Larry: Vatican II means "no more Latin"

And check out the 38 Responses to Videos for your amusement and edification at Fr. Z.'s.

[Hat tip to Fr. Z.]

Beyond the do-nothing "New Evangelization"

[Hat tip to Fr. Z.]

Signs of the times? Gag me.

Today I stopped at the local post office to buy stamps -- Christmas stamps to mail Christmas cards to friends and relatives.

At the window, the lady presented the selection of Christmas stamps they had available. These included stamps with images of 1) abstract Christmas tree ornaments, 2) Kwanzaa, 3) Hanukkah, and 4) the Muslim holiday, Eid ul-Fitr, in ornamental Arabic.

I asked the lady what happened to the stamps of the Madonna and Child. She said she didn't know. She asked some of the other postal workers, but none knew anything about them.

I persisted: "Let me see, you're saying that these are your only selection of CHRISTMAS stamps?" She nodded. "... and this one is Christmas tree ornaments, that one commemorates an African-American celebration of dubious origin, this one a Jewish holiday, and the last one a Muslim holiday?"

She shrugged, and I walked away with stamps picturing the abstract Christmas tree ornaments.

Gag me.

Comic Larry & Sarah discuss ad orientem & Novus Ordo

[Hat tip to Fr. Z.]

The Quandary of Personal Parishes – Part 1 of 3

Tridentine Community News (December 4, 2011):

This week’s announcement from the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council of the Archdiocese of Detroit recommending possible further parish closures, merging, and clustering raises a number of questions for discussion. Of primary interest to readers of this column was the following statement:

“Sweetest Heart of Mary, St. Josaphat, and St Joseph should begin in February 2012 to develop a transition plan, to be submitted by June 2012, to eliminate 1 worship site and consolidate Mass schedules to conform to the archdiocesan policy of following Canon Law for a Priest to say no more than 3 Masses on a regular weekend.”

Without commenting on the pros and cons of making such a change, the particular rationale expressed is erroneous on two fronts:

1. Code of Canon Law Canon 905.2 states:

   “If there is a shortage of priests, the local ordinary can allow priests to celebrate twice a day for a just cause, or if pastoral necessity requires it, even three times on Sundays and holy days of obligation.”

   Thus, a priest is restricted to celebrating no more than three Masses per day, not per weekend. Think of the many parishes where a Saturday consists of a morning Mass, an afternoon wedding Mass, and an afternoon anticipated Sunday Mass. The same priest who celebrates three such Masses could not reasonably be expected not to celebrate a Mass the next day, Sunday, when multiple parish Masses might be scheduled.
   
   
2. There is a presumption that the pastor of our cluster is celebrating more than three Masses per weekend. One look at our cluster schedule would inform a reader that unless there is a wedding, it is physically impossible for our pastor to celebrate more than three Masses in the cluster on a weekend, because of the timing of the Masses in our three churches. The APC does not seem to realize that other priests are regular celebrants of our Masses. Indeed, all but one of the Sunday Tridentine Masses since July 1, 2011, the arrival date of Fr. Darrell, have been celebrated by priests other than our pastor.

Since the APC has opened the possibility of closing one of our worship sites on the basis of a perception of a shortage of priests, it is relevant to bring up two related subjects that have been on many of our readers’ minds for years: 1) The possibility of the Archdiocese of Detroit creating a Personal Parish for the Tridentine Mass, and 2) “Can the Fraternity of St. Peter help?”

Priests Are Available and Interested in Coming to the Archdiocese of Detroit

Surely one of the most positive developments in the Church in our age is the rapid growth of priestly communities devoted to the Extraordinary Form of Holy Mass. Since 1988, when such communities began to be founded, the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), the Institute of Christ the King (ICRSP), the Institute of the Good Shepherd, and assorted others throughout the world have been growing as fast as they can construct or acquire seminaries and houses of formation to accommodate the flood of vocations coming their way. They need to promote vocations awareness about as much as the Super Bowl needs to advertise that tickets are on sale. The below chart from a recent FSSP mailing illustrates their staggering growth:


The FSSP is the fastest growing group. Others, like the ICRSP, intentionally restrict themselves to one seminary only, to give each seminarian exposure to the same instructors.

Since 2004, one formal and several informal discussions have been held between the Archdiocese of Detroit and the FSSP and ICRSP regarding sending a priest to help staff St. Josaphat. Both groups expressed interest, with the FSSP offering greater flexibility in options. While nothing came of the talks, the recent arrival of the SOLT order to assume responsibility for Detroit’s Holy Redeemer Parish demonstrates a welcome new openness to accepting outside priests. This writer recalls hearing on the Dialogue TV show or in the Michigan Catholic newspaper a few years ago that an African bishop offered to send priests to Detroit from the surplus that his diocese enjoyed, but Cardinal Maida declined because of challenges of inculturation. Interestingly, Old St. Mary’s Church now has an African pastor and has employed several African priests from the Holy Ghost Fathers over the years; inculturation is certainly possible. The point is that there are priests available to come to Detroit to make up for the shortage of diocesan clergy. Before taking as serious an action as closing a church, the Archdiocese would seem to be best served by exploring thoroughly the option of bringing in priests who are interested in coming here. Over the next two weeks, we will discuss the pros and cons of involving one of these groups of priests with the St. Josaphat Tridentine Community, and possibly the broader regional Extraordinary Form Mass scene.

Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

Mon. 12/05 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Josaphat (Feria of Advent)

Tue. 12/06 7:00 PM: Low Mass at Assumption-Windsor (St. Nicholas, Bishop & Confessor)

Thu. 12/08 7:00 PM: High Mass at St. Josaphat (Immaculate Conception – Holy Day of Obligation in the U.S.)

Sun. 12/04 12:15 PM: High Mass at Ss. Peter & Paul (west side) (Third Sunday of Advent – Gaudéte Sunday)

[Comments? Please e-mail info@windsorlatinmass.org. Previous columns are available at http://www.windsorlatinmass.org/latin/tnews.htm. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the Windsor Assumption Catholic Church bulletin insert for December 4, 2011.]

Archbishop of Westminster praises same-sex "Civil Partnerships"???

Another case of idolatrous worship before the golden cow of political conformity with the trade winds of cultural fashion, I would suppose (here's the source) ...

... but 'New Catholic' draws on a Gaudium et Spes, 29, excerpt, which, he suggests, makes it also "A Vatican II moment in England" (Rorate Caeli, November 29, 2011).

SSPX update

Via the Knights of Columbus' Headline Bistro comes this story (as of 8:48pm EST yesterday): "Interview with the SSPX Superior General: The Doctrinal Preamble" (Rorate Caeli, November 28, 2011).

New Ordinary Form Translation Debuts

Tridentine Community News (November 27, 2011):

[Last Sunday was] a major day for our fellow Catholics who follow the Ordinary Form of Holy Mass, as the new English translation of Mass is now mandated. Much has been debated about this translation, but in the end, it is an undeniably significant step forward in restoring sacral language to the Liturgy. The Confíteor, Glória, and Credo, among other parts, are more faithful to the original Latin text, which itself displays continuity with the Extraordinary Form. New Altar Missals place an emphasis on chanting parts of the Ordinary of the Mass, while the GIRM (rubrics) of the missal recommends use of the Proper Antiphons, until now rarely heard in the Ordinary Form. Those Catholics who attend the Tridentine Mass should find the new texts and rubrics closer to their preferences, while Catholics who normally attend the Ordinary Form will become more accustomed to the style of language which is used in the Extraordinary Form.

Recommended Books for Traditional Catholics

Over the years, this column has made mention of many books that might interest those who attend the Extraordinary Form. As Christmas approaches, it seemed beneficial to round up a list of books which might make good gifts. This list is purely subjective and represents the opinion of no one but this writer. Most of these books are issued by a small set of publishers; perhaps that is a comment on their good skills in creating or reprinting some excellent titles. Space prevents us from providing publishers’ and retailers’ addresses; please Google the names of the books in order to find vendors.

Hand Missals for the Extraordinary Form

A wide variety of hand missals are available. Of those which are in print, the Baronius Press Daily Missal 1962 and the Angelus Press 1962 Roman Catholic Daily Missal are the most up-to-date, with the former carrying an Imprimátur. Be sure to get the latest editions, which correct typos present in earlier editions. Also worth considering is the Marian Daily Missal, the most typographically accurate hand missal produced, and one filled with numerous devotional prayers: the 1958 edition has been reprinted by Loreto Publications.

General Prayer Books

Fr. Lasance’s Blessed Sacrament Prayerbook (Loreto Publications) is the most comprehensive traditional prayer book currently in print.

The 2006 Manual of Indulgences (USCCB Publishing), and the Latin book from which it was derived, the 2004 Enchirídion Indulgentiárum (www.paxbook.com), are the currently in-force lists of Indulgenced prayers and works. It cannot be overstated how important it is for Catholics to know about the opportunities for grace found in these acts.

The Purgatorian Manual (Loreto Publications) is a compact 300 page handbook featuring extensive devotions to the Holy Souls. The similar but thinner Novena for the Relief of the Poor Souls in Purgatory is available from JMJ Religious Books for only $1.25 [more at Amazon].

Holy Hour of Reparation (CMJ Books) can be used for public or private prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.

The Divine Office and Little Offices

After several years of delays, Baronius Press is now promising that their long-awaited Latin-English Breviary will ship before Christmas. No other 1961 Breviary in print is as comprehensive as this edition, though the particular English translation used does not employ the hierarchical English typically found in hand missals.

Baronius’ 2011 (third) edition of The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the most accurate rendition of the traditional version of this relatively brief Indulgenced Little Office.

The Little Office of the Immaculate Conception (with Explanation) (www.miqcenter.com) is a pocket-sized, inexpensive, very brief Indulgenced Office.

Spiritual Reading

The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis is a classic. Few books condense as much common-sense spirituality into as few sentences as this one. Each chapter, though short, provides a tremendous amount of food for thought; this book is not meant for quick skimming. Two good editions exist: The hardcover edition from Catholic Book Publishing is a small and durable, modern but orthodox translation, while the hardcover and paperback editions from Baronius Press are larger and employ Bishop Challoner’s more traditional translation.

