Ubi Petrus

I have apparently set a new goal for myself to see how many books I can be reading at the same time, having started to read the Catechism of the Catholic Church (if you don’t have one, buy one). This morning I came across #83:

The Tradition here in question comes from the apostles and hands on what they received from Jesus’ teaching and example and what they learned from the Holy Spirit. The first generatino of Christians did not yet have a written New Testament, and the New Testament itself demonstrates the process of living Tradition.
Tradition is to be distinguished from the various theological, disciplinary, liturgical or devotional traditions, born in the local churches over time. These are the particular forms, adapted to different places and times, in which the great Tradition is expressed. In the light of Tradition, these traditions can be retained, modified or even abaondoned under the guidance of the Church’s magisterium.

Wow. If you take the time to wrap your head around that whole thing, you see just how heady and critical a statement is. It points in many ways to how so many over time, Catholics and non-Catholics alike have confused Tradition with tradition and vice-versa. I think it’s critical we all keep in mind the distinction as the Church moves forward in time. I’ll post on the 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time later – the kids want to go play outside now…

I’ve decided to rededicate myself to getting and keeping current. It’s kind of like a New Year’s Resolution, but I made it in July – and I think it’s going to be more helpful than those ritualistic Lenten “I’ll give up chocolate” routines. Not that there’s anything wrong with giving up chocolate, but this is going to require active participation on my part every day, which I think is something God would appreciate.

To the point. Scanning across the press releases on the Diocesan web site, I came across our Bishop’s Pastoral Letter, One With Christ, regarding the changing Parish landscape in New Hampshire. As almost everywhere else in this country (or so it seems), we are faced with difficult times with a shortage of priests and in particular an interesting shift in demographics. The letter is painful to read at times because you know it involves the closing or merging of parishes, but it’s something critical for everyone involved to understand. In my “A New Springtime” series, that has always been my underlying theme – we all must get more involved. And by that, I do not mean in the liberal “Spirit of Vatican II” sense, but that as members of this one Body of Christ it is imperative on us to know what is going on around us, so that we can offer our time, talent and treasure to the service of our Church whenever and however it may need it.

Since I’m getting such a rousing response, I’ll keep this going. At least no one can accuse me of giving up too easily. This time it’s a short one, and simple at that. All you lay people out there, and even you religious and heck, maybe even the ordained – have you thanked your priest or bishop today?

Short of the ancient heresies this time may well prove to be one of the most difficult for those in the “long black line”, with the radical dissent, overwhelming culture of death and the rampant tribulations wrought by the priest sexual abuse scandal. Since, as Saint Francis once said, “these are the hands that bring me Christ” they are an inextricable link between our every day lives and the innumerable salvific graces poured out on us. We must pray for them for certain but an active, even if anonymous, thanks can go a long way to raising their spirits.

If you just can’t bring yourself to write a personal thank you to your priest for some reason, or even an anonymous one, write to another priest. Then pray for your priest, and for the ability to see past whatever it is that separates you from kinship with your priest. A novel idea could be to write anonymously to several priests – they need not know you personally for the thanks to have its intended effect. For those of us in New Hampshire, you can find the contact information for your or any diocesan priest here. Don’t wait – all it costs is, um, how much is a stamp now? Never mind. Go. Write. Mail. You just might make someone’s week.

I must really be slipping. No, that would suggest I was ever able to keep up on things… Anyway, I enjoin you to render a heroic welcome to the Diocese of New Hampshire’s three newest priests. Bishop McCormack recently ordained Fr. David Kneeland, Fr. Marcos Gonzalez and Fr. Stephen Lepine. These men are truly heroic in their continual act of laying down their lives that Christ may act through them to bring us all to greater sanctity. The angels certainly were singing this day. The very short story is here.

