Also, all priests look like Jesus from the back. (Source)

No kidding. There may be more theologically in-depth arguments for ad orientem, but this one sure does have a great weight-to-words ratio.

Since it seems almost everyone else in the Catholic blogosphere is posting all the same bits about the Pope and I’m just so otherwise buried in varia this week I wanted to ask a simple question. A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across the newsletter the Diocese puts out for all our Deacons (and their wives). In the newsletter there was a question regarding the proper order for praying the Liturgy of the Hours.

Currently in these parts most everyone has learned that for the psalmody the antiphon is read by the leader, then repeated, then the psalm is read, then finally the antiphon is said again. However, the monks at St. Anselm Abbey do not repeat the antiphon after it is initially read (prior to the psalm being read) so there is question of how it should be done when training the next generation of deacons. So if there’s anyone out there that can actually take five minutes from trying to keep up with the deluge of papalblogging, I’d much appreciate the input.

This past weekend, thanks to a series of issues, I had the opportunity to take my son to the Seventh Trumpet Mass for vocations at the Abbey Church at St. Anselm College here in Manchester. Now, being a moderately nice day and since he had already gone to Mass in the morning with my wife and daughter, he was less than thrilled with the idea as we got ready to leave (my wife and daughter were off at a birthday party, and I had to go to make my Sunday obligation, so no I’m not intentionally making this an unnecessary battle at this point). I think at one point he finally fell into hoping that I’d get lost on the way there and we’d have to just head home. That I was poking around the St. Anselm’s web site to figure out where I was going just before we left probably gave him some level of hope.

Much to his initial chagrin we made it there as if drawn by a wire. As an aside, I must say they do have a very nice campus. Oh, and yes, that was me almost trying to park in the “Monastery Only” parking area – mea culpa. At first from the outside my initial reaction was “oh no, a church-in-the round!” Thanks be to God when I got inside I discovered I was not only wrong, but very glad to be so. The pews are only slightly angled, so one is never facing another member of the congregation, and the altar stands at the center between the pews and the monastic choir stalls. The huge ceiling combined with the depth of the choir stalls makes the otherwise small nave seem positively massive. While I don’t often agree with having the tabernacle off to the side in a church, with the open schedule and possible flow of non-worshipers due to the campus setting I think this fits the intended situation to not have the tabernacle front-and-center. I’m sure I’m not the only one to quibble with the nondescript (and non-descriptive) stained glass, but overall the church is pretty well done.

I won’t say much about the Chaplet of Divine Mercy which while capably sung was neither extraordinarily good nor extraordinarily bad. Since he has not been much exposed to the Chaplet my son wasn’t quite sure how to participate. Even after learning the words, being the shy type, he still remained fairly reclusive. Ah, the pains of we the introverts… If it had ended there I wouldn’t have thought the trip much of a success. Fortunately, there was more to come.

As we waited for Mass to start, I had the opportunity to point out to him how every single person who walked in front of the tabernacle genuflected properly rather than the duck-n-run that we so often see these days if one even makes the attempt at all. As the servers milled about in their albs and one of the monks popped in and out in his cassock I could see him intently following their motions. When the procession began I made sure to point out to him how the server was simultaneously reverent and giving full motion as the thurible swung to and fro, as if to make the point that something serious and important was coming. No simple six-inch wiggle for this man, no he had the thurible completing a near 180-degree arc each time as he led the stately procession, at the end of which was the Abbott. Between the flying thurible, the mitre and the crosier my son was already hooked.

I’ll not bother with the rest of the Mass – suffice it to say that at this point even my son was fully engaged and experiencing “active participation” in a whole new way. So to all those who think the smells-n-bells turn off the younger generation, I have first-hand proof of precisely the opposite. So many teaching opportunities crammed into such a short period of time, and all this to a kid who wasn’t very interested in being there at the start. I’ll say only this – if you want to catch them while they’re young, don’t fear the ceremony. They’ve seen guitars on the Wiggles and happy-go-lucky on Barney. But show them a flying thurible and a crosier and this purportedly disinterested generation snaps to in a heartbeat. I only hope this lesson is learned sooner than later.

Matthew Alderman, in particular, has been posting a series of photos and schedules of Holy Week liturgies from around the world at The New Liturgical Movement. They are as a whole, in a word, stunning. It is a welcome reminder that, as good as things are getting, there is still a whole lot of area in which we can improve across the board. The good, the true and the beautiful, indeed.

