Christ Washing the Feet of the Disciples, by Giotto. c.1305
“It is enough.”
He said to them, “But now, let him who has a purse take it, and likewise a bag. And let him who has no sword sell his mantle and buy one. For I tell you that this scripture must be fulfilled in me, ‘And he was reckoned with transgressors’; for what is written about me has its fulfilment.” And they said, “Look, Lord, here are two swords.” And he said to them, “It is enough.” (Luke 22:36-38)
I often find it easy to identify with Peter and the other Apostles when they are slow to catch on to what their Master is saying. Take the passage above, for example, from Luke’s account of the Last Supper. There’s an almost comical quality to their too literal understanding of Christ’s sword imagery. I picture Jesus shaking his head, with just a hint of a wry smile, as he says “It is enough.”
And yet this is a very serious moment. It represents the Lord’s last instructions to his closest associates before he goes out to meet a horrifying death. And later that same evening, Peter uses one of those two swords. Int the Garden of Gethsemane, he mutilates a man in the gang that has come to arrest Jesus. Nobody smiles at that.
“But now, let him who has a purse take it, and likewise a bag. And let him who has no sword sell his mantle and buy one.” (Luke 22:36)
St. Peter Cuts Off Slave’s Ear, by Duccio di Buoninsegna, c. 1300
“Lord, do you wash my feet?”
In the passage below from John’s Gospel, one of the readings at this evening’s Mass of the Lord’s Supper, we see something very similar:
Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded.
He came to Simon Peter; and Peter said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part in me.”
Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “He who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but he is clean all over; and you are clean, but not every one of you.” (John 13:3-10)
Pride and Humility
When he takes on the servile task of washing the Apostles’ feet, Jesus doesn’t simply speak. He acts out his message, in the manner of an Old Testament prophet. He is showing the Apostles through his example that the purpose of their office is to serve, and not to exalt themselves. As Christ came to serve, so must they.
But look what happens next. Jesus notes that Peter does not understand what his Lord is doing. Peter, in turn, confirms it with a curious mixture of pride and humility. He is indignant that his Master should lower himself in this way! Jesus tells him, in effect, that this is the price of discipleship. At this point Peter, thinking that nowhe gets it, goes to the opposite extreme: in that case, wash everything! As in the passage from Luke, Christ seems, in effect, to shake his head patiently and move on.
The Power of the Holy Spirit
St. Peter Preaching in Jerusalem,by Charles Poërson, 1642
There are many other examples like these in the Gospels. All too often, Peter and the other Apostles just don’t understand. Then, when they think they finally do get it, well, no, they still don’t understand. And yet, these are the men Jesus has chosen to carry on his mission.
This tells us something about what it is to be human. None of us can figure it all out on our own. We need the Power of the Father, the Saving Grace of Christ, and the Guidance of the Holy Spirit. That’s why the Peter we see in the Acts of the Apostles is so much more consistent and confident. He has experienced the Power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (see Acts chapter 2). The Peter we see after Pentecost is much more believable as the Rock upon whom Christ will build his Church (see Matthew 16:18).
Christ Came to Serve
The washing of the feet also points to the much greater events that are about to unfold. Christ’s death on the Cross was a servile and degrading form of execution. Roman citizens, St. Paul for instance, underwent the more dignified penalty of beheading with a sword. Christ’s self-sacrifice was the ultimate act of Service, because it was all for us:
Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-8)
Who can blame Peter for finding that hard to accept? But eventually he does accept that Christ came to serve, through God’s Grace. I pray that I also, in the commemoration of Christ’s Passion and the glory of his Resurrection, find the grace to understand and to accept His service to me, and to follow his example in my own life.
Rejoice, Jerusalem, and all who love her. Be joyful, all who were in mourning;
exult and be satisfied at her consoling breast. (Introit for the 4th Sunday of Lent)
Our Goal is Almost in Sight
Why rejoice in the middle of Lent? Isn’t Lent a solemn and penitential season? And haven’t we banned Allelu . . . um, I mean the “A Word” until the Easter Vigil? What’s up with Laetare Sunday?
Good question. Yesterday’s mass opened with the introit at the top of the post, which comes from Isaiah 66:10. The first word of the introit in Latin is laetare, “rejoice,” for which reason we have long called the fourth Sunday Laetare Sunday. On this particular Sunday a priest may wear rose colored vestments (which can look suspiciously like pink to those who are not in the know). It does seem out of place in the middle of Lent.
The primary reason for the (admittedly, subdued) theme of rejoicing on the fourth Sunday of Lent is as a reminder of where we’re heading. We have just passed the midpoint of the penitential season. The Church is reminding us that our goal, the joy of the Resurrection at Easter, is almost in sight. Don’t lose hope!
A Distant Glimpse of Heaven
As always, we can find other levels of meaning. We can look at Lent, for instance, as representing our time of exile in this world. Here we “dwell in the world, yet are not of the world,” as the Letter to Diognetus puts it. The joy-tinged reminder of our goal that we encounter on Laetare Sunday is like the promise of Hope that we find in the Revelation of Jesus Christ. The flash of rose against somber purple is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). It’s a distant glimpse of Heaven amidst the gloom of our fallen world.
I chose today’s musical selection with that idea In mind. This is a little unlike my usual music posts. Ok, it’s a lotunlike my usual music posts. A gospel song with banjo, guitars, and mandolin is a clear contrast to the usual classical pieces. Kind of like the difference between bright rose pink and dark purple. In any case, I like the evocative way this song expresses our longing for Resurrection and for the Presence of Jesus as we experience the darkness that surrounds us in this life. Not only that, it really rocks.
