14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C: Dom Peter
Yesterday, Pope Benedict XVI issued the long-awaited motu proprio that grants a more widespread permission for priests to use the 1962 Missal when celebrating Mass. Contrary to published reports, the document does not restore Latin or turn the priest around. In fact, Latin has never ceased to be the language of the liturgy and the celebration of the Mass with the priest facing the people, while almost universal, is only one option in the revised rite.
The hope of the Holy Father is that more widespread use of the old rite will help us to see the revised in clearer continuity with the whole historical development of the Mass, and help to reaffirm the teaching that the Holy Spirit is at work in the Church in all ages, not merely our own.
I grew up in the wake of the more sweeping reforms, many of which were intended to give more authenticity to the liturgy by making it more emotionally immediate and exciting. These efforts had the problematic but largely unseen downside of making our faith something of the moment, something dependent on the emotions. It is not easy to drum up the right emotions of a whole group of people at the same time. How many people stopped going to church because their own emotional needs were being ignored while the rest of the community seemed to be having such a good time? Those who have stuck it out run the risk of being thought of as grouches and cranks for not joining in the newest hit offertory song.
This morning’s Gospel ends where the First Reading begins, with the command to ‘rejoice’. Taken unreflectively by the talented and naturally happy sort of person, this means that I need to be happy, even exuberant, and I and you need to be exuberant now.
A closer reading of these two texts gives a different sort of picture of what rejoicing is all about for the Christian. Are we to say simply, ‘all things considered, life is really good’ and paper over suffering? By no means. The prophet Isaiah is surveying the devastating wreckage of the holy city of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 B.C. Thousands had been slaughtered, the city burned, the temple looted, the best and brightest blinded and carried off into exile. How can the prophet survey that and tell the people to rejoice?
Isaiah doesn’t say, “Look on the bright side!” Instead, he prophesies: Whatever riches had been carried off from Jerusalem will be restored ten fold from the wealth of the nations, and the Lord himself will console and comfort his people.
Notice that all of these verbs are in the future tense. As Saint Paul puts it, we rejoice in hope and therefore are patient in present trials.
Jesus goes so far as to correct the improper rejoicing of His disciples. They came back pretty fired up, not unlike a good charismatic revival meeting. “Even the demons are subject to us because of your name!” The Lord tells them, “Do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”
Our rejoicing is because we have God’s assurance that heaven is in our future, and not because if we try hard enough to be cheerful, we can succeed in bringing heaven to earth in the present.
This can only be the case if our rejoicing is not on the raw level of emotion, but on the deep level of conviction and decision, of the mind and of the will. It is rational to hope: whatever suffering there is, God will put an end to it forever, and we will come to pass eternity in a place where there is no suffering or pain. Now that is something to rejoice over.
Does this bring us back to the criticism leveled at the pre-Vatican church, that it is closed off from the concerns of the world? By finding our joy in the life to come, are we sacrificing joy here and now and denying the good things of God’s creation in this life? As disciples of the man who sent his disciples to cure the sick and who was criticized in his lifetime for being a glutton and drunkard, this is obviously not the case. However, since our passions tend to be unruly and unpredictable, we can be fooled in good times into thinking that the well-fed are blessed rather than the hungry, that the happy and jolly are blessed and not those who mourn. In times of plenty, remember want, as the Proverb says.
But whose names are written in heaven? If you are baptized, then God has chosen you to be His son or daughter. Your name is written in heaven.
That said, we should learn to read the Gospels not as stories of things that happened long ago to some other persons chosen by God, but as the activity of Jesus Christ in the Church and in my life. The Lord has gathered us here at the banquet of heaven not to cut us off from those who are suffering and in need of the Good News, but precisely to appoint us as His new ambassadors of hope. The question for us as we depart from the Mass today is, “Will I bring to others the Good News of the Kingdom of God, or will I bring myself?” I will inevitably have only myself if I do not make time in my life to nurture the life of Christ within me. I will hardly have time to pray and flame this life into fire if I am constantly scrambling around trying to ‘feel good’, worried about my money bag, sandals and what to eat. Let us rather travel with the lightness of a purified spirit. An unshakeable hope in God will spread the peace of the Gospel more surely than any scheme to rid the world of evil by our human efforts, and hope for heaven more than forced rejoicing on earth. Whichever rite we use, we should celebrate the Mass so as to point ourselves toward our true hope, Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and adoration forever. Amen.
