A Pentecost Pensive

From this weekend's edition of "The Lewis County Catholic Times"

We have spoken on a couple of occasions about the four axes of the liturgical year—both historically and in our modern times—on which the entire Mystery of the Life of Christ reveals itself through our common worship.  These days are Christmas, Epiphany, the Paschal Triduum, and Pentecost.  Each in their own way manifests to the world a fundamental aspect of who Jesus is, of what his mission of Salvation has achieved, and how we are called to respond to it.

Of course we know all about Christmas.  Not only is the event poignant and heart-warming, but it also has lent itself to cultural appropriation.  It has joined so seamlessly with our own consumerist mentality, wherein the likes of Charles Dickens, Bing Crosby, Frank Capra, et al., have helped to form the Courier & Ives-esque image of a day that hinges on the retail-industrial complex.  We not only enjoy it—we base our national economic well-being on it.

Easter holds its own and gets a fair amount of attention.  But even though it has traditionally been THE holy day for the Church throughout history, in our culture it always plays second fiddle to Christmas.  The songs just aren’t as catchy as Christmas carols, Easter baskets cannot hold a candle to presents under a tree, and the Easter Bunny is no match for Santa Claus! 

Epiphany has almost become a throw-away day, being transferred here and there on the calendar in order to accommodate the increasingly busy schedules of western Catholics.  As the 12^th day of Christmas, it is the day on which the Christ Child is manifested to the whole world as King and Savior through the eyes of the Magi.  But it rarely gets the recognition it deserves.

Historically, as has been featured in this publication before, Epiphany and Pentecost were the two hinges of the “ordinary time” of the calendar.  But those days were far from ordinary, as they were firmly rooted in the theme of the particular days.  So if Epiphany focused on the saving action of Christ in his earthly ministry, then Pentecost is given to us for the purpose of taking that message out to the world.

Pentecost (which means “fifty”) was celebrated by the Hebrew people to mark 50 days after Passover.  One of the three pilgrimage feasts of Israel (cf. Leviticus 23, Deuteronomy 16), it was not originally associated with an historical event, a la Hanukkah or Passover.  In Leviticus it is called “The Feast of Weeks,” a one-day festival that marked the beginning of harvest season.  Both Leviticus and Deuteronomy stress that, during the harvest, special consideration was to be given to provide for the poor and the aliens in the land (Lev. 23:22, Deut. 16:11-12).  Based on dates that we can glean from Exodus 19:1 (when the Hebrews arrived at Mt. Sinai) the feast of Pentecost was expanded to include a commemoration of God giving the Law to His people.  The Book of Ruth, with its themes of harvest, was often read at this time in Jewish tradition.  For Catholics, our own liturgical tradition yielded Rogation Days (which exist in law but rarely in practice), which were days of intense prayer directed by a Diocesan Bishop principally for the intention of a good crop yield.  For reference, the Rogation Days which were built into the liturgical calendar up until 1969 would have been observed just a couple of weeks ago.

Often when we think of Pentecost we link it to thoughts of the Birthday of the Church.  On the day of Pentecost, according to the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, God poured out the Holy Spirit on Our Lady and the Apostles, endowing them with the Gifts of the Spirit that they would need to fulfill his Great Commission to go out and make disciples of all nations. 

This day, then, should be an occasion for us as the Church of Christ to celebrate.  And yet what is generally regarded as the day dedicated to “the forgotten Person of the Trinity” often becomes just another Sunday.  When we contrast the pomp and circumstance of Christmas and Easter with the relative silence of Pentecost, it is more than just a little perplexing.  Perhaps a cynic might view the situation according to a consumerist model: “If we can’t use it to buy/sell stuff, then it has no value.”

Perhaps we have forgotten the words of Jesus: “…it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7).  Jesus Himself tells us that the coming of the Holy Spirit is going to be the best thing that ever happens to us.  The outpouring of the Spirit is the capstone to everything that Jesus began in His earthly ministry.  He, who became incarnate, was revealed to the nations, was crucified, buried, raised, and ascended, is now enthroned in Heaven, and from that throne He sends His Spirit to enshrine in our hearts the New Covenant which He established in His Church.

“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah.  It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lrod.  But this is the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31: 31-34).
“I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.  A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances…” (Ezekiel 36:25-27).

And so the day that was originally identified with the giving of the Old Covenant Law now marks the New Covenant in action!  The giving of the Law, fulfilled in Christ Jesus, now progresses to the next great age of humanity in which God no longer gives us His Law in stone but writes it in the flesh of our hearts.  The announcement of the harvest now becomes beginning of gathering of the nations into the umbrella of the Church.  The command to remember the poor and dispossessed is fulfilled in the Body of Christ which becomes increasingly diverse and manifests itself in unselfish, self-sacrificial love for others.  The Risen and Victorious Lord, now seated at the right hand of the Father, pours out His Spirit on God’s people!

It is our day of victory, our day of joy, our day in which—once again—God fulfills His promise to His People.  May we all receive the Holy Spirit into our hearts with the joy and enthusiasm of the Apostles, that we, too, might go out to the world and make disciples of all nations!

What Do I See?

This morning I took a walk out my front door and over to the parish office, and I noticed something odd...what I presumed to be a piece of garbage on the top step leading to the main entrance of my church.  My first thought was one of frustration that someone would leave their rubbish behind, most especially in so disrespectful a fashion.  On closer inspection, the piece of paper was deliberately left there, held in place with a small rock.  I was perplexed for a variety of reasons.

