Meditation for the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist

"Beyond the most sacred day of our Lord's nativity, we have read that no one else's birthday is celebrated, except that of John the Baptist," begins St. Augustine in his homily for today. He continues: "For others the completed merits of their last day are celebrated: but for him (that is, John the Baptist) even his first day, even the very beginnings of the man are set apart for honor." And why is this? To summarize st. Augustine's thought, John the Baptist's coming is what does him the greatest honor, not his leaving. In his coming the new law of grace is announced to the world, while in his leaving the prophets of the Old Law pass away, for, under that testament, says the Holy Scripture, no one came better than St. John the Baptist, and no one came after.

There is a bit of a theological lesson here, which is of an immediately practical value to every professing Christian.  Law, that is to say, the compulsion of obedience to a rightful ruler, in the theological sense, God, no matter how rightly conceived, no matter how justly and kindly intended, is always superseded by love.  This less is tauaght us by the Apostle John in his first epistle, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love."

Now, I find, as a rule, that this doctrine is one of the most embarassing for Catholics. We who, as a communion, are perhaps the most litigious of churches, the most systemetized of Christian religions, often find ourselves the object of no small ridicule from other Christians, especially those such as the Evangelicals, who seem, and I can say seem, because I was one of them, to be without all the rules, all the legalistic proceedings and entanglements in which we Catholics seemed to be involved.  Anyone who has sat through a Baptist business meeting, however, can tell you how false such an assumption would be. They need rules just the same as we all do.  For them, those rules are enshrined in that paradigm of deliberative democracy, Robert's Rules of Order, for us, those rules are enshrined in the Code of Canon Law.  Theirs were complied by a military General; ours were compiled from the teachings and decisions of Holy Church Councils, gathered from all over Christendom to hear and proclaim the Word of God, Councils at which saints, in various times, both presided and deliberated. I will leave to your judgment which source is the more likely to have been inspired by God, and which should be justly called "the traditions of men."

The saints, however, had no need of these laws.  Far be it, indeed, from our imagination to suggest that the chaste and unmarried bishops had any need to make laws about the proper conduct of an annulment.  Nor do any of you who take the marital life as seriously as the teachings of Our Lord demand.  Annulments are not the substance of our Lord's teaching about marriage, but the consequence of human sinfulness. It is such that even under the law of love handed on to us by our Saviour the Church is watchful for the rights and duties of all, and for the maintenance of good order, which is the means by which both are kept, as St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "God is not a God of confusion but of peace."

There is a problem, however, with acting or believing only in fear of the law: it cannot save us.  It cannot hope to keep us free from the temptations of the world, and it cannot help us when our need exceeds the scope and letter of the law.  Think, for example, of the state of our soul after we have sinned mortally.  The price for that sin has already been paid, and we have no need to do anything more than feel contrition for the commission of such a sing against righteousness and seek the healing remedy of a good confession before God and perform the little penance assigned to us by our priest. What, however, in the case of an unprepared for death, with no priest around to give us the sacrament of annointing that will forgive us our sins?  We will go straight from that place to eternal damnation, and spend all ages separated from the God who loves us.  Fear of punishment puts us at the mercy of God, but it does not of itself obtain the grace of God, which is the necessary criterion for salvation.

But love, what does love accomplish?  First of all, love obtains for us from God the grace not to sin at all in the first place.  Second, if we do sin, only love can move us to full repentance for our sins, not simply that they have violated the "law" of God, but mainly because we love and desire reunion with God, whom we cherish about all the lesser desires for which we committed the sin.  We call this second kind of repentence "perfect contrition" and by it we are reconciled to God, although we must still confess it to a priest with the faculties to give us absolution, so that we can be fully restored to participation in the sacraments, such as Holy Communion.  In this way the Church knows with certainty that we are free from any guilt that would lead to sacrilege. The Church must, in its governance, remain in bondage to law and formality for the sake of our souls, as indeed St. Paul writes, "For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more."  St. Paul was a bishop and an apostle to the whole church, and in him the Church itself is perfectly figured, for she is free "from all men" having Christ as her cornerstone and foundation, with St. Peter's successors as his representatives, yet, nevertheless, in her solicitude for the salvation of souls, she gives herself freely in bondage to the weakness of men so as to maintain good order and assure the salvation of souls. Love, however, remains supreme. By love, you have no need to fear the Law. By love, you obtain the grace which will kepp you from damnation and, what is more important, the grace which will grant you everlasting fellowship with God.

