This blog is rather obviously defunct. Those of you visiting to see the latest may want to check out the link in the title, or see the blog some colleagues of mine and I are writing these days: catholicmoraltheology.com.
Blessings!
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Calendars...
I have lately been making calendars as gifts for some family members. Not to worry, they are not types who will likely see this blog and so even by announcing this to the blogosphere I remain relatively anonymous and the gifts will likely remain surprises.
But to the calendar - I have been putting photos of my (adorably cute etc etc) 2 year old daughter into calendar page templates. For example, January's template is snowflakes, February's is hearts, and so on. It has caused me to reflect on the disheartening fact that despite being a theologian who cares about alternate time telling, it is still the childhood memories of secular celebrations and school parties complete with homemade heart shaped sugar cookies and bright red and pink icing that capture my mind. I wish, truly, that when I think of March, I would think of St Joseph's Day rather than St. Patrick's Day. (I like St Patrick, I really do; it is just that the day is no longer about him, but about drinking green beer and, in this town, eating full Irish breakfasts at 5 am before trooping off to class.) Or that when I think of April, I would think not of easter eggs and the easter bunny but of the cross and the resurrection. Or in October, rather than images of orange and black coming to mind, that I would think more of St Teresa and St Luke and St Francis. I'd like to think I'm making time holy, in fact, but I'm not really. Not even in my best efforts as a theologian parent trying to raise an uber-theological child. (Serious psychological help is probably due to this child in the future! ;-))
This must be why Augustine mentions time in one of his (less-well-read) chapters in the Confessions. He knows how much time marks who we are even despite ourselves - because time is something that influences us without us really having to think much about it. I'm a pretty darned secular person. I admit it.
365 days in a calendar year. One of the weird things about Catholics is that so many of those days are claimed for a particular purpose - ember and rogation days, saints days, memorials, feasts, fasts. At this point in my life (6 years into being Catholic) the liturgical calendar provides only a faint background noise to the secular calendar by which I typically live my life. Still - it's a bit like dripping water, light and seemingly inconsequential, yet entirely able to carve out holes in rocks over time. Somehow, despite myself, my days are indeed getting re-ordered, however imperfectly. The rhythm of the liturgical calendar is changing my sensibility even at a low level.
So, alongside visions of snowflakes and hearts, my time since I've become Catholic has also been about the Feast of Sts Peter and Paul in June. In August, I have begun to think more of the Assumption of Mary than of beaches and back to school. In November, I have begun to think more of remembrance of deceased faithful, rather than football. And yes, even in February, I have begun to think more of Lenten sacrifice than of candy hearts.
It's kind of fascinating to reflect on this slow drip of time in my life - how small changes actually do take place, but it's hard to see in the moment.
But to the calendar - I have been putting photos of my (adorably cute etc etc) 2 year old daughter into calendar page templates. For example, January's template is snowflakes, February's is hearts, and so on. It has caused me to reflect on the disheartening fact that despite being a theologian who cares about alternate time telling, it is still the childhood memories of secular celebrations and school parties complete with homemade heart shaped sugar cookies and bright red and pink icing that capture my mind. I wish, truly, that when I think of March, I would think of St Joseph's Day rather than St. Patrick's Day. (I like St Patrick, I really do; it is just that the day is no longer about him, but about drinking green beer and, in this town, eating full Irish breakfasts at 5 am before trooping off to class.) Or that when I think of April, I would think not of easter eggs and the easter bunny but of the cross and the resurrection. Or in October, rather than images of orange and black coming to mind, that I would think more of St Teresa and St Luke and St Francis. I'd like to think I'm making time holy, in fact, but I'm not really. Not even in my best efforts as a theologian parent trying to raise an uber-theological child. (Serious psychological help is probably due to this child in the future! ;-))
This must be why Augustine mentions time in one of his (less-well-read) chapters in the Confessions. He knows how much time marks who we are even despite ourselves - because time is something that influences us without us really having to think much about it. I'm a pretty darned secular person. I admit it.
