Category: Liturgy

Byzantwo

THE PREVIOUS Post was written and posted. Totally forgotten was the point: the bridge used by the writer to open up the “the west” for the fruits of prayer arising in the east was the Liturgy. The Vatican Two “novus ordo” is exactly the Byzantine Divine liturgy, slightly tweaked for Westerners.

By way of History, the liturgy of East and West was in times past more parallel than it had become in the last 1,000 years. It was also a bit more out-of-doors and processional. The rites of Jerusalem, Rome, and Constantinople were all begun in one of several locations, with processions through the city streets, to another central location. There communion was celebrated, and then deacons carried the consecrated gifts out again to other places for the people who could not attend the rite itself.

There are elements of this still in the “Station churches” of Rome: the bishop of the city would call the people to gather at one church. Prayers were said, then the people would process, singing psalms, to another church where the rest of Mass was said. In Constantinople the final location was Hagia Sophia. In Jerusalem it was often (but not always) the Holy Sepulchre. Over time the processional rites were diminished in the west. In the east, as it became increasingly impossible to do such things out of doors (because of Muslims, mostly) the chanting of Psalms was moved indoors, and what we now think of as the Three Antiphons at the beginning of the Divine Liturgy were formalized. Apart from these Antiphons, the Divine Liturgy and the Novus Ordo are basically the same:

Divine Liturgy:
  1. Holy God (Penitential), Entrance blessing & hymnody
  2. Psalm Verse
  3. Lesson (Epistle)
  4. Alleluia
  5. Gospel
  6. Homily
  7. Prayers/Litanies
  8. Offertory
  9. Creed
  10. Sursum Corda
  11. Anaphora
  12. Our Father
  13. Communion
  14. Dismissal
  15. Final Blessing
Novus Ordo
  1. Hymnody, Blessing, Penitential rite, Gloria
  2. Lessons
  3. Psalms
  4. Alleluia
  5. Gospel
  6. Homily
  7. Creed
  8. Universal Prayer
  9. Offertory
  10. Sursum Corda
  11. Anaphora
  12. Our Father
  13. Communion
  14. Dismissal
  15. Final Blessing

Apart from the Creed and the East’s propensity to often do “little litanies” the two rites are structurally the same.

It should be noted that in the Novus Ordo, while there are two lessons + Gospel assigned, it’s generally understood that the goal of the reform was one of either lessons plus Gospel but with a wider selection. We see this in the weekday Mass with only one reading, Psalm, Alleluia, then Gospel. Personally, I’m OK with three – and I think it’s strange that the Byzantine Rite has so little of the Jewish Scriptures at all – except for Psalms of course. On a “normal” Sunday, depending on the local liturgical tradition, one can get upwards of 16 full Psalms in the course of the rites of Sunday!

This would be more evident if the Ad Orientem posture was restored fully in the west (as per the actual rubrics) and the often-ignored minor propers were chanted more often. This would add more Psalm verses.

So, seeing these two rites are the same, we get a better sense of what the Council Fathers intended by the phrase, “full, conscious, and active participation.” There was no implication of something new but rather of something very old. It’s something, in fact, that the Byzantines had been doing right along in their already-vernacular liturgies! These liturgies are often chanted by the entire congregation, sung in simple folk melodies that come from the “home countries”. The Novus Ordo wasn’t a revolution, but an ecumenical (meaning the whole Church) evolution – using “both lungs” as Pope St John Paul would later say.

Seeker Vespers

RECENTLY A FEW SOURCES (podcasts, etc) have called out that Vespers is supposed to be a part of Parish life especially on Sunday. I wondered what the source was for this claim and so I asked on Twitter. (When asking questions on Facebook one often addresses the “hive mind”. If doing so on Twitter, should one address the “Birdbrain”?) Anyway, folks on Twitter were quick to respond: it comes from the December 1963 V2 Constitution on Sacred Liturgy:

Pastors of souls should see to it that the chief hours, especially Vespers, are celebrated in common in church on Sundays and the more solemn feasts. And the laity, too, are encouraged to recite the divine office, either with the priests, or among themselves, or even individually.

Sacrosanctum Concilium ¶100

As both Sundays and “more solemn feasts” have a 1st Vespers the night preceding, it’s not totally clear from that text if “on Sundays” means Sunday night or Saturday night at the 1st Vespers. While either or both may be intended, for the purpose of this blog post I’m going to assume Saturday night, although what follows could be used Saturday or Sunday.

It seems that Vespers could be used as a very evangelical and open service: what our Protestant brothers and sisters refer to as a “Seeker Service” or a “Seeker-Friendly Service”. That is, one intended to introduce people to the faith, to draw them in and make them familiar with basic ideas.

The outline for Vespers is very much suited to this purpose. It is in the evening: one does not have to get up early in the morning for it. It has the added advantage of not being a communion service and so there is no portion of it closed to non-Catholics. VEspers does not need to be done in the Church: this is good if the “evening slot” happens to be occupied by a Saturday Vigil Mass then VEspers can be done in the parish hall or any other warm and inviting space. With the right music and atmosphere, this could even be done in the homes of parishioners. Additionally, Vespers does not require a priest so all that follows can be done by lay leadership or by a deacon. Below are two options – a “normal” Evening Prayer or Vespers and a “higher” or “fuller” version that includes Night Prayer or Compline. I have also included a third description for “At Home”. These are intended as opportunities for evangelical outreach on Sundays and Greater Feasts. There are no “smells and bells” on purpose. Everything in this post uses the available options to the fullest extent allowed by the rubrics. I have included citations from the General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours (GILOTH) as needed. Where I think you might need additional permission I have indicated so.

