Hanukkah

Jews are currently celebrating the festival of Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, which is an eight-day holiday commemorating the rededication of the (Second) Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt of the 2nd century BCE.

Hanukkah is observed for eight nights and days, starting on the 25th day of Kislev according to the Hebrew calendar, which may occur from late November to late December in the Gregorian calendar.

 The festival is observed by the kindling of the lights of a nine-branched Menorah or Hanukiah, one additional light on each night of the holiday, progressing to eight on the final night. The typical Menorah consists of eight branches with an additional raised branch (a shamash) which is used to the Hanukkah lights which cannot be used for this purpose. When lighting the Hanukkah light, the following prayer is said: "Blessed are You, LORD, our God, King of the universe, Who performed miracles for our ancestors in those days at this time..."

First and Second Maccabees recount the purification and rededication of the Temple. The miracle of the one-day supply of oil miraculously lasting eight days is first described in the Talmud, written about 600 years after the events described in the books of Maccabees. After the forces of Antiochus IV had been driven from the Temple, the Maccabees discovered that almost all of the ritual olive oil had been profaned. They found only a single container that was still sealed by the High Priest, with only enough oil to keep the menorah in the Temple lit for a single day. When they used this, it burned for eight days, the time it needed to have new oil pressed and readied.

Centralization

In his book, Theological Highlights of Vatican II, Father Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) lists “The problem of centralism in the Church” as one of the concrete problems the Council faced. He went on to write that the “problem of papal centralism is readily understandable to everyone.”


The Council’s response to this problem was an effort to develop the notion of Episcopal collegiality with a degree of autonomy of bodies of bishops, usually in the form of national conferences.

The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (#36-39) states that:

It is for the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned in Art. 22, 2, (i.e. In virtue of power conceded by the law, the regulation of the liturgy within certain defined limits belongs also to various kinds of competent territorial bodies of bishops legitimately established.) to decide whether, and to what extent, the vernacular language is to be used; their decrees are to be approved, that is, confirmed, by the Apostolic See. And, whenever it seems to be called for, this authority is to consult with bishops of neighboring regions which have the same language.

Translations from the Latin text into the mother tongue intended for use in the liturgy must be approved by the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned above.

Even in the liturgy, the Church has no wish to impose a rigid uniformity in matters which do not implicate the faith or the good of the whole community; rather does she respect and foster the genius and talents of the various races and peoples. Anything in these peoples' way of life which is not indissolubly bound up with superstition and error she studies with sympathy and, if possible, preserves intact. Sometimes in fact she admits such things into the liturgy itself, so long as they harmonize with its true and authentic spirit.

Provisions shall also be made, when revising the liturgical books, for legitimate variations and adaptations to different groups, regions, and peoples, especially in mission lands, provided that the substantial unity of the Roman rite is preserved; and this should be borne in mind when drawing up the rites and devising rubrics.

Within the limits set by the typical editions of the liturgical books, it shall be for the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned in Art. 22, 2, to specify adaptations, especially in the case of the administration of the sacraments, the sacramentals, processions, liturgical language, sacred music, and the arts, but according to the fundamental norms laid down in this Constitution.

Father Ratzinger describes this as “an especially important development” in “the decentralization of the liturgical decision-making… the formulation of liturgical laws for their own regions is now, within limits, the responsibility of the various conferences of bishops. And this is not by delegation from the Holy See, but by virtue of their own independent authority. This decision makes it possible to restore to the liturgy that catholicity which the Church fathers saw symbolized in Psalm 44 – the bride in her many colored raiment.”

The importance of this decentralization was illustrated by Archbishop Eugene D’Souza of Nagpur, India, who stated that “the marriage rite as it now stands is completely unintelligible to many of our Catholic people living in rural areas…. For example, since a ring means nothing at all to some of our people, a dish called the ‘thalee’ is handed by the husband to the wife.” In other places the ends of a woman’s sari and a man’s dhoti are tied together in a knot as a sign of the marriage contract.

However, the hopes of the Council have not been realized. In 1991, when the bishops of the United States approved a new lectionary for use in the celebration of Mass, it was forwarded to the Congregation for Divine Worship which confirmed it. That confirmation, however, was revoked by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Cardinal Ratzinger, the head of that Congregation, established a seven man working group to revise the lectionary. Of those seven, one had a graduate degree in Scripture and two were not native English-speakers.

Now, word comes from Rome that the Congregation for Divine Worship is being reorganized with an added office for liturgical music, art and architecture. This office is charged with providing guidelines to ensure that hymns sung during Mass and the structure of new churches corresponds to the mystery being celebrated.

Many years ago, I celebrated morning Mass in the Cathedral of Nairobi. When I placed the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle after distributing Communion, I was struck by the large Celtic cross on the door of the tabernacle. I am concerned that a small committee in Rome will have little understanding of the music and architectural traditions of the non-European church.

After all, there was a pope who wanted to paint out the Last Judgment that Michelangelo had painted in the Sistine Chapel.

Pius Parsch

Another of the important forrunners of the liturgical reform of the Council was Pius Parsch, a Benedictine monk in the Austrian monastery of Klosterneuberg. He served as a chaplain in the First World War and observed the soldiers’ lack of understanding of the Mass. He became convinced that the Bible should be the people’s book and the liturgy the people’s work.

To this end he established a publishing center, Popular Liturgical Apostolate, to assist people with interior and exterior participation in the liturgy. He suggested some reforms that might encourage these goals, such as great emphasis on the Mass as a meal (perhaps using leavened bread), the reintroduction of communion from the cup, communion from hosts consecrated at each Mass. He was an early advocate of increased use of the vernacular which resulted in a partially vernacular Ritual for Austria in 1935 and an expanded one for Germany in 1950. As early as 1934, he pointed to the restoration of the Easter Vigil to its proper nighttime celebration, reform that Pope Pius XII included in his revision of the Holy Week liturgy.

In 1922, Parsch published a booklet on commentary on the Sunday Masses which grew into a five volume work entitled, The Church’s Year of Grace. (I have this set in my personal library and continue to consult it.)

He believed in the centrality of the parish in the Church’s renewal. “the center, the source, the focus of this growing parish communion will always be the altar, the Eucharistic-sacrifice-banquet.” To further this, he developed a combination of two forms of participation already in use, the dialogue Mass and hymn singing in the vernacular which maximized congregational participation. (In my time in the minor seminary in the late fifties, we employed these two practices, but never together, only on separate days, three days with dialogue and one day with hymns.)

Historical Research

One of the important areas that laid the groundwork for the Conciliar decree on the liturgy was historical research into the early development of the Mass. One of the outstanding scholars in the field was the Jesuit, Father Joseph Jungmann. He taught catechetics, pastoral theology and liturgy from 1925 to 1963 – with the exception of the seven years, 1938-1945, when the Nazis closed the theology department – at the University of Innsbruck.

In the late 1950’s Fr. Jungmann was regarded as the outstanding liturgical scholar in the German speaking world. In 1960 he was named to the conciliar preparatory commission and then served as a peritus (theologian) during the Council and as a consultor for the Councilium, the body entrusted with the implementation of the Constitution on the Liturgy.

Jungmann authored over 300 books and articles. It was during the academic exile that Hitler imposed, that he wrote his two volume history of the Mass, later published in a one volume English edition as “The Mass of the Roman Rite.” This work has been acclaimed as the one work more than any other single book that prepared the way for the Conciliar reform of the liturgy.

The work of Fr. Jungmann and other historians of the liturgy enabled the Fathers of the Council to evaluate the liturgy in the light of its historical development.

Women

It can be challenging to realize the state of the Church fifty years ago. For example, Father Hermann Schmidt, SJ, professor at the Gregorian University who served as a consultant to the council’s preparatory commission on the liturgy spoke at a press conference. Asked about the role of women, he said that council Fathers could draw up norms permitting greater participation by women in the liturgical life of the Church, such as authorizing women’s choirs, noting that the current norms stressed the desirability of male choirs.

Logistics

For the opening session of the Second Vatican Council, the entry procession of abbots general, superiors general, bishops, cardinals and patriarchs took a couple of hours. The Council was an immense project. Between 2100 and 2200 bishops met in the working session of Vatican II. In addition there were some 500 theologians, guests from other Christian Churches, secretaries, ushers, technicians, and assorted support staff. Seating, sound, coffee bars, toilets all had to be put in place. The cost, just for outfitting St. Peter’s Basilica was a million (1962) dollars.

However, the logistics were not simply physical. There was the challenge of organizing a decision making meeting of over 2000 members. By comparison the United Nations General Assembly has 193 members and the United States Congress, 435. The Vatican had no prior experience to call upon; the previous council was a hundred years prior and had a mere 750 participants.

Pope John had established a preparatory commission which had developed a set of documents for the bishops to consider and vote on. The expectation of those in Rome was that the bishops would accept what was presented to them and go home. The Roman Diocesan Synod that Pope John had called for at the same time that he announced the Council generally followed that pattern

If the Council fathers had followed this path, meeting logistics may not have become an issue. However, the morning the Council met for its first working session, it became clear that the gathered bishops intended to engage in serious and open debate.

Language and Culture

The first topic the Council took up was the liturgy. In a press conference, Willem van Bekkum, Bishop of Ruteng in Indonesia, spoke in favor of using local languages in the Mass. He was an elected member of the council’s Commission on the Sacred Liturgy.

He said there is a need “to speak more spontaneously” but that “spontaneity disappears when the faithful are faced with a foreign tongue.” He expressed his hope that the language of his country as well as those of other Asian and African nations will become “sacramental languages.” If this were accomplished — through their introduction into the liturgy in general and the Mass in particular — he said, “a much more vital and rich liturgy will be achieved.”

Bishop van Bekkum was one of the main speakers at the international liturgical congress at Assisi, in September 1956. In his talk at that time he appealed for use of the vernacular in the Mass. He also urged the adoption of local customs and traditions into the liturgy wherever possible, and called for “restoration of the order of the diaconate to the laity.”

He told newsmen here that since 1956 his See has had a 24-man diocesan liturgical commission composed of four priests and 20 laymen.

“I considered my people much wiser than myself, especially the aged ones among them,” he said, “and so like a pupil I was always ready to learn whatever I could from them, especially whatever in their culture had possibilities of adaptation in the field of liturgy.”

Indonesians along with other Asians and Africans are concerned with the functions and meaning of their worship, he said. “Their celebration of a feast consists not only in hymns and prayers but rather in functions, that is, in all that the people do during the day or days of celebration. All these functions of the people make up the one structure of a people in worship.”

Bishop van Bekkum confessed that on arriving in Rome for the council he felt proposals for incorporating native customs into the liturgy would get little hearing. Now, he said, he is highly optimistic.

“I have learned that the experience we had in Ruteng has been multiplied hundreds of times over throughout Asia and Africa. And I have found a warm sympathy for these ideas among liturgical experts from the West.”

I had the good fortune of meeting Bishop van Bekkum at the Liturgical Week in Seattle in 1962, just prior to the opening of the Second Vatican Council. He described his efforts at enculturation of the liturgy in his rural. (I remember his saying that he could get anywhere in the world more quickly than he could get to the airport) diocese.

He would arrive at a village for Mass and met the villagers in the cemetery where he would bless the graves. Then they would process to the village well which he would bless. Mass would be celebrated in the village square and people would bring up the bread and wine. He commented that he found it problematic that “at every Eucharist, Jesus was imported” since there was no wheat bread or grape wine in his part of Indonesia.

He would later serve on the Bishops Committee of the Consilium for Implementing the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy which oversaw the reform of the rites of the Mass and Sacraments.

He died in 1998 at the age of 88.

The Use of the Vernacular

One of the most forceful speeches arguing for the use of the vernacular in the liturgy was given by Maximus IV Saigh, the Melchite Patriarch of Antioch (who it is reported to write to the Pope, addressing him as the Successor of Peter in Rome, and signing his letter as the Successor of Peter in Antioch).


“It appears to me that the almost absolute value which is attributed to the Latin Language in the liturgy, in instruction and in the administration of the Latin Church presents a kind of anomaly for the Eastern Church; for without doubt Christ spoke to his contemporaries in their own language. He used a language which was understandable to all his hearers, namely Aramaic, when he celebrated the first Eucharistic sacrifice. The apostles and disciples acted likewise. It would never have occurred to them that the celebrant in a Christian assembly should read the passages of scripture, should sing the psalms, should preach or break the bread, using a different language than that of the congregation. Paul himself says explicitly, ‘If you bless with the spirit [i.e. in an unintelligible language], how is one who is present as an outsider to say “Amen” to your thanksgiving when he does not understand what you are saying? You may give thanks well enough, but the other is not edified…In church I should prefer to speak five words with my mind, in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in [unintelligible] tongues’ (1 Cor 14:16-19). All the reasons one can bring forward in favor of the untouchability of Latin – a liturgical language, but a dead one – must give way before this clear, unequivocal and precise reasoning of the Apostle. The Latin language is dead, but the Church remains alive. So, too, the language which mediates grace and the Holy Spirit must also be a living languge since it is intended for men and not for angels. No language can be untouchable…”

Quoted in Theological Highlight of Vatican II by Fr. Joseph Ratzinger “to show that the discussions could produce profound insights.

Fr. Ratzinger also notes that “it was not uncommon that glowing panegyrics in favor of Latin were themselves delivered in labored pidgin Latin, while the most forceful advocates of the vernacular could express themselves in classical Latin.”

Beginnings of Renewal

The renewal called for by the Liturgy by the Second Vatican Council was rooted in over a century of work, particularly in Europe and the United States.

Dom Prosper Guéranger, OSB, (1805-1875) is credited as the founder of the modern liturgical movement. He was ordained a diocesan priest in France. However, in 1831, when the old priory at Solesmes was announced for sale, he seized the opportunity to realize his desire to reestablish the Benedictine way of life in France, which had been destroyed in the French Revolution.

He purchased the monastery, and five priests joined him at the monastery, and in 1837, Guéranger was named abbot of the monastery head of the French Congregation of the Order of Saint Benedict.

The liturgical reforms of Trent had not been implemented in France where the liturgy was mainly under diocesan regulation. Through his influence and constant urging, Guéranger succeeded in restoring the Roman liturgy to the French dioceses.

In a time when the spirituality of people was essentially individual, nourished by devotions, he set out to encourage intelligent participation on the part of the faithful in the liturgical life of the Church. To this end, he engaged in a serious study of the liturgy and its history. He authored The Liturgical Year, which covered every day of the Church's Liturgical Cycle in 15 volumes. He also wrote a three volume work on the history of liturgical traditions, describing the development of Western liturgical practice.

He was the first to use the term, liturgical movement, and the first modern author to use the term, paschal mystery. “His teaching upon the church as the Mystical Body, the centrality of the paschal mystery, the doctrinal character of the liturgy, and his insistence upon the need to study the text of the liturgy, all these ideas were absolutely original in the nineteenth century.” (Robert Taft)

Inclusion of the Laity

“Rightly, then, the liturgy is considered as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ. In the liturgy the sanctification of man is signified by signs perceptible to the senses, and is effected in a way which corresponds with each of these signs; in the liturgy the whole public worship is performed by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the Head and His members.”


“From this it follows that every liturgical celebration, because it is an action of Christ the priest and of His Body which is the Church, is a sacred action surpassing all others; no other action of the Church can equal its efficacy by the same title and to the same degree.”

#7 Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, December 4, 1963

These lines enunciate one of the fundamental principles Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, namely that the liturgy is the work of Christ, head and members. That is, that the liturgy is the action of all members of the Church.

To appreciate the impact of this statement, one need only look at the Roman Missal in use prior to the Council. In the twenty-eight pages of rubrics that directed the proper celebration of Mass, there are only eleven lines that make reference to the congregation, lines that indicate how the priest is to administer Communion.

Similarly, in The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described, by Adrian Fortescue and J. O’Connell, one of the standard English texts used by priests to guide the proper celebration of the Mass and other liturgical rites, the index contains no listing for congregation or laity although there are twenty-eight listing for the color of the vestments.

The Problem of Liturgy

For the Church, divine worship is a matter of life and death. If it is no longer possible to bring the faithful to worship God, and in such a way that they themselves perform this worship, then the Church has failed in its task and can no longer justify its existence. but it was precisely on this point that a profound crisis occurred in the life of the Church. Its roots reach far back. In the late Middle Ages, awareness of the real essence of Christian worship increasingly vanished. Great importance was attached to externals, and these choked out essentials…


The main measure (of the Council of Trent) was to centralize all liturgical authority in the Sacred Congregation of Rites, the post-concilliar organ for the implementation of the liturgical ideas of Trent. This measure, however, proved to be two-edged. New overgrowths were in fact prevented, but the fate of liturgy in the West was now in the hands of a strictly centralized and purely bureaucratic authority. This authority completely lacked historical perspective; it viewed the liturgy solely in terms of ceremonial rubrics, treating it as a kind of proper court etiquette for sacred matters. This resulted in the complete archaizing of the liturgy, which now passed from the stage of living history, became embalmed in the status quo and was ultimately doomed to internal decay.
taken from: Theological Highlights of Vatican II by Joseph Ratzinger, Paulist Press, English Edition, 1966


One must ask whether fifty years after the opening of the Council, the present centralizing process does not risk producing similar results.

Problems facing the Church at Vatican Council II

It is perhaps fair to say that the first real task of the Council was to overcome the indolent, euphoric feeling that all was well with the Church, and to bring into the open the problems smoldering within.

In the fall of 1964, then, what concrete problems did the Council face? These problems may be crystallized into the following groups:

1. The problem of divine worship.

2. The problem of centralism in the Church.

3. The problem of relations with non-Catholic Christendom and the ecumenical movement.

4. The problem of new directions in the relations between Church and State, or what might somewhat imprecisely be labeled the end of the Middle Ages, or even the end of the Constantinian era.

5. The problem of faith and science, or, more specifically, the problem of faith and history, which had become a basic problem for faith through the triumph of the method of historical criticism.

6. The problem of the relation of Christianity to the modern ethic of work, to technology, and in general to the new moral problems posed by a technological society.

taken from: Theological Highlights of Vatican II by Joseph Ratzinger, Paulist Press, English Edition, 1966

One can fairly ask whether fifty years after the opening of the Council, these problems have been adequately addressed.

Pope John XXIII

This coming Sunday, September 28, is the 54th anniversary of the election of Angelo Roncalli as Pope John XXIII. Elected in 1958, at the age of 77, many expected him to be simply a “placeholder.”


However, just two months after his election, he became the first pope since 1870 to make pastoral visits in his Diocese of Rome. On Christmas day, he visited children infected with polio at the Bambino Gesù Hospital and then visited Santo Spirito Hospital. And the following day he visited Rome's Regina Coeli prison, where he told the inmates: "You could not come to me, so I came to you."

He wrote in his diary of: ...great astonishment in the Roman, Italian and international press. I was hemmed in on all sides: authorities, photographers, prisoners, wardens...”

Roncalli, who came from a poor peasant background, described himself as a "prisoner of opulence" in the Vatican. "I have nothing against these good noble guards," the pope confided, "but so much bowing, such formality, so much pomp, so much parading make me suffer, believe me. When I go down [to the basilica] and see myself preceded by so many guards, I feel like a prisoner, a criminal; and instead I would like to be the 'bonus pastor' for all, close to the people. [...] The pope is not a sovereign of this world. “

He recounted how much he disliked at the beginning being carried on the sede gestatoria through the rooms, preceded by cardinals often more elderly and decrepit than himself, confessing that this was not very reassuring for him, “because ultimately one is always teetering a bit."

In January of 1959, he announced his intend of convening an ecumenical council. The cardinals gathered in St. Paul's Outside the Walls greeting his words with stunned silence. And L’Osservatore Romano did not think the announcement worthy of its front page.

In 1959, Fr. Roberto Tucci was appointed director of the Roman magazine of the Jesuits, "La Civiltà Cattolica". He met with Pope John at Castel Gandolfo and noted in his diary: "Striking simplicity and affability of manners that dispel any embarrassment and are very touching. Welcome at the door and accompaniment almost back to the threshold again."

When the Council opened on October 11, 1962 (fifty years ago) and the 2540 bishops had taken their places in St. Peter’s, Pope John dismounted the sedia gestitoria at the entrance to St. Peter’s and walked down the central aisle. Like his brother bishops, he wore a miter. He addressed the assembled Council, beginning “Gaudet Mater Ecclesia,” Mother Church rejoices today. He told them that “in the current conditions of human society, (some) can see nothing but betrayal and destruction. They say that in comparison with the past our age has done nothing but decline and deteriorate. And they behave as if they had learned nothing from history, which is the teacher of life, and as if in the times of the earlier Councils the Christian idea and Christian life, morals, and the just freedom of the Church had done nothing but blossom and triumph.”

He went on, “but we have to decisively contradict these prophets of doom who keep on predicting nothing but disaster, as if the world was about to end.”
Less than two months before he died, Pope John issued an encyclical letter, Pacem in Terris, addressed “to all men of good will.” Darius Milhaud composed a choral symphony with that title for the dedication of the new Parisian radio building, making John’s encyclical the only one ever set to music.
John XXIII died on June 3, 1963 and, later that year, on December 3rd, President Lyndon B. Johnson posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian award, in recognition of the good relationship between Pope John and the United States.
And in 2000, Pope John Paul II proclaimed Pope John XXIII blessed. His feast day is June 11, the anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council.

Respect for the Body of Christ

Earlier this year, I was in Maine and visited an histories Episcopal Church where I came across a pastoral letter from the Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Maine. He wrote “that on the near horizon are two events that will affect all of our churches. The first is the upcoming General Convention in Indianapolis and likely votes on the Anglican Covenant and on a liturgy for the blessing of same gender couples. the second is Maine’s November ballot initiative on marriage equality.


“As we enter into this season of dialogue and undoubtedly intense emotion, I want to remind us all that the gay and lesbian persons who are referred to and talked about in our conversations are members of our congregations. They are households and families. They are children of God and members of the Body of Christ – not issues or statistics. Our conversation must reflect our deep awareness of this fact and remain respectful and gracious at all times. I ask your particular awareness of children whose parents may be referred to in our conversations…


“The votes that are held this summer and this fall will not resolve or close the issues related to faith and sexuality. We will continue to address these issues for the foreseeable future. And we will all still be together in the Church. In invite you to enter into the coming conversations in such awareness and to address one another as persons in whom Christ resides – as indeed he does.

“God grant us the grace and skill to engage in deep conversation, to differ in love, and to join at God’s table for nurture, renewal and forgiveness.”

The emphasis is added. One of the great sadnesses in my ministry has been the letter that I received that were lacking in this fundamental awareness, that we are together members of the Body of Christ.

Saints

“I am not advocating world-movements or public meetings... my appeal is rather to the individual conscience than to the public ear; my hope is rather to see the emergence of a Saint, than that of an organization...
    “There is no harm in besieging heaven for the canonization of such and such holy persons now dead. But should we not do well to vary these petitions of ours by asking for more Saints to canonize?”

Ronald Knox, in "God and the Atom"

St John the Baptist

“Are you the One Who Is to Come?”

Jesus answered,

“Go and tell John

What you see and hear.”

So they did…

We saw a blind woman staring at the back of her hand,

first the palm, then the back,

over and over again,

twisting it like a diamond in the sun,

weeping all the time and saying,

“I can see through tears; I can see through tears.”

 We saw a lame man

bounce his granddaughter

on his knee.

We saw a leper

kiss her husband.

We saw a deaf boy

snap his fingers

next to his ear

and jump.

 We saw a dead girl

wake and stretch

and eat breakfast.

The poor we saw

were not poor.

From “The Man Who Was a Lamp” in Starlight, Beholding the Christmas Miracle All Year Long by John Shea.

Misplaced modifier

Opening prayer for 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Almighty ever-living God,
whom, taught by the Holy Spirit,
we dare to call our Father.

I think it should read:

Almighty and ever-living God,
whom we, taught by the Holy Spirit,
dare to call our Father.

Meriting salvation

Our bishops had approved a translation which the Vatican rejected. The proposed one for last Sunday and the approved one are below. Also an excerpt from Eucharist Prayer II, proposed and approved. Why the Vatican insisted on using “merit” in their translations escapes me. It is at best misleading.


Almighty and eternal God,
whom we dare to call Father,
impart to us more fully the spirit of adoption,
that we may one day gain the inheritance you have promised.


Almighty and everliving God,
whom, taught by the Holy Sprit,
we dare to call our Father,
bring, we pray, to perfection in our hearts
the spirit of adoption as your sons and daughters,
that we may merit to enter into the inheritance
which you have promised.


Echaristic Prayer II


Have mercy on us all:
make us worthy to share eternal life,
with Mary, the virgin Mother of God,
with the apostles and with all the saints,
who have found favour with you throughout the ages;
in union with them
may we praise you and give you glory



Have mercy on us all, we pray,
that with the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of god,
with the blessed Apostles,
and all the Saints who have pleased you throughout the ages,
we may merit to be coheirs to eternal life,
and may praise and glorify you

Trent

How did a company of women committed to apostolic service of the poor end up as cloistered nuns? Between the death of St. Ursula and the approval of her rule, the Council of Trent met and issued the following directive for religious women:

The holy council, renewing the constitution of Boniface VIII*, which begins, “Periculoso,” commands all bishops by the judgment of God to which it appeals and under threat of eternal malediction, they make it their special care that in all monasteries subject to them by their own authority and in others by the authority of the Apostolic See, the enclosure of nuns be restored wherever it has been violated and that it be preserved where it has not bee violated; restraining with ecclesiastical censures and other penalties, every appeal being ser aside, the disobedient and gainsayers, even summoning for this purpose, if need be, the aid of the secular arm. The holy council exhorts all Christian princes to furnish this aid, and binds thereto under penalty of excommunication to be incurred ipso facto all civil magistrates. No nun shall after her profession be permitted to go out of the monastery, even for a brief period under any pretext whatever, except for a lawful reason to be approved by the bishop; any indults and privileges whatsoever notwithstanding. Neither shall anyone, of whatever birth or condition, sex or age, be permitted, under penalty of excommunication to be incurred ipso facto, to enter the enclosure of a monastery without the written permission of the bishop or superior.
Twenty-fifth Session, Chapter V

*In 1298 Boniface VIII promulgated his celebrated Constitution "Periculoso” in which he imposed the cloister on all nuns. According to this law all egress was forbidden to them. In 1566 Pope St. Pius V urged the following of Boniface's law and imposed the cloister even on the third orders.

