Treasure from the Past

Dear Friends and Family,

We had a few days this week where it got down to around freezing and there was frost in the morning! This is probably the closest thing I'll get to snow so I enjoyed it.

Clear, cool sky.

This week had a number of special blessings--including a visit to a family home where the 5, 3, and 2 year olds introduced me to their toys... lots of fun and then I had the blessing of praying with them and going over a bit of Catechism with the 5 year-old whom I'll be helping prepare for First Holy Communion this spring, God-willing. But I wanted to share with you a special blessing I'm preparing for this Christmas.

God-willing the midnight Mass will be the first Mass of what will become a daily experience for me here at the Carmel: the celebration of the Carmelite Rite (more properly Holy Sepulchre Rite). I'll share with you here below the introduction that will be going in the booklets people will have, and will add more of a personal commentary later (since I have to get into the Confessional now or I'll be late!). Many blessings to you all on this Second Sunday of Advent.

In Cordibus Iesu et Mariae,
Fr. Anthony Pillari

LANHERNE HISTORY

Through all the chances and changes of history, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass has been offered at Lanherne and God has been worshipped according to the traditional Roman Rite since the dawn of Christianity in Britain. During the time of the Reformation, when the manor of Lanherne became a refuge for persecuted Catholics, the first of the seminary priests of Douai who suffered martyrdom during the Reformation, St. Cuthbert Mayne, used to celebrate Holy Mass here at Lanherne for persecuted Catholics.

In 1794 the Carmelite nuns, fleeing from the terrors of the French Revolution to Cornwall, opened a new chapter of the history of Lanherne: Holy Mass continued to be celebrated and tradition claims that the light before the Blessed Sacrament at Lanherne has never been extinguished since pre-reformation days.

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass according to the traditional Roman Rite continues to be celebrated at Lanherne up to our day. Whoever participates at this Mass witnesses the Rite which the Church has been celebrating for centuries and which links them to the Mass celebrated here by St. Cuthbert Mayne and, going back, to the Apostles themselves.   

The persistence of the Carmelite life at Lanherne naturally requires the use of the proper Carmelite Rite, which is nothing else than the traditional Roman Rite with some enrichments and variations. So the gestures and words of the Mass that one is about to experience are almost exactly identical to what persecuted Catholics experienced, right here at Lanherne, when St. Cuthbert Mayne offered the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

THE CARMELITE RITE

The rite which Carmelites follow in the carrying out of liturgical functions is known as the “Rite of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem.” This rite was adopted at the same time as the Carmelites received their Rule from St. Albert, Patriarch of Jerusalem, about 1209, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre being his metropolitan church.

The Carmelite Rite, together with the Dominican and others, belongs to the Roman Rite, having the same Roman Canon for the celebration of the Mass. In fact, when the Carmelites adopted the Holy Sepulchre Rite, the liturgy then in force in this church was classified as Roman-Gallic. It was fundamentally Roman with a few variations drawn from the Gallic usages of that age. This liturgy had been established in the church of the Holy Sepulchre by the French Canons who had been brought there by the Crusaders. In the course of time, the liturgy was embellished by additional ceremonies, for it was fitting to observe with special solemnity the mysteries of the Redemption in the places where they were originally enacted. And today, two of the processions proper to the Carmelite Rite and still prescribed in the Missal, namely those before the Conventual Mass of the feasts of the Ascension and of the Assumption, are precious relics of the ceremonies performed by the Canons of the Holy Sepulchre in the very places in which these mysteries occurred.

When the hermits of Mount Carmel adopted this liturgy, they naturally modified it to conform to their simple, eremitical way of life. And at the time that the Order was transplanted from Palestine to Europe in the thirteenth century because of the increasing dangers of Saracen persecution, they brought this liturgy with them.

 The rubrics for the celebration of Mass indicate the early origin of the Carmelite Rite. Among the more prominent are the preparation of the chalice at the beginning of a low Mass or just before the singing of the Gospel at High Mass; the shorter Confiteor and other prayers at the foot of the altar; the symbolizing of the unity of the Sacrifice by the offering of the bread and wine together at the Offertory; and the recalling of the Sacrifice of the Cross by the repeated signs of the Cross made by the celebrant and in particular, by the extending of the arms in the form of a Cross immediately after the Consecration.

Moreover, the prominent role which the Mother of Carmel was to play in the liturgical life of her brethren is particularly evident in the Carmelite Rite. Thus in the Carmelite Calendar we find seven feasts of our Lady which are not found in the Universal Calendar of the Church: Her Betrothal; Her Patronage; Mary, Help of Christians; Mediatrix of All Graces; Her Purity; The Holy House of Loreto; and Her Expectation. Other feasts of our Lady already had a place in the Carmelite Calendar long before they were extended to the rest of the Church. Among these were The Immaculate Heart of Mary, Her Maternity, and The Immaculate Conception. The votive Mass of our Lady of Mount Carmel which is said each Saturday has a centuries-long tradition and has special liturgical privileges, for it has the Gloria, Credo, one Collect, and a proper Preface. It recalls for us the origin of the Carmelite veneration of Mary on Mount Carmel and her gift of the Scapular to the Order. And finally, in every Mass, a Carmelite priest recites immediately after the Last Blessing the Salve Regina or, during Eastertide, the Regina Cœli.

This devotion to Our Lady was naturally extended to those who were associated with her in a particular way. Thus, we find the Carmelites especially devoted to St. Anne and St. Joachim; to St. Joseph, devotion to whom they did so much to spread; and to St. Gabriel the Archangel.

When the saintly Pope Pius V in 1568 imposed the restored and unified Latin liturgy upon the universal Church, he excepted those rites whose beginnings antedated two hundred years. Since the Carmelite Rite was much older than two hundred years, it successfully escaped extinction. It has been handed down to us as a treasure, an heirloom that has ever been dear to the hearts of Carmelites in centuries past. It is for us to cherish and preserve, especially here at Lanherne, which is the oldest Carmel in England.

Holy and happy Lanherne, hallowed by the footstep of the martyrs, poor and abandoned in the eyes of the world, yet rich, immeasurably rich in the things that perish not.