February 2004 Archives

I think all of us, who are striving to grow in the spiritual life, make it a practice each Lent to mortify our senses in some way. Among other things, in recent years, I have made it a habit to refrain from any recreational use of the Internet. This year will be no exception. But further, being the first Lent I have had a blog, it will also include all blogging activity. In place of all this activity, I will substitute time for extra prayer and spiritual/devotional reading, until after Easter.

Although there is always the possibility of losing regular blog readership, it's a chance I'm willing to take. I pray this mortification will, upon my return, help me to be more charitable, more insightful, more discerning, more wise, more restrained, etc. In other words, more holy. If that happens, it'll certainly be worth the sacrifice.

I wish you all a profitable Lenten season. God willing, I'll be back at the wheel on Easter Monday.

In my family, we faithfully observe the Lord's Day by avoiding any unnecessary servile work. It often means we need to scramble on other days of the week, to get chores, shopping and other errands done; but we've found that keeping the Lord's Day truly holy, that is, set apart from the rest, has been profoundly beneficial for the whole family.

Further, in case you haven't noticed, I always make it a practice to keep all computers completely shut down on Sundays and Holydays (that is, days on which I'm not obligated to work), taking advantage of the time for family activities. A wise priest once told us that, just as we are to avoid unnecessary servile work on Sundays and Holydays, machines also should be permitted a day of rest, so to speak. Since taking his advice, we find our Sundays and Holydays even more fulfilling; being focused on getting physically, mentally and spiritually re-juvenated - and doing so as a family. Great advice!

Here, we have a report on the recent Sacred Music Workshop, sponsored by St. Cecilia Schola Cantorum. I'm quite excited about the success they had in introducing novices to chant and polyphony, and even applying what they all learned that day at an evening Mass.

[Via St. Cecilia Schola Cantorum]

In this recent interview, Cardinal Ratzinger explains why treating the liturgy as a "show" ends up being its downfall.

Q: You are severe in the book with any one who uses the liturgy only in a communicative way, as a means of education of the faithful. Why?

Cardinal Ratzinger: I want to specify that the liturgy is communicative and pastoral.

I am opposed to those who think that it is only communicative when it is transformed into a spectacle, into a sort of 'show,' reducing to very little that great work of art that the liturgy is, when it is well celebrated, with interior participation.

In the last 20 years, Sunday Mass attendance in Germany has decreased by 70%. The faithful do not feel involved in 'creative' celebrations that say nothing to them. Too often the liturgy is treated as something that one can dispose of according to one's whim, as if it were our exclusive property. But in this way we end up by corrupting it.

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. It is not uncommon to find a modest amount of celebration on the day before the first day of Lent. This is done as a sort of last gasp; signifying that from which we are going to deny ourselves, in the forty days to follow. Here, we read Father Saunders' explanation of the traditional meaning of Shrove Tuesday.

"Shrove Tuesday is the last day of what traditionally was called 'Shrovetide,' the week preceding the beginning of Lent. The word itself, Shrovetide, is the English equivalent for 'Carnival,' which is derived from the Latin words carnem levare, meaning 'to take away the flesh.' (Note that in Germany, this period is called 'Fasching,' and in parts of the United States, particularly Louisiana, 'Mardi Gras.') While this was seen as the last chance for merriment, and, unfortunately in some places, has resulted in excessive pleasure, Shrovetide was the time to cast off things of the flesh and to prepare spiritually for Lent.

Actually, the English term provides the best meaning for this period. 'To shrive' meant to hear confessions. In the Anglo-Saxon 'Ecclesiastical Institutes,' recorded by Theodulphus and translated by Abbot Aelfric about AD 1000, Shrovetide was described as follows: 'In the week immediately before Lent everyone shall go to his confessor and confess his deeds and the confessor shall so shrive him as he then may hear by his deeds what he is to do in the way of penance.' To highlight the point and motivate the people, special plays or masques were performed which portrayed the passion of our Lord or final judgment. Clearly, this Shrovetide preparation for Lent included the confessing of sin and the reception of absolution; as such, Lent then would become a time for penance and renewal of faith."

Father Jeffrey Keyes notes, with dismay, how Catholic hymns with inappropriate lyrics are leading people to believe things that are foreign to the traditional teaching of the Church. That seems to me to be the modus operandi of the typical modernist: pick out a teaching with sufficient richness or ambiguity; then drive it, as fast and as far as you can, on its secondary meaning.

Of course, literally speaking, it's all correct and beyond reproach. Yet, there is always the sense that something is not quite above-board, since it is rare to hear modern hymns where the primary meaning is thus emphasized. For example, consider Church teaching on the Body of Christ: is it (1) the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, or (2) the spiritual presence of Jesus among the worshiping community? Of course it's both, but you get the picture. How could you ever have the second without the first?

