Category Archives: Ecclesiology

Holy Saturday, Passiontide, Triduum

Holy Saturday: waiting…

-Shroud of Turin


-by James Hanvey, SJ, holds the Lo Schiavo Chair in Catholic Social Thought at the University of San Francisco.

“We tend to think of Holy Saturday as a day ‘in between’ Good Friday and Easter Sunday, without any particular significance of its own. But this could not be further from the truth. It is a day that resists all of our attempts to understand it, but nonetheless we must ‘live in the realities of Holy Saturday’.

We don’t know what to do with it. Somehow it gets lost between the solemn exhaustion of Good Friday and the excitement of the Easter Vigil. Yet it is not an interlude between acts while the scenery changes behind the curtain. Neither is it a time when God continues to work in some other realm of redemption like the descent into Hell. All that can be done, all that needs to be done, is done on the cross. We must not run away from its finality. It is over; all our lives we will be discovering the depths of that closure. We cannot even begin to appreciate what it means if we do not live in the realities of Holy Saturday. Without the experience of this day neither our hearts nor minds, not even our souls, are prepared for Good Friday or Easter Morning.

It is only human to want to avoid the vast silence of this day, its stillness which stretches out without any promise of relief. It is only human to want to shake off the finality, the shock and numbness of death, to release ourselves from the lingering memory of what we have witnessed. It is only human to want to flee from its emptiness, the stark, hard, unyielding bareness of absence. So we run – either physically, through activity, preparing for the holidays, making things ready for the liturgy; or intellectually and spiritually by anticipating the consolations of Easter. However we do it, we want to escape the aftermath of death, God’s death, and the vacuum which refuses to be resolved or dissolved. On Holy Saturday we all become Pelagians finding every good excuse to make something happen. In the dead time that lies between Good Friday and Easter Sunday we encounter the terror of our own impotence. There is no magic, no word, no clever formula to bring Him back; to restore the dream and secure the hope. We go on living but can we trust life again? Can we trust ourselves again?

We should mourn and start the rituals of grieving for all the unlived lives, all our own unlived lives. But even then Holy Saturday resists all our attempts to change it, to naturalize and interpret it in some sort of therapeutic framework. It is a different sort of time, one that does not move to our rhythms. This day holds us in its bleak starkness. It is not only the trauma of a tortured, disfigured, broken and lifeless body, or the scandal of goodness and innocence systematically dismembered and destroyed. Even the loving rituals of a hasty burial or the familiar routines of religious piety and festival cannot lessen it. Memory cannot leap over the reality of Good Friday to return to happier times. Memory, too, is held disoriented, dislocated and disconnected, a refugee lost in the alien land of Holy Saturday. Deep in the folds of our own bruised and shocked souls moves another more sinister and primal fear. Like a black serpent sensing the closeness of its prey, quietly it uncoils within us, poised to strike: the terror of Death.

This is not death through natural causes. It does not come at the end of a natural process or a long life. Its very unnaturalness shatters all our attempts to make it comprehensible and familiar. It is an inflicted death which reveals the terror of ultimate power: death itself can be instrumentalized. The cross, its torture and humiliation, was the deliberate and ruthless manifestation of Roman power, but it is also the symbol of every regime which makes death its instrument. Not only is this a physical death, it is death as claim and possession; it is death which advertises complete ownership. It makes the body of the victim its own symbol and inscribes its name upon flesh, bone and muscle. ‘You are ours. Here, you see what we can do, if we choose.’

Now the State, the Emperor, the President or the CEO performs the liturgy of their power in the spectacle of a systematic, calculated and carefully controlled death. It is meant to be public spectacle because it is meant to serve subjection through terror. Its purpose is not just to generate bodily compliance, but to coloniZe the imagination and the soul. This is not just the reduction of the will to impotence, but the rendition of being itself to the dark country of which death is only the threshold: the abyss of nothingness and the hell of living without life, of being only a property. We are allowed the illusion of our freedom; to get on with our lives and maybe even prosper, but only on the condition that we acknowledge the gods who can sacrifice us at will on the altar of death.

Only in the silence of Holy Saturday can we see the true terror of the cross. It exposes the ultimate source of the secular gods’ power – the god of this world, the god of despair; the god who can crucify God. On this day, all our dreams fall away, our hopes scatter like dust in the wind; the fragile world we build of meaning, of goodness, of love, is only a poor, ragged shelter in which to hide from the frozen dark of an endless night. If we have the courage to place our ear to the silence of Holy Saturday we will hear a savage laughter. It is the gods of this world laughing at our hope for a savior.

There is also the guilt: could we have done something? In the space of Holy Saturday we have to live with all our betrayals. Even when we have loved to the end, even when we have taken the risks and keep our vigil before the cross, even when we have taken the body and laid it to rest, it is not enough. Our love, our loyalty, all our skill and ingenuity, is not enough. It cannot save him. On Holy Saturday we live the limits of our love. We do not stop loving, but even though our love may be endless, we know it cannot be enough. We love now in pain, in longing; we love now on the cross of our own finiteness.

If we enter into the silence of Holy Saturday, its bareness gives us no distractions. There is nowhere to go but inwards; into the very empty places of our own soul and imagination. Holy Saturday takes us beyond grief and mourning into the deepest purification of our faith. Like the bare altar and the empty tabernacle, this Saturday strips us of all comfort. It even strips away faith itself, leaving us so utterly naked and impotent that we can only wait.

If we can stay in this strange and desolate place waiting, our spiritual eyes become accustomed to this other dimension. We will begin to discern that it has brought us to a way that only Christ has opened up. In the very waiting and living in our own powerlessness, we have already faced the terror of the instruments, the torture, the primal fear that laid its claim upon us. If only we can stay there waiting we will begin to understand that this silence and emptiness is not God’s powerlessness, His death – but His Sabbath: it is an end; it is a completion and it is also a new beginning. It is truly a ‘holy’ Saturday, not an interlude but a hallowing of all of our times of waiting. Without it we would never see into the depths of Good Friday or adjust our understanding to grasp the magnitude and meaning of Easter morning.