In the words of St. John the Baptist, who as I said at the beginning of my sermon, is a representative of all that is great and right about the law, "he must increase and I must decrease." If you substitute the word "Love" for "He" and "the Law" for "I" you get the sense of my simple message to you.  "Love must increase and the Law must decrease." St. John the Baptist died at the petty whim of a tyrant, a martyr, to be sure, but whose soul did he save by his death? Has even one man been ransomed from his state of sin by the death of the greatest of prophets? Was his death one like the martyrs, who died with the full knowledge of the Gospel, having heard about the Resurrection of our Lord? St. John the Baptist was greater than all the Prophets, but in some ways, less than all the Christian martyrs.

I say this not because I want to take anything away from the honour we give St. John the Baptist today. Hardly.  St. John the Baptist cannot be praised more than the words by which our Lord praised him, "Among those born of a woman, there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist."  To him even Our Lord felt it necessary to be humble in the reception of Baptism.  The Church rightly calls upon us to praise the man who even in the womb knew the Spirit of the Lord.  Not many of us can say that for ourselves.

Rather, I am saying this to show you that St. John the Baptist is nonetheless a different kind of saint, to be honoured in a different kind of way. All of us, indeed, are invited by the feasts of saints to reflect on our deeds in comparison with theirs, the better to recognize in ourselves our manifold failures in comparison to their virtues.  This is only right and proper, seeing as they have had the same opportunities as they, and, whereas they have conquered, we have more often than not, failed miserably when put to the test. But with st. John the Baptist it is different.  We rather see how fortunate we are to have received the message of love and the baptism given us by Jesus Christ, so that we should never receive the condemnation and baptism of St. John. This acts as an exhortation not to a stricter and more literal understanding of the law and its demands, but rather to a fulfilment and transcendence of of the law through God's grace.  This honors St. John all the more, because it was to prepare for this that he lived and conducted his ministry.

Let us, all of us, take the moral law, contained in the ten commandments, and the precepts of the Church in this way. We may not transgress them, to be sure, for all the moral teachings of the church, namely, what is and is not a sin, and the procedures that regulate its governance are not meant to be burdensome.  Indeed they become light once you embrace loving God for who he is, once you stop following after God for fear of his punishments, or men, of your wives' punishments, or wives, of the other women's. Then,seek to do his will at every moment. Life is short and fragile.  It is not worth spending it in boredom.  But if you begin to love God, if you let it burn within your heart, you will start to find Church a lot less boring, and righteousness a lot more natural than before, and may our Lord help us to keep all these things, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

The Living Power of Gregorian Chant

Recently I was looking back over some various Gregorian Chant pieces, various masses and propers that I have sung with my scholas in Michigan and Arkansas, and realized just how much I missed being in a group like that, singing my heart out to the finest music ever known to mankind.  Yeah, Gregorian Chant is that good.

When I think back, especially, to my schola experience in Michigan, there is one memory in particular that sticks out. It was when we were singing a piece, I believe it was "Passer invenit," a Communion antiphon. You can look it up if you like. If you don't look it up, all you need to know is that it is a particularly hard piece, or at least it was for me, with some very interesting rhythms and intervals.  If I remember correctly, the Schola (complete name: Schola of the Chair of St. Peter) worked quite a bit on this piece to get it right. Then, we were at Mass, and, amazingly, as we sang verse after verse of the psalm, repeating the Antiphon each time, the piece just came together. I looked up and realized that the rhythm and intervals had become second nature, and as I saw the heads in the front row looking up from their music and bobbing their heads with the steady ictus of the first few measures, I realized that we had moved into something special. The Chant was ours now, a simple, natural prayer from us to God.

That is the power of Chant. The power to unite souls in praise to God. The power to transcend what you think is normal, the normal, simple rhythms of popular music, to the ethereal (is that the right word?) rhythms of the outer courts of God.

Chant has this incredible ability to show outwardly what you are like inwardly. The fact that we were all together, and indeed, were amazingly cohesive in our general practice of Chant was not due to any virtuosity on any of our parts. It was due to the fact that we had an internal order and discipline, if you will, a hierarchy of organization that centered around the leadership by our cantor and director extraordinaire. The Chant was able to show this by the unity with which we sang. With the free rhythms of Chant, if a group is not thinking together, it shows. If a group is thinking of something else, it shows. If a group is thinking of the notes, and not of the whole life of the chant, it shows.

