Fr. Larry at Eyes of Faith has a very moving, very personal account of his experience with the Prodigal Son reading from today’s Mass. His conclusion speaks greater volumes than the collected works of others:
In a certain sense, I was conscious of having squandered my inheritance, just like the young man of the parable. Yet, just like the young man, I found that the Father’s patrimony still had enough left over for something grand and wonderful.
Now a full day after this (hopefully) last kiss of winter here in New England has whisked away, God has deigned to offer a sign that everything redounds to His glory. The roads are finally mostly cleared and the piles of dirty snow stand as scars in comparison to the eminent joy occurring in my back yard as I write.
After receiving around eight inches of snow and then being granted a fine layer of freezing rain to create a sugary coating, my two children discovered to many shrieks of glee that, lo and behold, they don’t need sleds to go sledding. The ice is just thick enough to support their weight, so long as they don’t go too fast. So down they go, not needing Dad to give the sled a shove, impelled by their own suddenly independent power, sliding and shrieking in glee.
Were it not for them, I would see this glistening coat as nothing but a nuisance and a danger. But in their eyes and out of their mouths come a glittering reminder that, indeed, all things redound to His glory.
Since I just mentioned Fr. Z’s site in my last post, it is only fitting that I should mention that he could use some help in any way you can manage it. Particularly after Sacramentum Caritatis was released, his site has been getting hammered and the folks doing his hosting have periodically shut off his site. This is bad for all of us. He started with the notification here, then continued the story here and here. The service he provides, aside from his day job, to the Church at large is certainly worth our recognition and help. If all you can do is pray, even that will help.
Words have meaning. Although it’s a truism and seemingly only rhetorical in value, it’s a very important statement. In the midst of a very incisive look at Sacramentum Caritatis, Fr. Z put it this way:
In this post-Christian, post-modern world Catholics must use stronger terms to communicate what we mean.
Although I dislike the term post-Christian as a descriptive, it makes the point. We certainly are not “post-Christian” in the sense that Christianity is gone, but it certainly does not have the breadth and depth of impact it once had. I am fully hopeful this is merely a navel gazing lull, but only time and God’s will shall tell.
But that’s not why I thought that point deserved emphasis. Since “words have meaning”, we “must use stronger terms to communicate what we mean.” That means we need to make sure to say “must” when we mean “must”, rather than saying “should”. And perhaps as importantly, we need to resurrect those two bogeyman words – sin and hell. Truth is truth, whether it’s comfortable or not.
Dan at Holy Whapping has an excellent intro into a discussion of where the Church may (or perhaps should) go from the beginning that has been offered in Sacramentum Caritatis. The part that caught my eye was:
The ultimate goal, I think, perhaps in 50 years or so, would be a new Missal that integrates the best of the 1962 and 1970 Missals, whose options would extend from something like a reverently celebrated Missa Normativa combining Latin and the vernacular, to something looking more like a Tridentine High Mass.
The funny (funny?) thing about it is that I just said the same thing to someone last night, although I don’t think it will take all of his suggested 50 years. I believe we will see a move to heavily update the Pauline Missal, to take into account some of the positive aspects of the more “liberal” movements such as the Charismatics – for situations where such is appropriate – but also re-introduce much of the ritual and verticality of the Pian Rite. I estimated we would see three basic types of Mass, akin to the two the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer offers:
That’s about as “liberal” as I would see it getting. I’d expect the first two options to probably slide closer in form to the third in design before things were settled, however. Perhaps the need for the more free-form Mass will dissipate as people come to appreciate in larger numbers the beauty and simplicity of the structures already offered by the Church.
One of the commenters suggested a great problem with the Mass today is that people simply don’t understand it. Utterly true. There needs to be movement both in liturgical reform and catechetical reform – the two hold each other up. Without a beautiful Mass prayerfully said, what impetus does one have to learn about it? And without learning about the Mass, how can one see the fullness of its symbolism and beauty? Save the Liturgy, Save the World as Fr. Z would say.
…and equally to catechesis. I’d say this story un-nerved me, but I had that reaction many of us are getting used to – equal parts horror and “why should I be surprised”? CathCon points us to a story from California Catholic Daily that goes into some of Fr. Richard Rohr’s actions at the California Religious Education Congress this year. Just a tidbit:
Rohr changed some of the prayers of the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Opening the preface, he prayed, “Father and Mother God….” Before the consecration of the host, he said, “before he was given up to death, a death he said ‘Yes’ to….” And before the consecration of the wine, Rohr prayed, “when supper was ended, he gave you thanks and praise, gave the cup to his beloved….” Following the consecration, Rohr said the Christ’s bloood “will be poured out for you, and for all, so you will know your sins are forgiven.” In praying for the departed, he referred to them as “especially your own beloved who are already with the Lord.”