True Devotion to Mary a.k.a. True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin by St. Louis de Montfort (Baronius Press) and My Daily Bread (Confraternity of the Precious Blood) are similarly meaty reading.

Hand Missal for the Ordinary Form

Readers seeking an updated hand missal for the Ordinary Form of Holy Mass need look no further than Midwest Theological Forum. Their Latin/English Daily Roman Missal is now out in a seventh edition incorporating the new English translations. A variety of cover styles and colors are available. This book is ideal for use at the various Novus Ordo Latin Masses celebrated around the Archdiocese of Detroit.

Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

Mon. 11/28 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Josaphat (Feria of Advent)

Tue. 11/29 7:00 PM: Low Mass at Assumption-Windsor (Feria of Advent)

Wed. 11/30 7:00 PM: High Mass at St. Josaphat (St. Andrew, Apostle)

Sun. 12/04 1:00 PM: High Mass at Rosary Chapel at Assumption-Windsor [Special time this Sunday only]

[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@stjosaphatchurch.org. Previous columns are available at www.stjosaphatchurch.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Josaphat bulletin insert for November 27, 2011. Hat tip to A.B.]

More Vatican tweaking, now on architecture

"New Vatican commission cracks down on church architecture" (Vatican Insider, November 21, 2011).

As one writer put it: "Long time coming, but sorely needed."

[Hat tip to C.B.]

Another must-watch Nigel Farage broadside at EU Parliament

You just gotta love this guy, who doesn't hold back from speaking his mind and telling the facts even at the cost of offending everyone in the chambers. I wish we had a few more like him.

[Hat tip to Cranmer]

Tridentine Travelogue: Minor Orders at Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary Chapel

Tridentine Community News (November 20, 2011):

Many readers of this column are aware that Fr. Josef Bisig, the co-founder, founding Superior, and current Seminary Rector of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, has been a longtime friend of the Detroit, Windsor, and Flint Tridentine Mass Communities. He recently extended an invitation to visit the new chapel at the FSSP’s Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary near Lincoln, Nebraska on the occasion of the conferral of Minor Orders on 17 seminarians, one of whom happens to hail from Flint.


This writer attended the ceremony, celebrated by Archbishop Terrence Prendergast of Ottawa, Ontario. His Excellency has celebrated Solemn Pontifical Masses at the FSSP’s parish in Ottawa, St. Clement’s, and was clearly comfortable with the Extraordinary Form.


In seminaries structured primarily according to the Extraordinary Form, a seminarian first receives Tonsure, a formal commitment to study to the priesthood. Later he receives the Minor Orders of Porter and Lector; later, Exorcist and Acolyte; and later still, Subdeacon. Further on he receives the Major Order of Deacon, and finally is ordained Priest. This system of progression was explained in greater detail in the May 13, 2007 edition of this column, available on our web site.

One of the most selective seminaries in the world, OLGS accepts only a small fraction of its applicants. Seemingly perpetually under construction for over ten years to accommodate this influx of dedicated young men, OLGS’ year-old chapel is a rare example of new construction patterned on classic ideals. Elements of the vertical, a baldacchino over the high altar, choir stalls, and a communion rail all combine to create a beautiful atmosphere for the classic liturgy. Some aspects are not yet complete, for example the walls are relatively bare, and no stained glass windows are yet installed, but these can come as time and finances allow. One cannot help but notice that as other seminaries struggle to attract vocations, the FSSP and similar priestly communities dedicated to the Extraordinary Form have to turn them away. Surely there is a lesson in this continuing phenomenon.

A complete set of photos is available at www.flickr.com: Search for “FSSP Minor Orders 2011”.

Fr. Ross Bartley Celebrates First Sung Tridentine Mass

Congratulations are in order to Fr. Ross Bartley, former Assistant Pastor of Windsor’s Assumption Church and longtime proponent of the Extraordinary Form. On Sunday, November 6, Fr. Ross celebrated his first Missa Cantata at Assumption, only a few days after having celebrated a Low Mass in the Extraordinary Form elsewhere on the Feast of All Saints. Fr. Ross now serves as pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows Parish in Aylmer, Ontario. (Photo by James & Mary Cincurak)


Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

Mon. 11/21 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Josaphat (Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary)

Tue. 11/22 7:00 PM: High Mass at Assumption-Windsor (St. Cecilia, Virgin & Martyr)

[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@stjosaphatchurch.org. Previous columns are available at www.stjosaphatchurch.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Josaphat bulletin insert for November 20, 2011. Hat tip to A.B.]

Thanksgiving

In addition to our Church traditions and liturgical seasons, there are secular traditions worth remembering for their original purpose and meaning. Some of these are being rapidly eclipsed, like everything else, by our consumerist culture that tends to overwhelm the psyche and erode long memories by its tyrannical volume and immediacy.