Ain’t No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down
This performance is from the Southern Gospel Revival Series. Jamie Wilson sings lead and plays the banjo. Courtney Patton, Drew Kennedy, Ben Hester, Marty Durlam, and Jesse Fox are the backing musicians.
One of the first things a new teacher learns is that you need to start with a clear idea of where you want to end up. If we’re not clear on what we want our students to learn, then our efforts will be misdirected and wasted. When we plan our lessons, we choose activities and resources that are most likely to bring our students to that outcome. Not only that, we need to stay focused on that outcome as we progress through the lesson.
But that’s not all. I remember very clearly my first day as a teacher some three and a half decades ago. One of the religious brothers for whom I was working told me: “Always remember, take your students where they are right now, then bring them up to where you want them to be.” We need to start with the real world, not our ideal reality. We need to recognize the true state of affairs.
Look to the Stars
Today’s readings do something of the same thing. In the first reading from Genesis (15:5-12, 17-18). The Lord has taken Abram, who is elderly and childless, out to show him the stars.
“Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can.
Just so,” he added, “shall your descendants be.”
God also promises Abram the possession of the land in which he is living, to which he has come as a dispossessed stranger. Abram asks the Lord:
“O Lord GOD,” he asked,
“how am I to know that I shall possess it?”
God directs him to offer up a curious sacrifice which involves cutting the bodies of the victims in two and leaving a space between them. Having done so, Abram waits patiently for God to act. His patience is rewarded by a supernatural breaking through of Divine Power when a fire appears and passes between the split carcasses of the animals. This manifestation of God’s power is a sign to Abram that his patience will be rewarded.
Detail from The Transfiguration, by Raphael, 1516-1520
The Transfiguration
The Gospel reading for the 2nd Sunday of Lent also involves a breaking through of the Divine Promise into the world of the here and now. Luke describes the Transfiguration of Jesus on Mt. Tabor (9:28b-36). The glimpse of the Glorified Christ, accompanied by Moses and Elijah, is a powerful promise to Peter, John, and James of a much greater reality toward which they are working. But here we also see a warning: the Glorified Jesus is talking to Moses and Elijah “of his exodusthat he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.” That is, his Passion and death. The Transfiguration is not a reality, yet, for Jesus’ disciples. There is still the Mystery of the Cross.
The first and last readings remind us of the objective, the “where we want to go.” The second reading, from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians (3:17—4:1), reminds us of the reality from which we’re starting out:
For many, as I have often told you
and now tell you even in tears,
conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ.
Their end is destruction.
Their God is their stomach;
their glory is in their “shame.”
Their minds are occupied with earthly things.
The God of Our Stomach
That is, to some degree, all of us. We all face the temptations of the “god” of our “stomach,” which represents our appetites, not just for food, put for earthly pleasures, possessions and powers. If we let those things be our gods, and therefore set our goals, our end can only be destruction.
St. Paul offers us instead the divine objection we see more vividly in the other readings:
But our citizenship is in heaven,
and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
He will change our lowly body
to conform with his glorified body . . .
The disciplines of Lent are intended to give us a concrete reminder that we need to say “no” to the god of our stomach. The few brief weeks of the penitential season represent the brief span of our life here in this world. Today, when we are still near the beginning of our Lenten journey, we are reminded of the glorious goal that lies at the end . . . if we persevere. We need the patience and faith of Abram, and we need to keep our eyes on the prize.
(Detail), Scenes from the Apocalypse, Paris-Oxford-London Bible moralisée, France, c. 1225–45 (The British Library, Harley MS 1527 fol. 140v)
Latin is Your Language
Latin is your language.
At least it is for the 1,295,000,000 Catholics who belong to the Latin Rite. We call it “Latin Rite” because Latin is its language, as it has been for over a millennium and a half. It is not just the official language of the Church but, to this day, the official language of the Mass. I’m not talking about the Tridentine Mass, which we often call the Traditional Latin Mass, or TLM. I mean the ordinary Mass that you can find in any parish church.
True, you have probably never heard it in any language other than English, or another modern language such as French or Spanish. And yes, the Second Vatican Council permitted the Mass in local languages (see below). That permission quickly became the norm after the council. Nevertheless, the official language of the liturgy is still the same language spoken by Julius Caesar. It’s the language of St. Augustine. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote the Summa Theologica, and rowdy medieval scholars composed the Carmina Burana, in this very same tongue.
Yes, there are non-Latin Catholics, by the way. About 18 million of the World’s Catholics belong to other rites such the Byzantine, Maronite, Melkite, etc. Still, the fact remains that, outside of those relative few, if you’re Catholic, Latin is your liturgical language.
If you’re lucky you may hear some of the traditional language, your language, at Mass. At the very least you should hear it in some traditional Christmas songs. You may even occasionally hear some chant in Latin. After all, the Second Vatican Council also decreed:
The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services. (Sacrosanctum Concilium 116)
The Human Touch
Again, if you’re lucky: the “Spirit” of Vatican II has little use for the Letter of Vatican II. If you’re very fortunate indeed you may find yourself in one of those parishes which is bringing back some of the responses, such as the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei, in Latin.
The Laying on of Hands: Archbishop of Brisbane Mark Coleridge ordains Timothy Harris as Bishop of Townsville, Australia (https://mediablog.catholic.org.au/)
Some of you, no doubt, are asking, “What’s so lucky about that?” Glad you asked . . . But first, before I deal directly with the Latin language in the liturgical life of the Church, we need to take a quick look at the sacraments.
I’m thinking specifically of the ordination of bishops. The bishops are the successors of the Apostles. The ordination rite of Catholic bishops says: “Gladly and gratefully, therefore, receive our brother whom we are about to receive into the college of bishops by the laying on of hands.”
