Creeping Clericalism

I am thinking about changing my practice, the manner in which I receive the Body and Blood of Christ.

You see, there is this priest who considers someone "coming up to communion" and "kneeling, or sticking their tongue out at the Lord and at the priest," to be "making a prophetic and transgressive gesture in the name of ‘reverence." (And he is "tempted in my bad moments to regard this as exhibitionist, a manifestation of spiritual pride," but at least doesn't state positively that it is necessarily. )

He claims that "such behaviour [as] receiving holy communion kneeling and/or on the tongue
can easily be disruptive when only a minority do it."
Kneeling is a stretch, but I'll grant him that it is possible to disrupt a communion line designed for maximum speed and efficiency, but receiving on the tongue?

I might theorize on what is "disrupted" because this priest further believes that "the practice of communion on the tongue is distasteful, insanitary, and grounded in theological misunderstandings about the nature of grace and the Eucharist."

As I said, his opinion is making me rethink my practice.

The thread in question is mostly about whether a presider who does not respect the integrity of the text of the Roman Missal is pastoral or presumptuous.

One contributing liturgist uses GIRM 20. [Because, however, the celebration of the Eucharist, like the entire Liturgy, is carried out through perceptible signs that nourish, strengthen, and express faith,31 the utmost care must be taken to choose and to arrange those forms and elements set forth by the Church that, in view of the circumstances of the people and the place, will more effectively foster active and full participation and more properly respond to the spiritual needs of the faithful,] as a refutation of the claim that "improv is never required,"

He feels that GIRM 20 "requires the person reading this rubric to exercise a pastoral judgment, not to say 'It doesn’t tell me I must do such-and-such, so I won’t', which comes dangerously close to being childish."

He reminds his readers that "something more is required than the mere observation of the laws governing valid and licit celebration.”

(I have noticed that when anyone who has failed to do so is reminded that he ought to follow instructions, the defense is usually that following instructions is insufficient -- as if anyone ever claims that it is....

"GIRM 20 is saying that if you just stick to the book you are actually not doing your job properly: you have to select and arrange what the Church has proposed in order to facilitate the spiritual welfare of the faithful. ... It’s a totally different world from the rubricism of the preconciliar era, and many people including some posting here have not yet 'got it', alas."

That's it. Anyone who disagrees does so because he doesn't "get it." It couldn't be that he understands perfectly well but thinks you're , oh, I don't know.. wrong?

"I think GIRM 20 refers to a state of mind."

That's the ticket, the General Instruction tells us what our state of mind ought to be, it refers to something unquantifiable, and therefore beyond criticism, not subject to mundane considerations like "right," or "wrong," or "actually there in the GIRM."

To think otherwise "is a postconciliar vision of liturgy which rubricists, who feel safe within the confines of rules and regulations, have difficulty in understanding. The fact is that pastoral needs can be the guiding principle for much more than people realize. It is a liberation, not an abuse."

Simple soul that I am, what I have no difficulty in understanding, is something like this .

"You Sing With Your Ears"

Susan Hallauer, of Anonymous 4 conducts chant workshops:

The music [the young women of "Angelus," a five-voice student ensemble at Mount Vernon High School,] sing is ancient, largely evolved from oral traditions, "And all of it is sacred," said Dana Taylor, their music director.

Known generically as "plainsong," the music is sung a cappella and in unison (no harmony).

People raised in the Roman Catholic tradition know the music well. [If only!] Plainsong or "Gregorian chant" is sung during the celebration of Mass; it is a ritual part of worship throughout the day in monastery life.

But the ethereal beauty of the highly formulaic sound taps into a "universal emotion" that has the capacity to lift up the spirits of all who listen, be it in a Cathedral setting or a concert hall, said Susan Hallauer, who, as a founding member of the internationally renowned vocal ensemble, Anonymous 4, has performed the Chant repertoire in both types of venues since 1986.

She also teaches others how to sing it.

And so it was, in a cathedrallike setting last Saturday, when Hallauer met with 14 Mount Vernon High School students, including members of Angelus, for a daylong Chant Camp at the Monastery of the Immaculate Conception in Ferdinand, Ind.

The event was sponsored by Mount Vernon High's music department, Taylor said, but participants included representatives from the Monastery at Ferdinand, the Arch Abbey at St. Meinrad and faculty from Indiana University's Ancient Music and Medieval Studies departments.

