Vespers of Pentecost - Unleashing the Spirit

There are still times when events or experiences convince me of the limits of the visual arts, including both film and photography. Sometimes the naked eye and the physical insertion of yourself into an ambiance provides an incomparable experience. I had one of those last evening in the Kyiv Pokrovsky Monastery Saint Nicholas Church. It is the big church of a female Orthodox monastery just a short walk from home. Both for our Ukrainian Greek Catholics and for the Orthodox, first vespers of Pentecost are quite solemn and well attended. Not thinking so much about that, my intention was to show a house guest the monastery. I have been to the monastery, usually with guests, a number of times over these three years, but for me personally this time was exceptional.

As any Byzantine Church, St. Nicholas of Pokrov is oriented; the apse it toward the east. As is often the case with Orthodox Churches, the walls of the church are uniformly darkened from candle soot to the point you can hardly make out any of the frescoes on the walls. In recompense, because it is a wealthy monastery the iconostasis and numerous shrines throughout the church sparkle with gold to the point of ostentation. St. Nicholas has a towering iconostasis in brilliant gold: not so much a distraction as a striking invitation to focus on Christ as Oriens, the Dawn from on High. Either by custom or because of the exterior scaffolding over the main west entrance to the church, you enter on the north side and find yourself, despite a side chapel and a couple of shrines, right in the midst of the church. The evening office was being sung and the priest (unseen) was alternating with the nuns' choir. There are no pews or general seating in a Byzantine church, the nuns not in choir where scattered about among the laity, all assisting silently, most standing.

What struck me was that different than most Orthodox churches and even than St. Nicholas as I have otherwise experienced it, there was none of the usual milling around of people absorbed in their own devotions, signing themselves, bowing and kissing the accessible icons and relics. All stood in ordered rows, with heads slightly bowed, obviously absorbed in prayer. The rich, spiritual attention of the scene truly touched me with joy and inspired from the depths of my heart a fervent prayer for the recovery of this which was once our common heritage: orientation toward Christ and silent attentiveness to a prayer which is both ours and on our behalf.

That being said, I guess I sort of want to respond with this post to a question raised by Fr. Z. after reporting a list of advantages for priests in celebrating the Liturgy ad Orientem. He asked for input on what then would be the advantages for the congregation. My response to Father would be very simply that by not restoring our ancient tradition of orientation in worship, which we share with the Byzantine world, we are depriving our people and ourselves as priests of that which is needed for worship, focus on Christ. Orientation and an attentive silence are a sine qua non for doing that work which God calls us to do in worship, caught up to the Heavenly Court in the company of the angels and saints.

We do not have the tradition of the iconostasis and brilliant gold probably should be reserved to rich, Orthodox, female monasteries founded by pious Russian princesses in the 19th Century. We do have the tradition of the high altar and the Cross of Christ on high. We've been too distracted with horizontal exchanges which are proper to gathering spaces outside the sanctuary. After nearly fifty years, it is time to make haste to come home to the tradition of always and everywhere and restore our focus. A congregation deserves no less than the best.

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Justice and Truth - Where Else?

"It is only truth--or dogma, to give it its other name--which can make prayer efficacious, and impregnate it with that austere, protective strength without which it degenerates into weakness. If this is true of private prayer, it is doubly so of popular devotion, which in many directions verges on sentimentality. Dogmatic thought brings release from the thralldom of individual caprice, and from the uncertainty and sluggishness which follow in the wake of emotion. It makes prayer intelligible, and causes it to rank as a potent factor in life. If, however, religious thought is to do justice to its mission, it must introduce into prayer truth in all its fullness." [Guardini, Romano (2012-02-05). The Spirit of the Liturgy (Kindle Locations 185-191). Veritatis Splendor Publications. Kindle Edition.]

A friendly "poke" got me to pick up this Guardini classic which I had enjoyed reading years ago in Bonn, when I had access to a then new edition in German paperback of his opera omnia. This first chapter, on "The Prayer of the Liturgy", balances off truth against emotion and insists that one of the distinctions between private prayer/popular devotion and public liturgy, is the necessary adherence of Divine Worship to the fullness of truth. The Byzantine Liturgy speaks of worship as being perforce "rational". Guardini cannot see liturgy in any other way.

