MaybeToday.org

The Catholic Church in America lost another of her intellectual giants today. The Rev. Fr. Richard John Neuhaus died this morning, at age 72. Of course, I never met the man, and I’m not sure I would have known what to say to him had I met him, but I feel as if I have lost a friend. An old acquaintance from my adolescence was buried this morning, and perhaps that makes me think a bit about mortality, yet this priest and writer whom I never met dies, and I feel a piece of me torn away.

Surely, it is vain of me to cultivate these feelings – who am I to lay some sort of claim to this man’s memory? But I have been deeply influenced by Fr. Neuhaus since I began to read him. In a sense – even though he never so much as knew that I existed – I knew RJN better than I know many people I encounter each day. Such is the power of the word to make our humanity present to each other.

I don’t recall exactly when I first became aware of Fr. Neuhaus – it wasn’t very long ago, unfortunately. My earliest copy of First Things is the August/September issue from 2002. What an excitement it’s been every month, to delve into the great conversation taking place on those pages. I can’t say if I first read him in FT, or if I began reading FT after encountering him elsewhere. But I can say that I used to disagree with him a lot more than I do now. He has grown on me, and likely refined my thinking significantly. Other writers have changed my thinking more quickly, but few have sunk in as thoroughly, it seems.

His death represents the second loss of a major thinker in the American Catholic church within the past month, following the death of Avery Cardinal Dulles on December 12th. Converts, both of them, and very different in the ways they contributed to the intellectual life of the Church. It really seems we can’t afford such losses right about now, but it is the Lord’s work they’ve performed, after all. And contrary to published reports, God is not dead. I guess the rest of us somehow need to step it up a bit, though I trust the Lord will raise up others with genuine capacity to fill the void.

It seems only fitting that, even in his death, RJN would get the last word in, and so it is: here.

Rest in peace, you familiar stranger, you cantankerous wizard, you deft debunker of twaddle. Thank you for everything. Your wit, your intelligence, and your passion for truth will be sorely missed.

Today was the Feast of All Saints. I slept a little late this morning, and went to Mass across town at St Linus (as I not infrequently do on Saturdays). I was surprised to see a Hearse in front of the church when I pulled up. It’s not unusual for the Saturday morning Mass at St Linus to be a funeral Mass, but with today being a Solemnity, I thought it was peculiar.

But this funeral turned out to be quite different from the other Saturday morning funerals I’ve attended at St Linus. The difference? In this case, Msgr Giggi knew the deceased, who was an active parishioner. The homily was sprinkled with his remembrances of her, and his real love and care for her was very evident. The whole rite was carried out in a most dignified manner, with none of the typical involvements of laypersons who obviously haven’t darkened a church door in some time, and who too often don’t seem to have a clue what Catholic eschatology professes.

I often feel sorry for Msgr Giggi when I end up at these funerals, because he clearly struggles at times to find something appropriate to say in his homilies. I mean, he can certainly speak in general terms about death and dying and the Catholic faith – Lord knows he’s been doing this long enough – but he needs to try to connect with the grieving family on a personal level as well, and when he has no idea whom it is that he is preparing to bury, he’s reduced to repeating platitudes that friends or family memebers have shared with him during the funeral preparations – many of whom apparently do not share from out of a faith-based framework of understanding. I recall Frances, of whom all he could say was that she was a happy person. And I recall Rick the “ash” pile, who was friendly (on that morning, I though I’d walked into a funeral for a newborn, but that’s a story for another day).

Once upon a time, I thought that the local parish daily Mass was the best setting for funerals in general, as it facilitates the participation of the parish community in an important event that has become too remote from the community, too private and clannish. But I was wrong. Too many funerals are spiritual train wrecks that expose a poverty of community, one that needs to be nurtured and nourished long before the final trumpet sounds.

Today was the feast day of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, whose profoundly wise words grace the title of this post. It’s hard to overstate what she meant to the world during the last years of her life. Everyone, regardless of religious affiliation (or lack thereof), saw her as a living saint. Just the idea that someone like that can exist in our cynical times is a testimony to the truth, one that quietly cuts through the fog of modern despair with a beacon of hope.