Where Do You Stand...?

...On the question of abstinence on a Friday in Lent on which a Solemnity, a great feast day, falls?
It's a very, very special day to me.

Laetare Sunday

I celebrated it by spending the day in a pink snuggie...

I also heard the Gospel of the Dutiful Son and the Prodigal Son read at Mass for the first time in nine years.
Yes, they actually used the Gospel from the Lectionary Cycle in which we find ourselves rather than defaulting to A.
Nice.

Putting Your Money Where Your Liturgical Mouth Is

At present unemployed and impecunious, I will barely be able to pay my own way to this summer's Colloquium.
But one some blogs I frequent, the readership seems to have its fair share of "I'm not a musician myself, but I can tell you the music at my parish is lousy" posters.

Fair 'nuff.

But here's a chance to DO something about it.
Pay for a seminarian's scholarship to the Colloquium! This was in my inbox:

At present, scholarship funds for the CMAA Summer Intensive and Sacred Music Colloquium are extremely limited. Extremely.

Disbursements will not be made until late April - and it all depends on what is available. Any scholarships awarded will more than likely be partial (and as it stands now, I mean partial) rather than full. Hard times call for hard work on everyone's part.

We've already received more requests than we can fulfill. If you are planning on attending but know that you will need help, you may well need to seek out an individual or local organization who can sponsor you, or go about doing some fund raising on your own -- now -- at your school, seminary, or local parish. Bake sales, car washes, benefit concerts, special collections, playing the violin on street corners or in shopping malls, finding a parishioner willing to sponsor your trip, etc. It's time to be creative.

Here's an idea: if you have a somewhat supportive pastor, purchase a copy of the Colloquium DVD here. Arrange for a potluck dinner at your parish or student center. Explain why you are trying to get to the Colloquium, and how it will be a benefit to all. Show the DVD. Ask for donations. Make it happen at home.

Don't forget that the CMAA is an all volunteer organization, and wholly dependent on donations for scholarships.

If you are in the position to help and in particular, interested in sponsoring a musician, priest, or seminarian's attendance, please write to us at programs@musicasacra.com.

If you yourself are already registered for one of our summer programs and would like to give a little extra toward scholarships, you can add that amount to your own fees, and indicate as much on the online or mail in registration form. No amount is too small. All donations are applied directly to scholarships.

Sunday Afternoon Music Directing, and Where the Problem Lies

Ya know, like Monday morning quarter-backing? (Some sort of sports metaphor, I believe, :oP)
There is a thread at The New Liturgical Movement by the Great Bow-tied One, asking, in sincerity, what do you do when you encounter bad liturgy.

JT actually is asking specifically about music, but the question can apply to the priest, the servers...

And of course, there is a difference between the right thing done badly and the wrong thing done.

One does not go up to a lay reader after Mass and say you weren't loud enough, or you speak too quickly for someone with a heavy accent, or that's not how you pronounce braziers.

Or does one?

I've heard plenty of lousy homilies in my life, and never told a priest afterwards what I thought.

On the other hand, I did go up to a priest one December Sunday and ask him why he said the Gloria, that I thought that... (He dismissed me, telling me that I was confusing Advent with Lent.)

And since I often compliment servers, both at my parish and elsewhere, I felt entitled to speak to a couple of rowdies who whispered, joked with and jostled each other through the consecration.
I just reminded them that even though the priest couldn't see them behind him, they were directly in the line of sight of someone, in this case me, a stranger, as I looked toward the altar during the EP and that it was unfair of them to be so distracting. I wasn't "mean," as is my wont, because teenagers don't need to be handed an excuse to quit serving.

Musicians are a different matter, because I have a conversation piece, so to speak.
Hi-I'm-from-I-play/sing-at-St-YadaYadas-traveling-just-curious-what-was-that-swell-postlude?

And I admit have climbed to many a loft and been given the skunk eye for my pains.

Musicians who set up "up front" aren't usually so proprietary about their territory.

Anyway, if something has been egregious, I will instigate a conversation, but usually only to determine chain of command, disguised as a survey of "how they do things elsewhere."

Oh, the cantor picks the music five minutes before Mass? Oh, the pastor decides what Ordinary? absolutely everyone is volunteer and the priest doesn't care if there's music or not and only steps in if he objects to something?

