Annibale Bugnini and Francis’ “Great Light”
At the General Audience earlier today, Francis presented Part 3 of his “catechesis on the Mass,” which he began by asking a critically important rhetorical question:
What essentially is the Mass?
I’m not certain for how many more weeks we can expect this “catechesis” to continue, but today we have arrived at the very heart of the matter: What is the Mass in its very essence?
If the answer offered to this question is in any way deficient, the end result of this series – no matter what follows – will most certainly not be Catholic. (As if anyone really expected it to be.)
Based upon the content of the previous two parts, it should come as little surprise to discover that Francis’ answer is straight out of the Bugnini playbook as so masterfully evaluated by Cardinal Ottaviani and his confreres in his Brief Critical Study of the New Order of Mass (aka the Ottaviani Intervention).
Francis states:
The Mass is the memorial of the Paschal Mystery of Christ.
Francis elaborates:
In order to comprehend the value of Mass we must first understand the biblical meaning of the “memorial.” It is not only the memory of past events, but it makes them in a certain way present and actual. That is exactly how Israel understands its release from Egypt: every time Passover is celebrated, the events of the Exodus are brought to the memory of the believers in order to conform their lives to them.
Let’s unpack this, shall we.
Can we say that the Sacrifice of the Mass is in some sense a like the Passover and its memorial insofar as they prefigured it, with the Passover observation understood as making the ancient event present to those Jews who participate in it?
Sure, and the parallels are striking indeed.
In order to avoid error, however, it must be stressed first and foremost that the Mass is a true and propitiatory Sacrifice offered in atonement for sin for the benefit of both the living and the dead.
As may already be obvious, the comparison of the Mass to the Passover observance of the Jews (the Seder meal) can be taken way too far.
For example, the Passover observance of the Jews is such that all who participate in it must eat the flesh of the lamb, and one’s failure to do so necessarily placed them outside of the community of God’s people.
If we’re not careful to stress what the Mass truly is in its essence (as described above) one might be led to embrace the false notion (promoted by Francis and addressed in my first post on this topic) that one must receive the Most Holy Eucharist in order to participate in the Mass.
Let us turn now to Cardinal Ottaviani and his protestations against characterizing the Mass primarily as a “memorial.”
First, he stated that defining the Mass as memorial is “acceptable relatively,” however, it is “unacceptable if employed … separately and in an absolute sense.”
This is precisely what Francis has done.
Cardinal Ottaviani continued:
[The Mass] is further characterized as an assembly presided over by the priest and held as a memorial of the Lord, recalling what He did on the first Maundy Thursday. None of this in the very least implies either the Real Presence, or the reality of the sacrifice, or the Sacramental function of the consecrating priest, or the intrinsic value of the Eucharistic Sacrifice independently of the people’s presence. It does not, in a word, imply any of the essential dogmatic values of the Mass which together provide its true definition.
There’s much here to consider.
Recall that Francis, in his introduction to the topic two weeks ago, spoke specifically of “the priest presiding over the celebration.”
We also made note in our examination of his catechesis on the Mass last week, wherein he focused on the “experience” of the people, how he obscured the reality that the Mass is a storehouse of infinite graces and the very work of redemption whether the people are present or not.
So far it seems as though Francis is determined to insist upon precisely the errors about which Cardinal Ottaviani warned!
His Eminence went on to cite the Council of Trent:
The Sacrifice of the Mass is a true propitiatory Sacrifice and NOT a “bare commemoration of the sacrifice accomplished on the Cross.” [Emphasis in original]
Francis – while ostensibly commenting upon the essence of the Mass – does not mention the word “sacrifice” even once; much less its propitiatory nature!
Francis went on to say:
This is the Mass: to enter in the Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus…
Even this is problematic in that, as Cardinal Ottaviani states, the Mass is the Sacrifice of Christ alone:
The formula “the Memorial of the Passion and Resurrection of the Lord” is, besides, inexact, the Mass being the memorial or the Sacrifice alone, in itself redemptive whilst the Resurrection is the consequent fruit of it.
Francis went on:
And in the Eucharist, He wishes to communicate to us His paschal, victorious love. If we receive it with faith, we can also truly love God and our neighbor, we can love as He loved us, giving His life … Only if we experience this power of Christ, the power of His love, are we truly free to give ourselves without fear.
A number of things stand out:
Notice that Francis is once again suggesting that reception of the Eucharist is that from which one derives the fruits of the Mass, an error addressed in our examination of Part One. He is also returning to the notion of “experience” – a core modernist principle.
And what does he count as the fruit to be derived therefrom?
The ability to love God and neighbor; a wonderful gift to be sure, but this sounds an awful lot like he is speaking of the Mass and the Eucharist as fuel for acts of social justice, does it not?
