The simplicity of eloquence

Tolle, lege! Anything I'd say would just degrade it.

He read my mind!

Reading this post by Jeffrey Tucker at NLM made me wonder for just a second if maybe he wasn't probing around in the small amount of gray matter still under active use in between my ears. Now, to be honest, the music at my parish is nowhere near as bad as that which many are forced to endure Sunday after Sunday - in fact it is generally well-sung and the selections are occasionally even quite good.

What I find missing, and which Jeffrey alluded to in his Second Great Catholic Radio 2.0 Liturgy Debate, is any linkage at all between the liturgy we are experiencing and the music. We've gone from music that was created for Mass to music that occasionally sounds good at Mass - from a unified whole pointing to the unity of both Creator and Church to an amalgam which speaks more of the community as a collection of dispersed talents. I want to be very clear on this so no one thinks I'm just complaining - the songs are almost always performed very well and I have yet to hear a single song that outright does not belong in Mass. At the same time there is a great opportunity to use that music for everything great music can do - spiritual uplift, catechesis, etc. To put it another way, it's okay as it is, but it could do so much more.

Perhaps the one difference I have with Jeffrey (besides not knowing a fraction of what he does when it comes to both liturgy and music) is that I haven't the slightest hint of musical skill. As the saying goes, I couldn't hold a note with a bucket. He, and all true musicians, can speak to the situation of liturgical music "from the inside" as it were, whereas I can only look at it and say "it seems odd" or "it seems right". Perhaps I am too picky. Perhaps I am one of those who will never be satisfied. Or perhaps I've, through a combination of luck and persistence, sniffed out one truth from a pile of assorted options. Which that is, I'll be honest and say I don't really know.

Ah, now that's the way to celebrate a birthday

Stolen whole and entire from NLM for all five of you out there who love the Extraordinary Form and don't read NLM:

On Sunday, September 14th, members of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest will celebrate a Solemn High Mass at Our Lady of the Angels Monastery of the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration in Hanceville, Alabama.

The conventual Mass will be broadcast live by EWTN, the Global Catholic Network, to a worldwide audience of 140 million homes, through TV, radio, and live streaming video (Internet) at www.ewtn.com.

This could well prove to be a very nice birthday present for someone I know quite well on whose birthday it falls. Hmmm, I wonder who that is?

Setting and stone

Mass and Divine Office are liturgically interrelated. The latter furnishes the setting for the Mass, as the gold of the ring is the setting for the precious jewel of its stone.

Read the whole post from Breviarium Romanum and tell me you don't wish your parish participated in the Divine Office in a public way. If it does, well, I confess to some level of jealousy. Even if it doesn't, I can't possibly encourage you enough to take up the Divine Office for yourself. It has provided, for me, many moments of light in days of darkness.

To sing with the Church

Every priest and music director should be required to read and listen to every link on this page. Just the tiniest amount of imagination and one can easily move from hearing only Aristotle Esguerra's voice to that of a full schola and/or the many and varied voices of an entire congregation. To dream, perchance to hope...

H/T to Jeffrey Tucker at NLM.

How not to end your vacation

I'll post on the very good, if also very full, vacation later. Somewhere in all our gear is the camera, but I know not where.

My wife and I chatted briefly this morning how nice it was to again sleep in our own bed, and I realized as well how nice it would be to go back to our parish this morning and not play the game of church roulette that travel can often become (think "Risen Christ 'Crucifix'" and you'll get an idea). That thought was heartening as we drove to Mass.

As we knelt to pray our choir director took to the microphone to mention two announcements that had not made the bulletin this week. The first passed quietly, letting choir members know their practices would start again soon with the end of the summer approaching. The second started even better - "We are starting a new group for the 11AM Mass". My head raced at the thought they might be starting a schola, or at least a group intended to target more traditional musical forms. "We will be singing the same songs as we do now", he continued. My face dropped. "But we will be doing them in a Praise and Worship style." I burped. "We'll be adding instruments including guitar, drums and bongos." The taste of last night's dinner invaded my mouth.

Yup, that's right, I was the victim of liturgical music whiplash. The parish under our new pastor had slowly been righting the liturgical ship, re-introducing things such as incense and candle bearers and even appropriate periods of silence. Everything was pointing to a recovery of the tradition so easily discarded in the silly season which worshiped only the "right now". And now this. In a small way I can now understand the betrayal those who love tradition felt when it was ripped away from them by people who "knew better". I simply, frankly, do not understand why now, when so much of the Church is re-discovering tradition and discovering it is what the younger generation wants rather than this thin and transparent attempt at pandering - that only now do I find myself faced with people who want to go in exactly the opposite direction.

What am I going to do about it? I don't know. As neither a cleric nor a trained musician my opinion will hold little weight and I am constantly harassed by worries that complaining may hamper any future vocation to which God may be calling me and might even cause difficulties in my work with the RCIA team.

Speaking of the RCIA team, I shudder at the mere thought of the impact this decision will have on their formation. Praise and Worship music, and by extension any Mass in which they are used, tends to be wafer-thin on catechetical value and submitting our inquirers, catechumen and candidates to that experience (since the 11AM Mass is the one they attend prior to the Breaking Open the Word sessions) frightens me beyond belief. Thinking back on it I wonder very much if I could have made it through my own RCIA experience if the only Mass I saw was full of P&W - it simply does not show forth a Church fully convinced and deeply invested in the truths it professes. And as a catechist I simply do not know if I am possessed of the spiritual strength to maintain myself appropriately when I have to attend with our candidates and catechumen. How am I to explain to them the Mass of the ages when I have to simultaneously explain that what they are seeing is in fact at significant deviation to it? This, as they say, has disaster written all over it.

St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Charles Borromeo, St. Cecilia and Mary, Mother of God, ora pro nobis!

Git it while it's hot

I cannot begin to describe how happy I was when I saw Fr. Daren Zehnle point to the copy of the new Order of Mass as recently given recognitio by the Holy See. I took a brief few moments to scan it while on lunch and from what I can see two things come to mind.

1. There is an awful lot of new learning to do - which is good because so many people just repeat prayers they've learned by rote without contemplating what the words they're saying mean. This gives everyone, particularly the clergy, a built-in opportunity to catechize on the Mass and the prayers therein. So often the only thing stopping this is the lack of an "opening" to start the discussion. Well, my friends, this is a wide-open door with "Please Enter" in large letters.
2. The prayers are much more beautiful than what we have now. Yes, some seem a touch sticky right now but that owes at least as much to familiarity as to any real problems. It is not just the particular word choices of which I speak that to me brings this to the front - it is also the depth of meaning and a nearly emotional character to the terminology. Perhaps it is overstating it, but perhaps it is not, to say I sense a greater amount of agape in these prayers rather than the filios one can sometimes sense in the current translation.

Again, as I said, these are only a couple of reflections based on a review of but a few minutes, so if I'm wildly off base do feel free to say so. Whatever you do, start reading the new Order prayerfully and don't wait for another offer - do it now so you can have all the time you need with these new prayers.

On active participation and beauty

From The Spirit of the Liturgy:

Of course, external actions - reading, singing, the bringing up of the gifts - can be distributed in a sensible way. By the same token, participation in the Liturgy of the Word (reading, singing) is to be distinguished from the sacramental celebration proper. We should be clearly aware that external actions are quite secondary here. Doing really must stop when we come to the heart of the matter: the oratio. It must be plainly evident that the oratio is the heart of the matter, but that it is important precisely because it provides a space for the actio of God. Anyone who grasps this will easily see that it is not now a matter of looking at or toward the priest, but of looking together toward the Lord and going out to meet him. The almost theatrical entrance of different players into the liturgy, which is so common today, especially during the Preparation of the Gifts, quite simply misses the point. If the various external actions (as a matter of fact, there are not very many of them, though they are being artificially multiplied) become the essential in the liturgy, if the liturgy degenerates into general activity, then we have radically misunderstood the "theo-drama" of the liturgy and lapsed almost into parody. True liturgical education cannot consist in learning and experimenting with external activities. Instead one must be led toward the essential actio that makes the liturgy what it is, toward the transforming power of God, who wants, through what happens in the liturgy, to transform us and the world. In this respect, liturgical education today, of both priests and laity, is deficient to a deplorable extent. Much remains to be done here.

I was just going through old unpublished posts and found this quote. Even though I originally grabbed it over a year and a half ago I can't say that much has changed on the ground; likewise, much has changed strategically. My subsequent exposure to the Mass in the Extraordinary Form has served only to reinforce my long-held impression that there is a wide disparity between what we see every weekend and what we could see every weekend.

I should rather say the disparity, depending on your intersection with Providence at this point, varies point-for-point between close to what could be hoped and far from it. I personally have seen what impact a new Pastor with an interest in beauty can have and conversely how even someone who knows what must be done can be slowed down by considerations external to the liturgy.

