Category Archives: Liturgy

Apologetics, Christmastide, Eastertide, New Evangelization

“Chreasters”, C&Es, CEO=Christmas/Easter Only, Holiday/Submarine Catholics, The Third Commandment, & Easter Duty

Mara just, by requirement of the Diocese of Madison for all her age in Catholic schools in the diocese, had an examination on the Ten Commandments. Kelly & I tutored. She got a perfect score. There are standards in this household. There are standards.

-by Noble Kuriakose, Pew Research Center

“Priests and ministers have long noted a sharp increase in church attendance around the two most significant Christian holidays, Christmas and Easter. Some have given those who attend services only at those times of year a name — “Chreasters” — and churches have launched campaigns to get them to attend more regularly.

Google searches for “church” spike during Easter and Christmas seasons. More Americans search for “church” around Easter than at any other time, with the Christmas season usually ranking second, according to Google Trends data between 2004 and 2013. Google’s Trends tool measures the popularity of a search term relative to all searches in the United States. Data are reported on a scale from 0 to 100.

Easter is Christianity’s oldest and most important holiday, during which Christians celebrate Jesus’ Resurrection three days after he was crucified. In liturgical terms, Easter Sunday is a moveable feast. Its observance, which comes at the end of a 40-day period of penance, fasting and self-examination called Lent, changes within a range of time each spring. Between 2004 and 2013, Easter was in March three times and April seven times.

In 2013, the highest share of searches for “church” are on the week of Easter Sunday, followed by the week of Christmas and the week of Ash Wednesday, the day that marks the beginning of Lent; Mother’s Day is next, and Father’s Day is near the bottom.

The lowest share of searches occur on the week of Thanksgiving in November each year, and the summer months have consistently low levels of interest in web searches for “church.” Sociologists also have previously reported low levels of church attendance during the summer months. Laurence Iannaccone and Sean Everton analyzed weekly attendance records from churches and argued that people are less likely to attend church when the weather outside is just right in a journal article titled “Never on Sunny Days.”

The Precepts of the Church – Catechism of the Catholic Church

Before going further, it is important to note what the Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us about Catholic Mass attendance.

The first precept (“You shall attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation and rest from servile labor”) requires the faithful to sanctify the day commemorating the Resurrection of the Lord as well as the principal liturgical feasts honoring the Mysteries of the Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the saints; in the first place, by participating in the Eucharistic celebration, in which the Christian community is gathered, and by resting from those works and activities which could impede such a sanctification of these days.

The second precept (“You shall confess your sins at least once a year”) ensures preparation for the Eucharist by the reception of the sacrament of reconciliation, which continues Baptism’s work of conversion and forgiveness.

The third precept (“You shall receive the sacrament of the Eucharist at least during the Easter season”) guarantees as a minimum the reception of the Lord’s Body and Blood in connection with the Paschal feasts, the origin and center of the Christian liturgy. (CCC 2042)

The precept of the Church specifies the law of the Lord more precisely: “On Sundays and other holy days of obligation the faithful are bound to participate in the Mass.” “The precept of participating in the Mass is satisfied by assistance at a Mass which is celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite either on the holy day or on the evening of the preceding day.”

The Sunday Eucharist is the foundation and confirmation of all Christian practice. For this reason the faithful are obliged to participate in the Eucharist on days of obligation, unless excused for a serious reason (for example, illness, the care of infants) or dispensed by their own pastor. Those who deliberately fail in this obligation commit a grave sin. (CCC. 2180 and 2181)

The Code of Canon Law, the legal code of Christ’s Church, states:

On Sundays and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are obliged to assist at Mass. They are also to abstain from such work or business that would inhibit the worship to be given to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s Day, or the due relaxation of mind and body.

The obligation of assisting at Mass is satisfied wherever Mass is celebrated in a Catholic rite either on a holy day itself or on the evening of the previous day. (Can 1247, 1248)

Both the code of Canon Law and the Catechism clearly state the obligation. There was some general teaching prior to Vatican II that one had to be present for the offertory through reception of Holy Communion to fulfill the obligation. However this is not a part of the canon and the faithful are to participate in the complete Mass in order to fulfill the Sunday obligation.

Praying for strength for you & I, when we least feel like going to Mass. It happens. Offer it up, as we work out our salvation in fear and trembling. (Phil 2:12)

Love,
Matthew

Advent, Liturgy

Rorate Coeli

rorate_coeli
-medieval manuscript of Rorate Coeli

-from the Book of Isaiah (Isaiah 45:8) in the Vulgate, are the opening words of a text used in Catholic liturgy during Advent.

Rain down, you heavens, from above,
And let the skies pour down righteousness;
Let the earth open, let them bring forth salvation,
And let righteousness spring up together.
I, the Lord, have created it.