I recently finished Mike Aquilina‘s book, The Mass of the Early Christians. I’ve been sufficiently busy that I haven’t had a chance to write even this short review until now, much to my chagrin. Suffice it to say, Mike has done it again – the book is fantastic.

If you’re looking for an exhaustive source review of every single patristic source, this slim volume won’t give you what you want. If, however, you want a good, solid overview of the writings of many of the Church Fathers on the Mass – and even some heretical and pagan writings – this is the book for you. Unlike some of Mike’s other books he doesn’t just let the Fathers do the talking in this tome, he also takes up the opportunity to do some instruction of his own. I simply can’t say how necessary that is if in no other area than that surrounding the Discipline of the Secret whereby the early Fathers would be (at best) elliptical in their remarks on what happened during the Mass. Without Mike’s most helpful commentary the reader would feel lost reading the early writers’ statements and could easily conclude that they really didn’t see the Mass in the same fashion we do today, and a horrible mistake that would be.

One other tribute to this book is Mike’s foresight to include not just the Church Fathers but also heretics and pagans. We so often know, or at least have an inkling, what the Church has believed and said, but yet we rarely it seems look to see what others said about the Church. That insularity was hardly a mark of the early Church, even during the persecutions. Since this dialog necessarily had two sides it is critical to know what the “other” side had to say in order to understand the Fathers’ responses. It would be, in a way, like trying to explain the transition from the Apostles’ Creed to the Nicene Creed without mentioning Arianism – possible, but so desperately much more shallow.

I can virtually guarantee I didn’t get the full depths of what I read in this book the first time. That first time, however, will not be the last. If you like patristics or liturgy or history or just the Church herself buy the book. If you don’t like patristics when you start the book, you’re likely to by the time you’re done.

It’s a “thing” for me to always assume I’m missing something when I see someone do something I believe to be wrong. That habit really grew in me when I was still in my conversion process and I was reading Pope John Paul II’s Evangelium vitae – his arguments were so contrary to what I’d thought and yet so well thought out I realized I just might not know everything there was to know on a given subject.

So, with that said, I’m assuming that I’m missing something here. Have I missed somewhere that gives permission to proclaim the Gospel at Mass using an alternation of priest, lay reader and song? It went something like this: Father reads a portion of the Gospel, then the cantor pops in for a refrain, then a lay leader reads some, back to the cantor, to the other reader, then the cantor, back to Father and around again. Now I know on Palm (Passion) Sunday it is allowed that the Passion be read in parts, but I have never seen that allowance made for any other day of the year. Did I miss something? I’ve checked the GIRM, Redemptionis sacramentum and all sorts of sites that Google popped up, but I’ve not found a single source that suggests this is allowed. Someone tell me I’ve missed something and that I did not witness the abuse of invention that I think I did. Put another way, there are times when I hate being right, and this would be one of them.

It is, without surprise, a busy time even for the news biz. Here are a few stories of interest.

First, CNA has a story about the politicians doing what they do so well – taking a quote out of context and twisting it to suit their needs. Just when I thought I’d see a little reprieve from nasty politics, now that the primaries have moved on and forgotten New Hampshire. A small snip:

The Holy See’s Press Office has expressed amazement at how Pope Benedict XVI’s meeting with the mayor of Rome and other regional government officials yesterday is being used for political gain.
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Political rivals of those currently in office seized on the Pope’s comments as an opportunity to gain political capital.

Next, CWN tells us that we’re (again) drawing closer to a final draft of the revised Missal. Not to sound cranky, but this thing has a release schedule that feels just like a software project.

A new English-language version of the Roman Missal is nearing completion, the Congregation for Divine Worship has announced. But the Vatican’s timetable suggests that the text will not be available until late this year, at the earliest.
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After the final draft is prepared under the direction of the Vox Clara committee, it will be submitted to the Congregation for Divine Worship for final approval.

Just to make sure you don’t forget that there are people out there who still are either incredibly inept or hold a deep-seated hatred of Catholics, there’s this story from CNA. It reminds me why I rarely listen to NPR.

