"The Thursday of Mysteries"

Isn't that a beautiful way to describe today?
I've only just learned it.

I appreciate that word "mysteries" used synonymously with "sacraments," very much.
At Eastern Rite liturgies I've always thrilled a bit at the phrase, "I will not reveal Your Mysteries to your enemies," as if we were suddenly plunged by the universality and sacred timeliness/timelessness of the Sacrifice into penal times, or the first century and were willing to die rather than betray the goings-on in the catacombs to the authorities.
One doesn't see it much in the West, although the sheet music from which I first learned the Bruckner Locus Iste translated sacramentum that way, IIRC.
This is, I promise you, not about aesthetic snobbery, but the music that will happen tonight at any of the Roman Catholic churches within reach will be so jarringly bad or inappropriate that I was casting about for an alternative, and my default Byzantine parish seems not to be having any liturgy tonight, can that be possible?
(Here, I can prove, at least to my own satisfaction that it's not snootiness on my part - if it were not a thousand miles away I would attend an Extraordinary Form Mass I used to hear with some regularity, where the propers that are not sung recto tono or to a psalm tone would be unrecognizable they would be rendered so badly, by a choir that included on singer with a voice like an electric cheese grater. The appropriate done badly by worshipers giving their best is more fitting than the inappropriate done well by worshipers giving their favorites.)
Anyway, I found a church, (of a rite that I don't know well at all,) whose bulletin gives a time for Liturgy of  Thursday of Mysteries.
(And between Holy Orders and Eucharist, and washing of the feet - do Easterners do that? dont know -  our evening will be filled with Mystery.)
Was this Father Hardon?

"A mystery is not a truth about which we can know nothing. It is a truth about which we cannot know everything."

The Divine Liturgy

I love the Roman Rite.

But there is a special joy in attending the Eastern Church's Divine Liturgy. I have heard people joke about the need to "sing for your supper," but the fact is, one is so invested in the execution of the liturgy, it is almost impossible not to enter prayerfully into the Other Time, Other Place, Other Reality that rite worship entails.

I think every Roman Catholic should somehow be required to make periodic visits to other rites, of those who belong to the same One Church, Ruthenian Catholic, Anglican Use, Maronite Catholic...

So many of us belong to St Thewaywedoithere's parish, and ignore legitimate diversity while worshipping in the Expedient Rite.

I am far from perfect, and have made many mistakes over the years, but I realized recently that in all the times I was scolded, or asked in a backhanded way by someone after a Mass or LotH, whether choir member, liturgy committee rep, priest, or PIP; whether at my parish or someplace I was subbing, or even volunteering an helping out - I have never been called to account on anything that actually was wrong.

Not only not wrong, but never, as far as I can easily recall, in a matter where there were legitimate options and I had simply chosen an unfamiliar one.
No, people are most eager to complain and attempt correction when they are most certain of something -- and they are never more certain of something than when they are wrong.

Why did you start the communion song before Father had finished his communion? You're supposed to wait, count to five and then announce the hymn!
We're not supposed to do the Creed on Sundays in Ordinary time.
You left out the alleluia on Ash Wednesday!
It's not called the Offertory anymore.
What was that song about David during the palms?
I waited and waited, but you skipped the Lord Have Mercy! 
Why don't you ever do the Memorial Acclamation that starts, "we remember how you loved us..."?
The Church did away with the Reproaches!
We always used that hymn for the psalm before...
It's wrong to sing Marian songs during Mass.

But I've drifted off topic.

The Divine Liturgy.

GO!

 

Chaldean Bishop Installed

I am watching it on EWTN, as +Frank Kalabat is installed.
(I am very grateful for EWTN.)


I love that the music, even when it is, frankly, ugly in its execution, is so clearly a CEREMONY not an entertainment, prayer, not performance.
Perhaps "even when" should have been "especially when."

The chant is very powerful.

I was pretty startled at the ululating of approval.

PRAY FOR THE PEOPLE OF GOD IN IRAQ!!!!!!!

A Return to Tradition, a Return to Roots

Yes, yes, yes.
An article in Zenit tells us that the North American Orthodox/Catholic Theological Consultation has issued a statement urging the

“lifting of the restrictions regarding the ordination of married men to the priesthood in the Eastern Catholic Churches of North America.”

One quibble - Zenit's headline says that the panel endorsed "allowing priests to marry" which is quite a different thing from allowing them to be married.