An iconographic project worthy of the Middle Ages — the traditionalist Fraternity of St Vincent Ferrer’s monumental altar in progress

The 1/10 scale model of the future high altar of Our Lady of the Rosary (with wings closed)

The Fraternity of Saint Vincent Ferrer, which has just finished building its conventual church, Our Lady of the Rosary, in Chéméré-le-Roi (Mayenne, France), has decided to construct a monumental historiated high altar. How did this project develop? What will it look like? Richard de Seze interviewed the Father Jordan-Mary, responsible for the project.

Supporting Traditional Contemplative Religious Life for Women: A Call for Help

Rorate is pleased to share this text from a new community in process of formation, the foundress of which is known to us.

Our Lord assures the contemplative nun that not only does He accept her great desire to serve Him more directly and immediately, but He Himself has given this desire: “One thing is necessary…Mary has chosen the BEST part, and it shall never be taken from her.” (Luke 10:42)

When one finds something “optimal” in the “true and good” department, one cannot just leave it as a sidenote in one’s life. And this is even more true of the call of the contemplative nun. For the contemplative nun, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass must be Everything. The Divine Office must be Everything. Scripture and Dogma must be Everything. Silence, solitude, and mental prayer must be Everything. Life inside the cloister must be Everything. For the contemplative nun, God must be Everything and the only Thing—the unum necessarium.

A Religious Superior Reflects on Wimples—and on the Current Masquerade

Rorate Caeli received the following text from a religious superior who gave permission to publish it anonymously. The substance is taken from a chapter talk in the community.

Portrait of a Woman, ca. 1430-1435, by Robert Campin

Although the veil is historically more ancient than the wimple, the recent order from the civil government, requiring the wearing of a mask in public places, has made me reflect on our wimple.

The wimple came into fashion during the Middle Ages, from about the 13th century onward. All women of good breeding wore a wimple, and, later on it was retained for some time (through the 15th century) for married women. The wimple was always worn with a veil. The idea for the wimple is that the woman’s face is visible, but her neck and her head are covered. Even if it seems that lay women sometimes showed some of their hair when they wore a wimple or veil, the hair seen was dressed or braided, not hair flowing freely (which is an important difference with regard to its attractiveness).

One reason for the wearing of a wimple is the same as the reason for wearing a veil: that of reserving one’s beauty for one’s spouse. This is the reason that married women, above all, wore the wimple (and the veil). As we read in the Song of Songs, even a woman’s neck can be beautiful to a man: “Thy neck, is as the tower of David, which is built with bulwarks: a thousand bucklers hang upon it, all the armour of valiant men” (4:4). A woman who is not “available,” that is, one who is married or given in religion, does not wish, in any way, to draw attention to her physical beauty, and so it became customary for such women to wear wimples and veils.

Fashions changed, but women religious retained the custom of wearing wimples and veils.

The wimple always leaves the face uncovered. What does the leaving of the face uncovered mean? First, it means that a woman who wears a wimple is not seeking to hide herself totally; she is not seeking to exclude or separate herself from others. She is not excluding communication with other persons. Her face is left free; in fact, the wearing of the wimple draws more attention to the face, since there is nothing else to draw our eye.

The wimple “forces” someone who meets us to focus on our face, not on our body. In a real sense, our face most fully expresses who we are. Our face reveals who we are more than our body does. Consider that we learn so much more about a person by looking at his or her face than we do by looking at his or her hands or feet. The eyes are called the “windows of the soul,” and these eyes are almost highlighted by the wimple. 

The wimple, then, helps us to relate to other human persons in a way that harmonizes very well with our vocation. The wimple draws attention to the “inner man” which finds expression in our face. Our wimple helps others to look at us in that way.

Last week, the civil government ordered that everyone must wear masks in public places. The mask covers half of the face: the nose and the mouth. It is hard to recognize people when they wear masks; this is why burglars wear masks (the same kind, where only the eyes are visible). We can look from our convent to see people walking the streets who wear masks, but who are otherwise dressed indecently. The symbolic message such people convey is almost an exact inversion of the message we convey. One cannot “see” the “inner man” because of the mask, but one’s eyes are drawn, instead, to the body.

The mask is a barrier to truly human communication, for communication is so much more than the exchange of words. We speak with our face, with our expressions. When we add the wearing of masks to the other regulations, especially that of so-called “social distancing,” and to the increase in “virtual meetings” and “on-line classrooms,” we can see the mask as just one element in the dehumanizing tendency of our society.

