TAG: SAINT JOSEPH THE WORKER
Saint Joseph the Worker: Propers in chant (https://cappellagregoriana.wordpress.com/2018/04/28/saint-joseph-the-worker-propers-in-chant/)
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It is often said that history is written by the victors. Our previous post detailing the minutes of the meetings of the Commission for the General Reform of the Liturgy discussing what to be done with 1 May leaves no room for what the attenders felt about what they were discussing. One must note that the authors and personalities quoted were sympathetic to the liturgical reform. Father Carlo Braga is a known collaborator of Archbishop Annibale Bugnini. Cardinal Ferdinando Giuseppe Antonelli, O. F. M., on the other hand, whose point of view Father Nicola Giampietro, O. F. M. Cap. explored in his book, was relator general of the Sacred Congregation of Rites at the time of the meetings on Saint Joseph, later secretary to the committee entrusted with the implementation of the reforms of Sacrosanctum Concilium. Contemporary authors obviating bias oftentimes come across sounding like an accommodating triage nurse summoning the next patient through the hospital intercom. For that, we may remain in the dark about what many of them actually felt before, during, and after the changes.
If the feast was established in 1955, and the new propers were released in 1956, why then does the 1957 liturgical book for the choir not contain the melodies? The simple answer would be this: The Sacred Congregation of Rites did not like the new feast. The Pope himself needed to intervene in order to force the Congregation to publish the Office and Mass of the new feast in 1956. It would take four more years for the Congregation to finally set the new propers to chant. The diary of Cardinal Antonelli simply presents the facts chronologically, meticulously cataloguing each and every item tackled and treated, every problem discussed and resolved, every solution proposed and approved, every reflection contemplated and considered, even presenting everyone as cooperating to achieve the goal of the task placed in their charge, enough for us to somehow conclude that nothing but the sheer bulk of the work caused the delay. From the clinical emotion-agnostic realm of meeting minutes, let us shift to that more sensational and thought-provoking province of popular reaction. We will let Fr. Jean Crété’s testimony [1] (https://cappellagregoriana.wordpress.com/tag/saint-joseph-the-worker/#_edn1) speak for itself for précising his account might reduce its power:
Fr. [Didier] Bonneterre recognises that this decree signaled the beginning of the subversion of the liturgy, and yet seeks to excuse Pius XII on the grounds that most people, except those who were party to the subversion, are thought of today as having been ignorant as to what was going on. I can, on the contrary, give a categorical testimony on this point. I realized very well that Pius XII’s decrees were just the beginning of a total subversion of the liturgy, and I was not the only one. All the true liturgists, all the priests who were attached to tradition, were dismayed. The Sacred Congregation of Rites was not favorable toward the proposed innovations, which were the special work of a modernising commission. When, five weeks later, Pius XII announced the feast of St. Joseph the Worker, which caused the ancient feast of SS. Philip and James to be transferred, and which replaced the Solemnity of S. Joseph, Patron of the Church, there was open opposition to it. For more than a year the Sacred Congregation of Rites refused to compose the Office and Mass for the new feast. Many interventions of agents purporting to represent the pope were necessary before the Congregation of Rites agreed, against their will, to publish the Office in 1956—an Office so badly composed that one might suspect it had been deliberately sabotaged. And it was only in 1960 that the melodies of the Mass and office were composed—melodies based on models of the worst taste. I relate this little-known episode to give an idea of the violence of the reaction to the first liturgical reforms of Pius XII.
REPORT THIS
[size={defaultattr}][font={defaultattr}][size={defaultattr}][font={defaultattr}]Hopefully, at this point, the reason is now clear.[/font][/size][/font][/size]
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Left to right, up: (1) Start of the entry of the feasts of May in the 1957 Liber usualis, two years after the feast was established, and one year after the new propers were approved, showing omission of the new feast of Saint Joseph the Worker; (2) entry for 1 May in the 2015 Ordo Divini Officii published by the PCED, indicating that for the Mass of Saint Joseph the Work, the Mass Adiutor of the suppressed Solemnity of Saint Joseph may be used; (3) photocopy of the appendix to the 1964 Liber usualis containing the propers of Saint Joseph the Worker set to chant, with imprimatur dated 1 April 1961.
