Active Moon

Pardon me for not posting on astronomy in a while. Usually the winter is very inspiring to me: very clear skies at night, plus the snow and ice formations that seem other-worldly at times.

Above is a six-month-old image from Cassini at Saturn. The shepherd moon Prometheus casts a shadow on the main rings, if you look carefully to the right. Two gouges in the F ring (left) are prominent. Check out this video for the process.

Imagine if we had a moon and a ring interacting in this way. I wonder what kind of mythology would develop around it. How do you suppose Christian liturgy and devotion would adopt the symbolism of it?

 

RCIA 299: Penitential Intercessions

“A brief interval of silence” is prescribed before the presider addresses the assembly with an introduction to the intercessions. There is a given option that the adult rite scrutiny texts (RCIA 153, 167, and/or 174) may be used with modifications.

Let us pray for N. and N. who are preparing themselves for the sacraments of Christiain initiation, [for N. and N., who will receive God's forgiveness in thre sacrament of penance for the first time,] and for ourselves, who seek the mercy of Christ.

Six intercessions follow. Unlike those of RCIA 153, etc., they are general in content and do not allude to the Scriptures. While not “dumbed down,” these intercessions are simply expressed with words of ten letters or less:

That we may open our hearts to the Lord Jesus with gratitude and faith …

That we may honestly try to know our failures and recognize our sins …

That, as children of God, we may openly admit our weaknesses and faults …

That in the presence of Christ we may express sorrow for our sins …

That we may be delivered from present evils and protected against those to come …

That we may learn from our Father in heaven to triumph by his love over the powers of sin …

Lots of horizontal references, but clearly God-focused.

 

Sects, Lies, and …

A priest lied about having prostate cancer to get his parishioners to send him to Lourdes for a miracle.

Commentary from a priest colleague:

All he did was to lie and that’s not a good thing. He was very, very repentant of that and, being as repentant as he was, he is not going to reoffend again.

Commentary from his bishop, who suspended him from priestly duties at his parish:

He’s delusional.

Commentary from a reader of the news site:

It’s a wonder he wasn’t made a bishop!

What about his seminary? The Priestly Fraternity of St Peter Seminary in Lincoln, Nebraska once sent him home when he lied about his health.

My commentary: If he actually got money from parishioners, then he did more than lie. He perpetrated a fraud.

The diocese transferred him to a city 3,000 miles away. What would you have done? Before clicking the link, care to offer any guesses as to where this guy was serving?

 

RCIA 297-298: Penitential Readings and Homily

These next two sections are all rubrics. In 297, a minimum of one reading, presumably the Gospel, is designated. If two readings are utilized, then a psalm “or a song” should be used between the readings. Usually when the rite mentions a “song,” the example given is a psalm. I don’t see any reason why a parish wouldn’t use a psalm–it’s just good liturgical practice. Plus we lack no decent number of psalm settings in music collections for children.

Six choices for readings are given: Ezekiel 36:25-28 (new heart, new spirit) or Isaiah 1:16-18 (cleansing of sin) or Mark 1:1-5, 14-15 (repent!) or Mark 2:1-12 (Jesus heals the paralyzed man) or Luke 15:1-7 (lost sheep) or 1 John 1:8-2:2 (Jesus is savior). Shorter versions of the scrutiny gospels are also given as options.

The Psalms and given refrains are 23 (The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want), 27 (The Lord is my light and my salvation), 32 (Happy are those whose sins are forgiven) and 89 (Forever I will sing the goodness of the Lord) or any psalms in the Lectionary’s section on Christian Initiation apart from the Easter Vigil.

RCIA 298 designates the “sacred texts” to be explained in a “short homily.” I presume that means not just the readings, but also the prayers of the penitential rite. The rest of the direction:

During the homily or immediately after it, the celebrant prepares all those in the assembly for conversion and repentance by speaking to them of appropriate themes, then pausing for periods of silent reflection.

If the assembly includes baptized children who will receive the sacrament of penance for the first time, the celebrant turns to them and invites them to show by some external sign their faith in Christ the Savior and their sorrow for their sins.

Comments?