It is also known as The Advent Prose or by the first words of its English translation, “Drop down ye heavens from above.”

It is frequently sung as a plainsong at Mass and in the Divine Office during Advent where it gives expression to the longings of Patriarchs and Prophets, and symbolically of the Church, for the coming of the Messiah. Throughout Advent it occurs daily as the versicle and response after the hymn at Vespers.

The Rorate Mass is a Votive Mass in honor of the Blessed Mother for the season of Advent. It has a long tradition in the Catholic Church, especially in German-speaking countries. The Masses had to begin relatively in the morning when it was still dark due to winter-time and were said by candlelight.

The season of Advent falls each year in the dark month of December and it is a month when we see the general theme of the liturgical season being echoed in nature. Darkness has crept over the world, and is increasing each day. Yet, there is hope for soon the days will begin to lengthen and the sun will conquer the night. The earth reveals that there is a light in this dark place and that Light reigns victorious.

The Church makes this truth more visible with an ancient tradition (often forgotten) called the “Rorate” Mass. This votive Mass during Advent in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary receives its name from the first words of the opening chant in Latin, Rorate caeli, or in English “Shower, O heavens.”

What is peculiar to this celebration of the Eucharist is that it is traditionally celebrated in the dark, only illuminated by candlelight and typically just before dawn. The symbolism of this Mass abounds and is a supreme expression of the Advent season.

First of all, since the Mass is normally celebrated right before dawn, the warm rays of the winter sun slowly light up the church. If timed correctly, by the end of Mass the entire church is filled with light by the sun. This speaks of the general theme of Advent, a time of expectation eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Son of God, the Light of the World. In the early Church Jesus was often depicted as Sol Invictus, the “Unconquered Sun,” and December 25 was known in the pagan world as the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (Birthday of the Unconquered Sun). Saint Augustine makes reference to this symbolism in one of his sermons, “Let us celebrate this day as a feast not for the sake of this sun, which is beheld by believers as much as by ourselves, but for the sake of him who created the sun.”

Connected to this symbolism is the fact that this Mass is celebrated in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, often referred to by the title “Morning Star.” Astronomically speaking the “morning star” is the planet Venus and is most clearly seen in the sky right before sunrise or after sunset. It is the brightest “star” in the sky at that time and heralds or makes way for the sun. The Blessed Mother is the true “Morning Star,” always pointing us to her Son and so the Rorate Mass reminds us of Mary’s role in salvation history.

Secondly, it echoes to us the truth that the darkness of night does not last, but is always surpassed by the light of day. This is a simple truth we often forget, especially in the midst of a dark trial when the entire world seems bent on destroying us. God reassures us that this life is only temporary and that we are “strangers and sojourners” in a foreign land, destined for Heaven.

Roráte caéli désuper,
et núbes plúant jústum.

Drop down ye heavens, from above,
and let the skies pour down righteousness:

Ne irascáris Dómine,
ne ultra memíneris iniquitátis:
ecce cívitas Sáncti fácta est desérta:
Síon desérta fácta est:
Jerúsalem desoláta est:
dómus sanctificatiónis túæ et glóriæ túæ,
ubi laudavérunt te pátres nóstri.

Be not wroth very sore, O Lord,
neither remember iniquity for ever:
the holy cities are a wilderness,
Sion is a wilderness,
Jerusalem a desolation:
our holy and our beautiful house,
where our fathers praised Thee.

Peccávimus, et fácti súmus tamquam immúndus nos,
et cecídimus quasi fólium univérsi:
et iniquitátes nóstræ quasi véntus abstulérunt nos:
abscondísti faciem túam a nóbis,
et allisísti nos in mánu iniquitátis nóstræ.

We have sinned, and are as an unclean thing,
and we all do fade as a leaf:
and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away;
thou hast hid Thy face from us:
and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities.

Víde Dómine afflictiónem pópuli túi,
et mítte quem missúrus es:
emítte Agnum dominatórem térræ,
de Pétra desérti ad móntem fíliæ Síon:
ut áuferat ípse júgum captivitátis nóstræ.

Behold, O Lord, the affliction of Thy people,
and send forth Him Who is to come;
send forth the Lamb, the ruler of the earth,
from Petra of the desert to the mount of the daughter of Sion:
that He may take away the yoke of our captivity.

Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord,
and my servant whom I have chosen;
that ye may know Me and believe Me:
I, even I, am the Lord, and beside Me there is no Savior:
and there is none that can deliver out of My hand.

Consolámini, consolámini, pópule méus:
cito véniet sálus túa:
quare mæróre consúmeris,
quia innovávit te dólor?
Salvábo te, nóli timére,
égo enim sum Dóminus Déus túus,
Sánctus Israël, Redémptor túus.

