Difficulties with Prayer'

In the Gospels prayer is either 1) Jesus spending long periods in the presence of his Father, or 2) Jesus telling people to ask for things or Jesus himself for praying for healings or asking for things.
It is easy to see intercessory prayer as being a little unsophisticated or even superstitious, after all God knows what we want before we even ask for it. It is easy then to slip into simply not seeing any value in any intercession whatsoever and to simply see prayer as a rather Quietist act of resignation to God's will, which like acid eats the heart out of prayer and really destroys the relationship of son/daughter to the Father.

Children are continually asking their Father for things: everything from a cuddle or food or drink to a sports car, if they don't get one thing, they ask for another and children confident in relationship with their Father are willing to pour out their soul and ask for even embarrassing things: protection, forgiveness, help. Not asking tends to lead to a self centredness, and Independence that can eventually lead to a destruction of that fillial relationship which Jesus came to announce.


The great spiritual classics promote a gentle contemplation of God, often an imageless silence. One of the problems for us in the West is that our "contemplation" has become almost Buddhist, a stillness, an emptiness, a being in touch with "the universal energy". It is not Christian at all, and its object is the God of the Christians, it is something else. I have sympathy with that Southampton priest who banned Yoga in his hall.

I can't help wondering if our modern liturgical tendencies push rather than "active participation" a certain passivity, I mean most people at Mass join in the vocal prayers and hymnody but actually really are there to listen or witness what the priest does. The meaning of  "active participation" has been much debated, but presumably on one level at least it means we are actually praying ourselves not merely witnessing someone else's prayer.

There was lots of talk about the "priesthood of the faithful" after Vatican II, which so often degenerates into the laity doing things Father used to do, but from the Old Testament the priesthood was essentially intercessory and propitiatory, as is Jesus' priesthood. Surely the clearest way in which the faithful exercise their priesthood is by interceding, asking God for things.

At one time Catholic prayer was marked by praying "for" rather than "with" by novenas, by petitions, votive offerings, candles and money offerings. It was in that sense intercessory and propitiatory, and therefore priestly, it seems to be one of the things which we have lost. With it we have lost a sense of the power of prayer and the sense that the Mass is a time and place of miracles. It has also removed our sense that we are a people of power, that the battles of the Church are necessarily won in a Court of Law but before the Court of Heaven.

Tina Calls Bishops to Dissent

Tina Beattie is in the Guardian today, and I am positively outraged by her insult to the integrity of our bishops. She says this:

"I think it's a really important time for the Church in this country because we have so far been not divided by this kind of ugly rupture," Beattie told the Guardian, calling on the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales to show a "very strong united front" in the face of any attempt to stifle dissent. "There's been a creative atmosphere of people being able to hold different positions in this country without it causing this kind of ugliness and I really think it's vital that the Bishops collectively stand up to protect that now."

Now, our Bishops might not be experts in history or sociology or even theology, one might even suspect some haven't read many books in recent years, or are able to read a Vatican document, one can even accuse them of turning a blind eye or being just a little too silent about some issues but to suggest that they might have any inclination whatsoever to join with her "to show a "very strong united front" in the face of any attempt to stifle dissent" is really outrageous and insulting. This would be totally contrary to everything that a Catholic bishop is about.
She is not unintelligent, so why should she ever get the impression that the bishops might be interested in any way in promoting dissent?
What she is really doing is setting herself up against the Pope who said to the bishops at their last Ad Limina visit, "It is important to recognize dissent for what it is, and not to mistake it for a mature contribution to a balanced and wide-ranging debate" it is on my sidebar.
I am sure she has more contact with our bishops than me but I simply cannot understand how she might have gained the impression that they might actually be in favour of dissent. Is it the contact she has with the paid professional of Ecclesdon Square, are they giving this intelligent women the impression they are on the side dissent, or is it her contact with Cafod or the Tablet? Somehow she has gained this impression that the bishops are actually on the side of unorthodoxy, this is a very grave charge and should not only be rebutted but also the reason for her believing what she does abou them really does need investigating.
It is very worrying.
I am told that Bishop Egan is the only bishop with a doctorate, it is about time we took the intellectual life of the Church in E&W seriously, to think Professor Beattie is the counted as a leading Catholic theologian is a sad relection on the state of learning in Catholic England.

