Divining Obedience

A few years ago I wrote a short piece about the comparison of disobedience to idolatry and divination in the context where lay parishioners were chaffing at the authoritative imposition of a strict dress code. While the sermon linked in that post has since been taken offline, I did think it worthwhile to transcribe a bit of it for posterity:

To consciously and willingly disobey legitimate commands from legitimate authority cannot be without some sin. I promise, when you’re toasting away your time in Purgatory or worse for deliberate disobedience, for stealing from God what is rightfully his, you’ll have nothing but regret and remorse for how good you decided to look that day back when you were so young and beautiful.

The thin line between legitimate authority and its abuse is impossible for most laymen to discern. One cannot remain a Catholic in good standing while rejecting the right of the Church’s bishops and priests to stand, in some fashion and form, in the place of God. Dominic Prümmer, O.P. makes distinctions between servile and proper obedience in his popular moral theology handbook, and says that obedience to men is limited “by the limited competency of superiors” (sec. 459; likewise St. Thomas: “a subject is not bound to obey his superior if the latter command him to do something wherein he is not subject to him” (ST II-II.104.5)), but few moral theologians have ever bothered to explore the precise limitations of the parish pastor or of the confessor. St. Alphonsus Liguori makes the authority of the confessor near-limitless:

Obedience to a confessor is the most acceptable offering which we can make to God, and the most secure way of doing the divine will. Blessed Henry Suson says that God does not demand an account of what we do through obedience. Obey, says the Apostle, your spiritual fathers; and fear not anything which you do through obedience; for they, and not you, shall have to render an account of your conduct. (Sermon XXV)

To be sure, Alphonsus adjures his audience to obey “in everything which is not manifestly sinful,” but for the scrupulous or ignorant penitent it is not a simple matter to discern what is manifestly sinful. Indeed, sexual predators within the priesthood can easily identify those with tender consciences as potential victims. Under the pretense of a holy submission of the will, they manipulate the penitent into participating in perverse sins and utterly devastate their ability to discern good from evil. Consider this slightly abbreviated extract from a recent testimony against Jean Vanier and a related priest:

Each time, I was frozen, I was unable to distinguish what was right and what was wrong. He told me that this was part of the accompaniment. He said, “This is not us, this is Mary and Jesus. You are chosen, you are special, this is secret.” I decided to go and see Father Thomas to seek his advice. He told me to come and see him. There was a curtain, and he sat on the bed. He was not tender like Jean Vanier. Same words to say that I am special and all this is about Jesus and Mary.

When King Saul refused to slay the best of the flocks of Amalec it was not due to a scruple about utterly destroying the sinners and their goods (as one might find in a modern biblical commentator), but because he found them beautiful and wished to dispense them according to his own will. He understood the will of God and chose to do otherwise. That is why St. Samuel likened his disobedience to idolatry and divination, for it was a way of seeking his own will apart from the will of the God of Jacob, while attempting to soothe his conscience with the promise of a future sacrifice.

I have known good lay Catholics who were threatened with canonical censures for demanding the pastor baptize their new child when it had the misfortune of being born in Lent. Two years ago an American bishop made noises about imposing canonical penalties against any Catholic who supported President Trump’s immigration policies. In earlier ages of the Church it was common for popes to place entire nations under interdict for the sins or inconvenient political moves of kings, thus depriving uncounted innocents of sacramental grace.

There are reasons why medieval artists thought bishops to be fine subjects of satirical attack. It is a pity the Counter-Reformation ruined all that fun.

But this is Lent, and we are supposed to use this time to make our wills more submissive, not less. The counsel of voluntary obedience is a north star for the soul embarking into the deep, and it may be a fruitful topic of meditation in these times when obedience is used as a club for bullies or as a snare by seducers. It many ways it is easier to be submissive to the moral law considered abstractly than it is to be submissive to our pastors, confessors, and bishops. Perhaps there is something to be gained in obeying where it is not strictly necessary, some kind of moral clarity to be found by going above and beyond the mere rules and perhaps by finally seeing the invisible order of virtue and goodness intended when we were created in God’s image… but I cannot deny that it is hard to move past the variety of abuse and find what is great about obedience.

Obey those who have charge of you, and yield to their will; they are keeping unwearied watch over your souls, because they know they will have an account to give. Make it a grateful task for them: it is your own loss if they find it a laborious effort. (Heb. 13)

Pilgrims Out of Egypt

"In exitu Israël de Ægypto..."

The words of the one-hundred and thirteenth psalm are sung by the souls being ferried by an angel to Purgatory in Dante's Commedia. It is a psalm of victory and joy, of a triumph so wondrous that the earth and sea tremble at the entry of the Twelve Tribes into the Promised Land. "Our God is in heaven," the psalmist declares, while idols are "the work of human hands." The souls of the repentant dead in need of purification appropriate this hymn as their own, its spiritual meaning found in their progress toward the face of God.

Israel's exodus from Egypt is abundant with spiritual and allegorical meaning, capable of appropriation in many ways. The crossing through the Red Sea is a prefigurement of Baptism for St. Paul, and his moral exhortations to the Corinthian Christians are based on the wanderings of the Hebrews in the desert. Both danger and glory are present in the narrative from Egypt to Canaan. Some were saved, but many were destroyed in God's wrath. The pilgrimage of Israel from bondage is as much an allegory for the Christian life as it is historical record.

The first seven books of Holy Writ have been much on my mind as I approach a notable anniversary of my reception into the Catholic Church. From the famine that brought Jacob and his sons to Egypt, all the way to the laxity of the settled tribes after the death of Joshua, the pilgrim sons of Abraham offer ample material for spiritual reflection.

The wanderings in the desert are a type of our exile on Earth, and also of the purifying fire in Purgatory: that which is gold and precious remains while that which is straw and wood burns away, just as an entire generation of Israel had to die before they could cross the Jordan. The campaign to take the Promised Land is a type of Christ conquering the territory of the Devil, and also a symbol of the Christian conquering his own sin. Allegorically, Jericho is an impenetrable fortress of sin, and its walls can only be razed by divine intervention. The Hebrews made compromises with the local heathens for the sake of peace, and they were troubled for many years by those unrooted weeds; just so is it difficult to rid ourselves of evil once we have called it our master.

Lent is the salvation from famine by the brother thought dead but found alive. Lent is the endurance of plagues until the firstborn is slaughtered. Lent is a desert between slavery and paradise. Lent is a renewal of the campaign against the Philistines and Ammonites. Lent is a series of judges being raised up by God to deliver us from our captors.

Is not Eglon the exceedingly fat king of Moab an allegory of gluttony? Is not Samson an allegory of lust and vainglory? On the side of virtue, Joshua becomes an allegory of fortitude and Joseph an allegory of prudence. Phinees spears the sacrilegious fornicators without delay, just as we ought to exterminate sin in its first stirrings. Our spiritual warfare is writ large in the sacred histories.

