A Blessed Octave of the Epiphany!

Today would be, and ought to be, the sixth day within the Octave of the Epiphany.  Nowadays, our liturgical calendars, even that pertaining to the 1962 Missal, are rather impoverished when it comes to Octaves.  The 1962 Missal has three, those of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost; the Novus Ordo jettisoned the Octave of Pentecost, leaving it with only the first two.  However, up until not so long ago, there were many more Octaves - perhaps too many, one might argue, but at least many more.

The list of Octaves observed varied somewhat through its development in the Middle Ages, and then was pared down by Pope St. Pius V when the Usage of Rome became the normal liturgical rite and calendar for Latin Christendom.  Following that, the rules for the celebration of Octaves were modified by various Popes, but the Octaves remained the same until Pope Pius XII.

Here is a list of all the Octaves (in rough chronological order):

Christmas
St. Stephan, Protomartyr
St. John the Apostle
Holy Innocents
Epiphany
St. Joseph
Easter
Ascension
Pentecost
Corpus Christi
Nativity of St. John the Baptist
Sts. Peter & Paul
Sacred Heart
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin
All Saints
Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin

Additionally, the Patron of a Nation, Diocese, or Church was celebrated with an Octave, thus often adding as many as three more Octaves to the year.

Octaves have an intimate connection with all Sundays for Catholics.  Very early on, the Church moved the Sabbath to Sunday from its Jewish  place of Saturday.  Sunday has always been considered the first day of the week; Saturday the last, and so it was the Sabbath because God commanded it so in Genesis, during Creation.  It even antedates the Fall of Man!  However, with the Incarnation of Our Lord, and the beginning of the New Creation, the Sabbath shifts to Sunday as a constant reminder of that "Eighth Day" which has begun but stands incomplete.  Every Sunday is a Feast of Our Lord's resurrection and is the proverbial Eighth Day of Creation.

The concept of the Octave simply extends and develops this rich meaning of the Eighth Day and New Creation.  If each Sunday is a Feast of Our Lord's Resurrection, then why not also the principal Feast Days?  Thus, the custom began fairly early to commemorate the Octave Day of the principal Feasts.  Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost are the earliest attested Octaves (Catholic Encyclopedia, "Octave").  Later on, Octaves arose for other major Feasts of Our Lord and of the Saints.  Also later on the custom began of celebrating not only the Feast and its Octave-Day, but each day therein.  Thus, for example now each individual day within the Easter Octave is a First Class Feast (N.O.: Solemnity).

When Pius XII, via the Sacred Congregation of Rites (now known as the Congregation for Divine Worship (CDW) made various alterations to the Sacred Liturgy and Liturgical Calendar in 1955/56, the reason given was "simplification of the rubrics for the Mass and Breviary."  Certainly, this is quite understandable when the matter, for example, of overlapping Octaves arises.  The most obvious example is of the first four Octaves, where for a few days the Christmas, St. Stephan, St. John, and Holy Innocents Octaves are all simultaneously going on.  A muddy situation indeed!  Additionally, the Octaves of St. John the Baptist and Sts. Peter & Paul overlap (and Corpus Christi or the Most Sacred Heart can overlap with both too), and the Octave of St. Joseph often interferes with Passiontide.  So, one can see why both complex rubrics arose to classify each Octave, and ultimately why many were done away with.

Octaves, however, in addition to being liturgically and symbolically rich as I mentioned above, also help to give rise to many pious devotions amongst the faithful and are oft-replete with local, traditional customs associated with the most Solemn Feasts of the Faith.  Catholics are a feasting people, and the Catholic Religion a feasting religion.  Of course, this is extremely tempered in this Vale of Tears - hence we pray nine-day Novenas before eight-day Octaves, and we fast before we feast - but nonetheless these rhythms are essential to our religion.
So, let us continue to celebrate Epiphany with vigor, and offer an extra prayer for the restoration of the Epiphany Octave and perhaps some others too!

Cardinal George, KKK, and Homosexuals

By now, I am sure most have heard the news reports of Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago, making comments where he discusses homosexuals and the KKK in the same paragraph, grievously offending many people and making even many Catholics uncomfortable.

The issue is, of course, a relatively minor one concerning literally a non-event, given in an interview.  These were not words said in a big speech; not words said during the sermon at Christ-Mass on television or something.  Rather, the organizers of the Homosexual Pride Parade in Chicago decided to move the time of this summer's upcoming parade in such a manner that would have interfered with the schedule of the Catholic parish along the parade route, so the Pastor of the parish asked them to change it back.  And eventually they did.  Later on, a journalist asks Cardinal George his thoughts, and he says that he supports the Pastor, would have supported him if there had been a larger fight to un-change the parade time, and notes how the tactics of the rather unabashedly anti-Catholic homosexual rights groups, etc., bear similarity to the activities of the KKK.

What follows is the umpteenth instance of these groups proving, among other things, their inability to conduct reasoned discourse.  Cardinal George did not say that homosexuals lynch people, that they are just as evil as the KKK, that they are racist, or anything of the like.  His Eminence did not "compare" the KKK and homosexuals.  He said that the homosexuals are anti-Catholic and that the KKK were/are also anti-Catholic.  That is about it.  Thus commenced the furor.

My Catholic friends with whom I spoke about this even expressed at the very least discomfort with his remarks, accusing His Eminence of imprudence (isn't that always what it is, no matter that they said something that may be true, it is mean or uncomfortable, so it is imprudent) or being uncharitable (the other common canard when something true is said that others do not like).

Bishops are often chastised by many today.  Sometimes, rightfully so and sometimes not.  We live in a time where a terrifyingly large percentage of them seem to not want to offend anyone, not confess Christ clearly and exclusively, and seem more concerned with any number of activities not having anything to do with the salvation of souls.  So when a Bishop says something that calls into question one of the most anti-Catholic, anti-nature groups and their agendas and tactics, I welcome that.  It is too rare an event.  Bishops are not supposed to be politicians.

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As I finish this post, I realize that Cardinal George has decided to apologize, likely under lots of pressure from even his close aids, for the "hurt" caused, the "disrespect," etc. etc.  Sadly, in our day of political correctedness, that is how these things usually go, Cardinal George not being immune to them either (see the charade of the "Fr." Phleger episode).  Alas...

Keep the Mass in Christmas

This Advent season, as we meditate upon the threefold advent of Christ (His Incarnation, His spiritual presence in our hearts and souls, and His Second Coming) and thus prepare for the grand celebration of Christmas, I urge us Catholics to not only fight the secularists who would take Christ out of Christmas, but to fight the heretics who would take Mass out of ChristMass.  This is a Catholic feast for which we prepare, and we celebrate the Church's calendar in and through the sacred liturgy, which has as its focal point the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  Catholic is Christian.  Christian is supposed to be Catholic. 

Keep the Mass in ChristMass!!

My thoughts on the new translation of the Novus Ordo

Since that is what everyone is talking about in Catholic-land right now, I guess I will too.  So here is my thought:

I went to the Traditional Mass today.

Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue are Boring

"All power is given to me in heaven and in earth.  Going therefore,

teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,

teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world."

--OR--

"I am the nicest person there ever was.  I suggest then, that you

set up meetings all over the world with all different types of people,

dialoging with them about what you have in common and ignoring your differences: and behold who cares who I am, there are lots of nice people."

I was an atheist.  I thought religion was for people too lazy to solve their own problems and God was an outdated sophistry of pre-scientific times.  Then I was a Protestant, of the non-denominational evangelical variety.  I believed whatever I liked; I decided what I believed.  Jesus loved me, that I knew, for the Bible told me so.

Then I converted to Catholicism.  I did not "come into the fullness of Christianity;" I did not find a new denomination I preferred to my previous allegiance; and I did not become Catholic because I privately and personally believe it is the best of several valid forms of Christianity.

I converted from error to truth.  While I was received into Holy Mother Church in a rite that only allowed me to profess the following: "I believe and profess all that the holy Catholic Church believes, teaches, and proclaims to be revealed by God."

This is what I professed in my heart and would have professed in public had I been able to do so:

"I, Matthew, 21 years of age, born outside the Catholic Church, have held and believed errors contrary to her teaching. Now, enlightened by divine grace, I kneel before you, Reverend Father ...., having before my eyes and touching with my hand the holy Gospels. And with firm faith I believe and profess each and all the articles contained in the Apostles' Creed, that is: I believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; He descended into hell, the third day He arose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God, the Father almighty, from there He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit; the holy Catholic Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.
I firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and all the other constitutions and ordinances of the Church.
I admit the Sacred Scriptures in the sense which has been held and is still held by holy Mother Church, whose duty it is to judge the true sense and interpretation of Sacred Scripture, and I shall never accept or interpret them in a sense contrary to the unanimous consent of the fathers.
I profess that the sacraments of the New Law are truly and precisely seven in number, instituted for the salvation of mankind, though all are not necessary for each individual: baptism, confirmation, holy Eucharist, penance, anointing of the sick, holy orders, and matrimony. I profess that all confer grace, and that baptism, confirmation, and holy orders cannot be repeated without sacrilege. I also accept and admit the ritual of the Catholic Church in the solemn administration of all the aforementioned sacraments.
I accept and hold in each and every part all that has been defined and declared by the Sacred Council of Trent concerning original sin and justification. I profess that in the Mass there is offered to God a true, real, and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead; that in the holy sacrament of the Eucharist the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ is really, truly, and substantially present, and that there takes place in the Mass what the Church calls transubstantiation, which is the change of all the substance of bread into the body of Christ and of all substance of wine into His blood. I confess also that in receiving under either of these species one receives Jesus Christ whole and entire.
I firmly hold that Purgatory exists and that the souls detained there can be helped by the prayers of the faithful.
Likewise I hold that the saints, who reign with Jesus Christ, should be venerated and invoked, that they offer prayers to God for us, and that their relics are to be venerated.
I firmly profess that the images of Jesus Christ and of the Mother of God, ever a Virgin, as well as of all the saints should be given due honor and veneration. I also affirm that Jesus Christ left to the Church the faculty to grant indulgences, and that their use is most salutary to the Christian people. I recognize the holy, Roman, Catholic, and apostolic Church as the mother and teacher of all the churches, and I promise and swear true obedience to the Roman Pontiff, successor of St. Peter, the prince of the apostles and vicar of Jesus Christ.
Moreover, without hesitation I accept and profess all that has been handed down, defined, and declared by the sacred canons and by the general councils, especially by the Sacred Council of Trent and by the Vatican General Council, and in special manner all that concerns the primacy and infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. At the same time I condemn and reprove all that the Church has condemned and reproved. This same Catholic faith, outside of which none can be saved, I now freely profess and I truly adhere to it. With the help of God, I promise and swear to maintain and profess this faith entirely, inviolately, and with firm constancy until the last breath of life. And I shall strive, as far as possible, that this same faith shall be held, taught, and publicly professed by all who depend on me and over whom I shall have charge.
So help me God and these holy Gospels."

People do not become Catholic because the Church is comfortable and fuzzy and "nice" and so ecumenical.  People, generally, do not find that appealing.  It is not a challenge, it does not set the heart on fire, it does not enlighten the mind, and it does not speak to the soul.  People do not become Catholic because it is the preferable form of worship of "the almighty" or because it is a nice religion.  The martyrs did not willingly die to prove that Islam is just as good as Catholicism, or that the Old Covenant is actually not abrogated, or that atheists are men of good will.

The martyrs died because they tried to fulfill the first text I gave at the beginning of this post; it is what Our Lord preached, it is what the saints taught and lived, and it is that for which the martyrs offered their earthly lives.

Nowadays, churchmen up and down the hierarchy mutter garbage in line with the second example, by their actions often, by their words too often as well.  They pedal ecumenical and interreligious rapprochement as salvific, they exalt worldly peace above the Pax Christi, and all whilst they fiddle, the world burns.

Would we really peddle this crap if we believed, from the full Profession of Faith above: "This same Catholic faith, outside of which none can be saved, I now freely profess and I truly adhere to it."

Heresy, then and now

Studying any sort of Church history, whether in a basic undergraduate class or Ph.D. work, or even on one's own, and whether one be Catholic or some form of Protestant or whatever, nearly always involves learning about the heresies and conflicts affecting the Church in its first few centuries of existence.  Most of the bigger ones are household names: Gnosticism, Donatism, Pelagianism, Marcionism, etc.

Awhile ago, in my Protestant days, I read a book entitled Heresies and How to Avoid Them.  In a bout of extreme irony, it was penned by two Anglican clergymen - a note I did not fail to miss even at the time.  The book performed the cursory look at each of the major heresies affecting the Church in her first few centuries, and explained avoiding them by presenting some bare basics of the theological doctrines in question, platitudinous exhortations to "balance" and the like, and little urgency concerning the necessity of orthodoxy.  The interesting thing, though, about this book is that it even mentions heresy, and is written (at least mostly) by Protestants.

Heresy has become a rather rare term.  It certainly has always been an uncomfortable one, I suppose, though nowadays it is even uncomfortable for the orthodox and not just the heterodox.  Heresy is a word inadmissable to discussion now that ecumenism rules the day and now that we must focus on what we supposedly have in common rather than what divides us.  Instead of orthodox and heterdox, truth and error, revealed dogma and heresy, we have multiple interpretations, different traditions, commonality, and other endlessly boring banalities.  We are told and we imbue the mindset that this is all due to a rather remarkable increase in charity and mutual understanding over our more rigid predecessors, those demonically dogmatic folk, that these times are so much more enlightened and different than ages past.

Really?  Is that really the case?

Or is it this:

“If heretics no longer horrify us today, as they once did our forefathers, is it certain that it is because there is more charity in our hearts? Or would it not too often be, perhaps, without our daring to say so, because the bone of contention, that is to say, the very substance of our faith, no longer interests us? Men of too familiar and too passive a faith, perhaps for us dogmas are no longer the Mystery on which we live, the Mystery which is to be accomplished in us. Consequently then, heresy no longer shocks us; at least, it no longer convulses us like something trying to tear the soul of our souls away from us.... And that is why we have no trouble in being kind to heretics, and no repugnance in rubbing shoulders with them...It is not always charity, alas, which has grown greater, or which has become more enlightened: it is often faith, the taste for the things of eternity, which has grown less.”

Think about that.  Read it again.  Really force yourself to consider it.

Interesting, at least to my mind, is who penned the above quote: Henri Cardinal de Lubac, he of the liberal, nouvelle theologie, Springtime-of-Vatican-II.  I don't wish to enter a debate about Card. de Lubac, just to simply point out that even he could write such a thing as he witnessed the human element of Holy Mother Church wreak its horrendous havoc in the years following the Council.

Back to the subject at hand: Eternity must always be the reference point, the point of departure and reference, for the spiritual life.  The whole point of religion is to take us to the best side of eternity.  You and I each have an immortal soul intrinsic to our nature.  Death is not the end.  We go somewhere when we die.  Heaven is not guaranteed.  Hell is possible; it is a reality for many souls.  Heresy compromises our place in eternity.

The ugly, opposite side of this, of course, is that heresy doesn't matter if everyone goes to Heaven, if all Christian "denominations" are equally or at least relatively equal, or even if Catholicism is even the "best form of Christianity."  You do the math.

Holy Mass as a Journey

[A note: Some posts that I write will be more academic in nature, critically engaging theories and ideas, citing and interacting with sources, etc., and some less so - some more descriptive and experiential.  Really, to drive a wedge between these two especially when discussion something like Sacred Liturgy is destructive and misses the point, but there are different perspectives from which to look at the same thing.]

Kneeling in the pews of a beautiful Gothic Church, priest upon the altar, during Holy Mass, I sense as though everyone is going somewhere.  The straight, narrow arc of the Church, the Sanctuary elevated one step up from the Nave, and the Altar three steps up from the rest of the Sanctuary, all give the presentation of "Further Up, Further In." 

It appears, in the fullest sense of the word, to me that Holy Mass is a movement.  Everyone in the nave, all the masses of people (and, just as equally, the several, when the Church is far less full) pray collectively and together, provocatively evoking that ancient symbolism of the nave as the ship.  Ships are traveling vessels; those on ships travelers.  When we enter the Church and assist at Holy Mass, we get on the ship and we embark upon a journey.  And, as the laity, we are the followers at Holy Mass.  By virtue of our baptism, we have the prerogative to enter the nave, to get onboard the ship, wherein at Holy Mass we follow. 

*Let no one dare to say that this implies a derogation of the "role of the laity" at Holy Mass.  To do so would impugn the significance and dignity of baptism and represent the most obtuse form of "clericalism," if such a thing really even exists.  There are no leaders if there are no followers, democracy be damned.*

At the beginning of Holy Mass, at least for centuries upon centuries if not according to the experience of most Catholics these days, the priest at the outset declares: "Introibo ad altare Dei" - I go unto the altar of God, wherein the server responds: "Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam" - To God, who giveth joy to my youth.  So the priest ascends the altar, but as the servers affirm on behalf of the faithful steeped in preparatory prayer, so I go from the nave.  "Go" - it is a verb, an action, which denotes a movement from one place to another.

From another angle, my own physical movement throughout Holy Mass reflects this point.  I enter the Church from the rear, through the vestibule and into the nave.  I proceed through the nave to a spot from which to assist.  At various points, I kneel - even beyond the remarkable significance of this posture, it is a forward movement.  And then, provided I am in the State of Grace, I approach the Sanctuary to receive the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Lord.  This too is a movement, wherein I approach the precipice of this world and the one above.

As I mentioned at the outset, I notice this "movement" inherent in Holy Mass especially in Gothic Churches: long, narrow edifices which nearly feel like a tunnel (though not in the claustrophobic sense).  Our walls and maps are the sacred images adorning the walls, floor, and ceiling.  The lamp really is the lamp: the continually-burning Light of the Presence.  The river's current carries me forward and opens the gates, and all the way to the throne, for at the Elevation of the Host and Chalice, the priest, totally in persona Christi, has taken his flock to the Father, and shows everything to Him.  Thus then may we reap the fruit of this movement, as I mentioned above.

In Holy Mass, I can really experience the Church, and myself in it, as the Church Militant, marching determinately toward Christ, the author and perfecter of the Faith.  The Mass, then, is the Church's recommendation of itself to God and thus proclamation of God to mankind.  The barque will be assailed from all sides, but we have many maps and guides to clearly lead us, and this barque is the only ship going where we need to go.  The outside flood will spare none.

*I should add that the above experience only happens, and really only can happen, when the priest too prays in the proper direction.  The whole Mass, and the proper "experience" of the Mass, crumbles when the priest chooses a backwards posture that encircles the people, for then they go nowhere, God is not invited, they are stagnant and appear to only be celebrating themselves.*