There are some great Chant recordings that show this. Of course, the Chant as performed by the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silas is a perfect example. They know what they are singing, and they think completely alike on singing it. I particularly recommend their second album and their album "Ave Maria" as examples of this. There is also a wonderful recording, I believe called, "A Treasury of Gregorian Chant" or something like it, by the Monks of St. Wandrille, which is the perfect example of chant coming out of a united and liturgy-centered lifestyle. Most of the secular artists, including my favorite Anonymous 4, simply do not come close to the organic and perfect renditions by these groups of faithful monks.

What is Gregorian Chant? What is it's essential definition? This is an essential question for all would-be scholas to ask themselves. Gregorian Chant, first of all, is text. It is the text of the liturgy set to note and representing the song of the whole church, calling and responding between the leader(s) and the whole congregation. You can never forget that the power of Chant lies in the texts that are being sung, or you will miss the whole point, and it will show in the incomprehensibility of your performance. Secondly, Chant is life. It is the Christian life, lived in Music, a life that needs no earthly riches or adornment to make it beautiful, a life that consists in unity with the Head of the Church, Christ, and, consequently, with the priests and bishops of the whole Catholic Church.  Chant represents through the hierarchic organization of psalmist, or cantor, and choir. It also represents charity through the passing of verses between one group of the faithful, one side of the choir, and the other. This charity is reciprocal, and consists of the display of desire for the other's ultimate good through the sharing of the Holy Scriptures with one another. CHANT IS LIFE. Remember that.

How sad it is that we often choose cheap and  modern music for the Mass over this wonderful exchange, this wonderful demonstration of the mystery of our tradition. Now, it is very customary for modern catechists and Catholics to point out that Gregorian Chant is merely a "small-t" tradition that can be altered or set aside without any doctrinal consequences. This is in fact wrong, per the words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church 1124 "Liturgy is a constitutive element of the holy and living Tradition." That is not to say that to neglect Gregorian Chant is to violate tradition, but it is to neglect a source of tradition. For this reason the Council Fathers of the Second Vatican Council gave "pride of place" to Gregorian Chant as the proper music of the Roman Rite. 

Rather, Gregorian Chant, by its very nature, is a way of preaching and interpreting the Word of God as it was handed on to the apostles, since its root is in the sort of chants that were adopted by the immediate successors of the apostles. Yes, it is THAT old. Not every chant is that old, mind you, but quite a bit more than you would think, and, even the new chant, participates in the methodology and expression of the old. By its very nature of call and response, of free rhythmic expression, of the centrality of text in the performance of chant, Gregorian Chant opens us up to the Mystery of the eternal liturgy of which tradition itself is the primary chant on the mouths of the faithful.

So, that is so many words to say: CHANT IS LIFE. So, get out there, listen to it, learn it, demand it from your music directors, and put its teachings through the Holy Liturgy into practice in your own life.  

Indult for the SSPX- If I had my 'druthers

I have said repeatedly that I did not agree with the SSPX position regarding their canonical status and authority.  I still agree with that position. However, I thought I might write about a third way, between outright shunning the SSPX, something that I have never advocated, and giving them a blank check to ministry within the Church.  Clearly there are doctrinal issues to be worked out. Both Bishop Fellay and His Holiness have confirmed as much in their own statements, however much they disagree in the consequences of those disagreements. There are also disagreements about the legitimacy of their prior actions.  Neither of these, in my mind, merit the outright paralysis of the SSPX community.

So, here are my general thoughts. First of all, why are the German bishops trying to mess up the discussions that principally concern the Holy See and the SSPX by threats to impose additional penalties? The only other possible concern this could have to the faithful is the impact of the SSPX on those who are already inclined to attend the Usus Antiquior, and I am almost certain that neither the Institute of Christ the King, nor the Fraternity of St. Peter, nor almost any group attached to the Old Mass would favor additional penalties being waged against the fraternity, nor would they be of the opinion that such penalties favored their particular ministries in the Church.  Let's go with the experts here.  Moreover, such penalties could cause greater resentment to the ordinary processes of the Church, a sentiment already held by many SSPX priests, and thus minimize the chances of a succesful reintegration of the SSPX into the universal ministry of the Church. (I am increasingly thinking that the term 'reintegrate' is more appropriate than 'reconcile' because, although there is little reason to think that the ministry of the SSPX is contrary to the universal ministry of the Catholic Church, there is some reason to think that the ministry of the SSPX is not being included, canonically, in the universal ministry of the Catholic Church. Think of it as a musician playing off-cue.) I feel that some sort of moratorium ought to be placed on penalties against the SSPX.