Dante's mount of purgation is an allegory as well as a more literal image of the world to come. The soul crosses the waters, endures many pains, and finally comes to the earthly paradise where he receives illumination and forgetfulness of his past sins. There finally the last of the poet's pagan influence falls away; Virgil cannot linger in the presence of Beatrice.

"The dead shall not praise thee, O Lord; nor any of them that go down to Hell. But we that live bless the Lord."

A Brief History of Confession

According to a quick Google search the Sacrament of Confession is the place where Catholic “receive absolution for the sins committed against God and neighbor.” This summary is neither wrong nor far off from how the average Catholic layman construes Confession, but it is not the whole story of the Sacrament. That people are forgiven their sins in Confession is but one of its many purposes and benefits. The reduction of Confession to the mechanical forgiveness of sins and nothing else is among the reasons it has become the “Forgotten Sacrament” in our sinless, post-Christian world. Confession has many purposes, none of which ought to be divorced from each other, that can be witnessed in its long and much changed history.

“And the prayer of faith shall save the sick man: and the Lord shall raise him up: and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess therefore your sins one to another: and pray one for another, that you may be saved. For the continual prayer of a just man availeth much.”

Saint James’ catholic epistle and this excerpt from it are the most explicit testimonies of confessing sins in the Apostolic age, the days after the Ascension during which the Apostles still lived. These brief sentences convey the Confession’s root intentions: the remission of sins and their associated punishments, penance, the reconciliation between a sinner and the Church, and accountability between one sinful human being another. Forgiveness comes from Christ through the Church, which Christ Himself made clear in giving His Apostles the power to remit sins even before sending the Holy Spirit upon them; a power held only by God was given by God to men before He descended upon them and dwelt within them.

In the primitive days of the Church sinners confessed their sins before the assembled faithful, recounting their sins in public and asking for forgiveness from the appointed ministers. That Confession took place in the ancient Church the Catholic Encyclopedia makes clear, with extensive quotations from the contemporary Fathers—something the proto-modernists of the early 20th century denied as an innovation.

• St. Augustine (d. 430) warns the faithful: "Let us not listen to those who deny that the Church of God has power to forgive all sins" (De agon. Christ., iii).
• St. Ambrose (d. 397) rebukes the Novatianists who "professed to show reverence for the Lord by reserving to Him alone the power of forgiving sins. Greater wrong could not be done than what they do in seeking to rescind His commands and fling back the office He bestowed. . . . The Church obeys Him in both respects, by binding sin and by loosing it; for the Lord willed that for both the power should be equal" (On Penance I.2.6).
• St. Athanasius (d. 373): "As the man whom the priest baptizes is enlightened by the grace of the Holy Ghost, so does he who in penance confesses his sins, receive through the priest forgiveness in virtue of the grace of Christ" (Frag. contra Novat. in P.G., XXVI, 1315).

Confession and the accompanying absolution became a point of dispute early on in the Church and, inadvertently, drove the first wedge between Eastern and Latin Christianity. During the Decian persecution many lapsed from the Church either by burning incense before the image of the Emperor or assuaged their consciences by merely bribing officiates to write licenses testifying that they had done so. Rigorists, perhaps the Jansenists of the third century, under the influence of Novatian refused re-entry of the lapsed into the Church and even constructed their own virtue dioceses in Rome and Carthage. The numerous “lax” communities and bishops received the lapse after a public Confession and years of penance. In the middle St. Cyprian of the aforementioned Carthage suggested a compromise wherein the lapsed would be received back into the Church at the point of death (one wonders if he’d be censured in the age of mercy). The rigorists eventually created their own schismatic movement which saw numerous Christians baptized, chrismated, communicated, and buried under parallel Sacraments. The same Cyprian denied the validity of these Sacraments and wanted former hardliners received as converts, with all the rites of initiation. By contrast, Pope St. Stephen held a public Confession and a life of penance would suffice. The difference of opinion persists to this day in Greek quarters. Cyprian and the Roman bishop differed less of their understanding of Confession as a means of forgiveness than in their understanding of whether or not the rigorists were properly Christians at all. If anything their views on public repentance and the Church’s absolution could reasonably be held as the same.

Confession and ecclesiastical absolution remained in common, but not exclusively common, to each other until the late first millennium. Absolution and the Church’s pardon came from the authority granted by Christ to His Apostles and their successors, bishops. In the controversy over the lapsed and the rigorists the common dispute was not between priests or theological writers, but rather between bishops and whether or not they could re-admit apostates under the traditional means. It would be wrong to limit Patristic Confession to the narrow issue of lapsing. Emperor Theodosius massacred thousands of Thessalonians in suppressing a revolt only to be refused entry into the churches of Milan by Saint Ambrose, who only welcomed the Emperor after months of public penance and changes to civil law.

Reconciliation of penitent on Mandy Thursday
source: Pitts Theological Library

Public and hierarchical Confession remained the norm in the Roman Church for some time and even survives in modern times in the traditional Pontificale Romanum of 1604 and 1962, when penitents are doused in ashes by the bishop on the first day of Lent and are reconciled to the Church through public absolution on Mandy Thursday. The latter ceremony is no longer observed because the former has been extended to all the faithful as a genera act of penance, but the intent remains.

A trend to private auricular Confession originated in oriental monasteries and slowly trickled to local churches East and West. Private spiritual counsel, accountability, and sacramental absolution did not fuse without as to who the proper minister of Confession was supposed to be or what constituted a valid Confession in the same way a priest, bread, and wine constitute a valid Eucharist. Saint Symeon the New Theologian veered into Donatism in his own writings on Confession:

 “Nor should you wish to become mediators for others before you have been filled with the Holy Spirit, and know, and are reconciled to the King of all, and can sense it in your soul. For neither can everyone who knows the earthly king be a mediator to him in behalf of others. Extremely few are able to do this, for they have acquired this familiarity before him because of their virtues and by their sweat and labours for him. And they do not have need of a mediator before him themselves but converse mouth to mouth with the king. Therefore, fathers and brothers, are we not going to keep the same order before God? Are we not going to honour the heavenly King even equally as we honour the earthly king? Are we going to usurp and grant ourselves the seat at His right and left before we even ask for it and receive it? Such recklessness! What shameful thing has taken hold of us? Why, even if we are called to give an account for nothing else, for this alone, that we are disdainful, we shall be disgraced and denied a seat of dignity and cast into eternal fire. Now what has been said is sufficient for the exhortation of those who wish to be careful about themselves. For this sake, our words have digressed a little beyond the subject at hand. But now, my son, we shall address what you asked to learn about.

