Still Reeling From Holy Week

never ceases to speak to me

Sorry that I have fallen behind a bit here on the blog.  Holy Week got the better of me—I climbed down from my ivory tower and got somewhat over-involved in things in the parish this year—I am not sure how, I was just sort of swept away in the current of what was a magnificent experience of incarnating the profundity of Christian spirituality in the rites and ceremonies of the Christian Pasch.  It really was an opportunity to enter deeply into the mystery of Christ’s suffering, death, and Resurrection

Palm Sunday took on a particularly rich significance as in addition to the already dramatic rites of the Blessing of Palms and Procession followed by the reading of the Passion, the Mass I attended was a “bon-voyage Mass” for sixteen special needs teens and young adults and their eighty-five strong entourage of doctors, nurses, caregivers, choristers, priests and brothers who were leaving to spend Easter at Lourdes.  The enthusiasm which they brought to the procession and their obvious imaging of the sufferings of  Christ in the Passion lifted the veil between the realms of liturgical symbolism and tangible reality in a dramatic way.  No, there was no solemn reserve in the Liturgy.   Yes, the Mass was noisy, raucous even, with all the idiosyncrasies of those on the autism spectrum but then the streets of Jerusalem echoed with the Hosanna’s of Palm Sunday and the screams to crucify on Good Friday.  To see in the faces of these young people the attention and devotion to what was happening, not regarding their own hardships, was a very moving experience. 

The remainder of Holy Week took on a more solemn note.  We do Taizé prayer here weekly and it is both especially solemn and profoundly tranquil in Holy Week. The focus of the prayer throughout Lent is the Cross—“prayer around the cross”—and it is a haunting mixture of silence and scripture and repetitive music that can transport the worshipper to the foot of the Cross.   The liturgies of the Triduum were magnificent.   All were done reverently but with no show or pomp.  Yes, women were among those having their feet washed on Holy Thursday.  And yes, one of the altar servers for the Triduum rites was a young lady—along with her two brothers.  Everything was very Novus Ordo.  There were three adult baptisms and confirmations at the Easter Vigil.  There were Eucharistic Ministers and Lectors (both men and women).  Communion was given in both kinds—as it always is in our parish—except, of course, on Good Friday when the Eucharist is given from the reserved Sacrament.  The Music ranged from Mozart (Ave Verum Corpus) and Curtis Stephan (Bread of Angles) to John Rutter’s Ubi Caritas.  The schola for the Good Friday Liturgy sang the reproaches as well as old spirituals and it was all done a capella.  Good Friday afternoon the parochial vicar preached the Seven Last Words along with a string quartet from our local Opera Company doing Hayden’s Oratorio on the Seven Last Words.  Easter saw trumpets and Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus to packed churches for six Masses.  Indeed, the Church was full for all the services.   At the Vigil there were three adult baptisms and one woman received into the Church. One could clearly see the Sacrament of Baptism as a being buried together with Christ so as to be raised with Christ to newness of Life.

All this is, of course, the icing on the cake: the music, the flowers, even the solemn dignity of the rites.  What matters (and what mattered) is just how deeply moved—and hopefully changed—were  the hearts of the worshippers.  People just stayed in the church for hours, deep in prayer, especially after the Good Friday service.  There was a genuine sense, not so much of ritual well done, but of entering into the Mystery of the Lord’s Passion and Death. 

I have seen the “photo-posts” on some of the neo-trad blogs with their versus absidem altars draped in purple and a superabundance of copes and dalmatics and references to Byrd and Palestrina.  And I am sure they were lovely.  I always found that final scene in the first act of Tosca lovely too—the one where they carry a cardboard host in an antique monstrance.  But it in the end it is not about ritual and rubrics, it is about prayer.  And in the end it is not about tickling the ear with music or eye-candy vestments, but about taking away our hearts of stone and giving us hearts of flesh. 

I am not saying that the old rites can’t do this, but I am observing that the commentaries I read on their wacko sites indicates that they have traded their birthright of conversion for the pottage of ceremonial.  Beautiful yes, but the opera is beautiful.  The question is: does it change our hearts?  Our worship adds nothing to the Glory of God—our transformation into the Love that fills the heart of Christ is what gives God the glory.

Need For Sacred Space V

In my previous teaching position I was asked to give an annual workshop to members of a religious community of men on liturgical preparation.  I have an extensive knowledge of the history of the Roman Rite both from a textual and an archeological perspective.  In addition to my doctorate in History, I have a graduate degree (Master’s) in Theology.  And—and this was probably the most significant reason I was asked to do this—I have long personal experience (50 years+) of involvement in preparing liturgical celebrations.