In the emptiness of waiting, we begin to learn something that the god of this world cannot bear, the knowledge that it does not want us to know: at the very point of our failure and betrayals, when we taste our own impotence and limit, if we are not afraid to live in His absence, we discover Him.

Holy Saturday is His time. It is the time when we learn to trust His sacrifice of love which death can neither subjugate nor comprehend. In Holy Saturday we begin to see that it is He who has made death His instrument; not to terrorize us into submission, but to call us more intimately to His side. In the purifying darkness of Holy Saturday we discover the Sabbath of our waiting. We come to the end of our way and the beginning of His. It is only Christ Who can carry us over into Easter morning, and so it is with all the Holy Saturdays of our life.”

Love, and the silence of Holy Saturday,
Matthew

Liturgy

Go rest high on that mountain


-please click on the image for greater detail

I know your life
On earth was troubled
And only you could know the pain.
You weren’t afraid to face the devil,
You were no stranger to the rain.

Go rest high on that mountain
Son, your work on earth is done.
Go to heaven a-shoutin’
Love for the Father and the Son.

Oh, how we cried the day You left us
We gathered round your grave to grieve.
I wish I could see the angels faces
When they hear your sweet voice sing.

Go rest high on that mountain
Son, your work on earth is done.
Go to heaven a-shoutin’
Love for the Father and the Son.

Love, Blessed Holy Week,
Matthew

Liturgy

Leaning on the everlasting arms

A favorite… I have a thing for 19th century Protestant hymns (and plain New England Congregationalist churches). I do.  I prefer mine a capella, or nearly so.  And the 2010 movie “True Grit”, of which this hymn is the theme is song, is one of my favorite movies.

 

What a fellowship, what a joy divine
Leaning on the everlasting arms
What a blessedness, what a peace is mine
Leaning on the everlasting arms

Leaning, leaning
Safe and secure from all alarms
Leaning, leaning
Leaning on the everlasting arms

What have I to dread, what have I to fear
Leaning on the everlasting arms?
I have blessed peace with my Lord so near
Leaning on the everlasting arms

Leaning, leaning
Safe and secure from all alarms
Leaning, leaning
Leaning on the everlasting arms

O how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way,
leaning on the everlasting arms;
O how bright the path grows from day to day,
leaning on the everlasting arms.

Leaning, leaning
Safe and secure from all alarms
Leaning, leaning
Leaning on the everlasting arms

Love, security, peace, health,
Matthew

Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Lent, Liturgy, Passiontide, Tenebrae

Tenebrae

-“Tenebrae Factae Sunt”, There was darkness, is the eighth responsorio for Holy Week and the fifth responsorio of Matins for Good Friday.

-from https://www.sistersofcarmel.com/tenebrae.php?mc_cid=3ff5951ea0&mc_eid=c72ad7923a

“All that You have done to us, O Lord, You have done in true judgment, because we have sinned against You, and have not obeyed Your commandments. But give glory to Your name, and deal with us according to the multitude of Your mercy.”
– Daniel, 3:31, from the Mass of Thursday in Passion Week

“Tenebrae”, means shadows, and is the name given to the service of Matins and Lauds belonging to the last three days of Holy Week. It differs, in many things, from the Office of the rest of the year. All is sad and mournful, as though it were a funeral service; nothing could more emphatically express the grief that now weighs down the heart of our holy Mother the Church. Throughout all the Office of Thursday, Friday and Saturday, she forbids herself the use of those formulas of joy and hope wherewith, on all other days, she begins her praise of God. Nothing is left but what is essential to the form of the Divine Office: psalms, lessons and chants expressive of grief. The tone of the whole Office is most noticeably mournful: the lessons taken from the Lamentations of Jeremias, the omission of the Gloria Patri, of the Te Deum, and of blessings etc., so the darkness of these services seems to have been designedly chosen to mark the Church’s desolation. The lessons from Jeremias in the first Nocturn, those from the Commentaries of St. Augustine upon the Psalms in the second, and those from the Epistles of St. Paul in the third remain now as when we first hear of them in the eighth century.

The name “Tenebrae” has been given because this Office is celebrated in the hours of darkness, formerly in the evening or just after midnight, now the early morning hours. There is an impressive ceremony, peculiar to this Office, which tends to perpetuate its name. There is placed in the sanctuary, near the altar, a large triangular candlestick holding fifteen candles. At the end of each psalm or canticle, one of these fifteen candles is extinguished, but the one which is placed at the top of the triangle is left lighted. During the singing of the Benedictus (the Canticle of Zachary at the end of Lauds), six other candles on the altar are also put out. Then the master of ceremonies takes the lighted candle from the triangle and holds it upon the altar while the choir repeats the antiphon after the canticle, after which she hides it behind the altar during the recitation of the Christus antiphon and final prayer. As soon as this prayer is finished, a noise is made with the seats of the stalls in the choir, which continues until the candle is brought from behind the altar, and shows, by its light, that the Office of Tenebrae is over.

Let us now learn the meaning of these ceremonies. The glory of the Son of God was obscured and, so to say, eclipsed, by the ignominies He endured during His Passion. He, the Light of the world, powerful in word and work, Who but a few days ago was proclaimed King by the citizens of Jerusalem, is now robbed of all his honors. He is, says Isaias, the Man of sorrows, a leper (Isaias 53:3,4). He is, says the royal prophet, a worm of the earth, and no man (Psalm 21:7). He is, as He says of himself, an object of shame even to his own disciples, for they are all scandalized in Him (Mark 14:27) and abandon Him; yea, even Peter protests that he never knew Him. This desertion on the part of His apostles and disciples is expressed by the candles being extinguished, one after the other, not only on the triangle, but on the altar itself. But Jesus, our Light, though despised and hidden, is not extinguished. This is signified by the candle which is momentarily placed on the altar; it symbolizes our Redeemer suffering and dying on Calvary. In order to express His burial, the candle is hidden behind the altar; its light disappears. A confused noise is heard in the house of God, where all is now darkness. This noise and gloom express the convulsions of nature when Jesus expired on the cross: the earth shook, the rocks were split, the dead came forth from their tombs. But the candle suddenly reappears; its light is as fair as ever. The noise is hushed, and homage is paid to the Conqueror of death.”

– Excerpted from the revered Liturgical Year by Abbot Gueranger, the Catholic Encyclopedia and other sources

Love & Resurrection,
Matthew

Ecclesiology, Heresy, Plague, Protestantism

The Black Death & the Protestant Revolution

“The arrival of the Black Death in Christendom — perhaps the most destructive pandemic in world history, which killed, by very reliable estimates, about half the population of Europe. In some areas the death toll may have been as high as 80 percent.

“It was a visitation upon a scale so enormous as to strike a blow at medieval society which might have dissolved it — and nearly did dissolve it. . . . In some places towns and villages sank never to rise again. . . . You may trace its effects even today in the half-finished buildings which were stopped dead and their completion never undertaken.”22

It’s no wonder many Catholics believed that Pestilence, the first of St. John’s Four Horsemen, had made his prophesied appearance (see Rev. 6).

One of the cruelest ironies about the Black Death is the way it contributed so heavily to the deterioration of the clergy. In what way? Imagine the workload for a priest: confessions, last rites, comfort to survivors, and Christian burial (when possible) from sunup to sundown for weeks, months, years on end. And though science did not yet know what caused the Black Death, everyone knew very well by common sense alone that whoever spent time around the plague usually died from it sooner or later. So the clergy who took the sacraments into the plague zones were spiritually akin to the firemen who ran toward the Twin Towers on 9/11 while everyone else was running away. The faithful bishop, the loyal priest, the dutiful deacon all ministered as long as they could, and then died. The cowards and deserters fled and survived — to become practically the whole clergy in the post plague years. No wonder the fifteenth century was such a dumpster fire.

As a direct result of this factor, the Faith itself got lost somewhere along the way — or adulterated, at any rate, by a nasty tincture of superstition. The plague shut down churches and monasteries, all the places where the real Christian Faith was meant to be taught (and had been for a long time, despite individual lapses).

Many of the clergy ordained to replace the fallen became “Mass priests” — priests, that is, who literally did nothing but recite the Mass because they had no training and did not know how to preach. Deprived of solid doctrine this way, the laity took on bad doctrines, often spread by teachers who were simply ignorant. Sub-Christian notions crept back in and distorted Catholic teaching.

The Church’s perfectly sound traditions about the correct use of sacramentals, for instance, were allowed to mix with leftovers from Europe’s recently dead pagan past. Sacred medals became charms; relics were confused with rabbit’s feet. In a disaster area like this, with no time to spare for jumping through moral or theological hoops, quick cures were needed — so the Church became a source for magic pills, not spiritual salvation. Doctors and theologians kept the true teaching on the books, to be sure, but popular extravagances happened far away from the universities. “For instance,” as Belloc writes,

“the doctrine of the Invocation of Saints is clear; but towards the end of the Middle Ages you get men robbing one shrine to enrich another. The doctrine of the use of Masses is clear, and especially their use for the benefit of the souls in Purgatory; but the superstition that a Mass in this place was efficacious, and in that was not — the superstition which confuses mechanical repetition with spiritual force grew as the Middle Ages declined.“23

Somewhat akin to this are the many fantastic legends about the saints and the early Church that grew up during these years, based, in many cases, on few, if any, historical facts. Most of them were perhaps harmless — saints who never existed, shrines built at the sites of miracles that never happened — harmless, that is, until they came to be confused with the actual tenets of the Faith. Laypeople lost the ability to distinguish between actual Sacred Tradition and tradition with a small t (i.e., just old, oft-repeated stories, many times nothing but wives’ tales). Worse, both sets of ideas came to be held with the same tenacity — leaving the Resurrection of Our Blessed Lord in the same category with St. George’s dragon.

And then, a few decades later, when some Lollard or Lutheran came along, bringing proofs against the “Donation of Constantine” or the “False Decretals,” many a vulnerable papist joined the Protestants in their Bible-only beliefs, convinced that they had now seen the folly of “man-made” Christianity.

When the Black Death began to subside in the late 1300s, some measure of order was restored. Why, afterward, weren’t efforts made to sort through these fables and false documents? There were — but only after the Protestant revolt. Before then, there was simply too little incentive to overcome the inertia. And here, of course, is where the bad shepherds returned big time. Too much money was being generated by this point, money the Church had come to depend on. The best example is the most famous: the sale of indulgences, against which Luther wrote his Ninety-Five Theses.”

-Bennett, Rod. Bad Shepherds: The Dark Years in Which the Faithful Thrived While Bishops Did the Devil’s Work . (c) 2018 Sophia Institute Press. Kindle Edition. Location: 874-913

Love,
Matthew

22 Hilaire Belloc, The Crisis of Civilization (Charlotte, NC: TAN Books, 1992), 89.
23 Ibid., 81.

Ecclesiology, Eschatology, Plague

The Black Death



-by Steve Weidenkopf

“As the modern world struggles to handle the impact of the Coronavirus/Covid-19 pandemic, commentators are making comparisons to previous viral outbreaks such as the Influenza Pandemic (or “Spanish Flu”) in the early twentieth century or the Black Death in the fourteenth century. Although historical comparisons can be helpful in some situations, they are not always beneficial because the context in which these events occurred is often not sufficiently acknowledged.

The Black Death is one of the best-known calamities in human history, but the society it ravaged and its impacts on Christendom and the Church are not widely understood. Given the current health crisis gripping the modern world, it may be profitable to investigate the period in an effort to shed a different light on the current situation.

In the mid-fourteenth century, a nasty virus carried to Europe by merchants from the East attacked Christendom. Known at the time as “the pestilence,” “the plague,” or “the great mortality” (the term “Black Death” was coined first in the sixteenth century but entered popular usage in the nineteenth century), it began in China, spread to Mongolia, the Byzantine Empire, and the Crimea, from which it entered Sicily and spread throughout Europe. Every country in Christendom was affected except Poland and Bohemia, which had limited merchant activity with the rest of Europe.

England suffered greatly from three waves of the plague over the course of a century. So great the devastation that the country did not return to its pre-plague population of six million until the mid-eighteenth century.