 

Another Shining Moment for Political Catholics

Few things rankle me more than deliberate injustice perpetrated on people. I’ve experienced it myself, and I’ve seen it practiced by bishops, pastors and parishioners on otherwise innocent and usually shocked individuals. I haven’t been following the most recent Catholic Republican push to discredit the CCHD. But I find it tough to let last week’s episode with John Carr go without leveling some heavy criticism the way of the political anti-abortion movement, and some select bloggers.

With this word of support, I can imagine Fr Frank Pavone is pretty close to being labelled a left-wing babykiller. Good for him, especially if he gives some of the more vehement political anti-abortion crowd a headache trying to figure out right from wrong.

I have to say I’m shocked an organization like Our Sunday Visitor would give this gossip the time of day. There’s a danger we all face in blogging: few to no colleagues, no editorial board, no standards of journalism, no training in either proper dissemination of news or even, it would seem for some, any moral compass. It’s really a shame an organization that purports to uphold principles of journalism would get duped. And more, lower itself to the detritus level of the internet.

Catholic Republicans show their true colors. Political parties long ago shed any sense of moral compass. The Republicans may give anti-abortion lip service, but they seem more than content, even when in control of the federal government, to keep abortion-on-demand out there as a carrot for religious types ready to be fooled. Again. And again and again and again. We already know that when it comes to financial or sex scandals, the GOP is as likely as any other political party to be elbow-deep in scummy activities. And the Catholic brand of politics has certainly seem its share of being sullied.

As I understand it, the CCHD is not, and was never intended to be a charitable organization. It addresses the root causes of poverty. Too bad conservatives live up to their brand of voodoo and presume that as long as “good intentions” toward the poor are maintained, and soup kitchens kept open, they can retreat to their homes at night and sleep soundly knowing they’ve done their share of modelling
Matthew 25.

The problem for the modern Republican is that their brand is all hermenteutic of subtraction: stand for nothing, except for knocking down anyone in their way that happens to be standing. The thing about the poor: if you really care, at some point you might want to ponder a world in which charity money and labor doesn’t go down a seemingly-endless drain. You might posit, as the US bishops did decades ago, that it makes financial, if not moral sense, to address the root causes of why people need charity, rather than mindlessly writing your 5% check every week. (And did the Catholic Republicans remember to write that check?)

What would make moral sense would be for a moratorium on the efforts against the CCHD. By association, any critic will have to morally distance himself or herself from the gossipmongers of the past week or two. I think any organization is always reformable. But I’d say there are more and closer connections today between Catholic Republicans and the sins of calumny and detraction than John Carr ever had with abortion-on-demand.

And the sad thing of it: If pro-abortion folks had been able to get a trojan horse into the pro-life movement, it wouldn’t have worked any better than it did last week. Good thing I’m not a conservative, or I’d be calling for investigations on the usual conservative suspects and wondering what sorts of pro-choice links they had in their checkbooks, let alone their own histories.

So here’s how I see the remains: the win-at-all-cost, end-justifies-the-means mentality has usurped not a few Catholic blogs. In the course of sinking the CCHD, it doesn’t matter how pro-life you are. If you’re in the way, you will be the victim of lies, and in the grand ol’ tradition, they will try to pink-slip you off your job. Do I have it about right?

 

Funeral Wishes

Anybody remember the early 90’s film The Doctor? William Hurt plays a brash, conceited surgeon, something of a precursor to Greg House. Hurt’s character finds himself diagnosed with cancer. I remember the movie for the use of music by two surgeons to either entertain themselves during their operations or to calm their unconscious patients. Hurt has raucous rock music piped in to the surgery room. A colleague, largely shunned because of his reputation for being concerned for his patients, plays soothing classical music, as much for his patients as for himself.

When Hurt’s character needs a surgeon to remove throat tumors, he goes to his shunned colleague. Knowing the ill doctor would appreciate it, the operation takes place accompanied by a rock soundtrack, not the usual classical fare.

That part of the movie came to mind immediately when I read Tom Kolar’s comment on the last Msgr Marini post:

I faithfully support the church financially, but no longer attend Mass because of the contemporary Catholic Music. I have it in my Last Will And Testament that there is to be no music at my Funeral Mass. From my conversations with my family over the years about the state of church music on Sundays – I should say they will be happy with my funeral.

