SecretAgentMan vs. Rerum Novarum on Communion Posture and the Authority of Bishops:(Book II, Part II)
The previous installment of this discussion can be read HERE. To start from the very first installment of this discussion - the first "book" if you will - please go HERE. This is the second part of a three-part reply to I. Shawn McElhinney at Rerum Novarum about kneeling and its place in the Novus Ordo generally, and under the recent American adaptations to the GIRM (US-GIRM). It deals with kneeling and private prayer during communion and after one has received communion. This writer has no doubt that (i) We are in for another very well-written defense by his favourite attorney and (ii) the present writer's scruples on this subject will again mirror those of SAM.
Much of this is mooted by the CDWDS' recent ruling (see below "I told ya so . . . .") but for what it's worth I'll post it here and conclude tomorrow with some thoughts on culture and kneeling in individual Catholic parish communities.We shall see if the recent ruling really is the trumpcard that SAM thinks it is. But not until at least the end of this response. Bear in mind what we outlined in part I about the authority of bishops to legislate for their dioceses on liturgical matters as we review this section as well as SAM's supposed "trumpcard" when we get around to responding to it.
Hand and hand with the eradication of kneeling is a campaign against private prayer at Mass. Opining that before the Second Vatican Council there was "little sense of liturgical prayer" among the faithful, who were supposedly reduced to ineffectually trying to follow the Mass" with a prayer book containing a translation of the Latin . . . or listen[ing] to a choir," he has determined to eradicate the "privatization of holy Communion" in order to "highlight the more communitarian character" of receiving the Lord. He is gratified that the Second Vatican Council instituted the communion hymn, because "folks are less likely to retreat into private prayer upon returning to their place after receiving holy Communion," but is still disturbed that "for the most part, the time after the reception of Communion has remained a period of private prayer." Accordingly, he commands that there be no private prayer after communion except during the vague, ever-variable, and awkward "period of silence" discussed in my correspondence with "Joe." (He also says, true to my speculation about the USCC's theorizing, that we may not kneel during that period because sitting is the proper posture for reflecting on Jesus' eucharistic glory).Upon a second read, it is clear that he is talking about the bishop. (There was a little confusion here because of uncertainty as to whom SAM was talking about; however, this writer remembered his reference to "Bishop X" at the end of his first part.) So let us look at this from the standpoint of diagnosis and then remedy.
The part about
"little sense of liturgical prayer" among the faithful, prior to the Second Vatican Council is a stance that this writer has made on previous occasions. It is true. All anyone has to do is attend a Tridentine liturgy today - a liturgy that today is celebrated far more reverently than was common prior to the reform - and they will see this assertion by way of demonstration.
The readers also will note that the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913 in the article on kneeling and genuflections said exactly the same thing. (And in all honesty, the author never read that article in detail until today so its confirmation of his past stances is purely serendipitous.) But back to the Tridentine liturgy as it is commonly celebrated today - either in the SSPX or even in the FSSP. (This writer has attended it as celebrated by both organizations.)
The only respondants for the most part during the liturgy are the servers and other than an occasional entrance or exit hymn, it is as silent as a tomb except for the priest's prayer. (Unless you are close to the front it is usually difficult to hear the servers - ninety percent of what they say being in the first five minutes of the liturgy anyway.)
All prayers such as the Gloria, Credo, Pater Noster, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei are recited by the priest. During High Mass the choir sings these as the priest is reciting them but that is more for show than anything else. (Few if any in the congregation actually sing.) Instead of the people being encouraged to respond to the priest's Confiteor, the server says the Misereatur "for them." Instead of responding to the priest's Amen with saying the Confiteor themselves, the server instead again says it "for them." Likewise, what little the server says with the Gloria and the Credo boils down to a simple "Amen."
The author can rarely recall anyone in the pew saying even this much - or at least they do not say so audibly. The Pater Noster again is recited by the priest, the server responding with "sed libera nos a malo" and the priest responding with "Amen." Even the most common of exchanges during the mass - the Dominus Vobiscum/Et Cum Spiritu Tuo/Oremus was only priest, server, priest. You may hear an occasional whisper from the congregation but that was it.
Not infrequently you see rosaries being prayed
during mass. This practice started undoubtedly when the liturgy began becoming imperceptable to the lay person in the pew. Vernacular missals as are common today were only taken off the Index in 1898 towards the end of Pope Leo's reign. And even then it was done grudgingly with the Vatican basically taking the view that since books were being published illicitly by some already, they might as well legalize it and regulate the process.
In short, there was a lot of problems in this area and liturgical reform was badly needed. This is not the thread to delve into the relative merits of what was proposed and what was accepted in various areas of the reform of the liturgy. The only point here was to sustain the basic premise of Bishop X viz the "little sense of liturgical prayer" that actually had existed prior to the Council.
who were supposedly reduced to ineffectually trying to follow the Mass" with a prayer book containing a translation of the Latin . . . or listen[ing] to a choir," All of which was and is true. This writer attended many a Tridentine mass in the decade and a half of his involvement with the SSPX. He was also a fill-in sacristan and occasional altar server. In short, he saw this from many angles and the verdict is the same: there was virtually no actual involvement in the liturgy. So in that sense the bishop's diagnosis is accurate.
SAM has gone on to claim that he
venture[s] to say that the Bishops are so strident on these points because they see them as an effective way to combat individualism, the glorification of a free subjectivism in all aspects of life. In this he refers to the bishops as a whole stressing the unified nature of liturgical prayer not only in the words but also the posture and gestures.
SAM then goes into a litany of USCCB statements against the individualist notion of our age - a kind of Kantian "islands in the stream" notion of human relations to one another and how this has undermined society in many ways. SAM finds this stance as one aspect of the puzzle but not its totality. And what he notes next will be quoted in full since it is difficult to parse without making this response overlong. So here goes:
The scourge of individualism is not produced merely by an individual's awareness of himself, nor by the tension between that awareness and his membership in a community. In Veritatis Splendor, the Holy Father diagnoses individualism, finding in it a disordered freedom that simultaneously promises the empowerment of the individual's conscience and encourages him to indulge in a profound skepticism about, and eventual denial of, a universe of truth in which he can have a meaningful place.{John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, ¶¶ 32-33 (1993).} In his Apostolic Exhortation Pastores [Dabo] Vobis, the Holy Father describes the sad and impoverished dimensions of an individualist's life:We should take note also of a desperate defense of personal subjectivity which tends to close it off in individualism, rendering it incapable of true human relationships. As a result, many -- especially children and young people -- seek to compensate for this loneliness with substitutes of various kinds, in more or less acute forms of hedonism or flight from responsibility. Prisoners of the fleeting moment, they seek to "consume" the strongest and most gratifying individual experiences at the level of immediate emotions and sensations, inevitably finding themselves indifferent and "paralyzed" as it were when they come face to face with the summons to embark upon a life project which includes a spiritual and religious dimension and a commitment to solidarity.{John Paul II, Pastores Dabo Vobis, ¶ 7 (1992).}Individualism isn't the fact of individuality. It is a "distorted sense of freedom. . . Instead of being understood as obedience to objective and universal truth, freedom is lived out as a blind acquiescence to instinctive forces and to an individual's will to power. Individualism naturally erodes internal consent to ethical principles" and results widespread indifference and . . . a life which, even in its more significant moments and more decisive choices . . . lived as if God did not exist.{John Paul II, Id., ¶ 8.} In other words, individualism is a false understanding of true individuality, a fraudulent sense of sufficiency that makes men deaf to the falconer, creating an ever-widening gyre of anarchy wherein the best are unsure of truth and the worst give themselves up to their own lusts.{This, of course, is an allusion to Yeats' Second Coming.}All of this is of course excellent and well documented. But here is where our good friend begins to go astray a little:
Individualism is not an exterior illness, a visible separation from a whole. It is a spiritual affliction, an inward, invisible denial of a real moral universe.Aah but this is an unnecessary dichotomy here. It is similar to the Protestant "faith alone" in that it seeks to separate the external from the internal. The Son of Sirach was clear that
[t]he fruit discloses the cultivation of a tree; so the expression of a thought discloses the cultivation of a man’s mind (Sirach xxvii,6). One way we express our thoughts is in the external forum. Our Lord built on Sirach's proverb with metaphor of the tree being judged not by some some internal indicator but instead was by its external manifestations - by its fruits if you will:
Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it! Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them. {Matthew vii,13-20}And of course the "narrow path" mentioned above is the path of obedience as God the Father is reputed to have told St. Catherine of Siena OP in her
Dialogues:Now I wish you to see and know this most excellent virtue in that humble and immaculate Lamb, and the source whence it proceeds. What caused the great obedience of the Word? The love which He had for My honor and your salvation. Whence proceeded this love? From the clear vision with which His soul saw the divine essence and the eternal Trinity, thus always looking on Me, the eternal God. His fidelity obtained this vision most perfectly for Him, which vision you imperfectly enjoy by the light of holy faith. He was faithful to Me, His eternal Father, and therefore hastened as one enamored along the road of obedience, lit up with the light of glory. And inasmuch as love cannot be alone, but is accompanied by all the true and royal virtues, because all the virtues draw their life from love, He possessed them all, but in a different way from that in which you do. Among the others he possessed patience, which is the marrow of obedience, and a demonstrative sign, whether a soul be in a state of grace and truly love or not. Wherefore charity, the mother of patience, has given her as a sister to obedience, and so closely united them together that one cannot be lost without the other. Either you have them both or you have neither. This virtue has a nurse who feeds her, that is, true humility; therefore a soul is obedient in proportion to her humility, and humble in proportion to her obedience. This humility is the foster-mother and nurse of charity, and with the same milk she feeds the virtue of obedience. Her raiment given her by this nurse is self-contempt, and insult, desire to displease herself, and to please Me.Where does she find this? In sweet Christ Jesus, My only-begotten Son. For who abased Himself more than He did! He was sated with insults, jibes, and mockings. He caused pain to Himself in His bodily life, in order to please Me. And who was more patient than He? for His cry was never heard in murmuring, but He patiently embraced His injuries like one enamored, fulfilling the obedience imposed on Him by Me, His Eternal Father. Wherefore in Him you will find obedience perfectly accomplished. He left you this rule and this doctrine, which gives you life, for it is the straight way, having first observed them Himself. He is the way, wherefore He said, 'He was the Way, the Truth, and the Life.' For he who travels by that way, travels in the light, and being enlightened cannot stumble, or be caused to fall, without perceiving it. For he has cast from himself the darkness of self-love, by which he fell into disobedience; for as I spoke to you of a companion virtue proceeding from obedience and humility, so I tell you that disobedience comes from pride, which issues from self-love depriving the soul of humility. The sister given by self-love to disobedience is impatience, and pride, her foster-mother, feeds her with the darkness of infidelity, so she hastens along the way of darkness, which leads her to eternal death. [St. Catherine of Siena OP: Treatise on Obedience from her Dialogues (c. 1370)]So we can see that SAM's outlook on this matter is borderline dualist and clearly *not* congruent with the manner whereby Our Lord Himself views the internal and external. Our Lord's anger in the Gospels was directed most at those who sought to appear righteous who really were not. The reason for this of course is that the external expression is supposed to be in harmony with the internal forum.
Now obviously because of sin this is not always possible. But the process involved in subjecting oneself to the prescriptions of the liturgical rubrics can if properly utilized harmonize the internal with the external. And at the very least, if the internal is not completely set correctly, then at least by conforming externally the person removes from others the proximate occasion of placing an uncharitable interpretation on their actions. Further still, the person conforms to the Church's Law itself which decrees that:
Can. 209 §1 Christ's faithful are bound to preserve their communion with the Church at all times, even in their external actions. Hence, even external actions play a part in manifesting an individual's communion with the Church. Further still:
Can. 209 §2 [Christ's faithful] are to carry out with great diligence their responsibilities towards both the universal Church and the particular Church to which by law they belong. With regards to this discussion that would involve the universal church prescriptions (as laid down in the GIRM) and the particular church portions. (Represented in the US Bishops' approved adjustments to certain portions of the GIRM.)
Generally speaking a reference to "Churches" would refer to various "rites." However, the Code of Canon Law makes it clear in the very first canon that
[t]he canons of this Code concern only the Latin Church (Can. 1). For this reason, it is clear that another definition of "Churches" must logically apply in the Code whenever that term is used.
This writer would argue that by logical extension the intended application of "Churches" is a reference to individual dioceses. And by this interpretation, Code 209 §2 would bind SAM's associate to the decree of his bishop where Rome approves of a derogation in the universal law. So permit the author to sustain this interpretation and thereby secure it as a building block for ths thesis. Such evidence will be supplied utilizing the Code itself.
For you see gentle reader, the Code itself confirms this interpretation when enunciates the following with regards to
"[t]he office of preaching" where it delineates the authority in the universal Church on the one hand and of "particular Churches" which receives a definition in the other by virtue of how it is utilized:
Can. 756 §1 The office of preaching the Gospel to the whole Church has been committed principally to the Roman Pontiff and to the College of Bishops. Can. 756 §2 For the particular Churches entrusted to them, that office is exercised by the individual Bishops, who are the moderators of the entire ministry of the word in their Churches. Sometimes, however, in accordance with the law, a number of Bishops simultaneously carry out that office together in respect of a number of different Churches.So interpreting the earlier canon by the later one, the interpretation of "Church" by this writer is sustained. (It refers to the dioceses as a "Church" as indeed according to tradition a dioceses *is* a Church.) So that settles the question of Canon 209 §2 and the requirements of SAM's associate to comply with the prescription laid down by his local ordinary. For as far as the authority of the diocesan bishop, goes, allow this writer to reiterate the traditional definition from his previous response:
Bishops, Jurisdiction of. Bishops are the successors of the Apostles and by divine institution rule their dioceses with ordinary power under the authority of the pope. They have legislative, juridical, and executive power... [A] bishop can enact those laws which he considers for the good of his dioceses and he is a judge in the first instance in all ecclesiastical trials; he can punish lay people with censures and clerics by deprivation of offices or censures (qv). He has supreme direction of the clergy, the conduct of divine worship, administration of ecclesiastical property, building of churches, etc. [Catholic Encyclopedic Dictionary: Donald Attwater General Editor, tenth edition, pg. 62 (c. 1941)]This is the point that SAM cannot circumvent doctrinally. As far as what Church teaching recognizes viz the bishop's authority, this writer has already quoted from the pre-Vatican II
Catholic Encyclopaedic Dictionary. There is also the teachings of the Second Vatican Council which outlined in greater detail the authority of Bishops in the Dogmatic Constitution
Lumen Gentium §22 and §25. Furthermore, the Code notes the following:
Can. 381 §1 In the diocese entrusted to his care, the diocesan Bishop has all the ordinary, proper and immediate power required for the exercise of his pastoral office, except in those matters which the law or a decree of the Supreme Pontiff reserves to the supreme or to some other ecclesiastical authority. So you see gentle reader, the interpretation of this humble weblog was correct all along. The bishop retains supreme authority in his dioceses except where the Supreme Pontiff reserves to himself or some other authority the competence to mediate on the matter. As Rome recently derogated to the diocesan bishop the judgment on whether or not there would be kneeling after the Agnus Dei, it is clear that the authority to regulate this practice belongs to the diocesan bishop because (i) Rome did not reserve it to herself in the original GIRM and (ii) Rome accepted the US Amendment explicitly reserving judgment in this area to the diocesan bishop.
The Mass must not be "privatized." But that is not to say private prayer after the reception of communion indulges an impermissible subjectification. To the contrary, private prayer after the reception of communion is a necessary means for each Christian to realize both what he has done as a member and what he has thereby received as a person. This would be something to take up with the local ordinary. Until he allowed for it, there is always remaining after mass for a couple of minutes to reflect upon one's reception of Christ. This writer (and the esteemed Mark Shea) have a local ordinary who has requested that people return from communion and stand until the end of the first song; then they can sit or kneel at their preference. Blessed Sacrament where this writer (and the aforementioned Mr. Shea) attend mass is really good at utilizing moments of silence at key points of the mass - including for about a minute or so after the communion hymn and before the post communion prayer. Other parishes are not as good at this; however, there are ways to compensate for it. But that is a subject for another time perhaps.
To be sure, the "communitarian" elements of the Mass are indispensible to its existence at the summit of Catholic life; if we dispensed with them, our worship would lose its connection to the Church and the Body of Christ. But we cannot go to the other extreme; if we condemn individual eucharistic piety as "private" subjectification hostile to the Body of Christ, we make our worship into a simple ceremony. It only remains to allude to my earlier discussion of kneeling, to connect this individual moment with that particularly-expressive posture.Again this present writer does not disagree in the slightest with SAM's assertion above. In essence what "Bishop X" is doing is creating an arid desert right after communion so to speak. Those subject to him have received the Lord of Hosts and want to take a few moments for thanksgiving but are told to remain standing. (And possibly asked to sing.) Consider the merit inherent in this situation if they handle it properly:
If you experience great dryness in your meditation or other prayers, do not feel distressed and feel that God has turned His Face away from you. Far from it. Prayer said with aridity is usually the most meritorious. It is quite a common error to confound the value of prayer with its sensible results, and the merit acquired with the satisfaction experienced. The facility and sweetness that you may have in prayer are favours from God and for which you will have to account to Him: hence the result is not merit but debt...The very fact that we derive less gratification from such prayer, makes it all the more pleasing to God, because we are thus suffering for love of Him. Let us call to mind at such times that Our Lord prayed without consolation throughout His bitter agony. [Fr. R. P. Quadrupini: From his spiritual instruction Light and Peace - Instructions for Devout Souls pgs. 19, 20 (c. 1795)] So the ordinary requires you to stand. Consider this inconvenience in light of the above instruction on prayer and its triviality cannot be plainer. As far as requesting that you sing, well this is usually phrased in the form of a request so you need not actually sing here - particularly if they picked a bad hymn to sing at that point.
This writer recommends finding a prayer of thanksgiving that you can recite in about half a minute or less and pray that prayer while everyone else around you is singing. Or (if this is too difficult), try praying during the announcements portion shortly before the dismissal. There is rarely anything said at this point that is not already covered in the bulletin so this is another option.
Of course if the priest or someone asks you later about this, you can tell them that you needed to set aside a short period for thanksgiving. It would be ideal if they did this during the liturgy but if not, then you would do so yourself. If he refers to you as "schismatic", ask him if you are really more of a "schismatic" than those who do not follow the Church's teaching on artificial forms of contraception. (And further, why he is unwilling to bring this to their attention but he will bother you about a few moments of silent prayer.) For if he is not willing to do this, then he is truly straining at gnats only to swallow the camel (cf. Matthew xxiii,24).
To be Continued...Labels: Dialogues, The Good/The Bad/The Ugly -Apologetics