Lest we forget, during these post-Christian times, it bears repeating that our national Thanksgiving Day was established by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War by means of a Proclamation on October 3, 1863, which read, in part:

"It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people." (emphasis added)

I doubt you have heard recently or will hear anytime soon such an unreserved call to national prayer from the White House. Yet it does us good when we see where we stand today in our place in history, to see from whence we've come, and how far we've fallen into oblivion of our dependence upon God as a nation. "In God we trust" says our coinage. If only that were true! But if it's not true nationally, it can at least be true for those of us as a believing counterculture.

The traditional story of that September in 1620, when a small wooden ship called the Mayflower sailed from England with 102 passengers and came to the New World, may be a Protestant story. Yet it remains a Christian story of a faith, which, however crippled by wounds from earlier historical schisms, owes its life to parentage traceable to common Apostolic stock.

After sixty-five days at sea, those Pilgrims arrived in the New World, created a settlement and suffered through a bitter winter, whose freezing temperatures and diseases killed nearly half of their population. With the help of two English-speaking Indians, Samoset and Squanto, they planted crops of native corn and pumpkins and trapped and hunted game. By October of 1621, they were finally prepared to weather their second winter, which gave cause to their celebration of their first Thanksgiving Day with an impressive spread of venison, goose, lobster, vegetables, and assorted dried fruits, as well as roasted corn furnished by the Indians.

Let it be remembered, too, that they paused collectively to offer their thanks to God, who had so miraculously preserved them and blessed them with abundant stores and a new future and a hope. Let us as Catholics exhibit at least as much gratitude this year and thank God publicly for having preserved us yet another year, along with the freedoms we still enjoy, our families, our country, and our Church.

Two interpretations of the Novus-Novus Ordo

Here is a tale of two contrasting interpretations of the NEW Roman Missal (now the 3rd edition of the Novus Ordo Missal promulgated by Pope Paul VI four decades ago):

• Fr. Dwight Longenecker, "Is the New Translation More Reverent?" (Standing on my Head, February 2, 2011)
• Jeffrey A. Tucker, "Down to the Wire on New Missal" (New Liturgical Movement, November 15, 2011)

Both pieces make very good points.

The first, while appreciative of the improvements in translation, is doubtful that these changes alone will make Catholic worship more reverent. What is more important than the words, says Fr. Longenecker, is how the Mass is celebrated by both the priest and the people:

I am quite sure that when the new Mass is introduced that Fr. Folkmass will still celebrate Mass in his usual game show host style while other priests will celebrate the Mass casually and carelessly. Many Americans will still shuffle into Mass late wearing shorts and flip flops. Comfort hymns and crooners with hand held microphones will still lead the music and politically correct former nuns will still bully everyone into singing protest anthems instead of hymns.

Mass isn't reverent simply because you start using lofty language that 'sounds religious'. True reverence is the fruit of a condition of heart. Reverence in worship is a by product of a certain type of Catholic mindset. It is not the automatic product of a particular form of words.

This is why I am not that optimistic about the new translation making Catholic worship more reverent. To understand the irreverence in much Catholic worship we have to probe much deeper than the form of words we use for worship. Catholic worship is too often irreverent because Catholics (priests and people) have stopped really believing the Catholic faith.

I'm sorry to call a spade a spade, but far too many Catholics don't actually believe in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. They believe in the fellowship meal. They don't believe in transubstantiation. They believe in 'the real presence' (a vague and flexible term which can mean practically anything)....

The second piece is more hopeful and more detailed in its analysis. Tucker acknowledges that the new translation is "serious, solemn, dignified, and even a bit remote in the way that mysterious and awesome things really should be," and that the sentence formulations, unlike typical vernacular, are elevated without being affected. The language, however, is not the most significant part of the new Missal, he claims:

The biggest evidence of this change concerns the music. There is a long history in the Catholic Church of missteps in this regard. The people who produce the Missals don’t think much about the music question.... There is a tendency to focus on the words alone while forgetting that the Roman Rite really is a sung ritual and has been since the beginning.

The people involved in the production of the English version of the Third Edition of the Roman Missal got it right. They embedded the music as part of the text. You can hardly turn a page in this Missal without bumping into musical notation. This is just fantastic because it establishes a norm for both tunes and for the preferred style of the music to be used at Mass. This style is call[ed] chant. The prayers are all chant. The people’s parts are chanted. There is a provision for all the parts of the Mass to be sung from beginning to end. We won’t have to wait 50 years or 300 years for the music question to be settled. It is already settled with the printing of the Missal itself.

This is just great because it solves a serious and major problem that currently exists within the Catholic Church: the music that is commonly employed in the liturgy works at cross purposes with the ritual itself. The establishment of a new (actually old) musical norm will have a gradual effect on the choices that the musicians make in the future. Pop music will not fit in well with a chanted Mass. There will be a gravitational pull toward making the entire Mass a chanted event, thereby fulfilling one of the goals of the Second Vatican Council to grant chant “first place” at Mass.

After reading these two reflections on the new Novus Ordo Missal, I was appreciative of the insights of each writer, as different as they are. Each also provoked a number of questions for further thought.

