Roma locuta est

Who’s the Pharisee Here?

2012-01-26T21:47:00.000-05:00

I recently finished Morality and Situation Ethics by the dynamic von Hildebrand duo. My reading of the text was quite timely as it followed a conversation in which a good friend was accused by a colleague of being a pharisee for otherwise devout behavior during Mass. (Actually the accusation probably had more to do with diverging liturgical views, but it is often easier to accuse someone of impure motives and legalism that it is to engage the conversation about the nature of liturgy.) The von Hildebrand book had been sitting on my shelf for well over a year, and I picked it up simply more as a self-chastisement for violating my “one-year” policy (in which I try to read a book within a year of its purchase, a strategy that tempers my book purchases), than as a remedy for my acquaintance’s situation. Nevertheless, it has proved to be quite helpful in this matter. One purpose of the text is to outline various “types” of sinners. (I think the philosophical jargon is “to make distinctions.”) One of the prominently discussed figures is that of the pharisee. Never have a read a more thorough description of what a pharisee is, but more importantly what a pharisee is not.

I don’t intend here to go into the various categories presented by the authors. If you wish to know the difference between the pharisee and the self-righteous man, or the tragic sinner and the mediocre man, I suggest picking up a used copy of Morality and Situation Ethics. (It is, I believe, out of print.) Instead, I intend briefly to point out, by means of heavy plagiarism (otherwise known as quoting) some of the more insightful points that I found in the text.

We begin with the money quote. Many of us have often been in situations where we are accused of being a pharisee. In the often anti-legalistic culture found in the Church today, it is hardly possible to mention any love for rubrics or laws without facing such an accusation. Now, I have, in the past, made the point that those who are quick to render the judgement of legalism tend to be legalistic themselves. (Those who are quick to criticize others for adhering to liturgical rubrics will be the first to turn to the rubrics to read the in an overly literalistic manner in order to find loopholes they can exploit to justify any and all antics during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. See my post on Legalism for more details.) Yet in true von Balthasar style, we read,

“It must be stressed, however, that self-righteousness is often met with even among those people who believe themselves to be the protagonists in the fight against pharisaism.  The very same people indulge in an indignation resembling that of self-righteous zealots when it comes to their hatred of mediocrity.  They are prone to view every thrifty person as a potential miser and are always eager to detect a lack of heroism in their neighbors.
“It is very important to stress this type of self-righteousness because it is very widespread today.  In their fight against bourgeois mediocrity and conventionalism, they feel themselves superior.  They believe they are the sincere representatives of the true Christian spirit.  They do not pretend to be correct, without sins.  No, they pride themselves on being true Christians notwithstanding their sins, because, as they say, pharisees alone care much about not sinning.  They not only feel superior, but like the self-righteous zealot, they gloat over their indignation about mediocre bourgeois and self-righteous Christians.  When they rage about the self-righteousness of others, it makes them feel free, great, deprived of all pettiness and mediocrity.  The kind of vices they generally suspect is characteristic.  Whereas the self-righteous zealot prefers to be on the scent of sins against the sixth commandment, of dishonesty, of unreliability, this revolutionary type of self-righteous man everywhere suspects avariciousness, lack of charity, mediocrity, conventionalism, hypocrisy, and insincerity.
“Like the self-righteous zealot, he lives on the qui vive to find an object for his indignation, and like the self-righteous zealot, he makes no differentiation between an ascertained fact, in which the intention is laid bare, and mere appearances that might eventually be interpreted in the direction of something to be indignant about.
“As with the self-righteous zealot, the slightest appearance suffices for him to make a ‘judgement’ on other people.  The mere rumor of avariciousness, of lack of charity, of mediocrity - unfounded as it may be - seems to entitle him to pass a final sentence.  This type also shares hypocrisy with the self-righteous, inasmuch as, by his manner of condemning self-righteous people, he himself becomes self-righteous.
“We can see to what unfortunate results the fight against pharisaism has led.  Instead of opposing to self-righteousness the humility and charity of the saint, one slips into sin mysticism, a glorification of sinning.  One ends by fighting the devil with Beelzebub, and by becoming pharisees of sinning” (page 112-113).

There is a similar critique of those who feel it “judgmental” to point out any sin and are quick to level criticism at those who do. (Of course, we are called to never judge the sinner, yet it is part and parcel of the Christian ethos to call evil by its name.)

“Many people believe that the only objective, unprejudiced, and just approach is a kind of academic, cool distance, dealing with everything as if it were a merely interesting, peculiar problem and abstaining from any judgement in terms of true or false, right or wrong, good or evil. Accordingly, they look upon any anathema as presumptuous arrogance or as merely an expression of uncontrolled emotions. This idol of objectivity, which is nothing but a consequence either of a radical antithesis to Christianity and to the spirit of the Gospel. The champions of this neutrality also feel themselves in some way to be specifically antipharisaical. They consider themselves superior to the ‘judging,’ condemning spirit of the Gospel, rating themselves above the ‘judging.’ condemning people, whom they look down upon as being pharisaical.
“In truth, however, they themselves are a new species of pharisee, exhibiting a self-righteousness of pseudo objectivity, a sense of superiority because of their scientific, neutral, nonaffective approach. Because of a certain hypocrisy also, they have some affinity with the pharisee. Their hypocrisy lies in the fact that, on the one hand, they have a quasi-scientific approach, with the implicit claim to objectivity and the superiority proper to true objectivity, and on the other hand, they deny real objectivity by the relativism that is at the basis of their idol of neutrality. They are in a certain way hypocrites because they put on the garments of true objectivity while in fact they deny any true objectivity. They arrogate themselves the dignity of true objectivity and look down on prejudices, emotional people. But simultaneously they reject the measure of objective truth that true objectivity necessarily presupposes. Since they have substituted an emasculated neutrality for true objectivity, they are hypocrites for glorifying themselves because of their scientific dignity” (pages 117-118).

The purpose of the book is actually a full critique of “circumstance ethics” which, in short, espouses that all morality is relative to individual circumstances, and that no general moral norm can ever actually be formed. It is, in reality, one step away from pure relativism. The critique that circumstance ethics often levels at a system based on moral norms is one of legalism. The von Hildebrands respond,

“Paradoxically enough, circumstance ethics leads, through an absolute formalism, to a much more radical ‘legalism’ than the one against which it protested. It arose originally as a protest against an undue ‘legalization’ of morality, against a disregard for of the qualitative plenitude of morality. Yet in denying the existence of general morally relevant and moral values, as well as the existence of moral commandments and moral laws rooted in these values, in effacing the difference between a moral commandment and a mere positive commandment, it leaves no other beacon for our moral life than a private revelation of God’s will, referring exclusively to a concrete, unique situation. The only norm left would be orders that we have to follow blindfolded, instead of commandments that reveal to our mind that something is evil or that something is good” (page 149).

Regarding those who will say, “But I love God and have a personal relationship with him, so it doesn’t matter what I do,” the authors respond,

“The love of God requires imperatively a respect for all the commandments of God and for the natural moral law. It necessarily implies an adequate response to all morally relevant goods in our habitual and actual attitudes, as well as in our actions. On the one hand, every moral commandment shows us the path that God wants us to follow and which is the path truly consistent with our love of God; on the other hand, obedience to those commandments is a test of the genuine and true character of our love of God. The one who really loves God, far from believing that he no longer needs the commandments referring to actions, far from thinking, ‘If I love God, it does not matter what I do,’ on the contrary, will be eager to consult the commandments of God and those of His Holy Church in all details, and will always orient himself anew to those commandments. He will be eager to understand more and more all morally relevant values, which precisely imply a call of God, and he will love the commandments of the God whom he loves above all” (page 160).

The alternative is an authentic Christian reality,

“Yet true Christian humility implies also a readiness to take every small formal obligation seriously. And the spirit of holy obedience that permeates the true Christian life gives to every task - formal as it may be - another significance.
“Thus not only do the walls crumble that enclose moral obligations in the framework of formal liabilities or any other extramoral bonds, but the very formal obligations themselves are transfigured by the love of God and stripped by charity of any merely ‘legalistic’ aspect. Every corner of the Christian moral life is pervaded by the rhythm of sacred solemnity and the breath of mercy” (page 166).”

I think I have plagiarized enough, and more than likely I have broken some copyright laws about exceeding fair use. But I am a sucker for these kinds of arguments that turn the tables, such as the one leveling the charge of pharisaism being guilty of that which he charges.

The entire book is worth a read - perhaps even a second.

A Philosophy of Education

2012-01-24T02:58:00.000-05:00

A Philosophy of Education

J. Jacob Tawney

I. Introduction

While formally on education, the following reflections stem from two very basic, yet indispensable questions: (1) Who is man? and (2) What is his purpose? Our present culture has not only stopped looking for answers to these questions, but has gone so far as to stop asking the questions themselves. I believe, however, that the cessation of the asking and answering of these two fundamental questions has helped to produce a people who have lost a sense of direction and purpose (the two of which go hand in hand). After all, if we know not who we are and we know not that for which we are intended, then we cannot possibly know how to proceed through and succeed at life. Human life is a journey of who we are towards that purpose.

The people of Homeric times knew these questions well. They understood these questions as being at the very heart of human existence. They saw their lives as narratives, as epic journeys into which they were born. They understood the importance of accepting their role in the story; upon discernment of this role, every decision henceforth could be reduced to answering the question: “Which path will help me to reach the goal, the moral of the story?” Such a purpose-driven existence is referred to by philosophers as teleological. The telos (or final cause) is the end for which something is intended, and it is a first principle of metaphysics that everything has such an end.

Aristotle built on the tradition of these epics and spoke more formally about the telos of man, that end towards which he is ordained. For Aristotle, the most important questions can be reduced to, “How can I perfect myself as a human person?” It is precisely the virtues that direct man towards becoming a “perfect human person,” virtues such as courage, temperance, patience, fortitude, justice, prudence, wisdom, etc. This attitude of actively striving to be better is what I refer to as a “maximalist attitude.” It recognizes that there is an end to be achieved, but at the same time recognizes that we are always on our way to achieving it, and that the journey and process of doing so is inescapably the very purpose of our lives.

Our students are being brought up in a culture that is communicating the polar opposite of a teleological philosophy. While society seems to stress the importance of goals, often couched as “achieving your dreams,” these “dreams” are not so much example of final cause but instead what I would call secondary goals, goals that are not goals in and of themselves. Secondary goals are fine, so long as there is a recognition that they point to a final goal. In other words, these secondary goals should be means to the ultimate goal, our telos. This is precisely what is missing from modern culture. Allow me to illustrate this point with an all too common dialog between teacher and student.

Student: Mr. So-and-So, I understand your altruistic statements on

knowledge, but the reality is, we need to be concerned with our grades.

Teacher: But why do you need good grades?

Student: Because we need to keep our GPA’s up.

Teacher: But why do you need top quality GPA’s?

Student: Because we need to get into a good college.

Teacher: But why, dear child, is getting into a good college so important?

Student: Because we need to get a good job.

Teacher: And why is that so crucial?

At this point, the conversation typically stops. The student is not sure how to respond and even worries that the Socratic questions of the teacher may be without end. The problem, of course, is not that the questioning is without end, but that the student’s philosophy is without a proper end (telos). The most ideal students, having already (at the mature age of 17) discerned their purpose, will attempt to push the questioning forward with something like, “Because I want to be a doctor in order to help people.” This, actually, is at least getting close to the right mentality. It is attempt to approximate a final cause. But even the “helping of others” is a secondary end. We help people because it both makes us better people and it helps to make them better people. (The question remains, though, what will this student do if the day comes when she decides that the medical profession is not for her. Will she still see her education as valuable in and of itself? If not, then her approximation of a final cause falls quite short of the ideal and shows itself once again to be an undirected secondary cause.)

This mentality is what I like to refer to as the minimalist mentality. Without a teleological sense, without the goal of improving one’s own humanity, the secondary goals become goals in and of themselves. When this happens, the temptation becomes to achieve the goal and then halt. For example, when the grade becomes the goal in and of itself, the natural question becomes, “What do I need to do to get an A?” And when the line is drawn, the temptation is to see the process as complete when the A is achieved. If instead, the question becomes “What do I need to do in order to become a better person?” then not only does the journey not stop at the A, but it also continues throughout one’s entire life, one’s entire journey. (We see a similar minimalistic attitude in the teenager’s obligation approach morality. They see their actions as governed by certain rules, and so long as these rules are not being violated, their actions are justified. Contrast this with a virtue-based ethics in which actions are meant for the perfection of the human person. Ironically, the rule-based mentality inevitably leads to more “rule breaking” than the virtue-based mentality.)

Our charge is to change the culture. We must stop seeing people as means to an end, such as economic security, etc. We must begin to see people as ends in and of themselves. We need to stop asking minimalist questions, and start keeping first things first. These two questions, Who are we? and What is our purpose?, must be revived, and I claim that it is not only the right, but the responsibility and the very purpose of education to do so.

II. On Education in General

If man is teleological in nature, what then is the purpose of education? Our culture tells us that the purpose of education is to “prepare students for the world.” Depending on the meaning of this, it can be either helpful or incredibly disastrous. (We see here one of the primary faults of the modern educational environment, the use of vocabulary and catch phrases that are never fully defined or explored philosophically. Undefined terms are an inevitable source of philosophical ruin.) “Preparing students for the world” can be disastrous if it means to give students the necessary skills to enter the work force. While the old “factory model” of education is often criticized for “churning out products,” I maintain that any educational philosophy that sees the student as a means to an end will inevitably end up as a “factory” of sorts. The production process and the end product may vary, but the factory climate will remain. If we see our students merely as future economic agents, we will inevitably present education as a means to that end. Moreover, seeing students in this light, as anything other than human persons, violates the personalistic norm, which states that under no circumstance is a human person ever to be used as a mean to an end, but instead is to be loved as a person, a dignified end in and of itself.

If instead, we see education as what it should be, the formation of the human person, then we will see it as a primary good, not a pathway to worldly success. Yes, our students are future members of society, but society is not primarily economic. It is not primarily political. It is primarily moral. Recall the Homeric people. They understood their lives as narratives, narratives with a moral. Society is primarily a communio personarum, a communion of persons. As a communion, it is indeed one; it has an entity in and of itself. Yet as a communion of persons, it must not destroy the individuality of its members, but rather elevate it. Society is intended to perfect the humanity of each member, to allow each individual to strive more and more towards his or her own telos. Plato said that a good society is one that allows each individual to reach his or her proper end, one that allows each member to be fully human. If this is true, then we must drastically change the way we think about education. We are not educating just a future work force. We are not educating just future doctors, lawyers, politicians, teachers, fathers, mothers, etc. We are primarily education human beings, and the purpose of education must be to form the human person.

Does this mean that teaching skills for use in the work force is unnecessary? No, but what it does mean is that these skills are secondary matters. We must keep first things first. Only by doing so will we be able to keep both first and second things in line. The first and indispensable thing is to educate the human person as a human person. Our goal, our telos, is to be a better people, and the goal of education is to help students to understand and strive for this end. Then and only then will the second things, things such as work skills, knowledge base, and thinking strategies, have any potential for success. If we concentrate merely on producing workers, our nation will further lose sight of the dignity of the human being and we will find ourselves eerily close to the hellish disrespect for humanity found in other countries around the world. In its extreme form, we will find ourselves in Huxley’s Brave New World.

Education is valuable in and of itself. It is a “first thing.” We must stop treating our classrooms as a “step along the way,” as a means to get into college. We must start treating them as a “step along the Way,” as a part of our teleological journey, as an opportunity to make ourselves and our students “better people” … not just better workers, but better people. This is our calling as educators. This is our vocation.

III. On Mathematics Education

Mathematics is particularly guilty of losing sight of education as a good in and of itself. Mathematics, perhaps more than any other discipline, is faced with the question: When am I ever going to use this? The textbook writers have fallen in to the trap that many of us have fallen in to: the facade of actually answering the question. The problem of course is the question itself. It is a question that should never be asked, because there is one and only one answer to it (to which I will return momentarily).

The textbook writers and we teachers scurry around trying to find “real life” applications from architecture, engineering, music, etc, in order to motivate students. The problem, of course, is that these examples are typically contrived, and the students know it. In the process of trying to answer the question we have done two things. First, we have not really answered it and hence failed to motivate the student. Second, we have justified the question. We have confirmed (erroneously) for the student that the goal of education is to prepare them for some secondary goal, i.e. a career. In their mind, we have now confirmed that if there is not a direct application of the content to their future, then it is not worth learning. Further, we have assured that the next time a challenging topic arises, so too will “the question.”

What is the answer to, “When am I ever going to use this?” The “answer” is that the question is not a valid question. It is not valid because the primary purpose of education is not application. The primary purpose of education is not a preparation for future careers. The education of the human person is a good in and of itself; the purpose of education is to make the student a better person. Knowledge, wisdom, fortitude, courage … the virtues are what makes the human person better. They are not only the path that we must take in order to strive for our goal in life, but they themselves are the goal. The answer to the question is, “This lesson, this subject matter, this very service that the school provides for you, will give you knowledge and wisdom (and along the way a whole host of other virtues), and this knowledge, and in particular the struggle that it takes to attain it, will help you perfect your personhood. Perfecting personhood is precisely the purpose for which you were created. Hence, this lesson, this material, is everything. At this moment, it is the most important thing, because it is an opportunity to improve your humanity.”

The problem, of course, is that if you already know this answer, you do not need to hear it. In fact, you would have never asked “the question” to begin with. On the other hand, if you do not “see it,” then you will not be convinced by it. What is my evidence for such a claim? I would venture to reason that everyone reading this either reacts with, “Of course,” or, “That is entirely too exaggerated and altruistic.” If you “see it,” if you believe it, then you do not see it as an impossibility, but instead you view your “job” as an educator not in terms of career, but in terms of character, that of the main character in the narrative known as your life. You understand the term vocation.

While mathematics typically has this problem in its approach to education, it is ironic that professional mathematicians are one of the most altruistic academics one encounters. They often do not so much care about application, but they revel in the beauty of the theoretical discoveries by which they come. They understand very deeply that knowledge is a virtue, that it is a good in and of itself, and they understand that any eventual application must be built on sound theory. This discrepancy between the attitudes of professional mathematicians and mathematics education is at the root of a fundamental problem for our discipline. If I were to stop the average person on the street and ask them to describe for me what the career of a professional mathematician is like, I would be very surprised to find an adequate description. I would imagine that most people would give answers such as, “working with numbers,” “solving complicated equations,” or “finding new ways to divide.” All of these, of course, are very far from the truth. For many mathematicians all three of them are flat out wrong.

So what? Would we not find the same phenomenon with the other disciplines? I don’t think that we would. I think that for most disciplines, people would have a decent idea of what a professional does, what their research is like. (Please understand that I am in no way claiming that the average person would understand the details and technicalities of other disciplines, merely their general descriptions.)

Why is this such a problem? It seems obvious: if we teach students twelve years of mathematics and they come out of high school not knowing what mathematics is. I think that is a very serious problem. The life of a mathematician primarily consists in conjecture and proof. If we are not teaching conjecture, discovery, and proofs at every level of mathematics, then we are not teaching mathematics.

“But the students aren’t ready for it! But not all students will go into mathematics, so why teach these complicated ideas? After all, it is not really applicable to their lives.” First, I disagree. I think that it is the most applicable thing that we can teach them, far more applicable then most content areas that we teach. Second, at the risk of sounding like the proverbial broken record, I repeat: the primary purpose of education is not to prepare student for worldly applications. It is to impart knowledge and understanding to students and to form them as human persons. The process of conjecture, proof, and presentation is invaluable for the formation of the person.

IV. On Grades

The telos, or goal, of man is to be perfect in the art of humanity. We are called to constantly strive to be better people. The telos of education is to prepare and aide man for his telos. What then, is the telos or purpose of grades? Today’s students see grades as the end of education. The students are only secondarily concerned with understanding. They seek to understand so that they can get an A. In reality, it should be the other way around. The students should seek the A because it represents adequate understanding. Understanding is the virtue, A’s are not.

Should grades be motivation? Absolutely, so long as first things are kept first. What do I mean by this? A grade should be reflective of understanding, not of effort. If the goals of education are understanding and knowledge (both of which better the human person), then the grade should reflect progress along that journey. The proper “grade-motivation” should be as such: I seek to learn for the sake of bettering my knowledge, and hence myself. The teacher assesses my understanding and issues a grade, for example a B. I should read that B for what it is, a statement that my understanding is good, but could use some work, and I should use that as motivation to understand the material at a deeper level. In this mentality, the primary goal is understanding, the secondary end is the grade. Unfortunately, many of are students have switched first and second things. Their primary goal is the A. (Why? To get a good GPA, which leads to a good college, which leads to a good job, which leads …)

If the primary end becomes understanding, then students will become aware that education is a process. (Actually, it is more proper to call it a habit, or habitus to borrow from the Latin.) There is always more understanding for which to strive. In this way, the A students are working just as hard to increase there understanding as the B and C students are, even though their grade cannot get any higher. In this way, all students are self-motivated to improve themselves, and hence the goal of education is on its way to being accomplished. In this way, the grade becomes and aide to education, not the end of education.

V. Conclusion

These thoughts require a radical shift in mind set. It would profit all of us to return to the classics of philosophy: Aristotle, Plato, etc. In their writings we will find the direction that is so lacking in our culture. It is no wonder that we have a rising number of students who graduate from college not knowing what they want to do. People today see happiness as merely an emotion, something that is passing. They do not see their lives as teleological. They do not see a proper end to which they are ordained. Without an end, we are lost, and notions such as “success” and “progress” become dangerously undefined. This is another way of saying that our story has no moral. Aristotle said that the proper end of man is happiness, but he meant something quite different than modernity’s notion of the word. He meant a sustaining state of being; he meant the state that is the “perfection of man.” A much better word would be beatitude. The path to beatitude, the path to our proper end, the way to become more perfect people, culminates in and is by way of the virtues.

Our goal as educators is to form our students as human persons, to educate them in the virtues. No matter what subject we teach, our discipline is only a path towards this common goal. In seeing education as a good in and of itself, and in imparting that to our students, we can and will change society. After all, society is nothing if not a communio personarum. As such, the change must begin with the person, and that means first ourselves, second or classrooms, and third, our school.

Perhaps it is True: The Text

2012-01-21T12:56:00.000-05:00

I am sorry for my relative absence recently. Things are work have been picking up steadily for the last couple weeks. I am currently thinking and working on a couple of pieces based on what I have been reading, but in the meantime, I thought I would give you the text of a talk I posted a bit ago. The text is not particularly well-written, but it was meant to be an informal talk. If you have already listened to it, this will be redundant, but for those that don't have the time or means to devote to listening to an mp3 file, I thought I would present you with the text. It was a talk given to young high school students - next weekend I will be giving it again to a group of 8th grade students preparing for confirmation.

Enjoy!

*********

Perhaps it is True After All.

What a strange experience I had in preparing for a talk on Faith. For weeks, I tried in vain to write, but could produce nothing worth keeping. It was not until I asked the question, “Why?” that things came into a clearer light. Why was I having such difficulty? I think, in the end, that the difficulty stems from the fact that you all know everything you need to know about Faith. Does that sound strange? Faith, though, is frighteningly simple. We all know what it is. But it does seem to be one of those Christian contradictions. On one hand, it is the easiest thing in the world. You simply need to believe, to abandon yourself to God’s will. And deep down, we know what His will is. On the other hand, this denial of self seems utterly impossible.

The second reason that this is difficult is because I have this tremendous sense that this topic, in all of its simplicity, is bigger than me. I am utterly humbled when I even begin to think of the nature of faith.

So, instead of going off on theological excursions: St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, Augustine, Aquinas, or even Ratzinger/Benedict, Wojtyla/JPII, I think I will share with you two stories, one from the Jewish theologian Martin Buber, and the from my own life. I want to end by rephrasing the moral of both stories and leave you as humbled as I am.

The first story is recounted several time by Cardinal Ratzinger, though as I said, it is originally from Martin Buber.

A rather famous atheist had made a career out of publicly shaming those foolish enough to believe in a God. His intellect was far greater than that of his opponents, and he left more than one devout rabbi questioning the very grounds of his faith. This enlightened fellow was to pay a visit to Rabbi Levi Yitschak in order to argue and to shatter his old-fashioned proofs of the truth of his faith. When he entered the Rabbi’s room, he found him walking up and down with a book in his hand, rapt in thought. The Rabbi paid no attention to the atheist upon his arrival. Suddenly, he stopped, looked at him fleetingly, and said, “But perhaps it is true after all.” The scholar tried in vain to collect himself – his knees trembled, so terrible was the Rabbi to behold and so terrible his simple words to hear. Rabbi Yitschak now turned to face him and spoke quite calmly: “My son, the great scholars of the Torah with whom you have argued wasted their words on you; as you departed you laughed at them. They were unable to lay God and his Kingdom on the table before you, and neither can I. But think, my son, perhaps it is true.” The atheist did his best to oppose the Rabbi with all his strength; but the terrible “perhaps” echoed back at him time after time, and he left in silence.

“But perhaps it is true after all.” Indeed, these are haunting words for any atheist. Maybe, just maybe, you are wrong. Perhaps there is a God, and what then? It is Pascal’s wager yet again. Blaise Pascal, a mathematician/theologian argued the existence of God merely by playing the odds. He essentially said, whether you end up right or wrong, it is better to believe than not. For if you believe and are right, you have everything to gain. But if you don’t believe and are wrong, you have everything to lose. And everyone must bet. To not bet is to side with the atheist. All agnostics are essentially atheists.

You see, we all have faith, it is only a question of where that faith lies. “Where your treasure is, there too is your heart.” If your faith is not in Christ and His Church, then it is somewhere else. What is it that we prioritize over God? Sports, money, school, friends, or worse, alcohol, drugs, sex. The phrase, “I’ve lost my faith,” is nonsense. Nobody loses their faith. They merely uproot it and place it in something else.

To test the validity of Pascal’s wager, to convince yourself that it is far better to believe, consider the next worse case. Consider a believer who finds out there is no God. Imagine that you, as a believer, are faced with the opposite of the Rabbi’s words. “Perhaps it is not true.” They don’t have nearly the haunting effect as they did the other way around.

I think that all crisis of faith can be confronted with the Rabbi’s words, “But perhaps, after all, it is true.”

Let me illustrate this point with a story from my own life. Several years ago, right around the time I first married Christina, I had what was nothing short of a crisis of faith. It is ironic, in a way, because it came at a time when I was first beginning to get into my faith. I was gifted my first, “Catholic” book back, and I became on fire for theology. I began buying books left and right. It was like I couldn’t get enough of this stuff. Particularly, I began reading the writings of John Paul II, Cardinal Ratzinger, Cardinal John Newman, Von Balthasar, and a whole host of others past and present. I even dared to immerse myself in some of the spiritual classics like Augustine’s Confessions, Aquinas’s Summa Theologica, and some of the early church fathers. A world of intellect and faith had been opened up to me, a world that I continue to spend nearly every free minute of my time in.

I give you this background, because I think it is important to remember that spiritual crises can come at any moment, not just in our low periods. John of the Cross says that these moments of crises can occur when one is getting closest to God. Doubting Thomas had one, and he knew Jesus personally.

In addition of reading one to two books a week, I also began praying the Divine Office, saying a daily rosary, and most importantly, spend time with our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. I assure you that there is nothing more important that you can do for your spiritual well being than to spend time with God, not just in prayer, but in person. The Lord of Lords, the God of the universe, is there for us to gaze upon. And it is precisely here that my spiritual crisis first hit.

There I was, meditating before God on His presence in the Eucharist, contemplating the mysteries as described by the spiritual masters, Augustine, Aquinas, and the like. And like an anti-epiphany of sorts, it hit me. I don’t believe this stuff. All of it; it is all garbage. It doesn’t make any sense. Here I am, talking to a piece of bread. How in the world did I become so, and I mean this quite literally, insane?

The irony, of course, is that I knew all the intellectual arguments. I could defend the doctrine of the Eucharist with every gun in the Catholic arsenal: Scripture, the Church Fathers, basic common sense. Certainly I could defend God’s existence. My mind knew it, but it did not register in my heart. Have you ever had that experience? Where your mind and your heart contradict each other. It is what philosophers call dis-integration. It is a terrible place to be in. You know what you are supposed to believe, but you simply don’t believe it. You don’t “feel” it for lack of a better word. Maybe some of you are experiencing this right now. Maybe some of you almost didn’t come, or perhaps actually didn’t come, because you weren’t “into” the faith thing right now. Your mind sort of knows it, knows that this is important, but it isn’t a matter of the heart.

You see, this is the different between the Pharisees and Christ in the New Testament. The Pharisees were all “head” cases. That is, they knew the letter of the law and they followed it to the, well, letter. But it wasn’t out of love for the law, love for God. They were intellectuals, academics. Christ was calling them to something greater. That is why he says that a man who is angry in his heart towards another has already committed murder. Merely by being angry?! What an impossible norm to live up to. But we must. We must live from our heart. And I, through all my reading, was being like the Pharisees. It was all in my head, and not at all in my heart. And of course, internalizing the love of and for Christ in the heart is not something you can ever learn from a book. It is the easiest and hardest thing in the world … it is Faith. Like Nike, you just do it.

But here I was, doubting everything I had read for the past year. I came home to Christina that night and laid it all out for her. I said, “I don’t know if I am really Catholic. Heck, I’m not sure I am really even a Christian. I just don’t know if I really believe.” And to say it out loud, to vocalize it to my wife … it terrified me. I had this terrible fear that I would die, face God at the pearly gates, and hear Him say, “Jake, do you believe in me?”