The deadly pestilence occurred in three forms: bubonic, septicemic, and pneumonic plague. Bubonic plague produced painful buboes in the lymph nodes, especially in the groin, armpits, and neck. Symptoms included high fever, swelling of the lymph nodes, diarrhea, vomiting, headaches, convulsions, and dizziness. The septicemic plague involved an infection of the blood and produced black and blue marks on the body, abdominal pain, and other symptoms. The pneumonic plague produced shortness of breath, chest pain, and coughing as the infection settled in the lungs.


-physician protective gear of the 14th century. The belief was disease was caused by bad smells, which certainly accompany disease after the fact. But, the belief in bad smells as a cause led to the masks seen here. The beak was filled with sweet smelling herbs, or such, and the entire outfit certainly lessened the direct contact with germs to a horrific degree, which supported the use of the garment and mask and theory in lieu of anything more enlightened. So, while the beak and outfit looks awful and chilling, it did have a practical intended purpose.

Medieval doctors did not have accurate knowledge of the transmission of germs and immunology, so a wide spectrum of treatment options was employed, including enemas and bloodletting. Some doctors endorsed abstinence from seafood, sexual activity, and bathing. Jacme D’Agramont, a Spanish physician and professor at the University of Lerida, wrote in his book Regimen of Protection against Epidemics that, “habitual bathing is also very dangerous, because the bath opens the pores of the body and through these pores corrupt air enters and has a powerful influence upon our body.”

Although the plague affected parts of Europe differently, recent estimates put the overall death rate at fifty percent of Christendom’s total population over a two-year period. Cities were devastated and many urban dwellers fled to the countryside in an attempt to escape the pestilence. The volume of deaths was staggering as thousands died daily. In the Burgundian village of Givry the annual death rate before the plague was forty; in 1348, the village lost 650 souls. The southern French city of Avignon, home at this time to the popes, witnessed 11,000 deaths over a five-week period. The calamity produced extreme reactions. Some people believed the plague was punishment from God for the sins of humanity, so they publicly practiced extreme penances, such as scourging. A group known as the Flagellants developed. They preached doctrinal errors and ran afoul of the Church hierarchy because of their unorthodox and unauthorized preaching and penitential processions. The chronicler Heinrich of Herford recorded their vicious flagellations and wanderings from place to place:

“I have seen, when they whipped themselves, how the iron points became so embedded in the flesh that sometimes one pull, sometimes two, was not enough to extract them. They wandered the land… but when they came to cities, towns, and large villages and settlements, they marched down the street in procession, with their hoods or hats pulled down a little to cover their foreheads.”

The Flagellants required members to pledge not to leave the fraternity without permission of superiors, to practice silence, never to scourge themselves to the point of illness or death, to give alms to the poor, and to pray for an end to the pestilence. The people generally viewed the Flagellants favorably due to their overall appearance of piety and extreme penances. The Church, however, found the Flagellants independent streak troublesome and their unorthodox preaching unacceptable. Pope Clement VI (r. 1342­–1352) suppressed the group in 1349 in the bull Inter Solicitudines.

In searching for an explanation for the outbreak of the plague, some Christians blamed the Jewish people. Rumors circulated in southern France and Spain, where the majority of Europe’s Jews lived, that the Jews had poisoned wells with the plague. Sadly, these rumors led to pogroms, mostly in German areas, in the fall of 1348, eventually encompassing nearly a hundred cities and towns by 1351. During the violence, Jews were burned, robbed, expelled, and forced to convert to the Christian Faith in order to spare their lives. Some Jews chose immolation and other forms of suicide rather than suffer at the hands of the mobs.

The Jewish community in Strasbourg suffered greatly as 900 Jews out of a population of 1,884 were killed. In some areas, bishops protected the Jewish people from harm. Notably, the Jewish community in Avignon, site of the papal residence, did not suffer because of the plague due to papal protection. Additionally, Pope Clement VI issued the bull Sicut Judeis in July 1348 declaring the Church’s protection of Jews throughout Christendom. Pope Clement highlighted the false charge against the Jews about the plague:

“It does not seem credible that the Jews on this occasion are responsible for the crime nor that they caused it, because this nearly universal pestilence, in accordance with God’s hidden judgment, has afflicted and continues to afflict the Jews themselves.”

The impact of the great pestilence on Christendom was widespread. Europe suffered great economic turmoil as trade was reduced and society witnessed a severe shortage of laborers. Spiritually, people gravitated to the Faith and sought solace in prayer and the sacraments.

The Church lost nearly forty percent of its priests to the Black Death. Some towns saw the death of ninety percent of priests. The English clergy died at an alarming rate, including three archbishops of Canterbury in the span of a year. Monasteries suffered immensely as the plague wiped out entire religious communities. The high percentage of clergy deaths because of the plague produced a shortage of priests, which the Church tried to ameliorate by lowering the minimum age of ordination from twenty-five to twenty. Although understandable given the circumstances, this action produced a cadre of inexperienced, young, and poorly formed priests. The quality of the priesthood suffered and with it the Church as a whole, as ecclesiastical abuses became widespread in the fifteenth century, leading—many believe—to the Protestant Revolution in the sixteenth century.”

Love,
Matthew

Lent

Lent: meatless burgers, avoiding hyper-scrupulosity & loophole-seeking

Miserere mei, Deus: secundum magnam misericordiam tuam.
Et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum, dele iniquitatem meam.
Amplius lava me ab iniquitate mea: et a peccato meo munda me.
Quoniam iniquitatem meam ego cognosco: et peccatum meum contra me est semper.
Tibi soli peccavi, et malum coram te feci: ut justificeris in sermonibus tuis, et vincas cum judicaris.
Ecce enim in iniquitatibus conceptus sum: et in peccatis concepit me mater mea.
Ecce enim veritatem dilexisti: incerta et occulta sapientiae tuae manifestasti mihi.
Asperges me hyssopo, et mundabor: lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor.
Auditui meo dabis gaudium et laetitiam: et exsultabunt ossa humiliata.
Averte faciem tuam a peccatis meis: et omnes iniquitates meas dele.
Cor mundum crea in me, Deus: et spiritum rectum innova in visceribus meis.
Ne proiicias me a facie tua: et spiritum sanctum tuum ne auferas a me.
Redde mihi laetitiam salutaris tui: et spiritu principali confirma me.
Docebo iniquos vias tuas: et impii ad te convertentur.
Libera me de sanguinibus, Deus, Deus salutis meae: et exsultabit lingua mea justitiam tuam.
Domine, labia mea aperies: et os meum annuntiabit laudem tuam.
Quoniam si voluisses sacrificium, dedissem utique: holocaustis non delectaberis.
Sacrificium Deo spiritus contribulatus: cor contritum, et humiliatum, Deus, non despicies.
Benigne fac, Domine, in bona voluntate tua Sion: ut aedificentur muri Ierusalem.
Tunc acceptabis sacrificium justitiae, oblationes, et holocausta: tunc imponent super altare tuum vitulos.