 “Confession to a monk who does not have holy orders, you will find, was practised everywhere ever since monks existed and the garment of repentance and, the monastic life were given by God in His legacy, as it is recorded in the divinely inspired writings of the Fathers. And if you look into them, you will find that what we are saying is true. Prior to this, as successors to the holy Apostles, only bishops received the power to bind and loose. But as the time passed, the bishops became corrupt, and this fearful undertaking passed on to priests who had a blameless life and were worthy of grace. And later, the priests as well, as the bishops associated with and became just like the rest of the people. And many of them, just as now, would fall into spirits of delusion and vain, empty speech and would be lost. Then the power to bind and loose was transferred to the chosen among the people of God, that is to say, to the monks. It was not that it was removed from the priests and bishops, but that the priests and bishops estranged themselves from this grace. “For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God,” as the Apostle Paul says, and “he ought, as for the people, so also for himself offer” sacrifice” (Letter on Confession 10-11).

In the West the historical legacy of public Confession left lingering uncertainty as to whether or not a deacon could hear private Confessions in the same manner ministers of the Church witnessed them publically. Canon 32 of the Council of Elvira—more remembered and debated for what it says about clerical continence in canon 33 than, for instance, excluding those who get abortions from Communion until and including the moment of death—gives the deacon as an acceptable witness of a sinner’s penance if the bishop is unavailable. In a public setting the witness of penance seems to be something different from absolution, but by the 11^th century a general uncertainty pervaded in England as to whether or not deacons ought to hear auricular, private confessions until St. Edmund of Canterbury and Bishop Walter of Durham both explicitly condemned the practice on the grounds deacons could not grant absolution. It would seem the early medieval church, in some places, confused the power to impose and witness penance in the name of the Church with the sacerdotal power to absolve confessed transgressions, a distinction the aforementioned Catholic Encyclopedia fails to make.

Latin regulation of the sacrament by local ordinaries restricted the right to hear confessions to parish priests or other specifically licensed ministers, be they monks or canons. The unique right of parish priests to absolve is key in the Middle Ages, a time when the proliferation of liturgical worship at the parish level meant guilds and wealthy laymen hired chaplains and “Massing priests” for no other purpose than to hold votive Masses and Offices every single day either in the patrons’ houses or devotional altars maintained at the parish; these men could not, however, provide spiritual guidance or forgiveness.

After Lateran IV imposed Confession at least once a year on every Catholic parish priests began to use the encounter of the sacrament to test people’s knowledge of their faith and correct it where it was lacking. Primers from the late Middle Ages recount basic articles of faith a Confessor might test; similarly, manuals of generic penances also contain basic questions that every Catholic should be able to answer, something of a 15^th century Baltimore Catechism. Confession, like Communion, was something the medieval Church only demanded one do once a year, but unlike Communion it could be visited more frequently without demonstrating to one’s worth to one’s pastor. At the very least people would make their annual confessions after the morning vesperal Mass on Holy Saturday, reconcile to the rest of the community after Mattins that evening, and Communicate prior to the Mass of the Resurrection the following morning.

Greek churches, by contrast, rarely sought out the parish priest for Confession, normally a married man. Instead the faithful preferred, and today many still prefer, to confess to an ordained monk. Monasticism in Greek rite cities is less exotic and other worldly than in the Latin Church, making monks normative and accessible ministers of Confession. Indeed, confessing to a monk remains a desirable component to any fruitful visit to a Greek rite monastery.

Then came the Reformation.

Much like how all priests became sermonists in the wake of Trent, so Latin bishops also generally gave any priest within their dioceses the faculties to hear confessions, something novel in practice but consistent in principle with sacramental power descending from the bishop. I cannot say if the ceremony of repeating Christ’s words in John 20 and the unfolding of the priest’s chasuble at ordination was given to all ordinands, even “Massing priests”, before Trent, but it was after Trent. The Tridentine expansion of Confession’s availability proved prescient for the needs of Western Christendom over the next several centuries as it empowered missionaries to South America and Asia as well as Jesuits who would operate furtive ministries in England and Ireland.

In the baroque, post-Tridentine Latin Church sacramental Confession and repentance reclaimed their prominence in a manner missing since the first millennium, when not all the Western world was Christian. While the medieval Latin Church valued Confession and prized great penitents like Ss. Mary Magdalen and Anthony of Egypt, Christians of those days emphasized maximal liturgy, the Mass and Office, as well as the intercession of the saints more in quotidian piety. The post-Reformation shift towards a world wherein Catholicism was merely the majority religion meant individuals could no longer rely on a presumptively traditional culture to strengthen their virtues, to say nothing of those returning from heresy or schism. So Confession occupied an important role in living a life of constant repentance and virtue in the years between the Reformation and the mid-20^th century. The ascendant Jesuit order became famous for its ability to provide spiritual counsel for laymen within the context of Confession. St. Philip Neri began the Oratory long before becoming a priest and was only ordained so that he might be able to hear the confessions of his brethren. And above all the general conscience of Latin Christianity evaluated the ministry of certain priests based on their capabilities as Confession fathers; St. Jean Vianney’s sermons illuminated few, but his Confessions converted a city.

 

Confession by Pietro Longhi
source: Wikipedia

It must be said, however, that however capable the early Jesuits or the Cure d’Ars were as Confessors, a general sensibility had set into Latin Christianity by the start of the 20^th century that the purpose of Confession was to get rid of sins and enable one to Communicate. While this is true, the possibility under Canon Law and modern transportation to confess to anyone has diluted the traditional aspects of repentance and accountability to a particular individual. Here in Texas, where the Hispanic community keeps the Confession lines long and populous, the “box” is little more than an absolution factory with myriad choices of venue every day of the week. Behind the screen, something invented for the chastity of women and not the anonymity of men, one can be absolved and elude any lasting rebuke of sin.

In this regard the Eastern Churches have kept the spirit of Confession better preserved, at least structurally; a Latin Christian with the right perspective can, of course, do Confession properly. In the Greek tradition one’s Confession father is the regular source of spiritual counsel and advice. He is the man who keeps a sinner accountable for his sins and, although he may not assign a penance, guides the penitent in an on-going process of penance. Although anonymous Confession was invented in the Latin Church to keep women free of felonious priests, the trend toward the screen caught on for men everywhere. In the Greek tradition Confession is not “face-to-face”, but there is no barrier; one confesses before an image of Christ with the priest baring witness and welcoming the penitent back into the fold by wrapping his epitrachelion (stole) over his head while giving absolution, symbolizing a shepherd protecting a recovered lamb.

Confession is many things. Above all it is a Sacrament of repentance, and for that reason it is worth considering in its purpose and use during this season of Lent. As we confess our sins let us recall that we ought to want to sin no more and that Confession is part of the design in getting us to refrain from our old ways. A link to Saint James, to Augustine, to the medieval Church, and the modern spiritual masters, Confession is another way to connect to the Cross, dying to the self so that Christ may live.

A blessed Lent to all.

The Universal Language of (Lenten) Music

Many functions can "exercise" parts of the brain seldom used in the doldrums of quotidian life: practicing arithmetic, learning or speaking another language, and music. The last of these, according to neurologists, exerts memory, creativity, motor skills, and releases oxytocin, which creates emotional trust between people.

