What is the Pope of Christian Unity up to now?

Posted on 3 March 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The first time I used the phrase “Benedict XVI is the Pope of Christian Unity“, which is starting to get around, liberals were in grand-twit: they are losing control of what “ecumenism” means and how it is pursued.  Benedict is redirecting ecumenism.

Ecumenism is a necessary part of our Catholic thing.  We must pursue it.  And yet it is so hard a project, so fraught with obstacles that in the final analysis I believe only God can make it happen.  We are caught between giving up not even one essential inch, iota or item of what we believe as Catholics we as we must be engaged with people who hold strikingly different or only slightly different views.  We cannot sacrifice anything essential to “get along” in ecumenical efforts.  But the Lord prayed ut unum sint, and we have to do something about that.

Brick by brickPope Benedict is doing something about that. After decades of work which at best paved the way by changing how we talk with other groups, making it possible to have a conversation, the Holy Father is finding creative ways to engage in a true ecumenism.  This is the ecumenism in continuity with both Mortalium animos as well as Unitatis redintegratio whereby, eventually, all are one in the Catholic Church.

I read this on ZENIT:

Vatican Aide: Ordinariate Very Important to Pope

Says Unity Is Built on Love and Truth

VATICAN CITY, MARCH 2, 2011 (Zenit.org).- A priest at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is affirming that the newly established Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham is “very important” to Benedict XVI. [That Ordinariate is, of course, for Anglicans who want unity with Peter.]

Members of the ordinariate, established for former Anglicans wishing to enter full communion with the Catholic Church, recently visited Rome and met with staff at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, including the prefect, Cardinal William Levada.

Father Hermann Geissler, head of the dicastery’s doctrinal office, gave an interview to The Portal, an independent review of the ordinariate.

He affirmed that “the ordinariate is very important to the Holy Father.”  [You can also bet that Summorum Pontificum and the talks with the SSPX are also very important to the Holy Father.  Think about it.  Summorum Pontificum has more enemies, however.]

“In the area of ecumenism it strengthens the Catholic Church’s approach in two ways,” the priest noted. “It promotes sincere dialogue with a Christian defense of life and the promotion of peace.”

[READ THIS SLOWLY AND SAVOR IT:] He stated: “The goal of the ecumenical movement is complete visible union with one Christ and with Peter in one Church. We must cooperate and grow together.” [What else can it be?]

Father Geissler affirmed that the Pope is called to promote unity in the Church and world. “He is the chief shepherd, he cannot do otherwise.”

“Unity is built on two pillars, love and truth,” the priest added.

Precious souls

He reported that 50-60 clergy and some 1,000 laity are already planning to join the ordinariate, and “every soul is precious.”

The priest added that there are also groups interested in following a similar model in the United States, Canada and Australia. He noted his dicastery is “watching events carefully” in Africa as well.

“We are not to give in to difficulties,” Father Geissler said. “We are to be generous and welcoming.”

He continued: “The issue is the whole question of unity and of mission. When God plants a beautiful tree, he cares for it.”

The priest concluded: “We pray for you that the ordinariate goes well. Priests are already ordained.

“We must be faithful to unity.

“We will do all we can to help you together with the bishops of England and Wales. Be encouraged by the words of Jesus Christ, ‘Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and everything else will be given you.’ There will be suffering, but God will guide us.”

Let us review: “The goal of the ecumenical movement is complete visible union with one Christ and with Peter in one Church. We must cooperate and grow together.”

With that in mind.

Also from Geissler’s interview with The Portal:

The Portal also reported that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has begun to receive requests from Lutherans to establish a similar canonical structure that would allow them to enter the Catholic Church while retaining aspects of the Lutheran heritage. “The Holy Father will do all he can to bring other Christians into unity,” Father Geissler commented.

SSPX?  Hello?  SSPX?  Anyone there?

Posted in Brick by Brick, New Evangelization, Our Catholic Identity, Pope of Christian Unity, The future and our choices, Wherein Fr. Z Rants | Tagged , ,
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Did liturgical optionitis and degraded liturgy lead to dissent about morality?

Posted on 3 March 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I was alerted to a column by Louis Verrecchio over at the excellent CNA.

It weighs in at about 1700 words. I will edit and add some emphases and comments and then shoo you over there to read the rest.

Mr. Verrecchio makes an interesting connection.

Liturgy’s effect on gay ‘marriage’ debate
By Louie Verrecchio *

Perhaps you’ve visited the popular weblog of the inimitable Fr. Z (AKA Fr. John Zuhlsdorf at WDTPRS.com) [Why, yes! I have!] where one of his trademark battle cries is, “Save the liturgy, save the world!” If you haven’t, I highly recommend it. [Buy some stuff with that phrase.]

“If you throw a stone, even a pebble, into a pool it produces ripples which expand to its edge. The way we celebrate Mass must create spiritual ripples in the Church and the world,” Fr. Zuhlsdorf writes, making the point that our liturgical practices have a truly universal impact; whether positive or negative.

With this in mind it occurs to me that if one examines the history and the fruit of the post-conciliar reform of the Roman Rite, the liturgy’s impact on the way Catholics view the gay “marriage” issue can be brought into focus.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc? No, it certainly isn’t a matter of simple “cause and effect,” but follow me here and then draw your own conclusions.

Polling data published by the Pew Research Center in October 2010 claims that 42% of Americans support gay “marriage,” while an even greater percentage of self-identified Catholics (46%) responded likewise. More noteworthy still is that the percentage of those who so reject Church teaching on the sanctity of marriage remains remarkably high (34%) even among weekly Mass-goers!

Though the gay [I loath the distortion of the word “gay”.] “marriage” movement is a relatively recent one, it’s difficult to imagine more than one-in-three Catholic Mass-goers rejecting any such foundational doctrine of the Faith back in 1963; [Do I hear an “Amen!”?] the year the process of liturgical reform was formally set in motion with the promulgation of the Vatican II document Sacrosanctum Concilium.  [See where he’s going with this yet?]

So, how did we get here? Let’s begin by looking back to the year 1969 and the inception of the “gay rights movement” at the inaugural event often cited by its proponents; the “Stonewall Riots” during which homosexuals clashed with police in Greenwich Village over a period of three days beginning on June 28. It was an unprecedented uprising against secular authority for the gay community; setting the tone for decades to come. [Liberals and evil forces are brilliant at the use of creeping incrementalism.  Conservatives tend not to be so patient.]

Less than 90 days earlier, on April 3, Pope Paul VI had issued the Apostolic Constitution, Missale Romanum, with high hopes that the promulgation of the Novus Ordo Missae (now known as the “Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite”) would put an end to the challenges being leveled against the Church’s liturgical authority and all of the experimentation that came with it throughout much of the decade.

Fast forward to today.

It’s important for us to realize that the Council Fathers never envisioned, much less encouraged, a scenario in which the Church would in essence create a brand new “form” of the Roman Rite while leaving the Mass according to the 1962 Missal (now called the “Extraordinary Form”) unchanged. How and why this happened is a subject unto itself, but the salient point here is that the near “overnight” emergence of a “bi-formal” Roman Rite is as unusual as the unique set of circumstances it created!  [There is a bit of a misstep here, perhaps.  It is true that the older form of Mass remained in use, but it was for all intents and purposes crushed out of existence in most places.  The “bi-formal” has really come from Summorum Pontificum, in a juridical sense, at least.  But let’s not go down this rabbit hole.  The writer’s point is good: the Council Fathers asked for one thing and different thing happend.]

[…]

The peculiar set of circumstances in which we find ourselves today have created an environment in which Roman Rite Catholics are faced, either in practice or in theory, with two entirely valid liturgical “choices;” i.e. what form of the Roman Rite works best for me? [Of course Catholics have always had choices of Latin and Eastern Rites to attend.]
The majority of Catholics, who as the name suggests worship in the Ordinary Form, are further faced with yet another unprecedented set of potential liturgical choices as the Novus Ordo is given to multiple variations.

Do I prefer the Folk Mass or the “regular” Mass? Do I like Fr. Joe’s Mass or Fr. John’s Mass? Do I want to drive a few extra miles to go to the charismatic Mass, or should I take the kids to that parish across town with the video screens and the PowerPoint homilies?

Saving any commentary on the merits of these choices for another day, the very idea of shopping for a liturgy that suites one’s fancy is inherently flawed in that it approaches a divinely instituted gift that is given by Christ to His Church (not to the local community, much less to the individual) and it treats it as though it is a product of the people that can be repeatedly reinvented according to popular fashion as seems useful to the meet the demands of personal preference. It is, in other words, a liturgical approach that is inordinately “me-centered.” [In a sense, he is right.  In theory.  But in fact, when faced with a Mass filled with wacko stuff by Fr. Just-Call-Me-Bob at St. Abusiva in Mahonyville, or a reverently celebrated by Fr. Just-Say-The-Black at St. Fidelia over in Benedictburg, it isn’t any longer a matter of “fancy”.]

[…]
[And here we are at the point we knew he was aimed.] With this being the case, is it any wonder there are Catholics in our day who operate as though their personal preferences legitimately reign supreme in such fundamental matters of faith as how one defines the sanctity of marriage?  Consider, if you will, the convoluted yet not entirely unpredictable logic that the current liturgical climate has invited.  [If you incessantly show people that they can make it up as they go and then you chose to do things that are undignified, you are telling people that nothing they believed is fixed and those things we have been told are not that important anyway.  There is a reciprocal relationship between what we believe and how we pray.  Change one and, over time, the other will change too.]

[…]

Perhaps this is why so many on the Catholic Left who embrace personal choice when it comes to things like abortion and sexual morality are often moved to outright hostility at the mere suggestion that there is value in the traditional form of Holy Mass for anyone. [Truer words were never written.  And, ironically, I have found over the years that those who bash the older form of Mass the most are themselves burdened with problems of sexual identity.  It is usually only homosexuals who point their fingers at the traditional things and then suggest that those who use them are homosexuals.] Could it be that they realize there is much more at stake in the liturgy than what goes on within the walls of the church building? (Ironic, is it not, given the mantra of the Left, “Stay out of my bedroom?”)  [The proximity of the dismissal to the end of distribution of Communion, in both forms of the Roman Rite, is no accident.]
The fundamental difficulty here is that when liturgy, in practice, becomes a venue in which believers are empowered to exercise choice as a function of personal preference the stage is set for a certain “idolatry of self” to play itself out.

Evidence of this danger is made manifest in any number of ways in the Ordinary Form; the orientation of the priest and the physical layout of our church buildings wherein the community of believers is turned inward upon itself, the narcissistic music that we often bring into the Mass, the ever increasing roles that we assign to the laity while granting them the title “minister,” etc. [bingo!]

[…]
So now what?

“Save the liturgy, save the world,” of course.  [Do I hear an “Amen!”?]

I think he is on to something.

Also, for your amusement, Mr. Verrecchio also came up with a way to describe the concerted efforts to undermine, derail, otherwise whine about the new, corrected translation:

“Global Missal Dissent System”

Posted in Global Killer Asteroid Questions, Linking Back, Our Catholic Identity | Tagged , , ,
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That smudge.

Posted on 3 March 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Ash Wednesday is around the corner.  In the UK’s best Catholic weekly, the Catholic Herald, the lovely and persistent feature-writer Anna Arco has an article with comments about that ash-smudge.

Don’t rub off your ashes, urges bishop

By Anna Arco

Catholics should try not to rub their ashes off after Ash Wednesday Mass, an English bishop has said.

Bishop Kieran Conry of Arundel and Brighton, who heads the department of evangelisation and catechesis, urged Catholics across Britain to wear “the outward sign of our inward sorrow for our sins and for our commitment to Jesus as Our Lord and Saviour”.

He said: “The wearing of the ashes provides us with a wonderful opportunity to share with people how important our faith is to us and to point them to the cross of Christ. I invite you where possible to attend a morning or lunchtime Mass. [“Invite” is the right word, since Ash Wednesday is not a Holy Day of Obligation.  Still, I think Catholics do well to make the effort.  It is an important enough day in the Church’s liturgical calendar that it is the only other day with Good Friday when we must both fast and abstain.]

“Please try not to rub off your ashes as soon as you leave church, but take the sign of the cross to all those that you meet – in your school, office, factory, wherever you may be. This might just make people curious and wonder why you would do this. If you explain about Lent and Easter it might just make them think and may even awaken in them the questions that might lead to faith. Many people have a dim awareness of Lent and even ashes. It would be good to make this clear rather than dim. [Next question.  Can you explain Lent and Easter?]

“Don’t underestimate the power of this simple action and wear your ashes as not only a sign of the beginning of your Lenten journey, but also to witness to your greatest treasure in life. This small step could awaken faith in the hearts of many that you meet in a way that words could never do.”

Catholics receive ashes at Mass on Ash Wednesday where they are reminded of their own mortality when the priest says “From ashes to ashes”. [?] The ashes are made from the fronds of palm used on palm Sunday of the previous year.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Clerical Sexual Abuse, New Evangelization, Our Catholic Identity | Tagged ,
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QUAERITUR: About Lenten reading

Posted on 2 March 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader:

The Little Black Book
This booklet surfaces around Lent in some local parishes and is based on the writings of Bishop Ken Untener (1937-2004).
PLEASE advise.Thank you.

I don’t know this book.  I understand that it isn’t really by Bp. Untener but dedicated to his memory.

However, I – personally – would not willingly read anything by the late Bishop Untener, may he rest in peace.  I would (pace Mary McCarthy) sit there and suspect everything he wrote, even “and” and “the”.  Not a spiritually beneficial experience, I think.

That said, from time to time a writer whom you would you suspect to be pretty dreadful in print can turn out some surprisingly good things at different points in his life.

That said, friend, there is only so much time in life.

Read the stuff you won’t have to be suspicious about.  If you are worried about a book dedicated to the memory of the very liberal late bishop, then ask around and get the skinny on it from people you trust.  In the meantime, there are books available which you don’t have to wonder about for a moment.

UPDATE 3 March 1816:

From a reader:

Now let me offer a positive example of a bishop going beyond ideology to address concrete pastoral concerns.

The late Bishop Kenneth Untener of Saginaw had long heard the many complaints about the poor quality of preaching in the Catholic Church. So he decided to address this pastoral problem directly.

He directed all of his priests to have their Sunday homilies videotaped. He had his own homilies taped as well. Then he arranged a meeting in which he and the priests would watch and critique together the recorded homilies, again, including his own. He even arranged to have some lay people from a neighboring diocese watch the videos and send him their critique. He encouraged his priests to continue the practice of working to improve their preaching. This was not a liberal initiative. This was not a conservative initiative. This was a pastoral initiative and the improved preaching that likely resulted from his initiative doubtless did more to keep Catholics in the pews than any formal church pronouncement!

Little Black Book

This booklet surfaces around Lent in some local parishes and is based on the writings of Bishop Ken Untener (1937-2004).

PLEASE advise.Thank you.

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QUESTION FOR READERS about new, corrected translation of the Roman Missal

Posted on 2 March 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Do you readers, especially in the USA, know of any bishop who has authorized the use of the new, corrected English translation of the Roman Missal, either for regular use or for occasions?

Could you post about it here?  Some reliable details would be helpful.

Also, could you take about 5 seconds and vote for WDTPRS today?  You can vote every day.  I think about thousands of readers who look at the blog every day… just a few seconds of your time, folks.  Thanks!

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Publishers of the new, corrected Roman Missal! Attention!

Posted on 2 March 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Pretty soon people are going to be buying LOTS of new missals.  They are going to have to decide whose to buy.

I understand that Liturgy Training Publications and Midwest Theological Forum are both preparing edition of the new, corrected translation, the Roman Missal.

Readers here may recall that I did a careful side by side look at the editions of the 1962 Missale Romanum from both the Vatican Press and also the Benziger edition redone by, I believe, Angelus Press.

I have had questions already about which edition to purchase.   Also, someone today reminded by by email that these books were going to come out, and that they are much nicer than English books of the past.  The editions in England look great, by the way.

I would happily do a comparison of the new books… but I need the new books.  The actual books, when they are ready.

If there are readers of this blog at either Liturgy Training Publications and Midwest Theological Forum or for that matter any other publisher of the new, corrected Roman Missal who would like a review on a blog that gets my traffic… please contact me by email.

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READ THIS READ THIS NOW! – UPDATE!

Posted on 2 March 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From the “Your good news” thread just a few minutes ago:

Singing Mum says:

In hosp about to deliver my fourth boy, Dominc Miguel.
He is Dominic for the holy founder and Miguel for St Michael and Bl. Miguel Pro.

I love my men!! God willing, He may have one or all as priests.

FanTAStic!

Everyone!  Please stop NOW and say a pray for a good and safe delivery!

UPDATE 2 March 2020 GMT:

Singing Mum writes in a comment, below:

For all your prayers and kind words- a thousand thank yous!
Little Dom was born in a monastic hour, 4:53am, weighing 7lbs, 4oz, and measuring 20&1/2″.  He has exhibited a gentle spirit thus far, which is quite welcome in a family with four boys.
His baptismal date, and subsequent birth into Christ, will be March 19, [OOH-RAH!] because it’s easy to remember as St. Joseph’s day. And why not add on another mighty patron?
I’m doing just fine after a long labor, and my husband Bill is a great help. Dom’s older brothers will storm the hospital to greet their brother this evening.
Thanks again, Fr. Z and all for prayers!

You are welcome.  And now we can also add a prayer of thanks.

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An Anglican priest on his way in opines

Posted on 2 March 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

A reader alerted me to a blog written by an Anglican priest making his way into the Roman Catholic Church and the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham for Tunbridge Wells in Kent.

Keeping in mind that Catholics do not hold that Anglican orders are valid, that doesn’t mean that Anglican orders are not dear and meaningful to those are ordained.  That said,

I point you to this post, Is God pruning for growth?, down about three from the most recent one:

I was struck by an observation made by Fr. Andrew Burnham that everyone in the Ordinariate is being humbled in order to serve. Bishops become priests, priests become laity for a period , laity enter into a Eucharistic fast and voluntarily accept a reduced status as they begin life in their new church. And the cutting back does not stop there. Many clergy families will move from large expensive properties to small modest houses. Parishes will vacate treasured churches and leave all their posessions behind. There is a process of reduction going on that will cause the cynic to snear but to those with eyes of faith it says something else entirely.

Indeed this joyfully surrendering of worldly posessions serves as a witness to others. S. Francis said that there was no point walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching. I see something of that in the formation process thus far.

It takes courage to do what they are doing.  They deserve our respect and support in prayer.

Moreover, thank you, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope of Christian Unity.

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Diaconal-Cardinalatial news.

Posted on 2 March 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

TwitterI saw a notice on VIS that two worthy old cardinals will take possession of their titular churches in Rome.  These are diaconal titles and the worthies are Cardinal Deacons.  Both of them were at least 80 when made cardinals.

CARDINALS TO TAKE POSSESSION OF DIACONATE CHURCHES

VATICAN CITY, 2 MAR 2011 (VIS) – A note published today by the Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff announces details of forthcoming ceremonies in which two cardinals will take possession of their diaconate churches:

At 10.30 a.m. on Sunday 6 March, Cardinal Walter Brandmuller, former president of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, will take possession of the diaconate of St. Julian of the Flemish, in Via del Sudario 40, Rome.  [This little church is right around the corner from the door of my old seminary.]

At 5 p.m. on Saturday 12 March, Cardinal Elio Sgreccia, former president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, will take possession of the diaconate of St. Angelo in Pescheria, in della Tribuna di Campitelli 6, Rome.  [This tiny place is in the Ghetto.  You can spy the door when looking through the Portico of Octavia.]

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REVIEW: Some thoughts about the Pope’s new book – part I

Posted on 2 March 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I have been reading the new, second volume of Benedict XVI’s book, Jesus of Nazareth.  A preview copy was sent to me by the publisher.

I have been circling back over various passages which impedes my forward progress.  I am circling back not because it is difficult to read, but because I want to remember it well.  Also, I have been taking it to my evening visits to the Blessed Sacrament. The book is about Jesus, after all.  Why not read it with Him?  That has been helpful, though it slows my progress.  So… I hold myself in check even as I strain forward.

The new book will be released worldwide for Lent 2011, with a date of 10 March.  Just buy it.

KindleYou can click HERE or the image above to go to amazon (USA) and buy the book at a significant discount before its official release.  The USA KINDLE edition is available HERE for even less than the hardback.  If you don’t have a Kindle – I am really starting to like using this great tool – you can get a USA version HERE.  It will work anywhere, globally.  If you are in the UK or Europe, use THIS LINK for the Pope’s hardback and THIS for a Kindle, which will work everywhere.  I haven’t found a link for the UK Kindle version of the Pope’s new book.  BTW… you can also read the stuff you get for Kindle on your iPhone, iPad, laptop, etc., and they all synchronize.

This second volume looks at the period the Lord’s life from the entrance into Jerusalem to His resurrection. In other words – Holy Week.

There has been an embargo on using the text.  Today, however, the publishers said we could use content from three sections.

Chapter 3, Section 4: “The Mystery of the Betrayer”
Chapter 5, Section 1: “The Dating of the Last Supper”
Chapter 7, Section 3: “Jesus Before Pilate”

I’ll share some observations about the book in the next few days, beginning with this general statement and then looking at somethings in “The Mystery of the Betrayer”.

As Pope, it is hard for Joseph Ratzinger to react publicly to things.  He can’t just be an old man with experience of life, or a theologian or priest.  As Pope, he is under many constraints.  He cannot simply say what he thinks or – and this is the dangerous part for him – what he is thinking about.  If you are smart, you mull over hard question, chew slowly, digest, chew more, consider, weigh.  You think things through.  In a conversation you may say what you think about something and you are expressing something about where you are with the question right now, not necessary meaning that you aren’t going to keep working on the problem.  We saw what happened when the Pope in that interview book – O Lord, let there never be another – said something about condoms.

Papa Ratzinger has been thinking about Jesus for his whole life.  He doesn’t consider Jesus to be static, or a subject, or a thing to be pondered.  Jesus is a who, in whose image we are made.  Years ago I heard Card. Ratzinger answer a question about some of Fr. Karl Rahner’s notions about God.  After a brilliant exposition, Ratzinger concluded, “”What Fr. Rahner forgets is that you cannot pray to an Existenz-Modus!”

Throughout the book, the Holy Father continues in the vein he exposed in his first volume where, in the indispensable preface, he explains where the “technicians” (my word, not his) of Scripture go wrong in reading Scripture.  You cannot simply apply tools of modern scholarship, such as the historical-critical method, form criticism, etc., without also concerning yourself with the who behind each word.  What Papa Ratzinger is doing is showing us how to reconnect with Scripture in a way closer to that the of early Fathers of the Church.

I have been convinced that the Fathers are of growing importance precisely because they reconnect us with a way of reading Scripture.  That’s one degree why I have a degree in Patristic Theology.  At the same time as we can make great use of the tools of scholarship we have, and the Holy Father does use them extensively, we never lose sight of that other way of reading and listening.  This is the Pope’s working method throughout.

Back to my contention that Pope’s are constrained.  I have the sense in reading this book that the Pope is not simply writing about Jesus, but is also making subtle – sometimes not too subtle – allusions to questions or controversies in our day or even giving us us explanations about things he is doing as Pope.  For example, his thoughts in the book about the Jews will both create controversies and also answer some questions about why he has done certain things.  Have you ever wondered why the Holy Father made a change in the 1962 Missale Romanum to the Good Friday petition prayer about the Jews?  What was he thinking when he inserted that new prayer?  Pages 41 ff. provide some food for our chewing.

But I digress…

In one of the sections we who have the book are allowed – as of today – to write about, Chapter 3, Section 4: “The Mystery of the Betrayer”, the Holy Father writes about Judas.   In his description, based on solid modern scholarship, of how people reclined to eat, so as to get at the Lord’s explanation of who would betray Him, the Holy Father pretty much guts the idiocy in the DaVinci Code, as well as some saccharine art wherein the the “beloved disciple” is depicted as resting against Jesus bosom.  But that is lana caprina.

Fairly often while reading, I circle back over a text and wonder if the Pope isn’t giving his opinion on some issue without directly saying that that is what he is doing.  Given my constant writing about the liturgical translations, I was struck by his section on the Last Supper about the Lord’s institution of the Eucharist and the words – and meaning of the words – when speaking about His own Precious Blood.  WDTPRS readers will read some familiar things in those pages.  But I digress.

In the section on Christ’s betrayer, the Pope also gives us a couple striking paragraphs useful for anyone who may consider receiving Holy Communion in the state of sin.  That is not what he says he is doing.  I am making that application.  But I can’t help but think as I read that the Holy Father may have had something like that in mind.

I quote now in part, to give you a taste.  The verse of the psalm Jesus uttered, to which the Pope is referring is “He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me” (cf. Ps 41:9; Ps 55:13):

John gives a new depth to the psalm verse with which Jesus spoke prophetically of what lay ahead, since instead of the expression given in the Greek Bible for “eating”, he chooses the verb trôgein, the word used by Jesus in the great “bread of life” discourse for “eating” his flesh and blood, that is, receiving the sacrament of the Eucharist ( Jn 6:54–58). So the psalm verse casts a prophetic shadow over the Church of the evangelist’s own day, in which the Eucharist was celebrated, and indeed over the Church of all times: Judas’ betrayal was not the last breach of fidelity that Jesus would suffer. “Even my bosom friend, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me” (Ps 41:9). The breach of friendship extends into the sacramental community of the Church, where people continue to take “his bread” and to betray him.
Jesus’ agony, his struggle against death, continues until the end of the world, as Blaise Pascal said on the basis of similar considerations (cf. Pensées VII, 553). We could also put it the other way around: at this hour, Jesus took upon himself the betrayal of all ages, the pain caused by betrayal in every era, and he endured the anguish of history to the bitter end.  (pp. 68-9)

In speaking about Judas, the Holy Father delves into something about which I wrote yesterday, blasphemy and final impenitence.

I must say I found the section on Judas disturbing.  In many ways we can see ourselves in the figure of Judas.  Throughout, the Holy Father is showing us what Jesus does for us in the incessant struggle between light and darkness.  We are not exempted from the struggle for HE was in the struggle definitively.  If we are HIS, we are in the battle.

And for anyone thinking about leaving Mass early after Communion for no better reason than personal convenience, here is how this now unembargoed section concludes:

John concludes the passage about Judas with these dramatic words: “After receiving the morsel, he immediately went out; and it was night” (13:30). Judas goes out—in a deeper sense. He goes into the night; he moves out of light into darkness: the “power of darkness” has taken hold of him (cf. Jn 3:19; Lk 22:53).

I will write more about other sections in the days to come.

The second volume may be “pre-ordered” at a reduced price through amazon.com. Click HERE.  If you are in the UK or Europe, use THIS LINK.

Directly from Ignatius Press (without amazon) for US buyers HERE.
I believe Catholic Truth Society is the publisher for England and Wales.

The first volume is HERE.

Finally, do you want better sermons from your priests?  These books would be good gifts to priests, useful for their preaching.  Both volumes would be useful for your Lenten reflections.

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