Dear friends, you may have missed it, but Mass was celebrated on Sunday December 15 according to the traditional Ambrosian Rite in the Basilica of St. Ambrose in Milan for the first time in 50 years. Yes, in half a century. So what, you say with disdainful lip and dismissive eye. So a lot.
For 50 years the ancient liturgy of the West, our worship of God, has been cheapened, bowdlerized, denigrated, mocked and even banned. You see, what happened was this. Satan wasn't able to subvert the Western Catholic Church's teaching, the Magesterium held firm unlike the genius of Anglicanism, but he was able to demolish its worship.
Pan to guitar playing nuns, nylon vestments, and 1970s attack language removing all sense of the sacred or numinal from the worship of God. Pretty effective strategy, crash the worship, crash belief and go figure, RC congregations have been tanking ever since. But maybe that's changing, see the Ambrosian Mass in Milan. A harbinger of things to come?
We hope so, here at the Compound, and know this. Wherever faithful Christians truly worship God, I advise the Ancient Rite, they will be truly blessed. Not kidding, Guinea on the monkey and a safe bet.
Ad Altare Dei,
