The sunflower turns its face to the sun

My better half gave me Messages of Glory: the Narrative Art of Roman Catholicism for my birthday last week. Locally produced, it’s a coffee table book chock full of Robert A. Flischel’s photographs from Catholic churches around Greater Cincinnati. I opened it randomly this afternoon and came to a snapshot of a stained glass image of a sunflower from St. Aloysius Church, Elmwood Place. “The sunflower turns its face to the sun, symbolizing adoration,” the caption reads. Coincidentally, I had planted a few dozen “Mammoth Russian” sunflower seeds earlier in the day. No picture from St. Al’s is available online, but here’s what should be turning up in my yard later this summer:

 

How do you detect faulty church architecture?

Ask yourself whether you could transform a “worship space” into a conference room in less than five minutes.

– St. John Baptist De La Salle Chapel at Cincinnati’s La Salle High School

 

How the 800 Martyrs of Otranto saved Rome

Lost in the shuffle of Pope Benedict’s announcement of his abdication last February was his declaration that the Martyrs of Otranto would be canonized, an event which took place this morning. In 1480, over 800 courageous Catholic men from southern Italy, led by Antonio Primaldi, were beheaded by Moslem invaders for refusing to renounce the Faith and convert to Islam. In so resisting, they arguably saved Rome and even Europe, as the invaders were an exploratory raiding party sent by Mehmed II of Turkey to test the mettle of the resident Italians. Unfortunately, Pope Francis’s canonization homily gives them relatively short shrift — no mention is made of who did the actual “martyring,” for example — but curious readers can find the full story in a 2008 piece for Catholic Answers magazine penned by Matthew Bunson, my favorite Catholic popular historian. Here are his closing paragraphs:

The martyrs of Otranto were not forgotten by the people who returned to Apulia after the fighting was over. The bones of the martyrs were gathered up, placed in reliquaries, and installed in a chapel just off the main altar in the restored cathedral. Some of the relics were also sent to the church of Santa Caterina in Formello at Naples.

On October 5, 1980, Pope John Paul II visited Otranto and said Mass in honor of the martyrs in the cathedral. Twenty-six years later, in July 2006, Pope Benedict XVI gave his formal approval for the promulgation of a decree by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints that the Martyrs of Otranto were killed out of “hatred for the faith” (in odium fidei) in Otranto on August 14, 1480. This was the formal recognition that they were martyrs.

In speaking of the sufferings of the martyrs of Otranto, Pope John Paul II touched upon the challenges of martyrdom for Christ, but he also stressed the example of the 800 to modern Christians, especially those enduring hardships and sufferings in hostile lands where persecutions and even death are commonplace. He declared,

Many confessors and disciples of Christ have passed through this test in the course of history. The Martyrs of Otranto passed through it 500 years ago. The martyrs of this century have passed and are passing through it today, martyrs who are unappreciated, otherwise little known, and who are found in places far away from us. [author translation]

 

How Archb. Bergoglio dealt with liturgical abuse

Pope Francis’s approach to the liturgy has been the source of curiosity and concern for many Catholics, especially since the very questionable foot-washing episode last Holy Thursday. Now the National Catholic Register runs the most thoughtful piece on this topic to date and it should encourage those of us experiencing at least a little trepidation during the past two months. The author, Alejandro Bermudez, explains that Latin America is rife with serious liturgical abuses and shows how then-Archbishop Begoglio dealt with Marxist villero priests in Buenos Aires. Here’s a snippet:

The difference was that Cardinal Bergoglio embraced the priests and their ministry. He would visit them in the shanty towns, send them to rest if they were tired and replace them himself at their parish for a few days. He would personally take care of them if they were in bed sick — essentially, he looked after their particular needs.

The only time he removed a villero priest from a shanty town was to protect him from a local drug lord who sent death threats.

And with the same fatherly solicitude that he used to care for his priests, the archbishop requested that they return to wearing clerics; refrain from using “batata” (an Argentinean sweet potato) instead of unleavened bread to celebrate Mass; and use songs from Catholic songbooks rather than political or secular songs.

Most often, he used persuasion with his pastors to transform the liturgical abuses in Buenos Aires, but also, in the words of a fellow Jesuit, “he never flinched when tough measures were required.”
With the process of secularization and stiffer selection criteria applied to priestly vocations, the number of seminarians dropped during Cardinal Bergoglio’s years as archbishop. But friends and foes agree that the quality of the celebration and preaching dramatically improved in the archdiocese.

 

Pulling no punches

Here’s one for your “How to Evangelize” file:

The 20th Century Theater is on Oakley’s busy town square, a neighborhood bustling with new businesses and young adults.

‘Love the provocative, boxing-style poster.

 

Getting creative

In sales, when someone is engaged in hiding or shading the truth about what he’s selling, he is said to be “getting creative.”

I’m thinking that definition applies to the “Creative Fidelity” sessions at Xavier University’s Bellarmine Chapel, the last of which takes place tonight.

These sessions are reportedly about “understanding Jesus’ practices that fostered inclusion of women and a communion with God that transcended gender boundaries.” In a curious take on fidelity, participants compose a “personal Creed.”

One of tonight’s panelists was a local organizer for last fall’s “Nuns on the Bus” Obama campaign front.