Excuse me? Do I … do I believe in you? What a dumb question. (First of all, I would not advise referring to any question that God asks as “dumb”.) I’m sorry, God, what I mean is, of course I believe in you. After all, I can prove your existence with any of Aquinas’s five proofs, plus there is C.S. Lewis’s argument from desire, and …

“No, Jake, I didn’t ask if you can justify me. In fact, I came to justify you. I asked if you believe.”

Believe. Well God, of course I … wait, well, see the funny thing about belief is … no, wait.

And I was terrified that the Lord of Lords, the God of the universe, would peer into my heart of hearts and know the answer. You can’t hide from God you know, even in the depths of your heart. For that is where He sees most clearly.

What a horrifying thought. Well, I gotta get on this, then. I gotta get myself believing. After all, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. Okay, let’s look at the book shelf. Where can I go? Aquinas, how did he define belief again? No, wait, what about the Vatican II documents? Oh wait, I forgot, I’ve already read these things. Books can’t answer this for me.

It seemed to me that I was at a cross roads. I could either cash it all in and hope that Hell was at least a little entertaining, or I could humble myself and go back to where it all started, back to the Blessed Sacrament. I considered Pascal’s wager, and I took the bet.

I knelt back in front of that “wafer” and pleaded. God, are you there? Are you there God? Come on, man, give me something. I’m dying here. Nothing. Okay, fine, God, if you are going to be stubborn like that, I’m telling your mom. Mary, surely you can help. Are you real? Are you really listening? Send me some sign that this bread is really your Son, because right now he’s being a little immature and playing the “I’m ignoring you” game just because I called his question dumb. Nothing. No God, no Jesus, no Mary. Just bread. Bread, me and a few other poor saps in the room who were too diluted to recognize their apparent insanity. Worshiping bread. How juvenile. That’s it, I’m leaving.

I’m leaving because none of this is real. And I got up to leave the adoration chapel, and just as I hit the door, something that I read long ago sounded like a chapel bell in the quiet loneliness of my new found atheism. “But perhaps it is true after all.”

What? I stopped. “But perhaps it is true after all.” The words haunted me. Jake, are you sure this isn’t real? After all, it is possible, no? No, wait, it can’t be, this is nonsense. Bread. Bread. That’s it. It’s just a lousy piece of bread. “But perhaps.” I felt like the atheist from Buber’s story. Knees trembling, forehead sweating. I turned around and knelt down in the last row of the adoration chapel.

“Perhaps?” That’s it. That’s all I get? Man, God, why do you have to make this so difficult on me? Why can’t I feel something? Why can’t I have something better than “perhaps”?

“Because, Jake, it is not about you.”

What? “Jake, you moron, why do I have to repeat everything for you. It is not about you! It is about me. It is about me loving you, and I can’t love you if you fill yourself with … yourself. You have to empty yourself, take the form of a slave, and allow me to love you.”

Self abandonment. You want the meaning of life. I just gave it to you. You must truly lose yourself. You must abandon everything to God. It isn’t about you. Is this surprising? I don’t think it is. In fact, I would ventures to guess that you already know this. We are designed in God’s image. We can’t get away from that, no matter how hard we try, and man do we try sometimes. We are made in His image, and He is pure gift. God cannot help but to give of himself. Why, because God is pure love. This is why our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, just released his first encyclical this past Wednesday. What was its title? Deus Caritas Est. God is Love. Why not moral relativism, why not liturgy, why not a Marian encyclical? Because the Pope knows that at the heart of it all, we find love, we find a God who gave of himself.

And we are called to image that love. And we know this deep down. Our deepest two desires are to find someone who loves us enough to give his or herself to us, completely, and then to give ourselves back to that individual. Some of us will find that in the sacrament of marriage. Others will go directly to the source by being priests, brothers, or sisters. But we all must do it. We all must learn to abandon everything that we want. And I do mean everything.

But I want to get married. I want to be a doctor. I want to start my own business. You know what? It’s not about you. Countless people have spent their entire lives chasing after what they want, never finding fulfillment. But the saints have found everything by not looking, by simply opening themselves up to something bigger. “God, I will go where you want me to go; I will do what you want me to do; I will be what you want me to be. Say the word, and I am yours.”

The most frightening and beautiful thing I have ever heard is this … each and every one of us has the potential to be a saint. The only reason we aren’t is because we don’t fully want it. The only reason we aren’t is because we don’t fully want it. It isn’t about us.

The beauty of sainthood is that all the saints are happy. Even those that were persecuted were happy. Yes, the Bible tells us to sell all we have, but it doesn’t stop there. It also promises that we will receive infinite riches in return. We will be eternally happy. This is God’s promise.

Are you going through a dry spell in your faith life? Do you have very little desire to pray? Are you not “into” it? Does mass bore you? Suck it up, because it is not about you. God wants you to pray; and God wants you at mass … every Sunday. Faith is not about what you want. It is about giving God what He deserves, and He deserves nothing less than our everything. You want happiness? You give yourself to God, and you will know true happiness. But you have to give.

What is God calling you to? What does He want from you? Are you called to be a priest? Are you called to be a religious sister? Are you called to be married? My guess is that there is someone in here for all three of these. The real question is, are you listening?

I want to close with my favorite Scripture passage, one that embodies the whole notion of self-abandonment.

In his letter to the Galatians, St. Paul says, “For through the law I die to the law, that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me.”

So, the next time you are in a dry spell … the next time you are doubting your faith, instead of saying, “Oh well, it will come back to me in time,” you put your arms out, get yourself in the shape of a cross, and you stay there. You must be crucified.

Am I exaggerating? Is all of this bogus? Maybe. But then again, “perhaps it is true after all.”

Guest Column: The Inquisitions of History

2012-01-13T15:23:00.001-05:00

The Inquisitions of History: State of the Question

Fr. Brian Van Hove, S.J.

An ecclesiastical inquisition in Europe was a court system adapted from Roman law. It was an institutional tribunal charged with protecting orthodox religious doctrine and church discipline. Jurists keep good records, clean records, and abundant records. Curialists write neatly. Scribes are taught to be legible. Because of this legal dimension, we can study the inquisitions today, unlike many other institutions which are lost to us due to a lack of documentation. Luckily, too, inquisition material survived European war. We should also use the plural and speak of “inquisitions” since there were a number of them in different times and places. We now use the capital letter “I” to refer to a specific historical inquisition such as the Venetian or Spanish, or even the earliest one during the Albigensian era in southern France. For the Inquisition and its procedures in Italy during Galileo’s time, we have John Tedeschi’s The Prosecution of Heresy: Collected Studies on the Inquisition in Early Modern Italy (1991).

Due to the work of newer historians, such as Edward Peters in his Inquisition (1988), we have begun to use The Inquisition to speak of the mythology surrounding these institutions which has come down to us as folklore, largely the result of successful Protestant anti-Roman propaganda, particularly in the Spanish Netherlands.

When medieval Europeans used the word “inquisition,” they were referring first to a judicial technique, not an organization or body. There was, in fact, no such thing as “the inquisition” in the sense of an impersonal bureaucracy with a chain of command overseeing it. Instead there were those individuals appointed as “inquisitors of heretical depravity,” assigned by the pope or locally by the bishop, to inquire into heresy in specific areas. They were called such because they applied a procedure known as inquisitio, which could be translated as “inquiry” or “inquest”. In this process, which was already widely used by secular rulers (Henry II used it extensively in England in the twelfth century), an official inquirer called upon the public for information on a specific subject from anyone who felt he or she had something to submit. Normally, this information was treated as very confidential. The official inquirer, aided by competent consultants, then weighed the evidence and determined whether there was reason for further action. This procedure stood in contrast to the Roman law practice typically used in other ecclesiastical courts. Here, unless the judge could proceed on clear, personal knowledge that the defendant was guilty, the judicial process had to be based on an accusation by a third party who was punishable if the accusation was not proved, and in which the defendant could confront witnesses.

By the end of the thirteenth century many areas of continental Europe had been assigned inquisitors. The majority were members of the Franciscan or Dominican Orders, since members of these two orders were seen as pious, educated and mobile. Inquisitors, when appointed by Rome, worked in cooperation with the local bishops. Sentence for offenders was often passed in the name of both. By far most sentences seem to have consisted of uncomfortable penances such as wearing a cross sewn onto one’s clothes or going on a long pilgrimage. The inquisitor’s goal was not primarily to punish the guilty but to identify them, get them to confess their sins and repent, and restore them to the fold of the ecclesial community. Perhaps ten percent or fewer of the more serious cases resulted in execution, a punishment reserved for obstinate heretics (those who refused to repent and be reconciled) and lapsed heretics (those who repented and were reconciled at one time but then returned to serious and voluntary error).

Recent studies with greater scientific rigor have been better able to separate the inquisitions of history from The Inquisitions of legend and myth. This is a happy circumstance as we enter the new millennium. While Pope John Paul II and thus the official Catholic Church have seen fit to apologize for the failures of the past (especially in March 2000), secular historians now tend to speak of how fair the system actually was, of how many people were released because of technicalities, or how the law was not abused because it was not whimsical but the law, and of how many opportunities the accused persons really had to avoid further prosecution. It was not an outrageous ecclesiastical court system, given the times, and when compared to the parallel civil court system. Spain, the object of much scorn by England, was a relatively enlightened country, given the times, as Henry Arthur Francis Kamen points out in his books.

Ever since the sixteenth century, the Inquisition has been held synonymous with terror, bigotry and persecution, and distorted views of its activities persist today. Henry Kamen’s first study of the Inquisition, The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision, published in 1965, quickly became established as the best introduction to one of the most notorious institutions in Western history. Later this book was revised and rewritten, and it is currently the most up-to-date and comprehensive re-evaluation of the subject. Helen Rawlings in her The Spanish Inquisition [Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006] credits Kamen with launching a movement to set straight the historical record.

Based on thirty years of new research and a transformed view of the Inquisition, Henry Kamen’s new account sweeps away old misconceptions and revolutionizes Inquisition studies. He accepts that there is little evidence for the alleged Jewishness of the conversos who were the Inquisition’s first victims, and he gives a new assessment of the significance and consequences of the expulsion of the Jews. He presents a major revision of the impact of blood purity prejudices in Spanish society, revises the figures given for the execution of heretics by the tribunal, and assesses Spanish persecution in the context of executions in neighboring countries. He gives a very new picture of the notorious system of censorship, now seen to be much less effective than often presented, and he sketches the role of efficient foreign propaganda in the creation of the diabolic image of the Inquisition.

Kamen reconstructs the atmosphere of fear and oppression that typified the period, placing it within the context of fear generated by community tensions. He also demonstrates for the first time that the famous auto de fe was not a product of traditional Spanish piety, but a deliberate tool of the inquisitors, invented in the sixteenth century in order to boost their political standing.

This carefully considered study of the dreaded tribunal, based on extensive reading and archival research, is entirely accessible to the general reader, but is also destined perhaps to become the standard reference work on the Inquisition.

Henry Kamen is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a professor of the Higher Council for Scientific Research in Barcelona. Author of many standard studies on Spanish and European history, his recent works are biographies of Phillip II and Phillip V of Spain─ “the king who reigned twice”.

Because of the nature of this subject, care must be taken in choosing authors and readings. Until recently, Protestant-inspired literature on the Inquisition tended to be hostile to the Catholic Church per se, while Catholic literature tended to be narrowly apologetic and justificatory. There was always the “black legend” and the “white legend”, both of which were legends, not history.

Even today, there are still diehard Protestants and general readers who seem unaware of the professional histories available by competent secular authors who are free of religious bias. Uncritical Protestants in the English-speaking world still naively rely on Charles Henry Lea’s A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages (1887, 4 volumes), clearly a dated work of polemics. However, even Lea (1825-1909) is not without merit in the “history of this history” because he did use some original sources, something not seriously attempted before him. Lea is not the “father” of Inquisition studies, however, and for that we have to go outside the English-speaking environment.

It must be acknowledged that the father of Inquisition studies is Juan Antonio Llorente (1756-1823). That is to say, he was more interested in the original documents than in constructing propaganda. He stole the documents when the French occupation of Spain came to an end and he was required, as a French collaborator, to take refuge in Paris. His methodology or use of the documents is not something we can build upon today, but it was a start, or rather a departure from the merely polemical. Many “histories of the Inquisition” were available before Llorente, but their reliability was always vitiated either by faulty method or a guiding apriori. Illustrating its utility, Llorente’s Histoire critique de l’Inquisition en Espagne was reprinted in a Spanish edition in 1980 in four volumes.

After Llorente, we owe much to Henry Charles Lea who was a tireless researcher. His anti-Catholic bias may have hindered him, but he was far more sensitive to documents, and single-minded in collecting them, than anyone before him. The Inquisition had been neglected, and it was almost virgin territory for him. After these pioneers, we enter our own century fully. Henri Maisonneuve published in 1942 his Études sur les origines de l’Inquisition. And after him, we find a fairly rapid succession of authors and works appearing in the second half of the twentieth century. Among other studies in the new millenium, we can count Christopher E. Black's The Italian Inquisition [New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009].

Perhaps this is why we are living in the “Golden Age” of Inquisition Studies ─ because we can finally study it with some seriousness, detached from the religious controversies of the past. Unfortunately, the public at large is unaware of the state of the scholarship on the Inquisition.

Abridged and revised version of “Beyond the Myth of the Inquisition: Ours is ‘The Golden Age’,” Faith and Reason, vol. XVIII, no. 4, (Winter 1992) 335-358; also as “Oltre Il Mito Dell’Inquisizione,” I and II, (I.T.) in La Civiltà Cattolica (143/IV/3419 [December 5, 1992] 458-467; 143/IV/3420 [December, 19, 1992] 578-588.) Posted on Ignatius Insight, 29 April 2008. Revised January 2012.

Faith: Perhaps it is True After All

2012-01-11T10:57:00.000-05:00

I have a new talk posted here. It is a short talk about the nature of faith given to a high school youth group some years ago. It deals indirectly with Paschal's famous wager by relating a story from the Jewish theologian Martin Buber to a story from my own life. It will also be posted through the iTunes Roma locuta est Podcast.

Enjoy, and feel free to pass it around!

Three Epiphany Gifts

2012-01-08T15:00:00.001-05:00

In the spirit of the triple gift to the Christ child, I have three offerings for you on this, the vigil of the observed feast of the Epiphany.