[Via The New Gasparian]

I've already indicated once that I am planning not to see Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. Not finding my view to be terribly popular among other writers, or even among my own parish, I decided to poke around a bit to see if there were any who actually do agree with me. You've probably already guessed that the pickin's out there are mighty slim. But I did find a post by David Morrison, where he quotes Phil Lawler's recent editorial in Catholic World Report. Mr. Lawler explains why he has decided not to see Mr. Gibson's movie. For those of you who don't find my first argument terribly compelling, you might consider this:

"The physical violence of the Passion was an undeniable reality. Jesus was mercilessly tortured. I know that. But I hesitate to dwell on it. Is this cowardice? I hope not. I notice that God, in his wisdom, arranged the affairs of that day so that 11 of the 12 apostles did not witness the violence. And the Gospels, our sure guide, are sparing in details.

There is a reason, I believe, for this decorous treatment of the Passion in Scripture. An individual's pain is a personal, even an intimate affair, which should not be exposed to public view. It is obscene to probe the details of another person's anguish, just as it is obscene to air the details of an act of love. And as we look toward Calvary, where history's greatest suffering was poured out in history's greatest act of love, we might do well to avert our eyes - not in denial of what assuredly took place, but in recognition that we are not prepared to bear it."

[Via Sed Contra]

In the Winter 1991 issue of SACRED MUSIC, we read this article, which explains why the changes in liturgical music, following the Second Vatican Council, can only be properly understood when situated in the historical context of everything said by the twentieth century popes on the subject. Further, it seems that some, whose intent may not have been entirely pure, have capitalized on ambiguities in Sacrosanctum Conciliam, and pushed hard for the promotion of a particular spin on the text. However, this is clearly not what the Council Fathers ordered.

The latest edition of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's "Introduction to Christianity" (Queriniana) has recently been published in Italy. In it, he notes how, "After the fall of the Marxist ideologies, there has been no rediscovery of ethics, but rather contempt of it and refuge in pragmatism."

He points out something I had never thought of before. "Cardinal Ratzinger believes that 1968, the year of student revolutions, and 1989, the pivotal year for Marxism's decline, are key to understanding the late 20th century." I've always thought that during the 90's, much of Western society went kind of looney, but I could never really put my finger on why, until now.

Vittorio Messori, who you will probably remember as the author of "Crossing the Threshold of Hope" (1994), as well as "The Ratzinger Report" (1987), has written an article, after being among the first in Europe to see the final cut version of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ".

It looks like the movie is all it was intended to be. Unfortunately, I will most likely not be seeing it. I can't bring myself to monetarily support the work of Mr. Gibson, while his relationship with the Church is ambiguous. If I knew he was in good standing with his bishop, I'd be there in a minute. I know that some have decided to separate the man from his work. In good conscience, I cannot do that.

Russell Shaw, a columnist with the Arlington Catholic Herald, reminds us in his recent column that the Mass should never be looked upon as a source of entertainment. Those who say they don't get anything out of Mass, should look in the mirror and ask themselves how much they put in. The reason we go to Mass is to worship our Lord, primarily as a duty to Him. That does not mean we do it solely out of habit, because any devout Catholic knows that, without the Mass, we starve from the graces needed to live the life of faith. In other words, we go because we know we need to go, but most of all because we want to go.

Mr. Shaw makes another good point about falling into the trap of "emotivism", where we are tempted to let how we feel determine what we believe. Permit me to co-opt this idea, and use it to substantiate a similar point I have recently made. Regarding liturgical music, we must also be careful to avoid allowing our personal impressions to determine what we think is or is not appropriate for the Mass. Our sense of preference in music is based on a complicated web of historical experiences. So, feeling right does not make it right.

The whole concept of doing what people want to see or hear, in order to attract them to the Mass, is entirely the wrong approach. For example, how often have we heard that we ought to do such-and-such at Mass, so that more young people will want to come. Liturgical reform needs to consist in doing what is right, not necessarily what people enjoy or find entertaining. Those who love God and love the Mass will always rejoice in what is right (1 Cor 13:6).

See here for more discussion on the nature of sacred music.

In a recent article of The Sunday Business Post On-line (Ireland), Kieron Wood discusses how the feminization of Catholicism could mean the end of the Church.

I think we can intuitively agree that healthy, thriving church communities are built around families who worship and live the Christian life as a stable unit. On the other hand, when only one of the two parents practise their faith, startling differences are found in the faith commitment of the children:

"Ten years ago, the Swiss authorities conducted a survey to find out how religion was passed from one generation to the next. The poll found that in families where the father was a regular churchgoer and the mother was non-practising, 44 per cent of the children eventually became regular churchgoers.

