Adoremus Bulletin - January 2024

Adoremus Bulletin

JANUARY 2024

Vatican Approves Blessing of Same-sex Couples

By Jonathan Liedl

CNA—The Vatican has issued new guidance on the topic of blessings of same-sex attracted people, stating that Catholic priests can bless samesex couples as an expression of pastoral closeness without condoning their sexual relations.

The ruling, which also applies to Catholics civilly remarried without having received an annulment as well as to couples in other “irregular situations,” underscored that such blessings cannot be offered in a way that would cause any confusion about the nature of marriage, which the document affirms is the only “context that sexual relations find their natural, proper, and fully human meaning.”

“The Church’s doctrine on this point remains firm,” the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) said in its December 18 declaration.

The declaration emphasizes that blessings may only be given “spontaneously” and not in the context of a formal liturgical rite.

The guidance is the latest—and most authoritative—intervention by the Vatican on an issue that has embroiled the universal Church in recent years.

In September 2022, the bishops of the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium published a blessing ceremony for same-sex couples in their dioceses.

The move appeared to be in stark contrast to the DDF’s February 2021 affirmation that the Church did not have the power to impart blessings on unions of persons of the same sex.

This past March, the controversial German Synodal Way approved a

Adoremus PO Box 385 La Crosse, WI 54602-0385

Non- Profit Organization U.S. Postage PAID Madelia, MN Permit No. 4

Story continued on page 2

XXIX, No. 4

The Mass and Broadcast Media: A Post-Covid Post-Mortem

By John M. Grondelski

T

he COVID shutdown of 2020-21 had a unique and unprecedented impact on Catholics: for at least several months, many dioceses closed churches, offered no public Masses even on Sundays, and dispensed the obligation of the dominical precept to attend Mass on Sunday. Catholics were recommended to avail themselves of Masses broadcast by television or online though, in a strict sense, there was no obligation to use them because a televised Mass does not fulfill the obligation1 of attending Sunday Mass.

Catholics were told that this ministerial shutdown was an expression of the “field hospital’s pastoral care” for the faithful although—to the best of my knowledge—field hospitals generally do not shut down and leave the battlefield in the middle of a war.

Furthermore, following a local crisis, most hospitals conduct a wideranging, frank, and open assessment of their performance under stress: what worked, what did not, what should be repeated, what should not? Again, I have yet to see the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops or any local bishops for that matter leading candid evaluations of the “great shutdown” of 2020-21.

One of those assessments should be about televised Masses.

TV Guide In 1996, the USCCB issued “Guidelines for Televising the Liturgy,” a document that received minor editorial revisions in 2014. The “Guidelines” are valuable insofar as they remind us that the liturgy is and always remains a sacred act, not a drama or TV event. That norm should guide the overall recording of televised Masses, both on the level of principle as well as of specific techniques (e.g., no excisions or canned music to facilitate the filming of the Mass).

But the truth is also that those “Guidelines” have been overtaken by recent events: they never envisioned nor address the Church’s “big time” entry into broadcast/social media because of COVID. Prior to COVID, a few dioceses

AB

Adoremus Bulletin JANUARY 2024

AB/JOE SHLABOTNIK ON FLICKR

News & Views

For the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy

Prior to COVID, a few dioceses and religious orders broadcast a Sunday Mass. The COVID shutdown suddenly compelled these limited undertakings to address large-scale needs.

Parishes whose familiarity with social media was often rudimentary suddenly found themselves trying to provide an online Mass to parishioners. The results were mixed.

“ The liturgy is and always remains a sacred act, not a drama or TV event.” and religious orders broadcast a Sunday Mass. These were mostly local undertakings, targeted at the homebound. The COVID shutdown suddenly compelled these limited undertakings to address large-scale needs. Parishes whose familiarity with social media was often rudimentary suddenly found themselves trying to provide an online Mass to parishioners.

The results were mixed.

To their credit, many parishes quickly learned at least how to stream a Mass online. Dioceses and orders with established broadcast Masses ramped up; beginners may have initially foundered but eventually offered something.

Let’s also examine what we learned from these efforts.

There was a palpable difference between established “TV Masses” and parochial or even diocesan startups. That difference comes from the fundamental distinction between a parish Mass and a “made for television” Mass with a congregation

as a kind of “studio audience.”

For one, “made for television” Masses take into account the audiovisual demands of the medium. Parish Masses offered online generally do not (and probably should not).

An example: visual angles. “Made for television” Masses usually use multiple cameras. They fade in and out, e.g., from the conclusion of the celebrant’s Collect to the reader of the First Reading. They may offer different views, e.g., the “Sunday TV Mass” sponsored by the Archdiocese of Toronto cuts off to a stained-glass window depicting singing angels during the Sanctus and another window depicting Peter receiving the “keys of the Kingdom” for the Pater. Such transitions are natural for a visual-intensive medium like television, something we expect from “regular” television or movies.

Parish Masses, by contrast, tend to have a fixed angle: there is one camera, and it concentrates on one point.

Generally, it has to be broad to ensure it encompasses everything, e.g., the celebrant at the altar, the Scripture readers at the lectern or ambo, etc.

That fixed angle in turn gives a kind of amateurish feel to the production.

There is one scene. The wide angle needed to include the readings Please see TELEVISED on page 4

Liturgy TV For better or worse, Mass was mostly televised during the saddest days of COVID time—and John Grondeslski gives the play-by-play with all the good, bad, and ugly these broadcasts entailed. .................................................................. 1

Canopy Panoply Baldacchino, Tester, Ciborium—if these words don’t quite make it under your umbrella of familiar words, don’t worry—Michael Bursch’s look at the importance of altar canopies has got it covered. ............................................................... 8

Day in the Life Carmina Chapp finds in the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, Dorothy Day, a model for holiness who built her mission to the poorest of the poor on the rich foundation of the sacred liturgy. ......................................................... 3

Sacramental Health In a review of Father Ralph Weimann’s Sacramentals: Their Meaning & Spiritual Use, Roland Millare shows why these sacred actions should retain their place as sources of grace in the life of the Church. ..........................................................12

Life with Father In this first of three essays on the Trinity’s work in the liturgy, each commemorating the 60th anniversary of Sacrosanctum Concilium, Michael Brummond examines the central role that God the Father plays. .................................................... 6

News & Views......................................................... 1 Editorial................................................................... 3 Rite Questions......................................................11

Adoremus Bulletin, January 2024

AB/

2

WIKIART. CHRIST BLESSING, BY GIOVANNI

Continued from NEWS & VIEWS a resolution to establish a formal liturgical blessing of same-sex unions as well as divorced and remarried Catholics.

In August, the archbishop of Berlin said that he would not discipline priests who provided such blessings and published a roster of clergy willing to offer them.

A group of cardinals wrote to the pope in July requesting clarification on the Church’s stance on samesex blessings, among other issues. Today’s DDF guidance builds upon many of the themes Pope Francis laid out in his response to the cardinals, which was published by the Vatican in October.

In its new declaration, the DDF asserted that its guidance would preclude subsequent attempts to formalize such blessings.

“What has been said in this declaration regarding the blessings of same-sex couples is sufficient to guide the prudent and fatherly discernment of ordained ministers in this regard,” the DDF said. “Thus, beyond the guidance provided above, no further response should be expected about possible ways to regulate details or practicalities regarding blessings of this type.”

But the ruling—the latest in a flurry of documents published by the DDF since Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, Pope Francis’ longtime theological adviser, took over as prefect in September—is likely to generate further controversy on the issue, with both proponents and critics seeing it as a possible opening to additional changes down the road.

Titled “Supplicating Trust,” the DDF’s 5,000-word document is classified as a “declaration” because, as the text states, it “implies a real development from what has been said about blessings in the magisterium and the official texts of the Church.”

The basis for the DDF’s guidance on blessing same-sex couples is grounded in an apparently novel distinction between the liturgical and “pastoral-theological” understanding of blessings.

The DDF said that pastoral blessings, as opposed to those that take place according to formalized liturgical rites, can be more “spontaneous” and less bound by “moral prerequisites.”

“It is precisely in this context that one can understand the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage,” Fernández wrote in the text’s introductory note.

The declaration, which was reviewed and signed by Pope Francis, offers “new clarifications” on the DDF’s 2021 guidance on the topic.

The DDF said its new guidance is in continuity with the 2021 text because the previous guidance applied only to “liturgical blessings,” which require “that what is blessed be conformed to God’s will, as expressed in the teachings of the Church.”

Because of the Church’s clear teaching that sexual relations only “find their natural, proper, and fully human meaning” in the “exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman,” the DDF underscores that “when it comes to blessings, the Church has the right and duty to avoid any rite that might contradict this conviction or lead to confusion.”

But the DDF states that blessings should not be reduced to the liturgical “point of view alone.”

“Indeed, there is the danger that a pastoral gesture that is so beloved and widespread will be subjected to too many moral prerequisites, which, under the claim of control, could overshadow the unconditional power of God’s love that forms the basis for the gesture of blessing.”

With regard to these less formalized blessings, the Church “must shy away from resting its pastoral praxis on the fixed nature of certain doctrinal and disciplinary schemes,” the DDF says.

“Thus, when people ask for a blessing, an exhaustive moral analysis should not be placed as a precondition for conferring it. For, those seeking a blessing should not be required to have prior moral perfection.”

The DDF also describes blessings “outside of a liturgical framework” as part of a “realm of greater spontaneity and freedom” that, while optional, are a valuable “pastoral resource.”

In a passage that reflects on the use of blessings in

NEWS & VIEWS

Scripture, the DDF states that the practice is “a positive message of comfort, care, and encouragement. The blessing expresses God’s merciful embrace and the Church’s motherhood, which invites the faithful to have the same feelings as God toward their brothers and sisters.”

A person who asks for a blessing, the DDF said, indicates that he is “in need of God’s saving presence in his life, and one who asks for a blessing from the Church recognizes the latter as a sacrament of the salvation that God offers.”

“Such blessings are meant for everyone,” the DDF states. “No one is to be excluded from them.”

“Within the horizon” of the pastoral understanding of blessings, the DDF states that there is “the possibility of blessings for couples in irregular situations and for couples of the same sex.”

This understanding of blessings “may suggest that the ordained minister join in the prayer of those persons who, although in a union that cannot be compared in any way to marriage, desire to entrust themselves to the Lord and his mercy, to invoke his help, and to be guided to a greater understanding of his plan of love and of truth.”

The DDF states that couples seeking a blessing from God in this context “do not claim a legitimation of their own status” but instead ask that “all that is true, good, and humanly valid in their lives and their relationships be enriched, healed, and elevated by the presence of the Holy Spirit.”

The declaration offers several qualifications for blessing same-sex couples and those in “irregular situations” in order “to avoid producing confusion with the blessing proper to the sacrament of marriage.”

For one, these blessings should be “non-ritualized” and should not be expressed in any formal rite by ecclesial authorities.

“Indeed, such a ritualization would constitute a serious impoverishment because it would subject a gesture of great value in proper piety to excessive control, depriving ministers of freedom and spontaneity in their pastoral accompaniment of people’s lives,” the DDF states, explicitly stating that no one should “provide nor promote a ritual” for such blessings.

