An opportunity not to be missed!

Above you will find a poster with the calendar of Tridentine Masses to be held next week around Malta.

This is an occasion not to be missed and it could serve as a showcase to many Maltese yet to be acquainted with this venerable Rite.

Pro Tridentina (Malta) would like to congratulate the main organisers of the event, i.e. Rev. Marc Andrè Camilleri and Canon Nicholas Doublet.

What went wrong in the traditional Catholic movement in Malta (Part 3)

Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, who Pro Tridentina (Malta)'s first President held talks with, celebrates the Tridentine Mass in St. Peter's Basilica in 2013. (Kyle Burkhart/ CNA.)

In order to better understand the problems being faced by the REAL traditional Catholics, it is pertinent to post the following article by a foreigner, S. Armaticus, who was in Malta some time ago.

 

"As I was taking in the sheer beauty of the mass while setting during the Offertorium, my mind wandered to another mass which I attended a week and a half earlier, the High Mass (O.F. – TLM is still “banned” in Malta) offered at the Co-Cathedral of St. John in Valletta, Malta. That choir and organist were likewise spectacular. Yet the O.F. mass, even though it was partially in Latin was very disappointing. There were only about three of us who actually knelt during the Canon. How very sad. And excuse the digression.

The sadness was caused by the thought of how much has been lost through the senseless submission to the new springtime of that “spirit of Vatican II”. Yet the joy presented itself in the cognizance of the OBJECTIVE REALITY of the situation, a REALITY that as of this writing, a Catholic like yours truly can find himself in a two different venues, several thousand miles apart, and yet encounter the timeless phenomenon which is the Catholic mass (regardless of whether it is a proper mass or the OF) and offered in a proper Catholic musical setting.

 

Summa summarum, it would appear as if the worst just might be behind us.

 

Or, to use an old advertisement jingle from the 1960’s,…

we’ve come a long way baby!

And finally before I go to the re-post, please keep the Church in Malta in your prayers. The Maltese N.O. church is dying, but the hierarchy there continues to exist in a state of denial. Only with our prayers and fasting can we help turn that situation around. With the  help of our prayers, I have no doubt that the Holy Spirit will restore all things in Christ on Malta.

 

St. Michael Archangel, ora pro nobis!

 

Archbishop Lefebvre, ora pro nobis!

 

In te, Domine, speravi: non confundar in aeternum"

 

Below are some of the comments that were posted under the original article:

 

May 8, 2016 at 12:47 am    

 

Is the TLM really banned in Malta? Is that even possible after Summorum Pontificum?

S. Armaticus said:    

May 8, 2016 at 11:09 am

Dear TS:

As you see, the word “banned” is in quotation marks.

There is a huge problem in Malta because the hierarchy refuses to allow the TLM to be offered on a regular basis, even though Summorum Pontificum is THE LAW OF THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH.

 

For more information on this matter, please follow Una Voce’s Malta site Pro Tridentina at the following link: http://pro-tridentina-malta.blogspot.com.mt/p/avvizi-dwar-quddies-tridentin.html.

 

If you go to the link, you will notice that there are no TLM’s scheduled. Supposedly a TLM was offered last year on the Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel at St. Theresa Church in Cospicua. But I have not been able to confirm whether this is in fact the case. The last sighting of a TLM on the Pro Tridentina website was also on the same feast day, in 2011. But that TLM was canceled at the last minute.

 

There are credible reports that TLM’s have been offered on Malta since SP. Yet these are mostly a well kept secret.

 

So the long and short of the matter is that the TLM is “banned” on Malta.

 

B/t/w thanks for your question.

S.A.

What went wrong in the traditional Catholic movement in Malta (Part 2)

The Curia offices in Malta (photo: Times of Malta)

After the first part of this series (other articles will follow, though not necessarily in a chronological order), this Blog was informed of more worrying trends in the traditional Catholic movement in Malta.

Apparently, at the Vatican they received a copy of a letter from a resident in Malta in which a number of priests and laity distanced themselves from the Pro Tridentina (Malta) movement. So, thanks to these Brutus tactics, the Archdiocese of Malta is moving cautiously before granting TLM in other localities.

This is also implied in the website of the Apostolate of Saint Paul Malta (ASPM) which says: "In the Archdiocese of Malta, the Church of St. Paul’s has been entrusted with the promotion and the celebration of the liturgy according to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman rite, also known as The Traditional Latin Mass."

So, don't expect any other regular Tridentine Masses to be held elsewhere in the country.

