Pope St. Pius V and John 3:16 in Action

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. (from the gospel at today’s Holy Mass)

At the beginning of today’s Mass, we acknowledged that God provided us with Pope St. Pius V so that, among other things, we might “offer more fitting worship.”

Pius V in Santa Maria Maggiore

Like the pope saints canonized this past Sunday, Pope St. Pius V led the Church in the wake of an ecumenical council. Like Vatican II, the Council of Trent aimed at reforming the Church and re-focusing the sacred ministers and the faithful on the fundamentals, the essentials of the Catholic religion.

Certainly our Liturgy ranks as the most fundamental of all the fundamentals, the most essential of all the essentials. And isn’t the worship of the Catholic Church really our united celebration of the truth of John 3:16?

If I might, let me quote the Catechism:

Blessing is a divine and life-giving action, the source of which is the Father…When applied to man, the word ‘blessing’ means adoration and surrender to his Creator in thanksgiving. From the beginning until the end of time, the whole of God’s work is a blessing…In the Church’s liturgy the divine blessing is fully revealed and communicated. The Father is acknowledged and adored as the source and the end of all the blessings of creation and salvation. In his Word who became incarnate, died, and rose for us, he fills us with his blessings…The Church, united with her Lord, …blesses the Father ‘for his inexpressible gift’ in her adoration, praise, and thanksgiving. (CCC 1078-1083)

God so loved us, that He chose us to celebrate His blessing, week in and week out, in church. For His glory. For the salvation of our souls.

And for the sake of keeping the door open to all our neighbors–to keep it open, so that they, too, might share in this great blessing and this most-salutary of all celebrations: the living, breathing expression of John 3:16, the Sacred Liturgy of the Church.

Quick Viri-Selecti Apologia

I thank the men who, as the real heroes of generosity at our parish Mass of the Lord’s Supper yesterday evening, submitted to having their feet washed by their overly intense pastor. They endured the most difficult task of the evening.

Now: Yes, the book (Missal) clearly indicates that men should be chosen to receive the ministrations of the priest in the footwashing rite. As the Lord Jesus washed the feet of twelve men at the Last Supper, so the priest.

The business admits of many different profound interpretations, and those who witness it draw spiritual fruit according to each person’s own unique interior life. The duty of the priest is to follow the instructions printed in the Missal.

Over my (soon to be ten) years as a priest, I have, with some reflection and practice, developed the way in which I wash people’s feet on Holy Thursday evening. I do not claim that it is a good way; I only ask that it be respected as the result of some extended reflection on my part. To be perfectly honest, I studied the way that Pope John Paul II did it, and I attempt to do it that way.

Yesterday, our Holy Father washed the feet of ten young men and two young women. May God be praised that we have a Pope, and a healthy and loving Pope.

Does this mean that the instruction in the Missal will be changed regarding who should be chosen to sit for footwashing? Only time will tell.

But in the interest of honesty, I feel obliged to say the following. I do not mean it as a judgment on anyone else; it is simply my personal sensibility:

I could not in good conscience maintain the manner in which I execute the footwashing rite if a woman were sitting before me. I do not imagine myself to be Brad Pitt on wheels. But neither am I eighty years old and altogether beyond the virile stage. I could not engage in the physical intimacy (which, to my mind, the rite demands) with a woman who was either married to someone else or unattached. It would be unbecoming for us both.

Okay! May the Lord bless us with a Good Friday full of graces.

Our Longing Lady

The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council proposed for us the Catholic doctrine regarding the Church. Christ, the light of the nations, gathers His flock into a single People of God.

If we want to understand this perfectly visible, and yet profoundly mysterious, Church of Christ, we must focus our gaze on one human individual. We must contemplate the…

pre-eminent and singular member of the Church…its excellent exemplar…whom the whole People of God honors with child-like love. (Lumen Gentium 53)

Namely: _________________________________

Living the Cardfree Life

“Your dead shall live; their corpses shall rise,” declares the prophet Isaiah unto the Lord.

We echo the words of the prophet whenever we profess our holy faith. We say, “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead.”

