Catholic Exchange » Oswald Sobrino

A “Solemn” Liturgy is Not a Somber Liturgy

Oswald Sobrino — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

We often hear the ambiguous assertion that the liturgy should be solemn and that people are looking for a solemn liturgy. In English, the word "solemn" has at least two senses with which I am familiar: 1) serious, as opposed to frivolous; and 2) somber or gloomy, as opposed to joyful. Everything I know about Catholic Christianity tells me that the first sense is the Catholic sense: the Mass should be solemn in the sense that it's very serious and not frivolous. On the other hand, the Mass should not be "solemn" in the narrower sense of being either somber or gloomy, as opposed to joyful. The command in the Holy Scriptures — the voice of God — is plain: "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice" (Galatians 4:4, ESV).

Some will immediately think that Lent is an obvious exception to this biblical command. I disagree. In Lent, we are preparing for the Resurrection; we are getting ready to come to the empty tomb of hope. We are seeking and receiving the healing we need to celebrate the Resurrection. Even on Ash Wednesday, we are told to repent and believe the Good News. It's like a bride getting ready for her wedding day: she is rejoicing at what she knows will be coming soon, even if it means a lot of hard work and planning and gladly sacrificing much of her former way of life and habits.

To be serious about something does not require a somber or gloomy manner. The most passionately authentic lover is extremely serious about her beloved, for true love is not at all frivolous — yet, she passionately rejoices in his very existence at all times. We see it in the Song of Songs where the bride rejoices to search earnestly for her beloved. Once she finds him, the rejoicing is even greater; but the rejoicing was there all along (see Song of Solomon 3:1-5). Likewise, in Lent, we are always rejoicing as we look forward to finding the risen Bridegroom. When we find him at Easter, the rejoicing is, as is to be expected, distinctively exuberant in its expressiveness. The same pattern occurs in Advent: we rejoice in anticipation and express that always present joy with even greater and distinctive exuberance on the Nativity itself.

In my view, it is a mistake to view the quest for solemn Masses as a prescription for grave and somber ceremonial. The quest for solemn Masses is a quest for seriousness and sobriety, not for the somber. The opposite of a solemn liturgy is a frivolous liturgy, not a joyful liturgy. In fact, one dictionary of ecclesiastical Latin defines "solemnis" as festive. This definition matches our liturgical usage: Christmas is a solemnity, so is Easter. The old Catholic Encyclopedia refers to the great feast of rejoicing, Easter, as the "solemnity of solemnities" and traces the origins of the word "solemnity" to the Latin meaning a yearly celebration — no somber gloom involved here.

The liturgy of Good Friday is the one place where we find an especially somber aspect in our liturgy; but note that this day is a day on which there is no Eucharist, no Mass, celebrated. Good Friday is the exception that proves the general rule of rejoicing always in the Mass. Where the Eucharist is celebrated, there is always rejoicing. Yet, even on Good Friday, we quietly anticipate the joy of the empty tomb. We know that the Eucharist is coming back very soon. In addition, even on Good Friday, we receive Holy Communion — we make contact with the living Lord and thus have even on that day a cause for rejoicing because he is alive and really present with us and comes to us, even on Good Friday. If Good Friday was meant to be only and merely somber, then the Eucharist would not be distributed to the faithful on that day. Then comes the quiet of Holy Saturday on which no liturgy of any kind is celebrated at all in anticipation of the rejoicing of the Easter Vigil. Why no liturgy at all on Holy Saturday? In my view, it is because where there is liturgy, there is always rejoicing of some kind and degree. On Holy Saturday, such rejoicing would be premature because of the fast-approaching Easter Vigil on that very evening.

Thus, we see that the Catholic way is a path of continual rejoicing — even, if we look deeper, on Good Friday — because we solemnly and seriously believe that the God who became flesh and died for each of us did indeed rise from the dead and is still present, continually pouring out new life and new healing on those who call on His name. Leave the merely somber for those who have no reason to rejoice. Let us, instead, solemnly, that is, seriously, rejoice always.

Problems of Delayed Adulthood: Don’t Forget the Simple Remedy

Oswald Sobrino — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Back on December 8th, the N.Y. Times ran a column entitled "A Challenge for Churches: Adulthood Takes Its Time" by Peter Steinfels, who outlined the insights of two sociologists of religion on delayed adulthood, "a time between ages 18 and 30 or so, when marriage and parenthood are often delayed, formal schooling is prolonged, job switching is frequent and parental support extended." Sociologist Christian Smith (the more astute of the experts, in my opinion) is quoted at length in the article:

"[T]hese are crucial years in the formation of personal identity, behavior patterns and social relationships." One returns a different person, possibly formed quite independently of any earlier faith, certainly of any participation in a religious community (Steinfels, N.Y. Times, 12/8/07).

