Preaching through this Holy Week I have been reflecting on something to which I haven't ever given much thought, but is as obvious as could be: The Body of Christ we offer and receive in the Eucharist is the betrayed Body.
I think it must be divine law that every rectory dining room or refectory in a religious house has to display an image of the Last Supper. Often it is some derivation of Da Vinci's treatment, which is unfortunate. (I agree with one of my great teachers, Charles Merrill Smith, that it is "one of a great painter's dubious efforts.") We have just such a Last Supper in the dining room here. As I have written about before, it was a source of daily amusement for me when I first arrived because of the inscription below the image: Amen dico vobis quia unus vestrum me traditurus est. Of all the beautiful things Our Lord said at the Last Supper--'Love one another as I have loved you,' 'I am the vine, you are the branches,' etc.--someone decided that this was the particular line that the friars needed to hear. So there it was; each day as you were getting your mashed potatoes or whatever: "Amen I say to you that one of you will betray me."
Over time, though, I've gotten over my amusement and come to appreciate it. After all, am I not a betrayer of the Lord? Any of us who have sinned after our baptism have handed over the members of Christ we have become. In our distraction and ingratitude, we have failed to discern the members of the Body of Christ we have become, and, like Judas, have settled for less by handing our Christ-ened selves over to trifles and sins.
This illuminates the overwhelming gentleness and humility of Christ in the Eucharist. Jesus takes his Body 'given up,' the very betrayal itself, and transforms it into nourishment for us, his betrayers.
March 31, 2010
March 30, 2010
Cute Nun Shoes and Cheap Missals
Snooping around tonight I made quite the fun discovery: a Kenedy Official Catholic Directory from 1943. It's amazing to look at the advertisements; you can tell how much construction was going on around church institutions here in the U.S.A.
A couple of the ads caught my eye in a particular way. Red Cross Shoes, "Accepted by the Reverend Sisterhoods for 50 years." Where are the hipster sisters who wear these?
And how about this? If you, unlike me, have $460 dollars burning a hole in your pocket, you can order the famed Benziger Bros. altar missal from Preserving Christian Publications. Here it is for $30! A four-volume Breviarium Romanum is advertised below, starting at $32, but you'll want to get the leather cases for $3.75 each. I have to admit that the covers seem expensive. I got a very good leather cover for my "economical edition" Liturgia Horarum for just 10 euro the last time I was in Rome.
It's also interesting to note how few advertisers are still in business today. The exceptions: Red Cross Shoes, Mont La Salle altar wine, Cathedral and Will & Baumer candles, Verdin bells, and, of course, the Kenedy directory itself.
Stuck into the book I found a very elegant printed invitation to a "Pontifical Mass of Thanksgiving" for the occasion of the golden jubilee of ordination of one Right Rev. Thaddeus W. Tierney to be celebrated on Sunday, June 3rd, 1951. I suppose we can safely pray that he rest in peace.
A couple of the ads caught my eye in a particular way. Red Cross Shoes, "Accepted by the Reverend Sisterhoods for 50 years." Where are the hipster sisters who wear these?
And how about this? If you, unlike me, have $460 dollars burning a hole in your pocket, you can order the famed Benziger Bros. altar missal from Preserving Christian Publications. Here it is for $30! A four-volume Breviarium Romanum is advertised below, starting at $32, but you'll want to get the leather cases for $3.75 each. I have to admit that the covers seem expensive. I got a very good leather cover for my "economical edition" Liturgia Horarum for just 10 euro the last time I was in Rome.
It's also interesting to note how few advertisers are still in business today. The exceptions: Red Cross Shoes, Mont La Salle altar wine, Cathedral and Will & Baumer candles, Verdin bells, and, of course, the Kenedy directory itself.
Stuck into the book I found a very elegant printed invitation to a "Pontifical Mass of Thanksgiving" for the occasion of the golden jubilee of ordination of one Right Rev. Thaddeus W. Tierney to be celebrated on Sunday, June 3rd, 1951. I suppose we can safely pray that he rest in peace.
To Wipe or Not to Wipe
The pastor and I recently had an argument about the preparation of the chalice. It was a small point, but one with important implications for the Roman rite liturgy at this point in history.
Over time I have fallen into the habit of preparing the chalice with some of the actions only explicitly called for in the EF. I push the purificator in to wipe the inside. Then, removing the purificator to one hand, I infuse the wine and then the water with the appropriate prayer. I then wipe the stray drops before returning to the center of the altar to offer the wine.