I can do no better tonight than to let her speak here in her own words:

“Humility is the mother of all virtues; purity, charity and obedience. It is in being humble that our love becomes real, devoted and ardent. If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are. If you are blamed you will not be discouraged. If they call you a saint you will not put yourself on a pedestal.”

“Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own house. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor… Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting.”

“The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted.”

“Abortion is murder in the womb…A child is a gift of God. If you do not want him, give him to me.”

“It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”

“Jesus has made Himself the Bread of Life to give us life. Night and day, He is there. If you really want to grow in love, come back to the Eucharist, come back to that Adoration.”

“We must have a real living determination to reach holiness. ‘I will be a saint’ means I will despoil myself of all that is not God; I will strip my heart of all created things; I will live in poverty and detachment; I will renounce my will, my inclinations, my whims and fancies, and make myself a willing slave to the will of God.”

“I know God won’t give me anything I can’t handle; I just wish He didn’t trust me so much.”

ΑΩ

Saint Augustine Church in Andover has gone onto a summer schedule. The weekday liturgies have all been moved out of the church and into a room in the new Ministry & Education Center they recently built across the parking lot from the church, one that might best be described as a cross between a foyer and a small seminar room. It features a rolling altar, which I’m guessing is usually stored behind a nearby collapsible, sliding false wall – like you see in hotel function rooms. At least there’s a small tabernacle built into the real wall behind the faux one.

The seating is contemporary plastic stackables, which leaves the tile floor to serve as kneeler. The front row of seats, however, consist of typical churchy chairs with kneelers on the back, so you can kneel on them if you sit in the second row. So that’s my new location – second row. The front row is consistently empty. No surprises there.

One of the interesting things about these new arrangements is the physical consolidation of the congregation. There just aren’t enough remote locations to go around! The seating distribution has always been a bit curious at St. Augustine – at least during the Noon Mass. It must look quite peculiar to the celebrants. I figure the nave of the main church probably holds about 350 people comfortably, and the typical daily Mass crowd is about 10% of that number. There’s usually a moderate dispersion of congregants in the back 10 to 15 rows, with a light sprinkling of folks closer to the front. Even a row of seats against the back wall usually has occupants (OK, sometimes including me), while the vast majority of seating in the pews is empty. No doubt we’re all just taking Jesus’ words to heart to sit in the cheap seats, and wait to be invited to sit in the seats of honor (c.f. Lk 14.7-11)!

So, we’re much more intimately co-located these days, which I suppose is nice, but there’s no place to kneel without moving to the handful of seats up front. The downside to that is that, while we might all be sitting closer together, we have some liturgical disunity now. Kneeling on the stone floor is not a practical option for most of the congregation, and very few people are doing it. Even fewer people are standing, as this is not a familiar position in this context – and no one has been instructed to stand, which would probably be the best solution. Most people are, by default, continuing to sit, which is certainly not the end of the world, but makes for a congregation that is doing a little bit of everything – which is pretty disorderly – and sitting is not a proper disposition during the sacrifice, anyway.

All this might seem rather trivial, but liturgy is intended to produce and express unity, and I think it is a shame that some simple steps weren’t taken to better facilitate that expression at the most profound moments in our liturgy.

So, being a little frustrated at St. Augustine, and open to at least a temporary change of pace, I meandered over to St. Robert Bellarmine Church in West Andover last Friday to attend their Noon Mass. The lector took her seat after completing the first reading, without leading the congregation (which I could have counted on my fingers!) in the Responsorial Psalm. The priest seemed to delay several moments, perhaps hoping the lector would return to the ambo and complete her assignment, but when he finally did rise, he went immediately to the reading of the Gospel, rather than lead the Responsorial himself. OK. So he reads the Gospel, delivers a brief homily, then approaches the altar and begins the Offertory prayers. No Prayers of the Faithful! Maybe it was just a general brain-lapse day, but I sure had the sense that I couldn’t win.

Things like this really help me appreciate the attention to the liturgy at St. Patrick’s.

I was rather taken aback by the explanations put forth by recently retired Saint Paul & Minneapolis Archbishop Harry J. Flynn, as conveyed in this article in last week’s Boston Pilot, as to why he was putting an end to the practice in his diocese of lay preachers delivering homilies during Mass.