You will notice that I say “preparation” of the Liturgy and not “planning” the liturgy. The Church has already “planned” the Liturgy.  The basic elements are there already in the liturgical books.  There is a somewhat restricted freedom, sometimes way too restricted, on choosing readings.  The prayers are already, for the most part, composed.  Back in the wild and wooly seventies things were different but those days are gone—for better and for worse—and the basic format of our communal worship is set.  What remains are choices of appropriate music, environment, exercising certain options contained in the ritual books, choosing the various ministers to serve, integrating other rites (baptism, matrimony, unction, the scrutinies, installation of ministries, etc.) into the Liturgy, and other choices that are left to particular congregations and particular occasions.

I always told the participants in these workshops that there were four principles for which we should strive and these are the four in order of importance:

1.   Theological integrity: does the choice you are making adequately reflect the faith of the Church (as opposed to private devotion or personal taste).  This principle is absolutely non-negotiable: we must not symbolize something that is foreign to the faith of the Church.

2.   Historical precedent: does the choice we are making have a historical precedent—is there a historical justification for what we are doing and the way in which we are doing it?  This principle is strong, but there is some “wiggle room”—it is not our faith to be locked into the past.

3.   Pastoral usefulness: does the choice we are making serve the pastoral needs of those who will be in the worshipping assembly.  The Liturgy is a ministry and should be celebrated in such a way as to minister Word and Sacrament in the fashion most useful to serve the needs of the faithful. 

4.   Aesthetically pleasing.  Our worship should reflect “the beauty of Holiness.”  There should be a natural beauty and gracefulness to our communal worship.

The biggest problem that I have encountered with liturgical preparation—whether from the neo-trads all across the spectrum to the loony lefties is that they jump to (what they consider to be) the aesthetically pleasing or emotionally satisfying with little or no appreciation for the other three, and especially the first, principle.  (Of course those on the extreme left and those on the extreme right have very different ideas of what constitutes “beauty.”)  Whether it is festooning lace all over the altar (or the priest at the altar) or hanging immense felt banners from the rafters could we just back off from our anxiety to create a liturgical celebration that enshrines our particular fantasies and focus on the faith of the Church?

Of course one problem there is is that we don’t all have the same understanding of the Church’s faith when it comes to the Mass and Sacraments.  This troubles me immensely.  This is precisely the fight over the Novus Ordo vs the Tridentine Liturgy.  There are two distinct theologies of the Eucharist, each legitimized by the approved rite itself, and they are not always compatible.  I think the various permissions given over the years for the continuation of the pre-Conciliar Liturgy is a disastrous mistake as it legitimizes two distinct and sometimes contradictory theologies, but as long as the Extraordinary Form continues to enjoy a legitimacy I think we need to acknowledge the existence of two “official” theologies of the Mass.  At the same time I think we need to be careful to understand each but not to mix them.    Any sort of hybrid Liturgy or theology of the Eucharist would turn out to be a bastardization of both.  But I am heading off on a tangent here and want to return to my main point that we need to make sure that our Liturgies—and the churches in which we celebrate them—adequately reflect the faith of the Church.  In those churches where the Novus Ordo is celebrated, we must take care to make sure that the building itself reflects the ecclesiology contained in the 1970 rites. 

1.   By Baptism we are a priestly, prophetic, and royal people and we all (and each) have a distinctive role in the Liturgical Celebration

2.   That the Liturgy is an ecclesial action and thus a communal action

3.   That we are called to take a full, active, and conscious participation in the Liturgy.

4.   That in the Eucharist we become present to and actively participate in Christ’s self-sacrifice on the Cross.

5.   That in the Eucharist we are called to offer ourselves in union with Christ whose Body we are in the sacrifice of obedience to the Will of God

6.   there is a distinction in roles between the ordained and the community of the faithful but all are essential to the celebration of the sacrificial banquet of the Eucharist. 

7.   That the faithful rightfully exercise both “full, active, and conscious participation in the liturgy” as well as their  particular ministries in the Liturgy by the authority of their baptism 

8.   That Christ is truly present, albeit in different modes, in both Word and Sacrament as well as in the assembly gathered and sacramentally in the priest. 

9.   That the Word of God is an essential element of our worship

10.        That the Liturgy is the solemn action of the Church  and not the possession of any individual, priest or lay, or any group or faction.

Need For Sacred Space III

Box Pews in a Colonial New
England Meeting House--
probably the worst seating
devised for churches but quaint.