And that’s exactly what happens.Iit has always been part of the rite that, just before the consecration itself, the presiding bishop places his hands on the head of the bishop-elect. That same presiding bishop felt the hands of another bishop on his own head when he was ordained, the hands of a bishop who himself had experienced the laying on of hands from another bishop, and so on all the way back to the Apostles. Those same Apostles had felt the physical touch of Jesus Christ himself. A true bishop must be part of that unbroken chain of physical contact starting with the hands of our Lord. It’s an essential part of the Apostolic Succession.
The Tangible Connection
The recognition that God transmits Grace through physical means permeates the entire Catholic understanding, and really the entire traditional Christian understanding, of God’s relationship to his creation. It’s the underlying rationale for all the sacraments. The same is true for sacramentals like holy water, holy medals, etc. It’s why every Mass used to end with the reading of the Last Gospel, the opening chapter of the Gospel of John, which proclaims that “The Word became Flesh.” (John 1:14)
You’ll notice that those physical connections include not only things, but people. Just as the physical touch of human bishops over the centuries passes on Grace originating in Christ, all of us can draw closer to God through our relationship with our older brothers and sisters in the faith, the saints. Our connection with our fellow Christians in the communion of saints is not a purely spiritual connection, either. We’ve preserved little bits of cloth and even the very bones of the saints to make that connection as tangible as possible. We are soul and body: we need to experience spiritual realities in a physical way.
Latin is to be Preserved
Reliquary containing a vial of St. John Vianney’s blood (http://www.papalartifacts.com/)
That’s where the Latin language comes in. It’s our tangible connection to, and direct sharing in, the liturgical experience of many generations of our predecessors in the Communion of Saints. That’s why in the decree Sacrosanctum Concilium the Second Vatican Council said that “The use of the Latin language, with due respect to particular law, is to be preserved in the Latin rites.” (SC 36) The document does go on to say, however, that: “since the use of the vernacular whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments, or in other parts of the liturgy, may frequently be of great advantage to the people, a wider use may be made of it, especially in readings, directives and in some prayers and chants.” (SC 36)
You might not think so from what has happened to the liturgy over the past few decades, but the Second Vatican Council did not mandate, or even recommend, removing the Latin language from the Mass. It was simply allowing some use of the vernacular. Sacrosanctum Concilium returns to this point later on, when it says: “Nevertheless care must be taken to ensure that the faithful may also be able to say or sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them.” (SC 54)
Not Something We Create
The Council Fathers understood that the Latin language serves a purpose similar to the laying on of hands. Not the sacramental function, certainly. Nevertheless, it keeps alive that sense of connection to previous generations of believers. Even more than that, it’s a tangible reminder that the Mass isn’t something that we create ourselves, or that exists only for us. It tells us in a very concrete way that the Mass is here to bind us back to something immeasurably older and greater than ourselves. It helps to turn us away from a focus on ourselves, and instead put our attention where it belongs, on our Loving Creator.
In Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen
Picture Sunday Mass in a typical parish. A mother comes up for communion holding a small child in her arms. As she approaches the priest, she awkwardly holds on to her infant with one arm in order to free up the other to take the Eucharistic host and quickly pop it into her mouth before she drops it, or her squirming child, to the floor. I’ve witnessed this scene on numerous occasions over the years, and I always wonder why the harried parent doesn’t avail herself of a simple and effective method of protecting both the safety of her son or daughter and the dignity of all the parties involved (very much including Christ present in the Eucharist): hold her child securely in both arms, extend her tongue, and receive the Body of Christ in the same manner as her ancestors did for centuries before her: the manner that is still, officially, the norm for the entire Church.
But let’s set aside, for the moment, the issue of Church norms. Why should the young mother holding her baby receiving communion, or any of us for that matter, care what our ancestors did? That is to say, what is the point of tradition?
“Les Premières Communiantes” by Blanchard, Musée de la Civilisation, Québec
The question of the value of tradition has been given a certain currency by Pope Francis’ recent motu proprio Traditionis Custodes, which seeks to restrict the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM). G.K. Chesterton called tradition “the democracy of the dead” because it gives our forebears a “vote” in how we conduct ourselves here and now. This is something unique to humanity. It makes no difference to a cat, or a bat, or a moray eel that it is doing what it’s ancestors did; Animals are biologically programmed to behave exactly as previous generations have done. A dog doesn’t give the least thought to whether or not he should leave his mark on a given fire hydrant, he simply does it and moves on.
We humans are different. We are, again, unique among the world’s creatures. We’re not governed by instinct, we alone can make free choices about how we act. We have been endowed by our Creator with awareness of self, with the ability to make distinctions, to think abstractly:
[W]hat is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou dost care for him? Yet thou hast made him little less than God, and dost crown him with glory and honor. Thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the sea. O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth!(Psalm 8:4-9)
The second sentence above is sometimes translated “Thou hast made him little less than the angels.” Like the angels we have been endowed by God with great gifts. Like the angels we can forget the divine source of those gifts, and succumb to pride . . . and therefore fall.
“The Fall of the Rebel Angels” by Edward Dayes, 1798
Tradition, if we pay attention to it, steers us away from that fall. For one thing, the experience of our ancestors and their choices, good and bad, guides us in sound decision-making: “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it,” as George Santayana famously said. More than that, the realization that what we know and what we can do is only made possible by centuries of trial, error, and reflection (“We stand on the shoulders of giants”) helps us understand that we can claim little credit for our achievements, and warns against the temptation of that pride which leadeth to the fall (see Proverbs 16:18).
Sacred tradition, tradition as preserved by the Church in scripture, doctrine, liturgy, and sacraments does even more than that, much more. It reveals to us the involvement of God in every part of the human story, and directly connects us to the life of God Himself. The highest expression of sacred tradition is the Eucharist as the True Body and Blood of Christ himself, and the Church as His Mystical Body.