First of all, who walks about town with notebook paper and a red marker?  Was my church the only site of such a message left behind?  Which direction was the anonymous author facing whilst sitting on the steps of my church?  Then I immediately began to hope that he was looking away from my church...not because of the object of his sight being called "Babylon"--we Catholics have been called far worse.  But because I worried that I had left a light on all night!

And I began to reflect on the question posed to me, the Priest of this Temple.  "What kind of world do we now live in?"  It's such a loaded question, the answer to which is difficult to give without some context.  Was the author still reeling from the much-publicized shootings in Louisiana and Texas?  Was this a victim of the devastating floods here in our own Mountain State?  What was it that so weighs on the soul of this individual that the need arose to leave a note?

In my few short weeks as the new parish priest in Weston, WV, I have encountered some exceptional people, some of whom are very spiritually gifted and from whom I expect to learn a great deal.  

Seeing the lights of Babylon from the steps of the Temple is an excellent image, as it reminds me that no matter how safe we may feel, no matter how comfortable we may be in our faith, or how righteous we see ourselves, the lights of Babylon burn brightly in our world--the lights of a civilization that stands opposed to right religion, that seeks our demise, that demands nothing less than full compliance with its hedonistic, godless view of life.  And we who stand at the gates of the Temple, guarding that which has been entrusted to us by God Almighty, must be vigilant and ever ready to defend the Temple from the forces of evil.  The lights of the army encamped against us burn bright in the darkness but are quickly dimmed by the radiance of the Morning Star, the Sun of Justice that never sets.

What kind of world do we live in?  A world besieged, beleaguered, broken, and debased.  But also a world redeemed. A world illumined by the light of Faith and the gleam of hope that enobles the hearts of men, drawing them from a place of fear and cowardice, and perching them on the pinnacle of Temple to cry out in a voice that speaks of Justice, of Peace, of the Reign of our Sovereign King and Lord, the Lion of Juda who extinguishes the lights of Babylon and drives into oblivion the armies of the Enemy!

Maybe this isn't the answer my unnamed scribe seeks.  Tonight I shall sit on the steps of the Temple and see what may be seen.  May my plea to God be ever the same as the words of Bartimaeus to Our Lord when asked what he should like Him to do: "Domine, it videam."  Lord, that I might see.

Some thoughts on Passiontide

For those of you paying attention, yesterday was the Fifth Sunday of Lent, commonly called Passion Sunday (not to be confused with Palm Sunday, on which the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ is first proclaimed).  Having noticed an outbreak of liturgical minimalism and spiritual mediocrity in my part of the world with regard to some of the most beautiful and ancient traditions that the Roman Rite has to offer vis a vis Passiontide, I submit to you some reflections from that indomitable liturgical scholar, Dom Prosper Guéranger, OSB.

During the preceding four weeks, we have noticed how the malice of Jesus' enemies has been gradually increasing.  His very presence irritates them; and it is evident that any little circumstance will suffice to bring the deep and long-nurtured hatred to a head.  The kind and gentle manners of Jesus are drawing to Him all hearts that are simple and upright; at the same time, the humble life He leads, and the stern purity of His doctrines, are perpetual sources of vexation and anger, both to the proud Jew that looks forward to the Messiah being a mighty conqueror, and to the pharisee, who corrupts the Law of God, that he may make it the instrument of his own base passions.  Still, Jesus goes on working miracles; His discourses are more than ever energetic; His prophecies foretell the fall of Jerusalem, and such a destruction of its famous temple, that not a stone is to be left on a stone.  

The doctors of the Law should, at least, reflect upon what they hear; they should examine these wonderful works, which render such strong testimony in favor of the Son of David; and they should consult those divine prophecies which, up to the present time, have been so literally fulfilled in His person.  Alas! they themselves are about to carry them out to the very last iota.  There is not a single outrage or suffering foretold by David and Isaiah, as having to be put upon the Messiah, which these blind men are not scheming to verify.  [And the same lamentable conduct that characterizes the Synagogue of the day] is but too often witnessed nowadays in those sinners, who, by habitual resistance to the light, end by finding their happiness in sin.  

Neither should it surprise us, that we we find in people of our own generation a resemblance to the murderers of our Jesus: the history of His Passion will reveal to us many sad secrets of the human heart and its perverse inclinations; for what happened in Jerusalem, happens also in every sinner's heart.  His heart, according to St. Paul, is a Calvary, where Jesus is crucified.  There is the same ingratitude, the same blindness, the same wild madness, with this difference: that the sinner who is enlightened by faith, knows Him whom he crucifies...

Everything around us urges us to mourn  The images of the saints, the very crucifix on our altar, are veiled from our sight.  The Church is oppressed with grief.  During the first four weeks of Lent, she compassionated her Jesus fasting in the desert; His coming sufferings and crucifixion and death are what now fill her with anguish...It is to express this deep humiliation that the Church veils the cross...Let us go back, in thought, to the sad day of the first sin, when Adam and Eve hid themselves because a guilty conscience told them they were naked...Our first parents sought to hide themselves from the sight of God.  But it will not be thus forever.

This Sunday is called Passion Sunday because the Church begins, on this day, to make the sufferings of our Redeemer her chief thought. 