The pastor argues that this draws too much attention to what is essentially a functional part of the modern Roman liturgy. What's more, since the Precious Blood will be consumed from all 'sides' of the cup, stray drops aren't a big deal anyway. Neither the rubrics nor the GIRM demand any such concern. On the other hand, Bishop Elliott recommends exactly the procedure I described, though without citation. (This is how I learned it, not from the EF.) He's not an official authority, but someone to whom I am grateful for answering many little questions when I was first starting to celebrate Mass. I give his book to all of our newly ordained.
It brings up some basic questions. On the one hand we don't want to clutter the "noble simplicity" of the modern Roman liturgy with Tridentine accretions. On the other hand, our Holy Father has called for a "mutual enrichment" of the two forms of the Roman rite. Does my extra-rubrical chalice preparation fall into such a category? More basically, given that it is our desire to follow the rubrics, doing less than they ask is certainly out of the question. But what about doing more than the rubrics demand?
Over time I have fallen into the habit of preparing the chalice with some of the actions only explicitly called for in the EF. I push the purificator in to wipe the inside. Then, removing the purificator to one hand, I infuse the wine and then the water with the appropriate prayer. I then wipe the stray drops before returning to the center of the altar to offer the wine.
The pastor argues that this draws too much attention to what is essentially a functional part of the modern Roman liturgy. What's more, since the Precious Blood will be consumed from all 'sides' of the cup, stray drops aren't a big deal anyway. Neither the rubrics nor the GIRM demand any such concern. On the other hand, Bishop Elliott recommends exactly the procedure I described, though without citation. (This is how I learned it, not from the EF.) He's not an official authority, but someone to whom I am grateful for answering many little questions when I was first starting to celebrate Mass. I give his book to all of our newly ordained.
It brings up some basic questions. On the one hand we don't want to clutter the "noble simplicity" of the modern Roman liturgy with Tridentine accretions. On the other hand, our Holy Father has called for a "mutual enrichment" of the two forms of the Roman rite. Does my extra-rubrical chalice preparation fall into such a category? More basically, given that it is our desire to follow the rubrics, doing less than they ask is certainly out of the question. But what about doing more than the rubrics demand?
Prayer Request
At some point today there is a meeting somewhere in which I am to be discussed. The decision of this meeting will have consequences for the future particulars of my life of penance. Thank you for your prayers for the Holy Spirit's inspiration for those meeting, and for my courage and perseverance.
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us.
St. Joseph, pray for us.
St. Charles Lwanga, pray for us.
St. Francis of Assisi, pray for us.
St. Bonaventure, pray for us.
St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.
St. Lawrence of Brindisi, pray for us.
St. Benedict Joseph Labre, pray for us.
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us.
St. Joseph, pray for us.
St. Charles Lwanga, pray for us.
St. Francis of Assisi, pray for us.
St. Bonaventure, pray for us.
St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.
St. Lawrence of Brindisi, pray for us.
St. Benedict Joseph Labre, pray for us.
March 29, 2010
...Broke the Chains of...?
This is a counter-symbol to Easter in so many ways, I hardly know where to begin.
As soon as it's mid-morning in France, I'm calling the semioticians.
As soon as it's mid-morning in France, I'm calling the semioticians.
Hugh's Advice to Lectors
Let them consider what is to be read in the indicative, what is to be pronounced as an interrogation, where there is a distinction in speech or a middle distinction is to be made, since these matters when poorly observed disturb the intellect and provoke those who are of the stamp of grammarians to laughter. The voice of the reader should consult his ears and heart, not his eyes, lest by undisciplined motion or gesture on his own account he make spectators rather than hearers, equally avoiding broken and effeminate sounds as well as coarse and rustic sounds.
--Hugh of St. Victor, De Sacramentis 2,3,6 (Deferrari's translation)
--Hugh of St. Victor, De Sacramentis 2,3,6 (Deferrari's translation)
Holy Poverty
One of the adventures of religious life is to take note, over time, of how one's sense of the vows expands and shifts. Today I'm thinking about my vow of poverty, or, more precisely, my vow to live sine proprio, as we Franciscans say, "without property," or "without anything of my own."
