 31 October and 1 and 2 November are called, colloquially (not officially), "Hallowtide" or the "Days of the Dead" because on these days we pray for or remember those who've left this world. The days of the dead center around All Saints' Day (also known as All Hallows') on November 1, when we celebrate all the Saints in Heaven. On the day after All Hallows', we remember the saved souls who are in Purgatory being cleansed of the temporal effects of their sins before they can enter Heaven. The day that comes before All Hallows', though, is one on which we unofficially remember the damned and the reality of Hell. The schema, then, for the Days of the Dead looks like this:
The earliest form of All Saints' (or "All Hallows'") was first celebrated in the 300s, but originally took place on 13 May, as it still does in some Eastern Church es. The Feast first commemorated only the martyrs, but came to include all of the Saints by 741. It was transferred to 1 November in 844 when Pope Gregory III consecrated a chapel in St. Peter's Basilica to All Saints (so much for the theory that the day was fixed on 1 November because of a bunch of Irish pagans had harvest festivals at that time). All Souls' has its origins in A.D. 1048 when the Bishop of Cluny decreed that the Benedictines of Cluny pray for the souls in Purgatory on this day. The practice spread until Pope Sylvester II recommended it for the entire Latin Church. The Vigil of, or evening before, All Hallows' ("Hallows' Eve," or "Hallowe'en") came, in Irish popular piety, to be a day of remembering the dead who are neither in Purgatory or Heaven, but are damned, and these customs spread to many parts of the world. Thus we have the popular focus of Hallowe'en as the reality of Hell, hence its scary character and focus on evil and how to avoid it, the sad fate of the souls of the damned, etc. 1 How, or even whether, to celebrate Hallowe'en is a controversial topic in traditional circles. One hears too often that "Hallowe'en is a pagan holiday" -- an impossibility because "Hallowe'en," as said, means "All Hallows' Evening" which is as Catholic a holiday as one can get. Some say that the holiday actually stems from Samhain, a pagan Celtic celebration, or is Satanic, but this isn't true, either, any more than Christmas "stems from" the Druids' Yule, though popular customs that predated the Church may be involved in our celebrations (it is rather amusing that October 31 is also "Reformation Day" in Protestant circles -- the day to recall Luther's having nailed his 95 Theses to Wittenberg's cathedral door -- but Protestants who reject "Hallowe'en" because pagans used to do things on October 31 don't object to commemorating that event on this day). Some traditional Catholics, objecting to the definite secularization of the holiday and to the myth that the entire thing is "pagan" to begin with, refuse to celebrate it in any way at all, etc. Other traditional Catholics celebrate it without qualm, though keeping it Catholic and staying far away from some of the ugliness that surrounds the day in the secular world. However one decides to spend the day, it is hoped that the facts are kept straight, and that Catholics refrain from judging other Catholics who decide to celebrate differently. For those who do want to celebrate Hallowe'en, customs of this day are a mixture of Catholic popular devotions, and French, Irish, and English customs all mixed together. From the French we get the custom of dressing up, which originated during the time of the Black Death when artistic renderings of the dead known as the "Danse Macabre," were popular. These "Dances of Death" were also acted out by people who dressed as the dead. Later, these practices were moved to Hallowe'en when the Irish and French began to intermarry in America. From the Irish come the carved Jack-o-lanterns, which were originally carved turnips. The legend surrounding the Jack-o-Lantern is this:
And when you carve up your pumpkin, keep the seeds to roast! Here's a recipe:
From the English Catholics we get begging from door to door, the earlier and more pure form of "trick-or-treating." Children would go about begging their neighbors for a "Soul Cake," for which they would say a prayer for those neighbors' dead. Instead of knocking on a door and saying the threatening, "Trick-or-treat" (or the ugly "Trick-or-treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat"), children would say either:
or
While Soul Cakes were originally a type of shortbread, it is said that a clever medieval cook wanted to make Soul Cakes designed to remind people of eternity, so she cut a hole in the middle of round cakes before frying them, thereby inventing donuts! Fresh plain cake donuts would be a nice food to eat on this day.
Other customary foods for All Hallows' Eve include cider, nuts, popcorn, and apples -- best eaten around a bonfire or fireplace! Another Hallowe'en custom is the old Celtic "bobbing for apples." To do this, fill a large tub two thirds full with water and float apples in it. Children take turns trying to pick up one of the floating apples using only their mouths (hands are not allowed and must be held or tied behind the back!) -- very tricky to do! The first to do so wins a prize (some say he will be the first one to marry someday). You can make the game more fun by carving an initial into the bottom of each apple, letting that initial indicate the name of the person each apple-bobber will marry, and/or using different colored apples with different assigned meanings or prizes. (You can play a dry version of this game by tying the stems of the apples to strings and suspending them. If you do this, carve any initials at the tops of the apples. Of course, all of this sort of thing is a parlor game and should never be taken seriously or cross the line into divination!). ...and tell scary stories! If you want the perfect poems to relate to your children on this day, see Little Orphant Annie, The Raven, The Stolen Child, and the Wreck of the Hesperus. And here are those poems and some stories for you to download in Microsoft Word .doc format:
After teaching your children about the frightening realities of Hell and the fate of the damned, reassure them by telling them that the Evil One has already been conquered! Satan has no real power over those who are in Christ, and mocking him and his minions is a way of demonstrating this; teach your children how to call on the power of Christ and His Church to protect themselves from their snares. Warn them that magic (the art of performing actions beyond the power of man with the aid of powers other than the Divine) is real, that there is no such thing as "white magic," that playing with the occult -- whether by divination, necromancy, the casting of spells, playing with Ouija boards, etc. -- is an invitation to demons to respond, and that it is from demons that magic gets any power it has. Remember St. Michael to them, teach them about the power of sacramentals and prayers that ward off evil when piously used (the Sign of the Cross, Holy Water, blessed salt, the Crucifix, the St. Benedict Medal, St. Anthony's Brief, etc.), teach them to call on the Holy Name of Jesus when they are afraid, etc. And please pray to all the Saints that they might intercede and bring pagans and witches to Christ so they might know the peace that comes from knowing that God loves them so much that He allowed Himself to take on a human nature, to suffer, and to die for them.. |
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Hallowe'en (courtesy of www.fisheaters.com)
then carved Crosses on the trunk so the Devil couldn't get back down. He bargained with the Evil One, saying he would remove the Crosses only if the Devil would promise not to take his soul to Hell; to this, the Devil agreed. 
Friday, October 29, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
PS Some thoughts on fairness and Careerism.
I am not sure if there is such a word as careerism. Don't know if I heard it said or if it just seemed to sound about right when thinking about vocations to family. I have not bothered to look it up because whether it is a word or not is of no import as I will explain what I mean by it and in so doing give you the definition of it as I see it.
In my previous post I talked about population decline and the brave new world we live in. Part of that discussion touched on women in the work force and the impact a woman choosing a career path has on the number of children she is likely to have, on population and on family. This part of the post actual came from a debate that took place between myself and a few other women on the issue of career versus family and why women had to choose between the two and men did not. Some of the women found it unreasonable and unfair that this should be the case. They argued that it was because of short sighted social attitudes and by extension a lack of effective social policy. Oh were it that simple! If only we could just throw a little public policy, and public money, and correct all the perceived injustices in our societies! But just because a segment of society perceives an injustice does that make something an injustice? Here are some examples of possible perceived injustices that my girlfriend Alane and I came up with that we might want to try and fix with a little social policy and public money.
