Warming the Pro Multis Discussion

After a spate of Pope-Francis-is-really-arch-conservative stories spouting up the past week or two, we get this bombshell from daily Mass yesterday:

In a passage that may prompt a theological debate about the nature of salvation, the pontiff also declared that God “has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone!”

“Even the atheists,” he said to those who might question his assertion. “Everyone!”

The new pro multis: everyone.

Obviously, salvation is in the hands of God, not people. It’s nearly irrelevant what we, or our hierarchy says about it, bottom line. More important is how we live the Christian life so as to facilitate Christ through simple human signs. Could Pope Benedict have been theologically correct, but morally wrong insisting on his own way, the last gasp (we hope) of preconciliar Catholicism?

Here’s to the last gasp. Let it rest in peace. Let us all move forward.

I liked this quote:

(I)f we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: we need that so much. We must meet one another doing good.

I like this “culture of encounter,” a notion that the Christian believer presents herself or himself in discussion with seekers, doubters, and non-believers. We set aside the pessimism of world standards: there are so many who disagree and we are impotent in imposing our will. We go as Christ went: embracing each individual encounter, and presenting himself with persistence, honesty, and gentleness.

 

Survey Shows Deep MR3 Divisions

And it shows a lot of silence.

Three our of five priests don’t like the English MR3. Four out of five think the language is awkward and distracting. The higher-ups are silent:

When a majority of priests are unhappy about something as important as the Missal, the situation calls for creative leadership and constructive responses. It is not clear, however, whether those in positions of authority are ready or willing to respond.

Those declining to comment:

• Msgr. Rick Hilgartner, director of the office of the BCDW at the USCCB
• Bishop Gregory Aymond, chair of the BCDW
• Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, incoming chair of the BCDW

Not replying to a request for comment were:

• Bishop Arthur Seratelli, former chair of the BCDW and current chair of ICEL
• Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the USCCB
• Cardinal Francis George, former USCCB president under whom the implementation date was set
• Cardinal George Pell, chair of Vox Clara
• Msgr. Jim Moroney, executive secretary of Vox Clara
• Fr. Dennis McManus, advisor to Vox Clara

Those who did comment can be read here.

The goal, of course, is not a 51-49 majority. This is not a popularity contest. It is not a political campaign. Vatican II documents generated a broad consensus for unity, a near unaminity among two thousand bishops. The advent of the vernacular in Roman Catholic worship was hailed worldwide as a positive development.

My prediction is that those who dislike the results of this study will resist. They will criticize the methodology. They will say that the sample size is too small. They will make these and other assertions without much expertise in statistics. They will resist simply because they do not like unwelcome news. They will be annoyed by it.

My own sense is that blindness insists on its position. The English-speaking bishops are in a John 9:40-41 moment. We’re all waiting. And watching. And so are 81% of your clergy who use MR3 every day and think that on some level, this is a botched job.

 

When the People Do Not Love the Shepherd

Some Catholics have a problem with the perceived imbalance of this “limited” petition from Eucharistic Prayer II:

Remember, Lord, your Church,
spread throughout the world,
and bring her to the fullness of charity,
together with Francis our Pope
and N. our Bishop
and all the clergy.

Why end there? What about us lay people? (We are, by the way, mentioned just before this sentence.)

Pope Francis has dispatched the disgraced Cardinal O’Brien to several months of “spiritual renewal, prayer, and penance.” Was this on his mind in today’s homily?

When a priest, a bishop goes after money, the people do not love him – and that’s a sign. But he ends badly.

A lack of love, especially in a Church culture in which people are still largely predisposed to treat priests with great affection, is indeed a sign.

(St. Paul) did not have a bank account, he worked, and when a bishop, a priest goes on the road to vanity, he enters into the spirit of careerism – and this hurts the Church very much – [and] ends up being ridiculous: he boasts, he is pleased to be seen, all powerful – and the people do not like that!

A ridiculous end. And all the more sad that some clergy do not perceive the state with which they are viewed. A martyr, certainly, can be widely rejected and laughed at. But a buffoon will suffer the same fate.

