Liturgy

Via Darwin Catholic is the site of a company that does hand painted murals for churches and other restoration. The before and after photo’s are the way they should be. That is more beautiful when renovated. Their about page says this.

The traditional vocation of sacred art
is to evoke faith and adoration by making
the invisible, visible, and lifting our hearts and minds
to the transcendent mystery of God.

Take a look at their pages on Hand-Panted Murals, Liturgical Design, and Statuary and have a feast for your eyes.

In a related story Gerald tells of a close call for a cathedral which was almost as he calls it "voskoized."

Gerald announces that Fr. Vosko has a new book called God’s House is Our House. Not surprisingly Gerald is not soliciting people to buy it through his Amazon affiliation. It is on my own list to buy when the gates of hell include an embedded ice maker.

God’s House Is Our House serves as a platform for rethinking the Catholic environment for worship. Father Vosko provides a theoretical foundation for building or renovating a worship space, by drawing upon biblical, theological, and ecclesiological sources as well as studies on architecture, spatial settings, and creative problem solving.

Since Vatican II, changes have occurred in liturgical texts, music, and life-cycle rituals, especially the Eucharist. Cathedrals and churches have also been transformed, making a formative impact on the life of the church. Some say that new and renovated churches no longer feel like God’s house. Others maintain that a developed understanding of liturgy requires worship settings that accommodate the ritual making of the community.

The liturgical reforms that have guided Catholic, Episcopal, and Lutheran congregations over the last half-century have transformed what these denominations know about worship. Worshipers are no longer spectators, but active participants in the ritual acts that once were the sole possession of the clergy. As the liturgy is modified, church buildings are altered. Almost overnight God’s house has new owners and users and, once again, is known as a house for the church.

How does all such change affect the architectural style of church buildings? Here Father Vosko considers worship space dilemmas and offers practical advice. This book is for faith communities and design professionals. It addresses diverse opinions regarding the environment for worship and through photography and illustration features award-winning examples of new and renovated places of worship.

I am sure that this book will prove that Fr. Vosko is just as good as theologian as he is a Church architect. That is a theology stripped bare and replaced with whatever fancies him at the moment. The Amazon description is so dripping with progressive silliness like "ritual making" and "life-cycle rituals" So smarmy when it comes to statements like "Worshipers are no longer spectators, but active participants." As if in the whole history of the Church no worshiper was ever an active participant in the liturgy. Just blank-eyed zombies sitting in the pew and kneeling on cue. Gregorian chant and a reverent liturgy never touched the souls of anybody until the advent of olympic size baptismal’s and space-age looking lecterns. That it is gymnasium and audience hall rip-offs that have finally provoked worshipers to actively participate in the liturgy. No one every prayed during the Mass until they finally got the architectural help they needed. I guess the new churches look like gyms because this is what they think of when it comes to the word active. That it is liturgical posture and responses alone that make you active.

The funny thing is that it is Fr. Vosko’s designs that introduce "worship space dilemmas" like did I just walk into a church or was I dropping Johnny off for practice. Wreckovation is a pejorative, but it is just so apt. So many modern church architects have pulled off a Emperor’s new clothes trick on people. There willing to believe that their renovated church isn’t stripped naked. We do need some child to yell out "The church has been stripped naked" until everybody finally agrees that the boy is right.

For those who haven’t yet seen Francis Cardinal Arinze’s letter to Bishop Skylstad here it is:

The Most Reverend William Skylstad
Bishop of Spokane
President, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Prot. n. 499/06/L

Your Excellency,

With reference to the conversation between yourself, the Vice President and General Secretary of the Conference of Bishops of which you are President, together with me and other Superiors and Officials when you kindly visited our Congregation on 27 April 2006, I wish to recall the following:

The Instruction Liturgiam authenticam is the latest document of the Holy See which guides translations from the original-language liturgical texts into the various modern languages in the Latin Church. Both this Congregation and the Bishops’ Conferences are bound to follow its directives. This Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments is therefore not competent to grant the recognitio for translations that do not conform to the directives of Liturgiam authenticam. If, however, there are difficulties regarding the translation of a particular part of a text, then this Congregation is always open to dialogue in view of some mutually agreeable solution, still keeping in mind, however, that Liturgiam authenticam remains the guiding norm.

The attention of your Bishops’ Conference was also recalled to the fact that Liturgiam authenticam was issued at the directive of the Holy Father at the time, Pope John Paul II, to guide new translations as well as the revision of all translations done in the last forty years, to bring them into greater fidelity to the original-language official liturgical texts. For this reason it is not acceptable to maintain that people have become accustomed to a certain translation for the past thirty or forty years, and therefore that it is pastorally advisable to make no changes. Where there are good and strong reasons for a change, as has been determined by this Dicastery in regard to the entire translation of the Missale Romanum as well as other important texts, then the revised text should make the needed changes. The attitudes of Bishops and Priests will certainly influence the acceptance of the texts by the lay faithful as well.