In the interest of full disclosure from the outset, I have no intention of agitating for permission for laity to preach during the Mass, and if I ever sink to suggesting that anyone somehow possess a “right” to such a role, please shoot me before I say something even sillier. I am well aware of the catastrophic consequences of similar practices in Europe 500 years ago or so, and do not want to see the Church go down that path again (though that situation was facilitated by the poor theological training of ordained clergy, a problem that has long since been rectified).

Aside from such practical concerns, I think there are also very good liturgical reasons for preferring to have the ordained perform the role of interpreting and applying the liturgical readings within the context of the Mass – and then there is the small matter of Redemptionis Sacramentum identifying the preaching by non-ordained following the Gospel reading as a liturgical abuse . But I am astounded at what apparently came out of the mouth of Archbishop Flynn, as he was preparing for his retirement.

My astonishment begins with the archbishop’s decision to set his retirement date (May 2nd) as the date when parishes were supposed to get on board with the ban. He was archbishop of the diocese for 13 years, and the lay preaching was going on for 25 years… could he not have dealt with the anticipated fallout on his own watch? I can only assume that his immediate successor, Coadjutor Archbishop John C. Nienstedt, was completely on board with the timing…

Questions of timing aside, his reasoning, at least as presented in this article, is what I find most disturbing:

The education, formation and ordination of priests and deacons make them uniquely suited to preach during Mass, he said.

“There has to be that kind of training and theological background that even a person with a master’s degree in theology would not have,” he said. “The church does not want people just standing up there and giving opinions or even things they’ve read in books.”

Rather, he said, the homily addresses “what is the clear teaching about this mystery of our faith?”

To allow a nonordained person to preach would also interrupt the action of the Mass, he said. The Scriptures make it clear that it was the role of the presbyters to preach, he added.

“To preach the Gospel is an extremely important part of the mission of any priest — I cannot overemphasize its importance,” Archbishop Flynn said. “I would feel deprived, because this is my vocation to preach the Gospel.

Without getting into a lengthy criticism of each of these statements, let me just say that I think none of them worthy of a prince of the Church. They range from ad hominem accusations of the general theological incompetence of anyone lacking Holy Orders, to a pathetic plea to feeling personally “deprived” of an opportunity to preach when a lay person usurps that role. I concur completely that the archbishop has a vocation to preach the Gospel, one that is shared by his priests, but am I really supposed to care about His Eminence’s feelings? How does he survive concelebrated Masses? Should we institute round-robin homilies in such cases to avoid having any priestly feelings hurt?

But what of the ludicrousness of suggesting that only Holy Orders can equip a disciple of Christ to engage in “clear teaching about this mystery of our faith,”‘ or in any witness more substantial than “giving opinions”? The Church calls all the faithful to encounter and, through public witness, to help others encounter the eternal truths of the Catholic faith. The Church, from top to bottom, has been called to what the Holy Father called the New Evangelization – and if that doesn’t mean preaching the Gospel, then I don’t know what it means. I appreciate the distinction between witnessing to the world and guiding the Church, but I have to wonder if the archbishop was willing to allow these same ill-informed, book-reading, opinionated usurpers to function as catechists in his diocese?

Messages like this one from Archbishop Flynn are confusing, embarrassing, discouraging, and debilitating. The liturgical celebration of the Mass should demonstrate the integrity of the Liturgy of the Word with the Liturgy of the Eucharist, as the encounter of Christ with His gathered people. The ordained should be the ones breaking open the Word during the homily at Mass because of the priestly role they play within the community, not because of their putative superior theological training. Priests certainly should obtain, and benefit from, such training in order to competently discharge their office, but it is absurd to think either that the training qualifies them for the liturgical role, or, conversely, that their ordination effectuates in them the wisdom to articulate the mysteries of the faith in clear teaching. There are good preachers, and there are certainly not-so-good preachers – but that’s OK.

It seems to me that what’s really needed from the Church at this time, at least in the secularized West, is a new spirit of partnership between the clergy and the laity. Not like the tired, secularizing program launched over the past 40-some years that wants to make the Church over in the model of a modern consumerist democracy, but one that is strongly centered on the Eucharistic character of the Church, but is also committed to nurturing and using the gifts of the laity for the re-evangelization of the West – beginning with the rescue of marriage and the family from the trash bin of our cultural history.

