Ditch Doc » Theological Musings

Backwards

bt — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 18:18:09 +0000

“Well, see you later. I’m off to buy sheets.”
“You’re going to carry out unnecessary commerce on a Sunday?”
“Oh, no, it’s necessary. I gave up shopping for Lent.”

Musical Allusion

bt — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 19:11:06 +0000

The Liber is full of internal references that join different parts of the liturgical year like secret passages between distant rooms in a mansion. For example, the Gradual of the first Sunday of Lent has the same tune as that of the Mass for the Dead, just with different text. That means both are in mode two, the ‘sad’ mode. They also both have words brimming over with hope.

The Requiem Gradual begins with the text of the introit,
‘Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them,’ and continues: ‘The just shall be in everlasting remembrance: he shall not fear the evil hearing.’ (Ps. 111:7)

Today’s Gradual goes:
‘He hath given his angels charge over thee; to keep thee in all thy ways. In their hands they shall bear thee up: lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.’ (Ps. 90:11-12) The Tract (also in mode two) restates most of the same Psalm, concluding with ‘I will fill him with length of days; and I will show him my salvation.’

I imagine the point of the allusion is that Lent is a small death in rehearsal for the real thing. Both involve real sorrow. But the hopeful words say the sorrow is there not for its own sake, but on the path to the great joy of Easter; a small Easter after Lent, and an eternal one after death. In the mean time, don’t cheat yourself by ignoring the sorrow! Instead, sing it loudly, with courage and good cheer.

Holiday Peeve

bt — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 01:14:32 +0000

Why is it so much harder to frequent the sacraments on a holiday than any other day of the month? For Catholics, the sacraments are the whole point of the holiday. Hence ‘holi’-day. The thought seems to be that secular holidays are different; they’re a good time for a Catholic to take a break from everything, even the sacraments. That’s completely backward. Even secular holidays are established not for inertia, but for leisure. And before anything else, Catholic leisure is the sacraments. Skipping them on principle because it’s a break day makes as much sense as skipping the fishing trip with the family because it’s a break day.

Christ in Disguise

bt — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 00:34:47 +0000

As I sat with a Rosary after Mass today, my attention was arrested by a grunt at my ear, which sounded like “Excuse me”. I became acutely aware of a form looming over me from the aisle, and a hand gripping the end of the pew at my shoulder. Turning, I found myself fixed by one good eye staring out of a pale, swollen face, the other resting inertly on the pew behind. A meagre nest of disheveled blond hair ringed the man’s dry scalp and spilled over his ears. His open mouth hung over a grey and red wool scarf sticking loosely out of an old brown windbreaker. I barely had time to wonder what sort of spirit he was before he spoke again, with such awkward haste that he seemed to be shouting, though he never raised his voice much above a whisper.

“It’s nice to see people doing the Rosary. It gives me a lift… gives me faith. Pass it on, ‘kay?” He waited just long enough to collect my startled nod of assent, then ambled out without a pause.

I hereby pass it on. When he gets to heaven before me, I hope he’ll keep me in mind.

The Latin Mass

bt — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 02:45:51 +0000

Of all the names used for the 1962 Missal, (Usus Antiquior, Extraordinary Form, Traditional, Tridentine), the worst is ‘Latin Mass’. It implies that the new one is the non-Latin Mass. Always in essence and ideally in practice, the Novus Ordo is in Latin. It’s even in Latin when it’s not, since the vernacular texts derive their validity from their reflection of the Latin. When we call the traditional Mass the Latin Mass, or worse yet, call the Novus Ordo the English Mass, we join those who are trying to amputate the Church’s patrimony. It doesn’t matter that the rest do it to throw it away, and we do it to keep it for ourselves. The language of the Church is for the whole Church. We need to stop hogging it.

Fumate et Videte

bt — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 19:14:17 +0000

“The point about smoking is, that if is is not a sin, it can certainly be shared with God, and if so, there is no reason why we should not talk to Him while enjoying one of the creatures He … Continue reading →

Um…Your Emotions are Showing

bt — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 21:18:16 +0000

The chief difference between Protestants and Catholics is this:

Protestants wear their religious emotions like women wear scarves: right up front. They show them prominently, they talk about them, they inquire politely about those of their friends. Catholics think of our emotions more like our undergarments. We do have them, in fact we value them quite highly, but we’d be mortified to find them sticking out, and we’d rather chew rocks than discuss them in public.

Sneaky Translation

bt — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 01:52:45 +0000

English translations of Vatican documents are notoriously loose, and the critical reviewer can sometimes sniff out what looks like a deliberate distortion. The Holy Father’s letter to the Bishops explaining his Motu Proprio of July 7, 2007 offers a tidy example. The English translation twice refers to the Mass of Bl. John XXIII as the ‘former usage’. In the same places, the French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese use ‘ancien’, ‘antiguo’, ‘antico’ and ‘antigo’. I know too little German to be certain, but I think that translation uses ‘alten’. All these words describe existence in a previous time, while allowing for continuation into the present. ‘Former’, on the other hand, is reserved for things that are no longer. For illustration, imagine applying first the word ‘ancient’ and then the word ‘former’ to the faith. Does one of these not quite match up? Not much further commentary is necessary on this point, except to provide a popular North American English idiom which sums up my reply to the nameless translator:
“In your dreams.”
God bless the Pope.

Friday

bt — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:58:03 +0000

Certainly, the chief purpose of Friday abstinence is penance, but let’s not forget the collateral benefits of leisure and luxury. If you don’t know what I mean, then sit on your front porch next Friday at supper time with a loaf of bread, a piece of cheese, an apple and a mug of beer, and eat them slowly. Here is real leisure: there was no cooking, and there will be no dishes to wash. And here is luxury: at the end of a day without beef, you remember just how delicious an apple tastes. A good Friday meal is not a wallowing in culinary gloom, but a reminder of the extravagance of God’s smaller gifts, in the light of which you can see the bigger ones more clearly. No one enjoys the filet mignon so well as the one who revels in the potato next to it.

Theocracy

bt — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 02:26:51 +0000

Theocracy is the wrong word. We call Australia a democracy because we think the people rule, we used to call Iraq a cleptocracy because we thought a thief ruled, and sometimes we take a sardonic poke at Canada and call it a bureaucracy when it seems like the desks rule. But who ever thought God ruled Taliban-era Afghanistan? Not Christians. Not atheists. And here’s the kicker: not the Taliban. Theocracy means God is the head of state, and gives day to day instruction on everything from criminal justice to strategy in war.* Unless I’m mistaken, not even the Taliban claimed to be acting out God’s contemporaneous commands. So why use a word that no one thinks is accurate? I don’t want to see Richard Dawkins behind every tree, but I think I catch a whiff of the same sarcasm perfuming phrases like “God fighting on both sides.” ‘Well, yes, they treat their women like cattle, and yes, the penalty for apostasy is death, but what do you expect? They let God run things.’ If we’re to have a fruitful discussion of the relationship between religion and politics, let’s restrict the word to the only nation it truly describes: the people of Isreal in the period from Moses to Saul. And find a new word for the Taliban.

*Countries ruled by God’s deputies based on earlier divine commandments don’t count. That’s why we don’t call Vatican City a theocracy.