Additionally, to “avoid any form of confusion or scandal,” these blessings “should never be imparted in concurrence with the ceremonies of a civil union, and not even in connection with them,” nor with any “clothing, gestures, or words that are proper to a wedding.”

Instead, the DDF envisions that blessings of samesex couples and those in irregular situations would happen “spontaneously,” suggesting that they could take place in the context of “a visit to a shrine, a meeting with a priest, a prayer recited in a group, or during a pilgrimage.”

The DDF states that with such blessings, “there is no intention to legitimize anything, but rather to open one’s life to God, to ask for his help to live better, and also to invoke the Holy Spirit so that the values of the Gospel may be lived with greater faithfulness.”

The “pastoral sensitivity” of ordained ministers should be formed to offer these kinds of spontaneous blessings, the DDF declared.

Moral Theologian on New Cremation Guidance: ‘Reverence for Body’ Still Paramount

By Daniel Payne

CNA—A leading Catholic moral theologian offered insight into the Vatican’s newest guidance on the

handling of cremated remains, noting that Church teaching on “reverence for the body” must still be at the center of any decisions related to a loved one’s ashes.

The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith said in recent guidance that it may be permissible for a Catholic to keep a small portion of a deceased loved one’s ashes in a personal place of significance if some conditions are met.

The office also said that it is permissible for the commingled ashes of deceased and baptized persons to be set aside in a permanent sacred place if the names of the persons are indicated so as to not lose memory of them.

Father Thomas Petri, president of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception as well as a moral theologian, said on “EWTN News Nightly” that, historically, cremation “was always considered a problem because it has pagan tendencies.”

“There were pagan rituals attached to cremation, especially with the practice of scattering ashes,” he told EWTN anchorwoman Tracy Sabol. But a few decades ago the Church began to revise its guidance on the matter, he noted.

“Because cremation is inexpensive or less expensive, often, than burial of the body, and because in many places around the world there’s a shortage of cemetery space, the Church said that cremation can be allowed, and can be done, provided that the cremated remains of the person are preserved in a sacred space,” Father Petri explained.

Father Petri noted that the Church’s latest guidance sought to answer “whether or not it is possible to mingle multiple cremated remains together as long as they’re kept in a sacred space.”

“The Vatican office said this is possible as long as, of course, it’s kept in a sacred space and that the names of who is mingled there [are written],” he said.

“The concern that our remains are being mingled and that’s somehow going to deter the resurrection of the body at the end, of course, is a theological question,” he noted. “The Vatican dicastery said the resurrection is part of God’s power. Even when you have a body that’s been buried for a thousand years and practically nothing is left, God still can resurrect that body and make it glorious.”

Also addressed by the dicastery, Father Petri said, was “whether or not the faithful, in that situation, could keep a portion of the remains of their loved ones separate to have them distinguished, and have it placed in some place of personal significance.”

“And the Vatican office said yes, but it also has to be a sacred space,” the priest said. “So the Vatican is still insisting that any cremated remains still have to be preserved in a sacred space.”

“We can’t have urns of, say, your mother or your grandmother being placed on the mantle in your house, which a lot of people want to do,” he said. “But that’s just not the Christian practice.”

Asked by Sabol how the Church might respond to those who wish to keep loved one’s remains in such places, Father Petri said it would be necessary to emphasize “the importance and reverence for the body, the deceased body.”

“The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit,” Father Petri said. “Even when it disintegrates over hundreds and hundreds of years in the ground, or even when it is cremated. We have to be careful not to reduce the importance of the body, even cremated remains, [or] to somehow commercialize them, or make [the body] a trinket of remembrance.”

It is necessary to have the remains “in a sacred space where prayer, where reverence is possible…rather than simply on a shelf in one’s home or on one’s mantle,” Father Petri concluded.

Adoremus Bulletin

EDITOR - PUBLISHER: Christopher Carstens

Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy

GRAPHIC DESIGNER: Danelle Bjornson

MANAGING EDITOR: Joseph O’Brien CONTENT MANAGER: Jeremy Priest OFFICE MANAGER: Elizabeth Gallagher

PHONE: 608.521.0385 WEBSITE: www.adoremus.org MEMBERSHIP REQUESTS & CHANGE OF ADDRESS: info@adoremus.org

INQUIRIES TO THE EDITOR P.O. Box 385 | La Crosse, WI 54602-0385 editor@adoremus.org

MARKETING AND FUNDRAISING: Eugene Diamond SOCIAL MEDIA: Jesse Weiler EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE The Rev. Jerry Pokorsky = Helen Hull Hitchcock The Rev. Joseph Fessio, SJ Contents copyright © 2024 by ADOREMUS. All rights reserved.

Adoremus Bulletin, January 2024

Authentic Liturgy Is Not about You or Me

3

By Christopher Carstens, Editor AB/WIKIMEDIA. SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST POINTING TO CHRIST, BY BARTOLOMÉ ESTEBAN MURILLO (1617-1682)

M

erriam-Webster has named “authentic” as its “Word of the Year” for 2023, based upon word searches and look-ups. Commenting on its findings, Merriam-Webster suggested that “authentic saw a substantial increase in 2023 driven by stories and conversations about AI, celebrity culture, identity and social media.”

Were there a liturgical “Word of the Year,” it too could be “authentic.”

Like that of the liturgical movement which preceded its promulgation, Sacrosanctum Concilium’s goal was the reform and restoration of the sacred liturgy to its “true and authentic spirit” (37). To this end, unnecessarily complex rites were simplified, perceived duplications were discarded, and genuine elements lost to history were restored. (How well or poorly the postconciliar books met these desires is, of course, an ongoing matter of debate.)

Following decades of provisional translations, the 2001 document Liturgiam Authenticam called for revised principles, processes, and, ultimately, translations of the liturgical texts that would be, as its title indicates, more authentic. This fifth document on implementing properly the mind of the Council begins by reminding us that “the Second Vatican Council strongly desired to preserve with care the authentic liturgy, which flows forth from the Church’s living and most ancient spiritual tradition, and to adapt it with pastoral wisdom to the genius of the various peoples” (emphasis added). It is as if the author of the liturgy— Christ—demands that the texts it employs accurately and integrally reflect his mind on the matter, “without omissions or additions…without paraphrases or glosses” (20).

Since its inception in 1995—long before MerriamWebster identified “authentic” with the postmodern mind—Adoremus has been interested in liturgical authenticity. Its first founding principle, in fact, is “to promote authentic reform of the liturgy of the Roman Rite.” Further, its “guiding principle for authentic liturgical reform is enunciated in Sacrosanctum Concilium: ‘[T]here must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them, and care must be taken that any new form adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing’” (23, from principle number 6). Among the principal goals Adoremus established at its founding, the seventh calls for “a more authentic observance of the liturgical norms approved since the Council.” Further, liturgical changes that do occur

St. John the Baptist may not have been “true to himself” in a secular sense, but since he decreased so that Christ could increase, he lived a life of real authenticity—that of the saint.

must, Adoremus believes, be introduced only, as its eighth goal states, “if in harmony with the authentic renewal of the liturgy expressed in the Council documents.”

Even though the 2023 cultural experience and the eternal liturgical experience hold authenticity in high regard, the secular and the sacred see “authenticity” in rather diverse ways. MerriamWebster (rightly, it appears) describes the challenge of defining “authentic,” well, authentically. Although the multiple meanings may be difficult to distinguish, the dictionary defines “authentic” as “‘not false or imitation,’ a synonym of real and actual; and also ‘true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character.’”

Cultural authenticity describes an expression of one’s self; liturgical authenticity, on the other hand, refers to a revelation not of those celebrating, but to Christ himself. Let’s spell out this distinction more clearly.

In our culture—especially our Western culture—I am encouraged to be “true to myself.” What I wear, what I say (and how I say it), and my own actions ought to be accurate, genuine expressions of me. What I am should correspond with how I live. Were there some dichotomy between who I am and how I live, I would rightly be called a phony, a fake, and a fraud— that is, inauthentic.

But our liturgy challenges us to see authenticity differently. When we come to Mass, for example, our

words, actions, gestures, values, and behaviors no longer originate with us, but with another person, Christ, who lives among us today principally in his Mystical Body, the Church. In the liturgical arena, then, authenticity is not judged primarily on how well (or poorly) it reflects us, but how well (or poorly) it reflects Christ. Only then do we participants, we members of his Body, enter the conversation: for an authentic Christian, the saint, has set aside his own idiosyncrasies to such an extent that Christ has increased and come to full stature in him.

The paradox in all of this “authentic Christianity” is that turning away from oneself and toward God— “losing one’s life for the sake of finding it” (Matthew 10:39)—isn’t actually being inauthentic to oneself at all, but, rather, pursuing the only path to true authenticity.

The only “self ” that the liturgy must stay true to is Christ. Consequently, “authentic liturgy” is not about you, me, our pastors, bishops, diocesan liturgy directors, publications, blogs, or commentators—it is about Christ, revealed to us today through his body, the Church, in her sacred rites. Authentic liturgy—that is, the liturgy celebrated according to the authority of Christ—has next to nothing to do with our own likes or dislikes in music, or own tastes in architecture, our own favorite scriptural readings…, but has everything to do with “being true to himself ”—Christ.

May our 2024 truly be—in a word—authentic.

Dorothy Day: Faithful Daughter of the Church— Faithful to the Prayer of the Church We cannot build up the idea of the apostolate of the laity without the foundation of the liturgy.1

I

came to know of Dorothy Day during my senior year at the University of Notre Dame. I had just returned from a study abroad program in Rome, where I had the blessing of experiencing in audience the greatness that was St. John Paul II. I saw the bones of St. Peter. The reality of the person of Jesus, his Incarnation and Resurrection, struck me to the core of my consciousness. I fell in love with my faith and with Holy Mother Church.

At moments of conversion like this, we look to the saints, first for affirmation of our conversion, and then for examples of what life looks like for the converted. Upon my return from Rome, I was edified in the former, but lacking the latter. The saints with which I was familiar were mostly religious men and women who lived in historical circumstances far different from my own. Who were the examples of living the Christian life in modern day America?

Enter Dorothy Day and her 1952 autobiography, The Long Loneliness, assigned to me in a Catholic Social Teaching class.

Born November 8, 1897, in New York City,

Dorothy Day founded the Catholic Worker Movement with Peter Maurin in May during the Great Depression in 1933. Their vision for this movement, which continues to this day, was to found self-sustaining communities, modeled on the justice and charity embodied by Jesus Christ, which would serve the poor and marginalized in society. A Catholic convert well-known for her journalism and political activism, Day lived Catholic social teaching to its fullest, and advocated for all Catholics, religious and laity, to do so. Here was an example for me of a lay woman living out her faith in 20th century America. What hope!

