It's been a strange August so far. This week has been remarkably cool; we've even turned off the A/C at our house. Of course, that's not strange for us--my lovely wife and I are pretty conservative on our energy bills when we can squeak by on a couple windows and a little breeze. It's also been a decently rainy summer. I've been able to skip out on the sprinkler hose in the garden fairly often too--which is good because I'm not a reliable garden-waterer to begin with.

So since it's a strange August, I'll do something strange too: finish what I started and follow up on Monday's post regarding the coming changes to the Catholic Mass. Let it never be said that I don't finish what I started!

So, um where were we?

Oh yes, in the New Order of the Mass (Novus Ordo).

Most Catholics today take part in the Novus Ordo. It's the Mass that most churches offer 364 days of the year (every day except Good Friday-- which is not technically a Mass). People who have some awareness of the old Tridentine Mass differentiate the two noting that in the old Mass, the priest "turns his back on the people" and the whole thing's said in Latin. Conversely, in the Novus Ordo, the priest "faces the people" and speaks in English (or whatever vernacular language is applicable). Good Father Zuhlsdorf, in his blog What Does The Prayer Really Say? often notes that these two distinctions aren't theoretically correct--rather, they're irregular changes from the actual Mass.

In theory, theory and practice are the same thing. In practice, they're not.

But it's an important set-up to this point: the Mass was conceived and written in Latin. The prayers, the directions to the priest, the "liner notes"--all of the rubrics were written in Latin, the language of the Church. Then different conferences of bishops were to make the Latin rubrics compatible for their dioceses. In fact, the Novus Ordo is supposed to be offered in Latin--though provisions are allowed to adapt some of the prayers into the vernacular language for pastoral reasons. I don't know what those pastoral reasons might be, as far as I know, the term was never fully defined. But when the United States bishops returned to the States with their new copies of the Missal, the first thing they did was translate the whole thing into English and tell their priests to face the wrong direction.

Is that an uncharitable over-simplification? Perhaps. Whoops. Hold on tightly, it may get worse.

It appears that in the zeal to translate the Novus Ordo into English that our dear bishops have made some oversimplifications of their own.

You see, imagine two world, Heaven and Earth. Down here on Earth are us lowly humans. We're not perfect. We have our limitations. Sometimes that's a real bummer, you know? Up Heaven is the Almighty Lord. He is perfect. He is limitless. As man, we struggle to come in contact with God--He's beyond our capacity. So when we try, there are two paths: raise man up to God or bring God down to man.

I'm willing to assert that the Novus Ordo Mass in every Catholic church in America is an attempt to lower God to our level; the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops decided to make the Mass "accessible" to dumb dummies like me (and you?). Let me illustrate. Does everyone have their 45-page "White Book" that I linked yesterday? Good. Please turn to page 1.

This is how the Mass begins. You get to church, dip your fingers in the holy water and bless yourself with the sign of the cross when you enter. Find a pew, genuflect towards the altar, file in and kneel down for a prayer before Mass (feel free to use your own). If the choir is trying to get everyone singing On Eagles Wings while you're trying to pray, I suggest shouting a Divine Mercy Chaplet toward the guitarist--but that's just me. Anyway, everyone stands up to begin Mass, the choir switches to singing Gather Us In. Father may stall getting Mass going by welcoming everyone, maybe telling a little joke, encouraging us to greet the people around us in the pews--and you may notice that none of that is in the 45-page "White Book" that you're holding next to this monitor. But gentle reader, you gotta play the cards you're dealt.

When he's good and ready to begin Mass, he'll start out with the sign of the cross and give a simple blessing: "The Lord be with you." This is right out of the Gregorian Mass- where the priest would begin the mass by turning to the people as blessing them "Dominus vobiscum." And for the last 40 years or so, Americans have been answering this blessing by saying "And also with you." But for about 1700 years before that (dating to around 200 A.D., it's older than even Pope St. Gregory the Great), the congregation answered back "et cum spiritu tuo", or and with your spirit.

But when the International Commission on English in the Liturgy originally translated the Novus Ordo into English, they decided to substitute some words.

Aside: of the 5 most common vernacular languages in the Catholic world, English is the only one translated this way. Compare:
French: Et avec votre esprit
German: Und mit deinem Geiste
Italian: E con il tuo spirito
Spanish: Y con tu espiritu
It is a common translation in other languages like Swahili, Lingala, Shona, Acholi, Lango, Alur, Jonam and Chewa (source)--but I am uncertain if the English translation affected these other translations or if they arrived at that conclusion on their own.

So what's the difference?

I may get in over my head here, but here goes: the liturgy is not the work of any individual priest. Rather, it is the work of the Holy Spirit working through the priest. And as such, we bless the Holy Spirit in our response--not Father Timbob directly. Priests are consecrated men, dedicated to the Holy Spirit--the work they do in the church is their opus Dei. So skirting around the Holy Spirit in the Mass is really acknowledging the wrong guy. I mean, I'm sure Father Timbob is a good person and I hope he feels the Lord is with him all the time; but we're talking about the Holy Mass here, so let's focus on our Triune God rather that Father Timbob for a while.

If you're not sold, that's fine. I'm not here to sell you. But the phrase The Lord be with your spirit is also scriptural in origin. It appears notably two places: in the closing lines of Saint Paul's Letter to the Galatians, and his Second Letter to Timothy.

But even more compellingly to me is what bad translations (or deliberately bad translations?) imply about the very nature of the Holy Mass. In a manner of speaking: the words mean something. They are the directions of the Roman Catholic Church to follow for offering the sacrifice of the Mass. And playing fast-and-loose with the translations , while probably not affecting the validity of the Mass, suggests that some renegade bishops in the USCCB or some stiff-necked liturgists in the ICEL or even well-meaning Father Timbob plays a greater role in liturgical history than does the entire Second Vatican Council or the entire Council of Trent or the entire 2000-year history of the Roman Catholic Church or even the Word of God in Holy Scripture itself--and that's just a little farther than the 6:00 PM Sunday Teen Mass should go, dontcha think? It's certainly territory I'm not comfortable walking.

Am I overstating things here? Maybe. But I'm also pretty confident in saying that if the Church comes up with an Order of the Mass, it's every Catholic's duty and right to a good liturgy and a good Mass. That's what I'm getting at here.

There are other changes. Some are going to trip you up for a while.

Take the Creed, for instance (please turn to page 9 in your "White Book"): we're pretty used to Father Timbob wrapping up his sermon with the "Profession of Faith", beginning "We believe in God, the Father, Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth..." This Creed goes back to the first Council of the Catholic Church--way before Vatican 2, before Martin Luther, before the Crusades, before the dark ages--back to 325 A.D.! This Council of Nicaea was in response (OVERSIMPLIFICATION ALERT!) to Christianity being made the official religion of the Roman Empire--it codified and defined what it mean to be a Christian, the things that Christians believe and set out the basic form that every Christian on God's green Earth can still ascribe to today. It has developed over time as our theology has deepened, but it is still often the only thing that all Christians (regardless of denomination) have in common.

At least we theoretically have it in common. Why do I say theoretically? Because American Catholics might be surprised to find out that the Faith they've been Professing for the last 40 years is not what the rest of the church has been saying for the last 1683 years since that Council of Nicaea. And it certainly isn't the same creed that even the rest of the Catholic world has been saying since the Second Vatican Council.

Let's set them up side-by-side:

LATIN: Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipoténtem, factórem cæli et terræ, visibílium ómnium et invisibílium. Et in unum Dóminum Jesum Christum, Fílium Dei unigénitum. Et ex Patre natum ante ómnia sæcula. Deum de Deo, lumen de lúmine, Deum verum de Deo vero. Génitum, non factum, consubstantiálem Patri: per quem ómnia facta sunt. Qui propter nos hómines et propter nostram salútem descéndit de cælis. Et incarnátus est de Spíritu Sancto ex María Vírgine: Et homo factus est. Crucifíxus étiam pro nobis: sub Póntio Piláto passus, et sepúltus est. Et resurréxit tértia die, secúndum Scriptúras. Et ascéndit in cælum: sedet ad déxteram Patris. Et íterum ventúrus est cum glória judicáre vivos et mórtuos: cujus regni non erit finis. Et in Spíritum Sanctum, Dóminum et vivificántem: qui ex Patre, Filióque procédit. Qui cum Patre, et Fílio simul adorátur, et conglorifícatur: qui locútus est per Prophétas. Et unam, sanctam, cathólicam et apostólicam Ecclésiam. Confíteor unum baptísma in remissiónem peccatorum. Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum. Et vitam + ventúri sæculi. Amen.

LITERAL ENGLISH: I believe in one God, the Father Almighty Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God. Born of the Father before all ages. God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God. Begotten, not made: consubstantial with the Father; by Whom all things were made. Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven. And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary: and was made man. He was crucified also for us, suffered under Pontius Pilate, and was buried. And on the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures. And He ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father. And He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead: of Whose kingdom there shall be no end. And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life: Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son. Who together with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified: Who spoke through the Prophets. And in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. I confess one Baptism for the remission of sins. And I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life + of the world to come. Amen.