365 days in a calendar year. One of the weird things about Catholics is that so many of those days are claimed for a particular purpose - ember and rogation days, saints days, memorials, feasts, fasts. At this point in my life (6 years into being Catholic) the liturgical calendar provides only a faint background noise to the secular calendar by which I typically live my life. Still - it's a bit like dripping water, light and seemingly inconsequential, yet entirely able to carve out holes in rocks over time. Somehow, despite myself, my days are indeed getting re-ordered, however imperfectly. The rhythm of the liturgical calendar is changing my sensibility even at a low level.
So, alongside visions of snowflakes and hearts, my time since I've become Catholic has also been about the Feast of Sts Peter and Paul in June. In August, I have begun to think more of the Assumption of Mary than of beaches and back to school. In November, I have begun to think more of remembrance of deceased faithful, rather than football. And yes, even in February, I have begun to think more of Lenten sacrifice than of candy hearts.
It's kind of fascinating to reflect on this slow drip of time in my life - how small changes actually do take place, but it's hard to see in the moment.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Spiritual Life Institute
I think that very often, parishes will rush through masses and not take deliberate time to recognize who they are and where they are, nor take the time to contemplate God and God's work in us. The shortest Sunday mass I've ever been to was 35 minutes! (But that is maybe a mass I will describe in some future post.) I am used to that length in a daily mass, but not in a Sunday mass, which has singing and is supposed to be a gathering that recalls that Sunday is a joyful resurrection day and we are invited to leave our work behind for an hour or a day and celebrate as much as we can! If we're singing and doing ALL the responses and prayers, if we're pulling out all the stops for this joyful Sunday mass, it seems impossible that it could be over in little more than half an hour. But it was!
Contrast that to mass at a monastery. The Spiritual Life Institute holds a special place in my heart for several reasons. It is where I attended my first-ever mass and began a long, slow journey toward Christ present in the Eucharist. This is a monastery in the Carmelite tradition, meaning that the monks (both men and women) live in hermitages. Each week, they have a desert day (complete day of solitude but not necessarily with work) plus another couple days a week of solitude combined with work. What is their work, exactly? It is to be contemplative, witnesses to a world that does not know how to be contemplative well. I have learned from these monks that time, patience, and silence are far more important than busy-ness and efficiency. But if you're asking about what their WORK is, as in what do they do all day - well, they are retreat masters, and they lead parish missions, and they write, and they take care of people. The Carmelite charism is one of both contemplation and apostolic witness, so they aim for several months out of the year to be at the monastery, but then they will be "out in the world" - teaching at a local college, for example, or working with children.
Their joyful contemplation spills into their mass celebrations and their common prayer in the liturgy of the hours. Mass and the daily office both involve large sections of silence, and also very exuberant singing (sometimes of songs composed by some of the monks themselves), and a very reverent and focused Liturgy of the Eucharist. The pace, the tone, the way the priests address themselves to God and not to us (the people assembled) makes this liturgy very prayerful and focused. It makes me want to pray more and more, to take delight in God and God's world!
In fact, guests who stay at the monastery are invited to do just that. Sabbath at the monastery is a day for "praying and playing", so when we've prayed our hearts out in mass, we continue the celebration with a long, lavish brunch or a hike or picnic or other way to celebrate.
My experiences there (for I went on retreat there more times than I can count - and I wish I could go again!) have led me to practice the Sabbath in my own home now. Sunday is for praying and playing, even if the mass is short and not quite to my liking. Any human failings on any of our parts are pushed aside for a bit in favor of contemplating God and enjoying God's company with each other, the Body of Christ. So we too enjoy lavish brunches and devise all kinds of fun together. Sometimes we go skating, sometimes we go to the art museum, sometimes we look for butterflies, sometimes we just rest. But Sunday is reserved for that kind of enjoyment.
I'm grateful for monasteries that open their lives and hearts to Christians and help us seek God in better ways.