In my experience, the really awful stuff results from either 1) pastors who don't know and don't care, or 2) highly committed, highly organized and highly supported musicians immersed in a highly entertainment-oriented style of music.

Not a lot can be done about the latter by a visiting musician. They have worked hard to do exactly what it is you might object to, and they have the backing of large commercial enterprises to affirm them in their choices.

Take the cantor at the cathedral confirmations who, having sung the requisite three verse with the congregation of the Moore Taste and See at communion pretty "straight," and happily finding herself needing to fill time proceed to HOWL the same verses all over again melismatically as a solo -- do you think she would give my suggesting a performance style with less affect might be more appropriate more weight than that of dozens of people congratulating her that she "stole the show"?

Do you think the girl in the well-circulated picture from a Mass at last years RelEd Conference with the skirt slit up to there, writhing and wailing emotively into a mic' is unaware of her fame, and the opprobrium she earned from some quarters?

Do you think she cares?

Do you think any of the choristers whose feelings were so hurt by the contempt showered on the music at the papal Mass at Nationals Stadium "saw the light" and said, ah ha! hence forth I shall not sing such stuff even if offered the opportunity to sing at a papal Mass?

Even had more of the admonishments been delivered charitably, (and many were, although meanest is always loudest,) I don't think so.

I know too many musicians who flatly deny that their are any such things as rubrics regarding liturgical music, that "the Pope or some other old guy in the Vatican has any right to tell me what to do," or, (and this is the one that almost made me lose heart,) that the texts, not the music, but the TEXTS of the propers are inherently more appropriate to be used at their appointed places in a Mass than some popular favorite.

In fact, and this one was jaw dropping, I have a "liturgical musician" friend who, when confronted with one proper said not just that it was not more appropriate, but was completely INappropriate, not just for the Mass for which it was assigned, but ever.
And the fact that "the Church" said so, in so far as She had issued the Missal, was irrelevant. (This was in the context of one of those Ya can't sing Mary songs at Mass moments...)

So, invincible ignorance, no?

This guy makes a small fortune coordinating a huge music ministry at a wealthy parish and he is not "unaware" of the existence of the propers and the gradual and legislation on music... he just doesn't give a rat's hindquarters.

There is nothing to be done.

By US.

About THEM.

Which brings us to the first most likely situation leading to egregiously inappropriate and bad music liturgy: pastors who don't know and/or don't care.

That's where the education needs to happen. That is who needs the admonishment, the prayers, the instruction, the help -- PRIESTS.

And while there are old dogs who can still learn new tricks, I think you'll get better return on your investment, (of time and effort,) if you concentrate on seminarians, young priests and Catholic schools.

God send us holy priests. God send us many holy priests.


P.S. I absolutely reject the notion, given voice in that thread, that we are "guests" at a parish simply because we are not registered members, which I shall express over there.

Such parochialism is what has led to the Rite of Making-It-Up-As-W-Go-Along at St. Thewaywedoithere's.

"...so we'll have GUITAR instead!"

Whence the notion that since the organ is to be used but sparingly during Lent, and, if the assembly and music ministry is musically mature, not at all during the Triduum, from Gloria to Gloria,(correct,) Good Friday ought to be a piano service?(bone-headed)

Or accompaniment for the bulk of the Mass of the Lord's Supper limited to flute and guitar?

I hear about this once, I assume a misreading on the part of a local music director or liturgist or priest -- but thrice, in far-flung areas?

I smell a Facilitator.

There must have been some presenter, or some workshop, with some hand-out, or some guide sent to members of some group.

Fr Tolton's Cause for Sainthood Opened

The cause for the canonization of Fr Augustine Tolton, the first black priest in the United States has been opened.

I have never understood why a major motion picture hasn't been made of his life -- born into slavery, escaped with his mother while a child, ordained at the Vatican... really, why not?

Extra, Extra! Read all..

.. about it.

The breaking shocker?

Not all "Catholics" practice, and not all "priests" care all that much...

Missed Opportunity

Update, 3/13, I stand corrected, out of a bajillion there are two, I had missed this:

Turner, Rev. Paul
Language: English Topic(s): Liturgy/Music
Workshops: 2
1-24: The Order of Mass(*)
4-25: The Revised Eucharistic Prayers(*)

Out of about a bajillion speakers and presenters and topics, it doesn't seem that there is anything, not one thing, about the new Missal translation.