1. How Children Tell it Like it is: On the transferring of Epiphany

It never ceases to amaze me how little children implicitly understand simple things. My son, Benedict Joseph, was born three years ago on January 6th, which that year happened to be a Sunday. I boasted at the time that he was born on the actual day of Epiphany and the observed day. I need not point out that sad fact that the coincidence of "observed" and "actual" does not often occur in the United States, as is evidenced by this year's calendar. The practice of transferring Epiphany has been going on for so long that most Americans don't realize that the Solemnity is one of the holy days of obligation. In other words, in dioceses (e.g., Rome) where the feast is not transferred to a Sunday, the faithful are obliged to attend Mass on January 6. While it is always a shame to move any solemnity, the two that sadden me the most are Ascension Thursday and Epiphany. Both solemnities are placed because of the significance of when they occur in relation to Easter and Christmas, respectively. Even the secular world is aware of the "Twelve Days of Christmas," though they may not associate those days with the days between Christmas and Epiphany. Moving the celebration of the day necessarily brings with it the loss of this significance. Moreover, being the fourth most important solemnity in the Church's calendar, it is particularly troublesome that we should move it. The only three solemnities that precede it in rank are Easter, Christmas, and Pentecost. Given that Easter and Pentecost both fall on Sundays, they will never be transferred. That means that, in transferring Epiphany, we have moved the second highest fixed-date solemnity, which begs the question ... how long before we decide to transfer Christmas to the closest Sunday?

All that aside, a few years ago, in mentioning to my daughter that "today is Epiphany," she said, "I thought Epiphany was on Benedict's birthday." Of course, I responded by attempting to explain that the Church has decided to celebrate Epiphany today instead of on the sixth, to which she responded, "So today is just the pretend Epiphany. The real Epiphany is on January 6th." In Mass, after noticing that the parish had not moved the magi closer to the stable she said, "See, even the three kings know that it isn't Epiphany!" I couldn't have said it better myself.

2. The Introit for Epiphany: Ecce Advenit

The second offering is the Gregorian Introit for the Solemnity of the Epiphany. I have mentioned numerous times in these pages the importance of the Gregorian Propers for use in the Mass instead of the hymns that have become unofficially normalized in the Sunday Liturgies. The Liturgy itself grew organically in tandem with these Propers, and much theological and liturgical significance is lost when they are deliberately buried, forgotten, and mislabeled as "Pre-Vatican II." While an entrance hymn is permitted in the current rubrics, it should be noted that it is listed as the last option. (See the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, no. 47-48). The first and primary option is "the antiphon from the Roman Missal or the Psalm from the Roman Gradual as set to music there or in another musical setting." This entrance chant is also known as the Introit.

About a year ago, Jeffrey Tucker (at the time writing for the New Liturgical Movement) wrote, "Most every Ordinary Form Mass ... will begin with 'We Three Kings.' The practice is so common that many people might be under the impressions that this hymn is integral to the Roman Rite. In fact, it is not. To use this hymn as the entrance is a substitute - the last option permitted in the rubrics, presumably only to be used when no other choice is possible - for the authentic Introit, which is Ecce Advenit." Below is the Gregorian manuscript followed by the chant itself. Jeffrey Tucker's article contains significantly more information and is well worth the read.

3. On the Nature of Epiphany: The three-fold significance
Finally, as a matter of nostalgia, my first significant post on the website occurred one year ago. The topic was the three-fold significance of the Feast of Epiphany: the visit of the Magi, the Baptism of the Lord, and the Wedding at Cana. I will not reproduce the entire article here, but perhaps the second two paragraphs will encourage you to revisit the inaugural article of these pages.

Once the feast was redated, what was the purpose of reserving January 6th as a day of particular reverence? It might seem at first that the date of January 6th was kept for purely historical and nostalgic reasons. On the contrary, Hemming indicates that the Feast of Epiphany originally had a triple significance: The Nativity (together with the visitation of the Magi), the Baptism of the Lord, and the commemoration of the Wedding at Cana. Thus, even with the transference of the Nativity to December 25th, there were two remaining significations of the feast of Epiphany: the Baptism of Jesus and the commemoration of the Wedding at Cana. Interestingly enough, “[t]he least of the significations of the feast (so much so, that it gets no mention in the liturgies of the East) is the appearance of the wise men of Magi from the East, the so-called ‘three kings.’”

The connection between these three significations is evident in many elements of the liturgy, but perhaps the antiphon for the Benedictus on Epiphany shows this most clearly: “Today the Bridegroom claims his bride, the Church, since Christ has washed her sins away in Jordan’s waters; the Magi hasten with their gifts to the royal wedding; and the guests rejoice, for Christ has changed water into wine, alleluia."

If you are praying the Office of Readings on Monday ("Monday between Epiphany and the Baptism"), be sure to pay close attention to the second reading by Saint Peter Chrysologous. In it he mentions all three significances of this great solemnity.

The Triple Meaning of Epiphany

2012-01-08T11:12:00.000-05:00

The Visit of the Magi

The Feast of Epiphany is preceded in importance by only three other feasts during the liturgical year. (As a good exercise, see if you can name the three feasts in order of their liturgical importance.) The connection between Epiphany and Christmas is not only in the fact that it is twelve days after the celebration of Christ’s Nativity, but also in its modern emphasis on the visitation of the Magi to the Christ Child. Historically, however, the connection is stronger still. Laurence Paul Hemming, when describing the history and theological significance of Epiphany in his book Worship as Revelation, reminds us that the feast of Christ’s birth was originally celebrated on January 6th rather than the current date of December 25th. “[F]ollowing the arguments of Sextus Julius Africanus ... the actual birth of Christ was redated to December 25th .... So important was the date of the feast of the 6th January, however, that the established feast of that date remained, in both the East and the West.”

The Wedding at Cana

Once the feast was redated, what was the purpose of reserving January 6th as a day of particular reverence? It might seem at first that the date of January 6th was kept for purely historical or nostalgic reasons. On the contrary, Hemming indicates that the Feast of Epiphany originally had a triple significance: The Nativity (together with the visitation of the Magi), the Baptism of the Lord, and the commemoration of the Wedding at Cana. Thus, even with the transference of the Nativity to December 25th, there were two remaining significations of the feast of Epiphany: the Baptism of Jesus and the commemoration of the Wedding at Cana. Interestingly enough, “[t]he least of the significations of the feast (so much so, that it gets no mention in the liturgies of the East) is the appearance of the wise men of Magi from the East, the so-called ‘three kings.’”

The connection between these three significations is evident in many elements of the liturgy, but perhaps the antiphon for the Benedictus on Epiphany shows this most clearly: “Today the Bridegroom claims his bride, the Church, since Christ has washed her sins away in Jordan’s waters; the Magi hasten with their gifts to the royal wedding; and the guests rejoice, for Christ has changed water into wine, alleluia.”

The Baptism of the Lord

The connection the Nativity shares with the Baptism of the Lord is more profound when we recall that the sacrament of Baptism is a celebration of heavenly birth. While Christmas Day is the celebration of the Incarnation, the earthly birth of Jesus, the Baptism of the Lord (as seen by Origin) is a celebration of the heavenly birth of the Savior, not in a temporal sense of course (because the Second Person of the Trinity is an eternal procession from the Father), but in an eschatological sense. There is, then, a connection between the Christmas-Epiphany cycle and the hypostatic union. The Christmas-Epiphany pair celebrates the union of the divine and human natures in the one person of Jesus Christ. Liturgically, we hear this celebration of the hypostatic union and its importance in our own lives in the Opening Prayers from Christmas, Epiphany, and the Baptism of the Lord.*

From Christmas - Mass of the Day:

O God, who wonderfully created the dignity of human nature and still more wonderfully restored it,
grant, we pray,
that we may share in the divinity of Christ,
who humbled himself to share in our humanity.

From Epiphany:

O God, who on this day
revealed your Only Begotten Son to the nations
by the guidance of a star,
grant in your mercy, that we, who know you already by faith, may be brought to behold the beauty of your sublime glory.

From the Baptism of the Lord:

Almighty ever-living God,
who, when Christ had been baptized in the River Jordan
and as the Holy Spirit descended upon him,
solemnly declared him your beloved Son,
grant that your children by adoption,
reborn of water and the Holy Spirit,
may always be well pleasing to you.

The last example is reminiscent of the silent prayer the priest offers when pouring a drop of water into the chalice filled with wine: “By the mystery of this water and wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” With the wine representative of divinity and the water representative of humanity, the connection between the wine and water of Cana and Christ’s hypostatic union is made explicit. (For a more detailed explanation of the signs involved at the Wedding at Cana, see a previous commentary on the thought of Fr. Robert Barron.)

It should now be clear that “[t]he central importance of the Feast of the Epiphany is that liturgically we are brought to see the connections between the Incarnation and the Resurrection” (Hemming). In a certain sense, this feast recalls for us the entire Paschal Mystery. It is for this reason that in Rome (and in many other church’s throughout the world) it is on this day, the Feast of Epiphany, that the Deacon, after chanting the Gospel solemnly proclaims in sacred chant the dates of the next Ash Wednesday, Easter, the Ascension, Pentecost, Corpus Christi, and the following First Sunday of Advent.

The Feast of Epiphany, then, calls us to contemplate our own creation and its orientation to our new creation in Christ Jesus. While we may at first be drawn to thoughts of the three gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, the true gift of Epiphany is Christ’s gift of himself for our salvation. Therefore, the three gifts offered by the Magi should only be representations of our own gift of self to the Lord. As proclaimed in Gaudium et Spes (24), “[M]an, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.”

The universal call to holiness means that the mystery of Christ must become the center of our own existence. As with all things liturgical, the event of Epiphany effects what it signifies. While signifying our own divinization, the liturgy also brings about that divinization. Truly, through our Eucharistic participation in his incarnation-death-resurrection, we do “come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” However, like all sacramental effects, we must dispose ourselves towards the reception of the grace offered. Our attitude towards our Creator must first and foremost be that of openness to the gift, an attitude that recognizes the transcendent reality beyond us, that sees with the eyes of faith that we are actors in the great drama being played out in the cosmos. Let us pray for this disposition so that Jesus Christ might become an Epiphany in our own lives.

New Translation Monday: Audio Presentation V

2011-12-26T03:38:00.007-05:00

As a Christmas gift of sorts, here is the fifth and final installment of the New Translation audio series, now available both here and through the iTunes Roma locuta est podcast. In this talk, I discuss the Ecce Agnus Dei and the "Mystery of Faith." I also discuss those portion of the Mass that are not undergoing a new translation and briefly delve into the changes coming to the priest's parts. The talk ends in a clarion call to embrace the changed in the revisions. The video is also available.

New English Translation of the Roman Missal: Part5 from St. John Neumann on Vimeo.

O Emmanuel

2011-12-23T06:53:00.001-05:00

The O Antiphon for December 23 is O Emmanuel.

Latin: O Emmanuel, Rex et legifer noster, exspectatio gentium, et Salvator earum: veni ad salvandum nos Domine Deus noster.

Literal Translation: O Emmanuel, God with us, our King and lawgiver, the expected of the nations and their Savior: come to save us, O Lord our God.

Translation in the Breviary: O Emmanuel, king and lawgiver, desire of the nations, Savior of all people, come and set us free, Lord our God.

There are several Scriptural references that prompt this antiphon and its understanding:

Isaiah 7:14

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel.

Isaiah 8:7-8

therefore, the Lord is bringing up against it the mighty flood waters of the River, the king of Assyria and all his glory; it will rise above all its channels and overflow all its banks; it will sweep on into Judah as a flood, and, pouring over, it will reach up to the neck; and its outspread wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel.

Haggai 2:7

And I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the LORD of hosts.

Matthew 1:23

"Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us."

The relevant verse from O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is

O come, o come, Emmanuel,

And ransom captive Israel,

That mourns in lonely exile here,

Until the Son of God appear.

Tonight, perhaps before dinner or before retiring to bed, pray the antiphon as a family and/or sing the verse from O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.

Vader, Did You Know?

2011-12-22T20:30:00.001-05:00

With all of the discussion resulting from a previous post on the song, "Mary, Did You Know?", I thought this would be a stupendous Christmas gift for all of you. We may not agree on the merits or lack thereof in the song about the Blessed Mother, but I think we can all attest to the humor in the following rendition.*

Hat tip to Darwin Catholic for this.

* Of course, I better not hear this version at Midnight Mass!

O Rex Gentium

2011-12-22T06:52:00.001-05:00

The O Antiphon for December 22 is O Rex Gentium.

Latin: O Rex gentium, et desideratus earum, lapisque angularis, qui facis utraque unum: veni, et salva hominem, quem de limo formasti.

Literal Translation: O King of the gentiles and their desired One, the cornerstone that makes both one: come, and deliver man, whom you formed out of the dust of the earth.

Translation in the Breviary: O King of all the nations, the only joy of every human heart; O Keystone of the mighty arch of man, come and save the creature you fashioned from the dust.

There are several Scriptural references that prompt this antiphon and its understanding:

Isaiah 9:7

His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.

Isaiah 2:4

He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

Isaiah 28:16

Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, See, I am laying in Zion a foundation stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation: "One who trusts will not panic."

Psalm 118:22

The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.

Matthew 21:42

Jesus said to them, "Have you never read in the scriptures: 'The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord's doing, and it is amazing in our eyes'?

Mark 12:10

Have you not read this scripture: 'The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;

Luke 20:17

But he looked at them and said, "What then does this text mean: 'The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone'?

Acts 4:11

This Jesus is 'the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone.'

Ephesians 2:19-20

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.

1 Peter 2:6

For it stands in scripture: "See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame."

Revelation 15:3

And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb: "Great and amazing are your deeds, Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, King of the nations!

The relevant verse from O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is

O come, Desire of nations, bind,

In one the hearts of all mankind;

Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,

And be Thyself our King of peace.

Tonight, perhaps before dinner or before retiring to bed, pray the antiphon as a family and/or sing the verse from O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.

George Bailey and Saint Joseph

2011-12-21T10:57:00.000-05:00

No other movie is associated with the pre-Christmas ramp-up like Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. The timelessness of the film is due in large part to its wholesomeness and projection of quality Christian values, two attributes missing from the vast majority of contemporary cinematic features. Often over looked, however, is the striking resemblance that the main character, George Bailey, has with the foster father of Jesus, St. Joseph. Let’s examine several parallels.

To save the Christ child from Herod’s massacre of the Holy Innocents, St. Joseph took his family out of harm’s way. While not directly related, there is a heroism of sorts in the character of George Bailey. As a young boy, he rescues his brother Harry from drowning, suffering an injury to his ear in the process. In his part-time job in the local drugstore, George suffers a beating from his employer rather than delivering the wrong medicine that had inadvertently been filled with poison. Much like St. Joseph was a quiet figure in the New Testament, it is Harry that receives the renowned fame of a hero rather than his brother George.

Perhaps the most obvious parallel is that St. Joseph and George Bailey are both in love with a woman named Mary. George is a man filled with plans, hopes, and dreams. At one point he tells his wife, “I know what I’m going to do tomorrow and the next day and the next year and the year after that.” But things do not work out the way the George plans. He never fills his suitcase, never travels the globe, and in reality never makes it out of Bedford Falls. It is not unreasonable to think that Joseph felt the same. Engaged to Mary, he finds her pregnant with a child that is not her own. Certainly his situation is far from ideal in the life of any Jewish man. The same desperate plea form George Bailey when crisis hits, “I wish I had never been born”, very well could be put on the lips of St. Joseph as he wrestles to cope with his own situation. After all, Joseph’s initial reaction was to “divorce Mary quietly.”

