Mrs Susan Horton, like many other lay people, spent many years working tirelessly to support the SSPX and she is sorely missed. The SSPX uses the Missal of 1962 in its liturgies and completely rejects Pope Paul's disembowelled "new rite" missal of 1970. Many, however, prefer the pre-1962 Missal (myself included) as the fullest expression of Catholic faith and worship. The SSPX has established schools throughout the world. In the UK its St Michael's School is almost the only school teaching the genuine and full Catholic faith. At the end of Part One, "the Bergoglian revolt" refers, of course, to the recent disastrous papacy of Pope Francis (Jorge Mario Bergoglio). "Indietrist" (backwardist) was his scornful insult directed at those who clung to the Tradition he actively attacked. For much more information see the SSPX English website!
Part Two uses the form of W.B. Yeats's "John Kinsella's Lament for Mrs Mary Moore" which is a wonderful poem but completely profane. I think I had thoughts of "cleansing it" by using it to memorialize Mrs Horton: perhaps I should have used a different form.
---------------
I.
What serendipity, though graced and guided
By His great hand, it is when unawares
One takes a step which, much like Frost’s forked path,
Results in life’s occasions – fruits or tares –
Resolving to a thankful final end.
Fierce Mrs Horton, keeper of the chapel’s
Devotionals and haut-indietrist book stall,
(A chapel served by faithful priests – “bad apples”
Written off by the Popes’ post-Council Church),
Took me in hand when first I found Tradition,
Guiding my doubtings Truthwards, quarantined
From Council shallowness and its admission
Of satan’s kitsch into the House of Faith.
One Sunday after Mass, knowing I lacked
A Missal, turning to a window ledge
Where books much-used but surplus now were stacked,
Selecting one she said, “Take this,” and thrust
A time-torn Missal in my hand. I gabbled
---------------
I.
What serendipity, though graced and guided
By His great hand, it is when unawares
One takes a step which, much like Frost’s forked path,
Results in life’s occasions – fruits or tares –
Resolving to a thankful final end.
Fierce Mrs Horton, keeper of the chapel’s
Devotionals and haut-indietrist book stall,
(A chapel served by faithful priests – “bad apples”
Written off by the Popes’ post-Council Church),
Took me in hand when first I found Tradition,
Guiding my doubtings Truthwards, quarantined
From Council shallowness and its admission
Of satan’s kitsch into the House of Faith.
One Sunday after Mass, knowing I lacked
A Missal, turning to a window ledge
Where books much-used but surplus now were stacked,
Selecting one she said, “Take this,” and thrust
A time-torn Missal in my hand. I gabbled
My thanks, retiring to inspect this prize
In a nearby café where, intrigued, I dabbled
Its dowdy pages, puzzling that there seemed
“Discrepancies” compared to the “Sixty-Two” –
The Missal used for all the chapel’s rites.
Well, frequent use, both home and in the pew,
Revealed the reason: Mrs Horton’s gift
Was of a 1940s Missal, thus
Complete with Great Week rites not yet “reformed”
And Calendar not yet “improved” – that fuss
For civil servants’ “tidiness” which broke
A generation’s faith, and as a gibe
Produced, at last, Pope Paul’s amoebic Mass,
Committee-made by men half-clown, half-scribe.
What depths of doctrine, nodes of pious truths,
What praisings’ vaults are held in that “old” book
Which sanctified worldwide the Church’s worship
Prior the Council’s folly, and with a look
Can crush the new rite’s tickbox childishness.
Dear Mrs Horton, what a seed you sowed!
I pray your Missal daily, loose with age,
Elastic-banded: foot-mate on the road,
Dialogist when at my desk, confessor
Crouched on my knees; and so until my death!
Enough. I thought to sketch and analyse,
To catch her whole, but that’s a waste of breath:
Suffice to say she was irascible
(To me, the backward-slider!), always tough,
Untiring, and insistent on the Truth
That is Tradition; so, she scorned the fluff
Posing for now as Catholic catechesis
(The Faith can neither change nor contradict
Itself), and saw the True Mass of the Martyrs
As guard and future of a Faith re-quicked
Once Rome’s louche love-clasp with the heresies
Was broken. Gone now to the Lord’s reward,
The chapel where she strove still thrives, its prayer
And sacramental life innately moored
In what the Church has always done (and meant) –
Refusing the Bergoglian revolt,
Its thuggish quackery. Her memory’s
In this: indomitable and sharp as salt!
