The Sacraments and Communion with God

In previous works, we defined the sacraments as (among other things) signs that facilitate communion with the God who is One in Three Persons.  In short, according to the Apostle Peter, we become "partakers of the divine nature" as we grow in holiness.  Before we can continue this discussion, we need to ask ourselves something.  What is the point of Communion with God?

While this question might seem simple, it has sparked a lot of debate throughout Catholic circles.  If one really wants to drill down into the issue, the entire debate surrounding Christopher West's interpretation of John Paul II boils down to this very question.  It has always been this way.  Ever since the Garden of Eden, man asked himself this very question we are considering today.

There are a lot of ways to look at this.  For some, we walk around with our palms pressed together chanting softly in praise and adoration of God.  For others, communion with God is a nuptial union that surpasses any human emotion or experience.  Then there are those who view attempting to describe heavenly realities with human expressions as utterly pointless.  Whatever it is, we know it will be better than here.

All of these are true, and I suppose they come into play one time or another in heaven.  Yet as true as they all are, their answers are incomplete.  They are means, not the end.  To the fan of Christopher West, why does God wish to "marry us?"  What is the purpose of God providing peace?  As always, the answer may be found within the Scriptures, starting with God's call to Abram:

And the Lord said to Abram: Go forth out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and out of thy father's house, and come into the land which I shall shew thee.  And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and magnify thy name, and thou shalt be blessed.  I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee, and IN THEE shall all the kindred of the earth be blessed:  So Abram went out as the Lord had commanded him....  Abram passed through the country into the place of Sichem, as far as the noble vale: now the Chanaanite was at that time in the land.  And the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him: To thy seed will I give this land. And he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.  (Genesis 12:1-7)

We would do well to remember that at this point of salvation history, there was no Christianity, there wasn't even Judaism.  Mankind had just failed in their ultimate act of rebellion in the Tower of Babel, and the result was a perpetual rending asunder of humanity.  Out of this confusion and chaos, God calls Abram.  Now the classical understanding of this passage has always been that God showed Abram the land of Israel, and promised that land towards his descendants.  To Christians (possessing the fullness of revelation), though the original meaning remains true, we discover something far deeper:

By faith he that is called Abraham, obeyed to go out into a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.  By faith he abode in the land, dwelling in cottages, with Isaac and Jacob, the co-heirs of the same promise.  For he looked for a city that hath foundations; whose builder and maker is God....  All these died according to faith, not having received the promises, but beholding them afar off, and saluting them, and confessing that they are pilgrims and strangers on the earth. For they that say these things, do signify that they seek a country. And truly if they had been mindful of that from whence they came out, they had doubtless time to return. But now they desire a better, that is to say, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city.(Hebrews 11:  8-10,13-16)

As with just about everything in the Old Testament, what is happening is but a sign of a greater reality that will come.  When Abraham looked at "the land" which God would give him, he was not looking at some mere human city.  Rather he was looking at heaven, that which God designed and prepared for them, and invites those who have faith to enter into.

What would we find in such a city?  We may perhaps best understand what we could have by seeing what the faithless were denied.  We can find that answer many times throughout the beautiful Psalms of David:

Lord, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle? or who shall rest in thy holy hill?  (Psalm 14:1)

Today if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts:  As in the provocation, according to the day of temptation in the wilderness: where your fathers tempted me, they proved me, and saw my works.  Forty years long was I offended with that generation, and I said: These always err in heart.

And these men have not known my ways: so I swore in my wrath that they shall not enter into my rest.  (Psalm 94:  8-11)

This last Psalm is of particular importance to us.  The writer of the Hebrews gives a rather lengthy commentary on this Psalm that needs to be quoted in full:

Take heed, brethren, lest perhaps there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, to depart from the living God.  But exhort one another every day, whilst it is called today, that none of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.  For we are made partakers of Christ: yet so, if we hold the beginning of his substance firm unto the end.  While it is said, Today if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in that provocation.  For some who heard did provoke: but not all that came out of Egypt by Moses. And with whom was he offended forty years? Was it not with them that sinned, whose carcasses were overthrown in the desert? And to whom did he swear, that they should not enter into his rest: but to them that were incredulous?  And we see that they could not enter in, because of unbelief.   Let us fear therefore lest the promise being left of entering into his rest, any of you should be thought to be wanting. For unto us also it hath been declared, in like manner as unto them. But the word of hearing did not profit them, not being mixed with faith of those things they heard.  For we, who have believed, shall enter into rest; as he said: As I have sworn in my wrath; If they shall enter into my rest; and this indeed when the works from the foundation of the world were finished.  For in a certain place he spoke of the seventh day thus: And God rested the seventh day from all his works.  And in this place again: If they shall enter into my rest. (Hebrews 3:12-16, 4:1-5)

While we receive countless things in the heavenly city, most importantly, we find rest.  This is something even Adam did not have, as he had to work in the garden even before the fall.  Throughout salvation history God's people have been nomads and they have been builders of empires.  They have been minorities and majorities.  They experienced ecstasies and sorrows, peace and war.  Yet all of them had the same purpose:  they had to work.  In the fullness of time, Christ came to bring us towards the home where we will have to do none of these things.  We will have rest.  We find further evidence for this in the masterful poetry of St. John of the Cross, perhaps the saint who expressed this union so perfectly:

Within my pounding heart
Which kept itself entirely for Him
He fell into His sleep
Beneath the cedars all my love I gave.

From o'er the fortress walls
The wind would brush His hair against His brow
And with its smoother hand
caressed my every sense it would allow.

I lost myself to Him
And laid my face upon my Lover's breast
And care and grief grew dim
As in the mornings mist became the light
There they dimmed amongst the lilies fair

Knowing what communion with God entails, we now have another question we will ask ourselves through our study on the sacraments.  How are the sacraments a sign of rest, and how do they provide this rest?

In Defense of "Checklist" Catholicism

Though it took awhile, Matt McGuiness has written his second installment of his "Second Look at Porn" series.  The first installment received a fair amount of criticism.  Dawn Eden and Fr. Angelo Geiger (in this case particularly the latter) have written very insightful responses.  Like them, I find this second installment a vast improvement over the original, and he deserves credit for this.  I would say he really only makes one mistake, yet it is a very large mistake.  Mr. McGuiness states:

If the multinational corporations have a “wonderful plan” for our lives (and they do), sometimes church people offer us “solutions” that alienate us from ourselves no less than the spinning wheel of production and consumption. Some within the Church will tell us to ignore the infinite need that makes our hearts restless and just plunge into Catholic practices and pious devotions. Never mind the meaning, “Just do it.” Here's a sample checklist: start going to daily Mass, pray the rosary, make a holy hour, try this novena, frequent confession more often, do some twelve step program, go to a Catholic conference, be virtuous. You get the picture.

The picture painted might seem familiar to some.  As a traditionalist, it is far more common than I am comfortable with for sure.  The difference between myself and Mr. McGuiness (and those of us and Christopher West for that matter) is that we see the same situation they do.  We see a lot of traditional forms of piety seeming to alienate people from their true calling.  We are just far likelier to place the blame on our fallen natures, not on the tools given.  When the Bible introduces Job, we see the following:

There was a man in the land of Hus, whose name was Job, and that man was simple and upright, and fearing God, and avoiding evil....  And when the days of their feasting were gone about, Job sent to them, and sanctified them: and rising up early offered holocausts for every one of them. For he said: Lest perhaps my sons have sinned, and have blessed God in their hearts. So did Job all days.  (Job 1:1,5)

 Job is following the checklist.  He has set times for devotional prayer for his children.  He offers sacrifices daily for them with elaborate rituals.  Everyday he repents not only of his own sins, but begs for repentance for the sins of his children.  When the Bible praises him, it does not do so falsely.  Job is using these things as they are meant to be used:  for our holiness and the holiness of others.  Now were these practices going to guarantee holiness?  Certainly not.  If anything, a good case could be made that throughout the story Job falls into the stale formulaic religion that Mr. McGuiness condemns.  Pride (or some other imperfection) seeps into our devotions and corrupts them.

