Adoremus Bulletin - May 2021 Issue

Adoremus Bulletin For the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy

MAY 2021

“Idle” Worship: Religious Structures and the Redemption of Time during Pandemic

By Abbot Austin G. Murphy, OSB

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dleness is an enemy of the soul” (Otiositas inimica est animae), says St. Benedict.1 We might wonder about the veracity of this saying when we recall the famous story of St. Ignatius of Loyola’s conversion. Rather than harm his soul, idleness seems to have occasioned his conversion. Yet, this story as well as our experience of the COVID-19 shut downs offer us an opportunity to appreciate the truth of St. Benedict’s saying on a deeper level.

And this, in turn, can help us to see the important place that religious structures, such as liturgical and devotional practices, have in our spiritual lives.

The conversion of St. Ignatius was occasioned by idleness in that it happened while he was confined to bed in order to recover from a cannonball injury. Looking for something to do and having been a worldly man beforehand, he thought of the “worldly books of fiction and tales of knight-errantry” that he had enjoyed reading in the past.2 But after asking for books to read in the house where he was recovering, he found that there were only books about Christ and the saints. Rather than do nothing, he read these books and it led to his conversion. In particular, he noticed that when he thought about the worldly exploits in the books that he had previously read, he experienced pleasure, but it did not last and gave way to dryness and depression. On the other hand, when he thought about the saints described in the religious books, he experienced a joy that lasted.

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News & Views

XXVI, No.6

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Catholic Teaching on Communion Applies to Politicians, too CNA—Catholic teaching sees the Eucharist as Christ’s transformative sacrifice on the cross and this Holy Communion must only be received worthily. This teaching is not partisan, but it certainly applies to political leaders who back abortion and euthanasia, Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix has said in an apostolic exhortation on the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.

“Holy Communion is reserved for those who, with God’s grace, make a sincere effort to live this union with Christ and His Church by adhering to all that the Catholic Church believes and proclaims to be revealed by God,” Bishop Olmsted said, explaining that Church teaching on this has “always been clear and based on Scripture.”

This is why the Church “requires Catholic leaders who have publicly supported gravely immoral laws such as abortion and euthanasia to refrain from receiving Holy Communion until they publicly repent and receive the Sacrament of Penance,” continued his exhortation, Veneremur Cernui.

“Not all moral issues have the same weight as abortion and euthanasia.

The Church teaches that abortion or euthanasia is an intrinsically grave sin and that there is a grave and clear obligation for all Catholics to oppose them by conscientious objection,” the bishop said.

Bishop Olmsted said that the current political climate means the Church can be “easily accused of favoring one party and singling out politicians of a certain party with such a teaching.”

“However, the Church is only

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Idle in the Marketplace Being idle did help in St. Ignatius’ conversion, but this kind of idleness is different from the kind of which St. Benedict speaks. That is, idleness (otiositas) has different shades of meaning and, to understand St. Benedict’s saying, we must exercise our minds in trying to see the nuances. To start, consider one meaning of idleness: it is that a person is doing nothing. We find this in the parable of the laborers (Matthew 20:116) when the landowner finds laborers standing around “idle” (otiosus in the Vulgate, vv. 3, 6) and then hires them.

St. Ignatius was idle in this sense, since he was doing nothing at first while he convalesced in bed.

When people are doing nothing, it

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Adoremus Bulletin MAY 2021

The structures of the Church’s liturgy, especially attending Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation, direct us to do activities that nourish our spiritual lives, such as lifting the mind and heart to God, having our souls fed with Scripture, and being united with other members of the Church. We always need such structures, but their need has been especially felt during the pandemic when idleness as free time has increased.

is often because they have nothing to do. Thus, St. Ignatius was doing nothing because he had nothing to do while in bed. Similarly, when the landowner in the parable asks some of the laborers why they are idle, they explain that it is because they have no work to do (Matthew 20:6-7). However, the expression “having nothing to do” is usually not strictly true, for there is most likely something that a person can do. The expression means in most cases that one’s options of what to do are significantly limited. People especially say, “I have nothing to do,” when they are kept from doing what they are accustomed to do. This has been many people’s experience during the pandemic, especially in its initial months. Many had nothing to do in the sense that they were unable to do many of the things that they were accustomed to do before.

Notice that idleness in the sense of doing nothing is not an evil. People do not like doing nothing and therefore they avoid it. As nature abhors a vacuum, people abhor doing nothing. As a result, when they are kept from doing what they would customarily do (and in that sense, have nothing to do), they find new things to do. They do not stay idle forever. We see this in the story of St. Ignatius. First, he has nothing to do in that he is prevented from doing his customary activities while confined True and False “Idles” Abbot Austin Murphy knows about redeeming time, especially during COVID— and even some idle moments (not all are created equal!) can be workshops of sanctity............................................................1 The Rise and Rise Christ Easter’s come and gone, but don’t start rolling the credits yet! As Father Christiaan Kappas explain, the Ascension also rises as an occasion for Christ’s salvific work....................5 Vesting Prayers? Seams Right…

Catholic priests weave prayer into every aspect of their lives—including the vesting prayers—which, Father Michael Rennier notes, make a perfect fit in the sacristy...........7

to bed. He is not even able to read the kind of books that he likes. But not wanting to do nothing, he looks for new things to do. This even leads him to do something that he ordinarily would not have done, namely, to read religious books.

What St. Ignatius found to do was beneficial and, during the pandemic, many people have found beneficial things to do after they were no longer able to do their customary activities.

For example, many have benefited from more time with family or from enjoying the outdoors. But of course, not everything that people have found to do during the pandemic has been good. For example, when stay-at-home orders went into effect, the use of alcohol, marijuana, and pornography increased.3 When lacking things to do, people can turn to beneficial activities, but they can also turn to bad behaviors.

Leisure to Do Nothing In addition to doing nothing and to having nothing to do, we can speak of not having to do things. Here one is not obliged to do anything. There are no activities that one has to do and, therefore, one is free to do as one wishes— which is to say that one enjoys a state of leisure (otium). This is a second meaning of idleness. Opposed to this idleness is the work that one has to do, Please see STRUCTURE on page 4 Concerted Effort A full seminary is music to any bishop’s ears— and a seminary full of music, writes Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka, will form future priests into a symphony of virtues...............................8 Bridgework In David Fagerberg’s Liturgical Mysticism, says Ronald Millare, the mysticism found in the liturgy, East and West, serves as a reliable bridge for the Church, East and West...........12 News & Views ....................................................1 Readers’ Quiz......................................................3 The Rite Questions...........................................10

Continued from TEACHING, page 1 faithfully reaffirming its perennial teaching on the Eucharist and the worthy reception of Holy Communion which applies to every single person,” said the bishop.

Elsewhere in the letter, he explained that in an unworthy reception of Holy Communion, the sacrament “becomes a sacrilege.”

He added: “the spiritual medicine becomes for that person—it is frightful to say—a form of spiritual poison.”

“When we do not really believe in Jesus, when we do not really seek to conform our entire life to Him and receive Jesus even though we know that we have sinned against Him, then this just leads to a greater sin and betrayal,” said Bishop Olmsted.

In his exhortation he urged an increase in devotional acts as well as repentance and confession.

“The Church invites everyone to the Wedding Banquet while at the same time commits herself to helping everyone arrive properly dressed in a purified baptismal garment, lest the greatest Gift—the Eucharist—becomes his or her spiritual destruction,” he said.

Bishop Olmsted published the exhortation April 1, Holy Thursday, which marks the institution of the Eucharist. He voiced hope that everyone, whether strong in faith or weak, Catholic or not, will have a sincere “Eucharistic amazement” incited in them.

Bishop Olmsted emphasized that Christ “meant what he said” in the Bread of Life discourse: “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.”

“Despite the uproar caused by His teaching, Jesus did not soften His claim. On the contrary, He strengthened it,” said the bishop. “The Eucharist is the supernatural food that keeps us going along the difficult journey towards the Promised Land of eternal salvation.”

Bishop Olmsted compared present-day anxieties, uncertainties and doubts to those which faced the Israelites as they sought the Promised Land. “[T]he Church at large is experiencing a grave crisis of faith in the Eucharist,” he said. “This crisis has inflicted additional significant implications for authentic Christian discipleship; namely, abysmal Mass attendance, declining vocations to marriage, priesthood, and religious life, waning Catholic influence in society. As a nation we are experiencing a torrent of assaults upon the truth.”

“The Gospel message has been watered down or replaced with ambiguous worldly values,” he continued.

“Many Christians have abandoned Christ and His Gospel and turned to a secular culture for meaning that it cannot provide and to satiate a hunger that it can never satisfy.”

“In such troubled waters, our greatest anchor in these storms is Christ Himself, found in the Holy Eucharist,” said the bishop.

He chose the letter’s title, translated as “down in adoration falling,” from St. Thomas Aquinas’ hymn Pange Lingua Gloriosi. He exhorted the faithful to adore Christ “with ever increasing reverence.”

Every Mass, where Christ is present, is “immeasurable” in value and makes accessible “unfathomable” grace.

In response to a gift like the Eucharist, Bishop Olmsted asked various questions: “Do we really desire Him? Are we anxious to meet Him? Do we desire to encounter Him, become one with Him and receive the gifts He offers us through the Eucharist?”

Reception of Holy Communion is to change us and transform us into another Christ, he explained: “Being assimilated by Jesus in Holy Communion makes us like Him in our sentiments, desires, and our way of thinking. In Holy Communion, His heart nourishes our hearts; His pure, wise and loving desires purify our selfish ones, so that we not only know what He wants, but also start wanting the same more and more.”

The Eucharist also transforms those who receive it well into “one body, one spirit in Christ.”

Receiving Holy Communion “out of routine only, without openness to the Lord,” means we do not receive all the graces God wants to give us. Bishop Olmsted said it can be easy for us to “lose our sense of wonder” at the miracle of the Eucharist. Faith, however, is the “first essential requirement” to receive all the benefits and effects of Holy Communion.

“If we receive the Lord with the right dispositions, God’s grace will strengthen our resolve to follow, love and imitate Him. Our Lord Jesus deeply desires our union with Him in Holy Communion and through it He wishes to bring about our transformation into Him and the transformation of our society in which we live.

Adoremus Bulletin, May 2021

NEWS & VIEWS Bishop Thomas Olmsted. AB/CNA

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But we, on our part, must ardently desire this union with Jesus Christ as well,” he said.

There is an “intrinsic connection” between the sacrament of penance and the Eucharist. Benedict XVI’s 2007 apostolic exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis warned against “a superficial approach that overlooks the need to be in a state of grace in order to approach sacramental communion worthily.” St. John Paul II’s 2003 encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia said the Eucharist “presupposes that communion already exists, a communion that it seeks to consolidate and bring to perfection.” Anyone conscious of grave sin must refrain from Holy Communion, said Bishop Olmsted’s letter, citing the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

“There are situations when we can honor God more by abstaining from Holy Communion than by satisfying a personal desire to sacramentally receive Him in communion,” he said, recounting a Catholic mother who abstained from Holy Communion for several years because she lived in an irregular marriage. Nonetheless, she faithfully attended Mass with her children and regularly took part in Eucharistic adoration.

Bishop Olmsted emphasized the need to preserve Sunday as the “Day of the Lord” and the ultimate purpose of the week. Embracing some other thing, even a good thing, as more important than the worship of God will result in “bondage to some good but creaturely fixation” and “spiritual exhaustion and discouragement.”

Sunday is not simply about freedom from work, since freedom from servile work makes it so that “we are free to participate in the work of our Redemption.”

Daily Mass, a full hour of Eucharistic adoration, or even a short visit to the tabernacle are also excellent ways to increase one’s devotion. He encouraged priests to make the Eucharist the source of their priesthood’s good work. Pastors should hold a Eucharistic procession each year in their parish. Eucharistic adoration is an evangelical opportunity.

“Many Catholics have wandered away from the practice of Sunday Mass, focusing more on work, sports, sleep, or entertainment rather than the Lord. There are also those who are physically there but not with their faith,” said Bishop Olmsted. “They may come to Mass but do not receive Jesus with faith, love, and reverence because they think that they are only receiving a symbol rather than God Himself who died for them. There are those who physically come to Mass, but their hearts cannot wait to leave Jesus’ presence. Indeed, the Eucharist is hard to believe! Thus, it is important for us to have patience and compassion for those whose faith is weak. Nevertheless, the call to faith is urgent.”

Pope Francis: ‘The Church is a Great School of Prayer’

By Courtney Mares

VATICAN CITY (CNA)—Pope Francis said in his April 14 general audience livestream that an essential task of the Church today is to teach people how to pray.

“The Church is a great school of prayer,” he said.

“And this is an essential task of the Church: to pray and teach how to pray, to transmit from generation to generation the lamp of faith with the oil of prayer,” the pope said.

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At his Wednesday audience, Pope Francis encouraged Christians to examine their lives to ensure that personal prayer is a priority. He warned that one of the devil’s tactics to attack the Church is to prevent people from praying.

“Everything in the Church originates in prayer, and everything grows thanks to prayer,” the pope said.

“When the Enemy, the Evil One, wants to fight the Church, he does so first of all by trying to drain its sources by preventing it from praying.”

Speaking into the camera from the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, the pope posed a question to everyone watching his weekly broadcast: “Do you pray?” he asked.

“How do you pray? Like a parrot? Or do I pray with my heart? How do I pray? Do I pray as part of the Church and pray with the Church? Or do I pray a little according to my ideas and make my ideas become prayer? This is pagan, not Christian prayer,” he said.

Pope Francis pointed out that the life of every Catholic parish is “marked by times of liturgy and community prayer,” which he called “a great patrimony.”

“After certain passages in life, we realize that without faith, we would not have been able to get through it and that prayer has been our strength. Not only our personal prayer, but also that of our brothers and sisters and of the community that accompanied and supported us, of the people who know us, of the people we ask to pray for us,” he said.

The pope explained that the strength found in prayer together is why “communities and groups dedicated to prayer flourish continuously in the Church.”