When we get to our in-depth examination of the Catholic funeral rites, we will find that music is an assumption for a funeral Mass, not an option. That’s if you go by the red-n-black, of course. The Church stops short of mandating music for every particular funeral, but it does make clear that music is part of the rite.

That said, I can think of few priests and no professional colleagues of  mine who would deny reasonable choices for a funeral Mass. The practice in this country is generally that the family dictates the liturgy planning, unless the deceased has made prior arrangements with the parish staff.

I lament that a person doesn’t go to Mass because of the music–there are plenty of choices to avoid contemporary music: daily Masses, the early Sunday Mass in many large parishes, and parishes that devote themselves to traditional music. Is being in communion with the Church worth a relocation from a rural or otherwise isolated location? I would think so.

That said, I can speak for the resources I have at hand for my parish. We would always use the 1989 Order of Christian Funerals (OCF), but being able to assemble a schola or a cantor/psalmist and accompanist for a funeral with traditional music would not be outside of my abilities and resources.

Is this a matter of catering to the personal taste of mourners and of the deceased? I would hope not. But this is where I would see a vast improvement in the liturgical and pastoral tenor of the Church since the last council. Prior to Vatican II, there would have been little or no discussion on this. Funeral musicians had a set repertoire, usually very limited. And they played funerals regardless of their own skills: excellence, good, decent, or marginal. There was no dialogue on the Scriptures, nor on the content of the homily. The Vigil likely didn’t include storytelling or other aspects of the grief process. Perhaps we’ve traded away the Dies Irae, probably poorly done in places that even bothered with singing it, for the ability to minister to particular pastoral needs. While the reputation of pre-conciliar music is now pretty high in hindsight, I’d say that the experience of Requiem Masses before 1970, on the whole, was a liturgical and spiritual impoverishment compared to the modern rite.

And alas, I should also point out that just because a deceased person has designated certain instructions to be carried out at the time of death, doesn’t mean the family will actually do it. I’ve known persons whose wish for a Catholic funeral has been abrogated by family. In one case, the children chose a different church for the funeral, against the expressed wishes of an elderly lady known by the parish staff, the social worker, and the care facility. Are you going to court over it? Not likely.

 

RCIA 296: Opening Prayer for the Penitential Rite

I don’t want to gloss over the important aspects of this rite. I’ll take it slow and you may find interesting insights in the rite. These opening prayers certainly reveal something of the intent of the rite, the connection between penance and baptism, and the expectations and hopes for children who are celebrating.

After the entrance song, the priest has an option of one of two prayers. I presume that a ritual greeting (The Lord be with you, etc.) would not be out of place, but remember that the rubrics for RCIA 295 state the place for explanations or introductions is before the song, not after. This would be in keeping with the important liturgical principle of singing the Mass, not singing at the Mass, even when the music in question is a song or hymn.

My sense is that after the people have gathered, I would use the ritual greeting, offer very brief remarks if needed, sing the song, then offer the prayer. There are two choices in the ritual, but not “other words,” as we’ve often seen.

Option A of RCIA 296 is brief and to the point:

God of pardon and mercy,
you reveal yourself in your readiness to forgive
and manifest your glory by making us holy.

Grant that we who repent
may be cleansed from sin
and restored to your life of grace.

We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Option B is even shorter:

Lord,
grant us your pardon and peace,
so that, cleansed of our sins,
we may serve you with untroubled hearts.

We ask this through Christ our Lord.

It’s easy to skip over small prayers like this. But they serve a great instructional purpose for students of the liturgy. Notice the focus on God–that’s obvious. Notice the definition of divine glory: God’s agency in making people holy. Notice the presumption that people come to the penitential rite in a posture of repentance, and yet we still ask for sin to be cleansed. And in option B, notice the related qualities of peace and being “untroubled.” These teach children some vital qualities of penance: that being truly contrite means an awareness of the inner brokenness of sin, and that we freely ask God to intercede, and to forgive and restore us. The Church’s sacramental structure give a ritualization to our feelings of sorrow and our petition for God’s agency. And it does so in direct language that teaches us a lot in just a few sentences.

