CONSTITUTION
ON THE SACRED LITURGY SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM SOLEMNLY PROMULGATED BY HIS HOLINESS POPE PAUL VI ON DECEMBER 4, 1963 103. In celebrating this annual cycle of Christ's mysteries, holy Church honors with especial love the Blessed Mary, Mother of God, who is joined by an inseparable bond to the saving work of her Son. In her the Church holds up and admires the most excellent fruit of the redemption, and joyfully contemplates, as in a faultless image, that which she herself desires and hopes wholly to be. The treatment of Mary in the Church’s liturgical life leads a series of teachings on the calendar of feasts, ahead of directives on the primacy of Sunday as the Church’s day of worship and the centrality of the Lenten/Easter mysteries. Discussing the feasts of Mary at this point in the document seems somewhat misplaced. In truth, the place of Mary in the full hierarchy of salvation creeds was a matter of some debate prior to and particularly during the Council. The question of what to write about Mary, and where to place it, extended over several sessions and several documents. SC’s para. 103 is inserted here a bit awkwardly given that the Council fathers had not yet voted on the bigger question of Mary’s role in the Church in the future three sessions. It would not be until 1964 that a full treatment of Mary’s role in salvation would be promulgated, in the “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church” (Lumen Gentium) Vatican II in general provides a good example of the nature of the Church. Given the commission of Jesus to preach the Gospel to the whole world [Matthew 28: 18-20], the Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, has enriched and preserved the full essential truths of God’s deliverance in an orderly way, beginning with the primitive creeds of the post-New Testament era, such as Peter’s proclamation to Cornelius [Acts 10: 28-47], and continuing through the formation of the [Council of] Nicene Creed in 325 A.D. and additional statements of universal belief up to 1950, when Pope Pius XII declared the Assumption of the Virgin Mary to be an article of faith to be held by all Catholics. When John XXIII declared his intention in 1959 to invoke an ecumenical or worldwide council [Eastern and Western Catholics] in 1962, his intention was not to expand the body of doctrines already in place, but to initiate a reform of the Church after two world wars and rapid changes breaking out around the world. The challenges of a council of this nature are hard to summarize: a body of 2500 bishops from around the world, each with his own vision of what future reform might look like. For some, the future looked rosy and utopian with countless possibilities to engage modern society; for others, the future was a purified version of the Council of Trent [1563], a hardening of boundaries against Protestant errors and modern ways. I chuckled when I read the New York Cardinal Francis Spellman’s remark about the changes coming forth from Vatican II, “they’ll never get past the Statue of Liberty.” [For an excellent one volume description of the workings of the Council, may I recommend What Happened at Vatican II [2008] by Father John O’Malley.] The teachings of creeds, councils, and infallible statements of popes represent the rational or organized structure of the teaching Church. But equally powerful in shaping the Church’s ongoing identity is the force of piety, the devotional faith and practices of baptized Catholics who people the liturgical and the popular grassroots expressions of prayer and practice. [The seventeenth-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal was not far from the mark when he famously said, “The heart has reasons that reason knows nothing about.”] Reason and affect have lived side by side in the Church from earliest times, and perhaps nowhere more passionately than in the person and meaning of the Virgin Mary. As O’Malley [pp. 188-189] and many other historians of the Council observe, the era between the Council of Trent of Reformation days and the eve of Vatican II was a time of intense devotion to the Virgin Mary. This is not surprising; the post-Tridentine era was a time of strict reform, of doctrinal and legal precision. One of the major controversies of the time was the appropriate degree of strictness in the confessional, the rigorous Jesuits contending with the more benign St. Alphonsus Ligouri and the Redemptorists.] While the upper echelons of the Church contended with Protestants and later such anti-Roman tendencies as the Enlightenment, nationalism, democracy, and totalitarianism, the typical Catholic was more likely to seek the warm and comforting devotion to Mary, whose maternal connection to Jesus and her representations in art presented the Savior as not only approachable, but as eminently merciful. Devotion to Mary represents a remarkable surge of grassroots faith, for love of Mary far exceeds her emphasis in the New Testament. St. Paul devotes all of four words to her, when he describes Jesus as “born of a woman” [Galatians 4:4]. The first Gospel reference—and the first mention of Mary’s name--is found in Mark, an incident in Jesus’ adulthood, a text that probably confused as much as enlightened many readers. Matthew’s Gospel presents an infancy narrative of Mary’s birthing of Jesus, but all the important dialogue is conducted between the angel and Joseph. Mary does not utter a word in Matthew’s text; her purpose in this Gospel is the establishment of Jesus’ Jewish heritage. It is in Luke’s and John’s Gospels that Mary finds her voice, her persona, and her role in the Church. It is St. Luke who presents the full Christmas panorama we carry around in our heads, where the Archangel Gabriel makes multiple interventions, to Zachary in the Temple, and then later to Mary herself. Mary engages Gabriel in a lively exchange about how the Lord’s will is to be established through her agency before providing her full assent to the divine will. Although the overall intent of Luke’s Christmas narrative is the establishment of Jesus united with the Holy Spirit, it cannot be denied that the author has gone to great lengths to portray Mary as an active and willing agent in the divine mystery of Redemption. For this reason, the Church has walked a careful line between defining Mary as a co-savior, so to speak, and protecting the sovereignty and plan of God. By the time of Vatican II there were about twenty feasts in the Church calendar devoted to Mary, and the sentiment to elevate Mary’s role in liturgy and doctrine was great. If my memory is correct, there were 29 proposals for new Marian feasts from a variety of Council fathers, and strong support for another Marian doctrine. The Assumption had been declared in 1950. In the throes of the Cold War, devotion to Mary, particularly the rosary, was among the most cherished practices in Catholic piety. [Father Patrick Peyton, the twentieth century “Rosary Priest,” coordinated his rosary rallies with the CIA in Latin America to ward off communist insurrections.] The Council was divided between bishops looking for expansion of official Marian practice, on the one hand, and greater emphasis on Scripture, Liturgy, reform, and Ecumenism on the other. [Protestants were very skittish about Marian doctrines with minimal biblical support, such as the Assumption of Mary into heaven.] Given this stalemate, the Council had to determine whether to issue a full constitution on Mary in the model of Sacrosanctum Concilium, or to place her treatment within an existing constitution, and if so, which one. A vote was called for to determine the support for a full constitution on Mary in the Council declarations. Those favoring a stand-alone Marian constitution lost by a razor thin margin, 1114–1074. I cannot recall a closer vote during the Council. The hesitation to devote a doctrinal declaration on Mary reflects the concern of the majority that too much emphasis upon Mary—theologically speaking—might confuse her role in the plan of salvation with that of Jesus himself. [There are theologians and even popes who in good faith have promoted the idea of a new doctrine, Mary the mediatrix or distributor of all graces, but this is overreach.] The Council Fathers returned to the Scriptures to treat of Mary in the decree Lumen Gentium, or “The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church” proclaimed on November 21, 1964, during the third session. LG is the teaching on the structure and purpose of the Church itself, the theological science of “ecclesiology.” The term “Mother of the Church” had been applied devotionally to Mary as early as St. Augustine in the fifth century. However, the term “Mother of the Church” still needed a doctrinal basis in Scripture and Tradition, and closer studies of John’s Gospel would influence the articulation of Mary’s full role in the Church. Consider the final moments of Jesus’ life as narrated [uniquely] by the evangelist John. As Jesus is dying on the cross, his mother, the disciple whom he loved, and several other women including Mary Magdalene, are standing beneath him. Jesus says to his mother, “behold your son” and to the beloved disciple “behold your mother.” Then, in the NABRE translation, “And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit.” After his death, a soldier lances his side and a cascade of blood and water flowed forth. Until the last century Biblical scholars have tended to take this account from John with a literal eye. In more recent times more attention has been paid to the teaching John hoped to convey in his singular account. Although we do not know for certain if the “beloved disciple” is the Apostle John, he certainly would become a critical leader of the infant Church. Jesus, on the cross, identifies his mother as the mother of this revered disciple and early leader of the church that would follow. Jesus has gathered and collected the nucleus of his church, and his gifts to them would continue from the cross. The most accurate translations of the Bible indicate that at the moment of his death, Jesus “handed over the spirit.” The term “the spirit” is much too concrete to be taken metaphorically. Jesus did not “give up the ghost.” Rather, he actively handed over the [S]pirit. This is a Pentecost moment; the deed [Jesus’ passion] is done, his church is constituted, his leaders are confirmed by the Spirit, and they have one more gift to receive. A soldier lances the side of the deceased Christ, and water and blood splash out on those under the cross. Even the earliest Church scholars drew a connection between water and blood and the sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist. In John’s Christology, the Spirit-filled Church has been founded, with Mary as its mother. The Council successfully married the enormous pious appeal of Mary to the doctrinal structure of the Church. Father Joseph Ratzinger, a theological peritus or expert at Vatican II before his election to the papacy as Benedict XVI, describes the Council’s embrace of Mary as Mother of the Church far better than me: Pope Benedict XVI addresses the issue, why Roman Catholic Mariology is related to ecclesiology, the teaching about the Church. On first sight, he argues, it may seem accidental, that the Council moved Mariology into ecclesiology. This relation helps to understand what "Church" really is. The theologian Hugo Rahner showed that Mariology was originally ecclesiology. The Church is like Mary. The Church is virgin and mother, she is immaculate and carries the burdens of history. She suffers and she is assumed into heaven. Slowly she learns that Mary is her mirror, that she is a person in Mary. Mary on the other hand is not an isolated individual, who rests in herself. She is carrying the mystery of the Church. I should add here that in 2019 Pope Francis instituted the feast of Mary, Mother of the Church, into the Church’s calendar of feasts, to be celebrated, fittingly enough, on the Monday after Pentecost Sunday every year.
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CONSTITUTION
ON THE SACRED LITURGY SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM SOLEMNLY PROMULGATED BY HIS HOLINESS POPE PAUL VI ON DECEMBER 4, 1963 102. Holy Mother Church is conscious that she must celebrate the saving work of her divine Spouse by devoutly recalling it on certain days throughout the course of the year. Every week, on the day which she has called the Lord's day, she keeps the memory of the Lord's resurrection, which she also celebrates once in the year, together with His blessed passion, in the most solemn festival of Easter. Within the cycle of a year, moreover, she unfolds the whole mystery of Christ, from the incarnation and birth until the ascension, the day of Pentecost, and the expectation of blessed hope and of the coming of the Lord. Recalling thus the mysteries of redemption, the Church opens to the faithful the riches of her Lord's powers and merits, so that these are in some way made present for all time, and the faithful are enabled to lay hold upon them and become filled with saving grace. When I drive through the country off the interstates, I pass a number of Protestant or nondenominational churches with the following Sunday’s biblical text reference and the sermon topic. The choice of text and sermon topic is a local one except in the mainstream Protestant Churches, such as the Lutheran Church, which observes a fixed calendar of seasons, readings, and feasts remarkably like the Roman Catholic Calendar. Early in the ministry I wondered what it would be like to essentially start from scratch every Sunday in terms of planning the worship agenda. But I quickly realized that Catholic tradition has long envisioned itself as a universal community, where all its members pray together at specific times [see last post below] and celebrate its greatest mysteries and beloved saints collectively. Paragraph 102 speaks of an annual cycle which celebrates the “whole mystery of Christ.” In church shorthand we refer to this annual cycle as “the Church year” or the “Liturgical cycle.” The specifics of the cycle are determined by the Vatican and made available to local churches several years in advance, though there is little change from year to year. Local dioceses or national conferences of bishops are granted authority to make some changes—for example, there are a handful of dioceses in the U.S. which celebrate the Feast of the Ascension on Thursday of the sixth week of Easter, or 40 days after Easter according to the narratives of St. Luke. Most dioceses now observe the Ascension on the seventh Sunday of Easter, a change promoted over the past several decades possibly because of poor attendance at weekday feasts. The Church calendar is not synonymous with the civil calendar; they begin about a month apart. The Liturgical Year begins late in November with the First Sunday of Advent, while the civil calendar begins in the Western world on January 1. The civil year dating is related very roughly to astronomy, with the shortest day of the year being December 20 or 21. The Christian cycle of feasts is far more complicated insofar as calculating a beginning and an end. Adolf Adam’s The Liturgical Year [1981] provides a decent summary of how the Church came to develop a collective consciousness of a liturgical year with theological overtones. I am doing a lot of injustice to the laborious thought that went into this process. Civilly, we live today under Julius Caesar’s calendar, though it is far from perfect and patch worked with correctives [e.g., leap year]. The idea of a calendar year with religious significance—a cycle of the saving incarnation, resurrection, and second coming of Christ—comes relatively late in history. Paragraph 102 (2) above embodies the modern appreciation of the “saving year,” that in the time of one revolution of the earth around the sun a believer would have experienced the full saving history of God’s plan. When the Church came to solidify its annual cycle of feasts, it began, appropriately enough, with the observance of the two principle mysteries of the faith, the Incarnation and the Redemption, embodied in the liturgies of Christmas and Easter. To this day no one knows the exact date of Christmas. It can be determined that the City of Rome celebrated this feast in 336 A.D. from surviving documents. There are multiple theories as to why the feast is celebrated on December 25. The first is the existing Roman observance of a pagan feast devoted to the “Unconquered Sun-God” established by the Roman emperor Aurelian in 274 on the day of the winter solstice, December 25. [Aurelian, like all his countrymen, was at least four days off in his calculations of the true astronomical solstice.] Christians at the time saw an opportunity to detract from the festivities of this “Sun-God” by creating a feast to honor the birth of the Christ, the light of the world, on the darkest day of the year, the winter solstice. [Just like their pagan counterparts, Christians also missed the solstice by four or five days.] A curious footnote: when the feast of Christmas was established on December 25, it usurped another feast on the same day, that of the virgin-martyr Anastasia. In the Roman missal prior to 1970, the dawn Christmas Mass included a memorial to Anastasia. The dating of Easter was somewhat more complicated. St. Paul’s writing [1 Corinthians 5: 7-8] speaks of the Resurrection as the new Passover, and the custom developed of celebrating Easter on Jewish Passover, using the Jewish formula of setting Passover as the first sabbath after the first full moon of spring, using the astronomical spring equinox as the starting point. The Christian Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. established this formula for the dating of Easter, by which the feast might fall between March 22 and April 25. As the dates of Christmas [or the Epiphany in the Eastern Churches] and Easter became established as the two pillar feasts of the Church, it was possible to think in terms of the Church year as a unified drama of God’s work, from creation to redemption to glorious ending. There are parallels in the fashion that the Church celebrates Incarnation and Redemption. Both Christmas and Easter are preceded by seasonal periods of penance, Advent and Lent respectively, though the length and format of each season took centuries to evolve. Both feasts have a solid week or octave of solemnity and a broader season of celebration. Christmas Season extends from Vespers of December 24 through the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord [January 13] The Easter Season extends forty days till the Feast of the Ascension, and another ten through Pentecost Sunday. Prior to 1970, the Easter Season ended on Trinity Sunday, the week If you add up the weeks of the Christmas and Easter Seasons, however, they total less than half of the liturgical year. This was true in both the calendar of the Council of Trent [1545-1563] and the Vatican II reformed calendar of Paul VI in 1970. The old calendar enumerated the post-Christmas Sundays as Sundays after the Epiphany, a period determined by how early Lent started. The old calendar enumerated the Sundays after the Easter Season as Sundays after Pentecost, of which there might be as many as 28. Green vestments symbolize these two “after” seasons. For reasons not entirely clear, the editors of the 1970 or present-day calendar opted to eliminate the names “after Epiphany” or “after Pentecost” in favor of a straight numerical system. Thus, the Sundays of the Church year without an identifiable feast are numbered 1,2,3, etc. or “The Third Sunday in Ordinary Time,” for example. Admittedly, the identity of the Ordinary Time season is neither theologically nor poetically inspiring. “Ordinary Time” when translated from the Latin means “numbered time,” from the Latin ordo or number. And while pastors and catechists have gamely tried to pump some juice into this mundane “Ordinary Time” nomenclature, my own sense is that the older terminology might have served the Church better. In this post we have sketched out the general idea of the liturgical calendar. My sense is that many Catholics are not aware of this calendar of salvation, even in parishes where liturgical wall and desk calendars are given away free. A good daily site to keep up on the feasts and the day’s Mass readings is the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ site with the daily info. One important area we have not covered are the “fixed feasts” such as the Immaculate Conception [December 8], Sts. Peter and Paul [June 29], St. Agnes [January 21], which outnumber the Sunday observances. The history and placement of these feasts, and our conscious observance of them can serve as a boost to observance and the inspiration of prayer. We will look at these feasts in the next post on this stream. CONSTITUTION