“In the Church there are monasteries, convents, hermitages, where people consecrated to God live, and these often become centers of spiritual light,” he said.

“They are communities of prayer that radiate spirituality.”

The pope said that these “small oases where intense prayer is shared” are vital cells not only of the Church, but for society itself.

“Let us think, for example, of the role that monasticism played in the birth and growth of European civilization, and also in other cultures. Praying and working in community keeps the world going. It is an engine,” Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis stressed that without prayer, the Church becomes “like an empty shell” in which no effective changes take place and which loses its direction to evangelize.

He said: “In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus poses a dramatic question that always makes us reflect: ‘When the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?’”

“Or will he find only organizations, such as a group of ‘entrepreneurs of the faith,’ all well organized, who do many things for charity…, but will he find faith?” the pope asked.

“Without faith, everything collapses. And without prayer, faith is extinguished. Faith and prayer, together.

There is no other way. For this reason, the Church, which is a home and school of communion, is a home and school of faith and prayer,” Pope Francis said.

Vatican Cardinal Supports Common Easter Date for Catholics, Orthodox VATICAN CITY (CNA)—The president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, Cardinal Kurt Koch, has supported a suggestion that Catholics and Orthodox work to agree on a common date to celebrate Easter.

A representative of the Patriarchate of Constantinople to the World Council of Churches (WCC) said a common Easter date could be a sign of “encouragement” for the ecumenical movement.

Orthodox Archbishop Job Getcha of Telmessos suggested that the year 2025, which will be the 1,700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicea, Please see NEWS & VIEWS page 11

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Adoremus Bulletin, May 2021

Let’s Take Our Job Seriously: The Catholic Response to the Ascension

By Christopher Carstens, Editor AB/LAWRENCE OP ON FLICKR. WIDOWS AND CEILING OF SAINTE-CHAPELLE

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he longsuffering Job, like so many figures in the Old Testament, is a prefigurement of Jesus. The fourth-century St. Zeno of Verona makes this connection: “As Job sat on a dunghill of worms, so all the evil of the world is really a dunghill which became the Lord’s dwelling place, while men that abound in every sort of crime and base desire are really worms” (see the Office of Readings for Saturday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time). The Holy Triduum recounts how Jesus—“a worm, and no man” (Psalm 22:6)—saved this dunghill of a world by suffering and dying, before rising—and ascending.

The Ascension of Jesus into heaven, celebrated 40 days after his Resurrection (or, in many places, on the Seventh Sunday of the Easter Season), completes his Paschal Mystery. Perhaps its relative distance from the Resurrection, at least when compared to Holy Thursday and Good Friday, accounts for it being in many minds a sort of afterthought. Even those who try to live by the liturgy and its mysteries find the life-giving Triduum waning in the first weeks after Easter. In my personal experience, in fact, Lent’s 40 days before Easter certainly seem more significant in my spiritual life and that of my family and parish than do Easter’s 40 days before the Ascension.

This is too bad: Lent recalls our fall and plods through the dunghill of this world, while the Easter season celebrates the divine life—and the divinization it brings— as it gives us a foretaste of heaven (as Father Christiaan Kappas notes in his article on the Ascension of Jesus on page 5).

In addition to the place of the Ascension in our spiritual lives, the Ascension also seems to speak to this current post-COVID situation (at least we hope it’s postCovid) for liturgical celebrations. For what seems a long time now, our liturgies—every sacramental celebration, in fact—have been adapted to meet the demands of health and safety. Some adaptations have been small, others great; some prudent, others not; some licit, others invalid. Hindsight is 20/20, and each bishop, priest, and layman can look at the past months and judge for himself how well or poorly particular liturgies have glorified God and saved souls. But rather than focusing too exclusively on the past (there are, of course, liturgical lessons to be learned), clearer vision will also look ahead—or, inspired by the Ascension, look up.

Anyone familiar with the Second Vatican Council’s document on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, and

Don’t forget to look up! Our world—and, with it, our liturgies—are meant for higher things. The Ascension of Jesus into heaven, which completes his Paschal Mystery, makes our heavenly destiny clear.

its preceding liturgical movement knows that “active participation” in the sacred liturgy is the source of the “true Christian spirit” that will transform the fallen world unto God, as Pius X wrote in his 1903 document, Tra le Sollecitudini. But fewer recall the Holy Father’s subsequent stern warning about profaning the household of God and abusing the great gift which is the Church’s liturgy. He gets right to the point: “it is vain to hope that the blessing of heaven will descend abundantly upon us, when our homage to the Most High, instead of ascending in the odor of sweetness, puts into the hand of the Lord the scourges wherewith of old the Divine Redeemer drove the unworthy profaners from the Temple” (see Tra le Sollecitudini, emphasis added).

While our recent liturgies, beset with an extra dose of the world’s fallen effects, have required adaptations, the time is coming when we will need to get back to the books. Are we looking ahead—looking up—and planning to restore the Mass and sacraments to the glory they are meant to have—honoring God with the “ascending odor of sweetness”? Or will we be satisfied with

liturgical minimalism, sacramental aberrations, and anemic participation—placing “scourges in the hand of the Lord,” as it were?

The road between Ash Wednesday and the Ascension is tiresome and deadly—but also life-giving and heavenly. Our world may seem like Job’s “dunghill of worms,” but it has been redeemed and made new by Christ risen and ascended. The lesson for our liturgies follows a similar trajectory: from the ashes and dust of a fallen world, we work (or, rather, we assist God in working) to celebrate and participate in the liturgy of heaven. We’ve looked down too long. It’s time that the world asked us at Mass, like the men of Galilee: “Why are you standing there looking at the sky?” (Acts 1:11).

Our response as Catholics should reflect not that we have our heads in the clouds, lost in abstractions and anxieties, but that we are waiting with joyful gaze for the coming of the Lord again in glory. We may be, as the trite saying goes, “an Easter people,” but we are also “an Ascension people,” rising with Christ to the Heavenly Jerusalem—not only joyous in anticipation but also celebrating the joy of Christ’s heavenly glory, here and now.

On the Sacrament of Confirmation and Its Liturgical Celebration The Sacrament of Confirmation is bestowed on numerous children and adolescents during the weeks between Easter and Pentecost. And while each Sacrament reveals the transcendent, divine mystery of God’s own life—and for this reason is not entirely comprehensible—the Sacrament of Confirmation, along with its ritual celebration, brings a heightened sense of mystery—and misunderstanding. Knowledge isn’t everything—the smartest in the Church don’t necessarily receive more grace than others. Still, the more we know about Confirmation and its sacramental celebration, the more can we love it and benefit from the great graces it bestows. So: enjoy this issue’s Quiz on the sacrament of Confirmation and its liturgical celebration, and then go on to soak up its power in any celebrations you attend now or in the future.

1. Which of the following events is the most foundational institution of the sacrament of Confirmation?

a. Jesus’ baptism, followed by the descent of the Holy Spirit as he emerged from the water. (Matthew 3:16)

b. Jesus’ promise to send a new advocate. (John 16:17)

c. Jesus’ breathing the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles on the day after the Resurrection. (John 20-22)

d. Peter and John laying hands on the faithful in Samaria.

(Acts 8:14-16) 2. True or False: In the Latin rite, Confirmation is conferred through the anointing with chrism on the forehead, which is done by the laying on of the hand, and through the words: “Be sealed with the Gift of the Holy Spirit.”

3. A confirmation sponsor differs from a baptismal godparent in which of the following ways?

a. A confirmation sponsor must be of the same sex as the candidate.

b. Two godparents may be a part of the baptismal rite, but only one sponsor is allowed for confirmation.

c. A parent cannot serve as a baptismal godparent but can serve as a confirmation sponsor.

d. A baptismal godparent must be an adult—18 years or older— but a confirmation sponsor need only be 16 years old.

e. All of the above.

f. None of the above.

4. T rue or False: The Church describes the Bishop as the “original” minister of Confirmation.

5. In the Latin dioceses of the United States, Confirmation is conferred:

a. Between the ages of 14-16. b. Between the ages of 12-16. d. Between the age of discretion and 16.

c. Between the ages of 10-16.

6. True or False: For the sake of liceity (lawfulness), a confirmation candidate must have a special confirmation name.

7. Confirmation does which of the following:

a. Increases and amplifies baptismal gifts.

b. Makes the recipient an adult in the Church.

c. Bestows the Gifts of the Holy Spirit for the first time.

d. Signals the end of faith formation.

e. All of the above.

8. If the sacrament of Confirmation is celebrated on a Sunday during the Easter Season:

a. Red vestments are worn and the readings of the given Sunday are used.

b. White vestments are worn and the readings are taken from the ritual Mass for the Rite of Confirmation.

c. The blessing and sprinkling of holy water takes the place of the Creed.

d. The Litany of the Saints replaces the Universal Prayer.

e. None of the above.

9. True or False: Similar to a priest’s authority to bless the Oil of the Sick if necessary, he may also consecrate the Sacred Chrism if he has received the faculty from his bishop to confirm.

10. If a candidate for Confirmation receives the sacrament simply to appease parents and godparents, the sacrament is considered:

a. Illicit. b. Invalid.

c. Unfruitful. d. Unnecessary.

e. Valid, licit, and fruitful.

Please see ANSWERS on page 11

Adoremus Bulletin, May 2021

AB/ IGNATIUS CONVALESCES AT LOYOLA, BY ALBERT CHEVALLIER TAYLER (1862-1925). IMAGE © 2011 JESUIT INSTITUTE LONDON.

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St. Ignatius, while recuperating from a cannonball injury, had nothing to do in that he was prevented from doing his customary activities while confined to bed. But not wanting to do nothing, he looks for new things to do. This even leads him to do something that he ordinarily would not have done, namely, to read religious books. What St. Ignatius found to do was beneficial and, during the pandemic, many people have found beneficial things to do after they were no longer able to do their customary activities.

Continued from STRUCTURE, page 1 whether for a job, as a parent, as a student, or otherwise. For example, those with jobs have to wake up by a certain time, get ready for work, commute to work, do their work, and so on. Parents have to wake up their children, feed them, schedule for their various activities, etc. Students must wake up, get ready for school, go to school, follow their schedule of classes, and the like.

Historically, only the very wealthy, who do not need to work and can hire servants to manage life’s necessities, have been able to experience this second kind of idleness, or leisure, on a regular basis. But it is also true that the average person today experiences more of this idleness than in previous eras, since modern technology and efficiencies have made many necessary tasks less time consuming (e.g., doing the laundry, preparing meals).

“ When lacking things to do, people can turn to beneficial activities, but they can also turn to bad behaviors.”

In contemporary parlance, we often speak of this kind of idleness as “free time.” The great value of having free time is to have time when we do not have to work, but can instead do such things as pray, read good books, spend time with family and friends, and enjoy the beauty of God’s creation. These are activities that nourish the spiritual life, maintain one’s core relationships, and allow the soul to keep the big picture in mind. But when the demands of work are too great, these activities are squeezed out of our lives. So, it is necessary to have free time, or leisure, when we do not have to work and can do these soul-sustaining activities.

But there is also a risk with free time and we can see it by honestly asking ourselves: How well do I use the free time I have to do soul-sustaining activities? How often does it happen that if I have free time, I squander it on doing things that are not soul-sustaining?

For example, Jack has time in the morning to pray, but he squanders it on his Facebook feed. Or Jill has been meaning to read St. Francis De Sales’s spiritual classic, An Introduction to the Devout Life, but when free time opens up, she spends it doing projects around the house that are not urgent.

Good and Free The pandemic has given us an opportunity to examine how well we use free time by giving us more of it. As already noted, things that we customarily did (and sometimes had to do) were no longer possible to do, when stay-at-home orders went into effect. Morning routines were drastically simplified when people no longer had to go in for work and, as a result, there was more time in their mornings. Also, many appointments and vari-

ous activities were cancelled, so that gaps opened up in people’s schedules. There was a void, but not wanting to do nothing, people found activities with which to fill that void. In other words, we had more free time and we looked for things to do in that free time. We have noted some of the good and bad ways in which people have spent this time, but what about ourselves? Have we always used this newfound free time well? Isn’t it the case that we have sometimes occupied the free time with things that cater to our superficial tendencies? Perhaps we ate more than we should, overslept, spent too much time on the internet or on streaming programs.

These have been common problems during the pandemic. When we do such things, we often feel what St. Ignatius felt after he thought about worldly exploits: the initial pleasure or thrill of the activity gives way to dryness and even depression.

What I would like to point out is that we often do not use our free time well. Free time is valuable in that it gives us opportunities to do soul-sustaining activities, such as praying, reading, and having good conversations. But often we do not use our free time for these things: instead, we use it to do things that are easier or more comfortable. It is like high school students who are given a free period for studying in the library. Although studying would be the constructive thing to do, talking is easier and more comfortable; therefore, librarians sometimes have to keep students from talking during these times. St. Benedict makes a similar observation in the same chapter in which he gives his saying about idleness. He says that if the monks are allowed, they may fall into empty talk rather than do their lectio divina.4

“ The pandemic has given us an opportunity to examine how well we use free time by giving us more of it.” ­­ If we were more virtuous, this would be less of a problem. Virtues would inwardly dispose us to use our free time on constructive activities. But since we are not yet perfectly virtuous, we do not always use our free time well. Instead, when we do not have to do things, we follow our tendencies to do what is comfortable and easy, if not sinful. Ever the realist, St. Benedict knew that his monks were not perfectly virtuous, and that free time (that is, idleness) therefore presents a risk for their souls. Not having to do anything, monks like other people are prone to spend the time poorly rather than constructively.

Another Benedict Option St. Benedict’s solution to the danger of free time is to structure time. Thus, his saying, “Idleness is an enemy of the soul,” introduces a chapter in his Rule that lays down structures with regard to times for work and

times for lectio divina. A structure, as understood here, is a directive or prescribed way of conducting oneself, where one can see, after the fact, whether one followed what was prescribed. Customs, practices, and observances are examples of structures. For example, St. Benedict says that from October to the start of Lent, the monks should do lectio divina until 8:00 a.m.5 That is a structure, for it says what to do and one can see afterwards whether one did it.