Music is so powerful that one often neglects the words of a well-written melody and sometimes the key or produced effects of music elicit a "mood" that speaks more clearly than words. Very touching melodies, the sort where the notation follows in sequence rather than spilling all over the place for the sake of "theory", can render even memorable words immemorable, as Beethoven did to Schiller's An die Freude. This same power of melody made the Beatles and Beach Boys popular despite the inanity of the words. Yet it is the unique combination of melody and word that makes the Marian anthems of the season my favorites in the liturgical canon.

Alma Redemptoris Mater has never "done it" for me; melodically it dithers too much and lyrically it lacks the rhythmic qualities that make the other three anthems so very singable. Ave Regina caelorum and Regina coeli, however, are this writer's most favored of the four anthems precisely because their simple tone variants perfectly marry a straightforward, balanced base text to a tune that accentuates and punctuates those words adequately.

Ave Regina caelorum, like the Ordinary setting of Lenten Masses, is given in a major key, beginning low and climbing high in saluting the Blessed Virgin under several titles (Queen of Heaven, Lady of Angels etc) before trilling at the top of the scale to change the direction of the prayer from greeting to petition (Rejoice, O Glorious Virgin) and finally resting with the request that She might pray to Her Divine Son on our behalf.

Regina coeli does something very similar with a more spartan set of words, but instead of a "climbing" melody that cheers up the grimness of Lent, it begins high and slowly relaxes at the end of each verb and its accompanying Alleluia. Rather than provide relief, as the Lenten music does, Regina coeli reflects the confidence, heart-throbbing joy of a mother who can touch Her once-dead Son.

One wonders if, when God disposed the human mind toward the qualities of music, He had the Felix culpa of the Fall and His Son's restoration of us, His image, in mind?

The Foolishness of the Egyptians

"Israel they recognized for God's children only when the first-born died."

After the Canticle of Canticles, one moves into the books St. Jerome preferred be left out of the biblical canon. The Book of Wisdom is the first of these, and though it is written in the person of King Solomon, most commentators agree that it was written by another hand, and probably much later. Indeed, the sapiential style here more closely resembles that of Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) than Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, being far more broad-ranging than Solomon's narrower considerations of court politics and personal responsibility.

Nonetheless, Wisdom is notable for its prophecy of Christ's Passion (ch. 2), its promotion of celibacy (ch. 3-4), and a universal condemnation of pagan idolatry through the example of the Egyptians (ch. 12ff.). This discourse on idolatry should be read carefully by everyone tempted to doubt the doctrine of Original Sin. The book ends abruptly after accusing Egypt of worse sins than Sodom, and of being more worthy of destruction (ch. 19), and I have to wonder if originally there was more to the manuscript.

(As an aside, the following passage seems to be one of the source texts for those who claim the sin of Sodom was not primarily one of, well, sodomy, but of inhospitality: "Did not their [the Egyptians'] own wickedness deserve the pains they suffered, a race even more inhospitable than the men of Sodom before them? These did but refuse a welcome when strangers came to their doors; the Egyptians condemned their own guests, their own benefactors, to slavery.")

Platonic philosophy may have influenced the writer, as in the following passages: "So well the Lord loved him, from a corrupt world he would grant him swift release" (ch. 4); "Ever the soul is weighed down by a mortal body, earth-bound cell that clogs the manifold activity of its thought" (ch. 9); "The power that created an ordered world out of dark chaos" (ch. 11); "What excellence must be his, the Author of all Beauty" (ch. 13). The four cardinal virtues, a categorization lifted from the Aristotelian school, are listed as well: "Temperance and prudence she teaches, justice and fortitude, and what in life avails man more?" (ch. 8). All this lends credence to a composition by a Greek-influenced author.

There is also a terrifying passage, applied to the Incarnation of the Son of God by the Church at Christmastide, but which in context refers to the descent of the avenging angel against the Egyptians at the first Passover:

Against those earlier plagues, sorcery had hardened their hearts; Israel they recognized for God's children only when the first-born died. There was a hush of silence all around, and night had but finished half her swift journey, when from thy heavenly throne, Lord, down leaped thy word omnipotent. Never lighted sterner warrior on a doomed land; never was sword so sharp, errand so unmistakable; thy word that could spread death everywhere, that trod earth, yet reached up to heaven. All at once came terror in their dreams; phantoms dismayed, and sudden alarms overtook them; and when they lay a-dying, each fallen where fall he must, they confessed what fault it was they expiated; all was foretold by the dreams that so disquieted them; they were not suffered to perish ignorant of their offence. (ch. 18)

One might read Wisdom also as a theodicy and a justification of God's punishments. No corner or cave does the inspired author give to sinners who seek to flee God's all-seeing eye. "It is the wicked that... court death, and melt away in its embrace" (ch. 1); "Since the devil's envy brought death into the world, they make him their model that take him for their master" (ch. 2); "Thou knewest well that theirs was a worthless breed... an accursed race" (ch. 12); "Sinner and sin, God hates both" (ch. 14); "Over [the Egyptians] this heavy curtain of night was spread, image of the darkness that should be their next abode" (ch. 17); "They were not suffered to perish ignorant of their offence" (ch. 18); and so forth. A worthy meditation for Lent, I suppose.

Lovers of Wisdom

One of my intentions for Lent was to re-familiarize myself with the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Scriptures, starting with the original book of Proverbs all the way through (hopefully) the book of Sirach. I knew that Wisdom (or Sophia/Sapientia) appears personified as a feminine figure, but I had forgotten that she also describes herself as preexistent of creation in this earliest of wisdom books. As King Solomon writes in the eighth chapter:

The Lord made me his when first he went about his work, at the birth of time, before his creation began. Long, long ago, before earth was fashioned, I held my course. Already I lay in the womb, when the depths were not yet in being, when no springs of water had yet broken; when I was born, the mountains had not yet sunk on their firm foundations, and there were no hills; not yet had he made the earth, or the rivers, or the solid framework of the world. I was there when he built the heavens, when he fenced in the waters with a vault inviolable, when he fixed the sky overhead, and levelled the fountain-springs of the deep. I was there when he enclosed the sea within its confines, forbidding the waters to transgress their assigned limits, when he poised the foundations of the world. I was at his side, a master-workman, my delight increasing with each day, as I made play before him all the while; made play in this world of dust, with the sons of Adam for my play-fellows. (Knox trans.)

The prehistorical Wisdom of God appears elsewhere in the Old Testament, especially in Wisdom and Sirach. Because of the description of Wisdom as a woman, many commentators have applied this figure symbolically to the Virgin Mary, or as it were to the Platonic Idea of the Mother of God which existed in the mind of God before all creation. But in other ways it more perfectly symbolizes the preincarnate Christ, who St. Paul describes as "the Wisdom of God" (I Cor. 1). St. Hildegard also had visions of Divine Wisdom personified as a woman, the sort of thing that modern feminist esotericists use as an excuse to worship the quasi-pagan Goddess.