At the height of personal crisis, both Joseph and George are visited by an angel sent by God. The angel, in both cases, reveals to the men the crucial role they have played and must continue to play in the lives of those around them, a role that can only be fulfilled by abandonment of personal ambitions and preconceptions. Clarence, the angel sent to George Bailey, says, “Each man’s life touches so many other lives. And when he isn’t around, he leaves an awful hole.” Not only is this a perfect description of God’s providence, it also leads us to recognize the essential role that Joseph played in the plan of salvation. What would have happened had Joseph decided to divorce Mary in spite of the angel’s plea? The “hole” left would have had cosmic consequences.

In the revelation given to George, he comes to realize not only the direct impact that he has on his friends and family, but also the “butterfly effect” so to speak. In other words, critical decisions made by people in George’s life could only have been made because of George’s influence. Likewise, while Mary’s fiat came before Joseph’s, we cannot overlook the fact that his decision to take her into his home must have influenced the behavior of the Blessed Mother and her role in the life of Jesus.

Finally, the movie opens with the offering of a prayer, “I owe everything to George Bailey. Help him, dear Father. Joseph, Jesus, and Mary. Help my friend Mr. Bailey.” The usual order of intercession is, “Jesus, Joseph, and Mary.” The script seems to give added importance to the intercession of St. Joseph. The prayer is heard by the foster father of Jesus, for it is Joseph who approaches God, who asks, “Trouble, Joseph?” Joseph tells God of George Bailey, and because of his intercession, the angel Clarence is sent to earth to save Mr. Bailey from himself. Not only does this add to the parallels between St. Joseph and George, but it also gives a beautiful witness to the Catholic teaching on intercessory prayer.

After reading Fr. Cameron’s editorial, I can no longer watch It’s A Wonderful Life without thinking about St. Joseph. For this reason, the most watched Christmas movie of all time provides a tremendous opportunity for Advent preparation.

St. Joseph, pray for us.

NB. The above is inspired by an editorial written by Peter John Cameron, O.P., in the publication Magnificat some years ago. For the life of me, I cannot locate the piece either in print or online. The observations are based on my own notes from Fr. Cameron's article. If someone has a link to his original text, please send it my way, and I am happy to give credit where credit is due.

O Oriens

2011-12-21T06:51:00.001-05:00

The O Antiphon for December 21 is O Oriens.

Latin: O Oriens, splendor lucis aeternae, et sol iustitiae: veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris et umbra mortis.

Literal Translation: O dawn of the east, brightness of light eternal, and sun of justice: come, and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

Translation in the Breviary: O Radiant Dawn, splendor of eternal light, sun of justice: come, shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

There are several Scriptural references that prompt this antiphon and its understanding:

Isaiah 9:2

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness-- on them light has shined.

Malachi 4:2

But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.

Luke 1:78-79

By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

The relevant verse from O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is

O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer,

Our spirits by Thine advent here;

Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,

And death's dark shadows put to flight.

Tonight, perhaps before dinner or before retiring to bed, pray the antiphon as a family and/or sing the verse from O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.

O Clavis David

2011-12-20T06:50:00.001-05:00

The O Antiphon for December 20 is O Clavis David.

Latin: O clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel: qui aperis, et nemo claudit; claudis, et nemo aperit: veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris, sedentem in tenebris.

Literal Translation: O Key of David, and scepter of the house of Israel, who opens and no man shuts, who shuts and no man opens: come, and bring forth the captive from his prison, he who sits in darkness and in the shadow of death.

Translation in the Breviary: O Key of David, O royal Power of Israel controlling at your will the gate of heaven: come, break down the prison walls of death for those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death; and lead your captive people into freedom.

There are several Scriptural references that prompt this antiphon and its understanding:

Isaiah 22:22

I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and no one shall shut; he shall shut, and no one shall open.

Isaiah 9:6

For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Revelation 3:7

"And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These are the words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.”

The relevant verse from O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is

O come, thou Key of David, come,

And open wide our heavenly home;

Make safe the way that leads on high,

And close the path to misery.

Tonight, perhaps before dinner or before retiring to bed, pray the antiphon as a family and/or sing the verse from O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.

The Jarring Secular Santa

2011-12-19T10:55:00.000-05:00

There is a local radio station that plays Christmas music twenty-four-seven this time of year. In the space between songs, they interview children regarding their favorite thing about Christmas. The response that has been playing for the past couple days is a young boy who answers, “If I lived a long time ago, I would say Jesus, but since I don’t, my favorite thing is the presents.” Of course, there are numerous problems with this, too many to dive into really, but the main point is that the idea of gift giving has not only ceased to be connected with the Christ Child, but has also usurped Him altogether. It is one thing for the secular to supplant the sacred, but in the case of Christmas, the secular has secularized the sacred. That is, it has taken actions and symbols that are historically religious in origin and has removed the religion form them. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the case of Santa Claus.

Of course, everyone knows that the image of Santa comes from a Catholic Saint: Saint Nicholas. Yet somehow the person of Santa has been disassociated from his proper history: the humble Bishop who gave away his belongings to help the townspeople. He now comes complete with the North Pole, Mrs. Claus, elves, and reindeer. I have been searching for sometime for the proper adjective to describe this phenomenon. The other day, I read an article from the homeschooling magazine Mater et Magistra and found my long sought after adjective. This juxtaposition of the secular Santa with anything authentically Christmas is jarring:

“Not only is it difficult to fully appreciate what God has done in becoming man, it’s also hard to focus on Christ during this time of the year because of all the unavoidable distractions. No matter how non-existent Santa is in your home, he’s absolutely everywhere else. Lately they’ve even got him kneeling next to the manger. That’s a good thing, I know, but when you were trying to transport your mind and heart to the incredible night when Christ was born, seeing Santa there is jarring. The kings, the camels, the cow, donkey and sheep all help. Santa does not. He distracts us.” (“Mary and the Church” by Maria Rioux, Mater et Magistra Volume 3, Number 3)

The kings, the camels, the cow, donkey, and sheep were all part of the original Nativity scene. Santa was not.

I even know a priest who pulled a stunt one year at the Christmas Eve Mass. After the homily, he arranged for Santa Claus to visit the church. Santa quietly entered from the Sacristy, and he and the priest walk over to the creche set and prayed in front of the infant Jesus. The point, I gather, was that Santa should somehow lead us to Jesus, and admittedly the intention was good. The problem is, it didn’t work. The children, rather than focussing on the Christ Child, remembered only one thing: Santa was at Church tonight. Of course, many parents thought it was a greatest homily ever preached, though few could remember the actual homily. For my own part, it was simply jarring. On the second most solemn night of the entire liturgical year, when our hearts and minds are supposed to be wrapped, like swaddling clothes, around the infant Jesus, they were instead lost in the secular image of the man from the North Pole.

What is to be done? Is the image of Saint Nicholas lost forever? I don’t think so, but I think it would take radical steps in order to rescue the saintly bishop from the jolly old elf. The first step is to associate the man not with Christmas Day, but rather with his feast day on December 6. Feast days are give to us by the Church for a reason - celebrate them!

The second step brings us back full circle to the quote form the radio. Santa and presents go hand in hand. Rescuing Saint Nicholas from his secular self will necessarily involve rescuing gift-giving from the clutches of commercialism. We give gifts to express the gift of the Christ Child, not to satisfy our deepest longings for the latest fashions, technologies, and toys. Simplify your Christmas. Our family gives three gifts to each child to represent the three gifts of the Magi.

Above all, keep the Liturgy at the center of the Solemnity. Don’t fall into the temptation to go to Christmas Eve Mass so that Christmas Day is “free from distraction.” Midnight Mass is brilliant, and it is well worth the late hours, yet not feasible for all ages. Yet Mass on Christmas Day is unique in itself and can go a long way in setting the tone for the celebration. Our family wakes up on Christmas morning bright and early for the first available Mass. After Mass we come home for a formal breakfast, and after breakfast we pray Lauds together. Only after that do we even consider opening a gift.

Have the children open gifts one at a time. The worst thing a child can do is to tear into one gift after another, always looking for something “better”. In fact, I’ll go one step further. The solemnity of Christmas lasts through the entire octave (and the season of Christmas long past that). Spread the gift giving out to emphasize that the Christmas Season did not begin the day after Thanksgiving and end on the 25th of December, but rather begins on Christmas Day and lasts throughout the next several weeks.

Simplify your Christmas, and keep it about the infant Jesus, not about Santa. At the very least, keep the Creche about Christ - no jarring Santas.

O Radix Jesse

2011-12-19T06:49:00.001-05:00

The O Antiphon for December 19 is O Radix Jesse.

Latin: O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum, super quem continebunt reges os suum, quem gentes deprecabuntur: veni ad liberandum nos, iam noli tardare.

Literal Translation: O Root of Jesse, that stands for an ensign of the people, before whom the kings keep silence and unto whom the Gentiles shall make supplication: come, to deliver us, and tarry not.

Translation in the Breviary: O Flower of Jesse's stem, you have been raised up as a sign for all peoples; kings stand silent in your presence; the nations bow down in worship before you. Come, let nothing keep you from coming to our aid.

There are several Scriptural references that prompt this antiphon and its understanding:

Isaiah 11:1

A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.

Isaiah 11:10

On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.

Micah 5:1

Now you are walled around with a wall; siege is laid against us; with a rod they strike the ruler of Israel upon the cheek.

Romans 15:8-13

For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the circumcised on behalf of the truth of God in order that he might confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, "Therefore I will confess you among the Gentiles, and sing praises to your name"; and again he says, "Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people"; and again, "Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples praise him"; and again Isaiah says, "The root of Jesse shall come, the one who rises to rule the Gentiles; in him the Gentiles shall hope." May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Revelation 5:1-5

Then I saw in the right hand of the one seated on the throne a scroll written on the inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals; and I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, "Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?" And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it. And I began to weep bitterly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep. See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals."

The relevant verse from O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is

O come, O Rod of Jesse free,

Thine own from Satan's tyranny;

From depths of hell Thy people save,

And give them victory o'er the grave.

Tonight, perhaps before dinner or before retiring to bed, pray the antiphon as a family and/or sing the verse from O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.

New Translation Monday: Audio Presentation IV

2011-12-19T03:32:00.007-05:00

For your continued Advent reflection, the fourth installment of the New Translation audio series is now available both here and through the iTunes Roma locuta est podcast. In this talk, I discuss the new translation of the prayers leading up to the Eucharistic Canon. This includes the Orate, fratres, the corresponding Suscipiat Dominus, the Preface Dialog, and the Sanctus. The video is also available.

Bulletin Blurbs: A Bizarre Take on the Annunciation

2011-12-18T17:03:00.003-05:00

There was a very bizarre reflection on the Sunday Gospel in our bulletin today. Like many parishes, we use the “pre-packaged” OCP reflections. (This is not the first time that I have written about these “added bonuses” from our dear friends at OCP.) The author this time is Deacon Owen Cummings. Here is his reflection:

Luke 1:26-38
By Deacon Owen Cummings
We are so familiar with this story that perhaps we miss something of its depth and profundity and novelty. First, Mary’s condition: she is in love; she is betrothed, that is, she has consented to be Joseph’s wife but has not yet been taken to live with him, “she does not know man.” Second, the angel says to her, “The Lord is with you.” Actually, the Greek says, “The Lord with you,” that is, there is no verb. The fact that there is no verb suggests a powerful and certain presence of the Lord with Mary. This powerful and certain presence will become yet even more intense and intimate when she “conceives and bears a son,” and God becomes Mary’s baby. This happens through the power of the Holy Spirit “overshadowing” Mary. This word “overshadow,” in Greek episkiazein trails with it images of God’s presence in the sanctuary of the Temple, and at the Transfiguration. God is indeed very present to, with and in Mary. There is, however, no element of compulsion in God’s presence. One commentator, Tina Beattie, says: “God waited while Mary deliberated. The history of the world hung in the balance as a young girl considered the options before her.” God’s gracious presence is invitational and persuasive, never coercive. Finally, we notice that no man is present in the narrative. The angel Gabriel is a spirit, not a man, and, while Joseph is mentioned as Mary’s betrothed, he plays no role in the narrative. As Tina Beattie says, “Man has claimed the right to silence every voice but his, but when God speaks to Mary, he restores the power of speech to women by explicitly excluding man from the event.” Truly something/ One new is incarnating here.

It should be noted that the quoted author, Tina Beattie, is dangerously close to disobedience on magisterial teachings. if not blatantly over the line: teachings such as abortion, contraception, women’s ordination, and valid baptismal formula’s. At the very least, she is certainly on the fringe of “Catholic theology”*, with a conception of God and Church that does not find support in Church documents nor in the Tradition of our Faith. (Actually, Beattie acknowledges this fact, and laments that it is the case.) Her musings are novel, or rather examples of novelty, and therefore are cause for treading lightly. In fact, her magna carta of sorts contains language and imagery that borders on pornographic and was certainly too graphic to replicate here.

With regards to her interpretation of the Annunciation, it is obviously loaded with ideology rather than grounded in actual reason. While is is true that Mary was alone for the event, I hardly think it was because of God’s desire to exclude men. Rather, it seems more likely that God wanted to exclude all others, both men and women, from this scene. Why? It is the same reason that the Creed, properly translated, must begin with an I. While salvation will be offered to all, our response is always individual. We stand before God alone, now and at the end of our life for judgement. Communion is created by the Eucharist, but only because of the personal act of faith on the part of individual believers. Mary, who gave a singular response at a hinge moment in salvation history, does so with a personal fiat.

With regards to the exclusion of men, we should remember that the Gospel passage names at least three men: Joseph, Jacob, and David. We should also point out that at least one man was present, albeit after the fiat: Jesus Incarnate. The Church, in her teaching that life begins at conception, acknowledges the presence of Jesus’ humanity, a humanity that is decisively male, at the moment of conception.

Lest I be misunderstood, this is not to say that the Church, both past and present, fails to acknowledge the importance of the woman in salvation history, particularly at the moment of the Annunciation. The Catholic Church elevates the status of Mary, more often than not to the chagrin of our Protestant brother’s and sisters, with doctrines such as the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption, the Mother of God, the Queen of Heaven, etc. The Church is, and always has been, remarkably pro-woman.

Returning the Beattie’s interpretation, I tried to find some basis in early Church history, to see if the “absence of man” has any basis in the writings of the early days of the Faith. I read through the corresponding commentary in Thomas’ Catena Aurea to get a broad sampling of early writings on Luke’s account. Not surprisingly, there is nothing to the found that even remotely supports Beattie’s ideas. Rather, we find a variety of far more reasonable thoughts.

