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In thinking about some of the current astonishing happenings in the Church, I’ve found a couple of C.S. Lewis’ books to be very useful. Obviously he is not a Catholic saint, much less a doctor, and we can find a great deal of helpful teaching in the fathers and doctors of the Church as well.

However there are two points that Lewis discusses as well as anyone, and both have excellent fictional treatments in his space trilogy, written for adults at the time of World War II.

In the third book of the trilogy, That Hideous Strength, Lewis writes about a battle between angelic and demonic powers, in which human beings have meaningful parts to play. One of the ways in which the human characters help the evil powers, somewhat unwittingly, is by being too concerned with human acceptance, a phenomenon also explored by Lewis in his essay The Inner Ring. What happens in the book is a prioritization of politics over truth, of acceptance and careerism over professional and personal ethics, that open individuals to compromise and collusion with evil almost before they know that the collusion is happening.

In the second book, Perelandra, which Lewis said was “worth twenty Screwtapes,” we listen in on the temptation of another planet’s Eve. Will she be tempted to disobey God’s command, or won’t she? The tempter, who is a human being fully and voluntarily given over to evil, patiently tries to convince the beautiful woman with all the gifts of unfallen humanity that she will be much more noble and heroic, if only she disobeys God’s command. He says, “Your deepest will, at present, is to obey Him–to be always as you are now, only His beast or His very young child. The way out of that is hard. It was made hard that only the very great, the very wise, the very courageous should dare to walk in it, to go on–on out of this smallness in which you now live–through the dark wave of His forbidding, into the real life, Deep Life, with all its joy and splendour and hardness.”

That is a temptation indeed. Go out of God’s will, it seems to say, and you will find yourself. Discard the simplicity of trust in the God Who makes known His will, grant it no continuity with your life from now on, and you will be noble and adventurous. It’s a siren call that seems–only seems–to be calling to what is best in humanity. It often promises to make humanity better. But it is deadly poison, if swallowed.

Moreover, one can imagine a world where these two impulses are combined. Dissent from revealed truth, one might imagine, could be the way into an exclusive club.

I suppose it starts with little things: little lies, little improprieties, little sophistries in research, little slanders. Perhaps excellent meals and delicious drinks are involved. Perhaps too many drinks, and too much wasted time, and quite a lot of gossip.

Fortunately for us as Catholics, there is always a way back. Lewis’ tempter is unrealistic: although he is not yet dead, he already has the final judgment upon him. It is not that way with us. In fact giving up on the falsely glittering brass ring of rebellion is easy–as easy as a child running home to his father. “Unless you become like a little child, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

 

In omitting the propers of the Mass, as many parishes do, we miss out on liturgical opportunities to sing to Jesus Christ, our Bridegroom with the intimacy appropriate to our commitment and devotion.

Consider three of today’s antiphons in the Ordinary Form.

Introit: Have mercy on me, O Lord
for I cry to you all the day long.
O Lord, you are good and forgiving,
full of mercy to all who call to you.

Offertory: Deign, O Lord, to rescue me. Let all be put to shame and confusion who seek to snatch away my life.

Communion: Domine, memorabor iustitiæ tuæ solius: Deus, docuisti me a iuventute mea, et usque in senectam et senium, Deus, ne derelinquas me. (I will proclaim your righteous deeds, yours alone. Since my youth, God, you have taught me. Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God.)

These and many other proper antiphons, like many of the Psalms themselves, express a personal and constant reliance of the soul upon God Who saves.

It’s almost like breathing, the way God wants us to sing to Him. The propers give us a way to sing according to this intimacy, heart to heart with God, as a community, from the heart of our worshipping Church.

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Among the many excellent suggestions for improving liturgy and catechesis in light of the doctrinal confusion about the Eucharist among Catholics exposed by the recent Pew study, I haven’t seen this one: cut down on “bread” in the hymnals.

Leafing through at least two prominent hymnals intended for Catholic liturgy from two prominent publishers, anyone who takes the doctrine of the Real Presence seriously might well be astonished at the number of hymns prominently containing the word “bread.”

I recently flipped through 75 hymns intended for general, Catholic use, and found “bread” in 44.

Similarly striking but less common were uses of “grain” and “wine.”

Sometimes, but not nearly often  enough, the expression is given a context that clarifies its meaning: “living bread,” “bread of life,” “panis angelicus.” That is of course fine, particularly if the faithful are well-catechized. Astonishingly often, however, the “bread” stands alone.

Pastors who are concerned about the Pew finding may wish to carefully examine the texts of the hymns sung at liturgies in their parishes and dioceses.

The best of catechesis and homilies will never be hummed in the car on the way home, nor sung at the kitchen sink over the vegetables for Sunday dinner. When homilies have passed, hymns stay, and they should reflect Catholic doctrine.

By St. Peter Damian, my trans.

Just like the morning’s dawning bright
She rises to the heav’nly height,
Maria, splendid as the sun,
Just like the moon, most lovely one.

Today, the queen of all the earth—
Who to that Son has given birth
Who is, before the daystar shone—
Ascends unto her glorious throne.

Assumed above the angels, higher
Than every heav’nly angel choir
This single woman has outrun
The merits all the saints have won.

The One Whom in her lap she fed
And laid within a manger bed.
She sees as Lord of everything,
Now in His Father’s glory, King.

Virgin of virgins, intercede,
And with your Son with fervor plead.
He took up what is ours through you.
May what is His come through you, too.

Praise to the Father and the Son
And Paraclete, forever one,
Who in the saints’ and angels’ sight
Have clothed you in their glorious light.

 

A few years ago I wrote the following here. It only seems to have grown in relevance since, so I am taking the liberty of re-running it.

Live, from the orphanage

There is an interesting discussion going on about the reformed liturgy as practiced since Vatican II. The discussion concerns an expression of Cardinal Sarah’s: “too much man and not enough God.”

I would like to propose that this expression, while accurate, does not reach to the heart of the problem, which is philosophical and theological. The real liturgical question is this:

Is the firmament permeable, or not?

1) If God is absent from the world, separated by the bright line of an unbridgeable horizon from earthly life and in a noumenal realm, then we are on our own. We are orphan children of an absent God, making our own way, and depending primarily on each other. Petitions and hymns are discussions among ourselves about values. The congregation is the primary instantiation of community. The most appropriate posture is humans facing humans, closing the circle. Intelligibility is of highest importance.

2) If God is actively at work in the world here and now, on earth and in earthlings, continually strengthening and raising us, then liturgy is a privileged opportunity to meet God. Liturgical language expresses our dependence on God’s help. Petitions and hymns ask for more and more divine intervention, and not only for those present in one time and place, but for all people, living and the dead. The most appropriate posture involves all of the people facing the divine presence. Receptivity to grace is our highest action, and God Himself is of the highest importance.

***

Obviously there are multiple possible reasons for believing in one or another of these admittedly schematic theories of life, the universe and everything. But may I suggest that one possibility is the error of Esau, who sold his birthright for a nice dish of stew.

If God were absent from the world–which He is not–then we would be able to make our own morality. Right and wrong would be up to us. But it is not. And the cost of license would be much too high to pay.

One of the motivations for the reform of the reform–certainly my motivation–is that the reformed liturgy in its casual iterations leaves us feeling lonely for God. It distracts from prayer, rather than fostering recollection. It proposes a worldview in which we are stuck, alone, with what we have and who we are, rather than accurately expressing the truth, which, thanks be to God, is this:

the sky’s the limit.