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Vatican Takes over Liturgical Art and Architecture

The controversial Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove California (Image borrowed here)

Great news that just gave me a brilliant idea for a thesis proposal next year! 

(Vatican Insider) - A team has been set up, to put a stop to garage style churches, boldly shaped structures that risk denaturing modern places for Catholic worship. Its task is also to promote singing that really helps the celebration of mass. The “Liturgical art and sacred music commission” will be established by the Congregation for Divine Worship over the coming weeks. This will not be just any office, but a true and proper team, whose task will be to collaborate with the commissions in charge of evaluating construction projects for churches of various dioceses. The team will also be responsible for the further study of music and singing that accompany the celebration of mass.

Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Benedict XVI, consider this work as “very urgent”. The reality is staring everyone in the eyes: in recent decades, churches have been substituted by buildings that resemble multi purpose halls. Too often, architects, even the more famous ones, do not use the Catholic liturgy as a starting point and thus end up producing avant-garde constructions that look like anything but a church. These buildings composed of cement cubes, glass boxes, crazy shapes and confused spaces, remind people of anything but the mystery and sacredness of a church. Tabernacles are semi hidden, leading faithful on a real treasure hunt and sacred images are almost inexistent. The new commission’s regulations will be written up over the next few days and will give precise instructions to dioceses. It will only be responsible for liturgical art, not for sacred art in general; and this also goes for liturgical music and singing too. The judicial powers of the Congregation for Divine Worship will have the power to act.

Continue reading full article here.

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Life is too short to defy God's will.

Away from you, O Lord, to whom then shall we ever go?

Movie Premier: Cristiada

Behind the scenes (Image retrieved from Google)

After my last flick fest with There Be Dragons, I'm on the look-out for the premier of this cool movie that is currently in its post production. 

Cristiada is about the Cristero War in Mexico in 1926 to 1929 sparked by the anti-clerical and anti-Catholic persecution of the atheist government of then president, Plutarco Elías Calles. He ordered the massacre of Catholics and attempted to secularize the country by stripping away religion. The film follows the life of ordinary citizens who decide to stand up against the corrupt and poorly-directed government to fight for their religious freedom!

The movie stars heavyweight Hollywood stars such as Andy Garcia, Eva Longoria, Eduardo Verastegui, and Peter O’Toole. The film is directed by Dean Wright who is veteran visual effects supervisor on blockbuster films including The Lord of the Rings series The Two Towers (2002) and The Return of the King (2003). This is his directorial debut.

A favorite blogger writes, "Have this film known so you and especially your kids might know the atrocities committed against Catholics by those who tout "human rights" and "separation of church and state" as infallible dogmas."

Christ the King!

Here are links to cool articles on scriptural and theological reflections on the readings for The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King.

• What is the "Kingdom of God" and How Can I Join? by Nicholas Hardesty
• Christ the King and the Works of Mercy by Fr. Jojo Zerrudo - Sense of the Sacred
• Who will judge and who will be judged on the last day? by Fr. Ryan Erlenbush
• Jesus Christ, Shepherd and King by Carl E. Olson
• The King and His Kingdom by Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar - Ignatius Insight

In a Nutshell: The New Roman Missal

Cool video from Life Teen: 

Mark Hart helps high school teens understand HOW and WHY the words of the Mass are changing. Mark compares the "dynamic equivalent" and the "formal equivalent" of how we translate words from Latin to English, and then explains the elaborate process used to create the new Roman Missal.

The challenge for us is to study, to be obedient and to embrace this new Roman Missal with love.


UPDATE: Fr. Timoteo, Ofrasio, SJ on the new English translation of the Roman Missal and Liturgical Renewal :)

Dark Night of the Soul

And God does not hesitate to ask for a more radical self-surrender from those who love him. By an apparent anomaly, he takes the sense of his presence away from them. Their prayers stop in their lips under the blow of a sudden thought: 'Is anyone listening to me?' They have to question themselves on the truths of the faith: 'Is it true?' They fulfill their daily tasks without joy, the impression that their life is useless. This is the supreme purification, the hour when one must believe in shadows, hope against hope, and love in a void. It is the hour of the great dereliction that Jesus knew on the Cross, but also the hour of our salvation.