Another step towards actual reconciliation (in this case, reconciliation of hearts and minds between the SSPX and the Catholic hierarchy) might be to provide some sort of relief to the hundreds of SSPX priests who are, by canon law, suspended a divinis so that they could exercise, rather, a limited ministry within the Church. My suggestion would be to limit priestly activities of the SSPX to their own chapels and to convents of nuns who would otherwise lack sacramental ministry, providing them an indult to celebrate the sacrament of confession for those who frequent their chapels, but preventing them from celebrating the sacrament of Holy Matrimony and the rites of initiation, the former positively forbidden and the latter forbidden except in situations where there is danger of death.  Perhaps there could also be a certain tolerance for the ongoing priestly ordinations, but ZERO tolerance for any episcopal consecrations. It strikes me that the above restrictions would allow the talks to go on with the minimum possible animosity.

But surely something could be demanded on the part of the SSPX? I would say agreement to adhere to the liturgical norms and restrictions of Summorum Pontificum, and a positive statement of their intention not to preach against the Holy See or against attending chapels/churches/oratories which have canonical good standing with the Church. In other words, reciprocity.

In other words, given the atmosphere of greater understanding that has followed since the lifting of the excommunications against the bishops of the SSPX,  is there not at least some justification for providing an atmosphere of tolerance while negotiations continue? This makes sense to me.    

Smoke- A love poem

O that my hand, as pale as a whisp of smoke,
Could take the hand of that sweet girl, whose voice is calling
From the hill, voice clear as light, light as smoke.
That I could see her sitting beside me, her love my comfort,
That I could be in her presence, potent wine to the soul,
I'd trade a thousand yesterdays, when I was alone;
I have only one today to give, meager wages.
Tomorrow is worthy of a lover's promise, enough for love,
To purchase it at some fatanstical altar by troth.
Do not lovers promise tomorrow? So would I,
Though my tomorrows are shorter, more piercing than yours.
Will you be my joy in them, and I your guide through their perils?
But all of this is smoke, as meaningless as ash,
I say, hoping you will not laugh. The fire is put out.
The smoke rises, the voice goes forth, and I go home;
You've sung in the day, but I've played in the night, until the hour
Tells me the journey home must be in the dark and cold.

The Essence of Traditionalism- Prolegomena

Towards the Essence of Traditionalism

A while ago, I had in mind the idea of writing a research paper on traditionalism, where I would try to uncover current perspectives on the question 'what is traditionalism?' and then produce my own particular definition of the same.  Although this was on my mind for some time, the paper was not, so it, as many such projects of mine, got left by the wayside. As a consolation prize, therefore, I thought I might talk a bit about the meditations that led me first to think about this question.

In order to define traditionalism, there are two routes that one must take.  The first is practical. What do traditionalists do? Are there any universal characteristics for such a group of people? Then there is the theoretical. Why do traditionalists do what they do, and is there a good reason for them to do it? To what is traditionalism opposed and what is the opposite of traditionalism? Is the ground of traditionalism compatible with a single faith, given that it is such a particular movement. These are the questions that I believe must be answered by every critical thinker on the subject of traditionalism.

On the practical side, it would be easy to note that Catholic traditionalists have very little in common. Some advocate, for example, attending chapels that are not fully recognized by Rome, others do not.  Some people who define themselves as traditionalists attend Latin liturgies exclusively, others are willing to attend other services for just cause, and others merely for the sake of convenience. Some female traditionalists wear mantillas, others do not while acknowledging the wearing of mantillas to be the ideal.  Some are more in favor of renewing liturgical services to use Gregorian Chant more regularly, while others are simply in favor of returning to the way the Mass was being said customarily in the 1950's and '60's. The list of differences goes on and on.

Acknowledging that such differences exist, though, I think a broadly practical definition is possible. Traditionalists generally define themselves as such, and are defined by others as such, if they tend towards the re-incorporation of practices from before the 1960's, whether abrogated or made optional, and the promotion of what they perceive to be a uniquely Catholic culture.

This latter point is important. Although traditionalists are characterized by their attachment to liturgical forms common before the reform of the liturgy in the 1960's, they are quite distinct in their culture from, say, the average blue-collar Irish Catholic in the 1940's, or really at any time before that.  Instead, Catholic traditionalists, often adopting the distributist ethics of Chesterton and Belloc, and applying them in actual reality (which is unqiue in and of itself), often prefer rural settings, they are often to the extreme right in terms of economic and welfare policy, and often adopt lifestyles that are purposely opposed to that of most modern individuals. Any long experience with such groups will demonstrate the sort of home-spun simplicity which is common to many traditionalist families.