Comfort ye, comfort ye, My people,
My salvation shall not tarry:
why wilt thou waste away in sadness?
why hath sorrow seized thee?
Fear not, for I will save thee:
for I am the Lord thy God,
the Holy One of Israel, thy Redeemer.

Love,
Matthew

Advent, Liturgy

Regnantem Sempiterna


-for the second Sunday in Advent

Alleluia.
Regnantem sempiterna per secla susceptura
concio devote concrepa,
divino sono factori reddendo debita.
Quem jubilant agmina celica
ejus vultu exhilarata;
quem expectant omnia terrea
ejus nutu examinanda,
districtum ad judicia
clementem in potentia.
Tua nos salva, christe, clementia,
propter quos passus es dira;
ad poli astra subleva nitida
qui sorde tergis secula.
Influa salus vera, effuga pericula;
omnia ut sint munda tribue pacifica,
ut, hic tua salvi misericordia,
leti regna post adeamus supera,
quo regnas secula per infinita.

Alleluia.
To Him Who shall reign through all the ages to come,
devoutly, O people assembled, make sounds of praise;
give the Creator His due with divine sound.
Let the hosts of heaven rejoice with Him,
by Whose countenance they are made glad;
let all earthly things look for His coming,
by Whose nod they will be judged,
severe in His verdicts,
mighty in His mercy.

O Christ, in Your mercy save us,
us, for whose sake You suffered terrible things;
to the shining stars of the sky take us up,
You Who wash the world from its vileness.

Flow into us, true healing; put to flight every peril;
O Peacemaker, grant that all things may be made clean and lovely,
that we, saved by Your mildness [mercy] of heart,
may go, in joy, to the realms above,
where You shall reign through endless ages.

Blessed Advent!

Love,
Matthew

Advent

Tollite Hostias

“Tollite hostias, et adorate Dominum in atrio sancto ejus. Laetentur coeli, et exultet terra a facie Domini, quoniam venit. Alleluia”

“Bring offerings and worship the Lord in His holy habitation. Let the heavens rejoice and the earth exult in the presence of the Lord, for He comes. Hallelujah.”

This traditional Advent and Christmastide oratorio is inspired by Psalm 96:8-13. We would recognize it more readily if we were more familiar with the Vulgate (Bible in Latin), which is still the Church’s official version, and Latin is still the Church’s official language. All official documents are first still written in Latin, and then dispersed to various committees, like ICEL, for official translation into the local vernacular for which it is intended.

Blessed Advent!!! He comes!!!!

Love,
Matthew

Liturgy

Frankenstein Mass – Mt 23:5

Frankenstein2
-a modern Frankenstein

I was born just as Vatican II ended. I have never known anything else. I was a young Catholic in the 1970’s. There was A LOT of felt, and mass (sic) production of banners; orange, and yellow, I can tell you.

When I was younger, I loved to serve Mass.  I even loved when my parish priest, Fr. Michael Orsi, would chant the Sanctus and Agnus Dei in Latin, and served Mass for him, or read.  Granted there was A LOT of yellow and orange felt in the 70’s, but we lived.

I loved knowing the words and responses to Mass; its beauty and simplicity. It drew me. It allowed me to fall in love, with Him.  It was my rock, my foundation, my everything, my constant in a world of dizzying technological change, in which I have made my profession, my calming North Star.  Catholics, if they have not been to Mass on Sunday, “feel weird” during the week.  We do, in addition to knowing we are going straight to Hell, do not pass “GO”, do not collect $200, if we should die before confessing the fact we missed. Comforting. Comforting. Mortal sin.

Now, seemingly, beyond just allowing the extraordinary rite (Tridentine) for those who sway that way, takes ALL kinds, we will ALL be dragged, willing or unwilling into a Frankenstein liturgy, part old, part new, all awkward, faltering, and ugly, a Christian embarrassment.  To worship the God Who was born in obscurity, poverty, behind enemy lines, as it were; Who warned the rich and powerful and pompous and arrogant of the moral dangers of their station and attitude. That they would NOT enter the Kingdom of God, they would not.  Was maliciously betrayed, tortured, crucified, and died, and lived in the flesh, again.  Really?  God is more pleased?  With pomposity?  Really?  Trying to contain and behave myself, but there are times more polite is inappropriate, wrong, and rude, this being one of them.  Are you high?

My reason for this is not that I do not like or value history or Roman Catholic heritage.  My main concern is of the Tridentines I have met, I have just not been impressed with them as Christians, even as I am disaffected with myself, as sinner, but still. I DON’T like them!!!!  But, these are not the people I would ever intentionally attend Mass with.  They tend to lack patience and compassion, in my experience, compared to others, Catholic or not.  Mt 23:5.