But if the father was non-practising - even if the mother went to church regularly - only 2 per cent of their children would become regular worshippers, while more than 60 per cent of the children would never attend church."

Todd Flowerday, whose comments have previously appeared on this blog, as well as others on my blog reading list, has some interesting comments on the often strained relationship between traditionally-minded and progressively-minded Catholics. Clearly, such category labels are overly simplistic as an attempt to capture those elusive distinctions that defy categorization. But, on a gross scale, they do serve to illustrate the point.

Mr. Flowerday, who openly counts himself as a progressive Catholic, has some advice for his colleauges:

"I do candidly admit many of my colleagues look very distrustfully upon Catholics who bring a conservative sensibility in their active faith life. I know many people who have been bludgeoned by leaders who promote 'their liberal way or the highway,' often at deep cost to many good people whose only fault is to prefer to pray, pay, or obey as they were taught and are accustomed to doing. This is just wrong. And if we are to look at one of the causes of backlash against our vision of Vatican II, some of us (maybe most all of us) need look no farther than the mirror."

He also welcomes honest and charitable discussion from any viewpoint. I believe he sets an excellent example of humility when he admits he may not have all the answers. I've always found discussion with him thoughtful and enlightening. He's probably one of the most affable "liturgical enemies" with which I've had the opportunity to converse. All this is certainly to his credit.

[Via Catholic Sensibilty]

The angels, as purely spritual beings, sing God's praises while forever contemplating His Infinite Being. As humans, being body plus spirit, we are currently trapped in the earthly realm. This makes it difficult to escape the pull of temporal reality, and thus reach upward to partake in that angelic discourse reserved for those in heaven.

"It is often said that the music of the chant is a perfect vehicle for its words, but from the orthodox point of view, that statement is not quite on the mark. Chant is not primarily concerned with the literal text, as the ancient monastic culture which created the chant was not primarily concerned with the literal text. Chant is concerned with the Word with a capital 'W.' That Word doesn't exist on the page; it exists only in the heart."

This article appeared in the June 1995 issue of The Catholic World Report. It deals with chant as both vocal prayer and as contemplation of the Divine.

In the Spring 1990 issue of SACRED MUSIC, we read an article that perhaps asks one of the most troubling questions, "Is the Church Music Association Dead?"

Clearly, such an association is dead only when there is no longer any need to associate. When the mission of said organization has been fulfilled and accomplished, such that its raison d'être has been extinguished.

In the Fall 1991 issue of SACRED MUSIC, we read this article, which probes the nature of that music we call "sacred", and also explores some of the reasons for its demise and suppression. The author laments:

"Thus the hymn has replaced the settings of the Mass texts; the congregation has been substituted for the choir; the vernacular has superceded the Latin language; the guitar and piano have pushed aside the pipe organ and the orchestra. What is left of the treasury of sacred music for the parish liturgy? Four hymns!"

Peggy Noonan's most recent column has some insightful commentary on the inherent communicative strengths of Democrats versus Republicans. From experience, she gels that Democrats are good at re-iterating policy; the shoot-from-the-hip style required to pull off good interviews. While Republicans best shine when what is needed is a detailed exposition of philosophy; the thoughtful, long-range view required to wow them with memorable speeches. She actually had me pensively pondering such a brilliant flash of intuition. Then this unexpected quip:

"Mr. Bush has given a dozen memorable speeches already; only one of his Democratic challengers has, and that was 'I Have a Scream.'"

Actually, I think there is something to her theory. And if Bush wants to get himself out of the same quagmire in which his father found himself stuck - the impending Democratic turnover - he ought to take some of Ms. Noonan's advice and stick to his strong suit.

In his recent e-letter, Karl Keating addresses the issue of "Hereditary Guilt for Christ's Death". In it, he gives a moderately convincing argument for maintaining that the guilt for crucifying Christ lay only with the Jews (and Romans) at that time and place, who were not later converted Christians. With the imminent release of Mel Gibson's movie, "The Passion of the Christ", I think the time is ripe to give this thought some further elaboration.

In John Allen's recent "Word from Rome" column, we make note of an interesting contradiction in the choice between the use of "pro multis" (for many) and "pro omnibus" (for all) in the upcoming new translation of the text of the Canon of the Mass.

From the Summer 1990 issue of SACRED MUSIC, we read of the experience of enduring a contest to replace the recently deceased organist of Notre Dame de Paris, near the turn of the last century:

"Approached by ninety-eight applicants... ten of them rather serious... A jury composed of recognized artists was formed, and the conditions of the contest were announced in the newspapers:

1. Harmonizing at sight and commentary on a Gregorian chant;
2. Improvising a fugue on a given subject;
3. Free improvisation on a given theme;
4. Performance from memory of an organ composition drawn by lot from a list of five pieces submitted by the candidate."