WHAT WE'RE USED TO SAYING: We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in being with the Father. Through Him all things were made. For us men and our salvation He came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit, He was born of the Virgin Mary , and became man. For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate; He suffered, died, and was buried. On the third day He rose again in fulfillment of the scriptures: He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son, He is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. We believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

WHAT IS COMING: I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered death and was buried, and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end. And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets. And one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.

In my view, there are two notable changes in this new creed; I/We and consubstantial/one-in-being. There are others differences between the "new" creed and the one we're used to saying, but these are the two that really jump out.

The part that I'm going to stumble on the most is saying "I believe in God" rather than "We believe in God". I'm going to stumble because I'm just really really really used to saying it that way. But it's an important change, because professing this creed is an individualized statement. We profess our beliefs in God and the Church and declare our dedication to Jesus in the Trinity. They're among the last words we say before we enter into the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the part of Mass were the priest formally offers the sacrifice of Jesus in persona Christi. And that profession is not some group-think activity, it's an individual confession of our Christian identity. The Mass is personal to Catholics, it's not some huggy warm-up to the doughnut hour in the basement afterwards.

The other part is the change from "one in being with the Father" to "consubstantial with the Father". Consubstantial is a Latinized version of the Greek word homoousios. Homoousios is made up of όμοιο and ουσία, or same essence. In short, it says that Jesus is "made from" the same God-ness that the Father is "made from"--that they have the same substance and are con-substantial. To a Christian who accepts the Trinity (which is to say, all Christians), this is not a hard statement to make. Of course Jesus was God. That's the whole point! But like the ancient Church defining the Faith for all the world, we similarly define our Faith at Mass. Is Jesus one in being with the Father? Yes! But I've got to admit here, I consider myself a fairly smart guy, and I never really knew what one in being really meant. I'd say it at Mass with all the rest of the folks around me, but it's one of those things I could gloss over and not really think about.

In a strange way, the translators tried to make the term "consubstantial" more accessible to your everyday Catholic. But I'd assert that the opposite happened: they created a term that allowed people to say the words without thinking about them... and I stopped thinking about those words. We stopped accessing them at all.

And that's the essence of the whole problem, isn't it?

In a way, we've stopped lifting ourselves up for God. We've decided that we can try and bring Him down to our level. We take the liturgy of His Church and have taken all the work right out of it--and what's the result? I'll only speak for myself here, but for a long time, I just quit. Church wasn't lifting me up, it wasn't edifying, it wasn't even fun (have you heard Catholics sing?!). But I think I had the wrong idea about Mass, like I was going for a stage show--that sitting in the pews meant I was going to get zapped by some bolt of Grace. And though I won't blame the translators for my malaise, I think it's indicative of my situation. The whole thing is on liturgical salvation autopilot! The congregation is all agreeing that we believe the same things, we're all lining up for Communion hosts and sharing each other's slobber on the wine goblets, even the Priest himself holds up the chalice and says that it's "for you and for all" (that changes too--turn to page 18). Doesn't it sound like the whole happy round spaceship church goes to Heaven together?

Well, let's hope so.

But the point is that this Mass isn't what the Church imagined when Archbishop Bugnini (the man generally credited for writing the Novus Ordo) submitted his New Order of the Mass to Pope Paul VI. Somewhere along the way, we've lost our grip on the real Catholic liturgy. These changes have been submitted from the ICEL to the Vatican--the Vatican has enthusiastically approved them and copies have been/are being sent to every diocese in the English-speaking Catholic world. As of yet, there's no timetable for putting the new translations into effect, but hopefully by this time next year, we can wish that the Lord will be with Father's spirit (I whisper it at Mass already!).

I'm sure that some Catholics might put up resistance to the new translation. Some people are really afraid that the Pope is going to demand that churches switch back to the Tridentine Mass and totally kick the Novus Ordo out the window (some people might think that's a great idea. I know one such person very very well). But that's not what we're dealing with here. Other well-meaning Catholics might say that the words are obscure, the language is clumsy and that people just won't "get it". Those are fair and legitimate concerns! So it's up to us and it up to Father Timbob to catechize Catholics about what their Mass is really saying.

The translation that you'll probably hear in Church on Sunday is a bad one. We all know that now. In fairness, most of the trouble came with good intentions! But let's pray that we get off that road paved with good intentions... I'm afraid of where that road goes.

The Ordinary Catholic Mass that most Catholics attend every Sunday is going to slightly change. And in my opinion, they are changes for the better. I'm going to get into that more in a later post, but first we need to review how we got where we are today.

Here's the deal (it's kind of complicated):
When the Roman emporer Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in 313, Christians began to begin to formalize their worship. Prior to this, Christian worship was an event in secret, held in houses and basements under fear of being discovered by the Romans (who would torture them, feed them to lions and sell tickets to the spectacle in the Collesium). American Catholic writes:

Stately ceremonies suitable in a huge church emerged. Processions, courtly movement in the sanctuary, metered chant (composed by St. Ambrose) and sung litanies that galvanized the voices of thousands, incense and bells, kissing sacred objects and the use of genuflections became a pattern to accompany the ancient structure of the Eucharist.

The celebrants wore clothes worthy of a Roman senator. Their robes eventually came to be called vestments, since they were retained long after fashions changed. The simple plates and cups of house worship became elaborate chalices and patens. This was an inevitable evolution due to social acceptance, organizing an empire-size Church and, indeed, ecclesial prosperity.

This era witnessed the rise of extraordinary bishops, known now as Church Fathers, such as Augustine and Chrysostom, whose homilies were rich in theology and pastoral in application.

In the year 590, Pope Gregory I ascended to the papacy. In these days, the Church was going through some growing pains and different forms of the Catholic Mass were circulating around the known world. Pope Gregory codified the liturgies, rearranged them and set the basic format into what scholars basically agree is the real beginning of what you'd recognize as a Roman Catholic Mass. Gregory's work was so important and so influential that was declared a saint by popular acclaim and is one of only three popes of the 266 popes to carry the honorific title "the great". (Pope St. Gregory the Great, Pope St. Leo the Great, Pope St. Nicholas the Great are the three. What about Pope John Paul II? Some people call him "John Paul the Great", it's true. There's really no formal procedure for such a title, they have to arise from general use. At this point, there's not enough evidence that the title will catch on. I'd dispute that he earned such a title, but that's more than I really want to get into).

The "Gregorian Mass" still lives today, albeit further developed in history. St. Gregory is the patron of a group that a friend of mine is starting to bring and support the Traditional Latin Mass to Johnson County, Kansas. The group is called The Society of Pope St. Gregory the Great in his honor.

Through the long history of Catholicism, the Mass has endured some ups and downs. By the middle ages (what used to be called the "dark ages"), some problems began to pop up. Basically, people weren't catechized (taught about the Church) very well and started getting confused on what was really going on at Mass. Priests often had crummy country-seminary training and often weren't much better educated than the serfs to whom they were preaching.

These midieval laymen often witnessed the priest raise up the unleavened bread and saying "Hoc est enim corpus meum" ("This is my body") and confused it for the words "Hocus Pocus"-- thus coining the term. It also goes to say that many didn't understand the Mass as much more than a magic trick. Complicated subjects such as Transubstantiation were basically WAY over the head of the regular peasant. These were distant days for Catholics, much of whom who were very removed from their religion. Various Church Councils were called in this time to declare and affirm a number of things, there were five Lateran councils, some in France, some in Constantinople, around Italy-- there were a lot of councils held in a lot of places. These councils had a number of functions like addressing different heresies that people were making up at the time, dealing with the newly re-infamous Knights Templar, making sure that Catholic laity were actually receiving Holy Communion at least once a year, defining the functions (and later, split) of the Eastern and Western Churches, governing politics and how many angels can dance on the head of a pin (seriously). Councils decided all kinds of stuff.

About the time of the Renaissance, the papacy was a moral mess. The eight renaissance popes were big benefactors of the newly-rediscovered fine arts, but were really shady characters. You can do your own research on the renaissance popes, but suffice it to say that they carried a reputation for serving themselves before serving God or man.

Then stuff began to change for the better. The biggest council (in terms of impact on the Mass) was the Nineteenth Council one, beginning in 1545. This Council of Trent took place over 18 years, lasted through 5 popes and became bascially the benchmark of Catholic thought for the next 500 years. It was called to address the heresy of Protestantism, to reaffirm the Catholic Mass and to reform the Church.

Trent was a huge deal and can't be overestimated. It was basically a house-cleaning council and truly formalized the Catholic Mass-- which would go substantially unchanged right up until Pope Paul VI would authorize a New Order of the Mass in 1970.

This New Order of the Mass (in Latin, Novus Ordo Missae) is also a big deal.