At this point, the course of action is not to throw off these devotions which have sanctified millions of souls over thousands of years in search of some action with deeper meaning.  If pride and imperfections weakened these "simple" devotions, how much more so something deeper?  Better to avail ourselves to adoration, where alongside our God, we can probe deeply our desires and human nature to better understand them.  Even better still is the Confessional, where we can throw off our imperfections, receive sound guidance, and hopefully learn how to transform these devotions from something stale into something magnificent.

At the end of his work, Fr. Geiger criticized Mr. McGuiness for essentially being to reliant on the "self-help" side of things.  I completely agree, but I'd like to take Mr. McGuiness at his word.  If the self-help way of deep introspection leading to a fundamental change in paradigm is really the way, such a person needs to be in a pretty advanced state mentally to achieve this.  He needs an understanding of his own passions and desires far beyond what a porn addict is likely to achieve.  The best way to know ourselves is through prayer "on the mountain", that is, separate from everyone else and seeking to be close to God.   There is a reason such devotions have played such a monumental role in the lives of everyone, including the founder of the religious movement Mr. McGuiness venerates so heavily.  Perhaps we should be asking ourselves why they played such a huge role in their lives as saints, and why they play so little a role in ours.

Signs and the Sacraments

When we talk about the sacraments, we return to the old cliche of what a sacrament is.  We understand the sacraments as a "visible sign of an invisible reality."  While this is true, it really doesn't tell us much about the sacraments.  A visible sign of what?  What is the reality?  As with so many aspects of contemporary Catholicism, we have the right answers, but ask the wrong questions.

To help us better ask these questions (and hopefully come to a better understanding) we should return to the sources of truth for Catholics.  In this case, we should return to the Sacred Scriptures.  When outlining what the Passover entails, the Book of the Exodus describes the point of the Passover:

And it shall be to you as a sign on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes, that the law of the LORD may be in your mouth; for with a strong hand the LORD has brought you out of Egypt.

From a purely natural standpoint, a Biblical sign is meant to recall a past action.  In the case of the Passover, the paschal memorial was meant to call to mind God's deliverance of the Israelites from the cruel Egyptians.  We do this sort of thing all the time.  For sports athletes, trophies serve not only as a recognition of our triumphs, but they serve to recall those great moments where we excelled seemingly beyond ourselves to achieve that triumph.  When a spouse looks at their wedding band, it is supposed to call to mind the commitment they made to their spouse that day at the altar.  So far, so good.  Modern Catholics accept and understand this aspect of the biblical sign.

Yet there is far more to the proper understanding of a sign and what we "remember."  When the Prophet Elijah visits the widow of Zarephath, the widow believes his visit is an omen of ill news, stating:

What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son? (1 Kings 17:18)

 In the Bible, the act of remembrance also causes an action.  In this case, the remembrance of the widows sins by Elijah's presence caused the death of her son.  The Prophet Ezekiel states that when the sins of Israel came to remembrance, they were taken into captivity.  (Ezekial 21:24)  So for the Bible, signs convey a far deeper meaning than a mere remembrance of past events.   The remembrance of past events causes a present reality.

Now what does this insight do for us in understanding the sacraments?  I would actually argue that it provides quite a bit.  Remembering our previous post on the sacraments, the Sacraments were defined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church as follows:

They [the sacraments] are "for the Church" in the sense that "the sacraments make the Church," since they manifest and communicate to men, above all in the Eucharist, the mystery of communion with the God who is love, One in three persons. (Paragraph 1118)

With this in mind, we can come to a certain understanding.  When we say a sacrament is a visible sign, we state that a sacrament is a visible sign of communion with God.  Since a sign is meant to recall something, I would submit that the sacrament recalls our original purpose in relation to God:  that we were created for union with God.  Every sacrament, in one way or another, points to this purpose.  Like the "signs" of the Old Testament, the remebrance of this sign enhances that reality.

So why was there a need for Christ to institute seven new sacraments?  Many times we point to the fact that the sacraments of the new covenant confer grace, whereas the sacraments of the old covenant were "merely" signs.  While grace is of supreme importance, there's more to the story here.  The sacraments of the New Covenant not only call to our original purpose, they manifest a new reality.  While we were created for union with God, what happens when we achieve such a union with God?  The grace the sacraments contain transform us to a new reality.  We are no longer living a life of anticipation of union with God.  The Sacraments don't just transform our lives making that union a reality, they conform us to the state of life that is our destination:  eternity in heaven. 