We owe it to ourselves during this blessed Passiontide to seek to be drawn into the great salvific mystery of Christ's suffering and death by meditating day and night on how it was not the scribes and pharisees who crucified Our Lord, but our own sins--past, present, and future.  How great a mystery it is to contemplate how our sins--the very sins that scourged Him, that crowned Him with thorns, that placed a cross on His shoulders, that mocked and beat Him, that drove nails into His hands and feet, that pierced His heart with a lance--should be overcome by the very agony that they inflicted...that the great death that they brought about would ultimately be their very nullification!  

It's not too late for us all to make of this Passiontide an intense spiritual exercise by which we become more acutely aware of our sins, and by which we seek to hide ourselves from the gaze of Almighty God, that, in being truly repentant and seeking forgiveness, we might be called to that Heavenly Banquet wherein we may look upon the face of God and bask in the rays of His ineffable glory at Christ's Resurrection, and in the life to come!

(Cynical re-cap: Stop being pansies.  Veil your images.  Repent.  Acknowledge your sins.  Confess them. Gain Eternal Life.)

Thoughts on Silence - MUST READ!

Some thoughts on silence...  (h/t to Casa Santa Lidia)

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Pastoral Letter of Bishop Hugh, O.S.B.
Diocese of Aberdeen, Scotland

To be read and distributed at all Masses on the 3rd Sunday of Advent, 2011

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The Plague of Noise

We live in a noisy world. Our towns and cities are full of noise. There is noise in the skies and on the roads. There is noise in our homes, and even in our churches. And most of all there is noise in our minds and hearts.

Create Silence

The Danish philosopher Kierkegaard once wrote: 'The present state of the world and the whole of life is diseased. If I were a doctor and I were asked for my advice, I should reply: "Create silence! Bring people to silence!" The Word of God cannot be heard in the noisy world of today. And even if it were trumpeted forth with all the panoply of noise so that it could be heard in the midst of all the other noise, then it would no longer be the Word of God. Therefore, create silence!'

'Create silence!' There's a challenge here. Surely speaking is a good and healthy thing? Yes indeed. Surely there are bad kinds of silence? Yes again. But still Kierkegaard is on to something.

Without Silence No Meeting With God

There is a simple truth at stake. There can be no real relationship with God, there can be no real meeting with God, without silence. Silence prepares for that meeting and silence follows it. An early Christian wrote, 'To someone who has experienced Christ himself, silence is more precious than anything else.' For us God has the first word, and our silence opens our hearts to hear him. Only then will our own words really be words, echoes of God's, and not just more litter on the rubbish dump of noise.

The Silence of Our Lady, Saint Joseph, and John the Baptist

'How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given.' So the carol goes. For all the noise, rush and rowdiness of contemporary Christmasses, we all know there is a link between Advent and silence, Christmas and silence. Our cribs are silent places. Who can imagine Mary as a noisy person? In the Gospels, St Joseph never says a word; he simply obeys the words brought him by angels. And when John the Baptist later comes out with words of fire, it is after years of silence in the desert. Add to this the silence of our long northern nights, and the silence that follows the snow. Isn't all this asking us to still ourselves?

When Deep Silence Covered All Things

A passage from the Old Testament Book of Wisdom describes the night of Israel's Exodus from Egypt as a night full of silence. It is used by the liturgy of the night of Jesus' birth:

'When a deep silence covered all things and night was in the middle of its course, your all-powerful Word, O Lord, leapt from heaven's royal throne' (Wis 18:14-15).

'Holy night, silent night!' So we sing. The outward silence of Christmas night invites us to make silence within us. Then the Word can leap into us as well, as a wise man wrote: 'If deep silence has a hold on what is inside us, then into us too the all-powerful Word will slip quietly from the Father's throne.'

The Silence of the Word

This is the Word who proceeds from the silence of the Father. He became an infant, and 'infant' means literally 'one who doesn't speak.' The child Jesus would have cried - for air and drink and food - but he didn't speak. 'Let him who has ears to hear, hear what this loving and mysterious silence of the eternal Word says to us.' We need to listen to this quietness of Jesus, and allow it to make its home in our minds and hearts.

'Create silence!' How much we need this! The world needs places, oases, sanctuaries, of silence.

Silence in Church

And here comes a difficult question: what has happened to silence in our churches? Many people ask this. When the late Canon Duncan Stone, as a young priest in the 1940s, visited a parish in the Highlands, he was struck to often find thirty or forty people kneeling there in silent prayer. Now often there is talking up to the very beginning of Mass, and it starts again immediately afterwards. But what is a church for, and why do we go there? We go to meet the Lord and the Lord comes to meet us.

'The Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him!' said the prophet Habakkuk. Surely the silent sacramental presence of the Lord in the tabernacle should lead us to silence? We need to focus ourselves and put aside distractions before the Mass begins. We want to prepare to hear the word of the Lord in the readings and homily. Surely we need a quiet mind to connect to the great Eucharistic Prayer? And when we receive Holy Communion, surely we want to listen to what the Lord God has to say, 'the voice that speaks of peace'? Being together in this way can make us one - the Body of Christ - quite as effectively as words.

Two People Talking

A wise elderly priest of the diocese said recently, 'Two people talking stop forty people praying.'