We all know about the 1960's. We know that was the decade that changed EVERYTHING. Music. Fashion. Technology. Architecture. Science. Drugs. Politics. Culture. Art. Education. The list goes on and on-- and includes Religion (not just Catholicism, mind you)

In the 1950's and building up to 1962, there was a lot of turmoil in the Chuch. The First Vatican Council in the 1868 began to define how a Catholic should address or embrace biblical literalism and how to combat the heresy of Modernism (a problem the Church has to deal with from time to time). But that council was drawn to a quick close when Italy fell into civil war (a problem Italy has to deal with from time to time) and the business of the Council was never finished. By the 1950's, some people would say that a lot of the bishops of the Church had succombed to the temptations of Modernism and were wandering from the lessons of the great Council of Trent.

At this time, Pope Pius XII died and (Oversimplificaton Alert!) the cardinals didn't know who should replace him. It was a heady time in the Church and there was a feeling that Catholicism would be tied irrevocably to the past or wander dangerously to the modern world. Some people saw John XXIII as a "compromise candidate", he was a nice and jovial old man, trusted and old. May I underscore that he was 77 years old-- and that everyone knew that? It is my belief that he was elected to simply "buy time" for the church to figure out what direction to go. He was to be a "placeholder pope".

Well, in 1962, Blessed Pope John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council (commonly called "Vatican 2") as a "Pastoral Council" that was designed to make sure that the nearly-2000-year-old Church was still addressing the needs of a 1960's Catholic. All the bishops of the world were summoned to Rome and there was a nervous energy in the air. They sought out to "open the windows of the Church" and let some fresh air blow in.

I think that Blessed Pope John XXIII's council caught some people by surprise. A lot of people probably wondered if the Good Pope knew what he was getting into.

Then predicably, John XXIII's age caught him and he died before the his great Council could be completed.

I wonder what Vatican 2 would have looked like if he'd been able to see it to the end. But such thoughts are just predicting history, and predicting history is just making up the story the way you wished it happened.

By the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, it was clear that the bishops were going to go beyond the essential pastoral concerns of those latter-day Catholics. And by 1970, we'd have a whole new Mass. This New Order, the Mass of Pope Paul VI would be loosely based on that old Tridentine Mass (Mass of the Council of Trent) that had been the gold-standard for 500 years, based in the Gregorian Mass of the Sixth Century.

I'm not here to pass judgement on the Catholic Mass. I can appreciate both forms of the Roman Liturgy, the Ancient Mass and the Novus Ordo. But the differences are so striking and the change was so swift that Catholics of the 1960s describe it as if they just walked into the wrong church.

It was a time of HUGE upheaval for the Faith. Splinter groups would dig in their heels to resist change, others felt that the change wasn't finished went way farther than the Council and the Church ever intended to change the sacred liturgy of the Roman Catholic church. We saw (and see) people who refuse to acknowledge the authority of popes, who assert that every pope since then is an imposter pope, who say that Pope Paul VI was a grand switcheroo with a kidnapped and secretly imprisoned pontiff... Those were heady days to be a Roman Catholic.

In many ways, these are heady times to be a Roman Catholic, but that's a whole different post altogether.

Before I wrap up this post, I want to make a couple things clear: the Pauline Mass is a legitimate form of the Mass. Some people might tell you otherwise; those people are wrong. The Second Vatican Council was a pretty important event. It produced a number of documents that are to serve the Church in its care to the world. Some assert that the documents are poorly written and leave more questions than answers-- I can't speak authoritatively on that subject and will decline to do so. But the documents are real and you can buy them in bookstores and read them for yourself. Enjoy.

Some councils are more important than others. The First Council of Nicaea (325) was tremendously important, it defined what it meant to be a Christian. The Second Council of Lyons (1274) was a pretty big deal, bridging the Roman and Greek Churches and establishing the format for electing popes.

But pop quiz: what happened at the Council of Chalcedon (451)? How about the Council of Vienne (1311)? Yeah, I thought so.

You know what I feel about the Council of Trent (1545). And presumably, the Second Vatican Council will turn out as one of those councils that left an indeliable mark on Catholicism. But I fear that a little more than the bathwater went out through the Church's newly open windows.

Well anyway, there's some changes going on in the United States in the way that priests offer the Novus Ordo Missae. And in my opinion, they're changes for the better.

So here's your homework: read the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops new translation of the Mass at http://www.usccb.org/liturgy/missalformation/OrdoMissaeWhiteBook.pdf See if you can spot the changes.

We'll get to a little more specific review sometime. Hopefully sooner than later, but it's August and you'll get what you get.

NOT.

Yikes. Saint Vitus, patron of dancers, ora pro nobis!

Please!

Hat tip: American Papist, via Diogenes of Catholic World News

The Windsor Hills Baptist Church is the kind of Church that makes Senator Barack Obama pretty nervous.

The Windsor Hills Baptist holds a youth conference every summer that tries to get young people interested in church. According to the website, the youth conference has all the predictable bible teen camp things like preaching, skits, a big country cookout, volleyball, basketball, choirs, and a preacher kids' conference. There's also a drawing for an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle.

You know. All the typical stuff.

Unfortunately, the gun giveaway has been cancelled. It turns out the head pastor had an some kind of foot injury, so they're not giving away the gun this year. Luckily, someone's loaning the church a shotgun so they can still have the shooting competition.

The Windsor Hills Baptist Church Youth Conference website also contains the complete opinion document of the United States Supreme Court in the District of Columbia v. Heller decision about the right to bear arms. The site doesn't have any word on whether this will be specifically be discussed at the cookout or the preacher kids' conference, but I'd suggest that attendees should bring a highlighted and annotated copy of the Heller Opinion anyway. Organizers will then try to pry it from your hands.

All jokes aside, little events and stunts like this to get young people interested in church usually don't turn out well. For one, they're usually conceived by adults trying to be "hip" and attended by youth who either (a) see right through the adults' charade, or (b) are probably pretty uncool. I'm sorry if the second point above doesn't sound charitable. I don't mean it as an insult, just as informed reporting. I was in category (b) for a lot of my junior high and high school days, so I've been there.

What happened to me is why I'm disinclined to appreciate or encourage young people to get interested in the LifeTeen stuff that some Catholic churches offer. LifeTeen is a format of Mass and Youth Groups that try to incorporate bad Christian Rock and hip preaching to high schoolers who are supposed to be enjoying it. I'll get to that in a moment.

I went to one of these services a couple years ago by accident at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Lenexa, Kansas (yes, the same Holy Trinity that refused to let a Catholic organization use a side chapel for Mass). This is when I was trying to figure out how to be Catholic again and how to rejoin the Church after being away for years. Sunday morning had gotten away from me and I missed all the Masses being offered around town. I found that Holy Trinity had a 5:00 PM Mass on Sundays and set out for evening Mass.

Little did I know.

The lyrics to the Christian rock music were on the overhead projector being shown on the wall right night to our Lord crucified on the Cross. They had a band of about nine gentrifying gray haired old men playing acoustic guitars and swaying back and forth to their own rhythms. About 40% of the people there hadn't been "teens" for at least 40 years--in the spirit of charity, I'll presume they drove their kids to Mass. When Father Tom Dolezal delivered his sermon, he plopped down on the sanctuary steps and sprawled out on the floor and preached from this sprawl for the next 20 minutes or so. It's been a couple years ago, so I don't remember the homily or if it was good, but I do remembering that the whole Mass was a disjointed conglomeration of dippy music and hugging sessions that could best be described as pseudo-Catholic.

And if I were 13 years old and in junior high again, I bet I would have kind of liked it--or at least thought that I should like it. I had a pretty shallow understanding of my faith back then and was kind of scared to challenge myself. It's a long story that I haven't totally sorted out in my head, but I was developing a stunted personal theology that was about to get totally confused by my Catholic High School religion classes that mixed in strange admiration of Buddhism, Protestantism, Secular Humanism, Deism and "diet" Catholicism that didn't make any sense and wouldn't stand up to my own intellectual thinking. I'd eventually talk myself out of God altogether, but that'd be a few years after I was a smiling 13-year-old gluing felt banners for school Masses in the gymnasium.

You know how young children picture God as an old man with a white beard in a chair that sits on a floating cloud? Kids see this bearded God as some kind of genie who grants wishes, called "prayers", whenever they ask. When kids start to get older, they figure out that God is not some kind of magic-making wish-giver and struggle to replace that notion of God with something else. Enter: felt banners and Christian Rock. Some people never get out of this stage in life; I think some of them end up driving their children to LifeTeen Masses.

By the time I went to college, my Catholic thinking had ended up as Moral Relativism and then just outright quitting. I'd had enough. God seemed like a confusing delusion that was a trick for suckers and dupes, the only people that really figured God out were the atheists and the televangelists. Though I'd never say as much publicly, I didn't have much time for the Church as I knew her and wasn't interested in finding time.

In an unrelated path of my life, I'd eventually end up making a mess of myself and my life; it'd take that point for me to pick something else. You know the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? I decided to change what I was doing; the results I had been getting kind of sucked. I don't need to go over this story again, you can read about it in the introduction if you want.

