This past weekend, the Novus Ordo Missae ( “New Ordinary of the Mass”), the Mass celebrated in almost every Catholic parish in the world, turned 40 years old. Instituted in the wake of Vatican II, this was the most visible change for most Catholics as a result of that Council.

The vast majority of Catholics have simply accepted the Novus Ordo and don’t think much about it. However, for some Catholics the Novus Ordo represents all that is wrong with the Church of the past 40 years. Other Catholics (and I would include myself in this camp) don’t have a problem with the Novus Ordo itself but do have criticisms in how it has been implemented in many dioceses and parishes.

The changes that have been most criticized are the use of the vernacular (instead of Latin), the priest turning around to face the people instead of facing the same direction as they do, and the terrible, terrible music heard in many parishes today. But, as Br. Charles points out, none of these things are actually required in celebrating the Novus Ordo:

• Benedict XVI is oft-quoted (from The Spirit of the Liturgy) on the theological and ecclesiological problems of the Mass offered versus populum. Many agree with him. However, though this option for celebration may seem to the casual observer to be one of the distinctive marks of the Mass of Paul VI, and is treated by many priests as a sacred and unalterable religious duty, it is neither essential nor normative. In fact, in the newer form of Mass, the priest is required to turn and face the people fewer times than in the older form. Thus, it is not fair to criticize the Novus Ordo based on troubles attendant on the offering of Mass “facing the people.”
• Analogously, though it may also seem that Mass offered in local languages is an instrinsic mark of the newer form of Mass, this is also an option rather than a norm. Sacrosanctum concilium 36 clearly affirms that the Latin remains the ordinary language of the Roman rite. Thus, it is also unfair to base criticisms on the use of the vernacular.
• Much criticism, and some of it justified, has been made against contemporary Catholic music that has grown up alongside the newer form of Mass. For most of us, the ordinary procedure for arriving at music for Mass is to contoct the ‘four song sandwich’ that will match the readings or suit our theme. This custom is taken for granted so much of the time that we forget that it is a matter of exception and substitution. The ordinary way of music-ing the Roman liturgy is to sing the actual texts of the Mass as they are found in the Missal and the Gradual, rather than substituting them for songs and metrical hymns. For this purpose, Gregorian chants allegedly retain their “pride of place,” at least according to Sacrosanctum concilium 116. Therefore, it is not exactly fair to criticize the modern Roman liturgy based on some of the bad music with which it has become associated, for this association is neither essential nor normative.

Thus, much of the criticism directed at the Novus Ordo should instead be directed at how it has been implemented. It would take no change in the law of the Church to change the celebration of the Mass to a more traditional, yet still faithful to the desires of Vatican II, way.

I would wager to bet that almost every American feels confident that they know who Jesus is. However, if you surveyed Americans about his characteristics, I’d also be willing to bet that the image of Jesus most commonly held would look little like the Jesus presented in the Gospels. The American Jesus would be a tolerant, meek, slightly-effeminate preacher who only said nice things to everyone except those mean nasty religious leaders. He never said anything offensive and surely never said anything threatening.

I thought of this when I read the Gospel reading for today. Or, more precisely, when I read what was NOT included in today’s Gospel. The reading is Matthew 21,24-27, which says:

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’
will enter the Kingdom of heaven,
but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

“Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them
will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.
The rain fell, the floods came,
and the winds blew and buffeted the house.
But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock.
And everyone who listens to these words of mine
but does not act on them
will be like a fool who built his house on sand.
The rain fell, the floods came,
and the winds blew and buffeted the house.
And it collapsed and was completely ruined.”

However, whenever a reading skips verses I like to go ahead and read them on my own so that I get the full context of the passage. In this case the skipped verses are 22-23, in which Jesus states:

Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’ Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.’

Not exactly a tolerant meek nonthreatening Jesus, is it?

I understand that perhaps those who chose the readings for today did not think verses 22-23 fit the season of Advent. But I think it is problematic when we take out the “hard” sayings of Jesus from our readings. We already tend to downplay the difficult statements of Christ in order to live more comfortably (how often do we try to ignore the fact that it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than a camel to fit through the eye of a needle?), so I think it would be useful to us all if we had to hear these passages during the Mass – to remind us that Jesus is not who we think he is.

