Traveling last weekend I was caught in the snowstorm and took refuge at our friary in Middletown, Connecticut. It was good to see the friars, and to enjoy the peace of the empty, found time. One of the things I did while I was there was read some of a book on the lives of the North American martyrs.
One scene struck me especially. In the midst of torture, one of the priests wrung a few drops of water from his wet clothes in order to baptize another victim who was ready to accept Christianity. That's just one of many moments that illustrate how driven these missionaries were, how convinced they were that the eternal salvation of souls was at stake in their ministry.
How far we have come from such zeal! Yes, of course it's a good thing that we have removed superstition and magical thinking from the practice of the sacraments. But on the other hand, do we really believe them necessary? I once heard a homily at an infant baptism in which the priest said that the baptism was simply an outward celebration of the divine adoption that the child had already received. Is this what the Church teaches?
One of the friars I live with suggests that we should examine our consciences on whether or not we have a 'passion for salvation.' Perhaps that's something like what used to be called a 'zeal for souls.' Do we really believe, as ministers of the gospel and priests of Jesus Christ, that the eternal salvation God desires for every person has some dependence on our faithfulness to our own call, to our finding the energy and motivation to become the holy religious and priests we have promised to be?
Or have we accepted, either consciously or in subtle, uncritical ways, the creeping universalism of our time, in all of its power to absolve everyone from responsibility? How many funerals have you been to in which the immediate, beatific destiny of the deceased is beyond question, and there is no sense in which the Mass is an offering for his or her continuing salvation? If everyone (and their dogs and cats) automatically 'go to heaven,' then what zeal could there be for the baptism with which the Risen Lord sends forth his disciples to all nations?
Or how much have we accepted the comfortable, civil theology of 'many paths to one divine something-or-other' as we stick our 'Coexist' bumper stickers on our cars and congratulate ourselves on our enlightenment? Never mind the fact that this 'theology' implies that God is an incompetent self-revealer; many of us have let it into our heads so that we don't have to say that anybody else might be wrong, the cardinal sin of our relativistic world.
Let us cast off these glittering errors of the world and allow grace to cultivate within us the direct imitation of God which is a zeal for souls and a passion for salvation.
Showing posts with label What's At Stake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label What's At Stake. Show all posts
November 4, 2011
February 11, 2011
What Does Language Mean?
I'm having some good conversations on the questions raised by the forthcoming English translation the 3rd edition Roman Missal. This is from an email conversation with an old friend:
There are lots of deep theological questions, but they end up as caricatures on all sides. Latin is a norm for the Latin rite, but in what sense? Is it a norm in the sense of a historical root from which other expressions may derive, or is it a norm in the sense that everything else is an unfortunate, but sometimes necessary departure?
Do other languages, English in our case, have their own genius and value in this regard, or not? One of the most interesting quasi-magisterial things I've read on these kinds of questions was the Holy Father's infamous Regensburg address. It got all of the press because of the Muslim question, but there was another section in which he was talking about the translation of the Old Testament into Greek, and it made the claim that this translation itself had revelatory value in the procession of Hebraic truth through the categories of Hellenic thought. It's quite something to say that translation can be revelatory. Is it similar with the movement of Christian common prayer from Aramaic to Greek? From Greek to Latin in the western Church? From Latin to modern European languages, e.g. the King James Bible or the American Sacramentary of 1976?
Drilling in we get to some hard questions about the nature of language diversity itself. Is it a curse, as Genesis might seem to say? Or is it an expression of the genius of particular cultures, and therefore a diversity to be celebrated, as we are taught by contemporary 'multiculturalism'? And how does the unification of hearing at Pentecost cash out in our actual practice of trying to pray together in an increasingly language-diverse liturgical environment?
If Vatican II, in its legacy of the liturgy in local languages, was therein just the Catholic Church finally accepting another idea of European modernity, i.e. the nation-state, imagining that Englishmen would pray the liturgy in English, Germans in German, etc., we have to admit that such a world is giving way to a much less language-unified world on the local level.
For a very real example: a bilingual Easter Vigil, fine. Trilingual, o.k. But when do you stop? When do these gymnastics of 'multiculturalism' stop serving, and when does 'inclusivity' become an idol before God himself? Is Latin the answer to such a thing, or just another non-answer, and worse because it's tinged with reaction?
Sorry to be ranting. The questions are big!
There are lots of deep theological questions, but they end up as caricatures on all sides. Latin is a norm for the Latin rite, but in what sense? Is it a norm in the sense of a historical root from which other expressions may derive, or is it a norm in the sense that everything else is an unfortunate, but sometimes necessary departure?