When talking about choices between career and family I only very briefly touched on something which I would now like to expound upon a little. I mentioned that one rarely sees male CEOs of companies who were also devoted, dedicated husbands and fathers. They may have a child or two but their lives are pretty much tied to their careers, because that is what it takes to be the best in any given career. This is the danger and, I believe, inevitable trapping of careerism.
Careerists are very different from those who are dedicated to being good at what they do. A careerist is someone who has come to define themselves by the success or failure of their career, for whom their career is their life! All that they do, all that they are is based on how well they succeed in their given career. In the end a careerist serves his/her career first, at the expense of all else, sometimes even life itself.
Our culture promotes this, it applauds this, it feeds this. How many times have you heard someone say, "my work is my life" "my career is my whole world." This is all is quite sad, and even sadder when the person saying it is a mother or father.
What is the purpose and end of work? Well depending on who you talk to there will be varying answers. I believe that the purpose and end of work has always been to provide for and care for your family and yourself. I think it is important that you get some satisfaction in the work you do, and I think that if you can find work that can be rewarding and enjoyable as well as provide for your family that is great. I am not advocating that we should suffer miserably and unnecessarily in our chosen profession, not at all. But I do think that once you are spending all of your quality time and energy devoting it to your profession at the expense of time spent nurturing and caring for your family you have allowed yourself to be dangerously side tracked into careerism.
Culturally we have lost sight of what is truly important, men and women alike. I think one of the reasons why a career seems so appealing to women is that they watch men virtually abandon their families for the sake of, greater career opportunities, public acclamation, peer adulation, more status, more money, etc, and with seemingly no consequences. People talk about how history remembers so and so, and their successes, and sometimes their failure. We talk about how so an so will be remembered in the annals of history for their great successes. But really who cares. Does it mean that the great historical figure has lead a better life than the person who fathered/mothered children to become good people who went on to have families who themselves were good and caring people and so on. Who really has the greater legacy?
Many of these great successful men have wives who have made a choice to stay home and care for their families so that their husbands can pursue their careers. And in some cases men have chosen to stay home with the children while their wives go out and pursue their careers. I would say that if it is unfair for a woman to be expected to stay home and essentially bring up her children by herself, it is just as much unfair for her to expect her husband to go it alone while she goes off to "fulfill herself" through her career.
It is a sad statement of how truly lost we are when we need a career to feel fulfilled. When we cannot find fulfillment it caring for our families, helping to guide our children, being companions and helpers to our mates. True fulfillment, I believe, can only be found in taking the time to commune with God and discern what he is calling you to. And that may very well be to a profession, but it certainly would not be to a professional life that would pull you away from your vocation as husband and father, or wife and mother.
So while it may seem unfair to some that women have to make the choice between career and family, as it may seem unfair that some people have green eyes while others do not, fairness really is not the issue is it? The issue I believe is truly about the difference between what we should do and what we want to do, what is best for our families as opposed to what seems best for our wants. Only in recent decades have we seen women have doors open to them, career opportunities made available to them, that have never been before and instead of taking the time to truly discern a life's vocation we have gone clamoring right behind so many men making all the same mistakes that they have been making. We are wanting to make many of the same selfish sacrifices. How unoriginal!
Who do you think is more fulfilled?
God Bless,
Dominique
In my previous post I talked about population decline and the brave new world we live in. Part of that discussion touched on women in the work force and the impact a woman choosing a career path has on the number of children she is likely to have, on population and on family. This part of the post actual came from a debate that took place between myself and a few other women on the issue of career versus family and why women had to choose between the two and men did not. Some of the women found it unreasonable and unfair that this should be the case. They argued that it was because of short sighted social attitudes and by extension a lack of effective social policy. Oh were it that simple! If only we could just throw a little public policy, and public money, and correct all the perceived injustices in our societies! But just because a segment of society perceives an injustice does that make something an injustice? Here are some examples of possible perceived injustices that my girlfriend Alane and I came up with that we might want to try and fix with a little social policy and public money.
- while people sunburn and black people don't (and if they do not nearly as quickly and it does not look nearly as bad)
- my daughter and husband have beautiful singing voices and I don't
- I know many people who are much faster runners than I am
- my friend Jocelyn is a much better cook than I am
- my friend Alane plays many musical instruments, she is gifted and I am not
- my sister is a wonderful painter and I am not
- I have several friends who have much more money than I do
- One of our friends is a multi millionaire.
- My friend Thea can knit a baptismal gown and I cannot
- I know people who speak five or more languages, I only speak three
- etc, etc, etc,
When talking about choices between career and family I only very briefly touched on something which I would now like to expound upon a little. I mentioned that one rarely sees male CEOs of companies who were also devoted, dedicated husbands and fathers. They may have a child or two but their lives are pretty much tied to their careers, because that is what it takes to be the best in any given career. This is the danger and, I believe, inevitable trapping of careerism.
Careerists are very different from those who are dedicated to being good at what they do. A careerist is someone who has come to define themselves by the success or failure of their career, for whom their career is their life! All that they do, all that they are is based on how well they succeed in their given career. In the end a careerist serves his/her career first, at the expense of all else, sometimes even life itself.
Our culture promotes this, it applauds this, it feeds this. How many times have you heard someone say, "my work is my life" "my career is my whole world." This is all is quite sad, and even sadder when the person saying it is a mother or father.
What is the purpose and end of work? Well depending on who you talk to there will be varying answers. I believe that the purpose and end of work has always been to provide for and care for your family and yourself. I think it is important that you get some satisfaction in the work you do, and I think that if you can find work that can be rewarding and enjoyable as well as provide for your family that is great. I am not advocating that we should suffer miserably and unnecessarily in our chosen profession, not at all. But I do think that once you are spending all of your quality time and energy devoting it to your profession at the expense of time spent nurturing and caring for your family you have allowed yourself to be dangerously side tracked into careerism.
Culturally we have lost sight of what is truly important, men and women alike. I think one of the reasons why a career seems so appealing to women is that they watch men virtually abandon their families for the sake of, greater career opportunities, public acclamation, peer adulation, more status, more money, etc, and with seemingly no consequences. People talk about how history remembers so and so, and their successes, and sometimes their failure. We talk about how so an so will be remembered in the annals of history for their great successes. But really who cares. Does it mean that the great historical figure has lead a better life than the person who fathered/mothered children to become good people who went on to have families who themselves were good and caring people and so on. Who really has the greater legacy?
Many of these great successful men have wives who have made a choice to stay home and care for their families so that their husbands can pursue their careers. And in some cases men have chosen to stay home with the children while their wives go out and pursue their careers. I would say that if it is unfair for a woman to be expected to stay home and essentially bring up her children by herself, it is just as much unfair for her to expect her husband to go it alone while she goes off to "fulfill herself" through her career.
It is a sad statement of how truly lost we are when we need a career to feel fulfilled. When we cannot find fulfillment it caring for our families, helping to guide our children, being companions and helpers to our mates. True fulfillment, I believe, can only be found in taking the time to commune with God and discern what he is calling you to. And that may very well be to a profession, but it certainly would not be to a professional life that would pull you away from your vocation as husband and father, or wife and mother.
So while it may seem unfair to some that women have to make the choice between career and family, as it may seem unfair that some people have green eyes while others do not, fairness really is not the issue is it? The issue I believe is truly about the difference between what we should do and what we want to do, what is best for our families as opposed to what seems best for our wants. Only in recent decades have we seen women have doors open to them, career opportunities made available to them, that have never been before and instead of taking the time to truly discern a life's vocation we have gone clamoring right behind so many men making all the same mistakes that they have been making. We are wanting to make many of the same selfish sacrifices. How unoriginal!
Who do you think is more fulfilled?
God Bless,
Dominique
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
God is dead and our populations are dying!