St. Angela Merici

St. Angela Merici (1474-1540) was one of the women who pioneered a new form of ministry for religious women in a time when the choice for women was marriage or enclosure in a convent. In her youth, moved by the poverty and ignorance of her neighbors in northern Italy she began to provide simple religious education to their children. Other women joined her and in 1533, at the age of 50, she set about formalizing this community of women. Two years later, twenty-eight women prepared to consecrate themselves to the service of God under the patronage of St. Ursula, the Company of St. Ursula, or Ursulines.

Angela had developed a simple rule for the community but did not envision them as nuns; they did not wear a habit and did not take vows. They continued to live in their homes. Such an association of women was a novelty and generated concerns. Four years after her death Pope Paul III approved a constitution for her community.

Twenty-eight years later, in 1572, Pope Gregory XIII, at the insistence of Saint Charles Borromeo, the Cardinal Archbishop of Milan, declared the Ursulines a religious order under the Augustinian rule. In most cases, especially in France, the sisters adopted enclosure and took solemn vows. They were called the "religious Ursulines" as distinct from the "congregated Ursulines" who continued to follow the original plan.

In mid-19th century United States, the education of young women was focused on developing virtues such as piety, modesty, subservience, and gentleness. French, drawing, dancing and music were also common in the curriculum. It was an education aimed at preparing young ladies for motherhood, and education that, according to Bishop John England of Charleston, SC., "was precisely the type of education that prepared young ladies for heaven."

However, religious women, who had already estamblish over one hundred academies for young ladies,  began to introduce science, Latin, and mathmatics, what were known as "the masculine branches of learning," into the curriculum of their schools for young women.

Religious women and bishops

“An even greater challenge (than giving attention to the so-called ‘masculine branches of learning’) was the lifestyle of the very nuns who supposedly were its exemplars. They resided in a self-governing community of women and were confident, independent and authority figures to many. Consequently they were compelled to protect their way of life from clerical interference…


“Resenting challenges to episcopal authority, especially from laywomen and women religious, bishops tried to obtain unquestioned obedience form nuns. Sometimes they established their own religious orders with special vows of obedience. They also forced communities to separate from their motherhouses, intervened in elections, diverted funds, and even drove recalcitrants from their diocese. Occasionally convents were placed under interdict, supervisors excommunicated or deposed, and sacraments denied. The hierarchy generally shared the belief of Bishop Celestine de la Hailandière that to oppose a bishop was to revel against God and that the least priest in a diocese had more power over sisters than their superior general.”

from The Encyclopedia of American Catholic History

An Little Known Story

Considering the contributions that religious women have made to the development of the Catholic Church in the United States, it is somewhat surprising how little is known of those contributions. In an effort to provide a picture of those contributions an exhibit entitiled "Women and Spirit, Catholic Sisters in America" traveled across the country these past several years. It is available on DVD from www.womenandspirit.com. 

More recently, KQED Plus aired a progam, Question of Habit, that contrasted to depiction of Catholic nuns in contemporary culture with the lives of actual women religious, both historical and current. Needless to say, our current cultural depictions have little to do with the reality of the lives and work that these women have done and continue to do.

A comment from the other side of the Atlantic

The following appeared in the letters to the Editor in theTablet (a Catholic journal published in England for over a hundred years):

There is a certain irony in the executive director of the secretariat of ICEL (the Tablet, News from Britain and Ireland, 7 July) complaining about poor liturgy. Surely the biggest obstacle to meaningful worship in English is the new "illiturgy" that has been foisted upon us: its schoolboy mistranslations, grammatical errors, nonsensical or obsolete constructions, and systematic eradication of fundamental words of Anglo-Saxon origin such as "worship" and "love". Physician, heal thyself.

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

In 1998 eleven conferences of bishops approved a revised translation of the Roman Missal which had been prepared by the International Committee on English in the Liturgy. This translation was denied the required recognition by the Holy See in 2002 which directed that a new revision be prepared, the one which we currently are using.

The 1998 revision translated the prayer over the gifts for the 16thSunday in Ordinary Time as follows:

O God,
you have fulfilled the many offerings of the Old Law in the one, perfect sacrifice of the New.

Receive the gifts of your servants and bless them as you blessed the sacrifice of Abel,

so that what each of us has offered to your honor and glory may advance the salvation of all.


And the current translation approved by the Holy Sea reads:

O God, who in the one perfect sacrifice brought to completion varied offerings of the law,

accept, we pray, this sacrifice from your faithful servants and make it holy, as you blessed the gifts of Abel,

so that what each has offered to the honor of your majesty may benefit the salvation of all.

Meriting eternal life

The revised translation of the Roman Missal regularly uses the word merit in the prayers of the Mass. For example in Eucharistic Prayer II, we pray: “Have mercy on us all, we pray, that…we may merit to be coheirs to eternal life.”

My dictionary defines merit as the reward or punishment due, the quantities of actions that constitute the basis of one’s deserts, or a spiritual credit held to be earned by performance of righteous act and to ensure future benefits.

However, our Catholic faith is more clearly expressed in the Letter to the Ephesians which reads “for by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of you, it is a gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8-9a)

There is a principle that goes lex orandi, lex credendi, that is the rule of prayer is the rule of believing. I find a number of the prayers to be misleading at best. I wish the translators had shown as much care for content as they did for Latin syntax.

A Momentous Shift

This fall will bring the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. Fifty years is a long time and much of the Catholic world is not old enough to remember that historic event when some two and a half thousand Catholic bishops gathered in Rome each fall for four years. The first fruit of their work was the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, promulgated on December 4, 1943, a document that resulted in the revision of the entire liturgical life of Roman Rite Catholics.


That document states that every liturgical celebration is an action of Christ the priest and of His Body which is the Church. To appreciate the import of that statement one needs to have lived before the Council.

In “The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described,” a 469 page handbook describing the proper celebration of the liturgy, published in 1937, there is not a single entry in the index for “laity” or “congregation.” The Mass was the action of the priest. The congregation was extraneous to the proper celebration of the Mass.

By the mid-2oth century the “dialogue Mass’ began to be introduced, a Mass in which the congregation answered the prayers of the Mass together with the servers. This was considered a concession. In the 1950’s the seminarians at St. Joseph’s College, the minor seminary for the Archdiocese of San Francisco that I attended, the seminarians were permitted to join the servers in responding to the priest three mornings a week.

About 1960, the Congregation of Rites which was in charge of the liturgy of the Roman Rite had some concerns about this practice and published a document which prohibited the congregation from praying the Lord’s Prayer aloud in the vernacular while the priest was saying it in Latin.

An early 20th century catechism presents the understanding of the Mass that was common prior to the Council. A Catechism of the Catholic Religion by Bishop Louis Mary Kink, Bishop of Leavenworth, revised edition 1943, was designated as the official textbook for parochial schools in that diocese.

The book has three chapters under the heading The Holy Eucharist: On the Institution of the Holy Eucharist, On Holy Communion, and On the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

The first chapter begins “The greatest of all the sacraments is the Holy Eucharist. The Holy Eucharist is the greatest of all the sacraments, because it is Jesus Christ, from whom we receive all grace.” It concludes: “The real presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist requires that we offer Him our must humble and fervent adoration.”

The second chapter, On Holy Communion, in answering the question, What graces does Holy Communion give to our soul” says: “Holy Communion unites us most intimately with Jesus, increases sanctifying grace, and strengthens us in the practice of virtues.”

The third chapter, On the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, begins: “The greatest act of religion is sacrifice, which is a visible gift offered to God by a priest who destroys it to acknowledge God’s supreme dominion over life and death.”

It then explains that”The shedding of the blood and the death of Jesus take place in Holy Mass by the double consecration of the bread and wine.”

It continues “Christ gave the power to offer the sacrifice of the Mass to His Apostles and their successors in the priesthood” and “The principal parts of the Mass are the Offertory, the Consecration, and Communion.”
Note that the principal parts of the Mass do not include the scripture readings, the liturgy of the Word.