ON THE SACRED LITURGY SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM SOLEMNLY PROMULGATED BY HIS HOLINESS POPE PAUL VI ON DECEMBER 4, 1963 [83] …For [Jesus] continues His priestly work through the agency of His Church, which is ceaselessly engaged in praising the Lord and interceding for the salvation of the whole world. She does this, not only by celebrating the eucharist, but also in other ways, especially by praying the divine office. 84. By tradition going back to early Christian times, the divine office is devised so that the whole course of the day and night is made holy by the praises of God. Therefore, when this wonderful song of praise is rightly performed by priests and others who are deputed for this purpose by the Church's ordinance, or by the faithful praying together with the priest in the approved form, then it is truly the voice of the bride addressed to her bridegroom; It is the very prayer which Christ Himself, together with His body, addresses to the Father. 100. Pastors of souls should see to it that the chief hours, especially Vespers, are celebrated in common in church on Sundays and the more solemn feasts. And the laity, too, are encouraged to recite the divine office, either with the priests, or among themselves, or even individually. If your New Year’s resolutions included improving your daily regimen of prayer, you may be considering the Liturgy of the Hours, the official daily prayer of the Church. Sacrosanctum Concilium devoted close to twenty paragraphs of explanation, of which I listed three points for introductory purposes here. The SC section on the Divine Office [nowadays The Liturgy of the Hours] is an example of a teaching which has not been fully unpacked nearly sixty years later as well as the gulf between clerical and lay structured prayer style. The paragraphs 83-102 describe the reform of the official observance of the Church’s daily prayer. The Divine Office [Liturgy of the Hours] is the round-the-clock schedule of daily prayer built around the Psalms, composed and arranged by the Church and sung and/or recited by communities of monks. religious orders and communities, and clerics in major sacramental orders: diaconate, presbyterate [priests], and bishops. It is not known how and when the practice of a prayer routine developed in the early Church. There is a hint of a routine in Mark 15:25 and in Mark 15:33-34, where the evangelist gives the time of the crucifixion as 9 AM, with significant events at 12 PM and 3 PM. The symmetry of this chronology has led some scholars to wonder if the times correspond to devotional services in use in St. Mark’s time on Good Friday and perhaps other days, forty years after the death of Christ. [“The Great Intercessions” of the contemporary Good Friday rite may be related to the Prayer of the Faithful in today’s Mass.] Another consideration from the era before Mark is the probability that Jewish Christians would have followed temple worship and timed observances, along with the celebration of a sunrise Eucharist on Sunday. The establishment of the monastic life by St. Benedict [480-547 A.D.] and the composition of a monastic rule established a template for abbey living, As Wikipedia puts it, “Following the golden rule of Ora et Labora - pray and work, the monks each day devoted eight hours to prayer, eight hours to sleep, and eight hours to manual work, sacred reading and/or works of charity.” The design of the monks’ routine of prayer—a balance of hymns, psalms, readings, and intercessory prayer—is a work of true historical genius that survives in general form to this day, though it has been renewed and revised many times and was in need of attention at Vatican II. The Vatican II reform of the Divine Office was of considerable interest to clerics and religious, as these cohorts were bound to pray it [or “read” the office as some would say]. Monks in monasteries and cloistered orders] sang the Office in common. Everyone obligated to the office prayed in Latin. A lay person could go through an entire life and never see a text. Is the Liturgy of the Hours a format that we can all use—in part, at least--in unity with Catholics around the world praying the same prayers? Or can the Hours bring a parish or faith community together, or be used profitably by an individual? At the time of Vatican II [1962-1965] priests themselves were having problems meeting their obligations to pray the Divine Office meaningfully. For one thing, the Divine Office—a four-volume set called “the breviary” --is hefty. [See the present-day breviary here on Amazon.] In 1962 the hours or prayer sessions included Matins [now Office of Readings], Lauds [now Morning Prayer], Prime, Tierce, Sext, Vespers [now Evening Prayer] and Compline or night prayer. These prayer units were expected to be prayed in Latin, and even the Council did not make translation mandatory. The parish priest did not have to say the entire day’s office, as monks did, but “reading one’s breviary” took a good hunk of time out of a busy pastor’s day. It was not that uncommon for a priest to park his car under a streetlight and squeeze in all his required prayers before midnight. My recollection of respected priests is their approach to the breviary as a sacred duty; they drew their inspiration not so much from those Latin texts as from the rosary, Eucharistic adoration, and other popular devotions of the heart. The divine office was never a part of a parish’s life. Time and space do not permit a full analysis of the Vatican II discussion of the divine office; Sacrosanctum Concilium uses the lingo of the day, “divine office” and/or “breviary.” The term Liturgy of the Hours would come later in the reform. But we can gather some of the principals of the reform from the above citations. First, although the celebration of the Eucharist is the preeminent prayer of the Church, the Council fathers did not view the Eucharist as the only time the Church prayed together. As we would say today, they hoped for more prayerful expression than one hour per week. Second, para. 84 speaks of a unity of clerics and even faithful in offering an endless prayer of praise. Para. 101 adds the instruction that parishes celebrate public Vespers or Evening prayer on Sundays and solemnities. The Council, in other paragraphs not cited in this post, eased the obligation of priests to pray all the hours. Morning and Evening Prayer [Lauds and Vespers] were to be highlighted. And, there is greater exposure to Scripture reading and the writings of the Church Fathers in today’s revised version. Generally speaking, though, the reform has not impacted the Church to the degree that the Council hoped. The Liturgy of the Hours is a complicated style of prayer. It was and is written for communities of monks, religious, and clerics, all of whom studied this style as part of religious formation and seminary training. My wife and I pray some of the hours, but we are both veterans of religious orders required to common recitation, having received that training when we took our religious habits many years ago. I began praying the Hours in novitiate in 1968 when English translations began to appear. But when I went to the major seminary in 1969, I found that the obligation of the Hours consisted of Morning Prayer and Vespers and could be substituted for, and we were encouraged to create our own versions of prayer services for group use as part of our liturgical training. I may be wrong, but my sense is that diocesan clergy by and large are faithful to Morning Prayer and Vespers, along with other devotions and spiritual reading. What about laity? As a pastor and catechetical instructor, I encouraged my students to consider the Liturgy of the Hours [a daily portion] for the purpose of unity within the Church and a heightened sense of the liturgical calendar. Today the Hours are available on multiple internet platforms, [we use ibreviary] which at least lay out the order of the service in a linear fashion. The book versions carry five ribbons as standard gear! May I borrow this observation of an Amazon reviewer of the four-volume print set of the Hours: In actual practice, one universally recognized problem is that there is no single authoritative guide easily teaching how to properly "use" the books in prayer, and the "instructions" such as they are, are not really clear and may be confusing in explaining the steps in how to pray the various Offices, holy days and seasons. One valuable tool I highly recommend, is the short and very well-written book "The Everyday Catholic's Guide to The Liturgy of the Hours " by Daria Sockey, and a visit to her very helpful blog. Internet based sites with helpful guides are also very available. All prayer requires effort, and more so here in this highly structured method of prayer. It's important to take your time to learn the setup of the book, the form of the Offices and the flow of the weekly and liturgical calendars. When beginning to pray with these resources, take it slow and easy, immersing yourself a little deeper into the discipline of prayer as you grow comfortable with each Office and what it holds. Do not do too much, or you will grow in frustration and work against progress in your prayer. This is a rich meal - take small bites and savor each one. One benefit as laity joining the raising of this prayer on behalf of the entire Church, is that we are not required to follow a certain form but we can adapt to our own circumstance and pray as we can, as little or as much as we will. This can help us to grow slowly and confidently in our prayer and method, expanding our reach as our need to grow closer to the Lord increases. CONSTITUTION
ON THE SACRED LITURGY SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM SOLEMNLY PROMULGATED BY HIS HOLINESS POPE PAUL VI ON DECEMBER 4, 1963 81. The rite for the burial of the dead should express more clearly the paschal character of Christian death and should correspond more closely to the circumstances and traditions found in various regions. This holds good also for the liturgical color to be used. Many of the paragraphs in Sacrosanctum Concilium call for revisions of the rites of official guidebooks for all the sacraments and public prayer functions of the Church. To be clear, the Vatican II Council Fathers were not engaged in simply rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic or driven to try new things out of boredom. Focusing on para. 81 on Christian funerals, the fathers wished to incorporate the best current theological and liturgical thinking into the post-Council ceremonies surrounding the death of a human being, Curiously, para. 81 does not go out of its way to restrict these reformed rites to Catholics or Christians only. To do their work properly, the bishops [or their periti or experts at the Council] reviewed the “economy of salvation,” the theological construct which incorporates how God delivers us from our sins and leads us to eternal life. The idea that God has a saving will is the backbone of Christian life; the details over such matters as “temporal punishment for sins” or preparation for meeting God, developed through history into a state called Purgatory. [I will return to present day theological discussion of hell in a later post, as the existence of hell does raise questions about God’s saving intent in the minds of some.] The economy of salvation that probably all of us absorbed in our Catholic upbringing looks something like this. All humans were born into this world having inherited the first sin of Adam and Eve. One can, I believe, interpret this teaching to mean that in an imperfect world, sin is an inevitability. While Baptism washed away or absolved original sin, it did not remove our tendency to sin, and thus, all