I mentioned in my previous posting on the importance of integrating sacred space with contemporary architecture that I have usually found traditional Cistercian churches to be highly conducive to prayer, both private and liturgical.  One of the things that I like about monastic architecture is the seating arrangements, in particular the arrangement of the choir stalls. 

And one of the biggest challenges in making sacred space, contemporary or traditional, compatible with the liturgy is the challenge of seating the congregation so as to facilitate congregational participation and adequately symbolize the role of the assembly in the liturgy. 

Pews are a Protestant invention.  Before the Reformations of the 16^th century, there was the occasional bench or chair placed against a wall or a column for the elderly or the infirm, but the congregation was used to standing for the entire Mass or other service.  Even today, in Russian Orthodox churches, it is the universal practice that the nave is without seating despite the fact that the Liturgy lasts for several hours.  It was only with the Protestant emphasis on the sermon—which often lasted an hour or more—that permanent seating became a fixture in European churches. 

One of my favorite American churches is Pohick Church in Lorton, Virginia.  This was the parish church of George Washington—or, I should say, one of Washington’s parish churches, as he was also known to attend services at Christ Church in Alexandria.  The current church building was finished construction in 1774.  One of the curiosities of Pohick Church is that when you enter, your attention is drawn not to the altar –which is sort of inconspicuously stuck away off to the right, but to the three-decker pulpit which dominates the center of the church.  Another curiosity of the church are the pews.  They are the traditional box pews, family enclosures, where the seating runs along three sides of the box, leaving some family members with their backs to the preachers and others with their backs to the altar. 

I am certainly not advocating this type of seating as it is so idiosyncratic, simply pointing out that the custom of pews is not only Protestant in origin but often was ill thought out. 

Most churches, Catholic and Protestant, in the 19^th and early 20^th century went for a theatre arrangement where the pews were lined up to face the altar and pulpit as if the sanctuary were a stage, the Liturgy a dramatic production, and the altar and pulpit merely part of the set design.  Such an arrangement facilitated the congregation remaining passive and all the “action” being left to the sacred ministers who were then more or less performers. 

In the first millennium and a half of the Church, without fixed seating the laity were not so confined to dramatic silence.  To go back to my allusion to Russian Orthodox worship, I must admit that I find it somewhat disconcerting to see worshippers roaming the church, venerating icons, lighting candles, making prostrations during the Liturgy.  It strikes my Catholic sensibility as not unlike the old pre-Vatican II days when people read their prayerbooks, said their rosaries, or simply nodded off while the priest “said Mass” on their behalf but without them taking an active role.  On the other hand, in the Russian Liturgy when the Greater and Lesser Entrances are made or the deacon comes out and stands in the middle of the assembly to sing the various litanies, there is a strong sense of faithful being in the midst of the action.  Also, of course, the Liturgy of the various Byzantine Rites (Greek, Russian, Melkite, Romanian, etc.) are highly participatory with the priest(s), deacon(s), choir, and congregation in a sort of four-way sung dialogue almost throughout the entire Liturgy. 

Maybe the reason I like the choir-seating typical of monastic communities is that it gives us the comfort of a seat while still being in the heart of things, a sense that the liturgy is happening in our midst rather than “up there” while we are confined to our pew “down here.” 

I believe that good architecture is first and foremost functional.  This does not mean that we reduce the building to pure functionalism—far from it.  We cannot abandon aesthetics.  But I do believe that the architect needs to examine closely what is to happen in the space, how it is to be used, and then design the building as a sort of “skin” to enclose the space and the sacred actions within. 

Understanding the nature of the Catholic liturgy as it was reshaped after the Second Vatican Council the theatrical arrangement no longer works.  The Eucharist takes place within the assembly of the faithful, not separate from them.  The entire assembly—not only the sacred ministers—are intimately involved in the Liturgy. Although the roles of priest, deacon, and the faithful are essentially different from one another, they are seen more as an integrated whole and less as a hierarchical distinction.  We need to reposition altar and ambo and presidential chair as well as the seating for the faithful in such a way to reflect this integrated relationship. We also need to design the space in such a way that the seating doesn’t confine people or limit their participation in the sacred actions.

One aspect of the Liturgy that seating arrangements just seem to impede are processions.  Processions are a key part of the Liturgy—not only the three great processions of the Mass (the Entrance, the Procession with the Gifts, and the Communion Procession) but those processions proper to various feasts such as the Purification, Palm Sunday, and the Great Vigil of Easter.  I am not sure how to resolve this conundrum, and I am not sure that that seating is the only challenge we face in trying to restore full, active, and conscious participation in the Liturgy, but we can leave it to the liturgical and architectural pros to make suggestions as how to do things better. 

