THE HOLY PROTECTION OF MARY, MOTHER OF MERCY (ORTHODOX AND CATHOLIC)

THE HOLY PROTECTION OF THE THEOTOKOS
MARY, MOTHER OF GOD

please click on:-

THE MYSTERY OF MARY

by Mary Cunningham (Ancient Faith Radio)

Protection Is A Gracious Hiding

by Archpriest Stephen Freeman (Pravmir)

Source: Glory to God for All Things

I reflected this morning on the “Veil of Protection” which we enjoy many times in the course of our life. Protection is more than the active warding off of enemies – it is sometimes a gracious hiding. My short trek to Church this morning was through one of the fogs that blanket the Tennessee Valley this time of year. Many things are hidden.

Much of my life remains hidden even from myself. Who is there that knows all of his own sins or all of the goodness of God? I think that these things remain hidden from us by the mercies of God. Who could bear the full knowledge of his own sins or even the full knowledge of the goodness of God?” The depths of such things are hidden and revealed to us by a merciful God as and when they are good for our salvation.

The prayers of the saints, including those of the Mother of God, is a great mystery – they are part of the greater reality of life as communion with God. Earlier this year I offered this thought on the prayers of the saints:

Christ’s “intercession for us” should not be understood as an eternal torrent of words; intercession is Christ’s union with us who have now been united to Him and thus united to His eternal communion with the Father.

This same understanding of prayer is at the heart of the intercession of the saints. Much confusion about the intercession of the saints has been wrought by poor images of prayer. We have reduced prayer to talk and intercession to talk to God about someone else. It is in this imagery that the Protestant question comes forward: “Why do we need someone else to speak to God for us? Isn’t Christ’s prayer enough?”

Of course, if prayer is just talk, then surely Christ’s words would be sufficient. But this oversimplification of prayer fails to do justice to Christ’s own prayer (as well as that of the saints). The intercession of the saints is their communion and participation in the life of Christ. By His life they live and the very character of that life is a communion with God. Rightly understood – that communion is prayer itself. When we express our own communion with the saints through asking their prayers we are giving verbal expression to what is already an ontological reality. As we are in communion with Christ so we are in communion with the saints. The Church cannot be other than the Church.

There may be those who reject the “intercession of the saints” (particularly as caricatured by inadequate understandings of prayer), but if they are truly in the communion of the Church then the intercession of the saints is inherently part of that communion. There is no Church that is not also the communion of the saints.

Today I give thanks for the protecting veil of the Mother of God – for the things I do know and those that I do not.

Pope Francis: Mary is the 'mother of forgiveness'

 Pope Francis prays before a statue of Mary in St. Peter's Basilica. Credit: Lauren Cater/CNA.

my source: Catholic News Agency

Vatican City, Jan 1, 2016 / 12:35 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Reflecting particularly on Mary’s title as “mother of mercy,” Pope Francis opened the Holy Door at the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome on Jan. 1.

“It is most fitting that on this day we invoke the Blessed Virgin Mary above all as ‘mother of mercy.’ The door we have opened is, in fact, a Door of Mercy,” Pope Francis said. “Those who cross its threshold are called to enter into the merciful love of the Father with complete trust and freedom from fear; they can leave this Basilica knowing that Mary is ever at their side.”

The Pope’s remarks came on the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. As part of his celebration of the day, the pontiff opened the final holy door of the four major basilicas in Rome.

The other three major basilicas – St. Peter’s, St John Lateran, and St. Paul “Outside the Wall” –have already had their holy doors opened during the early days of the Jubilee of Mercy, an Extraordinary Holy Year called for by Pope Francis that began Dec. 8 with the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception and will end on the Solemnity of Christ the King, Nov. 20, 2016.

Pilgrims who pass through the holy doors in Rome or in their own dioceses have the opportunity to gain a plenary indulgence, if they meet certain conditions. 

As he opened the holy door at the Basilica of St. Mary Major, Pope Francis drew a connection between the Jubilee of Mercy and Mary, the mother of mercy.

“She is the Mother of mercy, because she bore in her womb the very Face of divine mercy, Jesus, …The Son of God, made incarnate for our salvation, has given us his Mother, who joins us on our pilgrimage through this life, so that we may never be left alone, especially at times of trouble and uncertainty.”

The Pope reflected on the lines of an ancient hymn: “Hail Mother of mercy, Mother of God, Mother of forgiveness, Mother of hope, Mother of grace and Mother full of holy gladness.”

“In these few words, we find a summary of the faith of generations of men and women who, with their eyes fixed firmly on the icon of the Blessed Virgin, have sought her intercession and consolation,” he said.

While the idea of “forgiveness” is misunderstood in the modern world, it is critical in the Christian faith, Pope Francis said. 

“A person unable to forgive has not yet known the fullness of love. Only one who truly loves is able to forgive and forget,” he said, adding that at the foot of the Cross, Mary becomes for all people the mother of forgiveness, as she follows in the example of her Son who forgives those who are killing him. 

“For us, Mary is an icon of how the Church must offer forgiveness to those who seek it,” Pope Francis continued. 

“The Mother of forgiveness teaches the Church that the forgiveness granted on Golgotha knows no limits. Neither the law with its quibbles, nor the wisdom of this world with its distinctions, can hold it back. The Church’s forgiveness must be every bit as broad as that offered by Jesus on the Cross and by Mary at his feet. There is no other way.”

He also noted that Mary offers us the three-fold gift of her son: hope, grace and holy gladness.

“The gift that Mary bestows in offering us Jesus is the forgiveness which renews life, enables us once more to do God’s will and fills us with true happiness,” he said. “This grace frees the heart to look to the future with the joy born of hope.” 

The pontiff emphasized the importance of forgiveness as “the true antidote to the sadness caused by resentment and vengeance.” Forgiveness brings peace and serenity by freeing the heart from resentment, he explained. 

“Let us, then, pass through the Holy Door of Mercy knowing that at our side is the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy Mother of God, who intercedes for us,” Pope Francis said. 

“Let us allow her to lead us to the rediscovery of the beauty of an encounter with her Son Jesus. Let us open wide the doors of our heart to the joy of forgiveness, conscious that we have been given new confidence and hope, and thus make our daily lives a humble instrument of God’s love.”