of us [save the Virgin Mary, through divine intervention] have fallen into post-Baptism sin. In terms of God’s formal forgiveness exercised through the Church, the Sacrament of Penance absolves us of the sins that would destroy our relationship with God, thus sparing us post-death eternal condemnation. Since the earliest days of the Church, whatever form the Sacrament of Penance has taken, there would always be included the imposition of satisfaction to remit the temporal punishment of one’s sins. Those in 12 Step programs such as AA are already familiar with the process of “making amends” to those hurt by one’s conduct while under the influence. Hence the twentieth century move to refer to confession as the “Sacrament of Reconciliation.: While God’s mercy exceeds all human reasoning, there is no such thing as “cheap grace” or easy forgiveness. A true sin is a painful and scandalous breech of human fraternity, and in the confines of the Christian faith, a serious rending of the Body of Christ. We know the “term of restitution” in confession as receiving a “penance” after absolution, and I think we know in our hearts that the assignation of three “Hail Mary’s” is, at best, a rather paltry substitute for the serious things we have done or failed to do. There are two locations one may make serious reparation after penitential forgiveness: during one’s lifetime, or after death, per Church teaching. The postmortem reparation occurs in a state called Purgatory. The Catholic funeral, then, must acknowledge the true state of the deceased as one “on the way.” It is no accident that deathbed communion is called viaticum or “food for the road.” It is impossible to know the details of Purgatory, but the Church teaching has always made sense to me throughout my life. If heaven is beholding the perfect God, I am in no way prepared for that. How I am readied for that, how I disengage from a mediocre [or worse] following of Christ to behold him face to face, I have some ideas but no roadmap; perhaps that remains mystery until the time of death. But the tradition of praying for the newly deceased at this time and state of transition reaches back to pre-Christian times, the Hebrew Scriptures 2 Maccabees, to be precise. Catholicism has always prayed for its dead, but it did not define Purgatory until the Middle Ages. For interested readers on the subject, see The Birth of Purgatory [1986] by Jacques Goff. While the reality of a post-mortem state of being was established centuries ago, no official teaching exists describing what Purgatory is like. The Catechism of the Catholic Church takes a safe approach in defining Purgatory: [1030] “All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.” But the classic enduring pictures of Purgatory have come down to us from the late medieval poet Dante Alighieri [1265-1321], whose epic poem The Divine Comedy is considered one of the greatest works of Italian literature. [Wikipedia summarizes his treatment of Purgatory quite well.] It is also a remarkably insightful analysis of the human mind; Dante’s observations on intent and virtue prefigure the twentieth century theological theory of “fundamental option” toward sin or toward virtue. Dante depicts Purgatory as a mountain, and he is escorted up the mountain by the Latin poet Virgil. The Purgatorial mountain is populated by those in afterlife, beginning at the bottom with repentant excommunicates and progressing upward toward the brightly lit summit of God’s grace. In Dante’s narrative, Purgatory is a physically grueling endurance, a prolonged exercise in mountain climbing, if you will. Other preachers and writers have described Purgatory as a slightly milder version of hell fire. I was told by one teacher that Purgatory is just like hell, except that you know you’re getting out. But Dante mixes the physical with the psychological pain, and here we get closer to an explanation that resonates with twenty-first century experience. My sense is that personal judgment, whenever and however this event takes place, is a vision of how God sees us. Judgment is the moment when we see what we might have been [lost virtue] and how we really are [sinners of omission and commission.] Purgatory may be that moment of excruciating reality and the process of coming to grips with having neglected a savior who died for us. Perhaps Purgatory is our introduction to Jesus Christ, whom we have busily neglected in our earthly sojourn. One does not hear this kind of language during funeral liturgies today, for the same reasons so few people go to confession. The loss of a sense of sin has altered our vision of Jesus from necessary eternal savior to Rotary Club lunch buddy. My experience over the years—and I performed more funerals than I can reckon—is that, in the minds of the congregants, alongside a natural grief, the funeral is a celebration of the deceased’s already being with Jesus. [“Uncle Harvey’s up there now tearing up the golf courses in heaven.”] In one sense of course, this is true, so long as we remember that the deceased is in via or on the way to full union with Christ and needs our prayers, particularly the celebration of the funeral Mass, more than the standard eulogies, which are better suited in a non-liturgical setting like a post-funeral luncheon.] Vatican II attempted to marry the seriousness of death with the joyful assurance that the Resurrection of Jesus has opened the gates to all. But when, after the Council, these rites were put to paper, there was ambivalence about striking the balance between penance and glory. The British Catholic guidelines for funerals reflect this ambivalence in recommending the vestment colors for funeral Masses: “The liturgical colour chosen for funerals should express Christian hope in the light of the paschal mystery, but without being offensive to human grief. White expresses the hope of Easter, the fulfilment of baptism, and the wedding garment necessary for the kingdom. Violet recalls the eschatological expectation of Advent and the Lenten preparation for the paschal mystery. Black is used as a token of mourning, but, in our society, increasingly without the associations of Christian hope. The choice should be made in the light of local custom and perceptions, and in consultation with the family and community.” CONSTITUTION
ON THE SACRED LITURGY SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM SOLEMNLY PROMULGATED BY HIS HOLINESS POPE PAUL VI ON DECEMBER 4, 1963 80. The rite for the consecration of virgins at present found in the Roman Pontifical is to be revised. Moreover, a rite of religious profession and renewal of vows shall be drawn up in order to achieve greater unity, sobriety, and dignity. Apart from exceptions in particular law, this rite should be adopted by those who make their profession or renewal of vows within the Mass. Religious profession should preferably be made within the Mass. Sacrosanctum Concilium, the first declaration to come forth from Vatican II, covers every aspect of Church worship. Much of what it treats is quite familiar—the sacraments, for example—but other aspects of public worship were much more obscure, and in our case at hand remain so today. Para. 80 treats of the “consecration of virgins.” Virtually unknown to most Catholics today, the idea of lay virginity takes its roots from the New Testament and exists to this day, though in minute numbers. Every few years a diocesan Catholic paper will carry a picture of a woman professing a vow of perpetual virginity to the local bishop. The number of vowed perpetual virgins around the world, as of July 2018, is about 5000, per the Catholic news service Crux in 2018. There are but 3200 dioceses on the planet, so you need not be embarrassed if you know nothing of what I’m talking about. It may be more likely that one might encounter a different form of lay dedication, an “associate” of an existing religious order, a person who embraces the ideals of a religious tradition such as the Cistercian [Trappists], Franciscan, Dominican, or Jesuit, etc., while living in the everyday world. “The Third Order of St. Francis” [today referred to as the Secular Franciscan Order] is a good example, as a worldwide structured organization of lay men and women who meet periodically for prayer, instruction in the Franciscan tradition, and participation, if possible, in the Franciscan works of charity to the poor, particularly in large cities. Members live in the spirit of poverty, chastity, and obedience to the best of their ability and make solemn promises to do so, but these promises are not, canonically speaking, vows. [A canonical vow, those taken by full members of religious orders, require a dispensation from Rome for release from the commitment, a process called ‘exclaustration.”] Note that one of the promises or vows is to chastity, as distinguished from virginity. Associates of religious orders continue a conjugal life if married. In recent years the concept of “associate” has taken on a new flavor as a recruiting instrument for religious orders, particularly of women religious. The idea here is the development of opportunities for experimentation in the lifestyle of the institute or order. For example, South Carolina’s Mepkin Abbey, where Margaret and I retreat every year, has developed structured programming of lived experience for those considering a vowed Trappist life. An associate with no intention of joining the order is welcomed to make annual or more frequent retreats, as well as to meet and pray over monthly internet gatherings. The income from retreatants is the main support of the monastery as well. CARA is the only research center I can find which has researched the numerical total of “associates;” its 2016 research places the number of associates at about 56,000 in the United States, with a large majority over the age of 40. CARA does not include associates as an annual category in its census of the American Church. The “consecrated virgins” referred to in para. 80 are not tracked by CARA, either. The church officer responsible for consecrated virgins is the local bishop, and the diocese is required to keep record of those whom the bishop has seen fit to permit the making of a solemn perpetual promise. What is vowed is virginity. The first point to be made is that para. 80 is not talking about nuns, who