The Vocabulary of Prayer - Walking

In recent years there has been a renewed interest in the Camino de Santiago, the ancient pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela. Articles and movies have explored the spiritual dimension of walking this road.

However one does not have to go to Spain to enter into the spiritual experience of walking. Every year, the entire Church is invited to enter on a journey on the vigil of Easter. The Church gathers in the silence and darkness that follow upon Good Friday.

Vatican Council II used an image of the Church as a pilgrim people: Israel according to the flesh, which wandered as an exile in the desert, was already called the Church of God. So likewise the new Israel which while living in this present age goes in search of a future and abiding city is called the Church of Christ. (Lumen Gentium #9)

A new fire is kindled and the Paschal Candle is lighted from it, a sign of our risen Lord. That burning candle then leads us all.  The LORD preceded them, in the daytime by means of a column of cloud to show them the way, and at night by means of a column of fire to give them light. (Exodus 13:21)

The oft repeated command of Jesus in the gospels is: “Follow me.” We follow Christ into the church building, the sign of the heavenly Jerusalem, illuminated by the light that each of us bears, the light of Christ that enlightens each of us.

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. (Revelation 21:23-24)

The darkness of a world in need of Christ, the light of Christ entrusted to each of us, the power of that light when we walk together, the vision of peace as we gather around the Lord’s table to share in the wedding feast of the Lamb.  (Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed* are those who have been called to the wedding feast of the Lamb.” Revelation 19:9)

The Easter Vigil procession is not merely a matter of getting from one place into our usual place it church. It is a summary of our Christian faith. It is an invitation to see in our walking behind the Paschal Candle an image of discipleship lived out in daily life. It is an invitation to pray.

The Vocabulary of Prayer – Ritual Gestures

Probably, our most common ritual gesture is signing one’s self with the cross. Like any action that is repeated often, it is easily done in a rote manner.

This act is rooted in our baptism. When an infant is brought to church to be baptized, the priest together with the parents and godparents mark the child’s forehead with a cross as the priest says: We claim you for Christ with the sign of the cross.

The sign is repeated in Confirmation when the bishop signs the forehead of the one being confirmed and says “Be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

This added notion of sealing has its roots in the book of Revelation: Then I saw another angel come up from the East, holding the seal of the living God. He cried out in a loud voice to the four angels who were given power to damage the land and the sea, “Do not damage the land or the sea or the trees until we put the seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.” I heard the number of those who had been marked with the seal, one hundred and forty-four thousand marked from every tribe of the Israelites. (Revelation 7:2-4)

The idea of seal is rooted in the practice of sealing official documents with a signet ring which left an impression. The seal of the Holy Spirit imprints in us a likeness of God.

The hymn “Lift High the Cross” has these same ideas: “the new-born servants of the Crucified bear on their brows the seal of him who died.”

When we begin our prayer by signing ourselves with the cross, we are, as it were, identifying ourselves to the God we are praying to as one of his own, as one who is a member of the Body of Christ.

Signing the forehead of an infant or child is a fine practice for parents when they put their children to bed or send them off on a trip.

I think that it is also an appropriate act when infants or young children accompany their parents in the communion procession. It is a sign that this person belongs to Christ. (This is quite different, in my mind, to inviting non-communicants to “receive a blessing.)

This ritual gesture is rich in meaning even before we add any words to the act.

The Vocabulary of Prayer - Bowing

The older rite of the Mass (pre-Vatican II) had many occasions when bowing was called for and very specific directions on the type of bow. There are fewer calls for bowing in our current rite.

Bowing is another way in which we engage our body in our prayer. I grew up at a time when we were taught to bow our heads at the name of Jesus. It is something I still do – automatically, without any need to think about it. And I am happy to have that habit of reverencing the name of the Lord. This bow is a simple bow of the head.

There is a deeper bow, head and shoulders, which I make when entering or leaving church and when I pray the Holy, Holy, Holy. This also is a sign of reverence for the altar, the cross, and the transcendent mystery of God.

And there is the profound bow from the waist. I do this when “I confess to Almighty God that I have sinned…”

One bow that is less common is touching one’s forehead to the ground while kneeling. This is the common prayer position for Muslims when saying their daily prayers. It has its roots in the Old Testament:

Ezra opened the scroll so that all the people might see it, for he was standing higher than any of the people. When he opened it, all the people stood. Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God, and all the people, their hands raised high, answered, “Amen, amen!” Then they knelt down and bowed before the LORD, their faces to the ground. (Nehemiah 8:5-6)

We also find it in the Gospels:

They (the magi) were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. (Matthew 2:10-11)

Attending to such bodily actions can enrich our prayer.

The Vocabulary of Prayer - Posture

Our posture is another resource for our prayer. It is easy to pay little attention to posture; we simply stand, sit, or kneel at the proper times.

However, there are different ways of standing. There is a difference in simply “standing around” and standing up to greet someone. In the first case, one can simple be “killing time.” In the second our body is part of our communication with the person we are greeting.

Standing is the posture of a free person. The first Ecumenical Council of the Church decreed that it was forbidden for Christians to kneel to pray on Sundays because that was the day of the resurrection.

We stand in the presence of important people. At Mass, we stand to greet Christ in the Gospel. If we are attentive to our posture, our standing is an acknowledgement of the presence of Christ in the Gospel that is about to be proclaimed to us.

When we sit for the first two readings, we can simply sit down or we can sit and focus our attention on the word of Scripture.

We do not spend as much time kneeling in prayer as we once did. But it is still an important posture of prayer, a posture that recognizes the transcendence and greatness of the God to whom we pray.

Another, less common posture is prostrating our self on the floor. It is a dramatic gesture which the liturgy calls for in two instances. At ordinations, the entire assembly calls upon as the saints and those to be ordained are prostrate on the floor of the sanctuary. On Good Friday, the ministers enter in silence and prostrate themselves before the altar in silent prayer.

Although it is customary to depict St. Clare holding the ciborium with the Eucharist, at the convent in Assisi where she lived, she is said to have prostrated herself in prayer before the Eucharist reserved in the tabernacle as she prayed for the deliverance of Assisi from the mercenaries that were marching on the city.

Saint John Paul II’s secretary has said that he would find John Paul prostrate in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.

Our bodily posture is meant to be part of our prayer and will be, much more so if we attend to it.

Proclaiming the Word

This past Sunday, the person who read the New Testament reading had a warm smile. It was a natural smile; she did appear to make any conscious effort “to smile at the congregation” as she made eye contact with those listening to her. There was warmth to her presence as she read, a warmth that encourage listening.

We communicate with much more than our voice.

Adult Bptism

In the General Introduction to the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (for use in the United States) we read:

In the sacraments of Christian initiation we are freed from the power of darkness and joined to Christ’s death, burial and resurrection.

Baptism incorporates us into Christ and forms us into God’s people.
Baptism is, above all, the sacrament of that faith by which, enlightened by the grace of the Holy Spirit, we respond to the Gospel of Christ.

The preparation for baptism and Christian instruction are both of vital concern to God’s people, the Church, which hands on and nourishes the faith received from the apostles.

In the actual celebration, the people of God… should take an active part. Thus they will show their common faith and the shared joy with which the newly baptized are received into the community of the Church.

Prior to the Council, the focus of baptism was on the removal of original sin and the celebration was essentially private.

The revised rite for adult baptism looks to the paschal mystery of Christ, sees the Church in biblical terms as the people of God, identifies the goal as a faith response to the Gospel, and is communitarian.

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.

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.