CAPG's Blog 

"The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and the torment of malice shall not touch them: in the sight of the unwise they seemed to die, but they are at peace." (Communion Antiphon, Vigil of All Souls)

"Pour forth abundantly upon us of Thy mercy, O Lord our God, and grant us grace to follow in the joy of their holy testifying, all they blessed servants the ever of whose glorious and solemn Commemoration we are keeping. ( Collect)

Pope Pius Sixtus IV in 1484 established November 1, the feast of all Saints, as a holy day of obligation and gave it both a Vigil (known today as "All Hallows' Eve" or "Hallowe'en") and an eight-day period or octave to celebrate the feast.  By 1955, however, the octave of All Saints was removed, and the current missal does not have a vigil Mass for the feast." Father Vierling

"The great feasts of All Saints and All Souls, preceded by vigil and fast, bring their annual blessings to us, and make the month of November the most unearthly, unworldly month of all the year to those who dwell, during its too brief thirty days, with the radiant inhabitants of heaven and with purgatory's blessed dead.  It is a time for quiet thought, for many memories, for many hopes, and God alone knows many fervent prayers; a time when hearts "through all the faithful past go sorrowing," and, through all the lonely future, look forward to a day when the reapers shall come with rejoicing, bring their sheaves with them, and when God, the loving Father, shall gather His dear children, reunited forever, into an eternal home.

Look upwards and behold them, they who stand there now already, a multitude whom no man can number,assembled triumphant before the great white throne. What do those radiant faces tell you, as they gaze in ecstasy upon the face of Him Who bears continually the glorious scars that proclaim Him King of kings and Lord of lords forever? Over and over again, they say that these saints whose day we celebrate came, like
their Leader, out of a sore conflict, and that they were possessed by a passionate love of the unseen.

"Salt of nations! Twelve foundations!
Twelve apostles - see them all!
Trumps of thunder, and the wonder
Of the Gentiles, holy Paul -
Loving Peter, and still sweeter,
Friend of Jesus, blessed John.
Full of gladness - no more sadness
Clouds the face Christ shines upon!

High procession! great confession!
Hear the loud triumphal tones!
Martyrs bleeding - Stephen leading
With this crown of precious stones.
Warriors glorious and victorious,
Tried companions of the Lord,
Fall before Him and adore Him.
He, the Lamb, is their reward.

It is the old lesson which Venerable Bede teaches, that lesson steeped in the life-blood of the Kind of Martyrs, and which deserves repeating every year, as these festivals return: "Dearly beloved brethren! This day we keep with one great cry of joy, a feast in memory of all God's holy children; His children, Whose presence is a gladness in heaven; His children,  prayers are a blessing to earth; His children, whose victories are the crown of Holy Church; His chose, whose testifying is the more glorious in honor, as the agony in which it was given was the sterner in intensity. For, as the dreader grew the battle, so the grander grew the fighters; and the triumph of martyrdom waxed the more incisive by the multiplicity of suffering; and the heavier the torment, the heavier the prize."

What cowards we are, we lesser men who nevertheless have the saints' seven sacraments, the saints' Mother Church, the saints' hope set before us, yet who shiver and shrink at the sound of suffering, and run away from pain!  I know not what stuff we are made of, in these mean, pleasure-loving days. Is it not better to suffer now than to suffer hereafter? Pere de Ravignan says that God in His goodness mingles purgatory with every day of our lives, and so we should accept and clasp to our breasts the crosses He offers us. Fenelon declares that it is a blessing to have our purgatory in this world, but that we by our cowardice endure two instead of one. "Our resistance," he says, :"makes earthly trials so ineffectual, that all has to be begun again after death. We should be in this life like souls in purgatory, supple and at peace in God's hand, yielding ourselves up to destruction in the avenging fire of love. Happy those who suffer thus."

Happy? Yes, my God! Teach us this happiness, this deep delight of pain. Teach us two lessons, - to fight, and to suffer, for Thee and under Thy red-cross flag!  Blessed who suffer - blessed who mourn - blessed who wounded and bleeding, still face untiring the tireless foe! We are sinners; and we must, here or hereafter, do penance for our sins. We are called to be saints; and like the saints we  must war unflinching in the tremendous warfare, if we would win the saints' reward and follow the mighty army into heaven.