There appears to have been a blueprint materialising in the innovative minds of the reformers of that time, and to its consequences we are now heirs. If we leave out the feminist undertone, appropriating Mrs. Lintott’s take on the meaning of history for ourselves becomes too irresistible: “History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men” [2] (https://cappellagregoriana.wordpress.com/tag/saint-joseph-the-worker/#_edn2). In our case, it’s “men of the cloth”. Nothing is perhaps more damning to a once-in-vogue worldview than when the judgment of history reaffirms the wisdom of tradition: From the highest of the three liturgical ranks (first class) in the 1962 Missal, the new feast descended to the lowest of four (optional memorial) in the 1970 Missal. Let us ask Saint Joseph in these trying times, to guide all of us who look upon him as our champion and the protector of Holy Mother Church, that we may offer our travails, our labours, our sorrows, for the preservation of the Holy Catholic Faith.
Ut in omnibus laudetur Dominus.
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[1] (https://cappellagregoriana.wordpress.com/tag/saint-joseph-the-worker/#_ednref1) Jean Crété, Le mouvement liturgique: Itinéraire (January 1981) p. 133.
[2] (https://cappellagregoriana.wordpress.com/tag/saint-joseph-the-worker/#_ednref2) Mrs Dorothy Lintott (Frances de la Tour) in The history boys, dir. Nicholas Hytner (Fox Searchlight Pictures: 2006).[/font][/size][/font][/size]
From the neo-con/modernist Homiletic and Pastoral Review
https://www.hprweb.com/2017/05/on-the-significance-of-the-feast-of-saint-joseph-the-worker/ (https://www.hprweb.com/2017/05/on-the-significance-of-the-feast-of-saint-joseph-the-worker/)
On the Significance of the Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker
MAY 16, 2017 BY MARIA CINTORINO (https://www.hprweb.com/author/maria-cintorino/)
(http://www.hprweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/On-the-Significance-of-the-Feast-of-Saint-Joseph-the-Worker.jpg)
Holy Family, Father and Son by Corbert Gauthier (2002)
In 1955, Pope Pius XII instituted May 1 to be the Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker. This feast, which perhaps intentionally coincided with “May Day” and “International Workers Day,” seeks to remind us of the spiritual dimension of man’s daily work.
In holding Saint Joseph as the patron saint of workers, and in establishing this feast day, the Church reminds the world of the sacredness of man’s labors, and of his dignity in the workplace.
Ever since the beginning of his creation, man’s dignity has been inherently linked to his work. Genesis 2:5 relates that before the creation of human beings, “there was not a man to till the earth.” After Adam’s creation, God places the first man in the Garden of Paradise. In so doing, God specifically intends Adam to care for creation: “The Lord God took the man, and put him in the Garden of Eden, to till and keep it” (Genesis 2:5). God then charges Adam to subdue the earth, giving him charge over creation, and those in it.
Adam’s first task in the Garden was to name the animals:
Quote …so out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name (Genesis 2:19).
Just as God names Adam, Adam names the animals, which are entrusted to his care. In so doing, Adam accepts his role as steward of the earth, and asserts his authority over creation.
By entrusting creation to man, and giving him the responsibility to subdue the earth, exercising dominion over it, God affirms man’s dignity. God allows man to participate in His role as creator. Man then becomes a co-creator with God, for he shares in God’s eternal creative act through his work of caring for this new creation. Adam, while collaborating with God in caring for the earth, has been given the responsibility of being the steward of creation. In this way, God further distances humanity from the animals, for man finds dignity through work. Out of all creation, only man is capable of work, and only man is called to work. In the Garden, Adam realizes the importance of his calling, and views his labors as a blessing, for he shares in God’s creative power.
After the fall, the saving work of the Garden becomes burdensome to man. Once viewed as a blessing and a sharing in God’s eternal act of creating, and as an activity to be enjoyed, now becomes an object of pain and toil. The earth, now cursed because of Adam, no longer harmonizes with man:
Quote …in toil, you shall eat of it, all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground (Genesis 3:17-19).