Applied to the Second Person of the Trinity, these pre-Christian glimpses into the personality of God are comforting and unusual. Wisdom feels "delight increasing with each day" of creation, and "made play" before God and made the sons of Adam her "play-fellows." It is an expression of the infinite and overflowing joy of creation, the supreme happiness of God as Creator, and the delight which he wished to impart to all his creatures. Those who suppose that God is depicted in the Old Testament as a judgmental grump and in the New as a hippy universalist, have read neither at any length or depth.

Perhaps when I have finished the Hebrew literature, I should move on to a re-read of St. Severinus Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, which attempts a merging of Hebrew and pagan figures of Wisdom. The philosopher was literally the "Lover of Wisdom," in pretense if not in reality. Solomon as much as Socrates invites everyone to love Wisdom, and to let its dictates guide our reason and action.

Holy Wisdom, play with us!

Why Not Nineveh 40?

There's a new traddy-masculinist meme going around called Nineveh 90, a sort of exercise in group discipline for overcoming habitual sin and preparing for the centennial of the first apparition of the Blessed Virgin in Portugal. It is being organized by a certain priest, Richard Heilman. I'm not one to look down on these "Let's build good habits together" movements, and the tie to the Fatima devotion is not a terrible way to set something up, but I couldn't help notice that the N90 Challenge begins Feb. 13, the day after Septuagesima Sunday, and ends May 13, the day before the Fourth Sunday of Easter.

Now, I understand that the building of good habits takes time, effort, and repetition, but the 90-day commitment includes penances like avoiding alcohol, sweets, television, and non-uplifting music, whatever that means. (Why not include abstinence from the marriage bed—a popular medieval penance—while they're at it?) It's all well and good for Catholic men to be using the season of Lent for their penitential overtures, but Easter is celebrated on April 16 this year. Will they continue their penitential habit-building while the rest of the Church is feasting the Resurrection of Our Lord? Or will they be doing extra penances when Lent starts, and only cease those at Easter?

Compounding this confusion is the reference to God's judgment that the prophet Jonas preached against the wicked city of Nineveh: "In forty days, Nineveh will be overthrown." I fear that Fr. Heilman has let the findings of pop-psychology get the better of him by ignoring the number of penitential days in the very text he bases this meme upon!

I would not care much about N90 if I didn't know many Catholics trying to talk me into joining them. It's disheartening that I cannot yet convince them that the liturgical year takes precedence over psychological trends and devotions to private revelations. Will they be doing penance during Eastertide? On Easter Sunday itself? Somehow, I do not think that Our Lady of Fatima would be pleased.

And besides, nobody's going to convince me to start wearing the miniature Carmelite habit again.

Finger-Pointing While Rome Smolders: A Lenten Reflection

Reading through Augustine’s City of God, one inevitably begins to draw parallels between the Fall of Rome to the Descent of the West in modern times. Catholics might also see similarities between the ancient Fall of Secular Rome and the Auto-Demolition of Catholic Rome in the last half-century. As Rome’s glory was unceremoniously snuffed out, the finger-pointing began in great earnest. Those attached to the previous religious tradition (so to speak) accused the newfangled Christians of removing the supernatural protection that Rome had once enjoyed from the pagan deities. Augustine calmly explains that Rome had experienced many such calamities at the time when Terminus and Jupiter supposedly protected her from all harm, and exposes the inanities of the neo-pagans’ nostalgia.

More realistically, attributing the cause of the Fall of Rome was not as simple as pointing to this or that religious cult. Augustine notes that God sometimes allows the destruction of worldly kingdoms as an opportunity for their citizens to detach themselves from the world and to begin attaching to the heavenly kingdom. He also suggests, in keeping with the more ancient Hebrew prophets, that the sins of the citizens may cry out for vengeance so much that their kingdom is taken from them utterly.

I don’t wish to go too far in comparing the neo-pagans of Augustine’s time with the traditionalists of today, but it cannot be denied that Tradistan is popularly an eclectic museum of half-baked devotions and ideas that are mistakenly thought to have composed the foundation of a vigorous and stable religious society. The way back is not necessarily the way forward, and the Tradistani belief in the restorative power of St. Joseph Feast Day Celebrations (sponsored by the parish homeschool group), Creationism Seminars, and the mere celebration of the Latin Mass is evidence that there is a fundamental failure to build a culture based on reality.

St. Augustine was no crude triumphalist, except in the belief that the City of God would prevail eternally while the City of Man would finally crumble into futility. He had no particular illusions about the earthly glory of the Church, and was quick to point the blame at least in part at Christians:

What, then, have the Christians suffered in that calamitous period, which would not profit every one who duly and faithfully considered the following circumstances? First of all, they must humbly consider those very sins which have provoked God to fill the world with such terrible disasters; for although they be far from the excesses of wicked, immoral, and ungodly men, yet they do not judge themselves so clean removed from all faults as to be too good to suffer for these even temporal ills. For every man, however laudably he lives, yet yields in some points to the lust of the flesh. Though he do not fall into gross enormity of wickedness, and abandoned viciousness, and abominable profanity, yet he slips into some sins, either rarely or so much the more frequently as the sins seem of less account. (i.9)

The contraceptive practices, for instance, of Western Catholics mimics the rest of the world, and our own population collapse is as inevitable as the world’s. It might be that traditionalist Catholics “win” the liturgical wars simply because we are the only ones bearing and rearing children, but it will surely be a Pyrrhic victory. “How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people,” Jeremiah laments. Christians are suffering the judgment that is coming upon the world because we sin just like the rest of them.

There are no winners in the finger-pointing game of Catholicism’s collapse. Humility, penance, and friendship are the only ways forward towards rebuilding. We could certainly do with a new Augustine to provide us with a fresh vision of the City of God for today’s Catholic, as well.

Officium Defunctorum

Please note that the usual page for out practice of reciting the Office of the Dead during penitential seasons is now running. You can list your intentions as specifically or vaguely as you wish.

Turn Back the Liturgical Clock

According to my ordo recitandi from the St. Lawrence Press today I must turn back my liturgical clock, if only a few hours.

Lectio libri S. Laurentii

The Angelus and Sunday Vespers continue at the normal time, but ferial Vespers are said by noon and typically Mattins and Lauds are anticipated the prior evening, which we recognize in the rites of the un-reformed Triduum and Paschal Mattins on Saturday evening. Before I tried this schedule I easily conceded that it was an accommodation to monks who wanted to cheat their fast and have their meal after Vespers. After having prayed the old way for four years now I see the value of the inversion in the reversed times; the Resurrection restores order and puts things the way they should be.

A "private Mass"?