Have mercy on me, God, have mercy,  in accord with Your merciful love;
in Your abundant compassion blot out my transgressions.
Thoroughly wash away my guilt;
and from my sin cleanse me.
For I know my transgressions;
my sin is always before me.
Against You, You alone have I sinned;
I have done what is evil in Your eyes
So that You are just in Your word,
and without reproach in Your judgment.
Behold, I was born in guilt,
in sin my mother conceived me.
Behold, You desire true sincerity;
and secretly You teach me wisdom.
Cleanse me with hyssop, that I may be pure;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
You will let me hear gladness and joy;
the bones you have crushed will rejoice.
Turn away Your face from my sins;
blot out all my iniquities.
A clean heart create for me, God;
renew within me a steadfast spirit.
Do not drive me from before Your face,
nor take from me Your holy spirit.
Restore to me the gladness of Your salvation;
uphold me with a willing spirit.
I will teach the wicked your ways,
that sinners may return to You.
Rescue me from violent bloodshed, God, my saving God,
and my tongue will sing joyfully of Your justice.
Lord, You will open my lips;
and my mouth will proclaim Your praise.
For You do not desire sacrifice or I would give it;
a burnt offering You would not accept.
My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit;
a contrite, humbled heart, O God, you will not scorn.
Treat Zion kindly according to Your good will;
build up the walls of Jerusalem.
Then You will desire the sacrifices of the just,
burnt offering and whole offerings;
then they will offer up young bulls on Your altar.
-Ps 51:1-20


-by Michelle Arnold, Catholic Answers

“Lent began this year with a debate. If a fast-food sandwich patty is made with a plant-based product that’s indistinguishable from real meat, can Catholics both abstain from meat during Lent and have their “burgers” too? The Washington Post recently featured a debate amongst Catholics on the controversy.

“I will be honest: when someone asked me that, my first thought was, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?! It’s genius!!’” the Rev. Marlon Mendieta, of St. Patrick Catholic Church in Fayetteville, N.C., wrote in an email. “But then my conscience kicked in, and I just felt that I wouldn’t be okay with that.”

Fr. Mendieta polled his priest friends for their thoughts. One priest just shrugged. “If it’s not meat, it’s not meat.”

Since another priest noted to Fr. Mendieta that it “seems like it goes against the spirit of the penitential season if we just eat things that taste like the stuff we’re supposed to be abstaining from,” I looked around online for reviews of the Impossible Burger, a popular meatless product made by Impossible Foods.

“The outside of the burger is coated in coconut oil, so it has a crunchy savoury outside like you get on a beef burger when you fry it,” a British food critic wrote. “And there it was inside: that pinky soft middle. It was simply delicious. The flavour was really good—the best veggie burger I’ve ever had. However, I was hoping it would be indistinguishable from a meat burger so I was slightly disappointed that I could still tell the difference.”

So, what’s a Catholic to do this Lent? Can you licitly satisfy your craving for meat on the days of abstinence with an Impossible Burger? Let’s look first at the Church’s requirements for abstinence from meat during Lent. The Code of Canon Law states:

Abstinence from meat, or from some other food as determined by the episcopal conference, is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday. … The law of abstinence binds those who have completed their fourteenth year. … The episcopal conference[s] can determine more particular ways in which fasting and abstinence are to be observed (canons 1251–1253).

Since these canons permit national episcopal conferences to adjust the universal disciplines for their countries, the USCCB ruled for Catholics in the United States that Catholics are required to abstain from meat on the Lenten Fridays. On all other Fridays, the US bishops “terminate[d] the traditional law of abstinence binding under pain of sin” and urged Catholics to “ordinarily continue to abstain from meat by free choice.”

For Catholics, the purpose of abstinence from meat on these days is to perform penance. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines penance as “a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all our heart” (1431) and teaches that this interior act of the heart can be outwardly expressed—both individually and in community with fellow Christians—“in many and various ways. Scripture and the Fathers insist above all on three forms, fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, which express conversion in relation to oneself, to God, and to others” (1434).

Penance, then, while it is an interior transformation of the heart, is expressed to the world in acts that demonstrate our commitment to that conversion. Abstinence from meat is a traditional act Catholics perform to express our work toward that “radical reorientation” of our lives that penance entails.

Chowing down on an Impossible Burger on a Lenten Friday meets the letter of the law. As Fr. Mendieta’s priest friend said, “If it’s not meat, it’s not meat.” And if you can tell that your Impossible Burger is just a really good vegetarian burger, but not a beef burger, then eating your veggie burger may be a more sacrificial choice for you than an alternative seafood option, such as a lobster roll or crab cakes.

Catholics also need to take care not to become hyper-scrupulous about their food choices on days of penance. A few years ago, I was contacted during Lent by a mother of two teenage boys, both of whom had autism and a sensory processing dysfunction. She was anxious about whether she should give her boys the sweets they customarily ate at mealtimes because they needed the routine and familiar taste as incentives to eat the rest of their meals. I pointed out to this mom that her children had a medical need for sweets in their diet and I urged her not to worry further about fulfilling the Lenten penance requirement.

Nonetheless, Catholics should remember that penance in the Catholic tradition is not merely an individual act but a communal act. The Church assigns specific days of penance, in part, to invite all able-bodied Catholics to act together to reorient ourselves to God as a community. Our individual acts of penance serve as a reminder and encouragement to our fellow Catholics to join us in acting as the mystical body of Christ on earth.