This got me thinking about a lot of things, but brought me to or renewed me in a firm conviction, which I would gladly share with you. The fundamental, developmental crisis in the life of the human person has little to do with "sexual awakening" but rather is centered on grasping justice and truth as central to living life to the full. When I was much younger there was a common mode of expression which described a wild young man as having been "hit hard by puberty"... utter nonsense. The passage from childhood or childishness to adolescence and on to adulthood takes place, certainly, I guess, hormonally, but more significantly with the awakening to the categories of justice and truth. One spends the rest of his or her life trying to sort out the vagaries of that all for us who are not pure spirits. Love might be the greatest, but we experience it in deed (justice done) and in truth.

When Pope Benedict spoke about the tyranny of relativism I think that perhaps also he was referring to the death of a growing perception of the demands of justice and truth in the life of a youth. If you don't catch and jealously guard from childhood that marvelous flame, not stolen by Prometheus but gifted to us by God, you are lost or at least foundering in desperate hope of a latter day conversion. As Guardini would say, you end up caught in ...the thralldom of individual caprice, and from the uncertainty and sluggishness which follow in the wake of emotion. Granted, not being angels capable of singleness of purpose and timeless commitment, we end up fighting all our lives to remain faithful to the demands of justice in adherence to the truth which comes to us from God in His Church, but even so we are far from lost.

When some of my favorite authors speak about restoring Catholic culture, I think that means identifying much of so-called contemporary culture as inimical to justice and truth. To step away from the uncertainty and sluggishness which follow in the wake of emotion is our duty and for parents and teachers our only worthwhile endowment or gift to the charges entrusted to our care by God's Will and Providence. I don't know what it means to say someone was "hit hard by puberty", but I do know the tragedy of depriving a child of his or her innate and needs be cultivated sense of justice in faithfulness to the truth which comes to us from the God Who so loved the world as to give up His only Son for our salvation.

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Love Can or Cannot Wait?

PETER J. ELLIOTT 

Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite 

The Eucharist and The Liturgy of the Hours 

A Manual for Clergy and All Involved in Liturgical Ministries 

Revised Edition IGNATIUS PRESS    SAN FRANCISCO 

(2011-10-20).  Kindle Edition. 

Until I read Dr. Peter Kwasniewski's piece the other day, entitled Three Categories of Liturgical Problems, it had been some time since I felt an urgency to insist on pushing the agenda of a liturgical restoration over hopes of reforming the reformed liturgy. Very much at heart for me was the wise counsel of Benedict XVI, our Pope emeritus, in favor of promoting the mutual enrichment of the two forms of the Roman Rite. Hesitancy might be part of my make-up, but I remain thoroughly convinced that restoration must not repeat the errors of the 1970's which imposed reform with a vengeance, at times almost violently. Calendar reform, Latin and fixing a reset point for the restoration, perhaps prior to the Holy Week reform of Pius XII, were also issues for me. Let's just say, the Kwasniewski piece gave me a little nudge toward expressing a few thoughts.

Actually, this post is supposed to be a book review. I had Bishop Elliott's manual and one other book I wanted to read in the hopes of trying to understand why guaranteeing maximal decorum for the Novus Ordo (which seems to be the point of Elliott's book) does not and cannot answer a more fundamental question about the nature of liturgy and hence the gravity of the problem or the scandal involved in not going all-out to repair the breach, to reestablish continuity with our historical past as the sine qua non for the possibility of a living liturgy which can once again organically develop, as it always has across the centuries. The manual is a fine effort, but it only brings home more clearly to me that decorum in liturgy is not enough.

Bishop Elliott draws upon "best practices" (if you may call them that) from our liturgical past, but he cannot escape the accusation that what he attempts to shore up with sobriety is a novelty in our tradition, one which does not satisfy the demands of reverence nor focus on Christ the Priest. Don't get me wrong! Elliott's manual is the best antidote around to caprice, which has no place in liturgy, and would go a long way to repairing the "fallen hut" of Catholic worship, if his directives were always and everywhere applied. The manual cannot respond to the fundamental challenge which any adolescent can pose concerning NO liturgy: it remains a thing improvised, something, especially when there are lots of choices, which Father has made up and imposes of a Sunday morning. The NO would hardly sustain the apology of St. Justin Martyr that Sunday Eucharist is something without which we Christians cannot live.