Foundation of a Movement Day was ahead of her time as a lay person leading a lay ministry committed to living out the Corporal Works of Mercy. Surely, had she been born even 50 years earlier, she would have been encouraged by the Church to establish a religious order for such purposes. As a lay movement of the Catholic Church, the Catholic Worker was neither a religious order nor a secular organization doing social work (what today we might call an NGO). It is a lay movement doing the work of Jesus Christ. Christ comes first. Christ always comes first. For this reason, the liturgy of the Church is essential to the

SOURCE: AB/JIM FOREST ON FLICKR

By Carmina Chapp

Servant of God Dorothy Day, 1897-1980.

Catholic Worker staying true to its roots. Both Day and Maurin were thoroughly saturated with the liturgical life of the Church.

Day was a daily communicant. She found her strength in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. The Liturgical Movement of the 20th century interested her greatly, as it attempted to Please see DAY on page 10

Adoremus Bulletin, January 2024

AB/LAWRENCE OP ON FLICKR

4

How to deliver a homily is one significant difference between in-person and broadcast Masses. When Father preaches to a real congregation at a real Sunday Mass, he should not fix his gaze (as a TV preacher can) on the camera. He will look at different parts of the congregation, which he should, but a pastor’s total indifference to the camera will come across as “ignoring” the online viewer.

Continued from TELEVISED, page 1 generally means the Eucharistic Prayer looks remote.

Sometimes, the angle is even strange, though I have gotten used to it: St. Dominic’s, the Rosary Shrine in London, streams daily Mass. Its camera must be up on a column because it looks down on the sanctuary from something like a 45° angle. In that way, it encompasses almost everything happening in the sanctuary (except that the celebrants step out of the visual stream when distributing Communion), but it almost seems the viewer is looking down from heaven on the celebration of Mass. Whether that was intended or serendipitous, I know not.

A parish Mass is, obviously, not primarily intended for televising, so we should neither expect nor want the greater complexity (e.g., multiple cameras) a “televised Mass” affords. After all, the “televised” celebrant and his congregation are aware this is also a media production for another audience.

That is not—and should not—be the rule for parish Sunday Mass.

Remember, even at in-person Sunday Masses, people’s eyes move. They watch the celebrant ingress.

They see him at the altar. They may look at the reader or they may pick up their pew missalette. At times they may even close their eyes in prayer and look at nothing. Shifting “televised Mass” angles approximate these natural human changes; the typical online parish Mass doesn’t.

My point is that there is an inherent tension between a Mass that is celebrated with the actual participation of a staged congregation (yet one hopefully still at prayer) but intended for broadcast versus a Sunday Mass whose primary “audience” is those in church but also made available to shutins and others. The 1996 “Guidelines” envisioned this distinction when they spoke of “live,” “delayed telecast,” and “pre-recorded” (with a preference for “live”).

But those distinctions don’t always work.

Broadcast Masses (as compared to streaming on one’s own social media channel) usually have to fit into fixed time slots,2 something that can be extremely tricky in live broadcasting. The “delayed telecast” (recorded earlier in the day, broadcast later) seems to face the same dilemma. The “Guidelines” rightly insist this is a liturgy, not a production, so they rightly object to anything being left on the cutting room floor, and to the use of recorded music. But if one must fit certain time parameters because that is what is available in that broadcast medium, one might need to cut some verses of a hymn (or, probably more rarely, add them). Whether and how that should happen requires liturgical

“ There is an inherent tension between a Mass that is celebrated with the actual participation of a staged congregation (yet one hopefully still at prayer) but intended for broadcast versus a Sunday Mass whose primary ‘audience’ is those in church but also made available to shut-ins and others.” and theological discussion alongside the technical production issues.

Real Stage Presence Another lesson our COVID foray into media should have taught us is the need for priestly training in modern communications. That is sorely lacking.

While Catholics have long lamented poor preaching skills, our COVID experience also made manifest the utter lack of preparation of most priests to be in front of a camera or online.

Case-in-point: I remember one priest with male pattern baldness. He was apparently used to reading his homily from notes so, on camera, we were treated to seven minutes of his inclined head, his bald crown on view, reading. Given that St. Paul VI abolished tonsure as a sign of admission to the clerical state back in 1972 in Ministeria Quaedam, we didn’t need proof of Father’s clerical bona fides. Put bluntly: one needs to know how to act (and I don’t pick that verb pejoratively) in front of a camera!

Priests who have not learned to articulate find that problem accentuated online: Father Mumbles does not improve on television. Indeed, even more priests struggle with the technical side of being heard because an online targeted transmission requires good audio, and priests sometimes don’t pay attention to where the microphone is. The good acoustics of a church can sometimes compensate for that; broadcast media are less forgiving because they are less adaptable.

Having said that, this will be another difference in online parish Masses. When Father preaches to a real congregation at a real Sunday Mass, he should not fix his gaze (as a TV preacher can) on the camera.

He will look at different parts of the congregation, which he should, but a pastor’s total indifference to the camera will come across as “ignoring” the online

viewer. That fact will be even more accentuated for those remaining clergy who combine preaching with restless leg syndrome, i.e., who still feel a need to walk around during the homily.

In addressing the particular “celebration skills” a priest offering Mass in front of a camera needs, I am reminded of my experience as a seminary dean trying to hire a priest to teach those skills. Our curriculum presupposed some homiletics course each year, but they were being staffed by adjuncts, i.e., local priests deemed good preachers. The arrangement offered no continuity for students or in curriculum. Besides, the courses were traditional in terms of preparing priests to preach at Mass in a parish. I was convinced we also needed priests who could speak on radio or TV, even “do something” with that new thing called “the world wide web.”

We announced a hiring. It resulted (no joke) in six ministers, two rabbis, and a priest.

We got the ministers because, given the Reformation’s primacy of Word over sacrament, Protestant clergy long ago focused on preaching.

Because of the Jewish focus on the Torah, the same was true with rabbis. But I had only one priest: because the number of Catholic institutions offering a terminal doctorate in preaching back then was tiny, the number of graduates was likewise small.

In the end, the hiring went nowhere because the priest was coming from another diocese and there were all sorts of questions (including financial) about

“ COVID led to many parishes simply doing what they thought necessary to bring the Mass in some form to Catholics, at least online. What of the future? Should such Masses go away?” his relationship to us, the diocese he was working for, and his home diocese. The real point, though, is how limited is the number of clergy ready to train other clergy in preaching and media skills. An informal survey I did of seminaries at the start of COVID tells me it largely remains so, 25 years after my abortive attempt to hire in that field.

The Program of Priestly Formation requires training in preaching, but it needs to address three corollary issues: (1) priests today just don’t preach, they need to evangelize in broader, mediarelated contexts; (2) public speaking is no longer

5

Adoremus Bulletin, January 2024

“ We are living in a ‘virtual’ age.

That reality has benefits. But it also has downsides because human beings are not ‘virtual’ but real creatures.”

Channels of Grace?

COVID led to many parishes simply doing what they thought necessary to bring the Mass in some form to Catholics, at least online. What of the future? Should such Masses go away? I am of two minds on that question. On the one hand, yes: their existence may help continue depressing genuine Mass attendance, which has not wholly recovered since the “field hospital” struck tent and closed down. On the other hand, no: one Sunday Mass live streamed from one’s parish does represent tangible outreach to the homebound of that parish in a way that establishes a “community connection” no professionally produced “TV Mass” can.

But, if such online Masses continue, they will also raise other practical issues, e.g., right now, there are certain copyright licenses that regulate the use of hymns in a broadcast, etc. How will that apply in a streamed, maybe even an “on-demand,” environment? In some countries, the issue is compounded by needing consent of all people whose faces appear on screen.

Beyond the practical questions of what an online Mass should “look” like—in terms of what the medium demands—I have further theological and pastoral questions.

My core issue centers around “participation” because spatial incarnation means “presence.”

We are living in a “virtual” age. That reality has benefits. But it also has downsides because human beings are not “virtual” but real creatures. Tenthousand “virtual” friends don’t equal one real one: just ask little Ebenezer Scrooge “with his books and his Ali Baba,” left abandoned in the English boarding school of his youth. Or ask the kids who are suffering not just intellectual but socio-emotional deficits from extended periods of “online” (i.e., non-personal) COVID schooling. “Virtualization” tries to cancel space and time.

“Virtualization” is particularly inimical to the Catholic liturgy which, by its incarnational nature, presupposes real “body and soul” participation.

That is ultimately why Sunday “TV Masses” did not and cannot “count” towards participating in Sunday Mass.3 But “virtualization” jells well with the gnostic/ dualist streak of contemporary culture that depreciates the body and reduces reality to states of mind and intention. That is the message the larger culture is sending. The Catholic incarnational principle is, right now, the strongest cultural counterpoint to that message. One must, however, ask whether our “virtualizing” the liturgy abets the worst elements of our culture.

Another reason we ought to do a post-mortem of the COVID shutdown is precisely the question: how many Catholics have now come to believe that “TV Mass” is “as good” as a real Mass? And how many have used that temporary palliative as a waystation eventually to sloughing off any Mass, real or virtual?

In other words, how much did this experiment accelerate the secularization of the Church, both among those nominally remaining as well as among those for whom it was the last thrust out the locked door?

That denigration of the incarnational principle also arguably had real consequences for our sacramental and especially our Eucharistic theology. The COVID

lockdown and TV Masses revived an earlier spiritual discipline that had fallen into eclipse in the postVatican II era of infrequent Confession/frequent Communion: “spiritual Communion.”

In earlier times, Catholics resorted to “spiritual Communion” because they did not consider themselves worthy or prepared to receive Communion. Sometimes that was an issue of scrupulosity, but it also often beneficially made Catholics aware of the need for proper and proximate spiritual preparation prior to receiving the Eucharist.

The words of the traditional act of spiritual Communion captured this: “Since I cannot now receive you sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart.”

When online and televised Masses started reciting “acts of spiritual Communion” during the COVID

should we not ask whether the COVID emphasis on “spiritual” Communion is subversive of the sacramental order in general and appreciation of the Real Presence in particular? Does it not open the door to a reverse but dilute form of Donatism, one that renders the human minister (and physical sacrament) superfluous, a dispensable “earthen vessel” ultimately unnecessary to the graced action of the Divine Minister? Again, such thinking ultimately destroys the sacramental system as a whole.

In my judgment, the physical, the space issue, is paramount and poses serious theological issues. But men are spatio-temporal creatures, and some forms of “broadcast” Masses raise questions about time, too.

As noted, the USCCB’s 1996 “Guidelines” declare a preference for “live” transmission, but that is unrealistic: the Pope’s live Mass is a news item that

AB/CATHOLIC CHURCH ENGLAND AND WALES ON FLICKR

a graduation requirement in many undergraduate schools, forcing seminaries to start from scratch; and (3) the growing numbers of foreign-born clergy in U.S. dioceses often requires both compensatory English as Second Language courses and extra work on accent coaching in public speaking. Those tasks will add time to the “usual” four years of postgraduate seminary education.

“Virtualization” is particularly inimical to the Catholic liturgy which, by its incarnational nature, presupposes real “body and soul” participation. That is ultimately why Sunday “TV Masses” did not and cannot “count” towards participating in Sunday Mass.