Do other languages, English in our case, have their own genius and value in this regard, or not? One of the most interesting quasi-magisterial things I've read on these kinds of questions was the Holy Father's infamous Regensburg address. It got all of the press because of the Muslim question, but there was another section in which he was talking about the translation of the Old Testament into Greek, and it made the claim that this translation itself had revelatory value in the procession of Hebraic truth through the categories of Hellenic thought. It's quite something to say that translation can be revelatory. Is it similar with the movement of Christian common prayer from Aramaic to Greek? From Greek to Latin in the western Church? From Latin to modern European languages, e.g. the King James Bible or the American Sacramentary of 1976?
Drilling in we get to some hard questions about the nature of language diversity itself. Is it a curse, as Genesis might seem to say? Or is it an expression of the genius of particular cultures, and therefore a diversity to be celebrated, as we are taught by contemporary 'multiculturalism'? And how does the unification of hearing at Pentecost cash out in our actual practice of trying to pray together in an increasingly language-diverse liturgical environment?
If Vatican II, in its legacy of the liturgy in local languages, was therein just the Catholic Church finally accepting another idea of European modernity, i.e. the nation-state, imagining that Englishmen would pray the liturgy in English, Germans in German, etc., we have to admit that such a world is giving way to a much less language-unified world on the local level.
For a very real example: a bilingual Easter Vigil, fine. Trilingual, o.k. But when do you stop? When do these gymnastics of 'multiculturalism' stop serving, and when does 'inclusivity' become an idol before God himself? Is Latin the answer to such a thing, or just another non-answer, and worse because it's tinged with reaction?
Sorry to be ranting. The questions are big!
December 20, 2010
A Liturgical Trilemma at Communion
I'm full of liturgical wonderings today, and this one is no abstract case.
Let's say I'm offering Mass. When it comes time for the communion of the faithful, in order to fulfill GIRM 281 and offer the "fuller form" of the sacramental sign (Formam ratione signi pleniorem) I want to offer communion under both kinds. To do this in a convenient way, I want to appoint someone to minister the Precious Blood. I have a choice of three persons assisting at the Mass:
1. A priest who is known to me but who, contra Redemptionis sacramentum 128,* is not concelebrating, but who chooses to assist "in the manner of the lay faithful."
2. A man whom I know is an instituted acolyte, but who is also not serving in his hierarchically ordered role. (Also, contra Redemptionis sacramentum 128, but more softly perhaps.)
3. Someone who is neither a cleric nor an instituted acolyte, but who could be impressed into competent service as an EMoHC for the occasion.
Which one is the correct choice to minister the Precious Blood? Why? What are the values at stake?
* Holy Mass and other liturgical celebrations, which are acts of Christ and of the people of God hierarchically constituted, are ordered in such a way that the sacred ministers and the lay faithful manifestly take part in them each according to his own condition. It is preferable therefore that “Priests who are present at a Eucharistic Celebration, unless excused for a good reason, should as a rule exercise the office proper to their Order and thus take part as concelebrants, wearing the sacred vestments. Otherwise, they wear their proper choir dress or a surplice over a cassock.” It is not fitting, except in rare and exceptional cases and with reasonable cause, for them to participate at Mass, as regards to externals, in the manner of the lay faithful.
Read the whole document here.
Let's say I'm offering Mass. When it comes time for the communion of the faithful, in order to fulfill GIRM 281 and offer the "fuller form" of the sacramental sign (Formam ratione signi pleniorem) I want to offer communion under both kinds. To do this in a convenient way, I want to appoint someone to minister the Precious Blood. I have a choice of three persons assisting at the Mass:
1. A priest who is known to me but who, contra Redemptionis sacramentum 128,* is not concelebrating, but who chooses to assist "in the manner of the lay faithful."
2. A man whom I know is an instituted acolyte, but who is also not serving in his hierarchically ordered role. (Also, contra Redemptionis sacramentum 128, but more softly perhaps.)
3. Someone who is neither a cleric nor an instituted acolyte, but who could be impressed into competent service as an EMoHC for the occasion.
Which one is the correct choice to minister the Precious Blood? Why? What are the values at stake?
* Holy Mass and other liturgical celebrations, which are acts of Christ and of the people of God hierarchically constituted, are ordered in such a way that the sacred ministers and the lay faithful manifestly take part in them each according to his own condition. It is preferable therefore that “Priests who are present at a Eucharistic Celebration, unless excused for a good reason, should as a rule exercise the office proper to their Order and thus take part as concelebrants, wearing the sacred vestments. Otherwise, they wear their proper choir dress or a surplice over a cassock.” It is not fitting, except in rare and exceptional cases and with reasonable cause, for them to participate at Mass, as regards to externals, in the manner of the lay faithful.
Read the whole document here.
November 28, 2010
Remembering Charity in Conflict
This post is meant as a continuation of what I wrote yesterday, and a reminder to myself that we have to remember charity and mutual understanding even within our conflicts in the Church in general and religious life in particular.
