Adoremus Bulletin - May 2020 Issue

Adoremus Bulletin For the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy

MAY 2020

News & Views

Vol. XXV, No. 6

Why Celebrate the Mass With Empty Pews?

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ROME—On March 30, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments approved a “Mass in the Time of Pandemic,” a votive Mass in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cindy Wooden of Catholic News Service reported in an April 1 article at Crux that the Mass was approved “to plead for God’s mercy and strength in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.”

A votive Mass, as the Catholic News Agency noted in its April 1 report on the newly approved Mass, “is a Mass differing from the one prescribed for the day and celebrated for a special intention.”

“The Mass opens with a prayer that God would ‘look with compassion on the afflicted, grant eternal rest to the dead, comfort to mourners, healing to the sick, peace to the dying, strength to health care workers, wisdom to our leaders and the courage to reach out to all in love,’” Wooden writes.

Quoted in Wooden’s article, Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the congregation and Archbishop Arthur Roche, congregation secretary, stated in a March 30 letter, “In these days, during which the whole world has been gravely stricken by the COVID-19 virus,” many bishops and priests have asked “to be able to celebrate a specific Mass to implore God to bring an end to this pandemic.”

Wooden writes, “The ‘Mass in the Time of Pandemic,’ the congregation said, can be celebrated on any day ‘except solemnities; the Sundays of Advent, Lent and Easter (season); Please see COVID on next page

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Vatican Authorizes Special Mass for Coronavirus Pandemic

Whether celebrated in an empty church or with 10,000 faithful, every Mass is the eruption into time of the eternal offering of Christ to the Father, involving every member of the Mystical Body, both in heaven and on earth.

By Denis R. McNamara

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t can seem odd that the current pandemic has led to Masses celebrated by solitary priests in empty churches and bishops celebrating the Easter Vigil without the new fire, procession with paschal candle, or baptism of adults. The sanctification of people, of course, is one of the primary aims of the sacred liturgy, so it may seem pointless at first blush to confect the Eucharist in an empty church, even when people watch from home and make spiritual communions. But a broader sacramental view of the sacred liturgy reveals that Catholic worship is more than a prayer meeting in which people “get” the Eucharist like they get their foreheads marked on Ash Wednesday. Instead, the liturgy is always a perfect offering rendered to the Father by Christ together with his Mystical Body which continues God’s

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Adoremus Bulletin MAY 2020

work of salvation and glorification of creation. As Sacrosanctum Concilium expresses it, liturgy is the “exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ” (7) which includes all the members of his Mystical Body, both on heaven and on earth.

“ The Mass is not simply the necessary ritual formalities preliminary to receiving Holy Communion, but it is the participation in Christ’s perfect offering of himself and all of creation to the Father.”

It’s All About God God made us, sustains us, and gives us every good blessing (and a few trials to keep us honest). Denis McNamara explains why worship is first and foremost the least and best we can do in return............................1 I in the Hurricane What strange creatures humans are— happy when we should be sad, sad when we should be happy—and yet, as Christopher Carstens notes, the calm at the center of the tumultuous self should be, now and always, Jesus........................................................3 Diary of a City Pastor Father Nick Blaha is pastor of a trio of parishes in inner-city Kansas City, KS—and he’s written a day-by-day account of his

The Mass, then, is not simply the necessary ritual formalities preliminary to receiving Holy Communion, but it is the participation in Christ’s perfect offering of himself and all of creation to the Father which then culminates in the reception of Holy Communion. As members of his Mystical Body, the laity are meant to offer themselves to the Father with Christ, the Immaculate Victim, allowing a real liturgical participation even when viewing online and substituting spiritual communion for sacramental reception of the Eucharist.

The Process of Creation Continues in Time In reading scripture’s creation accounts, it can be tempting to assume that God’s work of creation ended on the sixth day, as if the narratives of the Old Testament and the Resurrection Please see WORSHIP on page 4 singular—but not so lonely—Holy Week and Easter............................................................5 One Question Adoremus asked a simple question: “How did you and your family experience the Triduum and Easter celebrations this year, during the pandemic? And we received extraordinary answers................................................................7 Serves Them Right!

In a new book by Bishop Peter J. Elliot (retired auxiliary of Melbourne, Australia), Monsignor Marc Caron finds an accessible handbook for altar boys and others serving at the altar..........................................................12 News & Views ....................................................1 Readers' Quiz......................................................3 The Rite Questions...........................................10

2 Continued from COVID, page 1 days within the Octave of Easter; the commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls’ Day); Ash Wednesday; and the days of Holy Week.’”

The article also quoted other prayers of the new votive Mass, including the offertory prayer: “Accept, O Lord, the gifts we offer in this time of peril. May they become for us, by your power, a source of healing and peace. Through Christ our Lord.”

According to Wooden’s report, suggested Gospel readings to be used during this Mass include Mark 4:35-41, “the story of the disciples in the boat on the stormy Sea of Galilee; it is the same reading Pope Francis used March 27 for his special prayer service and blessing ‘urbi et orbi’ (to the city and the world), begging God to end the pandemic.”

Wooden writes that the closing prayer of the Mass ends with a “prayer over the people”—“O God, protector of all who hope in you, bless your people, keep them safe, defend them, prepare them, that, free from sin and safe from the enemy, they may persevere always in your love. Through Christ our Lord.”

Theologians: Reason to ‘Doubt’ Sacramentality in Marriages Between ‘Baptized Non-believers’

By Hannah Brockhaus Vatican City (CNA)—The International Theological Commission (ITC) published a study on March 3 into the question of whether two “baptized non-believers” can contract sacramental marriage or whether the absence of faith impedes the intent of the spouses.

The commission concluded that an absence of faith can “compromise the intention to celebrate a marriage that includes some of the goods of marriage,” and “there is reason to doubt” that a sacrament takes place in such marriages, though it concedes that is far from a given, and depends on additional circumstances.

Noting that this problem has been a question under consideration during the last three pontificates, the group of 30 Catholic theologians proposes a solution which, they say, rejects two extremes: “absolute sacramental automatism” on the one side and an “elitist sacramental skepticism” on the other.

The practical effect of this proposal, the commission suggests, is that it is therefore consistent with the Church’s sacramental practice “to deny the sacrament of marriage” to those who request it under certain conditions, and that there is an urgent need for faith education and pastoral care of marriage.

The ITC, which published the paper, exists under and to advise the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Members are appointed by the pope for fiveyear terms, during which a particular theological question is studied and the results published.

“The Reciprocity between Faith and Sacraments in the Sacramental Economy” was published March 3 with the approval of CDF Prefect Cardinal Luis Ladaria and Pope Francis.

Recognizing that faith is an important requisite for the validity and fruitfulness of the sacraments, one of the issues the commission confronts is the subjectivity of personal faith, which is fundamentally relational, and the difficulty of using it as a basis for admission to the sacraments.

The ITC’s response is to affirm faith as a virtue which “must be manifested externally, in a visible way, in a style of life corresponding to the double commandment of love of God and neighbor, and in a relationship with the praying Church.”

“However,” the commission states, “since the reception of a sacrament is an ecclesial public act, the external and visible is decisive: that is, the intention expressed, confession of faith, and the fidelity to the baptismal promise in life.”

The ITC says it both wants to insist “on the fundamental place of faith” in the celebration of the sacraments, while also including “doctrinal precision on the case of the faith necessary for validity.”

However, the theologians, while acknowledging “degrees” in conformance to doctrine and in intensity of faith, say the “decisive” factor is that the recipient of the sacrament “does not reject the Church’s teaching at all” and has “the positive disposition to receive what the sacrament signifies.”

Overall, the ITC document studies the reciprocity between faith and sacraments, with a special focus on the link between faith and intention in the valid reception of the Church’s sacraments of initiation—baptism, confirmation, and the Eucharist—and marriage in the Latin Church.

Marriage is the sacrament which most strongly tests the “essential reciprocity between faith and sacraments,” the ITC states.

Adoremus Bulletin, May 2020

NEWS & VIEWS

The Catholic Church holds that the validity of marriage between two baptized persons in the Latin Church does not require the intention, desire, or awareness of celebrating a sacrament. The intention to contract a natural marriage is enough, as the study points out.

The ITC argues that this understanding of marriage is what makes it important for theology to address the case of marriages between “baptized non-believers,” which it defines as “persons in whom there is no sign of the presence of the dialogical nature of faith....”

With today’s “dominant cultural axiomatic,” which does not uphold the goods of marriage, it says, the intention in the case of baptized non-believers “to enter into a natural marriage cannot be assumed to be guaranteed, nor can it be excluded in the first place.”

In examining this question, the ITC lays out the thoughts of St. Pope John Paul II, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis. Their teachings show that the question is focused, but not entirely resolved, the commission states.

The theologians are concerned with how significant cultural changes have disrupted sacramental faith in a post-modern world, and how this subsequently harms the reciprocity between faith and sacraments.

“Faith is a personal relationship with the Trinitarian God, through which one responds to his grace, to his sacramental revelation,” it says.

“There is a certain danger: either ritualism devoid of faith for lack of interiority or by social custom and tradition; or danger of a privatization of the faith, reduced to the inner space of one’s own conscience and feelings.”

New Eucharistic Prefaces, Optional Saint Feasts for Extraordinary Form of Roman Rite Issued

By Hannah Brockhaus Vatican City (CNA)—On March 25 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued two decrees giving new Eucharistic prefaces and provision for the optional celebration of more recently named saints in the extraordinary form of the Roman rite, also known as the Traditional Latin Mass.

The decree Quo Magis provides seven new Eucharistic prefaces for the extraordinary form of the Mass, which may be used for particular occasions, such as votive Masses or the feast days of saints, according to a note accompanying the rescript.

The second decree, Cum Sanctissima, establishes a provision for the celebration of the third class feasts of saints canonized after July 1960, whose memorials were established after the 1962 Roman missal.

At the same time, Cum Sanctissima includes a list of 70 third class feasts, equivalent to a memorial in the ordinary form, which should never be impeded by the celebration of other feasts.

According to the note accompanying the decree, these saints’ days were chosen because of their importance “in the plan of salvation or in the history of the Church” and “in terms of either the devotion they have generated or their writings,” or their long devotion in Rome.

“In choosing whether or not to make use of the provisions…,” the decree said, “the celebrant is expected to make use of good pastoral common sense.”

The decrees are both signed by Cardinal Luis Ladaria, prefect of the CDF, and by Archbishop Giacomo Morandi, CDF secretary. They were approved by Pope Francis in December 2019.

With the publication of the decrees, the CDF has carried out requests made by Pope Benedict XVI to the pontifical commission Ecclesia Dei, which was tasked with dialogue with traditionalist groups in light of Benedict’s 2007 apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum.

The commission Ecclesia Dei was concluded and absorbed into the CDF in January 2019 by Pope Francis.

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Adoremus Bulletin (ISSN 1088-8233) is published six times a year by Adoremus— Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy, in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Adoremus is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation of the State of California.

Adoremus—Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy was established in June 1995 to promote authentic reform of the Liturgy of the Roman Rite in accordance with the Second Vatican Council’s decree on the Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium. Adoremus Bulletin is sent on request to members of Adoremus. Suggested donation: $40 per year, US; $45 foreign.

Boise Bishop Bans ‘Ad Orientem’ in ‘Ordinary Form’ Masses

By J.D. Flynn Denver, CO (CNA)—The Bishop of Boise told priests in February that the ordinary form of the Mass should not be celebrated in the ad orientem posture, and that material from “independent websites” is not appropriate for religious instruction regarding the liturgy.

“I am instructing priests in this diocese to preside facing the people at every celebration of the Ordinary Form of the Mass,” Bishop Peter Christensen wrote in a February 28 letter to priests, which was published in the March 27 issue of the Idaho Catholic Register.

“There are priests who prefer ad orientem. I am convinced that they mean well and find it a devout way to pray. But the overwhelming experience worldwide after Vatican II is that the priest faces the people for Mass and this has contributed to the sanctification of the people.”

The bishop wrote that the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) is “unambivalent” about liturgical orientation, and “makes it plain that the universal Church envisions the priest presiding at Mass facing the people.”

