The Triumph of the Cross

Good Christian Expectations

Numbers 21:4-9

Philippians 2:6-11

John 3:13-17

          What do you suppose it took the people in the wilderness, after their sin and God’s punishment sending deadly serpents among them, to convince them to look up to the bronze serpent on a standard and live? How did Moses get the message across of God’s mercy in their need? We sometimes claim that we have gotten beyond the scandal of the Cross, which troubled Jews and Gentiles alike in St. Paul’s time. Have we done so or does that unwillingness to embrace the Cross and Christ’s victory on Calvary continue to plague us even today?

          Lots of thoughts could pass through one’s head on this feast day, but I’d like to concretize my reflection by marveling a bit at an exchange I had on the phone this morning with a very pious woman. After sharing with me the details of a recent brush with death and asking prayers for an upcoming surgery, she confided that she had issued the Lord an ultimatum claiming finally again for herself some good health and a more active social life, after months of hospital and home confinement, physical therapy and what not.

          People talk this way. While it is certainly comprehensible, just as God’s people did in the wilderness is not our losing patience in the midst of hardship also wrong? Is it not punishable as it was in the case of the people who spoke against God and against Moses, wishing to have back their old life in Egypt? Do we not avert our eyes from His Cross and suffering to our own peril? Doesn’t bending the knee at the name of Jesus bring us face to face with Jesus lifted up on the Cross? Can we refuse Him company? Can we reject a non-negotiable share in His suffering?

          On Good Friday we sing “Sweet the Wood and Sweet the Nails”. Are they so only for Him or also for us as we enter into His Passion and Death? Wherein is to be found the Triumph of the Holy Cross for me in poverty or pain, in sickness, in suffering and in death?

          How indeed did Moses convince that first person bitten by the seraph serpent to look up at the bronze serpent and live? Did it take only Moses’ word and one obedient person saved to convince all others to turn to the bronze serpent and live? What does it mean to believe in Jesus lifted up for our salvation like that bronze serpent in the wilderness? Wherein lies the triumph of the Cross for me in my life?

          The issue is not one of simply admonishing folk not to complain amidst hardship. The call or challenge is to leave old Egypt behind with no regrets and without complaint, fixing our gaze on the new Moses, Jesus, who mounts the standard Himself and leads us not to a momentary reprieve from physical suffering and death but leads us into His Kingdom and everlasting life. It’s a matter of recognizing as an act of hope looking upon the One pierced for our offenses.

          I would never condemn anyone for seeking a respite. The problem arises when hoping for the respite is all that seems to matter, when getting back to Egypt (contrary to God’s plan for us) becomes primary.

          The Cross is no less scandalous than it was in St. Paul’s time. Even among the people, God’s people, the baptized, there are those who would avert their gaze from the One Who has claimed His victory for the Father by being handed over, lifted up and pierced through upon the Cross.

Yet he who is full of compassion

Forgave their sin and spared them.

So often he held back his anger

When he might have stirred up his rage. (Ps. 77)

          Forgive, Lord! Forgive!

Confessions of a Would-Be Reformer

Shall We Chant?

          Last-year’s-and-before’s heated debate over the way forward in matters liturgical [usus antiquior vs. reform of the reform] has given place in the last few months to less commentary in the blogosphere and seemingly more work on the ground on both sides of the aisle or altar. I fully agree with this approach of working patiently and quietly with people, because I think it indicates that some purposeful consensus building is taking place where it needs to take place, namely where liturgy is celebrated. Moreover, I have my doubts concerning the usefulness of cyberspace for inspiring the confidence of the people in the pews which is needed to move ahead in the reform of the reform. It goes without saying that the leadership of the priest in his parish is decisive for the reform and for communicating to the people the true sense of what divine worship is all about.

          Let me illustrate my point using the issue of liturgical music: most would-be reformers are at a loss as to how you get beyond banning parts of the hymnals presently available, should we want to make sense of St. Augustine’s teaching about singing being double the prayer. The hymn repertoire of most parishes is a mine field of provocations on the simple issue of good taste. Even my own people who join me here in the chapel for Mass sense the triteness of much of the music dished out in your average parish. There’s not much out there under the heading of hymnody which is worth salvaging. It cannot be denied that even Catholics took a wrong turn in the hymnody department at some point borrowing too heavily from the Protestant Reformation at the expense of things beautiful from previous centuries. Whatever happened to St. Ephrem the Deacon? Most people agree that our own Latin hymnody both Eucharistic and Marian, much of it from the Middle Ages, should be recovered. For that we must give the mandate to the experts and turn to something more within our own purview; let us turn to chant as the other wing or lung of liturgical song, the one which is more immediately or easily accessible, the more Catholic one. Besides the traditional Gregorian chants there are lots of vernacular settings easily accessible for those who are looking.