Other comments?

 

No Child Left Behind

A parish in Gryfow Slaski, Poland has a novel approach to encouraging the sacramental life. The story is from Reuters but the folks at PrayTell wonder if it’s a hoax:

A Polish priest has installed an electronic reader in his church for schoolchildren to leave their fingerprints in order to monitor their attendance at (M)ass.

Father Grzegorz Sowa dispenses students from taking their Confirmation exam if they attend 200 Masses in three years. That sounds about right: every Sunday plus about a dozen holy days a year. Presumably he watches the door for kids who scan, then ditch.

When I was a kid, the pastor insisted that children coming to Sunday Mass alone should sit in one of the front five rows. I took him seriously; and I never really lost the habit.

One student’s comment:

This is comfortable. We don’t have to stand in a line to get the priest’s signature in our confirmation notebooks.

I wonder what would happen if the plan were expanded to adults. No wedding unless you have, what, sixty Masses in a year? Build up credit for funerals now; you never know when you might need one.

Thanks to Liam for the headline.

 

Msgr Marini on Music

Yet one more post on Msgr Marini’s oft-quoted and recognized address to clergy as part of a conference for the Year for Priests. That may be an important context for the papal  liturgist’s remarks here: they are directed not at musicians, but at pastors and others in Holy Orders.

Msgr Marini concedes his brief remarks on music touch on only two questions:

Why does the Church insist on proposing certain forms as characteristic of sacred and liturgical music which make them distinct from all other forms of music?

Why, also, do Gregorian chant and the classical sacred polyphony turn out to be the forms to be imitated, in light of which liturgical and even popular music should continue to be produced today?

Good questions. Msgr Marini answers his own questions as follows:

It is properly those forms of music, in their holiness, their goodness, and their universality, which translate in notes, melodies and singing the authentic liturgical spirit: by leading to adoration of the mystery celebrated, by favouring an authentic and integral participation, by helping the listener to capture the sacred and thereby the essential primacy of God acting in Christ, and finally by permitting a musical development that is anchored in the life of the Church and the contemplation of its mystery.

And yet, this will not always translate into the same type of music for different nations and cultures, for different churches and their local traditions, or even within the same parish in the gamut of “informality” to more grave occasions. The suggestion that chant and polyphony will fit a wide swath of Catholic liturgy is correct. But chant and polyphony do not always and everywhere facilitate the ideals listed in Marini’s answer, especially universality, adoration, participation, and sometimes even the “capture” of the sacred.

Even as a musician, I can concede music is a tool. It may well be the best tool in the artist’s box, but it remains a means to an end. I think any serious Catholic church musician must consider the role of plainsong. My readers know of my advocacy for traditional music and the form of the propers of the Mass. And yet, when it comes to musical style, one cannot avoid consideration of the architecture and acoustics, the abilities of the music leaders, the pastoral situation of the assembly, the context of the liturgical celebration (Sunday Mass, daily Mass, wedding, funeral, youth, elderly, etc), the support from the clergy, the financial resources of the community–just to name a few.

 

Puppets for the Word

Do you think inculturation detractors would find this puppetry objectionable? The Jacob story from Genesis is a pretty dramatic offering.

About 250 Catholics gathered in the compound of Pangudi Luhur Elementary School in Surakarta to watch the show.

“The Word of God is like seeds. If the seeds can adapt to the soil where they are sown, they will grow. If they cannot, they will die,” Father (Fransiscus Xaverius) Wiyono told UCA News after the show.

Any readers experience this performance genre, either in Christian or traditional Indonesian form?

 

Don’t Look Now: Another Pro-Life Protest

So … how many bishops will be condemning Legatus for giving a pro-life award to the most pro-torture president in recent memory? Do you suppose some number of pro-lifers will be arrested for protesting? Will the USCCB debate behind closed doors on Catholic identity in the marketplace? Cardinal George (no Mary Ann Glendon, he) sure is piling up frequent-flier miles, isn’t he? Rome last week for Vox Clara, and today California.

