Author Topic: Happy Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi! (Read 4418 times)

Hobbledehoy · « **on:** October 03, 2012, 09:34:21 PM »

Happy Feast Day of the Seraphic Patriarch St. Francis of Assisi!!

From The Saint Andrew Daily Missal with Vespers for Sundays and Feasts by Dom Gaspar Lefebvre, O.S.B., of the Abbey of St- André (Bruges, Belgium: Liturgical Apostolate of the Abbey of St-André, 1956), here is the Mass for the Feast of the Seraphic Patriarch, St. Francis of Assisi.

Hobbledehoy · « **Reply #1 on:** October 03, 2012, 09:38:06 PM »

From the late Cardinal Schuster's work The Sacramentary (Liber Sacramentorum): Historical and Liturgical Notes on the Roman Missal (vol. V.; trans. Arthur Levelis-Marke & W. Fairfax-Cholmeley; New York: Benziger Brothers, 1930), here is a commentary upon the Mass for the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi.

Hobbledehoy · « **Reply #2 on:** October 03, 2012, 09:42:56 PM »

In the Churches of the Capuchin Friars Minor there was a solemn commemoration of the transit of St. Francis as seen in these pages taken from the small tome Franciscan Prayer Book and Tertiary Manual (Pantasaph, Holywell, N. Wales: Franciscan Friary, 1953).

The old tradition mentioned appears to be true because St. Francis has granted me whatsoever I have asked following this annual exercise of devotion.

Hobbledehoy · « **Reply #3 on:** October 03, 2012, 09:44:37 PM »

From the Franciscan Supplement to the Daily Missal: Containing Those Parts Proper to the Roman-Seraphic Missal, (Paterson, NJ: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1950), here is the Proper Mass of St. Francis as found in the Roman-Seraphic Missal. Note the Sequence and Proper Preface of St. Francis.

Hobbledehoy · « **Reply #4 on:** October 03, 2012, 09:48:12 PM »

Rev. Fr. Aquinas Byrnes in his book Hymns of the Dominican Missal and Breviary, (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1943), translates and comments upon the Hymns proper to the Office of St. Francis, together with the Sequence proper to St. Francis, which are shared by the liturgical books of the Franciscan and Dominicans. These two Orders each commemorated both Solemnities of their respective Father Founders by reason of the great friendship that St. Dominic and St. Francis shared.

The beautiful commentary constitutes an admirable hagiographical report of the life of St. Francis, and also gives us a glimpse of the treasures of the Christian poetry that the Holy Ghost stirred up in our Medieval forefathers.

brotherfrancis75 · « **Reply #5 on:** October 04, 2012, 01:22:15 PM »

Dear Mr. Hobbles,

Deo gratias!

On this Feast day of the Seraphic Patriarch,

Brother Francis

Belloc · « **Reply #6 on:** October 04, 2012, 01:28:31 PM »

geessh, wondered where you had gotten off to!! thought you had left CI

brotherfrancis75 · « **Reply #7 on:** October 04, 2012, 03:19:54 PM »

Thanks for your regard, Mr. Belloc. No, it's just that a "Franciscan Solitary" is, well, often solitary. We're frequently away "doing (Our) Father's business," to use Our Lord's description of the Catholic religious life. Perhaps not so gregarious as the Benedictines, but Franciscan solitude never lacks for the spiritual joys of our Seraphic Patriarch among his remote mountain retreats.

This lowly Franciscan brother wouldn't trade those joys for anything else in all the world! Until next time. Must be away and back to those alpine altitudes...

PereJoseph · « **Reply #8 on:** October 04, 2012, 04:23:36 PM »

I found the tangent on "Christian democracy" by Cardinal Schuster to be pretty strange. "Democracy" and "rights" seem to have very little to do with the spirit of poverty, humility, and obedience taught by St Francis. It would have perhaps been more helpful for Cardinal Schuster to discuss the need for modesty, religion, and almsgiving amongst the nobiles, rather than divert us into a consideration of the "rights of the people." Anyway, it seemed rather peculiar to me. What do you think, Hobble ?

Sigismund · « **Reply #9 on:** October 04, 2012, 11:00:30 PM »

Hobbledehoy · « **Reply #10 on:** October 04, 2012, 11:14:18 PM »

From the tome Franciscan Prayer Book and Tertiary Manual, (Pantasaph, Holywell, N. Wales: Franciscan Friary, 1953), here are some prayers composed by the Seraphic Patriarch St. Francis, including the celebrated Canticle of the Sun.