The X in the right column for Monday indicates a votive Mass of the Dead may be sung this day. Votive Masses are prohibited during Lent and generally during Advent but the Roman Church did permit one Requiem Mass for deceased friends and benefactors to be celebrated on the first ferial day of the week with the accompanying Officium Defunctorum. The St. Lawrence ordo's abbreviation key indicates that the X signifies a "private Mass", however before 1960(2?) "private Mass" did not mean a low Mass celebrated in a sequestered environment, just a Mass other than the one canonically required for the day. A parish priest is only required to celebrate Mass on Sundays and Holy Days; religious orders are required to celebrate the full liturgy every day. A "private Mass" is a permitted special addition in either of those settings according to the old scheme of things. It really is a misnomer, given that a cardinal archbishop could celebrate a pontifical high Mass with full polyphony and it would be "private".

Has not the older liturgy a richness to it that encourages more effort on the part of the faithful?

Look for our usual Officium Defunctorum page in the near future. We will be praying the Office of the Dead on the first ferial day of each Lenten week for your intentions.

Also, buy a St. Lawrence Press ordo!

Short Lenten Reflection: Passion as Sacrament

We have arrived at Lent and are now in the midst in the great Fast. So if you are at work, you hear your stomach growl, and you peal over your desk then just say a quick prayer and realize that is what is supposed to happen. 

During my late lunch I sometimes step into the cathedral a few blocks away to say an hour of the Office (remember, Vespers before noon!). My eyes traversed the walls and caught glimpse of a few of the latter stations of the Cross: the third fall, the stripping of garments, the crucifixion, the death of the Cross. The Passion is something of a Sacrament unto itself. Yes, the Sacrifice is there "perfect and complete" as the Byzantine pre-Sanctified Liturgy says during Communion, whenever one partakes of the Body and Blood of Christ. A Sacrament is the grace of God, something done by Christ through the Holy Spirit, and more. It is both the thing it symbolizes and a symbol. The waters of Baptism outwardly symbolize the cleansing of sins—recalling the Flood—and the renewal of Creation—water is a symbol itself of Creation—but inwardly it actually does these things and more. Christ told us, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." Is not the Passion both a symbol for this and its actual fulfillment?

Simon of Cyrene bore the Cross with Our Lord, not eagerly, but willingly. He had little interest in the Cross and tried to escape it with the same half-hearted effort children use to avoid doing their chores until Roman force persuaded him to cooperate. He wasn't a bad man, he just wasn't interested. In the patristic age writers emphasized Simon's "symbolic and mystical" rather than "accidental" place in pre-signif[ying] the Gentiles' faith, to whom the Cross of Christ was not to be shame but glory" (St. Leo the Great, 8th sermon on the Passion). By modern times Simon had become a minor miscreant who begrudgingly entered the Passion. How many devotions booklets include a station of the Cross that laments Simon's unwillingness rather than his eventual consent?

Simon symbolized the Gentiles who would receive the faith that the Jewish people declined in the eyes of the ancient Church. Today he can still be that. Can he not also be an archetype of ourselves and so many saints we seek to imitate? Other than Padre Pio, I can hardly think of any saints eager to share in the Lord's Passion. Some of them unwillingly came along and others willingly and quietly. Christ invites us, we do not invite ourselves to His act of redemption. Christ gives us a Cross just as from eternity He created the wood that would be used to carve His own device of salvation. The Romans thought they gave Him the Cross in much the same way we think we get Communion or get absolution in Confession. We do not. They are gifts, as is every suffering and difficulty which brings us closer in faith, much like the stomach growling midday at work during the great Fast.

And then there is the Passion itself. Three falls, seemingly the pattern of sin when we try to expiate and reform our ways. First, sin seduces us in temptation. Second, we fall. And thirdly, we repeat and repeat and repeat. One Anchorite said, "It is not our falls that matter, but what way we face when we get back up." Bearing the Cross with Christ, the Christian must persevere through the Fast as Christ did with Simon on the way to Calvary. The Cross is not pleasant. The fast is not pleasant. Yet they are both sweet: dulce lignum, dulce clavos.... 

At the end of it, during Holy Week, we should be physically exhausted and nearest death as we can healthily be, if such a thing is possible. When the fire is hidden and the "earthquake" shakes the darkened church during Tenebrae remember that Christ is indeed buried, God in the form of human frailty. By His aid let us bury our own human frailty, too, that with Him we may rise in a luminous, glorified body made into what it was supposed to be originally by His work. Your goal on the Sunday of the Resurrection is to say that you participated in the Passion and the now the Resurrection, both in symbol and in reality.

Burying the Alleluia

Today is the fourth Sunday after Epiphany (you were that right), which means tonight the Alleluia is sung for the last time until Mass on Holy Saturday. A double alleluia is affixed to the dismissal at Vespers as a farewell until the same words revive after the Vesperal Mass in seventy days. In typical Roman fashion, this is a somber and "low key" way of doing something very great in importance, preparing for the great fast and Lent. The Byzantine churches will have meatfare and cheesefare Sunday in the coming weeks, wherein the faithful slowly say adios to meat and dairy products, although fish cooked in oil is allowed typically on Palm Sunday (a feast rather than a penitential day in the Greek rite). 

A Melkite priest once pointed out the oddity of allowing the universally exercised option to sing "Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ" during the new Roman Mass in Lent. The old Office substituted Laus tibi, Domine, etc for Alleluia after the Deus in adiutorium, but the Mass always utilized a tract based on the psalms instead. As the Alleluia prefaced the Gospel throughout the year, its absence startles the faithful when the words of Christ are sung. The option "Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ" is especially odd because Alleluia is Hebrew for "Praise to you, O God." Clearly, the Consilium was influenced by the Department of Redundancy Department's findings! Bishop John of Syracuse wrote Pope St. Gregory the Great once to complain of the novelty of "singing the Alleluia outside of Paschaltide" after the manner of the "Greeks." Gregory retorted that the Roman Church had adopted the practice some time ago, but its exclusion during Lent remained.

Antiphon from psalm 140 at the Vespers part of the pre-Sanctified Liturgy.

The melody is an English translation of the Ukrainian-Slavonic tune.

By contrast, the Byzantine churches will not cease the Alleluia, but will continue to sing it throughout Great Lent, even on Good Friday. Indeed, the Great Doxology will continue to be sung between Orthros and the Divine Liturgy (of which the Roman Gloria is merely an excerpt). The Byzantine rite's excessive and eccentric praxis knows no bounds during the Great Lent. The changes to the liturgy, aside from the longer anaphora of St. Basil the Great and some changes to a few prayers, are really more additions. The Akathist to the Mother of God is sung on Fridays in preparation for the Annunciation on March 25th, something I continue to do. Unlike the Roman rite, which has a unique Mass for every day of Lent, the Byzantine rite never celebrates the Divine Liturgy outside of Sundays and feasts, but sees Communion as necessary to endure the Fast, so the Pre-Sanctified Liturgy "of St. Gregory" is celebrated. Some days will witness a long penitential service called the Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, with its many prostrations and kisses of the ground. 

After the high of Christmastide, let us prepare to lower and humiliate ourselves during the Fast and accept the wisdom of the Church in our preparation.