Fair assessment or not, much of what was the liturgical movement in the 20th Century boils down to a search for intelligibility (we'll leave the penchant to offer choices aside). The vernacular, which has made its appearance not only in the Roman Rite but also quite generally among the Oriental Catholic Churches, is the most typical fruit of this drive and perhaps the greatest impediment to restoration. The vernacular, as a vehicle of intelligibility, ends up dividing us. I see it all the time here in Ukraine within the Roman Catholic Church, where on occasion I am invited to celebrate in one language, while the people practically respond in another. I have even seen it in a small chapel, where all used a common language, except for one person who was most adept at responding in his own mother tongue. I'm thinking of a heated discussion between a bishop and his priests, seeking permission to celebrate in one of countless patois of the Caribbean.

Here in Ukraine we have the challenge of a Church of the Roman Rite which has a full set of liturgical books in Polish, in Russian and in Hungarian, but not in Ukrainian. Church music is even more disparate. Simply stated, the EF despite the precision it demands of the priest offering the Mass would be much easier for the people and would concentrate efforts in the area of music. I will not sell short the efforts made in the US to render the NO something truly beautiful, but in many places, especially small communities, I think we are asking too much and falling far short of the sublime, in all its noble simplicity.

On the pages of The New Liturgical Movement today, Kwasniewski has also gifted us with words from Dr. Eric de Saventhem (1919-2005), first President of the International Federation Una Voce, spoken in 1970. Beauty and truth are irrepressible. The good will win out and genuine renewal through restoration and a resumption of truly organic growth will have its day and, please God, sooner. I really don't know why we need to wait for a generation change.

PROPERANTES ANDVENTUM DIEI DEI

Fifty Years Closer to Putting 1054 behind Us!

I've seen this sad little notice a couple of times in the English language press, regarding the encounter in the Holy Land between Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew:

"The chief foreign spokesman of the Russian Orthodox Church has expressed some misgivings that Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople will be meeting Pope Francis during the Pontiff’s visit to the Holy Land.

Metropolitan Hilarion said that because Patriarch Bartholomew had not consulted with other Orthodox leaders before scheduling his meeting with the Pope, he would be acting on his own behalf, not as a representative of the world’s Orthodox faithful. Although the Patriarch of Constantinople is traditionally recognized as the “first among equals” in the Orthodox hierarchy, the Russian Orthodox argues that he exercises that primacy only when other Orthodox patriarchs explicitly authorize him to do so. In the absence of such a mandate, Metropolitan Hilarion said, Patriarch Bartholomew will be representing only his own particular church, the Patriarchate of Constantinople."

They are harsh words, which would wield the honorific title first among equals against the unity of the Church. 

I hope His Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople won't be offended if I make the presumptuous statement that I bet he sees those words in an entirely different light than does Metropolitan Hilarion of the Russian Orthodox Church. I am betting that both Patriarch Bartholomew and I attribute a certain contingency to his title first among equals. I am betting that he sees that title as a mandate from the Lord Jesus Himself to seek unity. It is a charismatic title, which would lead to Christ, which would lead to the robust kind of unity and communion which Jesus willed for His Church and which we are all owing to Him.

The proverbial oxen yoke is not the best image for synodality in the Church. The asceticism involved in always pulling the "plow" together is indeed meritorious, but primacy does indeed lead the way by encouragement and the occasional prophetic challenge. Peter strengthens the brethren urged on and encouraged by his brother Andrew, the first called.

UT UNUM SINT!

Time for an Internet Fast

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains 

Nicholas Carr. Kindle Edition.

The tight bonds we form with our tools go both ways. Even as our technologies become extensions of ourselves, we become extensions of our technologies. When the carpenter takes his hammer into his hand, he can use that hand to do only what a hammer can do. [Highlight Loc. 3414-15]

The price we pay to assume technology’s power is alienation. The toll can be particularly high with our intellectual technologies. The tools of the mind amplify and in turn numb the most intimate, the most human, of our natural capacities—those for reason, perception, memory, emotion. [Highlight Loc. 3448-50]

Please, don't take Nicholas Carr for a troglodyte; he is anything but that. Although of an older generation, though younger than I am, he knows full immersion in the world of informatica or whatever. Despite an ongoing enthusiasm for some of the fruits of the information revolution, he has made what to me seem some almost heroic decisions concerning social networking and more. For a man of his age I would say he has found an optimal formula for using the Net and more.

For my last few trips I have actually taken my Kindle on the plane, something I had not done for an odd and unfounded lack of confidence in the battery supply of my second generation Kindle. Anyway I finished his book and read a lot more, with only one reprimand from a clueless stewardess about "turning the thing off".