Speaking of which: Summertime can offer us a little extra leisure.

What a perfect opportunity to work on memorizing the new English translation of the Creed!

We can “get off the card,” so to speak.

Break the card habit. Get the Sunday-morning card monkey off our backs. Start living a card-free life. At least at Mass.

A clean, card-free Mass: that’s a healthier Mass.

So let’s spend some summer leisure time working on it. A few reps every day, right before the morning sit-ups and push-ups. Before we know it, we will be impressing all our friends at church with our fluid recitation of the Creed, utterly cardless!

Christ’s Baptism Sets a Three-Beat Rhythm

The vagaries of the calendar will deprive us this year of a Baptism of the Lord Sunday.

From the archive…

Click HERE for a Baptism of the Lord homily about the sacraments.

Click HERE for a Baptism of the Lord homily about joining God’s club.

Click HERE for a Baptism of the Lord homily about Tiger Woods.

[If you click the links, scroll down past the sports page to get to the homilies.]

…Here we present another little Roman Missal reflection:

The Lord Jesus came up from the water, and the Holy Trinity revealed Himself in full. The Father spoke, the Son stood before our eyes, the Holy Spirit descended as a dove.

One God, three Persons.

When St. Peter denied Christ on Holy Thursday night, he denied Him three times. When Christ forgave Peter on Easter, He asked the repentant sinner three times, “Do you love me.”

We join in the same three-beat rhythm now when we begin Mass.

Our new translation of the Confiteor expresses the three-fold acknowledgement of sin that the ancient Latin prayer has always included: “Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.”

We continue, as we always have, to implore the mercy of the Trinity in a three-fold manner. “Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.”

And, now, when we sing the Gloria, we express the threefold adoration of the Lamb that the ancient Latin prayer always has expressed:

you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us;
you take away the sins of the world, receive our prayer;
you are seated at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us.

Since we believe in one God in three Persons, it makes sense that our prayers to begin Mass would have a special three-beat rhythm in them.

We thank God that our new Missal restores some of the beats that were missing from the previous translation.

The Baptist’s Song

As we approach Christmas, we pray in the preface to the Eucharistic Prayer about St. John the Baptist.

Perhaps you have noticed a small but notable change in the translation. The old Sacramentary had it that John the Baptist was “Christ’s herald.”

True enough; beautiful enough. But now, with the new translation, we pray that St. John “sang of Christ’s coming.”

The Christ appeared on earth, and the holy prophet sang. Locusts in his belly, camel hair around his waist, the Jordan River rushing by, and the desert wind blowing: he sang.

Can we not imagine that the Baptist sang with everything Johnnie Cash, Roy Orbison, Placido Domingo, Ray Charles, and Eddie Vedder all have to offer in their voices—rolled into one masculine melody on the wind?

The coming of Christ moves those who recognize Him to break out into song. Could be a Tallis Scholars song, or a Pogues song, a hymn, a chant, a warble. Joy and love sing.

Many beauties of the earth touch the undying, simple perfection of heaven—but to sing does so in a uniquely immediate way.

God rest ye merry. Baby Jesus comes tomorrow night. It will be time to sing.

In Medias Res

Anyone ever hear of Homer? I don’t mean Homer Simpson. I mean the storyteller of ancient Greece.

'Aristotle with a Bust of Homer' by Rembrandt

Homer told his stories in a famous way. He starts you out in the middle. Then, as the story unfolds, he fills you in on how things got to the point you found them at the beginning.

At the beginning of the Iliad, the Greeks have set up camp on the eastern banks of the Aegean. What are they doing there? Read on, and you will find out.

At the beginning of the Odyssey, Odysseus languishes in prison on the isle of Ogygia. How did he get there? Read on to find out.

Perhaps you will recall that, about a month ago, I started trying to review some of the changes in the English translation of the people’s parts of the Mass, the words which we will begin to use in two weeks.

When we first started talking about the new Missal, we discussed how we pray the Sacred Liturgy as our common work together. Liturgy means ‘public work.’

In Here, Lord?