‘Mother of Mercy’ is fitting title for Virgin Mary

my source: St John's Abbey

Q. In the “Salve Regina,” the “Hail, Holy Queen,” that concludes the church’s night prayer, we address the Blessed Virgin Mary as “Mother of Mercy.” Please comment on this title of hers.

A. Pope Francis concludes his promulgation of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy by turning to the Mother of Mercy: “Mary attests that the mercy of the Son of God knows no bounds and extends to everyone, without exception. Let us address her in the words of the ‘Salve Regina,’ a prayer ever ancient and ever new, so that she may never tire of turning her merciful eyes upon us, and make us worthy to contemplate the face of mercy, her Son Jesus” (no. 24).

The title “Mother of Mercy” is much loved by Christ’s faithful. It is thought to have been first given to the Blessed Virgin by St. Odo (d. 942), the Benedictine abbot of Cluny in France. It is a fitting title for Our Lady because she brought forth for us Jesus Christ, the visible manifestation of the mercy of the invisible God. Jesus Christ is truly the mercy of God made flesh, and so Mary is truly the “Mother of Mercy.”

Interceding for us

Mary is also the spiritual mother of all Christ’s faithful, the “most merciful, the most compassionate mother, the most tender mother, the most loving mother,” as St. Lawrence of Brindisi called her (“Mariale,” Second Sermon on the “Salve Regina”).

From her place in heaven, the Blessed Virgin Mary offers merciful intercession on behalf of her children on earth, just as she interceded on behalf of the bride and groom at the wedding at Cana (John 2:1-11). The “mercy” that we seek from God is broader than forgiveness of sins; it is really God’s abundant blessings for body, soul and spirit, and we do well to ask our Mother Mary to pray for us in every need.

The “Collection of Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary” includes a set of prayers and Scripture readings for a Mass in honor of “Holy Mary, Queen and Mother of Mercy.” The commentary on this Mass formulary explains that here she is celebrated as “a prophet extolling the mercy of God.” In her “Magnificat,” Mary twice praises God’s mercy: “He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation,” and “He has come to the help of his servant Israel, for he has remembered his promise of mercy” (Luke 1:50, 54).

Mary experienced how that promise of divine mercy was fulfilled in the saving death of her son, for at the foot of the cross, she beheld the wounds of Jesus and heard the words of forgiveness and mercy that he spoke. So we do well to pray as a Way of the Cross booklet bids us to at the fourth station: “O Mother of mercy, grant that we may always realize in ourselves the death of Jesus and share with him in his saving passion.”

Embracing all

The Mass in honor of “Holy Mary, Queen and Mother of Mercy” also venerates her as “a woman who has uniquely experienced God’s mercy.”

The preface for this Mass declares that “she is the gracious queen who has herself uniquely known [God’s] loving kindness and stretches out her arms to embrace all who take refuge in her and call upon her help in their distress.”

These words echo those of St. John Paul II: “Mary is … the one who obtained mercy in a particular and exceptional way, as no other person.” (encyclical letter “Dives in misericordiae,” no. 9).

Mary is the image of the church, which rejoices to receive God’s mercy in her son during this jubilee year and to praise God’s mercy in company with her. As we look to her, our Mother of Mercy, may we “show ourselves merciful to others and receive [God’s] pardon toward us” (Prayer over the Offerings for the Mass in honor of “Holy Mary, Queen and Mother of Mercy”).

Benedictine Father Michael Kwatera, a monk of St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, serves as the abbey’s director of liturgy. Please send your questions on liturgy to him at mkwatera@csbsju.edu or at St. John’s Abbey, P.O. Box 2015, Collegeville, MN 56321-2015

ORTHODOX

  CATHOLIC

LETTER TO IVAN ON THE PRO'S AND CON'S OF VATICAN II

Ivan is a friend of mine whom I first met while I was guest of St Elizabeth's Orthodox Convent in Minsk.   He is now married and a seminarian in the Orthodox seminary.   We have kept up contact, and recently he wrote to me asking for the pros and cons of Vatican II to help him with his diploma in theology.  This is my reply.  In my ignorance, I don't know any other way of getting it to him.  It looks too big for facebook!

Dear Ivan,

This is my third attempt to write to you on the pro’s and cons of Vatican II. To save space and time I shall point you to posts in my blog “Monks and Mermaids” which will help you.

1) You will be unable to truly appreciate Vatican II and the great contribution of Eastern Christianity to the success of the Council if you do not understand the part played by the ressourcement theologians in France who had spent long years unappreciated by the Vatican and in dialogue with the Russian Orthodox theologians from Paris for no other reason than a mutual interest in theology. They would have had no part in any Vatican event if Archbishop Roncalli had not been Papal Nuncio in Paris; and he, when he became Pope John XXIII. They made the greatest theological contribution to the Council after they were joined by a young Polish Archbishop called Wojtyla and a German theologian called Joseph Ratzinger. They wrote most of the Vatican II documents, and most became cardinals. See:

http://fatherdavidbirdosb.blogspot.pe/2015/03/luck-this-time-fathers-of-church.html

2) The other requirement is to know the part played by Patriarch Maximos IV of the Melkites and his synod of sixteen bishops. Their synodal method of reaching conclusions challenged the western bishops and increased the authority of the patriarch. He told the assembly that he and his sixteen bishops were a tiny minority, but that, in fact, he represented the Orthodox tradition and the Orthodox bishops who “for historical reasons cannot be here.” This Athenagoras of Constantinople said was correct and very much approved of Maximos.

MELKITES AND VATICAN II BY ARCHIMANDRITE ROBERT TAFT

L’Eglise Grecque Melkite au Councile (The Melkite Greek Church at the Council) was the original title of this book, first published in French in 1967. Then as now, twenty-five years later, it would be difficult to imagine a book of this title about the role of any other Eastern Catholic Church at Vatican II. At that time no other Eastern Church in communion with Rome had as yet played any significantly “Eastern” leadership role in the wider Catholic Church. In the case of the Ukrainian and Romanian Catholic Churches, this was prevented by persecution. In the case of other Churches, their insignificant numbers or the vagaries of their history rendered any such corporate role unlikely, though outstanding individual bishops from these Churches, such as Ignatius Ziade, Maronite Archbishop of Beirut, and Isaac Ghattas, Coptic Catholic Bishop of Luxor-Thebes, gave eloquent voice to the aspirations of these Churches too. But if size or persecution explains why other Churches played no notable corporate role at Vatican II, this does not explain why the Melkite Church did.