“ How many Catholics have now come to believe that ‘TV Mass’ is ‘as good’ as a real Mass?” shutdown, I noticed a subtle change. The Toronto “Sunday TV Mass,” for example, omitted the words italicized above. But, in dropping “at least spiritually” from the prayer, one gave the impression that spiritual Communion was equivalent to, “as good as,” real Communion.

That is really wrong.

Pushed hard enough, it is subversive of the whole structure of Catholic sacramental theology: why do we need sacraments if what they signify is accomplished “spiritually?” If “spiritual Communion” is “as good as” sacramental Communion, what does sacramental Communion add? Communal participation? A “shared meal?” Isn’t this a “virtualization” of the Eucharist?

And, if we can “virtualize” or “spiritualize” the Eucharist, I suggest then that the American bishops’ “Eucharistic renewal” will not achieve what it hopes to, because if we are sending the message that “spiritual Communion” essentially does the same thing as the genuine Eucharist, why bother? What do the sacraments really add? Aren’t they nice but ultimately optional extras—assurances of grace about which we should not trouble from the hands of a “merciful” God? Time-Space (Dis)Continuum Recent authors writing in sacramental theology— Romanus Cessario and José Granados, in particular— have signaled the impoverishment of our sacramental theology that comes from erroneous mindsets that understand them more as celebrations of what God has accomplished and less as prerequisite to God normally accomplishing what they signify. In other words, what do sacraments cause? In that sense,

can take as long as it need to, but not the average Sunday Mass. For many “broadcast” Masses are pre-recorded, not just because of technical issues (e.g., making sure one “fits” the broadcast space) but because of the availability of “personnel” (priest, “congregation,” technical staff). That means the Mass will likely not be celebrated on its proper day, e.g., a Sunday Mass will likely be recorded on a prior weekday. Once upon a time that was almost unavoidable: 45 years ago, when I was involved in production of the “Polish Radio Mass” from Michigan’s Orchard Lake Schools, we had to record earlier because the tapes needed to be mailed physically to a Rhode Island station that carried us.

Today, online delivery largely obviates that problem, though other issues arise, e.g., adding closedcaptioning for the hearing-impaired. But it still means that some Masses will be celebrated on a day other than when that liturgy is proper. How, under such circumstances, do we ensure that the liturgy remains liturgy and not a “commodity” requires further discussion.

Televised Masses are not likely to go away and, at least in some limited ways, shouldn’t. That said, they pose a multiplicity of problems—technical, logistical, canonical, pastoral, liturgical, and sacramental—that we cannot ignore.

John Grondelski (Ph.D., Fordham) was former associate dean of the School of Theology, Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ. 1. F or a treatment of the theological foundation and rationale of a Christian’s obligation to participate in communal worship on Sundays and holydays of obligation, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 2180-83. See also the Code of Canon Law, Canons 1247 and 1248. Note that, in the absence of a Eucharistic celebration, Canon 1248 §2 urges Catholics to participate in a parish-based Liturgy of the Word, if available, or at least “devote themselves to prayer for a suitable time,” alone, as a family, or several families gathered together. No mention is made of watching televised Masses.

2. A televised Mass slotted for a 30-minute broadcast window, for example, probably actually has a maximum of 28 minutes and 30 seconds for the “content” of the Mass, given transitions to/from the “program.”

3. A nalogically, years ago, there used to be a question in the sacramental manuals about whether one could validly confess by telephone. The answer was no, because it was not a “real presence” for the sacrament.

6

AB/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS. GOD THE FATHER AND ANGEL, BY GUERCINO (1591–1666).

Adoremus Bulletin, January 2024

When it comes to the liturgy, the Father is its source and goal. “The liturgy is inaugurated by the Father,” explains David Fagerberg, is “brought into being by the Father, caused to begin by the Father, as all things are. The phenomenon of liturgy is a spiritual instance of creatio ex nihilo.”

The Liturgy: A Work of the Trinity, a Work of the Father

By Michael Brummond Editor’s note: This entry, explaining the work of God the Father, is the first in a series of entries on the work of the Blessed Trinity in the sacred liturgy. Look for subsequent entries on the work of God the Son and the work of God the Holy Spirit in March and May, respectively.

S

praxis. At an extreme, the liturgy would become the community’s celebration of itself, overly concerned with self-expression—and such a view is hardly that of the Second Vatican Council.

While liturgy in the first place glorifies God, this is not merely the God of the philosophers or of preChristian monotheism. Christian liturgy worships the God who has revealed himself as a Trinity, one God in three Persons. Here we will focus our vision on the trinitarian character of Christian worship and the work of the Father in the liturgy. Subsequent articles will turn to the action of the incarnate Son and the Holy Spirit in the liturgy.

ixty years ago, the Second Vatican Council gave its approbation to the efforts of the preceding Liturgical Movement to restore the liturgy to the center of Catholic piety for all the faithful. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, set out a vision for both the reform of liturgical rites and for ongoing liturgical renewal in “ One of the formost features of the Church through a series of general principles and the liturgy that should stand out practical norms. The 60th anniversary of Sacrosanctum Concilium is an opportune time to examine our in great relief is its theocentric liturgical vision and perhaps to adjust our focus.

One of the foremost features of the liturgy that character.” should stand out in great relief is its theocentric character. Sacrosanctum Concilium repeatedly affirms The Trinitarian Mystery that the sacred liturgy is ordered to the twofold end of The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that the glorification of God and the sanctification of God’s people (see SC 5, 7, 10, 59, 61, 83, 112). At first glance it the Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith may seem like these are two rather diverse and perhaps and life, and that “it is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens unrelated ends of the liturgy. However, while there is them” (234). The entire Christian faith is founded on always a priority and preeminence to the divine glory, God’s revelation of himself as Father, Son, and Holy these can be seen as two interrelated and inseparable Spirit, who draws to himself a people to participate ends. St. Irenaeus said in the late second century, “the in his trinitarian life. Already in the New Testament, glory of God is man fully alive; moreover man’s life is which could claim only a nascent trinitarian theology the vision of God.” The more perfectly we glorify God, compared to later articulations, the trinitarian pattern the more we conform to the image of God, and the of thought and worship is evident, as, for instance, more we fulfill the purpose for which we were created.

Paul ends his second letter to the Corinthians in this The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) tells us trinitarian key: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and that “the ultimate purpose of creation is that God who the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be is the creator of all things may at last become ‘all in all,’ with you all” (13:14). Likewise, he tells the Ephesians: thus simultaneously assuring his own glory and our “be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in beatitude” (294). psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and Proper liturgical focus would keep this reality making melody to the Lord with all your heart, always central. In contrast, a distorted vision of the liturgy and for everything giving thanks in the name of our would involve an anthropocentric turn which views Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father” (Ephesians 5:18the human person alone as the measure of liturgical

20). This trinitarian pattern so thoroughly permeates the thought of Paul that liturgical scholar Cyprian Vagaggini affirms that “the explicit theory and actual practice of St. Paul is that the prayer of Christians, especially their prayer of thanksgiving, is made to the Father through his Son, Jesus Christ, with a consciousness that it is not possible to do this without the active presence in us of the Holy Spirit.”1 The language of the liturgy on this score is the language of St. Paul transposed into the ritual worship of the trinitarian God. This same trinitarian form is found in the basic shape of salvation history as the dynamic of exitusreditus. All things come forth from God (exitus) and find their goal in their return to God (reditus) for his glory. This, too, has a trinitarian dimension. All good gifts come from the Father, through his Son, in the Holy Spirit. Gregory of Nyssa illustrates this trinitarian progression: “Whatever operation passes from God to the creature…takes its origin from the Father, is continued by the Son, and is brought to completion in the Holy Spirit.”2 Likewise, the return of all things follows the same path back to the Father. Irenaeus of Lyons writes: “This is the order and the plan for those who are saved…; they advance by these steps: through the Holy Spirit they arrive at the Son and through the Son they rise to the Father.”3 This trinitarian dynamic is not arbitrary or wholly malleable. It is rooted in the eternal processions in the very inner life of God. The Father is the unbegotten source of divinity; the Son proceeds from the Father; and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. Already in the beginning the Father creates through his Word in the presence of the Spirit who hovers over the waters (cf. Genesis 1:1-3; John 1:1-3).

And “when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5). The Son sent by the Father becomes incarnate by the Holy Spirit who overshadows Mary (Luke 1:35). Salvation history “is a history which the Father has willed to be as it is, and which He directs infallibly to His own glory…. It is the

Adoremus Bulletin, January 2024 Father who has delivered up His own Son, Jesus, to the recognized as the source of all good gifts and the Passion, by reason of the infinite charity with which ultimate object of prayer and adoration. The Son is the He has loved us.”4 God creates and acts in history as he high priest mediating our prayers to the Father. And is in himself from all eternity, as Father, Son, and Holy we ask the Father to send the Spirit upon the gifts on Spirit. the altar and upon the faithful who partake of the gifts.

The trinitarian economy of salvation has now become the sacramental economy of the liturgy.

Trinitarian Participation As God is in his inner life, and as he has worked in This focus on God the Father in the liturgy means that creation and in the incarnation, he continues in the both the liturgy and all Christian life have a dynamic trinitarian shape of the liturgy. “In the liturgy of the directionality. The way God has revealed himself to Church, God the Father is blessed and adored as the us reflects who he is in his inner life, and so the way source of all the blessings of creation and salvation with we return to God is neither capricious nor left to which he has blessed us in his Son, in order to give us our determination. The liturgy, following the New the Spirit of filial adoption” (CCC, 1110). So central is Testament, offers us the lens by which we view the the work of the Holy Trinity in the liturgy, manifest in world and life in the world as a Christian. This vision its whole structure, that without it the liturgy would provides a concrete path to both understand and live be incoherent. The liturgy is an icon of the Trinity. As the trinitarian life.

David Fagerberg says, “the gaze between the Persons of the Trinity, so beautifully depicted by [the icon of] “ Liturgy is where God invites us Rublev, depicts the energies glancing from one Person to the next. It is a picture of liturgy: all things come to participate in his trinitarian from the Father, and the mission given to the Son and life and elevates us with the Holy Spirit is to return all things to the Father for his glory.”5 Rather than merely some abstract doctrinal grace to do so.” formula, the Trinity is the very life of the liturgy, a life in which we participate.

The Work of the Father As an action of God ad extra (i.e., in creation, outside the inner life of God), the liturgy is a work common to the divine essence, a joint operation of the three Persons (see CCC, 258). However, we may attribute such actions of the Holy Trinity to one of the divine Persons through what is called appropriation, because that action bears some resemblance to an essential characteristic of that Person. In other words, we appropriate actions to the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit, insofar as those actions bear a resemblance to what that Person “does” in the inner life of the Trinity. For instance, creation is typically appropriated to the Father, not because the Son and Spirit are uninvolved in creation, but because the Father is the font of divinity from whom the Son and Spirit proceed, while himself not originating as proceeding from another Person.

The liturgy is a constant reminder that the doctrine of the Trinity is not merely a theological formula, but a description of the ground of all reality. “The liturgy, if we know how to understand it and live it, is the best means of all for making us penetrate these marvelous realities and for keeping ourselves attuned to them.”9 Made in the image and likeness of the trinitarian God, this means knowing and living as our truest selves.

