Catholic Sensibility

I wrote an article on retreats some time ago. My editor spiked it, but I found it still cluttering up my hard drive earlier tonight. So as I head off to a week of Lectio and silence and reflection and discernment and all, I leave you all with my prayers and my urging you to follow in my footsteps.

Having grown up in the pre-youth ministry age of Catholicism (the 70’s, at least in my hometown) it wasn’t until I was a college student that I actually went on retreat. Our Newman Community sponsored a weekend retreat each year about an hour away at The Abbey of the Genesee in upstate New York.

The usual peer activities were appealing enough: shared prayer, talks from the Trappist monks, music jams, and meals together. Praying the Liturgy of the Hours with the monks in the chapel was a new experience. Singing, contemplation, and a fair amount of silence: what a spiritual feast! I joined the prep team for future retreats. Why? I got to go to the monastery guest house Friday morning and often had most of the day in silence before the rest of the students arrived.

After college, I sought out other retreat experiences: the Cenacle Sisters, Madonna House in Combermere, the Trappists, the Benedictines, the Carmelites, diocesan centers, and all over North America, too: the Atlantic shore, the Rockies, Kentucky hills, northern Michigan lakesides, the rural Midwest surrounded by farmland. Just before my Master’s Degree comps, I tried to talk the Jesuits into thirty days of silence. They demurred. I settled for eight. Maybe one day I’ll make it for a whole month.

As the years have passed and my retreats away have piled up, I’ve made very few converts to the extended retreat. Surprisingly, not every priest I’ve worked for appreciated them—but they all gave me the time off. Most of my friends scratch their heads and wonder. No talking? For a whole week? What about tv, computers, and candy? No, no, and only if I used the vending machine.

What is a retreat anyway? It is, as the word suggests, a time away from the world. In the religious context, it is a time for prayer, contemplation, rest, and seeking God.

We Catholics have been blessed with the retreat experiences of the Cursillo movement and its weekend offshoots for women, teens, couples, and any sort of church group. That is one kind of retreat, and just about all of these have extremely social aspects.

I don’t knock them. I’ve attended these, too. I’ve helped to facilitate them for high school youth and RCIA candidates. Extroverts get a lot out of these weekends, and that’s a great way to introduce oneself to time away that’s not quite like a vacation, not quite a party, and infused with religious content. More power to Catholics who get energized by this. But it’s not my personal choice to re-charge my spiritual life.

If your curiosity is tickled by a more contemplative experience, I would start by contacting a retreat house. Many dioceses have them, and many religious orders run them, too. Retreat houses have many organized weekends—for men or women or both, and along many themes. A presenter or a team of leaders give talks, and people take time to digest what is said and bring it to prayer. A series of talks continues through the weekend, peppered with time alone. If a weekend theme appeals to a potential retreatant, this can be a good choice.

Some retreat houses also schedule longer retreats, six and eight days. In these longer events, the retreatant shares liturgy and silent meals with the others in the group. A spiritual director is assigned for guidance. The visitor spends the rest of the time praying, reading, or other quiet activities that aim to contemplative time. The theme becomes something arising from God’s initiative, helped by the director, and the believer is open to where the Spirit moves.

Contacting a monastery is another option. Some host visitors for retreat time, but most don’t offer more than the option of a spiritual director. The monastic advantage is in the daily celebration of Mass and the Hours. Some monasteries permit guests to assist in the labora (work) portion of the ora (prayer) et labora tradition. Here, one gets a taste of the unique charisms of the community or the religious tradition.

When I make a long retreat, the guidance of a spiritual director is invaluable. That director can be my regular guide back at home, or someone from the monastery or retreat house. A first time retreatant really wants to avail herself or himself of the important guidance. Get a director on site, or at minimum, check in with your regular director before and after your time away.

One director counseled me to never enter into a retreat with an agenda. I have gone on retreat at key times in my life: the end of school, before getting engaged, after major surgery, or as a job search commenced. I’ve still tried to empty my mind of expectations, and usually the grace shown me has been a surprise.

Another director advised me to get as much rest as I could in the early days of a retreat. It’s part of the letting go. It’s also important for me, as I’ve found the last few days of a week’s stay growing intense and full of late night prayer.

