A tale of three clergy

Hmm...

From Robert Royal at The Catholic Thing:

All deeply unfortunate, but a warning for serious clergy: beware now about the way you put anything before the public, unless you want to provide an occasion to make it seem you are saying the exact opposite of what you believe.

Finally, our third clergyman, Pope Benedict XVI, also offered a Christmas message in which he yoked concern for the world’s ecology and what he calls the threatened human ecology that depends on marriage and family. Nowhere did he mention homosexuality, but some media were happy to extrapolate for him and to hold the coats for the fight. It didn’t work and the story soon died. But it was amazing how the initial reports all drew on the same circle of commentators from gay and lesbian organizations, who in virtually every story, referred to this mild and learned man as Papa Ratzi (which, you see, rhymes with Nazi).

A faith whose Founder was crucified should not expect gentle treatment by the world. But when the very people who repeatedly tell you that “hate is not a family value” indulge in this degree of childish name-calling, you don’t expect it to be picked up in respectable journalism, any more than you’d expect professional journalists to indulge in angry partisanship or crude misrepresentation about the major faith of the West.

Or do we now?

The splendor of truth in liturgy

Shawn Tribe at The New Liturgical Movement expresses what is becoming more apparent to me: liturgical worship is not about about entertainment, feel-good emotions, or personal preference. The liturgy has an objective quality that communicates the faith. How we pray will shape how we believe. He quotes the following:

... people are instructed in the truths of faith, and brought to appreciate the inner joys of religion far more effectually by the annual celebration of our sacred mysteries than by any official pronouncement of the teaching of the Church. Such pronouncements usually reach only a few and the more learned among the faithful; feasts reach them all; the former speak but once, the latter speak every year - in fact, forever.
-Pope Pius XI Quas Primas

And later from Four Benefits of the Liturgy by Dom Gerard Calvet:

Take a group of Japanese tourists visiting Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. They look at the height of the stained-glass windows, the harmony of the proportions. Suppose that at that moment, sacred ministers dressed in orphried velvet copes enter in process for solemn Vespers. The visitors watch in silence; they are entranced: beauty has opened its doors to them. Now the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas and Notre Dame in Paris are products of the same era. They say the same thing. But who among the visitors has read the Summa of St. Thomas? The same phenomenon is found at all levels. The tourists who visit the Acropolis in Athens are confronted with a civilisation of beauty. But who among them can understand Aristotle?

And so it is with the beauty of the liturgy. More than anything else it deserves to be called the splendour of the truth. It opens to the small and the great alike the treasures of its magnificence: the beauty of psalmody, sacred chants and texts, candles, harmony of movement and dignity of bearing. With sovereign art the liturgy exercises a truly seductive influence on souls, who it touches directly, even before the spirit perceives its influence.

Sacred liturgy is the body language of the Church - the people of God and the Body of Christ.

Do you know what Humanae Vitae actually says?

Uncle Di comments at CWN's Off The Record about an article in today's Boston Globe, Debate over 1968 encyclical rages on. He notes sourly that the "debate" is never really engaged because the reason's behind Pope Paul VI's affirmation of the Church's teaching against contraception are never really given:

Funny: I thought this debate was about contraception. The "inseparability" that Pope Paul highlighted in Humanae Vitae was the natural link between the act of marital love and the process of human procreation. Break that link, the Pope warned, and all hell will break loose in human relationships, as reverence for human life declines. But after that one memorable line about the "disposable soda bottle," we've heard nothing more along those lines.

It's not just that fashionable liberals can't come to terms with the argument of Humanae Vitae. It's that they can't even state the terms of the debate accurately. It would be too embarrassing to revive the old-fashioned idea that the use of the human reproductive system might have something to do with human reproduction. So instead of summarizing Pope Paul's thesis, the squeamish journalist substitutes an inane formula: "the inseparability of marriage and love." Globe readers unfamiliar with the argument of Humanae Vitae-- and that will describe all Globe readers, if the editors have their way-- will nod in agreement that love and marriage go together (I feel a song coming on..), and never learn what the Pope said and why he said it.

Too late now. The debate is over. The defense has rested. Or rather I should say the defense is rested-- which is understandable, since the defense never got out of its chair.

I often find dissident Catholics disparaging the "authoritarian and oppressive declarations" of popes without ever engaging the arguments made. This seems to crop up in outcries against the Church's moral teachings on contraception, marriage and homosexuality that make arguments using the natural law. I found the reasons given by the Church quite, well, REASONABLE even before I was considering becoming Catholic. It resonated true that sex was designed for the procreation of a new person. If one has some notion that God does things for a purpose and that it's bad to do things some other way, then clearly a deliberate frusteration of that purpose (like contraception) is to be avoided.

Here's Paul VI (emphasis added):

Observing the Natural Law

11. The sexual activity, in which husband and wife are intimately and chastely united with one another, through which human life is transmitted, is, as the recent Council recalled, "noble and worthy.'' (11) It does not, moreover, cease to be legitimate even when, for reasons independent of their will, it is foreseen to be infertile. For its natural adaptation to the expression and strengthening of the union of husband and wife is not thereby suppressed. The fact is, as experience shows, that new life is not the result of each and every act of sexual intercourse. God has wisely ordered laws of nature and the incidence of fertility in such a way that successive births are already naturally spaced through the inherent operation of these laws. The Church, nevertheless, in urging men to the observance of the precepts of the natural law, which it interprets by its constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life. (12)

Union and Procreation

12. This particular doctrine, often expounded by the magisterium of the Church, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act.

The reason is that the fundamental nature of the marriage act, while uniting husband and wife in the closest intimacy, also renders them capable of generating new life—and this as a result of laws written into the actual nature of man and of woman. And if each of these essential qualities, the unitive and the procreative, is preserved, the use of marriage fully retains its sense of true mutual love and its ordination to the supreme responsibility of parenthood to which man is called. We believe that our contemporaries are particularly capable of seeing that this teaching is in harmony with human reason.

If you've never read this brief encyclical, you can find the full text of Humanae Vitae here.

Vespers, Wednesday of the Fourth week of Easter

With Pope Benedict XVI from the Crypt Church at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception! A beautiful vespers. I like how all the bishops could sing along without much help from their prayer book whenever the traditional latin chant was used (Deus in audiutorium meum, Magnificat, Pater noster). What a lovely expression of the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church.

I'm still working on my simple setting of Sunday Vespers to propose singing at my parish on a regular basis. Mine is all simplified chant mostly in English similar to the Mundelein Psalter. Which, BTW, I highly recommend.

Rainbow Sashers confused in more ways than one

Courtesy of Uncle Di, I learned that the gay activist Rainbow Sash Movement is calling for "all Catholics of good will to take the Papal visit as an opportunity to shower the Pope mobile with ashes instead of confetti." Their press release could use a good editor:

Ashes are an ancient and appropriate greeting for a sinner who has caused the Church so much division and pain.

I am aware of the biblical habit of repenting in sackcloth and ashes. However, a sinner usually puts these upon himself. Have I missed some tradition of calling a sinner to repentance by throwing ashes in his face? "REPENT!" POOOF!

as sign of repentance his Holiness should be washing the feet of the
victims of clerical sexual abuse

Are we to understand that Our Divine Lord washed the feet of His apostles as a sign of His own repentance? Perhaps he's referring to the sinful woman who washed the feet of Jesus in tears. That makes a little more sense.

Ecumenicalism/Intra faith Dialogue - Freedom of conscience must be respected inside and outside church as it applies to the plurality of beliefs, religious or not. The recent Vatican Islam Forum that has been developed cannot continue without including the issue of human rights violations of women & gays/lesbians/bisexuals/transgender people within Islamic countries.

"Ecumenism" perhaps is more common? This is dialogue between Christians working toward greater unity, but they don't seem to mention this dialogue. "Intra faith" seems to refer to dissent within the Catholic Church. "Interfaith", which is dialogue between members of different religions, isn't mentioned. The context of a Vatican Islam Forum would suggests that "interfaith" would have been more apt.

The US Church is a basically a Eurocentric Church it is time for the United Council of Catholic Bishops to recognize this, and address it. Cardinal Francis George of Chicago as the President of the United States Council of Catholic Bishops should address the Pope’s Eurocentric selection of Cardinals and Bishops to the hierarchy

I've never heard of the United Council of Catholic Bishops. Might they mean the College of Bishops? Or did they just mean the USCCB both times?

We will not enter any Church’s but we will bring ashes to reign down on the Popes motorcade, and call on individuals to blow whistles at any public papal events such as outside of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Ground Zero, St. Joseph’s Seminary, and Yankee Stadium as a sign of our disgust over the way the clergy abuse scandal has been handled under his leadership

As least they aren't entering any Church's. If your outside, be sure to bring an unbrella in case of reign.

Will you have pouty faces too? Give me a break. Talk about children throwing a hissy-fit...

Don't steal the Pope's story!