Pope Francis requests:

Pray for us, that we might be poor, that we might be humble, meek, in the service of the people.

This is why I have no problem with the mention of pope, bishop, and clergy in the Eucharistic Prayer. Presiders don’t need to bother to add “laity,” though I appreciate the gesture. I’ve worked closely with priests for three decades. I know they need prayers. I don’t begrudge them the extra mention (if it is indeed that) before God.

Pope Francis asked for a reflection on Acts 20:28-30:

Take heed to yourselves, and to the whole flock, wherein the Holy Ghost hath placed you bishops, to rule the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. I know that, after my departure, ravening wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock. And of your own selves shall arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.

Read this fine passage, and while reading it, pray, pray for us bishops and priests. We have such need in order to stay faithful, to be men who watch over the flock and also over ourselves, who make the vigil their own, that their heart be always turned to [the Lord’s] flock. [Pray] also that the Lord might defend us from temptation, because if we go on the road to riches, if we go on the road to vanity, we become wolves and not shepherds. Pray for this, read this and pray. So be it.

I can attest to the great difficulty in remaining faithful in a marriage over the past seventeen years. It seems serene on the surface–what others see when my wife and I worship together, shop together, sit quietly in a room together, attend concerts and events and parties. But married life is difficult in ways I would not have imagined. But I feel fortunate. My wife prays for me, and I for her. And we keep working at it, mutually supportive of one another.

Some clergy–I don’t know how they maintain balance in what is essentially the eremitic lifestyle of a modern priest. How tempting it must be to consider drink, drugs, sex, gluttony, and other indulgences.

So, no: I have no problem whatsoever with the Holy Father’s message today.

 

Paschal Candle Details

There is a long tradition in my parish of decorating a “blank” paschal candle. A parishioner used to make them each year, but she has “retired” from that duty. The past few years, I’ve ordered a plain candle from a provider.

The decorating used to consist of a “band” which somewhat randomly assembled some of the elements: date, Greek letters, the cross. One of our parishioners, bless her, is still working on the old template, and produced a nice embroidered band, which you see above, which just had the word “Alleluia” on it. (Her idea–not mine.) No date, cross, or other details. She also thought a “tilted” presentation would serve well.

So we repurposed the decorative band from last year’s candle to make the cross, and I was able to confect two Greek letters. The gold numerals for the date are easy to find at a craft store–thanks to my wife.

I really dislike the wax nubs candle providers send. I always have. I like instead the red beads here–more suggestive of drops of living blood.

I’ve decorated homemade paschal candles and plain ones all sorts of ways for many years. I’m hoping to hike up this effort significantly in 2014. Anybody out there have any good ideas from their own history?

 

Doing More With More

There was a fussy comment on a conservative Catholic web site a week or two ago about the way some of us liturgists go hyper when one person is signed on for more than one ministry at a single Mass. I was thinking about that as I was copied an email from a lector substitute for tomorrow who also happens to be on board as a greeter and usher for the same Mass.

These instances don’t bother me unless they become a habit.

Over the years and many parishes, I’ve known people who defined all their Christian activity in terms of liturgical service. And as a starting point, that’s not totally a bad thing. A willing believer and disciple must start somewhere. Nearly every active Christian worships regularly on Sunday. Many liturgical roles lend themselves to visibility. And visibility is a big part of how modern human beings engage in and with the world.

One observes a Communion minister or a lector and one knows what they do. A social justice committee, perhaps not so much. Is it about church social life? Is it about charity? Is it about politics? Or something else?

Even within the range of ministries I oversee, there can be a lack of clarity. At one art and environment meeting, a newcomer showed up. As I chatted with her, it became clear she was seeking a connection between her faith and the Earth’s environment. Not church building environment. An understandable mistake.

I think the liturgy is better served by having thirty to fifty people involved in thirty to fifty small tasks, and each of them doing their one task with attention, quality, and preparation. Three to five people in three to five jobs each–not so much. Sometimes everything gets done well. But sometimes not. The person who is reading the prayers of the faithful may have a brisk walk to get the collection started. And if the sacristan is also serving as a communion minister? What if there’s a spill and everybody’s busy? Not so good then.

One person/one ministry is not a hard-and-fast rule in my book. It’s a useful guideline. And when the semester draws to an end and people need a substitute, I don’t monitor those communications and throw up a red flag when a person lands double duty. I say a prayer of thanks. And hope the next person to get involved is as dedicated to worship.

 

More Hand Wringing on Feet Washing

From England and Wales, Father Paul Gunter, secretary for the department for Christian Life and Worship, weighed in a few days ago on washing the feet of Holy Thursday women. To sum: don’t do as the pope does, do as the rubrics tell you.

In parish churches, Fr Paul said that the washing of the feet is meant to be an imitation of the Last Supper and “intrinsically attached” to the institution of the priesthood.

Well, just no.

Fr Paul does not seem to have a firm grasp of sacramental and liturgical theology on his attempted point here.

The liturgical context of the washing of the feet is the Last Supper.

John’s Last Supper is placed in the clear context of Saint Paul’s teaching on the Eucharist (1 Corinthians 11:23-26, Holy Thursday’s reading before the Gospel) and part of the tradition Jesus maintained from the Torah (the Passover meal of Exodus 12).

In the biblical context, John’s Last Supper is attended by “disciples.” Apparently not just apostles. And given the place of the beloved disciple–not to mention women–in all the Paschal Mystery narratives, we’re not just talking about the Twelve.

And we have Jesus’ undeniable instruction:

If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.

As instituted by the Lord, washing feet is a mutual exercise in service and love. It is not liturgical theatre to be performed by the highest ranking prelate. Jesus washed, and he asked his disciples to follow this model.

And given the constant Christian connection of this event to the Passover meal, it seems more likely this meal was attended by women (cooking and serving) and children. Given that there is not a denial of their presence, a commentator would be hard-pressed to maintain the notion that women somehow were attending a spectacle of public execution, but not a Jewish ritual meal.

Apologists for men-only rather miss the fact that the Eucharist was shared at the Last Supper. Why the Eucharist for all and not foot washing?

And as for the institution of ther ministerial priesthood, the Gospels have particular narratives in which the Twelve are explicitly called by the Lord. These readings appear in the ordination rites.

Likewise, there is nothing of washing feet that remains in the ordination rite. And I’m not aware of any connection of washing feet with ordination. One would expect that an “intrinsic connection” would be a little more obvious.

It is more in keeping with tradition that people selected for being washed are poor. There is certainly the monastic tradition of incorporating washing of feet with hospitality. As the only criteria, these two instances are also disappointing, a pretty drastic narrowing of John 13:14-15.

I recall doing a bit of research when I was in graduate school on the historic appearance of washing feet in a liturgical or Christian context. I became convinced we have the seed of a lost sacrament. I also became convinced that a broader reading of the ritual has nothing to do with the ministerial priesthood. The focus on who gets washed is misplaced. I’ve been pleased to be part of communities that have employed the practice of people washing one another’s feet. Spouses. Parents and children. Friends. Strangers.

The rubric, yes, is there. It is a problem and a challenge. It could be a matter of open discernment. And we may need to jettison the post-custom “theological” explanations as inadequate. And after that discernment, we can better allow the experience of Christ to shine through more clearly, more deeply. And when we get to that point, we will be in a good place.

 

Stain

The east balcony looks almost normal. However, the plants and furniture haven’t returned, nor the image of Saint Jude from the old Reconciliation Chapel.

It was a sunny Spring day when we did a walk-through of the building Monday. I captured this image of the place of the fire. The window has long been repaired. The carpet was spread and glued the other week. Aside from the buzz of workers, the building seems so peaceful these days, ready to be filled with people again. Look closer:

I was reading a bit more in the Ceremonial of Bishops on the community’s return from an act of desecration. The praenotanda includes this instruction:

Crimes committed in a church affect and do injury to the entire Christian community, which the church building in a sense symbolizes and represents.

The crimes in question are those that do grave dishonour to sacred mysteries, especially to the eucharistic species, and are committed to show contempt for the Church, or are crimes that are serious offences against the dignity of the person and of society.