In addition to those fortunate enough to get parental support, we also have to think of the legions who do not get extended parental support of any kind, but still navigate these years of delayed adulthood with even more vulnerability by going from one makeshift domestic arrangement to another in search of a stable economic household of some kind. This reality further emphasizes the importance of this comment:

Professor Smith puts "sex, cohabitation and marriage" (in that order) squarely on the table as "key dimensions" of the changed situation. Any emerging adults who want to abide by traditional strictures against premarital sex, he says, "face a very difficult peer culture in which to live (Ibid, emphasis added)."

In the phrase "in that order," we have the crucial key to what is happening in delayed adulthood: the American way of relating male and female has three steps (I can't call it courtship without being sacrilegious). First, sex. Second, cohabitation. Last of all, possibly marriage with one of the several or many who have been partners in sex and/or sexual cohabitation. The introduction is sex. Then, marriage is mocked in realistic detail by the involved mimicry of sexual cohabitation with whoever is willing and able to split the rent. Finally, someone along the way becomes the eventual marriage partner when no one else is left standing. Notice what this sequence does to marriage. First, the sexual act is totally divorced from any unique marital meaning or expression. Second, the act of sharing a roof, bed, and financial expenses is also divorced from and ripped out of marriage. Unsurprisingly, the eventual marriage ends up as fundamentally meaningless — it's just the last stop on a long, crowded bus ride when, finally, there is nowhere else to go. We should thus not be surprised that many marriages end or that many of those that last are really de facto, empty shells enveloped in social denial.

Smith proposes earlier marriages as a solution:

Professor Smith jumps in with the idea that perhaps parents, who already offer their adult offspring considerable financial and caretaking support, should challenge the cultural assumption that marriage ought to await financial independence. Instead, they should provide social and financial support for marriage in the early 20s rather than the late. "Teenage marriage is the best recipe for divorce," he writes, "but marriage in the 20s itself is not."

"A good argument can be made that true, authentic selves are made more than found," he writes. "It is arguably as much or more by making and keeping promises than by dabbling and deferring that we come to know who we as persons really are and are called to become (Ibid)."

For those parents and young adults who have the financial means, I think Smith's suggestion is worth very serious consideration. But many are not in that situation of extended parental financial support. This otherwise fine article, not surprisingly, evades two fundamental issues: chastity and contraception. Delaying marriage poses no hazard to personal development or to a future marriage if the young adult reserves sex for the end of the journey — for marriage. As Smith points out, chastity is very difficult in today's peer culture. Imagine the plight of a virgin in today's typical coed college dorm. He or she is likely surrounded by casual sex and sex acts taking place all over the place, with such acts being the constant theme of gossip. That's why young adults need to maintain contact with other young adults in a church where chastity is encouraged. That's why college choices and living arrangements are so crucial.

The other topic avoided is contraception. Even if we have earlier marriages, the focus will still be on delaying children through contraception so that studies can be continued with minimum interruption. As a Catholic, I view contraception even within marriage as deforming the marriage and the meaning of the marital act. The marriage becomes a form of playacting — it's not the real thing if fertility is medicated out of existence. In early marriages, where there are good, serious reasons to delay having children, natural family planning is the alternative that respects fertility and the life-giving meaning of the sex act. Yet, there is a very simple remedy that avoids and leaps over all of these complications and issues about child-bearing. The need for such a straightforward remedy is why I come back to the theme of chastity — better to delay marriage as a chaste person than to enter a contraceptive marriage that disfigures the meaning of marriage as procreative.