But more to the point of the quote, I've been thinking lately about the intersection of beauty qua beauty and properly understood active participation in the liturgy. A beautiful liturgy may not, I am coming to believe, in and of itself be enough to bring people to that true interior personal involvement in the liturgy so desperately desired by the Church. Certainly a Mass beautifully prayed with ceremony befitting the King of Kings can awe and impress and perhaps even shock some into finding the beauty of the Love that is at the core of that celebration. But a Monet is just paint if you can't understand its beauty.

What I am asking is this: how do we find a way to move hearts and souls in a way that can be comprehended by the uninitiate and those not prepared to or desirous of finding beauty? Is there a kind of aesthetic beauty that is sufficiently universal to encapsulate those with every level of theological and liturgical formation? Answers of "Latin" or "ad orientem" are but minute slices of the picture I'm trying to form here.

Let me also ask the contrary question. Is the possibility of a universal beauty an impossibility in this world because that beauty is in fact only found in God Himself? Let us not forget that God is, as the perfection of all Good, the perfection of beauty to the point we capitalize it as "Beauty". Is the problem perhaps that since grace builds upon nature this quest for a beauty to be apprehended by all is simply quixotic? Should that be the case, then let me ask an even further leading question: is it possible that the decision of the Council of Trent to require only one form of Mass in the Latin Church actually impeded in some way the quest for universal beauty, that beauty that brings all to understand what truly unfolds before them in their hearts? Discuss, if you would be so kind.

Thoughts after my second EF Mass

Yesterday I had the opportunity to assist at only my second Extraordinary Form Mass, again at St. Patrick's in Nashua, NH. (You can read about my first time here.) This time I took my son with me so it was just the two of us. As compared to the first Mass this one was sparsely populated, with probably around fifty or so people in the pews. This should not come as any great surprise as that first Mass was, from what I can tell, the first EF Mass in the Diocese since the Silly Season started. I did, however, have my first-ever biretta sighting, with Fr. Richard Dion attending in choro.

With it being far less full and thereby offering fewer distractions than my first EF experience, I actually found myself able to follow along in my hand Missal fairly well. I should say, of course, that much thanks is due as well to the older lady who sat near the front and provided spot-on posture cues for those of us who felt a little lost; she probably has no idea how many people were keeping her in their visual range.

I distinctly remembered last time being drawn into the silence and finding myself truly praying as best I could since I simply had only the barest idea of what was going on from moment to moment. This time, however, I was affected in a much different way because I was able to follow those prayers which the priest was quietly reciting. I was simply astonished at how the power and density of each of the prayers and particularly struck at how different the offertory prayers are from the modern variant - in comparison the modern prayers seem positively pallid. I'd read many times traditionalists crowing about the superiority of the ancient prayers but until this point I had never concerned myself much with those thoughts; now it is something that runs through my head even a day later. I have a great respect for the historical ties of the modern offertory prayers to their roots in Jewish practice, I only wish there had been a way to make that tie without cutting out the depth of meaning in the 1962 prayers.

I've assisted at an Extraordinary Form Mass now twice, and the difference in each experience could not have been more different. It does indeed leave me wondering what I shall find the next time I am so graced as to assist again. May the wait only not be so long this time as it was the last. Deo gratias!

New journal on the usus antiquior

NLM tells us there is a new journal on the usus antiquior just starting to get off the ground. Named, conveniently, Usus Antiquior, it is "[a] journal dedicated to the Sacred Liturgy edited by Laurence Paul Hemming & Alcuin Reid under the auspices of the Society of St. Catherine of Siena." If you're interested, hit their subscriptions page to indicate, and if you can spare they could use donations to help get going. A journal like this can't possibly begin circulation soon enough.

It is things like this...

...that give me hope that it is possible to fix old mistakes, even in a parish church like mine that has some serious aesthetic issues in its sanctuary. (Yes, our pastor is working on it but things like roof work have taken priority first.)

A thing of beauty, I say. Congratulations to Fr. John Boyle for the courage and vision to see this work through to the end.

H/T to His Hermeneuticalness.

It's about Jesus

Fr. Rob Johansen has posted an excellent homily he gave this weekend that forms the first in a series of three on the Mass. It covers what all together too many people still get very wrong about the Mass - what is it all about?