The Lyonese Missal Part III: Sundays per Annum

St. Jean, cathedral of the primatial see of France

Let us resume our exciting series on the local liturgical usages of the French dioceses prior to the 19th century streamlining of worship influenced by Dom Prosper Gueranger's accusations of Jansenism. The rite of Lyon, the primatial see of the first daughter of the Church, survived the liturgical purge until the mid-20th century when, like so many other dioceses both after Trent and after the 1960s reforms, the bishop decided to switch to the Roman liturgy.

As a review, let us aphorize that Jansenists were effectively French Catholics who thought Calvin read St. Augustine correctly. On this scheme of belief some of God's commandments are impossible to uphold, that grace is irresistible—unless one is not "chosen", and Christ died for the elect and not for all men. Other peculiarities of the Jansenists include an allergy to people receiving Communion on a regular basis. This makes accusations of Jansenism difficult to justify given that the Parisian and Lyonese rites mandate regular administration of Holy Communion during Mass to whoever so wishes to receive. Other issues and defects exist which likely led to the demise of the Gallican rites, issues which will be covered in the concluding post at some point in the future.

Part I: Third Sunday of Advent

The Third Sunday of Advent is one of the great days of the year in the Roman rite. Celebrated in rose vestments, hinting at the impending joy of Christmas, the Mass begins with the word Gaudete. In ancient and medieval times the pope would celebrate this Mass following a nighttime vigil of Mattins and Lauds. The Lyonese rite begins not with Gaudete, but rather with the familiar Introit Rorate coeli de super. The collect and epistle (Gaudete, iterum dico gaudete....) are the same as in the Roman Mass. Graduals tend to differ in the French rites from the Roman one, probably the result of mangling by bishops without the supervision of monks. This gradual is not different in content. It has the same two verses of psalm 79 as the Roman rite, but flipped! The Alleluia is different, but again taken from a psalm. The Gospel pericope is the same as in Rome, extracted from John chapter 1, wherein the Forerunner calls himself the "voice crying out in the desert" in anticipation of the coming of the Lord. The Offertory verse is again different from Rome, although it is familiar to us all (Deus, tu conversus vivificabis nos, et plebs tua laetabitur in te: ostende nobis, Domine, misericordiam tuam, et salutare tuum da nobis). Indeed it fits in well with the crying aloud of the Baptist and the apocalyptic tone of Advent. The secret is the same as in the Roman. The preface is of the Incarnation (not neo-Gallican Advent preface). The Communion verse again betrays not malice, but mangling; the Roman verse, from Isaiah, is Dicite: pusillanimes, confortamini et nollite timere: ecce, Deus noster veniet, et salvabit nos. Lyon reads: Dicite: pusillanimes, confortamini et nollite timere: ecce, Deus ipse veniet, et salvabit vos. The post-Communion oration, completely different from the Roman one, says that the faithful have been "renewed" in the Body and Blood of Christ and asks that by those gifts, "aids of the present life," we may "obtain the reward of eternal happiness."

The non-Roman rites usually give readings for ferial Masses on Wednesdays and Fridays for the sake of variety and to expound the mysteries of Sunday in more depth. Lyon is no exception.

Part II: Sunday with the Octave of the Nativity

The Roman Mass for today is a sensible continuation of the Nativity cycle beginning with the Puer natus est nobis Introit so familiar to those of us who love the Roman Advent/Nativity cycle (personally I do not think any time in the Latin or Greek liturgies is as rich as the Roman Advent season). The Introit for Lyon is a curious variation of psalm 88: Ipse invocabit me. The Roman collect for the day exists here as a commemoration, as the Sunday has its own unique collect: "Almighty eternal God, direct our actions in Your approval, that in the name of Your beloved Son, we may merit to abound in good works." Could one who does not believe in substantial free will pray this oration? The collect of the Octave is omitted if the Mass is celebrated, but it is said as a commemoration, along with the collect of the Sunday, if the feast of St. Stephen, St. John, or the Holy Innocents is celebrated on the Sunday.

The readings are entirely in variance from the Roman rite. The Roman epistle comes from St. Paul's letter to Titus and the Gospel is St. Luke's account of shepherds adoring Christ. The Lyonese readings come from Galatians (4:1-8) and the first half of St. Luke's narrative of the presentation of Christ in the Temple. The message here is that Christ's Incarnation makes all people children of God and descendants of Abraham, not just those born through certain lineages. The old Law gives way to something greater. The gradual, Offertory, and Communion verses differ, but are unremarkable. The secret is a long way of saying very little very vividly, typical French Latin. The post-Communion oration petitions that we may be more worthy to become partakers "of His divinity Who humbled Himself to be a partaker in our humanity." I wonder if the makers of the Pauline liturgy borrowed from this prayer. The Latin word order and vocabulary is even the same.

Part III: First Sunday of Lent

Mass, per the Norman praxis, is celebrated in ash colored vestments rather than violet. While the ancient Roman tradition was to use as dark a color as possible, the Norman tradition was to use as colorless and sparse a color as possible.

The synaxis is almost exactly the same as in the Roman rite, with two exceptions. The first is that the old Roman psalms are foregone again—a dubious trait of these Gallican rites—in favor of the Vulgate translation. The Introit begins with Clamabit ad me rather than Invocabit me. The other difference is in the gradual and tract. Both use large excerpts from psalm 90, which readers hopefully pray at Compline every night, but the Roman tract is longer. Perhaps Lyon is a reduction.

The secret is the same, but not the Offertory or Communion verse, nor the post-Communion oration. The Offertory is from Deuteronomy chapter 9 and parallels Moses' forty days of fasting followed by his reception of the Ten Commandments with Christ's forty days fasting followed by the beginning of His public ministry.

After Vespers all images except crosses on the altars where Mass is celebrated and processional crosses are covered. Even in Passiontide they are not covered. One presumes that the coverings are ash colored.

Part IV: 14th Sunday after Pentecost

No study of Masses per annum would be complete without a foray into the Sundays after Pentecost, the Roman "green season." Strangely, today's Introit is the one missing from would-be Gaudete Sunday from the first section of today's post. The collect and readings are the same, although the gradual and alleluia differ quite a bit, emphasizing fear of God rather than the joy in the Roman texts. The Offertory chant differs, but is unremarkable. The Roman secret petitions that the gifts offered may be a "purgation of offences and propitiation of your power" while the Lyonese asks that the gifts and prayers offered bring "Your kingdom and justice that we seek with all our heart." The post-Communion calls upon God to feed us through the Sacrament received, that we may pull through visible things and have faith in the invisible things to come. The Roman oration has more or less the same message in half as many words.

Conclusion

Again our efforts to find Jansenism in the French rites is thwarted and again we find at least one prayer that seems to be directly opposed to the ideas attributed to bishop Jansen. Furthermore, we see evidence that the real reason for the suppression of the French rites—aside from the political climate—may well have been intentional deviations from things explicitly Roman like the antiphonary psalms used in the Introits of Mass.

Next in the series: feasts & commons.

Marian Lent II

Here are today's chants for the Akathist to the Mother of God, the hymn sung in Byzantine parishes on Fridays of Lent to celebrate the Annunciation.

