For What Did Christ Die?

As many of my regular readers know, one neo-trad site that I find worthwhile is New Liturgical Movement.  While those contributors whose focus is on the philosophical merits of restoring the pre-conciliar rites are generally not worth the time, there are frequent articles on historical points that give interesting insights into the history and development of our Catholic, indeed our Christian, faith.  In our storehouse of Catholicism’s two millennia of treasures there are more than some old gilt chairs that broke under the weight of the fat arse of some doddering prelate.  We have Chartres and the In Paradisum and blue as a liturgical color.  (In fact we have yellow as a liturgical color which is really a bit outré.)  We have Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus and the Canon of Addai and Mara, and the Easter Sepulcher and the hymns of the Roman Breviary.   Some, many, of the old things are probably best left in the storeroom, but some really need to be taken out a bit more often and polished-up and used.  But in doing so we always need to ask ourselves: What is the Church for which Jesus gave his life? 

There was a great video of the coronation of Pius XII (March 12, 1939) on the site.  It led me to a host of other old videos of the old days of prelates clad in silks and furs like Hollywood starlets or the San Francisco Gay Pride parade. (C’mon boys, even Cardinal Burke says that men should dress like men. Not that he practices what he preaches.) It is a reminder that to work on reinforcing our liturgy with elements both old and new is the work of wise stewards, but to build kingdoms other than the Kingdom of God is to make a mockery of the Cross.