I have not been impressed.  I have met finer Jews, Protestants, Muslims, Wiccans, Atheists, Agnostics, you name it.  I have.  I would rather hang, or burn, with the hippies, than anything with the fascists.  I am not a flaming liberal. I am a Catholic & a Christian, a moderate!!! What a rare animal!!! I am not a fan of heresy, maybe you’ve noticed. But, I know I can tolerate it much more easily than fascism. I can. And, I do.

Fear not. I have found my hippies. We talked. And I can’t wait to celebrate Eucharist with them. I will go to them, or they will come to me. A small group, without pomposity; just a simple meal. In an upper room? Now, where have I heard that before??? Nope. Nope. Nothing.

Love,
Matthew

Liturgy, Saints

Holiness emptying the dishwasher

JB-Holiness-1-1280x768

In novitiate, as with classic religious life, day ends in choir w/Compline, aka Night Prayer, and the Nunc Dimittis:

-Luke 2:29-32

“Lord, now You let Your servant go in peace;
Your word has been fulfilled:
my own eyes have seen the salvation
which You have prepared in the sight of every people:
a light to reveal You to the nations
and the glory of Your people Israel.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and will be for ever. Amen.”

After the Salve is sung, we enter into holy silence. No talking, unless the building is on fire or medical emergency, until Morning Prayer, the first of which in choir is making the sign of the cross on one’s lips with your thumb. “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare Your praise!” -Ps 51:15. And, we do! 🙂

Our regular nightly chore after Compline, in holy silence, was to empty the many dishwashers. Yes, I said dishwashers, plural. As I recall, it was certainly more than two? Three? Four? I could call and ask St Gertrude’s, but…AWKWARD!!! Who is this strange man calling us wanting to know how many dishwashers we have? Yikes!!! You get the point, I trust, gentle reader.

Keeping eight twenty-something men, who ALL know their own unique best way to do ANYTHING from being chatty is tricky, no? All that was supposed to be heard was the quiet-as-possible clinkety-clank of many dishes and metal utensils, all in minimal light, being put back in cupboards or drawers, all while in full habit, too! The occasional whisper of “You’re doing it wrong!” could not be avoided night after night, for nine months, I experienced.

ambrose_arralde
-by Br Ambrose Arralde, OP

“St. Augustine enjoyed watching lizards catch flies. He also confessed that he would become quite distracted at the sight of a dog hot on a rabbit’s heels, or a spider entangling its prey (Confessions, 10.35.57). Although he blames himself for being enamored of these trifling spectacles, it is refreshing to see a more casual and intimate side to one of the greatest minds and saintliest bishops in history.

It is often easy to forget that the saints lived in the same world we live in—that they weren’t always performing miracles and pouring forth torrents of sublime teaching, but were sometimes zoned out at their desk or nodding off at inopportune moments. And yet for the saints there is something special even in these ordinary, daily occurrences with which the rest of us are well acquainted. For St. Augustine, the simplest sights were occasions to glorify God. “From them I proceed to praise You, the wonderful Creator and Disposer of all things,” he writes. St. Thérèse’s chapel naps provided her with ample material for meditating on God’s love and His saving work: “I know that children are just as dear to their parents whether they are asleep or awake and I know that doctors put their patients to sleep before they operate.”

When speaking about the Christian life, Pope Benedict XVI describes it as an “encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon” (Deus caritas est, §1). This is a point that must be stressed again and again against the dominant, skeptical worldview. Faith is not an escape from the real world, a way to cope with the absurdity and meaninglessness of existence. Rather, it is only by faith that we can be in touch precisely with the real world. We still live our human life, we see and experience the same things as everyone else, but nothing is the same. The stars are still balls of gas burning billions of miles away, but now they speak to us of One who is at the same time at the farthest limits of the universe, and closer than our inmost self:

I asked the heavens, the sun, moon, and stars [whether they are God]: ‘We are not,’ say they, ‘the God whom you seek…’ And I answered unto all these things which stand about the door of my flesh, ‘You have told me concerning my God, that you are not He; tell me something about Him.’ And with a loud voice they exclaimed, ‘He made us!’ (Confessions, 10.6.9)

The most common of actions, even going to bed and waking up in the morning, when done in the light of faith, can call to mind the saving events of the Paschal Mystery: “Lord, be with us throughout this night. When day comes may we rise from sleep to rejoice in the resurrection of Your Christ” (Closing Prayer, Compline, Sunday Night 1).

From the vantage point of this new horizon, may we consider nothing too ordinary to be of use for our spiritual life. In the spirit of Daniel 3, “All you lizards, bless the Lord; praise and exalt Him above all forever.””

Love,
Matthew

Corpus Christi, Liturgy, Order of Preachers

Solemnity of Corpus Christi – Lauda Sion

eucharist

Lauda Sion Salvatorem is a sequence prescribed for the Roman Catholic Mass of The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. It was written by St. Thomas Aquinas around 1264, at the request of Pope Urban IV for the new Mass of this Feast, along with Pange lingua, Sacris solemniis, Adoro te devote, and Verbum supernum prodiens, which are used in the Divine Office.