The good news is that chanting the responsorial psalm has already just about won the day in parishes far and wide. However, “joyful noise” still holds the high ground elsewhere by providing “traveling music” for entrances and exits, for gift and communion processions. Much as I am convinced that gifts ought not to be prepared and Eucharist prayers to be prayed “across the table” and in each others’ faces but rather together facing the Dawn from on High Who comes to visit us (ad Orientem), so too I believe that hymnody should be used much more sparingly for Eucharist. Chanting also the Entrance and Communion Antiphons is the right thing to do.

          I would never have come to this position had it not been from hearing the experience shared with me by a parish priest I respect. This man is no rigorist when it comes to liturgy, but like St. Joseph, “an upright man”, he was pained by what he saw around him in the parish to which he had recently been assigned and he moved with great sensitivity and respect for all those involved to correct it.

Father had inherited the usage in his parish of the parochial primary school coming and “taking over” daily Mass in the parish once per week during the school year. Besides the special skits for certain feasts and performances by the grade school band, this meant an ample dose of songs beloved of the music teacher of the school. Father noted several regrettable aspects of this weekly takeover: 1) that daily Mass was lost to the faithful souls who otherwise frequented daily Mass; 2) school parents came dutifully for every tense moment of their own child’s “performance” but not really for the Mass as they were too worried about supporting “Junior” or their little missy in his or her moment to shine; 3) even the best grade school band needs most of the year to prepare a recital; 4) the sixth grade girl altar servers had a field day in the sacristy each week mocking the school music teacher’s song choices (as she rehearsed them in church before Mass) which may have been as dear to a 40 year old as a rock anthem could be, but said nothing to overly wise 11 and 12 year olds.

          To remedy the situation Father offered the faculty a liturgy workshop, ample time for discussion and his own clear directives. In the light of a positive experience, guided by the diocesan liturgy director, with a simple piano accompaniment for chanted antiphons replacing two of the occasions for “traveling music” Father reclaimed the school Mass as a parish daily Mass: his faithful daily Mass folk were no longer disinherited once a week. With the new simpler format, no band concert or skits, it became a tasteful and organic experience to include the parochial school in a stress free parish liturgy which caused no parent or child anxiety. All were caught up in the Church’s life of prayer restored to the “noble simplicity” which the Fathers of the II Vatican Council had ordered up for the reform.

          Father and I didn’t talk about his Sunday liturgies, but the Mass Propers for Entrance, Responsorial and Communion could easily supplant the music choices of the last couple decades which never knew unanimous approval or even minimal emotional attachment because of the issues of musical taste involved or simply because lots of them borrowed melodies from Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, not everyone’s cup of tea (Kumbaya, my friends, kumbaya!).

          Someone might object: why chant? Why not just a better choice of hymns (the argument weighing tacitly, at least, on the side of variety in the music we sing)? On and off over the last thirty years I have been exposed to Mexican hymns. Apart from a certain variety in the melodies, the themes are all the same: people always marching hand in hand, always bearing the heat of the day, always coming up with grimy, sweaty and bleeding hands and always talking about labor and strife. Don’t show me an anthology; I’ve been through enough liturgies to know how limited the real choices are. If we are honest, the same can be said about the average parish’s repertoire of hymns in English (minus the labor and strife), albeit richer than most everyone but the Germans’ when it comes to the Christmas season. We have only to gain (and not just at a daily Mass) by opting for chanting the propers of the season.

          To achieve this end, beyond workshops and seminars, engagement is indeed the route to go. I surely hope that loving and courageous parish priests will do their part to see that more chants might soon enrich our liturgy, enabling us to reclaim space from the idiosyncratic and for God.

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Abuse and Abusive

Same Old Same Old?

For over a week now I’ve been coming back every so often to a commentary published in “Off the Record” by Diogenes over at CatholicCulture.org (September 03, 2010 4:07 PM Where have we heard this complaint before? By Diogenes).

He takes as his point of departure a statement on the news by some within the Legionaries of Christ to the effect that despite all Rome is trying to do for the religious institute the upper echelon seems to remain the same old same old: they note that even Fr. Maciel’s portraits still haven’t been taken down in their houses. Basically, Diogenes makes the point that the situation of this religious order struggling with reform is no different in any of the other Church structures in the United States where abuse has been uncovered and denounced by public opinion. The statement is fair enough, but I would call his conclusion off-hand: “Dioceses all across the country are reeling, parishes are closing, Mass attendance is down. But the same chancery staffs remain in place. Moving forward as before.” Or so says Diogenes!

