An aside on transferred days of obligation

Since the Bishops Conference of England and Wales decided to move the celebration of the Solemnities of the Ascension of the Lord and the Body and Blood of the Lord from their previously-customary Thursdays to the following Sundays, I have not had a particularly strong feeling one way or the other about the change.

I do have some sympathy for the reasoning of their Lordships at the time that, with a low adherence of the faithful to the practice of the obligations on a Thursday, the transfer to the Sunday would make it easier for the faithful to celebrate these Solemnities. There appears to me to be some analogy between this motivation and one expressed by Pope Benedict XVI in his letter to bishops accompanying the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum:

One has the impression that omissions on the part of the Church have had their share of blame for the fact that these divisions were able to harden.  This glance at the past imposes an obligation on us today: to make every effort to enable for all those who truly desire unity to remain in that unity or to attain it anew. 

But, if I remember correctly, the Bishops Conference also intended that, in making the change, the faithful would celebrate the two Solemnities with a much greater appreciation of the mysteries that they celebrate. That requires that the Solemnities are celebrated at parish level in a way that makes rather more of them than the adjacent Sundays of Eastertide or of Ordinary Time.

In the parish where I most often go to Mass, though, today's celebration of the Ascension has been overwhelmed by the fact that young people in the parish are receiving Holy Communion for the first time at the principle Mass - and the same will happen again next Sunday on the Solemnity of Pentecost. I suspect that this is not unusual around the parishes of England and Wales during the "First Communion season". It does mean that the intention that a celebration of the Ascension on a Sunday would lead to a greater appreciation of the mystery being celebrated has somewhat gone by the board. The association of First Communions with the Solemnity of Corpus Christi works, as does the celebration of Confirmation on the Sunday of Pentecost, though an attentive linking of them to the mystery marked by the Church's liturgy of that day is required if the Bishops' intentions with regard to the faithful as a whole are to be met. The Sundays of the Ascension and the Trinity, though, are not the right days to use. There appears to me to be a significant discordance between Episcopal intention and parochial practice.

As the conundrums represented by the move of the Solemnities to their nearby Sundays comes round each year, I have reflected, too, on the way in which those with attachment to the Extraordinary Form have continued to celebrate the two Solemnities on Thursdays, almost as a way of getting round the Bishops' decision in this matter. Until such time as the calendars according to which celebrations in the Extraordinary and Ordinary Forms are determined are brought together, it would be a gesture in favour of ecclesial communion if celebrations in the Extraordinary Form complied with the calendar being observed in the Ordinary Form in so far as these two Solemnities are concerned.

Inspired by the Rule of Carmel

Saturday last was not a day for visiting anywhere in Kent - it rained, and, at least according to a road sign on our way to Faversham, the Kent County Show was closed.

Faversham houses the national shrine in England dedicated to St Jude. The parish attached to the shrine is in the care of the Carmelites, (O.Carm variety). Of interest on the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel are four icons in the shrine dedicated to people inspired by the rule of the Carmelite order. They are featured at the bottom of this page. Best known among these are perhaps Blessed Titus Brandsma and St Edith Stein.

I also found it striking to look at the three windows described on the page under the heading "The stained glass in the outer shrine area". It is unusual to see a representation of God the Father such as that shown in one of the windows. Working from right to left, one sees this image in a relation to that of the Virgin Mary overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and bearing the Son and then in relation to the image of the Resurrection of Christ. Together, they offer the mystery of salvation history in a Trinitarian and Marian perspective. On the web page, only parts of the windows are shown, so I post below full images of the windows. The full images contain details not visible on the web page.

Most Holy Trinity, I adore You profoundly

Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore You profoundly, and I offer You the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifference with which He Himself is offended. And, through the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of You the conversion of poor sinners.

The prayer of the Angel who appeared to the children at Fatima is appropriate to the Feast of the Transfiguration, when the Church celebrates the glory of God made manifest to Peter, James and John on the mountain top.

The prayer reminds us of the doctrine of the Trinity, and it reminds us of the fundamental calling of the Christian to an attitude of adoration. It is also Eucharistic in character - as was the apparition of the Angel during which the prayer was revealed - and it calls us to pray for the conversion of sinners.

An interesting aspect of the apparitions of the Angel is the part played in them by the posture of prayer - kneeling, and more precisely, prostration with the forehead touching the ground as the children pray as taught by the Angel. One contemporay apostolate for Eucharistic Adoration with children encourages this posture in prayer - the Children of Hope apostolate of the Community of St John.

For the first year of preparation for the centenary of the apparitions, the shrine at Fatima invite pilgrims to follow a "way" that is based on the apparitions of the Angel. The notes to accompany the Pilgrim Itinerary include an account of the apparitions given by Sr Lucia and directions for prayer and meditation. During a visit to Fatima at the end of May, we were able to follow this "way" on one of the days.