Have I convinced any readers to give it a go? If you’ve never retreated, try a men’s or women’s weekend, or maybe a parish retreat, or a theme that appeals to you. Many of you have probably been Encountered, or made a Cursillo, or a youth ministry event. Perhaps you might try a weekend at a monastery. Do you dare to try it in silence, or maybe for several days? Let the Spirit nudge you. You will know graces from God; that’s inevitable. Maybe I’ll see you on retreat … but don’t expect me to say anything.

It’s been five years since we had a kitten in the house. The other two cats are not pleased, but they seem to be adjusting. Gambit is not an exact match to the departed Splinter; he has a light orange spot on his head and he doesn’t bark. But he does have the same snout shape and pink ears.

The young miss, naturally, is delighted.

After a nod to Harry Potter with the naming of the two most recent pets, Hermione the rabbit and Ginevra the cat, we had to get back to some serious man-names here. I think Splinter was one of the best names I ever came up with. The rest of the family was unimpressed with my selections from the moons of planets (Kiviuq: thumbs way down), the chemical elements (Lithium, or worse, Astatine), or cities in Australia. Hobart was close, but like Astatine, the shortened form of the name would cause some problems.

“I can live with Gambit,” my daughter conceded.

In the old days, my wife named her cats after royalty. King and Dutchess (sic) were my step-pets when we got married. Our third cat, Count, still with us, is a hale and hearty fourteen. Splinter gave us a good transition from nobility to bridge, as after Dutchess passed away, we had a playing card, a necessity for the play of the hand, and a useful bidding convention.

Now we’re in chess territory. That can’t be bad.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan and the Pew Research Center take aim at the media this week. Catholic and conservative complaints are truly a mystery to me.

Unlike one blogger and his commentariat, I can’t ever recall a direct confession from any news medium attesting to a lack of bias. I’m not sure most Americans of either ideological extreme want unbiased news. Consider the reading habits of most internet folks. We find our interests. We club with like-minded people who enjoy homeschooling, orthodox catholicism, cooking, the moons of Jupiter, cryptozoology, or whatever. People who disagree with me have told me so: they tolerate my site, but they feel much more comfortable at other blogs. And as the transactional analysts suggest, that’s ok.

As for the tv and print media, let’s look at this closely. I remember media portrayals of themselves when I was growing up. I also caught the early 60 Minutes, watching over my dad and mom’s shoulders when I was a kid. The media had an obvious bias. Skepticism. If something didn’t sit right in a story, they would go deep down the throat of someone who wasn’t coming clean. They were like bulldogs, these 70′s journalists.

My second memory was watching my favorite space broadcaster, Walter Cronkite. He was undoubtedly biased in favor of the space program. But I don’t recall that was a problem for him or his viewers. When I watched coverage of a space mission, I didn’t (and don’t) want the events to be muddled by detractors. I want to follow the facts, and if the facts as reported have a certain positive enthusiasm behind them, I don’t see that as a bother.

Shifting forward to today, when Rachel Maddow moved to network tv, I tuned in for a week  or two. Even more than Cronkite, she has a very definitive take on the subject of her reporting and commentary. She strikes me as fair and even-handed, respectful to guests, bending over backwards to make accommodations. In sum, she conducts herself as a professional. It’s not a problem for me that she’s biased. If I were a regular watcher of tv news and political commentary, I would just want to trust the person and network I was watching. My readers know I don’t trust networks, and even serious personalities don’t hold my attention that long on tv.

I have little enough to say about Fox network; I’ll save that for the end. On the issue of sex and morals, they’re probably all secular liberals–at least where entertainment television is concerned. And I don’t doubt that their emphasis on entertainment in sports (the one thing I might occasionally watch on the network) doesn’t extend to entertainment in news and commentary as well. Enough said on that score.

Having an unbiased media would be irrelevant to me even if I watched more tv or read more print sources. The higher values–fairness, professionalism, honor, respect–and their evidence in a product that is thorough and honest and uninfluenced by corporations or the wealthy and powerful: this is more important than knowing particular commentators are either with me or against me ideologically.