To what, then, can one attribute the remarkable role of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church at the Council? In his Preface to the 1967 French edition of this volume, Patriarch Maximos IV attributes it, first, to the fact that the Catholic Melkites had never lost contact with their Orthodox roots, and thus never became closed in on themselves. This allowed them to discern what is essential (i.e., Catholic) from what is contingent (i.e., Latin) in Catholicism, enabling them at Vatican II to witness to a pensee complementaire, another, complementary way of seeing things, as a counterbalance to Latin Catholic unilateralism. Maximos IV also offers a second reason: the synodal cohesion of the Melkite hierarchy (at that time the patriarch with sixteen bishops and four general religious superiors) in its pre-conciliar discussions preparatory to Vatican II, and the consequent unity of its voice at the Council. We see this exemplary Eastern conciliarity from the start, in the letter of August 29, 1959, accompanying the first Melkite response to the Preparatory Commission of the Council: “We have believed it more useful to give our proposals together, in common…” This was collegiality ante factum, long before the later work of the Council had made this ecclesiology common coin.

With the advantages of hindsight, I would suggest adding to Maximos’ list three other reasons that facilitated Melkite leadership at Vatican II: 1) education; 2) courageous, intelligent, innovative leadership; 3) imaginative and universal vision. None of these can be considered traditional clerical virtues. By training and tradition, the clergy are more inclined to conservatism, obedience, regularity, stability, the attributes of any social organization, where too much imagination is a liability, and routine is prized above initiative.

First, education – All of us are at once the beneficiaries as well as the victims of our background and training. Eastern Catholicism is often criticized, sometimes exaggeratedly, for its “Westernization,” an accusation, every honest person must admit, that contains some truth. This Westernization has brought with it obvious disadvantages, specifically a certain erosion of the Eastern heritage.

But every coin has two sides, and contact with the “West,” a term some Orthodox writers use like a “four-letter word,” has also had decided advantages. It is “Western” culture that invented “modernity” with its traditional values of pluralism, civility, respect for individuals and their rights, and an intellectual, artistic and cultural life that strives to be free of outside restraint or manipulation, and seeks to be objective, even-handed, and fair. These ideals may not always be realized, but in the West they are at least ideals, and one cannot always say the same for the Christian East, where it is not uncommon even for representatives of the intellectual elite to engage in the most grotesque caricatures of the Christian West. But from that same bugaboo one can learn the “Western” secular values of intellectual honesty, coherence, consistency, self-criticism, objectivity, fairness, dialogue; moderation and courtesy of tone and language even when in disagreement; and a reciprocity which, eschewing all “double-standard” criticism, applies the same criteria and standards of judgment to one’s interlocutor and his thought and actions that one applies to one’s own. Such “Western” values lead to cultural openness and the desire to know the other. Just look at the endless list of objective, positive, sympathetic—yes—”Western” studies and publications on the Christian East, its Fathers, its spirituality, its liturgy, its monasticism, its theology, its history. How preferable this is to the ghetto-like insularity, the smug self-satisfaction of those convinced they have nothing to learn from anyone else!

So a dose of the “West” can be good medicine for the East, and Melkite bishops at Vatican II, imbued with what was best in the superb postwar French Catholic intellectual tradition, speaking French fluently and thus accessible to personal contacts and dialogue, were enabled to understand and appreciate what was happening in the Catholic Church in a way they never could have done with a simplistic caricature-image and paranoid rejection of the “West.” That is why the Melkites at Vatican II were repeatedly called a “bridge” between East and West: they knew both sides of the river and could mediate between them. Those who would deny this should remember that it is a question here of the lived experience of the Catholic Church, and only Catholics can judge that. So if Eastern Catholics at Vatican II were not a bridge between Orthodoxy and Rome—and only the Orthodox can decide that—Catholics experienced them to be a bridge that allowed the voice of the East to be heard at the Council sessions.

Of the other qualities, courageous, intelligent, innovative leadership was not proper to the Melkite bishops alone but shared by all the great progressive leaders of Vatican II, to the discomfiture of the conservative minority and the astonished admiration of the rest of the world. Peculiar to the Melkites, however, was the disproportion between their conciliar leadership and their numbers, a patriarch and a mere sixteen bishops awash in a Latin sea.

Equally unique to the Melkite Council Fathers as a group was the truly remarkable imaginative and universal vision they showed. Altogether too often, Eastern Christians think only within their own frame of reference, address only their own problems, protest only against injustices done to them, further only their own interests. Not so the Melkites. In addition to being among the first to state categorically that the Council should avoid definitions and condemnations, the list of important items of general import on the Vatican II and post-conciliar agenda that the Melkite bishops first proposed is simply astonishing: the vernacular, eucharistic concelebration and communion under both species in the Latin liturgy; the permanent diaconate; the establishment of what ultimately became the Synod of Bishops held periodically in Rome, as well as the Secretariat (now Pontifical Council) for Christian Unity; new attitudes and a less offensive ecumenical vocabulary for dealing with other Christians, especially with the Orthodox Churches; the recognition and acceptance of Eastern Catholic communities for what they are, “Churches,” not “rites.”