To better understand this point, we will need to do a few things.  We will need to take a trip through salvation history, and then through each of the Sacraments of the New Covenant and how they fit within the framework I have outlined.  This will be the subject of future installments in this series.

Theology of the Wounded

In the Church today, it is conventional wisdom that the sacraments are not appreciated enough.  What are we to do about it?  I am of the opinion that we cannot develop a proper evangelization and theology centered around the sacraments because of the way we currently practice our faith.  Any proper evangelization begins at home, and we need to take a better look at some realities of our faith.  I believe these realities will challenge us in a new way.

It is a common cliche in evangelization that we must reach out to "the wounded", those outside the Church, those affected by sin in traumatic ways, etc.  While we should do this, I think we would do well to remember one important fact:  we, each and every one of us, belong to "the wounded."  To understand this, we must understand the reality of a little used word today in the Church:  concupiscence.  The Catholic Church defines concupiscence in the following manner:

Although it is proper to each individual, original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence. Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.  (Paragraph 405)

As a result of the sin of Adam, human nature changed.  Sin is something that comes pretty easy to us.  While the explanations for this are varied, the reality is undeniable: this inclination leaves a wound that remains with us.  However, this is not the end of the story.

As the Catechism reminds us, there are things which turn us toward God.  While the sacrament of baptism is the primary means of doing this, one can see God's call in many things of creation.  John Paul II made a couple year's worth of general audiences out of the fact that we can see God's call towards Him stamped within the very reality of the human body.  This calling inevitably conflicts with the reality of concupiscence.  At this point the struggle for holiness begins.

This is where the importance of the sacraments come in.  As anyone who took Catholicism 101 can tell you, sacraments impart what is called sanctifying grace to the Christian.  The Catechism defines sanctifying grace as a "habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that perfects the soul itself to enable it to live with God, to act by his love."  (Paragraph 2000)

The only way we can be enabled to live with God is if that inclination to sin is dealt with.  That is the purpose of the sacraments.  Sometimes this is explicitly mentioned, such as when the sacrament of Holy Matrimony is called a "remedy of concupiscence."  Yet all the sacraments, to one degree or another, accomplish this.

Now when this reality is considered, one question naturally arises.  If the sacraments are how concupiscence is healed, why is it that we still are inclined to sin even after receiving the sacraments?  The Catechism again provides us an insightful answer in paragraph 2002.  They state that God's free initiative demands man's free response.  One iota of grace from the sacraments, in theory, would be enough to completely cure man from all concupiscence.  Yet this is not the case in reality. While grace indeed is a powerful gift, we must use that gift properly.

Yet human experience teaches us that we seldom, if ever do something "perfectly."  This is why frequenting the sacraments must be habitual.  Every time we receive one of the sacraments, concupiscence is weakened and we become less and less attached to sin.  Provided we use our gifts properly, we can even replace that attachment to sin with a greater and greater attachment to God.  That makes the sacraments even more efficacious, and the cycle repeats itself with every reception.

This can be a challenging message for today's Catholics, even those who are perfectly orthodox.  It isn't easy to recognize how disposed to sin we are, and it certainly isn't sexy to describe advancing in holiness in such incremental and small terms.  Some popular Catholic evangelists even describe such an approach as the antithesis of the meaning of life.  Yet I would counter that it is a far humbler and more realistic assessment of our condition.  Holiness is a difficult thing, and a lifelong process.  The sacraments make this a goal we can achieve, and we should spend as much of our time as possible encouraging this mindset.

Beyond Booster Shots: A Different Approach to the Sacraments

During a recent debate caused by an article in Catholics News Agency, this humble journalist decided to take a different approach from the standard discussion, and planted our flag around a defense of the sacraments.  While it might have been a curious defense, I hope to explain at least my reasons for doing so.  Going forward, I think it is a powerful tool for the evangelization not just of those outside the Church, but of Catholics as well.