"Cut, scourge, purge, burn here," prayed the penitent Augustine, "yea, burn here so as by fire, and spare there!" Yet not only for the cleansing and the penance do we fling ourselves, O God! into the red fire of earth's purgatory but because pain purges out the dross, and brightens the gold, and brings us closer to Thee. Strike and spare not, O God! and, even though we cry out otherwise, heed not, till every fiber of our being is one with Thee!
 
Sometimes, gazing steadily upward at the Blessed, radiant in their rapture which sin mar no more, a light flashes over the soul for a moment, and dazzles it; and it seems to comprehend, for that moment, that pain is heaven! For what is heaven but union with God/ and odes not he who clings closest to the Sacred Heart find union with God among the thorns, and does he not behold, in that darkness which makes earthly things invisible, the vision of Christ's face?

Cowards that we are, to shrink from pain or from insult; to fear this world's disgrace, or failure as worldly men count failure; when the question is of God's will, God's honor, God's eternal cause! We are soldiers in His army by the ineffaceable character of our Baptism. If we have been cowards, deserters, traitors, a hundred times, then the keener ought to be our soldierly longing to endure and encounter all in order that we may retrieve our honor, and far more, our Lord's honor! But if He has kept us from open treason, who shall tell with what loyal love we ought to follow after Him, down into the very valley of the agony and up the heights of Calvary, upward, with all the saints, to Heaven!"

The Inner Life of the Soul, Short Spiritual Messages for the Ecclesiastical Year by Susan L. Emery, 1903

Book also available at Barnes and Nobles

Jerome (...) wrote (...) a famous letter in which he enumerated the austere duties of the sacerdotal life. Amongst many other lessons to be found in it is the following, which applies to all preachers, and which Fenelon has inserted in his third " Dialogue upon Eloquence":

"When teaching in the church do not excite the applause but rather the lamentations of the people; let the tears of your auditors be your commendation. The sermons of a priest should overflow with Holy Scripture. Be not an orator, but a sincere expounder of the mysteries of your God."

Source: Saint Jerome by Father Largent, translated by Hester Davenport 1913

The Catechism of the Council of Trent

"The more learned the person is, who is the author of error, the greater are the people's temptations.

He only is a true, genuine Catholic, who loves the word of God and his Church, the mystical body of Christ, above all other considerations in the world; who values neither the authority, nor love, nor wit, nor eloquence, nor philosophy of any man breathing, in comparison of his divine Religion and the faith of the Catholic Church; upon all these things he looks down with contempt, and fixed and immovable in the faith, resolves to believe nothing upon the authority of one single man, but what he finds anciently and universally to have been believed by the Catholic Church; and whatever upstart, unheard of doctrine he finds to be secretly introduced, in opposition to all the faithful, let him look upon that as matter of temptation, rather than an article of faith: and this advice of mine will then especially, appear more reasonable, when he reflects upon that of St. Paul, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, where he declares, That there must be also heresies: that they who are approved, may be made manifest among you 1 Cor. xi. 19. As if he should have said, this is the reason why God does not interpose miraculously, and destroy heresies in a moment, that the approved may be made manifest, that is, that every firm, faithful, and constant lover of the Catholic faith, under such a temptation, might be a more shining example to the world, of the true power of godliness.

And in truth, when any new born heresy first shews its head in the Church, the good grain is then soon discovered by its weight, and the chaff by its lightness: and then upon the sifting temptation, that chaff submits to the first wind, which had no solidity to secure it on the floor. For some fly off immediately, others are shocked only, and turn occasionalists, being afraid of perishing out of the Church, and yet, at the same tie, ashamed of returning perfectly into it, wounded, half dead, and half alive, and just in the condition of those men, who have taken such a dose of poison, as will neither destroy nor be digested, neither let them die or live.

Pitiable condition? For with what whirlwinds, what tides of restless passion are such wretches agitated! One while, they are transported with every wind of doctrine; another while, they return and fall foul upon themselves, and, like conflicting waves, are dashed to pieces by their own contrary motions; this moment, they are confident in uncertainties, and the moment after as irrationally fearful, where no fear exists; unknowing where to go, where to return, what to desire, what to deprecate; what to receive, and what to relinquish.