Norms for Silence in Church

'Create silence!' I don't want to be misunderstood. We all understand about babies. Nor are we meant to come and go from church as cold isolated individuals, uninterested in one another. We want our parishes to be warm and welcoming places. We want to meet and greet and speak with one another. There are arrangements to be made, items of news to be shared, messages to be passed. A good word is above the best gift, says the Bible. But it is a question of where and when. Better in the porch than at the back of the church. Better after the Mass in a hall or a room. There is a time and place for speaking and a time and place for silence. In the church itself, so far as possible, silence should prevail. It should be the norm before and after Mass, and at other times as well. When there is a real need to say something, let it be done as quietly as can be. At the very least, such silence is a courtesy towards those who want to pray. It signals our reverence for the Blessed Sacrament. It respects the longing of the Holy Spirit to prepare us to celebrate the sacred mysteries. And then the Mass, with its words and music and movement and its own moments of silence, will become more real. It will unite us at a deeper level, and those who visit our churches will sense the Holy One amongst us.

The Devil Loves Noise; Christ Loves Silence

'Create silence!' It is an imperative. May the Word coming forth from silence find our silence waiting for him like a crib! 'The devil', said St Ambrose, 'loves noise; Christ looks for silence.'

Yours sincerely in Him,
+ Hugh, O. S. B.
Bishop of Aberdeen
7 December 2011.

Halfway there...

My apologies for the unexpected cessation of posts...as they say, "Lent happens!"

For your consideration, some inspirational words from Dom Prosper Guéranger in The Liturgical Year.  (Just pretend it's still Thursday of the Third Week of Lent!)

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This day brings us to the middle of Lent, and is called mid-Lent Thursday.  It is the twentieth of the forty fasts imposed upon us, at this holy season, by the Church.  The Greeks call the Wednesday of this week Mesonestios, that is, the mid-fast.  They give this name to the entire week,which, in their liturgy, is the fourth of the seven that form their Lent.  But the Wednesday is, with them, a solemn feast, and a day of rejoicing, whereby they animate themselves to courage during the rest of the season.  The Catholic nations of the West, though they do not look on this day as a feast, have always kept it with some degree of festivity and joy.  The Church of Rome has countenanced the custom by her own observance of it; but, in order not to give a pretext to dissipation, which might interfere with the spirit of fasting, she postpones to the following Sunday the formal expression of this innocent joy, as we shall see further on.  Yet, it is not against the spirit of the Church that this mid-day of Lent should not be marked by some demonstration of gladness; for example, by sending invitations to friends, as our Catholic forefathers used to do; and serving up to table choicer and more abundant food than on other days of Lent, taking care, however, that the laws of the Church are strictly observed.  But alas! how many even of those calling themselves Catholics have been breaking, for the past twenty days, these laws of abstinence and fasting!  Whether the dispensations they trust to be lawfully or unlawfully obtained, the joy of mid-Lent THursday scarcely seems made for them.  To experience this joy, one must have earned and merited it, by penance, by privations, by bodily mortifications; which is just what so many, now-a-days, cannot think of doing.  Let us pray for them, that God would enlighten them, and enable them to see what they are bound to do, consistently with the faith they profess.

At Rome, the Station is at the church of Saints Cosmas and Damian, in the forum.  The Christians of the middle ages (as we learn from Durandus, in his Rationale of the Divine Offices) were under the impression that this Station was chosen because these two saints were, by profession, physicians.  The Church, according to this explanaton, would not only offer up her prayers of this day for the souls, but also for the bodies of her children: she would draw down upon them--fatigued as she knew they must be by their observance of abstinence and fasting--the protection of these holy martyrs, who, whilst on earth, devoted their medical skill to relieving the corporal ailments of their brethren.  The remarks made by the learned liturgiologist Gavantus, in reference to this interpretation, lead us to conclude that, although it may possibly not give us the real motive of the Church's selecting this Station, yet it is not to be rejected.  It will, at least, suggest to the faithful to recommend themselves to these saints, and to ask of God, through their intercession, that they may have the necessary courage and strength for persevering to the end of the holy season in what they have, so far, faithfully observed.

Just Gotta Make it to Sunday

Well, we're nearing the First Sunday of Lent, and already I hear people saying things like "I can't wait for Sunday so I can eat X again," and "Just a couple more days and I can take a break from Lent."  

WHAT THE HECK, PEOPLE?!?!

Now, I know that it seems to be the modern custom to "take a break" from Lent on Sundays, but have we ever really stopped to examine what we're doing and why?

Josef Jungmann, the eminent liturgical scholar (who eventually went a little nutty--too much progressive liturgical theology can do that to a person!), has the following to say:

Even before the introduction of Lent it had been customary to fast before Easter: one day, two days, even a week.  But even when Lent was generally accepted, not all of its forty days (from the First Sunday of Lent until Holy Thursday) were at first regarded as fast days.  In Rome toward the end of the fourth century a fast of three weeks was usual; and even when people began to fast on all the other days of Lent they still made an exception of the Sundays.  Because Lent contains six Sundays, there thus remained thirty-four fast days leading up to the ancient paschal triduum.  But if Good Friday and Holy Saturday (which were also fast days) were counted as well, that made thirty-six days in all--just one tenth of a year.  In this fashion, as was observed with a certain satisfaction (for example, by John Cassian and Gregory the Great), one paid a tithe of one year to God.

But since the seventh century considerable importance began to be attached to the idea that in Lent there ought to be the full number of forty fast days.  It became necessary, therefore, to take in four days from the preceding week; and thus Ash Wednesday came to be the beginning of Lent.