Here in Ukraine, because of the nature of the beast, we spend a lot of time with Facebook and Twitter, trying to understand what is happening. In the case of a dear friend, I think it has contributed to severe weight loss (something I could only dream might happen to me). Anyway, what Carr has to recommend about the reasoned use of the various media is an admonition well taken.

I liked his book for the history of communication and reflection provided. Personally, I think that if he had first-hand knowledge of learning a foreign language like Ukrainian, he would probably have another tact on such matters. He speaks almost passionately of "deep reading" as if it were something consummate and of high culture. In reality, I think memory and familiarity play a much more important role than he thinks and that something like speed reading strategies is perfectly all right and no impediment whatsoever to profound reflection or analysis.

I'd recommend the book for one reason alone. You may not have weight loss problems because of your attachment to your Android, your Tablet and your Laptop, but it could be that the time you waste trying not to miss whatever might be bending your mind or as the Italians would say ruining your liver.

Reading and Writing about the Church

"In this wicked world, in these evil days, when the church measures her future loftiness by her present humility, and is exercised by goading fears, tormenting sorrows, disquieting labors, and dangerous temptations, when she soberly rejoices, rejoicing only in hope, there are many reprobate mingled with the good, and both are gathered together by the gospel as in a dragnet; and in this world, as in a sea, both swim enclosed without distinction in the net, until it is brought ashore, when the wicked must be separated from the good, that in the good, as in His temple, God may be all in all." [The City of God (Saint Augustine of Hippo) - Highlight Loc. 15081-85- Kindle Edition]

These days I find myself drawn in by discussions here around me about the nature of Christ's Church and its role in society. The above quote from St. Augustine came to me truly as welcome. By sheer reason of its social dominance here in Ukraine, the Orthodox Church is at the center of most of these discussions. In the last week, I've had two opportunities to talk on this topic of the nature of Christ's Church and its role in society; as perhaps nowhere else in the world I'm called here to point out typical Orthodox pitfalls in the discussion and trace a clearly Catholic line. Perhaps elsewhere in the world it might be necessary to counterbalance popular Catholic emphases, but not here. Practical Orthodox ecclesiology is extremely incarnational and too often reductionist: binding itself too closely to the temporal rule of the moment and taking on the role of the "emperor's handmaid" as its raison d'etre. My first counter to this tendency has been to emphasize the singular truth contained in the primary teaching about the Church's nature as the Bride of Christ. Add my little find of the above quote and we have even more balance and depth.

Good theology or no, the question cannot be avoided. Is or how is Christ's Church a "player" on this battlefield of Ukraine, in what seems to be a struggle for the future of not only the Ukrainian people but in fact at least for Europe's proximate destiny as a union, if not for that of our world in general today, as a positively functioning set of relationships among states? Lots of people ask that question and have a multitude of answers to proffer as well. What hampers really responding to the question is that many deny or ignore the ultimate terms of this struggle. They leave the ultimate out of the picture; the Kingship of Christ is not on their radar; they cannot perceive their own dignity as the basis for a summons at the end of time before the Throne of that Great and Terrible Judge. I am not fear-mongering but elaborating a bit on Christian humility in the light of the Annunciation.  Mary became the Mother of God, declaring Herself the Handmaid of the Lord. If the Church would fulfill her mission, then she must bring Christ to our world by serving Him as Mary served God in Her Son. It is the premise, the point of departure which counts.

The project, which is Church now and until Judgment Day, requires of us that we focus first and foremost on the Church we know in its institutional manifestation as it goes about serving its primary cell, which is not any temporal power but the domestic Church, the family. One of the overriding theories, still however ignorant of or denying the Kingship of Christ, would have us believe in one fashion or another that our world is indeed controlled by the movers and shakers. With St. Augustine and the Church in every age, we declare that is not how it is. The story of our salvation in Christ teaches us rather, that at the center of our world, as the image of the human person in all his or her dignity is not the captain of industry, is not the philosopher king or queen, is not the oligarch, but rather the defenseless child, served and protected by Mom and Dad, the holy family not spelled out with capital letters, but written small and attributed to your family and to mine. It is the husband and wife united in their commitment to each other and to the life which springs from the fruit of their union in the person of that child. The child, children are the tangible witness to the dignity of their union and its only possible reason for being. The commitment to marriage and family today is a heroic one. It is here that what we mean by Church rises or falls.