II.
So often all the silent work,
Cleaning or making tea,
Is left to ladies “of an age”
Busy on foot or knee;
But Mrs Horton, though,
Most definitely was heard,
And those found threadbare in their faith
Could expect a “firming word;”
She’d nod and smile as long as you
Knew what it was you said:
Oh, what shall I do for bracing talk
Now Mrs Horton’s dead?
The great Archbishop, she’d no doubt,
Had pinned Rome to the wall,
Exposing all its fruitless fudge
Which double-crossed like Saul;
Lord help you if she thought
You’d snuffled at its hand,
For here was time for backboned men,
Prayerful, who’d understand
The faithful must their bishops teach,
Who’d rotted in the head:
Oh, what shall I do for truthful talk
Now Mrs Horton’s dead?
And so, she urged the need for schools,
Training the Catholic young
In saving Truths the hierarchs,
Traitor-like, thought were dung.
Helping St Michael’s School
She gave her time and soul,
That youth be primed to enter life
Playing a Christian role;
For only then might most be moved
To put on Christ instead:
Oh, what shall I do for gainful talk
Now Mrs Horton’s dead?
====================
© December 2023 – January 2024
The Missal used for all the chapel’s rites.
Well, frequent use, both home and in the pew,
Revealed the reason: Mrs Horton’s gift
Was of a 1940s Missal, thus
Complete with Great Week rites not yet “reformed”
And Calendar not yet “improved” – that fuss
For civil servants’ “tidiness” which broke
A generation’s faith, and as a gibe
Produced, at last, Pope Paul’s amoebic Mass,
Committee-made by men half-clown, half-scribe.
What depths of doctrine, nodes of pious truths,
What praisings’ vaults are held in that “old” book
Which sanctified worldwide the Church’s worship
Prior the Council’s folly, and with a look
Can crush the new rite’s tickbox childishness.
Dear Mrs Horton, what a seed you sowed!
I pray your Missal daily, loose with age,
Elastic-banded: foot-mate on the road,
Dialogist when at my desk, confessor
Crouched on my knees; and so until my death!
Enough. I thought to sketch and analyse,
To catch her whole, but that’s a waste of breath:
Suffice to say she was irascible
(To me, the backward-slider!), always tough,
Untiring, and insistent on the Truth
That is Tradition; so, she scorned the fluff
Posing for now as Catholic catechesis
(The Faith can neither change nor contradict
Itself), and saw the True Mass of the Martyrs
As guard and future of a Faith re-quicked
Once Rome’s louche love-clasp with the heresies
Was broken. Gone now to the Lord’s reward,
The chapel where she strove still thrives, its prayer
And sacramental life innately moored
In what the Church has always done (and meant) –
Refusing the Bergoglian revolt,
Its thuggish quackery. Her memory’s
In this: indomitable and sharp as salt!
II.
So often all the silent work,
Cleaning or making tea,
Is left to ladies “of an age”
Busy on foot or knee;
But Mrs Horton, though,
Most definitely was heard,
And those found threadbare in their faith
Could expect a “firming word;”
She’d nod and smile as long as you
Knew what it was you said:
Oh, what shall I do for bracing talk
Now Mrs Horton’s dead?
The great Archbishop, she’d no doubt,
Had pinned Rome to the wall,
Exposing all its fruitless fudge
Which double-crossed like Saul;
Lord help you if she thought
You’d snuffled at its hand,
For here was time for backboned men,
Prayerful, who’d understand
The faithful must their bishops teach,
Who’d rotted in the head:
Oh, what shall I do for truthful talk
Now Mrs Horton’s dead?
And so, she urged the need for schools,
Training the Catholic young
In saving Truths the hierarchs,
Traitor-like, thought were dung.
Helping St Michael’s School
She gave her time and soul,
That youth be primed to enter life
Playing a Christian role;
For only then might most be moved
To put on Christ instead:
Oh, what shall I do for gainful talk
Now Mrs Horton’s dead?
====================
© December 2023 – January 2024