As Catholics, we should have a special love and affection for the sacraments.  While God provides grace through thousands of everyday situations, it is through the sacraments that he provides grace in a very special manner.  He provides sanctifying grace that makes us holy and allows us to live a Christian life to the fullest.  On this, anyone worthy of the name Catholic would agree.

Yet I think we Catholics approach the sacraments from a flawed analysis.  We view them as mere "booster shots" for the already holy.  So long as we are without mortal sin, we go to the sacraments, get our booster shot of infused grace, and we become holier.  While there is certainly this aspect to the sacraments, there needs to be a lot more to the sacraments if we are taking the Biblical, historical, and magisterial evidence seriously.

Now if we all remember our catechism classes, we remember hearing that a sacrament is a visible sign conferring an invisible reality.  This is certainly true, but not what I want to focus on. Now me, I slept through my Catechism class as a child, so thankfully I found the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which provides an explanation that, while not contradictory to the above definition, it goes in a different direction, one far more fascinating I would argue.

They [the sacraments] are "for the Church" in the sense that "the sacraments make the Church," since they manifest and communicate to men, above all in the Eucharist, the mystery of communion with the God who is love, One in three persons. (Paragraph 1118)

Christ instituted the sacraments of the new law. There are seven: Baptism, Confirmation (or Chrismation), the Eucharist, Penance, the Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders and Matrimony. the seven sacraments touch all the stages and all the important moments of Christian life: they give birth and increase, healing and mission to the Christian's life of faith. There is thus a certain resemblance between the stages of natural life and the stages of the spiritual life.  (Paragraph 1210)

From these paragraphs, I think we can come to a far deeper understanding of the sacraments, moving beyond the dogmatic textbook definitions to how those definitions matter in our everyday lives.  From this, we can see that the sacraments, far from being just a booster shot, are the essential activities of the Christian life.  On the natural level, they serve as a remembrance (in the truest sense) of the communion we were originally called to have with God that was damaged by sin, and the way to which that communion is restored.

Yet the sacraments of the New Covenant go beyond this powerful means of salvation to provide something even greater.  They not only call us back to the original calling Adam had, but they provide us something even greater than Adam ever possessed.  This is what makes the sacraments so important to the Christian, yet it is the aspect I believe is least covered in catechesis and evangelization.   I think this is a central problem facing Catholics today.  If we examine our lives closely, we are not treating the sacraments the way the Catechism describes them.  If we are lucky, we go to confession only if we screw up majorly, and then only to avoid hell.  We go to communion to be fed by Christ, but we don't do much to ponder the purpose of the sacrament.   This needs to change.  Hopefully in the future I can outline ways I think it needs to change, but most importantly I want individuals to talk amongst themselves (or even to themselves) about how we approach the sacraments, and where we can change and improve our approach.

Why Catholics Excercise at Mass

When finding out I was going to Sunday Mass, a secular friend remarked that "Kevin is off to do his weekly calisthenics."  To the outsider, the various physical activities Catholics do during mass can seem odd.  (And admit it, it sounds pretty odd when you read it phrased like that.)  To the outsider of the Latin Mass, this behavior is even stranger.  Even many Catholics find the idea of kneeling for 15 minutes straight during Mass to be a little odd.  Sometimes, even those in love with the mass fight find all the posture a bit silly, or it might even lose its meaning.  Yet I submit that if we actually stop and think about what we are doing, we will never look at the Mass the same way again.

As mentioned in previous entries, the Catholic mass uses everything for the worship of God.  Our bodies are no exception.  The human body is the greatest creation of God.  If we use fine gold and other precious metals (which we all treasure dearly in today's world) for God's glory, how can we not use ourselves?  Our actions during Mass take on a brand new meaning when looked at through this prism.

Even something as simple as sitting can take on a profound meaning.  When one sits, one is always told by their parents to sit up straight.  Sitting up straight implies full attention towards what is going on.  Outside of that, we are passive.  There's nothing more that we can do but pay attention and wait.  At every Mass, we are awaiting the moment when redemption is applied to us.

There are other times when we stand, for example during the Gospel.  When a general addresses his troops before war, those troops are standing and at the ready.  When we sing the Gloria or the creed, we are akin to one who has found a great truth, and stands from a high place proclaiming it to anyone who comes his way.  The Gloria is the announcement the angels gave when announcing Christ to the world.  When the Creed is proclaimed, we proclaim for all to hear the central truths of the faith, and that we personally confess them.