While liturgists have debated the precise meaning of the liturgical document that references the direction a priest faces during the celebration of the Mass, the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship clarified in 2000 that the document does not forbid the ad orientem celebration of the liturgy.

In 2016, Bishop Arthur Seratelli, then-chairman of the U.S. bishops’ conference liturgy committee, wrote to U.S. bishops that while the GIRM “does show a preference for the celebrant’s facing the people ‘whenever possible’ in the placement and orientation of the altar,” the Church “does not prohibit the celebration of the Eucharist in the Ordinary Form ad orientem.”

“Although permitted, the decision whether or not to preside ad orientem should take into consideration the physical configuration of the altar and sanctuary space, and, most especially, the pastoral welfare of the faith community being served.”

While neither universal canon nor liturgical law require the permission of a bishop before a priest celebrates the Mass ad orientem, Seratelli wrote that “such an important decision should always be made with the supervision and guidance of the local bishop.”

Ad orientem, or facing the east, was, until recent decades, the long-standing historical posture for celebrating Mass in the Latin rite, and has been understood to reflect the community’s watchfulness for the return of Jesus Christ from the east. In the ad orientem posture, both the priest and the people face the apse of the Church during the celebration of the Mass.

The ad orientem celebration of the Mass fell out of customary use in many parts of the world after 1969-1970 revisions to the Roman Missal, although those revisions did not explicitly call for a change in liturgical orientation. The possibility of the versus populum, or facing the people posture, was mentioned in a 1964 Vatican instruction regarding the placement of altars. In recent years, some Vatican officials and U.S. bishops have promoted and encouraged a return to the ad orientem posture.

Christensen’s letter said that in his diocese, the ad orientem direction would be prohibited. He explained that “it was clearly the mind of the Council that the priest should face the people.”

Deacon Gene Fadness, a spokesman for the Diocese of Boise, did not explain what document of the Second Vatican Council conveys the “mind of the Council” on the matter, which is not mentioned in Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Second Vatican Council’s constitution on the liturgy.

Deacon Fadness did tell CNA that “In all liturgical matters, Bishop Peter carefully considers the statements of the CDWDS, the instructions in the ritual books and Canon Law, and his responsibility as chief liturgist of the diocese.”

Please see NEWS & VIEWS page 11

EDITOR - PUBLISHER: Christopher Carstens MANAGING EDITOR: Joseph O’Brien CONTENT MANAGER: Jeremy Priest GRAPHIC DESIGNER: Danelle Bjornson OFFICE MANAGER: Elizabeth Gallagher WEBSITE AND TECHNOLOGY: Matt Korger MARKETING AND FUNDRAISING: Eugene Diamond SOCIAL MEDIA: Jesse Weiler LETTERS TO THE EDITOR P.O. Box 385 La Crosse, WI 54602-0385 editor@adoremus.org

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE The Rev. Jerry Pokorsky = Helen Hull Hitchcock The Rev. Joseph Fessio, SJ

Contents copyright © 2020 by ADOREMUS. All rights reserved.

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Adoremus Bulletin, May 2020

Mass During a Hurricane

By Christopher Carstens, Editor

AB/WIKIMEDIA (DUCCIO DI BUONINSEGNA (1255-1319): THE RAISING OF LAZARUS

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hat perverse creatures we are! Surround any other organism—an amoeba, a tree, a dog— within a good environment (that may include food, rest, shelter, sex) and it thrives. Put a man (especially a Western man) in the midst of an apparently good environment with leisure, money, entertainment, cuisine—and he becomes miserable, sick, and even suicidal.

Anyone familiar with Walker Percy’s writings will recognize that this Catholic novelist and philosopher has made these insights practically his stock and trade. On more than one occasion in his writings, he invokes the blessed freedom found in the danger of a hurricane as a means of snapping postmodern man out of his gloomy, average everydayness. Percy asks: “Why is a man apt to feel bad in a good environment, say suburban Short Hills, New Jersey, on an ordinary Wednesday afternoon? Why is the same man apt to feel good in a very bad environment, say an old hotel on Key Largo during a hurricane” (Message in a Bottle, 3-4)?

Percy, who died 30 years ago this May, was a Southern writer, philosopher, and physician. He was fascinated by man’s peculiar position in the cosmos—hence his oftasked question, “Why do people often feel bad in good environments and good in bad environments?” For this reason, he was a fan and friend of the hurricane (or, if you are not from the coastal southeast of the country, pick your own flavor of catastrophe), for it seemed to shake one out of the blind doldrums of the daily grind— what he called “everydayness.” As he put it, “Everydayness is the enemy…. Perhaps there was a time when everydayness was not too strong and one could break its grip by brute strength. Now nothing breaks it—but disaster” (The Moviegoer, 145).

Percy would be loving life right now. The current COVID-19 pandemic would be seen by him, in some strange but real way, as a hurricane-type event that could shake us out of our everydayness and help us to step back and look with new, clear eyes at our world, our selves, and our destiny. While I wouldn’t say that I’ve been feeling especially good in this ostensibly bad environment, I have been trying on the lenses through which Percy sees catastrophe not as hopelessness and despair but as a cause for contentment and perhaps even joy. I’ve tried to see things as Percy sees them in the hope that this perspective might help me—a Catholic husband and father, diocesan liturgy director, and editor—see things aright, and no longer in the fog of the good life. It’s a task, I hope, that each of us will undertake: what have I learned about myself? about my place in the world? about my understanding of the faith? about my relationship to God in the sacred liturgy?

Here’s three early conclusions from my own perspective.

First, the liturgy is not essential—at least in the eyes of the world. I’d imagine anyone who is reading these words has been rightly astounded—yet not surprised—that in most places liquor stores, McDonald’s drive-thru’s, and (in some states) abortion clinics are considered by gubernatorial orders “essential,” while church services are not. But as alarming as it is that a politician may consider religious worship inessential, it is more disturbing that many—although not all—Catholics, Christians, or other believers would find it so. The Abitene (Tunisia) martyrs of 304 told their judge, “Without the gift of the Lord, without the Lord’s day, we cannot live!” How many Catholics (including myself) have echoed these words of the early martyrs? I fear our politicians are simply echoing what too many Catholics are saying (or not saying).

Second, the Mass is not enough for a fully-formed liturgical life. While the Mass is the source and center of the Church’s life, and that of her children, it is not the only part of the Church’s liturgical life. Like many, my family had been watching Masses live-streamed and ondemand for much of the end of Lent and beginning of Easter. We dressed up, as if we were going to our parish; we sang along with songs and responses; we stood, sat, and knelt at the usual times. When the Triduum came around, we were grateful to join, even if virtually, our bishop from the barren cathedral church. But by the time Easter Sunday arrived, we (OK, I) had had enough. We turned off the TV and turned to praying Lauds together as a family, from actual Liturgy of the Hours books, in real time—and it was fantastic. It even led my wife and me to consider making the praying of the Liturgy of the Hours by the family a regular event (we’ll see what comes of that!). We also found our family praying the Rosary on a daily basis, versus the occasional basis when, in normal, “everyday” times, we had access to the Mass. In short: the Church wants her prayer life to be based upon the Mass, but also surrounded by other liturgical and devotional prayers. The coronavirus has made this truth clear.

Third, Jesus alone is the real deal, the reality beyond,

Like Lazaraus risen from the dead, let us look at the liturgy—and, through it, Christ—with fresh insight.

beneath, and behind all things, the one truth that, like a Rock, will not falter. As we are witnessing, our economy, culture, and civilization are easily shaken. My pope, bishop, and pastor will lead for better or worse—but not perfectly. Presidents, governors, and mayors will direct with a mix of prudence or negligence. Most alarmingly, I can’t even rely upon myself, since physical, mental, and spiritual health seem more precarious now than before.

Only one thing remains: Christ and his divine life. Sacramental and liturgical theologians call this reality the res sacramenti, the reality of every sacrament. The coronavirus pandemic was thus a kind of lesson in liturgical theology: Jesus is the solid ground of all things liturgical—of all things period.

In one of his final books, Lost in the Cosmos, Percy takes us through a thought-experiment. What if at the brink of committing suicide, he asks, one were to change his mind and decide to live? “What happens? All at once, you are dispensed. Why not live, instead of dying? You

are free to do so…. Suddenly you feel like a castaway on an island. You can’t believe your good fortune. You feel for broken bones. You are in one piece, sole survivor of a foundered ship whose captain and crew had worried themselves into a fatal funk. And here you are, cast up on a beach…. Lying on the beach, you are free for the first time in your life to pick up a coquina and look at it. You are even free to go home and, like the man from Chicago, dance with your wife” (77-78). Like the brush with suicide and weathering the hurricane, may today’s pandemic help us to see—perhaps for the first time—our liturgical heart with fresh insight. In fact, ask yourself: how does the liturgy appear to you now compared to six months ago?

Lord Jesus, you know that like your friend, Lazarus, we were once dead men, but through your Resurrection we have come back to life. Help us, O Lord, to see with the eyes of faith.

Readers’ Quiz Editor’s note: Have you found recent days and weeks in quarantine flying by or dragging along? Imagine if we didn’t have the Church’s liturgical benchmarks—Palm Sunday, Triduum, Easter, and Pentecost—to mark our days? To help us appreciate the nature of liturgical time and how it directs us to eternity, this issue of the Roman Missal Quiz focuses on the liturgical calendar.

On the Liturgical Calendar in the Roman Missal 1. In addition to its Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum (which promulgated the Roman Missal), the General Instruction, and norms on the distribution of Holy Communion, what other document is printed at the beginning of the Roman Missal?

2. How many Holy Days of Obligation does the Roman Missal list? a. 10 b. 7 c. 5 d. 0 3. True or False: the Roman Missal considers Solemnities as the most important of all liturgical days.

4. The Roman Missal’s liturgical calendar includes how many seasons in the liturgical year? a. 4 b. 5 c. 6 d. 7 5. True or False: the revision of the Roman Missal following the Second Vatican Council eliminated Rogation and Ember Days.

6. March 25 may be the most significant day of the liturgical year. Not only does it remember the incarnation of Jesus, it also stands as a marker of Christ’s eventual death. Consequently, it is not uncommon that the Solemnity of the Annunciation falls during Holy Week or the Easter Octave. When this happens, what becomes of the liturgical observance of the Annunciation?

7. True or False: According to the Roman Missal, the proper Mass for a given Sunday (that is, readings and orations) must be used for that Mass to fulfill the faithful’s Sunday obligation.

8. Some saints—St. Theresa of Calcutta, St. Christopher, St. John Henry Cardinal Newman—are not entered on every nation’s liturgical calendar. Can these saints still be celebrated liturgically?

9. According to the Roman Missal, the Second Eucharistic Prayer should be used: a. On weekdays. b. On Sundays. c. On Sundays when the pastor has to make time to celebrate multiple Masses. d. At funerals.

10. How many weeks are there in Ordinary Time?

ANSWERS on page 11

Adoremus Bulletin, May 2020

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The Church’s liturgy, writes Denis McNamara, is “the privileged place to share in Christ’s continuing redemptive action or ‘work’ in the world through the offering of his sacrifice to the Father.”

Continued from WORSHIP, page 1

of Christ are simply necessary remedies to undo the Fall. But the act of creation can also be seen as God’s continuing activity which occurs over time, beyond the first six days: new children are born and the message of the Gospel continues to be proclaimed in new lands until God’s plan is fully realized. David Fagerberg writes that time is a “creature,” created by God as a tool for redemption. “History,” he writes, “is creation coming out from God and then going back to God…. God made a world with time so we could grow in communion with him.”1 This glorification continues to happen across time, which makes it also God’s “tool for transfiguration.”2 In the sacred liturgy this is seen clearly, where people spend time “being” liturgical, allowing God’s glory to transfigure them by offering themselves to the Father with Christ.

The sabbath is the particular liturgical day when Christians assemble to participate in God’s glorification of the world. The Genesis creation accounts speak of human beings created on the sixth day and God resting on the seventh, but God’s creative action did not stop there.