The Basic Outline of Evening Prayer

  1. Opening Versicle and Response
  2. Hymn
  3. Antiphon and 1st Psalm
  4. Antiphon and 2nd Psalm
  5. Antiphon and Canticle
  6. Reading
  7. Responsory
  8. Antiphon and Gospel Canticle: Magnificat
  9. Sufferages
  10. Our Father
  11. Prayer of the Day
  12. Blessing and Dismissal

Vespers as Seeker Service

  1. Welcome and Introduction (ad lib)
  2. Opening Versicle and Response
  3. Hymn (Worship Music, Praise Chorus, etc)
  4. Antiphon and 1st Psalm (Gregorian Chant suggested)
  5. Sacred Silence
  6. Antiphon and 2nd Psalm (Sung as responsory psalm with antiphon set to a more contemporary melody.)
    GILOTH ¶125 In addition, when the literary genre of a psalm suggests it, the divisions into strophes are marked in order that, especially when the psalm is sung in the vernacular, the antiphons may be repeated after each strophe; in this case the Glory to the Father need be said only at the end of the psalm.”
  7. Sacred Silence
  8. Antiphon and Canticle (Suggested as a third style of music four part acapella chant such as Russian or shape note.)
  9. Sacred Silence
  10. Readings from Sunday’s Office of Readings.
    GILOTH ¶44. After the psalmody there is either a short reading or a longer one.
    ¶46. Especially in a celebration with a congregation, a longer Scripture reading may be chosen either from the office of readings or the Lectionary for Mass, particularly texts that for some reason have not been used. From time to time some other more suitable reading may be used, in accordance with the rules in nos. 248-249 and 251.
  11. Sacred Silence
  12. Homily/talk
    47. In a celebration with a congregation a short homily may follow the reading to explain its meaning, as circumstances suggest.
  13. Sacred Silence
    GILOTH ¶48. After the reading or homily a period of silence may be observed.
  14. Responsory
  15. Antiphon and Gospel Canticle: Magnificat (Suggested as Gregorian Chant – perhaps some Latin?)
  16. Sufferages
  17. Personal Intercessions as Needed
  18. Our Father (chanted)
  19. Prayer of the Day
  20. Blessing and Dismissal
  21. Closing worship music

Souped Up Version

As above with Nos 1-19. Instead of a blessing and dismissal at #20 proceed as follows:

  1. Prayer of the Day
  2. Worship music while exposing the Blessed Sacrament
  3. Holy Hour/Adoration
  4. Benediction
  5. Full Office of Night Prayer in the Presence of the Blessed Sacrament Exposed
    1. Opening
    2. Confession
    3. Hymn
    4. Antiphon and Psalm as Responsory
    5. Reading
    6. Sacred Silence
    7. Responsory
    8. Antiphon and Gospel Canticle (Nunc Dimittis)
  6. Closing Prayer
  7. Antiphon to the Blessed Virgin
  8. (O Lumen Ecclesiae – b/c OP)

Vespers as Seeker Service at Home (Base Community)

At home (or in another location – eg Coffee Shop or Pub) Vespers can be celebrated as part of a base community gathering for Bible Study or faith-formation/faith sharing. In this more Domestic sort of way, it’s a good prelude to dinner. All the notes from above apply, so I’ve only added further explanations if changed.

  1. Welcome and Introduction (ad lib)
  2. Opening Versicle and Response
  3. Hymn (Worship Music, Praise Chorus, etc)
  4. Antiphon and 1st Psalm (Gregorian Chant suggested)
  5. Sacred Silence
  6. Antiphon and 2nd Psalm (Sung as responsory psalm with antiphon set to a more contemporary melody.)
  7. Sacred Silence
  8. Antiphon and Canticle (Suggested as a third style of music four part acapella chant such as Russian or shape note.)
  9. Sacred Silence
  10. Readings from Sunday’s Office of Readings.
  11. Sacred Silence
  12. Homily/talk Group Lectio
  13. Sacred Silence
  14. Responsory
  15. Antiphon and Gospel Canticle: Magnificat (Suggested as Gregorian Chant – perhaps some Latin?)
  16. Sufferages
  17. Personal Intercessions as Needed
  18. Our Father (chanted)
  19. Prayer of the Day – grace over any food…
    (Meal/Conversation/further lectio?)
  20. Blessing and Dismissal
  21. Closing worship music or – grace over any food… Meal/Conversation/further lectio?

Sanctify Time

JMJ
✙

MY FIRST INTRODUCTION to the Divine Office was at a very “low” Episcopal parish which did Morning Prayer three Sundays a month. For the longest time I didn’t think of it as anything other than a liturgical version of the “Hymn Sandwich” common in other Protestant communities. This was true, but not in the way I imagined: the reverse was true. Those others (Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians) had taken the Anglican service and de-liturgized it to their own ends. The Anglican practice was intended for twice-daily use every day – not just Sundays. In the Church of England, the vicar is obligated to offer both Morning and Evening Prayer as public services every day. This is not an obligation for American Episcopal clergy, but it is still common practice; and so it was at a very “high” Episcopal Parish, the Church of St Mary the Virgin in Time Square, where I first experienced the Daily Office as a daily service and also one intimately connected to the Eucharist: both services were followed by a Eucharist each day. The Episcopal Daily Office Lectionary (at least in the 1928 and 1979 Books of Common Prayer) parallels the Eucharistic Lectionary. The daily and weekly prayers (Collects) are the same. Eucharist and Office are connected in ways that only become apparent as they are both prayed together. When I left ECUSA in 2002 I brought with me all my love for the Daily Office. Everything I found and loved in the Episcopal tradition was only amplified as I moved closer to the Catholic Church. For a while, I even ran an unofficial daily office website for members of the Orthodox Church who used the Western Rite. Now, as a lay member of the Dominican family, the Office is not a part of my daily prayer but the heart of it.

Let me explain the names first. Office, Daily Office, Divine Office, and “the hours” can all be used interchangeably. “Office” comes from two Latin words, opus meaning work and facere meaning “to do”. The Daily Office is a doing, a task. St Benedict calls it the work of God. Chapter 19 of the Rule of St Benedict reads:

We believe that the divine presence is everywhere and that “the eyes of the Lord are looking on the good and the evil in every place” (Prov. 15:3). But we should believe this especially without any doubt when we are assisting at the Work of God. To that end let us be mindful always of the Prophet’s words, “Serve the Lord in fear” (Ps. 2:11) and again “Sing praises wisely” (Ps. 46[47]:8) and “In the sight of the Angels I will sing praise to You” (Ps. 13[14]7:1). Let us therefore consider how we ought to conduct ourselves in sight of the Godhead and of His Angels, and let us take part in the psalmody in such a way that our mind may be in harmony with our voice.