Fr. Longenecker's piece raised the question: What if Fr. Folkmass continued "to celebrate Mass in his usual game show host style," but the parishioners hearts were miraculously converted to embrace the Gospel? Wouldn't there still be a problem? Is it not also of some significance that the form of worship is reverent and that the liturgy is recognizably Catholic?

Jeffrey Tucker's piece raised the question, once raised by one of my commentators: Isn't a Ford Pinto, even with a shiny new coat of paint, still a Ford Pinto? Is it not, as the Holy Father himself has suggested more than once, the product of a hijacked liturgical reform that was animated by a hermeneutic of rupture from Catholic liturgical tradition?

Your thoughts?

[Hat tip to J.M.]

On the fate of historical religious affiliations of universities

In "A Tale of Two Colleges" (November 8, 2011), Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler, Jr., comments on contrasting decisions made by two Georgia universities. Shorter University (Rome, GA) adopted a series of statements intended to protect its historic religious commitments, including guidelines governing both faith and morals. Within days of that decision, Mercer University (Macon, GA) announced personnel policies to allow for coverage of domestic homosexual partnerships.

Mohler develops a bit of background of each institution and draws three predictable lessons (here I offer only the headings):

1. As time goes on, colleges and universities that choose to identify with the ethos and standards of the secular academy will inevitably increase the distance from their founding churches and theological commitments.
   
2. Colleges and universities attempting to maintain accountability to churches and Christian denominations will discover that specificity and clarity in terms of worldview commitment and lifestyle expectations is required, and not optional.
   
3. The issue of homosexuality now presents an unavoidable test of conviction for Christian institutions of higher learning. The pressure to normalize homosexual relationships and behaviors will be strong, and the cost of resisting this pressure will be steep.

Since the 1980s the last-mentioned issue has developed into the soft, vulnerable underbelly of Evangelical Protestantism . . . as well as (need we even mention it?) mainline Catholic universities. Goodbye, Good Men!

[Hat tip to J.M.]

Showing the Tree to the Acorn: Feasts About the Resurrection of the Body

The Ascension by John Singleton Copley
By Michael P. Foley

“Glory be to God for dappled things!” exults the great Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. And among those dappled things, shaded with their various spots and hues, we must count not just “skies of couple-colour” and “rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim,” but the traditional liturgical year, that great annual pageant of all things “counter, original, spare, and strange.”

And one of the strangest things found in the liturgical year and in Christian dogma (strange in that it is a surprise to common sense) is belief in the resurrection of the dead. In an age where victories over sin, ignorance, and doubt seem to be increasingly rare, it is easy for Catholics to forget that their ultimate hope is not simply in avoiding Hell and reaching Heaven but in enjoying God with their souls reunited to their bodies. Spiritual masters such as Saint Augustine have even gone so far as to suggest that until that reunion takes place, the blessed in Heaven experience a restlessness or “patient longing.”¹ The Beatific Vision just won’t be the same without new bodies in a new Heaven and a new earth.

Our Glorified Bodies

Belief in bodily resurrection is no easy matter. The difficulty begins with answering a seemingly simple question, “what is the body?” Shakespeare plays upon this when Prince Hamlet describes how a king may go “through the guts of a beggar.” A king dies, his body is eaten by worms, a beggar goes fishing with one of the worms, and then he eats the fish that ate the worm.² Whose body is whose?

And yet this ambiguity also belies a great potential. If we can’t pin down the nature of the body, then who can naysay what it is capable of becoming? Saint Paul chides doubters who ask, “How do the dead rise again?” by comparing the body to a seed that must die before it truly lives.³ It is a metaphor worth dwelling on. The human body, which is a magnificent creation, is a mere acorn in comparison to the oak tree it is destined to become. Acorns retain their substance when they grow into trees (they don’t become butterflies), yet the difference between an acorn and an oak could not be more profound; the former is virtually nothing in comparison to the latter. If our bodies, impressive as they are, are mere acorns now, imagine what they will be as trees on the Last Day.

* * * * * * *

As excellent as the Beatific Vision is, the human soul is naturally designed to rule a body, and thus there remains some unfinished business even for a saint in Heaven.

* * * * * * *
To give an example of what may await us, consider the four properties of a glorified body as singled out in Catholic theology: agility, subtlety, impassibility, and clarity. Agility is the perfect responsiveness of the body to the soul, which will allow it to move at the speed of thought. Subtlety is the power of penetrating solid matter, while impassibility is the impossibility of suffering or dying. Lastly, clarity is the total absence of bodily deformity and a “resplendent radiance and beauty.”⁴

The astonishing excellence of a resurrected body was cleverly expressed by a young colonial printer named Benjamin Franklin, who at the age of 22 wrote his own epitaph:

The body of B. Franklin, Printer
(Like the Cover of an Old Book
Its Contents torn Out
And Stript of its Lettering and Gilding)
Lies Here, Food for Worms.
But the Work shall not be Lost;
For it will (as he Believ’d) Appear once More
In a New and More Elegant Edition
Revised and Corrected
By the Author.⁵

God’s Path to Being All in All

The general resurrection of the body is also a most fitting consummation of Christ’s Paschal victory over death. The Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Our Lord open the gates of Heaven to our souls but do not immediately end our vulnerability to the effects of original sin. Those effects include a degradation of the body: every bodily deformity or disease, every violent injury or accident, every misuse or abuse, is a sad reminder that we still live east of Eden. And death remains what it always was, a literal humiliation for one and all, a return of the body to the ground (humus).

