Ignorance & Opportunity: Words Matter

Instruct the Ignorant

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.—St. Matthew 28:19-20

Conversations of late have yielded reminders numerous and disappointing with regards to the loss of a Christian vocabulary among Christians. Extraordinary Form and Ordinariate Catholics, and Eastern rite Catholics, seem less prone to confusion, given a dedication to defending Tradition and celebrating the rich and sublime nuances of the Mass in its various traditional forms. The loss of a Catholic vernacular or idiom among diocesan Catholics, however, seems astonishingly complete.

Many tradition-minded Catholics are exiles in their own parishes for honouring the Faith with a mind to handing on that which is and always has been Catholic, i.e., Tradition. "Progressive Catholics"—a contradiction in terms if ever there was one—are repelled by the liturgical legacy of the Church. Their knowledge is amputated at the 1970s when, it seems, the Church of their imagining came into being. The church they imagine to be "the Church" is strictly the product of minds fed on a diet of revisionist history. The progressivists rely on a lack of formation among lay Catholics which permits them to substitute without challenge their ecclesiology in place of Christ's design. Thus, religious education programs, like secular curriculums, have been appropriated and made to reproduce in children something closer to socialist ideology.

The intrusion of foreign vocabularies that mislead the seeker, i.e., the importation of heterodox verbiage, is or should be a matter of serious concern among our (diocesan) spiritual fathers. For those of us blessed to be in tradition-minded/traditional communities, let us give thanks for our beloved priests who give us the bread of truth, goodness and beauty, and not a stone of banality and liturgical chaos (cf St. Matthew 7:9).

Too often, instead of "Body and Blood of Christ", we hear "bread and wine" in the songs sung at many an Ordinary Form Mass. Instead of "host", we get "wafer". Instead of "Altar of Sacrifice" we get "table". Instead of "Real Presence", we get... blank stares! There are no genuflections toward (Christ in) the tabernacle because... there is no tabernacle! Or, it has been shunted far off to the side so as to render it insignificant or, worse, hidden away in some distant room.

With the eviction of the Tabernacle, we lose additional encouragements and opportunities to include in our conversations words such as 'adoration', 'Real Presence', 'Blessed Sacrament', and so on. With the loss of the Tabernacle, there isn't an immediate visual aid to which parents can refer their children, or about which children might inquire, "What's that?" When statues of the saints are absent, too, we lose opportunities to refine our sense of reverence, veneration and relationship, and thus we lose a sense of the Communion of the Saints because we lack the words to include the saints in our conversations and prayers.

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For we do not receive these things as common bread or common drink; but as Jesus Christ our Savior being incarnate by God’s Word took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food consecrated by the Word of prayer which comes from him, from which our flesh and blood are nourished by transformation, is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus.—St. Justin Martyr, c. 100.

They [Gnostics] abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His graciousness, raised from the dead.—St. Ignatius of Antioch, c. 110.

The Word is everything to a child: both Father and Mother, both Instructor and Nurse. “Eat My Flesh,” He says, “and drink My Blood.” The Lord supplies us with these intimate nutrients. He delivers over His Flesh, and pours out His Blood; and nothing is lacking for the growth of His children. O incredible mystery!—St. Clement of Alexandria, c. 150.

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In many ways, the Church in Canada is suffering that which indigenous peoples have suffered: a loss of language; loss of identity; loss of culture and way of life.

Bereft of sacred art and music that saturates the imagination with words and images that elevate the mind, provoke the imagination and prod the heart in the direction of God, we must contend with a spiritual vacuum. These days Catholics, much like our secular brethren, tend to speak past each other for lack of a common (moral, spiritual) language.

