A bit late but also timely. This week saw the feast of Ss. Isaac Jogues, Jean de Brebeuf, and companions. A fun tidbit was pointed out to me by a priest. In missals printed in the US, Jogues is listed first. In Canadian missals, Brebeuf gets top billing. Take that for what it’s worth but my favorite is Rene Gouplil anyway.
This upcoming weekend is the Pilgrimage for Restoration. I attended part of this last year but am unable to make it this year. Please pray for the pilgrims. I have some friends marching in the columns and will post pictures after the weekend.
And this on the cusp of what will surely be a casual display of mass evil in Rome next month. Because the last time they did a “synod” nothing bad happened at all. Remember? October, 2019. Worldwide lockdowns and poisonous death injections were waiting just around the corner, almost triggered by, say, a literal demon being enshrined on the highest altar in Christendom.
I received an email from a reader who hails from my native Northeast. He reminded me of the upcoming feast of St. Michael the Archangel which is this upcoming Friday.
And a great feast it is! St. Michael is one of our great defenders.
I ask him every night to “call down the legions of angels under his command to drive away any demons from my abode.”
Well, this reader also has a pretty nifty website with some “cool merch” as the kids say. I actually hate it when they say that. But I like his wares and I think you might as well.
Please check it out his shop – Defend us in Battle Designs – by clicking here.
At the evening Mass tonight – a rather full house for a Sunday late afternoon – I made my way towards the front of the church where I usually try to sit. Much to my teenage daughter’s chagrin – she would prefer to sit in the back or even in the choir loft. Apparently at that age, girls don’t want to stand out. Except when they do. Which is all the time. I am so confused. Regardless, I strolled up the center aisle with my son. He’s a teenage boy and doesn’t really care if anyone notices him. And I don’t head up front to be noticed myself. I sit there because I want to pay closer attention, to be closer to the altar, to the sacrifice. I also like that I receive Holy Communion before most of the people in the church and therefore have more time to pray in thanksgiving. Sometimes when I sit in the back, I’ve barely made it back to my pew before Father has started praying the Communion verse.
As we took our seats and knelt to pray before Mass, I was struck by the presence of a young man and three young children who clearly sprang from his loins. I just now debated using that expression as it is somewhat archaic but there it is. I did not see a “Mrs.” with him but these things happen. There were times when my kids were little where my wife and I would split up for Sunday Mass and one of us had the children with us. Typically this happened when one of us was under the weather and just needed a break. To be certain, we would all go to Mass, just separately.
Stations of the Cross, Christ the King Catholic Church, Dallas, TX
One of the man’s children, a little girl of about four, was playing about in the pew as children do. She would crawl under the pew and then re-emerge to climb on top. She played with the missals as though they were great big books of fairy tales. She climbed onto her daddy’s lap and asked a question that meant a lot to her but the premise of which I had taken for granted these past few years.
In a whisper she said,
“Why is it so quiet in here?”
And it was quiet in here. It was blissfully quiet. It is not as though there was absolutely no noise. We weren’t in a vacuum or some kind of isolation chamber. There was the ambient noise of the air conditioning. There was the sound of doors opening and people taking steps, of hard-soled shoes on linoleum. Kneelers were creaking and thin pages of missals were turning and ribbons were being set.
But it was quiet.
This quiet had actually come into sharp contrast for me the day before. I had been at a different parish for a wedding. It is a novus ordo parish and it was a novus ordo crowd. In fact, I don’t rightly know if half the attendants were even Catholic at all. These things can be expected at a wedding. Couples tend to invite lots of people and not all of them share our faith. But the atmosphere was entirely different. There was no sense at all that the place we were in should be marked by sacred silence let alone that others might appreciate the quiet for their own prayers. Both before and after the Mass (and even during thanks to priest-encouraged applause) conversations at full volume, the smacking of gum being chewed, backs being slapped, and laughter permeated the air. I hadn’t experienced that in such a long time and it was jarring.
The church is the dwelling place of God. Our Lord reposes in the tabernacle. Silence is an outgrowth of the reverence we owe to Him. In the silence we can hear Him. In silence we can close our eyes and meditate on His Wounds, envision His Sacred Body hanging on the cross and contemplate His Diving Love for us sinners.
I had come into this traditional world several years ago not really grasping that and was caught by surprise when it all made sense to me. I didn’t even recognize that I didn’t miss the noise.
Why is it so quiet in here?
Because He Who made you and me and all the stars of night chose to inhabit a little golden box so we could always come to Him and speak the secrets of our hearts to Him. It is so quiet in here because His sacrifice takes place here. It is so quiet in here because He loves us and desires us to contemplate that love. It is so quiet in here because no words could express adequately the contrition, the adoration, the desire we should show to Him Who speaks no words before us but Who IS the Word and Who Is Truth and Who Is Love.
Faced with all that, could a man find a word to utter that even made sense?
Here’s a bit of humor for you… Friday evening at Mass, I thought Father was having a stroke. Real funny, right? No… Here’s what happened. I had diligently set my ribbons for the feast of St. Thomas of Villanova. If you’re following along, that’s one ribbon for the propers – which in this case is just the collect because at that point one is directed to take the rest of the propers from the Mass “Statuit” of a confessor. So at this point I do what every daily Mass-goer with a Missal does. I reach into the back of my missal for the “big guns”. In this case, I’m talking about holy cards that I use when I’ve run out of ribbons. Tonight, it was “Sister Wilhelmina” with the “Dedication of the Immaculata” being used for backup.
I placed the book down on the pew, cool and confident that I was prepared to pray the Mass. I mean, the purple veil cloth covering the tabernacle was a minor distraction for the feast day since it says “white” in my book. No worries. I’m sure the altar boy will get an earful after Mass for his mistake.
Then Father and his entourage stepped into the sanctuary. Hmm… He’s wearing purple as well. OK, must be a votive Mass. I was all set here and he’s going to mess around with me. Of course, it’s personal.
It took me until the Gospel to remember that it was Ember Friday. I quietly tucked Sister Wilhelmina into the back of the missal and moved on.
The reason I thought Father was having a stroke? It seems that even he, despite being vested in violet and all that jazz, also forgot it was an Ember Day. He begin to pray Psalm 42 which should be omitted at a penitential Mass. The altar boys began to reply. Father began the next verse. Then he caught himself, stopped midway through the line about sending “forth Thy light and the truth”. I think it was actually in between deduxerunt and adduxerunt. He froze for about three seconds or one Mitch McConnell. Then he hurriedly jumped to the “Gloria Patri”. And so you see that even the experts mess it up occasionally.
Folks, I got off all that social media nonsense a while ago. Sorry but I'm not on Twitbook, Facepalm, YouHu, WingWang or any of the others. Maybe an event will happen to make me change my mind like Peter and Paul coming down with flaming swords and commanding it be so. Until then, read the blog and if you feel a comment is in order or you feel like sharing a tip or suggestion for a topic, email me at harvey@harveymillican.com.
Harvey Millican's Blog: Musings of a Trad Dad 