So what does all of this have to do with Baptists and their assault rifles? Admittedly, not much. But seeing youth conferences and teen camps tend to remind me of this story. I wonder if our attempts to cultivate a crop is just casting seed on rocky ground, where the seed will sprout but doesn't develop roots. Of course the flip-side is true too! It'd be hard to tell an eight-year-old about about St. John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul, the sense of loneliness, desolation and abandonment by God that is often considered the hallmark of intensely deep Christian mysticism. Eight-year-olds are still in the felt-banner stage!

But when these Oklahoma City teenagers grow up to be adults, will they still consider the Almighty Lord to be something squeezed between basketball and trap shooting? I don't know. Maybe their conference does a nicer job of addressing these issues than I give them credit. Yet I reserve the right to remain a skeptic.

And not just because it's a Baptist camp and I'm a Catholic! Catholics are pretty good shots too.

My Dad grew up going to a little congregational Protestant church in an old part of Kansas City, Kansas. His conversion to the Catholic Church was an intellectual decision.

Mom's conversion, a few years before Dad, was based in an emotional connection and a bit of divine providence. It's her story, not really mine, so I won't share it here. But if we're ever hanging out some time, ask me. It's a great story. But I digress.

A lot of Dad's perspective on the Catholic Church comes from his Protestant background, it's interesting to me to hear him posit on the Church because his point of view is pretty different than mine. But he's Catholic and for years helped teach the classes for people wanting to learn more about Catholicism since he'd done it all before (and knows how to speak Protestant).

One of the things that he likes to chuckle about is how his church would hire their own preacher. If that preacher spent too much time chastising the congregation, they'd call a committee together and fire the reverend. If they got a really good preacher, the little church would see attendance grow as people would bring their friends and family. If they had a preacher that wasn't a real dynamic speaker (an occupational hazard in the preaching business), there weren't so many butts in the pews any more.

On paper, Catholics don't do that. If we get a priest assigned to our parish that is a crummy homilist, folks, we're stuck with him. If he doesn't offer Mass just exactly the way you like it or if his sermons ramble meaninglessly for twenty minutes--tough cookies. He's going to be at the altar for the next 2 to 8 years. Ordinary Catholic churches are divided into parish boundaries, if you live in a particular parish's boundaries, you're to go to the corresponding Church. If you want to be a member of a parish outside the boundaries, you've actually got to get permission from your territorial parish to join the other. It's not really the hassle that it sounds like, I promise. My lovely wife and I did it.

There are non-territorial parishes, called "personal parishes", who carry permission from the Bishop to operate without boundaries. Personal Parishes serve a particular mission or need--like the Holy Trinity Chapel in Johnson County. It serves the Korean Catholic community. Additionally, a lot of Latin Mass communities are based in personal parishes. But again, I digress.

Because people are generally divided into their neighborhood parishes, congregations way outlast priests. In my Ordinary round spaceship parish, there's people in the pews that remember the parish before it was considered Ordinary and before it was a round spaceship. The biggest difference is that your usual rank-and-file Catholics don't get a vote in who their priest is going to be--the Bishop makes those decisions, not some self-appointed committee. There's probably a lot of people who'd like a vote in the process, but the Catholic Church is not a democracy! So if you get stuck with a priest that doesn't flip your dipper, you've just got to wait it out.

And this too, shall pass.

It probably wasn't as big of a deal until the last few decades. There used to be a lot more priests than there are now, a large parish might have a main pastor and 3 or 4 other associate pastors. So if one priest wasn't very sermon-oriented, you might not catch his stop in the rotation for weeks at a time. But these days, even the huge suburban parishes are lucky if they've got 2 priests, some country priests might be pastors to 3 or 4 parishes at the same time. So if you're idea of liturgy and Father's idea of liturgy don't match up, there's not much avoiding it. But for the last 500 years or so until the 1960's, the Mass was a lot more codified and wasn't so priest-centric.

One thing my Dad likes to talk about is how good it was that the Second Vatican Council de-emphasized the priest as the only portal to God; he says that the old Tridentine Latin Mass was rigidly priest-centric. He's never been to the old Mass and isn't interested in going. That's fine. He doesn't have to go! But I'd make a case that between the pick-and-choose prayers, the priest's chair is in the middle of the room in front of the tabernacle and crucifix, the priest standing at the middle of the room at an altar table-- and all the pews wrap around him behind the altar table, that all the altar servers have been reduced to mere props to hold books or fetch cruets for the priest--in fact, the Novus Ordo Mass is MORE priest-centric than the old Mass. In the TLM, the priest and people each faced the Lord together, altar boys attend to the sanctuary and congregation as well as the priest, the priest's chair is off to the side and all the focus is on Christ on the cross. In fact, with the priest standing before some of the great high altars, the priest is really quite dwarfed by the majesty of Christ on the altar. But again, I digress.

In any manner, I wonder if when there's a mismatch between priest and congregation, who is more uncomfortable--priest or congregation?

Good Father Rossman is a recently ordained priest and associate pastor of Prince of Peace Church in Olathe, Kansas. He's on his first assignment out of seminary, and it looks like some of his congregation wants to butt heads with him. As he's presented the story, he's got some parishioners who just start singing their own songs at daily Mass and don't care to listen to what he says about the liturgy. Sorry folks, it doesn't work like that. It's the priest's call, not yours.

Liturgy is quite a mess for your average Catholic in the pews. We've all got an opinion. If you're a recent convert and think you don't have an opinion, wait until you've got a new priest assigned to your parish--trust me, you've got an opinion (and it may not be a charitable opinion). Going to Mass on Sundays is how most churchgoing Catholics interact with their Church. For most of us, that's the only time we really spend thinking about being Catholic. So if we're going to give an hour or so, we expect that the priest is going to act out the show just the way we want it.

Expecting perfection is probably asking for disappointment.

Liturgical abuses and honest mistakes aside, priests generally want to offer a good Mass every day. They (should) take time to write a good homily, they expect that the organist and choir knows how to do their part, that the lector has pre-read the readings and knows how to pronounce Zerubbabel, Artaxerxes, Mithredath and Tabeel, that the servers know how to light candles without setting their cassocks on fire... there's a lot of "moving parts" to Mass. I bet there's a little breath-holding every time the pianist bangs out the opening notes to "Gather us In".

But since most of us only "touch" the Church through Sunday Mass, we've got some high standards. Unfair? Perhaps. Real anyway? You bet.

I had a friend of mine shoot me a text message the other day wanting to know about a Mass he was just getting back from attending. He said that right after the "sign of peace", everyone knelt for the "Lamb of God" prayer and for the Centurion's prayer, but that Father just forgot that part and started handing ciboria to all the Extraordinary Ministers around him. It was probably an honest mistake and doesn't affect the validity of the Mass, but that's the kind of stuff that really gets under the skin of Catholics.

I bet that congregational Protestant churches don't have these dilemmas. But Catholics have a handbook that allows them to better micromanage from the pews, so it's right in our wheelhouse. We've got the script and the stage notes ahead of time.

This is something I really struggle with.

I have to stop myself from feeling real resentment when Mass doesn't go my way. I have a tendency to be a liturgical fuddy-duddy. It's not fair to Father, it's not fair to my wife (who disinterestedly puts up with my complaining), it's not fair to me. Being judgmental and polemic is a weakness, and I have to make up my mind ahead of time to not let Mass be a near occasion of sin. And I haven't figured out if it's something I should include in confession and how, exactly, to tell Father that his Mass drives me crazy. It's hard. But this isn't a perfect world, and when I was in the sanctuary, I was a crappy altar boy--so I guess I can understand a little of what the priest has to deal with. Early daily Mass helps that; they're usually so rigid and formulaic that there's not much variation. And there's not many moving parts: if there's an altar "boy", he's probably in his 60's, as is any lector that might be there.

I like daily Mass. I get up early and go at least once a week. The Masses are quiet and fairly slow, they really give a sense of a "sacred silence" that you don't get on Sunday Morning with the honking flutes in the children's chorus or the tambourine rattle of the noon-time folk Mass. Daily Mass people aren't there for entertainment or a show. I'm a fuddy duddy. I like daily Mass.

Yet still, each Mass offered validly and licitly is worth any other Mass offered validly and licitly. So personal preferences aside, we meet our Sunday Obligation even if we prefer the cantor to sing Marty Haugen songs rather than David Haas ditties. And as a matter of meeting the minimum obligations, this much is true. But if it is further true that the law of prayer is the law of belief, then based on some sloppy Masses, we've got some Catholics with sloppy beliefs. Myself included, of course--I'm on my way back from being a "Cafeteria Catholic", which for years I just somewhat jokingly called an "American Catholic".

This journey back is part of my fudd-duddery.

But, if as in Fr. Rossman's case, I agree that the priest can put limits on the Congregation making up their own service music, then probably the door swings both ways. Father probably has the ability to loosen the limits on what is fair game in a church liturgy--within the wide boundaries of the black and red print in our St. Joseph's hand missals.

These are the cards we're dealt. The Catholic Church isn't a democracy, we don't get a vote. Roma Locuta Est, Causa Finita Est. And when the Mass ends, go in peace. There's enough strife in the world, don't let church cause you any more.