Mass takes place through the power given to the priest; there is no reference to the working of the Holy Spirit. And communion is seen only in terms of the individual and Christ.

The simple but profound greeting at the beginning of Mass, “The grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all,” which did not exist in the earlier form of the Mass, invites a much richer understanding of the Mass.

The Communion of the Holy Spirit

One of the improvements, in my opinion, in the revised translation of the Missal, is in the opening greeting: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.


The earlier greeting used fellowship, a word that refers to companionship or association. Communion is much richer and has a depth of theological meaning. The Latin phrase is “communicatio Sancti Spiritus” which, even if one does not know Latin, clearly suggests the action of the Holy Spirit.

Our communion is not, fundamentally, the result of our efforts. It is gift from God though the work of the Spirit. At the heart of the Gospel, is the message and person of Jesus calling us into a new set of relationships, with God and with one another.

In the synoptic gospels, Jesus calls us to be family. He says that “whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother and sister and mother.” He teaches us to pray “our Father.”

Paul in his 1st letter to the Corinthians uses the image of a human body with its diverse parts as an image of Church. Many parts but one life principle. In the Eucharistic prayer, we pray that “we, who are nourished by the body and blood of your Son and filled with his Holy Spirit, may become one body, one spirit in Christ.”

In the Gospel according to John, Jesus prays at the last supper “that they all may be one. As you, Father are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me.” (18:21)

This union with each other and with Christ in the Father is the work of the Holy Spirit. It is a work of grace, that is, the gift of God.

4th of July

Collect for the 4th of July


Father of all nations and ages,
we recall the day when our country
claimed its place among the family of nations;
for what has been achieved we give you thanks,
for the work that still remains we ask your help,
and as you have called us from many peoples to be one nation,
grant, that, under your providence,
our country may share your blessings
with all the people of the earth.

At last a Collect that flows. Of course, this one was composed in English.

Feast of Sts. Peter & Paul

Prayer over the Offerings

May the prayer of the Apostles, O Lord,
accompany the sacrificial gift
what we present to your name for consecration,
and may their intercession make us devoted to you
in celebration of this sacrifice.

It becomes clear after some pondering.

Preface

…revered together throughout the world,
they share one Martyr’s crown…

I find it a comical image, sharing one crown.

One benefit of the revised English translation is that presiders tend to speak more slowly. However, I still find it difficult to digest some of the prayers. I found yesterday's prayer over the gifts indigestible, sort of liturgical grissel: "Receive, O Lord, the sacrifice of conciliation and praise and grant, that cleansed by its action, we may make offering of a heart pleasing to you." Conciliation and praise is a strange combination. But "make offering of a heart?" Do the people responsible for this translation really pray in this sort of language?

St John Fisher

June 22 is the feast of Saints Thomas More and John Fisher. The latter, after becoming Chancellor of the University of Oxford, went on, at the insistence of King Henry VIII, to become bishop of Rochester. He was attentive to his diocese at a time when bishops usually looked upon their diocese simply as a source of income.


He did not recognize Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn and would not support the Act of Supremacy by which Henry was constituted Head of the Church in England. After being imprisoned in the Tower of London on a charge of treason, he was executed on June 22, 1535, being beheaded the day before the vigil of his namesake, John the Baptist who was also beheaded for opposing the marriage of a king.
John Fisher was the only bishop to oppose King Henry. However, he did not condemn his fellow bishops for not doing likewise: “I condemn no other man’s conscience; their conscience may save them, and mine must save me.”

He is a saint for our times when disagreements are so often met with harsh and vindictive statements.

Prayer after Communion (from the British missal): “renew us, Lord, and strengthen us by the example and prayers of your martyrs Saints John Fisher and Thomas More, so that always following the voice of conscience, we may ever be your good servants.”

Blessing

On the feast of the Annunciation (March 26th, this year), the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops reported that the Vatican approved the publication of the "Rite for the Blessing of a Child in the Womb. “The U.S. bishops who collaborated on the development of the blessing welcomed the announcement of the recognitio, or approval, by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in Rome.”


The USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities prepared a text and submitted it to the USCCB's Divine Worship committee in March of 2008. It was approved by the full body of bishops in November of that year and sent to Rome for editing and final approval, where the English text was confirmed in December of 2011 and the Spanish text followed in March of 2012.


God, author of life,
bless, we pray, this unborn child;
give constant protection
and grant a healthy birth
that is the sign of our rebirth one day
into the eternal rejoicing of heaven.

Lord who have brought to this woman
the wondrous joy of motherhood
grant her comfort in all anxiety
and make her determined
to lead her child along the ways of salvation.

It seems it took a committee of American bishops and a Congregation in Rome over three years to compose and approve a two sentence prayer. Why is it necessary for the body of American bishops (we are taught that they are successors of the apostles) to get approval from Rome for a simple prayer? And why would it take over a year for Rome to deal with such a simple task?

Veneration of the Cross

The Good Friday liturgy begins with a liturgy of the Word which concludes with the Solemn Intercessions. The veneration of the cross follows and the liturgy concludes with a communion service. This order has always struck be as unusual.

At a wedding, the general intercessions follow the marriage rite. Likewise, at the Easter Vigil, the general intercessions follow the initiation rites and the renewal of baptism. The sacramental action is a response to the Word that has been proclaimed. It seems to me that the veneration of the cross should be seen as a response to the proclamation of the Word, especially the Passion according to John, and be followed by the Solemn Intercessions. Such a placement would better unify the liturgy.

Mass of Chrism

In my diocese the annual celebration of the Mass of Chrism usually takes place on the Tuesday before Holy Week. The Cathedral is filled with representatives of every parish and mission in the diocese. When the time comes for the oils to be blessed, someone from the appropriate ministry in each parish presents the oil to the bishop. It is always moving to see this great corps of ministers who prepare people for baptism and confirmation and who minister to the sick.

So I was struck by the words of one bishop from another part of the country who expressed his “thanks to all who filled the Basilica as a great sign of support for our priests, and who came to witness the blessing of the oils.” The oils are primary not secondary as the name of the Mass indicates. And in our diocese, the priests renew the promises of their ordination, but our Mass celebrates the diocesan church with its diversity of gifts and its multiplicity of ministry.

Prayer for the catechumens

The Liturgy for Good Friday includes Solemn Intercessions. Each intercession includes the invitation to pray, time for silent prayer, and the concluding prayer.


The fourth of the ten prayers is for catechumens, those preparing to be baptized at the Easter Vigil. In announcing the invitation for this prayer, I had to refrain from smiling. It read:

Let us pray for catechumens that our God and Lord may open wide the ears of their inmost hearts and unlock the gates of his mercy…

The earlier proposed translation read:

Let us pray also for catechumens, that God will open their ears and their hearts and unlock for them the gates of divine mercy...

I have seen illustrations which depicted a winged heart but never one with ears. The image brought to mind my childhood Mr. Potato Head.

Rubrics

“On Holy Saturday the Church waits at the Lord’s tomb in prayer and fasting, meditating on his Passion and Death and on his Descent into Hell, and awaiting his Resurrection.

“The Church abstains from the Sacrifice of the Mass, with the sacred table left bare, until the solemn Vigil, that is, the anticipation by night of the Resurrection, when the time comes for paschal joys, the abundance of which overflows to occupy fifty days.”

I had to read this second paragraph a couple of times.

The earlier translation read:

"O Holy Saturday the Church waits at the Lord’s tomb, meditating on his suffering and death. The altar is left bare, and the sacrifice of the Mass is not celebrated. Only after the solemn vigil during the night, held in anticipation of the resurrection, does the Easter celebration begin, with a spirit of joy that overflows into the following period of fifty days.”

The new translation rightly includes fasting as part of our waiting. However, we do not really await the resurrection since the Lord has been raised. The notion of “abstaining from the celebration of Mass” coveys a deeper meaning than simply “not celebrating the Mass”. However, the final sentence in the earlier translation is much clearer.

Crucifixion

Paul’s letter to the Philippians includes a hymn about Christ:

Who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. (2:6-8)

The final phrase, even death on a cross, would have caused the original readers to take a deep breath. For them, the cross was an instrument of unspeakable brutality.

Crucifixion was Rome’s way of terrorizing the peoples it had subjugated. It was meant to send a clear message: Oppose the might of Rome and this is what you will suffer.

Crucifixion as a means of execution had been used in the east by the Assyrians, Scythians, Phoenicians and Persians. Alexander the Great is reported to have crucified 2000 citizens of Tyre after that city fell to him in 322 B.C.

The Romans adopted this practice primarily in the provinces of its empire. Roman citizens were subject to crucifixion only if guilty of treason. The Romans reserved it for slaves who were guilty of robbery or rebellion. Such was the case in the slave uprising of 71 B.C. When the uprising was quelled, the Romans crucified six thousand followers of Spartacus along the Appian as part of a Roman victory celebration.

