aright:

“Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us;
he sets himself against our doings,
Reproaches us for transgressions of the law
and charges us with violations of our training.
He professes to have knowledge of God
and styles himself a child of the LORD.
To us he is the censure of our thoughts;
merely to see him is a hardship for us,
Because his life is not like that of others,
and different are his ways.
He judges us debased;
he holds aloof from our paths as from things impure.
He calls blest the destiny of the just
and boasts that God is his Father.
Let us see whether his words be true;
let us find out what will happen to him.
For if the just one be the son of God, he will defend him
and deliver him from the hand of his foes.
With revilement and torture let us put him to the test
that we may have proof of his gentleness
and try his patience.
Let us condemn him to a shameful death;
for according to his own words, God will take care of him.”

These were their thoughts, but they erred;
for their wickedness blinded them,
and they knew not the hidden counsels of God;
neither did they count on a recompense of holiness
nor discern the innocent souls’ reward.
– Wisdom 2:1a, 12-22

Banned in Beijing

Several weeks ago I noticed a spike in my Site Meter statistics. I had a huge amount of hits from Beijing and other Chinese locations. Today I went to a special website to check if I was still being visited from within the Wall. Guess what! I’ve been banned by the Chairman’s cohort. It seems that the Patriotic Catholic Church of China, like some of my enemies, has no need of me. Of course, that is fine, for I am in excellent company with good, orthodox, faithful Catholics.

Today’s Latin Lesson |1.6 |

Sanctus / Holy, Holy, Holy

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus,
Dominus Deus Sabaoth.
Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua.
Hosanna in excelsis.
Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.
Hosanna in excelsis.

Solemnity of the Annunciation

Phoenix Mass to be Broadcast World Wide on EWTN

Diocese of Phoenix Press Release

The Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) will broadcast the Solemn Mass of the Annunciation live from Saints Simon and Jude Cathedral on Monday, March 26 at 8:30 a.m. (Encore presentation at 3:00 p.m. Pacific Daylight Savings Time)

Come help us fill the pews for this weekday Mass. EWTN has asked the Diocese of Phoenix to produce a weekday Mass for them to broadcast live on their cable and satellite TV station. The station is broadcast through out the world and on the internet. We would like to show the world a cathedral that is filled with the wonderful people of our diocese. Please mark your calendar and come join the Bishop as he celebrates the Solemn Mass of the Annunciation.

Chant Only in Lent?

Jeffrey Tucker | The New Liturgical Movement | 3/21/07

Every movement must go through stages, and the chant restoration movement in our time seems to have started with Lent. That’s been our general impression in talking to people around the country, and giving workshops and the like, and this is certainly reinforced here, in Fr. Fox’s comment section of his now-famous post.

There might be a very practical reason for this. The pastor may feel like he has a better chance with success in Lent, when people come to expect different things that feel really Catholic, like Latin and all that. Avoiding parish political problems is a good enough reason (many Pastors live in fear of the music question).

But there is one very bad reason: the impression that chant is penitential and nothing else. Not so!

I’m still stinging from a comment a parishioner made to me about 4 years ago (musicians are so absurdly thin skinned!): “I find chant so depressing; we should instead be joyful in Jesus.”

My mouth fell open and I didn’t have a good response — one of those moments you sort of go over and over in your mind for years. In any case, what can I say except that this is not true? Look at Christus Vincit, Te Deum, or just the entrance hymn for Palm Sunday Hosanna filio David (which echoes the entrance on Christmas morning). Or the communio from last week, Oportete: here is the song of a father whose son has come home from long absence. He is dancing!

These all express emotions that are richer and more complex and more challenging than just joy. They reveal elation, celebration, praise, triumph. In any case, they are far from “depressing” unless anything short of bubble-gum pop strikes one as depressing.

Back to my point: it would be tragic if the chant movement became stuck in Lent and never moved forward to Easter and Pentecost and beyond, indeed, to the whole Church year. In fact, apart from the political reason, I can see no particular reason why Lent should be chosen more than any other season, though of course Lenten chants are amazing. But so are thousands more from every other season.

So let’s please do all we can to move to stage two, beyond Lent. Chant isn’t just for penance. It is the song of every liturgical emotion and, indeed, the paradigm song to express everything of true importance.

Nuntii Latini Italici

And now for the news … in Latin

John Hooper | Wednesday March 21, 2007 | The Guardian | www.guardian.co.uk

It is, famously, a dead language. But it seems that Latin is on the brink of an unlikely comeback. The conservative Pope Benedict XVI is poised to authorise wider use of the Latin mass. And, perhaps to ingratiate themselves with the boss, the managers of the Vatican bank have quietly put instructions in Latin on the cash dispenser at the back of St Peter’s. Customers are told to put in their cards with the words: “Inserito scidulam quaeso ut faciundam cognoscas rationem.“

On Sicily, meanwhile, Latin is being heard in homes in the city of Catania for the first time since the Arab conquest of the ninth century. Students at the university there have launched a news bulletin on their campus radio entirely in the language of Virgil.

The programme, Nuntii Latini Italici, “semel in hebdomane eduntur die Veneris hora septima post meridiem“, which you will all know translates as “broadcasts weekly on Fridays at 7pm“.

One of the newsreaders is Alessandra Jacono, unsurprisingly perhaps a student of classics. “We broadcast four or five stories on national and international issues,” she says. “But the point is not so much to offer the news as to give people a chance to hear a beautiful language.”The bulletin sprang from a group of enthusiasts who debate in Latin. Jacono said they had little difficulty in coming up with neologisms to deal with the modern world. A computer is a “computadorium“, for example.

“Our idea is to make people familiar with hearing Latin. Instead of taking hours to translate 20 lines or so, you should then be able to pick up a book in Latin and read it naturally,” says Jacono.

Nuntii Latini Italici is also available on the university radio’s web site, radiozammu.it. “It sometimes goes up late,” says Jacono. “Last Friday’s edition still isn’t there yet.” But then, what is a day or two after more than 1,000 years?

Today’s Latin Lesson |1.5 |

Oratio Dominica / The Lord’s Prayer

Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum.
Adveniat regnum tuum.
Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra.
Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie,
et dimitte nobis debita nostra
sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.
Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo.
Amen.