Okay, so the Pope didn’t really read my blog (if only!) and his words were spoken several months ago, but it was nice to see anyway. I’ve been desperately trying to catch up on my reading load and am just now finishing up my May periodicals. In the May edition of First Things, Fr. Neuhaus mentions an excerpt of a speech given by the Holy Father to the Austrian bishops. His words were made of rather more stern stuff than mine:

The Austrian bishops came visiting and Pope Benedict spoke to them like a Bavarian uncle: “There are some topics relating to the truth of the faith, and above all to moral doctrine, which are not present in the catechesis and preaching of your dioceses to a sufficient extent, and which sometimes are either not confronted at all or are not addressed in the clear sense understood by the Church. Perhaps those who are responsible for the proclamation [of the truth] are afraid that people may draw back if they speak too clearly. However, experience in general demonstrates that it is precisely the opposite that happens. Don’t deceive yourselves! Catholic teaching offered in an incomplete manner is a contradiction of itself and cannot be fruitful in the long term.” What about that don’t you understand?

Ouch. I suppose the interesting question is, what are they going to do about it?

In my last post, which I’m not entirely sure anyone read, one would think I pointed the finger directly at the ordained for their lack of homiletic eloquence, and to a certain extent one would be correct. However, there is an old saying that speech requires two parties, so this time the finger gets pointed right back at those of us in the pews. But I’m not going to make the obvious turn and say it is our responsibility to listen better, even if the homily seems dry, old and uninspiring. That’s for another post.

No, this is a far more interesting topic. Pride. Yes, one of the Seven Deadly Sins, but just not quite like that. Pride gone too far is deadly, indeed. But pride covered over with a blanket is suffocating. There was a time, not all that long ago, when Catholics held a kind of pride in the fact they were Catholic. That pride, properly restored, can help lead to “a new springtime”.

First, as is always proper in this type of reflection, I offer a quote from the Bible, Mark 5:14-16:

You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.
Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand,where it gives light to all in the house.
Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.

If this is not a call to take properly formed and restrained pride in being members of Christ’s Church, the holder and promulgator of the fullness of Truth I don’t know what is. But very often we see a kind of Catholic catharsis in minimalizing the impact of the life of the Church in her members’ daily lives.

It can be seen frequently how many Catholics seek the aproval of those around them, sliding to the side any part of their faith that may cause them embarassment. To pull a rather long quote from Fr. Richard John Neuhaus’s book Catholic Matters (p. 12-13),

So it is with cradle Catholics, including many priests and academics, born into the all-embracing world of Catholicism. They know the inside stories, the flaws and foibles and legendary figures of the Church, and they can regale one another with the rich lore of miscreance and scandal. … Not surprisingly, in the company of such cradle Catholics, it is the mark of sophistication to have transcended “the Catholic ghetto”. … The disposition is this: “Yes, I am a Catholic, but I think for myself.”

It is true that, as the sixteenth-century St. Ignatius of Loyola put it, we should think with the Church (sentire cum ecclesia). It is also true that thinking with the Church begins with thinking.

Indeed. While there are probably some cradle Catholics out there who are heartily offended by this sentiment, their offense does not reduce the accuracy of the statement. To be sure, of course, there are many cradle Catholics who do not fit this mold at all, and in many ways they are a backbone for the Church.

It is frequently observed that many of the current apologists for the Catholic faith are not cradle Catholics, but converts from other faiths or no faith at all. If one adds to that list those knows as “reverts”, those who fell away from their faith but returned in fullness, they make up the great majority of those proclaiming the majesty of the Magisterium. It is decidedly rare, for reasons too numerous to delve into here, to find a Catholic who has from the beginning made the decision to follow and sentire cum ecclesia. If you happen to know one, be sure to sit down and chat with them – I’m sure their stories will warm your heart.