Now, there are a few things we need to get clear here.  First of all, prior to Paul VI's liturgical reform of 1969, there existed in the Roman Calendar what we called the season of Septuagesima, a pre-lenten season to help ease the Faithful into the "Great Fast of Lent," as the Proclamation of Moveable Feasts calls it (even today).  Septuagesima takes its name from the number 70--a symbolic countdown of 70 days until Easter.  Of course, anyone with half a brain and a few pages of a calendar can quickly see that Septugesima Sunday is not 70 days prior to Easter.  Nor are the subsequent Sexagesima and Quinquagesima Sundays respectively 60 and 50 days away from Easter.  They are merely symbolic--and beautifully Roman in that the Roman love of symmetry and order would far prefer to count in blocs of 10's, rather than name the Sundays something not-quite-so-elegant as Dominica Sexagesima-tertia,  Dominica Quinquagesima-sexta, and Dominica Quadrigesima-quinta.  They just don't have the same ring as Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima.  So maybe, just maybe, the reference to the First Sunday of Lent as "Quadrigesima" is not necessarily literal.  So much for Jungmann...

Keeping with the numerical gradation, Quadrigesima seemed both logical and reasonably appropriate as a number, both symbolic and more-or-less actual, given the parallel to Christ's forty days in the desert, the Hebrews' forty years of wandering in the desert, etc.  A quick glance at the calendar shows that from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday is 47 days (as Romans count them).  Without counting the Sundays, indeed there are 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday.  Except that Jungmann completely overlooks the existence of the pre-lenten season, which is, of its own right, very ancient and of a dignity that belies the manner in which it was so cavalierly chucked from the calendar like dross.  But I digress.

Now to the heart of the matter.  What Jungmann is talking about is Lent as a season comprised of days of fasting.  It might seem nit-picky, but here's the point.  The practice of fasting during the aptly-named Great Fast of Lent used to be quite severe--as we can still see in our Eastern brethren.  It was not merely a season in which we "give something up," as if the removal of soda pop or candy will somehow lead us to greater spiritual purity.  [As a friend of mine pointed out, about the only impact this seems to have is to inflate one's Pride.]  Rather, it included the removal of ALL extravagances, including meat, cheeses, butter, eggs, confections...and the list continues. But, this isn't fasting--this is simply abstaining.

Fasting, as it exists in the law of the Church, consists in taking one normal-sized meal per day, with the inclusion of up to two smaller snacks (collations) that, combined, do not amount to a full meal.  While the distinction between fasting and abstinence currently exists in the Church, that was not the case in previous generations.  Once upon a time, they were one and the same.  When you fasted, you abstained.  When you abstained, you fasted.  Which means you both cut certain things out of your diet, AND decreased the amount you were consuming.

What Jungmann is describing seems to make the fasting/abstinence distinction, and to speak far more about the lessening of the fasting restriction in terms of the amount of food to be taken, rather than the actual foods that are consumed.  It would be more in keeping with a proper historical understanding of the Church's understanding of the Lenten season as it developed to suggest that the Faithful continued to abstain from the various foods prescribed, but ate their fill of other foods on Sundays so as to help keep up their strength during the week.  Otherwise, what would have been the point?  Even the most compulsive over-eater or junk food junkie can give something up for six days.  And it rather defeats the purpose (spiritually, theologically, and physically) of a Lenten fast if one is going to gorge himself and fall into the sin of gluttony just because "Sundays are not part of Lent."  (I would be willing to grant that, if people actually kept a proper Lenten fast in accordance with our tradition, a "pig-out" day might be allowable...but the almost sinful with which a jelly bean addict dives into the bowl on Sunday morning is both sickening and horrific.)

The fact is, Sunday IS a part of Lent.  Otherwise, we couldn't call them the Sundays of Lent.  The nature of Sunday as the Day of Resurrection does not lose any of its significance, but if Sundays were not a part of Lent, we'd be singing Gloria in excelsis Deo (and possibly even the forbidden A-word)--the same as we do on Solemnities like that of St. Joseph--left and right, wouldn't we?!  By the same logic, we would no longer be bound to observe abstinence from meat on Fridays during the Easter Season, when penitential practices are discouraged--and yet, the law still foresees the observance of certain penitential acts on all Fridays throughout the year (cf. canon 1250).  [Don't freak out, US readers--you're not required to abstain from meat every Friday of the year, but you are most certainly required to abstain from something in its place--and space exploration, root canals, and Christianity DO NOT COUNT!  Again, canon 1250.]

My point--insofar as I have one to make--is this: during the Great Fast of Lent, we must concern ourselves not just with "giving up something," but also with cutting back on the amounts of what we consume (thereby helping us to reduce the risk of committing gluttony).  There is nothing penitential about giving up candy or cookies or soda pop unless you are helplessly addicted--you'll know if this is true because you'll start going into withdrawal.  Can the joy of Easter, experienced both in the Liturgy as well as on the dinner table, be fully appreciated if we continue to stuff our faces as we consistently do throughout Lent, just avoiding one particular ingredient in our daily bucket of slop?  This makes absolutely no sense.  It would be far more reasonable, and far better in keeping with the long-standing traditions of the Church, to work toward once again partaking of the seasonal fast, in the truest sense of the word--a general scaling-back of the amount that we consume, as well as a continued practice of denying ourselves certain foods, and not merely one thing that we can most certainly live without--and probably should!