Fr. Neuhaus reflects about his friendship with John Cardinal O'Connor, who shares a birthday with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr:

One ordinarily does not repeat in public what the pope says in private conversation, but I asked and John Paul gave me permission to tell this one. When during the O’Connor years I had occasion to meet with the pope, he would always ask, “How is Cardinal O’Connor?” And I would always say that Cardinal O’Connor is flourishing and is an inestimable gift to the Church. One time I went on to say, “You know what Cardinal O’Connor said the other day, Holy Father?” “No,” he answered. “What did Cardinal O’Connor say?” “Cardinal O’Connor said that he gets up every morning and prays that he will go to bed that night without having discouraged any impulse of the Holy Spirit. Now isn’t that a beautiful thing for a bishop to say?” A pause of several seconds. “Yes,” said the pope, “that is a beautiful thing for a bishop to say. I told him that.”

Ha!

A very present help in trouble

In the wake of the bridge collapse this past week, I found comfort in the words of Psalm 46 from Friday Vespers:

1 God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear though the earth should change,
though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
3 though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble with its tumult.

4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.
5 God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved;
God will help her right early.
6 The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;
he utters his voice, the earth melts.

7 The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge.

8 Come, behold the works of the LORD,
how he has wrought desolations in the earth.
9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear,
he burns the chariots with fire!
10 "Be still, and know that I am God.
I am exalted among the nations,
I am exalted in the earth!"

11 The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge.
(RSV)

Pope John Paul II commented on this psalm during his general audience of June 16, 2004:

Psalm 46 is divided into two major parts by a sort of antiphon that rings out in verses [7] and [11]: "The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge". God's title, "the Lord of hosts," is typical of the Hebraic cult in the Temple of Zion; despite its martial connotations, linked to the Ark of the Covenant, it refers to God's lordship over the whole cosmos and over history.

Hence, this title is a source of confidence, for the whole world and all its vicissitudes are under the supreme governance of the Lord. This Lord is therefore "with us", as the antiphon says once again with an implicit reference to the Emmanuel, the "God-with-us" (cf. Is 7: 14; Mt 1: 23).

The first part of the hymn focuses on the symbol of the waters and presents a twofold, contrasting meaning. Indeed, on the one hand, the foaming waters are unleashed; in biblical language this symbolizes devastation, chaos and evil. They cause the trembling of the structure of the being and of the universe, symbolized by the mountains shaken by the roaring outburst of some sort of destructive floodwaters. On the other hand, however, there are the thirst-quenching waters of Zion, a city set upon arid hills but which is gladdened by "a river and its streams." While he alludes to the streams of Jerusalem such as the Shiloah (cf. Is 8: 6-7), the Psalmist sees in them a sign of flourishing life in the Holy City, of its spiritual fecundity and its regenerative power.

Therefore, despite the upheavals of history that cause people to tremble and kingdoms to shake, the faithful find in Zion the peace and calm that derive from communion with God.

---

In manus tuas Domine, commendo spiritum meum.
     -In manus tuas Domine, commendo spiritum meum.
Redemisti nos Domine, Deus veritatis.
     -Commendo spiritum meum.
Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto.
     -In manus tuas Domine, commendo spiritum meum.

Manly men

I was able to get to the U of M last night (Saturday), arriving about 7:30. I went around to the side of Rarig facing away from the street where students most often walk by between classes. I lived in Middlebrook Hall on the West Bank, so I had pictured the protest being held on that side. But nobody was there! I saw theatre-goers inside having drinks, but no one outside. I thought perhaps I was too late, and the group was asked to move or something.

But I walked around to the other side to find a dense wedge of people praying the Rosary and singing, mostly seminarians. I have no idea how to estimate the size - definitely more than 50 and probably less than 100. It appeared identical to the descriptions I had read about Friday night.

I crossed in front and took up a position near the back corner. We finished the last three Glorious Mysteries and then prayed the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. Lots of people walked by on their way into the theatre for the 8:00 show, and most just passed by with a glance. Praying out in the cold reminded me of my childless days when I would get up Saturday mornings and go with a few friends to pray outside an abortion provider in Robbinsdale. We were led by Father Dufner, rain or show or shine. It's something that sounds really radical when you talk about it -- "Yeah, I was outside in the snow praying for and hour to stop abortion..." But it actually ends up being much easier to do than expected and eventually becomes a routine. Last night was the same way. I was a bit nervous walking to the theatre, but there was nothing to fear once I was there in prayer.

I'm glad I went. It was clearly the SJV guys' show, as they seemed quite used to praying and singing together. I've decided that learning about the protest got me so excited because it wasn't some cranks standing outside the theatre with signs and yelling, "GO TO HELL LIBERAL ARTIST SCUM!" It was our seminarians (led by their rector Fr. Baer) standing up to say - This is not right. Catholics should not put up with this kind of insult and blasphemy. We will pray in reparation, trusting to God and His perfect justice. I'm so grateful that these men are answering God's call to serve His Church.