We will come back to that last sentence, but see how it invites us to take the Psalms and sing them in such a way that our mind enters into “harmony” with our singing and then change our lives (our conduct).

Nota Bene: There is an Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic form of the Daily Office, but while much of what I’m about to say is true of that form from a theological point of view, the experience that office for the laity in the parish is very different. The public celebration of Matins or Vespers in the liturgical East is often edited for time and even many monastic communities pare it down quite a bit. So what follows is mostly for the Western Folks.

The Prayer of Christ

The Daily Office, in the use of psalms and readings, continues the Jewish tradition of scripture meditation on a daily cycle. In one form or another, this same piety would have been shared with Jesus and his Apostles. However, that’s not how this is the prayer of Christ.

The General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours (GILoTH) highlights a number of ways in which this Prayer of Christ is realized: by virtue of the Incarnation, the Son’s eternal praise of the Father has become human. “Christ’s heart the praise of God assumes a human sound in words of adoration, expiation, and intercession, presented to the Father by the Head of the new humanity, the Mediator between God and his people, in the name of all and for the good of all.” As the Body of Christ in the world, the Church gives her voice in the continuation of this praise.

The Prayer of the Church

The Daily Office is the Prayer of the Church. Clerics are obligated to various parts of it (Priests and transitional Deacons to the whole office, permanent Deacons to whatever their Bishop directs). Consecrated religious communities in their 1st, 2nd, and 3rd orders are likewise committed to the daily recitation of the Office. Various devotional societies also use the office and the church counsels it for all the laity. Joining in this prayer plugs in you with everyone. Emotionally, this gives me joy in knowing I say the same prayer as XYZ persons with whom I connect on Twitter – but have never met. I know that laypeople, Fr John on Catholic Stuff You Should Know, and even the Pope are all praying the same texts I am praying. When the office points me towards a verse in 1 John for meditation, Catholics all over the world are meditating on that same text. This alone is powerful.

Let’s double down on this though: it’s more than an emotional connection. It’s spiritual warfare. Hear the promise Jesus gives us in Matthew (18:19), “Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.” (AV) The prayers we all say “touching any thing” are very powerful indeed. The intercessions and psalms each day contribute to the building up of the church and the world as the whole church, together, intercedes before God in the heart of Christ. The Kingdom of God on earth is manifesting through our prayer by its effects in our hearts and in the world.

Praying the Psalms

This is the heart of the Work of God. Yet, this part of the Office can be the most confusing to folks in our culture, not least because we are literate. Reading is seen as a utility rather than a practice – and certainly not a spiritual practice! For the early monastics, though, even through the 1700s in the west (and more recently in other parts of the world) literacy was not a given. Men coming to the communities would be taught to read if needed by their work, but they were taught the Psalms by heart through singing in the community. The melodies joined with the text, the whole thing wrapping around the heart in a great vestment of praise and intercession.

The oddity we feel arises from the idea that “text” is not praying. We think of text as only for conveying content: teaching, proclaiming. We tend to think of words on the page as only tools intended to do something else. Our culture tends to be very literal both inside and outside the church, literal and utilitarian. If do not do something with these words then I’m only reading them. Reading, though, is a type of meditation and so a type of prayer. Joseph Campbell – certainly no Christian writer! – notes that any action with text (including underlining passages as we read) can be meditation. So also the Psalms.

Today it feels odd just to read the same Psalm every day at the opening of the Office (Psalm 95) but there are stories of Saints who had memorized the entire Psalter and could recite their daily Psalms without any help. St Benedict even required the daily Bible verses in the Office (other than the Psalms) to be short and easy to memorize. Everything was intended to come in little chunks easy to digest. These made them easy to pray as well. Yes: maybe today you are not “feeling” the need to say the text of a certain Psalm. But someone, somewhere, is. If one of us is in need we are all in need in the Body of Christ. We all pray together for each other. Later, though, as these texts work themselves into your memory, if you need the Psalm it will be there for you, leaping instantly to your mind becoming your own prayer.

As with the Psalms, so with the other parts of the Office – the Canticles, the Bible readings, and even the longer texts in the Office of Readings. These are not “just” things to read, but a great bulwark of mental prayer and strength for the daily battle for sanctity.

We must not let our mere literacy (a mere ability to read) deny us this great spiritual gift! We pray the Psalms over and over daily and as we begin to comprehend them, to fill our mind and heart with them, we become conformed to them. The text changes us. We incarnate the truth that the law of prayer is the law of our belief.

Offering the Day and Ourselves

It’s not just a tedium, but rather it become the leaven in our lives. If we see it as only an obligation or, worse, only yet another obligation, it cuts into our lives, into our “me time”. Well, it’s supposed to. You can read the entire day’s cycle in about 1 hour. It’s not much time for God, actually! And the more you do it the more it will be that quality “me time” you’re craving. It will grow to be the heart of your day – even spread out over little bits, here and there.

In these ways – the prayer of the church, meditating on scripture, conforming ourselves to the texts – the Daily Office becomes in us what it is intended to be in the Church: an ongoing Eucharist (thanksgiving) made of breaking open the hours and pouring out ourselves to God. We offer the day, hour by hour, to God the Father at the hands of Christ, reaching out through our prayers united in the Spirit. The Mass in our lives (daily or weekly) becomes the Mass of our lives.

But in this time

JMJ
✙

The Paschal Preface in the Roman Rite is only used from Easter to Ascension (or is it Pentecost? I don’t know). It’s present in the Novus Ordo nearly verbatim from the older order. Borrowing from Rome, the same text is also present in the 79 BCP for Episcopalians and in the People’s Anglican Missal for Anglo-Catholics of an older school. It’s a solid part of the Western Liturgical Tradition, both Roman and elsewhere.

