Facing Goliath in any Form and Hoping against Hope

 

Subversive Catholicism

Papacy, Liturgy, Church

Martin Mosebach, Angelico Press, 2019

One more small victory for retirement! I got my Mosebach book read, this being an English amplification with a couple additional and important essays added to the German original from 2012, which highlighted the ultramontane. The editors of the English edition have done the author a great service from the choice of title to the additional content.

While all the talk of Marian shrines and of Lourdes, in particular in Part III, headed "Christians in the World", must per force be to key to what the book is all about, I did much prefer the first two parts on the Papacy and on the Liturgy. In Part II, the chapter on "Prayer" (pp. 41 ff.) is most deserving of attention and the chapter "Christmas Every Day" (pp. 55 ff.) is a must read.

I will leave you with just one quote (p. 89), to my mind striking because it was set down almost a decade before the infamous Pew Survey pointing out the dreadful loss of faith among Catholics and particularly of faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament:

"When the inhabitants of Gaul, England, and Germany became Catholic, they understood no Latin and were illiterate; the question of the correct understanding of the Mass was entirely independent of a capacity to follow its literal expression. The peasant woman who said the rosary during Mass, knowing that she was in the presence of Christ's sacrifice, understood the rite better than our contemporaries who comprehend every word but fail to engage with such knowledge because the present for of the Mass, drastically altered, no longer allows for its full expression."

Mosebach is a novelist first and foremost, without any degree in theology to my knowledge. The man demonstrates a clarity of expression and depth of thought in matters of the sacred, which would gain my vote for classing him a doctor of the Church. 

This book does not disappoint. Tolle et lege!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Where your Heart lies

 

13^th Sunday after Pentecost

Commemoration of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

22 August 2021, Canton, SD

Gal 3:16-22
Luke 17:11-19

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Our Sunday Mass today takes place against the backdrop of a very beautiful teaching about our Blessed Mother, as today we commemorate the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

There is much that we can gain in life from focusing on the Sacred Heart of Jesus and on the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Above all, our appreciation can grow of what is meant not only by Christ’s love, but also concerning what is at the heart or center of the Christian life, especially as we contemplate the mystery of the Heart of Mary. Today, primarily, I want to attempt a reflection on your hearts, our hearts, on the heart of any believing and practicing Catholic, as the center of gravity in Catholicism and of our life as Catholics. The Blessed Virgin Mary, with her Immaculate Heart, is an incomparable witness to aid us in our reflection.

“Heart language” personalizes our discussion of the faith and of Church life. It takes the practice of the faith off the institutional plain and takes it where it should be, namely to where it is alive and thriving at the center of people’s lives. As St. Paul explains to the Galatians in today’s epistle: the law is at the service of God’s promise, of the covenant God made with Abraham. St. Paul speaks of the promise to the offspring (singular), Who is Christ. The promise made by God to Abraham looks to Jesus, the Messiah. He is what makes sense of the Old Covenant. Christ is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. To use “heart language” is to go about this reflection as Christ wills and as St. Paul teaches. We might rightly quote St. Augustine and say, “Lord, our hearts are restless until they rest in you!” (Think of the many images of the great saint with a flaming heart in his hand or somewhere in the picture.

Talking this way about the heart, especially about the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, I am telling you something more than what I was taught in seminary. Back then, at some point we were taught that the value of focusing on the Heart of Jesus or on the Heart of Mary is literary or poetic. It is a case of the use of the classical literary figure named synecdoche, that is, taking a part for the whole, as in “My heart aches for you!” Do not misunderstand me. The notion I was taught in the seminary is not wrong, as we can understand from the traditional artworks which depict the hearts of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. It is clear in the artwork, however, that a part stands for the whole mystery of Christ’s love, of the love of the Virgin, and of the love of St. Joseph. “Heart language” has multiple implications. There is more to be considered than just the literary figure and the love of Jesus, Mary and Joseph for me personally, as important as it is. The spectrum of what we are talking about here as love of the heart is very expansive.