This strikes me as a fundamental imperative of the Church in our cultural context, a task that cannot be accomplished with the laity on the sidelines, and a message that cannot be effectively conveyed by “giving opinions.” We need better leadership from our bishops than the insults recently offered by Archbishop Flynn. We need priests like him to rally the troops, not to leave dedicated people thinking they have no part to play in the struggle, comparable to their abilities.

Today, May 2nd, is the feast day of Saint Athanasius the Great. Athanasius was, in a sense, the Saint Paul of the Constantinian era – maligned, persecuted, exiled, all for defending the triune faith against scholarly innovators, false brethren, and over-reaching politicians. It’s unrealistic to say that he defeated Arianism, since it continued to flourish as a rampant heresy long after his death, but he certainly deserves the lion’s share of the credit for repudiating it doctrinally, and it was his theological genius that gave us Trinitarian orthodoxy.

That’s some pretty heavy credentials. I find it hard to understand why he is not better known in the West. It was said of him: “Athanasius against the world,” because of the almost solitary figure he cut withstanding the fierce storm of 4th century Arianism. While it is true that the Roman Pope supported him, Rome was by then well on its way to political irrelevance in the Roman Empire, and with the new-found acceptance of Christianity by the emperors in Constantinople, the Church was suddenly a thread in the fabric of imperial policy across the empire. The man the Copts call Pope Athanasius I of Alexandria had to stand down, not only a wildly popular Christological theory that helped people make sense of what was otherwise a scandalous view of divine activity which seemed to defy logic, but also the august champions of the world’s mightiest empire, determined as they were to see an end to theological controversy and religious unrest.

So while the Church has an obvious debt to this great saint – chronologically the first Doctor of the Church – I have a personal debt, as well. It is common practice in these parts for confirmandi to take the name of a saint when being confirmed, and I took the name of Athanasius when I was confirmed shortly before my 31st birthday. I have to admit that I didn’t know too much about him at the time, but I have developed a deep love and appreciation for him, and feel quite certain that he has taken an interest in praying for me.

While I have no illusions about being able to stand in his shoes, my life over the past 17 years has been one of steady movement toward orthodoxy as orthodoxy – including some ways that probably would have surprised me back then. I used to see myself as a bit of a rebel, and certainly a “free spirit.” But I’ve come to see the foolishness of trying to invent or manipulate reality as if it were something subject to a creative art. I’ve come to see the beauty of faithful submission to that which is beyond me, and beyond my ability to understand. And I’ve come to see how such openness to the unknown, in fact, unfolds it before my eyes. This draws me into a freedom that is very different from what is practiced in the radical individualism of the “free spirit,” which turns out to be nothing more than a practical slavery to whatever manages to push your buttons.

Most importantly, I’ve come to understand that Trinitarianism is the key to everything. Athanasius understood that absolutely everything hinges on it. The doctrine, per se, is not articulated in Scripture, but if the doctrine is not true, then the New Testament – indeed, Christianity itself – sinks into a Jewish-flavored pagan mystery religion.

I think I owe much of this growth to the great Athanasius. That’s why I took the day off today to honor him.

As evidenced by my last post, I tried very hard to get myself pumped up for yesterday’s occasion of attending the papal Mass at Yankee Stadium. The Mass was very nicely done, and it was wonderful to hear a stadium full of people thunder “Amen” and the other responses, but it was still a massive crowd attending an orchestrated “event,” and both these factors, unsurprisingly, wore on me greatly.

I think it probably would have been an unmitigated pleasure for me had the organizers of the event chosen to focus solely on the pope’s coming to celebrate the Sunday liturgy with the assembled throng of faithful – including, of course, his application of the readings of the day in his homiletic address. As it worked out – and forgive me if this seems cynical – the papal appearance came across to me more as the headlining act in an afternoon of far-flung entertainment. Not that I think the Holy Father intended any such thing, but the three hours (or whatever it was) of nonstop entertainment preceding the Mass was simply not a fitting or effective way to prepare to celebrate the sacred mysteries, as far as I’m concerned. I know many people really enjoyed it, but I felt like I was at a spectacle, not a Mass.