A church, therefore, is desecrated by actions that are gravely injurious in themselves and a cause of scandal to the faithful. In the judgment of the local Ordinary, that are so serious and so offensive to the sanctity of the church building that divine worship may be celebrated in the church only after penitential reparation for the wrong done.

Reparation for the desecration of a church is to be carried out with a penitential rite celebrated as soon as possible. Until that time neither the eucharist nor any other sacrament or rite is to be celebrated in the church. But through preaching and devotional exercises the faithful should be prepared for the penitential rites of reparation, and for their own inner conversion they should celebrate the sacrament of penance.

People are still angry about “losing” the church building for nearly seven months. I’ve reported my own temper has flared short as of late. And I’m hearing more from people who are feeling no small loss and no small amount of bitterness toward the perpetrator and toward the slowness of the process. When a person is angry (as Jesus showed us here) it is hard to forgive, and even to seek forgiveness. The ritual of a return from a desecration of a Church makes this demand right off the top, as the people gather outside the building:

Brothers and sisters in Christ,
we begin this service of penance
by turning to God our Father
and asking him for the spirit of true repentance.
We have failed to remember his goodness,
we have refused to obey his commands,
we have dishonoured his name.
We must take care never to allow sin
to defile the Church of God,
which is the dwelling place of God on earth,
and the temple of the Holy Spirit.

This is one of those “these or similar words” passages. It is likely our pastor will use his own words. Not these. It’s not as though these words are untrue, or that our injured community isn’t in need of repentance, and a more faithful adherence to Christ and the Gospel. But is the return an appropriate time for this? Why, people will ask, are we focused on our own sins? What about the one who sinned against us?

For a pastoral liturgist, this is a struggle. My own human instinct would be to reject the theme of penitence entirely. Our parishioners will want to know, instead, if the perpetrator is sorry. And they will take satisfaction knowing the person is now in prison, serving a ten-year sentence for the act of arson. But if we don’t engage our culpability (general or even specific) then how will we have grown in this experience? Has the Lord called us to something better, greater, more godly? Or is this just something to “offer up” with a sigh of anger and bitterness? Another notch for the Culture of Victimhood.

Looking closer at the stain, perhaps it will be an opportunity for internal reflection. Our Liturgy Commission chairperson wrote on Facebook this morning:

The stain would be a permanent reminder of our time in exile. It adds character to the area and would be a story to tell future parishioners.

This seems right.

And defilement. Jesus also preached on that:

It is what comes out of a person that defiles. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder,adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person. (Mark 7:20-23)

One thing I draw from the ritual of return is the need to keep an outward focus. That sense is certainly colored by the new Pope. But brooding over injuries, curling up in a ball and licking wounds–this is understandable coming from my cat when someone steps on his paw. But we human beings, we believers, are called to higher things. If not on the day of return, perhaps the inner look will be one of examination, as the rite seems to point. But also we have the opportunity to rejuvenate our evangelical spirit, to reach out to others. To tell that story. To place Christ at the center of it. To call upon God’s grace.

 

Ghost of a Pew

Our cleaning company said they couldn’t ice-blast the “shadows” out of the balcony wall like they did for all the soot accumulation from last Fall’s fire.

This struck me as being slightly creepy.

The balcony floor was replaced totally–asbestos. The pews should be back any day. The church’s main floor is currently getting its layers of wax stripped off–everything down to the terrazzo. They have the Daily Mass Chapel (our north side) done, and the floor is stripped to the altar platform. That work is going slowly, but we’re still on target for a return a week from Saturday.

The diocesan liturgist sent me the relevant praenotanda from the Ceremonial of Bishops for the “reparation” of a church after a “desecration.” The archbishop said we could use as much of the rite as we wanted, and he delegated his role to the pastor. He will be in town for Confirmation Sunday. But he has been ill as of late, plus, still recovering from an auto accident last year. (Main reason why his resignation was accepted three years before he was required to submit.)

I’ll post a bit more on the ritual choices we’ve made for our return Mass on Saturday evening the 20th, and what we might do for the other Sunday liturgies that weekend.

 

Getting Into My Gig, Part 2

Last week I described my exit from the world of full-time secular work. My experience of the Paschal Triduum twenty years ago this month at St Charles Borromeo Parish in Bloomington, Indiana was certainly an eye-opener. I had the immediate hope that all parishes would celebrate the Three Days as fruitfully–maybe every parish needed a liturgist to facilitate this. I didn’t make the immediate connection I wanted to be that person.

My college chum Marianne was in law school at IU. By phone she described briefly how student-friendly the townie parish was. The university’s Newman Center attracted casual Catholics who wanted Mass, if that, and no entanglements. She also told me that had “our CIA” at St Charles. “Your CIA?” I said. “Is that what I think it is?”

The letter “R,” she clarified. The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. I had no idea. No matter; I would see it in action. Some of her friends were involved. In fact, I would be crashing in the apartment of the godparents.

An aside here. The RCIA “brown book” had been out since 1972, but implementation was fairly spotty to non-existent in my home diocese of Rochester, New York. People who know that diocese by its bishop have the sense it was and is progressive. Really, it’s not. After Fulton Sheen’s attempt to improve race relations and his opposition to the Vietnam War (1966-69), we had a local parish pastor appointed bishop for a decade. Matthew Clark was seen as a throwback, in the sense that he was from Rome. And as a young bishop of the new young pope, he gave the impression at first of being a careerist. Many people disliked him. Plus, there wasn’t much going on liturgically in the diocese. A few parishes had good music programs. Maybe five.

At any rate, my bus came to central Indiana on Holy Thursday afternoon. I was whisked away to a home celebration of a Seder Meal. The liturgy included footwashing, but it wasn’t open as I recall. I joined the community for stations and liturgy on Good Friday. They also prayed the Hours during these days.

In my phone call to my friend, she also explained the Easter Vigil was a little more involved than it was back in our college days. They observed an all-night vigil. My friend was enthusiastic about all this. I said I was probably going to be tired form my travels–maybe I would just go for the start and the finish.

That Saturday was my first experience of an excellent Easter Vigil. The pile of wood for the fire was as tall as I stood. The embers were still warm the next morning. I’m sure we did all nine readings, because by the time the elect and candidates were called forth, the liturgy was already an hour and 45 minutes old. Technically speaking, Easter Vigil didn’t really last from 7:30pm till 7:50 am. We took a pause in active liturgy, while the RCIA community and many parishioners remained for prayer. What else do I remember?

This parish didn’t have an immersion font. So the elect built their own font with a feeding trough, an upper basin, a water pump, and a few wheelbarrows of rocks. By 10:30-ish the plan was complete, and a trickly stream emptied into a pool in the middle of a rock outcropping in the church.

Some of us had an impromptu jam session in the choir loft.

One parishioner was writing out her Easter cards.

Some of us went outside and warmed our hands in front of the fire. One person remarked that if only we had marshmallows to roast.

As a serious law student, my friend Marianne decided she needed her rest and study time. So it was I who stayed up the whole night.

By 6am, the church was fully lit and full of worshipers. I had met one of the elect, a young man named John–he came from a Buddhist Chinese family in San Francisco. They had threatened to disown him if he went through with his conversion to Christianity. But he was a very determined and faith-filled young man. I was seventeen when I was a freshman in college. I don’t know that I would have had the strength and courage to do as he did. But I marveled at his new faith, and his willingness to share his story so freely. RCIA was more than an all-night Easter Vigil. It seemed to do things to people.

We had a pancake breakfast afterward in the church’s social hall. John was still wearing the baptismal garment and the special stole. His godparent (my host) chided him about getting syrup stains on his stole. But John grasped the ends of it and said he was wearing it all week as part of his celebration of being a new Catholic Christian.

That a teenager would endure alienation from a close-knit family: that witness amazed me. I don’t think I went through that weekend with more than a blizzard of experiences and images. But it was as momentous a conversion experience as my first was in 1969-70. When I was ten, I became a believing Catholic Christian. In 1983, I had my first awakening as a disciple. I began to think in terms of doing things, both taking personal initiative in my faith life as well as doing things for others.