Nevertheless, this unhappy vibration and instability of mind, points to its own cure, if men would but wisely consider the merciful design of Providence, in this very affliction. For therefore, whilst without the haven of the Catholic faith, are they thus afflicted, thus tossed and shattered almost to pieces with inward storms of clashing thoughts, that by this restless posture of mind, being made sensible of the danger they are in, and their distance from salvation, they might take down those sails of pride and vanity, which they have unhappily spread before every gust of heresy, and make all the sale they can into the safe and peaceable harbour of their holy mother, the Catholic Church; and there, being sea sick, as it were, with errors, discharge these foul and bitter waters, to make room for the pure waters of life. There they may unlearn well, all they have learned ill, and get a right notion of all those doctrines of the church they are capable of understanding, and believe those that surpass all understanding."

Source: Grounds of Catholic Doctrine: by Bishop Challoner: as contained in the Profession of Faith, published by Pope Pius IV

Daily Missal with Vespers

"Great evils surround us; is there any hope left to the world? The confidence of thy devout clients proclaims thee, O Jude, the patron of desperate cases; and for thee, O Simon, this is surely the time to prove thyself Zelotes, full of zeal. Deign, both of you, to hear the Church's prayers; and aid her, with all your apostolic might, to reanimate faith, to rekindle charity, and to save the world."
The liturgical Year, Dom Gueranger, Saint Simon and Jude.

"Consider (...)2ndly, the eminent dignity to which the apostles were raised by our Lord: they were made his disciples, his individual companions, his familiar friends and confidants - yea, his brethren too, John xx. 17; they were made under him the chief priests of the New Testament, the first bishops and pastors of his church, the prime ministers of his kingdom, the stewards and dispensers of all his mysteries; his ambassadors to men; his vicegerents upon earth; the doctors and teachers of the whole world; and next after him, who is the chief corner-stone, the twelve foundations of his church, Eph. ii. 20 - yea, the twelve foundations of the heavenly Jerusalem, Apoc. xxi. 14. Reflect also on the distinguishing graces, and the excellency of power which our Lord conferred upon them, suitable to their great office and callings; such as the power of consecrating and of offering in sacrifice his sacred body and blood; of remitting sins; and of opening or shutting heaven's gates to men; the commission of feeding his flock, and of ruling and directing his church, with the promise of the Holy Ghost to assist them therein; the authority of publishing throughout the whole world his new law, the law of grace; and the covenant of salvation through him, & c.: besides the gifts of tongues, and prophecy, and other eminent graces of the Holy Ghost; and a power of working all kind of miracles, yea, even greater than those of Christ himself, St. John xiv. 12. Christians, bless your Saviour on the festivals of the apostles, for all these great things he has done for them, and through them for his church in general, and in some degree for every one of you in particular. For as they were, under Christ, the fathers and founders of the Christian religion, so from them, and through their ministry, the faith, the word, the sacraments, the graces of Christ, and all spiritual goods and treasures are derived down to your souls by the channel of their successors in the church of Christ."

Source: Meditations for Every Day in the Year, by Bishop Challoner

"Evaristus, a Greek by birth, was unanimously elected Pope when the Holy See became vacant at the death of Anacletus 1. It was he who first divided Rome into titles, or parishes, appointing to each a priest. He prescribed that seven deacons should surround the bishop when preaching for the greater honor of the word of God and of the episcopal dignity. St. Evaristus was condemned to death under Trajan, A.D. 109" Daily Missal with Vespers for Sundays

"You are the first Pontiff to whom the Church entrusted after the departure of all those who had seen the Lord. The world could then say in all strictness: "If we have known Christ according to the flesh, now we know Him so no longer." (2 Corinthians v. 16). The Church was now more truly an exile. At that period, which was not without perils and anxieties, her Spouse gave to you the charge of teaching her to pursue alone her path of faith and hope and love. And you did not betray the confidence of our Lord. Earth owes you on this account a special gratitude, O Evaristus, and a special reward is doubtless yours.

Watch still over Rome and the Church.

Teach us that we might be ready not only to fast here on Earth, but to resigned to the absence of the Bridegroom when He hides Himself, and not the less to serve Him and love Him with our whole heart and mind and soul and strength, as long as the world endures and He is pleased to leave us in it." Dom Prosper Gueranger.