During part of the time that I was away from the church and generally disinterested in religion, I figured that one day I'd start going again. I imagined that when I was married and had children, churchgoing would be a regular part of life. We would pack into our flying station wagon and buzz over to church. After Sunday morning Mass, my imaginary future family and I would all go to the imaginary future IHOP and eat imaginary future pancakes together.

Of course I'd do these things one day. My image of my own future wouldn't be complete without those things. Just like guys think of pitching tennis balls to their yet-unconceived sons and women think about teaching their yet-unconceived daughters to knit and vacuum (or whatever), I figured that church and religion would be part of my life again one day.

Yet I wondered when that day would actually start.

Not the get married and make babies part, I figured (and still figure) that day will come when it comes. But the church thing. I wondered when that would start.

If I just waited until this imaginary future family plopped into my lap to start going back to church, I wondered-- feared-- that this imaginary future family would be so entrenched in my ways that I wouldn't able to cajole them into the flying station wagon on Sunday mornings-- and figured that I wouldn't be up for it myself either. (I have a theory about changing and maintaining human behavior: inertia is strong; objects at rest tend to stay that way).

At this point in my life, I wasn't going to church and wasn't interested in doing so. And I had plenty of reasons to not go! Saturday nights usually crossed into Sunday mornings. I felt out of place sitting in church by myself. I don't really like the parishoners/music/priest/kneelers. My roommates or friends would think I'm some kind of space cadet. I'm just so tired on Sunday mornings. I'm strong enough in my religion that I don't need to go every week anyway. Sunday is my only day to rest. I'm not leading the kind of life that befits going to church, they probably don't want me there dirtying up the pews. Like the world needs another bad Catholic. Yadda yadda yadda. None of these were unique to me, none of them very strong on their own, none of them worth doing anything about.

So I didn't do anything about it.

It'd take a pretty crummy point in life to push me from being an inert body into a body at Mass. And my re-energizing to Faith began slowly; I sat alone in an adoration chapel and prayed the rosary quietly. I didn't have any words to say to God other than that-- the routine and formulaic prayers that Catholics say over and over are real blessings to have.

Some critics say that we say our memorized prayers out of habit or routine and that they aren't real conversations to the almighty Lord. They accuse Catholics of mistaking prayer for "magic words". The critics are welcome to their uninformed opinions. Sometimes when you don't know what else to say, it's important to have these prayers in your mind and heart. But I digress.

My journey back started alone, just me and Jesus in a quiet little chapel. Then I started going to Mass again. By myself. There's no feeling of alone-ness like going to Mass by yourself in a new parish-- you don't know anyone and figure they're all staring at you. Wondering why you're infiltrating their church. And the truth is that I did feel out of place at church by myself. I did dislike the parishoners/music/priest/kneelers. Sunday was my only day of rest. Giving that up was a real pain. It was a real sacrifice.

Over the last few years, I've taken a different perspective on life. Sunday mornings at Church have changed my opinion of days of rest; they've changed my opinion on parishoners/priests/music/kneelers. It's still a sacrifice, some Sunday mornings still start pretty early. But now I look at it as if I'd miss something if I didn't go to Church. That God is waiting for me and I shouldn't be late to his invitation.

It may sound hokey to you. But I don't go to church for you.

A few weeks ago when I was in New York, I went to Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral twice in that week. And on Wednesday morning when I got up early to go to Church with a friend on the trip, he and I walked the few long blocks from the hotel up to the Cathedral. People were on their way to work, to the tour busses, to stampede their way to wherever they were going. But we were there, getting up early on our vacation for church... and there we saw it.

Something we would have never seen or experienced if we'd slept in like people do on vacations.

But it was providence indeed.

The Lord works in mysterious ways, sometimes he gives us gifts when we give a little for him!

And this was a very special gift, a very special moment that we wouldn't have otherwise been given.

Hallelujah.

Holy cow.

Hot dog.

It took me a long time to appreciate how important receiving Communion on the tongue was for Catholics. I always figured it was something that only the overly pious people did and that rumors of people snatching the Eucharist were only objects of overblown rumors.

But people who discreetly steal hosts for nefarious purposes are not just characters in fiction.

From Creative Minority Report:

Webster Cook is a student at the University of Central Florida. He is also a top notch jerk.

Last week Cook attended a campus mass. At that mass, he attempted skulk back to his pew with a consecrated host. The extraordinary minister saw what he was doing and blocked his path until he put into his mouth. However, when he got back to his pew he removed the host. A lady from the Church saw what he done and attempted to get the host back from him by trying to pry his hand open. Cook now claims he is a victim.

As always, go read the whole thing.

Two notes:

(1) This could have been easily prevented if the Blessed Sacrament was given properly on the tongue. Such a practice would make abuses like this pretty hard to accomplish.

(2) It's further evidence how a seperation of Church and State benefits not only the State, but also the Church. It sounds like Mr. Cook was planning on making a political point, not a religious one when he says:

"The church feels that I'm the problem here," Cook said. "The problem is actually that this is a publicly-funded religious institution. Through student government here, we fund them through an activity and service, so they're receiving student money."

Some people insist that religion should stay out of government. I'm inclined to agree as long as the reverse it also true.

UPDATE:
I STRONGLY URGE you to send an email to the UCF President and Director of OSRR in protest. This is the email I just sent to:

jhitt@mail.ucf.edu (president) and pmackown@mail.ucf.edu (OSRR).

Dear Dr. Hitt,

I am writing you to express my sincere dismay with a student at the University of Central Florida. I'm sure you've already received a fair amount of email on the subject of Webster Cook. Futher, I'm sure that you understand that this is a serious offence that must be addressed by the University in light of the "Golden Rule" of conduct at UCF. Specifically: Rules of Conduct 2.F.3.a Disruptive Conduct; "An act that impairs, interferes with, or obstructs the orderly conduct, processes, and functions of the University or any part thereof." Furthermore, his actions are a direct slap to the UFC creed tenets of Integrity, Community and Excellence--a creed that, no doubt, the University of Central Florida takes quite seriously.

Mr. Cook is no doubt a bright young man. He serves on Student Government and even started a student run newspaper. But his little stunt is a serious offence against his fellow students and other members of the UCF community and must be addressed by the university in an expeditious manner. It is nothing short of religious harassment, and no public academic institution should stand for such conduct.

Please find this email CC'd to Ms. Patricia MacKown, Director of the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities, as per the instructions of the Office of Student Conduct rules section 2; "Alleged violations of the UCF Rules of Conduct shall be reported in writing to the Director of the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities (OSRR) or designee. The written complaint of violation of the UCF Rules of Conduct shall be made no later than six months following discovery of the alleged violation."

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

UPDATE 2:
I hear that Dr. Hill is on vacation. Nonetheless, he is responding to his emails quite quickly. His blackberry must be getting a workout! Here is his extremely prompt reply:

Thank you for your note Mr. Walberg. I have been told that Mr. Cook returned the consecrated Eucharist yesterday. The university takes this matter very seriously, and it is in the hands of our student judicial system. John C. Hitt President, UCF

I hope that news is true.

If so, it's time to start praying for Webster Cook's repentance and forgiveness.

Several days ago, I told a story about seeing something at Mass that I'd never seen before, and I appreciate the charity and kindness extended by commenters on that post.

Well, yesterday at Mass, I saw another unusually rare occurrence. Ladies and Gentlemen: Eucharistic Prayer #1.

In the Ordinary Mass that most of us are familiar with, there are some options for the priest here and there to use at his discretion. A lot of the daily prayers have an option between different texts, the priest can pick which one he likes better or would fit the situation (say, a Mass attended by schoolchildren and a pre-work Mass at 6:15 AM have distinctly different needs). During the "Liturgy of the Eucharist" part of Mass (the communion part that happens after the "Liturgy of the Word" where the biggest bulk of Bible readings are read), there are four "Eucharistic Prayers" that the priest can pick from. As far as I understand, the priest can pick any of the four for any reason--or no reason in particular (I will stand to correction if I'm wrong).

Typically you hear EP II or EP III. EP 2 is the shortest and simplest, if a bit... dippy. EP 3 is also uncomplicated and a common fixture at Mass. EP 1 is quite similar to the old Latin Mass, translated to English and regularizing the language a bit. But it's extremely rare. Not as rare as EP 4, which might as well be purged from the book for its total disuse.

I guess since yesterday was the feast day of Saint Peter and Saint Paul-- two of the greatest saints in Christian history, father decided to "step it up" a bit and use an Eucharistic Prayer that mentions a couple of saints in it.

I wanted to thank the priest after Mass for doing something radical like that, but didn't get a chance to do so. I know that priests only hear complaints about Mass or get the vague "nice homily" comments, so a specific compliment would probably be a welcome change of pace. But I did like the little variation. I wonder what it'd take to get father to even try EP 4? I guess I shouldn't push my luck, and using a Mass prayer for novelty's sake probably isn't fitting either.