Hobbledehoy · « **Reply #11 on:** October 04, 2012, 11:16:16 PM »

Here is also the meditation of St. Francis upon the Lord's Prayer, the Pater noster, taken from the above-mentioned tome.

Hobbledehoy · « **Reply #12 on:** October 04, 2012, 11:29:14 PM »

Quote from: PereJoseph

I found the tangent on "Christian democracy" by Cardinal Schuster to be pretty strange. "Democracy" and "rights" seem to have very little to do with the spirit of poverty, humility, and obedience taught by St Francis. It would have perhaps been more helpful for Cardinal Schuster to discuss the need for modesty, religion, and almsgiving amongst the nobiles, rather than divert us into a consideration of the "rights of the people." Anyway, it seemed rather peculiar to me. What do you think, Hobble ?

Well, there are several things to consider:

1) The epoch of the Seraphic Patriarch was indeed one of great political and economic upheaval, and this is why the late Cardinal (well, back then he was yet an Abbot) mentioned the historical details, which prefaced his tangent.

2) The tangent may have been a reflection of the activity of Pope Leo XIII, who, was a response to the evils of socialism and its seduction of the working classes, enriched the Third Order of Saint Francis with very great indulgences, and granted the Tertiaries very great privileges: the ideals of the Seraphic Patriarch were to spark the Tertiaries into "Catholic Action" and actively work for the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls, with the restoration of societal and political tranquility (which alone can happen under the social kingship of Christ) as a happy by-product of such zeal.

3) The fact that it was a tangent and that he went on to emphasize example of St. Francis (both before and after the tangential remark) makes it obvious that the imitation of his virtues would indeed be the ultimate remedy for the societal, political, and economic problems and disorders: for a community is like unto an individual self, which, if each member thereof dutifully performs his duties of state whilst observing and professing the holy Faith, will come to assent to the absolute dominion of Christ as King in such wise that it would have no need of superfluous, useless and even noxious enactments and polities that are ofttimes imbued with ideological poison (such as we have here in the Federated Sates of the American Republic).

But yes, it was a strange tangent. When I read that I just associated it with the great revival of the Franciscan Tertiaries thanks to Leo XIII as the solution to society's problems.

Pyrrhos · « **Reply #13 on:** October 05, 2012, 03:15:43 AM »

Quote from: Hobbledehoy

1) The epoch of the Seraphic Patriarch was indeed one of great political and economic upheaval, and this is why the late Cardinal (well, back then he was yet an Abbot) mentioned the historical details, which prefaced his tangent.

2) The tangent may have been a reflection of the activity of Pope Leo XIII, who, was a response to the evils of socialism and its seduction of the working classes, enriched the Third Order of Saint Francis with very great indulgences, and granted the Tertiaries very great privileges: the ideals of the Seraphic Patriarch were to spark the Tertiaries into "Catholic Action" and actively work for the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls, with the restoration of societal and political tranquility (which alone can happen under the social kingship of Christ) as a happy by-product of such zeal.

But yes, it was a strange tangent. When I read that I just associated it with the great revival of the Franciscan Tertiaries thanks to Leo XIII as the solution to society's problems.

I second this opinion.

While God knows my opinion on Christian Democracy, in the times he wrote his famous Sacramentary, what where the alternatives? Especially, as an Ultramontane, when the Holy See seemed to give public support to no other political system since Leo' XIII. Rerum novarum (which in turn was based on Bishop Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler's tome "Die Arbeiterfrage und das Christentum") and Quadragesimo anno of Pius XI.?
More so, as the Christian Democratic movement brought professing Catholics back to the highest levels of State since the French Revolution.

Contrary to the principles of Catholicism? To the detriment of the faithful and the nations respectively (especially in the 1st World War, used as the final embrace of the French and German Catholics to their respective anti-Catholic states)? Probably yes. But understandable? I think so.

Also, Card. Schuster certainly cannot be seen as some kind of reactionary or anti-progressist figure. His Sacramentary proves otherwise, as maybe did his membership in the "Opus sacerdotale Amici Israel"
But that progress and reaction are not diametrically opposed can easily be shown by Dom Guéranger, who was persecuted for his loyalty to the Holy See and his reform of the Tridentine Rite to it's former glory.

Note: Before his elevation to the College of Cardinals, Abbot Schuster was actually an abbot nullius diœceseos. The installation and blessing of such a territorial abbot was only allowed with a Papal Mandate, just as in Episcopal consecrations. This might be interesting in regards to the other discussion we are having...

poche · « **Reply #14 on:** October 05, 2012, 05:15:32 AM »

St francis pray fo rus