Liturgy Reflections

The origin of the saints...

St. Pope John Paul II is said to have canonized more saints than any other pope in history. Canonization is that process, with its concluding ritual, that officially puts someone on the Church’s list of saints, people who enjoy heaven due to their heroic pursuit of holiness. In the first thousand years of the Church’s history there was no canonization process. People were simply acclaimed by the public to be holy and therefore to be honored as saints in heaven.

However during the 6th and 7th centuries the number of people regarded as saints rapidly multiplied, and various abuses occurred. Praying for assistance from saints came to be more popular than imitating the holiness of their lives. People became obsessed with miracles and with possessing relics - the physical remains or possessions of people considered to be saints. Great shrines would be built to house these relics, bringing pilgrims from afar, even to the point where the presence of saints’ relics in a church would sometimes be perceived as more important than the Eucharist that was celebrated there. Such seemingly odd customs continue today in some places, as, for example, the burying of a statue of St. Joseph in the hopes of selling property.

Eventually a controlled process for examining candidates’ lives became essential. At first the local bishop conducted the investigation into a person’s reputation for holiness, then, as authority became increasingly centralized in Rome, the process was shifted to Roman offices. The first person to be officially named a saint was Bishop Ulrich of Augsburg in Germany, who died in 973, and was canonized by Pope John XV in 993.

The first saints to be honored by the primitive Christian community were, for the most part, martyrs. Names like Stephen, Peter and Paul come immediately to mind, but the successive persecutions of Christians by the Roman Empire produced thousands of martyrs, most of them nameless. Friends and loved ones of these brave people who had given their lives for the faith would gather at their places of burial on the anniversaries of their deaths. In fact, these anniversaries were called “birthdays,” for it was on the day of death that these heroic people began new and eternal life.

Another category of saint is the “confessor.” This is not one to whom someone else confesses sins, as we understand that term today, but rather someone who defended the Christian faith publicly, who might have then suffered prison, torture and exile, but not death. However when they did die, they were given the same honor as martyrs. St. Nicholas, bishop of Myra, who died in 350, and who is the real person behind the Santa Clause tradition, was revered as a “confessor.”

Over the centuries there have been countless thousands of people who have sought to lead the holy life, but only a handful have feast days on our liturgical calendar, and fewer still are names that are familiar to us. Familiar or not, we believe ourselves to be in close communion with them. Indeed, the Church considers itself to be a “communion of saints,” a belief already found in the Apostles’ Creed by the late fifth century, but going back much earlier in popular piety and practice. The doctrine of the communion of saints describes the Church as a community of all the faithful, living and dead, called together by God and transformed by Christ and the Spirit. So Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church affirms, “For all who belong to Christ, having his Spirit, form one church and cleave together in him. Therefore, the union of the wayfarers with the brothers and sisters who have gone to sleep in the peace of Christ is not in the least interrupted.”

Ethical demands of the Eucharist...

An important point made in one of St. John Paul II’s encyclical letters is that the Eucharist is both a “cosmic” event pointing to life in the next world, and a summons to social responsibility on this earth. The Book of Revelation indeed gives shape to a Christian vision that expects “new heavens” and “a new earth,” but, as the pope explains, “this increases, rather than lessens, our sense of responsibility for the world today. I wish to reaffirm this forcefully at the beginning of the new millennium, so that Christians will feel more obliged than ever not to neglect their duties as citizens of this world. Theirs is the task of contributing with the light of the Gospel to the building of a more human world, a world fully in harmony with God’s plan.”

Pope John Paul then briefly described some of the dimensions of human experience where change must take place: “Many problems darken the horizon of our time. We need but think of the urgent requirement to work for peace, to base relationships between peoples on solid premises of justice and solidarity, and to defend human life from conception to its natural end. And what should we say of the thousand inconsistencies of a ‘globalized’ world where the weakest, the most powerless and the poorest appear to have so little hope! It is in this world that Christian hope must shine forth! For this reason too, the Lord wished to remain with us in the Eucharist, making his presence in meal and sacrifice the promise of a humanity renewed by his love. Significantly, in their account of the Last Supper, the Synoptics recount the institution of the Eucharist, while the Gospel of John relates, as a way of bringing out its profound meaning, the account of the ‘washing of the feet’, in which Jesus appears as the teacher of communion and of service. The Apostle Paul, for his part, says that it is ‘unworthy’ of a Christian community to partake of the Lord’s Supper amid division and indifference towards the poor.”