However, even as I point out the simple practical definition I have written above I realize that it is somewhat inadequate.  Most Catholics, in fact, from whatever persuasion, find themselves looking back to SOME practice that existed before the reform, and even, to a certain extent, define themselves by that bit of conservativism. I would argue that the distinction in culture, the creation, through various organizations, such as the FSSP, the SSPX, and so forth, that choose, in one way or another, to model themselves off of one another, is in fact the ONLY practical way to identify a singular movement that could be called "traditionalism." To put it bluntly, traditionalism has no central practices or characteristics that can define it as a separate movement, although various groups do try to claim the crown for their own particular organization. Rather, only the self-identification and corporate unity of such a group can really be called the traditionalist movement as it stands presently.

However, the second path that I mentioned above, the second goal of this discussion, must be to leave behind the practical identification of traditionalists, and try to deconstruct the social reality of traditionalism into one particular definition of the movement itself.  In so doing, we are not merely distilling the characteristics or dominant beliefs of such a group, but rather creating a paradigm by which groups of this sort may be both compared and judged. Why should we do this? Because, unless this essential philosophical work is done, the traditionalist movement, confined to the above practical definition has little or no value as a theological position to the Catholic Church. Dominicans do not offer themselves, their own existence, as an argument for or against the Church, nor do Franciscans. THAT they exist is no argument, and signifies nothing more than that God has, in his Providence, provided a particular means for those individuals salvation. However, it is in WHAT they are that makes them a real contribution to the theological vision of the Catholic Church, as witnesses of scholarship and poverty, of course.
Moreover, their movements are to be estimated in terms of WHO is the person contributing to the good of the Church by contributing to each movement. Thus, we could not leave out an estimation, a definition of the contribution of the Oratorians as a society without including the Ven. John Cardinal Newman. In that sense, whatever new definition of the term that we uncover (or is it rather an act of organization and categorization?) MUST include those who, in particular, are contributing to the Universal Church as a theological position and perspective. Here I would mention two names in particular as needing to be incorporated into that vision: Michael Davies and Archbishop Lefebvre. Since now, of course, we have moved from things to ideas, from bodies to concepts, there is little need to discuss the ecclesiastical actions of those individuals, except insofar as they are grounded in their particular ideas. Since, of course, this blog is not a research paper, I feel content to leave this statement as a prolegomenon to actual research into the ideas and statements of these two men, each great in their own way.

Another way to approach the definition of traditionalism is to try to define its opposites and those whom it opposes. That these are two different concepts is an important belief to settle upon from the outset. Imprisonment is opposed to crime, for example, or at least to public harm. That, however, is not intrinsic to a definition of the concept of "imprisonment." For, indeed, if prisons were merely defined as a state "whereby people are prevented from harming the public" we should have very little idea of the concept of a prison, and certainly no paradigm to compare one type of imprisonment with another. The opposite of "imprisonment," however,is "freedom." This gets more at the description of the thing in question, and less on its final goal.

So, what is traditionalism opposed to? Traditionalism is ideologically opposed to modernism, or the belief in a battery of different modern doctrines which were condemned as heresies by popes throughout the last few centuries. It does this by being the opposite of "progressivism," which, while being related temporally, is not able to be identified as modernism per se. Thus, while a traditionalist would be opposed to the purposed updating of liturgical rituals in the name of some ideological belief in progress, such updating would not necessarily be motivated by a belief in, say, the evolution of doctrine. Progressivism, however, is a key tool for the promotion of modern ideas, among which modernism is clearly to be numbered. Traditionalism therefore denies modernism an important tool for its propagation. In that regard, we should probably measure a traditionalist movement by its purposed contrariness to progressivism (not progress, I should mention, but a movement which promotes change in the name of progress, rather than believing that previous practices are sufficient for current problems), and value it based on how well it prevents and catechizes the Church against modernism.

I would, however, caution traditionalists with creating a false dichotomy between traditionalism and modernism.  Traditionalism, it is true, is an obstacle to modernism, but it is not its opposite.  An opposite must be mutually exclusive with its opposite. Thus, that someone is imprisoned does not mean that society cannot be harmed by that person. Rather, that society cannot be harmed by that person is an indication that someone has been imprisoned WELL. In the same way, that someone is a traditionalist does not mean that they are also clear of any modernist heresies, rather that they are clear of any modernist heresies would show that they are a GOOD traditionalist. I dare say the fallacies of modernism are present even in many traditionalist circles.

There are a number of other things I could say on this topic, but I think I will leave them for now. Does anyone else have anything to add? What is the relationship of the traditionalist movement to the hierarchy of the church, and to what extent do they rightfully seek recognition from the same? Etc.