live in community and make three-fold promises of poverty, chastity, and obedience, or solemn vows if in major orders such as the Dominicans. The second point is gender: the consecration of virgins is a female rite, for reasons enumerated below. And third, the word “virginity” has theological and legal meanings in Church theology and law, and at times these are at conflict with each other. One of my relatives undertook this consecration about the time I was born. She has since passed away, and I’m sorry that I never inquired about her state during my adult years, though I don’t remember anyone ever talking about her state. What I satisfied myself with at the time was that she had taken a major vow to never marry, that she kept her day job in retail clothing, that she was significantly involved in ministries of her parish and civic community, and extended charity of all sorts to her large family of origin. The history of consecrated virgins is quite ancient. The origin of the practice can probably be dated to the time of St. Paul and the apocalyptic mood of expectation of the end of the world and the Second Coming of Christ. Paul, in this atmosphere, writes that while married persons should not separate, it is better for the unmarried that they do not engage in new intimate relationships but focus instead on prayer and good works, that Christ might find them thus upon his return. The idea of virginity—the freely chosen abstinence of any sexual activity—is thus wedded to the idea that one has stepped out of the normal world to bear a powerful witness to a world yet to come. In my training for the more conventional religious order vows, this witness to the future aspect of chastity was presented as one of several rationales. Over much of the Church’s history, however, the more common metaphor for the virgin was “bride of Christ.” If you look at the lists of saints in Eucharistic Prayer I, just about all of the female names—Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, etc.—are those of young, marriage age adolescents whose surviving biographies follow a pattern of resistance to men in authority who desired to possess them and who killed them for the saints’ refusal to give themselves to anyone except God. In later centuries women mystics describe their ecstatic encounters with Christ in language that borders on the erotic at times. Even today, the term “Bride of Christ” is used to describe consecrated virgins in Canon Law, code 604. “Bride of Christ” is an official descriptive term in Church practice for women who have taken vows of virginity; the sexual imagery is not accidental. The same marital metaphor is frequently applied to Christ and the Church, before and after Vatican II, most recently in the Catechism, para. 796. Consecrated virginity is described as a “sacramental” of God’s union with his chosen people; virgins are a living sign of this reality. It should be noted that the consecrated virgins live on their own in the world, though post-Council popes have encouraged some sort of common life to assist in preserving the vow and spiritual growth through common prayer and shared good works. [Practically speaking, this is nearly impossible: Russia, for example, is known to have four consecrated virgins in the entire country.] Canon Law is clear that the Church has no financial responsibilities for consecrated virgins. There is a quixotic element to this lifestyle, and perhaps the subject of para. 80 could have been passed over in this liturgical posting stream. But the subject of virginity itself is a major consideration in Catholic theology, particularly morality. My guess is that most readers have some recollection of St. Maria Goretti. In 1902 she was assaulted by a youth seeking intercourse. According to one biographer, she tried to resist, crying out that “No, God does not wish it. It is sin. You would go to hell for it.” She protected her virginity but was stabbed to death for her resistance. In 1950 she was canonized by Pope Pius XII. As theologian Sister Anne Patrick wrote in 1997, her canonization “reinforced the emphasis upon a young woman’s responsibility for the sexual behavior of a dating couple typical for the Catholic education of the day,” i.e., the post-World War II industrialized countries. A similar canonization took place closer to our own time, as the New York Times reported on August 16, 1985. In this case a Catholic nun was killed rather than surrender her virginity to a military officer during Zaire’s civil war in 1964. In his declaration, Pope John Paul II praised Sister Marie Clementine Anwarite, for demonstrating “the primordial value accorded to virginity,” and he added that he forgave the man who killed her. The systematic rape and torture of missionary religious sisters during Africa’s decolonizing wars in the 1960’s reached numbers where the administration of birth control pills was not unheard of; Pope Francis raised the subject in an informal press conference in 2016. Patrick writes that the general acceptance of St. Maria Goretti’s canonization in 1950 was not repeated in 1986 for St. Marie Clementine, as theological concerns about the patriarchal nature of sexual morality were growing on three fronts: [1] that virginity, of all the possible virtues, was assuming too much attention in the moral hierarchy, which in actuality begins with the Beatitudes; “the one virtue worth dying for;” [2] that virginity appeared to subvert women to a kind of sexual scrutiny that men rarely if ever experience; and [3] the catechetics of vows in general was liable to create a spiritual caste within the Church, or rather, continue one. Vowed living has been considered the more sacred or difficult life than the married state, though marriage, too, is a vowed life. Why is one considered more “chosen” than the other? The call for a new rite of consecration of virgins was made in Sacrosanctum Concilium in 1963. The most recent Vatican document on consecrated virginal life is Ecclesiae Sponsae Imago [2018]. I cannot help but point out that there is no comparable rite for males, nor an organized format for monitoring sexual behaviors such as that listed in this document here: Dismissal from the Ordo virginum 71. If a consecrated woman has notoriously defected from the catholic faith or has contracted marriage, even only civilly, the Bishop will collect the evidence and declare her dismissal from the Ordo virginum, so that it is recognized juridically. 72. If a consecrated woman is accused of very serious external and imputable crimes or failings against the obligations arising from her consecration, such as to cause scandal among the people of God, the Bishop will begin the process of dismissal. He will therefore inform the woman about the accusations and the proofs that have been collected, giving her the opportunity for defense. If the Bishop considers her defense insufficient, and there is no other way to provide for her correction, for the restoration of justice and reparation of the scandal, he will dismiss her from the Ordo virginum. The decree of dismissal must express at least in summary form the reasons for the decision. It will not take effect until it has been confirmed by the Holy See, to whom all the acts must be forwarded. The decree will not be valid if it does not indicate the consecrated woman’s right to have recourse to the competent authority within ten days of receiving notification of the decree. The recourse has a suspensive effect. Record-keeping and communication about separation 73. In all cases of the separation of a consecrated woman from the Ordo virginum, the diocesan Bishop will arrange for this to be recorded in the book of consecrations. He will take care to inform the other consecrated women about it, either personally or through the Delegate, and the Pastor responsible so that he may note it in the Baptismal register. CONSTITUTION
ON THE SACRED LITURGY SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM SOLEMNLY PROMULGATED BY HIS HOLINESS POPE PAUL VI ON DECEMBER 4, 1963 79. The sacramentals are to undergo a revision which takes into account the primary principle of enabling the faithful to participate intelligently, actively, and easily; the circumstances of our own days must also be considered. When rituals are revised, as laid down in Art. 63, new sacramentals may also be added as the need for these becomes apparent. Reserved blessings shall be very few; reservations shall be in favor of bishops or ordinaries. Let provision be made that some sacramentals, at least in special circumstances and at the discretion of the ordinary, may be administered by qualified lay persons. Sacramentals were a “big thing” in my upbringing, and a quick look at Wikipedia reminded me that Sacrosanctum Concilium, the inspiration of this blog stream, had previously treated sacramentals in paragraph 60, in these words: “Holy Mother Church has, moreover, instituted sacramentals. These are sacred signs which bear a resemblance to the sacraments: they signify effects, particularly of a spiritual kind, which are obtained through the Church's intercession. By them men are disposed to receive the chief effect of the sacraments, and various occasions in life are rendered holy.” In the catechetics of my era, we were taught that sacramentals were things or actions that made you think or act holier. I was introduced to sacramentals probably earlier than I should have been; my parents hung a framed reproduction of what was reputed to be the face of Christ from the Shroud of Turin. That portrait is still somewhere around our homestead up north, even though radiocarbon tests put the date of the Shroud at no earlier than 1300 AD. And yet, the Shroud remains in its own way as a sacramental or reminder of the suffering of Christ, by whom our sins are forgiven in the Sacrament of Penance. Like sacraments, sacramentals are outward signs, intended to move the heart of at least the person engaged in observing them. SC is explicit in connecting sacramentals with corresponding sacraments, instructing that “they [enable] the faithful to participate intelligently, actively, and easily.” “Participation” refers to involvement in the official worship of the Church, i.e., the sacraments. With some sacramentals, this connection is easily seen. Take the example of a home holy water font, like this Irish font with the Celtic cross. Our home in the 1950’s had several, each by a house entrance and another one upstairs near our bedrooms. Dipping one’s finger in the water and making the sign of the cross is a sensual reminder of one’s birth into Christianity at baptism as well as giving meaning to passage into the home, what Pope Paul VI described as “the domestic Church.” While it is not necessary to use water blessed in church, taking water from a living sacramental baptismal font does add to the experience. The direct relationship of a sacramental to a sacrament does not need to be geometrically precise. Many sacramentals are devoted to the Virgin Mary and the saints, created to inspire a general sense of piety and goodness. I suppose that were he alive today, Sigmund Freud would discuss sacramentals in terms of projection, i.e., we project upon the picture or statue of a saint a belief or attribute of that individual that brings us comfort. When my father died in 2002, I noticed that he had been laid out with a shopworn plastic rosary. I remember wishing that I had had the opportunity to buy him a pricey rosary before flying up from Florida. What I learned later was that the simple, shopworn rosary was his constant companion through World War II. Here was a sacramental of multiple dimensions: honor to Mary and remembrance of his own devout Catholic faith. Sacramentals create a reminder of who we are. Rosaries, crucifixes, pictures, candles, Advent wreaths, creches, sacred places in the home, to name several, situate us in our baptismal state. Church instructions issued later, after Sacrosanctum Concilium, provide more concrete instructions on sacramentals and church art in general. A genuine reform in the post-Council era was emphasis upon quality; part of the religious experience of sacramentals is the aesthetic impact. I have found over the years that parish catechetics never gets this right. For many, to spend church money on quality art for worship is a betrayal of the poor. However, to clutter a church—or a home, for that matter—with the cheap and the chintzy is to make a discouraging statement of value about what rests at the heart of our being. I will admit that some churches go way overboard to scratch an edifice itch in terms of budgetary priorities, but a few articles of beauty in our churches and our personal and domestic space represents the happy balance of soul. For those of us who are married, our wedding rings are probably our most precious sacramentals. Blessed and exchanged in the heart of the sacrament by which we are bound to Christ and each other, the ring symbolizes infinity. But with each year the ring develops added layers of meaning and faith as we accumulate life experiences and grow to understand how our spouses are essential to our religious salvation. I had the misfortune of losing mine this week, probably in a public place during a mental health workshop. Every time I touched it or gazed at it, I was reminded of my married partnership and how God, through my wife, saves me. I will replace the ring, primarily because I need that sacramental reminder all the time. And in a broader sense, sacramentals of all sorts constantly remind us of who we are. CONSTITUTION
ON THE SACRED LITURGY SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM SOLEMNLY PROMULGATED BY HIS HOLINESS POPE PAUL VI ON DECEMBER 4, 1963 77. The marriage rite now found in the Roman Ritual is to be revised and enriched in such a way that the grace of the sacrament is more clearly signified, and the duties of the spouses are taught. "If any regions are wont to use other praiseworthy customs and ceremonies when celebrating the sacrament of matrimony, the sacred Synod earnestly desires that these by all means be retained". Moreover, the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned in Art. 22, 52, of this Constitution is free to draw up its own rite suited to the usages of place and people, according to the provision of Art. 63. But the rite must always conform to the law that the priest assisting at the marriage must ask for and obtain the consent of the contracting parties. Paragraph 77, like the preceding post on the rites of ordination, reflects a mood of reform while at the same time bearing a touch of caution about marriage rites and what the rites imply in the Church’s teachings and catechetics. A few years later the Council would produce one of its most remarkable and controversial documents, Gaudium et Spes, [Joy and Hope, December 7, 1965, esp. para 50] which defined the end or purpose of marriage as both procreative and unitive. I am feeling my age today in reviewing Council teachings on Marriage, particularly Gaudium et Spes, for I have lived through two crises involving reconsideration of long-standing Catholic theological thought resulting from conciliar documents on the nature and purpose of marriage. The first occurred in the late 1960’s when Pope Paul VI issued the encyclical Humanae Vitae, which taught that any artificial interference in the sexual act which impeded conception was sinful. This teaching is presently incorporated in the Catechism, para. 2366. Pope Paul’s teaching met much resistance at the time, as “the pill” was coming into wide use among couples in the industrialized nations. Theologians argued that HV contradicted the intent of Gaudium et Spes, that the purpose of sexual intercourse was unitive as well as creative. My reaction at the time of HV [July 1968] was that the distinctions in the encyclical were too academic and metaphysical to be of much help to the Catholic public. A generation or two later the discussion of marriage as love and procreation as framed by the Council would take on a new dimension as the practice and legislation of same-sex marriages became part of our cultural landscape. The Catechism of the Catholic Church was published in 1993; its discussion of homosexuality itself is unfortunate [paras. 2357-2359] for many reasons. It draws heavily from Old Testament Law, which decried homosexual acts as capital offenses worthy of death. The CCC does not sufficiently distance itself from this draconian language. It maintains the teaching of Paul VI that all sex acts must be open to the conception of new life, a moot point in same sex committed relationships. I do respect the Catechism’s candor when it concedes that “[homosexuality’s] psychological genesis remains largely unexplained.” [para. 2357] That said, Catholic moralists have a great deal of work ahead of them in developing a pastoral philosophy and language In 1963 the Council Fathers were coping with the formularies of the sacrament of marriage then in use. If you have been a Café reader for a while, or are widely read in sacramental history, you are no doubt familiar with the nagging tensions that have plagued the Church regarding management of the sex drive in the context of procreating children. It is indeed true that St. Augustine regretted the need for libido in fulfilling the act of creating children, believing as he did that concupiscence or sexual longing was a permanent scarring of original sin. The stereotype of the Church as a guilt-producing machine which judges all things sexual as intrinsically evil is not without merit. I am reminded of the pro football coach who referred to the NFL as the “No Fun League.” I noted St. Augustine’s philosophy above, his belief that instinctual sexual drive is an intrinsic and inevitable result of Adam and Eve’s original sin, passed on to all humans through biological inheritance. But this does not explain why all sexual sins are defined as “grave” in the morality books of the last millennium. This language is not employed in commentaries of other commandments or issues. In the present catechetical context, the umbrella of grave deeds [i.e., mortal sins which sever one’s relationship with God] covers sexual abuse of minors, marital infidelity, human trafficking, use of the pill, pornography, and masturbation. As all sexual transgressions are termed “grave,” there is no hierarchy to distinguish moral conversation. My training in patristic theology [i.e., the writings of the Fathers—and now Mothers—of the Church] is not my strong suite, but I sense that the marriage-sexuality matrix of Church thinking predates Augustine and rests upon a deeper foundation. For example, the author of the three New Testament letters [c. 100 A.D.] attributed to St. John may have written in part to counter the heretical ideas of one Cerinthus and his followers, whose cosmology portrayed a dualistic world of good and evil. In this line of thinking, Jesus could not have possessed a human nature because the material world was evil. In fact, this heresy was called Docetism, from the Greek “to show” or to “appear;” Docetists would say that Jesus thus appeared as a man but was never incarnated or possessing a human being’s existence, the opposite of what Catholics believe to this day. It is easy for us today to overlook the great challenge of the Doctrine of the Incarnation for early believers, as well as its impact upon human life and creative love. To hold to this doctrine, one must face the reality that the God-man Jesus is a product of human love. While his father is the Holy Spirit [Luke’s Gospel], his mother is of human stock, coming into the world as we all do. There was probably a consciousness among Christian believers that marriage and birthing were forever sanctified by God’s becoming one of us, in a family setting. From the moment of the Annunciation, there would be nothing mundane or routine about intense human love and the creation of life. There are those in the Church today who use literal adherence to such marital teachings on contraception as the litmus test of orthodoxy to Catholicism. This is most unfortunate, for Church Tradition has much to explore in developing new catechetical explanations and pastoral practices that describe the marriage sacrament as a full interpersonal encounter with Christ, in the way that we speak of the other sacraments. Sexual union is an essential component of the full union of couples sacramentally joined. With apologies to Augustine, an element of joy in the sacramental rite of marriage needs no apology. Paragraph 77 reflects the language of the time, particularly the term “duties” of the spouses. Unless my memory fails me, the term “duty” referred to “conjugal duty.” It goes without saying that marriage is filled with sacrifices, but the Council did not close without suggesting that sexual intimacies, far from being duties, might be the blessing that keeps a couple together in good times and bad. CONSTITUTION