Even though people may think it “dehumanizing” that we sisters wear all the coverings we do as part of our religious habit, the truth is that the layers we wear can be aids to make our relationship with other human persons “more human,” more personal. Because the use of masks is an element that frustrates truly human relationships, we have an instinctive aversion to wearing masks. The mask hides the human person; the wimple reveals the human person. 

Let us thank God for the gift of our wimples!

Nicolas de Largillière, Elizabeth Throckmorton, ca. 1729

Reviving Religious Life in Britain – and Across the West (Guest Article by Fr Armand de Malleray, FSSP)

Whitby Abbey

Article by Fr Armand de Malleray, FSSP, first published in  Dowry Magazine No43: For the benefit of our readers outside Great-Britain, the assessment and remedies offered in this article apply outside of Britain; indeed throughout our formerly Christian Western countries.

Introduction

Better is one day in Thy courts above thousands. How lovely are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! my soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord.’ This Introit (at the beginning of the Mass on the 14^th Sunday after Pentecost) expresses the desire of our souls to spend our lives closer to God, actually to dwell in God’s house, as an anticipation of the blessed dwelling promised to us in God’s celestial courts if we die in His grace.

This is why some Catholics will come to church every day. They do well. Even outside of Holy Mass, they will enter a Catholic church daily and pray to God truly present there. Other Catholics want more. They want more than simply observing God’s commandments. They choose to embrace God’s counsels as well. They want to spend their entire lives in close proximity to where God dwells. They withdraw from the secular world and organise their lives together as religious communities. Their lives focus on prayer, religious study, penance and works of charity.

They want to give God every possible space in their hearts, in their days and nights. To that end, they renounce earthly possessions through the vow of poverty. They give up the goods of marriage and family bonds through the vow of chastity. Lastly, through the vow of obedience, they offer up to God their own will as a beautiful sacrifice to follow the will of God in all things through the legitimate will of their superiors.

Such is the religious state. It is a blessing for those called to it. But it is also a blessing for those who witness it. Why is it so?

The religious state is a blessing for all, because it sets a higher standard of perfection. It encourages all in the world to aspire to a closer union with God while on earth, so as to enjoy it forever in heaven. Since our human nature is fallen we constantly lean towards the easier options, to the peril of our souls. This soon leads us to venial sins and ultimately to mortal sins. On the contrary, the presence of religious men and women near us demonstrates to us that one can be blessedly fulfilled in poverty, chastity and obedience. Religious life manifests spiritual freedom on our doorstep. And we all crave spiritual freedom. Contemplative religious also pray for their fellow-Catholics in the world and welcome visitors in their retreat centres, providing much-needed havens of silence and prayer. Apostolic religious contribute actively to evangelisation as mobile and flexible missionaries who can be deployed at short notice to serve the needs of a given parish or diocese.

In the Heart of the Church, a New Carmel and Center of Traditional Liturgy

It gives us great joy to be able to share once again Carmelite good news, at the request of the community itself. Please pray for these sisters and the success of their noble project. 

A New Carmel

To continue and perpetuate the vital work of love in the heart of the Church, a new beautiful Monastery of Discalced Carmelite Nuns is being constructed (http://fairfieldcarmelites.org) in the quiet rural farmland of Fairfield, Pennsylvania. This beautiful new property will provide a fitting home for an interior blossoming of monastic life and will be ready to receive a constant stream of vocations zealous for God and His Church.

Announcing a new contemplative religious community of men

Rorate is pleased to share this important announcement from Pennsylvania. We ask our readers to keep the hermits in their prayers and to spread word of this order among men who may have an eremitical vocation.

In Cujus Conspectu: A New Contemplative Religious Community of Men

Vivit Dominus Deus Israel, in cujus conspectu sto (3 Kings 17:1). His Excellency, Bishop Ronald Gainer of the Diocese of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania has warmly given his blessing to a new religious community of men, the Hermits of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (www.eremitaednmc.org), erecting the community as an Association of the Faithful on February 22nd, the 15th anniversary of His Excellency’s episcopal consecration. 

This community observes the eremitical Carmelite charism according to the life of the original community of hermits on Mount Carmel and the primitive Carmelite Rule written for them by St. Albert of Jerusalem in the early 1200s. Strictly following the Rule in its original character of eremitical contemplative religious life, they are reviving the life of those ancient religious, who “in imitation of that holy anchorite the prophet Elijah, led solitary lives” (Jacques de Vitry, Bishop of Acre, History of Jerusalem). “Let each stay in his cell or nearby it, day and night meditating on the law of the Lord and keeping vigil in prayers unless occupied by other just occasions” (Primitive Carmelite Rule of St. Albert). 