If we look at what has been happening in parts of Asia where there have been government imposed limits on family size. Singapore is now looking at a fertility rate of 1.1 which is so far below the replacement rate that there is little likelihood they will be able to pull it back up again. So what does this mean? Well is means that we are looking at a population that is essentially dying! And what will happen as the aging population ceases to be able to work and there are not enough young people to sustain care for this population? I shudder to think, in a society where abortion and infanticide was the means of choice to reduce their population it does not take much mental gymnastics to imagine a viable means for decreasing the aging population.
When we talk about replacement rates we are referring to the number of children per woman, on average, necessary for a population to replace itself. That is, for a society to maintain a level in the work force to sustain the economy, and in societies that are dependent on government funded programs to care for those who cannot care for themselves to sustain the tax base to run said programs. If the fertility rate falls below replacement rate then there is cause for concern.
In a recent New York Times article "As Populations Change a chance for younger Nations" by Ted C. Fishman author of “Shock of Gray: The Aging of the World’s Population and How It Pits Young Against Old, Child Against Parent, Worker Against Boss, Company Against Rival and Nation Against Nation,” outlines for us some of these concerns. One of them is how to care for our aging population. In other words if our younger population is out numbered by the aging populations who will provide for the care necessary for them? The other concern is the economy. An aging workforce is a workforce that will struggle to keep up in a global economy. "The globalization of the economy is accelerating because the world is rapidly aging, and at the same time the pace of global aging is quickened by the speed and scope of globalization. These intertwined dynamics also bear on the international competition for wealth and power. The high costs of keeping our aging population healthy and out of poverty has caused the United States and other rich democracies to lose their economic and political footing. Countries on the rise amass wealth and geopolitical clout by refusing to bear those costs. Older countries lose work to younger countries."
Immigration while an immediate aid for declining fertility rates in rapidly aging countries, in turn harm those countries from which young people are emigrating. Case in point, says Fishman is Spain and Ecuador. Of course, immigration for one country means emigration from another — and an older population left behind. Spain, which rivals Japan as the world’s oldest country, was for much of the 20th century one of the youngest nations in the West. Before 2000, it had virtually no foreign-born residents. Today, nearly 12 percent of Spain’s population is foreign born. Among the arrivals are hundreds of thousands of Ecuadoreans (many of them female caregivers for elderly Spanish) whose absence at home increases the median age of Ecuador’s population. More than one in 10 Ecuadoreans has left in search of work, and the loss of so many of the country’s youngest and most enterprising workers means Ecuador has little chance of developing. Recently, its president initiated the Welcome Home Program to lure emigrants back with tax breaks and money to start businesses.
So as people in the environmental movements continue to cry about the need for population control and tell developing nations to forgo industrialization because they need to be responsible for the environment, as the Al Gore's and James Cameron's tell us all to live with less and have less children while they own millions of dollars worth of property and vehicles for families of two, let us spend some time thinking of the legacy we will be leaving behind! I suppose if one loves nature more than humanity the idea of less humans and more nature is not so bad, and for some of these people that is exactly what is the goal. Let us rid the world of the scourge that is humanity so that nature can thrive!
In their rush to decrease the rate of growth of populations nations have used various methods. It is agreed that some of the main reasons for a decline in population replacement and of aging populations are the following: growth in wealth, urbanization (it is harder to have big families in urban areas because the higher cost of living), increase in family planning through contraception and abortion, and more women going onto higher education and entering the work force and waiting to have children until after they have established a career. Barbara Kay argues Read more: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/10/20/barbara-kay-the-coming-demographic-crisis-%E2%80%94-too-much-school-not-enough-babies/#ixzz13UNm5aDr
Sunday, October 24, 2010
A moment in time
I find myself more and more yearning for calm and a true charity toward others in my aging. I used to think that as we get older we get more tolerant, less uptight, and more ready to let things go....apparently that is not part of my aging process!
To be fair, I do find myself better able to let things go in some important areas of my life, for example in my marriage. Well at least more of the time than I did in my youth anyway! My husband and I have overtime grown better at resolving our conflicts than we ever were, and I believe that that is due in part to our ability to just let things slide that we used to jump on. It is also due in larger part to God's Divine Mercy and Grace in our lives. Though we are by no means near good at it, but better is nothing to sneeze at.es
With my children I find that I am not nearly as patient and laid back as I once was, for some things anyway, but then I find that it is such as tenuous dynamic with teenagers and preteens than with toddlers and young children. And of course looking at the world through my current eyes, the eyes of an old pregnant lady who is struggling with severe nausea, tolerance is not something that comes easy to me about anything these days!!! But even factoring that in, and I would not say that I am an old curmudgeon, at least not yet, I do find some things more and more difficult to be tolerant about, or to be immediately forgiving of.
I got to thinking about this today after losing my temper while I was standing in line waiting to go to confession before Mass. One Mass had just ended and people were mulling out of the sanctuary and the noise level was almost deafening.
The Mass that our family attends is a noon High Mass and we often get there about half an hour early as our older boys serve and one assists the sacristan and helps to set up the alter for the High Mass. So it is quite common for us to be there as the earlier Mass is getting out. Usually around this time one of the men who attends the noon Mass begins to pray the Rosary out loud. This sometimes helps to remind those leaving that there are people there who are either still praying or who have arrived early in order to spend quiet time in God's real presence to pray.
Anyway I digress. As I stood in line waiting and praying, trying to take some time to reflect upon my difficult week, a week of vacillating between feeling sorry for myself, feeling angry at my children's failings in their household duties (and at my own,) and losing sight of God's many Blessings and great Mercies in my life, I found myself getting distracted by the noise. All of a sudden I was not thinking of my failings, I was focusing on the failings of all these people, most complete strangers, who were seemingly oblivious to where they were and of the fact that there were people there who desperately yearned for the silence and peace of a quiet church before Mass. I forgot about my own failings and instead could not seem to let go of a growing anger at these noise makers. What made matters worse, I thought to myself, was there was a priest, standing there in the sanctuary, chatting away with a parishioner. Oh that just made me fume, how on earth can we expect lay people understand that this a sacred place, a place which is deserving of the greatest reverence, chit chatting about who knows what. Why can't he go to his office to chat? Why not the breezeway, why not the Hall where there was at that moment a social going on with refreshments?
By the time I got into the confessional I was confessing anger and lack of charity toward neighbour that had more to do with my disposition at that very moment and the swell of emotion just prior to entering the confessional than all the instances throughout the previous two weeks!
As I walked away, acutely aware of my stumbling I began to think of the level of self righteousness involved in feeling as angry as I was. Don't get me wrong, I do think there are times when it is appropriate to be offended by the ignorance of others, but to stand in judgement, to find oneself fuming with anger at what one might perceive to be blatant disrespect, is not right, is not charitable, is not what I believe we are called to. After all it was not that long ago that I was one of those people chatting and even gossiping in the presence of our Lord. So what are we to do in such situations? Is it reasonable to spend our time and energy dwelling on and condemning others?
No I do not believe so. I wish that our Bishops and our Priests would foster a greater reverence for the Sacred spaces that are our churches. We might pray for a conversion of heart of the faithful, and a greater interest in coming to understand the Mass and the Real Presence of Christ in the Tabernacle. But I must also pray for a more charitable disposition toward my neighbour. I need to stop thinking and assuming that it is out of disrespect that many people behave the way they do in Christ's presence. I need to remember that our faithful are not taught reverence and our catholic culture has been so busy over the last several decades trying to make the Faith more down to earth, more palatable, more relevant, that we have pushed the Sacred right out of the picture. In our local parish Christ has been ushered out into a seperate room, the Jesus closet as my children call it. I think it is ironic that in the same church we have two glass enclosed areas, a crying room and a room to put the tabernacle. It is no wonder that so many forget where they are and in Whose presence they are.