Nero also employed crucifixion in his persecution of the Christians in the aftermath of the fire that destroyed much of Rome. Tradition says St. Peter was executed in this persecution.

One source recounts that during the siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD, some 500 Jews seeking to flee the city were crucified each day.

“Crucifixion was not a simple execution, but a slow torture. The victim’s vital organs were not directly damaged, so death could last many hours or even days. Furthermore, it was customary to combine the basic punishment of crucifixion with other types of humiliation and torment... It was always a public act. The victims were left totally naked, dying in agony on the cross, in a visible place: a well travelled crossroads… The spectacle of those men writhing in pain, moaning and cursing, was unforgettable.” (Jesus, An Historical Approximation, Jose A. Pagola)

It is no wonder then that the disciples of Jesus turned to Isaiah (52:14):

“Many people were aghast at him – he was so inhumanely disfigured that he no longer looked like a man.” (New Jerusalem Bible)

“So now many nations recoil at the sight of him, and kings curl their lips in disgust. His form, disfigured lost all human likeness; his appearance so changed he no longer looked like a man.” (Revised English Bible)

Nor is it any wonder that it was only in the fifth century, some decades after crucifixion had been outlawed, that Christians began to picture Jesus on a cross.

How did such a vile object become an object of veneration? The answer, I think, is found in the words of the Gospel according to John, “Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.” (14:1)
The power of the cross for Christians is not its brutality but the profound depth of love on the part of Jesus to which it testifies.

Prayer after Communion (Monday of Holy Week)

The prayer reads:

Visit your people, O Lord, we pray,
and with every-watchful love
look upon the hearts dedicated to you by means of these sacred mysteries
so that under your protection
we may keep safe this remedy of eternal salvation,
which by your mercy we have received.

What does it mean to “keep safe this remedy of eternal salvation”? I understand the remedy of salvation to be the Eucharist (“these sacred mysteries”) which we “have received.” The petition (“we may keep safe”) is undefined and vague.

The earlier (1998) translation which was rejected by the Congregation for Worship and Sacraments read:

Under your protection
may we hold fast to the saving remedy
that we receive through your mercy.

Palm Sunday

Just as Ash Wednesday is really not focused on ashes but rather on the call to conversion, so the focus of Palm Sunday is not on palms but on a procession. The procession is not simply a dramatic reenactment of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem but a prayerful meditation on who we are as Church.

Our church’s liturgical rituals have three dimensions. They recall past events, celebrate the present reality of grace, and look to a future fulfillment. Thus, on Palm Sunday, we recall Christ’s entry into Jerusalem where he will undergo his passion and death and be raised from the death as Lord and Christ.

Our procession recalls that event, but does more than that. Our walking together reminds us that we are a pilgrim people (a term used repeatedly in the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church). We follow the cross which is the sign of our life in Christ, the cross by which we have been claimed for Christ in our baptism. We follow the cross because which is the sign of Christ’s self-giving which we are called to imitate. We carry palms in our hands because they are signs of Christ’s promise of victory over sin and death. We follow the cross, bearing palms, and enter the church, the symbol of the heavenly city where all of God’s holy ones are gathered.

Many years ago, I put together a meditation on Palm Sunday. In it we recalled many occasions when people walked in search of justice, the peasants who marched on Versailles, those who marched on the Czar’s palace, those who walked in Selma, those who marched on Washington. They were people who had a dream. Our walk through life is not energized by a dream, but by a promise, a promise made by one whose word is true because he is the Word of Truth.

While the earlier Sacramentary directed: “The procession to the church where Mss will be celebrated then begins,.” the new Sacramentary directs: “The procession to the church where Mass will be celebrated sets off in the usual way.” This is somewhat strange because the procession is not formed in the usual way.

Most church processions are formed on the basis of status or rank. Thus, the presider comes at the end of the procession, unless there is a bishop presiding, or another person who outranks the presider.

However, on Palm Sunday the procession does not form on the basis of rank. Rather, the presider, acting in the person of Christ, leads the church. The presider walks ahead of us to remind us that Christ has gone before us. He knows the troubles of our lives because he has endured them himself. We have a high priest who was tested in everyway that we are, but without sin.

Palm Sunday is not about palms but about who we are and who is our source of hope.

The goal - Prayer

In December of next year, the Catholic Church will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the promulgation of the CONSTITUTION ON THE SACRED LITURGY.


To appreciate the importance of the Council’s statement that “every liturgical celebration… is an action of Christ the priest and of His Body which is the Church” (#7), it is necessary to recall the situation prior to the Council. In the parish where I attended elementary school, the pastor offered a “Missa Recitata” on the first Saturday of each month. This was a Mass at which the congregation was permitted to answer the responses together with the servers. When I entered the seminary in 1954, the students were permitted to do this three mornings week. One morning a week we were permitted to sing four songs (entrance, offertory, communion, recessional).


Mass was the act of the priest. In “The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described,” by Fortesque and O’Connell which was a standard manual for priests to ensure the proper celebration of the liturgical rites, there is no listing in the index for assembly, community, laity or people. The rubrics of the pre-counciliar Missal governed only the actions of the priest.


It was a major sift on the part of the Council Fathers to describe the liturgy in terms of “Christ the priest and of His Body the Church.”


The Council document then states that “Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that fully conscious and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy. Such participation by the Christian people as ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a redeemed people’ is their right and duty by reason of their baptism. In the restoration and promotion of the sacred liturgy, this full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered before all else.” (#14)


Fully conscious and active participation has almost become a mantra of those involved with liturgy. At times, in my experience, it has almost become synonymous with activity. However the Council Fathers explain this aim when they direct that “Pastors of souls must… ensure that the faithful take part fully aware of what they are doing, actively engaged in the rite, and enriched by its effects.” (#11) Fully aware, actively engaged, and enriched is another way of describing the goal. I believe this is a way of saying that the celebration of the liturgy is meant to be the prayer of the entire Church, not simply of the priest.

It is surprising how seldom the Council Fathers actually use the word prayer when speaking of participation. I don’t that this was an oversight but, rather, an assumption that all the terms used in the document, in fact, referred to prayer.

However, I think that the time has come for the goal of active participation to be clearly stated as prayer. I think that each liturgical minister needs to ask him/her self “Is what I am doing and the way I am doing it eliciting and aiding the prayer of those gathered here?”

While the goal is full conscious active participation, this is not simply activity; it is mean to be prayer. If it does not lead to prayer, it fall short.

Sounding a strange note

The readings for the 4th Sunday of Lent (Cycle B) are filled with compassion. The reading from 2nd Chronicles speaks of the return of the Israelites after seventy years of exile. Over 25 million people in our world today long to hear such a message.

The text from Ephesians proclaims a “God who is rich in mercy” and who “because of the great love he had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ.” “By grace you have been saved through faith…it is the gift of God; it is no from works, so no one may boast.”

And the gospel reading tells us that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish.”

What a strange note, then, the Collect for the Wednesday of the 4th Week of Lent strikes: “O God, who rewards the merits of the just and offer pardon to sinners who do penance, have mercy, we pray, on those who call upon you, that the admission of our guild may serve to obtain your pardon for our sins.”

Is it penance and the admission of guilt that wins pardon for our sins? Or is it the death and resurrection of Christ? Is our salvation the reward of our merit of the free gift of God? It may be possible to nuance this prayer but the Collects are meant to be proclaimed aloud and form the faith of the listener. A homily on the Collect may be helpful for a deeper understanding but should not be necessary for a proper interpretation.

The Easter Proclamation

The high point in the liturgical year is the Easter Vigil. I have participated in this liturgy for the past fifty-six years. My first Easter Vigil was at seven-thirty in the morning the year before the Holy Week reform of Pope Pius XII. In the mid-sixties, the rite was translated into English and, then, there was the rite that was revised in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. And now, this year we will be using a new translation..

One of the great hymns in the Roman Liturgy is the Easter Proclamation from the Easter Vigil. Below are two translations for you to compare. The texts are interspersed to make comparison easier; one is in plain type, the other in italics.

Exult, let them exult, the hosts of heaven,
exult, let Angel ministers of God exult,
let the trumpet of salvation
sound aloud our mighty King’s triumph!

Rejoice, heavenly powers! Sing, choirs of angels!
Exult, all creation around God’s throne!
Jesus Christ, our King is risen!
Sound the trumpet of salvation!

Be glad, let earth be glad, as glory floods her,
ablaze with light from her eternal King,
let all corners of the earth be glad,
knowing an end to gloom and darkness.

Rejoice, O earth, in shining splendor,
radiant in the brightness of your King!
Christ has conquered! Glory fills you!
Darkness vanishes forever.