Oh, as for these "manly men". Their deep voices rang out with confidence in prayer and song (much better than my students' singing at school). After Fr. Baer's blessing, the SJV men shouted their motto: "Men in Christ! Men of the Church! Men for others! Saint John Vianney - Pray for us! Holy Mary Mother of God - Pray for us!" There was more, but I forget. It was like a team getting psyched for a game. Way to go, guys! Fr. Corapi doesn't call the Rosary a powerful weapon for nothing!

*Shout out to Cathy_of_Alex whom (who?) I greeted after the praying. She was there the whole time and nearly took over when the seminarians were a few minutes slow showing up. Good to see you!

Other posts about the evening at Veritatis Spendor (pics) and Adoro te Devote.

Show up and be counted!

Ray from MN also attended last night's play and records the sight of the "alien" SJV seminarians praying at the U of MN here.

SJV men will be there again tonight beginning at 7:15 and lasting about an hour! Click the above link for details. I'll be there in support of our future priests and in protest of "The Pope and His Witch."

Faithful witness in the face of insult

The insulting play "The Pope and the Witch" opened last night at the U of M to a small crowd inside the theatre (about 250/460 seats filled) but a surprisingly large crowd outside the theatre. Around 70 to 80 people, many of them seminarians from Saint John Vianney, stood outside praying the rosary and singing hymns in protest of a play that reportedly mocks the Pope specifically and the Catholic faith generally. Praise God for their public witness! I can't tell you how encouraging it is to me to hear that so many men discerning priesthood have the courage to stand up without embarrassment and be counted in support of Our Lord and His Church.

The Star Tribune reports on the play here. Cathy_of_Alex, author of The Recovering Dissident Catholic saw the play last night and gives her thoughts here and here.

I left a voicemail at Fr. Baer's office asking him to pass on a "thank you" to the men who prayed outside the play for their strong public witness for our Lord and his Church. It'd be great if others could do the same, or email:

Fr. William Baer, Rector-President - 651-962-6825
sjv@stthomas.edu

The barbarian hordes

There is a good article titled Leo the Great and Benedict the XVI over at Catholic Exchange. While Leo the Great faced down the barbarian army of Attila the Hun as it made its way towards Rome in 452, Pope Benedict XVI is poised to challenge the "seductive ideologies and cultural pathologies" that seek to undermine the Church's moral authority, the dignity of the human person, and thus modern civilization.

(I'm keen on Leo the Great. My son's name is Leo. :)

Praying the morning psalms

I've completed the links for Lauds (Morning Prayer). You can find them here.

Now I have to actually read all of them! :)

Praying the psalms

Over the course of this school year, I've been acquainting myself with the psalms as prayed in the Liturgy of the Hours. I struggle with consistency in my prayer life and I find that the LH provides a necessary resource for praying each day, particularly Evening Prayer after the boys are asleep. (As my good wife remarked while paging through the prayer book, "It's just like a choose your own adventure book!") The nice thing about it is that the whole Church is invited to enter into this prayer together. So if the circumstances of life tie me up for a day and I miss praying, I know that the LH goes on around the globe and I can re-enter that channel of grace.

Christ has taught us the necessity of praying at all times without losing heart (Luke 18:1). The Church has been faithful in obeying this instruction; it never ceases to offer prayer, and makes this exhortation its own: ‘Through him (Jesus) let us offer to God an unceasing sacrifice of praise’ (Hebrews 15:15). The Church satisfies this requirement not only by the celebration of the Eucharist but in other ways also, especially through the Liturgy of the Hours, which is distinguished from other liturgical actions by the fact that it consecrates to God the whole cycle of day and night, as it has done from early Christian times.
(General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours, 10)

I've admitted to myself that I'm a beginner in prayer (no heights of contemplation yet). So I'm working on the basics: regular vocal prayer. Father Thomas Dubay especially recommends the Liturgy of the Hours for this purpose in his book Prayer Primer. The LH also offers many gems for mediation from the scriptures which I find helpful in learning that next highest form of prayer. However, I've never studied the psalms before and needed some help understanding them.

Pope John Paul II began a series of catechesis on the psalms from Morning and Evening Prayer in 2001. After his death, Pope Benedict XVI completed the series, ending in 2006. All of the pope's audiences can be found online (great!), but only sorted by date, not topic (not great). While there is a book which compiles some of the talks, I searched in vain for an online compilation of the entire catechesis.

So, I did it myself. Here are the links to all the audiences during which the Holy Father (John Paul and Benedict) taught through the psalms for Evening Prayer. I'm working on Morning Prayer next. I hope you find it useful. Please let me know of any problems with the links.

God bless!

Vespers Psalms catechesis by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI

The Liturgy of the Hours online at Universalis.com

*****EDITTED 2/21/2007*****
The links for Lauds (Morning Prayer) are now finished. God bless!