OK--What Is The Agenda Behind Cardinal Sarah and the "Ad Orientatem" Movement? VI

The Iconostasis at the Russicum
in Rome.  

The Roman Rite has a very unique genius.  The various Eastern Rites and the Rites of Northern Europe were highly influenced by the Court ceremonial of the Emperor or Kings, but Rome was ruled by the Pope and although the papal court developed its own ceremonial it was mainly liturgical and not imperial at least up to the Renaissance papacies.  And while the papal liturgies were more elaborate than the liturgy in a parish or monastic church—due to the presence of the pope—the rite, as practiced in the local churches maintained the Spartan dignity of its ancient character.  However, even the papal liturgies were more austere than the elaborate Gallican Rites practiced north of the Alps.  The vestments in Rome remained the simple dignified vesture of roman magistrates—the alb, the chasuble, the maniple and the stole. The deacon wore a dalmatic in place of the chasuble, though there were rituals in which the deacon too wore a chasuble. The vestments were almost invariably of white wool—the wearing of white being a sign of one’s Roman citizenship.  (Red came to be used, as it was in civil life, for the color of mourning.  It also was used for commemoration of martyrs—perhaps originally due to its connection with death—and for the Passion of the Lord.)  The basic structure of the liturgy: three processions (entrance, gifts, and communion) each followed by a collect remained clearly evident with the Readings placed between the first two and the Eucharistic prayer placed between the second and the third. The congregation stood through the entire liturgy, though there was seating for the clergy during the readings and homilies.  (In the east there were frequent prostrations in imitation of the courtly etiquette.)  A Byzantine priest who has taught liturgy in the seminary pointed out to me that the biblical model for the Roman liturgy is the gathering around the throne of the Lamb in the Book of Revelation singing the Thrice Holy Hymn while the liturgical model for the Liturgy in the Byzantine Rite is Christ the Priest entering into the heavenly sanctuary in the Letter to the Hebrews.  This makes some sense when one familiarizes oneself with the appropriate scriptural texts and the very different geist of each of the two rites. 

My chief objection to the ad apsidem position of the priest in the Roman Rite is that it bespeaks an ecclesiology in which the priest “says Mass” for the people rather than celebrating the Eucharist with them.  The ad apsidem position privatizes the Mass as the action of the priest when in fact it is the action of the entire assembly, priest and people together.  The East, with its very different geist, manages to include the faithful in the key actions of the liturgy despite the ad orientem position and even the presence of icon screens or sanctuary curtains.

The Byzantine—and other Eastern Rites—have developed a very different geist, one that is highly dialogical, than the Roman Rite.  The Byzantine Rite is a series of litanies sung among the (con)celebrant(s) at the altar, the deacon(s) standing at the Holy Doors, and the faithful.  There is a constant exchange of sung dialogue between the altar and the faithful. Even the Eucharistic Prayer contains one of these dialogical litanies.  And don’t forget the priest is not only standing with his back to the people, but the iconostasis blocks most views of the altar entirely.  (In fact, in the more strictly observant churches the Holy Doors are often closed, at least during penitential seasons, and the curtain behind them is drawn blocking any view whatsoever.)  Yet the sung interchange keeps the faithful aware that they are an integral part of the celebration. 

In the West, however the prayers are usually said by the priest alone.  Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei are sung together in a high Mass, but usually by a choir, and high Masses were rare: perhaps one a Sunday in most parishes with the remaining five or six Sunday Masses being a simple low or “read Mass” with only the priest and altar servers responding. 

So the issue for me really is this: is the Eucharist something the priest does on behalf of the people or is it something that the entire Body of Christ—the Church assembled—does together with the priest, as a sacramental presence of Christ in the assembly, does in unity.  The Tradition of the Church, as found in the Fathers of the Church, make it clear that the Liturgy is the work of the entire People of God albeit in their different functions. The versus populum position of the priest at the altar, which is the authentic heritage of the Roman Rite, preserves this in the face of a rite that would otherwise reduce the People of God from exercising their baptismal royal and priestly dignity to mere recipients of grace through the mediatorship of the ordained priest.  There is no way that I want to go back to that faulty ecclesiology, nor do I believe the vast majority of the faithful want to revert to being strangers at the Table of the Lord.  My experience of those seminarians and clergy who wish to go back is that they have a need to dominate and control others that stems from an underdeveloped psycho-sexual self-identity and want to use the Liturgy for their own aggrandizement.  They become, at least in their own minds, the indispensible mediators of grace through whom alone we can approach the Throne of Grace and without whom we would be bereft of the Love of God.  Pray for them for the judgment will be severe.