Yesterday afternoon I went somewhere offer a memorial Mass for a small group of nice people. It was perfectly pleasant and I tried to do my best for them. In the front of the small assembly was a woman, not old but perhaps in later middle age, who made all the responses and prayers loudly and strongly, with all of the standard adjustments and changes for so-called 'inclusive language.'
It would be easy for me simply to rant about it. I don't want to live in a relativistic world in which everyone is their own pope, and each of us has the right to alter the Church's prayer to suit his or her own concerns.
But to just rant is a failure in charity. Yes, we must stand up against the errors and misunderstandings of our time. But we also have to try to appreciate each other, and to recognize that those who do wrong-headed things often do them with the best intentions and with genuine values at stake. The woman in front of me perhaps grew up in a world in which she was made to feel like less, as someone with fewer opportunities in life than her male counterparts. Perhaps she grew up in a world with a lot of 'rules' which didn't seem to have a function or make any sense. So maybe, just maybe, for her to use this so-called 'inclusive language' in her own prayer at Mass represents and symbolizes for her an intense experience of liberation she has had over the course of her life.
I think that this can be hard for many of us younger Catholics and religious to understand. We grew up not with oppressive systems of rules, but in the relativistic, post-modern vertigo. We grew up oppressed not by rules but by their absence. Our grandparents in religious life (our parents are mostly missing) found in their vocations a liberation from a previously ossified and oppressive culture, a liberation from the rules. We have found in our vocations a liberation from relativism and moral anarchy, a liberation to the rules.
This isn't anything new, and it has been better written by others. I just mean to say that as we work to recover our Catholic identity from the errors and wanderings of those who have gone before us, let us remember that they too were children of their time, and that the Spirit of God spoke to them in their liberation as well. No doubt I have own pet myopias, and errors that will need to be corrected by those who come after me. If I want to be treated like a thoughtful and charitable person when that day comes, I need to do it for others now.
Yesterday afternoon I went somewhere offer a memorial Mass for a small group of nice people. It was perfectly pleasant and I tried to do my best for them. In the front of the small assembly was a woman, not old but perhaps in later middle age, who made all the responses and prayers loudly and strongly, with all of the standard adjustments and changes for so-called 'inclusive language.'
It would be easy for me simply to rant about it. I don't want to live in a relativistic world in which everyone is their own pope, and each of us has the right to alter the Church's prayer to suit his or her own concerns.
But to just rant is a failure in charity. Yes, we must stand up against the errors and misunderstandings of our time. But we also have to try to appreciate each other, and to recognize that those who do wrong-headed things often do them with the best intentions and with genuine values at stake. The woman in front of me perhaps grew up in a world in which she was made to feel like less, as someone with fewer opportunities in life than her male counterparts. Perhaps she grew up in a world with a lot of 'rules' which didn't seem to have a function or make any sense. So maybe, just maybe, for her to use this so-called 'inclusive language' in her own prayer at Mass represents and symbolizes for her an intense experience of liberation she has had over the course of her life.
I think that this can be hard for many of us younger Catholics and religious to understand. We grew up not with oppressive systems of rules, but in the relativistic, post-modern vertigo. We grew up oppressed not by rules but by their absence. Our grandparents in religious life (our parents are mostly missing) found in their vocations a liberation from a previously ossified and oppressive culture, a liberation from the rules. We have found in our vocations a liberation from relativism and moral anarchy, a liberation to the rules.
This isn't anything new, and it has been better written by others. I just mean to say that as we work to recover our Catholic identity from the errors and wanderings of those who have gone before us, let us remember that they too were children of their time, and that the Spirit of God spoke to them in their liberation as well. No doubt I have own pet myopias, and errors that will need to be corrected by those who come after me. If I want to be treated like a thoughtful and charitable person when that day comes, I need to do it for others now.
April 19, 2010
What's At Stake: Sexual Abuse and Apostasy
Last night I received an email from an old friend, a sometime companion on the inner journey of prayer. He wrote to tell me that the scandals in the Church had become overwhelming for him, that he did not have much hope, and that he had apostatized from the faith and been received into another ecclesial community.
I don't know if I'm supposed to answer, and I don't think I will. It's not really any of my business anyway. What would I say? Shall I apologize for crimes and negligences for which their is no apology? Shall I beg him to return from error? I don't think either of these are called for; it's just that we were once important to one another in the Lord, and he only wanted to share his grief and let me know of the difficult decision he had made.
It raises the question for me: Do I have a limit? Could things get so heinous and discouraging that I would be tempted to apostasy? Of course I want to say no; but that would be vanity and bravado. My faith is imperfect, and my practice barely adequate; on the internal level I hardly live up to my vows. I only barely keep intact the prayer life I have promised through our Rule and Constitutions. I am not such a good Catholic and my faith is not so strong. I probably have a breaking point too, God help me.