A Marian Lent

The Byzantine tradition dedicates the first four Fridays of Great Lent to anticipating the Annunciation of the Nativity of Christ to the Mother of God, Mary. On Friday evenings at Compline Byzantine churches will sing an Akathist, a "hymn" consisting of opening rites, psalm 50, a few canons, the incensation of an icon of the Blessed Mother, and finally a series of chants which vary by week. This Friday, the first of Lent, we will sing the chants below. They are some of the most profound and beautiful liturgical texts I have ever seen and should help us peer into what the liturgy should be. The chants here are taken from a Melkite service book I borrowed from my previous pastor. Unfortunately I could not find any non-choral settings of the Akathist to publish here, but you can make up your own chant if you wish to sing these (someone made it up once, right?).

 

 

Random Thought on Lent & Confession

In a recent meditation on the 'gesima season before Lent we discussed illumination in Christ and Baptism, the end of Lent for catechumens and in some sense for all the faithful. When going to Confession today I had occasion to consider what the architecture of the Church says about Confession and Baptism.

In the parish where I confess, near to my temporary housing, the confessionals are in the back of the chapel near the door. Many churches built centuries ago placed the confessionals toward the back, although less considerate architecture also placed confessionals in the side aisles of the nave and in the transepts. Personally I find the back of the church, or even in the narthex, the appropriate place for Confession for the same reason the back of the church, or a separate room off the nave, is appropriate for Baptism: the church represents heaven, the New Jerusalem, and progression toward the altar is progression toward the Divine. The back of the church, or even the narthex, is earth or close to it. It is where those new to God stand. Approaching the altar is approaching God and leaving it is distance from God. When someone is baptized he is plunged into Christ and made pure, perhaps purer than any other man in the parish at that moment. During the Paschal and Pentecost Vigils this point is made especially clear as the neophytes approach the front of the church after their Baptisms with the Church and Saints praying for them, a point muddled erased in the Pian rites. Is Confession not the same thing?

The Confessional is in the rear of the church because the sinner ought to take a spiritual bath before approaching the Divine in the Sanctuary. Many line up at the rear and pray at the rear of the church before approaching the Sanctuary. Much like Baptism we plunged into darkness and emerge in light. Water is like darkness, as St. Augustine says at length in the last book of his Confessions, in that it is uncontrollable, chaotic, and in need of "form," that is Divinely assigned meaning and purpose. Water is creation. When water is blessed it becomes a new creation. When one is baptized (baptizo = "immerse") one enters a new and renewed creation, the creation renewed in Christ's Resurrection. Our immersion in the darkness of Confession follows the same pattern and, unlike in Baptism, we can directly confront our demons and vices. In Baptism the Lord immerses us in His mercy while in Confession He speaks it. At the end of both we may approach the Sanctuary and altar with confidence and in purity.

Not quite on message.

Liturgy and Preparing for Lent

Christmastide came to a close two weeks ago with the feast of the Purification of Our Lady, Candlemas, on February 2nd. We are now approaching the 'gesima season during which we prepare for the exercises and endurance race that is Lent. My singing voice leaves something to be desired, but during Vespers this Saturday night I will sing the dismissal with the double Alleluia and the Deo gratias with the double Alleluia, my last bit of liturgical joy for the next month and a half.

source: atonementparish.blogspot.com

In past times, and in some places now, the coming of Lent was a process of transition. The Roman tradition anticipates Lent by introducing a penitential spirit in the liturgy: violet vestments, the "burial" of the Alleluia (in the Middle Ages it was literally buried), the excision of the Gloria from the Mass on the Lord's day, and the dismissal Benedicamus Domino which we use on days of penance, almost to say Serviamus Domino. The Roman Divine Office becomes very brutal during Lent. The Office of the Dead is prayed on Mondays of Simple rank, which will be every Monday this year. As we run our course in the faith we must recall and pray for our friends who did the same with divers degrees of success. Vespers loses the Suffrages of the Saints and replaces them with what is likely the detritus of an Office for the Dead of past time, a series of intercessory prays followed by the Miserere, psalm 50.

As stated earlier, it is my private belief that the season of Advent, replete with apocalyptic tones and an emphasis on the Coming, is most appropriate to consider sin and judgment. For the non-catechumen Lent is a different story. The Masses of the 'gesima season introduce us to what we should consider during Lent. The first Sunday, Septuagesima Sunday, prescribes for the Gospel the parable of a landowner hiring servants at the various hours of the days. The jealous men who worked the entire day caterwaul at the wages of those who worked less than they. The master of the house reminds the greedy workers that he can pay them as he wishes, the "first shall be last and the last shall be first." Above all, the message is that the Kingdom of God is available to all who seek it, although many turn away: "Many are called, but few are chosen." For those who follow the Byzantine tradition this sermon will form the foundation of the greatest sermon ever given, St. John Chrysostom's Paschal sermon which is read at Mattins. The following week's Gospel pericope presents us with the parable of a sower whose seed takes root and grows according to the environment in which it is planted. And the last Sunday tells us of a blind man whose cries to Our Lord "Son of David, have pity on me" stir His compassion; Our Lord gives the man his sight and tells him "Your faith has saved you." The three considerations the Church gives us for Lent then are:

1. We are all called to eternal life with God and regardless of when we accept Him and repent of our sins we are assured of the same reward as those who lived their entire lives in holiness. The stories of saints are the stories of sinners.
2. The gifts of God, faith the first of them, grow and sanctify the soul according to their nurturing. Do we pray? Do we serve others? Do we help others mechanically or are acts of random kindness still a part of our lives? Mechanical prayer can be useful in keeping the mind disciplined, but the sinner must mean the prayer at some point in order to let the Holy Spirit work within the soul. Kindly the Roman liturgy varies greatly during Lent: different readings at every single Mass, different psalms at the major hours daily owing to the absence of feasts, and different collects. The Church gives the man of prayer a tool to sow his seeds in the most fecund places.
3. Faith saves us and even illuminates us. The blind man must have been blinded by light when he first recovered his vision after being lost in the throes of darkness for the duration of his life. Is sin not the same thing? Conversion, in an instant or in a progression, illuminates the sinner and basks him in the light of Christ. Peter, James, and John found this light profoundly blinding when they ascended Mount Tabor with Our Lord and yet the light they saw was only a hint of the light that is Christ's Divine essence. The Hesychast Byzantine tradition calls the light of Transfiguration the "uncreated energies." The Byzantine tradition even refers to Baptism as the "Mystery of Illumination." Fittingly the last Gospel before Lent is about illumination and the last act of Lent is the Baptism of converts to Christ.

Fasting dampens the noise of earthly distractions and attunes the soul to what the Church asks us to consider during Lent. Severe penance? No. Self-inflicted brutality? No. Fasting helps us to think and pray about the three simple topics above: calling, fostering, and seeing in the faith.

Lent. It is coming.