It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, at all times to acclaim you, O Lord, but in this time above all to laud you yet more gloriously when Christ our Passover has been sacrificed. …Therefore, overcome with paschal joy, every land, every people exults in your praise and even the heavenly Powers, with the angelic hosts, sing together the unending hymn of your glory,as they acclaim:

Sitting at home earlier this week, livestreaming Mass, I heard that phrase again. And it struck me: …in this time above all… the phrase is there even in the Latin, …in hac potissimum… Even in this Covidtide above all. What does it mean to praise God in a time of plague?

Church history is filled with answers to this question. From the earliest Church that knew persecution in Rome, Africa, and Asia Minor, to the missionaries who brought the gospel and their own death to the farthest corners of the world. Through the Middle Ages where the Black Death rained on the church so hard that she changed the prayer called the Hail Mary, adding from then on the second half, “pray for us now and in the hour of our death” to the prayer. To the 80s where she ministered to those with AIDS the sick and the dying even when we didn’t know that touching people could not give you the disease. The church knows plague and the church knows how to praise God in these times.

Yet, to be honest, the church’s knowledge and her experience is not mine. I do not know how to do this. Do any of us know how to do this? How do we praise God in this time yet more gloriously? Looking back at blog posts before mid-March of this year is not a trip down memory lane, but rather trip in the TARDIS to some other part of the space-time continuum. Then something happened in the middle of that month and the tone changes. I confess I forgot how to praise God. Fear is a human emotion and it’s ok: even Jesus was afraid. But letting fear run your life is not: acting on fear is proof of a lack of trust in God. You cannot make prudent decisions if the only thing or the strongest thing is fear. Prudence requires faith. You can wear masks, socially distance, avoid public gatherings – even Mass, and stay safe out of fear. But it is better for you to do all of that out of prudence. You can also demand your freedom, breath on everyone, and march into state houses with guns. But that’s bravado: which is also fear. You would do none of those things out of prudence.

To be blunt: acting on even economic fear is evidence of a lack of trust in God. Acting on political fear is even greater proof of the same lack of faith. God and his Church have been victorious over several dictators, not by political action, but by grace, miracles, and prayer.

So. How to praise God in this time yet more gloriously? Can we be overcome with paschal joy and exult in God’s praise?

The clue is in that next line: overcome with paschal joy, every land, every people exults in your praise. The true joy of the Resurrection means that this life is not all, this world is not the end, or, as the preface for a requiem says, life is not ended, only changed. Paschal joy is unstoppable: not because it goes on after death but because death is no more.

In mid-March, death became very real. Not that anyone was dying around me – although I have no way of knowing until all the random phone calls and checkins stop, probably next year. But death was real: literally any one of us could have been dead in 14-21 days. It has taken most of April to weed out of my life the things that were fear-based instead of prudent. Washing hands is not fear based. Washing hands and wearing gloves and using sanitizer (maybe both before and after putting on the gloves, as one store made me do) is fear-based. That store now offers the choice (gloves or sanitizer): but for a week after shopping there I was terrified I was not doing enough. Even in normal times, some friends make folks take their shoes off before entering the apartment. Since there is no vestibule in this apartment, this is not a shared affectation. Until now. That started as fear-based, but it actually is prudent: I’ve noticed what tracks in on my shoes from The Streets of San Francisco and ewwwww.

So, how laud him yet more gloriously? How to praise him with great praise as Tolkien paraphrased on the Field of Cormallen, even – or especially – in this time?

He has shown us, people, what is good and what is required of us: do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God (Micha 6:8). I desire mercy and not sacrifice (Hosea 6:6). Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you (Matthew 5:44). Love one another as I have loved you: no one loves more than to lay his life down for his friends (John 15:12-13). This is how we might become even like Angels while on earth, who “excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening to the voice of his word” and are commanded to “praise the Lord” (Psalm 103:20).

This is our duty. No saint has ever signed a petition to “demand her rights” even to Sacraments. But almost all the saints have freely given up even their lives and their freedom to save others. No saint has ever unlawfully taken up arms to force others to change… in the name political Terrorism even cryptically named “Economic Liberty” whatever that is. But many a saint has laid down their lives to protect others from such terror. No saint has ever given up his trust in God out of fear of local gov’t’s or nameless, faceless, enemies to “take matters into his own hands.” These are the steps of those who are not praising God, but are only acting out of fear: not prudence.

Praise is an act of faith. An act of trust. And an act of humility. There is a reason the stereotypical image of “praise and worship” involves the exact same posture of those caught by the law. “Hands up” is an act of surrender. The surrender is required of those engaged in praise. It’s the definition, the physical and emotional reality, the sacrament of “walking humbly”. For Jesus it meant giving freely, being arrested in silence, bearing injustice, and death. That was his most-glorious praise of his Father. He did that not out of fear (even though he was afraid) but out of prudence and out of love.

What does our most-glorious praise look like?

Sometimes it’s totally needed

✙

JMJ

The Readings for Saturday in the 4th Week of Easter (B2)

Verba quae ego loquor vobis, a meipso non loquor.
Pater autem in me manens, ipse fecit opera.

The words that I speak to you, I speak not of myself. 

The Father who abideth in me, he doth the works.


The Father speaks… the Father does… the Father abides in me. And elsewhere, “I and the Father are one.”

Jesus is God acting for us, but equally important: Jesus is God acting with us. This is so central to Christianity: the incarnation. If Jesus is not God, Christianity is entirely meaningless. What we have left – without the incarnation – is a few platitudes you can get from Socrates, the Hebrew Scriptures, Lao Tzu… pretty much anyone, really. And they are spoken by a total nut case that repeatedly makes the blasphemous claim that he is God. I don’t need a nut case to teach me to love my neighbor, neither do you.

But if Jesus is God acting for us, acting with us, then something important is happening.

Once I read a book called Why the Jews Rejected Jesus. Drawing on primary sources, the writer claims – happily enough –  it was because of all the things we believe about him as Christians. The man made blasphemous claims. He misinterpreted scriptures. He made poor political choices. He was a nut case.