As my dear friend over at Casa Santa Lidia said, if you want to give up something for Lent, how about giving up talking about what you've given up for Lent?  (see Matthew 6: 16-18 for details)  [Incidentally, CSL has a great article right now on a different type of Lenten fasting.  Have a look!]

Building Pastoral Liturgy through Ministry

This is the second talk I gave to the Student Liturgy Committee of Franciscan University.  Again, the same caveats apply to this text as to the first of the two talks, which can basically be summed up as: Don't flip out if you differ in opinion.  I don't need the grief! ;-)

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Building Pastoral Liturgy through Ministry

I realize that the title of this particular talk may seem to be a bit on the soft and fluffy side, given our encounters up to this point.  However, my words are intentional.  In this talk, I want to examine the liturgy from a pastoral and practical standpoint.  We will explore briefly the questions I posed in my previous talk: the who, what, where, how of the Mass, if you will; we will look at the true nature of ministry, a nuanced understanding of pastoral ministry, and we will touch on two of the more popular phrases in liturgy today: the hermeneutic of continuity and mutual enrichment.

I.  Orientation of the Liturgy

When one uses the word “orientation” in terms of the Mass, most people’s minds immediately jump to images of a priest “with his back to the people,” or “facing the same direction,” or “everyone facing east.”  Books like Cardinal Ratzinger’s Spirit of the Liturgy and Michael Lang’s Turning Towards the Lord have made compelling arguments for this type of liturgical orientation from historical, theological, and spiritual points of view.  I do not intend to repeat everything that they have said or written. 

Instead, I want to focus on a more basic aspect of liturgical orientation, namely the focal point of liturgical worship.  In the postmodern age, liturgical worship is often relegated to being thought of as a “communal act” that focuses on, emphasizes, and even centers around the gathering of the congregation.  Songs like “Gather us in,” “We are the Church,” etc., have solidified this in the minds of so many Catholics.  We have lost touch with the true purpose for the sacred liturgy, which is worship of God, and of God alone.

It seems that I find myself going off on a diatribe with my own parishioners on a fairly regular basis, trying to make them understand the reason we celebrate Mass, and why it is important.  And I say the same thing over and over again:  There is nothing more sublime or profound than the sacred action in which we worship the one God, living and true.  I repeat: There is nothing more sublime or profound than the sacred action in which we worship the one God, living and true.  All our efforts, and the disposition of our minds and hearts must be singularly focused on this reality.  The Mass is for God, not for us. 

This is not a popular sentence.  But allow me to explain.  The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, insofar as it is the re-presentation of the unbloody sacrifice of Christ on Calvary for the salvation of the world, makes real for us time and time again the salvation into which we have been baptized, and in which we share as members of the Christian Faithful.  The Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, made present in the Mass, is—like all Sacraments—for the sanctification and edification of the People of God.  But at its essence, the Mass remains our act of worshipping God—the new sacrifice of the Temple, the spotless lamb slain by the priest in the Holy of Holies for the expiation of sin—an offering to God, that He might be pleased with His people.  It is how we worship!  Plain and simple! 

Yet, it is easy to see how this is often glossed over, diminished, or even outrightly rejected in favor of a more protestantized, post-modern, community-centered understanding that strips from the Mass any sense of worship aimed at the Divine, and leaves it a hollowed-out shell of a gathering that celebrates human beings and their relationship with God (which is always perfect—have you ever noticed that?!).  This lack of orientation is what I’m speaking of. 

Now, so as not to sound one-sided, there is a “we” aspect to the Mass.  Msgr. Guido Marini, in addressing Adoratio 2011, the First International Conference on Eucharistic Adoration held in Rome this past June, speaks of the necessary relationality of the Mass.  He states:

we are recalled to some of the typical and indispensable dimensions of the liturgy.  I refer, first, to the dimension of catholicity, which has been constitutive of the Church since the beginning.  In that catholicity, unity and variety come together in harmony so as to form a substantially united reality, despite the legitimate diversity of forms.  And then there is the dimension of historical continuity, in virtue of which the auspicious development appears to be that of a living organism that does not renounce its past, progressing through the present and oriented toward the future.  And, again, there is the dimension of participation in the liturgy of Heaven, for which it has been appropriate to speak of the liturgy of the Church as that of human and spiritual space in which Heaven comes down to earth.  Consider, only for example, the passage of the first Eucharistic Prayer, in which we ask: “…grant that this offering, by the hands of your holy Angel, may be taken to the altar of Heaven…”^[1]

And, finally, there is the dimension of non-arbitrariness, which avoids the subjectivity of the individual or of the group: that which instead appertains to all as a received gift, to be guarded and transmitted.  The liturgy is not a sort of entertainment, where everyone can feel right away to add and subtract according to his own taste in order to satisfy more or less his own happy creativity.  The liturgy is not a party in which must always be found something new to excite the interests of the participants.  The liturgy is the celebration of the Mystery of Christ, given to the Church, in which we are called always to enter with great intensity, especially in virtue of the providential and always-new repetition of the rite.

To enter into the “we” of the Church from the Eucharist means also being transformed in the logic of that catholicity that is love, or the opening of the heart, according to the measure of the Heart of Christ: it embraces all, it bends its own selfishness to the demands of true love, and it is disposed to give its life without reservation.  The Eucharist is the true source of love of the Church, and it is in the heart of everyone.  From the Eucharist the Church takes shape daily in the love that is the evangelical style to which we are all called.

