Catholic Sensibility

Let’s have a brief chat about music during the Reception Rites, shall we?

135. To draw the community together in prayer at the beginning of the funeral liturgy, the procession should be accompanied, wherever possible, by the singing of the entrance song. This song ought to be a profound expression of belief in eternal life and the resurrection of the dead as well as a prayer of intercession for the deceased (see, for example, OCF 403).

Commentary:

The model given in OCF 403 is of alternate songs of farewell. Six are in the responsorial format, and one is a hymn, “I Know That My Redeemer Lives.” I’d say the framers of the funeral rites are less concerned with the propers+psalm format than the purpose of the entrance itself. That would be an expression of faith in eternal life and resurrection, as well as intercession for the dead.

I know I’m jumping the gun on OCF 403, but one stands out for me:

You shattered the gates of bronze and preached to the spirits in prison.

R. Deliver me, Lord, from the streets of darkness.

A light and a revelation to those confined in darkness.

R. Deliver me, Lord, from the streets of darkness.

“Redeemer, you have come,” they cried, the prisoners of silence.

R. Deliver me, Lord, from the streets of darkness.

Eternal rest, O Lord, and your perpetual light.

R. Deliver me, Lord, from the streets of darkness.

Thoughts on any of this? If you were to program a psalm or canticle from the Hebrew Scriptures for entrance, which would you choose? Or would you take a more literal lean and suggest the explicit Christian values of resurrection should be expressed in the entrance song?

Enjoying a lazy afternoon on the bed.

The placing of a Christian symbol on the coffin is optional, but if done, OCF 134 has a brief instruction on it:

134. If in this rite a symbol of the Christian life is to be placed on the coffin, it is carried in the procession and placed on the coffin by a family member, friend, or the minister at the conclusion of the procession.

Logical. Put the object on the coffin after it has been moved into position.

Pope Benedict responds to a question on his recent trip. NCReg gives a translation:

Our goals should not be more power and more people, but instead to be at the service of Another – to be servants. But good servants work at it. Good servants are as prepared, educated, efficient and effective as they can possibly be. We can’t claim to be good servants if we don’t invest time in being good at it. It is all tied up together. That means learning from each other, taking risks with new and better ideas, breaking conventions, overcoming fears and doing things that serve others instead of ourselves.

We don’t need to focus on making the Church attractive. We just need to focus on more effectively presenting Jesus Christ to the world. He is the most attractive thing there is.

Some of this is good and some not so much. Too many apologists for a “smaller, purer” church are out there. I think we have to focus on evangelization and on bringing Christ to as many people as we can. As for the “quality” of believers, two things. Each Christian attends to her or his own quality. We can’t speak for others, only influence them. And second, God’s grace is at work in every human being, not some human notion of institutional orthodoxy, purity, or faithfulness.

That said, the Holy Father is surprisingly open to the notions of personal quality–of committing ourselves to a life of service in part through a commitment to excellence. And I agree with Pope Benedict’s nuanced second paragraph here. We present Christ as the attractive one. We evangelize, in part, through our example. Let’s be mindful we are part of the ambassadorial team of Jesus Christ. Non-believers don’t usually see or perceive Christ. But they do perceive us.

Will our cell phones and computers be safe? Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno on the solar maximum and a potential threat to wireless technology. Nice seven-minute feature from Vatican Radio–worth a listen, despite a cutoff before the end of the piece.

So the president is actually a secret Catholic instead of a Muslim. Who knew?

If reception hasn’t taken place at an earlier rite celebrated at the church …

133. The rite of reception takes place at the beginning of the funeral liturgy, usually at the entrance of the church. It begins with a greeting of the family and others who have accompanied the coffin to the door of the church. The minister sprinkles the coffin with holy water in remembrance of the deceased person’s initiation and first acceptance into the community of faith. If it is the custom in the local community, a funeral pall, a reminder of the garment given at baptism, and therefore signifying life in Christ, may then be placed on the coffin by family members, friends, or the minister. The entrance procession follows. The minister precedes the coffin and the mourners into the church. If the Easter candle is used on this occasion, it may be placed beforehand near the position the coffin will occupy at the conclusion of the procession.

Commentary:

The entrance is a fitting location. I know some clergy are concerned with visibility and conduct the reception at the front. My sense is that this loosens the connection with baptism. This alteration has the potential, if done casually, of being interpreted as more of a blessing than a demonstration of a sacramental connection.

I’ve never experienced skipping the funeral pall. This is universal in the US, isn’t it? Likewise the proximity of the Easter candle with the coffin. I can’t think of a reason why pall and candle wouldn’t be used, short of a cultural alternative.

Note that the minister will not be at the rear of the procession. Like the wedding, it is one of the few times when clergy do not have the place of first honor in the entrance procession. Does your parish do this entrance by the book, or on autopilot from Mass?

The Sydney Morning Herald picked up this tale of parishioners defying their pastor and returning a baptismal font from a church rear to a baptistry. Cheers accompanied the return from eighteen-month exile of three slabs of stone from a sacred aboriginal site. Father Clesio Mendes:

If we bring it forward we have to make it a new shape. It doesn’t look like a baptismal fountain.

Hmm. Fonts come in all shapes: octagons, hexagons, crosses, rectangles, and many designs are suggestive of the tomb of Christ, the eighth day, the sixth day, and such. I found the image above on the occasionally-updated parish blog. And well, no, it doesn’t look like a fountain. And it’s not the shape of font I would design, but you have to tread carefully on matters that touch the sacramental life of Catholics.