Christ’s words, “My Father has never ceased working and I too must be at work” (John 5:17), came precisely in response to his healing a sick man on the sabbath, and provides evidence of God’s continued “work” in the world. For French scholar Jean Hani (1917-2012), this passage explains creation as a “continuous divine activity,” a kind of work which God in turn shares with humanity.3 To God belongs the archetypal power of continued creation which, in Christ’s Resurrection, now brings all things to glory.

Importantly, human beings participate in this continuous creation, thereby giving labor its foundational dignity. Workers, whether artists, artisans, teachers, or physicians, “act upon the world with a view to transforming” and improving it, thereby extending God’s work in time.4 After Christ’s resurrection, however, humans “work” in and with Christ, bringing about the “restoration of all things” (Acts 3:21) and uniting earth with the glory of heaven (Ephesians 1:10). In other words, Christ and the members of his Mystical Body together continue God’s work of creation precisely by bringing it to glory until God is “all in all” (1 Corinthians 5:28).

“ The Church’s liturgy is spiritually indistinguishable from the action of Christ himself at the right hand of the Father.”

Christ’s Work of Redemption Continues in the Church While it may be easy to see the Church and her liturgy as just a pious human gathering, the Church is better understood as the privileged place to share in Christ’s continuing redemptive action or “work” in the world through the offering of his sacrifice to the Father. Sacrosanctum Concilium proclaims this idea in its opening paragraphs, noting that especially in “the divine Eucharistic sacrifice… ‘the work of our redemption is exercised’” (2). The Catechism of the Catholic Church reiterates and expands this idea, calling liturgy “the participation of the people of God in the ‘work of God’” and continues: “Through the liturgy Christ…continues the work of redemption in, with and through his Church” (1069). It is worth noting that the Catechism’s explana-

“ Every Mass involves every member of the Mystical Body, and so has an objective efficacy in God’s continuing creation of the world.” tion of the liturgy requires three prepositions for proper explanation: in, with and through. The Church’s liturgy, then, is spiritually indistinguishable from the action of Christ himself at the right hand of the Father.

In that sense, the Church’s activity sacramentalizes Christ’s activity, and the Church’s many members constitute a body under his singular headship. Pius XII stated this clearly in 1943 in his encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi: “Because Christ is so exalted, He alone by every right rules and governs the Church,” and “it is He who through the Church baptizes, teaches, rules,

looses, binds, offers, [and] sacrifices.”5 The Church, then, “is” Christ acting in time and space, and her liturgy is far more than humans gathering out of dutiful obedience. It is the divine offering of Christ to the Father in the form of a rite: a perfect pleading and a perfect prayer made tangible in time, bringing the redeemed world more and more to its transfigured glory. Pius XII summarized this concept in his 1947 encyclical Mediator Dei: “The sacred liturgy is…the public worship which our Redeemer as Head of the Church renders to the Father, as well as the worship which the community of the faithful renders to its Founder, and through Him to the heavenly Father. It is, in short, the worship rendered by the Mystical Body of Christ in the entirety of its Head and members.”6 Whether celebrated in an empty church or with 10,000 faithful, every Mass is the eruption into time of the eternal offering of Christ to the Father, involving every member of the Mystical Body, both in heaven and on earth. And whether any particular Christian participates most completely through the reception of Holy Communion, the full sacrifice of Christ is offered nonetheless, together with his Mystical Body.

Though a great supporter of lay participation in the liturgy, Pius XII was careful to note that, though the fuller participation of laity in the liturgy increased its splendor and revealed its nature, the presence of laity was not necessary “to constitute it as a public act or give it a social character.”7 While this may at first seem to contradict the Second Vatican Council’s urging of lay participation, a second look reveals a great continuity of thought. Sacrosanctum Concilium reiterated the notion that the sacred liturgy is the “exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ,” thereby giving Christ headship and describing the nature of liturgical acts: “every liturgical action, because it is an action of Christ the priest and His Body the Church, is a sacred action surpassing all others” (7).

Mass in the Time of Pandemic So what does this all mean for people watching Mass through television or social media? Is it simply going through the motions without real effect, especially without sacramental reception of the Eucharist? In one Please see WORSHIP, page 9

Adoremus Bulletin, May 2020

Holy Week 2020: A Pastor’s View from the Sanctuary

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“ My relief at not having to negotiate a bilingual Holy Week in three different churches is surpassed only by my disappointment at not having the chance to do so.”

Jesus weeps over the city of Jerusalem prior to his triumphant entry (Luke 19:41), recalled each year on Palm Sunday. (Painting by Enrique Simonet, 1892)

By Father Nick Blaha Editor’s note: We had heard a lot recently—and rightly so—about how families and individual members of the lay faithful might go about participating in some spiritual way in the Holy Week liturgies when unable to attend them in person. But what about our pastors? How did they celebrate without their faithful? What did they experience? In this series on Holy Week’s most holy days, Kansas City, KS, pastor, Father Nick Blaha, shows us the inside of his church—and his priestly soul—during Holy Week without a congregation.

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion (April 5) The light through the church windows is dull and chilled; a cold snap has brought freezing rain, and the church feels stonier than usual, like the great basilicas of the old world. The furnace is quiet, strangled by purse strings. It shall not be revived any time soon.

A parcel of Brazilian Franciscans enters and spreads through the church like hermits discomforted by the proximity the sacred synaxis demands. The occasional creak of the old wooden pews is the only break in the funereal stillness before Mass begins.

It is a funereal stillness, indeed. Death is not so far away as he once was. His icy fingers are ungloved, and they have laid themselves on our shoulders.

This will be my first Holy Week in the parishes I serve as pastor, having been reassigned recently to a multilingual cluster of inner-city churches in the urban core of Kansas City, KS. It will certainly be the most unusual set of high holy days I have ever been a part of in my 40 years of existence. My relief at not having to negotiate a bilingual Holy Week in three different churches is surpassed only by my disappointment at not having the chance to do so.

There have been days in the recent past—I say it to my shame—when the milling, madding crowds of people in this church were a frustration to me. All too often I regarded them as a distracted and distracting audience rather than a priestly people assembled for the sacrificial meal. I strike my breast in disbelief at how altered the scene is, and how altered I am. The teenagers have been cleared out of their hiding spots in the stairwell. No toddlers wander, all innocently, through the sanctuary.

Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo, et mundabor / Lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor, my heart cries, all out of season.

Yet this stillness is not unwelcome, either. In his Meditations Before Mass, Romano Guardini contrasts the negative silence that we feel the urge to fill against the rich, brimming tranquility that is the condition for all hearing, for all prayer. “Stillness is the tranquility of the inner life, the quiet at the depths of its hidden stream.

It is a collected, total presence, a being all there, receptive, alert, ready. There is nothing inert or oppressive about it.” Could it be that the untimely muteness of the Church, spurring the faithful and priests alike to strain in eagerness for the resounding of God’s Word, is a work of the Holy Spirit to clear the spring from which the Word rises?

If these were silent, the very stones would cry out.

In the hushed emptiness of the church after all have departed, the stony coldness magnifies the Lord.

Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper (April 9) It’s Holy Thursday. The sacristy is filled with the scent of Easter lilies, delivered to the church just a few hours ago.

Our preparations for this solemn celebration of the institution of the priesthood and the Eucharist are simple and straightforward. Since this Mass is offered without the usual full church, we arrange the high altar for the celebration ad orientem, priest and people journeying toward the Lord.

The gesture of the Washing of Feet is omitted. Yet a sense that we few assembled here in the church are here on behalf of the whole parish is powerful. There is an intensity, even a fierceness, present in our prayer, amplified by the narrative of the ordination of the apostles to priestly service. I ask those assembled to dedicate their intentions for this Mass to the joyful discernment of a vocation to the priesthood or religious life on the part of our young parishioners, through the intercession of Blessed Miguel Pro.

“ The gesture of the Washing of Feet is omitted. Yet a sense that we few assembled here in the church are here on behalf of the whole parish is powerful.”

A religious vocation can seem all too fragile. There are tremendous distractions that drown out the deep desire of the heart to spend oneself entirely for the Church, in the loving union in service to Jesus’ Body. How can a young person in our day recognize and respond to this call from the heart from the Creator? It seems impossible at times. There is in our world what feels like ambient poison that stifles the seed before it is able to germinate, and sterilizes spiritual fatherhood and motherhood.

Yet seen from the perspective of faith, this fragility and precariousness in the call to a vocation testifies to the Providential work of the Divine Gardener in creating fruitfulness where we see only thorns and rocky soil.

Each of us called to this consecrated service recognizes turning points in our vocation story: a chance meeting, a strange coincidence, a passing word or phrase that the memory doesn’t surrender. These turning points, unremarkable at the time, acquire great significance in retrospect, and often prove decisive in ways we had never imagined. The magnalia Dei aren’t always accomplished in broad daylight for all to see. However ordinary and placid our vocations may be, it is always the case that they are the result of a special work of God. Gratias agimus tibi.

A tiny group of faithful are present in the church on this Holy Thursday, our church lit only by the evening sun. Together, we turn towards the crucifix mounted over the altar and lift our hearts to him, begging for the fruitfulness that will bring glory to his name and salvation to souls. After receiving his Precious Body and Blood, we chant the Pange lingua, dispersing to our homes in silence, confident in our hope that our prayers are just the sort of small, weak things that the Lord uses to accomplish wonders in the hearts of his people.

Friday of the Passion of the Lord (April 10) Strangely, my thoughts on this Good Friday stray to a series of Lenten retreats I led as a university chaplain at a secular college, in which we would trek into the Texas

desert for a week of backpacking, reading, and meditation, all in the penitential spirit of the anchorites of early Christianity. The retreat had a different feel each year, but regardless of the variations, a question that began our reading each year from the sayings of the desert fathers always stands out as a landmark in my memory.

Why, one might ask, do we hear nothing of the interior life of the abbas and ammas, but only their extreme acts of bodily endurance? Is this what defines the spiritual life? Today, the same question presents itself during this somber reading of the Lord’s Passion. Why is so little said about what was happening in Jesus’ heart? After the simple repetitions of the Agony in the Garden— “Father, let this cup pass from me”—no expression of interior anguish is even attempted. The Gospel simply catalogs the abuse and betrayal he endured, marking key fulfillments of prophecy along the way; we are given nothing but the grim litany of torture. At the cry, “Crucify him! Crucify him,” there is no closeup on the face of the Messiah, in which we see those words land like blows. His last words dribble to the ground without benefit of pathos; laconic, Apollonian, sparse. It reads more like the fall of a Nordic hero than an account of the most confounding event in the history of the universe.

On my desert retreat, the words of Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh (1914-2003) offered me a key to unlock this strange problem: The life of the spirit cannot be conveyed, except in images and analogies which are deceptive; those who know do not need them, and those who do not know are only led by them to partake imaginatively, but not really, in a world which to many is still out of reach.

How preposterous to think any one of us could presume to gain access to these supernatural mysteries unaided by grace—by a lifetime of divine grace! Cast out of Paradise, we cannot return; for a cherub is posted with a flaming sword at the gate of the Garden of the Incarnate Word’s mortal anguish, in which the Tree of Life stretches wide its limbs. It is “a closed garden; hedged all about, a spring shut in and sealed” (Canticles 12:4:12). It is one and the same Paradise, and “none may shut when he opens, none open when he shuts” (Isaiah 22:22). All that is left to us is the imprint the revoked crown left upon our heads, and the way back is down, down, down.

Yet the imprint doesn’t fade with time; it abides. As I lay prostrate before the altar, marked by exile, I pray on behalf of the people entrusted to me: Blessed are those who have understood that they are nothing in themselves…. If they are “something” it is because they are loved of God and because they know for certain that their worth in God’s eyes can be measured by the humiliation of the Son of God, his life, the Agony in the Garden, the dereliction of the Cross—the Blood of Christ.

May his Blood be upon us, and within us, and upon our children.

The Easter Vigil in the Holy Night (April 11) We process into the sanctuary from darkness. The Paschal candle is blessed, and its flame is kindled. The song of exaltation is intoned with formal restraint, channeling the joy of Easter into the chanting of a single voice.