The hymn tells of the institution of the Eucharist and clearly expresses the belief of Christians that the bread and wine become actually, literally through a divine act, the body and blood of Jesus during the celebration of the Eucharist. Transubstantiation is the name given to the process in the Roman Catholic faith. As with St. Thomas’ other three Eucharistic hymns, the last few stanzas are often used alone, in this case, the Ecce panis Angelorum.

Lauda Sion is one of only four medieval Sequences which were preserved in the Missale Romanum published in 1570 following the Council of Trent (1545–63)—the others being Victimae paschali laudes (Easter), Veni Sancte Spiritus (Pentecost), and Dies Irae (Requiem Masses). (A fifth, Stabat Mater, would later be appointed in 1727.) Before Trent, many feasts had their own sequences. It is still sung today, though its use is optional in the post-Vatican II Ordinary form. The Gregorian melody is borrowed from the 11c sequence Laetabundi iubilemus attributed to Adam de Saint-Victor.

Old English version

Sion, lift up thy voice and sing:
Praise thy Savior and thy King,
Praise with hymns thy shepherd true.

All thou canst, do thou endeavour:
Yet thy praise can equal never
Such as merits thy great King.

See today before us laid
The living and life-giving Bread,
Theme for praise and joy profound.

The same which at the sacred board
Was, by our incarnate Lord,
Giv’n to His Apostles round.

Let the praise be loud and high:
Sweet and tranquil be the joy
Felt today in every breast.

On this festival divine
Which records the origin
Of the glorious Eucharist.

On this table of the King,
Our new Paschal offering
Brings to end the olden rite.

Here, for empty shadows fled,
Is reality instead,
Here, instead of darkness, light.

His own act, at supper seated
Christ ordain’d to be repeated
In His memory divine;

Wherefore now, with adoration,
We, the host of our salvation,
Consecrate from bread and wine.

Hear, what holy Church maintaineth,
That the bread its substance changeth
Into Flesh, the wine to Blood.

Doth it pass thy comprehending?
Faith, the law of sight transcending
Leaps to things not understood.

Here beneath these signs are hidden
Priceless things, to sense forbidden,
Signs, not things, are all we see.

Flesh from bread, and Blood from wine,
Yet is Christ in either sign,
All entire, confessed to be.

They, who of Him here partake,
Sever not, nor rend, nor break:
But, entire, their Lord receive.

Whether one or thousands eat:
All receive the self-same meat:
Nor the less for others leave.

Both the wicked and the good
Eat of this celestial Food:
But with ends how opposite!

Here ‘t is life: and there ‘t is death:
The same, yet issuing to each
In a difference infinite.

Nor a single doubt retain,
When they break the Host in twain,
But that in each part remains
What was in the whole before.

Since the simple sign alone
Suffers change in state or form:
The signified remaining one
And the same for evermore.

Behold the Bread of Angels,
For us pilgrims food, and token
Of the promise by Christ spoken,
Children’s meat, to dogs denied.

Shewn in Isaac’s dedication,
In the manna’s preparation:
In the Paschal immolation,
In old types pre-signified.

Jesu, shepherd of the sheep:
Thou thy flock in safety keep,
Living bread, thy life supply:
Strengthen us, or else we die,
Fill us with celestial grace.

Thou, who feedest us below:
Source of all we have or know:
Grant that with Thy Saints above,
Sitting at the feast of love,
We may see Thee face to face.
Amen. Alleluia.

New American Version

Laud, O Zion, your salvation,
Laud with hymns of exultation,
Christ, your king and shepherd true:
Bring him all the praise you know,
He is more than you bestow.
Never can you reach his due.

Special theme for glad thanksgiving
Is the quick’ning and the living
Bread today before you set:
From his hands of old partaken,
As we know, by faith unshaken,
Where the Twelve at supper met.

Full and clear ring out your chanting,
Joy nor sweetest grace be wanting,
From your heart let praises burst:
For today the feast is holden,
When the institution olden
Of that supper was rehearsed.

Here the new law’s new oblation,
By the new king’s revelation,
Ends the form of ancient rite:
Now the new the old effaces,
Truth away the shadow chases,
Light dispels the gloom of night.

What He did at supper seated,
Christ ordained to be repeated,
His memorial ne’er to cease:
And his rule for guidance taking,
Bread and wine we hallow, making
Thus our sacrifice of peace.

This the truth each Christian learns,
Bread into his flesh He turns,
To his precious blood the wine:
Sight has fail’d, nor thought conceives,
But a dauntless faith believes,
Resting on a pow’r divine.

