Category Archives: Sacraments

Applied Liturgical Linguistics

Ok—we’ve got enough accomplished Latinists who read this site and who fall on different points of the theological/liturgical spectrum that this should lead to an interesting conversation… (And non-Latinists are quite welcome to play along too, of course!)

Here’s the question. Given this as a base text:

Supra quae propitio ac sereno vultu respicere digneris: et  accepta habere, sicuti accepta habere dignatus es munera pueri tui iusti Abel, et sacrificium Patriarchae nostri Abrahae, et quod tibi obtulit summus sacerdos tuus Melchisedech, sanctum sacrificium, immaculatam hostiam.

Supplices te rogamus, omnipotens Deus: iube haec perferri per manus sancti Angeli tui in sublime altare tuum, in conspectu divinae maiestatis tuae; ut, quotquot ex hac altaris participatione sacrosanctum Filii tui Corpus et Sanguinem sumpserimus, omni benedictione caelesti et gratia repleamur. (Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.)

please consider these three translations:

Option 1

Look with favour on these offerings and accept them as once you accepted the gifts of your servant Abel, the sacrifice of Abraham, our father in faith, and the bread and wine offered by your priest Melchisedech.

Almighty God, we pray that your angel may take this sacrifice to  your altar in heaven. Then, as we receive from this altar the  sacred body and blood of your Son, let us be filled with every grace and blessing. (Through Christ our Lord. Amen.)

Option 2

Be pleased to look upon them with serene and kindly countenance, and to accept them, as you were pleased to accept the gifts of your servant Abel the just, the sacrifice of Abraham, our father in faith, and the offering of your high priest Melchizedek, a holy sacrifice, a spotless victim.

In humble prayer we ask you, almighty God: command that these gifts be borne by the hands of your holy Angel to your altar on high in the sight of your divine majesty, so that all of us who through this participation at the altar receive the most holy Body and Blood of your Son may be filled with every grace and heavenly blessing.
[Through Christ our Lord. Amen.]

Option 3

Vouchsafe thou also, with a merciful and pleasant countenance, to have respect hereunto : and to accept the same, as thou didst vouchsafe to accept the gifts of thy righteous servant Abel, and the sacrifice of our patriarch Abraham, and the holy sacrifice, the undefiled host, that the high priest Melchisedek did offer unto thee.

We humbly beseech thee, O Almighty God, command thou these to be brought by the hands of thy holy Angel unto thy high Altar in the presence of thy Divine Majesty, that as many of us as of this partaking of the Altar shall receive thy Son’s holy Body and Blood may be replenished with all heavenly benediction and grace. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

1. Which of the three best communicates the base text? Why?

2. Which of the three is the best form for English language liturgy? Why?

3. To what degree does being “literal” or “faithful” to a base text help or hurt a composition intended as a modern vernacular liturgy?

(And please note—nobody says your selections for questions 1 and 2 need be the same…)

Allez!

Cyprian on Baptism

I ran across this excerpt over the weekend in the Ancient Christian Commentary on Mark while looking at Sunday’s Gospel text:

Even to the foulest offenders, when they afterward believe, remiussion of sin is granted. On this premise2 no one is prohibited from Baptism and grace. How much more should an infant be admitted, who, just born, has not sinned in any respect, except that, being born of the flesh of Adam, has in his first birth contracted the contagion of the ancient deadly nature. Would not such a child obtain remission of sins with the less difficulty, because not his own actual guilt, but that of another is so remitted? Our sentence therefore, dearest brother, in the Council was that none by us should be prohibited from baptism and the grace of God, who is merciful and kind to all. (Cyprian, Letters, Epistle 58)

Oh—CG, there should be a way to make the underlined blue items disappear at NewAdvent (linked to above), but it’s a little technical. I believe that a local style sheet would over ride their style sheet at which point you could (in essence) tell it not to display the hyperlinks. I’d have to research how you could do that; perhaps another reader with better css kung fu could comment…

The Scotist–At It Again

The Scotist is attempting to bring forth yet another argument in favor of Communion Without Baptism. Frankly I’m not clear how this is different from his earlier attempt.