Man’s responsibility of stewardship becomes more difficult, and his role and duties as provider more challenging. The earth’s elements, once in perfect harmony with man, react against Adam, presenting obstacles to his work by means of natural disasters. Because his affects (feelings and emotions) are disordered, man no longer sees the beauty of his call to work, and experiences the difficulties and stress, whether physical or mental, which his labors bring. In this way, man lives out his days until he returns to the dust from which he came.
That man experiences the hardships of work by the sweat of his brow does not, nonetheless, minimize the dignity of his task, nor that work is a good thing for man. Work truly is a good for human beings—our wounded natures, disordered affections and appetites, and associations of work with the pain it sometimes brings, make it harder for us to see why it is a good. Saint John Paul II reflects on the goodness of human labors, saying that:
Quote …work is a good thing for man—a good thing for humanity—because through work man not only transforms nature, adopting it to his needs, but he also achieves fulfillment as a human being and indeed, in a sense, becomes “more a human being.”1 (https://www.hprweb.com/2017/05/on-the-significance-of-the-feast-of-saint-joseph-the-worker/#fn-19398-1)
Humanity finds fulfillment in work because just as the creation of the world was ordered to benefit all humankind,
the world was intended to help sanctify human beings in their care of creation. When man collaborates with God in dignified work, man becomes transformed for he achieves fulfillment in his role as co-creator, and becomes sanctified by offering to God the fruit of his labors. Through his work, man mirrors the creative act of God in the world, ensuring that creation is ordered to the good, and to the service of his neighbors.
Work is a good because it’s ultimate aim is to give glory and praise to God. In fact, Saint Ignatius of Loyola says that man was “created to praise, reverence, and serve God.”
By caring for creation, man leads all of the world in praise to God. In Laborem Exercens, Saint John Paul II reflects that:
Quote …man, created to God’s image, received a mandate to subject to himself the earth and all that it contains, and to govern the world with justice and holiness; a mandate to relate himself, and the totality of things, to him who was to be acknowledged as the Lord and Creator of all. Thus, by subjection of all things to man, the name of God would be wonderful in all the earth.2 (https://www.hprweb.com/2017/05/on-the-significance-of-the-feast-of-saint-joseph-the-worker/#fn-19398-2)
Man achieves this mandate principally through his work, for by caring for creation, and subsequently all those in it, man leads all of the earth in a harmonious song of praise to God.
The end of all man’s activities—praising God—invites humanity to participate in God’s divine plan of salvation. Saint John Paul says that this should extend to even our most menial task: “awareness of man’s work is a participation in God’s activity and ought to permeate . . . even the most ordinary of everyday activities.”3 (https://www.hprweb.com/2017/05/on-the-significance-of-the-feast-of-saint-joseph-the-worker/#fn-19398-3) Jesus himself asserts the goodness of work by his labors, for he experienced the hardships of man’s daily toils. Christ “work[ed] by the sweat of his brow,” for as John Paul II reflects, Jesus “devoted most of the years of his life on earth to manual work at the carpenter’s bench.”4 (https://www.hprweb.com/2017/05/on-the-significance-of-the-feast-of-saint-joseph-the-worker/#fn-19398-4) By learning his earthly father’s trade, Christ blesses both the worker, and the task at hand. Christ demonstrates that anything that we do—no matter how insignificant or burdensome it may be—reflects our cooperation in God’s creation, and His plan for salvation, for Christ accomplishes the work of the Father on earth. Thus, Saint John Paul II continues, Christ provides a “‘Gospel of work,’ showing that the basis for determining the value of human work is not primarily the kind of work being done, but the fact that the one who is doing it is a person.”5 (https://www.hprweb.com/2017/05/on-the-significance-of-the-feast-of-saint-joseph-the-worker/#fn-19398-5) Work itself, then, has a “measure of dignity” because man himself performs the activity of work.6 (https://www.hprweb.com/2017/05/on-the-significance-of-the-feast-of-saint-joseph-the-worker/#fn-19398-6)
This is why human dignity becomes wounded when man is unable to work, or when working conditions degrade him. For this reason, the Church has repeatedly condemned communistic, socialistic, and utilitarian work theories or conditions, and has tirelessly defended the dignity of man in the workplace. When the value of man’s labors succuмbs to force, and is driven towards a purely materialistic end, man’s inherent dignity, given him by God in the Garden of Eden, diminishes in the eyes of all. The person becomes a forced laborer whose sole purpose of existence is to serve the state, and its ends. Productivity now defines man, and his role in the work place. When the end of man’s work does not aim to benefit humanity as a whole, and to praise God, then human nature is degraded. Instead of work transcending man, completing him, he is reduced to productivity rates, becoming a disposable commodity. Work now defines who the human person is, and human dignity is reduced to what he produces.