Archbishop Dolan’s rant on anti-Catholicism strikes me as narrow-minded. Some of his criticisms rest on media ignorance of Catholic details. And his complaint about the Franciscan priest is well-taken. Unfortunately, journalists are not experts on the stories they cover. As a person with a serious interest in scientific hobbies, I routinely see gaffes in astronomy in the media. Spelling errors are all over the place these days–I found two on one page in a published book a few weeks ago.

Some of the archbishop’s complaints are against sister and brother Catholics. Are we to believe the Church is divided against itself in bigotry? At worst, one can characterize the work of Catholic reporters and opinionists as uninformed. I think it was Archbishop Fulton Sheen who remarked there were actually very few anti-Catholics in the US. Most who proclaimed or appeared to be so were deeply misinformed about the Church.

Fox Network can help us. Remember the motto from the X-Files? Trust no one. With the right emphasis, trust no one, it summarizes my approach to information. It’s a good way to go in the internet age too. Trust that many different viewpoints will help us in discerning the important values of Truth. Recognize that individual viewpoints each contribute a piece to what we know, what we want to know, and for what we search. Now, please get off this thread and find some contrary opinion to mine.

Sections 209 through 214 give an explanation of the main elements of the baptism portion of the initiation rites. A summary first:

209. The celebration of baptism has as its center and high point the baptismal washing and the invocation of the Holy Trinity. Beforehand there are rites that have an inherent relationship to the baptismal washing: first, the blessing of the water, then the renunciation of sin by the elect, and their profession of faith. Following the baptismal washing, the effects received through the sacrament are given expression in the explanatory rites: The anointing with chrism (when confirmation does not immediately follow baptism), the clothing with a white garment, and the presentation of a lighted candle.

Commentary:

As with all other sacraments, there are associated rites to go with the apex. Why are they important? I suppose if our catechesis were impeccable, there would be no need. In emergency situations, as we read often in the Pastoral Care rites, the important thing is the essential of the sacrament. At the Easter Vigil, however, these associated rituals have great value: they recount the story for the faith community. They also reinforce, as the rite attests, certain interior associations the newly baptized have already experienced. What are the effects of baptism? An inner strengthening, a renewal in one’s exterior life, and Christ’s light of faith: all represented in anointing, white clothing, and a lit candle.

My friend Jerry related a visit to a cathedral parish in which a curious repertoire choice unfolded at Communion time: the Gregorian antiphon, Laetabimur in salutari tuo was sung solo during the priest’s Communion, followed by “I Received the Living God,” while the people received. One of the comments on the thread:

(F)rom the directives for guest choirs at St. Peter’s Basillica in Rome, issued by the Prefect of the Musical Chapel and approved by Pope Benedict:

The guest choir may sing: at the Entrance procession until the moment when the celebrant reaches the altar (the Gregorian Introit is sung by the Musical Chapel of the Basilica), at the preparation of the gifts and relative offertory, at Communion, after the Gregorian antiphon has been sung, and at the end of Mass, after the Blessing. The program of music must follow the Liturgy of the day and will be agreed upon with and approved by the Choirmaster.

So it seems that the normative practice at St. Peters is to sing the Antiphon at communion and then follow it with the communion song, exactly the practice that was in question in your article. Now…I realize this is talking about St. Peters and not a parish church, but I would claim that there surely can’t be anything wrong with this practice if it is the approved norm at the primary Basillica of the Catholic church.

Surely there can’t be anything wrong with singing a Communion piece–chant, song, psalm, or whatever with a certain liturgical and musical integrity? Does the rite call for the Gregorian antiphon first, without psalm verses or anything to respect the integrity of the liturgy? Interesting that the four-hymn sandwich of the pre-conciliar Low Mass has made it all the way to St Peter’s. I wonder when the worshippers at St Peter’s get to sing?

Lots of talk in Rome about bloggers, at a recent international conference on pastoral guidelines for church communications. Selected quotes:

Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, didn’t think a Catholic bloggers’ “code of conduct” would accomplish much.

A Benedict XVI quote quoted by Archbishop Celli: “Charity needs truth and truth needs charity.”

Supreme Knight (of Columbus) Carl A. Anderson: “If Catholics cannot deal with each other with civility, how can we expect others to? We make certain claims about what kind of community we are; we have set the standards high and we must try really, really hard to live up to that.”