Contrast that to mass at a monastery. The Spiritual Life Institute holds a special place in my heart for several reasons. It is where I attended my first-ever mass and began a long, slow journey toward Christ present in the Eucharist. This is a monastery in the Carmelite tradition, meaning that the monks (both men and women) live in hermitages. Each week, they have a desert day (complete day of solitude but not necessarily with work) plus another couple days a week of solitude combined with work. What is their work, exactly? It is to be contemplative, witnesses to a world that does not know how to be contemplative well. I have learned from these monks that time, patience, and silence are far more important than busy-ness and efficiency. But if you're asking about what their WORK is, as in what do they do all day - well, they are retreat masters, and they lead parish missions, and they write, and they take care of people. The Carmelite charism is one of both contemplation and apostolic witness, so they aim for several months out of the year to be at the monastery, but then they will be "out in the world" - teaching at a local college, for example, or working with children.
Their joyful contemplation spills into their mass celebrations and their common prayer in the liturgy of the hours. Mass and the daily office both involve large sections of silence, and also very exuberant singing (sometimes of songs composed by some of the monks themselves), and a very reverent and focused Liturgy of the Eucharist. The pace, the tone, the way the priests address themselves to God and not to us (the people assembled) makes this liturgy very prayerful and focused. It makes me want to pray more and more, to take delight in God and God's world!
In fact, guests who stay at the monastery are invited to do just that. Sabbath at the monastery is a day for "praying and playing", so when we've prayed our hearts out in mass, we continue the celebration with a long, lavish brunch or a hike or picnic or other way to celebrate.
My experiences there (for I went on retreat there more times than I can count - and I wish I could go again!) have led me to practice the Sabbath in my own home now. Sunday is for praying and playing, even if the mass is short and not quite to my liking. Any human failings on any of our parts are pushed aside for a bit in favor of contemplating God and enjoying God's company with each other, the Body of Christ. So we too enjoy lavish brunches and devise all kinds of fun together. Sometimes we go skating, sometimes we go to the art museum, sometimes we look for butterflies, sometimes we just rest. But Sunday is reserved for that kind of enjoyment.
I'm grateful for monasteries that open their lives and hearts to Christians and help us seek God in better ways.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Holy Cross Parish, Durham NC
I meet a lot of people who think Catholics in America are all white, and pretty much either Polish or Irish. I also meet a lot of people who think masses are all about getting in there, getting some Jesus, and getting home as soon as possible.
But Holy Cross Parish is not one of those places. I first visited this parish when a close friend of mine came into full communion with the church at an Easter Vigil, a long and beautiful worship service that marks one of the highest holy days in the church calendar. Holy Cross, I discovered, has several affinities to a Black Baptist or AME church, but, well, it's Catholic.
I walked into a tiny, tiny church and sat with a couple of friends on the left side. There was only room for a few rows of pews on the right and the left, and the Easter Vigil is so well attended here that the overflow will have to go to the small building where Sunday catechesis is held. They will watch the services on television. (Note: Since that first time I attended Holy Cross, they have been able to build a new building and I hope someday I will be able to return and see it!)
The first thing I noticed was the hospitality - I was one of the few white people and felt a bit out of my cultural milieu but people were so welcoming and hospitable. This is not the first predominantly African American worship service I've attended, by the way. As a United Methodist, I worked for a Pan-Methodist youth group and attended many, many African American worship services. So I was interested now, as a Catholic, to find out whether the musical traditions I'd encountered before would be here, too.
And they were - we sang hymns I hadn't sung since I'd been working for the youth group - I wish I could remember exactly, but they were hymns like "Marching to Zion" and "Amazing Grace". Plus, there were trumpets and loud joyous music, and clapping. What I loved best was the way the priest celebrated the sacraments - he was generous and abundant with blessing us with water (I was dripping wet), and with pouring the oil on my friend who was confirmed. It reminded me more than a little about the abundance that Jesus promises.
The priest's homily was a bit odd - he spoke about Second Isaiah quite a bit, and I found myself thinking, "If I hadn't been to seminary and learned about how scholars think the Book of the Prophet Isaiah has three distinct parts - first, second and third Isaiah - I'd be a bit lost now." So it was a rather scholarly sermon, probably fitting for the Jesuit priest in charge of the parish ;-). I imagine the priest had at some point introduced what Second Isaiah meant, though?