This, of course, is not simply a matter of selfknowledge. The liturgy is not about self-help, but about God transfiguring us. “The force of liturgyin-motion does not come from us; it is God’s energy stretching forth and picking us up on its waves. What occurs eternally within the Trinity somehow trespasses its celestial borders to reproduce in us, through sacramental channels, the internal relations of Father,

7 Son, and Holy Spirit.”10 Liturgy is where God invites us to participate in his trinitarian life and elevates us with the grace to do so.

Moreover, in the liturgy we encounter not just abstract “divinity” or the divine nature, but the Persons of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in their distinctness without loss of unity. As we are assimilated to the trinitarian life, “there is expression of the special relation which creatures have even with that which the single Persons of the Trinity have in proper respect to each other, or, as theologians would say, with the propria (properties) of the individual Persons.”11 So in the liturgy we encounter the Father who is the source of creation and salvation; we bless the Father in adoration and praise for all his blessings; we ask the Father, through the Son, to impart again his Holy Spirit; and we continue our return to the Father’s house where Christ has prepared a place for us (cf. John 14:23). To see the liturgy otherwise is to see only dimly and incompletely—and such a sight is not that of the Church, her Constitutions, or her celebrations.

Mike Brummond holds a Doctorate in Sacred Liturgy from the University of St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein Seminary, IL. He is associate professor of systematic studies at Sacred Heart Seminary and School of Theology in Hales Corners, WI. 1. Cyprian Vagaggini, Theological Dimensions of the Liturgy (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1976), 202.

2. Gregory of Nyssa, Quod non sint tres dii, PG 45, col. 125; quoted in Vagaggini, 205.

3. Irenaeus of Lyons, Adversus haereses 5, 36, 2; quoted in Vagaggini, 204.

4. Vagaggini, 241-242.

5. David Fagerberg, Liturgical Dogmatics: How Catholic Beliefs Flow from Liturgical Prayer (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2021), 29.

6. Fagerberg, 35.

7. Council of Hippo [393 AD], quoted in Vagaggini, 210. Vagaggini goes on to note: “When the rule was ignored, however, and some orations were addressed directly to Christ or to the Son, these, of course, had of necessity to take on a somewhat different character…. In the Middle Ages a series of new orations was composed, addressed quite clearly to the Son; and from the beginning of the fifteenth century, there are some that begin Domine Iesu Christe. Even further removed from ancient tradition are those medieval orations which are addressed directly to the Trinity. They are, however, relatively few” (Vagaggini, 216-217).

8. Eucharistic Prayer III. 9. Vagaggini, 246.

10. Fagerberg, 33.

11. Vagaggini, 201.

In like manner, when it comes to the liturgy, the Father is named as its source and goal. “The liturgy is inaugurated by the Father, brought into being by the Father, caused to begin by the Father, as all things are. The phenomenon of liturgy is a spiritual instance of creatio ex nihilo.”6 And it is through the liturgy that we return to the Father. The Catechism of the Catholic Church stresses this through the dual aspects of blessing. The entire work of creation and salvation is a blessing from the Father. We, in turn, render blessing to the Father in praise and thanks for this great work. “Blessing is a divine and life-giving action, the source of which is the Father; his blessing is both word and gift. When applied to man, the word ‘blessing’ means adoration and surrender to his Creator in thanksgiving” (CCC, 1078). The liturgy expresses this twofold dynamic as the Church both adores, praises, and thanks the Father, while also continually petitioning the Father for the Holy Spirit and for all our needs (see CCC, 1083; Matthew 7:11; Luke 11:13).

This trinitarian dynamic is visible in the very language and structure of the liturgy’s prayers.

The great majority of the collects, for instance, are addressed to the Father and made through the Lord Jesus in the communion of the Spirit. This ancient pattern was so normative, in fact, that the Council of Hippo in 393 declared, “In services at the altar, the collect is always to be directed to the Father.”7 Our Eucharistic Prayers are likewise addressed to the Father in trinitarian form: “You are indeed Holy, O Lord, and all you have created rightly gives you praise, for through your Son our Lord Jesus Christ, by the power and working of the Holy Spirit, you give life to all things and make them holy….”8 In the Eucharistic prayer, as in the liturgy as a whole, the Father is

AB/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

“ A distorted vision of the liturgy would involve an anthropocentric turn which views the human person alone as the measure of liturgical praxis.”

St. Irenaeus said in the late second century that “the glory of God is man fully alive; moreover man’s life is the vision of God.” The more perfectly we glorify God, the more we conform to the image of God, and the more we fulfill the purpose for which we were created.

8

Adoremus Bulletin, January 2024

Eucharistic Faith Made Manifest: The Case for Altar Canopies

By Michael J. Bursch

Liturgy and Eucharist in Vatican II The Second Vatican Council and more recent documents have all emphatically re-affirmed the centuries-old belief that the liturgy is the central action of the Church. As Sacrosanctum Concilium (SC), the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, states, “the liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed” (10). Because the liturgy is the Church’s preeminent work and her highest fulfillment, it follows that church buildings should be designed around the liturgy, a point explicated by Built of Living Stones, the current guidelines for church architecture

St. Peter’s Basilica, with and without the altar canopy. While still a stunning church, the altar is completely lost without the canopy, which architecturally manifests the prominence, centrality, and beauty of the altar and the Eucharist.

from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB): “The church building is designed in harmony with church laws and serves the needs of the liturgy” (28).

Just as the liturgy is the center of the Church, the Eucharist is the center of the liturgy, a fact vigorously affirmed by the Second Vatican Council and other documents. As Sacrosanctum Concilium states, “the work of our redemption is accomplished [through the liturgy], most of all in the divine sacrifice of the Eucharist” (10). Likewise, in the often quoted, but ever salient, line paraphrasing Lumen Gentium, the Catechism of the Catholic Church notes, “The Eucharist is ‘the source and summit of the Christian life’” (CCC, 1324; LG, 11).

“B aldacchino comes from the Italian word for Baghdad, the place from which the sumptuous cloth used in altar canopies originated.”

Since church architecture should be designed for the liturgy and the Eucharist is the center of the liturgy, it follows that the design of a church should be focused on the Eucharist—and the altar. This focus on the Eucharist as the starting point for all church architecture is echoed by Pope Benedict XVI: “the purpose of sacred architecture is to offer the Church a fitting space for the celebration of the mysteries

of faith, especially the Eucharist” (Sacramentum Caritatis, 41).

Liturgical and Eucharistic In designing a Eucharistic church, the Eucharist and its altar ought to be the central focus of the church building, and the altar should be prominent in its placement, design, and surroundings. “Above all, the main altar should be so placed and constructed that it is always seen to be the sign of Christ Himself, the place at which the saving mysteries are carried out, and the center of the assembly, to which the greatest reverence is due” (Eucharisticum Mysterium, Sacred Congregation of Rites, 24). This is reiterated in Built of Living Stones: “The altar is the natural focal point of the sanctuary” (57).

Beauty must also be considered when designing a liturgical and Eucharistic church. “Beauty, as much as truth and good, leads us to God, the first truth, supreme good, and beauty itself ” (Dicastery for Culture and Education, Via Pulchritudinis, 2.2, citing Benedict XVI). God, the author of all beauty and Beauty itself, is reflected in all beauty, whether natural, man-made, or sacred. This is particularly true for the sacred arts, which “by their very nature, are oriented toward the infinite beauty of God” (SC, 122).

Thus, beauty is not an optional nicety in the design of churches: “Beauty, then, is not mere decoration, but rather an essential element of the liturgical action, since it is an attribute of God himself and his revelation” (Sacramentum Caritatis, 35, emphasis added). Every part of the liturgy is to be beautiful: the rite, the music,

AB/WIKIMEDIA

Altar Canopies: An Introduction There are two major types of altar canopies: the ciborium magnum and the tester. A ciborium magnum is a canopy that utilizes columns to support architectural or cloth elements above an altar, such as the altar canopy in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. A tester is a canopy without columns that is either hung from the ceiling or cantilevered out from a wall. Both of these types have many subtypes, including the baldacchino. Often confused with the term ciborium magnum, baldacchino comes from the Italian word for Baghdad, the place from which the sumptuous cloth used in altar canopies originated. The term baldacchino properly refers to a fabric canopy, and can be defined to include either a ciborium or tester designed to appear as cloth (such as the ciborium magnum in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome).

Along with baldacchinos, there is a wide array of other variations.

The first altar canopy on record was given by Emperor Constantine to the Basilica of St. John Lateran in the fourth century, as recorded in the Liber Pontificalis. Since then, altar canopies have graced church buildings across time and culture. They can be found in every style imaginable, including early Christian (San Clemente, Rome), Gothic (St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, Rome), Byzantine (Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, MO), Arabesque (Eglise SaintMartin, Pau, France), Art Nouveau (Église SaintLéopold, Vienna) and Modern (Christ Cathedral, Orange County, CA). This variety reflects the statement from Sacrosanctum Concilium that “the Church has not adopted any particular style of art as her very own; she has admitted styles from every period” (123). Thus, altar canopies can have an appropriate character for any type of church, from ancient to contemporary.

Altar canopies have a great import for the Church today due to the post-Vatican II shift away from the ad orientem high altar towards the now ubiquitous freestanding altar (General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 299). With an ad orientem high altar, an architectural back-drop on the wall behind (either a reredos or an altarpiece) is typically used to visually highlight the altar. However, a freestanding altar does not always have such an architectural focal point, and thus has the potential to appear “stranded” in the sanctuary. Altar canopies, unlike a reredos, are (most often) freestanding structures, and are thereby a much more natural pairing with freestanding altars to visually highlight them. Not only do altar canopies prevent freestanding altars from becoming visually lost in the sanctuary, but they also manifest the centrality, prominence, and beauty of the altar and the Eucharist beneath them, thus following the liturgical and Eucharistic theology of Vatican II and later documents.

AB/MICHAEL BURSCH

T

he Second Vatican Council’s constitutions and post-conciliar documents were used to reshape the way Catholic churches looked around the globe. Gone were high altars, prominent tabernacles, altar rails, and the like. However, while the specious “Spirit of Vatican II” has often been cited as a reason to strip churches of their traditional art, furnishings, and architecture, a study of these documents shows that they suggest nothing of the sort—in fact, quite the opposite. This article will focus on the use of altar canopies. Used throughout the Church from St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, altar canopies architecturally manifest the liturgical and Eucharistic theology of Vatican II and should be encouraged and used in the Church today.

Used throughout the Church from St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City (pictured above), altar canopies architecturally manifest the liturgical and Eucharistic theology of Vatican II and should be encouraged and used in the Church today.

9

Adoremus Bulletin, January 2024

Canopies symbolize and connect participants in the liturgy to the beauty of God. One of the earliest canopies associated with religion was the Jewish Tabernacle, the official “housing” of God’s presence among the Chosen People. This tabernacle—in reality, a tent—can be understood as a canopy over the place of God’s dwelling.

specifications given by God to Moses and was made of fine linen, colored cloths, acai wood, gold, and brass (see Exodus 36-39). Its ornate and beautiful construction was not mandated by God out of any arbitrary sense of aesthetics, but because it shared in the beauty of he who is Beauty itself.