Other times we bow.  A bow is always a sign of reverence for something greater than yourselves.  It has long been a pious tradition of many to bow when they hear the name Jesus.  Others bow whenever one proclaims "Glory be to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning.."  When we bow, we place ourselves subject to that greater thing.  (The same could be said on a certain level of kneeling.)  Like John the Baptist, we state "He must increase, I must decrease."

Finally, we kneel down with both knees during Mass.  Kneeling is always the most vulnerable position for an individual to be in.  When we kneel in worship before God, we are acknowledging that vulnerability, and also stating that everything is dependant upon him.  That is why for example the Extraordinary Form has Catholics kneeling for the entire canon (or Eucharistic prayer), even if that is to take 10 minutes or longer.  At the very moment of consecration and the offering of the Body and Blood of Christ to the Father, the work of redemption is carried out upon every penitent individual in the entire world, including the individual kneeling in Church.  If there is anything more vulnerable than a full acknowledgement and realization of what utter failures we are, followed by a purging of those failures, I am unaware of such.

That is why posture matters at Mass.  Without it, we could very well be holding something back from God during worship.  So before you kneel, ask yourself why you are kneeling.  If you can't provide an answer, I suggest you think long and hard in finding one.

Silence and Participation at Mass

When we turn our attention to the Latin Mass, the Extraordinary Form is frequently criticized for lacking "participation."  Upon hearing this, the traditionalist offers a riposte about different theologies of participation, the deficiencies of this or that, you know the drill.  Very rarely does anybody have success convincing either side.

I would like to do something different.  I will freely concede that for a decent number of people, they are not participating properly at Mass.  I myself have been guilty of this.  I bet you have as well.  My mind has spaced out when a priest speaks in English and in Latin.  I have words I "understand" come off flat from my mouth, and a phrase spoken in Latin carry more meaning, and vice versa.  Whenever the issue of participation comes up, we should just simply point out one fact.  Catholics behaving badly is not the fault of this or that liturgical form.  After stating that, we must then dismiss the issue at hand.  Instead, let us focus on what true participation is.  In order to do that, we must first focus on what we are as individuals.

Each and every person truly is a complex work of art.  For one, we have a body.  We also have deep knowledge of our bodies.  Therefore in worshipping God, we use what we know best.  That body conducts different motions that convey certain expressions and attitudes.    When Moses encountered God, he is instructed to remove his sandals, for he was stepping on Holy Ground.  What he did with his feet was significant in how he worshipped God.  With feet and tongue, David worshipped God in dancing around the ark, and composing some of the most beautiful Psalms.  Yet God also said that in true worship of him "all flesh will keep silence", as the prophet Habakkuk relates.

To add to this complexity we have our intellect.  With our intellect comes reason, and with reason we find a path to God.  Our God wants to be known and in many ways understood by man.  Just as we use our intellect to ponder the depths of a friendship with someone, we can do likewise with God, coming to a greater understanding and love of Him by thinking of things concerning Him.  Yet sometimes God appears in ways the intellect cannot fathom.  The author of  Ecclesiastes had knowledge surpassing all man, and yet found knowledge vanity when contemplating God.  Paul spent his life plunging deeper and deeper intellectually into understanding God and His Holy Law.  Yet the closest encounter he had with God involved him being struck dumbfounded and on the ground.

Finally, we can add emotional sentiments onto this complexity.  Many times these are a mix of physical and intellectual things.  These are also used in finding God.  When King David recognized his sinful ways, he was overwhelmed with emotion.  These emotions are also caused by gladness, such as when Zechariah proclaimed his joy in God's wonders upon the birth of his son John the Baptist.  Yet for all the importance of emotions, St. John of the Cross describes encountering Christ, whose very touch suspended all senses and emotions.

Knowing all these facts, what can we say about worship?  First and foremost, there is no one singular way to worship.  As with all things human, there are limitations.  The Mass overcomes these limitations by including all the different forms of worship.  Not only is there something for everybody, everybody will experience the full spectrum of worship.