Dyptichs of the Living and the Dead

Most people don't know how to pray the Mass, and it is possibly more difficult when Mass is in the vernacular. The problem is they don't know whether they should listen to what the priest is saying, or pray along with him, or allow his prayers to trigger their own, or what. It is made more difficult when the priest faces people, even if he is addressing God he appears to be really speaking to them.
Rightly some have suggested the Mass or at least the Eucharist Prayer is in crisis, as the Pope did in "Spirit of the Liturgy". One of the reasons for boredom at Mass, and then lapsation, is simply that people don't know what to do at Mass. If anything, the liturgical reforms have deadened the people's understanding of their priestly, intercessory, role at Mass.

The ancient custom of placing the dyptichs of the living and the dead on the altar during Mass might give us clue about what we should be doing during Mass. The idea is reflected in the Roman Canon where the living; the Pope, the Bishop the faithful are prayed for before the consecration, after the consecration, which acts as hinge, the faithful departed are prayed for. Coming from a world where apparently no-one before St Ambrose could read without vocalising or at least moving their lips, I suspect the same thing happened in the Mass, people muttered their prayers aloud. When the priest prayed sotto voce, so did the people.

So, an idea for November, why not prepare an extensive list list of the dead (and the living too) to intercede for during the Eucharist Prayer: include realatives, friends, enemies too, ancestors, benefactors, notorious criminals, people in the news, war dead, forgotten dead and then interced for them when the priest prays for the dead formally after the the consecration. Before it interced for the living, there should be lots to pray for, our hearts are supposed be huge with charity at Mass.
A friend of mine who died at 104 30 years ago used to use her address book and the newspaper as her prayer book, by the end of her life the former was full of the dead and the paper was her main contact with the living.

Book Burning, Clerical Bloggers!

Professor Beattie has had an engagement in San Diego cancelled and speaks about book burning and a vendetta against by clerical blogger, for those of us who do blog and occassionally mention her, I think our concern is the same as the CDF's, she is dissident. It is only her more outrageous statements that attract attention, she brings that on herself.

I certainly feel sorry for her, it is her livelihood and a series of cancellations of engagements is damaging, but "book burning", scheming clergy, is just hysterical self indulgent tosh!

I remember  one elderly priest I accompanied to Portsmouth Cathedral after it was first re-ordered horrendously, weeping when he saw what Bishop Worlock had done to the church of his ordination, then after a hour or so of being rather glum said, "I am priest, it is not my Church, I serve it, I don't own it".

We have to accept that the Church changes, the indulgence that might been given to an enfant terrible even a year ago is not there now. Today the Church in many places like the US is fighting for its very life, we don't have space  for revisionist theology or self indulgence.


Now if Clifton Cathedral and San Diego find her dissent too hot to handle, what about her Cafod involvement as a "theological adviser"; why is that fine?