I have seen a number of churches whose basic layout I have liked.  Saint Bede’s in Williamsburg, Virginia is one.  Saint Rose of Lima in Gaithersburg Maryland is another.  The Abbey Church of Saint Mary’s Delbarton in Morristown, New Jersey is a third.  Saint Mark’s in Vienna Virginia is yet a fourth.  I wish I could think of more, but unfortunately I really can’t.  The trend these last ten years or so—coincidentally (?) concurrent with the papacy of Benedict XVI—has been that sort of Duncan Stroik return of South Side of Chicago style typical of pre-WWII large city churches.  (Again, I compliment Stroik and his fellow nostalgists on the elegant lines and fine craftsmanship of their work, it is just their timidity about breaking new ground that I find, well, disappointing.)  But in regard to the aforementioned churches that I do like their layout, the buildings themselves are invariably ugly.  Are there no architects today that can design sacred space to be theologically and liturgically principled and also prayerful, spiritual, and aesthetically pleasing but just not white-bread replicas of where our grandparent’s worshipped?   

Requiem Aeternam Dona Ei, Domine II

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Roger B. Taney, died on October 12, 1864.  Taney had been appointed to the Court by President Andrew Jackson in 1836 and had sworn into office seven Presidents.  He was the first Catholic to be appointed to the Supreme Court.  Taney, a Marylander, was pro-slavery and had authored the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision which ruled that Blacks are not citizens of the United States and have no standing in law to sue.  Needless to day, the Justice and President Lincoln did not see eye to eye on the matters of the day.  Taney’s death provided Lincoln with the opportunity to name a new Chief Justice and he chose Salmon P. Chase.  The Republican Senate confirmed Chase the same day he was nominated.  (Curiously enough the Presidential Election of November 8^th 1864 had intervened between Taney’s death and Chase’s nomination.)

Taney’s funeral was on the morning of Saturday, October 15, 1864.  Shortly before 6 AM, the presidential carriage rolled up to the North Door of the White House and President Lincoln, attended by Secretary of State Seward and Postmaster General William Dennison entered the carriage for the short ride across Lafayette Square to the Taney Residence.  There, in the parlor by Taney’s coffin, the President stood respectfully while a priest from Saint Patrick’s parish recited the traditional Latin prayers for the faithfully departed.  Lincoln stayed until Taney’s coffin was closed and carried from the house and placed in the horse-drawn hearse and then the President returned to the White House for his day’s work.  The Civil War was still his chief preoccupation. 

After leaving the President standing in the road, holding his hat in his hands, Taney’s coffin was conveyed to the old Baltimore and Potomac Railroad station near the site of what is today the National Gallery of Art.  A train was provided to take the funeral party to Frederick, Maryland where a Requiem Mass was sung in Saint John the Evangelist Church, Taney’s home parish, and where he was interred in the family plot in the churchyard.  No representatives of the Administration attended the Mass or internment. 

I was somewhat surprised that today’s funeral for Justice Antonin Scalia followed the current liturgical rites. Given the Justice’s own predilection for the pre-conciliar rites as well as his son’s own fondness for the Extraordinary Form I would have expected the Mass to have been a Requiem Mass with Black vestments and at the old “high altar” versus apsidem.  In fact it was a good example of how the Novus Ordo can be celebrated on a formal occasion in a cathedral setting. I did notice, however, that the sign of peace was omitted.  And as for the homily—it was extraordinary; I don’t recall hearing a better one for such an occasion, or for that matter, on any occasion.  It had theological depth and personal touch.  It shows that Father Scalia, like his father, is a man of intellectual probity as well as being superbly articulate.   

Finally, the word going around the Archdiocese of Washington and the Diocese of Arlington is that the Scalia family and Father Paul Scalia in particular, asked President Obama not to attend the Funeral Mass.  There was some apprehension that the scene at Senator Kennedy’s Funeral with Cardinal O’Malley’s effusive greeting of the President, would be repeated with Cardinal Wuerl.  Vice-President Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, for their part maintained a very discreet presence at the funeral.   The Scalias, like many conservative Catholics, find the President to be a symbol of secularism in modern American Public Life.  Father Scalia made the point in his homily—and a point that I agree with—that not only must we not banish faith from the public square, but we as Christians must bring our faith into that public square.  If it is true that the Scalia family expressed their preference that the President not attend the funeral, they should take responsibility for it rather than let the President be the scapegoat for those have criticized him for not being present.  However, again, history shows us that there is no precedent requiring a President to be at the funeral service of a Supreme Court Justice.