Announcing the Establishment of a New Traditional Religious Order for Women: Filiae Laboris Mariae

(Rorate congratulates this community on their auspicious beginnings with a Solemn High Mass, and asks its readers to help spread the word among young ladies who may be searching for a traditional religious order with an active apostolate. Please note that the community has a new mailing address.)

ON JUNE 9th, 2017, with the permission of the local Ordinary, His Excellency Bishop James Vann Johnston, Jr., a new semi-contemplative traditional community of religious sisters will begin ad experimentum in the Diocese of Kansas City-Saint Joseph. The beginning of the community and the entrance of the first two postulants will be celebrated with a Solemn High Mass in honor of Our Lady, Mother of Divine Grace, at Saint Mary’s Parish at Independence, MO, at 12:00 Noon.

The charism of the Filiae Laboris Mariae is to assist the Blessed Virgin Mary in her apostolic mission of bringing souls to Christ. Labor Mariae carries out its apostolic mission especially through prayer, above all liturgical prayer, and by making known the truth, goodness, and beauty of life in Jesus Christ in His Holy Church through works of the apostolate. The charism finds expression in three intimately connected ways or “labors,” because the sanctification of God’s people is Our Lady’s labor; it is her work, the work of the one who, clothed with the sun and crowned with twelve stars, still wails aloud as she labors to give birth (cf. Rev. 12:1-1). The threefold labor through which the members of Labor Mariae participate in Our Lady’s apostolic mission is:

The Gospel in a Nutshell

 Dom Gérard Calvet OSB*

ONE DAY, as we were asking a Carmelite sister to tell us how she made her prayer, her heart to heart with the Lord, she responded that, for thirty-five years, one phrase of the Gospel was enough for her, and she returned to it without ceasing. It seemed to her that drawing on another source would be to be unfaithful to her particular vocation, or at least to the attraction which the Lord had given to her for her time of mental prayer. It is very true that the interior life, more than a response to passing impulses, is chiefly an effort to persevere in the direction of a continuous line flowing form the first grace.

The phrase that our Carmelite was taking in this way was drawn from the Gospel of John: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him, should not perish, but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). The whole doctrine of salvation is contained in these few words: the divine paternity, the redemptive Incarnation, the role of faith, the drama of reprobation and the perspective of eternal happiness. The ancients gave a name to this verse of the Gospel of Saint John: they called it Evangelium in nuce, the Gospel in a nutshell. Let’s read it slowly and lets pause over each word so that we draw out the sap. This is perhaps the surest way to approach the great mystery of the Incarnation, this essential mystery, source of all the others, by which God touches the world. Lets try!

God so loved the world… Everything flows from the Trinity. Everything that is divine, everything that comes down from God and leads man to God can only be an outflowing of the love of the Trinity: God so loved the world... There is a great consolation and sweetness in this profession of faith in divine charity. It is something that makes the fear and the news of the worst catastrophes [1] lose their strength, like smoke that is blown away by the wind. So is there bad news? Can it be as bad as renouncing Love?

One can say that the race of saints has for two thousand years been working and plowing this field and have only been drawing the consequences of this essential good news, invoked so often: Deus caritas est. God is love. But according to a logic which made the ancient Greeks mock, it was necessary, so that this love express itself, so that it pour itself out on man, that God send His Son. This is the second part of our phrase.

... that he gave His only Son...

Two New Traditional Catholic Sisterhoods in Formation

1. The Facebook page of the Institute of the Good Shepherd's (IBP) apostolate in Colombia reports on a new Traditional Catholic community in formation, the Esclavas Reparadoras de la Sagrada Familia:

The first two members received their novitiate uniform (not yet a "habit") on the Feast of St. Joseph, March 19, 2015. The community is being formed with the help of the IBP. 


2. The Catholic Exponent of the Diocese of Youngstown, Ohio reported last month on the launching of the Missionary Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi, formed initially by three women under the guidance of the FSSP pastor of their (personal) parish, Queen of the Holy Rosary in Vienna, OH.

VIENNA – With the blessing of Bishop George V. Murry, S.J., a small group of women is preparing to launch the Missionary Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi here.The three, including superior Mother Mary Francis and two candidates, have been approved as a private association of the faithful, a group who come together for ministry and who hope to, over time, develop into a diocesan religious institute of sisters.

Liturgical Beauty: They shouldn't have to be all stored in a museum

On the one hand, it is wonderful that the liturgical art of Western Europe, in particular post-revolutionary France and especially in textiles, is preserved rigorously by the Order of the Visitation (the Visitandines, the order founded by St. Jane de Chantal, whose most famous saint is St. Margaret Mary Alacoque) in their museum in Moulins, right in the middle of France.

Jesuit General to resign in 2016 due to advanced age.And the Society of Jesus? Still aging, and still shrinking.