OK--What Is The Agenda Behind Cardinal Sarah and the "Ad Orientatem" Movement? V

The Bishop prepares to enter the
altar through the HolyDoors in
the Russian Rite.  

Sorry for the long time between posts--it has been a busy week with lots of summer visitors.  Hope you all are enjoying your summer as well.  

 Let me begin by saying that I don’t have a problem with the ad orientem (or even ad absidem) position of celebrating the Liturgy where it comprises an authentic liturgical tradition.  From an aesthetic point of view (as opposed to a theological/ecclesiological perspective), I even prefer it. I often attend or even concelebrate Liturgy in the Byzantine Rite in which the liturgy is invariably celebrated with the celebrant’s back to the people—but for legitimate reasons. 

First of all let’s distinguish between ad orientem and ad absidem.  All ad orientem liturgies are ad ad absidem but not all ad absidem liturgies are ad orientem.  Ad orientem refers to the worship space itself faced eastwards towards the rising Sun.  This was an ancient custom prevalent through the east from at least the fourth century and through the west—excepting Rome and a few other places south of the Alps that never adopted the practice.  The idea of ad orientem is for the worshippers to face the rising Sun, symbol of the Resurrected Christ, as the Eucharist was celebrated at Sunday Dawn.  Curiously in some places, again particularly in Italy and notably in Ravenna and Lucca, while the churches were usually oriented, the older custom, drawn from Rome, with the priest facing the people over the altar (Mass versus populum) was retained as we can see at San Vitale and at San Apollinaire in Classe.  Indeed even when one examines the remaining pre-Vatican II altars in the Cathedral of Florence, Siena, Orvieto, one notices that they were all constructed after the liturgical Reforms of the Council of Trent to replace older free-standing altars.  This is no proof that ad orientem celebration was only introduced to much of Italy in the late 16^th century, but it is a significant indication that the question should be studied in more depth.

If the purpose of the ad orientem position being for priest and faithful alike to face the rising sun, where the worship space itself is not oriented it makes absolutely no sense for the priest to face away from the congregation unless it is part of the tradition of the rite itself.  Such a position is not ad orientem but ad apsidem (facing the rear wall of the church, the apse).  As shown in earlier postings, the traditional position of the presider in the Roman Rite is to face the people over the altar.  Since the sun rises in the east, the concept of some mythical “liturgical east” is patently ridiculous.  East is east—where the sun rises, any other point on the compass is either North, West, or South. 

As I have pointed out in previous posts the practice of ad orientem has been of very ancient origins in the East. We need remember that Sicily and much of Southern Italy (as far north as Naples) and the area around Ravenna was under Byzantine Rule until the 12^th century.  The Greek Rite was used in the churches of this area.  In northern Europe ties between the Court of Charlemagne and the Emperor at Constantinople introduced much Greek ceremonial into both the royal court as well as into the Church.  Liturgy developed far more elaborately in Northern Europe, particularly in France than it did in Rome which kept to its simple, almost Spartan, liturgical tradition.  The various dioceses of France, Britain, the Rhineland, the Low Countries all developed their own particular customs over the 8^th through the 14^th centuries. These rites are collectively known as “Gallican Rites.”  The Spanish church as well developed its own unique and elaborate rites.  Most of these rites were renounced in favor of the 1570 Missal of Pius V after the Council of Trent, however many customs—the number of candles on the altar, the use of specific liturgical colors—were not only retained but found their way into the Missal of Pius V replacing older Roman practices.  Before the revisions of Pius V, missals for the various rites concentrated mostly on the liturgical texts and often did not include detailed rubrics; at the time of the Council of Trent, however, rubrical conformity became a real priority and the lack of detailed rubrics in the Roman books was supplemented by rubrics borrowed from the various medieval rites.  Also Pius V himself was a Dominican and the Dominicans had a very elaborate and detailed rite, predisposing the pontiff towards abandoning Roman simplicity in favor of a more baroque approach to worship that matched the architecture of the churches being built—or renovated—in Rome at the time. 