Catechists and DREs are in a position, perhaps the best position of anyone, to really make a difference in having a smooth transition.

They have the best, regular access to the most open, nimblest minds.

And since their charge, their very purpose would be, I would think, to hand on the Faith, and since the Mass is the very source and the ultimate summit of that Faith.... what gives?

I am not among those who decry the supposedly bizarre or inappropriate liturgies that seem to pop up there, and on which the attendees are sold -- you see, our DRE is not of their number. Any "creative" ideas brought back could be an improvement over that which the DRE comes up with flying solo.

God bless them all.

And no, you can't "Sing One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church Into Being" either...

It's really not very catchy, anyway.

During today's general audience, celebrated in the Paul VI Hall, the Pope turned his attention to the written works and doctrine of St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio.

St. Bonaventure "authentically and faithfully interpreted the figure of St. Francis of Assisi", said the Holy Father. He reacted against the "Spirituals" in the Franciscan Order who, drawing on the ideas of Joachim of Fiore, held that "with St. Francis the final phase of history had begun", and looked to the creation of a new Church of the Holy Spirit, "no longer tied to the structures of old".

St. Bonaventure dealt with this question in his last work, "Hexaemeron", in which he explained that "God is one throughout history. ... History is one, even if it is a journey, a journey of progression. ... Jesus is the last word of God" and "there is no other Gospel, no other Church to be awaited. Thus the Order of St. Francis must also insert itself into this Church, into her faith and her hierarchical order.

"This does not mean", Benedict XVI added, "that the Church is immobile, fixed in the past, that there is no room in her for novelty". With his famous expression "the works of Christ are not lacking but prospering", St. Bonaventure "explicitly formulated the idea of progress", certain "that the richness of the word of Christ is never ending and that it can also being new light to new generations. The uniqueness of Chris is also a guarantee of novelty and renewal in the future".

The Holy Father noted how "today too opinions exist according to which the entire history of the Church in the second millennium is one of constant decline. Some people see this decline as having begun immediately after the New Testament". Yet, the Pope asked, "what would the Church be without the new spirituality of the Cistercians, the Franciscans and the Dominicans, the spirituality of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross? ... St. Bonaventure teaches us ... how to open ourselves to the new charisms given by Christ, in the Holy Spirit, to His Church".

"Following Vatican Council II some people were convinced that all was new, that a new Church existed, that the pre-conciliar Church had come to an end and that there would be another, completely different Church, an anarchic utopia. Yet thanks to God the wise helmsmen of the ship of Christ, Paul VI and John Paul II, defended on the one hand the novelty of the Church and, at the same time, the uniqueness and continuity of the Church, which is always a Church of sinners, and always a place of grace".

Me, I'm a Sucker For Oboe...

A truly remarkable speech (the St. John Fisher visitor lecture,) by Cardinal Levada, prefect of the CDF, essentially about the welcome being extended by the Church to Anglicans, but stating some hard, solid truths about ecumenism. Go read the whole thing.

Union with the Catholic Church is the goal of ecumenism—one could put, “we phrase it that way”. Yet the very process of working towards union works a change in churches and ecclesial communities that engage one another in dialogue, in actual instances of entering into communion do indeed transform the Catholic Church by way of enrichment. Let me add right away that when I say enrichment I am referring not to any addition of essential elements of sanctification and truth to the Catholic Church. Christ has endowed her with all the essential elements. I am referring to the addition of modes of expression of these essential elements, modes which enhance everyone’s appreciation of the inexhaustible treasures bestowed on the Church by her divine founder.

The new reality of visible unity among Christians should not thought of as the coming together of disparate elements that previously had not existed in any one community. The Second Vatican Council clearly teaches that all the elements of sanctification and truth which Christ bestowed on the Church are found in the Catholic Church. What is new then is not the acquisition of something essential which had hitherto been absent. Instead, what is new is that perennial truths and elements of holiness already found in the Catholic Church are given new focus, or a different stress by the way they are lived by various groups of the faithful who are called by Christ to come together in perfect communion with one another, enjoying the bonds of creed, code, cult and charity, in diverse ways that blend harmoniously.