Rohr prefaced the Our Father, by saying, “and now, knowing we are more one than we are many, though we come from different places and races, we all share the same Father-Mother God. We call upon our God, together, in the words that Jesus gave us: Our Father, Who art in Heaven…”
Now…I’ll be honest. Pope John Paul II did make mention that God has certain “feminine” characteristics, notably among them wisdom, as wisdom was considered a feminine trait in the ancient world. But this Father-Mother thing? Puh-lease. Jesus taught us to call God our Father repeatedly and to willy-nilly insert and assert a duality of Father-Mother at best serves only to confuse those who don’t understand the subtlety of the fact that God in fact is neither male nor female but precedes and supersedes both. The fact this man’s teachings have not been suppressed and in fact are found in popular RCIA material is absolutely astounding.
Should I even go into the impropriety of changing the prayers of the Mass? No, I didn’t think I had to. But how the Mass started should give you an idea right away that something was wrong: “Rohr, making no sign of the cross as he began the liturgy…” If your theology, particularly your eucharistic theology, is not surrounded by and surrounding the sign of the cross, you’re a short step from missing the boat entirely. Pray for this man, and for those who had to put up with this, and for those who didn’t even know anything was wrong.
And, no, I’m not even going to go into the whole bongo drums thing. Not. Not. Not. *twitch*
Fr. Dwight Longenecker posted a reflection on a just-completed Forty Hours devotion at his church. The juxtaposition of the simplicity of the post with the all-encompassing awe felt mirrors that of the observance itself. I was honestly moved just reading it.
To the outsider I know this seems arcane, irrelevant and difficult to understand. To many Catholics it seems the same. They wonder why worship cannot be more ‘relevant’ and more easy to understand. Perhaps they wonder why the worship cannot be more joyful, more upbeat and more ‘with it’. I cannot explain.
The day has finally arrived – the Pope’s Apostolic Exhortation from the Synod on the Eucharist is here. I’ve already started to read it, but that pesky thing called work is keeping me from finishing it until (hopefully) later today.
Fr. Fox has done a nice, albeit very brief, overview of it for us. One thing I noticed in my brief scan through this morning was that the Pope re-affirmed the positive value (as opposed to the negative obligation, if you will) of priestly celibacy. That he tied those two issues together may give us a hint that this document has many layers. We will have to see…
Update: Pertinacious Papist has his review here. I’ll be listing the reviews I see as I come across them.
ESPN ran a nice feel-good story about a kid who everyone used to consider a prime example of a kid who bought into the lie that is offered to almost everyone who sees too much success too early, and too easy. Josh Hamilton was once a “can’t-miss” prospect, someone who seemed to have an unbounded ceiling. Then he found drugs and lost nearly everything – his job, his wife and baby, almost even the one last person (his grandmother, naturally) who would try to help him.
For his sake, and indeed for ours, I hope his new trajectory takes hold and he can become one of those positive stories of people who sank to the depths and was raised up and then made it their mission to help keep others from following their path. Even if he never hits another 500 foot home run, if he stays clean and helps others to do the same, the greater part of the story will be his. He’s as deserving of our prayers as anyone else.
From CWN:
San Salvador, Mar. 12, 2007 (CWNews.com) – Father Jon Sobrino, an influential exponent of liberation theology, has been silenced by the Vatican, a Salvadoran archbishop has revealed./p>
Confirming a report that had first appeared in the Spanish newspaper El Mundo last week (and relayed by CWN on March 9), Archbishop Fernando Saenz Lacalle of San Salvador told reporters that Father Sobrino has been barred from teaching at any Catholic university or publishing his theological works.
The Jesuit scholar– who was born in Spain, but rose to prominence as a liberation-theology advocate in El Salvador, where he taught at the University of Central America– was disciplined by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for his failure to affirm that Jesus Christ is divine.
Speaking on Sunday, March 12, after celebrating Mass in the cathedral at San Salvador, Archbishop Saenz said that the Vatican had been in dialogue with Father Sobrino for several years, warning the Jesuit theologian about the problems in his approach. Ultimately, he said, when Sobrino declined to revise his work, the Vatican concluded that his thoughts were incapable with Church teaching.
Informed sources say that the Vatican will announce the disciplinary measures later this week. Father Sobrino has declined to comment.
(Note: I believe they meant “incompatible” with Church teaching, but I left it as stated in the article.)
This is a very sad day for anyone in the Church. Whenever one of her sons has strayed it is a cause for distress for all of us. Hopefully this action will cause Fr. Sobrino to reconsider his writings and become again a voice for the totality of truth.
