Cleansing Fire

Defending Truth and Tradition in the Roman Catholic Church

Vicar General to Offer Mass “ad Orientem”

April 1st, 2011, Promulgated by Gen

A nod of the miter to devoted reader “Plautus” for sharing this beautiful bit of news:

“On Sunday, April 31st, Rev. Dr. Joseph Hart, Vicar General of the Diocese of Rochester, will be offering Mass at Sacred Heart Cathedral. As part of a series of lectures and demonstrations on the ‘organic growth’ of the liturgy, Fr. Hart will offer the Mass ad orientem, facing away from the nave of the church and towards the sanctuary proper. ‘We need to realize that when the priest said Mass like this, he wasn’t turning his back on the laity, or any other such thing. No, he was turning with them to God, and doing so on their behalf. That’s the real beauty of this kind of worship,’ said Fr. Hart. (Wow!) Of course, this is a special event, a ‘one-time-only’ sort of thing, due to the tremendous task of replacing the tabernacle back in the sanctuary for this one Mass. The amount of time going into the planning of this is really amazing, seeing as how the staff of the cathedral are going to have to entirely rearrange the sanctuary, even adding a Benedictine altar arrangement for the occasion.”

As wonderful as this is, I should point out that, as far as we know, the liturgy itself will be “business as usual” at Sacred Heart. It is rumored that Thomas Warfield will be making a return visit to Sacred Heart, along with students from Nazareth College, who will be performing what is being billed as “a lively expression of God’s infinite mercy.” Bishop Clark will not be in attendance, seeing as how he will be sitting ‘in choir’ at St. Stanislaus for the 1:30 High Mass. There is a reception planned at Sacred Heart after this Mass. Exact times will be posted as soon as we have more information.

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17 Responses to “Vicar General to Offer Mass “ad Orientem””

  1. Jim R says:

    NOT GONNA GET ME THIS YEAR – Gotta be an April Fools joke!

  2. Choir says:

    It just dawned on me this is “April Fools Day”. You almost had me.

  3. Mike says:

    I see that “Plautus” is maintaining the comedic tradition of his namesake.

    From Wikipedia

    Titus Maccius Plautus (c. 254 BC – 184 BC), commonly known as “Plautus”, was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature.

  4. Scrub says:

    Was just about to post, ‘phony token show.’

  5. Bernie says:

    You got me -again!

  6. Abaccio says:

    I almost put up a post this morning about Bishop Clark getting the Red Hat.

  7. A Catholic says:

    I fell for last year’s, not this time.

  8. Pine says:

    Anon, I like meaningless hobbies too.

  9. Eliza10 says:

    You got me! I have been contemplating why in the world Father Hart would do such a Catholic thing! Was he trying to get the Vatican’s attention, perhaps in a bid to be the new Bishop, to show that he didn’t COMPLETELY ignore opposers to the DOR’s Dissension Ideology??? But if this is the case, why is there not a single other example of this kind of olive branch?? Could this be the start of a whole new war tactic??

    Yes, you got me.

  10. Louis E. says:

    The Erection of the Modern Rite Patriarchate of Rochester with Clark as its life-tenured first ordinary didn’t make the news today?

  11. Dr. K says:

    Might wanna be careful. If the Vatican is surfing the Web trying to find details about possible successors for Bishop Clark and they see that Fr. Hart is offering an ad orientem Mass…

    Still hilarious.

  12. Anonymous says:

    This site reports on so many crazy things that this story can really upset people. Stick to what you know. Isn’t April fools day based on the athiest French calendar after the revolution? Come on, be serious or get lost. Don’t triffle with things you don’t understand, like humor.

  13. Roses says:

    Anon 11:29, you gotta get out a little more.

  14. militia says:

    But the Bishop being at St. Stan is NOT an April Fool, right>

  15. It would be like facing the music at the Cathedral.

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