The Consumeristic Catholic Church in Malta

The Maltese Catholic Church in the twenty-first century has in many ways absorbed the consumeristic mentality that is so prevalent in our culture. A case in point is what will happen this evening in Floriana. The Saint Publius Parish Church will be illuminated for a lewd event, known as the Isle of MTV. Photos above and below show this event, with the illuminated church in the background, from past events.

Allegedly, the Floriana Parish is being paid every year an undisclosed sum of money from the event organisers so that the Church façade is lit up. This money is said to be used for much needed restoration works to the building. According to The Malta Independent, tonight's event is expected to host 50,000 people, be followed in 20 countries, and attract the attention of millions (alas not for good reasons). By tomorrow morning, the side of the church will be littered and would have served its other purposes, namely as a public toilet and, even worse, as a good opportunity for intimacy of the Amoris Laetitia type.

 

Whatever the reasons for accepting money, it is clear that nowadays this parish, with the tacit approval of the Church authorities, approaches worship as if it were selling a product and the attendee were the consumer. Since the product is up for sale, the church must show that its product is more entertaining than anything else the world has to offer. Therefore, churchy gimmicks are the name of the game. Whatever keeps people coming back for more takes first priority and becomes the controlling principle for all things church-related. If the church doesn’t sell itself, then it will be out of business.

 

Such an approach makes man the centre and treats the church like a business. In contrast, the aim of well meaning traditional Catholic groups is to draw church-goers and church leaders back to Scripture. In doing so, we must recover the ordinary means of grace that God uses to equip the saints and transform us into the image of Christ.

Mater Boni Consilii - 25-26 April

Pope Pius XII composed the below powerful prayer, in honour of Our Lady of Good Counsel:

Holy Virgin, moved by the painful uncertainty we experience in seeking and acquiring the true and the good, we cast ourselves at thy feet and invoke thee under the sweet title of Mother of Good Counsel. We beseech thee: come to our aid at this moment in our worldly sojourn when the double darkness of error and of evil plot our ruin by leading minds and hearts astray.
Seat of Wisdom and Star of the Sea, enlighten the victims of doubt and of error so that they may not be seduced by evil masquerading as good; strengthen them against the hostile and corrupting forces of passion and of sin.
Mother of Good Counsel, obtain for us our most urgent need….. (here mention your request) and secure for us from thy Divine Son the love of virtue and the strength to choose, in doubtful and difficult situations, the course agreeable to our salvation.
Supported by thy hand we shall thus journey without harm along the paths taught us by the word and example of Jesus our Savior, following the Sun of Truth and Justice in freedom and safety across the battlefield of life under the guidance of thy maternal Star, until we come at length to the harbor of salvation to enjoy with thee unalloyed and everlasting peace. Amen.

What went wrong in the traditional Catholic movement in Malta (Part 1)

Today, Easter Sunday, we start with a series aimed to show what went wrong in the traditional Catholic movement in Malta. Ten years ago there was much hope when a group in favour of the traditional liturgy in Malta was created. The results have however been very limited. 

We will see what type of divisions there were, the situation under Archbishop Cremona, Bishop Grech and Archbishop Scicluna. We will then see the current situation and finally what the outlook for the traditional Catholic movement in Malta is.

Pro Tridentina (Malta) was officially founded in August 2007, less than a month after the promulgation of the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum. Prior to this event, there was no lay movement in favour of the Tridentine Mass in Malta or Gozo. 

The developments that led to the founding can be traced back to November 2006. At the time, the FSSP, contacted a number of Maltese aiming to develop something concretely in this country. 

A first informal meeting was held on 21 April 2007 to determine the way forward. This was followed by another informal one on 20 July 2007 i.e. a week after the publication of Summorum Pontificum. Pro Tridentina (Malta) was accepted as a member of the FIUV in 2009. Its first President was elected to the FIUV Council in 2009 and served until 2015.

Since then, the Tridentine Mass became, albeit slowly, a reality in Malta. On the other hand, attempts in Gozo were met by obstacles by Bishop Grech, in defiance of Pope Benedict XVI.

Still, the Catholic Church in Malta is not favourably inclined to a wider, regular celebration of the Extraordinary Form. The media also presents a different picture than the reality is, namely that young people in Malta are among the most fervent followers of this form of the Mass. However, Tridentine Masses are known to have been held in Valletta, Cospicua, Birkirkara and other towns around the island.

In today's interview on Malta Today, Fr Mark Montebello, referring to the situation in the Catholic Church said:

    

"No, I don’t think we’re anywhere close to a schism. What I think is at present causing some turmoil is the changed official political standpoint of the papacy. From a far-right stance taken by the anti-Communist John Paul II and the anti-liberalist Benedict XVI over more than three decades, now, with Pope Francis, we have had four years of a third-positionist Peronista who seeks to mediate tensions caused by conflicting extreme poles."