Since the Church is like a sacrament, she bears within herself the truth and grace of Christ. When we say that Christ reveals God, and that the Church bears the revelation of Christ in the world, we are admitting that the unenlightened human intellect is not up to the task of knowing God’s ways perfectly. We humans need revelation, enlightenment. Baptism as the foundational sacrament of Christian faith is the normal means for that enlightenment to begin to penetrate our intellects. Even so, while God in Christ has revealed as much about Himself and about our relationship to Him as we need, revealed truths about the infinite God still exceed our finite intelligence. There is always an element of mystery in our knowledge of God and God’s work. Therefore, we fully expect that, while we may accurately know what can be truthfully said, the full knowledge of what that means is enhanced by the contemplation of many groups of people on the same mystery...

Visible union with the Catholic Church does not mean absorption into a monolith, with the absorbed body being lost to the greater whole, the way a teaspoon of sugar would be lost if dissolved in a gallon of coffee. Rather, visible union with the Catholic Church can be compared to an orchestral ensemble. Some instruments can play all the notes, like a piano. There is no note that a piano has that a violin or a harp or a flute or a tuba does not have. But when all these instruments play the notes that the piano has, the notes are enriched and enhanced. The result is symphonic, full communion. One can perhaps say that the ecumenical movement wishes to move from cacophony to symphony, with all playing the same notes of doctrinal clarity, the same euphonic chords of sanctifying activity, observing the rhythm of Christian conduct in charity, and filling the world with the beautiful and inviting sound of the Word of God. While the other instruments may tune themselves according to the piano, when playing in concert there is no mistaking them for the piano. It is God’s will that those to whom the Word of God is addressed, the world, that is, should hear one pleasing melody made splendid by the contributions of many different instruments.

The Catholic Church approaches ecumenical dialogue convinced, as the Second Vatican Council’s degree of ecumenism states, that, and I quote here: “Our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant to the apostolic college alone, of which Peter is the head, in order to establish the one Body of Christ on earth to which all should be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the people of God.” (Decree on Ecumenism: Unitatis Redintegratio)

She believes that [those three words are superfluous] she is the mystical body of Christ and she is convinced that the Church of Christ subsists in her because she recognizes that, while she is like the piano that has all of the notes, that is, all of the elements of sanctification and truth, many of those notes are shared with other communities and those communities often have beautiful ways of sounding the notes that can lead to a heightened appreciation of truth and holiness, both within the Catholic Church and within her partners in the ecumenical endeavour.

Saving the Post Office

The Post Office is in dire straits, and yes, ought to be saved, and yes, I can be dumber than a bag of hair, and admittedly don't know much about these sorts of things, but since its mission, at heart, is to facilitate communication between our citizens, no matter how far flung their domiciles, nor how heinous the weather, couldn't they become to the providers of some kind of dirt cheap, bare bones internet service? perhaps text only, email only?

There's probably some reason that this idea is inane, because, as I said, I don't know much about it, and am just building castles with internet access in the air...

Terrific Singers, and a Terrific Cause

Anyone in the New Jersey area will want to attend this:

Rosary Shrine Luncheon and Concert, March 25

By Rosary Shrine Guild

3/2/2010

The Rosary Shrine Guild will hold its annual luncheon on Thursday, March 25 at 12:00 p.m. at the Corpus Christi Auditorium, 234 Southern Blvd. in Chatham. The highlight of the luncheon will be a concert performed by "The Three Cantors", Angela Intelli Stokes (Pastoral Associate/Cantor St. Teresa of Avila, Summit, NJ), Mary Clare McAlee (Cantor/Instructor Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Newark NJ)and Janet Natale (Director of Music Ministry/Cantor St. James the Apostle, Springfield, NJ. The three friends have given over 25 years of service to the Roman Catholic Church and while continuing in that service they desired a way to share their combined talents, training and love of performing. They will be performing a wide variety of music.

Tickets are $30 per person. Please make checks payable to the "Rosary Shrine Guild" and send to: The Rosary Shrine Guild, 543 Springfield Ave. Summit, NJ 07901.

The Rosary Shrine Guild is part of the Dominican Nuns of Summit, New Jersey, a Roman Catholic cloistered monastic community.

For more information, call the Rosary Shrine at (908) 273-1228.

Email: nunsopsummit@op.org

I know the lovely Angela, (prictured in the center,) from a lifetime ago, MARVELOUS singer.

Gallant, Generous, Manly and Disinterested?