Pope Francis is constantly stressing our responsibility to the poor of this world. Does our participation in the liturgy prompt us to deeper concern for the poor and to a thirst for justice? The Catechism of the Catholic Church also insists on the critical relationship between the Eucharist and commitment to the poor, declaring that truly receiving Christ’s body and blood depends upon recognizing Christ “in the poorest.” St. John Chrysostom admonished his people in the fourth century, “You have tasted the blood of the Lord, yet you do not recognize your brother or sister. You dishonor this table when you do not judge worthy of sharing your food someone judged worthy to take part in this meal…God has invited you here, but you have not become more merciful.”

Contemporary theologian Nathan Mitchell captures our attention when he wonders what would happen if people matched every hour spent in Eucharistic prayer and adoration with an hour spent in a soup kitchen. He writes, “Every time Christians gather at the Lord’s table, they acknowledge their solidarity with the world’s poor, with all the outcast and marginalized - the unlovely, unloved, unwashed and unwanted of our species - and they also make the radical political statement that the world’s present socioeconomic order is doomed. It will, Christians believe, be replaced by God’s reign, where all have equal access to the feast, where the only power is power exercised on behalf of the poor and needy, where God’s agenda is the human agenda, where God has chosen relatedness to people as the only definition of the divine.”

Eucharistic prayers for various occasions...

Some of the little known treasures in our collection of liturgical texts are some relatively new Eucharistic prayers. In 1994 the United States bishops approved the use of these new prayers, and a year latter the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship authorized their use in our country. They are called the Eucharistic Prayers for Use in Masses for Various Occasions, and may be used by parishes and other faith communities in their celebrations of the Eucharist.

This brings to thirteen the number of Eucharistic prayers to choose from. There are four for general use, two that focus on the theme of reconciliation, and three for the celebration of Mass with children. The addition of these most recent prayers is in keeping with the norm that each national conference of bishops may propose new Eucharistic prayers for use in their countries. In fact, these most recent prayers originated in Switzerland in 1974, and subsequently several other European countries petitioned the Vatican for their use.

Each prayer has a general theme: The Church on the Path of Unity, God Guides the Church along the Way of Salvation, Jesus, the Way to the Father, and Jesus, Who Who Went About Doing Good. Those who hear these prayers at the celebration of the Eucharist will notice that the texts are more poetic than the current translations of many of the Eucharistic prayers with which we are familiar. An example of the beautiful wording is found in the the prayer entitled “The Church on the Path of Unity.” The preface explains why we are giving thanks and praise: Father, “by the word of your Son’s gospel you have brought together one Church from every people, tongue and nation, and having filled her with life by the power of your Spirit, you never cease through her to gather the whole human race into one. Manifesting the covenant of your love, she dispenses without ceasing the blessed hope of your Kingdom and shines bright as the sign of your faithfulness, which in Christ Jesus our Lord you promised would last for eternity.”

Toward the end of the Eucharistic prayer we then express our particular needs in the intercessions: “Lord, renew your Church, which is in Western Washington, by the light of the Gospel. Strengthen the bond of unity between the faithful and the pastors of your people, together with Francis our Pope, Peter our Bishop, and the whole Order of Bishops, that in a world torn by strife your people may shine forth as a prophetic sign of unity and concord.
Remember our brothers and sisters who have fallen asleep in the peace of your Christ, and all the dead, whose faith you alone have known. Admit them to rejoice in the light of your face, and in the resurrection give them the fulness of life.”

Using the children's lectionary...

The Church has, in its collection of official books, a lectionary of scriptural readings that is intended for use at liturgies where there are large numbers of children. This lectionary was approved in 1991 for use in our parishes. In this book the readings for each Sunday and feast of the liturgical year correspond as closely as possible to the readings that adults hear each Sunday, but these children’s readings are adapted to the needs and capacities of children. The existence of such a book of children’s scriptural readings tells us that there is no absolute way to translate the scriptural readings. There may be various translations, depending upon cultures and the particular pastoral needs of peoples. In adapting the scriptural texts for use with children, the Church’s goal is to nourish their faith and to lead them to “active, conscious and authentic participation” in the worship of the whole assembly, but not, at the same time, to establish a different rite just for children.

