Enabling a Labor of Love

Besides noting the frequency of terror attacks and a disrespectful and aggressive social scene in most of the west, the social media are heavily commenting a political culture ruled by what we used to call the law of the jungle. Whether it is fair to say that inner Church discourse has gone to the dogs as well would be hard to say, but there is no small amount of aggressive behavior, spilling over into violence, here as well. Even rather highly placed figures in the Church don't seem to be able to distinguish between intelligent critique and verbal violence, born of a fundamental dread, if not hatred, of the other. Justice, decency, but above all love of the sort which Christ commanded in the two great commandments seems in short supply.

Patrick Archbold has published at The Remnant an article which poses the question as to whether Summorum Pontificum (now nine years down the line) was indeed the efficient instrument for promoting liturgical renewal, reform or restoration in the Church. Pope Benedict presumably sought to achieve his goal principally by recognizing the Roman Rite as having two forms and seeking their mutual enrichment through acquaintance and open exchange.

Archbold expresses appreciation for Summorum Pontificum but illustrates its handicaps. He does so respectfully, but his remedies for a status quo deserving critique edge toward the too energetic, when not high handed and almost violent. Very rightly, he doesn't see the playing field as sufficiently leveled or, if you will, would illustrate the number of ways in which the Extraordinary Form is hamstrung by that document. He offers a list of suggestions for remedying the situation.

As much as I would like to agree with him on the point that the label "Extraordinary Form" is a misnomer and a hindrance, it probably best fits the psychology of where or how we are at in the Church these days. Archbold takes one "bull by the horns", rather ill advisedly to my way of thinking, and namely by his proposal to require that priests already ordained show proficiency in celebrating the Mass according to the 1962 Missal and by a certain deadline. The approach is too aggressive and to my mind smacks of the same violence with which the Missal of Bl. Paul VI was often imposed a half century almost ago. What to do?

A culture needs to be built within the Church and where it can bear fruit in freedom. Tension and debate must be dynamic; they must be constructive, ample and nurturing, not small minded or oppressive. Giving orders to the priest in the parish to get his act together and learn something new is confrontational and counterproductive. Start from a smaller and potentially more empowering base! Not enough has been done to engage bishops and seminary rectors. Major seminary is indeed the laboratory for experience and reflection, especially in this case concerning the merits of the two forms of the one rite. Without any new legislation, with the blessing of the bishop, in the seminary a new openness is freely possible and could lead to a much more serene approach on the part of future priests to this important issue.

On the level of the Universal Church, I would repeat my insistence from earlier blog posts that a pre-tridentine model for fostering the organic development of the liturgy may again be in order. Maybe the Bishop of Rome and his Curia need to prepare a proper Missal for the Patriarchal Basilicas and the station churches of Rome; maybe it is up to the supreme legislator to show the way in matters of liturgical renewal and restoration. I pray about this every day. That the Holy Father would not only celebrate publicly according to the 1962 Missal, but would undertake calendar reform and more; that in conformity with his proper role, he would be the one to jump-start the process of finding a proper basis for putting us back on track for the kind of organic development the tradition demands. 

To focus on liturgy alone and rooting out abuse is insufficient; sadly, over these years, not enough attention has been paid to the fact that Eucharist, Sunday Mass in particular, is source and summit (fons et culmen) of something, namely the Christian life. If we are losing the battle for the hearts and minds of our people in so many ways, it is because of the sort of reductionism which has pared down Catholic life to a weekly church-going, without other supports. The lack of private prayer in the home, that children are ignorant of basic prayers, that the rudiments of Catholic culture are withheld from the young, that individual celebration of the Sacrament of Penance is neglected, are all impediments to living the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and focusing our life as baptized into Christ.

The prophets, especially Hosea, sought on God's behalf to speak to the heart of the bride. We need to do the same today. Able people like Patrick Archbold need to find words and ways to speak to the heart of a faithless spouse. More than a call to order, as truthful and justified as it may be, we need to speak the truth in love; we need to enable that labor of love, which will open hearts and minds to Christ. It is not at all easy in the present climate, but it is the kind of sacrificial love which St. Dominic demonstrated on behalf of the conversion of Albigensians; it was in grand part the greatness of the teaching and counsel of St. Francis de Sales.