We will see what next week brings…
In the meantime, those of you who wish to gain a Catholic understanding of the Mass would do well to read the Ottaviani Intervention by following the link.
Francis is 100% consistent with the Novus Ordo V2 understanding of the faith. He again is announcing to all who have ears to hear what religion he professes. It is not the Catholic faith. It is opposed to Trent, it is opposed to the True faith. Yet many who clearly notice the heresy in Bergolio’s false teaching will still insist he is Catholic. I must give Bergolio credit, he is persistent. He has been trying for years now to prove to the whole world that he isnt Catholic. The fact he isnt Catholic is the only infaillable things he is teaching us.
Your average “Catholic” in 2017 is ok with homosexuality, abortion, and divorce and re-marriage (aka adultery). Mr Bergoglio is pandering to immoral fools and he knows it; most Catholics have no morals and he tells them its ok. I wish I could say that he’s the problem…but he isnt. The Catholic Church is dead (its not actually dead of course, but simply in the catacombs) because too many good people have accepted the protestant vatican 2 faith. THAT is the problem. Everytime some Catholic of good will calls this piece of filth the “Pope”, they throw a bit more dirt on the True Church.
Matthew 20:17-19 And Jesus going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve disciples apart, and said to them:
Behold we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man shall be betrayed to the chief priests and the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death.
And shall deliver him to the Gentiles to be mocked, and scourged, and crucified, and the third day he shall rise again.
Yes, and it is the True Church in the catacombs that will rise again, not the abominable Vatican II counter-church which calls itself “Catholic”. The True Church possesses the 4 Marks, with the persecution coming from without – not within. Can the Body of Christ persecute itself? Is not such a proposition blasphemous?
“ Francis – while ostensibly commenting upon the essence of the Mass – does not mention the word “sacrifice” even once; much less its propitiatory nature!“
————
And yet, another site reviewing the same homily, records…
Quoting from Lumen gentium, the Second Vatican Council’s dogmatic constitution of the Church, Francis said that “As often as the sacrifice of the cross in which Christ our Passover was sacrificed, is celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried on.”
Ref
By Hannah Brockhaus
Vatican City, Nov 22, 2017 / 03:40 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Wednesday Pope Francis said that when we attend Mass, it is as if we are approaching Jesus on the Cross at Calvary, and that at every Eucharist we not only experience Christ’s redemption, but we participate in it.
“When we go to Mass, it is as if we go to Calvary, the same,” Pope Francis said Nov. 22
Evermindful, Well Lumen Gentium was talking about the Tridentine Mass and not the NO man centered celebration of self. Francis, on the otherhand says AS IF. We all know that a real Mass is Calvary. But maybe a NO man centered celebration of self is AS IF, but I rarely see it done that way. Its typically a hootinanny of clapping and chit chat and hand shaking and hugs. Lots of hugs.
Ever mindful–Bergoglio acts AS IF he were the Vicar of Christ. He isn’t.
The Seder (Order) Meal was developed by Rabbinical Judaism
after Titus had destroyed the City of Deicide as this Jewish author
states:
Almost everyone doing serious work on the early history of
Passover traditions, including Joseph Tabory, Israel Yuval,
Lawrence Hoffman, and the father-son team of Shmuel and
Ze’ev Safrai, has rejected Finkelstein’s claims for the great
antiquity of the bulk of the Passover Haggadah. What is
particularly significant about this consensus is that these
scholars are not radical skeptics. These scholars believe that,
generally speaking, we can extract historically reliable
information from rabbinic sources. But as demonstrated by the
late Baruch Bokser in his book The Origins of the Seder,
practically everything preserved in the early rabbinic traditions concerning the Passover Seder brings us back to the time
immediately following the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E.12It’s not that rabbinic literature cannot be trusted to tell
us about history in the first century of the Common Era. It’s
that rabbinic literature—in the case of the Seder—does not
even claim to be telling us how the Seder was performed before
the destruction of the Temple.
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/was-jesus-last-supper-a-seder/#end02
Council of Trent (Sess. 22, c. 1): “After Christ had celebrated the
ancient Passover, which the multitude of the sons of Israel
sacrificed in memory of their going out of Egypt, He instituted a
new Passover, that He Himself should be immolated by the Church
(ab ecclesia), by means of (per) the priests, under (sub) visible
signs, in memory of His passage from this world to the Father,
when He redeemed us by the shedding of His Blood, and delivered
us from the power of darkness, and translated us to His Kingdom.”
Dear Louie,
Thank you so much for the photo–the masonic handshake and the look of love explain so much regarding the novus ordo religion, its origin and intent!