Chant Café

As they traveled along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “Look, there is water. What is to prevent my being baptized?” And Philip answered, “RCIA doesn’t start until August.”

— Jesus Christ (@JesusOfNaz316) April 19, 2018

The redoubtable Mrs. Geraldine Hildreth recently suggested on these pages that I might write a hymn for the new feast on the Universal Calendar, Mary, Mother of the Church.

1. Free from all stain of evil,
From sin of any kind,
Our holy Mother Mary
Was born of lost mankind.
The Father kept her pure
To bear His Son, Christ Jesus,
The Savior of our race.

2. Before the world was fashioned,
Before the dawn of time,
The holy God eternal
Chose Christ’s beloved bride.
He chose the Church in love
To sing the praise of glory:
The riches of His grace.

3. Mary shows forth the beauty
Of God’s eternal plan,
She guides the Church to heaven
As stars guide ships to land.
We follow her, secure,
Though darkness seems prevailing,
To God’s abiding place.

4. Freed from all stain of evil,
From sin of ev’ry kind,
Christ’s Church before the Father
At the appointed time.
O come, Christ, haste the day.
O bring us home with Mary
Before the throne of grace.

Copyright © 2005 CanticaNOVA Publications. Duplication restricted.

Meter: 7.6.7.6.6.7.6 Suggested tune: Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen

If Vatican I was largely about the papacy, Vatican II was largely about the episcopacy
Like all of the great mysteries of the Church, these hierarchical roles require re-examination from time to time. What does it mean to be a successor of the Twelve, now that there are many thousands more than twelve?

Interestingly, while at the same time strongly affirming an Ordinary’s authority, the Council also organized the bishops in conferences, a kind of grouping that is in a certain tension with particular authority.

And since then, bishops have been blown back quite a bit. First, there is the inherent difficulty of not belonging with any political or social party on the planet. No more than Jesus did, can a bishop plant both his feet in a political movement.

Then came the still largely unexamined blame-game of what is usually called “the sexual abuse crisis,” which singled out Catholic bishops among all the humans on the earth, for various reasons. Yes, one of these reasons is the unconscionable, reprehensible, opportunistic sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests. And another was an overemphasis on bella figura. But let’s not forget some of the other reasons. 1. The radical optimism of psychologists who assure bishops they could cure incurable disorders. 2. The deep-pockets structure of Catholic dioceses, in which a county’s worth of property is held in one person’s name, as opposed to many religions’ less lucrative congregational structures. 3. The Catholic Church’s perennial, unwavering stance on social issues that strong forces would like to revolutionize.

Sexual abuse is a human crime. It is not a peculiarly Catholic crime. Yet Catholic priests and bishops are nearly the only group, besides the tragically victimized whose blood cries out for vengeance, who are paying (and paying, and paying).

It’s intriguing to me that at a time when bishops have been marginalized on so many fronts, that there is a new springtime of the Episcopal College in the air. This began, I feel, when the Pope Emeritus resigned his office. All bishops can resign–but the Bishop of Rome? Unheard of! I happened to be in London that day, and was walking through a Muslim neighborhood’s open-air market, and this was what was being eagerly discussed. Not for centuries! The Pope resigned!

And now, his successor Pope Francis has begun an ongoing project of synodality. Of course this is just the sort of enterprise that might be manipulated by parties at its beginnings. There is a danger there. But isn’t it also an exciting opportunity for the Holy Spirit, who may be trying to teach us more about the episcopal office? And if so, is this an opening to reconciliation with the East?

I’ve just been rewatching one of my favorite movies, Glory Road, about a national championship team from Texas that integrated college basketball. I don’t know about the rest of the laity and priests, but these days I personally feel like one of the people watching helplessly from the bleachers or the bench. I feel the hints of new schism like a downward momentum towards an impending, momentous loss. There seems to be an antagonism and a climate of suspicion, and there’s really not much we bleacher-folk can do but keep praying.

The Holy Father and the bishops are on the court, so to speak. The game is theirs, and they are protected. If they make the right moves, they may be able to work together to secure justice and hope for our time and for the future.

Go, team, go!

O God, who willed that your Word should take on the reality of human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary, grant, we pray, that we, who confess our Redeemer to be God and man, may merit to become partakers even in his divine nature.

Please click over to my latest blog post at SacredMiscellany.com for a wonderful YouTube video of a Serbian Easter hymn. It’s full of singing, blossoming trees, Easter eggs, and children. And, hey, it’s Bright Monday for the Eastern Orthodox.

You can’t have too much Easter! Christ is Risen!

In today’s Gospel, the professional fishermen who followed Jesus caught nothing all night, but at His word they lowered their nets again and they hauled in huge numbers of fish.

Every pastor wants to fill the nets and gather in the sheep, by hook or by crook, but the question is, how is that done?

When we look at the data, some surprising truths emerge.

Researchers recently decided to study why young people become Christians, and one particular statistic seemed strange, because it pointed to the effect of Church architecture on young people.

Around 13 per cent of teenagers said that they decided to become a Christian after a visit to a church or cathedral, according to the figures.

The influence of a church building was more significant than attending a youth group, going to a wedding, or speaking to other Christians about their faith.

Jimmy Dale, the Church of England’s national youth evangelism officer, said his team had been “shocked” by the results. (More here.)

Some might say that visiting a Church as a tourist is not a very community-oriented reason for becoming Christian, but I disagree. Ecclesial art is very communal. It puts us in contact with other Christians who are our brothers and sisters, even though we may be separated from us from them by centuries of earthly life. They put their faith in stone, in a way that the Scriptures use as a symbol of the Church itself, with Jesus variously as the cornerstone or the capstone. “You too are living stones,” the great cathedrals seem to say. At least, this is the message young people are receiving.

Problematically, however, the great cathedrals often obscure this message with various kinds of “updating.” For example, some of the stunning early Gothic churches in Paris on the banks of the Seine have large cubes of stone standing in their sanctuaries as completely incongruous modern altars. Other churches have carelessly placed microphones and cords and digital pianos amid the pricelessly effective evangelical spaces of Europe. Worst of all is the practice of posting disposable flyers in the primary colors and cartoonish shapes of eurotrash art, advertising this or that expensive, ineffective, “pastoral” initiative.

There is room in the Church, of course, for new art. Some of those same early Gothic churches have layers and layers of paintings, either stenciling or figurative, and some better than others. It is not one generation that builds the great cathedrals. In the exceptional case of the Cologne Cathedral, the integrated work of the exquisite, unified building spanned six centuries.

There is always room for more great art.

Yes, this is much better than turning up an old Easter egg under the sofa.

The reduced rate for the excellent CMAA courses this summer at Duquesne has been extended to April 14th!  So this would be a good time to get off the fence, register, and save some bucks.

You can find all the information and registration over at the CMAA web pagesdevoted to these courses.

Improve your own knowledge of chant, study with a monk of Clear Creek Monastery, or learn secrets of working with children. All courses taught by experts to congenial classmates – do come!