When May 24, 2003 Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos celebrated the Tridentine Mass in the Basilica of Saint Mary Major, the first celebration according to the Missal of Pius V since its being superseded by the Missal of Paul VI in 1970,many of the pilgrims who had come were outraged because the Mass was celebrated versus populum and not ad apsidem (remember, Saint Mary Major’s faces north, not east, thus not ad orientem).  What they totally ignored is that it is not possible to celebrate ad apsidem at Saint Mary Major’s as the altar stands over the open confessio that leads down to a niche containing the presumed manger in which the Christ child was placed after this birth and upon which the altar is built to enshrine.  Consequently the high altar is approachable from only three sides.  Indeed the papal altars in all four major basilicas are all designed for versus populum celebration and even before Vatican II, the popes celebrated facing the congregation over the altar. 

I am not opposed to ad orientem or even ad apsidem celebrations in general.  Certainly in those rites to which they an inherent part of the tradition they make sense.  Indeed in some Eastern Rites that have latinized to the point of versus populum celebrations, ad orientem should be restored.  When permission is granted for one or another of the north-European rites: Sarum, York, Rite of Paris, for example, it makes sense to used the ad apsidem position.  The same would go for the medieval rites of the religious orders—the Dominicans, the Carmelites, the Carthusians.  On the other hand these rites are meant not for pastoral care of the faithful but are used out of historical or antiquarian curiosity and should be fairly limited.  But where the Roman Rite should be used, it should be used in its integrity which includes versus populum celebration.

Piety vs Spirituality

I want to follow up on yesterday’s posting and the subject of the lack of spirituality and direction for the spiritual journey in our parishes today.  Are people even aware of our rich Catholic tradition of prayer?  A priest friend of mine told me that a “super-Catholic” parishioner of his complained that he never spoke about spirituality in his homilies.  He claimed that all he spoke of was spirituality.  The problem was two very different understandings of spirituality.  “Agnes of God” (his pet nickname for this particular lady) meant that he should talk more about saying the rosary and doing holy hours.  She arrived at church every morning at 7 am (an hour and a half before the morning Mass) to say the Stations of the Cross (“In Agnes’ religion, Jesus always ends up in the tomb, even on Easter morning,” Father noted), say her rosary, and work her way through a pile of novena pamphlets.  After Mass she would remain to lead fellow parishioners in a second rosary.  All this is well and good, he pointed out, but it constitutes “piety” rather than “spirituality.”  When the parish priest spoke to her about various other forms of prayer that wefre being offered in the parish, forms such as Lectio Divina she was uninterested, or Christian Meditation, she dismissed it as “Christian Buddhism”.  This limited understanding of prayer is not only common among the laity.  I have a cousin who is an up and coming prelate and was on the Vatican appointed team that “investigated” American seminaries about eight years ago.  He told me that when they visited a Carmelite monastery where the young friars were studying for the priesthood he and other team members were surprised to find that there were no scheduled holy hours as in diocesan seminaries, that visits to the Blessed Sacrament were not actively encouraged by the formation team, and that the rosary was never said in common.  When these and other suggestions for change were made, the formation team was adamant that there would be no such additions to the community schedule.  The friars celebrated the Liturgy of the Hours in common every day, had daily Mass together, and were required to do two hours of meditation in their “cells.”  In addition they met once a week for “lectio divina” in common.   While individuals were free to pursue other forms of prayer and encouraged in private piety, there would be no change to the common schedule.  Within a month of the visit, the team received a letter from the Carmelite headquarters in Rome informing them that the Order stood behind the formation team.  Carmelite Spirituality is, they were informed., very “bare bones” and the Order resisted innovations that would dilute their tradition by adding “foreign” elements to the spirituality that had guided Carmelites for eight centuries.  The traditional spirituality which guided Saint Teresa and Saint John of the Cross, is “to meditate night and day on the Law of the Lord” and “to keep vigil in prayer” in their individual cells as the Rule of their Order has called them to do for eight centuries.
      A similar story comes from a friend of mine who is a priest of the Ukrainian Rite.  A century and more ago when Eastern Rite Catholics were immigrating to America, many “Latin” customs were introduced into the Rite such as Stations of the Cross, the rosary, and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament in order to make these Eastern Rite Christians look more “Catholic,” as if Catholic meant “Roman.” . But now there is a strong effort to purge the Eastern Rites of these Western practices and restore the traditional devotions and prayer-life of the East.  
      For those whose spiritual life is comprised only of pious exercises, the abandonment or absence of these devotions makes it appear that there is no spirituality when in fact various Churches or Monastic communities are returning to the more ancient forms of prayer that are properly theirs.       Does this mean that there should be no room for piety?  By no means.  We all begin the spiritual journey with pious prayers and most of us still revert to the pieties of our youth at times of stress or distraction and we still find not only comfort but grace in traditional devotions.  But we also know that “active” prayer or “vocal prayer” is the initial steps of a spiritual journey that takes us deeper and deeper into the heart of God.  For those who are willing to let go of their attachments to active prayer forms and trust God to lead them, there is a possibility of moving into the “Prayer of Quiet” and then beyond into the deeper forms of contemplative prayer.  One does not then abandon devotional or active prayer, but one does become less dependent on it.  
       As one matures in prayer one becomes more and more conformed to the will of God and the fruits of this spiritual maturing can be recognized.  These fruits are not visions and extraordinary gifts.  While grace may sometimes be manifested in such phenomena, extraordinary occurances are no sure assurance of spiritual maturity. Indeed, as John of the Cross warns us such “gifts” can offer greater peril to the soul than grace as these gifts are not necessarily from God.  In fact, according to Teresa of Avila, speaking of such things as visions or locutions, as Father Haley was inclined to do, is one of the signs that these visions are not from God but are manifestations of a lack of humility.   The only true sign of authentic spiritual maturity is the conversion of the human heart to God and in particular the increase of charity.  As the soul journeys further and further in God, it becomes more and more like God.  The soul learns to see the world through the eyes of God and the fruits of this are most clearly a depth of wisdom and of compassion that reflects the divine attributes.      I wonder how such a soul would have handled the dilemma that Marcel Guarnizo faced when Barbara Johnson stood before him for communion at her mother’s funeral.  Somehow, neither compassion nor wisdom come to mind. 