Diogenes is a man with a mission; he’s straight-shooting. His use of the nom de plume could easily invite comparisons with masked crime-fighters. Personally, I like reading him even if his style is more rough and ready than I’d ever dare be myself.

Time and again over the years, especially on the topic of abuse of minors by clergy, Diogenes has made the point that there are people in authority who are responsible and should be called to account. I have no disagreement there. But the closing line quoted above is too facile. Which chancery staffs should be dismissed? What do some if not all of those people have to do with disenchantment in a given parish? Why are parishes closing? Why is Mass attendance down in a given parish and what does it have to do with the chancery staff?

Sorry, Diogenes, but on this one I just have to cry “foul”!

To PR or Not To PR

Great Expectations…Not

In a very positive book review, recommending to his readers an Italian title by two vaticanisti, John Allen offers the following observation concerning the public relations debacle plaguing the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI:

Whatever one makes of that, the series of disasters surveyed in “Attacco a Ratzinger” has unquestionably eclipsed Benedict’s priorities and message for a broad swath of the world. In a sound-bite, the tragedy of Benedict’s papacy is that this is a great teaching pope, whose classroom is all but empty because his schoolhouse is burning down.

          John Allen is hoping that an English translation of this Italian journalistic exposé will quickly come on the market. I’m hoping the whole thing will be forgotten in the morning just like an “unforgettable” Independence Day fireworks display. The Allen image is wrong and it would be a crime if any of God’s little ones should be the least bit perturbed about some gratuitous statement to the effect that the Holy Father’s “schoolhouse is burning down.”

          Just keep in mind the readings for Mass for last Monday (Year II of the 22^nd Week in Ordinary Time). From I Corinthians 2:1ff. we have St. Paul reminding us of how the work of proclamation or (as John Allen calls it) teaching went on for Paul and for every successor to the Apostles:

“When I came to you, it was not with any show of oratory or philosophy, but simply to tell you what God had guaranteed. During my stay with you, the only knowledge I claimed to have was about Jesus, and only about him as the crucified Christ… And I did this so that your faith should not depend on human philosophy but on the power of God.”

          The Gospel passage from Luke 4 recounts Jesus’ expulsion from the synagogue in Nazareth and the attempt of the people of His hometown to kill Him by throwing Him over the cliff: not exactly a public relations success story.

          I can remember as a seminarian in Rome in the early 1970’s when the Vatican Museum collection of modern art went on display for the first time in that part of the Apostolic Palace referred to as the Borgia Apartments. Rumor had it that this was the first time these infamous rooms had been put to use and opened to the public in centuries. I can’t remember any particular stir or fixation in the media on the rooms themselves at the opening.

Similarly, I think it was in recent years that Spanish television put out a miniseries on The Borgias not unlike that running yet called The Tudors. Neither one of these series seems to have left people reeling about their implications for the papacy or for the English monarchy today. Our two vaticanisti and John Allen know full well that while PR might “sell papers” it doesn’t really communicate. People pick up and run with what they will; seekers and learners in numbers are to be found in places other than the Areopagus.

          Very simply and to be done with it all, both with the vaticanisti and their publishers seeking to earn a Euro or two as they feign concern over all those who detract from the mission and message of Pope Benedict XVI and with the John Allen types who refuse to see the continuity in the “adventure of living and proclaiming Church”, stretching over two millennia from Bethlehem /Nazareth /Calvary, through St. Paul and countless martyrs over the ages, whose words were rejected just like those of their Lord, while there are certainly serious matters to be addressed, the Pope’s public relations debacle is not one to occasion concern.

 “Those who really believe do not attribute too much importance to the struggle for the reform of ecclesiastical structures. They live on what the Church always is: and if one wants to know what the Church really is one must go to them. For the Church is most present, not where organizing, reforming, and governing are going on, but in those who simply believe and receive from her the gift of faith that is life to them. Only someone who has experienced how, regardless of changes in her ministers and forms, the Church raises men up, gives them a home and a hope, a home that is hope – the path to eternal life – only someone who has experienced this knows what the Church is, both in days gone by and now.” Introduction to Christianity, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Ignatius Press, 2004, pp. 343-4.

“Fastened to the cross – with the cross fastened to nothing, drifting over the abyss. The situation of the contemporary believer could hardly be more accurately and impressively described.” Idem. P.44.

If you would be a seeker and a learner, you’ll have to find your sustenance someplace other than in a popular book review or a glossy somebody’s monthly top ten.

In the Beauty of His Fragrance

Vigil Mass of the Solemnity of the Assumption

I Chronicles 15:3-4, 15, 16: 16:1-2

I Corinthians 15:54-57

Luke 11:27-28 

            The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven and the ascent to Jerusalem of the Ark of the Covenant: the Old Testament Book of Chronicles offers also to the New Testament words to explain the great mystery of Mary’s body not seeing corruption, she being taken up body and soul to be with her Son in Glory. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains the Mystery of Mary’s Assumption this way:

            “966 Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son’s Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians…” (CCC)

We cannot compare ourselves with the Mother of God, but the bottom-line of the message to be gleaned from the readings for the Vigil Mass of her feast is certainly one which gives us encouragement and hope.

            “…blest are they who hear the word of God and keep it.”

            From among the Latin Fathers of the Church, the Abbot St. Bruno explains this dynamic between Mary and the faithful Christian with these words from his commentary on this same passage from St. Luke’s Gospel:

            “This is as if He had said: Blessed indeed is My Mother, and blessed the womb that bore Me. But not for this is She blessed: because She is My Mother. Neither is the womb blessed because it bore Me. But both are blessed because She heard the word of God, and hearing it, believed; and believing, She safeguarded it. For had She not done this, She would neither be blessed, nor My Mother.

            Turning then to the Lord Our God, the Father Almighty, let us as best we can give thanks with all our hearts; beseeching Him that in His Goodness He will graciously hear our prayers, and by His Power drive evil from our thoughts and actions, increase our faith, guide our minds, grant us His holy inspirations, and bring us to everlasting joy, through His Son Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.” {The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers, vol. 2, Ignatius Press, page 98}

            Somehow vacation time this year, which normally provides lots of opportunities for good reading, has gotten away from me without the usual number of titles being polished off. I can’t say as I am disappointed because I did begin one of Hans Urs Von Balthasar’s major works, something I’ve toyed with doing for years and only now begun. I’ll look forward to picking up that thread a year from now and hopefully plowing through enough hundreds of pages to be able to find words to express my own insight gleaned from one of the greats into the beauty of God which draws us as surely as it drew Mary, she being sinless and therefore most well-disposed, and we by grace and baptism armed for the struggle against the Devil and sin in our own lives, and Jesus the Lord drawing us on like the Bridegroom He is in all His splendor.

            St. Augustine has a powerful passage about this attraction, but my Assumption Vigil reflection has more to do with Mary’s sanctity from the first moment of her being which disposed her to respond fully to God’s will leaving her untethered to be carried, to fly really, to her Son’s side when her earthly sojourn had ended. Would that we would be so inspired to “…hear the word of God and keep it”! Would that we were so inspired to cast off sin and run lightly after her beloved Son, in imitation of the Virgin Mother.

“Turning then to the Lord Our God, the Father Almighty, let us as best we can give thanks with all our hearts; beseeching Him that in His Goodness He will graciously hear our prayers, and by His Power drive evil from our thoughts and actions, increase our faith, guide our minds, grant us His holy inspirations, and bring us to everlasting joy, through His Son Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.”

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Noble Aims and Liturgical Realism

The Luminous as Eucharistic Mysteries

The Wedding Feast at Cana and Summorum Pontificum

Earlier this year His Eminence Cardinal Levada wrote to all of the Papal Representatives to ask help in soliciting from the bishops of the world their personal observations on the status of the question at three years distance from the promulgation of the Holy Father’s Motu Proprio, Summorum Pontificum (7 July 2007). The Cardinal directed proposing an open-ended invitation to each bishop to share his thoughts with His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, albeit indirectly, relative to his experience in his own diocese.

My own read on the region entrusted to my care was confirmed as not even half of my bishops responded and those who did had little or no experience with requests for celebration of the usus antiquior. The occasional Requiem or Priestly Golden Jubilee request for a semblance of a return to “the way we were” is about as far as it went. I am hoping that Cardinal Levada’s report to the Holy Father will be published at some point. It would be good to know how the bishops of the rest of the world expressed themselves.

This experience came back to me again the other day as I saw notice of the upcoming publication of a canonical commentary on Summorum Pontificum. There is an existing web page, which formed the basis for the book; therein I found a succinct statement of the three objectives for which the Motu Proprio was promulgated: a) as a response to the so-called signs of the times and a return to normalcy; b) for the sake of the mutual enrichment of the Roman Missals from both 1962 and 1970; c) to bring about reconciliation within the Catholic Church (“a) Antwort auf die Zeichen der Zeit und Rückkehr zur Normalität; b) gegenseitige Befruchtung der Missalia Romana von 1962 und 1970; c) „innere Versöhnung in der Kirche“. Gero P. Weishaupt, PÄPSTLICHE WEICHENSTELLUNGEN, Das Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum Benedikts XVI. und der Begleitbrief. Ein kirchenrechtlicher Kommentar).

Three years after the Publication of Summorum Pontificum, has the liturgical situation in the Western Church improved? How much and what kind of exposure to the usus antiquior will bring about the achievement of these goals? Does Weishaupt’s formulation of these three objectives do sufficient justice to the same objectives as set out in the Letter of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to the bishops on the occasion of the publication of the Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum on the use of the Roman Liturgy prior to the reform of 1970? The defense of truth and the promotion of justice, as well as respect for the continuity which should exist within the Church’s tradition in matters liturgical, seem to me to better surface as more evident priorities from reading the Holy Father’s letter itself. No doubt the book when published will contain a more ample analysis of the Pope’s letter than is to be found on the web page, the strictures of a canonical commentary notwithstanding. I guess I want to discourage anyone from succumbing to the temptation of settling for a quick read of the Internet commentary in hopes the book will be better. Moreover let me encourage a re-reading of the Holy Father’s letter of 2007, available on the Vatican web site:   http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/letters/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_let_20070707_lettera-vescovi_en.html

What Weishaupt means by his first objective is certainly in accord with the Pope’s words, but he comes up short of the Holy Father’s expression: more than talk about the signs of the times there should be a clear reference to correcting liturgical abuse. Talk of a return to normalcy seems to miss the point, depending on whose normalcy you may be seeking. It goes without saying that reconciliation (objective c) is founded on a profound mutual respect, but there is more to it than that.

More than the terse expression “mutual enrichment”, I think we need to quote the Holy Father’s words at length concerning the abuses and general malaise which in the de facto celebration of the ordinary form have over the past forty years too often hindered worship in spirit and in truth and been a source of confusion and discouragement for good Catholics. I’d like to underline especially the expression of hope for the renewed liturgy as formulated by the Pope:

“The most sure guarantee that the Missal of Paul VI can unite parish communities and be loved by them consists in its being celebrated with great reverence in harmony with the liturgical directives. This will bring out the spiritual richness and the theological depth of this Missal.”

Pope Benedict XVI clearly wills to unbind the shackles which have restrained the usage of the 1962 Missal over the better part of four decades and save the 1970 Missal from those who have held contemporary worship hostage for much of that same period. He means ultimately to correctly implement the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council.

            Summorum Pontificum is certainly a landmark in the struggle for full and proper liturgical expression in the Church. It might best be described as a form of gentle persuasion through acquaintance or principled encounter. It cannot stand alone as a vehicle for reform, because truth also demands a continued and persistent effort to expose liturgical abuse as it continues to stymie vernacular worship in its full and proper expression. Only a return to the usus antiquior as the ordinary form of worship could eliminate abuse in one fell swoop, but that was not the intention of the Holy Father. Pope Benedict XVI has not excused his brother bishops from vigilance in their reform efforts; he has not excused priests from teaching their people how to celebrate; he is urging musicians and artists to conscientious efforts to restore the links with the tradition in which we must stand.

             Divine worship is more than a prayer meeting, much more than a spiritual exercise. The parameters of Heavenly worship and the tradition which comes to us from the Apostles dictate the sublime character, the gravity which belongs to the Eucharist Sacrifice and all which flows from it. Nevertheless such seems many times even less evident than the expectation that Catholic institutions of higher learning faithfully teach the faith (20 years and still struggling for the implementation of Ex Corde Ecclesiae!). Much needs to be done to open hearts and minds.

            The thought came to me in meditation yesterday on the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary that they are in ways very Eucharistic Mysteries or could be treated so for purposes of meditation. The Wedding Feast at Cana in particular spoke to me about the application of Summorum Pontificum and the whole question of seeking to reform the vernacular liturgy. Only the servants who drew the water knew what was going on and yet the Gospel marks the changing of water into wine by Our Lord at the instance of His Blessed Mother as His first public sign.

            I am resolved to continue the humble work of filling the jars with water; I will do so by offering good example as a celebrant and most especially through worship ad Orientem. May the Lord grant to all those who work for well-ordered and devout worship the possibility of changing hearts and minds. The usus antiquior continues to win over young hearts and minds just as the sometimes banal and showy performance of the ordinary form drives others to despair. We owe the best to Our Lord and also to His children within the Church, for the sake of the salvation of the world.

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI