Fr. Z's Blog | Formerly entitled: "What Does The Prayer Really Say?" – Clear, straight commentary on Catholic issues, liturgy and life by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf o{]:¬)

“Who would deny that human society is in most urgent need of this cure now?”

Posted on 7 August 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The global economic trend downward and recent events are going to create change, uncertainty and hardship, perhaps much suffering, for a lot of people. I imagine that some of you readers are already being affected. You are not alone.

Our friends over at Rorate (check out their Purgatorial Society, by the way) has a great extended quote from the 1931 “social” encyclical Quadragesimo anno of Pope Pius XI. Here is the final part, but do visit Rorate:

“Wherefore,” to use the words of Our Predecessor, “if human society is to be healed, only a return to Christian life and institutions will heal it.” For this alone can provide effective remedy for that excessive care for passing things that is the origin of all vices; and this alone can draw away men’s eyes, fascinated by and wholly fixed on the changing things of the world, and raise them toward Heaven. Who would deny that human society is in most urgent need of this cure now?

Minds of all, it is true, are affected almost solely by temporal upheavals, disasters, and calamities. But if we examine things critically with Christian eyes, as we should, what are all these compared with the loss of souls? Yet it is not rash by any means to say that the whole scheme of social and economic life is now such as to put in the way of vast numbers of mankind most serious obstacles which prevent them from caring for the one thing necessary; namely, their eternal salvation.

Catholics have an obligation to shape the world around them. For Catholics to do that, they have to have a strong Catholic identity. We have to know our Faith, identity ourselves with it, and then live it not just in the privacy of our homes, but in the public square.

Pope Benedict has, I believe, a vision for his pontificate. He is trying to revitalize our Catholic identity precisely for the salvation of souls and also to affect a change to various vectors of our society, especially that of the West, which is rapidly crumbling under the dictatorship of relativism and also the rising threat of radical islamists.

For the sake of some new readers here, after World War II the USA helped to rebuild a shattered Europe through the Marshall Plan. The objective of that plan was to create strong partners for trade and create a bulwark against atheistic Communism threatening from the East. Today, the fundamental character of the West and Europe first of all is threatened by relativism and by Islam. The whole of the West is on shaky ground in many respects. Catholics have a role to play in the face of the problems that press on us. But we cannot have an influence of we don’t have a secure idea about what we believe and then we don’t live it. However, a revitalization of our Catholic identity cannot taken place without a revitalization of our public liturgical worship of God.

Above all, however, we have to revitalize our liturgical worship of God for the sake of the salvation of our souls. Worship of God is central to living our Catholic faith. Saving our souls is the overriding concern for every person and every group, large or small. When we take steps toward the salvation of our souls, which includes love of God and neighbor, there will necessarily be an effect on the larger world.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, New Evangelization, Our Catholic Identity, Pope of Christian Unity, The future and our choices | Tagged Benedict XVI, Marshall Plan, passing things, Pius XI, Quadragesimo anno
3 Comments

Today is the Lord’s Day. ‘Sup?

Posted on 7 August 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Today, Sunday …

And perhaps pray for me too? And for Pope Benedict?

Do you have some remarks about what you heard in sermons during Mass today? Something helpful, some good point, any useful insight?

Do you have some good thing planned for the Lord’s day?

I have someone coming for an late lunch/early supper: Roast Chicken, rice, green salad.

Help people remember to pray for Pope Benedict. Get some buttons and give them to people when they notice you are wearing one.

Click.

Posted in Linking Back | Tagged Oremus Pro Pontifice, Sunday Supper
38 Comments

On the matter of “ad orientem” worship

Posted on 7 August 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Over a Southern Orders (you may remember their problem with rats) there is an excerpt from an article by my friend Fr. Uwe Michael Lang, CO, who presently works for the CDW in Rome. Fr. Lang has been contributing good scholarship on celebration of Holy Mass ad orientem.

Fr. Louis Bouyer (+2004) was Lutheran minister who converted and was ordained in 1939. He was a member of the Oratory (as is Fr. Lang). He was an important figure in the Liturgical Movement and a co-founder of the Communio project.

My emphases and comments.

An excerpt of a longer article on Louis Bouyer and Church Architecture

Resourcing Benedict XVI’s The Spirit of the Liturgy from “The Institute of Sacred Architecture.”

by Uwe Michael Lang,

The Liturgical Movement and Mass “facing the people”

Drawing on his own experience, Bouyer relates that the pioneers of the Liturgical Movement in the twentieth century had two chief motives for promoting the celebration of Mass versus populum. First, they wanted the Word of God to be proclaimed towards the people. According to the rubrics for Low Mass, the priest had to read the Epistle and the Gospel from the book resting on the altar. Thus the only option was to celebrate the whole Mass “facing the people,” as was provided for by the Missal of St Pius V to cover the particular arrangement of the major Roman basilicas. [In many Roman basilicas there is a versus populum orientation based on the model of St. Peter’s.] The instruction of the Sacred Congregation of Rites Inter Oecumenici of September 26, 1964 allowed the reading of the Epistle and Gospel from a pulpit or ambo, so that the first incentive for Mass facing the people was met. There was, however, another reason motivating many exponents of the Liturgical Movement to press for this change, namely, the intention to reclaim the perception of the Holy Eucharist as a sacred banquet, which was deemed to be eclipsed by the strong emphasis on its sacrificial character. The celebration of Mass facing the people was seen as an adequate way of recovering this loss. [“Adequate”. It seems to have been far more than adequate.]

Bouyer notes in retrospect a tendency to conceive of the Eucharist as a meal in contrast to a sacrifice, which he calls a fabricated dualism that has no warrant in the liturgical tradition. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it, “The Mass is at the same time, and inseparably, the sacrificial memorial in which the sacrifice of the cross is perpetuated and the sacred banquet of communion with the Lord’s body and blood,” and these two aspects cannot be isolated from each other. According to Bouyer, our situation today is very different from that of the first half of the twentieth century, since the meal aspect of the Eucharist has become common property, and it is its sacrificial character that needs to be recovered. [Amen. And the way to do that is the return to ad orientem worship.]

Pastoral experience confirms this analysis, because the understanding of the Mass as both the sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Church has diminished considerably, if not faded away among the faithful. Therefore it is a legitimate question to ask whether the stress on the meal aspect of the Eucharist that complemented the celebrant priest’s turning towards the people has been overdone and has failed to proclaim the Eucharist as “a visible sacrifice (as the nature of man demands).” The sacrificial character of the Eucharist must find an adequate expression in the actual rite. Since the third century, the Eucharist has been named “prosphora,” “anaphora,” and “oblation,” terms that articulate the idea of “bringing to,” “presenting,” and thus of a movement towards God.

Conclusion

Bouyer painted with a broad brush and his interpretation of historical data is sometimes questionable or even untenable. Moreover, he was inclined to express his theological positions sharply, and his taste for polemics made him at times overstate the good case he had. Like other important theologians of the years before the Second Vatican Council, he had an ambiguous relationship to post-Tridentine Catholicism and was not entirely free of an iconoclastic attitude. Later, he deplored some post-conciliar developments especially in the liturgy and in religious life, and again expressed this in the strongest possible terms.

Needless to say, Benedict XVI does not share Bouyer’s attitude, as is evident from his appreciation of sound and legitimate developments in post-Tridentine liturgy, sacred architecture, art, and music. It should also be noted that Joseph Ratzinger does not take up the later, more experimental chapters of Liturgy and Architecture, where new schematic models of church buildings are presented. Despite its limitations, however, Bouyer’s book remains an important work, and it is perhaps its greatest merit that it introduced a wider audience to the significance of early Syrian church architecture. Louis Bouyer was one of the first to raise questions that seemed deeply outmoded then, but have now become matters of intense liturgical and theological debate.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Brick by Brick, Mail from priests, Our Catholic Identity, The Drill, The future and our choices | Tagged ad orientem, Fr. Louis Bouyer, Fr. Uwe Michael Lang, Inter Oecumenici, Liturgical Movement, versus populum
17 Comments

Japanese children tell Pope Benedict they will “never lose their smiles”

Posted on 7 August 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

We all have our ups and downs in life. Sometimes they are bad. Sometimes we think our problems are bad, but then we hear about people with real problems. I found this story from CNA, about children with real problems, uplifting.

Fukushima children promise Pope they will persevere through nuclear tragedy

Rome, Italy, Aug 4, 2011 / 12:10 pm (CNA).- Twenty elementary school children from northeast Japan promised Pope Benedict “they would never give up” in the face of adversity.

The children traveled from the Japanese city of Ofunato, to Italy and greeted the Pope at the conclusion of this week’s Wednesday General Audience, reports L’Osservatore Romano.

Ofunato is a coastal city which was impacted by radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant damaged in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

They told the Pope of their will to “live and be reborn” and of their effort to “rebuild our still-beautiful city.” They also pledged to “never lose their smiles, which are a source of hope.”

To symbolize this hope, the mayor of the Japanese city of Hokuto, Masashi Shirakura, presented the Pope with a branch of cherry tree blossoms.

This will to be reborn, he said, “is the same that lifted up Nagasaki after the nuclear blast of August 9, 1945. The flowers were the first to blossom just 30 days after the disaster, to the surprise of all. They became of symbol of hope,” the mayor said.

WDTPRS kudos to the kids.

Posted in Just Too Cool, The future and our choices | Tagged Fukushima, Japanese children, tsunami
2 Comments

God holds for you nothing less than Himself

Posted on 6 August 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Augustine of Hippo in s. 78.6, a sermon on the Transfiguration of the Lord.

Augustine’s message applies to all Christians in their vocation, but it applies most poignantly to Holy Church’s pastors.

My emphases.

And in this glory [of the Lord transfigured] is fulfilled what He has promised to those who love Him: “he who loves me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him.” … Great gift! great promise! God holds for you nothing less than Himself. O you covetous one; why isn’t Christ’s promise enough for you? You seem to yourself to be rich; yet if you do not have God, what do you have? Another person is poor, yet if he has God, what does he lack?

Come down, Peter! You wanted to rest on the mount. Come down and “preach the word, be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.” Persevere, work hard, bear your measure of torture — so that you might possess what is meant by the white garment of the Lord, through the brightness and the beauty of an upright labor in charity.

[…] Hear and listen, O covetous one: the Apostle explains clearly to you in another place: “Let no man seek his own, but another’s.” He says of himself, “Not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.” This Peter did not yet understand when he desired to live on the mount with Christ. He was reserving this for you, Peter, after death.

But for now He says, “Come down, to labor on the earth; on the earth to serve, to be despised, and crucified on the earth.

The Life came down, that He might be slain; the Bread came down, that He might hunger; the Way came down, that life might be wearied in the way; the Fountain came down, that He might thirst; and yet you refuse to work?

Seek not your own. Have charity, preach the truth; so shall you come to eternity, where you shall find security.”

Posted in Patristiblogging | Tagged St. Augustine, Transfiguration
1 Comment

WDTPRS – Transfiguration: in the Son our own “sonship” more fully revealed

Posted on 6 August 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Today is the titular feast of the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the Cathedral of Rome. [Well… at least it was the titular feast. A commentator below informs us that in 1966 it was switched to the Ascension. Odd.]

“But Father! But Father”, I can hear you objecting. “Don’t you know that that basilica is called ‘St. John‘? How can the Transfiguration of the Lord be the titular feast?”

Glad you asked. The real name of the Lateran Basilica is the Archbasilica of the Most Holy Savior, St. John Baptist and St. John the Evangelist at the Lateran. So, for a titular feast you really need a feast of the Lord.

While today is the main day for the basilica, they do make much over the two saints John as well. I do too. For my “onomastico”, as the Italians call it, or “name day” I claim both the Baptist and the evangelist. That way I get two days in the summer (don’t forget the feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist) and one in the winter. [And now I may have to add St. John at the Latin Gate.]

And let us not forget that the Lateran Basilica is a Major Papal (formerly Patriarchal) Basilica. There are lots of minor basilicas in Rome and throughout the world There were five Patriarchal Basilicas in Rome to go with the five ancient patriarchal sees, four major patriarchal basilicas and one minor. How did that happen? The patriarchs always were allocated (symbolically) a basilica in Rome, thus Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch, had St. Peter’s in the Vatican, St. Paul’s outside the walls, and St. Mary Major. When Jerusalem was added as a patriarchate it was assigned St. Lawrence outside the walls, though it remained a minor basilica.

The Bishop of Rome as Patriarch of the West had the Lateran Basilica obviously. And he still does, even though the Pope seems to have dropped the title of Patriarch of the West (remember that?).

Anyway, this is the titular feast of the Lateran Basilica.

The word transfiguratio is interesting in itself. In classical, post-Augustan Latin Pliny used this for “a change of shape”. However, that is not what happened with Christ on the mountain, probably Mount Tabor in Galilee not far from Nazareth.

What happened?

If we see Christ’s Baptism at the Jordan as the beginning point of His public life, and the Ascension as the end, then the Transfiguration its zenith.

The accounts of the Transfiguration are found in Matthew 17:1-6, Mark 9:1-8, and Luke 9:28-36. Also, 2 Peter 1:16-18 and John 1:14 refer to it.

Scripture tells us that a week or so after Jesus and the disciples were at Caesarea Philippi (where Christ gave Peter the “keys”) Jesus took Peter, James and John to a high mountain. They were surrounded by a bright cloud, like that in which God spoke to Moses. Christ shone with light so dazzling it was hard to see. On either side of Him were Moses the Lawgiver and Elijah the Prophet. A voice was heard, as at the time of Jesus’ Baptism: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him”. The Gospels of Matthew and Mark use the Greek word metemorphothe for what happened. St. Jerome in his Vulgate chose transfiguratus est. The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) expand the event saying “his face did shine as the sun: and his garments became white as snow,” or “as light,” according to the Greek text. This brightness has been taken to be a glimpse of Christ’s divinity shining through His flesh. Christ allowed the three key Apostles to see this so as to strengthen them before His Passion soon to follow.

Getting back to the word transfiguratio, it clearly points to a dramatic change, though in Christ’s case not one of form or shape. The word is from the preposition trans with figura. A figura is “a form, shape” but also in philosophical language a “quality, kind, nature, manner”. Most interesting to me is the mean of figura as a “form of a word” or “a figure of speech”. Think of the Prologue of the Gospel of John 1:14, recited by priests for centuries at the end of Holy Mass: “we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father”.

In the Prologue of John the Evangelist says that Jesus the Son is the divine logos, the Word: “In the beginning was the Word….” A word is an utterance which projects the concept of the speaker. The Jews has used Hebrew memra, God’s creative or directive word or speech which manifests His power in the mind or in matter, as a substitute for the divine Name of God.

Jerome’s choice of a word with the root figura or “figure of speech” is very apt in many ways, and its draws our imaginations into the realm of God’s eternal uttering, His eternal rhetoric.

COLLECT (Transfiguration):
Deus, qui fidei sacramenta
in Unigeniti tui gloriosa Transfiguratione
patrum testimonio roborasti,
et adoptionem filiorum perfectam mirabiliter praesignasti,
concede nobis famulis tuis,
ut, ipsius dilecti Filii tui vocem audientes,
eiusdem coheredes effici mereamur.

LITERAL WDTPRS VERSION:
O God, who in the glorious Transfiguration
of your Only-begotten Son
strengthened the sacrament of faith by the witness of the fathers (Moses and Elijah),
and in a marvelous way foreshadowed the perfect adoption of children,
grant to your servants that,
hearing the voice of Your beloved Son himself,
we may merit to be made the same Son’s coheirs.

NEW CORRECTED ICEL (2011):
O God, who in the glorious Transfiguration
of your Only Begotten Son
confirmed the mysteries of faith by the witness of the Fathers
and wonderfully prefigured our full adoption to sonship,
grant, we pray, to your servants,
that, listening to the voice of your beloved Son,
we may merit to become co-heirs with him.

In the Transfiguration, God reveals more fully the Sonship of Jesus and, thus, reveals in Jesus, our own sonship.

When the Father reveals the Son as Son, He is telling us about His own life, how He generates the Son and how the Holy Spirit from all eternity is the love between them. Fortified with this knowledge, we can participate in the life of the Trinity in a fuller way. Because of our unity with Christ in our common human nature, the way to divine sonship is opened up. He is the Father’s Son by nature, but we by grace. God makes us His children through a perfect adoption… adoptio perfecta. From God’s point of view, it is perfect (“brought to completion”) because God puts His seal and mark upon us. From our point of view, it will be perfect only when we see God face to face in heaven.

Because of this adoption, the adoptio filiorum and adoptio perfecta, an eternal inheritance awaits us. We merit a patrimony.

St. Leo the Great (+461) said in a sermon (s. 51):

“In this mystery of the Transfiguration, God’s Providence has laid a solid foundation for the hope of the Church, so that the whole body of Christ may know what a transformation will be granted to it, and that the members may be assured that they will be sharers in the glory which shone forth in their Head.”

We are already sons and daughters by God’s adoption, but that sonship is not yet completed.

We lack the final essential component: perseverance in faith and obedience for the whole course of our lives. Even the Apostle Peter, his eyes dazzled by the Lord on Mount Tabor, failed to see what was happening. The great St. Augustine in a sermon on the Transfiguration (s. 78, 6), addresses Peter, and through Peter he really addresses us: “Descend the mount, O Peter. You wanted to rest on the mountain. Come down.”

We still have work to do in this life before we can rest.

Citing the same passage of Augustine the CCC 556 takes up this same theme:

Peter did not yet understand this when he wanted to remain with Christ on the mountain. It has been reserved for you, Peter, but for after death. For now, Jesus says: “Go down to toil on earth, to serve on earth, to be scorned and crucified on earth. Life goes down to be killed; Bread goes down to suffer hunger; the Way goes down to be exhausted on his journey; the Spring goes down to suffer thirst; and you refuse to suffer?”

Posted in WDTPRS | Tagged CCC 556, St. Augustine, St. Leo, Transfiguration
9 Comments

USCCB Media Blog reacts to Dept. of Health and Human Services

Posted on 5 August 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

In missed this post by Sr. Mary Ann Walsh, RSM, the other day on the USCCB’s media blog. Even though the blogosphere can sometimes move fast enough that people forget about what happened just a few days ago, it is good to circle back and review. I had posted about this issue via my note about a piece from the Catholic League.

My emphases and comments:

HHS Makes In-Your-Face Effort to Undermine Constitution’s Religious Freedom

Health and Human Services must think Catholics and other religious groups are fools.

That’s all you can think when you read HHS’s recent announcement that it may exempt the church from having to pay for contraceptive services, counseling to use them and sterilizations under the new health reform in certain circumstances. As planned now, HHS would limit the right of the church not to pay for such services in limited instances, such as when the employees involved are teaching religion and in cases where the people served are primarily Catholic.

HHS’s reg conveniently ignores the underlying principle of Catholic charitable actions: we help people because we are Catholic, not because our clients are. [Do I hear an “Amen!”?] There’s no need to show your baptismal certificate in the hospital emergency room, the parish food pantry, or the diocesan drug rehab program. Or any place else the church offers help, either.

With its new regulation, HHS seeks to force church institutions to buy contraceptives, including drugs that can disrupt an existing pregnancy, through insurance they offer their own employees. This is part of HHS’s anticipated list of preventive services for women that private insurance programs must provide under the new health reform law.

The exemption is limited, to say the least. The pastor in the Catholic parish doesn’t have to buy the Pill for his employees, but the religious order that runs a Catholic hospital has to foot the bill for surgical sterilizations. And diocesan Catholic Charities agencies have to use money that would be better spent on feeding the poor to underwrite services that violate church teachings.

Whatever you think of artificial birth control, HHS’s command that everyone, including churches, must pay for it exalts ideology over conscience and common sense.

Perhaps HHS is unduly influenced by lobbyists. No surprise there. Certainly a major lobbyist is Planned Parenthood, the nation’s chief proponent of contraceptive services. Contraceptive services make a lot of money for Planned Parenthood clinics, which (again no surprise) provide the “services” HHS has mandated.

HHS and Planned Parenthood are narrow in focus. Respect for religious rights isn’t likely a key concern for them. However, it ought to be a key concern for President Obama, who last year promised to respect religious rights as [wait for it….] he garnered support from the church community to pass the health care reform act. [Did you get that? Remember that?] To assuage concerns, President Obama went so far as to issue an executive order promising that the health care reform act would not fund abortion or force people and institutions to violate their consciences. HHS is on its way to violating that promise. [What a surprise.] For the sake of basic integrity – the President’s keeping his word and for the protection of the right to religious freedom – President Obama needs to speak up now.

WDTPRS kudos to Sr. Walsh.

Posted in Fr. Z KUDOS, Our Catholic Identity, The Drill, The future and our choices, The Last Acceptable Prejudice | Tagged abortifacients, contraception, HHS, Planned Parenthood, POTUS, sterilization, USCCB, USCCB Media blog
10 Comments

QUAERITUR: What to do with Missals with the old translation? A burning question!

Posted on 5 August 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a priest:

When the new missals wit the new translation go into force, what are we supposed to do with all these old missals?

A good question!

This touches on what we are to do with sacred things when they wear out and are no longer useful or worthy for liturgical use for whatever reason. For example, what to do with altar linens and vestments which are worn beyond the point of being fit for use?

The classic solution is that they should be burned and, ideally, the ashes possibly afterward mixed with water and then the mixture put into the earth. They could also be simply buried.

I imagine that a group of priests could pool their old and now superseded editions of the Sacramentary with the superseded ICEL translation and have a discreet book burning. It could be more efficient, and even cheery, to do a large number at once.

While we can happily say “good riddance” to old translation, and perhaps shed a little tear of joy at the reduction of these volumes to ashes, we shouldn’t dispose of them carelessly: they do, after all, contain the Word of God. If the translations were not good, they nevertheless command some respect.

However, if a cold beer is involved as the flames rise higher, I wouldn’t necessarily think that out of place, provided that scandal was avoided.

As I think of it, I believe that it was the practice of the Jews, with their sacred scrolls of the Torah and also prayer shawls, etc., to store them away when they were too worn until such a time as they could be buried. Anything which had more than a few words of Scripture was to be handled with great care, not just thrown into the garbage. This went even for children’s homework

Consider this in regard to missalettes in the pews of parish churches. They also have the Word of God in them. I suspect many or most of them are just tossed. I have never been comfortable with that.

That said, I recommend that if parishes or priests have more than one of these book with the old translation, then one should be preserved as a reference.

The solution of disposal is chiefly for books which are worn out.

In the final analysis, they should not simply be put in the dustbin.

UPDATE 20:32 GMT:

The March-April Newsletter of the USCCB’s Committee on Divine Worship addresses the question.

Here is the text, with my emphases and comments:

How to Dispose of Old Copies of the Sacramentary

The Secretariat of Divine Worship has received a number of timely inquiries regarding the disposition of copies of the current Sacramentary once the new Roman Missal, Third Edition has been implemented.

There is relatively little written about exactly what to do with liturgical books which have been replaced by updated or revised editions, but some related writings, as well as some common sense, can provide some context. The Book of Blessings, no. 1343, indicates that the Sacramentary, the Lectionary, and other liturgical books are counted among those articles used in the Sacred Liturgy which ought to be blessed using the rite provided for that purpose, the Order for the Blessing of Articles for Liturgical Use (nos. 1341-1359). The Latin De Benedictionibus, editio typica, however, does not explicitly mention the Missale among the articles that are properly blessed. [Some of you know my opinion of De Benedictionibus.]

Whether or not the Sacramentary has been blessed by an official rite, it is appropriate to treat it with care as it has been admitted into liturgical use. [And it contains the Word of God as well.] Its disposal should be handled with respect. The Secretariat recommends burying the Sacramentary in an appropriate location on church grounds, or perhaps in a parish cemetery if there is one. Some have even suggested following a custom used in various Eastern Churches whereby liturgical books or Bibles are placed in the coffin of the deceased as a sign of devotion and love for the Liturgy. In lieu of burying old liturgical books, they could be burned, and the ashes placed in the ground in an appropriate location on church grounds. It is advisable to retain a copy of the Sacramentary for parish archives or liturgical libraries. [This sounds to be, in substance, very much like what I answered, other than the interesting point about Eastern practices.]

Looking ahead to the reception of the Roman Missal, Third Edition, the above-mentioned blessing from the Book of Blessings could be used to bless copies of the Missal before their first use on the First Sunday of Advent, November 27, 2011. [On the other hand, using the Rituale Romanum would actually bless the books, which is the whole point.] The blessing could take place during a Mass on the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King, at the last weekday Mass prior to the First Sunday of Advent, or outside Mass at a separate gathering of liturgical ministers or other parish leaders.

Many parishes will also replace hymnals and other participation aids (such as hand missals) in light of updated editions corresponding to the new Roman Missal. While the Blessing of Articles for Liturgical Use also mentions hymnals, it might be difficult to appropriately dispose of a large number of copies of such books. After setting aside an appropriate number of copies for archives and libraries, other copies could be stored for use by prayer or study groups in the parish, offered to parishioners for their own private devotional use, or donated to other small communities that could effectively make use of them. Due to copyright agreements, annual hymnals and participation aids should be discarded after their prescribed period of use and cannot be retained for other uses in parishes. [That “discarded” leaves me a little uncomfortable, for reasons explained above.]

I thank the priest commentator who alerted me to the USCCB answer to this burning question.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, ASK FATHER Question Box, Our Catholic Identity | Tagged disposal of sacred objects, old liturgical books
31 Comments

A survey suggests something about our Catholic identity

Posted on 5 August 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Since I have barely been online for some days, I just found out about an article by Laurie Goodstein of the NYT about a study done by the Abu Dhabi Gallup Center, a Muslim group, about how people of various religions identify with their religion, co-religionists, country and countrymen.

The report itself is worth some of your time.

Since I talk all the time about our Catholic identity and revitalizing our identity I found this pretty interesting. Of course it focuses mainly on Muslims, but there are stats about Catholics as well.

The result I found most interesting had to do with how strongly Catholics identify with each of the following groups? A. The United States B. Your ethnic background C. Your religion D. Those worldwide who share your religious identity Muslim Americans. The result: 39% of Catholics identity with other Catholics around the world.

First, I wonder what that number would be in, say, England, where Catholics experience a different social dynamic than American Catholics have.

And I continue to wonder.

If we had done what the Second Vatican Council asked for in a reform of the liturgy and if we had continued to use Latin and had placed Gregorian chant in the first place for music… could that number in the U.S. have been higher than 39%?