Catholic Info
Traditional Catholic Faith => The Sacred: Catholic Liturgy, Chant, Prayers => Topic started by: love alabama on October 03, 2011, 04:01:23 PM
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What is the churching of women?
does the SSPX do it? if so in what context liturgically is it placed i,e. when?
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What is the churching of women?
I was hoping you would tell me. Pardon my ignorance, but what are you talking about? :confused1:
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Not that I would normally use their resources, but, here, from Fisheaters:
Churching of Women (http://www.fisheaters.com/churchingofwomen.html)
Seems like a nice, Christ-honoring way to respect a new mother and to semi-officially welcome her back into the regular life of the Church after she has been allowed to be absent during labor, delivery and the early weeks of the child's life.
I had never heard of it, either.
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There is a description of the ceremony in the Angelus Press Daily missal.
How widely practiced is it though?
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What is the churching of women?
It is an ancient tradition done as an act of devotion in imitation of Our Blessed Lady, who presented her Divine Son at the Temple in Jerusalem according to the prescripts of Holy Writ, though she as the Immaculate Conception was not strictly bound to do so yet she did so out of selfless obedience in order that the Scriptures may be fulfilled.
This tradition is enshrined in the Rituale Romanum, Tit. VIII, cap. vi., Benedictio mulieris post partum, (Romæ: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1954).
The clergy ought to encourage these sorts of practices of piety, especially since this particular one is intimately tied to the edification of the Catholic family, which ought to be amongst the objects of the Priests' foremost pastoral concerns.
Here is the text and translation of the blessing and rubrics, found in Rev. Fr. Philip T. Weller's book The Roman Ritual, In Latin and English with Rubrics and Plainchant Notation, Volume III - Blessings (Milwaukee, WI: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1952).
(http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d89/platonic123/Sacred%20Texts/Benedictiomulierispostpartum1.jpg)
(http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d89/platonic123/Sacred%20Texts/Benedictiomulierispostpartum2.jpg)
(http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d89/platonic123/Sacred%20Texts/Benedictiomulierispostpartum3.jpg)
:reading:
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I know my priest who helps the SSPX has done the Churching of Women ceremony after he administers baptism.
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What is the relevancy in todays world of this rite?
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@love alabama:
The relevance of the Rite of Churching of Women in today's society is evident in several ways:
1) It is a Rite of the Holy Catholic Church, and thus is God-ordained and worthy of acceptance by the faithful.
2) It is a Rite which is absolutely grounded in Scripture, and thus, should be continued in this modernist world because distorted views of women and of motherhood have so corrupted the minds of people today that it is IMPERATIVE that the Church continually demonstrate the CORRECT view of women. Namely, that view is one that says that because the Law of the Church is a continuation of and fulfillment of the Divine commandments in Scripture, women are to take both their child-bearing AND their absence from/return to sacramental life SERIOUSLY.
3) Because it is a Rite consistent with and dedicated to the honor of Our Lady, Catholic women who qualify for this Rite should always undertake to have it performed so that Mary's pure example of obedience to God can be re-stated as often as possible in this world where womanhood is so degraded.
O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.
Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.
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Yes, it is indeed as Stephen_Francis has written.
The relevance of this sacred rite is very valid for our days, wherein the most sacred act that a woman can make in the natural order, that of giving birth in the hallowed bonds of Matrimony, has been so attacked by all sorts of misotheists (modernists, feminists, heretics, naturalists, &c.) either by degrading women into a paradoxical delusion of enfranchisement wherein they seek "liberty" from "phallocentric oppression" whilst becoming the playthings of commercialized carnality and faceless integers in a homogenous mass that has lost the true notion of humanity and, above all, the supernatural vocation of man to the knowledge, service and love of God; or by attacking and belittling the Christian household with various and sundry sorts of perversion and aberration ("children's rights," state-regulated education, the denial of parents' sovereignty upon their children, &c.).
It is, therefore, not only becoming but of great importance and necessity to follow the sacred customs wherewith our Catholic forefathers sanctified the family: especially maternity and the birth of children, things which the demons and their cohorts have attacked so heavily throughout the last few centuries.
The Byzantines also have a rite for "Churching of women." This is taken from the Byzantine Missal for Sundays and Feast Days with Rites of Sacraments, and Various Offices and Prayers published at Birmingham, Alabama, by St. George's R. C. Byzantine Church in 1958, (having been printed at Tournai, Belgium, by Société Saint Jean l' Evangéliste, Desclée & Cie).
(http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d89/platonic123/Sacred%20Texts/RiteofChurchingByzantineMissal1.jpg)
(http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d89/platonic123/Sacred%20Texts/RiteofChurchingByzantineMissal2.jpg)
(http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d89/platonic123/Sacred%20Texts/RiteofChurchingByzantineMissal3.jpg)