So you have a choice to make: to side with those who say all these claims are false. Or to side with those who say all these claims are true. To say he never made these claims is a red herring: both his enemies and his friends say he made these claims.

You choice is who do you trust.

Elsewhere St Paul says that in rejecting Jesus, the people of Israel allowed the Gospel to be brought to the Gentiles. Today’s reading from Acts is the same: Vobis oportebat primum loqui verbum Dei : sed quoniam repellitis illud, et indignos vos judicatis aeternae vitae, ecce convertimur ad gentes. To you [the Jews] it behoved us first to speak the word of God: but because you reject it, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold we turn to the Gentiles. 

Paul says, elsewhere, that he would give anything to bring his own people to the Gospel. But he knows God will work that out in the end – and through their rejection, a beautiful thing has happened. The Gospel has gone into all the world. And this has come up in the last few days’ readings: the persecution in Jerusalem spread the Church all over the Eastern Mediterranean world. The persecution in Damascus and Antioch pushed the Church to the edges of the known world. In rejection the Gospel is not weakened, but rather is pushed further in God’s grace.

We forget that in Christ we are not doing things, but rather letting God do through us. We are not speaking or teaching, but rather letting God teach through us.  Our success or failure is not on the worldly plan (did we keep that Job, get that mortgage, win the big game) but rather on the heavenly plan; Was the Kingdom of God advanced?

This is only true because this was God acting with us; because Jesus is God acting with us. In the Gospel we are drawn out of the machinations of this world, out of the power plays in this world, into the action of God. We don’t just “get a job” by “acing an interview”. We get a new group of souls to shepherd. We don’t simply find a a new home, or get a lucky parking space: we are given a new mission field. When we turn to these places (instead of God) as sources of comfort, as possessions instead of commissions, we compromise our souls. It takes full on rejection to get us back on track.

Tertullian says, The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. We needn’t go that far, but if we need that reminder, it is God’s grace that brings it to us. Let us be open to that dance. 

Deep Data from before the Beginning of Time.

✙

JMJ

The Readings for Thursday in the 4th Week of Easter (B2)

Hujus Deus ex semine secundum promissionem eduxit Israel salvatorem Jesum,
Of this man’s seed God according to his promise, hath raised up to Israel a Saviour, Jesus. 

Of this man’s seed. This one guy. God doesn’t do abstractions. God does particularities. One particular family (Abraham, not Lot), one particular son (Isaac not Ishmael, Jacob not Esau); one People, Israel; one particular tribe, Judah. One Family, Jesse. One Son, David. One Family, One Son, One God: Jesus.

This is the thing that always drives people crazy: the God of the Bible does not work in vague abstractions but in solid particularities.

Our lives are rather the same: being very devoid of abstractions and filled with particularities. This makes sense for we are made in God’s image. But what child, if asked, would ever say, “I’m a toddler”? Would she not rather say,  “I’m two and three quarter years old!” Only with vanity does culture teach us how to say “Twenty Nine Again…” We confuse data points with reality, forgetting that data is made up on anecdotes and anecdotes are people. Lives. Human lives of particularities.

God doesn’t care about data points: God loves you.

Christianity: the doctrine that an infinite, omniscient, and omnipotent person created a universe literally billions of light years across, filled with a near infinity of galaxies, stars, planets, and even, maybe, beings all to have a deeply personal and intimate relationship with you.

Particularities. Not Abstraction.

You, my dear reader, are not a data point. 

I watch my “hit meter”.  I don’t know much about my blogger stats, but I do know that when I use the Arabic word for the Greek ascesis or the Slavonic, podvig; when I use the Arabic word I can get a few extra hundred hits. I don’t know who they are, they are all Data Points. But my average is about 40-50 hits per post. Hits. Clicks. Views. Actually: People, right? Abstractions are cool and all, but each view is actually a pair of eyes with one brain behind them. There is one person, one image of God reading my blog.

How much of life is only abstractions rather than particularities? How many times are we willing to see the forest, but not the trees? How many websites make choices based on percentage points rather than pain points; on click bait and not content? How many media companies make choices based on eye balls and not morals? How many politicians make promises based on polls and not values?

If you clicked through to this post from Facebook or Twitter it was because some Media Data put my post in front of your eyes. And you clicked: making a data point in someone’s dossier on you. And me. This is not a privacy rant: I don’t care. I have to use social media to evangelize just as St Paul did. But I’m never writing for abstractions: only for persons.

God has created you, Dear Reader, for a purpose, a mission. God has given you a specific set of experiences, of challenges, of gifts, of weaknesses, to be of particular use in a certain way at a certain time. You are not a random accident waiting to happen. You are a particularity, a scandal of particularity, whom God loves deeply and personally.

A challenge: as God raised up one man of one house of one tribe of one people, can you move through the world focused instead of diffused, looking at instead of “seeing”, connecting with persons instead of “being present”? Can you be one person talking to one person, not points in a continuum?


A Community of Christians in Charity with the World

✙


JMJ

The Readings for in Easter Week (B2)


Neque enim quisquam egens erat inter illos.
For neither was there any one needy among them.

They will know we are Christians by our love, y’all.  So where are there needy folks sitting in the pew next to you, or on the bus next to you, wait: I bet you drive to work. You don’t notice unless they ask for money at the exit ramp, I bet.

By a blessing of liturgics we get the same lesson from Acts as we had on Sunday. Even if you think the idea of “holding all things in common” is anachronistic, surely this idea of “no one needy among them” must be a good and moral end, right? Yet the poor you will always have with you will be quoted by some wag. The wags who quote the poor you will always have with you you will always have with you. And while he’s rattling off scripture he’s damning his own soul.

Our oddly American fascination with my stuff is a moral infection with multiple vectors.  We labor for money to buy stuff: this is not wrong. But the infection arises when the labor is not for its proper end (provision for the family, the church, and the needed, together with the expiation of sin [qv: Adam and Eve]) and, instead, made as a means to get even more stuff, as is done with Marketing and all the other tools of late-model capitalism. Our desires wake and the acquisition of stuff for the sake of stuff, to appear wealthy, to match our neighbors, etc) takes over. We need more stuff to “feel safe” to be “secure”. We hoard our money and our stuff.