After the vigil (which lasted a few hours) we had a lovely banquet with food and drink, to celebrate the new people joining the church. It was a fabulous Easter all in all. I went back to that parish a few times since my friend joined, and I would say none of the masses matched the "all white" and "short" description I mentioned above.
But Holy Cross Parish is not one of those places. I first visited this parish when a close friend of mine came into full communion with the church at an Easter Vigil, a long and beautiful worship service that marks one of the highest holy days in the church calendar. Holy Cross, I discovered, has several affinities to a Black Baptist or AME church, but, well, it's Catholic.
I walked into a tiny, tiny church and sat with a couple of friends on the left side. There was only room for a few rows of pews on the right and the left, and the Easter Vigil is so well attended here that the overflow will have to go to the small building where Sunday catechesis is held. They will watch the services on television. (Note: Since that first time I attended Holy Cross, they have been able to build a new building and I hope someday I will be able to return and see it!)
The first thing I noticed was the hospitality - I was one of the few white people and felt a bit out of my cultural milieu but people were so welcoming and hospitable. This is not the first predominantly African American worship service I've attended, by the way. As a United Methodist, I worked for a Pan-Methodist youth group and attended many, many African American worship services. So I was interested now, as a Catholic, to find out whether the musical traditions I'd encountered before would be here, too.
And they were - we sang hymns I hadn't sung since I'd been working for the youth group - I wish I could remember exactly, but they were hymns like "Marching to Zion" and "Amazing Grace". Plus, there were trumpets and loud joyous music, and clapping. What I loved best was the way the priest celebrated the sacraments - he was generous and abundant with blessing us with water (I was dripping wet), and with pouring the oil on my friend who was confirmed. It reminded me more than a little about the abundance that Jesus promises.
The priest's homily was a bit odd - he spoke about Second Isaiah quite a bit, and I found myself thinking, "If I hadn't been to seminary and learned about how scholars think the Book of the Prophet Isaiah has three distinct parts - first, second and third Isaiah - I'd be a bit lost now." So it was a rather scholarly sermon, probably fitting for the Jesuit priest in charge of the parish ;-). I imagine the priest had at some point introduced what Second Isaiah meant, though?
After the vigil (which lasted a few hours) we had a lovely banquet with food and drink, to celebrate the new people joining the church. It was a fabulous Easter all in all. I went back to that parish a few times since my friend joined, and I would say none of the masses matched the "all white" and "short" description I mentioned above.
The Start...
The idea for this blog is inspired by my frustrations in reading the book Sundays in America: A Yearlong Road Trip in Search of Christian Faith, by Suzanne Strempek Shea. Shea is a "cradle Catholic" who finds herself a bit disillusioned in the aftermath of the clergy sex abuse scandals, and also wondering if what the nuns taught her decades ago is really true. Are Protestants going to hell? Will the ceiling cave in if I darken the door of a non-Catholic church?
Thus begins her quest to visit 52 non- Roman Catholic churches and Christian communities, ranging from a Quaker meeting to a mega non-denominational church, to a Greek Orthodox service, to numerous small and medium town churches of various denominations. It's an interesting journey for what it is - the chance to meet people you wouldn't ordinarily meet and see how "others" worship God. For people who've never had the courage to visit other peoples' churches, or for people who simply don't have the opportunity, this is a fun book to read - though please be aware that it will not give you a "full" account of any particular church.
But the book was frustrating for me on several levels. One reason is that I grew up United Methodist and went to two different Protestant seminaries, and I didn't often appreciate her snap judgements of people she'd met once, worship practices she didn't really take the time to understand (because she visited each church only once), her sense that for worship to be real it must be conducted in the way she herself finds most appealing. There are several inaccuracies in the book, too, signs that Shea didn't always do thorough research on the denominations she visited. For example, John Calvin is NOT from "Olde England"; for another, Pentecostals are not the largest Christian group in the world, though it is probably one of the fastest growing.
But also, I am a Catholic convert, and so I claim some ties to the faith she's left behind. Shea often recalls as boring, repetitive, with bad sermons, and little if any variety, and never forgetting the dose of "You're going to Hell" statements - in marked contrast to the non-Catholic churches she most likes that have warm, welcoming sermons, fabulous hospitality, and a great sense of diversity. But her descriptions of Catholicism are limited by time and place - Shea is particularly limited by her pre-Vatican II memories of the church, which leave me wondering if she's ever tried to encounter Catholicism at a level beyond sixth grade catechesis. Shea's complaints about churches are ones that I commonly hear as a theologian, but I think sometimes people leave behind the faith of their childhood without ever really encountering it as an adult and that's my worry here.
So in this blog I'm trying to give a better (broader, deeper, maybe even more true) account of Catholicism as encountered in the Mass - as celebrated in so many ways, it's dizzying, even though these churches follow canon law and the General Instructions on the Roman Missal.
But this IS the good, the bad and the ugly. I'm not aiming to sugar coat things - but I am aiming to say, "Hey, Catholics in America might be FAR more different than many people imagine." This is NOT often the church of your grandmother (or of your grandmother's wildest dreams, if she was a Protestant who thought Catholics were going to Hell too).
This is partly my own record of road trips I've taken to various Catholic churches. Many of these posts will record memories of masses I've been to, because I can't take the time to visit one mass a week like Shea visited a different church for 52 weeks.
My hope is that others will add their own records of masses in the comments. And eventually, I'd like to add other regular contributors who will tell their stories too.
Thus begins her quest to visit 52 non- Roman Catholic churches and Christian communities, ranging from a Quaker meeting to a mega non-denominational church, to a Greek Orthodox service, to numerous small and medium town churches of various denominations. It's an interesting journey for what it is - the chance to meet people you wouldn't ordinarily meet and see how "others" worship God. For people who've never had the courage to visit other peoples' churches, or for people who simply don't have the opportunity, this is a fun book to read - though please be aware that it will not give you a "full" account of any particular church.
But the book was frustrating for me on several levels. One reason is that I grew up United Methodist and went to two different Protestant seminaries, and I didn't often appreciate her snap judgements of people she'd met once, worship practices she didn't really take the time to understand (because she visited each church only once), her sense that for worship to be real it must be conducted in the way she herself finds most appealing. There are several inaccuracies in the book, too, signs that Shea didn't always do thorough research on the denominations she visited. For example, John Calvin is NOT from "Olde England"; for another, Pentecostals are not the largest Christian group in the world, though it is probably one of the fastest growing.
But also, I am a Catholic convert, and so I claim some ties to the faith she's left behind. Shea often recalls as boring, repetitive, with bad sermons, and little if any variety, and never forgetting the dose of "You're going to Hell" statements - in marked contrast to the non-Catholic churches she most likes that have warm, welcoming sermons, fabulous hospitality, and a great sense of diversity. But her descriptions of Catholicism are limited by time and place - Shea is particularly limited by her pre-Vatican II memories of the church, which leave me wondering if she's ever tried to encounter Catholicism at a level beyond sixth grade catechesis. Shea's complaints about churches are ones that I commonly hear as a theologian, but I think sometimes people leave behind the faith of their childhood without ever really encountering it as an adult and that's my worry here.
So in this blog I'm trying to give a better (broader, deeper, maybe even more true) account of Catholicism as encountered in the Mass - as celebrated in so many ways, it's dizzying, even though these churches follow canon law and the General Instructions on the Roman Missal.
But this IS the good, the bad and the ugly. I'm not aiming to sugar coat things - but I am aiming to say, "Hey, Catholics in America might be FAR more different than many people imagine." This is NOT often the church of your grandmother (or of your grandmother's wildest dreams, if she was a Protestant who thought Catholics were going to Hell too).
This is partly my own record of road trips I've taken to various Catholic churches. Many of these posts will record memories of masses I've been to, because I can't take the time to visit one mass a week like Shea visited a different church for 52 weeks.
My hope is that others will add their own records of masses in the comments. And eventually, I'd like to add other regular contributors who will tell their stories too.
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