The New Hunters and Gatherers

I entirely unplugged from the internet -- and the computer altogether -- from mid-afternoon this past Saturday until mid-morning on Monday. The peace and connectedness with the real world that resulted from this "fast" was wonderful!

When I returned to e-land on Monday, I found in my inbox a newsletter from the Canadian Catholic artist and author Michael D. O'Brien that contained this very apt quote from Nicholas Carr's 2010 book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains:

"There’s nothing wrong with absorbing information quickly and in bits and pieces. We’ve always skimmed newspapers more than we’ve read them, and we routinely run our eyes over books and magazines to get the gist of a piece of writing and decide whether it warrants more thorough reading. The ability to scan and browse is as important as the ability to read deeply and think attentively. The problem is that skimming is becoming our dominant mode of thought. Once a means to an end, a way to identify information for further study, it’s becoming an end in itself—our preferred method of both learning and analysis. Dazzled by the Net’s treasures, we are blind to the damage we may be doing to our intellectual lives and even our culture.

"What we’re experiencing is, in a metaphorical sense, a reversal of the early trajectory of civilization: We are evolving from cultivators of personal knowledge into hunters and gatherers in the electronic data forest. In the process, we seem fated to sacrifice much of what makes our minds so interesting."

I think Mr. Carr's point is well taken.

Image:
19th century tribal women harvesting wild rice in the traditional manner, from Wikimedia Commons. In the public domain.

Assumption Day and Our Lady's Bower

Tomorrow, August 15, is the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, celebrating the day Our Lady was taken into heaven.

According to the flower calendar in the Collectanea of Vincent Stuckey Lean (1820-1899), the blossoms of a certain plant fall around Assumption Day:

"When Mary left us here below,
The Virgin's Bower begins to blow."

The plant V.S. Lean is referring to is Clematis vitalba, known in Catholic horticulture as "Virgin's Bower" or "Our Lady's Bower". The idea is that the plant makes a bedchamber for Our Blessed Mother.

Clematis vitalba is a member of the ranunculus family. It is a climbing vine with medium green leaves shaped like elongated hearts. The plant grows vigorously and forms a canopy or thicket. It blooms during the summer with starry white blossoms. When the blossoms fall, they leave greenish seed heads. As the seed heads ripen, tufts of wispy, silver fibers emerge. The seed heads and fibers are lovely in winter.

You can read more about the plant here.

Image:
Clematis vitalba, from Wikimedia Commons. Some rights reserved.

Traditional Liturgical Colors and Church Flowers

This post is in answer to questions about whether at the traditional Latin Mass there are any liturgical norms regarding the color of altar flowers in relation to feast days.

As far as I have been able to ascertain, there are no norms about the color of the flowers. There are, of course, norms specifying the color of the priest's vestment and the altar frontal for the various days of the liturgical year. (The "frontals" are not to be confused with the altar cloths, which rest on top of the altar and drape over the sides. They are always white.)

Therefore, when planning church flowers one needs to take into account how the color or colors of the flowers will look with the colors of the vestment and altar frontal.

There is a good article about liturgical colors for the Mass according to the 1962 Missal here.

The basics are these:

White is for the seasons of Christmas and Easter, the feasts of Our Lord and Our Lady, and the feasts of angels, All Saints, and saints who are not martyrs.

Red is for the feasts of the Precious Blood, the Holy Ghost (e.g. Pentecost), the Holy Cross, apostles and martyrs.

Green is for Sundays and Ferias after Epiphany and after Pentecost.

Violet is for Advent and Lent (when no flowers should be used at all), on Rogation and Ember Days (except those of Pentecost when red is used), and for the season of Septuagesima and Vigils (except those of the Ascension and Pentecost).

Rose instead of violet may be used on Gaudete Sunday (during Advent) and Laetare Sunday (during Lent), and gold or silver and white may be used instead of white when white is prescribed.

Since white is the liturgical color for the feasts of Our Lady, such as the upcoming Solemnity of the Assumption, and the norms permit white to be substituted with gold, or with a combination of silver and white, one needs to check with the sacristan to find out which of these is going to be used and plan accordingly.

Beyond that, the best rule to keep in mind is that of the Ceremonial of Bishops: "The adornment and decor of a church should be such as to make the church a visible sign of love and reverence toward God." (No. 38.)

