Heaven on Earth

It's been almost two weeks since Benedict released his motu proprio, Summorum Pontificum, in which he granted greater freedom to the use of the liturgy according to the traditional Roman Rite, a.k.a. the Tridentine Mass, a.k.a. the Traditional Latin Mass, a.k.a. the Mass of John XXIII (see my previous post here). If you've followed any mainstream news coverage of the event, one of the criticisms of the traditional liturgy that is cited most often is the use of a prayer (offered one time, during one liturgy per annum) that is perceived to be anti-semitic.

It's a ridiculous notion, especially considering just how much the traditional rite resembles a pre-rabinnic Jewish sacrifice. One of all my all time favorite modern theologians, Scott Hahn, also wrote one of my all time favorite books, The Lamb's Supper. In it, he reminds us of the ancient (and now, nearly forgotten) understanding of the mass as a reflection of the heavenly liturgy, which - as St. John's Apocalypse reveals to us - is a sort of mega-Passover feast, conducted by Christ himself, who is both the Priest King AND the sacrificial lamb. This is why the Eastern and Orthodox Catholics still refer to the mass as the Divine Liturgy. How's all that for Jewish symbolism?

More obviously Jewish in nature to the layman than even the purely theological, sacrifical underpinnings of the mass are its sacramentals. From the vestments to the incense to the candles to the processions to the altar, the Judaic roots of the Catholic worship style are clearly evident. Such an observation seems almost stupidly intuitive; after all, Christ himself, as well as all the apostles, were faithfully Jewish, culturally and religiously. They would've wanted to, and proudly did, maintain a style of worship that they knew and loved.

At this point I must add a caveat. When I say that the Jewish roots of Catholic liturgy are obvious, that's not entirely true. As Nicholas Frankovich reminds us in yesterday's First Things post, it was in an "ecumenical" spirit that the Church, post Vatican II, "reformed the Mass such that the visible and audible distinctions between Mass and the worship services of the mainline Protestant churches were now greatly softened. (Historically, Protestants "inveighed passionately against the Mass, which they saw as overtly Judaic in its tone, structure, and purpose.")

In taking a "step in the direction of Wittenberg and Geneva... and a step away from was Jerusalem," the Church greatly toned down much of this distinctly Jewish-styled ritual and symbolism. Unfortunately, in a worship context, a loss of ritual will without fail lead to a loss of solemnity and reverence. Such, then, is the current state of the Catholic liturgy in many parts of the world, not the least of which is the United States. Ordained and laity alike now seem to have no qualms about changing, scrubbing, our scratching out altogether parts of the liturgy that have been evolving organically for literally millenia.

Predictably, the results of people taking free reign over their liturgy has led to many an abomination. Liturgical dance, "circling around" the altar, drums and electric guitars, holding hands during the Pater Noster. Search youtube for "Halloween Mass" and you'll see what amounts to a literal abortion of liturgy.* Yes, the consecration of the host at that particular mass was technically valid, but God help us all that a bishop would allow something so appalling to take place. The old aphorism "Give them an inch, and they will take a mile" is applicable in spades here.

[Aside: my own local parish offers something called a LifeTeen mass which, though not nearly on the same scale of bad as the Halloween mass, is still, by no measure of the word, reverent. The last time I checked, a hundred seventeen year old girls in shorts and spaghetti strap tank tops were pretty damn distracting, and in no means conducive to worship. Oh well, at least it's not sacrilegious.]

This, then, is why we rejoice when restrictions on celebrating the old rite are loosened; the mass is truly heaven on earth, and should be celebrated as such. There is a great longing for that symbiotic reverence and awe that come naturally with celebrating according to ancient custom. The "faith of our fathers" is only that much more powerful when we can also worship according to the ritual of our fathers, and our spiritual father remains Abraham. All this mess about the old rite being anti-semitic? Hogwash.

*Or, just watch it here. Highlights include some sort of horned devil distributing the Body of Christ, and the priest changing into a Barney costume before the Ite, Missa est. God bless the children.



And then compare it to a Traditional Latin Mass:



And it's clear we've got a continuity issue.

A Catholic in name only

The Village Voice carried a well-detailed piece about Rudy G's Catholicism, or rather, lackethereof.

It is ironic that the most visible Catholic politicians are also those who consistently take firmly anti-Catholic stances on just about every moral issue in the book. Of course, there is a historical basis for their left-leaning tendencies; until only recently (1973) Catholics voted Democrat by default, without fail.

In fact, just the specter of the once-real, historical Catholic-Democrat tie is binding enough that, even today, Democratic candidates have the audacity to proclaim their Catholicism as essential to their identity or informative upon their conscience. The tragedy is that immigrants and minorities, the closest thing to real life pawns in political chess, continue to vote Democratic, even though they themselves are firmly pro-life and pro-family. Ignorance is not bliss.