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When would this lectionary for Masses with children be used? When, on a given Sunday, an unusually number of children are present. An example would be a Sunday liturgy where there are a large number of Boy or Girl Scouts, or a large number of children from a nearby Catholic summer camp, etc. The special lectionary would also be used at liturgies where the children present leave the church to celebrate their own liturgy of the word elsewhere. And, of course, the children’s lectionary could be used when most of the people present at the liturgy are children, for example, at a school Mass.

The reason why we have this special collection of readings is that the Church has concern for the pastoral care of children. This pastoral concern finds concrete expression in the Directory for Masses with Children, published by the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship in 1973. This remarkable document provides for adaptations that can be made when the Eucharist is celebrated with young children so that the words and actions of the Mass will be more suitable to the comprehension of the children. The Directory, in particular, provides for the adaptation of the liturgy of the Word.

Although there may be reasons why the lectionary for children might be used at a Sunday celebration, the norms for its use explain that it should not be used on a regular basis: “Proper balance and consideration for the entire assembly should be observed. Therefore, priest celebrants should not use this Lectionary for Masses with Children exclusively or even preferentially at Sunday Masses, even though large numbers of children are present.” In addition, the norms state that on Christmas Day, Epiphany, the Sundays of Lent, Easter Day, Ascension, and Pentecost this special lectionary may be used only when the liturgy of the Word with the children is held in a place apart from the main assembly. This is to ensure that on these days, in the main body of the church, the regular lectionary of readings will take precedence over the lectionary for children.

The prayer of the marriage liturgy...

The Prayer of the Marriage Liturgy

This October saw many of the world’s bishops and Pope Francis meet in Rome to discuss the topic of marriage and the family. We are familiar with the Church’s long-standing insistence on the sanctity of marriage, and its requirement that weddings be celebrated in Catholic churches and be witnessed by a presiding priest or deacon. But such was not always the case. In the first three centuries of Christianity, people married only according to the civil laws of the time. There would be the traditional family ceremony, but there would rarely be any church blessing of the wedding. Christian writers of the day said little about marriage, but when they did, they affirmed the goodness of marriage, urged people to marry within their community, and warned about proper behavior at wedding feasts.

In the fourth century there is strong evidence that priests, at least on occasion, would give their blessing to some weddings, not because this was required, but more as a favor to the couple. Popes of the time began to require that at least priests and other clerics who married must have their unions blessed by another priest. In fact, until well into the eleventh century, the only marriages that were celebrated inside the church building seem to have been the weddings of priests and other clergy. The custom then rapidly spread, so that eventually the Church would have authority over marriages, and the ceremonies would have to be celebrated in church buildings and officially blessed by Catholic clergy.

The liturgy of marriage has great symbolic power, as does all of our liturgical ritual. Yet we realize that a ceremony alone does not guarantee a healthy and lasting marriage. Nor is it sufficient to rely on the Church’s clear teaching about the significance and sanctity of the marriage bond. Other powerful cultural forces are at work, telling people that marriage may not be as important as once commonly believed. All parishes that I know of have excellent marriage preparation programs, required of all who plan to marry. Yet the divorce rate among Catholics remains alarmingly high. And half of all marriages this year will end in divorce. The average length of those marriages is a little over seven years. Most of these divorced people will remarry, but 60 percent of those second marriages will also end in divorce.

The U.S. bishops, along with the Southern Baptist Convention and the National Association of Evangelicals, addressed this alarming issue in a joint statement some years ago: “Our nation is threatened by a high divorce rate, a rise in cohabitation, a rise in non-marital births, a decline in the marriage rate, and a diminishing interest in and readiness for marrying, especially among young people. The documented adverse impact of these trends on children, adults, and society is alarming. Therefore, as church leaders, we recognize an unprecedented need and responsibility to help couples begin, build, and sustain better marriages, and to restore those threatened by divorce.”