Before I go further, let’s note the distinction between Sacred Tradition, sometimes called Tradition with a capital T, and lowercase sacred traditions. Sacred Tradition with a capital T refers to essential elements of Catholic belief and practice that have existed from the beginning and cannot change, such as doctrinal definitions. Lowercase traditions are things that are beneficial, even holy, but are not essential, such as devotional practices. These can be changed or abrogated if they are no longer helpful. The Mass contains both kinds of tradition. There are essential, unchangeable elements such as a validly consecrated priest, an altar, a victim, and a sacrifice; there are also changeable factors, such as (despite my fondness for Latin) the language in which the Mass is conducted, or the posture we assume in receiving communion.
Just because sacred traditions (as opposed to Sacred Tradition) can be changed, however, it doesn’t follow that they do not fill an important role in the spiritual lives of believers, or that setting them aside without good reason would do no harm. We can clearly see why this is so when we look at ordinary, non sacred traditions. Consider the policy of totalitarian revolutionaries from time immemorial: one of the first things they do is to destroy established tradition. They try to undermine the traditional family by separating children from their parents and husband from wife (that’s why communists have often been champions of so-called “free love”); they abolish religion and secular associations that exist outside of their control. Totalitarians seek to erase any pre-existing sense of identity so that they can forge a new identity, and form people according to their own designs.
Guess what this is: Sacred Heart Church, Altruras, CA, 1883
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that something similar has been happening in the Church for most of the past century, going back even before the Second Vatican Council. Consider church architecture. Despite sometimes significant changes over time, any church built from the time Christians emerged from catacombs in the 4th century up until the mid twentieth century, from the humblest parish church to the grandest basilica, would be immediately recognizable for what it was, and in fact as of a kind with all the other churches. Moreover, sacred architecture has always used the elements of the building itself to evangelize, using a balanced and hierarchical arrangement to represent the order of God’s universe, with all things drawing the eye ultimately to the altar and the tabernacle at the center.
Somewhere during the twentieth century church architecture makes a sudden turn in a radically different direction, and we see church buildings that look like spaceships, or half-capsized boats, or mere angular jumbles of seemingly random chunks of concrete. The altar is an unremarkable table, and good luck finding the tabernacle. Instead of being “sermons in stone” the new churches spoke of nothing so much as the disorder in the mind of the human architects who designed them or of the confused churchmen who commissioned them.
Something similar happened in liturgy. The “new” Mass that emerged in 1970 was significantly different from the reforms envisioned by the Second Council, and the actual implementation of the reformed liturgy took things even beyond the changes specified in the new Mass itself. I’m not saying that the current liturgy is invalid; I am arguing that the radical changes there, as in architecture and other features in the life of the Church, have rashly and unnecessarily done violence to things that help draw Catholic believers closer to God and to each other.
“What the . . . ?” Church of Sainte-Bernadette du Banlay, Nevers, France, 1966
I’d like to return briefly to the image I started out with, the mother or father juggling a squirming baby in one hand and the Sacred Body and Blood of Christ in the other. I noted that simply receiving on the tongue would be much more comfortable, efficient, and dignified, not to mention safer for the baby. Those advantages, however, are not the point: they are simply a happy consequence of what we ought to be doing anyway.
I’m not simply stating my personal opinion: communion on the tongue is the established rule. The Church’s official stance was clearly stated in 1969 by the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship in its instruction Memoriale Domini. This is the document which grants permission for distribution of communion in the hand. We should note that this permission is granted only after a two-thirds vote of the regional bishops’ conference and confirmation by the Holy See. Significantly, the greater part of the instruction is given to emphasizing why communion on the tongue is greatly to be preferred to receiving in the hand, and why the traditional practice remains the rule (my bold):
. . . with a deepening understanding of the truth of the Eucharistic Mystery, of its power and of the presence of Christ in it, there came a greater feeling of reverence towards this sacrament and a deeper humility was felt to be demanded when receiving it. Thus the custom was established of the minister placing a particle of consecrated bread on the tongue of the communicant.
This method of distributing holy communion must be retained, taking the present situation of the Church in the entire world into account, not merely because it has many centuries of tradition behind it, but especially because it expresses the faithful’s reverence for the Eucharist . . .
The Apostolic See therefore emphatically urges bishops, priests and laity to obey carefully the law which is still valid and which has again been confirmed.
The reason for the rule is to show, and to help the recipient feel, the deepest reverence for the presence of Christ in the Sacrament.
I was working on a lengthy post on this topic last month in response to a reader’s comment. I was derailed by the publication of Traditionis Custodes (among other things). I may return to explore the topic in greater length at some point; today I’m simply using it as an example. In any case, my point is this: even if we don’t privilege one form of reception of the Eucharist over the other, why is there such resistance to the more traditional way, even to the point of risking injury to one’s own child? For that matter, why are most children taught the reluctantly granted exception, but not the actual norm? Why is there so much hostility to the traditional form?
“Hostility” is no exaggeration (and again, this is just one example of a much wider trend). Memoriale Domini says in defense of the traditional practice:
The custom [i.e., reception on the tongue] does not detract in any way from the personal dignity of those who approach this great sacrament: it is part of that preparation that is needed for the most fruitful reception of the Body of the Lord.
If you that doubt promoters of the new practice object precisely to the gestures of humility inherent in the old, consider the following excerpt from “progessive” Catholic commentator Peter Steinfels’ 2003 book A People Adrift. Steinfels dismissively describes the traditional communicant as “kneeling, eyes closed and tongue outstretched like a baby bird being fed” as opposed to a communicant who “stood eye-to-eye with the priest or Eucharistic minister, touching objects previously handled by the priest alone.” The overriding concern here is not the reverence due to the Lord of the Universe; in fact, it seems to be altogether forgotten in the power struggle with His human priest. The focus here is the assertion of the Autonomous Human Self. So much for standing on the shoulders of giants.