But still, the rarity wasn't lost on me this time. So here's your homework, gentle reader. The next time you're at Mass, follow along in the daily missal during the Eucharistic Prayer part, and if you hear anything besides EP 2 and EP 3, let me know. It's nice to think that the Church will use all of her liturgy every now and then, not just the shortest versions.

There's been a lot of discussion on the Catholic blogs about the proposed agreement between the Vatican and the SSPX. A lot of font will be spilled on this topic by people who are in a better position than me to have an informed opinion, but in hopes of producing a coherent comment, I will approach the subject here.

First, a moment of definitions and backstory. The SSPX is the Society of Saint Pius X, a fraternity of priests who, in short, offer Mass in the old pre-Vatican 2 form. This old form is properly called by a number of terms, commonly including the "Gregorian Rite," the "Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite" and the "Tridentine Latin Mass". I generally shorthand the old mass as the "TLM", that is the predominant acronym that you'll hear and see when the topic is discussed. The SSPX formed in 1970 after the Second Vatican Council introduced reforms to the Catholic Mass which substantially changed the liturgy under the direction of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in resistance to the New Order of the Mass (in latin, Novus Ordo Missae, commonly called the Novus Ordo or "NO").

The proverbial poop really hit the proverbial fan for the SSPX in 1988 when Abp. Lefebvre consecrated four SSPX priests as bishops in direction violation of the orders of then Pope John Paul II. In doing so, Abp. Lefebvre and the new bishops basically excommunicated themselves, kicking themselves out of the Catholic Church. Today, these excommunications are a badge of honor to many SSPX supporters who claim that the Vatican left the Catholic Church in the Second Vatican Council.

Today, the Novus Ordo Mass is the predominant Mass in Catholic Churches. It is the "Ordinary Form" of the Mass. It's what I grew up knowing and the format they use in the parish I still primarily attend. There aren't nearly as many TLMs as Novus Ordo Masses, but there are 3 regular TLM communities in my hometown of beautiful Kansas City. The communities are held by the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP) [a communion-with-Rome group of priests who split from the SSPX in the aftermath of the 1988 excommunications], the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest (ICRSS) [a communion-with-Rome group of priests a little newer than the FSSP], and the SSPX. I've never been to the St. Vincent De Paul chapel of the SSPX, but I hear that this KC congregation is one of the biggest SSPX congregations in the United States. The other two congregations are great and I'd recommend them to any Catholic trying to broaden and deepen their understanding of the Faith--and I'll issue a standing offer to any Kansas Citian: if you're interested in going to Mass at either one on any Sunday, drop me a line and I'll be happy to join you.

Our pope is a rather Tradition-friendly pontiff and has expressed interest in normalizing relations with the SSPX. Indeed, when before he was pope, he tried to negotiate an agreement between the SSPX and Pope John Paul II leading up to the 1988 excommunications that included official recognition and a new bishop, but Abp Lefebvre became suspicious of the offer and indicated that he would not accept the deal. This week, the Vatican again extended an offer to the SSPX saying that they would like to regularize the relationship between the two, saying that before they could begin reunification negotiations, Bishop Bernard Fellay (the current head of the SSPX) would need to accept 5 conditions that basically say that the SSPX will accept and respect the pope.

1. A commitment to a proportioned response to the generosity of the Pope.
2. A commitment to avoid any public speech which does not respect the person of the Holy Father and which can be negative for ecclesial charity.
3. A commitment to avoid the pretense of a Magisterium superior to the Holy Father and to not put forward the Fraternity [SSPX] in opposition to the Church.
4. A commitment to demonstrate the will to behave honestly in full ecclesial charity and in respect to the authority of the Vicar of Christ.
5. A commitment to respect the date - fixed at the end of the month of June - to respond positively. This will be a required and necessary condition for the immediate preparation for adhesion to have full communion.

This shouldn't be a tall order for an organization that puts a picture of the pope and a pledge of devotion on the website, but all evidence is that the SSPX thinks this is another trick or trap and are likely not going to accept these 5 conditions.

If that turns out to be true, it's sad for the Catholic Church. That would be a real missed opportunity. I don't roll with the SSPX because of these Canonical issues, but have a lot of respect for their history and their total adherence to Tradition.

Take the deal, Bernie.

The incomparable "Fr. Z" of the What Does The Prayer Really Say blog is emerging as the leading source for commentary on this subject. (Incidentally, if Fr. Z isn't part of your daily reading for Church matters, it's time to add him to your bookmarks). He has also encouraged people to pray a selection from the "Mass for the Unity of the Church" in the 1962 Roman Missal, reprinted here:

O God, Who settest straight what has gone astray,
and gatherest together what is scattered,
and keepest what Thou hast gathered together:
we beseech Thee in Thy mercy to pour down on Christian people,
the grace of union with Thee,
that, putting disunion aside and joining themselves to the true shepherd of Thy Church,
they be able to render Thee worthy service.

This is a worthy prayer for a very worthy cause. Take a moment if you will for this very special intention.

In nomine patris, et filii, et spirits sancti...

This is a long post, it streches nearly 3000 words and is 5 pages single-spaced. But it's important and thanks in advance for sticking through to the end.

Father Rossman has been hosting an interesting debate over the last couple weeks about the declining belief in the Eucharist among Catholics. LINKS: 1, 2, 3, 4.

This is an important discussion for the Church in the 21st Century--and indeed, it's been an important discussion for the Church for millennia! And on the topic, it seems like everyone has an opinion--and no one is really interested in anyone else's opinion. But we all know that opinions are like... oh, nevermind. Here's my opinion-- and yes, it may stink like you-know-what...

It starts with a story. My lovely wife and I were in New York last week with a couple friends of ours. While there, I was able to attend Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, the most famous church in America. I can't say that I really recommend a Sunday evening Mass to anyone wanting a truly spiritual experience, it has a pretty, yet businesslike feel to the service. Partly because it's a tourist site as much as a cathedral, and partly for other reasons that are... ineffable. If you go, you'll understand.

However, it was at this Mass that I saw something that I've NEVER EVER seen in the uncountable numbers of Catholic Masses in my life. The pews are kind of subdivided and communion is not an orderly process. It kind of jumbles up at the front of the church and lines look kind of mismashed. At this particular Mass, there were two priests and two habited nuns distributing Holy Communion to the faithful. I ended up in a line for one of the sisters and though I usually try to exercise my Catholic right to receive Holy Communion from consecrated hands, sometimes you just gotta make due, you know? Anyway, there was a young woman at the front of the line with her hands outstretched in the ordinary fashion, and the nun holding her ciborium quietly shook her head and mouthed the words, "I'm sorry, no." I was about 6 or 8 people back in line and couldn't hear the conversation (which wasn't for my ears anyway), but watched as this woman engaged in a short, quiet and futile debate to receive Holy Communion at a Catholic Mass. The whole exchange probably didn't take more than 30 or 45 seconds, but to my unbelieving eyes, it seemed like this scene played on for 10 or 11 minutes! Just as crisply dressed security guard was walking up to move this woman along, she turned around, hung her head, and breezily disappeared up the jumbled lines of people going to Communion.

You know, you see a lot of things in New York that you don't see in beautiful Shawnee, Kansas--but this was something I'd never seen before in my life.

In the Catholic Church, there are some basic tenets that you have to have fulfilled before you can receive communion (as a linguistic note: Catholics do not "take" communion, they "receive" communion. Of course, in today's Church where Communion is passed out like NECCO wafers pressed into your hand where you essentially give yourself communion as you wander back to your pew, what's the difference? *sigh* ). Basically, the rules are that you've got to be a Catholic, properly disposed and in "a state of grace". A lengthier and fuller explaination is at FishEaters.

I don't know what this woman's story is--and it doesn't matter that I do or don't. That's between her, her confessor and the good Lord. But it's UNUSUALLY unusual to see anyone be denied Communion, largely because it presumes that the minister knows the state of a person's soul. Maybe there's some story there, like this nun knows the woman personally, maybe the woman already received communion and got back in line for another bite, maybe she asked for a couple hosts so she could pack a communion for Monday morning--I don't know.

But I worry for her nonetheless. I hope it's some simple thing like she asked if she could take one back to a person in a pew, but I suspect it's a different story. It's a bad deal to walk around with sin on your soul. A way bad deal. Of course, the harder that a person tries to keep their soul pure, the harder it is to do. I once read an interview with Pope John Paul II that said the Devil works hardest on holy people because they're a bigger prize. In my personal experience, I can say that when you try to create a well-formed conscience so you can be a good person, you become more aware of your shortcomings. I hope this woman gets it all straightened out. Pray for her.

*****

It's hard to have a discussion about 21st Century Catholicism without beginning with the phrase "Well, before Vatican II, the Church used to do it this way..." And as a matter of catechesis or rhetoric, I've really tried to avoid doing that. But here, the situation demands, so forgive me and indulge the conversation for a moment.