We want to buy stuff at the best value. The end result is foreign labor making cheap stuff which is good value in the short term, but bad value in the long term. We are happy buying a $3 gadget at WalMart instead of a $10 gadget somewhere else, even though it won’t last, was made overseas by slave labor (or robots keeping even the slaves unemployed). The end results are social injustice and junk in landfills. The exception to this being electronics where we are happy to pay top dollar because it feels better and looks better. Ironically it was made by the same slave labor and the electronics companies are getting rich of your band consciousness. And poor workers are no better off working on things we pay $5k for than they are working on things we pay $5 for.

Do I want a new $10 off-market watch that tells time, or do I want a $400 apple watch made by the same folks for the same environmental damage? That’s an easy one: I work in tech so I know which one I’d pick!

We’ve made our money and we’ve bought our stuff, certainly it stops there? Sadly: no. For there is always more stuff to have. Children raised by parents who said “no” – because they were too poor to say “yes” – very often want to say “yes” to their own kids all the time. Curiously, anyone raised by parents who always said “yes” suffers from the same problem. Our homes fill with stuff as quickly as a hoarder’s shed or a meth addict’s mobile home. Meanwhile, the needy are sitting right next to us on the bus, in the pew, or in front of our office. 

Lending to people who can repay the loan and the favor is not charity.

Think it through: how much is it costing you to read these words? Electricity, internet, Google’s data sponge, the device you are using, with it’s own data sponges, the social cost (unless you’re really alone, there is an icon of God, a human being next to you whom you’re ignoring, even on the bus. All this is only the beginning.

There was no needy person among them.

How do we get there as a Church? While this may seem abstract for you know, just one of Huw’s political rants, I firmly believe this will be a crucial question for us in the near future. How do we get to a place where they know we are Christians by our Love, by our Love?

The image at the top of this post is of a housing Co-op that I used to live in, in Buffalo, New York. It’s not a religious org. But it is a model that – in experience and  actions – is rather like the communities discussed in the Book of Acts. What if singles in local parishes banded together to form housing co-ops on the same model?

These co-ops could acquire housing, build out and save, and, in time, take care of others. As singles marry, bringing other folks into the co-op, they stay in the community, raising their children as Catholics among other Catholics. These growing communities sharing all things in common,  could care for the elderly in the parish, the sick, the homeless. They could form the front lines in Catholic Social Outreach. 

Singles come in all ages, not just young adults, but also the divorced, the widowed, the single parents, the same-sex attracted trying to live (as all these singles) chastely. This is a healthy mix that would prevent these communities from becoming speed dating societies (as many young adult ministries do). These would require true Christian charity often missing from our world. These would call us to actively live our baptismal vows with our Sisters and Brothers to the end that we could even live in Love and Charity with our neighbors. They will know we are Christians by our Love.

Could we do it?

Sola Scriptura Anonymous

✙

JMJ

The Readings for Thursday in Easter Week (B2)

Tunc aperuit illis sensum ut intelligerent Scripturas
Then he opened their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures. 

The first three classes of my (original) RCIA group, meeting in Columbus, GA, were spent addressing the Church’s teaching on the Bible. Since we were in the Bible Belt, talking about how Catholics talk about the Bible is crucial. We don’t think the thing fell down from heaven, highlighted passages in red and yellow, ready to go. And nearly every discussion in that class, no matter what the question was, usually ended up with the asker saying something like “But the Bible says…” and Fr Brian would have to bring them gently back to “but the Church says…” sometimes over a couple of discussions.


So today’s passage from St Luke – wherein Jesus has to enlighten the Apostles so that they understand the scriptures – might be especially troublesome to such a one, or to anyone who thinks they can divine the sense of Scripture just by reading it. There are other such passages after the Resurrection, such as yesterday’s reading when Jesus was at Emmaus. St Paul and Jesus rarely say anything in the first person singular. It is to the whole Church, to All Y’all, that the Spirit is given.

I attend a weekly meeting of a bunch of Catholics.  I’m not there every week, but I try to be. In fact I will go tonight! I hope it’s there tonight, but I may not be. Some Thursdays around holidays it gets a little hard to schedule. But anyway, there’s a member of the group who talks about Bible as if he were a Fundamentalist. From time to time we have a heated discussion where I’m happy to cite from my religious journey, but he is only willing to say “go read the Bible, that’s not in there…” A couple of weeks ago he wanted to quote “Vatican 2” to me, but that at least, I was ready for! (Thanks, Fr Brian!)

You really might like to read the document,  Dei Verbum (18 November 1965). But I’ve got the important passage below. I’ve added emphasis.


8. And so the apostolic preaching, which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books, was to be preserved by an unending succession of preachers until the end of time. Therefore the Apostles, handing on what they themselves had received, warn the faithful to hold fast to the traditions which they have learned either by word of mouth or by letter (see 2 Thess. 2:15), and to fight in defense of the faith handed on once and for all (see Jude 1:3) Now what was handed on by the Apostles includes everything which contributes toward the holiness of life and increase in faith of the peoples of God; and so the Church, in her teaching, life and worship, perpetuates and hands on to all generations all that she herself is, all that she believes.
This tradition which comes from the Apostles develop in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. For there is a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words which have been handed down. This happens through the contemplation and study made by believers, who treasure these things in their hearts (see Luke, 2:19, 51) through a penetrating understanding of the spiritual realities which they experience, and through the preaching of those who have received through Episcopal succession the sure gift of truth. For as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her.
The words of the holy fathers witness to the presence of this living tradition, whose wealth is poured into the practice and life of the believing and praying Church. Through the same tradition the Church’s full canon of the sacred books is known, and the sacred writings themselves are more profoundly understood and unceasingly made active in her; and thus God, who spoke of old, uninterruptedly converses with the bride of His beloved Son; and the Holy Spirit, through whom the living voice of the Gospel resounds in the Church, and through her, in the world, leads unto all truth those who believe and makes the word of Christ dwell abundantly in them (see Col. 3:16).
9. Hence there exists a close connection and communication between sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For Sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, while sacred tradition takes the word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and hands it on to their successors in its full purity, so that led by the light of the Spirit of truth, they may in proclaiming it preserve this word of God faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely known. Consequently it is not from Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence.
10. Sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church. Holding fast to this deposit the entire holy people united with their shepherds remain always steadfast in the teaching of the Apostles, in the common life, in the breaking of the bread and in prayers (see Acts 2, 42, Greek text), so that holding to, practicing and professing the heritage of the faith, it becomes on the part of the bishops and faithful a single common effort.
But the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on,  has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. This teaching office is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it draws from this one deposit of faith everything which it presents for belief as divinely revealed.