This refusal to submit ourselves to the wisdom of tradition (and, by extension, to the Divine Inspiration for those traditions) seems to be the motivating factor in much of the change that has happened in the Church over the past century. We can see this refusal manifested in the architectural innovations mentioned above (along with the wanton destruction of the beautiful interiors of so many churches), the avoidance of any discussion of sin, and the replacement of an emphasis on the holy and transcendent with a focus on the material and earthly (social justice, Liberation Theology). We are abandoning the things that point us to God in favor of the merely human. Are we surprised that more and more people are deciding that they simply don’t need the Church at all?
It should also come as no surprise that areas of growth in the Church are those places that embrace tradition: religious orders that emphasize wearing a habit and adhering to Church teaching, dioceses and parishes that embrace Church teaching and the traditional elements in the new Mass, and, of course, the Traditional Latin Mass. What concerns me most about Traditionis Custodes is that, instead of seeing that growth as a positive thing that brings more people closer to Christ, and therefore as something we should work to inculcate more widely in the Church, this pontificate has embraced the same hostility that took sledgehammers to beautiful, inspiring marble altars and communion rails. We risk dropping the baby on the floor.
Featured image top of page: “Communion Midnight Mass” (Evans/Getty Images)
Introibo ad altare Dei ad Deum qui laetificat iuventutem meam. “I will go up to the altar of God, to God who makes joyful my youth” – Psalm 43:4
There is a well-known story about Canute, King of England and much of Scandinavia in the 11th century, who wanted to illustrate insignificance of human authority:
When he was at the height of his ascendancy, [Canute] ordered his chair to be placed on the sea-shore as the tide was coming in. Then he said to the rising tide, “You are subject to me, as the land on which I am sitting is mine, and no one has resisted my overlordship with impunity. I command you, therefore, not to rise on to my land, nor to presume to wet the clothing or limbs of your master.” But the sea came up as usual, and disrespectfully drenched the king’s feet and shins. So jumping back, the king cried, “Let all the world know that the power of kings is empty and worthless, and there is no king worthy of the name save Him by whose will heaven, earth and the sea obey eternal laws.” (from Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum)
If only all princes were equally aware of the limits of their power.
You have probably already heard that the rumored blow against the Traditonal Latin Mass (TLM) has finally fallen in the form of Pope Francis’ motu proprio Traditionis Custodes. It is actually harsher than what the rumors anticipated. The fear was that Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 motu propio Summorum Pontificum would be revoked, which would return the TLM to the somewhat more restricted status that existed under Pope St. John Paul II. Traditionis Custodes goes much further, revoking every papal intervention favorable to the traditional Mass over the past half century. As Francis explains in the letter that accompanies the document:
I take the firm decision to abrogate all the norms, instructions, permissions and customs that precede the present Motu proprio, and declare that the liturgical books promulgated by the saintly Pontiffs Paul VI and John Paul II [i.e., the post Vatican II Mass], in conformity with the decrees of Vatican Council II, constitute the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite.
The Pope also makes it clear that when he says the new Mass should “constitute the unique expression”, he means that the end result he envisions is that the TLM should eventually cease altogether (my bold):
St. Paul VI, recalling that the work of adaptation of the Roman Missal had already been initiated by Pius XII, declared that the revision of the Roman Missal, carried out in the light of ancient liturgical sources, had the goal of permitting the Church to raise up, in the variety of languages, “a single and identical prayer,” that expressed her unity. This unity I intend to re-establish throughout the Church of the Roman Rite.
I’ll leave it to those more competent than myself to examine the document in detail (here are a few I’ve seen so far: a good explanation of its provisions here at Life Site News, another here at The Pillar, and an informative ongoing discussion on Fr. Z’s blog). It will be helpful, however, to look at a few of the main takeaways. Summorum Pontificum had allowed priests to offer the TLM without asking permission, and had encouraged local ordinaries to provide the Latin Mass to “stable” groups of the faithful who desired it. The new promulgation requires priests to obtain permission from their bishop (and newly ordained priests to receive permission from the Vatican itself). Another new provision is that parish churches should no longer be used; bishops should establish “one or more locations” for the celebration of the TLM in their dioceses (numerous commentators have wondered where these locations will be if parish churches are off the table). Traditionis Custodes does not provide any transitional period for implementing these and other changes, but stipulates that they come into force “immediately”, a provision Fr. John Zuhlsdorf justly describes as “cruel”.
Cardinal Robert Sarah celebrating the Traditional Latin Mass (image from Gloria.tv)
As sweeping as the changes in Traditionis Custodes seem to be, however, it is not at all clear how much impact the motu proprio will actually have. The implementation is being left up to each bishop in his own diocese:
It is up to you to authorize in your Churches, as local Ordinaries, the use of the Missale Romanum of 1962, applying the norms of the present Motu proprio. It is up to you to proceed in such a way as to return to a unitary form of celebration, and to determine case by case the reality of the groups which celebrate with this Missale Romanum.
Pope Francis cited the results of a survey of bishops in his letter. It’s unclear how many urged him to move against the TLM, but we know that some bishops are hostile (very often the same ones who resist confronting Catholics who publicly defy Church teaching: see here and here). At the same time, I find it very hard to believe that a majority of bishops favor this scheme. No doubt the hostile bishops will make the most of the new restrictions, but little will change for the present in many, maybe most, dioceses. Fr. Z has already posted letters from several bishops to the effect that, for now, the TLM will continue as it has been.