When there are structures in place, then it is no longer the case that one does not have to do something.

Instead, one has to do what the structures prescribe. In this way, structures work against idleness in the second sense. But this point needs to be nuanced, for structures do not necessarily take away free time in the sense of eliminating time when one does not have to work and can therefore do soul-sustaining activities. In fact, some structures help us to do such activities during our free (from work) time. They may take away from free time in the sense of filling some of that time with things that one has to do, but they fulfill one of the purposes of free time by directing us to do those easily neglected activities that sustain the soul.

Religious structures are this kind of structure. Here the structures of the Church’s liturgy deserve special mention. These structures, especially attending Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation, direct us to do activities that nourish our spiritual lives, such as lifting the mind and heart to God, having our souls fed with Scripture, and being united with other members of the Church. We always need such structures, but their need has been especially felt during the pandemic when idleness as free time has increased. This makes limited access to the Mass all the more unfortunate. But as a

“ St. Benedict’s solution to the danger of free time is to structure time.”

Church we are blessed to have also the Liturgy of the Hours, which structures the day with opportunities to worship God, hear his Word, ask his aid, and unite with fellow believers spiritually, if not also physically. Other valuable structures may be practiced by following the liturgical calendar and observing certain customs with regard to memorials, feasts, and solemnities. Further, there are devotional practices, such as a daily Rosary or a family Rosary. Structures such as these help us to do the soul-sustaining activities that we easily neglect.

Pandemic Wisdom I am one of those who, while looking forward to the end of this pandemic, do believe that God in his providence wants us to learn certain lessons from it. One of those lessons, I believe, is that religious structures are valuable, even indispensable, for our spiritual lives.

Even before the pandemic, many people, especially Catholic families, were coming to this realization and were therefore incorporating liturgical and devotional prayers and customs into their lives. May this movement continue to grow due to our experiences in the pandemic. In this essay, I have tried to use the story of St. Ignatius’ conversion and St. Benedict’s wisdom to gain a deeper understanding of why this movement meets a real need and is worthy of support.

Abbot Austin G. Murphy, OSB, is the superior of the Benedictine monastery of St. Procopius Abbey in Lisle, IL. His project, the Structure Life Movement, offers resources for using structures to support the spiritual life.

See www.procopius.org/structured-life-movement for more information.

1. Rule of St. Benedict 48.1.

2. An account of St. Ignatius’ conversion is in the Second Reading from the Office of Readings for the saint’s memorial on July 31st (The Liturgy of the Hours According to the Roman Rite, vol. 3, Ordinary Time Weeks 1-17 [New York: Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1975], 1565-66).

3. Various articles are available on the internet about these trends, e.g.: for marijuana, Kristine Owram, “Pot Use Reached All-Time High in March Amid Lockdown Measures,” on Bloomberg (April 8, 2020), https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-08/pot-usereached-all-time-high-in-march-amid-lockdown-measures (accessed January 14, 2021); for pornography, Justin J. Lehmiller, “How the Pandemic is Changing Pornography,” on Psychology Today (March 23, 2020), https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-mythssex/202003/how-the-pandemic-is-changing-pornography (accessed January 14, 2021); and for alcohol, Michael S. Pollard et al., “Changes in Adult Alcohol Use and Consequence During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the US,” on JAMA Network (September 29, 2020), https:// jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2770975 (accessed January 14, 2021).

4. Rule of St. Benedict 48.17-20.

5. Ibid., 48.10.

Adoremus Bulletin, May 2021

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The Rest of the Story: Jesus’ Ascension in the Bible and the Liturgy

By Father Christiaan Kappas

A Pseudo-Detour However, before discussing the biblical significance of the Ascension, from whence derives the patristic inspiration to write Eucharistic prayers extolling its place of honor at the table of the passion and Resurrection, I should mention the inspiration for the structure and themes of Eucharistic Prayer II. The so-called Canon of (Pseudo-)Hippolytus reveals—whatever its origins—the Ascension to be ostensibly less than universal, not yet a third leg of any mysterious footstool. The initial expansion of the words of institution to include the post-consecratory anamnesis in the Latin version of the popular Apostolic Tradition of Ps.-Hippolytus runs thus: “When you do this, you do my remembrance. Remembering therefore his death and Resurrection, we offer to you the bread and cup, giving thanks to you because you have held us worthy to stand before you and minister to you” (Apostolic Tradition 4.11).2 We notice that what may be an early (Syrian) Eucharistic format of remembrance reveals a conspicuous absence of the Ascension from the anamnesis in what could be a very late third-century, or more probably very early fourth-century, composition. How do we account for this expansion?

The Ascension in the Gospels The so-called longer ending of Mark (16:9-20) appears to be the earliest witness to the Ascension, the paschal event that helps us to understand fully the mission of Jesus: “Therefore, after speaking to them [the disciples], the Lord was taken up (anelêphthê) into heaven, and he sat on the right (hand) of God. Then they preached, after they went out, while the Lord was cooperating and confirming the message through subsequent signs.

Amen” (Mark 16:19-20).3 This earliest Gospel (ca. 68 AD) treats Jesus’ exaltation to God’s right hand on his throne as the final event precipitating apostolic preaching of the whole message contained in the Gospel. Why? In short, the answer lies in one of Jesus’ own central talking points in this Gospel: “The Lord said to my Lord [the king]: ‘Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool’” (Psalm 110:1). Jesus asks those learned in the Scriptures — hinting at his future Ascension to his Father in Mark 16:19-20 — “Therefore, very David calls Him ‘Lord’: Whence is he His Son?” (Mark 12:37).4 Jesus proves to be the Messiah or the New David rul-

AB/Wikimedia. Ascension, by John Singleton Copley (1738–1815).

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hat at first appeared on the scene as a possible liturgical fad of the fourth century subsequently wove itself into the fabric of virtually every Eucharistic prayer in Christendom from the late 300s AD. The so-called anamnesis or remembrance of the Messiah’s suffering and glory is so common that we scarcely note its importance and succinctness as a declaration of both Jesus’ meritorious actions and their connected rewards: “Therefore, O Lord, as we celebrate the memorial of the blessed passion, the Resurrection from the dead, and the glorious Ascension into heaven of Christ, your Son, our Lord, we, your servants and your holy people, offer to your glorious majesty from the gifts that you have given us, this pure victim, this holy victim, this spotless victim, the holy Bread of eternal life and the Chalice of everlasting salvation” (Eucharistic Prayer I or Roman Canon).1 This remembrance or anamnesis of the Paschal Mystery follows immediately after the words of institution.

We can trace back Eucharistic Prayer I to its earliest extant textual witness in a parallel text slightly adapted for Milanese use, as attested by St. Ambrose (post 374 AD): “Therefore we remember his most glorious passion, his Resurrection from the dead, and Ascension into heaven.

We offer you this spotless, reasonable, bloodless victim” (De sacramentis IV.6.26).

As these examples show, by the end of the fourth century, liturgical texts typically underlined the importance of the Ascension as the glorious culmination of the Resurrection. Yet how is Jesus’ Ascension a culmination? Is it not the Resurrection, which supplies humanity with well-founded hope to trust in the merits of Jesus’ passion, what is offered for us? Jesus’ cross on our behalf, even as a substitutionary death for our criminal trespasses, proves its value by God raising his dead Son, as the principal and visible sign or foundation of our hope in relation to his passion, due to its miraculous outcome. What possibly can the Ascension add to hope, save only to designate the place wherein the Messiah reigns?

In this article, I seek to explain why the Ascension was added onto liturgical listings as the final glorious action of Jesus.

The Gospel of Mark is the earliest witness to the Ascension, the paschal event that helps us to understand fully the mission of Jesus: “Therefore, after speaking to them [the disciples], the Lord was taken up into heaven, and he sat on the right (hand) of God. Then they preached, after they went out, while the Lord was cooperating and confirming the message through subsequent signs. Amen” (Mark 16:19-20).

ing eternally over Israel as the Wonderchild prophesied for all nations to Abraham around 2000 BC (Genesis 18:14) and, again, around 725 BC (Isaiah 7:14; 9:5-6) only upon his Ascension to the Father’s right hand. Only then does his birth in David’s city, anointing at his baptism, and other messianic events terminate in complete restoration of Israel to an everlasting kingdom where all will be shepherded in gloriously resurrected bodies.

Jesus’ preaching (Psalm 110:1) in the Temple led to him being interrogated (Mark 14:61-63) whether he is Messiah, based upon exegesis of this Psalm with respect to himself. The result is Jesus saying: “I am. And you shall see the Son of Man sat upon the right (hand) of power and come with the clouds of heaven.”5

“ As early as St. Luke, the entire Pascal Mystery is defined not by its principal merits (the passion), nor by the primary reason for the virtue of hope (the Resurrection), but by the culmination or manifestation of Jesus reigning as messiah and ushering in the Kingdom of God at a heavenly court (the Ascension).” ­­ The same vocabulary and material used for the Ascension in the longer ending of Mark is also known to St. Luke (Acts 1:2; 1:10-11; 2:33), where the Apostles stare with their eyes into the heavens. They are told that the manner in which they saw Jesus leave them is the way by which he shall come again. I must agree with both the pars sanior and maior pars of biblical exegetes that St. Luke's lone reference to Jesus “being taken up” (Greek: analepsis; Latin: ascensio) in a passing comment refers to Jesus' fulfilling prophecy (by going to Jerusalem as above in Acts 1:2; 1:10-11). Consequently, St. Luke’s Gospel one time uses a sacred shorthand to refer to the passion, death, Resurrection, and Ascension to

the right hand of God by summing all these up by the term: “taken up” (Luke 9:51). This is astounding that, as early as St. Luke, the entire Pascal Mystery is defined not by its principal merits (the passion), nor by the primary reason for the virtue of hope (the Resurrection), but by the culmination or manifestation of Jesus reigning as messiah and ushering in the Kingdom of God at a heavenly court (the Ascension). St. Luke’s idiosyncratic choice to define Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem to suffer and to die by the post-resurrection term, “Ascension,” clearly shows that the patristic compositions of Eucharistic prayers do not really develop the Ascension as part of Paschal Mystery but rather compile a more intricate weave of biblical themes related to the Eucharist: the passion, death, and Resurrection of Christ. The Ascension is biblically worthy of inclusion into what becomes a triad, with the result that the passion and death together fall under one umbrella, “the passion,” while the Resurrection and Ascension form the other two legs of this mysterious footstool in the Roman Canon.

The Ascension in the Acts of the Apostles Finally, I need to draw attention to a speech in Acts.

Normally, exegetes note that, on one hand, St. Luke (similar to the approach taken by the Greek historian Thucydides) supplies his own style and arranges according to his own tastes various speeches in Acts. On the other hand, traces of earlier texts upon which St. Luke draws are present too. Given this literary background, St. Peter’s (translated) speech before the supreme Sanhedrin is recorded thus: “The God of our Fathers raised Jesus, whom you managed to hang upon a tree. God raised (hypsôsen) this one prince (archêgon) and savior at his right (hand) to give repentance to Israel and loosing of sins” (Acts 5:30-32).6 The act of “raising at the right” in Mark and Luke (viz., Acts) means to underline the Ascension or enthronement of the Messiah. What is more, Jesus began his public ministry in Luke 4 by citing Isaiah (now known to be the most popular prophet among firstcentury Jews) and throughout St. Luke’s Gospel this prophet holds pride of place. The best explanation for

Adoremus Bulletin, May 2021

AB/Wikimedia. The Lapidation of Saint Stephen, by Rembrandt (1606-1669)

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The high point of St. Stephen’s speech before the Sanhedrin is neither Jesus’ death, nor Resurrection, but in announcing his vision into the heavens where the Son of Man is standing at the right hand of God,

Jesus as “prince” is likewise drawn from Isaiah’s rather idiosyncratic use of “prince of Israel” (e.g., LXX Isaiah 3:7). I suspect that St. Peter’s speech about “prince Jesus” above originally referred in Hebrew to Jesus as the prince of peace (Isaiah 9:5-6). Again, the Wonderchild must be enthroned as Messiah and rule as prince or king for Jews to accept Jesus winning victory over Israel’s enemies—albeit the universal enemy is decidedly death. This early speech is important insofar as it attests possible Hebrew accounts (arguably in Aramaic) where Jesus’ exaltation in the 30’s AD refers principally to his sitting at the right hand, not to his Resurrection.

In order to complement this supposition, I now turn to St. Stephen’s martyrdom speech that is very typical of Hebrew euchology or prayer format, where St. Stephen reorganizes a long Hebrew anamnesis of God’s doings with Israel that culminates in the coming of Jesus in flesh as the Messiah. St. Stephen’s seizure and martyrdom are entirely absorbed with Jewish accusations about him repeating Jesus’ binding and loosing narrative (e.g., Jesus’ bestowal of St. Peter’s keys to loose and Jesus’ mission announced in Luke chapter 4). Elsewhere, Jesus speaks of loosing the Mosaic Law, while announcing destruction of the Temple. Acts uses Old Testament theophany imagery: St. Stephen’s face is said to be that of an angel, as in Jewish Second Temple literature, where it signifies a manifestation of God himself (Acts 6:13-15). This all points to St. Luke using arcane material that Greco-Romans could not hope to decipher within their own culture. Acts 7:1-50 then records St. Stephen repeating a lengthy anamnesis of the history of Abraham’s progeny and God’s wonders to Israel. This ends with St. Stephen identifying Jesus as the Temple not made by human hands.

