Let's Be Sensible

Jesus Christ gave three requirements for membership in the one true Church. "The profession of the same Faith, the use of the same means of grace, and the subordination to the same authority." (Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, Dr. Ludwig Ott, p. 301)

Today, I'm concerned with the first requirement, profession of the same Faith, particularly as it is expressed in the manner in which Catholics worship in the Roman Rite.

From the time of the apostles, in accordance with Tradition and with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, rites of worship evolved which gave visible expression to the Catholic faith. "Rite makes concrete the liturgy's bond with that living subject which is the Church, who for her part is characterized by adherence to the form of faith that has developed in the apostolic tradition." (The Spirit of the Liturgy, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, p.166)

In other words, the manner in which the Church worships, the actions and orientation, should present a people united in a visible profession of the same faith. At the same time, there has always been an allowance for a degree to which certain details of the rite might address regionalism in regard to tradition and culture, all with the understanding that "diversity must not damage unity. It must express only fidelity to the common faith." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Edition, 1206)

Prior to the Council of Trent, in the time of the protestant Reformation, the Mass had taken on regional characteristics to such an extent that, in many cases, local rites served to isolate rather than to make visible the connection of all people in all regions. The essential form of the liturgy, to a large degree, had been obscured. "The Reformation would surely have run a different course if Luther had been able to see the binding force of the great liturgical tradition ...." (Ratzinger p.167)

Partly in reaction to the Reformation, and partly in recognition of the doctrinal chaos that had resulted from, in many cases, unbridled local adaptations of the Roman Rite, the Council of Trent addressed the task of defining the Catholic Church not only through clear, precise teaching of doctrine, but also by means of codifying a universal rite, the offering of which would clearly profess the Eucharistic faith of the Catholic Church.

In the decades following the Second Vatican Council, we have experienced a similar progression of growth in regional variations being applied to the Roman Rite, such as those that were prevalent in the time before the Reformation and the calling of the Council of Trent. For example, music that contradicts Catholic teaching, the orientation of the Mass towards "community" and away from God, innovations of a nature that contradict the moral theology of certain dogmatic principles (such as the arbitrary use of extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion), are a few visible signs that work to obscure the expression of the same Eucharistic faith through Catholic worship. The risk inherent in the regionalization of the Roman Rite through the use of innovations and novelties is the same as existed in the time before the Council of Trent; that is, moral relativism rises as liturgical abuse increases. As a consequence of the spread of moral relativism, a growing number of laity and clergy exhibit improperly formed consciences by dismissing the authentic teachings of the Holy See in favor of their own personal set of priorities, as evidenced by the "Catholic" vote during the last U.S. presidential election. This relativism has changed the Catholic landscape from a people who are drawn together under one doctrine, to a people who reject Church teaching and still claim to be Catholic. Bl. Pope John Paul II referred to this as a "silent apostasy" and called for a "new evangelization" to re-educate this faction of the Church.

It is essential for the Roman Rite to present the law of prayer clearly and precisely so that the law of belief is easily discerned. As sensible signs need be employed in the administration of the Sacraments in order to satisfy the nature of man as a creature united in body and soul, sensible actions are required by the clergy and laity during Mass to provide for the visible profession of the Catholic faith. (Catechism Explained, Spirago-Clarke, p.573)

Just as water is a sensible sign of cleansing and purifying during baptism, the manner in which the Mass is celebrated  must present what we actually believe about the Eucharist. The actions and words of the priest at Mass must be governed by the rubrics and words of the Roman Missal, thus reflecting what the Church believes in regard to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The music used during the Mass must be Catholic and reflect a sound Eucharist theology. We cannot hope to nourish the faith of the people if we continue singing songs like Sing a New Church or Amazing Grace! Finally, how the laity themselves behave reflects and affects their Eucharistic faith. For example, we bow our heads at the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, as well as the saint of the day. We genuflect when we pass in front of the Tabernacle. We make the sign of the cross. After Mass, we kneel and pray in thanksgiving for Our Lord coming to us in Holy Communion. We do not speak when we are in the church or in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.

All these things are done to satisfy the two-fold necessity of sensible actions in worship: That required by the union of body and soul in mankind, and that which is required for the visible expression of a people united in professing the same Eucharistic faith.

Sermons of the Cure of Ars: First Sunday after Epiphany

From Sermons of the Cure of Ars (Jean Baptiste Marie Vianney), The Neumann Press, 1995 reprint of 1901 edition, excerpt from “First Sunday After Epiphany.”