Of more immediate concern is the deleterious effect on the morale of the troops in the Church Militant. When I first heard the news about Traditionis Custodes I immediately thought of Justice Byron White’s description of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, which instantly wiped away all abortion laws in all 50 states. White famously referred to the notorious ruling as “an exercise in raw judicial power.” Pope Francis’s motu proprio is no less an exercise in raw papal power, and, like Roe v. Wade, can’t help but deepen and inflame the divisions it purports to heal. It’s likely that one immediate effect will be to drive more Catholics into the Society of St. Pius X which, although it has never been in actual schism, continues to enjoy an irregular relationship with the Universal Church. That is hardly the way to bring about the “unity” the Pope claims to be aiming for.
Despite that, I remain convinced that the long-term goal of shutting down the TLM completely is out of reach. In fact, this move may have the opposite effect of making it even more attractive to the most committed Catholics. In a previous post (“Finding the Future in the Past: Why The Latin Mass is not Going Away”) I compared the then-rumored revocation of Summorum Pontificum to World War II’s Battle of the Bulge, a last-ditch effort by an already beaten power that could hope only to forestall inevitable defeat. The losing army in this case is the “Spirit” of Vatican II, whose advocates enjoy outsized influence in chanceries and in structures like the USCCB bureaucracy, but have much less (and dwindling) support among Catholics who are young or devout, and among the younger priests and bishops. The most fervent and dynamic Catholics, lay and clerical, cannot be browbeaten into embracing a vision of the Church as this-worldly social services agency or into loving a Eucharistic liturgy that is more evocative of a secular business meeting than of the choirs of heaven.
Nonetheless, the beautiful traditional Mass may become less available for a time. There is one thing, however, that Pope Francis says in his letter that we can use for the benefit both of those who want to attend the TLM but can’t, and those who simply attend the post Vatican II Mass:
At the same time, I am saddened by abuses in the celebration of the liturgy on all sides. In common with Benedict XVI, I deplore the fact that “in many places the prescriptions of the new Missal are not observed in celebration, but indeed come to be interpreted as an authorization for or even a requirement of creativity, which leads to almost unbearable distortions”.
The opening of Vatican II, 1962
There you have it: Pope Francis is on record that he doesn’t like abuses of the new Missal. I say we hold him to it. As it happens, it is possible to celebrate the Novus Ordo Mass according to the rubrics and have something that is much more like the TLM than what most Catholics see today, and is in fact much closer to the reformed liturgy envisioned in the documents of Vatican II (one of the Pope’s reasons for restricting the TLM was because he believes it encourages a rejection of Vatican II). There is no stipulation in the rubrics, for instance, that the priest face the congregation, instead of facing the altar with the people. There is no reason why we can’t encourage Catholics to receive communion on the tongue (kneeling, while we’re at it), with an altar server holding a paten under the chin. Latin is still the official language of the Mass, and a priest doesn’t need anybody’s permission to say even the post-Vatican II Mass in Latin (for any of you who don’t know Latin, by the way, it’s never too late to start learning). There is a vast store of beautiful sacred music that can be restored to parish churches everywhere. None of these things are abuses or distortions, and all of them make a more reverent Mass, a Mass much closer to the TLM in appearance and in spirit.
Most of us, of course, aren’t priests or bishops, and it’s up to the clergy to offer up the Mass. We are all capable of making our voices heard, however, respectfully and positively, but insistently:
Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? (Matthew 7:7-10)
We need to keep asking for bread and fish, directly and indirectly, individually and in groups.
This is not to say, by the way, that I am advocating giving up on the TLM: far from it. I am saying that now is the time for the vox populi to be heard: we need to make it clear that we need a holy, reverent, spiritually nourishing divine liturgy that shows gives us a glimpse here on Earth of the liturgy that, God willing, awaits us in Heaven. As I said above, the TLM isn’t going away, whatever the aging veterans of the Spirit of Vatican II may wish. At the same time, it doesn’t require any interventions from Rome to offer Catholics attending what Benedict XVI referred to as the Ordinary Form of the Mass something much more beautiful and inspiring than what they’re getting now. I’ve seen it done at a couple of faithful Catholic Colleges, I’ve seen it done in a diocesan Cathedral.
Understandably, many of us feel shocked and saddened, even betrayed, by the Pope’s intervention. I’ll let the first Pope have the last word::
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while you may have to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold which though perishable is tested by fire, may redound to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:6-7)
The scene is a parish church. A congregation has assembled for Sunday Mass. The opening hymn begins with a grand flourish. The celebrant processes into the church amid alleluias and mighty blasts from the organ. We reach a mini-climax. The music ends. Then, there is a moment of silence while the celebrant adjusts his microphone. He smiles. And what are the first words out of his mouth? “Good morning, everybody” THUD! You can almost hear something collapsing . . . The church building, the music, and the celebrant in flowing robes all seem to to say, “This is a ritual,” an event out of the ordinary. Then, the “Good morning” intrudes itself and indicates that this is really a business meeting and not a liturgy, after all. -Thomas Day, Why Catholics Can’t Sing
Church or file cabinet?
In Why Catholics Can’t Sing Thomas Day takes a close and often acerbic look at what is wrong with the liturgy as it is all too often celebrated in Catholic churches. A major theme, as we can see in the excerpt above, is that reformers and others (both clerical and lay) who are responsible for planning and conducting liturgical celebrations ignore the importance of ritual – of sights, sounds, scents, and actions – in fostering our relationship with God. While there have been some marked improvements since Day’s book was first published in 1991 (most notably Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificumin 2007, about which more below), we’re nowhere near out of the woods yet.