Everywhere we turn there are places to socialize, cafes, community centres, Church halls, bowling alleys, friends' homes, gyms, book clubs, dance clubs, pubs, and the list goes on. But how many truly Sacred spaces do we have? How many spaces are there where we are able to spend time in God's presence, in His Real presence? If you are Catholic then it is really and truly only in our churches, before Christ in the Tabernacle. What a gift that is! What a miracle! What an opportunity to be able to reach out, in time, and join with all the angels in Heaven and commune with the true and living God! And would that gift not be better appreciated in a spirit of charity and prayer rather than judgement and condemnation?
God Bless,
Dominique
To be fair, I do find myself better able to let things go in some important areas of my life, for example in my marriage. Well at least more of the time than I did in my youth anyway! My husband and I have overtime grown better at resolving our conflicts than we ever were, and I believe that that is due in part to our ability to just let things slide that we used to jump on. It is also due in larger part to God's Divine Mercy and Grace in our lives. Though we are by no means near good at it, but better is nothing to sneeze at.es
With my children I find that I am not nearly as patient and laid back as I once was, for some things anyway, but then I find that it is such as tenuous dynamic with teenagers and preteens than with toddlers and young children. And of course looking at the world through my current eyes, the eyes of an old pregnant lady who is struggling with severe nausea, tolerance is not something that comes easy to me about anything these days!!! But even factoring that in, and I would not say that I am an old curmudgeon, at least not yet, I do find some things more and more difficult to be tolerant about, or to be immediately forgiving of.
I got to thinking about this today after losing my temper while I was standing in line waiting to go to confession before Mass. One Mass had just ended and people were mulling out of the sanctuary and the noise level was almost deafening.
The Mass that our family attends is a noon High Mass and we often get there about half an hour early as our older boys serve and one assists the sacristan and helps to set up the alter for the High Mass. So it is quite common for us to be there as the earlier Mass is getting out. Usually around this time one of the men who attends the noon Mass begins to pray the Rosary out loud. This sometimes helps to remind those leaving that there are people there who are either still praying or who have arrived early in order to spend quiet time in God's real presence to pray.
Anyway I digress. As I stood in line waiting and praying, trying to take some time to reflect upon my difficult week, a week of vacillating between feeling sorry for myself, feeling angry at my children's failings in their household duties (and at my own,) and losing sight of God's many Blessings and great Mercies in my life, I found myself getting distracted by the noise. All of a sudden I was not thinking of my failings, I was focusing on the failings of all these people, most complete strangers, who were seemingly oblivious to where they were and of the fact that there were people there who desperately yearned for the silence and peace of a quiet church before Mass. I forgot about my own failings and instead could not seem to let go of a growing anger at these noise makers. What made matters worse, I thought to myself, was there was a priest, standing there in the sanctuary, chatting away with a parishioner. Oh that just made me fume, how on earth can we expect lay people understand that this a sacred place, a place which is deserving of the greatest reverence, chit chatting about who knows what. Why can't he go to his office to chat? Why not the breezeway, why not the Hall where there was at that moment a social going on with refreshments?
By the time I got into the confessional I was confessing anger and lack of charity toward neighbour that had more to do with my disposition at that very moment and the swell of emotion just prior to entering the confessional than all the instances throughout the previous two weeks!
As I walked away, acutely aware of my stumbling I began to think of the level of self righteousness involved in feeling as angry as I was. Don't get me wrong, I do think there are times when it is appropriate to be offended by the ignorance of others, but to stand in judgement, to find oneself fuming with anger at what one might perceive to be blatant disrespect, is not right, is not charitable, is not what I believe we are called to. After all it was not that long ago that I was one of those people chatting and even gossiping in the presence of our Lord. So what are we to do in such situations? Is it reasonable to spend our time and energy dwelling on and condemning others?
No I do not believe so. I wish that our Bishops and our Priests would foster a greater reverence for the Sacred spaces that are our churches. We might pray for a conversion of heart of the faithful, and a greater interest in coming to understand the Mass and the Real Presence of Christ in the Tabernacle. But I must also pray for a more charitable disposition toward my neighbour. I need to stop thinking and assuming that it is out of disrespect that many people behave the way they do in Christ's presence. I need to remember that our faithful are not taught reverence and our catholic culture has been so busy over the last several decades trying to make the Faith more down to earth, more palatable, more relevant, that we have pushed the Sacred right out of the picture. In our local parish Christ has been ushered out into a seperate room, the Jesus closet as my children call it. I think it is ironic that in the same church we have two glass enclosed areas, a crying room and a room to put the tabernacle. It is no wonder that so many forget where they are and in Whose presence they are.
Everywhere we turn there are places to socialize, cafes, community centres, Church halls, bowling alleys, friends' homes, gyms, book clubs, dance clubs, pubs, and the list goes on. But how many truly Sacred spaces do we have? How many spaces are there where we are able to spend time in God's presence, in His Real presence? If you are Catholic then it is really and truly only in our churches, before Christ in the Tabernacle. What a gift that is! What a miracle! What an opportunity to be able to reach out, in time, and join with all the angels in Heaven and commune with the true and living God! And would that gift not be better appreciated in a spirit of charity and prayer rather than judgement and condemnation?
God Bless,
Dominique
Saturday, October 23, 2010
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: Part VIII What the Mass is NOT
This is the last of the series and he closes with a bang. I hope that everyone has found this series useful in some way. As I explained when I started posting this series I was wowed by it, but that just might be because of how truly clueless I was at the time. I will trying to get back to some of my own writing but seeing as I am still not back on my feet, so to speak, I will likele also be borrowing from other places.
Blessings,
Dominique
Part VIII What the Mass is NOT
By now we should have acquired a fairly clear idea of what the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass principally IS. It is a prologue to some things that are, and some things that are not — despite our wishing them to be otherwise.
Jesus Christ, hanging on the Cross, is being crucified before you. He is dying! His hair is matted with blood from the Crown of Thorns and His face is bruised from the blows of the Roman soldiers and covered with spit from all who mock Him. He is disrobed and open to shame. Even as the blood continues to issue from too many lacerations to count from the Scourging at the Pillar an hour before and the nails hold fast against the flesh yielding under the weight of the cruciform Figure, He is crying out in agony to His Father. Mary, His Mother, is standing before Him crying inconsolably, and would crumple to the ground were she not borne up by John and Mary Magdalene. They are weeping uncontrollably, too. All around, pious women are weeping and wailing, men are sobbing and jeering. It is a scene of utter desolation, unfathomable sorrow, a torrent of tears and a torrent of taunts.
Have you grasped the scene? THIS is what is being enacted before you at the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Now we arrive.
The electric guitars are plugged in, the drum and trap set are being set up, and the piano is being tuned. The acoustic guitars are being strummed aimlessly, and the flute trills sporadically in the background. There is chattering intermingled with laughter among the musicians. They are preparing to entertain the sobbing women, the raging men, and the indifferent spectators looking on. The entertainment is about to begin and Cat Stevens' (now a Muslim), "Morning has Broken" is the song that will first greet us on Calvary after the MC of the musicians cordially welcomes us to the Crucifixion. Throughout the Mass they will compete with Jesus Christ on the Cross for our attention and adulation, calling us away from the Cross that we made of our sins for the Son of God to hang upon, to their virtuosity as singers, guitarists, or piano players. They will entertain us.
