If you have never seen Vienna, then you simply, simply must. If you have, then go back. As often as possible.
I was very taken aback at the number of people at this fairly high-powered event who had heard of me and who could name my books. Apparently, as the refreshment had flowed on the evening before my arrival, there had been communal readings from them among the younger participants.
A Ruthenian priest from Western Ukraine told me how good it was to hear from a Briton my assessment of Churchill's betrayal of Eastern Europe, in his case meaning nothing less than the transfer of Carpathian Ruthenia into the very Soviet Union itself, with the horrific consequent persecution of the Ruthenian Catholics there well into living memory, including his own. An American recently returned from Lebanon confirmed my assertion in the same book that the Maronites regard Hezbollah as their own last line of defence against the real enemy.
A Ruthenian priest from Western Ukraine told me how good it was to hear from a Briton my assessment of Churchill's betrayal of Eastern Europe, in his case meaning nothing less than the transfer of Carpathian Ruthenia into the very Soviet Union itself, with the horrific consequent persecution of the Ruthenian Catholics there well into living memory, including his own. An American recently returned from Lebanon confirmed my assertion in the same book that the Maronites regard Hezbollah as their own last line of defence against the real enemy.
The papers and the discussion on them were uniformly superb. A particular recurring theme was the falsity both of the liberal interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae in terms of the assumed priority of American republican tradition (John Courtney Murray) and the reactionary, rejectionist interpretation in terms of the assumed priority of the French Counter-Revolutionary tradition, that interpretation, rather than lay disaffection with liturgical changes or abuses, being the true origin and the true defining characteristic of Lefebvrism.
20th June is the anniversary of my reception into the Catholic Church. I have never kept it more perfectly than in a beautifully preserved little Austrian Schlosskappelle in which an icon had been set up for veneration on entering and leaving in addition to the blessing of oneself with holy water and to genuflection to the Blessed Sacrament, so as to celebrate the Byzantine Liturgy including the filioque clause, repeated references to Our Lady as "Immaculate", and repeated prayers for "Our Holy Ecumenical Pontiff, Benedict, the Pope of Rome".
Concelebrating priests wore variously Byzantine and Latin vestments, with one of the latter, a Dominican named Marley, delivering part of the Liturgy in his heavy Glaswegian accent. The Director of the Institute, and Exorcist of the Archdiocese of Vienna, added from under his sticharion, epitrachelion, epimanikia and phelonion the New York rasp of a Monsignor Hogan. Congregants sang the words of Saint John Chrysostom with full heart, some clutching Rosaries as they did so. The modern English translation managed to get right all of "I believe", "And with your spirit", "Lord of hosts", and "For you and for many", in a version dating all the way back to 1965.
There was the Communion with Rome of a babe in arms, only three months old. There were seminarians known to be looking for wives in the spare moments within their rigorously Augustinian and Thomist formation. If this was in any way resented by their Latin classmates, then nothing was said when the topic was raised casually in conversation. I shared a pew, as I had shared lunching and dining tables, with the elderly lady who had edited the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. She is just amazing.
Even including a short sermon, the Liturgy took only a little over an hour. Devotions to the Sacred Heart followed. Well, it is June.
No comments:
Post a Comment