Cardinal Roger Mahony: “I have been appalled by some of the things I’ve seen; of course, I’ve been the object of some of them.”

Basilian Father Thomas Rosica spoke of a “radicalization of rhetoric” on blogs and the internet. “On the Internet there is no accountability, no code of ethics and no responsibility for one’s words and actions. So many Web sites and bloggers who call themselves Catholics focus so much on negative stories and messages that increasingly Christians are known as the people who are against everything.”

Were any bloggers invited?

Zenit has the propositions from the recent Synod of African Bishops. There are some liturgical elements in these. I direct your attention to five propositions treating Reconciliation (5-9), a brief note within proposition 33 on inculturation in liturgy, and #45, which treats “Eucharistic Source of Communion and Reconciliation.”

I’d like to take some personal time to read over the reflect on the propositions on reconciliation. Look for that in a later post. For now, let’s look at the shorter ones first, starting with these comments (Proposition 33) on inculturation, exorcism, and simony:

To be relevant and credible, the Church needs to make an in-depth discernment, so as to identify those aspects of culture which promote and those which hinder the inculturation of Gospel values.

Therefore, the Synod proposes that:

– positive elements of African traditional cultures be incorporated into the Church’s rites;

– canonical and liturgical regulations regarding the ministry of exorcism be used in a ministry of compassion, justice and charity; and

– simony be denounced among a certain number of priests, who abuse the sacramentals in order to meet the demands of the faithful who are fond of religious symbols, like incense, holy water, olive oil, salt, candles, etc.

It would be interesting to know the discussion and backstory on these elements. The bishop seem to value relevance as a minority in cultures dominated by Islam and tribal religions. I’ve never considered the ministry of exorcism outside of its place within the catechumenate as an aspect of reconciliation and conversion.

Citing the centrality of the Eucharist as source and summit of the Christian life, the bishops weigh in against the multi-purpose worship space:

Let us watch carefully the celebration of the Eucharist and arrange times and places for Eucharistic Adoration (individual and communal) in all dioceses and parishes. Care should be taken that Churches and chapels be ordinarily reserved for the celebration of the Eucharist, avoiding as much as possible that they become merely social spaces. The Synod Fathers ask that aid organizations be willing to support Dioceses, in sincere dialogue with local bishops, in the construction of places of worship, recognizing that these are essential for the visibility of the Church, a guarantee of a sense of the holy and of authentic and integral human development.

Big churches and worship centers for non-native Africans usually get a lion’s share of attention. I wonder how feasible it is in mission lands for small communities to have and support buildings that have relatively little use outside of worship.

Apparently, the Pseudowar on Christmas isn’t enough for Catholic reactionaries. They’re proposing a new scrooge initiative for November: boycotting the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.

In its defense, the coalition does urge people to donate directly to organizations. That could be good. It’s important for people to research where their charity dollar goes. That does take a lot of effort. Building up the kingdom of God always means more effort than tearing and biting at others.

More importantly, believers can actually live the Gospel message rather than throw their money around: find out how you can directly help the poor in your own neighborhood and county. Cook a meal, tutor some kids, be a big brother or big sister. Hopefully, we can all keep in mind the proverb commending teaching over giving. Charity alone is not enough.

The internet age hasn’t quite caught on at LSN, though:

LifeSiteNews.com contacted CCHD for comment, but did not hear back by press time.

In good journalism, you latch on to a story and when you have it in full–or as close as you can reasonably get it–you go to print. But gosh, we now live in an internet age when you don’t need a whole printing office to spit out ink on paper. It’s not as though LSN had a 3pm appointment at the printer. I suppose every day counts when you’re mobilizing for war.

I await claims that HLI, ALL, BVM, are “arrogant” for not believing a bishop:

After carefully and prayerfully considering Bishop Morin’s response to our campaign, we must respectfully state that this response does not satisfactorily address our primary concerns and is factually deficient in several areas.

Cheek.

The Jester and Deacon and their commentariats have jumped all over Fr Edward Richard’s Bluegrass Mass. It’s not a new development at all, using this particular American genre for worship. While they didn’t write as much of it as chant, the early St Louis Jesuits had a few bluegrass songs, John Foley’s “Born Today” and “Mighty Lord,” and Tim Manion’s “Lord of Glory.”