Keeping the Sabbath is integral to recognizing the dignity of workers, for worship is oriented toward praising God. By keeping Sunday holy, working people imitate God who created for six days, and rested on the seventh. In Sacramentum Caritatis, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI speaks of the relationship of the Sabbath and the worker as that which causes man to understand his role as co-creator:
Quote It is on the day consecrated to God that men and women come to understand the meaning of their lives and also of their work.7 (https://www.hprweb.com/2017/05/on-the-significance-of-the-feast-of-saint-joseph-the-worker/#fn-19398-7)
Man was not made to work; work was intended for man, and in exercising this duty, man comes to a better understanding of himself. In taking a day of rest, man orders his week to God, the ultimate Creator, and so leads all of creation in praise to God.
Man’s work culminates on the Sabbath in his participation of the liturgy where all human work becomes sanctified, and culminates in the cross. The Liturgy, focusing on the sacrifice of the cross, is the opus dei, the work or act of God restoring creation. The liturgy transcends man, for as Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI says, the liturgy as the opus dei is “the place where all opera hominum comes to an end, and are transcended and, thus, the place where a new freedom dawns.”8 (https://www.hprweb.com/2017/05/on-the-significance-of-the-feast-of-saint-joseph-the-worker/#fn-19398-8)
At the Mass, the faithful unite their work to that of Christ’s efforts, and in so doing, their work becomes sanctified, blessed, and made new. This is especially emphasized during the words of consecration, for that “which the earth has given, and human hands have made . . . and the fruit of the vine, and the work of human hands” becomes the Bread of Life, and our spiritual drink—the Body and Blood of Christ. Through the liturgy, man offers to God the fruits of his labors, and his toils are sanctified, and begun anew.
Human work is sacred because it is redemptive. It is sanctifying for we are able to unite our work to that of Christ’s. God’s plan for humanity always entailed this redeeming reality, for work originated, not as a punishment for sin, but given to man as a good. Through his responsibilities, man sanctifies himself, and in so doing, sanctifies the world in leading all of creation in praise to God. Jesus Himself blessed man’s toils through the work of his hands as a carpenter, and by fulfilling his Father’s work through his public ministry. In everything Jesus accomplished, he did so in union with his Father. He teaches us to do the same, for in uniting our work to that of the Father’s, our work is blessed and redeemed. Thus, the daily toils of human beings transform them and the world, allowing humanity to actively participate in God’s eternal creative power.
From a Catholic perspective, May 1 entails much more than just celebrating worker’s rights. In choosing St. Joseph as the patron saint of workers, the Church reminds the world of the sanctity of work. Jesus learned the importance of work from Saint Joseph, who labored and experienced the trials of providing for his family. Without the spiritual element of work, man will succuмb to its drudgery, and consider his labors as toil. By ordering his work to praise God, man experiences, in some way, the joy and blessedness of labor which Adam experienced in the Garden of Eden.
- John Paul II. Laborem Exercens. September 14, 1981. Vatican Website. w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/docuмents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091981_laborem-exercens.html (http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/docuмents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091981_laborem-exercens.html)
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Benedict XVI. Sacramentum Caritatis. February 22, 2007. Vatican Website. w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/apost_exhortations/docuмents/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20070222_sacramentum-caritatis.html (http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/apost_exhortations/docuмents/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20070222_sacramentum-caritatis.html).
- Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. A New Song for the Lord. Translated by Martha M. Matesich. Crossroad Publishing Company, New York, 1996. p 77.