Whatever. I'm just sick of people who have no business calling themselves Catholic doing so, and doing so for political gain.

Like I say, though, good write up on ol' Rudy.

Tridentine vs. Paul VI

In 1570, at the behest of the Council of Trent, Pope St. Pius V revised and promulgated the Roman Missal, typifying it and making its use obligatory for most in the Western, Latin Church. The Missal is the book which contains prayers said (as well as all else that is read or sung) in connection with the offering of the holy Sacrifice of the Mass. From 1570-1970, the Tridentine Mass (Latin Tridentum = Trent) was almost universally celebrated in the West.

As of 1970, however, the same may be said of the universality of the Mass of Paul VI. Called Novus Ordo by traditionalists, it developed, among other reasons, out of a concern for the laity's ability to understand and thus more actively participate in the sacred liturgy. After all, other than a few lines in Greek and Hebrew, the Tridentine Mass is celebrated completely in Latin, and it has no licit vernacular translations. And so it was that after 400 years, at the urging of another Church Council (Vatican II), the liturgy was once again revised, codified, and made compelling.

As a child of the V-II era of the Church, the only liturgy I have ever known is the Mass of Paul VI. Celebrated rightly, it is as sublime an experience as is possible on earth; indeed, celebrated rightly, it is perfection on earth. However, a number of unfortunate circunstances have led to widespread watering down and general abuse of the liturgy. In America in particular, enter any Catholic church on a Sunday morning, and the chances are more likely than not that you will witness at least a couple illicit practices: banal (even off the cuff) translations of the Latin, bizarre liturgical "innovations," etc. Thankfully, B16 has mentioned a few times that reform is in order, so maybe sooner rather than later that mess will be attended to.

Now, back to the Tridentine. Currently, in order to celebrate Mass under the Tridentine form, priests and/or laypeople must request an indult from the local bishop. Obviously, this requirement limits its practicability. In fact, in all of Houston there is only one church that I know of that has such an indult: Annunciation. I went there yesterday, and for the first time in 24 years attended a Tridentine Mass.

One thing that the Novus Ordo Missae is big on is audible response, and audibility in general; the priest offers very few prayers up in silence. The exact opposite is true for the Tridentine. There, very seldom is the congregation prescribed to respond, and the overwhelming majority of the prayers are offered by the priest, alone and in silence, at the altar. Another big difference is the music. Many, if not all, of the Mass parts are sung in Gregorian Chant in the Tridentine liturgy. Not so, in most Catholic churches these days. There the best you will get as far as music is concerned are abysmally vapid "hymns" about "we are church" or some other such non-worship-related theme.

The most important difference, however, was the palpability of the level of reverence. So often, I find myself sitting through a Mass wondering why the people there even bother showing up. They're in jeans, they're yappin' away, their cell phones are going off, they leave immediately following Communion, on and on. Mass under the Tridentine form was such that reverence and awe and complete submission were natural reactions.

Now, I'm not going to stop attending the parish that I normally do. Sure, it's got its flaws, but they all do. Besides, it's still the same holy Sacrifice being offered up in propitiation as it's always been. Also, even though I know most of the Mass parts in Latin, it's easier for me to concentrate on what I'm saying when I am able to recite them and follow along in English. I do think that I will start making monthy or maybe bi-monthly Sunday morning trips to Annunciation, however; the Latin Tradition runs too deeply in my blood and is far too compelling to avoid.

Here's an excellent video of a Tridentine Solemn High Mass, narrated in detail by [then] Mgr. Fulton J. Sheen(!).

A bold trip!

Well, at least the Cowboys won.

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I got a Wii! It's pretty cool. Once I get Zelda: TP in hand, all will be right in the world. For now, Super Monkey Ball it is! I love the monkeys. And my Wii.

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B16 is visiting Turkey this week. This is a huge deal, and there is a LOT going on here. Neuhaus and Weigel, always poignant, have great insight into the significance of this trip.

To me, the most important aspect of this visit is that it serves as a reminder to all of us that there is still a very real, very historical threat to the existence of "the West" as we know it. Lest we forget, for the greater part of a thousand years, the forces of Islam held siege against Europe. Were it not for miraculous victories in Lepanto in 1571, or Vienna in 1683, we would more than likely be speaking Arabic right about now.

As history would have it, though Europe finally managed to turn away the mortal threat posed from the outside, it has since become crippled by a slow and steady process of cultural dissentegration due to intellectual forces originating within. The most tangible results of its loss of a cultural identity - a declining birth rate, hyper-secularism, the perversion of the notion of "tolerance", and Christophobia - have paved the way for Muslim population booms in France, Great Britain, and several other European nations.