I was broke and unemployed. And worse, I had no career, no real prospects for one. And no future. Or so it seemed.

I had nowhere else to go but turn tail and stay at my parents’ house while I started to figure it out. I didn’t see clearly in the Easter of 1983 what was happening. My own sense of being a church minister was slow to waken over the course of the next year. But that’s a post for another day.

I will say that as I look back with fresh eyes on thirty-years-ago, I have a renewed sense of compassion for many of the young people at the Student Center. Especially the eones who have yet to discern a real life’s path. Or who feel that there’s no place out there where they fit. I remember it well. And I can look back on how formative it was for me. But the perspective of three decades is a lot easier than the days when one is trampling through it.

 

Nearly Midnight

I have a mixed heart today. This afternoon I heard the encouraging news of the Holy Father’s Mass in the Roman youth prison, which included washing the feet of young women and Muslims. Surely this must be throwing some of my sister and brother Catholics into apoplexy. I feel for them. I can imagine how it must seem to have a spiritual worldview come crashing down.

I remember well enough my confrontation with mortality when my brother died nearly two years ago in a highway crash. We learned a few days ago my wife’s sister is gravely ill. It is hard to get information all the way from Florida, and lensed through upset loved ones. But it seems the end is near. I remember being in denial about my brother, trying to convince myself I did not hear his wife quite right, and that I would arrive at their home and he would be fine. But he wasn’t. My heart could not steer my mind, not totally. My wife spent most of the day helping me prepare for the first two Triduum liturgies. I hope it was helpful. We didn’t talk too much about things, except over lunch.

Our niece did tell us that she read the Bible to her mother last night. And a tear came from her eye. Otherwise, she has been totally unresponsive to people. My wife debates whether to go now or wait, perhaps, for a miracle. The Triduum is here, the anniversary of her reception into Full Communion over thirty years ago.

This was the backdrop for me of our parish’s Holy Thursday Mass tonight. We were in our temporary location on campus at the Iowa State Center. Our open foot washing got off to a slow start. For a moment, I didn’t think anyone would come forward. It was the first year the young miss declined to wash and be washed. (Usually the three of us would wash each other’s.) But finally, people did come, and it went on for four songs.

The students opted to conduct a transfer procession from the auditorium back to our parish’s lower lounge. Ordinarily, I’d feel heartened by the public act of worship past a few blocks of fraternities and dorms to our student center. But no flowers were prepared, and no special lighting employed. Just a ciborium on the altar, and the “corporate” fluorescent lighting beaming down.

I feel mostly at a loss. Too much time away in exile away from church. Too much heaviness inside of me.

Where to go from here? Psalm 4 is one of my favorite Compline psalms. Verse 2 promises a path out:

Answer when I call, my saving God.
In my troubles, you cleared a way;
show me favor; hear my prayer.

Show me favor: that’s direct. The ICEL Psalter was a bit more insistent: “Be good to me.” Sounds like a Blues song. Dare we insist, “You better be good to me.”? What about this great tune? That sums up where I am right now, ’round midnight. Quiet and melancholy drift, and the occasional blast.

Verse 7 echoes my thoughts tonight:

Many say, “May we see better times!”

But that’s not the conclusion, the “Amen” of Psalm 4. Verse 9 is:

In peace I shall both lie down and sleep,
for you alone, Lord, make me secure.

There are nights when we can only lie down, and sleep does not come. I hope for both after midnight. I suspect the Lord will be good to me.

I realize I am not invulnerable. My brother was not. And now, my wife’s only sibling she has known. Certainly, the human body of Jesus was not, victimized as it was on Good Friday. What is the meaning, and where is the redemption in such suffering? We grow weary from the pounding of life’s events. It may seem as if God is not there. But if not, from where will hope come? On dark, troubled nights like this, I realize clearly I have nowhere else to go. So I will go, banging on the door. “Be good to me.” It’s nearly midnight.

 

Snacking on the Word: Luke 22:33-34

I was struck by Peter’s earnest support in today’s Passion reading:

Lord, I am prepared to go to prison and to die with you.

And we know how that ended.