This is not just a matter of aesthetics, by the way. Yes, a poorly celebrated or even a lackadaisical Mass can still be valid, and the Eucharist confected by an irreverent priest is still the Body and Blood of Christ. The Mass, however, is more than just a delivery system for the Eucharist. It is also the highest form of prayer. It helps us to find communion with our Lord on a number of different levels, and prepares us, ideally, to be properly receptive to the Grace of the Eucharist. And, if we truly believe that the Mass is bringing us the Real Presence of the Second Person of the Trinity, well, can we possibly be reverent enough?
It might be helpful to consider the Ark of the Covenant, the receptacle for the Hebrews’ holiest objects. The Book of Exodus takes three whole chapters (Exodus 35-37) to describe its construction in exacting detail. Later, a man named Uzzah dies because he touches the outside of the Ark unworthily, and King David himself is afraid to take so holy an object into his home. (2 Samuel 6:6-10) Now, the Ark of the Covenant contained manna, the staff of Aaron, and the tablets containing the Ten Commandments. Those are certainly very holy objects, but can they compare to the actual body and blood to the Divine Son of the Living God, for which every one of our churches, and the liturgy of the Mass itself, are the receptacles? Shouldn’t we celebrate the Mass with at least the same reverence as the Hebrews showed when they approached the Ark of the Covenant?
“David Bearing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem” by Domenico Gargiulo, c. 1640
Our failure to see the Mass for what it is can be called a lack of vision. Proverbs 29:18 is sometimes translated, “When there is no vision, the people will perish.” Should we be surprised at what happens when our celebration of the Mass embodies a diminished or even altogether missing vision of the miracle at its center?
I’ve had some very concrete experiences related to this issue just in the past week. The church my family regularly attends is not a Latin Mass parish, but it has been steadily moving in a more traditional direction over a number of years: there is plenty of incense; chant and polyphony were a regular feature before Covid and now are coming back; extraordinary ministers who were displaced because of Covid show no sign of returning, and the kneelers in front of the altar that encourage kneeling and receiving on tongue look like they’re staying. Last year the free-standing altar in the attached chapel was removed, leaving only the original high altar against the back wall. Masses there (including all daily Masses) must be conducted ad orientem, with the priest and people together looking in the same direction, facing the Lord as one body [see my previous post, “Cardinal Sarah was Right: Darmok and Jalod Ad Orientem“, for the story of Cardinal Sarah’s sadly squelched attempt to encourage this venerable practice].
Last Sunday I had occasion to attend a second Mass at a different parish, and it was a different parish indeed. The church was filled with loud conversation before Mass, until a white-haired gentleman holding a guitar greeted the congregation with an explanation of the musical selections for the day’s Mass. The music itself was the all-too-familiar selection of quasi-folk music concocted by Dan Schutte and company back in the 1970s. The atmosphere was casual, and (horribile dictu) the congregation clapped at the end of the liturgy.
Facing the Lord together: Mass ad orientem (NCR)
Not that it was all bad. The celebrant was a young, orthodox priest who had arrived in the parish just a couple years ago. He himself had a reverent demeanor, and delivered a very good homily that channeled St. Thomas Aquinas in the first half, and St. Ignatius of Loyola toward the end. He did not start with a joke. The young pastor may be trying to move things in a more traditional direction (it was better than it had been the last time I was in that church before his arrival), but it’s hard to change the local culture of a parish in a short period of time.
Another thing that jumped out at me: in contrast to Mass I had attended at my usual church earlier in the day, which had been attended by people of all ages, with plenty of young people and more than a few large families, the vast majority of the congregants here were over 65 years old. There were only a handful of young people and children. I found myself wondering if this parish would still exist in twenty or thirty years (without vision, the people will perish). The young, enthusiastic, faithful pastor simply wasn’t enough: Catholics don’t go to church for the priest, they go for the Mass.
I attended daily mass at yet another parish later in the week. Yet again, the priest was fairly young, energetic, and orthodox, but again the music was trite, and again the congregation was casual and mostly elderly. I was the only person who knelt for communion. When I was back in my home church for weekday Mass Friday morning, Fr. offered up the sacrifice ad orientem, facing toward the Lord at the head of a congregation of all ages who filled the pews behind him. A line a dozen people long waited to go to confession after the liturgy was over. Again the contrast was stark. Proverbs 29:18 tells us the people need vision to survive; the next verse says “By mere words a servant is not disciplined, for though he understands, he will not give heed.” (Proverbs 29:19) We need more than words, we need to act.
My experience of the past week was not out of the ordinary, not for me, and not for other people I know personally or who have recounted their experiences in public fora. Since I returned to the practice of the faith three decades ago I have lived in four different states and have attended Mass in numerous churches, including Traditional Latin Masses in at least three different places. The more traditional the liturgy, the more committed and diverse the crowd. What is especially striking is that young adults and young families, the future of the Church, are found in much greater numbers at the more old-fashioned Masses.
“[Young Catholics] felt its attraction and found in it a form of encounter with the mystery of the Eucharist particularly suited to them.”
Pope Benedict XVI, Summorum Pontificorum
When it comes to the Mass, you can’t get more old-fashioned than the Mass of Pius V, commonly known as the Tridentine Mass or the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM). The TLM is the liturgy as it was celebrated from the time of the Council of Trent (and in most respects much earlier) until the post-Vatican II reforms of fifty years ago or so. This ancient form of the liturgy was almost completely unavailable to lay Catholics in the 1970s. Pope St. John Paul II responded to the desires of many Catholics by making it available with permission of the local bishop in 1984 (the Indult Mass). The TLM continued it’s steady come-back, and Pope Benedict XVI, in his 2007 Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum, lifted most restrictions. In his letter Pope Benedict pointed out that the older form of the Mass “had never been abrogated.” He also recognized is wasn’t simply older Catholics nostalgically asking for the Mass of their youth, but also younger people who have “felt its attraction and found in it a form of encounter with the mystery of the Eucharist particularly suited to them.”