But for the Melkites, perhaps none of the above qualities would have “worked” without the audacious yet unfailingly courteous courage of Maximos IV and his close collaborators. I first encountered this in 1959, I think it was, just after returning from three years teaching in Baghdad. I was doing Russian studies at Fordham University in New York, preparing for theological studies and ordination in the Byzantine-Slavonic Rite. With barely repressible glee the late Father Paul Mailleux, S.J., then superior of the Byzantine Jesuit Community of the Russian Center at Fordham, showed me a copy of a letter Maximos IV had sent to an American cardinal. For some time the Byzantine Rite Jesuits of that community had, on occasion, been following the lead of the U.S. Melkites in celebrating the Byzantine Divine Liturgy in English, in accordance with the age-old principle of the Byzantine Churches to use whatever language, vernacular or not, was deemed pastorally most suitable in the circumstances. The cardinal had written Patriarch Maximos to challenge this practice, surely not because of any special concern for the East, but, as with the issue of married clergy, from fear of “contamination.” This was before the vernacular debate at Vatican II, and if U.S. Catholics were exposed to Eastern Catholic Eucharists, especially in their own parish churches on the dies orientales or “Oriental Days” held in those years to acquaint Western Catholics with the East, they might be led to the ineluctable conclusion that vernacular liturgy was not only possible, but a good thing.

Here as elsewhere, Melkite attitudes and usage were prophetic, and the cardinal’s fears real. Maximos IV, fully conscious of being an Eastern patriarch and not some curial dependent, responded with dignity and courtesy, but with great firmness and unambiguous clarity, that the liturgical languages of the Byzantine Church were none of His Eminence’s business. It is of such stuff that leaders are made. And prophets too. For it is thus that in North America, Melkites and others, celebrated Catholic Eucharistic liturgies in English long before anyone ever heard of Vatican II.

But Maximos IV did not stand alone at Vatican II. He was the first to acknowledge the synodal, collegial nature of the Melkite enterprise, and other major Melkite council figures like Archbishops Elias Zoghby, Neophytos Edelby, Peter Medawar, and our own Archbishop Joseph Tawil, also made the trenchant and eloquent “Voice of the East” heard at Vatican II.

In this same context I must mention one of my own heroes, Archimandrite Oreste Kerame (+1983), who, though not a bishop, was a major source of Melkite thought at Vatican II. A former Jesuit, he left the order in 1941, in the name of a higher fidelity, when it was not so easy to be a member of a Latin religious order and at the same time a convinced ecumenist totally dedicated to preserving and living the traditions of the Christian East. In long conversations in French with him in his later years, I had confirmed what had always been a guiding principle of my own double vocation as an Eastern Rite member of a Latin religious order: whenever there is a conflict, real or apparent (i.e., so perceived by superiors), between the demands of my rite and those of the order, the rite, an ecclesial reality superior to the contingent customs of any religious order, congregation, or monastery, must always take precedence. Fortunately, the problem has never arisen for me in any substantive way, for times have changed since the early 1940s. The December 25, 1950, letter and decree of the Jesuit General John Baptist Janssens, Pro ramo orientali Societatis Iesu (On The Eastern Branch of the Society of Jesus), can be considered the Magna Carta of Eastern-Rite Jesuits. It legislates explicitly that they are to live their rite in its integrity, and elements of the Jesuit Institute that by nature pertain to the Latin Rite do not apply to them. Kerame, whose love for the Society of Jesus never lessened in spite of the painful choice he was forced to make, not only lived long enough to witness this greater openness in the Catholic Church. His life and thought prepared for it.

But when all is said and done, our basic point of reference will always remain the great figure of Patriarch Maximos IV and the role he played in his own and the broader Church during the twenty critical years (October 30, 1947-November 5, 1967) of his historic patriarchate. Among the dozen or so most quoted Council Fathers in the published histories of Vatican II, he gave from the start a hitherto unimaginable importance to the Eastern Catholic minority at the Council by the content and elan of his interventions. The legendary Xavier Rynne first brought him to the attention of Americans in his gripping account of Session I serialized in The New Yorker, awakening the Western mass-media to the importance of this hitherto ignored minority. Rynne described Maximos as “the colorful and outspoken Melchite patriarch, His Beatitude Maximus IV Saigh, of Antioch,” and spoke of His Beatitude’s conciliar interventions as “laying the cards squarely on the table as was his custom, and speaking in French, as was also his habit.”

At Session I of the Council, Maximos’ electrifying opening speech on October 23, 1962, set the tone for the Melkite onslaught on the one-sided, Latin vision of the Church. He refused to speak in Latin, the language of the Latin Church, but not, he insisted, of the Catholic Church nor of his. He refused to follow protocol and address “Their Eminences,” the cardinals, before “Their Beatitudes,” the Eastern patriarchs, for in his ecclesiology patriarchs, the heads of local Churches, did not take second place to cardinals, who were but second-rank dignitaries of one such communion, the Latin Church. He also urged the West to allow the vernacular in the liturgy, following the lead of the East, “where every language is, in effect, liturgical.” And he concluded, in true Eastern fashion, that the matter at any rate should be left to the local Churches to decide. All this in his first intervention at the first session! No wonder numerous Council Fathers, overcoming their initial surprise, hastened to congratulate him for his speech. And no wonder it hit the news. That was a language even journalists impervious to the torturous periods of “clericalese” could understand. Maximos spoke simply, clearly, directly—and he spoke in French.

Has the post-conciliar Melkite Church lived up to its promise at Vatican II?

Indeed, have any of us? Ideals always have a head start on reality—that is why we call them ideals, something not yet fully attained, that towards which we strive. So it is natural that certain Melkite ideas advanced at the Council remain undeveloped and unrealized in the Catholic Church: the principle that collegiality should be operative not just among bishops, but on the diocesan level, between the bishop and his presbyterate; that the laity, especially women, should be given their proper dignity and role in church life; that adequate hierarchical provision be made, as a pastoral right and not as a concession dependent on the good will of anyone, for the pastoral care of Eastern Catholics in the diaspora; that a more supple, nuanced view, like that of the Orthodox Churches, be allowed regarding the remarriage of unjustly abandoned spouses; that the problem of the date of Easter be resolved in ecumenical agreement with other Churches; that the Roman Curia assume its proper place within a healthy ecclesiology, no longer operating as a substitute for the apostolic college of bishops, or pretending to possess and exercise incommunicable powers which belong by divine right to the supreme pontiff alone, and cannot be delegated to or arrogated by anyone else.

As for the Melkite Church itself, there can be no denying that Melkites, like many others, are often better at giving speeches and making proposals than at observing them. Even before the Council, Melkite rhetoric and Melkite reality have often been miles apart.

So much work remains to be done. May this welcome translation of an historic book be a stimulus to getting on with it.