Just a thought ...

Given that today's Gospel reading at Mass included the Our Father, I wonder how many priests took the opportunity to preach about the Fatherhood of God?

Magnificat to the rescue, offering an extract from Cardinal Jean Danielou as the "Day by Day":

But beyond them [ie the Son and the Spirit] is the mystery of divine fatherhood, the absolute first source of all things, the first source of all Creation, the first source of all grace. This fatherhood is expressed through its manifestation in the world, in creation, where God is the Father who makes his sun shine on the just and the unjust ... It is expressed through Christ's humanity, the humanity of the only Son, through which we may all become sons in the only Son, since we are caught up in the eternal mystery of divine descent, engendered with the only Son to the life of the only Son by the Father, recreated - as he is begotten - eternally, perpetually recreated in this mysterious process of generation, recreated to this life of grace which leads us into participation in the mystery of eternal regeneration.

The Holy Trinity in Catechesis

The October-December 2008 issue of The Sower came through my letter box today. This is the magazine published by Maryvale Institute, in collaboration with Franciscan University, Steubenville.

One article is entitled "Loss and Retrieval of the Holy Trinity in Catechesis". It is an adaptation of an article that appeared in the September-October 2008 issue of FAITH Magazine, that can be found here.

The General Directory for Catechesis speaks of the necessary internal structure of catechesis as follows:
"every mode of presentation must always be Christocentric-trinitarian: Through Christ to the Father in the Holy Spirit" (cf Ephesians 2:18). If catechesis lacks these three elements or neglects their proper relationship, the Christian message can certainly lose its proper character".

The last parts of the article are an analysis of the reasons for a loss of the sense of the Trinity in our catechesis, and suggestions for correcting those reasons. A couple of the corrections suggested:

... a solution here is for every priest, parent and catechist to be attentive to the books and conference speakers in this regard: to check resources for the occurrence of the terms "Blessed Trinity", "God the Father", Jesus, Son of God" and to take seriously any indication of avoidance of such terms.

Responding to resources and programmes that explicitly decline to refer to God as Father or Son, on the grounds of promoting inclusiveness in language, the article suggests:

The answer, of course, is not to throw out the greatest mystery and revelation of all time, but the method that is designed explicitly to hinder its transmission. One initial way to check a programme is to look for explicit references to Jesus as God, Son of God, Son of the Father, God made man. Priests responsible for catechesis and key catechists who assist them, need to grow in an appreciation of the 'pedagogy of God', a pedagogy by which catechetical methods can be judged as to whether they are a "guarentee of fidelity to content" or not.

These criteria of judgement provide a positive way of evaluating the official resources prepared for celebrating Youth Sunday.

I think you will find that the materials on the website fail these criteria of judgement - almost totally. [We can perhaps see the suggested materials for the Penitential rite affirming the divinity of Christ by referring to "Lord Jesus", but I could find no Trinitarian reference anywhere.] The following prayer is quite typical, and totally lacking in any Christological or Trinitarian expression. The contrast with the Liturgical formulation of addressing prayers to the Father, through the Son in the Holy Spirit could not be clearer.

Brilliant God,we celebrate your wonderful world and we thank you for the gift of your creation.On this National Youth Sunday inspire us, we pray, to Reclaim the Future!Help us to see how our actions today will make a difference tomorrow. And bring us together in faith to make that difference a positive thing. Amen.

How many of our parish priests will apply the catechetical discernment suggested in the Sower article to the Youth Sunday resources? And how many catechists will realise that there is even a discernment to be undertaken?

Thinking Faith - Dialogue and the Church

Though entitled "Dialogue and the Church", this series of three articles from the Jesuit on-line journal Thinking Faith is really about dialogue with other Christian churches, that is, about ecumenical dialogue. The articles can be found here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three.

The author, Paul Murray, is a contributor to an idea that he terms "Receptive Ecumenism". Given that the formal theological dialogues that might be represented by, for example, ARCIC, have not produced the progress towards corporate unity that was their original hope, "receptive ecumenism" gives priority to the partners in dialogue identifying what they might learn/receive from the others without compromising their own belief.

In Part One, there is a reflection on the meaning of the word "Catholic" as "in accordance with the whole". The first context for this reflection is a vision of "Catholic" as embracing everything in creation and onwards, towards and embracing Jesus Christ. As a question of dialogue, this means that everything in this world can express something of the truth of God. The second context might be described as "Petrine" and "Pauline". The Petrine principle is seen as the centripetal instinct which holds all things together in a unity of faith. The Pauline principle, however, is an opposite principle which seeks to take the fullness of the faith out into encounter with the nations. The two principles are complementary. Paul Murray suggests that the Catholic Church is rather good at recognising the Petrine principle, but that we could gain from the Protestant denominations a stronger sense of the Pauline principle.

Indeed, it may be that we as Roman Catholics need to re-receive the authentically Pauline dimension to our Catholicity from our Protestant brothers and sisters and the practices and structures that operate in their churches.

We can, of course, imply that the Protestant denominations would gain from a stronger appreciation of the Petrine principle. But what I found very interesting in this article was its implicit suggestion that to talk about the Petrine office or principle is something that is of the essence of ecumenical dialogue, and not at the periphery. Recent events in the Anglican communion, for example, show by their demonstration of the results of its absence, how vital a decisive reference point for doctrinal unity is.

Part Two presents a kind of "hermeneutic of continuity" as far as the idea of dialogue and the Catholic Church is concerned. The argument is that "a very considerable number" of Catholic theologians engaged with modern thought and culture before the Second Vatican Council. Paul Murray cites Newman and Rosmini from the 19th century and Adam, Guardini, de Lubac, Congar, Lonergan and Rahner as examples from the 20th century. So the idea that dialogue was absent from the life of the Church before Vatican II is not accurate.

In the documents of the Council itself, Paul Murray presents an argument (from Ann Michele Nolan) that two different Latin terms, "colloquium" and "dialogus", are both translated by the English word "dialogue", though they have significantly different implications in the orginal Latin. The Latin "colloquium" refers to dialogue as a kind of open conversation whereas "dialogus" refers, in the documents of the Council, to calls for formal exchanges between different parties and so has a more restricted sense. This more restricted sense should be seen as a concern to identify common ground with the interlocutor so that a more effective communication of existing Catholic understanding (as distinct from fresh understanding) can take place. This, Paul Murray suggests, may explain why the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has tended to give negative judgements on some ecumenically produced documents - it has been putting into practice this latter understanding of dialogue. So the Council itself is not as liberal in its understanding of dialogue as some might think, and this has been reflected in the life of the Church since the Council.

Part Three argues that it is possible to see in all of created reality a Trinitarian structure that derives from the Trinity who is/are its Creator. Writing of our appreciation of a particular scene or view in the world, the author writes:

So, we have showing forth and recognition and the energy, the movement, that brings this to be, but there is also a third dimension to the experience. This is the dimension at once of limitedness and excess; the dimension of both appreciating the intensity of the particular scene we behold and recognising it precisely to be particular and partial.

This limitedness/excess presents the world, and the Trinitarian God who is shown forth through it, as intrinsically dialogical. We are led to wonder at what we have already seen, but also to an openness towards the more into which we are still to grow. This is the underlying principle for an idea of dialogue as "receptive" in the sense of "receptive Ecumenism" referred to in Part One.

Whilst one or two aspects of this series of articles remain a little confusing (for me, for example, is the reference at the end of Part Three to "the diverse expressions of Christianity that have emerged over the course of Christian history as Christianity has become incarnated and shaped by quite different ... contexts" and the in passing remarks about dialogue within the Catholic Church), there is a very interesting focus on central Catholic teachings: the meaning of the word "Catholic" and of the Petrine office, and the focus on the doctrine of the Trinity. The teaching of Vatican II on dialogue is also presented in a way that was new to me - and which will encourage me to have a Latin text alongside the English translations as I read the Council documents!

Edith Stein and the Trinitarian character of prayer

Rita at tigerish waters has posted the text of Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity's prayer "O my God, Trinity who I adore .." to mark Sunday's feast of the Holy Trinity.

St Edith Stein has an essay entitled "The Prayer of the Church" which opens with a passage reflecting on the Trinitarian form of Liturgical prayer. She does go on to say that all prayer is prayer of the Church, even what we might term "private" or "devotional" prayer. The Trinitarian character thus extends to all prayer.

“Through him, with him, and in him in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father, for ever and ever”. With these solemn words, the priest ends the Eucharistic prayer at the centre of which is the mysterious event of the consecration. These words at the same time encapsulate the prayer of the church: honour and glory to the triune God through, with and in Christ. Although the words are directed to the Father, all glorification of the Father is at the same time glorification of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, the prayer extols the majesty that the Father imparts to the Son and that both impart to the Holy Spirit from eternity to eternity.

All praise of God is through, with and in Christ. Through him, because only through Christ does humanity have access to the Father and because his existence as God-man and his work of salvation are the fullest glorification of the Father; with him, because all authentic prayer is the fruit of union with Christ and at the same time buttresses this union, and because in honouring the Son one honours the Father and vice versa; in him, because the praying Church is Christ himself, with every individual praying member as a part of his Mystical Body, and because the Father is in the Son and the Son the reflection of the Father, who makes his majesty visible. The dual meanings of through, with and in clearly expresses the God-man’s mediation.