Rejoice, let Mother Church also rejoice,
arrayed with the lightning of his glory,
let this holy building shake with joy,
filled with the mighty voices of the peoples.

Rejoice, O Mother Church! Exult in glory!
The risen Christ shines upon you!
Let this place resound with joy,
echoing the mighty song of all God’s people!

The text in plain type is the newer translation; the one in italics is the earlier translation. The revised translation that was introduced this liturgical year is marked by its emphasis on fidelity to the Latin text, including word order and syntax, even marked by transliterations.

Since this text is meant to be proclaimed aloud, read each of these translations in a good strong voice.

The Ministry of Reader

This past Sunday, the New Testament reading was taken from the 8th chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” What a powerful statement. At the Mass, I attended the reader read clearly and intelligibly. However, there was no depth of conviction behind the reading. As I listen to readers at Mass, I find that laments, advice, stories, visions of hope all sound the same.

Reading at Mass seems to be just that, reading aloud. Yet the 1975 General Instruction of the Roman Missal says that “those who exercise the ministry of reader must be truly qualified and carefully prepared in order that the faithful will develop a warm and lively love for Scripture from listening to the sacred texts.”

The task of the reader is not to read but rather, by reading, to elicit a love for Scripture in those who listen.

The obvious question is does the reader truly love Scripture? Ministry entails much more than simply volunteering. Ministry is a call. One who would respond to that call needs to develop skills to immerse oneself in Scripture, and to engage in a spiritual journey. No true ministry can exist without continuing spiritual formation.

The most moving reading that I have heard was several decades ago. I still remember it well. There was nothing dramatic about it; it was simply a carefully read Psalm 23 at a funeral Mass. I complimented the reader afterwards and he replied that he had prayed that psalm daily for the several months, ever since he had learned that his friend had terminal cancer.

“If God is for us, who can be against us?” These words need to be read clearly; they do not need dramatic interpretation. What they do require is the conviction of faith.

Abortion

One of the most divisive issues in American society is abortion. Unfortunately it seems that it is not possible to have any reasoned and civil discourse about this topic. And such a discussion is extremely important because, I believe, abortion does involve, not simply political issues, but important moral questions about human life and human rights.

What makes such a discussion difficult, if not impossible, is the dynamic that is pushing both sides to extreme positions.

Recently Bishop William E. Lori, the chairman of the U.S. bishops' Ad Hoc Committeee on Religious Liberty, responded to an editorial in America magazine, "Policy, Not Liberty." In his letter Bishop Lori writes:

“The March 5th America editorial takes the United States Bishops to task for entering too deeply into the finer points of health care policy as they ponder what the slightly revised Obama Administration mandate might mean for the Catholic Church in the United States. These details, we are told, do not impinge on religious liberty. We are also told that our recent forthright language borders on incivility.

“What details are we talking about? For one thing, a government mandate to insure, one way or another, for an abortifacient drug called Ella. Here the “details” would seem to be fertilized ova, small defenseless human beings, who will likely suffer abortion within the purview of a church-run health insurance program.”

The role of the drug Ella as an abortifacient is challenged by a number of writers. However, what I find most challenging is the bishop’s description of the fertilized ova as “small defenseless human beings.” Unquestionably they are human life, at least incipient human life. But “human beings?” A fertilized ovum once implanted in the womb can divide and produce twins, triplets, etc. Can a “human being” divide in two? I find the bishop’s language extreme.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Journal of Medical Ethics recently published an article which argued that the reasons used to justify an abortion also justified the termination of the life of a newborn. The authors write:

“Severe abnormalities of the fetus and risks for the physical and/or psychological health of the woman are often cited as valid reasons for abortion. Sometimes the two reasons are connected, such as when a woman claims that a disabled child would represent a risk to her mental health. However, having a child can itself be an unbearable burden for the psychological health of the woman or for her already existing children,1 regardless of the condition of the fetus. This could happen in the case of a woman who loses her partner after she finds out that she is pregnant and therefore feels she will not be able to take care of the possible child by herself…

“A serious philosophical problem arises when the same conditions that would have justified abortion become known after birth. In such cases, we need to assess facts in order to decide whether the same arguments that apply to killing a human fetus can also be consistently applied to killing a newborn human…

“Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’. We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her. This means that many non-human animals and mentally retarded human individuals are persons, but that all the individuals who are not in the condition of attributing any value to their own existence are not persons. Merely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life…

“If criteria such as the costs (social, psychological, economic) for the potential parents are good enough reasons for having an abortion even when the fetus is healthy, if the moral status of the newborn is the same as that of the infant and if neither has any moral value by virtue of being a potential person, then the same reasons which justify abortion should also justify the killing of the potential person when it is at the stage of a newborn.”

Another example of the difficulty in engaging is civil discourse is the adamant position of many who refuse to consider any limitation of the right of a woman to secure an abortion. Yet in India, which seems destined to be the most populated country in the world, one of the major reasons for having an abortion is to avoid giving birth to a daughter. This attitude has already created a significant demographic imbalance in China.

What is human life? At what point do we speak of a person? What is the role of civil law? How do the rights of a woman interact with other rights? How do we go about exploring any of these questions?

Friday after Ash Wednesday

In the Prayer over the People, the priest prays that “by observing the age-old disciplines along their pilgrim journey, may they (your people) merit to come and behold you forever.”


I find this language disturbing in its suggestion in that the wording suggests that the discipline of Lent will merit salvation which is not the faith of our Church.

The Council of Trent decreed that “though He (Jesus) died for all, yet do not all receive the benefit of His death, but those only unto whom the merit of His passion is communicated” and that “in that new birth, there is bestowed upon them, through the merit of His passion, the grace whereby they are made just.” (Session Six, Chapter 3)

The Council goes on to say: “Having, therefore, been thus justified, and made the friends and domestics of God, advancing from virtue to virtue, they are renewed, as the Apostle says, day by day; that is, by mortifying the members of their own flesh, and by presenting them as instruments of justice unto sanctification, they, through the observance of the commandments of God and of the Church, faith co-operating with good works, increase in that justice which they have received through the grace of Christ, and are still further justified.”  (Session Six, Chapter 10)

Our Lenten discipline has an important role in cooperating with the grace of God and enabling that grace to increase within us. However, the Prayer Over the People lacks any such nuance.

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday is here and with it, the perennial question: “When can I get ashes?” Parish offices will receive numerous phone calls: “What time are you giving out ashes?” The questions betray a mindset; ashes are something we get. That mindset includes much more than ashes. It is still common to hear about people “receiving the sacraments”. But sacraments are not things. According to the Second Vatican Council, they are actions of whole church, “of Christ the priest and his Body the Church.” (SC #26) And if they are actions of the Church, then they are not private, personal yes, but not private. (SC #64)

This fall will bring the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council yet there are still deeply ingrained attitudes to be renewed.

I firmly believe that the key to Ash Wednesday and to Lent is to be found in the celebration of the Easter Vigil, a celebration most American Catholics have never participated in.

One of the important acts of the Council was to restore the catechumenate. For centuries, Lent and Easter was celebrated without this essential element, Christian initiation. Consequently, Lent became privatized, a time for personal acts of penance, unconnected to baptism.

Baptism became a private, family affair that was followed by catechesis. With the restoration of the catechumenate, baptism again became a process of formation in Christian discipleship leading to initiation into the paschal mystery of Christ. The Easter Vigil was restored as the mystery of Christ dying and rising taking hold of the lives of new disciples. Easter was not simply a remembering of what had happened, but a re-member-ing of the Body of Christ here and now.

On the first Sunday of Lent, in cathedral churches throughout the Catholic world, bishop now summon catechumens to a period of final, intensive preparation for their initiation into the Body of Christ.

First, however, that body needs to be called to purification, to renewed discipleship. So the preceding Wednesday, Christians gather and hear the call of the prophet, Joel:

Even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart,
with fasting, and weeping, and mourning;
Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God..
Blow the trumpet in Zion!
Proclaim a fast, call an assembly;
Gather the people, notify the congregation.

Lent is not simply about “doing some acts of penance.” It is a time of personal and corporate renewal in discipleship in preparation to welcome new members into the Body of Christ.

The question at the end of Lent is not “How consistent was what did I do (or give up) for Lent?” but “Have I been part of the renewal of my church community?” Lent culminates both in the celebration of Christian initiation at the Easter Vigil and in my personal renewal of baptism at the Vigil or on Easter Sunday.