The fundamental flaw remains the same.

The Scotist has found himself a practice that he thinks has some merit. So he goes and tries to find a theology that will support it. Is this really the way we proceed?

How about this, Scotist: start with the fundamentals and work out. In most of your definitions so far you mention salvation—but you provide absolutely no sense of what you think this is or how it’s accomplished. I know what I think it is, but you’re clearly using another definition.

Start with that—then we’ll talk.

The Pope on Penance

The Italian National Liturgical Week this year will be on penance/confession/reconciliation. Here’s a snippet of the official letter sent by the pope’s Secretary of State to the Italian head of the Liturgical Week:

In this connection, in a message sent to the participants in the recent 20th course on the Internal Forum, promoted by the Apostolic Penitentiary, the Supreme Pontiff stated: “These days, the correct formation of believers’ consciences is without a doubt one of the pastoral priorities because, unfortunately, as I have reaffirmed on other occasions, to the extent that the sense of sin is lost, feelings of guilt increase which people seek to eliminate by recourse to inadequate palliative remedies. The many invaluable spiritual and pastoral tools that contribute to the formation of consciences should be increasingly developed” (Benedict XVI, March 12, 2009).

And he adds: “Like all the sacraments, the sacrament of Penance too requires catechesis beforehand and a mystagogical catechesis for a deeper knowledge of the sacrament: ‘per ritus et preces.’ … Catechesis should be combined with a wise use of preaching, which has had different forms in the Church’s history according to the mentality and pastoral needs of the faithful” (ibid.).

Along with an adequate formation of the moral conscience, maturity of life and celebration of the sacrament, it is necessary to foster in the faithful the experience of spiritual support. Precisely for this reason, the Pope continued to note, today “wise and holy ‘spiritual teachers'” are needed, exhorting priests to keep “ever alive within them the knowledge that they must be worthy ‘ministers’ of divine mercy and responsible educators of consciences,” inspired in the example of the Cure d’Ars, St. John Vianney, of whom precisely this year we observe the 150th anniversary of his death (cf. ibid.).

Good stuff… The whole thing is here.

Confirmation and Catechesis

There have been discussions recently—here on the site, at home, around the diocese—concerning Confirmation, especially as found within the ’79 BCP.

I’d summarize the standard Western view as “confirmation completes Baptism.”

M’s response, and that of others, is that in the ’79 BCP Baptism doesn’t need completing; it’s already a complete act in and of itself. If this is the case, then it completely changes many of the assumptions that we’ve held about the nature and timing of Confirmation.

  • Reception of the Eucharist is not dependent upon Confirmation: I note that this seems to me to be a bit of Eastern influence, especially as they commune after Baptism as well (I’m thinking particularly small children here). Is there an Eastern corollary to Confirmation? I’m ignorant…
  • Esp. if Reception is not an issues, what about age?: M and I emphatically agree that Confirmation is not a rite of passage based on age. Yes, bar/bat mitzvahs are and they did evolve out of catholic Confirmation practices—but that doesn’t mean that Confirmation is or should be a rite of passage. We also agree that Confirmation is about a “mature public affirmation” of faith. Mature is not 10. Or even 15. We’re thinking that 20’s and 30’s is when “mature” really starts to hit.
  • Catechesis: What’s appropriate and proper? This is where I see the ideal of a 3 year catechumenate making some connection with our context. Not three years, but a decent enough amount of time to give a person a suitable grounding in the faith
  • Sacramental Status: If Baptism is completed in Baptism—which appears to be a clear departure from the current Roman Catholic catechism (“the reception of the sacrament of Confirmation is necessary for the completion of baptismal grace”) does Confirmation remain a Sacrament or sacramental rite? Is there an indelible spiritual mark (section 1304) impressed at Confirmation? Despite the place and authority of the current Roman Catechism, it seems to me there’s quite a bit of waffling going on in this text itself due to both the issues raised by the Liturgical Renewal and the inclusion of non-Latin Rite Christians within the papal fold…

What do you think?

Towards the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass…

Kind of…

I have a new post up at the Cafe. It floats around a number of recent discussions about food and meat production, but also about sacrifice and how we understand the Eucharist. There is a positive allergy to talking about the sacrificial element of the Eucharist among many protestants and post-Vatican II catholic types. Here’s a gentle nudge in that direction, positioning it in a way to help people understand the ancient concept of sacrifice and how it informs what we do and how we think.

The Anglican Scotist on the Eucharist

In his comment to my post below and in a new post on his blog, the Anglican Scotist takes issue with my suggestion that those representing the national church and those clergy with progressive political views remember that demands for justice in church flow best from acknowledging God’s call to humanity in light of what God has done for us through Jesus Christ.

He states:

Granted, loosey goosey lefty preachers might preach social justice and
be too dull to notice the sacramental context in which they preach is
soaked in political references, but there is also a loosey goosey
mentality perversely abstracting the Eucharist from the political, as
if real labor and real money and real paychecks and real exchanges were
not actually involved and actually sanctified, as if it were all just
symbolic or even pretend.

I can’t tell if he’s directly accusing me of holding the second “a loosey goosey
mentality [that] perversely abstract[s] the Eucharist from the political” or not… If he is, it’s a caricature and not an accurate representation of what I said or believe. I agree that there are some who have tried to make a hard separation between the religious and the political and that doesn’t make sense to me either. You can’t pray the Psalms and believe that “YHWH is king” has no political implications.

However, let me reiterate to clarify my position to the Scotist. The Eucharist is a powerful multivalent symbol. The Eucharist is misunderstood whenever we attempt to reduce its complexity.  Our historic liturgy and architecture is designed to highlight these multivalent elements and the move in recent years to change things has resulted in just such a reduction. That is, an east-wall altar speaks of a table, a sacrificial altar, and a tomb. The bread, wine, and water speak of simple family meals, the fruits of the earth,and—yes—the products of human labor. The liturgical words speak of covenant relationships, political injustice, the triumph of love, and a God who choose to permeate human life through multiple modes of presence and incarnation. And these items that I have pointed out just barely scratch the surface…

I would not claim that the Eucharist is “simply religious,” abstracted from the political. That’s not how I understand “religious”—it can never be “simply” anything because it’s fundamentally not simple.

In a similar fashion, I would hope that the Scotist would shy away from reducing the Eucharist to the purely economic or even political and miss the full splendor of its spectrum of meanings.

Liturgy is Not Enough

As my readers know, I love the liturgy a great deal. I believe, in fact, that the liturgical cycle as it came to fruition by the end of the early medieval period is the greatest tool for Christian formation that the Western Church has ever produced. Much of the great writings of the medieval monks, mystics, and others could have only been produced in relationship to this cycle. It is a great and powerful engine for the formation of disciples.

But it is an engine that has largely gone untuned.

At the time of its creation, it was only accessible to a small number—namely those who lived within intentional liturgical communities, had the capacity to become fluent in a language other than their mother tongue, and had the temperament to turn their wonder, creativity, and intellect to its majesties rather than to other arenas.

At the time of the Reformation, the English Church was the only dissenting group that preserved the key elements of the cycle—the Mass and the Office—but even these were severely pared back, breaking, obscuring, and eliminating many of the connections that had bound the cycle into a harmonious whole.

For most of its history, the Episcopal Church has been an either/or body: either Office or Mass. With the coming of the ’79 BCP and Eucharist becoming the normative Sunday celebration, two hundred years of Office supremacy came to an end—but balance has yet to be achieved. Too, the ’79 book has recovered more of the classical links with its inclusion of seasonal material than any other BCP with the possible exception of the failed English ’28 text.

And yet the discipling inherent in, promised by, the liturgy has not appeared.

And it will not appear.

The experience of the liturgy is not enough.

Certainly there will be some who will start to see and make connections. Who will discover a hunger and turn to earlier and other sources to learn of the connections, to recover or recapture the mystery and the power they feel near its surface—but this is not “most”. Nor necessarily even “many”.

If the liturgy were enough, the discipling would be happening.
If it were enough, there would not be people in our churches who have stood, sat, and knelt through decades of liturgies and not been formed by them. If it were enough, there would not be clergy in our churches who have
stood, sat, and knelt through decades of liturgies and not been formed
by them.

The liturgy is not enough. And yet it is an engine of great power. It does not choose to sit idle; we allow it to do so.

What the liturgy needs from us are three things:

  1. We must be open to it. This is the first and greatest step. We must open our hearts to its leading in confidence that the Holy Spirit speaks through its ways and its means.
  2. We must recognize the treasure that we have before us. The liturgy is many things. It is a path, a discipline, a place where aesthetics, intellect, the affections and emotions are all engaged. We must recognize its value and allow it to have its own authority over us. That is, we must live in it before presuming to change it. And I don’t mean existing alongside of it—I mean living in it. Opening ourselves to it and following where it leads. Because this isn’t really about the liturgy. The liturgy is a path and discipline that leads us into the mind of Christ. And that’s what this is really about.
  3. We must share its riches. Specifically, this means we must testify to its power and capability to transform, and we must educate. The liturgy is not self-evident. You must be open to it—but it also must be opened to you. Preeminently, this means communicating that the liturgy is an embodiment of essential Christian theology. We don’t do a solemn high mass or evensong just because we like it (though we do, of course…) but because of what it communicates about who and what God is and who we are in light of that reality. Liturgy is theology made kinetic and aesthetic. Even when we succeed in our first two tasks, this is where we have failed in the past and are continuing to fail today. The Episcopal Church is moving towards a new prayer book; protesting at its arrival is too little, too late. If we hope to see a prayer book whose liturgies stand in continuity with our Anglican, our catholic, our Benedictine roots, then we need to start learning, talking, and teaching now while it is yet on the horizon and not yet here at our doorsteps.  

All of us who love the liturgy must be intentional about these things if we wish it to exercise even a quarter of its full power within us and within our communities. Through the centuries, I believe the Holy Spirit has crafted this great work as a faithful and true means of guiding humanity into the mysteries of God. But we have to be faithful and true to it as well.

Musing on Sacraments and Saints

Here’s a thought I’ve been rolling around a bit recently: The higher your sacramental theology, the more necessary it becomes that you have a robust theology of the saints.

That is, if we understand Baptism as a true joining of the self into the reality of God through Jesus, then we must (or perhaps “should”?) take more seriously our mystical connection with our fellow baptized. If we understand Eucharist as the share of the one bread that joins us in the one Body (as 1 Cor speaks about it) then—again—our relation to the “communion of the Saints” is that much more important. In essence, we must posit a stronger eschatological bond between the members of the Body.

But, a thoughtful evangelical student pushed me on this when I mentioned it in a class discussion of the saints: does this mean that a sacramentally higher church has a “better” understanding of Christian community than a sacramentally lower church? Furthermore, does it necessarily have a better embodiment of Christian community?

My answer was that it is not necessarily better—it is just different. I think it can be said that a higher sacramental theology requires a less individualistic understanding of spirituality and salvation—but does it play out this way in reality? And in how we embody our theologies communally?

Eucharistic Quiz

Eucharistic theology
created with QuizFarm.com
You scored as OrthodoxYou are Orthodox, worshiping the mystery of the Holy Trinity in the great liturgy whereby Jesus is present through the Spirit in a real yet mysterious way, a meal that is also a sacrifice.

Orthodox
 
100%
Catholic
 
81%
Luther
 
50%
Calvin
 
38%
Zwingli
 
25%
Unitarian
 
0%

H/t Dean Knisely

I doubt these results come as a surprise to most who know me. Conflicts between my own understanding of the Eucharist, how I read the first generation of Lutheran Reformers, and the theology of the contemporary Lutheran church were my first signs that I needed to reconsider whether God was calling me to be a Lutheran pastor.