Chevetogne Abbey

I've been rather a westerner in both theology and liturgy but the most likely candidate for union in the West, the Anglican Communion, continues down its path to oblivion, we must look East in bringing more of people who claim to confess Christ into the One True Fold.

I've never been to an Eastern liturgy and my experience of it remains the testimony of others. All has been good so far - the most common sentiments being the air of mystery and holiness which of which we have lost in the new latin rite.




Chevetogne Abbey is in Belgium and is dedicated to just such unity. Founded in 1925 by Dom Lambert Beauduin. The Abbey has two churches, one Latin and one Byzantine. The canonical hours are said separately but the monks eat together and are under a single Abbot.

You can have a look at their website here:

Chevetogne Abbey

Feast of Christ the King. . . Again

Today, the Feast of Christ the King, has been an odd one for for the past two years. I'm sure many traditional Catholics, or at least bi-ritual Catholics, feel the same way. I already celebrated this festival earlier on the year, you see.

It seems particuarly odd when we consider the present position of the old and new rites. We are told that they are not rites at all, but merely different uses, or forms, of the same Roman rite. In the middle ages, of course, when we had so much greater liturgical variety it would not have been uncommon for one feast to be on a different day to another in different rites or uses. Each use would have had a different priority for feasts. Those were, however, days when there was very little social mobility, if any mobility at all. People would live and die in the same village, the home of their ancestors and their descendents to come.

Now, however, when we all have, or should have, access to the different expressions of the same Roman Rite, surely some kind of harmonisation of the calendars is in order? Would the re-translation of the new missal not be a perfect time?