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Passiontide - In His Glorious Cross

Saint Paul is absolutely mighty in today's Second Reading from Philippians 3:8-14; he speaks to my heart:

"I believe nothing can happen that will outweigh the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For him I have accepted the loss of everything, and I look on everything as so much rubbish if only I can have Christ and be given a place in him. I am no longer trying for perfection by my own efforts, the perfection that comes from the Law, but I want only the perfection that comes through faith in Christ, and is from God and based on faith. All I want is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and to share his sufferings by reproducing the pattern of his death. That is the way I can hope to take my place in the resurrection of the dead. Not that I have become perfect yet: I have not yet won, but I am still running, trying to capture the prize for which Christ Jesus captured me. I can assure you my brothers, I am far from thinking that I have already won. All I can say is that I forget the past and I strain ahead for what is still to come; I am racing for the finish, for the prize to which God calls us upwards to receive in Christ Jesus."

Discernment, Living the Canticle

This morning my little daily Mass prep and thanksgiving book quoted the Song of Songs 3:4 speaking about our relationship with the Lord Whom we receive in Holy Communion:

"...inveni quem diligit anima mea: tenui eum, nec dimittam..."

"...I found him, so tenderly loved; and now that he is mine I will never leave him, never let him go..."

"Never let you go" is about as romantic as you can get. We need to say it to Jesus but an awful lot. 

If we did speak to Jesus in romantic terms, well, lots would sort itself out on its own and that which we call discernment would be easier too, I am sure. I mean that in the sense of the popular anecdote about great St. Bonaventure, who when asked about the inspiration for his theological work picked up the Crucifix from his writing desk, and showed it worn from handling and blackened from having been kissed so often by the saint. Yes, I think romance is a fair description of what is here at stake.

One of the oddest turns of phrase used by Catholics in our day and time would be that more liberal mindset, which seems to give a key role in liturgy to good preaching, to sermons heard, as somehow essential or life-giving, as almost a sine qua non for Catholic life. I won't challenge that assertion when applied outside of Mass and indeed I'll point to an apocalyptic preacher like St. Vincent Ferrer, or to the great mendicants, like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Dominic, and insist, yes, on the preaching of the Word for Church reform. Nonetheless, that experience is prior or peripheral to yours and mine in church, our daily bread, which is seeking and coming to hold the Beloved and not let Him go, and that is Eucharist. 

All those who seek to break down the doors of Sunday and deprive it of its stillness and contemplation, of its embrace of the Beloved in the Holy Eucharist, have turned their backs on Christ and seek to draw others to themselves. They divert their own focus and that of others from the Lord Jesus. The same is applicable to those who deny a place to devotional confession as a sacramental preparation for full participation in the source and summit of our Christian existence, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

One of my greatest joys this Lent here in the Nunciature in Bern has been that of celebrating Holy Mass in our newly renewed and oriented chapel. I get the impression that it has been a freeing experience for the sisters as well. "...inveni quem diligit anima mea: tenui eum, nec dimittam..."

The Latin Vulgate of the Canticle of Canticles offers for individual verses or sections headings: sponsus, sponsa, chorus... There is a completeness and a complementarity about it all and the romance is in the focus and purity of it all. 

In overcrowding Sunday and making it discursive, if you will,  over the past half century in particular, we have lost that recollection, that focus, and hence, the romance proper to the nuptial chamber. As a child, my parents and my teachers prepared that encounter in church, especially at Mass, by words and example; monthly confession to the priest in the sacrament of penance played its role as well. A life lived and communicated outside Mass served to prepare and inform the silent encounter in the nuptial chamber, which was the parish church and the sublime act of the Mass of all times. The discursive, which seems to permeate all in some parishes, needs again to find its proper place as preparatory and complementary to the unbloody renewal of His Sacrifice upon the Cross. "..and now that he is mine I will never leave him, never let him go..."