A few comments on the genre. Bluegrass is a fairly wholesome style, maybe the most wholesome of the various pop music developments of the last century. Like the blues, there’s a humility in its mainstream lyrics–a feature that would seem to be appealing to many sensibilities of that sort, even Catholic ones. Also like the blues, it has an ancestry in American sacred music.*

As for actually playing bluegrass style, that’s a matter less for composition and more for an informed arranger. There are any number of contemporary songs that could be translated well into a bluegrass style. All you need are the instruments: banjo, as well as guitar, bass, mandolin, and fiddle. Last night the students planned “Though The Mountains May Fall” for 10PM Mass. That tune works as an uptempo bluegrass tune, but not when the instrumentation is piano, drum kit, guitar, and flute.

One comment on both sites suggested watching the Passion to bluegrass music. You’d get the same cognitive disconnect cranking up the “Halleluyah Chorus,” but I don’t think that mismatch disqualifies Dead European White Men’s music.

Some liturgical comments:

I noted that the congregation was taught the Mass parts in advance and they were using them before the “debut” event during local bluegrass festival. I thought the music was good, and probably would translate well to piano or a straight-up guitar group.

Fr Richard’s music page has some typos. The Gloria appears to have an adapted text from the new ICEL translation. I don’t think that’s going to fly in either the pre-implementation age or post-.

The composer speaks:

I’d been asked before — quite a few times, but until now I resisted. My idea was never ‘to go liturgical’ with this.

… Father Tim’s request was a bit more understandable. This is the area of the country where Bluegrass comes from; it is a big part of the Rhythm and Roots festival here. He (Father Keeney) told me, “You really need to do this. The people here need something Catholic that is part of the experience that goes on in our town.”

It seems the music long preceded the Mass. Composers have many motivations. As a liturgical composer, I rarely write something I wouldn’t foresee being sung at Mass or at a celebration of a sacrament or the Liturgy of the Hours. Any reticence I feel about a piece is usually connected to the lack of quality or my own dissatisfaction with my work.

More from the diocesan papaer:

Referring to his initial hesitancy about writing the Mass, Father Richard pointed out, “I’m sensitive to my position in the seminary and the church, and I don’t want people to be offended. But there are a lot of different expressions of the liturgy.”

At the seminary, he laughs as he imagines his students hearing about the Bluegrass Mass and saying, ‘Really? Father Richard, the guy who celebrates the Tridentine Mass everyday?’”

That would be my question. This interview on his web site describes his own musical history, a bluegrass interest that preceded his discernment for ordination, and a wider musical formation than scoffers might suspect.

The Mass is available here for listening.

* Realizing that for some sad Catholics, the only sacred music is their own, not anybody else’s

It is not an absolute requirement that adult initiation take place at the Easter Vigil. We’ve read earlier that the whole process is to be accommodated to the liturgy, even to the point of inviting the faith community to observe another Lent in preparation and as an example for those to be baptized. Developing a second Lent during a year should be enough to give anyone pause.

208. When the celebration takes place outside the usual time (see RCIA 26-27), care should be taken to ensure that it has a markedly paschal character (see Christian Initiation, General Introduction, no. 6). Thus the texts for one of the ritual Masses “Christian Initiation: Baptism” given in the Roman Missal are used, and the readings chosen from those given in the Lectionary for Mass, “Celebration of the Sacraments of Initiation apart from the Easter Vigil.”

A good liturgist knows where to find these. The next posts in this series will outline the elements of the Liturgy of Initiation (209-216) as well as First Eucharist (217). I’ll have a few posts up today and tomorrow before my departure, then we’ll finish up the following week.

Stuffed with busy events, some days find my interior awash with the same clutter. I have another small group discernment meeting tonight. As I reflect back on the past two weeks, I see I have done little or nothing to discern. True, allergies and a round of low-grade flu have swept through the house. One doctor visit for the young  miss today ruled out a long, drawn-out H1N1 thing. The doc seems to think a minor flu coincided with fall allergies. Our daughter is usually quite healthy; I can’t ever remember four days in a row home from school for her.