But we are a restless audience, and demand more than music during this drama. We want comedy, too. The priest accommodates us, demonstrating his own virtuosity as an entertainer. He had stood briefly at the Altar by the Cross, but is now eager to leave the summit of Golgotha altogether and to walk among his audience. He leaves the Sanctuary of suffering and walks the aisles and avenues of the spectators, much in the manner of talk show hosts trying to garner the attention of the people for himself. What better way than comedy? And he is well provisioned with anecdotes and jokes ... some rather "sly" and just slightly "off-color" ("what a rascal!" we smile, as insiders of the joke with him).
There may be a "question and answer session" in the style of successful television hosts, but the point is to make you feel terribly good about yourself, and him — despite what is going on in the background, on that sad summit that he quickly left and where Christ still hangs. With the "punch-line" the skit ends, sometimes vaguely connected with what is going on with Christ, or something He said prior to His being raised on the Cross.
Still restless, the audience is once again entertained by the musicians, and they remain once the Crucifixion has been consummated and Christ is dead on the Cross ... awaiting our applause — which we extend them despite a sense of terrible incongruity with all that has happened in the background and from which we had been constantly pulled away ... lest we see or understand the consequences of our sins ... and the magnitude of Christ's love for us.
An impolite assessment, to be sure. But a very accurate assessment ... nevertheless.
There are, of course, many other things that the Mass is not. These are merely the more salient among them, for they are, very likely, what we encounter most often before, during, and after Mass, in the trivializing of the most momentous act in history that unfolds before us.
END OF SERIES
Blessings,
Dominique
A PRIMER for CLUELESS CATHOLICS
Part VIII
What the Mass is NOT
By now we should have acquired a fairly clear idea of what the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass principally IS.
It is no less important for us first be clear about what the Mass is NOT, for a good deal of what the Mass is will become much more clear if we understand what the Mass is not.
Most Catholics, as Pope John Paul II noted, have either lost, or no longer have remembrance of, the most central aspects of the Mass – and the fault, largely, is not their own. It is the result of a systemic failure in Catechesis over the past 40 years. Bishops – whose principal duty, above all other duties, as "teachers of the faith" – appear to have forgotten, or have simply relinquished, this absolutely vital responsibility, relegating it to others as something of a "less pressing" issue, failing to see that the "larger" issues at hand are an immediate and direct result of this failure.
Most Catholics, as Pope John Paul II noted, have either lost, or no longer have remembrance of, the most central aspects of the Mass – and the fault, largely, is not their own. It is the result of a systemic failure in Catechesis over the past 40 years. Bishops – whose principal duty, above all other duties, as "teachers of the faith" – appear to have forgotten, or have simply relinquished, this absolutely vital responsibility, relegating it to others as something of a "less pressing" issue, failing to see that the "larger" issues at hand are an immediate and direct result of this failure.
Doctrine and Dogma vs. Doctrinaire Dissent
Having been pawned off to – and eagerly seized by – increasingly doctrinaire and "progressive" committees who articulated Catholic teaching not in terms of the genuine Deposit of Faith, but in terms of social and political issues — largely liberal and distinctly feminist — current or correct at the time, the concept itself of "doctrine and dogma" came into disrepute, such that the words themselves became terms of reproach and disdain. In fact, "doctrine and dogma" became the antithesis to endless "enlightened experiment", which, disdaining doctrinal certainties as somehow regressive, eventually came to repudiate them – however catastrophic the results and however detrimental to the Faith ... and to the faithful.
Indeed, we ourselves are not without blame. Unwilling to accept, or even to recognize our own complicity in the matter through our failure to be "the primary teachers of our children" — as the Church insists — the reproach that we legitimately lay on the doorsteps of our "Religious Educators" and Catechists is no less an indictment of our own irresponsibility. It is profoundly true, unfortunately, that the Catechists to whom we entrust our children had themselves acquired little in the way of authentic Catholic doctrine from their own predecessors who themselves were largely ignorant of the authentic teachings of the Church and the Deposit of the Faith ... or disagreeing with much of it, deliberately failed to teach what did not conform to their own partisan commitment to prevailing social, sexual, and gender-related issues. It is equally true that we, as parents, indeed, as Catholics, have been resolutely indifferent to learning many of the most basic tenets of our own Faith.
Our own indifference, together with the ignorance or the dissent (or both) of the Catechists and the "professional" Religious Educators — nevertheless remain a direct consequence of the inexcusable negligence of the bishops ... to whom Christ entrusted us as children to a father. The problem is that the father is remote, indifferent, and largely absentee. He has washed his hands of what his children are learning, and appears indifferent to what they are being taught. In this sense, the bishop appears to have taken his cue from the majority of secular fathers with children in public education. Uninvolved and ill-informed, he knows little or nothing of what they are being taught, however destructive it may be to the fabric of the family. By the time the child comes home in confusion because he has been prompted to question his own sexual identity the damage has already been done ... and very often cannot be undone. "If only I had been more proactive, more informed, more involved in my sons' or daughter's education, this terrible situation would never have occurred." But he laments too late, and he knows it.
Something very similar occurred within the seminaries of the Archdiocese of Boston — and at what cost in every way! The negligence and indifference of the bishops exacted a terrible and lasting tribute. Just as it has within the classrooms of virtually every Catechism class (now known as "Religious Education" classes — being neither in any significant way).
So what is the point of all this? We know little of our Faith, and therefore even less of the momentous event that occurs each day at our Altars.
While this may appear an unkind assessment, it is sadly borne out by the appalling lack of knowledge of even the most elementary aspects of the Catholic Faith by our own children. From First Penance to Confirmation they are "processed", grade by grade, to "Confirming" that of which they know nothing because they have been taught nothing.
This absence of what authentically constitutes Catholic doctrine has created a vacuum in the Mass. We celebrate it and really do not know why. Most often we appear, really, to be celebrating ourselves.
The True, the Untrue, and the Absurd
In this vacuum, it comes as no surprise that certain things practiced – or left undone – things that have become part and parcel of our experience at Mass – really have no place there. This can be a stinging realization. No one likes being told that they behave badly or without understanding — that what they have long practiced and what has been long condoned and even encouraged, is wrong.
In this respect we all lack humility.
We do not like being "wrong".
In this respect we all lack humility.
We do not like being "wrong".
Nevertheless, it remains the case that some things are true and others are not – however this vies with or offends our largely democratically evolved sensitivities that would hold the true to be what best suits the most or the many, or, perhaps better yet, what is least offensive to them. This notion pleases us.
No one is wrong. In fact, nothing is wrong. And if nothing is wrong, nothing, eo ipso, is intrinsically right. We have the best of all possible worlds.
Truth, absurdity, contradiction – all are concomitant, but ultimately lesser issues.
We wish to get along. And we do so by "going along".
In fact, the most certain formula for contention, for not "getting along", is to insist that 2+2=4 and not another number of our choosing. Our insistence that the sum of this simple equation is 4, and cannot be 5, is surprisingly fraught with deep implications, for it means that the world is not arbitrary – at least the world of numbers, and with the world of numbers, the world of matter as susceptible to quantification of any meaningful sort. If we pay for two apples and receive one, we are not indifferent to it.
But there is an inherent tyranny in equations of this sort, and, in fact, in any physical phenomena construed in terms of "laws", in other words, as sequences or configurations that do, because they cannot, admit of exceptions. We are both constrained and confined by them. People do not like mathematics, not because it is abstruse, but because it admits of definitive and unequivocal answers. There are correct and there are incorrect answers. There are right answers and there are wrong answers — and this infuriates us. There is no latitude. We cannot fake the right answer. And that burns us.
It provokes us because it violates our freedom. It constrains our will. Do you doubt it?