We beg to differ. A schism, albeit a minor one, has already occurred in the Church in Malta. And once schisms appear they are hard to conceal.They lead to the division of a group into opposing factions. We will see in another post how this has taken place in Malta.

The Pope is dead

A holy Pope

Despised by the world and by the Modernists, and many a supposed “Catholic”, St. Pius X Sarto was eminently pleasing to His Creator. He cared not for the opinion of this world, but only to do the will of God. For this, he received a merciful judgment and heard from the Just Judge these words: “Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Mt 25:34).

 

Fast forward 100 years and we get the following:

 

In an interview with Fr Antonio Spadaro, the progressive editor of Jesuit journal, La Civiltà, Pope Francis criticsed young Catholics for their love of the Tridentine Mass:

Asked about the liturgy, Pope Francis insisted the Mass reformed after the Second Vatican Council is here to stay and “to speak of a ‘reform of the reform’ is an error.”

 

In authorizing regular use of the older Mass, now referred to as the “extraordinary form,” now-retired Pope Benedict XVI was “magnanimous” toward those attached to the old liturgy, he said. “But it is an exception.”

 

Pope Francis told Father Spadaro he wonders why some young people, who were not raised with the old Latin Mass, nevertheless prefer it.

 

“And I ask myself: Why so much rigidity? Dig, dig, this rigidity always hides something, insecurity or even something else. Rigidity is defensive. True love is not rigid.”

 

He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Matthew 11:15

Desperate Evil by Don Ottavio Michelini

Don Ottavio Michelini

My son, the matter of which I shall speak to you this evening is not new. I have told you of it several times in previous Messages. It is the struggle that Satan has unleashed against man.

Unable to face God directly, he fights it indirectly by unleashing his desperate wickedness (made of hatred, envy and jealousy) over the man destined to fill the open gaps with his rebellion to God.

Satan is called Prince of darkness because his fundamental intent is to obscure and overshadow the light of God in souls.

God is Light, Satan is Darkness.
God is Love, Satan is Hate.
God is Humility, Satan is Sovereignty.

The war declared by Satan to man in hatred of God has assumed so vast and grand proportions in its horrible reality that it has no comparison in human history.

The war, in general, is formed by a chain of battles. This battle, of a war that will continue until the end of time, is the greatest and dreadful one. Its epilogue is not far off, it will happen by the direct intervention of the Mother of mine and yours.

She will crush the Serpent's head again. She, the humble Servant of the Lord, by her humility has overcome pride and pride, and will definitely overcome it at the end of time.

Satan is darkness and therefore he does not see. His desperate pride prevents him.

 

Nevertheless he fears the defeat of this battle, which for him will be a cause of shameful debasement, while for my purified Church will be a long period of peace and so will be for the newly healed people of the many evils they suffer today.

This is why Satan has committed all his possibilities and those of his legions.

All the cunning, all the insidias of his corrupted nature but rich in innumerable gifts of power, intelligence and will, are used in his mad attempt, born and matured in him from the moment of his rebellion to God.

Destroy Me, the Christ, the Word of God made Flesh, and the Church out of my open Heart are the goal desperately longed for, and tenaciously pursued.

Close your eyes

But the crazy blindness has made him commit numerous tactical errors, typical of that of discovering too much.
 

An insightful general never lets his plans glimpse at his enemies, knowing full well that this is an unpardonable recklessness. Instead Satan has discovered many of his letters.

This is why My Vicar on earth has recently been able to say that today in the Church there are facts that can not be explained humanly: in them the direct interventions of the Prince of Darkness are evident.

However Bishops, Priests and almost all of the faithful do not see. They do not see because they close their eyes to the light, because they have their minds and hearts wrapped in darkness.

When Paul VI said: "The smoke of Hell has entered the Church" what did he mean? The contagion of Satan has entered the Church. The contagion of Satan is pride, pride.

I repeat: Satan in his mad, desperate illusion intends as a main objective to erase from the face of the earth Me, the Eternal Word of God and naturally with Me, to My Church out of my open Heart. I would like to annihilate the Mystery of the Incarnation, reason and cause of the liberation of humanity from its tyranny.

With the fall of Adam and Eve he thought to have defeated God, to have secured for ever a complete dominion over the children of guilt; He was convinced that he had snatched away his creatures by deception and cunning to God the Creator by subjecting them to his undeniable dominion, in time and in eternity.

But God is Love and with the unanimous concurrence of the divine Trinity, the Mystery of Salvation was decreed: hence the relentless hatred of Satan against God and against man.