When people used to go up for Holy Communion, they'd form a line and walk up to the front of the church, right up to the Sanctuary steps. Sometimes this process would be more or less orderly; parents might go at different times if mom watched the young kids and dad would attend to them when mom went up, some people said a brief prayer before they got in line as a way of preparing and focusing for receiving Christ--but in any event, they walked up to the front. Then waiting their turn, they'd step up to the altar rail and kneel. A priest and an altar boy would come in front of them. The altar boy would hold a paten under their chin (a small gold plate with a stick-handle) to catch any fallen hosts or crumbs. The priest would step up to the communicant, raise a host above the ciborium, and make a small sign of the cross with the Blessed Sacrament to bless them while saying Corpus Dómini nostri Jesu Christi custódiat ánimam tuam in vitam æternam. Amen. Then the communicant would stick out their tongue, the priest would place the Host on the communicant's tongue and would step up to the next person in the line. The communicant would get up, make the sign of the cross on themselves, and return to their spot in the pews.

The first time I saw this take place was a bit of an accident. Back then, I was checking out different Catholic churches in the city, just seeing what they looked like. I wandered into Our Lady of Sorrows and found this group of Catholics that were going to Mass in much the same way that Catholics have been going to Mass since Pope St. Gregory the Great in the Seventh Century. It was kind of surreal and I was not really prepared for what I was seeing.

I was used to the Ordinary Mass, where people sit in a round room, stare at each other across the middle of the building, grey-haired men play guitars and no one but the out-of-key choir sings "Gather Us In". People meander up to whomever is doling out communion to whomever stands in front of them. I don't mean to sound like a spoilsport Traditionalist--I'm really not a fuddy duddy, I promise. But it's just so different!

After that first Latin Mass, I was quiet and confused. It was so foreign, so exotic. It was really otherworldly. Please don't mistake this for romanticizing the old Mass, I really did not like it much. I didn't get it and wasn't sure if I did the right thing by even going and staying at this Mass; I would not return to this Mass for a couple years.

In the Ordinary form of the Mass, there are many different EMs--a term that my whole life I thought meant Eucharistic Ministers until I learned the term was Extraordinary Ministers. More on that in some other post. The priest consecrates the bread and wine where it transubstantiates into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Then he hands out all these gold bowls and cups out to a team of parishioner volunteers who distribute the Hosts to the people who line up for Communion. In my regular parish, the EMs wear full length white robes, though in most parishes, they do not. They go to pre-designated positions around the church where people process up to them, they hold a host or the cup in front of the communicant and proclaim "The body (blood) of Christ". The communicant holds out their hands--typically flatly, left hand over right and answer "Amen" The term "amen" is a complicated word that could suggest a number of affirmative meanings, but in Catholic School, they teach you that it means "I believe", and that saying it means you agree and subscribe to the act. Many people give themselves the sign of the cross as they walk back to their pew.

This practice is probably familiar; it's what happens in most Catholic parishes in the United States.

*****

Here, I'd like to focus on a subtopic for a moment. I'd like to get into a shallow basilology (king study, loosely).

This is often lost on Americans, since we're naturally disinclined to consider Royalty; we like our Presidents to be human, open and naked (in a matter of speaking). But if you can set you mind to being a loyal subject of a king, it changes your whole point of view! If any subject had a chance to hold the body of a fallen king, they wouldn't hold that body like they hold a cupcake, they would hold it as if it were more precious than any other possession on Earth. If you saw your king sacrifice himself for the good of the kingdom, it wouldn't be something you'd watch as if you were watching a high school play, you'd probably watch with rapt sorrow and bittersweet awe! You'd scrutinize your every movement, replay your every thought over and over, trying to remember where you were when you beheld the king in your midst.

To hold the Body of Christ in your hands... the terms "fear and trembling" should come to mind!

*****

It's got to be nerve-racking for a priest to be assigned to a new parish. There's so many people to meet, so many people that want to meet him. He's got to learn all the parish committees, all the volunteers, employees, teachers. There's little rhythms of each parish, small customs that end up varying from parish to parish. And I bet every priest assigned to a new parish feels "under the microscope" while the people in the pews study their every move. I can't even imagine.

Someone once told me that you can judge how good a priest was going to be by watching how he cared for the particles of communion.

To explain: the hosts that most Catholics get at Mass are specially designed to be, essentially, crumb-less. Handling them at the altar, distributing them around the church, they really don't fracture or fall apart. But they are broken on purpose. The priest breaks apart a host when he offers the Mass that he consumes at the altar. If the priest or an EM is running low on hosts but there is still a line of people in front of him or her, they'll often break hosts into smaller parts to make them last longer. And when you get the dozens of hosts in a ciborium, they inevitably create a little dust in the bottom of the bowl.

Consider that these things are still the Body of Jesus Christ, if just small particle fragments. How does father handle it? Does he meticulously clean each of the ciboria, taking time to make sure each little particle is carefully consumed?

Altar cloths used to stretch all the way to the floor to make sure that any small fragment would be caught, an altar boy would hold that paten under your chin to make sure that any imperceptible fragment would be caught, the host would be placed directly on your tongue--ensuring that no malevolent things could happen to the Body of Christ, it'd come straight from the priest to the communicant. After communion, Father kept his right hand thumb always touching his index finger until Mass was over and he could properly clean his fingers. They were the fingers that held the Blessed Sacrament--the actual Body of Jesus Christ-- and if any fragment or particle were left on them, they needed to be handled with great reverence and sacred care! Father couldn't march out of mass in recessional for glad-handing in the vestibule until he had fully attended to any potential fragments on his hands, clothes, in the altar cloths or in the sacred vessels.

They held the King. You don't mess around with the King.

*****

Kneeling was not always a part of the Catholic liturgy. Some of the great old cathedrals and basilicas of Europe don't even have pews, much less kneelers. People would just stand in the back and watch Mass happen in front of them--sometimes even behind a "rood screen" that was a barrier between the priest and the people. Even today, Benedictine monks do not fully incorporate kneeling into their liturgies, their order is older than the practice of kneeling at Mass.

But kneeling has long been a part of Jewish and Christian prayer as a way of recognizing the power of the Lord. Even as far back as Moses and Aaron, people were kneeling before the Ark of the Covenant and in the presence of the Lord. Remember the movie Dogma? When God appeared on Earth, Bethany grabbed Jay and Silent Bob and forced them to kneel in the ground? Gentle Reader, if you ever have a chance to see God appear before you, I'd suggest you hit your knees pretty quickly. The very posture is a sign of humiliation, it's an ancient way to recognize that the King has dominion over you. This isn't time for asserting your "human dignity". Just a tip.

I've come to think of communion in much the same way. When Catholics go to Mass, they all do the "Catholic Calisthenics" (SitStandKneelStandSitStandKneelKneelKneelStandKneelStandSit, not necessarily in that order) at different parts of the Mass. In the Ordinary form of the Mass, the rule of thumb is that you stand during the Gospel, you stand or kneel during prayer, otherwise take a seat. But from the point of the Eucharistic Prayer on, the basic posture is KNEELING. Why? God's in the room, that's why. He's right there, on the altar, in the sanctuary, in the ciboria. And if you ever have a chance to see God appear before you, hit your knees pretty quickly.

When you receive communion, when you are given custody of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, why is it so different? You will never be closer in your entire life than when His body is held before you. Gentle reader, hit your knees. You are before the King.

Sometimes after people receive Holy Communion, some Catholics saunter back to the pews and plop down in the seat and watch the other people march around the church for Communion. Boys scope out the cute girls. They look for people they know around the room. It's the "spectator" part of Mass. No one has ever told them about the knees thing--they may see some people in the room kneeling, but probably just consider them to be part of the "fuddy-duddy Traditionalist" contingent that's part of every Ordinary parish.

I'll chalk this up to ignorance rather than malevolence. People just don't know. They've never been told. Not enough other people do it anyway, millions of Catholics can't be wrong, right?

*****

I could go on and on. We could talk about how you would dress if you had an audience with the King; we could talk about how the EM's take the sacred vessels that held the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ into a back room and seem to just drop them off to be washed later; we could talk about the stories of the priest sitting down during communion and letting the EMs do the dirty work of distributing communion and clearing the altar; we could go on and on and on and on and on.

I don't want to be a complainer. Really, I don't.

But here's the thing: why have people lost their faith and belief in the Eucharist? I'd assert it's because they go to Mass and don't see anyone else taking it seriously. The whole thing is casual. The whole thing seems snack time rather than humanity taking part in the sacrifice at the altar. How could you blame people? There's no mystery, no sense of an ethereal presence. It's all so common. It's all so ordinary.

And in the Mass-- as in the rest of life-- familiarity breeds contempt.

People don't believe because they don't see anyone else acting on those beliefs. Sure, actions don't always speak to beliefs--but shouldn't they? Shouldn't your actions and your prayers lay testimony to what you believe? It's not a matter of showing everyone else at Church that you're a kneeling kind of Catholic. It's a matter of showing deference to the Lord, Christ the King, to whom we are all subject.

That's my opinion. Take it for what it's worth. Congratulations if you made it all the way through.