As excellent as the Beatific Vision is, the human soul is naturally designed to rule a body, and thus there remains some unfinished business even for a saint in Heaven. This body of ours, this temple of the Holy Spirit that is mocked and exploited by the world, the flesh, and the devil, is also in need of redemption. How splendid, then, that the Elect are not only promised eternal life in Heaven but a “reform” of “the body of our lowness” into a body like that of our risen Lord,⁶ a body that Saint Paul refers to as “glorified” and even “spiritual.”⁷ The body, which this side of the grave can be a handful to deal with, will become a luminous reflection of the soul’s divinely-given excellence once it is glorified. In Saint Augustine’s words, “what was once [the soul’s] burden will be its glory.”⁸ And how fitting that this glory is part of God’s ongoing transformation of creation until He becomes “all in all.”⁹

* * * * * * *

Our Lord assumed a human body in the Virgin’s womb, and the Feast of the Ascension celebrates the fact that that same body now sits at the right of the Father; therefore, our human bodies are included in the divine plan of salvation. For the first time in history, there is a human body in Heaven!

* * * * * * *
Easter Sunday

The extraordinary form of the Roman rite excels in the re-presentation of these eschatological realities, and it does so gradually. Easter, for instance, celebrates not only Christ’s victory over the grave but the first full-fledged instance of a glorified body. The New Testament makes it clear that Jesus’ body on that first Easter morning was not a resuscitated corpse like that of Lazarus, for although it was indeed the selfsame body that was born of the Virgin Mary, it had undergone a significant transformation. That is why His closest friends did and did not recognize Him,¹⁰ and it is why the risen Lord was able to pass through locked doors¹¹ as well as appear and disappear.¹² In other words, His body now possessed the properties of glorification. The implication for the rest of us is clear. As Saint Paul explains, our Savior will take “the body of our lowness” and make it like “the body of His glory.”¹³ Consequently, during the Easter Octave we pray that we may be transformed into a “new creature”¹⁴ and pass on to “heavenly glory.”¹⁵

Ascension

As a whole, however, the theme of our bodily glorification remains rather muted during the Easter season. This is true for the Feast of the Ascension as well, since the Church understandably focuses more on Christ’s completion of His earthly ministry and His promise to send the Holy Spirit. Indeed, the Collect for the Ascension prays that we learn to “dwell in mind amidst heavenly things,” not in body. Still, there are hints about the future of God’s Elect. To paraphrase Saint Gregory Nazianzus, “What is not assumed is not saved.”¹⁶ Our Lord assumed a human body in the Virgin’s womb, and the Feast of the Ascension celebrates the fact that that same body now sits at the right of the Father; therefore, our human bodies are included in the divine plan of salvation. For the first time in history, there is a human body in Heaven!

In fact, by the end of the first Ascension Day, there may have been three bodies: Our Lord’s, Elijah’s—who was finally allowed into the Empyrean Heaven (see below)—and Enoch, the figure in the Old Testament who was mysteriously “taken” by God after his death but who could not have been allowed to experience the Beatific Vision prior to the resurrection of our Lord.¹⁷ What we do know is that our Lord did not enter into the true Holy of Holies empty-handed: besides His own glorified body and body, he brought the souls He had rescued from limbo on Good Friday, when “He descended into Hell.” The Breviary hymn for the Divine Office speaks of our ascended Lord at the head of a “triumph,” a Roman parade in which a victorious general showcased all of the slaves he had captured in battle.¹⁸ The hymn artfully inverts this image, showing Christ as the liberator of souls from limbo now parading them into Heaven after having completed his earthy campaign, as it were.

Corpus Christi

Shortly after Paschaltide, the Church celebrates the Feast of Corpus Christi. Again the main focus is on the meaning of the feast at hand (in this case, the miracle of transubstantiation), but not without reference to our promised glorification. In the Divine Office for Corpus Christi, the Eucharist is called the “pledge of our future glory.”¹⁹ Jesus Himself says as much when He links Holy Communion to the Four Last Things: “He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up on the last day.”²⁰ The Eucharist is not only essential to our earthly pilgrimage as spiritual food and medicine, it is preparing us, by what it is and what it does, for our final transformation into a glorified creature of God. For the Eucharist is not just the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ, but His glorified Body and Blood.²¹ When we receive Holy Communion, we are therefore receiving a token of what we, God willing, will one day become.