Liturgical Colours

A good green can be made by taking copper placing it in a sealed crock with strong vinegar and burying it in a dung heap for some months, the dung supplies a constant heat source which speeds up the chemical reaction. This what my icon painters directory tells me is the best way of producing green. Of course green can be obtained from vegetable sources but in tends to be fugitive.
Most colours come from minerals, mainly clays and are in the range of yellows, browns and reds, even a rather pale blue, you just need to spend a great deal deal of time grinding.
Blue could be made by grinding lapis lazuli from Afghanistan but it was more expensive than gold.
Mineral colours are fine for painting because they are held in suspension but for dying cloth you need the colour to penetrate the fabric therefore it needs to be totally soluble. Therefore vegetable dyes tended to be used, the problem is that they tend to fade. What was available tended to determine liturgical colours.
Black was a natural colour, black wool came from black sheep or goats, it could also be obtained from, squid or octopus, or vegetable galls though it would have tended to be black red/green/blue rather than a solid black. Black ink was used in thimblefuls, black dye needed to be used by the barrelful.
White came from the natural colour of the fabric, and from removing colour, bleaching, the problem with white was keeping it clean. Any decoration would tend to be bleached by cleaning it. It was literally a non-colour.
Greens were made from verdigris, as in the process above, but also from lichens and other vegetable sources.
Red was more problematic, its source was either the crushed cochineal beatle, which gave a deep red that was quite colour fast and bright, or else from the madder root, which gave a deep pinkish red but tended to fade over time.
Urine, either animal or human, gave various reasonably fast colours ranging from pale yellow to orange or even an orangey-red, by feeding animal on various food stuffs the colour coul be changed.
A sort of purple/red could be produced by beets, it could be brightened by mixing it with urine or lichen, but I think the deep purple of the modern beetroot wasn't widely available.
Blue was widely available but it tended to be rather dark, the colour of jeans, from woad or later indigo, it was used in the Sarum Rite for clergy dress; "blue cloth" was a major English export.
Blue, yellow, green, russet, brown vestments seem to have been common vestment colours in the dissolution records of monasteries and churches.
The ancient precious royal colours of royal blue or purple made from crushed and fermented molluscs or deep red from the cochineel beatle were very expensive, it wasn't until the industrial revolution that these colours could be produced cheaply, bright purple seems to have been the most difficult, as opposed to muddy violet.
The liturgical colour white until the 15th century, at least, was unlikely to have been plain white, an alb could be bleached, a chasuble or other vestment would have to be stripped of its decoration before it was cleaned, hence it would be more likely to be a pale version of another colour. Its preciousness came from the care to keep it pristine. Black was much easier to deeal with, it simply didn't show soot and sweat and grime. Hence its use for Requiems and mourning, it was cheap and easily cared for.
In the East white was used for the same purpose but devoid of decoration, untreated cloth or simply bleached.
All this is really to say that the rubric for Requiem Masses calls for either black or purple, or white to be used. I have always presumed white was for Asian communities where white is the traditional colour of mourning, it is not "festal" white but dull and unembellished rather like the unbleached Lenten array of Sarum use.

Bishops Have Been Too Accomodating

Bishops in the English-speaking world have been too accommodating in their proclamation of Church teaching.

Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney and a member of the Congregation for Bishops, said: "Sometimes we have to give the Church's moral teaching in a political situation where we know it is almost impossible that it is going to be accepted ... Even in those situations we are still obliged prudently and sensibly to present the truth."
Speaking at a press briefing during the Synod on the New Evangelisation in Rome last week, he said: "I would be tempted to say that we have been a little bit too accommodating. And I am not sure that it has worked to our benefit."

Is it time for a new Missal?

I have always felt the Mass of the Pauline Missal, even when sung in the better French monasteries reflected the style and fashion of its time, a bit like flaired trousers and the Beatles.
One of my parishioners tells of a parish where ancient strummers bashout the Israeli Mass and Kum-by-ya, and another where all the music is accompied by tamboreen - presumable for the young people!

The problem is that marrying fashion -well it never works - it leaves us in a time warp.

Having got rid of the old ICEL translations with its almost "hey Mate" language, we can see more easily the rather impressive construction that Buginini manufactured. Like it or not it is impressive and like it or not it is manufactured. One can debate the wisdom of allowing one man such influence in presenting the theology and spirituality of the Catholic Church and at one particular time and formulating it into the Missal of Paul VI, which has been the very architecture of our Catholic Faith for forty years..

Having done a root and branch reconstruction once, why should we not do it again? The Pauline Missal was supposed to meet the needs of its time, that time was forty years ago. The Synod presented a picture of a Church and world quite different from the Church and world of the Council, our needs are different. Wouldn't it be wise to do it every generation, every forty years?