It seems there’s more simmering at St Vincent’s than stones and water.

Check out last weekend’s parish bulletin, and a notice at the bottom left of the page.

One parishioner on their pastor’s reputation:

He refuses to talk to the people, to negotiate.

Does this prescription get much protest these days?

132. Any national flags or the flags or insignia of associations to which the deceased belonged are to be removed from the coffin at the entrance of the church. They may be replaced after the coffin has been taken from the church.

Thoughts?

Many conservative Catholics really couldn’t care less about the texts of Vatican II, when it comes right down to it. Oh sure, some people can quote you SC 23 or SC 116. But none of them have the staying power to review a document cover to cover, let alone a few dozen of them.

But in response to their challenge, I’d suggest they come here and strike up a discussion in some of our archives.

Why is the reception of the body at the church so significant?

131. Since the church is the place where the community of faith assembles for worship, the rite of reception of the body at the church has great significance. The church is the place where the Christian life is begotten in baptism, nourished in the eucharist, and where the community gathers to commend one of its deceased members to the Father. The church is at once a symbol of the community and of the heavenly liturgy that the celebration of the liturgy anticipates. In the act of receiving the body, the members of the community acknowledge the deceased as one of their own, as one who was welcomed in baptism and who held a place in the assembly. Through use of the various baptismal symbols the community shows the reverence due to the body, the temple of the Spirit, and in this way prepares for the funeral liturgy in which it asks for a share in the heavenly banquet promised to the deceased and to all who have been washed in the waters of rebirth and marked with the sign of faith.

I see this working on a few important levels. Let’s be mindful of the importance of incarnation in the Christian experience: that seeking the divine in some physical manifestation is important to bridge the experience of mortality to the encounter with Jesus Christ. Celebrating the sacraments with physical substances, in an identifiable physical location, living a Christian life with one’s body: these are not chains of rubrics, but an opportunity to delve deeper into the mystery of God and salvation. This is why the physical church building is so important.

We also see explicit connections to the sacrament of baptism. Baptism affirms the unity of Christians. The inference is that not only are we united in the earthly celebration of the sacraments, but all of us are touched by mortality as well. A sobering thought, perhaps, but a comforting one too, in that eventual unity with loved ones is foreseen in the promise of the afterlife.

The body of the Christian is honored. This is not because of some strange cultic practice. The body is the means by which a human being experiences and expresses the Christian life. We honor symbols, and the body is symbolic of many sacred things.

See anything else worth a comment?

Wie sagt man “cracks in the foundation” auf Deutsch?

Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, German bishops head on widening a dialogue among bishops, clergy, and laity:

That includes ways to talk about awkward subjects in the area of sexuality, the vow of celibacy or the receiving of the sacrament by divorcees.

We’ve seen lots of talk from German-speaking bishops lately on priests and their sex lives. I like that we’re finally seeing a thaw on the sacramental lives of people already married.

And dang, what a summer of love for these guys: first they give Liturgiam Authenticam a repulse. Now this.

Revelations that the southern hemisphere’s next saint blew the whistle on clerical sex abuse, which netted her an excommunication. Mary McKillop: no wonder she’s venerable.

A few high-profile (well, high profile for St Blog’s) pieces on declining church attendance. Greater Cincinnati Catholics here and mainline Protestants at Christian Century. Ask any Catholic, and the solution might be a reflection on individual taste: more tradition, more social justice, more music, more Latin, more relevance, more fire-n-brimstone.

St. Francis Xavier Church in downtown Cincinnati seems to be bucking the trend. Eric Knapp SJ, who pastors this parish focuses on “hospitality, social activities and community outreach with a traditional Catholic message,” according to Cincinnati’s Sunday Enquirer.

There is room for those who are curious, those who are taking baby steps to explore their spirituality. The bottom line is, if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.

Problem is, lots of churches have “always done” their own sense of entitlement. And more, all too many seem to be satisfied with it. One pastor I worked for criticized me for the expense of running color newspaper ads for Triduum liturgies. He didn’t have any answers of his own to fill Easter Vigil pews. Or much of what it would take to evangelize the world. How long do you think it would take to get it done? Each Christian bringing in one new believer every five years. We’d get it done within a Christian century, to be sure.

Instead, most believers seem content to let the church “program” evangelization the way it would schedule a dinner or host a concert. Fashion something attractive and tasty and hope the masses show up.

I’m not inclined to totally discredit the modern program method–dinners, events, classes, and even theology on tap have their place. I’m also a big believer in the liturgical double play: good preaching, good music.

But it slays me when people think Christianity will get swamped in Europe. Does missionary work get any easier, having non-Christians immigrate into Christian countries? St Paul would laugh at the hand-wringing. Look on the bright side: EuroChristians won’t get shipwrecked. Even athletes  enjoy the opportunity of beating a visiting team. I suspect that many Catholics, and many otherwise devoted traditionalists, are inclined to run away from the challenges of the age.

Think Cardinal Newman has one more big step (canonization) to take? Think one more. Father Keith Beaumont, according to Zenit:

On this subject I received a confidence about which I cannot be explicit; but it seems that, in Newman’s case, his canonization and declaration as a doctor could take place in a very short time.

Regarding the Church’s list of doctors, would it surprise you to know that that saint-maker John Paul II only declared one doctor? That the aftermath of Vatican I saw as many new declarations (6) as the Tridentine century? That we’ve only had three declarations since Vatican II–all women? That the Anglicans have their own list?

Doctors are often depicted iconographically with books in hand.