For lack of theologically rich homilies that mentor and accentuate identity, the person in the typical diocesan parish pew occupies the Liturgy but does not deeply enter into it. Too many are mere spectators, yawning until they can absolve themselves of the use of their brains by taking up dumbly their smart phones. Is that not a sad and perplexing irony given the relentless marketing of "active participation" by a herd (or is that parliament? gaggle? murder?) of liturgists for the last 50 years? The participation called for by the Council, and in other authoritative documents decades before the Council, is a participation of the whole person. The most common understanding among self proclaimed liturgists and even many clergy is that active participation, a term not even mentioned in documents, mandates activism. Liturgical activism is a very poor substitute for intentional participation that animates the whole person to worship of God. Liturgical activism tends to produce a fixation on the congregation and/or the celebrant. Liturgical activism, at best, is narcissistic. At worst, it is Pelagianism.

Participation through listening and being attentive to the action of Jesus Christ in the Mass is a foreign concept to our brethren who seem content in their role as liturgical "activists". Weirdly, the "active participators", i.e., those who tow the 'Spirit of Vatican II' barge, in their attempt to worship a god of their own making (thinking that be God), advocate for less nuance and consequently become less invested in the Mass and more attached to their political ideologies (which they believe to be God). Conversely, and positively, those who enter into the various textures comprising the tapestry of a traditional Mass such as the Ordinariate's Divine Worship or the Extraordinary Form, and enter into the counterpoint of the symphony that is the Mass, are moved ever more deeply into that symphony by the Holy Spirit through nuanced ritual.

The traditional forms of the Mass—e.g., the EF and Ordinariate Form (Divine Worship)—support a theologically rich encounter. That is, the modes of encounter are more diverse and more unified than one typically encounters in the Ordinary Form: chant; polyphony; kneeling; bows of different kinds; genuflecting (more often); kissing the altar (many more times); varied use of the voice (e.g., sotto voce; vox clara).

Children, especially, and adult converts too, of course, require specificity with regards to the transmission or handing on (traditio) of the doctrines of the Christian Faith.

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tradition (n.)

traditionem (nominative traditio) "delivery, surrender, a handing down, a giving up," noun of action from past participle stem of tradere "deliver, hand over," from trans- "over" + dare "to give" (from PIE root do- "to give").

transmit (v.)

c. 1400, from Latin transmittere "send across, cause to go across, transfer, pass on," from trans "across, beyond" + mittere "to release, let go; send, throw".

transmission (n.)

1610s, "conveyance from one place to another," from Latin transmissionem (nominative transmissio) "a sending over or across, passage," noun of action from past participle stem of transmittere "send over or across".

transmittere "send across, cause to go across, transfer, pass on," from trans "across, beyond" + mittere "to release, let go; send, throw".

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If one is to properly configure his search for understanding, he must have access to legitimate theological objects of the Faith into which he can sink his mental teeth or talons. Theologically precise objects, treasures of wisdom, are necessary in order to ground and free the imagination, to effect curiosity, a curiosity that does not tire in the quest to find Truth, Goodness and Beauty. Too often those Catholic treasures are obscured by the promotion of glitzy, nifty (no, not really...) and mind-numbing neo-protestant spiritualities. Theological objects—e.g., orthodox doctrines, authentic liturgical practices, word images, icons—are essential fuel for the proper exercise of the intellect, the liberation of the imagination (from the world, the flesh and the devil) and for the purification of the will.

Developing minds require well defined objects with which they can grapple to extract meaning and to which they can configure their exercise and understanding.

Nemo dat quod non habet. The ability to communicate the Christian's relationship with Jesus requires direct experience, a real encounter with Him. Otherwise, it's all mere speculation. What does it mean, for example, that Jesus invites us to intimate communion with Him and His Church? How do we discover and/or relate to Jesus? For the Catholic, both questions can be answered by immersion in the mystery that is the Mass. Jesus is discovered on His terms—Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity—in the Sacred Liturgy, the Mass. Once we are oriented to that reality, personal prayer devotions serve to support liturgical prayer and liturgical prayer informs, elevates and completes personal devotions. Without a fundamental orientation to the Sacred Liturgy, we run the risk of privatizing our relationship to Jesus, which is to say we risk packaging up Jesus and faith into a neat and tidy idol. He becomes "our Jesus" or "my Jesus" instead of we becoming His people. We risk, then, boxing ourselves up in a neat and tidy idol. Idols untidy the soul and render it base, opaque.