Image:
Photograph of altar with frontal (probably on Easter), from Sancta Missa.

Poplin and the Avignon Papacy

Since I wear skirts and dresses at home as well as in the world and at Mass, I recently purchased a couple of plain solid-colored cotton dresses to wear as "house dresses", in the 1950s sense of the word.

I read in the product description that the weave of these dresses is "poplin". The word was not at all new to me but for some reason this time it intrigued me. When I looked it up, I was pleasantly surprised to find in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (CD-ROM version) that the name was derived from "papal" and that it was "so called from being made at the papal city of Avignon".

This refers to the fact that during the 14th century from 1309 to 1378 the papacy was based at Avignon in the region of Provence. At that time, Avignon was one of the pontifical states. It remained so until the French Revolution, after which it was incorporated into France.

Seven legitimate popes and afterward two "anti-popes" were based at Avignon. The seven legitimate popes were: Pope Clement V (1305-1314), Pope John XXII (1316-1334), Pope Benedict XII (1334-1342) who is depicted above, Pope Clement VI (1342-1352), Pope Innocent VI (1352-1362), Pope Urban V (1362-1370), and Pope Gregory XI (1370-1378).

As for the fabric poplin, according to the online version of the Encyclopedia Britannica, it is a:

"strong fabric produced by the rib variation of the plain weave and characterized by fine, closely spaced, crosswise ribs. It is made with heavier filling yarns and a greater number of warp yarns and is similar to broadcloth, which has even finer, more closely spaced ribs.

"Though originally made with a silk warp and a heavier wool filling, poplin is now made of a variety of fibres, including silk, cotton, wool, and synthetic types, and with combinations of such fibres. It is used for shirts, pajamas, women’s wear, and sportswear and also as a decorative fabric."

Although the poplin weave can be made with various types of threads as explained above, one internet site says that poplin was originally made from silk for use in church vestments, which makes sense in view of its association with the Avignon papacy.

Whether the garments of Pope Benedict XII seen above are made of silk poplin I cannot say, but I think I will now be reminded of the Vicars of Christ when I put on one of my house dresses. Perhaps at least some of those times I will remember to say a short prayer to St. Joseph for the protection of the Church:

St. Joseph, patron of the universal Church,
watch over the Church as carefully as you
watched over Jesus,
help protect it and guide it as you did
with your adopted son.
Amen.

Image:
Pope Benedict XII, one of the Avignon popes. From Wikimedia Commons. In the public domain.

St. Dominic and His Vision

In the traditional calendar, today August 4, is the feast of St. Dominic de Guzman (1170-1221), the founder of the great Order of Preachers. In honor of the day, this post supports the tradition that Our Lady gave the Rosary to St. Dominic to use in his fight against the Albigensian heresy of the Cathars.

In his book The Secret of the Rosary, St. Louis de Montfort (1673-1716) gives some background and then tells the story of St. Dominic's vision:

"Since the Rosary is composed, principally and in substance, of the prayer of Christ and the Angelic Salutation, that is, the Our Father and the Hail Mary, it was without doubt the first prayer and the principal devotion of the faithful and has been in use all through the centuries, from the time of the apostles and disciples down to the present.

"It was only in the year 1214, however, that the Church received the Rosary in its present form and according to the method we use today. It was given to the Church by St. Dominic, who had received it from the Blessed Virgin as a means of converting the Albigensians and other sinners.

"I will tell you the story of how he received it, which is found in the very well-known book De Dignitate Psalterii, by Blessed Alan de la Roche [1428-1475]. Saint Dominic, seeing that the gravity of people's sins was hindering the conversion of the Albigensians, withdrew into a forest near Toulouse, where he prayed continuously for three days and three nights. During this time he did nothing but weep and do harsh penances in order to appease the anger of God. He used his discipline so much that his body was lacerated, and finally he fell into a coma.

"At this point our Lady appeared to him, accompanied by three angels, and she said, 'Dear Dominic, do you know which weapon the Blessed Trinity wants to use to reform the world?'

"'Oh, my Lady,' answered Saint Dominic, 'you know far better than I do, because next to your Son Jesus Christ you have always been the chief instrument of our salvation.'

"Then Our Lady replied, 'I want you to know that, in this kind of warfare, the principal weapon has always been the Angelic Psalter, which is the foundation-stone of the New Testament. Therefore, if you want to reach these hardened souls and win them over to God, preach my Psalter."

This tradition is questioned, however, because the event is not mentioned in any of the writings of St. Dominic or his contemporaries.

It is well known that the Holy Rosary or Our Lady's Psalter grew out of the monastic practice of reciting the 150 Psalms. That is, the desert monks recited all 150 Psalms daily. In turn, St. Benedict had his monks recite the 150 Psalms over the course of a week.

In imitation of this practice, the laity developed a practice of reciting 150 Aves to equal the number of the Psalms. The devotion became known as "Our Lady's Psalter" and later as a "Rosarium" (rose garden or rose garland), a metaphor used to describe collections of various sorts -- not just of prayers.

Thus, Our Lady's Psalter, the Rosary, was already around in some form at the time of St. Dominic's vision. That does not, however, conflict with the belief that Our Lady instructed St. Dominic to preach her Psalter or with the belief that by giving the Psalter her blessing it took on a definition that it did not have previously. It also seems quite possible that if St. Dominic was busy preaching her Psalter he might not have taken the time to write about it.

The best defense of the belief that Our Lady did in fact instruct St. Dominic to use her Psalter as a weapon to fight heresy despite the absence of a contemporary written record is found in an article by Fr. Paul Duffner, "In Defense of a Tradition," from Light and Life, Vol. 49, No. 5, Sep. Oct 1996.

Here is part of what Fr. Duffner had to say:

"Pope Benedict XIV (1740-58) was a renowned scholar and a promoter of historical studies and research. When he was an official of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, he was asked about the tradition of St. Dominic and the Rosary. The following is his response . . . :

'You ask whether St. Dominic was the first institutor of the Rosary, and show that you yourselves are bewildered and entangled in doubts on the matter. Now, what value do you attach to the testimony of so many Popes, such as Leo X (1521), Pius V (1572), Gregory XIII (1585), Sixtus V (1590), Clement VIII (1605), Alexander VII (1667), Bl. Innocent XI (1689), Clement XI (1721), Innocent XIII (1724) and others who unanimously attribute the institution of the Rosary to St. Dominic, the founder of the Dominican Order, an apostolic man who might be compared to the apostles themselves and who, undoubtedly due to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, became the designer, the author, promoter, and most illustrious preacher of this admirable and truly heavenly instrument, the Rosary.'
. . .

"To the above list of Popes accepting the tradition of St. Dominic and the Rosary could be added many more coming after the time of Benedict XIV. But this is not the main argument supporting the tradition. It is the coming together of many pieces of a puzzle pertaining to the essentials of the tradition as handed down. For example:

"given the fact that the members of the Militia of Jesus Christ founded by St. Dominic, or by a Dominican of his day, prayed the 150 Hail Marys daily. . . .

"given the fact of St. Dominic’s devotion to Mary and his ardent prayer in combatting the great heresy of his day. . .along with the testimony of ALAN DE RUPE that St. Dominic did receive some communication from the Mother of God as to how to combat the errors of his time. . . . (If Our Lady at Fatima gave us a remedy in this century for overcoming Communism and attaining peace - which remedy included the Rosary - does it not seem probable that she would have intervened in the 13th century offering a means of combatting the devastating heresy of Albigensianism - as tradition assures us she did.)

"given the fact that, as some of his biographers explain, a common manner of preaching of Dominic was the frequent alternating of his instruction on the mysteries of our faith with prayer. . . .

"given the fact that the first beginning of this devotion in the time of Dominic was vastly different from its present structure, that then there was no set sequence of the mysteries, and that even the name (Rosary) had not yet been established. . . .

"given the fact that many convents with their libraries were destroyed in the religious persecutions that followed the 13th century. . . .

"In the light of the above, it seems to me that the negative argument (the absence of documents) is outweighed by the presence of the essential components that constitute the heart of what the Rosary is. It seems to me, not merely possible, but very probable, that the Mother of God (as Alan de Rupe testified) did use St. Dominic in some way to give this devotion to the Church."

Fr. Duffner's article in its entirety is available online. Anyone interested in the matter would be well advised to read it.

Image:
Anonymous painting of St. Dominic receiving the Rosary, from Wikimedia Commons. In the public domain.