It was an age of the great charity which impelled missionaries to cross both endless seas and narrow channels. They bore in their hands the greatest tool for evangelisation Holy Church has ever wielded, the Roman Missal. St Pius V issued it in 1570 at the behest of the Council of Trent, and great saints took it to the corners of the earth. Holy Mass brought converts and martyrs to nourish the seeds of Faith wherever it was prayed, in a mysterious bond of unity with other Catholics, bridging the globe and binding the centuries.
Last Sunday, I celebrated Holy Mass in the Traditional Roman Rite in Tokyo. In the mostly Japanese congregation there were also people from Europe, India, other parts of Asia, North America, etc. They all sang the ancient Latin responses as one voice and soul. I remarked that had my congregation in Madison, Wisconsin, been there, they would have been quite at home, or had the Japanese and others been transported to Madison, they would all have fitted in. Had they been suddenly translated to the London Oratory, everyone would have prayed together in harmony. The common, ancient Rite binds us together across borders and epochs, even beyond the doors of death to anticipate the heavenly worship before God’s throne.
Speaking of Pius V, also in 1570 he excommunicated Elizabeth I, thus fuelling the murderous persecution of many English martyrs which would last till 1680. On the other side of the world, in Japan, missionaries brought the Mass and Faith and inspired tens of thousands of converts. Their persecution and martyrdom coincided in part with that of their English brethren. Hundreds were slain in Japan from 1597 to 1639. Meanwhile, in North America, not so far relatively speaking from the aforementioned Madison, more missionaries were martyred from 1642 to 1649. Had any one them been suddenly plucked like Philip the Deacon (Acts 8:39) and moved from Tokyo to Madison to London of those days, they would have prayed with the same language, gestures, and register of heart and mind. We are our rites.
On Sunday, since this week brings the feast of the Conversion of St Paul, Apostle to the Nations, after praying the collect (the liturgical “unicorn” of last week), I added a second collect “for the unity of the Church”. It begins, “O God, who corrects what has gone astray and gathers the dispersed, and preserves what was gathered …”
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