Requesting Your Excellency to share these reflections with the Bishops of your Conference I assure you of the continued collaboration of this Congregation and express my religious esteem,

Devotedly yours in Christ,

+Francis Card. Arinze

Prefect, Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments

This of of course is in response to the Trautmaninzation of the liturgy where fixing liturgical translations and actually having them being in conformance with Liturgiam authenticam was met with resistance. Bishop Trautman who is placed where he could do the most damage as head of the bishop’s committee of the liturgy of course wants to maintain the bad translation status quo. The excuse of "not disturbing the people" has been the justification for not changing liturgical texts. Which is rather ironic coming from those who treat the liturgy like their own lab where they can experiment as they will.

Again you just got to love the good Cardinal for being forthright in what he say and by not buying the delaying tactic to institute Liturgiam authenticam.

Clayton has a good recap on this subject and the recent history of how this came about.

Here is an excellent interview with Archbishop Burke related to the indult Mass. He makes some great points and I especially found interesting his notion that the generous allowance of the indult Mass can be used to help reform and enrich the new Mass. [Via AMDG]

STOCKBRIDGE — More than 16,000 people endured the elements Sunday at the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy in Stockbridge to observe Mercy Sunday.

By all accounts, the weather was as bad as it has ever been on Mercy Sunday, the Catholic holiday celebrated the week after Easter in observance of the Divine Mercy of Jesus Christ. The National Shrine of The Divine Mercy, opened in 1950 and located on the campus of the Congregation of Marians, generally hosts the largest observance of the holiday in the Northeast.

A spokesman for the National Weather Service reported 2-4 inches of rain falling in Southern Berkshire Sunday during the day. Temperatures were in the 40s.

"It’s certainly as bad as it’s been since I’ve been here," said the Rev. David Lord, pastor of the shrine.

Being that this is Divine Mercy Sunday I wonder if any of my readers might be able to shed some light on something I recently heard relating this feast. The official English translation renders today "Second Sunday of Easter or Divine Mercy Sunday" making it seem that the celebration today is one or the other. What I heard one priest say was that this not not correctly transcribe the meaning in the Latin which I believe is Dominica II Paschae seu De Divina Misericordia. That the seu means more than a simple or. This to means sound quite plausible since the Apostolic Penitentiary on the indulgence for today calls it "Second Sunday of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday."

I have been to some parishes on Mercy Sunday that don’t mention it at all, and I don’t quite understand why some would want to ignore such a wonderful aspect of God. Though maybe it is the Divine Mercy devotion itself (or devotions in general) they don’t like. I love the Divine Mercy devotion especially the version set to music since I can sing it on my way in to work. It is also probably mercy that there is no one in the car to hear me singing it.

Via AMDG and Free Republic comes this story.

How fitting that as one of his final acts, Bishop Pilla appointed a liberal Pastor to St. Rose of Lima parish. The new pastor’s first official act was to end the Latin Mass at St. Rose effective May 14. Happy Mother’s Day! St. Rose curently has four Masses, but the Latin Mass draws more people than the other three combined and has a bigger collection than the other three combined. This only makes sense as a punitive act to punish some of his most outspoken critics.

Of course incoming Bishop Lennon could allow the indult Mass somewhere else or if the universal indult ever becomes a reality. In more positive indult Mass news:

The old Latin Mass will return to the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston for the first time since 1970 when Monsignor Edward Sadie leads a special service at 2 p.m. Sunday at Sacred Heart Co-Cathedral. The church choir will sing in Latin as well.

Sadie thought it was a good idea when the Catholic Church dropped the Tridentine Mass — Catholics know it as the Latin Mass — in 1970. It had been many centuries since Latin was the language of the people, and that was never the case in America.

Now Sadie thinks it’s a good idea to bring the Tridentine Mass back to his church, where two priests celebrate Mass six times a weekend, but generally not at 2 p.m. Sunday.
– advertisement –

“I’m anxious to bring back to church any who feel they were abandoned or neglected,” he said. “I want to meet the needs of people who feel strongly about it.”

He is getting calls from people around the state who want to attend Sunday’s Latin Mass. Some are older Catholics nostalgic for the Mass as it was before 1970, Sadie said. “Some are younger Catholics who think we lost a lot,” he said.

Though why is it that older Catholics who grew up with the Tridentine Mass and prefer it are always labeled as nostalgic?

For most of her 67 years, Mary Lomastro could not fully understand the Roman Catholic Mass that she attended each Sunday.

Ms. Lomastro, of Coventry, R.I., is deaf. She attended weekly services at her home parish, but could not follow the Mass beyond what was printed in the missalette.

That all changed last summer, when the Diocese of Providence became one of the few in the country to have a deaf priest celebrate a Mass in American Sign Language, with a verbal interpreter.

The priest, the Rev. Joseph Bruce, says Mass at St. Ann’s Church in Providence and at other parishes throughout Rhode Island, where 60 percent of residents are Catholic, the highest percentage of any state.