ADDENDUM: In fairness, I need to make this clarification. I don't kneel to receive communion when I go to the Ordinary "Novus Ordo" Mass. I don't want to make a scene or give someone a feeling like something is wrong (with them or me) at communion. I remember as a kid there was a guy in the parish who would kneel to receive the Blessed Sacrament. It was strange. I think it made people even more distant from the Tradition. These things can be done by baby steps.

Well, I failed last week.

Sixteen weeks into my promise to God that I’d go to a daily Mass every week besides my Sunday Obligation, I missed a week. My wicked cold and the copious amounts of NyQuil held me in bed too long each ‘morn.

But I planned to make up for it this week by going twice—maybe even 3 times! And no better than to start right away, right?

This morning, the alarm sounded at 5:00, usually enough time to make 6:15 Mass at Prince of Peace in Olathe, which is by my office. But I dilly-dallied this morning, and didn’t hit the PoP parking lot until 6:20, and when I got to the breezeway to the small daily Mass chapel, I heard they were into the first reading.

The daily Mass chapel is a sad little non-descript room next to their Perpetual Adoration chapel that doesn’t seat too many people. I understand why the parish uses the small room rather than the big gymnasium nave for the Sunday Masses, but that little room is an inglorious space for the glory of the Lord. (is it more inglorious than the PoP main church? No. But that’s a whole different topic altogether)

But since the daily Mass chapel is so small, I figured it’d be disrespectful and disruptive if I marched in after the Mass had begun, and I decided to duck into the Adoration chapel for a rosary and maybe a short Lectio Divina. But though the Perpetual Adoration was unlocked, it was empty (Hellooooooo? Perpetual?). Someone had the good sense to veil the Monsterance with a very pretty cover, but the lights were out and I got the impression that they didn’t want anyone there.

The more I think about it, this disturbs me more and more. While our Lord had been attended to, there was really no one there to protect the Sacred Species. The room was unlocked and ignored.

But I left, too. Without thinking. I probably should have stayed, but it didn’t occur to me then. It’s the first time I’ve ever had to think about this.

Alas, it looks like I’ll have the alarm set again tomorrow—this time for 4:50 AM. (!) And I’m going to look into the proper way to temporarily close a Perpetual Adoration chapel—any suggestions on where to start this?

Man, I can’t get over how many altar boys they use in the Tridentine Latin Mass. At the High Mass, there’s roles for 4 or more altar boys, but it’s not uncommon to have a ton of altar boys. The FSSP congregation of St. Philippine Duchesne has what seems like 3 dozen altar boys marching down their aisles and perching beside the altar.

I was an altar boy from when I was 11 until maybe 13, and generally wasn’t very good at it. I’d chalk it up to training. The dozen or so boys in my class in Catholic School who signed up to be altar boys were trained in a 2 hour session by the school custodian who was in seminary when he was a younger man. Otherwise, we learned it “on the job”. There wasn’t much to do, so I don’t think the custodian was going to spend much time prepping us for Mass when he had floors to sweep instead.

We’d typically have 2 altar boys, one who was in charge of holding the book and ringing the bells, the other would help walk up the cruets and hold the water/basin and towel for when the priest washes his hands. Most of the time, the altar boys would prefer to take the non-bell side because you didn’t have to be as responsible for as much—not that there was much to do anyway. Later, they’d add two more servers, but the extra two didn’t do anything other than walk up and down the aisle with the priest at the beginning and end of Mass.

I never really got the hang of where to stand and how to hold the sacramentary book for the priest. Monsignor Curtin would try to push me into place and push my hands up to hold the book higher, but I would forget and do it wrong the next time. The bell-ringing server manned a small set of altar bells during a couple points during the Liturgy of the Eucharist. The bells sat by the kneeler pad on the side of the altar steps over by the credence table. Sometimes I’d miss my cue for when to ring them—but most of the other altar boys had the same problem. Again, spotty training.

Besides the wine and water cruets, we also had to walk the bowls of unconsecrated hosts from the credence table up to the priest at the altar table. The bowls back then were short, squatty ciborium footed bowls rather than tall chalice-looking ciboria, though I haven’t seen those at St. Joseph’s for years now. At the Sunday Masses, there’d be a heavy gold pitcher full of tart communion wine too—but I haven’t seen that in years, either. That’s the thing about the Novus Ordo—if you don’t like the way the priest offers the mass, just wait a few months and something will change.

One day when I was bringing the ciboria from the credence table over to the altar, I kicked the bells halfway across the sanctuary. Monsignor swung his head over in horror while I hurriedly put the ciborium bowls on the corner of the altar table, then scrambled to fetch the bells back to their position by the kneeler pad. Monsignor would later tell me that he thought I dropped the ciborium full of (unconsecrated) hosts and that it’d take a while to clean up the hosts and refill the bowl with new ones. That would have been way worse.

The year after the next, the Knights of Columbus took over altar-boy training; and all of us current servers were asked to re-train. Because re-training was held during school hours, we all jumped at the opportunity to get out of English period and brush up on serving; only the old retired Knights were holding training, since all the non-retired Knights were at their jobs, and some of the old guys were a little mixed up in how we were supposed to do the job. I don’t think they’d thought much about how to train us. There were a bunch of new parts, like bowing or genuflecting when we criss-crossed the sanctuary, but there was some confusion as to whether we should bow or genuflect and if we should face towards the tabernacle against the wall or the massive crufix suspended way above it, or if we should bow or genuflect towards the altar table out in the middle of the sanctuary, if we had to kneel during all of communion or if we had to stand in our stations during all of communion—it was all pretty confusing for them and us. I figured it was just old guys being old and mixed up, little did I know it was symptomatic of the whole Church trying to re-invent the Mass and retain the Mass at the same time.

Sometime thereafter, I asked to be taken of the server schedule. I was pretty confused as to what to do, and didn’t really feel like it was all that important. I was just about the last of my classmates to be still serving anyway, and figured it was something better suited to a new crop of 5th graders anyhow.

We all wore the black & white cassocks and surplices then, but they were pretty really pretty worn out and ratty. All of the white surplices had little burn holes in them from leaning across the candles and a lot of the black cassocks were frayed at the sleeves and hems. Shortly after I gave up being an altar server, they mercifully and sadly replaced all the worn out altar boy wear with boring plain white polyester albs and a white rope cincture more befitting the new co-ed servers. This was an improvement in my 13-year-old mind from the dorky cassocks and surplices, but I thought they looked a little… plain.

All in all, I never understood why men of my parents’ generation were so excited about being an altar boy. It really just wasn’t all that cool. But to hear them talk, it was a really special honor to be a server at Mass. Ho hum. There wasn’t much to it.

So when I first found the Latin Mass as an adult, I was really taken aback by the servers. Why did they need any more than 1.5 servers?! And they all wore the black & white cassocks and surplices that I wore as a child. The B&W’s looked great, really. In a way I wasn’t expecting them to look—they seemed to fit the feelings of the Mass, in a tidy formality that the white polyester robes just didn’t seem to capture. But here were divisions of altar boys marching in procession to bring in the priest to the Holy Mass. And as each of them marched up the sanctuary steps, they smartly genuflected and parted, filing in to flank the altar. And during the mass, they crisscrossed the altar in rigid efficiency and I began to think—aha! This is why the grown men today so fondly remember being altar boys, this was really something to be proud of! I think the youngest boys were around 8 years old, the oldest appeared 15 or 16 years old, and the young boys seemed to be in “training” for the day where they could ring the bells or present the ciboria or position the missal around the altar, or the coolest job of all—handling the cencers to incense the priest, congregation and the other altar boys. Of course they’d be proud! There was choreography involved, responses that were the job of the altar boys to assist in the mass—for most of the prayers, the altar boys were the only ones who could hear what was going on, since the priest was talking to the Lord, not announcing the prayers to the crowd. Clearly these kids weren’t trained by a custodian on his lunch break or by confused septuagenarians with happy-hour plans at the K of C hall's bar next door.

That was a special role, it wasn’t just the lame parts like book-holding or just kind of standing on a side-step. Sure, there were those parts too; nearly a dozen of the altar boys seemed to be particularly cast to just stand there in the sanctuary in their B&W’s at attention. But those boys don’t seem out of place, I wonder if they see their job as important cast members, or if they feel like they’re just there to stand around. From my seat in the pew, I think it’s great. If there was just one or two extra, then it wouldn’t have seemed so neat to me. But in a chorus of a dozen extra servers, it is pretty cool.

Pretty cool? I wouldn’t have ever thought I’d say that about being an altar boy. I think I understand how so many of altar boys would want to become priests one day, since they had been so close and so intimate to the action of a Mass that could sometimes seem so distant. My altar boy time was just the opposite, the Mass had been re-thought to so be so open and public that the altar boys seemed more like conspicuous props on display rather than players in the sacrifice of the Mass.

Hey, I understand why we ended up with an open and public Mass. Conceptually, I even agree with it. But sometimes I wonder just how much we lost when we threw out the bathwater.

Saint John Berchmans, patron of altar servers, Pray for us!