If you’ve been to a TLM Mass anywhere in the past twenty years you know that people in the the second of those two categories far outnumber the first. In every Latin Mass I’ve attended the number of people old enough even to remember the pre-Vatican II Mass was tiny, about proportional to the meager handful of under-twenties I saw at the guitar Mass I described above. Young families, I repeat, are the future of the Church, and they are powerfully attracted to, and sustained by, the Traditional Latin Mass.
It’s not only the still relatively small number of Catholics who attend the TLM who benefit from its gradual revival. When he issued Summorum Pontificum Pope Benedict expressed the wish that “the two Forms [i.e., the TLM and the new Mass of Paul VI] of the usage of the Roman Rite can be mutually enriching.” I believe that the appeal and vitality of the older usage has indeed been a big influence on the return a more traditional celebration of the new usage in my home parish, and in many others like it.
That, I think, is why ideologues imbued with the Spirit of Vatican II see the TLM and Summorum Pontificum as such a threat. The more Catholic worship returns to more traditional forms, the more their vision of a Church in the image and likeness of the secular world seems to be slipping away. It’s not simply the Latin Mass: the Mass represents the entire project of remaking the Church that is summed up in the “Spirit of Vatican II” label. Predictably, when the Vatican published a few slight additions to the 1962 missal that governs the TLM last year, some of the ideologues published an “open letter” expressing shock and dismay that the Church would do the slightest thing to suggest that the Mass of the Ages was anything other than a dead letter: “it no longer makes sense to enact decrees to ‘reform’ a rite that is closed in the historical past, inert and crystallized, lifeless and without vigor. There can be no resuscitation for it.” In other words, believe us, not your lyin’ eyes. Those faithful, devout, enthusiastic young Catholics you see flocking to the TLM are just a figment of your imagination; our real future lies with the dwindling crowd of geriatric guitarists.
Given all of the above, the rumors that the partisans of the Spirit of Vatican II have prevailed upon the Pope to rescind Summorum Pontificum seem surreal. In a time when church membership has reached a historic low and shows every sign of continuing to drop it seems near suicidal to try to throttle the one area of vibrant growth in the Catholic Church.
Before we hit the panic button, however, there are a couple of things we should bear in mind. First of all, the rumors, well-attested though they may be, are still only rumors until the Vatican actually publishes something. It might be a false alarm; there might be a real document, but one substantially different from what we’ve been hearing; it might be just a trial balloon to see what the reaction to a future move might be.
Or, on the other hand, it might all be true. Suppose the Pope does rescind Summorum Pontificum? Does that mean the TLM goes back underground, and we all need to learn to sing the harmony parts to “On Eagles Wings”?
The Battle of the Bulge
By no means. If the ideologues couldn’t crush the Traditional Mass fifty years ago when they were young, vigorous, and riding the crest of the Vatican II wave, they’re not going to do it now. Their moment has passed. This is their Battle of the Bulge, the last dying gasp of an already defeated and all but dead power. The sensus fidelium, the “sense of the faithful,” which never demanded the diminished liturgy of the 1970 missal in the first place, is now actively against them.
I’m not saying the Battle of the Bulge was a joke, by the way: the Americans suffered an additional 90,000 casualties, the Germans a similar number, and it probably delayed the end of World War II in Europe by one to two months. But it was futile, doomed to fail. If in fact the expected blow against the TLM comes, there will be bad consequences, and spiritual casualties, but like all worldly enterprises, it will eventually fail and pass away.
. . . now for a little while you may have to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold which though perishable is tested by fire, may redound to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:6-7)
The most fervent Catholics are the ones most attracted to more traditional expressions of liturgy, including the Traditional Latin Mass. As we see Joseph Ratzinger’s prediction of a smaller but more committed Church become more of a reality, it’ pretty clear where the core of that future Church is coming from. The Traditional Mass is not going away.
It’s often the way that a well-regarded artist falls out of fashion and, despite the worthiness of his work, is forgotten by subsequent generations. This fate can befall even truly great artists: The 16th century poet John Donne was mostly unknown until rediscovered by another poet, T.S. Eliot, in the 20th century; Johann Sebastian Bach was largely forgotten for a century until his music was revived by composer Felix Mendelssohn in the 1820’s.
Antonio Salieri, by Joseph Willibrord Mähler, 1815
Not every forgotten artist has an Eliot or a Mendelssohn come to his rescue . . . although sometimes redemption comes from an unexpected direction. Consider the case of Antonio Salieri: had he not been cruelly libeled four decades ago by Peter Shaffer in the play & film Amadeus, in which he was portrayed as the murderer of Wolfgang Mozart, it is quite possible that his music would not be performed at all (incidentally, Shaffer did no favors to the memory of Mozart either, who was the purported protagonist of his story). The real story is that, although Mozart distrusted Salieri as an obstacle to his career when he first arrived in Vienna, the two eventually developed a friendly and respectful professional relationship. Salieri, in fact, responded very favorably to Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute, and in his final letter Mozart mentions taking Salieri to a musical performance in his own carriage. Needless to say, Salieri did not murder Mozart (nor anyone else that we know of). The truth is that, while Salieri was no Mozart, he was a good and well-respected composer in his time, and a much sought-after teacher (among his pupils were Mozart’s own son Franz Xaver, as well as Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, and Ludwig Von Beethoven). The lovely piece below is the “Gloria” from Salieri’s Mass in B Flat, one of his four Masses.
Featured image at top of page: “The Holy Trinity” by Pierre Mignard, 1663-1665