Here beneath these signs are hidden
Priceless things to sense forbidden;
Signs, not things are all we see:
Blood is poured and flesh is broken,
Yet in either wondrous token
Christ entire we know to be.

Whoso of this food partakes,
Does not rend the Lord nor breaks;
Christ is whole to all that taste:
Thousands are, as one, receivers,
One, as thousands of believers,
Eats of him who cannot waste.

Bad and good the feast are sharing,
Of what divers dooms preparing,
Endless death, or endless life.

Life to these, to those damnation,
See how like participation
Is with unlike issues rife.

When the sacrament is broken,
Doubt not, but believe ‘tis spoken,
That each sever’d outward token
doth the very whole contain.

Nought the precious gift divides,
Breaking but the sign betides
Jesus still the same abides,
still unbroken does remain.

Love,
Matthew

Liturgy, Saints, St Joseph

Te Joseph Celebrent

JOSEPH! to thee by hosts on high
and choirs of Christians, laud be paid!
saintly of life, -by purest tie
joined unto her, the glorious Maid.

When thou didst doubt thy wife’s repute,
and mark her great with motherhood,
the angel taught thee that her fruit
came from the Holy Ghost of God.

To clasp the Son, the Lord, was thine,
to share His flight to Egypt’s shore,
with tears, to seek in Salem’s shrine
Him lost, -with joy, to find once more.

Death brings to other Saints their rest;
through toil they win the victor’s place;
thou happier, like the Angels blest,
alive, hast seen God face to face.

Spare us, O Trinity most High!
grant that, with Joseph, we may gain
Thy starry realm, and ceaselessly
there raise to Thee our thankful strain.
Amen.

St Joseph, defend all fathers and husbands!!!  St Joseph, come to our aid!!! Strengthen our faith!!!

Love,
Matthew

Liturgy

Liturgy Wars?

Vatican-II-Inside-St-Peter-s-C-David-Lees

By John L. Allen Jr.
Editor May 21, 2016

“This week, a press release washed up in my in-box from the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), about a recent visit to their offices by a Vatican official. ICEL is a mixed commission of bishops’ conferences in countries where English is used in the liturgy, and its job is to translate texts for worship.

My finger was poised on the delete button, when it suddenly struck me just how remarkable it is that ICEL is no longer a hot potato. Not so long ago, at the peak of what came to be known as the “liturgy wars,” that definitely wasn’t the case.

The term “liturgy wars” refers to a series of battles over the sound, look and feel of Catholic worship in English, which crested in the 1990s and 2000s.

The battle lines broke between progressives in favor of a reformed, “Vatican II” style, reflecting modern sensibilities and new theological insights, and conservatives who felt the post-Vatican II overhaul of the liturgy gave too much away to secular modernity, often employing pretty-sounding ecumenical formulae dubious in terms of fidelity to both tradition and the actual Latin text.

Adding fuel to the fire were two other factors:

In part, liturgical controversies pivot on aesthetics – judgments about what’s poetic vs. pedantic, what’s artful vs. awful, what sounds or looks good. Since all that’s basically subjective, there’s just no way to make everyone happy.

Unlike other topics, where most people don’t consider themselves experts, everybody’s been to Mass, and so everybody has an opinion about how it ought to be done.

Incalculable hours were spent over two decades debating issues such as inclusive language, meaning if it’s okay to say “man” for “people,” or whether the Latin phrase pro multis in the Eucharistic prayer should be “for all” or “for many.” Countless conferences were held, essays written, blogs posted, and it seemed for a while the debate would never end.

ICEL was one of the battlegrounds, as control over its agenda and vision became part of the broader tensions.

All this culminated in the late 2000s with a new English translation of the Roman Missal, the collection of prayers and other texts used in the Mass. It featured a few signature transitions towards “sacred” language – “And with your spirit” in favor of “And also with you,” for instance, and “consubstantial with the Father” rather than “one in being.”

The new missal was implemented on the first Sunday of Advent in 2011, meaning this Fall will mark the five-year anniversary.

Where do we stand today? Although the liturgical front is less noisy, mostly because decisions were finally made, my own completely unscientific survey suggests opinions are basically as divided as before.

Here, for instance, is Jesuit Father James Martin, America’s most popular Catholic spiritual writer, on the new translation:

“I’m very sorry to say that, in my experience, many Catholics, priests included, find the language at various points clunky, unwieldy, inelegant, stilted, and even confusing,” Martin told me. “As a priest, I find it much harder to pray the Mass, and sometimes … I even have a hard time understanding what exactly I’m praying for.”

“And,” Martin added, “I’m speaking as someone who works with words for a living … It’s a source of great sadness for me.”

On the other hand, here’s Monsignor James Moroney, rector of St. John’s Seminary in Boston, a former chief of staff for the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Liturgy and an adviser to the Vatican’s Vox Clara commission:

“Despite the efforts of some to create widespread dissatisfaction with the new translation, its implementation has been far smoother than even its strongest proponents could have predicted,” he said in reply to my query.