So, what happens when fellow Catholics see you eating your Impossible Burger on a day of penance? If, to all outward appearances, you seem to be eating a “forbidden food” on a Lenten Friday, others may believe that you’re flouting the Church’s disciplinary laws. If that happens, then your act could become a source of scandal. The Catechism states:

“Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. The person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor’s tempter. He damages virtue and integrity; he may even draw his brother into spiritual death. Scandal is a grave offense if by deed or omission another is deliberately led into a grave offense. Scandal takes on a particular gravity by reason of the authority of those who cause it or the weakness of those who are scandalized.” (2284–2285).

St. Paul asked Christians not to seek their own good but to seek the good of their neighbor (1 Cor. 10:23–24). If you can easily choose between multiple licit options on days of abstinence, why choose the one option that could cause confusion or distress for your Catholic family and friends? Just because you can licitly eat an Impossible Burger on a Lenten Friday doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, unless you have some mitigating circumstance to do so (e.g., medical necessity, lack of alternatives).

The Post writer observed that “For as long as religious dietary guidelines have existed, somewhere there has likely been at least one moderately devoted practitioner desperately searching for loopholes.” If your intent in eating an Impossible Burger this Lent is a desire to slide through a loophole in the Church’s disciplinary rules, you may want to consider whether that’s a properly penitential attitude.”

Love & have mercy on me God, for I am a sinful man,
Matthew

Liturgy

Catholic Fridays & Dunkin’ Free Donut Friday in Lent

https://news.dunkindonuts.com/news/thank-goodness-its-free-donut-fridays-at-dunkin

Thank Goodness It’s Free Donut Fridays at Dunkin’

“Every Friday in March, members of Dunkin’s DD Perks® Rewards Program can get a free donut with the purchase of any beverage

Cheer for Free Donut Fridays for the chance to win one of four prizes of free donuts for a year in Dunkin’s TGIFDF Sweepstakes, March 4 through March 26

CANTON, MA (March 2, 2020) – March can seem like the toughest part of the year: long and cold with few days, if any, off from work and even a lost hour of sleep. Leave it to Dunkin’ to introduce the perfect perk to bring a boost of optimism and sweetness to the month. Dunkin’ today announced Free Donut Fridays, offering members of Dunkin’s DD Perks® Rewards Program a free donut with the purchase of any beverage every Friday in March.*

Beginning this Friday, March 6, and on each Friday through the end of the month, DD Perks members can celebrate the workweek’s end with a free donut when they buy any beverage at participating Dunkin’ restaurants nationwide. Members can enjoy favorites such as Boston Kreme, Glazed, Glazed Chocolate, Strawberry Frosted with Sprinkles and more, including Dunkin’s new sweet treat for March, the Lucky Shamrock Donut.

Donut-lovers who are not currently DD Perks members can turn TGIF into TGIFDF (Thank Goodness It’s Free Donut Friday) by enrolling for free on the Dunkin’ App or DDPerks.com. DD Perks members earn five points for every dollar they spend on qualifying purchases at Dunkin’. Once a member accrues 200 points, they receive a free beverage reward for any size, redeemable at participating Dunkin’ restaurants.

Throughout March, with the help of cheerleader and television star Gabi Butler, Dunkin’ is also giving fans the opportunity to show their Free Donut Fridays spirit for the chance to win a year’s worth of free donuts. On Wednesday, March 4, Gabi will take to Instagram to kick off a special Dunkin’ cheer challenge in which fans can post their own Instagram video or story of their best original T-G-I-F-D-F cheer using #FDFSweepstakes and tagging @Dunkin. Winners will be randomly selected each Free Donut Friday**. NoPurchNec. Legal US/DC res 18+. Ends 3/26/20. For official rules, please visit: http://ddsweeps.com

“We’re so excited to offer Free Donut Fridays to give all of our DD Perks members – new and existing – an extra special sweet treat as they head into spring,” said Stephanie Meltzer-Paul, VP of Digital and Loyalty Marketing, Dunkin’ U.S. “We’re always looking for new ways to show our appreciation to Dunkin’ fans and our DD Perks Rewards Program allows us celebrate them with fun and exclusive offers throughout the year.”


-“Denial of Saint Peter”, 1615–17, by Valentin de Boulogne, oil on canvas, 67 1/2 × 94 7/8 in. (171.5 × 241 cm), Fondazione di Studi di Storia dell’Arte Roberto Longhi, Florence, while trying, inconspicuously, to warm his hands, the apostle Peter is recognized as a disciple of Christ. The assorted company of soldiers take notice—in varying degrees. Peter’s fate has changed as though with the throw of dice, depicted mid-air! The sculpted relief is based on Roman terracotta plaques, casts of which were collected and used as artists’ props. This picture originally belonged to Giovanni Battista Mellini (1591–1627), a lawyer and dean of the university of Rome and a collector of antiquities.


-by Br Bernard Knapke, OP

“The Catholic Friday should be different than the world’s Friday. In fact, the Catholic weekend should be different. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are to be red, blue, and white days—not because of patriotism, but because of the Passion, the Fiat, and the Empty Tomb. The mysteries of the Rosary upon which we mediate each of these days also reflects this triple character: Friday prompts us to ponder the sorrowful mysteries; Saturday, the joyful; and Sunday, the glorious. Rightly, the weekend ought to remind the Christian that discipleship entails the heaviness of the cross, the help of grace, and the hope of eternal life. Every weekend should be a little Triduum.

In special seasons, the three-note weekend chord can shift in key. In Advent, as we turn with expectation to Our Lady, every day seems to sound like a Saturday suspended chord. Throughout Easter, a series of major chords result from a progression of Sunday celebrations: Resurrection, Divine Mercy, Jubilate, Good Shepherd, Pentecost. In Lent, a clear focus on Fridays sets up a 40-day score set to a minor key that eventually gives way to the sheer silence of the Friday that is Good.

The Catholic Friday is always penitential because of Good Friday. But that looks different depending on which Friday it is. The year looks something like this in the United States:

  • During the whole year, Catholics are urged to observe practices of penance on Fridays (abstinence from meat is given “first place” among recommended penances).
  • During Lent, Catholics 14 years and older are to abstain from eating meat on Fridays.
  • On Good Friday, Catholics 14 years and older are to abstain from eating meat and Catholics 18 years and older, until they turn 59, are to fast.