My wife had an appointment with a different doct0r, and one of our cats was off to the vet–all three visits within two hours before lunch. The clouds let it rip for most of the morning, too, and my wife gets nervous driving in puddles, so instead of my getting back on the horse with my usual hours at the parish, my own work today was delayed until the afternoon. I lost my temper for a moment this morning, so to make partial amends, I fixed a baked chicken lunch while the cat (escorted by my wife) was getting poked and peeked at in the animal hospital.

The women of the house like when I do homemade gravy. Gravy was a struggle for a long time. I was on the wrong track for years making a white sauce, but back in 2004 I think, I had no milk, so I tried to add chicken broth directly to the roux (butter + flour mix). That made all the difference. Today I added some cream cheese to the gravy to give it more richness.

I think I mentioned that I’ve been making my way slowly through Thomas Merton’s The Sign of Jonas. It’s been sitting idle for about two months–since before I began the Called & Gifted process. One of the things about the book–a journal of Merton’s monastery experiences from about 1947 to 1952–is his own struggle with writing. Despite the success (or likely, because of it) of The Seven Storey Mountain, he seems awash in anguish over it. His abbot insists he continue. Merton wants to go off and pray. The notion or writing continues to surface, and as a reader, I can’t escape my own annoyance at reading it. If you want to pray and be a hermit, I think, just write about that aspiration and spare the churning on to-write-or-not-to-write.

So I’ve returned to the book and will watch my reading of it lensed through the discernment of writing.

In discernment, my guides advise me to look for a pattern. Here’s what I see so far:

In some writing, I really struggle. If I don’t have a clear grasp of the content, it can be really difficult. I have a small essay on adoption hitting print next month. (November is National Adoption Month.) It was a real struggle for me. I needed to do research and I found people less than willing to be forthright with their comments–with only two exceptions. My editor really worked the piece over good. Twice. She improved it a great deal, but I felt a bit guilty about it. This publication has higher standards than my regular liturgical venues, so maybe I’m just used to having (and sometimes complaining) about getting a free pass. As it is, for a non-headline piece, I was wondering if it was all worth the struggle. My editor is probably too polite to suggest she spent more hours on it than on their mainstream essays. I’ll link when it gets published and you can decide.

I had an idea for a scholarly article–I would have to do some research in Latin and Greek, which are respectively, very rusty and non-existent in my brain. A lot of work for an article that sparked just one note of interest and not even a real commitment. Should I justify cracking open another new horizon in writing when I could be working on other things? Four months after the initial pitch and I still haven’t typed word one.

On the other hand, composing has come very easy these past few weeks. One new piece for my musical done and a second song has been polished up. I spent some good time last week reordering my binder and taking out finished songs, setting aside old ideas to reexamine. I had forgotten I had done a draft on the spoken text in between songs. Amazingly enough, I did that five years ago and put it aside to be forgotten.

All while this has been going on, other patterns have emerged in ministry. Some of them seem to be guiding me away from writing. In my last two parishes, I wrote weekly for the bulletin. Eight years of columns, but that idea hasn’t been picked up at my new parish. There’s a move away from heavy bulletin content here. The students tend not to read it–or even pick up bulletins on the way out of church. Old habits from adolescence, I suppose.

I did get an affirming e-mail from a parishioner, who, I suspect, reads this blog. I got another e-mail from someone else who said when I tried to explain myself in a recent exchange of e-mails, she got more confused. I also take seriously those on the Catholic Right who say I’ve alienated them. But it doesn’t wash away my doubt of the testimony. It all might be colored by the generally sorry state of communication in the Church these days. I’ve tried to stay away from echo chambers of my own making. While I’m sure I annoy the heck out of people who just wish I would go away so they can have their brand of Catholicism to enjoy in peace, I’m far from the worst offender in terms of insulting people. It’s a tricky discernment: do I trust the echo as one voice or as many? As I said, like the positive input I’m getting, I lump this in the category of doubt, wait-and-see.

The workbook Discerning Charisms is wise when speaking of eliminating charisms:

You need to identify a pattern of personal indifference or distaste for the activity; of mediocre or poor results; of merely polite, bland, or negative responses from others before you can rule out a charism. Obviously that cannot happen in two weeks! It may not happen in six. In fact, it could take several years, depending on the breadth and depth of your experience.