The hope of the Holy Father is that more widespread use of the old rite will help us to see the revised in clearer continuity with the whole historical development of the Mass, and help to reaffirm the teaching that the Holy Spirit is at work in the Church in all ages, not merely our own.
I grew up in the wake of the more sweeping reforms, many of which were intended to give more authenticity to the liturgy by making it more emotionally immediate and exciting. These efforts had the problematic but largely unseen downside of making our faith something of the moment, something dependent on the emotions. It is not easy to drum up the right emotions of a whole group of people at the same time. How many people stopped going to church because their own emotional needs were being ignored while the rest of the community seemed to be having such a good time? Those who have stuck it out run the risk of being thought of as grouches and cranks for not joining in the newest hit offertory song.
This morning’s Gospel ends where the First Reading begins, with the command to ‘rejoice’. Taken unreflectively by the talented and naturally happy sort of person, this means that I need to be happy, even exuberant, and I and you need to be exuberant now.
A closer reading of these two texts gives a different sort of picture of what rejoicing is all about for the Christian. Are we to say simply, ‘all things considered, life is really good’ and paper over suffering? By no means. The prophet Isaiah is surveying the devastating wreckage of the holy city of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 B.C. Thousands had been slaughtered, the city burned, the temple looted, the best and brightest blinded and carried off into exile. How can the prophet survey that and tell the people to rejoice?
Isaiah doesn’t say, “Look on the bright side!” Instead, he prophesies: Whatever riches had been carried off from Jerusalem will be restored ten fold from the wealth of the nations, and the Lord himself will console and comfort his people.
Notice that all of these verbs are in the future tense. As Saint Paul puts it, we rejoice in hope and therefore are patient in present trials.
Jesus goes so far as to correct the improper rejoicing of His disciples. They came back pretty fired up, not unlike a good charismatic revival meeting. “Even the demons are subject to us because of your name!” The Lord tells them, “Do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”
Our rejoicing is because we have God’s assurance that heaven is in our future, and not because if we try hard enough to be cheerful, we can succeed in bringing heaven to earth in the present.
This can only be the case if our rejoicing is not on the raw level of emotion, but on the deep level of conviction and decision, of the mind and of the will. It is rational to hope: whatever suffering there is, God will put an end to it forever, and we will come to pass eternity in a place where there is no suffering or pain. Now that is something to rejoice over.
Does this bring us back to the criticism leveled at the pre-Vatican church, that it is closed off from the concerns of the world? By finding our joy in the life to come, are we sacrificing joy here and now and denying the good things of God’s creation in this life? As disciples of the man who sent his disciples to cure the sick and who was criticized in his lifetime for being a glutton and drunkard, this is obviously not the case. However, since our passions tend to be unruly and unpredictable, we can be fooled in good times into thinking that the well-fed are blessed rather than the hungry, that the happy and jolly are blessed and not those who mourn. In times of plenty, remember want, as the Proverb says.
But whose names are written in heaven? If you are baptized, then God has chosen you to be His son or daughter. Your name is written in heaven.
That said, we should learn to read the Gospels not as stories of things that happened long ago to some other persons chosen by God, but as the activity of Jesus Christ in the Church and in my life. The Lord has gathered us here at the banquet of heaven not to cut us off from those who are suffering and in need of the Good News, but precisely to appoint us as His new ambassadors of hope. The question for us as we depart from the Mass today is, “Will I bring to others the Good News of the Kingdom of God, or will I bring myself?” I will inevitably have only myself if I do not make time in my life to nurture the life of Christ within me. I will hardly have time to pray and flame this life into fire if I am constantly scrambling around trying to ‘feel good’, worried about my money bag, sandals and what to eat. Let us rather travel with the lightness of a purified spirit. An unshakeable hope in God will spread the peace of the Gospel more surely than any scheme to rid the world of evil by our human efforts, and hope for heaven more than forced rejoicing on earth. Whichever rite we use, we should celebrate the Mass so as to point ourselves toward our true hope, Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and adoration forever. Amen.
posted by Prior Peter, OSB | 2:50 PM
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