Whether we are in Lent or not, Friday is always to be a “special day of penitential observance” for the Catholic. The United States bishops teach that “Friday should be in each week something of what Lent is in the entire year” (“Pastoral Statement on Penance and Abstinence,” 23). What changes, however, is the degree to which we as Catholics unite in doing penance as we near the Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion. Together, we gradually enter more deeply into the mystery of Christ’s sufferings.

The Catholic says, “Thank God it’s Friday,” because salvation was wrought on a Friday. Out of love, Jesus Christ—the Word Incarnate, true God and true man—embraced death and suffering, transforming them into the means by which the wounds of sin are healed and man is led to eternal life with God. When we do penance on Fridays, we recall this unfathomable gift. We express sorrow for our own personal sins as well as those of all the world. We unite our own sufferings to those of Christ, asking that they too might become salvific. We take up our cross and follow him.

The Catholic Friday should be different than the world’s Friday. The Roman guards drank and gambled on Good Friday (Mark 15:23-24; Ps 22:18). Peter kept comfortable by the fire (Mark 14:54). The penitential witness came from Mary and John at Calvary’s height (John 19:25-27). A Catholic Friday entails joining in this Marian and Johannine witness. And lest we forget, the Catholic Friday leads to the glory of the Catholic Sunday.

✠

Love,
Matthew

Ash Wednesday, Lent

Sackcloth & ashes

https://www.gotquestions.org/sackcloth-and-ashes.html

“Sackcloth and ashes were used in Old Testament times as a symbol of debasement, mourning, and/or repentance. Someone wanting to show his repentant heart would often wear sackcloth, sit in ashes, and put ashes on top of his head. Sackcloth was a coarse material usually made of black goat’s hair, making it quite uncomfortable to wear. The ashes signified desolation and ruin.

When someone died, the act of putting on sackcloth showed heartfelt sorrow for the loss of that person. We see an example of this when David mourned the death of Abner, the commander of Saul’s army (2 Samuel 3:31). Jacob also demonstrated his grief by wearing sackcloth when he thought his son Joseph had been killed (Genesis 37:34). These instances of mourning for the dead mention sackcloth but not ashes.

Ashes accompanied sackcloth in times of national disaster or repenting from sin. Esther 4:1, for instance, describes Mordecai tearing his clothes, putting on sackcloth and ashes, and walking out into the city “wailing loudly and bitterly.” This was Mordecai’s reaction to King Xerxes’ declaration giving the wicked Haman authority to destroy the Jews (see Esther 3:8–15). Mordecai was not the only one who grieved. “In every province to which the edict and order of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping, and wailing. Many lay in sackcloth and ashes” (Esther 4:3). The Jews responded to the devastating news concerning their race with sackcloth and ashes, showing their intense grief and distress.

Sackcloth and ashes were also used as a public sign of repentance and humility before God. When Jonah declared to the people of Nineveh that God was going to destroy them for their wickedness, everyone from the king on down responded with repentance, fasting, and sackcloth and ashes (Jonah 3:5–7). They even put sackcloth on their animals (verse 8). Their reasoning was, “Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish” (verse 9). This is interesting because the Bible never says that Jonah’s message included any mention of God’s mercy; but mercy is what they received. It’s clear that the Ninevites’ donning of sackcloth and ashes was not a meaningless show. God saw genuine change—a humble change of heart represented by the sackcloth and ashes—and it caused Him to “relent” and not bring about His plan to destroy them (Jonah 3:10).

Other people the Bible mentions wearing sackcloth include King Hezekiah (Isaiah 37:1), Eliakim (2 Kings 19:2), King Ahab (1 Kings 21:27), the elders of Jerusalem (Lamentations 2:10), Daniel (Daniel 9:3), and the two witness in Revelation 11:3.

Very simply, sackcloth and ashes were used as an outward sign of one’s inward condition. Such a symbol made one’s change of heart visible and demonstrated the sincerity of one’s grief and/or repentance. It was not the act of putting on sackcloth and ashes itself that moved God to intervene, but the humility that such an action demonstrated (see 1 Samuel 16:7). God’s forgiveness in response to genuine repentance is celebrated by David’s words: “You removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy” (Psalm 30:11).”

Love & His mercy,
Matthew

Ash Wednesday, Lent

Lent: weepers, hearers, kneelers, standers

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/sackcloth-and-ashes

“To some non-Catholics Christians, the traditional pentitential practices of the Church (especially those of Lent) are unbiblical—traditions of men that are at best unnecessary and at worst seek to replace or add to Christ’s sacrifice with human works.

Yet penance has been part of the true religion since before the time of Christ, as shown by the Old Testament’s injunctions concerning fasting, wearing sackcloth, and sitting in dust and ashes. And they have been part of the Christian Church since its earliest days.

Penances can be formal or informal, but they amount to the same thing: expressions before God of sorrow over one’s sins, which is not only required by God but also by human nature; human beings have an innate need to mourn tragedies, and our sins are tragedies.

In ancient formal penitential discipline, there were four classes of penitents who had committed major sins (e.g., idolatry, murder, abortion, adultery), and they moved through the classes on their way to full reconciliation.

(Ed. there was a wonderful ancient tradition I was made aware of where, during the Easter vigil, the bishop would lead the penitents, thenceforth, banned from full communion due to their sin, being led by the hand by the bishop back into the Church. Lovely.)

Weepers were not allowed in the church but stayed outside and asked those going in to pray for them. Hearers stood inside church doors and heard the liturgy of the word but were dismissed, like the catechumens, before the liturgy of the Eucharist. Kneelers knelt or lay down in church and participated with the Church in specific prayers for them before being blessed by the bishop and dismissed prior to the Eucharist. Standers sat in the congregation and stayed for the liturgy of the Eucharist but did not receive Communion.

As these following selections show, the Church Fathers had a lively understanding of the role of penance in the Christian life (cf. Matt. 6:16-18, Mark 2:18-20, Acts 13:2-3, Jas. 4:8-10), an understanding we would do well to recover as we progress through this Lenten season: weeping for our sins, hearing the voice of God calling us back to communion with Him, kneeling in His presence with true contrition, and standing attentively as we ponder the lessons of His word.