Of course, the word 'mystery' is itself a mystery to most Catholics. Too many combox gurus of the progressive kind consider the use of the world 'mystery' to be a mental evasion, and thus avoid a necessary wrestling with things beyond their imagination because their imaginations are, to be blunt, stunted. Consequently, to the stunted, the sacraments are mere rites of passage rather than avenues into the very heart of God, transforming encounters with the living God.

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mystery

early 14c., in a theological sense, "religious truth via divine revelation, hidden spiritual significance, mystical truth," from Anglo-French misterie, Old French mistere "secret, mystery, hidden meaning" (Modern French mystère), from Latin mysterium "secret rite, secret worship; a secret thing," from Greek mysterion (usually in plural mysteria) "secret rite or doctrine".

The Greek word was used in Septuagint for "secret counsel of God," translated in Vulgate as sacramentum.

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Mystery does not refer to irrational or non-rational things but to supra-rational things, events, realities. Love is supra-rational; it does not fit into tidy utility boxes. Idle worshippers—pun intended—want mere facts. The ability to naturally or spontaneously open the imagination to supra-rational realities is lacking.

The sola scriptura doctrine is very much a heresy of heresies. One may claim to be following the data of the Faith by insisting that scripture alone is also the sole arbiter of scriptural data, but the data only finds full realization in and through the Sacred Liturgy.

How many different denominations and individuals claim the sole authority of Scripture when, it seems, they are actually claiming authority over Scripture? The sola scriptura heresy inevitably leads to division because it elevates opinions (held by those not authorized nor inspired by God to teach) to the level of facts. There is only one authority that serves Holy Scripture, and she does so by locating Scripture in its proper home, the Sacred Liturgy. The Catholic Church preserves the right relationship between believer and Holy Scripture by acknowledging that the Holy Spirit working in and through the Church is our teacher. Catholics, therefore, can be most assured of right relationship with the Word of God, Jesus Christ.

There is a pressing need for catechists to promote authentic liturgical catechesis among the faithful. Catholics have become less a liturgical people, a Eucharistic people, as the Liturgy has been appropriated to promote political or ideological agendas. As the Liturgy has been stripped of nuance, and thus stripped of its ability to communicate mystery, people wander further from the Church in search of meaning. Can you blame them? A Mass so denuded of beauty, for example, does not enable people to invest themselves in adoration. Where there is little beauty there tends to be little ability to hope. Hope is to the imagination as a good pair of legs is to running and keeping fit.

To meet the needs of this day (and age), a simple or direct praxis must necessarily be employed: trust that the mind will wander. But!, give it a provocative goal, a goal, for example, that God has used, toward which the mind will wander and, because of its attraction to truth, fix (attach) itself.

The Last Gospel, read at the conclusion of the Ordinariate and Extraordinary forms of the Mass, because it is God's word, is perfectly suited to enticing the mind into relationship with God. The entire passage is worth quoting. The duration of the passage, its cadence and tone, its sublime architecture and pace, tests the ability of the mind to concentrate on the sublime Truth it communicates. Enter into its respiration. Read it thrice, if you dare.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his Name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

As creatures who are prone to flit between one fascination and another, perhaps it is best in this era of attention deficits that we entice seekers into an encounter that puzzles them, so as to crack open their imaginations and bypass their confused suspicion which denies Truth (and all absolutes) but asserts (the pseudo-absolute of) "my truth" at the same time.

We may present the Truths of the Faith and console the seeker with the advice that, like love, one must move beyond lesser deities, lesser loves, in order to experience and honour true Love.