So many parts of the Vigil are to be omitted that we select the long form of everything, including the use of all nine readings. Because the preparations have been so effortless, and the ministers are already so familiar with this celebration, I find myself free to actually participate prayerfully in the rites without any anxiety whatsoever. I cannot remember the last time the Vigil was so tranquil!

I can hear the Scriptures proclaimed with a quiet heart.

I can allow the ritual to bear me along. The accustomed tension long associated with these hours is entirely absent, and I am lifted into the subdued beauty of this summit of liturgical prayer. Though there are lamentably few present at the sacred mysteries, I must receive this as a gift.

One by one, the readings pass through me. The psalms are sung with simple fervor, lifted higher by the resonance of pipe and lute. And through it all, the same thought recurs: the Church is young.

Yes, at age 40, I am quite possibly the oldest person

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Adoremus Bulletin, May 2020

AB/WIKIMEDIA. EUGÈNE DELACROIX, CHRIST UPON THE CROSS (1845)

“ Looking back over this Triduum, I can say I experienced for the first time an uncomfortable point of contact between the priestly and the married states: that of the empty nest.” here; the ministers necessary for service in the sanctuary are nearly all still in simple vows as Franciscans. Yet it is not a bodily youth that characterizes the renewal of the Body of Christ, but its embrace of Love. Isaiah puts this question to us in the fifth reading at the Easter Vigil: Why spend your money for what is not bread, your wages for what fails to satisfy? (55:2) Here is the food of faith by which the Church is made young and vigorous. Heed me, and you shall eat well, you shall delight in rich fare (Isaiah 55:2). Here is the perpetual wedding song that “dispels wickedness, washes faults away, restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to mourners, drives out hatred, fosters concord, and brings down the mighty.” Here is the infusion of life, for life is in the Blood, and we who receive that Blood are given life. It is Blood that transcends the health mere human blood can confer because the Life it bears is divine.

Come to me heedfully, listen, that you may have life (Isaiah 55:3).

This youth is the fruit of faith. The Scriptures of this holy night instruct us in faith by our father in faith, Abraham. I look out from the sanctuary over the men and women religious who have, like Abraham, left home and country and mother tongue to follow the will of God—lekh lekah, “go now to the land that I will show you.” Like Abraham, a precious gift has been given against all hope, and then demanded back.

Yet the empty tomb resounds with the words of the poet Francis Thompson (1859-1907), and with the simplicity of poetry, he uncovers the meaning of such sacrifices:

All which I took from thee, I did’st but take, Not for thy harms, But just that thou might’st seek it in my arms.

All which thy child’s mistake fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at Home.

Rise, clasp my hand, and come.

May the emptiness of our churches allow an echo from the empty tomb to bring peace and joy to the hearts of all the faithful in these holy days.

“ There is fatherly satisfaction in seeing the faithful take up the mantle of spiritual authority, creating catechetical and liturgical resources for the Church, and applying their expertise to present needs.” ous, though not always obvious. Looking back over this Triduum, I can say I experienced for the first time an uncomfortable point of contact between the priestly and the married states: that of the empty nest.

When children leave home for good, parents must begin to do without the chaos and closeness of their brood, a chapter of life which for some spans decades.

I imagine that a bittersweet silence sets in, combining pride at their children’s independence, relief in their own newfound freedom, and the sorrow of irreversible parting. In this fallen world, parents also harbor fear, self-pity, or resentment that they are being forgotten as their adult children dedicate the best of their time and effort to getting their feet beneath them and start-

Father Nick Blaha S.T.L. was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas in 2011. He is a 2002 graduate of Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, CA, and he served for three years as a FOCUS missionary before receiving his priestly formation at Mundelein Seminary in Chicago. He currently serves as pastor of three bilingual parishes in the urban core of Kansas City.

AB/PXFUEL.COM

Easter Sunday (April 12) and the Easter Season One of the recurring themes of conversation with my married friends is how similar married and priestly life can be. The parallels between the sacramental commitment of the married couple and the priest are numer-

“Why,” asks Father Nick Blaha on Good Friday, “is so little said about what was happening in Jesus’ heart?” Like so much of Triduum 2020, Jesus sounds silent to the ear.

As Pope Benedict XVI remarked of Christ upon the cross: “The word is muted; it becomes mortal silence, for it has ‘spoken’ exhaustively, holding back nothing of what it had to tell us” (Verbum Domini, 12).

ing families of their own. Then too, what is it like for parents, years after the fact, to hear their children thank them for the discipline or instruction that had been only a source of discord or eye-rolling in the home? Is there gratification in being able to welcome their children into a shared perspective, since they as parents themselves now understand the loving sacrifice such discipline and instruction demanded, and its value?

I can’t say I identify with every one of these feelings as a priest during the 2020 Triduum. “Spiritual father” doesn’t translate well into “changing spiritual diapers” or spiritually “grounding” misbehaving parishioners. That kind of condescension is rightly condemned as clericalism. But I nonetheless found myself in these holy days to be surprised by a resemblance between these experiences of the “empty nest.” A priest doesn’t have the same goal as a parent; the shelter-at-home separation is not meant to be permanent, as a child maturing into an independent adult is. Still, there is fatherly satisfaction in seeing the faithful take up the mantle of spiritual authority, creating catechetical and liturgical resources for the church, and applying their expertise to present needs.

Even more importantly, mothers and fathers are embracing their own baptismal priesthood in admirable ways by intensifying their family’s identity as the domestic church. They are creating prayer corners, being consistent in daily prayer and works of mercy as a family, and sanctifying the Lord’s Day beyond simply turning Mass on—and then off. Whether or not their neighbors or social circles join in, households are taking seriously the call to craft their own identities as wise disciples who are on a mission. They are, in other words, growing into the priestly role, and precisely in the ways baptismal grace is meant to shape the lives of believers. What priest would not echo Moses’ rejoinder to Joshua, who insisted certain unsanctioned Israelites be forbidden to prophesy: “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!” (Numbers 11:29).

As a fellow pastor put it in a recent conversation, the question on our hearts is much like what empty nesters surely ask themselves in relation to their fully fledged offspring: “What am I called to be for these persons now that they’re on their own?” We’re not there in the way we once were to give advice or encouragement, or to remind them of their dignity or potential. Yet that doesn’t mean we love or care about them any less, or that we mean anything less to them. It just means that God is doing something new in our midst, and our job is to remain open to the grace that is already anticipating every change, whether sacred or profane.

Holy Week 2020: an empty tomb.

Adoremus Bulletin, May 2020

“The Liturgy Must Go On!” Priests and families around the nation tell Adoremus about their encounter with Christ in the liturgies of Holy Week and Easter 2020—despite the COVID-19 restrictions which have canceled public celebrations of the Eucharist.

By Joseph O’Brien, Managing Editor

H

“How did you and your family experience the Triduum and Easter liturgical celebrations this year, during the pandemic?”

oly Week and Easter 2020 is one for the books— both in terms of being once more a celebration of the Paschal Mystery—but also because the COVID-19 pandemic prevented many from meeting the Lord in person, in the real presence of the Eucharist.

Despite the forced fasting from the Eucharist, however, the Church still shows the way to Christ. St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, long ago seemed to have anticipated times such as these in one of his sermons. Although he was speaking more generally about the importance of the family as a source of formation in the faith, his words take on special meaning today. Thus, for Holy Week and Easter 2020, parents were encouraged to lead their households to Christ through their own observances—with the help of live-streaming Masses or other media outlets, and by looking to the liturgical texts and traditional devotions to join their prayers with the Church around the world.

In one of St. Augustine’s sermons, the great Church father reminds his congregation that while the bishops (and by extension, priests) have holy charge of the liturgy and teachings of the Church, parents—and especially fathers—provide that same service within their households.

“But do not think that this office of putting out to use

does not belong to you also,” he says, addressing the laity. “You cannot execute it indeed from this elevated seat, but you can wherever ye chance to be” (Sermon 24 on the New Testament).

“Discharge our office in your own houses,” he continues. “A bishop is called from hence, because he superintends, because he takes care and attends to others. To every man then, if he is the head of his own house, ought the office of the Episcopate to belong, to take care how his household believe, that none of them fall into heresy….”

More than a thousand years later, this same teaching remains as true as ever—and as the current circumstances have made clear, many parents are taking on the work of the liturgy “wherever” they “chance to be”—most often in their own homes, since restrictions have prohibited public celebrations of the Eucharist, especially during Holy Week and Easter.

Likewise, priests find themselves without a congregation, and yet, as St. Thomas Aquinas notes, the priest is meant to celebrate the Mass not as a matter of public service, as important as the sacraments are for individual holiness of the members of the Mystical body, but as what is due to God in justice and charity.

Food to Die For

Vigil, and on Easter morning. I’ve felt something akin to survivor’s guilt over this, especially because our 12 children have not been able to attend Mass and receive Communion. Mary says she’s felt the same way.

Guilt, even unearned survivor’s guilt, is a blessing when it spurs the guilty to corrective action. In my case, it spurred me to offer my Communion for my children. It’s something I’ve done before, but this Easter I offered my Communion for the good of my children with a fervor that is foreign to me. Foreign, but not unwelcome.

On Easter Sunday, I received in the hand—also foreign to me, but temporarily mandated. Before lifting our Lord to my mouth, I stared down at the Panis Angelicus and was tempted to put it in my dress shirt pocket to bring home to my children. I fancied it a sort of noble naughtiness born of paternal righteousness. But Grace rescued me from that prideful silliness. I placed our Lord on my tongue and offered my Communion for the 12 children watching it all at home.

Monsignor Timothy Thorburn Chaplain, The Carmel of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph Valparaiso, NE Serving as chaplain for 29 cloistered nuns, I was blessed, as in years past, to celebrate the Sacred Triduum and Easter with the traditional solemn chants of the Church, done well. This tends to place one outside of present normalities, even the coronavirus. I’m likely the envy of many priests who have had to celebrate these liturgies with no congregation and only a few servers (although I did have to deal with the latter restrictions). Usually being blessed with the services of a deacon, subdeacon, and an army of seminarian-servers, I celebrated with just one seminarian and two local servers.

Under these circumstances, I had to learn quickly to chant many parts of these ceremonies normally done so by the deacon and subdeacon. Yet that has been a blessing to me and, the nuns tell me, to them. I am certain that I am causing untold anguish to Latinists and liturgists in Purgatory (who will likely enter heaven more speedily because of these sufferings), yet recent regulations have brought an entirely new perspective to the worship of God. This is the first time in my 66 years that I have had to labor under any external restrictions to worship. What was it like in England during those hundreds of years when celebrating Mass was forbidden and punishable by being hung, drawn, and quartered? What is it like today for priests and the faithful to celebrate the sacraments in certain places in the world where they could be beheaded for doing so?

I cannot now say that I know, but all of us now have a wee insight into that reality. More so, I have a better insight to the reason martyrs of all centuries have been willing to die for the Mass: They love Jesus, they want to obey His command to “Do this in memory of me,” they want to receive Him in Holy Communion—Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity—even if they might die for it.

They want to go to heaven more than anything…and more than most of us do. Maybe our longing to be with Him for all eternity will be a grace we receive, even as many of us (myself included) whiningly endure these present days.

Tempted to Steal Our Lord Ernie Grimm Father of 12 children Writer/Editor San Diego Reader San Diego, CA

I am one of the lucky ones. I’m a cantor at Our Lady of the Rosary in San Diego’s Little Italy. When my pastor decided to live-stream Sunday Masses on Facebook, he asked me to sing for them, and he asked my wife, Mary, to accompany me on the piano. We attended Mass and received Holy Communion on the last two Sundays of Lent, at the Easter

Strange Blessings Chris Stefanick Father of six children Founder of Real Life Catholic Greenwood Village, CO

Strangely, this was among the most blessed celebrations of the Triduum I've ever had.

At first, I mourned that this is nothing like Easter should be, but then a friend pointed out to me that this is exactly as Easter was for the first followers of Christ. Hiding out, for fear of death.

The best news mankind would ever receive didn’t come at a party, but in the midst of our misery. That didn’t change their circumstances, but it did change them, and it changes us today.