We eagerly await what our bishops and Pope Francis will finally say about marriage and family life. Though it is unclear what the future holds, the liturgy of the marriage rite, well celebrated, remains with us as a powerful and forceful voice about the sanctity of marriage and the power of a healthy and holy marriage to shape the attitudes and lives of countless others.

Hymns for the liturgy...

It may seem surprising, but only sixty or so years ago there was virtually no singing during the liturgy. In those days, prior to the Second Vatican Council, the Mass was celebrated in two ways: the High Mass and the Low Mass. The High Mass had singing, with priest, deacon and choir having their assigned parts. These were complex liturgies, and were rare in the average parish because of the lack of deacons, subdeacons and competent choirs. The members of the congregation remained silent throughout.

The Low Mass was the liturgy that most Catholics encountered on Sundays and weekdays. There was rarely any singing by anyone. Even if congregational singing were allowed, it would have been in the form of Latin chants. Hymns in English (or the language of the people) were forbidden. 

All of this would change in 1963 with the publication of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. In this foundational document for liturgical renewal, the Church solemnly taught that “A liturgical service takes on a nobler aspect when the rites are celebrated with singing, the sacred ministers take their part in them, and the faithful actively participate… Bishops and pastors must be at pains to ensure that whenever a liturgical service is to be celebrated with song, the whole assembly of the faithful is enabled, to contribute the active participation that belongs to them.”

The ancient Latin Gregorian chants were still given “pride of place” in the liturgy, but in practice chants and hymns in the language of the people have become the norm throughout the world. The Constitution encouraged new musical compositions, not just suited to large choirs, but that would engage everyone in the assembly. In addition, the texts meant to be sung were to “always be consistent with Catholic teaching; indeed, they should be drawn chiefly from holy Scripture and liturgical sources.”

The most important parts to be sung in the liturgy are the acclamations: the Alleluia before the gospel, the Holy, Holy, the Memorial acclamation, the Great Amen, and For the Kingdom, the power, and the glory... after the Lord’s Prayer. Next in priority to be sung are the two processional chants, the entrance song and the Communion song. In most cases these are popular hymns taken from the hymnal. The responsorial psalm also is best sung. Other parts may be sung as well, but priority should always be given to the acclamations. For example, a liturgy that includes an opening and closing hymn, and perhaps a hymn at the preparation of the gifts and at Communion time, but ignores the Alleluia and the Great Amen, is musically deficient.

The popular songs in our hymnals are always a source of divergent opinion, as are all forms of art. Some new hymns will someday be considered traditional, while most will not make the list of classic hymns. We also have a great treasury of hymns from other faith traditions, from the Protestant tradition in particular. Our hymnals normally include hymns by Protestant composers. It is interesting to note that the Vatican’s Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism, published in 1993, even recommends that both Catholic and Protestant hymnals include a collection of hymns that might be sung when Catholics and Protestants gather to worship together.

 

Money or other gifts...

At the celebration of the Mass, after the liturgy of the Word is completed, the liturgy of the Eucharist begins with the preparation of the altar and the presentation of the gifts. The norms for the celebration then say that “the offerings are then brought forward. It is a praiseworthy practice for the bread and wine to be presented by the faithful. They are then accepted at an appropriate place by the priest or deacon and carried to the altar. Even though the faithful no longer bring from their own possessions the bread and wine intended for the liturgy as was once the case, nevertheless the rite of carrying up the offerings still keeps its spiritual efficacy and significance.”

In early centuries this procession with the gifts disappeared, likely due to the decrease in the number of those receiving Communion and the fact that the Church began using specially made unleavened bread instead of the common leavened bread. Though traces of the procession continued through the Middle Ages, the presentation of bread and wine by members of the congregation was, from the eleventh century, generally replaced by the giving of money. With the reforms of Vatican II, the procession has been restored. Now not only bread and wine but money or other gifts for the poor or for the Church are brought in procession.

The bread and wine are not to be confused with the gifts for the poor or the Church. While all of these items represent the labor and self-sacrifice of people, the bread and wine are brought for transformation, so that we will receive them back as the Eucharistic presence of the risen Christ. It is what has been called from ancient times a “holy exchange.” The money and food items, on the other hand, are not meant for transformation in this sense. Thus they do not need any special ritual attention other than to present them as gifts. They do not need to be blessed or be attended to with any particular ceremony. Their special character is ritualized simply by the act of bringing them in procession and their reception by priest or deacon. The norms for the celebration of the liturgy try to make this distinction clear by the directive that “these are put in a suitable place away from the eucharistic table.” 