In context, this makes perfect sense since St. Stephen is trying to explain what he (and Jesus) meant by loosing the law and destroying the Temple of Jesus’ body (Mark 14:58; John 2:19). However, St. Stephen’s apex moment is neither Jesus’ death, nor Resurrection, but in announcing his vision into the heavens where the Son of Man is standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:56). Due to St. Luke’s opening lines, we know this event to be Jesus’ visible ascent, a form or type for his future return. What strikes us as counterintuitive is the fact that St. Stephen’s evangelization toward the supreme Sanhedrin preaches not death and Resurrection, but rather Jesus as alive in body sitting at the right of the Father as God’s Son, very much in the image of Psalm 110:1. St. Luke, therefore, is undoubtedly in possession of an early tradition woven into his narrative that sees messiahship as an important point of reference for Jesus’ life and teachings to have meaning for those reading the material. Consequently, testimony of Jesus’ Ascension was central in early witnessing to the Jews that the Messiah is alive in heaven and guiding the members of “the Way” or early Jewish sect that will become known in Antioch only later as “Christians.”

The Ascension in St. Paul Granting that St. Luke was St. Paul’s companion, did St. Paul himself affirm the Ascension as a central element of the Paschal Mystery of Jesus? I wish to answer by quickly referring to so-called proto-Pauline epistles (seven uncontested works of St. Paul). Then I’ll follow

up by mentioning the deutero-Pauline epistles traditionally ascribed to St. Paul or one of his secretaries.

Given limits of space, it is important to emphasize that the technical term “Ascension” is used in 1 Timothy, but not elsewhere by St. Paul. Yet, St. Paul’s primary writings do speak of Jesus’ exaltation. I would like to suggest that it is a common mistake to suppose that St. Paul restricts exaltation to mean “resurrection” only. He indisputably saw himself as the evangelizer of the Gentiles. Hence, the more universally controversial topic of the resurrection was his focus, not the political messianism of an ethnic group unintelligible to the rest of the Roman Empire. If St. Paul himself did not emphasize the Ascension in mixed Gentile-Jewish company, the Gospel and Acts clearly focused on Jewish messianism. Nevertheless, St. Paul used approvingly materials (presumably songs) recited liturgically among his addressees. I propose two such hymns suffice to argue that St. Paul knew the messianic focus on the Ascension, even though he more ostensibly developed the importance of Jesus’ death and Resurrection, when discussing the Paschal Mystery to mixed communities, especially regarding the Eucharist (see 1 Corinthians 1:10-13; 11:23-32).

The last stanzas of the famous “Philippian’s hymn” are cited presumptively as familiar to his addressees: “[Jesus] was found as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient until death, death of a cross. For this, too, God exalted him, and gifted to him a name which is above every name so that in the name of Jesus every knee should bend of (those) heavenly ones and earthly ones and (those) dwelling under the earth” (Philippians 2:8-11). Modern exegetes generally agree that this is neither St. Paul’s vocabulary, nor composition. Hence, we ought not project Pauline resurrection themes onto it. In fact, being exalted above the heavenly beings looks to be a reference to (LXX) Psalm 96:9, where Yahweh is exalted above all the heavens and earth, typically reigning on his cloud. Therefore, this is likely a pre-Pauline Jewish hymn meant to highlight the culmination of Jesus’ ministry, like unto the vision of St. Stephen, so that the Messiah bodily reigns in heaven.

To supplement this, we add a deutero-Pauline testimony, where another ancient and anonymous hymn is endorsed touching on what is called “the mystery of piety” (1 Timothy 3:16).7 From the hymn emerges a chiastic structure: A. God appeared in flesh

B. He was justified in spirit

C. He was seen by angels

C. He was preached among nations

B. He was believed in throughout the world A. He was taken (anelêmphthê) up in glory The context for singing this is in the assembly of God. They are living temples in whom God dwells. The assembly individually—and as a whole—mirrors God’s dwelling in the original First Temple with its Ark. For our purposes, I note that chiasm (A.) ensures that we associate Jesus’ original flesh with him who now reigns at the right hand in glory. Finally, the deutero-Pauline literature reminds us that to be exalted means that one “sits as God in the Temple” (2 Thessalonians 2:4). As St. Paul bears out in his writings, exaltation is originally an Ascension motif more than a Resurrection motif.

Liturgical Meaning of the Ascension The Ascension reflects an ancient stratum of the Gospel meant for messianic Jews to appreciate the Kingdom of God restored in power, which is life-giving power for raising the dead and establishing the resurrected around the throne of the Lamb. The Ascension mystery is the final fruit of the Paschal Mystery. If the first fruit of the Resurrection is Jesus’ body, the harvest will be the general resurrection of glorious bodies, but these are “caught up” in the clouds in the air of heaven (1 Thessalonians 4:17) or in mini-Ascensions to their final place where the king of heaven rules his subjects for eternity.

“ Our earliest witnesses to a moveable celebration of Ascension in Jerusalem in the mid-fourth century put its commemoration on the vigil of Pentecost.” ­­ Admittedly, many in the United States lament the loss of the proper calendar day for Mass of the Ascension, traditionally a Thursday. Unlike ancient liturgical calendars before the Middle Ages, the richly developed Medieval calendar added the virtue of emulating annually the New Testament days upon which each event of salvation took place. We now delight in a moveable Easter and Triduum in imitation of what Jesus himself once lived and celebrated. We no longer have the conscious memory of second-century Christians who, for example, knew Jesus’ combined celebration of the passion-death-Resurrection to be 25 March (ca. 29/31 AD). Early on, antique Christians added a moveable Easter (as a combined passion-death-Resurrection celebration), eventually fixing it everywhere to a Sunday and then expanding the Sunday backwards to include Jesus’ three-day passion. As such, they added special days to emulate Holy Week as lived by Jesus in the New Testament. These were all innovations that enriched our ability to follow intensely the progress of the passion until the Resurrection.

But what of the Ascension? In a similar fashion, the most ancient evidence of the Christian feast of Pentecost knew a combined feast of Ascension-Pentecost.

Our earliest witnesses to a moveable celebration of Ascension in Jerusalem in the mid-fourth century put its commemoration on the vigil of Pentecost. But, as the desire to emulate history with greater calendrical accuracy became more popular, Ascension eventually was moved back to the Thursday on the tenth day before Pentecost. As such, many of us feel an impoverishment of our calendar in dioceses that overturn this tradition of mirroring calendrically Jesus’ life on a Thursday.8 Yet does this mean that an Ascension-Sunday must per se less dispose us to grace?

In answer, we can see that the Ascension was topically and historically associated in Jerusalem with the Upper Room or the Mount of Olives where biblical events of the Last Supper, Ascension, and Pentecost all occurred according to oral tradition.9 Here, Jesus traditionally ascended to heaven. Curiously, however, our fourth-century testimonies recount the Ascensionvigil (on the night of Pentecost) occurring at the grotto of the crib of Bethlehem!10 The place manifesting the descent of Word made flesh was the place of celebration for the visible flesh to ascend back to heaven! This thematic association is not entirely surprising, as some Medieval versions of the Roman Canon historically included the nativity of Jesus in the post-consecratory anamnesis along with the passion, death, Resurrection, and Ascension. In antiquity, the axis for understanding our salvation and redemption had always been the Incarnation and Resurrection.

Like early Jerusalem liturgy, we can still spiritually benefit from a Sunday celebration of Ascension, as those pilgrims once did. They brought their experiences back to their local Latin and Greek Churches, which eventually led to the universal adoption of the Ascension in all rites of Christendom. The feast in Jerusalem only gradually landed upon our current day (according to the Roman rite) after trying out other days in Paschaltide. Its present home as we now know it in our universal calendar—40 days after Easter—had been fixed before the Middle Ages.

Conclusions Spiritually, we best participate in the Mass of Ascension by remembering that Jesus’ resurrected body is Please see ASCENSION on page 9

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Adoremus Bulletin, May 2021

Your Faith on Your Sleeve: Why Vesting Prayers Never Go Out of Fashion

By Father Michael Rennier

Quiet, Please—Grace At Work In the meantime, this silence haunts us. So we talk. We fill up every waking moment with chatter. We fill every nook and cranny of the Mass with responses and songs and explanations. We try to make it more relevant and comfortable. This temptation to aimlessly speak spills over into a place that, perhaps, we mistakenly think of as a staging room for the Mass, a separate work space with a different character than the sanctuary. This space is the sacristy. Often considered to be backstage to the true action which takes place in the sanctuary, the sacristy is presumed to serve as a chatty set of bookends to our celebration of the Mass.

I’m as guilty of this as anyone. Sometimes, practicality requires that we would talk at least some in the sacristy. We should always keep in mind that parishes rarely run as smoothly as we would hope, so there are times when the organist is asking last-minute questions or the servers receiving last-minute instructions in the sacristy. Sometimes the priest has an important matter to discuss and has the best opportunity to talk to a server or sacristan right after Mass before they leave. There is, it seems to me, a place for some “business” talk in the sacristy. Further, I see no problem at all with greeting the servers and other clergy and in exercising basic politeness.

This practice of good manners is ideally minimized but tolerated to a certain degree; nevertheless, it is important to keep in mind that being in the sacristy is already to be immersed in the Mass. Many venerable old churches actually have altars in the sacristy, showing clearly that these spaces are not divorced from the liturgy but are intimately connected with the altar. If we would maintain a holy reverence in the Mass, it starts in the sacristy.

A Fitting Practice The idea of keeping silence in the sacristy isn’t to legalistically shun speech, but rather it’s for the positive motivation of making space for prayer. There are specific sacristy prayers both before and after the Mass, which include reverencing the crucifix and a blessing for the servers. Aimless small-talk cannot be allowed to crowd out these devotions.

As a case in point, an important but oft overlooked

AB/ALWYN LADELL ON FLICKR

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n the beginning, before God spoke into the void, there was silence, the type of deeply fundamental silence that didn’t even have a counterpoint. After all, there was nothing yet created, nothing capable of making a noise. The pre-creation silence was sufficient in itself, containing the fullness of all that which was to be created. It was a sacred silence, a profound quiet cradled by the unspeakable presence of the divine.

From that silence emerged the first word, and that Word, formed as it was on the very lips of God the Father, was powerful to create.

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is a continuation of this creative emergence from silence, and it is no accident that there is silence in the heavens at the Crucifixion, the awful moment when new life pours from the wounded side of Christ. In the Mass, which is, of course, a participation in the Sacrifice of Christ, God speaks and the Eucharistic miracle is effected. God speaks and we are reborn.

The context of any spoken prayer, particularly the formal, collective prayer of the Church handed down to us, is the silence of the Cross. The words emerge from the silence and return to the silence. It is a strange and profound reality, this encounter with the Living God. Often, the only appropriate response to his presence is stillness and a holy quiet, as the prophet Zephanaiah says, “Be silent before the Sovereign Lord,” and Habakkuk says, “The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.”

I am deeply grateful for the quietude of the Mass, for it reveals the meaning and purpose of our existence. At times, though, it weighs upon me in an uncomfortable manner. The silence is thick and awkward. It’s probably natural that this would be so. After all, the Mass is an epiphany that shines with a heavenly light so radiant that it blinds us. As fallible human beings, we are prone to draw back from this mystery. We allow it to drop from our hands because we lack the strength to hold on any longer. One day, on the other side of death, if we persevere, we will lift up our heads to gaze upon the fullness of the Beatific Vision. At that time, I imagine a profound and full silence will envelop us and we will be glad.

An important but oft overlooked sacristy-centered devotion is the vesting prayers. “While it is possible to use different prayers,” says The Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff, “or simply to lift one’s mind up to God, nevertheless the texts of the vesting prayers are brief, precise in their language, inspired by a biblical spirituality and have been prayed for centuries by countless sacred ministers. These prayers thus recommend themselves still today for the preparation for the liturgical celebration, even for the liturgy according to the ordinary form of the Roman Rite.”

sacristy-centered devotion is the vesting prayers. The sacred ministers pray these along with each specific vestment as they put it on. These prayers are found in the 1962 Missal, indicating they’re an integral part of the Mass and it is the mind of the Church that the ministers would not omit them. These prayers are not only meant for vesting before an extraordinary form Mass, as is made clear in a document from The Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff entitled, “Liturgical Vestments and the Vesting Prayers,” which says, “While it is possible to use different prayers, or simply to lift one’s mind up to God, nevertheless the texts of the vesting prayers are brief, precise in their language, inspired by a biblical spirituality and have been prayed for centuries by countless sacred ministers. These prayers thus recommend themselves still today for the preparation for the liturgical celebration, even for the liturgy according to the ordinary form of the Roman Rite.”

“ The idea of keeping silence in the sacristy isn’t to legalistically shun speech, but rather it’s for the positive motivation of making space for prayer.”

This is an important point. The vesting prayers recommended for use in the sacristy are not merely generic centering prayers or prayers of supplication but, while they provide an opportunity for recollection, they are more than that. They allude to the symbolic purpose of each article of clothing as the minister puts it on, and so allude to the sensible nature of the Mass and how each and every detail of how we pray, including what the priest wears, bears a symbolic meaning. Taking a closer look at these prayers reveals that meaning.

Clothing Articles of Faith When the amice is put on, the minister prays, Impóne, Dómine, cápiti meo gáleam salútis, ad expugnándos diabólicos incúrsus./ “Place upon me, O Lord, the helmet of salvation, that I may overcome the assaults of the devil.” The amice may not look like a helmet, but this prayer alludes to its origin as an attached hood. Many priests, especially when wearing an appareled amice, first place it over their head before pushing it down.

The alb is accompanied by the words, Deálba me, Dómine, et munda cor meum; ut, in sánguine Agni dealbátus, gáudiis pérfruar sempitérnis./ “Purify me, O Lord, and cleanse my heart, so that, washed in the Blood of the Lamb, I may enjoy eternal bliss.” This is a direct reference to the vision of St. John’s Apocalypse in which he describes the saints in heaven wearing white robes that have been made “white in the blood of the Lamb.” It is, essentially, a plea on the part of the priest that his exterior would match his interior, that the man

who would dress as a saint would be as pure as a saint.