I guess that when I first started on this Franciscan journey I understood our poverty as a fairly material thing. It was the desire and effort to live a life materially stripped down, so as to be more free for God. I still believe in this, of course, and try to live it. I know a friar who insists on having only one car load of stuff. I'm probably a little beyond that myself. Books are the real trouble.
Though simplicity of life is indispensable for any Franciscan, in recent years most of my day-to-day reflection on holy poverty has been about work rather than stuff. I remember once back in studies when I was telling my director about feeling stressed. My spiritual problem was that I resented having to feel stressed with school and formation; I just wanted to live a peaceful and prayerful life without all the distraction. My director cut through my resentment with this simple statement: "The poor man is perpetually anxious."
Since then I have tried to train myself to accept stress as a sharing in the suffering of the poor, as a solidarity with those who have only God to depend on, as a union with those whose prayer lives are not protected by any of the conceits of the professionally pious. Sometimes we religious shield ourselves from work we might do by saying to ourselves and each other, "That's not what I'm about," or "That's not what I'm called to." But these are sometimes just religious life double-speak for 'that's not what I feel like doing.'
There are lots of boring little chores associated with my employment. Sometimes in the midst of them--having already missed the chance to be praying the Jesus Prayer or meditating on one of the mysteries of our faith--I have the temptation to tell myself that with such and such education and background I shouldn't have to doing whatever it is. There are other times, because I'm not in charge, that I have to do things in some other way than I would want them done.
I thank God that I have had spiritual and formation directors along the way who have helped me to make such things into opportunities for holy poverty rather than occasions for temptations to the destructive passion of resentment. It is the condition of poor people that they have to work for a living, and a job is a job. Poor people have to take orders and are grateful to be working regardless of whether the work is interesting or suited to their gifts. Do I think that my brothers and sisters with children don't work in patience at countless tedious tasks in the name of their parenthood? Should my life as spiritual father in the care of souls be any different?
I must be willing to do the work that the Holy Spirit puts in front of me through the obediences I receive in the Order. I must pray for the willingness to work, and for diligence and honesty in working. I must be grateful not only when the work is enjoyable and interesting, but also when it is tedious and stressful. Only then will I be able to embrace a holy poverty that is not an insult to the poor.
I guess that when I first started on this Franciscan journey I understood our poverty as a fairly material thing. It was the desire and effort to live a life materially stripped down, so as to be more free for God. I still believe in this, of course, and try to live it. I know a friar who insists on having only one car load of stuff. I'm probably a little beyond that myself. Books are the real trouble.
Though simplicity of life is indispensable for any Franciscan, in recent years most of my day-to-day reflection on holy poverty has been about work rather than stuff. I remember once back in studies when I was telling my director about feeling stressed. My spiritual problem was that I resented having to feel stressed with school and formation; I just wanted to live a peaceful and prayerful life without all the distraction. My director cut through my resentment with this simple statement: "The poor man is perpetually anxious."
Since then I have tried to train myself to accept stress as a sharing in the suffering of the poor, as a solidarity with those who have only God to depend on, as a union with those whose prayer lives are not protected by any of the conceits of the professionally pious. Sometimes we religious shield ourselves from work we might do by saying to ourselves and each other, "That's not what I'm about," or "That's not what I'm called to." But these are sometimes just religious life double-speak for 'that's not what I feel like doing.'
There are lots of boring little chores associated with my employment. Sometimes in the midst of them--having already missed the chance to be praying the Jesus Prayer or meditating on one of the mysteries of our faith--I have the temptation to tell myself that with such and such education and background I shouldn't have to doing whatever it is. There are other times, because I'm not in charge, that I have to do things in some other way than I would want them done.
I thank God that I have had spiritual and formation directors along the way who have helped me to make such things into opportunities for holy poverty rather than occasions for temptations to the destructive passion of resentment. It is the condition of poor people that they have to work for a living, and a job is a job. Poor people have to take orders and are grateful to be working regardless of whether the work is interesting or suited to their gifts. Do I think that my brothers and sisters with children don't work in patience at countless tedious tasks in the name of their parenthood? Should my life as spiritual father in the care of souls be any different?
I must be willing to do the work that the Holy Spirit puts in front of me through the obediences I receive in the Order. I must pray for the willingness to work, and for diligence and honesty in working. I must be grateful not only when the work is enjoyable and interesting, but also when it is tedious and stressful. Only then will I be able to embrace a holy poverty that is not an insult to the poor.
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