“Man, who is a creature composed of a body and a soul, requires perceptible objects to represent to him the unseen, or, in other words, he needs sacred pictures. From the visible our human thoughts rise up to the invisible; by that which is visible we are reminded of that which is invisible; by the natural of the supernatural. That is why, from the very earliest ages, Christians made pictures of the Divine Saviour, of the Mother of God, and of the angels; in some instances they even made pictures of the doctrines of faiths, such as the doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament. These visible pictures were the ladder on which their mind and heart ascended to the invisible God and to the truths which He had revealed to them. After they had adorned their places of Divine worship with religious pictures of this kind, they did the same in their dwellings. To decorate the houses with religious pictures is a custom as old as Christianity itself, for the true Christian has always considered the home as nothing less than a Temple of God, and the religious picture as a means to extend and preserve the spirit of Christianity in the home.” (pp.77-78)

“I know of a certain place, dear Christians, where, in the midst of fields and meadows, there stands on an eminence a newly built dwelling-house, which almost resembles a lordly manor. On this spot there stood formerly an old house, over the threshold of which was fastened a large crucifix. When the parents of the present owner died, and he got married, he had the old building torn down and built a new one. There were people who said to him: ‘You are surely not going to take that crucifix from the old house and put it up over the door of the new house-it wouldn’t look well at all.’

“What answer did the man make?

“‘Under the sign of this crucifix my parents lived and worked, and God blessed them, for they became well-to-do, and I shall do just the same with my family. We shall live and work under the sign of the Cross, so that the blessing of God, which we enjoyed in the old house, may also fall upon the new one.’

“And the blessing of God will flow down over every house where people live and work under the sign of the Cross. For all the members of the family know that when they look upon the crucifix in the right way, it teaches them to pray to God, to have confidence in God in times of trouble; preserves them from haughtiness in times of good fortune; teaches them, not only to care for temporal things, but also for those which are eternal; and the family which understands this language of the Cross, and which orders its life according to the language of the Cross, such a family converts its house into a church and is blessed by God.” (pp. 78-79)

Our job is to save them from themselves

My wife is part of the marketing team for a technical services firm. While most of her firm's technically trained, professionally licensed coworkers are greatly appreciative of the magic she and her teammates weave as they make the bare-bones technical drafts sound interesting and appealing to the average person, there are always hold-outs who insist, “This is how I want it to read, my clients will understand what I’m talking about."

Often the marketing writers, each in their own time, will find themselves in the position of having to practice the gentle art of persuasion to enlighten one of these coworkers to the benefits of understanding their readers’ points of view. Sometimes, the conversation is short. Sometimes, the conversation takes on elements of a tag-team debate, and sometimes, when the writers have reached that point of exhaustion when throwing in the towel seems the only sensible course of action, my wife reminds them, “Part of our job is to save them from themselves.”

 During the "Year of Faith," we are encouraged to invite ex-Catholics and lax Catholics back "home."

To me, it's logical that the first step be the same as approaching any friend or acquaintance who quits a situation, from leaving college, to changing jobs, to breaking off any kind of relationship. First, we must ask a simple question: "Why?"

What happened?

There are innumerable surveys available online, some going back as far as 1969, all asking this same simple question:Why are Catholics leaving the Church?

I've viewed several of these, including the most recent I found published at America Magazine online. Of course, there are many interpetations of these surveys, but an underlying theme in the survey responses seems to be personal dissatisfaction with what ex/lax Catholics seem to think of as "services" they expect to obtain from the Church, as if the Church is a restaurant or a dinner theater.

In all fairness, there is many a parish that presents the Mass in a manner that has more in common with a dinner theater than with the Sacrifice of Calvary, so it's understandable why so many demand to be entertained at Mass. I can also understand why they have this sense of entitlement: it's been this way for nearly fifty years.

As I read through a summary of suggestions and objections from the most recent survey, I can only hope that every faithful Catholic, laity, deacon, and priest, realizes that, when it comes to desires and complaints of ex/lax Catholics and changes that their return to the fold seem to hinge upon, "Our job is to save them from themselves."

The Mass must be re-proposed to this group. They must be afforded access to a clear presentation of the "law of prayer" to know the "law of belief." This can only be done by revitalizing the liturgy by removing distractions, re-directing the orientation away from the community, and by affording the laity a sense of the sacred in Holy Silence and in the manner in which the Sacrifice is offered.

Additionally, much as my wife and her marketing teammates seek to distinguish their firm from their competitors, the Catholic Church must put behind that form of ecumenism which promotes "sameness" and, instead, clearly present that which distinguishes it, namely, the Real Presence and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacrament of Penance, and the priesthood. The Catholic Church must clearly present requirements of the true church, a people united in the "profession of the same faith, the use of the same means of grace, and (in) subordination to the same authority." ( Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, Dr. Ludwig Ott, p. 301).

At the parish level, worship should be offered in a manner which confirms and nurtures faith in the invisible side of the Church: "...the inner sanctification of mankind...the gifts of Salvation, which the Church communicates, truth and grace...the inner life-principle of the Church, the Holy Ghost, and the operation of His grace...." (Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, Dr. Ludwig Ott, p. 302)

All these things can be clearly recognized through the manner of worship. All these things must be made clear to provide this wandering group with the understanding that there's really only one path home: the Catholic Church.