Many parishes have attractive baskets at the church entrance where food offerings can be placed. These same baskets are then taken in procession. They would then be placed somewhere in the sanctuary where they are visible but not competing for attention with altar, pulpit or the priest’s chair. The gifts should also remain there for the entire liturgy. Some parishes used to have ushers enter the sanctuary and take the money away as soon as it was placed there, presumably to take it to a safer place or so that people could begin counting it. Once presented in procession, the money becomes a symbol within the liturgy, and should be left alone until the liturgy is finished.

Liturgy and popular piety...

Liturgy is a word that is generally used to refer to the whole collection of rites that make up the Church’s official prayers. Thus the Church’s liturgy includes all seven sacramental rituals, the rituals for Christian funerals, the prayers said throughout the course of each day, called the liturgy of the hours, and various blessings for persons and things. Popular piety, most often called devotions, refers to those prayers and rituals that may well enjoy great popularity, but are not a part of the official liturgy of the Church. Popular piety would include devotions to Christ,to the mother of God and the saints, and the recitation of the Rosary.

In December of 2001 the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued what is called the Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy: Principles and Guidelines. One of the purposes of this Directory is to describe the various devotions in Catholic life, to encourage them, and to offer practical guidelines so that devotions and the liturgy are kept appropriately distinct, and so that people will recognize that devotions should take their power from the liturgy, and lead people to the liturgy. In introducing the Directory, Pope John Paul II said that “The correct relationship between these two expressions of faith must be based on certain firm principles, the first of which recognizes that the liturgy is the center of the Church’s life and cannot be substituted by, or placed on a par with, any other form of religious expression. Moreover, it is important to reaffirm that popular religiosity, even if not always evident, naturally culminates in the celebration of the liturgy towards which it should ideally be oriented. This should be made clear through suitable catechesis.”

In its earliest paragraphs, the Directory makes clear that the liturgy always enjoys primacy in the prayer life of the Church: “The faithful should be made conscious of the preeminence of the liturgy over any other possible form of legitimate Christian prayer. While sacramental actions are necessary to life in Christ, s obtained with regard to pious exercises, notwithstanding their worthiness or their widespread diffusion. Such, however, may be assumed as obligations by a community or by individual members of the faithful. The foregoing requires that the formation of priests and of the faithful give preeminence to liturgical prayer and to the liturgical year over any other form of devotion. However, this necessary preeminence is not to be interpreted in exclusive terms, nor in terms of opposition or marginalization.”

The Directory goes on to explain that devotions and liturgy constitute two different kinds of prayer, and that the two must always be kept distinct, keeping in mind that the liturgy always takes precedence in the life of any Catholic Christian community: “l practices on the liturgy so as to differentiate their language, rhythm, course, and theological emphasis from those of the corresponding liturgical action, must be avoided, while any form of competition with or opposition to the liturgical actions, where such exists, must also be resolved. Thus, precedence must always be given to Sundays, Solemnities, and to the liturgical seasons and days.”

 

Liturgical pluralism...

I am old enough to remember the days when the liturgy was celebrated in Latin, and I recall that on some Sundays there might be singing, and on other Sundays no singing, not even by a choir. This seems rather strange by today’s standards. It was in 1958 that the Vatican published an important document called the Instruction on Sacred Music and Sacred Liturgy. This document not only encouraged people to join in the Latin parts of the liturgy that belonged to them, but also paved the way for including in the liturgy hymns that were in the language of the people.

The point that is important to make is that the provisions of important documents like this one are never implemented identically by everyone or in every place. Thus when it became possible for  Catholics to participate vocally in the liturgy in word and in song, some bishops and pastors implemented these changes only reluctantly or after months, even years, of delay. Other bishops and pastors around the world implemented the changes as soon as possible. Others anticipated the changes by months or even years. This means that what happened in one’s parish church fifty years ago was not necessarily what was going on in the parish next door, or in the parishes of another diocese or nation.