It is to this that I assented when I entered the Roman Catholic Church a year ago: I believe and profess all that the holy Catholic Church believes, teaches, and proclaims to be revealed by God. If this is not so, why would I bother? The idea that I can still make it up as I go along haunts me though. I’ve read the Bible. I know what that passage really means. I can do what I feel is right here. I’ve been doing things my way for so long (even in the Orthodox Church) that I want to do more of the same now. One Orthodox publisher asked me over pizza once why the Catholics didn’t buy his books. Well, because your stuff isn’t approved. But that didn’t dawn on him because most of the clergy he knew didn’t function that way. 


Closing with one more passage from Dei Verbum: It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God’s most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.

One cannot stand without the others.

There needs to be a 12 Step Program for Sola Scripturas. 

I want that. No. Wait.

✙

JMJ

The Readings for the 6th Day in the 8va of Christmas:

Et mundus transit, et concupiscentia ejus
And the world passeth away, and the concupiscence thereof

I’m late in posting I know. Actually I wasn’t going to make a post today, then I didn’t make one yesterday either. But when these readings came up at Mass this morning, I was like wait… there’s something there, in the phrase “the world passeth away”.  

We think of “passing away” like “”yes, the world will end”.  Yet for all that we might want to see the Apostles waiting for the world to end next week, it’s throw away lines like this one that make me feel they were on to something seriously important and timely. The Greek word used for “passing” παράγω parago, is the same word used to describe Jesus passing by the tax collector’s station or the crowd blowing past blind Bartimaeus. This is the word that Paul would have used to describe a car passing him on the freeway into Thessaloniki. 

And I thought of my favourite Latin Motto: stat crux dum volvitur orbis, the cross stands still while the world turns. 

The wold is just whizzing by, is it not? Perhaps more now than every before. And Christ on the Cross is the only still point in all of eternity.

The world is passing with his lusts. 

All the things that we want today, that we didn’t even know existed yesterday, that we will have forgotten tomorrow like toys on Christmas that are forgotten by the new year, this world passes by. I’ve enjoyed, over the last three decades, watching fashion pass from the gay world in to the straight world, be that shoe styles, popped collars, goatees, whatever. If it’s too gay this year, it will be all Joe the Plumber next year. But the gays will have moved on to a new thing. Tech is this way as well. What we didn’t even imagine as possible last month is all the rage now. And then tomorrow something new will come along. 

The world just passes by.

And the cross is the center of stillness.

So, yes, the world will end at some point. But that’s not why Paul wants us to not be attached to it. This present-tense verb is ongoing. The world and all its lust whizzes along. We get torn away, tossed about on winds of doctrine. 

We are still in the center: if we cling to the cross.


Thus was fulfilled.

✙
JMJ

The Readings for Wednesday 3 Advent (Year 2):

Audite ergo, domus David. Numquid parum vobis est molestos esse hominibus, quia molesti estis et Deo meo? Propter hoc dabit Dominus ipse vobis signum: ecce virgo concipiet, et pariet filium, et vocabitur nomen ejus Emmanuel.

Hear ye therefore, O house of David: Is it a small thing for you to be grievous to men, that you are grievous to my God also? Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel.
Our verse from Isaiah says, ecce virgo concipiet, behold a virgin shall conceive. But St Jerome’s Latin Vulgate was working with, at first, the Greek text of the Septuagint, not the Hebrew text as we know it. In Greek, the word used for the person who will conceive is “παρθένος” parthenos which not only means “virgin,” but also caries echoes of Artemis and Athene, and includes the concept of virgo intacta, The Hebrew, however, uses only the word עַלְמָ֗ה almah. It means only “young woman” or the rather formal title of “Maiden” without meaning, specifically, “virgin”.

There is a story from the Church’s tradition that, when the LXX was being translated, a young worker came to this passage and wanted to write the Greek word for girl, νύμφη nymphe but the Holy Spirit intervened and said parthenos. The young man said, “But Lord, that word means young girl.” And the Holy Spirit said, “Write parthenos and I will show you the fulfillment of it.” This young man, so the Tradition states, was Simeon, who was kept alive to a great age to see the fulfillment of this promise when the Blessed Virgin presented Our Lord in the Temple at Candlemas.

But even so, the story discussed has nothing to do with Jesus or Mary, right? There’s a war going on, and the King wants to know if God is with us or against us in this war. Isaiah says, God is with David. And ask anything you want as a sign.  The king says he dares not tempt God – even though it is at God’s own command. But God says, “Fine, if you will not ask, I will show anyway…” This has nothing to do with Messiah or anything. But the Angel says it does. How is that?

For the early Church and for the Holy Spirit, for the Apostles and the Patristic communities, the entire world was pointing to Jesus. The quest was to find out how. The Old Testament must, in all its ways, prefigure Messiah. So we must meditate and pray to open the text. The same way that the Angel said this unrelated verse from Isaiah is a Messianic Prophecy, so also is the passage from Genesis about the head of the serpent, so also the making-mute of Zachariah is a sign that the Old Covenant is done, so also Samson is a sign of John the Baptist, Judith of the Blessed Virgin, Daniel in the Lions’ Den of Christ in Hell, the Red Sea of Baptism, Manna of the Eucharist, Egypt or Babylon a sign of “this world” and the escape therefrom a sign of our Christian growth… the list goes on.

