Catechesis on the Liturgy

Catechesis Week #5

Sun, 30 Nov 2014 11:00:00 GMT

Ritual as a Guardian of Meaning

We continue this week exploring how ritual performs a twofold function of both protecting and revealing. Nearly everyone can recall some of the simple ingredients that made for an engaging children’s story such as mystery, privacy, and exclusivity. The secret passage in the back of the wardrobe, the hidden treasure chest, or the sealed object that only a very special person could unlock were some of the first elements that served to raise our attention above the immediate. Moreover, everyone knew that the secret garden which required patient discovery and some rite of entrance was far better than a public park; the princess who could only be won after storming the castle and vanquishing the dragon was a prize far greater than just any bride plucked off the street. As Thomas Howard says “All these situations called to something in us that was intensely aware that secrecy, privacy, is in the cards, and that it is a higher consciousness that bows to this and waits for the time and the permission, than that which shouts ‘Open it now! I want it now! I shall have it at once!’ And not only does privacy suggest mystery to us, and hence the privilege of revelation, or admission; it also implies exclusiveness... The point in all this exclusion and debarring is that the very nature of the spot is lost the instant it is thrown open to all and sundry.” (Chance or the Dance Ignatius, San Francisco 2001 p.127-8) Howard brilliantly explores the parallels between sexual intimacy and religious observance. To pick up on just one of his themes, we can say that in both cases, when all the barriers are torn down and everyone is free to rush in under the banner of emancipation, the invariable result is not enrichment but desecration.

This has played out many times in the history of God’s revelation but there is one especially striking instance worth mentioning. In 63 B.C. when the Roman general Pompey had conquered Jerusalem, he was told that he could not enter the Temple. Naturally, this did not sit well with the most powerful man of the time, who promptly declared that nothing could be forbidden to him. He stormed into the temple, passing through the various porticos, courtyards, and finally right into the Holy of Holies where only the designated priest could enter once a year. What did he find? Nothing. In his bewilderment, he could only ask why it was that the Jews had ever held the place to be so sacred?

Why was Pompey not struck dead as were some of the more impudent or lackadaisical Hebrew worshippers at various times? Could it be that those latter instances were cases of particular instruction? Perhaps that for those who had been carefully formed and graciously invited to the most holy and sacred of all things – God’s friendship, far more was required? One asks far more of a spouse, of a lover, than of a stranger; not for the sake of severity but because the gift of self does not endure non-requital. Our Lord Himself gives voice to this both as Lover "I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!” (Lk 12:49), and as King “because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.” (Rev 3:16) Yet there is also another reason that is even more certain. Recall that God had warned Adam and Eve that the very day they should eat of the forbidden fruit, they would surely die. Did they drop dead once they had put God to the test? Physically, they still drew breath, but even that sign of life was destined to be cut short as both the consequence, and painful reminder, of the far more serious death that had already taken place. Indeed, from the moment of that first and terrible sin, they suffered the greatest calamity of all – a spiritual death that would have been eternal were it not for some future intervention on God’s part. A similar warning is repeated by St Paul who exhorts every Christian to discern carefully before taking the Body and Blood of the Lord. How many Catholics receive Holy Communion in an ill-disposed state and are, sadly, left to think that it is of no consequence? What could be worse than such a hardening of heart, which blinds one to the very precipice towards which they are inching closer? God is not like the Wizard of Oz who must defend Himself at every turn by a pyrotechnic display. We must recognize that in His mercy He granted signs and wonders for instruction, but He has no competition. He is not like the other gods, ancient or modern, such that He must condescend to dethrone them one by one. We may fool ourselves for a time, but the day will come when all that had lain hidden will be revealed. The greatest punishment that can be inflicted is that He withdraw His presence from those that had been invited, but who came unprepared, and that such a tragic end be recognized only too late; yet another theme echoed in one of Christ’s parables about a great banquet (Mt 22:1-14).

This should serve as a point of great instruction for us living in a modern world. Returning to a previous analogy, one who seeks a prostitute finds mere sex, but not love. Likewise, one who seeks the high and holy mystery of God based on whim and fancy finds only the wounded projections of self. As was once famously said, such a mystery is where even angels fear to tread. The world testifies, not only to so many fallen creatures seeking love in the wrong places, but also religion in the wrong ways.

To summarize, mystery, privacy, exclusivity (and thus by extension borders, demarcations, and hierarchy) are all employed by ritual as a means of safeguarding and protecting. In this sense, ritual performs a negative function. Now we can look at its positive corollary - the way in which ritual is also revelatory by allowing higher things to be transposed into lower ones, specifically, spiritual and divine realities through the mediation of material and human realities.

