Filling out forms drives me crazy, especially when they are online and thus limit one's responses. On one that I was recently supposed to do, I could hardly answer anything. Here are some examples of the problems I had:
1. "Marital Status" The choices were single, married, or widowed. Since there was no "consecrated celibate" I had to choose "I decline to answer." Now normally I would give in to "single" but this was an explicitly Catholic institution I was dealing with, so I had no mercy.
2. "Gender" The choices were male and female, which are responses to the query "sex," not gender. Had the responses been masculine or feminine, I might have chosen one, but again, for lack of appropriate responses, I had to choose "I decline to answer."
3. "Religious preference" A list of religions was provided. I suppose I am supposed to supply the response "Catholic." But I'm not a Catholic because I prefer it to some other religion. I prefer Dr. Pepper to Coca-Cola. I am a Catholic because God has called me to be one. I might have preferred some other religion, whatever such a statement might mean, but that's not the point. Again, I might have let this one slide, had I not been dealing with a Catholic institution that should know better.
October 5, 2010
Them's Fightin' Words
The liturgical historian Josef Jungmann on the sequence Stabat Mater:
"...it shows traces of individual piety, of Franciscan devotion to the Passion and our Lady hardly consonant with the objective spirit of common prayer."
"...it shows traces of individual piety, of Franciscan devotion to the Passion and our Lady hardly consonant with the objective spirit of common prayer."
October 4, 2010
Chalices, Windows, and Prostitutes
Today I'm reading about Maurice de Sully, who was bishop of Parish from the 1160 death of his great predecessor, Peter Lombard, until his own death in 1196.
Maurice, of course, was the bishop who ordered the construction of the great cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris. Apparently, or so I read, he refused donations of chalices and stained glass windows from the Parisian prostitutes.
It's a complicated question. If you were a pastor or a bishop building a new church, would you accept such gifts from the local prostitutes? Would you let it be inscribed as such for all to see? What might it mean to accept or refuse?
Maurice, of course, was the bishop who ordered the construction of the great cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris. Apparently, or so I read, he refused donations of chalices and stained glass windows from the Parisian prostitutes.
It's a complicated question. If you were a pastor or a bishop building a new church, would you accept such gifts from the local prostitutes? Would you let it be inscribed as such for all to see? What might it mean to accept or refuse?
Francis, Punk, and Conversion
As we have approached another feast of St. Francis I've been reflecting a little bit on how it is I got to be a Franciscan. It's always an interesting reflection for me, for at least a couple of reasons. On the one hand, my interest in and desire for the Franciscan life goes back almost to the beginning of my Christianity. On the other hand, my first priest, who had care of my soul as a pre-catechumen and again as a neophyte, insists to this day that I am a Benedictine at heart. I don't think he's correct, but perhaps there might be those of my confreres who would agree with him.
As I have thought about it over the years, I have come to the provisional conclusion that Francis caught my desire and imagination so strongly because I found in him a synthesis of punk rock and Christianity.
I first met St. Francis in a history class during my sophomore year of college. I was not yet a Catholic, though I was on my way. I had begun to read the New Testament the summer before, found it compelling, and had decided that I wanted to become a Christian. I didn't know what sort of Christian, however, and didn't even know how to make such a decision. As it turned out, this impasse was a great gift of grace, as it became my first school of prayer and helped me to learn that this wasn't something I was doing, but my first steps of surrender to God. In the end I didn't so much as decide to become a Catholic Christian but only confessed that I had been led in that direction.
But I also have to admit that having met Francis of Assisi, the 'thoroughly Catholic and apostolic man' was an influence in my surrender to the Catholic I had become.
Punk had taught me to question. It had showed me that the given value, that what everyone said or thought was the thing wasn't necessarily the right or best way to go. Even the geography of punk life spoke to this: the record stores were hidden away on second floors of buildings. The bands played in basements. It was an intensely liberating discovery for me. No longer was there the anguish of feeling like I didn't fit into the world around me; punk made me realize that I didn't want to fit in anyway. Punk was stern in in its social critique; the injustices of our society were unacceptable. Opting out of the dehumanizing system was the only option; the situation was beyond compromise.
But though punk taught me a critical turn against the world and gave me a desire to opt out of the 'system'--"Death to the World" as the Orthodox 'punks to monks' used to say--punk didn't seem to me to present much of an alternative. We critique, we opt out, but then what? What would a better world look like? True, some punks had some idea of this, such as the brighter and more committed anarcho-punks and others who took starting points like veganism to their logical conclusions and even became pro-life, but most of us didn't. It was all rage against the system but little plan for a renewed or healed world.