Considered from this perspective, the question about whether or not we are participating properly at Mass takes on new meaning.  Not by mistake did the Council of Vatican II call for participation which is not just "active", but "full and active", that is, spanning the entirety of the human condition.  If you approach every part of mass every time with nothing but stoic contemplation, you are missing the chances where we publicly and vocally affirm our faith in God.  Yet on the other side of that coin, we cannot focus so much on the vocal aspect of things that we neglect the times when silent adoration is called for.  Neither is inherently superior, rather both are superior in their own proper times.

Why Latin?

When people find out you attend a Latin Mass, they always get hung up on the Latin part.  I remember taking a trip down to Franciscan University of Stuebenville, and spending the evening with a group of otherwise perfectly orthodox Catholics.  When a young lady learned I went to the Latin Mass, her response sticks with me to this day.  "Why Latin?  Don't you believe in the Holy Spirit and Vatican II?"  Crazy as it sounds, she didn't mean anything  ill by it.

To many, the Latin Mass is constructed as follows.  The congregation sits with their faces buried in a missal (or fingers thumbing on a Rosary) while the priest has his back turned to the faithful praying in silence so you can't hear him.  When you can hear him, it's in a language you deliberately cannot understand.  If that's how it has been taught to you, one would certainly think there's nothing about the Holy Spirit there!

From a certain perspective, there are elements of truth to each of these statements.  Yet that doesn't change the fact this characterization of the Churches ancient liturgy couldn't be any further from the truth.  Let us consider the use of the Latin language.

In my regular career, I work in a data center for a global corporation.  That data center is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  The servers in that data center are accessed by individuals in over 40  countries.  In those countries exist people speaking even more languages.  Many times, I have to be in touch with these individuals speaking a variety of languages.  We need to speak in a language we both understand.  In this case, every global support contact for our company has to be fluent in English.  Whether I am speaking to Jaromir in Kostelec, Azmat in Russia, Ignacio in Mexico City, we communicate in and are understood in one language.  If one prefers a nerdier example, a physicist in Tokyo and a physicist in New York can communicate to each other in their work even if neither knows the language the other speaks.  They speak through the language of mathematics.

The Catholic Church is like the business I work for in the aspect of its size.  She spans countless cultures and languages.  Whenever Catholic leaders from across the globe put together things having to do with the Catholic Faith, they as well have a universal language.  The documents of an Ecumenical Council are worthless from a doctrinal point of view unless in Latin.  The official liturgical books are only authoritative in the  Latin.  Attempt to write something authoritative on canon law in your native tongue with no reference to the Latin, and your likely to get laughed out of whatever venue you are in.  Precisely because the Church exists here on earth on a global scale, you need that universal language.

"Well that is the Church on a greater level.  What about the individual Church?"  You will frequently hear that question asked.  I will only say one thing.  If you look at the Mass you celebrate as different from the Mass celebrated in other Churches, you are doing it wrong.  There is only one sacrifice of the Mass.  That is celebrated in heaven, outside of time.  This one offering is made present on the altars throughout the world, due to a miracle.  No matter which day we attend Mass, we are attending the same Mass, the same sacrifice.  It was for this symbolic reason that masses were in a universal language.

Yet why Latin?  Why not English, or Swahili for that matter?  In short, it is what worked best throughout history.  There's no divine or theological reasoning behind it.  Latin was the language of all of Christianity for at least the first several centuries.   Latin was the language of the Roman Empire.  When the Empire fell, the Latin language influenced countless languages.  Most importantly, it fell out of use.  The meanings of the phrases became fixed.  In our English language, one need only look at such terms like "liberal" or "conservative" at the founding of our country, to how they are used today.  That dead language is one that can be reasonably learned by the greatest amount of people and the meaning of those words will be consistent and reliable.