The "bare bones" approach of turning church and sanctuary into the public square has to withdraw and give way to the canticle which accompanies a process which verbalizes and celebrates the encounter to be solemnized in the presence of the angels and saints. Outside of Mass and Sunday, we need to prepare ourselves and God's flock for Mass lest our people not find the Beloved One Whom we seek. The preachers must find their place in the public square and light the way to the temple, to the nuptial chamber. Healing and restoration is the order of the day.

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

One more quote about Regular Confession as foundational to Christian Life.

"In his 1984 postsynodal apostolic exhortation, Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, Pope John Paul II characteristically tried to reframe the Church’s thinking about “going to confession” and receiving the Sacrament of Penance: what sometimes seemed a strange or arcane Catholic practice, John Paul proposed, should in fact be understood in terms of the personal drama of every human life, which is the drama of freedom. Taking freedom seriously means taking the abuse of freedom, which is sin, seriously. And to take sin seriously requires us to name the wounds in our lives as the first step toward their being healed. Thus, John Paul taught, the very fact of someone kneeling to name the wounds he or she bears adds to that man’s or woman’s human dignity. 

"Confession of sins, far from being demeaning or dehumanizing, is liberating and ennobling. Regular confession of sins is also, the pope suggested, an essential part of configuring oneself to Christ, for the Cross of Christ is the fountainhead from which all reconciliation between God and humanity flows. Indeed, the very geometry of the Cross expresses the two dimensions of the reconciliation that every sensitive soul seeks: the vertical beam symbolizes our need for reconciliation with God, while the horizontal crossbeam represents the imperative of being reconciled with our neighbors. As individuals we crave forgiveness from God for the guilt we carry along the journey of life; the human family craves reconciliation within itself. Both aspirations are embodied in the Cross."

Weigel, George (2013-10-29). Roman Pilgrimage: The Station Churches (Kindle Locations 2679-2690). Basic Books. Kindle Edition. 

A No-Brainer

Today's Gospel from Luke 18:9-14 set off all kinds of thoughts in my head:

"Jesus spoke the following parable to some people who prided themselves on being virtuous and despised everyone else: ‘Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood there and said this prayer to himself, “I thank you, God, that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like the rest of mankind, and particularly that I am not like this tax collector here. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes on all I get.” The tax collector stood some distance away, not daring even to raise his eyes to heaven; but he beat his breast and said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” This man, I tell you, went home again at rights with God; the other did not. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the man who humbles himself will be exalted.’"

The parable is terribly familiar to us all and I cannot say as I have ever met anyone who did not despise the Pharisee's pride and profoundly admire the Publican's humility, his utter self effacement. As I say, it's a no-brainer: a hymn to God's mercy and clear teaching about how we should stand, or better, kneel before the God Who loves us.

One of the random thoughts which popped into my head after Mass on this topic regarded a series of comments on Facebook over a retweet of an article calling for silence and decorum in church (with the Blessed Sacrament as the focal point of an oasis of recollection, if you will, in our too hectic world). What I thought uncontroversial, provoked from someone I don't know (a troll?) a bitter quip about God not needing silence. We'll give it a by!

In the light of the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican at prayer in the Temple, I can almost see myself as justified in fixating on the teaching of the Second Vatican Council about Sunday Eucharist, about the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as the "source and summit of Christian existence", our Christian existence as Catholics, whose lives, in the fullest sense of the term, flow from the sacraments and find there their ultimate expression.

"This man, I tell you, went home again at rights with God; the other did not." Who went home again at rights? Not bombast but the bowed head and beaten breast! 

Falling numbers at Sunday Mass have many explanations. Many would tell you they are fleeing that bombast, that hassle, which at best is an abuse of the Ordinary Form of the Liturgy, but which more often has something in common with sacrilege. Others' pride keeps them from bowing to a binding precept of the Church, binding under mortal sin, if you don't have a good excuse. Much of the problem is an ignorance which is far from invincible.