Tibi, Christe, Splendor Patris by Gloriae Dei Cantores

Jesu, brightness of the Father!
Life and strength of all who live!
In the presence of the Angels,
Glory to Thy name we give,
And Thy wondrous praise rehearse,
Singing in alternate verse.

Hail, too ye angelic powers!
Hail ye thrones celestial!
Hail, Physician of salvation,
Guide of life, blest Raphael!
Who the foe of all mankind
didst in kinks of iron bind.

O may Christ, by the protection,
Shelter us from harm this day;
Keep us pure in flesh and spirit,
Save us from the enemy;
And vouchsafe us, of His grace,
In His paradise a place.

Glory to Th' Almighty Father
Sing we now in anthems sweet;
Glory to the great Redeemer,
Glory to the Paraclete;
Three in one, and one in three,
Throughout all eternity, Amen.

Source: Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Catholic Laity, The Official Prayer Book of the Catholic Church, 1916 Prepared and published by the order of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore.

Prayer to Saint Raphael

Glorious Archangel, St. Raphael, great prince of the heavenly court, illustrious by thy gifts of wisdom and grace, guide of travelers by
land and sea, consoler of the unfortunate and refuge of sinners, I entreat thee to help me in all my needs and in all the trials of my life, as
thou didst once assist the young Tobias in his journeying And since thou art the "physician of God," I humbly pray thee to heal my soul of its many infirmities and my body of the ills that afflict it, if this favor is for my greater good. I ask, especially, for angelic purity, that I may be made fit to be the living  temple of the Holy Ghost. Amen.  Pope Leo XIII, June 21, 1890
Source: My Prayer Book, Fr. Lasance

Prayer to the Holy Angels for Parishes

All you legions and choirs of Angels, please make haste to come to the aid and defense of our One Holy Roman Catholic Church. Led by St. Michael, may She be protected from destruction within by all modernistic attempts that try to diminish the true presence of God and take away His proper and due respect! In particular, come to the aid of my parish (name your parish) that it may remain or be remade to be a place of reverence and a stronghold from which the One True Triune God may continue to lead and strengthen us. Amen.

Kneelers at Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, Raleigh NC

“The practice of kneeling for Holy Communion has in its favor a centuries-old tradition, and it is a particularly expressive sign of adoration, completely appropriate in light of the true, real and substantial presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ under the consecrated species.” Cardinal Ratzinger

"The Council also said nothing about moving the Tabernacle. It said nothing about removing altar rails. It said nothing about taking out kneelers. It said nothing about turning the altar around. It said nothing about multiple canons. That, too, is an invention; a pure invention." Father Fessio, SJ 1999

“The Church from Rome never said to remove the altar rails.” Cardinal Arinze

“It distinguishes between the sanctuary and the nave and the priest from the people. It harkens back to the Jewish understanding of the Holy of Holies where the people are invited to confidently step up to the very edge of the Holy of Holies in reverence.” Without an altar rail, he wrote, “the people approach the Communion station and, after receiving Communion, hurriedly depart. A panoramic devotional view of a beautiful sanctuary, like the splendor of decorations adorning a wedding feast, is thus unlikely. The reception of Communion is individualistic, not communal.” The Magic of the Altar Rail

Saint Catherine of Siena Catholic Church, Wake Forest, Raleigh Diocese, NC

"Mr. LePlay, a world-renowned scientist, who during many long years of close application made the study of social questions his special occupation, but a short time before his death tersely recorded in a single phrase the result of his investigations. "Nations," he wrote, "that observe the Commandments of God prosper; nations that transgress them are on the decline; while nations that openly reject them are dying out."

Now, the first and all important duty prescribed by the ten Commandments is that of divine worship: "The Lord thy God shalt thou adore and Him only shalt thou serve" were the words of our Lord addressed to the tempter. And why must we adore God? Because HE IS. For how, if His existence cannot be denied, are we to refuse Him the homage which His sovereignty demands? Moses was drawing nearer to the burning bush, where "the Lord had appeared to him in a flame of fire," and he was bid to stand back by the Almighty: "Come not nigh hither, put off the shoes from thy feet; for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.... I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." Moses hid his face, for he durst not look at God.