“For the first time since the great experiment in vernacularization of the liturgy, we are actually praying the same thing as the Latin prayers. Considering the antiquity and universal usage of these prayers, these new translations are an effective sign and instrument of unity of a Church that prays what it believes across time and space,” Moroney said.

Monsignor Richard Hilgartner, also a veteran of the bishops’ conference and now president of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians, said the transition in some ways has enriched the liturgical experience.

“Many parishes offered great catechesis, not only about the changes in texts but on the broader topic of the liturgy, and that has borne fruit as people learned more about what we do and why we do it when we celebrate the Mass,” he said.

Father Edward Beck, a contributor to both Crux and CNN, offered a less sanguine take.

“The prayers seem to address a distant, majestic God to the exclusion of a personal relationship,” Beck told me. “It almost sounds like a British royal wordsmith. It could use a bit more Brooklyn – in a grammatically correct way, of course.”

Beck also said there seems to be a strong “emphasis on sin, and bowing and scraping. I’m not sure the prayers are indicative enough of a God who calls us to loving service and freedom.”

If I asked 100 other people, I’d likely get 100 other opinions.

What’s the moral of the story? Maybe, it’s this: The “liturgy wars” may have gone quiet, but they’ve hardly gone away.

As long as Catholics take liturgy seriously – as long as we care about how we worship, because it shapes what we believe and who we are – we’ll never be done arguing over it. That may breed heartburn once in a while, but it’s the reflux of a deep passion.”

My response to John L. Allen, Editor-in-chief, Crux:

“I have been silent @Mass since Nov 2011.

I guess that’s what VII meant by “full & active participation”? I just can’t say that s***. It is beneath the dignity of Jesus. It is pompous, arrogant, & pharisaical. I believe I will die & happily be judged w/1998 on my lips alone.

As someone in technology, I valued the Mass as the one constant in my life. The Catholic Church has become a bad joke. When Boomers start dying, parishes will be sold left & right. But, the Church will get a good deal $$$$ It ALWAYS gets its money!!! Where are our saints today, FAHTHER???? ?”

Liturgy, Prayer, Rosary

Bring back the Rosary

rosary

berrigan
-by Rev. Daniel Berrigan, SJ

This article appeared in the October 1978 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 43, No. 10, pages 24-25).

“Religious devotions are a little like lost-and­-found objects. Something gets lost, at least in the sense of losing sight of it. And then we come on it again, unexpectedly perhaps, lying there at our feet. It had been there all the time. But now it has about it a kind of glow, a patina. It is something like an old coin, the gospel says; we have every right to rejoice in finding it again.

All sorts of arguments can be lined up against the above. The rosary, it will be adduced, went out with the other immigrant clutter. And good riddance. It belonged to a former state of things, to a partial understanding of what was central and what merely hung around at the edges. More, it was another weapon in the arsenal of the gargoyles who held us captive on perches, chattering the tunes, and ringing the changes of Baltimore Catechism Number One.

Something like this occurred in the course of my benighted childhood. We lined up for the rosary as we lined up to take our cod-liver oil. In both cases, unpleasant medicine was considered a specific against world, flesh, and devil. Religion was medicinal; you took your medicine. I think I was too habitually low in spirit even to question the diagnosis or to revolt at the cure.

Well, things changed, but not much. In the novitiate they gave us a rosary, a huge one this time. It was to be looped around one’s cincture—some said to form the letter M for Mary; others said no, it was a sword. In any case, this enormous, chained object was neither lost nor found, but sternly, gratuitously conferred, like an Immortal soul. It could also, unlike a soul, be flipped around the neck; there it hung, every day, as we wandered the acres reciting the mysteries. Huge cocoa beads, a linked chain of such impregnability that today it might serve in the streets of the Big Apple, to protect one’s parked bicycle from felonious hands. Indeed, this was no kid stuff, but a formidable engine of salvation. Some Jesuits around our time discarded the Big Fifteen. This was serious; we were warned against backsliding. Indeed, Our Lady had confided to some saints that wearing the rosary and reciting it would ensure one’s vocation, for good and forever.

All of which “makes to reflect,” as the French say. When things get urged too hard in this matter of salvation, they usually end up getting discarded too easily. There’s always that little gyroscope in the soul trying to keep a balance. It took most of us not more than five years to scuttle the rosary for good. The act, I think, was a perfectly wordless argument against the big pitch. We simply let it all go. It didn’t mean we gained a great deal; indeed, it might be argued we lost considerably. But I think we were asserting our self-respect in one of the few ways open to us; in those days, we would make our own way in prayer and symbol, for a change.