Ambrose indicates that the solitude of Mary during the Annunciation is related to her inviolability. He says, “Mark the virgin by her manner of life. Alone in an inner chamber, unseen by the eyes of men, discovered only by an angel; as it is said, And the angel came in to her. That she might not be dishonored by any ignoble address, she is saluted by an angel.”

Gregory of Nyssa draws a connection between the failed response of Eve and the Fiat of Mary: “Far different then to the news formerly addressed to the woman, is the announcement now made to the Virgin. In the former, the cause of sin was punished by the pains of childbirth; In the latter, through gladness, sorrow is driven away. Hence the angel not unaptly proclaims joy to the Virgin, saying, Hail.”

Finally, under the title “Greek Ex,” Thomas says, “But this is the sum of the whole message. The Word of God, as the Bridegroom, effecting an incomprehensible union, Himself, as it were, the same both planting, and being planted, has molded the whole nature of man into Himself. But comes last the most perfect and comprehensive salutation; Blessed are you among women. i.e. Alone, far before all other women; that women also should be blessed in you, as men are in your Son; but rather both in both. For as by one man and one woman came at once both sin and sorrow, so now also by one woman and one man has both blessing and joy been restored, and poured forth upon all.”

Mary’s solitude is given as a solitude among women, an “antidote to Eve” so to speak, just as Christ Jesus enjoyed a solitude among men, as the “New Adam.”

The charge that “when God speaks to Mary, he restores the power of speech to women by explicitly excluding man from the event” is simply unfounded and the result of an ideology rather than actual fact.

* I didn’t know whether to place “Catholic” or “theology” in quotes, for Beattie’s work seems to be neither Catholic, nor theology.

The Dating of Christmas

2011-12-18T10:54:00.001-05:00

As we approach the Solemnity of the Nativity of our Lord, periodicals both secular and religious attempt the task of explaining the dating of Christmas. It never ceases to amaze me how even when theories have been sufficiently debunked they continue to persist in popular myth. The myth is that placing the birth of Jesus on December 25 was a Christian response to a pagan Roman festival honoring the “unconquered sun god.”

In his book The Spirit of the Liturgy, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger argues against the thesis of the pagan festival. “The claim used to be made that December 25 developed in opposition to the Mithras myth, or as a Christian response to the cult of the unconquered sun promoted by Roman emperors in the third century in their efforts to establish a new imperial religion. However, these old theories can no longer be sustained. The decisive factor was the connection of creation and Cross, of creation and Christ’s conception” (Ratzinger, 108).

Earlier, Ratzinger shows that the African ecclesiastical author Tertullian (c. 150 – c. 207) discussed a well-known tradition that Christ suffered death on March 25, a day that was cosmically associated with the creation of the world. March 25 was taken as the spring equinox (which we now know to be off by a few days), and hence the date after which light definitively conquers darkness. March 25 would be fully appropriate for not only the day of Creation, but also the day of the New Creation (the Incarnation or Annunciation) as well as Christ’s Passion. It is by this historical development, and not that of the Mithras myth, that “the feast of Christ’s birth on December 25 – nine months after March 25 – developed in the West in the course of the third century” (Ratzinger, 107).

In the Catena Aurea of St. Thomas Aquinas, we find the following quotation of Theophilus in regards to Luke's Nativity:

"Because either the Incarnation of Christ was to be in the sixth age of the world, or because it was to serve to the fulfilling of the law, rightly in the sixth month of John's conception was an angel sent to Mary, to tell her that a Savior should be born. Hence it is said, 'And in the sixth month.' We must understand the sixth month to be March, on the twenty-fifth day of which our Lord is reported to have been conceived, and to have suffered, as also to have been born on the twenty-fifth day of December. But if either the one day we believe to be the vernal equinox, or the other the winter solstice, it happens that with the increase of light He was conceived or born Who lightens every man that comes into the world. But if any one shall prove, that before the time of our Lord's nativity or conception, light began either to increase, or supersede the darkness, we then say, that it was because John, before the appearance of His coming, began to preach the kingdom of heaven."

Ratzinger cites St. Jerome in support of this cosmic significance, “Even creation approves of our preaching. The universe itself bears witness to the truth of our words. Up to this day [December 25, the approximate date of the winter solstice] the dark days increase, but from this day the darkness decreases … The light advances, while the night retreats” (quoted in Ratzinger, page 108).

Finally, the Cardinal discusses another important cosmic event, the summer solstice. “Between the two dates of March 25 and December 25 comes the feast of the Forerunner, St. John the Baptist, on June 24, at the time of the summer solstice. The link between the dates can now be seen as a liturgical and cosmic expression of the Baptist’s words: ‘He [Christ] must increase, but I must decrease’ (Jn 3:30). The birthday of St. John the Baptist takes place on the date when the days begin to shorten, just as the birthday of Christ takes place when they begin to lengthen” (Ratzinger, 109).

Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, has long been trying to recover the cosmic significance of the Sacred Liturgy. The dating of Christmas is one of many profound insights in his magnificent work, The Spirit of the Liturgy. Certainly the text would provide a valuable Advent reflection.

O Adonai

2011-12-18T06:48:00.001-05:00

The O Antiphon for December 18 is O Adonai

Latin: O Adonai, et Dux domus Israel, qui Moysi in igne flammae rubi apparuisti, et ei in Sina legem dedisti: veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.

Literal Translation:O Lord and Ruler the house of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the flame of the burning bush and gave him the law on Sinai: come, and redeem us with outstretched arms.

Translation in the Breviary: O sacred Lord of ancient Israel, who showed yourself to Moses in the burning bush, who gave him the holy law on Sinai mountain: come, stretch out your mighty hand to set us free.

There are several Scriptural references that prompt this antiphon and its understanding:

Isaiah 11:4-5

[B]ut with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

Isaiah 33:22

For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our ruler, the LORD is our king; he will save us.

Exodus 3

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, "I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up." When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." Then he said, "Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." He said further, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Then the LORD said, "I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt." But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" He said, "I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain." But Moses said to God, "If I come to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." He said further, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" God also said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you': This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations. Go and assemble the elders of Israel, and say to them, 'The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying: I have given heed to you and to what has been done to you in Egypt. I declare that I will bring you up out of the misery of Egypt, to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey.’ They will listen to your voice; and you and the elders of Israel shall go to the king of Egypt and say to him, 'The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us; let us now go a three days' journey into the wilderness, so that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.' I know, however, that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all my wonders that I will perform in it; after that he will let you go. I will bring this people into such favor with the Egyptians that, when you go, you will not go empty-handed; each woman shall ask her neighbor and any woman living in the neighbor's house for jewelry of silver and of gold, and clothing, and you shall put them on your sons and on your daughters; and so you shall plunder the Egyptians."

Micah 5:2

But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.

Matthew 2:6

'And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.'"

The relevant verse from O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is

O come, O come, thou Lord of might,

Who to Thy tribes on Sinai's height

In ancient times didst give the law

In cloud and majesty, and awe.

Tonight, perhaps before dinner or before retiring to bed, pray the antiphon as a family and/or sing the verse from O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.

Catholic Identity and the New Translation

2011-12-17T11:13:00.000-05:00

The Collect for this Sunday should give us pause and a moment to think about Catholic identity. Before giving you the new text, let’s take a gander at what we heard this past year:

Lord,
fill our hearts with your love,
and as you revealed to us by an angel
the coming of your Son as man,
so lead us through his suffering and death
to the glory of his resurrection,
for he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Now, we could go through the Latin and point out the deficiencies in this translation, but there is something larger at stake here. To see it, let’s look at the Latin, but more importantly the new translation. The Latin text reads,

Gratiam tuam, quaesumus Domine,
mentibus nostris infunde,
ut qui, Angelo nuntiante,
Christi Filii tui incarnationem cognovimus,
per passionem eius et crucem
ad resurrectionis gloriam perducamur.

Some people may already see the connection I am hinting at. For the rest of us, myself included, reading the new translation brought the whole thing to light:

Pour forth, we beseech you, O Lord,
your grace into our hearts,
that we, to whom the Incarnation of Christ your Son
was made known by the message of an Angel,
may by his Passion and Cross
be brought to the glory of his Resurrection.
Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

The Angelus (1857–59) by Jean-François Millet

The above is the familiar prayer from the close of the Angelus. The Angelus is the prayer of the Incarnation that has been recited by Catholics throughout the centuries three times daily: 6:00 am, noon, and 6:00 pm. The prayer itself goes back at least 700 years, but probably even to the eleventh century or earlier. In times past, it was one of the most familiar and celebrated prayers in our Catholic heritage, and as such it provided a distinctive mark of Catholic identity. A priest friend of mine has often recalled the story of his family’s restaurant/bar on the east side of Columbus. Growing up, every day when the noontime bells rang out from the Catholic Church across the street, everyone in the bar dropped what they were doing and said the Angelus. Even those who were not Catholic sat in silence during the recitation of the prayer because they know if they didn’t, they would not be served. This story is an illustration of Catholic identity. If the same bells were to ring today, how many Catholics would know why, let alone be able to rattle off the words to the Angelus?

Having the Collect from the last Sunday of Advent taken from this timeless prayer is important for establishing the link between the ritual liturgy and the lived liturgy. In the spirit of lex orandi, lex credendi, if congregations were to hear the Angelus Collect in the context of Mass, those familiar with it would be immediately placed in the presence of the three-times-daily ritual. Conversely, if the Collect were to be used, more people would become familiar with the Angelus prayer itself.

Unfortunately, until now, the prayer has been disguised beneath a mistranslation. I am someone who is very familiar with the Angelus, yet I never realized that the Advent Collect was one and the same. Of course, there are others who have. It only took a quick Google search to turn up and article from Fr. Zuhlsdorf written in 2004 (and reprinted in 2006) on precisely this issue.

I am not one to debate these chicken-and-egg questions. Has the mistranslation led to an abandonment of the Angelus, or was the Angelus abandoned long before, and therefore the “retranslating” of the traditional words for the purpose of the Mass Collect was not seen as such a big deal? Quite frankly, it is probably both. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the loss of the Angelus is both a symptom and a cause of the loss of Catholic identity, and recovering the translation in the Roman Missal can go a long way towards the process of its restoration. At the very least, it provides an impetus for a stellar homily. (Imagine, actually, if the priest on this Sunday were to give a homily that begins with the Angelus and ends with an explanation of the term “consubstantial.”)

Let’s put it this way. When I read the words for the corrected translation of the Collect from the First Sunday of Advent, my eyes “perked” up from line one: “Pour forth, we beseech you, O Lord...” Imagine how much more will my ears do the same when, blessed be God, they hear the glorious recitation of this prayer this Sunday. Who knows, maybe they’ll even hear the ever faint echo of the Angelus bells accompanying the text.

O Sapientia

2011-12-17T06:47:00.001-05:00

The O Antiphon for December 17 is O Sapientia.

Latin: O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodidisti, attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter suaviter disponensque omnia: veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.

Literal Translation: O Wisdom, who came from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end and ordering all things mightily and sweetly: come, and teach us the way of prudence.

Translation in the Breviary: O Wisdom, O holy Word of God, you govern all creation with your strong yet tender care. Come and show your people the way to salvation.

There are several Scriptural references that prompt this antiphon and its understanding:

Isaiah 11:2-3

The spirit of the LORD shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. His delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear;

Isaiah 28:29

This also comes from the LORD of hosts; he is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in wisdom.

Proverbs 1:20

Wisdom cries out in the street;

in the squares she raises her voice.

Proverbs 8 and Proverbs 9 are stellar chapters the read. I will not copy the entirety of it here, but rather just a few selections.

Proverbs 8:1, 5, 12

Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice?

O simple ones, learn prudence; acquire intelligence, you who lack it.

I, wisdom, live with prudence, and I attain knowledge and discretion.

Proverbs 9:1, 10

Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn her seven pillars.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

1 Corinthians 1:30

He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

The relevant verse from O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is

O come, O Wisdom from on high,

who orders all things mightily,

to us the path of knowledge show,

and teach us in her ways to go.

Tonight, perhaps before dinner or before retiring to bed, pray the antiphon as a family and/or sing the verse from O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.

The O Antiphons

2011-12-16T06:45:00.001-05:00

I have been thinking quite a bit lately about the loss of Catholic identity that the Church has undergone in recent generations. I haven’t decided if it is the natural result of changing tides in culture or if it was accomplished by a deliberate iconoclasm of sorts that plagued the Church in the later part of last century. Whatever the reason, it seems undeniable that a large portion of the faithful have lost a sense of Catholic identity. Participation in the Sacraments and the broader life of faith has become more what we do rather than what we are. (Pope Benedict has called this a false primacy of praxis over being.) Recently I recalled a story a priest once told me. This particular gentleman grew up on the east side of Columbus, Ohio, where his family owned a bar/restaurant. Every day at noon when the bells rang out from the Catholic Church across the street, everyone in the bar dropped what they were doing and said the Angelus. Even those who were not Catholic sat in silence during the recitation of the prayer because they know if they didn’t, they would not be served. This story is an illustration of Catholic identity. If the same bells were to ring today, how many Catholic would know why, let alone be able to rattle off the words to the Angelus?

The example of bygone practices once integral to the life of a Catholic seems endless. One such instance is the ancient tradition of the O Antiphons. Beginning on December 17 and continuing for seven days, the antiphons for the Magnificat during evening Vespers all begin with “O, ...”. Each of the antiphons is addressed to Christ using one of his scriptural titles and concludes with a distinct petition to the coming Lord. For instance, the first antiphon (December 17) reads:

O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodisti, attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter suaviter disponensque omnia: veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.
O Wisdom, who came from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end and ordering all things mightily and sweetly: come, and teach us the way of prudence.

The translation in the American breviary is not quite literal:

O Wisdom, O holy Word of God, you govern all creation with your strong yet tender care. Come and show your people the way to salvation.

The dating of the antiphons goes back to at least the sixth century (Boethius mentions them in the early 500’s). By the eight century, the antiphons were being used in Rome. One of the more striking thing about the seven antiphons cannot be seen in translation, but only in the original Latin. The seven titles of Christ that begin each of the antiphons are:

Sapientia (Wisdom)
Adonai (Lord)
Radix Jesse (Root of Jesse)
Clavis David (Key of David)
Oriens (Dawn)
Rex Gentium (King of Nations)
Emmanuel (Emmanuel)

Reading the first letter of each title beginning with the last (December 23), we find EROCRAS. In Latin, ero cras means “I will be (there) tomorrow.”

While the recitation of the antiphons themselves has fallen out of use, a particular adaption of them is quite popular in churches, both Catholic and non: the hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”. Consider the corresponding verse for the December 17 antiphon (O Sapientia):

Veni, O Sapientia,
Quae hic disponis omnia,
Veni, viam prudentiae
Ut doceas et gloriae.
O come, Thou Wisdom from on high,
And order all things, far and nigh;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And cause us in her ways to go.