But I just don't think I could leave the Catholic Church. How is it that I first heard the Gospel? What were the conditions of possibility of my having a Bible in my room on the hot summer night in 1991 when I first read St. Matthew with open mind and heart? It is that anyone can buy a Bible at Barnes & Noble? No. Is it because of the great work of translators, from the seventy-two rabbis of Alexandria down to the scholars who produced the RSV I held in my hands in those days? Not really. I heard about the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Christ because the apostles and martyrs gave their lives and suffered in order to keep it alive for me. It was this community of witness that produced the New Testament, and they have passed down the apostolic teaching, even into the hands of the bishops who ordained Fr. Larry and Deacon Ron, the first men to suffer the pastoral care of my stupid and distracted soul.
Without that faith I would be dead, or at least living some close approximation of death. And the world still wants me dead.
This apostolic tradition is all I have to stand on in this world. I'm sure that some of my teachers and confreres would judge me narrow-minded and hopeless in clinging to this sense of Catholicism after all the theological education they have given me in their generosity, but that's how I see it. And as much as my conscience is very troubled and I am very angry, I don't think I would ever try to seek comfort by settling for a facsimile of the Church and play-acting through 'sacraments' I knew in my heart to be invalid. Untethered from accountability to the Petrine ministry (or at least the ministry of some patriarchal see), Christianity has no defense against accepting and assimilating whatever errors or moral chaos happen to be the current worldly fashion. Indeed, sadly enough, this struggle is hard enough even within the apostolic churches, but it is hopeless without.
I don't mean all this in a triumphal way. I am upset too. I am increasingly convinced that the health and even the survival of my vocation depends on my making my life into some kind of integrated response to the issues raised by the sexual abuse scandal. When I, who was born with the name Charles L., decided to be baptized under the patronage of Charles Lwanga, I thought it just a matter of convenience. But it was no accident. St. Charles was martyred, at least in part, for his unwillingness to accept sexual abuse. Nor is it an accident that certain experiences of my own religious life and priesthood have put a harder edge on my own reflection on the festering illnesses behind the scandals. My own vocation is meant to be something with regard to this. I don't know what it means yet, and it might not even be anything external, but it has to be something.
I don't know if you ever look at this blog, old friend. But if you do happen to read this, please don't be offended. This post is about my conscience, not yours. It's not a condemnation or even a disapproval. It's my way to trying to encounter, in my heart, the same issues that you are working to take as seriously as you can. Oremus pro invicem.
I don't know if I'm supposed to answer, and I don't think I will. It's not really any of my business anyway. What would I say? Shall I apologize for crimes and negligences for which their is no apology? Shall I beg him to return from error? I don't think either of these are called for; it's just that we were once important to one another in the Lord, and he only wanted to share his grief and let me know of the difficult decision he had made.
It raises the question for me: Do I have a limit? Could things get so heinous and discouraging that I would be tempted to apostasy? Of course I want to say no; but that would be vanity and bravado. My faith is imperfect, and my practice barely adequate; on the internal level I hardly live up to my vows. I only barely keep intact the prayer life I have promised through our Rule and Constitutions. I am not such a good Catholic and my faith is not so strong. I probably have a breaking point too, God help me.
But I just don't think I could leave the Catholic Church. How is it that I first heard the Gospel? What were the conditions of possibility of my having a Bible in my room on the hot summer night in 1991 when I first read St. Matthew with open mind and heart? It is that anyone can buy a Bible at Barnes & Noble? No. Is it because of the great work of translators, from the seventy-two rabbis of Alexandria down to the scholars who produced the RSV I held in my hands in those days? Not really. I heard about the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Christ because the apostles and martyrs gave their lives and suffered in order to keep it alive for me. It was this community of witness that produced the New Testament, and they have passed down the apostolic teaching, even into the hands of the bishops who ordained Fr. Larry and Deacon Ron, the first men to suffer the pastoral care of my stupid and distracted soul.
Without that faith I would be dead, or at least living some close approximation of death. And the world still wants me dead.
This apostolic tradition is all I have to stand on in this world. I'm sure that some of my teachers and confreres would judge me narrow-minded and hopeless in clinging to this sense of Catholicism after all the theological education they have given me in their generosity, but that's how I see it. And as much as my conscience is very troubled and I am very angry, I don't think I would ever try to seek comfort by settling for a facsimile of the Church and play-acting through 'sacraments' I knew in my heart to be invalid. Untethered from accountability to the Petrine ministry (or at least the ministry of some patriarchal see), Christianity has no defense against accepting and assimilating whatever errors or moral chaos happen to be the current worldly fashion. Indeed, sadly enough, this struggle is hard enough even within the apostolic churches, but it is hopeless without.