The Poem of the Soul - Memory of Heaven by Anne Francois Louis Janmot
And it is not just our bodies that are being glorified by the Eucharist. Pope Benedict XVI writes eloquently of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass transforming the entire landscape of being:

The substantial conversion of bread and wine into his body and blood introduces within creation the principle of a radical change, a sort of “nuclear fission,” to use an image familiar to us today, which penetrates to the heart of all being, a change meant to set off a process which transforms reality, a process leading ultimately to the transfiguration of the entire world, to the point where God will be all in all (cf. 1 Cor 15:28).²²

The Transfiguration (August 6)

The Pope’s reference to the transfiguration of the world brings us to our next feast. On the Second Sunday of Lent, the Transfiguration of our Lord is commemorated in order to arouse the faithfuls’ desire for the glory of Easter; and on August 6, we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration to reflect more properly on the significance of this event. Part of that reflection involves meditating on the refulgence and majesty that our own glorified bodies will one day have.²³ The Breviary hymn for the feast speaks of the event in terms similar to the praise of the Eucharist we have just seen, as a “sign of perennial glory.”²⁴ Moreover, the little chapter used during the Divine Office is Philippians 3:20-21, the passage about reforming our body of lowness. Just as the historical Transfiguration prefigured the Resurrection of Our Lord, so too does the liturgical celebration of the Transfiguration prefigure the general resurrection of the body.

* * * * * * *

The assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, body and soul, is therefore a beautiful thing not only in its own right (for who was more worthy than she of such an honor?) but with respect to all of the Elect, as it brings to the fore the doctrine of the resurrection of the body.

* * * * * * *
How interesting that both of Jesus’ spiritual companions on Mount Tabor that day had bodies missing in action. Elijah was taken up into heaven in a fiery chariot, while according to Jude 1:9, Saint Michael the Archangel and the devil fought over Moses’ body after he died. Some have interpreted Saint Jude’s cryptic statement to refer to the struggle between Michael and Satan through their earthly agents in Egypt, Moses being an emissary of God and the angels while Pharaoh and his magicians being minions of the devil. Others interpret the verse in reference to a fight over Moses’ remains, with Satan wanting the body buried in such a way that would seduce the Hebrews into idolatrizing it.²⁵ But Saint Michael prevailed, and to this day the location of Moses’ grave is unknown.

A third interpretation is that both Moses and Elijah represent different states of the afterlife, Moses’ soul having come from limbo to witness the Transfiguration and Elijah’s body and soul (for they were never separated by death) coming from Heaven—albeit not the “Empyrean Heaven,” according to Saint Thomas Aquinas, for that is only accessible to man through Christ’s Paschal mystery.²⁶ The Transfiguration on Mount Tabor thus discloses a fascinating spectrum of human existence: the living “acorn” bodies of Saints Peter, James, and John; the disembodied soul of Moses; the departed yet unglorified body of Elijah, and the transfigured body of Jesus as the foreshadowing of total glorification on the Last Day. In particular, our Lord’s Transfiguration foreshadows the gift of clarity, when “His face did shine as the sun, and His garments became white as snow.”²⁷

The Assumption (August 15)

If bodily resurrection is promised to every faithful Christian disciple, then it is eminently fitting that Christ’s first and most faithful disciple should receive this gift before anyone else save Christ Himself. The assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, body and soul, is therefore a beautiful thing not only in its own right (for who was more worthy than she of such an honor?) but with respect to all of the Elect, as it brings to the fore the doctrine of the resurrection of the body.



The Assumption of the Virgin by Nicolas Poussin
The Mass for the Feast of the Assumption makes this connection explicit. The Collect prays that we “may deserve to be partakers of her glory,” while the Postcommunion beseeches God that through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, “we may be brought to the glory of the resurrection.” This teaching emanates outward from the Mass to various private devotions. A novena to the Blessed Virgin on the occasion of the Assumption prays: “Teach me how small earth becomes when viewed from Heaven. Make me realize that death is the triumphant gate through which I shall pass to your Son, and that someday my body shall rejoin my soul in the unending bliss of Heaven.”

* * * * * * *

By defining the Assumption only five years after the close of WWII, it was as if the Pope were saying: Yet again, the Nazis and all such racists and eugenicists are wrong. Mary’s body, Mary’s Semitic body, is in Heaven, loved by God.

* * * * * * *
Even the timing of the proclamation of the dogma on the Assumption seems attuned to highlight God’s regard for our bodily existence, now and in the future. I once heard an outstanding sermon from an FSSP priest who speculated that Pope Pius XII’s infallible definition of the doctrine in 1950 was in part (intentionally or not) a corrective to World War II, the bloodiest war in human history. Specifically, the Third Reich, which the Pope so valiantly resisted, harbored an unprecedented hatred of not simply the Jewish religion but Jewish “embodiment,” the DNA of Abraham and his descendents, which is why they tried to exterminate that DNA entirely in their death camps. By defining the Assumption only five years after the close of WWII, it was as if the Pope were saying: Yet again, the Nazis and all such racists and eugenicists are wrong. Mary’s body, Mary’s Semitic body, is in Heaven, loved by God.

Time After Pentecost

These festal reminders of the resurrection from the dead elide nicely with the Time after Pentecost, that portion of the liturgical year which commemorates the pilgrimage of the Church from its birthday to the end of days—in other words, the period in which we are currently living. Because the Time after Pentecost symbolizes the time of the Church on earth, it is also a profoundly eschatological season, a season that looks ahead to the “Eschaton,” the Last Day, just as Christians facing east when they pray or assist at Mass do so as a sign of their anticipation of the Second Coming, when Christ shall come in glory from the East.



