Ubi Petrus

Fr. Dwight Longenecker had an interesting discussion about the ad orientem posture with some of the students at his school after Mass. In part:

“You don’t feel slighted because I have turned my back to you? You sure I haven’t hurt your feelings?”

Laughter all around. “You’re not that good looking anyway Father.”

Russell Shaw has an excellent article at Inside Catholic on clericalism in the Church. The reason it’s good is that it doesn’t take just one side or the other but explores it and, as one could expect, finds that the truth is “in the middle”. One of my favorite quotes is this:

Not only that, one-dimensional emphasis in official Church circles on “lay ministry” is at the expense of time and energy that might better have been spent forming people for lay apostolate. Lately, the U.S. bishops’ conference has concentrated on setting norms for training people preparing to work for the Church as lay ecclesial ministers. Considering the important role these people often have in liturgy, catechesis, and other areas of Church life, their training certainly merits attention. But not at the cost of ignoring the formation of lay people for apostolate in the world. Yet that’s exactly what happens — and has been happening for a long time.

You see, that’s just the point – there is so much focus on the ad intra role of the laity they have no time or energy for what is, in reality, supposed to be their, if you will, “real” job. Yes, there is a very valid role for the laity working inside the Church. However, when people view having “done their duty” as having served as a lector or EMHC on Sunday you know something is desperately out of balance. And yes, I know people who think those extraordinary liturgical roles necessarily take precedence over non-liturgical apostolic work. I still, however, fail to understand how being an EMHC on Sunday and making Communion take two minutes less time can possibly be more valuable than proper spiritual formation of one’s self or one’s family or even evangelic work. It’s interesting that there is such an intersection between bad liturgical theology and bad ecclesiology, don’t you think?

Servant and Steward let us know there is one nice little gift now on preorder. An official commemorative book of the Pope’s visit to the US stuffed full of photos covering the full five days. Available in plenty of time for Father’s Day. That’s not a hint or anything, no. Not at all.

This is your friendly neighborhood reminder that tomorrow, May 3, is the day for the One Million Rosaries for Unborn Babies prayer event. I’m certainly hoping the count on that site isn’t the best we can do. C’mon, get the word out folks!

In a post at NLM on the Papal Mass at the Washington Nationals Stadium, Jeffrey Tucker reminds us of something very important:

Of the half dozen or so people I’ve spoken with, the number one thing that people mostly mentioned about this Mass had nothing to do with the music. They speak of the miracle of the silence. They talk about the spiritual comportment of the tens of thousands of people, that you could have all those people gathered in a space and that there were moments that were so still and so silent that you could hear a pin drop. This was what moved people. This was the unforgettable thing that happened.

One priest noted that this silence could not have happened were it not for good formation that is taking place in the parishes. People knew why they were there, and it wasn’t to impress the Pope with their singing. It was to be in the presence of the successor of Peter and to experience the real presence of Christ. When you think of that, awe-struck silence seems like an excellent response.

As I once read somewhere, “silence is its own song”. In the age of the iPod where people seemingly can’t go five minutes without some sort of noise vibrating their ear drums the only chance many people have to experience any silence at all is in church; we do a disservice to them by forcing a constant cacophony of noise to pervade every split second of the time they’re there.

If you’re still not agreeing with me on the subject of silence, let me ask you this: if Jesus were suddenly to appear to you face to face in all His Glory, would your first response be to belt out On Eagle’s Wings? When we keep in mind that a face-to-face encounter with Jesus is the whole point of the Mass, it changes what we’re willing and wanting to surround it with. Silence is its own song.

…there is exactly one thing better than assisting at Mass. Yup, there’s one thing better. Wanna guess what it is? C’mon, you know you do.