I don't mean all this in a triumphal way. I am upset too. I am increasingly convinced that the health and even the survival of my vocation depends on my making my life into some kind of integrated response to the issues raised by the sexual abuse scandal. When I, who was born with the name Charles L., decided to be baptized under the patronage of Charles Lwanga, I thought it just a matter of convenience. But it was no accident. St. Charles was martyred, at least in part, for his unwillingness to accept sexual abuse. Nor is it an accident that certain experiences of my own religious life and priesthood have put a harder edge on my own reflection on the festering illnesses behind the scandals. My own vocation is meant to be something with regard to this. I don't know what it means yet, and it might not even be anything external, but it has to be something.
I don't know if you ever look at this blog, old friend. But if you do happen to read this, please don't be offended. This post is about my conscience, not yours. It's not a condemnation or even a disapproval. It's my way to trying to encounter, in my heart, the same issues that you are working to take as seriously as you can. Oremus pro invicem.
March 24, 2010
What's At Stake: Reverence
(This is the second in a series of posts that will be an attempt to articulate how the experience of parish ministry has changed me as a theological reflector. Here is the introductory post.)
I really like the church two parishes to the south. It's dark and quiet during the day, and it reminds me a little bit of the parish church in the neighborhood where I grew up. As Thomas Merton put it, "Let there always be quiet, dark churches in which men can take refuge. Places where they can kneel in silence. Houses of God, filled with His silent presence." (New Seeds of Contemplation, 83) One day I was sitting in this church in the late morning of a day off. I had offered my Midday Prayer and was just contemplating the Lord's sanctuary in peace. There were a couple of others there, and though I was only dimly aware of their presence, I prayed for them too.
Suddenly a phone rang behind me. A man's voice answered and a speakerphone conversation began. English and Spanish flowed into each other complete with foul language and vulgarities in both. A violent retaliation was being planned for an act of disrespect. Both voices were indignant and frustrated.
Needless to say, I was shocked by both the conversation itself and the sacrilege it represented. As I heard of the violence being planned for the enemy of these men, I was even frightened myself. I left. As I walked down the street to my favorite taco stand, I began to reflect on how it could be possible for someone to not only be so committed to foulness and violence, but to be indifferent to profaning the Lord's sanctuary.
That's when I had a realization. The sins of our culture, such as the tolerance of abortion, the proliferation of human trafficking, the normalization of pornography, abuse, neglect, gang violence, the tacit acceptance of the poverty and hunger of others, as well as the analogous sins and crimes particular to the Church, such as clerical abuse of power and sexual abuse by clergy and religious, and even the general lack of reverence toward the sacraments, sacramentals, and the holy in general, all proceed from a lack of due reverence for persons.
I have thus become convinced that one of our critical and primary troubles as people of our time is a lack of a metaphysical sense of who we are as persons. Though we are all aware that we have hearts and minds that reach beyond space and time in thought and love, I don't think people are aware of themselves as mysteries, spiritual realities worthy of wonder. Without any sense of transcendent personhood, people become subject to commodification, as in pornography, and ultimately even disposable, as in abortion.
Since our transcendent or spiritual personhood is our primary, analogical access to divine Mystery and the Person of deity, without it we start to lose God as well. We may still practice religion in a merely natural or even consumerist way, but we do not have real reverence and 'fear of the Lord' before the Mystery of His Person. In some ways we ministers of the Church have not helped this situation, e.g. if we plan and offer liturgy in such a way as to remove reverence and mystery, we are contributing to the problem. The faith and its celebration in liturgy starts to be about us rather than God. Hymns, postures, and lack of ceremonial reverence all illustrate the shift.
Therefore, I have begun to feel the pressure of theological anthropology. The people of our time seem to need a compelling and intelligible articulation of what it means to find oneself as this mysterious, spiritual subjectivity that we call the human person. As I have mentioned, our spiritual nature is obvious to anyone who has transcended space and time by thought or love. But we seem to have forgotten how to notice that this means that the human person is a mystery worthy of reverence.
I really like the church two parishes to the south. It's dark and quiet during the day, and it reminds me a little bit of the parish church in the neighborhood where I grew up. As Thomas Merton put it, "Let there always be quiet, dark churches in which men can take refuge. Places where they can kneel in silence. Houses of God, filled with His silent presence." (New Seeds of Contemplation, 83) One day I was sitting in this church in the late morning of a day off. I had offered my Midday Prayer and was just contemplating the Lord's sanctuary in peace. There were a couple of others there, and though I was only dimly aware of their presence, I prayed for them too.
Suddenly a phone rang behind me. A man's voice answered and a speakerphone conversation began. English and Spanish flowed into each other complete with foul language and vulgarities in both. A violent retaliation was being planned for an act of disrespect. Both voices were indignant and frustrated.
Needless to say, I was shocked by both the conversation itself and the sacrilege it represented. As I heard of the violence being planned for the enemy of these men, I was even frightened myself. I left. As I walked down the street to my favorite taco stand, I began to reflect on how it could be possible for someone to not only be so committed to foulness and violence, but to be indifferent to profaning the Lord's sanctuary.
