This post by Amy at Open Book is making its way around St. Blogs, and rightfully so. I’m not sure I want to say its “insightful” because that tends to be read as “full of new insights” and the thought that ours is a Church with its own share of sinners is not new. That said, however, it is a necessarily painful reminder of how far we have to go. For my part, I consider it a friendly reminder that we can always do better and that our Lord knows exactly from how far we have come. Do read.
The world needs more priests like Fr. Martin Fox. The more I read his homilies, the more the words “pointy hat” come to mind. Not yet, no, but he clearly is one of those who “gets it”. This past weekend’s homily was yet another example of what thorough humility merged with honest determination can create. A snip:
But let me ask you: what do you want your pastor to do?
Do you really want a pastor who says,
“well, the pope has his opinion, and I have mine!”
Do you really want a pastor who says,
“I’d like to follow the Council, but I won’t,
because it will make some people unhappy.”I really don’t believe that is what you want.
To those who disagree, I ask:
I’m not certain I’m right, I freely admit.
How certain can you be that the pope is wrong?
And so goes the rest. He is taking the bold step of letting his parishioners know he is willing to do what is required to provide what they need, sometimes providing what they need without them even knowing they need it. Sounds like a true shepherd. It’s in reading homilies like this that I cower at the thought of ever having contemplated wearing the collar – I simply am not, and never have been, that good. Another reminder the Lord, in the end, really does know what He’s doing.
I think Fr. Jay Toborowsky at Young Fogeys is on to something when he writes this:
For those who think the Holy Father’s recent Mot — (nope, I said I wasn’t going to write those words any more) — his recent M.P. on the ’62 Roman Missal has been “the worst” in terms of reluctance towards its implimentation, I’m here to say it’s not so. The resistance that Summorum Pontificum faces will pale in comparison to the whines, complaints, “pastoral concerns”, wailing and grinding of teeth, and general tempter tantrums and meltdowns that we will experience when Rome eventually issues the new English translation of the Mass that the Vox Clara Commission has been working on for the past 3-4 years. Remember a few years ago when we had one or two external changes to the General Instruction on the Mass (eg- to stand before the “Pray, brethren…”) and a bunch of internal changes (eg- Ordained persons should be the ones to purify Sacred Vessels, etc.)? Well multiply that squall exponentially and you get the picture of the storm to come.
I’m often the target of questions from my small social and family circle when they hear about something in the Church from the mass media. I consider it unfortunate that I’m the “local expert” for such things, but I do the best I can. Suffice it to say I haven’t heard a peep from anyone on Summorum Pontificum. Not a single question – the one conversation I did have I had to start myself, and it didn’t exactly have legs. But when it was mentioned in the press that some parts of what the congregation says in Mass would change, that lead to a (relatively) long discussion that even had a little emotion attached to it.
Why is that? I have to imagine that, simply, most people are oblivious to what the Extraordinary Form means and why its use could be important. Rather, they are focused on what they already do, what they already know. If, suddenly, the only Mass they could attend would be in the Extraordinary Form, then these “average Joes” would care, but since there will always be an Ordinary Form Mass around, for most people it’s not on their radar screen because it hasn’t happened yet. In contrast, by changing the any of the people’s part of the Mass, you affect what they do today and take them out of their comfort zone. Yes, that’s one of the most important functions of the Mass, but it is one people have come to miss, partly due to liturgical abuses, partly due to our generally laissez-faire social attitude wherein everything coalesces around with what and how we spend our idle time.
To put it another way, people can avoid the impact of Summorum Pontificum by simply not attending an Extraordinary Form Mass. Since it’s easily avoidable, it can be ignored by-and-large. The new translation of the Ordinary Form, however, can only be avoided by a big change – either finding an Extraordinary Form Mass, moving to an Eastern Rite Church or leaving the Church all together. Since those are all significant changes, the reaction to it is logically going to be that much more significant.
Simply, the time is now to start slowly and gently educating people on both of these issues. It wouldn’t take long, probably only a few sentences in a homily every couple of weeks – just enough to take the surprise and the uninformed edge off of things. The Catholic Church has been rightly chastised for frequently showing up with the right answer after the argument is almost over, but this need not be the case now. Will it happen? Only time will tell, but I for one certainly hope we get out in front this time.
You’re St. Theodora!
Theodora was the wife of the ninth-century emperor Theophilus and mother of the future emperor Michael III. Theodora ruled the lands after her iconoclastic husband died. She labored to overturn his heretical policies, chiefly by summoning a council that upheld the veneration of images of Christ and the saints. For this, she is herself honored as a saint by the Orthodox Church. Her feast day is February 11.
Find out which Byzantine ruler you are at The Way of the Fathers!
Mike Aquilina’s done it again. Something tells me I could have done an awful lot worse than Theodora! I wonder how all-things-Byzantine-lover Dale Price would score?
One of the things ancient Rome is known for is its extensive system of baths, both public and private. They provided opportunities to discuss politics or philosophy, to relax or to engage in other, err, activities. Archaeologists are currently working their way through uncovering a massive bath complex in Rome which is believed to have belonged to a friend of Emperor Hadrian.
From the article: “[t]he exceptionally well-preserved two-story complex, which extends for at least five acres, includes ornate hot rooms, vaults, changing rooms, marble latrines and an underground room where slaves lit the fire to warm the baths.” This sentence alone should help explain why I find this dig interesting. It is another key to understanding the world in which the early Christian Church grew in – the vast difference in wealth between the rich and the poor, their ultimate minority status, how ultimately contradictory their lives were called to be to the surrounding society. Certainly this is nothing new for those well-versed in the ancient world, but it is times and discoveries like this that can open the eyes of new generations.
