Mrs. Giardiniera

I remember after they introduced the "New Mass", suddenly, and traumatically, we no longer wore veils. I felt naked without my veil. I can trace the unraveling of my life to the decimation of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Prior to the demolition of the Mass, as a child, I was a daily communicant. "St. Chrysostom says that at the time the priest ‘celebrates the angels there assist, and that at the hour of the Offering the altar is surrounded with angels. And he says that he had heard it related by a trustworthy person that an old man, a great servant of God, had seen suddenly descend from heaven a great multitude of angels, and that the altar was surrounded by them, vested in such bright robes that the sight dazzled his eyes, bowing down like soldiers before their King. ‘‘ So I can well believe,’’ says this glorious Saint, ‘since where the King is, there the courtiers are.’ And St. Gregory says: “Who doubts but that, in the hour in which this holy Sacrifice is offered, at the voice of the priest the heavens are opened, and the courtiers of heaven come down along with Christ, and the whole place is encompassed with choirs, of angels, like good courtiers in attendance on their King?’’ And thus many Saints explain that passage of St. Paul, where he commands women to have their heads covered in church, giving as his reason, propter angelos, ‘‘ for the sake of the angels"(1 Cor. xi, 10)." ~~Excerpt from Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues, The Manresa Press: Roehampton, London, Saint Alphonsus Rodríguez, SJ, 1929. Image: Saint Gabriel the Archangel, Francisco de Zurbarán, c. 1631.