Jesus said:

I tell you, Peter, before the cock crows this day, you will deny three times that you know me.

I think any believer would say, in good times, that we are more than willing to suffer and make sacrifice. Maybe when it gets to crunch time, less so. Many of us see ourselves as a hero. It’s a nice thing to be. It’s part of a “right praise,” an orthodoxy. But how we actually perform–that may be another matter. Do we rely on God’s grace? I know when I have difficulties, it is very hard. It is easy to say when I sit in prayer, “I will be gentle, I will be just. I will be calm. I will stay awake.”

Ha! Even today I fell asleep during prayer. Twice I shook myself out of a midafternoon slumber to tell the Lord, “I’m still here.” But what I really meant was that the Lord was still there. Waiting for me to come back.

I’m grateful for the insight, though. I head into Holy Week with a moderately busy agenda–I mean for my spiritual life. I’ll need to take time for that, I know. And stay awake. I am prepared, but I will need grace to make it through.

 

Where Does This Holy Thursday Lead?

I’ve been reticent about posting on every news item coming from the vicinity of Pope Francis. Cardinal Law. Msgr Marini. Et cetera. It seems he will be celebrating the Mass of the Lord’s Supper in a youth prison. It had been his custom as a bishop to pray this Mass in hospices, prisons, hospitals, and such.

The medieval custom of washing the feet of the poor on Holy Thursday was kept alive by monastics. I’m sure that’s as much of a derivation of the ritual as associating it with ordained ministry (hence 1956′s viri selecti).

Still, this sort of gesture moves liturgy far beyond the placement and number of candlesticks. It begins to place the liturgy in a direct context of evangelization. (Not to mention service.)

In the internet age, it seems we can no longer suggest the pope’s liturgies have little bearing on the life of faith. Fifty years ago, they progressed in pomp and finery unnoticed by people outside the walls of a big Roman church. Today, they serve as fodder for cheerleading or dismay or things in between.

The stories of Pope Francis’s liturgies are also picked up and noted by others. But it’s good to keep in mind that Holy Thursday in a prison is not the Event, but merely a start. Liturgy, as ordinarily celebrated, is partly for the purpose of the sanctification of the faithful. And how do people become holy? How do they cooperate with God’s grace which offers them holiness? It’s simple. By saying yes to God. We can say yes as we receive the Eucharist. We can, and really must, say yes in other ways in our lives.

One becomes touched by a leader’s gesture of reaching out to the young in prison. It does not end with a feeling of regard for the man. It must continue with a searching of the observer’s heart. Is my heart moved to pity for young people? Or do I feel contempt? Perhaps I feel nothing at all. This is where discernment is key.

Discernment guides the believer to make present and future choices in response to the event. For me, I have to listen carefully in these situations. I must watch my thoughts and feelings–my whole reaction. Am I feeling the urge to assist in some way? Is there an inner movement, nudging me forward? Or am I called elsewhere? And with that last question, is the nudging away due to my own fears or deafness? Or has another path been set for me by the Lord?

This is why I am most hopeful (as I think I’ve written) that Pope Francis is well-grounded in Ignatian discernment. Like a good director, he places options and surfaces choices that might be more or less hard to perceive. And the question sits with us: is this my path? Or is there another?

This must be the best way to approach these news stories. Pope Francis brushes aside Msgr Marini, and perhaps I disagree or get bothered. Then I look to my own life and the times I have been brusque and dismissive. And if this is wrong for the pope (whether or not it is true) then it is wrong for me. And if the pope carves out the opening of the Paschal Triduum for imprisoned youth, then I am responsible for adjusting my regard for a celebrity event into an opportunity for personal reflection.

Getting back to the bigger picture of liturgy as evangelization, this is cause for some long and deep reflection for me personally. Perhaps we are moving past an age of “contemplation,” where getting the liturgy done “properly” is no longer enough. How does liturgy contribute to Matthew 28:19-20 and the commission we have all been given in baptism? And for what will I stand? Liturgy? Evangelization? Or something wholly different than what I did before?