The Times takes Liz Cheney to task for Cheney's taking lawyers to task for... well, for actually believing in the American system of justice, that everyone, no matter how despised, is entitled to a defense and to a fair trial.
At least one former president has already weighed in on the issue, so to speak:

I. . . devoted myself to endless labour and Anxiety if not to infamy and death, and that for nothing, except, what indeed was and ought to be all in all, sense of duty. In the Evening I expressed to Mrs. Adams all my Apprehensions:That excellent Lady, who has always encouraged me, burst into a flood of Tears, but said she was very sensible of all the Danger to her and to our Children as well as to me, but she thought I had done as I ought, she was very willing to share in all that was to come and place her trust in Providence.

"Before or after the Tryal, Preston sent me ten Guineas and at the Tryal of the Soldiers afterwards Eight Guineas more, which were. . .all the pecuniary Reward I ever had for fourteen or fifteen days labour, in the most exhausting and fatiguing Causes I ever tried: for hazarding a Popularity very general and very hardly earned: and for incurring a Clamour and popular Suspicions and prejudices, which are not yet worn out and never will be forgotten as long as History of this Period is read...It was immediately bruited abroad that I had engaged for Preston and the Soldiers, and occasioned a great clamour....

"The Part I took in Defence of Cptn. Preston and the Soldiers, procured me Anxiety, and Obloquy enough. It was, however, one of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested Actions of my whole Life, and one of the best Pieces of Service I ever rendered my Country. Judgment of Death against those Soldiers would have been as foul a Stain upon this Country as the Executions of the Quakers or Witches, anciently. As the Evidence was, the Verdict of the Jury was exactly right.

The Jewish Papal Knight

From the Times:

At the Vatican, he is known as Commendatore Gary Krupp, Knight Commander of the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great. For short, the Swiss Guard and cardinals address him as “Your Excellency.”

...Mr. Krupp became only the seventh Jewish papal knight in history, dubbed by Pope John Paul I in 2000 for persuading American manufacturers to donate $12 million worth of high-tech medical equipment to an Italian hospital.

Mr. Krupp has ,,, has emerged as the Vatican’s most outspoken Jewish ally in a heated debate at the crux of tensions between Roman Catholic and Jewish leaders and historians: whether Pope Pius XII, the pontiff during World War II, did as much as he could have to save Jews from the Holocaust.

Mr. Krupp, 62, has raised enough money through the Pave the Way Foundation, a nonprofit organization he founded in 2002, to travel the globe, hire researchers to scour historic documents, sponsor a three-day symposium in Rome and publish four editions of a glossy, illustrated volume of evidence supporting his view that Pius XII spared no effort to save the lives of persecuted Jews...

And in a special audience at the papal summer residence in September 2008, Pope Benedict XVI thanked Mr. Krupp for bringing attention to “what Pius XII achieved for the Jews.”

Historians and religious leaders around the world have taken increasing notice of Mr. Krupp’s work — some with alarm, some with pleasure — because his advocacy has coincided with efforts within the Vatican to promote the canonization of Pius. Pope Benedict nudged that process forward in December by affirming Pius’s “heroic virtues” and pronouncing him “venerable,” a step on the path toward sainthood.

The controversy over Pius’s wartime conduct had stalled his elevation for so many years that Pope Benedict’s action shocked scholars on both sides of the debate. And while agreeing on little else, some in both camps credit Mr. Krupp for breaking the logjam.

“I wrote 10 books about Pius XII, but in all these years I never knew how to shake things up for the cause like this wonderful man, Mr. Krupp,” said Sister Margherita Marchione, a professor emerita at who is considered the foremost defender of Pius outside the Vatican.

Deborah Dwork, a professor of Holocaust history at Clark University, put it another way: “Pope Benedict would not have had the chutzpah to go forward with the veneration process if not for this P.R. work Gary Krupp does.”

Laughing at God's Monkey

Excellent piece in the Telegraph by FrLongenecker

St Thomas More writes, “The devil...that proud spirit...cannot endure to be mocked.”

The big question, however, is whether there really is such a creature as Satan. Do we all have a demon whispering in one ear and an angel in the other like those old Tom and Jerry cartoons? Are there purely spiritual beings or is it all a projection of our religious imagination? Lewis makes the point that human disbelief in Satan’s existence is just the thing that would please Satan most. Does the Devil exist? The occurrence of paranormal activity, especially demonic possession is the most disturbing evidence that Old Nick really is alive and well on planet earth.