Such liturgical pluralism has always been a characteristic of liturgical renewal and development. Contrary to what some may think or want, there has never been, not will there be, a Catholic liturgical rite that is celebrated identically everywhere. There will always be liturgical leaders that will eagerly embrace current liturgical norms, and others will resist what is normative in favor of what was done in days gone by. In addition, the Roman Rite is not the only rite in the Catholic Church. National conferences of bishops, as well, can ask for special adaptations in liturgical matters, and then there is the whole issue of how different cultures impact the way the liturgy is celebrated in various countries and regions.

 We encounter this pluralism directly when we travel. We notice that churches come in all kinds of shapes and sizes and designs. Some have pews and some don’t. In one parish or nation people stand, and elsewhere they kneel. Catholic communities normally share the Sign of Peace and offer Communion from the cup, a handful do not. Again, one might think that this borders on some sort of liturgical anarchy. The reality is that for most of our Church’s history, the differences in the way the liturgy developed and was actually celebrated from place to place were much more radical than anything that we might experience today. 

Should we be alarmed at what appears to be such a marked lack of unity? Certainly not, for such diversity has been common to every age of the Church’s history. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy teaches that “even in the liturgy the Church has no wish to impose a rigid uniformity in matters that do not affect the faith or the good of the whole community… Provision shall be made for legitimate variations and adaptations to different groups, regions, and peoples… provided the substantial unity of the Roman Rite is preserved… and in some places and circumstances an even more radical adaptation of the liturgy is needed...” In other words, unity - which is absolutely essential to the Church - is not to be found in uniformity.

Calculating the date of Easter...

Revelers in New Orleans reportedly celebrated Mardi Gras this year as never before, including the news that the New Orleans Emergency Medical Services had their busiest day in their history. There were more than a million participants, including large numbers of young people determined to spend their college Spring break and their parents’ money at that city’s famous pre-Lenten festivities. Nonetheless, following a long custom, establishments closed their doors and police moved crowds out of the streets at midnight, the exact moment Ash Wednesday and the holy season of Lent begins.

The beginning of Lent reminds us that we are quite dependent on the physical movement of the moon for determining the date of Easter. In the earliest decades of the church, Christians celebrated the Eucharist every Sunday, even before one of those Sundays was to be designated as Easter Sunday. The earliest mention of an Easter liturgy is found in a document from Asia Minor, most likely from the first half of the second century. By the second half of that century, there is evidence that Pope Soter (166-175) established a yearly Easter feast in Rome. One of the reasons for establishing a yearly feast was to respond to the yearly Jewish Passover, and thus the Easter feast, like the Passover, was celebrated in the Spring.

Determining the date of Easter was filled with complications and controversy. Many believed Easter should be celebrated on a Sunday, for Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday. Christians in Asia Minor, following a different kind of yearly calendar, believed that Easter did not have to always fall on a Sunday. A lot of the confusion follows from the gospels’ differing accounts of when the Passover was celebrated in the year Jesus died. Matthew, Mark and Luke’s gospels take it for granted that Jesus celebrated the Last Supper on the same day that the Jews were celebrating Passover. In John’s gospel, however, the Last Supper is assumed to have been celebrated the day before the Jewish Passover. Today most Christians celebrate Easter on a Sunday, calculated since the fourth century as the first Sunday after the first full moon after the first day of Spring. Some Christians still follow the other way of calculating, meaning that Easter may of may not fall on a Sunday. Not only the date for the beginning of Lent, but other major feasts, such as the Ascension and Pentecost, are determined by the date of Easter.

Lent, the period of forty days leading up to Easter, began as a period of final preparation for those who would be baptized at the Easter Vigil. Over sixteen centuries, this period of preparation evolved in different ways in different places, but this time was always seen as an opportunity for everyone to pray and support the baptismal candidates (catechumens), as a time for considering one’s ongoing conversion and need for reconciliation, and as an opportunity for renewal, a period of grace, and a time for sharing more fully in the mystery of the dying and rising of Jesus. For this reason the Church rightly prays in its first Lenten preface of the liturgy, “…by your gracious gift, each year your faithful await the sacred paschal feasts with the joy of minds made pure, so that, more eagerly intent on prayer and on the works of charity… they may be led to the fulness of grace that you bestow on your sons and daughters.”