For Easter Vigil, the Stefanick family lit a fire, prayed the Exultet, and read all the vigil readings as a family. Then we renewed our baptismal promises. It was incredibly powerful for us.

I love the sacraments. One of the great things about being a Catholic is that they “do the job for you.” You sit down on the ride and you’re off! And that’s a gift from God. If there’s a downside, it’s that the ease can produce spiritual laziness if we’re not careful.

How many times have I overlooked the urgent need for perfect contrition and just thought “I’ll deal with that sin in confession next Saturday”?

How many times have I reduced my own role as spiritual leader of my family to “I'll get the kids dressed for Mass and out the door on time”?

Don’t get me wrong: God wants me to do those things.

But he wants more. He wants my kids to see me fulfill my priestly role as a father. And he wants my heart to be his.

The absence of the sacraments has forced a more intentional focus on both, one that will make our return to the pew all the more powerful—when it happens!

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St. Thomas writes, “the opportunity of offering sacrifice is considered not merely in relation to the faithful of Christ to whom the sacraments must be administered, but chiefly with regard to God to Whom the sacrifice of this sacrament is offered by consecrating” (Summa Theologiae, III,82.10).

So priests celebrated the Paschal Triduum this year, mostly without a congregation—but they did not celebrate alone. With God as their goal and the universal Church, albeit remotely, as their fellow participants, they encountered the risen Christ in the same way that the Church has done throughout its history—even if this extraordinary encounter took place under extra-extraordinary circumstances.

To find out more about this year’s celebration of Holy Week and Easter, Adoremus Bulletin asked an array of priests and families around the country one question: “How did you and your family experience the Triduum and Easter liturgical celebrations this year, during the pandemic?”

The responses were as varied as they were rich in reflection. They also demonstrated that—as the old saying goes, “The show must go on!”—the liturgy must go on among the priests of the world and among the families of the world, despite being separated from one another. Indeed, especially for families, unable to receive the Eucharist, during this “time of COVID-19,” the home became a source of joy and an opportunity to explore the riches of the Catholic liturgy, discharging to the best of their abilities this work in their particular iteration of the domestic Church.

Start of a Tradition Jeanette De Melo Mother of three children Editor in Chief National Catholic Register Mandeville, LA

We have had a home altar set with a linen cloth, Crucifix, candles and children’s statues of Mary and the Saints since the first Sunday we were unable to attend Mass. My boys are young, 6 and 3 years old, and 18 months, so we entered into Jesus’ passion with many tangible reminders and lots of board books that told the story as well as some video cartoons. On Palm Sunday, we cut palms branches from palm trees in our yard and sang Hosanna. Then we noticed during our walks throughout the week all the various sized palm branches in other peoples’ yards and imagined how we could praise Jesus with those very large palm branches.

On Holy Thursday, we washed each other’s feet outside before we watched the Mass of the Lord’s Supper. The boys found branches in the yard and whittled notches into them with their father to make crosses. On Good Friday, we went to the property of some sisters who have an outdoor Stations of the Cross in the woods. The boys carried their own crosses on the way and the three year old led the Our Father at each station. Then at the end we said the Divine Mercy chaplet at a life-sized Crucifix and we venerated it as we sang “Behold the Wood of the Cross.”

On Easter Sunday, our participation in the Mass included the ringing of bells during all the alleluias. Our prayers have been simple, matching the short attention spans of young children, but these moments have been profound.

My husband and I hunger for our Lord in the Eucharist but we are cherishing the opportunity to bring the liturgy into our home. We have really understood well the meaning of the domestic Church. I think what we have done to celebrate the Lord’s Passion last week will become tradition for a long time in our household.

Reality Deeper Than Circumstances Father Ryan Rojo Pastor St. Ann Parish, Midland Diocese of San Angelo, TX

For me, the deepest significance of the Triduum is something independent of the current pandemic. The realities we celebrate are present in the lives and hearts of believers by virtue of their baptism, and nothing can take that away. I was moved by the many families in my parish who were intentional in bringing these mysteries home for their children with the use of blessed candles from Candlemas, the scriptures, and other crafts that accompanied these holy days. This pandemic has truly forced serious Catholics to be the domestic Church.

8 That being said, I think the inability to gather as the Body of Christ does reflect the less-than-ideal experience of the Church. Sacrosanctum Concilium relates liturgy to the sanctification of men and women, but this end is most difficult when men and women are forced to experience Mass at home through a live-stream service. Spiritual communions are wonderful tools in the spiritual arsenal of the Church, but even the most orthodox believer would admit that the Eucharist is the truest participation in the divine life.

The stripped-down rites, while practically necessary, also robbed the Body of Christ of powerful signs and symbols associated with the Easter Season. I also mourn for those who were looking forward to their own reception into the Church at the Easter Vigil. For this reason, I think we have a lot to mourn with Triduum 2020, and I think we all definitely look forward to liturgical normalcy.

You Had to Be There Justin Dziowgo Father of seven children Businessman Omaha, NE

We streamed the Mass of the Lord’s Supper via St. Cecilia’s Cathedral on Thursday because our parish feed wasn’t working immediately, and we streamed Good Friday and the Easter Vigil from our parish. On Sunday, our parish had Easter water that we could pick up throughout the day; the same as with blessed palms last week. We’re appreciative of all the people doing whatever they can to bring us some access to the liturgy.

That said, it’s not the same as being there physically, which is a double blow given that the Triduum seems the most physical of all the Church’s liturgies. It’s hard to capture sacramentality over video. Even seeing the rites modified was hard. I think it’s helped to pray as much of the Liturgy of the Hours as possible to stay cognizant of the season. I would also say the devotional life for a lot of those around us has really ticked up during these weeks, and I hope that remains when the pandemic is over. I’ve really seen our pastor engaging with people in every way he can; and in many ways, I feel like the reach to the fallen away has gotten better. I think some of the things we’ve started to do now have the potential to carry forward and expand the reach of our parish.

When we reached the point where every Catholic parish in America shut down, I kept going back to the line, “When the Son of Man returns, will He find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8). Even though we’ve lost the ability to go to Mass, I’ve been encouraged by people still carrying on the faith, and in many ways, carrying it on more intently. I hope that practice translates when we get back to the habits we’re used to.

Makeshift Iconostasis in Cowboy Country Glen Arbery Father of eight children President Wyoming Catholic College Lander, WY

My wife Virginia, my 32-year-old Down syndrome daughter Julia, and I have had an unusually prayerful Lent. In addition to our private devotions and meditations, we have been saying the Divine Mercy chaplet every afternoon as well as the Rosary in the evenings, and on Sundays we have been using the Magnificat offerings for the Liturgy of the Word. Many people have apparently been live-streaming Masses, but we have been unable to do so, because our internet service out in the Lander foothills is “unstable” (to use the euphemism of choice).

Instead, we set up a beautiful 19th-century Russian icon given to us some years ago, light a candle, and divide the readings among us. On Holy Thursday night, Virginia and I did the readings about the Passover and Jesus’ washing of the feet of the Apostles, after which (in an old family ritual that used to include all eight of our children), I washed Virginia’s and Julia’s feet. On Good Friday, we kept Great Silence from noon until 3pm— another old family custom—after which we began the Divine Mercy novena and then went outside for the Magnificat readings, which of course included the Passion according to John and the beautiful intercessions.

At the Easter Vigil on Saturday night, with its great overview of salvation history from the first words of Genesis through the Resurrection of Our Lord, Julia read one of the passages from Isaiah and one of the Psalms; the next morning, she also read the Psalms for

Adoremus Bulletin, May 2020 Easter Day. It was a most unusual Triduum, but also one in which we felt particularly undistracted and focused on the meaning of Christ’s death and Resurrection. We missed the sacraments, of course, but we also felt united to the community through prayer and silence.

Wait Until Father Gets Home Erin Sullivan Mother of ten children Omaha, NE

Although we were crushed that we could not celebrate the Triduum at church, participating fully in the most beautiful and meaningful rituals of the liturgical year, my family and I did our best to observe the services at home. On Holy Thursday evening, we watched a live-stream of the traditional Latin Mass of the Lord’s Supper. We sat or knelt in the living room together, following along in our missals. We made an altar of repose of sorts, lighting candles and displaying flowers under the Crucifix and images of the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts that hang above our mantle. On Good Friday, starting at noon, we attempted to maintain a reverent silence (as reverent and as silent as one can be with littles in the house), and once again observed the traditional Good Friday service on television live-streaming from our local parish.

At each service we observed, we made a spiritual communion. Our intention was to watch the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday evening, but my husband was working overnight, and as the time approached, we changed our minds. We had talked about it quite a bit, and decided that, although none of what we had been doing over Holy Week was the same, watching the Vigil on television would have been too hard and too far removed from the usual way of doing things. Instead, we waited for my husband to come home from work and watched Easter Sunday Mass together in the morning.

We all dressed up as usual and, after Mass, celebrated with a big family brunch and Easter baskets.

To Receive You Under My Roof Matthew Lickona Father of seven children Writer/Editor The San Diego Reader San Diego, CA

In something like the manner that there are sacraments and sacramentals, there are, in our house, liturgies and liturgicals. We were liturgy-poor this Triduum, but we did okay with the liturgicals. On Holy Thursday, we watched Bishop Robert Barron’s YouTube Mass on the big TV in the family room.

Liturgically, it was a bare minimum sort of affair— which seemed appropriate, since there was no confusing the image with the Presence—but the preaching was very fine and came through the screen mostly unscathed: Christ washing the disciples feet and so exploding the rotten old master-slave dynamic that has made the rotten world go ‘round since forever. And it was good to stand and sit and kneel as one would at a proper Mass; we are bodied beings, after all. Afterwards, we sang the Pange Lingua; I had printed copies of the lyrics, and my brother did a quick mark-up to indicate which syllables got two or three notes.

On Good Friday, I missed Stations of the Cross with the family; my wife Deirdre has found this adorable set of stations, about an inch and a half high, that she arranges around the table. There are 13 of us sheltering in place, so it just about works out for everyone to take one. Some of us said the Divine Mercy chaplet at 3 pm. At dinner, my oldest son said he’d been thinking about how appropriate it was that Jesus came to earth and died when he did, since Roman civilization offered a masterful mix of technological advancement and oldschool brutality, as manifested in the crucifixion.

That got my brother talking about how the Pax Romana created a space where Jesus’ death might be noticed amid the general violence of the world, and that led to an exploration of the Church Fathers and their love for fittingness in discussing the crucifixion: such a public death, so humiliating, arms outstretched to the world, etc. Not quite a homily, but still an unpacking of the Word. That night, we had a mandatory viewing, at my mother’s request, of Ricardo Montalban’s Fatima documentary, and an optional viewing, at my wife’s request, of Mel Gibson’s Passion movie, the latter of which my brother refers to as a moving icon: something to contemplate, as opposed to simply watch.

Afterwards, as usual, we gathered in the living room,

perfumed a strip of muslin, wrapped it around a small plastic corpus, placed the corpus in a papier mache tomb, placed a stone at the entrance, and processed around the darkened house with candles, singing “Were You There” and “Jesus, Remember Me.” (And as usual, there was the midnight run to In-n-Out Burger to celebrate the arrival of Holy Saturday and the harrowing of hell.) On Holy Saturday, we lit the Easter Candle at dinner (“It’s the Vigil somewhere!”) and read the first reading from Genesis 1 aloud. My poor mother was hoping the beauty of it would strike folks; instead, we got into it about evolution and multiverses. Finally, on Easter Sunday, we gathered for a Zoom meeting Mass celebrated by my cousin who works for the Roman curia. The only downside, besides our inability to receive the Eucharist, was that he had an attendee read the Sequence instead of singing it.

A Call to Connect with the Heartsore Father Daniel Cardó Pastor Holy Name Parish, Denver, CO Professor of Liturgy St. John Vianney Seminary, Denver

Just a few weeks ago the idea of not being able to attend the celebrations of Holy Week was unthinkable. There has been a real pain in the hearts of so many parishioners who mourn because they cannot participate directly in the Eucharist and were not able to come to their church for the Paschal Triduum.

It is precisely there that we tried to connect, hoping to help everyone to go where the Lord was calling us.

It has been a sacrifice, for all of us, in different ways, and it seems that this is key: to be able to offer a sacrifice of the heart. We promoted this idea through letters, talks, and homilies. We tried to show that the Church has flourished in times and places where there were no priests and sacraments; that God’s grace is not bound by the sacraments He has instituted as the normal channels of grace; that our longing and love for the Eucharist have to grow during this time.

We have been live-streaming our liturgies, celebrated as solemnly as if the church was full, for they were done firstly for God, and this has been a source of comfort.

But we have also tried to promote other liturgical and spiritual activities that could be done (and not only watched) at home, most especially the Liturgy of the Hours, offering the necessary resources.

I have received messages of parishioners truly grateful for a surprisingly fruitful experience of Easter, in which they have experienced the Lord’s closeness even more than some other years.

Desperate Desire for the Real Geoffrey and Ruth Stricklin Founders of New Jerusalem Studios Phoenix, AZ

In a Lent and Easter, cast over by this pandemic, I’m certain that my wife, Ruth, and I are not alone in our experience of various awakenings. Subject as we all are to an invader so contagious, we’ve never been more aware of our connection and dependence upon each other as a human family. We all necessarily, by the power of a spreadable and deadly illness, are called out of the isolation of self-absorption and independence. How we take care of ourselves or not, will have a direct impact on others, today, tomorrow, the next day. In public, people seem to have a new regard for one another. We look at each other with sympathy. We make room for each other. A true sense of a common foe has developed, and also, a common path to life and health.

In our home, we’ve been awakened to a more natural rhythm of life. With the frenetic pace driven by all the “important” things we have to do forcibly brought low, a slower pace has emerged. Ruth and I cook and eat together, virtually every meal. We garden in the mornings and visit our plants in the evening. We remark upon the rising of the sun and moon. We walk. We talk. We sit.

We relish the springtime, the bugs, the bees, the birdsong.

And we pray. The whole biblical narrative is one of our longing to see God face to face, to be in his presence, to know that he is with us and that we are not abandoned. Today in the Church, we make much of Christ’s real presence, but perhaps we take him for granted. In this time of “distancing” we can’t attend Mass with a congregation. It has been remarkable to experience our desire for the presence of God, seeking every possible digital opportunity: a Rosary with our local parish schola, Adoration with the Holy Father, a Please see ENCOUNTER on page 12

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“It is by the Christians, detained in the world as in a prison, that the world is held together.” Here, Pope Benedict XVI meets the Chiara and Enrico Corbella family in May 2012. Chiara died the next month, after foregoing cancer treatment while pregnant with her son, Francesco, whom she is holding. She was declared “Servant of God” in September 2018, and continues to animate the world.

Christians Animate the World From the Epistle to Diognetus

C

hristians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign.

And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens.

Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country.

Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives. They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law.

Christians love all men, but all men persecute them.

Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated.

“ Christians pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven.”

A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by the Jews as aliens, they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one can explain the reason for this hatred.

To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the world, but cannot be identified with the

Continued from WORSHIP, page 4 sense, a live-streamed Mass is, in fact, a deprivation of liturgical fullness that can bring heartache. On the other hand, consolation can be found in remembering that every Mass involves every member of the Mystical Body, and so has an objective efficacy in God’s continuing creation of the world. This objective sanctification continues in what the Catechism calls the “work of the Trinity”: united by the love of the Holy Spirit, Christ offers himself and the world continuously to the Father even when priests offer Mass alone in their churches and their parishioners participate through a TV or computer screen.

The Church’s statements about the objectivity of the liturgy by no means imply that full sacramental participation of the faithful is not important. Indeed, Christ’s work of redemption over time is not simply a legal declaration of innocence, but a process of transformative sanctification which demands the free gift of self in union with Christ’s action, completed and perfected by reception of Holy Communion. But the entire concept of participation promoted by Vatican II was always primarily connected to the internal gift of self to God so that the continuing process of creation and glorification might be accomplished. Sacrosanctum Concilium urges that people “participate knowingly, devoutly and actively,” yet defines participation as joining interiorly with the action of the priest, and therefore with Christ.

The laity are urged to “give thanks to God by offering the Immaculate Victim, not only through the hands of

“ The entire concept of participation promoted by Vatican II was always primarily connected to the internal gift of self to God so that the continuing process of creation and glorification might be accomplished.” the priest, but also with him, they should learn to offer themselves, too.” In doing so, they would be “drawn day by day into ever closer union with God and with each other, that finally God may be all in all” (48).

Sacramental reception of the Eucharist is indeed the supreme communion with Christ’s Real Presence, and popes from Pius X to Francis have urged frequent reception as medicine for the soul and a share in God’s divinizing glory. The Catechism devotes nearly one hundred of its paragraphs to its importance, so no one can rightly argue for a revival of Jansenism’s poisonous errors that discouraged actual reception of the sacred species. But in times of social isolation, it is worth remembering that the Eucharist is more than a “spiritual vitamin pill” but

world. As the visible body contains the invisible soul, so Christians are seen living in the world, but their religious life remains unseen. The body hates the soul and wars against it, not because of any injury the soul has done it, but because of the restriction the soul places on its pleasures. Similarly, the world hates the Christians, not because they have done it any wrong, but because they are opposed to its enjoyments.

Christians love those who hate them just as the soul loves the body and all its members despite the body’s hatred. It is by the soul, enclosed within the body, that the body is held together, and similarly, it is by the Christians, detained in the world as in a prison, that the world is held together. The soul, though immortal, has a mortal dwelling place; and Christians also live for a time amidst perishable things, while awaiting the freedom from change and decay that will be theirs in heaven.

As the soul benefits from the deprivation of food and drink, so Christians flourish under persecution. Such is the Christian’s lofty and divinely appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself.

From a letter to Diognetus, Office of Readings for Wednesday, Easter Week V. A certain Diognetus served as tutor to the second-century Roman emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius, but many scholars doubt that this is the same individual. Otherwise, the recipient of this famous letter is unknown.

an action of Christ which calls for the surrender of self to God’s transforming love by joining the mind, heart, and will to those of Christ. This divine self-offering is real whether it happens in a pew or happens in a living room, and a faithful Catholic can hope in God’s Fatherly love and therefore trust that he will share his presence even in a prayer of spiritual communion.

Social distancing has caused a kind of involuntary “fasting” from sacramental reception of the Eucharist, and like all fasting, should increase desire for its return.

On the other hand, this time of fasting provides an opportunity to understand the Eucharist more fully as an act of self-offering joined to the perfect offering of Christ, the Immaculate Victim. Then, when the Holy Eucharist is received again in public celebration of the Mass, Christ will find our souls tilled like fertile soil for the transfiguring power of his own divine life.

Dr. Denis McNamara is Associate Professor and Executive Director of the Center for Beauty and Culture at Benedictine College in Atchison, KS, and cohost of the award-winning podcast, “The Liturgy Guys.”

1. David Fagerberg, The Christian Meaning of Time (London: Catholic Truth Society, 2006), 10.

2. Ibid.

3. Jean Hani, Divine Craftsmanship: Preliminaries to a Spirituality of Work (Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2016), 3.

4. Ibid., 3-4.

5. Pius XII, Encyclical Letter Mystici Corporis, 1943, pars. 37, 54.

6. Pius XII, Encyclical letter Mediator Dei, 1947, par. 20.

7. Ibid., par. 100.

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Adoremus Bulletin, May 2020

THE RITE QUESTIONS

Q after the COVID-19 pandemic?

A

: Ought the Sign of Peace be reinstated

: The pause in the public celebration of the Mass affords pastors and laity the chance to consider how the liturgy is celebrated, and even how it ought to be celebrated when the Church reassembles in public. One particular aspect of the Mass that has received and will continue to receive attention is the exchange of the Sign of Peace. This ritual exchange was one of the first of the Mass’s elements to be dropped as the pandemic approached; it will be similarly considered as the pandemic passes (we pray!) and the Mass returns to a normative form.

First, ought the ritual exchange of peace be reinstated at Mass? If the spread of COVID-19 (or similar) ceases to be a problem, and if the rites of the Church (and not the preferences of individual members) continue to be normative, and if the exchange can take place according to the tradition and the mind of the Church, then, yes, it ought to be reinstated, for the gesture is rich in spiritual meaning.

Some traditions, particularly in the East, consider the exchange of peace as a gesture of reconciliation with one’s neighbor before entering into the sacrifice at the altar, as Jesus’ own words teach: “Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:25). To sacramentalize this aspect of the exchange, these same traditions place the sign at the end of the Liturgy of the Word, just prior to the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

For the greater part of the Roman Tradition, the exchange of peace is less one of fraternal reconciliation and more a reception of peace from Christ himself. In its 2014 circular letter on “The Ritual Expression of the Gift of Peace at Mass,” the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments invokes the Council of Trent on this point (the exchange of peace does exist in the Solemn High Mass in the Extraordinary Form): the exchange’s “point of reference is found in the Eucharistic contemplation of the Paschal mystery as the ‘Paschal kiss’ of the Risen Christ upon the altar.” Scripturally, Christ’s expression of peace surrounds his Paschal Mystery: in Holy Thursday’s upper room, he says to his apostles, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you” (John 14:27); behind the locked doors on Easter Sunday, “Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, ‘Peace be with you’” (John 20:19).

To symbolize this dimension of the sign of peace, some practices began with the priest kissing the altar (or even the host or chalice) before passing the “Paschal kiss” along to other participants. The context of the ritual exchange of peace in the Roman Missal makes the same point: with the Paschal Christ upon the altar, the priest prays in the embolism following the Lord’s Prayer, “Deliver us, Lord, we pray, from every evil, graciously grant peace in our days…;” then the Mass’s participants exchange a sign of peace; followed by the acclamation to the Lamb of God that he “grant us peace.”

Consequently, in our current practice, the ritual exchange of peace is an encounter first with the Paschal Christ in our presence, and secondly as an expression of “ecclesial communion and mutual charity” (General Instruction on the Roman Missal (GIRM), 82).

If, then, there is worship to be offered and grace to be had by this sign, then how ought it be reintroduced and practiced in the most effective way? Pope Benedict XVI noted in 2007 that many bishops, even while they acknowledged the tradition and the value of the exchange, were concerned that its expression was a distraction from Christ rather than a means to encounter him. The Holy Father wrote in Sacramentum Caritatis, “during the [2005] Synod of Bishops there was discussion about the appropriateness of greater restraint in this gesture, which can be exaggerated and cause a certain distraction in the assembly just before the reception of Communion” (49). On the contrary, rather than frivolity, exaggeration, and distraction, the exchange ought to be marked by the “noble simplicity,” seriousness, and sobriety common to the Roman Rite tradition (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 34). The General Instruction of the Roman Missal goes so far to suggest a manner by which the sign of peace can be rightly offered between members of the assembly: “While the Sign of Peace is being given, it is permissible to say, The peace of the Lord be with you always, to which the reply is Amen” (154). In the Order of Mass itself, the rubric indicates simply that “all offer one another a sign, in keeping with local customs, that expresses peace, communion, and charity;” nowhere is a handshake prescribed (128). Thus, turning to one’s neighbor and exchanging the dialogue above could suffice. (For more information, see the Bishops’ Committee on Divine Worship Newsletter from July-August 2014.)

— The Editors

Q A

: What is “general absolution”?

: As the COVID-19 pandemic reached its height, there were discussions among bishops, pastors, theologians, and canon lawyers about potential use of “general absolution.” The term identifies the last of three possible forms of the Sacrament of Penance. The first form, the “Rite of Reconciliation of Individual Penitents,” is the normative form and the most familiar to Catholics. The second form, the “Rite of Reconciliation of Several Penitents with Individual Confession and Absolution,” takes place in many parishes or dioceses during the seasons of Advent or Lent. This form includes priest(s) and assembly gathered together to hear scriptural readings and preaching, includes a communal expression of contrition, followed by priests and penitents moving to individual confession and absolution, and, ideally, all returning together to express praise and thanksgiving to God for his mercy. The third form, the “Rite for Reconciliation of Several Penitents with General Confession and Absolution” (what we will call “general absolution” moving forward), follows the overall outline of form two, with a few notable exceptions, both in terms of circumstances and in the ritual itself.

As for the conditions under which general absolution may be given, there must be either 1) imminent danger of death and insufficient time for a priest or priests to absolve according to the “only ordinary means,” that is, individually, as described in the first form (Can. 961 §1, 1 ; Order of Penance, 31a), or else 2) a “grave necessity” exists (see Canon 961 §1, 2 ; Order of Penance, 31b). If death is imminent, the priest with proper faculties can administer general absolution; otherwise, the diocesan bishop determines whether a “grave necessity” exists (Can. 961 §1, 1). As for the penitents themselves—and for the sake of validity—each must be properly disposed (i.e., “rejecting sins committed and having a purpose of amendment” [Canon 987]) and also “intend to confess within a suitable period of time each grave sin which at the present time cannot be so con-

fessed” (Canon 962 §1; Order of Penance, 33).

The “Rite for Reconciliation of Several Penitents with General Confession and Absolution” begins with brief Introductory Rites and a short Liturgy of the Word. During the homily, the rite directs the homilist to instruct those wishing general absolution about the necessary proper disposition and the intention to confess serious sins at the next celebration of individual confession and absolution; he also proposes some form of satisfaction. He next invites the penitents to say a general form of confession, such as the Confiteor. Following this, the priest announces the formula of absolution, or at least the words, “I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, + and of the Holy Spirit.” If possible, all present offer some form of thanksgiving to God for his mercy.

During the coronavirus pandemic, the Holy See clarified the norms for general absolution in a March 20, 2020 note, saying: “The gravity of the present circumstances calls for reflection on the urgency and centrality of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, together with some necessary clarifications, both for the lay faithful and for ministers called to celebrate the Sacrament…. This Apostolic Penitentiary believes that, especially in the places most affected by the pandemic contagion and until the phenomenon recedes, the cases of serious need mentioned in Canon 961, § 2 CIC above mentioned, will occur.”

For this great sacrament, let us give thanks to the Lord, for his mercy endures forever.

—The Editors

Q : What is an indulgence?

A

: The COVID-19 pandemic has seen the Church offering new indulgences to her children, including a more general indulgence to those who are suffering from or those who are treating the virus, as well an indulgence that accompanied the special Urbi et Orbi blessing in an empty St. Peter’s Square on March 27.

These occasions for grace are, of course, all for the good. Still, they unintentionally introduce a Catholic practice that can be confusing to some into an already chaotic time. So: what is an indulgence, and how should one be gained today?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church cites Pope Paul VI in its briefest summary of indulgences. “An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints” (1471).

The “temporal punishment due to sin” speaks to sin’s double consequence. The first consequence severs or at least weakens our union with God. When sins are confessed and absolved sacramentally, this “eternal punishment” is erased and we are back in God’s good graces again. The second result of sin, the “temporal punishment,” entails “an unhealthy attachment to creatures,” an attachment that is not removed with sacramental confession, but still needs purification either here or hereafter. Consider this analogy: I may lie about a friend or coworker. When found out, I confess to him that I have been speaking falsely about him, and he forgives me. This forgiveness resembles God’s remitting of “eternal punishment” due to our sin. But my offence toward my acquaintance still has unresolved consequences: his reputation may be damaged by my calumniations, while I myself still have a propensity to lie. These temporal consequences still need correcting. And it is these “temporal punishments” that the Church’s indulgences help to heal. Indulgences are considered either “plenary” or “partial” depending upon whether they remit all or part of one’s temporal punishment; the distinction is based either on the indulgenced act itself, and/or the disposition of the one performing the act. Further, indulgences can be applied to the one acting, or to the dead, but not applied to another living person.

The Church helps us by putting forward certain prayers and actions “under certain prescribed conditions” that encourage us to accept God’s grace as given us through his Mystical Body, the Church, by the merits of Christ, the holy angels, and saints. For example, the Holy See announced on March 20 that a “Plenary Indulgence is granted to the faithful suffering from Coronavirus, who are subject to quarantine by order of the health authority in hospitals or in their own homes if, with a spirit detached from any sin, they unite spiritually through the media to the celebration of Holy Mass, the recitation of the Holy Rosary, to the pious practice of the Way of the Cross or other forms of devotion, or if at least they will recite the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer and a pious invocation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, offering this trial in a spirit of faith in God and charity towards their brothers and sisters, with the will to fulfil the usual conditions (sacramental confession, Eucharistic communion and prayer according to the Holy Father’s intentions), as soon as possible.”

There are “certain prescribed conditions” contained in this and every indulgence.

For a plenary indulgence, for example, one must be “detached from sin,” even venial sin, and also “fulfil the usual conditions (sacramental confession, Eucharistic communion and prayer according to the Holy Father’s intentions).” Since many Catholics were quarantined or at least unable to receive the sacraments, the Church simply asked that these take place “as soon as possible.” In addition to these conditions common to every plenary indulgence, there are particular prayers and actions associated with an indulgence. In this instance, the faithful are asked to “unite spiritually through the media to the celebration of Holy Mass, the recitation of the Holy Rosary, to the pious practice of the Way of the Cross or other forms of devotion, or if at least they will recite the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer and a pious invocation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, offering this trial in a spirit of faith in God and charity towards their brothers and sisters.”

The same March 20 decree also granted a Plenary Indulgence “on the occasion of the current world epidemic, also to those faithful who offer a visit to the Blessed Sacrament, or Eucharistic adoration, or reading the Holy Scriptures for at least half an hour, or the recitation of the Holy Rosary, or the pious exercise of the Way of the Cross, or the recitation of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, to implore from Almighty God the end of the epidemic, relief for those who are afflicted and eternal salvation for those whom the Lord has called to Himself.”

In short, the Church’s children, when in a spirit resolving to turn away from sin carry out these prescribed prayers, are by the Mystical Body’s own merits freed from the temporal punishments due to their sins—or else the deceased whom they pray for are similarly washed clean.

—The Editors

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Adoremus Bulletin, May 2020

From Quiz on page 3

1. Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year and the General Roman Calendar. These norms were promulgated

by Pope Paul VI in February 1969 by the Apostolic Letter Mysterii Paschalis.

2. d. 0. While the Roman Missal—which includes Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year and General Roman Calendar—mentions Holy Days of obligation, it does not give a complete list of these days. Rather, it is the Code of Canon Law that identifies ten: “the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Epiphany, the Ascension, the Body and Blood of Christ, Holy Mary the Mother of God, her Immaculate Conception, her Assumption, Saint Joseph, Saint Peter and Saint Paul the Apostles, and All Saints” (1246 §1). Of these ten days, the Code goes on to say, some may be transferred by conferences of bishops to Sunday and others suppressed.

3. False. “On the first day of each week, which is known as the Day of the Lord or the Lord’s Day, the Church, by an apostolic tradition that draws its origin from the very day of the Resurrection of Christ, celebrates the Paschal Mystery. Hence, Sunday must be considered the primordial feast day” (Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year and the General Roman Calendar, 4). During Ordinary Time, Sundays may give way to Feasts of the Lord and Solemnities.

4. c. 6. The Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year and General Roman Calendar, along with the divisions found in the Missal’s Proper of Time, identifies six seasons: Paschal Triduum, Easter, Lent, Christmas, Advent, and Ordinary Time.

5. True and False. While no specific days are provided in the General Roman Calendar, the Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year and General Roman Calendar explains that “On Rogation and Ember Days the Church is accustomed to entreat the Lord for the various needs of humanity, especially for the fruits of the earth and for human labor, and to give thanks to him publicly” (45). “Rogation” comes from a Latin word meaning “to ask” or “to petition” (from rogo, rogare). On these days, the Church asks or petitions God for a fruitful harvest from fields, gardens, orchards, and flocks. While the Rogation Days are customarily celebrated in the Spring—on April 25 and for the three days leading up to the Ascension of Jesus—the reforms of the Second Vatican Council allowed these days to be “adapted to the different regions and different needs of the faithful” (Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year and General Roman Calendar, 46). “Ember” finds its roots in the concept of “recurring” or “cyclical,” since these days had been observed every three months, near the beginning of each season. For three days at the beginning of each season—on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday—the Church fasted, prayed, and performed acts of charity. Like the Rogation Days, the Embers Days were meant to find local expression after the Second Vatican Council so that they could better respond to the needs of a given diocese.

Continued from NEWS AND VIEWS, page 2

Pope Francis Establishes New Commission to Study Women Deacons

By Hannah Brockhaus

Vatican City (CNA)—The Vatican announced April 8 that Pope Francis has created a new commission to study the question of a female diaconate in the Catholic Church, after some members of the 2019 Amazon synod requested the pope re-establish a 2016 commission on the subject.

Among the ten theologians making up the new study commission are two permanent deacons, three priests, and five lay women. They hail from Europe and the United States.

Pope Francis first created a 12-member commission in 2016 to examine the historic question of the role of deaconesses in the early Church.

In May last year, he said that the commission had not reached any consensus which would soon lead to a plan of action, but would continue its study.

Speaking aboard the papal plane returning from North Macedonia and Bulgaria, the pope said “for the female diaconate, there is a way to imagine it with a different view from the male diaconate,” but added that “fundamentally, there is no certainty that it was an ordination with the same form, in the same purpose as male ordination.”

6. “As to the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, whenever it falls on any day of Holy Week, it shall always be transferred to the Monday after the Second Sunday of Easter” (Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year and the General Roman Calendar, 60).

7. False. The Roman Missal, in fact, doesn’t speak to this question at all. Rather, rules governing the Sunday obligation are found in the Code of Canon Law. Here—and contrary to what many expect to find—the Code does not oblige the faithful to attend a Mass that uses the proper readings for the Sunday. Rather, for example, a Mass on Sunday that celebrates Confirmation or a parish patron suffices. Indeed, the Mass need not even be in the Roman Rite, but could be a divine liturgy of an Eastern Church. According to Canon 1248 §1, “A person who assists at a Mass celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite either on the feast day itself or in the evening of the preceding day satisfies the obligation of participating in the Mass.”

8. Yes: “On weekdays in Ordinary Time, there may be chosen either the Mass of the weekday, or the Mass of an Optional Memorial which happens to occur on that day, or the Mass of any Saint inscribed in the Martyrology for that day, or a Mass for Various Needs, or a Votive Mass” (General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 355). Since every saint and blessed will be listed in the universal Martyrology, any of these saints may be celebrated on weekdays in ordinary time using orations and readings from the appropriate section in the Common of Saints.

9. a . On weekdays. “Eucharistic Prayer II, on account of its particular features, is more appropriately used on weekdays or in special circumstances. Although it is provided with its own Preface, it may also be used with other Prefaces, especially those that sum up the mystery of salvation, for example, the Common Prefaces. When Mass is celebrated for a particular deceased person, the special formula given may be used at the proper point, namely, before the part Remember also our brothers and sisters” (General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 365).

10. 33 or 34. “Besides the times of year that have their own distinctive character, there remain in the yearly cycle thirty-three or thirty-four weeks in which no particular aspect of the mystery of Christ is celebrated, but rather the mystery of Christ itself is honored in its fullness, especially on Sundays. This period is known as Ordinary Time” (Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year and the General Roman Calendar, 43). Why the variation? The Norms continue: “Ordinary Time begins on the Monday which follows the Sunday occurring after January 6 and extends up to and including the Tuesday before the beginning of Lent; it begins again on the Monday after Pentecost Sunday and ends before First Vespers (Evening Prayer I) of the First Sunday of Advent” (44). If the upcoming First Sunday of Advent begins early, one of the weeks of Ordinary Time is omitted coming out of the Easter Season. That is, the week of Ordinary Time that has Ash Wednesday may be the 6th week in Ordinary Time, but the Monday after Pentecost may pick up with the 8th week in Ordinary Time. If the First Sunday of Advent falls later, each of Ordinary Time’s 34 weeks will be observed.

“Some say there is doubt, let’s go ahead and study,” he said in May 2019.

The institution of the new commission also follows the discussion of the female diaconate during the 2019 Amazon synod.

At the end of the October 6-27 meeting, synod members recommended to Pope Francis that women be considered for certain ministries in the Church, including the permanent diaconate, which is an order within the sacrament of Holy Orders.

Pope Francis said in his closing remarks for the Amazon synod October 26 that he would re-open the 2016 commission, possibly adding new members, based on the synod’s request.

But in his apostolic exhortation on the Amazon, published February 12, Pope Francis called for women in the South American region to be included in new forms of service in the Church, but not within the ordained ministries of the permanent diaconate or priesthood.

Francis wrote in Querida Amazonia that when considering the role of women in the Church, “we do not limit ourselves to a functional approach.”

The subject of women deacons has previously been studied by the Church, including in a 2002 document from the International Theological Commission (ITC), an advisory body to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

AB/WIKIMEDIA

Readers’ Quiz Answers:

The Roman Missal, which includes Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year and the General Roman Calendar, is the true measure of liturgical time.

Editor’s note: For the sake of our donors’ privacy, Adoremus will no longer print each donor’s name, place, and gift amount, although we will continue to publish Memorials and other intentions. Each donor will, of course, continue to receive an acknowledgment letter and continued remembrance each month at the altar.

MEMORIAL FOR Mrs. Barbara Carrig John Carrig

Servant of God, Fr. John Hardon, SJ John Best

Helen Hull Hitchcock Horst Buchholz

Helen Hull Hitchcock Elsa Thompson

Living and Deceased Members of Family Mary Ann Di Paola

My late daughter, Chrissy Tim Osmulski

TO HONOR

Rev. Fr. John Dowling anonymous

Fr. Joseph D. Fessio, SJ Carolyn Lemon

In the document, the ITC concluded that female deacons in the early Church had not been equivalent to male deacons, and had neither a “liturgical function,” nor a sacramental one. It also maintained that even in the fourth century “the way of life of deaconesses was very similar to that of nuns.”

According to the April 8 Vatican announcement, Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi, the archbishop of L’Aquila, Italy, has been named president of the study commission. Father Denis Dupont-Fauville, a CDF official, was named secretary.

One of the two US-based members is James Keating, a permanent deacon and the director of theological formation at the Institute for Priestly Formation (IPF) based at Creighton University in Omaha, NE. A theologian, he leads the IPF’s retreats for seminary faculty and seminary formators. Keating is also the author of several books and articles on holy orders and the diaconate.

The second American member of the commission is Dominic Cerrato, a permanent deacon and director of diaconal formation in the Diocese of Joliet, IL. In the past Cerrato has taught theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, where he established the Distance Learning Masters in Theology program. In 2014, he published a book on the theology of the diaconate based on the personalist thought of Pope St. John Paul II.

12

Adoremus Bulletin, May 2020

New Book Serves Up a Wealth of Liturgical Insight on Assisting at the Altar

By Monsignor Marc B. Caron

Ceremonies Explained for Servers According to the Roman Rite, by Peter J. Elliot. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2019. 330 pp. ISBN: 978-1621642992. $24.95 paperback.

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tudents of the liturgy will be familiar with Bishop Peter Elliott and his first two titles, Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995) and its companion volume, Ceremonies of the Liturgical Year (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002).

Now these same readers can welcome a third volume to the series, Ceremonies Explained for Servers: A Manual for Altar Servers, Acolytes, Sacristans, and Masters of Ceremonies (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2019). Like its predecessors, this third volume is a wealth of information and guidance, written in a clear style, with much sound, practical advice.

Readers of Bishop Elliott’s previous works will already be familiar with the format employed. Each paragraph is numbered for easy reference. The chapters begin with the theoretical presentation of the general principles involved. Subsequent chapters treat individual sacraments and sacramentals in hierarchical order: first the Mass, then the sacraments, followed by funerals, the Liturgy of the Hours, and finally other sacramentals. There are chapters on specific days of the liturgical year and on Holy Week in particular. Finally, various forms of Mass celebrated by the Bishop are described. There are three very useful appendices on the proper manner of lighting candles, on a method for laying out vestments prior to Mass, and on prayers for servers. All in all, Ceremonies Explained for Servers is a comprehensive treatment of the subject.

Naturally, there is a measure of repetition in this third volume when compared to Bishop Elliott’s first two volumes. In a way, both volumes are recapitulated in this third volume. But the perspective is now different. This third volume is designed for altar servers, acolytes,

Continued from ENCOUNTER on page 8

Novena to the Sacred Heart with Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles, Mass with Bishop Robert Barron, a viewing of the Holy Shroud of Turin. Words, images, sound, time—all the sensible things seem more valuable toward uniting us in the presence of God. We are desperate for the real. Our parish priest brought the Eucharist in a monstrance to the neighborhoods. We flocked to Him. A real ora et labora has emerged in our lives. We cherish it. And in noticing our need, our cherishing, we wonder how we can hold onto these essential things. In this trail God is teaching us a lesson, something sacred that we can keep—and that will change us if we let it.

Technically Easter

Karen Hopkins Mother of three children Coordinator of Student Services Liturgical Institute-University of St. Mary of the Lake Mundelein, IL Easter Monday is always a strange day—the sanctuary is quiet, the smell of incense hangs in the air, the months of planning and praying and preparing for the Triduum are behind us. This year, Easter Monday felt even stranger.

Being at home for a month of Lent, stunned by the cancellation of the public celebration of Mass (and then of Triduum and Easter), left the five of us wandering around the house trying to be prayerful and to plan our own Holy Week while getting on each other’s last nerves. I know we weren’t the only ones facing this challenge.

There were almost too many choices for online community prayer—Rosaries, Novenas, the Chaplet, Lauds and Vespers, and the liturgies of the Sacred Triduum— with our own pastor, with Bishop Robert Barron, with Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, or at the National Basilica—even with Pope Francis! The liturgies ranged from very low key, with nothing but the priest and the altar, to liturgies complete with physically distancing choirs and plenty of smoke (the incense is hanging sweetly in some churches this morning!).

We prayed as a family to prepare ourselves for the sa-

parish masters of ceremonies and sacristans in particular, not primarily for the clergy. This third volume is written for the many volunteers, both young and old, who make the liturgy of the Church happen in parish churches week in and week out. These members of the laity will benefit greatly from Bishop Elliott’s many clear definitions, and the illustrations which accompany them.

Bishop Elliott also includes instituted acolytes as one of the target audiences of his book. In his home country of Australia, it is common for any number of men from the parish to have received institution into the ministry of acolyte. In the United States, apart from a few dioceses, it is generally candidates for Holy Orders who fulfill this office. In the United States, it is more likely that the adult parishioners responsible for training and supervising altar servers and the parishioners who may serve as masters of ceremonies from time to time will

cred days and found ourselves united in befuddlement over who to watch and when as we navigated conflicting time zones, personal liturgical preferences, and the attention-span needs of a variety of ages.

Palm Sunday was attended on Zoom with a friend who is a priest. We kept our microphone and video off, but the less technically savvy “parishioners” were audible over much of the Mass as we watched them leaning in and adjusting their computers repeatedly and enjoyed the group chat rapidly creating new doctrine for online Mass etiquette! Still, we arranged the chairs around our makeshift altar with a crucifix, a statue of Mary and a candle flickering by the computer screen. Oh, and a portable speaker for a clearer broadcast. Just like the Cathedral, right?

We were late to the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday. It was only a few minutes, but I think we missed the hymn “Lift High the Cross,” which is my favorite. Computer error or user error? I’m still not certain.

Regardless, the Mass was beautiful. We missed seeing the washing of the feet and the end seemed abrupt as there was no procession to the Altar of Repose—the Eucharist was returned to the tabernacle and the video feed ended.

On Good Friday, we overdid it a bit, I think. We began with Morning Prayer and went straight to the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (televised from the Cathedral of our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles). It sounded like a good idea to join the bishops in national prayer…, and we received a plenary indulgence for our trouble. We planned to live-stream the Passion of the Lord at 1pm, but realized that I calculated the time change backward, so it wasn’t going to be streamed until 5pm. Sigh. Ok. So, instead we watched the movie The Passion of the Christ and then attended the Passion of the Lord! Strange? A little. Too secular? Maybe. Forgivable under the circumstances? Christ is merciful.

Holy Saturday was mostly a waiting game. It was quiet, but not as prayerful as it could and should have been. We began preparations for the Easter feast, played games, and talked to family. Sadly, it was like most Saturdays.

He is risen! Alleluia! Easter Sunday arrived on time and as expected! Triduum was behind us once again, though not a perfect showing, and we were ready to celebrate. We wanted music and singing and incense and everything

be the primary beneficiaries of this manual. It will give them a language and a rationale to use with their young charges. In sum, the book offers a sequential, coherent description of each of the steps needed to make the liturgy as dignified and as graceful as possible.

Bishop Elliot broadens the scope of the topics he addresses in this third book beyond the topics in the earlier volumes. For the first time, he addresses the manner of serving the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.

Second, this volume plays a very important catechetical role for its readers. Bishop Elliott is adept at pointing out the theological and spiritual significance of what he is describing, and not merely content with recounting the practical details which need to be accomplished.

This catechetical pedagogy is present throughout the book but is especially clear in the first four chapters of this work, “The Server,” “The Liturgy,” “Ceremonial Actions,” and “The Mass.” Taken together, they offer a rich catechesis for young people about the spiritual significance of what they are undertaking. Most catechetical materials for young people do not offer such depth.

Because portions of this book are intended for the altar servers themselves, Bishop Elliot writes these sections in the second person, addressing the young people directly. Here his tone is conversational and clear. In other sections, when he is addressing the sacristan or the master of ceremonies, for example, he writes in the more standard third person. These are sections which are not intended to apply to his younger audience. At times, however, the shift between the second person form of address and the third person form of address can be disorienting to the reader. This is perhaps the only criticism of the work one could make. An editor could have helped the author to group the relevant sections in such a way that it would be clear which audience is being addressed without moving back and forth multiple times between adult and adolescent audiences and between the two forms of address.

Overall, the publication of Ceremonies Explained for Servers offers a valuable contribution to the Church’s liturgical life. It comes from a well-known and trusted guide to the Ordinary Form, informed by and celebrated according to the best of the Church’s liturgical tradition. This manual makes it possible for this living tradition to be passed on in a comprehensive way to the next generation. All who love the liturgy should thank Bishop Elliott for his contribution.

we’ve felt deprived of over the last several weeks. Making a spiritual communion each week rather than experiencing the gift of Christ in the Eucharist has highlighted our hunger for Christ and pointed out how we take for granted the blessing of being able to partake in the feast.

And now it’s Easter Monday. The celebration of Easter continues, but with the quarantine on, it feels like a little bit of Lent remains.

Rare Opportunity

Father Ryan Ruiz Director of Liturgy and Assistant Professor of Liturgy and Sacraments The Athenaeum of Ohio/Mount St. Mary’s Seminary of the West Cincinnati, OH While this year’s Triduum was different, I am grateful for having experienced it in this way. As a priest at a seminary in which, under normal conditions, the seminarians are sent home at the start of Holy Week to assist in their parishes, rare is the chance that I have to organize and help celebrate these most sacred rites of the Church’s year.

However, this year afforded me and the ten priests with whom I live the opportunity to observe the liturgies of the Triduum at our seminary chapel for the first time in many years. Taking full advantage of what is found in the Missal—or as much as this year’s Triduum allowed—we were able to celebrate the commemoration of our Lord’s Paschal Mystery with great solemnity, each priest having a particular part to play.

On Good Friday, St. John’s Passion was sung by three confreres in Latin. At the Vigil the Exsultet was chanted by one priest, all nine readings and psalms read by other priests, and the threefold solemn Alleluia intoned by the celebrant. On Easter Sunday, the Victimae paschali laudes was chanted by our accomplished music director, who also had no place else to go, and who likewise guided us through the Missa orbis factor on Holy Thursday, the Reproaches on Good Friday, and the Missa de Angelis at the Vigil and on Easter Sunday. This year was different, but that is the nature of the liturgy, is it not?

Something different—something extraordinary.