Victory in your hands

 

Nowadays Satan, being darkness does not have the right vision of things, is convinced that he has the victory in his hands so that not without dramatic, horrible and dreadful convulsions he will let escape his prey, which is the humanity infected by his Evil: pride and presumption.

 

This war will have its epilogue to the end of time, but war is a chain of battles as I said; And the battle now in action is the largest, after the battle by St. Michael and his legions against the rebel powers.

Many battles have since been fought over the centuries but none of these are comparable to this present battle in which nations and peoples from all over the world are included.

...

I who am Wisdom, Mercy, Love and Omnipotence will know how to bend the dark manoeuvers and the crazy pride of Satan and his legions to get a triumph from all this; My Church purified.

Woe to those, my son, who refuse to see! An act of sincere humility is enough to allow light to seep into their souls.

Foolish and foolish if they persist in resisting the Love that wants them saved. Do they not know and do not think what they are giving up? Do they not know and do not think about what they are addressing?

You see in this my son, how much darkness has become in My Church ...

The earth is a place of exile, the whole Humanity is on the march towards the Eternity.

The materialism

Materialism, the incarnation of Satan, denying and replacing God intends to give men a paradise here on earth, a happiness that she does not possess and therefore can not give.

A tragic lie, a shrewd deception to which many Christians, priests and even Bishops have clung in the name of progress, forgetting the end of Creation and of Redemption!

This is why we are no longer talking about the New Ones, the true enemy of man, the sin with which Satan's work is identified. Bishops, many priests, are responsible for this.

Almost all Christians have allowed themselves to be seduced by straying from the straight path. Meanwhile every man as an individual is on the march towards Eternity, or eternal joy or eternal damnation.

The man, the prey of Satan, is at the centre of a furious struggle of Satan, unleashed to snatch it from God who, with a providential design, has sent to the earth his Word made Flesh, to liberate man and thus to give him primitive grandeur, Dignity and freedom.

Who is it to guide man on his earthly journey and pilgrimage?

To My Church.

But in my Church the Prince of darkness has brought his contagion: pride and pride, obscuring minds and hardening hearts.

The church is mine

But the Church, my son, is mine!

She has come out of My Heart Merciful and open.

I want My Church: one and holy, pure and resplendent of my Doctrine and not divided by heretics in opposition to perennial contrast between themselves. And so it will be after the near purification.

I have triumphed as I told you, in suffering and in pain and so it will be for My Church.

I have known hours of darkness, I have known violence and humiliations of all kinds. I even shouted, "Father, my Father, why have you forsaken me?" This cry will lift many of my children to Heaven in the height of their passion.

But can God who is Love, abandon his children whom he has loved and loved from all eternity?

The woman in labour groans, but then rejoices because she has given birth to a son.

It is time for the grain thrown into the bosom of the earth to decompose and then bear much fruit.

The time is near when my Church will groan in the fierce and unheard of persecution to be reborn One, Pure, Holy and Immaculate.

She will be the mother of the peoples who will gather under her wings and in peace and justice, she will be a teacher and sure guide for all men of good will.

Here's why I tell you: it's urgent to do it soon. I want bishops and priests to prepare themselves in humility and penance, in prayer that must be unanimous. Do not forget that My Passion followed My Resurrection.

I bless you, my son.

Grant me your sufferings, console My Heart pierced by the harshness and insensitivity of my redeemed, my ministers and those whom I have called and loved as brothers and friends.

 

From "Confidences of Jesus to a Priest" - 2 November 1975 - Don Ottavio Michelini (14 August 1906 - 15 October 1979) of Mirandola, Italy, considered to be a mystic.

Venerable Fulton Sheen: a prophecy for our times?

 

[Satan] will set up a Counter-church, which will be the ape of the Church. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. We are living in the days of the Apocalypse, the last days of our era. The two great forces - the Mystical Body of Christ and the Mystical Body of the Antichrist - are beginning to draw battle lines for the catastrophic contest.

The False Prophet will have a religion without a cross. A religion without a world to come. A religion to destroy religions. There will be a Counterfeit Church. Christ's Church, the Catholic Church will be one, and the False Prophet will create the other. The False Church will be worldly, ecumenical, and global. It will be a loose federation of churches and religions, forming some type of global association, a world parliament of Churches. It will be emptied of all Divine content; it will be the mystical body of the Antichrist.

The Mystical Body on earth today will have its Judas Iscariot, and he will be the False Prophet. Satan will recruit him from our bishops. The Antichrist will not be so called; otherwise, he would have no followers. He will not wear red tights nor vomit sulphur nor carry a trident nor wave an arrowed tail as Mephistopheles in Faust. This masquerade has helped the Devil convince men that he does not exist. When no man recognizes, the more power he exercises. God has defined Himself as "I am Who Am," and the Devil as "I Am Who Am Not."