The Poem of the Soul - Up the Mountain by Anne Francois Louis Janmot
The eschatological note of the Time after Pentecost becomes noticeable around the Eighteenth Sunday, at which point the readings and prayers grow increasingly apocalyptic in tone. Verses from the prophets become much more common and references to the final manifestation of Christ more insistent. This sense of anticipation grows each week until it crescendos with the last Sunday after Pentecost (the last Sunday of the liturgical year), when the Gospel recalls Christ’s ominous double prophecy concerning the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. and the terrifying end of the world.

* * * * * * *

The Lord’s Bride escorts us through a patchwork of feasts that teach us bit by bit about the immutable beauty that, God willing, will not only be ours but will render us, in the twinkling of an eye and at the sound of the trumpet, perfect icons of His brilliant glory.

* * * * * * *
But the eschatological theme is present earlier as well, and it includes a meditation on the future of our bodies. On the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, for example, the Gospel reading is of our Lord’s raising from the dead the only son of the widow of Naim (Luke 7:11-16), while the Postcommunion prays: “In soul and in body, O Lord, may we be ruled by the operation of this heavenly gift; that its effect, and not our own impulses, may ever prevail over us.” And the bodily theme is central on the Twenty Third Sunday, when the Epistle lesson returns to Philippians 3:21 and the Gospel reading proclaims the resurrection of the daughter of Jairus, a prominent official of the Capharnaum synagogue (Mt. 9:18-26).

The Temporal and Sanctoral cycles of the Church calendar thus reinforce each other in marvelously conveying to us the meaning of the article in the Creed we pray every Sunday: “I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.”

Conclusion

Hopkins ends his poem “Pied Beauty,” which began this essay, with the verses, “He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise Him.” The Lord God, Hopkins tells us, is past change, and yet the way He brings us to His changeless beauty is through a revolving and dynamic symphony of patchy or “pied” beauty. In a similar way, the Lord’s Bride escorts us through a patchwork of feasts that teach us bit by bit about the immutable beauty that, God willing, will not only be ours but will render us, in the twinkling of an eye and at the sound of the trumpet, perfect icons of His brilliant glory.+

Notes

1. City of God 13.20. [back]


2. Hamlet IV.iii.27-31. [back]


3. I Cor. 15:35ff. [back]


4. John A. Hardon, S.J. Pocket Catholic Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1985), 79. [back]


5. The epitaph was not used when Franklin died at the age of 84. [back]


6. Phil. 3:21. [back]


7. See Phil. 3:21; I Cor. 15:44. [back]


8. Literal Meaning of Genesis 12.35.68 [back]


9. I Cor. 15:28. [back]


10. See Lk. 24:13-32; Jn. 20:1-16, 21:1-7. [back]


11. See Jn. 20:19, 26. [back]


12. See Lk. 24:36, 24:31. [back]


13. Phil. 3:21. [back]


14. Postcommunion for Easter Wednesday. [back]


15. Secret for Easter Tuesday. [back]


16. Gregory of Nazianzus, Letter (101) to Cledonius the Priest Against Apollinarius. [back]


17. See Genesis 5:24. [back]


18. See the hymn Jeus nostra redemptio: “Breaking through the gates of Hell/ Redeeming Those of yours held captive/ A Victor in a noble triumph/ You now reside at the Father’s right hand.” [back]


19. Magnificat antiphon for II Vespers. [back]


20. John 6:55. [back]


21. In fact, this is one of the reasons that Holy Communion is not act of cannibalism, even though it involves consuming the flesh and drinking the blood of our Lord. No cannibal has ever come close to receiving a living and glorified body. [back]


22. Sacramentum Caritatis, 11; see also 71. [back]


23. For more on this topic, see Michael P. Foley, “Divine Do-Overs: The Secret of Recapitulation in the Traditional Calendar,” The Latin Mass 19:2 (Spring 2010), pp. 46-49. [back]


24. The hymn is Quicumque Christum quaeritis, and the verse is Signum perennis gloriae. [back]


25. A divergent theory posits that Satan argued that Moses was unworthy of burial at all since he had murdered an Egyptian as a young man. [back]


26. See Summa Theologiae III.45.3.ad 2. [back]


27. Mt. 17:2; see Mk. 9:1; Lk. 9:29. [back]

[Michael P. Foley is associate professor of patristics at Baylor University. He is author of Wedding Rites: A Complete Guide to Traditional Vows, Music, Ceremonies, Blessings, and Interfaith Services(Eerdmans, 2008) and Why Do Catholics Eat Fish on Friday?: The Catholic Origin to Just About Everything(Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Dr. Foley's article, "Showing the Tree to the Acorn: Feasts About the Resurrection of the Body,” Latin Mass: The Journal of Catholic Culture and Tradition, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Summer 2011), pp. 38-42, is reproduced here by kind permission of Latin Mass, 391 E. Virginia Terrace, Santa Paula, CA 93060. This article has been permanently archived at Scripture and Catholic Tradition.]