Ritual as Revelatory

Regardless of what name we give it, we are all familiar on some level with the theme of transposition. An artist attempts to depict a three-dimensional colored vista in a two- dimensional black-and-white drawing, a solo musician transcribes a symphonic score for a single instrument such as the piano, and a translator struggles to render the nuances of an original language in a foreign one. Regardless of the context, we rightly value the effort to preserve as much of the original richness as possible in the new medium to which it is transposed. And yet, despite the constant advances in high definition technology, we acknowledge that HD or 3D never becomes “real-D” and that no amount of speakers or hi-fi can reproduce the real concert.

We can use this analogy when describing the basic constitution of man himself. Whereas the angels communicate by direct intellectual exchange, man, as an incarnate being of both matter and spirit, straddles two worlds. While he has a share in the world of spirit, he cannot access it directly. All of his knowledge of that higher realm, and his communication with it, is mediated through matter, time, and space. While this has long been corroborated by both common experience and classical philosophy, perhaps the most immediate verification comes directly from Our Lord Himself. He could have performed miracles by simply willing them and yet he chose to mingle saliva with dirt to heal a man born blind (Jn 9:6). Even more, he could have created an economy in which all future Christians would have received an infusion of grace directly from God without any mediation whatsoever. Instead, He chose to institute seven sacraments, or signs, that encompass both material and spiritual dimensions and necessitate a certain amount of ritual. Matter is called to serve a role beyond it, namely, the communication of spiritual realities. Ritual, for its part, becomes the further means of overcoming, insofar as it is possible, the attenuation or loss entailed by such a transposition.

Perhaps an even more homely example is the simple communication of human emotion. Now it is impossible that one person feel immediately (without any medium) another person’s emotion, such as their joy or pain. In fact, to “feel someone’s wrath” really means to witness a face turning red, a raised voice, and perhaps the unfortunate destruction of nearby objects. But in no case do we actually feel the very anger itself that is proper to another person. Everything that we experience comes to us through the mediation of a whole layer of signs and symbols. It is for this reason that signs and symbols are not superfluous. They reveal, in a dramatic way, that which cannot be entirely contained in mere matter alone.

In light of this, perhaps it is easier to understand John Paul II’s rather striking statement that the greatest problem with pornography is not that it shows too much, but that it shows too little. While it is impossible to entirely eliminate the symbolism entailed by anatomy itself (and the union of bodies which it facilitates), that alone does not suffice to capture the greater mystery that is the union of persons. That greater mystery is one that can only be adequately expressed by a period of patient and virtuous courtship, solemn signs of fidelity (rings, wedding ceremonies, etc.), perpetual exclusivity (and therefore the exclusion of third parties), and even a certain solemnity and dignity with regard to the act itself, which should distinguish it from merely slurping a drink plucked from the fridge.

As it relates to the liturgy, if we remove its dignified vesture, incense, solemn chants, and gestures, it would quickly devolve into something that shows too little. Just as persons can easily be debased and made into mere objects, so too can the liturgy be de-sacralized (desecrated) such that it no longer expresses God’s presence, but merely tickles our own desires and emotions. This points to a slightly unsettling consequence - the liturgy is not something comfortable! But how could it be? And even if it could, would that ultimately be something desirable? If human lovers feel the butterflies in each other’s presence, should we expect something less of almighty God? Comfort is a quality befitting of a couch, but not of the One who is the object of all possible desire. Awe, wonder, sublimity, and love (properly understood) are more appropriate descriptors.

Howard sums up much of this up very eloquently. “Those who honor the shrine move, by their very attendance on the rubric, toward some great and unimagined Unveiling when the ecstatic secret is opened to those who have learned that no churl will see the Holy Thing; to those who have learned that it is not by pushing into a thousand shrines that one becomes able to pass through that final Veil, but rather by brave and single attendance on the one shrine committed to one; who know that an unveiling is a real unveiling only to the extent that what is veiled is set apart from the other things around, and that one’s appreciation of the reward is in some ratio to what one has experienced of patience in waiting for it.”

(p.134-5) The liturgy is that shrine. Just as Pentecost signaled an important stage in the undoing of the work of Babel, reorganizing and restoring religion to a harmonious unity, so too the liturgy is the slow undoing of the hand outstretched to grasp the forbidden fruit. The good that we had once hoped to seize for ourselves can finally, again, be received, in an infinitely greater measure, by our patient, reverent, and trusting observance. O felix culpa! Oh happy fault, that won for us such a Redeemer. If we will but learn from our fateful first encounter with the fruit of Eden so as to taste the fruit of the New Covenant, our Redemption.