More Than One Way to be Catholic

The Byzantne Chapel in the National
Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
in Washington DC

Well, last night some of my colleagues and I were going to go out after work for some Mardi Gras festivities—nothing out of control, just a nice Cajun dinner and music but Christos from our finance office said he couldn’t—it was—for him—already Lent. Already Lent on Mardi Gras?  Christos is Byzantine Catholic and Lent for him had begun last Sunday.  It is a reminder that not all Catholics are Roman Catholic and that we should not refer to our Church as “Roman” but simply as Catholic for the Church does indeed include Ruthenian, Coptic, Chaldean, Syro-Malabar, Ukrainian, Russian, Greek, Syro-Malankar, Syriac, Maronite, Armenian, Melkite, and I don’t know how many other Catholics—all of whom stand in communion with (not under) the See of Rome and its Pope as full members of the Catholic Church.        I have always been surprised how few Catholics know about the Eastern Rites.  (the Western Rites—of which there are more than the Roman—is another question and somewhat more complex).  I was always aware of the multiple ways of being Catholic given that just a few blocks away from my hope parish in New York State is a Byzantine Rite Catholic Church.  Father Peter had fled what was then the Soviet Union after World War II with his young wife.  Their four children were in our parish school and we never thought anything of a married priest.  Back in those pre-Vatican II days Father Peter and his parish would come to our parish one Sunday a year—just before lent—and sing the Divine Liturgy.  We all knew that Divine Liturgy was another word for Mass and we all went to communion. Our pastor wanted us to know that there were many different ways Mass could be celebrated.  By 1960 their liturgy was already in English and we could follow along very easily, though the music—and the entire liturgy was sung—was beyond our (at the time unused) Catholic vocal range. Nevertheless, his parishioners raised the roof with their singing.  And communion was in both kinds—with small cubes of real bread soaked in the Precious Blood and given into our mouths on a spoon.  (In those days none of us received in the hand, so communion on the tongue was nothing unusual or archaic, though this wasn’t so much on the tongue as dropped into our mouths.)  All this was a great help when Vatican II came along because we had no illusions about “The Mass of Antiquity” or ridiculous stories about how the Mass had been given in the form we knew it by Christ to his Apostles.  We saw for ourselves that Mass could be radically different in form and yet the same Mass. We saw that priests can be married and be no less holy than unmarried ones.  We saw that the Liturgy can be celebrated in various languages.  We knew that the unity of the Church did not depend on uniformity but rather on the bonds of charity that united us in diversity.  
      As I have gotten older and studied a bit I have found that there are even doctrinal differences among the various rites.  Purgatory, for example, is not a universally held doctrine among the rites for there are different eschatologies in the East than in the West.  The Doctrine of the Assumption (or what we Catholics call the Assumption) is formulated differently in the Byzantine Rites, stressing Mary’s “Falling Asleep” or death.  And my friends among the clergy in the various Eastern Rites keep telling me that it is fine with them if I keep original sin where it belongs—in the Western Church—as they want nothing to do with it.  Yet united in charity and mutual respect and around the See of Peter we are one Church—unified in our diversity.   