Still, what does this have to do with pride? Well, there’s a bit of reverse-engineering to be done here. One tends not to think (or learn) about that which one takes no pride (or care) in. It’s a fact that can be seen in the academic careers of school children – almost without exception they excel at those subjects which interest them the most. The interestingly difficult situation with an institution as old as the Catholic Church is that the more you learn about it, the more interesting it becomes. With over two thousand years of history, and writings enough to fill vast libraries, it is entirely probable one person could never learn everything there is to know about the Faith in a single lifetime – as I said in my previous post if you like a challenge, and Americans as a general rule do, what greater challenge than that?

So the challenge to those of us interested enough to still be reading? Check your ego at the door, but take great pride in the wonderous gift of the Church you have been blessed to be a part of. Here’s a direct challenge: if you say the Gloria at Mass this Sunday, or whenever you say it again, really, truly think about the words you are saying and see if a grin doesn’t crack your face. The beauty of a God who loves us enough to call us His own, and to become one of us to bring us to Himself by the sacrifice of His own life and His glorious resurrection, well, heck I’m smiling just thinking about it. Now, take it one step further. Share that joy with someone else – even if it’s someone who already believes as you do. There is nothing that will draw someone’s attention more than people who are truly, deeply happy and sharing that joy. And make sure you let that joy overflow from you after receiving Him in the Eucharist and continue flowing even as you venture into the parking lot. One gracious and happy person at a time, even that place may become a comforting one in time. Then as you journey home, that giddy little silly smile still playing on your lips, find something new to learn about your Faith and pass it on. Your example may just be the impetus for someone else to walk through the church door and start on their own journey.

It is with some rather significant trepidation that I begin this blog series; it is something that has been chasing about in the back of my mind for a long time – I begin to feel old just thinking about how long. But…eventually that hound always catches up to you and you must submit. So with that…

Many, if not most (and would that it were “all”), Catholics will recognize the term “new springtime” as one of the late Pope John Paul II’s favorite terms. If he were in advertising it would have been called a “catch phrase” or a “tag line” most likely. But as with much written and said by him, its poetic eloquence is perhaps exceeded only by its uncanny accuracy, if only the recipient takes the time to fully unfold its petals.

In particular, one should consider the two-fold natures of spring, those of both birth and re-birth. For many, the focus is on the “birth” aspect of spring – new baby animals, seeds pushing forth into life as full-fledged plants and so forth. But sometimes equally as awe inspiring, and for Christians properly disposed even more so, is the re-birth of things that appeared dead – flowers appear from bulbs left in the ground, animals peak out of their winter hiding to frolic in the new warmth. Many, as they should, will recognize the terms of “spring” and “springtime” as analogies to the rebirth in Baptism and the Resurrection promised us. If one looks hard enough, nothing comes anew that is not foretold in the past.

But other than clamoring about the beauty of the symbolism of the concepts of “spring” and “springtime” what, as my mother would put it, does that have to do with the price of spinach? The other day I was blog-hopping and came across Fr. Z’s blog, What Does The Prayer Really Say? and I came across his posting on the 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time. Therein he posts from an article originally printed in The Wanderer discussing, again, the meeting of the Catholic Bishops to discuss and vote on the new translation of the ordinary of the Mass. In this article he made a striking statement:

You might object, “But Father! But Father! You’re saying that people in the pews have to be metaphysicians in order to pray!” No, I’m not! Leaving aside the philosophy and theology lessons, the simplistic version (apart from being wrong) forecloses on further thought or consideration. By eliminating a traditional and accurate technical term, as hard as it is, and opting instead for something simplistic you kill reflection. By dumbing it down you slam door on understanding. People don’t have to be theologians or metaphysicians, but they do have to think. The pretense that we can’t understand words or long sentences during Mass guarantees that we won’t even think about the content of the prayers. We should be able to think about these hard things as well as expect Father’s good explanations.