For this I needed Christianity, and Francis became the model, or 'pattern' to use a more Franciscan term. Francis lived in a society with deep parallels to our own. Violence was endemic and increasing. The reinvention of the money economy was creating new injustices. Like a good punk, Francis opted out. Recovering from the illness that had come upon him as a prisoner of war, he began to pray. He sought God, finally renouncing his own place among the new wealthy of his time. He stood naked before his neighbors, calling only on God. He lived with the lepers, renouncing his welcome among those who were called decent and healthy.
Against the evils embedded in his own society, Francis had done what punk had made me want to do as a response to mine. But unlike the punks, Francis had a durable and workable alternative. He would live as the Lord revealed to him he should, secundum formam sancti Evangelii, according to the form of the holy Gospel. (Testament, 14)
Punk rock taught me that human society and culture were subject to critique, and that compromise with its anti-human, anti-life 'horrendous policies' was not an option. The radical Christianity of Francis of Assisi showed me where I could go with this insight, and God has given me the grace of an opportunity to follow the Gospel according to his pattern.
Holy Father Francis, deacon, founder of the three Orders, pray for us!
As I have thought about it over the years, I have come to the provisional conclusion that Francis caught my desire and imagination so strongly because I found in him a synthesis of punk rock and Christianity.
I first met St. Francis in a history class during my sophomore year of college. I was not yet a Catholic, though I was on my way. I had begun to read the New Testament the summer before, found it compelling, and had decided that I wanted to become a Christian. I didn't know what sort of Christian, however, and didn't even know how to make such a decision. As it turned out, this impasse was a great gift of grace, as it became my first school of prayer and helped me to learn that this wasn't something I was doing, but my first steps of surrender to God. In the end I didn't so much as decide to become a Catholic Christian but only confessed that I had been led in that direction.
But I also have to admit that having met Francis of Assisi, the 'thoroughly Catholic and apostolic man' was an influence in my surrender to the Catholic I had become.
Punk had taught me to question. It had showed me that the given value, that what everyone said or thought was the thing wasn't necessarily the right or best way to go. Even the geography of punk life spoke to this: the record stores were hidden away on second floors of buildings. The bands played in basements. It was an intensely liberating discovery for me. No longer was there the anguish of feeling like I didn't fit into the world around me; punk made me realize that I didn't want to fit in anyway. Punk was stern in in its social critique; the injustices of our society were unacceptable. Opting out of the dehumanizing system was the only option; the situation was beyond compromise.
But though punk taught me a critical turn against the world and gave me a desire to opt out of the 'system'--"Death to the World" as the Orthodox 'punks to monks' used to say--punk didn't seem to me to present much of an alternative. We critique, we opt out, but then what? What would a better world look like? True, some punks had some idea of this, such as the brighter and more committed anarcho-punks and others who took starting points like veganism to their logical conclusions and even became pro-life, but most of us didn't. It was all rage against the system but little plan for a renewed or healed world.
For this I needed Christianity, and Francis became the model, or 'pattern' to use a more Franciscan term. Francis lived in a society with deep parallels to our own. Violence was endemic and increasing. The reinvention of the money economy was creating new injustices. Like a good punk, Francis opted out. Recovering from the illness that had come upon him as a prisoner of war, he began to pray. He sought God, finally renouncing his own place among the new wealthy of his time. He stood naked before his neighbors, calling only on God. He lived with the lepers, renouncing his welcome among those who were called decent and healthy.
Against the evils embedded in his own society, Francis had done what punk had made me want to do as a response to mine. But unlike the punks, Francis had a durable and workable alternative. He would live as the Lord revealed to him he should, secundum formam sancti Evangelii, according to the form of the holy Gospel. (Testament, 14)
Punk rock taught me that human society and culture were subject to critique, and that compromise with its anti-human, anti-life 'horrendous policies' was not an option. The radical Christianity of Francis of Assisi showed me where I could go with this insight, and God has given me the grace of an opportunity to follow the Gospel according to his pattern.
Holy Father Francis, deacon, founder of the three Orders, pray for us!
October 3, 2010
The Transitus of Francis
784 years ago tonight, our holy father St. Francis departed from this life. On this eve of his feast day tomorrow, Franciscans everywhere will celebrate the transitus of Francis, marking his migration from time to eternity. As a ritual it does not seem to have a fixed form, but usually includes the reading of one of the accounts of the saint's last hours.