But here’s the thing: even if we never felt we got anything out of Mass, it would still be the most noble, holy, amazing, and important thing we could ever do – because the Mass isn’t about us. The Mass is about giving the perfect honor, glory and worship to God, through making present to us here, on this altar, the eternal self-offering and sacrifice of Christ. The Mass is about Jesus, not about us.

Read the rest. You won't be sorry.

Putting technology to use for the ancient form

Fr. Tim Finigan of Hermeneutical fame has recently posted a set of slides for a presentation he gave on the Traditional Mass using Scribd. As much as the slides are not to be missed, notice how transparently new technology meshes with ancient practice and helps to enable even greater numbers of people to experience the wonders of the Mass anew. I must in particular recommend slides 23-29 for how beautifully they lay out the opportunities for active participation in the Traditional Mass. I can't go without swiping one quote in particular, from slide 27 (emphasis mine):

From the Gospel to the Credo, consider the preaching of our Saviour; protest that you wish to live and die in the faith and obedience of his holy word and in union with the holy Catholic Church.

He could have chosen any of a plethora of words there, but protest is so loaded with meaning it cannot go without mention. It is, if you will, at the crux of active participation. We do not participate actively (or, in truth, actually as some would argue the translation) by merely watching or muttering a prayer from rote. Think about the word protest for a minute - what comes to mind (aside from the silly things)? People actively, passionately pleading for a cause and willing to go to any lengths to make their case heard. Is that not indeed precisely what is at the heart of our prayers to the Mass?

The story of the old lady and the unjust judge cannot help but be recalled here - our prayer is to be like that old lady. It is a very Catholic thing to point out that we are not called to passively watch salvation history play itself out but that instead God has deigned to involve each and every one of us in it in an active and contributory role every day. If that sounds like too much, protest that you need help and you'll notice we've come full circle.

Two from Dr. Ed Peters

First, I want to second (c'mon, that was a well-timed pun!) everything he says about the news that Archbishop Raymond Burke has been appointed the head of the Apostolic Signatura. He has been a voice of reason and sanity in a world, and in a country, where those are in very short supply. He has also served to elevate the level of discourse on critical issues and refused to pander to those who would demand politically-correct wording to avoid otherwise necessary confrontation. While it is a loss to the Church in the United States, it is a gain to the Universal Church which must always be the greater good. I echo Dr. Peters' hope that his position is filled both soon and well.

Second, he has written an article in Antiphon regarding a suggestion to alter the rules for the Communion fast. I can't begin to agree enough with his recommendations. The current rule stipulates a one hour fast before receiving Communion. In explaining this rule to our RCIA class I was forced to point out that unless you're eating in the car on the way to Mass it's virtually impossible to violate this fast. I say virtually because I have, with my own eyes, seen someone drinking coffee during Mass who then went up to receive Communion. The rule is so simple to obey people think it doesn't even exist anymore and have found ways to break even this rule. If you're going to have a rule it must serve a purpose or it becomes legislation for its own sake which never does anyone any good. It will be interesting to see if this gains any traction.

Must read

NLM has a full translation of the Osservatore Romano interview with Msgr. Guido Marini, the Pope's Master of Ceremonies. Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing - it's densely packed with insights into from where the Pope is coming and to where he is going. As a minor history buff his accent on historical continuity as a proper hermeneutic and as a theological and liturgical key is both critical and intriguing. God has blessed us with this Pope, indeed.

Keeping your norm in order

As I sit here with all the computers unplugged (I'm using my wireless laptop, if that statement suddenly got you confused) thanks to a particularly nasty storm rolling overhead, I wanted to point out a very good post from Fr. Z that really has nothing to do with translations. The point I think we all need to be reminded of rather is that of "what is a norm?" (No, not that Norm.) He does a very good job pointing out that a norm is not just what we're used to seeing, but rather the standard by which all others are measured. It's a point that very often seems to be missed.

Excellent interview with Fr. Rutler

NLM has a very intriguing interview with Fr. George Rutler here. Anyone who knows NLM and Fr. Rutler should not be surprised that some very interesting questions and equally insightful answers are to be found.

The kids explain it all

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

"You don't feel slighted because I have turned my back to you? You sure I haven't hurt your feelings?"

Laughter all around. "You're not that good looking anyway Father."

Okay, the rest of it may not be quite as funny, but it's at least as informative. This generation really is different than their parents, the protestations of a few notwithstanding.

Russell Shaw on clericalism

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

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

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

The miracle of the silence

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

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

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

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

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