I am sure that if a group of experts were gathered today their constituency would be different, there might be a few anthropologists amongst them and a few psychologists, and not to mention a greater number of non-Europeans - not to mention a few women, possibly their orientation might be different too, not so much to the now dying Protestant ecclesial communities of Europe but to the liturgical Forms of Orthodoxy and having some regard for the culture of Africa and Asia. I once heard a very left-wing priest Indian priest, much into "inculturation", describe the Missal as "the last throe of western Imperialism", over the top, yes but there is a sense in which I feel forced to agree with him. Cardinal Ranjith has spoken about enculturation.

The new ICEL translations were at pains to uncover something of the reverence of Bugnini's original texts, the old translators, in the "Spirit of the Council" had done their best to obliterate suggestions of obeisance, of the gulf between man and God, and indeed much of theocratic and theocentric language. In fact what they did was merely follow what had happened with the rubrics of the Mass. The removal all those numerous signs of reverence which even in the rather stark traditional Roman Rite expressed visually what the "unveiled" Bugnini texts say. The stripping of the rubrics more than changing the text changed the form of the Mass for most people.

In the 1970s in the wake of the Pauline Missal, the Blessed Sacrament was often relegated to a side chapel, as in the Diocese of Brentwood. There was even talk of the abolition of Exposition and Benediction, Marian devotion was often forbidden, or treated as something for the unsophisticated. These things are making a tremendous comeback and certainly are producing vocations and people who take prayer seriously. I suspect the reason is simply that the Pauline Missal is deficient in this regard and people look outside of the Mass for these things.

Should they?
Even the casual observer of Mass celebrated according to the Missal of the Blessed John XXII will notice the extended silences, which now are an important part of Exposition, something people seem to yearn for. The casual observer to will notice that after the consecration there are the constant reverences which are given to the Sacred Species by the priest which have almost totally been stripped from the Mass in the Pauline Missal, after the Consecration there is no external sign that anything has happened. Indeed there are very few actions in the entire Missal that denote worship.

Could these things which are not alien to the Roman Rite and which people are searching for elsewhere not be restored to the Mass itself?
The Pope's call for "mutual enrichment" would suggest that a the free exchange of elements from either Missal should be the norm, yet time and again we are reminded that the Sacred Liturgy is something "given". and the priest is not free to introduce or to change anything, and yet despite Bugnini's famous diktat that even if the rubrics of the Pauline Missal are unclear one shouldn't assume they are the same as the previous Missal, yet it is precisely to previous Missal and rulings that we must turn in order to understand the Pauline rubrics, for example how to elevate the Sacred Host and Chalice.

There is a vast difference in introducing elements from the previous Missal into the Pauline celebration when the rubrics are ambiguous or debatable than introducing things that lack antiquity and do not belong to the Roman Rite. The Pope himself gives us a clue when as Supreme Legislator he writes to the Bishops of the Latin Rite, "What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful".

There are pretty obvious possibilities here. Whereas it would probably be wrong to remove the Penitential Rite to before the Mass starts (the Penitential Rite in the Mass is a Bugnini innovation), would it be wrong to have preparatory prayers in the sanctuary -as most of the ancient Rites do- before Mass itself actually starts?
I have always wondered if it would be a gross violation of the rubrics to turn off the microphones in Westminster Cathedral during the Eucharistic Prayer, and if you did that and the prayer was silent or heard merely by the ministers would be wrong to say part of it whilst the choir was singing? Could you reproduce that effect in parish church and have a silent Canon? Cardinal Piacenza lowers his voice considerably during the Canon.

Would it be wicked to incense according the older rubrics, or genuflect before as well as after the Consecrations? Must I really make a superhuman effort to avoid using the older rubrics for the Roman Canon? I so often find I am making the Signs of the Cross without even thinking about, is it a matter for Confession? Then of course there is genuflecting at other times, other than when at the altar does the  rule apply even if the Blessed Sacrament is reserved on the sanctuary? Obviously one doesn't do it during a procession but is a priest processing when he his merely walking across the sanctuary because he has left his glasses on the other side or just about to begin the Gospel procession?