Of course, most parishes begin playing this on the first Sunday of Advent, when ideally it should be delayed until much closer to Christmas, preferable beginning on December 17. Of course it would be better to hold public Vespers from December 17 through the 23rd; then the corresponding verse from the hymn can be sung on the intended day.

While the parish is the first place we encounter the public worship of the Church, Catholic identity is first encountered in the domestic church. Of course, both the domestic Church and the parish must always properly oriented to the universal Church. Thus, the introduction of the O Antiphons within the home can provide a beautiful crescendo of preparation in the final days of Advent. If families are in the habit of praying Vespers, then they will encounter the antiphons in their proper context. For our own part, our family will pray the antiphons at the dinner table before the family meal. The mother will light the candles of the Advent wreath while the father chants the antiphon in the original Gregorian melody. The oldest child will then read the vernacular translation of the antiphon, and later at Compline, the entire family will sing the corresponding verse in “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”

However it is done, the recovery of the O Antiphons can serve as a perfect opportunity for instilling Catholic identity within the home and the broader parish community. Advent is a time of preparation, of penance, and of anticipation for the coming Christ child. The progressive lighting of the candles on the Advent wreath serves to evoke this growing sense of anticipation. The recitation of the O Antiphons provides a finale of sorts for this crescendo. With the universal Church and with a great sense of Christian hope, we pray for the coming of the Lord, the one who will save us from our sin and restore us to the favor of the Father.

O Emmanuel, God with us, our King and lawgiver, the expected of the nations and their Savior: come to save us, O Lord our God.
(Antiphon from December 23)

Mary, Did You Know? (A Case of Heresy)

2011-12-15T06:44:00.001-05:00

Allow me to offer a very profound hat tip to my good friend at A Dei in the Life. This is a presentation he made for his sixth, seventh, and eighth grade religion classes.

The Charge

Mary, a faithful Jewish girl, was guilty of ignorance regarding the facts about the coming Messiah… her own Son, Jesus the Christ.

The Prosecution

Your Honor, I call Mary to the stand.

Mary, did you know that your baby boy will one day walk on water?

Mary

Yes, I did. The Old Testament foretold that “He alone stretches out the heavens and treads upon the crests of the sea.” (Job 9:8)

The Prosecution

Did you know that your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?

Mary

Yes, I did. The Lord told our prophets, “Say to those whose hearts are frightened: be strong, fear not! Here is your God, He comes with vindication; With divine recompense He comes to save you.” (Is 35:4)

The Prosecution

Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new… that this child that you’ve delivered will soon deliver you?

Mary

Yes I did. The angel Gabriel greeted me saying, “Hail, full of grace (kecharitomene – Lk 1:28),” so I knew I’d already been delivered, actually. I then told my cousin Elizabeth that, “My spirit rejoices in God, my savior.” (Lk 1:47)

The Prosecution

Did you know that your baby boy will give sight to a blind man?

Mary

Yes I did. Everyone knew that it was said of the coming Messiah, “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared.” (Is 35:5)

The Prosecution

Did you know that your baby boy will calm a storm with His hand?

Mary

Yes I did. The Psalmist foresaw, “In their distress they cried to the LORD, who brought them out of their peril, hushed the storm to a murmur; the waves of the sea were stilled. They rejoiced that the sea grew calm, that God brought them to the harbor they longed for.” (Ps 107:28-30)

The Prosecution

Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod?

Mary

Yes I did. As it was written, “When He established the heavens I was there… Then was I beside Him as His craftsman, and I was His delight day by day, playing before Him all the while,

playing on the surface of His earth; and I found delight in the sons of men.” (Prov 8:27, 30-31)

The Prosecution

And when you kiss your little baby, You’ve kissed the face of God?

Mary

Yes, “For thus said the LORD of hosts (after He had already sent me)… Whoever touches You touches the apple of my eye… Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion! See, I am coming to dwell among you, says the LORD.” (Zech 2:12, 14)

The Prosecution

Mary, did you know? The blind will see, the deaf will hear…

Mary

Yes, regarding the coming of my Son it was said, “On that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book; And out of gloom and darkness, the eyes of the blind shall see.” (Is 29:18)

The Prosecution

Did you know the dead will live again?

Mary

Yes, in the Scriptures it was spoken that with the coming of Christ, “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake.” (Dan 12:2)

The Prosecution

Did you know the lame will leap and the dumb will speak the praises of the Lamb?

Mary

Of course! The prophet wrote of my Son, saying, “Then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the dumb will sing.” (Is 35:6)

The Prosecution

Mary, did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?

Mary

Yes, I did. It is written of my Son, the Word, “God of my fathers, LORD of mercy. You who have made all things by your word.” (Wis 9:1)

“At God's word were His works brought into being; they do His will as He has ordained for them.” (Sir 42:15)

The Prosecution

Did you know that your baby boy will one day rule the nations?

Mary

Yes, just listen… “For a child is born to us, a Son is given us; upon His shoulder dominion rests. They name Him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace. His dominion is vast and forever peaceful, From David's throne, and over His kingdom, which He confirms and sustains by judgment and justice, both now and forever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this!” (Is 9:56)

And as if that weren’t enough, Gabriel told me personally that, “He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give Him the throne of David His father, and He will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.” (Lk 1:32-33)

The Prosecution

Did you know that your baby boy is Heaven’s perfect Lamb?

Mary

Yes, absolutely. As a little girl, I learned the prophecy of the suffering servant. “Though He was harshly treated, He submitted and opened not His mouth; Like a lamb led to the slaughter or a sheep before the shearers, He was silent and opened not His mouth… He was cut off from the land of the living, and smitten for the sin of His people.” (Is 53:7-8)

The Prosecution

One final question, Your Honor…

Mary, did you know that this sleeping child you’re holding is the Great I AM?

Mary

Yes. It was written, “For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your savior… everyone who is named as mine, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made. Lead out the people who are blind though they have eyes, who are deaf though they have ears. Let all the nations gather together, let the peoples assemble! Who among them could have revealed this, or foretold to us the earlier things? Let them produce witnesses to prove themselves right, that one may hear and say, "It is true!" You are my witnesses, says the LORD, my servants whom I have chosen To know and believe in me and understand that it is I. Before me no god was formed, and after me there shall be none. It is I, I the LORD; there is no savior but me. It is I who foretold, I who saved; I made it known, not any strange god among you; You are my witnesses, says the LORD. I am God, yes, from eternity I AM He; There is none who can deliver from my hand: who can countermand what I do? Thus says the LORD, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.” (Is 43:3, 7-13)

The Judge

Defense, your witness.

The Defense

The defense rests, Your Honor.

"Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Mt 11:28)

“…and His mother kept all these things in her heart.” (Lk 2:51)

The Judgment

Mary, this court finds you NOT GUILTY of ignorance regarding any of those things which are mentioned in the song, “Mary, Did You Know?” By virtue of this decision, it would seem that the song itself should be under trial, as it gives the false impression that you were ignorant of these important matters stemming from your own Jewish faith. While this may be demeaning to you if the song's questions are taken to imply ignorance on your part, it probably cannot be said to be heretical. Nevertheless, under no circumstance should it be sung at Mass, for it can give the impression that not only you, but nobody else knew the things which had been foretold. This is simply untrue, as you have so eloquently pointed out with your Scriptural answers.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

2011-12-12T10:39:00.001-05:00

A while ago, I wrote a post on the miracle of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the miraculous tilma of St. Juan Diego. On today's Feast Day for Our Lady, it seems appropriate to pay due homage to this fabulous story. (It also happens to be my daughter's feast day.)

"I have experienced many dialogs with people regarding the truth of the Catholic Church, and I have found that there are many paths one can take, all of course which need to be travelled with charity. However, the more I experience of these conversations, the more I realize the power of the Saints and their miracle stories. What strikes me in particular about them is that they demand a decision. When hearing these stories, one cannot remain indifferent. If they are true, then an act of faith in the Catholic Church must follow, and if they are not, then the Catholic Church is guilty of several momentous hoaxes. There is no better example of such a story than that of the miraculous tilma of Juan Diego."

Read the rest here.

New Translation Monday: Audio Presentation III

2011-12-12T03:07:00.005-05:00

For your continued Advent reflection, the third installment of the New Translation audio series is now available both here and through the iTunes Roma locuta est podcast. In this talk, I discuss the new translation of the Nicene Creed. The video is also available.

Gaudete!

2011-12-10T18:38:00.000-05:00

The more I study Gregorian chant, the more I comes to realize how integral it is to the Church’s liturgy. Taking nothing away from the talent and beauty of the great composes of sacred polyphony (Palestrina and the like), the stark reality is that the Church’s liturgy both formed and was organically formed by sacred chant. The two grew quite literally in tandem. Consequently, there are liturgical celebrations that are musically joined not only by lyrical similarities of their chants but also by melodic similarities. While the words can (or rather should) be preserved in different musical settings, any departure from the chant necessarily loses the similarities that reach the ears of the congregation. For instance, the Introit for the third Sunday of Advent is written in the same mode as the Introit for the Mass of Saint John the Baptist (June 24th), and hence will have the same basic “sound” to the ears of those in attendance. For those who were at Mass this morning, the connection between today’s readings and John the Baptist are obvious.

Beyond these intricate connections, however, there are even more basic things revealed by the chants, particularly the propers. For instance, today is one of two days during the liturgical year that we see the priests and deacons vested in rose. The other occurs during the Fourth Sunday of Lent. Both Sundays mark turning points in our expectation of and preparation for coming events: today marks a turning point of our Advent preparation for the coming of the Christ Child, and the Fourth Sunday of Lent marks a turning point in our preparation for the Resurrection of the Lord.

It may or may not have been mentioned during this morning’s homily in your parish, but the Church calls today Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is the Latin word for Rejoice, and indeed the Church calls us to rejoice over the coming birth of Jesus. The Sunday of Lent is termed Laetare Sunday. Laetare is another Latin word for Rejoice, and the Church is calling her people, in the middle of their penance, to rejoice over the conquering of sin accomplished in the Paschal Mystery.

The two terms themselves beg the question: Why two terms? In other words, from where do the phrases Gaudete Sunday and Laetare Sunday come? The answer is found in the Gregorian Propers.

The first line of the Introit for the Third Sunday of Advent is “Gaudete in Domino semper; iterum dico, gaudete!” or “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice!”

The first line of the Introit for the Fourth Sunday of Advent is “Laetare Ierusalem: et conventum facite omnes qui diligitis eamI” or “Rejoice Jerusalem; and gather round, all you her love her.”

Because very few parishes hear the propers anymore, the vast majority of people are not aware of the origin of the names Gaudete and Laetare Sunday. This is yet another example of how the Gregorian propers are an integral part of the Church’s Liturgy, and one of many reasons why the Church must emphasize, in continuity with Vatican II and its liturgical patrimony, the preference the Propers enjoy over the more common hymns, particularly for the more important liturgical celebrations.

To help you celebrate this joyful Sunday, here is a stellar recording of this morning's Introit chant:

New Translation Monday: Audio Presentation II

2011-12-05T03:02:00.005-05:00

For your continued Advent reflection, the second edition of the short New Translation talks is available here as well as through the Roma locuta est iTunes podcast. This installment discusses the new translation of the Gloria. The video is also available.

New Translation Monday: Audio Presentation I

2011-11-28T02:28:00.003-05:00

While the New Translation Monday series has officially come to a close, I thought I would take the next five weeks to give you the audio files from a recent series I gave at St. John Neumann Catholic Church in Sunbury, Ohio. The first installment discusses the history and philosophy of the new translation as well as the response, "And with your Spirit," and the new Confiteor. The audio talk is available here, but I will also make it available through the Roma locuta est iTunes podcast. Finally, there are video available through the St. John Neumann website. The first video is embedded below.

Reflections on the New Translation

2011-11-27T15:31:00.001-05:00

The blogosphere will no doubt be inundated with reflections on this weekend’s implementation of the New Translation of the Roman Missal. In fact, one prominent blogger for the first time in recent memory opened up the combox on his post from yesterday, inviting readers to submit their thoughts. Before writing my own, I made a point to spend some time reading a variety of commentaries from both sides of the liturgical isle. That experience, together with the experience of hearing the words for the first time, has led me to make four observations.

1. The implementation brought no new converts.

Actually hearing the new words spoken did little to sway people from one side to the other, but rather made folks more deeply committed to the position they held before today. Those who favored the new translation, after hearing it first-hand, are further convinced that it is the best thing to happen to the Church in four decades. Those who found the printed text clumsy and undecipherable, after listening to the text spoken, are now even more militantly opposed to it - even to the point of boycotting it in their own personal responses during the liturgy.

The whole thing makes me wonder about preconceptions. On the one hand, it is not a surprise that hearing the words elicits stronger responses than merely reading them. Words, after all, were meant to be communicated from person to person, not simply read on paper. The very telos of language is a communion of persons, and so the closer that words come to actually communicating, the more power they have. For most people, this means that auditory reception will be more powerful than individual reading. On the other hand, however, it brings a certain pause with it: did anyone actually approach this with an open mind? I would like to think that I was able to prayerfully receive the new texts today with no preconceptions, but this would be naive at best. After all, I have been a staunch defender of the new words for over a year, so it will come as no surprise that hearing them spoken for the first time caused me inestimable joy.

Yet preconceptions are there, and perhaps it is impossible to truly divest ourselves of them. So the fact remains, it did bring me great joy to hear the new words - a language truly worthy of the worship of God. My heart leapt during the Eucharistic Canon, and more than once I swallowed a few tears rather than let them fall.

2. The priests need our prayers.

To every group to which I have spoken, I have made the same observation: while we spent countless hours preparing the people for the changes in their own parts, the more drastic changes will occur in the texts spoken by the priest. Every Collect, every Preface, indeed every part of the Mass, is vastly different in the new version. Yet it is not simply a change in vocabulary, but an entire change in rhythm. It is like being raised on nothing but 4/4 marches, and then suddenly being asked to read and feel the rhythm of a 3/4 waltz. In time, this rhythm will develop, yet it is not at all natural at the moment.

My priest, bless his heart, did brilliantly. He took his time and deliberately spoke each word. Yet I could sense a subtle nervousness about him. He has been a supporter of the new texts, and I could tell that he wanted to “get them right.” After Mass, I told him how brilliant he was, but I also told them that I knew it was hard, and further, that I was praying for him.

The comments on the web are filled with similar observations of priests themselves. Supporters of the new translation are reporting a natural difficulty that they had when actually speaking the words. In a positive sense, many priests have noted that it felt like their first Mass all over again: an exciting concentration on each and every word. Yet others lamented that it made it virtually impossible to pray during the Mass. For those, as well as for the lay faithful who bumbled through the new words, I can only offer a humble observation.