Well … I knew that.

More for the pattern: a parishioner with experience in marketing and media approached me with some ideas on putting together multimedia pieces for students, alumni, and parishioners. I was feeling a tide of excitement as she talked about some ideas and I offered a few of my own. Some of these are exactly along the lines of my thinking at the parish over the past several months. Some of them would involve prominently that mixture of music and writing I’ve been exploring. And it wouldn’t be composition, necessarily, but other sorts of combinations. Doing things no other parish or student center is doing: that was a real tickle, let me say.

Sunday I head off for a week at St John’s University. My new pastor tipped me off to the Conversatio Retreats offered there for ecclesial ministers. Listening. That will be an excellent theme for the week. Originally, I chose that session because over the years, I had felt I’ve grown lazy with my listening skills. I used to think I was a good listener. But I worry I’ve gotten soft on it. More likely, I’ve had room to continue to grow as a listener, but I haven’t taken advantage of opportunities.

It’s been a bit more than two years since my last serious retreat, so this time away is long overdue. I will have uninterrupted time in a monastic/university environment to listen to the Spirit, to reflect with Lectio Divina on the charism of listening. And while I’m not planning to master the entire discernment workbooks, I will be leaving the week open to as much of an unencumbered experienc eof prayer and openness as I can muster in my clouded head and heavy spirit.

I think you can expect no blogging from me at all next week. I leave things to Neil if he wishes to offer something. If not, there are plenty of other good blogs out there. Come back on the 7th and see how an intense period of discernment has turned out for me.

Even before a single Anglican emerged dripping, shivering, and towelling dry from the Tiber, there was lots of cheering, jeering, and whatnot on the forthcoming apostolic constitution on absorbing Anglicans into the Roman West. The matter doesn’t interest me deeply. Back in the gool ol’ 70′s, we had an Anglican teaching high school history. He was asked about his reception of Communion at school Masses, and I recall he said something along the lines of Roman Catholics believing in the Real Presence at their Mass, and therefore it was no problem for him.

I had a college friend who, though American, insisted she was Anglican and not Episcopalian. (Her mother’s maiden name was Spencer, so my friend claimed to be a fifth cousin of Princess Di–but that’s another story.) She had no problem with Eucharistic belief either–regularly participating in the Newman Community and various groups there.

My older brother is an Episcopalian. I was stunned to learn a few months ago that, as a boy, he used to listen to the rosary on the radio. More, he used to pray the rosary as a child. Given my family’s stunted flirtation (before I was born) with Roman Catholicism, I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised. Every so often, he and his wife come down for Mass at the student center. They do not receive Communion, out of respect for their variance with the pope, as opposed to any lack of belief in the Real Presence. My brother actually left the Lutheran Church when he moved to Iowa because he “missed Mass,” as he put his high-church experience out west.

In my limited experience, I find many non-Catholics who have a strong belief in the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The obstacle, it seems, is less sacramental faith than ecclesiastical governance. In grad school, I did a series of papers in different courses on Catholic-Orthodox ecumenism. I was drawn to certain liturgical elements of the East, as well as the witness of many Eastern saints, especially the Eastern Doctors. But I was aware that faithfulness to the sacramental and liturgical traditions is not enough for unity.

So now it seems that there have sprung up some nets, shoals, and rubble in the Tiber. The end of mandatory celibacy in the West seems to have been put off. So much for the Anglican Route: Roman seminarians-to-be getting married, shifting to Anglican Use, getting ordained, then shifting back. Save those Hail Mary plays for the gridiron.

It will be interesting to see how this “Benedictine Ecumenism” plays out. Can the Servant of Unity throw the doors open? Or will worries about Roman celibacy hang the effort? Will this be another rock on which non-Catholics must stumble?

207. The usual time for the celebration of the sacraments of initiation is the Easter Vigil (see RCIA 23), at which preferably the bishop himself presides as celebrant, at least for the initiation of those who are fourteen years old or older (see RCIA 12). As indicated in the Roman Missal, “Easter Vigil,” the conferral of the sacraments follows the blessing of the water.