Let me repeat an exchange which I shared in an earlier blog posting on the topic of our obligation to assist at Mass on all Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation! Some years back, a highly respected priest friend of mine told me about counselling his brother, a very hard-working surgeon, that when he could get away for a weekend to the lake, he shouldn't feel obliged to drive into town for Mass on the Sunday. I told him my mother would never agree to his advice. I told him of her worries and prayers for her children on a journey, that with the excuse of vacation they might dispense themselves from seeking an opportunity for Sunday Mass. Impossible, certainly, is impossible, but here we are talking about what identifies us as baptized, as washed clean by the saving Sacrifice of His Cross. 

I used to tell people that we Catholics are not obliged to get up on our soapbox or stand up on a street corner and preach in witness to our faith, but simply to get up out of bed on Sunday morning and move across that threshold to our place in God's House. Our Christian life lived finds its most eloquent expression, as to why our charity, why our mutual respect, why our justice, why our obedience, in simply (and without words) moving to our place before His Throne, His Footstool.

Many of us have lost a half century of not living the Council, because we've stripped away everything: daily prayer, reflection, catechesis and a once rich devotional life; we've stripped our altars and visual field in church of enlivening focal points, exchanging a brief period (less than an hour once a week) of its silence and wealth, giving free rein to theater and bombast. The reset is overdue, as is a return to teaching small children prayers at home, of a Christ focused catechesis which inspires us to seek the Lord, head bowed, in the clear awareness of Who He is for us.

My priest friend reacted with a measure of shock to my explanation about my mother's teaching on the importance, nay rather the essential character of Sunday Mass for our Catholic identity and our Eternal Salvation. He did not correct me, nor did he inform me as to whether he corrected his advice to his brother. Be that as it may, there was nothing the least bit Pharisaical about our exchange. I'm not labeling anybody a Pharisee (see here and here) but I am holding to Jesus' teaching about who went home from the Temple that day right with God.

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Pray Constantly!

Ascribing the dramatic decrease in the number of people who come to Sunday Mass, the worrisome decrease of vocations to priesthood and the religious life in many parts of the Catholic world, notably in "old" Europe, almost flippantly to demographics (READ: "With only one or two children, mom and dad don't want a priest but a lovely daughter-in-law and grandchildren." : True or False) is dishonest. Sadly, we can't seem to get beyond an almost indefatigable hankering for something characterized as "progress" or "development", say "self-promotion or realization" if you will, but which is no more than a caricature. 

Years ago, my boss came back from a visit home subsequent to the death of his mother when he and his brothers and sisters had gone about the heart-tugging business of breaking up household and dividing Mom's keepsakes among them. The prize he brought back was the New York med school graduation poster of his father; I'm sure today that it dates back a hundred years. Apart from the pictures of each new grad, with his name, and the date for commencement exercises, what was interesting for me was the poster's artistic background, symbolizing a bright future and progress. Today's graduating class might have chosen a seascape or a nature scene for their background, but back a century, it was a factory with countless fuming smokestacks which formed a medical faculty's statement on hope for the future.

My point? Much of what young people rush after today would be no less off the mark than a glorification of the industrial revolution and its iconic smokestacks. Political correctness, gender ideology and the dictatorship of relativism are no less poison, no less empty promise than a huffing, puffing, heaving factory. Lent calls us not only to repent, to turn from sin, but to turn toward the Lord, our source of light and consolation.

One of the saddest side effects or counter indications of the post-conciliar period has been an abandonment of personal prayer in the lives of many Catholics. We stand in need of renewal again today as did the Church in other times. You might say we need another penitential preacher like St. Vincent Ferrer: 

"The charismatic power of Vincent’s sermons and humble life were abundantly apparent in his final mission, to the duchy of Brittany in 1418– 19. Even thirty-five years later, witnesses at the Brittany canonization inquest recalled the striking image of the old, feeble friar, who walked with a cane and supported by companions, who became so animated and sprightly while preaching that, when he came down from the pulpit, “it seemed he was not the same person who had preached.” They testified to the effectiveness of Vincent’s sermons: blasphemy and gambling ceased; those who never had known how could now say the Pater Noster and the Ave Maria and make the sign of the cross. And above all, they recalled Vincent’s asceticism and his kindness. He never ate meat until his final illness, when at the bishop’s command he took some broth made from meat. He never slept in a bed but instead lay on a hard pallet on the floor. He greeted others humbly, with a bow and with kind words." (Smoller, Laura Ackerman (2014-01-21). The Saint and the Chopped-Up Baby: The Cult of Vincent Ferrer in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Kindle Locations 289-296). Cornell University Press. Kindle Edition.) 