And when Moses was about to receive his mission, at the prayer of Moses God gave His own name, a name implying the eternity of His duration and the necessity of His existence: "I AM WHO AM,... Thus shalt thou say to the Children of Israel: "He Who IS sent me to you"... This is My name forever; and this is my memorial unto all generations."

God is the Supreme, self-existent and Necessary Being immutable from all and for all Eternity, for whom past, present and future are as the minute in which we live.

"But amongst the many claims that God has upon us: the very first of all is the claim of adoration or worship.  He is our God - our Creator. He is infinite in perfection, infinite in wisdom, infinite in power, mercy and love. The very first thing that God demands is that he should admit and recognize these attributes of God, and, recognizing them, that we should bow down and adore them. Therefore the Holy Ghost tell us in Scripture, that if any man wish to approach God the very first thing is how to know God as He is. This virtue is called religion, in which we recognize God in Himself, in His attributes, in His creatures; and the first act of religion is the act of adoration or worship.

"Now, the Psalmist who uttered the words "I have love, O Lord! the beauty of Thy house and the place where Thy glory  dwelleth" had not yet beheld the glory of God, the temple of Jerusalem. The temple was not yet built, but was to be the work of His son, the great and wise King Solomon. But David saw it not, and yet he said: "I have love, O Lord, the beauty of Thy house." He beheld it in the vision of his mind, he saw the stateliness of its grandeur, the majesty of its proportions, the richness of its material. He saw there the gold of Ophir, the scarlet twice-dyed of Tyre, and the costly marbles taken out of the hearts of the hills, and he rejoiced because all this was fitting for the house in which the glory of the Lord God was to dwell.

"But above all things he beheld in the vision then in his mind all the tribes of Israel coming to Jerusalem to worship in the temple and adore their God. He beheld the beauty of adoration surpassing all other beauties of the House of God. He saw as the vision extended before his prophetic eyes the successive generations of true Israelites worshiping there, and he rejoiced; until at length he beheld the Virgin leading in that Child, who was God, into is own house. Then it was in the fullness of his prophetic heart he exclaimed: "O Lord, I have loved the beauty of This house and the place where Thy glory dwelleth; for lo! the Lord God has sent down His only Son into His own mansion;" and then the vision extended until the prophet saw the fading glories of Jerusalem pass away. He saw the veil rent and the holiness depart from the house of God, until the abomination of desolation was there. He saw the mercy-seat empty, but again he saw rise from out the ruins of the one temple of Jerusalem ten thousand temples surpassing each other in beauty and loveliness. He saw the ten thousand temples of the living God spring up under the sky, and everywhere the altar of sanctification, the tabernacle of the Divine Presence. And the latter glories far exceeded the former, and then it was that he again exclaimed: "I have loved, O Lord! the beauty of Thy house and the place where Thy glory dwelleth." (The beauty of Divine worship, Fr. Thomas N. Burke, OP vol 3, page 414)

This worship we owe God is not, then, merely interior and personal. Far from it. The Holy Council of Trent reminds us that is must also be outward and public: "Man, in fact, being so constituted that it is but with difficulty, if outward signs be wanting, as he is body and soul, that he can raise his thoughts to Heaven and consider the things that are of God. Wherefore Holy Church, like a tender mother, has instituted certain rites and varied ceremonies, mystic blessings, lights, incense, sacred vestments and a number of other outward practices based on Apostolic teaching and Tradition." Or, in the words of the illustrious Dominican: "The very nature of man requires this; for such is the intimate union of souls and body in man, that it is impossible to reach the soul save through the senses of the body; if you wish to influence the mind of man, and touch his heart either for good or for evil, you must appeal to his bodily senses. God Himself respects His own divine disposition in this regard, making the sense the ordinary channels of His highest graces; and the Church of God - the only true interpreter of His Will - whose mission it is to raise fallen man up to God, to purify and to preserve his soul, and to make him perfect by charity, makes uses of everything that strikes and captivates the senses, in order thereby to reach man's soul, to touch his heart, and offer to God the homage of the entire creature, as well of the body as of the soul." This will explain to us why the Catholic Church uses so much of external grandeur in her ceremonies. The lights and ornaments of the altar, the vestments of the priests, the smoke of incense, the pealing notes of the organ, the lofty dome, the graceful arch, the pictures and statues - all these things are intended by the Church as means whereby to reach the hearts and souls of her children, by instructing, ennobling, touching and captivating their senses.