Catechesis Week #4

Sun, 23 Nov 2014 11:00:00 GMT

Last week we looked at the theme of how God sets the terms of our encounter with Him. This week we will explore another - that formality is not a barrier to intimacy but rather the door to it! It must be asked, why would we ever see formality as an obstacle? At least two answers can be given, one ancient and the other rather new. The ancient is that our fallen nature (so vividly captured in the image of the arm outstretched towards the forbidden fruit) constantly tempts us to try and seize, rather than patiently wait and graciously receive. It is just these latter dispositions which formality helps to protect and foster. The second answer follows up the first but is more particular to our times. Whereas man once tried to build a tower up to heaven, now he has turned to burrowing into protons and neutrons, subjecting everything to the criterion of empirical measurement and pronouncing the results to be the only indisputable reality. It is ironic that with the increasing discovery of order in the physical universe, man rejected the parallel implication of an equally objective order regarding the soul, the moral law, and the purpose of life. Instead, spurred on by increasing technological mastery and a desire for unfettered liberty, he could declare, in the words of one fateful Supreme Court decision ( Planned Parenthood v. Casey ) “at the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” Not only has the forbidden fruit of complete self-determination proven deadly (as happens whenever one person’s fabricated universe is not welcoming of all others), but also exceedingly bitter. Rather than fulfillment, there is emptiness; rather than passion, there is boredom. Perhaps the most telling sign of the modern predicament is the tragically mounting suicide rate. A 2013 cover article of Newsweek, treating of the modern suicide pandemic, could not help but notice “...an accelerating paradox. Over the last five decades, millions of lives have been remade for the better. Yet within this brighter tomorrow, we suffer unprecedented despair. In a time defined by ever more social progress and astounding innovations, we have never been more burdened by sadness or more consumed by self-harm.” [1] The paradox begins to dissolve, however, if one is willing to acknowledge a deep connection between the two statements quoted above, namely, between a new concept of liberty and unprecedented despair.

Yet what does this have to do with formality? We can summarize this succinctly by saying that formality and ritual simultaneously protect and reveal that which is most important in life , especially that which cannot be disclosed by a simple scientific measurement or mathematical formula. Let us survey the elements of ritual that have reigned across civilizations until just recently – the family meal, paternal blessings, elaborate dress tailored to each type of significant occasion, grand regalia at the court of the monarch, extended periods of romantic courtship, public and elaborate ceremonial for marriage, a sacred privacy regarding the incarnation of love in the conjugal act, and somber and solemn rituals for reckoning with death and honoring departed loved ones. Not only are the classical elements of dress, manners, customs, and hierarchy part of what it means to be human, they also are the safeguard of meaning. It is just this meaning at the heart of the world that defeats emptiness, boredom, and despair and fires the imagination with dreams of grandeur, romance, heroism, and victory because liberty finds an objective goal beyond itself that is every bit as real as the laws of physics. There are great goods to be fought for and won.

While scientific advance and the prospect of unfettered liberty have made war with ritual, it has not succeeded, and likely never could, in wiping it out entirely. We still wrap presents instead of leaving them in the mailbox, and, as yet, the president is still sworn-in with a ceremony rather than tweeting his oath. It is interesting to note that one of the greatest defenders of ritual in the secular world is one that deals with the serious business of fighting and dying, namely, the military. Even in a context where efficiency is one of the sought-after goods, it must bow to a still higher good. Combat training forms the mind and body for war. Ritual training forms the soul for courage, patriotism, and nobility.

Nonetheless, just as the sacred must be vigilantly protected from profanation, so too, it’s venerable guardians, ceremony and ritual, must be wary of degenerating into frivolity. When a simple high school graduation is lauded with so much pomp and circumstance (literally!), it might be asked if the world has not simply transferred its allegiance from the putatively discredited realm of religion to the new myths of adult freedom and self-determination. While there is certainly no problem with honoring significant events such as an educational achievement, when they come to be crowned with greater solemnity than the truly defining elements of life (as we are beginning to witness now) such as courtship, marriage, worship, and death, the question becomes more pressing.

Christians may rightly reject the gradual dissolution of ritual or its transference to things less worthy of it, but no one is entirely immune to the influence of the present climate. This is just one more facet of being human – everyone bears the stamp of the culture in which they have been formed. There is yet one very important modern element that cannot but leave a deep impression - the technological revolution and all the social and psychological implications which follow in its wake.