An interesting preference for the bishop to preside. Presumably that directive is for the cathedral parish, or for the bishop to travel to a catechumenate center or to invite the elect to the cathedral. Equally interesting is the bias for older teens and adults. Children may be baptized at other times, and by other ministers.

I’ve never been aware of a cathedral in which the bishop wouldn’t baptize younger children.

RCIA 206 through 243 cover the celebration of the Easter Vigil. The Vigil is the normative time at which adult baptism, confirmation, and First Eucharist take place. Sections 206-217 are the instructions given in the rite–not the rubrics, but the liturgical theology behind what happens at the Vigil.

Let’s start the eleven posts on these twelve sections:

206. The third step in the Christian initiation of adults is the celebration of the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, and eucharist. Through this final step the elect, receiving pardon for their sins, are admitted into the people of God. They are graced with adoption as children of God and are led by the Holy Spirit into the promised fullness of time begun in Christ (Lumen Gentium 48, Ephesians 1:10) and, as they share in the eucharistic sacrifice and meal, even to a foretaste of the kingdom of God.

I find these paragraphs in the rites very instructional. There’s a lot packed into three sentences. First, a reminder that the celebration of the sacraments is the last of three steps, a transition to the last of four periods of the initiation process. There a rightful sense this is a very vital moment, but the Easter Vigil is not the beginning of Christian life, nor should it bring for the community and elect a sense that “Finally! The Moment has come.”

An important reminder that baptism forgives sin. Do the elect get off easy? Only if the scrutinies have been neglected or downplayed.

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians supplies the metaphor of adoption. While emphasizing the Eucharist as both sacrifice and meal, the whole event is given an eschatological taste, pointing to the governance of God in our lives and our cooperation both in the present and in the reign to come, of that holy government and our part in cooperating with it.

Not bad for a mere eighty-two words.

(This is Neil) With regard to Todd’s post, Trautman’s Vocab, below, I thought that some of our readers would be interested in this excerpt from C.S. Lewis’ posthumously published Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer (1964). Lewis is discussing the process in the Church of England that ultimately led to the publication of the  Alternative Service Book (ASB) in 1980 (a Liturgical Commission had been appointed in 1955):

For whom are we to cater in revising the language? A country parson I know asked his sexton what he understood by indifferently in the phrase “truly and indifferently administer justice.” The man replied, “It means making no difference between one chap and another.” “And what would it mean if it said impartially?” asked the parson. “Don’t know. Never heard of it,” said the sexton. Here, you see, we have a change intended to make things easier. But it does so neither for the educated, who understand indifferently already, nor for the wholly uneducated, who don’t understand impartially. It helps only some middle area of the congregation which may not even be a majority. Let us hope the revisers will prepare for their work by a prolonged empirical study of popular speech as it actually is, not as we (a priori) assume it to be. How many scholars know (what I discovered by accident) that when uneducated people say impersonal they sometimes mean incorporeal?

What of expressions which are archaic but not unintelligible? (“Be ye lift up.”) I find that people re-act to archaism most diversely. It antagonizes some; makes what is said unreal. To others, not necessarily more learned, it is highly numinous and a real aid to devotion. We can’t please both.

I know there must be change. But is this the right moment? Two signs of the right moment occur to me. One would be a unity among us which enabled the Church – not some momentarily triumphant party – to speak through the new work with a united voice. The other would be the manifest presence, somewhere in the Church, of the specifically literary talent needed for composing a good prayer. Prose needs to be not only very good but very good in a very special way, if it is to stand up to reiterated reading aloud. [Thomas] Cranmer may have his defects as a theologian; as a stylist, he can play all the moderns, and many of his predecessors, off the field. I don’t see either sign at the moment.

Based on this excerpt, we can, I think, ask four questions:

1. Regarding the vocabulary in new liturgical translations, has anyone actually conducted relevant empirical studies of popular speech? (Or are we just speculating?)

2. Can we say anything more than Lewis about “archaic” expressions? Is there an argument for “liturgical English – a “sacral” and “strongly stylized, more or less artificial language” (see here) – beyond the claim that some people (but inevitably some) will find it numinous and an aid to devotion?

3. Can the church presently speak with a “united voice” regarding liturgical translation?

4. Have we made use of any “literary talent” in translation?