"Attending Mass with a deaf priest who uses sign language is more inspiring than an interpreted Mass," Ms. Lomastro, who now volunteers as a lector at the deaf Mass, wrote in an e-mail message. "When Father Bruce signs, it is coming from his inner self."

Father Bruce is one of seven deaf priests ministering in the United States, said the Rev. Thomas Coughlin, head of the Dominican Missionaries for the Deaf Apostolate in Hayward, Calif. Four deaf seminarians are studying to be priests, the most ever at one time, according to the National Catholic Office for the Deaf.

The four seminarians, along with an increase in lay participation, show signs of growth in a small Catholic community that has long struggled with its identity.

I have been to some Masses in my diocese where they had a interpreter doing sign, though not one with the priest doing ASL. This article did make me wonder about the use of ASL in the Mass by the priest and I found a helpful article by Jimmy Akin for This Rock Magazine on the subject.

Q: Is it permissible to translate spontaneously into sign language what is being said at Masses for the deaf?

A: Yes. In 1965 the Concilium issued a reply which stated that it had considered whether it was fitting "1. That the readings should be communicated to the [deaf] people by means of signs; 2. that the deaf people should reply, in those parts pertaining to the congregation, by means of signs. It was [also] asked . . . (a) whether texts proffered by the celebrant could be at the same time spoken and signified with his hands; (b) whether in those texts that were said together by the celebrant and by the people, the people could follow the sign language of the celebrant, they themselves also using the sign language."

"With great willingness and kindness, the Holy Father has given his full approval to these suggestions and has said moreover that sign language could be used with and by deaf people throughout the liturgy, whenever it was judged to be pastorally desirable" (Documents on the Liturgy [DOL] 2119).

In 1966, the Holy See gave another reply: "Query: May sign language be used in the celebration of the liturgy for the deaf? Reply: Yes. For it is the only way for the deaf actually to take an active part in the liturgy" (DOL 296 note R1, Query 2).

Canonist Dr. Ed Peters on the subject notes that this permission was given just two days after the close of the council and offers some additional information on the subject in a reply to an article in Adoramus Bulletin.

Jimmy also answers the point I thought about while reading the NYT article in regards to the words of consecration.

One point that should be noted: Though permission has been given for the use of sign languages as liturgical languages, the Church has not established that sign language constitutes a valid method of administering the sacraments. Thus in its replies on using sign language, the Holy See has stated that the priest is to say the parts of the Mass particular to him (such as the words of consecration) both out loud and in sign.

There is also a Dominican Missionaries for the Deaf Apostolate that preaches in sign language. Of course the old joke goes is that they must be very popular for confession. On this point though the late (and great) Fr. Hardon answers a question on how does someone who is mute or deaf go to confession?

A mute or deaf person can go to confession in various ways. If he knows sign language, he can choose a confessor among priests who understand sign language. Or again a mute or deaf person can write out his sins, and either personally or through someone else ask the priest to read his written sins. Then the priest, in writing, may give the penitent such spiritual assistance and assign the penance in accordance with the sins confessed. Or still again, penitents can ask someone whom they totally trust, and to whom they have confided their sins, to go to confession for them. Of course the priest must be first both informed and willing to cooperate. If the priest cooperates, the assistant to the penitent may confess for the penitent; but of course this assistant is absolutely bound by the seal of confession. Finally, if the above options are simply not available, the person may receive absolution from a priest, provided two conditions are fulfilled: the penitent must really want to confess his sins, and secondly he will take the next opportunity to confess his sins by way of sign language, writing or through an assistant.

I never realized that there could be a sacrament by proxy where someone could go to confession for somebody in these unique circumstances with permission of the priest. Though of course the precedence is Jesus dying for our sins.

THE Catholic hierarchy has ordered an inquiry into how a Protestant clergyman was allowed to say Mass in an Augustinian church.

The unprecedented ecumenical service took place on Easter Sunday.

Church of Ireland clergyman, the Reverend Michael Graham, concelebrated Mass with Fr Iggy O’Donovan and two other priests at the Augustinian Priory in Drogheda, Co Louth.

…The concelebration has provoked an angry response from the Catholic hierarchy. Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, Sean Brady, has ordered an inquiry into the service, which he said was not in the interests of "true ecumenism".

"I intend to seek further details about the exact circumstances of the concelebration, which is contrary to Catholic Church rules," Dr Brady said.

"True ecumenism is best served by initiatives that are respectful of, and sensitive to, the traditions, ethos and discipline of all those involved.

"Otherwise, there is a real danger of causing widespread confusion, raising false hopes and creating situations that are open to misunderstandings and manipulation."

True ecumenism also tells the truth. I would be great to say that we are one and God willing one day all of these schisms will be healed. Acting out unity where it does not yet exist is a pure sham and using the Holy Mass to put forth a lie does nothing for the cause of true ecumenism.

Michael Liccion has an excellent meditation on Holy Saturday.

Mike Aquilina points to a Holy Saturday homily by (possibly) Epiphanus of Cyprus.