That's when I had a realization. The sins of our culture, such as the tolerance of abortion, the proliferation of human trafficking, the normalization of pornography, abuse, neglect, gang violence, the tacit acceptance of the poverty and hunger of others, as well as the analogous sins and crimes particular to the Church, such as clerical abuse of power and sexual abuse by clergy and religious, and even the general lack of reverence toward the sacraments, sacramentals, and the holy in general, all proceed from a lack of due reverence for persons.
I have thus become convinced that one of our critical and primary troubles as people of our time is a lack of a metaphysical sense of who we are as persons. Though we are all aware that we have hearts and minds that reach beyond space and time in thought and love, I don't think people are aware of themselves as mysteries, spiritual realities worthy of wonder. Without any sense of transcendent personhood, people become subject to commodification, as in pornography, and ultimately even disposable, as in abortion.
Since our transcendent or spiritual personhood is our primary, analogical access to divine Mystery and the Person of deity, without it we start to lose God as well. We may still practice religion in a merely natural or even consumerist way, but we do not have real reverence and 'fear of the Lord' before the Mystery of His Person. In some ways we ministers of the Church have not helped this situation, e.g. if we plan and offer liturgy in such a way as to remove reverence and mystery, we are contributing to the problem. The faith and its celebration in liturgy starts to be about us rather than God. Hymns, postures, and lack of ceremonial reverence all illustrate the shift.
Therefore, I have begun to feel the pressure of theological anthropology. The people of our time seem to need a compelling and intelligible articulation of what it means to find oneself as this mysterious, spiritual subjectivity that we call the human person. As I have mentioned, our spiritual nature is obvious to anyone who has transcended space and time by thought or love. But we seem to have forgotten how to notice that this means that the human person is a mystery worthy of reverence.
March 23, 2010
What's at Stake: Mission
(This is the first in a series of posts that will be an attempt to articulate how the experience of parish ministry has changed me as a theological reflector. Here is the introductory post.)
In the course of one day I met representatives of two very different, but equally sacramentally lost communities.
In the morning I went to visit a local reform school to hear confessions. A handful of teenage boys appeared for the sacrament, and for most it was their first time. Almost all were Hispanic and were confident that they had been baptized as infants, either in the home or in church. They reminded me of those St. Francis Xavier speaks of in his reading in the breviary, 'They only know that they are Christians.' I was impressed by their seemingly innate reverence and love for our Lord and our Lady, but I was amazed at their ignorance of the faith. They were praying people, but they didn't even know that there was a prayer that went with the rosaries they wore as amulets. The cultures of poverty, the absence of durable family structures, and especially the dislocation of immigration had taken the faith away from these young men. I asked each where he was from, and all but one told me about the dormitory at the school. They lacked a sense of being from somewhere apart from the juvenile corrections system. I realized that a visit to their world, a glimpse into their particular geography, was a trip into 'mission territory.'
That same evening I sat in the parish office planning a wedding with a young, delightful couple. They are the great-grandchildren of Irish and Italian immigrants. Their great-grandparents built the beautiful churches we have in this part of the country. Their grandparents and parents were the beneficiaries of the great American system of parishes and schools that catapulted European-American Catholics into the privileged and ruling classes of these United States. Thanks to all of that, and especially to the sisters, these young people sat before me with college educations, good jobs and good teeth. And yet, they seemed to have very little use for the faith that had done so much for their ancestors. They had received all of their sacraments, but had 'graduated' from the practice of the faith after their confirmation and were no longer practicing in any measurable way. Apparently, whatever religious education and sacramental formation they had received as children was no longer durable or relevant to their experience of themselves and the world. They weren't hostile to God or His Church, but were more or less indifferent to both. They did not have a sense of what it all had to with them and their concerns. Just as I had in the morning, I realized again that I was in a mission territory.
My point in relating these experiences is not to rant about them (I do it enough!) or even to blame anyone for this sacramental lostness. My question has to do with my own identity as a Christian and a minister, and the models implicit in the parish ministry as I have experienced it.
On the natural level, my job as a parish priest is one of 'customer service.' People appear and ask for things, i.e. sacraments, spiritual direction. I offer Mass and preach to the people who show up for it. The model of ministry is centripetal. If people want something, they come to the church to try to get it. Ministering in this fashion takes up most of my time, and staff is shrinking. When I came here this parish was served by three full-time priests, a full-time lay friar, and one retired priest who helped with Masses and confessions. Three years later, we are two full-time priests, a half-time lay friar, and another retired priest who helps out.