Even the cincture has a prayer as it is tied around the waist: Præcínge me, Dómine, cíngulo puritátis, et exstíngue in lumbis meis humórem libídinis; ut maneat in me virtus continéntiæ et castitátis./ “Gird me, O Lord, with the cincture of purity, and quench in my heart the fire of concupiscence, that the virtue of continence and chastity may abide in me.” A priest is a mere man like other men, his heart a mixture of piety and sin. The cincture binds up the sinful desires and symbolically places the heart of the priest in a posture of purity before he ascends to the altar.

The maniple is perhaps the most mysterious of vestments—at least, it’s the one I field the most questions about from the laity. It goes on the left forearm along with the prayer, Mérear, Dómine, portáre manípulum fletus et dolóris; ut cum exsultatióne recípiam mercédem labóris./ “May I deserve, O Lord, to bear the maniple of weeping and sorrow, that I may receive the reward for my labors with rejoicing.” The prayer makes clear the connection between the maniple and a shackle. It is a sign of servitude and labor. This sign of “sorrow” becomes for the priest a sacred joy because his service is to Christ and his Church. The maniple is a required vestment in the Extraordinary Form. (Some argue that it has been suppressed in the Ordinary Form; The Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff says, “It fell into disuse in the years of the postconciliar reform, even though it was never abrogated.”)

The next vestment is the stole, placed over the neck with these words: Redde mihi, Dómine, stolam immortalitátis, quam pérdidi in prævaricatióne primi paréntis: et, quamvis indígnus accédo ad tuum sacrum mystérium, mérear tamen gáudium sempitérnum./ “Restore unto me, O Lord, the stole of immortality, which was lost through the guilt of our first parents: and, although I am unworthy to approach Thy sacred Mysteries, nevertheless grant unto me eternal joy.” The stole is a symbol of the yoke of Christ and thus represents the weight of glory. It seems to me that crossing the stole is a good practice, as the cross makes clear that the path to immortality goes through the Cross alone.

Finally, the chasuble makes the concept of the yoke even more explicit: Dómine, qui dixísti: Jugum meam suáve est et onus meum leve: fac, ut istud portáre sic váleam, quod cónsequar tuam grátiam. Amen./ “O Lord, Who said, ‘My yoke is easy and My burden light’: grant that I may bear it well and follow after Thee with thanksgiving. Amen.” The chasuble evokes the joy and gratitude of the Mass, and the connection to the concept of thanksgiving shows its status as a Eucharistic garment.

Wear Christ Well Parishioners often approach me and remark how edifying it is to see the care with which I follow the rubrics of the Mass. It’s a simple thing, really. I’m no hero for having the capacity to read the instructions and obey, Please see VESTING on page 9

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Adoremus Bulletin, May 2021

A Major Quartet: Music Among the Four Pillars of Seminarian Formation

By Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka For an integrated formation of the candidate, it is necessary to reflect on the identity of the priest.1

Human The documents which govern priestly formation make clear that human formation is the foundation upon which other pillars of formation build. “The priest, who is called to be a ‘living image’ of Jesus Christ, head and shepherd of the Church, should seek to reflect in himself, as far as possible, the human perfection which shines forth in the incarnate Son of God and which is reflected with particular liveliness in his attitudes toward others as we see narrated in the Gospels…. In order that his ministry may be humanly as credible and acceptable as possible, it is important that the priest should mold his human personality in such a way that it becomes a bridge and not an obstacle for others in their meeting with Jesus Christ the Redeemer of humanity.” How does music figure into this?

Throughout history, the Church has generally adopted the view of the Neo-Platonists concerning the role of music in the Christian life—that music naturally harmonizes with a person’s moral development. This view holds that training which helps the student grow in the ability to discern between better, more noble, and more beautiful music and that music which is less noble or lacking in beauty translates into a more acute ability to discern between what is good and bad in the moral life. This is because both judgments rely on the ability to accurately perceive reality as it is and compare it with standards. When compared with principles of moral theology and the holiness of Christ, is what I perceive good or bad? When compared with music I have heard that is both beautiful in how it is crafted and performed, is what I am hearing good or bad?

Education in the arts rests on teaching students to accurately perceive reality and to compare that reality with what ought to be. Is this note in tune? Is this brush stroke fitting for this line in the painting? Does the structure of this work possess cohesion and purpose? When one grows in the ability to observe reality precisely in the arts, it can translate into heightened sensitivity in the moral sphere.

Is this action the right one to achieve the good goal? Does this habit aim the faculties of the soul towards Christ and virtue? Does this way of acting evidence a true love for God and neighbor?

To make these moral judgments with sensitivity and to help others discern how to do what is right and grow in holiness, the priest needs to be a keen observer of reality and human nature, being likewise able to compare what

Making music in community requires the ability to deal with and move on from one’s own mistakes and the mistakes of others. It requires good communication skills, both verbal and nonverbal. Learning music under the tutelage of a director helps the seminarian recognize, respond to, and benefit from the professional competencies of an expert. The development of these skills helps a priest persevere in difficulty and gives him the tools to effectively manage a parish, working effectively with those staff and volunteers that labor with him in parish life.

AB/Lawrence OP on Flickr

“ Growing in one’s musical ability and developing a discerning ear helps seminarians to grow in the ability to listen—a skill crucial for pastoral work.”

AB/St. Joseph Seminary Schola, Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka, Director

T

he 2016 Vatican document Ratio Fundamentalis, the impetus for the forthcoming 6th edition of the Program for Priestly Formation, makes clear that a theological reflection on the nature of the priesthood is the foundation upon which a seminary’s work is based. When we understand the identity of the priest, the nature of his configuration to Christ, the character of his spiritual fatherhood, the essence of his spousal love for Christ’s body, the Church, and what his role in the economy of salvation is, his “specific vocation to holiness”2 —only then can we discern how such a man might be formed. The four areas, or pillars, of priestly formation—human, spiritual, intellectual, and pastoral—are properly grounded when their aim is clear.3 Such a theological consideration also sheds light on the role of music in priestly formation, especially when combined with a robust understanding of the metaphysical nature of beauty, the special character of music in God’s order of creation, the nature of the sacred liturgy, and the principles and treasury of the sacred music which serve an integral role in the sacred liturgy. As in worship, music is more than a simple add-on. To expect too little from music—especially sacred music—is to miss out on an abundance of grace in the life of the Church, both for priests and for the faithful. If instead we aim to think of music in the context of a holistic and effective formation program, in light of the nature of the priest, we arrive at goals and outcomes which are abundantly rich, bearing sweet and lasting fruits for the life of the Church.

What can music hope to accomplish in a program for priestly formation? Let’s look at its contributions to each of the four pillars of formation.

Music helps integrate the liturgy into a meaningful and beautiful whole, offering the opportunity to experience delight in prayer, sacraments, and worship. A priest who learns to find refuge and solace in prayer and celebrating the Mass and the Divine Office is better enabled to persevere in his vocation.

he observes with the person and actions of Christ. When what is beautiful and noble in the arts is perceived and preferred, what is good and noble in the moral life likewise becomes easier to discern and sweeter to do.

Beyond this, training in music contributes to human perfection. Certainly it is possible to get to heaven, love God, and be a priest without being good at music—thank God! But any human perfections we can work to acquire help us grow generally in our conformity to Christ. Growing in one’s musical ability and developing a discerning ear helps seminarians to grow in the ability to listen—a skill crucial for pastoral work. Music requires timeliness, singing or playing the right thing at the right time. Making music requires a sensitivity to others, hearing what is going on around oneself, and being mindful of the listener.

The priest’s ability to discern the right thing to say or do at the right time is central in his spiritual fatherhood, and his ministry benefits from always taking into account how his words and actions are received.

Performing music with excellence is demanding, requiring perseverance and discipline. And as anyone who has striven with God’s grace to acquire virtue and conquer sin knows, the development of good habits and dedication in one area makes it easier to develop virtue in other areas. Making music in community requires the ability to deal with and move on from one’s own mistakes and the mistakes of others. It requires good communication skills, both verbal and nonverbal. Learning music under the tutelage of a director helps the seminarian recognize, respond to, and benefit from the professional competencies of an expert. The development of these skills helps a priest persevere in difficulty and gives him the tools to effectively manage a parish, working effectively with those staff and volunteers that labor with him in parish life. Even something like having to smoothly move from one book to the right place in another book while singing in a schola develops the ability to think ahead in the liturgy so that one can execute the demands of the liturgy with excellence and in a prayerful manner.

With a strong human formation, grace can build upon nature in spiritual formation. What role is there for music in this?

Spiritual Music has often been referred to as the most spiritual of the arts because, while it relies on the physical world of vibrations and human anatomy to be both executed and perceived, it’s heard—not seen. Music is invisible, which makes it especially effective at communicating in the physical world the realities of the spiritual, invisible world.

A healthy formation in music likewise helps the seminarian more effectively realize the link between the physical and spiritual orders. What do things heard, seen, and done mean? What effect do the physical elements of the sacred liturgy and the sacraments have on the spiritual life of grace?

When this link is made manifest in beautiful and fitting music, especially in the context of the sacred liturgy, a harmony appears between the physical and spiritual worlds that serves as a model for the whole of life. A seminarian who learns to pray through the words and tones that result from his physical exertion in singing learns that all he does and all he is, especially in the context of the sacred liturgy, has meaning and value and can be offered as a sacrifice to God for his sanctification and the sanctification of others.

In this way, the practice of music becomes another tool in his life of grace, it sparks his sacramental imagination to see the spiritual reality latent in everything.

Music also helps integrate the liturgy into a meaningful and beautiful whole, offering the opportunity to experience delight in prayer, sacraments, and worship. This delight becomes all the more crucial when the drudgery and discouragements that come with the challenges of priestly life feel all the more acute. A priest who learns to find refuge and solace in prayer and celebrating the Mass and the Divine Office is better enabled to persevere in his vocation.

There is also a connection between music and Sacred Scripture. Music helps activate the Word of God in the hearts and minds of both priests and faithful. Certainly, any text from the scripture or the liturgy when spoken carries with it the power to transform souls in the life of grace, but as Pope Pius X’s Tra le Sollecitudini reminds us, the clothing of beautiful music can “add greater efficacy to the text,”5 allowing the seed of God’s word to find rich soil and take root. Music has power, through its beauty, to open even hardened hearts to the action of God’s grace. In the context of the sacred liturgy, beauty and text integrate in an excellent work of sacred music to act as a sacramental, opening our hearts to receive the abundant graces there present. When a seminarian learns to cherish this in his own experience of prayer and worship at the sacred liturgy, as a priest he can utilize this tool in effective and fruitful catechetical and evangelistic efforts amongst his flock.

Intellectual and Pastoral And what of the contributions of music to the intellectual and pastoral formation of priests? A study of sacred music contributes to a rich understanding of Church history and the providence of God as expressed in the legitimate diversity of musical expressions throughout history. A seminarian’s careful examination of the documents that Please see MUSIC on page 9

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Adoremus Bulletin, May 2021 Continued from MUSIC, page 8 govern sacred music will enable him to effectively guide the music program in his future parish to align with what the Church envisions for her sacred liturgy. To be a good leader and father for his people, he has to be able to think with the mind of the Church on these matters.

Even (maybe even especially) for those seminarians for whom music doesn’t hold a particular attachment, or who don’t possess any outstanding talents in music, it is important for them to understand music on the intellectual level so as to appreciate the profound role it will play in their pastoral ministry, regardless of their own personal attachments. Music is the greatest conveyor of liturgical meaning, and no flock is without strong attachments to music. The seminarian must, therefore, prepare to place music in its proper place in the life of the parish.

AB/BADGERCATHOLIC ON FLICKR. CHRIST THE KING CHAPEL, LA CROSSE, WISCONSIN.

Priestly Tenor What might a music program at a seminary looks like?

At St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, NY, where I teach, it means that seminarians have some form of instruction in music nearly every semester. They receive four semesters of short voice lessons where they learn to match pitch,

utilize correct vocal technique, and read music. In their first year, they learn to sing the entire Mass in English, and in the second year they learn to sing it in Spanish.

In their second year they also take a course which covers the history of sacred music, sacred music legislation, and practical issues that arise in parish and school music programs. During the third and fourth years, seminarians focus on the more challenging chants of the Mass, especially prefaces, presidential prayers, and Gospels. In weekly house music rehearsals we improve our singing of Mass ordinaries, hymns, and chants of the Liturgy of the Hours.

Students with a special aptitude for music serve as cantors and organists, and sing music from the Church’s treasury (especially Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony) in the schola cantorum. Certainly this is just one structure among many ways to realize a rich vision for seminary musical formation.

Building a program of excellent musical formation for seminarians is possible only when priestly identity and the nature of music are understood in a profound way.

Also necessary is the support of bishops and the seminary administration. When both of these elements are present, it is possible to hope for a bright future of priests who

The priest dresses in the manner specified by the Church in order to clothe himself in Christ, to become a living image of our great High Priest. As in all Christian theology, the actions of the exterior are matched to the disposition of the heart.

Continued from VESTING, page 7 and I’m sure any number of priests are doing the same.

But these simple actions done with quiet dignity reveal the heart of the Mass. Throughout the Mass, the priest disciplines himself in subservience to those rubrics. He puts on the identity of Christ and serves as his icon.

Continued from ASCENSION, page 6 called by St. Paul “the first fruits of resurrection” (1 Corinthians 15:20-23). Jewish thinking, like St. Paul, had long connected Passover (Easter) and Jewish Pentecost feasts strenuously since the date of Easter determined the date of Pentecost. Ritual prescriptions of Pentecost sometimes appear to be copies of rituals first celebrated at the Passover feast. Jesus is the New Temple as well as its gift of sacrifice. As the first fruits of a harvest were always offered to God in the Mosaic Law, Jesus’ body—the first fruit of a general resurrection—is daily offered upon an unbloody altar to God at each Mass in imitation of the perpetual presence of the Lamb before the heavenly altar.

St. Paul uses Pentecost terminology of first fruits of harvest to identify Jesus’ pleasing body offered to the Father that brings the Spirit as gift ten days later. Eucharistic Prayer I anticipates this motion of ascent and descent of the Ascension and Spirit of Pentecost (who raises the dead and who will raise our mortal bodies).