Given these circumstances, how else to interpret [99% Muslim] Turkey's pending entry into the EU as anything but history threatening to repeat itself? And so it is fitting that for an ecumenical visit, the pope choose Turkey, which has historically been the most culturally significant and most infamous entry point for invading Muslim forces.

Lepont 1571, Vienna 1683, Istanbul 2006?

An afterthough: I wonder if there are odds on what gesture, if any, B16 will make when he enters the Hagia Sophia.

Probably so. They make odds for everything these days.

This is the plan

...I forgot to give Virgil a shoutout for letting me hang out at his house and drink his Crown and eat his homemade cornie dogs during TX/OU. Thanks, Virg!

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As a good Catholic, it is my duty to squash all dirty pagan rituals and dispel all evil associated with Halloween. Therefore, for the 13 days leading up to that dastardly day, I will observe a penance of one horror classic a night whilst inebriating myself via Theological Depth Charges.

The theory is that my righteous drunkenness will strengthen my resolve to... fuck, I dunno. I just thought it would be fun to toast to good ol' B-16 while I watch Carol Ann come to the light, or little Linda Blair do the projectile hellspawn-vomit thing.

Anyhow, I need suggestions for movies. You're the ones who are going to get my drunken commentary for 13 straight days, so let me know what you me to watch/write about.

My Life

Recognize this?

How about now?

That's right.

It is now officially 12:10 AM Friday night/Saturday morning, and Tito and I are watching the Big Brother 7 live feeds on the plasma.

Gay as AIDS.

To aid in the inebriation process, and in honor of our holy pontiff, B16, I've been drinking Theological Depth Charges. You take one part Bavarian beer and one part Benedictine liqueur, toast to Holy Mother Church, combine the two in violent fashion, and proceed to chug like there is no tomorrow.

Hear, hear.

It's sad, really

Anyone with a personal interest in small 'c' catholicism or small 'o' orthodoxy must certainly feel dismayed by the election of Katharine Jefferts Schori as Presiding Bishop-elect of the ECUSA. Not only was she "arguably the least experienced and possibly the most liberal" candidate in the pool, she is also unabashedly forthright in her heterodoxy.

Still, as the Archbishop of Canterbury has said in response to the General Convention that elected her, what is most at issue here is not women's ordination, the ordination of practicing homosexuals, the consecration of same sex unions, or any other number of fault lines that have fractured the unity of the Episcopal Church in America. Regarding the Anglican Communion as a whole,

...whatever the presenting issue, no member Church can make significant decisions unilaterally and still expect this to make no difference to how it is regarded in the fellowship; this would be uncomfortably like saying that every member could redefine the terms of belonging as and when it suited them. Some actions – and sacramental actions in particular - just do have the effect of putting a Church outside or even across the central stream of the life they have shared with other Churches...

In acting unilaterally, the leadership of ECUSA has demonstrated that it is prepared to formally institutionalize schism with the rest of its Communion. This to say nothing of the fact that a number of Asian and African provinces had already declared that they were no longer in communion with their American counterpart. I can only imagine the intense fear and heartwrenching that orthodox Episcopalians must be experiencing now, as their Church is now merely another isolated American denomination.

Archbishop Williams, again,

It is true that witness to what is passionately believed to be the truth sometimes appears a higher value than unity, and there are moving and inspiring examples in the twentieth century. If someone genuinely thinks that a move like the ordination of a practising gay bishop is that sort of thing, it is understandable that they are prepared to risk the breakage of a unity they can only see as false or corrupt. But the risk is a real one; and it is never easy to recognise when the moment of inevitable separation has arrived - to recognise that this is the issue on which you stand or fall and that this is the great issue of faithfulness to the gospel. The nature of prophetic action is that you do not have a cast-iron guarantee that you’re right.

Boy does he hit the nail on the head here.

For capital 'C' Catholics (like myself) and those of the capital 'O' Orthodox tradition, these recent happenings are especially disconcerting. The Catholic Church is ever committed to greater Christian unity, and there have long been hopes that Anglicanism would someday re-enter the greater fold of the Catholic Communion. Given the present circumstances, the prospects of that happening now appear to be slim to none.

Neuhaus, as always, says it best:

As of this week’s General Convention, however, one thing seems certain beyond doubt: The Episcopal Church in the U.S. has declared itself to be just another liberal Protestant denomination, in deliberate defiance of the Anglican Communion and in scornful indifference to a long history of hope for reconciliation with Catholicism. Yes, many, going back to John Henry Newman in the early nineteenth century, said that this would be the inevitable outcome of Anglicanism’s claim to be a “middle way” between liberalism and Catholicism, but it is nonetheless very sad to see it come to pass, and to see the self-congratulatory rejoicing of Episcopalians in celebratory assembly at the death of an honorable, if finally untenable, hope for greater Christian unity.

The gravity of the situation cannot be downplayed.