 

Pope Francis On Liturgy III

Let’s talk about the celebration of the Eucharist. I found this interview with Cardinal Bergoglio from 2007.  He covers other things, but I was struck by what he said about the celebration of Mass as the Latin American bishops met for their conference that year. He told the interviewer that for the first time the prelates gathered at a Marian shrine, and that, unusually for a bishops’ meeting …

Every morning we recited lauds, we celebrated mass together with the pilgrims, the believers. On Saturday or Sunday there were two thousand, five thousand. Celebrating the Eucharist together with the people is different from celebrating it amongst us bishops separately. That gave us a live sense of belonging to our people, of the Church that goes forward as People of God, of us bishops as its servants.

Bishops as servants. It is certainly an insight many of us in lay ministry can appreciate and embrace also: that art and music is something we offer, but we bring it to the liturgy from a sense of service to others.

 

Gloria Sends Cardinals To Conclave

Liam sent me an e-mail noting that the Conclave opening Mass sang the Gloria. I wasn’t terribly surprised. With MR3, it’s not so much about elevating the cardinals to the level of Saint Joseph (19 March) or the Blessed Mother (Annunciation, 25 March–but not this year). The Gloria may also be sung at wedding Masses during Lent, for example.

I was curious that they or Msgr Marini chose Gloria VIII instead of XV, the US choice. A better choice, I think.

 

Speed

At this morning’s funeral, I noted the nice speaking voice of the first lector, who was assigned Ecclesiastes 3:1-11. She was also fast. It might have been nervous fast, as she seemed to slow her pace by the end of the reading. That’s a tough reading to rip through–there’s a lot of thoughtfulness in the litany, which the pastor touched on in his homily.

Speed seemed to be one possible hallmark of preconciliar liturgy, as people once explained it to me in the 70′s. Be glad you’re a Catholic now, they said. Father N could get through Low Mass in 20 minutes or less. But it’s so much better now with music and Scriptures. I know what they meant.

A rather traditionalist friend was ordained a number of years ago and we visited his parish while on summer vacation a few years after he became a priest. He absolutely ripped through the Eucharistic Prayer like he was a valley girl on speed. He slowed down for the institution narrative. But only then. After Mass, my wife told him he was raised better than that. Usually I’m the one she has to hold back from a liturgical comment when we’re on the road.

In the late 80′s when I began full-time church ministry, I found myself combating the modern American approach to speed reading. My colleagues in ministry, the same. Take time with the reading, we counseled. I would tell school kids to speak slowly like they were explaining to their 5-year-old sibling. I would institute pauses before and after each reading in the parishes I served. Good that people not dart up to the ambo, then do their darndest to get the heck out of it as fast as they could. Read Proclaim the Scriptures like you deserve to proclaim them. Like they are yours. Like you prayed them all week, and perhaps, instead of them being yours, the Word has made you his own.

All too soon this morning’s reading came to an end, and I thought that this was yet another area where conservative and progressive principles in liturgy should align. We who are concerned about good liturgy should be on the same page, in the same boat, on the same side when it comes to a careful treatment of the Word and all things liturgical. For goodness sake, slow down.

But to my young priest friend, it didn’t seem to matter. Pronounce the words quickly and accurately, and give the people the forty-minute Mass they clamor for. (Do they really clamor for it? Really? I wonder how he manages with MR3.)

I don’t perceive these sorts of concerns being furthered in the neo-traditional movements within the Catholic Church, an attention to pace and speed. Not on a front burner it seems. The Word only need be communicated and if the people can’t pick it up in time, God will do the rest. When I asked my wife how much traction she got with our priest friend, she mentioned a bit of dismay on his face. Recovering quickly, he suggested that the people know the Eucharistic Prayers pretty well anyway, and they could follow in the missalette, and speed didn’t matter much as long as he got the words right.

We should be raised better than that.

Slowing down a proclamation of Scripture isn’t as much about dramatizing the liturgy, but inviting people into it. It’s as much about intelligible words as it is about giving space for Christ to seep out of it and reach us.

Silence and pauses are not so much about resting our ears and providing pace, as they constitute a first step to a spiritual encounter of and in the liturgy.

Speed? Bah! Slow down, please.