Some young adults, with extended parental support and great maturity, will be able to take the route of marriages in their early 20s. (By the way, one Catholic writer I admire on this topic suggests, based on his experience, that marriage in one's late twenties is better — so not all who have considered the issue are in agreement as to the best timing.) Yet, I suspect that, given our educational system, many will continue to delay marriage for financial and academic reasons. Most importantly, many should also delay marriage simply because they have not yet found the one person God wants them to marry. If you are not praying for and about your future spouse, even if as yet their identity is unrevealed to you, you are already setting the stage for a very risky and likely traumatic gamble. I heard someone say it to a group of teens, and I have to repeat it to myself and to all of us, regardless of age: if you can't truthfully say that your most important relationship is with Jesus, you are not ready to have a relationship of any kind with anyone of the opposite sex. In addition, no one should settle for a mismatch in maturity and interests just to get hitched early based on the advice of a sociologist. The vagaries of different human situations, personalities, economic circumstances, and levels of maturity require maximum freedom for deciding when and whom to marry. We can get that maximum and flexible freedom in a way that does not harm our personal development by being chaste — by reserving sex for marriage. In my view, the solution is not to urge everyone to marry earlier — although that is an alternative that should not be automatically pushed aside or ignored, but rather to urge everyone to reserve sex for marriage during these crucial years when one's personality is being formed. If you are chaste, the exact timing of your marriage will not be crucial and need not be put on a fast track according to the latest sociological findings. If you are chaste, you get the maximum freedom and flexibility suited to your own particular circumstances, talents, dreams, and level of maturity, without losing in the process your soul and your capacity to love fully. That's the easiest formula for dealing with delayed adulthood — not trying to engineer a cookie cutter rush to earlier marriages for everyone.

Do Words Count?

Oswald Sobrino — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0000

It’s not a series about eccentric films. It’s a gay film series bolstered with “two [discussion] panels with acclaimed writers and directors.” Now, since Notre Dame claims to be a first-class academic university, let’s pose some philosophical questions about language — a lot of modern academic philosophy is, after all, focused on language. I am sure Notre Dame’s academic offices have their share of philosophers of language.

So it’s a “gay” film series. No more homosexuals, just “gays.” Of course, the name has an agenda: we are free, happy, and liberated; our detractors are cramped, joyless, and repressed. It’s also called a “queer” film series. Forget about Fred MacMurray as the innocently funny absent-minded professor (1961) or Jerry Lewis as the heterosexual nutty professor (1963), “queer” now becomes a forcibly cozy term for homosexuals in general. Finally, we come to the really serious move in the language game: it’s the Notre Dame Queer Film Festival. It’s not Latin. It’s French for “Our Lady,” the ever-virgin Mother of God, the recognized icon for centuries for purity of mind and body. You don’t have to be Catholic or even Christian to see the deep irony at play here. Even Muslims venerate the Virgin Mary. Everyone remotely familiar with Western culture knows what she represents.

But back to our question: Do names or words mean anything? What we see at the South Bend school is that words mean what a group wants them to mean. George Orwell, the famous British author of the novel 1984, is well-known for vehemently pointing out how those who want to control us manipulate language in outrageous ways. That’s what’s going on in South Bend. In northern Indiana, “Notre Dame” no longer refers to the Blessed Virgin Mary. “Notre Dame” refers to a university with a famous football team. Period. The university is no longer named for Mary. Mary is named for the famous university. As done with the terms “gay” and “queer,” a new and utterly alien meaning has taken over a familiar term.

There is indeed a totalitarian agenda here. It is the agenda that seeks to erase what Catholicism has always taught as a matter of divine revelation: the marital act is a heterosexual act. It is totalitarian because it lies, just as the rulers in Orwell’s 1984 built their entire society on lies. The great lie is that this South Bend school can define Catholicism. The great truth is that God defines Catholicism. Education is about leading us out of misconceptions and lies into the truth, a truth that we do not invent but rather receive. What is going on in South Bend is miseducation worthy of the propaganda efforts Orwell described in his famous novel. I submit that the South Bend school has become a mirage: it looks like a Catholic educational oasis, when in fact it is a wasteland. But I think many of my readers knew that already.

Oswald Sobrino’s daily columns can be found at the Catholic Analysis website. He is a graduate lay student at Detroit’s Sacred Heart Major Seminary. He recently published Unpopular Catholic Truths, a collection of apologetic essays, available on the Internet Catholic Analysis website. He is a graduate lay student at Detroit’s Sacred Heart Major Seminary. He recently published Unpopular Catholic Truths, a collection of apologetic essays, available on the Internet here.

The Judges Have Lost

Oswald Sobrino — Sat, 26 Mar 2005 00:00:00 +0000

When you listen to the legal pundits defending the starvation of Theresa Marie Schiavo, what you hear again and again is a variation of one theme: the courts establish the facts, the courts have reviewed this again and again, the courts have decided otherwise.

They tell us to suspend moral judgment and to deliver our consciences and our common sense into the hands of judges and courts. The pundits tell us, in true relativistic fashion, to trust process over substance, to trust a so-called enlightened and highly educated elite over moral tradition.

That is a formula for a disastrous future for our country. Even in the military a soldier has no obligation to follow manifestly evil orders — such as an order to torture someone. Just recall the scandal over alleged torture in Iraq. But the same media that exploded over that scandal is now asking us to calm ourselves and stoically accept the starvation of an innocent person because “the courts” have handled it all for us.

Good judges and lawyers know that the authority of a court derives in the long run from maximizing the probability that all parties leave the court believing that they have at least been fairly heard. Otherwise, the fragile commodity of judicial authority evaporates quickly.

Large numbers rightly believe that Theresa Schiavo has not been fairly treated in court. Her guardian is in a stunning conflict of interest by maintaining for years a politely termed “common law marriage” with another woman. But the courts have still let him have the final say over her life, even though her parents and siblings are eager to care for her.

Without a truly independent guardian about whom there is no reasonable doubt whatsoever, no sensible person can have any faith in the judicial process applied in this case. If some judge somewhere had simply made the amply justified common-sense decision to disqualify the spouse in this case as a guardian, we would not be here, because the parents of Theresa Schiavo would be the ones making the life or death decision.

You cannot ask people to blind themselves to reality and simply defer to the indefensible. What will be the result from this awful spectacle? My personal prediction is that many will now demand new laws to trim the power of judges given the tragedy that is unfolding before us. The judges in this matter, with some exceptions, have diminished themselves. Future laws will recognize that, as a whole, they cannot be trusted and are no longer worthy of our full confidence.

That's what happens in a morally relativistic culture. Fifty or sixty years ago it would have been unimaginable that a man living in open concubinage with another woman would be confirmed as a guardian with the power of life and death over his stricken spouse. But given the typical attitude that virtually anything goes and anything is acceptable in sexual matters, this open concubinage is granted the cultural cover of “privacy” and made irrelevant to the legal proceedings. That is the same cover of “privacy” that first justified the explosive marketing of contraceptives in the sixties and which was extended to justify abortion in the seventies.

Without a moral consensus, judges can't be trusted to make the right decisions, regardless of the procedure followed. That is why more and more laws will be passed restricting the discretion and powers of judges. Moral relativism makes for bad judges. So restrictive laws must step in to recognize that cultural reality. When a culture loses its moral bearings, trust disappears. And so does real authority for judges. We lack moral consensus about fewer and fewer things. We are in trouble.

© Copyright 2005 Catholic Exchange

Oswald Sobrino is an attorney, a former Editor-in-Chief of the Loyola (New Orleans) Law Review, and a former law clerk to a U.S. District Judge. Oswald His daily columns can be found at the Catholic Analysis website. He is a graduate lay student at Detroit’s Sacred Heart Major Seminary. He recently published Unpopular Catholic Truths, a collection of apologetic essays, available on the Internet here.

The Glory of Spain

Oswald Sobrino — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I recall a prayer book in which St. Teresa of Ávila (1515-83) is referred to as the “Glory of Spain,” as she should be. She is a Doctor of the Church and, of course, a great mystic and Carmelite reformer.

The pope himself learned Spanish as a young man. He did so in order to read the writings of the other great Spanish Carmelite mystic and contemporary of Teresa, St. John of the Cross, in the original Spanish. In fact, John Paul II wrote his doctoral dissertation at the Angelicum University in Rome on St. John of the Cross, who is also a Doctor of the Church.

All of which brings me to the situation in Spain today and to what John Paul II has said about Spain in the past. A friend sent me a quote from one of the pope's trips to Spain in 1982 in which John Paul captures the significance of Spain in the Catholic and Christian world:

Praise be Jesus Christ! Thank you Spain!…From the first months of my election I thought with expectation about this trip; I come attracted by a history of fidelity and service to the Church: the most numerous portion of the Church of Christ today speaks and prays to God in Spanish. Thank you, Spain; thank you, Church of Spain for your fidelity to the Gospel.” (Eusebio Ferrer, “Por Tierras de Teresa de Ávila” (1982)” [In the Lands of Teresa of Ávila], in Pregonero de Verdad [Messenger of Truth] my translation)

And so it is that Spain gave us a christianized western hemisphere and the only Christian nation in Asia — the Philippines. And today it is projected that some time in the not-too-distant future the majority of Catholics in the United States will be Hispanic. We are in an enviable position compared to Europe: Our wave of immigration is largely Catholic.

But today the Church in Spain finds herself in a very difficult position. As in the rest of Western Europe, pornography and other expressions of immorality are rampant. There has been a decline in the practice of the faith. Consumerism is also rampant. And, to top it off, there is now a radical Socialist government in power that has decided to pursue an agenda hostile to Catholic teaching on marriage and other moral issues.

And the Church in Spain has begun to speak up, to answer the new persecution fostered by the new Socialist government. If history is any guide, the Spanish Church will again flourish in the midst of persecution. Great treasures have come from Spain. The pope himself points to movements like the Neocatechumenate and Opus Dei that have brought renewal to the Church:

I also supported various new initiatives in which I could sense the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Only when I came to Rome did I encounter the Neocatechumenate. The same was true of Opus Dei, which I established as a personal prelature in 1982. They both originated in Spain, a country that so often throughout history has been the source of providential inspirations for spiritual renewal. (John Paul II, Rise, Let Us Be On Our Way, Warner Books, 2004, p. 117)

This providential role for Spain is also evident in the Hispanic nations south of us. You can't get further north in the United States than snowy Michigan, where I am. The next stop is Canada. And yet, as I sit here, there is nearby a new, thriving convent of largely Mexican nuns from a religious order started in Mexico. The Legionaries of Christ, which originated in Mexico, are quite active throughout the area. Miles Christi, a religious order from Argentina, is raising funds to build a new retreat center in the Detroit area. A recent diaconal ordination I attended in Detroit included a Puerto Rican candidate for the priesthood hailing from a Wisconsin diocese. The anecdotes add up to a statistical reality that is undeniable.

But should all of this really be so surprising? According to tradition, the Apostles James the Greater and Paul evangelized Spain. Near the end of his letter to the Romans, Paul speaks of his plans to go to Spain. St. Clement of Rome, writing in the first century, confirms that Paul indeed went to the “limits of the West.” Before the discovery of the New World by Columbus, Spain was it: There was nothing beyond. In fact, the Spanish coat of arms used to bear the Latin motto Ne Plus Ultra meaning “nothing more beyond.” After Columbus’s voyages under the flag of Spain, the motto was changed to Plus Ultra meaning “more beyond.” Just consider how the work those two Apostles started in ancient Spain centuries ago is affecting the United States in the twenty-first century.

Yes there is sad news: The Catholic Church is losing thousands of the sons and daughters of evangelizing Spain to Protestant communities. And now, again, there is persecution in Spain herself. But the Church in Spain has seen this before. Challenges to the faith and even persecution are but the night before the dawn.

© Copyright 2005 Catholic Exchange

Oswald Sobrino’s daily columns can be found at the Catholic Analysis website. He is a graduate lay student at Detroit’s Sacred Heart Major Seminary. He recently published Unpopular Catholic Truths, a collection of apologetic essays, available on the Internet here.

Teen Abstinence Is Not Enough

Oswald Sobrino — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 00:00:00 +0000

In the aftermath of the presidential election, some pro-abortion politicians are trying to figure out how to blunt the impact of the pro-life vote. One prominent pro-abortion politician, Hillary Clinton, is already working feverishly to try to dilute the pro-life vote.

She has a shrewd strategy: emphasize birth control as the way to decrease the number of abortions and borrow socially conservative code words such as “abstinence,” “responsibility,” and “family.”

But what never changes is the moral stance that permeates the pro-abortion position: pre-marital sex is unquestionably good. The only pre-marital sex that some pro-abortion politicians might disavow is that taking place among teenagers. For the typical pro-abortion politician, the abstinence message should be aimed, at most, only at teenagers while they are teenagers. But the problem is that abstinence arguments are not persuasive if those teaching it do not really believe in it as a matter of fundamental lifetime morality and happiness. To preach abstinence only because of one’s vulnerability at a certain age is to say that there is nothing wrong at all with pre-marital sex in itself — it is only a matter of the right timing.

Teenagers, who are more savvy than ever, will recognize that this amoral presentation of teenage abstinence is a form of deception. Either premarital sex is wrong, or it isn't. If it isn't, then it's just a matter of shrewd and smart teenagers doing their homework on available contraceptives and following up. In my view, the amoral Hillary Clinton approach will not encourage any significant degree of abstinence but rather more sexual activity among teenagers — activity which means more contraceptive failures, which in turn mean more abortions as the last resort method of birth control.

More than mere abstinence, we must teach the positive virtue of chastity as a requirement for lifetime happiness and fulfillment. It's not just a matter of timing or of the vulnerability of teenagers. It's a matter of lifelong happiness. It means chastity in college and, yes, even in graduate school and thereafter. Clinton’s teen-only abstinence message implies that she does not believe in the positive value of chastity itself, but only in temporary abstinence for teenagers as a way to claim the mantle of family values.

But family values are not about temporary, expedient behavior patterns for adolescents. Genuine morality is about what is right or wrong, even when we are no longer teenagers.

And, in any event, a recent report by LifeSiteNews.com (1/25/05, “Report indicates abortion demographic shift in US”) shows that “the largest share” of abortions are now occurring among older, adult women who are in effect using abortion as birth control — not among teenagers. If you teach chastity to the young as the right thing to do for one's entire life, then the behavior that leads to these adult abortions will decrease.

We already live in a culture permeated with sexually stimulating material and with contraceptives prominently available in every corner drugstore, in public restrooms, and in colleges and universities everywhere. Teachers present the techniques of contraception in classrooms throughout the land. So the Hillary prescription of more birth control to reduce abortions has already been tried and has already failed. As long as people do not see chastity as a matter of long-term personal happiness, abortions will abound, especially in a society under the yoke of Roe v. Wade, a court decision sacred to pro-abortion politicians. What we need to teach teenagers is lifelong chastity as a matter of right and wrong. In the end, that is the only effective pro-life message. Anything short of teaching lifetime chastity smells of deceptive window dressing and political posturing that will not get the job done.

© Copyright 2005 Catholic Exchange

Oswald Sobrino’s daily columns can be found at the Catholic Analysis website. He is a graduate lay student at Detroit’s Sacred Heart Major Seminary. He recently published Unpopular Catholic Truths, a collection of apologetic essays, available on the Internet here.

Ordinary Saints

Oswald Sobrino — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 00:00:00 +0000

In the New Testament, the term “saints” or “holy ones” is used to refer to all faithful Christians. In Philippians 1:1, Paul sends his greetings to “all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons” (RSV).

He ends the same letter with the following instruction: “Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brethren who are with me greet you. All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household” (Phil 4:21-22).

So, think for a moment that, already in the middle of the first century, there were saints, as the notes in the New Jerusalem Bible state, “in the service of the emperor, either in Rome or in…the chief towns of the empire.” Saints are found in unlikely places and occupations. And that is the point of the massive numbers of beatifications and canonizations that have taken place under John Paul II: saints are all around us. The pope has made a special effort to recognize the sanctity of ordinary people and married people, not just the sanctity of clergy or religious. We must learn to see others and, yes, even ourselves, with the eyes of the pope.

We speak of canonized saints as having lived lives of heroic virtue. We see heroic virtue whenever we see parents lovingly caring for their severely disabled children. We see heroic virtue when we hear, as I recently did, of a woman who was raped but refused an abortion. We certainly see heroic virtue when young soldiers risk their lives for the sake of establishing peace and order for people in other nations.

All of us have been or will be called to some aspect of heroic virtue — it is an inevitable prospect in a fallen world. It will most likely not be so outwardly noticeable or dramatic as in well-known cases, but it is a call to heroic virtue all the same. Many marriages call for such virtue on a daily basis, just as many parishes call for heroic virtue and endurance by their pastors and parishioners on a daily basis. If you know the dynamics of parish life, you know what I mean.

As Catholics, we must remember that formal beatification and canonization is a process required, as the old Catholic Encyclopedia says, for public veneration. But, in many ways, we are called to recognize privately the sanctity around us in the unknown saints of ordinary life. That recognition will spur the ordinary saints around us to perseverance and to greater holiness and will also spur us to personal holiness as a form of emulation — as emphasized, by the way, in traditional Jesuit education. For as Vatican II declared, the call to holiness is for all of us in all jobs and in all situations. The world is not so bleak a place, in spite of all its deep problems, that we do not come across some shining lights in our daily lives. We should not miss them. They are there for a purpose. Christ has surrounded us with saints.

Oswald Sobrino’s daily columns can be found at the Catholic Analysis website. He is a graduate lay student at Detroit’s Sacred Heart Major Seminary. He recently published Unpopular Catholic Truths, a collection of apologetic essays, available on the Internet here.

Essentially Connected: The Old Mass and the New

Oswald Sobrino — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000

The resurgence of interest among young Catholics in the Tridentine Mass is very understandable. When you are immersed in a culture in which reverence and the sense of sacrifice to an awesome God are missing, you leap at the chance to experience what the majesty of traditional worship emphasizes — humble humans approaching the altar of the Creator Who holds our fate in His hands.

An Organic Link, Not a Threat

This resurgence of interest in the Tridentine Mass is no threat to the modern liturgy, rather, to understand and enter fully into the spirit of the modern liturgy, you must understand the Tridentine liturgy, just as to fully understand the impact of the New Testament, you must be intimately familiar with the Old Testament. After all, it was always the intent of the Church that the modern Mass should emerge as an organic development of the old Mass — not as an abrupt rejection of centuries of the liturgical practice that nourished and was central for most of our well-known saints.

So if you want to really appreciate the Novus Ordo Mass and fully enter into it, try getting a booklet missal of the Tridentine Mass and read the English translation and the accompanying notes. You can get an inexpensive Latin-English Booklet Missal online at EcclesiaDei.Org. As one acquaintance of mine put it, the English explanatory notes in this booklet are a “little Catechism” packed with theology.

And fear not: Ecclesia Dei is in full communion with John Paul II — the name of the organization comes from the 1988 Apostolic Letter of John Paul II urging “respect” and a “wide and generous” approach to the “feelings of those who are attached to the Latin liturgical tradition.” In this brief apostolic letter, John Paul II invites all of us to a generous and truly universal vision of our tradition by declaring that “it is necessary that all the Pastors and the other faithful have a new awareness, not only of the lawfulness but also of the richness for the Church of a diversity of charisms, traditions of spirituality and apostolate, which also constitutes the beauty of unity in variety: of that blended ‘harmony’ which the earthly Church raises up to Heaven under the impulse of the Holy Spirit.” As so much else with this pope, the results of his writings and actions are far deeper than they at first may appear. Because many sense this, they already refer to him as “John Paul the Great.” Our Holy Father is providing us an essential organic link to true liturgical renewal. He is leading us to learn again the lessons of reverence and awe from the old liturgy so that the new liturgy will blossom further.

To Order Our Days

The prayers of the Old Mass have a striking clarity and theological crispness that open our eyes to what we celebrate at every Mass, new or old style. Here are some examples: When we say the Centurion's prayer in the Old Mass — three times! — that we are not worthy to receive the Lord under our “roof,” into our house, prior to Communion, we are, in a very concrete and blunt manner, in the characteristic manner of speaking found in the Gospels. These simple phrases speak volumes about our bodies as the temples of the Holy Spirit. We are proclaiming the Theology of the Body, which has been a touchstone of the pope’s teaching.

Here is another small, striking example. Shortly before the consecration, the priest prays in the Old Mass that the Lord “[o]rder our days in Thy peace.” This majestic phrase captures what we seek in our continual conversion: that we live whatever days we have left in the order of God that produces peace. That is what we seek in any Mass we attend, in Latin or English, celebrated facing the altar or facing the people.

The booklet missal is full of many other gems. The commentary reminds us that, when we say the oft-repeated word “Amen” at any Mass, we are joining in the petitions made by the priest. It is not a matter of a solitary priest celebrating Mass while worshipers pray the rosary, oblivious to the Sacrifice. It is rather a matter of all of us joining in the Sacrifice.

That sense of solidarity between priest and congregation is apparent again and again as you read the missal. For example, in explaining the phrase Dominus vobiscum or “the Lord be with you,” the missal points out that this phrase “shows how intimately the priest and the faithful should be united in offering the Sacrifice.” The unity of all the faithful in offering the Sacrifice also appears when (as the booklet explains) what is offered to God is a threefold gift of bread, wine, and “ourselves — all of the faithful” who “through this offertorial act, have become holy unto God.” In addition, in the prayer for the living before the consecration, the missal urges all “in union with the priest” to “mention here the names of the persons and intentions for which you offer the Divine Victim.” We see here the active participation of all the faithful in the Mass as highlighted by Vatican II.

A Synoptic Approach

The booklet missal also has the added bonus of providing a series of suggested private prayers prior to receiving Holy Communion, the rite for Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, and other assorted private prayers for use outside of Mass. Most illuminating is a section on examination of conscience for use in celebrating the sacrament of reconciliation that sets forth not only the Ten Commandments but also the six commandments of the Church, in addition to several eye-opening lists that include the sins against the Holy Spirit, the sins crying out to heaven for vengeance, the nine ways of being accessory to another’s sin, the seven deadly sins, and the four last things. This additional material truly makes the booklet a mini-catechism useful for whatever type of liturgy you prefer to attend.

So the issue between the Tridentine Mass and the New Mass (the “Novus Ordo” or “New Order” Mass) is not one of conflict between languages or postures. The issue really is whether we will take a synoptic approach to both liturgical forms. Will we see them together as the Church intends us to see them, or will we unnecessarily pit them against each other?

Let us ponder both liturgies together just as we read the Old and the New Testaments together. In fact, we can paraphrase a wonderful phrase of St. Augustine about the Old and New Testaments found in the Catechism and apply it to these two treasures of the Latin Rite: “The New Mass lies hidden in the Old and the Old Mass is unveiled in the New” (compare Catechism of the Catholic Church, 129). Discover the New Mass hidden in the Old — it will make you a better, more active, and more appreciative participant in the modern Mass of Vatican II.

© Copyright 2005 Catholic Exchange

Oswald Sobrino’s daily columns can be found at the Catholic Analysis website. He is a graduate lay student at Detroit’s Sacred Heart Major Seminary. He recently published Unpopular Catholic Truths, a collection of apologetic essays, available on the Internet here.

A Revolutionary Speech Revisited

Oswald Sobrino — Mon, 20 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000

I have heard it on tape and also on CD. But recently I read the written text of a 1994 talk on contraception by Janet Smith, now a professor at Detroit’s Sacred Heart Major Seminary. The talk is entitled Contraception: Why Not? and is available in full at this link.

The talk is revolutionary because it methodically and incisively dissects the tissue of lies that has destroyed lives, families, reputations, and the happiness of many. The great lie is that contraception is a boon to people, especially women. Smith shows, point by point, how the contraception culture has made divorce routine and sunk our culture into compulsive immorality. You must read it yourself to appreciate the devastating portrayal of modern American culture.

Here are a few incendiary snippets to whet your appetite for the article. She points to one researcher who confirms what common sense will tell you, namely, that “since contraceptives have arrived on the scene, there is much more adultery.” This point reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend from a very traditional immigrant ethnic group. He observed that sterilization was an increasingly popular option among males in his ethnic group.

My immediate reaction was that this fad for sterilization must surely lead to an increase in adultery. Smith makes the same point, in regard to women, by noting that “if most every woman is contracepting, then most every woman is available in a certain sense and there is no real reason to say no.” When CNN recently ran a special series on widespread adultery in America, I doubt CNN made the link to contraception. I certainly didn't see the link made in the series and didn't expect to see it, given the unquestioned acceptance of contraception in our culture.

Smith also noted in 1994 that “[f]ifty percent of women who go to abortion clinics tell us that they're there because of contraceptive failure.” The infanticide of abortion makes the adultery look minor by comparison. Even more alarming, Smith points out that the infamous Pill also works as an abortifacient. So, gentlemen, those old girlfriends with the plastic Pill compact in their purses may have unknowingly killed your offspring. The IUD also works as an abortifacient.

Smith also observes, in a question and answer section at the end of the article, that the “huge increase in the amount of infertility is mostly traceable to . . . sexually transmitted diseases.” And so you have the circle of self-destruction: contraception makes fornication easy, common, and socially accepted; fornication spawns sexually transmitted diseases; and as a result many women lose their fertility.

There are many losers in our contraception culture: the unborn are killed, women lose their fertility, males become accomplices to the abortifacient workings of popular contraceptives, and marriages suffer. But there is a great conspiracy of silence in our culture that refuses to tally up the bill.

Silence blankets many of our greatest personal tragedies. Many of us live in denial. Others mourn privately. But silence is of little use to a younger generation overwhelmed with destructive contraceptive propaganda from a multitude of sources. These pro-contraception sources present the contraceptive lifestyle as empowering, liberating, and harmless.

The truth is far different. I recall how EWTN’s Fr. Benedict Groeschel once advised people not to “waste” their suffering. Those of us who have seen firsthand the underside of the contraceptive lifestyle ought to break silence for the sake of those following behind us. Professor Smith has made it easy for us to break that silence. Just direct a young person to the link above or the website OneMoreSoul.com.

© Copyright 2004 Catholic Exchange

Oswald Sobrino’s daily columns can be found at the Catholic Analysis website. He is a graduate lay student at Detroit’s Sacred Heart Major Seminary. He recently published Unpopular Catholic Truths, a collection of apologetic essays, available on the Internet here.