Yet most importantly, this language links you to a greater tradition and patrimony.  When Christ celebrated the Passover Seder, he did not do so in the common language.  He said it in the dialect and tongue of those first Hebrews as they left Egypt.  In the thousands of years since, the language had developed.  By using the same words in the same language, it was yet another way to make present the anamnesis of the Seder.  Our defecient English language translates anamnesis as "remembrance."  To the Jew celebrating Passover (and the Catholic celebrating Mass), the "remembrance" or "memorial offering" is something far deeper.  When they partake in the rituals of the Passover, they are living what is symbolized by them.  When we Catholics of the Roman Rite assist at or celebrate Mass, we use that Latin language as a way to unite ourselves to those first Roman priests who celebrated Mass on the tombs of martyrs.  We unite ourselves with the Popes who carefully through the years developed organically that liturgy.

Does this mean that a Mass not done in Latin is somehow less of a Mass?  Certainly not!  Yet when dealing with such sublime mysteries, we go as far as possible  in immersing ourselves in them.  When dealing with the Mass, one cannot immerse themselves in it enough.

Why a Latin Wedding?

Whenever people here of our engagement, people always ask "So where are you going to be married?"  When they hear St. Josaphat in Detroit, a lot of people know how beautiful the Church is.  Seriously, its reputation precedes itself.  When they hear that we are having the nuptial mass according to the Extraordinary Form (or a Latin Mass Wedding), the reactions are mainly mixed, in and of itself a good thing.

That the reaction is simply "mixed" and not outright scorn and ostracizing is a sign that yes, the Latin Mass has found itself a place in today's Catholicism.  Is some of that scorn still present?  Indeed, yet for the most part that scorn is kept silent.  The far more likely reaction is either curiosity or confusion.  A lot of non-catholics (or those no longer practicing) have given most of the curiosity.  In an irony of ironies, traditionalism is a novelty today, and they are fascinated by the novelty if nothing else.  Others love the beauty.  To those curious, they can only attend our wedding and find out.

My focus today (and for quite some time) is on the confused.  It isn't that they are hostile to the idea of a Latin Mass Wedding.  They just don't understand what the big deal is.  I do not know if I can accurately convey why I view it a big deal.  Yet I hope to offer an explantion for why I love this way of celebrating Mass.

Throughout 2011 I did a series here at Common Sense Catholicism explaining various facets of the Extraordinary Form.  I'd like to revisit those works and reboot them with these considerations in mind.  The first section of postings will center around various questions about the Latin Mass and some basic answers, while the second portion will focus on the individual prayers contained in the Mass and the great meaning behind them.  Even if one attends nothing but the Ordinary Form, I hope this helps you in achieving a greater understanding of the one Mass, no matter how it be celebrated here on Earth, for it is the same in heaven.

Allow Myself to Reintroduce Myself

It certainly has been an interesting eleven months.  A lot has changed since then in my life and I'm sure those readers who were around before.  I went from being a rather busy blogger to disappearing.  Why?  A combination of marathon Skyrim sessions (getting the game to 95% complete takes a lot longer than you might think, and you might think it takes pretty darn long!) and the relationship I've been in for now almost two years.  That relationship has now led to an engagement set for June 1st, 2013.

Fast forward to today.  I've burned myself out on Skyrim, and PC gaming in general.  Even if I haven't been writing actively, I haven't completely disappeared.  The TOB debates still ravaged in the background, and I managed to participate when my advice was asked.  My traditionalism remained as always.  Indeed, I simply found different ways of expressing a lot of the things that I've written about, this time through actions instead of words.

Yet all exiles end eventually, and this one is no different.  For awhile I lacked a reason to write.  I now have a reason, which I hope to make clear throughout the following posts.  Yet in the end, there is one reason above all to write.  I once again enjoy doing so.  This isn't a career for me.  I had that chance yet felt called elsewhere.  Yet if it is not a career, it is still a huge part of my life.  That I have fun doing this I hope will come across in these writings.  Far too often my ideological kindred are doom and gloom.  It is hard not to be.  Yet the grace of God is meant to liberate human nature, and that liberation also comes from gloom and despair.  We represent a way of looking at the world that has lifted billions out of despair and sin, and guided them towards true and eternal happiness.  Why on earth would anyone belonging to such a patrimony be gloomy?

A lot of the projects I worked on in the past will resurface or be rebooted with the freshness these past eleven months have provided.  With that let us continue on our journey..... at least until The Elder Scrolls VI, future children, or a Detroit Tigers championship come upon us, whichever come first.