This is an interesting news story:

A Canadian bishop has suspended celebration of the Novus Order by priests of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), because the priests will not comply with a diocesan directive barring the reception of Communion in the hand. Bishop Frederick Henry of Calgary imposed the policy, ordering the faithful to receive Communion on the tongue, out of respect for the Blessed Sacrament.

Reminded that the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship has said that all Catholics have the right to receive Communion in the hand, Bishop Henry replied: “I am well aware of what the congregation has decided but quite frankly, it is not their call. It is mine.” He said that the Jesuits would be allowed to resume celebrating Mass in the ordinary form when respect for the Blessed Sacrament returns.

This, of course, is not what really happened. In actuality, the Bishop suspended the celebration of the extraordinary form of the Mass by the Society of St. Peter because they will not comply with directives barring reception of Communion on the tongue (implemented due to the Swine Flu).

But what if the story had been the way I wrote it? How would your reaction change? Whose “side” would you be on – the bishop’s or the Congregation’s? In a situation such as this, where two legitimate authorities – a bishop and a Vatican congregation – conflict, it is important to look at it objectively and not simply with an eye to how we want it to be resolved.

Personally, I have made no secret of my preference for communion on the tongue and my disagreement with some bishops’ overreaction to the Swine Flu. But does that mean that I think Bishop Henry is outside his rights when he ignores the directive of the Congregation for Divine Worship in this case? Not necessarily. A bishop has almost complete authority in his diocese, the “almost” qualifier reflecting the Pope’s universal jurisdiction. But does a Vatican congregation possess the Pope’s universal jurisdiction in all its decisions?

Based on my reading of Vatican II and the practice of the Church throughout its long history, it seems to me that a Vatican congregation does not have such complete authority over a bishop. Catholic ecclesiology teaches that the Pope has absolute jurisdiction over the whole Church, but how does his authority transfer to Vatican congregations?

But my bigger point isn’t whether the bishop or the Congregation has the higher authority in this instance. What I think important is that as Catholics we do not adapt our ecclesiology to who we happen to agree with in each situation. It might very well happen in the future that the story I invented above actually happens. Then who will we support? No matter the situation, we should be consistent: we must accept the legitimate authority in this matter regardless of whether we agree with their position. It is easy to be obedient when we agree with the authority, but it is Catholic to be obedient when we don’t.

For my part, I disagree with Bishop Henry barring communion on the tongue, but I don’t think he was outside his authority to do so.

Ten years ago, Ignatius Press released the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: The Gospel of Matthew, which included the RSV translation of Matthew along with a commentary by Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch. I immediately snatched it up and have referred to it often over the years.

However, I quickly realized that Ignatius would be releasing each book of the New Testament separately and I would prefer to have the entire New Testament text and commentary in one book. So I decided to wait, guessing that eventually they would release a version that included all the books of the New Testament in one book.

My patience is about to pay off, as I just noticed that Amazon is accepting pre-orders for the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible New Testament. My long wait is almost over.

The Scriptures are one of the primary ways in which we can encounter Christ, and any fully authentic encounter with Christ leads to his body, the Church, as can be seen by these new Catholic converts in China:

Many conversions are taking place in Shanghai, China, in part thanks to the encouragement of Bible reading and youth outreach programs. One convert’s story began in a classroom encounter with Catholicism and led to the conversion of another young man he met while reading the Bible at McDonald’s.

While most Catholics in China are born to Catholic parents, many of the nearly 300,000 Catholics in Shanghai are converts, the United Bible Societies China Partnership reports.

One convert, 27-year-old Shen Cheng, had little exposure to the Catholic faith as a youth. He became interested in Catholicism when one of his professors introduced him to a book by American legal scholar Harold J. Berman. The book so interested Cheng in Catholicism that he bought a Catholic Bible.

Exploring Scripture convinced him to convert to Catholicism. He calls the Bible his “daily bread,” essential to his soul’s well-being.

Shen would often read the Bible wherever he went. At one McDonald’s restaurant he frequented he would read the Bible with a crucifix in front of him.

How cool is that?

Here in America we still often think that reading the Bible is a “Protestant” thing. I’ve even met Catholics who fear that reading the Bible too much will lead someone away from the Catholic Church. Nothing could be further from the truth. The same Holy Spirit who inspired the writing of the Bible also animates the Church and guides it. So the words of Scripture, properly interpreted, will only lead one closer to Christ in his Church.

Read the whole article here.