 

What Catholics Believe

Please join Fr. Martin Fox this Tuesday night, May 7, at 7 o’clock in the undercroft of St. Rose church for the fourth and penultimate installment of “What Catholics Believe,” part one of the Knights of Columbus’s Luke E. Hart series on the Catechism of the Catholic Church, based on Peter Kreeft’s book Catholic Christianity. These sessions are sponsored by the Knights’ Salve Regina council to mark the Year of Faith.

We will cover lessons 7 and 8, on “The Holy Catholic Church” and “The Forgiveness of Sins,” respectively.

 

So, we continue our adoration

In the late 90s, a plea by the Cincinnati faithful to bring adoration, i.e., Eucharistic Exposition, to their parish was usually met by a rebuke from the archdiocesan Worship office that Catholics shouldn’t “gaze” at the host. Now, Archbishop Schnurr is answering Pope Benedict’s and Pope Francis’s call to mark the forthcoming Feast of Corpus Christi (June 2) with “holy hours” and processions “through the streets” across the AOC to intensify our faith in the Eucharist. Pastors are provided with a suggested homily to preach on the Eucharist and with catechetical materials to distribute. On a disappointing note, the catechetical materials are rather blasé, and the suggested homily by Joyce Ann Zimmerman, C.PP.S., is heavy on social action and light on the Real Presence. Yet it does speak of adoration favorably, which, again, would have been … unlikely not so long ago. For that we can be grateful. Here’s a snippet from the homily:

The Blessed Sacrament has been reserved beyond the celebration of the Eucharist from the earliest times. The primary purpose for this reservation is to have the Bread from Heaven available for the sick and those who are dying. Jesus is ever the compassionate One. In our gravest need, he is there to strengthen and nourish us. A second purpose for the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament is to have an extended time for adoration outside of Mass. Here we can take as much time as we want adoring the risen Christ present to us in the reserved Blessed Sacrament. Here we can turn to the ever compassionate Jesus and pour out our heart’s needs, knowing that he hears us and responds in some way that enables us to grow in our faithfulness in following him. Let us take opportunities to spend time before the Blessed Sacrament in awe, wonder, and gratitude for the risen Jesus’ continual Self-giving. So, we continue our adoration.

Pastors seeking better materials geared toward strengthening faith in the Eucharist and the Real Presence would be wise to consult the USCCB website, especially its “The Real Presence Of Jesus Christ In The Sacrament Of The Eucharist: Basic Questions And Answers.” It is also serialized into six sections that could be printed and distributed as bulletin inserts. Here are links to all six: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

 

A server rings a bell

A sure sign that your parish has been possessed by a liturgist is the absence of altar bells, those gentle, attention-focusing reminders typically rung at the sanctus and the consecration.

They are usually depicted as preconciliar holdovers no longer necessary because, with the Mass now mostly in the vernacular, everyone knows what’s going on and when. More dangerously, it is sometimes said that there is no “moment” of consecration and that we shouldn’t be so fixated on Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist — He’s present in the assembly after all!

And besides, according to the GIRM, bells are merely optional. Well, so is the sign of peace and communion under both species. When was the last time you saw those two options suppressed by a liturgist or worship committee?

A few years ago Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University, answered a question about the use of bells that those in … non-ringing parishes may find useful:

The General Instruction of the Roman Missal refers to bell ringing in No. 150: “A little before the consecration, when appropriate, a server rings a bell as a signal to the faithful. According to local custom, the server also rings the bell as the priest shows the host and then the chalice.”

The text makes it clear that ringing a bell at the consecration is an option, not an obligation.

Since the GIRM’s presumption is that Mass is celebrated in the local tongue, the use of the vernacular, in itself, cannot be used as a reason for the abolition of the bell ringing. There may be other good reasons, but they should be weighed carefully. A long-standing custom should not just be swept away unless more is to be gained by dropping it than retaining it.

The birth of the custom of a signal bell at the consecration, probably during the 13th century, had more to do with the recitation of the canon in a low voice than to the language of the Mass as such.

It may also have been inspired by changes in church architecture in which the people were more physically separated from the altar by the choir — and in some cases a significant number of faithful were impeded from seeing the altar during Mass. Thus the use of the bell became necessary.

Some centuries later the bell was also rung at other moments such as the Sanctus and before Communion.

Certainly the practical reasons for ringing the bell have all but disappeared. Yet, it can still serve a purpose as an extra aid to call attention to the moment of the consecration, as a jolt to reawaken wandering minds and a useful catechetical tool for children and adults alike.

In an age when people are ever more in thrall to audiovisual means of communication, and less attentive to abstract discourse, it seem strange that we set about removing those very means that, as well as forming part of our tradition, could prove most effective in transmitting a message of faith. A similar argument could also be made regarding the decline in practices such as the use of incense during Mass.

The Holy See has maintained the practice of ringing the bell at the consecration in St. Peter’s Basilica, although it has an excellent sound system. I also had the experience of a parish that restored the use of the signal bell after many years without it. Not only were there no complaints but the general reaction was very positive from all age groups.

 

The Cathedral Code

Check out the one-hour documentary “Building the Great Cathedrals,” which first aired on PBS’s NOVA in 2010, on YouTube. It goes a little “Dan Brown” on us with its supposed revelation of a Biblically based architectural code, but the writers and producers pay tribute to the tremendous ingenuity and effort that went into building these Gothic sacred places in the Middle Ages. The video is in the slightly-less-than-high-def 720p.