This was the morning that was predicted to be icy and snowy...

And it is just damp, a bit rainy, with a temperature in the upper 30s. While I knew that the weather mages had stopped seriously chattering about this, yet I hoped....  Wet and grey, like so many other mornings in the southern Willamette Valley. Today is the feast of the Seven Founders of the Servite Order, the Ordo Servorum Beatae Virginis Mariae (CE here and here, Introibo, Wiki here and here); Holy Mass will be streamed from Saint-Eugène at 1000. So the authorities all mention that the Servites are the fifth mendicant order, the other four being? the Franciscans, the Dominicans... who am I overlooking? I'm lumping all the Franciscan orders together-- maybe those account for the total of five. Oh, the Trinitarians are friars, too, but are rather later, I think, so not amongst the first five. Now I'm going to consult the Internet. Ah, the Augustinians and the Carmelites-- silly dunce to have omitted to think of them. 

This festival was instituted in 1888 by Leo XIII, who, a short while before, had solemnly inscribed on the roll of the saints the names of the Florentine nobles Bonfiglio Monaldi, Bonagiunta Manetti, Manetto Antellese, Amedeo degli Amedei, Uguccione degli Uguccioni, Sosteneo dei Sostenei, and Alessio Falconieri. These illustrious representatives of the patricians of Florence in the thirteenth century, whilst Italy was tom by schisms and internecine struggles, withdrew themselves to the solitude of Monte Senario, and founded a new religious order which was entirely devoted to the penitential life, and to the contemplation of the sufferings of the crucified Saviour and his blessed Mother. The Mass is of recent date, and though it deviates here and there from the ancient liturgical rules, yet evidences the good taste which characterized Leo XIII. The Introit contains a graceful allusion to the miracle of the little children-- one of whom is said to have been St Filippo Benizi-- whose innocent lips, opened for the first time on one of the public squares of Florence, uttered the praises of those seven holy noblemen, addressing them, so the story goes, by the name which has always remained in common use among the people, of 'Serviti', or 'Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary’.

Blessed Ildefonso can only let so much nonsense pass by unremarked.

... It is evident that the compilers of this Mass in the time of Leo XIII could not have known very much about the responsorial psalm, which, in early times, followed the first Lesson, and all they aimed at was to put together as best they might some Scriptural verses which might possibly have reference to the sanctuary of Monte Senario where the bodies of the seven saints were venerated, and to the Servites themselves, their spiritual descendants, so as to have ready to hand the necessary antiphons and responsories. We give here the Gradual, drawn not from the Psalter, but from Isaias (LXV, 23): 'My elect shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth in trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their posterity was with them', and from Ecclesiasticus (XLIV, 14): 'Their bodies are buried in peace, and their name liveth unto generation and generation'.... After Septuagesima, the alleluiatic verse being omitted, there is recited from Psalm CXXV the Tract which is that of the Common of Martyrs: 'They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. Going they went and wept, casting their seeds. But coming they shall come with joyfulness, carrying their sheaves'. 

The Gospel is that of the Common of an Abbot as on the feast of St Sabbas on December 5. The holy mount which is mentioned in the Offertory (Isaias LVI, 7) is Monte Senario, near Florence; the holocausts and victims are the prayers and mortifications offered there by the seven holy Founders, whose bodies there rest in peace under the high altar, thus continuing their mystical immolation in union with that of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. 'I will bring them into my holy mount, and will make them joyful in my house of prayer; their holocausts and their victims shall please me upon my altar'. 

The Secret has not that beautiful classic form which distinguishes the earlier Collects of the Roman Sacramentaries. It is devotional in its essence, but its phraseology is quite modern and wanting in style and vigour: 'Receive, we beseech thee, O Lord, these victims which we offer up to thee; and grant that through the intercession of thy saints, we may serve thee with a free mind and may be enkindled with love for the sorrowing virgin Mother of thy Son. Through our Lord'. 

The Antiphon for the Communion (John XV, 16) is not derived from the same portion of the Gospel as that which has been already given in today’s Mass. This is an anomaly, but probably the recent liturgical composers of the Office of the Seven Founders did not realize the fact. 'I have chosen you from the world that you should go and should bring forth fruit; and your fruit should remain'. Our fruit shall be lasting if we remain united to the tree of eternal life, which is Christ. This is the secret of the ceaseless activity of the saints and of the success of their undertakings.

 

Time for Terce and then breakfast. 

Ante Vesperas. Generally, I ignore here the shenanigans, mine and other people's, on Twitter but am going to note these three tweets of mine from earlier. 

Tired of having to parse my way through the parties of Cath. Twitter, & am not even referring to the heterodox & woke (who I don't read, anyhow). "Sum Pauli ego autem Apollo ego vero Cephae ego autem Christi." Those who lay down the law for the rest of us, do this, don't do that.

We say the St Michael Archangel prayer after Mass at my parish. Wonderful! I wholeheartedly approve. Yesterday, though, someone was telling us that 'anyone who disagrees with its addition after Mass was', well, I don't remember precisely but 'of the devil'.

There are ways of advocacy that are reasonable and charitable, and then there are other ways that work by less praiseworthy means. Those people yesterday are probably fine folks, when all is said and done, but the partisan spirit is alive and doing damage on Twitter.

Here endeth the lesson. 

LDVM