The ministry sails along on this model, which would seem suited to a kind of 'Christendom' situation in which the faith was fully planted and established. My experience suggests that we don't live in such a world, but in something more like a mission territory. This divergence between the ministerial model and the pastoral situation is precisely the dissonance that presses upon me, and it leaves me with three theological pressures:
The hermeneutic of suspicion angle: What are the conditions of possibility of living, preaching, and ministering in denial about the mission 'territories' all around the parish? What allows me to act like a priest who lives and works in an established Christendom when in fact this is not the case?
The practical. What would have to happen to free up preachers and ministers from the centripetal model of parish ministry, so that they would be able to 'go out' on mission, to seek those who have become lost? In other words, as staff and clergy continue to diminish, what changes in ministerial models will help us not to become burnt out and buried under the work of keeping house and free us up for the missionary needs that are right under our noses? Are we ready to hear about and imitate the God whose Love is so outrageous as to 'leave the ninety-nine?'
Preaching, catechesis, and inculturation. How can the Word be preached and the sacraments offered in a way that is compelling for the human person of today? What are the languages and articulations we need to make to help people see that the concerns of the faith are the concerns of their own hearts as well? This isn't a new question, of course, but what can learn from the errors in this area of which we heirs at this historical moment, move beyond simply condemning them, and be about the rebuilding of a compelling articulation of Christianity?
In the course of one day I met representatives of two very different, but equally sacramentally lost communities.
In the morning I went to visit a local reform school to hear confessions. A handful of teenage boys appeared for the sacrament, and for most it was their first time. Almost all were Hispanic and were confident that they had been baptized as infants, either in the home or in church. They reminded me of those St. Francis Xavier speaks of in his reading in the breviary, 'They only know that they are Christians.' I was impressed by their seemingly innate reverence and love for our Lord and our Lady, but I was amazed at their ignorance of the faith. They were praying people, but they didn't even know that there was a prayer that went with the rosaries they wore as amulets. The cultures of poverty, the absence of durable family structures, and especially the dislocation of immigration had taken the faith away from these young men. I asked each where he was from, and all but one told me about the dormitory at the school. They lacked a sense of being from somewhere apart from the juvenile corrections system. I realized that a visit to their world, a glimpse into their particular geography, was a trip into 'mission territory.'
That same evening I sat in the parish office planning a wedding with a young, delightful couple. They are the great-grandchildren of Irish and Italian immigrants. Their great-grandparents built the beautiful churches we have in this part of the country. Their grandparents and parents were the beneficiaries of the great American system of parishes and schools that catapulted European-American Catholics into the privileged and ruling classes of these United States. Thanks to all of that, and especially to the sisters, these young people sat before me with college educations, good jobs and good teeth. And yet, they seemed to have very little use for the faith that had done so much for their ancestors. They had received all of their sacraments, but had 'graduated' from the practice of the faith after their confirmation and were no longer practicing in any measurable way. Apparently, whatever religious education and sacramental formation they had received as children was no longer durable or relevant to their experience of themselves and the world. They weren't hostile to God or His Church, but were more or less indifferent to both. They did not have a sense of what it all had to with them and their concerns. Just as I had in the morning, I realized again that I was in a mission territory.
My point in relating these experiences is not to rant about them (I do it enough!) or even to blame anyone for this sacramental lostness. My question has to do with my own identity as a Christian and a minister, and the models implicit in the parish ministry as I have experienced it.
On the natural level, my job as a parish priest is one of 'customer service.' People appear and ask for things, i.e. sacraments, spiritual direction. I offer Mass and preach to the people who show up for it. The model of ministry is centripetal. If people want something, they come to the church to try to get it. Ministering in this fashion takes up most of my time, and staff is shrinking. When I came here this parish was served by three full-time priests, a full-time lay friar, and one retired priest who helped with Masses and confessions. Three years later, we are two full-time priests, a half-time lay friar, and another retired priest who helps out.
The ministry sails along on this model, which would seem suited to a kind of 'Christendom' situation in which the faith was fully planted and established. My experience suggests that we don't live in such a world, but in something more like a mission territory. This divergence between the ministerial model and the pastoral situation is precisely the dissonance that presses upon me, and it leaves me with three theological pressures:
The hermeneutic of suspicion angle: What are the conditions of possibility of living, preaching, and ministering in denial about the mission 'territories' all around the parish? What allows me to act like a priest who lives and works in an established Christendom when in fact this is not the case?
The practical. What would have to happen to free up preachers and ministers from the centripetal model of parish ministry, so that they would be able to 'go out' on mission, to seek those who have become lost? In other words, as staff and clergy continue to diminish, what changes in ministerial models will help us not to become burnt out and buried under the work of keeping house and free us up for the missionary needs that are right under our noses? Are we ready to hear about and imitate the God whose Love is so outrageous as to 'leave the ninety-nine?'