The image at the top of the page is of the Welsh Poet, Taliesin. Taliesin seems a bridge between the pagan darkness in Wales and the Christian revolution of Arthur. In fact, the poetry of Taliesin (as we have it) weaves together the two Wales into a unified whole that allows us to the see the Christian truth foreshadowed in the past, a Pagan Old Testament, if you will, in the myths and stories the Cymry told each other in their camps and homes long before St David and the missionaries ever got there.

Certainly the ancient Bards of Wales never intended or imagined Christian context for their stories, but once the Truth was revealed, all could see He had been present all along in their quest.

So it can be in our lives: once Christ is revealed as not “a true story” but as “The Truth” then anything that was true before is, lo, a bit of Christ present and still true. Yet a fuller, deeper, and more complex meaning is revealed.

This was how the first Christians read the Bible. We inherit their readings in our Tradition, but the skill seems lost. It’s hard to look at a Biblical Story and not want to see the literal truth or untruth of the letters. If the Bible is not History what good is it? But the Bible is history. That’s just not all it is.  If that’s all it is, it might as well be any other history text.

But the Bible, to the Church Fathers, is more like a Tarot Deck than a History Book. Prophecies are Fulfilled not because they were literal predictions that literally came true in a verbatim, literal way. So boring. They are fulfilled, they are Made Full of the Holy Spirit and bring forth the Word of God like Mary.  They are signs that await the explication of their fullest meaning in Christ’s teaching, in the Church, in the action of the Holy Spirit, in the lives of the Saints.

I said Tarot Deck and I mean no scandal: anyone can go out and buy a book of “the meanings of the Tarot Cards” and learn that the Ace of Cups means a new love affair, but a proper reading of cards, of stars, of the I Ching… of anything, really… is not just “fortune telling” but rather visual meditation. Done right any discussion of any set of Symbols should lead us to Christ (if we’re telling the Truth). This is why those who Translate the Bible to be “inclusive” are missing the point. We’re not the message, the subject, or topic of the Bible: Jesus is.

Like Taliesin wove his text of Pagan Past into a Christian Future, the Church has done the same with the Old Testament, missionaries have done where ever the Gospel has gone, and you need to do the same with your life in the Church. Where has God acted that brought you to the Faith you now have? If you are not in the faith, how has your life brought you at all to reading these words? Here God is acting.

The music is playing all around us, and all we need to do is sing.

A translation of Deus Duw Delwat

O God, the God of formation,
Ruler, strengthener of blood.
Christ Jesus, that guards.
Princes loud-proclaiming go their course
For a decaying acquisition.
The praising thy mercy.
There hath not been here;
O supreme Ruler;
There hath not been; there will not be,
One so good as the Lord.
There hath not been born in the day of the people
Any one equal to God.
And no one will acknowledge
Any one equal to him.
Above heaven, below heaven,
There is no Ruler but he.
Above sea, below sea,
He created us.
When God comes
A great noise will pierce us,
The day of judgment terribly.
Messengers from the door,
Wind, and sea, and fire.
lightning and thunder
A number without flattery.
The people of the world groaning
Will be concealed.
Kings will shudder [that] day,
Woe awaits them!
When the recompenser shall appear,
Let the heaven appear below.
A ruddy wind will be brought
Out to the cinder,
Until the world is as desolate
As when created.

Do not thy passions counteract
What thy lips utter?
Thy going in thy course into valleys,
Dark without lights.
The love-diffusing [Lord] will separate us.
The land of worldly weather,
A wind will melt the trees:
There will pass away every tranquillity
When the mountains are burnt.
There will be again inhabitants
With horns before kings;
The mighty One will send them,
Sea, and land, and lake.
There will be again a trembling terror,
And a moving of the earth,
And above every field,
And ashes the rocks will be;
With violent exertion, concealment,
And burning of lake.
A wave do ye displace,
A shield do ye extend
To the travelling woe,
And violent exertion through grief.
And inflaming through fury
Between heaven and earth.

I have not been without battle.
Bitter affliction was frequent
Between me and my cousins.
Songs and minstrels.
And the hymns of angels,
Will raise from the graves,
They will entreat from the beginning.
They will entreat together publicly,
On so great a destiny.
Those whom the sea has destroyed
Will make a great shout,
At the time when cometh
He, that will separate them.
Do not thy passions counteract
What thy lips utter?
Thy going in thy course into valleys,
Dark without lights.
And mine were his words.
And mine were his languages.

The lance was struck
And my side was pierced.
It will be struck to you also…
I have not been without battle.
Bitter affliction was frequent
Between me and my cousins.
Frequent trials fell
Between me and my fellow-countrymen.
There was frequent contention
Between me and the wretched.
Those that placed me on the cross
I knew when young.
That drove me on the tree,
My head hung down.
Stretched were my two feet,
So sad their destiny.
Stretched with extreme pain
The bones of my feet.
Stretched were my two arms,
Their burden will not be.
Stretched were my two shoulders,
So diligently it was done.
Stretched were the nails,
Within my heart.
Stretched was the spiking,
Between my two eyes.
Thick are the holes
Of the crown of thorns in my head.
The lance was struck
And my side was pierced.
It will be struck to you also,
As your right hand (struck me).
To you there will be no forgiveness,
For piercing me with spears.
And the Ruler we knew not
When thou wert hung.
Ruler of heaven, Ruler of every people!
We knew not, O Christ! that it was thou.
If we had known thee,
Christ, we should have refrained from thee.

Do not the brave know
The greatness of their progeny?
Ye have committed wickedness
Against the Creator.
A hundred thousand angels
Are to me witnesses,
Who came to conduct me
After my hanging,
When hanging cruelly,
Myself to deliver me
In heaven there was trembling
When I had been hung.
When I cried out Eli!
Do not the brave know
The greatness of their progeny?
A country present will meet thee,
And while it may possibly be yours,
Three hundred thousand years save one,
A short hour of the day of everlasting life.