ON THE SACRED LITURGY SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM SOLEMNLY PROMULGATED BY HIS HOLINESS POPE PAUL VI ON DECEMBER 4, 1963 76. Both the ceremonies and texts of the ordination rites are to be revised. The address given by the bishop at the beginning of each ordination or consecration may be in the mother tongue. When a bishop is consecrated, the laying of hands may be done by all the bishops present. It is somewhat surprising that Sacrosanctum Concilium says so little about priests, with para. 76 simply calling for a reform of the rites and the texts of ordinations, and later, some remarks on the priest’s obligation to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, then referred to as “saying the office” or “reading the breviary.” In fact, an entire separate decree on the ministry and life of priests was produced by the Council, Presbyterorum Ordinis, promulgated two years after SC as the Council was drawing to its final dismissal in 1965. PO is a remarkable document that reads very well today. I linked the 1965 document so that you can at least get a flavor of its theology and pastoral applications. In fact, one wonders how the priesthood would have fared in the United States had the full teachings of Presbyterorum Ordinis been put into force—or, in my seminary experience—even read. For that matter, how different would Catholic worship look today if the directives of Sacrosanctum Concilium had been adhered to. It is not uncommon to read critics of Vatican II argue that many of the “changes” after the Council go far beyond what the Council Fathers intended. While there is some truth to this, the claim is equally true that many did not grasp the serious need within the Church for a variety of reexaminations and reform, including an overhaul of the ordained ministry. I am thinking about addressing Presbyterorum Ordinis as a separate entry, perhaps on the Friday stream. When one sees the idealism projected by the Council in PO, such as priests living in circumstances where daily fraternal prayer, meals and recreation provide support in the face of loneliness and trials, it is hard to understand how the priesthood has fallen into such hard times today. I spent the week before last visiting family up in Buffalo, which seems to have replaced Boston, Massachusetts, as ground zero in the tragic unfolding and cover-up of clerical abuse of minors and institutional cover-up. The tension among Buffalo Catholics is so great that I half expected to bump into the Boston crusading attorney Mitch Garabedian, portrayed magnificently by actor Stanley Tucci in the film “Spotlight,” drinking coffee in a local Tim Horton’s. [As it turned out, he was in Buffalo the following week.] The Buffalo tragedy—repeated many times and in many dioceses—has caused many people to lose faith in the Church, or at least in its ordained leaders. While civil law enforcement is absorbing responsibility for investigation of Church wrongdoing, the next stage of recovery ought to be an assessment of how it happened. Again, I see traditionalists blaming Vatican II for the deterioration of priestly order, but their solutions—which seems to be turning some seminary students into unquestioned defenders of an older order that produced as many abusers before the Council as after—is simply a return to the clerical hubris that poisons every age. The Fathers of Vatican II, or most of them, were certainly aware things were amiss in the hierarchy before the Council. Popes John XXIII and Paul VI were keenly aware that the Nazi scourge had emerged in Germany, in a primarily Lutheran and Catholic environment. They were aware that French political-church life had caused many Catholics to look to socialism and communism in the years after World War II as the best hope for its blue-collar workers. New missionary ventures to the alienated, such as the famous “Worker Priest Movement,” were suppressed by Pope Pius XII in the 1950’s. Many bishops came to the Council demanding to see a reform of the Roman Curia, a Herculean task that Pope Francis continues to face to this day. Vatican II would never have lasted four sessions [1962-1965] without most of its participants being convinced that a malaise was afflicting the Twentieth Century Church. The documents put forward by the Council have been addressed over the last half-century rather selectively by every segment of the Church, but perhaps no more so than those in sacred orders, the bishops, priests, and deacons. So, I think it is important to look back at the Council writings to discern what the fathers hoped for from the clerical state in leading a reform of the Church in capite et membris. Para. 76 is but a faint introduction to the riches of Presbyterorum Ordinis that would come forth two years later, but even here we see traces of reform to come. The very act of calling for new rites of ordination indicate that the old versions spoke of a vision of priesthood that Council fathers wished to reform. The directive that the address given by the ordaining bishop may be given in the mother tongue of the place is an indication of connectedness of the laity to the life and holiness of priests. Para. 76 invites all the bishops in attendance to lay hands upon the heads of those being ordained. Eleven years later, at my own ordination, all the priests in attendance laid hands upon us as a symbol of the unity of priesthood. PO was written two years after para. 76, after the fathers had an opportunity to discuss and debate the full ministry of Apostolic Succession and to define the respective ministries of deacons, priests, and bishops. I will introduce PO on the blogsite in a different stream, as it strikes me that a fuller understanding of priestly life is desperately needed for the Church to nurture its members and energize its evangelical outreach. CONSTITUTION
ON THE SACRED LITURGY SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM SOLEMNLY PROMULGATED BY HIS HOLINESS POPE PAUL VI ON DECEMBER 4, 1963 73. "Extreme unction," which may also and more fittingly be called "anointing of the sick," is not a sacrament for those only who are at the point of death. Hence, as soon as any one of the faithful begins to be in danger of death from sickness or old age, the fitting time for him to receive this sacrament has certainly already arrived. 74. In addition to the separate rites for anointing of the sick and for viaticum, a continuous rite shall be prepared according to which the sick man is anointed after he has made his confession and before he receives viaticum. 75. The number of the anointings is to be adapted to the occasion, and the prayers which belong to the rite of anointing are to be revised so as to correspond with the varying conditions of the sick who receive the sacrament. I was ten years old when Pope Pius XII lay dying behind the Vatican City walls in October 1958, and Catholics here in the U.S. naturally followed reports of his condition from the big networks like CBS and NBC. [Cable news was several decades in the future.] Reporters who generally did not cover Catholic affairs were not fully prepared for their on-camera reports, and one man breathlessly reported that Pope Pius was suffering from “extreme unctions.” My parents and relatives found this funny, and even I, armed with my Baltimore Catechism, caught the blunder. However, the mention of Extreme Unction on TV was recognized by informed listeners and viewers as an indication that the pope would be dead very soon. Paragraph 73 of Sacrosanctum Concilium is an important theological and catechetical breakthrough for the Church, for it replaces the name “extreme unction” [from the Latin, “last anointing”] with the more inclusive “anointing of the sick.” The document states that this anointing is no longer reserved for those at the point of death, but also for those “in danger of death from sickness or old age.” In short, the sacrament engaged the ill, not just the dying. In the half century since the new rites for the sick were promulgated, A question for catechetics and pastoral practice is whether Catholics as a rule understand the broadening of sacramental opportunities for the ill and issues about the appropriate times and ways to celebrate this sacrament. The history of the Sacrament of the Sick is quite complicated, but the sacramental historian Joseph Martos, in his Doors to the Sacred [2014] indicates that late in the first millennium the anointing was a rite of physical healing and was not always performed by a priest. The anointing was granted to anyone who was ill or injured. The surviving lists of illnesses addressed by this sacrament include everything from fever to derangement. I suppose that with the medical care available in 800 A.D., most illnesses were potentially fatal. But Martos is careful to add that if an individual believed he was truly dying, he did not request the anointing. Rather, he sought sacramental reconciliation [or Penance] and the Eucharist. [p. 383] There was a time in church history when pastoral practice included an anointing in the penitential rite to drive out evil spirits, such that anointing and absolution were for practical purposes indistinguishable. [Later, communion to the dying was called viaticum [Latin, “food for the road” or the journey]. Consequently, the anointing at death carried an almost entirely penitential cast into the twentieth century. The writings of the great high medieval doctors of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure, and St. Albert the Great agreed that the anointing, confession, and final reception of the eucharist composed the final acts of a human believer, and thus should be administered only at the moment of death. Again, Martos states that very few people in the Church ever received this triptych of sacramental experience in medieval times, due to geographic distances, cost, and the penitential acts they were bound to perform if they should-to their misfortune--recover. The reform Council of Trent [1545-1563] continued to use the term Extreme Unction, and when this anointing was celebrated with confession and the final reception of communion, the collective term “last rites” came into use, and this term was widely used into my adulthood. In 1972 the post-Vatican II reformed rite referred to the sacrament as “The Anointing of the Sick.” Prior to 1972 the strengthening oil was viewed as a spiritual boost or strengthening for the journey to judgment; given that at various times in history one of the effects of Extreme Unction was believed to be the forgiveness of sins, the celebrant has always been a priest, though the two are separate sacraments. The 1972 revision ordered in paras. 