 

RCIA 295: Penitential Rite Outline and Greeting

The sections 295 through 303 give the “red-n-black” for the penitential rite. We’ll just focus on #295 today. The outline of the liturgy is as follows:

Greeting and Introduction
Prayer
Readings
Homily
Intercessions
Exorcism
Anointing with the Oil of Catechumens [or Laying on of Hands]
Dismissal of the Children

Liturgy of Penance

Pretty close to the scrutiny, except for the insertion of the anointing. We’ll get into more detail in future posts. I think the rubric for RCIA 295 is important, so I’ll give it in its entirety:

295. The priest welcomes the assembly and in a few words explains that the rite will have different meanings for the different participants: the children who are catechumens, the children who are already baptized, particularly those who will celebrate the sacrament of penance for the first time, the parents, godparents, catechists, priests, etc. All these participants in their own different ways are going to hear the comforting message of pardon for sin, for which they will praise the Father’s mercy.

A song may be sung that joyfully expresses faith in the mercy of God our Father.

The combination of First Penance with the penitential rite/scrutiny occurs in no parish of which I’m aware. That an explanation might be in order seems obvious. “Few” words would be a liturgist’s hope.

Note that “joyful” song. What texts come to mind for you? I think of Psalm 103. Maybe Psalm 27. The musical idiom may also communicate the “joy.”

 

Process the Palms

No, not that kind of processing. This kind:

A tip from a priest friend: Before burning palms for Ash Wednesday, run them through a food processor. The pieces will burn into ashes more fine than whole fronds. I’m sure all you liturgy geeks out there have a spare food processor in your sacristies. Next to the washer and dryer, right?

 

Implementing the Missal: Snapshot 2

I can’t really offer implementation tales from the liturgy front without mentioning a few of the plans from my own parish.

We’ve just formed a music committee to assist in the oversight of new repertoire and preparing music for Sundays and holy days. In the months ahead, we will be reviewing Mass settings, and assessing which of the parish’s current six will be retained, and which retired.

Once the new translation is promulgated, I suspect we will implement revised or new Mass settings as they come up in the rotation. I may compose my first Mass setting in twenty-five years to offer for consideration. Don’t know for sure–I still have a musical chugging toward completion.

I would predict that our pastor will want to implement the new texts at the start of the Fall semester, acknowledging some students will be arriving from parishes that have already implemented, and that others will be returning home at Christmas to places that have ducked in under the deadline.

That assumes the CDWDS takes a sensible approach, setting a date on the first Sunday of Advent for the end of a grace period.

Since our parish uses neither seasonal worship booklets or the Order of Mass buried in our hymnals, I will probably request permission to print the new Order of Mass in August for use as long as we need it. Our collection of hymnals is wearing out, but I don’t expect to replace them for maybe another two to three years at least. That would be a discernment based on our alternatives and probably independent of the new Missal. And as I said on another post, I wouldn’t judge it wise to implement too many changes proximate to the new translation taking effect.

Anybody else giving thought to their faith community’s timelines? Any good suggestions? Don’t forget to tune in on Jerry Galipeau’s Tuesday and Thursday posts on his blog. Most instructive.

 

Implementing the Missal: Snapshot 1

I heard from a ministry colleague that once the new Missal becomes official, her pastor will dispose of all the hymnals in her parish. A lot of questions come to mind on this one.

First, how many Catholics pay attention to the Order of Mass in their hymnals? I can tell you that very very few of my parishioners have ever consulted the hymnal. Many don’t even know the Order of Mass is in there. Is there really a problem with having the old text tucked away in there if the people have access to the new?

Second, parishioners might be attached to the hymnals in one of two ways. First, they may really like them. Or second, they may care less for them, but for the fact they recently shelled out significant dollars to buy them. GIA usually touts their hymnals will pay for themselves in five years. Plus there are people who may have made special donations for hymnals.

I can imagine that if a parish is likely to have negative experiences with the new Missal, it might be over the loss of something like this. I can tell you I’ll be treading very, very lightly in the pastoral department when we implement. Give people a chance to vent. Give them an opportunity to question, complain, and resist. I don’t know that I’d want to be stirring the pot with additional changes. It’s probably one reason why our parish will delay for a few years choosing, learning, and implementing a plainsong Mass setting. Too much “turning back the clock” isn’t a good idea for our community.