Chapter 9: Ubi Caritas

Chapter 9 of Dr Edward Schaeffer's new book, A Simple Man’s Case for Tradition, written for the average Catholic in the pew, not a professional "liturgist".

From One Peter Five

By Edward Schaeffer, PhD

Editor’s note: we continue our weekly serialisation of Dr. Edward Schaefer’s new book A Simple Man’s Case for Tradition. This book is an excellent introduction to Traditionalism and provides an easy way for Trads to introduce the movement to fellow Catholics who are seeking deeper answers to today’s questions. Proceeds from the book sale also help promote the Collegium Sanctorum Angelorum, one of only two traditional Catholic colleges in the United States.

Read the Introduction
Read Chapter 1: Equally Valid and Holy
Read Chapter 2: the New Mass
Read Chapter 3: Latin

Read Chapter 4: Practice and Belief

Read Chapter 5: One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic

Read Chapter 6: Modernism

Read Chapter 7: Tradition and the Family

Read Chapter 8:By Their Fruits Ye Shall Know Them

On Maundy Thursday during the ceremony of the Washing of the Feet, the antiphon Ubi caritas at amor, Deus ibi est (Where charity and love are, there is God) is sung. 

Through this antiphon, we are drawn to contemplate the love of Christ as He humbled Himself to wash the feet of His disciples, a love that would be consummated by His sacrifice on the Cross the next day.  Too, as Christ washed the feet of His disciples, He reminded them: “For I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, do you do also.”[1]  Indeed, Charity is the greatest virtue.[2]  St. Paul calls charity “the bond of perfection,”[3] because the more perfect our charity, the closer we come to God – Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.

The ultimate goal of our charity, our love, is God.  The greatest commandment is “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind.”[4]  However, “the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.  On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets.”[5]  Our love of God is shown through our love of neighbor.  Indeed, charity is the hallmark of a Christian life.

Charity lived

This idea is captured beautifully in a short story, entitled Where Love Is, There God Is Also, by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy.  The story relays the trials of Martin, a cobbler, who loses his wife and his son.  As Martin struggles to find the will of God in his suffering, he hears the voice of God telling him that He would visit him the next day. 

The next day, while Martin waits for God to appear, he invites Stepanitch, who is cold from shoveling snow, into his home for a warm drink.  Later in the same day he sees a young woman outside with a baby not dressed warmly enough.  He invites them into his home, where he feeds them and gives the baby warm clothes.  Finally, still waiting for God to appear, he sees a young boy stealing from an old woman.  Martin rushes out and settles the dispute, extending compassion to both the woman and the boy.

That evening, while Martin wonders why God had not visited him, the three figures he had helped that day appear to him and tell him that when he helped them, he was helping God.  Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.

Charity Largely Abandoned

In 1969 when the novus ordo Missae was promulgated, there was a ruthless push to purge the TLM from the Church, that is, there was a push to purge the Mass that had been passed down from the Apostles, nurtured, preserved and protected through the centuries, and to replace it with a new Mass that was created by a committee, which was directed by a priest who manipulated the work of the committee through lies and deceit,[6] and that was modeled on the communion service of Thomas Cranmer in the English Revolution.[7]

Few Catholics understood what was happening at the time, but the few who did were treated mercilessly.  Perhaps the best known of such individuals was Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who asked in the new age of experimentation, to be permitted to “experiment with tradition.”  Only one bishop was charitable enough to grant Lefebvre his request, Bishop Charrière.[8]  The rest of the Church excoriated him.

In 1984, the Congregation for Divine Worship, at the direction of Pope John Paul II, granted bishops the authority to permit the TLM in an indult entitled Quattuor abhinc annos.[9]  However, this act of charity was ignored or resisted by many.  Few bishops granted the permission, and those who did, did so begrudgingly. 

Twenty-one years later, in 2007, Pope Benedict XVI, granted wider use of the TLM in his motu proprio ‘Summorum Pontificum.’[10]This led to a much wider use of the TLM, with some bishops welcoming the TLM and others continuing to resist it. 

In 2021, Pope Francis issued a new motu proprio ‘Traditionis Custodes,’[11] which has mercilessly undone the charity of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, and stated in clear terms his intention to eliminate the TLM. 

Whatever one may think about the novus ordo Missae or the TLM, the overwhelming attitude of most of the Church hierarchy has been uncharitable  toward the TLM.  It has not been a Church that would have given Stepanitch a warm drink, or a cold baby warm clothes, or dealt with the old woman and the thieving young boy with compassion. 

Where Charity and Love Are

On the other hand, I have rarely seen Catholics who embrace tradition – whether bishops or faithful – excoriate people who embrace the novus ordo Missae.  In fact, traditionally minded Catholics are happy to attend the Latin Mass at the odd hours allocated to them, when they are permitted to have Mass at all.  They are happy to have Mass in fire stations or church halls when they are kicked out of parish churches.  They are willing to travel distances without complaint to attend the TLM.  They have no ill will toward anyone, even if they are frustrated by the poor treatment they receive.  They are motivated by love, the love of the TLM.

Conclusion

If, indeed, God is present where charity and love are, then a good place to find Him is in the TLM and among those who embrace it.  Obviously not all traditional Catholics live up to demands of Christian charity – we all fall short of the demands of Christian perfection in love. But even if someone disagrees that the novus ordo Missae is problematic at all, the least that must be said is that the TLM communities are a persecuted minority who are simply trying to practice the Faith and liturgy the way everyone’s grandparents and great-grandparents did before the Council.  This is why, after Traditionis Custodes, even many Catholics who attend the new Mass have now begun to publicly defend the TLM and the TLM communities.

Continued next week.