In churches today, altar canopies likewise share in the beauty of God. By highlighting God’s presence in the altar and the Eucharist, each of these coverings reminds the viewer that “the author of holiness is Himself present in it” (Eucharisticum Mysterium, Sacred Congregation of Rites, 4). In fact, what goes for the altar canopy also goes for the entire church: “indeed, the nature and beauty of the place and all its furnishings should foster devotion and express visually the holiness of the mysteries celebrated there” (General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 294).

Canopies also bring a different perspective on beauty through their nuptial connotations. Jewish weddings use a chuppah, a special canopy that the bride and groom stand beneath; this tradition is still active in many Jewish communities. Entering beneath this canopy is symbolic of the consummation of the marriage (Guide to Jewish Marriage, Rayner, 19-20). Catholic weddings of the past also used canopies over the couple to-be-wed, particularly in royal ceremonies—a tradition connected to the design of the canopy bed, which serves to highlight the sacredness of the “marriage bed.” Naturally, these nuptial connotations of the canopy derive their beauty from the Christian nuptial mystery, where spousal love is perfected through the imitation of the sublimely beautiful, self-sacrificial love between Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5:21:33). Altar canopies in churches highlight this nuptial symbolism at its

height, for the altar is truly the nuptial bed of Christ and his Church, where his Passion, re-presented, is the consummation of this mystical wedding. “Indeed, Christ…loved the Church as His bride, delivering Himself up for her…. He united her to Himself as His own body” (Lumen Gentium, 39). Altar canopies thus express this mystery, reminding us of the profound beauty of the great Sacrament of the Altar.

Beautiful Focus The Second Vatican Council and post-conciliar documents strongly reaffirm the centrality of the liturgy in the Church, and the Eucharist in the liturgy.

They explain and affirm that the Eucharist and the altar are to be the central focus of the church building, prominent, and marked by beauty. Canopies have been and are used to denote royalty, significance, sanctity, nuptiality, and beauty across time and culture.

By architecturally manifesting these attributes, altar canopies visually mark the centrality, prominence, and beauty of the Eucharist. With our post-conciliar liturgy and norms, altar canopies ought to be considered and encouraged for liturgical designs in the Church today.

Michael J. Bursch, AIA, is a sacred architect in Washington, DC. After studying architecture and theology at the University of Notre Dame, he now works with Harrison Design’s sacred architecture studio, which specializes in the design of traditional and classical churches across the country. As an independent scholar, he engages in research on the churches of the Roman Forum and on liturgical architecture topics. He lives in Falls Church, VA, with his wife and daughter.

The term baldacchino properly refers to a fabric canopy, and can be defined to include either a ciborium or tester designed to appear as cloth (such as the ciborium magnum in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome). Along with baldacchinos, there is a wide array of other variations.

AB/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

AB/MICHAEL BURSCH

History and Meaning Having established that the Eucharist necessitates centrality, prominence, and beauty, we will now look at how canopies have and continue to express these three elements. First, with regards to centrality and prominence, in the secular realm, royal canopies have historically been used from emperors of the Holy Roman Empire to modern European monarchs to symbolize the importance and centrality of the figures beneath them. Similarly, canopies have also been used in Christian art to denote the prominence and sanctity of the person beneath—typically Christ or the Blessed Virgin Mary. These canopies are often depicted in medieval, Baroque, and icon-style paintings, and canopies are also found over tombs and sculptures of saints; in each case, the canopy makes the most important figure visually prominent. Finally, canopies have long been used in the Church as a way to emphasize the sacred office of bishop and pope, and can still be seen in many cathedrals over the cathedra (the chair of a bishop). These canopies denote the hierarchical status of the ministers in the Church and the centrality of their role in persona Christi—in the person of Christ—in the liturgy.

Today, altar canopies are still used to highlight the most exalted status of Christ, the King of Kings, by showcasing the prominence and centrality of the altar and the Eucharist. Altar canopies architecturally manifest the prominence of the Eucharist in the Church, as exhorted by St. Pope John Paul II: “By giving the Eucharist the prominence it deserves, and by being careful not to diminish any of its dimensions or demands, we show that we are truly conscious of the greatness of this gift” (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 61).

Canopies have also been used to symbolize and connect participants in the liturgy to the beauty of God. One of the earliest canopies associated with religion was the Jewish Tabernacle, the official “housing” of God’s presence among the Chosen People. This tabernacle—in reality, a tent—can be understood as a canopy over the place of God’s dwelling. The Tabernacle was built to exacting

AB/WIKIMEDIA

and the art and architecture. “Everything related to the Eucharist,” Pope Benedict says, “should be marked by beauty” (Sacramentum Caritatis, 41).

It is through this beauty that art and architecture become “visible signs used by the liturgy to signify invisible divine things” (SC, 33). While “the Spirit of Vatican II” has been used to whitewash many a church and rip out traditional architecture and furnishings, in reality, the Council declares that “there is hardly any proper use of material things which cannot thus be directed toward the sanctification of men and the praise of God” (SC, 61). St. Pope John Paul II redounds the sentiments of Sacrosanctum Concilium as he writes, “Like the woman who anointed Jesus in Bethany, the Church has feared no ‘extravagance,’ devoting the best of her resources to expressing her wonder and adoration before the unsurpassable gift of the Eucharist” (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 48).

This “ciborium” was added in 2011 by Duncan Stroik at St. Joseph’s Cathedral (originally built in 1919) in Sioux Falls, SD.

Adoremus Bulletin, January 2024

AB/JIM FOREST ON FLICKR. SKETCH BY ADE BETHUNE

10

A Benedictine spirituality is a beautiful integration of prayer and work, a lesson all laity can learn, especially in these stressfilled, workaholic times. Dorothy Day’s robust liturgical life exemplified this integration.

bring about a greater awareness to the laity of what is happening, and especially what they are actively doing—offering their lives to the Father through Christ, in the celebration of the Mass. She was familiar with the writings, liturgical and otherwise, of Father Romano Guardini and Benedictine Father Virgil Michel, and knew from her own experience that a conscious participation in the Mass was vital to her ability to do the work she was doing in the world. As she wrote in her column in the movement’s newspaper, The Catholic Worker: “The basis of the liturgical movement is prayer, the liturgical prayer of the church. It is a revolt against private, individual prayer. St. Paul said, ‘We know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself asketh for us with unspeakable groanings.’ When we pray thus we pray with Christ, not to Christ. When we recite prime and compline we are using the inspired prayer of the church.

When we pray with Christ (not to Him) we realize Christ as our Brother. We think of all men as our brothers then, as members of the Mystical Body of Christ. ‘We are all members, one of another,’ and, remembering this, we can never be indifferent to the social miseries and evils of the day. The dogma of the Mystical Body has tremendous social implications.”2 Daily Mass was not simply a pro-forma exercise for Day, a mere habit she had formed. She expected it to have a real effect on the way she interacted with those our Lord put in her path each day. “If daily Mass and Communion do not make people kinder, milder, gentler, it must be very saddening to Our Lord.”3 Dorothy often pondered her own failure to live the faith and was keenly aware of her need for grace, particularly sacramental grace. Her outreach to the poor was her way of living out the sacrifice of her own life to God, which she offered every day in the liturgy. Her life was an example of a healthy integration of contemplation and active ministry.

Day was also ahead of her time in her praying of the breviary. Her participation in liturgy was extended throughout the day with her reading and praying the psalms. Long before St. John Paul II encouraged the laity to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, Dorothy Day was already drawn to it. Eventually, in 1955, at the age of 58, she made her final oblation as an Oblate of St. Benedict through St. Procopius Abbey in Lisle, IL, taking the name Benedicta. One of her more famous quotes refers to this practice: “My strength returns to me with my cup of coffee and the reading of the psalms.”

Inspired by Day to become an Oblate of St. Benedict, I can appreciate her Benedictine spirituality and how it encapsulates her entire ministry. Three aspects of this spirituality are especially relevant: simplicity of life, hospitality, and the care of creation. To put these in perspective, we must understand the Benedictine concept of “Ora et Labora.”

AB/JIM FOREST ON FLICKR

Continued from DAY, page 3

“The basis of the liturgical movement is prayer, the liturgical prayer of the church,” wrote Day. “It is a revolt against private, individual prayer…. When we pray thus we pray with Christ, not to Christ. When we recite prime and compline we are using the inspired prayer of the church. When we pray with Christ (not to Him) we realize Christ as our Brother. We think of all men as our brothers then, as members of the Mystical Body of Christ.”

“Idleness…enemy of the soul.”4 A Benedictine spirituality is a beautiful integration of prayer and work, a lesson all laity can learn, especially in these stress-filled, workaholic times.

Dorothy Day’s robust liturgical life exemplified this integration. St. Paul tells us to pray without ceasing.

Our prayer must flow into our work, and back into our prayer.

Work is not simply the arbitrary thing we do to make a living and pay the bills. Indeed, we are given a vocation, our own personal means by which each of us builds the Kingdom of God. We trust that in doing God’s will, he will provide for our needs.

When we integrate our prayer and work, we find our vocation and can flourish.

When I first read The Long Loneliness, I was so inspired by Day that I imagined myself living in a House of Hospitality, wearing jeans and a gray sweatshirt everyday for the rest of my life. But God had other plans for me. My prayer life led me to a doctorate in theology and a position teaching seminarians and lay students. My work, my career, was in response to my prayer, and I brought all that I encountered in my work to my prayer. Prayer not only reveals God’s will to us, it also gives us the courage to step out and do it.

For the Benedictine, work is a creative outlet. We are to glorify God with our lives, and so our work manifests the particular gifts that God has given to us. Our motivation is always Christ. We do our work to the best of our ability because we do it for him. In those we encounter during our workday, we encounter him. We do all things for Christ.

“Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).

We can only appreciate Day’s practice of a Benedictine spirituality—her simplicity of life, her radical hospitality, and her care of God’s creation—

in light of this attitude toward work and prayer.

Especially as a lay woman, and not a religious, Day’s commitment to integrating prayer and work seemed odd in her day. Yet, it is exactly what Vatican II called for in Lumen Gentium. The universal call to holiness is for all of us. Once again, Day was ahead of her time.

Day’s life of simplicity was manifested in her voluntary poverty and in her solidarity with the poor. She lived with and like the poor, even after the Great Depression was over. Her ability to maintain this lifestyle was related to her practice of radical hospitality. Following the example of her mentor, Peter Maurin, if she had something that someone else needed, she gave it to them. If she was able to help, she did. In helping others, she found that all her needs were met, too. Her vocation was sustained

by God himself, who provided the means for her to continue.

Maurin’s influence on Day is also seen in her love and vision for the Catholic Worker farms. While Maurin looked to the farms as agronomic universities where people would learn the value of going back to the land and gaining knowledge and appreciation of how God created humans to be sustained by it, Day saw them also as places of respite for the city worker, somewhere to experience God in the quiet, peaceful atmosphere of nature. Manual labor on the farm, the proper care for creation, integrated with opportunities for prayer, complete the Benedictine vision.