I find nothing of this topic more true than in his last two sentences. There was a time when Catholics were expected to, and indeed many were more than pleased to, “pray, pay and obey”. They were to an extent willingly and sometimes willfully ignorant of the great Truths they professed. As the self-named “modernists” would tell us, “that was then, this is now”. The great majority of Catholics today are not interested in merely showing up at Mass, marching through their ordained mechanical movements and then racing to beat each other out of the parking lot (the old saying “there is no place more dangerous than a Catholic parking lot on Sunday morning” notwithstanding). “But surely,” you say, “that is what the great majority of them do.” Indeed, that is what they do. They are left with no ready alternative.

The fundamental reason the Vatican requested yet another English translation of the Mass is due to the significant mis-translations present in current use. Indeed, some traditionalists would say current the current work trades the magnificent for the banal. I’m not entirely positive that I would go that far, but it certainly does have aspects of truth. I will readily admit the difficulty in translating as precise a language as ecclesiastical Latin into English – as an old teacher once said, “learning Spanish from English is much easier than the reverse because English breaks its own rules so often”. I surmise the truth is the same for Latin. But the taken pattern of selecting a translation for the sake of ease when sacrificing precision and mystery is a dangerous one.

Fr. Z’s point about the word consubstantial is truly important in this context. There would be several reactions to this change, three of which would cover the majority. First, we would have a group who would grumble about using such an arcane word when “one in being” was just fine, but never bother to look into why it was chosen. Second, we would have a group who would be annoyed their perfectly memorized prayers were changed, but would re-memorize them and recite them as mechanically as before. And third, there would be a group who would perk their ears at this new word and pull down their dictionary from the shelf and then go Google on it to learn why it changed.

It is this third group about which I speak when I mention John Paul II’s term, “a new springtime”. In many ways, Catholicism in the western world has become too easy – we have lost our “counter-cultural” pinache and turned our theology into another test to memorize for. It is very tempting to do so, when you step back and look at it: the prayers are always the same, and intentionally un-challenging, the homily almost always reminds us that God loves us no matter what we do, we do the Catholic shuffle up to Communion to receive what many have forgotten out of laxity that which is Jesus Himself, and then we leave, off to our regular lives. Rinse, repeat once a week or as your social schedule dictates.

I am not about to make a claim that we should retrench to the “glory days” of hellfire and brimstone homilies – first, that will never happen and second it would be useless even if it did. But after the umpteenth homily reminding you that God loves everyone no matter what they do and that you can always be saved from Hell as long as you confess at the last moment of life, the human mind tends to wander away from the traumatizing impact of even the slightest sin and the miraculous redemptive suffering of our Christ. It wanders to things far more important, like the memo you forgot to deliver at work, or something to add to the grocery list, or what to have for lunch. After all, if sin, Incarnation, redemption and salvation can wait until the last moment of life, why not let them wait?

So…why “a new springtime”? Because it is just at this very point, right as we move from the Liturgy of the Word to the Liturgy of the Eucharist that the homilist has the opportunity to catch the wandering mind and direct it to higher things, things more important than the decision between ham and bologna. If the homilist can renew interest in the Goings On that are to follow, even in just 5% of those in attendance within a short time the pews will be like the ground underneath a great oak tree in spring – new, fresh faces popping up to bring themselves closer to the Son that gives them life, and Life Everlasting.

But how can the homilist renew interest? Here’s a thought – bring up sin. Not just the concept of it, but the personal essence of it. Flipping off another dictionary definition of sin and then quickly moving on to forgiveness will not cut it. I do not for a second suggest beating people about the head and shoulders with their sin – that was the first step to creating tone deafness to sin. But leaving sin a
t the door was to give earplugs to the deaf. Sin is something that happens in its greatest extent between the sinner and God. It is a given that sin necessarily has an impact on society at large or minimally on other people, but no matter that impact, the impact on the relationship between God and the sinner is greater. But even as that chasm is opened by sin, God offers a perfect salve to heal the wound. To discuss this forgiveness without first discussing the sin that requires it only guarantees confusion.