Let me limit myself to reflecting upon what that “more” means in terms of our placing ourselves under the Kingship of Christ. No doubt many of you have read the same articles on the internet I have, which bemoan the loss of a sense of Christ’s Kingship in the Church and in our world. There is a lot to that lament, but an essential part of what is lacking in the Church and the world, or maybe let us say in the average Catholic parish, has to do with a clear awareness of the call for us to let Christ take up His Throne in our hearts. I better repeat that. An essential part of what is lacking in the Church and in the world, or maybe let us say in the average Catholic parish, is a clear awareness of the call for us to let Christ take up His Throne in our hearts. The absolute top priority for the Church in the world is that the Lord Jesus should reign as King. Jesus told Pontius Pilate, “My Kingdom is not of this world”. The Kingship of Christ, His Rule, must be first and foremost in our hearts. Jesus says as much today and illustrates His point in the Gospel account of the healing of the ten lepers. Were not the ten made clean? But where are the nine? Has no one been found to return and give glory to God, except this foreigner?”

Christ rules where He is given His due, where He is recognized as the be-all and the end-all of our lives. Christ rules where hearts are subject to Him and His Will. Christ rules where He is recognized for Who He truly is and loved above all else.

“Were not the ten made clean? But where are the nine? Has no one been found to return and give glory to God, except this foreigner?”

On Friday August 20, we celebrated the feast of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, abbot, father and doctor of the Church. He died in 1153 and is counted as the last of the Latin Fathers. He taught that we should take heed of what we love, what we fear, wherefore we rejoice, or why we sorrow. We must understand that where our heart lies is what is primal. We should love God alone or love others only for God’s sake.

Here is where Mary and her Immaculate Heart enter the picture. You and I may be somewhat conflicted in our choices and in our preferences. We need to learn from the Mother of God and come to appreciate her undivided Heart. Just as nothing and nobody took preference over her Divine Son, so we need to form our hearts like hers.

To return to St. Paul and the Galatians: the Commandments, the Precepts of the Church are there to help us to examine our consciences well and so worthily confess our sins in the Sacrament of Penance. These rules of life cast light on the matters of the heart which will lead us to Christ. The Blessed Virgin Mary was thoroughly formed in the Law, in the Commandments, but her Heart carried her farther. You and I do not have her perfection or beauty of soul, but through our obedience to God’s commands and uprightness of heart we can come to love God alone and to love all creatures like ourselves only for God’s sake.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Priorities and Focus - St. Bernard of Clairvaux

 

BENEDICTUS, the traditional Catholic Companion, offered a great quote from the saint of the day, St. Bernard of Clairvaux (+1153)

"Would you wish to know if you are really devout? Then take heed of what you love, what you fear, wherefore you rejoice, or why you sorrow. Love God alone, or if you love, love the object, for His sake. Fear only to displease God, or if you have any dread of anything, refer all to Him. Rejoice only in God, or if you rejoice in any other object, look upon it only as an attraction that draws you closer to Him. Let the loss of God be your only sorrow, whether your sorrow is occasioned by past sins or by those of your brethren; or if any other loss worries you, look upon it as a proof that He intends to chasten you, in order to make you more united to Him.

    The grace of true devotion is an unction that instructs us in all our duties; he alone who has proved it by experience knows it, and he who is willfully ignorant of this cannot possibly know it, because no one can feel it but he who has received it as a precious gift from heaven. Devotion is the grace that influences the heart, and that alone. After one has tasted the joys of the Spirit, those of the world and the flesh seem to be distasteful. He who yearns for the blessings of heaven cannot relish earthly pleasures, and he who sighs after eternal things will feel only a contempt for fleeting things." (p. 232, Benedictus for August 2021).

    The profound wisdom and teaching of Bernard impresses me, but the man's sanctity bore fruit in an incredible vocation boom, which gifted the Church countless saints. His fruitfulness in calling forth vocations leaves me speechless. How badly our Church could use another Bernard and companions!

    St. Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

It is all about Violence

 

In my post of the other day (here), I reflected on the summary cancellation by the Cardinal Archbishop of Washington, DC, of a Pontifical High Mass long planned for the Vigil of the Assumption on August 14, in the National Shrine. He claimed to do so, exercising his ordinary authority in response to Traditionis custodes, the Pope's motu proprio against the Traditional Latin Mass, ever more frequently now being dubbed the UA (Usus Antiquior). Meantime,  it has become public knowledge that the Cardinal has also rejected the request of the Paulus Institute that he reconsider his action.  

In my previous article, I mentioned Ross Douthat's comment in a NYT article, about another author writing in favor of the strategy of TC, who claimed that yet today it should be possible to revolutionize society and the Church on the pattern of the successive stages of the French Revolution. I must agree with Douthat and hold that what happened in 1848 in France to consolidate the supposed gains of the "Reign of Terror" does not represent a universal and cannot simply be applied as described in our historical context, certainly not so many years later and on the world stage. Moreover, who in their right mind would every strive for a revolution like the French one within the Catholic Church? There do not seem to be any Catholic precedents for the use of the guillotine to achieve genuine church reform.

Douthat expressed clear skepticism regarding his colleague's thesis that the present motu proprio, just like in 1848 in France, could accomplish what no amount of violence in the 1970's was able to attain in its attempt to eradicate the timeless liturgical patrimony of the Roman Church. Part of Douthat's argument, at least, was that the hierarchical principle has been so undermined in the last 30-40 years that legislation like Traditionis custodes, apart from its many flaws, is deader in the water than was Veterum sapientia back in 1962.

Notwithstanding Douthat's incisive commentary, the situation is still terribly worrisome for me. This is not a tempest in a teapot. We need but take a closer look on the political side here in the United States at what the radical left seems to be achieving in undermining the family. People are not being convinced or even seduced by the left's dystopic propaganda, no, rather the little ones are being cowed by threats and violence, too often supported by bureaucrats and even elected officials at city, state and federal levels. They are being victimized and things are just being torn down, basta. It is all very sad.

What has brought on this violence today in the Church? It is the same deep-seated hatred of the Apostolic Faith which was at work back in the 1960-70's and which still perdures among an ever diminishing old guard and their clueless recruits. They seem to have imbibed that same hatred, which "wreckovated" churches and burned books and vestments, with no respect for the devotion of a generation now mostly gone to their eternal reward.

This kind of violence cannot be met by counterviolence but rather by the steadfast adherence to the truth and the love of the Old Mass which has captured the love and imagination of not few young people in our own day and time. The revolutionaries, the violent are kicking against the goad, so to speak.

When we were children, one of my mom's ultimate arguments against younger siblings throwing temper tantrums was to tell them to go look at themselves in the mirror and be covered with shame at their ugliness. It was an argument suited to a child, a very simple call to introspection, based on a fundamental conviction concerning the goodness of that child who stood before her stamping his or her little feet. It is a dialogue without much sophistication, but one shot through with love.  At some point the fuming and railing against us and the UA will subside or stop altogether. It has to, for we have a world to claim for Christ. All else is less than to the point.

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

A Brief Musing about Rejection and Conflict

 

The Paulus Institute made a measured declaration about their disappointment over the DC Cardinal's prohibition of our Vigil Mass of the Assumption planned for our Country's National Shrine. They did well to do so and their statement fits the bill. My own disappointment over this bureaucratic dismissal of good people's best efforts has no real importance. I do not see myself as a man on a mission somehow stymied by whomever. I would have loved to enjoy this gathering of good and believing people in Mary's "house" in Washington. It was not to be. For me personally, that sort of sums it up.

As such, I have nothing to say beyond the statement of the Paulus Institute, but as I ponder this picture from the Corpus Christi procession at the Sacred Theology Conference back in June in Spokane, I wonder why some are so taken up with trying to "scatter the sheep": Quare fremuerunt gentes... Why would anyone pretending to be of Christ's Church lash out at the lambs?

In his NY Times article of yesterday, Ross Douthat seems to think that those who, regarding the motu proprio, prognosticate the "success" of this latest attempt at suppression of the Mass of the Ages do not have all of the present variables in hand, which make our world different from that of France in 1848. I think he knows what he is about.

Another day is coming. Be of courage, little flock!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

The Life of Katharine Drexel

 

THE GOLDEN DOOR

by Katherine Burton, 

1957, P.J. Kennedy and Sons, New York

The hope which motivates me to review the books I read has always been that of encouraging others to read them and draw joy or inspiration from them. One presupposition, then, is that a book be accessible. Most of the books I read are easily obtained on Kindle, although I do occasionaly buy actual printed books. On the rare occasion, when I buy out of print books, it is usually because I have become enthused enough by someone else's review to go hunting for the book. Actually finding these rarer books and at a manageable price, however, is not a foregone conclusion.  

In the case of St. Katharine Drexel, I have had this particular book on my wish list for a long time, not because of any rave reviews I had read, but because the saint herself is mine as a South Dakotan. This so also because of one of our priests whom I knew from my youth, a former chancellor of the Diocese of Sioux Falls originating from Boston, who had found his way to South Dakota and to the priesthood through the encouragement of Mother Katharine, to spend his summers from Boston College out here on the reservations.

As the price had come way down and in celebration of retirement, I bought the book and now have read it. The author, Katherine Burton has done an incomparable job. 1957, just two years after the foundress' death, was thirty years distant from Mother's beatification in 1988 and a scarce half century before her canonization. Nevertheless, her masterful biography of this great American woman makes for enjoyable reading and the best sort of hagiography. 

Beneficence and social justice certainly mark the life and work of St. Katharine Drexel, but with absolute finesse, the author makes clear that at the center of her life and mission was her love for and attentiveness to Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

"The Golden Door" is the door of the Tabernacle, the image and the inspiration in part for Katharine's vocation coming from a dream of her stepmother Emma Drexel, so binding her to her patron saint: "Go before the Golden Door-The Tabernacle-and say, 'In Thee I place my trust.'" St. Catherine of Siena.

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel

the Saint Michael in my chapel

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.
Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil. 

May God rebuke him, we humbly pray,
and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly hosts,
by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan,
and all the evil spirits, who prowl about the world
seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

   When we are young we often resent having our judgment or insights discounted given our presumed lack of maturity or experience. If a priest has never worked in a parish or if he has never been entrusted with the administration of a parish, it is generally classed as a deficiency in his general formation or preparation for ministry. As I had five years at home before returning to Rome for graduate studies and for my life-long career as a Vatican diplomat living and working in various countries, people usually hesitate to level against me this dismissive criticism in discussing my pastoral action and fruitfulness in ministry. The five years between 1976 and 1981, plus two years in Prague administering the little English language parish there, seem sufficient to have given me a pass. The real question is, despite credits earned and curriculum vitae, whether one has learned life's lessons and truly has acquired wisdom. In point of fact, many times despite one's experience, life lessons are not learned because of one's superficiality or lack of reflection on life and lessons to be learned.

    I would like to think I have learned a few things in life during my years abroad and in fact I am convinced that I have, but my first six months of retirement here at home in South Dakota and a direct experience in one parish and substituting elsewhere has made clear to me at least one thing which previously in life I had either ignored, missed entirely or played down in my overall reflection on Catholic life. I suppose, I could be partly excused not so much for my forty year absence from the upper Midwest, but because of the different cultural experiences which have been mine, especially in Ukraine and Central Europe, most recently in Switzerland. Even though they were all Catholic experiences, there were some significant differences. By way of one example, I totally missed the gravity of the resistance on the part of some lay people and priests in the United States to the Communion rail, both as a church fixture and as a powerful sacramental.

    If a hundred years ago, I had claimed that rejection of the Communion rail was of the Devil, people could have dealt with it. Today, such statements are attributed to the likes of sad old ladies, craky old men, and out of control young priests cruising for cancellation by their bishops. Saying that a rabid rejection of the Communion rail is fiendish would not pass either, let alone were I to call into question that seemingly detached and pseudosophisticated dismissal of the rail by some rather urbane members of the clergy as the little folk's attachment to something either nostalgic and/or passe'. Part of the reason for this is our loss of a sense of the transcendant, of the consequences beyond this world of our thoughts, actions, and omissions. We fight our battles without an eye to the world to come and this is not exactly something new. The problem is perennial, but seems to have engulfed more and more of Catholic society going back at least a century.

   Now already for a long time, it is my impression that "confrontation and conflict" seem to be recurring themes providing color and drama generally for discourse on matters of world view, but particularly when matters of the faith come to talk. In this exercise and depending on which side of the argument you stand, individual or personal bravado and no small amount of rancor toward the little folk or toward the haughty and woke powers that be seem to be in the ascendancy. Beyond the given topic, whether it be liturgical reform, some aspect of moral teaching, all manner of issues related to the so-called culture wars, in defense of justice and truth, one might say that a major concern when people argue on life and faith seems to be striving to win the argument by their own force of will or finesse. The confrontational character of the approach of countless lay people to all matters Catholic is defiant and has reaped a harvest of priests who either scorn them or dare not speak of right and wrong or of objective moral truth in the presence of their menacing fists, figurative or not. It would seem that you can only speak tongue in cheek of having God on your side.

    One notices among more conservative Catholics the inclination to attempt to defend the faith at all cost, to vanquish the foe, or at least to strive to do something of that sort. What I am alluding to however is problematic, not because it is permeated by zeal for the Lord's House but because it smacks of the viscerally human and the this-worldly, losing itself in confrontation and conflict. This type of bitter argument is notable for its anarchic premises. Even at its most conservative or traditional it bristles at the very thought of a teaching authority holding forth within the Church. We are on our own and hence exasperated, being far from the supernatural perspective implied in consciously lining up with the Virgin in battle array (thinking of the imagery of the Legion of Mary). Despite much effort on the part of some, we as a whole are still not back to invoking St. Michael the Archangel and recognizing our struggle as absolutely exalted, pitting us, with Michael as our hero, against the principalities and powers who turned their backs on God. I hope that makes more understandable the claim that off-hand or otherwise rejection of the Communion rail is of the Devil. Denying the dominion of the Evil One here on earth does not simplify matters one iota.

    People very often go on the defensive, sometimes and not seldom they seem to be overwrought and to give the impression of being under siege, not so much by the forces of evil but simply by this corrupt generation, and that hence we must be living in the worst of all times. The temptation to panic and to outright despair is the greatest I can remember it in my 70+ years, even if the first 20 of childhood and youth were thankfully quite sheltered from life's storms. The conflict today seems not so much rooted in God as in ignoring His role in the course of human events, while fixating on the bad will of human actors whose resources far surpass mine (lump them together and call them oligarchs or big tech, if you will). I do not know if a statistical analysis would be of any significance or help in clarifying what I am driving at, but it would be curious to have figures and compare the frequency of the use of words in everyday correspondence or literature, between today and two generations ago, like "perpetrator" or "predator" when applied not to animals but to fellow human beings. It would be my impression that common discourse today on the human plain is much more inflammatory and brutal, because the field of battle has become all too this-worldly.

   Don't get me wrong! It is not my intention to dismiss people's worries and deny personal responsibility for improving the state of our world and the Church. I think we have many and great reasons for concern. But we cannot dismiss St. Paul: "For our fight is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." (Eph. 6:12)

    Do you pray the prayer of St. Michael the Archangel every day? Have you sufficiently searched your own soul in response to the reports of failing belief in the real Presence of Jesus Christ, True God and True Man, in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar? Have you asked yourself why these rumors calling into question the wisdom and beauty of the counsel of Pope Benedict XVI in his blessed motu proprio Summorum Pontificum? Why would anyone fight the fruits of enrichment, which are tending toward a better ordering of Novus Ordo liturgy, more devotion, better music, worship ad Orientem and hence focused on Christ, to the return to use of Communion rails? I am sorry, but I find no diplomatic way in describing disrespect for the TLM except to see it as diabolical. Why else are traditional Catholics not accorded the same indifference which masquerades as tolerance so liberally accorded to others who would harm us or worse if they could or when they can?

    As I say, "confrontation and conflict" leave me cold and suspicious. What is at stake is not my thing but the thing of God, if you will. Make the prayer to St. Michael your own and recite it daily with fervor. Join ranks in the fight against Satan with our angelic hero. Our fight is against spiritual forces, for it was not the Council at the middle of the last century which tore out Communion rails and stubbornly refuses to bend the knee to the Lord of Life. Pray and ally yourself with Michael!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI