CDXLVIII – Liturgy Wars (2)

Commenter Anon33 discusses my recent article on the Liturgy Wars. In it, he says the following:

Fr. Z has a great metaphor for the two masses. Paraphrasing, the Novus Ordo is bread. Is it a food? Yes. Can you eat it? Yes. Does it sustain you? Sure.

On the other hand, the TLM is a royal feast of rib roast, mashed potatoes with gravy, grilled asparagus, glass of Chianti, and a creme brulee to top it off. Is it food? The best! Can you eat it? How can you not! Does it sustain you? Of course!

Now imagine the Pope comes along and says, “Catholics are only allowed to eat bread.” If you’ve eaten bread your entire life, you shrug and move on with your life. However, if you’ve been nourished by roasts & such, you would be up in arms, too.

That’s what’s going on here.

As to the laity’s involvement, we do have strength in numbers, see evidence.

The following was my response (lightly edited to include back-links), which was long enough to be its own post so I am posting it here:

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You highlight some really important things, and some really difficult things. Again, my hobbyhorse has been obedience and I think I take a somewhat radical view on the subject. I know this is perhaps a Scoot-specific idiosyncrasy, but it is illustrative of Whats Up With The World (TM).

Here is the important thing: The Mass Feeds. When you boil it down, that is the most important part of Mass. Liturgy of the Word, Liturgy of the Eucharist. In an absolute pinch, Priests don’t even need an ornate Church–they have travel kits. My priest before I moved offered a Mass on a hike with the young adults of the parish. We are fed. The Desert Fathers had traveling priests visit their hermitages and offer Mass for them as well.

Here is the difficult thing: Christ frequently and repeatedly refers to us as Sheep–and not in any degrading or diminutive sense, but in the sense that we rely entirely on Christ for the provision of our needs. By entirely I don’t mean “mostly”, I mean every moment of every day, every atom in our bodies, every (good) desire in our hearts comes from God. This dependence is extremely hard to grasp. And when we are confronted with it, it is extremely difficult to be grateful.

A scriptural case study: after Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt, they were sustained on Manna from Heaven. Manna was not a rich feast but it kept them going. In the desert, this was a sign that God loved them and wanted to nourish them. God could equally have sent a rib-roast banquet every morning with the dewfall, but these meager rations reminded the Hebrews who it was who delivered them and the hunger in their bellies should have reminded them what is important: that the Lord provides. We know from recent Sunday readings that they grumbled and wanted new signs and proofs that God had not abandoned them. We know that a journey that was supposed to take only 40 days ended up taking 40 years while God had to repeatedly, carefully, and lovingly teach the Hebrews that His love was unfailing.

You may have pulled out the parallel I am making now, but let me make it explicit. We are sheep that have been fed a rich, beautiful feast–like the prodigal sons brother who stayed loyally by his fathers side, and enjoyed all of the fruits of that loyalty and none of the hardships that the prodigal son endured. If our shepherd takes away some of the blessings of this feast, and we must persist on meager rations, should that not give us clarity in our minds what about the Mass is important? Should that not teach us that–hey, we can (and already know how to) offer a much more fulfilling feast than this?

You are absolutely right, that having been fed by such a feast as you describe, only to have it replaced with meager bread and water rations, you would naturally be up in arms. But what if the Holy Spirit is trying to teach us–all of us, not just those who worship at a TLM specifically–a lesson? What if the Holy Spirit is trying to get us to answer the question “What is it about the Mass that is important?”

Your video is one Hambone and I have spent a lot of time chewing over. In the one sense, yes strength in numbers–but the Church is not democratic. Christ is our King, and the Pope is the “Vicar of Christ”–Vicar shares a root with “Viceroy” and means “second in command” or “deputy”–The Pope is the steward, the King while the King is away. The subjects to the King will always have strength in numbers, but a numerical majority does not make one right. If the Pope hands down an order–any order–that is at best morally good or at worst not evil, and it is a lawful order for the Pope to give, we have a duty to obey. We ought to give wide latitude to what constitutes a lawful order, especially from the Pope.

I don’t vote, because I don’t believe in democracy (another hobbyhorse of this blog). If my bishop said unequivocally “All Catholics in the diocese must vote” then I would vote–I owe the bishop my obedience, he is the deputy to the Pope after all and the duty of obedience flows down from God.

All this to say that–the laity ought to take their cues from the priests and the other Church leaders. Barring the doors to a Church is bad. Did the bishop order it, or the government? If the bishop, shouldn’t the priests have obeyed? If the priests obeyed but winked and nodded to the laity, is that really obedience?

There is nothing–literally nothing–more countercultural in this day and age than forthright and clear-eyed obedience. The liturgy wars are, in my opinion, born out of the democratization of the laity–we think the Pope must listen to us and that just isn’t the case. He should! I hope he does! But his obligation extends to feeding his flock. The Pope was chosen by the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit must, in some way, will for us to nourish ourselves on bread for the time being.

AMDG

CDXLVII – Liturgy Wars?

Dipping into the substack well of fodder again, someone recently posted a lengthy meta-critique of the Liturgy Wars. Overall, it represented a call for civility. I commented on the article something to the extent that we ought not be having liturgy wars at all, and that we owe a duty of obedience to the Church, a fact which has become something of a hobbyhorse of mine.

The commenter replied to me suggesting there are three ancillary questions to the liturgy wars which are pertinent:

There should be no need for discussion as to the validity of either form of the mass in the Roman Rite. But, there are many other related discussions that do need to occur. Among these: 1.) The nature of Sacred Tradition, 2.) The value of aesthetics within the liturgy, 3.) The exact nature of Papal Authority as regards the liturgy, etc

Here, I will attempt to address the ancillary questions–but out of sequence because I do what I want.

3. What is the exact nature of Papal Authority as regards the liturgy?

The Pope is the highest possible authority on Earth. His is the last word on final say, when he invokes papal infallibility. On all other matters, insofar as they are not contradictory to the Dogmatic teachings of the Church–that is to say, insofar as they are true–we owe a duty of obedience. Catholic liturgy is well within the scope of Papal Authority, so in my view the Pope has the authority to modify the liturgy and provide guidance as to its conduct. He has some limitations imposed upon him by past councils and doctrine. The Pope cannot abrogate completely the Latin Mass, for example, nor can he change the Mass to something irreverent or heretical.

Let’s consider a negative example, though. Suppose the Pope did not have the authority to amend the liturgy. What is the extent of this? There are A LOT more liturgies than just the Latin and Novus Ordo. There’s the Maronite rite–an Eastern-style liturgy in communion with Rome. There’s the Ge’ez rite of Ethiopia. The Anglican Ordinariate. What shall we do with these liturgies? If you moved to Ethiopia, would you insist upon the Latin Mass among all the Ethiopians? If so–why is this different?

The core fulcrum of this whole discussion is what’s up with Traditionis Custodes which specifically plays the Latin against the Novus Ordo. While this is rude and offensive to fans of the Latin, insofar as Papal Authority is concerned it is not out of his scope. There are plenty of other liturgies in other languages that are unaffected. Would it be better to have some consistency from the top about the liturgy? Yes. Was Traditionis Custodes a poorly executed maneuver? Yes. Was it morally or doctrinally wrong? No. Not obviously, anyway.

1. What is the nature of Sacred Tradition as regards the Liturgy?

Let’s side-step the words in this question for a moment and get to the intent. The Latin Mass of the 1962 Missal is older and most Catholics for most of Catholic history would have been familiar with it. I don’t know how old the Ge’ez rite is nor the Maronite, but the fact is that Sacred Tradition does not appear to be homogeneous. When we talk tradition, the first question should be “whose tradition?”

Sacred Tradition should be changed as little as possible and as it happens, the Latin Mass has not changed in all these years. What is happening is it is being suppressed in favor of a different tradition that is from the Catholic Church and so is no less sacred.

It’s fitting here to remember that we are peasants, and that liturgical squabbles are far above and beyond the scope of our influence or reach or understanding. What would be good is to go to Mass at the Church that we like and invest deeply there. Whatever the liturgy is that is there, make sure it’s something you can stomach. Communicate with the Pastor about what you can do to help safeguard the liturgy you prefer. Give generously in the collections at the Mass that you prefer. And beyond that–stay put. Lay down roots. Don’t uproot every time a decision is made you don’t like. Only the people that weather the storms get to shape the future. The people who leave at the drop of a hat are just more debris in the wind.

2. What is the Value of Aesthetics in Liturgy?

Aesthetics is very important. Aesthetics essentially means “style” or “appearance” or “the look of things”. The liturgy should be beautiful because it is both good and true. A beautiful liturgy is a beautiful offering to God. No Catholic liturgy is truly ugly, but the liturgy that has absent many beautiful accidents is just a less ornate offering to God. It is not an unfitting offering, nor is it an ugly offering.

Here’s where it is important to be careful. The Latin Mass is objectively beautiful. It is also objectively more beautiful than the Novus Ordo. That doesn’t mean that it is better for souls because any valid Mass is good for souls. We don’t want to become aesthetic gluttons–snobs–we want to focus on what is important. What is the important thing about the Mass? It is the Holy Scriptures. It is the Eucharist. That’s really it–the two liturgies within the liturgy. Are you getting fed? If yes, nothing else matters. Nothing else should matter.

In Conclusion

Liturgy Wars are really preference wars, but we have no say and no influence and it’s all a big hubbub over nothing. Go to Mass where you like. If you prefer the Ge’ez rite, go there. If you prefer Latin, go there. If you prefer English, go there. Choose your language, choose your liturgy, and go there. Invest deeply. Focus on the things that matter. Don’t forget to love your neighbors–they are prodigal sons too, just trying to make sure they have found the right home.

AMDG

CCCLI – Ritual Politics & The Peasant

Let’s talk about Ritual. Ritual here is a culturally important action which is bound up in ceremony, habit, and performance.

The important elements then are:

• Cultural Importance – things that are not culturally important are not preserved in ritual
• Ceremony – things that are rituals are surrounded with pomp and circumstance befitting a culturally important matter
• Periodicity – rituals are observed at prescribed times of year
• Performance – rituals are performative, proper observance of rituals are pleasing to the public and give the performer a pleasing association in the eyes of the public.

Liturgy is a description of Catholic rituals. Liturgy is culturally important because it pertains to worship of God; Liturgy is Ceremonial because it is surrounded with pomp and circumstance appropriate for worship; Liturgy is periodical because it happens every Sunday (every day even), with grander and more expansive liturgies reserved for grander holy days; Liturgy is performative because priests must perform the liturgy properly to afford proper worship to God, and a “good priest” is one who gives due respect to God through his liturgical performance.

This is a very antiseptic way of describing Catholic rituals, but you get the point, I hope.

There are political rituals as well. You know some of them as cliches: The Mayor holding big scissors at a ribbon cutting ceremony; the “breaking ground” ceremony where men in clean suits step on a shovel in a patch of pre-turned earth. Inaugurations of Presidents are highly ritualized political events.

There are two kinds of rituals, political or otherwise: Vain, and Purposeful rituals. Purposeful rituals fulfill some purpose and have some definite reason for existing. Mass is an act of worship, and so is a very purposeful ritual. The ritual helps to lend some universality to the Mass, so that one can go anywhere in the world and still recognize the elements of the Mass. Vain ritual has a purpose that satisfies the performer, rather than the people. The ribbon cutting ceremony is for the publicity of the Mayor, not for the edification of the people. He wishes to be seen doing things in public, so he obliges the ritual for his own purposes, not for any real public purpose.

In my previous article, I assert that voting is a ritual observance in America.

• It is culturally important that people vote, people call it a “civic duty”
• It is wrapped up in ceremony–the private act in the ballot box and the grand results parties for the politicians in question
• It is periodic, happens in November every year, with a major ritual happening every 2-4 years.
• It is performative, in that the act of voting has very little in the way of practical effect but it makes us feel good to wear an “I voted” sticker, and offers legitimacy to the politician who ends up winning the vote.

In the previous article, I leave essentially unanswered the question of why we should not vote, because I offered that politics is a tool at the disposal of the modern peasant.

In that article, we broke the practice of politics into three categories: Theory, Practice, and Ritual. Political practice involves two subdivisions: Governance and Plebiscite. Governance means the decision making actions of an individual in carrying out the duties required by the office he is elected into. Plebiscite means the decision making actions of a mass of people in answering questions put to them by the Governors. This includes questions such as “who should my successor be?” or “should we raise taxes in 10 years or now?” or “should moral degeneracy be legal or not?”

Let’s imagine ourselves as a peasant and consider all five aspects of politics then.

Ritual – A peasant must be aware of the rituals and customs associated with a people. This awareness helps him to cultivate his livelihood. But a peasant must be extremely selective about which rituals he participates in. The rituals we participate in reflects us and reflects what we consider important. It is impossible to cast a vote dispassionately–the ritual of voting inextricably ties us to the outcome of the vote, and even if we want to be dispassionate, we have not acted in a way that is dispassionate, and involvement in politics will become a priority to us. Likewise, participation in the Mass inextricably ties us to the worship of God. It is impossible to attend Mass, whether receiving Eucharist or not, and not become involved in Worship. Repeated involvement in the Mass will inevitably become a priority to us. Remember, a peasant has three projects: Spiritual, Personal, and Communal, in that order. If a given ritual helps the community but does not help the spirit, it should be avoided. Voting, then, should be avoided because it is a chiefly communal act but it is deleterious to our spirit.

Plebiscite – A peasant must be aware of the decisions being put up to plebiscite, but must not participate in it. A peasant’s chief focus should be his three projects, and the Plebiscite does not fall under his domain unless the peasant is in the position of authority. An authoritative peasant must be aware of the decisions too but has an obligation to exercise his authority in justice. It is exceedingly difficult for a peasant to remain a peasant when in a position of power in a liberal society; the exercises of authority are much blurrier. So while I would discourage a peasant from seeking power, a person in power may seek to do so with justice and a peasantly outlook, at which point he must simply be very careful.

Governance – A peasant typically would not even be aware of political acts of governance, but again supposing a peasant was in a position of authority, these acts are simpler and easier to understand how to carry them out in conformity with the spiritual project of the peasant. Authoritative peasants have a duty to act morally and for the custodial good of their subjects, and political acts of governance must be evaluated with this foremost in mind.

Theory – A peasant, regardless of position or project, has little need for political theory, unless such an education aids the pursuit of his projects. An authoritative peasant may need to understand how people think in masses and how to leverage that for the success of some just and good act of governance. It is exceedingly difficult but not impossible. A non-powerful peasant shouldn’t need to know the difference as long as he understands the duty to obey authority and act morally.

You see how democracy makes the life of a peasant more challenging? Politics introduces complications and obstacles to a simple, spiritual, peasantly life.

AMDG

CXLI – The Apocalypse Will Be Live-Streamed

We are rapidly approaching the end of the Lockdown phase of Coronavirus. I don’t know when we’ll be able to plant our flag and say “Coronavirus is Done”. Our overlords will probably never announce it because then it goes away as a useful tool. After November I suspect many will pretend it never happened.

My concern has been the impact on the Catholic Church. I’ve asserted here and elsewhere that Coronavirus is doing what demographics was already going to do in 20 years. Here is a prediction, and I make it publicly so that everyone can see and tell me whether I was right or wrong, because I won’t look it up:

Any Parish that maintains a Livestream will see attendance (and consequently, income) remain absurdly low.

The problem, as I see it, is we just spent 3 months telling people that Live-stream Mass was just like regular Mass. And I’m not saying the important part is the audience participating. It’s not. The important part is the Real Presence. If someone took a photo of God, could you claim to be in his presence? What if they took two photos? 10? What if they took 20 photos a minute? 60 photos per second? What if you could see every photo the second it was taken?

What about drive-through Mass? How many people will wait outside Church in their cars and think they are going to Mass?

The important part of Mass is the sacrifice. How do we communicate that fact?

AMDG

LXXXV – Chicken Little Cries Wolf

The Incoherent Rage of Greta Thunberg is fascinating to me. I saw this image as I was scrolling through my news aggregators and I can’t help but think they’ve gone full Chicken Little on this one. La Nostra Casa e in Flamme, or, Our House is on Fire.

via Crisis Magazine

There’s a lot to unpack with what is going on with poor little Greta, but I just want to point out something. You may recognize it, it’s one of my favorite points to raise.

Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi

The liturgy of environmentalism has no formal rites, their only dogmatic precept is outrage. Greta Thunberg checks that off, willingly or not. She is using outrage to sell products, though. Look at this picture: There’s something of a mirthlessly humorous contrast between the title of the book (Our House is on Fire) and the fact that she is selling a book. Imagine, if you will, trying to convince people, literally, that their house is on fire.

A man walk into someone’s house, calmly. He tells them, “Sir and Madame, your house is on fire.” They disagree– “Why, I was just upstairs a minute ago and it was quite comfortable.” Our unwelcome interlocutor responds “I am afraid you are quite incorrect, your house is on fire, and shame on you for doubting me. To mark my authority, I would be more than willing to sell you this brochure, wherein I explain why the house is on fire and why you should be more upset about it than you are.” The couple refuse to pay, and refuse to take the man–who has now taken the character of a salesman– seriously. “Well, alright.” He says, “but you’ll be sorry. This house is on fire, and you’ll burn along with it.” With that, he walks briskly out, climbs into his humvee and drives swiftly to another neighborhood.

What Greta is saying is not lining up with what she is doing, and so people doubt whether she actually believes what she is saying. The disconnect between Thoughts, Words, and Deeds, makes her seem ingenuine. This is why no one cares about her message.

LXXVIII – “Do you have reverence for God?”

Surely you have heard about that wayward Portland parish?

There’s a lot to talk about in this whole thing, but I would like to focus on this one scene:

Woman: [Screaming] I’ve been here for 15 years! You’ve been here for 1! What gives you the right?

Fr. Kuforiji: [Calmly] Do you have reverence for God?

St. John the Baptist said, “A greater one than I is coming, he must increase and I must decrease.” It wasn’t about what he wanted, what his ambitions were. He was totally committed to proclaiming the coming of the Lord.

Faith, or rather, in this case, Liturgy, is not about us. Fr. Kuforiji gets to this point indirectly, passing first through considerations of God. Do you have reverence for God? If you have reverence for God, then you should want to worship with the prescribed liturgy. You should want to deepen your worship. If someone asks, “Do you want to do the same thing, or something that brings you closer to God?” your answer should be the latter.

Fr. Kuforiji is not anxious, in that video. He is not upset. If my eyes don’t deceive me, he has a smile on his face. He is at peace with the Lord.

We would do well to consider his question seriously.

AMDG

LV – The Power of Liturgy

What Is Liturgy?

Contemporaneous usage gives the definition of Liturgy as “The formulas for conduct of divine service”. The word itself is derived from French liturgie (which shared its modern meaning) by way of Latin liturgia, meaning public ministration. This is one of the rare cases where the Latin word is derived from Greek leitourgos, meaning the person performing a public ceremony. The roots being leitos, meaning public, and -ergos, ‘that works’, from ergon meaning work. Leitourgos was a person performing a public work and the word came to mean the work itself, and was taken into Christianity when the works of consecrating the Eucharist were standardized and the Mass was codified. This sacred setting gave it a stricter definition, coming to mean the way in which the public works were performed.

In short: From ‘Person performing a public work’, to ‘A public work’, to ‘Way a public work is performed’. The word is used in sacred contexts most often, but carries no sacred meaning unto itself, only a sense of formality. It is thus apropos to other formal public ceremonies.

The Sense of Importance

Formal public ceremonies lend those ceremonies a sense of importance. Indeed, the more regular the ceremony, the more important it is. It is Liturgy that lends these ceremonies a sense of importance. The Inauguration of a President. Graduation from College. The changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Every single one of these follows a prescribed formula, so everyone who experiences it does so in more-or-less the same way. Liturgy is the common element to all of them. Consider a proof by counterexample: When a Liturgy is abandoned, the ceremony loses it’s importance and reverence.

Consider a wedding. Traditionally, a wedding is composed of two parts: Marriage and reception. Marriage is a liturgy, indeed it is explicitly a Sacrament performed around a Mass. The reception following the Marriage is a party which is not ceremonial in any way. As religion is removed from the Marriage, it becomes more and more, well, irrelevant. People are pretending to officiate marriages in barns, on beaches; Friends and relatives are pretending to be officiants. The liturgy, which gave Marriage a sense of reverence, was altered or removed, and thereby thrown into irrelevancy. Because Marriage is pretended to be a civil ceremony rather than a spiritual one (people must rationalize why exactly there needs to be a ceremony in the first place), the availability of the civil contract is widened.

Therefore, Liturgy serves two roles: In the present, it creates a sense of reverence which defines the occasion as an important one. Secondly, it connects the ceremony to all previous ceremonies by preserving the importance which was historically ascribed to any given occasion.

The Gravity of the Mass

This brings us to the modern context of Liturgy, namely, the Mass. It is becoming something of a cliche, but it gets to the heart of the latin Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi. The Mass is the public ceremony of offering the Sacrifice of the Eucharist in persona Christi. Mass is important for a number of reasons, not least of all because how it is done illustrates all three of the Lex components. Prayer, Belief, and Life, all roll into one beautiful Liturgy.

Changing the Mass has allowed irreverence to seep into the liturgy. Reverential silence is not a sure thing at any Mass or any Church. Contemporary music mixes with traditional hymns. I don’t here propose to offer an opinion on which liturgy is best or most accurate, but ambiguity means that there are differences and the people see and react accordingly. The converse is also true: If you begin treating Mass with greater reverence, your spiritual life will necessarily change (dare I say, improve!). Liturgy is a way our actions demonstrate the difference between the mundane and the Holy.

AMDG