Robert F. Taft, S.J.

Pontifical Oriental Institute

Rome

1992

Notes

Cited in “Vatican II: 25 ans apres,” Le Lien 55.1-2 (janvier-avril 1990) 37.

Further documentation in N. Edelby, “The Byzantine Liturgy in the Vernacular,” in Maximus IV Sayegh (ed.), The Eastern Churches and Catholic Unity (New York: Herder & Herder 1963) 195-218.

X. Rynne, Letters from Vatican City (London: Faber & Faber 1963) 26, 85.

Ibid., 102-5.

3) An excellent description of Vatican II that coincides with my own memory of what happened. The speaker is a distinguished Orthodox theologian. Don't pay too much attention to the title: it is mostly about Vatican II and is absolutely accurate.

4) The liturgy: what went wrong?

http://fatherdavidbirdosb.blogspot.pe/2015/02/traditional-liturgy-in-its-post-vatican.html

5) One of the principals of ressourcement theology is that, when we come across a modern problem, we bring to its solution the WHOLE of Christian Tradition. This has left its mark on the modern liturgy where the Antiochian and Alexandrian traditions were appealed to. We have seen how Pope Francis does this on synods, on our understanding of the family and pastoral policy towards the divorced. However, perhaps slower and less obviously, is the transformation of the papacy.

The emphasis is away from jurisdiction in a society to love in a communion http://fatherdavidbirdosb.blogspot.pe/2015/02/presiding-flows-from-charity-by-pope.html

The Orthodox - Catholic dialogue, which continues the activity of the ressourcement theologians and the intentions of Vatican II, is helpiing to transform the Catholic Church. http://fatherdavidbirdosb.blogspot.pe/2015/10/ravenna-and-pope-francis-speech-on-50th.html

What Orthodoxy can learn from Pope Francis. (I put this in because Pope Francis is following the path of Vatican II and would have been impossible without Vatican II

http://fatherdavidbirdosb.blogspot.pe/2016/02/power-in-church-is-about-how-many-feet.html

Finally, has Vatican II done any harm?

My own opinion is that no harm has been done directly by the bishops in convocation, nor in the texts of the Council or in those of the liturgy. However, there has been harm in the implementation of the Council.

1) By reason of our education, too often we were too abstract, too theoretical among people whose experience of Catholicism was very concrete and bound up with devotions for which we had no respect. Devotions are the religious language of the poor and uneducated, and many left, alienated by a religious context with which they felt nothing in common.

2) We knocked down barriers in the name of ecumenism and openness to the world before many people were ready for it. (I think that is one of the fears of the Moscow Patriarchate)

3) Pre-Vatican II Catholicism was very legalistic, juridical, everything being reduced to legal processes, even salvation; but it was very clear and everybody knew where they were. Vatican II goes deeper to find the relations of communion in “theosis”, which is true at a deeper level but not so easily expressed; and many failed to be able to think clearly outside a legal framework. This has led to a weakening moral sense. E.G. When to miss Mass on Sunday or, for priests, to miss an hour of Divine Office was “mortal sin”, people went to Mass and priests said their office, sometime just to avoid mortal sin; but now that such a simplistic view of mortal sin is no longer credible, many do not have sufficient moral insight to cope: people have given up going to Mass and priests to saying their office. Just one example. The same lack of moral insight can be seen in other areas of Catholic life. We are all very weak. However, it is a problem of adaptation to a new way of thinking, free of simplistic legalism; and I think it is disappearing.

4) Two factors often messed up the liturgical reform, and I don’t know which of them was more significant; but things are changing we must not exaggerate.  The first was the activity of those who believed that modernisation means adapting the Church to the instincts of modern secular man.  Thus, they believed, modern man has no sense of the sacred but a very intense sense of the need for human solidarity.  Therefore, they said, the sense of the sacred must be replaced  in the liturgy by the sense of Christian togetherness.  This went directly against the convictions of people like Joseph Ratzinger and Louis Bouyer who wanted liturgical change precisely so that modern man could experience a sense of the sacred which would awaken in him an openness to religion.  The "secularists" branded their conviction "the spirit of Vatican II", and called those who opposed them "conservatives".   

The other factor was a leftover from pre-Vatican II days.  Owing to the unfortunate practice of scholastics to extract the "form" of the sacrament from its liturgical context to analyse it, people tended to think that the form was the essential bit and all the other words were mere padding.  This led many priests to emphasise the form, "This is my body....this is the chalice of my blood etc" and say the rest mechanically.   This was not noticed by the people when the liturgy was in Latin, but became obvious when it was translated.

There is probably much more to say on the subject, but I hope I have given you enough material for a fairly decent essay.

                     God Bless,

                     "Hieromonk" David

                                         

a leftover from pre-Vatican II days.  Owing to the scholastic habit of extrgct

THE REFORM OF THE REFORM, POPE FRANCIS AND CARDINAL SARAH

This article by Sandro Magister is a very good example of news interpreted to fit a newsman's agenda.   The facts are there, but I believe that the interpretation is haywire.   The reform of the reform will happen:  Cardinal Sarah wants it, and Pope Francis has indicated quite publicly that he is in favour of its main aims; but, while Cardinal Sarah's Congregation will provide material, it will be the bishops, not the Vatican, who will put it into practice. What are universal, regional and local synods for?

After the World Youth Day, Pope Francis spoke about the Orthodox liturgy and what the West can learn from it.  He said this in a news conference:

my source: The New Liturgical Movement 

In the Orthodox Churches they have kept that pristine liturgy, so beautiful. We have lost a bit the sense of adoration. They keep, they praise God, they adore God, they sing, time doesn’t count. God is the center, and this is a richness that I would like to say on this occasion in which you ask me this question. Once, speaking of the Western Church, of Western Europe, especially the Church that has grown most, they said this phrase to me: “Lux ex oriente, ex occidente luxus.” Consumerism, wellbeing, have done us so much harm. Instead  you keep this beauty of God at the center, the reference.  When one reads Dostoyevsky – I believe that for us all he must be an author to read and reread, because he has wisdom – one perceives what the Russian spirit is, the Eastern spirit. It’s something that will do us so much good. We are in need of this renewal, of this fresh air of the East, of this light of the East. John Paul II wrote it in his Letter. But so many times the luxus of the West makes us lose the horizon. I don’t know, it came to me to say this. Thank you. 