This links the Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost into the complete expression of the salvific mystery.

Let us see the connection in the Roman Canon: “Look upon these offerings […] as once you were pleased to accept the gifts of your servant Abel the just, the sacrifice of Abraham, our father in faith, and the offering of your high priest Melchizedek […] In humble prayer we ask you, almighty God: command that these gifts be borne by the hands of your holy Angel to your altar on high […] so that all of us, who through this participation at the altar receive the most holy Body and Blood of your Son, may be filled with every grace and heav-

This discipline begins in the sacristy, where it is needed every bit as much as in the sanctuary. I must confess that the days in which I rush about in the sacristy before Mass are days in which I feel less attentive to the Mass than I ought to be.

The quietude of the sacristy is vital for priestly recol-

enly blessing.”

Priests praying Eucharistic Prayer I, directly after mentioning the Ascension in the anamnesis, offer the resurrected flesh of Christ under the aegis of the first fruits of Abel, the firstborn of Abraham, and Abraham’s tithe. More surprisingly, the Angel of Great Counsel (LXX Isaiah 9:6), Jesus, who functions as Angel or messenger sent by God,11 ascends with the sacrament of his body to God’s right hand to present himself and it to the Father as first fruits and then to send down to us grace of the Spirit.12 Jesus, our ascending Angel, represents both Resurrection and its heavenly Ascension in the Roman Canon. The Roman Canon provides us a meditation at each Mass that our vocation as the harvest of future resurrection will not merely be to rise with Christ but to ascend in glory to the altar of the Lamb. In the Eucharist, we participate in a foretaste of this blessing by receiving the risen, ascending body, sacramentally, and begging his providential care of us as heavenly ruler at the right hand.

Father Christiaan Kappes currently serves the Archeparchy of Pittsburgh as Academic Dean of Ss. Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Catholic Seminary. He received his doctorate in Sacred Liturgy from Sant’ Anselmo, Rome (2012) and defended his Ph.D. in Eastern Orthodox Theology at the University of Thessaloniki, Greece (2018).

He has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications, especially the monograph The Epiclesis Debate at the Council of Florence (Notre Dame Press, 2019). Recently, he published a popular, revisionist history demonstrating the ancient use of the term and theory of transubstantia-

know and love the Church’s music, and who are able to exercise it with excellence in their ministry.

Dr. Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka is an associate professor and the director of sacred music at St. Joseph’s Seminary (Dunwoodie) in NY. She serves on the boards of the Society for Catholic Liturgy and the Church Music Association of America, and is the managing editor of Sacred Music. Having given numerous workshops on Gregorian chant around the U.S. and Europe, she directs the Schola Cantorum of St. Joseph’s Seminary and the Metropolitan Catholic Chorale, and teaches Gregorian chant to children using the Ward method. Her weekly broadcast, “Square Notes: The Sacred Music Podcast,” is available on YouTube and podcast apps.

1. C ongregation for the Clergy, “The Gift of the Priestly Vocation: Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis,” December 8, 2016 <http://www. clerus.va/content/dam/clerus/Ratio%20Fundamentalis/The%20Gift%20 of%20the%20Priestly%20Vocation.pdf>.

2. J ohn Paul II, Pastores Dabo Vobis, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, March 25, 1992 < http://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_ exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_25031992_pastores-dabo-vobis. html>, 19–23, here at 20.

3. I bid., 43–59; USCCB, Program of Priestly Formation, 5th ed., 2006, 74–271.

4. Pastores Dabo Vobis, 43.

5. P ope Pius X, motu proprio, “Tra le Sollecitudini,” Nov. 22, 1903 <https:// adoremus.org/1903/11/tra-le-sollecitudini/>, 1.

lection during the Mass. It seems to me that making room for the vesting prayers in this way is essential to a vital connection being made between the prayerful disposition of the sacred ministers and the symbolic meaning of the vestments. This point we ought not overlook. A priest does not simply dress in an old-fashioned manner particular to the customs of the Church because it seems like the thing to do. It isn’t a game of old-fashioned make-believe. The priest dresses in the manner specified by the Church in order to clothe himself in Christ, to become a living image of our great High Priest. As in all Christian theology, the actions of the exterior are matched to the disposition of the heart.

When I put on my vestments, I am preparing my heart for priestly duty. It’s only fitting that prayers would be uttered as this preparation takes place.

Out of the silence of the sacristy springs the vesting prayers, the specific words that the Church has given us to remind the sacred ministers that they are about to participate in the greatest mystery of our faith, that they

are about to approach the altar of God and, faithfully reciting his very words from the first Mass, hold God in their hands.

Father Michael Rennier lives in St. Louis with his wife and children. A convert from Anglicanism with his family, he has an MDiv from Yale Divinity School and is a Catholic priest in the Archdiocese of St. Louis. He is associate editor at Dappled Things: A Quarterly of Ideas, Art & Faith, and a regular contributor at Aleteia.

To access the document “Liturgical Vestments and the Vesting Prayers Office for the Liturgical Celebrations,” see http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/details/ns_lit_doc_20100216_vestizione_en.html.

tion in patristic literature: The Secret History of Transubstantiation (Patristic Pillars Press 2020).

1. While this translation is official for the Roman Rite in English, all other translations without citation are mine.

2. David Bradshaw, Maxwell Johnson, and Edward Phillips (translators), The Apostolic Tradition, in The Apostolic Tradition: A Commentary, ed. Harold Attridge (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2002), 40.

3. I translate here the Byzantine text form (= Btf 2005), which conveys the majority text as most likely to heard when Mass lectionaries were read and sung within the confines of Byzantium. As such, the text represents the readings known to most Greek Fathers, even if Syria and Alexandria knew other textual traditions that would have influenced their liturgical compositions in Greek (especially in the fourth century).

4. Btf 2005.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. In many dioceses in the United States, provinces of bishops have transferred the celebration of Ascension from the 40th day after the Resurrection to the following Sunday, the Seventh Sunday of Easter, per Canon 1246 §2.

9. Daniel Galadza, Liturgy and Byzantinization in Jerusalem (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 35.

10. Stéphane Verhelst, La liturgie de Jérusalem à l’époque byzantine: Genèse et structures de l’année liturgique (Ph.D. diss, University of Jerusalem, 1993), 43, 151-153.

11. This ancient exegesis was known in Greek and Latin: e.g., Augustine notes the Eucharistic prayer’s Angel Christ to be God who appeared in Judges 13 and made himself, as Angel, part of the holocaust that ascends from the earthly altar to heaven, anticipating the cross. See Augustine of Hippo, Sancti Aureli Augustini Quaestionum in Heptateychum libri VII adnotationum in Iob liber unus, ed.

Ioseph Zycha, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 28.3.3 (Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1885), 503-504 (ch. 7.53-54).

12. Compare both the Old Latin and Jerome’s Vulgate that have the exact same phrase (Acts 2:4): “repleti sunt omnes Spiritu sancto (all were filled with the Holy Spirit). The Roman Canon obliquely cites Acts 2:4: “omni…gratia repleamur (filled with every grace).”

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Adoremus Bulletin, May 2021

Rite Questions: More Rite Answers?

Our March Bulletin contained a number of frequently asked question surrounding the Sacred Triduum, one of which asked whether “a cross or crucifix to be used for adoration on Good Friday?” (Adoremus Bulletin, March 2021, Volume XXVI, No. 6). Before examining many of the relevant details, our response claimed that “The answer to this question is unclear, either from the documents, from history, or from recent practice.”

We have received a number of thoughtful responses to our answer in the meantime, two of which are printed here for your consideration.

—The Editors The Crux of the Matter for Good Friday With all due respect, whoever wrote the answer to “Is a cross or crucifix to be used for adoration on Good Friday?” should have done some additional research.

The answer starts with, “The answer to this question is unclear, either from the documents, from history, or from recent practice.”

Not so!

I believe the answer is quite clear if one refers to the Roman Ritual: Book of Blessings, Chapter 35: Order for the Blessing of a New Cross for Public Veneration.

In the Introduction, Paragraph 1234 says, “On Good Friday the cross is presented to the faithful for their adoration and on the feast of the Triumph of the Cross, 14 September, it is honored as the symbol of Christ’s victory and the tree of life. But the cross also is the sign under which the people gather whenever they come to church, and in the homes of the baptized it holds a place of honor. When the times and local conditions permit, the faithful erect a cross in public place as an attestation of their faith and as a reminder of the love with which God has loved us.”

The following paragraph, 1235, says, “The image of the cross should preferably be a crucifix, that is, have the corpus attached, especially in the case of a cross that is erected in a place of honor inside a church.”

Now, granted that Paragraph 1238 mentions that this particular blessing (in Chapter 35) is meant only for the solemn blessing of a cross erected in a public place (such as in a cemetery, grotto, indoor or outdoor chapel or shrine, etc.) or the principal cross that occupies the central place in the body of the church (such as one above or behind the main altar installed after the church has been dedicated or blessed), I believe that the above paragraphs, 1234 and 1235 (I italicized the pertinent parts) refer to crosses generally since it mentions crosses not only in churches but in homes as well.

Chapter 44: Order for the Blessing of Religious Articles would be used for the blessing of small crucifixes such as those people put in their homes in a prominent place—above the front door, over the beds, in a “prayer corner,” etc.—and those that they wear.

So, bottom line: in my humble opinion, the Good Friday cross should be a crucifix!

—Timothy Suspanic, Pine Mountain, GA Good Friday Adoration—by the Books Lacking an authoritative interpretation, it should be conceded that the 2011 Roman Missal provides leeway for the use of a bare cross—it could have specified that the cross have a corpus upon it, but unlike the 1962 Missale Romanum it fails to do so. The initial rubric of the Adoration of the Cross, for instance, states simply: “Then, accompanied by two ministers with lighted candles, the Priest or the Deacon carries the Cross to the entrance of the sanctuary or to another suitable place and there puts it down or hands it over to the ministers to hold. Candles are placed on the right and left sides of the Cross.”1 Nonetheless, the Roman Church has not traditionally deployed a specific word for a cross-with-a-corpus as we, in English, use the term “crucifix.” Instead, the word crux, which is correctly translated as “cross,” is what is, in the vast majority of rubrical occurrences, used to refer to the crucifix employed in the rites. Unsurprisingly, then, other places in the Missal imply the presence of a corpus upon the cross. For instance, rubric 21 of Good Friday indicates that: “When the adoration has been concluded, the Cross is carried by the Deacon or a minister to its place at the altar. Lighted candles are placed around or on the altar or near the Cross.”

That Cross has originated in the sacristy (First Form) or entryway (Second Form) and, while perhaps held near the altar (First Form), it is certainly not yet set down near it. So how could we know its proper place “at the altar” when we’ve not been told anything about that place? Presumably, because it is taking the same “place” of the cross required during Mass, which the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) requires to

THE RITE QUESTIONS have a corpus: “Likewise, on the altar or close to it, there is to be a cross adorned with a figure of Christ crucified. The candles and the cross with the figure of Christ crucified may also be carried in the procession at the Entrance.”2 While Good Friday’s rubric 21 did not explicitly identify the adored cross as fulfilling the role of the altar cross during Mass, one can nonetheless note the parallel function not only during Good Friday’s Communion Rite but also at the conclusion of its liturgy, when the Missal calls for the cross to remain “on the altar,”3 much like the “cross, with the figure of Christ crucified” of which the GIRM states: “It is appropriate that such a cross, which calls to mind for the faithful the saving Passion of the Lord, remain near the altar even outside of liturgical celebrations.”4 Since there should be only one cross at the altar,5 we can infer that the cross adored on Good Friday should also have a corpus. Precisely because the Missal does not use the word “crucifix” but instead specifies the nature of its required cross as having “the figure of Christ crucified upon it,” we find that the cross-with-theCrucified of GIRM 122 is referred to simply as a “cross” in the following paragraph: “The Priest goes up to the altar and venerates it with a kiss. Then, if appropriate, he incenses the cross and the altar, walking around the latter.”6 GIRM 188 likewise omits explicit reference to the corpus on the processional cross specified by an earlier paragraph of the GIRM: “In the procession to the altar, the acolyte may carry the cross, walking between two ministers with lighted candles. Upon reaching the altar, however, the acolyte places the cross upright near the altar so that it may serve as the altar cross; otherwise, he puts it away in a dignified place.”7 All told, the citations provided here after a quick search of the Missal reveal a total of three paragraphs requiring a cross “with the figure of Christ crucified” (GIRM 117, 122, 308), while those three paragraphs determine the meaning of a further 19 paragraphs or rubrics in the GIRM and Order of Mass.8 Consequently, it is not at all out of character for the Missal to make mention of a cross when it intends to indicate what English speakers would refer to more precisely as a crucifix. The convention of the Latin editions of the Missal and other Roman liturgical books, past and present, is to use “Crucifixus” and its various declined forms to refer to the image of “the Crucified One,” and to refer to “the cross” on which that image is placed simply as the “crux.”