Here is one of the traditional antiphons for the celebration, courtesy of the 1955 Rituale Romano-Seraphicum:
omnes stant et cantant:
Salve, Sancte Pater,
patriae lux, forma minorum:
Virtutis speculum, recti via, regula morum;
Carnis ab exsilio duc nos ad regna polorum.
omnes genuflectunt et duo Cantores cantant:
V. Franciscus pauper et humilis caelum dives ingreditur
R. Hymis caelestibus honoratur.
All stand and sing:
Hail, holy Father,
light of our homeland, form of minors;
Mirror of virtue, right way, and rule of conduct;
lead us from the exile of the flesh to the kingdom of heaven.
all genuflect and two cantors sing:
V. The poor and humble Francis enters heaven rich.
R. And is honored by celestial hymns.
Translation improvements are welcome, as always.
Curiously, neither the ritual nor the Roman-Seraphic breviary offer any rubric as to when or how this celebration fit into the course of the Divine Office for the day. Also, and interestingly, the old ritual imagines the Transitus as a public celebration, as evidenced by one of the final rubrics instructing the celebrant to bless the people with a relic before the ritual concludes with an opportunity for religious to kiss it.
Happy feast of St. Francis!
Here is one of the traditional antiphons for the celebration, courtesy of the 1955 Rituale Romano-Seraphicum:
omnes stant et cantant:
Salve, Sancte Pater,
patriae lux, forma minorum:
Virtutis speculum, recti via, regula morum;
Carnis ab exsilio duc nos ad regna polorum.
omnes genuflectunt et duo Cantores cantant:
V. Franciscus pauper et humilis caelum dives ingreditur
R. Hymis caelestibus honoratur.
All stand and sing:
Hail, holy Father,
light of our homeland, form of minors;
Mirror of virtue, right way, and rule of conduct;
lead us from the exile of the flesh to the kingdom of heaven.
all genuflect and two cantors sing:
V. The poor and humble Francis enters heaven rich.
R. And is honored by celestial hymns.
Translation improvements are welcome, as always.
Curiously, neither the ritual nor the Roman-Seraphic breviary offer any rubric as to when or how this celebration fit into the course of the Divine Office for the day. Also, and interestingly, the old ritual imagines the Transitus as a public celebration, as evidenced by one of the final rubrics instructing the celebrant to bless the people with a relic before the ritual concludes with an opportunity for religious to kiss it.
Happy feast of St. Francis!
The Son Descends
What we mean when we say that the Son of God descended into the time and space of creation:
"The Son does embark on a space odyssey, leaving the Father for a period of time, literally coming down, and later returning to his proper abode in the trinity. Such an understanding arises from taking a metaphor too literally. It must be understood that God, precisely as trinity, is present at all times and places. To speak of a mission of one of the divine persons is to say that the eternal emanation is made manifest in time and has a particular temporal effect. The purpose of any such mission is to deepen the reality of the indwelling of God in human souls. Thus, when we say that the Son is sent, or that He descends, this does not indicate something new on the part of God, but designates that the temporal effect of the eternal emanation has a beginning and endures in time."
(Zachary Hayes, OFM, in his introduction to Bonaventure's Disputed Questions on the Mystery of the Trinity (Franciscan Institute, 2000)
"The Son does embark on a space odyssey, leaving the Father for a period of time, literally coming down, and later returning to his proper abode in the trinity. Such an understanding arises from taking a metaphor too literally. It must be understood that God, precisely as trinity, is present at all times and places. To speak of a mission of one of the divine persons is to say that the eternal emanation is made manifest in time and has a particular temporal effect. The purpose of any such mission is to deepen the reality of the indwelling of God in human souls. Thus, when we say that the Son is sent, or that He descends, this does not indicate something new on the part of God, but designates that the temporal effect of the eternal emanation has a beginning and endures in time."
(Zachary Hayes, OFM, in his introduction to Bonaventure's Disputed Questions on the Mystery of the Trinity (Franciscan Institute, 2000)
October 1, 2010
Overheard in the Friary
At supper the brothers were talking about a certain ritual book, and the advantage of having a bilingual version in both Spanish and English.
One of the brothers asked another about a certain such edition, but he said "bi-ritual" instead of "bilingual."
"Is it a bi-ritual version?"
"Yes, Brother; on facing pages it has the ritual in the traddy and liberal versions."
One of the brothers asked another about a certain such edition, but he said "bi-ritual" instead of "bilingual."
"Is it a bi-ritual version?"
"Yes, Brother; on facing pages it has the ritual in the traddy and liberal versions."
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