Imagine yourself at the Sacrament of Reconciliation, confessing the sin of anger. Which of the following confessions do you think is more appropriate:

• Father, I got angry at my wife and yelled at her.
• Father, I am sorry for the anger which occurred when my wife didn’t have dinner on time.

In the first case, the penitent confessing takes responsibility and assumes the burden for the sin. In the second example, even though the person says he is sorry, there is some force called “the anger” which appears and causes him to do something wrong. The burden of the sin is passed off the person onto something else.

In modern public discourse, it is the second type of “confession” that has become all to common: “mistakes were made” instead of “I made a mistake”, “I’m sorry for any hurt I caused” instead of “I’m sorry for what I did wrong”. We have turned every apology into the passive voice, thus passing the burden away from the person or persons who caused the problem to some impersonal force.

I thought of this when I read the following statement from the head of the Legion of Christ (emphasis added):

We desire to live this day with a spirit of reparation and humility, united to Christ the King, who is rich in mercy. I want to take advantage of this letter to again sincerely ask forgiveness from all those who have suffered or are suffering on account of the sorrowful circumstances we have lived. God is inviting us to live this time by intensifying our prayer life, our acts of charity and penitential spirit, so we can unite ourselves more deeply to Christ and to our fellow brothers and sisters.

“On account of the sorrowful circumstances we have lived” – what exactly does that mean? Not only is it passive – there are some mysterious “sorrowful circumstances” which caused people problems – but it is so ambiguous that it could mean anything from a natural disaster to an unexpected death to a mistake in accounting. It is simply a vague allusion to the real situation: the founder of their order was a fraud who led a double-life and there is a good chance that others, including current Legion leaders, knew about it and covered it up.

Compare that statement with David’s prayer of repentance found in Psalm 51:

Have mercy on me, God, in your goodness; in your abundant compassion blot out my offense.
Wash away all my guilt; from my sin cleanse me.
For I know my offense; my sin is always before me.
Against you alone have I sinned; I have done such evil in your sight. (Psalm 51:3-6)

Or the words of Peter when he recognizes the power of Christ:

Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man. (Luke 5:8)

These are true prayers of repentance; they are true confessions. It does not try to mitigate the fault for one’s sins; it places the fault squarely where it belongs: on the sinner’s shoulders.

During this Advent, let us resolve to be truly sorry for our sins and to confess them without excuse and without resorting to the passive voice. We are the cause of our problems, not anyone or anything else. Let us have the attitude of David in our repentance: “My sacrifice, God, is a broken spirit; God, do not spurn a broken, humbled heart.” (Psalm 51:19).

Today is the feast of St. Edmund Campion, a convert to the Catholic Faith from Anglicanism and a Jesuit priest who was martyred on December 1st, 1581 by the English authorities. Campion was probably the most famous and celebrated of all the martyrs of the English church and the English government did everything they could to stop him. From New Advent:

Historians of all schools are agreed that the charges against Campion were wholesale sham. They praise his high intelligence, his beautiful gaiety, his fiery energy, his most chivalrous gentleness. He had renounced all opportunity for a dazzling career in a world of master men. Every tradition of Edmund Campion, every remnant of his written words, and not least his unstudied golden letters, show us that he was nothing less than a man of genius; truly one of the great Elizabethans, but holy as none other of them all.

I highly recommend the biography of St. Edmund Campion by Evelyn Waugh. From my Amazon review of the book:

Often, when reading a biography of a saint, one is struck by a certain dissonance: the heavenly heights of the subject matter do not correspond to the writing level of the book. The saint biography is one of my favorite genres, but it is at times a chore to get by the substandard writing to penetrate the beauty of the life of the saint.

Nothing could be further from the case in “Edmund Campion” by Evelyn Waugh. Here we have a combination for the ages: the story of a magnificent saint told by one of the great authors of the 20th century. In many ways, it reminded me of Mark Twain’s excellent book on Joan of Arc. Waugh’s use of the language allows the story of Campion to come alive in ways a lesser author could have never conveyed. One is swept up into the time of Campion, and allowed to experience the persecution he experienced first-hand, as well as understand the motivating love behind his actions.

Highly recommended for all lovers of literature and the saints.

And if you don’t trust me, then read the five-star reviews of fellow bloggers Rich Leonardi and Jeff Miller (aka The Curt Jester).

St. Edmund Campion, pray for us!