Truth, absurdity, contradiction – all are concomitant, but ultimately lesser issues.
We wish to get along. And we do so by "going along".
In fact, the most certain formula for contention, for not "getting along", is to insist that 2+2=4 and not another number of our choosing. Our insistence that the sum of this simple equation is 4, and cannot be 5, is surprisingly fraught with deep implications, for it means that the world is not arbitrary – at least the world of numbers, and with the world of numbers, the world of matter as susceptible to quantification of any meaningful sort. If we pay for two apples and receive one, we are not indifferent to it.
But there is an inherent tyranny in equations of this sort, and, in fact, in any physical phenomena construed in terms of "laws", in other words, as sequences or configurations that do, because they cannot, admit of exceptions. We are both constrained and confined by them. People do not like mathematics, not because it is abstruse, but because it admits of definitive and unequivocal answers. There are correct and there are incorrect answers. There are right answers and there are wrong answers — and this infuriates us. There is no latitude. We cannot fake the right answer. And that burns us.
It provokes us because it violates our freedom. It constrains our will. Do you doubt it?
State something categorically ... and a hand will immediately rise to challenge it. We esteem this. It is part and parcel of our democratic patrimony and our allegiance to it even at the cost of reason. The will to dissent, has, in the West, come to verge upon the pathological such that the unwillingness to dissent has come to acquire a pathology of its own: "What?", we are asked incredulously, "You do not question? What is wrong with you?"
If we are honest, however, we will admit that often our challenge has little to do with a genuine questioning at all, but is an expression of a contention with our will which we perceive threatened by being deprived of its freedom to choose otherwise. Dostoyevsky, in his famous "Notes from Underground", stated it more succinctly: "To me, 2 plus 2 making four is sheer insolence".
Would that the Moon were Green Cheese
However much it may pique us, however undemocratic or "incorrect" it may be, it nevertheless remains that some things are the case, and some things are not; some things are right and some things are wrong – that some things are true and some things are not – irrespective of their pleasing or displeasing us. We cannot make them other than they are simply because they do not, and intrinsically cannot, comply with our will or conform to our sensitivities. However much we will a triangle to have four sides, it will remain, withal, a three-sided figure. There is, in short, an ontological intolerance that is indifferent to our desiderations — and if there is one thing that we will not tolerate, it is intolerance ...
Absurdity may perplex us, but it does not offend us. Truth offends us. It vies with our will and is not amenable to it ... especially when it does not accord with our will.
So what does that have to do with the Moon as green cheese and the Mass as the Sacrifice on Calvary?
It is a prologue to some things that are, and some things that are not — despite our wishing them to be otherwise.
Let us look at some of these things in the way of the Mass and what it is NOT (in order to understand what it really is):
THE MASS IS NOT:
- Entertainment
- A social
- A musical ("The employment of the piano is forbidden in Church, as is also that of noisy or frivolous instruments such as drums, cymbals, bells, and the like" 1
- A comedy
- A talent show
- Your gift to God in an act of personal munificence and sacrifice for which God should be grateful..
- A liturgical and linguistic laboratory
- A mere remembrance of something done long ago
- A mere ritual, albeit a very ancient one
- Optional
Jesus Christ, hanging on the Cross, is being crucified before you. He is dying! His hair is matted with blood from the Crown of Thorns and His face is bruised from the blows of the Roman soldiers and covered with spit from all who mock Him. He is disrobed and open to shame. Even as the blood continues to issue from too many lacerations to count from the Scourging at the Pillar an hour before and the nails hold fast against the flesh yielding under the weight of the cruciform Figure, He is crying out in agony to His Father. Mary, His Mother, is standing before Him crying inconsolably, and would crumple to the ground were she not borne up by John and Mary Magdalene. They are weeping uncontrollably, too. All around, pious women are weeping and wailing, men are sobbing and jeering. It is a scene of utter desolation, unfathomable sorrow, a torrent of tears and a torrent of taunts.
Have you grasped the scene? THIS is what is being enacted before you at the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Now we arrive.
The electric guitars are plugged in, the drum and trap set are being set up, and the piano is being tuned. The acoustic guitars are being strummed aimlessly, and the flute trills sporadically in the background. There is chattering intermingled with laughter among the musicians. They are preparing to entertain the sobbing women, the raging men, and the indifferent spectators looking on. The entertainment is about to begin and Cat Stevens' (now a Muslim), "Morning has Broken" is the song that will first greet us on Calvary after the MC of the musicians cordially welcomes us to the Crucifixion. Throughout the Mass they will compete with Jesus Christ on the Cross for our attention and adulation, calling us away from the Cross that we made of our sins for the Son of God to hang upon, to their virtuosity as singers, guitarists, or piano players. They will entertain us.
But we are a restless audience, and demand more than music during this drama. We want comedy, too. The priest accommodates us, demonstrating his own virtuosity as an entertainer. He had stood briefly at the Altar by the Cross, but is now eager to leave the summit of Golgotha altogether and to walk among his audience. He leaves the Sanctuary of suffering and walks the aisles and avenues of the spectators, much in the manner of talk show hosts trying to garner the attention of the people for himself. What better way than comedy? And he is well provisioned with anecdotes and jokes ... some rather "sly" and just slightly "off-color" ("what a rascal!" we smile, as insiders of the joke with him).
There may be a "question and answer session" in the style of successful television hosts, but the point is to make you feel terribly good about yourself, and him — despite what is going on in the background, on that sad summit that he quickly left and where Christ still hangs. With the "punch-line" the skit ends, sometimes vaguely connected with what is going on with Christ, or something He said prior to His being raised on the Cross.
Still restless, the audience is once again entertained by the musicians, and they remain once the Crucifixion has been consummated and Christ is dead on the Cross ... awaiting our applause — which we extend them despite a sense of terrible incongruity with all that has happened in the background and from which we had been constantly pulled away ... lest we see or understand the consequences of our sins ... and the magnitude of Christ's love for us.
An impolite assessment, to be sure. But a very accurate assessment ... nevertheless.
There are, of course, many other things that the Mass is not. These are merely the more salient among them, for they are, very likely, what we encounter most often before, during, and after Mass, in the trivializing of the most momentous act in history that unfolds before us.
It is true that we cannot fully comprehend what the the Mass is ...
We can, however, clearly grasp what it is not ... even if we would have it otherwise.
-
What we have learned today: The Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the occasion of the utmost reverence. It is Holy Ground, and we stand, really and truly, before Christ crucified. Christ has died on the Cross ... and we have died with Him. And because we have died with Him, we will also rise with Him ... not in applause ... but in the Resurrection.
END OF SERIES
Friday, October 22, 2010
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: Part VII A Matter of Proximity
A PRIMER for CLUELESS CATHOLICS
Part VII
A Matter of Proximity
Not very long ago, hundreds of people flocked to see what appeared to be an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary ... in the condensation that had occurred upon a window at a local hospital in Boston. Some came from great distances. Many came as long as the image appeared, and, being interviewed on local television news, expressed no doubt about the authentic and "miraculous" nature of such a thing as they continue to marvel at the image, pondering its significance. In yet another instance, a tree growing somewhere in the Southern United States had resembled the profile of Our Blessed Lord, and thousands came to gaze upon the tree.
In a similar way, people, many thousands, have gone, and continue to go, to Medjugorje, to a place where, they believe, Mary has appeared for the past 30 years (about 10,000 -12,000 times) ... to a group of (then) young people in 1981, conversed with them, and, they claim, still does to this day. They have gone in the hopes of seeing their Rosaries turn to gold, or to witness some other inexplicable phenomena that will, for them, validate their faith, or enable them to return home with some account of the miraculous that they themselves had witnessed, and in so doing entering into an inner circle of the privileged and the elect to whom such extraordinary graces are given, graces that are not dispensed to the many.