Pope Francis attitude to liturgy in general, but most especially the Mass, he expressed in a morning meditation in the Domus Sanctae Marthae on February 10th, 2014:  

You came here, we are gathered here, to enter into the mystery. And this is the liturgy”.
To explain the meaning of this encounter with the mystery, Pope Francis said that the Lord has spoken to his people not only with words. “The prophets”, he said “recounted the Lord’s words. The prophets proclaimed them. The great prophet Moses gave the commandments, which is the Word of God. Many other prophets too have told the people what the Lord wanted”. However, “the Lord”, he added, “also spoke in another way and in another form to his people: with theophanies. That is, when he comes close to his people and makes them feel, makes them feel his presence among them”. The Pope referred to the First Reading (1 Kgs 8:1-7, 9-13) which speaks of other prophets.
“The same thing happens in the Church”, the Pope said. He does this through his Word which is recounted in the Gospels and in the Bible; he speaks through catechesis, through homilies. He not only speaks to us but “he makes himself present”, the Pope said, “in the midst of his people, in the midst of his Church. The Lord’s presence is there. The Lord draws close to his people; he is present with his people and shares his time with them”. This is what is taking place during this liturgical celebration, which is certainly “not a social affair”, he said, “nor a gathering for the faithful to pray together. It is something else”, because “in the Eucharistic liturgy God is present” and, if possible, he makes himself present in “the closest way”. His presence, the Pope said, “is a real presence”. “When I speak of liturgy”, the Pope explained, “I am mainly referring to the Holy Mass. When we celebrate the Mass, we are not representing the Last Supper”. The Mass “is not a representation; it is something else. It truly is the Last Supper; it is truly living again the redemptive passion and death of Our Lord. It is a visible manifestation: the Lord makes himself present on the altar to be offered to the Father for the salvation of the world”.
Pope Francis then gave examples, as he usually does, of actions that are common among the faithful: “We hear and we say, ‘I cannot now, I have to go to Mass, I have to go to listen to Mass’. But you do not listen to Mass, you participate in it. And you are participating in a visible manifestation, in the mystery of the Lord’s presence among us”. It is something that is different from all other forms of our devotion, he pointed out, using the example of the living nativity scenes “that are organized by parishes at Christmas time, or the Way of the Cross that we do during Holy Week”. These, he explained, are representations; the Eucharist is “a real commemoration, a theophany. God draws near and is with us as we participate in the mystery of redemption”.
The Pope then referred to another very common behaviour among Christians: “How many times”, he noted “do we count the minutes... ‘I only have a half an hour, I have to go to Mass...’”. This “is not the right attitude that the liturgy asks of us: the liturgy is God’s time and space, and we must put ourselves there in God’s time, in God’s space, without looking at our watches. The liturgy is precisely entering into the mystery of God; bringing ourselves to the mystery and being present in the mystery”.  

We must remember that Cardinal Sarah is Pope Francis' appointment as head of liturgy; but it must be also remembered that Pope Francis has said that he believes that the Church is, by its very nature, synodal in organisation "with Peter" and "under Peter"  He is reducing numbers of people who work in the Vatican and is building up the synods.
Taking the eucharistic ecclesiology of Vatican II as more profound than the institutionalist ecclesiology of Vatican I, it is clear that the ever-living source of Tradition is the Holy Spirit that comes down on the bread and wine and on the people at Mass to transform, to strengthen and to  change, in a community that has its roots in the Apostolic preaching.  A pope who accepts this, remembering that the celebration of Mass is always a local event, will await the response of local and regional churches to see how the call to "liturgical awe" is lived out, rather than rushing to control it from the centre.  After all, it is in the Eucharist that the Holy Spirit is invoked on the bread and wine and on the people at the epiclesis, so that the nearer to the Eucharistic celebration, the nearer we are to the source of all the Church's powers: inspiration for the whole Church usually travels from the local to the universal.
  This is enough explanation needed to interpret what he said to Cardinal Sarah and what he did when Cardinal Sarah attempted to orchestrate the "reform of the reform" himself.  Pope Francis wants to make room for local and regional decision making.  It is also true that, while he agrees with Cardinal Sarah that liturgy should be God-centred, that at Mass we are participating in a theophany, he does not link this so strongly with "Mass facing East", nor with going back to Trent and an adoption of the old ways.  He is a traditionalist as all Catholics have to be, but he is not a "conservative.

Here is the Vatican press release on Cardinal Sarah and the "reform of the reform":

VATICAN STATEMENT: The following is a working translation of the Vatican press statement made by America’s Vatican correspondent, in the absence of an official translation.

SOME CLARIFICATIONS ON THE CELEBRATION OF THE MASS

A clarification is opportune following news reports circulating in the media after a conference held in London some days ago by Cardinal Sarah, the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship.Cardinal Sarah has always been rightly concerned for the dignity of the celebration of the Mass, in a way that expresses adequately the attitude of respect and adoration for the Eucharistic mystery.Some expressions were nevertheless badly interpreted as if they announced new indications differing from those given to-date in the liturgical norms and in the words of the pope on the celebration (looking) towards the people and on the ordinary rite of Mass.It is therefore good to recall that in the General Order of the Roman Missale (Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani), that contains the norms relating to the Eucharistic celebration and (which) are still fully in force, No. 299 states that “the altar is built separated from the wall, so as to be able to move around it easily and to celebrate looking towards the people, which thing is convenient to realize wherever possible. The altar is to be place in a way so as to really constitute the center towards which the attention of the people spontaneously converges.”Pope Francis, for his part, on the occasion of his visit to the Dicastery (Congregation for Divine Worship) has expressly recalled that the “ordinary” form of the celebration of the Mass is that envisaged by the Missal promulgated by Paul VI, while that “extraordinary” (form), which was permitted by by Pope Benedict XVI for the purposes and the modalities explained by him in the Motu Proprio “Summorum Ponticium,” must not take the place of the “ordinary” (form).There are therefore no new liturgical directives beginning from next Advent, as someone has improperly deduced from some words of Cardinal Sarah, and it is better to avoid using the expression “the reform of the reform,” in referring to the liturgy, given that this has sometimes been the source of misunderstanding.Significantly, the Vatican communique added that “all this was expressly agreed during a recent audience given by the pope to the said Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship.”