THE DIDACHE

Before the baptism, let the one baptizing and the one to be baptized fast, as also any others who are able. Command the one who is to be baptized to fast beforehand for one or two days…[After becoming a Christian] do not let your fasts be with the hypocrites. They fast on Monday and Thursday, but you shall fast on Wednesday and Friday (Didache 7:1, 8:1 [A.D.70]).

POPE CLEMENT I

You [Corinthians], therefore, who laid the foundation of the rebellion [in your church], submit to the presbyters and be chastened to repentance, bending your knees in a spirit of humility (Letter to the Corinthians 57 [A.D. 80]).

HERMAS

[The old woman told me:] “Every prayer should be accompanied with humility: fast, therefore, and you will obtain from the Lord what you beg.” I fasted therefore for one day (The Shepherd 1:3:10 [A.D. 80]).

IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH

For as many as are of God and of Jesus Christ are also with the bishop. And as many as shall, in the exercise of penance, return into the unity of the Church, these, too, shall belong to God, that they may live according to Jesus Christ (Letter to the Philadelphians 3 [A.D. 110]).

POLYCARP

Wherefore, forsaking the vanity of many, and their false doctrines, let us return to the word which has been handed down to us from the beginning; staying awake in prayer, and persevering in fasting; beseeching in our supplications the all-seeing God “not to lead us into temptation,” as the Lord has said: “The spirit truly is willing, but the flesh is weak” [Matt. 26:41] (Letter to the Philippians 7 [A.D. 135]).

JUSTIN MARTYR

I will also relate the manner in which we dedicated ourselves to God when we had been made new through Christ; lest, if we omit this, we seem to be unfair in the explanation we are making. As many as are persuaded and believe that what we teach and say is true, and undertake to be able to live accordingly, are instructed to pray and to entreat God with fasting, for the remission of their sins that are past, we are praying and fasting with them. Then they are brought by us to where there is water, and are regenerated in the same manner in which we were ourselves regenerated. For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water. For Christ also said, “Except ye be born again, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (First Apology 61 [A.D. 151]).

IRENAEUS

Some consider themselves bound to fast one day [during Lent], others two days, others still more, while others [do so during] forty; the diurnal and the nocturnal hours they measure out together as their [fasting] day. And this variety among the observers [of the fasts] had not its origin in our time, but long before in that of our predecessors (Letter to Pope Victor [A.D. 190]).

TERTULLIAN

Confession is a discipline for man’s prostration and humiliation…It commands one to lie in sackcloth and ashes, to cover the body with mourning, to cast the spirit down in sorrow, to exchange the sins which have been committed for a demeanor of sorrow; to take no food or drink except what is plain, not, of course, for the sake of the stomach, but for the sake of the soul; and most of all, to feed prayers on fasting; to groan, to weep and wail day and night to the Lord your God; to bow before the presbyters, to kneel before God’s refuge places [altars], and to beseech all the brethren for the embassy of their own supplication (Repentance 9:3-5 [A.D. 203]).

ORIGEN

There is also a seventh, albeit hard and laborious [method of forgiveness] – the remission of sins through penance, when the sinner washes his pillow in tears, when his tears are day and night his nourishment, and when he does not shrink from declaring his sin to a priest of the Lord (Homilies on Leviticus 2:4 [A.D. 248]).

CYPRIAN

Sinners may do penance for a set time, and according to the rules of discipline come to public confession, and by imposition of the hand of the bishop and clergy receive the right of communion (Letters 9:2).

GREGORY THAUMATURGUS

Weeping is done outside the gate of the oratory, and the sinner standing there ought to implore the faithful, as they enter, to pray for him. Hearing is in the narthex inside the gate, where the sinner ought to stand while the catechumens are there, and afterward he should depart. For let him hear the Scriptures and the teachings…and then be cast out and not be reckoned as worthy of [the penitential] prayer. Submission allows one to stand within the gate of the temple, but he must go out with the catechumens. Assembly allows one to be associated with the faithful, without the necessity of going out with the catechumens. Last of all is participation in the consecrated elements (Canonical Letter, canon 11 [A.D. 256]).

EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA

[The Emperor Philip,] being a Christian desired, on the day of the last paschal vigil, to share with the multitude in the prayers of the Church, but that he was not permitted to enter, by him who then presided, until he had made confession and had numbered himself among those who were reckoned as transgressors and who occupied the place of penance. For if he had not done this, he would never have been received by him, on account of the many crimes which he had committed. It is said that he obeyed readily, manifesting in his conduct a genuine and pious fear of God (Church History 6:34 [A.D. 312]).

COUNCIL OF NICAEA I

It is decided by the council, even though they [those who apostatized without coercion during the persecution of Licinius] are unworthy of mercy, to treat them, nevertheless, with kindness. Those, then, who are truly repentant shall, as already baptized [people], spend three years among the hearers, and seven years among the kneelers, and for two years they shall participate with the people in prayers, but without taking part in the offering (canon 11 [A.D. 325]).

JEROME

If the serpent, the devil, bites someone secretly, he infects that person with the venom of sin. And if the one who has been bitten keeps silence and does not do penance, and does not want to confess his wound…then his brother and his master, who have the word [of absolution] that will cure him, cannot very well assist him (Commentary on Ecclesiastes 10:11 [A.D. 388]).

BASIL THE GREAT

Let him who has [committed incest]…[a]fter coming to an awareness of that dread sin, let him be a weeper for three years, standing at the door of the houses of prayer and begging the people entering there for the purpose of praying to offer in sympathy for him, each one, earnest petitions to the Lord. After this, let him be admitted for another three years among the hearers only; and when he has heard the Scriptures and the teachings, let him be put out and not be deemed worthy of the prayer. Then, if he has sought it with tears and has cast himself down before the Lord with a contrite heart and with great humility, let him be given admission for another three years. And thus, when he has exhibited fruits worthy of repentance, let him be admitted in the tenth year to the prayer of the faithful without communion. And when he has assembled for two years in prayer with the faithful, then let him finally be deemed worthy of the communion of the good (Letters 217:75 [A.D. 367]).”

Love, & His mercy,
Matthew