Preaching, catechesis, and inculturation. How can the Word be preached and the sacraments offered in a way that is compelling for the human person of today? What are the languages and articulations we need to make to help people see that the concerns of the faith are the concerns of their own hearts as well? This isn't a new question, of course, but what can learn from the errors in this area of which we heirs at this historical moment, move beyond simply condemning them, and be about the rebuilding of a compelling articulation of Christianity?
March 12, 2010
What's At Stake
I've been incubating this post for a couple of weeks, and now I realize that it will have to be a series of posts. It has to do with a shift I've been going through in my internal sense of the trajectory of my own vocation within the Order.
Since the time of my perpetual profession four years ago, I have had a certain sense of how the brothers saw my assignments unfolding. I was to finish my licentiate degree, be ordained priest, spend three years working in a parish, and then return to studies to attempt a doctorate. As I begin to come close to completing those three years in the parish, I have come to notice some of my own internal assumptions about this plan and how they now demand revision. I guess I had thought that I would learn the presbyteral trade, file it away among my credentials, and then return to the library to pick up my reading where I had left off. But now I have had to admit to myself, with some difficulty and resistance, that I can't just go back to school as if nothing has happened. My experience here in the parish will have a significant impact on what I want to read and the questions I will want to write on. In other words, I didn't foresee that working as parish priest would have an effect on my life of theological reflection, but it has, and in a big way. Experience has come into the equation for me in a way I have not known before. "Knowledge without mileage equals BS," as Henry Rollins says.
It reminds me of something one of our teachers used to say. In taking up a theological question, she would challenge us to think about 'what's at stake.' What were the 'real world' implications of our reflection, and for whom? I admit that at the time I was resistant to this and sometimes found it annoying. The conceits of my Ivy League upbringing and my native love of purity of concept made it hard for me to want to think this way. (If I had not allowed myself to be distracted from mathematics towards the end of freshman year of college, perhaps none of this would have happened!) I also think that I didn't understand exactly how much is at stake for the Church and the world, and even for belief, or life itself. After three years here in the parish I'm ready to reflect through 'what's at stake.' Even more, I know that I have to if I want to ever achieve even a token level of responsibility as a steward of the mysteries of God.
This is all a little disconcerting, because it means that I have even less of a good idea of how I might approach the opportunity of going back to school. On the other hand, it's not bad because it's the giddy kind of liminality that makes you feel curiously alive because you know it's from God.
So, my thought is to try to write a series of posts on what seems to me to be at stake in my theological reflection. These are subject to change, of course, but right now I think that the topics will "Populations," "Reverence/Life," "Belief/Practice," "Catholicity/Orthodoxy," and something about the meaning and implications of sexual abuse within the Church.
The posts will begin with experiences of my ministry. These are particular to my location and moment in the Church's pilgrimage through history and geography.
Since the time of my perpetual profession four years ago, I have had a certain sense of how the brothers saw my assignments unfolding. I was to finish my licentiate degree, be ordained priest, spend three years working in a parish, and then return to studies to attempt a doctorate. As I begin to come close to completing those three years in the parish, I have come to notice some of my own internal assumptions about this plan and how they now demand revision. I guess I had thought that I would learn the presbyteral trade, file it away among my credentials, and then return to the library to pick up my reading where I had left off. But now I have had to admit to myself, with some difficulty and resistance, that I can't just go back to school as if nothing has happened. My experience here in the parish will have a significant impact on what I want to read and the questions I will want to write on. In other words, I didn't foresee that working as parish priest would have an effect on my life of theological reflection, but it has, and in a big way. Experience has come into the equation for me in a way I have not known before. "Knowledge without mileage equals BS," as Henry Rollins says.
It reminds me of something one of our teachers used to say. In taking up a theological question, she would challenge us to think about 'what's at stake.' What were the 'real world' implications of our reflection, and for whom? I admit that at the time I was resistant to this and sometimes found it annoying. The conceits of my Ivy League upbringing and my native love of purity of concept made it hard for me to want to think this way. (If I had not allowed myself to be distracted from mathematics towards the end of freshman year of college, perhaps none of this would have happened!) I also think that I didn't understand exactly how much is at stake for the Church and the world, and even for belief, or life itself. After three years here in the parish I'm ready to reflect through 'what's at stake.' Even more, I know that I have to if I want to ever achieve even a token level of responsibility as a steward of the mysteries of God.
This is all a little disconcerting, because it means that I have even less of a good idea of how I might approach the opportunity of going back to school. On the other hand, it's not bad because it's the giddy kind of liminality that makes you feel curiously alive because you know it's from God.
So, my thought is to try to write a series of posts on what seems to me to be at stake in my theological reflection. These are subject to change, of course, but right now I think that the topics will "Populations," "Reverence/Life," "Belief/Practice," "Catholicity/Orthodoxy," and something about the meaning and implications of sexual abuse within the Church.
The posts will begin with experiences of my ministry. These are particular to my location and moment in the Church's pilgrimage through history and geography.
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