A January 7 public radio skit that made disparaging remarks about the Eucharist while attacking Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee provoked outrage from Catholics and a speedy apology from its distributor.
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Whoever the skit creator was, Donohue said, “he or she used presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee and evangelicals as foil, saving the real sucker punch for Roman Catholics. This is despicable on several counts: it is blasphemous and bigoted. But it may also be motivated by a political calculus, making it really dirty if it is.”

And finally, this from CWN:

Pope Benedict XVI (bio – news) sounded the alarm about an “educational emergency” during a January 10 meeting with political leaders from Rome and he surrounding Lazio district.

The “emergency” to which the Holy Father referred was the growth of relativism. Young people, he said, find it difficult to develop “firm certainties and criteria upon which to build their lives.” This failure of moral guidance, the Pope said, threatens “the very basis of coexistence and the future of society.”

Clarity, right straight from the top. Yet another reason I love being a Catholic.

According to Shawn Tribe at NLM, those of us who love liturgy enough to want to see it done correctly are not, in fact, completely nuts as has been suggested to me before. In his The Nature and Social Implications of the Liturgical Act he lays out a well-reasoned explication of the importance of proper liturgy to the application of Christian teaching in all its phases. Even if you know all the arguments, it would be good to read his post if for no other reason than to refresh yourself again. Some selected highlights:

What must be first noted about this way of thinking is that found within it is a fundamental misperception of the substantial nature of the Mass. The Mass is not first and foremost a tool for Eucharistic piety or adoration. Eucharistic piety is a noble thing of course, and one of the most solemn moments of the Mass finds us adoring the Body and Blood of Christ, but that is not the primary end of the liturgical act. Neither is the Mass primarily a vehicle for the reception of the Eucharist — though frequent and worthy reception of the Eucharist brings with it many important graces of course. The Mass is not even primarily about our own sanctification. To comprehend the essential nature of the Christian liturgy bears minding the nature of the Jewish Temple liturgies and their sacrificial offerings and how that imperfectly foreshadowed the Christian liturgy and Sacrifice of Christ. The Christian liturgy is first and foremost an act of rendering due worship to God the Father through the perpetuated sacrifice and offering of God the Son. It is this sacrificial nature of the liturgy and the worship of God the Father that particularly drives the liturgical act. It is important that we have this proper understanding of the primary end of the Mass for all else flows from this. This is also why we should not make Eucharistic piety to be the be-all and end-all of the liturgy. In point of fact, worship and sacrifice are the be-all and end-all of the liturgy.
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It is not legalistic to be concerned with such matters. Legalism is ultimately narcissistic in nature because it is concerned with rules or traditions for their own sake. But the sort of concern we are speaking of is precisely rooted in a consideration and awareness of the relationship of liturgical form to spiritual and theological realities. It is therefore precisely the opposite of legalism.
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If we wish, for example, to address attitudes that are contrary to the Gospel of Life, we need to consider our parishes and particularly the liturgy that occurs within them. How are they forming people? Are they affecting deep personal relationships with God? Those liturgies are the primary contact of most of the faithful with both God and the Church and they both dispose people and form them in particular ways. If there is a lack there, this will certainly have a domino effect that will extend to other areas, including social matters. By contrast, right worship — being tied with right belief — is a fount from which right Christian action flows. Ultimately we are speaking about personal conversion to God’s will and conversion lends itself to proper Christian action. (It is worth considering that the saints of the Church were amongst the greatest of those who worked to address social problems and they were also people of profound prayer who adored God through the liturgy and the sacraments. The latter nourished the former.)

Zadok has a very interesting post gleaned from his reading of Origen’s treatise On Prayer. Reading the excerpts Zadok has provided does make one think that then-Cardinal Ratzinger had much of this treatise fresh in his memory when he wrote his The Spirit of the Liturgy. If you haven’t read that book yet, do yourself a favor and do so soon – your experience of prayer and at Mass will never be the same.

It is amazing how, when a door is left slightly opened and people come barging through the ensuing tensions last for a very long time. For many people the question of receiving Communion in the hand versus on the tongue seems to be a thoroughly settled one. Fr. Tim Finigan reminds us quite well that such is not the case. This is a stern reminder that just because we do something and the Vatican has said it is possible in theory, those facts do not necessarily make it a good idea. See also the controversy over Mass said versus populum and ad orientem. We do make fine messes for ourselves.