This is not to say that some good has not come from condensation on glass, or the shape of a tree, or a Rosary appearing to turn to gold for a moment or two. To my understanding, no one has brought back a Rosary that has remained gold; the condensation has evaporated, and the tree has acquired new branches and leaves and now resembles something quite different and more akin to ... well ... a tree.
We flock to the miraculous and the extraordinary, not because we believe in miracles, but I think because we do not and wish to (although as Catholics, we must). We want the evidence. Like King Herod, before whom Christ was brought on the night of His Passion, we demand a miracle, hard copy, proof – which, of course, would make faith unnecessary. We needn't have faith in something proven to us, in things evident. We do not understand ourselves as having faith in gravity. We do not need it. An ill-placed step on a stairway suffices to remind us. The Apostle Thomas wanted proof and got it. But at the price of a lesser blessing (St. John 20.24-29).
In a similar way, people, many thousands, have gone, and continue to go, to Medjugorje, to a place where, they believe, Mary has appeared for the past 30 years (about 10,000 -12,000 times) ... to a group of (then) young people in 1981, conversed with them, and, they claim, still does to this day. They have gone in the hopes of seeing their Rosaries turn to gold, or to witness some other inexplicable phenomena that will, for them, validate their faith, or enable them to return home with some account of the miraculous that they themselves had witnessed, and in so doing entering into an inner circle of the privileged and the elect to whom such extraordinary graces are given, graces that are not dispensed to the many.
This is not to say that some good has not come from condensation on glass, or the shape of a tree, or a Rosary appearing to turn to gold for a moment or two. To my understanding, no one has brought back a Rosary that has remained gold; the condensation has evaporated, and the tree has acquired new branches and leaves and now resembles something quite different and more akin to ... well ... a tree.
We flock to the miraculous and the extraordinary, not because we believe in miracles, but I think because we do not and wish to (although as Catholics, we must). We want the evidence. Like King Herod, before whom Christ was brought on the night of His Passion, we demand a miracle, hard copy, proof – which, of course, would make faith unnecessary. We needn't have faith in something proven to us, in things evident. We do not understand ourselves as having faith in gravity. We do not need it. An ill-placed step on a stairway suffices to remind us. The Apostle Thomas wanted proof and got it. But at the price of a lesser blessing (St. John 20.24-29).
What has this to do with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass?
Consider this – not ex hypothesi, but as as an actual event: You are sitting at home when a neighbor bursts into the door and breathlessly exclaims that Jesus Christ has just appeared down the street – and He is still there! You look up in amazement, incredulous before your neighbor. In a trice you grab the keys to your car and speed off down the street, heedless of all else, hoping to get to the place where you will find Jesus Christ Himself! You've left the water boiling for your tea, the door open, and the television still on ... in fact, you realize as you are speeding along that you've even forgotten to put on your shoes! Who cares? If this is real, you would have fled your house naked grabbing a towel on the way.
You eventually come to where your friend had told you that Jesus is – and there is nothing and no one.
You are furious! You speed back even more quickly to scold your erstwhile friend for sending you on a wild goose chase. He is still back at your house, standing in the driveway. Barely able to restrain yourself from parking precisely where he is standing, you fling open the door to your car and jump out, full of indignation!
Your friend is astonished. "He was there when I left", he cries. "Are you certain that you went to the right place?"
He hops in your car and back you go. Then, coming to the Church, he tells you to stop! "Come along!", he urges you, impatiently. You get out and follow him through the door of the Church, barely able to keep pace with your friend, and then, at the end of the aisle, before the Tabernacle, he stops.
You eventually come to where your friend had told you that Jesus is – and there is nothing and no one.
You are furious! You speed back even more quickly to scold your erstwhile friend for sending you on a wild goose chase. He is still back at your house, standing in the driveway. Barely able to restrain yourself from parking precisely where he is standing, you fling open the door to your car and jump out, full of indignation!
Your friend is astonished. "He was there when I left", he cries. "Are you certain that you went to the right place?"
He hops in your car and back you go. Then, coming to the Church, he tells you to stop! "Come along!", he urges you, impatiently. You get out and follow him through the door of the Church, barely able to keep pace with your friend, and then, at the end of the aisle, before the Tabernacle, he stops.
You look around. The Church is empty.
You look at your friend, utterly bewildered ... but he has fallen to the floor on his face in front of the Most Blessed Sacrament.
And you are left standing ... and still you do not understand.
You look at your friend, utterly bewildered ... but he has fallen to the floor on his face in front of the Most Blessed Sacrament.
And you are left standing ... and still you do not understand.
Herod believed in miracles too ... or wanted to. Even as the Author of all miracles stood before him. (St. Luke 23.8)
-
What we have learned today: If truly we believe, we would hasten to the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar – where Jesus really and truly IS ... hidden under the appearance of mere bread.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: Part VI "I Die with Thee, O, Christ ...!"
A PRIMER for CLUELESS CATHOLICS
Part VI
"I Die with Thee, O, Christ ...!"
When you assist at Mass (for that is what you are really doing, you are actively "assisting", not passively "attending", as we so often say), you have a very real part and a very real place in the drama that is about to unfold before you, a drama into which you will be called, not as a spectator, but as a participant.
A participant in what?
In the Passion, Crucifixion, and Death of Jesus Christ on Calvary.
Really? Really.
The only difference between your being actually present at the foot of the Cross outside the walls of Jerusalem 2000 years ago, next to Mary, St. John and the Magdalene – and your being present at the Altar before which you kneel at Church during the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is this: the mere closing of your eyes!
It is the difference — the very same difference — that Mary, that St. John, and that the Magdalene experienced when they, too, closed their eyes at the foot of the Cross upon which Jesus hung before them.
Did He cease to be on the Cross when they closed their eyes and could physically see Him no more? Did Jesus disappear? Go away? Cease to be? The skin covering their eyes, your eyes, my eyes, is the thinnest epidermal membrane (0.05 mm thin) in the human body. But it was – it still is – sufficient to conceal Him from us.
In the case of Mary, John, and the Magdalene, it concealed Him when their eyelids closed. In our case, it conceals Him when they are open! His presence was revealed to them when their eyes were opened. It is only revealed to us when our eyes are closed. In both instances it is not the case that He was there – and in the blink of an eye is no more – but that He is there!
At the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we are present at the death of Christ. We are present at His crucifixion! It is happening before us!
How many times have we said, "Oh, would that I were there! ... there to stand before Him ... to share in His Passion, to stand at His feet ...!"
You are!
But even more than present at this Sacrifice, we participate in it, and we do so in a two-fold manner:
A participant in what?
In the Passion, Crucifixion, and Death of Jesus Christ on Calvary.
Really? Really.
The only difference between your being actually present at the foot of the Cross outside the walls of Jerusalem 2000 years ago, next to Mary, St. John and the Magdalene – and your being present at the Altar before which you kneel at Church during the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is this: the mere closing of your eyes!
It is the difference — the very same difference — that Mary, that St. John, and that the Magdalene experienced when they, too, closed their eyes at the foot of the Cross upon which Jesus hung before them.
Did He cease to be on the Cross when they closed their eyes and could physically see Him no more? Did Jesus disappear? Go away? Cease to be? The skin covering their eyes, your eyes, my eyes, is the thinnest epidermal membrane (0.05 mm thin) in the human body. But it was – it still is – sufficient to conceal Him from us.