All the saints have gone through this dark night of the soul. With less violence and a shorter duration, all the Christian faithful pass through eclipses of faith.The believer advances in the shadows with the certitude that even if he should see nothing more, God is always watching him.

x George Chevrot, The Eight Beatitudes, Ch.xxii, p.168-9

I dedicate this post for a a particular blogger. Just some food for thought. Instantly remembered your latest post while reading this paragraphs. I hope this might uplift you in some ways. I've been reading a lot of your posts tagged in 'faith.' Hehe. Bro, never doubt his presence :) Kaya natin to!

Vocation to Suffer

But the true drama for the Christian who takes the Gospel seriously is that he cannot live in a just world, because he exists in a social state which is in contradiction with his ideals of brotherhood and holiness. As a member of that society, he cannot stop the sin, which he abhors, from being committed. He must live and suffer in this continual tension.

It is in this terrible contradiction that we Christians, like the Lamb of God, bear 'the sins of the world,' and by this laceration of our consciences and our hearts we continue the sufferings of the Saviour, who was crucified for the redemption of men. It is our vocation to suffer this torture, to endure the solitude of the Cross in the midst of the multitude, to be shrouded in the shadows of Golgotha and to have only the bitterness of our failures to quench our thirst for justice.

 X George Chevrot, The Eight Beatitudes, Ch.xix. p.144-5

Movie Premier: There Be Dragons

There Be Dragons is a drama which explores themes such as betrayal, forgiveness, friendship, and finding the meaning of life in everyday life. The movie is about 

people trying to find meaning about their lives.

Synopsis and Themes from Wikipedia: 

The epic film tells the story of a Spanish journalist, Robert, who is mending relations with his dying father, Manolo, who took part in the Spanish Civil War. The journalist discovers through his investigations that his father was a close childhood friend of Josemaría Escrivá, a candidate for sainthood, with whom he had a complicated relationship. Manolo became a soldier during the Spanish Civil War and became obsessed with a beautiful Hungarian revolutionary, Ildiko. She rejects him and gives herself to a brave militia leader Oriol. Manolo becomes jealous and takes a path of betrayal.

The film includes the early life of Josemaría Escrivá, a modern-day saint and the founder of Opus Dei, an institution of the Catholic Church which teaches that ordinary human life is a path to sanctity. Escrivá, who died in 1975, was canonized by John Paul II in 2002. Director Roland Joffé, who initially shied away from the project, was "ultimately intrigued by the chance to dramatize the life of a modern-day saint, particularly considering Escrivá's 'liberating' view that a path to God could be found in an ordinary life."

According to Joffé, they are "making a film about love, human love and divine love, about hate, about betrayal, about war, about mistakes, about everything it is to be a human being." The theme of forgiveness, says Charlie Cox, who plays St. Josemaria, is "always going to be a key when you're talking about Christianity at all, especially if you’re talking about a man who is canonized." Josemaria, Cox adds, "understood that the reason one must forgive is because that hatred and that anger and that resentment lives in you."

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Tara na sa Trinoma on Novermber 9! Haha. Who's coming with me to see this film?

Developments

Ang paghihintay ay may kasamang paghahanda.

+36th Sunday in Ordinary time, Matthew xxv. 1-13

• My preliminary research for next semester's thesis have begun. I'm taking the lead in doing a subject that involves a project for a fraternal benefit society implementing an ecclesiastical approach through sacred art and architecture :) I'll be making templates for the chapters of my thesis study starting tomorrow. haha! 
• There have been developments regarding my application for a particular religious congregation. I'll be visiting their convent from time to time to be familiarized with their apostolate. I'm super excited about this :D 
• I have to work still with a lot of personal issues. There have been a few set-backs :( but I'm no ready to give up on this one yet. May the Lord be with me in my daily walk to sanctity. I have a whole semester to perk things up and probably the rest of my life dedicated to ministry, study and prayer :)

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‎'Do not back out because you have not yet fully stifled your evil tendencies: 

he will remove them for you if you want him to.' 

+George Chevrot, The Eight Beatitudes, Ch.8, p.129