Nowhere in Sacred Scripture do we find warrant for the popular myth of the Devil as a buffoon who is dressed like the first "red." Rather is he described as an angel fallen from heaven, as "the Prince of This World," whose business it is to tell us that there is no other world. His logic is simple: if there is no Heaven, there is no Hell; if there is no Hell, then there is no sin; if there is no sin, then there is no judge; and if there is no judgment, then evil is good, and good is evil. But above all these descriptions, Our Lord tells us that he will be so much like Himself that he would deceive even the elect - and certainly no Devil ever seen in picture books could deceive even the elect.

How will he come in this new age to win followers to his religion? The pre-Communist Russian belief is that he will come disguised as the Great Humanitarian; he will talk peace, prosperity and plenty, not as means to lead us to God, but as ends in themselves. The third temptation, in which Satan asked Christ to adore Him and all the kingdoms of the world would be His, will become the temptation to have a new religion without a Cross, a liturgy without a world to come, a religion to destroy a religion, or a politics which is a religion - one that renders unto Caesar even the things that are God's.

In the midst of all his seeming love for humanity and his glib talk of freedom and equality, he will have one great secret which he will tell to no one: he will not believe in God. Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will set up a Counter-church which will be the ape of the Church, because he, the Devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ. But the twentieth century will join the Counter-church because it claims to be infallible when its visible head speaks ex cathedra from Moscow on the subject of economics and politics, and as chief shepherd of world Communism.  

Fulton J. Sheen, Communism and the Conscience of the West, Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, (1948), pp. 24-25.

Mass in the Extraordinary Form in Żabbar

Pro Tridentina (Malta) is informed that, apart from the traditional Latin Mass (aka Tridentine Mass) in Birkirkara, celebrated every Sunday in Birkirkara by the Diocesan Chaplain for the Extraordinary Form of the Mass in Malta, Canon Doublet, the Tridentine Mass is also being celebrated in Żabbar.

It would be appreciated if anyone from Żabbar, or who attends this Mass, can inform this Blog in which church or chapel it is celebrated, and at what time. A regular Tridentine Mass in the South of Malta is much needed.

Christmas Season in Birkirkara

Quotes to reflect upon (13)

Sir Alec Guinness in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

“Much water has flown under Tiber's bridges, carrying away splendour and mystery from Rome, since the pontificate of Pius XII. The essentials, I know, remain firmly entrenched and I find the post-Conciliar Mass simpler and generally better than the Tridentine; but the banality and vulgarity of the translations which have ousted the sonorous Latin and little Greek are of a super-market quality which is quite unacceptable. Hand-shaking and embarrassed smiles or smirks have replaced the older courtesies; kneeling is out, queueing is in, and the general tone is rather like a BBC radio broadcast for tiny tots (so however will they learn to put away childish things?) The clouds of incense have dispersed, together with many hidebound, blinkered and repressive attitudes, and we are left with social messages of an almost over-whelming progressiveness. The Church has proved she is not moribund. ‘All shall be well,’ I feel, ‘and all manner of things shall be well,’ so long as the God who is worshipped is the God of all ages, past and to come, and not the idol of Modernity, so venerated by some of our bishops, priests and mini-skirted nuns.” Sir Alec Guinness in Blessings in Disguise.

Important announcement

Those interested in joining Pro Tridentina (Malta) are kindly asked to meet one of the member of the provisional Committee who will be attending Mass in the Extraordinary Form on the dates indicated in the poster or every Sunday at 19:00.

 

SPREAD THE WORD!

Festa tal-Beatu Karlu I tal-Awstrija

Bi pjaċir inħabbru li l-Festa Liturġika tal-Beatu Karlu I tal-Awstrija ser tiġi ċċelebrata permezz ta` Quddiesa bil-Forma Straordinarja tar-Rit Latin fil-Knisja ta` San Pawl tal-Wied f`Birkirkara l-Ħadd 23 ta` Ottubru, 2016 fis-7:00 pm. Kulħadd huwa mistieden biex jingħaqad mal-membri tal-Moviment ta` Talb tal-Imperatur Karlu għal din l-okkażżjoni. Wara jsir il-bews tar-Relikwija u ser jiġi inawgurat inkwatru tal-Beatu Karlu I li ser ikun espost permanenti f` din il-knisja.

Aktar tagħrif fuq: Emperor Karl League of Prayers for Peace among Nations

New schedule for TLM in Birkirkara