Saturday, August 15, 2015

Extraordinary Form at Vancouver Cathedral

 Vigil of the Assumption, August 14, 2015.

A lovely Mass in a packed church.  Music by the very talented Chorus Faustinae (Mass Ordinary: Mass for Three Voices by William Byrd).  

Reverence is the mother of all virtues and of all religion  It is the foundation and beginning because it enables our spirit to possess real knowledge and particularly the knowledge of values.  This is what attracts people to the EF.  They see that the lack of reverence is a specific defect of our age.

Reverence is the essential basis for such a perception of values and for a true relationship with the whole realm of values - with what is above and what speaks from above.  With the Absolute, the supernatural, the divine.

The EF, much like the Byzantine rite, is penetrated with majesty and more than anything else by the spirit of true reverence and it draws those who live it directly into this spirit.  It is deeply permeated by the fear of God (cum timore et tremore!) and of the spirit of serving God in joy (servire Domino in laetitia!).  Meanwhile, we look in the direction of the Father, and cry out with Christ, "Abba!" 

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