"Now, the mission of the Church in this world is to win man to God; in order to do this, she must take him as he is, and treat him according to his nature, leading him up from natural things to supernatural - from the things that are made to the invisible things of God, and to a knowledge of "His eternal power and divinity." She must turn to God all the powers of man's soul, all the affections of his heart; and therefore she seizes upon all that is beautiful in this world, and makes it subservient to this end.

"Hence, the fine arts have always found their most generous protection, as they found their highest inspiration in the Catholic Church. Painting and sculpture were exclusively hers until the heretical spirit of this world, and then they fell, nor found in their wretched imitations of Paganism anything that could make up to them for the fair Christianity which they had abandoned.

"But painting and sculpture, after all, can hardly be called the offspring of the Church, though she consecrated, refined and exalted them. They flourished in ancient times, and Greece and Rome beheld them in all their glory. But there is another of the fine arts which God seems to have consecrated in a peculiar manner to the services of the sanctuary, and  which may be said to be especially the child of the Church, and this is music." (Music in Catholic Worship, Fr. Thomas N. Burke OP, Vol 1 p345)

Though we have borrowed already largely from the great Irish orator, we cannot bring ourselves to omit the development of this last thought, which we find in another part of the first lecture from which we quoted: "If He (Christ our Lord) had intended to appeal only to the mind of man, He would have stopped at the tradition of the word; but the intention of Our Lord Jesus Christ in founding the Christian religion was to go farther and deeper than the mere intelligence. It was to strike home to the heart. It was to penetrate the spirit and to obtain possession of the whole man; and therefore He did not stop at the mere granting of the word, creating light and faith, but He furnished His Church with every means by which she can appeal to the heart, move the spirit, bow down the head, and chasten and purify the body as well as the soul of man; and amongst the means with which God furnished His Church to reach the heart and to strike the spirit of man in His worship, one of the most direct, one of the most powerful is the appeal which is made by the music of the Church to the ear, and though the hearing to the heart of man.

  Church music, the voice of praise lifted up in melodious chords; the swell and the pealing of the organ bearing aloft the loud hosanna of adoration to God; the soft, low, tender notes that steal through the senses into the heart of man, and draw us away from ourselves until we are altogether before God; a mild strain that falls like the breathing of God's angels in its soothing influence on the trouble spirit, until we are truly called, lulled into that state of sacred rest that is necessary in order to hear the voice and realize the presence of God; the storm-rushing notes that proclaim in voice of praise, some strong emotion of joy, some delightful surprise of revealed truth, some mighty mystery giving us triumph over the enemies of God - all this interpreted by the Church's music forms one of the most powerful appeals which she makes in her worship to man, not only to his intelligence but it rouses the heart of man to the preacher, proclaiming revealed truth as on appeal to the mind."

So much for the necessity of outward ceremonial and splendor in the worship man owes to his God. But there is something more of which we must not lose sight. God did not create man to, as it were, an isolated or solitary being, to live apart or estranged from this fellow-men. On the contrary, He created him for companionship with these his fellow-mortals. Both reason and infallible Church demand that God's worship be not outward and personal only, but that it be public and social. For, as the individual is wholly dependent on his Creator, so society depends on Him for its existence and preservation; and without the public recognition of God's supreme sanctioning authority, society would suffer dissolution, and the reign of barbarism or anarchy would be the inevitable outcome.

As for the principal effects of outward ceremonial or sensible signs in divine worship, instituted, we must remember, by the Savior Himself and perpetuated by His legitimate Spouse, the Holy Catholic Church, show of all oratorical ornament, they may be stated as follows:

- The great liturgical prayer - for such would be the correct appellation of divine worship enhanced by the many holy rites which accompany it - raises up the hearts of the faithful to the consideration and contemplation of spiritual and divine things; it constitutes the most perfect and most striking of all professions of faith; it unceasingly reminds us of our great duties; it forms the most powerful of social ties; in a word, as a master mind in such matters has put it, "it is above all divine; it is at one and the same time milk for the little ones and the bread of the strong, in this, that like unto the miraculous manna of the desert, it assumes every savor according to the taste of those whose nourishment it becomes." (The Liturgical Year, Don Gueranger, T.T. p. 16)

