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.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Monday, February 20, 2012
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.
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.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
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
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
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Presentation of the Lord in the Temple
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)