Day’s commitment to the liturgical practice of the Church empowered her to boldly spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ in both word and action. Catholic doctrine and social teaching permeated everything she did. She explains beautifully her understanding of ecclesiology and the role of liturgy in forming the Church in another article in The Catholic Worker: “The Mystical Body of Christ is a union—a unit— and action within the Body is common action. In the Liturgy we have the means to teach Catholics, thrown apart by Individualism into snobbery, apathy, prejudice, blind unreason, that they ARE members of one body and that ‘an injury to one is an injury to all.’”5 Her prayer life, and particularly her liturgical life, brought her into an intimate relationship with Jesus, which enabled her to see her neighbor, any neighbor, as a brother or sister in Christ. She had a bond with people only seen in the saints.

In Hoc Signo Vinces Though she famously said that she did not want to be called a saint, she is exactly the example of holiness needed for Catholics today. Day did not want to be dismissed as a “saint” because it would put her in some higher category out of reach of the average person. The point of her life, however, was to show that every human being not only is called to be holy, but actually can be holy, by the grace of God—grace obtained in the participation of the sacraments. She was convinced that Catholicism radically lived is the only answer to our human misery. She continues in the same article with a rallying cry: “Our faith is stronger than death, our philosophy is firmer than flesh, and the spread of the Kingdom of God upon the earth is more sublime and more compelling. We Catholics must pray, act and sacrifice together for Christ the King, for the spread of His Kingdom and the salvation of the world. We Catholics, together, can conquer the world.”6 Yes, we Catholics, together, can conquer the world! We see so much infighting in the Church today, and it hinders our ability to evangelize. Day’s approach to evangelization is simple—to know Christ is to love Christ, to love Christ is to love your neighbor. Christ comes first. Christ always comes first.

Carmina Chapp, Ph.D. is a Catholic theologian, Oblate of St. Benedict, and Catholic Worker. She lives on the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker Farm in northeastern Pennsylvania.

1. D orothy Day, The Catholic Worker, January 1936, 5.

2. D orothy Day, The Catholic Worker, January 1936, 5.

3. D orothy Day, The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day, June 16, 1951., p. 173.

4. Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter 48.

5. D orothy Day, The Catholic Worker, December 1935, 4.

6. Dorothy Day, The Catholic Worker, December 1935, 4.

11

Adoremus Bulletin, January 2024

Q

A

: Does watching a Televised Mass fulfil one’s Sunday obligation?

: Fulfilment of the Sunday precept is described most succinctly in Canon 1247: “On Sundays and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are obliged to participate in the Mass.” Canon 1248 §1 goes on to explain what this means: “A person who assists at a Mass celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite either on the feast day itself or in the evening of the preceding day satisfies the obligation of participating in the Mass.” For example, a Catholic can attend a Roman Rite Mass for the given Sunday; a Ritual Mass permitted by the calendar, such as a Confirmation, a wedding, or the dedication of a church (that’s right: the Mass need not use the readings or prayers for the particular Sunday—a common misconception); or a divine liturgy according to an eastern Catholic Church, such as the Maronite or Greek Catholic.

But if such attendance in person is not possible, the Code suggests other ways to mark the Lord’s Day—even though these do not fulfil the obligation: “If participation in the eucharistic celebration becomes impossible because of the absence of a sacred minister or for another grave cause, it is strongly recommended that the faithful take part in a liturgy of the word if such a liturgy is celebrated in a parish church or other sacred place according to the prescripts of the diocesan bishop or that they devote themselves to prayer for a suitable time alone, as a family, or, as the occasion permits, in groups of families” (Canon 1248 §2; emphasis added). In other words, the Televised Mass can never fulfil one’s Sunday obligation to attend Mass, whether one is able to attend Mass in a church or not. But where it is impossible to attend Mass in person, the Televised Mass may be a laudable, although unnecessary, means to pray on the Lord’s Day. One further thing to note is that the Sunday precept is not entirely fulfilled by attending Mass.

As Canon 1247 goes on to say, in addition to Mass, the faithful are also “to abstain from those works and affairs which hinder the worship to be rendered to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s day, or the suitable relaxation of mind and body.” Attending Mass and refraining from unnecessary work are the Sunday essentials.

Q A

: Is a “teaching Mass” allowed?

: Conscientious pastors regularly look for the best ways to form their liturgical assemblies.

Bulletin inserts are employed, pamphlets and other reading (like Adoremus Bulletin!) are made available in the church, and even classes or parish missions focus on liturgical formation. And as helpful as these and similar means may be, instruction and explanation as the Mass actually unfolds may be more beneficial. But are such “teaching Masses”— where the priest, deacon, or another interjects brief explanations—allowed?

The question of real-time catechesis during Mass is not entirely new. The 1958 instruction De Musica Sacra et Sacra Liturgia by the Sacred Congregation for Rites allowed for the use of a “commentator” who, if used rightly, aids the people’s prayer. The Instruction devotes an entire section to the role, beginning with this explanation: “The active participation of the faithful can be more easily brought about with the help of a commentator, especially in holy Mass, and in some of the more complex liturgical ceremonies. At suitable times he should briefly explain the rites themselves, and the prayers of the priest and ministers; he should also direct the external participation of the congregation, that is, their responses, prayers, and singing” (96).

It then goes on the describe his role: “The explanations and directions to be given by the commentator should be prepared in writing; they should be brief, clear, and to the point; they should be

RITE QUESTIONS spoken at a suitable time, and in a moderate tone of voice; they should never interfere with the prayers of the priest who is celebrating. In short, they should be a real help, and not a hindrance to the devotion of the congregation” (96c).

At this stage of liturgical history (1958), the Mass was celebrated entirely in Latin, and a commentator’s instructions could assist the faithful to participate in a rite that had, for many, become difficult to engage.

The reforms following the Second Vatican Council were intended to simplify and adapt, where possible, to the needs of praying participants—making the need for a commentator unnecessary. But while going from In nomine Patris… to “In the name of the Father…” allowed some greater degree of access to the mystery, there is still much catechesis and formation that is necessary. And perhaps it is because of this ongoing need that the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) still lists among liturgical ministers the commentator “who, if appropriate, provides the faithful briefly with explanations and exhortations so as to direct their attention to the celebration and ensure that they are better disposed for understanding it. The commentator’s remarks should be thoroughly prepared and notable for their restraint. In performing this function the commentator stands in a suitable place within sight of the faithful, but not at the ambo” (105b).

Although the commentator’s role remains “on the books,” this ministry is rarely seen in the parish.

Still, pastors can look to the GIRM’s instructions for the commentator when creating his own remarks—“thoroughly prepared and notable for their restraint”—along with being aware of those places offered to the priest himself throughout the Mass. In addition to offering explanatory remarks on texts of the Mass during the homily (GIRM, 13, 65), the priest celebrant is permitted, “in a very few words, to give the faithful an introduction to the Mass of the day (after the initial Greeting and before the Penitential Act), to the Liturgy of the Word (before the readings), and to the Eucharistic Prayer (before the Preface), though never during the Eucharistic Prayer itself; he may also make concluding comments regarding the entire sacred action before the Dismissal” (GIRM, 31).

In short, and based on current legislation, the priest celebrant may teach about the liturgy during Mass within the homily, but also briefly at only a handful of places throughout the liturgy, but not outside of these.

Q

A

: Can ashes be distributed on a day besides Ash Wednesday?

: Within Mass, the rite for the blessing and distribution of ashes is specific to a liturgical day: “In the course of today’s Mass ashes are blessed and distributed” (Roman Missal). The rite outside Mass is also linked to Ash Wednesday as the beginning of Lent and the Church’s entering into a public fast that particularly characterizes the first day of Lent. The Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy describes the relationship between ashes, penance, and the beginning of the Lenten discipline: “In the Roman Rite, the beginning of the forty days of penance is marked with the austere symbol of ashes which are used in the Liturgy of Ash Wednesday.

The use of ashes is a survival from an ancient rite according to which converted sinners submitted themselves to canonical penance. The act of putting on ashes symbolizes fragility and mortality, and the need to be redeemed by the mercy of God. Far from being a merely external act, the Church has retained

MEMORIAL FOR

Mark Martin from Barbara Martin Louis and Dusca Pesco Nagy from Dr. Luana Pesco Koplowitz Bruce K. Ruedig from Therese Ruedig Ingrid Stites from Tony Jasnowski Dick Tondra from Rose Tondra

the use of ashes to symbolize that attitude of internal penance to which all the baptized are called during Lent” (125; emphasis added).

The Ceremonial of Bishops puts it this way: “On Ash Wednesday, a universal day of fast, ashes are distributed.... In this sign [of ashes] we outwardly profess our guilt before God and thereby, prompted by the hope that the Lord is kind and compassionate..., express our desire for inward conversion.” On Ash Wednesday we are, as the Church, observing a day of fasting and abstinence that is particularly public in character, of which the ashes are an external sign. While ashes might be employed by the faithful as a devotional practice on other days, the liturgical blessing and imposition of ashes is tied to Ash Wednesday itself.

Q

A

: What is the earliest time that the Easter Vigil may begin?

: The beginning of the Easter Vigil is governed not by a clock, but by the sacramentality of light and darkness. It is the contrast of the new fire against the backdrop of “nightfall” that the signs of darkness and light become meaningful.

Indeed, as the priest lights the Paschal Candle on that most holy night, he invokes these signs: “May the light of Christ rising in glory dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds” (see 1 Peter 2:9).

The rubrics governing the Easter Vigil specify the circumstances in which this liturgy is to begin and end: “The entire celebration of the Easter Vigil must [debet] take place during the night [noctis], so that it begins after nightfall [initium noctis] and ends before daybreak on the Sunday” (Roman Missal, The Easter Vigil, 3, emphasis added). Since the 1967 document from the Congregation of Rites Eucharisticum Mysterium asserts that the Easter Vigil is not to be celebrated “before dusk, or at least certainly not before sunset” (28), some have used sunset or dusk as their rule. However, in 1988 the Congregation for Divine Worship gave a direct interpretation to the above Easter Vigil rubric: “‘The entire celebration of the Easter Vigil takes place at night. It should not begin before nightfall; it should end before daybreak on Sunday.’ This rule is to be taken according to its strictest sense. Reprehensible are those abuses and practices which have crept into many places in violation of this ruling, whereby the Easter Vigil is celebrated at the time of day that it is customary to celebrate anticipated Sunday Masses” (Paschalis Sollemnitatis: “Circular Letter on Preparing and Celebrating the Paschal Feasts,” 78, emphasis added).

Commenting on the same rubric and lending a practical rule of thumb to this theoretical strictness, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Divine Worship has this: “pastoral planners should contact local weather stations for the time sunset will occur. Another 45 minutes or one hour should be added to that time in order to determine the approximate time of nightfall.”