Thus the 1886 edition of the Caeremoniale Episcoporum describes the incensation of the altar cross, three chapters before informing the reader that the altar cross,9 not only on the main altar but also any other altars in the church, must more specifically be a cross with an image of the Crucified.10 In a similar way, the Missale Romanum of 1920 mentions in its general rubrics only the need for a “cross” in the middle of the altar,11 yet mentions the presence of an image of the Crucified as a matter of course when defining the direction of the celebrant’s initial bow at the outset of the Ritus servandus.12 Although the 1962 Missale eliminated the ambiguity by specifying the need for an image in the general rubrics themselves,13 we have already seen that the current Roman Missal has returned to the practice of delaying mention of a corpus until well past the first reference to a cross.14 The rubrics for Good Friday do not present an exception to this customary language. The 1886 Caeremoniale, between introductory summary and actual numbered paragraphs, refers to the cross used for adoration as a crux seven times15 before finally mentioning, at the second stage of unveiling, that the bishop uncovers “the right arm of the cross and the head of figure of the Crucified.”16 It reverts to crux throughout unless speaking specifically of the image. The 1920 Missale, for its part, does not mention the image of the crucified, but its concordance with the Caeremoniale is clear from the fact that both expect the cross to have begun the liturgy on the altar,17 to return to the altar after the Adoration of the Cross, and to be incensed as the altar cross18 in the customary fashion later in the rite.19 The 1955 reform of Holy Week called for the cross to be brought from the sacristy rather than beginning the liturgy on the altar, so it makes sense that the 1962 Missale would specify the need for a corpus on that cross rather than trust that the use of the altar cross will naturally fulfill this requirement.20 Nonetheless, it then follows standard form in referring to the cross (rather than a crucifix) 11 more times before specifying that the right arm to be uncovered during the showing of the cross is not merely that of the cross but of the Crucified.21 Having seen how the current Missal continues the tradition of using cross to mean crucifix, it

is hard to see why, given the suggestions of a crucifix already present in its Good Friday rubrics, we should not resolve the ambiguity through recourse to the traditional practice of the Roman Rite.22 In fact, this is precisely what the Roman Pontiffs have done in their own Celebrations of the Passion of the Lord. Thus, while the option for a plain cross in the modern liturgy cannot be ruled out authoritatively, the weight of tradition and parallel places quite strongly suggests that the faithful ought to adore a crucifix on Good Friday.

—Aaron Sanders, Grand Rapids, MI 1. Roman Missal, Good Friday 17.

2. GIRM 117; cf. GIRM 308.

3. Roman Missal, Good Friday, 33. It is only fair to note that Paschalis solemnitatis 71 provides for an alternative arrangement whereby an alternative place, like the previous night’s chapel of repose, may be prepared for veneration of the cross after the liturgy. This alternative should not, however, control the reading of the remaining rubrics.

4. GIRM 308.

5. Ibid., 122: “The cross adorned with a figure of Christ crucified, and carried in procession, may be placed next to the altar to serve as the altar cross, in which case it must be the only cross used; otherwise it is put away in a dignified place.”

6. Ibid., 123. Cf. other incensations of the cross at GIRM 49, 75, 144, 173, 178, 190, 211, 276, 277; Order of Mass 1, 27.

7. That is, specified by GIRM 122. In addition to the mention of GIRM 188, GIRM 119, 120, 274, and 350 refer to the processional cross without mentioning its corpus.

8. GIRM 49, 75, 100, 119, 120, 123, 144, 173, 178, 188, 190, 211, 274, 276, 277, 297, 350; Order of Mass 1, 27.

9. I.9.5: crux altaris.

10. I.12.11; I.12.16: cum imagine [Sanctissimi] Crucifixi.

11. 1920 Rubricae generales XX: Super Altare collocetur Crux in medio.

12. 1920 Ritus servandus II.2: Cum pervenerit ad Altare, stans ante illius infimum gradum, caput detegit, biretum ministro porrigit, et Altari, seu imagini Crucifixi desuper positæ, profunde se inclinat.

13. 1962 Rubricae generales 527.

14. G IRM 49 and 75 both refer to the incensation of the altar cross, and GIRM 100 to the processional cross, merely as “the cross” before the GIRM makes any explicit mention of “a figure of Christ crucified” (GIRM 117).

15. 1886 Caeremoniale Episcoporum II.15.

16. 1886 Caeremoniale II.15.23: brachium dexterum crucis, et caput figurae Crucifixi.

17. 1886 Caeremoniale Episcoporum II.15.2 and 23; 1920 Missale Romanum, Good Friday [rubrics are not numbered in this edition]: Sacerdos deposita casual accedit ad cornu Epistolae, et ibi in posteriori parte anguli Altaris accipit a Diacono Crucem jam in Altari præparatam.

18. 1886 Caeremoniale II.15.28; 1920 Missale: et finita adoratione, Crucem reverenter accipit, et reportat ad Altare.

19. Ibid., II.15.33; 1920 Missale: deinde imponit incensum in thuribulo absque benedictione, et incensat Oblata, Crucem et Altare more solito, genuflectens ante et post, et quandocumque transit ante Sacramentum.

20. 1962 Missale Romanum, Good Friday 14.

21. Ibid., Good Friday 16.

22. As we would to clarify the gestures and postures expected of clergy and faithful per GIRM 42.

MEMORIAL FOR Helen Hull Hitchcock from Dr. and Mrs. Richard Tondra Rena Jacobelli from Family Frances E. Mullen from Anthony C. Mullen Kenneth Whitehead from Margaret Whitehead

TO HONOR Cardinal Sarah - from Kenneth Solak

IN THANKSGIVING Our 62nd Wedding Anniversary Eugene and Yvonne Stivanelli Ordination - Fr. Jeffrey L’Arche

Adoremus Bulletin, May 2021

Readers’ Quiz Answers: 1. c. Jesus’ breathing the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles on the day after the Resurrection. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) states, “The mysteries of Christ’s life are the foundations of what he would henceforth dispense in the sacraments” (1115). That is to say, the words Jesus said (such as, “Receive the Holy Spirit”) and the actions he performed on earth (like sending the Spirit upon the apostles) established the sacraments. These same sacramental actions he performed in the flesh 2,000 years ago he continues to carry out through the Church and her sacraments, for “what was visible in our Savior has passed over into his sacraments” (St. Leo the Great, in CCC, 1115).

2. True. Pope Paul VI indicates this very thing—the sacrament’s essential matter and form—in the Apostolic Constitution Divinae Consortium Naturae by which he promulgated the current Order of Confirmation. While at first the sacrament was celebrated with the words and only the laying on of the hands (see Hebrews 6:1-2), “very early, the better to signify the gift of the Holy Spirit, an anointing with perfumed oil (chrism) was added to the laying on of hands” (CCC, 1289). In the Extraordinary Form, the palm of the hand is laid flat upon the top of the recipient’s head; in the Ordinary Form, the anointing with the thumb itself constitutes the laying on of the hand. During the period of COVID precautions, the Holy See indicated that “the use by the minister of an instrument (gloves, cotton swab...) does not affect the validity of the Sacrament.” Confusingly, the Order for Confirmation contains an epicletic prayer prior to the anointing (and essential laying on of the hand) that is also titled, “The Laying on of the Hands,” a prayer that is introduced by the words “Dearly beloved, let us pray to God the Father…” (Order of Confirmation, 24). This first “laying on of the hands” is usually expressed by the bishop (and concelebrating priests) extending his hands over the candidates as a group while saying the prayer “Almighty God.” Paul VI explained that this initial “laying on of the hands” differs from the latter one that accompanies the actual anointing, “[b]ut the laying of hands over the elect, carried out with the prescribed prayer before the anointing with Chrism, even if it is not of the essence of the sacramental rite, is still to be regarded as very important, inasmuch as it contributes to the complete perfection of the rite and to a more thorough understanding of the Sacrament.

It is evident that this prior laying on of hands differs from the later laying on of the hand in the anointing with Chrism on the forehead” (Apostolic Constitution for Confirmation).

3. f. None of the above. Not only ought the confirmation sponsor be the same person as the baptismal godparent (Introduction, Order of Confirmation, 5; Canon 893 §2), the Latin word for what we call “godparent” and “sponsor” is in fact the same: patrinus. Looking in the Code of Canon Law concerning confirmation sponsors, Canon 893 simply refers back to “the conditions mentioned in can. 874,” that

Continued from NEWS & VIEWS, page 2 would be a good year to introduce this reform of the calendar.

Speaking with the Swiss news agency Kath.ch, Cardinal Kurt Koch welcomed the proposal, saying the anniversary of the Council of Nicea was “a good opportunity” for this change.

The First Council of Nicea, held in 325, decided that Easter would be celebrated on the first Sunday after the full moon following the beginning of spring, making the earliest possible date for Easter March 22 and the latest possible April 25.

Today, Orthodox Christians use the Julian calendar to calculate the Easter date instead of the Gregorian calendar, which was introduced in 1582 and is used by most of the world. Because the Julian calendar calculates a slightly longer year, it is currently 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar.

Cardinal Koch said “I therefore welcome the move by Archbishop Job von Telmessos” and “I hope that it will meet with a positive response.”

“It will not be easy to agree on a common Easter date, but it is worth working for it,” he stated. “This wish is also very dear to Pope Francis and also to the Coptic Pope Tawadros.”

Archbishop Getcha noted that as early as 1997 a consultation was held by the WCC to discuss a common Easter date for Catholics and Orthodox. At that time it was decided to keep the norms established by the Council of Nicea.

Questions Continue Over Decree Ending Private Masses at St. Peter’s

By CNA Staff

After the Vatican Secretariat of State issued a decree on March 12 banning the practice of private Masses in

is, for baptismal godparents: “1) be designated by the one to be baptized, by the parents or the person who takes their place, or in their absence by the pastor or minister and have the aptitude and intention of fulfilling this function; 2) have completed the sixteenth year of age, unless the diocesan bishop has established another age, or the pastor or minister has granted an exception for a just cause; 3) be a Catholic who has been confirmed and has already received the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist and who leads a life of faith in keeping with the function to be taken on; 4) not be bound by any canonical penalty legitimately imposed or declared; 5) not be the father or mother of the one to be baptized.”

4. True. The Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium (26), as well as the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1312), describe the bishop as the “original minister” of Confirmation. For the Latin Rite, the Code of Canon Law (Canon 882) and in the Order of Confirmation (Introduction, 7), describes the bishop as the “ordinary minister.” The different titles express the changing practice of conferring the sacrament over the ages in the East and the West. In the earliest centuries, the bishop conferred each of the three sacraments of initiation—Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist. Hence, he was the original minister of the sacrament. As the number of the faithful increased, it was not possible for the bishop to preside at every initiation. Generally, the Eastern Churches continued to celebrate the three sacraments together, even if this meant that a priest (rather than the bishop) would celebrate them. In the West, the celebration of the initiation sacraments was separated over the early years of a Catholic’s life, but Confirmation was generally reserved to the bishop. For this reason, as the Catechism n. 1313 notes, the bishop is called the ordinary minister in the Latin Church (that is, a priest would be the “ordinary minister” in the Eastern rites).

5. d. Between the age of discretion and 16. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have decreed by a complementary norm to Canon 891 that “the Sacrament of Confirmation in the Latin rite shall be conferred between the age of discretion and about sixteen years of age, within the limits determined by the diocesan bishop.” While recent (and current) practice sees most Catholic candidates confirmed in the middle-teen years, more bishops are restoring the sequence of the sacraments of initiation to their original order: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist. In these instances, it is most fitting for the bishop to confirm candidates at “the age of discretion” (around age seven) and give them their first Holy Communion at the same Mass. However, “if the candidates are not being admitted to first Holy Communion at this liturgical celebration…, Confirmation should be conferred outside Mass” (Introduction to the Order of Confirmation, 13).

11

a special name for Confirmation. Still, the practice has been a custom in the United States.

7. a. Increases and amplifies baptismal gifts. Associated closely with the sacrament of Baptism, Confirmation adds more: “Confirmation perfects Baptismal grace; it is the sacrament which gives the Holy Spirit in order to root us more deeply in the divine filiation, incorporate us more firmly into Christ, strengthen our bond with the Church, associate us more closely with her mission, and help us bear witness to the Christian faith in words accompanied by deeds” (CCC, 1316).

8. e. None of the above. The Ritual Mass for Confirmation, during which the bishop (or priest) would wear red or white (see General Instruction for the Roman Missal, 347; also Roman Missal: Ritual Mass for the Conferral of Confirmation), is not permitted on a Sunday during the Easter season, so the Mass (and readings) would be that of the Sunday with its proper color, which during Easter is white. Whichever Mass is used, the renewal of baptismal promises takes the place of the Creed (Roman Missal: Ritual Mass for the Conferral of Confirmation; Order of Confirmation within Mass, 31). The blessing and sprinkling with holy water is associated with the Penitential Act and has no bearing on the later use of the Creed or renewal of baptismal promises. In most cases when the Litany of the Saints is used at Mass, these replace the Universal Prayer, but the Litany is not called for at a Mass during which Confirmation is administered.

9. False. It is the case that a priest can bless the Oil of the Sick “in case of necessity” (Canon 999), but “the chrism to be used in the sacrament of confirmation must be consecrated by a bishop even if a presbyter administers the sacrament” (Canon 880 §2).

6. False. There exists no official document—Code of Canon Law, Order of Confirmation, etc.—that prescribes the use of

10. c. Unfruitful. The validity of a sacrament requires proper matter, form, and intention on the part of the minister, the intention “to do what the Church does” when administering the rite. But even if each of these is present, the sacrament of Confirmation will not be validly received if the recipient actively objects—one cannot be forced to receive Confirmation. Still, it may happen that the sacrament of Confirmation is received with a passive objection: that is, the recipient may participate in the rite but with imperfect desire or alternative motives. Presuming the rite is celebrated with proper matter (anointing with Sacred Chrism), form (“Be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit”), by a proper minister with the right intention, then the sacrament is valid, even for one whose presence is motivated by parental pressure. But the graces of the sacrament will be unfruitful until the obstacle (obex, in sacramental theology terms) is removed. When it is, then the graces objectively and validly given by the sacrament of Confirmation revivify and become active in the spiritual life of the recipient.

the main church of St. Peter’s Basilica, questions remain about the manner in which it was promulgated, which was unusual for a document of its importance.

Starting March 22, the document says, priests would be invited to take part in several concelebrated Masses at St. Peter’s every day, but would not be permitted to celebrate private Masses at the basilica’s many side altars.

The decree says the changes are intended to ensure “the Holy Masses in St. Peter’s Basilica take place in a climate of recollection and liturgical decency.”

Under the new protocols, groups of pilgrims, accompanied by a bishop or priest who has booked an altar, will still be permitted to celebrate private Masses in the grottos beneath the Church.

Mass offered in the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite will be limited to the Clementine Chapel in the Vatican Grotto under the new protocols.