Still, rosary or no, it is important that faith commend itself, make sense to those who profess it. Very little else in life makes sense today, or is designed to, once we get beyond the tawdry chatter. But the faith has a public calling. As the culture creaks along and breaks up, the importance of a public faith, a living (and kicking) tradition, only grows. What else do we have by way of resource or sanity? In such circumstances, I think the faith is called to raise very hell—if we are not all to end up in hell. I mean here and now, in this world, where official insanity has concocted the ultimate weapon (the ultimate symbol of the culture): a bomb that will leave buildings intact and wipe out the only expendable thing around—people.

So here we are. We are not going to get far in this business of survival without all the help we can muster. That means Jesus and Mary. And Joseph even. And all that cloud of witnesses who in one way or another hearkened their own voices and visions, were stubborn kickers against Caesar’s goal, refused to lie down and die at the behest of Big Huff, or walked to their own drummer. Their crime, as I understand it, was to stand at the opposite moral pole from the neutron bomb. That is to say, they valued people over property. That made criminals of many among them. That ought to make criminals of us to the degree that in the eyes of the Big Mastiffs the phrase “criminal church” would even be redundant.

How then do we get that way, which was the way of Jesus and the saints? At its deepest, there isn’t any “how.” There is only the way.

The rosary takes us along that “way” which the book of Acts uses as another word for Christianity itself. A series of mysteries. Moments in the life of that moving target, Jesus. The short stops of the long-distance runner, where we too may savor (share?) his loneliness.

I think we need that. My thinking of our need, of course, adds nothing and subtracts nothing. Yet I insist on it, our need. I long with all my cranky, double-dealing heart to belong to a reality that all my life long presses on me. The reality of Jesus, his life and death and comeback. Events that, far from shaking the world, bring it a far greater gift—rebirth.

I need to know that Jesus lived and died and the manner of his living and dying. Call it medicinal; call it antidote. I need an antidote to America. I need to live and die in a manner different from the way I am commanded to live and die in a tin-can culture, a culture which manages by a marvelous sleight of hand to be at the same time lethal, ridiculous, and immensely seductive.

Now the above, as I scan it, suffers from a defect. It is written in the past tense. But Jesus has no past tense. Who says he lived; who says he died; who says he rose from the dead? The 15 mysteries are a drama of the present, big as life, unfinished as today, untidy even.

But the neutron bomb, and all its malevolent ancestors and progeny, is pure past, passé. Bypassed. Not merely in the sense that the monkey wrenches will shortly concoct another even more lethal tin can to flatten this one. But from the point of view of existence itself, bombs are passé. Violence is passé. War is passé. If we discern the Mystery (Paul puts it always in the singular), we know this. Wars, bombs, slums are the junk of that junk culture which has simply withered away to allow us to get reborn.

Do we choose to get reborn? Or do we choose to wither away? According to the mystery of the rosary, we choose neither the one nor the other.

We can only choose to be chosen. That is all. Jesus chooses; the initiative is his. But that is already a great deal. So great a deal, in truth, that we shall spend our eternity dizzily, ecstatically trying to grasp it.

But to speak of the present, one thing seems fairly clear. (And given the American church, what follows is bound to be a minority, even a miniscule, opinion.) We cannot at one and the same time choose America and be chosen by Christ. We cannot serve God and mammon. “Mammon” here being a catchall word for that ball of snarls, that concatenation of money, sexism, racism, consumerism, appetite and futility and nausea, that fork in the tongue of authority, that tic of violence, that dread of neighbor, that night sweat at the presence of death—let us say, those 15 or so infernal “mysteries” to whose worship the culture summons us. To adore. To be depraved and deprived and degraded and disenfranchised. And then, to be transformed. In the image of that which we adore: stocks and stones and neutron bombs.

And finally, the whole thing explodes. As it was meant to do. That is to say, the ruling image and reality of our lives becomes a nuclear one. We cannot get things together, keep them together. Neither marriage nor friendship nor a reasonably sane sense of ourselves nor a modest place in the world. We are bombed out by the demons. All of which perhaps brings us back to our subject, to that non-nuclear, companionable, compassionate found object.

I don’t want to come on as a pusher for the rosary. We have too many pushers already—for almost every gimmick under the sun. Who needs gimmicks? We need only to be still, to resign from rat races where a few win and many lose and all, according to the metaphor, are reduced to rodents. We need our humanity, that lost object. Can the rosary help us? Will we one day cry aloud in exaltation like the woman Jesus tells of who found her lost coin? We, having found our precious, lost, squandered sense of ourselves? There is not one mystery of the 15 (now 20) that is not also a clue to who we are, to where we come from, to where we might go. In a night without stars.”

I, for one, NEED the Rosary. When praying it, I soar, I fly. (Not physically.) 🙂 No joke. I do. Praise God!!!  Come, fly with me!!!

Love,
Matthew