I got off on the wrong foot as soon as I got to the stadium, as I had to stand in a line (the word being used here quite loosely) outside of Gate 4, unwillingly listening to a bullhorn-type speaker, which sounded as if it must have had a frayed cone (or whatever the technology was), blaring out at an obnoxious volume the music that was beginning to be played inside. Through the cacophony, I surmised it must have been organ music (which seemed sensible enough). Later, having a program to help me interpret what was going on, I realized that there were several marching bands that were supposed to be part of the show, but which I never saw. I could barely believe it…

The cacophony that had been blaring incessantly out of that dilapidated speaker outside Gate 4 was not organ music at all, it was marching bands! It sounded so bad, I couldn’t tell the difference! My senses felt absolutely assaulted, and while the instrumentation was at least discernible once inside the bowl of the stadium, it was often still too loud to hear clearly. But the bigger question seems to be this: What do marching bands and the lounge-sound shtick of court jesters like Harry Connick Jr. have to do with preparing for the arrival of the Bishop of Rome to celebrate the liturgy of the 5th Sunday of Easter?

How does expression move from entertainment to liturgy, from performance to prayer? This strikes me as the central problem of yesterday’s experience. The worst of it is that there didn’t even seem to be an implied discontinuity: the spectacle segued into the sacrosanct as smoothly as any other made-for-TV production. The “opening acts” climaxed just before the pontiff’s arrival with one of those ridiculous, choreographed “presentations,” complete with men in white leotards running around the stadium carrying huge paper ducks on sticks (Joyce insists they were supposed to be doves – they looked like ducks to me). It was indistinguishable from the schmaltz that a “big event” organizer would use for something like the opening ceremonies of the Olympic games.

What does it mean to bring the Holy Father into that kind of context? What are we saying by that? -And no serious Catholic can deny that context always speaks volumes about meaning – the Incarnation and sacramental economy stand squarely in the path of any such attempted denial.

The music got a lot better once he arrived, and Benedict carries the insignia of his office with such humble dignity that it almost made it possible to forget the tribulations that waiting for him had entailed, but by the time he opened the Mass, I was worn out, frazzled, and thoroughly uncollected. I needed some quiet time, and I sure wasn’t going to get it in Yankee Stadium.

Yesterday, I wrote that I’ve been spending some of my commute time listening to the Modern Scholar series from Recorded Books – specifically the volumes from Thomas F Madden, a Medievalist and chair of the History department at Saint Louis University. The lecture set I probably learned the most from was Empire of Gold: A History of the Byzantine Empire. I knew very little about this culture, and the lectures helped me to piece quite a few things together – in both the political and religious spheres.

As the lectures wound down, I must confess that I was growing a bit weary of the Michaels, Constantines, Alexioses, and others. In part, that may have been because the lectures could sometimes move through several reigns in the space of a minute or two – lending a sense of having a revolving door leading to the throne room. But I also had a sense of frustration at the way imperial politics and palace intrigues seemed to lead almost invariably toward the eventual demise of this culture, which was so drenched in Christianity. I get a similar – but much more profound – discomfort reading the book of the prophet Jeremiah. What was especially frustrating to listen to was the ways unity between the Greek and Latin churches was repeatedly torpedoed by various circumstances – even when unity had been formally agreed upon.

So it was with a palpable sadness that I listened to Madden describe the Fall of Constantinople. The worst of it, though, was listening to his description of the preceding evening. As Madden tells it, it was clear to all involved on the night of Monday, May 28th, 1543, that the city would fall the following day, and that the Roman Empire was about to come to an end. So the defenders of the city gathered in the great cathedral, Hagia Sophia, and celebrated the Divine Liturgy. This included, not only the Emperor Constantine XI and his men (Greeks), but also the Venetians and Genoese (Latins) who had come or stayed to defend this bulwark of Christendom.

I was flabbergasted when I heard that. When all was finally lost, when the Muslims were poised to take permanent possession of, not only Constantinople, but also of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria – of all the major patriarchates of ancient Christianity except Rome – the Greeks and the Latins in the great city decided it was time to put aside their doctrinal differences, and share the Eucharist together. There had been struggles over union going on for some time, and maybe the sharing of Communion was not as unusual as I suspect it was at that time. But still, I can only wonder how differently history would have played out had the Greek and Latin churches not been at such cross-purposes over the preceding 800 years or so. What a shame. What a shame.