Okay, I gave in. Now that feedburner feeds are free for everyone, I thought I’d give ’em a whirl. If you’re subscribed to the feed, I don’t know if it will automatically update or not, but the new feed URL is http://feeds.feedburner.com/UtterMuttering, or you can use the little icons on the side. I don’t know if this is a good idea or not, but I suppose I’ll soon find out. Let me know what you think.
Catholic Mom has a wonderful – no – fantastic – no – superlative – no … well, you read it and tell me what you think the adjective should be on this post. As I said in the combox, sentire cum ecclesia is a practice and principle not enough people bother to contemplate these days. And I must – must – say kudos to Bishop Morlino for his brave and proper response. It takes true backbone to say “I must decrease, but He must increase”. Now where’s that Bishops with Backbone image again?
You’ve got a way to keep me on your side
You give me cause for love that I can’t hide
For you I know I’d even try to turn the tide
Because you’re mine, I walk the line
Those are the some of the lyrics to Johnny Cash‘s famous song, “I Walk The Line“. Anyone who is remotely a fan of country music knows its a song about staying faithful. But, as I tend to do on this blog, I’m going to take that idea ninety degrees from where you think it’s going, and it’ll have nothing to do with music. You, wise reader, knew that already though, didn’t you?
I was sitting there yesterday in that in-between state, somewhere between undirected mental drivel and truly focused communicative prayer when a realization struck me. I’d been contemplating why I have problems with some habitual issues that seem to plague me every time I think I’m really making progress in the spiritual life. It was like a picture drawn in my mind, a picture of a line, and me afraid to cross it.
That line is one, I realized, that we all draw in life – “I will go this far, and no farther”. We draw them all the time – “I’ll eat this healthy but the rest is for granola-heads” or “I’ll exercise a little, but I’m just too busy to keep in good shape”. Or, “I think this is holy enough for me”. It’s that last one that gets us, because as soon as we draw that line we quickly kick dirt over it so we can pretend it’s not there. “God’s not calling me to be a saint, this is good enough” we say. But we know that line is there, and we know right where it is.
Very often, right after drawing that line our reaction is not to look across it to see how much further we can and are called to go, but to turn around and nervously applaud ourselves for how far we have come. “Certainly this is a good place,” we say, “God will understand – He made me.” Once we’ve convinced ourselves that we’re okie dokie here we move on and pretend we never drew the line. We’ll move around, back and forth, up and down, but always keeping a subconscious eye out for that line.
One day, maybe, if we’re lucky and haven’t been paying attention, we might discover that we’ve crossed that line quite by accident. If we’re really lucky, we just might find that we’re actually okay here. But almost invariably we will draw ourselves another line and repeat the whole process. Sometimes we’ll make up our mind to cross that line because we have a momentary glimpse of how arbitrary it is. More often than not though it’s like resistance running – you can only go so far and then that line you’ve attached yourself to will snap you back, often times on your duff in a cloud of dust.
So I’ve sat here most of my life now, sidled up against this line, seeing just where it does and doesn’t go. Strange, isn’t it, that I should inspect a line I drew myself? I’ve fooled myself for a long time that it’s an unbreakable line, that I’m just stuck where I am, that I didn’t draw that line, but I know better. I’ve always known better. I drew that line, I decided how far I’d go, how holy I’d be willing to be. I’ve even stepped across it from time to time, but I always left that line there. The line has almost come to be a sort of comfort to me, like having a built in excuse or a reason not to try too hard. It’s like being able to blame the training wheels when you crash your bike.
The time, I think, has come to take the training wheels off. To grab the eraser and get rid of that line. It’s not going to be easy, and it certainly won’t be comfortable, but you know what? The great story of the faith, an ineffable beauty of what we have been given is … we’re not doing this on our own. It’s time not just to walk this line, but to walk right across it and walk that line God has laid out for us instead of our own.
So the question, dear reader, is where is your line? And … would you like to borrow an eraser?
Okay, so it’s not Friday, but early warning gives you a chance to mull it over and make plans. Did you know that even though abstinence on Fridays is now optional, its correlated penitential requirement is not? Of course, if you’re reading this blog you probably do, but if not a quick refresher on two points. First, Catechism no. 1438:
The seasons and days of penance in the course of the liturgical year (Lent, and each Friday in memory of the death of the Lord) are intense moments of the Church’s penitential practice. These times are particularly appropriate for spiritual exercises, penitential liturgies, pilgrimages as signs of penance, voluntary self-denial such as fasting and almsgiving, and fraternal sharing (charitable and missionary works).
and then Canon 1250:
The penitential days and times in the universal Church are every Friday of the whole year and the season of Lent.
So all that tells you that you have to do something. But being the hard-headed people that we are we always want to know “why” before we’ll change anything. Fr. Dwight Longenecker has a very good post on this subject that should make you think pretty hard about taking up this venerable practice once again. Indeed, it reaffirmed my desire to make this more a part of my prayer routine.
Here are ten good reasons for fasting on Friday. First, it gives you a penitential day in the week. This penitential day reminds you that you are a sinner. When you fast you feel bad and this reminds you that it is because of your sins that you should feel bad. It’s very important for the spiritual life to have a day of penitence each week because it is very easy to forget we are sinners and fall into the complacent mind set that we are really ok people.
If you haven’t already seen it, Lumen Gentleman has put together a Summorum Pontificum contact database to help connect people would like to assist at the exraordinary form of the Mass with Catholic priests who are willing and able to pray the Mass in that form. At last check, New Hampshire had 14 people on the list, which is far better than I’d expected. I personally know of at least three more who have told me they’re interested in assisting at the extraordinary form but most likely don’t know about the database (yet). Unfortunately, as yet, there are no priests listed but perhaps that will change. Anyway, if you’re interested and haven’t signed up, now is better than later!