It’s assisting at Mass after receiving the Sacrament of Confession. I mean right after. As in “walking out of the Confessional, performing your penance and praying until Mass begins without leaving your pew.” There is a qualitative difference, at least for poor sinful ol’ me, in my participation in praying with the Mass directly after Confession when I haven’t even had a chance to commit even a venial sin and assisting at Mass even only a couple of days later when I’ve been beaten down by the sludge of the world. The Mass is the Mass, yes, but assisting with a sparkly clean soul is just plain different. I can’t help it, sorry.

So I renew my plea to any priest (or potential priest) reading this post – please, do anything and everything in your power to offer confession before each and every Mass in your parish. Even if it means rearranging the Mass schedule to avoid, as I believe Pope Benedict called it “the parking lot syndrome” with Masses so close together there is neither time for people to get in and out of the parking lot easily nor for Confession. Even just ten minutes. Even if nobody comes. You can read, you can write, you can review your homily, you can just sit in the quiet and pray. Admit it my beloved priests, you’d love ten minutes of peace and quiet, if that’s the “down” side of offering Confession before every Mass. I simply cannot recommend this enough.

More Papal pictures from St. Joseph’s Seminary in Dunwoodie, courtesy of Keith (again). It’s still hard to believe the Pope was here just such a short time ago.

Being the optional memorial of St. Louis Marie de Montfort and conveniently exactly 33 days from the Marian feast of the Visitation, today is a perfect day to start the preparation for the Consecration to Jesus through Mary. At least, that’s what I’m doing. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the layout done by the folks at Fish Eaters and also the Friends of Our Lady for providing an up-to-date schedule to confirm for me that today was the appropriate day to start. Reading de Montfort’s True Devotion has already been an incredible experience – it could very well have been written in the present day. Pray, pray, pray.

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.

Julie at Happy Catholic broached the subject of whether we ought to pray for specific remedies for a given situation. My combox response is below:

One day, back when my prayer life was far better than it is now (you know, before marriage, kids and the hundred other bad excuses) I was praying from Ezekiel 36:26 – “I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts.” I asked the Lord to destroy that stony heart and give me the true heart of flesh of which He spoke. With a startling clarity I heard this response: “I do not destroy what I have created, I transform it.”

That one locution has stuck with me all the intervening years and reminds me that while we may ask for things the quick, simple and obvious way (since those are our priorities) He will do things according to His priorities which include involving us in our the story of salvation. I once read in one of Pope Benedict’s books that just as God did not put aside His creation to effect His breaking into the world but rather embraced it, so now He will also continue to embrace His creation and use it.

I think we gain great opportunity in asking the Lord for this, that or the other thing – not so much in asking for it but in those times when we’re actually willing to wait around to listen to His answer. I have played around with the idea that God indeed never says “no” to our prayers, but rather says “I have a better idea”. We just need to listen.

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To expand that just a little further, yes, I think we ought to ask for specific remedies if that’s where we are in our spiritual lives. There are many cases in the lives of the saints where they asked for very specific responses and were granted them, so clearly there is no good historical evidence backing up what I hear often these days of “whatever is your will, God”. We’re not asked to abdicate our roles in this world, we’re asked to elevate ourselves to conform our desires to God’s will. A saint, when saying “Your will be done Lord” has already taken steps to conform their will to His, has very often asked for a specific remedy and is then acknowledging that due to their fallen nature their request may not be in line with God’s plan and is bidirectionally admitting a willingness to be corrected – admitting it both to God and reminding him or herself that God’s answer will be the right one even if it’s not what was requested.

I think sometimes there’s a tendency today for people to jump the gun spiritually and try to outwardly emulate the great saints in their conformance to Christ’s Will without a matching inward conformance. I think it can be very dangerous to exclude the petitionary act of prayer in favor of a statement of conformance because, inter alia, very often the resolution God is working towards requires our involvement to begin with.

To attempt to avoid what now appears to be my typical circle-of-death logic in writing, let me wrap it up simply. I’d advocate doing just what Jesus did in Gethsemane – ask for a specific remedy as seems appropriate and then recommit yourself to: 1) listening to God’s answer and 2) accepting it. C’mon, y’all have to have an opinion on this!