Msgr William Shannon

A generation is certainly passing.

I read on CNS that Msgr Bill Shannon’s funeral will be celebrated today in my home diocese.

During my college and grad school days, I attended one or two lectures by the Merton scholar. He wasn’t on the faculty of either of my schools, but he was certainly known by Catholics in and around the Rochester area. His bishop:

His intellectual gifts, lively spiritual life and generous spirit touched countless people, myself included. (Msgr. Shannon was) an extraordinary priest of our diocese.

I didn’t know the man personally, but I can commend his book Seeds of Peace: Contemplation and Nonviolence, a mid-90′s publication from Crossroad Publishing. The threads of Merton (or perhaps I should say the seeds), of the contemplative life, and of pacifism draw together in a profound way.

 

Our Avoidance of Peace

Very interesting discussion on the Rite of Peace at Mass below. I don’t intend to short-circuit it, but to branch off and explore a bit more in depth than I might in a comment box.

The first mention of Peace in the Roman Missal–GIRM 82–seems clear:

(T)he faithful express to each other their ecclesial communion and mutual charity before communicating in the Sacrament.

The Order of Mass, which appears later in MR3, is pretty explicit in the English translation, that the faithful are to exchange some sign. Liam’s point about “pro opportunitate” seems to me to apply to the deacon’s invitation to exchange peace. In English, the instruction to the assembly is what seems optional. Here’s the whole rubric in Latin:

128. Deinde, pro opportunitate, diaconus, vel sacerdos, subiungit.

Which gets translated:

128. Then, if appropriate, the Deacon, or the Priest, adds:

And here’s the rubric that follows:

Et omnes, iuxta locorum consuetudines, pacem, communionem et caritatem sibi invicem significant. Sacerdos pacem dat diacono vel ministro.

And here’s how it gets translated into English:

And all offer one another a sign, in keeping with local customs, that expresses peace, communion, and charity. The Priest gives the sign of peace to a Deacon or minister.

With respect to my friends, I don’t find this unclear at all. The minimal rite involves the narration of the presider, his exchange with the assembly, followed by the offering of “a sign” amongst the people nearest to one another.

My own sense is that the Mass gets bogged down with wordiness, our desire to fill in the silent, empty spaces with our own narratives, music, and such. If a regular Catholic congregation is inclined to begin the exchange of some “sign” almost immediately on the heels of, “And with your spirit,” I don’t see any point in a deacon saying, “Let us offer each other the sign of peace.”

Most of us don’t need to be told.

Y’all can thank this rubric and maybe the Holy Spirit on this account, because it’s what got me involved in liturgy in the first place when I was a senior in college. Our chaplain, a Notre Dame-trained liturgy guy (and actually an outstanding liturgical presider and gifted preacher, in my opinion) determined that we would give up the Sign of Peace in Lent 1980. I thought to myself that can’t be right. So I complained. Father Bill’s response was to invite me to join the liturgy committee.*

One of my objections was that my university didn’t have an abundance of school spirit. It seemed that “giving up” for Lent shouldn’t involve giving up something people were inclined to skip or minimize in the first place.

I continue to note the avoidance of peace at Mass. Even one small, mostly symbolic gesture. Like many others I do find a handshake rather limp, even when it’s not. Over the years, as I’ve drifted in and out of hugging communities and situations, I’ve settled on different methods, depending on the people. Wife: always hug. Daughter: used to hug, but now she doesn’t like parental affection in public. Go figure. With other people, I usually clasp hands rather than shake. If a student initiates a hug, I will respond appropriately and sometimes add a clap on the shoulder.

When flu season flares up and people don’t touch, I find a brief mutual bow to be quite nice, even without words. Note that in the Roman Missal, no words are given to accompany the “sign” of the assembly exchanging peace.

In conclusion, some sign is needed. The omission of any sign is unlawful. If that’s not a concern, I would challenge a believer, a priest, or a community to examine the avoidance of peace. Looking at what I avoid is not easy, but often gives me a window into some insight in the spiritual life. In a time when the Church is breaking apart at the seams, it seems to me we need a Rite of Peace more than ever.

* One pastoral lesson I learned from this experience was to make a point of seeking out dissenting voices and make sure they surrounded me and got involved. If nothing else, committee discussions can get pretty lively.

Image credit: The Pastor’s Wife Speaks

 

Britain Resists the Great War

We used to call it the Great War, but in the sense of glory or accomplishment, there is nothing “great” about it. Ghastly would be a better term. Several years ago I read a substantial history of it, and I’m convinced that the period 1914-18 was nothing less than an experience of utter evil under the guise of near-total incompetence. Generals/aristocrats sent soldiers/commoners to their deaths by the hundreds of thousands because they failed to graduate from cavalry and rifle warcraft. And it wouldn’t have been much better if the western aristocracy had trained for stone knives and flint arrowheads for all the good it did brave men at Gallipoli and other places. And for what? All it did was usher in a generation of bitterness followed by an even worse hemorrhage of violence two decades later.

Liam sent me a link to Adam Hochschild’s essay on the antiwar movement in Britain. A comparison with our own day:

Unlike, for example, American opponents of our wars in Vietnam, Central America, Iraq, or Afghanistan, the Britons who opposed this war had no major news­papers and only a tiny handful of legislators on their side. For someone in a prominent position to advocate any compromise was considered close to treason. When Rev. Edward Lyttelton, the headmaster of Eton, proposed some possible peace terms, the resulting uproar forced him to resign. From Parliament to pulpit, ferocity reigned. “Kill Germans! Kill them!” raged one clergyman in a 1915 sermon, “ . . . not for the sake of killing, but to save the world. . . . Kill the good as well as the bad. . . . Kill the young men as well as the old. . . . I look upon it as a war for purity. I look upon everybody who dies in it as a martyr.” The speaker was Arthur Winnington-Ingram, the Anglican Bishop of London.

If I gave you all but the first two words of the Winnington-Ingram quote for you, would you be quicker to attribute it to a Nazi than to an Anglican bishop?

Love this:

Recruiting posters appealed to shame: one showed two children asking a frowning, guilty-looking father in civilian clothes, “Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?” (Keir Hardie’s friend Bob Smillie, leader of the Scottish mineworkers, said his reply would be: “I tried to stop the bloody thing, my child.”)

If the Church had come to terms with the corruption and incompetence in European aristrocracy in the early part of the twentieth century, and sided with the cause of peace, I would suggest the Gospel would have a far greater appeal, especially in Europe, than it does today. The strength of the Church  would be enhanced by emphasizing those who resisted military service in a holy and heroic way–people like Ben Salmon.

This strength is needed still today. With Iraq we received the worst of both worlds: an immoral war, conducted with criminal incompetence. We should stand with others around the world to ensure that if we find ourselves unable to stop future violence, that we will resist it with all that is holy that is within our grasp. And expose war advocates as misguided and duped.

One thing that struck me in this essay was how authorities were scared of pacifists. The reality is no less true today.