The Immaculate Conception

Mary and Jesus, from an altarpiece in

the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine

Florence, Italy

Well, triggered by the word “prevenient” in the new translation for the feast of the Immaculate Conception, we have been looking at original sin in order to better understand how the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception developed.  It is a fairly late doctrine and despite its being infallibly defined we will see that it cannot claim, at least historically, to have been part of the Tradition handed down from the Apostles.  
     As I mentioned in my previous post, while the idea of original sin can be traced back through Augustine to even earlier patristic sources, it is a theological concept that never developed in the Christian East and is unknown in Orthodox and Eastern Catholic sources.  Without a concept of original sin, there is no doctrine of the Immaculate Conception because the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is that Mary was conceived in her mother’s womb without the original sin that has affected the rest of the human family.  Mary is unique in this regard.  The Church says that she was saved from original sin through the merits of the death and resurrection of her Divine son even though that passion, death, and resurrection had not yet taken place in time: hence “prevenient.”  Although the Eastern Churches did not celebrate Mary’s Immaculate Conception they did celebrate her conception, affixing the date  (originally) to December 9—nine months (minus one day) before the feast of her birth.  In the same way the Church celebrated the conception of her Son nine months before the Church celebrates his birth.  (March 25^th is nine months before December 25^th.)  These are the only two “conceptions” I know of being celebrated in the Church calendar.  The feast of Mary’s Conception originated in the Church of Syria (which included the Holy Land) in about the sixth century but soon was celebrated throughout Eastern Christianity. 
       How did the feast come to the West?  Scholars agree that it was the Normans who introduced the feast to the Western Church.  In the eleventh century Normans conquered Sicily and Southern Italy where the Church, at that time,  followed the Greek Rite rather than the Western Latin Rites.  It was probably at this time that the Normans became familiar with the feast of the Conception of Mary.  There was a problem though in the west.  Western theologians, including Augustine, saw that Mary was, like the rest of us, conceived in original sin.  How can we celebrate a sinful conception?  (Remember the East, not believing in original sin, saw no sin in the conception.)  Immediately a theological debate broke out.  Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, a great devotee of the Blessed Virgin insisted that she, like us, was conceived in original sin.  Saint Thomas would pick this up and affirm that Mary was conceived in sin.  The Franciscans and Carmelites however, came to Mary’s defense and insisted that she had been spared original sin in order to prepare her for being the Mother of Jesus.  The debate raged through the Middle Ages.  When Pope Sixtus IV put the feast of Mary’s Conception on the universal calendar in the fifteenth century it was simply called the Conception of the Virgin.  The Dominican Pope, Saint Pius V, in revising the Roman Calendar also simply called it “The Conception of the Virgin.”  In Franciscan and Carmelite Churches, and several dioceses, however, it was called “The Immaculate Conception.” 
       The doctrine remained an open question for centuries with Catholics free to believe that Mary suffered the consequences of original sin or that she had been preserved from it by a special dispensation of “prevenient” grace.  In much the same way, while Catholics today must believe that Mary was assumed body and soul at the end of her earthly life, we are free to believe that she died or that she did not die before her assumption.  The matter is undefined.  In regard to the Immaculate Conception,  however, Pope Pius IX closed the issue in 1854 by defining the doctrine that Mary was conceived without sin through a dispensation on the merits of her Son’s passion, death, and Resurrection.  Thus today this is a defined dogma for the Church, though the Eastern Churches—the various rites that comprise the Eastern Churches in union with Rome as well as the Orthodox Churches, sort of nod their heads in ambiguous assent and go on their way thinking that we westerners argue over the darnedest things.  And perhaps we do.