At the very beginning, the press release says that Cardinal Sarah's motivation is beyond reproach.

 Cardinal Sarah has always been rightly concerned for the dignity of the celebration of the Mass, in a way that expresses adequately the attitude of respect and adoration for the Eucharistic.

Pope Francis has shown us that he wants this too. However, he wants the Ordinary Rite to keep its integrity as expressed in the Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani.  Thus, if Cardinal Sarah were to insert the Tridentine rite's Offertory prayers into the Offertory as a free choice, this does not go against his charge to continue Pope Benedict's process; but if any structural reform or move towards structural reform is necessary, it must be left to a higher authority which, I suspect, will be the bishops at one of the three levels at which they exercise their collegiality.

This interpretation does not charge Pope Francis with inconsistency, nor does it accuse the two popes at being in conflict, something both deny.   To drop Pope Benedict's phrase 'reform of the reform' shows no disrespect for him, but is only said because it raises the hopes of the "conservatives" unrealistically: they interpret it as a return to a past that few of them knew. Also, there is no logical connection between condemning liturgical abuse and adopting Cardinal Sarah's suggestions: there are other views among liturgists and bishops that deserve respect and consideration.

Here is Sandro Magister's article.

The Reform of the Reform “Will Happen.” The Pope Wants It, Too

my source: chiesa, expresso online

This is what Francis has said in private to Cardinal Sarah, only to deny the whole thing afterward in a statement. But the prefect of the liturgy is promising it once again, in a book of his that goes on sale today, entitled “The Power of Silence” 

by Sandro Magister

ROME, October 6, 2016 – With Cardinal Robert Sarah Pope Francis cultivates a relationship with two distinct profiles. Benevolent up front, hostile at a distance.

Sarah is presumed to be one of those churchmen with a “heart of stone” against whom the pope often lashes out without naming names, for example in the address at the end of the synod last October 24:

> "The closed hearts which hide behind the Church’s teachings…"

And it was Sarah, this time with first and last name, in his capacity as prefect of the congregation for divine worship, who was the target of an unprecedented, humiliating statement from the press office of the Holy See this summer, against his aims for a “reform of the reform” of the liturgy:

> Jesus Will Return From the East. But at the Vatican They Have Lost the Compass (14.7.2016)

“But who can touch him? He is African, and he enjoys great popularity,” they murmur in the court of Pope Francis.

In effect Cardinal Sarah, 71, an African from Guinea, is a figure of the first rank in today’s Church, who has risen to extraordinary notoriety and universal admiration thanks to a book he published last year that is both autobiography and spiritual mediation, in the style of the “Confessions,” entitled “Dieu ou rien,” God or nothing: 335,000 copies sold in thirteen languages:

> A Pope from Black Africa (10.4.2015)

And now Sarah is returning to the field with a major new book: “La force du silence,” the power of silence. It is edited, like the one before it, by Nicolas Diat and concludes with a poignant conversation between the cardinal and the abbot of the Grande Chartreuse in the French Alps, dom Dysmas de Lassus.

The book goes on sale today, the feast of Saint Bruno, founder of Carthusian monasticism, for now only in a French edition by Fayard, but it will be released soon in Italian, English, and Spanish, published respectively by Cantagalli, Ignatius Press, and Palabra.

“Contre la dictature du bruit,” against the dictatorship of noise, the subtitle says. And in effect the deafening noise of modern society, with has even penetrated into the Church, is the soundtrack of that “nothing” which is forgetfulness of God, the focus of the previous book.

While vice versa it is only silence that allows one to “hear the music of God.”

Sarah’s meditation touches deeply upon the life of the Church. There are frequent references to the liturgy and to the often disordered forms in which it is celebrated today, meaning to that “divine worship” which is the cardinal’s purview as prefect.

Some of these passages - both critical and encouraging - are reproduced below.

And there is one of them in particular - the last one presented here - that demonstrates how Cardinal Sarah is by no means acquiescent in the face of the continuous obstacles that are placed before him from every side.

It is there where the cardinal once again pledges firmly that “there will take place” that which the statement last summer had presumed to block: that “reform of the reform” in the liturgical camp without which “the future of the Church is at stake.”

Face to face Pope Francis had urged Sarah to proceed with this “reform of the reform,” in the audience, warm as always, that he had given him last April, as the cardinal himself had reported afterward.

But then, at a distance - and two days after a second friendly audience - the veto had been unleashed, in that treacherous statement in July, from an anonymous source but nonetheless approved from Santa Marta.

As a man of faith, Sarah professes obedience to the pope. Or at least to the first of the two Francises he finds before him.

_____________

“The reform of the reform will happen, the future of the Church is at stake”

by Robert Sarah

From “"La force du silence", Fayard, 2016

“THE BODY OF JESUS FOR ALL, WITHOUT DISCERNMENT” (par. 205)

Some priests today treat the Eucharist with perfect disdain. They see the Mass as a chatty banquet where the Christians who are faithful to Jesus’ teaching, the divorced and remarried, men and women in a situation of adultery, unbaptized tourists participating in the Eucharistic celebrations of great anonymous crowds can have access to the body and blood of Christ, without distinction.

The Church must urgently examine the ecclesial and pastoral appropriateness of these immense Eucharistic celebrations made up of thousands and thousands of participants. There is a great danger here of turning the Eucharist, “the great mystery of Faith,” into a vulgar revel and of profaning the body and the precious blood of Christ. The priests who distribute the sacred species without knowing anyone, and give the Body of Jesus to all, without discernment between Christians and non-Christians, participate in the profanation of the Holy Sacrifice of the Eucharist. Those who exercise authority in the Church become guilty, through a form of voluntary complicity, of allowing sacrilege and the profanation of the body of Christ to take place in these gigantic and ridiculous self-celebrations, where one can hardly perceive that “you proclaim the death of the Lord, until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26).