As almost comically abstruse as it may sound, I am not calling for the institutional Church to abandon the public square but rather in every way to make clear the ultimate terms of our discourse, by committing itself untiringly to proclaiming the primacy of God in our world and the centrality of marriage and family to His plan. If the institutional Church better served the domestic Church, the family, by recovering its role of guarantor of the indissolubility of marriage, by winning over more for that radical respect for human life from conception to natural death, by giving true content to the notion of what we mean by our God-given dignity, we might better be able to give aggressors pause to think of what judgment awaits them if their only light is that ephemeral one of passing glory, fame and fortune.

In case you are wondering, let me say it plainly! I hold nothing of the kind of lobbying which is going on presently in the Church, which in view of whatever is supposed to come out of the synod of bishops next October, would undermine the unity and indissolubility of marriage, which would question the possibility at all of consummating that sacrament. I find my justification for being hard-nosed in my little passage above from St. Augustine. "In this wicked world, in these evil days, when the church measures her future loftiness by her present humility, and is exercised by goading fears, tormenting sorrows, disquieting labors, and dangerous temptations, when she soberly rejoices, rejoicing only in hope..." That is Church, that is domestic Church, that is family, which deserves all our solicitude.

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Soli Deo

Sunday, 4 May 2014,

St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Parish,

Third Week of Easter, Kharkiv

Acts 2:14,22-33

Domine, notas mihi facies vias vitae

1 Peter 1:17-21

Domine Iesu, aperi nobis Scripturas; fac cor nostrum ardens dum loqueris nobis.

Lk 24:13-35

          The Third Sunday of Easter finds us once again thoroughly caught up in God, as we contemplate the appearance of Jesus, risen from the dead, to two of His disciples along the road from Jerusalem to a small village named Emmaus.

They had walked a goodly distance with Jesus and they had a very animated, heart to heart conversation with Him about the truth of the Gospel and all that had happened concerning Jesus. Even so they didn’t recognize Him until they sat at table and He said the blessing and broke the bread. Then He disappeared from their sight and they went running back to the group of disciples in Jerusalem to share their experience. They were met with the excited news that the Risen One had appeared to Simon Peter as well.

          Easter is clearly and simply about life and power; it is about our redemption “not with perishable things like silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ as of a spotless unblemished lamb.” Easter finds us where we are supposed to be in life: face to face with Jesus, conversing and debating with Him. Easter is an annual feast; we celebrate it every year around this time. I guess we need that reminder, time and again, that the good news of the victory of Jesus, True God and True Man, over sin and death is all that really matters in our world.

          I have to say it out loud and speak it clearly: NOTHING ELSE MATTERS. I guess I say it and maybe don’t really grasp what I am saying; I’m kind of like those two disciples who hadn’t missed a moment in all that had gone on in Jerusalem. Despite their being right on top of the situation, there were there for the Last Supper, for Jesus’ arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, for that mockery of justice which handed Him over for torture and death upon the Cross, for His burial and for the first announcement of the empty tomb. With all of that, not only did they miss the point in terms of the fulfilment of all that had been foretold in the Scriptures, but they could not even recognize Jesus Himself right in front of them, there conversing and discussing with them, that is, not until He blessed and broke bread with them.

          With all the worries and trials people face these days, especially here in Ukraine, I guess it is hard to get us to sit down and recognize Jesus as the one and only one who matters in our lives. Even so, that is what we need to do and for a great many reasons. Nothing else but Jesus and His Resurrection really matters. Without Him, well, I’m trapped in the here and now, in the sad logic of trying to get ahead only so that I can die, the sad logic condemned by the Wisdom Books of the Old Testament as vanity. Nothing else but Jesus and His Resurrection really matters. If I believe that, it has moral consequences for how I must lead my life, yes, most surely. More importantly, however, it means I know where real and lasting joy is to be found. It could very well mean that all those around me are living only for this moment and they are attempting to pull me every which way, not for my sake, but for theirs.

          I know better. You, as a baptized Christian, know better. Nothing else but Jesus and His Resurrection really matters. I cannot help but think of another passage from the Acts of the Apostles and of the two disciples confronted with a beggar at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple: he expected money and in the Name of Jesus they cured him. Totally free and freeing, theirs was a message too good to be true.

          Day in and day out, we have our duties which correspond to our state in life. Our life and its importance before God go way beyond the every day however. Nothing but Jesus and His Resurrection really matters. Rejoice in the Risen Lord this Sunday, keep Him in your heart all week long, be on fire with Him, His love and His power!