And so, our whole mentality of how we approach the Mass and the Eucharist must be changed.  Our orientation must become one not of self-centeredness, but of a true interior turning towards the Lord.

II. Liturgical Ministry

Having a better understanding of the nature of the liturgical act, and the proper end to which it is directed, we can now look at how we function within the sacred action.  And so I pose the question: what is a minister?  The word “minister” comes from the Latin ministrare, which means to serve.  Minister, in Latin, is a servant.  And so, to understand properly the role of a minister, we must accept that the relationship between the liturgy and the minister is one of subservience, of stewardship.  The servant does not seek to control his master, to subdue him, to make him bend to his own will.  The good and faithful servant is one who derives pleasure from being humble and obedient.  And the reward of the good and faithful servant is the trust and admiration of the master, which leads ultimately to more freedom.

As ministers of the sacred liturgy, we are first and foremost servants of the liturgy, servants of the Church.  Even the word liturgy denotes this relationship.  Its roots in the Greek are commonly said to mean “the work of the people”—this was, and remains, a very common line spewed by progressive pundits to justify the great liberties they take with the Mass.  However, liturgy comes from two Greek words, “leos” meaning people or the public, and “ourgia”, which means service.  Liturgy is not the work of the people, but the service of the people.  Understood in this context, one can see how this dovetails with my previous discussion on antinomian attitudes in the liturgy.

As ministers of the sacred liturgy, we are ultimately servants who ought never presume to impose our own styles, attitudes, ideologies, etc., on the liturgy.  Our mission is not to create liturgy, but to be formed by the liturgy.  As stewards, our mission is to present faithfully to the People of God the liturgy as given to us by the Church for our edification and sanctification.  This can only be done in a spirit of true and humble service. 

And what is our reward for being good and faithful servants?  Well, for starters, it should go without saying that adherence to the Church and faithfulness to her commands pleases God.  And, as importantly, it serves to diminish the sin of Pride in our hearts.  Fidelity and humility in ministry are at the heart of the liturgy.  If we look to the saints, we can see so many who grew in holiness simply by putting the Church before their own needs and desires.  St. Thérese writes beautifully of her love of working in the sacristy, polishing the sacred vessels and laying out the altar linens and vestments, as if there were no place she would rather have been.  While it may seem a bit excessive to some, her love is rooted in being a true, humble servant.  She understood so well the profound nature of the sacred liturgy, and, like the woman suffering from a hemorrhage, wanted merely to touch the hem of Christ’s garment, to derive so much fulfillment from the simplest and humblest of actions.  This is an image that should remain with all of us in how we approach the sacred liturgy as true ministers.

III. To be Pastoral

Without a doubt, the single-most abused and misused term in the post-Conciliar ecclesiastical vocabulary is the word “pastoral.”  For close to fifty years now, this word has been synonymous with an attitude that it is acceptable to break any and every rule, guideline, and norm, at any and every level, in the name of making someone’s life easier.  From my own experience as a canon lawyer, I constantly receive criticism from superiors when I issue a negative sentence in a case of matrimonial nullity.  The reason is always the same: it’s not pastoral not to give people what they want.  Of course, my response is that I have no control over whether or not a person has validly contracted marriage, and my obligation is to the truth, not to avoiding the truth in the interest of letting people “get on with their lives.”  As you might imagine, this has branded me as a horrible, un-pastoral, hard-line conservative who doesn’t care about people.  Go figure!

The word pastoral obviously is an adjective that denotes something being “of or like a shepherd.”  At least that was its original meaning.  And I am here to declare that it is high-time this word be rescued from its antinomian captors and returned to its most basic meaning.  To give a new definition of pastoral, I borrow an idea from Jason Pennington, who originally wrote the essay “The Pastoral Musician: A True Shepherd or a Thief at the Gate?”.  It was published on December 29, 2005 on the blog “Christus Vincit.” 

While Pennington directs all of his remarks toward the concept of a pastoral musician, I borrow his basic paradigm in the hopes of expanding on it and applying in a way that we might rehabilitate this poor, pitiful word.  Pennington writes:

The immediate and simplest answer to [the question of what it means to be pastoral is]: to act like a shepherd, to shepherd the flock. The Western tradition informs our perception of "shepherding." The Roman poet Virgil describes in vivid imagery the pastoral life in the Eclogues. In fact, literature through the ages, both religious and secular, offers descriptions of the pastoral. The pastoral life is gentle and calm. It is peaceful and serene. Lambs frolic as the shepherd plays his pipe beneath a sprawling shade tree. 

And so, an analogy of the 23^rd Psalm ensues.  Let’s look at how it lines up.

The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.

The Lord is ultimately in charge.  He is the Good Shepherd, the true pastor.  And he attends to all my needs.  To be pastoral means to tend to the needs of the flock, to ensure that receive what is best for them.  Notice that there is no mention of what the flock desires.  The true pastor knows what is needed.  He does not concern himself with what is wanted.

In verdant pastures he gives me repose.  Near restful waters he leads me.  He refreshes my soul.

The pastoral minister creates an atmosphere of peace and fulfillment.  He does not overburden the flock, but seeks to rejuvenate their spirits—again, with what they need, not what they want.

Though I should walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are at my side.  Your rod and your staff give me courage.

