Welcome To Tradition

We are well into the long stretch of green Sundays, the Sundays after Pentecost. As you know, when the priest wears green, we will likely sing Mass XI, and so we did. And typically, we pair that with Credo I, and so we did.

For the processional we sang Glory be to Jesus, with its several references to the Blood of Our Lord, fitting for this month of the Precious Blood.

At the Offertory, we sang Virgo Dei Genitrix. The offertory antiphon was longish, so we chose a rather brief Marian anthem.

At the Communion, for Our Lord, we sang, which adverts to the Blood of Christ.

Earlier in the week, we had the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and so, somewhat out of the ordinary, we sang a Marian hymn at the Communion, a hymn that comes to us from the Carmelites, the lovely Salve Mater.

In view of the recent anniversary of the release of the Motu Proprio that restricts the use of the Traditional Latin Mass (Traditionis Custodes), we sang Faith of our Fathers at the recessional.

Ah, the green Sundays of Summer. Mass XI and Credo I, of course!

At the Processional, Glory be to Jesus with its references to the Blood of Our Lord, appropriate for this month of the Precious Blood.

At the Offertory, Virgo Dei Genitrix for Our Lady, certainly, but also because I like it so much.

At the Communion, Jesu Dulcis Memoria because this is the second Sunday of the month on which the Holy Name men make their observances.

And because our little chapel is growing, we had time for another hymn so we did Anima Christi because of its reference to the Sanguis Christi – Blood of Christ.

To close, we did Hail Holy Queen. It’s always fitting.

June is always interesting, liturgically. This year is no different. The Feast of the Sacred Heart falls on the third Friday after Pentecost and that almost always puts it in the month of June (it can be as early as May 29th and as late as July 2nd). This year, it fell on Friday of last week, June 24th. Normally, that would be the Feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, but that got moved to the following Saturday. Normally, we would solemnize the Feast of John the Baptist on the following Sunday, but Sacred Heart is one of those few feasts which gets solemnized by default. That was the Mass Father celebrated – a solemn feast, and so Father wore gold vestments rather than white. Of course, by now, you know the rule of thumb: a feast that calls for gold vestments also calls for Mass II (for Solemn Feasts). The question is asked, “Why not Mass VIII?” Apart from the fact that Mass VIII is like a badly cooked steak (way overdone), it is less fitting than Mass IIas it is designated For Ordinary Feasts. We paired that with Credo III.

For the Processional, we sang To Christ the Prince of Peace, a hymn very much in keeping with the theme of the Sacred Heart. Among other beautiful phrases, it contains the line:

Deep in His heart for us, the wound of love He bore; that love wherewith He still inflames the hearts that Him adore.

As the Offertory, we sang Tota Pulchra Es for Our Lady.

At the Communion, again for the Sacred Heart, we sang the sublimely beautiful Lauds Hymn for the Feast of the Sacred Heart, Cor Arca.

This Sunday also happened to have been the first opportunity we had to celebrate our patron, Saint Anthony of Padua. For the recessional, we sang all four verses of Saint Anthony, We Turn to Thee – twice! We had an overflow crowd join us to celebrate our patron and it took unbelievably long for the procession to form up outside.

In procession, we carried the statue and our prized relic of Saint Anthony. We sang Blessed Francis, Holy Father in honor of Saint Francis, then sang the Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus. We concluded the procession with Hail Holy Queen Enthroned Above.