Today's announcement by the Jesuit Curia that the General of their Order, Fr. Adolfo Nicolas SJ, will be resigning in late 2016 due to "advanced age" naturally raises the question: how are the Jesuits doing? How many Jesuits are there, after 49 years of aggiornamento and of the post-Conciliar "springtime"?

As of January 1, 2014, according to a report published on March 25 in Populi (citing statistics published on that same day by the Society of Jesus), there were 16,986 Jesuits worldwide: 12,107 priests, 1,331 lay brothers, 2,842 scholastics and 706 novices: a decrease of 268 members over the previous year. The report itself is deceptively titled "Gesuiti, aumentano le vocazioni" -- "Jesuits, an increase of vocations" -- due to there being 706 Jesuit novices as of Jan. 1, 2014 as compared to 699 in 2012. (The source for the figure of 699 novices is not given.)

Unfortunately even that little statistic does not seem to be accurate, insofar as pre-2014 figures are concerned. A complete set of statistics from 1974 to 2013 on the website of the Jesuit Curia, published on April 10, 2013 gives a slightly different picture: As of Jan. 1, 2013, there were a total of 17,287 Jesuits: 12,298 priests, 1,400 lay brothers, 2,878 scholastics and 711 novices. 

If the Populi statistics for Jan. 1, 2014 are accurate, then the real decrease of Jesuits since Jan. 1, 2013 has been by 301 members (and not 268), and there has been a decrease of 5 novices rather than an increase of 7 novices. Priests, lay brothers, and scholastics also saw a diminution of their numbers

And how many Jesuits were there in 1966? There were 36,038, of whom 20,301 were priests. (Source.) 

The "absolutely non-negotiable point" for the Congregation for Religious: "faithfulness" to (their idea of) Vatican II

New Pontificate, new "non-negotiables". If for Benedict XVI, non-negotiable items were clearer and more definable, for the new Secretary of the Congregation for Religious, there is above all one point, what appears to have been the only relevant Catholic event in the history of the universe.

The Secretary of the Congregation for Consecrated Life, Franciscan José Rodríguez Carballo, for the past year number two of this Vatican organism charged with religious life, was in [Barcelona,] Spain this past weekend [May 3-4] to attend the meeting of the Union of Religious of Catalonia. [Infovaticana, en español]

----
This is a moment of "chaos, dark night, and twilight" for religious life, that sees the number of members and vocations fall, especially in Europe. But "it is a critical situation that is also an opportunity for the beginning of something new." ...

José Rodríguez Carballo mentioned as an important point of religious life fidelity to Vatican II: "For the consecrated, the Council is a point that cannot be negotiated." And he affirmed that those who search into the reforms of Vatican II all the ailments of religious life "deny the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church."

He explained that in the Congregation for Consecrated Life, they are "particularly concerned" with this matter: "we are seeing true deviations." Above all because "not a few institutes give not only a pre-conciliar, but even an anti-conciliar formation. This is inadmissible, it is to place oneself outside of history. It is something that worries us greatly in the Congregation." [Catalunya Religió, en català] 

It is clear who is living outside of history - the anachronistic people running the Congregation for Religious stuck with false solutions thought for the reality of the 1960s that, when "faithfully" implemented, led to the near collapse of almost all consecrated life, and the corruption of most religious life that remained almost to the point of non-recognition. This tragic reality is acknowledged, but no amount of cognitive dissonance prevents the super-dogmatization of Vatican II. The latest Council as "super-dogma": how long and strongly did Joseph Ratzinger fight to get rid of this notion! How strongly the Franciscans of the Immaculate (certainly one, probably the main, institute Rodriguez Carballo had in mind in his words) tried to help Benedict XVI in the search for a way of continuity out of this crisis of legitimacy that the understanding of Vatican II as the one essential religious event in the history of Catholicism has fostered.

It is as if we were in the 1970s all over again and no lessons had been learned. What is facetiously said (the origin is uncertain) of a certain dynastic house, that "they never learn, and they never forget": that seems to be the only way to explain the obsession of the "Spirit of Vatican II exclusivists". As diehard Marxists who watched the collapse the Soviet Empire, after decades of suffering and bloodshed supported by them and their fellow travelers, their only explanation is not that maybe there is something wrong with Marxism, but that it was not "rightly implemented": time to try it all more faithfully once again. "Spirit of Vatican II exclusivism" would just be embarrassing, were it not filled with real-life consequences.

We now see clearly that the Pontificate of Benedict XVI was not the beginning of something, but merely a brief stop in the oasis in the middle of the desert: a respite for ourselves and our camels. Miserere nobis, Domine!