It cannot certainly escape our observation that the greater the pomp and splendor which surrounds the worship given to God by His Holy Church, the more do the wonderful effects we have enumerated manifest themselves, and all the greater exuberance. For no other reason has the Church, as we have seen, from the very beginning, even in the hidden recesses of the catacombs, and the dim windings of subterraneous Rome, endeavored to impart to divine worship all the grandeur, solemnity and beauty at her command, circumstances of time and place being taken into account. Never has she hearkened for an instant to these imitators of the Iscariot, who have lived in every country and in every age, and who in our own days more particularly persist in crying out: "To what purpose is this waste? For this might have been sold for much and given to the poor." Let us not be dazzled by their specious objections,and let us bear in mind that if Jesus Christ, our God made Man, who of all the poor ought to be dearest to us, were honored and surrounded as He should be with becoming splendor in His tabernacles and in His temples, all of His suffering members, the indigent, the blind, the halt and the weary, would be the better for it, and that from that hour waning zeal and charity growing cold would be fanned into flame in the heats of the faithful, and good works would flourish and bear fruits in abundance.

Let those on whom God has lavished the goods of this world, surrounded without stint with the comforts of this life, endowed with all the resources of wealth, rejoice in being able to rear temples and shrines befitting the august, the infinite majesty of the living God. The "eye of the needle" will be expanded to the proportions of Heaven's great portals thrown open to receive them, and their mansion will be all the grander and more sumptuous for eternity.

Let those who have caught from some faint echo of celestial melody the true inspiration of heavenly song enrich the repertory of the Church's music;
or, in a lesser degree, according to the talent they have received from the Master, contribute to the sweetness and majesty of her chant or accompanying harmony.

Let those who have snatched from the bow which spans the heavens the secret of blending, not with tawdry effect or meretricious coloring, its evanescent hues and of fixing them on groined arch or willing canvass, lend their skill to the decorating of God' sanctuaries.

But let all our beloved Apostles of Prayer, by whom the great LITURGICAL PRAYER should be held in such high esteem and reverence, energetically battle against lukewarm piety, the growing evil of the day, which dims the splendor of divine worship. It is in this particular that the sterner sex especially should make a greater effort to add, by their presence, solemnity to our feasts and sacred ceremonies, and lend their influence to make them more imposing.

As for the devout sex, women and Christian maidens, let them continue from day to day to swell the membership of such excellent associations as tabernacle societies or workers for poor churches, and lay under contribution their  innate taste and deft fingers for the ornamentation of the altar in the many divers ways the love of God's holy places alone can suggest. And when all else is wanting and the God of all majesty is adored in the poor nude chapel, recalling the penury of Bethlehem's crib, let the altar line be at least spotless and of immaculate whiteness, for there one is to rest Holiness and Purity itself, for who is there who is too poor or too lowly not to be able to assist in maintaining cleanliness in whatever is consecrated to God's service? Nothing is too good or too costly to be devoted to Him, neither is there any office to be considered menial when performed for the God of Glory.

(...) May our prayer be, that divine worship may again become what it was in the most glorious days of the Church: "the light of the learned, the book of the lowly and the joy of nations."

Source: The Canadian Messenger of the Sacred Heart, Vol 4, page 81. 1894

O! Holy Virgin, powerful Help of Christians, we entreat thee, come to our aid. Come quickly with the celestial army, especially the intrepid Archangel Michael. Kindle in all hearts, especially in the hearts of Priests, the sacred fire of most ardent zeal. Place thyself at our head, august Mother of the God of hosts, and lead us to the battle. Sustain us by thy prayers; encourage us by thine eye. Scatter before us these new infernal legions, as the wind scatters the clouds. Powerful Help of Christians, give us victory, give us triumph and peace; obtain for us a holy life and a holy death. Amen.

"The persecutions which the evil enemy has stirred up at various times against the most holy sacrifice of the Mass are a proof how sacred a thing it must be, and how obnoxious to the devil; otherwise he would not attack it with such violence. "

Source: Explanation of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, by Rev. Cochem