Here we come to the heart of the matter.  The relationship between shepherd and flock is not all sunshine and lollipops!  There’s the rod and the staff.  Pennington writes the following:

The shepherd's rod and staff have two purposes. They are used by the shepherd as weapons to keep harm from his flock. They also are used to keep the sheep in line. The shepherd's staff after all has a crooked end to restrain a sheep that has gone the wrong way. Sure, the rod and staff give comfort in protection from harm, but they also dispense discipline. The shepherd gives the sheep what they want, but more importantly, he gives them what they need, like it or not. He leads the flock to good grazing land, but he also has to keep them together and on track. If all they received from the shepherd is what they wanted, the flock would splinter and wander in all directions: All we like sheep. 

The flock wants—and demands—to be pampered, to have everything spoon-fed to them.  But that is not being pastoral.  If anything, it is doing them no favors.

One of my canon law professors in Rome explained the term “pastoral” in the following way: “The true pastoral tool lies in observing the norm, not ignoring it.”  Our obligation at all times is to uphold the rights of everyone.  True Christian justice demands that we uphold the rights of the Christian Faithful.  Whenever a rule is broken in order to be “pastoral” to someone, then the rights of another are violated.  If I alter the words of consecration at Mass because it would be pastoral for the children in the pews, then I am ultimately violating their rights to receive the Sacraments and liturgy of the Church as intended by the Church.  As pastoral ministers, we cannot uphold the rights of the Christian faithful through the breaking of rules, the ignoring of norms, or skirting issues.  True, people may not appreciate what we are doing; they will think that we’re being hard or even arbitrary.  But, again, a pastoral minister is ultimately just what the words describe: a shepherding servant.

IV. Breaking Free of the 1970s

Over the past few years, new buzz-words and phrases have appeared in our vocabulary.  We speak of a “reform of the reform,” a “new liturgical movement,” a “hermeneutic of continuity,” and the “mutual enrichment” of the two forms of the Roman Rite.  These phrases give vigor to young conservative pundits, and strike fear and frustration into the hearts of old “progressives,” no doubt!  But we must always be careful in how we approach them.

We are ministers of the liturgy in an age where we run the risk of inflicting upon the liturgy the same careless and arbitrary abuses that it has endured from “progressive” liturgists.  Care must be taken to ensure that everything we do in the liturgy is about the liturgy itself, and not about our own ideologies or opinions.  I could list hundreds of changes I’d love to make to my celebration of the Mass in the name of “continuity” or “mutual enrichment.”  Yet, I am bound by a far greater loyalty to the Church than I am to my personal preferences.  The same must be true for all ministers of the liturgy.

So, how do we reconcile the two paths: mutual enrichment and fidelity to the liturgical books?  First of all, clear lines must be drawn.  We have an obligation at all times to be faithful to the liturgical books as they are given to us by the Church.  To that end, modifying the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite to bring it into closer conformity with the Extraordinary Form (or vice versa) is something which ought only to happen where the liturgical books and documents themselves make explicit allowance for innovation, or where the rubrics and norms are tacit, and therefore lend themselves to some enrichment.

“Mutual enrichment” of the two Roman Rites is something that is obviously desired by our Holy Father, as he stated in his cover letter to bishops upon the promulgation of his motu proprio “Summorum Pontificum.”  And what follows logically is a discussion of a “hermeneutic of continuity”—an emphasis on continuity between prior and current rites, as opposed to the “hermeneutic of rupture” that seems to have the predominant focus of punditry over the past 40 years.  The great irony is that this is a great shift in rhetoric from 40 years ago.  When the Novus Ordo Missae was first introduced, it was given credibility by liturgists touting its conformity to sound, historical liturgical principles, saying that this was actually a restoration of a much, much older form of worship.  And the nay-sayers saying that it was a break with tradition were the ones who turned out to be followers of Archbishop Lefebvre and the like.  How times have changed!

Overall, there is a great deal of room for seeking to understand all of these principles better.  What I’ve presented here is but the tip of the iceberg.  There is always room for more discussion, more exploration.  And the examples that can be given are too numerous to begin to list.

V. Conclusion

In conclusion, I’d like to reflect briefly on the bigger picture.  Everything that I’ve discussed in this talk, and in my previous address, has been aimed at a group of dedicated individuals who serve the Church and their community in a very specific way through the sacred liturgy.  Our mission, however, ought not be one of self-service.  Rather, we’ve explored principles today that should be at the forefront of every Catholic’s consciousness: the true orientation of the liturgy, the true nature of being pastoral, the divine underpinnings of authority, the necessity of true fidelity, etc. 

As ministers of the sacred liturgy, it is incumbent upon us to ensure that those whom we serve are better catechized, and more properly disposed to receiving the richness that the Roman Rite has to offer.  So often, we gloss over the Roman Rite and become entranced by the bells and smoke and chants of other rites, and we seek to integrate them (unnecessarily and illicitly) into our own rites as a way of “dressing them up.”  But the Roman Rite is whole and complete.  And I would say that we have a moral obligation to explore our patrimony, to seek to uncover the buried treasures of our own rites, and to restore them within the parameters of our current liturgical paradigms, to the glory of God and the edification of His Holy Church.  This is how we ultimately may be viewed by our Master as being good and faithful servants, stewards, and ministers of that which the Church has entrusted to our care.

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[1] The Roman Missal, International Commission on English in the Liturgy Corporation [henceforth ICEL], 2010