Seen in the right way, this difficulty with praying due to a sincere concentration on speaking the words with accuracy, can be a good reminder that these words are not for us: they are for God. Indeed, the entire Mass is an opportunity to orient ourselves to the Blessed Trinity. The Catholic faith has a tradition of spiritual dryness. Yet the great mystics will tell you that this spiritual dryness is not simply a difficulty to be overcome, but a reality to be embraced. Moreover, it is a reality that is a gift from God, for in withholding spiritual consolation, He teaches us that authentic prayer must include a detachment from all rewards, including emotional rewards. While I will probably never be blessed with the dark night of the soul experienced by the spiritual masters of our Catholic heritage, I have always tried to view dryness in my own prayer life in the light of this phenomenon. When I pray the Hours and the Psalms seem to just pass me by, there is always the temptation to put them aside with the rationalization of, “It isn’t real prayer anyway right now, so why bother God with it.” Yet the mere act of praying the way the Church teaches is an act of worship. This is why rote prayer is an important part of Catholic spirituality. Of course, don’t get me wrong, this should not become a justification for spiritual sloth: failing to put forth adequate concentration and relying merely on rote recitation. Yet it does serve to emphasize that even in the absence of what we might think of as “deep prayer,” God still wants us to recite the words that he has given us. Part of this is to teach us that prayer is not really about us to begin with, but entirely about God. Of course, the blessed irony is that once we learn to abandon ourselves completely, to make our worship of God about Him rather than us, we will then truly find ourselves and find ourselves fulfilled.

Our priests need our prayers, because the new texts are going to require concentration that will inevitably detract from “prayer,” at least in the conventional understanding of the term. Yet this can very much be an opportunity for both priest and people to re-orient themselves and their understanding of liturgical prayer. Rather than becoming despondent about the difficulty of being able to pray while reciting the new translation, perhaps we should begin praying that we may be able to recite the words the Church has given us with the dignity and reverence they deserve. In some manner, perhaps we should pray that we might be able to pray, yet not in the way that we might think is appropriate, but instead in the manner in which God both wants and deserves. Perhaps this is all a very complicated way of saying, with St. Paul, “For we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26).

3. The new translation will change the focus on the priest’s personality.

The new translation is harder to speak, and it is harder to understand. It is so because it is more formal. Yet this was no accident; it was one of the goals of the new translation: an elevated language worthy of the worship of God. By way of a literary comparison, it is more like Dickens that it is like Nicholas Sparks.

Yet the funny thing about language that is more formal is this: the focus is naturally more on the words rather than on the spoken “performance.” When the texts are simpler, there is more opportunity for a “personal stamp.” With the new and more formal texts, the personality of the priest is crowded out by the words themselves. This is how it should be. As Benedict XVI has mentioned more than once, as both Cardinal and Pope, the personality of the priest is not the important thing - for he is standing in persona Christi.

As I listened to the words spoken, I tried to imagine them being spoken by a boisterous personality. And it occurred to me that it simply wouldn’t work. Oh, don’t get me wrong, some will still try, but inevitably it will sound goofy. It will be like trying to recite Shakespeare with the overbearing and overacted personality of Jim Carey. Jim Carey might have been able to “carry” the old translation - for a simpler translation allows for a wider variety of spoken performances - but the new translation demands the sophistication of a polished Shakespearean stage actor, someone who can let the text stand on its own.

I firmly believe that the new texts will eventually root out the “performer priest” and replace him with an authentic “actor” who understands that the part he plays in the great cosmic drama of the Mass is not about him, but about the God of the universe.

4. The new translation will change the nature of Catholic music.

This is not just wishful thinking, and neither is it naivety on my part. I make this claim in perhaps a non-obvious manner. Gallons of ink have been spilt on pointing out the nature of the new translation of the Ordinary and how it demands a style of music (ahem ... chant) that places a priority on the text rather than the melodies and rhythms. Pints have been added to this about how the new Missals have the ICEL chants printed for the priest to see and use. Yet my point here is one derived from my experience at Mass this morning.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the new texts are more formal, deliberately so. When the priest speaks, the entire tone of the Mass is different. For those that have ears who will hear it, the whole ethos of the spoken word has been changed in a single weekend. Listen to the words of the Eucharistic Canon. Pay close attention to the Collect. Focus even on the closing blessing: “Go forth, the Mass has ended.” Yet it wasn’t the new texts that “stood out” this morning. Instead, it was the few portions of the Mass that were not composed in a similar style. First, the introductory and closing prayers of the priest that surround the general intercessions. These are composed by the committee that composes the intercessions themselves. The “normal” language was actually quite jarring after just a half an hour of the new, more formal, translation.

The other place where “normal” language still exists is in the choice of hymnody. This is not the place to repeat my call to bring back the propers. Yet it is the place to comment on the stark contrast between most of the hymns in the OCP repertoire and the texts of the new translation. After praying, “May these mysteries, O Lord, in which we have participated, profit us, we pray, for even now, as we walk amid passing things, you teach us by them to love the things of heaven and hold fast to what endures,” it seems borderline ludicrous to hear, “Soon and very soon we are going to see the king. Hallelujah, hallelujah, we’re going to see the king.”

I predict that, given enough time, people will come to realize this very same observation. The new translation, with all of its dignified formality, will form people in a certain liturgical environment, and over time they will come to expect the same level of language in the music that we sing. It won’t happen overnight, of course, but it will happen eventually. And when it does, there will be a certain poetic justice knowing the the texts of the Mass played a part in forming the music of the Mass - just how it is supposed to be.

Amazon Offerings

2011-11-21T21:37:00.002-05:00

As T-Day approaches and the post-T-Day shopping begins ... if you are purchasing anything from Amazon, consider going through the sidebar link on my site or any of the links in this post. You need not be purchasing items featured on these pages ... simply begin your shopping experience from here. Anything you buy during that session is credited to the Roma locuta est account. The rewards program is mild, but appreciated nonetheless.

Thus endeth the shameless self promotion.

New Translation Monday: An Opportunity for Prayer

2011-11-21T04:34:00.005-05:00

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The New Translation of the Roman Missal:

An Opportunity for Prayer

Over the course of fifty-two installments we have completed our tour through the changes coming to the Roman Missal. There have been sixteen pieces on the changes to the people's parts and thirty-six discussing the parts of the priest. It is with a touch of sadness that I write this final piece, because for me the column has been as much of a learning opportunity as one of teaching. Yet this premature nostalgia pales in comparison with the joy and excitement I have surrounding the new texts coming our way in just a few short weeks. The blessings that these new words will bestow on our worship for years to come are innumerable. We have been given the gift of a language that is not only more faithful to the Latin but also is elevated in a way that is more suitable to the sacred action that is the Mass.

As with anything new, there will be an adjustment period, but we need not view that adjustment in a negative light. For the first time in years, perhaps for the first time in our lives, we will have to read the words of the Mass. The new texts will not be ingrained in our consciences as are the old ones. Yet this gives us the chance to concentrate on them, which in turns allows us to pray them rather than merely say them. Moreover, it gives priests the opportunity to preach on them. The mysteries of our faith are beautiful, and the new translation of the Roman Missal can provide an impetus to deepen our understanding of the Deposit of Faith. Rather than be troubled by the four syllables in the word “consubstantial” that will soon appear in the Nicene Creed, priests can capitalize on an opportunity to bring the faithful into the reality of the Blessed Trinity, and people can listen attentively and enter into the Mystery.

Perhaps the most important effect of the elevated language in the new translation is its ability to help us understand that the Mass is not primarily about us but rather about the proper worship of God. The more formal texts will undoubtedly pierce our ears that have grown comfortable in a world tragically lacking a sense of the formal. In providing us with a language that is decidedly different from “street talk,” the new translation will help us to see that we are but actors in a reality that is bigger than us. The Liturgy is not something that we are free to create and re-create with the changing winds of a fickle culture, but it is a reality that is to be received in a posture of humility. And like any great drama, the Sacred Liturgy has a script worthy of its author. In this drama, the author just happens to be divine.

While the majority of the Church in their last minute preparations will be focused on the people’s parts, it should not go unnoticed or unremarked that the priests too have a part to play. The changes coming to their texts are even greater than those of the people. In fact, the vast array of improvement is not even limited to the Ordinary. Every Collect, every Prayer over the Gifts, and every Prayer After Communion is being gifted with a brand new rendering. Priests too for the first time in many years will find themselves having to study the new words so that they can speak them with accuracy and proper inflection. As with people’s parts, properly seen, this is a blessing.

While the people may not be aware of all the changes coming to every prayer, they will undoubtably notice a difference in language. From the very first Opening Prayer of the First Sunday of Advent, an attentive congregation will say, “I am not sure what the prayer used to say, but assuredly it was not that.” To illustrate the point, listen carefully to the difference. The current translation of Advent’s first Opening Prayer is:

“All-powerful God,
increase our strength of will for doing good
that Christ may find an eager welcome at his coming
and call us to his side in the kingdom of heaven.”

The new and improved translation will be:

“Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God,
the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ
with righteous deeds at his coming,
so that, gathered at his right hand,
they may be worthy to possess the heavenly kingdom.”

Quite simply, the is no comparison.

Back when I first began writing about the new translation, I penned the following concerning the texts that only occur once a year,

“I feel like each Sunday represents a funeral of sorts ... a passing of Mass texts that will never be heard again. Rather than mourning this passing, my heart finds solace in the assurance that these texts will rise again in a more perfect form with the ‘advent’ of the new translation. The 1973 “Opening Prayer” for the First Sunday of Advent will soon be no more. This is not a cause for mourning, but rather a looking forward to the day of resurrection; for the Latin soul of this prayer is indeed filled with grace, so when it rises again as the 2010 Collect, it will be gloriously triumphant.”

Gloriously triumphant indeed. We could, in fact, say that that new translation renders the prayer, along with the entire Mass, “worthy to possess the heavenly kingdom.”

A Funeral of Sorts: The Last of the Old Translation

2011-11-19T14:00:00.000-05:00

Last year on the First Sunday of Advent, I wrote a piece about the passing of the Propers in the soon-to-be-defunct translation of the Roman Missal. While we had an entire year to say goodbye to the current Ordinary, each Sunday for the past year has presented us with a set of Propers that would never be heard again. As we have journeyed over the course of the last fifty-two weeks through the new translation of the Ordinary, we didn't give nearly as much attention to the once-a-year texts. Yet these prayers, belonging mostly to the priest, are some of the most exquisite and exciting changes in the new translation of the Missal.

Tomorrow (or tonight for those attending the vigil) is the very last Sunday of the lame-duck translation. Never again will we hear the translation with which most of us grew up. While many parishes have already incorporated the people's Ordinary into their Sunday celebrations, this weekend marks the end of the rest. (Of course if you are one for "long goodbyes," there is always the opportunity to go to Mass during this week for a series of last hurrahs.)

It seems timely, then, to visit the Collect (or the "Prayer-formally-known-as-the-Opening-Prayer") for the very last Sunday in the liturgical year: The Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. The current rendition reads:

Almighty and merciful God,
you break the power of evil and make all things new
in your Son Jesus Christ, the King of the universe.
May all in heaven and earth
acclaim your glory and never cease to praise you.

As far as these things go, it is not all too bad. Yet the new and improved version does quite a bit more to emphasize the majesty of our Lord and of this great celebration:

Almighty ever-living God,
whose will is to restore all things
in your beloved Son, the King of the universe,
grant, we pray,
may render your majesty service
that the whole creation, set free from slavery,
and ceaselessly proclaim your praise.

May we, too, be set free from the slavery of a translation that was in desperate need of being cleansed of its iniquities, and may we ceaselessly praise our Lord and Savior, the King of the universe, through this great gift that has been given to us: The New Translation of the Roman Missal.

As a complementary bookend to this last Sunday of the last year of the old translation, I give you the article written, nearly a year ago, on the first Sunday of the last year of the old translation:

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A Funeral of Sorts ... every Sunday for the Next Year

November 28, 2010

I feel like each Sunday this year presents a funeral of sorts ... a passing of Mass texts that will never be heard again. Rather than mourning this passing, my heart finds solace in the assurance that these texts will rise again in a more perfect form with the “advent” of the new translation. While we have a full year to pay our respects to the passing Ordinary, there is a rejoicing of sorts that the current Propers have reached the end of the proverbial line: their days are numbered, their time has passed, and blessed be God for that.

Today, the First Sunday of Advent, provides the first example of such a passing. The Collect, in Latin, reads:

Da, quaesumus, omnipotens Deus,
hanc tuis fidelibus voluntatem,
ut, Christo tuo venienti iustis operibus occurrentes,
eius dextrae sociati, regnum mereantur possidere caeleste.

The current, Lame Duck Translation (to borrow the phrase from Fr. Zuhlsdorf) ... what we all heard at Mass this morning ... reads:

All-powerful God,
increase our strength of will for doing good
that Christ may find an eager welcome at his coming
and call us to his side in the kingdom of heaven.

The new translation will read,

Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God,
the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ
with righteous deeds at his coming,
so that, gathered at his right hand,
they may be worthy to possess the heavenly kingdom.

The Mickey Mouse rendering of 1973 lacks a certain dignity when compared with the more new and improved translation. The later is more faithful to the Latin, but more importantly, it has an aesthetic quality that leaves the Lame Duck version grounded, or perhaps six feet less than grounded.

Let us not prematurely break into the Dies Irae for the passing of the old, decrepit, 1973 translation, for while it seems to have met its certain death with the passing of today’s Sunday liturgy, it pains me to say that its ghost will live on.

Those who regularly pray the Liturgy of the Hours know that the Collect from Mass is often used in the Proper of Seasons and Proper of Saints for the Divine Office. This is done deliberately, of course, and provides the faithful a perfect opportunity to unite the sanctification of the day found by saying the Liturgy of the Hours with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the source an summit of the liturgy. If one is faithful to all the hours, the Collect for the First Sunday of Advent is recited four times today (Office of Readings, Lauds, Daytime Prayer, and Vespers), as well as once yesterday (Vespers for the Vigil).

Once the new translation takes effect, there will be a disconnect between the Collect from the Sunday Mass and the Collect found in the breviary. I sincerely hope that the Bishops allow the new translations to be used during public recitations of the Liturgy of the Hours in order to remedy this disconnect. Is it possible that new breviaries are printed? Possible, yes. Plausible, no. In the absence of a new printing, a supplement of Collects could be printed to be used alongside the Psalms and Readings from the breviary until such a time that ICEL decides to retranslate the Liturgy of the Hours. (Don’t hold your breath, by the way.)

All things considered, however, this should not distract us from the burial of these texts that we experience this year. At least in terms of the Holy Mass, the 1973 “Opening Prayer” for the First Sunday of Advent has met its maker, kicked the bucket, bit the dust, bought the farm, breathed its last, and indeed ... croaked. This is not a cause for mourning, but rather a looking forward to the day of resurrection; for the Latin soul of this prayer is indeed filled with grace, so when it rises again as the 2010 Collect, it will be gloriously triumphant. We could, in fact, say that that new translation renders the prayer “worthy to possess the heavenly kingdom.”

~~One Sunday down, 51 more to go.~~ UPDATE: 51 Sundays down, 1 more to go.