I am emphatically against the idea that sin must be a part of every homily. First, the homilist is often constrained in time and cannot do proper justice to the issue presented by the readings while extrapolating further into the concept, definition and impact of sin. Second, there is a lesson to be learned from the U.S. interstate highway system. As nebulous an intersection as that may seem, allow me to swim up this stream. Back when the system was first being rolled out the designers took advantage of the wide open spaces to create exactingly straight highways, since we all know the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. The problem with this, they discovered, is that people tend to get drowsy and distracted by driving in straight lines without curves to demand their attention. Talking constantly of God’s love and forgiveness without giving mention to sin or Mary or church history or the saints or martyrdom or why we do what we do is just like designing a straight highway – eventually people stop paying attention and drift off the road.

We have, as current estimates would put it, probably two years before the new translation is put into use. As the old saying goes, now would be as good a time as any to start putting curves in the homily highways, to introduce, or more properly re-introduce, lessons that have been on the theological shelf for fear of losing people. Of all the things true in our history, it has been shown time and again that Americans love a challenge. A challenge to truly understand our relationship with God and how we affect it could be the greatest genesis of a new springtime we could have.

I came across this site quite by accident the other day. The blogger, Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, takes some very deep looks into the proper translation of prayers, and currently the Liturgy. Given that we have just undertaken a new translation, it seems appropriate. Just a word of warning, he from what I can tell believes “pro multis” is properly translated as “for many”, so if that gets your doilies in a bunch consider yourself warned. Aside from that, a quote from his post on the Preface to the Roman Canon grabbed me as something I would probably do were I ever to have been in his position (note: do, not just want to do, thereby getting me in a world of trouble):

I am not an advocate of boisterous liturgy, but sometimes when I hear these prayers, and I sense the depth and the breadth of them through countless generations bursting from well-springs of Christian experience nourished by the actual blood of those who first prayed them, and I hear responses at Mass which are anemic, pale, timid, feeble, thin, mumbled, I simply want to stop everything, take people by the collective hands and say: “Do you NOT GET THIS??!” Like Leo the Great in his homily for Christmas I want to stop and shout “O Christian! Be mindful of your dignity!” We are not Christian and Catholic today by our own merits merely. When we pray these prayers we transcend by the Holy Spirit working in us as we pray, space (connecting us to Catholics everywhere) and time (connecting us with generations before us) and even the veil of this world (connecting us to the heavenly host before the throne of God). Our Mass is an echo of the past, a link with Catholics across the globe, and fore glimpse of the continuous liturgy in action before the throne of God.

So Father Jonathan nailed it again. In his blog he made some very insightful points which deserve more attention. While at the time I disagreed with his conclusion the Bush administration had failed to make its case, I now feel that at the least that belief was partly due to my haste to position and a lack of analysis of the situation vis-a-vis the Just War doctrine. I’m no Just War theologian so I won’t bother with going into that. One point Fr. Jonathan made that I think bears remembering, regardless of which end of the ideological spectrum you find yourself on was this:

I was keenly aware, however, that the administration may have been withholding some of its evidence about the nature of the threat for national security purposes. With this in mind, I suspended any sweeping public judgments. It is the ethicist’s role to outline principles for action, but it is the politician’s responsibility to act. When we elect a president and a congress, we give them access to more information than anyone else and ask them to make some decisions for us, based on their best judgment.

For those on the left it sounds like a sweeping and dangerous allowance of Presidential power. For those on the right, it sounds like an explicit affirmation of the decision of the President. In truth, it’s neither – it’s simply a statement of the way our republican (note the little ‘r’) form of government works. We elect them, and then entrust them with running the country. If the fullness of that realization doesn’t scare you even a little bit, you’re probably not paying attention. Republican (little-‘r’) government is a tough thing to get right. One would rightly think it a miracle we have survived this long with as few crises as we’ve had. But calling this country a ‘miracle’ is a topic for another post…