As indicated above, from a ritual standpoint, this strictness is rooted in the nature of the liturgy’s play between the symbols of light and darkness. When the deacon chants the praises of the Paschal Candle, he prays that, as it burns, it might “overcome the darkness of this night” (19). If the Easter Vigil begins while it is still light or even twilight, many of the prayers and accompanying symbols lose much of their force and make little sense. Indeed, as the rhythmic melodies of the deacon’s chant, “This is the night…,” wash over us, darkness is the quality that should govern the time “nightfall” begins.

—Answered by the Editors

TO HONOR

Mr. and Mrs Donald Rickets - 61st Wedding Anniversary from Mr. and Mrs. John S. Reese

IN THANSKGIVING

For all who have supported the work of Adoremus from Adoremus staff

12

Adoremus Bulletin, January 2024

Make Sacramentals Fruitful Again

By Roland Millare

Sacramentals: Their Meaning & Spiritual Use by Ralph Weimann Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 2023. 368 pp. ISBN: 978-1644139493. $18.95 Paperback.

A

fter any given Sunday Mass, it is not unusual to see a person or a group of people holding up various religious medals, rosaries, etc. to be blessed by a priest. In a matter of minutes, typically one sees a priest make the sign of the cross while audibly offering some type of extemporaneous prayer regarding the object itself and the person who will use the religious article. On a rare occasion, you may see a priest use the Book of Blessings, sprinkle holy water, and wear a stole.

All these activities are celebrations of sacramentals.

The caricature within the Church is that the use of sacramentals and acts of piety is limited to older women who attend daily Mass. For these reasons, Father Ralph Weimann’s book, Sacramentals: Their Meaning & Spiritual Use is a welcome addition to the limited literature on this topic.

The book is divided into two parts: 1) Theological Foundation of the Sacramentals and 2) Pastoral Consideration of the Sacramentals. In the first part, Weimann is able to differentiate between the four categories of sacramentals: consecrations/dedications, blessings, exorcisms, and sacred objects/places. This last category is distinct—and helpful—in that often people categorize sacred objects/places with either consecrations or blessings. Weimann develops a laudable chapter on the theological nature of sacramentals that situates them within the economy of salvation, treating their scriptural, Christological, ecclesiological, and liturgical aspects.

The unique contributions of Weimann on the subject of sacramentals are his treatment of them in relationship to the sacraments and his critique of the principles behind the development of the revised rites for sacramentals and blessings present within De Benedictionibus (The Book of Blessings). The latter in his estimation represents a serious rupture from the living Tradition of the Church.

Sacramentals and Sacraments The Psalmist prays, “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (Psalm 124:8). The Sacred author reminds us that the gift of creation involves the spiritual and the material—the invisible gift of grace and the visible signs apprehensible via the senses.

Sacramentals are gifts instituted by the Church, which sanctify objects and/or actions and remind us that not only religious but ordinary and everyday rhythms of life can be sanctified in our journey towards God. Weimann’s work underscores the importance of sacramentals as a source of grace and sanctification that simultaneously have a close relationship with the sacraments and a distinct role in the Church as a potential source of grace.

The development of the Church’s teaching on sacramentals is relatively recent. The term “sacramentals” was not used until the scholastic period of theology in the 12th century. During that period, sacramentals referred to the “ritual ceremonies within celebrations of the sacraments” and only gradually over time were sacramentals distinguished from the sacraments, notably because of the Council of Trent’s distinct use of “ceremonies” or “rites” when discussing the administration of the sacraments. In the Post-Tridentine period, “ceremonies” would be used in references to “rites of the sacraments that did not pertain to their substance,” whereas “sacramentals” referred to “things and actions employed outside the sacraments” (14).

Finally, in the 20th century, the Church offered the first official definition of sacramentals in the 1917 Code of Canon Law: “Sacramentals are things or actions that the Church, in a certain imitation of the Sacraments, is wont to use to obtain, by her imprecation, effects that are primarily spiritual” (can. 393).

The Church will continue to emphasize the close relationship between sacramentals and the sacraments.

The Second Vatican Council document on the liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium defines sacramentals as “sacred signs which bear a resemblance to the sacraments” and which dispose the faithful “to receive the chief effect of the sacraments, and various occasions in life are rendered holy” (60). Weimann highlights the consistency with which the 1983 Code of Canon Law defines sacramentals in conjunction with Sacrosanctum Concilium: “Sacramentals are sacred signs by which effects, especially spiritual effects, are signified in some imitation of the sacraments and are obtained through the intercession of the Church” (can. 1401). Weimann notes that the Catechism of the Catholic Church 1667

will continue to outline the structure of sacramentals in the same way as the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and the 1983 Code of Canon Law. Although there is a close relationship between sacramentals and sacraments, one of the major distinctions is that the sacraments offer grace ex opere operato because Christ instituted them and as such he is always the one who baptizes, confirms, etc. when the sacraments are celebrated. Sacramentals offer the gift of grace solely ex opere operantis Ecclesiae, which means that the effectiveness of sacramentals is based upon the devout participation on the part of both the minister and recipient in Christ’s action to obtain spiritual fruits (pp. 141-142). The importance of the universal call to holiness and the complementarity between the ministerial and common priesthood is of serious consequence for the fruitfulness of sacramentals.

The degree to which either the minister or the recipients separate themselves from God through sin or respond generously to the life of grace affects the abundance (or lack thereof) of spiritual fruits.

Reform or Rupture?

Throughout his work, Weimann emphasizes the importance of the “hermeneutic of reform” in continuity and fidelity to the Tradition of the Church.

Consequently, Weimann emphasizes the importance of Pope Benedict XVI’s Motu Propio Summorum Pontificum because it allows access to the whole of Tradition. Weimann consistently maintains the view that “the venerable vetus form [of celebrating the liturgy, the sacraments, and sacramentals] must be considered the princeps analogatum (valid point of reference), and the new form must be measured according to the living Tradition of the Church. This is apparent in the formula of each sacramental, which, when said properly, is a prayer of the Church of all times” (101). This point of departure will be important to understand the tension between authentic organic development and a so-called reform that brings about a rupture with the Tradition.

The revision for the norms and rites for sacramentals within the Church would follow the liturgical movement’s emphasis upon a need to promote active participation and to carry out reforms in light of Sacred Scripture and the practice of the Early Church. Weimann voices concern that these reforms were implemented by experts who in the estimation of Annibale Bugnini, the key figure in the post-conciliar liturgical reform, were “architects, craftsmen, and specialized workers” (102).

The mere description of these so-called experts indicates that they are interested in making or fabricating the celebration of the liturgy instead of maintaining their organic growth and development. Drawing upon the research of the Oratorian liturgist Uwe Michael Lang, Weimann highlights some of the problematic principles developed by the French Dominican liturgist, PierreMarie Gy, who will drive the reforms that culminate in De Benedictionibus.

Gy maintains the position that the reforms for sacramentals must address contemporary culture’s tendency towards desacralization and secularization (106). While the early Church used various blessings, the present times called for change which would result in the abandonment of essential parts of the Tradition.

One example is the traditional blessing of wine on the feast of St. John the Evangelist that had become obsolete in Gy’s estimation because “blessings should be invoked primarily on persons rather than on things and places” in order “to combat superstition” (107). For this reason, Gy also favored the abandonment of the apotropaic elements, the prayers of purification and exorcism that were the standard part of the blessing of objects such as water, oil, and salt. In many of the revised blessings, the sign of the cross was to be omitted, which is fundamental if an object is truly being blessed.

Weimann highlights a decree issued by the Congregation

for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (2002) to correct this serious omission. The decree states that a blessing given by a sacred minister (a bishop, priest, or deacon) must be accompanied by the sign of the cross (110-111).

Pastoral Considerations In the second half of the book, Weimann presents sacramentals as an opportunity for evangelization “to guide people towards the sacraments, to change their lives, and to grow in friendship with Jesus Christ, from whom sacramentals draw their spiritual power” (147).

Once again, Weimann emphasizes the importance of personal holiness, which makes sacramentals more effective and fruitful.

Highlights in the latter part of the book include his focus on the power and efficacy of the name of Jesus Christ and the distinction between imperative and deprecative invocations of Jesus’ name. An imperative invocation is a direct form of invoking the name of Jesus Christ, whereas with a deprecative invocation “something or someone is addressed indirectly in the name of Jesus Christ” (161). The name of Jesus Christ can be invoked by anyone anywhere with varying degrees of efficacy and fruitfulness. In close connection with the name of Jesus Christ, Weimann also develops a separate chapter to emphasize the importance of the sign of the cross as a source of sanctification, justification, healing, and strength in the spiritual battle.

The final chapter of Weimann book focuses on the broad topic of blessings of the Church. The principal blessings used by the Church are contained in the Roman Ritual (Book of Blessings), the Roman Pontifical, and The Ceremonial of Bishops. Weimann reiterates his critiques of the new ritual: the absence of apotropaic elements, the omission of the sign of the cross, and the proliferation of options. Additionally, he notes that the present ritual is unreasonable and impractical (289): the new ritual calls for a gathering of the faithful, reading from scripture, song(s) or suitable hymn(s), brief catechesis, intercessions, a blessing of the person(s) who wanted an object blessed, and a common blessing of the faithful gathered together. It is easy to see why ministers opt for the shorter form, which oftentimes has been improvised on the spot. Weimann concludes the chapter by treating three commonly used sacramentals: holy water, the St. Benedict Medal, and the Miraculous Medal. The current Book of Blessings no longer offers the blessing of holy water with the traditional apotropaic elements and it omits the blessings that are specific to the nature of these respective medals.

A Keeper Father Ralph Weimann’s book should be on the shelf of every bishop, priest, deacon, and lay catechist. It should be used in seminary and undergraduate classes on sacramentals. This work is certainly not for the general faithful, but it will be profitable for anyone who wants a deeper dive into the theology and meaning of sacramentals. Weimann’s work will also be helpful to read in conjunction with the recent declaration, Fiducia Supplicans, “On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings,” which was published by Dicastery on the Doctrine of the Faith. This book may become an invaluable resource for clergy as they discern how to apply the pastoral directives outlined in this declaration. Weimann rightfully roots pastoral practice in the doctrine of the Church, and consequently he safeguards the care for which we should have with respect to all sacramentals. Although there may be a development in new sacramentals, pastoral practice should never undermine doctrine. In a culture that is increasingly secular and hostile to religion, we would benefit from the regular and efficacious use of sacramentals. St. Paul reminds us that our battle is not against “flesh and blood,” so we need the graces that come forth from sacramentals which can serve as a means of liberation and protection from the “powers and principalities” and purification from the effects of sin (Ephesians 6:12).

Roland Millare serves as vice president for curriculum and program director of Clergy Initiatives (continuing education and formation programs for priests and deacons) for the St. John Paul II Foundation, Houston, TX, and as an adjunct professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas School of Theology at St. Mary’s Seminary, Houston, TX, the University of Dallas, and the Diocese of Fort Worth. He earned a doctorate in sacred theology (STD) at the Liturgical Institute/University of St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein, IL, and is the author of the book A Living Sacrifice: Liturgy and Eschatology in Joseph Ratzinger (Emmaus Academic).