Let us note just a new which can be easily observed. As so-called “social networking” expands, circles of real flesh-and-blood friends grow thin. The constant chatter of texting erodes the ability to hold meaningful, personal conversation. Sound bites and tweets shrivel the attention span such that it must strain through a Sunday sermon. Multi-national corporations and streamlined production mean that what could once only be bartered through a personal relationship is now tendered across the globe by parties that never meet each other. Persons have simply become producers and consumers, and a handshake or word of honor is now an anonymous click on an end-user license agreement. Excessive welfare encourages infantile dependence while State propaganda slowly levels a hierarchical universe into an egalitarian footpath of utopian progress. Paparazzi, talk shows, and professional gossiping diminish a common respect for privacy. The proliferation of actual news outlets offers the catharsis of privately commiserating from a living room with the suffering in every part of the world save for the neighbor’s house next door. Courtship is seen as quaint and naive and yet perpetual fidelity is then reckoned to be impossible. The price of transforming sex into a commodity is a pandemic spiritual impotency to make love. Drama, passion, sorrow, and the other sinews of humanity are just as often experienced at the end of a remote control rather than with all the attendants (beginning with reality!) that history has normally accorded them, and which assist in the all-important work of soul-formation. That was precisely the aspiration of the classic liberal arts – to form not just a power or faculty, but the soul, or whole man.

Now, we adamantly defend the “intrinsic” value of our advancements but often fail to see how difficult it is to avoid their negative consequences. Everyone likes the convenience of shopping on the internet and having items delivered right to their door. Less enthused are those who must call technical support and find an unfamiliar voice from a foreign country responding. Is it possible to have the cake and eat it too? Regardless of which elements we may personally reject, the cumulative effect is that, as a society, we have been trained to want food fast, entertainment streaming on demand, clothing casual at best, and all things as efficient as possible. Facebook, Twitter, and similar things have further accustomed us to having unreflective opinions, and even daily trivia, lauded by digital “likes”, and therefore tailored to affirm our spontaneous self-expression. Is the self-portrait that is being offered back to us perhaps a bit distorted when virtual fans can so blithely impart their seal of approval to each of our activities before shuffling along to countless other cases undoubtedly awaiting review in their own respective social media feed?

The difficulty all of this raises, when we turn to the question of the liturgy, is serious. What happens when we enter a world that demands reverence, patience, and inefficiency; that insists on privilege, privacy, and hierarchy; that subordinates spontaneous self-expression to formal and corporate acts? Lastly, can we withstand the mirror that is held up for us which quickly cuts through all of our own self-delusion and carefully fabricated persona’s? In light of this, we can perhaps understand a bit better our own knee-jerk reactions to formality and how we mistake it for an obstacle to intimacy.

Having looked at some of the obstacles to formality, next week we will explore more in depth the two-fold role of formality and ritual as it both protective and revelatory.

Catechesis Week #3

Sun, 09 Nov 2014 17:00:00 GMT

Last we explored the theme of the transcendence and immanence of God and concluded on three points. We will now attempt to unpack the first of these points in more detail – that God must set the terms of our encounter with Him.

It is not uncommon these days to hear someone claiming to be a “spiritual” person, but nonetheless skeptical of organized religion. It will suffice for now to say that for anyone who would claim even the most vague grounding in Scripture, this position is impossible. Scripture, from the very first book of Genesis until Revelation, is a continuous, interconnected story about God forming His own organized religion . The sequence of expanding covenants that passes through Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and is then finally and definitively established in Jesus Christ make abundantly clear that God is intent upon personally forming a tightly-knit, visible, organized, and governed society; or even more simply, His own family. All of this points towards the 4 marks that characterize the culmination of this process – One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. The ark of Noah has been universally viewed as a type, or foreshadowing of the Church, which is the ark of salvation. To eschew God’s organization is tantamount to trying to build one’s own ark in the rain.

All of this is rather straightforward for any Christian acquainted with the Scriptures. Less understood, however, is the intimate connection this theme has with the liturgy. Recall from our first lesson that earthly worship (which encompasses the elements of adoration, thanksgiving, petition, and propitiation) is the highest fulfillment of the first and greatest commandment to love God, and is that upon which is founded all of the law and the prophets (and thus even the possibility for genuine love of neighbor). We must have worship in order before all else, and it will be God to show us how. Let us now look at a few significant episodes in salvation history.

The first takes us to the garden of Eden. Here, everything was a place of natural delight, perfect tranquility and order, and above all, friendship with God. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was indeed a test, but not a temptation in the sense that Adam would have suffered by his patience and abstinence, as if he were pining for something that he lacked, for he was already perfectly provided for. It was a test that would allow Adam the greatest exercise of his dignity – to freely embrace the offer to be a son of God. The Father had said, in effect, “I have a great inheritance to give you, just wait, and you shall see.” God gives Adam the chance to take his own first steps, to join with creation and sing those notes of adoration (manifested by his obedience) and thanksgiving (manifested by his patience and trust that God would fulfill him even superabundantly). Tragically, instead of that joyful symphony, we see the outstretched hand seizing at the fruit, attempting to make off with the Father’s inheritance. In other words, a rejection of sonship.

The next is the construction of the Tower of Babel. This is something that could have been a work pleasing to God if it had been undertaken with the right intention. By its very size and grandeur, it could have served as a monument to God’s transcendence, a humble acknowledgment of man’s finitude, and a petition that He would condescend to make Himself present among men. Instead, as a work of man’s pride, it was just the next iteration of the hand outstretched to the forbidden fruit; an attempt to pull God down to man’s level through his own efforts. In this case, literally, a stairway to heaven. It must be noted that the result of pride is always division rather than communion. Just as the builders of Babel were scattered, so those who seek to be tied to God on their own (the word religion comes from the latin ligare , which means ‘to tie’ or ‘to bind’) can only contribute to division rather than the peaceful ‘co-existence’ the modern world fancies. Pentecost marks the un-doing of Babel; the confusion of many languages was reversed by the comprehension of each according to his own tongue, and the outpouring of the Spirit initiates the time foretold by Christ when all would worship “in Spirit and in Truth.” Notice that this is a work of reorganizing religion , drawing the elect together in a unity of both worship and doctrine.

The episode of the golden calf remains one of the most instructive in the Old Testament because of its subtlety. Examining the whole context of Exodus, we see that the Israelites had personally witnessed the plagues of Egypt, the deliverance through the Red Sea, and had subsequently begged Moses to ascend Mount Sinai as their mediator because they feared the signs of God’s approach. It would be a gross caricature to imagine that while smoke and thunder were still pouring from Sinai, the Israelites were standing in its shadow constructing an alternate deity. The truth is far more human and strikes uncomfortably close to home. The Israelites were naturally in a state of fear and confusion, trying to make sense of what was taking place and restore some order to the dizzying succession of recent events. They would have liked to speak to God directly, but they were rightfully intimidated and it was clear that only those designated by God (such as Moses) would be permitted to draw near. Once again, the primordial temptation will return to wreak havoc. Why wait for Moses to return after his prolonged absence? Why not attempt to translate the bewildering self-revelation of God into a more understandable language or mode of thought, or, even, an image (which in itself is perfectly acceptable if God sanctions it – ex. the crucifix). Man is always loathe to leave his comfort zone, and the very thought of something that was concrete and well defined, both visible and tangible, must have seemed consoling. The golden calf could serve as man’s image of God – the same God who was revealing Himself on Sinai above. The consequences were dire. Moses commanded that a great part of the Israelites be put to death, lest the even more (spiritually) deadly temptation ever regain credibility – that God need not be worshipped on His own terms. In primitive times, paganism showed that man was not above even the worship of charms and talismans, which is to say, false gods. As the Israelites showed, the more insidious and persistent form of idolatry is to try and worship the true God on our own.

In light of these events, it is clear that God was going to use as much time as was necessary for man to learn these fundamental lessons. In this case, when salvation history advances to a point where God deigns to provide more specific instructions regarding divine worship, we should be even more eager to discover their meaning and significance. Amidst some of the lengthy social and legal commands that were appropriate to the time and place in which God was forming His universal family through the mediation of figures such as Moses and David, it is easy to lose sight of the veiled allusions contained in the parallel liturgical prescriptions. The construction of the Tabernacle in Exodus reveals a dazzling connection to the story of creation of Genesis – repeated patterns of seven, matching verses (“behold it was good”), and the culmination in blessing. The Tabernacle, in fact, symbolizes nothing less than a new creation. This continues with the construction of the Temple – the basin for washing sacrificial gifts (called the “sea”) points to the division of the waters, the altar is linked to the foundation of the earth, the various adornments hearken back to things found in the garden of Eden, and the lampstand to the light of creation. To linger on some of these fascinating points would require a dedicated Scripture study, and we must now turn to the important question of how ancient liturgy relates to Christian liturgy. For our purposes, we can narrow it down to asking “does Christian liturgy do away entirely with the sort of detailed prescriptions that were so prevalent in the Old Testament?”

It is due in no small part to the massive cultural shifts of the last half-century that many are under the impression that the answer is yes. This is undoubtedly tied to much larger issues of religion in general. Often the confession of Jesus Christ as the eternal, only-begotten Son, consubstantial with the Father, Who condescended to take up a human nature has been replaced by an image of a non-judgmental, doctrinally indifferent, itinerant do-gooder who demonstrated that brotherly love need not be grounded in any specific prescriptions regarding love of God (on this point, perhaps C.S. Lewis’ modern formulation of the argument “Lord, lunatic, or liar” remains the most accessible and expedient refutation). The implications for the liturgy are immediate. This second image naturally lends itself to a conception of liturgy in which a vague, spontaneous “spirit” replaces the letter of a cold, impersonal system of law (so it is often said). This paradigm, however, completely undermines the continuity of God’s revelation in history as well as the interconnection of the Old and New Testaments in Scripture, as if God had somehow erred in His first attempts and subsequently drawn up a different plan.

While all of revelation teaches us to look for continuity rather than rupture, there is nonetheless a decisive turning point in divine worship signified by the rending of the Temple on Good Friday. Given what we have studied so far, however, it should be easy to identify the essential points – symbol now gives way to reality, the blood of animals to the Blood of Christ, and outward, vicarious sacrifice to interior, personal sacrifice. The Jewish temple, which was a sign and foreshadowing of the new creation is now being accomplished in the Redeemer, the doorway between heaven and earth Who said “Behold, I make all things new.”

Examining the specific ceremonial rites, gestures, and symbols of the Mass will be reserved for another time. For now, it is important to grasp the fundamental implications of the principle that God sets the terms of our encounter. He has not ceased to prescribe certain things in detail, yet now He does so through the mediation of the Church rather than the early patriarchs such as Moses. Likewise, our reverence should not diminish, but rather increase before the realities that have now replaced the ancient signs. Lastly, we must always be vigilant not to fall for the ever-present temptation to begin replacing God’s prescriptions with our own. Our fallen nature constantly inclines us to impatience, distrust, and self-construction rather than to docility and trusting receptivity.

Catechesis Week #2

Sun, 02 Nov 2014 17:00:00 GMT

In this installment of our Liturgy series, we will explore just one very deep and fascinating theological principle - the simultaneous transcendence and immanence of God - and then see how this is reflected in the Liturgy. What does it mean to say that God is entirely transcendent? By this one word we indicate that God is not a part of creation but entirely above and outside of it, that He cannot be “moved” by anything outside Himself. For Him there is no time, all is an eternal “now”. He never changes nor reacts in response to creation but rather is the very source of it. We might say in one neat phrase that “God plus the world never yields a sum any greater than just God Himself.” We might at first be alarmed if we perceive that this seems to entirely remove God from worldly affairs, but in fact, the very opposite is the case. Because God is not just one more agent within the drama of creation, but entirely outside of it, He can also enter into each and every part, no matter how small. When we realize that God does not simply dwell “in” us, as a guest in a house or even a lord in his manor, but that at each and every moment He unfolds and sustains our very being, we can exclaim with St Augustine “You are more intimate to me than I am to myself!” Another way of saying this is that it is precisely because God is infinitely big that He can also be infinitely small, that He who holds the whole universe in His hand may also be entirely present to even just one individual soul.

This all may seem rather abstract but it comes to an immediate and startling point in the case of the Liturgy. What happens when God chooses to pull back the veil ever so slightly, allowing creatures to glimpse something of His glory. What wondrous and terrible things might be expected when Mount Horeb or the altar of the Temple become a threshold that brings together the finite and the infinite? Throughout Scripture, we have plentiful descriptions of fire, smoke, and peals of thunder. We read that the voice of the Lord shatters the cedars of Lebanon and strips the forest bare and that His mere approach melts the mountains like wax. We even find that on more than one occasion, the lackadaisical worshipper is struck dead (see below Lv 10 & 2 Sam). At the same time, the entire Old Testament serves as one long, drawn-out period of preparation for that moment when the infinite would be dwindled even unto infancy and wrapped in swaddling clothes. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, showing all the warmth and affection that might be expected from the closest of human friendships. These two images of God, reflecting both His transcendence and immanence, are part of His own self-revelation. Neither can be set aside. But in that case, how are we to reconcile them?

The tension is perhaps most strikingly seen in the figure of John the evangelist, the “disciple whom Jesus loved”. Two particularly poignant moments recounted in the Scriptures are when John reclines on the breast of his beloved Master at the Last Supper, and when Our Lord entrusts His very own mother to John -“behold your mother”. In light of the deep friendship and intimacy between Our Lord and John, it is staggering to read of John’s mystical vision in which he encounters the Lord in the fullness of His glory. Recall that prior to this, John had already been a privileged witness to the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor that left him, his brother James, and Peter in fear and awe, and thus already with some preview of the divine glory residing within the one that many thought to be merely a rabbi or a prophet. Let us see what John himself says of this encounter “Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden girdle round his breast; his head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters; in his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth issued a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.” (Rv 1:12-17) This tension between the intimacy of a beloved friend and the Lord of glory is paradigmatic of the tension that exists in the liturgy wherein we too draw close to God who is both Lover and Lord. As Catholics immersed in the sacramental life, we should have a regular and very personal experience of this tension. Every time we approach Holy Communion, where even the angels fall down in adoration of the Word made flesh, we can appropriate the words of Elizabeth to her cousin Mary “how is it that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Lk 1:43) Yet not just the mother, but the Lord Himself!

In response to our earlier question, how we are to reconcile this tension, a helpful clue is given in Exodus 33 in which Moses asks to see God. God responds that no one can see His face (the fullness of His glory) but that He will place Moses in a cleft in the rock, shielding it with His hand until He finally allows a glimpse of His back (a mere foretaste of beatific vision). Like Moses, or James and John, who did not know what they were asking when seeking a share in the Lord’s glory (see Mt 20:22), we must wait for God to stoop down and support His feeble creatures as He draws near, to shield us in the cleft while still granting us the glimpse for which we long. From this we can draw several principles that will be explored more in coming weeks. The first is that God must set the terms of the encounter. In other words, the liturgy is not a product of our making, but something that is specified by God in great detail and to which we must submit. The second is that formality is not a barrier to intimacy but rather the door to it! Since we are all made for intimacy with God, anything that impedes it is rightly to be rejected. The modern tendency, however, is to attempt to draw God down to our level instead of patiently allowing Him to raise us up to His. We must first bend the knee before His transcendence so that we might then be consoled by the experience of his immanence. Third, all of our earthly resources should truly reflect the divine glory they are meant to herald. Our Lord did indeed dine with prostitutes and tax collectors, but at the same time, in continuity with the solemnity of the Old Testament, He drove money-changers out of the temple and rebuked the attempt to diminish divine worship in the name of humanitarian service (see Mt 26:6).

Here is a comparison that places this great theme of transcendence and immanence in greater relief and indicates how these two facets are reflected in the liturgy. Precisely because God embraces both, they must be held together, and an excessive emphasis on one at the expense of the other can only be harmful.

Catechesis Week #1

Sun, 26 Oct 2014 16:00:00 GMT

As we begin our series of liturgical catechesis it will be helpful to begin with the most expansive, theological view possible. Just as it is better to know how to fish than to simply be given a fish, so too it is far greater to understand the very nature of liturgy in all its forms (and there are actually many beyond the two currently found in the Western, or Latin Church) before exploring in-depth just one of them.

Let us begin with the premise that if we knew how to worship God properly, that we would already be on the threshold of heaven, which is nothing but its crown and consummation. Proper worship, in fact, is the most perfect fulfillment of the first commandment to love the Lord Our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. It is the source and summit of the Christian life. In fact, when the spirit of adoration, thanksgiving, propitiation, and petition permeates our whole being, the moral life that is lived on a daily basis and responsive to the second commandment, to love our neighbor, flows joyfully like water from that pure fountainhead which is the Sacred Liturgy. It is just these four points that were traditionally identified as the “ends” or cardinal points of Holy Mass.

Our second premise is this – man, of his own power, and especially in his fallen, sinful state, is incapable of worshipping God properly. The whole history of salvation from Creation, to the Fall of Adam, and, finally, to the future consummation of glory at the end of the ages, is the story of man’s constant divergence from proper worship and God’s continual interventions by which He not only corrects man, but finally takes him by the hand, as it were, and leads him to his heavenly homeland.

Heavenly Liturgy & The Most Holy Trinity

Beginning with the first, how is it that liturgy puts us on the threshold of heaven, leading us into the heart of the divinity? Based on what God Himself has revealed to us, let us imagine what the life of the Most Holy Trinity must be like. God is infinite goodness, truth, and beauty. Since all other things that exist receive their goodness from, and are but faint reflections of God’s perfect goodness, it follows that 1) there is no good outside of God that can ultimately be loved beside or above Him, and 2) God cannot fail to superabundantly satisfy every desire beyond measure. Now, since God is the only one who perfectly knows His own infinite goodness, only He can truly love it to a corresponding degree, which is to say, infinitely. That awesome and rapturous vision begets the Son, and their ecstatic and blissful embrace breathes forth the Holy Spirit – a polyphonic canticle of adoration and thanksgiving. We might here note the presence of “sacrifice” but one that is entirely transfigured in glory. Each of the Divine Persons pours Himself out, making a complete and perfect gift of self without reserve, yet without any loss or suffering. Every outpouring is already anticipated and filled by the other. No love in any degree is unrequited, but rather, reciprocated without limit in such a way that it can only be described as ecstatic. Thus perfect sacrifice, the offering of oneself, becomes ecstatic, a blissful going-out of oneself in union with another.

Liturgy in the Plan of Creation

This is what all creation was meant to share in, and it is a plan that was already unfolding at the very dawn of creation. It is striking how easily we miss the significance of the seven “days” of creation. The seventh day is in fact the beginning of earthly liturgy, a sign that the purpose of mundane, earthly things is to lead us to sacred, heavenly things. The command of keeping the Sabbath was already “hard-wired” into creation, such that the first six days, which signify all the goods of the universe, enable man to collect, sanctify, and offer to God a sacrifice of praise (adoration) by which he enters into God’s own blissful rest. St Thomas teaches that even had the Fall not taken place, sacrifice would have been a natural part of man’s earthly interaction with God. In addition to adoration and thanksgiving, earthly sacrifice would be the perpetual reminder of man’s creaturely status as completely dependent upon God, and thus a fitting way to petition Him for support in all man’s needs. Had he remained untainted by sin, we can imagine that man’s offering of the first fruits of the earth in praise, thanksgiving, and petition to God would not have been experienced as something burdensome or distasteful. Quite to the contrary, it would have been a faint reflection and anticipation of that heavenly ecstatic sacrifice. The greatest joy of God’s sons would have been to be pleasing to their loving Father by doing His Will, while the Father, for His part, would never cease to shower His sons with every blessing.

Liturgy After the Fall

So far, we have seen that in the heavenly liturgy, in the intimate life of the Most Holy Trinity, there is a ceaseless song of adoration and thanksgiving. For all creatures on their pilgrim journey toward this heavenly life there is added the note of petition in which God’s unfailing goodness is invoked. However, we know that there is an early and tragic turn in the drama of salvation history – the Fall and the entrance of sin into the world. It is in response to this mortal wound that a salvific balm becomes incorporated into divine worship – propitiation, or the atonement for sin.

These preceding points provide an illuminating way of viewing the process of salvation history. Why does God institute such a lengthy economy of animal sacrifice that is accompanied by painstaking ceremonial laws that He Himself prescribes? This whole period was to be a gradual pedagogy, or training, wherein man would not only be continually reminded of his need for atonement, but also be slowly induced by the symbolism of external, vicarious sacrifice to enter wholeheartedly into true, interior sacrifice, or the loving offering of oneself.

Recall, however, the second premise that man cannot properly worship God. Here, in fact, a twofold problem arises. The first is that man, gravely wounded by sin, is unable to make a perfect offering of himself. He is shackled by sin such that he is not the perfect master of even his own will and thus cannot fully offer what he does not fully possess. But even supposing that man could surmount this difficulty, there is a second one. The perfect self-offering of a creature is fitting if the end to be realized is to remain merely on the level of creature-to-Creator. In other words, natural happiness. Yet, as we saw, God’s plans go even further. He intends to draw creatures into His own supernatural beatitude that goes beyond any natural capacity of creatures. Some of the most striking words of Scripture - Ego dixi: Dii estis, et filii Excelsi omnes (I have said “you are gods and all sons of the Most High” Ps 81:6) express God’s plan to draw man into his own intimate life. That means nothing less than divinization. How then can man even hope to adore and thank God in a way commensurate with His own infinite goodness; with all the zeal, fervor, and intensity that is proper to a God who’s love is described as a consuming fire; with all the freedom and unreserved self-donation that could reciprocate the full outpouring of the Divine Persons? The answer to that is already foreshadowed in one of the most poignant types (symbols) in the Old Testament, namely Abraham and Isaac. “God will provide himself a victim for a holocaust, my son.” (Gn 22:8) This, we know, was to be Our Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God.

Our Savior & the Liturgy

Within this whole context, we can say that the Passion of Our Savior was a latreutic act. The word is derived from the Latin latria which includes both the notions of sacrifice as well as praise and adoration. In the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a human nature is joined to a Divine Person Who alone can adore, thank, petition, and atone to an infinite (divine) degree, and the door is finally opened for man to enter into that blessed life of the Holy Trinity. The Passion was far more than just a ransom, the paying of a debt beyond man’s ability. In that human-divine Heart of Jesus is the reconciliation of obedience and freedom, of sacrifice and ecstasy. It is not only propitiation and petition, but finally, and most of all, perfect thanksgiving and adoration.

You may have noticed that certain prayers at various points during Holy Mass (which are known as collects because they gather together the four ends) conclude with per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum , through Our Lord Jesus Christ... That is, through the door of His humanity into which we are incorporated as His mystical body, into the life of the Most Holy Trinity.

We can sum up by saying that earthly liturgy (which man could not even adequately perform after the Fall) has been transformed by the latreutic action of our Savior into nothing less than the gradual process of divinization – a process that is to be completed in the heavenly liturgy. It will be a school wherein we learn to master our will and make a perfect offering of ourselves; to think, feel, and love as God Himself does. All of this would be impossible if God Himself were not to take the lead - to be both the High Priest and sacrificial Lamb into which we ourselves become incorporated. Divine Liturgy (as it is known in the East) or Holy Mass (as it is known in the West) is the greatest gift of God. Above all other things on earth, it is to be reverenced, safeguarded, and ultimately, that to which we submit with loving and joyful affection so that its divinizing power may work upon us and come to fruition in heaven.