In the case of Mary, John, and the Magdalene, it concealed Him when their eyelids closed. In our case, it conceals Him when they are open! His presence was revealed to them when their eyes were opened. It is only revealed to us when our eyes are closed. In both instances it is not the case that He was there – and in the blink of an eye is no more – but that He is there!
At the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we are present at the death of Christ. We are present at His crucifixion! It is happening before us!
How many times have we said, "Oh, would that I were there! ... there to stand before Him ... to share in His Passion, to stand at His feet ...!"
You are!
But even more than present at this Sacrifice, we participate in it, and we do so in a two-fold manner:
- through our sins for which and by which He was crucified –
- and we die with Him on this Cross of our own making!
Through our Baptism, we must remember, we were baptized not only into His life, but also into His death!
For this reason, Archbishop Fulton Sheen once so poignantly said that each of us should, at the Elevation (the moment when the Priest lifts up of the Host that is Christ's Body, the Chalice that is Christ's Blood – when He holds up Jesus Christ Himself, in the most perfect offering to the Father –, saying, "Through Him, With Him, in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit all glory and honor is Yours, Almighty Father, forever and ever" – that at that moment we should, from our hearts, from the depths of our being, utter in all truth: "I die with Thee, O Christ, on Calvary!"
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What we have learned today: We are active participants in the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, actually standing at the foot of the Cross.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
The Holy Sacrifice of The Mass: Part V A Matter of Uncommon Courtesy
A PRIMER for CLUELESS CATHOLICS
Part V
A Matter of Uncommon Courtesy
You have just passed beyond the door – and immediately you come face to face with your neighbor whom you have known these many years. You look each other in the eye ..... and then pass as though you did not see him, without saying so much as a word or making any gesture of acknowledgement whatever! Your neighbor, expecting at least the minimal courtesy, would very likely take grave offense and wonder what he had done to deserve such shabby treatment. Yes?
Have you ever done this?
Of course not.
If you do, however, it is extremely likely that your next encounter with your neighbor will be less than cordial.
What, moreover, if you had passed him by in your haste to greet, not your very next door neighbor, but some acquaintance with whom you really have little to do, not breaking stride to at least say hello to your neighbor?
What if you were that neighbor? Would you take offense? How would you account yourself, in the way of importance, in that person's life? You would say that he behaved as though he did not so much as know you!
What would possibly prompt this discourtesy? Something, surely, is amiss. You have either offended him, wittingly or not – or what is more remarkable still, he had completely forgotten you.
Have you ever done this?
Of course not.
If you do, however, it is extremely likely that your next encounter with your neighbor will be less than cordial.
What, moreover, if you had passed him by in your haste to greet, not your very next door neighbor, but some acquaintance with whom you really have little to do, not breaking stride to at least say hello to your neighbor?
What if you were that neighbor? Would you take offense? How would you account yourself, in the way of importance, in that person's life? You would say that he behaved as though he did not so much as know you!
What would possibly prompt this discourtesy? Something, surely, is amiss. You have either offended him, wittingly or not – or what is more remarkable still, he had completely forgotten you.
Only one other explanation is possible, even plausible: ... despite all appearances, he did not see you! Had he, he would never have behaved so badly, treated you so poorly.
Let us take it a step further. What if the person you just ignored was the very person who had invited you to his house, and it was his house that you had just entered. He even opened the door for you, but you breezed by him to greet the other guests within ... completely heedless of your host.
What could possibly account for such odd behavior? It is either inexcusable effrontery ... or a total unawareness of who – or where – the person is who had invited you — or somehow, having arrived, you are unable to find him.
I am open to other possible reasons, but can think of none off hand.
The courtesy you extend your neighbor – and remote acquaintances ... surely you would extend no less to God Himself?
And yet you walk into the Church, pass before the Tabernacle (where Jesus Christ is, really and truly, remember?) and the Altar, chat with this one and that one on your way down the aisle, wave left and right, stop to accord someone a special greeting – careful to offend no one you know by failing to acknowledge them – and finally make your way to a pew, pass right in front of Jesus Christ with (and often even without) a perfunctory genuflection (the kneeling on one knee, for reasons of which you are quite unsure – it simply is done ...) you take your seat ... and begin socializing with everyone ... except Jesus Christ.
Sometimes you will kneel in an attitude of prayer, careful that you do not pray too long or appear too pious, utter a few words by rote ... and then get back to business: socializing while you await; not to enter the most significant event of all time which will be enacted before you, but to be entertained ... hoping that the priest today will be not so much a model of sanctity as an engaging entertainer who will have a well provisioned stock of good jokes and cute anecdotes, and above all, who will make you laugh and feel terribly good about yourself for deigning, this day, to bring yourself to God's Presence.
There is a beautiful verse from the Book of Psalms that is lilting with alliteration, and very apropos of this day;
"Deus sedet super sedem sanctam Suam" God sits upon His holy throne. (Psalm 46.9)
The problem, however, is that the throne is right before you – and He Who sits upon it – and you do not know! Or worse yet, if knowing, behave toward Him as you did to the neighbor we spoke of earlier whom you first met at the door.
If you saw with your eyes, you know that this would not be so.
Still ... still you fail to grasp that HE IS THERE in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar – and expects at least some measure of the courtesy you lavish upon lesser beings.
Let us take it a step further. What if the person you just ignored was the very person who had invited you to his house, and it was his house that you had just entered. He even opened the door for you, but you breezed by him to greet the other guests within ... completely heedless of your host.
What could possibly account for such odd behavior? It is either inexcusable effrontery ... or a total unawareness of who – or where – the person is who had invited you — or somehow, having arrived, you are unable to find him.
I am open to other possible reasons, but can think of none off hand.
The courtesy you extend your neighbor – and remote acquaintances ... surely you would extend no less to God Himself?
And yet you walk into the Church, pass before the Tabernacle (where Jesus Christ is, really and truly, remember?) and the Altar, chat with this one and that one on your way down the aisle, wave left and right, stop to accord someone a special greeting – careful to offend no one you know by failing to acknowledge them – and finally make your way to a pew, pass right in front of Jesus Christ with (and often even without) a perfunctory genuflection (the kneeling on one knee, for reasons of which you are quite unsure – it simply is done ...) you take your seat ... and begin socializing with everyone ... except Jesus Christ.
Sometimes you will kneel in an attitude of prayer, careful that you do not pray too long or appear too pious, utter a few words by rote ... and then get back to business: socializing while you await; not to enter the most significant event of all time which will be enacted before you, but to be entertained ... hoping that the priest today will be not so much a model of sanctity as an engaging entertainer who will have a well provisioned stock of good jokes and cute anecdotes, and above all, who will make you laugh and feel terribly good about yourself for deigning, this day, to bring yourself to God's Presence.
There is a beautiful verse from the Book of Psalms that is lilting with alliteration, and very apropos of this day;
"Deus sedet super sedem sanctam Suam" God sits upon His holy throne. (Psalm 46.9)
"If ..." (an unerring test of your Faith)
If Jesus stood before you – visible to your eyes, as you walked up the aisle toward the Altar and your pew – would you behave any differently than you do at this moment when He is hidden from your eyes? Would you chat and gossip with your neighbors? Would you fail to bow before Him as you passed right in front of His eyes? ... and once seated, turn your attention away from Him to more ... important ... people around you, discussing events more important than Him and which have nothing to do with Him?If you saw with your eyes, you know that this would not be so.
Still ... still you fail to grasp that HE IS THERE in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar – and expects at least some measure of the courtesy you lavish upon lesser beings.
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What we have learned today: God is present in the Most Blessed Sacrament ... and should be accorded at least the Courtesy of Recognition. After all, He is the Host, and you are the guest ... and the House is His. Remember?
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