The whole subject of demonic possession is a specialist area of theology and pastoral practice. I liken exorcism to "spiritual open heart surgery." It’s not for the fainthearted and it is certainly not for the amateur. In my experience the devil is real and demonic possession is real. However, it is very rare and the symptoms of disturbance are more likely to be profound emotional, mental or psychic problems which have ordinary explanations. Nevertheless, the literature on this phenomenon is sufficient to conclude that there are some horrible cases of personality disturbance which seem to have no other explanation than that an alien entity has somehow infested the psyche.

Yes, I've been thinking about the devil, lately, and whether, or rather, exactly how I believe in it, (I don't wish to dignify to call it, "him" or "her",) and what effect I allow it to have one me.

I like Father's reference to surgery, since it follows that though few of us have the requisite skill for that, we can ALL watch our diets, you know, eat what's healthy?

and get our exercise -- you know, actually practice

"God's monkey," by the way, is the moniker bestowed on it by the previously mentioned Fr Amorth.

(Yes, I know that's not a monkey)

Belief in the Supernatural, and the Efficacy of Sacramentals and The Sacraments

I am a bit of a skeptic. While I believe in miracles in theory, in practice I cast a gimlet eye on claims of the miraculous.

But I cannot deny the supernatural.

A few things floating around the interwebs in these latter days of Lent seem related to me.
1. Fr Z has what I presume is a not-for-the-first-time rant about the silly practice of removing Holy Water from the fonts for all of Lent, in some cases replacing it with racks or sand (or kitty litter?) as if Holy Water served no real purpose other than symbolic.

2. Another topic is that of the devil, and exorcisms and Satanists, naturally replete with sound bytes from Fr Amorth, and the expression of scorn, not for his claims, which may or may not be true, but the quaint old beliefs in such things that make such claims plausible to him.

3. And we are gearing up for the marathon at my parish, (more about that later,) which always includes, on Easter morning, part of the Rite of Baptism for infants, (adults will have been baptized the night before,) described in the first comment.

There have been parents who wanted their infants baptized immediately, and in discussing this a catechist of my acquaintance, (NOT from my parish, I haste to add,) poo-poohing their urgency, essentially said there is no such thing as Original Sin.

And finally,
4. The oft-repeated opinion that getting the right "right" doesn't really matter, who cares what words we pray at Mass, or even if we go to Mass, or what anyone believes, as long as he's a nice person, and...

Do you see the connections, or is this reaching on my part?

It seems to me that modern man is ashamed to admit of a belief in the supernatural -- the supernatural, without which, there is no purpose other than the psychological to the Sacraments and to sacramentals.

Oh, sure, they "remind" us of things, they make us "feel" a certain way, they encourage solidarity -- but they can have nothing to do with Grace, for pete's sake.

Because, of course, Grace, if it existed, would be supernatural.

And therefore, can it really exist?

Thinking About the Cosmic and the Cosmetic

Hanging out in an all night drug store waiting for a ride, I recently learned i recently learned that there is a foundation that markets itself as "infallible."

There is also, I discovered browsing the magazines (yes, I might have bought one! and no, I didn't dog-ear any!) a line of eye shadow named, "Memento Mori."

Inspired, it is said, (though its pretty peaches and yellow belie this,) by the Day of the Dead.

I don't pretent to understand any of this.

"40% of Brooklyn parishes can’t meet expenses"

A poster in the combox quite rightly posits,

Maybe there are too many parishes in the diocese. I wonder if they ever thought of that?

You have some neighborhoods in Brooklyn that have more than one church. The days of the ethnic parish are pretty much over [SHOULD be...] in most parts of the city a...no bishop wants to be known as the guy that closes up churches but he can always create an office for some priest wanting the title of monsignor to be the 'hatchet man'

This struck a cord, as it is very much the case in my own area, (except I don't think a hatchet man has been assigned -- instead, they're just waiting for pastors to drop dead of overwork.)

The continuing parochialism, (yes, in the pejorative sense,) of so many American Catholics is a problem, as are bishops who have an obligation and won't fulfill it.

Fill your boots, Your Excellencies!
Pull up your big bishop pants and make the hard choices.