Comments on _The Day the Host was Dropped_

This article, _The Day the Host was Dropped_, was posted on the Ars Orandi Traditional Catholic facebook page today.
Comment:
A couple of years ago, I came across a paper by a priest friend in which he offered the history of Communion in the Hand. While declining to present his personal opinion on this practice, he clearly noted that its history in America was marked by open dissent and rebellion against Rome. 

Currently, even though the Church designates the preferred manner for reception of Holy Comminion to be on the tongue while kneeling, most of our churches in America not only refuse to abide by this preference, but have either removed or currently have no communion rails.

To add to this architectural obstacle, individual accounts and personal experience provide evidence that, in parish sacramental preparation classes, communion in the hand and communion on the tongue are taught as equally acceptable options for receiving communion. In many cases, communion in the hand is even given a sort of pride of place in the teaching method.

In addition to the questionable promotion of communion in the hand, most parishes employ extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion in a manner which is at variance with prescriptions laid out in Church documents.* The result is that every Sunday and weekday the laity are witness to small platoons of these people distributing Holy Communion.

Mass instructs in many ways, by word and by example. Tragically, in our time, one lesson that comes through with all too much clarity is that dissent most effectually imposes change.


*Here's a link to a rundown of documents related to extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion. It also includes a brief history of the practice of receiving communion in the hand. The article includes the author's opinion, though my main concern in providing this link is the concise manner in which the documents are presented. That being said, this article, along with the link from Ars Orandi, make a good case against the current use of extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion in most of our parish chuches in America.

The Fire in the Forge

Over the last year and a half, I've heard four homilies on silence. The irony is that these homilies are offered in the context of the noisiest place I go: Mass in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite. From the choir practicing before Mass, to the non-stop, live-radio show presentation of the Mass, to the time after Mass when small talk rises to a din of laughter, raised voices, and sometimes even shouting, silence is a no-show. A further irony is that each homily presents places other than at Mass in which to seek prayerful silence.

I understand the importance of silence as illuminated by each homily: We pray from the silence of our hearts. In silence we hear the voice of God. In the silence, we encounter our Creator.  

I also understand the importance of Mass in presenting "the law of prayer" by which is established "the law of belief." It follows that this presentation of the "law of prayer" should, at the very least, present this truth: The laity must unite their individual prayers to the prayers of the priest in the Holy Sacrifice of Mass. For this to happen, it must be made possible to engage in interior prayer from the silence of the heart. For this, there must be Holy Silence.

Icon of the Holy Silence


I regard Mary's encounter with the Angel Gabriel, the Annunciation, to be the world's perfect moment of Holy Silence, a moment when sound and time froze as Mary regarded the Messenger of God, and a moment when all things began anew when Our Lady answered, "Yes."

While attending the Traditional Latin Mass, now called the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite (EF), I began to recognize the silence of the Annunciation in the extended Holy Silence granted during this form of the Mass. Holy Silence allowed each person to approach God in a manner suited to each of them. Holy Silence not only allowed for interior participation, without which all else is superfluous, Holy Silence also fostered reverence and a sense of the sacred. Holy Silence not only granted the laity a means of conversing with God in the quiet of their hearts while in the Presence of God, but made our children witnesses to the reverence of their parents for the sacred mysteries.

"The law of prayer is the law of belief," as the Latin states.

Especially for children, silence is a powerful dynamic. It demands attention. It directs attention. With silence all around them, they see their family and the congregation kneeling and bowing their heads in prayer, and the law of prayer becomes written on a child's heart.

As a 3-year old, my youngest daughter knew a few prayers by heart, but did not know of the Real Presence. Yet, as she knelt in silence along with every other child and every mom and dad at the beginning and end of the EF, she seemed to regard those moments of prayer before the Holy of Holies as special, as extraordinary. As she grew older, around 5, her mom and I began her formal religious instruction. Even in the earliest stages, we could rely on the EF of the Mass, and especially the reverence inspired by Holy Silence, to clearly present the moral theology, or the theological consideration of behavior, associated with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Real Presence.

Today, as an 8 year old, she kneels and prays after the OF Mass, shutting her eyes and ears to the din of voices and laughter all around her, unfazed by a friend from school who runs down the pew in front of her shouting her name. She seems a quiet calm in the tempest of noise as she prays.
  
The Mass has always been the most efficient, most practical means of teaching and passing on the faith, and as such, Holy Silence is the fire with which Catholic spirituality is forged through prayer. When the laity are not granted Holy Silence at Mass, they are essentially being told to find conversation with God elsewhere, and far too many Catholics have done just that.