73-75 reflects the wisdom of considering greater pastoral application of this sacrament, i.e., that it does more good for a greater number of people. Specifically, the Church returned to its biblical roots where anointing brought physical as well as spiritual comfort. By the 1970’s the practice of holistic medicine raised awareness of the patient’s state of mind as a key component of recovery, remission, and/or reduction of pain. Those of us ordained in this era were generally comfortable with this interdisciplinary approach to pastoral care. When I graduated, I had formed a philosophy of celebrating this sacrament whenever illness or injury significantly altered the life of a baptized Catholic, regardless of whether death was imminent or not. The new ritual envisioned anointing with at least some members of the family and/or parish gathered round to hear the Word of God and to earnestly pray for the good of the sick individual as the priest performed the anointing with oil blessed at the Chrism Mass of Holy Thursday at the Cathedral. For several decades afterward, parishes and institutions offered communal sacramental celebrations of the anointing of the sick. Such services were particularly appropriate in Catholic elder-care facilities where the danger of death was at least remotely more imminent and the pains of advancing age bringing mental and physical discomfort to the general population. I have no hard numbers, but my guess is that today fewer parishes have public sacramental anointings. To be honest, I haven’t heard a homily or public instruction on the Sacrament of the Sick in many years. In one of those ironies of life, I became more theologically and clinically interested in the pastoral practice of this sacrament after I left the active priestly ministry and engaged in mental health practice. I was asked on numerous occasions in substance abuse facilities if recovering alcoholics, for example, could receive this sacrament. This was during the period when medical discussion of addiction started using the term “disease” to describe addiction and dependency. The Twelve-Step AA Program utilizes a secular progression to conversion, recovery, forgiveness, restitution and service that interfaces very well with existing Catholic sacraments and practices; use of the Sacrament of the Sick may be redundant unless there are other factors in play, such as grave illness. Concurrently, while teaching sacramental courses for my diocese, I had to admit that “being old” is not a disease in its own right. [The chaplain of the Loyola of Chicago’s men’s NCAA basketball team is a 100-year-old Catholic religious sister.] While the Church statements on this sacrament are clear enough, developments of full Catholic pastoral care of the sick cover multiple topics and needs and their development continues to this writing. My parish and others are developing pastoral support programs for care givers, many of whom are relatives caring for the ill and aged in their own homes with modest resources and little support. At this juncture it is probably best to say that the Sacrament of the Sick, the formal ritual extension of Christ’s healing ministry, is the summit of a multitude of pastoral services offered by the Church in a variety of places, needs, and settings. This news story may have slipped under the radar, but the Pew Research Center recently studied the role of the Eucharist in the current practice of American Catholics. The results were released on Monday past. PEW, an independent researcher, dared to ask questions that the Catholic research center CARA may have feared to go, for the subject of this study cuts to the heart of a central Catholic belief.
Pew has done a number of studies on the Church before, and its religion staff is highly competent in matters Catholic. It has tracked the decline in Mass attendance in the U.S. over the years, and it may have been the dramatic statistical decline in Mass attendance that led its staff to examine a correlation between attendance and the most significant act of Sunday worship, receiving the Eucharist, the actual Body and Blood of Christ in holy communion under the form of bread and wine. It appears that a majority do not think of the Eucharist in this fashion. In a sampling of over one thousand self-identified Catholics around the country, Pew discovered that only 31% of Catholics believe in Transubstantiation, the doctrine which holds that the bread and wine, by virtue of the Eucharistic Prayer, becomes the true and living Body and Blood of Christ, human and divine. The majority hold that the consecrated bread and wine, and its distribution, constitute a useful symbol of fellowship but do not believe that Christ is truly alive in the sacred food. Pew went on to question further how personal belief was formed along these lines. In looking at all available subsets—frequency of Mass, age, education, etc.—50% of Catholics do not know what the doctrine of Transubstantiation is, let alone that it is a central doctrine or essential teaching. Put another way, those who identify as Catholics do not know that communion is a real encounter with God. The full Pew statistics are here. As I mentioned above, this story is getting erratic coverage. I have gone to many of my ordinary Catholic sources and come up pretty much empty. The news page of the USCCB has a link and presumably a commentary, but you must be a member of the Conference on-line services, which cost about $125 when I last checked. Only the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s newspaper had a news story, and its prime source is a YouTube video featuring a response by Bishop Robert Barron, a piece that appeared within a day or so of the Pew’s study publishing. Barron is a member, of course, of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops [or USCCB] in his active status as Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles. But prior to his episcopal ordination, Barron developed the outstanding “Word on Fire” ministry of Catholic catechetical and evangelical ministry on YouTube from his home base of Chicago. Even after his elevation to the American College of Bishops, he continues to speak out clearly and forcefully on issues in the Church. I reviewed his Letter to a Suffering Church: A Bishop Speaks on the Sexual Abuse Crisis a few weeks ago here at the Café, a work which should have been written by the entire USCCB. When the Pew study hit the streets a week ago, Barron—speaking again in his own name, as was true of his book—was first bishop to publicly acknowledge the results. In his post on YouTube this week, we see a very angry man, a righteously angry man. He states for the record that he is not angry at Pew but at the Church itself, citing a breakdown in religious education and the failure of clergy and bishops to preach and explain a belief that, theoretically, should hold us together. I agree that the content, format, and quality of religious education has reached a point where anything resembling a handing on of faith is grinding perilously to a halt. I suspect that Bishop Barron, fresh off his book about sex abuse, realizes that the Church’s credibility to teach its key beliefs has been so sorely wounded by events of recent decades that its teaching tradition may take generations to restore. This is my guess—very few of his bishop colleagues want to acknowledge this. The results did not surprise me. In fact, the next time you attend Mass, observe the body language of those in the congregation—entering, genuflecting, socializing, dress styles, etc. Do we look and act like a people in the presence of the Almighty? One blog poster caught my eye in a humorous vein: a woman wrote that if we believed that God was really in the tabernacle and the bread and wine we consume at Mass, we would be genuflecting on both knees at least three times in the parking lot before we reached the door of the church.” Hyperbole, to be sure, but the point is taken. The term “transubstantiation” to describe the change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ deserves a better treatment than I can provide today. Some of the ultraconservative websites are calling for a return to the pre-Vatican II ritual and the elimination of lay eucharistic ministers, communion in the hand, lay persons’ [particularly women’s] removal from the sanctuary, installing communion rails, etc. as “remedies” to lack of understanding of the Eucharist. My suggestion—a strategy I actually incorporated into the construction of a new church three decades ago—was the separation of the church building into the main worship assembly and a separate chapel for Eucharistic adoration. Most churches in use today are elongated Eucharistic reservation chapels where reverence for the sacred species must constantly be balanced with the communal nature of sacraments, like the elderly who attend Mass and embrace one another’s company without a thought in front of the tabernacle. One man’s disrespect is God’s delight. Scripture, which is quite clear on the nature of the sacred food, is equally clear on the interpersonal nature of the Eucharistic sacrament. Real Presence is denied primarily when the Mass is celebrated by clerics and laity without charity and fraternal concern. As Bishop Barron concludes, those who most love the poor, most ardently love the Lord in the Eucharist as well. For more discussion on this topic, here is a link to my former teaching colleague, Amy Welborn, and her blogsite Charlotte Was Both. Amy has been a first-rate blogger for about two decades now and worth following. |
LITURGY
March 2024
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