The Lord be with you… (et cum spirituo tuo)

Weddings in ancient Israel involved a number of customs we do not observe. The business in the parable about virgins waiting into the night with lighted lamps may leave us a little confused. When we go to weddings, we don’t usually see that.

But the end of the parable touches a familiar chord: At a wedding banquet, you want to be inside, as opposed outside. The food, music, and dancing take place inside. Outside, it is either cold, or there are a lot of gnats, mosquitoes, and crickets.

Or—even if it is a beautiful, crisp fall day, and the wedding banquet takes place on the lawn or in the garden—you still want to be inside the hedge or the fence, not outside it. You don’t want to show up at the garden gate and have someone say, “Ah. No dice. Take a walk. I never knew you.”

When the Lord Jesus walked the earth, He wound up inside sometimes and outside sometimes.

A few, many, multis

“Lord, will only a few people be saved?”

“Take this, all of you, and drink from it. This is the cup of my blood… It will shed for you and for all.”

Sounds familiar, right?

Starting in a month:

Take this all of you, and drink from it. For this is the chalice of my blood…It will be poured out for you and for many.

If you asked Albert Pujols, ‘Do you own just one first-baseman’s glove?’ he would probably answer, ‘No. I have a few of them.’ By which he would mean: More than one.

Just like if you asked me, ‘Did you ever see the original Star Wars?’ I would say, ‘Yeah. I have seen it a few times.’ Meaning more than once and less than 55 times.

If you asked Imelda Marcos if she owned a few pairs of shoes, she would say, “Oh, many, many.”

I promise that this will be the last time I discuss the revised translation of the Missal. At least for a few days. But: We will soon encounter this change in the words of consecration, and it may prove a bit of a stunner.

Christ is one. He saves many. From one married couple of First Parents came many sinners. In the Body of Christ, one Head gathers many members to Himself: one Savior, many saved.

Everybody knows that we priests consecrate the Host and the Chalice with the words of Christ, which He spoke at the Last Supper.

When He spoke them the first time, He probably used a language called Aramaic, which was the common tongue of the Holy Land then.

When the Apostles first celebrated Mass, as the Lord had commanded them to do, in the various corners of the world to which they had journeyed, they used the common languages of the different countries, including both Greek and Latin.

In Latin, when the priest consecrates the Chalice, he says that the Blood of the new and eternal covenant is shed “for you and pro multis.”

Best way to dress for Halloween

Christ, the new Adam, the firstborn of the new creation, died not for Himself, but pro multis, for a lot more than one, “for many.”

‘For all’ will become ‘for many.’ The Blood poured out for many.

This does not mean that the Church now officially teaches that Christ died for fewer people than we used to teach that He died for. The Lord wills that all be saved. Almighty God offers the gift of salvation to all, no exceptions.

But not all accept it. Some—indeed, many—act as if a loose affiliation with God will suffice. “We ate and drank in your company, and you taught in our streets…My grandmother said the Rosary every day…My uncle is studying in the deacon program…I’m a die-hard Notre Dame fan…”

Evildoers, I never knew ye.

He invites all. He poured out His blood for many. He died for us. We owe Him everything.

Vague vs. Consubstantial

The Lord proclaims to the people: “I am compassionate.”

How compassionate?

…In five weeks, we will start working the famous pew-cards with the revised translation of our Mass prayers. When we do, we will discover some different words in our beloved Nicene Creed.

The first question is: Why do we recite the Creed at Mass? Any thoughts?

Right. Because this is what we believe about God Almighty. We Catholics believe specific things.

Whenever I encounter someone who says something like “Who needs organized religion?” or “Don’t we all pray to the same god anyway?” or “I’m not religious; I’m spiritual,” I experience two simultaneous reactions.

1. Thank God, I intend first and foremost to sympathize, to extend a friendly hand, to put the best possible interpretation on the other person’s point of view. After all, God indeed does transcend all the words we use to focus our minds on Him.

2. Meanwhile, though, whenever I hear such vague shibboleths about religion, I cannot help but think to myself: “Gosh. Do you have a thought in your head? How can you be satisfied with nonsensical flim-flam about God? Shouldn’t you take yourself a little more seriously?”