Priests unfaithful to the “memory” of Jesus insist rather on the festive aspect and the fraternal dimension of the Mass than on the bloody sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. The importance of the interior dispositions and the need to reconcile ourselves with God in allowing ourselves to be purified by the sacrament of confession are no longer fashionable nowadays. More and more, we obscure the warning of Saint Paul to the Corinthians: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill” (cf. 1 Cor 11:27-30).

“MANY PRIESTS WHO ENTER TRIUMPHANTLY. . .” (par. 237)

At the beginning of our Eucharistic celebrations, how is it possible to eliminate Christ carrying his cross and walking painfully beneath the weight of our sins toward the place of sacrifice? There are many priests who enter triumphantly and go up to the altar, waving left and right in order to appear friendly. Observe the sad spectacle of certain Eucharistic celebrations. . . Why so much frivolity and worldliness at the moment of the Holy Sacrifice? Why so much profanation and superficiality before the extraordinary priestly grace that makes us capable of bringing forth the body and blood of Christ in substance by the invocation of the Spirit? Why do some believe themselves obliged to improvise or invent Eucharistic prayers that disperse the divine phrases in a bath of petty human fervor? Are the words of Christ so insufficient that a profusion of purely human words is needed? In a sacrifice so unique and essential, is there a need for this subjective imagination and creativity? “And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words,” Jesus has cautioned us (Mt 6:7).

“PROCESSIONS ACCOMPANIED WITH INTERMINABLE DANCES” (par. 266)

We have lost the deepest meaning of the offertory. Yet it is that moment in which, as its name indicates, the whole Christian people offers itself, not alongside of Christ, but in him, through his sacrifice that will be realized at the consecration. Vatican Council II admirably highlighted this aspect in insisting on the baptismal priesthood of the laity that essentially consists in offering ourselves together with Christ in sacrifice to the Father. [. . .]

If the offertory is seen as nothing other than a preparation of the gifts, as a practical and prosaic action, then there will be a great temptation to add and invent ceremonies in order to fill up what is perceived as a void. I deplore the offertory processions in some African countries, long and noisy, accompanied with interminable dances. The faithful bring all sorts of products and objects that have nothing to do with the Eucharistic sacrifice. These processions give the impression of folkloric exhibitions that disfigure the bloody sacrifice of Christ on the Cross and distance us from the Eucharistic mystery; but this must be celebrated in sobriety and recollection, since we are immersed, we too, in his death and his offering to the Father. The bishops of my continent should take measures to keep the celebration of the Mass from becoming a cultural self-celebration. The death of God out of love for us is beyond all culture. 

“FACING EAST” (par. 254)

It is not enough simply to prescribe more silence. In order for everyone to understand that the liturgy turns us interiorly toward the Lord, it would be helpful during the celebration for us all together, priests and faithful, to face the east, symbolized by the apse.

This practice remains absolutely legitimate. It is in keeping with the letter and the spirit of the Council. There is no lack of testimonies from the first centuries of the Church. “When we stand up to pray, we face the east,” says Saint Augustine, echoing a tradition that dates back, according to Saint Basil, to the Apostles themselves. Churches having been designed for the prayer of the first Christian communities, the apostolic constitutions of the 4th century recommended that they be turned to the east. And when the altar is facing  west, as at Saint Peter’s in Rome, the celebrant must turn toward the orient and face the people. 

This bodily orientation of prayer is nothing other than the sign of an interior orientation. [. . .] Does the priest not invite the people of God to follow him at the beginning of the great Eucharistic prayer when he says” “Let us lift up our heart,” to which the people respond: “We turn it toward the Lord”?

As prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, I am intent upon recalling once again that celebration “versus orientem” is authorized by the rubrics of the Missal because it is of apostolic tradition. There is no need for particular authorization to celebrate in this way, people and priest, facing the Lord. If it is physically not possible to celebrate “ad orientem,” a cross must necessarily be placed on the altar, in plain sight, as a point of reference for all. Christ on the cross is the Christian East.

“GOD WILLING, THE REFORM OF THE REFORM WILL TAKE PLACE” (par. 257)

I refuse to waste time in opposing one liturgy to another, or the rite of Saint Pius V to that of Blessed Paul VI. What is needed is to enter into the great silence of the liturgy; one must allow oneself to be enriched by all the Latin or Eastern liturgical forms that favor silence. Without this contemplative silence, the liturgy will remain an occasion of hateful divisions and ideological confrontations instead of being the place of our unity and our communion in the Lord. It is high time to enter into this liturgical silence, facing the Lord, that the Council wanted to restore.

What I am about to say now does not enter into contradiction with my submission and obedience to the supreme authority of the Church. I desire profoundly and humbly to serve God, the Church, and the Holy Father, with devotion, sincerity, and filial attachment. But this is my hope: if God wills, when he may will and how he may will, in the liturgy, the reform of the reform will take place. In spite of the gnashing of teeth, it will take place, because the future of the Church is at stake.

Damaging the liturgy means damaging our relationship with God and the concrete expression of our Christian faith. The Word of God and the doctrinal teaching of the Church are still listened to, but the souls that want to turn to God, to offer him the true sacrifice of praise and worship him, are no longer captivated by liturgies that are too horizontal, anthropocentric, and festive, often resembling noisy and vulgar cultural events. The media have completely invaded and turned into a spectacle the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the memorial of the death of Jesus on the cross for the salvation of our souls. The sense of mystery disappears through changes, through permanent adaptations, decided in autonomous and individual fashion in order to seduce our modern profaning mentalities, marked by sin, secularism, relativism, and the rejection of God.

In many western countries, we see the poor leaving the Catholic Church because it is under siege by ill-intentioned persons who style themselves intellectuals and despise the lowly and the poor. This is what the Holy Father must denounce loud and clear. Because a Church without the poor is no longer the Church, but a mere “club.” Today, in the West, how many temples are empty, closed, destroyed, or turned into profane structures in disdain of their sacredness and their original purpose. So I know how many priests and faithful there are who live their faith with extraordinary zeal and fight every day to preserve and enrich the dwellings of God.

__________

The book:

Robert Sarah avec Nicolas Diat, "La force du silence. Contre la dictature du bruit", Fayard, Paris, 2016.