Events: Dr Kwasniewski's Lectures in Michigan, May 10–12

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On the weekend of May 10–12, I will be giving four lectures in the larger Detroit area: one in Detroit proper at Old St. Mary’s Church; two in Jackson at St. Mary Star of the Sea; and one in Windsor at St. Alphonsus. Each lecture will be followed by a Q&A period.

Happily, all three events start off with traditional Latin High Masses: signs of a new springtime, indeed! (A slogan comes to mind: “Taking the Extra- out of Extraordinary.”)

Copies of my three books on traditional Catholicism (Resurgent in the Midst of Crisis; Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness; and Tradition and Sanity) will be available at each location.

I am looking forward to meeting many new people as well as friends and acquaintances who live in the area!

Details (dates, locations, and times) may be found in the posters below. Further information about the Jackson conference may be found here.

As a side-note: the lecture at St. Alphonsus in Windsor will be the fruit of my researches on the question of the “laws” of organic liturgical development, which I adumbrated in my Melbourne lecture on Paul VI’s general audiences, published at Rorate Caeli on April 2.

At the bottom of this post will be found the chart that I distributed on that occasion, which will form the basis for my in-depth reflections in Windsor. Since a chart does not explain itself, allow me to make one simple point for the moment: the identification of 1570 as a notable line between change and stability does not rest on attributing any “magical” properties to the work of Pius V or the missal he authorized, nor must it ignore the small changes that have occurred since that time. Rather, the point is that the Roman Rite had developed element by element until it received what may well be argued to be its definitive form, a form that perfectly reflected the traditional faith and practice of the Church as authoritatively summarized by the Council of Trent. In other words, it had achieved (relative) perfection as a liturgical rite, just as the Divine Liturgy of St John Chyrosostom had done somewhat earlier.

This, and not ossification or fossilization as the progressive liturgists like to say, is the fundamental reason for its immense strength, constancy, and immutability for 400 years afterwards. It would and should have continued along the same lines until the end of time (as indeed one may safely predict the Byzantine liturgical rites will do), had it not been for Pope Paul VI’s erroneous conceptions of modernity and modernization.

My lecture will identify five laws of liturgical development that we can derive from history and theology, on the basis of which we will be able to conclude that significant ritual overhaul is ruled out in principle and constitutes a sin against the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as there is resistance to Providence and the gifts of grace. In like manner, maintaining and celebrating the traditional liturgy of the Church is a work particularly pleasing to God, more meritorious and efficacious, inasmuch as it receives humbly and gratefully from His hands what He has been pleased to bestow upon the Church in her pilgrimage through the centuries, and offers it back to Him in union with the countless host whose lips have formed the same words, whose hands have made the same gestures.