Religious Exemption

The news these past two weeks has been filled with reporting on the decision of the White House to require “preventative services” in all health plans, with the exception of those plans which cover religious groups made up exclusively of members of a faith serving only the members of that faith. The leadership of the Catholic Church in the United States, bishops, university presidents, Catholic health care and social service agencies, have challenged the White House. They have not been alone, although the media has given little attention to other groups, e.g. the Synod of the Orthodox Churches.
The media in their reporting on this controversy have mainly focused on the issue of birth control medications. However, the Catholic bishops have identified a much more fundamental issue. This basic issue is very clearly examined in an article (excerpted below) from:
The Jewish Daily Forward


Obama Wrong on Birth Control Coverage by Noam Neusner

Say what you will about the principle of tikkun olam, but you can’t confuse it for something else. This central tenet of liberal Judaism means only one thing: Fix the world as it is, and you will be serving God… Tikkun olam creates a mission for the Jew to go out into the world and solve problems…

But here comes the hard part, especially for those Jews for whom tikkun olam is a political rallying cry. President Obama, in 2009 and 2010, appealed directly to rabbis in telephone conference calls for their support for his health care reform proposals. In those calls, he called his efforts consistent with the principle of tikkun olam…

Many rabbis agreed, and …they agreed to support the president because they believed, in the tradition of their faith, that ending a social ill through the agency of the state accords with the wishes of the Almighty.

Now, it seems, the rules have changed. The Obama Administration issued guidelines that would force religious institutions with broad service missions to purchase government-approved health insurance for their employees. Such health insurance would be required to include coverage for contraception, abortifacient drugs and sterilization. The Catholic Church, which runs hospitals, schools and food banks with broad social service missions, finds this requirement profoundly offensive and is resisting. As a compromise, the Obama

Administration has offered a new proposal that would allow the insurance companies to offer the coverage even if the Church won’t pay for it.

The focus for the moment is on whether anti-reproductive medicine should be a covered basic health care benefit. But this is really about whether religious organizations remain religious organizations when they act in the public square.

The Obama Administration has held – and continues to hold – that if a religious institution wants to serve the community as a whole and employ people who do not subscribe to their faith, what they do is functionally not a religious mission at all, but a public one. In other words, you can practice your faith when it applies only to you. When it applies to other people, you can’t. Given the special freedoms from state oversight and control accorded to religion under the laws of our Constitution – freedoms which have served the Jewish people particularly well – this is a significant assertion.

It would also be a surprise to people who believe in the mission and message of tikkun olam. All this time, they have been painting homes, feeding the hungry, serving the indigent and doing other good works under the theory that what they do in the community at large, serving Jew and gentile alike, is religious in nature. They have acted with religious intent and religious purpose for the general welfare of the community.

They have assumed that Judaism does not occur only within the confines of a synagogue or a home, but in the world at large. They believed that what they did in the community mattered to God on high. Whatever benefits accrued to the community were fine, but what really mattered was that they were observing God’s commandment, as they understood it, to repair the world.

So much for that. The Orthodox Union, in reacting to the Obamacare decision, recognized exactly what the ruling means: “If a religious entity is not insular, but engaged with broader society, it loses its ‘religious’ character and liberties.”…

One wonders whether the political instincts of many liberal Jews will blind them to the underlying challenge to their core religious belief. Especially in the Reform and Conservative movements, tikkun olam has been the rallying cry of countless bar and bat mitzvah speeches and high holiday sermons for decades. Although they may attempt to look past this issue as a problem only for Catholics, they will soon begin to understand its implication for them.

If tikkun olam is to retain any meaning, it must mean what it has always meant: Judaism as a faith is expressed in actions benefitting all of society, not just Jews. It must be defended by these same liberal Jews and liberal denominations against this redefinition by the Obama administration.

Even if they agree with the Obama program for domestic policy, including publicly paid health insurance, on religious grounds, they must fight this. Even if they send checks to Planned Parenthood, they must fight this. Even if they see in Obama’s policy program the work of tikkun olam writ large, they must fight this. It’s one thing to favor policy for reasons of faith. It’s another thing to surrender faith in the process.

Noam Neusner is a principal with the communications firm 30 Point Strategies. He is a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush.


Read more: http://www.forward.com/articles/151172/#ixzz1mE05U5Bh

Presentation of the Lord in the Temple

Forty days after the celebration of the feast of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, we recall the day on which the Lord was presented in the temple, fulfilling the Law of Moses.


You are to give over to the LORD the first offspring of every womb… Redeem every firstborn among your sons. “In days to come, when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ say to him, ‘With a mighty hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the LORD killed the firstborn of both people and animals in Egypt. This is why I sacrifice to the LORD the first male offspring of every womb and redeem each of my firstborn sons.’ (Ex 13:12-15)

Luke sees much more in this event than simply fulfilling the Law of Moses.

When the days were completed for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord... Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, awaiting the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Messiah of the Lord. He came in the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform the custom of the law in regard to him, he took him into his arms and blessed God, saying:


“Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in sight of all the peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory for your people Israel.”

In the earlier (pre Vatican II liturgical calendar) the Christmas season began with the vigil of Christmas and extended through the octave of Christmas, the Epiphany with its octave, the Baptism of the Lord, the Sundays after Epiphany and then concluded with the Feast of the Purification of Mary (now the Presentation of the Lord). The themes of revelation and light united all of these celebrations.

The Mass for this day begins with a procession. All gather with candles which are blessed and lighted for the procession into the church, an action that calls to mind the opening of the Easter Vigil. We are a people who have been enlightened by Christ (the rite of Baptism:” Receive the light of Christ.)

The opening words for this feast summarize the various elements of the liturgy:

Forty days ago we celebrated the joyful feast of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. Today we recall the holy day on which he was presented in the temple, fulfilling the Law of Moses and at the same time going to meet his faithful people. Led by the Spirit, Simeon and Anna came to the temple, recognized Christ as their Lord and proclaimed him with joy. United by the Spirit, may we now go to the house of God to welcome Christ the Lord. There we shall recognize him in the breaking of bread until he comes again in glory.

In earlier times, all held lighted candles for the proclamation of the Gospel and for the Eucharistic Prayer for we are the Body of Christ, the new temple in which God’s Spirit dwells. We do not simply hold the light of Christ; we are vessels of that light.

This calls to mind the book of Revelation in which we read:

I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God almighty and the Lamb. The city had no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gave it light, and its lamp was the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and to it the kings of the earth will bring their treasure. During the day its gates will never be shut, and there will be no night there. (21:22-26)

Night will be no more, nor will they need light from lamp or sun, for the Lord God shall give them light, and they shall reign forever and ever. (22:4-5)

This feast is a rich tapestry of the themes of our faith. Unfortunately, it is usually just another weekday Mass. In fact, the present Ordo (Liturgical calendar) simply indicates that “the blessing of candles is celebrated before the principal Mass.” What is meant to be a rich liturgical action of the whole Church is reduced to the ritual action of the priest, focused on a thing, blessed candles.

Baptism

Baptism is fundamental. It marks the start of Jesus’ ministry. The baptism of Jesus by John is recounted in the three synoptic gospels. The earliest of the accounts that has come down to us is that of Mark:

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

“Jesus’ baptism by John is almost surely based on an historical event... Whether the individual details are historical, however, we cannot determine, but they are important for what Mark wants to tell us about Jesus. The Jewish people of Jesus’ time mourned the loss of prophets and the silence of God. Now, with Jesus’ appearance, the heavens are again opened up; God’s Spirit comes once more; and God’s silence is broken.” (Invitation to the Gospels, Paul Achtemeier)

Baptism is fundamental in the life of a Christian. That sounds straightforward. But I think that we are still in the process of renewing our understanding of this sacrament.

It has become customary to celebrate infant baptism in the course of the Sunday Eucharist. (Adults are baptized at the Easter Vigil.) It is not uncommon to hear comments about the infant that is being baptized being welcomed into the parish community, as well as being welcomed into the larger church. What I don’t often hear are words about Christ and the Holy Spirit and the Father.

However, by our baptism we enter into in a relationship with Father, Son and Spirit, with the Trinity. This is certainly the most important dimension of baptism. In baptism we are anointed with the Holy Spirit. We are “Christ-ened. God looks upon us and sees “his” own sons and daughters.

In celebrating the baptism of an infant, we are invited to proclaim the gospel message of Jesus in a powerful manner. We profess our faith in the good news that God loves us from the very beginning of our lives, that God loves us before we have the slightest ability to do anything on our own. We affirm what we read in the first letter of John: God is love and in this we know love that God has first loved us.

In the baptism of an infant we celebrate the awesome action of God proclaiming, as he did at the baptism of Jesus, this is my dearly loved child upon whom I pour out my own Spirit.

It seems customary now to applaud after the baptism as a sign of welcome. I confess this leaves me cold. It is a nice gesture that befits a birthday party or a luncheon speaker. The action of God calls for so much more. How I would love to hear a church resonate with a congregation’s praise of a God with full throated acclaim “You have put on Christ” or “Great is the Lord, Worthy of Praise, Spread the word of his Love.”