As eager as I am personally for an end to liturgical abuse and a genuine renewal of the liturgy, I see that renewal always as a jewel set in the mounting of a Christian life lived, a life proceeding from the liturgy and at the same time hastening to Divine Worship. Purifying and restoring Holy Mass in continuity with the tradition is essential, but nothing is gained if families at home are not renewed in their focus on the glories of the Cross and Christ's victory over sin and death.

We need to promote and sustain the reform preachers of our own day. With our tiniest children at home, basic Catholic prayers have to become a frequent and natural embrace of the Lord Jesus, His Blessed Mother and all the angels and saints.

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

A Lenten Favorite on Prayer

Today's Second Reading from the Office, from the treatise On Prayer by Tertullian, priest, is one of my Lenten favorites:

The spiritual offering of prayer

"Prayer is the offering in spirit that has done away with the sacrifices of old. What good do I receive from the multiplicity of your sacrifices? asks God. I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams, and I do not want the fat of lambs and the blood of bulls and goats. Who has asked for these from your hands?

  What God has asked for we learn from the Gospel. The hour will come, he says, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. God is a spirit, and so he looks for worshipers who are like himself.

  We are true worshipers and true priests. We pray in spirit, and so offer in spirit the sacrifice of prayer. Prayer is an offering that belongs to God and is acceptable to him: it is the offering he has asked for, the offering he planned as his own.

  We must dedicate this offering with our whole heart, we must fatten it on faith, tend it by truth, keep it unblemished through innocence and clean through chastity, and crown it with love. We must escort it to the altar of God in a procession of good works to the sound of psalms and hymns. Then it will gain for us all that we ask of God.

  Since God asks for prayer offered in spirit and in truth, how can he deny anything to this kind of prayer? How great is the evidence of its power, as we read and hear and believe.

  Of old, prayer was able to rescue from fire and beasts and hunger, even before it received its perfection from Christ. How much greater then is the power of Christian prayer. No longer does prayer bring an angel of comfort to the heart of a fiery furnace, or close up the mouths of lions, or transport to the hungry food from the fields. No longer does it remove all sense of pain by the grace it wins for others. But it gives the armor of patience to those who suffer, who feel pain, who are distressed. It strengthens the power of grace, so that faith may know what it is gaining from the Lord, and understand what it is suffering for the name of God.

  In the past prayer was able to bring down punishment, rout armies, withhold the blessing of rain. Now, however, the prayer of the just turns aside the whole anger of God, keeps vigil for its enemies, pleads for persecutors. Is it any wonder that it can call down water from heaven when it could obtain fire from heaven as well? Prayer is the one thing that can conquer God. But Christ has willed that it should work no evil, and has given it all power over good.

  Its only art is to call back the souls of the dead from the very journey into death, to give strength to the weak, to heal the sick, to exorcise the possessed, to open prison cells, to free the innocent from their chains. Prayer cleanses from sin, drives away temptations, stamps out persecutions, comforts the fainthearted, gives new strength to the courageous, brings travelers safely home, calms the waves, confounds robbers, feeds the poor, overrules the rich, lifts up the fallen, supports those who are falling, sustains those who stand firm.

  All the angels pray. Every creature prays. Cattle and wild beasts pray and bend the knee. As they come from their barns and caves they look out to heaven and call out, lifting up their spirit in their own fashion. The birds too rise and lift themselves up to heaven: they open out their wings, instead of hands, in the form of a cross, and give voice to what seems to be a prayer.

  What more need be said on the duty of prayer? Even the Lord himself prayed. To him be honor and power for ever and ever. Amen."

Too many adults fail to pray and neglect sharing the gift of prayer, as defined by Tertullian, with infants and children.

O Lord, touch the hearts of parents, especially young and expecting parents! Draw them to Your Heart and to Your Mother with bands of Love! Set Your people free! Empower us!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI