Kudos to Bishop Slattery for having the (unfortunately) unique suggestion that clergy, liturgists and musicians to review Sacrosanctum Concilium. Actually reading Sacrosanctum Concilium and other document pertaining to liturgy too often is like reading a book and then watching a movie based on the book. You have some familiarity with the movie, but are usually disappointed by what was added or left out. The same things goes for reading liturgical documents and then going to a typical parish Mass. To many Masses are like the the SciFi Channel’s adaptation of the Earthsea series. If you didn’t see it it was horrid, but it proves a good example of the dissonance between a book and a movie. The same dissonance between liturgical documents and the Mass that too frequently happens.
[Via RC at Catholic Light]
In other news Cardinal Keeler, Cardinal McCarrick and Bishop DiMarzio issued a statement in response to the one written by the 55 Democrat politicians. The statement while being diplomatic was also not watered down.
We need to do more to persuade all people that human life is precious and human dignity must be defended. This requires more effective dialogue and engagement with all public officials, especially Catholic public officials. We welcome conversation initiated by political leaders themselves.
Therefore, we welcome the Representatives’ recognition that Catholics in public life must act seriously and responsibly on many important moral issues. Our faith has an integral unity that calls Catholics to defend human life and human dignity whenever they are threatened. A priority for the poor, the protection of family life, the pursuit of justice and the promotion of peace are fundamental priorities of the Catholic moral tradition which cannot be ignored or neglected. We encourage and will continue to work with those in both parties who seek to act on these essential principles in defense of the poor and vulnerable.
At the same time, we also need to reaffirm the Catholic Church’s constant teaching that abortion is a grave violation of the most fundamental human right – the right to life that is inherent in all human beings, and that grounds every other right we possess. Pope John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation on the vocation and mission of the laity, Christifideles Laici, which the Representatives’ statement cites, declares:
The inviolability of the person which is a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God fínds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life. Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights — for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture — is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination…. The human being is entitled to such rights, in every phase of development, from conception until natural death; and in every condition, whether healthy or sick, whole or handicapped, rich or poor (# 38).
While it is always necessary to work to reduce the number of abortions by providing alternatives and help to vulnerable parents and children, Catholic teaching calls all Catholics to work actively to restrain, restrict and bring to an end the destruction of unborn human life.
And while I am praising the efforts of some Bishops here is another story where Bishop Finn called a stop to the practice in his diocese of emptying the Holy Water fonts at the start of lent instead of on Holy Thursday.
This practice is just more evidence of the attitude of liturgists that they just have to change something. Now you would think that if a liturgist really wanted to introduce a penitential action that instead of removing the Holy Water or placing stones in the font they would replace it with a light acid or perhaps tacks. Another silly practice common during this time is for parishes to cover their statues and images at the start of Lent vice Holy Thursday. A parish I go to because they have 24 hour Eucharistic Adoration has already done this way before Passiontide. It was really distracting considering that the way they covered the statues of St. Joseph and the Virgin Mary with a somewhat fitted clot is that it now appears there are two seven foot tall purple condoms in the adoration chapel. I am almost surprised that they didn’t cover up the Stations of the Cross also. This would be ridiculous, but it is fitting with the practice of covering up other religious statues and art. Usually visiting other parishes only makes me more thankful for the parish we normally attend where liturgical abuses are only theoretical.
13 comments
I’m surprized that you take exception to covering statues during Passiontide. It’s a pre-Vatican II practice that emphasized the solemnity of the season. It was forbidden in the USA for a while but it has been lately re-stored by our American bishops.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
I’m surprised they haven’t permanently removed the statues in your church. Consider yourself blessed.
I don’t have a real problem for this to happen during passiontide, just at the start of lent.
As per Bishop Bruskewitz
Why don’t all churches cover their statues during Lent?
It was never the custom in the Latin Rite to cover statues “during Lent,” but crosses and statues were covered during passiontide (the last week of Lent and then in Holy Week). In ancient times many of the crosses in churches were “gemmatae,” that is, covered with jewels and bare of a corpus or with a corpus of the risen Savior, a sign of the resurrection. These crosses were covered during passiontide to help people meditate more on the sufferings of Jesus. If the crosses were covered, it was thought necessary to cover also all the other pictures and statues. In the course of years, especially influenced by Franciscan spirituality in the 13th century, the cross “evolved” and most crosses were crucifixes, vividly showing the death of Christ. How ever, the “covering custom” continued. Some people thought it came from the old Gospel text for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, which spoke of Jesus “hiding Himself” from the crowd, but that was only an “applied” (and erroneous) meaning of the custom. Today, after the Second Vatican Council, the covering of crosses and statues is left to the discretion of national Bishops’ Conferences. The U.S. Bishops recommend against this covering, but most bishops leave the entire matter to the decision of pastors of parishes. The U.S. Bishops suggest a covering of the cross during Holy Week, because the “unveiling of the cross” in the Good Friday liturgy then makes more sense.
I grew up in “Pre-Vatican II.” (Baltimore, 1950’s). During Lent, the crucifix behind the altar and all the statues were covered with purple cloth (although it was loose, thank God, so they didn’t look like condoms. What a hoot!) to enhance the spirit of repentance (I guess). No flowers on the altar. Worst of all (for our choirmaster, who was a talented organist)–no organ. Just a note or two to let us know what key to sing in. Lots of “Stabat Mater” (which remains one of my favorite hymns). Of course, we “gave up” something for Lent (my weakness was pretzels. I used to gorge myself on Sundays). Attending Stations of the Cross (having recently retired, I can again attend this on Fridays. I forgot how much genuflecting there is–when did my knees start to make such horrible sounds???) One year, my birthday fell on Good Friday. From noon to 3:00 on that day, one was supposed to go to church, pray, read the Bible, etc.–in other words, nothing joyful. Needless to say, no birthday party. If you were a kid, you were really glad to see Lent end!
I’m a post Vatican II baby (well, not precisely, I was born in ’65). I’ve not ever heard of the practice of covering statues, but why was/is it done? Do you think the practice of it contributes to some of the misconceptions of Catholics?
Oops… my bad. Just scrolled up and read your post Jeff.
The dry holy water font is a post Vatican II innovation whose symbolism escapes me. The covering of all the statues and, when possible, images in church is something I grew up with in pre-Vatican II South America and in Europe. It’s part of the mortification of the flesh idea: nothing to distract from one’s focus on the coming Passion of Our Lord. Holy Thursday and Good Friday were days you felt sort of faint because you couldn’t eat at all before communion, which was distributed at the afternoon services, so seeing those covered statues had a rather hallucinatory effect. (As a really small child I thought they were playing hide and go seek.) But then Holy Saturday and Easter were glorious because the statues were unveiled and life was restored! No one would ever have dreamed of thinking the purple coverings looked like condoms (polite society didn’t know about such things). Sad, how far we’ve come in the lifetime of a baby boomer.
I am barely pre-Vatican II (began my religious ed in 1961). Based on a vague recollection of covered statues when I was a kid, I bought last year some purple crepe and covered all the statues and icons/religious artwork in my house on Saturday night before Palm Sunday. Our parishes around here (Piedmont North Carolina) don’t cover statues.
I could not get over how depressing it was to have those statues covered! But “depressing” in a good way – it really brought home to us on an emotional, semi-conscious level the meaning of Holy Week.
Then, on Saturday night before Easter, I took the cloth off and filled the house with Easter lillies. Talk about bringing home the joy of Christ’s resurrection!
I am going to do it again this year – I wish more churches would do it.
I love the tradition of covering the statues–and then the rush of having all your favorite saints reappear at the Gloria of the Easter Vigil when the lights are turned on and the sanctuary is filled with beautiful flowers. It’s just so…Catholic.
Another tradition I love is the clapper in place of the bells during the Eucharistic prayer on Holy Thursday. The bell is rung at the Gloria on Holy Thursday–“like the Good Humor man,” my childhood pastor would instruct the altar boy–and not rung again until the Gloria on the Easter Vigil when the Church is finally lit up, and the bells are, again, rung furiously.
The clapper is used again when the Eucharist is brought into the Church on Good Friday during the Veneration of the Cross, to remind us of the nails and let the congregation know that Christ is being processed into the Church.
My parish used to cover the statues after Holy Thursday, but now does it after Laetere (or is it Gaudete? I forget which is Advent and which Lent…) Sunday. Anyway–I think it’s really cool. And being the altar boy at the Holy Week Masses is awesome!
A few years ago, I was asked by my college chaplain to serve Holy Thursday–and I said I really wanted to use the clapper. He got the custodian to make one, and now that tradition has been brought back to the Newman Center.
I just wanted to mention that I linked to the articles about the 55 Catholic Democrats on my own blog in my post “Catholics in Congress” – it is an MSN Spaces blog called “Orthodoxy – Right teachings for a right moral compass”. (Writing the URL is blacklisted, so I have to describe it…)
Thank you for always being informative and funny and God bless.
In Papa Ratzi’s part of the world, they put out “tombs” or “coffins” for Jesus in the sanctuary (over to the side up front). They lay the crucifix or the Gospel book or something on top of it to represent Jesus’ corpse. They also have people decorate the tomb by bringing Jesus funeral bouquets. It sounds wonderfully creepy to me.
Then on Easter Sunday, everything gets retrieved and put back.
I think this goes back pretty far, because I seem to remember that medieval people did the little chanted mini-play with the angel and the women standing by the “tomb”. (Quem Quaerite or something like that?)
Maureen, who is obviously more tired than she thought
Maureen, all of that makes more sense than covering up what few statues we have.
When statues are covered up, the unmistakeable impression is that the liturgists are trying to take things away from us again. It really does nothing else for many people. We’ve been far too terrorized for far too long.
Maureen, that sounds a bit like what Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox do–the tomb bit, that is. The Ruthenian Catholic parish at which I spent Good Friday/Annunciation at last year (they don’t transfer feasts, and it was very profound to celebrate Christ’s conception and death on the same day) has a tapestry depicting Christ’s body. After Liturgy (they do celebrate Divine Liturgy/Mass on Good Friday), the priest drapes the tapestry over his shoulders as if he’s carrying the body, and everyone processes around the church three times. Then he lays the tapestry down onto the “tomb” inside the church. The members of the parish take turns keeping watch over the tomb until the Easter Vigil begins.
Comments are closed.