Cardinal Raymond Burke, former prefect of the Church’s highest court, released a letter March 13 critiquing the decree’s “form and content,” saying that the Secretariat of State lacks the competent authority to issue directives regarding the offering of Mass at St. Peter’s.

As CNA has previously reported, the decree was released by the First Section of the Secretariat of State, an office normally in charge of all the Curial offices’ direction and coordination but typically not liturgical celebrations.

The letter from the Secretariat of State is not addressed to the Archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, who is in charge of the worship and pastoral activity of the basilica, but to Archbishop Mario Giordana, extraordinary commissioner of the Fabric of St. Peter.

The Fabric of St. Peter does not deal with liturgical celebrations in the Basilica, but is instead charged with its conservation and maintenance.

Despite the unusual nature of the decree, two Vati-

can officials who asked for anonymity have confirmed to CNA that the document is real. The Vatican has not publicly commented on the document.

Prior to the change, the 45 altars and 11 chapels in St. Peter’s Basilica have been used every morning by priests to celebrate their daily Mass. Many of them are Vatican officials who begin their day with the celebration.

Burke contended that the new decree “imposes concelebration” on priests wishing to celebrate Mass at the basilica, “in violation of his freedom to offer the Holy Mass individually.”

Canon 902 of the Code of Canon Law states that priests “are completely free to celebrate the Eucharist individually...but not while a concelebration is taking place in the same church or oratory.” Despite the letter of Canon 902, the practice of many Masses celebrated at the same time in St. Peter’s was a longstanding tradition that predates the Code of Canon Law. The general daily Mass schedule in St. Peter’s Basilica lists one Mass per hour from 9 a.m. to noon, in Italian, at the Altar of the Chair. There is another Mass in Italian at 8.30 a.m. at the altar of the Most Holy Sacrament, while every day at 5 p.m., there is a Mass in Latin.

On Sundays, there are five Masses celebrated in Italian and one in Latin.

The release of the letter was not accompanied by any kind of official Vatican communication, and it lacks a protocol number, a typical feature of communications of this type. Nor was the letter signed in full by Archbishop Edgar Pena Parra, who heads the First Section of the Secretariat of State, but instead included only his initials.

The decree was not entirely unforeseen. CNA reported in January discussions were taking place about whether to continue to allow private Masses at the Basilica.

Cardinal Angelo Comastri retired as the basilica’s archpriest on February 20, and Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Mauro Gambetti as his replacement.

12

Adoremus Bulletin, May 2021

Mystery and Liturgy Bridge Gap Between East and West

Liturgical Mysticism by David W. Fagerberg. Steubenville: Emmaus Academic, 2019. 171 pp. ISBN: 9781949013672. $29.95 Hardcover; $22.95 eBook.

within the person which is ordered towards communion and self-giving love for another. Mysticism is mediated to the faithful through the liturgy celebrated by the Church that leads us into the heart of the Paschal mystery. Hence, Fagerberg argues, “Being baptized by sacrament into his mystery makes our lives a personal liturgy rotating around the twin poles of glorifying God and cooperating with our sanctification” (49).

By Roland Millare

I

n his encyclical on ecumenism, Ut Unum Sint, Pope John Paul II exhorts the faithful with this clarion call: the “Church must breathe with her two lungs!” (54).

David Fagerberg demonstrates how to accomplish this task with his work Liturgical Mysticism. In his previous works, Fagerberg has drawn almost exclusively from the Eastern Christian authors; in Liturgical Mysticism, Fagerberg draws upon the wells of wisdom from the Church Fathers to more recent theologians of both the East and the West. Fagerberg masterfully weaves together the insights of the Church’s greatest thinkers.

Indeed, the names of the writers cited in the book offer an indication the breadth and depth of Fagerberg’s analysis: John Chrysostom, Gregory the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, John Climacus, Maximus the Confessor, Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas Aquinas, Francis De Sales, Catherine of Siena, John Arintero, Jordan Aumann, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Francis Libermann, Louis Bouyer, Matthias Scheeban, Columba Marmion, Paul Evdokimov, Pavel Florensky, Joseph Ratzinger, and Alexander Schmemann. This work should be read by both Catholics (from the Western and Eastern Churches) and our brethren in the Eastern Orthodox Church because of its engagement of both Eastern and Western Christian spirituality. Fagerberg’s work is an authentically ecumenical work, which models for the readers how to breathe with the Church’s two lungs Trilogy Complete Liturgical Mysticism is the culmination of Fagerberg’s triptych on the liturgy, which includes his two previously published works, Consecrating the World (Angelico Press, 2016) and On Liturgical Ascetism (CUA Press, 2013).

The mystical life in Fagerberg’s estimation is “the normal crowning of the Christian life because eternal life is the life for which we yearn” (xvii), so it is fitting that this book rounds out his liturgical trilogy. The desert monk Evagrius exhorts us to remember that “the one who is a theologian, prays.” Fagerberg consistently reminds his readers that the one who is a liturgist, worships, and the one who is an ascetic, practices self-denial.

The life of a mystic is the end for all Christians who embrace their vocation as it is for the theologian, the liturgist, and the ascetic. Under the influence of his two mentors, Alexander Schmemann and Aidan Kavanagh, Fagerberg consistently argues that the liturgy is the ultimate source of theology—theologia prima. The contribution of his most recent work is to offer insight into the inherent relationship between liturgy and mysticism.

Fagerberg rejects the “either/or” dichotomy, which would separate the “Church and world, mystery and the mundane, eschaton and time, liturgy and life” (xviii) in the lives of the faithful. The sacraments and the sacred liturgy are sources of sanctification of every aspect of life.

The liturgy enables us to have access to the Paschal Mystery, which in turn should transform our everyday lives with the graces of the mystical life: “Liturgical mysticism is the development of graces received in baptism; liturgical asceticism is the process which develops those graces; the product of those graces is a liturgical theologian who is enlightened. Liturgical mysticism wants to know what is done inside a person by the liturgy” (xviii-xix). The focus of this book is to examine what happens within a person as fruit of his participation in the liturgy (mysticism), while works of liturgical theology focus on what happens in the liturgy. In this brief work, Fagerberg unpacks one of his concise (and, as always, very dense) definitions: “Liturgical mysticism is the Trinitarian mystery, mediated by sacramental liturgy and hypostasized as personal liturgy, to anchor the substance of our lives” (xxi). In other words, mysticism is simply our participation in the life and love of the Persons of the Trinity via the signs and symbols of the liturgy. Both the academic liturgist and the everyday liturgist—say, Mrs. Murphy—could equally benefit by entering into this understanding with Fagerberg as their guide.

The interpretive key to unlocking the meaning of liturgical mysticism is the Greek word hypostasis, which was adopted by the Fathers in the development of Christology. Citing the work of G.L. Prestige, Fagerberg notes that the ancient meaning of hypostasis was a reference to the “dregs of wine in a cask” (78). In other words, the hypostasis is the essence or substance of a thing. Applying this to the reality of the liturgy, Fagerberg argues, “Liturgy’s business is to celebrate the Paschal mystery, and when it does, the mystery hypostasizes in us, descends to us, takes up home in us, becomes the substance of our lives” (78).

The mystery of the Incarnation becomes transformative

for the person participating in the liturgy. In the words of the Fathers such as Athanasius, “God became man, so that man might become God.” The human person becomes by grace what Jesus Christ is by nature.

The Incarnation is the other side of the mystical deification that is realized through grace in the interior lives the faithful. According to Fagerberg, “Christ’s God-manhood is the prototype of the icon we are mystically becoming.

When it mystically hypostasizes in our substance, then Christ’s Church, his mystery, will be beautiful in us” (7879). Liturgical Mysticism is simply a Christocentric liturgical theology, which develops the full implications of the relationship between the lex orandi (liturgy), lex credendi (theology), and lex vivendi (ascetism).

God in All The development of the hypostasis of Christ begins with the liturgy because it is formal. Building upon the insight of Paul Holmer, Fagerberg argues the liturgy is formal in the sense that God determines the form of liturgy as latria (adoration) and not simply dulia (veneration) in Chapter 1. God is the object and subject of the liturgy because it is latria. If the liturgy were dulia, then the worshipers would become the subjects of the liturgy and hence liturgy would change with the whims of the subjects. Liturgy as latria directs the person to become transformed by communion with the Logos.

Hence, St. Paul describes the formal grammar of the liturgy as logike latreia (Romans 12:1). The liturgy capacitates the person to form his life into a living sacrifice shaped by the Logos. With his stylistic clarity, Fagerberg notes: “Liturgy is heaven on earth, liturgists are mystics, and these liturgical mystics undergo the asceticism which is the cost of being made Christoform in order to commit liturgy. The parts of the Christian life—liturgy, theology, asceticism—interweave mystically with each other like dancers around the Maypole” (19). The life of mysticism is normative for every ordinary Christian, in Fagerberg’s view.

Mysticism is not simply for exceptional or extraordinary Christians. In Chapter 2, beginning with the insight of Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Fagerberg rejects the divorce between ascetism and mysticism. The artificial separation leads to an insurmountable divide between ordinary and extraordinary Christians. The liturgy gives every ordinary Christian access to the mystical life because liturgical mysticism is “liturgy mystically energizing an individual member of the mystical body that the leitourgia has created” (31). Baptism forms each individual into a liturgical person as it gives him a share in sanctifying or deifying grace (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1999). Mysticism is simply the consummation of the potential deification which begins with Baptism. The hypostasis of Christ is accessible via the celebration of the liturgy: “Liturgy is the perichoresis of the Trinity reaching out to us through the kenosis of the Son in order to invite our synergistic ascent to deification. That is the substance [hypostasis] that occurs in all our ritual liturgies” (39).

Mysticism is aptly described as “liturgical” because the liturgy offers the faithful a way into to the mysteries of Christ’s life.

In light of the foundation laid by the first two chapters, the liturgical nature of theological anthropology is the theme of Chapter 3. According to Fagerberg, “Liturgical mysticism is personal insofar as it is the mystery of Trinitarian love being reproduced in a person’s soul, and the soul of a liturgical person receives personhood from the corporate, sacramental body acting as an instrument of Christ” (44). In contrast with the modern view of the person, which reduces the person to an individualistic autonomous subject, the liturgy hypostasizes a sacramental life

Way of the Cross The latter half of Fagerberg’s work focuses on the ascent towards mysticism and the eschaton, which passes through the path of asceticism (Chapter 4) and the Cross (Chapter 5). Fagerberg maintains the view that “Asceticism and mysticism share a liturgical unity, and they will not let go of their embrace until the Parousia” (65-66).

Chapter 4 offers an invaluable reflection upon eight logismoi that affect the passions and consequently the liturgical mystery: gluttony, impurity, avarice, sadness, anger, acedia, vainglory, and pride (67-74). The remedy to order the passions is the life of the Logos becoming our life by our participation in the liturgy. Consequently, Fagerberg underscores the “Paschal mystery hypostasizing in our hearts” (78) as a definition of liturgical mysticism. The sacramental liturgy and the personal liturgy are united in the ascetical life.

Consistent asceticism prepares the room of our hearts for the development of the hypostasis of Christ within us.

The challenge of ascetism is death, which must take place on a daily basis as we move from the Cross to the Resurrection. Chapter 5, in contrast with the previous chapter, highlights the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity as names for the subjective condition for belief in the Resurrection. Human belief alone is insufficient and the liturgy, which offers the gift of mystical communion with Christ, forges the habit of Christ’s faith, hope, and charity within us.

The final chapters of Liturgical Mysticism (Chapters 6 and 7) outline the mystical state which is the fruit of the liturgy and the intrinsic link between the liturgy and the eschaton. The liturgy offers a foretaste of the eschaton through the mystical life: “The mysticism is liturgical because we are following Christ in all things. The liturgy is mystical because our transfer form Hades to the heavenly Jerusalem can be pre-experienced, anticipated, celebrated, already undergone premortem” (118). Through the Incarnation, the eternal Logos became flesh and this mystery is extended via the celebration of the liturgy.

Christ’s death and resurrection has opened the gate towards deification through communion with and within the inner life and love of the Trinity. Mysticism is simply our ascent towards this union with God. Consequently, the Eucharist is the eschaton simultaneously anticipated and not yet fulfilled. Highlighting the notion of hunger and thirst, Fagerberg comments the Eucharist both “increases our hunger” and “amplifies our thirst”; the Eucharist neither satisfies our hunger nor satiates our thirst (138). Liturgical mysticism enables us to live fruitfully between the eschatological “already” and “not yet.” The eschaton is simply the liturgy reaching its full fruition: communion with God and the blessed company of the saints. Holy Communion is a foretaste of the heavenly communion.

Lived Liturgy David Fagerberg’s Liturgical Mysticism should be prayerfully read by all the faithful because the liturgy has in practice become something that we passively attend or we objectively study. As with all works of Fagerberg, the liturgy is primarily understood by worshiping and by recognizing that the liturgy is the primary subject of theology.

This work is a sober reminder that the liturgy mystically transforms the interior life. Prima facie, Fagerberg’s work is needlessly repetitive, but the repetition of definitions and phrases is analogous to the use of antiphons within a chant. The constant use of the refrains relating to theology, mysticism, liturgy, kenosis, perichoresis, the world, culture, and the Cross are essential to understanding the true Trinitarian and Christocentric spirit of the liturgy.

The main takeaway from all of Fagerberg’s work is the Liturgy enables every Mrs. Murphy to become a mystic and a liturgist through her full participation in the liturgy.

Theologians and liturgists could learn invaluable lessons from a faithful Mrs. Murphy.

Roland Millare serves as the chair of the Theology Department at St. John XXIII College Preparatory, Katy, TX, the Program Director of Shepherd’s Heart (a continuing education and formation program for priests and deacons) for the St. John Paul II Foundation, Houston, TX, and an adjunct professor of theology for deacon candidates at the University of St. Thomas School of Theology at St. Mary’s Seminary, Houston, TX. Roland earned a doctorate in sacred theology (STD) at the Liturgical Institute/University of St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein, IL.