A Treasure To Be Shared

The seasons of Advent and Christmas - yes, dear friend, Christmas is an entire season lasting beyond Boxing Day and New Year's Eve - are seasons of the Word Incarnate. Each year, the Church provides us with a lavish feast of readings in the Mass that immerse us in the mystery and revelation of the Incarnation. For those of us who attend the Ordinariate Liturgy - Divine Worship - or the Latin Mass (1962 Missal), we are blessed with hearing most days the Last Gospel. Divine Worship contains and proclaims a particularly beautiful translation of the Gospel of Saint John, Chapter 1 verses 1 to 14. We who are created in the image and likeness of God - we are little words of God spoken by the Word of God - would do well to acquaint ourselves with God's holy word, for the word of God is a pool of living water in which we may be refreshed. This Christmas, take a vacation with the word of God. Dine on some scripture - the readings of the Mass, perhaps? - even a minute or two, every day o...

[ Read time: 9 minutes ] In highlighting the passages below, attention is drawn to the relationships between beings of a higher and lower order. In the Mass, if we are humble and call upon God's enabling grace, and if God so wills it, we are drawn into a sublime encounter with the Lord, illuminated to attend to God with the knowledge granted us. In the Mass, "the angels influence people to enter more profoundly into prayer." Excerpt from The Celestial Hierarchy by Dionysius the Areopagite |  msu.edu 3. The theologians therefore clearly show that the lower ranks of the Celestial Beings receive the understanding of the divine works from those above them in a fitting manner, and that the highest are correspondingly enlightened in the Divine Mysteries by the Most High God Himself. For some of them are shown to us as enlightened in holy matters by those above them, and we learn that He who in human form ascended to heaven is Lord of the Celestial Powers and King of Glory. An...

A relative newcomer to Ordinariate-speak, though having attended services at a local Anglican parish throughout my later teenage years, two related terms have at times puzzled and engaged me: minor propers and major propers . Puzzled, because perhaps I should have paid closer attention to their use when I hung out with my Anglican buddies way back when I was transitioning out of the Untied Church of Canada (... spelling as intended). Having better acquainted myself with the two terms since joining the Ordinariate and being captivated by the preeminence to which English chant ( English Gradual /Burgess) gives to the Word of God, terms one might add in use for a considerable amount of time in Anglican and Anglo-catholic circles, they have become entirely useful to communicate in shorthand about particular sections of the Mass. To quote one comment registered May 2018 at/in the Musicasacra forum : (C)alling the lesser propers 'minor' or 'lesser' does not imply ...